Long live the Dead Livers

Written by Dave Dawson -  this article first appeared in the hard copy April 2016 issue of "Country Music Capital News" (ISSN 1440-995X) published by Fairfax Media.

 Dual liver transplant recipients Brendan Mitchell and Michael Schack

The Dead Livers

Dead Livers bassist Michael Schack is recovering after being the second member of the veteran outlaw band to have a successful liver transplant.
Schack, 66, was released from the Austin Hospital in Heidelberg in March just before another of his bands, Lost in Suburbia, performed his Dead Livers song Star of the West at the 40th Port Fairy Folk Festival. The song, a tribute to the band's musical soirees at the famed Port Fairy hotel once owned by former Collingwood football star Ronnie Wearmouth, is on the Dead Livers' debut CD "Greatest misses" released on the eve of their 20th anniversary "Ironically I'm the second member of the Dead Livers to have a liver transplant", Schack revealed, as pedal steel guitarist Brendan Mitchell celebrated 16 years with his new liver he received before the band recorded its second CD "Reaching to the Western Sky". Mitchell wrote the band's epic "Ballad of a dead liver", also on their Greatest Misses CD.
"I'm very disappointed I'm not playing at Port Fairy but you can't have everything" Schack joked about the festival he has played many times near his home at Yarpturk near Koroit. The veteran musician and is now in post operative rehab in Melbourne. Touring singer-songwriter Steve Earle also filmed a video tribute message to Schack at Port Fairy after visiting the nearby Gnotuk studio of father and son musicians Steve and Daniel Gilchrist who built custom made mandolins for the 7 times wed Texan troubadour. Earle has been playing Gilchrist mandolins since the late nineties when he recorded his album The Mountain with the Del McCoury band - also long time recipients of Gilchrist family instruments.