Day 132.
In Space: this Singapore project has a new song called “Inside Out” which is quite nice! I don’t know much about them, it seems it is just one person behind it who describes himself as a bottom bunk boi. Any of my Singaporean friends know him?
Airhockey: a few posts ago I was telling you to check out “Try” the one and only song you could preview from the EP “Walkthrough”. Now the cassette EP is sold out and luckily all 6 songs are available to play on Bandcamp. They are really good!
Eterna Joventut: a few months ago I recommended the debut song by this Barcelona duo, and I was raving it! Now their second song is actually a song the duo formed by Júlia and Asier wrote for Mujeres. This time around they play it themselves and is called “Tu Amor”. Fun guitars!
Asian Shoegaze Compilation Vol. 1: this 8 song comp came out last May. It features bands from Japan (Oell), Hong Kong (Sea of Tranquility) and China (The Pillow Man and Endless White). Each band contributes two songs and you get the feeling, even if these places are so far for many of us, that a cool scene is brewing there!
Pop at Summer: last April the Bandung band published a new wonderful song called “Kiss Berry”. Not sure how I missed it. This is one of my favourite Indonesian pop bands and I believe that it should be yours too. Really lovely.
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I must say I am not that familiar with Australian indierock from the 90s. Not at all. So forgive me if I don’t know things that might be obvious for many of you. I know indiepop and I think I know quite a bit. But indierock is not my forte.
It seems there was a band in Australia during the 90s called Custard. It seems it was quite popular releasing albums and singles. Lots of them. But before that Dave McCormack ad Paul Medew, two of their members, had a band called Who’s Gerald? who I thought contacting long time ago when I was planning to do Australian indiepop compilations. As you know these never happen. The lack of interest and lack of help from the bands sort of disappointed me. What can you do?
See, I had discovered Who’s Gerald? not too long ago. They had been part of a compilation called “Young Blood” that was released by rooArt in 1988 in LP, CD and tape formats. It even got a US release. And so, I knew on these compilations (because there was even a “Young Blood II”), new up and coming Australian bands were featured. The Hummingbirds for example were there. And so I found Who’s Gerald? on it with a terrific song called Pins and Needles”. Thought I had to find out more info about them.
We know they released only one single, a 7″. And we know that the band was formed by:
Cathy Atthow: drums
Paul Medew: bass
Glen Donald: keyboards
David McCormack: vocals, guitar
They hailed from Brisbane.
The 7″ was released on their own Gerald Corp. label (GER 0002). Now the catalog number makes it look as if there had been a previous release. Was it perhaps a demo tape? Would be good to find it. It was released the same year as the rooArt compilation, 1988, and included two songs.
The A side had the song “Wrestle Wrestle” while the B side had “Gerald is Stumbling Away Along the Highway of Life”. After this song title you can’t stop wondering who is Gerald. Was it someone they knew perhaps?
The art for the jacket is quite cool. The front cover has a black and white illustration of some guy with a cool haircut over a red background. The band shows the bands legs/shoes on a photo as well as lyrics for their two tracks. We see too that the B side had some flute played by Peter Evans. The tracks were produced by the band and Jonnee Acid and they were engineered by Peter Wragg at Southwind Studios.
So I was saying, David McCormack had been in Custard. But that’s not all. He has been in C.O.W., The Millionaires, The Titanics and David McCormack and the Polaroids. Paul Medew was also on a band called Miami aside from Custard. I couldn’t find any other bands for the other members.
Interestingly, David McCormack even has his own Wikipedia entry. Here it mentions that in 1986 Who’s Gerald? was formed. And then that in 1988 the band released a cassette called “Who’s Gerald’s Greatest Hits”. This might have been the first release of Gerald Corp Records. It also tells something quite interesting, that in 1988 3 of their members, Atthow, McCormack and Medew briefly formed a band called Automatic Graphic with Scott Younger. Are there recordings for this band?
Something that I also found interesting, as I love the Go-Betweens, is that McCormack recorded with Robert Forster for his second solo album, “Calling from a Country Phone”.
A little more of digging and I find a proper treasure. A Bandcamp with 10 songs to listen by Who’s Gerald?! It is like an expanded version of the single, adding 8 songs to it. These are: “Pins and Needles”, “Hell on Wheels”, “Affrodeedies Principal”, “Burning Up”, “Banging in My Ear”, “Cowboy”, “Road Metal” and “You Really Got Me”.
Then on the credits the break it by different releases I think. For example some of these songs were recorded at Payne Street, Indooropilly on a Yamaha 4-track cassette machine. Then “Banging in My Ear” seems to be among their oldest songs and this one was recorded by Lee Lee Ingram at Creative Space Studios in Milton.
“Affrodeedies Principal”, “Burning Up” and “Road Metal’ recorded and produced by David Lennon at Creative Space Studios in Milton.
Then there’s a note by Dave about the last song, “You Really Got Me”: You Really Got Me’ was recorded circa 1986 in Dave’s bedroom at Tarbet St, Kenmore using Christian Dahl’s Yamaha 4track cassette recorder. “It must have been winter because I remember it being very chilly. The guitars and keyboards and bass were all run through my crappy Princeton amp (because it had 4 inputs so it acted as a pseudo mixer). I recall the bedroom was a new addition so we were all standing on a concrete slab, very chilly. Soon after my parents managed to purchase some sea-grass matting as flooring.
Then I stumble an article about the band on the blog That Striped Sunlight Sound. Here it says that the band was named after a response of finding a wooden coat hanger with Gerald written on it. That was the legend. But there is another theory that says that they were named after Gerald V. Casale from Devo. Here it also pinpoints Ipswich as the place where the band was formed. Then it tells us to which universities each of them went, Paul went to James Cook University and Glen and David went to Queensland Uni. There they would meet Cathy who had never drummed before.
The band used to practice at the Queensland Uni at their Activities office or at Christian Dahl’s house in Indooroopilly. Christian had answer and advert where the band was looking for a bassist. Their first gig was at The Outpost in the Valley. Their second gig was at The Love Inn. Their third was back at The Outpost. They also played 4ZZZ Market Day a few times. Their two biggest gigs according to David were supporting Sonic Youth at The Patch at Tweed Heads and INXS at Brisbane Entertainment Centre.
Someone commented too that the band played at the Chelmer Bowls Club in Toowong in 1988.
Another hit on the web takes me to the book”Pig City: From the Saints to Savage Garden”. Here it mentions that Cathy Atthow earned her place as the band’s drummer partly through David’s obsession with the Go-Betweens and Lindy Morrison!
I couldn’t find much more information about them. I do see many people saying that the songs were badly recorded, or they weren’t good. But I think in general most people agree that the track they contributed to “Young Blood”, the song “Pins and Needles”, was their best. And yeah, it is a pretty good song!
Who remembers them?
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