It Never Ends: The Victims - Television Addict 7" MX46813/4, 1978

It's time for an it-never-ends on one of the great worldwide punk records - The Victims' Television Addict / (I'm) Flipped Out Over You 7". Released in an edition of 1000 in early 1978, every copy of this is effectively in a unique sleeve. That's because each one is hand stamped with kids' block stamps. However, there's still a lot of room for variation with such a scheme. So, in the spirit of the Flipper Sex Bomb sleeve blog (or the definitely NOT safe for work Nubees blog), today we'll start giving visuals for some of the sleeve variants for this hallowed record.

Sometime in early '78 our boys, James Baker, Dave Flick and Rudolph Vee, sat around a table and started stamping sleeves. A combination of red, black and blue ink was used, and most sleeves contain some combination of all three. For us, the nicest ones  just have the band name on the front of the sleeve and the titles on the back. The red and black sleeve on top of the post, paired with the tricolour reverse to the left, is a nice example. Some copies, and these seem to show up in America, only have the band name on one side and are blank on the reverse.

Flick outlined the process in the liner notes to the Sleeping Dogs Lie album:

We used a children's toy rubber stamp set to label each of the paper sleeves individually. In fact, as we had only bought a couple of sets there weren't even enough letters to spell out the band's name and the song titles so we had to leave a couple of gaps and fill in the missing letters later (we also stamped those ones with a different colour).

A cool variation, perhaps from the start of the process, is the all black version seen to the right. Now is probably a good time to point you towards Ross Buncle's Perth Punk website. There you can read about James Baker and Rudolph Vee's pre-Victims exploits with The Geeks, where Buncle and Baker had written (I'm) Flipped Out Over You. Flick had previously played with high school bands and, while starting a university degree, had decided to see just how far he could get playing music. He had joined a blues band called The Beagles on keyboards and toured around Western Australia. Having proved to himself making a living was possible, and having heard the Ramones album, and liking it, he hooked up with Vee and Baker and the Victims were born.

The record really needs no introduction. We can't think of many people who don't rank it in the best three Australian punk records. If you haven't heard it, well, it's been booted thrice in the US (black printing on white sleeve, then on pink sleeve, then on yellow sleeve, all with large holes) and recently legitimately reissued by 1977 records in Japan. We won't even start on the various compilations with the two tracks, just get yourself to YouTube. For now we'll just show pictures of some other versions:

Many copies have the band name and one of the song titles on one side.

We love the spelling mistakes, part I...

...and part II.

Television ADD/ADHD. A particularly cool variation which came from James Baker - note the different typeface. Perhaps done as a test run - a literal proto-type.

To bring things to an end for today we have to cover the photo inserts. These are the little fuckers that send collectors spare. They appear either by themselves or in pairs in odd copies. So far we've been able to round up seven different ones which you can see below. Particularly cool (and hard to find!) is the band under a Live At CBGBs poster, but as always, we can't imagine not wanting to own all of them.

We'll be happy to add any sleeve variations, (or, god forbid, inserts), not pictured here if you want to send them to us at the usual address. Thanks to those who already contributed scans.

Sounds, 6 May 1978

All afflictions catered for: here, double vision

It Never Ends: The Aberrant compilations

Looking back over Sydney fanzines from the '80s there was a hell of a lot of punk bands in the harbour city. A hell of a lot of bands who really didn't get around to documenting themselves. If it weren't for Bruce Griffiths' three Aberrant compilations even more of those bands would just be a faded memory.

The run started with Flowers From The Dustbin in November 1983, its title inspired by a line in God Save The Queen. Setting out to capture some of the bands who had been playing around that year it was successful, but as Griffiths later noted "a month after release just two bands remained and one musician was dead." While The Kelpies, Positive Hatred and World War XXIV would have more stuff released by Aberrant, and Box Of Fish went on to put records out on Method, this was it for Velocette, Queen Anne's Revenge (who became CHAOS) and What?!! (who only ever played one gig anyway!). The foldout poster sleeve for this was a real labour of love, with over 160 band photos, posters, lyrics and band histories.

Second was Not So Humdrum which aimed to use leftover Suicide Squad tracks from the first compilation, which had been mooted as a double at one stage, with some 1984 vintage bands. From memory the title was a riposte to Molly Meldrum's Humdrum segment on Countdown. If you were impressed by the sleeve layout on Flowers From The Dustbin then you were surely completely blown away by the sixteen page booklet sleeve for this record. Particularly strong on this record are the two tracks by the 1984 incarnation of Rocks, and special note must be made of Gavin Williams from WKOSA's "I Hate Oz Rock" t-shirt. The booklet also contains Griffiths' first Sydney family trees. Sitting here looking at them again for the first time in a few years I'm astounded by the amount of information on completely forgotten bands contained therein. "The Clits: Late '78. 1 gig in a chicken shed at a party on a farm". Amazing. Note that you need the stamped paper diecut sleeve to have a complete version of this release.

The third Aberrant compilation took a similar tack. Released in 1985, Why March When You Can Riot?, named after a line in the Rejex song Who Wants To March, mixes up '85 era bands like feedtime and Bedspreads, with early Hard-ons recordings, and late '70s tracks by Johnny Dole and the Scabs, XL Capris, X and Local Product. This was the first time that the X and Johnny Dole tracks contained were issued and they are fantastic. In fact this is musically the strongest of the LPs, though that may be our late '70s preferences showing through. Again the booklet (plus extra insert) is exceptional, with more photos, lyrics, interviews and family trees (pretty sure the only mention anywhere of pre-Nervous System band Farfisa and the Fucked Organs) than could fill yet another wet Sydney weekend.

So all up there's three essential records from which to garner more of an understanding of Sydney punk. There's an interview with Bruce by Steve Gardner that goes into details on how the records were put together, along with Griffiths' inspirations and philosophy - read it here. Everything from these records, plus an extra Kelpies track and the first Trousers In Action 7", was compiled on the Go And Do It double CD on Small Axe from 1996, which is still available here. When you've come back from purchasing it we'll get into the French issues.

All three albums were issued in France on the Ripost label: Flowers From The Dustbin in 1986, Not So Humdrum in 1987, and Why March When You Can Riot? in early 1989. The first contains a copy of the Australian sleeve as an "insert", while the second and third have cutdown 4-page inserts based on excerpts from the Australian booklets.

What we find most entertaining about these is the cover artwork, credited to Emmanuel on the first two, but we're pretty sure notre homme was behind them all. Manu burst out of the gates with three punk kangaroos going off. Some of the best punk novelty records and artwork originated from the French speaking world and the tradition is kept strong here with safety pins, mohawks, sunglasses, a chain necklace, and a midriff singlet emblazoned "FUCK". We're kinda partial to the zippered shut pouch, though.

We asked Bruce about these sleeves a few years ago.

Even having you remind me of that midriff top years later is making me cringe (as well as remember how much I cringed at the time) although I'd probably have enjoyed the zippered pouch had the other nonsense not been present. The extent of my memory is they wanted the covers to scream "Australian punk" so ditched the punk photos in favour of cartoon kangaroos with safety pins, which apparently the French would immediately 'get'. One of the covers isn't half bad, once you've adjusted to the whole, er, 'idea', but they're all pretty cheesy really. The backs they kept intact. 

[Wallaby Beat] As I remember you telling me you said "whatever you want" as long as there's no skulls or anarchy symbols and you were a mite horrified when you saw kangaroos with leather jackets and mohawks, and yes you're right - safety pins.

Ah, yes, you are correct. That's exactly what happened - I definitely specified "no skulls", and I strongly suspect I blacklisted the "(A)", and maybe that was it. I've remained partial to safety pins, so wouldn't have ruled them out, and leather jackets are harmless enough, but it never occurred to me they'd do cartoon kangaroos. I can only assume I didn't specify "no mohawks" (never liked them, so something I overlooked rather than consciously didn't do)... I wouldn't rule out zips either (pretty sure those kangaroos have many)... 

Emmanuel hopes the safety pins flying everywhere distract attention from the skull belt buckle and anarchy badge. The emu mic stand is kinda inspired though...

[Bruce] I don't mind the paratrooping one, in terms of the aggression, but if they'd said "We want kangaroos" I'd have done the art myself with a safety pin through a kangaroo's head a la Jamie Reid or somesuch, with infinitely more style and a nod to 'the master'. Ah well. Photo of kangaroo, pin through ear, zippered pouch, done. They sold out the pressings, so perhaps they knew what they were doing? 

As always we leave the real it-never-ends aspect to the very end. At some stage Ripost ran out of sleeves for Not So Humdrum. They recycled sleeves for Flowers From The Dustbin by turning them inside out and printing new Not So Humdrum artwork previously used on the labels of the three Ripost LPs. By now our only surviving kangaroo is looking bruised and battered and all the worse for wear after a night on the tiles. Not a single punk cliche to be seen though!

On the back of the sleeve for this one Emmanuel reveals his model for the kangaroos was rats, and rooting rats at that. I thought the tails on those paratroopers didn't look like roo tails!

Update 9 March 2013: Here is the xerox sleeve for Why March When You Can Riot mentioned in the comments. Used for 33 leftover copies of the record.

It Never Ends: The Last Words - Animal World

Last Words' Animal World mask from the Wizard Records press kit

If you want something done properly, do it yourself. Living in the West of Sydney in 1977, Scottish emigree Malcolm Baxter and Irish transplant Andy Groome took such sage advice to heart. Having arrived in Australia in 1968 and 1969 respectively, they met at the Cabramatta Hostel at which their families first lived. They started playing music together in 1972 and went through a few school bands before some pivotal musical exposures focused their attention. 

The Two Malcolms, 1980.

Malcolm Baxter: "We first saw what was going on in the NME and Melody Maker. We got them every time they came out, so we first saw the punk stuff there. Then Andy went to see Radio Birdman and came back saying to me, 'You've got to come and see this band!'. So I did, at Sydney Uni. That night we met the Saints and started hanging out with them in North Sydney. We had seen the five second clip of the Sex Pistols and we were buying The Ramones records and Clash records and just eating this all up. But we had started writing songs that had that flavour anyway!"

The first Last Words lineup included ex-Brisbanite, Saints acolyte Jeff Wegener on drums and Mike Smith on bass. As recorded in Pulp fanzine (and reproduced in Inner City Sound), "the band were getting desperate. They've been considering all sorts of attention getting stunts, like: advertising themselves in Ram magazine; beating up journalists, a la Sid Vicious; playing illegally on the Sydney streets; moving to Melbourne; recording a single (even though they can't afford it); or, at worst, breaking up". A single it was to be though, and a novel funding arrangement was brokered. Before the recording Wegener left to Melbourne and the Young Charlatans, and Smith was jettisoned.

Malcolm Baxter: "We wrote Animal World in Andy's bedroom in Miller [a suburb in Liverpool, Western Sydney]. Then a few months later my father went guarantor and we got a loan out to record and press the records. We thought no one would ever put this out, so we will. The Last Words then was myself and Andy - I played the drums and sang, Andy played the guitar and bass. It was recorded on an 8 track at Axent Studios in Kogarah in the winter of 1977".

The record was released on the band's own Remand label in October 1977, with flip side Wondering Why. A few copies sported a stamped die-cut sleeve:

The loan the band took out also extended to a few roneographed posters which were included in copies sent to record shops. Not many of these have survived (well, one that we know of).

The record was well received by those in the know, and why not? It's a truly great record. But was it enough to get our boys out of the Western suburbs?

L-R: Malcolm Baxter and Andy Groome
outside Axent Studios, 1977.

Malcolm Baxter: "Being in Liverpool was like being at an AC/DC gig every day of your life. It was a backwater and people did not get punk, we needed to come into the city for that sort of stuff. But we did not know where this was happening, we just got on with writing and making the single and then we went around to a few inner city record shops and asked them to sell it. Then we sent a copy to Wizard in November 1977, and a few weeks later they got in contact with us and said they would like to do something. But nothing happened until February 1978 as the whole country shut up shop for Christmas in those days, so we started to explore the music more and moved into Berrie St North Sydney after the Saints went to the UK, and we played a few gigs there and hung out in the scene that was starting up. We started doing gigs at a place called Blondie's in Bondi, and the Boys Next Door supported us there - it was all a bit strange in those days. Then me and Andy moved to South Dowling Street in Darlinghurst and we started playing at the Grand Hotel and recorded Animal World again for Wizard".

Wizard paid for the June, 1978 recording of six songs with a name producer, Les Karsky, who had worked with Midnight Oil and Boys Next Door. For this phase Baxter and Groome were joined again by Wegener on drums. Rounding out the band was bassist Rique Lee Kendall. Kendall was born in Melbourne in 1958 but had lived in Canada for six years where he had played in legendary Vancouver punk band the Skulls. On his return to Australia he'd played bass as Matt Black on the Thought Criminals' Hilton Bomber EP.

The Wizard issue (ZS-196) was released on 6 November 1978, this time with Every School Boys Dream on the B-side. All copies are on blue vinyl and the period appropriate company sleeve is the Phonogram one above - Wizard switched distribution to RCA sometime around 1979 (around the ZS-300 series of 7"s). We've put the complete press kit put together by Wizard on a separate page, it's well worth a visit. There was a fucking great video too, which if you haven't seen yet, well, do yourself a favour:

L-R: Baxter and Kendall

at the Grand Hotel.

Malcolm Baxter: "When we did Animal World [for Wizard] we recorded 6 songs but the master tape has never been found. We have the songs we recorded on a live tape from our last gig at the Grand Hotel in 1979, but that [Wizard] recording of the songs looks like it has gone forever.

"We went to the UK because this was not the music history that Australia wanted. Molly Meldrum banned the Last Words from Count Down and he had never even seen us. The only reason we got to release Animal World on Rough Trade was a friend of ours from Virgin records nicked the 1/4 inch tape of four of the songs from Wizard and brought them to London for us. And with Rough Trade, we got to London and we started work, but Andy and me thought 'We did not come here for this', so we got up one morning and took the blue vinyl Animal World to the BBC and gave it to the John Peel show. Then we went to Rough Trade and gave them a copy. By the time we got home, Rough Trade wanted to sign us and John Peel was playing Animal World and asking who was this band called the Last Words! When the record came out it sold something like 5,000 copies in the first few days and we went to number 8 in the NME alternative charts. The first pressing did not have Wizard on the labels, it was only after Wizard forced Rough Trade to put it on that they did and that was the second pressing".

The third release of Animal World uses the Wizard recording and came out in the UK in 1979 on Rough Trade (RT 022). As detailed by Malcolm, there were two pressings; and despite internet wisdom, Malcolm has set us straight on which came first:

The London era band was Baxter, Groome, Kendall (now Leigh Kendall) and a local, John Gunn (born Hammersmith London, 9 April 1962) on drums. A Rough Trade hype sheet of the time details goings on: "They were quick to pick up followings in places as Chelmsford and Coventry. Derby made them No 8 in the alternative charts. They also have a strong following in Germany and hope to follow it up by playing there in March [1980]". The band played on for a few more years releasing two more 7"s and an LP - selected highlights can be heard on the Retro CD. But, what about those Germans?

Malcolm Baxter: "We were playing with a band called the Swell Maps in London in 1979 and a bunch of Germans turn up and Eric [Hysteric] was one of them. They were fans of the Last Words and we got talking after the gig, and they would come to the gigs and hang out with us. Andy, Leigh and John had more to do with them. When my father died I came back to Australia and they did some recording with Eric".

The recordings with Eric we'll cover another time, but it segues into today's piece of teeth-gnashery - the fabled, legendary, almost completely unknown German sleeve. At some stage Hysteric got a bunch of copies of the first Remand pressing sent to Germany and constructed a crude photocopy sleeve to help sell them. The back of the sleeve has a postcard of Sydney at night and an indication that it may date from 1984. The German address for Wasted Vinyl listed on the back, and the general thrown together style of the sleeve, fits with Hysteric's releases from WASTE 6 on. The earlier records on the label have an English address and more professionally constructed sleeves. All up, a 1984 date is not an unreasonable guess.

Animal World (Remand) [Download]


Wondering Why [Download]


Animal World (Wizard/Rough Trade) [Download]


Every School Boys Dream [Download]


No Music In The World Today [Download]

It Never Ends: Sputniks - Our Boys 7" no label 324, 1979

The Slunks (slunk is a cow's afterbirth, or an aborted calf covered in such) were a Mt Gambier party band in 1978, formed entirely so the members could learn to play. David Munroe (a.k.a. Dave Graney), an Aussie Rules playing timber worker, had travelled up the East coast of Australia, witnessing the nascent Sydney punk scene, and Rose Tattoo (and the Mangrove Boogie Kings). You can read about his impressions in his most entertaining memoir, 1001 Australian Nights. Having got a taste for the life he returned home and put together a vehicle in which to escape. The other players were Martin Wells on drums, Liz Dealey on bass and Steve St Stevens (a.k.a. Steve Miller) on guitar.

The Sputniks formed in Adelaide around April 1979 - Graney, Miller and Dealey having moved there and met up with Clare Millionaire (a.k.a. Clare Moore) on drums and Philip Marks (ex-Foreskins) on guitar. Over the next year, before a move to Melbourne, they proved themselves extremely hardworking and put together an impressive list of achievements.

Starting with a first gig in June they toured South (to Mt Gambier and Naracoorte), plus a Spencer Gulf tour with the Accountants, playing Whyalla, Port Augusta, and Port Pirie. Funded by proceedings from these tours, and live work in Adelaide, they recorded a single at Noumenon Studios in October. Our Boys / Second Glance was released in December.

Early 1980 saw the band getting a residency at the Union Hotel, where they endeavoured to get other bands to play, reportedly with mixed success. Live they played mostly originals, mixed in with Doors, Bowie (Queen Bitch), Buzzcocks (What Do I Get?), and 13th Floor Elevators (You're Gonna Miss Me) covers. Moore took front of stage for a version of In The Midnight Hour which was always popular. Admirably they had at least one new original every time they played.

March 29, 1980 saw their last Adelaide show, and in early April they moved to Melbourne. Gigs aplenty followed, amongst them The Bottom Line, The Exford, Paradise Lounge, Hearts and the Duke of York. Despite the year of hard work the foundations of the band proved shaky and by October Marks and Dealey had returned to Adelaide and the rest began to become the Moodists; starting with this ad in Juke magazine:

A fantastic Sputniks band photo can be seen here and the top few photos on this page are also our boys and girls. Graney and Moore's long list of musical collaborations is well documented elsewhere but you should also cock an ear to Dealey's later work, starting with the Acid Drops' brilliant Surfin' Prostitute Beat 7", through the stellar The Wailing House 7" with the Twenty Second Sect, who also put out several LPs.

But back to the Sputniks record. Played loose and sloppy, and with an endearing high energy, the rudimentary musical and songwriting skills don't stop this from being a great record. Of course, those deficiencies effectively add to its charm. In particular, Dealey's bass playing on Second Glance is a thing of joy; but the whole song is infectiously great from go to whoa.

The record was never issued in a sleeve but 100 copies were sold with badges attached to the diecut. We don't know how many different designs there were but feel obliged to show you this standout version:

The real it-never-ends action on this one revolves around the purple vinyl copies. In case we didn't mention it before, here at Wallaby Beat coloured vinyl rarely evinces much more than a shrugged shoulder; we just don't care. On the very odd occasion though it can cause us to break a mild sweat. The story went, and still goes, that a small batch of between 7 and 12 copies was made and circulated to the band's members and friends. Here 'tis:

And here are the two tracks. As always we thank Harry Butler's DNA fanzine for its excellent contemporaneous coverage of the early Adelaide scene - many of today's details come from Issues 4-16, and the Juke ad from issue 48.

Our Boys [Download]


Second Glance [Download]

More from the Sputniks marketing arm

It Never Ends: The Innocents - Sooner Or Later 7" RCA 103591, 1980

Kim Fowley visited Australia and New Zealand in 1979, via "British" Samoa: "All I found was a two track studio and someone reciting poetry in Polynesian, no hit records." That was in Samoa, not Auckland. He set up shop in the Melbourne Hilton and took out a full page ad in the local rock press announcing his arrival and calling on local unsigned bands to kneel before him. One of two bands he most took under his wing was Beathoven. Formerly Tasmania's top pop group, they had moved to Melbourne and had made hay on the high school lunchtime concert circuit. They had in fact broken up and only returned from Tasmania when summonsed by Fowley. He "ran out of adjectives describing them," Glenn Baker later reported. Two of the demos he recorded with them appear on the Here We Come LP (Raven, 1984). Princess In Disguise is pretty dull, but Rock'n'Roll Tonight is much better, even allowing for the cringeworthy ocker to-and-froing between band members; "Hey Wombat, where's the sheilas?" Unfortunately Fowley couldn't convince the local labels of his their genius - (Hilton) bummer.

Nonetheless in 1980, after a name change to The Innocents, this single lobbed up on Australian RCA. Theoretically there's a lot to dislike on this record: a disco bassline, a debt to the Beatles, an even bigger debt to the Four Seasons (thanks to the i-94 reviewer for picking that up). However the glorious chorus lifts it above and by the end you've forgotten the inauspicious opening verse. A good record, for sure, but you have to think Fowley would have shat his leather trews had Branded not already moved from Melbourne to Sydney.

The Raven LP is kinda tough to find these days but you should be able to pick up the comprehensive double CD No Hit Wonders From Down-Under fairly easily. Between the band's website and various other bloggings there's hours of reading for anyone who wants to delve further. Which brings us to our little addition to the story - the formerly apocryphal Japanese pressing.

A 1990s article on the band in an Australian collectors magazine mentioned a rumoured Japanese issue but was quite sure it didn't exist. The precursor to the band's website linked to above used to have a discography which wasn't certain either. Rest assured it exists, and rest even more assured we have it for you. Still on RCA, it's a 1982 release, making it two years later than the Australian issue. We first pulled it from the fertile stacks at Sydney store Ashwoods some time in the '90s. Since then we've only seen two other copies show up, and we have been looking. Which, when put in our equations, and factoring in the rise of the internet, makes it "quite rare". Despite the handsome seaside skateboarder sleeve (is that Shogo Kubo?), it seems Inosentsu were even less successful up there than down here.

Read all about them.

March 2020 update But wait.... somebody noticed. A local variety show performed a song and dance number to a version of the song.


Sooner Or Later [Download]


The "B" Side [Download]

We had variety shows too.

XL Capris - Dead Budgies 7" Axle 101, 1979

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

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

"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

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

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.