the cruel sea

News that a long-lost five-track release by Sydney band The Most was making its way onto streaming platforms has made the ears of veterans of Australia's 1980s underground scene prick up. The Most were among many terrific acts in a crowded inner-city Sydney scene, and a band that spawned future members of the Lime Spiders and The Cruel Sea.  

Originally issued as a cassette in very limited quantities by fanzine "48 Crash", the "Another Day" EP is now available online, so we tracked down The Most drummer RICHARD LAWSON to extract some historical details. THE BARMAN did the interrogating. 

In the early 1990s John Foy found himself in the eye of the storm enveloping the music industry.

Foy’s independent record label, Red Eye, had done a deal with Polydor, the Australian arm of multinational company Phonogram. A sold-out at show at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion in 1991, headlined by Ratcat and featuring English band Rideand Red Eye bands The Clouds and Falling Joys, had awakened major labels to the commercial potential of the independent music scene. Other Red Eye bands like The Cruel Sea would surf the independent wave into the late 1990s, even after Foy withdrew from industry machinations.

Thirty years later, Foy looks back on those heady days with fondness. But even as he trawled through his archive of posters, ticket stubs and memories for his “Snaps Crack Pop!” visual collection cum autobiography, he’s not dwelling on what he should have done back in the day. Foy has always lived in the moment, for better and for worse.

Half Deaf, Completely Mad: The Chaotic Genius of Australia’s Most Legendary Producer
By Tony Cohen with John Olson
(Black Ink)

“Unputdownable” is a word and it officially entered the English lexicon in 1947. That’s a full decade before Tony Cohen came into the world, but the descriptor could have been custom-built for “Half Deaf, Completely Mad”, his posthumous autobiography.

This is a tale of hyper-energy and off-the-wall sonic experimentation cleverly disguised as a 230-page paperback. It’s a weaving, sometimes wobbling story told through Cohen’s often bloodshot or pinned eyes, with dry wit and self-deprecation. 

People who worked with the man and saw his excesses first-hand might question his ability to recall fine detail, but in the same manner that Tony would feverishly splice three-inch tape to insert a crucial edit, his co-writer John Olson stitched the bits together.

Not familiar with Tony Cohen’s work? The music he produced was the soundtrack of the life of anyone into Australian underground music in the 1980s and ‘90s. The Boys Next Door, the Birthday Party, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Michael Hutchence, The Johnnys, Beasts of Bourbon, Go-Betweens, Hunters and Collectors, Kim Salmon, Laughing Clowns, The Cruel Sea, The Saints, X, TISM…the list goes on. Flick through your own record collection and get back to me.

Our late friend Sue Telfer has been named the Australian Women in Music Awards 2019 Music Leadership Award gold medallist. The award - which recognises a female CEO, managing director, label manager, A&R director, artist manager or publisher who has made a significant impact in music industry leadership - was announced at the Brisbane Powerhouse last night.

Sue was a 27-year manager with APRA-AMCOS and a long-term band booker/den mother on Sydney’s live music scene. We’ll be celebrating her life at a tribute concert at The Factory Theatre in Sydney on Sunday October 20 from 2pm, featuring X, the New Christs, The Johnnys, Kim Salmon, The Cruel Sea (instrumental), Front End Loader, The Mis-Made, Penny Ikinger, The Holy Soul and The On and Ons. Tickets are selling fast and are available here,

_{Murray Bennett photo.}

Made it through an intense year of behind-the-scenes, hatchet job betrayal, on constant alert with old stuff anxiety kicking in and an ADHD burn-out that sent me to a dark and desperate place. 

But despite all the amputations, my life was saved by Rock ‘n’ Roll….

1. The Cruel Sea
Made a new album with The Cruel Sea. Recorded in three days in a tin shed during a brutal Melbourne heatwave. A bunch of songs we barely knew and nearly all first takes with minimal overdubs and quick mixes. Relied on our old wits and it sounds pretty damn good! 

2. Robyn Hitchcock
Spent time with my dear friend Robyn Hitchcock as we both navigated dark waters, then played a wonderful show at The Great Club in Sydney with Samand Davey and Katethat steered us straight, and we stayed up grooving on my back deck until the birds and the garbage trucks joined us.