3 Musketeers - The Drop 7" Ginsling, 1984

Hello all, here's this season's reindeer turd.

Context - U-Bombs and Nervous System related new wave who decided to get ugly for one song off their two 7"s.

Silent Night [Download]

Leap In The Dark - Samurai 7" Sundown SUN 0087, 1984

It was about 10 years back - a heady time when people actually read music blogs - that Dave Lang coined the useful phrase "record-collector-rock". Back then, he used the concept to mean music that is "drool fodder for collector/obsessive dorks: you know, not the kind of music 'regular' folk buy" (or more succinctly, records that are "good to show off but not to listen to"). What he didn't anticipate was the emergence of "meta-record-collector-rock": music made by record collectors, released by record collectors, for a target audience largely made up of record collectors. It's not exactly news that there is overlap in the collector/musician Venn diagram, but that kind of closed cultural feedback loop is a relatively recent phenomenon, right? Hmm, what of the Australian punk collector who, in 1983, created a limited edition of his own band's record with a cover directly referencing the Victims' handpainted 7" EP? What could possibly be the point, other than to amuse said collector and appeal to the OCD of similarly afflicted obsessives? Three decades later, that party trick has worked a treat - the self-aware tribute is even tougher to find than the Victims' original.

We'll come to the Victims EP and its simulacrum in due course, but what intrigues us today is the "anti-meta-record-collector-rock" of the Leap In the Dark 7". Vocalist Mark Overett was a year-zero participant in the Brisbane punk scene, documenting future legends in real time in his fanzine, Fad. These days, Overett is a self-described "anoraky guy who collects Aussie punk records 1976-1981". We applaud the tightness of those parameters, but dig the recording dates of Overett's own work - December 1983 to January 1984! Talk about hiding your light under a bushel. Luckily for Mark, others find worth in music made outside the classic '76-'81 timeframe - Samurai is a neat, punky powerpop track, and yet another example of the endearing tweeness that pervades many a Brisbane record from the Go Betweens on. The EP's two remaining tracks sit at opposing extremes of the tweeness spectrum, and are less endearing as a result. Other band members were Wayne Harvey (drums), Bob Reeves (guitar), and Adrian Mengede (bass).

Samurai [Download]

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.

Merv Megastar - Rock 'n' Roll Diskrace 7" EMI Custom 13546, 1984

When we pulled a copy of this single from a box at a recent record fair and read the hype written in sharpie on the plastic outer sleeve ("Merv Superstar [sic] - Oz KBD punk - $1000") we almost spat mouthfuls of banana in the dealer's face (bananas are the perfect record collector food, doncha know). We shouldn't have been so surprised. Perhaps you've seen the dealer in question spruiking a single by the Sharks on a certain online auction site with an $800 opening bid. Yikes. You won't find that turd of a record featured here - ever - but, outrageous misrepresentations aside, Mr Megastar is more than worthy of your time.

So, back to the three assertions in the dealer hype. Let's consider them one-by-one:

1. Merv Superstar? Duh.
2. Oz KBD punk? Well, yes, Merv is Australian so bravo, that's one out of three. Rock 'n' Roll Diskrace is twelve-bar Oz Rock pastiche; She's in Love With A Vacuum Cleaner is a cool pub rocker; and Deviates Have More Fun is 1984's Booker Prize-winning Bachelor Boys: The Young Ones Book as adapted by John Otway. Cliff Richard isn't namechecked but Rat Scabies is, hence the "punk novelty" tag for this post.
3. $1000? Excuse us, we need to wipe half-chewed banana off our computer screens.

Rock 'n' Roll Diskrace [Download]


She's In Love With A Vacuum Cleaner [Download]


Deviates Have More Fun [Download]

Test pressing? Merv proves that he can do it horizontal, or maybe perpendicular.

Funhouse - Conspicious Consumption 7" EMI Custom 13634, 1984

When Adelaide band Gun Control moved to Sydney in 1984 they changed their name to Funhouse. Being an Adelaide band we revert to our modus operandum and pull out the DNA fanzine stack from the shelf. For balance's sake we'll note that this is our only source as the Wallaby Beat tape deck is out of commission and we couldn't listen to their interview on Public Eye cassette fanzine from 1983.

Singer Rip Savage started in 1979 as a roadie and sometimes vocalist for No Action, a Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks cover band completely lost to history but being the starting point for Ian List (Dagoes, Assassins, Falling Spikes) and Tim O'Connor (of Frente). Rip next moved onto Dead Image with Justin Flint (ex The Victims (no, not those Victims)) on guitar, Phil Perm (né McTaggart) on bass, and Paul Loughhead on drums. They played mostly parties. Flint moved to Perth (still not those Victims) and was replaced by Kelly Hewson from Agent Orange (no, not that Agent Orange, or the other one) and the band rebranded as Gun Control.

The band's first mention in DNA is in May 1980 as bottom of the bill at the Dead Azzaria (sic) & the Dingo Dance, "bring a toy doll and get in 1/2 price", which got cancelled due to adverse publicity in the norm press. Over their first year they developed a set consisting of equal parts punk standards (Sex Pistols - Satellite and Did You No Wrong, Damned - Liar, Ruts - H-Eyes, Dead Boys - Ain't Nothin' To Do, UK Subs - Warhead, Clash - Cheat and White Man, Buzzcocks - Autonomy, Lou Reed - Sweet Jane, Iggy - Funtime) and originals (Political Crimes, Why Are You?, Ignorance, Soldier, Asylum, No Tactics, Clee Chay, Death In An Overcoat). Writing styles were summarised as:

• Kelly - non-sensical sort of stuff;
• Phil - political (he's Irish);
• Rip - about people he knows and their attitudes or various neuroses. 

Herein lies the story of the band as laid out over the next twenty odd issues of the magazine, disparate personalities, disparate tastes, disparate interests, and yet a band which stuck together for four years, trying to get the mix right over and over again.

September 1981 sees them recording their first tape, cutting down the number of covers in their set, and aiming for some of the bigger venues (the Tivoli and the Arkaba). In a live review Harry Butler says "they should be producing a wall-of-noise type sound like Never Mind the Bollocks, instead they're pumping out something like the first Clash album (really thin)"; the mix of political punk, guitar hero soloing and metallic influences seemingly proving difficult to combine. They kept working at it and in a review of a New Year's Eve show Butler says the wall-of-sound is coming along.

In the July 1982 issue, over various gig reviews, Butler notes too many metal moves from Hewson ("he claims it's a piss take but it looks bloody real"), at the next gig "a good show but still too many covers" and by a third gig there is only one cover, and good new songs, but "slow, dirgey metal tunes" are spoiling the set. Rip Savage is noted as developing into a great frontman. Seemingly aware of their faults, the band is able to self-correct, a good sign.

In mid-'82 the band recorded a four song tape with No Tactics / Give Me Security / The Boss / Wooden Doll, which DNA reviewed as "coming across like Generation X backed by a semi-hard rock band". In October another four tracks were recorded, Fly The Flag / Mr Callan / She Belongs To Me / Wake Up. Greasy Pop was to release them as an EP but the band deemed them "too commercial". Doug Thomas recalled in Underground In A City of Churches that it was "no great, lost classic", but "four good songs that should have been released". Two of the tracks did turn up on the A Greasy Selection tape in 1985.

DNA records a gig or two each month over the next year, occasionally reporting on the same lines - a mixture of sparks of energy and slabs of turgid dirge. By late 1983 a move to Sydney was deemed necessary. The band recorded two originals in December, Conspicuous Consumption and Retaliation, ditched the turgid originals and covers (but strangely started doing Interzone by Joy Division (and Search And Destroy (oh dear))).  Their last three local gigs received good reviews in DNA - being described as tighter, more focussed, and a "non-stop blitzkrieg". In February 1984 they headed for Grong Grong and on to Sydney.

Sydney was somewhat successful, they made progress and got good gigs. They changed their name to Funhouse after being asked too many times in interviews about their existing name (sounds like this time the rock 'n' roll arm of the band won the clash with the political arm). The two tracks came out as a single around September. However, one night after a gig most of their gear was stolen. They got by borrowing gear for a while but couldn't rehearse, and they broke up. One more time on their return to Adelaide for final shows, Butler described them as "punk flavoured hard rock".

Savage next landed in Mushroom Planet, Loughhead as Paul Larsen for two long stints in the Celibate Rifles, and Hewson in any number of Adelaide punk and hardcore bands through the '80s - Skunks, Hot Tomatoes, Raw Power (not that one) and Grunter amongst them. The Too Drunk To Funhouse 12" was by an unrelated Melbourne band from later in the '80s.

While there's a metally guitar tone and solos on the record we really just hear the stronger influences of the Dead Kennedys and the Ruts coming through, and oddly with both tracks being credited to Hewson they are both definitely political, not "non-sensical".

Conspicuous Consumption [Download]


Retaliation [Download]