Posted June 2, 2007
By PATRICK EMERY
Western Australia, Australia’s most geographically isolated state, has always exhibited a profoundly parochial and independent character. In 1936 the state of Western Australia voted to secede from the Commonwealth of Australia (a largely symbolic gesture that was ultimately negated by the demonstrative Constitutional provisions that tied Western Australia to the rest of the Australian nation state). Some years later a particularly enterprising couple decided to follow in the steps of the secessionists and set up what they claimed to be the autonomous Hutt River Province (complete with constitution and postage stamps), located somewhere in the regions of Western Australia.
On a sporting level Western Australians regularly proclaim the superior merit of their sporting stars, with solid foundation – it was Polly Farmer more than Ron Barassi who revolutionised Australian rules football in the 1960s with his 20 metre handballs, and the Victorian Football League (rebadged and commercially branded ‘AFL’ sometime in the late 1980s) owed much of its comparative advantage in the 1970s and 1980s to Western Australian imports of the ilk of Barry Cable, Graham Moss, Peter Bosustow and Ross Glendinning. And where would Australian cricket be without the lethal Western Australian duo of Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh?
Western Australia’s musical tradition is no less impressive. The local Perth punk scene of the mid to late 1970s – which included such modern day Australian punk rock luminaries as James Baker, Kim Salmon, Dave ‘Flick’ Faulkner, Roddy Radalj and Boris Sudjovic – was as small as it is now legendary. Bands like The Victims, The Scientists and Le Hoodoo Gurus are regularly cited in local, national and international punk rock histories as seminal punk rock outfits. The second wave of Perth garage punk centered around The Stems, featuring Australian garage and powerpop auteur Dom Mariani, has been no less significant in Australian garage and punk genealogies.
In the early 1980s another less heralded, but equally notable, garage rock band formed in Perth out of the ashes of the obligatory enthusiastic high school outfit. The Kryptonics, fronted by art school student Ian Underwood, had its genesis in a high school band by the fantastic name of Satanic Menswear.
The Kryptonics played their first ‘real’ show in 1985, developed a strong local following in the west, toured Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney on a regular basis, had 10 different line-ups (which along the way included variously future members of You Am I, Front End Loader and Lubricated Goat) and ultimately fell apart in 1992, a couple of years after moving to Sydney. The band’s recorded output is relatively slim – some singles and a couple of EPs – but its reputation lives on amongst the punters fortunate enough to witness the band live, or hear the fruits of their recording labour.
A Kryptonics compilation, “Rejectionville,” has just been released on Kryptonics protagonist Ian Underwood’s Memorandum label (a subsidiary of the Reverberation label, co-owned by Underwood and former Kryptonics and current You Am I and Radio Birdman drummer Russell Hopkinson). A two CD digipack, “Rejectionville”, features the band’s entire recorded output, plus a bonus CD that includes the band’s first ever live show (and the first line-up of the Kryptonics). Patrick Emery spoke to Ian Underwood about the Kryptonics story.
“It was vibrant for me,” Underwood says, recalling the Perth scene in the early 1980s. “I was just out of high school, going to see lots of bands. In general the whole of Australia was vibrant, but there was a real explosion around that time.”
Underwood points to Christmas 1983 as a particular moment in time when the potency of Perth music became apparent. “Bands used to return to Perth around Christmas,” Underwood says. “The Scientists returned, and the Beasts played – first it was Tex backed by the Scientists, then Spencer flew over.” The next year saw the release of the Hoodoo Gurus’ seminal Stoneage Romeos album, with The Stems hitting their straps not long after.
Underwood is justifiably proud of the Western Australian punk rock scene – and he’s also happy to locate his pride in a broader parochial context. “They have this thing in WA called the ‘birth mark’,” Underwood says. “It’s used to encourage you to buy stuff that’s made in Western Australia. It’s a little stylised map of the state – if you look at anything that’s made in Western Australia it has this mark. I just assumed every state had this same type of mark, but when I got to Sydney no-one knew what I was talking about,” Underwood laughs.
Unfortunately for the local tourist authorities, the Perth punk scene wasn’t stamped with the local birth mark. “I was acutely aware of the Perth heritage, even it was a fairly small scene,” Underwood says. Underwood says his own contribution to the local – and national – scene was always (despite, or maybe because of, the rotating membership) ‘his band’.
“I never had any songwriter in the band,” Underwood says, “but it’s not as if I was a draconian dictator.” Underwood sees the story of the Kryptonics as “a bunch of bands that could’ve all had different names.” He points to Chris Bailey’s approach with the Saints as a model. “I don’t really like change,” he says. “Some line-ups of the Kryptonics were stylistically very different, but I didn’t want to start again with a new name each time.”
While the Pete Frame style family tree included in the liner notes lists ten separate line-ups, Underwood highlights only three important line-ups: the second line-up (which featured future Lubricated Goat members Peter Ford and Brett Hartley), the band that recorded the ‘69’ EP (featuring Russell Hopkinson and Greg Hitchcock) and the final line-up (with Front End Loader and Hard Ons drummer Pete Kostic). “I copped a bit of flack when line-up #2 broke-up,” Underwood says.
“A few people thought the next line-up was too ‘rock’n’roll. But Greg Hitchock was a shit hot guitarist,” he says. The second line-up had its fair share of amusing rock’n’roll stories, some of which are documented in the “Sex, Drugs and Mum in the Front Row” book released a few years ago (Underwood’s tale of being locked up in the isolated Nullaboor town of Eucla for a driving offence is particularly amusing).
After spending a few years forging a strong reputation in the local Perth music community, Underwood eventually moved to Sydney in the late 1980s (Hartley and Ford had moved there before, leading to the demise of the second line-up of the band). While he’s proud of just about everything the band did, Underwood’s strongest affection is reserved for the final line-up of the band that gelled out of his time in the Harbour City.
“My favourite line-up was the last line-up – by this stage we were actually a band. Not only did we become pretty good, but we were also good friends. We recorded the “Bad September” 7,” which was my favourite record we released. We lived in the same house in Chippendale, and it was unreal, a really exciting time. We did lots of touring. I reckon that’s the line-up that worked the best,” Underwood says.
In 1992, after a hectic touring schedule and the release of the “Tonka Tuff” mini-LP – Underwood says he “crossed the country eleven times in the service of rock’n’roll” – the Kryptonics finally called it a day. Or, more accurately, Underwood retired the name.
“There was an unspoken rule with the last line-up that when that line-up ceased to exist, that would be it,” Underwood says. It was a group pact backed up by the harsh reality of existence. “We also realised it was getting pretty grim for the band. After being in Sydney for about six months we realised we should have moved to Melbourne. We’d originally moved to Sydney because Waterfront [which released most of the band’s material] was there. Melbourne was going off at the time, with bands like Hoss, the Powder Monkeys and Bored!, but we were stuck in Sydney, which was dying.”
In the aftermath of the retiring of the Kryptonics name, Underwood took a break from playing music. Underwood eventually formed Challenger 7 a few years later, with the band initially comprised entirely of former Kryptonics members (Underwood, Kostic, Greg Hitchcock and Richard Corey). The seeds of Challenger 7 lay in Underwood’s role as driver for You Am I in the mid-1990s, at that time on the cusp of its first commercial wave.
“That revitalised me,” Underwood says. “I got my enthusiasm back to play music, but being a bit of a Perth snob I had only Perth people in the first line-up of Challenger 7.”
Underwood subsequently formed Reverberation distribution with fellow Kryptonic Russell Hopkinson. “Russell and I decided that physical distribution wasn’t too hard, so we started running the business out of the front room in my house.”
Underwood plans to commission a line-up of the Kryptonics – probably the last line-up – later this year to play some reunion shows in Perth. While Underwood hopes to play some shows in Sydney and Melbourne, he needs to be confident that it’ll be worthwhile. “I’m really wary of playing to a half empty room,” Underwood says.
