In 1988, I wandered into the China Club in New York City and someone handed me a cassette tape of Midnight Oil’s Diesel And Dust. “What is this?” I asked. “It’s the new Midnight Oil album. This is a record release party,” I was told. On my flight home, I plopped the tape into my Walkman and gave it a good listen. Although the album had been out for awhile, it was just catching on in the States. The quirky quintet would make the world aware of the plight of Indigenous Australians in their homeland. Twenty years later, a Legacy Edition of Diesel & Dust with lots of extras serves as a sober reminder of how a band can use the power of music to initiate awareness and change.
The origins of Diesel And Dust stem from 1986 when Midnight Oil set out on a tour of remote Aboriginal settlements in Central Australia, the Western Desert, and the Top End. During the tour — which came to be known as the Blackfella/Whitefella Tour — the band was exposed to the realities of modern Aboriginal life, rampant with poverty, disease and alcoholism. Known for their political activism, Midnight Oil returned to Sydney and wrote songs addressing the country’s own indigenous people. They played a few gigs to try out the new material and then went into the studio with British keyboardist-producer Warne Livesey to begin work on Diesel And Dust, their sixth and most important album. The results were nothing short of breath-taking.
“Beds Are Burning,” the opening number, became a surprise Top 20 hit and an anthem for the Aboriginal land rights movement in Australia. Vocalist/frontman Peter Garrett (presently the Minister for the Environment, Heritage & the Arts in the Australian Parliament) dramatically articulates the hard-hitting lyrics over a swift and steady stream of instrumentation. The record continually shifts from intense to restrained, but the message is consistent. “The Dead Heart,” written for the Mitijula Aboriginal community and propelled by an infectious churning acoustic rhythm, is even more direct when Garrett declares, “White Man came took everyone.” From “Bullroarer” to “Dreamworld” to “Put Down That Weapon,” virtually everything on Diesel And Dust packs a joyful, thought-provoking punch.
The Legacy Edition features a long-lost track called “Gunbarrel Highway,” which was banned from the original North American release because of its provocative lyrics. There’s also a bonus DVD of the one-hour 1987 Blackfella/Whitefella Tour documentary. Remastered with drummer Rob Hirst’s original liner notes, Diesel And Dust is as powerful and moving today as it was 20 years ago.
