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Australian musicians played and recorded some of the earliestpunk rock, led bythe Saints who released their first single in 1976.[1]Subgenres of punk music, such aslocal hardcore acts, still have a strongcult following throughoutAustralia.[2]
Many of the pioneers, like the Saints, Sydney bandRadio Birdman, and youngPerth musicianKim Salmon, were highly influenced byproto-punk sounds from Detroit. A distinctBrisbane punk scene emerged in the 1970s. By 1977, other bands began to form in Sydney, under the influence of Radio Birdman and other local and overseas acts. During the late 1970s, former members of Radio Birdman contributed to several new bands. These bands and other Australian and overseas punk acts were supported bypublic radio stations. In Melbourne scene, art rock had segued into punk, then evolved intopost-punk, typified by the careers ofNick Cave,Rowland S. Howard and theLittle Band scene. Another pioneering figure of Australian postpunk was Saints founderEd Kuepper.
The Saints, formed inBrisbane, Queensland, in 1973, were one of Australia's first punk bands. The earliest incarnation of the Saints was formed byEd Kuepper (guitar) andChris Bailey (vocals). They shared a background in immigrant families (Kuepper's German and Bailey's Irish), and an admiration for high energy 1950s and 1960s music, such as theDetroit rock ofthe Stooges andMC5.[3] During that time,Queensland was under the control of the conservative, allegedly authoritarianCountry Party democratic government of SirJoh Bjelke-Petersen.[citation needed] In mid-1976, the Saints recorded and distributed copies of their single "(I'm) Stranded", which met nearly no critical or public response in Australia. In the UK, however,Sounds magazine received a copy, and declared it: "single of this and every week".[citation needed] As a result, the band was signed to a three-album contract with EMI. Later the same year they recorded their first LP, which was also called(I'm) Stranded. Hampered by poor production and the indifference of radio stations, the LP failed commercially. In December the Saints moved to Sydney.[citation needed]
During 1974,Radio Birdman formed inSydney, led by another immigrant, Detroit-born medical studentDeniz Tek. They also shared an interest inthe Stooges andMC5, albeit with a result arguably more akin tohard rock than punk. Their dynamic live shows soon gained a fanatical following at inner city venues. Radio Birdman released an EP (Burn My Eye) and an album (Radios Appear) with better production values, but with similar commercial results to the Saints' endeavours.[citation needed]
InAdelaide, the first punk band wasBlack Chrome, which formed in 1975,[4] followed byJAB in 1976. Black Chrome's music attacked Australian apathy, its urban wasteland and its non-existent youth culture. JAB billed themselves as "Synthetic Shock Rock" and were the first Australian punk band to use livesynthesisers andtape loop guitar and synthesiser solos.[5] Adelaide in this period was a staid, conservative, and unreceptive city, and consequently the bands were ignored, feared, and could not secure gigs unless they booked venues themselves without disclosing that they were punk bands.[6][7] Black Chrome'sSimon Stretton, who also founded the record label Tomorrow Records, recorded many early punk bands, including JAB, the Chosen Few,Bohdan X, the Accountants, the U-Bombs,the Dagoes, Psychosurgeons, the Lipstick Killers, Riff Raff, and Young Modern, as well as later punk. In some cases, they are the only audio record of the band.[8] Riff Raff played at theSeacliff Hotel, while Irving and the U-Bombs were mixing reggae with punk at theBelair Hotel. The Dagoes were later described by Donald Robertson ofRoadrunner as "a mutant brainchild of various import record store owners". The Accountants learnt to play in the northern suburb ofElizabeth.[9]
InPerth – a geographically isolated city with social and political similarities to Brisbane – young musicians likeKim Salmon,Dave Faulkner andJames Baker were also influenced by the Detroit bands, as well as New Yorkproto-punk figures likeLou Reed and theNew York Dolls. Salmon led theCheap Nasties, and thenthe Scientists, before embarking on a solo career (and is regarded as a pioneer ofgrunge).[citation needed] Baker was in a short-lived act called the Geeks, before formingthe Victims with Faulkner in 1977. They recorded an acclaimed single, "Television Addict", before breaking up. Baker later joined the Scientists. Faulkner gravitated towards poppier sounds. In 1981, he and Baker founded a successfulretro rock act, theHoodoo Gurus.[citation needed]
By 1977, other bands were starting to form in Sydney, under the influence of local and overseas punk acts. The early Sydney punk scene centred around the Sydney inner city suburbs, and theGrand Hotel in Haymarket in particular. Among the first was theLast Words, fromLiverpool in Sydney. (They recorded their first single "Animal World/Wondering Why" in 1977.) Other Sydney bands in 1977 included theHellcats (featuringRon Peno, later lead singer of theDied Pretty), the Psychosurgeons (later known as Lipstick Killers),Johnny Dole & the Scabs and theThought Criminals (who featured Steven Phillip, later ofDo-Re-Mi and John Hoey, who was also later in Died Pretty).
These bands and other Australian and overseas punk acts were strongly supported bypublic radio stations, especially2JJ. Punk bands like the Reals (featuringOllie Olsen) and the Babeez (later known as the News) were also being formed in Melbourne. In Brisbane,the Survivors (who showed a 1960s influence),the Leftovers (diverse influences), Razar and theFun Things (Detroit rock) all followed in the wake of the Saints.
After the British punk scene took off in 1977, both the Saints and Radio Birdman moved to the UK. This proved to be disastrous for both bands. Neither of them fit in with, or were inclined to adjust to aspects of the London scene at the time, such the now-establishedpunk fashion in clothes. Radio Birdman were dumped when their record company got into financial difficulty, and soon broke up. Later recordings saw the Saints adoptsoul,blues andjazz influences, although their most successful single, "This Perfect Day" – which reached number 34 in the UK singles chart – was typical of the band's musical style. After another acclaimed single, "Know Your Product", and second and third albums failed to make an impression, EMI dropped the Saints. (Kuepper left in 1979 and Bailey began to pursue a more mainstream musical direction.) Last Words later followed their predecessors to the UK and also failed to make a strong impression.
The Saints bassist,Algy Ward continued to make significant impact in the London punk scene however, when he left The Saints to play with Britishpunk rock band,the Damned and to work withLemmy andFast Eddie Clarke ofMotörhead,[citation needed] playing on The Damned's comeback albumMachine Gun Etiquette (1979), which was released on proto punk andpub rock record label,Chiswick Records, who had also releasedMotörhead's early records.Joe Strummer,Lemmy andPaul Simonon also appear on the album. The reissue of the album includes the band's take onThe Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz". The album also features sometimePink Floyd lyricistAnthony Moore on synthesiser.Philip Lloyd-Smee (who is known for his design work forSyd Barrett as well as for the lettering and Gothic calligraphic work onJoe Petagno's early Motörhead logo; though the "War-Pig" image itself is by Petagno.[10] ) contributed to the sleeve and logo design work onMachine Gun Etiquette.
During his time with The Damned, Ward also played bass on cover versions including Motörhead's "Over the Top" (released later under the collective monikerMotordamned), the MC5's "Looking at You" and live, the band played theSex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant" andThe Stooges' "I Feel Alright". He toured with the band worldwide, including America in 1979 where they played at Whisky A Go Go, Hollywood, and the Waldorf in San Francisco, significantly influencing the American Hardcore scene. Ward appeared on the live performance onThe Old Grey Whistle Test in England featuring "Smash It Up", before he was fired from the group due to animosity between him and drummerRat Scabies. He was replaced by formerEddie and the Hot Rods andUFO (band) bassistPaul Gray.
Speaking of Algy Ward's contribution to the album in an interview withLouder than War online punk rockfanzine, Captain Sensible said "Algy was immense onMachine Gun (Etiquette). The sound was largely based on the thundering bass lines that he delivered, it was a beautiful noise. And then Paul (Gray) came along and was a very fluent and flowing kind of bass player."
By the end of 1977, the MelbournesupergroupYoung Charlatans had formed from the remnants of earlier bands.[11][12] They includedOllie Olsen,Rowland S. Howard (guitar, later in the Birthday Party),Jeff Wegener (drums, former member of the Saints, later in theLaughing Clowns) andJanine Hall (later in the Saints). The band recorded the first version of the Howard song "Shivers". In Sydney, a Birdman offshoot,the Hitmen, had started to gig andIan Rilen formed the longevitousX.
On 8 November 1977 the ABC nightly news magazine program "This Day Tonight" broadcast a feature on Australian punk rock, featuring a live recording of Black Chrome at Adelaide University's Union Hall, with commentary and interviews highlighting the largely negative contemporary attitudes to punk rock. The introductory voice over concluded;
″... but if you're wondering if its going to take off in a big way here, its worth remembering that the quiet streets of Adelaide are a long, long way from the streets of London. The message of punk rock is violence and anarchy; and its a message which has got Adelaide radio stations on the defensive.″[165]
In April 1978 Black Chrome released the single "Australia's God" on their own label Tomorrow Records,[166] but despite the band driving around Australia to the few record shops selling punk rock and delivering it to radio stations around the country, it failed to secure airplay and sold in tiny numbers. "Wallaby Beat" in 2011; "It must be said that of all the original 1977 Aussie bands Black Chrome are the one most shrouded in mystery. The single remains unheard (but not unloved) and the facts we can report are scant... so to the record, perhaps the most singular sounding of the first generation Australian punk records with its restrained fuzz, and strange (moaning?) backing vocals. It's in the lyrics where the punch is packed."[167]
Entrepreneurs began to realise the potential of the growing scene andMichael Gudinski launched the Melbourne-basedSuicide Records, which in May 1978 released acompilation,Lethal Weapons. The album included tracks by the Boys Next Door,Teenage Radio Stars (featuring futureModels membersSean Kelly andJames Freud, and also La Femme members bassistGraham Schiavello and drummerPete Kidd),JAB (ex-experimental rockers fromAdelaide, featuringBohdan X and synthesizer playerAsh Wednesday), the Survivors andX-Ray-Z (formerpub rockers from Adelaide). However theroyalty rate offered by Suicide was low and both the News and Young Charlatans decided not to get involved.Keith Glass launched the Melbourne-basedMissing Link Records, which between 1978–80 releasedLa Femme's singles & Album,[13] They were the first independent band onCountdown and opened "Suburban pub rock" to local punk bands.Keith Glass also managed the Boys Next Door and released all their music through to the change tothe Birthday Party.
Australian chart success eluded all of these bands in the late 1970s. Radio programmers were conservative and unenthusiastic about punk. The above artists who eventually found success either did so overseas, or after a remove of several years in Australia, and/or in different bands.
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During the late 1970s, former members of Radio Birdman contributed to several new Sydney bands:the New Christs,the Visitors,the Passengers (featuring Angie Pepper) andthe Screaming Tribesmen. Two distinctive, long-lasting Sydney bands,the Celibate Rifles andLime Spiders, were formed in 1979. Meanwhile, other Sydney groups likeX andfeedtime carried the punk energy of their forebears into nascentnoise rock territory. In Melbourne,post-punk sounds began to take over, typified by the "little band scene". By the early 1980s, only a handful of bands were still playing songs with classic punk sounds, such as theCosmic Psychos and thesatirically-inclinedPainters and Dockers.
Melbourne's La Femme were a fascinating meld of late Seventies influences: punk, new wave, glam and hard rock. Their 1978 debut single Chelsea Kids is one of the all-time classic Australian singles and their only LP: La Femme, is arguably one of the best to come out of Melbourne's late 1970s punk/new wave scene (which included Models and the Boys Next Door). It contains many fine examples of the band's confident, swaggering glam-infused punk-metal sound. Lead singer Chane Chane was a charismatic, hyperactive front man, a refreshing personality with a strong audience rapport. Guitarist Brett Walker was a real live flashy guitar hero for the times, coming on like a punk-metal Mick Ronson by pealing off large chunks of dense power riffing when other guitarists were still going plink-plonk. The thuggish rhythm section of Peter Kidd and Graham Schiavello played it mean and hard, providing the relentless, driving beat. La Femme could well have made it into the big league if they’d wanted but swimming against the commercial tide seemed to be their raison d'être. In many ways they were their own worst enemies. An unwillingness to play the pop star game and the serious drug addiction, among other things, perhaps ended up compromising the band's drive. For an inner-city band with so much potential, in the end they really did give it away. They toured constantly, built up a huge support base on the suburban pub circuit, scored several prestigious support gigs, made three appearances on Countdown (one of the first punk/new wave/alternative bands to do so), released one of the great Melbourne punk albums and yet they never rose above being a cult attraction.
The Quick and the Dead, who played in Perth during 1979–81, pioneered a sound closely related toOi!. They attracted media attention resulting from the behaviour of some fans, including violence and the use of Nazi regalia. SomeBrisbane punk rock bands prolonged their unique punk direction from the Seventies, that was in part due to PremierJoh Bjelke-Petersen's continued use of theQueensland Police against perceived threats to the government.
TheBoys Next Door, renamed the Birthday Party in 1980 and featuringNick Cave, were pioneers in incorporating "darker" elements into their image, with connections to the genres ofgothic rock,horror punk anddeathrock. Other prominent examples included Brisbane bandsVampire Lovers and Mystery of Sixes.
A fourth generation of bands, such as theHard-Ons (from Sydney) andExploding White Mice (from Adelaide), also emerged. Former members of the Celibate Rifles and Lime Spiders formedthe Eastern Dark, a short-lived but well-regarded act.Australian hardcore punk acts also emerged, such asMassappeal, who began gigging in Sydney during 1985. Additionally, bands such as The Hellmen,Toys Went Berserk,Happy Hate me Nots,Bits of Kids andWet Taxis existed in the latter half of the 1980's.
FromBrunswick emerged the smooth distorted sound of the Zorros with their single from Missing Link records "Too Young" reaching Number 3 in Radio RRR charts. The Zorros would play hard and fast and pack out many venues.
By the early 1990s, the success ofgrunge music, American punk veterans and revivalists, as well as local bands like the Hybernators, the Speed Demons,the Meanies,Frenzal Rhomb, andScreamfeeder led to the formation of punk-influenced bands such asthe Living End,Jebediah,Bodyjar,28 Days, Dreamkillers, Four Zero One Four, Align, Tiltmeter andGuttersnipes. Punk revival scenes began in various cities around Australia.
In Melbourne, punk has seen a resurgence in recent years. Along with straight up punk bands like Dixon Cider, Scrayfish, the Half Pints, Let's Jump Ship and the Flying Rats forming, there have also been the emergence offolk punk bands like Gentleman's Riot, Mutiny and Catgut Mary andskate punk bands such as Bombs Are Falling and Postscript . The reforming of many earlier punk bands from the 1980s (such as Bastard Squad and Depression) has also been prominent.The Late 2000s has also seen a resurgence in street punk across the Australian east coast with bands like No Idea (VIC), the Scam(QLD), the Lost Cause (QLD), Deputy Dipshit (QLD), the Worst (VIC), Stay Down (TAS), Wot Rot (VIC) and many more leaving their mark.
In Adelaide, primarily driven by a resurgence of interest driven by the internet, the publication of early punk discographies, and requests to play from venues and contemporary punk bands, Black Chrome reformed in 2010.[14] They have since appeared on several contemporary live punk compilation albums,[15] and from 2018 commenced releasing new material.[16]
Vans Warped Tour successfully returned to Australia in 2013 after an 11-year hiatus,[17] however many DIY grass roots events stepped up to fill the gap.
More recent popular Aussie punk groups includeAmyl and the Sniffers andThe Chats.
DNA was afanzine created by Harry Butler inAdelaide in 1979, and was edited and mostly written by him.[18] Published by EC Productions, it continued to cover local punk,alternative, andunderground bands. In the 1980s it began to releasecassettes, made locally by amateurs, of the music presented in the magazine, and later started distributing other fanzines and music releases from around Australia. In the early 1990s, EC Productions co-owned Thrash Grind Grunge music store[19] at 276Morphett Street, Adelaide.[20] It then started producing music by local bands on CD, using aCD burner, and around 1999 released its firstvinyl record. EC Productions also sold new and secondhand music in all formats, as well as music-related books and magazines, and was part of acooperative of researchers who documented contemporary Australian and New Zealand music. It is unclear whether the business continues to operate,[19] but the last issue ofDNA available on their website was published in 2019.[18] Issue 36 (1984) is available free to read online, viaYumpu.[21]
Another notable fanzine focused on punk was the Melbourne-basedRegression (1982–1984), created by Zol Szacsuri and Alby Brovedani of the bandVicious Circle. There were many others, with names such asAliens Mutants Senseless Violence,Consumer Junk,Decline,End Result,Family Slaughterhouse,Invictus Pax,Obituary,Portobello Market,Resistant Harmony,Stone the Flamin' Crows,The Rage, andWork Consume Die.[22]
The Society of Australian Punk (SOAP) is a non-profit organisation based inMelbourne, whose listed first purpose is: "To represent, showcase, promote and celebrate the research and preservation of Australian punk subculture".[23] Its website contains links to many resources, including publications of all kinds, film and video, other websites, radio programs, and exhibitions.[24]
Dogs in Space is a 1986 Australian feature drama film set in Melbourne's "Little Band" post-punk music scene in 1978, written and directed byRichard Lowenstein and starringMichael Hutchence.[25][26]
Age of Rage: The Australian Punk Revolution, a documentary film directed by Jennifer Ross, premiered at theMelbourne International Film Festival in August 2022,[27][28][29] and was also screened at the 11th edition of theAntenna Documentary Film Festival in Sydney in October. Ross interviewed many punk musicians for the film, who "would turn up to interviews with a box of 30 years of their life". She scanned and archived everything she was given, and took around a year to edit the film after selecting appropriate clips.[30]Dale Cornelius wrote the score, which was nominated for anAACTA Award for Best Original Music Score in a Documentary in the12th AACTA Awards.[31]
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