The kangaroos postcard

Glasgow like Brisbane? The legend says that Mc Lennan and Forster took a train to Glasgow in a frozen 1980 March morning and David Mac Clymont, the OJ's bass player, was there at the station waiting for them. As far as I remember they were in Scotland to do an audition for Postcard Records which ended up being the I Need Two Heads single. Steven Daly was credited with drums in the sessions and someone said that "edwyn our hero" was also around the studio providing some guitars and cymbals... It was a legendary session anyway as Mc Lennan still remembers: "It was a great time. They were our age, they did not take music too seriously but it was the only thing they were interested in!". This was the story, the Go Betweens played also a pair of dates in Scotland with Orange Juice & Josef K and they finally fell in love with the city crowd. But now we all know that there were no Scottish folow up and the label itself soon lost its indie identity. Soon the kagaroos went back to London searching for a new contract and time deserved a quite luminous future for them. In the same days, Orange Juice signed to Polydor for their debut album, becaming a mere shadow of their former glory. But we like to imagine the two bands gigging together in front of an enthusiastic audience for once managed to dance to a group. The start and the finish of the Glasgow scene.

The mile of miracles

The original Harem Scarem slowly emerged from Melbourne's mid-80's indie scene, but, it could be argued, were closer in sound to classic Australian blues-rock from a decade before (Dingoes, Coloured Balls, Chain, Rose Tattoo etc.). Their sound was infused with a heady mix of punk spirit and Stax soul that also made them contemporaries of the likes of The Gun Club and the better known Beasts Of Bourbon. Harem Scarem first appeared on the Melbourne Psychobilly compilation “Asleep at the Wheel”. They soon developed (via the “Dogman” EP and some key line-up changes) into a powerhouse live act, where Christopher Marshall's extraordinary, passionate vocals combined with Charlie Marshall's stonesy guitar. The band were renowned for their dynamic blend of punk, blues and soul and ignited many a local stage in the 1980s. With a loyal following and upward trajectory of critical and popular acclaim they disbanded way too soon in 1987 when the brothers finally stop fighting one against the other. The Melbourne scene of the 80s embraced a wide range of music, but it was rare for a band to actually create their own genre with the panache that Harem Scarem did. Their first album, Pilgrim’s Progress, was originally released in 1986, and is a steaming chunk of urban blues from the Yarra delta. A little too hard blues for me but it surely kicks down the barroom door from the outset, with ‘Last Stand Man’, a bragging boast and challenge to any woman within earshot, followed by ‘Miracle Mile’, a great song, which makes it clear drinks are on the house. Then Harem Scarem pushed theirselves a little too hard, the fragile equilibrium of the brothers gave way, and they finally took our separate paths. But it was not the end, not for me... anyway, Chris the guitarist returned to academia while Charlie kept the name of Harem Scarem and went on to make one more album under that title. And so they reinvented themselves and came out their masterpiece called "Lo & Behold", strongly influenced by the Replacements and the american paisley underground groups. This is Lo & Behold, a strong lean rock album, full of great songs devoted to the americana style and to the the Aussie eighties sound, a bit remind me of Died Pretty and a bit also the boss Bruce, what a mixture!

Grandsons of dungeon

The Triffids were with no doubt an essential part in the soundtrack to my adolescence. I first heard of them while briefly living in London, where they arrived in the long hot summer of 1984, with great hopes and the immense talent of their "so inspired singer" David McComb. I was a common teen at the time and never really share my italian friends taste in music. But London was something different and NME was a good guide for a post punk boy! Like many others at the time, I used to devour the musical newspapers voraciously and that summer they announced the Triffids as "the group who will save rock music" once again... I was there waiting for them and, after reading NME, I immediately went out trying to find all their records... so I finally found a wonderful copy of their fantastic debut mini lp "Treeless plain" that I discovered in the Notting Hill Records & Tapes Exchange discount department, downstairs in the basement. The Triffids finally came over Uk, "arriving in London with a wad of cash they’d saved up and 5 return plane tickets scheduled to expire by Christmas". They began by playing gigs with the The Go-Betweens and and soon supporting Echo and the Bunnymen. At first, it was something about their look that intrigued me a lot. They looked like they had just been plucked from the australian desert, shell - shocked and a little under nourished. From this point on they never looked back to the the wide open roads. Then a word about their singer, my singer. His sound deep, soft and sensual transmited such good feelings in my body and my head! With his voice, David finally took me to a better world! A major influence on the group's sound was surely their geographical location, coming from Perth, the world’s most isolated city on the west coast of Australia, facing a cold ocean and backing onto a huge, empty desert. The isolation infused The Triffids' work with a feeling of emptiness and loneliness. I was living thousands of miles away from them but, hearing their music, I felt exactly the same as I was there in Australia, in my adolescent dreams. Their most Australian-sounding album, the wonderful sophomore album Born Sandy Devotional came some months after. The rest of the story is well known. In Belgium, Holland, Germany, France and particularly Scandinavia, the Triffids became big business. The fickle European rock press devoured the unusual sounds and intriguing lyrics that captured Australia's intimidating landscape and in Belgium, they played to 70,000 fans. From Calenture to the Black Swan in pretty short order I bought later all their realses and I was equally captivated, never dissatisfied. They were all well received, but the success wasn't overwhelming, which inevitably disappointed the band members to the point where they soon after dissolved. According to my idol David, as he wrote ..." In 1986 we found ourselves at last on the holy mount of bigtime Oz rock as part of the infamous Australian Made bachannalia. Time was even found for a quick fling in America in 1989, but by this stage of the decade it was obvious to most coolheaded observers that a beautiful era was at an end. The last Australian shows were in late 1989, and the final Triffids entertainment booking was, appropriately, in front of a few miserably frozen stragglers in a snow resort in Jindabyne. Well, actually it was Canberra ANU, but let's not spoil a good ending"... The day David died, just a few days short of his 37th birthday, I felt like a part of my adolescent self died at that moment too, forever. As someone else's wrote, "I never knew David, but felt I had grown with him somehow". Please celebrate him once again buying the soon to be finally realised deluxe box set "Come Ride With Me ... Wide Open Road" and listening to their old Blah Blah Blah 1985 Radio session...