White Murder at Prospector Bar in Long Beach, California. These photos was taken during the group's second live performance on Thursday, June 30th, 2011.
Photos by Ryan Leach and Mor Fleisher-Leach.
Review by Mor Fleisher-Leach
Holy shit, Rob Tyner's back from the grave! Not really, but Sydney Australia's Dead Farmers come pretty darn close. The spirit of this album is one-of-a-kind, not a rip-off by any means (and we all should know by this point that much of rock 'n' roll these days is just a rip-off). These guys give it all they have, with minimal yet intricate song writing, harmonic vocals, and three-chord philosophies. Like the Byrds, but more fucked up.
Go Home, released on R.I.P. Society Records in 2010, is Dead Farmers' first full length LP. They had just one other 7", "Violence" (Aarght Records) out prior to this release. The music is raw and relentless, the perfect mix of garage-punk ethos and psychedelic era head-nodding.
The album's first track, "Suns of Thunder," gets things kickin' quick. A mix of abrupt guitar riffs, I-don't-give-a-fuck lyrics, drum poundin' and heart stoppin' excitement. I hope they start their live sets with that one. (Someone should pay these guys to come out to Los Angeles in the near future. I hope you read that, big time money pimps and pimpettes.)
And the best part? This manic record was recorded, mixed and mastered at guitarist David Akerman's house. I don't know if they used a 4-track (I just like to think they did), but it's all a bit reminiscent of the old Chris Knox/Flying Nun recordings of the late '70s/early '80s. That's a good thing. I hope that comparison doesn't get me in trouble--and if it does, I'm just an American in a big ol' Kiwi vs. Aussie debacle. Believe me, America has done far worse.
Check out Dead Farmers. Buy a ticket to Sydney and see them play. Or just buy this album and make pretend. Either way, you'll be doing yourself a favor.
Larry Hardy with Sparks
Top 5 favorite records
1. The Cramps - Psychedelic Jungle
2. The Stooges - Funhouse
3. The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette
4. The Ramones - Leave Home
5. Velvet Underground - White Light / White Heat
Top 5 favorite labels, past or present
1. Dangerhouse
2. Crypt
3. Island (mid 70's) - Sparks, Roxy Music, Eno, White Noise, Ultravox (w/ John Foxx when they were good), etc.
4. Bomp!
5. Sun
Top 5 labels that influenced In The Red
1. Crypt
2. Dangerhouse
3. Bomp!
4. Amphetamine Reptile
5. Sub Pop
Top 5 underrated records
1. Sparks - Lil' Beethoven
2. Scientists - You Get What You Deserve
3. The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette (better than anything the Clash could've ever thought of!)
4. The Monkees - their first five albums are all excellent. Better than the Beatles' first five albums.
5. Every album by the Cheater Slicks. One of the best bands in North America for the last 20 years and most people are too stupid to get it.
Top 5 Sparks records
1. Kimono My House
2. Propaganda
3. Indiscreet
4. Lil' Beethoven
5. Hello Young Lovers
Top 5 LA-punk shows you attended in the late '70s as an impressionable teenager:
1. The Cramps (opening for The Runaways) @ Whiskey 1978
2. The Germs, Middle Class, Black Flag, Redd Cross @ Hong Kong Cafe 1979
3. The Screamers @ Whiskey 1978
4. The Weirdos, The Dickies @ Golden Bear 1978
5. Iggy Pop @ Santa Monica Civic 1977 (first show I ever went to)... though he was better in '79 @ the Stardust Ballroom w/ Brian James (Damned) on guitar and Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols) on bass.
Top 5 music scenes, past or present (i.e. Montreal in the 2000s, etc.)
1. NY / CBGBs late 70's (Ramones, Suicide, Dead Boys, ect)
2. UK punk explosion late 70's (Sex Pistols, Damned, Slits, X Ray Spex, Buzzcocks, ect)
3. LA punk explosion late 70's (Germs, Weirdos, X, Screamers, ect)
4. British Invasion early-mid 60's (Rolling Stones, Who, Kinks, Yardbirds, Pretty Things, ect)
5. US garage scene mid 60's (Seeds, Electric Prunes, Sonics, etc.)
The Bats play the Sugerloaf Shakedown in Auckland's Kings Arms Tavern, May 22nd, 2011. The show was a fundraiser for the Christchurch music community. It took place only months after a catastrophic earthquake hit Christchurch, killing 181 people.
Photos by Ryan Leach.
Review by Ryan Leach
By Night (1984) was the Bats’ debut EP. It was an auspicious beginning for the group: six great songs and not a dud among them.
The Bats “sound” more or less coalesced on By Night: Robert Scott’s straightforward songwriting and rhythm guitar; Kaye Woodard’s tasteful lead guitar work; Marshall Grant’s steady backbeat; and Paul Kean’s melodic and active bass lines are all present.
It’s hard to pick a favorite among these tracks—Woodward’s 12-string guitar work on “Jewellers Heart” is distinctive; the mismatch of Scott’s reserved vocals with the unstrained subject matter of “I Go Wild” is compelling. The Fall-like, honky-tonk stomp of “United Airways” certainly ranks high. But it’s “Man in the Moon” that comes out slightly ahead of the rest.
Robert Scott’s best work typically comes out in the Bats’ mid-tempo songs, where he adopts an early ‘70s singer-songwriter feel, particularly influenced by John Cale’s early solo work. “Man in the Moon” comes closest to that hallmark.
By Night is highly recommended. Somewhat hard to fine, Compiletely Bats is more accessible, and contains almost all of the tracks off of the Bats’ first three EPs.
Review by Ryan Leach
Dunedin’s Look Blue Go Purple is underrated. Formed in the early ‘80s, the group released three EPs before calling it a day in ’87. Bewitched (1985) was the band's debut. The four songs on the album are incredible—especially “Circumspect Penelope” and “As Does the Sun”.
Look Blue Go Purple employed Byrds-inspired harmonies. This element of the band is caught hauntingly and best on A-side track “Circumspect Penelope”. The lyrics to the song are compellingly unintelligible, adding to its ethereal quality.
The two songs on the B side (“Vain Hopes” and “As Does the Sun”) have a baroque pop, folk feel to them—not all that different from The Cake’s eponymous debut album on Decca. This is largely attributable to LBGP’s melodramatic vocal delivery and Norma O’Malley’s flute playing. Although recorded in 1985, Bewitched could’ve just as easily been recorded at Gold Star Studios in 1966.
Look Blue Go Purple contained some New Zealand heavyweights. After the group’s dissolution, Lesley Paris would go on to form Olla with future King Loser members Sean O’Reilly and Chris Heazlewood; along with Paul McKessar, Paris kept Flying Nun credible in the ‘90s by signing some of the label’s best acts during lean years. Guitarist Denise Roughan went on to the 3Ds and Ghost Club and Norma O’Malley formed Chug.
Of course, everything Look Blue Go Purple released is highly recommended.
Ryan "Logins" Leach
Top 5 New Zealand bands
1. The Clean
2. The La De Das
3. Look Blue Go Purple
4. King Loser
5. The Gordons
Top 5 Los Angeles bands
1. The Byrds
2. Gun Club
3. The Dream Syndicate
4. Rain Parade
5. Love
Top 5 current record labels
1. In the Red
2. Goner
3. Certified PR
4. Trouble in Mind
5. Perpetrator
Top 5 records of all time
1. John Cale, Paris 1919
2. Wire, 154
3. 13th Floor Elevators, Bull of the Woods
4. Clash, self-titled
5. Kraftwerk, Trans-Europe Express
Top 5 New Zealand Skateboarders
1. Lee Ralph
2. Mike Bancroft
3. Justin Keeley
4. Chris Stewart
5. Raw Dog Darren
Todd Taylor
Top 5 fanzines, past or present:
5 ties, 200 runner-ups.
1. Go Metric / Zisk
2. Barracuda / Girlyhead / Chinmusic
3. Snakepit / Rum Lad
4. Tight Pants / You Idiot
5. Genetic Disorder / Suburban Voice
Top 5 current albums, past or present:
Not fair to anyone. Here are some that, literally, at the top of my personal listening stack. (Separated from review stack and good-for-working stack.)
1. Tiltwheel, Hair Brained Scheme Addicts
2. Dillinger Four, Midwestern Songs of the Americas
3. Reigning Sound, Too Much Guitar
4. Superchunk, Majesty Shredding
5. Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Primary Colours
Top 5 current 45s, past or present:
These, I can never just play once and re-file. All of these want to be played two-three times in a row, even though it's bad for the vinyl.
1. Dillinger Four, Songs about Girlfriends and Bubblegum (Mutant Pop)
2. Hex Dispensers, My Love Is a Bat
3. Otis Redding, Shout Bamamlama
4. Toys That Kill, "Birds in Catsuits" side of their split with the Ragin' Hormones
5. Young Governor / Marvelous Darlings - pick a 7", any 7"
Top 5 rad things about running a print fanzine:
1. On its best days, it gives me a feeling of great joy.
2. Writers I respect prefer being in print vs. electronically.
3. The "slowness" of it. It's a long-vision format, both creatively and keeping it afloat.
4. Having it in the bathroom, above the toilet, and it's not weird.
5. Self-respect. I really like that I do this with my friends. It's tangible. I can hand it to anyone. I like stuff that feels real. Too many things are now abstract, pretending to be real, but are "real," like "friends" on social networks. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Top 5 not-so-rad things about running a print fanzine:
1. On its worst days, I want to just fucking stop doing it and be a janitor.
2. People telling you, in question form, "Isn't print dead?"
3. People mistaking electronic devices for paper, then doing their best for you to make the same mistake.
4. People telling you how you "should" do it.
5. Collections.
Top 5 bands that matter:
1. The Screamers
2. The Velvet Underground
3. Suicide
4. Kleenex/Liliput
5. The Monks
Top 5 films that matter:
1. Breathless (1960)
2. Double Indemnity (1944)
3. Head (1968)
4. Eraserhead (1977)
5. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Top 5 inspirational figures:
1. Jean Cocteau
2. Bo Diddley
3. Jean-Luc Godard
4. Mark E. Smith
5. Barbara Stanwyck
Top 5 things I miss about Los Angeles:
1. Cheap records
2. Cheap books
3. Mexican food
4. Art-house movie theaters galore!
5. Sunshine
Top 5 things I do not miss about Los Angeles:
1. Smog
2. Traffic
3. LAPD
4. The profit margin
5. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Review by Ryan Leach
Toy Love’s eponymous debut—and sole full-length record—is an underrated gem. The album’s strengths are somewhat obscured by the infamous recording sessions WEA (corporate conglomerate Warner Brothers-Elektra-Atlantic) put the group through. Nevertheless, judged on its own merit, the record is a stunning document of Toy Love’s incredible prowess, and a great indicator of the bright futures ahead of Chris Knox, Alec Bathgate and Paul Kean.
The Enemy, a forerunner to Toy Love, was one of New Zealand’s first punk bands. Formed in 1977, when punk was just breaking into the popular consciousness of the Western World, The Enemy inspired a number of Dunedin punk bands (notably The Clean). Unrecorded, The Enemy broke up two years later, largely due to tensions arising from new recruit Phil Judd (formerly of Split Enz). Toy Love emerged almost immediately thereafter, with Paul Kean and Jane Walker joining ex-Enemy members Chris Knox (vocals), Alec Bathgate (guitar), and Mike Dooley (drums). Incredibly popular at home, the group left New Zealand to relocate to Australia, in the hopes of breaking into a bigger market and recording a full length. That’s when the things turned ugly.
Aussie audiences turned out to be indifferent to Toy Love. A painstaking recording process at EMI studios in Australia ensued, with Toy Love failing—like the Velvet Underground before them—to convince hostile engineers that their music was worthy of merit. Frustrated with the Australian recording sessions and the hard times the group faced there, Toy Love packed it in just after their debut hit the shelves.
Listening to Toy Love’s album today, it sounds as if the band’s experiences in Australia affected the members more than the actual product of their labor. Although Toy Love's production is somewhat sterile, it doesn’t sound all that different from the albums Magazine and Gang of Four were releasing in 1980. And that might be part of the problem: the iconoclastic Knox was recording during the “new wave” era, when punk had lost most of its edge and was incorporated into the mainstream. (That transitional period is present in Toy Love’s sound: “Pull Down the Shades”, written during The Enemy period of the band, sounds far removed from the Roxy Music-influenced, mid-tempo pace of “Bedroom”.) Unfortunately, that didn’t sit will with Knox, a man who needed control of his work.
Chris Knox was the driving force behind Toy Love. His voice was incredible, oscillating between Johnny Rotten and Bryan Ferry with the greatest of ease. Already 28 years old when Toy Love was recorded, his lyrics demonstrate a mature, poetic interpretation of teenage reckless abandonment and self doubt; a punk-rock Chuck Berry. His phrasing was equally amazing and unique; it's the hook on “Photographs of Naked Ladies”. Paul Kean, who’d eventually join The Bats, was already a top-notch bassist; just check his lines on “I Don’t Mind” and “Toy Love Song”.
Toy Love gained a strong, early-Fall sound through Alec Bathgate’s sparse guitar work and Jane Walker’s straightforward keyboard playing, not to mention’s the band's penchant for American honky-tonk (a genre Mark E. Smith dipped into from time to time). Not to be forgotten is Mike Dolley’s formidable drumming.
Toy Love is the closest thing I’ve come across in a long time to a forgotten punk/post-punk masterpiece. It’s rare—I bought my copy in New Zealand for a decent price; at the time of this writing, eBay has one copy hovering over the US$100 mark—but Flying Nun did a CD reissue in 2005. Obtaining it is well worth the effort. It should be considered essential.