Episode 1: Forthwith

Hard Boys ... a psychodrama for radio

Produced by Blue Trumpet for Radio 2RRR, Hard Boys, a psychodrama for radio, is a uniquely Australian story in 10 parts. Starring Johnny Boxer of the long-running Australian TV show, Fat Pizza, he brings the same uniquely Australian voice to this production.

"I’d returned to Surfer’s and gone to this guy’s place who I knew. Henry Alfred Parkes III he called himself. His family were rich, from Brisbane. He was about twenty years of age. His parents had cut him off with the exception of the flat. They’d kicked him in the arse and turfed him out in the world and he couldn’t handle it and he was having a hard time. Then Joe turns up on the scene and he stays with us too. Fuckin’ Joe, he’s a runaway kid from Sydney. He had a lot of troubles"...

The music...

Featuring Australian music of the 1960s and early ‘70s in order of play...

Time To Live by Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs

Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs were an Australian rock band formed in Sydney, New South Wales. The group enjoyed success in the mid-1960s, but split in 1967. They re-emerged in the early 1970s to become one of the most popular Australian hard-rock bands of the period. Thorpe died from a heart attack in Sydney on 28 February 2007. Here they are performing 'Time To Live' on GTK.

Obsecration Part 1 by Lobby Loyde & Southern Electric

Lobby Loyde, also known as John Barrie Lyde or Barry Lyde, was an Australian rock music guitarist, songwriter and producer. He became a leading figure in the 1970s Australian pub rock scene, particularly as a member of Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs on their No. 8 album, The Hoax Is Over (1971) and Coloured Balls for a Top 20 album Ball Power (1973). As a solo artist, Loyde issued 'Do You Believe in Magic?' in December 1975 and followed with the critically acclaimed and instrumentally based album Obsecration in May 1976. He formed Southern Electric with former band mates, Fordham and Miglans, joined by John Dey on keyboards, Mándu on vocals and James Thompson on drums (ex-Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs).

The poem...

I am a victor of consciousness
Relaxed in mind
A feeling of mastery
Lust
Positive thought

To be a soldier of fortune
To carve one’s mark on the face of the earth
In a lost world of pain and lust

To navigate a blind course on a winter’s night
Calling to a shadow
To save me from loneliness

Come tell, my friend, of loneliness
Cry your love
Like wind across a dry plain

You know that life’s not worth a moment’s waiting

Set forth
Cross golden plains
Witness the drama unfold
Waste no time in following the sun

To be the Sun of Life
To have it burning within
To be a flame upon the blackened horizon
Burning at night!

Blue Trumpet · Forthwith

Hard Boys ... a psychodrama for radio