The
Twenty Second Sect
This article originally appeared in NFH #18 in
the winter of 1990.
Imagine passing
through Albuquerque and finding out that there are about a dozen world class bands playing
in all kinds of different styles. You'd be pretty shocked, wouldn't you? Well, Adelaide in
South Australia offers a similar isolation...it sits on the south coast of Australia a
long day’s drive west of Melbourne and faces out across the ocean to Antarctica. On
all other sides is desert. And there's not many more people than in Albuquerque, either,
yet they've managed to develop what appears to be a pretty impressive group of
bands...Lizard Train, Exploding White Mice, Mad Turks, Contrapunctus, Philisteins,
Primevils, Coneheads, King Snake Roost, Birthday Party...all these and more started in
Adelaide. One of the best of the bunch are the Twenty Second Sect, a band that started as
a fictitious, studio-only effort called "Liz Dealey And The Twenty Second Sect"
on their debut single, "The Wailing House", which was released in 1986. For that
single, the band consisted of Liz Dealey and three members of the Lizard Train (see NFH#17
for their story).
The real Twenty
Second Sect started to take shape in July of 1987, when they debuted as a live band with
Liz as singer, Orietta Scott on guitar, Michael Tohl on bass, Scott Nadebaum on drums, and
Sharron from Bloodloss on guitar. By late 1987 Sharron had left and was replaced by
Bloodloss drummer Andrew Foley on guitar.
The Twenty Second
Sect are based around a tough as nails sound that shows some obvious Detroit metal
influences, but also brings to mind less likely comparisons, such as Teenage Jesus and The
Jerks. This latter reference is due primarily to Liz Dealey's voice...an instantly
memorable powerhouse sound of vocal chord demolishing that helps drive their songs. Since
Dealey was the focal point of the first single, it is natural to assume that the band is
primarily her project, but they state with conviction that the band is a real band now,
and has been for 18 months, and the fact that songwriting is evenly distributed among all
members underscores this. In the interview that follows, Liz is clearly the dominant voice
in the band, though, and not just because she sat closest to the recorder, although that
reduced the number of comments that I could credit to the other members considerably.
We'll start by
getting the band to help unravel the history a bit more. Unfortunately, they seem as
confused as the rest of us by it all..
Liz: The Acid
Drops started in 1982 with members of bands such as Bloodloss, Love Fever...
Orietta: and the Lizard Train?
Liz: No, Chris didn't come in until 1983, and that line up of me, Martin, Dave
Mason, Su Severin and Phil never played anywhere. Then there were some personality
problems and Su Severin left and Chris Willard replaced him. We bumbled along for a while
until we all got pissed off at each other and couldn't stand being in a band with each
other any more. We made one record, and probably because of personality problems the band
broke up. We reformed for one gig in 1985 with the Moodists.
Then Orietta, Scott,
me...
Orietta:
Chris...
Liz: No...
Orietta: Chris was in the Revenge of The Gila Monsters!
Liz: No...oh yeah. No you weren't! Who was our first drummer then? Oh, me! Oh, I
was thinking about She Devils. There was Jenny, Orietta, me, Brenda on vocals and a girl
called Fiona on guitar.
Orietta: And we didn't play...
Liz: And Fiona got kicked out and we needed a guitarist so Chris Willard joined on
guitar and we only played two gigs. And then I went overseas and when I came back we
formed a band called the She Devils with Scott...you were in then, weren't you?
Scott: I don't know...
Liz: You were, because I wasn't playing drums then. A girl called Suzette on bass,
Orietta on guitar and me on guitar, and...
Orietta: Brenda...Brenda sang for a while, remember?
Liz: Oh, yeah Brenda sang for a while and then she got pissed off, didn't want to
be in a band. She'd done that in her life and that was over.
Orietta: And then that was it; we never played.
Liz: No we never played anywhere. We kind of disbanded, and then we got back
together later with Scott on drums, a guy called Michael Tohl who we met at a jam session,
who is still in the band of course now, on bass. Me on guitar and Sharron on guitar, and
we were auditioning singers. And we couldn't find one, and we got a guy to come along and
audition for singing. But I had an operation on my finger that week and I couldn't play my
guitar, so that night I sang and he played guitar. And we didn't like him as a guitarist,
but everyone said that I should keep singing. So then we looked for guitarists and then we
found...in desperation we rang Orietta (laughter), and she said yes she'd like to be in a
band again, so that's where it started.
Orietta: We did a few gigs with Sharron...
Liz: And then Sharron and the band parted ways so Chris Willard filled in for us on
guitar. And then we found Andrew...or Andrew found us. And then Scott went away on
holiday...a working holiday for three months. And then we got David Creese from the Lizard
Train to play drums for three months, and you had a break as well, Orietta, 'cos you moved
down south. And Chris rejoined on guitar for another three months. And then when Scott
came back...
Orietta: No, what about our recording?
Liz: Oh, that's right, Scott had been away too long when we did our recording, so
David Creese recorded our first ep with us, and Chris played some additional guitar on the
ep, but Orietta did record on the ep.
Orietta: Yeah, I recorded and Andrew and Chris.
Liz: And me and Michael. Michael's been in it all along from the start. And then
Scott came back and we started practicing with this lineup. We've probably been going for
about 18 months.
Got all that? Good,
there'll be a quiz later. But this sort of continual line-up juggling and member sharing
is not too unusual in Adelaide's close knit scene. It's a scene in which the number of
musicians can seem to outnumber the number of fans, but a lot of this is because so many
musicians play in more than one band. As has been mentioned, Andrew drums for Bloodloss
while playing guitar for the Twenty Second Sect, and another prominent example, Dave
Mason, played with Liz in the Acid Drops and has subsequently played in the Primevils, The
Exploding White Mice, and Love Fever, and he's in the process of trying to form another
band. Liz pointed out that many of the bands on Dominator Records, home to Adelaide's
thrashier side and the second biggest indie label in town, are just groups where three of
four members from one band pick up one person from another band and form another group. So
despite the number of bands, the number of good musicians is really not so great. Worse,
the number of fans that come out seems very small and isn't growing much.
Liz: Yep.
Adelaide's really small; Melbourne is bigger and Sydney's even bigger than that. There's
very limited venues in Adelaide anyway, and you can't play two nights on a weekend and
expect to get people to come along enough so you make any money. I don't think if you even
played free gigs they'd come along to see the same band two nights.
Orietta: Also there's a limited amount of people that like that sort of music
anyway.
Liz: Yeah, the alternative band thing is small here at the moment and I think that
people just aren't buying records much at the moment. Nobody; not just Greasy Pop Records,
but everyone that you speak to isn't selling many records. I don't know what it is, I
don't know whether people turn to CDs, and of course a company like Greasy Pop can't
afford to go to CD. But people just aren't buying many records. Or whether people are
taping their records that they like from their friends that bought them...but a lot of
people that are into the scene that like our sort of band, a lot of them maybe are
unemployed and they can't afford to buy the records they want so they do tape them or they
just don't buy them. Sometimes they can't afford to go to gigs, no matter how much they
like the band, they just don't go to all the gigs. I just think that it's pretty limited
for Adelaide bands here. Even though there aren't that many bands in Adelaide, it's really
limited. If you play two nights on a weekend, you're really panicky about the gigs
thinking that, "Oh, people are going to choose which night to go to, so we're going
to have a good night one night and a bad night the other night". Well, look at last
weekend, we played two nights last weekend, and Friday was pretty dismal, really, but
Saturday was great. There just isn't much audience out there in Adelaide.
NFH: Do you think that the lack of interest in records is due to the fact that
people can go out and see the bands live almost any time they want, so they don't see a
point in listening to the records?
Liz: No,
that's crap.
Chris: They'll listen to it on the radio and tape it.
Liz: But you can't really do that. But you just don't think "Oh, I'll go see
the Twenty Second Sect" without looking to see if we're playing; we just don't play
every weekend. And there isn't a lot of new young people coming to gigs. It's the people
that have liked the band from the beginning that are still there two years later who are
just getting older. Not that it matters how old people are; it's not just young or old,
but new faces at gigs. It's always the same.
Orietta: And there's not that many places you can play.
Which makes the
Twenty Second Sect a very large and very hungry shark in an extremely small pond. And
they're itching to get out into the open ocean where they can really show what they can
do. At the moment, this seems a way off for the band...at the date of this interview they
had only toured outside of Adelaide once; a three day excursion to Melbourne for which
they drove all day Friday for a Friday night gig (bear in mind we are talking 450 miles
via a two lane road with no center divider...not a freeway) and then also played Saturday
and Sunday nights. The band understandably felt a bit wasted Friday night, but reviews
were nevertheless positive, and Saturday they played one of their best shows ever at the
Barwon Club. Sunday's show was a bit slow, but overall they were very pleased with the
results. But they want more, so they're obviously pumped up by the prospects of their
first tour to Sydney. This was due to take place in November with three dates each in
Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney with Bored and the Lompoc County Splatterheads. "We're
having a little problem with that at the moment, with Michael", said Liz,
"whether he can come or not, so if he can't come, we're fucked, and it means the end
of band and life as we know it!" This last comment was tongue in cheek, as the band
are used to this sort of thing and since Michael had to bail due to work commitments,
Chris Willard of the Lizard Train was harnessed to fill in on bass. In fact, according to
Liz, Michael was "in disgrace" for the interview, because he had just broken the
news that he couldn't make it. As a result significant portions of the interview were
devoted to playful bits of Michael-bashing. At one point, the tape reveals the sound of a
guitar bag unzipping...
Liz: That's
one of those fretless ones, isn't it? That's revolting. I just hate them. They just look
like a bloody broom or something. Well, let's make Michael play that.
Orietta: Say it's the only one we brought! (laughs)
Liz: Where is Michael, anyway? That is a question that is often asked. WHERE'S
MICHAEL? We've got lots of really good stories about Michael. He fell asleep when he was
supposed to be at a gig. He went to the sound check, went home and fell asleep, and he
didn't wake up and come. So we had to play and luckily Chris Willard knew several of our
songs. So he jumped up and borrowed a bass and Michael's bass amp was there, but he played
a right handed bass upside down and we did twelve songs that Chris knew. So it turned out
to be a really good gig actually. And then Orietta went home and on the way she called in
at Michael's and found him asleep on the bed...she thought he was dead! She woke him up
and he couldn't believe it.
At the moment the
recorded output of the band consists of "The Wailing House" single on Greasy
Pop, the 7" "UXB" single on Sympathy in the US, the Get That Charge
mini-lp (which came out as a 6 track in Australia on Greasy Pop, as a seven track with a
cover of Union Carbide Productions' "Ring My Bell" in the US on Sympathy, and as
a full 10 track lp on Dutch Megadisc, with the first single thrown in). There's also the
thrashy "Ha Ha You're Dead" on the Dominator compilation Are We Still Here?
and "Ring My Bell" can also be heard on Greasy Pop's Oasis II
compilation.
This December, with a
little luck, there'll be a new full length lp called Unexploded on Greasy Pop which
will contain three of the four tracks from the "UXB" single (their cover of
"I'm A Man" being left out). Of all this stuff, I'd rate only the Dominator
track as not really critical to my collection. The other stuff just burns with intensity
and is laced with great hooks. The general musical approach on the early records was very
Stooges like in that the songs consisted of simple riffs crunched repeatedly into the side
of your skull. But there's pretty good variety in the stuff, too; the band can do
psychedelic songs like "The Wailing House", or they can thrash like the
Dominator track, or they can play basic, gut wrenching rock and roll.
Liz: Well, I
wrote all those songs and I can't explain any of them. "The Wailing House", even
though it's slower, it's still got the intent of Get That Charge I think. The same
intensity, even though it's slower. I dunno, I can't explain it. It just happened like
that. But I can explain the way the music's changing now. Like our new album has got some
less, you know, 1-2-3-4 rock and roll straight songs on them, because I was writing all
those songs before and now we've got more songwriters in the band, so that's why there'll
be a wider range of music and the music won't be just all in the same sort of vein.
Because I tend to write not thrashier sort of stuff, but I tend to like things that are, I
dunno, more full on.
Orietta: Rock and roll!
Liz: We've got no direction and we've never ever discussed what direction we're
going or what sort of songs we want to do, and what we want to be like or sound like.
Scott: As we've been together longer I suppose the structures of songs have tended
to become more sophisticated.
Liz: Yeah, well everything I wrote was G and A...
Orietta: We don't want everything to sound the same all the time.
Liz: But everything I wrote I liked it when I wrote it, but a lot of it was just in
E or G or A, and I just wrote one riff and we just played one riff through the song
because that's what we liked. And then we found out that you could have other parts in
songs without making mistakes.
In addition to the
Stooges comparisons, my first contact with the Twenty Second Sect led me to think of
Teenage Jesus and Lydia Lunch...the No New York sort of thing. I think this was
mainly due to the Acid Drops record and "The Wailing House", but the comparison
still seems apt if you focus on Liz singing. It appears that I'm not the only one who has
suggested this to the band...
Liz: No, I
don't know why everyone makes that comparison with Lydia Lunch because...
Chris: 'Cos that used to be all you would talk about...
Liz: Yeah, Teenage Jesus...I've got lots of tapes and records and stuff, but I
don't know why everyone makes that comparison. Maybe because we're both women, you know.
That's about all I think, really. But I don't think our band is anything like that at all.
I mean, you listen to her records and then you listen to ours...
Chris: Hers are more like jazz...
Liz: Yeah, and talking or whatever. I mean I really like her but we're nothing the
same and I think the comparisons just came from the voices, that's all. Both being women's
voices, and I don't even think we sound similar. But it's really flattering to be compared
to Lydia Lunch.
Orietta: Maybe she can't sing either!
Liz: Bitch! (much laughter) I can't sing any other way. I can't actually sing, as
you would call a singer.
NFH: Everybody
else who has started out good with that sort of vocal chord destroying style eventually
gives it up and when they do the music seems to go limp (I'm thinking of the Lime Spiders
and Stiff Little Fingers in particular). Do you ever consciously think about stuff like
that?
Liz: No, I
don't think any of us think about what we do. We just roll along. I don't think
consciously about singing or singing limp. Sometimes I like to try to sing without having
to really push it and growl, but like I said I can't sing any other way. But the Lime
Spiders ARE limp.
Orietta: Don't you think so?
Liz: They are, they're like really limp. But when they first came out, that double
ep...was really, really good, and then after that and they sort of changed members, and
there was one original member left they just went really mainstream to try to get their
records played on the radio, and they're awful.
Scott: And they look awful, too.
Liz: They're ugly, they're so ugly. They're just not interesting or as beautiful as
we are. (laughter)
This of course leads
to the obligatory questions about what other bands they think are really good...
Chris:
Midnight Oil!
Liz: Oh, shut up! Really good? I guess he means any, not just Australian. Well one
of my favorites is Mudhoney, and I like Dinosaur Jr. a lot too.
Chris: Butthole Surfers. But they're getting a bit old now.
Liz: Yeah, but still it doesn't matter, their records are kind of timeless, you can
still play them a lot, and I just really like them. What Australian bands, though.
Chris: Cut Cut Cut, I'd say.
Liz: Yeah, but last time I saw them they were shit, but they have got some good
songs.
Chris: I thought they were excellent.
Liz: I know, but you were the only person I spoke to that did.
Orietta: Lizard Train.
Liz: Oh, yeah. I really like the Lizard Train. They're different sort of music but
I they're really good. I reckon this record's going to be a killer, this album; it's so
different than the last one. And I really like Bored.
Orietta: Yeah, Bored. And God.
Liz: But they don't exist any more; they broke up a while ago. Tim from God is in
Bored.
Chris: The Mu Mesons! They're a Sydney band. They're wild; I saw them on a video.
They're weird; they're sort of experimental...two biker guys who just sort of sing, but
who are really weird. They sit on chairs and wear sunglasses and make really strange
noises.
Liz: I never heard of them.
If you've heard the
previous Twenty Second Sect records, you're in for a real treat when you finally latch
onto the new lp. The songs still power like before, but the new song writing approach
gives them more depth so that they'll hold up better to repeated listening. Not to say
that the band has become symphonic in their approach; they still tend to work from a basic
riff or two and just vary the way the guitar lays over the top of it, but they're clearly
getting better at figuring out interesting ways to do this. And they sure haven't lost the
ability to come up with a great foundation riff; songs like "That Ain't Good"
feature the sort of hook filled guitar power that'll get its barbs into you and not let
go. Liz is playing guitar now, and with three guitars in the band the sound is, if
anything, tougher than before. If this record doesn't establish the Twenty Second Sect as
a major band in Australia investigations are in order. Are they interested in breaking out
and getting overseas?
Liz: YES! But
we need lots of money!
Orietta: We're ready!
Liz: But we haven't really got anyone in America or Europe, but we'd really like to
go. I'm going to America in December, so maybe I'll just do some solo singing spots.
(laughs)
NFH: What are
your future plans...records, tours, new members, etc...
Orietta: Well,
we're getting a new bass player...
Liz: Oh, whoops! Shh! No, not really Michael (much laughter), well there's the tour
to Sydney and Melbourne. Records, we've got the album coming out probably in December
called Unexploded with a lot of new songs on it. What else?
Orietta: Hopefully a tour?
Liz: Where?
Orietta: Anywhere!
Anywhere to broaden
their horizons and take a step up to playing on a level more in line with their abilities.
Perhaps this next story best illustrates some of the frustrations to be dealt with playing
on the scale that the Twenty Second Sect are currently compressed into:
Liz: A couple
of weeks ago we had a gig booked with a band called Contrapunctus who just got an album
out on Greasy Pop too, and it was their record launch gig at a place called the Seven
Stars Hotel, which is kind of a trendy, up-markety Grand Prix club. We didn't know why
they had asked us to play, anyway. And we went there and did a sound check, and the police
came to the sound check and said that the neighbors had complained and said it was too
loud. Anyway, we talked the police into going away, and we all went home, then we all rode
back to the pub, and when I got there everyone was on the pavement sitting there with
their amps and their guitars sitting around looking very sorry for themselves, and what
had happened was that in between sound check time and the time the gig was supposed to
start, probably about two hours, a group of neighbors had got together with a group called
neighborhood watch that looks out for each other in the neighborhood had got a petition to
say they didn't want us to play because they didn't want loud music in the neighborhood.
So they went to the manager who stopped the gig. So we all had to go home. I thought that
was pretty bad. And poor Contrapunctus, it was their album launch, and they'd spent $300
on advertising for the radio for it. But anyway the next week we played with them and it
was really good.
Orietta: At a better pub, too.
I guess this is
called paying dues, but it seems to me that dues paying time should be in the past for the
Twenty Second Sect. I can't imagine that their new record won't be greeted with enthusiasm
in hipper circles around the world. And although America's track record for getting good
Aussie bands to tour is dismal, I can't imagine Europe not going for the Twenty Second
Sect in a big way. If they can only get Michael to come along.
