The Lunatics
As told by Simon Smith
The Lunatics was formed in 1995 by Brett and Travis from the Allniters. They started a residency at the Brittania hotel in Cleveland street Surry Hills. They liked this room cause it was like an old theatre and the beer was cheap (It later was subjected to the dirty 'R' word (ie:-"renovation") and no one goes there anymore..) The band also featured Martin Fabok on guitar, Marcus Phelan on Guitar, Perry on bass and Simon Knapman on drums. These guys I thought of as the "new" allniters (circa 1986), after Stuart, Dave and Mark departed. Travis called me and asked me to come to one of their gigs. Basically the audience were all old friends of the Allniters so it was a pretty fun gig. At the time I was playing with Complete Madness so we all used to go and watch our heros and eventually Shannon (The Last Hemeroids) was asked to play sax and I was asked to play keyboards to fill in the gaps. An old sydney agent started booking gigs and ended up in some shocking rooms out west where the punters did'nt really appreciate let alone know what ska was..... They always danced to Montego bay of course but what I thought was funny is that not one punter at these gigs knew they were watching the legendary Allniters the people who made the song famous in Australia in the first place!! The set list also included some old classics 2 tone tunes such as Too Nice to talk To, Gangsters, Rudi and even older Desmond Dekker tunes, Dancing Mood, Humpty Dumpty, Prince Busters, Girls Rush and Japanese Girl, and Toots, Monkey Man plus a couple of really great reggae cover versions of that were usually Marty's ideas. These included 'People are Strange' by the Doors, 'I'm a Beleiver' by The Monkees, 'The Man who Sold the Earth' by Bowie (later Nirvana), 'Two Pints of Lager.......' Splogeness Abounds (sung enigmatically by Brett) and 'Rush' BAD which they are now still doing in The Allniters. When Complete Madness went on tour I got Al Law to fill in for me on keyboards and he later became the regular...(he is much better than me!!)Al's mate Pete Atkins replaced Simon Knapman on drums. It was probably around late 1996 that the rumour of this huge reformation of 80s pub rock bands started. 'The Boys are Back in Town' gigs meant the end of The Lunatics and the start of the even newer Allniters.