Tuesday, December 30, 2014

SCAVENGERS - Born To Bullshit 7'' 2002

This record is a fuckin' must have! Both tracks rip your heart off and it takes over 20 years the small label Raw Power Records released this superb single in an edition of only 200 copies. No idea why it took so long. Both tracks are real killer and I can promise you will be blast. Here's some info from wikipedia:

The Scavengers were a New Zealand punk band, formed in 1977. In 1979 they moved to Melbourne/Australia and became The Marching Girls in 1980. Formed at Auckland Technical Institute by Graphic Design students, Ken Cooke, Simon Monroe, Mike Simons and Marlon Hart as "The 1B Darlings" in 1976, the band was heavily influenced by British R&B, Glam Rock and '60s US Garage Rock. In 1977 they renamed themselves The Scavengers, gave themselves punk stage names (Cooke as Johnny Volume, Monroe as Des Truction, Simons as Mike Lezbian and Hart as Mal Icious), and their style mutated in the direction of the US Punk rock and pre-Punk Rock acts. Through much of 1977 they were, with The Suburban Reptiles, the only Punk bands in Auckland.

In June 1977, with The Suburban Reptiles and The Masochists, they played New Zealand's first major punk gig at Auckland University. During this time their repertoire was mostly covers but by early 1978 they had written a set of original tunes. In late 1977 bassist Hart left to be replaced by Brendan Perry, who performed under the stage name "Ronnie Recent". He later reappeared in The Stimulators. In March 1978 they began a residency at new Auckland Punk Club, Zwines. Soon after Simons left (inspiring their signature song "Mysterex"), and Perry moved to vocals. Two Scavengers tracks appear on the Ripper compilation AK79 and a posthumous album was released in 2003. Perry later formed Dead Can Dance and Monroe (aka Des Hefner) played briefly for The Birthday Party during the band's final tour of Australia and New Zealand. Monroe went on to play in a series of Melbourne-based acts including The Slaughtermen and Maurice Frawley. Both Cooke (Go Public and Daisy West) and Monroe are still working musicians in Melbourne.

The Scavengers were hugely influential in Auckland in the late seventies, inspiring a whole generation of young bands and their importance goes far beyond their few releases. They reformed in 2004 for a one off show in Auckland without Perry, and again at the AK79 reunion in 2008.

Both tracks were recorded 1978 and you can really feel the anger and the spirit of the early days of punk life and proves this feeling was not only in Europe or the USA alive. Get this!


4 comments:

  1. special thanks for this item, and a happy new year from the garage

    ReplyDelete
  2. for you too, keep on rockin'

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey WDM please don't be offended and I'm grateful for all you do! Bandwidth is no longer a problem and this deserves to be heard in all its glory! Can you extract with Exact Audio Copy and post in lossless flac level 8 please? Your efforts deserve the best!

    yrs, Muad Dib

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Muad Dib,
      I'll see if I can convert this post into a FLAC file, is that what you need/want?

      Delete