The
Trilobites
This article originally appeared in NFH #17 in
the fall of 1989.
Power pop is a term
that has been abused a lot over the years...there have been just way too
many cases of people calling things power pop when there was no power involved. To
my mind power pop is stuff like the Rich Kids doing "Ghosts of Princes In
Towers", or The Only Ones "Another Girl Another Planet", The Records
doing "Starry Eyes", or best, the Raspberries (good god!) doing "Go
All The Way". Perhaps one of the problems with the name tag is that a lot of
the bands that have done classic power pop songs have also done a lot of other weak
stuff that doesn't match up, and people aren't discerning enough to see that the label
doesn't apply to everything the band does.
The Trilobites don't
have this problem. Their pop always powers, usually with huge reverberating
guitar chords, meaty drums and lots of "woah-oh" type backing vocals.
It's a sound they've been fairly successful at capturing on record (most bands
would kill for results as good), but live is where this band becomes truly
monstrous. The sound live is the sort of thing that drives the crowd into wild
pogoing, egged along by singer Mike Dalton's energetic style.
I caught them in late
1987 with the Celibate Rifles and the Pupils Of Love at the Sydney Trade Union. This hall
is built in a four storey building, and at times shows play on three floors on the same
night. With typical down under logic, they call the second floor the first floor, the
third floor the second floor, the fourth floor the third floor, and the first floor the
ground floor. Got that? Took us awhile. This night's show was all on the third (Aussie
counting) floor, which is by far the biggest hall of the three; a big, bare room with a
stage and little else.
The Trilobites
records might annoy some people because of Mike Dalton’s sometimes bombastic vocal
style, but live the band blows all those problems away; Dalton doesn't have the time to
engage in any bullshit; he just belts out the songs while thrashing himself all over the
stage. The music is a little bit formulaic, but what a great formula! There’s piles
of powerchords, lots of backing "aahhh's" in all the right places, great
throbbing lights and guitar players leaping around at all the key points. The highlights
are the new single "Night Of The Many Deaths" and a brilliant cover of the
Barracudas’ "I Wish It Could Be 1965 Again". The crowd loved it too,
pogoing wildly (they don't slam like they do in the States). At the conclusion, we were
drained, with the Celibate Rifles still to come.
Mike answered a list
of questions I sent him with a long letter. His writing style is a little unusual, and the
tone of his answers certainly reveals that this was no face to face conversation; or if he
does talk like this, he has got to be one of the more bizarre people to have a chat with.
The Trilobites story starts in the late 70s when drummer Paul Styman and Mike played in
a high school band called the Psychotics in the suburban areas south of Sydney. The
rest of the band members all came from the same high school and also played in
various bands, although never all together until 1984, when, according to Mike,
bass player Scott Leighton celebrated his 21st birthday "with the first public
airing of his new combo, called the United Underworld". This name was taken
from an old Batman TV show that featured a coalition of all the bad guys that the
caped crusader used to deal with. Mike wasn't with them at the start, but "they
dropped their singer in an ugly, savage blooding, and I joined. This is around
July." It was a very productive time for Aussie music; the Hard-Ons, Psychotic
Turnbuckles, Melting Skyscrapers and Happy Hate Me Nots all started that summer.
The rest of the band,
which includes Paul Skates and Martin Martini on guitars, didn't go for the United
Underworld name very much, so after a lot of arguing they settled on the name
Trilobites, chosen for no apparent reason...there's certainly no evidence of
calcification or fossilization on any of their records. Nine months later they gave
birth to their first recording, a self produced cassette-only release called Let's
Pump, which consists of material recorded off the mixing board at a couple of
gigs. The sound isn’t as huge as later in their life, but of its 9 tracks
only "Amphetamine Dream" is available elsewhere, so I rate it pretty essential.
It's also a real laugh to hear Dalton's introductions: "We're going to do one
of our own songs...god help us!" or "OK, we're going to try and go
fast".
Says Mike: "Punk
was the catalyst. In 1976 we were all primed for something different. From that
deviation, we deviated further. Our collective tastes spread across the spectrum,
from Motorhead to Mozart, from Johnny Cash to thrash. Power pop was an integral
tone. Rubinoos, Dwight Twilley, Shoes, Plimsouls, (Paul Collins) Beat, Romantics,
all rubbed together with the Stooges and then shredded with British punk of any
form. Music with mayhem. But we pretty much absorb everything, because tastes
within the band cover different arenas. In the case of what radio was playing, it
has always been a great steaming pile of excrement with the few tasteful exceptions
of government and privately sponsored enterprise, so its primary function is to
mask the noise of one's bodily grindings from terrace housed flatmates. If radio
plays our songs, well and good. If they don't, they don't."
Let's Pump
makes sense in that context...there's three originals and a mixture of covers like
the Yardbird's "For Your Love", Stooges "Search and Destroy",
and other chestnuts like "California Sun". There's also a batch of other
covers that I've never heard of elsewhere, revealing the band's habit of plundering
every record collection they come across for obscure gems: "Some gurus forked
out thousands of dollars for record collections, which were taped, and the virus
spread."
In May 1985 the band
hit their first vinyl with the "Venus In Leather" 45 on Citadel, two
sides of classic energy. With Chris Masuak and Alan Thorne helping out the band had
no problems getting the sound right first try; in fact reports are that the sound
of the record was considerably better than the band were live at the time, and
Scott has admitted that it put a bit of pressure on them to work harder at picking
up the live sound.
It was more than a
year later, in August 1986, that the band put out what I still regard to be their
best single, "American TV"/"Legacy Of Morons". Both tracks have
well-constructed and superbly energetic music, and lyrically feature a political
twist that hadn't existed on the previous material. "Legacy Of Morons"
blasts the leaders of the nuclear weapons industry from conception to present day
for their total stupidity in thinking that any of this stuff can possibly result in
security. The A-side rails against the pervasiveness of American culture:
"Conservatism here has followed the western world trend, but in a far more
relaxed style, so we miss out on the abortion clinic bombers. We get a heavy dose
of America via television. We have been heavily sedated by your culture. The only
problem is when you begin to fail to differentiate between your voluminously-produced
pus, or the red white and blue's best. However, we are not flag wavers or
professional protesters. We are loud mouthed spectators".
At this point the
band left Citadel for what were supposed to be greener pastures with Big Time, with
whom they did one single, "Night Of The Many Deaths"/"Living By A
Different Yardstick", in May of 1987. As with almost every other band that has
associated with this label, they came away feeling cheated. Relationships were
great with Waterfront and Citadel, "record companies that allowed you the
freedom to walk onto a bigger label, should it be offered to you. That is very much
the way indie labels work here and it makes things far more pleasurable. Overall,
all the people you deal with are just as poor as you. They are keen to foster
bands. The only pig we got stuck with was Big Time; promises of an album deal, even
a clothes allowance. Gosh. The deal eventually fell through, you know the yarn."
So while other bands
were progressing through a couple singles to a mini-lp, the Trilobites' advance
seemed to be coming unraveled, and they were out looking for another label after
being strung out for several months by Big Time. Happily, Waterfront stepped in to
pick up the thread, and helped the band until they were able to get the deal they
were looking for. First objective was to get another record out, which they
recorded in November 1987 live at Caringbah Inn in the south suburbs of Sydney, and
which was released in early 1988 under the title Turn It Around. A few negative
comments were heard about the record being a holding pattern, which it was, and the
fact that it was mostly covers, which is also true. But nobody can argue that the sound is
unbelievable for a live record, and that the performances are tight and energetic,
and that the Trilobites have immaculate taste in cover material. The crowd seems
into it (a little too into it; Simon Drew of the Vanilla Chainsaws pointed out to
me that Johnny Teen and the Broken Hearts were the opening act that night, and they
recorded their single "She Stinks Of Sex" just before the Trilobites went
on. If you've heard that single, you'll notice that the crowd is fairly inaudible,
but on Turn It Around they sound like an army. Studio gimmick? Didn't know
to ask Mike at the time...). Still, from the sound of the record it's a hot night.
"People here are
very keen to support their local bands. Not everyone, but a sizable quantity, who
buy the records and come to see us play, try and convert other people. Then they
reach the middle twenties and get tired of the fight. The pub scene is where a band
is seen, and the really huge commercial bands here got their shot from the pubs. I
am told this is a particularly unique phenomenon. People like to go and drink beer
and hear a loud noise. As long as that noise is entertaining and unaffected, people
seem to take to it. In Sydney, the best shows for us are always in the deep
south, the southern suburbs, where we have all lived since school. Rock acts have always
known that that is where the wildest gigs are; they are a particular breed.
Southern punters are manic and devoted. That is where we recorded Turn It Around.
We all jumped off the same stages and basically threw ourselves around the same
spaces before we ever plucked a note."
They did their last
Waterfront single, "Jenny's Wake", in March 1988 and then moved on to
rooArt, a new label that has major backing and distribution and pledges to take the
time to grow new bands carefully. Hopefully this proves to be the case, as those promises
have been made before, but so far Dalton seems convinced: "rooArt so far have
been a plus; their attitude is that a small band can become reasonable sized, with
the right backing and attitude from both band and company. That's great. Your alternative
is to be one of the other major's foxy ladies, to be this year's model. rooArt
believes do it slow and steady. That's great. We all want that true, lasting
romance now, don't we? No minus so far, we had a say in all business, and supplied
most of it ourselves, as far as art and presentation."
Well, although the
cover artwork seems to be going backwards ("Jenny's Wake" had a goofy pic
sleeve, but the rooArt mini-lp I Can't Wait For Summer To End is positively
dire), the music is going forward. The rooArt record has a mix of fun songs and
serious songs, but the common denominator is power pop throughout. The Trilobites
approach to lyrics is to sing about whatever they want: "Anything should be
fair game. Love is too dominant an emotion in your average top forty. There is so
much love in popular music that the shelves of stores positively drip with fluids
from the nether regions. No philosophy, just please, a fucking tariff on love
songs."
So you get songs
about boredom with the beach scene, drunk driving, impending revolution, rock
critics, and the rise of the right wing. "Tall Poppies", the one about
rock critics, had me a little worried leading into the interview. I mean I don't
think of myself as a rock critic, but I wasn't sure that Mike would feel the same.
His explanation: "NME was semi-compulsory reading in early high school. You
quickly realized that the Express must have had a cadet school to develop one's
venom spitting hysteria, as well as one's vomit eating gush. The school continues
to churn out quality students, with infrequent flashes of perception bursting through
the vitriol and offal. Coincidentally, the two or so writeups that we have
apparently received have been good, though I have yet to see them. "Tall
Poppies" is a by-product of NME. The press here is a tiny half-arsed on some
occasions, but generally satisfactory. Fanzines are well covered and well read, and
the people who write them are fans, so they are researched about their topic. But
general press remains somewhat sleepy. Ram and Juke can be a tired old read at
times."
My favorite song on
the record isn't even mentioned on the sleeve; it's the crunching "All Hail
The New Right", the song that scorches the rise of conservatism in the west.
Why didn't this even get credits? "It was left off the jacket because we had
already released it on the Youngblood compilation, and we decided to include
it on the EP to flesh it out a bit. In hindsight we should have included the lyrics. No
one could have misinterpreted the song, and if they did, that's even better! We
thought, 'Oh, well, it's been out on Youngblood, let's not look like tight
arses and announce this on the ep, we'll slip it in and the punter gets a surprise'.
Maybe if it gets released locally up your end of town we'll try and slip the lyric
on, but in Australia, nyet."
So with a serious
label behind them and their future in front of them, the Trilobites sum up their
goals and aspirations as follows: "Being paid a modest amount to travel about
the place while doing something relatively creative is pretty much the best as your
going to get it. We hope to play as many different places as possible, before the
money runs out, and see as much of the globe as we can. We're looking forward to a
college tour and drinking Bud. We'll keep going as long as we can push it,
although we won't be making any radical changes to achieve pop nirvana. If it all
falls in a screaming heap, well, we'll go and do something else. Then again, I
never thought San Diego would hear the Trilobites".
Ah, but we have. And
we want more.
