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Jason The Unpopular / Beyond The Grave / Guttersnipe / NerveQuake / Anal Injury / Hornraiser

Frotting With Ennio / Goats And The Men Who Ride Them / Can't Believe We're Really Making Love



1987









Lubricated Goat - Jason's Place
Originally known as "Leather Moustache"
Stu Spasm - vocals, guitar & eggbeater
Kevin - Bass Peter Read - vocals

Patrick Kavanah - vocals
Martin Sutch - vocals Ralph Philips - bongos

Black Eye Records - Black 1

1987
Fly In Da Ointment / Ugly Breakfast / Papa's Got A Brand New Bag / Spontaneous Combustion
Alligator Wine / Hot Cakes For Daddy / Black Star

Stuart Gray - bass, guitar, piano Lachlan McLeod - guitar
Tex Perkins - vocals, harmonica, piano, guitar, balloon Martin Bland - Drums Ewan Cameron - saxaphone

Red Eye Records - Red 2

1985

Meating My Head b/w 20th Century Rake

Sub Pop Singles Club #18 - SP65

1993

Play Dead b/w Prayer For Blood

SP193

1993



Shut Your Mind / Prayer For Blood / Magumbo Head / The Hunt Is Better Than The Kill / Toys / Melting

Stuart Gray guitar and vocals Guy Maddison bass Charles Tolnay guitar Gene Ravet drums

1989

Stroke / Eternal Loser / New Kind Of Animal / Give Chance A Piece / Lullaby / I Saw It
Stu's / Spoil The Atmosphere / Never Know What Hit You / You're Fading Out

Stu Spasm guitar, bass, vocals, unit, synth Martin Bland drums, synth Renastair E.J. guitar, saxophone Lachlan McLeod Sampling

1990
You Remain Anonymous / Next World / Crave / The Hedonists / Half-Life / Psychic Detective
Lost Time / The Soul Remains in Pain / 20th Century Rake / The Day in Rock

Stuart Gray - Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Samples, Synthesizers, Tympani Tony Lee - Bass Vinnie Signorelli - Drums Kirsten, Jaqi, Vicki - Backing Vocals

1994
Bad Times / Spoil The Atmosphere / Nerve Quake / Stroke / Snap Out Of It
You Remain Anonymous / Jason The Unpopular / Cannibals' Lament / Play Dead / You're Fading Out

Stu Spasm - Jack Natz - Bass Ant Migliaccio - Guitar Clem Grogan - Drums

Reptilian Records - REP071

2004

LUBRICATED GOAT 'Schadenfreude' mini-lp

Sort of an odd coining for a record when one takes into account the recent exploits The Goat experienced on their first tour stateside just this past fall (for a full account see our upcoming issue for glorious detail). Schadenfreude means, specifically, a person who takes pleasure in the misery of others, and if that means taking part in the aural delight that any Goat record provides we'd all be hopping on that boat as soon as possible.

Simply, this is the most cognizant of the three records to date and the band benefits from the shorter format indeed. So long as Stuart (Spasm) Gray remains at the helm, their demented vision will remain clear and concise - calling the guy a visionary is simply understatement - and The Goat will remain bent for records to come (so long as Stu continues). Sometimes the penchant for carrying on as they do remains self-indulgent, but the warpedness of what they kick out is an enveloping mass of sound and totality that few fellow Australian bands can distinctly match in quality, let alone originality. Got a problem with that?

This is the third recorded line-up and by all accounts it will not be the last change in personnel (completely different drummer and second guitarist (here Charlie Tolnay of King Snake Roost) from the US tour and it's changed again since they've gotten back), but the core remains intact with Stuart as the helmsman, and Guy Maddison (bass) providing the plutonium anchor from which the Goat sound swings and ultimately detonates. Certainly the live aspect of this band was entertaining if not entirely together all of the time. If these dag munchers could pull it together parallel to recorded output there'd clearly be little room for comparison.
[Black Eye] -Peter Davis

LUBRICATED GOAT 'Paddock Of Love' LP

The first Lubricated Goat album was something like being in the middle of an earthquake in downtown Shanghai. Lots of crunching sounds, upheaval, things bursting and a lot of people dashing around yelling in funny voices. 'Paddock Of Love' hits more of a guitar groove from the start and lacks the sense of unpredictability 'Lubricated Goat Plays The Devil's Music' had.

There are still a lot of bleating horns and twisted guitar lines amid the more defined riffs. 'Paddock' is vaguely reminiscent of The Butthole Surfers, but cuts a path all its own. Definitely an exception tot he common image of Australian wah-wah monomania, this album strikes the right chords. By all accounts, Goat chieftain Stu Spasm is an authentic goofball and he has fashioned two fine LP's in a row. From the first cut, 'In The Raw', you know you're in the hands of a special friend.
[Black Eye] -Bruce Adams

* LUBRICATED GOAT
+ Plate Tectonics + The Chinese Stars

Luxx. 8pm, $5.
If, during Lubricated Goat's apex (such as it was) in the early '90s, you had told us that the Australian scuzz-rock band would still be around in 2003, we would've had you committed. Well, the joke's on us: After many years of all sorts of problems - not enough money, too much drugs, etc. - the Goat lives on. We've no idea who had the spine to run with frontman Stu Spasm these days, but we trust he can drag an audience into the sewers of hell and back again even at the worst of times. Weaklings are advised against attending.

* CRUNT

This is an all-star combo of sorts, featuring Stuart Gray of Lubricated Goat on guitar, Kat Bjelland of Babes In Toyland on bass, Russel Simins of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on drums (everybody contributes vocals). Crunt creates music for infuriated cavepeople, and hopefully their debut is not just a one-off moonlighting project. Delicately crafted lyrics like 'Fat swine in the slammer/Tongue stuck in the door/No place for a squealer/Fresh blood on the floor/Rub harder and harder/ Make it shine evermore/Suck fat from the stomach/Sex dog on the floor' meet lean, muscular, spiky riffs jetting down bumpy detours of grooves. Bjelland belts on only one cut, 'Unglued', while Simins and Gray trade off hurling raspy imprecations on tracks like 'Swine', 'Sexy', 'Punishment' and 'Spam'. It's loud, it's tight and crunchy, it's chock-full of adrenaline, it's kinda crazy - what more could you want? Apparently, there is more life to Crunt than this one disc, as Crunt plans on touring (no doubt they'll open with the rockin' 'Theme From Crunt'). I'm not a big fan of any of these artists individual groups, but Crunt - played at appropriately excruciating volume levels - shakes the walls of my cave nicely.
(Trance Syndicate, Box 49771, Austin, TX 78765)
- Randolph Heard

CRUNT Self-titled [CD]

Initially, you might be interested in this band because it features Kat from Babes In Toyland on bass and occasional vocals, Stu from Lubricated Goat and the drummer from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. But Crunt is clearly an entity unto itself. Shit-kickin' geetar music that sounds like punk rock Skynyrd with no sentimentality. A killer record that has moments of transcendent greatness. Especially check out 'Black Heart'. Whoa!
[Trance Syndicate, P.O. Box 49771, Austin, TX 78765] -M.M.


Crunt (Trance Syndicate/LP/CD)
There are few editorial regulations for the average hack to bother taking note of. Indeed, given such freedom in front of a typewriter, certain less socially confident writers will actually invent their own reviewing rules to keep their brain cells in order. Today's New Rule is thus: collapse and weep at the altar of any album that dares to incorporate a track called, very simply, 'Spam'.

Such is life. We need our constants, and processed meats - whether eaten or simply placed upon TV sets - unerringly fit the bill. The fact that 'Spam' appears to be an integral part of a rather aggressive porcine concept running through 'Crunt' is simply the icing on the... erm, liver sausage.

See, Crunt are a 'supergroup' forged by Kat from Babes In Toyland, hubby Stuart Gray from Lubricated Goat and drummer Russel Simins of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. And if the term 'supergroup' makes all discerning punters weep over their once-played, immediately-discarded hobbyhorse releases, then fair play to this particular threesome for resisting odious indulgences and maintaining a short, sharp SHOUTY grip on proceedings.

More intriguingly, if the lyrics are even slightly autobiographical, then Kat 'n' Stuart are set to make Kurt 'n' Courtney look like Dollar. At Butlins.

'We f---! We Sweat!' howls Grey during the shaggy delights of 'Sexy'. 'You baby! You f---!' he hollers in the scratchy 'Black Heart', while other rants involving 'Snap Out Of It', 'Changing My Mind' and, naturally, 'Punishment' pound past in a flurry of pigs, garagey guitars, pigs, sonic vibrations and yet more pigs. You want another love-battered soundtrack for True Romance? Sneak past the sleeve, splattered as it is with trashed automobiles, and settle down for a less-than-calm journey.

True, Babes watchers will probably be disappointed by the fact that Kat lets rip vocally only once on 'Unglued' (cue cheery lines a la 'I'm comin' to meet ya/I'm comin' to BEAT YA!!!'), but that's taking little away from Crunt's ability to whip up a messy, cathartic storm and chuck out a few classic AC/DC-style "Yeah, yeah, YEAAAAHHHS!" along the way.

And if the dark underbelly of Valentine's Day is a million miles away from the perceived 'seduction' of bloody roses and bloody heart-shaped cards, the sweetly named Crunt should be flying through lovers' letterboxes come February 14. As they put it themselves: "Electric spam, spam, spam/Damn spam man".

Meat to the beat... (?)

Simon Williams

CRUNT

Crunt (Trance Syndicate)
A 'supergroup' featuring Kat Bjelland from Babes In Toyland and hubby Stuart Gray from Lubricated Goat that resists the notion's odious indulgences and maintains a short, sharp SHOUTY grip on proceedings. 'Sexy', 'Snap Out Of It' and, naturally, 'Punishment' pound past in a flurry of pigs, garagey guitars, pigs, sonic vibrations and yet more pigs. Settle down for a less-than-calm journey.


. . . and not only would you have a popular adult film, you'd have CRUNT, the teaming of Babes In Toyland's Kat Bjelland, Lubricated Goat's Stu Spasm and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Russel Simins. Their debut on Trance is loose and shakin' like Elvis Presley from the waist down on the Ed Sullivan show. "That's fair enough," agrees Spasm. "Me and Russell just hooked up for a jam to see what would happen. We played once, and then we recorded them." The bass slot originally belonged to Simins' wife, but when the couple divorced, Bjelland jumped in. As for the name, "It sounds like someone hitting the hood of a car with a baseball bat. There's other connotations that you can only get because there's a girl in the band, otherwise you could have called it Penish or Bloobs." Simins perception? "We're putting the 'r' back in Crunt."




by Steve Peffer

Lubricated Goat has been playing their brand of noise rock, in one form or another, for over 10 years. Originally from Syndey, Australia, the band (founding member Stu Spasm - guitar and vocals, ex- Cop Shoot Cop member Jack Natz - bass, former Spitters member Ant Migliaccio - guitar, and Clem Grogan - drums) now calls Manhattan home. Recently, this latest incarnation of the band released an album entitled ‘The Great Old Ones’. As the title implies, it's a collection of old songs, but redone by the new line-up. While the band was on tour in support of this latest effort, WCSB DJ Steve Peffer managed to get Ant and Stu to sit down for this odd, yet strangely compelling, interview. Thanks to Steve for letting me run this on Utter Trash.

UT: So (to 2nd guitarist), I couldn't hear your guitar at all.
Ant: Well, I don't think you were in the center of the stage. That’s the problem. You were probably standing just to the left of where you were supposed to stand.
Stu: I'd like to talk to you a bit, you look like Jeffery Dahmer.

UT: No, but he's from...like a half hour from here.
Stu: I like your shoes.

UT: Yeah. I just got 'em. Just bought 'em. They’re green. Kinda, forest green.
Ant: How much would it cost to get you to take your clothes off?

UT: That's not what we're here to talk about.
Ant: No, I just wanna.

UT: Probably fifty bucks.
Ant: Really?

UT: Yeah. I could really use the fifty bucks.

Ant: Steve, are you taping this?

UT: Huh? Yeah.
Ant: Then ask me some serious questions about the record.

UT: Sure.
(No serious question is immediately asked, so Ant starts telling a story)
Ant: When we were making that record, I was living in Vernon, Florida at the time. I was trying to collect insurance money, and I was working for Disney World and I was dressing up like one of the weird puppets that they have.

UT: Which one were you dressing up as?
Ant: I don't wanna say, cuz it's sort of embarrassing. Minnie Mouse, I’ll say it.

UT: You were in a small costume.
Ant: Yeah. I was in a small coStume and I was short...and it's like, a female. I’m kinda’ insecure about it. And I’ll say, a lot of the guys that work backstage at Disney World are gay, and there's like, these whole, like, underground tunnels. If you've ever been to Disney World, there's all these underground tunnels.


UT: So, downstairs there's just dudes fucking each other?
Ant: No. it's not that extreme. And it's kind of a weird thing that you would ask about that.


UT: So, that's not what's going on?
Ant: Not even close. And just the fact that you would think that is kinda odd.


UT: Well, you said that there was a bunch of gay guys and then you said something about these tunnels.
Ant: Yeah. That’s all I said. I didn't say that they were fucking each other.


UT: No, I made all that up.
Ant: You did.

UT: Yeah
Ant: That wasn't happening.


UT: So, what's the story (talking now to Stu) with the front cover on this record? Did they even make this on record, or ...
Stu: It's on CD right now.


UT: Do you like it small like that?
Stu: I hate fucking CD's. I wish they were never invented. I mean, it's alright for what it is, but, you've gotta take into account for how small it is and everything. So, I’d like to get it put out on vinyl at some point.


UT: Well that artwork would probably look better bigger.
Stu: Well, it was bigger, you know?

UT: Well, now it's smaller.
Stu: Yeah, if I had more space, it would look like a better composition. I still like the composition of the picture, you know what I mean? Like, the colors and everything. Like the way it's like, team colors. The same color scheme...red and black and green.

UT: Same on the back and the front.
Stu: Yeah. And you haven't even seen the inside.


UT: So, will you explain this front cover for ‘The Great Old Ones’ and how you made it?
Stu: Anybody who’s ever read HP Lovecraft knows the description of the "great old ones". They had tentacles and claws and eyes on these kinda stalks and Stuff. That's what I made. 'Cuz it's the great old ones, it's great old songs and a picture of one of the "great old ones".


UT: So, what did you use to make this artwork?
Stu: I used a dry squid and I put crab claws through it, and I used a smaller dried squid for the head. It’s tentacles look like teeth. I thought I’d have to do it with Photoshop, but all I did was tie an octopus to the bottom of it, and kind of spread out it's tentacles.


UT: You actually bought octopus, crab, and squid and tied them together?
Stu: Yeah. And there's like a green smoke bomb going off, and then a light and some bat wings. We did it outside this mechanic’s place next to our rehearsal room, and they’re all Spanish and they all thought we were performing some ritual to make their business fail, or something.


UT: Because they're Spanish?
Stu: Yeah.

UT: So they're insane?
Stu: No. There's a lot of people around where we live that are into Santeria and all that. It's not uncommon for Spanish people in New York when they get together, if they have a beef with each other, to do little Santeria things to each other.

UT: Santeria?
Stu: Yeah. Mexican...black magic.


UT: So how did you make these eyeballs?
Stu: They're actually Ping-Pong balls painted to look like eyeballs. In fact, that's the one thing that doesn't really follow through with Lovecraft, cuz normally they talk about eyes on stalks. But these are just kinda like randomly placed Ping-Pong balls.
Ant: I have a tattoo of that record cover. I’m gonna have to get naked to show you.


UT: How much would it cost to get you naked?
Ant: Thirty dollars.
Stu: He thinks he's still in Florida. With all that sex...all the people in Florida are all into sex. Sex fiends.

UT: You have that tattoo?
Ant: Well, I don't, but, my grandfather does.

UT: So that's the same.
Ant: Well, it is, because we were very close, and I grew up with him. When I say "I" or "we", I mean him.


UT: You said before that you used to work at sea world, right?
Ant: No. I went to sea world, just to see what was out there. But they wouldn't hire me. My best friend got his thumb bit off at Gator Land. That was kind of a nightmare. I grew up on a golf course.


UT: Who is the closest to an original member of the band?
Stu: No one at all except for me.
Ant: Those guys all live in Australia.
Stu: They live in Seattle. One of them is in this band Monkeywrench.


UT: Oh, Monkeywrench. Hey Jae, (talking to a man in the corner of the room) have you ever heard that, uh, that Monkeywrench band?
Jae: Huh?
Ant: Jae, seriously.
Stu: Yeah, and he was in Mudhoney or something.
Ant: Hey, Steve! Jae knows about Monkeywrench.

UT: I was hoping he'd say something about them, but he's not gonna budge, it looks like.
Stu: That's cuz he doesn't know.

UT: No. I know he knows. That's why I asked.
Ant: Why don't you ask Jae a question about Monkeywrench?


UT: What do you know about that band Monkeywrench?
Jae: They do a sweet Redd Kross cover.
Stu: A Redd Kross cover?
Jae: "I Wanna Play my Guitar".
Ant: What album is that on? ‘Neurotica’ or...
Jae: ‘Broken Monkey Dick’, or something.
Ant: Well, ‘Neurotica’ came out in, like, 1986.
Stu: Do they have a new album out?

UT: They might. I don't know.
Ant: You know that girl on the cover of that ‘3rd Eye’ record?

UT: Yeah.
Ant: That's Sofia Coppola.

UT: Is it really?
Ant: Yeah, yeah.

UT: A young Sofia.
Ant: Very young.


UT: So, explain to me how you made the cover for this Lubricated Goat LP.
Stu: I already told you that.
Ant: Steve, you're running out of questions.


UT: Did you play on this record?
Ant: Yeah. why, do you not think I’m capable of playing on it?


UT: You re-did old tunes for this one right?
Stu: Yeah.


UT: Why doesn't the album have any new songs on it?
Ant: Well, we're coming out with an album of new songs.
Stu: The idea was to put out an album of songs we never released but, you know, we're working on an album of new songs.
Ant: What are you doing these days, Steve, for money

UT: Not much, man. Jae makes more money than I do. He’s a cab driver.
JAE: That's why I’m here. I’m waiting to take Steve home.

UT: He's my ride.
Stu: There's a lot of elderly cab guys in New York.

UT: I hear they hate Orientals in New York.
Stu: I like anybody that can fucking speak English.





Lubricated Goat bring new meaning to rock and roll while remaining gutter level grime, Lubricated Goat creep and crawl through dirge webbed howels. Through the dark only one thing can be certain and that is the fact that these 4 Australian imports bear an ear to ear grin. There is a sinister uncertainly to their presence and musical mayhem. Their records have the unnatural ability to mood swing from low-key howl to rock 'n roll afflicted scuzz. Always containing a double shot of fuzz 'n distortion, Lubricated Goat is one of the freshest bands to seemingly come out of nowhere in a long time. Their LP's are available in the United States and they will be touring in March.
Interview by Tramp, Johnny Anus and Mavrik

Mavrik: We caught all of your shows, but one of them got cancelled.

Nic: Were you at Rhino Records?

Mavrik: Yeah, and Helter Sketer - the Shamrock got cancelled?

Stu: It didn't get cancelled, when we got there it was too late to play. The person that was driving got lost on the road. We drove right past it. Where does Flipside come from?

Mavrik: Los Angeles, don't you get any Flipsides in Australia?

Nic: I've got some Flipside videos...

Mavrik: I've heard that you guys are stuck here in L.A. financially or...

Nic: We've been stranded in a few places, we've been stranded in Minneapolis where we had trouble with our van. We tried to get self sufficient, we bought a van... and it broke down! That was the worst one really because we had to get a bus from Montana to Seattle.

Stu: We're not really stuck in L.A. at the moment. Our flights leave from LA. It's just that we hired all of our equpiment. We have to give it back, give our van back.

Mavrik: Where are you going from L.A?

Stu: Sydney.

Nic: This is our last show.

Mavrik: How long was this tour?

Nic: Two months.

Stu: It was 5 weeks, it got extended, we got a few shows while we were over here. It's easier to get more shows here than it is to save up and come back again. It's better to do it with a couple of months notice, but we thought - we were here, might as well play. That was the object of coming here, to get exposure. It went well, except for the last couple of shows, where we had to borrow equipment from other bands. Next time we're going to buy equipment.

Mavrik: Then there is going to be another tour?

Nic: Yeah, we're coming back in March, spring.

Mavrik: How did you hook up with Amphetamine Reptile records?

Stu: They wrote to us, we were looking for someone to put out our records anyway. There's really not much scope for what we're doing in Australia. We've been doing it there for a fair while. The only thing that happens to bands that do anything there is they either get sick of being in the underground, having relatively small audiences and they go commercial. Or they just keep on doing it over and over...

Mavrik: Never get anywhere.

Stu: It was a real necessity to come over here.

Mavrik: Would you ever think of moving over here permanently?

Nic: It's very difficult to become an American citizen.

Nic: We just want to be jet setters!

Mavrik: Is there a big scene for you guys in Sydney?

Nic: I think you'd be surprised what a lot of people there are into.

Stu: It's all split up like it is over here. There's a very big hardcore scene... We hear that there's no point in trying to get a gig in L.A. because it's all glam metal but you know that where ever there's something as overblown as that - there's going to be a reaction to it and a whole other scene that you just don't hear about. So that's the same as it is everywhere really. Sydney's quite a large city. About 4 million people. Quite a drversity of things going on... on our record label there's only two bands. Us and a band called Thug that have already broken up.

Mavrik: You only have two albums out ("Plays The Devil's Music", and "Paddock Of Love")?

Stu: We just put one out in Australia. It came out the week we left the country. You can get it on import here. Tom H. at Amphetamine Reptile is going to put it out. See, it's only two months ago that he got the first two albums, so we're holding on a bit.

Mavrik: Tell us about your sound, it's diverse and...

Stu: We wouldn't like to be in the position of repeating ourselves. We don't go out of our way to make... weird songs, it's just that different things seem to deserve different treatments.

Nic: We don't like to stick to one style of playing.

Mavrik: Do the lyrics have anything to do with that?

Stu: Sometimes if we're jamming and we come up with... say you might have some lyrics and you come up with the atmosphere to go with them or you might have music that has a certain atmosphere about it then you come up with some lyrics that sort of accentuate that.

Mavrik: There seems to be an interesting image to the band...

Nic: We like to feel that we're kind of unnerving in a way. We're not Satanic. We're not into really voicing anger or anything like that. The humor's a little black byt it's the same as any rock music these days... There's such a proper image that goes with everything. Like all those bands are quite humorous, most of them aren't serious. They just manage to rope in all the people into believing that they are the high priests of the underworld and shit like that.

Mavrik: How long has this band been together?

Nic: Bands been going on for like three years but it's had a lot of different people through it.

Mavrik: Who are the original members?

Stu: It would be like on the first album, "Plays The Devil's Music".

Mavrik: When was that released?

Stu: '86. It was recorded in '86 but not released until '87. Our label takes a long time to get things out. Which is unfortunate.

Nic: He (singer) and I have been in the band quite a fair while and Brett and Martin have been in it for a short while. Yet Martin played on one side of the first album.

Stu: From the time the first album was recorded and came out we weren't a real live band. I recorded the first album in Perth, Australia - that's where I actually met Guy (bass) and the two guys that played on that. I continued to live in Perth until I finally managed to lure them to Sydney and that's when we started to be a proper band.

Mavrik: How would you compare your first album to your most recent?

Stu: It had a different drummer and a different guitarist...

Mavrik: Did it have a big effect on the music?

Stu: Yeah, cuz the drummer we had we shared with another band that was more thrash. So he played a lot faster. He just had a different style. We try to make every record different. We like to think that the first one is different from the second and the third is different from both of those. We made a single while we were here and we don't like to think it sounds like anything else we've done before.

Mavrik: But it's still Lubricated Goat?

Nic: Yes.

Stu: It's very hard to get people with the attitude that we have. That could actually get it together to come over here. If we had let's say anarchist punk type guys in the band then they probably wouldn't have been able to save up the money to come over here.

Mavrik: Will you guys be going home or did this tour break you?

Nic: We didn't really come to make money. It all depends on how you look at it. We came over here and bought a van. We'd still have the van if the bloody thing didn't break down! We've kept alive. Eating... for two months... I wouldn't consider that a financial loss but that isn't the point of it. The point was to come over here and promote our albums. Play as much as possible. If anything it was better in the Northern part of the country because there was advanced publicity. When we came here we didn't think we'd be playing L.A. at all. The guy that booked our shows just didn't book us over here. All the shows we've done this last week were organized a week before that.

Mavrik: The single you recorded, what is that going to come out on?

Nic: Sub Pop, single of the month. I think for March, which will work out well.

Stu: We will be back and things will be booked well in advance.

Mavrik: I was under the impression that you guys were stuck in San Fransisco or here in L.A.?

Nic: We were stuck here for a couple of days. When our van broke down we were stuck. A lot of people helped us out. The band "Babes In Toyland" they drove us around to a few shows. Another band from Virginia, the Alternatives, they drove us around too.

Mavrik: So what do you think of the music scene here so far?

Stu: We've seen lots of bands that we like. Weird to see lots of rap bands.

Nic: Sort of a lot of stuff I wouldn't think is going on. We played with a band in Seattle that did Peter And The Test Tube Babies covers. We didn't get to see a lot of what we wanted. Maybe next time.

Mavrik: So music is a big influence - or movies or alcohol?

Nic: I guess we do have a leaning towards the seedy side of life...





I think that they are really nice guys. And they're really funny. Especially the names of their bands. It's pretty cool because I never interviewed a band where all the people were married. And I think their music sounds pretty cool. It was pretty funny at first because they had forgotten that we had set up the interview. And it was also really funny because when we were taking the pictures with Lachlan's camera, it would be so bright that you would see green spots all over the place. They gave me a record. The record is clear. You can see through it and it's all red. On the front of it, it has a girl standing and Stuart holding a goat. I was not as hyper as I normally am. I don't know why I wasn't as hyper.

Vivien: What does the name of your band mean?

Stuart: It means, sort of ... uh ... drunken, lecherous people. It can mean, you know ... all sorts of different things.

Lachlan: It's open to interpretation.

Stuart: It's about, sort of, bad behaving but, good, really. We're good people, but we sometimes get drunk and behave badly.

Vivien: Hmmm, OK. Have you ever been on the radio or MTV?

Lachlan: We've been on the radio, but never on MTV.

Martin: We may never be on MTV.

Stuart: I've been on MTV as an artist when they had bands that do art. Also, we played naked on television in Australia.

Martin: In the nude - very graphic.

Stuart: Naked in front of millions of people.

Vivien: Oh ... Have you ever seen a kangaroo?

Lachlan: Yes, indeed. My mother raises kangaroos. When their mothers get run over on the road ...

Stuart: We've run kangaroos over before on the road in our cars. A kangaroo jumped into the side of our van and bounced off. There was fur all over the van and scratch marks. Another time we hit one and there was nothing we could do because it ran out into the middle of the road.

Vivien: Did he die?!

Stuart: I think so. They run into the middle of the road and they get mesmerized by the lights and they just run towards the car. There's no way to get away from them, whichever way you turn. I used to have kangaroos around the corner from my house when I was growing up and I would feed one, but not the other so that the one would get jealous and they would box. Like cartoons, you know? They'd get up on their back legs and box.

Vivien: (giggling over Stuart's last story) Did you guys like it in Australia?

Martin: I do.

Stuart: You can't do proper rock and roll tours there because there's not enough cities to play in.

Martin: But there's kangaroos.

Lachlan (as he snaps his own photo of Vivien): Now smile, eh. It takes a little while for this to work, so keep smiling ...

Vivien (blinded by the flash): AAAAHHH! That hurt!

Lachlan: I'm sorry.

Vivien: Now all I can see is the big flash!

Lachlan: You'll be able to see the picture, too, in a minute.

Vivien: Well, now I can't see my questions! Um... who is from Australia?

Lachlan: Everybody here.

Stuart: I'm from England, but I grew up mainly in Australia.

Lachlan: I was born in Australia - in the country.

Vivien: Who is married to Kat [Babes In Toyland]?

Stuart: I'm married to Kat and she's American. Now she can live anywhere she wants - in England or Australia - and so can I.

Vivien: Has she ever dyed her hair a weird color?

Stuart: Um, only when she tries to get it made so white that it goes silver or grey or sometimes even a bit yellow. Usually she likes it to just be really white. I think she used to have it died weird colors when she was younger. She used to have it short and she would dye it different colors then.

Vivien: What's your favorite song you ever heard on the radio?

Stuart: "New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra. Martin: Gee, that's a tough question.

Lachlan: "Some Velvet Morning" by Nancy Sinatra.

Martin: I never heard a song that I liked that was on the radio.

Vivien: What was your life like as a kid?

Martin: Very pleasant.

Lachlan: I had a nice childhood. I grew up in the country with lots of animals around.

Vivien: Did you like it as a kid?

Stuart: I like being an adult better than I liked being a kid.

Vivien: What is your favorite place to buy records?

Lachlan: Mine is the Sound Exchange in Houston, Texas.

Martin: Tower Records because it's open all night.

Lachlan: And the local thrift store.

Stuart: Where do I like to buy records? I haven't bought one in a long time. I want to say somewhere in New York ... but, I don't buy many records, I tape them. My favorite place is to be given records.

Vivien: What's your favorite movie or cartoon?

Martin: Cartoon? I like the Bugs Bunny with the Three Little Pigs.

Lachlan: I was going to say that.

Stuart: I like the one where Bugs Bunny storms up onto the table and the guy says, "Stop steaming up my glasses!" And I like the one where the coyote and the sheep dog say, "Morning, Herbert." "Morning, Ralph."

Lachlan: I like Eraserhead.

Vivien: I wish Bart Simpson was my teacher!

Stuart: You wouldn't learn very much!

Vivien: I know, that's the thing. I don't want to learn.

Stuart: Oh, no! You'll end up as dumb as us if you don't learn. You won't even be able to think what your favorite movie is. What is my favorite movie?

Lachlan: I like Chinatown.

Stuart: I like King of Comedy.

Lachlan: Withnail and I.

Vivien: What kind of house do you have?

Martin: I just live in a little apartment.

Stuart: He lives opposite me and our apartments are exactly the same except his is a little bit better because it's got French doors. But, our house is a bit too small at the moment. We want to get a huge house with a tower on top.

Lachlan: I live with my wife and two other people in a house.

Vivien: Are all of you guys married?

Lachlan: Yes.

Martin: I'm... uh...

Lachlan: You can say it.

Martin: No, I'm not allowed to.

Stuart: Martin's not allowed to say because he's married to a man.

Lachlan: All of our marriages are legitimate, as well.

Vivien: What's your favorite hairstyle that you ever had?

Martin: Afro! I used to have an afro.

Lachlan: I had orange hair once.

Martin: And now I've got it.

Stuart: I hate my hair and I have to do things to it all the time. That's why I'm wearing a hat now - to make it go flat. Later on I'll take it off and it will go all funny. Sometimes we set our hair on fire ...

Vivien: Then you would be bald! What was your favorite toy as a kid?

Martin: I had a [we're guessing on this one, folks!] MacConner set. Do they have those out here? Sets to construct buildings and things?

Vivien: An erector set?

Lachlan: I had a chemistry set.

Stuart: My favorite toy was Jocko the Monkey which was a toy monkey that had hard plastic hands and I used to hit my next door neighbor over the head with it and make him cry.

(Very sinister laugh from Vivien)

Stuart:
I used to make little outfits for him. I used a plastic football and made him a knight's helmet. My mom made him a little tartan suit. He's still at my parents' house now, but all the stuffing is coming out.

Vivien: Do you have any pets?

Lachlan: I have a crawfish and a frog.

Vivien: I have a toad!

Lachlan: Do you? Mine is a golden frog.

Vivien: What does your frog eat?

Lachlan: He eats very small fish.

Vivien: Mine eats live crickets.

Lachlan: Yeah, well mine likes them, too. So does the crawfish.

Vivien: We had to buy 55 dozen of them and they all died except for one.

Lachlan: There's also a big spider at our house called Liberace. He belongs to someone else.

Stuart: We used to have two cats, but we haven't got them anymore. I used to have a Galah - which is this bird - and it used to scream out obscene words at people. His name was God.

Vivien: A Gallah?

Lachlan: It's like a parrot.

Stuart: It was called God and it used to scream out mother*$@%#! [this is Viv's column!] at people and peg them. It escaped.

Martin: I haven't got any pets, but I used to have a friend who had a wombat. That's like a hedgehog or something. Like a rodent.

Stuart: It's like a big, fat koala, except it crawls around on the ground and lives in a hole. They look kind of like a hairy pig or something.

Vivien: What kind of car do you have?

Lachlan: I don't have a car.

Stuart: We have a Karmen Ghia. It's orange. It's like a sporty sort of Volkswagen.

Vivien: Is there anything you wish you had, but you don't?

Stuart: I want to have a big house that we own for me and Kat to live in. I want a recording studio downstairs, room to do artwork and lots of stuff to make films with. Plus lots of money to go with it!

Lachlan: I'd like a multi-system video machine.

Martin: I'd like a cat.

Vivien: What is your favorite poster?

Martin: Marilyn Monroe.

Vivien: I like Marilyn, too.

Stuart: My favorite poster is the Maharani of Rewa (?!). I haven't got it at the moment, but hopefully it's coming over in a box from Australia.

Vivien: What is your favorite t-shirt?

Martin: One that says, "I'm a Rhino." I've got it in the back if you want to see.

Lachlan: "I'm With Stupid."

Stuart: My favorite t-shirt has a picture of Baphomat on it.

Martin: I've got one that says, "No cavities."

Stuart: I'm making one that has a banana with an arrow through it and it says "Elvis" in scroll.

Vivien: What have you named your band before?

Stuart: Snot Collection, The Poofters

Lachlan: Bush Oysters...

Stuart: Toilet Duck...

Lachlan: Brazilian Penis...

Martin: Leather Moustache, Orthopedic Surprise...

Stuart: The Oliver Reed Band ... uh, we've had a lot of names. Sometimes we just thought of the name of a band and we'd think it was funny, so we'd book a show and we'd have a couple of weeks to figure out what type of music it would play.

Vivien: What color do you wish your hair was?

Lachlan: Black.

Stuart: Black.

Martin: Puce.

Vivien: What color is that?!

Martin: Sort of a purplish brown.

Stuart: No, it's not purple Is it?

Martin: In the dictionary it says that it's purplish brown.

Stuart: I wish my hair was blue, actually ... a really dark blue.

Vivien: Do you have any children?

Lachlan: No.

Stuart: No.

Martin: No.

Stuart But we are going to have a son called Wolfgang and a daughter called Lottie.

Vivien: Do you live on a block with kids on it that make a lot of noise?

Martin: I live on a block with a lot of adults that act like children.

Stuart: We live on a block where we make a lot of noise and there are a lot of grumpy people who complain. We laugh at them.







Seattle - Thursday, September 28

Arrived at airport picked up by Bosco and taken down to Sub Pop to meet the folks there, changed out of our traveling disguises and into our normal slobclothes, went to a bar where Band of Susans was playing but left after two songs and went next door and drank in there instead, went out drinking with Bosco every night until we played, he had a party on the Friday night attended by Jonathin, the Mudhoney dudes, the Dickless chicks and Ed from the Thrown-ups, despite our quick reputation as big beer drinkers, I was beaten by Yagermeister and passed out. We were excited at the prospect of seeing the Butthole Surfers and ended up playing with them 'coz Bullet Lavolta didn't seem like they were gonna make it. They showed up, must've driven like crazy to get there. Gibby gave me a mushroom, so I watched the Buttholes in the perfect condition.

Next night we played at the Hollywood Underground, our first official gig. Everyone seemed to dig it, so we were off to a good start, left immediately after the gig for the long slog to Minneapolis, saw our first real American rednecks giving us dirty looks in a diner in Montana, saw one talking to a moose in the snow-covered Rocky Mountains. The moose thought he was an idiot.

Minneapolis - Thursday, October 5th - Uptown Bar

Upon our arrival in Minneapolis we went to Amphetamine Reptile and met Haze and Peter, much to our delight Pete had some Yagermeister in his fridge. Circling Maggots opened for us and we were amazed at Tom's brutal guitar style on stage. We were all shagged from the long drive but played for two hours. After the gig I passed out in the Van from Yagermeister again (I was only drinking it because it was supposedly opiated) and woke up freezing, then we had breakfast with Tom, Pete and Mac and headed off for Madison.

Madison - Friday, 6th

Turned up just in time for soundcheck, played with Killdozer and Jesus Lizard and it was a pleasure to play with these two great bands. The barman wouldn't let any of our friends into the bandroom, so we went outside and smoked pot and took nitrous oxide with Chris Johnson from Black Spot. Michael from Killdozer and his charming girlfriend, Eydie invited us to stay with them in Chicago, so we drove there after the gig, and hung out there 'til Monday.

Chicago - Saturday, 7th

We played at a huge theatre called the Riviera and Killdozer were good enough to play first so we'd get decent exposure. The Laughing Hyenas played as well and they were really wild. Afterwards, we all went to a party at Lisa from Touch and Go's house where there was a huge feast of lasagna waiting. We were enthralled by their piranhas and vicious parrots.

Kalamazoo - Monday, 9th

We arrived in Kalamazoo and did our soundcheck, then we ate a pizza cut into slices as small as postage stamps. The opening band were these young guys called Hypno Flywheel; they did this sort of Flaming Groovies music, except one of them was into Sonic Youth and went Ching, Ching up the end of his gu itar at the start of every song, which was amusing. Afterwards, we drove to Ann Arbor and stayed with the Laughing Hyenas for a few days. They left us alone in the house while they went of to do a gig in Kentucky. We stayed up tripping and watching the corporate congregation on TV. Then Guy cooked a curry and we sat up drinking with them. They gave us the low-down on New York and we watched this ridiculous video of G.G. Allin supposedly doing some readings and then doing his turd act, then they told us about how he got in jail and I knew that G.G. should be shot like a sick dog and die pathetically. None of this glory bullshit on stage. We wished the Laughing Hyenas all the best in Europe and left for New York, New York!

New York - Thursday, 12th

We finally drove in to New York at about 9:30 PM. "I'm home!"' declared Ren and we proceeded to wind down the windows and yell out "Motherfucker," "Hey, fuck you" and other De Niro-ish things at people. No, actually we decided to do some touristy things like fuck Lydia Lunch, getting our picture taken with William Burroughs and killing a few random strangers. It just occurred to me that the thing The Bowery immediately reminded me of was Sesame Street presented on the day of our arrival by the letter C for Crack. Within an hour Ren had smashed the Van (details censored) and didn't feel like driving in New York anymore. That night me and Ren slept in the van and the next day no one would let us use their showers, which was annoying seeing as I'd had a wet dream with all my clothes on during the night. In fact, I got no opportunity to shower from Wednesday in Ann Arbor until Sunday, the day after our Philadelphia show.
Anyway, the CBGB's show was very strange. Having little money as it was, I proceeded to spill three beers, the Hard-Ons turned up, Lachlan from Thug filmed us, Hilly, the owner of CBGB's showed me around the pizza bar he's building next door whilst an all-girl soul band with a six-month pregnant singer proudly boogying and showing her stomach, played. We also had to sit through a band doing completely styleless blues covers and a jolly old Folk singer doing wacky tunes. We finished the night with a big jam featuring Johnny Thunders, Richard Hell, Joey Ramone, and Deborah Harry playing a 20-minute version of "Anal Injury" and then we all hit up some Chinese Rocks with a communal syringe and holy water from CBGB`s famous toilet. We slept in the van again, I in my crusty jeans, and drove to Philly the next day.

Khyber Pass - Saturday, 14th

Khyber Pass is of course Cockney slang for arse. Nevertheless, the people that ran it were great and Guy and Ren spent all night sleazing drinks off the two friendly barmen, discussing what was the worst breakfast, Australia's Vegemite or America's Twinkies. The crowd was a bit layed back, although Ren managed to get himself a root. There was a girl at the party afterwards rumoured to have a pierced vagina and we all wanted to have a look.

Middle East Restaurant - Sunday, 15th

The food was good, opening band Hullaballo were good. The crowd was really wild, our Number One fan, N. McIver, Jr. was there; he turned out to be a bit of a hood, which was good. All the people at the front were yelling out "Raw!" and shoving their fists in the air. They bought all our remaining T-shirts which meant we had some money for a change and we left in high spirits.

Things take a turn for the worst.

We headed back to Chicago and hung out at Michael and Eydie's again. Michael was on tour in Europe at the time. We watched the earthquake details on TV and discovered that King Snake Roost had arrived in SF that day but were OK. Then we decided to get self-sufficient by buying a van with what little funds we had left. We went to pick one up in the suburbs from a woman with acid washed jeans and too much make-up on and followed Eydie back into town. Just as the rain started pelting down a windscreen wiper fell off and visibility became impossible. The steering seized up and the van just fucking ceased to function. We lifted up the hood and saw a loose electrical cable that seemed to go nowhere. Guy got under the van lying on a blanket but it was in vain. We got inside the van and a cop pulled up behind us. Luckily it was a friendly Black cop who drove me to a phone to ring Mac so he could pick us up in the rented van. I told the cop that we'd played at Chicago's Riviera Theatre where George Clinton was soon to play and this evolved into a pleasant chat about Funkadelic and Parliament. When we got back to the fucked van it was snowing, it was the first time we'd experienced snowing so Guy and I spent the next hour and a half freezing our nuts off as the snow covered the windows. Then the other cunts finally arrived and we drove to Madison in the snow and played. The opening band had slid out on the ice (Snailboy) so we had to do two sets. There were only about 20 people there, half of whom were Soundgarden and their crew. They felt sorry for us and gave us $20 to get breakfast the next day; they were real nice guys. We felt stupid though, accepting charity, but this became par for the course for the rest of the tour, constantly being broke and thanking people for putting us up and money and the other idiots in the band would immediately blow it on bourbon which infuriated me.

Minneapolis - Saturday, 21st

We arrived in Minneapolis on Friday and became the creatures that lurked in Tim Mac's basement for about a week trying to figure out a way to get to California for our shows there. On Friday night we went to the Uptown and saw the Cows who were great. We should have played with them instead of the derivative Sixties pop band called the Magnolias who we played with the next night. Me and Martin even washed dishes at a Caribbean restaurant there. I hadn't had to do that since I was broke and stuck in London 5 years before. Eventually we got a Greyhound bus to Seattle. Needless to say, that really sucked. When we got to the bus station in Seattle, I rang up Sub Pop and they sent down the Babes in Toyland to pick us and our gear up in their van. That night we went to party halfway to Tacoma with the Babes. There were these sort of hippies there distributing mushroom tea. First a band played with a nerdy-looking guitarist who started pogoing while he was tuning up! Then the Babes played and me and Ren decided that Cat, the singer, was the sexiest and wildest little thing we'd ever seen in a band. The Babes were just a fucking great band. Intense!

Portland - Saturday, 28th

The Babes drove us all the way to Portland, bless their cotton socks. Fucking weird place Portland. First thing we saw was zombie-looking people pushing shopping trolleys around and the only place where we saw lots of pinned people and fits (syringes) lying around the streets, apart from New York. In Sydney they're everywhere. This place, the Blue Gallery where we played; the front bar was alright, they gave us lots to drink, but on the walls were really pathetic paintings on like plates with pictures of Iggy Pop and Bob Dylan on them that looked like spastics had painted them with their feet or mouths. The place had the worst sound of anywhere we played and on top of that the mixer couldn't mix. I yelled at him, shoved him out of the way and had to set up the sound myself. While the opening band, a local bad industrial band played, we went down the road and watched Nice Strong Arm at Satyricon - if only we'd played THERE - the place was great. Back at our gig a zonked-out girl with a mohawk offered to strip on stage with us so naturally we accepted. She'd take off her clothes in one song, go and put them on in the next and take them off again in the one after. She was frotting with me and I was dry rooting her and twiddling her nipples. At least the show was visually interesting.

Vancouver - Sunday, 29th

Those good old Babes drove us up to Vancouver where we were all given the third degree at the Canadian border. We told them we were going up there to be in a Cronenberg movie where Martin was to play this meatty thing which bursts out of Harvey Keitel's arse, so they wished us all the best and let us in. Club Soda was a real rock club with pictures of cock rock bands like Pink Snake, etc. all over the walls. Every band received the smoke machine treatment unless they specifically requested not to, which is what Nice Strong Arm did, but we got the whole treatment. After we played, we judged a pumpkin carving competition and then proceeded to kick the pumpkins all over the place and because our friends won anyways, we all reaped the prizes. Denise, the promoter of the show, had us, Nice Strong Arm and the Babes all over at her house and cooked us a great meal and put us up afterwards and Denise and her partner Kate really helped us out a lot. They came down to Seattle with us and hung out for Halloween there.

Seattle - Tuesday, 31st - Vogue

This was the wildest gig we played. It was us, Nice Strong Arm, the Dwarves and Dickless. We turned up just in time for soundcheck and had no time to organize costurnes but the Dickless Chicks were decked out for the night. The drummer Lisa, was a nurse killed by Richard Speck in a bloodied nurse's outfit. Kerry was a clown and Kelly the singer was Gene Simmons shrieking like a wildcat. Lisa was the funkiest hard-hitting cool drummer. Then the Dwarves came on with their hilarious mock violence. By the time we played the stage was like an ice skating rink. My feet were sliding apart and I was on the verge of splitting in two the whole set. Guy was covered in green goo and looked so hideous his chance of getting a root was almost nil! Unfortunately Nice Strong Arm's set was cut short as things were running behind schedule. There was a bit of violence at the end of the night as frustrated bouncers spent about ten minutes taking it in turn to kick one guy in the head over and over. It was impossible to tell who had real blood and who had fake blood on and when the cops showed it was definately time to leave as we were all tripping and that would have been TOO much. So we all ended up at Tamara's warehouse, where a mysterious fridge full of beer awaited us a heaven of sorts.

And so it was we bid a fond farewell to the Babes and NSA and caught our connecting flights to San Francisco.

San Francisco - Thursday, November 2 Covered Wagon

Off the plane and round to Liz the promoter's house as close to Haight Ashbury as you could get. By now we had no equipment, so we had to arrange to borrow some. We were playing with the Mentors but they were already borrowing. Good news, bad news, good news was I could use a Marshall, bad news, it was only 20 watts. At the soundcheck El Duce was playing along with "Staying Alive" as it came out of the PA. The Covered Wagon had some earthquake damage, the electricity was fucked so all night we were getting zapped off the mikes. The first band, Jung Lee, were really good. Id always loved the Mentors' records but they were, as you say, 'lame" live or one might even say they sucked. El Duce drummed like an old woman patting a poodle and Sickie Wife Beater was just a show-off, doing this dumb "chop" of his with his hand over the top of the fret board. While I was getting El Duce's autograph some prick came up and started hassling him and trying to bang his head into the wall. Despite their patheticness I'd rather have watched their set than the cocksuckers called Harsh who muscled in on their set just because they'd lent them some equipment. To top it off, they stole Martin's drumsticks. The gig had been poorly organized to start with, consequently we got less money than expected and were thereby stuck in San Fran for 5 days with no money! Denise came all the way down in a van and picked us up to take us back to Seattle for our recording session and the highlight of our trip there - apart from the fantastic burritos - was when Denise's dog, Bass Guitar Dude, pissed on a businessman's back in a park when we were walking the dogs.

We got back to Seattle and did our recording with Jack Endino. Two tracks for a Sub Pop single and one for an Amphetamine Reptile (Dope Guns Vol. 4) EP. They turned out really fucking good if I do say so myself! We hung out in Seattle for about a week and a half and had a really great time hanging out with the girls from Dickless, Bosco and James and Dean from Catbutt. We'd get really drunk then go and jam with Lisa at Dickless's practice room and take mushrooms. We invented Slam Disco dancing, which will probably become all the rage this year. Then we did another gig at the Hollywood Underground and the people that ran it were real assholes to everyone, so all the bands we knew swore not to play there anymore.

Off to LA

We bid a fond farewell to our Seattle friends and headed off to San Francisco with a band called The Alternatives. We drove along happily tripping and bonging and drinking except that their van had a slow puncture and if stalled would not go for ages. 30 miles from San Fran the tire shredded. The Alternative guys got towed into SF and we got a taxi to a hotel where the airport bus left from at 5 AM. As luck would have it, a young Hells Angel and his dad gave us a lift in the loudest, most hopped-up pickup truck, all the way to SF airport and we were off to L.A.

LA Gigs

Despite hearing that LA was a dead spot for non-Glam bands, we arrived to find we had 5 gigs there and radio interviews. I even got some extra work in a John Waters movie (Cry Baby) starring Iggy Pop and Tracy Lords there. They cut my hair rocker style for it. Unfortunately they took so long in paying that I still didn't get it before I had to leave. We played at a place called Coconut Teazer where everyone uses the same amps and the bands ranged from pouting Glam bands to Hardcore bands right through to brilliant, innovative, unclassifiable bands like us!

We played in Rhino Records where we were paid in records, burritos and beer. We blew our Thanksgiving night show 'coz we were too busy eating turkey and drinking Bourbon with the Alternatives and our friends, Grace and Lauren.

Then we played a place called Helter Skelter at the Stardust Ballroom where there was a riot. First of all, some dogshit stole my Wah-Wah and a lead while I was setting up. The club was mainly full of these Gothic Fuckwits, but a lot of people were enjoying it. The place wouldn't give us any drinks so we were drinking some Bourbon we brought back from Mexico on stage. The drum kit was falling apart and some mike stands got knocked over and next thing, these bouncers were all over the stage shoving us around. One of them stomped on Ren's guitar and broke it and another was dragging him round in a headlock and the crowd was yelling, "Death to Helter Skelter." We packed up and left and by the next day all these bullshit rumours had been spread around by the club. So at our next gig, XYZ, Club Hollywood, we heard that the two other bands from Helter Skelter were gonna fight us after the show. They claimed that we were throwing eggs at them! L7 played with us at XYZ and they were pretty wild and were nice enough to lend us some equipment. After the show we went and finished the last of our Mexican booze with the singer from the Dwarves. The next day we went to the Amok bookshop but it was closed so we went for the obligatory drive up to the Hollywood sign and got our pictures taken there. I also got mine taken pissing in front of it (was this some kind of statement? you ask) We'd already checked out the ruins of Errol Flynn's house and tried to find Sharon Tate's house, of course. We saw Rod Stewart's house; it was all pink - I'd expected it to be leopard skin! The only famous person I saw walking around Hollywood was the singer from the Cars. Big deal! We were now preparing ourselves for the big letdown of our plane trip back to Australia. Despite having joked about it constantly whilst in America, next time we come over we really are gonna marry some all-American girls and stay for good! Get ready, girls.




Lubricated Goat in case you didn't know are unlike any other Australian band you've heard (that is assuming you've heard one to begin with) and if it weren't for Stuart "Spasm" Gray there wouldn't be a Lubricated Goat. Blame it on others or assume he is an asshole, Goat lineups have varied. Some say its because Stuart has/is a dictorial dick of an ego and is tough to deal with, but then again we're talking about a guy whose real handle is Elvis Hitler (and please, I ain't refering to the duff Michigan outfit).Regardless, these things make him no less the visionary, if anything they emphasize it.

Lubricated Goat, as those "in the know" will tell you make music that is quite often compared to the Butthole Surfers. I'd like to say that they're better than that.

Lubricated Goat have several pieces of vinyl for you to listen to, and the best part for those of you, as yet uninitated is is that most of these discs are readily available: (in order of release) ... Plays The Devils Music & the Paddock of Love LPs, the Schadenfruede mini-LP a contribution to the latest Dope Guns & Fucking in the Streets Vol. 4 and their most recent exploit, a single for Sub Pop.

In a perfect world Lubricated Goat wouldn't need any introduction. That "perfect world" would also be a planet of Stuart's design wherein every household, cave and dwellin& people smoked or chewed on bizzarre roots - maybe even some dirt - and just generally altered their synapses' on a daily basis; a tucked up place no less, but hey no more tucked up than it already is, right?

Lubricated Goat are like too many bad drugs going to the "right" people/purpose, but hey, when your satelite dish signal bounces into your living room via The Golden Triangle what could one really expect anyway? Shine the Toohey's (tm) induced stupor and forget all about the ready availability of various opiates and their derivites though, the real culprit's called "The Telly!'' That's right, funny as it may sound, Stuart and his bunch of OZ miscreants have been addled by too many episodes of Boob Tube American Style: Dallas, Barnaby Jones, Cannon, Lancelot Link etc.. you name it. Oh, and not to forget, their own brand of Australian Videodrome damage.....

YF: So what's the deal with the TV personality on the posters (swell looking, multicolored silkscreened affairs used to promote the annual "'Sausage Meet," a festival of like minded bands held in Sydney)?

Stu: Who, Bernard King?

YF: Yeah.

Stu: He's been doing a running job with us for years. He's this judge on this talent show. He"s a gourmet chef and he's really vicious and really, funny when he comes and puts on these things. He also fancies himself as a bit of a nightclub performer, he sort of talks his way through these things, he can't really sing and he just rips the shit outta people.

YF: Was the label (Black Eye) more or less designed for you guys and some other bands or for you guys specifically and then it just grew from there?

Stu: Black Eye?

YF: Yeah, how did Black come eye come about?

Stu: Well, John Foy first started Red Eye and the first records he put out were from Salamander Jim, a band that me and Martin (Bland) were in . He also put out a single by James Baker, who used to be in the Hoodoo Gurus, me and Tex played on that, the James Baker Experience. Then he had all of these other bands that were sort of pop bands that wanted to use it as sort of a launch pad.

YF: So how long has this line-up been together?

Stu: This lineup, about two months.

YF: When was the band formed originally?

Stu: It sort of goes back about eight years. You know how I told you yesterday about all those songs I wrote years ago? I had this band in Melbourne and Brett Ford was the original drummer, and he had all these songs, and then it sort of jumps about four years 'cause that band sort of folded up and then we put something else together when we were in England and that sort of came to a halt when we left, and we finally started to do something in Australia. I had this band that really couldn't play very well, and we started to do some of the songs. Then I tried to get Brett to move to Sydney to be in the band and then I went to Perth and recorded the first half of the first album that we did, and then I came back via Adelaide and recorded the second half of the album in Adelaide.

YF: Wasn't the second side recorded in someone's living room or something?

Guy: It was recorded at Martin's.

Stu: After we recorded that we took the tape to John Foy and that was when he started Black Eye. He put out our record and the stuff that Lachlan put together for the Waste Sausage album. Then he eventually managed to get Brett and Peter Hartley to move to Sydney to form a proper band called the Lubricated Goat.

YF: So what are those two guys doing now?

Stu: Hartley's in a band with Guy.

Guy: He plays drums, he's switched to drums, so has Ren. He was also in a band called the Butcher Shop with Tex and Lachlan.

Stu: And Brett runs a trendy clothing shop. He's not allowed to play in bands, his wife won't let him and he had to leave our band and go back with his wife.

YF: So, what do you call that in Australia, mommy-coddled or pussy-whipped?

Guy: Pussy-whipped.

Stu: He has a band now. He wants them to be Motley Crue, but they're more into being sort of standard, being sort of Detroit...

YF: That's sort of common in Australia, that sound...

Guy: Yeah, in Sydney.

Stu: We drove past his job recently and you could see Brett and his band standing up in front and they all had their new clothes on, that they saw in the shop, and that's what he wanted us to do.

Guy: He's finally found someone that he could dress up.

YF: Which is?

Stu: I can't remember their name.

Martin: Rattlesnake Shake.

Guy: That's a bit of a groovy name.

Stu: And now they're sponsoring the Hitmen and stuff like that like "'Wheels & Doll Baby presents the Hitmen". and they take 'em and dress 'em all up.

YF: Is this the same shop where you put your sculptures on consignment?

Stu: I used to when they had it in Perth, I used to a bit when they had it in Sydney, but now they're too cold...

Guy: They're bigger than than.

Stu: Well, I used to work there.

YF: So, how'd you happen upon the name of the band?

Stu: I think Lachlan suggested it. We asked if he had any names like Cheatin' Parrot and then he found an antonym, Leather Moustache.

Guy: Orthopedic Supplies [much laughter].

YF: So where were your heads at, at this time thinking of names?

Stu: Well, he"s just good at thinking up names. He put out a list of really bad names, but Lubricated Goat's one of the better ones.

YF: So with the Lubricated Goat you can more or less put a theme around it so to speak.

Stu: Yeah. Well, we managed to sort of justify the name other than the most obvious joke of somebody fucking a goat. It's got all these connotations that really work.

Guy: Lubricated Goat - Slippery Devil.

Stu: Lachlan's helped other bands with names as well, and sometimes he thinks up such a good name that you have to form a band to use it even if you only play once.

YF: Its also a good medium to use to nose up Bible-thumpers and things like that.

Guy: Oh yeah, definitely. You've seen the record covers; they're not to be taken seriously, but I'm sure people are annoyed by them.

Stu: On the compilations, we especially think up a name for a band and form a band to do one song, and put it on the album.

YF: Like Furry Men of The North.

Stu: Yeah. My alias is The Cunt because I wanted to call our second album The Cunt and have a picture of myself on the front, but it didn't happen and now I just do little songs by that name on the comps.

YF: Do you have a lot of heavy-handed decency laws in Australia?

Stu: They can refuse to print certain words on the record covers or refuse to listen to the recordings, when the test-pressings come back and they say, "'we can't listen to this."

Guy: We're too offensive.

Stu: They want stickers on the albums and stuff like that. There's a "Made in Australia" sticker over the penises on the back of the Waste Sausage compilation. It all adds to the fun, really. You know, throw in some nude boys to shock somebody. We've got this rep for being anally retentive and all this sort of stuff.

YF: As if your minds were in the gutter somehow.

Stu: Well, usually the first questions people ask us in interviews are about our records.

Guy: There must be something about Black Eye records that makes people think all the songs are about shitting and pissing.

Stu: The people think we're so puerile that they wouldn't want to see that there's a proper band behind it.

Guy: They think we're just a "shit, piss, vomit" kind of band.

Stu: They still write about the label, instead of an article about us or Thug, or the compilation.

YF: They lump you all together, you a little angry about that?

Guy: It's just that we're different, Thug are nothing like us, they're a fantastic band, they're my favorites, but they're nothing like us, and the compilation is different as well.

YF: So how many lineup changes have you had?

Stu: Well, every time the drummer left or anything like that happened, someone else would begin to play.

YF: So would it be unfair to say that all the lineup changes are because of you and your ego?

Stu: Yeah

Guy: Hey, that's not true!

Stu: Yeah, it would be unfair to say that, that, what I mean.

YF: Unfair?

All: Yeah.

Guy: Ive been in for three years.

Stu: It's because of the people that managed to get in the band who went from being sort of acid culture to fucking drug addicts, to people who couldn't play, to fucking who knows.

Guy: Gene's a funny one. How would you describe Gene? He's not a drug addict.

Stu: Well, the music wasn't fast enough for him. This is for example, Gene (Revet) is the drummer on our new album. He's in a band with his neighbours called the Space Juniors. He played with us for about nine months and the music wasn't fast enough for him. That band just broke up, the Space Juniors. The singer poked the guitarist's eye out with a carrot. [Laughter]

YF: Really?

Guy: The singer attacked the guitar player with a carrot in the tour bus.

Stu: They write songs about food they're not allowed to eat. There's a song called "Spinach" and another one called "Milo." They're sort of Ramones-ish, but they're trying to act dumber than the Ramones.

Guy: They're very childlike. They've got one song that just goes "Yeah!"

Stu: They're a mix of vegetarians and they had all these carrots in the van, and there's Mick and his brother on one side and Gene and the guitarist on the other side, and they'd always gang up on each other. Probably, Gene and Carl were just sitting there and Carl set on Mick for about an hour and Mick couldn't stand it for any longer and he attacked him with the carrot - a deadly weapon!

YF: So what about those lineup changes?

Stu: Well, we've got the drummer not being allowed to play anymore because his wife won't let him and then we've got another guitarist who that drummer actually gave his first mushroom trip to, and he was just starting to get to that psychedelic stage and he was a good guitarist with good ideas but he just suddenly started going wheeee and it was farewell to him, because he just sort of... you know.

Guy: He's all right now.

Stu: Yeah, he's come back down again, but he just took off for a journey around his mind when he was in our band.

YF: What inspired "Jason The Unpopular"? (first song on side one of the Goat's first album)

Stu: There's a Jason who I met shortly after the record came out and he comes round to our house so we'd introduce him to people round the bar. It's not a very flattering song to write about someone that you know.

Guy: We had a drummer named Jason.

Stu: It's just about someone having really bad dope, really.

YF: I just thought there was a general incident or something that inspired if at the time.

Guy: There's no particular Jason, is there?

YF: Were you having a particularly bad day yourself?

Stu: It's certainly not about me.

YF: Walking through the park and the birds were talkin' to you.

Stu: As it happened, we were just mucking around with this four-track and I wrote those lyrics really quickly and just put them to this song. We had a drum machine and sort of added guitars. We recorded eight songs in one day, that was one of them.

YF: So what sort of responsibility do you claim for the lyrical content?

Stu: Well, I wrote all the ones on the first two records, but Guy's started to write some now.

YF: I mean what sort of responsibility do you claim towards the potential listener and the reaction she or he might have. Do you feel any moral obligation there? Stu: No.

Guy: If someone wants to listen to something that makes them feel better, they can.

YF: Pretentious Question #48: Are you going to go commerical?

Stu: Half the reason our original drummer, Brett, stayed in it for so long is because he thought we were going to go commercial and December came around and he said, "Are we going to go commercial next year?" as sort of a joke and his wife was really looking forward to it. Then it was January and we were still doing the same thing, and his wife just sort of looked at me as if I was wearing something she didn't like and then she goes, "You're not going commercial!" as if we'd been leading Brett on for such a long time. Straight after that he left, he feared it was going to be the same thing forever.

YF: The group did somewhat recently have sort of a brief spot with potential commercial success on a TV show, right?

Guy: No, not really.

YF: How did that come about?

Guy: They rang us up and asked us if we'd do it and it just seemed to fit in with the song we were gonna do, it just seemed to be a good thing to do, for the Goat to go national. Bruce Griffiths actually wanted us to do it. He works for the show that we went on. He's the Ambiance Consultant.

Stu: It came about through people getting the wrong idea because sometimes when you get nude you get a free beer and there's also another band that used to play in the nude sometimes and hearing about this and how it gets twisted, it came about that they thought we were gonna play nude on this show, and actually we don't play nude, but we said that we could, we all had to agree to it. Nude to the world!

YF: Buck naked.

Stu: We really couldn't hide behind our guitars. It was hilarious.

Guy: But that wasn't really a flirt with commercialism.

YF: But you have to admit that playing in front of all those eyeballs, that the possibility was there.

Guy: Yeah, but we played that song "In The Raw" and it's not really accessible on short listen. There's a section on the ABC called "Backchat" with people writing in and one whole day of it. It's only about a ten-minute show and it was all of these people writing in about us and discussing what a disgusting, abhorrent noise we made and things like that.

Stu: We didn't get any money out of it. You don't need to go commerical if you already get to go on TV and all that sort of stuff.

YF: Did you have any expectations in coming over here?

Stu: Well, we knew what it would be like from the TV.

YF: What do you mean?

Stu: We've had it blitzed at us through the TV for such a long time that the screen just sort of opened and sucked us in.

Guy: It's exactly as we expected. That's why we came.

This interview rapidly disintegrates into three different conversations about gun control, Bloodloss and sculpture. Thank you is also in order for Criss Keiser for transcribing this - the audio quality was harsh! Thanks for dealing with it.

Since the publication of this piece it has come to our attention that anew album is on its way this Fall, and according to Stuart the money for studio time was donated courtesy of Polygram Records of Australia. The record however will be released simultaneously here by Amphetamine Reptile (who else?). The title is Psvchedelicatessen . The lineup that toured here last year (Stu, Martin, Ren & Guy) is intact with the exception of Guy who reportedly got into fisticuffs with Stuart and as a result was sacked. His replacement is Lachlan, formerly of Thug. The Goat will be touring with this lineup stateside for the month of October '90 and will end Halloween night in Seattle. For those of you interested in seeing the band play your town write to Amphetamine Reptile, Attention booking department, 2541 Nicollet Ave. S. Mpls. Mn. 55404




LUBRICATED GOAT have changed line-ups more than a few times recently. Present at this interview were Stu Spasm, Guy Maddison, Pete Hartley and Brett Ford ie the same line-up as on "Paddock Of Love".

*Right, the history of LUBRICATED GOAT...

Stuart: I don't want to talk about all that stuff. None of that stuff about LEATHER MOUSTACHE.

*You don't want to give any history? You and Brett were in SINGING DOG...

Brett: Yeah, well, that time was awful. The history of me and Stu is, we lived together in Melbourne about six years ago, and we had the best band. with Nick (Barker, of THE WRECKERY) and we couldn't get a gig, probably because we were ahead of our time - that's what I put it down to. We only did about three gigs all up. Then Nick joined this other band with Nique Needles, Stu moved to Sydney, I went to India, then came back to Perth and started playing with Pete. Stu was in Sydney playing in Beasts Of Bourbon and things at that time. Then Stu went to London and I went to London as well, and we just happened to bump into each in a nightclub. So we started a band in London with Ren, whose in BLOODLOSS. Then we came back to Australia, I went back to Perth and Stu to Sydney.

Stuart: I had to talk Brett into coming over here.

Brett: But I had my business in Perth ("Wheels & Doll Baby", a clothing shop). So Stu came over to Perth and we did gigs there with Pete on bass.

Stuart: I'd just like to say at this point, that Guy's now cutting his toenails with pliers.

Brett: So we formed the 'GOAT in Perth and made the album ("Plays The Devil's Music") there.

Stuart: That was the first attempt at making the 'GOAT into a proper band. Our ideas formed in the SINGING DOG, but we were all just living in Melbourne with no money, we couldn't even get equipment. So that was quite frustrating.

Pete: And they didn't even know me then, which would've been depressing.

Stuart: The SINGING DOG had some of our ideas, but when I came up here (to Sydney) I played entirely different music, because everything was sort of CRAMPS-y at that stage. Swamp reared it's ugly head. In England, me and Brett were playing together again but under much the same conditions as Melbourne except worse, because it's even harder to do anything in England. It's only now that we're in a position to do something proper. This is the first time we've actually been able to have a band and play together under the right circumstances, using the same ideas we've had for a long time.

*What were those ideas?

Stuart: Just the way we play together, all these bending rhythms and things, but we don't want to get into boring muso tech type talk.

*Can you explain the intent of the 'GOAT?

Stuart: Well, let's say what our music is for... you get so many bands around that just stand on stage and play these little tunes. They design the band to play three minute pop songs because they obviously aspire to be like the music we hear all day on the radio - all these pop bands playing "la la-la" music for people to wash cars by or sell things. Music for people to listen to while they're working. our music isn't designed for that purpose. It's not designed for the same sort of things as other people's music is. Our music is music for people to perform obscene sex acts to and to put on when they're having even normal sex, and music for impressionable teenagers to kill themselves to. It's supposed to be like a soundtrack for various things. It s much removed from just playing for people to have a bit of a dance or whatever, even though we have really strong rhythms. The actual sounds we make are intended to create atmospheres. That's what we want to do. I liken our music to a Stuka coming in and dive-bombing. That's what the noises Pete makes and things like that are. The lyrics sort of create the atmosphere, and the music swoops and swirls. The fretless bass that we've got is like a big, low, bottom-y thing that shifts like the techtonic plates that hold up all the countries, and when they shift it's like an earthquake. We just wanted music that's like all these big tumbling... um... things.

Pete: Things. It's basically like things.

Stuart: This big, twisting thing. You get people who play the guitar and they think of "how you play the guitar" as just 'jangle jangle', changing chords. You say, "This is how the song goes" and they go, "What are the chords?". Hardly any of our songs actually have chords in them.

Guy: I just feel like the backbone of a big, lumbering beast.

Stuart: The bass is the bomber coming in, hurtling in to drop it's bombs, approaching the drop zone, and the guitars are the accompanying fighter and fighter-bomber planes, and the drums are the bombs going off.

Brett: No, the drums are the tanks. Stuart and the vocals are Hitler giving the orders, and the people are the victims, in the audience.

Pete: But sometimes the bass is like the blades of grass, but really intense.

Brett: (Laughing hysterically) (in pixie voice) And the guitar is like the butterflies.

Stuart: Eurgh, we don't have butterflies.

*You've been, in a number of reviews, compared with the BUTTHOLE SURFERS, what do you think of that?

Stuart: I think that, in some ways, they obviously must think in a similar way to us. They must have come about in a similar sort of way. Although I listen to them, I wouldn't say that we were copying them in any way.

Pete: They've just got the same sort of knowledge that we've got, and they're as diverse from what people already know. They know that much more as we know as well.

Stuart: I'm surprised that there's not more bands that do similar things to them.

Guy: You can talk about in the way of where original music comes from. Each musician has a background of music and things that they've liked. Obviously there's people who've liked the same things in the past. Like, say, BLACK SABBATH, now that would be an obvious connection between us and the BUTTHOLE SURFERS.

Stuart: I've hardly ever listened to BLACK SABBATH.

Guy: Well I've listened to tonnes of it.

Brett: I grew up on that sort of thing, Richie Blackhead, Deep Pimple!

Stuart: I've been hearing things like what the BUTTHOLE SURFERS play, in my head, for years. When I used to work in this factory, when I was about 16, 1 used to make the day go past quicker by singing about twelve whole albums that I liked, in my head, during the course of the day. And I used to know every lead break and every little background vocal and every subtlety off pat. I used to, like, sing "Raw Power" through in my head, and things like that. Doing things like that, you can also get some music in your head, that you've created in your head, and make all sorts of things happen to it that you can't begin to do playing instruments. It's like when you're tapping a drum rhythm on your knees, you can make anything happen along with that inside your head. But it's amazing how many people don't actually get to transfer what's in their head onto their instruments. Guy: I've also heard us compared to PERE UBU, later day BLACK FLAG, LED ZEPPELIN... the BUTTHOLE's comparisons have mainly been people saying, "People who like the BUTTHOLE SURFERS will like this...".

Stuart: See, there were people in the 60s that played acid music, and then they went off and got technical and sophisticated with it and it lost it's charm in that way. And then everything went really basic again, and then it had to take off again. And that's what the BUTTHOLE SURFERS are doing in a way, because they've obviously developed in a different way again....

Brett: They've extended the best side of psychedelia. Because there was the jangly guitar, fringe-haired psychedelia, which was pop, basically, to me. But there was also the experimental kind of thing.

Stuart: From music getting carried away as it did towards the end of the 60s, when it was experimental, then in the 70s there was all this pomp, silly wizard music and all that sort of stuff...

*Wizzard the band?

Stuart: No, just silly pomp music, YES, and all that kind of stuff. Which isn't psychedelic. You put that on the record player, it'd probably make you vomit. And then everything went really plain again with punk, and then there was bubbly new wave... we sort of left off where the silly new wave thing started. A lot of my ideas formed after all the shit, like YES and all that was chucked out. We were developing our ideas at the same time all the bubbly new wave music was happening, and listening to a few older things because we got sick of listening to the more basic stuff like punk music. It's just the logical extension of how old we are, and how long we've been developing our ideas and everything.

Pete: Seeing these fads and things come and go makes you realise that it's pointless following them. So you might as well create them and just do what you're into and not think about what's going on.

Stuart: lt's the most obvious thing for us to be doing, making the music that we're doing, because we all like really quite heavy music, but we also like music that's good to listen to tripping or whatever. Music that's got lots of cascading sounds swirling through it.

Pete: Pretty music is even more pretty when it's got lots of balls.

*I like the concept there but I'm not quite sure how you execute "pretty music" with lots of balls?

Brett: That's what the KRYPTONICS was. Did you ever see them?

*Yeah, a couple of times.

Pete: Impact meets beauty.

Brett: That was a total clash. I just found this really nice, neat pop band and I thought, "Oh, this really deserves destroying" and who better to do it than Pete Hartley! (Much laughter). So I got him and Bob's your auntie!. It was a fuckin' great band when it fired. It fired about one in three or four (gigs), when the clash actually came together.

Stuart: What's actually pretty about it is, there's the strong beat and everything driving it along, and then over it the guitars and things take off like fireworks, and spiral and dive... That's what we want our music to be like, like what fireworks is to watch for your eye.

Pete: We don't get sacked in the 'GOAT, which is good. We used to get sacked quite often in the KRYPTONICS (Much laughter).

Brett: Every night, yeah!

*You mentioned "creating your own fads". I've also seen in at least one overseas magazine a quote, actually it was in a review of SLUB, in "Maximum Rock'N'Roll", and it said something along the lines of "this band is out there with THUG, LUBRICATED GOAT and FEEDTIME as the vanguard of new Australian music". How do you react to that?

Stuart: Well, it just seems like an obvious thing for someone to do was to create something new in this. country. When I first came to Sydney, it was so easy to do something here and stand out, because there was just all these "rnnannnanna rnnannanna" bands in Sydney (laughter) and I had no intention of doing anything like that.

*Can you explain that in some form that will translate onto paper?!

Stuart: You could say 'Detroit'.

Guy: Influenced by RADIO BIRDMAN.

Stuart: Yeah, all these stock standard guitar players, thousands of them, walking 'round Surry Hills with their leather jackets on, having their guitar for a gun and all standing there with their legs astride...

Guy: ... pumpin' out Deniz Tek's riffs.

Stuart: But we're not being reactionary, we're just doing our sort of music because we always wanted to do that sort of thing. And that's why our music takes shape the more we practice. We define our ideas more.

Brett: It's got to the point now where I'd rather listen to us than just about anything else. I listen to other things and I just like bits and pieces.

Stuart: I'm always disappointed when I hear most records, at how limited their imagination is. (Stu is handed a "Best of '87" Top 10, from a LA radio station, which lists the 'GOAT at number 4). Listen to this, "The Devil's Music - LUBRICATED GOAT, twisted Australian swamp grunge from a band named after a type of condom." (laughter) That's not a very apt description, you couldn't call us swamp grunge.

Brett: Twisted, yeah.

Stuart: From my point of view, as a I've tried to do all these things with guitars that are unrelated to the blues. I like the blues as much as the next bloke (laughter from Guy) but I'd rather hear musicians playing it, not ex-punks. I actually feel that I know more about music than most people I hear in bands that are like that. I hear them playing wrong notes and really pathetic imitations of blues riffs...

Brett: Pathetic "Johnny B Goode" riffs ...

Stuart: ... and it makes me fuckin' sick to hear 'em.

Brett: You get Johnny Thunders rehashing riffs and then you get other people rehashing Johnny Thunders. Johnny Thunders is boring.

Stuart: He's... er... different, but he's very limited. I can't talk to people unless I like their music. If I go around to someone's house and I look through their record collection and I see a few things in there that I don't like, then I just sit there, lookin' at them, when they're not lookin' at me, for the rest of the night thinking "you fuckin' dickhead" (much laughter).

Pete: It's unfortunate that some people don't take music as like going to the cinema or something. They have music on while they're doing something else and it's just something to put a wash over the white spaces. They don't actually step into it and enjoy music as the whole thing.

*They don't take music as 'music', it's just something else to do the washing to.

Stuart: Yeah, and you get people who listen to certain things, and they say, "I really like this music", and you say, "Yeah, well that sums you up" (laughter). Anyone that likes The Smiths or Boy George or any of that crap.

Brett: I like The Smiths.

Stuart: No, you don't!

Brett: Yes, I do.

Stuart: You're out of the band then.

Brett: No, you can print that I like The Smiths, because they amuse me so much. It's pure entertainment for me.

Stuart: Yeah, it's turned full circle, we hear The Smiths on the radio and we roar with laughter.

Brett: (In a voice somewhere between Morrisey and Kermit The Frog) "Shyness is gooood, a da da-da da-da".

Stuart: (In similar Morrisey/Kermit tone) "It's 1988 and a man can wear a dress if he wants to, de da da-da da-da" (lots of laughs).

*That description does say 'twisted', does twisted apply?

Stuart: Yeah, we twist things. What's it say again, "twisted Australian swamp grunge", it isn't actually saying we're swamp grunge but it says that we twist it. I don't feel that we're doing anything with swamp grunge. It's as if to say we're influenced by the SCIENTISTS and that kind of thing. I never used to listen to the SCIENTISTS, I'm not influenced by the SCIENTISTS.

Brett: I haven't even heard them.

Stuart: I listened the CRAMPS as a passing fad, but our music couldn't be more removed from that sort of thing, bands trying to play really simplistic music. I'm not really into playing simplistic music.

Pete: I think she's just used "grunge" to mean "grunty", but there's an infinite amount of music you can use and put grunt to it. So "grunge" is an infinite thing.

Stuart: The best Australian band I've ever seen is THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, and they're the only Australian band I think that could ever have possibly influenced me. And our music is not like theirs.

Brett: I reckon the best Australian band is a toss up between AC/DC and ROSE TATTOO.

Stuart: We appreciate the power of AC/DC and the first ROSE TATTOO album only the first album. But other than that I don't think I was influenced by any Australian music. There are no Australian guitarists that I think are very good.

Brett: Angus.

Stuart: Oh yeah, Angus, and Peter Wells.

Pete: He's pretty straight though, he's just got a nice fuzz box.

Stuart: I've never seen him with his pants off.

Pete: Every thing sounds so much better if you play it loud and grunty. Grunt is a mean thing, it's a really nice thing. It's power. And adding power to music is really good.

*That's not purely volume though.

Pete: No, it's just a really nice sound. If you record a guitar and an amp that's hurting, and then you play the recording really softly, it sounds really nice.

Stuart: I don't think there's anything that you would call "swamp" or "grunge" or anything like that. It hasn't got much blues in it. There might be a bit of distortion. Live, there's the grunge that accidently occurs, like when the soap suds get caught in the bottom of the sink. That's what grunge, I think, is, when people leave hair in the top of the drain.

Brett: The hardest thing to do is just say what we are. People ask what sort of music we are and I can't tell them.

Stuart: That's because we don't model ourselves on anybody. They said here that the PRIMEVILS were "Surrealist rock". That's not a bad little definition. I'd like to think we were "surrealist rock".

Brett: What do you reckon we are?

*If I had to describe you, I'd probably say, "it's rock'n'roll that's been pretty severely warped".

Guy: That's a pretty good definition.

*Do you want to do the standard, "You've got a new album coming out" stuff?

Stuart: "Paddock Of Love" by the LUBRICATED GOAT!

Brett: It's the hi-tech GOAT.

*How many songs?

Stuart: Eleven, I think.

Brett: We used a sampler on it...

Guy: German choirs, string sections...

Stuart: Hear a drug deal actually taking place in one of the songs! Hear glass breaking before your very ears. We had more time to record it than the last one. We ended up recording lots of stuff, overdubbing stuff, that ended up being stripped down to make the songs more basic. We spent a lot of money recording this record, but we learnt a lot.

Brett: Things that are effective live aren't always effective in the studio, and vice versa.

Stuart: We just want to be able to put out records a bit quicker unfortunately. We've got so many songs recorded for the new one, there's already four left over that can't fit on.

Brett:And we just wrote three new ones tonight.

Guy: And have a couple of new ones anyway.

Stuart: So we've got enough songs for another album already. It's frustrating. By the time the next album, comes out we'll probably have another ten songs.

Pete: All these people who have jobs and things like that...

Guy: Like the other three members of the band! (laughter).

Pete: ... repetitive things, and are confronted with 3D every day. What they can do is put our records on and just zoom right out of that and fragment (much hysterical laughter).

Stuart: We've been playing all the songs on this album, live, for awhile. the frustrating thing is that there are songs that we've been playing for just as long that still won't even be on this one. So already by the time it comes out we'll be playing songs that people can't buy on a record.

*Would you describe your music as "thinking music", as opposed to "feeling music"?

Brett: Both. It's definitely both.

Stuart: In a live situation, where you can't hear the lyrics, the music obviously hits you in a feeling sort of way. But if you can hear the lyrics and the music that's meant to complement them, then that aspect of it is thinking music.

*I meant from within the band, rather than the audience. It seems like you'd have to have a pretty good idea of what's going on.

Stuart: Oh yeah. It's not the sort of band that you can have two rehearsals and just play.

Pete: It's tight, but what's going on is basically what we feel. We feel what's being going on, what's been planned what's going on, and we feel our way around it as well.

Brett: It's being tight in the way of... it's almost like ESP between musicians.

Stuart: But at the same time you've got to know basically when things are gonna change.

Guy: You're full-on concentrating. I'm sure I must look like a bit of a blithering idiot when I'm playing. I don't mind being portrayed as that, but it doesn't mean I'm just standing there going "der der der der". You've gotta concentrate. It's more complex music than I've ev-er played before. It's finely tuned.

Brett: There's the knack of being tight and sounding loose, and then there's the knack of being loose but sounding tight. You get to the point of fine control after you've been playing with someone for long enough.

Pete: What you need, when you're playing live, is to create the party. That's all that's important. Just to create a good feeling, a vibe that goes all around the whole audience and bounces back and hits you in the face. You feel really good and you play even better.

Stuart: Someone actually said to me once that we were creating negative vibes - it was the hippy-ish way he said it - I took \ it as a compliment. But I want to play music that's more of a good time for people. Not just being really "wacky" or whatever. We don't really have much doom and gloom.

*No, it's powerful, but it's more 'up' powerful, not grind you down.

Brett: We've been making a conscious effort to make it more up. A lot of people think it's evil and depressing because of the name too.

*Yeah, I know at least one person that freaks out because of the name.

Brett: I know a few people. I think it's hilarious when they get freaked out about it, but they still do. It's a shame really because those people will probably never come to see us.

Pete: It's really nice to be freaked out though. It's a nice thing to have happen to you. It's important to be freaked out every now and then.

Brett: Anybody who'd think that we're really evil is a bit...

Guy: They're obviously disturbed by the name if they're going to say something about it; so that's not a very nice thing. But then again, you'd have to be a bit of a twit to be disturbed by something like that.

Stuart: Our name, and the attitude that we have in relation to that which is behind it, is made to effect people as much as it does, basically, and no more. Or maybe even more (laughter). As much as what these people might read into it is intended as what they would probably receive - without us actually performing satanic rituals or whatever - relative elements are there in a certain kind of alchemy to confront them in that way.

Guy: It's an interesting name.

Brett: The only thing that I think about our name is it's better to have a shock reaction from someone than no reaction at all.

Pete: Our name doesn't suggest any music really.

Brett: It's definitely memorable. It got in Smash Hits' "Silliest Names".

Guy: We got mentioned three times in Smash Hits in one issue, just because of our name.

Stuart: If people think that our name suggests that we're evil, then as far as they're concerned we are evil. We're about as evil as we need to be for their purposes (laughter) to make them wake up a bit and realize how silly they're being by being anything else by the same measures. Because it's all just a put-on. People that use, say for example, Christianitv as a crutch are just putting it on in as much as we might perhaps put on some devilish act.

Pete: Christianity as a crotch! (laughter).

*(Quoting from a copy of Smash Hits passed over by Guy) "the outfit who've scored more mentions in Smash Hits in recent times than Tiffany, Kylie Minogue and Patrick Swayze combined!"

Brett: See, it's a good name isn't it!

*"it was impossible to tell if they were utterly hopeless or really quite good"

Stuart: Mmm. Did you know that bestiality is anyway, the last sexual perversion to come out of the closet? After incest being exposed for the last year or two, and people coming to terms with incest and all that sort of thing, people still haven't come out of the closet about bestiality.

Pete: That's because animals can't talk.

Stuart: Yeah. So our name is basically bringing them out of the closet. "Bestiality perverts, come out of the closet!" We're facing it. Facing that issue.

Pete: Rights for goats.

Stuart: See, people lure goats into sex acts through the guise of it being some magical thing. Some bloke claims to be a warlock and he takes a few goats into a paddock...

Guy: ... the goat being the image of the devil.

Stuart: ... and the goats enjoy the idea that there's some sort of black magic thing happening (much laughter), because they've always been associated with that sort of thing, and they get a kick out of it. And the bloke usually isn't a warlock at all, he's just leading the goats down there and all he wants to do is have sex with them. And he says "to invoke the Devil, I have to have sex with you , young goat" (more laughter...) And so the goats have sex with the man and no magical thing happens whatsoever...

Guy: Except on a personal level (more laughter...)

Stuart: And it was just some horny animal fucker leading the goat on and the goat feels cheated afterwards (still more laughter...). So, what we're doing, by being the LUBRICATED GOAT, is getting to root a few goats (more laughter...) by claiming to be the Devil and all that... and we have one night where we suck in a few people that come to our gigs, gather in my room, light a few candles and have an altar and that, and then we tell these girls that we're wizards and all this stuff, and we slaughter a goat and eat it on a spit, and we claim that we'll perform acts of sex magic and they can attain things that they desire, and all we're doing is just leading them on so we can have sex with them (considerable laughter...). And we put on our record to conduct the ritual, because that's the right demonic music (Brett in hysterics by now). That's what we're all about. That's what our music's for. We made the records so that we can put them on at these mock satanic rituals purely so we can have sex with all these young Gothic girls. They stay up speeding all night and they see themselves as witches, they say, "I'm a witch", and you go, "Oh that's good, I'm a wizard!"

Brett: "A wizard? Show us your wizzer!" (people rolling around the floor by now).

Stuart: And they like it, you know. They get into it. The girls get a thrill out of it, we get a thrill out of it, that's what it's all about. And then if they're lucky I give them one of my sculptures of Alastair Crowley to take home as a booby prize.

*Is there anything else you want known about the 'GOAT?

Stuart: Um, well if they want to come to one of those sort of do's, approach us after the gigs and bring a six pack.