In 1974, Chris Bailey, Ivor Hay and Ed Kuepper formed The Saints. Inspired by 1950s rock 'n' roll and the proto punk of the Stooges, their self-released (I’m) Stranded in 1976 was among the first punk records ever to be released. Along with the Go-Betweens, their anti-establishment ethos was fuelled by what the author Andrew Stafford calls in his book, Pig City, Brisbane’s 'neo-fascist political climate’.
Gigs were frequently shut down and profits seized by corrupt police with public protests being forcefully extinguished in what had effectively become a police state. When the 1989 GE Fitzgerald inquiry ended Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s 19-year reign as premier of Queensland and led to the jailing of three ministers and a police commissioner, it not only vindicated the band, but assured them legendary status as champions of freedom. Perhaps more importantly, it set the spiritual framework in place with which all future bands could align.
Matt Kennedy, who began Kitchen’s Floor in 2007 solo recording on a dictaphone, strongly feels this influence. “These bands are cult heroes”, he says. “Razar, Young Identities, The Saints, there are heaps that thankfully did not go quietly into that good night.
“These days we are still stuck with a conservative government because most people seem to be fucking idiots, but it always creates the anger of inspiration for subversive creative output.”
Today, it is not just about punk or rock ’n’ roll. The scene comprises a diverse set of genres and styles. Joshua Watson, member of Kitchen’s Floor and the Sewers, and owner of record label Virtual Cool, says: “The underground scene in Brisbane is so colourful because it's full of all these mini-cliques: stoned noise hippies, sarcastic synth-punks, drunk rockers, DIY-lifers, barflies and smart-casual observers.
“What they have in common is that they're all left of 'left of centre'. You'll generally only hear these bands on community radio and getting an insultingly brief mention in any music press. They're not generally the happy-go-lucky yuppie intern looking to get ahead in the 'music biz'. It's rather a sort of quiet pride that's mistaken for arrogance.”
Andrew McLellan, an experimental musician and engineer, aka Cured Pink, believes Brisbane’s strength is found in its divergence: “Typical line-ups, of the sort I'd think are the underground shows, traverse a range of styles and influences so that a band that is indebted to Goner Records will appear next to one indebted to italo disco.
“But there isn't enough of an audience for any of these niche tastes to have a dedicated lineup or dedicated audience - so everything gets infected. New groups start out of the existing ones.”
Such cross-pollination is accelerated by the electronic influence. Danny Venzin, creator of Brisbane label Lost Race Records, says the city’s electronic music shares the same roots: “These days that garage rock mentality is being applied to electronic music with DIY electronic music being more and more prevalent. I'd say that Cedie Janson and I have come up after this and also as a reaction to it, but it's still part of the story.”
This DIY ethos is embodied in ’zines’. Short for ‘fanzines’, the self-published booklets glued, photocopied and stapled together, appeared with the international punk movement in the 70s in response to the lack of coverage from the mainstream press. Often created by a single person and sold at ‘distros’ (stores), a zine might contain music and gig reviews as well as news. Some, like Annesley’s ‘Negative Guestlist’, can inspire a whole generation.
Kennedy, who also runs the distro and record label Eternal Soundcheck, says: “I source the zines I sell in my distro from all over Australia or elsewhere - basically what I find interesting. Writing is an artform that is sadly being consumed as a digital-only interface and I'll support these handmade printed zines as long as I can.”
Another distinguishing feature of Brisbane is its remote location. While Watson sees the isolation as an advantage (“people feel comfortable to try their hand at new ideas or collaborations”), for Kennedy it is a two-edged sword: “The most interesting people here mostly move away to Melbourne or Sydney once they reach their early to mid-20s. Brisbane is comprised of the dregs that chose not to leave and make the most of it, like myself.
“It's a city that you can really make your own if you put the effort in. It can be shaped to your liking, which ain’t possible in the aforementioned cities.”
All of this conspires to create what Watson feels is the city’s unique sound: “People definitely do say that there is a Brisbane sound. I reckon there is a 'Brisbane sound' or 'attitude' at least. I can't really put my finger on it... but you can usually tell a Brisbane band apart from the others. Tasmanian bands are totally unique as well and it's the same with Adelaide to an extent. Maybe it has to do with just not living in Melbourne or Sydney.”
In Watson’s excellent documentary Brisbane 2012, Joel Stern, curator and musician, describes the city when he arrived in 2004, as having: “..a weird irreverence in the culture, in the music especially, in the noise scene, in the experimental music scene.
“There seemed to be a strange attitude. It was like...it still had a weird hicksville country town vibe, but it was mixed.. I dunno...just an aggressively strange sensibility which I found refreshing.”
It was different, he says, to underground movements he had witnessed in Melbourne and the UK where artists would very self-consciously intellectualise their experimental music.
“In Brisbane it was much more of a ‘just do it’ situation.”
People like Watson and Glen Schenau (Per Purpose and Cured Pink) understand they are part of something important and take pride in documenting the scene. Schenau told Crawl Space magazine: “The photos are an effort to document what is a constantly growing and mutating performance culture that, through my own obsession with the recent past, I know will have its place in the future where there are new nerds who would like to know what band x looked like.”
It is now up to the new batch, bands such as Workshop, Brainbeau, Sprot, Clever, and the Sewers, to continue the traditions.