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Few Australian bands had really ever tried to tour the US based out of Australia before. The venture by Mi-Sex would prove later to be hugely beneficial to Men At Work. Their manager and Mi-Sex's manager, Zev Eizek, conferred and learned from the lessons of the Mi-Sex tour when Men At Work embarked on their own tour a couple of years later. The Mi-Sex tour was booked, deposits paid and the band was ready to go. This was all paid for by the band. Then the expected tour support was not forthcoming or was withheld at the last minute by CBS. At the time CBS was in the process of restructuring with a new CEO being brought in from New York. Mi-Sex decided to go anyway. The first concert was at the Hollywood Palladium with Iggy Pop. Mi-Sex may have created history at the time as they played a show in Sydney on a Saturday, flew to the U.S. and played another show on the same calendar day in Los Angeles! The tour was a huge success for its time and where the record company had been active and airplay had been achieved, the venues were packed and the reception good to rapturous. A milestone that was achieved by the band was holding the house record at Toronto Music Hall over acts such as The Police, The Pretenders and Gary Neuman. One aspect of the tour was the U.S. record company being in such a state of flux that when the band first arrived in L.A. to meet members of the CBS/Epic marketing and promotions team who had been fully briefed in anticipation of the band's arrival after many weeks of telephone calls and negotiations from Australia, by the time the band had been touring for three weeks circumnavigating the country and arrived back in L.A., half of those original staff were gone! They'd either been transferred, made redundant or otherwise moved on. The band came back from the US and became one of the hardest gigging bands in Australia. One count had the tally of gigs in 1981 as 366 (1981 was not a leap year). The then Prime Minister of New Zealand, Robert Muldoon, was mooting introducing a luxury tax on contemporary music, as he didn't consider it 'cultural' - whereas classical music would not be taxed. Mi-Sex guitarist Kevin Stanton challenged Muldoon during a national radio interview - if he didn't know what the young people of his country considered 'culture', then he should come to a concert and see for himself. Next day the PM was given a grilling by the opposition in Parliament and eventually was forced into accepting the invitation (or was it ultimatum…?). Muldoon and his daughter attended the concert at Wellington Town Hall and reportedly quite enjoyed it, although the newspaper the next morning reported that he had said that the band (or contemporary music in general) had "about as much culture as 'On The Mat'" - a Pro-Wrestling program on at the time in New Zealand. That's not what he told the band backstage though..... and he still introduced the luxury tax. Three more studio albums followed 'Graffiti Crimes' . On 1980's 'Space Race' the band started talking about overpopulation, environmental issues, genetic engineering and other issues of great importance for the future - common topics circa 1999-2000. 'Shanghaied' was the first self produced album for the band, the work mainly being done by Kevin Stanton and Murray Burns. The fourth album was 'Where Do They Go', with the band searching for more low key lyrical subjects and simpler music with production from Bob Clearmountain. 'Where Do They Go's single 'Blue Day' was a #1 hit in Texas and Colorado in the US. Mi-Sex did not 'break up'. On a massive tour in 1985 billed as 'The Matthew Flinders Tour', Kevin had decided that a rekindling of the creative forces was overdue and that he wanted a break from the incessant touring. A little known fact is that the band had two years to write and compile its first album and was 'allowed' just two weeks to write and compile the second. Kevin had had some minor surgery, which forced him to miss one North Queensland tour already, and the new songs just didn't have time to develop. What the band needed, and is commonplace nowadays, was a two-year hiatus to come up with a whole new set of songs from fresh. The last tour took place as a 'let's pay the bills tour' in January 1986. By April, Kevin had moved to London and was busy doing feature film sound tracks at Red Bus Studios and Abbey Road. Murray Burns had started Twilight Productions with Colin Bayley, a latter day Mi-Sex member. Steve Gilpin had retreated to his rural property in Main Arm out the back of Mullumbimby in Northern New South Wales. Don Martin had taken on a 'day job' administering Bob Yates' new business, 'Bob and Pete's' bakery. And Paul Dunningham, the drummer after Richard Hogkinson's departure, retreated to NZ. Kevin moved back to Australia with production partner, Spencer Lee in 1988 to build a succession of studios and produce albums for EMI among other projects. In August 1991, Murray, Steve and Kevin got together again to play around with some new song ideas. Three really good songs came out of these sessions and it was obvious that there was a good deal of chemistry still active between the three. There was no mention of whether the outcome of these sessions were intended for Mi-Sex, a Steve Gilpin solo album or whatever - it was purely an experiment to see how it would go. It went well. During all of this time, Steve was touring in his covers band in Northern NSW, 'Under Wrapz', which he had bubbling along since 1986. Kevin had recorded Under Wrapz at his studio and Murray had recorded some at his, so with the new infrastructure to record on the band members' own terms, the sky was apparently again the limit. Steve Gilpin was returning from a late night/early morning local gig in Coolangatta in November 1991 when his car came off the road and hit a tree, roof first. He was taken to hospital and in a coma until January 1992, when he eventually succumbed to his injuries. He was buried on his own property in early February 1992 after a "magnificent" funeral ceremony. Mi-Sex approached, and started negotiating with, Jon Stevens in early 1999 for, a possible 'one off' series of dates including the America's Cup in New Zealand in February, 2000 and the Olympics in September, 2000. During this period of time Jon did a reunion tour with Noiseworks and Michael Hutchence passed away, leaving INXS without a vocalist. Jon filled this role as well as others and the Mi-Sex plan didn't eventuate. Murray now lives outside of Byron Bay and continues with Twilight Productions and other projects in Sydney, Don is still financial controller for Bob and Pete's in Sydney, Kevin lives in Brisbane and runs his own company, Speaking Image Productions, a record label and video, film, multimedia and internet production consortium @ www.zyworld.com/speakingimage/home.htm and drummer, Paul, lives in New Zealand. There was a Mi-Sex reunion in January 1998 at Bondi where all surviving members, their families, all contactable past crew members and any other administrative people who were ever connected with the band were invited. The band still has a close 'family' relationship with each other - and don't ever discount the possibility of another Mi-Sex CD! Related
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