ICTV EPISODE 13: STRANDED

NICK CAVE: We played for about three years or so to the same 200 people, year in year out the same thing… We either had to move on or fold like a lot of bands did.

MICK HARVEY: In 1980 the audiences [in the UK] were very small… bunches of stragglers that just happened to be at a venue didn’t know what we were on about. So the reaction was slightly bemused.. that was though a period when we were still forming… as we got popular through ’81 and ’82, the reaction was very strong, quite relieved to see a group that weren’t trying to slot into some scene pigeon hole. So many groups do that in UK. They do put themselves into these channels so that they can be promoted… it seems strange but they do.. as an Oz musician where people don’t do that for the most part, it was an unnerving revelation. The fans we got in UK found it very refreshing that we weren’t trying to fit into some scene or some definition .. we were taking our own path and being bloody-minded about it.

Our only real contribution to Oz rock history is what we’ve done musically... which is… was what happened in the 80s, when we got to London and our critical acceptance there , which is a big changing point for the possibilities of Oz groups in Europe in generally. We were fortunate to make that contribution, partly to do with the kind of group we were and partly to do with things that had come before us that had paved the way. We were the first group to not get the kangaroo and Fosters Larger jibes and the first the English music press turned around and said there good value in this. That really opened up the ground for everyone else that came over, the GoBetweens, Moodists, the Triffids, and all the groups that eventually went into the very peculiar scene on the continent in the late 80s, the Beasts of Bourbon, Cosmic Psychos, all these bands could go on tour there and make a good living on what they earned off their records inn Europe and not even be known in England. It was a very big contribution we made and the Saints had paved the way by being such a great group and still getting kangaroo and Fosters jibes.    

GRANT MCLENNAN: We shared houses with the Birthday Party and used to go to the Triffids’ barbecues, go and see the Scientists and the Moodists were over there, and we’d all kind of congregate at the same place and, you know, I think Australian musicians in general at the time were very much, you know, get out there and play, because we’d been driving in Australia for months and months trying to go places where they’d let you play so we weren’t spoiled and the English press in particular with the Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds, they just picked up on what Nick and the guys were doing and ran with it. They were easily the best band in London for about ten years with just dynamite shows, all sorts of craziness, hysteria, amazingly loud and that intangible kind of look and then on the other side of the coin, like the Go-Betweens, Triffids were more of a song-based kind of band, and I think we represented Australian youth at the time quite well.

LINDY MORRISON: How could we have been stars?  I mean it was impossible for a band like us to be stars, we were too intelligent, I never ever expected it.  I wasn’t one of those people that thought the Go-Betweens were going to do it.  To me to have been on the Rough Trade Label was enough, to have filled one and a half… to two thousand people, you know, the Town & Country Club, that was enough. To go to Germany and play in every single town there whenever we wanted to, and to get four to five hundred people in fantastic clubs night after night, that was enough. It was an incredible experience for three hillbillies from Brisbane, you know, who were trying to make an impact, and we have made an impact.  So I wasn’t looking for… you know, a hit, we never were trying to get in the charts, that’s only been post-90s I think. Any charts, that’s like your B grade you know.

DAVE GRANEY: Groups in the same boat that you would run into touring places in Europe like Sonic Youth and Black Flag, we found more in common with that sort of thing than with the British music. It was funny, a lot of those groups had to go to London to be energised, even Nivarna were energised first by the British press, years later.

KEN WEST: The situation was with the Birthday Party in UK was when they went over there they basically made camp for a year, built up their fan base first.  When they cracked it they cracked it quite quickly because they were exceptional and it took a long time because people thought they were deadly serious all the time, and never understood the jokes. In the meantime you’ve got the Aussie promoters with these supergroups be it Midnight Oil or Icehouse or whatever, who treated them like shit, who treated them as this kind of nowhere band, not understanding that they were being embraced in UK to the point where they were selling out shows at the places like the Venue, and other place to 3-4000 people in some cases, and Midnight Oil contacted them to see if they could get the support of the Birthday Party in London and tried to repackage it like they were all mates and Nick Cave and Mick Harvey took huge delight in telling them to take a flying one.

MICK HARVEY: That experience made us look inward… that individual voice came from there. When confronted with that there was no one to join in with, we had to form our own identity and just stamp it with authority. We ploughed through with our own course and if the people didn’t like it, we still ploughed through.