Читать книгу Nine Parts Water, One Part Sand - Douglas Galbraith - Страница 16

In the wake of the Cheap Nasties gig months earlier, Roddy Radalj and Boris Sujdovic formed The Exterminators along with two other Perth musos, Johnno Rawlings and Mark Demetrius. ‘I think we only did one show, and we just did basic punky stuff. Mark the singer was a kind of journalist guy and he’d write all these lyrics about how fucked Perth was,’ Boris recalls. ‘It was real basic stuff — we could hardly play a note.’

It was 1978, and with the Cheap Nasties in recess Kim was at a loose end. ‘I don’t know if he took pity on me but Rod Radalj decided he’d let me play in his band.’ With Mark Demetrius excused from vocal duties Kim was invited in, under instructions to sing and not play guitar, and The Exterminators duly morphed into the Invaders. Kim was instantly enamoured of the Croatian guitar and bass player. ‘Kim seemed to like Roddy and I, maybe some romantic notion that we were like Ron and Scott Ashton or something. We were maybe a bit tougher looking or stood out. I don’t think it was because he was super impressed with the Exterminators first gig!’ (Boris Sujdovic). A review at the time noted, ‘It is hoped that the musically adept Salmon will be the cohesive factor the band appears to need. This band can only go up … They were a bunch of bumbling beginners and were very un-together. Kim joined … and they tightened up considerably … but were still a fair way from perfection.’1 The band forged a Stooges and New York Dolls sound, operating in the general musical location that Kim was looking for but without the chops to pull it off. The highlight of their act was an ode to Perth called Asshole of the Universe. The band were starting to sound promising, but the drummer John was always at loggerheads with Roddy and Boris, and by May 1978, he was ditched from the group.

Meanwhile, the Victims had petered out through a combination of boredom and internal unease. ‘In April 1978 they released a single, Television Addict/I’m Flipped Out Over You. This took most of Australia by surprise and generated some rave reviews. Even some of the British music papers were able to bring themselves to give it a favourable comment. 1000 copies were pressed, and it rapidly sold out. The group broke up the following month …’2 With James Baker now available, Kim swooped and asked him to join the Invaders on drums. James accepted, but knowing Kim’s guitar playing was going to waste, agreed to join on the condition that Kim play guitar. ‘So, we went around to Victim Manor, a squalid hippy joint that was basically a drop-in place for all of the vagrants in that scene. It was a rehearsal place and we had all our gear there.’

With James at the drums, things coalesced immediately. He offered some rough lyrics about a girl and mumbled an even rougher tune to match the words. Bouncing back and forth with James, Kim spun a melody around the words and assembled a couple of chords. ‘The combination of that and the punk racket of ragged two note bar chords and floor-tom-heavy drumbeats were like a collision between the Stooges and Herman’s Hermits.’3 With Kim back on guitar, the band now had a twin guitar attack. Whereas the Cheap Nasties had played with a counter point style — Neil Fernandes playing power chords and Kim stabbing noises over the top — Roddy and Kim played dual power chords, with Kim embellishing with arpeggios and creating a rich, jangly and distorted sound. ‘It struck me as something new I hadn’t heard, and we had a successful rehearsal. Straight away I heard a sound.’

Afterwards, with their instruments idle, the band hung out on the porch of Victim Manor, aware that something significant had occurred in the rehearsal room. This new sound seemed like a new band, not just a new version of the Invaders. As the Perth day dwindled, the four of them started throwing around potential band names. Kim was drawn towards a moniker that captured the sound he wanted: ‘primitive and hardly any chords and so moronic that it’s high art … so primitive that it turns into jazz, things getting thrashed into the ground.’ Against that lofty mission statement, James said ‘What about the Scientists? And that was it. It was never going to be anything else, and I was so happy that we’d found this name, we’ve got this new sound and the name just says it all, supremely ironic but sounds cool. That was it, the Scientists.’

•••

The Scientists set about forming their set list. James had a head full of songs that captured the freewheeling spirit of the Perth punk scene in contrast to the moodier atmosphere of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. ‘I don’t know how I came up with the lyrics, they’re supposed to be minimalist and rock and roll. And fun. They’re tongue in cheek’ (James Baker).

The song writing method of the new band was curious. James would invoke some lyrics and try to sing the tune to Kim, who then had to interpret the sound and create a fully realised song out of it. James is no singer, so Kim was really working off phrasing or collections of notes rather than a formed tune.

James would have these lyrics and he’d hand them to Kim and he’d say, ‘it kind of goes like this’. But James just can’t play an instrument so he’d kind of sing a drum beat in his head as the melody, it might have been an accident. He’d be humming a drum beat and Kim would think that was the melody. They kind of fumbled their way through it (Boris Sujdovic).

Bantering back and forth with James, Kim would keep refining the chords or melody or sound until it clicked with some version of what James heard in his head. ‘I couldn’t read his mind, but he thought I could because he didn’t know the difference! He knew it sounded good and then thought he must have written it! I always thought that was hilarious, because as soon as it was good he was like oh yeah, that’s it.’ James concurs, ‘That’s how we wrote songs, I’d give him the lyrics and a basic idea of how the song goes and he’d write the music. I’d give him my bastardised idea of a melody, and together we shaped it into a song.’ The end results sounded like a mash up of the Sex Pistols and New York Dolls, filtered through the Troggs — power pop punk noise.

However, there were some constraints. James’ lyrical themes had run their course, and by the time he arrived in the Scientists he’d moved from expressing social commentary to just expressing what he liked. Kim thought, ‘Great! We’re going to inherit this great font of lyrics, and this great cool guy with his stripy shirt and his Brian Jones haircut, he knows what he wants to do … brilliant, particularly the stuff in the Victims was great; comical kind of outrageous lyrics really. What I found was by the time he was in the Scientists it was a finite thing, it was sort of just the “girl” lyrics left, whereas before there was television and girls.’ This was not lost on a gig reviewer who witnessed the band in Adelaide 1979: ‘The lyrical content of some of the originals became somewhat monotonous after a while. The boy/girl line is fine, but the Scientists give it a hell of a beating.’4

However, Kim was impressed with his new band mate:

‘I think about James Baker, as far as I can tell everything he did was a post-modern pastiche of the past done with strong minimalist and pop sensibility. But that’s what I like and I’m projecting on to him. To him it’s just good rock and roll and he’d hate that description. He’s done it in a completely uncontrived way.’ James’ presence in the band was critical. He brought an unpretentious, simple style to the band that allowed Kim’s vision to take seed.

And he was the first in a line of drummers with whom Kim would collaborate to capture his sound.

Boris and Roddy were like big, Croatian punk rock kids in a candy store. From a standing start they were in the centre of the scene and revelled in every moment. ‘By this stage James was kind of a guru guy. He was a punk by 1972 and into the New York Dolls, driving around Perth all dressed up. Kim used to hang out, and he had his own thing going too … For Roddy and I it was great, all of a sudden we were with the rock stars. It was all excitement!’ (Boris Sujdovic). The Scientists rehearsed in earnest and soon hit the Perth scene with a splash, horrifying and impressing audiences in equal measure.

While Neil and Robbie’s new band the Manikins enjoyed a short while as the darlings of the scene, the Scientists were still out. Too loud, too arrogant, too British punk, too dandy. They just couldn’t engender the easy embrace of the scant Perth music establishments, so the Scientists took a leaf out of the Victims book (and the Saints and Birdman) by building up their own scene at the Governor Broome Hotel. With James providing the entrepreneurial spirit, they talked the Gov Broome’s owner into letting them play there for a small door charge. On the back of the Scientists blistering live shows, word got out and soon ‘we were reining supreme in that particular scene’. As the most authentic punk band around, their popularity grew, catering for the true believers. ‘If we played at a place that held 150 people, then 150 would be there … not super popular, but as popular as you could get in Perth’ (Boris Sujdovic). Tony Thewlis recalls watching Kim at these shows, thrashing out Teenage Dreamer at some Perth pub and ‘putting his entire body into the vibrato. It looked like a technique Bruce Lee might have used to kill people!’ (Tony Thewlis)

Social etiquette at a Scientist gig was limited. Nobody clapped. Nobody showed enjoyment. If you danced, your head was down, staring at the floor. Pogoing was acceptable, but you would never use your arms. ‘The scene wasn’t super intense,’ remembers Boris, ‘even though the music was. It was less political. I guess no one had anything to be pissed off about.’

This circumstance triggered an artistic response in Kim, and before long, the contrary Salmon performance template took effect.

I remember right from the start Kim not wanting to do the popular songs. In the middle of 1977, right in the middle of the punk thing, you’re in a punk band in a punk venue and Kim wants to do a John Cougar Mellencamp song, I Need a Lover. He goes ‘yeah yeah, fuck ‘em’. And a couple of punks stormed out! And maybe that planted the seed in Kim’s head, ‘This is great! I know how to piss people off!’ And this was the formula for the Scientists. The attitude was ‘let’s not do what everyone else is doing’ (Boris Sujdovic).

As the band got more popular the shows got more crowded, and the audience more animated. The Scientists themselves channelled the UK oriented punk pop mood and thrashed about happily. Surely, thought Kim, they were building towards greatness.

•••

There was no shortage of evidence that a movement on the East Coast was building. In May 1978, up and coming music mogul Michael Gudinski released a compilation record of local bands called ‘Lethal Weapons’.5 While it missed the mark on presenting the true deplorables of Melbourne punk, it did feature the Boys Next Door and was early attempt by the music business to unearth the underground. Bruce Milne could be heard talking the new aesthetic during 1978 on his 3RRR Saturday morning radio show. Elsewhere, Dave Graney moved from Mount Gambia to Adelaide and teamed up with drummer Clare Moore to form first the Sputniks, and then a lifelong personal and creative partnership. Dave and Clare would soon come across the Scientists in full flight and recognised a similar impulse to their own creative output. Meanwhile in Brisbane, a young Gregory ‘Tex’ Perkins was looking forward to getting his first guitar for Christmas.

•••

The Scientists momentum was thwarted by some rapid and frequent personnel changes. The first of these was in August 1978 when Boris left the band. Fanzine DNA reported at the time that ‘although Boris was a very competent bassist, the other group members felt that he wasn’t sufficiently dedicated so he got the boot. Amongst other things, Kim was of the opinion that Boris was capable of performing back-up vocals, but Boris himself couldn’t be bothered trying.’6

I’m in the Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood with Boris and his partner Kat Amiss. Boris is thoughtful and gracious, super laid back but whip smart. As we talk, Kat seems as intrigued with his stories as I am, and prompts Boris’ recollections with incisive questions. As we start on another round of cider and Coopers, Boris reflects on his exit from the Mark 1 Scientists.

We were together for probably about a year, then I left. They kicked me out. I was getting bored. It was kind of like a surge from the middle of ’76, but by the end of ‘79 it had started to peter out. Other things came in, but the actual punk thing seemed to get a bit tiresome. Maybe we all were getting a bit bored. But things happened at a super-fast pace back then, obviously now it would take years to get bored. Back then it only took six months, and everyone was like, what are we doing now! It was frenetic. We got along great you know, until they kicked me out! And then we still got along great! (Boris Sujdovic).

Boris went from the Scientists to form the Rockets in April 1979, with Roddy Radalj who would also exit the Scientists original line up, uncomfortable remaining after Boris’ demise.

With Boris gone, the Scientists laid low, scouring Perth for a new bass player until January 1979, when Dennis Byrne joined the band. ‘When they returned to the gigging circuit they were by far the most powerful band around, not only good musically, but also confident enough in themselves not to kow tow to the promoters.’7 It was this line up of Kim, Roddy, James and Dennis that entered the recording studio to record the band’s first single. The result was the double A side Frantic Romantic/Shake Together Tonight released on DNA Records in June 1979. ‘Legend has it that during the recording of this the band blew out the recording meters at the studio with the volume of their playing.’8 Combining Kim’s super catchy arpeggio guitar lines with James’ unmistakable lyrics, Frantic Romantic is the quintessential example of the Baker/Salmon song writing approach. Kim sings this song forty years later and it doesn’t sound dated or hackneyed, even with James’ misty-eyed lyrics, just pure and poppy and great.

I love that single, how it came out. It’s a real gem of a thing. Both sides of it, in fact. That was very important for me that experience of recording Frantic Romantic. I had gone in with a set thing to do and set about doing it. You don’t have to have anarchy every time you go and try to do a piece of art. You try to execute something, an idea, to give it the form.

In April 1979, after Frantic Romantic was recorded, Bryne and Roddy left to be replaced by Ian Sharples on bass and Ben Jupiter on guitar.

Ian turned out to be an effective songwriter and collaborated with Kim on several songs as James’ well of lyrics started to run dry. This line up recorded the Scientists EP, which was released on White Rider Records on 28 February 1980. Featuring four songs, including the hit Last Night and Pissed on Another Planet, this record is considered by Australian musicologist Ian McFarlane as ‘one of the most collectable artefacts of the Australian punk rock era.’9

•••

Desperate to get out of Perth, The Scientists literally begged their way into a tour of the Eastern States in December 1979. ‘Their attempts to escape became increasingly desperate, to the extent that they began advertising this fact at gigs … The end result was a “tour” around Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne’.10

Going East meant a three-day drive across the desert which the Scientists embarked on in convoy. Kim’s first car was a Falcon station wagon, painted black and white with wood grain panels down the side. According to Megan Salmon, ‘it really had this menacing feel to it’. The car seemed to glide or float rather than drive. Kim named it The Shark, and it was in this time bomb that Kim took his first trip East.

By this time, Kim was embroiled with girlfriend Rosemary Fearon, and she accompanied the Scientists on the tour. Rosemary was a wild child. She looked like Blondie and moved fast and hard. Kim had moved in with her and became enmeshed in her hoopla, even landing in the lock up for a night after their first date. Rosemary had a sister, Linda, who was studying to be a teacher, and together they made quite an impression. With Rosemary sharing the wheel, Kim set off East in his floating car.

With the gigs booked and the talent on the road, an agreement was reached that the band would take a percentage of the door, and hopefully make enough at each stop to propel them to the next gig. A review of Scientists gig in Adelaide, 1979 sheds light on their form …

The Scientists turned in two sets of powerhouse rock ‘n’ roll, the nature of which hasn’t been seen here for a long time. They received rapturous applause throughout … the Scientists appeared to be a very confident band. The vocals were consistent and powerful, although Kim Salmon did admittedly have a few problems with some of the high notes. James baker did some interesting song introductions, and consistently came out with the relentless, powerhouse drumming. Kim has the occasional tuning problems with his guitar, but these were minor … Unlike many local bands, the Scientists see nothing wrong with the occasional bit of harmony singing, and this adds to the appeal of their material. Many of the cover versions sound better than when they were done originally. All in all, they came across very well, and were most enjoyable … Kim Salmon maintained a look of studied ‘cool throughout …11

The band blew back into Perth weary, but feeling like they’d accomplished something. But in spite of all the driving, loading gear and playing shows, they found themselves in an even worse position when they returned. Gigs in Perth were drying up, and the Scientists reputation as being ‘too unprofessional’ was not garnering them any favours with promoters. Unsurprisingly, the band jumped at the chance to get on the road, and in February 1980 they headed East again. But the second Eastern States tour was a washout.

We went on a national tour which was absolutely disastrous really, no good memories at all. Bad memories of being stuck with no money on the Gold Coast for seven days, supporting ridiculous bands like Mother Goose and Jimmy and the Boys, and Midnight Oil and all those bands we hated. Lots of driving and not good a good time at all. No good memories of the Scientists tour (James Baker).

On the road for nearly two months from Perth to Brisbane and back, the band lost several grand and lots of weight. Booked into unsuitable suburban venues supporting incompatible headliners, the Scientists often played to crowds that were hostile or microscopic, which didn’t bring the best out of the band. The Scientists just didn’t make sense to followers of Rose Tattoo, Flowers, John Paul Young, Sherbert or Skyhooks, and they were routinely booed off stage or ignored. They were living off two dollars a day, and worse, many of the venues didn’t even give them a beer rider!

There were triumphs though. They played a successful show with the Boys Next Door and headlined at St Kilda’s famous Crystal Ballroom, pulling over three hundred people to a great gig. To their surprise, the band were invited to play Last Night on Australia’s preeminent music show, Countdown. Molly Meldrum had heard a copy of the EP, liked it, and offered the band a spot. On a stage adorned with forty-four gallon drums and wooden crates, Kim looks like a mod, dressed all in black and buttoned up to his neck with white loafers on. Staring straight down the barrel of the camera, Kim is remarkably composed for a TV first timer. James valiantly plays drums at back of stage even though the set designers had decided the kick drum took up too much room and set up the kit without one! In Kim’s view, the Countdown experience was a success. ‘All the Aussie bands on there just looked crap. On our episode was Blondie and the Scientists, and I’m proud to say that the Scientists looked like we knew what we were doing. You can sort of see we had a plan and vision and sound’. The Countdown performance of Last Night can be found on the ABC music Classic Countdown compilation, listed appropriately between the Ramones and Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Now TV stars, the band returned to Perth with expectations of increased respect but ‘no one gave a shit!’ Well, at least one person, country boy and future Scientist Tony Thewlis, was impressed. ‘I moved to Perth soon after the Scientists appeared on Countdown — in order to be available once they asked me to join them …!’

•••

Ben Juniper became the next Scientist to exit the band in May 1980, and the Scientists continued as a trio. Having pursued his favourite band, Tony Thewlis saw another opening: ‘I tried to join the Scientists after Ben Juniper left … I met with James a few times until he gently broke it to me that they were going to continue on as a three piece. In that incarnation I think I saw every gig they played, and one day at the Governor Broome Kim’s girlfriend, Rosemary, noticed my homemade Scientists tee shirt and started talking to me. She introduced me to Kim (and to cider) …’ Tony would remain loyal to Kim, and passionately committed to cider, for decades to come.

The three-piece Scientists scaled down the songs and rearranged the sound to fit the reduced line up. With more space, the songs took on a new life, and this version of the band momentarily put Perth on the canvas. But with the closure of key venues in Perth, the gigs dried up once again. ‘The band started vegetating again. Song writing still went on happily, but they’d lost all enthusiasm for interstate touring and saw little future for themselves unless they left Perth.’12 A lifeline came in the form of some committed fans and generous friends who pulled together enough money for the Scientists to capture these songs to tape. The three piece Scientists took over a studio for a weekend, recording their first full length LP, the self-titled album, known as the ‘Pink Album’, owing to its pink cover. The ‘Pink Album’ was released in August 1981 by EMI custom records. Ex-Scientist Boris sees it as an interesting, but not accurate artefact of the bands early sound.

They did the ‘Pink Album’, but it was not really representative of what the band was like, I don’t think. It was too poppy. It sounded like the Scientists were a power pop band but I remember it live as more chaotic. Ugly pop, I used to call it … The songs were more Troggsy and primal than the ‘Pink Album’ suggests, but the engineer sort of cleaned it all up (Boris Sujdovic).

Kim, too, was unhappy with the recorded depiction of the band. ‘It was all done in a bit of a rush, and consequently, although the material was strong, the eventual recording wasn’t as good as it might have been. We didn’t know what we were doing, so the drums sounded like a bunch of cardboard boxes. The bass was wonky sounding as well. I didn’t like the sound of my voice.’ Kim described it as a ‘dud’ while James Baker didn’t even wait around to participate in the mixing. Sydney was calling and he bid Perth — and the Scientists — goodbye.

But the deficits that initially bothered Kim receded over the years, and he is now more charitable about his first full length record. ‘I put it on now and l like my whiny voice. I like the primitive drums. It sounds like a post punk record out of England … I was kind of ashamed of the early band at one time, as the later stuff seemed like a much better representation of me. But I like it now’.

•••

In January 1981, the Scientists broke up ‘in disgust at their unpopularity in Perth’. James recalls that they had ‘had enough of Perth, and three years of the band was enough, no future for us …’

Their last gig at Hernando’s Hideaway was supported by new band the Helicopters, featuring Tony Thewlis, who by now was friendly with Kim. Despite the clammy pall that Perth threw over the band, James looks back at this time fondly:

I didn’t think I was going to change Perth, but we tried to give it a kick in the arse! We felt hated in our own city! We didn’t have a lot of fans. But we have thousands now who say they used to come and watch us, but where were they when there was four people on a Sunday watching! We had fun doing it … We were just putting it up ‘em in Perth really. And the friendship of all those people, Rod, Boris and Kim still remains strong today (James Baker).

•••

The Mark 1 Scientists came and went in a flash. They were really a transition band for Kim, between the hard and fast punk of the Cheap Nasties and the unique mess of the Mark 2 Scientists to follow. They were a means to refine his song writing and performing, to learn who he wanted to play with, to consolidate his look, and to test his formula. The Mark 1 Scientists drew Kim’s identity into sharper focus, and he was clearly on the outside.

We were the next thing beyond punk (just plain contrary, in hindsight). We chose to take the next step that, to us, was to go through the rubble and pick up the things we liked and reassemble them … We were perverse. We revered the stylish loser, the unsung hero, the uncompromising unconventional unseen dandy, and the misunderstood misanthrope … Our heroes were incurable. They couldn’t help it. They were rock ‘n’ roll to the core. And so it was for us. People had got The Victims. They didn’t get us. We were loud, loose as buggery and yet had pop melodies and wore mop tops. And loud shirts. Were we punk? Old school rock? Or making some kind of art statement? Nobody could tell … At first, we didn’t care but soon it became apparent to us that we were becoming musical lepers around town. This only added to our righteousness …13

This enigmatic cauldron of noise, anti-style and fuck-off-attitude laid a large chunk of the conceptual template for the Mark 2 Scientists. There would be seismic changes to the concept of the Scientists in its second coming, but this version of the band took Kim one step closer to the formula he was after. Kim was still on a messy transition from his invisible childhood in the swamps, but with the Scientists he caught sight of something he was chasing. He had found a gang of misfits to feel at ease with. The Scientists had delivered plenty of triumphs in spite of the general hatred in their home town, and although the immediate future was blank, Kim knew he stood at an open door.

I felt like I had an idea that was so strong that I believed in it, and it came from me and the guys. Finally, I was in a little scene, it was the club of four Scientists. And I belonged in that. And we defined the terms, we could go out there and people could interpret that how they wanted but we knew what it was, and people could say what they liked, take it as they would, but we knew it was strong enough as it was. And it was the first time where it was like we knew better than everybody else — you don’t know shit! It was a great feeling. We were driven enough, me, James, Boris, we had enough drive. It’s us against the world. It’s good to be got. And the Scientists was a time where that happened.