HORNETS WITH FAIRGROUND ATTRACTION

Drum Media 3.9.96


The Scrubhornets are a curious musical beastie. Part Punk, part larrikin bush ballad poet, part surfing guitars, part fairground spruiker - especially on their new album, Kiss A Cactus (Round).

Originally based in Sydney the band relocated to South Australia a while ago, though they recorded Kiss A Cactus in Sydney with the legendary protopunk Ian Rilen producing. Principal songwriter and inveterate street poet, Warwick Irwin, explains the fairground aspect of the album, the opening and closing track Vaseline, in the greater scheme of all things Scrubhornets.

�We actually planned to do this album far sooner than we eventually did, as an extension of the first (self-titled) album, which it is, but it came out a lot different than we thought it would. Concept-wise they�re similar, but that first song is our copy of Sergeant Pepper�s! I�ve always loved that sort of carnival sound. I�d love a tuba and a squeeze box in the band. What was it Ian Rilen said? �I love that polka song.�

�Initially it was a Step Right Up sort of a song and then that sounded a bit too corny for me so I made it a little bit of nonsense, not deliberately taking any shots at anyone. It�s images of the media romance I�m having a go at really.�

There has always been just a dash of vitriol in Irwin�s lyrics and while he might dismiss the lyrics of Vaseline as nonsense, he�s still prepared to bop the listener between the eyes with lines like �Clench your fists in acts of rage, Good and evil trading blows� - hardly your average �soppy love song�! But then this is a guy who�s basic musical ethic was spawned by the original punk explosion, which is where he originally met Rilen.

�I�ve known Ian since long before I was in rock�n�roll. I was back in Sydney and ran into him and we were talking and I told him about the record and if he was interested in doing the production. He said if he was in town he would and he was, so we dragged him along. He sort of cleaned up a few things and kept us focused, he was good. A good little project, no hitches.�

There are a couple of songs on the album that take the Scrubhornets into country music territory, delivered oh so sweetly by Kerryn Stanton.

�That�s Bring Me Back My Watch. It wasn�t a conscious thing. I�ve always had that sort of country thing in there but this time it came out. I guess it was the process of recording which was geared in a different way this time, a bit more disciplined. We didn�t spend a great deal more time on it, I think we�re just a bit better at what we do now. But there�s always been a little bit of country. We went to Tamworth once and got kicked out of town because we weren�t country.�

The Scrubhornets launched Kiss A Cactus at the Lyric above Baraza, East Sydney, Friday 6.

Author not credited - Drum Media 3.9.96

Pedantic Keyboard Player�s Notes & Corrections:

Para.2 It�d be nice I guess but we�ve never �relocated� anywhere. Round Records are definitely based in Adelaide though. Hello and thanks to Terry Bradford - must meet you sometime. Still, we don�t mind the curiousity factor the Drum people have innocently bestowed upon us - Sydney people seem to prefer anything from outta town. Unlike people in Berry, where we were invited to relocate for one night. They moved a replica of a torpedo out of the pub to put up the stage. The cricket was on TV that night so the adults listened from the front bar and our good friends, Anne-Marie and Sue, came all the way from Sydney to do a convincing impression of a crowd for us. On my way to the toilet I discovered the younger adults were crammed around pool tables in another acre of the pub where Meatloaf on the juke box was louder than us. The bar staff insisted we scull tequilas before our last song. Won�t forget Berry.

Para 3. We do have tuba and squeeze box - they are DX7 factory noises. The tuba is on Vaseline which is not strictly a polka. My 9-year-old niece, Shelagh, plays euphonium - I�ll mention it to her. I�d like to play a real squeezebox one day but you can�t see your fingers without your hair getting caught in the concertina, so I try to get horizontal while playing that noise - for the right perspective and smudged chords. Next album.

Para 5. I reckon Warwick�s basic musical ethos was spawned by Tom Waits and both types of Dylan (Thomas and Bob). Warwick was a writer/comedian with a bunch of madmen called Funny Stories when he met Ian. I used to do lights for them. Ian asked them to support his band at the Paddington Green hotel and other places. Funny Stories did amazing things in the strangest places but later comedians got the fashion credit (Los Trios Ringbarkos, Etcetera, etc). And Ian wasn�t doing X then (punk spawning stuff) he was doing Sardine V (electric cabaret rock with women in the band). The band I was in then were given a support with Sardine V for our first gig too. We were called Tu Lassoo. Ian�s a really generous and discerning guy. Sydney in the 80's - small world huh. I wonder what became of Upsidedownhouse - they were in that show too, at the Newtown Rules Club in Redfern (no longer exists).

Para 6. It was Ian who was back in Sydney. No hitches, if you call money a hitch.

Para 7. Never trust �sweet�. The voice maybe.

Para 8. Strictly speaking, the Scrubhornets have never been to Tamworth. Our previous incarnation did go however, and it wasn�t kicked out - it panicked and shot through. This was after having the plug pulled on the first set followed by a damn good response the next day from the mums and dads at a talent quest, where we announced 4 more (paying!) shows to go. A sympathetic patron at the plug-pulling venue said we�d go down real well in Tamworth any time but festival time. Haven�t tested that yet. Personally, this was an embarrassing and unhappy time for me. It�s a long drive from Sydney and I�d gone there to play music to music lovers and drunks, even country covers, rather than argue much. My boyfriend (at the time - now, coincidentally, in Adelaide) drove through an electrical storm to find us not playing at Maquires�. The band left and I stayed and changed the subject as it arose with acquaintances and played piano with a bunch from Cobar on the verandah at the Locomotive and was nicknamed �Spots�(after my shirt, not my tears). Eventually I stopped crying and decided not to leave the band. I think I did an OK job of holding my musical integrity together with something like wet sticky-tape that week in Tamworth, but I certainly take no credit for giving the plug-puller (Cameron MacPhie) his just desserts in Redfern Magistrates court during the months to follow. (In this scene, I panic and shoot through.) Warwick, Wayne, Bryan and James, and certain of our friends, have that singular honour and my sincere congratulations. There must be easier ways to get $600 though.
KISS A CACTUS
by THE scrubhornets
through Round Records
CDRR025 9 319998 502429

THE scrubhornets are:
Warwick Irwin - vocals, guitar, harmonica;
Kerryn Stanton - vocals, keyboards;
James Scanlon - guitar, backing vocals;
Wayne Hutchins - drums, percussion, backing vocals;
Bryan King - bass


Special Guests:
Tim Fagan - saxophones; Craig Beck - woodblock (on Ravi Shankar), inspiration
and lots of good ideas; Ian Rilen - bell and piano strings (on Ravi Shankar)

Produced by Ian Rilen.
Engineered and Mixed by Craig Beck, assisted by Brett Lunney, at Airmotion and
Megaphon Studios, St Peters, NSW, Australia.
Mastered by Steve Smart at Studios 301, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Thanks to Dennis "Smartarse" Aubrey for the loan of the his top shelf guitars -
especially the yellow Fender.

Front cover Stapeliad grown with loving care by Warwick Irwin. (Photo: Rhonda Thwaite)
Inside Photography by Wayne Hutchins.
Wayne�s hair by "Noddy�s".
Layout and Design: Wayne Hutchins, Entertainment Graphics and THE scrubhornets.
Thanks to Peter Simpson.
Thanks to Terry Bradford (Round Records)

WEB SITE http://www.zip.com.au/~xion/scrubers.html

Round Records, PO Box 3243 Norwood, SA, 5067. Phone:(08) 364 4266
Also available on Round Records "THE scrubhornets" by THE scrubhornets, (Album 1) CDRR016

1. Vaseline 2.21
2. Heaven�s Angel 2.38
3. Pumping Heart 3.27
4. Bring Me Back My Watch 3.09
5. Mysteries (inst.) 2.25
6. View From A Sponge
7. Johnny Vane�s Western Romance 3.46
8. Feral Cat (inst.) 2.39
9. Over The Rails 3.15
10. Teardrops On A Train 2.54
11. Bottle Of Rum 3.33
12. Ravi Shankar (inst.) 5.33
13. Vaseline (Reprise) 1.08

Words and music by Warwick Irwin, except Ravi Shankar and The Same Again* (James Scanlon)
All arrangements by THE scrubhornets.
* End of track 13.
All material � 1996


WARNING: Lyrics may vary from performance to performance!

Adelaide Advertiser - Sept 14 1995

"DISKS"

The scrubhornets

THE SCRUBHORNETS

There is something precious about a band which makes music with no care for convention - just a fire in the belly and the skill to make its best attributes shine.

So it is with Sydney's Scrubhornets, a ramshakle gang of storytellers who maraud their way through a folksy, low-fi brand of rock'n'roll.

It's the cynical drinking man's cabaret band. The word's, sung in a broad, unapologetic strine, are reminiscent of Dave Warner's best wry slices of urban life.

There's an immediate humor (among the harsh images and tall stories) to such songs as the roaring, booze-fuelled Hair of the Dog, the portrait of Ted Turner and the strange macho fable Killing Business. They're epic rock'n'roll poems which makes plain sense to Australian ears.

If you're jaded by homogenised rock music, this is an antidote.

David Sly.
The Drum Media 31 October 1995

THE SCRUBHORNETS
The scrubhornets
Round

STARTING life as the rather nore deligerately funny neo-country cabaret if The Ghost OF Charlie Cousins before the intent got a little more serious and the subject matter a little darker, The scrubhornets inhabit the rather grim end of the Australian Dream where one of the few hopes of an escape from the grinding reality is through the bottom of a schooner glass.

IMAGINE if the Pogues were brought up on a diet of Aussie country and pub rock as opposed to Irish jigs. The Hornets are singing about ordinary real lives (and deaths), where Marilyn Is Pregnant, and your school mate Ted Turner has wrapped the Kingswood round a telegraph pole and is more than a little dead. Warwick Irwin is the man howling most of these tunes, rawer and more pained than Don Walker's tales which sometimes inhabit the same dry seasons. There are times when it becomes a little grim for one listen and your escape is a wander to the local where the barstaff know you well enough to have your usual drink poured in the time it takes you to get from the door to breasting the bar, with the sound of the yob's choir in the public bar screaming "showez yer tits" to the girls behings the counter between fucking up the wortds to Chisel songs on the jukebox. Oh shit, I'm living some of this record to.

THERE are moments of lightness and softness here though, sadley, Crimson Pirate is adults longing for simpler childhood dreams and Kerryn Stanton's melancholy tones show the pain isn't exclusivley a blokes domain. Dave Steel produces, leaving the necessary blood, spit andpiss on the grooves. While sometimes the sheer bloody Aussieness of it can become a little overbaring, the Hornets have got what they wanted to say on an album, as ugly and as real as it may be. 'Tis a pity they thought they had to yell most of that over the clink of glasses and the call of "last drinks, please."

Ross Clelland