The Australian Independent
Music homepage that Leaping Larry L should see most of (maybe!?).
'The Exotics', 1999, Inpress Magazine
Wicked Australian rock'n'roll with more primal
yelps and 12 bar blues progressions than you can shake a greasy drumstick at. Channelling
a time when you actually had to have a partner to dance to band, The Exotics play the devils'
music and flip you the bird at the same time.
Tauschke, Steve, 1997, 'The Exotics', Beat Magazine
You've chosen Loser Records to put this single out?
Susan: "There were actually a few people offering us things but we like Loser the best
cos they were doing it for the love of it more than anything else."
Plus it's cool name.
Susan: "Yeah, a few of my friends have said, "Oh God, why did you choose them? It's
such a bad name! (laughs) I think it's a great name!"
Tony: "The label is just run by music fans, they don't even have any distribution now, I
don't think. They do it off a push bike. We're doing this record launch and they've really put in
a lot of effort. They're really keen. They're not in it for the money or anything."
Susan: "They haven't got that jaded blaise sort of attitude you get from other record
companies."
Tony: "(Loser) just got together and put out the Paramount Trio recently cos they weren't
the sort of band who were going to chase up a recording contract or anything and Loser just
thought "Well, if you guys aren't going to do anything, we'll do it ourselves." So they pitched
in some money and put out a single for them and it took off from there. And they've all got
tastes that we sort of like, they're all into blues-type rock-n-roll, soul music or whatever."
You've certainly drenched the single in a reverb sound.
Tony: "And it was done live too, which was great. No mixing or anything. We recorded it
at Graeme Thomas."
Is he the guy who records in mono?
Tony: "Yeah, it's one track. I think the machine he uses is from around 1956."
Susan: "He's got the old Channel 9 mixing desk and it's all valve. "
Tony: "From the original Channel 9 studios, so in its day it would have been a top of the
range sort of unit but it's quite primitive-looking. Recording in mono is good cos you can't
overdub and it's mixed as you go. There's no fixing it up later. We like that cos it's an honest
way to do it - and you get a good take."
Susan: "There's no retakes and there's nothing over the top. Once you do it that's it,
which is great cos it keeps it nice and fresh... and the two songs we chose, we only
rehearsed them the day before, we'd never played them live."
Tony: "It's low tech! I mean we recorded that record for probably about $70... we
recorded about fourteen or fifteen songs and we just gave Loser the tape. The ones they
picked seemed to be the ones we all liked anyway."
Do they parallel your live sound?
Susan: "Yes, but I mean it's hard to know what we sound like live through the desk but
yeah, it is pretty much what we do."
Tony: "We're really into primitive-type music, stripped down music."
How did you fare using the bigger sound system when you played with You Am
I?
Tony: "... I kinda prefer a small PA. Huge PA's I think are a load of crap, really. They're
so big now and you don't need it that big, it's just out of hand. You can still get a deafening
sound with a smaller PA. I guess I'm just not used to it cos I never go and see huge shows
anymore."
The Exotics' echo-y sound would suit a small cave-like venue anyway, wouldn't it?
Tony: "Well, hopefully when you hear our records you can picture that. The records we
want to make are the records we like. You shut your eyes and you can imagine the band
playing there, in the room."
Susan: "Being in such a small band, we all have a minimalist kind of set up. It's more
important for us to have some sort of intimacy on stage, at least when we're close together
we can all hear each other. It's important that we all play as one. "
Window, Maryanne, 1999, 'The Exotics: Rockin' in the family way', Inpress
Magazine
Sitting in the lounge room of Tony and Sue Shaw, founding members of
Melbourne's The Exotics, the television is tuned into the Wiggles, entertaining their young
son Dexter. After all, The Exotics are "a family band" explains Sue who as Tony informs me,
is expecting their second child the day after their gig at the Esplanade with The Phantom
Surfers in about three weeks' time.
"They [The Wiggles] might become an influence
on us. I know all the Wiggles songs," says Tony. But we're not here to talk those millionaires
in coloured skivvies, we're here to talk about The Exotics' debut self-titled
CD.
The Exotics formed about four years ago, amazingly enough,
at Tony and Sue's wedding. Tony had previously been the front man of the Corpse Grinders
and at that time was (and still is) the vocalist in Intoxica. Sue was drumming with Girl Monstar
and both had been talking about getting a band together.
"Tony
had been talking about it for a while, saying, 'We should get a band together because we
both share a love of the same sort of music' and I'd say 'Come on Tone, we've gotta get a
band together! and his Intoxica boys were going to get jealous..." Tony interrupts, Girl
Monstar were doing all this ..."
So after Girl Monstar decided to call
it a day, they thought they'd better get around to starting The Exotics. They both knew
guitarist Ollie Laurie and had him in mind from the beginning, although they'd made a few
half hearted attempts with various different musicians that they knew, but had yet to settle on
a line-up that they were content with. Ollie was at Tony and Sue's wedding and saw bass
player Tim Rolfe among the guests and recognised him from played around the traps, not
realising that he was Tony's cousin. So they tried him out and the rest is history. Having
released a 7", You Drive Me Coo Coo, a couple of years ago, the full length release
has been eagerly anticipated by their loyal followers on the live circuit. Recorded at the
Lodge II in November last year over two weekends by Barry Stockley, the songs were
recorded 99% live, with only a few overdubs here and there, as it was the band's sound
priority to capture the raw energy that is a trademark of the Exotics gigs. If you close your
eyes, you can almost smell the beer on the carpet while listening to this
CD.
"That's what we were going for anyway. They're the sort of
records we like, they sound pretty much live," says Tony. "It was all probably done in 24
hours, mixed and recorded. I remember telling Barry, he rang me up and said, 'What sort of
sound are you going for?' and I said, 'Well I don't know, just the live sound. Maybe if I give
you some records that I like the sound on...', so I took down some singles and he didn't have
a record player, he only had CDs. I had an Andre Williams CD and we played him that. I love
the production on it, it's really crude. They always say it's trashy and crude, but to me it's
fantastic. It's a really earthy sound and things just come in and out all over the
place."
A cover of Andre Williams' Greasy Chicken has been
an Exotics standard over the years and a great version of this appears on the CD. In the
early stages The Exotics were known for their energetic recreations of 50's based R&B-
based rock'n'roll songs by the likes of Williams, Reverend Charlie Jackson, Hasil Adkins and
others, but the majority of the CD is original material that remains firmly entrenched in that
style. With so many people seeing a need to categorise music these days, Tony recalls an
interesting incident that occured when The Exotics played at The Apollo Folk Festival last
year.
"The kids had to decide if they were going to see us or in the
other tent there was some other band playing, and one of them was trying to convince the
other to go in, and his mate's going, 'Oh I dunno, they're not like Moler, what are they thrash
or what?'. His mate then says, 'Oh I dunno... they're... the essence of rock!' Now if someone
asks what sort of music we play I say 'The essence of rock!'. But I'm really opposed, I hate
the word rock."
"We prefer rock'n'roll," agrees Susan. "Even Dexter
can pick rock'n'roll from everything else.
back to the
Main page
or Melbourne
Incendiary rock
Melbourne
Non Incendiary rock
Non
Melbourne Incendiary rock
Non
Melbourne Non Incendiary rock