Clint(on) Small was a contemporary of Rowland S. Howard and Au Go Go label chief Bruce Milne at the Swinburne Community School. His first named band, apart from the various freeform jam bands that played at the school, was Tootho and the Ring Of Confidence, shortened to TATROC, in 1975, with Howard on sax and Graeme Pitt of Champagne Edge on bass. You can see photos in the extras on the DVD of Autoluminescent.
After that Small remained a somewhat mysterious figure. We don't think we've ever seen anything written about him contemporaneous with his early records, which seems strange given his connections with the Melbourne punk mainstream, such as it was.
The facts are thus thin on the ground and are deduced from the record covers. Small played in an early lineup of the Little Murders, he's on their second 7". His own first 7" from 1979 is a great record: high energy, tough riffing, good solos and impassioned vocals. Clint plays guitar and sings and Wallaby Beat favourite Jarryl Wirth (News, Lonely Boys, etc.) is on bass and guitar - his classic guitar sound can be heard on Wyvern Parsons, Where Are You?, which also sounds like it could be a News song. Mark Graeber plays drums.
There's two sleeves for this one, both feeding off Milne's taste for 3-D postcards - he used to ask people to send them to him in the early shop mail order catalogues. The horse sleeve seems to turn up less then the camels sleeve, althought we're told there's equal numbers of both.
Crack In The Wall [Download]
Have You Got The Feeling? [Download]
Wyvern Parsons, Where Are You? [Download]
The same lineup put out a second 7" in 1980. It's a slightly more relaxed affair but still worthwhile. The A-side, On The Fourth Floor, is most similar to the previous record, but really only cuts loose for about ten seconds at the end. Daeng sounds like an outtake from The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. After that Small's next release was the Steel 12" from 1983 - it starts moving in a more hard rock direction and suffers from Jarryl Wirth's non-involvement. There were more self-released records through the eighties, which we've never investigated.
On The Fourth Floor [Download]
Daeng [Download]
(I'm) Hep Up To Here [Download]
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| Clint Small: "Photography by Wyvern (Yes, We Found Him!) Parsons" |
2 comments:
Great post - thank you!
I've been called Clint small plenty of times before, I know his pain.
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