Questions of fame and fortune aside, If you wanted my opinion where it all went wrong for the Welcome Mat, I’d tell you it had something to do with “Hell Hoping”, the less-than-enticing two minute taster off their debut album Gram. It’s a fact that nothing can quickly end the life-span of an album than under-selling it with one of the least impressive songs (sorry, Mullens) on the record and here was the Welcome Mat literally daring us to give them the cold shoulder to go buy the new You Am I Ep instead. The release of two prior EPs, Fairy dust (1991) and Spare (1992) had accumulated a dedicated fanbase and received a groundswell of radio attention and acclaim. Though ‘acclaim’ in Australian terms means about 2000 copies sold and being able to sell out the Annandale before 9pm, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Everyone was expecting the boys to expand on the buzz and pop of those EPs with hip producers Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade, better known for their golden touch with The Lemonheads, Throwing Muses, Buffalo Tom and Radiohead. It seemed the perfect pairing – up and coming American producers meet up and coming Australian band on their home turf. The Hummingbirds did it with REM’s producer Scott Litt with the sweet smelling pop bouquet Lovebuzz and they had to fly to the States to do it. The Wellies had the home town advantage. Everyone (or perhaps it was just me) was expecting Gram to be their Bandwagonesque – that kind of perfect pop record that is faultless from start to finish. It was an expectation that I felt was entirely within reason.

For those who never had the pleasure, The Welcome Mat were a Sydney-based guitar-pop quartet formed in 1989. They comprised Cory Messenger on vocals/guitar, Wayne Connolly on vocals/guitar, Leo Mullins on vocals/bass and Peter Bennett on drums. Messenger and Connolly were originally the two main songwriters both having met and played together in John Kennedys Love Gone Wrong before going on to form The Welcome Mat. Their first single, Connolly’s “Last of The Great Letdowns” was a rough-hewn glimpse of what the Welcome Mat would become, but even then the key ingredient of the Messenger/Connolly duelling harmonies was clearly in effect. Second single “Cake”, written and sung by Messenger and a was better (cleaner) representation of the band’s sound, though the use of the wah-wah pedal and funky drumbeat dates it somewhat. The Welcome Mat on first glance were like a more fun Teenage Fanclub or a less drunk Replacements with, as their own label claimed, ‘Plenny’o'Hooks’.

I arrived on the Welcome Mat scene via their contribution to the Youngblood 3 compilation, which was both a crucial release for this writer and a prescient collection of acts that would later become mainstays of the Australian music scene. This compilation succeeded in showing the doubters (Anglophiles such as myself) what fertile music scenes there were in Sydney, Melbourne, and er, Brisbane. Having been a religious reader of the NME for the last few years and recently acquiring a girlfriend who owned a car, I felt it was time to take advantage and witness what was happening outside of the beachy confines of the Central Coast. Working backwards, I picked up their second single “Cake” and was blown away more by the track on the flipside, the swirling guitar fuzz of Connolly’s “Coming To The Worst” which was in direct opposition to the relative bright pop of “Cake”. “Last of the Great Letdowns” was also quite easy to find. If I recall correctly, Waterfront Records were practically giving them away…

It wasn’t until the Fairydust EP with the lead track “10,000 People With the Same Idea” that the pieces began to fall in place for the band and their live shows around the Sydney circuit began to swell with newfound fans. The video clip I have for “10,000 People” even has an MTV Australia ident on it, so it only goes to show how wide the hype was beginning to travel. The band also had the privilege of opening the first ever Big Day Out in Sydney, not that I would’ve seen, since I refused to pay $45 to see a bunch of bands I could watch on any other night for $5 and bought a Tank Girl t-shirt instead (yeah, shoot me now). Another EP Spare cemented their standing, with Leo Mullen‘s “Landspeed” showing that his songwriting was just as strong as his counterparts. Having submitted to a bidding war which was won by Regular, the band was given the opportunity to make that all-important debut album and break free from the annoying half-an-album EPs that were the trend with bands in the 90′s.

Catch up lesson over, let’s continue.

It was in the pages of Countdown magazine around 1984 that I first recall seeing the Hoodoo Gurus, hanging out in the Land Beyond Beyond surrounded by comic books and looking like a ragged bunch of psychedelic hipsters. The significance of this (for me at the time) being a comic book store in Sydney I didn’t know about. I’d gone through the phone book (I had, comic book junkie I was), and I swear I’d found them all, but this one was tucked away down a nondescript corridor on George St, with only a sign above the doorway indicating something otherworldly lay ahead. I always loved that name – the Land Beyond Beyond. Beyond beyond? This I had to see, but for those who never made the journey, it was really just a mecca for B-grade movie freaks, full of rare sci-fi and horror flicks and movie ephemera, run by a gothic looking version of Pee Wee Herman.

The Hoodoo Gurus made their second appearance in my life with the video clip to their now-legendary fourth single “I Want You Back”. The band were playing in front of a blue screen, with animated plastic dinosaurs waving their limbs around, chewing up the paper trees while the band play out the song, each member having their own unique look. Guitarist Brad Shepherd played an orange Gretsch guitar and wore this cut sleeve C&W shirt, tight black jeans and dyed black hair. A little “note to self” was then planted inside my head which said ‘remember this when you start buying your own clothes”. Singer Dave Faulkner had the most absurd hair I’d ever seen on a man. It was as if he was sucked head-first out of the sixties and landed feet first in suburban Sydney. As the photo below attests, Hoodoo Gurus were the coolest fucking band in town bar none.

For the better part of a decade, and despite my mother’s repeated interjections, I was entirely couch bound from 9am to 12am on a Saturday morning watching a music show called “Sounds”. Not only was this part of my routine, but I religiously watched ALL music shows on television. Staying up till all hours of the night recording favourite bands/songs and then setting the video to record what I missed. Sound and vision. You might take that for granted these days, now that you can call up youtube and get instant gratification, but the advent of music television was the shit. My radio went out the window. I had Sounds and Beatbox, Nightshift and Rock Arena, Eat Carpet and Rage and I was happy.

This is where I first heard “My Girl”. In an era of expensive video clips filmed on yachts with hot models, the clip for “My Girl” were entirely original. In a bit of inspired film-making, the focus of “My Girl” changed from being about some two-timing troublemaker to being about a champion greyhound called “My Girl” with singer Dave Faulkner as her trainer. The clip shows Dave taking My Girl for her morning walk through the backstreets of Glebe, down past the racetrack, letting her loose for a run around the park. You see the pennants she’s won for him. He gives her a kiss. You can feel the love between a man and his dog. The clip cuts back footage of the band playing inside a local inner city pub, they’re all decked out in paisley, Brad Shepherd looking like a goth Colonel Sanders with Nick Cave-esque “I’ve just been electrocuted” hairstyle. The picture then shifts back to the big night at the racecourse. My Girl is down on the tracks getting ready for the race. Dave has been to the bookie, made a few bets, and heads down by the track to watch the start. The dogs tear off around the track My Girl doesn’t win. Dave tears up his ticket, heartbroken. Much to the chagrin of the band, most people still think this song is about a dog.

The song itself has that classic 60s feel to it. The doo-wop bassline, the bittersweet “love and love lost” lyrics that sat so firmly on the fence of cliché that I always wondered whether there was some little tongue in cheek here. The Gurus weren’t exactly setting sail on a sea of high art, and on a debut album that featured death ships and kamikaze pilots, a simple sad love song wouldn’t seem too unlikely. The opening lines “Once a girl took my love until I couldn’t give anymore/and I tried to pretend not to see what I couldn’t ignore” can’t be faulted and basically sums up the essence of the song in two lines. The moment of confrontation, the “Who were you with? She said no-one” is something we’ve all heard (or had to endure) before. God, I’m sure I said it yesterday…

What else do I love about “My Girl” Brad Shepherd’s Dave Faulkner’s slick surf guitar solo that almost steals the show. The way the song builds up to a sudden stop and then slowly, sorrowfully winds down. Everything about “My Girl” fits together perfectly. There’s not one unnecessary word or a note out of place. If there was ever a song that announced “here was a band to take notice of” for sheer versatilities sake, it was this one. Twenty-odd years later and I still never tire of hearing this song.

Whilst interviewing Dave Faulkner about their recent UK tour, I managed to get him to say a few words about the secret history of “My Girl” and this is what he had to say.

We were on tour promoting our first single off that album which was “Tojo” and we couldn’t be there for the final mix, and the producer who was generally a great guy had this scheme to put on backing vocals and keyboards at the start, neither of which we knew about, and we got the final mix given to us when we were in a hotel in Adelaide and it was quite shocking to us and we still find it appalling. These horrible backing vocals that are done by a session singer in an American accent, and also that keyboard at the start which is some bad Oberheim synth or something. It was certainly a shock to us from where we were coming from. So that was amusing, and the record company wouldn’t let us take those off because it made it more commercial, and it probably did, but it appalled us.

It’s so mainstream AM radio sounding that if you flipped the sexes Olivia Newton-John could’ve had a hit with it.

(laughs) Well I wrote the song for a make-believe feature film/home movie I wanted to make called “Gidget Goes Ape”, and it’s all about Gidget meeting some hippy/merry prankster types and one of them slipped some acid to her and she wigged out and had altered consciousness and couldn’t be the same happy-go-lucky beach bunny again. I wrote that song for before the wigged-out change, she’d be hearing that on the radio, on a little transistor on the beach. It was basically my attempt at writing a classic 60′s pop song that might be overheard by Gidget.

When did you write the song?

I wrote that in Perth before the band had even formed, and it was a song I actually brought to the band fully formed.

Brad Shepherd’s solo there is one of my favourite…

That’s my solo…

(quelle embarrassment) It is? I had no idea. I thought the video clip had Brad playing it (again, completely wrong!).

No, it’s my solo. Brad plays rhythm. I haven’t got fast fingers but I like a melody and there’s a bit of a tune in that solo that sounds kinda cool.

There was a bit of a band upheaval in the beginning of the Gurus. Was Brad’s joining something of a catalyst for what the band became?

Basically we were three guitarists and a drummer. When one of the guitarists (Kimble) left, it was obvious then to just bite the bullet and get a bass guitar. We always said we wouldn’t as we didn’t want to have five people in the band as all three of us wanted to play guitar and didn’t want to change to bass. It was really a product of necessity rather than one of musical direction. When we were playing for a while, it was about a year or a little less, it was obvious we lacked something without a bass guitar to unify the drum kit with the rest of the sound. We thrashed but didn’t pummel. It was obvious we needed a bass, and we did that, and we rehearsed for a while and then second guitarist Rod Radalj got cold feet that we’d lose our cool-ness, so he left just before we were due to play a gig. We’d been rehearsing for a couple of months, even though he’d been saying how great it sounded and how he loved it. He suddenly did an about-face and was gone, and then we quickly replaced him and that’s when Clyde (Bramley, original bassist) was able to get in touch with Brad Shepherd. I’d seen him perform with Clyde in a band called Super K. I’d seen him in the Hitmen, but he was the rhythm guitarist and so I didn’t really pay much attention and it wasn’t my cup of tea anyway. When I saw him in Super K it completely turned my head around as far as what he was capable of. He sang and played guitar and all this melodic stuff. It was untapped potential as far as I could see, and obviously that has borne out by the career we’ve had. Brad joined in ’82 and that became what the band was meant to be at that moment.

Was “My Girl” part of the Stoneage Romeos sessions or did it come before?

We recorded the album in three separate sessions from memory. We did the single for “Tojo” and one or two tracks extra for that, and then we went out and toured and came back did some sessions for “My Girl” and extra tracks and went on tour again, and that was the “Tojo” tour and came back and “My Girl” was released and we did some more touring and then finished off the album, so it was recorded in bits and pieces in a funny way, and I liked that idea as well.

Did you have a lot of the songs written before you went into the studio?

The only one that was a new song on the album that we hadn’t played live was “I Want You Back” and I wrote that just before the sessions and I just thought that was a really good song. We tried it a couple of times in the studio and it just wasn’t gelling and it wasn’t until the end of the sessions that I said we had to start that one again, it’s not right. Finally I had a bit of a brainwave to the right drum feel and stuff and that pulled it all together. Everything was songs we’d been playing together, some as Le Hoodoo Gurus a year early, but “My Girl” obviously was something I’d written a long time before.

The video clip is something of a favourite of mine and I’m sure many others. Who’s idea was it to turn the song into a heartbreaker about a man and his dog?

That was only because we didn’t want to fit in with the 80′s prevailing thing about having supermodels gallivanting around drinking champagne a la Duran Duran. I talked to Kimble who was the film-maker, saying that I didn’t want to make it like that, acting out the story of the song would be boring, so he said make it about two dogs. My original scenario was to make it a love story about a greyhound and a stray, and the stray dog would see the greyhound in the electrics store window winning races and fall in love with this dog “My Girl”, and then of course he ended up palling up with some hobo and drinking meths out of the gutter and being taken off to the pound was the story I’d written for the video (laughs), but we didn’t have any budget for dog training or anything, so that got changed, so it basically became a story about a trainer and his dog and having the dog on a leash which was a lot easier.

I can’t imagine that its something you still play in your sets regularly?

Not regularly, but we do play it now and again. I was thinking about doing that tomorrow night actually. I had that thought today, so I probably will.

….and true to his word (and to my immense satisfaction), they did….

Thanks, Dave!

Hoodoo Gurus – Official Website

I remember when I first heard this (which would’ve been sometime around January 1997), turning to my flatmate to ask who it was, and upon answering I uttered with a look of complete surprise ‘No shit! The fucking Earthmen?’. The Earthmen writing a hit single seemed about as likely as You Am I recording a rap album.

If I were to be incredibly unfair, The Earthmen were a second rate Britpop-sounding band in a country that unless you were actually cuppa-tea-mate British you may as well pack up the instruments and go home. It’s a very lazy pigeonhole to drop them in, but when you stick yourselves in button-down suits and throw in a guy on Hammond organ, you’re either authentic 60s revivalists or Britpop fair game. The Earthmen actually pre-dated the rise of Britpop, but after having released a bunch of EPs and singles their sound quickly became aligned with that of the sweeping guitar-led pop bands of the UK and Australian audiences seeking a similar sound found refuge with The Earthmen. The songwriting partnership of singer Scott Stevens and guitarist Nick Batterham, one a diminutive, golden-throated frontman and the other a geeky looking, spec-wearing muso helmed the band through thick and thin. Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon they weren’t (and I’m sure such comparisons only made their blood boil) but for a while they were as close we got.

If it isn’t already apparent, I didn’t particularly like this band to begin with (blame it on the usual Sydney vs. Melbourne rivalry) and the singer didn’t particularly like me either (I think I borrowed his girlfriend once), but there’s no denying the classic pop song appeal “Whoever’s Been Using This Bed“ has in spades. This song could actually sound like a long-lost Blur single recorded inbetween Modern Life is Rubbish and Parklife and something that would stand up easily when measured against their UK counterparts. The gorgeous melodies and rich arrangements matched with Steven’s soaring vocals really elevated this song to a point where you just had to stop and listen, and what could’ve become a spiteful lyric takes a more endearing, heartfelt turn. In indie clubs across the nation, this was the one song guaranteed to bring all the barrette-wearing girls and Ben Sherman-wearing boys onto the dance floor as if it were the adopted national anthem for the Australian club kids.

That cover in all its naked glory

If anything, “Whoever’s Been Using This Bed” signalled the sudden rise and then even more sudden death of the Australian Britpop (Auspop?) scene, something that most bands influenced by the current UK trends tried to replicate and create some momentum within their own respective club scenes, but for whatever reason or another (major labels cashing in on a dying fad/record buyers who weren’t convinced) couldn‘t make it happen to any profitable degree. The Earthmen never came close to repeating the success they had with this single, and their debut album Love Walked In released a couple of months later received positive column inches by critics but failed not only to meet public expectation but also the charts — blame here could be shared on the appalling album cover of a pixellated photograph of a boy and girl sans clothes — and thus after a final EP the following year, with nails and coffin in place, The Earthmen troubled the music industry no further.

They probably deserve a much more kinder and better thought out tribute than this, and I’m sure in a different time and place they could’ve been huge, but given the lack of overwhelming hype that is often visited on many an undeserving band in the UK, The Earthmen did well with what they had and gave us more than a few good songs to remember them by, this being just one of them.

The Post-Punk years in Australia were a mixed ground. The key bands of that era were floundering or disbanding while the second wave was about to hit, bands like Hunters and Collectors, Hoodoo Gurus, The Scientists and The Beasts of Bourbon would soon come to prominence, but one of the bands who had been lingering on the fringes pushing their skewed new wave pop since 1978 was Melbourne’s Models.

Released in 1983, The Pleasure of Your Company was Models third album, an undeniable step up sound wise from their quirky previous releases, incorporating a dance-floor funk angle that acts like Shriekback and Gang of Four were hitting paydirt with in the UK. From the beginning of the band the line-up never seemed consistent but what is regarded as their classic line-up (as far as I’m concerned, matey) is Sean Kelly (vocals/guitar), James Freud (vocals/bass), Andrew Duffield (keys/synths) and Barton Price (drums). Producer Nick Launey, having previously produced albums for Public Image Limited and Gang of Four, worked with the band to give them a more polished, radio-friendly sound. Despite being their most successful release to date, The Pleasure of Your Company would be the last recording for this line-up. Duffield was ousted a year later and in the wake of this the band dynamic and sound changed completely. Models post-Pleasure would be a less interesting, less innovative, though in no way less successful, entity.

I could’ve chosen the infectious “I Hear Motion” which was the top ten hit in Australia, a song I still remember hearing when it was released (on one of those double LP chart comps) or the dance-floor classic that was “Big on Love” released a year later, but the standout track for me has always been the pseudo-anthem “God Bless America”. Whilst at the time my musical leanings were still coming to fruition, I still recall the video clip they made for the song. Filmed in 3D (one of those jobs where you need the blue/red glasses), the band are sporting an “urban guerilla musicians of the wasteland” look, all greasepaint and guitars and attitude and they look incredibly fucking cool. Sean Kelly’s wearing a radio earpiece, calling the shots and has an American flag dangling from the neck of his guitar, James Freud wields his bass like it’s an M60 machine gun and Andrew Duffield stands there triggering bursts of gunfire from his sequencer. Kate and Zan from I’m Talking play the part of army backing singers, while the band stand defiant on the top of piles of flattened cars and machinery in a dirty old junkyard. For about three and a half minutes, the eighties actually looked awesome and in 3-D.

The Models in 1983

The song itself is Kelly’s tribute to Ronald Reagan, backwardly championing the then President of the United States of America and his movie star cowboy roots. The title and lyrical bent is largely full of sarcasm, unlikely to endear Models to the Americans, but which didn’t prevent them from being signed to Geffen for their next album (perhaps they didn’t read any further than the song title?). I love the way Kelly mockingly sings the first couple of lines — “I’m an Americaaaan/I ride into the suuuuun”, then a line later sums up Reagan’s career perfectly with “I’m Gene Autry in Lincoln’s shoes” and then with the punch line chorus of “I’ve had this recurring dream where I am in control” which is as relevant now as it was then.

Models weren’t exactly known for their lyrical insight, but this song, and the single that followed “No Shoulders, No Head” sidestepped their regular vagaries for some timely political/anti-war discourse without sounding like they’re jumping the bandwagon or trying to ape Midnight Oil. The final scene of the video is a real kicker, recreating the famous photograph of the American marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima during World War II. It still makes me laugh. For a promo video shot in a junkyard, what a piece of art it is.

After that it’s all aboard for “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” where Kelly gets the elbow out of his own band and Freud fronts them to number one with the most banal song in Australian pop history. But that’s a history which is best kept secret.

Bughouse’s classic debut single “V for Vendetta” is remembered in our ongoing “Secret History of Australian Music” series which digs through our archives looking for some forgotten vinyl gems by bands of the Australian music scene that shone brightly, but all too briefly.

We spoke with Genevieve Maynard, bassist of Bughouse and solo singer/songwriter of her own regard, about the recording of “Vendetta” and her memories in playing in one of the most captivating and original Sydney bands of the early 90′s.

a story…

It was late 1989. I had finished another year of High School and was working a weekend job in the local library to finance my weekly fix of comic books and records. Triple J, the alternative radio station in Sydney was going national, which meant I could pick up their signal and tune into those foreign bands I read about in three month old copies of the New Musical Express and put sounds to faces..

During this time, Triple J began to play two songs quite regularly, both bands incorporating ‘house’ in their names (thankfully not into the music), both songs were debut singles and seemed more than worthy of the attention the station had given them. There was Greenhouse from Melbourne, with “Seesaw” which had this glorious chiming riff that seemed to inhabit everything I wanted from my music, and Bughouse from Sydney with “V for Vendetta”, this unassuming, slow-building track which was the antithesis of what I was listening to at the time. It didn’t have a striking intro, or an upbeat chorus, it didn’t hit you with its best shot, but in its own way, under its own subtle charm, “Vendetta” stood out. Here was some non-strident blues-y guitar with a nice solo, a solid rhythm section, some rambling pool-hall piano and world weary female vocals. It sounded human .

Now any comic book reading kid worth his salt will recognise “V for Vendetta” as being the title of the acclaimed comic book by Alan Moore (itself twenty years away from its on-screen adaptation Mr. Moore would later disassociate himself with). You can raise those stakes and increase that pile of salt when you recognise the first two lines of this song are lifted straight from the comic book and fashioned into a song about domestic violence and rape — “I love the rain, I love the moon, I love the sea and stars/I’d love to visit you quite soon and kiss you through the bars”

Behind the laundry list of abuse, the lyrics detail a sense of bitterness and resentment in what has happened to force the victim’s hand. The lyric itself is not only directed at the incarcerated male, but of society itself with the line “when entertainment means a hole in the sky or raping girls on trains”. This isn’t pop music, kids. This isn’t “if you could see what I see, if you saw what I saw” (cf: Greenhouse “Seesaw”). This is “I hate the boots, I hate the shouts, I hate the attitude/I’m scared of the switch, the point at which the legal meets the lewd”. I love the juxtaposition between the “love” of the first verse, and the “hate” of the second. The simple beauty of the world set as a back-drop to a scene of violence and fear.

Bughouse (L-R): Lea Cameron (vocals/guitar), Steve Campbell (guitar),
Peter Brookes (drums), Genevieve Maynard (vocals/bass)

I soon gleaned from the street press that Bughouse were a four-piece with Lea Campbell on vocals, Genevieve Maynard on bass, Steve Campbell on guitar and Peter Brookes on drums. “V for Vendetta/Burn it Back” was their debut single on their Ursula records label. A sketchy black and white picture would detail two blokey looking men, one tall female with curly blonde hair, and slightly shorter woman with cropped black hair. The attendant article revealed as much about the band as the photo and did nothing to sate my curiosity.

A few weeks later I caught their promo clip on Rage and got my first glimpse of Bughouse in motion. The video itself, like the song, is entirely without bells and whistles. The band stand in a bare studio, perfunctorily performing the song in a very straightforward ‘this is the band, this is the song’ set-up. There are no smiles, pouts or poses. No make-up artists, stylists or storylines. The only thing that stands out in a slightly odd way is that both Gen and Lea are wearing lipstick. I’m sure they’d look back now and think ‘was that entirely necessary?’. Perhaps this is what I loved about the song to begin with. The band weren’t trying to win you over. What you saw is what you got.

I had just started to play guitar around this time and Steve Campbell would become something of default guitar teacher as he had this relaxed arpeggio/strummed style that he alternated effectively to allow some variety between the blues/rock rhythm patterns that I found interesting to watch and challenging to replicate. On “Vendetta”, the main focus was on Lea Cameron’s vocal, and she had this soulful, raw voice, that when paired with that of Genevieve Maynard’s on the chorus gives the song an extra lift, and it works especially well towards the end when Genevieve reaches out and hits that spectacular high note. I also adore the piano playing of session guest, Louis Tillet that comes in briefly about 1.20 and continues throughout as the song picks up momentum and intensity (note: guitar solo at 2.00), ending in a cascading piano run with Lea delivering the taunt of “I will bring the children and we’ll kiss you to the bars”. It largely plays in the background of the song, and sounds like he walked in the studio, banged it out in one take and then left, but it’s a crucial piece of the “Vendetta” puzzle and I can’t imagine the song without it.

Bughouse were one of the first Sydney bands that I religiously followed. After picking up their single from Waterfront Records, I saw them play an afternoon show a few months later at the Hopetoun Hotel, for an event held there every Wednesday called ‘Rock Against Work’. It was my first time diverting from the well-walked path to the record stores, my first time walking uphill from Central Station through the tree-lined streets of Surry Hills, which a year later I would happily call home, to the Hopetoun. I walked into the pub and saw Genevieve and Lea sitting at the bar. I was a little in awe to see them just hanging around having a beer and killing time till 4pm. Musicians were still something of an unknown entity that gained an instant elevated status, regardless of the fact they probably worked part-time in cafes or held regular jobs. I kept my distance, trying not to stare, fully aware that I was an interloper on their scene. I wanted to tell them of the circumstances that brought me here, but resisted in fear of feeling stupid. As it was, they came to me, somewhat impressed with my Tank Girl t-shirt (the comic book thing coming to my advantage) and wanted to know where I got it from. I glowed, feeling as if I’d suddenly gained acceptance and sat on a stool nursing my scotch and coke, nonchalantly flicking through a copy of On the Street.

The events of the show that followed are mostly lost to my memories. Songs played would later turn up on their still-astounding Tax Stamp EP and the muted, but still engaging debut album Every Fool in Town. I would’ve been surprised by their approach to the songs, which seemed to cover every style imaginable, drifting between rock, country and folk, skittish rhythms and time signatures, Steve Campbell’s deft playing and lyrics that sounded profoundly bitter and incisive. All of these songs sounding as good or better than “Vendetta”, which in a live setting tore shreds off the recorded version, building up to this intense, set-closing climactic finish. They played three sets in all that afternoon, but I had to miss the final one to make it home in time for tea. It makes me laugh to think that I skipped school to see them play, but traded an extra half hour of songs for a hot meal. My priorities were warped. That was the last time eating came before music.

The cover of “V for Vendetta” reminded me of a picture of myself and my mother in the days when you’d go to a photo studio to get a ‘family’ portrait done; back when it was just the two of us – a young, single mother and her doe-eyed child. I still can’t look at the sleeve any differently. I eventually became casual acquaintances with Lea and Gen, purely from being seen in the audience or relentlessly pestering them to play a song that they’d yet to record, and the band became (along with several others that will appear here in time) as much a part of my life as possible. Their last ever gig was one of those bitter occasions where the band bowed out from an unresponsive music industry rather than each other. I can understand the amicable splits, the hated unworkable relationships, or whatever excuse you’re handed when a breaks up, but when they call it a day out of being unappreciated, it’s just the worst possible way to go.

a footnote…

When I started writing these ‘Secret Histories’, there were a handful of bands that I had unfinished business with – questions that needed to be answered, and a desire to make sure these bands weren’t forgotten, and also to share a disappointment I felt in that while these bands were larger than life in my world, they were just another band playing in a pub on the outskirts of Sydney on a Friday night. I’ve got fond memories of the night Morrissey cancelled his Sydney show in June of 1991, and having played Morrissey on the drive all the way down from the Central Coast, missed the announcements on the radio, arriving at the Hordern Pavillion and finding only gladioli-bearing disciples refusing to take the bad news. Scanning the pages of the music press in the car-park to see who else was playing, raced over to Rozelle to catch Bughouse at the Rose, Shamrock and Thistle, just in time to hear guitarist Steve Campbell berate the sitting audience for not getting to their feet. “This isn’t performance poetry” he says disgusted, “this is rock and roll”. Everyone stood up.

a final word…

I managed to get in touch with Genevieve Maynard, bassist of Bughouse and steal her away from her daily duties of running a recording studio (Revolution Studios in Alexandria) and working on her as yet untitled third solo album with the Tallboys to indulge in a little Bughouse revision and give her thoughts on the recording of “V For Vendetta”.

How long had the band been together before “V for Vendetta” was released? How did you all know each other?

The band actually got together to record some of Lea’s songs.

Pete and Lea had been in the Lucky Dinosaurs together, and Pete knew Steve. Lea and I had been rehearsing some songs in a band that was going nowhere. Pete had some money and so the four of us got together in a rehearsal room for a few weeks, demoed the tunes on the guitar player from the Dinosaurs reel to reel 4 track and then went into the studio and recorded the single. It was all pretty quick. Pete also had a piece of paper as big as a table cloth covered in potential band names… at one stage we were almost called “Free Radicals”.

What do you remember in particular about the recording session?

Quite a bit. I remember Louis Tillet was about 4 hours late – we were unsure that he was going to turn up at all by that stage. I remember that the 2 inch machine was slipping and held us up a bit. I remember not fixing a bass mistake on the b-side (Burn it Back) that is there for posterity now… and I remember doing the backing vocals – there’s a line in the end chorus where the vocal goes up and when I did the high bv on it I got the thumbs up from the others in the control room.

Did you consider “V for Vendetta” to be anything special? Was it a defining kind of song for the band at that time?

It wasn’t one of the songs we initially demoed – Lea brought in into rehearsal a week or so later. As soon as she played it to us I knew it was the one. It was such a deceptively simple pop tune with lea’s typically brilliant lyrics. Defining? I don’t think we actually settled into being a band with a defined sound until the last album, Fink Tank.

How did this song come about? Did Lea bring it to the band fully formed? Were you aware of its comic book connotation? (ie: title, opening lines lifted entirely from the comic)

Lea brought the song in. We were very self-critical, but this song didn’t need any fixing up. I don’t think the arrangement changed at all. We all knew Alan Moore’s comic.

Were you surprised that it was picked up and played regularly on Triple J? Did you notice the impact at all?

No, we weren’t surprised that JJJ played it – in those days it was a local station and they would give pretty much anything a spin – but we were blown away by how much they played it and the reaction it got. Things started happening pretty quickly after that.

Looking back on the Bughouse experience, do you have any regrets? Do you feel the band could’ve achieved more?

Yes, I have regrets. I think Fink Tank was a great album. It still stands up today in terms of production values, and the songs are very strong. It actually sounded like us, unlike the first album (Every Fool In Town) we did with Mushroom, and I really wish Mushroom hadn’t pulled the plug on what would have been our second album (it was released unfinished as the EP Bardo). We were working with Tim Whitten and Daniel Denholm and Nick Fisher was now in the band on drums and had started using samples and loops. There were some great songs. It took us a year or so to get ourselves back into the right frame of mind to record Fink Tank, which we released independently, but by that stage the personal problems in the band had really come to the fore and were crippling us. When we broke up we’d only been together 5 years, but in that time had released 2 singles, 2 EPs and two albums. It was a pretty productive time.

Your current live band/recording outfit features Steve Campbell on guitar, is the chemistry still there? He always had such a recognisable guitar style. I’m glad he’s not entirely lost to music when not saving the planet through Greenpeace.

Yeh, he’s a great player. I wanted him in the band because he does that blues/rock kind of thing so tastefully. He still has his 345 and Markley head too. I think the chemistry is better these days because there’s no pressure on us to prove anything.

I used to fondly make the trip from the Central Coast down to the Sandringham Hotel every fortnight to catch Bug (Bughouse minus the boys), and pester you and Lea with requests. Your voices singing together old country tunes and the odd AC/DC number song were a delight. What became of her?

Lea and Nick and their son live in Northern NSW. She’s writing songs and has a home studio under the house.

Genevieve Maynard and the Tallboys have an album almost in the bag, and with Steve Campbell in the fold and playing guitar again, it’s going to be something truly special. And if the rest of the band read this feel free to get in touch and expand on this piece, I’d love to hear from you.

The plangent chords and echoed vocals of The Screaming Tribesmen’s “Igloo” create a chilling landscape, blanketing the song in a reverberating wall of sound, making you feel like you’re there, sheltering from the storm, while an arctic wind whips outside. The songs setting, the frozen surroundings of the “polar zone” is the complete antithesis of the tropical warmth of Brisbane, Australia — where both the Tribesmen, and this song originated.

Released in 1983 on Citadel Records, the roots of “Igloo” date back to 1979 and a 60′s garage rock band called the 31st, formed by Tribesmen singer/guitarist Michael “Mick” Medew. The 31st would retain some notoriety over the passing of time, as both Ron Peno and Chris Welsh of Died Pretty and Brad Shepherd of the Hoodoo Gurus played in this short-lived band before moving on to greater things. The dissolution of the 31st, along with another Brisbane band, The Fun Things would set the scene for the formation of The Screaming Tribesmen in 1981 by ex-Fun Things drummer Murray Shepherd along with bassist John Hartley. Shepherd explains, “They broke up, along with The Fun Things and I formed the band from the Fun Things rhythm section, Myself and Hartley, and asked Mick from the de-funct 31st to join us.” The Tribesmen would go through several line-up changes during their career but this was the classic line-up that recorded “Igloo” in late 1982.

I was instantly floored when I first heard this song. That cavernous guitar rumble and the haunting melody, the thumping drum fill that hides behind the chorus and the lyrics that captured my imagination. “I live in an igloo in the polar zone/at night I dream of a red telephone”. It’s not exactly Wordsworth, but it more than does the job. Keen on hearing more, I quickly came to the realisation that “Igloo”, (co-written by Medew and Peno from their 31st days) was a one-off, and that whatever Peno’s contribution to the band was (more about this below), the cerebral touch of “I tried to make friends with the Eskimo, but his thoughts were buried deep in the ice and snow” was gone, replaced with the b-grade schlock of “I’ve got a date with a vampyre girl tonight”.

“Igloo’s” over-reaching message of isolation, loneliness and despair is captured perfectly when Medew, after asking the Eskimos for help with food, spits out the line “I just see white around here/I don’t know what to do”, sounding like he’s hanging on by a thread. The melodic guitar sound that was indicative of that era (cf. Exploding White Mice, The Lime Spiders, The Hoodoo Gurus) is something which the Tribesmen would later move away from, pumping up their image (torn denim, long hair and chains) to serve a hard-rock crowd. As is my want when a song like this grabs me, I’ll pick up my guitar and try and disassemble the parts and decipher the lyrics. There’s a line in the first verse which had me at a total loss,

“I felt so lonely when my Samoyed died/I felt my tears freeze when I finally cried”

I didn’t have the benefit of a lyric sheet at the time, and as such couldn’t work out exactly what he was crying over. All I could recognise was the first syllable and it irritated me no end. Eventually I dug out a dictionary, went through every entry beginning with “sam” until I hit jackpot. How many of you know what a Samoyed is? I surely didn’t. A Samoyed is a breed of dog that is suited for colder climbs, originating from North-West Siberia. Find a picture and you’ll see one of the happiest looking dogs ever. I was instantly humbled. If this dog died, I’d cry too.

Both Medew and Peno would get a songwriting credit for “Igloo”, but purely based on the rest of the Tribesmen’s recorded output (and ignoring an interview here in which Peno speaks about the lyrics), I always attributed the words to him. In this interview he explains the inspiration for the song coming from Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, borrowing the symbolism of the igloo as being white and pure, and juxtaposing this toward the end of the song with the refrain “listen to the shoeshine boys”, which he admits were a black 50s doo-wop band from Alabama. Sadly, no mention was made of the Samoyed that I had grown so fond of. I always find it incredibly satisfying when you actually come away from a song enlightened. Peno could’ve taken the easy route and said “I felt so lonely when my dog died,” but he went the extra yard and plumped for the geographically correct Samoyed. Attention to detail should never go unrewarded, and neither should this song.

Thank you to Murray Shepherd for clearing up some factual details.

The Screaming Tribesmen – MySpace

The Dropbears only existed in the periphery of my memory, briefly clashing with the already discussed Beargarden in the “bear” stakes around the same time both bands had their brief moments of fame. The crossing of paths only occurred when Australia was granted their own version of the English teen-oriented music magazine Smash Hits in 1984, and in an effort to contribute Australian content, bands were often shoehorned in that really had no reason to be there, but good publicity can’t be ignored and if you’ve got a half-way decent looking frontman, a pin-up opportunity awaits. This is where I recalled my first sighting of a Dropbear* and I’m pretty sure throughout 1985 when they charted with “Shall We Go” there were several more. What happened after that, well who knows?

I’ll come clean, and while admitting as much that I was familiar with the name and that of its singer, the enigmatic-sounding Johnny Batchelor, I had never actually heard (or could recall hearing) one of their songs until last year. Granted, I was the epitome of the introspective and impressionable teenager when the only opportunity would’ve arisen and it’s understandable in those delicate years that if you weren’t called Duran Duran, chances are incredibly slim I would’ve given a flying fuck. The only records I owned around that time arrived during birthdays and Christmas, so I had to choose and choose well. The phrase “support your local band” really didn’t enter my head for many years to come.

According to their brief Wikipedia entry, the band was formed in Darlinghurst, Sydney in 1981 and consisted off Johnny Batchelor on guitar and vocals, Simon Rudlin on drums and Chris Toms on bass. “Fun Loving” was their debut single, released in 1981. Four more singles and one mini-album followed 1981 and 1985, charting with the “Shall We Go” single. The differences between “Fun Loving” and “Shall We Go” are too numerous to mention. They almost sound like completely different bands. No, actually, they do sound like completely different bands. I’ll save a discussion on “Shall We Go” for another time, but right now it’s all about where it began.

Five things I love about “Fun Loving”:

1. The way the song is pieced together, from the slow-building thin, scratchy guitar to the introduction of the first bass notes and that sharp snare hit. The song literally just creeps up on you, conspicuous by its lack of volume or intensity.

2. Johnny Batchelor’s softly sung lyrics is at odds with Chris Tom’s bouncing bassline, giving the song a tense/nervous feel. You don’t quite know the direction of the song at this point. It’s not punk (the bassist is though), it’s not rock, it’s not Detroit-garage, there are elements of a nascent post-punk sound that reminds me of Three Imaginary Boys-era Cure and Joy Division, without any excess British influence, but on the whole it sounds like a new band still finding their feet.

3. The clarity and sound quality between the instruments that instantly sets this song apart from their peers. This isn’t to say “Fun Loving” was made at 301 Studios with a fancy budget, but that the band managed to get the best sound possible without unnecessary overdubs or studio trickery that would’ve dated the record (and the rest of the 80s to come). Perhaps purely because of this “Fun Loving” has hardly aged at all. A young indie band could actually get away with pulling this song off today without sounding like they’d walked off the streets of Surry Hills when Malcolm Fraser was still in office.

4. The naïve lyrical charm and the way the simple melody in the chorus appears out of nowhere. The song is largely driven by Chris Tom’s bass, and when he reaches the chorus he plays a perfect Peter Hook-ish melodic bass figure, that puts the fun in “Fun Loving”. When you strip the song down to its parts you see how rudimentary the structure is. The song is your classic three chord trick, E > F > G (F & G are played as un-barred E chords on the second and fourth frets), then back to G for the chorus. In lieu of an unnecessary guitar solo over the bridge, the song just speeds up. With the exception of the dominant bassline there’s nothing out of the ordinary here, but that unexpected lift in the chorus is what makes this song so special.

5. I’m torn between how to interpret the song. It feels like a response to being dumped (“Tonight, something inside’s changed/you left me with my thoughts rearranged”) or from someone making him feel inadequate (“I feel strange, apart from it all/I feel about a size too small”) but when Johnny sings “Fun loving me,” it sounds positive and doesn’t really fit with either idea. To be honest, I really don’t know. First rule of songwriting: always keep them guessing.

In the interest of filling in the gaps for future music historians and finding an answer to the previous question (because I just hate not knowing), I tracked down Johnny Batchelor and asked him to talk about the history of the band and the origins of “Fun Loving”. Thanks for indulging us, Johnny. Next time I’m in town, I owe you a beer.

How did Dropbears get started?

Newly in Sydney, I had a band with Phil Hall, who later became Dropbear’s bass player, but when we had trouble with drummers (Kerry Jacobson, ex-Dragon kept falling off his stool) Phil left to join Sardine V. I noticed that a bass player lived downstairs; he made such a bloody racket everyday, so I invited him upstairs to join my new band. That was Chris Toms, aka Chris Cross, hardcore punk ex-Bedhogs, and we called the new band Dropbears, though god only knows why.

What were your influences and ideas behind forming the band? It’s strange, but I hear The Cure circa the first album in “Fun Loving”, is that far off the mark?

Sydney inner city in 1981 was a real post-punk melting pot of styles and tribes and bands, so much going on, while the suburbs were pretty much straight ahead Oz Rock. You could walk around town though and see all these different things like maybe X and Tactics and a punk and a ska band all in the same night. And the music crowd, whether they were punks or skins or mods or whatever, would be doing that. The scene wasn’t insular. I was into all kinds of stuff like, yeah, The Cure, Gang of Four, Talking Heads, The Ramones, lots more. The band didn’t really have “an idea” we just all new we had to be in a band. I had, I guess, an eclectic approach to song writing and Chris had a really unique bass style, so I guess we just did what we did.

Where did you record the single? The production is surprisingly sharp and clear, especially the balance between the instruments. How did you go about releasing it and what was the response like?

Fun Loving was recorded at Palm Studios which was a demo studio really but lots of indie bands did their first records there on the cheap. I did a custom pressing of five hundred copies to start with and walked around to all the Sydney music stores pleading with them to take a few. I took it in to JJJ and they loved it and put it on high rotation. Until then we were the band playing on the floor at the corner of the bar. After, we were headlining the Trade Union Club, which was quite cool.

When I think of the music scene in Sydney at the start of the ’80s I think of bands still doing that post-Birdman Detroit/garage rock thing, and in that context, “Fun Loving” really stands out on its own. What was the music scene like when you started? Where did you see Dropbears fitting in and who were the bands you felt shared a like mind?

Fun Loving was a bit unusual on the radio at that time; it started so quietly for one thing. As I said, there was heaps of different stuff going on in the inner city all the way from the post-Birdman fast and furious to wimpy pop like The Singles, who had probably stopped by then actually, then there was sort of power pop like Sunny Boys and baby electronica like Severed Heads. In that scene nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. We played a lot with Sunny boys and Sardine V, two bands that couldn’t be more dissimilar but it all seemed to fit at the time.

“Fun Loving” has an almost childish naivety to it. It sounds like you’ve been dumped by a girl, but when you reach the chorus, I can’t tell whether you’re questioning an accusation of not being much fun, or surprise that you were dumped because you’re a fun loving guy? So which is it? Or am I completely off the mark?

Ha, I’m glad it has some mystery for you. I guess it was about that state of naivety of youth where you meet someone and they have such an effect on you. It might be as simple as the way they stand or move their hands but you’re just so moved by them. Then it all happens again the next night. That’s it really: fun loving.

With the success of “Shall We Go” and the minor pop star status afforded to you in the teen music mags, what was it that lead to the demise of the band?

Gee, so many things contributed to our downfall. A big thing, probably, was that we managed ourselves, meaning that I was managing the band. And though I thought I was pretty clever, I wasn’t really equipped to deal with a multi-national record company, I didn’t really know how it all worked. Ironically, though, it was when we finally did get a manager, ’cause everyone said we were too big not to have one that we really came to strife. Everyone thought we were rich ’cause our pictures were everywhere but our new manager got us seriously in debt and the record company wouldn’t let us do an album, so we decided to quit. Funnily enough, we did a last tour to earn money to pay debts, ditched our manager and stripped it back to the three piece sound, and it was the most successful tour we ever did.

What are your thoughts on “Fun Loving”, a quarter of a century on, and what have you been up to in the intervening years?

That long ah? I still like that song. There is quite a bit in the back catalogue that I can’t stand to listen to but the singles don’t bother me too much. “Fun Loving” has a kind of nice frailty yet Chris’s bass line is so strong. After doing some solo projects I dropped right out of music for quite a while. I’ve got a new thing now though, a duo, drums and guitar, called Best Friend Ever. We’ll be playing around a bit, every now and then, and doing some recording soon, which will be up on MySpace probably in May. You should hear the drummer, he’s magic.

*In case you were wondering, a Dropbear is a fictional Australian marsupial that resembles a more vicious version of the koala. They inhabit treetops and drop onto their victims from above, hence the name. So, look out…

Dropbears – MySpace

This bashful quintet (previously a trio, this song is the first recording to feature Robert Vickers on bass), normally introspective and restrained, shows rare garage rock flight, sounding like a cross between the Strangeloves and the Seeds, dispensing with their acoustic drifts and angular shackles, instead furiously peeling out in a overdriven declaration of love. While this isn’t quite the seismic shift of Dylan going electric, it’s a dazzling step up that would’ve surprised fans still enraptured by the previous single, the majestic “Cattle and Cane”.

As soon as needle hits record, it’s instantly apparent we’re deep in Robert Forster territory. It has his off-kilter stamp all over it. The title implies a relationship between two things that by natural order go together, but for reasons unexplained aren’t; his “Man O’ Sand” pleading for the return of his “Girl O’ Sea”. After the introductory screech of guitars, Forster dispenses with all formality cutting to the chase with a stern “I want you back”, and then sticking his chest out further, braggingly announces “I was so sure of our love, I wrote a song about us breaking up”. He ventures forth the title of this imaginary song (unfortunately never penned for real) as “The Traffic Lights on the Street of Love”, uttering it’s parenthetical punch-line “have just turned red…..turned red”, before tearing into the monosyllable chorus matching word for word/beat for beat with Lindy Morrison’s pneumatic snare hits.

The highly acclaimed Before Hollywood was still fresh to the ears when The Go-Betweens went to record “Man O’ Sand to Girl O’ Sea” in August of 1983. The Rough Trade single version here is the song in its most primal form. It spits our fire compared to the later version re-recorded and tacked on to end of the Spring Hill Fair album of 1984, where it sits as an uneasy bookend, tamed and restrained, with Forster’s opening call sounding petulant, rather than forceful. Its place on the end of the album goes to show what an oddity the song was in The Go-Betweens’ rapidly expanding canon. It’s only toward the end of the Spring Hill Fair version does Forster venture into a further R&B/garage influence, borrowing from the Isley Brothers “Shout” with the humorously adlibbed “I feel no better! I feel no better!” toward the end.

Forster’s confident start has all but gone by the third verse, now down on his knees, reduced to whispers, pleading “don’t talk about it, don”t talk about it…pleaaase” the pure comedy of which has barely time to register before he’s back on his feet, announcing with an uncharacteristic scream of “Guitar!” as Grant McLennan launches into one of the most discordant solos in The Go-Betweens’ history. Lindy Morrison’s steadfast drumming never loses its footing, despite Forster appearing resigned to his fate with the line “so we break up, you leave my life, leave me alone.” Over the final verse he becomes even more desperate and deranged, repeatedly calling out “I want you back, I want you back,” as McLennan takes over singing the chorus and their electric guitars fight it out into a ragged fade-out finale. The Spring Hill Fair recording has the slight edge here, adding a frenetic guitar solo that lasts for well over a minute.

Few Go-Betweens tracks really came close to matching the spirit and zeal of “Man O’ Sand to Girl O’ Sea”. There are elements in “You’ve Never Lived” on Spring Hill Fair and “In the Core of a Flame” from Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express where the band go on the attack, but never to the same extent. Put simply, this is my favourite Go-Betweens single, my ultimate Go-Betweens song; better than “Cattle and Cane”, better than “Spring Rain”, better than “Part Company”, better than “Bachelor Kisses”. With the sad passing of Grant McLennan in 2006, there will never be another Go-Betweens record, and now after I’ve closed the book on this band, a song like this reminds me just how important they were, and Forster’s lingering call of “I want you back” echoing my own thoughts on how dearly I miss this band.

Go-Betweens Website

The Fauves are the only band I’ve ever written fan-mail to. When you consider just how marginally relevant at the time this band was (not to me, oh no), it seems it was less mail-from-a-fan and more a letter of encouragement. The Fauves were an “arty band” (the band name something of a clue) made up of school friends from Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula that rode into town on the back of a couple of promising EPs. As artists they were obtuse and uncompromising, a mixture of skewed riffs and bizarre time signatures, musically channelling the spirit of the once powerful Hunters and Collectors before quickly devolving into their own tempered styling. Their songs had a meaning only known to them, almost to the extent of “watch me write a song about this!” Live shows were a mixture of farce and spectacle (their performance at Sydney’s Big Day Out in 1993 comes to mind), but always entertaining.

Far be it from me to tell a band how to go about their business, I felt compelled to at least break that barrier, unaware of how arrogant and disrespectful in hindsight it sounds. Following their dismally received debut album (proudly stated by them as the worst selling album in Polydor history) the letter went something along the lines of “what the hell do you call this?” Usually a debut album is a call to arms, but this was just a prolonged agonising listen under the pretence of exercising your art. I begged them to reconsider their direction, refine their madness, or at least unleash the antagonist/irreverent spirit that in a live setting was something they were famous for — encores where they demolished Frente songs, covered the theme to Gilligan’s Island and attacked each other onstage like rugby players. I received a polite and considered response from head Fauve Andrew Cox agreeing with some of my observations, giving his side of the story, though ultimately happy to take this advice onboard. No doubt they were copping it left and right after their first single on a major label, the jerky jitter of “Thin Body, Thin Body” disappeared into the ether and second single, the melodic but meandering and doomed for radio play “Marble Arse” fell on beyond deaf ears.

The Fauves (1995)

The follow-up The Youth Need Discipline was a more even and listenable affair but ultimately not much better. They teased the blinkered masses with songs about dwarves and roman emperors and made a few more friends this time round, but not enough to invite over for a bbq. The staunch fan as I was kept writing, insisting that the Fauves were like an onion and if you kept peeling back the layers, all will eventually be revealed — just as long as they kept the songs under 4 minutes, no more than 12 per album and easy on the dirge. I wanted to understand what drove a Fauve, so I asked for their favourite recorded moments, as I felt that the audience vs. the band were wanting wholly different things, and this was proven when Andrew wrote back explaining he couldn’t speak for the rest of the band but dutifully obliged, listing a handful of songs that only a mother could love.

Eventually having worn them down with my pseudo Colonel Parker career guidance, the band appeased my inner-jukebox and released their most succinct and spirited release to date, the three chord blitzkrieg that is “Everybody’s Getting a 3 Piece Together”. According to the band this track was originally recorded as a b-side for the “Dwarf on Dwarf” single, but label Polydor were impressed enough to release it as a stand alone single, complete with wholly unrepresentative cover of two muscle-laden meatheads toting guitars and an abundance of extra tracks.

“3 Piece” begins with a down-tuned guitar riff courtesy of the Doctor that sounds like an engine trying to start. Drummer Adam Newey chips in with a quick impression of Keith Moon, and by the time Coxy opens his mouth, he’s already in full flight, running headlong into the chorus. “Good things come in threes, you don’t have to tell me. Guitar, bass and drums. Hey honey, sounds like fun. Everybody’s putting a three piece together.”

It’s one of the truly funny songs released that year, not because of the fact that it was an inspired, sarcastic attack on the rise of the three piece band in Australia (You Am I, Snout, Pollyanna etc) but also because this was the last thing you expected from them. Most people had given up the Fauves as almost-rans, destined to put out middling releases that end up unwanted in second hand stores on Pitt St. From the consumer point of view, it felt like it was released as a stab in the dark, the band expecting it to be given the same invisible treatment as previous singles, but instead this one was welcomed with open arms. I could picture Coxy in a confused daze wondering “they like this, but they don’t like ‘Arbuckle at Glenrowan’? I mean, come on!” The lyrics here over the middle eight where Andrew goes into ad-lib overdrive is when I basically lost it and fell about in a fit of laughter. Whether it was intentional or not, the Fauves, like Frampton, had suddenly come alive.

I wrote back voicing my unrestrained approval and wondered with a raised eyebrow what this meant for the direction of the band, eager to hear the results of the album they were currently working on. I begged for a cassette (oh, the days of advance cassettes) and Andrew again dutifully obliged. The dozen or so songs on display here (the j-card complete with song titles showing liquid paper indecision) sounded like a band that had finally mastered the art of songwriting. It made the primitive sounds of Drive Thru Charisma seem like a bad dream. I felt proud that The Fauves and I had finally come to agreement, making the album that I knew they had in them. The downside of this, being after the considerable success of the album they entitled Future Spa, The Fauves were then viewed forevermore as a “joke band”, because of the two singles chosen to promote it, the canine-loving “Dogs are the Best People” and the hand-loving “Self Abuser”. Success can be reflection on talent and perseverance, but success can also be a bitch. The Fauves got the recognition they pined for, but with it came a fair amount of dickheads who misunderstood the band entirely.

I’m sure they probably could’ve existed as an avante garde noodly art band that occasionally dallied with a little melody and charm and filled the fringes of rock artistry with their integrity intact, but Andrew Cox was always the vociferous humourist with a punishing intellect. It seemed a waste for this not to cross-over into their music (unless you consider Drive Thru Charisma album track “Let Me Be Your Toilet” to be humour, then by all means they were with you from the start). I probably take some blame in that once they dropped the art in favour of the heart the critical fall from grace would be inevitable, but hey, it got them nominated for an ARIA award for “Best Alternative Album” in 1996. Unfortunately, they got to walk the red carpet in, but had to take the back entrance out.

For a band which has had such a varied career it’s incredibly hard to pick a definitive representative track, but for many reasons, “Three Piece” could be seen as the precursor to the tipping point, the calm before the storm, and the moment at which they turned an accident into an incident. I still love this song. What’s not to love about this song?

In carrying on the tradition of Fauves (1993-2008) correspondence, I invited Andrew to join the party and answer a few questions about “3 Piece” and the rise and fall of the Fauves. This is what transpired…

What was the genesis of “3 Piece”? How did it come about? The music is reminiscent of your extended encore jams, while the lyrics are free-flowing genius. Did you have a preconceived idea about this song going into it?

You have hit on the essence of the song. Doctor had a riff — to my way of thinking he was Australia’s number one riff guy at the time — but no words, he never has words. We had to record some B-sides so I wrote the words the day before we recorded it. In that sense it is about the most spontaneous, unrehearsed thing we have ever committed to CD.

What were your feelings when Polydor suggested for it to be a single? Did you consider the blatant jokey vibe to be at odds with your “guitars as paintbrushes” and obtuse lyrical palette?

The jokey vibe was definitely a product of it having been intended as a B-side. We, however, had no problems with releasing it as a single. Our career was fast going down the toilet, we thought the song rocked, we were naïve, we thought it would be a smash! In the event it barely got played. All we got back from JJJ was that they hated the CD cover featuring two muscle men holding guitars. Strange excuse for what is, after all, a purely aural medium.

How did the modest/moderate/minor success of “3 Piece” influence the recording of Future Spa? Did Polydor turn around and say “yes please, more like that”? Future Spa was something of departure in style. Was it your intention to make a more coherent and approachable album than your previous releases?

We were already moving into another phase before “3 Piece” came out. We were finally starting to work out how to write decent songs. It is important to remember that the clutch of so called jokey, light hearted songs upon which we made our name were never seen in that light by us. To us they were genuine songs, expressing real feelings and it remains to this day a sore point that we became known as this ironic, piss take band. None of us thought “Dogs Are the Best People”, for instance, would become some kind of minor novelty hit. I wrote it thinking it was a straightforward statement on man’s duplicity. So much for my high flown intellectual musings! Future Spa was where it all began for us — the first really good thing we had done. Every subsequent album has been rolled gold as far as I am concerned.

I made an impassioned plea (in writing) post Drive Thru Charisma to stop being so damn difficult to love, and asked by way of finding out whether we were on the same wavelength, what your favourite Fauves songs were. Unsurprisingly you picked all the ugly children (in my opinion) from the Fauves school line-up, and this just reinforced my belief that while public opinion mattered, you weren’t striving to be adored. So if you please, in tribute to the old days, list your five favourite Fauves songs, past to present with a suitably pithy explanation to go along with.

This list is a little contrived as I can’t honestly narrow it down to five…

“The Charles Atlas Way” — Lazy Highways

This felt like the first really good song I had written, only about 14 years after I first started trying to write songs. How can I explain it? — it seemed like a song that a real songwriter might have composed.

“Write What You Know” — Thousand Yard Stare

I chose this because I think it is our most perfect recorded moment, one of those rare times when a song turns out exactly as you dreamed it would. It’s a really simple song but all the little instrument parts blend so perfectly. We wanted everything on Thousand Yard Stare to sound exceptionally dry. We were ready with a leather strap any time anyone’s hand went near a reverb unit. I think this is our most non-contrived, upbeat sounding song in a catalogue that is pretty resolutely downbeat. I could have chosen 3 or 4 other songs from this album.

“LA ’86″ — Footage Missing

This is my other candidate for our most perfect recorded moment. When Ted came up with the idea for the harp glissando leading into the choruses I nearly cried it sounded so good. The song marries everything music, lyrics, mood. I’m really proud of it but was disappointed that the graphic artist left the full title off the CD cover. It’s supposed to be “LA ’86 – In Free Fall”. It was a caption to a photo of Demis Roussos I found looking really overweight in the 80s.

“Nairobi Nights” — Footage Missing

This song to me is the Fauves, a little bit different to other bands. I would stack these lyrics up against anyone — Dylan, Reed, Le Bon. Bring ‘em on.

“We Sleep In the Afternoon” — Nervous Flashlights

I always say (well I would if anyone asked me) that if you want to understand the Fauves listen to the last song on every album (not including bonus tracks). They are much more representative of us than most of our singles. I would never want to release a compilation, but if we had to I would make it comprise only final tracks.

In the age where record companies are more a hindrance than a necessity, why didn’t the Fauves quit while they were ahead (figuratively) and just self-produce and distribute? For the amount of records you sell, wouldn’t it be better releasing your music through Australia Post?

Going it alone requires at least some attention to business, irrespective of how minor the scale. It sounds wanky but for us it’s just about the art. So long as we have been able to keep finding people who would stump up the cash to help us record then we have taken it. We realised long ago that music would never make us rich. We are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of self-promotion, hocking product, bleating to the world about how great we are. On a record label you can do one day of interviews and then shut up. Self production/ distribution involves engaging the industry in a much more hands on way. We don’t have the stomach for it.

To bring things up to date, you’ve recently been given a Victorian Arts Grant to record a solo album. How did this come about? Were you surprised? How does this sit with the Doctor? What do you plan to do on this album (other than record as cheaply as possible and pocket the money)?.

I just put the application in on a whim and they went for it. I wasn’t too surprised — they were good songs I demoed for them! Doctor and the other guys are cool. I am exceptionally loyal: they will be the only other musicians on it! I am the only one in the band without a job. I just want to make music and in the Fauves we only get to do an album one every couple of years. I have scores of songs that have not been accepted for Fauves albums for reasons of space, democratic decisions or style. Some of these tracks have endured and still sound good to me. Plus there are the songs I keep writing. There will probably only be room for 5 or 6 of them on the Fauves album we are recording in March. I’m tired of binning everything that fails to make an album track list. I can be a bit more indulgent on a solo album and include songs of a more personal nature. Plus, after 20 years, I will finally get my choice for the name of an album!

The Fauves – MySpace

I first caught Glide live at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney in mid 1991, shortly after they formed and began playing around town. In the following months it appeared they had a sympathetic pull with the bookers of the Annandale as they played with increasing regularity there and around town, securing support slots with like-minded UK bands here to capitalize on the moment (Ride, Lush, Adorable). The Annandale had been almost a second home for me at the time, and as much as I enjoyed watching Glide live, they seemed to be everywhere at once, continually improving and refining their sound and whetting your appetite for something solid to take home and listen. 

Pretty Mouth would be the title of their debut EP released independently at the end of 1991. The 5 tracks on offer showcased their current live set, with expertly crafted songs ranging from the dark and dramatic to head-turning guitar-driven pop. “Thin Faced Man” was the key song on the EP for me. It was that song in particular that stood out from the first time I saw them, walking back to my house on Cleveland St, with the refrain of “who’s that girl?” ringing in my ears. On hearing they were in the studio working on an EP I crossed my fingers, hoping this track would be on it and indeed it was. The recorded version here faithfully living up to my memory of those early live performances. The interplay between the two guitars was perfection, with singer/songwriter/guitarist William Arthur playing a melodic Am/G/C rhythm part while guitarist Tim Scott hits dissonant notes on a ubiquitous (at the time) Fender Jaguar. I always wondered if the song was a nod to Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man”, and in particular loved the line “you think I look clean, but you don’t know where I’ve been” though it would unfortunately foreshadow events to come. From the songs on display here it was evident that William Arthur was a talented songwriter and Glide were the perfect outfit to harness his vision. Waterfront Records were selling autographed copies and I grabbed mine in no time flat.

Glide (William Arthur on left)

Their story doesn’t stop here, but for me and Glide, it did and I’m still not entirely sure why. For some reason I was unimpressed with their follow-up EP Shuffle Off to Buffalo. The lead track “Water Falls” didn’t have the edge that any of the songs from Pretty Mouth did and it seemed like a rather direct attempt at getting played on the radio, which alienated me but worked in their favour. I guess as a music fan you’re not obliged to like every record a band puts out, but most bands deserve a second chance. Maybe I was going through my Big Black phase then, I don’t know. Around the time this EP was released their original guitarist quit. The fact that this stands out in my mind must have some gravitas here. Tim Scott was an obvious asset to the band with an ability to play some inventive and catchy riffs, switching between discordant noise and ringing melody. I think one day I’ll go back, retrace my steps and meet the band at the point where I said “you know, this just isn’t working out.” and give them the benefit of the doubt. The brash 19 year old, forever chasing the sounds that made sense to his ears, was probably less forgiving than the person I am now. I’m almost certain I’ll be surprised.

I hate stories that end with a sad postscript, as the story of Glide eventually did, with the unfortunate drug overdose of William Arthur in August of 1999 at the age of 34. Over the years our paths would cross, as they inevitably do in the compact Sydney scene, and words were occasionally shared over drinks at bars or gigs, though not once did I ever lean over to him and say “Thin Faced Man…what a fucking song!”, and I wish I had because I’m still in awe of this song now as I was then, but I guess looking over at what I’ve just written this is as good a testament as any.

Glide – Website