John Blades

John Thomas Blades (8 December 1959 – 25 November 2011) was an Australian experimental music artist and member of The Loop Orchestra; he also worked as a radio broadcaster and documentary maker, and as a civil engineer. In 1982 he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and used a wheelchair from 1993. In 2010, his radio documentary, The Too Hard Basket, won the Walkley Award for 'Social Equity Journalism – All Media', and the 'Radio Documentary of the Year Award' from the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union. Blades died on 25 November 2011 after complications from cancer therapy.

Biography

Experimental music bands John Thomas Blades was born in December 1959 as the son of Douglas and Pam Blades with a brother Bruce. He grew up in Sydney and from the mid-1970s he listened to local radio, Double Jay, "[It] was like the breath of fresh air that people like me needed who had been swamped by disco, American soft rock ... rock opuses ... and the English Glam rock". In 1982 he was a founding member of The Loop Quartet, with Richard Fielding (ex-Severed Heads), Ron Brown and Jaimie Leonarder. During that year, the quartet performed a radio studio live to air experimental performance using loops on reel-to-reel tape machines. Blades also formed and performed in other groups: War Meat and the Dictator, and Men Like Licorice, both in 1982. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) – his mother Pam also had the disorder – and he was hopeful of retaining mobility. In 1990, the band's first release, Suspense, was launched at the AFI Cinema, Sydney. Annette Shun Wah from SBS TV's The Noise programme interviewed the band and Blades described their work, for the piece, Suspense, the sound sources were all concrete, that is, all pre-existing sounds, and it was a study of the way sounds and music is constructed for suspense in horror movies. So it's all taken from scores for those films – generally untreated sections of the scores from those films, from the 1940s, through to films like Creature from the Black Lagoon of the 1950s, right through to Texas Chain Saw Massacre in the 1970s and Evil Dead in the 1980s, and so they're fragments of sound. It's like deconstructing an existing sound source and reconstructing – or structuring – something else out of that deconstruction.

By 1993 Blades' MS had progressed and he could no longer walk but he continued with his work at the Roads & Traffic Authority, with The Loop Orchestra and on radio. In 2007, Australian violinist, Jon Rose, spoke at the 9th Annual Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address (see Peggy Glanville-Hicks), Rose discussed Blades' enthusiasm and commitment to the Sydney music community: Multiple sclerosis sentenced John Blades to a wheelchair, where no doubt it was expected that he would spiral slowly out of view. The contrary happened and with committed zeal, he has become a major figure in the Sydney alternative music scene, organising & conducting his Loop Orchestra, promoting & supporting new music and outsider art. Not only have his activities kept his mental state together, he tells me that his condition has actually been reversed through his involvement with music. Physical healing with music is not just the province of new agers – music can be as practical as taking aspirin.

Radio During 1981 John Blades was invited by Ian Hartley to appear on the 2MBS' radio programme, Disc Noir, to present samples of his music collection.

In March 1998, due to the severity of his MS which reduced his mobility, Blades finished working at the RTA. on 2MBS. The programme featured "mainly experimental music with innovative film soundtracks, radio plays and spoken word". Other programmes include Eclectic Chair, The Dust Museum and Our World Through Seratonin. In 2004 CMC organised a fund-raiser in 2004 called Dis-Co-LLaboration to celebrate 22 years on-air – Severed Heads played live, along with radio presenters and CMC members.

In 2010, Blades' documentary, "The Too Hard Basket", was broadcast on Radio National, 360 Documentaries programme. It won the Walkley Award for 'Social Equity Journalism – All Media', and the 'Radio Documentary of the Year Award' from the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union. Blades died on 25 November 2011 after complications from cancer therapy.