Talking of Trivial and Absolutely Useless Things to while away...

Talking of Trivial and Absolutely Useless Things to while away the hours while waiting for The Big AVB Announcement.

Mining Songs : Sulphide Blues, Drill Ye Tarriers Drill.

1. Sulphide Blues : Came across an LP by a band called Hammer 'n Tap who composed and sang this song in a folk-funky sort of way.. off-key, but catchy after a few plays.

It tells the story of how processing copper sulphide ore ("rotten ore") was solved by "the process of flotation". Cool.

Why anyone would compose a song about "flotation" is a mystery but it fills in some history of the process. (No song about Heap Leach that I know of? .....)

Sort of puts AVB's flotation plant in HISTORICAL perspective.

2. Then.... the well-known Drill Ye Tarriers Drill. This is a traditional folk song I first saw in a copy of the Monash University Bushwalking Club Songbook. It refers more to blasting of rock for railways but I actually think of it as Avanco drilling and blasting rock to get at that sulphide ore at Antas North/South/PB.

LOTS of versions on Youtube from folk, through up-tempo rock to orchestral. Here is just one of the many .... really old. :)

The words (rather than the tune) conjure up TP and the lads drilling and blasting that Brazilian rock. Anyway... a bit of a laugh!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x26U_4LKVMQ

I guess in the 60's everybody was heavily into the folk scene etc and so you were expected to know these songs. Or at least it was passed along around campfires and you learned it that way.

Just a distraction from the main game...

cheers....