Batswing Saloon - Harold and Maude

Brisbane in the late 80s in a musical sense didn't have a terrible lot going for it. Clusters of bands featuring musicians from the early 80s and before soldiered on, or left defeated by the mid part of the decade. Those who stuck around made some brilliant cassettes and fewer made (cassette) albums. And then there's vinyl.

You have to remember that in the post-punk landscape of Brisbane that aside from Xero, no one put out a 12" record; Go-Betweens and Saints not included in this argument. Likewise with the Riptides. I'm speaking about the ones who stayed here, stuck it out (as in the fact they didn't move to Sydney) and did the odd tour of the southern capitals. And who did it independently. Lust in the Dust came out in 1982. The iconic 4zzz compilation LP State of Emergence appeared four years later and the He Dark Age album, The Dog's Breakfast was four years after that! What you have in the middle of that are cassette albums. Small runs for an audience and one for 4ZZZ's music library.

Talk about torrid times.

And so a awful lot of boring bands dominated Brisbane music during the mid to late 1980s and many of them released 45s to remind us of how dire it all was. Some dove in and did 12" EPs (Ironing Music spring to mind) but when you look at a discography of Brisbane independent music from 1978 to 1990, there wasn't a lot of vinyl commitment going on and reasonably-priced CD pressing was still a way's away. There were more than two, but less than three dozen or so independently-released 45s between 1978 and 1982 and then the momentum suddenly went pffft!!!

So when you look at singles released between 1983 and 1988 and speaking of bands outside of the punk-stroke-hardcore realm, there's only a handful of truly listenable titles that came out locally.

Yes, there was Bent Records who released bands like the Lemon Fabs on wax but I'm speaking of quality independent music here. Note how I didn't include any 4IP or FM 104 compilation LPs a paragraph or so back.

So among the piles of terrible releases (and let's face it folks, there were a lot of them!), here's a good one, and Batswing Saloon's sole release Harold and Maude/Split Level World displays the treble-laden Brisbane of the 1980s at its primitive best.


Sydney might've had Matrimony, but Brisbane had Batswing Saloon. A little less post-punk, but making up for it with a lot more twee.

Batswing Saloon were probably (okay, certainly) the first all-girl Brisbane band to put out a single, though Zero undoubtedly hold the mantle of being the first all-girl post-punk band at some early point. This came out sometime in early 1989 or maybe even late 1988, almost three years after they formed. It was produced by Ian Wadley who was at that time playing in the Holy Ghosts and Small World Experience; and who by this time was already a veteran in Brisbane indie music terms.



Drummer Sue Holman also played in Cut, a band featuring guitarist Eugene Carchesio of the Holy Ghosts and Steven Grainger of Closest Thing (a trio with Eugene). No one went on to do anything else, except Michelle Bowden who played in another all-girl band in the early 90s - Gravelrash. The band's original singer Anne Dellar was in Die Neuen.


Harold and Maude is the opening track from disc 2 of 4ZZZ's 25th anniversary CD, Behind the Banana Curtain.

Wondrous Fair - Wondrous Fair

Brisbane’s Wondrous Fair began around 1986 and had lasted up until 1995. In nine or so years they chalked up the following releases: the cassettes ‘Wondrous Fair’ (C60), ‘Tidy Town’ (C90) and ‘Live All Over the Shop’ (C60). They also self-released a CD in 1994 called ‘Cosmological Clock’.

They appeared on all three SPILL label compilations (1 on cassette, and 2 and 3 on CD) as well as the 1986 4ZZZ compilation LP ‘State of Emergence’.

They wore outlandish costumes.

Members of the band were formerly of Tangled Shoelaces, Gobble Gobble and Clag to name three. The story of Tangled Shoelaces and the rest of what I call the Class of 1982 is to be continued for the readers of SSS.

They made a selection of videos. Most of them are on YouTube. Some of their songs were played by Dragster after the band and beforehand by Tangled Shoelaces.

This cassette came out in 1987. As the notes in the 7” sleeve suggest, they were recorded live. The now surnamed line-up from their debut album is:

Deborah Cavallaro – marimba, keyboards.

Rodney McAllister – drums, guitar.

Martin Mackerras – bass, clarinet.

Richard Hagen – keyboards.

Jeanette Gilfedder – viola, keyboards.

Michael Bouwman – saxophone.

Stephen Mackerras – guitar

Deborah played in the Sump, the Fair Muses and Dragster (to quickly name three) – she’s currently in the Golden Circles. Rodney was the drummer in the Sump when Jeffrey Wegener or a drum machine wasn’t or weren't keeping a beat. Richard had a tapeloop-heavy project called Wank Engine and did a curious radio show on 4zzz in the 90s called Winky Wanky Woo. Jeanette’s in Italy now, and I think Stephen’s in Japan. Michael plays in Not Pictured. And I’m not sure what Martin’s doing at the moment but he played in Puppenspiel in the early 1990s.

Enjoy it here

- Donat

This Five Minutes - Swing Between The Flags

This Five Minutes were one of the greta Brisbane bands

from the first half of the 80's. They played around all the

major venues, made it onto some Classic Brisbane

compilation albums from the era. Their single How? B/W

Reaction Time made it to 81 on the ZzZ hot hundred

in 83. This is a 6 track Cassette that the wonderful

Paislie has digitalized and shared with us.

Thanks Palisie!

Track List

01 - Sometimes (The Night Time)

02 - Complications

03 - No-one Deserves To

04 - Changes

05 - Wonderworld Arcade

06 - Lou in Green

Members

Tony Moore: vocals, guitar

Tom McKeon: vocals, bass, vocoder/synth

Greg Gilbert (aka "Des Johnson"): drums

Other members included:

Guy Petersen: guitar, vocals

Greg Wadley: bass

Ian Wadley: trumpet

Pat Ridgewell: organ

Martin Mackerras: sax

Download Here

Matt Williamson - Little Songs Two

Matt has sent us another beautiful album of his wonderful folk songs,

Check out this for some truly fantastic music,

His stories of Australia, the music that evokes the landscape.

I do hope you'll make it up to Brisbane one day to play,

I'm thinking Woodford!

My wife loves your music to, she told me tell tell you

Thanks Matt

Now over to Matt

G'day bob.this is a recent compilation of little songs including

some instrumentals we have been doing. We did a couple of

shows with Kerrianne Cox. Try and catch one of her shows

if you can, music with a story and a class act.

Best regards matt and shaking hands.

ps. keep up the great work and love of good music and meaning.

Track List

01. Spiritual

02. Sooner Or Later

03. Old Black Man

04. Reprise

06. The Sprinter

07. Bad Cousin To Your Own Brother

08. Cup Of Tea

09. Jimmies Theme

10. Radio Heaven

11. All Over The Moon

14. Loaded Man With A Gun

15. Same Town

16. Captured

17. Get Outta Here!!

19. Shackled

20. Anthem

22. Told You So

www.mediafire.com/?x2jtsav8al7iaj9

Some Subsonic Barflies History

“No frills” from the now defunct Brisbane Telegraph

Music supplement in the Courier Mail.

An article from Juke in August 87

the press release from the band to promote the single

a letter from 3PBS in Melbourne to the band asking when would we

tour Melbourne which we never did. The furtherest destination from

Brisbane that we played at was Toowoomba and Coolum

Mark has sent me some more fascinating Brisbane music history,

this time concerning the band Subsonic Barflies.

Their single was covered here earlier and its great to be able

to find more first hand recollections on the net.

Thanks Mark!

You had a review on the Subsonic Barflies single

“Questions” a couple of months ago.

Here are some press clippings, letters from radio

stations etc. on the band as further info for your

readers.

Before I do that just a bit of background on the band:

Myself (guitar) and Peter Greene (drums) played in

an early to mid-80s hardcorish punk band called

Death of a Nun.

(Which recorded some demos that I will get to

you some time soon, but that is another story.)

At the time I was working for Telecom and met

Tim Carseldine (also worked for Telecom),

guitarist with Prince of Weasels, along with Col

who played bass.

(Prince of Weasels had a couple of tracks on the

excellent “At his Fuhrer’s request” LP compilation.)

Tim and I both loved the twin guitars of the Dolls,

Heartbreakers, Flaming Groovies etc.

rather than the American hard core direction that

Death of a Nun was going.

So we split both our bands to form the Subsonic

Barflies and brought in Dave Chamberlain who

previously played drums in the Vampire Lovers

and recorded the drums on their most famous

single Buzzsaw Popstar.

Soon we were getting lots of gigs as local headline

or supporting some great OZ acts like X and

Celibate Rifles and fantastic international acts like

Johnny Thunders and Flaming Groovies

(whom we all idolised).

Any way to cut a long story short the band broke up

over the usual suspects:

sex drugs and rock and roll.

So here are some obscure archives from when people

played rock and roll for fun, before it became

corporatized and commoditised and people saw it just

as a career move.

The first article “No frills” is from the now defunct

Brisbane Telegraph and came out only after a month or

2 of playing.

The 2nd was from the music supplement in the Courier Mail.

More clips to follow.

Cheers

mark

An ad from what is I presume is Time off for a gig at the Crystal club

Another from the Ipswich Advertiser, 16 June 1987

An article from one of the University papers

Presidents 11 and Lovs e blur

A couple of articles that Mark Birsky did for Brisbane Time off.

Readers of the SSS blog will no doubt heard of these two Brissy

legends, Presidents 11 and Lovs e blur.

Fantastic stuff thanks Mark!

Fad, a Brisbane Fanzine

Mark has sent me a Brisbane fanzine from 1978 to

share, a true bit of Brisbane music history.

In the true spirit of do it yourself punk style

this is a cut and paste, photocopy fanzine.

It was a popular way of supporting the music

scene in many places, I have seen a few examples

from the English punk scene over the years.

Some great stuff in this fanzine!

Click on any pic to enlarge.

Over to Mark,

Thanks heaps Mark

Here is a Brisbane fanzine called Fad.

I would say that it was early to mid-78 as it states

that the Numbers and Go Betweens are soon to release

their singles.

You can see from page 2 that it was produced by Mark Overett,

who I presume is now owner of New Holland Pictures .

Mark

Vale Rocking Horse. .. .

Ad from Ratsack fanzine : vol2-crastak .page 24 circa '82

Sad news that Rocking Horse records may be closing down soon. :(
http://www.couriermail.com.au/entertainment/iconic-record-shop-rocking-horse-put-out-to-pasture/story-e6freq7f-1226083470847
I think that there are a couple of key ingredients every city needs to maintain a healthy live music industry. People who want to (and can) play music. Places to play the music, and places to explore music. Sadly all those indy record shops that I grew up with have disappeared and no doubt the city is worse off because of it. The market has certainly changed over the last few decades and the specialty shops have struggled to survive. Even up to the 90's it was hard work finding past releases or overseas and local indy music. When cds became evryday the major labels really jumped on the reissue market but b4 then it was a struggle to get old LPs of your fav artists. It was secondhand (often at inflated collectors prices) or imported from more adventerous label manufactures. No ebay/ amazon/ myspace. just the indy shop guys who slaved over industry mags all day to stock the finest goods any punter could wish for. My first Rocking Horse experience was scoring a couple of Joy Division boots.. brilliant covers - shittty as audio live quality but i was stoked!
Many years have I flicked records and cds at places like Kent records (Bruce Anthon yer a freakin genius), Skinnys (various owners and staff) and Rocking Horse. Where are all those unemployable musos going to get work now???  sad days indeed.
The old girl is in palliative care for a few weeks so drop in and give your respects and she may even offer up a bargain or 2 to remember her by. Maybe if enuff ppl spread the love she will spark back to life! Good luck in the future Warick and thanks for the effort these past decades.

A couple of pages worth of ads for old brisbane record shops from Time Off street press 25 september 1987.

update:  Well it seems lots of love was spread and the shop trades on...  hopefully the customers keep frequenting the shop and this near death experience wasn't in vain... I'm suprised at how many ppl saw this blog post as a death sentence as opposed to a wake up call. Yes the shop very well could have closed but ppl needed to be motivated to show their respect for an iconic institution (not just some faceless retailer)..Stay motivated ppl!.. use it or lose it!.. keep up the good work RRR!
http://www.couriermail.com.au/business/rocking-horse-records-saved-from-closure-at-11th-hour-by-mysterious-benefactor/story-e6freqmx-1226100872924

Go Betweens - Oceans Apart article Rave mag 2005

Another street press article this time from Rave magazine 2 august 2005 page 10. It features Grant talking about the Oceans Apart cd. Also sneaked in the photo from the cover and a side box mentioning dvd recording at the tiv.

Laughing Clowns article 1985

This article comes from an encyclopedia of sorts published about 1985 from Rolling Stone. Worth tracking down if you can find one second hand. The article was written by Ed St. John and pic by Laura Lee.

Ed is still very hands on with his own promotion, record company business prefering to stay outside the majors clutches. Reminds me alot of the Zappa approach in Barking Pumpkins label after he got rogered by a major label. Lately Ed has almost gone a 'radiohead new media' approach to keeping in with the fans. Well worth tracking down on facebook and his very own utube channel.