Rejected - First Offence 7" EMI Custom PRS-13775, 1985

To paraphrase Buddy Rich by way of Frank Costanza: Australian hardcore...this is not our kind of hardcore. We'll leave it to scholars of the genre to compile the definitive '80s hardcore punk world rankings, but Australia's output sits well behind that of heavyweights like the US, Sweden and Japan. Better than France? Not as good as Germany? Whatever our position in the league table, it's hardly a source of national pride.

There are exceptions of course, and some gems to be found among cassette releases, but in general the vinyl landscape of Australian hardcore is bleak. Some of this stuff has seemingly developed cachet in certain circles, but as support for our prejudices, we'll direct you to the back-catalogues of Cleopatra and Reactor Records as the last word in mediocrity. Not all of it is bad, necessarily, but at best it's undistinguished. In some cases the records simply haven't aged well; in others, it's clear that there wasn't much going on to begin with. And then there's the Crucified Truth EP, which flat-out sucks no matter how you slice it.

So what's so special about The Rejected, then? Well, at first glance, not much. Their First Offence EP from 1985, a 300-press EMI Custom job, is blighted by two elements guaranteed to sink any hardcore record: bad (i.e. good) production and cheater-beats. The clarity of the recording is problematic across the board, restraining the songs from achieving the requisite level of urgency, but it's Personal Gain and You Don't Care which are the main offenders in the cheater-beat stakes - drumming lost in the no-man's-land between traditional hardcore polka rhythms and blast-beats, minus the propulsion of the former and the BPM of the latter. Copper, which closes out the record, is Plod by name and plod by nature, and does little to redeem proceedings.

What is significant about First Offence is its use of the D-beat. For the benefit of anyone reading this from under a rock, the archetytpal D-beat can be found in the first seconds of the first song on the first Discharge record, and thereafter up to the crushing Why 12". Others may have beaten them to the punch, but there's a reason it has come to be known as the D-beat and not the Buzz-beat: Discharge delivered it with such conceptual singularity as to map out the raw punk blueprint for the next 30+ years. In other countries the D-beat was embraced as an important stylistic innovation, but Australians, it seems, were not early adopters. Similar impulses manifested differently in Seems Twice (more on them later), but there's scant recorded evidence of the kind of direct influence apparent in Scandinavia and beyond. Discharge was held in high regard here, as various covers of the era attest (Decontrol by Sick Things; Never Again by Public Nuisance; State Violence, State Control by Mob Vengeance), but those covers are telling in and of themselves - not a D-beat among them. And on the rare occasion that D-beats did show up in Australian hardcore songs, the effect wasn't particularly Discharge-like (check out this pretty good and relatively early example from End Result; various takes by Arm The Insane are also littered across their generally dire discography).

Nuclear War and You're The Victim are notable, then, for being Australian D-beat songs with a heavy Discharge influence in the structures, riffage, and lyrics. The slickness of the recording is still less than ideal, but the songs do have brevity on their side, and they're the definite highlights of an otherwise unremarkable record. Both songs would be re-recorded for The Rejected's subsequent LP, but disappointingly - much like Diamond Head's fate at the hands of some other band - D-beats were conspicuously absent on the new versions. Which means that our interest in The Rejected ends here. Gluttons for punishment may wish to track down their second (and final) LP, but with a pressing of just 69 copies, we wish you luck and a speedy recovery to full mental health.

Personal Gain [Download]


Nuclear War [Download]


You're The Victim [Download]


You Don't Care [Download]


Copper [Download]

Nuclear War, what the fuck is it good for?

The Word - I Think I'm Falling In Love 7" Infinity K7781, 1980

You're probably familiar with the Inner City Sound discography, and how after studying it for two decades you think you have a handle on it. Then you realise there's an obscure Infinity label record right at the end - no other mention in the book, or elsewhere really. Damn!

Well here it is. The Word were a punk band from Canberra who started in 1978. In 1980 they somehow got to record this single in Sydney. It was released on Festival subsidiary Infinity, continuing that label's flirtation with powerpop while they sat on money made from Sherbet. Festival house producer Martin Erdman sat behind the desk.

Members over the band's existence included Michael Moriarty (vocals/guitar), Peter Palij (guitar), Terry Sounder (vocals/guitar), Archie Van Der Glass (bass), Frankie Villegas (bass, on the record) and Darcy Deegan (drums).

The record is somewhat over-produced, and, at the best of times, if there's one word to describe the Canberran approach to playing guitar it's tentative. Nevertheless, the band's enthusiasm shines through, and the Only Ones style vocal inflections are effective. As poppy Oz Rock it fit the sounds of the time and we're kinda surprised it wasn't some kind of hit. The flipside, Angel, is less distinguished - ramping up the Oz Rock at the expense of the powerpop. Only Moriarty troubled the compilers of the Who's Who Of Australian Rock again, ending up in the Gadflys.

I Think I’m Falling In Love [Download]

The Word, from Canberra Punk & Beyond on Facebook.

Mopsie Beans - Appearances LP Mopubs SR8101, 1981

Mopsie (a.k.a. Elizabeth Ward) and Jerry Beans formed an ongoing creative partnership in the mid-'70s, the Conservatorium-trained Mopsie writing music and Jerry contributing some unique, funny and unmistakably Australian lyrics. The pair were genuine iconoclasts, especially in Sydney's western suburbs, around which they'd lug their own PA and set up DIY performances (literal train-spotters may recognise the old Blacktown station on the LP's front cover). Initially, Mopsie would sing and play live with keyboards and drum machines; later, backing tapes were introduced, allowing her to pursue an ever more theatrical performance style.

Almost inevitably, Mopsie crossed paths with the fledgling westie Local Label, which issued her One Out 7" EP in 1979 (Local MX189770). Though not our preferred Mopsie record, it does have its charms, and is said to have accrued some prominent supporters. The Introduction to Can't Kick the Sucky Tit and Other Cream Cakes, a self-published anthology of Jerry Beans's lyrics, notes that the EP received airplay from John Peel; over time, this has morphed into a claim that the 7" was one of Peel's favourites. Given its absence from the infamous record box, we'll charitably assign that one a yellow verdict.

Puddy Blew [Download]


Mopsie's next (and final) record, 1981's Appearances LP, may ring bells for eagle-eyed scholars of Incredibly Strange Music, thanks to an incidental, blink-and-you'll-miss-it mention by Jello Biafra in the second of those books. Jello likened the LP to Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy (well, vice versa, actually) - to us, Mopsie sounds more musically theatrical and less experimental, but we fully acknowledge that sans blogs or Youtube, it's not a comparison we'd ever be able to critique. Say what you want about Jello, but the guy was switched on.

Appearances is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the more successful tunes, like L=E/R or Baby Romeo ("A sort of aging embryo"), are the kind of downer minimal electronics which would appeal to fans of the Denial single on M-Squared. Chaos, with its processed vocals, clunky drum machine and anti-rockist tendencies, should find favour with the more art-punk inclined. Elsewhere, however, things descend into absurdist, one-woman-band show tunes, but even then the music is odd and the lyrics unerringly eccentric.

After the LP, Mopsie pursued her interest in drama, directing and acting in plays which had evolved from Jerry's lyrics. A cassette with post-LP material - performed at the likes of Garibaldi's, Cabaret Conspiracy, Glebe's Toucan Cafe - was sold via mailorder, but we've been unable to locate a copy (drop us a line if you have one you'd part with). Mopsie maintained an involvement in the western Sydney theatre community up until her passing in 2007 - you can read an obituary at her posthumous Facebook page.

Chaos [Download]


L=E/R [Download]


Baby Romeo [Download]


The Happiness of Liza Sparks [Download]


Update: 29 June 2012
We're indebted to Roger Grierson for drawing our attention to an uncredited Mopsie Beans work. This advertisement for TDK, surely etched into the brains of most Australians born before 1980, might make Mopsie the most widely-heard performer featured on this blog.

Mopsie Beans (right), 1982



Lyrics for L=E/R (retitled Love Song) and Chaos, from Jerry Beans' Can't Kick the Sucky Tit and Other Cream Cakes (Mopubs, 1984)

Relatives - Picasso (Private Collector) 7" Red Ash RAP-001, 1979

And we're off again. Let's begin year two with a little heard Melbourne punk record by a band notable for their odd iconography - fish, invented calligraphy, and a fairly unique pink and green colour scheme.

Starting as a school blues band at Brighton Grammar School in 1975, the Relatives made their punk debut as The Velvet Underpants at their school dance in 1977. Covers included the Saints, Sex Pistols, plenty of Lou and Bowie, and a fnarr fnarr throwback to their blues roots - Chain's Grab A Snatch And Hold It. After a name change to the Nooney Rickett 4, the band made its public debut beyond school halls and parties in May 1978, opening for News at Bernharts (formerly the Thumpin' Tum in the 1960s, then commandeered by News as a regular haunt).

Post-school the six members stayed together, had a name change to the more serious Relatives in 1979, and gigged aplenty at the regular Melbourne haunts - the Crystal Ballroom, the Exford, The Tote, Prince Of Wales etc. Their first 7", released in June 1979, is highlighted by Picasso (Private Collector) which encompasses all the things we love - instruments all racing to get to the end of the song first, 1-2-3-4s (including one to end the song), and lots of attitude: eventually, Pablo Picasso was called an arsehole. A simple riff and some nice acid guitar underpin Now She's On The Beat, a tale of prostitution. Clock Struck One rounds out the record.

Bassist Simon Kain recalls:

"We pressed 300 of the 1st and gave them all away on our launch nite - many were trashed then and there!"

Which jibes with the record's elusive nature. Some remaining copies we've had over the years also skip during Picasso, but keep at it - playable copies are out there.

The band continued until 1982 with one more 7", which features some more standard punk rock icons - we'll get to that later. Members ended up in the later garage influenced Wet Taxis, post-Sekret Sekret band Red Ochre, Chad's Tree and the Jackson Code.

There are some good Relatives resources on the web: a blog, Andrew Dowd's memorial page (with some live tracks), and some CD-Rs (email addresses at the bottom to get copies).

Picasso (Private Collector) [Download]

Now She’s On The Beat [Download]

Clock Struck One [Download]

Lyric insert

Free champagne at the single launch.

Fish and calligraphy...

We're taking a break...

It has been a busy year - 55 records, 65 if you include It Never Ends variations, and a handful of tasty unreleased songs. We're pooped. Wallaby Beat will be on a short hiatus to allow us to recharge our batteries and plan for year two. Check back on August 6. We have some treats lined up.

But we're not done with the stats just yet. Here are the results of a readers' poll of sorts - the top ten most viewed posts from our first year in business:

1. Rikk Krannium & The Smutorks! - King Of The Block 7"
2. V/A - A Terse Sample 7"
3. Plastic EP & The Records - At Home / Three Special Words 7"
4. Toxic Shock - Intoxicated 7"
5. Real Traitors 7" 
6. The Press - Fodder For The Critics LP
7. Supernaut - Unemployed 7"
8. Mighty Little - Burning Sands Of Bondi 7"
9. Branded - You Been Branded / Generation Breakout 7"
10. Toxic - First Time 7"

The top three spots were hotly contested, with the lead changing more times than a Satriani/Vai/Malmsteen shred-fest. "But wait!", we hear you say. "British Jets should have made the list, but it was only posted two weeks ago! No wonder it has fewer hits!". Right you are. To account for this, we undertook Cox regression to estimate hazard ratios for different genres, adjusted for the number of external links to each post, the subsequent fame of former band members, and band members' propensity to repeatedly hit "refresh" on their own entries. The results are a closely guarded corporate secret - after all, we have to maintain a competitive advantage over cheap imitations. But, we can tell you the obvious: y'all have an insatiable appetite for punk and DIY; grillfat, not so much; and powerpop? Fuhgedaboudit.

We feel strongly about most of the records on this blog, and while we fully expect to see recent entries like Black Chrome and Invader in next year's top ten, we're surprised that certain others haven't accrued more page views. Here are five earlier posts that we think can mix it with the top ten:

1. Plastic EP & the Records - So You Wanna Make A Record
2. Bad Habit - Stormchild LP
3. Beaut - Goodbye Judy / Paper Chains 7"
4. The Limp - Outer Space Moth / Animal Kingdom 7"
5. Upsets - Back To Afghanistan / Heartattack 7"

Sick of the blog layout? There are some cool, unadvertised, alternative ways to view blogspot blogs. Here are mosaic and flipcard for ours.

Finally for this year we want to give a sincere thanks to the people who leave comments. While it's always great to hear from the bands themselves, our favourite commenter is Steve who, right from his hilarious memoir on the Celibate Rifles, has always had something salient or enthusiastic to add - thanks mate. But (almost) everyone is appreciated. Anonymous can, of course, fuck off...

The Flying Calvittos - Lucky To Be Australian 7" Groove PRS2728, 1979

Ain't nothing like closure. Whether it's hearing from a band member from some no-count band forgotten by everyone except us, or nailing the last sleeve variation on some it-never-ends conundrum. Twoscore and eleven weeks ago we started this blog with Squeal Like A Pig, the punk track from The Flying Calvittos' Goodbye You Spaghetti Punks EP. We said then we'd come back for the rest. We won't ever split a record over two posts again, and to provide closure on this one we today present The Flying Calvittos: The DIY years.

The pick of the rest of the tracks for us is Lucky To Be Australian. The lyrics list events that play into the Australian psyche of being doomed at the arse-end of the world: Darwin, Granville, Hobart Bridge, West Gate Bridge, Voyager; even our old mates Fraser (not a popular guy among the, er, Dagoes Italian-Australian community) and the Hilton Bomber get a mention. We're exhorted to forget all that; the defiance lifting the crunching, elegiac riff into something beautiful. We half think this may have been used on a commercial or TV show theme some time in the decades between then and now - let us know if you remember.

Fastnet, about yet another disaster, is where we hear some definite Residents influence, maybe a bit of 1979's Eskimo. This approach is continued on the first of the Mamma tracks, Mamma's Recipe, a fine use of echo, sound effects and spoken snatches, perhaps presaging On U Sound's approach in the next decade. And to finish, Mamma's Table is where our boys descend into Italian new wave novelty - even piano accordion gets a look-in.

There's a self-released CD called 26 Hundred Moons floating around with all these tracks plus recordings from later in the 80s and the mid 90s.

Lucky To Be Australian [Download]


Fastnet [Download]


Mamma's Recipe Feeds The People [Download]


Mamma's Table [Download]

British Jets - Another Day In The City / No News 7" EMI Custom PRS-2890, 1980

Back in July 2010, when we were taking our first tentative steps with this blog, we raved about the killer pop-smarts of the first Beaut single, remarking that the hooks and production were enough to win over even our Cro-Magnon tastes. We also alluded to a counterpoint in the form of the Ramones, contemporaries with whom Beaut shared some Judicious subject matter, but not the same musical "violence". Now, as Wallaby Beat closes in on its first birthday, it's time we came full circle with the last chapter in the Burnette/Cutelle trilogy.

You may also recall Branded, David Burnette and Lee Cutelle's "one step forward, three steps back" follow-up to Beaut, centring on guitars that couldn't decide whether they wanted to be the Sex Pistols or Supernaut (proving that the latter wasn't alone in liking it both ways). Less than a year after Beaut's cloying Why Baby Why? 45, diving headlong into punk rock was obviously too great a commitment. Of course, we're talking about a couple of guys whose first musical collaboration pre-dated The White Album, so taking things slowly was par for the course. True to form, it would be another couple of years before the transition was complete.

Recorded in Sydney as a studio-only project, British Jets' one and only 45 takes the Ramones archetype - downstroke powerchords and matching basslines locked in to furious 4/4 drumming - and infuses it with the familiar Burnette/Cutelle melodic sensibility. (Not that the two were entirely unrelated to begin with. Besides their titles, Beaut's and the Ramones' respective odes to Judy share one important conceptual similarity - both feature three chords, total). Each side is equally strong, delivered with energy, force and conviction, with David Burnette's characteristic lead vocals and Lee Cutelle's harmonies tying it all back to the Beaut/Branded lineage (listen for echoes of Generation Breakout in No News). It's a great single, a genuine two-sider, and in our humble opinion one of the best records you'll hear on this blog. It's a real shame nothing further was recorded in this style.

This was the first Burnette/Cutelle single to appear without the backing of Festival Records, and we'd be lying if we said its self-released, EMI Custom status doesn't add to its appeal. The clout of a "major" label didn't exactly make these guys the household names they deserve to be, and the British Jets single did absolutely zip to advance the cause. A Sonics/Rarity/Legend trifecta from a pair with razor sharp aesthetic standards - David Burnette and Lee Cutelle, we salute you.

Unfortunately, a falling out meant that this was the swansong for Burnette and Cutelle's creative partnership. David Burnette moved to the UK, and at last sighting was earning a crust leading Richard Simmons-like aerobic fitness classes. As far as we've been able to ascertain, his discography ends here (David, if you're out there, we'd looove to hear from you). Lee Cutelle soldiered on, releasing more records (Trixters, Shy Ones) which are OK for what they are, but the magic brewed with his old foil had well and truly gone. More recently, he and Shy Ones collaborator Kathleen Murphy have moved in a "dance pop" direction with Moonlight Crush. Despite our best efforts, he's singularly uninterested in discussing his earlier bands. Lee, our door's always open...

Another Day In The City [Download]

No News [Download]

Buddies - Some Pop People / A Silly Song 7" Bestival Rochords 13291, 1981

Remember Mighty Little's showdown between the primate (and his amps) and technology? Brisbane's Buddies perhaps had similar ideas but scaled them back big time, leaving just a schoolpad sketch of a cheeky schoolboy with just a single speaker/amp, over what we think is an extremely early (for Australia) representation of a bar-code!

As well as the artwork, just about everything else is scaled back on this release - the sleeve is just a one sided insert, and the songs (two self-referential pop songs about pop) and production (thankfully with no '80s 'frills') are rudimentary. The performance though is pretty good. We've labelled it pop, rather than powerpop, due to the lack of any powerful guitar - we're kind of hardarses that way. Still, the propulsion of A Silly Song by the bass riff is more than enough to get us excited. Then there's the handclaps - you do realise that nearly every Brisbane punk record features handclaps, don't you?

Los hermanos Wackley, Bob (bass) and Greg (drums), are the ace rhythm section on everybody's none-more-fine, high water marks of Australian punk - the Razar 45 and EP. Bob (as Bob Hood) later continued down a pop path in Grooveyard before turning to the mersh hard rock of the later Screaming Tribesmen. As far as we know Greg's only other appearance was in the Hostages (no way we're linking to that video - reputations must be preserved).

Then there's A Wyatt on guitar - enquiries are out for more info on Mr Wyatt's ID.

The Buddies also released a cassette, which from memory was called Three Kings, before disappearing down the memory hole.

Some Pop People


A Silly Song

Invader - Don't Blame It On Me / Anastasia 7" Machine Gun Rock 13084, 1981

This biker band verges into punk territory with impressive results. One might think that there are lots of similar hard rock/punk crossovers from this period. There aren't.

- sleeve notes from the No One Left To Blame comp LP

For a country with such a strong track record in both kinds of music (punk and hard rock), Australian collisions of the genres were surprisingly rare. Yes, we have our proto-punkers; our pub, glam, and hard rockers who jumped ship; and our teen grillfat so amateurish as to achieve a punky edge. That's not what we mean. We're talking about wilful, artful combinations of punk and hard rock conventions, hybrids that have equal footing in both camps. Songs that can hold their own when viewed through the lens of either tradition. Though the opening quote was penned for Cleveland's Strychnine, it applies equally to anomalous Sydney Westies Invader, and their standing among the early Australian punkers. (It's just a happy accident that both play the Blame game).

In Don't Blame It On Me, the superficial trappings of genre cross-pollination are obvious - the Pistols' Submission re-routed through Marshall stacks. But if there's one characteristic that exemplifies the no-man's-land between punk and hard rock, it's the drumming. (If the mechanics of punk drumming make your eyes glaze over, you might want to skip ahead). Inherited from the likes of Slade, the four-on-the-floor drumbeat - in which every beat in the bar is accented by the kick drum - became a staple of Oz hard rock (check in here at around 1:55, or here at 4:13, or here whenever you damn please). At this tempo, it's usually accompanied by eighth-notes on the hi-hat - that's two hi-hat hits for each thump of the kick drum - propelling the song and, when played slightly behind the beat, making it "swing". Not here. Invader's four-on-the-floor lumbers instead of swings, delivering the sort of heavy-handed quarter-notes reserved by punk drummers for tempos of twice this speed and beyond. Ordinarily, a rhythm stripped of feel and pace is a bit like a gluten-free vegetarian pizza - what's the point? - but here it's perfect. Hey, true art ain't always pretty.

Don't Blame It On Me


For years, Invader was among the coldest of cold cases. Then, in October 2008, this website appeared out of the blue, prompting conniptions among collectors prone to daily Google searching. Suddenly, the mystery unravelled before our eyes. We'll hand over to Invader's Noel Thompson (guitar/vocals) to take us through the who/what/when/where/why:

Invader was a 3 piece outfit, the bass player was Jon Wilson and the drummer was Peter Borg. Jon played both a Rickenbacker and a Fender Precision bass and Peter, from memory played a Ludwig kit. I had a 1975 Gibson SG.

I hadn't played professionally in any band before Invader. I had auditioned for about 5 or 6 bands but none of them played the hard heavy stuff that I was interested in. I decided to form my own band. This was about 1978. I advertised in the newspaper for band members and got a response from Jon first. We both lived in the western suburbs of Sydney and so we joined up and then auditioned drummers and singers. We finally got Peter as the drummer who was an excellent fit for what we wanted to do. Singers were difficult and in the end I decided to take on the singing role myself. So the band eventually got up and going about late 1978, early 1979. We played around the pubs in Sydney and were particularly popular at two biker pubs. The bikers like their music hard and loud.

We recorded the single at Albert Studios in King Street Sydney on the [Australia Day long] weekend of January 24-25 1981. I wrote Don't Blame It On Me in 1979 and Anastasia in 1980. We were playing the songs live long before we hit the studio so we knew them backwards by the time we got to Albert's. The recording was done to try and attract some attention from the higher echelons of the recording industry. The record was a limited pressing of about 100 or 150, I can't recall the exact number. [The confirmed pressing size is 250 - Ed.] It was pressed at EMI. We sent them to many radio stations and music management companies. I have no idea which radio stations actually played the record but did hear that it got some airplay on the BBC in London.

I deliberately set out to write Don't Blame It On Me as a Sex Pistols style song. I really dug the Sex Pistols and all three of us liked our rock hard and heavy. Jon and I particularly liked and were influenced by Black Sabbath. Jon was a Geezer nut and I was an Iommi fan (hence the SG).

Noel Thompson with the SG, c.1979 (more here)

It Never Ends: Lipstick Killers - Hindu Gods (Of Love) 7" 1979

For most record collectors it-never-ends is a stock-in-trade, a rule-of-thumb, a goddamn fact-of-life. For others though, like us for example, completism is not an unobtainable goal but the level to be met in every instance. Another such person is Mark Taylor of Sydney band Lipstick Killers and more recently the collector behind the conceptual greatness of the G45. Are you familiar with the G45? It is a compendium of US '60s garage 45s ordered by a three pronged ranking system. You can view the list in all its glory here.

In the G45 ranking the R factor (Rarity) and the S factor (Sonics) are more-or-less explanatory, but the groundbreaking aspect is the third rating, L for Legend. Like the number zero (or nihil) for ancient mathematicians, this gives us a new way of understanding the ebb-and-flow of records and why some are more desired at certain times than others. In the spirit of that, today we cover the ins-and-outs of the first Lipstick Killers 45 - Hindu Gods (Of Love) / Shakedown U.S.A.

The Lipstick Killers' story has been told at least thrice - in B-Side fanzine, then in Prehistoric Sounds, and then for the worldwide audience on the i-94 freeway. Let's recap:

• post (our Wallaby Beat forebears) the Psychosurgeons' breakup the band morphed almost immediately into Lipstick Killers, final singer Stan Armstrong being replaced by Filth's Peter Tillman, and Kim Giddy coming in on bass. David and Mark Taylor on drums and guitar made up the rest of the band;
• in 1979 the original rowdy, high-energy line-up recorded their debut single, Hindu Gods (Of Love) with Steve Harris of the Visitors on piano and Deniz Tek behind the desk;
• a year of growing popularity in Sydney based on legendary live performances followed;
• encouraged by Greg Shaw's enthusiasm the band moved to L.A. in late 1980 for a year and, while they played several shows, nought was coming of it so they broke up, eventually returning home.

Hindu Gods (Of Love) / Shakedown U.S.A (AUS Lost In Space, PRS-2661, 1979) S3/R3/L3

The first issue was an Australian EMI Custom press in a handsome picture sleeve. This one is elusive (especially without ringwear) and has maintained its legend status over the years, probably due to the sonics. Great songs, great riffs and strong vocals. Only the fact that the songs don't unhinge themselves keep it from reaching the rarefied heights of the S4s and S5s. 1000 pressed.

Hindu Gods (Of Love) / Shakedown U.S.A (USA Voxx, 45-1003 1980) S3/R1/L1

The first US pressing appeared on Bomp side-label Voxx. First presses come in the Blow Your Mind - Go Voxx! / Join The Voxx Rebellion company sleeve. The label font size is smaller, the Bug Music Group publishing credit is on one line, and the matrices read "Hindu" and "Shake". This variation is slightly harder to track down than the next though let's not pretend much teeth gnashing will occur before you get any of these. It appears the company sleeve can still be obtained on other 45s at the Bomp Store.

Hindu Gods (Of Love) / Shakedown U.S.A (USA Voxx, 45-1003 1980) S3/R1/L1

The second Voxx pressing comes with a redesigned label - larger font size, Bug Music Group credit over two lines, and more mundane catalogue number matrix etchings. The company sleeve too is redesigned, a less imperative, more self-referential "The spirit of the 60s, the sound of the 80s." This would appear to be the most common version.

Hindu Gods (Of Love) / Shakedown U.S.A (USA Voxx, 45-1003 1990?) S3/R2/L1
At some stage a third pressing took place, this time on silver labels. Somewhat surprisingly, given the perfunctory nature of much of their work, Bomp/Voxx added a lurid red picture sleeve for this actually quite seldom seen version. We vaguely recall this appearing for a few years on Bomp catalogues from about 1990. Unheralded at the time, and barely mentioned since, I can't imagine not wanting to own it.

The rest of the Lipstick Killers discography varies from a walk in the park (Inner Mystique comp 7", Mesmerizer variations), to the mildly sweat inducing later 7"s.

Hindu Gods (Of Love) also appeared on two Bomp compilations, the Experiments In Destiny double LP (Bomp! BLP-4016) and the Where the Action Is! promo sampler LP (Bomp! BLPR-3001, 1980).

No music today, surely these songs are either known to you or easy enough to get by dragging your sorry arse to a record shop mouse to an online purveyor of musical items. The songs are readily available on several recent CD compilations - Hindu Gods (Of Love) on Do The Pop! and Tales From The Underground, and Shakedown U.S.A. on Do The Pop! Redux Part One.

Update March 2013 This typed insert surfaced recently.