Publication:
MaximumRockNRoll

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

MRR #213
This month we follow the continuing adventures of Code 13 on tour to Australia.

Australia was one of the most anticipated stops on our pacific tour. After a month in Asia we were pretty stoked to be back in the English speaking world. I had always been somewhat fascinated with Australia and I think most of the rest of the band considered it to be a high point of the tour as well.

Australia is a huge country, almost as big as the USA. A former English colony it is fairly sparsely populated, less than 20 million people. The economy is still primarily resource based, mining, and agriculture being the mainstays. Manufacturing and technology are also represented. The culture is quite similar to that of the USA and Canada and not nearly as English influenced as I expected. The traditional Anglo-Irish settlers (who stole the land from the Natives, as in America) have been superceded over the past few decades by waves of immigrants from SE Europe, the Levant and SE Asia, giving Australia a multi-cultural feel that most Americans would relate to. Australians are supposedly really "laid back" and casual about life in general. The American media stereotype of the bushwacking macho crocodile wrestler is about as applicable to every day Australians as the Cowboy stereotype is to everyday Americans. That said Australia still has a very macho, male dominated culture, not that different really from that in the USA. There were numerous times walking around suburban Australian neighborhoods where I felt like I could just as easily be in San Diego or Los Angeles. The suburban middle class lifestyle here is quite similar to that of the USA and has produced not surprisingly a rebellious punk subculture.

When I set my sights on booking Australia I hoped that there would be one person who could set up the whole tour for us like Masaki had done for Japan. I was unable to contact anyone willing to take on such a task, so I had to book each show individually from the US. Once again, this was only possible due to e-mail and fax making communication so fast and affordable. One advantage of Australian geography is that much of the population is clustered on the East Coast with the interior sparsely populated and only a few other major cities on the South and West coasts. Trying to tour Australia in 10 days was like trying to tour the US in 10 days, we were only able to play on the East coast and had to skip Perth and Western Australia from the start. I wrote and e-mailed distros, bands and labels from Australia but my best response came from asking for help in this column. I managed to find people to set up gigs in all of the major East Coast cities. Our timing unfortunately got in the way of playing Adelaide as they had a big festival planned a few days after we would play and no one could set up a gig for us as everything was geared towards the festival. We were just a few days ahead of Good Clean Fun in Australian and they managed to play quite a few more places than we did, I'd be interested to know who set their tour up. If we could do it all over again I would've stayed longer in order to play more weekend gigs, as the weekday gigs were not as well attended and to play Canberra, Adelaide and Perth etc.

Our tour began in Brisbane. Aaron of In League with Satan records had set us up there and also hooked us up with our driver Amanda. Amanda provided a van and driving services for the tour basically just for the cost of gas and maintenance on her van. Without her help I don't think we would've been able to pull off the tour. Almost every city we played was 8-12 hours away from the next. I don't think there is any way we could've pulled off our tour with a rental van or travelling by air or train, at least not without going deep into debt. Brisbane was unusually cold for that time of year and it was rather a shock for us coming from the tropics. It was late fall in the Southern Hemisphere, but unseasonably cold for that time of year. When planning the tour I had consulted charts of average annual temperatures and thought it would be 50-60 degrees in Australia during our visit. I told the guys in the band they wouldn't need winter clothes and so we were pretty underdressed. Still, we are Nordic Minnesota types so the coldest Australian winter is still a breeze to us. Overall it was great to be back in the world of regular toilets, hot and cold running water, shower curtains and water you could drink right out of the tap. Simple conveniences we take so much for granted in the western world. Hanging out and partying with Australian punks was remarkably similar to hanging out and partying with the punks at home, the backyard barbecue is a big deal in Australia. I remember trying to school Germans on this topic. They couldn't understand eating, much less grilling corn on the cob.

Australia does not have quite as organized a network of DIY touring as the US or Europe, or even Japan. I talked to a lot of Australian bands who had only played a few out of town gigs, and then only in the closest big city. In general the local bands were all very good and there seemed to be enough of them to keep people engaged without an endless stream of touring bands. Australia has some really funny rivalries between cities and states. I think these have their origins in Football rivalries but it was really funny to hear people in Melbourne or Sydney talk about Queenslanders maybe the way New Yorkers would talk about bumpkins from the rural south.

Our first gig was in the event room of a pub/hotel in Brisbane. This was a large room and despite it being a weeknight the gig was very well attended. Australians are probably the tallest people on earth. I swear everyone was six foot tall, even the women. I went from feeling like a giant in Japan to a dwarf in Australia. Punk style is Australia has two main influences. First the UK punk style, I saw a lot of mohawks, leather jackets, shorts skirts with fishnets and ripped up Sex Pistols T-shirts. Second, American hardcore, hooded sweatshirts, hockey masks, sneakers and camo pants, the HC kid look. Not surprisingly Australian punk music has a lot of US and UK influences as well. All the genres present in the US are well represented in Australia. However, most Australian punk music seems to lean in two directions, brutal grindcore and thick heavy hardcore. The brutal grind seems to come from both a crusty punk and a sick metal direction. Meanwhile, the heavy hardcore seems to be the bulk of the scene. I'd say the big influences here are early 80's Boston hardcore like Jerry's Kids, the F.U's, and Negative FX as well as fast HC bands like Infest and Crossed Out. I think the band that would go over best here from overseas would be Vorhees.

Which brings me to my next observation. Australia has a totally raging hardcore scene that is virtually unknown outside Australia. There are several reasons for this. First, is of course the general lack of interest in foreign hardcore in the USA especially. Sad, but true. Second, the relative lack of vinyl documentation of the scene. There are only one or two record pressing plants left in Australia and these are quite expensive. The low relative value of the Australian dollar means that it would be very expensive to have records manufactured in the US and that Australian records cost about twice as much to produce as their American counterparts. Third, Australia has a good network of independent record shops and small distros but no large distribution entities for punk music such as Ebullition in the US. Fourth, Australian vinyl editions are very small pressings 200-500 copies are quite common. Few of these records leave Australia. Fifth, it seems most Australian punk is released on CD, comps and split CDs are especially popular. While this format makes a lot of sense for Australia, comps and split CDs are pretty poor sellers in the US, no matter how good they are. I urge everyone who loves hardcore to check out some of the great hardcore coming out of Australia. Unfortunately Aaron of In League with Satan and Clint of Short Fuse records are both abroad right now and Spiral Objective Distro is less active than it once was. However, Barcode the World has a great distro contact them at CON-PO BOX 341 FIVEDOCK 2046 NSW AUSTRALIA. OR TO JAY-PO BOX 175 GEORGES HALL 2198 NSW AUSTRALIA. Check out the CD comps Con of Barcode the world has compiled. My personal favorite Australian band of late is Arms Reach, I urge everyone to check out their discography CD, totally brutal Hardcore. Contact them at 7 Lawson St. Hamilton NSW, 2303, Australia. Another good Aussie label is Chaotic Thoughts, C/A Danny Sano, 14 Rosedale Rd, Gordon NSW, 2072, Australia. Clint and Shortfuse records have moved to the UK but you can still reach him by e-mail shortfuserecords@hotmail.com. Also there is Spiral Objective at P.O.Box 126 Oaklands Park, South Australia 5046, Australia.

OK back to the Brisbane gig, we played with B.A. Barachus, Vicious, Sausage Chopper and Upside Down Flag. I'd have to say this was one of the best-promoted gigs I've ever played. Aaron made like five different flyers and posters, which were all over town. A lot of people turned up at the gig. At all of our Aussie gigs it seems that the curiosity of an international band being in town brought out a lot of old timers who hadn't been seen at gigs in a while. Our Gold Coast gig had fallen through so we spent the next night hanging out in Brisbane and then went camping in the bush. It was nice to have a break from life on the road and I got to see my first, and only Kangaroo in Australia. Having spent a lot of time in the outdoors in the US I was pretty stunned by the Australian rain forest. Rural Australia is very sparsely populated, like the American West. Indeed, the patterns of land use and economic exploitation are quite similar. So too are the environmental problems generated by wholesale exploitation of natural resources by international capital. Of note as well is that Australia, like the US and Canada was not an uninhabited wilderness to be populated by Europeans but was home to a Native culture. The Australian Aborigines had their land stolen and were exterminated in a process extremely similar to the European campaigns against the American Indians. In general the Australian punks I met were much more educated and concerned with environmental issues and native treaty rights than all but a small cadre of American activists. Australia socially has a lot of socialistic programs like Europe and Canada. You can exist on the dole for years and college study is, if not free, heavily subsidized. As a result, many young Australians are over educated and environmental studies seem to be pretty popular. Almost everyone we met was either a student or on the dole, like in Germany or Canada. However, they do utilize all that time to start some really kick ass bands!

Our Newcastle gig we showed up late but managed to catch most of Arms Reach who are as I noted above, my favorite Australian band. I think Conation and some others opened. This gig was in a shed behind a punk house in a mostly industrial area. There was a skate ramp and mad skating during the gig. After the gig there was a barbecue and boozing session that lasted until the early hours. As usual, I was the only non-drinker present. The punk kids in Australia were all really friendly and "laid back" as the stereotype goes. I found the punk scene in Australia to be less commercialized and superficial than much of the American scene. There was some mindless drunken thuggery but in general the scene was very non-violent.

Our next gig was at the Hornsby PCYC outside of Sydney. This was pretty ironic as the gig was in a youth club run by the local police and uniformed cops staffed the hall. Also of interest is that AC DC was a regular here in the early 70's. On the bill were Age of Distrust, Deadstare, Charcoal Human, Slug 7, Bleeding Face, and Brand Loyalty. I'd have to say all were pretty ripping ranging from Grind to Screamo. The next day we went record shopping and ate at the only Taco Bell we could find in the Pacific. Funny how something incredibly banal in the US is suddenly and exciting reminder of home when abroad. I don't recommend the Sydney Taco Bell though, it tastes funny and the Mountain Dew is watered down. The next night we played at the legendary Iron Duke hotel and pub. This gig featured some really great bands Murder, A.V.O., Iron Sausage, Three Found Dead, World on Welfare, and the Blurters. Murder was really far out in their musicianship, pretty unique for a hardcore band. Iron Sausage was total balls out grind with very well thought out political lyrics they have a CD on Chaotic Thoughts. Blurters had a really tough street punk sound with a lot of Hardcore elements and I liked them a lot more than I thought I would. A.V.O. were over the top fast HC, their lyrics are filled with hate and venom, but when I met them they were incredibly nice and friendly guys. Three found Dead were early 80's Boston HC revived and World on Welfare was an all out crusty hardcore attack in the Doom, ENT vein. Just getting a roster of bands like this to play together in the states would be a feat but here everyone seemed to be equally into all the different varieties of punk and hardcore mixed up on one bill. I saw very little evidence of an emo scene but punk, grind, street punk, hardcore and SE seemed to mix pretty well in the scene without much of the schism you would expect in the US.

I had a blast bumming around Sydney and Melbourne as the low value of the Australian dollar makes records very cheap. Found lots of UK punk and hardcore at pretty good prices you can't get any better than 5$ Ripchord LPs. There were a lot of Goth and Metal records about as well as a great deal of cock rock like Turbonegro. T. Rex must have been huge here in the 70's, I saw a ton of used T. Rex Lps. We left for Melbourne and the curse of Code 13 managed to fall on Amanda's van. Just outside Melbourne the engine seized up. If you've ever hung out with us on tour you know that we have a propensity to cause every vehicle we ride in to have a major breakdown. We put three engines in one or our tour vans alone. We managed to get a train into town in plenty of time to play the gig though and had the van towed to a junkyard and a new engine installed in time to make it back to Sydney to catch our flight.

Melbourne was a Monday night gig and so only the diehards showed up. We played with Stamanech, the Kill, Soberphobe and Recalcitrate. This was much more of a crusty punk/drunk punk show than the rest of the Australian gigs. One person noted this was because all the clean cut hardcore kids had to go to work or school the next day while all the crusties were on the dole. Whatever the case it was still a pretty raging show and the bands were totally brutal, especially the Kill who played 100 MPH grind with great ferocity. As AC DC once said about touring, "Its harder than it looks." It takes a special brand of dedication to fly around the world, drive 12 hours, blow an engine and still make it to a gig for only like 50 people who really care about this sort of music.

Staying at the local punk house you realize punk houses are the same around the world. The unmowed lawn, the piles of empty beer bottles, the dumpstered furniture, the refrigerator covered with punk stickers. Only the band names on the stickers differentiate this punk house from one in Kansas or Montreal. Another tragic similarity of punk scenes worldwide is the toll speed and heroin is taking on the punks. I sat around and listened to people talk about ex band members and roommates who had O.D'd been in rehab etc. Once again it could've been any punk house any where but it illustrates all to clearly how some of the most creative and independent minded people seem to succumb so quickly to a deadly one way trip into drug induced oblivion. We drove back to Sydney and I have to wonder how Amanda was able to put up with our lewd jokes, endless games of 20 questions, and a Capella renditions of Queens's "bohemian rhapsody" but we made it. Driving in Australia you notice that they have the same sort of biker, trucker, hot rod and muscle car culture we have in the US, just on the other side of the road. It's interesting how two similar countries on opposite sides of the world develop parallel cultural phenomenon.

The gigs in Australia actually paid very well, better than similar sized gigs in the US. I think mostly this was because we were an international act and the locals played for free or gas money. We sold a fair number of shirts and records but we were crippled in the merchandise department because only one of the four boxes of merch I'd sent from the US arrived in time for the tour. Despite spending something like $600 on airmail postage most of it didn't manage to arrive for several months. This along with not having much merch in Singapore and Malaysia really hindered the amount of money we could've made to offset our expenses. Remember that crass commercialism that it is, merch at gigs is the lifeblood of a band on tour. I still think we managed to make about 1500$ in Australia after covering the van etc. I don't think that would pay but one persons air fare to Australia, but as I said in an earlier column if you could do Australia in conjunction with a Japanese tour its totally practicable. I would actually recommend it as very few international bands come to Australia and there is a great scene. I don't know how Good Clean Fun did, but I'm eager to ask them as they are playing here in a week. After a night in Sydney we flew to New Zealand, which was a blast but you'll have to wait for next month to hear about that.

Publication Date:
January 1, 1988

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