Punk a Photographic Journey The History of the Melbourne Punk Scene

 

 

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVY

I Spit on your Gravy
formed in late 1983 after Fred Negro left The Editions. He met SCotty Stix and Pig (Jason Banner) at a party in Victoria Street, St Kilda. Scotti and Pig said they loved wathicn Fred play drums in The Editions because they used to love wathcing him smash them at the end and they were  jamming with another drummer adn they asked Fred to come an beat up the drummer and joint the band... the drummer played in a cabaret band called 'The Rickety Rainbow Band' and the jam wanted to call themselves Community Worry or Annoy the Neighbours. All members also lived in Victoria St...

Refusing to beat up the drummer Fred suggested they ask him to leave, which he did... adding the name
'The Rickety Rainbow Band' to his drum kit as as gag...the trio rehearsed for a while and had their fist gig at The first gig was at The Venue with The Johnnys as part of the Gong Show while their second gig was at the Pronce of Wales, Regal Room as a one off with Painters and Dockers in 1984.

An all male band with back-up by The Spitettes -  Including  ??, Sam and Viv, and  Di and Sindy.  The girls did the backup vocals and dancing and were just a great addition to the band.

The same year they did 2 Gong Show tours -  the  first of the West Coast of Victoria, nobody got paid.. and by the end of the tour everyone was eating the chicken that Fred had previously rooted onstage...the second to Sydney where Paul Elliott attracted the attention of the Vice Squad by delivering anti-Fred Nile paraphanalia into the letterboxes of his neighbourhood ...telling people about the gig - on the front of it was called 'Fuck this Fred Nile'...later on the Vice Squad came to the venue and told the Publican that if the GOngSHow played he would lose his license...

Fred's antics... The chicken rooting started as a Gong Show act called Little Wriggly Bits..a prescripted one man silent play with THe Buthcer of Brighton reading the narration as if it was a letter to a sex magazine, all based around a chicken...with Fred ending up having sex with the chicken at the end... a twisted comedy act...

Still in 1984 the band is banned from several venues for starting food fights and sexual savagery on stage. But many other offers rolled in. In order to satisfy the vegeratrians in the audience sometimes Fred would have sex with a watermelon or cantaloupe. This also got quite messy with Fred throwing the food into the audience once he had finished... this was Graeme Richmond's advice...vegos complaining...

1984 was a big year for the band with New Musical Express (NME) reporting that I SPit on Your Gravy from Australia are the group to watch "Here at last is a band that combines sick humour with musical enjoyment and isn't scared to take it over the top and beyond.

Then Nigel Rennard of Missing Link Records makes an offer they can't refuse... He hires a studio and tells the band to stay in there for as long as they like and just send him the bill....(in reality the band recorded 6 tracks in 3 hours and added a whole bunch of sound effects and samples of spoken word in between those tracks while the band was hanging out at Paul Elliott's house. In total the whole EP would have taken 5 hours to make...'St Kilda's Alright'comes out on 'Man Made Records' label with No Nonsense, Corpse Grinders and Sacred Cowboys.

Over 200 people turn up to a photo session for the EP cover that was shot on the steps of the Espy. GRavy's play 'Let's go buy a Pizza' and other hits in front of Topolinos Pizza restaurant in Fitzroy st as part of the Fitzroy St Festival... St Kilda's Alrigt is finally released.. a delay in getting the records pressed by Festival Records censoring an added track titled 'Suck this Fred Nile' The Ep also came with an illustrated songbook called 'Think for Yourself' which included the Thursday Crawl board came and an anarchist dot to dot... Vice Squad seizes all of the records from the record shops along with the songbooks. A courtcase was created with the charge being obscenity... and the judge listened to it on a stolen record player to hear if it was obscene.. and he said 'It's not obscene it's crap! and threw it out of court... if I Deem it obscene it will get publicity..But the cops never gave the records back... The band later discovered that private investigators hired by St Kilda council to spy on the band and document their movements...but consequently The record never got sold...allegedly the police were also harassing band members and even locking them up for being drunk in public...

Paul Elliott came to the rescue and re-released the EP on Polyester REcords, including the censored track and the songbook, but with a red cover. Many copies were sold...the band's popularity grew tenfold - they were the Kings and Queen's of St Kilda... and started signing records, t-shirts..merch... but some other members of the Punk scene were not happy... In 1984 the band was summoned to a meeting at Hardcore House to discuss Punk ethics, gossip and other Punk stuff...

It was brought to our attention that we didn't take the Punk scene seriously enough and were reprimanded... all the while we were laughing and beer was coming out of our noses... We weren't amused... with the seriousness of the Punk scene... 

I was walking down Fitzroy st, with POG and I spat on the ground and suddenly 7 cops jumped out and harrassed me.. that's when I wrote the song 'Harrassment'... THe cops just walked into my house once... the front was open... and they saw what I was drawing and said "we could arrest you for that" (I was drawing cocks with top hats and canes for a theatre review for Melbourne Uni...THey came to deliver my summons for

Fred had his own versions of the popular shirts 'Fuck Art LEt's DAnce and Choose LIfe with Fuck Art let's drink and Choose Death and Choose Beer...and the police took his (he was wearing fuck art... and they took the offecne to the Fuck part.. and the car pulled up very quickly adn said Fred Negro we are taking that shirt it's offensive and got a summons ot go to court had to walk home without a t-shirt and it cost me $200...

Greville records include 2 Gravy tracks on the 'Eat Your Head Compilation produced by Phil MacDougall from Reactor Records. 

On the way to Adelaide in a hired mini-bus for 4 gigs....before they leave Melbourne... a car driven by a drunk driver smashed into the vehicle.  Scotty and Jason ended up in hospital and the gigs were subsequently cancelled. The band ended up in debt and off the road for two months.

(1984) onwards) 17 & 19 Acland St, St Kilda...House of the Gravy Sun) Living there with GF Anne and SCotty and Pig had been kicked out of their flat around the corner.. that was the house that The Editions lived in before... when Fred left the Editions.other members moved out...did a film there called DOne to DEath - a horror film sendup....featuring everyone in St Kilda all dying horribly...

THe dwellings became a tad out of control...party central...Gravys reheasrsing in the loungeroom with the window open and people would come and climb in the front window with a slab of beer... and before you a knew it a party was happening... we'd go down to the Espy and we'd come back and there were still people partying in your loungeroom...sometimes for days...No wonder the cops just walked in... me and my GF split up and my house became the same... Pig and Scotty in one building and me and Pog in the other... it was $100 a month and we still struggled to pay the rent...5 bedrooms in each house... and balconies...We had bands from interstate...later the owner came and said "I couldn't bothered coming to collect the rent anymore do you want to buy it  $20,000...But we had no money...today it is worth $1.5 million...

In 1986 we played a gig at the Ballroom I decided to have the small penis competition..littlest dick in the ballroom... win big prizes... they all got up and dropped their pants ans I went around with my ruler and saying...too big get off... and all the Punk chics were up the front laughing and gawking and... and the the liquor license commision walked into the pub on a 'random check' and closed the place down... not just for that reason of course... there was lots of underage drinking and drug selling going on and overcrowding... especially in the main ballroom... it got in the HErald Sun page 3 - bands act Lewd and Depraved... big headline... and the whole article was how I organised a small penis competition and the George could lose their license - we were meant to play at the st Kilda Fest and go on just before H+C on the main stage on the beacj and the Council cancelled us at the last minute...me and Pog were walking down Fitzroy st and cope came up and said if they see our band walking down the street they could arrest us because we were banned from the festival.... after that we changed our name...

including: Ian Rilen's Toilet, the Thursday Crawlers, Here Come the Leather Nuns (one with a bucket of chips for me), Stay Neat, I Am Your Head, Everything You Know Is Wrong... we were the first band at the Prince Thursday crawl one night and we decided to swap instruments becuase we thought no-one would show up... but everyone showed up and 200 people and we just improvised.. I was on guitar, Sausage was on drums, SCotti on Guitar and Pig was singing and Dave Dog on Sax... no bass... and we sanf A! G! because they were the only notes I could play on the guitar,...it went swimmingly until  KYM the KRAZY KLOWN set the curtains on fire with his fire breathing....I told the crowd ..what the fuck are you doing here you never see the first band on a thursday crawl... go back to the piano bar.. ROs docked our pay that night...we had to pay for the curtains...

In 1987 a guy named Leo Martino got the band a record deal through Virgin Records (how ironic) and they went to Richmond Recorders while Lobby Loyde was a the helm however the album didn't come out the way they had hoped... Lobby had me sounding like a chipmunk... so they re-corded it and brought in 1985 as Froot Loop City. The launch - we went on a tour of Australia... Sydney Trade Unions Club first gig... the suits from virgin walk into the band room before the gig was about to launch and 500 people in the room... Justice Bros from St Kilda were opening... we had all our props etc... whipped cream pies that we were going to throw at the audience... and they said you have to go off tonight.. the vice squad are coming... and if you get arrested we will get you out of jail and will be the best publicity for the album,,, australia's sex pistols... then they left and I said to the band let's not do anything crazy... let's play a really good gig and so they all agreed adn we decided to not even say the word fuck - we said the word love... and the crowd went off... and the suits came in after the gig and said "what happened - you were supposed to go off - you could be Australia's Sex Pistols...and I said 'We're St Kilda's I Spit on your gravy and I threw a cream pie all over his suit... and the other took me out and shouted coke all night... at an exclusive bar on the cross...thought it was the best thing he's ever seen..

The tour went well... we used to a play a gmame called put your hand up if you're standing next to a vice squad cop... there was one female cop in particular who used to work the beat on Grey st pretending to be a pro and she turned up at the Sydenham one night and VC were setting up on stage...here and her partner were dressed in Choose Life shirts.... and they stood out like sore thumbs... She got drunk ans was over the top by the time I got on stage and she was yelling out show us your dick and so I did.. I knew she was saying that to arrest me.. there were about 300 people there and suddenly all these cops turned up with dogs at the door and they came up ti me and Pog and threw us against the wall adn they had guns on us... and because we were dressed up as toy cowboys with hats with question marks.. and with plastic guns in holsters - they kicked our plastic guns across the floor... all the while the female cop was screaming that I slapped her with my dick.... they told her to go away..they accused the band members of crude acts and while Fred denied everyhing.. some of the other members said of course it's part of hte act.. they got arrested and locked up and had ot go to court as did about 40 other Punks at the gig... Jeff Rule who was a PBS heavy metal guy got arrested as well...

Truth Magazine loved the band and followed them around publishing stories in their paper...


Nick and Mark Seymour (Hunters and Collectors and Crowded House respectively) used to come and see THe Edition play at The Ballroom...

The band made another single called Pirannah before the album as part of the virgins deal..we did a fim clip for it at the Central Club in Richmond which got played on RAGE a fair bit... but prominent DJ
at the time s Carl Van Est -Eon FM said that it will never get played on commercial radio because it mentions the Esplanade Hotel and St Kilda... I thanked him and Adrian Barker on the back of the EP for the COKE... they told Fred and Shereen from THe Editions to leave Bryce and John and we said get fucked we are a band...We were against the industry...

After the Australian tour Leo Martino disappeared off the face of the earth with all the money we made off the gigs and we couldn't pay for anything so we had a 'last ever gig' gig as we needed to pay money back to some people and that worked so well that the Prince said do you want to do a big one in the big room upstairs and do it properly...we made enough to pay our bills and subsequently did 37 last gigs... by that time the Vice squad had become bored with us... There was some friction between the boys and girls on the tour and... so by the end of the year the...after the 37 last gigs we seperated.  Fred formed The Brady Bunch Lawnmower massacre... it was meant to be a country band but naturally ended up being a blend of Punk and Country...


Quivering Quims opened..2nd Fitzroy st fest outside the POW...no stage set up on road... PA set up... then we were setting up and Sausage (Mark Carson) was running late and Pig cracked it and there was a fight broke out bewteen teh two... Scotti and I started provoking the crowd..throwing empty cans... it turned into a huge can fight...Pig and Sausage were still fighting and the cops turned up and they get arrested...


The band stayed together until 1987...Fred was also playing in the Graviebillies and The Band who shot liberty Valance...

Band Members: Fred NEgro (Vocals/Drums), Scotty Stix Simpson (Drums/VOcals), Dave Yob Bass, Jason Pig Banner (guitar), Phil Pog Miles or Phil Grizzly (GUitar), Mark Sausage Fingers Carson (Bass), Robbie Rocket Watts Bass, Kym the Krazy Klown - Fire Breathing, Magic and Trouble maker... THe Spitettes - Di JOnes, Sindy Virtue, Viv and Sam Crass...


Kym would put Talkcum powder in pianos, set curtais on fire, turn mohawks into skins, make a beer disappear into his anus....come up on stage nude and have a thin pizza tray and life the lid up and fire would come out then a full sized rooster would appear....him and the rooster would often get drunk...together...