"Australia's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to stay here:"

Thanks to Mick Maloney

Mick Rogers is wearing the neatest pair of jeans you could ever hope to see. There, running down the legs o( the clean denim to his elegantly simple fawn pull-on boots, is the perfect crease. We sit in his living room, in Melbourne's St Kilda Road, and the Pre-dominant color is green; green carpet, light green drapes. We listen to a tape of Chick Corea playing the kind of music Mick likes to hear. On a shelf, while we drink our cups of conventional tea from glass containers, are such books as The I Ching, The Hobbit. and a Leon Uris number, among others. Chick s piano music isn't too loud. This is the scene so far.

Mick Rogers is a familiar name to the world of rock music. For several years he had been singer and instrumentalist in the Manfred Mann Earth Band, touring the planet. England, Europe. America and Australia twice: to consistent acceptance. As vocalist for the band, Mick followed in the highly rated footsteps of Paul Jones and Mike D'Abo, and other names such as Jack Bruce and Klaus Voorman. Recently he made a decision to leave the band. to pursue music of more interest to him, and after a brief spell,  when it seemed he might be a player in Jack Bruce s new group. he returned to Australia, mainly, it seems because his Australian wife felt like coming to terms with the old country again.

If we stretch our memories back a few more years, we come to the time when Mtick, as a young Englander in Australia, played with a band called Procession. As historians recall, Procession was a pretty hot local band for the time. They forged a little local history by being the first Oz rock band to make a live recording at Sebastian's Disco in Melbourne, and at the fag end of the sordid sixties, they had an enthusiastic following. The members of Procession thought they were a pretty good band, so they journeyed to Mick's s former home, England, to try out there. (Ross `Duke' Wilson who had been playing in another successful band, The Party Machine, went across to join them).  Unfortunately Procession fell apart. But Mick managed to land himself the spot as Manfred's vocalist, which he held from the start of the '70s till just recently. And now he's back where he started.

It sure seems an odd place to be. Australia that is, for a musician who's had the universal acceptance that Mick has. He left Manfred Mann because he says he was dissatisfied, finally, with the sort of music they were making. He felt it was time for a change. He told this to Manfred, who suggested that Mick work on his own album, and put it out through Bronze, the label which handles the Earth Band stuff. Mick says he gave a lot of thought to this, but there were always little things getting in the way. The musicians he wanted for the album would be doing sessions, or touring Europe and America, and he could never pull them all together at the same time.

Mick had come all the way along in rock n' roll, and wanted to get into something a little more demanding, music that could be called jazz-rock. Manfred Mann had come from the other end into rock. and Mick's point in leaving the band was that he was at the stage now, in musical identity, that Manfred had been at several years ago. He was ready for it and needed to do it. For a while it seemed as if he might be working out with Jack Bruce. It would have been just fine by Mick, who has much admiration for Bruce. But Mick says that Bruce went to Scotland for a holiday, and found someone else for the job while he was in the highlands. So for the Rogers family it was time to return to the Great Land in the South. And while here he has been assembling his latest venture with local talent. A band called Eclipse will be his official venture into what you can loosely call jazz-rock. Hell, we may as well call it some-thing ."Manfred (Mann) has had a lot of good people in his band," he says in his soft, well modulated English voice. "They all did really well after playing with Manfred - so I'm 

waiting for my turn. He grins as he wonders whether Mr Destiny really does have a hand in there somewhere. I had been wondering about Mick coming back to Australia. I mean; to return temporarily for family reasons is understandable. But, hell to make a career here in jazz-rock, with a quite acceptable career in rock already to his credit. Like, let's be frank. There's no exciting career in this country for a jazz-rock act. You' ve got to leave eventually.

Well, no he says. He's not that keen on. Australia. You know, it's an okay place to visit, mind you, but he wouldn't .want to live here. Not for too long anyway. Nor does he wish to live in America. England is the home and native land for Mick Rogers, and that s where he'd like to do most of his living.

Well I'm, afraid that philosophy begs the question, did he intend to play a little in Australia with Eclipse and then leave the band to go away again? Or was it in his mind to take the band overseas if the opportunity was there? Well?

Mick walks to the tape recorder, from which the echoes of Chick Corea's last piano notes have recently died.

"If we get a good deal, he says, well go" And no, he doesn't intend to leave the band. he'd prefer that the entire Eclipse troupe took the journey, probably to America, if things happen right.

It's a lovely feeling to be on the road in America he says, recalling the tours he took in that country with Manfred Mann -as he says. one of the most famous undiscovered bands around for the past few years. And a band that on various American tours, used  both Kiss and Status Quo, as support acts. "In America, you're well looked after all the time on the road. And the thought of playing to those huge auditoriums, to all those people, its very exciting.

Eclipse is about to begin work on an album in Melbourne, and to get into a lot more work. They've only played one gig as I speak to Mick.

The line-up is Mick, guitar; Graham Morgan, drums; Mike Clarke, bass; Peter Jones, piano. The other lads are doing a lot of Melbourne session work, but they're keen to get Eclipse happening right.

The trouble, of course, is that getting the Eclipse kind of music across to the public is virtually impossible in Australia -except for a few moments on the ABC. .AyersRock, who play a not very outlandish form of jazz-rock manage it occasionally; and of course.2JJ helps. But how can a serious jazz-rock listening band manage a single that the majority of Oz commercial radio stations could handle'

"You've got to present a radio station with three and a half minutes of something which .will go through," he agrees.

The sort of music Mick admires is performed by people like Zappa, Chick Corea. Mahavishnu, King Crimson and Robert Fripp. But he also likes the hard funk stuff like ZZ Top. As for Eclipse; he wants to play "listening music" - stuff which does not delve too much into musical introversion, and he wants the band to be a visual act. 'because he says bands have to be entertaining these days.'

As for me, I haven t heard the band yet. In fact hardly anyone has. But they are generating a lot of interest with their idea, and work is beginning to happen now. (There'll be a review in RAM in a future issue.) As for Mick, as we parted, he said he hoped the band could find a nice level and stick together. He loves playing to audiences, certainly doesn't dislike being on the road, enjoys recording and creating in the studio a hell of a lot, is keen to play the new Eclipse music, and not only that ...

"Were all getting on y'know." he reckons, his boyish face giving off a grin. "Have to stop all this messing around." I reached for the white walking cane and limped home.

Colin Talbot

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