New Scientists
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday February 1, 2002
The Scientists
Where Annandale Hotel, Parramatta Road (cnr Nelson Street), Annandale
When February 8 and 9
How much $21.50 plus booking fee
Bookings 9550 1078
More information
The Human Jukebox: 1984-1986 is out now on Citadel
Perth's grunge godfathers are back on the road, writes STEVE TAUSCHKE.
Kim Salmon, the affable mastermind behind the seminal late-'70s/early '80s proto-noise group the Scientists, has had plenty of time to consider the legacy of a group some say helped invent grunge and inspired a generation of flannel-shirted rockers.
"Back then I was on a real minimalist kick that I never really got rid of," laughs Salmon, who now lives in Melbourne. "And things have come along since that have affirmed what I was on about, which was distilling [the sound] down to an essence that can't be reduced any further. That's what Scientists' songs were about."
Formed in Perth in 1978, the Scientists' original line-up featured Salmon on guitar and vocals, James Baker on drums, Boris Sujdovic on bass and Rod Radalj on second guitar. The band mixed the power and trashy attitude of the New York Dolls with the gutsy R&B tunes of the Troggs, Kinks and Stones.
Sujdovic quit during the recording of their debut single, the dynamic punk classic Frantic Romantic (he rejoined the band when they relocated to Sydney), and Radalj followed
him. But the record earned strong reviews in the UK and the US and the Scientists were
on the map.
During this early phase the band toured the east coast and even played the title track
of their Last Night EP on Countdown. Salmon cooked up a string of feedback-drenched, rabble-rousing songs such as Teenage Dreamer, High Noon and It'll Never Happen Again.
The band moved to Sydney in 1981, where another new line-up found a more sympathetic audience for their visceral sound. It was during this period their music evolved into what one critic called "a truly wild, pop-tinged raucousness". Matching it was an image Danella Taylor describes in Rock: The Rough Guide: "They had the longest hair, lowest-slung trousers and tackiest shirts in town."
Following in the footsteps of such expats as the Birthday Party, the Go-Betweens, the Moodists and the Triffids, the Scientists went to London in 1984 where they were embraced by critics and peers alike. For two years the band found themselves moving in influential circles, courting record labels and playing all the right festivals. The 1985 album You Get What You Deserve is lauded by Taylor for its "mountains of fuzz guitar, John Fogerty-inspired twang and inventive, deceptively simple rhythms".
"London was in some ways the centre of the universe back then," says Salmon, whose post-Scientists bands have included the Beasts of Bourbon, the Surrealists and, more recently, the Business. "You could walk down the street and see Marc Almond or Joe Strummer in the bank queue. But it was a Dickensian life that we were leading. In some ways it was a squalid and miserable existence because we didn't have a lot of money ..."
Towards the end of their stay, in late 1986, the band produced one of their finest, and murkiest, releases. The Human Jukebox, their final studio album, was recorded during a few all-night sessions at a cheap studio in the south London suburb of Brixton and released the following year.
Although rejected by the band's US label Big Time - effectively terminating the Scientists' five-album deal - The Human Jukebox is certainly not forgotten. The long-standing Sydney label Citadel recently repackaged it as a 14-track retrospective The Human Jukebox: 1984-1986, assembling select tracks from the original album and the You Get What You Deserve LP.
It follows last year's Citadel reissue of 1983's Blood Red River, which prompted a surprise Scientists reunion show last year on ABC television's Studio 22 program - the band's first show in almost 15 years.
"That was great fun!" enthuses Salmon, who will perform Sydney shows with the band next week as part of a national reunion tour. "Tony [Thewlis, who replaced Radalj on guitar in 1981 and who is flying in from London for the tour] said he was worried about remembering all the songs, but all we really had to do was remember one chord - E. Ha!
"It's true that the reason the band worked was that there was some kind of unbelievable chemistry when the four of us got together. I think we were all scared of losing that."
Salmon insists this reunion tour will be short-lived, despite some lucrative offers.
"Over the years I've had a lot of requests to do Scientists songs, sometimes at inappropriate times. My wife even suggested my tombstone would read: 'No, I will not play Swampland!'"
© 2002 Sydney Morning Herald