Ed Kuepper and The Aints Played Manning Bar in Sydney with feedtime, 3/9/18

Finding the Australian Music Scene, Part 1: Lost and Found

By Ken Geiger

It’s hard for me to write single show reviews at such a pace as other writers on this site do. Part of the reason is my awfully forgetful nature. Another is simply that I have been going to so many shows since arriving here that it is so hard to put into words how unique the music scene is in Sydney. Still, I can attempt to explain it.

Let's start with what some would consider the established acts of Australia, or the "hometown heroes" (not Midnight Oil or Men at Work). On March 9th, I witnessed two legends of Australian underground music grace the stage of The Manning Bar on the University of Sydney campus when Ed Kuepper of The Saints rolled through to rock out with feedtime. My initial interest in the event came out of my love for feedtime, the Australian noise rock band who have been playing on and off from as far back as the late 1970s. Some more notable musicians who have listed the band as an influence over the years include Kurt Cobain, Mark Arm of Mudhoney and Jersey's very own Tim Cronin of The Ribeye Brothers (Tim was the one who actually turned me onto the band).



It's easy to see why the band managed to impact a variety of lives outside of their own home country. Their approach to music is totally alien to anything that was happening around the time of their formation. Bassist Al Larkin's style mixes chugging basslines with slide solos that you just do not see from many four string players anymore. Rick Johnson chooses to play his guitar in open tunings most of the time, rather than opting to play in standard, as most punk bands from their time did. His use of the slide is equally as impressive as Larkin's. Most impressive of all, though, may be drummer Tom Sturm, who gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "physical endurance." His drum setup was barebones, notably lacking the presence of rack toms and any cymbals besides the hi-hat. However, his ability to pound the audience into the ground with simple, driving beats was astounding. 

Despite listening to their records plenty before going to see them, feedtime presented me with a sound that is just so radically different from anything that came before and after it. Larkin explained to me in a brief chat after their set that, "There was just no real musical basis for us to go off of when we first started. We liked the idea of the speed in punk music, but that was really it. We just tried out our own thing and hoped that it worked." Well, mission accomplished. It's damn near impossible to find anything that sounds like this Aussie trio.
 
Ed Kuepper is the founding guitarist of The Saints. The group might be known over in the states for the fact that Springsteen covered their song "Like Fire Would" back in 2014, but that song was written without Kuepper. Before that era of the band, The Saints were ripping up the Australian musical landscape with their own brand of punk rock, a brand that many claim helped to pioneer the genre right alongside acts like The Sex Pistols and The Ramones. But we are not here to discuss The Saints tonight. That band still goes on today in an entirely different lineup. The point here is to embrace that pioneering punk era Kuepper helped to bring about.



His backing band for the evening was appropriately called The Aints. The band ripped through a 20+ song setlist that just made the crowd go insane with every note. The audience was mostly filled with people who had probably spent their youth listening to The Saints, and they all tried to convince me to forget my American knowledge of punk. "This is where punk all began," they cried. "New York didn't have shit on Sydney. No way," chimed in others. I do not think I could bring myself to agree with them on that last statement, but I will give credit where credit is due. Rarely do I care much about an artist's set after seeing it if I did not know them beforehand. The Aints were an exception. I listened to their tunes the whole way back to the train station.
 
This trip has given me some cultural insights I did not think I would end up gaining while here. I continue to attend shows on an almost weekly basis (some of which I even perform at under the KPG name).  Certainly, I am far from being done reporting on the happenings in this country. I have just accumulated too many good stories here to stop after two write-ups.