(A ROCK & ROLL INDEX OF A CITY)
Aardvark, No Play: Nick Bolte (vox, L git) Graham Brewer (bass) Two accountants who played regular Sunday afternoon sessions at every pub in town except The Anchorage (c/f). At Aardvark, No Play’s sole gig at the Anchorage, back in the beginning, someone threw an empty flagon of McWilliams Royal Reserve Port and damaged their drum machine. So they self-banned The Anchorage. Aardvark played a clinical version of Chain of Fools that was quite good when Brewer’s girlfriend Shonelle sang. Without her, Chain was as dreary as their other tunes.
The Anchorage is a pub. It has crenellated ironwork in Heritage Colours across the front, a tin roof. The pub is situated close to the port, on a road so hot that it reflects mirages even at night. The two sugar terminals across the way are huge green mega-sheds. Once, long ago, the sugar sheds caught fire and the town was covered in black snow and stank sickly sweet of molasses for many a week. But that was before rock & roll. One year, when the wet season broke out after three steaming weeks of unadulterated mugginess, we celebrated. The band Fee Fi Fo Fun pointed our two 200 watt Yammy bins onto the street and played monsoon cyclone reggae, while the drinkers ran out, held their hands over the tops of the beer pots, and danced on the median strip as rain torrented down and cars tooted. The Anchorage was our home, and nursery of great music. Many musos started their careers at the Ancho, some drifted to the wildly alleged big time and made it, as musicians or impresarios. Others moved on, became teachers, mechanics or meatworkers and faded into oblivion. Like sharks teeth which get knocked out, other sharper ones slot forward and take their place. And that place will be in pubs like the old Anchorage. The publican was Terry Foyle (c/f) until Castlemaine United Breweries threw him out, got rid of the bands and gentrified the place.
Addison, Barry. (Dr) Crepitus, Fee Fi Fo Fun. Barry strayed to the splash too much. Was forced to the crash. That’s cymbalism. At heart he was a funk drummer, but Barry was crammed into the merciless straight jacket of heavy metal, because his best friend, Young (Nasty) J, son of a southside motor mechanic loved the screaming brio-less riffs of the Motorhead genre. They practised in Nasty’s dad’s auto workshop. Barry would crash away on behalf of Crepitus but slide his stick across the splash and the pang cymbals a little too often. This would piss the other lads off. When Crepitus played the Ancho, in the Tank Room, when Nasty, and Kimbo, and The Screamer would watch, and give Barry the evil eye if he strayed too far from hard stream of consciousness tom-tom thumping and 4 beats on the bass drum. Barry would grumble to me during intervals. He would splatter his band members with four letter words. He would bend too far over his pivoting elbows, glaring at Trixie the barmaid. I never knew how Barry managed to find his centre of gravity when he leant that far over his elbow. He looked like a deranged pretzel. If I’d balanced thus, I’d have broken my nose. Maybe anger is an anti-gravity thing. Anyway, he’d fume, after being zapped by three sets of evil eye for straying to the pang cymbal. Six eyes in total, not counting Nasty’s girlfriend Silver, who always had an opinion. He’d pang for the pang, then fume and grumble at the evil eyes, have a beer, calm down, and play straightlaced heavy metal for the rest of the night.
Bird of Paradise: Recording studio in town, run by Arlo Steele from 1979-1990. 16 track desk with an old Fairlight synthesizer, Arlo would work through the day writing poxy radio jingles and ad music but would let us in between 11pm and 5am at half rate – $10 an hour. The place smelt permanently of pizza. We recorded innumerable demo tapes at the Bird and argued with Barry a lot about drum mikes.
Bombadil. Rafferty Henske (mand) Jammin’ James (Tabor) Elbereth Jones (viol), Leaf Minor (mand), plus others (mands). A bunch of hippies. They never supported us. Never supported Crepitus either. They had a different thing. Five mandolin players, and a guy on tabor. Never made money, drank Stone’s Green Ginger Wine and smoked thin pot. I still know the third mandolin player a bit – Rafferty – because he shares a unit with a former girlfriend. I visit now, after being dumped by a later girlfriend, looking for sympathy and a smoke. The former girlfriend, Sue Wiley (key), gives me a look, makes a cup of tea for old times sake and we chat to Rafferty – who shares some cool riffs and gets help on rhymes in his latest song. Rhymes like: Over the honey-coloured mountains, in the green dell, eating a carambola/ We kiss like french people and……da de da … we’d search for an adaptable word that would rhyme with carambola. Pianola/payola/pistola. The usual pointless conversation. Bombadil played at folk festivals, which I’d never attend in a blue fit, or at garden parties where I’d hang around the spiked punch and avoid their acoustic mess.
Bruce, The: Teapot’s (c/f) only recorded single (vinyl) on the Teapot label, produced just as CD’s overwhelmed the market and was therefore lost to the wider rock’n’roll continuum. I have included the words for posterity in this index. It was written by Virginia Naysmith and John Ringuet (c/fs) during a road trip, with a dreamy Go-Betweens feel:
It’s a long highway, the Bruce/ bruised munched paddocks lash, tongue/ their muds down culverts, creeks/ the wet is glassing the highway/ windscreen becomes dreamscreen/ formless moth cars, pale yellow eyes/ pass in a wing of spray/ pasty petrol chicks behind a thousand counters/ eftpos their hours, day after da/ pumps clock the millenium/ in petrodollars 1995 1996 et al/ but the girls – they don’t know/ how far the next town’s away/or a passion play
it’s a long highway
the Bruce …
Eucalypt blue ranges topped/ with sashimi thin fillets of mist/ the great divide plays chicken with the road/ cunningly distant and grand at Calen/ sideswiping cars at Babinda/ cane tracks percuss/ cane spikes slowly explode/ cracked by God’s bommyknocker/ paramedics remove white meat/ from an upturned car crab, steaming/ with a flick flick flick of yellow red and blue/ police lights mourn/ wave the living on/ the dead search/the white line dreaming
it’s a long highway, the Bruce
it’s a long highway, the Bruce.
Christian Bands: There were three. The Epistles (1981-83) Rory Hunter (vox, git) Fred Vickery (bass) and Terri Menedue (git), plus several relentlessly smiling blonde John Denver clones who filled in. Then Salvation Blues (1984 – 1988) Rory Hunter (Vox), Terri Hunter ne Menedue (Git and vox), and a series of other smiling musicians whom the Lord had touched. Fred Vickery was touched by other things (c/f Queens Ransome). The Epistles played at the Calvary Temple and at University Christian Club dances. Epiphany (c/f) came later.
Crepitus: Heavy metal band. Named after the sound made by broken bones rubbing together. Barry Addison (dr), The Screamer (vox) Nasty Young (git) Kim O’Donnell (git), Joe the Loner (bass). Addison was replaced in ‘85 with Bob Heard. Bob, who’d played heavy metal in Sydney for a decade before coming north, was so deaf he needed four foldback speakers on the drum riser on either side of his ears so he could hear the rest of the band.
Crumble, Ian (Bass, Vocals): The youngest Crumble. An art student. He is now represented in several major galleries.
Crumble, Ted (guitar): Left for Sydney and composes experimental music, while his day job remains with the tax office.
Crumble, Xenophon (drums): Railway fitter, therefor able to find all sorts of strange metallic things to bang, strike and chime.
The Crumbles played for years at the Hotel Excelsior, weird experimental music which all the old diggers, Vietnam Vets and biddies, loved. Songs like I laugh at your Humerus, or That Basketball Shute’s Got Glad Wrap on it, Missy, Missy, Missy, and Plunk my Cedilla. Very Frank Zappa. Many punters could never work it out. They were a strange combo. If I remember some of the words to a 1985 classic Epi:
Epi-sodic/ epi-sodit/ epi-epi epi-epi/ apo-logist/apo-pleptic/apo-apo apo-apo
Etc. etc. etc. I think they canvassed opa and ipa also. In his early twenties, Ted Crumble only came out at night-time. During the day he meditated on a dark verandah with a bit of light filtering through the louvered slats – enough to see the guitar frets. A very pale man to live in the far north. Ted married my sister, but that was a lot later on when he became a tax inspector. Then they shifted to Sydney.
Detonator: Army band. Musos – real musos, who could read dots and wanted to let their hair down, so to speak, with sanctified versions of Johnny Be Good and I Heard it on the Grapevine. Can’t remember much about them, but straight pubs would only hire them for a short time, because they’d attract crowds of AJ’s and there’d be fights between soldiers and the locals. Then the bouncers would get a chair smashed across their faces, and the pubs would have to pay compo. Detonator would get the flick. Detonator once played at The Pacific Festival Battle of the Bands. They lost, not because they didn’t play well, but sorry to say, there was prejudice against those army guys. Their lead guitarist was later shot in the stomach by a Khmer Rouge bandit while guarding an communications installation in Cambodia, their only real claim to fame.
Downtown, The: A small pub which hosted the folk club. The Downtown was a typical beer garden venue, but I always avoided it on Tuesday Nights when the 12 string git, piano accordian, Irish lyric, deedle-dee-dee acoustic set sang. Bombadil were the house band from 82 -87.
Epiphany: The most successful Christian band to come out of the town. Rory Hunter (vox git) Terri Hunter (git/key) Margo Lyons (vox bass) and former Planetary Fix (c/f ) drummer Anthony Bile, cashed in on the country crowds and introduced Christian line-dancing way before normal line-dancing came to Australia – the Hunters had visited Texas and Arkensas and found line dancing very popular in its gestative period. Their mutant version included hallelujahs, clapping for the lord and jumping for Jesus, and the band ended up on the US Christian circuit making a fortune. The beauty about line dancing is it’s so chaste – you dance in a line, and there was not any chance of steamy body contact between male and female, except perhaps via crooked elbows. Fred Vickery (c/f Queens Ransome) who had lost Terri to Rory, was the Pete Best of the Christian scene. He missed out on the largesse. The happy couple now live in a Miami mansion.
Fee Fi Fo Fun: (1986) Barry Addison’s band, to whence he escaped from the Crepitus headbangers after copping too much of the evil eye. Crepitus became Sham Drunk. Barry (drums) and me (vox/git) and Joe Kite (bass) got into the hot funk Fee Fi Fo Fun groove and worked at backpacker drinking holes on the Island. Barry was much happier, away from the evil eye. I wrote songs worthy of the lotus eaters (Sand between the Cheeks, The Marguarita Riff) we were light and danceable. Why we never formalised the music into a CD beats me. I think the lotus-life took over, when others around town forged ahead with their jangling careers. Barry, Joe and I indulged in eight months worth of farting around between the Island, the Anchorage, and a few cocktail lounges and deck bars in town, playing to the twentysomethingorothers. I loved the barge trips, the smell of diesel and the ocean, when we transhipped the van to venues. Ozone and seaweed and diesel, as the sun started to set, and smear the rocks and sky with orange. Sitting on the cab roof, drinking XXXX, watching the points of the island with their hoop pines tumescent across the ridges, and the fawn boulders. Paradise. Oh yes, we played countless covers too – Cocaine running all around my brain, Bee Gees piss-takes, and always, always Echo Beach, Far Away in Time.
Ferry, Neill: (Gumloo, Surff) Neill Ferry who was nuthin like Brian Ferry. Neill was a professional lead singer and didn’t we know it. Long curly black locks, and a chin, and a voice like hot marrowbone jelly. Neill hated himself. He stole Sue Wylie (c/f) from me at one of those rural residential paddock parties, to which bands were always invited because you weren’t hassled by the cops. Beautiful Sue, of the true blue eyes. That’s when I began to loathe the guy. He stole Sue when I was expecting a night of passion in my one-man-tent. My band, Fee Fo Fi Fun, went on second, more’s the pity and while I was carving out funk, he had bought her a stubby of VB and was soon leaning possessively over her with his skinny needle punctured arm, out of my sight, mindyou. My one-man-tent became just that. A one-man-tent. I got so angry in the middle of the night, I hurled my sleeping bag off, considered kicking Neill’s tent poles over, reasoned that it was the sort of juvenile reprisal he’d be expecting, so drove the band van to the top of a local hill and screamed in frustration. At the moon. The things one does when young. That’s why Sue Wylie now makes me cups of tea for old times sake, because she has always felt guilty. Guilty with a capital B for Bitch. That’s how I found out Neill hated himself , because she told me that he was a real masochist in private. Gnashed his teeth about his imagined failures and looked for pity with a capital W for Whine. His lyrics gave the hint. Free me/help me/ save me type words which were good for nothing. Me Me Me. To be fair, before the theft of my first love, with a capital S for Scumbag, we did a few good things together, and once or twice afterwards including the Hot Rock Extravaganza. But he was a bastard.
Foyle, Terry: Publican at the Anchorage. Now sells Real Estate in Surfers.
Genrontion: Gothic rockers followed in the wake of gothic about five years too late. Very melodramatic. Their lead singer Kirk Beacham would do a tacky vampire act with a cape and a plastic doll, about ten years after Alice Cooper. He later joined the police force and last year busted Barry Addison. Barry said “Kirk – it’s me man. You used to support us at the Anchorage and bite plastic babies heads off.” Kirk said: “It’s Sargeant Beacham to you now, mate”, waving Barry’s bag of dope in front of his nose. I weep for humanity.
Gumloo: There already? Gumloo was Neill Ferry and my school band. After we used to pretend to play our rulers during long hot classes, when the teachers back was turned, and the slow ceiling fans failed to cool tthe late October oppression. We went out and bought a couple of cheap guitars after saving up for months, washing cars and mowing lawns. Second-hand Ur-Yamahas they were, with high actions and terrible sound. We shared our first amp, but got very good very quickly because it was the only thing we did – before school, after school. And on long musical weekends. All sorts of teen reprobates played with the band (even my sister for a while), but Neill and I were the mainstays. We once played the Rezillo’s classic Someone’s Going to get their Head kicked in Tonight at a school dance, and a kid started a fight and punched the principal. We should never have done the gig but Chez, our sax player, was Irish born and had the gift of the gab. Silly Chez talked us into the gig. The principal came up and pulled the plug from the three phase and almost electrocuted himself.
Heterodoxies: Sue Wylie (key), Loretta Lopez (dr), Virginia Naysmith (git/ sax), one other. Women’s uni band that was precursor to the Twangsters (c/f). Wylie and I were an item, and I assisted by mixing their sound during Friday afternoon sessions at the student club for no pay except love. Naysmith was doing English Lit at the time and like the pun on the word Heterodoxy – i.e those opposed to orthodixies, plus the 18th Century slang terms for loose woman (a doxy). No-one got the joke and Wylie proposed the Twangsters, after people seemed more interested in their country funk feel.
Hopscotch: A uni student band. They were terrible. Their lead singer, called Wanda Harrison used to get so carried away she’d dribble. One afternoon at band practice (so Dave, their roadie told me) there was a horrible smell in the leads box and they tracked it on to green mould all over her microphone. No-one could bear to clean it, even with Glen 20, so they threw it away. Unbelievable. Played new wave covers badly and murdered Song from Under the Floorboards to the point where I always had to go outside and personally apologise to the spirit of Howard De Voto.
Henschke, Rafferty: Lead singing of Bombadil. Mandolin player, poet and self appointed psychic. A fruitarian whose skin went yellow in the early eighties eating too much paw paw. He predicted that rock and roll would be dead by 1988. Bombadil split up around that time, after their tabor player, Jammin’ James decided to study economics – he is now a futures broker in New York – and Elbereth Jones, who played the fiddle, decided to pursue a classical career at the University of Queensland Conservatorium. A regular at Maleny Folk Festival, Bombadil were noted for going on and on and on, trying to call incredibly convoluted dances, and wearing funny hats with bells. Rafferty now shares a flat with Sue Wylie (c/f) and spends his time on the dole writing unrequited poetry – about Sue Wylie.
Hot Rock Extravaganza: This was a huge night which went down in history of alternative music in the town. An event, a vast-gig. May 15, 1988 at the local velodrome which started at 4pm and went on and on. Christian band Epiphany started the gig, because it was a charity concert of goodwill, and they volunteered. Even The Crumbles played, very late, and people were so drunk and happy they actually danced to their skeletal music. You could cut the air for dope smoke, and surprisingly, the Qld cops left us to rage. We raised $2300 for Community Aid Abroad and spent $1240 on a lot of Johnny Walker Red label and other expenses. I suppose I can confess this now. Neill and I had called a truce over our personal differences, on behalf of Community Aid Abroad. Xenephon Crumble MC’d the gig from a wheelie bin which was pushed on and off the stage by mean looking bouncers after every set. At the end, everyone got on stage, at about 3am and we had a mega jam in a band called The Zardinez (c/f) – Johnny Be Good again – while people played frisbee with garbage bin lids. Then we went for nude bicycle races around the velodrome – men, women, then mixed. I can’t remember the week that followed. Virginia, my girlfriend of the time, reckoned we (Teapot (C/f)) went to Cairns and actually played several venues including the Kuranda amphitheatre. I think somewhere along the line we made love in a hammock in a beach hut, but I can’t quite recall. It might have been near El Arish and I remember feeling sea sick and lascivious at the same time.
Insight: The rock and roll pages in the local newspaper. A trove of info, compiled by Gerry Henderson, a failed muso and Jim Elridge, the guitarist of Planetary Fix who was a local journo. John Ringuet (c/f) was an occasional contributor. Often the content was dominated by the whim of publicans who paid for the advertising, but there were some great pics taken at gigs. As a last resort, the day before deadline (Thursday) the photographer would trot the band across the road to the nearest brick wall, get them to sneer and achieve the quintessential urban rock pick. It was probably the only exposed brick wall for kilometres and was featured many many times in Insight.
Island: The Island. Back to the Island where the two pubs and backpacker places were a fund of inspiration and money. I wrote a song about the island called Lonesome Pine. It was after Sue left me for Neill.
Jones, Elbereth: Refer to Bombadil.
Kite, Joe: My good mate Joe Kite. Bass guitarist, thin as a rake, always wore army disposal green shirts and chewed gum in time to the bass drum. His eyes were like little diamond points. Played in numerous bands and bandettes including Homonym, Local Yokel (two early-on, one gig wonders) , Fee Fi Fo Fun, The Panadolls, Mylanta Heaven, Teapot and The Zardinez. I liked Joe because he could fit the aspirations of any drummer, and he helped with song writing, and wrote himself. His most famous song was Hiding to Nuthin’ . I loved playing Hiding to Nuthin’ because not only were the lyrics great...its a long hidin’ to nuthin’/ eyes fixed on road/ tell your girl you love her always/ but never trust ‘em/ don’t be snowed…but the music was full of funny little puns in the riffs and the trills. I loved it. It chugs. I still play it sometimes. He once looked deep into my own eyes and warned me about Sue Wylie. Said she was immature. I ignored him, though I felt touched. Two months later she devastated me. Joe was killed in a car accident in late ‘88, and I miss his wisdom.
Lips, The: Local punk band, who found punk a year after punk went out of fashion. They played hard. Had ten, two minute songs performed five or six times in one night. No one seemed to mind. I can’t recall their names but their team always won the student boat (drinking) races, especially the relay where the entire team had to each sköll a jug of beer.
Lopez, Loretta (drums) Drummed in an all girl band, The Twangsters, with Sue Wiley (key), Virginia Naysmith (sax, vox), and one other early member who left for Sydney because she thought the girls were slow on the uptake. At Pimilco High, Loretta was invited by Sue Wylie to join Yam Scandal (c/f). Loretta was an extremely fine drummer, and wrote songs too, like the feminist song The Gilded Cage, which went: I’m not a bird-bride you arsehole/ the gilded cage may have white goods/ but your not my white god you arsehole/ there’s nothing left to be said/ you’re better off dead in the gilded cage/ the gilded cage is for failures/ and little pink dahlias/ so fuck the gilded cage! She also had an enormous appetite for pharmaceuticals at one stage until a doctor persuaded her to dry out, which slowed down the tempo of the drumming and allowed Wiley and Naysmith to indulge in mock country rock. Loretta was the energy of the Twangsters. Like her drumming she was driven and later went south and was very successful – her band The Hubcats signed with Rooart. I never fell in love with Loretta because she was too tough and scary. Singleminded. She once beat me in an indian arm wrestle, and loved being a roadie, carrying bass amps with great ease. Loretta went for bodybuilder types with long hair whom she manipulated with her fine honed mind. As I write, the Hubcats are touring Germany, proving that a few people do make it.
Mylanta Heaven: Kylie Younger (vox) Chas McMillan (git) Terry Venner (bass) Drums??? I can’t remember the drummer of Mylanta Heaven, named because they used Mylanta to quell nausea from the cheap red plonk they’d drink the previous night. Mylanta occasionally gigged with us out at the uni. Kylie was doing Social Work, and Terry, marine biology. They played a mix of reggae and pop covers, and Joe Kite often stood in on bass when Terry Venner was on field trips studying the life cycle of the dugong.
Naysmith, Virginia: (Heterodoxies, The Twangsters, Teapot) (sax, vox) Virginia was really an actor, and went off finally to audition for NIDA, after Loretta Lopez phoned her and told her she’d waste her life if she didn’t go south. Loretta said she’d found a great house in Sydney and said “move in, mate, don’t hang around with losers”. I confess I was listening on the phone extension in the kitchen when the call came through, so this is historical fact. I watched her go. I didn’t try to stop her, because I got the creeping guilts for eavesdropping – or maybe that was just an excuse. Why didn’t I up and leave with her? I don’t know. She invited me – said come, she had extra money for the bus, but I resisted and I’ve always had this feeling I let us both down, that my kismet was permanently cul-de-sacked. We were a great couple. She played in the Twangsters, wrote most of their songs – until the big Twangster bust-up. Afterwards she played with our band when we toured because she liked going for drives. She drove down dark highways when we went to Cairns, or Airlie Beach, or even that time we went to Brisbane and played gigs for a couple of fruitless weeks. Her sax playing was more than half decent, but she was torn – wanted to turn music into a theatrical event. Was into costuming (tight) and posing, and stand-up banter with the punters, whereas we wanted to express our songs in a serious, sophisticated way. But I didn’t mind because I was deeply in love after rebounding from Sue. Virginia could do anything she liked. And she did. She went to NIDA. I sometimes see her on Home and Away, playing a distant cousin.
O’Donnell, Kim: Kimbo was a vapid sort of bloke who played rhythm guitar. He’d sit in the seat in the corner of the room, meditate on his stubby, and fail to engage. The best that can be said about him was his keystone playing in Crepitus and Sham Drunk was fab, because he kept the others in time with fast chunky chord progressions. He loved being admitted to hospital on false pretexts, asking for painkillers. Maybe it was a cry for help.
Panadolls The: An acoustic group composed of members of Mylanta Heaven, Hopscotch and the ubiquitous Joe Kite, who played regularly on Friday afternoon at the uni happy hour or four or five. Their ambition was to win the Nobel Prize for Longwinded Lyrics.
Planetary Fix: James Elridge (git, key) Peter Moss (bass), Julie Greatorix (Git and vox), and Anthony Bile (dr). Popular cover band which often advertised as The Planets. In the early eighties at the Anchorage, Planetary Fix used to replace alternative bands with regularity when the publican, Terry Foyle, thought his beer sales were dipping. Were well versed in Lynard Skynard, and Neil Young. Also featured at many a wedding.
Prince Pulse: A great Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander reggae band from the mid 80’s – 86, I think, because we used to play with them on the Island. Used to get abused at white venues but drew a good crowd of fellow Murris and TI people in town, and gave the gigs a different, more relaxed atmosphere. Can’t remember all their names. Isn’t that terrible. Once their lead guitarist – Jimmy missed Battle of the Bands because he had to go to his sacred country for a scarification ceremony up in Cape York. He had scars all over his chest from the various rituals, sealed with ash. The band went into abeyance for 6 weeks, then he returned and continued to bang out Bob Marley and Steel Pulse – the meeting of two great cultures.
Queens Ransome: A drag act. Played selections from seventies bands including Freddy Mercury numbers, the Pointer sisters, and a lewd version of Ted Mulray’s Jump in My Car. They mostly danced with pretaped music with a bit of keyboarding and sequin sequences. They were called Michelle, Roxelle and Danelle, and we suspected they were army guys. Fred Vickery from the Christian Band The Epsitles joined as bass player after Rory Hunter stole his girlfriend Terri Menedue and married her in the space of two weeks. Everafter, Fred performed in a white bridal costume and fishnets. Came out and eventually went to live in Sydney where he had a bit part in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
Ringuet, John: (Gumloo, Fee Fi Fo Fun, Teapot, Zardinze) (vox, git) Driving force behind local rock scene.
Screamer, The: (Crepitus, Sham Drunk) (git) A rock fascist. You lived the lifestyle or you weren’t of the real world, just part of a bland grey urbanity that stretched along the sides of route 66. Played fast breaking licks and chased underaged blonde girls. Drank too much and grew an enormous scotch and coke gut by 1988. Had no commitment to music whatsoever – just the lifestyle. I never knew his real name. Left in disgust with cover band, Dildo, for Cairns and has not been heard of again. But the Screamer – he lives in every 3 minute guitar solo in A major.
Sham Drunk: The follow-on from Crepitus, Minus Barry Addidson. Johnny O, Nasty Young, The Screamer and Joe the Loner. Sham Drunk was more an excuse for drinking two cartons and a bottle of scotch at every rehearsal and gig, but the guys played surprisingly well. A favourite for Rugby Club and Engineer Balls. Most famous song was their slow number, Shit: Everytime I go for it/ I feel as though I’ve lost a bit/of me the me of yesterday/ all throttled through and flushed away/my stolen kiss/my Asian travels/a three hundred triple score at Scrabble/I pull the chain and there goes me/towards the oblivion of the sea. I doubt whether any of them had every managed a three hundred triple score at Scrabble. Nasty Young’s girlfriend, Silver, claims to have written that line.
Surff: Neil Ferry’s last band with Sue Wiley (key) Kerry Oakes (bass) and Fergus Hindemith (drums) psychadelic surf music which went down very well in the mid eighties out at the university and in Cairns. Neill and Kerry got heavily into narcotic consumables, and Neill died, one night in the band room after a gig. Fergus tried CPR, but apparently it was too late. Neill went out like a light. We all reckon it was an accident, but his brother, a meatworker, said it was suicide because of his hopeless lifestyle. Sue and I have lately talked about this theory and wonder and then decide it was an accident after all. Neill’s singing was rich and he was being paid good money to play what he wanted to play. JJ played his 4 track CD Surff’s Up. Tho’ secretly a self hater, at that point, Neill was having too good a time to do himself in. Perhaps he got lazy and sloppy with the makings. Virginia sent this great song on tape to the funeral, a kind of forgiveness thing. She must have felt really guilty about some of the things she’d said to him on their last parting.
Teapot: Barry Addison (dr), John Ringuet (vox) Joe Kite (bass) Virginia Naysmith (sax, vox) (1987 – 1988) This was our serious band. We wrote perfect songs, made intricately crafted music but went no-where. Unlike Surff, no-one wanted to listen – they sat in the pub beer gardens, and discos and clubs and would call loudly for cover versions. The Cure, Midnight Oil, Neil Young, Duran Duran. We wrote cool songs, sang beautiful harmonies, invented grunge at the same time it was invented in Seattle, reggae warp the same time it came out of Birmingham, out-Kellied Paul Kelly in the lyrics department. But they were philistines, the lot of them. Oh, there’s the lifestyle, but underneath it all is music which drives and thrills, brings people into their basic pulses and rhythms. Rock & Roll is everywhere. In the nooks and crannies of Oz, making a certain noise heard, selling pots of beer, keeping the punters entertained. I mean, that’s the main thing. That and finding the right riff at the right time on the night and making people down there in the pit writhe in ecstacy at the sound of a juicy chord progression placed against fast fingered mayhem up at the top of the fret board, tenderised by a fast doubled-up rhythm on the tom toms . There’s nothing like it! Teapot understood that, and the way emotion twines with sound and word, heartbeats, headbangs and bongs. To introduce a spark of imagination into god’s R & R template. But nobody listened to our sparks, apart from a few groupies who became good friends. My willowy Virginia left. She was too smart for all of us. I couldn’t face her at the bus station. And Joe Kite died in the accident. Barry got seriously depressed and by 1992 was on Prozac. I’d sent demos to all parts of the globe, everafterwards. We managed to play in Brisbane. To no avail. Talent means nothing – its luck. All luck, market positioning, and patronage. Virginia worked it out. So did Loretta. But thankfully I play, therefor I am/ therefor I will always be.
Twangsters: Sue Wiley (key), Virginia Naysmith (T sax), Loretta Lopez (dr), and one other in the early days who I can’t remember. In their brief flareup, The Twangsters were a hot jammin’ group. Wiley and Lopez were old friends (Yam Scandal c/f) and met Virginia Naysmith at uni. The gals discovered they could sizzle together with rock/ska/latin blends – rhythms, harmony, they had the lot, even as Heterodoxies. They could write fantastic songs. But while the theory goes that girls are supposed to be consensual and nurturing – this was not so in the case of the terrible Twangsters. They played brilliantly at first, then tore one another apart in their strivings to be boss twangster. Finally that grub Neill moved in on Sue, whom I’d taught to play. At high school I showed her the chords and taught her how to keep rhythm. Everything she knew stemmed from my tutelage as far as I was concerned. Maybe not – maybe she learnt it herself. I might be being presumptuous. Anyway, Sue ran off with Neill, so Virginia took sympathy on me, the night after I howled at the moon at the party, when the one-man-tent became a lonely vigil, Sue shifted her gear from my flat in one cardboard box. Clothes, records and a crockpot. She shifted to Virginia’s. An hour later Virginia came over fuming. They’d argued about everything – about the mistreatment of me, of the precedence for credits in song writing, everything. Virginia consoled me – we chatted for hours – it was winter and that was it. We got cosy under a doona. Virginia moved in. She joined Teapot. She brought half a dozen excellent Twangster songs with her. Sue Wylie couldn’t believe it and used to make crank phone calls to our flat in the middle of the night, or drive up and down the street in her car, screaming abuse. She broke a bathroom window with a brick, so great was her rage. One night her behaviour was utterly deplorable with abuse on the footpath – the screaming banshee act. We had to call the cops.
Walker, Johnny: The approved drink of so many of the bands during this time. Red label, Black label. Say it fast three times. Other alcohol imbibed, included Vodka, McWilliams Royal Reserve Port, and beer. Only once did we deviate from this regimen. Terry Foyle, legendary publican of The Anchorage once called the members of Teapot to his cocktail bar after an afternoon gig, and thanked us for bringing in the punters by experimenting with cocktails in a variety of 1950’s cocktail glasses. We imbibed green, blue and yellow thick sticky things and I woke up the next morning with two musclebound dwarves working the inside of my skull with those short handled masonary sledge hammers.
Wiley, Sue (key) Six years after our split, there is Sue Wiley. Sharing a unit with a mandolin player. Yes, I visit her now, but I’m too proud to ask her out, on an innocent date. She makes tea, we look at one another in a knowing way, then I can’t bring myself to say it: “how about it Sue. We’re the walking wounded. The two that are left up north. Let’s get together…for a jam?…for a kiss?” I know she wants me to say it – her eyes try to draw it out of me. I’ll leave the house after blagging to that hippy idiot for an hour about carambolas, and she’ll be at the hills hoist, crying. Or sitting on the back step smoking a couple of drums with a shaky hand and reading a mag. The golden spear grass, the spiky aloe vera on the hill terrace, the dead wrinkly fingers of winter frangipani branches point at me. Rattly scratchy vegetation in the dry tropic sun. Sue Wiley, why did you do it? John Ringuet, why can’t you say it?
Young (Nasty): Married Silver, inherited his Dad’s servo, and now performs on local TV ads spruiking about his business. “Keep your motor Young – try Young’s mechanicals. (deep breath) southside”… Gave up the guitar for good after he developed RSI.
Young (Silver): Owns three childcare centres around town. I often see her driving a bus covered in bright squiggles, picking kids up from schools.
Yam Scandal: Schoolgirl band formed by Sue Wiley and Loretta Lopez while at Pimlico High. The two met in tenth grade and were heavily influenced by The Divynils and Frank Zappa. Their drummer was Jess Silmouth (Silver) who was unco-ordinated, so Lopez, a precocious musician even then, took over. The other member went south. Their music teacher Mr Hirsch not only provided them with an excellent technical rock and roll education but also assisted them in procuring dope. Our schoolboy band, Gumloo, would play music with them often, at battles of the bands at the Soundshell, and school dances. That’s when we all met up. The start of the twisted path
Zardinze, The: Neill Ferry (vox), Loretta Lopez (vox/drums) Sue Wiley (key) Barry Addison (dr) John Riguet (vox, git) The Screamer (git) Virginia Naysmith (sax) Joe Kite (bass) , Ian and Xenophon Crumble (strange percussive instruments) – Ted Crumble had by that time moved to Sydney – Kylie Younger and Chas McMillan (doowops). The jam band at the Hott Rock Extravaganza. The theme song went something like: up in the attic, magic rattles/ down in the basement plumbing groans/ I lie in the dark bed/ I hear the movement/ you lie beside me/ a little bit frightened/ tomorrow the light will spill through the curtains/ tomorrow the leaves will rattle the windows/ I lie in the dark bed/ a little bit tightened/ you lie beside me eyes half closed/ rats in the attic/ rats in the attic/ there’s always magical rats in the attic. The tape is almost mud. Thick bubbling mud, but it was the last rapprochement, like we were all saying goodbye to each other. Like we were celebrating our collective conscience, our lizard memories, that had brewed and grown into a huge, metaphysical jam, over the years. Neill persuaded Sue to play, The Screamer invited himself, Joe Kite smiled from ear to ear and moved his fingers over the frets in a dreamy spidery way. That I remember. I felt like this was it. Like a soldier would feel just before he climbed the trenches to face the enemy. We played very badly, very drunkenly. I can hardly remember the end of the gig.
Glossary:
Vox: vocals
Key: keyboards/piano
Git: guitars
Mand: Mandolin
Dr: drums
T sax: tenor sax
Viol: Violin
AJ: army jerk (derrogatory term for a member of the armed forces at the time)
blue heelers: Fosters beer
XXXX: XXXX beer
Yammy Bin: yamaha speaker
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POSTSCRIPT – INTO THE NINETIES
Crumble, Elinore (nee Ringuet) (Git). Member of Gumloo, Yam Scandal, Heterodoxies, Twangsters, Mylanta Heaven, The Crumbles. Played guitar in several local bands before marriage to Theodore Crumble, of The Crumbles. Also worked in the mid eighties for some time in the Sydney scene with bands such as The Flagolets (Discography: Amarcord; Under the Weather) and Jazz Funk Express (disc: Jazz Funk Expresso) plus her own band the Elinore Ringuet Trio (Disc: ERT1; ERT2) History: Started playing music with brother John Ringuet (c/f) and Neill Ferry, in Gumloo (c/f), but soon outgrew the modest pretensions of her brother and his friends, seeking more sophisticated forms of jazz, rock and pure ambient expression. During this time played guitar in schoolgirl band Yam Scandal, winning the 1979 Queensland Battle of the Bands. At University, Elinore played with the Heterodoxies and The Twangsters, pushing them into a broader framework of rhythms – exploring Afrocarribean 5/8 and 7/8 forms, for example, syncopated against free-form jazz. All the time, played with The Crumbles, an avante garde outfit where she met her future husband, Theodore. Was able to experiment with trumpet and trombone in The Crumbles, because it didn’t matter that she couldn’t play such instruments competently in their peculiarly intense art-house format. In 1990 Elinore extended the electronic media first explored in The Crumbles, by forming the art/music ensemble, MaMa, when she and Theodore moved to Sydney after he transferred to the Sydney tax office.
MaMa: Elinore Crumble (key/tapes) Ted Crumble (Git), Virginia Naysmith (sax) Loretta Lopez (dr) Fred Vickery (git), Kim O’Donnell (brass, git), plus many artists and Naysmith’s NIDA students. Although not a regional band (we would never have survived professionally outside the cultural confines of Sydney) many of MaMa’s talented musicians first played together up north, and it would be scandalous if their origins were not recognised in this, the updated Index. MaMa became the house band at the Performance and Installation Space, Sydney (1992). Members of MaMa played for the BruiSing Ballet group during their overseas tours to Edinburgh, New York and Yokohama (1993). MaMa is currently working on an ambient music project with Brian Eno (1996)
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An old friend and band enthusiast, Henry Griggs, published a historical index of Townsville Rock and Roll Bands from the late 70’s called Cuttin’ it in Townsville. It is incredibly detailed, in parts very funny and reveals how rich the music scene was in a regional city when we all had to DIY everything – music, comedy, theatre. Henry’s publication inspired me to write a short story using an Index Narrative – an intriguing form of storytelling.
Hot Licks was published in 1996 in Scorpion Tails: Four Tropical Novellas (El Kumanand Press) It’s worth trying to get hold of the book because the other novellas in the collection absolutely resonate the many peculiarities of North and Far North Queensland. It is quite an unusual collection (if I may say so).
It goes without saying that none of the characters in Hot Licks & Rimshots are based on actual people, living or dead. If there is vague similarity its totally coincidental. Instead of memoir, I have tried to capture the vibe of the times – The Anchorage Hotel could be The Criterion, The Seaview or the beloved Metropole before Big Beer bought them out. And the Island is of course always Magnetic Island. Hot Licks is dedicated to the folk who were there at the time.
The header pic, taken by Greg Jetnikoff, is of a band I was in called The Lips performing at the late Dean Park Sound Shell, Townsville, probably in 1978. They get a cameo mention in Hot Licks. It was so long ago!