Aussie legends the HOODOO GURUS are to celebrate their 40th Anniversary with the screening of a new mini-documentary on New Year's Eve, four decades to the day since they first decided to form a band.
The untitled 37-minute doc was put together by band frontman and founder Dave Faulkner from Zoom conversations with co-founders Kimble Rendall and Rod Radalj, who were at that fateful NYE party in Sydney, along with drummer James Baker who joined a few months later.
Veterans of the Perth punk scene, Faulkner and Baker had been in The Victims, while Radalj was in The Scientists. Relocating to Sydney, they hooked up with Rendall who'd been in the XL Capris. It would be nearly two years before the band, then known as Le Hoodoo Gurus, would release their debut single 'Leilani', by which time Rendall had left for a career in film.
"To mark the (anniversary of) the occasion I have put together a 37-minute documentary talking about that night we first got the idea of playing together and some other stories from the early days of the band, said Faulkner in a Facebook post. "I say 'documentary' but I'm using the term very loosely: it's really just a couple of Zoom conversations I had with Kimble and Rod, firstly, and then James a week later (James was unable to join us all for the first one). I intercut those two Zoom chats together and tried to piece together the story of the band during those heady days of 1981 and '82.
"It's a bit long-winded in places but, hell, it's free and it's the unvarnished truth - or as best as we can remember it. I'm going to put it up on YouTube at around 10pm AEST (12 noon GMT). I'll leave it up for 36 hours so that, wherever you are in the world, you can relive that New Year's Eve with us from 40 years ago as we all get ready for the arrival of 2021."
The doc will be available to watch on the Hoodoo Gurus YouTube channel.