by Tex Perkins
When Kim Salmon joined, the classic Beasts line-up was complete.
Kim had approached me a few years earlier at a Dum Dums gig by saying, ‘Hey, look I don’t want this to sound offensive, but . . . are you serious? These were the first words he ever said to me. I didn’t have an answer and I don’t think I even understood the question. All I knew was I was talking to the lead singer of my favourite band.
The Scientists were a different kettle of fish than the gregarious Johnnys. They were virtual rock snobs by comparison. They exuded a quiet arrogance, as if they knew they were the best band in the country. That was fair enough, because they WERE the best band in the country. When they eventually left Australia to live in London, I took care of Congo, the Salmon family’s pet poodle, until a few months later when I too went to live in that paradise they called Mother England.
Then, as now, Kim has often been baffled with my ‘methods’ but he must have seen something in me back then as we became good friends. I would learn that Kim was ‘serious’ about his fun.
For years later, people would always remind us that The Beasts Of Bourbon weren’t really a proper band. We were a thrown-together posse of guys with a mercenary philosophy about us.
And sure, at first we were just banging it together to make a couple of bucks. Nobody thought we were going to be doing this for very long. It was just the way it was – the Beasts united if somebody had a good enough offer and we’d fill the band with whoever was available at the time.
But after we’d fulfilled those handful of Dum Dums gigs we started to get a bit of momentum. Everyone was still doing their own gigs in their own bands but the Beasts had buzz and the offers to play got better and better.
Right from the start The Beasts Of Bourbon had this undeniable appeal. Each of us was a distinctive character and all of us were good players in our own right. It was easy to publicise a band featuring members of the Hoodoo Gurus, The Scientists and The Johnnys. I’m not sure being a former member of Tex Deadly and The Dum Dums added much cache but the other guys did.
With the Beasts there was no real discussion about a unified image or anything like that. The band’s image was pretty much established by who was in the band because everyone had established their own individual image via the other bands they’d been in.
Together as Beasts Of Bourbon we made this big, swaggering blues/swamp sound and became a certified indie underground supergroup.
And inadvertently we had created a great rock’n’roll band.
THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ
The Beasts Of Bourbon was a big deal to a bunch of people fairly quickly and didn’t take long to catch fire as a thing.
Pretty soon after it took off, Roger Grierson, ever the entrepreneur, piped up to say we should capitalise on this thing we had because it might not last very long. Roger figured the Beasts were a Zeitgeist band, a moment in time that should be recorded, so he booked a studio in Woolloomooloo for us to record an album and got producer Tony Cohen on board to record us.
Tony had recorded a lot of significant stuff in Melbourne in the mid-’70s through to the mid-’80s. He recorded things like The Ferrets’ ‘Don’t Fall In Love’, which became a big Countdown hit. He also did the classic ‘I Like It Both Ways’ by Supernaut. Basically Tony was a pop/rock guy who was a great engineer and had a good ear, which was why industry heavies like Molly Meldrum liked to work with him when they were producing.
Tony had worked his way up through a studio called Richmond Recorders. When the punk bands all appeared and started recording and using studios in Melbourne, Tony was usually the youngest guy in the studio scene so they all automatically gravitated to him because the sense was the young guy would be cool and into what those bands were trying to do.
And Tony was great with bands. He could relate to them and he was prepared to take chances and mess around with things in the studio. Most of the other studio dudes tended to be pretty rigid compared to him. Tony always brought a great vibe to his sessions. His enthusiasm was contagious. He wasn’t one of those pricks that say, ‘Hmmm, no I don’t think we can do that.’ Tony was the original ‘Why not?’ guy.
The original Beasts (from left to right): Kim Salmon, Spencer P. Jones, James Baker, Boris Sujdovic and me.
If you go back and listen to the stuff he worked on in the late ’70s and early ’80s you will hear some pretty amazing stuff. One of his best is The Birthday Party’s album Prayers On Fire released in 1981. It’s a really powerful mix – atmospheric, but tight and hard-hitting and dare I say, very funky. Things like ‘Zoo Music Girl’ groove along like nothin’ else.
Tony’s stories about the recording of Prayers and its follow-up Junkyard would curl your hair. Turns out Nick Cave and the gang were very fortunate to have school prefect Mick Harvey there to keep things focused and functioning. Tony was right in the middle of it too. He was always the right man in the right place at the right time . . . doing all the wrong things.
When Tony recorded The Birthday Party and Hunters & Collectors, The Sacred Cowboys and The Models’ mini-album Cut Lunch he established a trademark bass sound. With Tony, the bass was the core instrument in any band. It wasn’t merely a part of the rhythm section beefing up the background. The bass player was front and centre, riffing a hole in your gut. When we met Tony that day at Paradise studios, I knew none of this. I hadn’t even thought about what a ‘producer’ was.
Up to this point the gigs the Beasts had been doing – and there hadn’t been many of them – had required two, sometimes even three sets which means we needed to know lots of songs. Not surprisingly a lot of them were covers. Songs by people like Alice Cooper, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Stooges and the New York Dolls.
Roger must have assumed we’d be doing a sort of covers record. A ‘Sydney underground supergroup plays underground classics’ kind of thing.
But something happened between the decision to record and actually doing it – we managed to find the time to write and the songs came quickly so by the time we got into the studio we had mostly original songs. I use the term original loosely. I’m not saying that album is full of rip-offs, but the way we’d ‘write’ a song back then would be to have a set of lyrics and then someone might say ‘Let’s try it like that Beefheart song “I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby”’ and off we’d go. ‘Save me a place’ indeed.
By tossing around ideas and referencing our vast collective knowledge of our favourite rock’n’roll records, an original song list came very naturally and fast. Everyone brought in one or two tunes. I had a couple left over from the Dum Dums – ‘Ten Wheels For Jesus’ and ‘Lonesome Bones’ – plus with ‘Evil Ruby’ I had a bunch of lyrics which Spencer suggested trying it as a Stones/Creedence stomp. It was a throw-it-against-the-wall attitude but thankfully enough managed to stick. Cos everyone knows that filth is sticky.
Spencer was hanging around at Roger Grierson and Stuart Coupe’s house at the time – he may even have been living on the couch. Roger and Stuart lived in the downstairs floor of a two-storey place in Cathedral Street in Woolloomooloo. Upstairs were the offices of Regular Records – the hipper, more mainstream indie record label of the day. This place was Sydney rock central at the time if you were in bands like The Johnnys, The Allniters, the Hoodoo Gurus . . . or the nascent Beasts Of Bourbon. They all hung downstairs, while up above was the world of Icehouse, Mental As Anything . . . and Austen Tayshus.
From left to right: James Baker, Spencer P. Jones, Boris Sujdovic, me, Congo and Kim Salmon.
Stuart had a massive collection of books and a lot of crime fiction. Spencer was leafing through one, The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler, and in it was one of the few poems that Chandler wrote – a piece called ‘Song At Parting’. Spencer showed it to me. It was about a guy who killed a woman by leaving a meat axe in her brain. Right up our alley. So we figured there was a song in it . . .
Swamp was firmly where my own head was at. Swamps and graveyards were big with me at 17 or 18. I was very muc
h embracing the whole idea of the American South, New Orleans music and all that voodoo culture. That’s why Creedence Clearwater was such a big influence on me and why that first Beasts album became an extended ode to the Big Easy and all that Southern stuff. It’s got murder, trains, trucks, drugs, swamps, graveyards, buses . . . and a few more murders.
Creedence is an important connection because they too had that obsession, but they weren’t from the South. They were from San Francisco – hippie town – and yet they decided that their thing would be the South. That would be their schtick. They weren’t from there but they wanted to fantasise about it because for them that was where it was at – the whole mythology of it. And I felt the same way.
Anyway, I’d seen a few swamps in my day.
The reason that the album is called The Axeman’s Jazz is that someone I knew – I think it was Jules Normington – had a book called something like Myths And Legends of New Orleans and there was a chapter called ‘The Axeman’s Jazz’. It was about a serial killer in New Orleans just after World War I who was going around axing people. And his one passion in life apart from slicing and dicing people was jazz. So he wrote a letter to the local newspaper saying that he would not attack anyone in any house that was emitting jazz music. For a long time after that there was jazz coming from just about every house because everyone was in fear of the Axeman. This was the myth that we took the name from. The actual letter reads as follows:
Hell, May 6th, 1919
Esteemed Mortal:
They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether that surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axeman.
When I see fit, I shall come and claim other victims. I alone know whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except my bloody axe, besmeared with blood and brains of he whom I have sent below to keep me company.
. . . Undoubtedly, you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am, but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished, I could pay a visit to your city every night. At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens, for I am in close relationship with the Angel of Death.
Now, to be exact, at 12.15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is:
I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of your people who do not jazz it on Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.
Well, as I am cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and it is about time I leave your earthly home, I will cease my discourse . . . I have been, am and will be the worst spirit that ever existed either in fact or realm of fancy.
The Axeman
There’s improvisation on The Axeman’s Jazz but not a lot of jazz. It’s a better title than The Axeman’s Blues – we were closer to the blues, but Axeman’s Jazz just sounds better, especially if you’re not actually playing jazz. So no, there’s not a whole lot of jazz but there is a whole lot of killin’ on that record, some of it with axes, so it fit nicely. I think at least one person cops it in pretty much every song. From memory ‘Drop Out’ and ‘Ten Wheels For Jesus’ are the only songs where someone doesn’t meet their end in some way (but with 15 kinds of diseases the protagonist in ‘Ten Wheels For Jesus’ can’t be far off). I think the body count on the album is 41 people and a dog.
Paradise Studios in Woolloomooloo was booked from midday till 6 pm on a Sunday in late October 1983. Even though we had six hours booked in the studio we actually did the whole record in about four. Roger Grierson made the mistake of giving everyone involved their hundred dollars before we started the session and of course Tony immediately headed up the road to Kings Cross to score so that was the first two hours gone.
We finally got underway some time around 2 pm with our skinny bellies full of beer and our faces full of speed. At some point I took a moment to pause and look around; I was 18, in a studio with my favourite musicians in the world making a record! I was happy – very, very happy.
Spencer arrived a bit later. The Gun Club were touring Australia at the time and a couple of them didn’t make it here so Spencer and Billy Pommer from The Johnnys were filling in. By the time he did arrive he was still going from the night before, which had been the final night of the Gun Club tour. I’d never seen anyone higher or drunker than Spencer P. Jones when he arrived that afternoon.
This was frowned upon by Kim but to tell you the truth Spencer did work very well . . . for a while. The last thing we recorded was ‘Lonesome Bones’. Spencer played slide guitar on that and it’s all over the place, but it’s perfect for what we were aiming for. I can’t imagine it any other way. Jonesy played his guitar lying flat on his back and I don’t think he stood up again until we left. He finished playing ‘Lonesome Bones’ and passed out on the floor. There was no more he could do.
I didn’t know it then but it would never be this simple and pure again.
In the end we’d done mostly first takes, and there were no other songs recorded for B-sides. There’s no fat or leftovers whatsoever on The Axeman’s Jazz. Everything got used. I think that’s why that album works better than other Beasts albums. Ten-song albums are usually the best and that one’s nine. The whole record is recorded as a totally live mix straight to tape. Perfect. There was no sense in recording it and then having a mixing session later and figuring it out. There was no time and money anyway.
At the time we of course had no idea that this would become such an important and influential album to so many. Today it’s frequently cited as one of the most significant independent Australian albums of that era – and has ended up selling a LOT of copies both here and overseas.
This was, and still is, the purest of the Beasts’ albums. Later the band started doing 13-and 15-song albums and at times heading down a few artistic dead ends. I think all those records would work better being 10-song albums or less. For that reason alone The Axeman’s Jazz is my favourite of the Beasts’ albums. It’s also for me a document of one of the best days of my life.
THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ
THE BEASTS OF BOURBON / 1983
A six-hour session, this really IS all about being thrown in the deep end. Stink or swim, I think we did both. You’ve just read a whole chapter on this recording session so there’s no need to repeat all that here. I have to say, one of my favourite parts of this album comes before a note is even played. At the start of the record before the first song ‘Evil Ruby’ you can hear the sounds of the Beasts preparing to commence recording. Spencer says ‘James’ to which James answers ‘Hey? I, I don’t start it’, followed by my goofy 18-year-old’s chuckle. Then a decisive ‘1,2,3,4’ from Kim and we were away.
RECORD LABEL: GREEEN, 1984, reissued on Red Eye, 1988
CORE BAND MEMBERS: Tex Perkins (vocals), Spencer P. Jones (guitar), Kim Salmon (guitar), Boris Sujdovic (bass), James Baker (drums).
LONDON CALLING
Sometime in late 1984 I got a letter from Kid Congo Powers.
I’d met Kid the year before when The Gun Club toured Australia. Kid just happened to have been in two of my favourite ever bands – The Cramps and The Gun Club. In the letter he told me that The Gun Club were winding up and that I should come to London as soon as possible so he and I could start a band together. And I went ‘OKAY, LET’S GO’ and organised a quick Beasts of Bourbon gig so I could raise the thousand dollars I’d need to buy a plane ticket to London
I was 19 and as green as snot from a leprechaun. Having never been overseas before I had no knowledge at all as to what you do when going to another country to form a rock’n’roll band.
I was so naïve I figured you just jumped on a plane and got there. No one told me the last thing you say to British customs officials is ‘I’m in a band’. But that’s pretty much what I did and it did not go down well.
‘You’re goin’ to be in a bund y’say?’ said the man at immigration. ‘Oh reeeally?’ Then he asked me if I had a work permit and of course I had to say no. I didn’t even know such a thing existed. I tried to explain that I didn’t have a work permit at that stage as we didn’t actually have a band. But we were going to have a band and then I guessed I’d apply for a work permit. But because we didn’t have a band yet and we weren’t working, I didn’t have one or need one yet.
It was logic that made sense to me – but not to them.
Furthermore, I told them there was no need to worry about me because I wasn’t going to go on the dole or anything like that. I wasn’t going to be a burden on them or the system. I was going to work, but not just yet, but when I did work, I’d certainly get a work permit.
Okay?
Unsurprisingly, they weren’t buying it. They told me that without a work permit they weren’t letting me into the UK and that I should go and sit on that bench over there and that they’d deal with me soon. Then they started to go through my belongings and have a good look at everything.
It must be said that I wasn’t really all that clever in my packing for international travel. Back at the squat I’d been living in I’d just run my arm across a table with all my things on it and swept it into a suitcase. Now there was lots of weird, stupid, slightly incriminating things in there which they started to judge me on. Suddenly there was this whole ‘What do we have here?’ vibe.