Thirty-two years after their last vinyl single on US label Sympathy For The Record Industry, Pismo Beach’s Undefeated Intercontinental Tag Team Rock and Roll Champions, Psychotic Turnbucles, are releasing a new 45.
“Bad News Travels Fast” b/w “Infected (With You)” is out on our own I-94 Bar Records on September 5 and will be launched in the band’s second home, Sydney, at Marrickville Bowling Club this Saturday.
A curious Robert Brokenmouth was so floored by this news that he decided to interrogate the Turnbuckles via email. Here’s the result of his exchange with Jesse The Intruder (vocals), The Grand Wizard (guitar), Count Forza (guitar), The Infliktor (bass) and Buddy “Bam Bam” Balam The Brooklyn Bruiser (drums).
Playing the Tokyo Halloween Ball.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: It’s good of you fellas to come out of your retirement to come to Australia on a mission of mercy to Destroy Dull Sydney. You’ve done this on several occasions – what the fuck is wrong with Sydney? Why does it deserve such a battering? And, why NOW? Is there something going on in California that you find distasteful?
JESSE THE INTRUDER: Retirement? Champions do not retire. Champions merely withdraw from public view until civilisation requires them again. We have a new single - Bad News Travels Fast” b/w “Infected With You” - and the world deserves to hear it.
Sydney has been allowed to deteriorate badly in our absence. The clubs got quieter. The crowds got softer. Bands started staring at their shoes. Guitar players accumulated pedalboards the size of wrestling rings. People began discussing “noise restrictions”. That is what happens when the Psychotic Turnbuckles leave a city unsupervised.
So Sydney is going back on the slab. We are coming off the top rope to administer a full-scale musical correction: guitars at championship volume, the Pismo Beach piledriver, liberal quantities of Turnbuckle Tonic and absolutely no time-limit draw.
Buddy Bam Bam Balam will restore respect to the streets. The Infliktor will restore fear. Count Forza will restore breeding, elegance and the natural authority of European nobility.The Grand Wizard will preside over everything with the all-knowing gaze of a man who already knows how the night ends.
And I, Jesse The Intruder, will restore glamour, virility and a dangerous level of female excitement not seen since a jealous husband forced Gorgeous Karl Domah to go into retirement and on the run.
The Grand Wizard and Jesse The Intruder.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: I’ve had a look around and I’m concerned that the reasons for your 1984 ban by the Pismo Beach Wrestling Alliance seem to have been whitewashed from the internet. Shouldn’t that whole story be out there as a cautionary tale for would-be wrestlers?
THE GRAND WIZARD: The 1984 ban that made us re-locate to Sydney and take up rock and roll was one of the great political outrages in professional wrestling history. Everybody knows it. The Pismo Beach Wrestling Alliance could no longer control us.
We were drawing bigger houses, selling more Turnbuckle Tonic and inspiring greater loyalty than the Alliance itself.
The official story involved an unauthorised title defence, three foreign objects, a referee who counted too slowly, two members of the Athletic Commission and what newspapers inaccurately described as “a riot”.
JESSE THE INTRUDER: The Grand Wizard knew the ban was coming before the promoters had decided to impose it. That is all we will say.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: Just quietly ... I have heard that while the PB Wrestling Alliance is the professional circuit ... I’ve also heard that there’s an underground circuit ... and are the rumours true? Do you guys still ... dabble, just to keep your hand in, just to stay ... supple?
THE GRAND WIZARD: There is no underground circuit. There is no midnight wrestling beneath a clam-processing shed outside Pismo. There is no bloodstained ring known as The Pit. There is no invitation-only championship conducted under Clam Club rules.
And nobody has ever seen The Infliktor win a submission bout by applying something now known as the Arroyo Grande Spine Separator.
THE INFLIKTOR: I deny everything.
JESSE THE INTRUDER: Those are malicious rumours spread by people with vivid imaginations. We remain supple because champions remain ready. Buddy still trains like every street in Brooklyn might suddenly require clearing. The Infliktor does not “train”. He inflicts structural damage on heavy objects until he feels calm. Count Forza maintains the conditioning regimen of generations of Italian aristocratic warriors.
The Infliktor delivers some bad news.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: It’s been argued that the strict controls and organised results of wrestling matches is one reason that the US Mafia never became closely involved with wrestling. While to a degree that makes sense ... is there more to the Mafia’s reluctance to dip their toe in that water?
THE INFLIKTOR: They were afraid. There is your answer.
BUDDY BAM BAM BALAM: Organised crime likes easy money. There was nothing easy about trying to intimidate the Psychotic Turnbuckles.
JESSE THE INTRUDER: That’s right Buddy Some gentlemen once arrived in Pismo Beach with expensive suits, heavy Italian accents long before Count Forza was inducted into our ranks, and an interest in influencing wrestling outcomes. Then The Grand Wizard looked at them. Nothing dramatic. No threats. No raised voice. Just the gaze. They left Pismo before sunrise.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: Now I happen to know that Pismo Beach – the beach itself – is damned long, 17 miles; but Pismo Beach is also what Americans call a city. Now, fellas, we have some fine beaches here in Australia – why on earth are you returning to Pismo when we have much better surfin’ and clammin’ beaches here in Australia?
JESSE THE INTRUDER: “Better” is a ridiculous word to use in the same sentence as Pismo Beach. Australia has beaches. Pismo has destiny and every grain of its sand has absorbed championship sweat. Our sweat. Every pier piling carries the echoes of battles settled after closing time. Every barstool at The Clam Club has heard a Buddy Bam Bam Balam story. Every dark alley has been improved by The Infliktor. Every hotel has at least one Jesse The Intruder legend attached to it.
Count Forza’s family has estates overlooking stretches of Mediterranean coastline that lesser men would describe as magnificent, but even he understands that Pismo Beach occupies a higher spiritual plane.
Buddy Bam Bam Balam The Brooklyn Bruiser is a man with a long name and a short temper.
BUDDY BAM BAM BALAM: The Grand Wizard says Pismo is where land, ocean and wrestling power intersect. Nobody has produced a convincing argument against him.
THE INFLIKTOR: Australia may have surf. Pismo has the belt.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: So many tourists come to Pismo and I’m sure you guys get a lot of attention on the promenade and the pier, how do you cope with that? You can’t encourage them too much, yet ... you wouldn’t want to disappoint your fans...
THE GRAND WIZARD: Greatness attracts attention. We accept that burden. Our fame is such that Buddy can move through a crowd simply by looking like Buddy Bam Bam Balam.
The Infliktor attracts a different kind of attention. Most people want a photograph. Very few volunteer for the headlock afterwards.
Count Forza expects courtesy. He is an Italian nobleman. Civilization functions properly when rank is acknowledged.
JESSE THE INTRUDER: I treat my admirers with the generosity expected of a major international celebrity. Fame is no stranger to The Grand Wizard . He has seen fame before. He knew Elvis would become famous before Elvis did.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: Going back aways, what first appealed to you about wrestling, and why did you decide to become a wrestler?
THE INFLIKTOR: You fool. We did not decide to become wrestlers. Wrestling recognised us.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: How have you reacted to the accusations of hazing in some wrestle schools? Were you hazed yourselves – how did you cope?
JESSE THE INTRUDER: The old wrestling schools were designed to separate wrestlers from civilians. You got stretched. You got slammed. You got worked until your lungs burned and your legs failed. Then you did it again.
You know, Buddy arrived from Brooklyn already overqualified. Nobody could haze Buddy because Buddy regarded physical confrontation as conversation. Someone attempted to haze The Infliktor once. The experiment was never repeated. Count Forza made it clear that carrying another man’s bags was incompatible with his aristocratic standing.
I discovered that several trainers had attractive girlfriends and rapidly achieved a position from which hazing ceased to be advisable.
The Grand Wizard was never hazed. Men looked into his eyes and remembered appointments elsewhere.
But there is a difference between making a wrestler tough and mistreating somebody because you can. Pain teaches. Humiliation teaches nothing. The ring itself is a sufficient instructor. And if that fails, one teaspoon of Turnbuckle Tonic before training generally clarifies a man’s priorities.
Count Forza. His heritage is noble but his intentions in the ring are not.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: Today is a very different world to the one you started out in – what advice do you have for the young would-be wrestler?
COUNT FORZA: Impara a sferrare un pugno che sembri capace di ammazzare qualcuno, senza ammazzarlo davvero. Rispetta il mestiere. Non svelare mai i trucchi del mestiere. Non confondere le mosse pericolose con il buon wrestling. Non confondere l’atletismo con il carisma.
Impara a sferrare un pugno che sembri capace di ammazzare qualcuno, senza ammazzarlo davvero. Rispetta il mestiere. Non svelare mai i trucchi del mestiere. Non confondere le mosse pericolose con il buon wrestling. Non confondere l’atletismo con il carisma.
TRANSLATION: Learn how to throw a punch that looks like it could kill somebody without actually killing them. Respect the business. Never expose the business. Do not confuse dangerous moves with good wrestling. Do not confuse athleticism with charisma.
COUNT FORZA: Statti zitto!
TRANSLATION: Shaddup Your Face!
THE INFLIKTOR: Every wrestler should know at least one hold that makes the referee nervous. You fool.
THE GRAND WIZARD: The crowd must know who you are before the bell rings.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: Now, a few musical questions, if that’s okay. First, apart from The Snails, what bands were big influences on you, way back in the 1960s?
THE GRAND WIZARD: The Sonics. The Kinks. The Pretty Things. The Yardbirds. The Seeds. The Standells. Anything with fuzz, desperation and bad intentions.
BUDDY BAM BAM BALAM: I like records that sounded like somebody was about to get punched. The Infliktor prefers records that sounded like somebody already had.
Initially for me, it was the early ’60s British bands - The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Who, The Stones, The Beatles, The Pretty Things and The Misunderstood. Then there were the US garage bands like Count Five and the rest of that wild bunch. Those records hit hard, and that is what mattered. Music had to land like a Brooklyn right hand.
COUNT FORZA: Dopo 40 anni passati a suonare nelle band garage-rock di Sydney, le mie scelte riguardano più l’attitudine, il suono e il feeling che la tecnica pura. Chris Masuak, Deniz Tek, Ed Kuepper, Tim Gaze e Dave Fahey hanno tutti quella qualità che ti fa venire voglia di prendere in mano una chitarra, alzare l’amplificatore al massimo e suonare.
TRANSLATION: After 40 years playing in Sydney garage-rock bands, my choices are more about attitude, tone and feel than technical ability. Chris Masuak, Deniz Tek, Ed Kuepper, Tim Gaze and Dave Fahey all have that quality that makes you want to pick up a guitar, crank the amp and play.
E proprio come nel wrestling, il garage rock è tutta una questione di attitudine, spettacolo e capacità di incassare qualche colpo lungo la strada. La differenza è che nel wrestling sai quando il combattimento è finito — in una garage band, il chitarrista può essere ancora lì a fare un assolo venti minuti dopo che tutti gli altri hanno già lasciato il palco!
TRANLSAITON: And like wrestling, garage rock is all about attitude, showmanship and taking a few hits along the way. The difference is that in wrestling you know when the fight is over — in a garage band, the guitarist can still be soloing 20 minutes after everyone else has left the stage!
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: Come on, gentlemen, what’s the difference between digging The Kinks or the Stones, and digging these one-single-release hard-scrabble rockers that only show up on obscure compilations these days? You were there, tell us what the vibe was like!
JESSE THE INTRUDER: The Kinks and Stones were champions. But underneath them were thousands of hungry contenders. That was where the danger lived. That’s where it still is.
GRAND WIZARD: Listen to our new single. Garage rock is professional wrestling on vinyl. We’ve improved it.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: I know you guys keep your eyes on the competition – so are there any other bands who have your independent garage spirit?
JESSE THE INTRUDER: Competition? There are bands we permit to occupy neighbouring territory. Then they challenge ius. They all go down.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: I’d like to ask each of you – what was it that got you interested in music in the first place – was there an ‘ah-HAH!’ moment? What made you want to pick up an instrument – and then put the work in to be able to play? And, after decades in the wrestling ring, what made you want to walk onto band stages and confront an audience instead of another wrestler?
BUDDY BAM BAM BALAM: My eldest sister was a singer, so there was always music around the house - soul, funk and pop: Aretha, Motown, Sly & The Family Stone. That got me interested in music in the first place. Then I found my own path, and once I discovered music that hit with the same force as a street fight, there was no turning back.
As for taking up an instrument, the idea of hitting things for a vocation appealed to me greatly. Some people were born for accountancy. I was born to make contact.
COUNT FORZA:. Un ring di wrestling e un palco rock’n’roll sono lo stesso campo di battaglia, solo con corde diverse. Entri. Imponi il tuo dominio. Controlli il pubblico. E li lasci esausti.
TRANSLATION: A wrestling ring and a rock-and-roll stage are the same battlefield with different ropes. You enter. You establish dominance. You control the crowd. You leave them exhausted.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: Hey, here’s a thought, do you ever have flashbacks as a musician and think you’ve got to front chinlock the singer?
JESSE THE INTRUDER: The front chinlock is one of the most underused rehearsal techniques in modern music. Singers wander and guitarists noodle. Drummers accelerate. Not us, of course. A correctly applied wrestling hold restores focus instantly.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: Grand Wizard: five favourite guitarists, and why?
THE GRAND WIZARD: The Grand Wizard does not have favourites. I recognise greatness.
Link Wray understood that a guitar could menace an entire room with one chord. Dave Davies weaponised distortion. Ron Asheton understood repetition as psychological warfare. Johnny Thunders understood that electricity mattered more than cleanliness. Jeff Beck possessed technical command without ever surrendering danger.
Five men. Five different ways to make a guitar behave like a foreign object.
Never equalled, let alone bettered: The Grand Wizard.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: And, why not Yngwie Malmsteen or Frank Zappa?
THE GRAND WIZARD: Because speed is not danger. Complexity is not menace. Technique is a tool. The Grand Wizard measures guitarists by a simple criterion: Does the sound hit you in the chest? If the answer
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: Buddy "Bam Bam" Balam: c’mon, give: Rich or Krupa? Or...? And, why?
BUDDY BAM BAM BALAM: Nah. None of that nonsense for me! I liked drummers who SLAMMED their instruments - John Bonham, Simon Kirke - but Charlie Watts is the exception and the main inspiration. Charlie never had to beat the kit into submission to own the groove. He just sat there and ruled it.
But the notion of hitting things for a vocation appealed to me greatly. Coming out of Brooklyn, it was the first career advice fro the streets of Brooklyn that that made sense. Give me a drum kit, a shot of Turnbuckle Tonic and room to swing. That is rhythm.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: The Infliktor: I have heard that bass is your natural instrument – is it?
THE INFLIKTOR: Bass is the only instrument sufficiently physical for The Infliktor. A guitar makes noise. A bass alters architecture. The correct bass note should loosen ceiling fixtures, move drinks across tables and cause weaker members of the audience to check whether their hearts are functioning properly. Low frequencies. Maximum force. No quarter. Understand?
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: And Jesse The Intruder - did you choose to be the singer, or did none of the others want the job?
JESSE THE INTRUDER: I did not choose the microphone. The microphone chose me.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: Any plans to market the Turnbuckle Tonic?
THE GRAND WIZARD: Turnbuckle Tonic does not need marketing. The formula was developed in Pismo Beach under circumstances that remain classified by The Clam Club.
ROBERT BROKENMOUTH: Lastly, are the Pismo Beach clams really as good as all that? What about Sydney clams?
JESSE THE INTRUIDER: Pismo Beach clams are not merely good. They are championship nutrition. Civilisations have been built on less.
GRAND WIZARD: Jesse believes Pismo clams possess extraordinary aphrodisiac properties. Nobody has evidence to prove him wrong.
Psychotic Turnbuckles play Marrickville Bowling Club on September 5 with Spittin’ Chips and The No Such Things. Tickets are here. The single is on I-94 Bar Records. Buy it from the label here or at Australian bricks and mortar stores Redeye Records, Egg Records or Repressed Records in Sydney.
