Punk, Punk Rock, Hardcore, Thrash, Aussie, Australia, Old School, Alternative, Independent, Regression, Regression Fanzine, Fanzine, Emo, Bastard Squad, Bloody Sods, Bombscare, Charter 77, Legless, The Worst, Distorted Truth, Dayglo Abortions, Rule 303, Slick 46, Glen and the peanut Buttermen, A-Krop, Ardent, If Need Be, Kamikaze, Macauly, Nahende Vernichtung (Belgium), Off By Heart, Seconds From finishing, Sixty Miles an Hour, Arm The Insane, Bodies, Box of Fish, Charred Remains, Civil Dissident, Condemned, Cosmic Psychos, Depression, Dick Nasty, End Result, Exploding White Mice, Extremes, Fear and Loathing, Fifth Column, GASH, Godnose, Hard Corpuscles, Hard Ons, H-Block 101, Hi-End Audio, I Spit On Your Gravy, Justified Hatred, Macauly, Mad Flowers, Meanies, Mob Vengence, Mouthguard, Murder Murder Suicide,  NFL, No Escape, Perdition, Permanent Damage, Plonker, Polit Buro, Progression Cult, Psychotic Maniacs, Psychotic Turnbuckles, Quick and the Dead, Royal Flush, Scum, Slakjaw, Society's Victim, Skunks, Standard Union,  Start, Threshold Of Pain, Toe To Toe, Vicious, Vicious Circle Where’s The Pope, World War XXIV, Corporate Body, Manslaughter, Public Nuisance, Sick Things, Spew Forth, The Virgins, White Elephants, Z Cars, Zorros, Boys Next Door, Chosen Few, JAB, La Femme, Lethal Weapons, Negatives, Noisy Boys, Proles, Squadron Leader, Teenage Radio Stars, The Babeez, The News, The Reals, Tch Tch Tch, True Wheels, TV Kids, Wattage, XRayZ, Young Charlatans, The Melbourne Punk Directory, Reactor Records, Apito, DNA, Anti Climax, Bodies, Bootboys, Brady Bunch, Charred Remains, Civil Dissident, Corpse Grinders, Criminal Youth, Death Sentence, Depression, Dogs Of War, End Result, F.B.I., Fifth Column, Genocide, I Spit On Your Gravy, Jazz Sluts, Jehovah Pogo, Justified Hatred, M16, Mad Flowers, Murder Murder Suicide, No Escape, Non-Conformists, Out Of Order, Permanent Damage, Polit Buro, Psychotic Maniacs, Royal Flush, Society's Victim, Scum, The Mess, The Start, The Tribe, Vicious Circle, Young Offender, South Australia, Western Australia, Sydney, Queensland, Victoria, Melbourne, Decline, Street Punk, Gutter punk, Melbourne, Geelong, Victoria, New South Wales, Sydney, Queensland, Brisbane, South Australia, Adelaide, Western Australia, Perth, Aqua Nuggets, Beanfeast, Bone Crusher, The Affected, Butt Ugly, Damnation, Dweebs , Forcefed, Forgotten Generation, Fridge, Growing Concern, Labotomy Scars, Mouth, Nation of Hate, No Comply, Poppin Mammas, Providence, Seaweed Gorillas, Snark, Steadfast, Subzero, Tucknot, Two Years Old, Unclean Spirits, Walsh Street Cop Killers, Zambian Goatherders, A.S.V.V., Beanflipper, Bodyjar, Buzzbomb, Caustic Soda, Cretins Puddle, Devotchka, Fallout, Farenheit 451, 4Qm, Gameover, H-Block, Headcase, Kill, Kurgan, Magnacite, Mindsnare, Mid Youth Crisis, Mutiny, Myside, Next Step, No Grace, No Idea, Nihilistic View, Oddball, One Inch Punch, Scroungers, Self Reliance, Silpheed, Smut, Sphyzein, Stand Against, Trigger, Vicious Circle, Warsore, Without A Reason, Wrongbody.

Punk, Punk Rock, Hardcore, Thrash, Aussie, Australia, Old School, Alternative, Independent, Regression, Regression Fanzine, Fanzine, Emo, Bastard Squad, Bloody Sods, Bombscare, Charter 77, Legless, The Worst, Distorted Truth, Dayglo Abortions, Rule 303, Slick 46, Glen and the peanut Buttermen, A-Krop, Ardent, If Need Be, Kamikaze, Macauly, Nahende Vernichtung (Belgium), Off By Heart, Seconds From finishing, Sixty Miles an Hour, Arm The Insane, Bodies, Box of Fish, Charred Remains, Civil Dissident, Condemned, Cosmic Psychos, Depression, Dick Nasty, End Result, Exploding White Mice, Extremes, Fear and Loathing, Fifth Column, GASH, Godnose, Hard Corpuscles, Hard Ons, H-Block 101, Hi-End Audio, I Spit On Your Gravy, Justified Hatred, Macauly, Mad Flowers, Meanies, Mob Vengence, Mouthguard, Murder Murder Suicide,  NFL, No Escape, Perdition, Permanent DamaGeoff Sick, Sick Things, Legend Killers, terrorize, ge, Plonker, Polit Buro, Progression Cult, Psychotic Maniacs, Psychotic Turnbuckles, Quick and the Dead, Royal Flush, Scum, Slakjaw, Society's Victim, Skunks, Standard Union,  Start, Threshold Of Pain, Toe To Toe, Vicious, Vicious Circle Where’s The Pope, World War XXIV, Corporate Body, Manslaughter, Public Nuisance, Sick Things, Spew Forth, The Virgins, White Elephants, Z Cars, Zorros, Boys Next Door, Chosen Few, JAB, La Femme, Lethal Weapons, Negatives, Noisy Boys, Proles, Squadron Leader, Teenage Radio Stars, The Babeez, The News, The Reals, Tch Tch Tch, True Wheels, TV Kids, Wattage, XRayZ, Young Charlatans, The Melbourne Punk Directory, Reactor Records, Apito, DNA, Anti Climax, Bodies, Bootboys, Brady Bunch, Charred Remains, Civil Dissident, Corpse Grinders, Criminal Youth, Death Sentence, Depression, Dogs Of War, End Result, F.B.I., Fifth Column, Genocide, I Spit On Your Gravy, Jazz Sluts, Jehovah Pogo, Justified Hatred, M16, Mad Flowers, Murder Murder Suicide, No Escape, Non-Conformists, Out Of Order, Permanent Damage, Polit Buro, Psychotic Maniacs, Royal Flush, Society's Victim, Scum, The Mess, The Start, The Tribe, Vicious Circle, Young Offender, South Australia, Western Australia, Sydney, Queensland, Victoria, Melbourne, Decline, Street Punk, Gutter punk, Melbourne, Geelong, Victoria, New South Wales, Sydney, Queensland, Brisbane, South Australia, Adelaide, Western Australia, Perth, Aqua Nuggets, Beanfeast, Bone Crusher, The Affected, Butt Ugly, Damnation, Dweebs , Forcefed, Forgotten Generation, Fridge, Growing Concern, Labotomy Scars, Mouth, Nation of Hate, No Comply, Poppin Mammas, Providence, Seaweed Gorillas, Snark, Steadfast, Subzero, Tucknot, Two Years Old, Unclean Spirits, Walsh Street Cop Killers, Zambian Goatherders, A.S.V.V., Beanflipper, Bodyjar, Buzzbomb, Caustic Soda, Cretins Puddle, Devotchka, Fallout, Farenheit 451, 4Qm, Gameover, H-Block, Headcase, Kill, Kurgan, Magnacite, Mindsnare, Mid Youth Crisis, Mutiny, Myside, Next Step, No Grace, No Idea, Nihilistic View, Oddball, One Inch Punch, Scroungers, Self Reliance, Silpheed, Smut, Sphyzein, Stand Against, Trigger, Vicious Circle, Warsore, Without A Reason, Wrongbody.

"Melbourne Punk Directory"

Concept and original words by Hungry Dave (Oct 2004)

Part 5:  1988 to 1991 

By 1988 or so the punk scene had fizzled out somewhat. Bands like Vicious Circle, Arm The Insane etc. were still going but there wasn’t a lot of new lifeblood coming onto the scene like there was in previous years. One band in particular came along which lasted well into the early 1990’s. The interstate punk/H.C. scene like Sydney and Adelaide had by now pretty much surpassed Melbourne with some amazing and interesting bands, but the Melbourne scene would pick up again in the early mid 1990’s with a whole bunch of new bands.

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Featured Bands...so far...

Click on the band name or scroll down for the full history.

Aftermath,   Aversion Therapy,   Bored!, 

Blind,   Damage Case,   Despised,  Kaos,  

 Legend Killers,   Nursery Crimes,  Public Disgrace,  

 Punchbag,   Rat Race,   Root Beer,   Silent Lunatics, 

Suffer,   The Meanies,   The Outfit, 

The Squad,  Tusk,   Warp Spasm

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Aftermath

1988/89 era band that played a slower (but not too slow of course) crunching Metalish Hardcore, similar to U.S. stuff like Boneless Ones. Later evolved into Grind (Early 1990’s).

Aversion Therapy

H.C. band. Evolved out of “Arm The Insane”. Around 1991 or so.

Bored!

The roots of Bored! Go back to the mid 1980’s with bands like “Slaughter House”, “White Noise (Not the skin band)” “International Rescue” and “Sister Anne”.

Bored! Was officially formed in January 1988 with the initial line up of: Dave Thomas – guitar and vocals (Ex Bodies, M16), John Nolan – guitar (Ex Behind the Magnolia Curtain), Grant Gardiner – bass and Justin Munday (Drums).

This line up recorded the debut 6 track 12inch EP which came out in 1988. Subsequent releases included the “Negative Waves” (1989) and “Take It Out On You” LP’s by which time the band had Tim Hemmensely (ex Royal Flush) on bass.

With this line up the band did an extensive European tour during August to October 1990.

By 1991 the line up had changed. Tim and John went off to form “Powder Monkeys” while Bored! got a new bass player and continued as a 3 piece. The released the excellent “Feed The Dog”, “People Say” 7inch EP’s in 1991 and the Scuzz LP in 1992.

There’s a good compilation out called “Chunks” which is a 2-CD Anthology of the bands music during 1988-1993.

Blind

Blind were another "Eastern Suburbs Hardcore" band who played fast hardcore stuff. Classic band!

Damage Case

This band was around in 1989. Damage Case released a self titled demo in 1989.

The line-up was John-Bass/Vocals, James-Guitar and Adam-Drums. Adam went on to be in bands "Mindscare" and "28 Days". (Thanks John B)

Despised

Despised were around in 1992 and released 2 tapes. The "Feardom" release contained 6 tracks and was released in 1991.

The band line up was Brad-Vocals, Vince-Bass, Scott-Guitar, Paul Cruze-Guitar and Adam (Damage Case)-Drums. (Thanks John B)

Kaos

Clinton Green's first band with his mate Kevin. The band released one tape "We do not have speech impediments" which is still available through Clintons label "Shamefile Music"

Here are some reflective words by Clinton.

"KAOS was Kevin and I, with occasional cameos from other friends, making as much distorted noise as possible, recorded on a tape deck.  We never used guitar, instead favouring the bass played through the Boss overdrive pedal.  The material ranged from extremely silly noisecore “renditions” of glam metal hits to extreme noise jams with distorted bass and drums.  Neither of us had any idea of how to play drums, but the bass sound we generated was quite interesting, and Kevin had fantastic grindcore-style vocals".

Legend Killers

Ex-Extremes and Sick Things people. Released an album.

Nursery Crimes

Similar sound to the Meanies, i.e. power-pop/punk style. Influences Descendents, All. Popular on the live scene.

During the early to mid nineties they became very big in the Melbourne All Ages scene with other bands like The Meanies, Spiderbait, Tumbleweed, No Comply, Rootbeer and Damnation. After a few years Russell (drums) left and joined You Am I and is still going with them to this date. After this Chris joined on drums and James joined as well on guitar. They went on for a few more years then Phil (vocals) and Dave (guitar vocals) formed Soda Racer.

Line up 1:Phil (vocals), Dave (guitar), Caine (guitar), Russell (drums) and Paddy (bass).

Line up 2: Phil, Dave, Russell and Davage (bass)

Line up 3:Phil, Dave, Davage, James (guitar) and Chris (drums)

Public Disgrace

Young band influenced by U.S. Hardcore such as Black Flag and Minor Threat.  After Public Disgrace disbanded, the bass player Steve the drummer Dan went on to create or join Aqua Nuggets, the other half Vocals - Joel, and Guitar - Dennis went on 2 form Tucknot.

Punchbag

Formed in 1991 the band were based in Melton.

Here are Some great reflections and history on the band by Clinton Green - Click his to get more info on his "Shame File Music"

It was 1991 and I moved to Geelong to attend Deakin University.  I was sharing a house with a few people, one of whom was Steve Dickie.  Steve was into similar kinds of music, like the Hard-Ons, Rollins Band and Husker Du, and had played drums before.  He didn’t own a kit at the time, but as Kevin already had one it seemed worth giving him a shot.  We had a jam at Kevin’s and it was good.  Well, none of us could really play that well, but we were on at similar level and wanted to play similar music, so that was good.  I think we played Misfits “Last Caress”, maybe Black Sabbath’s “Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath”, and jammed some of the riffs Kevin and I had that would soon turn into our first few originals.  Steve arranged to purchase the drums from Kevin and we were in business.

The three of us practiced for a few months at Kevin’s house, slowly improving along the way.  We were writing songs, too, individually and as a band, as well as covers from the likes of Misfits, Hard-Ons and Meanies.  I remember one time we were playing “Last Caress”, when a friend of Kevin’s brother who was in the house at the time poked his head in the door with a surprised look on his face and said, “that sounded good!”.  He was probably used to hearing KAOS.  We looked at each other with big stupid grins and played it again.  That was one of our few encores.

We asked around our friends for anyone interested in singing, and got some interest from another local Melton guy, Duncan Wall.  Kevin knew Duncan best, and I was familiar with him from high school (he was a year or two older) and also knew his younger brother.  Duncan was/is a tall, gangly guy with long blonde curly hair, more into death/black metal bands like Venom than the stuff we were playing.  Still he was interested, so he came around for jam.

That jam is probably my first great music memory.  It sounded fantastic at the time to all of us (although the recording I have doesn’t quite match the memory).  I think we played “Last Caress” and a couple or originals we had written.  Hearing one of my originals “Samantha” played by a full band with vocals for the first time was a real thrill; a song I had written came to life.  It was probably the first or second song I ever wrote, and close to the best rock/pop tune I would ever compose.  Despite what the tape I have sounds like, it was a magic moment.  We all seemed to fit together.  We had written songs and we were playing them.  We were laughing and giggling in between songs, like we were high or something.  We were in a band.  In hindsight, I think a great friendship began between the four of us at the moment as well.

We rehearsed for a few more months and wrote some more songs.  For a while we called ourselves Street Trash, after one of Kevin and mine’s favourite films at the time.  We moved our rehearsal space from inside Kevin’s house out to his garage.  There was a punching bag in there, and that seemed good enough reason to change our name to Punchbag, and it stuck.  There was also a mirror in the garage that we noticed Kevin was rather found of using to check himself out whilst he played, which we constantly ribbed him about.  We recorded a demo on a four track that belonged to Mark Hodges, who I knew through Wayne Duncan.  Mark would later join Punchbag, but at this point he and Wayne recorded four songs for us.  Gareth, Duncan’s brother, did some backing vocals on the demo as well.  We recorded it in Kevin’s lounge room.  When Duncan joined the band, he bought his friend Mick Leslie, who went on to become our unofficial roadie and mysterious fifth member.

In October 1991 we played our first gig at a Battle of the Bands held at the Sarah Sands Hotel in Brunswick.  The gig was a total disaster, and even now I laugh when I listen to the tape.  We were last on and Duncan was laying drunk underneath the pool table when it was our turn.  We managed to get him on stage to grunt out what may or may not have been lyrics.  Steve dropped a drumstick in the middle of a little drum solo bit in “Punchbag Paranioa” and didn’t have a spare one to hand.  I remember him looking desperately at me as he tried to play out the song with one stick.  Duncan’s brother Gareth (whose name did come up originally as a potential drummer) jumped on stage, picked up the dropped stick and worked the ride with it at the song’s climax.  In between songs, Duncan uttered immortal lines that became legendary amongst us.  “We’re gonna fuck up a Hard-Ons song now”, “Now watch us fuck up a song we wrote our selves” and “God help us…”  And I broke the first of many guitar strings that would perish at my hands throughout my career.  The audience were in stitches.  We didn’t win, but we had done it.  I know Kevin and I felt quite euphoric at the end, although I think Steve was a bit upset about it all.  I didn’t know if we would go on, but we did have a great time.  And now it was official, we were a real band.Early in 1993 we drove up to Canberra for a couple of gigs with local acts Bladder Spasms and Precursor.  No one liked us and we had a ball.  I think we all look back on that trip fondly.  We never did get that EP done with Swan Records.  Instead, Brett wanted to do a compilation 7” featuring Punchbag.  We went into Atlantis Studios in Melbourne to record a few tracks for Brett to choose from.  We had a producer lined up in our occasional mixer, Madame Jenny Lash, but she didn’t turn up so we had to go it alone with the engineer.  We did three songs through the early hours of the morning, and I think we were all quite overwhelmed by the experience of studio recording (a first for all of us, I think).  I was really impressed with Duncan’s vocals; you could tell he had been practicing.  I had a few stressful moments when my guitar kept going out of tune and I couldn’t get the timing right on one part of “Samantha”.  I was feeling like the real amateur in that professional setting, but fortunately the engineer was very good and didn’t make me feel like I shouldn’t be there.  I remember saying to him, “I’m not really much of a guitarist”, and he replied, “Look, you’re here, you’ve come this far, don’t worry about it”.  The song “Ultra Violence” ended up on the compilation, which was entitled “Silence is Guilty”.  We also had some other tracks on other cassette and CD compilations, and I released a tape of some dubious bits and pieces posthumously; that was the extent our release list.

We had a gig at the Arthouse in Melbourne for my 21^st birthday. Around mid 1993 things began to peter out.  We were losing interest in rehearsing and the lack of audience response was wearing us down.  We decided to take a few months off then regroup in a few months and see if we were refreshed enough to continue.  By this time, I think Mark and Steve had another band going in Devotchka, and I also had other musical pursuits.  We regrouped around November 1993 and decided that was it.  What money we had made was split between us and Punchbag was over.

Rat Race

Apparently this band was influenced by Brit-Punk and Cosmic Psychos type you-rock.

Root Beer

One of the many Eastern Suburbs bands (from around Croydon) that were coming from the whole S.I.C. / Hard Ons / Mass Appeal etc influence.

Rootbeer line up was Dub - Bass, Crooksy -Guitar, Mat - Guitar, Leadbeater - Drums.

They did a 4 week tour of Europe for shock records. They split when they returned.

Recently put out a compilation of tracks recorded between 1988-1991.

Silent Lunatics

Silent Lunatics were around circa 1990 and hailed from the Ringwood area. The band released an excellent packaged tape titled "Silent Lunatics - A Shit Name For A Band" which had 29 tracks.

Members were Jason "Rot" Vocals/Bass, Martin "Moron Vomit" Guitar/Vocals and Brett "J.F.K." Drums.

Suffer

Info wanted….

The Meanies

The Meanies came onto the scene in 1988/89 or so and had a power-pop sound similar to the Hard-Ons and Descendents. Popular live act, a fair bit of vinyl output.

The Outfit

This band originally started out as "Chaotic Firing Squad", then became "Cold Blooded Chaos" and eventually "The Out fit".  Influenced by early English punk.

By late 1988 all band members were now of legal age to drink at pubs!

And gig we did - playing with every Melbourne punk band around at the time. The Outfit was a very eclectic punk band, writing new music and varying the sound every few months as we grew musically. The line-up had to change to accommodate where the music was heading. Rowan left and Ed moved from guitar to vocals.

By now The Outfit was gigging with Bastard Squad and also other bands like Spiderbait and The Fireballs. A covers band named the Runaway Boys used to support some gigs and these kids became the Living End years later. The Outfit started putting on an entertaining show with the singer covering his face in make-up depicting a madman whilst wearing a straitjacket like top. The act was manic and the music was modern.

The Outfit continued to clinch gigs using the theory of the Rock 'n Roll Swindle - somehow securing the headline show for the Australian Advertising Agency Industry Xmas ball at the Gershwin Room at the Espy.

The night included a few laid-back blues bands. The Outfit sat back stage being brought platters of food and being given a garbage bin filled with beers as a rider laughing at the chaos they'd unleash. Once on stage they opened with a crunching song that sent old-advertising executives clambering to the back of the room holding their ears as the young crowd ran to the front pumping their air as if to say "it's about time we had something to rock to". Oddly they never kicked us out.

When asked to play their 1st under-age gig for a JJJ benefit gig at the Sarah Sands The Outfit band members finally knew they'd made it in rock 'n roll terms when they had a large group of girls holding textas and pulling their shirts up saying "sign out tits". If only every crowd was so interactive....

By 1990 the band line up changed again. Noah & Harry departed and Tim

(Guitar) and Matty (Drums) joined up with Ed Brown & Matt Skiba.

The band was playing some pretty good shows and was writing some new integrated style punk music. The Outfit released one demo tape and won RRR band of the month with the song "Bury Me Alive".

Finally, when The Outfit scored a gig at Push Over in 1992 and was told we may score a tour to the USA the band broke up with the guitarist citing he didn't want to quit his job in case the band failed and he couldn't get a future job. T'was a tragic situation that saw the Outfit miss out on the chance to brainwash the world with its fun loving hard hitting music. In the end The Outfit recorded over 40 songs and remained a self-managed band but never released anything on vinyl or CD.

Some say today that in hindsight The Outfit melded that original punk with hardcore punk into the futuristic 1990's grunge sound along with the punk sound of today.

The Squad

Mod band heavily influenced by 1977 punk such as The Buzzcocks and The Jam.

Tusk

Thanks to "Ovenboy" for the following info

Tusk played extensively around the Melbourne pub scene. They played with Root Beer and Aqua Nuggets. Steve the Aqua Nuggets bass player, was playing bass for them when they split.

The "Tusk" line up was Joel - Vocals (who used to play in Tucknot and Public Disgrace), Richie - Guitar, Stevie - Bass (Aqua Nuggets), Brad - Giutar (Tucknot and Public Disgrace) Pete - Drums.

They sounded like Bored/Cosmic Psychos to Minor Threat sometimes. Tusk where from the Eastern Suburbs where there was a whole mini scene going on playing to packed out shows at the Hull and EV's in Croyden as well around the city pubs as well as local parts.

Warp Spasm

Ultra fast Grindcore band influenced by British Crust stuff like “Napalm Death” and “Extreme Noise Terror”. Intense live band. Appeared 1990/91.

*************If anybody knows of other Punk / Hardcore bands

that were around in this time frame that aren’t listed here

please get in touch*****************

info@australianpunk.com

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"Melbourne Punk Directory"

1977 - 1997

Concept and original words by Hungry Dave (May 2004 - March 2005)

"Melbourne Punk Directory" Main Index Page

Part 1:  1977 to 1979   "In The Begining"

Part 2:  1980 to 1981  "Second Wave"

Part 3:  1982 to 1984  "Hardcore"

Part 4:  1985 to 1987

Part 5:  1988 to 1991

Part 6: 1991 to 1994

Part 7: 1995 to 1997

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Last modified: 19 April 2009