Aristarchus
Glister
Order at <http://www.chaosmusic.com/glister> or 27 Meredith St, Blaxland, NSW, 2774
Ego
Sandalbutt
Oracle Records
Ralph Music, PO Box 378, Blaxland, NSW, 2774
True-l
True-l
<http://truel.8m.com>
Curiosity
Fifth Place
7 Harness Place, Werrington Downs, NSW 2742
Blood Sweat & Beers
Hassle Brigade
Raunchy Records
53 Greenhaven Drive Emu Heights NSW 2750
Ob(zine)
PO Box 367, Blaxland, NSW 2774
Review by Barry Healy
An underground music scene that has been quietly developing in western Sydney is starting to get organised through the magazine Ob(zine). Young people are forming bands, writing songs that reflect their lives and putting out their own CDS. It will take only one of these bands to be discovered by a major label for the whole scene to break through.
It is a treat with a band's first CD to read the cover notes, which give thanks to those that have significantly influenced the performers.
Fifth Place, for instance thank McDonald's for its "large value meal deals" as well as Frenzal Rhomb. True-l proclaim their thanks to God in a big way.
Many of these bands are a product of the facilities sponsored by the strong fundamentalist Christian churches in the lower Blue Mountains. They are a measure of the conscious attempt by these churches to use youth culture to keep young people in the flock.
Glister thanks "Our father who art in heaven" and the New Life Christian Fellowship Youth Centre. The band creates a very sophisticated light pop sound. Lead singer Sam (a woman — Glister members have no surnames, it seems) has a fine folky voice which floats beautifully over delicate guitar, bass and drums backing. This is very pleasant CD and perhaps Glister will in the future rock out more and test their boundaries.
Sandalbutt's Brad (again no surnames) has something to say about religion: "They were all founded on blood", he writes . "They shed blood to force their ideology on [those] who don't really understand what it is all about." (A note says that the rest of the band do not share those thoughts, they just hate everyone!)
Sandalbutt's music matches the attitude: heavy, gutsy and guitar-driven with plenty of force but enough style and melody to avoid heavy metal cliches. The band has a great sense of tension and release. Sandalbutt's singer (whoever he is, there is no info) has a great rasping, powerful voice. This sounds like a band that has paid it dues at smoky pub venues and knows how to get an audience's attention.
The slogan, "The revolution starts with u", is what rappers True-l are all about — it's plastered several times over their CD. It's a peculiar type of revolution, though, even if they sing "People get the power, people to the people/ Get up, stand up, come on/ We're all equal". True-l (the "l" stands for "life") are a project of the Blue Mountains Christian Life Centre.
This is light, white rap, gentle on the eardrums and layered with sweet harmonies. They are imaginative, talented and very easy to dance to. Anyone who has a problem with their unremitting religiosity had better not listen — or follow their lead and get the message out through music.
Curiosity, by young pop punkers Fifth Place, is a great reminder of just how much noise three teenagers with amplifiers can create. When this CD was made, two band members were 15 years old and one was 16. They create a wall of noise, following in the footsteps of Frenzal Rhomb and Blink 182. Any concession to gentility is just to lull you into a false sense of security. This band roars along at full tilt and has enough momentum to carry them a long way.
The cover of Blood, Sweat and Beers has a picture of God passing a beer to Adam. Inside, the cover notes thank Narcotics Anonymous, Mission Beat ("for picking me up out of the gutter when I overdosed on George St") and plenty of others. It shows that in their short lives, these punks have covered a lot of rough terrain. You can hear the scars in the music.
The Hassle Brigade, if they manage to live long enough, have the musical force to break the western Sydney scene out into the wider world. They unabashedly play raw punk in the style of early Clash; great gob-fulls of "fuck you" attitude come splattering out of the speakers. Songs about how hard it is to stay clean and off drugs, about living in squats, and just swearing for the sake of burning off anger — all punched out in short bursts with venom. Its great stuff. They are off to Japan soon to tour, I hope Tokyo survives.
Two other bands have produced CDS, but Green Left Weekly has not been able to find out how to get hold of them. Futile have perfected the heaviest guitar sound this side of a ton of bricks. From the opening track of their self-titled album, they lay it on thick. No mucking around with an acoustic guitar to vary the tone, just solid, serious, screaming, thunderous metal, metal, metal! You don't need to bang your head along with it; it's so heavy it'll smash your head against the wall all by itself.
Ubiquitous are another mob of heavy metal smashers but they don't have the demonic energy of Futile. Which is understandable, because they thank "God, our saviour and lord, whose son gave his life for us all". Unfortunately, the music comes across as a polite version of Black Sabbath, which is a pity. There is musical ability a-plenty here (they borrowed Glister's guitarist for the record) but fatally lack the crazy commitment which the best rock music demands. Still, there is enough here to justify a future for them.
Ob(zine) is the mouthpiece and organising vehicle for this scene. Done on the cheap on a home computer and photocopied, it is now up to its eighth issue. Distributed free through small record shops, copies are hard to get hold of because they are snapped up so quickly.
Advertisers who have supported Ob(zine) have reported that the response they get outweighs all their other forms of advertising put together. This shows that the tiny, pocket-sized fanzine has got a dedicated support base which reads every page avidly.
Ob(zine) is organising gigs for local bands from the top of the Blue Mountains to the western Sydney. It has plans are to eventually spin off separate skateboarding and arts magazines. There is a web page at <http://fly.to/obzine>. You can sign up for the e-mail list to keep up with gigs by sending a blank e-mail to <obzine-subscribe@listbot.com>.