Australian Psych
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an extraordinary time of experimentation that the drugs were just accepted as a normal part of the development of people. The attitude was: They’re there, we’ll use them, we’ll find out what happens later. LB&T How strongly was the visual emphasis of a band relied upon? JEFF ST JOHN I’m a very visual performer, I’m ex-
tremely energetic onstage. The physical process of performing, for me, just comes with the job. I can’t sit still. I’ve always had a highly developed sense of theatricality. It was never to be allowed to trivialize the musical quality, so the theatricality was there to augment and support the musical foundation.
The Wild Cherries The Coloured Balls
Les Gilbert (organ) was the only player left from the original line-up of The Wild Cherries, a Melbourne band that played blues and jazz standards from 1964-7. Lobby Loyde (guitar) had just arrived from The Purple Hearts, wanting to try out his new Marshall 100 watt amps, so he, along with Keith Barber (drums) Peter Eddy (bass) and Danny Robinson joined Les in a new version of The Wild Cherries. Four singles came from their twentymonth tenure together. All were experimental in the extreme, often sounding like hyperbolic rock operas condensed into three minutes. My faves though are Krome Plated Yabby, with a shimmering bronze feel to the guitar, and That’s Life, which is filled with candyfloss nightmares, and yet can be played in front of a mixed audience without any deleterious effects. By late 1968, the band went its separate ways, only to be reborn yet again in 1971, this time with Lobby on guitar, Teddy Toi on bass and Johnny Dick on drums. This line-up’s best work ironically appears on Lobby’s solo album Lobby Loyde Plays George Guitar, recorded in 1970. It’s chock-full of the most swirling, stuttering distorted guitar playing this side of an earthquake. Dream is psych-out writ large, with overlapping vocals competing for your flabbergasted attention.
The Coloured Balls album cover.
By 1972, Lobby had finally lain The Wild Cherries to rest in favour of a new project, the counterrevolutionary Coloured Balls! Aiming to piss off both the musical establishment that was swept up in peacenik delirium and the general public that was then coveting a return to nature, Lobby hit both targets dead centre. With Andy Fordham (guitar), Janis Miglans (bass) and Trevor Young (drums), Lobby created a band that cut their hair to short mullets, wore flannel shirts and denim jeans, and played what to our modern ears sounds very much like punk rock, with a gob of heavy psych crammed back deep in Lobby’s gullet. Releasing their Ball Power album in 1973, The Coloured Balls appealed to a very working class crowd, as well as drawing a following from the ‘sharpies’ (Australian skinheads). The news media started playing this aspect up in their coverage of the band, and so gigs became harder to find. The standout tracks in their work, for me, are Human Being, which delivers a guttural throbbing engine of destruction to your front door, and G.O.D., a long apocalyptic drone that grows in intensity till it dissolves. LB&T With The Purple Hearts, was there an initial
drive to create your own sound?
LOBBY LOYDE When I joined them they were