Kim Salmon

Ron S Peno 1955-2023

From around 1984, after the release of their perfectly titled debut single Out Of The Unknown, Died Pretty were the inner-city Sydney group to see. “They were a dangerous band,” Paul Kelly wrote in his memoir, How To Make Gravy. “Some nights they fell in a heap. Other nights they were incandescent.”

And a big part of Died Pretty’s magnetism was singer Ron S Peno, whose death was announced on his band’s Facebook page on Saturday morning after a long struggle with cancer. Tiny, gifted with immense presence and a keening voice, Peno had held Australian audiences spellbound for over four decades.

But he had some rotten luck along the way. Died Pretty’s fourth album Doughboy Hollow, released in 1991, was his band’s most successful and critically esteemed album. Released in mid-1991, its singles Sweetheart, D.C. and Godbless were crossing over to commercial radio. The album quickly sold out – only for their label to fail to re-press it, stalling its momentum.

Died Pretty subsequently moved to a major label, and their fifth album Trace followed in 1993. A new single, Harness Up, was making inroads on US radio. A tour was lined up, and the band played an industry showcase where an executive allegedly took exception to Peno’s suggestive stage moves.… Read more..

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The Scientists: solid gold

Back in the early 1980s, Kim Salmon once claimed his group the Scientists played the devil’s music. Over a couple of chords and a minimalist beat, they could whip up a furious storm approximating the title of one of their songs: Solid Gold Hell. Their hair was ridiculous (think big) and their clothes were gorgeous.

Ahead of a long-delayed national tour to promote Negativity, the band’s first full-length album since breaking up in 1987, Salmon – whose hair is, if anything, wilder than ever – has finally created a Facebook page for his old band. Going through old photos, he can now see the Scientists for who they were: “This skinny bunch of cute boys that made this really hideous noise.”

After innocent beginnings in Perth, and an early appearance on Countdown, Salmon moved to Sydney in 1981. There he formed a new version of the Scientists, which began thrilling, terrifying and occasionally repelling inner-city audiences. In a rare trip to the suburbs, they had cans of beer hurled at them by Angels fans; soon after, they moved to London.

Salmon wrote for the unique characters in the band, particularly drummer Brett Rixon, as if they were his muses: trying to capture their peculiar mix of sullen apathy and bursts of self-destructive energy.… Read more..

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Tex Perkins on surviving the Beasts of Bourbon

On 14 April last year, an unusually poignant gig took place at the Prince of Wales Hotel in St Kilda, Melbourne. The Beasts of Bourbon – the self-styled ugliest, most badass rock band on the planet – played what would be their final gig in what was perhaps the only way the band could have ended.

Bass player Brian Henry Hooper, for whom the gig was a benefit, was surrounded by half a dozen nurses and wearing an oxygen mask. No one had been sure whether he would be able to play until the moment arrived; the band’s original bassist Boris Sudjovic was on standby. Guitarist Spencer P Jones was also playing one of his final performances.

Hooper passed away from lung cancer six days later, aged 55. Jones died on 21 August, aged 61. And the Beasts of Bourbon – the band that stubbornly refused to die, and had been through numerous permutations and reconciliations during a 25-year history of inebriation, as demanded by the band’s very name – was officially dead.

By comparison, Tex Perkins, the band’s frontman, is in rude health, a few streaks of grey through his leonine mane of hair being the main giveaway of his 54 years.… Read more..

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Spencer P Jones: Hellraiser among Australian rock greats

Spencer P Jones wasn’t a household name of Australian rock music. But he worked with many who were (Tex Perkins, in their band the Beasts of Bourbon, as well as Paul Kelly and Renée Geyer) and was held in high esteem by many beyond these shores, notably Neil Young.

His work as a guitarist and songwriter also influenced many, including the Drones, who covered one of his songs and whose principal members, Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin, recorded an album with him under the name the Nothing Butts in 2012.

The news of his passing from liver cancer on Tuesday, aged 61, was no surprise. He’d been forced into retirement from the stage (a place you otherwise couldn’t keep him from) a few years ago, and was advised of his terminal condition in June.

His rare appearances had been limited to guest spots, one of his last being for the Beasts of Bourbon’s bass player Brian Hooper in April. Hooper came out of hospital to perform, took the stage in a wheelchair and wearing an oxygen mask, and died days later, aged 55.

If this paints a familiarly grim picture of the rock musician’s fate, it might be worth mentioning that Jones’s first album with the Johnnys, recorded in 1986, was called Highlights Of A Dangerous Life.… Read more..

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“He was like a god”: Australian musicians mourn David Bowie

As the Australian music community absorbs the news of the passing of David Bowie at the age of 69 yesterday, musicians and songwriters – especially those who came of age in the 1970s and early ’80s, when the songwriter was at his peak – have spoken of his profound influence on both their work and their lives.

Melbourne soloist Jen Cloher expressed commonly recurring theme of disbelief. “I turned to Courtney [Barnett, Cloher’s partner] last night and said, you just never thought that David Bowie would die. Which is ludicrous, but that’s how it feels … He was like a god.”

Cloher also spoke of Bowie’s indirect impact on her as a queer artist. “The ’70s in so many ways were far more dangerous, far more edgy, far more open to a broad idea of gender than today. It would have rubbed off. You grow up around that, and it infiltrates in ways that you don’t even think about at the time.”

Robert Forster, co-founder of the Go-Betweens, has often written and spoken of his admiration for Bowie. “Bowie was obviously the most important white musical figure of the ’70s. He bestrode the decade like no one else.

“Bowie was beautiful, which was confrontational for a 14, 15-year-old boy.… Read more..

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The Great Australian Songbook II (40-31)

As promised from yesterday. I’ve tried to cover as many bases as possible in terms of decade and genre, avoiding multiple selections for the same artist.

Without further ado, here’s the list from 40 to 31.

40. COSMIC PSYCHOS – Lost Cause (1988)

It was Spinal Tap who pointed out the fine line between clever and stupid. In Australia, you won’t find three smarter beer-swilling yobs than The Cosmic Psychos. This isn’t a song about punching above your weight – it’s about being out of your weight division entirely. “Dr” Ross Knight, the band’s bass player, is a farmer from outside Bendigo who’s been known to cancel tours when his tractor breaks down. At the time he wrote this song, he was working part-time in the medical records department of a local hospital, where he fell under the spell of an attractive young lady who’s “only 19, not a has-been!” “I was about 25, 26 at that point, a bogan fucking pisshead,” Knight recalls. “I said to a mate of mine, ‘I wouldn’t mind taking her out,’ and he goes, ‘Nah – have a look at you! She’s a lost cause, mate!” The song was later covered by L7 and The Prodigy.… Read more..

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