[Rich Karakoudas]

Just cruisin the Aria site while watching the webcast. I saw this
interesting tidbit!

Cheers all in the US, miss yez but still love it here...
Rich

http://www.aria.com.au/awards/index.html
Multiple winner, Midnight Oil, was represented by manager Gary Morris who
provided the moment writ large in ARIA lore. "We do have room service in
Australia, Bryan," said Morris indicating presenter Bryan Ferry's casually
rumpled tux. "You could have ordered an iron." There was a stunned silence
then a loud outcry. Not only was Ferry resplendent in the latest
crushed-linen look set off by lapis-lazuli cufflinks, the man had tied his
own (real) bow tie! The incident has gone down in industry folklore as a
prime example of antipodean yobbo-ism. Typically, Morris will not walk away
from it. "I'm a true yobbo and proud of it," he says. "A yobbo can walk in a
straight line."


Later, when accepting Best Single for Beds Are Burning, Morris elaborated on
the song's chastisement of Australia's treatment of the Aboriginal people
("The time has come/To say fair's fair… It belongs to them/ Let's give it
back"). There was an outburst from the floor: "Not many Aborigines stay in a
5-star hotel like you do," shouted Ian Meldrum. "How many Aborigines get to
drive around Melbourne in a Rolls Royce? Shut your face," retorted Morris.
Pandemonium. Eight years later neither will retreat from the words of the
night: "I said then that an Indigenous Award should go to an indigenous
band," recalls Morris. "I see they've finally got around to doing that." "I
said then it was neither the time or the place for grandstanding on social
issues," says Ian Meldrum. "I still say it wasn't."