ORSTRALIA A Punk History 1974-1989 by Tristan Clark (published by PM Press, 2024)

X photo by Bruce Tindale

In conversation with Tristan Clark

Author Tristan Clark

By Ian McFarlane

I met author Tristan Clark a few years ago at a book launch in Melbourne, and he explained to me that he’d been working on a manuscript covering the history of Aussie punk, and that he was thinking of calling it Orstralia.

With a title that specifically referenced a Saints song, I said I thought it sounded like a damn good idea, that it was something I’d want to read, so get on with it. With the recent publication of his book and the chance to catch up and talk about it, he confirmed that I was encouraging, and “you weren’t dismissive at all”.

Not that I had anything to do with getting him over the line, but ORSTRALIA A Punk History 1974-1989 is the result and it’s a deep dive into a huge slice of musical and cultural history. The back cover text says, in part, “With appeal to more than just punk history obsessives, Tristan Clark’s Orstralia offers an unprecedented exploration of a largely unseen segment of Australian life and history”.

All the best-known and much-loved names are present and correct, and as you dig deeper into the text there are so many subterranean names emerging that it reveals a whole tremendous mosaic in full detail. The text is readable, the narrative easy to follow. If at times he skips over things relatively swiftly, at least you know he was covering as many bases as possible. In fact, he wrote so many words that he had to divide the manuscript in half, so if you want you can also get hold of Volume 2 which covers the years 1990 to 1999.

It’s also worth mentioning that Clark is a musician, having played guitar in Melbourne crust punk band Schifosi (circa 2004) and post punk band Infinite Void (circa 2012), so I would suggest that he has a fine appreciation of the tenets of the punk genre.

Third Stone Press: Congratulations on the book. You explain in the Introduction that it wasn’t your intention to resolve the question of what constituted punk. And being based around interviews and your experiences, how did you approach it to start with?

Tristan Clark: I wanted it to be readable to my friends. I didn’t want to make it too convoluted.

When did you first get exposed to punk?

My first exposure was a skate film that came out in the early ‘90s, there was a brief snippet of DRI playing, a very fast intense band. I had no frame of reference at that time but there was still something alluring about it. Slightly terrifying as well. Back then you had no means of identifying or acquiring the music easily, not like now, you had to dig deep. It was more what was in your immediate vicinity. Then a friend from school he met a guy in a punk band who passed on a cassette and that ended up in my hands so I could then trace it back to what I had heard earlier. ‘Ah, this is it’. Then we discovered this whole scene. There was an all-ages venue close to where I was living in Croydon, EVs, they would have international touring bands there as well as all the local bands. You’d have hundreds of kids. I remember seeing Fugazi there and it was wild.

When did you start hitting the pubs? It was past even post-hardcore by that stage.

I guess it was that weird period when punk wasn’t particularly strong. It was being subsumed by that resurgence of interest in guitar music, alternative rock and grunge and punk was being mixed in with that, that weird amorphous era. You’d get punk bands alongside grunge bands on bills. Looking back now it was all very rigid. I think I started sneaking into the Tote when I was 16. The first gig I went to was a crust punk night, very intense. We were just these long-haired stoner kids from the suburbs, and it was the full regalia with the mohawks, the studs and the full black clothes. That was eye opening and rather intimidating.

I can visualise your flow. So, what then tipped you off to finding out about earlier punk bands... when did you go, ‘what, there were punk bands in 1976?’. Was that a Eureka moment?

I guess we were more just consuming what was available, the bands that were local to us. As well as the bigger bands from interstate. The Hard Ons we loved. I think the only early band we listened to was The Saints. Other stuff, the early UK stuff, early ‘80s hardcore, the studs and mohawks, it just didn’t appeal to us. We were suburban kids in our converse sneakers and flannies, more akin to grunge at that time. I guess the style didn’t really resonate with us. Whereas stuff like The Meanies, that was very much the style I could identify with. More drawn to bands like that. It wasn’t until much later that I then started excavating into the past and hearing the earlier stuff.

So, you didn’t change to suit that? In the late ‘70s kids cut off their long hair, adopted the punk mode of dress and renounced the past.

I didn’t change, even when I first moved into the inner city I still had my long hair, I probably wasn’t even exclusively dressing in black at that point. That was obligatory eventually. No, I was never big on the aesthetic, it was foreign to me. I came from a middle-class background, it was too performative to me, given my background.

What was it about punk music in particular that did resonate with you? The music? The history? What was the impetus to do this book?

It was probably born out of being in a mundane customer service job, if I’m being honest. I was seeking something with a bit more purpose. Also, I’d just re-read Inner City Sound, and I was finding out about other punk histories from overseas. The Jon Savage British punk book.

Yes, I’d consumed all those books too.

And then it became apparent that books on Australian music tended to be narrower in terms of the bands and the places and the years covered. There was nothing really comprehensive to bring it all together. I had this thought that someone needs to bring it all together. I thought maybe I’m that idiot to take that project on.

I love that, you’ve spotted a gap and decided to leap into it. Have you gone back through everything and marvelled at what you achieved?

That’s the thing, I’ve read it so many times. It’s been seven or eight years since I started, so it got to the stage that I wanted it done and out of my life. I want to move on to something else. Looking back at the ease of being able to get interviews with people was surprising. I spoke to pretty much every band that I had wished to.

Did you have to do a bit of detective work to get hold of people? I do marvel at the number of people you did interview.

Most of it was simply through social media. Trying to apply names to the profile and I’d enquire, ‘I don’t suppose you played in this band?’. Sometimes it was, ‘ah no mate what are you on about?’. I started small and once I had a few interviews I could use that as leverage, ‘here are the people I’ve interviewed, would you be willing to do one as well?’. Doing an anonymous ‘I’m writing this book’ doesn’t always work. But then I was surprised that so many people were putting their trust in me, that people who were unknown to me or I was unknown to them, that they were willing to afford me their time.

I’ve learned that, by and large, musicians want to tell you about their experiences.

Yes, that became evident. Some people were chuffed that someone was giving them a sliver of attention after all these decades.

There are some obscure names in there, bands like Queen Anne’s Revenge and Screaming Abdabs for example, miniscule names in the greater scheme of things. Did you get to talk to Carmel Strelein, a very important if generally unknown figure in that early Sydney punk scene?

She looked wild. Actually, from memory I believe she’s dead. I have a feeling, ‘cos she moved to the States and then was murdered by her partner.

**Carmel Strelein photo by Norman Parkinson**

Ah, right. By all accounts she was a real scene stealer.

You can imagine that silhouette walking down the street in late ‘70s Sydney. People expressed to me a number of times that punks looked like people from another planet.

Yes, in London you see those original news items or news footage with people literally looking on with disgust and distain. That was a real cultural upheaval. It happened here to a certain extent but not to such extremes. I do remember a friend of mine, who was in one of the original Sydney punk bands, he was dismissive of some of the second generation punk bands, I can’t remember the exact words, but it was like he thought they were try-hards. And some of those bands only played a few gigs. But then you have all the big names in there.

I was fortunate enough to have seen quite a few of the early Melbourne punk bands. I wasn’t in the punk scene but I did see it unfold. Also, when Sydney bands toured Melbourne, you had Scientists, Celibate Rifles, Hard Ons, Lime Spiders etc. One band I also remember was called Box of Fish and they were one of the first we’d seen sporting foot high mohawks. And all the Melbourne hardcore bands, Depression, Permanent Damage etc, they all had the regulation look and outfits and that UK Decay Exploited look with the mohawks that they’d plaster up a foot high.

You’ve covered bands such as The Press and The Nauts, who either came out of a hard rock background or the glam scene. The Press were previously Southern Cross, full on hard rock, then they changed direction to a more Clash like sound. Couple of the same members just a different sound. Some people were sceptical of Supernaut changing stream, they were looked down on by listeners. They started to do Stranglers covers. I like the Nauts record, but how do they fit into a punk book?

Ah, that was the thing. I was pretty broad in my terms of reference, without actually offering a qualifier at the beginning of the book. I tried to keep it as broad as possible without going on to make it a 12-volume epic. Um, I just thought it was fascinating that a band like that, who had some commercial success, then whether it was a real interest in punk, they sniffed the winds of change, ‘this is where music is going’. They jumped on it. They claimed they were into punk.

They made that transition, but whether it was seamless or not is another question. Don’t get me wrong, I think both the Press record and the Nauts record are good, more New Wave and I don’t have a problem with them being included. I’m thinking other people might?

Ah yeah, someone questioned the inclusion as soon as I put the list up. I included others like Dave and the Derros for the punk single, ‘Death to Disco’/’Punk Princess’ but that was a parody. I figured anything that might have a good back story I was willing to include, regardless of the debate or the contentiousness of whether they’re punk or not. If it had an interesting story accompanying it, I was willing to include it.

I get it. Another thing is the early Melbourne punk scene and the arrival of Suicide Records, and that was a really divisive thing for people in the scene. You were either true to your roots or were willing to try a commercial path. As an observer, the Suicide story is very relevant. For me some of my friends were on a record, it was exciting. I saw those bands at the time. I was a suburban long-haired guy and I’d go to the gigs and not feel out of place. The Suicide venture was a failure ultimately, and divisive but I thought it was really good as a statement and for some young bands to get a foothold on the broader scene.

Yes, and I begin the Melbourne chapter with Suicide because I thought it was the overarching theme of the time. It was fascinating that you had someone who was able to get support from a major label, trying to get their hooks into punk. The complete inverse of everywhere else; labels in most other places weren’t interested, at first. You could say that Birdman ended up on a major label, and you also had The Last Words, from Sydney, they were the first band, post Birdman and The Saints, to put a record out on a major label. Beyond that the music industry just wasn’t interested at all.

In Melbourne, bands that didn’t sign to Suicide, Babeez and Philip Brophy’s band Tch Tch Tch, I guess that they hated the whole idea of Suicide. And Bruce Milne is quoted as saying it was so divisive. And people would laugh behind Barrie Earl’s back. He was an old style manager, he’d been around managing bands since the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, so he was kind of a chancer. At the time, he intimated that he was the guy who launched Melbourne punk but that was far from the case.

Yes, I guess you had that more politicised element, exemplified by the Babeez and News. You had the north side of the river who were derisive of the other side, St Kilda and the Ballroom scene, and vice versa.

And you had Boys Next Door who went on to bigger and better things. Teenage Radio Stars played for one year then they divided and that paved the way for Models and James Freud and the Radio Stars. I like to follow the narrative of these things, so I see that as important stepping stone onto other things.

There were so many people who had that background in punk who went on to greater recognition in more mainstream acts. Especially with the ‘90s alternative scene. I mention in the second book that there was a compilation of early ‘90s Aussie alternative bands and you can identify former punks in most of the bands. It was called The Next Wave, put out by Polydor. It had Def FX, Caligula, Mantissa, Tumbleweed, You Am I, Clouds... many of the musicians played in earlier punk or hardcore bands. They all gotta start somewhere.

Any particular interviewees that challenged your earlier beliefs?

I think the one thing that I extracted from most of them was this greater theme of damage or trauma within punk. Aside from those who made good out of punk, beyond the music itself, through art or fashion and other creative outlets, there were lot of stories about the damage that was done conversely to so many people. That was really challenging. To hear those stories, at times I felt like I was counselling people. It might have been one of the few opportunities to dispel that past and those emotions. People got quite intimate with me, even though we’d never met before. That was hard. It was quite discouraging in that you immerse yourself in a cultural form for literally decades but then you find this dark negative side to it. Coupled with all the violence you start questioning your own place within it. There was a lot of hard drugs coming into it.

I don’t want to portray it all negatively. Punk also had the ability to perform this collective self-care. That hasn’t been acknowledged. It gave people a place and identity within the scene, to expel their emotions.

I think a good example of that might have been Smeer, guitarist from Depression and his Hardcore House which was a centre for that Melbourne hardcore scene. Bands gathered and created. You had the girl band GASH and Smeer played drums for them.

Yeah, and they were anti-drugs as well. They had more of a positive emphasis, whether it was widely listened to or not, they made that attempt at least.

There are some funny names appearing here, Alligator Parade... did you know their original name was Aardvark’s Afterbirth?

Yep. At various points I do make light of some of the names. Often you don’t think about the names without the context. I mean, even Dead Kennedys as a band name, someone who thinks about it outside of the punk context will find it really confronting. Some names seem absurd or grotesque.

There were bands like Murder Murder Suicide, Crucified Truth, Insane Hombres. With regarded to recorded works, a lot of these band put out singles or cassettes, maybe a mini album, but aside from the legendary Saints, Birdman, Scientists, Victims or whoever, what are some of your favourite punk records?

A lot of my favourites never really got proper releases, or it was only posthumously like the Cheap Nasties, the pre-Scientists band. It took decades till it finally had a proper release. That’s as good as anything else that was going at the time, even internationally. I think it’s stood up really well. A lot of the ‘80s hardcore is not my thing admittedly but there are a few things through the ‘80s as cassette releases that have never been reissued, which is a shame. I think a few of those really stand up against anything being released at the time and which are still completely unknown. The end of the ‘80s into the ‘90s was great. I love the Cosmic Psychos, their early albums. The Hard Ons as well. The Splatterheads were one of my biggest faves. I could listen to them every week for the rest of my life.

Proton Energy Pills? I thought they were more that stoner rock, pre-Tumbleweed sound.

Sure, definitely more that Detroit sound, I wanted to include them. Other people were questioning me, ‘is this just going to be British mohawk punk?’. So, here’s the list of bands, and they’d go, ‘great, I’ll read that’.

Frenzal Rhomb, Bodyjar, all those kinds of bands that were successful in the ‘90s, all deserve to be included. They admittedly had a more commercial sound. The early Living End records are phenomenal.

People definitely would be rankled by the inclusion, but I was like, well, how could I not include them? By writing something that was a comprehensive history, without including them didn’t make sense to me. Regardless of whether you consider them to be punk or not, I had to include them.

What’s your view on The Saints? They are legendary but do you position them as the originators of punk in Australia? Ed Kuepper and the late Chris Bailey never saw themselves as punk, but they and Birdman are considered the originators of that sound here. Some people have this view that in Brisbane when The Saints were going they were stymied by the oppressive state but they’d already left Brisbane (early 1977) by that stage. It was the Joh Bjelke Petersen era but it wasn’t the police state it became with the formation of the Task Force around 1978. It wasn’t like they got raided by the police all the time. They just couldn’t get gigs because certain agency bookers who had a monopoly on the Brisbane live circuit took a disliking to them. It was the next wave of bands like Razar and The Leftovers who became the focus of the police Task Force which made life hell for anyone remotely punk.

I went to a punk forum a few years ago at Bakehouse studios and Ed was one of the panellists. And a whole bunch of interesting people from that punk era. A couple of people in the audience were saying, ‘well Ed, you lived through the police state, how did you survive the police raids?’. His response was, ‘that’s a total misconception, a fallacy, that never happened to The Saints’. They had left Queensland before the Task Force took over. Where they were in Petrie Terrace was right near the local police station, occasionally they’d get told to turn it down but they never got attacked like the later bands. What’s your position on that?

Yep, I agree. The other misconception regarding the Task Force was that it was solely created to target the punks. It wasn’t, it was to combat unsociable behaviour in general. They made it so that you couldn’t gather in numbers on the street because it constituted an unlawful fray, a threat, a riot or whatever. I think the punks just became a readily identifiable target because of that. And a very easy one too. Just these scrawny kids. And because The Saints didn’t play that many shows in Brisbane in the day, it’s something that people aren’t aware of. They didn’t have the same aesthetic as the later punk bands, the kids that came after, so therefore they weren’t as easily identifiable to the police. And yet, that whole punk and police thing is probably an unacknowledged part of punk history.

It wasn’t just punks; it was anyone deemed to be subversive. It was any activist, whether it was gay people, indigenous people, so punks were just one section of that. They were all confronted by the police violence. I feel that when I spoke to some of the early Brisbane people, they emphasised how bad it really was. There have been accounts of it but I’m not sure they felt that it had been adequately conveyed. I did try my best to portray that level of oppression. People looked to Razar and The Leftovers copping the brunt of it but it actually got worse during the ‘80s. It’s the degree of harassment that went on. People speaking of being pulled over multiple times every day. That has to have a huge effect eventually. That was borne out by so many people departing. They took off to the southern states or to London.

I interviewed a guy who had been treasurer at 4ZZZ later in the ‘80s. He said there was a three-month period where they didn’t get a single subscription, and he saw that as a marker of the impact the police had had, not only on the punk scene but the broader alternative and political scene of Brisbane.

Who are the cover stars on the books?

The first one is a guy called Bird from a band called World War XXIV, and the second volume is a guy called Alf from a hardcore band called Drawback. Both of those guys were unaware they were going to be on the covers. The photo on the first cover is blurred but my friend who’s a graphic designer said, ‘no, use it, it’s perfect’. I struggled to find good photos from the ‘90s, most were terrible. But that one was just a small segment of a bigger photo and I thought this looks interesting.

**World War XXIV photo by Bruce Griffiths**

What was the path to getting published by PM Press in the states?

Well, I’d sent out this mammoth 200,000 word manuscript to some publishers locally and I guess they just laughed and said, ‘well, what can we do with this?’. I’m very naive. Then I sent it to publishers in the US and there were two who accepted it, and I chose PM. They said, ‘this is fantastic but there’s no way we can publish it at this length’. I had to go through the process of editing it and that’s when I split it into two volumes.

The founder of PM Press had also founded AK Press, I guess the most renowned anarchist publisher in the world. He left and started PM Press because he wanted to be broader in its politics. He’d played in punk bands in the ‘80s and he was interested in Aussie punk as well. Immediately he was, ‘yes, I want to do this’, which was great. So much Aussie punk is revered overseas.

Oh yeah, whether it’s Radio Birdman, The Saints, The Victims, Scientists, X, Psycho Surgeons etc, it is remarkable that so many of the records stand up against international punk records. The interest from overseas is still there. Someone like Henry Rollins would be into your book.

Yeah, undoubtedly, he’d love it.

Thanks to Tristan Clark, David Laing and for the use of the photos.