Midnight Oil will be the subject of a career-spanning, multi-disc box set next year that guitarist Jim Moginie promises ‘is going to be amazing in its depth and presentation of the band’s career, with rare recordings and so far unseen and unheard film and music.’

For our latest installment of Vintage Video, we bring you a complete mid-’80s concert by Aussie powerhouse Midnight Oil — the landmark ‘Oils on the Water’ concert staged Jan. 13, 1985, on Sydney’s Goat Island as part of Australian radio station Triple J’s 10th anniversary.

With BP’s disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil leak now surpassing the Exxon Valdez as the worst oil spill in U.S. history, it’s only fitting that we mark Sunday’s 20th anniversary of the Midnight Oil ‘guerrilla action’ in front of the Exxon building in New York City.

Ex-Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett’s political career hasn’t been going so great lately, and things went from bad to worse today when Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd demoted the former rocker over a “bungled home-insulation scheme,” according to Reuters.

Three members of disbanded Aussie rock powerhouse Midnight Oil — drummer Rob Hirst and guitarists Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey — and ex-Violent Femmes bassist Brian Ritchie this week announced the formation of The Break, a mostly instrumental surf-rock combo whose debut is due this spring.

  Midnight Oil’s classic 1987 hit “Beds are Burning” — originally about Aboriginal land rights in Australia — is being turned into an all-star, new-millennium […]