Raw Sex

SEVEN LONG DAYS IN THE EVOLUTION OF RAW SEX
In the beginning there was REPRESSION.
During his early years Raw Sex was subjected to the Catholic schooling system, where a denial of many things was an essential part of the educational process. This was accompanied by an intense emphasis on sport and other mindless pursuits, resulting in his lifelong loathing for redneck stupidity and anything that reeks of institutionalised behaviour. The one blessing of his theological incarceration was the opportunity to associate with two other thinking non-conformists - Colostomy Bag Lady and the Fishlord. As co-conspirators they could subvert the system in small ways such as putting dog turds in the goal square of the main sports oval and other acts of mind-liberating rebellion, as they sweated out their days of confinement.
Then came CONTEMPT.
Raw Sex eventually escaped the cloistered confines of religious intolerance, simultaneously finding freedom through a plumbing apprenticeship and loud music. This began his twin life long interests of loud outrageous music and sewage, constant discussion of which gave equal opportunity to offend and irritate those who he despised. Attendance at an enthralling Alice Cooper concert in 1977 led to late night radio where mention was made of good local record shops, and that in turn brought posters for local punk rock gigs into view. Add a generous quantity of beer to that mix and the Raw one was hooked for life on the decadent world of loud music, with a fierce refusal to be restricted or repressed by any ideology or system of belief.
Which led to EXPLORATION.
Over time he, CBL and the Fish Lord became regular figures at local gigs and they turned their minds to making music of their own in 1980. First up was the BORED CHILDREN comprising the Fish Lord (vocals), Trevor one finger Ward (bass), CBL (drums) and our hero struggling on guitar. The name changed to AMAZING GRACE when single digit gave up after one practise, then NEW GRACE when the scaly one left to become a deity.
During this time Raw Sex received a few lessons in guitar playing from Stuart Spasm, although this tuition concentrated more on beer intake than strumming strings. Seven years later he repaid these favours by vomiting on Spasm during a LUBRICATED GOAT practise at Gracelands in Sydney, and experienced the true horror of having the dark wrath of El Spaz fall upon him.
Turning his back on these paltry activities our toilet obsessed friend hit the road for the next couple of years, having adventures all over Australia. Starting in Perth, he later went to Darwin and spent time in the company of EXHIBIT A who featured Stuart Spasm, Peter Brat and Brett Ford in the line-up. An evening trying to play music with Brett Ford saw a neighbour appear at the door armed with a shotgun and a promise to execute them if they didnt immediately shut up. Next came stints in Broken Hill and various mining towns in outback South Australia, a time chiefly remembered for drunken attempts at joining in with hick bands in country pubs & parties that invariably ended in disaster. Then it was on to Melbourne where he was ejected from a FALL concert for grabbing Mark E Smiths microphone and abusing him for being a whinging pom. Finally a short stay in Sydney with Richard Ploog ( the CHURCH), then on the journey back to Adelaide in early 1983 he gave a lift to some people who lived at the infamous Beulah Road residence, and invited him to stay.
Finally there was EMERGENCE.
The phrase Beulah Road actually refers to a huge rambling house located at 118 Beulah Road in the posh, blue rinse Adelaide suburb of Norwood. For a few years it was a share house occupied by a succession of artists, musicians and other free-thinking people. A group of inter-related bands formed there, sharing not only members but also a strong sense of musical anarchy and free-form noise making. Although sometimes likened to a cesspit Beulah Road was an incredibly fertile breeding ground for musical & performance ideas, and it was inevitable that Raw Sex would also be drawn to participate in the music making. Masking his nervousness in a cloak of alcohol and discarding any pretence of playing a musical instrument, he hit on the plan of taking his usual pissed idiot persona up onto any stage he could access with backing from his housemates. Thus one afternoon he joined in one of the regular impromptu jam sessions and PURPLE VULTURE SHIT came into existence, and the enigmatic subject of this story acquired the moniker of Toe Biter (or Toe for short) courtesy of Ewan (who wore a coat with huge padded shoulders and a skull mask at PVS gigs) Cameron - in the midst of the drunken frenzy that passed as his attempts at dancing he had occasionally been known to hop up & down on one foot whilst chewing on the toes of the other.
With a lineup of Toe & Kero on vocals, Skull (guitar), Texas Chainsaw (bass) and Scott Devil Insect (drums- or more precisely "concussion'', the instrument he played being an A frame with various metallic objects hanging off it and him striking them with an iron bar), PVS did about a dozen gigs around Adelaide and even managed a trip to Sydney for a show that ended with a skinhead riot. In a live setting PVS gave more of a full performance than just a straight musical gig, as Toe gave full vent to his persona. One memorable occasion had him alternately squatting and stumbling around wearing a full wet suit (flippers, goggles, snorkel and all) loudly chanting do a shit, do a dog shit to himself, before the band started playing. EC Productions later released a tape of PVS tunes. After PVS came the PLUNGERS in 1984, more focussed on purely playing loud, hard, noisy music. With a lineup of Toe (vocals), Tex (bass), Justin (drums) and two guitarists - Dave Taskas & Andy Tranter (Andy played at gigs while Dave only played at some rehearsals) they did a handful of gigs then fell apart. They were offered a Wednesday night residency at a city hotel and Toe insisted they should turn it down to concentrate on practising a lot more while the others were keen to do it, so the band split as a result of the argument that followed.
Around this time the Fish Lord had commenced his holy ministry and moved to Darwin, so Toe decided to head north and seek comfort in his gills to help recover from the Plungers disappointment. He was joined soon after by Pete Pfeiffer and after drunkenly infiltrating the local punk scene they resumed making music via the legendary SPRING ROLLS. Working for a time as a trio - Toe (vocals, guitar), Pfeiffer (guitar) and Anthony Bannister (synth, drum machine) - they did several raucous performances, wearing toilet seats, splattered with fluorescent paint, etc during 1985. In 1986 they morphed into a more straightforward format with Chris Dowd (vocals), Toe (guitar), Jo Ward (bass) and Anthony Bannister (drums) and achieved huge notoriety. It was the International Year Of Peace and they managed to get themselves included in a huge concert where they performed in front of 10,000 people and almost caused a riot. The usually broadminded mainstream Darwin audience couldnt comprehend songs like Turd Like A Log, U Beaut Uranium and My Brothers Shower and responded with a hail of bottles & abuse. Several people were also forcibly removed from the backstage area after issuing death threats against the band. As a lawyer during the day, Chris Dowd knew exactly how far he could legally go with stirring up the crowd as well as being an inspired shit-stirrer and he gave a legendary performance. A full cassette recording of the gig was released by EC Productions a couple of years later.
Off stage the madness continued unabated on the streets of Darwin itself with the Northern Territory Anti Nudist Association. Mortified by the sight of a lot of old, sagging hippies meandering about in a state of almost complete undress they decided it would be morally uplifting to take practical action, collecting clothes from Goodwill & St Vinnies bins and distributing them on the beach and elsewhere in the hope that the nudists would pick them up and wear them, as well as spray painting walls with appropriate slogans and sticking up signs. One night they did a raid on a local sex shop and super-glued a huge cardboard sign across the doors saying the Northern Territory Anti-Nudist Association hereby black bans these premises and their contents - by order of Loglo Stench-Wallopp and Ivan Diarroehaovich. The whole concept seemed like a good idea when they were drunk one night anyway, and the reaction exceeded all expectations. It ended up on the front page of the local newspaper with a headline of Anti Nudists Hit Town, talkback radio was inundated with calls and no-one could work out if they were serious or not. The local hippies were outraged and hugely offended, the old people loved the idea of some sort of a moral crusade taking place and the young people thought they were insane.
There was also the horror of their living quarters - a squalid and infamous share house at 27 Henry Street in the pristine suburb of Stuart Park. Although only Toe and a couple of other people actually lived there it became a seven-day-a-week party house as well as a place for their bands to play, and soon resembled a garbage dump. Too drunk and lazy to put the garbage out on the street for collection, full bags of refuse were just dumped at the end of the verandah and after theyd sat in the hot Darwin sun for a week theyd swell up and spontaneously explode with an intense & impressive aroma. Eventually the landlord evicted them from the house after the local council declared the building to be vermin infested and unfit for human habitation because of the garbage accumulation
The SPRING ROLLS collapsed soon after the riot gig, and several other short lived bands followed in their wake such as PHLEGM, JOBS FOR THE DEAD and WALRUS TURD, then it was time for Raw Sex to resume his travels.
It was inevitable that this on-going madness would lead to a prolonged EXPLOSION.
Back in Adelaide the inhabitants of the house at Beulah Road were sent on their separate ways by the landlord in 1984, and their inspired approach to music, art & performance spread to the east coast of Australia as some headed interstate while others carried on in Adelaide. Over in Sydney the diaspora remade themselves into what became known as the Black Eye scene, centred around people like Tex Perkins, Stuart Spasm, Lachlan McLeod and bands like THUG, the BOILERS, the BUSH OYSTERS, etc. One of the first releases on the Black Eye record label was a compilation album entitled Waste Sausage, and this included a contribution from Toe. In a fit of boredom one day in Darwin hed picked up his acoustic guitar and recorded an hour long tape of himself twanging away and singing whatever came into his head, then mailed it south and forgotten all about it. Two songs from this tape made their way onto the album and in the spring of 1987 he was invited to go to Sydney and participate in the launch gig. A suitably over the top rendition of a few songs with The BOILERS as backing band climaxed when Texas Chainsaw tore off the Raw ones trousers (distressing for an anti-nudist to have his full Elvis red Las Vegas jump suit removed in public), and for the next month he ran amok in Sydney. Every night was Saturday night as he drank, vomited and shat himself around the inner city with his preferred calling card being the cradle. This was an origami like wrapping of toilet paper across a toilet seat upon onto which hed empty his bowels so the waste matter was suspended above the water. A challenging sight to encounter when lifting the lid, especially if it had sat there for a while. Beds and shampoo bottles were regularly urinated in, coats vomited on, insanity uttered in great profusion and patience severely stretched. There was also a court appearance after being caught in the act of spray painting I do turds and so do you, which went down well when read out in front of the magistrate.
In the end he badly overstayed his welcome and was virtually run out of town. A short stay in Melbourne followed, with a one-off jam under the name VOMIT BROTHERS being recorded and eventually released as a split CD by EC Productions many years later.
Finally he was back in Adelaide and almost immediately found himself recruited into a new band with the appropriate name of VOMIT AND DIARRHOEA. Musically it was more of the same - loud noise with a slightly punk feel - as a floating line-up of members swapped instruments while Toe ranted demonic sermons of toilet flavoured madness. They played several times in Adelaide during 1988 and did two shows in Melbourne, including a rather inappropriate support to hardcore band BASTARD SQUAD whos audience almost killed them. One Adelaide hotel gig was livened up with a Super 8 film loop which had a guy doing a brown eye, a finger pointing at a dog turd, some spit running down a clothesline, a wobbly fat stomach and another brown eye. The whole thing ran for about 10 seconds and was shown continuously on the wall alongside the band as they made their raucous noise, in clear view of the bloke running the bar who was driven into a fit of rage by the repetitive images and proceeded to stop their performance halfway through, kick them out of the pub and ban them for life. VD eventually fell apart via arguments and personality disputes, but did reform briefly in 1989 to record a few songs which ended up on the New Age Orgasm compilation album of Adelaide experimental & noise bands, put out by Rim Of Hell. After VD there was a final live performance when he fronted a one-off band called FLUSH THE BOWL where they played When The Saints Come Marching In 27 times (something that worked quite well if you were drunk enough that night), then he dropped out of view.
The 1990s became a time of CONTEMPLATION.
The years of living like a pig finally caught up with him while some of his fellow musicians were dabbling heavily in heroin and others had had enough, so the time of bands was over. Fed up with his lifestyle and the associated lack of hygiene, he started using the toilet in the way it was originally designed, got a steady job, learnt what shampoo was intended for (not just a receptacle for urine) and just generally cleaned up a bit. The study of the more unmentionable parts of life became more theoretical and less practical, although he did develop a new fondness for human skin diseases and cultivated a few of his own. At this time long time colleague Colostomy Bag Lady was playing drums in Swans-like noise outfit HACK, so the prince of ugliness took on the duties of roadie and beer-taster for the band for a couple of years.
It was during 1992 that he completely shook off the old Toe persona and re-birthed himself as Raw Sex. Contrary to rumours put about by non-devotees of the FishLord the new identity had nothing to do with a certain UK comedy show, but was actually inspired by a portrait photo taken after a particularly heavy weekends drinking. The half focussed eyes, the hideously blotchy skin, the vicious acne pus and the overall shrivelled & wrinkly sense of life-threatening debauchery collectively generated an intense sense of rampant non-sexuality. The scrawled note on the photo - this is raw sex - was brutally appropriate and a new life beckoned.
It was the dawn of the 21st century and finally LIBERATION beckoned.
The old guitar sat in a corner of the room and occasionally Raw Sex gave it a twang, but it wasnt right so he transferred his attentions to an electric keyboard and the musical itch reappeared. His possession of some very basic piano skills and the presence of a few synthesiser type functions on the organ-like device made for some interesting creative opportunities, so one drunken afternoon in March 2002 he pressed the record button on a tape machine then proceeded to play while chorusing odes of appreciation to the toilet. Soon after EC Productions made contact in search of old tapes to release but instead were presented with the new recordings, and so the phenomena of Raw Sex was made available in all its terrifying monophonic sound to an uncaring world.
Between the spring of 2002 and early 2004 four albums of poorly edited material were released via the magic of CD-Rs (two single albums, one double and one a triple album box set), while Raw Sex began using electric guitar as well as keyboard & drum machine to expand his repertoire of abilities. In mid 2004 genial GG Alan Bindig from Chastity Records became involved as producer, and now acts to distil the true essence of Raw Sexs ideas without censoring any of the natural aroma & texture of his expression in the recordings. Since 2002 at least two albums of material have been released every year and the flow appears as unstoppable as a winos diarrhoea.
2005 saw two live performances by Raw Sex as he reclaimed the public arena. The first was virtually a solo show, and armed with just a guitar, small keyboard & drum machine he effortlessly combined the talents and dress sense of Dean Martin & Dave Graney with the lyrical aim of GG Allin for a memorable show. Later in the year was a second gig accompanied by musicians (mainly from FEAR AND LOATHING) under the name of the RAW SEX EXPERIENCE. Both shows were recorded and later released and further public outings are planned.
Another diversion in 2005 was the Raw Sex tribute album, where several Adelaide musicians & bands recorded cover versions of Raw Sex songs while he in turn did an albums worth of tribute songs of the aforementioned admirers. This led to a series of collaborations with other artists and the resultant recordings will start being released during 2006.
Anyone who jams / records / plays / etc with Raw Sex automatically becomes part of the Raw Sex Movement, an informal organisation planned to eventually rival the Freemasons. Adherents to this new cult include - Colostomy Bag Lady, GG Alan Bindig, Oi Oi Ormsby, Captain Spud, Dr El Suavo, Home For The Def, Spindickle, S Seal, R Razor Eater, Chiko Kate, Q Kutta, Bum Clock, El Plumpo Weird Beard and even the mighty Fish Lord himself has consented to appear on a recording.
Finally here are a few words from Raw Sex himself, taken from a 1990 fanzine interview.
I keep doing this mainly because its fun. Theres no reason why I should do anything else and playing music is the biggest buzz Ive ever had in my life. I dont do any drugs apart from alcohol, and music is such an excellent rush - you can be a complete idiot, crack all your jokes, be silly, wear ridiculous clothes and just enjoy yourself having fun. If people want to do serious heavy political stuff thats fine by me - I listen to some heavy shit from time to time - you know, with complaints and statements and things, but for me personally though, Im not into it because it always takes away some of the fun. I want to be relaxed and have a lot of humour, and be able to enjoy it not only because its nice but also because its funny. I dont know why but I always seem to associate music with humour and I cant seem to separate the two. Normally I just write meaningless songs about doing the dishes, going to the letterbox, clipping my fingernails in front of the TV, that just comes more easily to me. Im not into shit any more than the next person, its just a funny thing and a lot of people get turned off about it. The same with pissing and vomiting, a lot of people think its funny, you get a laugh and thats it. I dont think I could ever write a serious sort of tune, it just seems much easier to write funny things or try to attempt to be stupid rather than funny, and get people to laugh at you and embarrass yourself. Ive always been pretty good at embarrassing myself and other people, just by making a complete idiot of myself. Rather than being a skill I think youve just got to accept that youre bad and embarrassing. Youve got to realise that youre up there on stage making a fool of yourself and the people watching arent laughing at you, theyre cowering and saying oh god I feel sorry for that guy, he looks like a fucking idiot and shit like that. I dont suppose everyone could do it, it depends on how ugly you are and Im pretty lucky in that regard. I guess its just a form of showing off, its not like Im trying to live up to some sort of image, the shit jokes and stuff come very naturally to me. I can do that much more easily than trying to chat up a woman - Im bad at that too so I dont do it - whereas Ive been doing shit jokes for years. Back when I was doing my apprenticeship Id go around to public telephone boxes, shit in a coffee jar then put it upside down on top of the telephone book so the shit would fall on anyone who moved it. Or Id shit in a tobacco tin and leave the sealed tin on the back shelf of the car to brew up in the sun, then ask a passenger (CBL on two occasions) to open the tin and retrieve a badge the resulting stench would be instantly overpowering ! The turd fixation started when I was at school and once I started my plumbing apprenticeship it seemed appropriate to talk about it - like a cop talking about car accidents or a fireman talking about fires, being a plumber all I had to deal with every day was shit. People would ask how my day was and Id say oh great, I went to this house and there was shit coming up out of the bathroom onto their thick pile carpet. I was exposed to that stuff all the time and I just tried to look at the funny side of it. I used to keep a photo of a vomit covered toilet on the sun visor in my car and whenever someone commented on it Id play a cassette recording of me actually doing the vomit in the picture with a friend of mine giving a running commentary at the time. Ive always found bodily functions are a great avenue to go along with, because if I have to sing about something Id much rather laugh and be stupid with music than serious.
This veritable bio-hazard masquerading as the Raw Sex biography was compiled by Harry Butler in May 2006. Mr Butler bears responsibility for unleashing the sonic majesty of the Raw one onto an unsuspecting world via his EC productions label. Visit www.ozmusicbooks.com for more information.