Friends of Lance and Magnolia Leopard gathered at Palms in Oxford Street, Sydney to celebrate their lives. It was my honour to play a few tunes Lance seemed to like.
Hear the tributes as well. Enjoy as we did. “What a crowd, what a time…”.
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George Hrab is a dancin’ fool.
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In the Thermopylae of modern life, occasionally you encounter someone who is beyond a journeyman, way past a Renaissance man. In fact, George Hrab has gone straight through the Renaissance, leapt over the Napoleonic Wars, and now has his head currently right up the Jazz Age.
I first met and listened to George Hrab in 2010 when he was still a teenager. His podcast, The Geologic Podcast, once you get over the fact he never once mentioned, uh, igneous rocks, it’s actually a pretty good bath time listing. His latest funk fest of an album, Terpsichore, despite being named after the Olivia Newton John character in Xanadu, has not one single reference to roller skating.
Maynard: In fact, there is a mystery about your album that you’ve deliberately put in there. There’s a secret involved.
George: There is, there’s a little bit of a puzzle throughout my history of listening to records and you always get these myths and these urban legends arise. Did Pink Floyd consciously synchronize Dark Side of the Moon with The Wizard of Oz? Because when you put those two on at the same time, a lot of interesting coincidences happen.
Was this foreplanned? Was it on purpose? Usually the answer is no. So I wanted to have something not quite as trippy as that, but I wanted to have something incorporated into the album that was a purposeful kind of puzzle. So far, only one person has figured it out.
M: Well, you can jump that number up to two because I have figured it out, George.
G: Have you?
M : First I thought, okay, it’s something about the time signature in the linking rhythms between the tracks. Then I thought, no, it’s obvious. You’ve basically redone Duran Duran’s Rio album.
G: I can’t answer if you’re right or not, you know, I don’t want to give it away to the audience, but that’s a damn good answer. That’s a damn good answer…
“Very smart people being very silly is incredibly appealing to me.” – Geo
Brain Freeze – A Coldest 100 video show – 2024
Prepare yourself for videos of the warmest parts of The Coldest 100, 2024.
Maynard hosts a video livestream of Australia’s own Coldest 100 – 2024. Mostly picked by Andrew Sholl, it will feature world class musical dag action that only Australia can produce.
The Coldest 100 is songs about Australia, that sometimes don’t work out that well…
Expect to see Barry Crocker, Donnie & Marie, Cilla Black, John Farnham, Dannii and hear tunes made famous by Kylie Minogue and the people of Tasmania. Plus a lot of magpies doing their bit to get on the show.
Hopefully we’ll have quest appearances from my fellow Aussie travellers Tim Ferguson, Tony Push, that guy in Orange, Brigitte Handley, Rob Darby and the man in a tree.
See you then! Mate…..
RECRIMINATIONS: I made a mistake on the lineup for Brisbane legends The MegaMen. It should be Mark Love – keyboards, Lance Leopard – percussion & Zhain – vocals.
Follow OzKitsch on twitter for all year round Aussie goodness.
Listen to Andrew Sholl & Maynard playing some of The Coldest 100, 2023
Lance Leopard has left us just standing here.
All of our lives are just that little bit less glamorous today.
Life isn’t fair, but it probably isn’t a redhead either. To the boring injustice of life, Lance Leopard Esq would have said something like “Fuck you and fuck the public transport you rode here on”.
There are not many people who are so fabulous that even their mother had a drag name: the lovely Magnolia Leopard.
Some travel in style, some travel discreetly. Lance travelled both ways through the back alleys and laneways of Darlinghurst.
As Oscar Wilde (or was it Taylor Swift?) once said “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”. As Lance would say “No stupid, that’s the STAIRS. To the Taxi Club.”
Or Midnight Shift. Or DCM. Or whichever club his presence graced.
Lance was a delicate creature, as he often reported in his weekly Star Observer column. When he was seen with a nose bleed after coming out of the bathrooms at The Oxford Hotel it was obviously due to the sudden altitude change from going up the stairs to Gilligan’s. It’s just science people.
There are so many memories of Lance. Let me take you back to a time and place almost lost to history or even imagination: the early 1990s Mardi Gras parties. Imagine an almost empty VIP lounge at the end of the evening, sunlight unwelcomely poking itself through the blacked out windows.
Suddenly Lance spotted a small used zip lock bag among the evening’s party detritus on the floor. He dove on it as if it were a live grenade from which he had to save his buddies. And immediately poked half the contents into his mouth as I was saying “You really shouldn’t just …” then Gulp! he shoved the rest into my mouth. We ran downstairs to dance frantically to the last song of the party from DJ Mark Alsop. It was The Communards ‘Never can Say Goodbye’ (the Shep Pettibone Mix, you know, the good one).
What followed was one of the best out of body, soul enriching, mind expanding dancing for at least the next half hour. Which was odd, as the track is only 7 minutes long.
If there’s a moral to that story, let ME know sometime.
Lance had more recently adopted a healthy lifestyle, but he always had a very healthy love of fashion. He was a sharp dresser with an even sharper tongue. Some even today are still feeling the sting from one of his very blunt show reviews. Deserved or not.
Lance touched many people through his life and work, but mainly the hot ones. As he said “I don’t believe in the afterlife, but I’ve always believed with all my soul in the afterparty.”
Your name is on the door Lance, and save some of what you find on the floor for the rest of us …
Desperately Seeking Lance, podcast episode 2019
My Lunch With Lance Leopard, podcast, episode 2019
Lance Leopard Changes His Spot, podcast episode 2019
A Tribute to Doris Goddard by Lance Leopard 2019
Brain Freeze – video livestream The Coldest 100, 2024 Saturday 29th June
Prepare yourself for the video livestream of the warmest parts of The Coldest 100, 2024.
Maynard hosts a video livestream of Australia’s own Coldest 100 – 2024. Saturday 29th June 8.15-9.30pm. Mostly picked by Andrew Sholl, it will feature world class musical shonk that only Australia can produce.
The Coldest 100 is songs about Australia, that sometimes don’t work out that well…
Expect to see Don Lane, Barry Crocker, Donnie & Marie, Cilla Black, John Farnham, Charo, Kahmahl and a lot of kangaroos (again) doing their bit to get on the show.
Hopefully we’ll have quest appearances from my fellow Aussie travellers Tim Ferguson, Tony Push, that guy in Orange, Brigitte Handley and the man in a tree.
See you then! Mate…..
Link to video livestream active from 8.15pm Saturday (10.15 UTC) 29th June
Watch the 2023 epic Brain Freeze shows
Tim Ferguson is Dr Frank-N-Furter, Rocky Horror Show 1998
August 1998, Tim Ferguson visits Jumpstart, the Maynard breakfast show on Channel v on Foxtel to promote his performance as Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show that just opened at Star Casino in Sydney.
Enjoy the milestone 50th Bunga Bunga show with Tim and Maynard
Kellogg’s Banana Mini-Wheats ad 1995
That time in November 1995 when Australian television changed forever, as I lent my considerable gravitas to Banana Mini-Wheats. All my own stunts.
Australia’s Coldest 100 – 2024
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Australia’s Coldest 100 returns for 2024 this Saturday 27th January with @ozkitsch presenting 100 tunes you won’t find easily anywhere on any continent.
Just look at this list of artists that Andrew Sholl has curated that you’ll never again see on the same list. This is Andrew’s eighth Coldest 100 and he doesn’t see Farnham clips running out anytime soon.
The 2024 Coldest 100 brings you Barnsey, Alexander Downer, Tiny Tim, Cilla Black and a rubber chicken.
If that isn’t enough to incite your antipodean awkwardness, well, bugger ya.
After all, anyone can put together a list of the latest good songs. It takes a certain kind of expert like Andrew Sholl to put together 100 songs of Australian musical hoo-haa for 8 years in a row now.
This is a version of You Are The Voice you may enjoy, or not…
Andrew Sholl
It will all be going down from 10am Saturday 27th January on X and Instagram @Ozkitsch Andrew Sholl shows no sign of ever stopping his annual festival of Aussie awkwardness. So lean into it.
.
Look and listen to The Coldest 100 2020
Look and listen to The Coldest 100 2021
Maynard plays you some video clips from The Coldest 100 2022
Maynard plays you some video clips from The Coldest 100 2023
Watch YOU Can Start The Music!
The greatest and longest tradition in Australian history is the screening of Village People’s Can’t Stop The Music every NYE across Australia. So elevate your experience this NYE by watching this anytime before you watch the movie, anywhere, anytime, to get you in the mood for the musical extravaganza of 1980.
It’s not New Year’s Eve in Australia till we see Steve Gutenberg over excitedly skating down Broadway!
Madd Club podcast supporting Village People at Enmore Theatre 2015
Download your free 2024 Maynard calendar
2024 is going to be a wild ride. Stay in the saddle all year with your 2024 Maynard calendar.
It’s a year of fun and foolin’ prepared by Richard Saunders
Simply download it from the link below and print it any size you like.
Suitable for hanging behind any door, doesn’t have to be yours…
