RIP Brian Hooper

This might be Brian Hooper's most triumphant moment. One of the best rock bass-lines ever and he wrote it. I was trying to find that footage of him talking about coming up with the bass on this but I can't find it on youtube. It's probably from the Autoluminescent documentary anyway he instantly knew it was fucking great.

Brian Hooper also co-wrote this classic tune with Rowland or did Rowland just nick the bass-line from Where The Action Is by Hooper's band The Voyeurs and give Hooper a writing credit? I'm not sure if he played bass on the finished recording of this song (?). Mick Harvey recently tried to explain this convoluted story on Melbourne's 3PBSFM but he was a bit confusing about it all. Somebody out there has the correct story. Anyway whatever the story, Hooper created that incredible bass-line. That Voyeurs tune is not on the youtubes.

 

Hooper co-wrote and played on this demented Kim Salmon & The Surrealists gem. I must have seen Kim Salmon & The Surrealists 15 to 20 times in Melbourne during the early/mid 90s. They were a fucking powerhouse live group. Three memorable gigs stand out, one at the Punters Club in 92 or 93 and two consecutive nights at The Club in 93 or 94. All gigs packed to the absolute rafters and frighteningly overcrowded but you didn't care because these were essential events you had to be at. Rock'n'Roll electricity.

Another fucking classic co-written by Hooper with Kim Salmon & Tex Perkins this time. Rock & Roll brothers and sisters! He could play the bass doncha reckon? You had to be good in Australia because you had the legacy of Tracey Pew (The Birthday Party) and contemporaries like Ian Rilen (X) and Martyn P Casey (The Triffids, The Bad Seeds, Grinderman etc.).

There is footage on youtube of Brian Hooper just last Friday night playing this tune at The Prince Of Wales Hotel in the Melbourne seaside suburb of St Kilda with a reformed Beasts Of Bourbon. Hooper was brought on stage in a wheelchair by 5 or 6 nurses who had him plugged into an oxygen tank. At the end of the song lead singer Tex Perkins leans in and gives Hooper a hug. It's all too emotional, less than a week later cancer would take his life away.

He went solo out of necessity, he explained once fifteen years ago, because Rowland wasn't doing enough and Kim Salmon wasn't talking to him or something like that. I Get Up Again is a slice of primo noise rock in the tradition of his old bands The Surrealists & The Beasts.

Rowland S Howard Lane

It's real. Rowland S Howard got a Laneway in St Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria named after him. I no longer reside in Melbourne so thanks to Darcy B for the picture.

I died first. Where my bloody laneway?!!!

Rowland was of course in a little band The Birthday Party with another bloke called Nick Cave. Now when's Tracey Pew getting his laneway, I wonder? Howard played guitar, occasionally sang and wrote some of the songs on the below classics.

PRAYERS ON FIRE - THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (1981)
The Birthday Party at their best. Here they were still a little bit arty and very funky. They were traversing the depths of depravity though. When I think of this album I think of Tracey Pew's bass, which is just plain filthy, pure sleaze. Then there are snippets of lyrics like 'Fats Domino on the radio.' Sung by a pained Nick Cave as is 'Ice cream and jelly and a punch in the belly.' Then we've got the clang of Rowland's mental guitar that is actually meant to sound like that. Prayers On Fire is an unholy racket and absurd fun for all the family.

JUNKYARD - THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (1982)
This is The Birthday Party at their most raucous and psychotically over the top. Junkyard is ferociously chaotic from go to woe. The noise reaches fever pitch on tunes like Dead Joe, Blast Off and Big Jesus Trash Can. This cacophony is some of the most uncompromising rock ever produced. Sex and death roll around in this putrid blues. The Birthday Party may have inspired a legion of z grade imitators but no one could match their intense sonic assault.

*My mini reviews taken from here.
**More on Rowland here and here and here and The Birthday Party here.

Rowland S Howard Lane

How fucking cool is This?

Yep that's right legendary guitarist of the Birthday Party and later fabulous solo singer/songwriter and guitarist is getting a Laneway named in his honour in St Kilda, Melbourne. St Kilda is of course where The Birthday Party played and lived before moving to the UK. It's the only suburb where I ever saw him. He was in the supermarket in Acland St with potato salad in hand looking gaunt and ill as he always did but cool at the same time. My old town of 25 years Melbourne also had an AC/DC Lane which I always thought was pretty cool. Moving to the Desert City on the Murray I had plans myself to try and get a street or maybe just my back lane named after the fabulous Mildinga band The Creatures. The Creatures are famous for the song Ugly Thing which the US garage rock magazine Ugly Things was named after. A fabulous chapter on the groop can be found in Wild About You: The 60s Beat Explosion In Australia & New Zealand written by Ian & Iain. Raven Records also released 4 volumes in a series of compilations called Ugly Things in the 80s. The first and best volume contains the tune in question. My plans are back on the drawing board after this inspiring precedent for Rowland's lane. Funnily enough RSH probably used to shoot up heroin in that lane or at least one nearby.

Tim's Ultra Rough Guide To Rock Part 2

ROWLAND S HOWARD - POP CRIMES

Rowland’s final album, issued in 2009 just two months prior to his untimely death. He was only 50. His career was experiencing a resurgence and Pop Crimes was a brilliant album that was critically acclaimed. He continued his great reinterpretations of other people’s songs here which include a phenomenal brooding version of Talk Talk’s Life What You Make It and Townes Van Zandt’s Nothin. The opening tune I Know A Girl Called Jonny is a remarkable duet with Jonnine Standish (HTRK) that contains possibly the best line in pop ever - ‘Pashing with the devil at the bus stop’. Pop Crimes is gloomy pop trash at its finest, quite possibly Howard’s finest hour.

ROWLAND S HOWARD - TEENAGE SNUFF FILM
The best Australian rock album of the 90s hands down. Rowland makes an incredible comeback. He gets Mick Harvey to play drums (so economical) and Brian Hooper to play bass (some of the coolest bass playing ever). Trashy pop tunes, hatefully cathartic dirges, doomed love songs and a Billy Idol cover version all add up to one hell of resurgence. Chuck in some great string arrangements, Rowland's best ever vocal performances as well as his blistering guitar work and hey you got a masterpiece on your hands.

*The original Teenage Snuff Film Glaring Omissions article and another bit.

**These two blurb reviews on Howard will be appearing at the HC website soon.

Friday Night - Rowland S Howard

Swell Maps/Space Rock....

*It's a funny thing I've never heard those Rowland S Howard & Nikki Sudden Records. Well as you can tell I was big on the Birthday Party but I'm also a massive Swell Maps (Sudden's band formed with his bro Epic Soundtracks in the mid 70s) fan. Swell Maps have got to be the most underrated British Post Punk band. Their debut LP A Trip To Marineville would be in my all time top ten. The follow up Jane From Occupied Europe is also ace and International Rescue is one fine compilation. Maybe they were too broad in their musical output to be truly considered a post punk band, I guess a bit like the Homosexuals in that regard. Wasn't the whole point of post punk though to be fearless and travel your own experimental path. Funnily enough in the early 90s when most post punk was seen as passe they were still having some kind of impact, their records were still in print and they had an influence on the indie scene ie. Pavement et al. So I guess their influence was beyond mere post punk revivalists that came later loving/impersonating their Gang Of Fours and Joy Divisions. Swell Maps having a much broader influential scope. I should check out those Howard & Sudden records.

**After watching that Hawkwind doco I obviously dug out the Space Ritual double live record which is one of the space rock peaks. One that never seems to make it to any lists is Warrior On The Edge Of Time which could be my fave Hawkwind record of all. Sonically it's not that far from Space Ritual -glorious deep, dark and mysterious space rock man with great bass and rhythm. It put me on a trip of acid/space/electronic rock classics Agitation Free's Malesch, Amon Duul II's Phallus Dei and Yeti, Lobby Loyde's Beyond Morgia, Tonto's Exploding Head Band's Zero Time, White Noise's An Electric Storm, Can's Unlimited Edition and further on and out.......

A grade space rock grooves

Rowland S Howard - A Reprise

I watched that Documentary autoluminescent again last night and geez it's hard going towards the end. This is a doco about the life and times of Rowland S directed by Lynn-Maree Milburn & Richard Lowenstien. It contains some fantastic footage of the great man from the early days onwards. It's when it gets near the end and there are scenes of him in hospital and sad stories from his last days that really hit you with the sadness of his tragedy. He was starting to gain momentum with his career again. His Pop Crimes LP was critically acclaimed and a whole new younger audience was becoming aware of his magnificence. He had so much more to give and his regret was heartbreaking ie. not looking after himself at certain stages of his life.

He ended on a high note though and I hope he was proud. What a top record to go out on! Ha... just noticed 10 minutes ago that the FACT Webmagazine has his Teenage Snuff Film record in their best albums of the 90s, coming in at #20. So it takes an international website to recognise his excellence and the Aussie list maker wankers to overlook it. Typical. 

Teenage Snuff Film- Rowland S Howard

Glaring Omissions V

How could this LP be overlooked by both that 100 Australian Albums book and that Age list? It's unbelievable. Was there a better rock record from the '90's in Australia? I don't think so.

Rowland S came into my life somewhere around 1983/'84 when my older brother brought home Prayers On Fire by The Birthday Party from one of the commercial record shops in Mildura. Suffice to say this was no commercial record. My ears were definitely not attuned to such a cacophony. This was no INXS, Midnight Oil, The Models or even Hoodoo Gurus. That was where my head was at. I thought this LP was some kind of satanic music and it remained on the shelf for a year or two. Then someone borrowed it and in its absence I became fixated with it. Rage (an all night music show) probably got me into The Bad Seeds then The Birthday Party. I never got that record back despite many attempts. I had some z grade tape containing it and the self-titled Birthday Party LP though. Those Birthday Party records became legendary to me, well, up to and including Junkyard, anyway. I pretty much love all The Crime & City Solution records and the ones Rowland played on were fabulous, Just South Of Heaven & Room Of Lights (haven't dug those out for a while I must admit). Then there was the brilliant Marry Me film clip by These Immortal Souls on Rage followed by the underated minor classic Get Lost (Don't Lie) album. We used to think he was a bit funny because he never looked very well in any video he was in. He was fragile and looked like he would not be long for this world. Nobody ever looked so cool yet so ill at the same time. I love the way he stood when he played guitar. He was a unique and fascinating human specimen. Possibly the best white rock guitarist ever.

By the time I was living in Melbourne in 1991 I saw These Immortal Souls support Died Pretty. That was a bit arse about, I thought, but I guess Died Pretty had big major label support at the time. These Immortal Souls were good but not mind blowing, perhaps having a bad night. I don't really know what happened to him after that. There was an LP in '92 from These Immortal Souls which hardly got any airplay on Melbourne community radio. The times were a changin and he seemed to get left behind. I heard the only way he got to come back to Australia sometime in the mid '90's was because an Aussie metal band had a hit with a cover of Shivers an old Boys Next Door song he wrote and the royalties saved his life. It must have been around this time that I would often spot him, with much excitement, in the Acland St supermarket with potato salad in hand. I think it must have been around '96-'97 I saw him play a solo weeknight gig at The Public Bar in North Melbourne to about 7 people, 6 of whom didn't know who he was. It was looking like this legend was fading away and nobody cared.

Then there was this performance on ABCTV's Studio 22 which I managed to tape in 1999. He was back big time. Mick Harvey on drums and Brian Hooper on bass. Rowland was resplendent in pink shirt and the band was totally cookin. I would come home from work after being at the pub and watch this over and over again. I loved it, must have watched it at least 75 times, I reckon. Dead Radio, Exit Everything, She Cried (the old Shangri-La's tune He Cried with a switcheroo), White Wedding (yep the Billy Idol Tune) and if memory serves a version of Shivers. I never bought the record, Teenage Snuff Film, until someone, namely my cat, taped over it with golf. Anyway that made me get the album and, fuck me, there were even better tracks on there. Breakdown, I Burnt Your Clothes, Silver Chain, Sleep Alone, Undone, Autoluminescent etc. This was his most focused and consistent record ever and it was fucking brilliant. No duds here. This was a Lazarus like comeback and The record of his career. Well he said he was "bigger than Jesus Christ" and he was to me and he should have been to mainstream Australia and throughout the world. As he also said in Autoluminescent:

 "I'm White Heat! I'm White Hot Again!"

And he was vocally, lyrically and on the axe. There were pop songs, dirges, doomed loved songs and songs that were hatefully cathartic. Trash/Pop culture references like guns, Coca Cola, Cigarettes, dog nods, stolen cars, Black Holes and blood were scattered throughout. Not forgetting Hell, Jesus Christ, valium, murder, romance, self loathing, being wasted, crime, poor health, sadness, devices, hate/lust, suicide and misanthropy. On the lighter side there was hope, bragging, space travel, sarcasm and love/hate relationships. Discerning what was fiction and what wasn't was half the fun of listening to this record. A fairly sparse approach musically, some fabulous string arrangements, his best ever vocal performances and blistering guitar work all added up to the best Australian rock LP of the '90's. So for me that means he was present on the best Australian rock LP of the '80's (Prayers On Fire) and the '90's. Legend.

Then it was another 10 years we had to wait for his follow up LP Pop Crimes, which would be his last LP before his death and which time will show to be almost as great as this miraculous effort!

RIP

or should that be rest in guitar racket from hell?

Lists.......

Ok I was gettin a Sunday burger and chips with the Mrs today and there in the magazine racks for your perusal was another fuckin' list. This time it was The Rolling Stone top 50 alternative records of the 90s and I'm pretty sure it was you know the Australian version. What kind of Australian version has 3 Australian records in its top 50??? What does alternative mean and who gives a crap?! Anyway I've got list fatigue suffice to say no Rowland S, Dave G, Nick C, Spiderbait, The Moles, The Church, The Chills, The 3Ds, Kim Salmon etc.....I've got list fatigue and can't waste any more energy on complaining that twits run magazines and fuck knows who buys them! Even bigger twits I suspect. You am I turned up of course they obviously like chugging! Anyway my burger was fantastic mustard and pickles with like home made chips with a touch of salt and rosemary. Yum! Well worth it. The Mrs had a lovely satay & coriander burger, apparently v nice. Will be making return visit for sure. I'll bring my own reading materials though next time, I don't need to get angry/bored at Sunday lunch.

DISCLAIMER:
Not actual burger that I ate but v similar looking

Rolling Stone Australia what a fucking joke!

Tracey Pew Bass

I Haven't read the new Wire issue yet on bass but I thought I'd put my Tuppence worth in anyway. Immediately what sprang to mind was Tracy Pew of The Boys Next Door/The Birthday Party. There's a reason why he's on the cover of that HITS compilation because he was the heart and soul of the band. He drove them and without him on bass they would have been nowhere and nowhere near as fucking great!

The first one I love is The Friend Catcher particularly when the guitar/clarinet/sax(?) end up following his bassline every now and then. I could post entire LPs but I'll spare you. Mr Clarinet and Happy Birthday are much tighter and clipped but no less effective. A Catholic Skin is so good for the most part it is just one bass note propelling the song forward. Hats On Wrong is a much looser Pew and an indication of what was to come, geez he was good.

Then there's The Red Clock where Rowland S Howard does the old Ozzy Osbourne trick of following his vocal melody with whatever Toni Iommi guitar is playing (or was it the other way around?), except with Rowland's vocals it's to Pew's bass.

King Ink is possibly Tracey Pew's finest moment of bass glory. It's just so fucking grimey, muck is pouring from his fingertips. Human Skin and electricity fusing for a pure expression of filth. How does he keep playing that bassline amongst the rest of the shitstorm that is going down in this song.

Zoo Music Girl's bassline is just dirty funky fun for all the family. I could go on. Tracey Pew's bass on Nick The Stripper and Figure of fun are killer. 

Lastly there's Yard off Prayers On Fire. This is fucking incredible. Pew plays the bluesiest and most lonesome bass I've ever heard in my life. I think it's the only time he ever played double bass on a Birthday Party record.                                                                            

Primitive Calculators - Primitive Calculators

Glaring Omissions III

"We were suburban filth from Springvale"

Stuart Grant

Glaring Omissions started as a series of records that deserved to be in The Top 100 Australian albums book and the Age's Top 50 Australian Albums list. This is the 3rd installment with perhaps another 4 or 5 to come. This record came into my life as a teenager living in er....Cardross. For those who don't know that's like 15 KMs out of Mildura and over 600 ks from Melbourne. My bro was living in Melbourne and would often bring back strange and interesting things for me. This was pre JJJ National Radio/ pre internet etc. This record probably reached me pre Rage era perhaps. BeatBox and Rock Arena were probably the only 2 shows on tv at the time where you could hear the weirrd, wonderful and independent. So sometime in the mid to late 80s I first heard The Primitive Calculators. The LP also came with a postcard and a 7" single and was recorded in 1979 in a Melbourne pub. Many years after leaving home I asked my Dad where were the records I left behind? he said I gave them to the op shop. Anyway I still had a Sony C90 tape of it in some kind of working order until that reissue on Chapter came along in the 00s.

Me and my little sister used to put it on and go what the fuck is this? It was so anti social and noisy we thought it was hilarious and a bit frightening. Were they for real we wondered. Or were they just havin' a laugh. The music was a harsh onslaught of electroncly fucked with guitar, 2 keyboards and drum machines with what seemed like no regard for recording technique or er.. melody. Were there really people like this living in Melbourne? It was great music for a teenager because it was so obnoxious and fuckin funny. Mum didn't like hearing that one comin out of the bedroom.  Anyway over time it seemed to never leave me and never get old. It sounds just as great now as it did over 25 years ago. This was no fuckin' Clash record. This was beyond punk, what punk should have been, sonic violence for the demented. So over time I have noticed the chaos is more controlled than I used to think and just maybe there were some great pop songs hidden in there somewhere. It is not a record I expected to still be diggin at my age. I think I love it more than ever actually!

So maybe they are pop songs. Stuart says he saw the band as an Australian Boogie band in the vein of The Purple Hearts, The Throb, Chain and Billy Thorpe. It starts to make a lot of sense they were an electronic version of a one chord Aussie boogie band with a bit of Stockhausen chucked in. My favorite track from the album bake in the sun was so funny and had great lyrics. These are some I randomly recall probably not in the right order. This could be our national anthem.

I'm bake in the sun

I wanna spend my life down by the sea

I wanna shrivel up

I wanna smell some seaweed

I wanna peice of cake

I wanna go home

I wanna revolution

I don't wanna do another days work in my life

I want some food from the kiosk

"If their intention was to be hated then they certainly acheived that.....on a personal level as well"

Rowland S Howard (Guitar/Saxaphone/Vocals in The Birthday Party)




Back cover to Primitve Calculators LP


"Nothing else in Melbourne influenced us. We were such obnoxious little shits, we didn't give anybody a chance to like us" Stuart from Primitve Calculators.

Stuart Grant (guitar and vocals) in the We're Livin On Dog Food doco and RadioNational's Hindsight: Do That Dance radio show has been incredibly insightful and articulate about what circumstances, theories and attitudes shaped the band and that entire Melbourne Post-Punk scene. He really enjoyed the idea of punk and the fact it was saying something truly antisocial. He thought the anger and disillusionment of it just seemed right. He thought with the Ramones arriving there was a strong sense that his culture had arrived. Stuart aknowledges the legacy of the Whitlam Government and their making the dole liveable with my favorite quote of his."The State Paid us to Reject it!"

Stuart is eminently quotable. I could quote him all day but here is one last one that sums up the bands ethos.
"What we realised when we started using the drum machine and we got electronic (was that) we sounded much nastier. We started to actually try and make music that would hurt people. Making the sounds as brutal and horrible as possible. Making the drumbeats as repetitive and fast as possible and tried to get it ugly"

I Can't Stop It-The Primitive Calculators

Their one and only film clip I think.

"The Primitive Calculators were a completely unreal band and there's no 2 ways about it! Live and on record."

 Quote from Natioal Treasure Philip Brophy.

*One cool thing I've just noticed that I'd forgotten is that this record was recorded at Hearts in North Carlton where my brother's band did some gigs and even my old band played there once,

**Here is where to download that podacast Do That Dance about the Melbourne Post-Punk scene.

***Many quotes taken from Richard Lowenstein's doco We're Livin' On Dogfood. Thanks Dick I'm sure you won't mind anarchy and all that.