1***
Everett True (Journalist): "Wasn't grunge™ your fault?"
Mark Arm (Mudhoney): "Obviously, I didn't make that up. I got it from someone else. The term was already being thrown around in Australia in the mid-'80s to describe bands like King Snake Roost, the Scientists, Salamander Jim, and Beasts of Bourbon. In fact, Tex Perkins was crowned the High Priest of Grunge in some local magazine. If anybody said that to him then, he would beat the shit out of them. I guess the only difference was that in Seattle we kind of took to it" (Black Eye Records Jukebox).
The Scientists - Blood Red River (1983)
In 1991 at Peter Hill's place (King Snake Roost) I asked Mark Arm what he played in Mudhoney and he looked at me like he couldn't believe I didn't know that and if I didn't know that I shouldn't ask. I can't remember what else I said but the next the day he said he didn't want to drink with me again.
This Heart Doesn't Run on Blood,
This Heart Runs on Love.
The tumult of the Scientists' move to London in the 1980s ended in the industrial noise of their last album Human Jukebox, rejected by record companies for being too much of a departure but probably a natural evolution, and a subsequent final Australian tour in 1988. There was a clip for Human Jukebox on YouTube recently but it's been taken down. The other, audio links here would not have been possible without the help of Cousin Creep.
A lot of articles about Kim Salmon introduce him as the man who should be as respected as Nick Cave. The Birthday Party looms over much Australian music from the early 80s, and Kim Salmon's band, the Scientists, never shook off the comparison. But the Scientists, based in Sydney during their most influential period, were more American, more guitar-driven, than the Birthday Party, who came from Melbourne and seemed more European. A convenient explanation might focus on the different international aspirations of those two cities. Another explanation might be because Nick Cave's career follows a consistent path while Kim Salmon switches track so many times his fans and critics get lost. Maybe it's because the Scientists originally came from Perth, Western Australia, the most isolated city on Planet Earth.
"Reading about a far off place called CBGB in NYC and its leather-clad denizens, all with names like Johnny Thunders, Richard Hell and Joey Ramone, got me thinking" (Kim Salmon – Scientists Website).
The Scientists late-70s line-up was garage pop, punk dominated by drummer James Baker (later with the Hoodoo Gurus) and boy-meets-girl songs such as "Frantic Romantic." They toured across to Sydney, appeared on Countdown, and then went back to Perth and split up.
The Scientists - Last Night (Countdown, 1980)
"I wanted it to be like really primitive and have these kind of white-noise drones and lots of feedback. But I didn't write any lyrics, and James Baker used to write lyrics, he was the lyricist even though he was the drummer. I mean it's a bizarre situation where your drummer's writing lyrics and he's tone deaf!" (Kim Salmon - Furious Interview).
The classic Scientists line-up that emerged from Sydney in the early 80s was Kim Salmon (guitar/vocals), Tony Thewlis (guitar), Boris Sujdovic (bass), and Brett Rixon (drums). They slowed down and became swampier, like the Cramps, before developing their own sounds, closer to the Gun Club and Suicide. Repetitive, offbeat drums, intense bass, and sonic, twisted guitar. Lyrics that sounded like they were from trashy comics read by psychiatric patients. This was the line-up that recorded "Swampland," "We Had Love," and "Blood Red River." They developed a large local following, received interest from major booking agencies, and appeared in overseas music press. Then like a lot of bands with a seemingly perfect line-up things began to go wrong.
"In our case it was the fact that our drummer, he had some problem, he was frustrated and wanted to be a singer or something. I don't know looking back what his problem was, but he kept on threatening to leave, and it was sort of like a case of, it could be good and get a drum machine and do like I wanted to do (!), or have the band together and keep things interesting, so if we go to England, at least this will keep this guy interested, and it did for a while!" (Kim Salmon - Furious Interview).
Apart from the move to London adding to Birthday Party comparisons, the main problem for the Scientist was a lack of management. Their record label AuGoGo instigated a mixed up legal battle that saw different recordings released and many not available outside Australia. Although this probably added to the band's cult status it also hampered the base they were building throughout Europe.
Robin Gibson of Sounds magazine described drummer Brett Rixon as having "the demeanour of an assembly line misfit blankly contemplating murder" (Scientists Website). When Brett Rixon decided to go back to Australia, things started to fall apart again. His unique beats and time signatures were impossible to replicate.
"The subtlest difference in the drum's nuance was sure to upset things. The prospect of a new drummer was something akin to having an organ transplant. With all the best procedures the body still might reject it" (Kim Salmon - NFH Interview).
During the 80s Kim Salmon had also formed Salamander Jim with Richard Ploog (the Church) and Tex Perkins, who took over when the others left and replaced them with Stu Spasm, Lachlan McLeod, and Martin Bland. Kim Salmon was also a floating member of the Beasts of Bourbon. After the Scientists he formed Kim Salmon and the Surrealists with Tony Pola on drums and Brian Hooper on bass. Since then he has experimented with soul in the Business and country with the Darling Downs.
This live footage of the Scientists 2004 European reunion tour doesn't show the band at the height of their intensity, and the sound's out of sinc, but at least the interest is still out there.
The Scientists - Solid Gold Hell (2004)
In 1993 Brett Rixon died of a heroin overdose.
"Just about that time, Rolling Stone Australia magazine asked various people to sort of sum up the year in a few snappy sentences. And they asked me, and one of my sentences was 'lost our drummer to heroin', but I was talking about the Surrealists and how our drummer Tony Pola went errant. He just totally lost the plot. And that sort of was strangely prophetic because by the time it came out to print this other thing happened. It hadn't happened when I said it, but then it did happen very shortly after. It was very weird" (Kim Salmon - NFH Interview).
Read:
The Scientists Website
Kim Salmon Discography
Kim Salmon Furious Interview
Kim Salmon NFH Article and Interview
The Scientists 2004 Press Release
Black Eye Records Jukebox
___
2***
The Beasts of Bourbon have often been described as a cross between the Scientists and the Rolling Stones and are probably the closest thing Australia has ever had to a supergroup.
This cover of Leon Payne's "Psycho" was on the Beasts of Bourbon 1984 album The Axeman's Jazz but they didn't make a video until 1988. The original line-up was Tex Perkins, Spencer Jones, James Baker, Kim Salmon, and Boris Sudjovic. At the time, they were one of many side projects but after the Scientists split they became a main act and have continued on and off with different members ever since. The drunken, demented country of the first album transformed into a harder blues sound, "Muddy Waters on crack" (Wikepedia), on later albums such as Sour Mash and Black Milk before Kim Salmon pulled in the Surrealists rhythm section for the early-90s Low Road.
Tex Perkins has been the one constant Beasts member and it is in many ways his band. The clip shows him looking very Nick Cave, an easy comparison for a tall skinny Australian singer with black hair, but Tex Perkins has also had a really diverse career, from the experimental noise of Thug, alongside Peter Read, with their most famous track "Fuck Your Dad," and one-off satires like the Fury Men of the North, to more mainstream success. What began as an occasional wander on stage to sing for instrumental surf group the Cruel Sea eventually developed into a fulltime position. Tex Perkins continues collaborating with a wide range of Australian musicians as well as releasing solo albums. The Beasts of Bourbon probably hit their peak in the early 90s and became more conventional after the departure of Kim Salmon.
The Beasts of Bourbon - Drop out (Live, 2006)
"Thug, along with Lubricated Goat and Kim Salmon & The Surrealists spearheaded a very overlooked and underrated era of Australian music in the late 80's" (Wikapedia).
Controversy surrounds documenting this era of Australian music that developed out of collaboration between musicians, artists, and assorted others around a couple of Sydney squats. Memories are blurred. Articles contradict each other. Facts and authenticity fade. Just keeping track of who played where drives me crazy and is probably boring to read. Better to let the music and the musicians speak.
Over the last few years, DJ and filmmaker Cousin Creep has been working on several documentaries about the era. He set up an mp3 blog called Black Eye Records Jukebox (named after the record label that recorded most of this stuff) and got permission to release a CD. Although Tex Perkins signed a release for the footage and initially gave the documentary his blessing, he has since withdrawn his support, putting the project on hold for now...
"i withdrew permision for the doco because,allthough its hard to fault his enthusiasum ,craig barnes just dos,nt get it ,and for someone that was,nt there, seems to have a very fixed ideas about the way it was and should be remembered, (the whole blackeye thing (WHO FUCKING CARES ANYWAY)of course he can have his own opinion,but thats all it will be .hes an annoying piss ant (he also said unkind things about a friend of mine(tim rogers)" (Tex Perkins Email – Pissant!).
Goodbye my friends,
you disappoint me.
You've all grown old
and become junkies.
Although I love you all,
you just bore me.
So goodbye my friends,
please forgive me.
Read:
Unofficial Beasts of Bourbon Myspace
Tex Perkins Website
Tex Perkins My Space
Brian Hooper Website
Cousin Creep Pissant!
___
3***
Post-Spinal Tap it becomes difficult to separate rock cliché from underground irony. Perhaps this culminated in 1994 with a bullet in Kurt Cobain's head.
As Cousin Creep points out in another soon to be released documentary, Lubricated Goat are most famous in Australia for their live naked national TV appearance in 1988. There was a clip of the whole thing, along with a hilarious complaints show, on YouTube recently but it's been taken down.
"Well we played the song 'In the Raw' and the whole thing about our nude performance was like it wasn't sexy. It wasn't like the Red Hot Chili Peppers which is ultimately meant to be like sexy. Ours was more like medical or an autopsy, all dancing all singing autopsy" (Stu Spasm – In the Raw).
Lubricated Goat is another band that emerged from a side project into a main act with numerous line-ups. The main force has always been Stu Spasm. Critics probably weren't sure what to make of it. Was it serious? Art? Punk? Metal? Jazz? Insanity?
"I released Lubricated Goat because they were one of a kind. There was plenty amazing stuff happening in the states but none that came close to this demented, humorous and innovative a sound. Combined with the fact that the handful of copies that made it stateside were insanely expensive it seemed like a good idea" (Tom Hazelmyer - Pissant!).
After touring the US in 1989 with an altered line-up, Lubricated Goat returned to Australia, changed line-up again and then in the early 90s toured Europe. When Stu Spasm was stabbed it nearly put an end to the band. He moved to New York after that, married Kat Bjelland from Babes in Toyland, and the two of them formed Crunt along with Russell Simins from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
Lubricated Goat - Spoil The Atmosphere (2006)
Peter Hartley, the blond guitarist on the right in the Lubricated Goat 'In the Raw' video was actually a drummer. That's his leopard-skin kit. As well as other drummers here, I drew on Peter Hartley for the narrator of my first novel The Drummer. This is a shot of his crotch from the Butcher Shop album. They were a Tex Perkins project originally including Kid Congo Powers. The fantastic song of bitter rejection 'Hard for You' was later rerecorded by the Beasts of Bourbon. Peter Hartley was fired from Lubricated Goat and replaced by Charlie Tolnay from Grong Grong and King Snake Roost. Charlie Tolnay didn't want to appear naked on TV so Peter Hartley filled in. He also played drums in Monroe's Fur (featuring Paul Kidney from Southern Fried Kidneys on vocals and Guy Madison, another ex-Goat, on bass). My band Gravel Samwidge supported Monroe's Fur several times and we stayed at each others houses in Sydney or Melbourne. Guy Madison later took the band to Seattle, minus their drummer, who was meant to turn up later but never did and was replaced for a while by Martin Bland. Guy Madison now plays in Mudhoney and Bloodloss, along with Martin Bland and Mark Arm. I don't know what happened to Peter Hartley.
___
4***
Minor Characters
Jay Doherty was a major inspiration behind The Drummer. I taught him how to play and he was in Gravel Samwidge intermittently. Someone was talking about a Hendrix concert and Jay asked what he was playing. I said the drums and he threw a bottle in my face. I got thirteen stitches and a perfect circle above my top lip. I can still see the scar every time I shave. When anyone asks me about it now I sometimes joke, morbidly, you should see the other guy.
Encouraged by the success of Silverchair, in 1995 radio station Triple J announced a competition to unearth bands from regional Australia and put them on a CD. Mark sent in a demo of a song called 'Drinking with a Dead Man' that we wrote and recorded with a drum machine five years earlier. It wasn't a great song or even a very good example of Gravel Samwidge. It was more conventional than most of our songs. But Triple J flew in a producer and we rerecorded it with our original drummer, John McManus. Someone claiming to be Danny DeVido's agent phoned about the rights (?).
Everett True (Journalist): "Wasn't grunge™ your fault?"
Mark Arm (Mudhoney): "Obviously, I didn't make that up. I got it from someone else. The term was already being thrown around in Australia in the mid-'80s to describe bands like King Snake Roost, the Scientists, Salamander Jim, and Beasts of Bourbon. In fact, Tex Perkins was crowned the High Priest of Grunge in some local magazine. If anybody said that to him then, he would beat the shit out of them. I guess the only difference was that in Seattle we kind of took to it" (Black Eye Records Jukebox).
The Scientists - Blood Red River (1983)
In 1991 at Peter Hill's place (King Snake Roost) I asked Mark Arm what he played in Mudhoney and he looked at me like he couldn't believe I didn't know that and if I didn't know that I shouldn't ask. I can't remember what else I said but the next the day he said he didn't want to drink with me again.
This Heart Doesn't Run on Blood,
This Heart Runs on Love.
The tumult of the Scientists' move to London in the 1980s ended in the industrial noise of their last album Human Jukebox, rejected by record companies for being too much of a departure but probably a natural evolution, and a subsequent final Australian tour in 1988. There was a clip for Human Jukebox on YouTube recently but it's been taken down. The other, audio links here would not have been possible without the help of Cousin Creep.A lot of articles about Kim Salmon introduce him as the man who should be as respected as Nick Cave. The Birthday Party looms over much Australian music from the early 80s, and Kim Salmon's band, the Scientists, never shook off the comparison. But the Scientists, based in Sydney during their most influential period, were more American, more guitar-driven, than the Birthday Party, who came from Melbourne and seemed more European. A convenient explanation might focus on the different international aspirations of those two cities. Another explanation might be because Nick Cave's career follows a consistent path while Kim Salmon switches track so many times his fans and critics get lost. Maybe it's because the Scientists originally came from Perth, Western Australia, the most isolated city on Planet Earth.
"Reading about a far off place called CBGB in NYC and its leather-clad denizens, all with names like Johnny Thunders, Richard Hell and Joey Ramone, got me thinking" (Kim Salmon – Scientists Website).
The Scientists late-70s line-up was garage pop, punk dominated by drummer James Baker (later with the Hoodoo Gurus) and boy-meets-girl songs such as "Frantic Romantic." They toured across to Sydney, appeared on Countdown, and then went back to Perth and split up.
The Scientists - Last Night (Countdown, 1980)
"I wanted it to be like really primitive and have these kind of white-noise drones and lots of feedback. But I didn't write any lyrics, and James Baker used to write lyrics, he was the lyricist even though he was the drummer. I mean it's a bizarre situation where your drummer's writing lyrics and he's tone deaf!" (Kim Salmon - Furious Interview).
The classic Scientists line-up that emerged from Sydney in the early 80s was Kim Salmon (guitar/vocals), Tony Thewlis (guitar), Boris Sujdovic (bass), and Brett Rixon (drums). They slowed down and became swampier, like the Cramps, before developing their own sounds, closer to the Gun Club and Suicide. Repetitive, offbeat drums, intense bass, and sonic, twisted guitar. Lyrics that sounded like they were from trashy comics read by psychiatric patients. This was the line-up that recorded "Swampland," "We Had Love," and "Blood Red River." They developed a large local following, received interest from major booking agencies, and appeared in overseas music press. Then like a lot of bands with a seemingly perfect line-up things began to go wrong.
"In our case it was the fact that our drummer, he had some problem, he was frustrated and wanted to be a singer or something. I don't know looking back what his problem was, but he kept on threatening to leave, and it was sort of like a case of, it could be good and get a drum machine and do like I wanted to do (!), or have the band together and keep things interesting, so if we go to England, at least this will keep this guy interested, and it did for a while!" (Kim Salmon - Furious Interview).
Apart from the move to London adding to Birthday Party comparisons, the main problem for the Scientist was a lack of management. Their record label AuGoGo instigated a mixed up legal battle that saw different recordings released and many not available outside Australia. Although this probably added to the band's cult status it also hampered the base they were building throughout Europe.
Robin Gibson of Sounds magazine described drummer Brett Rixon as having "the demeanour of an assembly line misfit blankly contemplating murder" (Scientists Website). When Brett Rixon decided to go back to Australia, things started to fall apart again. His unique beats and time signatures were impossible to replicate.
"The subtlest difference in the drum's nuance was sure to upset things. The prospect of a new drummer was something akin to having an organ transplant. With all the best procedures the body still might reject it" (Kim Salmon - NFH Interview).
During the 80s Kim Salmon had also formed Salamander Jim with Richard Ploog (the Church) and Tex Perkins, who took over when the others left and replaced them with Stu Spasm, Lachlan McLeod, and Martin Bland. Kim Salmon was also a floating member of the Beasts of Bourbon. After the Scientists he formed Kim Salmon and the Surrealists with Tony Pola on drums and Brian Hooper on bass. Since then he has experimented with soul in the Business and country with the Darling Downs.
This live footage of the Scientists 2004 European reunion tour doesn't show the band at the height of their intensity, and the sound's out of sinc, but at least the interest is still out there.
The Scientists - Solid Gold Hell (2004)
In 1993 Brett Rixon died of a heroin overdose.
"Just about that time, Rolling Stone Australia magazine asked various people to sort of sum up the year in a few snappy sentences. And they asked me, and one of my sentences was 'lost our drummer to heroin', but I was talking about the Surrealists and how our drummer Tony Pola went errant. He just totally lost the plot. And that sort of was strangely prophetic because by the time it came out to print this other thing happened. It hadn't happened when I said it, but then it did happen very shortly after. It was very weird" (Kim Salmon - NFH Interview).
Listen:
Kim Salmon and The Surrealists - Intense
Kim Salmon and The Surrealists - The Surreal Feel
King Snake Roost - Acid Heart
Salamander Jim - Hot Cakes for Daddy
Read:
The Scientists Website
Kim Salmon Discography
Kim Salmon Furious Interview
Kim Salmon NFH Article and Interview
The Scientists 2004 Press Release
Black Eye Records Jukebox
___
2***
Beasts Of Bourbon - Psycho (1984/1988)
The Beasts of Bourbon have often been described as a cross between the Scientists and the Rolling Stones and are probably the closest thing Australia has ever had to a supergroup.
This cover of Leon Payne's "Psycho" was on the Beasts of Bourbon 1984 album The Axeman's Jazz but they didn't make a video until 1988. The original line-up was Tex Perkins, Spencer Jones, James Baker, Kim Salmon, and Boris Sudjovic. At the time, they were one of many side projects but after the Scientists split they became a main act and have continued on and off with different members ever since. The drunken, demented country of the first album transformed into a harder blues sound, "Muddy Waters on crack" (Wikepedia), on later albums such as Sour Mash and Black Milk before Kim Salmon pulled in the Surrealists rhythm section for the early-90s Low Road.
Tex Perkins has been the one constant Beasts member and it is in many ways his band. The clip shows him looking very Nick Cave, an easy comparison for a tall skinny Australian singer with black hair, but Tex Perkins has also had a really diverse career, from the experimental noise of Thug, alongside Peter Read, with their most famous track "Fuck Your Dad," and one-off satires like the Fury Men of the North, to more mainstream success. What began as an occasional wander on stage to sing for instrumental surf group the Cruel Sea eventually developed into a fulltime position. Tex Perkins continues collaborating with a wide range of Australian musicians as well as releasing solo albums. The Beasts of Bourbon probably hit their peak in the early 90s and became more conventional after the departure of Kim Salmon.
The Beasts of Bourbon - Drop out (Live, 2006)
"Thug, along with Lubricated Goat and Kim Salmon & The Surrealists spearheaded a very overlooked and underrated era of Australian music in the late 80's" (Wikapedia).Controversy surrounds documenting this era of Australian music that developed out of collaboration between musicians, artists, and assorted others around a couple of Sydney squats. Memories are blurred. Articles contradict each other. Facts and authenticity fade. Just keeping track of who played where drives me crazy and is probably boring to read. Better to let the music and the musicians speak.
Over the last few years, DJ and filmmaker Cousin Creep has been working on several documentaries about the era. He set up an mp3 blog called Black Eye Records Jukebox (named after the record label that recorded most of this stuff) and got permission to release a CD. Although Tex Perkins signed a release for the footage and initially gave the documentary his blessing, he has since withdrawn his support, putting the project on hold for now...
"i withdrew permision for the doco because,allthough its hard to fault his enthusiasum ,craig barnes just dos,nt get it ,and for someone that was,nt there, seems to have a very fixed ideas about the way it was and should be remembered, (the whole blackeye thing (WHO FUCKING CARES ANYWAY)of course he can have his own opinion,but thats all it will be .hes an annoying piss ant (he also said unkind things about a friend of mine(tim rogers)" (Tex Perkins Email – Pissant!).
Goodbye my friends,
you disappoint me.
You've all grown old
and become junkies.
Although I love you all,
you just bore me.
So goodbye my friends,
please forgive me.
Read:
Unofficial Beasts of Bourbon Myspace
Tex Perkins Website
Tex Perkins My Space
Brian Hooper Website
Cousin Creep Pissant!
___
3***
Post-Spinal Tap it becomes difficult to separate rock cliché from underground irony. Perhaps this culminated in 1994 with a bullet in Kurt Cobain's head.As Cousin Creep points out in another soon to be released documentary, Lubricated Goat are most famous in Australia for their live naked national TV appearance in 1988. There was a clip of the whole thing, along with a hilarious complaints show, on YouTube recently but it's been taken down.
"Well we played the song 'In the Raw' and the whole thing about our nude performance was like it wasn't sexy. It wasn't like the Red Hot Chili Peppers which is ultimately meant to be like sexy. Ours was more like medical or an autopsy, all dancing all singing autopsy" (Stu Spasm – In the Raw).
Lubricated Goat is another band that emerged from a side project into a main act with numerous line-ups. The main force has always been Stu Spasm. Critics probably weren't sure what to make of it. Was it serious? Art? Punk? Metal? Jazz? Insanity?
"I released Lubricated Goat because they were one of a kind. There was plenty amazing stuff happening in the states but none that came close to this demented, humorous and innovative a sound. Combined with the fact that the handful of copies that made it stateside were insanely expensive it seemed like a good idea" (Tom Hazelmyer - Pissant!).
After touring the US in 1989 with an altered line-up, Lubricated Goat returned to Australia, changed line-up again and then in the early 90s toured Europe. When Stu Spasm was stabbed it nearly put an end to the band. He moved to New York after that, married Kat Bjelland from Babes in Toyland, and the two of them formed Crunt along with Russell Simins from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
Lubricated Goat is currently prowling New York City. This clip, a fairly straightforward rock number, is from CBGBs.
Lubricated Goat - Spoil The Atmosphere (2006)
Peter Hartley, the blond guitarist on the right in the Lubricated Goat 'In the Raw' video was actually a drummer. That's his leopard-skin kit. As well as other drummers here, I drew on Peter Hartley for the narrator of my first novel The Drummer. This is a shot of his crotch from the Butcher Shop album. They were a Tex Perkins project originally including Kid Congo Powers. The fantastic song of bitter rejection 'Hard for You' was later rerecorded by the Beasts of Bourbon. Peter Hartley was fired from Lubricated Goat and replaced by Charlie Tolnay from Grong Grong and King Snake Roost. Charlie Tolnay didn't want to appear naked on TV so Peter Hartley filled in. He also played drums in Monroe's Fur (featuring Paul Kidney from Southern Fried Kidneys on vocals and Guy Madison, another ex-Goat, on bass). My band Gravel Samwidge supported Monroe's Fur several times and we stayed at each others houses in Sydney or Melbourne. Guy Madison later took the band to Seattle, minus their drummer, who was meant to turn up later but never did and was replaced for a while by Martin Bland. Guy Madison now plays in Mudhoney and Bloodloss, along with Martin Bland and Mark Arm. I don't know what happened to Peter Hartley.
Listen:
Lubricated Goat - Goats and the Men Who Ride Them
Lubricated Goat - Funeral on a Spit
Grong Grong - Angels and Demons
Bloodloss - Smell Machine
Crunt - Snap Out of It
The Butcher Shop - Hard For You
Munrose's Fur - Are You Running with me Jesus?
Lubricated Goat - Goats and the Men Who Ride Them
Lubricated Goat - Funeral on a Spit
Grong Grong - Angels and Demons
Bloodloss - Smell Machine
Crunt - Snap Out of It
The Butcher Shop - Hard For You
Munrose's Fur - Are You Running with me Jesus?
___
4***
Minor Characters
Jay Doherty was a major inspiration behind The Drummer. I taught him how to play and he was in Gravel Samwidge intermittently. Someone was talking about a Hendrix concert and Jay asked what he was playing. I said the drums and he threw a bottle in my face. I got thirteen stitches and a perfect circle above my top lip. I can still see the scar every time I shave. When anyone asks me about it now I sometimes joke, morbidly, you should see the other guy.
On a Gravel Samwidge tour up to Sydney, Jay took too many pills and went for a walk in the rain. I switched from guitar onto drums the next night, supporting Venom P Stinger, whose drummer Jim White is one of the best I've every seen. He's in the Dirty Three now and has played with both Nick Cave and Kim Salmon.
Mark Spinks and I formed Gravel Samwidge in 1988. We were teenagers, more naïve and younger than the bands that inspired us. The Scientists were falling apart and we were going to take up the mantle. We failed spectacularly. But then again some people say the Scientists failed spectacularly too, so maybe we succeeded in failing more spectacularly than the Scientists. Perhaps that was the point. We moved up and down the east coast of Australia for four years, once playing under the same name at the same time in different states. Occasional members included some of Nunbait, Tim Steward from Screamfeeder, and Guy Madison from Lubricated Goat and Monroe's Fur, now Mudhoney.
After Jay died, Gravel Samwidge continued to drift into the wilderness without getting it together to release anything. It was an inevitable trajectory. I moved back to Townsville and eventually went to university to study writing. Mark Spinks continued in Sydney for a while but then also retuned to the north.
Encouraged by the success of Silverchair, in 1995 radio station Triple J announced a competition to unearth bands from regional Australia and put them on a CD. Mark sent in a demo of a song called 'Drinking with a Dead Man' that we wrote and recorded with a drum machine five years earlier. It wasn't a great song or even a very good example of Gravel Samwidge. It was more conventional than most of our songs. But Triple J flew in a producer and we rerecorded it with our original drummer, John McManus. Someone claiming to be Danny DeVido's agent phoned about the rights (?).
When Silverchair played in Townsville, their manager, John Watson, asked another Unearthed band to support them. Mark used to go to school with John Watson. He used to play bass in the Spliffs, a local powerpop band, before quitting his job at Sony to manage Silverchair. Maybe he thought we'd corrupt his young band. Or maybe he just thought we weren't any good. We got free tickets anyway, and sat next to his mum.
Nobody seems to care anymore
So I leave my clothes on the bedroom floor
I go outside and look around
And all that's there is my hound
So I leave my clothes on the bedroom floor
I go outside and look around
And all that's there is my hound
He looks at me and I look at him
And he says, man, things are looking grim
He takes a spade from the garden shed
And begs me to dig up the flowerbed
And he says, man, things are looking grim
He takes a spade from the garden shed
And begs me to dig up the flowerbed
He told be what I did last night
I sure didn't look a pretty sight
I knew just what he was talking about
But I swore he was resting under the house
I sure didn't look a pretty sight
I knew just what he was talking about
But I swore he was resting under the house
I took him up to the kitchen sink
I washed his face and poured him a drink
He dived down the drain in the kitchen sink
So I poured myself another drink
----I washed his face and poured him a drink
He dived down the drain in the kitchen sink
So I poured myself another drink
*
p.s. Hey. So, I found myself listening to Lubricated Goat the other day for the first time in ages, and it reminded me that this great Aussie music guest post by the awesome Paul Curran was languishing in the ghost town of my old, hacked blog, and ... voilà! Enjoy and talk to Paul, to whom all my gratitude is hereby extended. Also, I didn't go to Disneyland Paris today, obviously, so I'm expecting you guys to be my Disneyland, and let's see if you've managed to pull that off. ** Allesfliesst, Yeah, my blog should probably come with interns included, free of charge. I could use a few myself. Yes, 'Jerk' ... maybe I can get the Gisele people/ management to send you a DVD or give me one to send to you. That's a good idea, actually. I'll confer with G. today, and I'll see if I can swing that pronto. In any case, I'll get it to you, and thanks. ** David Ehrenstein, I'm very pleased you liked the T. Southern post, of course. Yeah, 'Flash & Filigree' is especially good. Did you know him at all? I met him once in a Burroughs situation, but he was pretty drunk, and I think I was a blur. ** Bernard Welt, Well, since you were kind enough to link us up, let's go all the way. Everyone, among the things that cause Bernard Welt to be a very distinguished local is the fact that he not only appeared on the American TV show institution Jeopardy some years ago, he won, and you can share in his good fortune by scrolling down to the bottom of this p.s. and clicking Play on the embedded video. So simple! Try it! And, while we're on the subject of Mr. Welt, here he is to tell you something of note: 'Anybody who's on Facebook who'd like to be in touch with the folks who are maintaining a trailer near the National Portrait Gallery to show david wojnarowicz's "Fire in My Belly" video (beginning today, through February 13, when the Hide/Seek exhibition closes) can find them at: Museum of Censored Art. I think they'd appreciate knowing that people in other places care.' ** Empty Frame, Thank you for the warm welcome back, sir. 'SiH' is no. 1 in the Obituaries category on Amazon? That is one trippy factoid right there, and one that I would never have known. Thank you, bud. I do remember your quest to buy that doomed house, of course. Oh, that's cool. The doomed house collab, I mean. Do keep us posted on the BBC thing or any other documentation that occurs. Might make for a nice post here if there's enough stuff. Hm, I don't think the J. Bowles novel was made into a movie, but let me ask the gang on your behalf. Everyone, does anyone know if Jane Bowles' novel 'Two Serious Ladies' was ever turned into a film or optioned or even rumored to become a film? Empty Frame wants to know, and any answer would be greatly appreciated. Best to you, dude. ** Syreearmwellion, Hey, man. How's it going? Yeah, terrific book, right? I think I lost my copy via lending at some point too, now that you mention it. Great TS quote there. Hope you're doing great. ** Steevee, Hey. Maybe they added the super great last Move singles ('Tonight', 'Chinatown', et. al.) to the 'MftC' CD. That would make sense. I imagine you have the first Electric Light Orchestra album when Roy Wood was still half-in charge of the project. If not, it's fantastic, and it's basically a final, evolved Move album in all but its moniker. Glad to hear Gregg was nice and talkative. ** MANCY, Hey. Busyness is a big help or cure for me too, so yeah. Are you still thinking of getting into a fine arts program? Yeah, the fancier Mexican food gets, the worse it is. Although there are some designer Mexican restaurants in LA that are pretty swell. ** Sypha, The 'Magic Christian' movie is full of very dated charm and wackiness, but the novel is much, much better. So, you guys got walloped by the snow. Pretty. Well, except for the shoveling part. ** David, Disneyland Paris is a lot like Disneyland but with a kind of xeroxed quality. It's not bad, actually. Normally, going in January would be a horrible idea, but it's bizarrely about 60 degrees in Paris right now, so it would have been smarter to go right now than wait a week or two, which is what we decided to do. We have to go soon for research/ timing reasons, and chances are we'll end up frozen. ** JW Veldhoen You're back! Well, greetings, pal! Man, you sound ultra-busy. That's good, right? So, Holland is a pretty dead set destination now? Amsterdam? Not a bad idea if you ask me. Europe at your fingertips, worst comes to worst. A bad mentor? Hunh? You know so many people who talk shit about me. It's weird. Maybe they're Language poets. Language poets tend to think I'm a monkey jacking off in a tree. ** Chris Cochrane, Hey, C. Hope the gig went extremely splendidly. So, your stepmom ended up liking 'Them'? 'Them' is like the Good Ship Lollipop or something. Weird. But good. Let me know what's what. ** Ken Baumann, Ken! Wow, Pinget avalanche, excellent. All terrific books, those, but I recommend doing 'Fable' first. I definitely will catch 'Dogtooth' at the soonest opportunity. I still can't tell if it has opened here already or is going to or not. Oh, yeah, I read that HTMLG post, and I thought it was superb. Everyone, the mighty Ken Baumann made an especially fantastic post over at HTMLGIANT the other day called 'On Ecology and Art', and I highly recommend you go read it, and I can help you out on that front by giving you this magic portal. Enjoy! Thanks a bunch, man. ** Steven Trull, Because ... hm, wait, for the same reason that God doesn't have an agent. Toe wiggling is a jetlag cure? Where have you been all my life? ** Mark, Hey. Oh, I see. I haven't hit that PdT show yet. It sounds better than I expected. PdT shows tend to err on the side of meh. I'll see it. Oh, idem, yeah. Gisele has had some work done there. I think I was there once with her. If so, the place itself is beautiful, yeah. Show recommendations: I hear Autour de l'Extrême at Maison Europeenne de la Photographie is very good. Same goes for the Mobius show at Fondation Cartier. If you're around long enough, Tous cannibales at Maison Rouge sounds very promising, but it doesn't open until Feb. 12th. I'm behind on galleries at the moment. But there are a few ideas. I should be fairly alert and ready to go in the next day or so, so I'll hopefully see you straight away. ** Killer Luka, Hey. Oh, my books in the hands on Miles Pride ... what a pleasant image that is. Well, we just need to get the timing right re: a talk. I'm mostly around. Are you awake and talkable at a time when I am? Mornings are blog time, and I start getting sleepy around 10 pm. ** Misanthrope, I will try it. If I could type and wiggle at the same time, I'd be trying it now. Good, you got the detector. Let's see. Thanks a lot for the very nice review of 'Them'. I appreciate it, man. Really hoping we'll get a European tour for 'Them'. It's looking very promising. ** L@rstonovich, Hey, L. 'Red Dirt ... ' is great. I reread that a few years ago. Top notch. 'Game of Thrones', don't know it. Pollardian title almost. You're off to Arizona, land of sun and racists! Suck the former dry and duck the latter, dude. ** Creative Massacre, That DragonGate thing was awesome. Thanks a lot for that! Congrats on the art sale! After seeing the piece itself, the sale doesn't seem crazy at all. Everyone, the latest visual manifestation from Creative Massacre, already sold, but game for looky-loos here. It's been a year? Yikes. Happy anniversary! ** Alexp336, Hey. I've never understood the leather pants thing. The appeal, I mean. My vegetarianism might be partly to blame, but leather pants tend to read as insecurity or trying too hard to me. But I've never found hyper-masculinity appealing at all. It just seems like a misfiring power play or something. But I'm weird. France is really tight on cures for colds and flus. There are basically like two or three available products, period, unless you go the homeopathic route. They're pretty good on that front. But even Melatonin is illegal here, and I need to have it shipped in surreptitiously from the UK. Glad you're feeling better by the way, Hm, I don't know what or if there's a difference vis a vis author royalties when it comes to eBooks or real books. I should find out, I guess. Yeah, I have no idea. I say just get the format you want because I can't imagine there's that much difference re: royalties. If there was, it seems like I'd know the difference. Good day to you. ** Okay, have good Fridays, explore Paul's survey of Aus Music, watch Bernard outsmart everybody, and etc., and I'll see you in the morning.
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