The D.A.s - Death City 7" flexi Really Good Records, 1983

The imperative to rock has always been there, it's just the perceptible shifts in influences that help notate the passing years. The grillfat recordings we've paid tribute to thus far have been mid and late '70s vintage, generally pre-punk, and draw from archetypes like Deep Purple, Slade and AC/DC. Then there's the few hard rock/punk crossovers like Invader. Today we look at one direction things went in for suburban kids who wanted to rock as the new decade yawned. Rather than mersh hard rock (effectively Oz rock updated), or pure Iron Maiden/Judas Priest metal, some kids followed local heroes and filtered the Blue Oyster Cult and MC5 through Radio Birdman and The Hitmen.

One such very short-lived band was Sydney's The D.A.s. Singer John Denison had organised Bon-era AC/DC and Dragon to play at his high school. After passing through the Guests, he brought this band together in March 1983, playing their first gig with The Hoodoo Gurus at the Southern Cross Hotel. More gigs followed where they extended their mostly covers set list (Remains' Don't Look Back, MC5's High School and Looking At You) with some originals. Pretty damn quickly they organised this flexi-disc to be included with issue 7 of Sydney fanzine 48 Crash (May 1983). And, um, that's it. Denison went on to the Howling Commandos, the rest disappeared.

The songs are training wheels level with the Dead Boys cover being somewhat uninspired. The original, Death City, however, has grown on us a bit over the years, and is a good example of The Hitmen's pervasive influence on the kids.

Death City [Download]

Sonic Reducer [Download]

Blurb from 48 Crash Issue 7. Click to read.

Da boys.