Dave Dawson review of "Free John Zarb" by John Flanagan.

Published NuCountry-TV website 25 June 2018

It was just a roll of the birthday dice that saved some sixties survivors from fighting in the historic but ill-fated Vietnam War. But not Pascoe Vale postman John Zarb, a conscientious objector, who was sentenced to two years in gaol in 1968 for his refusal to be conscripted because of his beliefs. Another John - Melbourne country folkie John Flanagan - was too young to recall the Free John Zarb campaign that polarised post World War 11 Australia and kick started a graffiti flood on well- known local landmarks. But the multi-instrumentalist, aided by suburban research, has picked up the baton 50 years down the Lost Highway with his anthemic social comment tune Free John Zarb on his third album Honest Man. More of that soon after this short pregnant pause. Former teenage rocker Normie Rowe became the poster boy for Vietnam War conscripts when he lost at marbles and was flown into the killing fields. Meanwhile behind the scenes a vast cast of other local musicians, far too many to be listed here, were called up. Peter Bird, co-founder of Warrnambool country bands Nevada and more recently Lost In Suburbia , was sent into overseas battle and returned home and re-mastered the Dead Livers Greatest Misses with bonus tracks for their 40th anniversary at Thornbury Theatre in May. Lost In Suburbia sidekick and Dead Livers bassist Michael Schack has dined out for many moons on his conscript chef duties for fellow Nashos including VFL champ and record breaking Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy during their training at Puckapunyal. But Schack has not claimed credit for Sheeds love of country music that has culminated in his free country music festivals in Yarra Park for the annual Essendon-Geelong MCG country game. This reviewer may have dissuaded Sheedy from choosing a pop music passion during a stint as a DJ and Gong Show host at the trendy Toorak Hotel in days of yore. Kevin and his posse declined my kind offer for them to participate in the talent quest that lured two sons of multi-millionaire trucking tsar and St Kilda football club benefactor Lindsay Fox to chance their voices. They were gonged in a fashion not dissimilar to this judge's decamping from a Puckapunyal school cadet camp when told he could not grow his beard at 14. Luckily, later in my teens I was toiling as a cadet journalist on the Launceston Examiner when my birthday marble rolled me out of the ballot. The Australian Army was spared a colour blind conscript whose aim would not have been true. Meanwhile back to Flanagan's song that he researched at the Moreland city archives - not far from the original Dawson farm estate at Phoenix Park in Brunswick.
John, expat Canadian singer-songwriter Tracey McNeil, Geelong born guitarist Jeff Lang and one time Geelong student and long-time St Kilda supporter Mick Thomas were asked to inspect council records and write a song based on local history. Flanagan chose the John Zarb saga that decimated the Zarb family when his beliefs led to him being relieved of his postal duties and sentenced to Pentridge. Pentridge may now be peddled as an historic housing estate but back in 1968 it was a hellhole that held no escape for Zarb whose plight was explored in the recent Going Back theme concert.