Greg Ham was found dead in his Melbourne home after his friends called police when they had not seen him and could not get in contact with one of the founding members of Men At Work. After police discovered the body they released a statement indicating they were looking into the cause of death. The police actually said there were unexplained aspects to the death. They probably should go ahead and call in Monk. After years of watching him, he can pretty much figure out any kind of scenario. I think the only thing better than calling in Monk would to be to have some kind of special where Monk joins forces with Jessica Fletcher.
Aw, that is sad.
ReplyDeleteSad. "Who Can It Be Now?" He wasn't the walled eye one was he?
ReplyDeleteI would love to see Monk and Jessica Fletcher unite!
ReplyDeleteHe was the sax player and he was only 58 years old. I want to make a "who can it be now" joke but I'll abstain.
ReplyDeleteDon't do it. That would be Overkill
Deletelmao @ seachica but honestly..rest in peace greg ham :(
ReplyDeleteLOL @ Seachica
ReplyDeleteoh enty, don't make light of this like that.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of revealing too much about myself, I have to say my husband is a HUGE Men at Work & Colin Hay fan. I've seen them dozens of times in concert ... Greg Ham was a nice guy. So sad. I got the feeling he had quite a few personal issues and that's why Colin had Greg tour with him as Men at Work even though they were the only two original members and they played Colin's solo stuff too. Sorry I'm rambling, I'm just really shocked.
ReplyDeleteLast I heard, Men at Work was fighting a multi-million dollar lawsuit over the rights to a sample in "Land Down Under." Evidently the flute part (which Greg Ham played) was taken from the song "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree".
ReplyDeleteReading Wikipedia, it looks like Men at Work did, indeed, lose that lawsuit and subsequent appeals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kookaburra_(song)
I hope Greg Ham didn't commit suicide as a result of this lawsuit and pending financial judgement (royalties).
Damn I miss the 80s.
The story on MSNBC. This is so sad, he was devastated by that lawsuit it seems.
ReplyDeletehttp://entertainment.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/19/11284850-men-at-work-flute-player-greg-ham-found-dead-at-58?lite
While this is sad, I still hate their music. Always have, always will.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link FS. Unfortunately, Ham's death probably occurred as I expected.
ReplyDeleteSad thing is, I have listened to the flute "riff" over and over and compared it to various sung versions of "Kookaburra" and I still can't hear the similarities.
It definitely isn't anywhere near Ice Ice Baby vs. Under Pressure or any of the many pop, rock, or hip-hop songs nowadays that "bite" or sample other works.
So sad for Ham's family, bandmates, friends, and for the song itself.
RIP Greg Ham. Hopefully you'll be playing your flute in heaven when I end up there one day...
You know, that would make sense about Greg being devastated by the lawsuit. Ugh, I know too much about MAW and I'm slightly embarrassed about it but here goes: Colin Hay had originally written the song "Down Under" alone and Greg Ham was the one who had the idea to add the Kookaburra-esque flute riff. It was the only song of theirs Greg had any real writing credit on, aside from throw-away album tracks. I'll bet he felt incredibly guilty. :-(
ReplyDelete@chopchop - the flute riff is what makes that song really stand out to me. I don't hear the kookaburra in it, either.
ReplyDeleteI am sad for you. I understand what it is like to be a big fan and have that kind of loss.
Sophie Monk? i thought she'd pretty much abandoned Oz for the delights of America. Kidding.
ReplyDeleteI also can not hear the resemblance to Kookaburra. No-one in Australia apart from the judge who ruled against them could.
ReplyDeleteYeah feraltart, I'm singing it over and over in my head and it's not coming to me.
ReplyDeleteP.S. your name makes me laugh. It reminds me of Kath & Kim.
Long time lurker first time poster from the area in Melbourne that Greg lived in. I have a couple of family and professional connections to Greg(although I'm on holidays at the moment) and it is very sad all round.
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple of flute riffs from the song (second and fourth phrases) which are exactly the same as kookaburra but I'd hesitate to agree with HH that it's substantially the same.. Like most litigation (I'm a lawyer but I don't work in IP) there's a lot of stuff which happens behind the scenes (and i know there was a lot of negotiation in this one which went nowhere which is why it ran the whole way- the judgment is prob on austlii if anyone is really interested in the reasoning) which isn't reported in the 200 word article in the paper or even in the 100 page judgment. In the end it can be summed up as shit happens.
Apparently the original writer of the song had heard the controversy but didn't see the similarities.
ReplyDeleteWhen she died, the royalties were taken over by a small label, they are the ones who sued.
I think the original writers opinion should have been upheld.
For those MAW fans still reading the comments for this post, here is the "Pop Up Video" version of Down Under by Men at Work:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtbtE847Vig
the original writer of the song gave it to the girl guides, there WAS NEVER any issue of copyright.
ReplyDeleteLarrikin bought the song so they could sue. No other reason.
Enty, this is a bit fucked. A lot of us loved Greg dearly and you've kind of dismissed a tragic situation to make a joke.