Wallaby Beat

DJK Band - Venus Flytrap 7" Glo Audio GLO-1, 1978

2012-02-12T15:45:00.000+11:00

DJK stands for Dave Scotland (guitar, vocals), Joe Lee (bass), and Ken Wylie (drums), three-fifths of Canberra's Baby Grande. The Baby Grande story makes for an interesting read - we encourage you to do so at the relentlessly centre-aligned Canberra Musicians website. The gist is that the band formed in 1974, first in a pre-Scotland incarnation as the infinitely preferable Far-Q-2, then as Baby Grande in 1975 when the line-up was finalised. Oh, the other members? Their names may be familiar: Steve Kilbey (vocals, bass, synth), and Peter Koppes (guitar).

Initially an intellectual take on glam rock, Baby Grande evolved as the summer of hate dawned in the UK; Koppes quit, and at Kilbey's behest, the band amped up the guitars and pursued a direction more aligned with the Pistols and the Dolls (note that Kilbey's take on "daggy" local guitarists in the Canberra Musos piece is consistent with our own). Through connections and coincidence - notably, EMI Australia being wrongfooted by the UK parent company's directive to sign the Saints - Baby Grande found themselves under contract with EMI, and in January 1977, five songs were recorded with (I'm) Stranded producer Rod Coe. Unfortunately, the session was rejected by EMI for lacking commercial appeal, and the recordings remain unissued to this day. Dejected, Scotland, Lee and Wylie jumped ship.

Kilbey's post-Baby Grande trajectory is a matter of public record - after a dalliance with Tactics, a realignment with Koppes led to The Church and worldwide acclaim. The remaining Baby Grandes quickly regrouped as DJK Band, and issued this self-financed single in an edition of "about 500" copies (note the sly nod to former glories on the label). It's a worthwhile record, and one that gets better with each listen, but absent Kilbey's stewardship it lacks any trace of punk; instead, Venus Flytrap evinces a regression to inventive grillfat with glammy overtones. It's a description that applies equally to the lyrics - we'll leave you to listen for yourself, but let's just say that "a venus flytrap in a bed of daisies" is Canberran for "dude looks like a lady".

Venus Flytrap [Download]

Meccalissa - Kill The Warden 7" Angelwood HALO-000 NC2, 1979

2012-02-05T13:50:00.000+11:00

How could you go wrong with a song called Kill The Warden? That's what we thought when we first picked this up in a Newcastle op shop in the 1990s. It's a tasty grillfat tale of prison murder, with blood and guts and oh, a hooky chorus!

Meccalissa existed from 1974 until around the time of this release in 1979, when they became DV8. In fact, some copies of this have DV8 stamped on the labels (see below). From what we've heard of the DV8 records, you don't need to hear them (Dead Baby from the Stab In The Dark live LP is OK, but not as good as this).

Band photos here.

Kill The Warden

Tactics - Long Weekend 7" Folding Chair PRS-2653, 1979

2012-01-29T23:48:00.000+11:00

The key to Tactics is singer Dave Studdert. To get an insight on what inspired their first and best record we're gonna quote liberally from Bob Blunt's great interview with him in Blunt: A Biased History Of Australian Rock.

As a kid growing up in the 1960s I moved around a lot to wherever the family landed, meat work towns. I only had two records, Hendrix's Smash Hits and the Stones' 'Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!'. I wasn't musically trained or anything and, to tell you the truth, from my late teens into my early twenties I was more into cricket than being a songwriter or musician. It wasn't until I was about 21 that I started feeling lost in all that suburban marriage bullshit. I started reading NME and hunted down records by Love, Bob Marley, Syd Barrett and Dylan. I was drawn to that because I had always constructed myself as an outsider, so I hunted down dub albums and some Burning Spear. I was on my own a lot in those days. I developed an antenna for what was deemed good or bad.

In the mid '70s in Canberra, Studdert dropped out of uni and formed a band. Punk had arrived in Australia but he didn't like the Australian copyist take on it.

Everyone was copying stuff straight out of the NME. All that punk stuff was kind of funny in retrospect but I had heard the Stooges and didn't want to sound like that. The music in punk never did anything for me. I preferred Jamaican stuff and Arthur Lee, Television and Talking Heads, which was more rhythmical with lyrics that weren't so straightforward and narrative, but more symbolist and double edged. Punk to me was an attitude and a kind of spirit. It was like the old is dead and the new is antibodies. I used this attitude because I was angry, very angry. I was doing shitty jobs, like cleaning out incinerators, and being hassled by my parents because I was 22 and didn't have a real job. With all this psychological tension in me, I wanted to release it all. I was wired, all the time. I was reading Rimbaud and Nietzsche and going out at midnight and driving around Canberra until the sun came up. I really related to Travis Bickle because I went a year or so without speaking to anyone.

Tactics began as Studdert and Angus Douglas and another soon to be famous Canberran.

Steve Kilbey was this computer programmer who couldn't play bass very well. We played a few shows with him in Canberra. Our first show we played two of his songs that I could never get quite right.

Oh well. After losing Kilbey and adding Geoff Marsh and Bob Whittle on bass and drums the band supported The Thought Criminals at ANU. Tactics followed them back to Sydney for shows, the first at Garibaldi's in Darlinghurst with The Thought Criminals and Crime and the City Solution.

I remember the joint was really packed. We played first and we weren't very good in comparison, but because I was this maniac it had something. When we returned to Canberra people slowly started to like us, mainly because Sydney bands liked us. The crowds still didn't get it. Copy bands were still the flavour of the month, especially the ones who belted out I Wanna Be Your Dog. Everything and everyone was a shadow of another. To this day that annoys me about this country because poor old neo-colonial Australia has always been good at copying. It's part of not wanting to be the excluded other.

Taking the tenets of originality and otherness with us, we leave the interview here and focus on the band's first recording, the Long Weekend EP. From the "postcard from another dimension" sleeve on in it delivers on the fronts Studdert wanted it to. The quest for originality doesn't lead the band up their own backsides; rather the visceral energy of the playing and the uniqueness of the structures deliver in spades. For us, Standing By The Window is the highlight with the double tracked spoken parts and the great guitar refrain. One of the best art punk tracks from this country, and while Studdert's voice can be an acquired taste, it's a pleasure to hear a Canberran guitarist play with conviction.

It was a surprise to rediscover Watch My Hands while researching this post - a sublime drum led track with, again, some great, gnarled guitar playing; landing somewhere between the first and third Urinals eps, without sounding like the second. We'll leave the third track, Buried Country, for you to track down. Tactics' story is long, and we're not going to cover any more of it here today. Maybe another time...

Standing By The Window [Download]

Watch My Hands [Download]

Standing By The Window was reissued as the b-side to the Gold Watch single.

Mr Meaner - Ripped Off Again / I Dig the T.V. 7" Peanut Republic PRR 002, 1980

2012-01-22T20:19:00.001+11:00

We try to approach our work here with something approximating scientific rigour. It's an approach which clearly also informed The Professor's earlier research at the Australian Punk Discography. Budding practitioners of the scientific method will note that the Discography follows the general format of a peer-reviewed academic publication: Introduction, Methods, a series of Results paired with Conclusions, and a Reference List for good measure. Indeed, it is "in the interests of Science" that The Prof subjected himself to the "metal-tinged pub-rock" of La Femme. Why? Because a credible source once described them as "punk", of course. Hypotheses are there to be tested.

Like the eligibility criteria for a randomised controlled trial, the Discography's Methods section establishes the scope for inquiry. It is from the list of exclusions that scholars of that work are likely to be familiar with Brisbane's Mr Meaner, a band ignored for being "so...unpunk that they don't deserve comment". But wait! What was that about metal-tinged pub-rock? Loose application of the description "punk"? Check! And check! It seems that the peer-reviewers at Collectorscum.com were on the bong the day The Prof submitted his manuscript, as that methodological inconsistency has remained unchallenged.

So today, in the interests of gender equality, we apply the old adage that what's good for La Femme is good for Mr Meaner (or something like that). The latter's sole single, the second and final release on Peanut Republic, delivers two slices of metallic grillfat in the vein of the Angels - palm-muted twin guitar riffing akimbo, and in I Dig The T.V., liberal use of our old mate the four-on-the-floor. What's missing is the Angels' melodic sense and knack for a hooky chorus. Still, the songs are carried by brisk tempos and energetic performances, and as metal-tinged pub-rock goes, the single has established itself as a keeper. We've presented the songs in the order determined by the single's matrix numbers as the A and B sides, but note that some copies have stickers reversing the labels.

Mr Meaner were: Chris Greentree (vocals); Chris McWhirter (bass); Jim Poulos (drums); Brian Butler (guitar/vocals); and Dave Nelson (guitar). More from this line-up can be found on the That's Queensland compilation LP, released in 1980 by radio station 4IP (YPRX 1742), which includes the song Russian Roulette. Neil Coombe from Bad Habit joined the band after these recordings, but later line-ups weren't documented with vinyl releases.

Ripped Off Again [Download]

I Dig The T.V. [Download]

Toy Watches - Too Long 7" Peanut Republic PRR 001, 1980

2012-01-15T13:34:00.003+11:00

A year ago Ipswich was under water; surely you remember the claim that a shark was seen swimming down the main street, 30 kilometers from any ocean! Today we revisit the city, but failing the emergence of any more unknown records from there this is our last visit.

The Toy Watches were a punk/pop band based in Ipswich and Brisbane between 1979 and 1981. A popular live prospect, they were picked up by aspirational label Peanut Republic. The result was this obscure 45 - highlighted by the punky pop A-side, Too Long. To be honest we've always neglected this 7"; it's good but doesn't reach out and grab you by the balls. However, in researching this piece we came across the video below, and the photos at rhythm guitarist Ian Davies' myspace site (also see below), and the sense of fun surrounding the band endeared the record to us one more time. The flipside, Hawaii, sounds half-written by comparison, perhaps too much fun was being had.

The iconography on the label starts with a map of Queensland (let's be thankful they weren't Tasmanian). Bursting through is state premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the kiwi of Dutch extraction who ruled the state from his farm in Kingaroy, the state's centre of peanut production. Don't be fooled by the cheeky grin, as detailed in many places, it wasn't fun politically. See Task Force, Pig City, the band Gerry Mander and the Boundaries, the Dead Kennedys appearance etc., for more musical evidence. Whatever, like the Credits, this is a love song, not political polemic. Davies and later bassist Russell Sky ended up in the great paisley pop band the Colours, whose wistful song Blue Shirt, which really unfortunately never made it to vinyl, was a 4ZZZ hit. I was interested to find out recently that that song is about the cops: "in my blue shirt, nothing touches me".

To round things off the other members were Shaun McGrath on vocals (the tall drink of water in the photo below), John Spresser on lead, Noel Howe on bass, and Cameron Howe on drums. McGrath and Spresser ended up in the Skeletones with Brad Cox.

Too Long [Download]

Hawaii [Download]

The savage, young Toy Watches, more here

The Barons - Greatest Hits 7" Doublethink DTDT-5, 1979

2012-01-08T21:53:00.005+11:00

"The Barons' maxim was So?, meaning Do you expect me to justify this - I won't" - Michael Tee.

Read The Barons' story straight from the horse's mouth at the always excellent No Night Sweats site, the web's definitive first-hand account of Sydney post-punk. In short, we have a loose assortment of prog rock obsessed stoners from Sydney's northern beaches prone to wasted jams in the privacy of their own living room, the conclusion of which would be signalled by a tape of crowd noise culled from Kiss Alive!. Among said stoners numbered Michael Tee and Mitch Jones, future two-thirds of Scattered Order and the driving force behind the M-Squared label, not to mention Mark Tremlett and Fred, designer of the M-Squared logo and landlord of M-Squared's Wilshire Street HQ, respectively. Though released by the Thought Criminals' Doublethink label, Tee considers The Baron's Greatest Hits to be the first true M-Squared record. The songs were recorded in 1977 and 1978, but by the time of the record's release in 1979, the pair had already begun cobbling together studio equipment and documenting the Sydney scene (see the Sheiks, Seems Twice, Nervous System); the experience with Doublethink served as a catalyst for the formation of their own label.

As can be heard in the likes of Always Lurking and Dog Squashed, The Barons could barely hold it together long enough to work their way through a barre chord. We can only imagine that steadfast lack of ability applied to covering the turn-on-a-dime Frippisms of 21st Century Schizoid Man ("where we would play along with the live version off KC's USA LP. We used to play along with records a lot; it was easier as we could not be bothered working out how to play our instruments properly"). Instead, on Greatest Hits, we have an assortment of originals ranging from inspired amateurism to a painful lack of ideas masquerading as minimalism - Boiled Dinner explores the lower reaches of the tempo dial on the Hammond organ drum machine, and is every bit as compelling as that description implies. As with The Popes, the influence of They're Coming To Take Me Away rears it head in the cadence of Just In Time, highlighting a certain self-awareness about the absurdity of this whole mess.

The Barons' only other official release was a cover of Paint It Black on M-Squared's Growing Pains compilation 12". There's a disappointing lack of playing along to Aftermath to be found, but it does make for a nice companion piece to The Residents' Satisfaction. These days it can be heard on Ascension Records' Terrace Industry 4xCD. More home-recorded nonsense is available via Mutant Sounds.

Always Lurking [Download]

Boiled Dinner [Download]

Dog Squashed [Download]

Inch x Inch [Download]

Just In Time [Download]

XL Capris - Dead Budgies 7" Axle 101, 1979

2012-01-01T23:52:00.013+11:00

While Mopsie Beans didn't make it to John Peel's glory box, one Australian record did. It's an old favourite of any follower of the Australian punk canon - XL Capris' great punk version of Tommy Leonetti's nightly signoff song from Channel 7, from back when 24 hour broadcasting was still a thing of the future.

The original XL Capris (Nancy Serapax on drums, Errol Cruz on guitar and vocals, Alligator Bagg on bass and vocals and Dag Rattler on guitar and vocals) were a fine, quirky punk band who played their first gig on New Year's Eve 1978 in the foyer of the Nimrod Theatre in Darlinghurst (now the SBW Stables Theatre).

Over the next year they gigged aplenty around Sydney (see a review below), and made an early trip to Melbourne. We particularly like this snippet of info from the band's history in Aberrant's Why March When You Can Riot LP liner notes: "Mid January 1979; first 'real' gig at Garibaldi's. The band was banned from this venue because an excited fan threw the men's toilet out the window". Continuing their connection with today's date, the year culminated with the release of My City Of Sydney on New Year's Day, 1980. There are all manner of stamped variations of the white paper sleeve, some busy, some sparse.

Apart from this first single, the best way to hear the original line up is as a download, Live At Georges. Skylab (Son Of Telstar) from these recordings appeared on the aforementioned Aberrant compilation. With various members leaving, the band became less interesting as they evolved, eventually releasing two albums and three more singles. Some later live stuff can be heard here.

Today we feature the less heard flipside of My City Of Sydney, Dead Budgies. It's a strange amalgam of punk rock, bird calls and parody; the song title getting twisted to "dead Bee Gees, dead bodgies" and "dead bludgers". If you never flipped over My City Of Sydney, here it is.

Dead Budgies [Download]

In a small piece of it-never-ends action some final copies were sold at a later gig. Rather than do up more stamped sleeves the band simply applied a sticker to some found sleeves (and stamped the back with the red XL CAPRIS seen on regular versions).

Live review, Choke #3, 1979

An original badge

John Vincent - 'Ow Ya Goin' Santa Claus 7" RCA 101885, 1969

2011-12-25T14:29:00.007+11:00

Since most of you are SSL speakers, that's Strine as a Second Lingo, you'd be forgiven for missing the small ocker revival amongst tastemakers in recent years. The original Ocker was a character in the '60s TV show The Mavis Brampton Show, codifying the broad speaking, straight talking, piss taking, clever but smartarse bloke Aussies seemed to love to love. The genre never really went away, but it did start to seem less attractive as it morphed into the garden variety yob by the 1980s. Perhaps starting with the reissues of the Bazza McKenzie fillums, crate diggers started pulling a few old ocker classics out of bins country wide and proselytising their worth.

John Vincent was a South Australian DJ who put out many ocker novelty records, both under his own name and as the 'Ken Oath Ockerstra. We like this one in particular because of its links back to a cool earlier version from 1967. We'll get to that in a minute, but for now enjoy a bit of seasonal stupidity, with Thin Vin's approximate vocals taking centre stage.

’Ow Ya Goin’ Santa Claus [Download]

The song has its roots in an earlier song, in fact Vincent's debut record, recorded with legendary Australian '60s band The In-Sect, whose I Can See My Love is rightly regarded as a classic of Australian '60s punk. As told by guitarist Frank Sebastyn to Ian Marks in the great recent book Wild About You, the In-Sect were the regular house band at the Arkaba Hotel in Adelaide, where they played six nights a week and an all day Saturday beer garden gig to 1200-1300 people. "I arranged that for John. He used to keep hanging 'round the Arkaba saying, 'Can I sing a song, mister?' And after weeks of telling him to piss off, we let him up on stage, and he did this song called 'Ow Ya Goin' which knocked 'em out. So I spoke to Ron Gillespie [from W&G] and he agreed to record him, too." It goes on to tantalisingly say "'Ow Ya Goin' (allegedly recorded in the lavatory at the Adelaide Railway station) made #14 in Adelaide" with no further details!

Detailing the three stages of a standard piss up, the lyrics in total are:

'Ow ya goin'? Alright!
Crack a coldie. You beaut!
See ya later. Hoo roo!

Again for our SSL friends a few translation hints are in order: crack a coldie is "open yourself a cold beer from the esky"; you beaut is an exclamation of pleasure equating to "you little bloody ripper"; hoo roo they say is an archaic Australian farewell, but I've been hearing it all this weekend as I've done the rounds of family and friends. It's all helped along by a sterling performance by the In-Sect with loud drums, organ and some great guitar by Sebastyn.

’Ow Ya Goin’ [1967] [Download]

Vincent and the In-Sect combined twice more, first on the Madge's Charity Badges / Choko Brandy 7" (RCA 101860, December 1968), then on the Ballad Of Andy Capp 7" on Adelaide label Gamba. Dean Mittelhauser said of the RCA record, "this was another of Vincent's terrible novelty songs, but the band's raunchiness is undiminished, particularly on the A-side where there is a truly fab guitar solo. It's absolutely boss, and makes Vincent's bad lyrics and even worse vocals almost bearable". It's a cool record and has been comped on the Australian psych CD, Datura Dreamtime.

Vincent revisited 'Ow Ya Goin' in 1973 on his only album. Without the In-Sect, and without '60s enthusiasm, it's reduced down to a pretty standard 12 bar blues workout. We include it for completeness. If you absolutely have to dig further into Vinnie's back catalogue we can perhaps suggest this approximation to Heads Down No Nonsense Mindless Boogie style satire from 1975, and again with a Ramones tribute band.

’Ow Ya Goin’ [1973] [Download]

The album

Rockets - Mean Mistress / Little Donna 7" White Rider WAS 1, 1980

2011-12-18T19:48:00.003+11:00

"Three cheers for Perth - hip hip...BOOO!"

So quipped Gus Chambers one night at the White Sands tavern, shortly after a disgruntled publican pulled the plug on his band. Such was Gus's rage, he momentarily forgot how to count - you can hear the results on Rupture's Sex, Drugs and Rupture CD. Antipathy to the ol' Dullsville is something of a Perth punk tradition, the most well-known example of course being The Victims' Perth Is A Culture Shock. However, the Perth kiss-off we really wanna hear seems to have remained unrecorded.

Paul Keating famously described Australia as "the arse end of the world"; Arsehole Of The Universe – a song variously attributed to the Exterminators or its short-lived offshoot, Sad Sack and the Bags – narrows down the anatomy and ups the cosmological denominator in laying waste to late-'70s Perth. Readers who have internalised Harry Butler's Perth punk family trees in B-Side #6 and DNA #34 will know that the Exterminators existed from May to November 1977. The band's core – Rod Radalj (guitar) and Boris Sudjovic (bass) - morphed into the Invaders (no relation) in December 1977 when Kim Salmon (guitar/vocals) joined the fold, the band in turn becoming the Scientists in May 1978 when James Baker, fresh from the recently disbanded Victims, occupied the kit. Readers who have internalised the Scientists' Wikipedia page could probably tell you much the same thing.

Sudjovic didn't last long in this line-up of the Scientists, exiting prior to the recording of the classic Frantic Romantic / Shake Together Tonight 45; Radalj played on the single's A-side, and left the band soon afterwards. The pair soon teamed up again in April 1979 as the Rockets, and along with Allan Stewart (vocals), Peter Johnson (guitar), and Johnny Cole (drums), supplemented a set of Heartbreakers and Ramones songs with high-energy originals. Accounts from folks in the know have the band pegged as a shit-hot live proposition, reportedly Perth's closest approximation to the Detroit-via-Sydney rock of Radio Birdman.

Unfortunately, the Rockets' sole single (released in May 1980 by import record shop White Rider) doesn't quite capture that attack. Mean Mistress is fine punky rock and roll, somewhat hobbled by bog-standard riffing and typically "Perth" production (hard to put a finger on the defining characteristics, but to paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, we know it when we hear it). That said, we have found ourselves coming back to Mean Mistress again and again over the years, surprised each time by the energy of the performance. The flipside, Little Donna, is slower and wimpier, alternating between a singular pedestrian riff and a truly cringe-inducing middle-eight. 'Nuff said. Five hundred copies of the single were pressed, housed in a silver cardstock sleeve overlaid with either a black or white screen print. In our experience, there's no discernable difference in rarity between the two sleeve colours, though white seems to have surfaced more frequently in recent times.

Sudjovic has reflected that the Rockets "lasted much longer than they should have, two months would have been about right". By the middle of 1981, he and Radalj's disdain for Perth and disaffection with the band had reached critical mass, with the pair leaving both the Rockets and the city for the perineum of the universe, Sydney. There, Radalj teamed up with two ex-Victims to form Le Hoodoo Gurus, and Sudjovic rejoined the Scientists to spearhead the band's swamp-rock phase. The pair would eventually regroup in 1986 as the Adorable Ones, a.k.a. the Dubrovniks. Back in Perth, the Rockets continued with line-up changes to fill the Croatian-sized void, and pursued a less interesting hard rock-tinged sound. This direction can be heard on Automatic, the revamped Rockets' contribution to the West compilation LP (96fm/Polygram MX198965/6, 1981), where somewhat confusingly they sit back-to-back with the Invaders, an unrelated band led by ex-Bakery vocalist John Worrall. A cassette from 1983 showcased more of the same with flourishes of the old punk and roll sound, but the band would fold with no further vinyl releases.

Mean Mistress [Download]

White and silver sleeve

Insert

Nasty Nigel and The Teenage Hellcats - Jonestown Suicide 7" Criminal PRS-2708, 1979

2011-12-11T20:47:00.001+11:00

If you told me blind we'd be championing a white reggae single where the singer actually attempts a Jamaican accent, and there's a proggy guitar solo, I'd cock my eye and suggest you were mistaken. Nevertheless, here we are in that exact situation.

Nigel Lawrence was a shortarse Yorkshireman who landed in Adelaide and joined a band called The Bank Of France. The band did mostly satirical, novelty stuff like It's Still Billy Joel To Me and Please Let Me Be On Countdown. It is suspected the A-side song featured today is supposed to be humourous punk novelty.

So, what lifts Jonestown Suicide out of the kids' pool of punky reggae novelty and into the deep end of the punk pool? Great songwriting and a truly superb vocal delivery by the remonikered Nasty Nigel.

Starting with ominous keyboards, a reggae beat sounding more fuelled by GBH than THC fades in. The chanted Jonestown Suicide refrain builds to our man Nasty taking over.

Jonestown suicide
Jonestown suicide
Thousand people take their lives
Lemonade and cyanide

Brilliant in its simplicity, and delivered with a really, well, nasty tone. The fade in, verse, verse, verse, solo, verse, repeat first verse, fade out structure is interesting - the kind of thing attempted only by inspired amateurs or gifted professionals. Then there's that solo, and the staccato rimshot outro. Together with the subject matter, tough production and perfect song length it all conspires to make this something of a classic. We don't even cringe when he goes all yardie accent in the verse starting "Enigmatic mystery man".

Did we mention the clean, simple cover art? It's nice to see a band get everything right for once - leaving the band name completely off the sleeve is a plus, isn't it?

The song was well played on the alternative radio stations at the time - 2JJJ, 4ZZZ, 3RRR, 5MMM etc. and was something of an underground hit, not unlike the Brats sole vinyl appearance. At least one of the song's writers, Greg Champion went on to make a living out of songwriting, though his main money spinner (and general oeuvre) was a return to daggy, novelty stuff like I Made A 100 In The Backyard At Mum's. Lawrence and Champion and some of the Teenage Hellcats got their earlier wish and appeared on Countdown in their next guise as happy-go-lucky pop band Young Homebuyers.

The flipside, A.K.A., sees Lawrence again carry the song with another great vocal performance. The wonky instrumentation, jaunty rhythm and the little slip into French shows him in the thrall of Wreckless Eric and Ian Dury and the Blockheads. It ain't Stiff, but it's still worth a fuck.

Jonestown Suicide [Download]

A.K.A. [Download]

Matchbox - Slightly Troppo LP Festival L 36579, 1978

2011-12-04T17:09:00.002+11:00

Fifteen reasons why Never Mind The Scallops by Matchbox/Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band remains an Australian novelty punk unknown:

Kazoo
Ukelele
Harmonica
Tenor sax
Washboard
Jug
Alto sax
Vibes
Mandolin
Hawaiian steel guitar
Joe Camilleri
Baritone sax
"Mood sympathiser"
Natural steel guitar
This

Never Mind The Scallops [Download]

Enlarge to reveal the full horror.

Quintrex Bop - Effigies 7" EMI Custom 13005, 1980

2011-11-27T17:32:00.001+11:00

Another "graphic design clusterfuck"

Ever wanted to reach into your gramophone, grab the guitar player by the scruff, and dare them to play a downstroke? We mentioned before what seems to be a Canberran tendency to not want to put in on the six string. There are exceptions, but unfortunately today's featured record ain't one of them.

Quintrex Bop were part of the small punk scene in the nation's capital in 1980. The band members were Eddie Evils (vocals), Glen Grattan (guitar), Rod Nonstop (bass) and Mark Fraser (drums). They recorded a four track 7" at Grool Sound in 1980, and that was it.

So, half-hearted guitar slinging aside, what does the Quintrex Bop EP offer? We feature the best two tracks today and you'll see what makes it vaguely attractive is a bit of mean-spiritied nastiness in the lyrics. On Judith the target of the singer's ire is the eponymous lady friend. "Judith is a fatty and a liar and a cheat", it starts, and the impression given of the poor lass doesn't improve. "Judith, I'll whip you with barbed wire, c'mon Judith, and set yourself on fire" and "Judith, you're the girl I hate, woah-oh Judith, you're overweight". O...K..., shots on target, but when paired with decidedly nancy drumming and non-committal guitar wavering I'm unsure of whose side I'm on. Think I'll go with Judith, she sounds like a whole lotta Rosie.

So, onto Royalty Sucks where again the lyrics are fairly forthright, if a little confused: casual anti-semitism ("she never wears the same clothes twice, she ain't no filthy jew") in the verse followed by a nice use of Yiddish in the chorus - "The king and queen are full of shmuck". Yeah, it didn't make sense to me at first either. I thought it was a minced oath for "full of shit", but then they rhyme it with "but I don't give two fucks", so that theory dies. We all know shmuck is slang for dickhead, but the lyric still doesn't make sense. It turns out in Yiddish, a shmuck is the foreskin removed in circumcision, now making the line a decent insult.

All in all it reads like it was whipped up on the back of a school pad in a few minutes. Nothing wrong with that, but it helps if your band is providing an absolutely raging backing track to distract from any obvious shortcomings. The vocal delivery is fine, but, like the guitarist's stayed hand, we can't commit to the whole thing with much enthusiasm. As an anti-monarchy song it's more Corgi Crap than I Hate The Bloody Queen.

The other two tracks, Effigy In Plastic and Household Garbage, despite the promising names, aren't going to excite anyone. As always though, track 'em down and make up your own mind.

Judith [Download]

Royalty Sucks [Download]

Eddie Evils also sang in Glass, from Ripchord fanzine, 1980.

Jackson Zumdish - Flyblown 7" Agro Fish 13081, 1981

2011-11-20T20:23:00.001+11:00

"Relentless art school mirth", or RASM for short - it's what led Johan Kugelberg to reserve a place for Jackson Zumdish in not only the Worldwide Punk Top 100, but in his Top 100 DIY list as well. RASM is also the reason we dealt with Jackson Zumdish so flippantly back in August 2010. Truth be told, we're quite partial to the odd piece of RASM - the first Avant Gardener 45 is a personal favourite, and it might be the quintessential RASM record - and in retrospect, perhaps our dismissive tone didn't do justice to JZ's first single. Which is not to say that we don't have our reservations - we do - but if we can treat pissweak singles like PJ Hooker with some dignity, then Jackson Zumdish deserves at least the same level of respect.

The full Jackson Zumdish story is revealed by the Kuge's interview in Ugly Things #22, combined with a dig around various sections of the band's website (which is like a Tardis journey back to 1994). In short, the band began in late-'70s Adelaide as a high school recording project for Antony Kimber (a.k.a Kimber Dean), Baden Smith, Michael Spargo and Andrew Bayfield. Musical inspiration is cited as the Sex Pistols, Bonzo Dog Band and the Tubes, a triad that manifested perfectly in the recordings which followed. After a couple of low-key cassettes, now compiled on an equally low-key CD, the band released the (I Wanna Be) Dr Who/Knup in Your Eye 7" in 1980, for which they have become best known. Less widely recognised is the second Jackson Zumdish single, the Flyblown EP, released in an edition of either 650 (according to the JZ website) or 500 copies (see below) in 1981.

In the Ugly Things piece, Kimber described Jackson Zumdish's lyrics as "an expression of anarchy and madness", but here is where our reservations kick in. Like Alain de Botton doing a karaoke rendition of Paralyzed, what comes through is an intellectual play at being unhinged, rather than any semblance of the real deal. That feeling is exemplified here by Internal Organs, a song interpreted by some as a pisstake on the morbid fascinations of Throbbing Gristle et al., but which sounds to us like something that might have been heard at the 1980 Adelaide Uni Med School Revue. However, what makes the song a success is that its skewed take on "It's what's on the inside that counts" is genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny. We're particularly fond of the redundancy in "Pancreatic juices come from the pancreas" - the "Tonight I'm gonna rock you tonight" of Adelaide DIY - but the kidneys and the appendix turn out to be connected to the funny bone, too. Unfortunately, the joke wears thin over five minutes, especially in the later spoken section, and a Just Urbain-like edit would have given things more punch.

Internal Organs [Download]

The real sleeper on the EP has turned out to be the title track. Initially overshadowed in its whimsy by the sledgehammer approach of Internal Organs, Flyblown has revealed itself over time to be the record's highlight. We're compelled to slot its entomological vocalisations between those of I'm A Bug and Human Fly, but the real insight into the band's inspiration comes from the alto sax solo which references Flight of the Bumble Bee (we recommend headphone listening for maximum bug-like effect). And unlike its subject matter, at a relatively economical three-and-a-half minutes it doesn't outstay its welcome.

Flyblown [Download]

The record is also notable for the inclusion of two early JZ compositions, dating back to 1978. The House Detective wins points for the use of cardboard boxes instead of drums (something of an Adelaide DIY tradition, but we'll get to that later); and marriage to a potted plant, as detailed on Plant Phase, is duly noted as being fraught with pitfalls. Musically, though, these songs are less impressive - readers are invited to track down the EP to make up their own minds.

Lastly, this record has added a useful term to the Wallaby Beat lexicon. The state of being flyblown - in which flesh becomes infested with blowfly maggots - is an apt description for vinyl housed inside a PVC sleeve for 30+ years. Flyblown's cover, an elaborately printed plastic wallet, is prone to inducing the same "clouding" effect as that caused by the bane of every record collector's existence, the thick plastic protective sleeve. The hissing you hear in the sound files above is from our particularly flyblown copy.

"The music is nonsense, but the approach is no-nonsense": from the Adelaide Advertiser, 1981.

It Never Ends: Everybody Loves Just Urbain 7" Shake SM4 (PRS-2815), 1980

2011-11-13T10:45:00.002+11:00

Here's another it-never-ends which is guaranteed to send OCD collectors polishing doorknobs in their record cribs over, and over, and over again. Actually we toyed with starting a new tag, it-never-starts, for this one because just finding a copy, let alone one with a sleeve, any sleeve, is a conviction-challenging conundrum facing many an Aussie completist. What we're looking at today is the second record by Briso punks Just Urbain. Released in 1980 as part of the second batch of Savage/Shake 7"s, it appeared in a mind-bending brace with the also amazing second Young Identities 7", New Trends.

This is a great record and one well worth the time and effort to track down. One thing that sets it apart is Rod McLeod's filthy guitar sound running through all three tracks. A feature which has only really hit us recently is John K's belting piano on The End - probably the same set of crazy 88s used on the Fun Things EP, which was recorded at the same North Coast hinterland studio. Singer Peter Miller's lyrics are always interesting - sometimes reflecting on darker topics (here, failed suicide (on Hospital Bed), and capital punishment on the first Just Urbain record), and other times adolescent railing against the trend following Brisbane music scene (Everybody Loves).

What you see up above is how we think the first batch of copies appeared: naked, no band name. The front silk screened picture is glued to the inner bag as is the classic JU symbol rear sleeve (right), thus making a standard, two-sided, pocket picture sleeve inside which the record sits. Remember you can click on any of our pictures for full size versions.

Hand-numbered inserts should appear in all copies. As it says on the insert - 200 copies. The CD reissue says 300 and we've never got a straight answer on the actual amount.

Insert, "Your number" is in pen on originals.

We've had a few copies of this record cross the Wallaby Beat desk over the years and noticed there was a batch of copies with a somewhat differently constructed set up. These ones start by having the EP name (and thus band name) written on the front sleeve in highlighter pen. Highlighter pens had been around since 1963 but got a kick along in 1978 when fluorescent inks were introduced. There's a fluorescent yellow variation to a Victims sleeve, but, uh, we'll get to that. Anyway, we think these are later versions as they answer the question obviously worrying the Savage/Shake executives - how do you sell a record with no band name anywhere?

This time the front part of the sleeve stands alone as a one-piece, single sided print. These copies also have the insert pictured above (albeit with higher numbers), but also have another mini-insert repeating some of the information. Again, this mini-insert helpfully has the name of the EP and the track titles, thus ensuring mega-sales around Brisbane, and the world, or not. Here's how the rest of the sleeve works - the red and black silk screened JU symbol sheet sits inside the die cut inner sleeve so the JU appears through the die cut label hole. Then the little mini-insert slides in horizontally below the hole. Clever! Here's how it should look:

Phew, landed both of those variations. Mission accomplished. Then things like this appear in the mailbox, with penwork (allegedly) by Peter Miller:

The tracks on Everybody Loves can these days be heard in two places. First track down the Shakedown CD released by Dropkick (BEHIND022). This compiles the entire output of Savage/Shake and also features two great sets of liner notes by Rod McLeod and drummer Dave Holliday. A slightly different version of Dave's piece can be found at the essential Break My Face Just Urbain page. Secondly, 540 Records from Austin, TX, is reissuing all the Shake/Savage gear on 7"s, with awesome photos inside the gatefold sleeves and nice, clean mastering from the CD versions. Everybody Loves is available as we speak, late 2011.

Which brings us to today's track. As told to us over the years some kind of mistake was made when the tapes were sent down to EMI Custom in Sydney and an unedited version of Everybody Loves (the song) made it on to the original EP. The wailing guitar goes on for nearly a full four minutes and the song unnecessarily repeats a verse towards the end. The Dropkick and 540 releases have a 2 minute 40 second version which is how the band would have liked it to originally appear. We're not arguing with the band's preference for the shorter version but thought you'd like to hear it all:

Everybody Loves (1980 edit) [Download]

Everybody loves.... hunting thylacines.

Armchairs - Party Time LP Reverse/Missing Link MLB002, 1980

2011-11-06T19:27:00.005+11:00

As noted previously, Melbourne pub rock (a.k.a. the Carlton scene) has never been our bag. It was well before our time, but firsthand accounts from a punk perspective range from the dismissive ("flawed" and "an outgrowth of hippiedom" - Inner City Sound), to the antagonistic ("We were the exact opposites of the Carlton scene" - Ash Wednesday). But, all cultural prejudices aside, our main gripe has always been the music itself. The Prof summed it up best: "not enough stomp or belligerence". Still, re-evaluation of the Carlton bands has begun, albeit in a minor way, and in that spirit we too have started to dabble. We're not yet at the point of subjecting ourselves to Jo Jo Zep, but as time marches on, some of the scene's major players have begun to make more sense to us. Where Skyhooks once seemed wildly incongruous on the UK pressing of the New Wave LP (tellingly, a second Flamin' Groovies track was subbed in on the local version), they now seem only mildly incongruous; as we have aged to appreciate small doses of Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, a fresh listen to the Sports reveals that they may not have been so shitful after all. Even that first Dots single - a record that has perennially teetered on the edge of the "purge" pile - is starting to sound listenable. Come 2015, we may even upgrade it to "not bad".

Still, we cannot claim to speak with any authority on this scene. Indeed, the exact relationship of today's subject to Melbourne pub rock isn't entirely clear to us; however, given Inner City Sound's explicit exclusion of "the Carlton School", and the Armchairs' absence from that book, that's where they have been filed in the Wallaby decimal system. That said, as an example of Melbourne pub rock, the band does seem to represent a tangent with definite inclinations toward the new wave. At the Armchairs' core were Ian Stephen and Johnny Topper, with a revolving door of Melbourne musos fleshing out the band. Stephen will be known to readers of this blog as the vocalist on Marriage Is A Splendid Thing and Family Fun Parlour, the latter being one of the standout songs from the second Fred Cass and the Cassettes 45 (Fred/Lee Cass was also an early Armchair). On that record, Stephen mingles with the who's who of Carlton scenesters comprising Cass's band. Johnny Topper, on the other hand, should be familiar from his recurring role on the Fast Forward cassettes, the jokiness of which is carried through to much of the Armchairs' output. Both Stephen and Topper had previously released singles under their own names which the highly motivated may wish to seek out, but frankly, we'd advise against it.

The Armchairs' "new music" leanings are evident in the venue at which they debuted in 1979 (the Crystal Ballroom), and in the lyrics on their first single which rail against "that turgid crap that you hear on the radio" (the Ski Lo Lo 7", released on Stephen's own Reverse label, can be found here). The single is lightweight and light hearted, and much of the follow-up Party Time LP, originally written for a musical theatre production called The Zig Zag Follies, follows suit. Various internet sources tell us that the version of La Bamba which populates most of its B-side is either 17 or 20 minutes long, but we value 17 or 20 minutes of our lives too highly to settle that discrepancy. Among it all lie two songs of merit: the catchy if overly-long pub rock of Can You Guess? (with vocals by Graham Barker [sic]!); and Into The '80s, which has a certain punky attack in the drumming and guitars, and is our track of choice. It ain't The Now, but then again, not much is.

More detail about Ian Stephen's subsequent work (most notably with the Slaughtermen) can be found at his website. Allegedly, his latest release is a CD entitled This Is Really Gay, on International Art Wankers records. Johnny Topper can be heard each Wednesday as presenter of New & Groovy on Melbourne community radio station RRR.

Into The '80s [Download]

Differentials - Thriving Metropolis 7" EMI Custom 13061, 1981

2011-10-30T21:12:00.004+11:00

Record collector dreams, part 317. What if there was another Brisbane punk record? Maybe one from the fallow period between the giants of the late 70s and that short second period around 1982-3 (Public Execution, Mystery Of Sixes, Vampire Lovers). Wake up, daydreamer! Here it is.

The Differentials were a punk band who played around Ipswich and Brisbane from 1978 to 1983. Ted Elliott explains:

The Who's Who Of Australian Rock described us as Radio Birdman influenced. Not true. We played a couple of Ramones covers and very early Cure (10:15 Saturday Night) but mostly were a kind of pop punk outfit that eventually sounded like the Sunnyboys.

In 1981 the band recorded an EP and sent it off to EMI Custom for pressing. In a Spin̈al Tap-esque mix-up, when it came back from the plant the band's name failed to appear on the labels. Rather than print picture sleeves the band took the path of least resistance.

It was meant to be the name of the EP! 'Thriving Metropolis' by The Differentials. So the band changed their name to Thriving Metropolis for a couple of years.

While not an out-and-out classic, the record's a good'un, and a grower. The pick of the tracks is probably the Oi!-ish Think For Yourself with She's Nothing Special not far behind. All three tracks have a slow instrumental build before kicking in. Good, simple choruses all around though it must be said - some of the worst guitar solos you'll hear, and not in a good way. There are more Differentials recordings out there that it would be cool to hear some time.

I've got the (never-released) follow up EP on tape somewhere. I played a gig once with The Kremlin and a guy came up afterwards and told me he had heard a 'live' recording of us on 4ZZZ. I didn't know anything existed and, of course, I've heard nothing since.

This is the third record we've featured from Ipswich, all of them previously unknown and unheralded. We leave Ted with the last word on this small but happening scene.

Ipswich had a real band scene in those days and I always find it amazing that Gailes and Goodna alone produced The Upsets, The Differentials, Dumb Show, Limited Life, Resistance, The Fits/La Fetts and The Kremlin.

She’s Nothing Special [Download]

Don't Leave [Download]

Think For Yourself [Download]

Finch - Stay / Roses 7" Eagle ES1001, 1976

2011-10-23T19:07:00.000+11:00

In theory, Rose Tattoo and Lobby Loyde jamming out a tribute to the Hippie Love Weed* should be a stoner's wet dream. The reality is somewhat different; Realise Legalise's go-nowhere noodling is all leaf and stem, and - much like being dared to drink the bongwater - it'll leave you with a bad taste in your mouth. Fortunately, primo stoner grillfat is out there and findable if you have the right connections. Today, we open our secret stash.

Finch was active from 1973 to 1979, initially as Stillwater, then later as Contraband to avoid confusion with a similar ornithologically-inclined Dutch band. A number of releases document each phase throughout the '70s, but our focus here is on Finch's mid-period, a relatively brief window when three records were released on the band's own Eagle label. A debut LP, the well-regarded Thunderbird, appeared in May 1976, and was ushered in a month prior by a 45 with an album track as its A-side. Stay is not a bad song, highlighting the proggy tendencies noted elsewhere, but for Wallaby Beat purposes it's the non-LP B-side which delivers the goods.

Roses, an excellent sub-Quo dotted-rhythm crunch, first appeared in 1974 as one of three Finch contributions to the Drouyn soundtrack LP. The rawness of the original is appealing, but the re-recording showcases a more forceful performance from a band in its prime, captured perfectly by crisp and heavy production. Of course it's the lyrics, with their singular preoccupation and paranoia about the fuzz, which are the icing on the hash cookie. We can't vouch for the horticultural accuracy of the chorus, but there's no arguing the catchiness of its hook. And thankfully, the original's pre-solo declaration - one of grillfat's cooler exclamations this side of "Stick this in your fuse box" - is retained from the Drouyn version. Download it, pack it in your iCone, and get real, real gone for a change.

Roses (1976) [Download]

Roses (1974) [Download]

A second single from Finch's self-released era followed in December 1976 (Short Changed Again / One Nighter, Eagle ES 1002). Regular readers will know that we're as partial to the odd piece of long-haired misogyny as the next bogan, provided selves are not taken too seriously and sick riffage abounds. Alas, Short Changed Again falls at the first hurdle. Don't these dorks know that they'll keep getting cock-blocked until they learn to stop tripping over their own knuckles? As for the riffing, the song presages Finch's descent into mersh hard rock - decent enough, but proceedings would benefit greatly from knuckles and musical balls occupying adjacent real estate. Compared with Roses, you will certainly feel like you got less than you bargained for. A live version of the song, featured alongside AC/DC and Radio Birdman on 2JJ's Long Live The Evolution LP (AA9042, 1977), is included here for educational purposes only.

Short Changed Again [Download]

Short Changed Again (live) [Download]

After the release of Short Changed Again, Finch moved south to Melbourne and embarked on a tour with Supernaut. Line-up reshuffles ensued, including guitarist Bob Spencer exiting for Skyhooks (and, eventually, the Angels), and Mark Evans, freshly ejected from AC/DC, joining the fold. The new-look Finch released the major label Nothing To Hide LP in 1978, along with a number of singles. There are a handful of passable songs on the LP (Nothing To Hide, Leave The Killing To You; both issued as 45s), but on the whole it's characterised by a lack of inspiration and tepid production. 1979 saw more rotations in the line-up, the name change to Contraband and a final LP which continued the downward trajectory. Grillfat ultra-nerds can keep themselves entertained with pressing variations on these records, but that's a level of It-Never-Ends mania beyond even us. We'll leave the grilling to you.

* With thanks to The Mummies.

Form an orderly queue, ladies.

Seven Ballerinas - Sometimes I Feel 7" Jump 13176, 1982

2011-10-15T09:14:00.085+11:00

Last week's piece of Joy Division worship reminded us of another one from a more unlikely location - Queensland's Gold Coast, home of Surfers Paradise. The rock'n'roll history of this strip is short and uneventful. It didn't become much more than a holiday destination for Brisbanites until the '50s and its first dent in the collective consciousness of rock fans is when the Creatures, of Ugly Thing fame, set up shop there for a few months in the mid '60s. The locale is perhaps best known to readers here as the scene for the photo on the back of the Riptides' 77 Sunset Strip sleeve. Miami was also the home of the Magic Castle immortalised in a song on that 7".

Homegrown talent from the area is pretty thin on the ground. In the late '70s it was cover band hell, and although the OC hardcore sound and look took hold amongst the surf grommets in the early '80s, any punk bands that did form unfortunately never released anything, at least until Asylum in the mid '80s. There are only four (and a half) records from the Gold Coast from the era we cover, and only two we'd consider documenting. Apologies to the Ballistics, Sigh Of Relief and Squadron Leader. This 'un sees a band straddling Joy Division's transition into New Order. The vocals and guitar echoing the former, with the latter being represented by the strong rhythm section and the synth. "Hey, press that button that makes a sound like steam escaping again". We take the piss, but note that this one has survived the cull pile here on several occasions over the last few decades. Something keeps drawing us back. Needless to say it's not the further transition into new romantic horse shit evident on YouTube.

Sometimes I Feel [Download]

Nervous System - Pied Piper 7" no label 13195, 1981

2011-10-09T18:33:00.001+11:00

Readers with well-worn copies of Inner City Sound will know Nervous System from the tantalising description "raw, arty neo-punk", accompanied by artwork resembling a rejected SPK single sleeve. "Neo-punk" is evocative but, 30 years after the fact, a little ambiguous. The translation in the Who's Who of Australian Rock - "hard-edged new wave" - is more specific, but misses the mark somewhat. We prefer the summary of an anonymous 2JJ announcer: "More Joy Division than Joy Division".

Nervous System's core members - Anthony (vocals, guitar), Emmanuel (bass), and two Jameses on synth and sax, respectively - were arts students attending the same Sydney college in the late '70s. A year or so after the band's formation, drummer David completed the line-up. Throughout 1980 and 1981, Nervous System played a total of 13 shows in Sydney and Newcastle, supporting the likes of the Laughing Clowns and the Go-Betweens, as well as the usual M-Squared suspects at that label's residency at Brownies (the Paddington Green Hotel). The band recorded the three songs comprising their single at the M-Squared studio (see recent entries on the Sheiks and Seems Twice), prior to playing a final show supporting Models at the Trade Union Club. The 45 - an EMI Custom pressing - was released posthumously in December 1981.

Saxophobes should not be deterred by that instrument's appearance in the line-up, the honking being limited to just three notes on one of the tracks (the best one at that: Rendition). The Joy Division influence is pervasive - Rendition, for example, has overtones of Transmission, but elements of Unknown Pleasures are present throughout. Small touches, like the use of tremolo on the guitars, and indeed the sax, add some necessary points of differentiation.

Worthy of note is the single's excellent sleeve, a screen printed oversized envelope, with the band's name hand-written on the front and a contact address stamped on the reverse. It's a cover almost guaranteed to confound the condition-OCD afflicted collector - not only is it subject to the tattiness common to oversized sleeves, condition is further compromised by the envelope being sealed with the record inside. The precision with which original owners cracked the seal varies considerably.

After Nervous System disbanded, various members played in Idiom Flesh, 3 Musketeers and the Loop Orchestra. A 1985 Nervous System single (Stranded / Islanders, on Art & Graft Records) is the work of an entirely different Melbourne band.

Pied Piper [Download]

Last Avenue [Download]

Rendition [Download]

Cartoons - Feel My Heart-beat 7" Ready Steady RSVP001, 1980

2011-10-02T18:26:00.002+11:00

If you've ever sat and listened to us for long you'll know we require powerpop to have at least an inkling of power. Nasty Facts, Numbers/Riptides first, and similar are our reference points. Occasionally though we'll drop our guard and let something twee, sappy and lovelorn through our defences.

The Cartoons were an all-but-forgotten Sydney mod/pop band. We've never seen a record of them ever playing live. Neil Sheridan, Bruce Parker and John Voulgarakis popped into Basilisk Studio in 1980 to record their only 7". Of the two sides Watchout! Beware! is the weaker, the TVPs style vocals offset by some almost jazzy guitar playing. Feel My Heart-beat is much stronger - a few cool melodic ideas and the counterpoint backing vocals under the chorus revealing a songwriter willing to try a few things. Perhaps his efforts are only let down by the song's length, proceedings going on a tad too long. Remember, aspiring pop song writers, to take a tip from the strippers' handbook - leave 'em wanting more.

Feel My Heart-beat [Download]

Seems Twice - Non-plussed 7" Doublethink DTDT 12, 1980

2011-09-25T18:28:00.001+10:00

In the spirit of today's subject, we'll keep things short and to the point. Salient features:

Average song length = 25 seconds.
There are more building blocks on the front cover than are used in the construction of each song.
Like the Sheiks single, excellent production comes courtesy of Scattered Order and the M-Squared studio.
Heavy influence is drawn from Wire, whose 106 Beats That was covered live.
Conversely, approximations of the D-beat found in Salient Feature and Warhol are less a direct influence than a shared response to a technical limitation (viz. independent coordination of right hand and right foot).
Check out that guitar sound - monstrous, like nuclear stockpiles; enormous, like a door slamming in the depths of hell. Grown record collectors are said to weep at the guitar sound on certain DIY records. As we drop the needle on side 1, we laugh at those crybabies and proceed to trash our living rooms when the descending riff kicks in.
A live cassette was released on the 2 Tapes label from Wollongong. To maintain the self-contained conceptual integrity of the 7", don't click here.
Play loud.

Salient Feature [Download]

Wish It Is [Download]

Non-Plussed [Download]

Side Effects [Download]

Column One [Download]

Warhol [Download]

No Clear Ideas (Absorption Retention) [Download]

Real Arafat [Download]

Metropolitan Recluse [Download]

Look At It [Download]

Abrupt Alteration [Download]

Anglican War [Download]

The Dri Horrors - In The Day The World Ended 7" Horrible HOR-001, 1982

2011-09-17T18:15:00.136+10:00

Syzygy is the longest singular word in English with no vowels. So I remember my mum telling me back in the early '80s. Now nearly thirty years later I find out why the word was even in her mind.

On Wednesday, March 10, 1982 the planets of our solar system came within 91 degrees of each other, all on the same side of the sun; a state of syzygy. Astronomers tell us this is a very rare event. Funnily enough it brought out the end-is-nigh crackpots.

That same night freaks of a different kind were drawn en masse to French's Wine Bar, a dingy and much loved basement venue on Oxford Street, Darlinghurst. The event was a celebration by the Dri Horrors of the potential end of the world.

The story of kiwi legends Toy Love's time in Sydney has been retold several times - see the epic Chris Knox interview in Forced Exposure 18, or Stranded In Paradise, or parts of the Toy Love website. Towards the end of their time here drummer Mike Dooley expressed a desire to switch to guitar. The band decided it was all too hard to continue, and to incorporate this change. They secretly broke up, telling no-one until they completed a short New Zealand tour. Dooley returned to Sydney and started a twin guitar band with our man Paul Cupples of The Sheiks.

The tale of the Dri Horrors is told here by Knox in much more entertaining fashion than we can conjure. In summary, they got together, gigged a bit, recorded this EP and an unreleased album, booted Cupples, recruited half of Proud Scum then broke up after the death of their drummer Animal.

What we find interesting is the incursion of the famed New Zealand sound on an Australian record (recognising of course that three of the players are ex-pat Kiwis). We'll leave it to listeners to decide if it's the Dunedin, Wellington or Auckland variant on show here. It's most evident on Drown Or Swim and Maybe Next Time - downbeat, repetitive strum giving a drone-y effect, with a bit of the angular approach favoured by Wellingtonians. Sing Me A Song shows the most similarity to Cupples' earlier efforts in the Sheiks - a bit shouty, the guitar strokes dramatic. Part Of You has a jaunty, bluebeat rhythm (the other six letter word in English with no vowels) that we can't quite come at.

Part Of You [Download]

Maybe Next Time [Download]

Drown Or Swim [Download]

Sing Me A Song [Download]

Sheiks - Ten Times Around 7" Standard SINGLE 1, 1980

2011-09-11T15:41:00.002+10:00

You may have read some hype about the Sheiks' first single, released in 1979 by our old friend the Local Label. Well, someone's wallet was lightened to the tune of 110 bucks to find out what we can tell you for free: it sucks. Two parts whitey blues and one part Dylan cover will always a turd cocktail make, and no amount of comparison with Dr Feelgood can render it any more palatable. As with past cases of seller-generated hype, emptors should consider themselves caveated.

The real three-figure Sheiks record is the second single, though Popsike and the unclaimed copy in the Wallaby Beat trade pile might argue otherwise. Perhaps listening to Ten Times Around - which we invite you to do at the link below - will help to redress the balance. Hard to know what happened in the year between records to prompt such a drastic reorientation, but we suspect that the release of Entertainment by Gang of Four might have had something to do with it. The perfectly mid-fi recording (courtesy of Scattered Order and M-Squared) works in the song's favour, and the forcefulness with which it's delivered makes its dissonance sound less "post-" and more "punk". Rondos fans are unlikely to be disappointed.

In fairness to the first single, there are microscopic traces of Ten Times Around in one of its four songs (When You Bring Home Your Pay). Not enough to elevate it beyond being passable - we're talking a generous C-minus here - but just enough to connect the dots. Similarly, Ten Times Around's less strident flipside signposts singer/bassist Paul Cupples' next outing - we continue that story next week.

Ten Times Around [Download]

The Illusions - Mirror Image LP Shark SF359, 1981

2011-09-04T19:03:00.009+10:00

Looking like an unknown Music De Wolfe library LP, the eye you see peering over Bruce Lee and Geoffrey Holder's shoulders on the LP cover above is one you're unlikely to have seen staring at you from any record stacks before. An obscure Melbourne powerpop record that truly sank without trace - it has literally taken us over a decade to track down a copy. More on that later.

The Illusions were a pop band from the Blackburn and Box Hill suburbs in East Melbourne. Members were Mark Davis on vocals, guitar and bass, Phil Tregonning on vocals and guitar and Peter Allan on drums. We caught up with Mark recently to get the skinny on their sole LP Mirror Image.

Phil, Peter and I went to school at St Leo's senior school together and in about 1971 I started to learn guitar. I just loved music. The Monkees in particular appealed to me - catchy, fun songs with great melody lines. We got together by chance in Form 4, 1973 I think, and started jamming in a mate's dad's shed, he was a ham radio expert and built us some little amps. We called them the rats' nests due to all the wires amongst the valves. When we left school we would practise songs most nights and weekends, as well as going to see bands like The Aztecs, Madder Lake, Red House Roll Band etc.

As we all worked days we decided that rather than play live at night, that we would do a Beatles and record our songs at night after work. In 1981, we found a studio called Labsonics in South Melbourne run by Gerry Duffy (Labsonics still exists in Sydney today). We would go about twice a week for about two months to put down the tracks. He had a 24 track two inch tape machine which was really cool, as being a three piece we liked the idea of overdubbing a lot to fatten up the sound.

The backwards guitar on Gone Too Far really stands out. How did that come about?

This was an idea I had as I read somewhere back then that the Beatles did it. We just put the tape reels upside-down, played the lead break as normal and once played the correct way that's what comes out. That's my favorite memory of the studio time: beer and experiencing a bit.

I played a 1972 Fender Mustang through a Gibson amp with distorion and chorus pedals and Jazz Bass on all the songs. Phil used his Fender Telecaster. Drums were Ludwig.

The name Illusions was my idea as we were a band that did not play live much, but locked ourselves away in the studio. Mind you, the cost was difficult to maintain as studio time was expensive and all paid for by the band.

We were never a punk band - that scene came a bit later, we preferred our own songs, but loved going out to see all the other groups around. Bands that influenced us? Lots: The Gentrys; Shocking Blue; The Beatles; The Monkees; Suzi Quatro; The Aztecs; The Who; Humble Pie; Madder Lake; ELO; Badfinger; Jo Jo Gunne; The New Dream.

Despite the diverse list of musical mentors perhaps the biggest influences that can be heard on the album are at the poppier end of the spectrum: The Beatles and Badfinger. Given there are only eight tracks on the LP, one problem is that the songs are all a bit long. Nevertheless, there are lots of good ideas at play. Mark is humble about the LP.

I thought only two or three songs were any good: Say It Isn't True, Gone Too Far, I Was There. These songs were written about things I was feeling emotionally at the time. They were personal things. Say It Isn't True for example is about the death of John Lennon. I Was There is about being pushed into a law degree I could not cope with...I wanted to be in a rock band.

You only pressed 100 copies of your 7" Empire Builder, how many copies were pressed of the LP?

Fifty.

Come again?

The reason we only made fifty copies was that I was was not sure how the LP would go. We went to all the radio stations and labels we could find to give our records to - Au Go Go, Missing Link, 3RRR, 3CCR, EON FM, Molly, Deluxe Records, Mushroom, etc. Only 3RRR gave us a chance. I was very disappointed we couldn't go further, but Phil and Peter really didn't have their heart in it after a while. I did some solo stuff but it never made it to vinyl.

No wonder this was tuff to track down. We teased you with a 69 copy pressing last week but as always we like to one-up ourselves from week to week. Here's our and Mark's favourite two tracks.

Say It Isn't True [Download]

Gone Too Far [Download]

Update: Download the whole LP at Girls From Tahiti.

Rejected - First Offence 7" EMI Custom PRS-13775, 1985

2011-08-28T17:10:00.005+10:00

To paraphrase Buddy Rich by way of Frank Costanza: Australian hardcore...this is not our kind of hardcore. We'll leave it to scholars of the genre to compile the definitive '80s hardcore punk world rankings, but Australia's output sits well behind that of heavyweights like the US, Sweden and Japan. Better than France? Not as good as Germany? Whatever our position in the league table, it's hardly a source of national pride.

There are exceptions of course, and some gems to be found among cassette releases, but in general the vinyl landscape of Australian hardcore is bleak. Some of this stuff has seemingly developed cachet in certain circles, but as support for our prejudices, we'll direct you to the back-catalogues of Cleopatra and Reactor Records as the last word in mediocrity. Not all of it is bad, necessarily, but at best it's undistinguished. In some cases the records simply haven't aged well; in others, it's clear that there wasn't much going on to begin with. And then there's the Crucified Truth EP, which flat-out sucks no matter how you slice it.

So what's so special about The Rejected, then? Well, at first glance, not much. Their First Offence EP from 1985, a 300-press EMI Custom job, is blighted by two elements guaranteed to sink any hardcore record: bad (i.e. good) production and cheater-beats. The clarity of the recording is problematic across the board, restraining the songs from achieving the requisite level of urgency, but it's Personal Gain and You Don't Care which are the main offenders in the cheater-beat stakes - drumming lost in the no-man's-land between traditional hardcore polka rhythms and blast-beats, minus the propulsion of the former and the BPM of the latter. Copper, which closes out the record, is Plod by name and plod by nature, and does little to redeem proceedings.

What is significant about First Offence is its use of the D-beat. For the benefit of anyone reading this from under a rock, the archetytpal D-beat can be found in the first seconds of the first song on the first Discharge record, and thereafter up to the crushing Why 12". Others may have beaten them to the punch, but there's a reason it has come to be known as the D-beat and not the Buzz-beat: Discharge delivered it with such conceptual singularity as to map out the raw punk blueprint for the next 30+ years. In other countries the D-beat was embraced as an important stylistic innovation, but Australians, it seems, were not early adopters. Similar impulses manifested differently in Seems Twice (more on them later), but there's scant recorded evidence of the kind of direct influence apparent in Scandinavia and beyond. Discharge was held in high regard here, as various covers of the era attest (Decontrol by Sick Things; Never Again by Public Nuisance; State Violence, State Control by Mob Vengeance), but those covers are telling in and of themselves - not a D-beat among them. And on the rare occasion that D-beats did show up in Australian hardcore songs, the effect wasn't particularly Discharge-like (check out this pretty good and relatively early example from End Result; various takes by Arm The Insane are also littered across their generally dire discography).

Nuclear War and You're The Victim are notable, then, for being Australian D-beat songs with a heavy Discharge influence in the structures, riffage, and lyrics. The slickness of the recording is still less than ideal, but the songs do have brevity on their side, and they're the definite highlights of an otherwise unremarkable record. Both songs would be re-recorded for The Rejected's subsequent LP, but disappointingly - much like Diamond Head's fate at the hands of some other band - D-beats were conspicuously absent on the new versions. Which means that our interest in The Rejected ends here. Gluttons for punishment may wish to track down their second (and final) LP, but with a pressing of just 69 copies, we wish you luck and a speedy recovery to full mental health.

Personal Gain [Download]

Nuclear War [Download]

You're The Victim [Download]

You Don't Care [Download]

Copper [Download]

Nuclear War, what the fuck is it good for?

The Word - I Think I'm Falling In Love 7" Infinity K7781, 1980

2011-08-20T17:49:00.144+10:00

You're probably familiar with the Inner City Sound discography, and how after studying it for two decades you think you have a handle on it. Then you realise there's an obscure Infinity label record right at the end - no other mention in the book, or elsewhere really. Damn!

Well here it is. The Word were a punk band from Canberra who started in 1978. In 1980 they somehow got to record this single in Sydney. It was released on Festival subsidiary Infinity, continuing that label's flirtation with powerpop while they sat on money made from Sherbet. Festival house producer Martin Erdman sat behind the desk.

Members over the band's existence included Michael Moriarty (vocals/guitar), Peter Palij (guitar), Terry Sounder (vocals/guitar), Archie Van Der Glass (bass), Frankie Villegas (bass, on the record) and Darcy Deegan (drums).

The record is somewhat over-produced, and, at the best of times, if there's one word to describe the Canberran approach to playing guitar it's tentative. Nevertheless, the band's enthusiasm shines through, and the Only Ones style vocal inflections are effective. As poppy Oz Rock it fit the sounds of the time and we're kinda surprised it wasn't some kind of hit. The flipside, Angel, is less distinguished - ramping up the Oz Rock at the expense of the powerpop. Only Moriarty troubled the compilers of the Who's Who Of Australian Rock again, ending up in the Gadflys.

I Think I’m Falling In Love [Download]

The Word, from Canberra Punk & Beyond on Facebook.

Mopsie Beans - Appearances LP Mopubs SR8101, 1981

2011-08-14T15:07:00.001+10:00

Mopsie (a.k.a. Elizabeth Ward) and Jerry Beans formed an ongoing creative partnership in the mid-'70s, the Conservatorium-trained Mopsie writing music and Jerry contributing some unique, funny and unmistakably Australian lyrics. The pair were genuine iconoclasts, especially in Sydney's western suburbs, around which they'd lug their own PA and set up DIY performances (literal train-spotters may recognise the old Blacktown station on the LP's front cover). Initially, Mopsie would sing and play live with keyboards and drum machines; later, backing tapes were introduced, allowing her to pursue an ever more theatrical performance style.

Almost inevitably, Mopsie crossed paths with the fledgling westie Local Label, which issued her One Out 7" EP in 1979 (Local MX189770). Though not our preferred Mopsie record, it does have its charms, and is said to have accrued some prominent supporters - the Introduction to Can't Kick the Sucky Tit and Other Cream Cakes, a self-published anthology of Jerry Beans's lyrics, notes that the EP received airplay from John Peel. Over time, this has morphed into a claim that the 7" was one of Peel's favourites, but given its absence from the infamous record box, we'll charitably assign that one a yellow verdict.

Puddy Blew [Download]

Mopsie's next (and final) record, 1981's Appearances LP, may ring bells for eagle-eyed scholars of Incredibly Strange Music, thanks to an incidental, blink-and-you'll-miss-it mention by Jello Biafra in the second of those books. Jello likened the LP to Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy (well, vice versa, actually) - to us, Mopsie sounds more musically theatrical and less experimental, but we say that fully acknowledging, sans blogs or Youtube, it's not a comparison we'd ever be able to critique. Say what you want about Jello, but the guy was switched on.

Appearances is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the more successful tunes, like L=E/R or Baby Romeo ("A sort of aging embryo"), are the kind of downer minimal electronics which would appeal to fans of the Denial single on M-Squared. Chaos, with its processed vocals, clunky drum machine and anti-rockist tendencies, should find favour with the more art-punk inclined. Elsewhere, however, things descend into absurdist, one-woman-band show tunes, but even then the music is odd and the lyrics unerringly eccentric.

After the LP, Mopsie pursued her interest in drama, directing and acting in plays which had evolved from Jerry's lyrics. A cassette with post-LP material - performed at the likes of Garibaldi's, Cabaret Conspiracy, Glebe's Toucan Cafe - was sold via mailorder, but we've been unable to locate a copy (drop us a line if you have one you'd part with). Mopsie maintained an involvement in the western Sydney theatre community up until her passing in 2007 - you can read an obituary at her posthumous Facebook page.

Chaos [Download]

L=E/R [Download]

Baby Romeo [Download]

The Happiness of Liza Sparks [Download]

Mopsie Beans (right), 1982

Lyrics for L=E/R (retitled Love Song) and Chaos, from Jerry Beans' Can't Kick the Sucky Tit and Other Cream Cakes (Mopubs, 1984)

Relatives - Picasso (Private Collector) 7" Red Ash RAP-001, 1979

2011-08-06T18:01:00.009+10:00

And we're off again. Let's begin year two with a little heard Melbourne punk record by a band notable for their odd iconography - fish, invented calligraphy, and a fairly unique pink and green colour scheme.

Starting as a school blues band at Brighton Grammar School in 1975, the Relatives made their punk debut as The Velvet Underpants at their school dance in 1977. Covers included the Saints, Sex Pistols, plenty of Lou and Bowie, and a fnarr fnarr throwback to their blues roots - Chain's Grab A Snatch And Hold It. After a name change to the Nooney Rickett 4, the band made its public debut beyond school halls and parties in May 1978, opening for News at Bernharts (formerly the Thumpin' Tum in the 1960s, then commandeered by News as a regular haunt).

Post-school the six members stayed together, had a name change to the more serious Relatives in 1979, and gigged aplenty at the regular Melbourne haunts - the Crystal Ballroom, the Exford, The Tote, Prince Of Wales etc. Their first 7", released in June 1979, is highlighted by Picasso (Private Collector) which encompasses all the things we love - instruments all racing to get to the end of the song first, 1-2-3-4s (including one to end the song), and lots of attitude: eventually, Pablo Picasso was called an arsehole. A simple riff and some nice acid guitar underpin Now She's On The Beat, a tale of prostitution. Clock Struck One rounds out the record.

Bassist Simon Kain recalls:

"We pressed 300 of the 1st and gave them all away on our launch nite - many were trashed then and there!"

Which jibes with the record's elusive nature. Some remaining copies we've had over the years also skip during Picasso, but keep at it - playable copies are out there.

The band continued until 1982 with one more 7", which features some more standard punk rock icons - we'll get to that later. Members ended up in the later garage influenced Wet Taxis, post-Sekret Sekret band Red Ochre, Chad's Tree and the Jackson Code.

There are some good Relatives resources on the web: a blog, Andrew Dowd's memorial page (with some live tracks), and some CD-Rs (email addresses at the bottom to get copies).

Picasso (Private Collector) [Download]

Now She’s On The Beat [Download]

Clock Struck One [Download]

Lyric insert

Free champagne at the single launch.

Fish and calligraphy...

We're taking a break...

2011-07-02T19:59:00.003+10:00

It has been a busy year - 55 records, 65 if you include It Never Ends variations, and a handful of tasty unreleased songs. We're pooped. Wallaby Beat will be on a short hiatus to allow us to recharge our batteries and plan for year two. Check back on August 6. We have some treats lined up.

But we're not done with the stats just yet. Here are the results of a readers' poll of sorts - the top ten most viewed posts from our first year in business:

The top three spots were hotly contested, with the lead changing more times than a Satriani/Vai/Malmsteen shred-fest. "But wait!", we hear you say. "British Jets should have made the list, but it was only posted two weeks ago! No wonder it has fewer hits!". Right you are. To account for this, we undertook Cox regression to estimate hazard ratios for different genres, adjusted for the number of external links to each post, the subsequent fame of former band members, and band members' propensity to repeatedly hit "refresh" on their own entries. The results are a closely guarded corporate secret - after all, we have to maintain a competitive advantage over cheap imitations. But, we can tell you the obvious: y'all have an insatiable appetite for punk and DIY; grillfat, not so much; and powerpop? Fuhgedaboudit.

We feel strongly about most of the records on this blog, and while we fully expect to see recent entries like Black Chrome and Invader in next year's top ten, we're surprised that certain others haven't accrued more page views. Here are five earlier posts that we think can mix it with the top ten:

Sick of the blog layout? There are some cool, unadvertised, alternative ways to view blogspot blogs. Here are mosaic and flipcard for ours.

Finally for this year we want to give a sincere thanks to the people who leave comments. While it's always great to hear from the bands themselves, our favourite commenter is Steve who, right from his hilarious memoir on the Celibate Rifles, has always had something salient or enthusiastic to add - thanks mate. But (almost) everyone is appreciated. Anonymous can, of course, fuck off...

The Flying Calvittos - Lucky To Be Australian 7" Groove PRS2728, 1979

2011-06-26T22:02:00.016+10:00

Ain't nothing like closure. Whether it's hearing from a band member from some no-count band forgotten by everyone except us, or nailing the last sleeve variation on some it-never-ends conundrum. Twoscore and eleven weeks ago we started this blog with Squeal Like A Pig, the punk track from The Flying Calvittos' Goodbye You Spaghetti Punks EP. We said then we'd come back for the rest. We won't ever split a record over two posts again, and to provide closure on this one we today present The Flying Calvittos: The DIY years.

The pick of the rest of the tracks for us is Lucky To Be Australian. The lyrics list events that play into the Australian psyche of being doomed at the arse-end of the world: Darwin, Granville, Hobart Bridge, West Gate Bridge, Voyager; even our old mates Fraser (not a popular guy among the, er, ~~Dagoes~~ Italian-Australian community) and the Hilton Bomber get a mention. We're exhorted to forget all that; the defiance lifting the crunching, elegiac riff into something beautiful. We half think this may have been used on a commercial or TV show theme some time in the decades between then and now - let us know if you remember.

Fastnet, about yet another disaster, is where we hear some definite Residents influence, maybe a bit of 1979's Eskimo. This approach is continued on the first of the Mamma tracks, Mamma's Recipe, a fine use of echo, sound effects and spoken snatches, perhaps presaging On U Sound's approach in the next decade. And to finish, Mamma's Table is where our boys descend into Italian new wave novelty - even piano accordion gets a look-in.

There's a self-released CD called 26 Hundred Moons floating around with all these tracks plus recordings from later in the 80s and the mid 90s.

Lucky To Be Australian [Download]

Fastnet [Download]

Mamma's Recipe Feeds The People [Download]

Mamma's Table [Download]

British Jets - Another Day In The City / No News 7" EMI Custom PRS-2890, 1980

2011-06-19T19:00:00.000+10:00

Back in July 2010, when we were taking our first tentative steps with this blog, we raved about the killer pop-smarts of the first Beaut single, remarking that the hooks and production were enough to win over even our Cro-Magnon tastes. We also alluded to a counterpoint in the form of the Ramones, contemporaries with whom Beaut shared some Judicious subject matter, but not the same musical "violence". Now, as Wallaby Beat closes in on its first birthday, it's time we came full circle with the last chapter in the Burnette/Cutelle trilogy.

You may also recall Branded, David Burnette and Lee Cutelle's "one step forward, three steps back" follow-up to Beaut, centring on guitars that couldn't decide whether they wanted to be the Sex Pistols or Supernaut (proving that the latter wasn't alone in liking it both ways). Less than a year after Beaut's cloying Why Baby Why? 45, diving headlong into punk rock was obviously too great a commitment. Of course, we're talking about a couple of guys whose first musical collaboration pre-dated The White Album, so taking things slowly was par for the course. True to form, it would be another couple of years before the transition was complete.

Recorded in Sydney as a studio-only project, British Jets' one and only 45 takes the Ramones archetype - downstroke powerchords and matching basslines locked in to furious 4/4 drumming - and infuses it with the familiar Burnette/Cutelle melodic sensibility. (Not that the two were entirely unrelated to begin with. Besides their titles, Beaut's and the Ramones' respective odes to Judy share one important conceptual similarity - both feature three chords, total). Each side is equally strong, delivered with energy, force and conviction, with David Burnette's characteristic lead vocals and Lee Cutelle's harmonies tying it all back to the Beaut/Branded lineage (listen for echoes of Generation Breakout in No News). It's a great single, a genuine two-sider, and in our humble opinion one of the best records you'll hear on this blog. It's a real shame nothing further was recorded in this style.

This was the first Burnette/Cutelle single to appear without the backing of Festival Records, and we'd be lying if we said its self-released, EMI Custom status doesn't add to its appeal. The clout of a "major" label didn't exactly make these guys the household names they deserve to be, and the British Jets single did absolutely zip to advance the cause. We have no idea what became of the pressing, but it is now among the scarcest of Australian punk records. A Sonics/Rarity/Legend trifecta from a pair with razor sharp aesthetic standards - David Burnette and Lee Cutelle, we salute you.

Unfortunately, a falling out meant that this was the swansong for Burnette and Cutelle's creative partnership. David Burnette moved to the UK, and at last sighting was earning a crust leading Richard Simmons-like aerobic fitness classes. As far as we've been able to ascertain, his discography ends here (David, if you're out there, we'd looove to hear from you). Lee Cutelle soldiered on, releasing more records (Trixters, Shy Ones) which are OK for what they are, but the magic brewed with his old foil had well and truly gone. More recently, he and Shy Ones collaborator Kathleen Murphy have moved in a "dance pop" direction with Moonlight Crush. Despite our best efforts, he's singularly uninterested in discussing his earlier bands. Lee, our door's always open...

Another Day In The City [Download]

No News [Download]

Buddies - Some Pop People / A Silly Song 7" Bestival Rochords 13291, 1981

2011-06-11T22:14:00.143+10:00

Remember Mighty Little's showdown between the primate (and his amps) and technology? Brisbane's Buddies perhaps had similar ideas but scaled them back big time, leaving just a schoolpad sketch of a cheeky schoolboy with just a single speaker/amp, over what we think is an extremely early (for Australia) representation of a bar-code!

As well as the artwork, just about everything else is scaled back on this release - the sleeve is just a one sided insert, and the songs (two self-referential pop songs about pop) and production (thankfully with no '80s 'frills') are rudimentary. The performance though is pretty good. We've labelled it pop, rather than powerpop, due to the lack of any powerful guitar - we're kind of hardarses that way. Still, the propulsion of A Silly Song by the bass riff is more than enough to get us excited. Then there's the handclaps - you do realise that nearly every Brisbane punk record features handclaps, don't you?

Los hermanos Wackley, Bob (bass) and Greg (drums), are the ace rhythm section on everybody's none-more-fine, high water marks of Australian punk - the Razar 45 and EP. Bob (as Bob Hood) later continued down a pop path in Grooveyard before turning to the mersh hard rock of the later Screaming Tribesmen. As far as we know Greg's only other appearance was in the Hostages (no way we're linking to that video - reputations must be preserved).

Then there's A Wyatt on guitar - enquiries are out for more info on Mr Wyatt's ID.

The Buddies also released a cassette, which from memory was called Three Kings, before disappearing down the memory hole.

Some Pop People

A Silly Song

Invader - Don't Blame It On Me / Anastasia 7" Machine Gun Rock 13084, 1981

2011-06-05T16:25:00.003+10:00

This biker band verges into punk territory with impressive results. One might think that there are lots of similar hard rock/punk crossovers from this period. There aren't.

- sleeve notes from the No One Left To Blame comp LP

For a country with such a strong track record in both kinds of music (punk and hard rock), Australian collisions of the genres were surprisingly rare. Yes, we have our proto-punkers; our pub, glam, and hard rockers who jumped ship; and our teen grillfat so amateurish as to achieve a punky edge. That's not what we mean. We're talking about wilful, artful combinations of punk and hard rock conventions, hybrids that have equal footing in both camps. Songs that can hold their own when viewed through the lens of either tradition. Though the opening quote was penned for Cleveland's Strychnine, it applies equally to anomalous Sydney Westies Invader, and their standing among the early Australian punkers. (It's just a happy accident that both play the Blame game).

In Don't Blame It On Me, the superficial trappings of genre cross-pollination are obvious - the Pistols' Submission re-routed through Marshall stacks. But if there's one characteristic that exemplifies the no-man's-land between punk and hard rock, it's the drumming. (If the mechanics of punk drumming make your eyes glaze over, you might want to skip ahead). Inherited from the likes of Slade, the four-on-the-floor drumbeat - in which every beat in the bar is accented by the kick drum - became a staple of Oz hard rock (check in here at around 1:55, or here at 4:13, or here whenever you damn please). At this tempo, it's usually accompanied by eighth-notes on the hi-hat - that's two hi-hat hits for each thump of the kick drum - propelling the song and, when played slightly behind the beat, making it "swing". Not here. Invader's four-on-the-floor lumbers instead of swings, delivering the sort of heavy-handed quarter-notes reserved by punk drummers for tempos of twice this speed and beyond. Ordinarily, a rhythm stripped of feel and pace is a bit like a gluten-free vegetarian pizza - what's the point? - but here it's perfect. Hey, true art ain't always pretty.

Don't Blame It On Me

For years, Invader was among the coldest of cold cases. Then, in October 2008, this website appeared out of the blue, prompting conniptions among collectors prone to daily Google searching. Suddenly, the mystery unravelled before our eyes. We'll hand over to Invader's Noel Thompson (guitar/vocals) to take us through the who/what/when/where/why:

Invader was a 3 piece outfit, the bass player was Jon Wilson and the drummer was Peter Borg. Jon played both a Rickenbacker and a Fender Precision bass and Peter, from memory played a Ludwig kit. I had a 1975 Gibson SG.

I hadn't played professionally in any band before Invader. I had auditioned for about 5 or 6 bands but none of them played the hard heavy stuff that I was interested in. I decided to form my own band. This was about 1978. I advertised in the newspaper for band members and got a response from Jon first. We both lived in the western suburbs of Sydney and so we joined up and then auditioned drummers and singers. We finally got Peter as the drummer who was an excellent fit for what we wanted to do. Singers were difficult and in the end I decided to take on the singing role myself. So the band eventually got up and going about late 1978, early 1979. We played around the pubs in Sydney and were particularly popular at two biker pubs. The bikers like their music hard and loud.

We recorded the single at Albert Studios in King Street Sydney on the [Australia Day long] weekend of January 24-25 1981. I wrote Don't Blame It On Me in 1979 and Anastasia in 1980. We were playing the songs live long before we hit the studio so we knew them backwards by the time we got to Albert's. The recording was done to try and attract some attention from the higher echelons of the recording industry. The record was a limited pressing of about 100 or 150, I can't recall the exact number. It was pressed at EMI. We sent them to many radio stations and music management companies. I have no idea which radio stations actually played the record but did hear that it got some airplay on the BBC in London.

I deliberately set out to write Don't Blame It On Me as a Sex Pistols style song. I really dug the Sex Pistols and all three of us liked our rock hard and heavy. Jon and I particularly liked and were influenced by Black Sabbath. Jon was a Geezer nut and I was an Iommi fan (hence the SG).

Noel Thompson with the SG, c.1979 (more here)

It Never Ends: Lipstick Killers - Hindu Gods (Of Love) 7" 1979

2011-05-28T18:23:00.348+10:00

For most record collectors it-never-ends is a stock-in-trade, a rule-of-thumb, a goddamn fact-of-life. For others though, like us for example, completism is not an unobtainable goal but the level to be met in every instance. Another such person is Mark Taylor of Sydney band Lipstick Killers and more recently the collector behind the conceptual greatness of the G45. Are you familiar with the G45? It is a compendium of US '60s garage 45s ordered by a three pronged ranking system. You can view the list in all its glory here.

In the G45 ranking the R factor (Rarity) and the S factor (Sonics) are more-or-less explanatory, but the groundbreaking aspect is the third rating, L for Legend. Like the number zero (or nihil) for ancient mathematicians, this gives us a new way of understanding the ebb-and-flow of records and why some are more desired at certain times than others. In the spirit of that, today we cover the ins-and-outs of the first Lipstick Killers 45 - Hindu Gods (Of Love) / Shakedown U.S.A.

The Lipstick Killers' story has been told at least thrice - in B-Side fanzine, then in Prehistoric Sounds, and then for the worldwide audience on the i-94 freeway. Let's recap:

post (our Wallaby Beat forebears) the Psychosurgeons' breakup the band morphed almost immediately into Lipstick Killers, final singer Stan Armstrong being replaced by Filth's Peter Tillman, and Kim Giddy coming in on bass. David and Mark Taylor on drums and guitar made up the rest of the band;
in 1979 the original rowdy, high-energy line-up recorded their debut single, Hindu Gods (Of Love) with Steve Harris of the Visitors on piano and Deniz Tek behind the desk;
a year of growing popularity in Sydney based on legendary live performances followed;
encouraged by Greg Shaw's enthusiasm the band moved to L.A. in late 1980 for a year and, while they played several shows, nought was coming of it so they broke up, eventually returning home.

Hindu Gods (Of Love) / Shakedown U.S.A (AUS Lost In Space, PRS-2661, 1979) S3/R3/L3

The first issue was an Australian EMI Custom press in a handsome picture sleeve. This one is elusive (especially without ringwear) and has maintained its legend status over the years, probably due to the sonics. Great songs, great riffs and strong vocals. Only the fact that the songs don't unhinge themselves keep it from reaching the rarefied heights of the S4s and S5s. 1000 pressed.

Hindu Gods (Of Love) / Shakedown U.S.A (USA Voxx, 45-1003 1980) S3/R1/L1

The first US pressing appeared on Bomp side-label Voxx. First presses come in the Blow Your Mind - Go Voxx! / Join The Voxx Rebellion company sleeve. The label font size is smaller, the Bug Music Group publishing credit is on one line, and the matrices read "Hindu" and "Shake". This variation is slightly harder to track down than the next though let's not pretend much teeth gnashing will occur before you get any of these. It appears the company sleeve can still be obtained on other 45s at the Bomp Store.

Hindu Gods (Of Love) / Shakedown U.S.A (USA Voxx, 45-1003 1980) S3/R1/L1

The second Voxx pressing comes with a redesigned label - larger font size, Bug Music Group credit over two lines, and more mundane catalogue number matrix etchings. The company sleeve too is redesigned, a less imperative, more self-referential "The spirit of the 60s, the sound of the 80s." This would appear to be the most common version.

Hindu Gods (Of Love) / Shakedown U.S.A (USA Voxx, 45-1003 1990?) S3/R2/L1
At some stage a third pressing took place, this time on silver labels. Somewhat surprisingly, given the perfunctory nature of much of their work, Bomp/Voxx added a lurid red picture sleeve for this actually quite seldom seen version. We vaguely recall this appearing for a few years on Bomp catalogues from about 1990. Unheralded at the time, and barely mentioned since, I can't imagine not wanting to own it.

The rest of the Lipstick Killers discography varies from a walk in the park (Inner Mystique comp 7", Mesmerizer variations), to the mildly sweat inducing later 7"s.

Hindu Gods (Of Love) also appeared on two Bomp compilations, the Experiments In Destiny double LP (Bomp! BLP-4016) and the Where the Action Is! promo sampler LP (Bomp! BLPR-3001, 1980).

No music today, surely these songs are either known to you or easy enough to get by dragging your sorry ~~arse to a record shop~~ mouse to an online purveyor of musical items. The songs are readily available on several recent CD compilations - Hindu Gods (Of Love) on Do The Pop! and Tales From The Underground, and Shakedown U.S.A. on Do The Pop! Redux Part One.

Makeshift - Love Is Everywhere? / Joke 7" NRG 13037, 1981

2011-05-22T20:37:00.006+10:00

We have a tendency to go on a bit when it comes to records we're enthused about. Perhaps you've noticed. Today, though, the facts we can relay aren't commensurate with our enthusiasm for this obscure DIY punker. Makeshift made a great record, and we know bugger all about it. But, as believers in the scientific method, allow us to propose some hypotheses which fit the available data:

This is a Sydney record (we presume as much because our copies were found there);
Paul Makeshift, one-time drummer for the Babeez, is no relation (see hypothesis 1);
Listening to the sound file below will lead to the prompt addition of this 45 to your wants list.

Alternatives to our H₀s about location and membership are welcome - info that leads to acceptance/rejection of the null even more so. After all, our prevailing theories about this record haven't always been well-founded. For example, our presumption that Makeshift was a one-man show doesn't stand up to closer scrutiny - there are at least two distinct voices orbiting the melody as Love is Everywhere? concludes.

Which leads us to the song in question, something of an unheralded classic of Australian DIY, making hypothesis 3 a no-brainer. The singer's a conflicted young chap, caught between wanting to live life at full speed and knowing he'll only be punished with bloodied knees and wounded pride when he does. Which of course is a metaphor for his form with the sheilas. Love is everywhere; he can feel it in his extremities, just not in the anatomy that counts, and since he's "not vicious enough to be Casanova" he only has himself to blame. The vocal performance contributes to the tension between bitterness and resignation played out in the lyrics ("sigh...here I go again"), as do the assertive downstrokes and contrasting tentative guitar fumbling which drive the song. Then there's the relentless drum machine, which stops for nothing short of the volume control on the mixing desk (there's a lesson there for our protagonist). In short, a loser rant propelled by amateur guitar hacking and an in-the-red Dr Rhythm - "an NRG release", indeed.

A second single exists, though we can't recommend it. Makeshift seemingly evolved into a real band playing real songs, recorded at a real studio with a real producer. It's a real bummer.

Love is Everywhere? [Download]

NRG: beating The Able Label at its own game.

Addendum, 24 May 2011
Price in pencil on the label + big circular sticker stain + frayed top edge + instant dust cloud when removed from the sleeve = Gould's Book Arcade.

RIP Bob Gould.

Terryfoot - Surfside 6 7" Rev PRS-2774, 1980

2011-05-14T18:40:00.016+10:00

It's a while since we've proffered a piece of pure powerpop here. Probably because previous posts from that genre haven't garnered the hits. But what the hell, you'll eat your vegetables as well as your meat.

Terryfoot (Terry Foot on the labels) were an obscure and short-lived Sydney band comprising Bruce Bellingham on guitar and vocals, Ian Hill also on guitar and vocals, Carl May on bass, and Zol Almady on drums.

As you would hope, Surfside 6 is an infectious pop track propelled by a hooky riff. Thematically - with surfing, girls, their tight jeans and the way they "smell so good" - we're also in the right place.

Bruce Bellingham has lobbed up more recently as Eric Mackenzie. Life's too short to figure out which is his real name so we'll just quote from his various bits and pieces on the net.

On making his first record:

I remember sitting outside the door of the studio at Double J in Kings Cross in the early '80s and the DJ looked out, saw me and said "come in, what have you got there?". I was promoting a single by my first band Terryfoot which had been pressed at the EMI plant. I would run into Roger Grierson who was up to the same thing with his band, EMI was one of the few places you could get 45s pressed. The DJ invited me in, we had an interview, the song got on "A" rotation. We used to wait at The Sandringham Hotel for the manager to turn up on his motorbike with the keys to the PA cupboard so we could play. It's still going. I hope to play there in the next few months.

On the footsteps in which he followed:

I have been into the sounds of the Stones of the '70s and early '80s, the glam and punk movements, Mick Ronson (David Bowie), The Pistols and The Ramones, pop rock from the '80s of the Cars and Billy Idol/Steve Stevens, some of the very early grunge of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, also Aussie bands AC/DC, The Angels and The Church.

With those influences, it's a pity Terryfoot didn't try to pull off a glam/punk blend à la Supernaut or Branded, but 1980 wasn't 1978. Again, you'll eat what you're given.

Surfside 6 [Download]

Die Dancing Bears - Drug Dance / New York Valentine 7" no label MX59905/6, 1982

2011-05-08T22:21:00.001+10:00

Die Dancing Bears' beginnings were in Adelaide, where vocalist Lynton Cox had gigged with Recoil, a training wheels punk band playing a few originals interspersed among Ramones and Stranglers covers. After the band's demise in March 1980, Cox dallied briefly with Cracked Actors before forming Die Dancing Bears in October with Daryl Champion (bass, ex-Void/Art Vandals), Liz Neat (drums), Kathryn O'Neil (keyboards), and Kym Tonkes (guitar). The band released a self-titled cassette the following year, before upping stumps and moving to Sydney where, in May 1982, this single was recorded with a slightly altered lineup - Neat (who found the band's music too depressing) having been replaced, initially by Iva Malone (who also found the band's music too depressing), then by Michael Waniarcha for the recording. Waniarcha found the band's behaviour depressing and was replaced by John Burgess after the single was recorded.

Drug Dance/New York Valentine was released in October, around the same time as Madroom's Cruelty of Beauty 12", making it among the first Australian records to veer self-consciously into UK-influenced goth-punk territory (though beyond Box of Fish, Club of Rome, Dorian Gray and perhaps Marble Soldiers, we can't think of too many others that fit the bill from the class of '82/'83). Goth, like Melbourne pub rock, is not our strong suit. Our experience extends about as far as TSOL's Dance With Me LP, which is to say, not very far; intentions of educating ourselves for this post fell by the wayside with the realisation that, ultimately, life's too short. That said, New York Valentine's sound is faster and more aggressive than we'd typically associate with the likes of Bauhaus and Southern Death Cult. Its pace, ascending riff, and discordant guitar clanging make it more akin to the Dead Kennedys' Bleed For Me, though given that it was recorded a month prior to Plastic Surgery Disasters, the DKs are an unlikely influence. We're on firmer ground in drawing a line to the Birthday Party's live run-through of Loose, and noting Cox's Cave-like vocal yelps - dig that opening scream.

The band continued into 1983 with additional line-up changes, but no further records would emerge. Tonkes later joined Madroom, vastly improving their sound on 1984's I Am For An Art... LP. Cox eventually returned to Adelaide, becoming a morning DJ on community station Three D. Sadly, he passed away in 2005.

New York Valentine [Download]

Yettis - Ray Price's Injuries 7" Not Those Records PK 01, 1986

2011-05-01T15:14:00.011+10:00

This week we venture north of the early-'80s for a rare foray beyond the Wallaby Beat temporal remit. Timeless classics are few and far between, but today's subject certainly qualifies (if "timeless" connotes the amount of time invested by the artist, that is). If you share our view that Purple Vulture Shit represents a high-water mark of human cultural endeavour, then comrade, have we got a treat for you.

As an AFL man, the full impact of Ray Price's proclivity for doing himself a mischief is somewhat lost on me, but I suspect that making light of it is about as tasteful as a joke about Barry Cable's leg. The lowdown on Mr Perpetual Motion's tenure with the Parramatta Eels can be found here (we recommend scrolling down to read the recollections of Johnno from St Ives). Alternatively, you can listen to the Yettis' touching tribute to the great man, which pretty much covers all of the essential bases. As you do so, we suggest casting an eye over Ray's likeness, lovingly reproduced on the insert - a piece that sits comfortably alongside works by the great visual artists of our time (Faxed Head, Unholy Swill, Psycho Sin, the Drills, this guy). A whole lot better than the whatchamacallit outside Parramatta stadium, at any rate.

The Yettis connect the dots.

Musically (I use the term advisedly), Ray Price's Injuries out-Black Eyes Waste Sausage with improvised flailing and feedback, and a walkman-level recording quality which makes Real Fucking Idiots sound like Radiohead. Wait, maybe it's the other way around.

Unfortunately, the credits give no clues to the Yettis' identity - personnel are listed as Kaptain (guitar), Standard Practice (guitar, harmonies), Hosey Funicello (guitar, harmonies), and Flatty (vocals, drum...yes, singular). Someone by the name of Doc is also credited with "nothing". However, some telltale slide guitar tacked on as the song's outro lends weight to our suspicion that the Yettis were the Painkillers in disguise, a theory which Tim Yo clearly shared (see below).

And just who were the Painkillers? Their songs comprise two-thirds of this disc, but beyond that we can tell you nothing. There was a Painkillers on the One Stop Shopping cassette from 1980, but the name is too common to conclude that there's a link. Nor is there any connection to the current gig for Mr James Baker, esq. The only person with a normal name on the entire record is drummer Barry Jones, but since he's not returning our calls, this one remains in the open case file. For the record, the Painkillers' contributions (Spider, Train Song) are post-Blood Red River, sub-Crampsian swamp rock in the vein of La Sect Rouge. Like the Eels' cheersquad, a pleasant enough diversion, but a mere warm up for the main event.

Ray Price's Injuries [Download]

Tim Yohannon connects the dots (from Maximum Rock 'n' Roll #49, June 1987), while the sceptics at Trousers In Action act like Yettis don't exist (#13, 1986).

Addendum, 7 June 2011
This just in from Mr E (a.k.a. Peter from the Painkillers), via Bruce Griffiths of Trousers In Action/Aberrant Records. Our thanks to them both for the info, and in particular to Peter for having the vision to preserve Ray Price's Injuries for future generations.

The Painkillers and the Yettis were two completely different bands. The Yettis were friends of ours but they wouldn't let any Painkillers play with them because we knew how to play our instruments and they didn't. They had a couple of electric Hawaiian guitar type things that they had bought from garage sales, an amp or two, a guitar, a drum and a microphone and although they couldn't play they liked making sounds (noise) out of them, but normally only did so in private. They did play a couple of times at Painkillers house parties and in general people hated them. However, as Bruce may recall, I had a certain fondness for chaos and decided to put Ray Price's Injuries on our record, because, after all, I was paying for it.

Yettis:
Flatty (Mike)
Standard Practice (Chris)
Kaptain (Gary)
Hose (Andy)

The Doc was sometimes their singer but didn't make it to the recording session of Ray Price's Injuries, which was recorded in Flatty's garage. A small portion of the tape was damaged so I cut and pasted on the outro, which is in fact the outro from the same session, to cover the damaged bit. You can hear Chris protesting "stop stop" etc. and the distinctive sound of the Hawaiian guitar. Ray's injuries are for real, and were taken from magazine and newspaper articles at the time that the Yettis had collected. They weren't actually footy fans but liked absurd things. I think the sketch of Ray Price was probably done by Kaptain but Andy may have embellished it.

On the other hand the Painkillers were a group of school friends from Linwood High in Christchurch, NZ, that one by one ended up in Sydney. We played only a couple of times in Christchurch, twice ending in riots, and then eventually played maybe about 100 times in Sydney and environs. Musicianship was lacking, but we were more about grasping the moment. It took its toll.

For the most part in Sydney the Painkillers were:
Vocals: Phil
Guitar: Dutch (Rimu)
Guitar: Prutts (Neil)
Bass: Mr. E (Peter)
Drums: Barry Jones

Neil is not on the record, he had gone to Perth or London at the time, and now lives back in Christchurch. Dutch died not long after the record was released. He fell from a train coming back from Queensland to Sydney. Barry Jones went into hiding in Queensland to get away from some bad people. Phil formed a band called the Hub, but has since died from an asthma attack. And I still live in Sydney, producing corporate videos for a living.

At the time, I took a bit of flack for putting the Yettis on the record, but I knew I had done the right thing when TripleM played it in a segment called "The Worst Records Ever" - not once, but twice. The fact that my non-musical mates jamming in their garage could be played on commercial radio warms my spirit to this day.

Guest Stars - Don't Wait For The Album 7" One Hit Wonder PRS-2892, 1980

2011-04-24T18:51:00.005+10:00

We are of the general opinion that band interviews are as boring as bat shit. (More boring, if anything. Can you make gunpowder from 90 gsm offset?). That being the case, we're not inclined to make the Q&A a regular feature. However, we are fond of this back-and-forth between the Guest Stars' David Guest (guitar) and Tony "AJC" Cahill (vocals), mostly because its tone so closely matches that of their record, a seldom-seen three-tracker pressed through EMI Custom in 1980. Just like the single, the duo's conversation is peppered with in-jokes (which, on our watch as sub-editors, will stay as such) and literary references ("I was rereading Miller's Sexus the other day and noticed the lyrics to Come On Everybody transcribed on the back page"). Even more prominent is the same self-deprecation which produced a record called Don't Wait For The Album on One Hit Wonder Records.

Following up his summation that the Guest Stars "sucked", David Guest notes that "I still think there is some merit in the songs and real musicians may have been able to do something with them". Real musicians did do something with the Pynchon rip that year, but with a running time of 78 seconds (and a guitar with just the right amount of out-of-tuneness), Bean Bag Charmers wins out as a mixtape staple for your attention-span-challenged correspondents. Those who share our aversion to band interviews can scroll down to assess its merit for themselves.

-----------------------------------------------------

David Guest (DG): Our first public appearance was entirely unpremeditated and unrehearsed and occurred at an intervarsity dance in Melbourne in approximately 1979. I just happened to know the chords for Wild Thing and She's So Fine and I wrote out the lyrics for AJC ten minutes before we then had the gall to front the band that was playing, borrowed a guitar and their bass player and drummer and proceeded to bring the house down. Naturally we should have quit then but we didn't and paid the price.

Tony Cahill (AJC): I remember you telling me that The Clash couldn't play an instrument which seemed a good enough reason to start a band. I had no musical pedigree prior to the Guest Stars. My musical education and interest in new wave music came from listening to your records when we were living in the flat at Randwick (Sex Pistols, the New York Dolls, New Rose, the Ramones!). Our routine was to listen to "What's On" on Triple J as we were driving back from Hensley Athletic Field late on a Saturday afternoon and decide who we would see that Saturday night. Ian Rilen's band X was a favourite. When out and about you wanted to be careful of the punks, not that we were afraid of them but you never knew when an ashtray might come whizzing about your ears. They were very much into uniform and looking surly, though I would have thought there wasn't much about life in Sydney in the Seventies that could genuinely create angst and anger in a young man. Our interest was in indie bands but we did see the bigger bands; Skyhooks when they played at the University, AC/DC at the Lifesaver etc.

DG: My memory and AJC's don't always converge but what is not in dispute is that AJC and I were the band such as it was and we variously used bass players and drummers as required.

AJC: Warren Hansford bought a drum kit on the cheap and you and I used to go to his garage to rehearse. His level of ineptitude on the drums was quite staggering and he didn't last long.

DG: We scratched around a bit over the next year or so without enduring too much humiliation but then came the infamous Law Ball at the Hilton Hotel.

AJC: We were sabotaged by your mates, the Lonely Hearts.

DG: Contrary to AJC's self-serving assertion the Lonely Hearts did not sabotage us, we (known then as Ray Rice and the Bubbles) were woeful enough to do that ourselves. After that train crash AJC and I emerged as the Guest Stars with a couple of new musicians and played at the Manly Vale where we actually supported the Lonely Hearts and the Farris Brothers, soon to become INXS. My abiding memory of that night was (sorry to speak ill of the dead) that prize prat Michael Hutchinson [sic] dripping in to the dressing room and asking Mick Rooney of the Lonely Hearts "had we seen their axes?", to which Mick of course responded, "No axes man but there are some guitars over there that aren't ours"...AJC then put up the money and we recorded the single. That was about it for the Guest Stars - we now had incontrovertible evidence that we sucked.

AJC: I don't know why we made the record. I had left University and was punting and must have come into some money. Life was all a bit random in those days, if something seemed like a good idea I would do it. Maybe 500 copies pressed? Not many copies sold, I would give copies away rather than ask people for money. I don't remember much about the recording session. We didn't record any other songs than those on the record. I have done nothing musical since.

DG: The lyrics to Bean Bag Charmers are a mish mash of thoughts inspired by Gravity's Rainbow but Thomas Pynchon pulled the right rein when he wrote liner notes for Lotion and not us. I generously granted a song writing credit to AJC...from memory I think he contributed the word "snowstorm". [After the Guest Stars] I dallied with the Lonely Hearts and the Lime Spiders, again, without ever really learning to play an instrument...amazing what you can get away with.

Bean Bag Charmers [Download]

Come On, Everybody [Download]

Success [Download]

Black Chrome - Australia's God / We Are Tomorrow 7" Tomorrow MA7202, 1978

2011-04-17T18:19:00.007+10:00

When we get our time machine working, Adelaide 1977 is pretty far down our list of destinations to visit. Despite being home in the '60s to a vibrant beat scene, Adelaide seemed to have well and truly shot its load by the time punk reared its ugly head (in contrast to Brisbane whose relatively moribund '60s and early '70s scene gave way to a thriving 1977). Hopped up on goofballs in Rundle Street in 1977, and wanting to avoid hippie, folk and boogie rubbish, you didn't have a lot to choose from. Maybe Phantom, a lively pub rock band led by an AWOL American Vietnam deserter, Irving and the U-Bombs, or... Black Chrome.

It must be said that of all the original 1977 Aussie bands Black Chrome are the one most shrouded in mystery. The single remains unheard, uncomped (but not unloved) and the facts we can report are scant. The original lineup was Simon Stretton on vocals, Simon Dillon on bass and Andrew Griffiths on drums. By 1978 it was Mike Flash on bass, Tony Techno on drums and Simon Stretton on vocals. No guitarist is credited anywhere. Stretton resurfaced in Ungrateful Children around 1980 (one track on the 5MMM compilation). And, um, that's it.

So to the record, perhaps the most singular sounding of the first generation Australian punk records with its restrained fuzz, and strange (moaning?) backing vocals. It's in the lyrics where the punch is packed - cut out the lyric sheets below and sing along.

Tomorrow also released the Bohdan X 7" of course. Black Chrome and Bohdan (in JAB) shared stages in Adelaide in 1977. Of note were the Bijou concerts, a movie of which was shown at the 2010 Adelaide Fringe Festival - you can see a tantalisingly brief glimpse of Black Chrome at 00:40 at this promo clip. A DVD of the movie is available from Patrick O'Grady at PO Box 336, North Adelaide, SA 5006.

Australia's God

We Are Tomorrow

30 April update:
Thanks to an anonymous commenter for this video. Fantastic Black Chrome footage and interview, and an interesting insight into some radio's resistance to punk in Australia in 1977. When we wrote this post we were gonna link the phrase "boogie rubbish" to the great original clip of the 1976 Angels (who were from Adelaide). Note the slight similarity between the Australia's God intro and bridge (around 2:05-2:15 of the mp3) and the bedrock riff of Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again (around 0:10-0:20). Now notice the alarming similarity between the Black Chrome singer's collar and Doc Neeson's raised jacket collar!

Henry Vyhnal - Punk Power 7" Corporate CHS 607, 1979

2011-04-09T18:28:00.130+10:00

One micro-genre we're gonna cop to not knowing everything about is Melbourne pub rock. Too many pairs of ill-fitting jeans for us, not enough stomp or belligerence. All is not lost though - borntobepunched recently started his PhD on unstudied Wallaby Beat and the literature search has unearthed three or four pretty good tracks out of the scene which we intend to spotlight later this year. For now though here's a track from one of its protagonists who did cross over and put out a pretty fine pop punk record.

Henry Vyhnal (real name, it's Czech) learnt violin from his classical musician father. You can read his full CV in the insert reproduced below, but in short he played the traps in the Sharks, the Pelaco Brothers and Millionaires, where he performed as Jimi Tomorrow.

Jimi Tomorrow was a character I invented just for the band. Captain Sensible did a similar thing in The Damned. In my mind, Jimi was a futuristic young punk...never a part of the status quo because he was in another time zone (the immediate future). He knew what was going to happen but nobody else did - and that was his alienation. The sort of 'punk' that Jimi was based on was more the James Dean/Marlon Brando sort of punk rather than Johnny Rotten. To me at the time punk was an attitude not a sort of music of costume.

Fast forward to 1977 (Jimi was already there) and a new kind of punk was everywhere. Henry could be found playing guitar and violin in the Babeez, on the Boys Next Door's Door, Door LP and Shivers single, and even (uncredited) on the Desert Rat LP.

The Babeez gig, as detailed at the link above, went for a while through 1977 and 1978. Vyhnal's interest in punk was sincere.

I wanted to see the movement happen. I saw it as a way of being involved in the scene and helping it along the way.

During this time (the Babeez pages say early 1977 - see Extracurricular work), he recorded his own 7", backed by Jarryl Wirth from Babeez/News on guitar, and Ash Wednesday and Johnny Crash (Janis Freidenfelds), both from JAB, on bass/synth and drums respectively. The single wasn't released until mid 1979.

Leaving aside the ballad A-side, Punk Power is an infectious, energetic piece of poppy punk, driven along by some great News-esque guitar. The song was actually written while in the Millionaires, and performed by them:

Punk Power was Jimi's attempt to tell people living in the present what was going to happen next. As it happened, it was a song about punk that predated its introduction into the mainstream.

Henry/Jimi is glorifying youth, while also warning the know-it-all punk kids that life gets hard as "hair falling out, teeth falling out, friends falling out" take their toll. Giving the kids guns is duly noted as a good idea. There is an intentional nod to the new punks with "we really mean it, man" a direct reference to God Save The Queen. This gives us another clue to when it was recorded, the Sex Pistols track coming out in May 1977.

Punk Power

Eagle eyed readers of the Desert Rat post may notice that the label and catalogue number look familiar. The single was intended to come out on Champagne but that label went into liquidation so a little rejigging of the label design was in order.

An insert came with some copies.

Jesus Jones aside, we don't endorse much krautrocky activity from Australia (and no prog with saxes), but we thought you should see this suitably mad Cybotron video from the mid '70s. Henry Vyhnal also played on some sessions with the band (or more precisely drummer Steven Maxwell van Braund) but not on this.

Credits - It's You / Fazed Dazed 7" Thunder FV001, 1979

2011-04-02T18:20:00.061+11:00

The Survivors were one of the surprisingly few Australian sixties powerpop bands plying their trade in 1977. We're talking about bands paying homage to their sixties forebears via covers, equipment and approach. We'll leave their full tale for another day, but in 1979 bassist Jim Dickson had decided to try his luck in Sydney (ending up playing in the Passengers), so guitarist Greg Williamson and drummer Bruce Anthon spent that year playing around Brisbane as The Credits.

Their only 7" presents as a nice mix of sixties lyrics and sound with a punky energy. Hanging around in the corner is a dash of that striped sunlight sound; that mix of shyness and brashness, innocence and knowing that permeates Brisbane records.

It's You is a cover of an Aussie 60s rave-up by Terry Dean, originally realeased on the Go!! label from Melbourne in 1965. Here the Credits credit it to Unknown. Mr or Ms Unknown was certainly prolific in the Brisbane punk scene - you might remember them from such songs as Wild About You on The Saints' (I'm) Stranded LP, or from the great (Mystery-Unknown) credit for the Bodysnatchers' Mystery (Solve It).

Apart from Anthon and Williamson, the record sees the recording debut of Tony Robinson, who you may know better as Tony Robertson from the 31st, the Hitmen, the first New Christs line-up, etc. "***" who is credited with vocals is actually Bruce Anthon too. Then there's "Spider" on lead guitar. Thirty years later the Brisbane mafia isn't letting on who this is, so we'll posit a theory. The address on the back is the original Adelaide Street address of Rocking Horse Records, where Anthon worked for many years. The Rocking Horse crew always had a strange fascination with Spider Sabich, shot by Claudine Longet in 1976. Maybe it's an in-joke; maybe it was someone else from Rocking Horse; maybe Williamson overdubs; maybe even Bruce himself, again.

We're not sure of the significance of the Yves Montand card from 1970 French flick L'Aveu, displayed on the cover. It's a film about imprisonment under a totalitarian regime. But these are songs about girls, not Task Force - perhaps it's the tyranny of love. Our comments are open if you can help.

It's You

Fazed Dazed

Update April 23: L'omerta has been broken and Peter Mengede has been fingered as Spider. Mengede, then working at Rocking Horse, where he was known as The Dude, reached fame in Helmet ten years later. This makes for a more auspicious recording debut for him than the usually quoted Watusi Now.

Hooker - Smashing Records / Don't Stop 7" X-Change XS-1/2, 1980

2011-03-26T18:27:00.047+11:00

Hard not to respect a record that so prominently displays a smashed 45 of the The Seekers' The Carnival Is Over. While we fully endorse that sentiment, it's a shame the same can't be said for Smashing Records, the lead song from this obscure single by Perth's Hooker (PJ Hooker on the label; PJ Hooker Band on the back cover; Hooker Band elsewhere). Quality control prevents us from posting it here, but the curious may want to check out this particularly noxious version, recorded live in 1982 at the Nookenburra Hotel. Be warned that it is 3:05 of your life you will wish you could get back.

Thankfully, the keyboards and new wave affectations which blight the live footage are largely absent from the single. Recorded two years earlier, its B-side is a creditable exercise in powerpop/rock. In fact, as a suburban Oz Rock take on the Marshall-amped powerchords of fellow Perth-ites The Manikins, Don't Stop fits neatly into the accidental powerpop genre discussed here previously. Though the musical terrain overlaps, we hasten to emphasise that the two bands approached it from very different angles. Their respective odes to the commercial radio DJ speak for themselves - compare Smashing Records ("I am a DJ...the greatest hits, the hottest licks", delivered without irony) with Radio World from the first Manikins 45 ("You like the way the DJ speaks but he just gives me the shits"). The artwork accompanying both singles further highlights differences in approach, but for now we'll leave Hooker's back cover to your imagination.

Despite plugging away on the local scene for another few years, there would be no further releases. After calling it quits in 1983, various members turned up in other Perth bands throughout the remainder of the '80s and into the '90s - Phil Foord surfaced briefly as bassist for well-regarded local rock band The Jackals, while at the other end of the spectrum, singer Steve Letch joined the much-maligned Kaper (scan back-issues of Party Fears zine for the headings "The three worst bands I've ever seen" and "Bands I would rather not have suffered"). Guitarist Marcus Sturrock looked further afield, rubbing shoulders with a who's who of Oz Rock out-of-towners, as documented extensively on his website.

Don't Stop

The Press - Fodder For The Critics LP Laser VXL14187, 1979

2011-03-19T13:24:00.201+11:00

A theme that runs through a lot of what we're doing here is that 1977 wasn't quite the Year Zero many may have thought. The strands and threads running through punk era Australia can often be followed back to the godawful tapestry of the early '70s, and sometimes back even further to the tattered afghan jackets of the late '60s. Late '70s Sydney punks The Press are another case in point.

Bassist Michel Brouet is sometimes listed in an early Band Of Light lineup, though we think this is some sort of mixup with Norm Roue. Brouet and guitarist Bruce Cumming first stood astride Sydney stages together in Submarine XI in 1975. We don't know anything about them, so let's move quickly on to where they next lobbed up - Southern Cross, one of the many hard rock bands cranking watts '76 grillfat style.

Gene Pierson was an Australian singer who moved to New Zealand when his draft card arrived. He continued his singing career there and became a star. His version of I Ain't No Miracle Worker is highly spoken of by garage aficionados but the phased version of Reach Out is perhaps his finest moment, and the Bandstand video with wild interpretive dancers is well worth checking out - see it at the top of this page. Back in Sydney in the '70s he began managing venues and in particular used one of them, Chequers, to showcase the thriving Sydney hard rock scene (AC/DC debuted there in 1973). Around the same time he started a label called Living Sound, who put out Southern Cross's single Queen Of Rock And Roll / Stormy Lady. Living Sound morphed into the Laser label, which released Southern Cross's rare and well regarded album. Laser scored disco, nostalgia and novelty hits, but still at least paid lip service to hard rock, being home for a while to Geeza and U Turn.

Then along came punk rock, and Cumming and Brouet liked what they heard. Based in the Western Suburbs they had difficulty finding other punk rockers so they chose Steve Kot (vocals) and Rick Doolan (drums) based on “an undeniable wildness in the resultant chemistry”.

Gig poster detail

A set was worked up featuring both originals and covers (Ramones, Dolls, Damned). Gigs took place in late 1977 at the Wiley Park Hotel in Sydney’s West. There they met a mix of enthusiasm and hostility as punk’s visceral effect wasn’t immediately obvious to all of the suburban audience. City and Eastern suburb gigs followed including one at the Bondi Lifesaver where they were asked to leave the stage. At least one country tour also took place.

As far as recordings go, a demo was recorded in 1978 and then this album at Atlantic Studios, Earlwood, in late 1978. It was a year before it appeared, on their old mate Pierson's Laser label, and after a few gigs to promote it the band started to fall apart, Kot was asked to leave and a few final shows as a three piece led to the end of the band in December 1979.

Although a solid LP there's really only two keepers. Had Trapped In The Wreckage and Alcoholic been a single pairing you'd be chasing it hard. As it was, Alcoholic did get a 7" release, which sank like a stone, despite its great opening riff. Trapped In The Wreckage is a particularly strong track with its driving pace and Kot's best vocal performance (though look out for the lyric fluff around 1:50). There's some solid bass playing and guitar elsewhere but the songwriting or vocals seem to let the tracks down. The LP itself is reasonably easy to track down, though if you're a condition nazi just take our advice and give up on ever owning a mint sleeve.

Let’s close with a hit of invective from Cumming’s blog (photos there too), specifically directed at folks like us who push the 'coupla tracks' line. As evidence we've also included the next strongest track - extrapolate downwards at will.

“I will tell you something here, just for posterity. We were not bandwagon jumping onto the punk thing. I was 20 when this was recorded and the punk explosion/phenomena/music/attitude/ etcetera had had a massive impact on me. It was only natural, really. None of this shit - from me or the other three guys - was a put on. We never said we were 'punk'. We played Ramones and New York Dolls and Damned songs coz we dug the music AND we were doing 3 sets a night pub gigs and needed a bigger repertoire than my songwriting could keep up with. Sorry for not being fucking kool enough to fall into one of your little punk, new wave, garage or Detroit niches. We never gave a fuck what you thought of us suburban boys then and I sure as hell don’t give a fuck now."

Memorise the label, you'll be flicking past a lot of Dark Tan, Patterson and Peaches 7"s on it before you see a Geeza or one of these.

Alcoholic

Trapped In The Wreckage

Out Of View

Desert Rat - Home From The Front LP Champagne CHA 7002, 1978

2011-03-12T18:23:00.067+11:00

An old friend used to engage in a party game designed to test the wits of unsuspecting houseguests: ambush said visitor with a copy of Blue Öyster Cult’s Secret Treaties LP, and request the back-story to the before/after sketches on the front and back cover. Why does the plane's pilot bear a striking resemblance to Skeletor? Who and/or what is Lopez? How did Eric Bloom’s Alsatians meet their demise? And most importantly, how did five BÖCs, four dogs and a skeleton fit into a two-seater jet?

The back cover of Desert Rat’s Home From The Front LP presents a similar vehicular seating conundrum, but the real mystery concerns drummer John Drak. Who slammed his foot in the car door? And why? Perhaps, like most drummers, the guy just had it coming to him.

Though the sepia-tone image on Home From The Front’s inner-sleeve is reminiscent of Secret Treaties (substitute the plane with a tank), that’s where the similarities end. Yes, both bands peddle a brand of ‘70s hard rock, but Desert Rat’s is more leaden and less conceptual. That is to say, it’s kinda plodding and more than a little bit dumb. F’rinstance, Eric Bloom plans to steal your wife, pick your brain and spend your money; in Rock And Roll Lady, Desert Rat’s Jerome Speldewinde has already had his way with your wife, but rock and roll has made him so braindead he can’t even remember her name.

Desert Rat’s members had already been around the block a couple of times by the time of the LP’s release - guitarist John Moon and bass player Ian Ryan had both been in Buster Brown (with a pre-Rose Tattoo Angry Anderson and a pre-AC/DC Phil Rudd), among others. Though not featured in the line-up that recorded Home From The Front, Stephen Lazaros' tenure is also worthy of note. Lazaros had previously played with Wallaby Beat gap-fillers Lois Lane/The Benders, but more significantly, would later be re-christened as Smeer and feature prominently in Melbourne's hardcore punk scene as guitarist for Depression and drummer for Gash.

The level dumbness is fairly uniform across the LP, but there are moments that are less plodding than others, highlighted by side one's closing track, Take Me On. Home From The Front also spawned a single (Need Your Love / Reach For The Sky [Champagne CHS 603, 1978], both on the LP), the A side of which is presented below.

Need Your Love

Take Me On

"This will teach sir not to play 20 minute drum solos". SLAM!

(Mick) Flinn (Band) - Do What You Wanna Do, a.k.a. Two Cans of Fosters and a Packet of Potato Chips

2011-03-05T18:17:00.196+11:00

This, as they say, is an odd one.

Let's begin at the beginning. Mick Flinn (a.k.a. Mick Flynn) first rose to prominence as bass player for the Wild Colonials, a tough Melbourne beat group which issued three singles on HMV in the mid-'60s. The last of these, a version of The Pretty Things' Get The Picture, has become something of a classic of Australian '60s punk thanks to its inclusion on the first Ugly Things comp LP. For those unfamiliar, we suggest you get acquainted post-haste. Unfortunately, Flinn's discography over the ensuing decade is likely to present as a bit of a wasteland for those whose tastes run to the more ragged. However, elements are instructive for what was to come, hence the digressions into non-Wallaby Beat territory which follow.

After the demise of the Wild Colonials, Flinn joined the Mixtures in 1967, eventually hitting paydirt in 1970 courtesy of that year's "radio ban" - a dispute over royalty payments between commercial radio and Australia's six largest record labels, which led to radio denying airplay for major UK and Australian pop songs. In this climate, many Australian bands re-recorded songs by UK artists which had been successful overseas, and were able to parlay them into local hits unhindered by competition from the originals. Ron Tudor, owner of Melbourne's small Fable label, suggested the Mixtures re-record Mungo Jerry's recent UK hit, In The Summertime - the song became wildly successful, topping the national charts and staying there for six weeks. The Mixtures' follow-up for Fable, a novelty-tinged tune called The Pushbike Song, eclipsed the success of its predecessor, again reaching #1 locally, and charting in the UK (#2) and US (#44). The importation of a demonstrated UK hit, along with the Australian record buyer's appetite for a novelty tune, were lessons that would not be lost on Mick Flinn.

The Mixtures travelled to the UK in 1971, where Flinn remained after the band's break-up. Subsequent UK projects included Springfield Revival and Pussyfoot, but since we practically dozed off just typing the names, we'll skip forward to 1978 and the first of the two records to be considered here. Flinn, backed by UK musicians, joined his contemporaries in updating his sound to a post-'77 world, issuing Doin' It Right and Do What You Wanna Do as a single under the name Mick Flinn Band. 45 Revolutions describes the record as "a rare and rather enjoyable platter", featuring "two Glam Rock songs, updated with Punk re-touches". We certainly hear the punk, but microscopic examination reveals very little trace residue of glam, at least to our ears. However, we will accede to 45 Revs when it notes that sales of the single were "close-to-zero" - this perhaps explains why demo copies proliferate while stock copies are elusive (but do exist, as seen in the second edition of 45 Revs).

Mick Flinn Band 7" (EMI 2805 [UK], 1978):

Doin' It Right

Do What You Wanna Do

In 1980, Flinn found himself back in Australia undertaking production work for Mike Brady and his label, Full Moon. As a member of MPD Ltd., Brady travelled in the same Melbourne beat circles as Flinn, and the two were labelmates on Fable in the early '70s. After some solo success, Brady subsequently pursued a career writing advertising jingles. Up There Cazaly - one such jingle, composed as the theme for a television football programme - was issued by Fable in 1979, and became the biggest selling Australian single of its time. (As noted last week, it was also parodied in an unreleased song by the Assassins). Brady used the proceeds to establish Full Moon, and with assistance from Astor records, succeeded in breaking his own Australian sales record with the October 1980 release of Joe Dolce's Shaddap You Face. With these two records under his belt, Brady, like Flinn, came to understand the commercial potential of a well-timed novelty song. (For more, click here).

In June 1980, Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps Please, a punk novelty tune by London's Splodgenessabounds, reached #7 on the UK singles chart. Upon his return to Australia, Flinn brought the song to Brady's attention (though Two Pints... had received an Australian release, it was not a commercial success). In a turn of events recalling those of ten years past, Brady proposed "covering" the UK hit for the Australian market, this time with lyrical adaptations to localise the song. (Brady's suggestion would prove to be ironic - in early 1981, a legal injunction was taken out against Elton John to stymie an unauthorised UK adaptation of Shaddap You Face, fronted by Andrew Sachs [a.k.a. Manuel from Fawlty Towers], and released by John's production company).

The resulting Two Cans Of Fosters And A Packet of Potato Chips recycled Do What You Wanna Do's existing backing, with the addition of a new vocal track "Australianising" the Splodge lyrics. The flip, The Barman's Reply, is just that - with the backing track replicated, playing the two songs simutaneously creates a call-and-response. Though the second edition of 45 Revolutions states that the music was also re-recorded, we maintain that the original backing track was subjected to a radical remix. Reverb was added, and Do What You Wanna Do's acoustic guitar track was dumped, thereby eliminating the endearing slightly-out-of-tune feel of the original. In addition, the master tape was sped up, resulting in the song's key being a full semitone higher (and its length being 10 seconds shorter). The combined effect is a punchier, arguably tougher sound, at the expense of the original's rough edges.

In the wake of Shaddap You Face, Two Cans... was also released by Astor and Full Moon. Coming out in late December 1980 (just in time to take advantage of the novelty tune silly season), the single entered the Australian charts on December 22, where it spent a solitary week at #93. A video was shot which helped Two Cans... plumb the depths of the charts, but Mick Flinn never saw it, and neither have we. (If you're in possession of a copy, you know what to do). Needless to say, this was among Brady's least successful novelty tunes, but it would not be long before he bounced back, reverting to type with Mark "Jacko" Jackson's football novelty, I'm An Individual. Flinn himself promptly returned to the UK and, despite periodically reviving the Mick Flinn Band name, gave Two Cans... little further thought (when originally contacted by Wallaby Beat in early 2007, Flinn had not heard the record since its release).

Finally, in a neat cultural exchange, Splodgenessabounds' next hit in September 1980 was a punked up version of Two Little Boys, made famous in the UK in 1969 by former West Australian swimming champion, Rolf Harris.

As a sidenote, The Professor has been known to deride Two Cans..., publicly declaring it to be "awful". Click here to watch The Prof in action with his preferred musical backing to two cans of Fosters.

Flinn 7" (Astor A 7319, 1980):

Two Cans Of Fosters And A Packet Of Potato Chips

The Barman's Reply

Assassins - Assassination / Suicide 7" Greasy Pop GPR100, 1982

2011-02-27T18:17:00.007+11:00

Adelaide, as Danny Decay observed, it's a crazy place. Little did we realise when we planned Malcolm Fraser month that most of the recorded opposition to his nibs originated from South Australia's capital - the city of churches, Australia's serial killer capital, snooze-ville.

The most vociferous of them all is surely this ditty by three members of hometown legends the Dagoes. Although Fraser isn't mentioned by name, there's only one prime minister. Just to nail down the intention here's songwriter Doug Thomas's account of the track from the book Underground In The City Of Churches. Take it away, Doug:

"The lyric that is important is the very last line. 'Australia needs this man dead'. That's all I had to say, that's what the song's about, kill Malcolm Fraser - he's an arsehole. The Dagoes did it once or twice as an instrumental set opener in 1979, called something daft like Party Dress or Party Dance. Something really dumb, certainly not Assassination or Kill The Prime Minister, but it was rejected by the Dagoes, it was knocked back unanimously by Dick, Neil and Beau as a political statement which they didn't want. Dick flatly refused to sing it so it was an instrumental. It didn't unduly worry me until a couple of years later when the prick was still in power, and I still hadn't had my say!"

During one of the Dagoes' many break-ups Thomas got together with two other band members, Otis and The Turk (Geoff Short - brother of Filth's Bob Short), and advertised for a singer. Ian List came through the audition and the band practised under the names Ten Wombats, Electric Soup and Main Feature. Kill The Prime Minister was dusted off (along with another enticingly titled original, Up Yours Cazaly). Eventually the lineup settled as List, Thomas and Short under the name The Assassins.

Thomas, Turk, List, '82, trying not to look like Hüsker Dü

In February 1982 Kill The Prime Minister was recorded, and after some funding difficulties finally released in 1983 on Greasy Pop. It's one of the easier-to-find Australian punk records and as a result is perhaps unfairly ignored. Unfairly because instrumentally and thematically at least it's a little monster. While the guitar is sharp and loud, the vocals are pushed back deliberately - it was List's first go in a studio and Thomas wasn't overly happy with the results. The band never played live as far as we are aware, and anyway soon changed their name again to the Falling Spikes, then the Spikes.

Kill The Prime Minister was also reissued under its original title on a split 12" with Ian List and The UVs in 1990 (GPR 100/152).

Assassination

Suicide

The Assassins disenchantment with the PM by 1982 merely echoed that of the electorate. Faced with a recession, high inflation and rising unemployment, the people were ready to go with the ALP. Fraser called a snap election on 3 February 1983, unaware that that morning Labor had replaced their then leader with the popular Bob Hawke. The Liberals well and truly had their daks removed at the March poll.

Which neatly leads into one last Malcolm Fraser incident. Attending an ex-heads of government junket in Memphis, Tenn. in 1986, he was seen wandering around the foyer of the Admiral Benbow Inn in a towel, discombobulated, and wondering aloud as to the whereabouts of his trousers. Trousers (missing) in action, as it were. Amongst allegations of prostitutes and being slipped a Mickey Finn, Fraser has stayed mum all these years, surely taking the Mickey Bliss one more time.

Malcolm "sporting the mohawk look" on the cover of Trousers In Action 1, 1982.

Toxic Shock - Intoxicated 7" EMI Custom 13236, 1981

2011-02-19T18:42:00.066+11:00

Diverting briefly from the Adelaide-centric focus of the last two posts (don't worry croweaters, we'll be back), this week we bring you a high-energy post-punk rant from Melbourne. With beginnings as a rehearsal project for bassist Sylvie Leber and guitarist Eve Glenn, the duo quickly expanded to the seven-piece all-female line-up evident on this, their lone single. Lumbering under the uninspiring moniker of the Girl's Garage Band prior the single's release, a new name would present itself after a late-'70s outbreak of illness caused by high-absorbency tampons: Toxic Shock.

Though initial musical inspiration came from the first wave of UK punk (Sylvie Leber: "If Sid Vicious could play with only 3 notes then so could I"), the single showcases influence not so much from the Pistols as subsequent developments of the Rough Trade stripe. Predictable reference points though they may be, we hear the likes of Kleenex and the Slits coming through in varying degrees across the single's three tracks. The standout song, Intoxicated, displays the wiry guitars, vocal tradeoffs, emphasis on non-standard rock instruments (Liliput's whistle is exchanged for a cowbell), and the (thankfully largely unsuccessful) rhythmic funkiness of so much UK post-punk. Furthermore, the recording and pressing costs tabulated on the inside sleeve suggest inspiration from the Desperate Bicycles (by way of Scritti Politti), though absent are the helpful pie-charts provided by the similarly fiscally transparent Slugfuckers.

Toxic Shock in action at La Trobe University, Melbourne.

Intoxicated is a theme song of sorts, detailing as it does the symptoms of toxic shock syndrome, as well as engaging in some finger-pointing directed at Johnson & Johnson and, more obliquely, Procter & Gamble (manufacturer of the offending tampon brand, whose logo is alluded to in the lyrical reference to "a man on the moon"). Buried in the third chorus, among the modern day ills itemised as differential diagnoses, is a creative diss which earns the song a mention in Malcolm Fraser month. Some years later, vocalist Fran Kelly would become a respected Australian political journalist, eventually interviewing Fraser for ABC Radio National. Funnily enough, Fraser's resemblance to life-threatening menstrual sepsis didn't come up as a topic of conversation.

Intoxicated

The Slugfuckers got a better deal at EMI Custom's "Accidents" Division.

Thanks to Scott Henthorn for his assistance with this entry. Stay tuned for the full Toxic Shock story in an upcoming issue of Stained Sheets fanzine.

Red Peril - Give Frazer The Razor 7" NCP.216, 1976

2011-02-12T10:11:00.100+11:00

Australia has a proud tradition of spontaneous, crowd-generated epithets, ranging from the vague (see Blood, Sweat and Beers for consideration of "No way, get fucked, fuck off", including its origins and dissemination), to the highly personal (and hilarious: "Wally/Hadlee's a wanker"). When Malcolm Fraser's Liberal opposition blocked supply, leading to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975, it not only marked a pivotal event in Australian history, but also popularised our most acerbic political rallying cry: "Give Fraser the razor".

Chanted by demonstrators at protests in Sydney and Melbourne the day after the Dismissal, in the coming years the phrase would also provide fodder for placards, posters, and graffiti (the internet tells us an example may still be extant on a rail underpass in Wagga Wagga). Inevitably, the slogan was set to music, courtesy of Adelaide's Red Peril - a band formed, appropriately enough, by members of the Communist Party.

Give Frazer [sic] The Razor is not our favourite Australian Gloria rip-off of 1976, but what it lacks in musical grunt it more than compensates for with lyrical bile - not all of which is reserved for the Libs (the former Labor government is damned with faint praise). Notably, in between stock standard pinko invective about bosses and multinationals ("Organise, brothers and sisters!"), Red Peril was ahead of the curve in sinking in the boot/blade to Rupert Murdoch (Murdoch's earliest newspaper and television holdings were in Adelaide, and his News Corp was based there until the mid-2000s). Rumour has it that the lyrics were perceived to be so controversial, no Australian plant would press the record, thus its eventual manufacture in Singapore. The story has an air of the apocryphal, but given the unique look of the vinyl and labels relative to other Australian singles of the era, we don't doubt that it was pressed overseas.

Musically, past comparisons with Jefferson Airplane are not entirely off base inasmuch as they relate to the Grace Slick-like vocals, but instrumentally Surrealistic Pillow is ballsier than this (even at its most acoustic) and is far more creative. The b-side? Well, let's just say we're saving it for our compendium of banjo-led anti-Fraser DIY, due here sometime after 2020.

Interestingly, razors-as-metaphor marked not just the start of the Fraser era, but the middle and end as well. "Razor gangs", originally Sydney criminal gangs of the 1920s, became the designation applied to parliamentary committees charged with reducing government expenditure in the early '80s (the term was also appropriated as a moniker by numerous bands around the country, only one of which made it to vinyl). And one can only imagine the chuckles at Adelaide Communist Party HQ when, after the Liberal Party's election defeat in 1983, future PM Paul Keating described a dejected Fraser as "looking like an Easter Island statue with an arse full of razor blades".

Give Frazer The Razor

The Brats - Life On The Dole from 5MMM's Compilation Of Adelaide Bands 1980 LP MMM01, 1980

2011-02-05T23:29:00.009+11:00

Q: Is Fraser on the fucking dole?
A: No, I don't think so

In every scene there's a band that seems to have a bristly relationship with other parts of the scene. In the case of Adelaide punks The Brats, that included an impressive list including themselves, promoters, venues, journalists, radio stations and political parties (though not the one you might expect from the above lyric).

Starting in May 1979, the band for the first seven months was Bruce Brat (bs), John Brat (dr), Paul Brat (gtr) and Peter Brat (keyb, voc). Bruce (aka Bored Bruce) got bored and was replaced by Stan Brat, and John also left to be replaced by someone named Sticks. All had histories going back to the late '60s and early '70s. Of particular interest are Stan's sojourn in politically inspired Adelaide band Glass Web, whose 1970 7", In A Year Or So, is an early anti-Australian-presence-in-Vietnam song. Their second 7" from 1971, National Hero, reiterated their opposition, this time with striking graphics of military tombstones. Peter had been in Rashamra, who had two singles out in 1972. Look past the band's name and the flute at the start of Antelope to hear some good tuff riffing.

Unusual in punk circles the band also had female backing vocalists, the B-Side Bitches, the roll call of which included Annalissa Vague (also from Rashamra), Brenda Brat, Carol Brat (later Cazzby Brat) and Gay Brat (later remonikered as Gay Wales, one of the great punk names).

So to the feuds. The band's first gig was at a Cannabis Law Reform Society party. On the back of that the Australian Marijuana Party, for which Gay worked as a volunteer, booked them and the Accountants for a benefit gig in July 1979. The potheads then decided punk bands would harsh their mellow and cancelled the whole thing. Major bummer, dudes. A storm in a teacup really, but enough acrimony was generated to break up the band.

In August they reunited and over September and early October headlined five weekly gigs at the Austral Hotel. Now, the Austral was a hangout of the Iroquois bikie gang, and as a result promoters and venues elsewhere in the city branded The Brats a "bikie band" - hence no bookings, anywhere.

In November they did score bottom of the bill at a Scientists show. Nick Pervert (a friend, and guitarist with Exhibit A) got pissed and threw a bottle which hit Peter Brat. Local newspapers reported the story and The Brats were now seen to "have a violent following". While on the media, Roadrunner magazine was also perceived to have dissed the group. "Punkoid thrashers in the style of the Accountants" is the quote which the band felt misrepresented them. Listen to the interesting, jazzy chords driving Life On The Dole and you might admit they may have had a point.

Since no-one wanted to touch the band, their next gig was a self-organised show in January 1980 in a fully lit basketball stadium at a juvie institution called McNally Training Centre. All went well and the kids loved it.

Over Easter, the band recorded six tracks at Noumenon Studios - Life On The Dole / 1, 2, Truro / Explosions / Nobody (Is Really Where They Wanna Be) / Hoodlums / 2002. The tracks were released as a cassette. Life On The Dole had been noticed as the band's strongest track right from the early gigs, and comes across as a piss-taking reflection on the somewhat realistic potential, in 1979, of a life spent on welfare:

I'm gonna go from from the dole to an old age pension,
I wanna be a government sponsored institution,
And when I die, my last cheque,
Will be cashed, and completely spent.

Life On The Dole

Not quite Supernaut's take on things...

Due to their various reputational difficulties the band was also viewed unfavourably by community radio station 5MMM (one of a string of "public radio" stations, set up as a Whitlam government initiative, which had only started broadcasting in 1979). They wouldn't play the tape. Since this was the band's only realistic chance of local airplay the entire band fronted for a meeting with station management. They managed to nix all the station's objections to the band, most based on rumours and hearsay, and as a result got valuable airplay and gig bookings through the station.

Life On The Dole thus became a local hit, reaching number 2 on the station's charts. 4ZZZ in Brisbane also played the track a lot, as did 2JJJ in Sydney, and in later years the band was told it had also received airplay on Californian college stations. Eventually, it saw vinyl release on 5MMM's imaginatively titled 5MMM's Compilation Of Adelaide Bands 1980.

The gigs came through too, starting with a 5MMM night at the Tivoli in May 1980, where the band finally started to see some live success, with good crowd feedback. The black ban lifted, more gigs followed. This included support for the Ramones, following a push from Roadrunner and 5MMM. The promoter refused to pay the supports, and the band had to join the Muso's Union to get them to fight the case, successfully.

In the end, having challenged rumours and perceptions, and achieved local success, it all suddenly didn't seem worth it. Too poor to move to Melbourne or Sydney, the band broke up, members moving off to Darwin, New York, and their own homes. Apart from a one-off 1985 reunion, that was it for the Brats, though Peter did surface recently to cut a new version of Life On The Dole with the Moulting Vultures.

This month at Wallaby Beat is Malcolm Fraser month, where we feature songs that mention Australia's conservative prime minister for pretty much the period this blog covers. He was named caretaker PM after the Dismissal in November 1975 (then won the followup election in December), and his Liberal Party lost the March 1983 election to Bob Hawke.

Australian bands never really played the name and shame game for our punk-era conservative heads-of-state that the US (Reagan), UK (Thatcher) or the Netherlands (van Agt) did for theirs. But old Malcy-walcy did inspire a few missives - and we'll cover them this month.

At the time this song was written the unemployment rate in Australia was at the mid-range of the historical scale, though it had risen from the postwar average of around 2% (from 1945 to 1974) to around 6% in 1979. Under Fraser and his Treasurer John Howard ("Is Howard on the dole?") it would then rise to 10% by the 1983 election, hence the popularity of the song Australia-wide in the early 80s.
Howard would of course later become Prime Minister, and drag Australia hard to the Right, including work for the dole. In a sense he made the Fraser years look quaint in their conservatism.

Thanks to Harry Butler's DNA fanzine for the photo and for all ~~scurrilous rumour~~ information in this piece.

Ross Lovell - Trains / Long Distance Calls 7" Sneaky Radio PRS-13001, 1980

2011-01-30T18:41:00.009+11:00

Judging by the number of hits for the last three posts y'all just can't get enough of the approximate vocals which dot the DIY landscape. In which case, have we got a treat for you! Ross Lovell manages to take Plastic EP's rank long hops and bottom edge them into his stumps. For the cricket non-inclined, he makes Plastic sound like Glenn Danzig. Having said that, this one's gonna test even our most diehard followers. All we can say is put it in your personal music device and give it a couple of chances. As much as we are fans of being grabbed by the gonads on the first listen, this one repays more constant attention.

A friend of mine once described Father Yod as Homer Simpson doing Jim Morrison. Here, we have Homer doing, what? Graham Parker? (Wave era) Patti Smith? Video Nu-R? Jerry Rooth? Whatever the influence, there's a magnificent set of lungs bellowing here. We leave it up to the listener whether this kind of thing inspires giggles or awe. We tend to fall on the side of the line that says untutored, outsider art is sincere, and intended to be treated as such, and it's just a happy accident that it comes out so mind-bendingly awful/awesome.

The musical backing here is more than proficient, especially the bass and drums, which scream session muso. The way the guitar gently wails away in the background, and then more forcefully over the rhythm bed for the last minute, is undeniably cool. We're guessing, given the photo below, that Rosco is the guitarist. His playing is pretty good, so it's not as if he doesn't have a musical bone in his body, but that voice...

Long Distance Calls

Like a modern producer pushing a pudgy Dannii wannabe onto Auto-tune, we imagine producer Peter Wragg saying gently, "Why don't we try the vocoder on the next track?". So, on Trains, we have Homer doing Electric Light Orchestra (our first guess, Neil Young's Trans, wasn't out for another year or so). In a bizarre twist, in another decade and a half, Homer himself paid tribute to Styx's vocoder led Mr Roboto. Hard to decipher the lyrics here but we guess the song is about standing on Albion overpass watching trains, or as Ross would portentously have it, "The Trains" da dum da dum da dum.

Trains

Interestingly, the only search engine hit on Ross Lovell in Brisbane lists a contact for a men's choir. Part of us hopes he took lessons to harness and sculpt the magnificent wind coming up from his thorax, but a larger part hopes it still flies forth as free as when he laid down Long Distance Calls.

A few years ago a promo copy of sorts emerged from a Brisbane rock critic's archives, nestled inside was a photo of Ross sitting beside his phone, waiting for that long distance call.