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The driving force behind the anarchistic
Lubricated Goat was one Stu Spasm, a musician not known for subtlety
and restraint. As a member of a group of like-minded musicians (Tex
Perkins, Lachlan McLeod, Martin Bland and Peter Read), Stu Spasm
conceived Lubricated Goat as a subversive take on all things
complacent and facile in rock music circa 1986.
For the musicians involved,
it was simply a chance to exist on the very edges of the Sydney rock
scene, and to play out a sick joke for their own entertainment. John
Foy at Red Eye Records liked the joke and formed the Black Eye label
specifically as an outlet for the recorded works of this bunch of
noise terrorists. The first batch of Black Eye records issued in July
1987 included Lubricated Goat's Plays the Devil's Music album, Thug's
Mechanical Ape/Proud Idiots Parade album and the notorious `Dad'
single, plus the Various Artists album Waste Sausage which had been
compiled by McLeod. Plays the Devil's Music comprised recordings Spasm
had made with Bland in Adelaide and with Pete Hartley and Brett Ford
in Perth during September 1986. As such, the original Lubricated Goat
line-up was a transient one at best. The consolidated line-up of
Spasm, Hartley, Ford and Guy Maddison (bass) issued the album Paddock
of Love (July 1988).
Lubricated Goat will forever
be remembered for its infamous appearance on the ABC-TV's late-night
variety show Blah Blah Blah in late 1988. That particular episode
dealt with the issue of censorship, and the band members performed the
cacophonous `In the Raw' completely naked. The sight of the Goats'
real (and imagined) body parts was enough to prompt scores of irate
callers to jam the ABC's switchboard for 30 minutes, for the Daily
Mirror to run a front-page exposé and for current affairs shows like
the Midday Show, Hinch and Newsworld, plus radio commentators like Ron
Casey, to call for an end to such moral depravity.
The line-up of Spasm,
Maddison, Charlie Tolnay (guitar; ex-Grong Grong, King Snake Roost)
and Gene Ravet (drums; ex-Ragadoll, concurrently in Space Juniors)
produced the 12-inch EP Schadenfreude (May 1989). That year,
Lubricated Goat undertook a low-budget, two-month tour of the USA
which saw the band supporting the likes of The Butthole Surfers and
Killdozer. While in Seattle, Washington, Lubricated Goat issued a
limited edition single for the SubPop label `Meeting My Head'/`20th
Century Rake'. The next line-up of Spasm, Renestair E.J. (guitar, sax;
ex-Bloodloss, Primevils), Lachlan McLeod (bass, sampling;
ex-Salamander Jim) and Martin Bland (drums, synth- esiser) issued the
album Psychedelicatessen (August 1990). Psychedelicatessen featured a
variety of styles (from noisy free-form jazz to noisier hard rock),
with tortured guitars and raw vocals being the band's characteristic
mode of operation.
Lubricated Goat undertook a
European tour in 1990 that came to an abrupt halt when Spasm was
stabbed in a drug deal gone wrong in Berlin. Spasm relocated to New
York where he married Babes in Toyland bassist Kat Bjelland. The pair
formed Crunt with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion drummer Russell Simms.
Crunt played grungy roots-rock fleshed out by violent, sex-obsessed
lyrics. The band issued a self-titled album in 1994. That same year
Spasm reactivated Lubricated Goat and recorded Forces You Don't
Understand in New York with guest players from US bands like The Swans
and Cop Shoot Cop. After that the band fell apart, as did Spasm's
marriage. He fell deeper into the depths of heroin addiction, but by
1996 had again reactivated Lubricated Goat with new players.
Ian
McFarlane 1999
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