← Storming the Citadel
12
BandsThe bands behind the tribute
Bands & Bios
Meet the twelve bands who crossed continents to reinterpret the Citadel Records songbook for Storming the Citadel.
Storming the Citadel
Jack & the Beanstalk
Jack and The Beanstalk are from Perth, Australia’s infamous power-pop capital where Dom Mariani will lend you a guitar, James Baker will walk into your rehearsal room to tell another story and Kim Salmon went to school with your uncle. Great guitar music can’t be avoided here and these guys were barely in their teens when they first heard the Lime Spiders. Years later, Jack and the Beanstalk have built an impressive discography and a thriving international profile, especially in Europe.
Hearing Slave Girl for the first time made me jump around my bedroom and want to learn how to play guitar. If the Lime Spiders aren’t in your record collection they should be — along with Jack and the Beanstalk.
Archive contact details
Band contact Joe Algeri c/o Egomaniac Music Lot 234 Kargotich Rd Oldbury 6121 Australia Ph/Fax: 61 (8) 9525 1236
Label contact David Hughes-Owen c/o Spinning Top Records PO Box 7716 Cloisters Square Perth 6850 Australia Ph/Fax: 61 (8) 9457 6353
Storming the Citadel
Challenger 7
Formed in Sydney in late 1994, Challenger 7 are a rocking four piece who deliver trashy, but meaningful slices of power pop. Fronted by ex-Kryptonics songwriter Ian Underwood, the band developed into one of the country’s most powerful and drunken live acts, constantly likened to American punk legends The Replacements and Hüsker Dü. The band released two EPs — Morris on Glorious Noise Records and The Great Slump Forward EP on Tomboy Records — and appeared on several compilations worldwide.
The Screaming Tribesmen were never the coolest or most fashionable of Citadel bands, but wrote killer songs and delivered a great show. This remains my personal favorite, evoking memories of a simpler world where paisley shirts, stovepipes and winkle pickers ruled and the best music on the planet was being made in our own backyard.
Archive contact details
PO Box 163
Newtown, NSW 2042, Australia
Storming the Citadel
Hunchbacks
Sydney had been blessed by the ragged and raw, blues-flavored pop and rock of The Hunchbacks since the early 1990s. When asked to contribute to this project, they had just released the single Search for the Sun. With vinyl rare in Australia at the time, Storming the Citadel offered a great chance to appear on a turntable again. The Hunchbacks appeared on numerous compilations and released the mini-album Play to Lose, with a full-length CD due to follow.
I picked this from my record collection along with some other possibilities and Virginia grabbed us the most. We play mostly originals but like to dig out the odd cover for fun and tribute.
Storming the Citadel
Sheek the Shayk & his Royal Camels
Sheek The Shayk, with his Royal Camels, were stunning Sydney audiences with unpredictable concert appearances. Nobody really knew much about the background of this beat combo and many rumors circulated, but a seven-inch EP was set for release, followed by a full-length album on Sydney label Brain Salad Surgery, promising to capture their fuzzo-distorama stomp sound. For this collection, Sheek personally chose a track by the great Lipstick Killers, a band who, live, were like an electric shock set to a 4/4 beat.
The Lipstick Killers were too damn good for this stinkin’ planet. Where are they now? 1998 needs you!!!!
Storming the Citadel
Mother Jones
Influenced by the guitar-based blues and rock sounds of the 1960s and 1970s, then projected with 1990s energy, Sydney’s Mother Jones had a vast musical pedigree. With personnel from ME 262, Screaming Tribesmen, Melting Skyscrapers, Naked Lunch, Decline of the Reptiles and Fun Things, Mother Jones were “the sonic solution.” They had a four-track EP, a two-track video and an album due in mid-1998.
We chose this song because we’re all TV heads and will take the trivia challenge at any time.
Storming the Citadel
Tension
Tension is a solo project for Steve Gardner, former drummer from San Diego’s Gamma Men, owner of NKVD Records and editor of the US zine Noise For Heroes. Noise for Heroes gave heavy coverage to the Australian indie scene in the late 1980s and reviewed almost every record Citadel released. Steve Gardner remains a champion for the Citadel label and all musical things similar.
I’ve been working on a full-length Tension album that includes a lot of songs with Cold War themes, so the Trilobites’ Legacy Of Morons seemed a logical fit. The Trilobites’ approach is a little more traditional than many other Citadel bands, but they wrote some very clever lyrics and put on a great show.
Archive contact details
Steve Gardner
NKVD Records / Noise For Heroes
PO Box 60369, San Diego, CA 92166 USA
Website
Storming the Citadel
Indignation
Equally capable of rocking out or setting a mood, but always underpinned by the superb, almost Iggy-esque voice of Ian James, Sydney’s Porcelain Bus
ran off the road in the early 1990s after a string of singles and albums on Citadel. Six years later the band’s creative nucleus, Ian James and guitarist Robert McKiernan, began working on a backlog of unrecorded material and new ideas. James Lacey and Iain Jepsen joined in mid-1997, and drummer Brad Doughty’s arrival at year’s end finalized Indignation.
Ian and I were disgusted with the final cut of Sister’s Life on the Porcelain Bus album Fragile, even though we wrote and performed it. When asked to contribute we thought: “What the hell, we’ll do it again. It couldn’t be any worse!”
Storming the Citadel
Panadolls
Sydney’s raucous Panadolls formed in 1995 in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and frustration. A working-class band with little regard for subtlety, they played live regularly whenever their members were not in jail. They released the EP Beyond the Valley of The Panadolls and appeared on numerous compilations. Their sacrificial first album From the Glitter to the Gutter was due in 1998 — if Al Creed
of the New Christs and Matt of the Hunchbacks could take time out from their other projects.
Voodoo Slaves was the first release on Citadel, so there was a historical reason to record this. We liked the song because it was swampy and represented that era of music well — and thought it was a song we could beat up well too.
Storming the Citadel
Pyramidiacs
The Pyramidiacs had been hanging around Sydney pubs since the late 1980s and recording their catchy power pop for almost as long. Regular European tourists, they were influenced by Australian groups including The Stems and Sunnyboys, and Americans including Big Star, The Fleshtones and The Replacements. Their second single, No Soul b/w Forever Gone, had Radio Birdman’s Rob Younger at the production controls. The Tag Team EP on France’s Hellfire Records was to be followed in 1998 by an album and tours of Spain and the USA. Bill “Hey Charger” Gibson moonlighted on bass for the Citadel session.
Don’t Talk About Us is perfect power pop — short, jumpy and catchy as hell, with an infectious hook melody, great harmonies and rocking guitars. One of the best things Citadel has ever released, and Dom Mariani is a great pop songwriter.
Storming the Citadel
Backsliders
Inspired lyrics, a rocking sensibility and songs sung without concession: France’s Backsliders understood that rock and roll is played like life’s soundtrack, against the clock and without regard for fashion or critics. They had more than a passing connection to Citadel as François’ old band, Fixed Up, was on the label in the 1980s and also toured Australia. Three red-hot albums and 400 gigs made Le Havre the only stop between Sydney and Detroit.
When I first listened to Savage I knew it was the sound I loved — hot, sensual, dirty and loud. All those adjectives describe real rock bands, which have become pretty rare in those techno times, so fuck’em all. YEAHHH!
Storming the Citadel
Louis Tillett & Charlie Owen
With a voice that sends a chill down the spine, Louis Tillett
emerged as a solo performer in Sydney in 1987 with the album Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell, following the demise of his first band, 1960s acid punkers The Wet Taxis. Melbourne-based guitar virtuoso Charlie Owen
is a former New Christ who played with everyone from Tex, Don and Charlie to The Cruel Sea, and regularly put his electric palette behind Tillett’s piano musings. Enigmatic, evocative and always engaging, the pair toured Europe annually with their spellbinding acoustic shows.
Louis: “I’ve always loved this song from the first minute I heard it. Charlie and I have recorded mostly moody songs and I wanted to do a great rock song.” Charlie: “When I recorded this song with Rob Younger in the New Christs it was a session fraught with disasters — the single carried the credit line ‘produced under duress’ — so it was good to give it another shot.”
Storming the Citadel
Asteroid B-612
No mere Detroit copyists, but drawing from that source and others firmly anchored in the 1960s, Asteroid B-612 burst out of the skies over the same northern Sydney beaches that spawned the Celibate Rifles. They became standard bearers for high-octane, no-nonsense rock and roll. Despite numerous line-up changes, the new-look four-piece were firing better than ever. A US tour and a string of albums, culminating in 1996’s Not Meant For This World, marked them as something special. Their Teen Sublimation Riff EP and September Crush single on Au Go Go were essential ear-bleed material.
Mirror Blues wasn’t an obvious choice for us. Everyone would have thought we would choose a New Christs song, but I wanted something I could fuck with. All those Citadel singles were great anyway and can’t be improved on, but Mirror Blues was something we could fuck around with without fucking it up.