Here you will find a recording of What's Rangoon to you is Grafton to me; a psychedelic road journey from Brisbane to Sydney written by Russell Guy and featuring the voices of James Dibble and Russell Guy. The story is a quintessentially Australian gonzo rant, tracing the narrator's twisted journey down the East coast of Australia.
"He was the perfect hitch-hiker: entertaining but mute in all the right places. He never once complained about the steel girder of static satire that was masquerading as 2JJ's programme on the speaker box on the back seat. I think he even got a kick from the jumper leads I'd rigged under the dash. He attached the positive to his forehead and stuck the negative in his mouth before jerking around the front seat like a vegetarian in a butcher's cold-room."
So pull up a seat, adjust the viewing screen of your Holden windscreen and tune in.
The text was available here but seems to have disappeared. I thought that might happen so I made a copy. There's also a book available, though it's a bit hard to track down, which has other short stories as well as the script to the radio play. I bought my copy here and while it took a while I did eventually get it. The ISBN is 0207171661 and it was published by Angus and Robertson in 1991. (ISBN thanks to Gordon Mann.) Apparently the bookshop I've linked to is out of copies, so good luck hunting it down!
The audio is available here in mp3 format. Beware it's over 40 megabytes but worth every second of download time. Anthony Gilbert edited my recording to remove the intro and outro and his version is here.
This audio version was recorded directly to DAT from Triple J's broadcast of it in July 1998 and transferred digitally to the computer for encoding. The piece was originally broadcast on 2JJ in 1978.
This version is slightly different from the original. For starters it has been remixed into stereo from the original mono.
With big thanks to Louise McLeod. I had (another) doh moment and managed to delete the file. Fortunately Louise's friend had a copy lying around and was able to get it to me.
Another radio play was produced by the same team called Hot bananas. In my opinion it doesn't match the mastery of Rangoon but is still quite worthwhile. Edwin Scribner got me a copy of this. The quality isn't great but it's listenable. Apparently it's missing the first 30 seconds of the intro.
Download it here. It's about nine megabytes.
This from Matt Walsh:
You're interested in more information on Russel Guy? Last I heard (and this was in the late 80s) Russel was working as the manager of the Aboriginal band, "The Coloured Stone". But you might know that already.James Dibble: His main claim to fame was that he was ABC TV's Principle Newsreader in Sydney from 1956 to 1983. I also once heard his voice on a recorded typing speed test.
Rangoon and James also get passing mention here
There's a recording of James' voice in "Real" format in a telephone interview recorded last year here. You'll never guess the subject matter!
Also early photo here.
According to what Richard Dinnen last heard, Russell Guy was living somewhere in far North Queensland.
If you have any more information about these artists, I'd be keen to know.