In the space of less than two years between late 1990 and mid 1992, Ed Kuepper released no fewer than six albums. Three – Today Wonder, Honey Steel’s Gold and Black Ticket Day – were released under his own name, and were predominantly acoustic. The other three were electrical storms of white light, white heat and white noise recorded with a band Kuepper called the Aints, a smirking pun on his first band, the Saints.
The Aints saw Kuepper reclaiming the songs and the energy of that band, feeding into an extended feud between the guitarist and singer Chris Bailey, who has continued to play under the Saints’ name since the original group split. According to the press release ahead of this tour, the Aints “sought to bring justice to the sound and attitude of the original Brisbane-based band”, which at least implies that an injustice was being done elsewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbXGa8GH-e4
Last year, Bailey took his version of the band on a 40th anniversary tour of the release of the single (I’m) Stranded. Now the Aints are doing the same, with the Saints’ first album of the same name released in 1977. And the first show of this tour is in Brisbane – at the Tivoli, no less, the city’s best-sounding room. Saved from demolition and development last year, the art-deco building is celebrating its centenary in partnership with the Brisbane Festival.
With that back story, and weight of history, this show is one of the most anticipated slots on the festival calendar. Kuepper’s timing couldn’t be better: a park in his old suburban stomping grounds of Oxley is being named in his honour; the Saints are receiving similar, long-belated civic recognition. Considering the band was formed in an era of repressive state conservatism, there’s an irony at seeing the occasional politician in the crowd.
Flanked by former Sunnyboy Peter Oxley on bass and the Celibate Rifles’ Paul Larsen on drums, along with a horn section and long-term collaborator Alister Spence on keyboards, Kuepper’s band is built for purpose. He ambles on stage, cordially welcomes the crowd, and tears into This Perfect Day, its riff a hot-rod variation on the Stones’ Paint It, Black. There’s only one key ingredient missing: maximum volume.
It’s followed by The Prisoner, a brooding masterpiece from the Saints’ third album Prehistoric Sounds, but still, things are a little muted. It’s not until the fifth song, The Chameleon, that we feel the band’s full sonic punch as the brass is brought into play. Swing For The Crime is next, and that’s when the entire room lifts, Larsen pounding the song’s tumbling rhythm, the horns blowing the magnificent Stax-style soul break.
Then Kuepper deals a trio of wild cards. The first two are songs which he says were written but never recorded, or played live, by the original band. The first is called SOS ’75 and is as brutal as anything recorded on the band’s debut; the second, Demolition Girl Part 2, was slated for the same album but dropped (it’s also about half the speed of Part 1). The third, Red Aces, was recorded by the Aints on their third and final album Autocannibalism.
In a sense, it’s the highlight of the night to hear these songs, breaking up the predictability of the set list. It also would have been a pleasure to hear more from Ascension and Autocannibalism, the Aints’ excellent pair of studio albums, which featured non-Saints material. But that’s not what this night’s about, and certainly not what the crowd is here for. For the rest of the set, it’s one stone classic after another.
It peaks with Nights In Venice – this time, the riff a molten, sped-up take on Led Zeppelin’s Communication Breakdown – and Messin’ With The Kid. They’re the two lengthiest cuts from (I’m) Stranded, and two of the first songs the band wrote, dating back to 1973–74, when Kuepper and Bailey were teenagers. Messin’ With The Kid especially is still towering, and the addition of brass gives it even more swing and heft.
On Nights In Venice, Kuepper forgets a number of lyrics, as he does on the inevitable closing one-two of Stranded and Know Your Product. Perhaps it’s nerves, or how rarely he performs these songs, but it’s doubtful too many people care, since everyone else in the room knows them backwards. Kuepper, clearly amused and enjoying himself, gets the crowd to sing the opening riff of Know Your Product before leading the band through the song.
They encore with Ike and Tina Turner’s River Deep, Mountain High, a Saints staple from their earliest days. At the song’s centre, Kuepper takes one of his greatest solos, breaking down and rebuilding the pop standard. This wasn’t a perfect night – there were ragged moments, and the sound quality was variable. But when it all clicked, to quote a line from Nights In Venice, the Aints “hit me like a deathray, baby, from above”.
First published in The Guardian, 28 September 2017