"LOUDMOUTH" magazine VOL 1 ISSUE 8 DEC/JAN 97/98
Hippie Kill Team? "I suppose
that's us," he replies.
"Y'know, just about all the hippie
fucks who strut up
and down Fitzroy."
It's way to easy to take yourself
way too seriousley in this rock'n'roll
game. Get yourself or your band
a smidgen of success, say a few
folk along to your gigs or the
presentor of a national music video
show to wear your shirt every
other day, and it can quickly goto your
head. You start walking around
with your chin in the air and your
finger second-knuckled up your
'four star hairy arsehole'*. Some try
to play it down, other crave
it. Some are expected to simply just be
an arsehole and if you think
they are it will inevitably make them
behave that way. Some behave
like arses because it's a fucking
good laugh, and if you don't
get the gag then the gag is squarly on
you and no one else.
So let me introduce Jason PC,
bassist and motivational man for
Melbourne's Blood Duster, a
band that has recently evolved from
an underground grindcore phenomenon
into an underground heavy
groove band that isn't shy of a few blast beats.
"Whats the shit with Metal For
The Brain?" he asks, before quoting
from the work sheet he's recieved
in the mail. "Leave you'r egos at
the door'! I'll fucking
be pushing mine around in front of me in a
fucking wheelbarrow," he declares with pride.
After years of trying to foist
his band and it's heavy sound upon the
public, Jason has realised that
he is the only one who can push his
barrow, and so he's taken to
it with relish. Which may means, he
acknowledges, pissing off long time fans.
"I think anyone who has seen us over
the last couple of years knows
that this is the direction we
were heading in," he starts by way of
explaining what
you can expect if you pick up their recently
released CD, Str8 Outta
Northcote. "Yeest was fairly straight
ahead grindcore
and Fisting The Dead was moving in this
direction."
The direction he talks about
is something akin to an even dirtier
version of Kyuss. A phatter version
of Fu Manchu or a less tripped
out version of Monster
Magnet - but all the while the 'Duster
tradition of blast beats and
upsetting everyone and anyone's apple
carts remains solidly intact,
like a private school girl's hymen, I'm
sure Jason would say. Has this
slight change in musical direction
come about from the fact that
you all smoke too much pot? After all,
stoner groove is a very specific
not to mention accurate desciption
of much of the music on Str8
Outta Northcote. Though the band
prefer '100% grinding death rock'.
"I don't smoke at all," he replies,
somewhat offended, "and either
does [drummer] Euan or [guitarist]
Fin. Oh, Tony can't go anywhere
without smoking, though. He
get's up in the morning and doesn't
seem to stop."
There's 21 tracks on Str8 Outta
Northcote and all of 'em are hits, if
you can make it past the titles and
the lyrical content actually means
anything. Running through some of the
songs, Jason gives us a little
trip down the pathway to what
lies inside the minds of the 'Duster.
Track one - Givin' Stiff To The
Stiff? "Well," he starts, "thats pretty
obvious isn't it?"
Yep! Hippie Kill Team? "I suppose
that's us," he replies. "Y'know,
just about all the hippie
fucks who strut up and down Fitzroy."
Metal As Fuck? "Thats about us
again," he say's with no hint of
irony in his voice.
I Hate Girls And Crusty Punx?
"We got Bucky who used to sing in
Beanflipper and their old manager,
a girl, to sing back-ups on that
song. That growling at the end, that's
her, and when we were mixing
it we didn't have a title, and we figured
that one is sure to piss those
two off,"
he says and laughs a soft little chuckle to himself.
Motherload? "Thats a song we didn't have a name for, I think,"
Deathsquad? "Well that'd be about
us again, kinda like Hippie Kill
Team."
And ofcourse we must ask
about the exquisitely, not to forget
succinctly, titled ditty, track
12, Where Does All The Money Go
When Releasing
A Full Length Album? "Thats fairly self
explanatory isn't it?
The people at Shock and Dr Jim's [the two
companies involved in releasing
and distributing 'Duster's CD's],
they know they are making money
out of us and so do we. They'll
make more money out of our CD's
at this stage than we ever will,
and they don't mind us writing
a song like that which pokes fun at
them, because they're getting paid for it."
To be fair, Jason does agree that people
are starting to understand
this more and more about Blood
Duster: they might be taking the
piss out of you, but they
don't necessarily mean any harm. Like
eating a Big Mac at a Vegan
benefit, taking the piss out of your
record company is
something you can only pull off if you are
confident with yourself
and your music. Luckily, confidence is
something Blood Duster have in abundance.
"The people at Shock even
think the CD cover is funny," Jason
continues, talking about the
'computer enhanced' imagery you may
have seen in last month's
Loudmouth. Speaking of computer
enhanced the back cover of Str8
Outta Northcote is well intended
satire of the artwork for Kyuss'
monumental Sky Valley album art,
except now it reads, 'Northcote
32, Springvale 20, Compton 6' -
What is it with Northcote? Isn't it
just some inner suburbs Melbourne
shit hole? "No Way!" Jason demands,
and you can hear his fist
land on the table. "Northcote's awesome.
The day I first moved here
I went across the road to the
shop and saw a guy wearing a Blood
Duster T-shirt. I looked at him
as if to say 'Hi!' and he stared back
at me
like I was a fag or something. That was so cool."
You know the old saying, if you
can't stand a joke, don't be one.
Story by Jeremy Sheaffe - LOUDMOUTH magazine 97-8