The Screaming Abdabs / City Ram Waddy LP out now

Pressing of 500 copies. Limited edition of 100 on pink vinyl, available only from Wallaby Beat - CLICK HERE to order.

The Screaming Abdabs shone brightly but briefly in the early Sydney punk scene, absorbing references from The Glitter Band, John Waters films, late night TV, Australian ‘60s punk and of course the Sex Pistols to create something loud, charismatic and uniquely Australian. Side 1 presents the Abdabs' sole recording, recently unearthed, never before released, and essentially unheard since 1978. Side 2 compiles two raw/rare/remarkable 1979 solo records by Abdabs drummer Richard "City Ram" Waddy. The City Ram Waddy 7" sets a benchmark for primitivism in Australian DIY, while the City Ram And Ja Mystics 12" achieves propulsive Suicide/PiL-like repetition, all the while infused with Waddy's idiosyncratic worldview. Astonishing.

Includes a Spurt! fanzine insert that folds out to a massive newsprint poster with detailed interviews, photos and press clippings.

Available in Australia from Wallaby Beat and record shops around the country (Repressed, Egg, Revolve, Beatdisc, Rocking Horse, Phase 4, Vicious Sloth, Lulu, AG Picks, Round and Round, Clarity etc.).

Mailorder/wholesale in the US through Revolver, Get Hip!, Forced Exposure, and Goner.

Limited quantities available from NAT Records in Japan.

SOLD OUT through Florida's Dying and Ugly Pop - sorry!

Tracklisting:

The Screaming Abdabs
1. So Pretty
2. I'm A Rocker
3. We Don't Wanna
4. It's You
5. Money Not Love
6. Burnin' Up Over Me
7. Surfin' Bird
8. Norbie, Sorta Love Story

City Ram Waddy
1. Walking The Dog / Poem
2. Memphis Tenn. / Poem
3. Double Adaptor
4. Cortez The Killer
5. Get Off My Cloud
6. Under My Thumb

The Screaming Abdabs - We Don't Wanna: The Paris Theatre Tape 1978

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Out now on Wallaby Beat Records - CLICK HERE to order:

The Screaming Abdabs / City Ram Waddy LP (WBRX-2603)
Recently unearthed, previously unreleased 1978 recording by Sydney punks The Screaming Abdabs on side 1, and two raw/rare/remarkable 1979 solo records by Abdabs drummer Richard "City Ram" Waddy on side 2. The Screaming Abdabs shone brightly but briefly in the early Sydney punk scene, absorbing references from The Glitter Band, John Waters films, late night TV, Australian ‘60s punk and of course the Sex Pistols to create something loud, charismatic and uniquely Australian. Pressing of 500 copies, with 100 on pink vinyl. Includes a Spurt fanzine insert that folds out to a massive poster with detailed interviews, photos and press clippings.

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Carmel on the back cover of
In The Gutter

The Screaming Abdabs were assembled in early 1978 as a vehicle for vocalist Carmel Strelein. A true iconoclast, Carmel cultivated a wild sense of personal style that made her instantly recognisable in the formative Sydney punk scene: shaved head, exaggerated eye make-up extending across her scalp, tattoos, piercings and outlandish custom altered clothes (notably, a knitted jumper with three arms, the extra limb stuffed to accentuate its strangeness). Her extreme aesthetic - informed by John Waters, Salvador Dali, Lindsay Kemp, and greaser movies on late night TV - unsurprisingly attracted attention. British photographer Norman Parkinson, known for his portraits of the royal family, travelled to Sydney in 1977 specifically to photograph Carmel, and the resulting shots were published over two pages in his 1978 book, Sisters Under The Skin. Other subjects included Bianca Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Queen Elizabeth and Miss Piggy(!). One particularly arresting photo of Carmel was reused later that year as the back cover for Val Hennesy’s In The Gutter, a UK punk exploitation book masquerading as sociology text.

There were less desirable kinds of attention too - from the cops, and from her peers. Here, Carmel and Simon McDowell (aka Simon Diamond) are interviewed in issue 1 of Spurt fanzine (1977) by editor Ian Hartley:

Hartley saw untapped potential in Carmel’s extreme persona, and by the time the second issue of Spurt went to press in late 1977, the pair had placed a notice on the back cover (supplemented by a poster in the foyer of the Paris Theatre) advertising for members for a new punk band, with Carmel as frontperson. Conceptually, Hartley and Spurt collaborator Dave Apps proposed two guiding themes. Firstly, the band should be uniquely Australian - in musical style, lyrical content, and in visual presentation. Secondly, after being floored by The Glitter Band's rhythm section on Gary Glitter's November 1973 Australian tour, Hartley and Apps decided to replicate that rhythm-heavy rumble on a punk budget - the drummer would use two bass drums and no cymbals.

From the back cover of Spurt #2

Guitarist Bruce Tindale, immersed in the Funhouse scene established by Radio Birdman, answered the ad in Spurt. Drummer Richard Waddy, an acolyte of X in the early, Ian Krahe line-up, answered the ad at The Paris. Nobody can quite remember how bass player Nick entered the fold. Nobody can quite remember his surname, either. Hazy memories recollect only that he was more "straight" than his bandmates, and also more musicianly. (Nick, if you're out there our email address is in the sidebar to the right). Following auditions at the Paris Theatre, which was then hosting regular punk gigs in addition to underground films and theatre performances, rehearsals began in earnest both at The Paris and at Hartley’s Spurt office on Oxford Street, Paddington. There, the band worked up a set of originals and a few, mostly Australian covers (AC/DC, Johnny O'Keefe, and It's You by Terry Dean, also covered later by Brisbane's The Credits). Carmel also set about shaping the band's look, with Bruce's shoulder-length hair being the first priority.

L-R: Bruce, Nick, Carmel and Richard at the Spurt office, Paddington, early 1978. Walls adorned with a Sex Pistols poster and the infamous Rose Tattoo Spurt front cover.

Carmel enforces the doctrine of short-haired rock and roll, and Bruce plays along. Ian Hartley in the background. (Photos: Stephen Best)

Before even deciding on a name, the new band debuted at a hurriedly-organised, low-key gig on March 6, 1978 at Blondies in Bondi Junction. The show was documented in Autopsy fanzine: "Carmel, who as usual was dressed to kill, all black body suit, stilettos & false eye lashes, delivered the vocals in a screeching style matched by her posturing... The band was loose but promising". More shows were booked at The Paris and at Blondies (the latter with an early, three-piece line-up of Rocks), and a name was locked in: The Screaming Abdabs.

The Screaming Abdabs at Blondies, 1978 (photo: Stephen Best)

The Screaming Abdabs' Paris Theatre show on April 12, 1978 was a scorching triple-bill - The Press, Johnny Dole & the Scabs, and The Abdabs as headliners. The Paris was packed, and the bands were greeted enthusiastically with a barrage of money, food and shoes thrown on stage. Radio station Double J's mobile recording truck had been camped at The Paris, recording performances from the likes of X, News, Survivors, Rocks, and the Boys Next Door for broadcast on Wednesday evenings. The Screaming Abdabs' set was recorded that night, but was never aired - Carmel reportedly badmouthed Double J between songs. Attempts to retrieve the tape at the time were unsuccessful, and it no longer exists in the ABC archives. The only extant cassette of the performance, from the collection of Bruce Tindale, is unlikely to be the Double J recording. It's more probable that the source was Ian Hartley, who habitually set up a reel-to-reel recorder through the Paris PA, and who gave the tape to Bruce shortly after the gig (Hartley also used one song - We Don't Wanna - on a cassette that came with issue 5/6 of Spurt, along with a version with the tape spooled backwards in homage to The Missing Links). That tape, expertly mastered by Mikey Young, comprises their side of the LP on Wallaby Beat.

The musical drive that Nick's bass playing brought to The Screaming Abdabs turned out also to be the band's undoing. Recalls Bruce: "He might have just felt this wasn't what he'd been thinking about as a nice band... He could play, whereas I could hardly play. He was very tolerant, for a while!". With the loss of their bass player, the band fell apart before the end of 1978. An attempt to revive a Carmel-led Abdabs, with the recruitment of a female bass player and an advertisement yet again placed in Spurt for a new guitarist and drummer, amounted to nothing. Bruce went on to play with The Professors, Room 101, Coupe de Ville, and Decline of the Reptiles. Richard adopted the name City Ram Waddy, and his incredible records from 1979 are compiled on side 2 of the Abdabs' Wallaby Beat LP.

Carmel moved from Sydney to San Francisco, where she attended punk gigs and formed the band Pillar Of Salt, whose song Surfin' In The Sewer was a minor hit on local radio. She also engaged with the drag queen community, as she had done extensively in Sydney, and established a successful hair salon called the Pink Tarantula. Tragically, in 1997 she was murdered as she worked at the salon, a contract killing instigated by her ex-husband. Carmel's early life, her fascinating San Francisco years, and the terrible circumstances surrounding her death are detailed in this truly excellent noir-style article by Jack Boulware from the SF Weekly.

The Screaming Abdabs - We Don't Wanna

Carmel and Bruce, Blondies 1978 (photo: Stephen Best)

Carmel Strelein at the Pink Tarantula Hair Salon in San Francisco,
October 22 1989 (photo: Dan Nicoletta)

It Never Ends: The Numbers and The Riptides - Sunset Strip 7" Able AB-003 and AB-004, 1978, 1979

One of the finest Australian records of the punk era is this 'un, Sunset Strip by The Numbers. There seems to be some latter day criticism by wooden ears that this is too poppy or sixties influenced. Those critics should take off the dunce cap and listen again - the pace is definitively 1978, the vocals disaffected, and the band smashing into each other in a completely endearing fashion. If you were born on Mars and haven't heard it you'll know straight away it's from Brisbane courtesy of the handclap solo - all the Briso bands feature 'em. Since this is an it-never-ends feature we're duty bound to point out the film like card the boys used for the sleeve and the miniscule chance of finding one without ringwear at this late stage. After a few decades we found the one above which had been stored separate to the record. It still shows a visible scratch though, ugh.

At some point word filtered in from down south about another Numbers and the band decided to change their name. This was not a major problem as they had already used and discarded The Grudge and Neon Steal (rumours persist of recordings from this version of the band). The Riptides were born. The Numbers single had been taken to Melbourne and Sydney by Robert Vickers and had been well received, so first point of business was to reissue the record under the new name.  

There's been much supposition over the years as to whether this version is re-recorded, remixed or simply remastered. Starting with the easy ones even the tinniest of tinnitus affected ears can hear the recording is the same. Remastered is a yes - The Numbers has a DB matrix scratch indicating Don Bartley at Studio 301 in Sydney. He captured the energy well. The Riptides version is an EMI Custom pressing plant job - new plates and a softer mastering job. Which leaves remixed. After some intense A/B-ing plus study of the waveforms we're gonna say yes. You can compare below but at the very least the hi-hats are way more prominent on the Numbers version. Mark Callaghan explained in Andrew Stafford's Pig City:

The main difference with the remix was we turned off Dennis’ hi-hat microphone, because at that stage he didn’t realise you were supposed to clamp the hat down when you did a drum roll, so you have the cymbals spilling out over everything!

Once again the band went with easily scratched glossy stock and even with 2000 pressed finding one without ringwear is a frustrating exercise. Bomp took 300 copies so our American readers should be well placed. Ours above still has the slightest hint, ugh. After the band moved to Sydney the last few copies were sold through stores there with the stamped sleeve below, a nice piece of it-never-ends to end with.

Well not quite - don't neglect the two b-side tracks! 

Sunset Strip [Download]


Magic Castle [Download]


Rules Of Love [Download]


Sunset Strip (Riptides) [Download]



In case you haven't seen it - the video. Handclaps at 2:26.

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

Thorburn - Brick Wall 7" Mouth MTH.SP.001, 1978

Euan Thorburn was a fringe dweller in the early Melbourne scene and is vaguely remembered by various participants we've polled. As we hope you'd figured out by now, we love fringe dwellers, especially to the fringe scenes we cover. We'd like to be able to pinpoint exactly where he fit in but he hasn't answered our emails! Work with us, Euan. Anyway, Thorburn was a graphic artist (one of his better pieces appears below), who diversified into recording in 1978, the wonderfully loony Brick Wall / Charlie being the result. With its unique, DIY take on R'n'B, Brick Wall is the kind of thing that would have appeared on Charly, or Stiff, or maybe even Chiswick, had our man been in London, rather than the bleak city. We're also partial to the downer B-side.

Brick Wall eventually reappeared on Missing Link's Inner Sanctum LP, Keith Glass being a fan of the record through his record shops.

Thorburn still sits on the fringe, plying his trade as an artist - you can shop for his art here.

Brick Wall [Download]


Charlie [Download]

"Artwork by Euan Thorburn"

U-Bombs - Give Me A Medal 7" Radioactive PRS-2584, 1978

Adelaide's alright if you like saxophones:



For Irving and the U-Bombs, one of Australia's original class of '77, it wasn't always the way. Following an all-too-familiar lightning bolt moment - a chance encounter with the Sex Pistols on TV - Paul Tuxworth (guitar, vocals), Anando "Phil" Bahti (bass, vocals, guitar) and Roy Erzinger (drums, vocals) made the overnight transition from teenage Genesis-obsessed prog rockers to fully-fledged punk rockers. Within weeks, a set of over 20 songs was worked up, consisting mostly of covers with a sprinkling of originals. Soon after, Irving and the U-Bombs debuted at a private party in the Adelaide hills, playing a short, fast and frantic set which was reportedly greeted by dropped jaws and stunned silence. A nine-week residency at the Belair Hotel followed, during which the band cultivated a reputation for fearsome live performances ("Adelaide's premier speed outfit", according to issue #1 of DNA zine).

Within a year, the name was shortened to the U-Bombs and, portentously, the lineup was extended to include Ian Thurnwald on sax and vocals. It was this incarnation which appeared on the Live At The Marryatville cassette, released by Simon Stretton of Black Chrome/Tomorrow Records, which by all accounts still captured the original U-Bombs attack (please drop us a line if you have a copy you'd let go). However, as recorded in the pages of DNA, the addition of sax didn't sit well with many of the band's original fans, who saw it as the beginning of the end. Indeed, the lineup change foreshadowed a move to a more considered, less punky songwriting style and a less frenetic delivery (though the above video shows the occasional flashback to former glories). This era is documented on 1978 and 1979 demos - one released on Tomorrow as 12 Family Favourites From The Golden Years of Protest - and the U-Bombs' only single.

Give Me A Medal has a reputation for being one of the weaker early Australian punk records, and we ourselves have struggled to look past what might have been had the U-Bombs hit the studio just six months earlier. So what is there to appreciate about a record that is, in the words of DNA again, "cleared of the simplistic sludge that is punk"? Give Me A Medal has some interesting lyrics; The New And Improved has tempo on its side (at least to begin with); and (What's) Your Problem? is a pretty good song, plain and simple. The record - with its silk-screened sleeve, poster, stickers and instruction manual inserts - also makes for a nice visual package. Still, we can't help wishing that the instructions for the "groovy 'do-it-yourself badge kit'" (see below) weren't emblematic of the U-Bombs' musical trajectory.

Give Me A Medal [Download]


The New And Improved [Download]


(What's) Your Problem [Download]

Instruction manual.

Far out poster.

Groovy 'do-it-yourself badge kit' / all purpose bumper sticker.

Systems Go! - No More Xmas, Carol 7" no label or matrix number, 1978

First of all:

Now before you think we've gone all god botherin' on you, let us explain. After the fact that the first 18 seconds blows most contemporaneous "prog" out of the water, the first reason for posting Sister Jan's groovy 1973 reading is that Clare Moore of The Sputniks is apocryphally playing the freaky drums on it! That's not quite the case though Clare did learn her craft under the Svengali-like gaze of the good sister.

The second point of Wallaby Beat interest is that playing on and writing songs on Mead's records was a guy called Arnold Strals. He's presumably responsible for that analogue synth on The Lord's Prayer and the funky drumbeat. In fact he copped the songwriting credit, nice work for words nearly 2000 years old!

Fast forward a few years and, like Moore, Strals appeared in the Adelaide underground. The band was Systems Go!, and while clearly not a punk band, the photo in Inner City Sound hints at a David Lynch-ian otherworldliness, with a touch of Pere Ubu thrown in.

The band released a pretty obscure 7" in 1978, along with a track on the 5MMM compilation best known for the Brats in 1980. As well as Strals the band featured Huw Lewis on lead and slide guitar,
Liduina van der Sman on sax and flute, Adrienne Sach on piano and harmonica, Keith Newman on drums, Vonni Rollan on congas and Nigel Sweeting on bass.

Van der Sman later played with ...And The Native Hipsters in London, before closing the circle and playing with Moore and Dave Graney on 1997's The Devil Drives. Newman had been in The Warm Jets who became Terminal Twist, who covered several of Strals' songs, including Common Knowledge on their EP. Strals' songs are also listed as an influence on Terry Bradford from Greasy Pop band July 14th, in his interview in Underground In The City Of Churches.

Rollan and Sweeting then spent time in new wavers Nuvo Bloc before Sweeting hooked up with Strals and Lewis through the early to mid '80s as Speedboat. You can hear a Speedboat track, Sex Without Grunting, on Fast Forward 11.

Which brings us to the 1978 single. The less interesting A-side of the single can be heard on Left Of The Middle. The flipside though, is a lumbering beast of a song, really hitting its straps in the choruses, where Strals' take on Tom Waits' take on Captain Beefheart will sit really well with your fifth glögg/umeshu/Fosters on Tuesday afternoon.

No More Xmas, Carol [Download]

It Never Ends: Voigt/465 - A Secret West 7" Unanimous Weld Enunciations E594, 1978

An extensive history of Voigt/465, authored by keyboard player and vocalist Phil Turnbull, can be found spread across several pages at his No Night Sweats website. A comprehensive firsthand account, it even offers some mild It Never Ends action to entertain us record collector subnormals, via its description of multiple pressings of the Slights Unspoken LP. Rather than parrot those details, we'll focus today on our own minor contribution to the story: welcome to the fascinating world of variations on Voigt/465's A Secret West / State 45.

The single is housed in a great sleeve, the murky, ambiguous imagery complementing the sounds within and reflecting the Voigt/465 mindset - i.e. one eye on the rear-view mirror but always surging forward, even if the final destination isn't clear (or, in Turnbull's words, "Post-Punk Rock, Krautrock and Prog rock combine to form a sound unlike any other"). All copies are hand-numbered in a variety of locations on the back cover, which conveniently allows us to trace how construction of the sleeves (and the accompanying insert) evolved over time. Enlightening in some respects but head-scratching in others - we'll get to that in a moment.

Early copies are assembled in marvelous DIY fashion, being two photocopied sheets, cut and pasted onto blank cardboard sleeves; the dimensions of the artwork are smaller than the blank sleeve, creating a white border. Over time, the glue has tended to become discoloured - even on the most well-preserved of copies - characterising the initial batch with brown-ish stains or "foxing". This version is numbered in black pen on the bottom right-hand side of the back cover:

#21

An insert is included in all copies of the record. Early examples - the first 100 or so - feature lyrics to both songs, a dictionary definition of "Whodunit?" with non sequiturs apparently authored by our mate Fat Lenny, and a statement that there were "500 copies pressed":

"500 copies pressed"

Anyone who has ever assembled and numbered record covers can attest that it is about as tedious as a Puritans B-side. At some point, even counting the number of records dispatched from the pressing plant seems like a preferable activity. Whoops! EMI Custom overshipped the order by 10%. Time to re-do that insert. This version, found in the remainder of the run, retains the layout of the song lyrics but inserts a new batch of nonsense below, with a more precise description of the pressing size:

"One of 547"

The earlier insert was most commonly printed on white paper, and the later version on fluorescent coloured stock, but note that the paper colour isn't convenient shorthand to differentiate them - white and fluoro examples exist for both.

The tedium of record cover assembly inevitably leads to band members hitting the pub, never to return. The remaining copies are circulated naked, dooming OCD-afflicted, pic-sleeve-obsessed record collectors to untold sleepless nights. Some examples have even forced us to install padded walls in our record rooms. Voigt/465, ever-determined to tread their own path, took a different tack. Later copies are housed in a professionally printed sleeve on textured cardstock - a less labour-intesive solution, individual numbering notwithstanding. On this version, the print job is somewhat darker, revealing more detail in the reflection, and the artwork extends to the edges of the sleeve (though a white edge remains on the left side of the back cover, where the number appears, again in black pen). Oddly, this appears to be the less common variation:

#285

That all seems like a cogent story, right? So what are we to make of this tail-ender, a return to the cut-and-paste style? The road ahead must seem especially bleak after assembling 500 record covers. This copy differs from the others in being numbered in blue pen, on the top left of the back cover, and in what the Wallaby Beat forensic handwriting department has concluded is different penmanship.

#500

And so last, but by no means least, we come to the music itself. In turns melodic, arty and aggressive, State delivers on all of the promise of Phil Turnbull's above-quoted description without succumbing to its obvious pitfalls. The sublime descending bass run alone shoots it to the top-tier of Australian art-punk. Voigt/465's subsequent LP is also well worth hearing, but though the band would become artier, they would never be as "punk" (a change in drummer seems the likely culprit). The CD compilation One Faint Deluded Smile is sadly out of print, but can be found archived at Mutant Sounds; individual tracks are also included on the Can't Stop It and Inner City Sound CDs.

State [Download]

Kevin McLaughlin and the Murrumbidgee Orchestra - Whole Wide World 7" River Records SMX-46873/4, 1978

Whenever we feel that the occasion requires an '80s movie namedrop, This Is Spinal Tap usually covers the essentials. Today, however, we're reminded of a more unlikely reference - Ivan Reitman's sheissewerk about the lighter side of eugenics, Twins. You plead ignorance? Allow us to give a synopsis. Arnold Schwartzenegger and Danny Devito play - you guessed it - twins; separated at birth, they go on to lead very different lives. A grey-haired plot device informs us that this is because first-born Arnie is a genetically engineered übermensch, whereas Devito was an unexpected side-effect, a by-product of the leftover turd genes. The film ends with Arnie being sent back from the future to infiltrate the Kennedy gene pool; meanwhile his short, fat scumbag twin makes a living as a taxi dispatcher before going on to co-host American Pickers. Uh, or something like that.

In June 1978, employees at the Festival Records plant pressed the Victims' TV Freak 7" (SMX-46871/2) before changing the plates and using the leftover vinyl to press a little-known single by Kevin McLaughlin and the Murrumbidgee Orchestra. As the afterbirth to the monstrous Victims EP, this punk-era curiosity has remained virtually unheard beyond Canberra music aficionados and hardcore Wreckless Eric freaks. Its B-side is a relatively faithful, contemporaneous cover of Eric's Whole Wide World, some additional keyboard being the main point of difference. Hard to go wrong with a song this good, but it's still just a cover, and perhaps less than essential listening for anyone with the original filed away. The A-side needs to be heard by no one, ever.

For us, the single's main interest lies in its backstory, told in full over at the Canberra Musicians website. There you'll find a band enamoured with the Oz Rock tradition accidentally stumbling across the "new music". We've seen before how non-punk "punk" records emerged prior to many genuine Australian punk bands releasing records of their own. Though not as early in the game, the Murrumbidgee Orchestra is yet another example:

"When George [Bennett, vocals] came back from Britain he brought with him some new music called 'punk'. One song stood out, Wreckless Eric's Whole Wide World. George and Willie [Ian Winter, guitar] had another original called Thunder on the Mountain. We recorded them out at Airsound in Fyshwick and had it pressed in about a week. We sat back and waited for our first single to go roaring up the charts, bringing us fame, fortune and home delivered pizza. We are still waiting, but early days".

Whole Wide World [Download]

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]