Despite living out at Merrylands for all of two weeks once, we are far from experts on the Western Sydney state of mind. Prejudicial reputation would have it as the place culture fails to thrive. We hope we've done something to redress this. Check out Walrus, hard rock being the genre that the hive mind would have as the region's speciality. Then there's Invader, proof positive that punk did take on out there. Of course, we always knew that due to what we'd find on our record shopping trips to the formerly fertile Blacktown and Liverpool shops. R.I.P.
Then there's evidence of the truly odd popping up out that way via our old friend Mopsie Beans. Mopsie was, by matrix number at least, the first release on the Local Label, based in Doonside, near Blacktown. Local did a small run of records, the third of which is today's subject, Paradox. Between Mopsie and Paradox was another off kilter 45 by The Worms. While the artwork has the hallmarks of a DIY masterpiece it's unfortunately not much chop; we've decided we're not gonna cover it on this blog.
So to Paradox. Like The Worms, it sports rudimentary artwork giving hope something demented lies inside. Again, like The Worms, that's not the case. What you do get is a decent piece of demo pop with nods to the Oz rock style of riffing. Which is to say they'd probably seen the Angels live many times, but they're not a hard rock band. Another case of accidental pop/grillfat cross-pollination. The flip side, although starting with a great, glammy power chord, quickly descends into something you don't need to hear.
In the end Local's approach was perhaps too much heterodoxy and too little quality control. A member of label-mates The Sheiks outlined the approach in the comments to their Wallaby Beat post.
Arch Browne, Local Label impresario, always wanted to release the quirky, the rough, the...exact opposite of what we thought was cool and sometimes it paid off.
Sometimes, sometimes...
I Don’t Care [Download]
3 comments:
If we are talking westies and punk, don't forget the Last Words, who came from Liverpool. Or later, CHAOS from Seven Hills. Anyway; Paradox. There used to be three record shops in Fairfield: Galleon, Palings and Soundsgood, the smallest. I remember the owner telling me his favourite band was The Moody Blues. Despite that, he stocked good stuff as well and was willing to help local bands. One day he told he just got a record that might interest me and showed me the small rack near his till with a couple of Paradox singles in it. I decided to give it a go and like you found it okay, but not earth shattering. Later, through a friend, I met Peter Burgess, who did the cover art and played drums on the record. I actually saw Peter on his last day working at Fosseys in Pitt St before he became a full-time musician. He was playing in the blues band Backsliders at the time.
Steve
Man I never thought I'd never hear these songs again. My daughter just googled my name which led her to this site. We then sat here in Cairns and listened back 33yrs into my past to a bunch of 18/19 yr olds who'd crammed into a small interview studio booth (having taken all the furniture out) at the Nth Sydney studios of 2SM.If we'd had a cat then it would'nt have been able to be swung, we plugged in and just went for it. It gave me a laugh when I remember back to that moment and what my life was like at the time. I love the net for being able to allow me to relive a part of my past that I thought I'd never hear again.
Yes it was pretty average but, hey, we were having the time of our lives believing we were about to become pop stars and having grown up with The Beatles we were dreaming big because we saw them come from (another Liverpool) working class background, only, we hadn't been graced with the genius that they possessed.
Pete Burgess
Thanks for the ppost
Post a Comment