Negatives / Reals

THE NEGATIVES:Prime movers of Melbourne’s ‘punk movement’, Garry Gray and Chris Walsh formed the ‘Negatives’ from the ashes of ‘The Reals’ in 1977. ‘The Reals’ comprised Gray (singer), Ian `Ollie' Olsen (guitar), Chris Walsh (bass) and Peter Cave (drums). With the departure of Olsen, the band recruited Michael Holmes on guitar to form the ‘Negatives’. The ‘Negatives’ contributed the chilling `Planet on the Prowl' to the Suicide Records compilation of Melbourne punk bands, Lethal Weapons (1978). It was the most interesting track on the album. The Negatives split up early in 1979. Holmes joined Paul Kelly; Walsh eventually joined ‘The Moodists’, and Gray went on to form the ‘Sacred Cowboys’._________________________________________________ _______________THE LOST NEGATIVES/REALS ALBUMS:Gray, recently returned from a pilgrimage of sorts, has unearthed a lost ‘Negatives’ album, some studio out-takes, and some recordings of ‘The Reals’ ….. He is currently putting these recordings together for re-mastering and first time release….a piece of missing Australian independent rock History.Gray explains, “Chris and I were purists, we had no intention of compromising our ideas for the sake of the record company…as a result, they took ‘Planet on the prowl’ for the compilation because we had a good enough following…and then dumped us. Chris and I had left the garage. We had an album or more in us together, but our musical tastes began to diverge …. Without that album in the can, it was time to move on. In any case, the ‘lost’ album will give you an idea of that group. Watch this space.”___________________________________________________ ___________Excerpts from an interview with Garry Gray by Grant McDonald 2003:THE DAWN OF TIME: __________________”I grew up in Mt Waverley, a suburb of Melbourne. The lifestyle was "Pleasnt Valley Sunday" (the Monkees). The Whitlam years was a period of liberation, and we knew our 'Miranda rights' from watching US cop shows...My buddies were the late great Tracey Pew (Birthday Party), and Chris Walsh (Moodists/Dave Graney). By 1975 I was into Alice Cooper (Killer/ Billion $ Babies), The Stooges, Lou Reed, and Patti Smith....Walsh and I started a garrage band with high school buddies in ‘75....around ‘77 Radio Birdman did a gig at a small pub in St Kilda, we hooked up with them after the gig and went back to their hotel to listen to Fun House and the first Stooges album (not yet for sale in Oz). Before long Walsh and I had our first band playing, and had installed ourselves in St Kilda 'The Reals', with Ollie Olsen (himself & Max Q)....soon we had Archie & Jugheads and could by old Stooges and Velvet Underground records, but it was still hard to find places to play as 'an alternative' band.English Punk had emerged, but it didn't embody the ideas I wanted to express, nor reflect my background....on an ideas level I respected the Clash, but I wasn't 'into' them, and the Pistols were 'a right larf'....I guess on a fashion level we cut and dyed our hair, to draw a sharp line between ourselves and the music "establishment"....back then, the Stooges had not so long ago finished, and the Velvet Underground not too long dead either, with Reed still doing interesting things....the best Oz band for originality to break were The Saints, and Birdman were a good blend of originality, playing the covers of key influences as well....”THE WAVE BREAKS ________________”In the late 70's, Mushroom records saw that a few bucks might be made and set up "Suicide Records"...they put out a compilation album with the numero uno "alternative" bands from all over Australia...My band was "The Negatives", with Chris Walsh and Mick Holmes (Paul Kelly/Zimmermen), the Boys Next Door, JAB, etcetera...now it may seem we were 'mainstream', with Molly Meldrum flashing the album cover on Countdown, but we were ripped off badly: however, a kind of scene was developed, the most influential being Melbourne and Sydney, in that order, and from by the early 80's a myriad of bands emerged encompassing 'new wave pop', The Models (Mark Ferrie, Johnny Crash, Ash Wedneday)....and the darker side The Birthday Party.So far I've only spoken about music....and of course, that's what we're here for....but the key to the music was the inspiration, for me the greatest lyric writers, that being my chosen direction...since the 70's we'd read "New Musical Express" and "Rolling Stone", and this gave me insight into authors I hadn't discovered myself, movies, American and European, and many other things....so you're looking at Satre, Huxley, Burrows, Hunter S Thompson (an infinite list)....and so the "alternative scene", was not only musicians, but writers, painters, film makers, students, old rock 'n' rollers relating it to a kind of 'renaissance', a là the late 60's....so when you played live, the audience often consisted of a variety of creative people out to have the best time they'd ever had, and you knew how to make that happen.... OK, we've established I grew up with Tracey Pew, logically, I also knew Nick Cave back then....after Suicide Records a lot of bands broke up, Negatives being one of those....the Boys Next Door were still a kind of pop band, having moved recently from Bryan Ferry into the dark side, and thus managed to survive where other bands failed to do the same....in short the pop bands survived, Teenage Radio Stars and JAB became the Models, for example...but the Boys Next Door soon found their true selves and became The Birthday Party, at which point, they had the means to escape the penal colony they knew could never sustain them long term.And as the Sacred Cowboys crashed into the scene in '82 playing a with a kind of scorched earth policy at every gig, the "alternative" scene went through a rejuvenation type thing ...in 82 we signed with Mushroom's 80s version of Suicide, the White Label....and released "Nothing Grows In Texas", appearing on Countdown, touring Australia….but I digress. ”HOW DID THE REALS AND NEGATIVES COME ABOUT? ______________“I’ve talked about New Musical Express from England, and Rolling Stone...there was Cream Magazine... I was reading about my initial inspirations in these mags, before their records were readily gettable in the land of Oz....you also need to remember the 70’s were a little different ...sure, you can throw the Partidge Family at me, but the extreme touched the mainstream: if you can rationalise Bowie away, John Lennon’s politics, Lou Reed’s Berlin, Alice Cooper from Love It To Death to Billion Dollar Babies, then you are only seeing those artists through the reversed binoculars of 2002, and missing the point....Of the key songs on Billion Dollar Babies, Bob Dylan said here we have the most astute socio/political commentary of the 70’s...and Iggy Pop’s Raw Power album became available in the god damn Australian Record Club cataloge in 1974, plus the Blue Oyster Cult...right next to the ‘greatest’ hits of the guy who played Bazza McKenzie....I rest my case... so if you throw in Beggars Banquet by the Stones, and the Doors, the Loved Ones...I’d say you have all the intrinsic inspiration for an alternative band in the year of our lord 1974... the rest came from within. The first guy I wrote with was Chris Walsh, from 1974...this collaboration took us through the ‘Reals’ with Ollie Olsen, and the Negatives, with Mick Holmes... now, I haven’t covered all the bands we were listening to...but the idea was that we write our own songs and get out and play....we, amongst others were the independent scene...Birdman helped the scene to find more music MC5, Question Mark and the Mysterions, and had a solid array of originals, the Saints were happening, which just made you sure you were doing what you had to do.... the flood gates opened by 76/7, import record stores made it possible to get back catalogues of most things... _____________I have to say that for me, personally, I'm not sure about musical influences, but people inspire, in music, back then, overseas artists... you have to rememeber, I’ve played with a lot of people from the first and subsequent waves of the alternative scene... naturally the people you work with influence and introduce you to their personal discoveries....and enrich your experience but you do the same...but that’s not quite the same thing as talking about your own creative compass...I would hazard a guess and say that most people who started playing in those early years derived most of their inspiration from beyond the land of sweeping plains....history has to begin somewhere....if I can borrow those 2004 binoculars for a second, it would be kind of good if current and future generations had the possibilty of tapping into all the work produced by alternative musicians in Oz...it’s no longer nessecary to look overseas for something to get you through an alternative night______________So, to wrap up ....you have to imagine a time, 1975, a brief moment when what you loved listening to, in many cases, had finished overseas....the Stooges, New York Dolls, were over, original Cooper band over, and on the live scene, in Oz, hippy bands playing 20 minute songs about toothbrushes ...the calm before the big bang...the catalyst...what I’m saying is, we wanted to make our own music, and to play it, we had to create a scene..... and this was taking root across Australia.”
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