Lubricated Goat

Lubricated Goat
Origin Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Genres Noise rock, post-punk, garage rock
Years active 1986 (1986)–present
Labels Black Eye, Amphetamine Reptile, Sub Pop, Sympathy for the Record Industry, PCP, Reptilian
Associated acts Zulu Rattle, Salamander Jim, the Kryptonics, Crunt, LoveStruck, Art Gray Noizz Quintet
Members
Past members

Lubricated Goat are an Australian noise rock band which originally formed in 1986 by multi-instrumentalist Stu Spasm. They achieved brief notoriety in November 1988 for appearing nude on the ABC TV program Blah Blah Blah, wearing only their instruments and shoes. Mainly influenced by the Stooges and the Birthday Party, they are credited for playing a grimy, confrontational style of rock, which preceded grunge. They have issued five studio albums, Plays the Devil's Music (1987), Paddock of Love (1988), Psychedelicatessen (1990), Forces You Don't Understand (1994) and The Great Old Ones (2003).

History

Lubricated Goat were formed in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia in 1986 by Stu Spasm (real name Stuart Gray) on lead vocals, guitar, synthesiser and bass guitar. Spasm had previously been a member of Exhibit A, Zulu Rattle, Salamander Jim, Beasts of Bourbon, James Baker Experience, Death in Vegas and Hot Property. The original band also included Martin Bland on drums and backing vocals (ex-Head On, Crawling Eye, Acid Drops, Bloodloss, Zulu Rattle, Salamander Jim, Primevils), Brett Ford on drums, and Pete Hartley on bass guitar and guitar (the latter two both formerly of the Kryptonics).[1]

En route to return to Sydney after a visit to England, Spasm went via Perth to visit former Singing Dog drummer Ford, who was then playing in the Kryptonics with Hartley. While in Perth, Spasm recorded side 1 of the band's debut album, Plays the Devil's Music, at No Sweat Studios with Ford and Hartley. Side 2 was recorded in Adelaide on a 4-track with Bland.[2]

Lubricated Goat signed to Red Eye Records offshoot Black Eye Records, established by John Foy.,[1] which released Plays the Devil's Music in July 1987. According to Australian musicologist Ian McFarlane, "For the musicians involved, it was simply a chance to exist on the very edges of the Sydney rock scene, and to play out a sick joke for their own entertainment... Foy... liked the joke and formed the Black Eye label specifically as an outlet for the recorded works of this bunch of noise terrorists."[1]

In Sydney, Spasm recruited bassist Guy Maddison of Perth band the Greenhouse Effect (later a member of Mudhoney), Hartley switched to lead guitar. Most band members lived on Cleveland Street in an old, run-down three-story mansion which was dubbed Gracelands. The house was a haven for musicians and artists who hosted art shows and nude discos.[3] In July 1988 the group released their second album, Paddock of Love, which included the track "In the Raw".

On 2 November 1988 the band provided a nude performance, lip-syncing to "In the Raw", on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV program, Blah Blah Blah.[4] The event created national media outrage: "The sight of the Goats' real (and imagined) body parts was enough to prompt scores of irate callers to jam the ABC's switchboard for 30 minutes, for the Daily Mirror to run a front-page exposé and for current affairs shows like the Midday Show, Hinch and Newsworld, plus radio commentators like Ron Casey, to call for an end to such moral depravity."[1] The criticism was met by ABC-TV's presenter, Tim Bowden of Backchat, who "appeared shirtless behind his desk so as to give an impression of nudity while discussing listener's letters about [that group's] appearance."[4] A documentary film about the event, also titled In the Raw, was directed by Cousin Creep to explain why the band were nude for that performance. It premiered on 11 December 2009 at the 19th Meredith Music Festival.

In a line-up change, Hartley was dismissed and Ford quit, replaced respectively by guitarist Charles Tolnay (ex-Grong Grong, King Snake Roost) and drummer Gene Revet (ex-Ragdoll, the Space Juniors).[1] In May 1989 they issued an extended play, Schadenfreude.[1] Lubricated Goat's back catalogue was reissued by Amphetamine Reptile Records in the United States and on Normal in Europe before the band embarked on its first US tour in mid-1989.[1] Tolnay and Revet did not participate in the tour; Spasm and Maddison were joined by Renastair EJ on guitar and saxophone (ex-Bloodloss) and Bland now on synthesiser as well as drums.[1] Later, after Maddison's departure, this line-up recorded a third full-length album, Psychedelicatessen, with Lachlan McLeod on bass guitar and audio sampler (ex-Salamander Jim).[1] McFarlane felt that album showed "a variety of styles (from noisy free-form jazz to noisier hard rock), with tortured guitars and raw vocals being the band's characteristic mode of operation."[1]

In 1990 the group commenced its first European tour, one that was plagued with tragedy via the stabbing of Spasm in Berlin – "in a drug deal gone wrong" according to McFarlane.[1] The incident placed Lubricated Goat on hiatus. Since that time various incarnations of Lubricated Goat (often featuring only Spasm) existed in the early 1990s, documented on the singles, "Meating My Head" (1990, part of the Sub Pop Singles Club), "Shut Your Mind" (1992, Sympathy for the Record Industry) and "Play Dead" (1993, Sub Pop). During this period, Spasm was also a member of grunge supergroup, Crunt, which featured his then-wife Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland as well as Jon Spencer Blues Explosion drummer, Russell Simins; Crunt released their eponymous debut in 1994.

Lubricated Goat resumed activity in the mid-2000s. Among the members were Australian drummer Hayden Millsteed (also a founder of New York post-punk band Bell Hollow), who performed on the band's 2003 album, The Great Old Ones, which featured re-recordings of previously released Lubricated Goat and Crunt tracks.

In 2007, a new line-up of Lubricated Goat started writing and performing new songs alongside their older ones. This ensemble included Anne Mette Rasmussen on keyboards, sound effects and backup vocals; Creighton Chamberlain (formerly of Heroine Sheiks) on bass; and drummer Rich Hutchins (formerly of Live Skull and Of Cabbages and Kings, and performer with Hungry March Band and Phideaux).

The line-up changed again in 2009, with Chamberlain replaced by Jack Natz, formerly of the 1980s New Jersey punk band the Undead as well as Black Snakes, Cop Shoot Cop and Red Expendables. Natz had previously played bass in Lubricated Goat intermittently from the late 1990s through to the mid-2000s. Rasmussen left to form her own band, LoveStruck, which also included both Spasm and Hutchins.

Spasm later headed the Art Gray Noizz Quintet with Hutchins, Ryan Skeleton Boy (formerly of Woman) on bass guitar, Andrea Sicco (of Twin Guns) on guitar, and Johnny Scuotto (of One Pray One Sin, also with Hutchins) on percussion and synthesiser.[5]

Discography

Studio albums

Extended plays

Singles

Compilation appearances

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 McFarlane, Ian (1999). "Encyclopedia entry for 'Lubricated Goat'". Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86508-072-1. Archived from the original on 4 June 2004.
  2. ↑ Plays the Devil's Music (booklet). Lubricated Goat. Sydney, Australia: Black Eye Records. 1987.
  3. ↑ Creep, Cousin (August 2008), Pissant!: A story of 80s Australian underground, cousincreep.com, retrieved 17 May 2009
  4. 1 2 Warden, Ian (5 December 1988). "I Saw: Corruption as entertainment". The Canberra Times. 63 (19,418). p. 32. Retrieved 6 October 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/Art-Gray-Noizz-Quintet-1690629777838077/
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