UN-STARSTRUCK

UN-STARSTRUCK

The real Oz post-punk underground

Brian Turner

As an astute reader of this here chronicle, you are surely well-versed in the American and U.K./Euro components of the post-punk zeitgeist, and all the attached information that has cornered the market of awareness via various reissues and tales that have ensued. But what about the relatively less documented Antipodean antics? It’s taken a number of years for some of the dustier corners of those scenes to trickle to our hemisphere in various forms of knowledge, and basically you had to look into the right zones to get the real story of the true underground. New Zealand especially has seen a fanatical obsession in some. Thanks to the continuation of Flying Nun Records awareness here, plus reissues and releases by stateside labels like Matador and Merge (and more subterranean sounds resurfacing in the form of steady reissues on labels like Siltbreeze and Bunkerpop), that legacy has been well cemented. Meanwhile, much of the obscuro history of Australia has oft been overshadowed by the larger bands who filtered to the States via decent independent distribution in the ’80s (looking at the Go-Betweens, Crime & the City Solution, the Triffids, and the Birthday Party) and even a few who managed to strike out some major-label megahits (INXS, Midnight Oil, the Church). Nick Cave, whose direct lineage of both his own and his players’ work traces back to the deep Aussie underground, is steadily filling huge halls around the world. It bears some examination to his roots in the Birthday Party (and the Boys Next Door, the band’s predecessor, which started in 1978) being fueled by the Pop Group and the Stooges, with the latter being a mighty magic bullet for many punk purveyors Down Under (see the Scientists, Radio Birdman, X, and the Saints).

Australia’s major-label setup had great designs to feed off the examples set by its U.S. and U.K. big biz counterparts, which around the time of 1978 was how to market the new wave to the masses. When Chris Knox’s Toy Love were imported from New Zealand by an Oz major, it tore them apart and ultimately consigned Knox into a return to DIY purity and the 4-track constructions that, in the long run, went on to be his most defining trait. The Gillian Armstrong-directed early-’80s “musical comedy” Starstruck depicted a Josie Cotton-esque spiky-haired chanteuse searching for fame, framed in a Hollywoodization of what Australia culture exporters deemed a “new-wave Grease.” Very cute.

As the ’80s progressed, most Americans unconnected to college radio still had little grasp on the value of the DNA of what made Australia great (yes, Casey Kasem would explain what a Vegemite sandwich was), but as independent stores and distribution networks shored up, some key stuff became more accessible by import. The raw gutter blooze grunge of Sydney’s feedtime filtered into Sub Pop’s germ state thanks to Mudhoney’s fandom. Hell, feedtime may have invented grunge alongside Blue Cheer...

HELL, FEEDTIME MAY HAVE INVENTED GRUNGE ALONGSIDE BLUE CHEER...

More blips appeared on the radar thanks to Amphetamine Reptile Records’ importing of Cosmic Psychos and Lubricated Goat in the punk rock/Stoogeoid realm, but as years progressed it became more evident that the deep-dive Oz scene was MUCH more than feeding off the teat of the Psychos’ burly yob punk or the scuzzy Beefheart of Stu Spasm’s Lubricated Goat.

It’s impossible to tie it all up in a bow for you quickly, dear reader, but here’s an abbreviated snapshot of some leading lights in the sub-underground. And it comes at an opportune moment. Melbourne’s great Chapter Music is doing a June vinyl-at-last reissue on volume 1 of two volumes of the Can’t Stop It! compilations, a 25-year labor of love since the initial CD issue in 2001. Compiled by the label’s Guy Blackman and David Nichols (he of such great ’90s troupes as the Cannanes and Nice), here’s another well-cobbled collection of individual shards and forward-thinking stalwarts who often did not get outside the realm of just creating their own 7-inches and cassettes in barely functional studios. Along with a companion release that followed years behind Clinton Walker’s terrific Inner City Sound book that came out in 1982, you get a healthy plate from the buffet of so many independent pieces.

THE PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS/THE LITTLE BANDS SCENE

Some might recall the 1987 Richard Lowenstein film starring the late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence fronting a fictional band, Dogs in Space (the movie’s namesake). Perhaps a Melbourne equivalent to 24 Hour Party People, fiction and reality blur in an attempt to rechristen firsthand accounts of the birth of the “Little Bands” scene, albeit one Lowenstein was immersed in, as well as Ollie Olsen. Olsen (who passed away in October 2024) had a duo with Hutchence many years later called Max Q, but in ’77 he founded Young Charlatans, which also included preBirthday Party Rowland S. Howard. After that, his synth-flanked Whirlywirld made some minor waves as part of a tight-knit circle of completely uncommercial local purveyors of low-tech recordings and flabbergasting live sets, often in Fitzroy and St Kilda neighborhood clubs.

Living next door to one another, practicing on each other’s gear, the Primitive Calculators spearheaded this charge, in itself a unit of mangy outsiders who weren’t necessarily feeding off the usual punk influences of the time.

“We’d all be obsessive record collectors leaning towards the Godz and the Fugs in the stateside scene,” the Calculators’ Denise Hilton told me in 2013. “Suicide made the biggest impact when we heard them. Quite often up to 10 bands would show up at the gigs and play off our equipment, sometimes people from the audience who just came up.”

The scene was composed of artists, poets, nonmusicians in general (aside from Olsen,

who had synth training). Local radio 3RRR, which was a mouthpiece for new wave, even included live recordings from the Little Bands nights in their own programming, helping boost the DIY ethic that reverberates today in Melbourne.

While the Primitive Calculators made the well-distributed Dogs in Space soundtrack (along with Iggy), missing were actual Little Band staples such as People With Chairs Up Their Noses, the Take, Ronnie and the Rhythm Boys, and Too Fat to Fit Through the Door.

“Terrible, terrible movie,” says Denise, though she admits that the placement of their song “Pumping Ugly Muscle” in the soundtrack “actually helped people remember [us later]. We would only print, like, 500 copies of our music, which was fine by us.”

Like many Oz bands attempting to take things to the next level, most of the Calculators split for London but called it quits as a band in 1980, until an invite to All Tomorrow’s Parties (under the curation of Nick Cave) led to an actual money offer and the band regrouping, from 2009 to 2012, and a very late debut studio album that ranks as brutally paranoid as their earlier sounds (if not more so). Other notable exports of the Little Bands scene included Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, who later went on to form goth staples Dead Can Dance.

SPK

Meanwhile, a few hundred miles away in Sydney, other eggs were hatching in direct artistic response to the increasing Day-Glo sheen of new wave. In a way it paralleled Los Angeles (a city Syd gets a lot of comparisons to anyway), where ugly practitioners of synth and guitar abuse like the Screamers and Nervous Gender were glomming styles from Throbbing Gristle rather than Blondie (and not really getting popular results).

SPK emerged in 1978 when Graeme Revell met Neil Hill working at a psychiatric hospital and the two bonded over a love of ’70s German electronica and Marxist manifestos. Their early singles, in particular “Mekano,” were bloodcurdling, psychotic blasts of protoindustrial mayhem that put them up there with Métal Urbain, Cabaret Voltaire, and Red Transistor in terms of aptly projecting the machines-gone-wild in a pure noise-punk context. As one would suspect, they too departed for England, where they did two LPs, remaining there up until Hill’s unfortunate suicide.

SPK’s ensuing years in the mid-’80s had them evolve to be stylized in visual and audio presentation, perhaps in tandem with an increased environment of more melodic synth/industrial acts that found inroads to the mainstream. A degree of nihilism and experimentalism surely remained, but Revell definitely gravitated toward much more pop, and even orchestral, sensibilities, which probably suited the increasing punters getting weaned on Hot Topic and KROQ as much as Re/Search’s industrial-music-as-lifestyle publications.

SLUGFUCKERS

Down in Sydney’s Newtown, university students Terry Blake, John Laidler, and Graham Forsyth formed the Slugfuckers, an uncategorizable and sometimes impenetrable unit with a lot of misanthropy to spread around

its own scene. A good touchstone to describe them might be if fans of PiL's Second Edition took its deconstructive raw dub/punk ethic and transferred it into a blurring pastiche of almost every kind of music and doused it in flaming gasoline. The avant knob was up to 11 in a way akin to some of the U.K. genreblurrers like the Desperate Bicycles and the Homosexuals independently self-releasing their own balls of confusion. The Slugfuckers’ singular LP and handful of singles also hinted at being unformed zygotes for the impending industrial culture, sampling Burroughs and ably projecting the helplessness of mankind against the machines, though in comparison SPK sounded streamlined up against their glorious mess.

A lone 1981 LP, Transformational Salt, was released by Tom Ellard of Severed Heads on his Dogfood Productions imprint, and a 2020 reissue on Digital Regress is still floating around. As for Severed Heads, they also stood tall in the proto-industrial Oz pantheon and, again, took on the qualities of less experimentalism and more melody as their career wore on. Thanks to labels like Dark Entries, a new breed of listeners has been more able to discover their early sounds as well, many years down the line.

M SQUARED

The M Squared studio where Transformational Salt was recorded also morphed into a driving, if barely-noticed-at-the-time, bastion of what would take hold years later in worldly influence. Here, Mitch Jones and Michael Tee would use rudimentary musical and engineering chops to create a haven for like-minded post-punk experimentalists. The arrival of Patrick Gibson’s project the Systematics helped cement M Squared as an actual label. In-house sound creation and packaging consolidated the us-vs.-them aesthetic of how Australian labels carried out commercial conquests of airplay vs. actual artistic creation. Simply put, M Squared wanted nothing to do with the music biz.

The Systematics and Makers of the Dead Travel Fast did actually get some notable outreach beyond their shores. M Squared’s low-cost output—of mostly cassettes with the occasional vinyl—coupled with an open call for talent through assorted local venues, swelled the roster. Their A Selection compilation stood strong with contributions from Severed Heads, Scattered Order, the Limp, and Negative Reaction, among others, and some new Brisbane imports like Xero and Tangled Shoelaces actually aligned M Squared a bit more to the current stream of post-punk staples making waves in Australia. Yet there was no marketing, commercial leanings, or dictations for the artists to do anything but their own wishes. It’s very much worth seeking the five-LP M Squared box set from 2009 on Vinyl on Demand, Pardon Me for Barging in Like This... (M Squared: Rare Recordings 1979-1983). Tee sadly passed away last year.

The return of Chapter Music’s Can’t Stop It! compilation is such a terrific snapshot at the sheer bare-boned inventiveness flowing through Australia, finding a sweet spot between the harsh-to-some experimentalism that percolated and the spirit of genuine songcraft. Xero, for example, featured a young Lindy Morrison, who later went on to a storied career with the Go-Betweens, whose records were so lush and pop-perfect they had a Brisbane bridge named after them in a burst of local government pride (where is the Slugfuckers Bridge, Sydney?).

OTHER CAN'T STOP IT! HIGHLIGHTS

The Particles’ “Apricot’s Dream,” from 1979, evokes some of the scruffier moments of early Teardrop Explodes—rife with wheezy organ, and with even a kids’ gospel choir floating around its rough mix—while remaining pristine pop.

Then there was the complete primitivity of People With Chairs Up Their Noses (once described as “the worst band in the world”), which sported Jim White, who later settled into such top-notch units as Venom P. Stinger, Xylouris White, and Dirty Three (and currently drums in globe-trotting venue packers the Hard Quartet).

Voigt/465 may have been the one postpunk ensemble most discussed in reverent whispers from this collection. Their combination of experimentation and spiky songsmithery in “Voices a Drama” especially evokes shadows of Essential Logic.

Essendon Airport sprang forth out of Melbourne in 1978, initially a stripped-down drum-machine/guitar duo, eventually flourishing into a quartet, then a quintet. Stylish elements of jazz and funk abounded, with some similarities to the Monochrome Set; their trajectory looked promising in terms of more international awareness until they split in 1983. Chapter Music issued some millennialera compilations that cajoled them back into live service aided by former Triffid Graham Lee on pedal steel. Interestingly, Essendon released some actual new studio recordings in 2022.

I hope Chapter can get it together for a vinyl issue of Can’t Stop It! II as well, which moves the wayback needle up to 1984 in retrospection and showcases some especially cool mutant disco/proto-hip-hop (Asphixiation’s “The Crush” is a classic, and the label has singled them out for a reissue as well in their catalog), and includes some more prime Severed Heads and Scattered Order, plus great inclusions from Tactics, the Goat That Went “Om,” the Jetsonnes (later Hunters and Collectors), Wild Dog Rodeo, Scapa Flow, and others who all deserve a deeper microscope.

WHAT AN OASIS FOR BADASS MUSIC MADE FOR ALL THE WRONG/RIGHT REASONS.

These days, Australia continues its mainstream trajectory of getting a big presence for select hitmeisters, but the undercurrent of inventiveness and pushing sound into new zones remains strong. Trips to Oz in 2013 and 2017 revealed to me more going on than I could intake in my brief time in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. Of course, it was often centered on strong networks bolstered by great radio going on at 4ZZZ in Brisbane and 3RRR in Melbourne, fantastic stores like Repressed in Sydney’s Newtown, and continued unabashed thirst for discovery of what was going on in the outside world coupled with ironclad community. I remember sharing a festival’s discussion panel with Repressed’s Nic Warnock, who offered a flat “no thanks to anyone” on live mic to the media surrounding the event, assuring with more than enough satisfaction that the DIY scene was doing fine as it is without any help or hollow patronage.

We’d need a whole other feature to shine a light on the scores of punters who carried the founders’ torches into the millenium: Naked on the Vague, Blank Realm, Eastlink, UV Race, Total Control, Sacred Product, Thigh Master, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Ausmuteants, Royal Headache, Ostraaly, Chimers, Twerps, Exhaustion, Slug Guts, and the criminally underrated Deaf Wish (who had a brief Sub Pop fling and fleeting U.S. tours) all loom large in what’s been bubbling in the past couple decades. Some of them are still chooglin’ and might even make it to your town (and by that I mean probably Gonerfest in Memphis, which has been historically mega-supportive of Oz bands). I am anxious to go back. What an oasis for badass music made for all the wrong/right reasons. Except Townsville. I never want to go there again. It was like Wake in Fright, with teeth being knocked out in the bars left and right, and I was fairly terrified to be there.