The
Other Side
The following feature was written in February of
1998 and is based on material taken from Harry Butler's DNA fanzine, issue #49 and the
German fanzine Hartbeat, issue #11.
When Radio Birdman
broke up in Britain in the summer of 1978, Rob Younger found himself without a group. Like
many of his former bandmates, he spent a little time in Britain before going back to
Australia. Upon returning to Sydney, he roomed in a house with guitar player Charlie
Georges and bassist Clyde Bramley, and the three of them began forming a band. Georges
already had a long resume amongst Sydney’s primordial punk scene, having started out
in the Hellcats (along with Died Pretty’s Ron Peno). Both Bramley and Georges were
from Queensland to begin with, and had been playing in an early incarnation of the Hitmen
(they were called Johnny Kannis and the Hitmen then) up until the spring of 1978. Georges
had then joined up as bassist with the Psychosurgeons, a pretty wild Sydney band with whom
he’d recorded on the now outrageously pricey single "Horizontal Action".
Younger, Bramley and Georges recruited former Hellcats drummer Mark Kingsmill (who would
later play with the Hitmen, New Christs, and Screaming Tribesmen among others) and started
up a band they called The R4M Quartet. The R4M name came from an obscure connection with
the ME262 bomber shown on a Blue Oyster Cult album.
The Other Side were a
short lived band and never recorded. Their set was largely covers of songs by bands like
the Blue Oyster Cult, Stooges, Alice Cooper, Dead Boys, New York Dolls, Remains, 13th
Floor Elevators and MC5, although they did have some originals, including, apparently, the
surf song "Summertime All Around The World", which was later recorded by the
one-off band Pam and the Passions. Their first gig was in February of 1979, when they
opened for Deniz Tek’s new band, the Visitors, at Sydney’s Civic Hotel. Shortly
after this they changed their name to the Other Side.
They played a number
of shows around Sydney that spring, and in early May went to play several shows in
Adelaide with the Lipstick Killers, where according to Younger they failed to play up to
their standards. Upon their return, they were booked into a gig at the Bondi Lifesaver, a
large hall in the Sydney beach suburb of Bondi. They were to support Rose Tattoo at this
show, which would appear to be a mixed blessing since Rose Tattoo had a good following,
but their music was a very heavy rock sort of sound that didn’t match the energetic
approach of the Other Side very well. But it turned out to be much worse than that. First,
they ran into trouble with Rose Tattoo’s roadies when they asked for a soundcheck,
which the roadies refused to let them take. Eventually they managed to get a meager test
of their levels, but when their show actually started, they had no sound from the onstage
monitors. For those who don’t know about how sound is handled at a concert, this
means that the band can’t hear what they are playing…the guitar player standing
in front of his amp would hear his amp, but it would drown out everything else, so he
would feel like he was playing alone. And Younger couldn’t hear his voice at all. The
Rose Tattoo roadies were sabotaging the sound, turning the vocals to the house speakers on
and off and cutting off Georges’ guitar solos. When Younger asked for more monitor
sound, the roadies began talking through a mike at the soundboard so that the band could
hear it through the onstage monitors, but the crowd could not. They would tell the band
"you can’t play" and taunt them. Finally, the roadies assaulted the band
onstage, and a fight ensued that required police to break it up. There was small
satisfaction in the complete loss of the crowd for Rose Tattoo, since Rob Younger had been
injured badly enough that an upcoming tour to Melbourne had to be scrubbed.
In August there was
more bad news when Mark Kingsmill quit to join the Hitmen. This shut the Other Side down
until November of 1979, when former Radio Birdman drummer Ron Keeley joined them. Keeley
had been playing with the Visitors, but they had now called it a day, so he was available
once more. But Ron was trying to maintain a family life of some sort, and would only
commit to play once every two weeks. This made booking shows nearly impossible, and they
played only a few gigs with Ron.
In December, Keeley
decided to move to England, something he’d thought about off and on since he’d
been there with Radio Birdman. The band couldn’t take the endless stream of problems
and split up for good at this point. Georges went back to Queensland and took up a career
as a geologist. Clyde Bramley played in several other small groups before going to huge
success with the Hoodoo Gurus.
In all, the Other
Side only played about 20 gigs in their entire existence, a fairly short tenure for a band
that many people have said was one of the best Radio Birdman offshoot bands ever. Those of
us who weren’t there can never know.
