Various Artists - 1980 - Ugly Things #1 FLAC

 The Missing Links - You’re Driving Me Insane/The Black Diamonds - I Want, Need, Love You/The Elois - By My Side/The Moods - Rum Drunk/The Easybeats - Goin’ Out Of My Mind/The Vince Maloney Sect - No Good Without You/The Sunsets - I Want Love/The Wild Colonials - Get The Picture/The Creatures - Ugly Thing/The Cult - You’re Just My Kind/The Atlantics - Come On/The D-Coys - Bad Times/Trev Gordon & The Bee Gees - Little Miss Rhythm & Blues/The Four Strangers - Sad & Lonely/The In-Sect - I Can See My Love/The Jackson Kings - Watch Your Step/ Running Jumping Standing Still - She’s So Good To Me/The Vacant Lot - Wake Me Shake Me/The Hergs - Style Of Love/Jeff St.John & The Id - Sunaroid ’67

 

 

 The writing of liner notes for this album is a task of relative ease. Though we are most desirous of conveying illuminating data and succinct facts, there is really not a great deal that can be told about most of the 20 Australian rock groups of the mid-60's inhabiting this album.

To be sure, this is not a greatest hits album. Nary a track contained within was every in sneezing distance of any top 40. Rather, these tracks are the final remnant of a vast surging third-level of Australian beat groups. These are (in most cases) the garage and church hall bands who somehow wrangled a chance to cut a solitary single. When it went nowhere, so did they.

Recording was a much easier and cheaper process in the days before 24 track desks, $100 an hour studios, 'star' producers, and phasers, flangers, noise gates, aural exciters and digital delays. In 1965, a record company or a studio could whip a new band in a 2 track studio with a resident engineer, cut a stack of tracks and stick a couple out on a single -without expending a great deal of money, effort or concern at all. Chances could be taken.

In a commercial sense, most of the chances taken on these artists were failures. In a musical sense, they render the financiers as patrons of the arts. For this is where the howling, seething, fang-bared face of Australian rock is to be found. Music which was executed with scant regard for the dictates of commerciality. Rock for the sake of rock itself-the only truly productive climate. It seems that the further removed from the source 'beat' rock was, the more primal it emerged. New Zealand's R&B Chants probably represent the white r&b outfield, with the acts on this album skirting the same boundary. Despite Australia's predilection for 'cover hits', only a fool would deny the existence of a truly unique indigenous antipodean rock 'sound'. Less polished and harmonic than the US & UK strains, it was a gruffer, harsher, more working class handling of the basic rock principles.

So little seems to be known of the hundreds of non-hit Australian recording acts of the 60’s both in and out of the country. Our damned national inferiority complex led us to believe that it was all weak, derivative fluff .....until albums/EP's like Nuggets, Pebbles, Psychedelic Unknowns, Boulders etc left us smirking at the frankly unimpressive quality of so many tracks deemed as 'classics of their era' in foreign lands. The rock on this album can hold its head loftily in the company of any non-hit English or American rock.

Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Newcastle acts are represented here; each carrying the unmistakeable stylistic markings of their locale. The internationally famous Easybeats, represented here with a track from their Volume 3 album, are the only really 'national' act.

You're Driving Me Insane is from the second lineup of Sydney's Missing Links(Baden Hutchens, Ian Thomas, Chris Gray, John Jones, Doug Ford, Andy James) and has been revived twice (for the 1976 'Oz' film soundtrack and by The Saints). Guitarist Doug Ford went on to Running Jumping Standing Still and The Masters Apprentices. The Black Diamonds hailed from the NSW Blue Mountains area and comprised Colin McAuley, Glenn Bland, Brian Wilkinson, Alan Oloman and Banzai Keogh. This snarling piece of plastic was actually out of character for a fine pop act who went on to have two records in the charts at once - as Tymepiece and Love Machine.

Melbourne's Elois are an unknown entity who cut but one extraordinary single for W&G Records .....The Moods were formed by three schoolchums inthe Melbourne suburb of Richmond, around 1965. With a Stones/Kinks/Pretty Things approach,a carefully cultivated (almost mod) visual appearance, and management by Go-Set founder Peter Raphael, they swiftly arose as a major entity on the inner-city discotheque circuit (Berties, Biting Eye etc). Rum Drunk was one of their two mighty non-hit singles and today commands a sizeable value among collectors. It was penned by 15 year old guitarist John Livi. Other Moods were Kevin Fraser, Carl Savona, Mick Hamilton and Peter Noss. Hamilton joined up with The Vibrants when they moved over from Adelaide in 1967.

Pioneering Sydney rock guitarist Vince Maloney had recorded with The Vibratones, Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and The Blue Jays before forming Vince & Tony's Two with fellow ax-Aztec Tony Barber in 1965. This unit cut one (never issued) single for Alberts and then evolved in The Vince Maloney Sect, with a lineup of Vince, Jimmy Thompson, John Shields and Billy Taylor. Resident on Melbourne's Kommotion TV show, the group scored one moderate hit with She's A Yum Yum, though their cover of Ron Wood & The Birds' No Good Without You was easily their best recording. Thompson & Shields formed the Little Bits to back Peter Doyle, Taylor went on to Flake & Blackfeather. and Vince was summoned to England to become a Bee Gee.

After two singles as The Four Strangers, Lindsay Bjerre, Danny Davison, Zac Zytnik and Eric Connell became The Sunsets -Newcastle's number 1 band. Regular trips to nearby Sydney for gigs at Surf City, the Star Club and Ward Austin's Sunset Disco commanded them a loyal following and their five singles. though not hits, were solid sellers. Their soundtracks to the surf movies A Life In The Sun and Hot Generation were simply excellent, establishing Bjerre as a major writer/musician - a promise which he later fulfilled in Tamam Shud and Albatros. Davidson went on to Kahvas Jute and Band of Light.

Melbourne's Wild Colonials were a much-worked discotheque band comprising Dave Panther, Lindsay Shah, Peter Nicol (from The Flies) and Mick Flynn (later in The Mixtures). They cut three fine r&b-styled singles, highlighted by this 1966 rendition of The Pretty Things’ Get The Picture ..... If the white suburban r&b boom came to a natural end around 1966, nobody told Sydney's Creatures about it because they regurgitated this piece of sublime mania toward the end of 1967 -complete with an opening grunt which defies translation. At a time when moderate long hair was becoming acceptable, these guys dyed their tatty locks to bilious pastel shades and invited the media to react with appropriate horror. Keith Matcham, Greg Laurie, Richard White, and Herman & Rudolph Marcie first recorded for the tiny Sound 66 label, before coming to RCA for this highwater mark in Australian rock recording. Lawrie went on to play with Carson and Daddy Cool.

All attempts at uncovering even the tiniest piece of information concerning The Cult have failed. All we know is that You're Just My Kind was cut as a private demo acetate in a Newcastle suburban studio around 1965. Come out, come out who/wherever you are ..... Known generally as the CBS surfing instrumental band who made global impact with the classic Bombara, The Atlantics were one of the most extraordinarily talented rock groups Australia has ever produced. Unable to shake their original image, they cut one staggeringly original tough-rock single after another for Festival around 1966-67. During this period the lineup of Peter Hood, Thea Penglis, Bosco Bosonac & James Skiathitis was augmented with (50's rock hero) vocalist Johnny Rebb. The group went on to form its own record company and recording studio.

The De-Coys, from Adelaide, were led by a fine songwriter called Alistair Innes. The makers of three EMI singles, they were remarkably adept at producing both great pop and great punk on either side of the one single- more will be heard from them at a later date ..... Brisbane TV host Tevor Gordon was a firm friend of the Brothers Gibb, who lent their names, voices and songs to some four recorded tracks in 1964/65 - all now impossibly rare Miss Rhythm & Blues was also recorded by Steve & The Board, Bryan Davies, April Byron and Judge Wayne . As detailed a little earlier, Newcastle's Four Strangers (not to be confused with John Farrar's Melbourne Strangers) became The Sunsets around 1965. Before the change they cut one highly regarded surf instrumental single for Astor (The Rip/Pearl Diver) and this vocal track for Festival. Sad & Lonely sports a screaming falsetto in the Larry Henley (Newbeats) mould.

Melbourne's In-Sect have the rare distinction of having cut an actual, whole, complete album - with the clever-as-shit title In-Sect-A -Sides. They comprised Frank Sebastyan, Phil Wooding, Peter Manuel, Allan Sands & Geoff Pretty, and left one obscure but classic track - I Can See My Love on W&G ..... Apart from this one killer single A side, The Jackson Kings are remembered for little else than providing Brian Cadd (Caine) & Ronnie Charles for The Groop. However, it is known that members Chas Brown and Neville Ray went on to play in Issy Di's Treo + 1 .. Feedback kings Running Jumping Standing Still were a wild, uninhibited offshoot of the equally anarchic Missing Links-instigated by Doug Ford & Andy James. Over just two (stunning!) singles, the ever-changing lineup included Jamie Byrne (Black Pearls, Groove), Denny Burgess (Throb, Masters Apprentices), Peter Newing (Pieazers) and Doug Lavery (In Focus, Valentines & Axiom). After disintegration midway thru 1967, Andy
formed The Andy James Asylum. Worth hearing is the RJSS's Diddy Wah Diddy (on ·so You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star Vol 2' LP).

Like the Elois and The Cult, the origins and activities of The Vacant Lot (Sydney) and The Hergs (Adelaide) are outside of our grasp at this time - any illuminating information would be most eagerly accepted . . ... Like Max Merritt's Levis advertsing jingle. the Jeff St. John & The ld super-cool scat-rock Sunaroid '67 sunglasses ad-track proved so popular that it was issued on a promo disc by mail order. The ld, resident group at Here -Sydney's first licensed rock disco, were David Bentley, Peter Anson, John Helman and Don McCormack. Anson was an original Missing Link,while Bentley went on to lead Python Lee Jackson and pen 'In A Broken Dream'.

Side One
1. THE MISSING LINKS You're Driving Me Insane
2. THE BLACK DIAMONDS I Want, Need, Love You
3. THE ELOIS By My Side
4. THE MOODS Rum Drunk
5. THE EASYBEATS Goin' Out Of My Mind
6. THE VINCE MALONEY SECT No Good Without You
7. THE SUNSETS I Want Love
8. THE WILD COLONIALS Get The Picture
9. THE CREATURES Ugly Thing
10. THE CULT You're Just My Kind

Side Two
1. THE ATLANTICS Come On
2. THE DE-COYS Bad Times
3. TREVOR GORDON & THE BEE GEES
4. THE FOUR STRANGERS Sad & Lonely
5. THE IN-SECT I Can See My Love
6. THE JACKSON KINGS Watch Your Step
7. RUNNING JUMPING STANDING STILL She's So Good To Me
8. THE VACANT LOT Don't Let Me Sleep Too Long *
9. THE HERGS Style Of Love
10. JEFF ST. JOHN & THE ID Sunaroid '67

* Please note that this track is mis-labelled as “Don’t Let me Sleep Too Long” on the cover. It is really a cover version of “Wake Me, Shake Me” by The Blues Project (which uses some lyrics from the song of the same name by The Coasters.