THE CELIBATE RIFLES

“Sometimes (I Wouldn’t Live Here if You Payed Me)”

(Sydney 1984)

I’m not sure how widespread the mid-80s Australian rock explosion was outside of Boston and New York but, for a couple of years there, the East Coast seemed to care a lot more about Sydney than Los Angeles.

When the Celibate Rifles arrived at my Somerville apartment in 1986, they were a ragtag military unit of hyperactive boys led by a jaded and dissolute commander. This was the story: Damien Lovelock was a legendary Sydney surfer & self-styled poet who corralled a group of much-younger high schoolers into giving a punk-rock accompaniment to his onstage rantings. Damien styled himself as an Australian Leonard Cohen but he probably more resembled a blonde Jack Sparrow.

Now, I’m not sure how much of that was true. Looking at the photos now, Damien doesn’t really look much older than the rest of the band. Guitarist Kent Steedman was hyperactive but he might have been the real driving force behind the band.

Damien Lovelock did have incredible powers of persuasion; he somehow convinced me to let him smoke in my car as I chauffeured him around Boston during the week I hosted the band.

This single version of “Sometimes” was a giant hit on the Boston College radio stations in early 1985. The song was recut for an album at some point but it was this version that convinced What Goes On Records to sign them and bring them to the States.

• Download: Sometimes (I Wouldn’t Live Here if You Payed Me)

(Hot Records 718)

THE LIME SPIDERS

“Slave Girl” 45

(Australia 1984)

Most days, this seems like the best record ever made.

Lots of people thought so back in 1984 when Australia’s Citadel Records released the 45 as part of an awesome string of releases that included the Screaming Tribesmen, Died Pretty and the New Christs. For a couple of years, I bought everything on the label I could find. Very few copies made it to the States and the Citadel logo was the era’s absolute guarantee of quality.

Nothing else really matched this one, though. “Slave Girl” managed to evoke the radical primitivism of 60s bands like the Wailers and the Sonics while still sounding like the Lime Spiders could blow Black Sabbath off the stage.

Big Time Records (owned by an Australian who once managed Air Supply) licensed the band’s first two singles and released them in the United States as the Slave Girl EP in 1985. “Slave Girl” was a massive success on college radio here.

Virgin Records swooped in and gave the band what seemed like a massive deal. The production on The Cave Comes Alive tried to tame the band’s sound and make them more radio-friendly. Instead, this album (and the subsequent U.S. tour) removed all the mystery and the whole thing collapsed.

Fortunately, “Slave Girl” remains standing. The lyrics still don’t make much sense; singer Mick Blood seems confused as to whether he’s the dominant or submissive one in this relationship. But his howl and the relentless guitar pounding make all distinctions seem meaningless.

Frustratingly, I’ve yet to hear a digital version of “Slave Girl” that fully captures the experience of playing the 45. On vinyl, it’s the way the guitars kick in at 21 seconds that just makes the whole thing. Even “Slave Girl” appears on both the Australian punk compilation Do the Pop and Rhino’s excellent Children of Nuggets box, I tried ripping from vinyl but I guess digital compression just obscures the experience. A little.

• Download: Slave Girl

(Citadel Records CIT 008)

(Sleeve note: “Slave Girl” rose to the top of the pile last week after I saw Ruth Leitman’s Lipstick & Dynamite, a truly amazing documentary about women’s wrestling. I owned this record for over 20 years and never knew the cover image was a promo shot of The Fabulous Moolah from the early days of her career when she herself was known as the “Slave Girl.”)