MY MALADY: May 2009

A friend of mine sent me this. Its an awesome read if you are into knowing what it was like in the 80s Australian punk scene. Heres what he said below.

Its funny, I was at a lot of these shows that Randy is describing (yup, Im old, but I wasnt then). (The Rehearsal Room, a real dodgy venue by a vacant service station in Redfern-Long gone now). I was also at the Strawberry Hills Hotel shows with The Hard Ons. And went to a few of those "Sucked Up and Spat Out" shows with The Hard-Ons and The Spunkbubbles. I even made stickers at work of the flyers of the shows and sold them in the car park of some venues L0L
When you read the bit about a skinhead getting smashed over the head by a cymbal stand at the DRI show in Canberra: Well, um, that was yours truly :x
And the thing is now I'm friends with some of those skinheads, and my bands play with their bands, and we've had beers and laughs and old time memories of that and many shows. Thats what happens 20 years later I suppose :roll:
Anyway; here is the piece. It's long, but interesting, and very accurate of the time:

The story of the Australian hardcore band.

Hardcore may have had its roots in the YOU ES A, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t potent bands banging it up DIY in other continents. As this piece written by vocalist Randy Reimann clearly shows; the stories, the feelings and the experiences are the same. Read on and spread the word!

Massapeal: How did it begin? Well, I’d like to say that we met under dark, lurid circumstances, almost too painful to tell, but , alas it all began for me on a sunny day, with birds chirping cheerfully in the trees looking down upon three naïve lads in a skate park. Darren Gilmore, Kevin McClaer, and myself (Randy Retmann), met while climbing through a wire fence at North Ryde Skate Park. The park had been closed to the public for some time and there were rumours around that a shopping mall was to be built there instead.

Darren was a surfer-come-skater, raised on the New South Wales coastal town of Stanwell Park. Kevin and I were ‘Westies’, raised some 30 kms from the water in suburban Fairfield. Although we had completely different cultural backgrounds, it was pretty clear that we all liked the same music as evidenced by the t-shirts we were all sporting. I recall Darren wearing a Verbal Abuse tee, Kevin, a Discharge t-shirt and me, a homemade Suicidal Tendencies number. While enjoying an uncrowded session in the half pipe, we enthusiastically talked about our favorite records.

“Have you heard the ‘Code of Honour, Sick Pleasure’, split record?” “What about Reagan Youth’?, ‘SS Decontrol’? Or ‘Bad Brains’ Rock for Light LP?”

We all spoke of our own bands too of course. Darren played drums for two bands; a new band, Climate of Fear, who played a brand of English, Oi influenced punk rock and also, Rocks, a recentle reformed first generation punk band who had released one of Australia’s first bona fide punk records back in March, 1978, the legendary You’re So Boring EP. He was also talking of getting together another band, that would be more hardcore. Kev and I also had a band, The Toothbrush Family. We played in my parent’s garage, and I remember telling Darren that we were working on a cover of MDC’s “Dead Cops”. I failed to tell him that none of us could play a note or even tune a guitar. I also neglected to mention that my mum would come out every hour with orange cordial and chocolate-coated biscuits.

Skateboarding and being into hardcore and punk was not without its troubles though, way back in 1984-’85. If you rocked up to a gig with a skateboard – Kev and I always did as it was our main mode of transportation back then – and not dressed in the standard punk attire ie: leather jackets, lots of studs, Doc Martin boots and big spikey hair, you could be in for an evening of much more than musical entertainment and slam dancing! You could end up being the focal point for a bunch of skindheads’ fists or boots, or both, and punk’s saliva on top. It became second natura to always cope the venue for quick exits, to know where the skins were situated and what you could use as a launch pad when the slamming (moshing) started. Ahh yes, fond memories flood back of being stretched taut, like a rope, in a lethal tug of war confrontation. Skinheads had me by my feet, my younger brother Karl, and Kevin had me by my hands. The skins drooled in anticipation of wrenching me free from Karl and Kevin’s grip and punching and kicking the shit out of me. All the while, Melbourne band, Permanent Damage, trashed it out in front of us, good and proper in the stage of inner city Sydney’s The Gaelic Club.

Looking back, these events often started when Kev and I hit the sidewalk outside of our western suburb homes. Skating to the train station often meant dodging projectiles flung from souped-up Monaro’s (the Australian Pontiac), filled with yobbos (Australian for ‘Redneck’), blaring Acca-Dacca (AC/DC) or the Tatts (Rose Tattoo). The train trips themselves were often hairy and a thing to endure. Just getting to the gigs was quite a trip!

I digress. It was just a few days after meeting Darren at the skate park, and just up the road from the Gaelic Club at the Strawberry Hills Hotel, that Massappeal came to be. Kevind and I had parked (hidden) our boards behind the bar and were partaking in some joyous slam dancing and stage and stool diving (stools were taller than the stage), while the Hard-Ons, Sydney’s hottest new punk band, ploughed through their set, side-stepping bodies and just managing to keep their equipment upright on the stiny stage. After the Hard-Ons last song, Darren, squeezed squeezed his way through the crowd to where Kev and I were catching our breath. In a crowded room full of black leather and studs, Darren stood out by being so unassuming; cut-off army pants, sneakers, scabby knees and a smile—a kindred misfit. While most of the Sydney punk scene at this time were still heaviuly influenced by what had happened in the UK nearly a decade earlier, some of us were more excited by what was actually being created at that very moment: Hard Core.

“Do you wanna sing for our band?” Darren asked. I remember being nervous and excited and thinking, shit, I’ll have to write lyrics. I haven’t written a word since high school, and that was only cuz I had to. Kev nudged me and said something like “Go for it.” “Yeah, OK” I hesitantly replied. Darren then introduced me to the guitarist-to-be, who standing up the back of the room. I sort of knew this guy too, not by name, but through trading tapes. I got a Black Flag live tape from from him some months before at the Rehearsal Room, a real dodgy venue by a vacant service station in Redfern. Tape trading was the best way to find out about new bands back then , and I had a pen-pal in Washington DC, who’d send me tapes of Minor Threat live and other DC bands.

My ears were ringing as Darren said, “Randy, this is Fred”. For the first month of Massappeal rehearsals, Brett was “Fred” to me, but when my ears finally stopped ringing I got his name right. Brett, a semi-professional surfer from Manly, (one of Sydney’s northern beach suburbs), had been listening to punk since the first wave, but really got into it as the next heavier and more aggressive style developed in band slike Discharge, The Exploited, Blitz, Anti-Pasti, UK Subs, The Ruts et all.

Around 1980-1981, Brett along with some friends-future professional surfer, Pam Burridge, future World Surfing Champion Barton Lynch and Doug Lees, (the drummer for local punks, Progression Cult) started to venture out to the civic Hotel in the heart of Sydney’s CBD, to see some of the new punk bands: Identity X, Vigilante, Chaos, Kelpies, etc. In May 1982, Brett went to Europe to try his luck on the professional surfing circuit. He surfed until September and then went to London to see some bands for a couple of weeks before flying back to sunny Manly. He picked up a job within a couple of days and ended up staying for a couple of years, cultivating an extremely, ridiculously long Mohawk that I’m told looked more like a giant dead slug resting atop of his otherwise bald skull! But hey, he did get to see some pretty amazing shows that I’ll always be jealous of: UK Subs, The Exploited, Subhumans, Discharge Anti Sect, Crass, The Mob, Flux of Pink Indians, etc.

At the end of 1982, the Dead Kennedys and MDC made it to the UK form the States. Brett felt an affinity to these bands from the US. It felt more natural to him, less contrived. He realized that “You don’t have to dress up like a turkey, (or a slug-head) to play heavy music”. Then, in early ’83, Black Flag and Bad Brains toured the UK, and Brett realized that most of the English bandswere actually quite lame in comparison – “Sheep in wolves clothing” as he saw it. A surfing trip to the Canary Islands in October 1983 seemed to give him a different perspective. He returned briefly to the UK but was back home in Sydney by Christmas.

Discovering that his local pub – the Mosman Hotel – was the hu for a local thriving punk scene and the strong desired to be involved in a band, Brett made up with local punks, Progression Cult, who were looking for a new singer. It wasn’t in the cards, as they split up the next weekend. Undeterred, he tried to get something happening with new people but soon discovered that no else he knew seemed to be into the stuff he wanted to play. So, in 1984, at the age of 24, Brett realized that the only way he was gonna get something happening was to learn how to play guitar himself. He borrowed a guitar and an amp and proceeded to make feedback! No notes yet, just beautiful noise to the delight of his neighbours. A month later he joined Sydney band, the Bedspreads, on second guitar. It wasn’t quite the music he wanted to create, but he would remain forever grateful to the chaps for giving him a go after only playing guitar for a month. It did give Brett the confidence to form a band of his own.

He met Darren in late ’84, early ’85 at the Strawberry Hill hotel. Darren was wearing a Verbal Abuse t-shirt so Brett knew they had a similar musical appreciation. They both surfed, so they had that in common also and shared the view that the limitations on lifestyle placed b y the inner-city punk elite were both un-punk and stupid. They also talked of the lack of real musical talent in town at the time and of the rumour that Albi, guitarist for Melbourne punk hardcore band, Vicious Circle, was going to bring US band, Youth Brigade out to Australia. Brett figured that there was no band in Sydney that would be a suitable support and put the idea to Darren about forming a new band. Brett always had the name Massappeal, in mind, having taken it from some graffiti spray painted on the wall of the Tooheys brewery on Broadway, inner-city Sydney. It was an irony of sorts. The idea that Massappeal, could generate ‘mass appeal’, was of course, ludicrous. But then again, the fact that Adolf Hitler, Ronald Reagan and even Madonna could generate the same appeal was just as ironic. This was the point of Massappeal.

Following our introduction at the aforementioned Hard-Ons show, we started regular practice. Our first gig was on Vito Mardi-Gras night in 1985, supporting Vicious Circle at French’s Tavern on Oxford Street, Sydney. We played six songs in fifteen minutes, just the three of us. Kevin was yet to join and spent the entire (15 min) set sitting on the stage with my very underage brother Karl cheering us on. The most memorable thing about this gig for me though, was loading our equipment back into Brett’s van after the show and being confronted by a bunch of skinheads who wanted to beat us up for not looking punk enough! It didn’t help that Brett identified one of the skinheads to a policeman, as the perpetrator in a Vito bashing incident that had happened right outside French’s earlier that night. It was only an intervention by Steve, a friend of both our’s and the skinhead’s – as well as the editor of a local punk fanzine, Rise Above, that saved us from certain bashing.

Kevin joined the band soon after. He had been coming along to all the practices and had a bass guitar which he’d attempted to play in Toothbrush Family. It was perfect. Kevin’s first practice with Massappeal included the epiphany of tuning! “wow, that makes it so much easier to know what strings to hit” said Kevin. After two more practice sessions Kevin played his first gig with Massappeal at a birthday party at the Middle Harbour Skiff Club. The second gig was at the Hellenic Hall, Chippendale on the 16th of November ’85. We also played a great gig out at Fairfield around this time in a room above a cake shop called, The Gallery. It was a space organized and run by Dave and Phil Mascellani. A space for the local kids o hang their art, read their poetry, listen to tapes and drink milo and instant coffee. The gig though, was most memorable for the tasty pair of shorts I sported that night

Brett had a tape of our performance at the Hellenic Hall and one of the songs on the tape would end up being our first release. Ray Ahn of the Hard-Ons wa doing a fanzine titled Zit and he was putting together a compilation tape to go out with one of the issues. He asked for a Massappeal track so Brett dubbed him off one of the songs from our live tape.

Weeks later Keving got a copy of “Zit Magazine” from waterfront and I remember us both being pretty excited as he dropped the tape into the machine. The Massappeal track started with me introducing the song as it was a live recording, Kev and I looked at each other puzzled as my voice came out of the speakers at least an octave lower than usual and sounding like an out-take from the Exorcist. Then the song started, Brett seemed to be playing a lot slower than I ever recalled and I didn’t recognized the song, “what the fuck has he done”” Kev yelled. Brett’s tape machine must have been crapping out or the batteries must have been dying when he dubbed the song so our first first release was Massappeal in slow motion. Even still, our song was still three times faster than anything else on the tape!

Waterfront Records, the only store in town to really stock a decent selection of hardcore and punk music, had heard about us by virtue of our spending every Thursday night shopping there. They asked us to play a Saturday afternoon in-store as support to another new, hot, more Detroit style combo called, The eastern Dark. It was there and then that they asked us to do a record with them. It was highly unexpected; we were just stoked to be playing our music to people, and maybe support Youth Brigade if they ever made it to Australia, and now, we were going to record!!!

In May 1986 we recorded a demo and in August/September we recorded Nobody Likes a Thinker. Not happy with the mix, we decided on remixing in October for release by Waterfront in December 1986.

Released together with the Hard-Ons Smell My Finger and the Spunkbubble’s Metal Wench 7”, the records created quite a stir, with reviews in all music mags, as well as daily newspapers, giving Massappeal and the Hard-Ons two thumbs up! Incredibly, Nobody Likes a Thinker went straight to number 1 on the national indy chart knocking oz rockers Noiseworks into number 2 position. It all seemed silly, weird and meaningless at the time. I didn’t know music charts existed before that point. I was reading fanzines like Maximum Rock and Roll and Flipside, I don’t recall ever seeing charts.

Sometime after the release, Massappeal and the Hard-Ons went on a tour of Australia. The Sucked up and Spat Out Tour went to Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Aarrgg rock and roll! I remember driving into Melbourne, and Kevin, after only having one beer, stuck his head out the window and vomited, only to have it come back in the rear window of the bus and splatter Keith (Hard-Ons drummer).

Speaking of drummers, Darren was the first member to leave Massappeal and this began the revolving door band members. In 1987 Tubby Wadsworth joined the band and we recorded The Bar of Life 7”. Tubby came through the metal scene and was and still is an amazing drummer, though we had to slow him down a bit. At one show at the Sutherland Royal Hotel we were to play a 40 minute set and instead we finished it in just 20 minutes. He ws an enthusiastic stage diver too and as a result we once missed out on a bunch of gigs with oz metallers Mortal Sin as Tubby Sheepishly nursed a broken arm.

The song “Are You Alright?” contains a crazed rant by Kevin during the intro to the song. It came about because we felt that something other than Brett’s guitar madness was called for. I was coming up with goose eggs so Kev walked into the vocal booth and spat nails into the mic. He came back into the control room quietly nd no-one said a word. He was obviously very upset about something but we were all too scared to go into it with him. “Are Yu Arlight Kev?” Too dangerous, too ugly. Perfect.

We did a national tour with US hardcore band DRI that same year. A gig in Canberra wasn;t too pleasurable for us, most of the people at this show were incredibly nice, but it only takes a few dickheads to take the night to another level. It was a very intense gig. Everything was so charged and on the verge of exploding and then it did. Part way into our set, a bunch of skinheads standing at the back of the crowd started throwing half-full cans of beer at us. I recall the sensation of playing that gig but not the individual songs. It was truly primal, raw and pure. We cracked open and the songs shut out like waves of debris. By the time DRI hit the stage, the skins had moved down into the pit and were picking off dancers one by one. DRI stopped mid song and it all went nuts. I recall someone swinging one of Tubby’s symbol stands around like a baseball bat and collecting more than one bald head. The cops showed up, removed the skins and DRI finished off the night’s entertainment in fine fashion. Later I watched Tubby wipe/peel skin and blood from his drum stands. Blown away by Tubby’s ballistic blender-beat drumming, the drummer from DRI gave Tubby his Bad Brains t-shirt that was literally dripping with sweat and blood, as an act of homage.

Later while trying to get comfortable for the long three hour trip back to Sydney in the back of the very cold and dark tour truck (yes, a truck with a roller door, no windows no ventilation and very illegal) I remember feeling sick from the diesel fumes and the constant rocking and wobbling of the truck, but I spotted some rivet holes in the side wall and started to suck in the night air with my lips over one of the holes.

I tried to make sense of the night, thinking, ‘that was terrible and leighton up. No, that was amazing and blistering pure’. Looking back, the whole wild ride had a foot firmly planted in both camps—such was the world of Massappeal of those times.

Written by Randy Reimann of Massappeal. Taken from the liner notes of the recent reissue of Nobody Likes a Thinker. Courtesy of Relapse Records.

Check out our review of Relapse’s reissue of Nobody Likes a Thinker.
http://deafsparrow.com/Massappeal-review.htm