The story begins in 1978 with a band called The Young Savages. After a few months of strenuous practice
they managed to play one gig, then threw out the original singer, Stewart Corbett. The then
drummer, Mark Ivey, took over as singer and they recruited a school friend,
Simon Smith, to play drums. They then changed their name to The Virgins and in
this new format started to get quite a few shows at the inner-city
venues of Melbourne, playing alongside the other
contemporary Post-Punk bands of the day. While the band never released an album, they played a standard mix of late 70's punk covers along with original songs including 'Up the Duff', 'When you're a Wog', 'Parasite', 'You Endanger Us', 'Peter', 'Trash' and 'Punk Chicks'.
Geoff Martyr (AKA Geoff Sick) became the band's manager in 1979 after seeing them play at the Champion Hotel with friend Dugald McKenzie. However the reckless and aggressive behaviour of The Virgins was far
more extreme than anything Melbourne
had experienced for a while and the band rapidly acquired a bad reputation for
being destructive at both gigs and parties. Venue owners and bookers
basically gave The Virgins the ultimatum of toning it down or having
nowhere to work, which they refused to do, and so were banned from almost every
venue in town. Now only playing once every three months, which of
course meant the death of the band, they split in early 1979.
Simon Smith went off to join A.E.I.O.U, Steve Fusezi joined Little Murders and Mike Chrystal had a
temporary reprieve from band life. Mark Ivey and the band's manager Geoff
Martyr were unfortunately both in a very bad car accident with several members
of the band Z-Cars and after a fairly long recover period Mark, Geoff, Mike and
drummer Rick Ferrara formed The White Elephants in 1982 and were able to start gigging
around town on a regular basis again. Geoff Marty would also go on to be a member of other Hardcore bands such as Melbourne SS, Sick Things, Spew Forth and Criminal Youth.
The Virgins line-up included: Mark Ivey - Vocals, Mike Chrystal - Guitar, Simon Smith - Drums, Steve Fusezi - Bass.


Courtesy of Michael Chrystal
The Virgins - Trash.mp3
- Main Image - The Virgins 1979, Bananas - Courtesy of Michael Chrystal
- Background Image - Virgins CD cover - Courtesy of Michael Chrystal
- Mark Ivey 1979 - Bananas - Courtesy of Michael Chrystal
- Simon Smith & Mike Chrystal 1979 - Bananas - Courtesy of Michael Chrystal
- Mike Chrystal 1979 - Bananas - Courtesy of Michael Chrystal
- The Virgins Family Tree - Courtesy DNA Fanzine
- MP3 - 'Trash' 1979 - Unreleased - (Ivey/Chrystal)
- http://ozmusicbooks.com/product-category/australian-and-new-zealand-music-books/fanzines-and-magazines/dna-fanzine/