GEEKS CD  NOW AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME  

CREATION MYTH            IN the beginning was the word, and the word was punk.  And the genesis of punk in the sprawling, stranded, sun-struck mega-suburb of Perth, Western Australia, was The Cheap Nasties.  Fronted by a young Kim Salmon, The Nasties crawled out of the primordial cover band slime that was West Oz rock in the 70s and took the first brave evolutionary steps that were to lead to the development of the globally acclaimed Perth powerpop sound: Perth punk was born at their Rivervale Hotel gig in 1977.  Then followed The Victims - James Baker, Dave "Flick" Faulkner, and Rudolph V - by critical and popular decree Perth's seminal punk rock band, blasting their way into legend with their great punk powerpop: I'm Looking For You, High School Girls, Flipped Out Over You, Disco Junkies, Teenage Dreamer, TV Freak, There Is No Way Out.   Add the Nasties' next incarnation, The Manikins, to the mix, with a quick nod to historically more obscure and mostly very ephemeral formations like The Invaders, The Exterminators, The Hitler Youth, The Orphans, Blok Music (later The Triffids), The Susans, The Marilyns and Secret Lives and you have Perth punk genesis in a nutshell, right?

WRONG!                 IN the beginning was not the word "punk", but a music and attitude that can be traced to the pounding would-be-delinquent rocknroll heart of - mostly - America...music that predated by more than a decade the punk label coined by Legs McNeil in the mid-70s in response to the CBGBs eruption in New York, and subsequently hijacked by the Brits circa Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned et al.  But punk rock history is not the concern of this site, the focus of which is narrower, the aim more modest - that is, to set the record straight on the history of first-wave punk in Perth, WA.  So, let there be light... 

FACT:                      while The Cheap Nasties were the first band to gig publicly in Perth as self-proclaimed punk rockers, there was another genealogical line of Perth's earliest punk, traceable to a band that played without a fixed name, posthumously referred to as The Geeks.   And as those few insiders who heard The Geeks performing their original punk alongside frenetic covers of The Ramones, The Stooges and The Modern Lovers will testify - Rod Radalj (aka Roddy Rayda) and Mark Demetrius (erstwhile Rolling Stone writer) were notable witnesses - this band were not just some casual loose formation blasting out a few noisy primitive half-formed punk rock toons in the proverbial garage.  The Geeks had their own sound and built a repertoire of great original punk rock songs that were subsequently acclaimed as classic Victims songs (yes - read on).  Make no mistake  - although they have, until now, been recognised only as parenthetical reference points in the context of James Baker's legendary career, The Geeks were  the real deal.   In fact, in January 1977, in their earliest formation, the band that became The Geeks were the only punk rock deal in Perth, and with the exception of Radio Birdman and The Saints, the only deal in Australia...that is, as far as they knew.

Post the event, claims to the crown of first punk band in Australia have issued from every state; indeed, Kim Salmon states that The Cheap Nasties were formed in 1976 (see Kim Salmon's Perspective).  Who really cares?  Neither band knew of the other, in any case, and both thought they were the first, and only, punk rock band in Perth.  For the record, The Geeks can claim punk roots going back as far as 1974, to James Baker's New York Dolls-inspired Slick City Boys. 

Whether The Cheap Nasties or The Geeks were Perth's first punk rock band is academic.  The point is that Perth's punk rock history can be traced back to twin roots - The Geeks and The Cheap Nasties - and until now only one band has been properly acknowledged. This is an injustice, because there is no doubt that The Geeks' original material was by far the more significant and influential.   How so?

FACT:                    From the Geeks came the rhythm section of The Victims, James Baker and Dave "Rudolph" Cardwell, AND a great number of the songs The Victims later publicly claimed as their own, and for which they were revered.   The Geeks, occasionally referred to post-demise as Beheaded, sometimes as Geeks/Beheaded, performed I'm Looking For You, High School Girls, Flipped Out Over You, Disco Junkies, TV Freak, There Is No Way Out and I'm In London (later re-titled Teenage Dreamer by The Victims, subsequently recorded by The Scientists, and re-written as Death Hurts by The Hitler Youth) - all these Victims standards were Geeks songs originally, and not mere musical kernels.  These songs were co-written by James Baker and I during The Geeks' short but incredibly productive life, with Lloyd contributing melodically to some vocal lines, and were fully formed, performed, and late in the band's short life, recorded in rehearsal (along with some others that are included on The Geeks CD - see below).   The Victims' versions of these songs were, quite literally, unacknowledged covers of The Geeks' originals, virtually identical lyrically and musically with the possible exception of High School Girls - while having James Baker's lyrics in common, the two versions of this song do vary melodically, although the underlying chord structures are identical to those I wrote in the original as played by The Geeks. 

Now, available publicly for the first time, are all that remains of the original recordings of the Geeks songs, remastered from the 1977 tapes and independently released on CD.   The recording is rough, baby, but what do ya want from Perth's "other" first punk band 28 years down the track?!  Dicky mikes and shitty sound notwithstanding, I think The Geeks' versions of their original songs are superior to The Victims' versions, especially I'm Looking For You and High School Girls, and while as a founding member of The Geeks and co-writer of the band's original songs I may be justly accused of bias, I am not alone in my assessment.  I provided Geeks and Victims drummer and lyricist/co-songwriter James Baker with a cassette copy of the Geeks recordings some years ago and he, too, admitted to preferring The Geeks' versions.  Evan Dando (Lemonheads) is rumoured to have heard the tape I gave James Baker and been knocked out by The Geeks' original  High School Girls.   The few others who have heard The Geeks recordings have also raved, murky production notwithstanding.  Decide for yourself... 

Click here to order a copy of The Geeks CD, which comprises all the existing recorded Geeks material.  This CD also includes the full recorded repertoire of the band that rose like some enraged, manic, demented beast from the ashes of The Geeks - The Hitler Youth (wild, incandescently energetic, shockingly tasteless, unique...if there was a more extreme punk band anywhere in the world at that time, I have yet to hear recorded evidence). PLUS, included on the CD are previously unattainable live tracks from The Orphans, whose sizeable repertoire of quality songs fans rank right up there with the very best to come out of the Perth first-wave punk era.  The CD is available only online from this official Geeks website and from 78 Records; all proceeds will go towards covering CD production expenses and the hosting and maintenance costs of the site.  In the happy but unlikely event of going into profit, the respective writers of the original Geeks, Hitler Youth and Orphans songs will finally reap the rewards for their pioneering creative efforts of 28 years ago.     They vow to spend it all at once.

NOTE:  If you see the CD advertised elsewhere, it's a bootleg.  If you buy a pirated copy, you may ultimately be denying Australian rock legend James Baker a royalties beer - can you live with that?

That's the hard sell out of the way.  And now, for those who are interested, here for the first time is the unexpurgated story of The Geeks and a full account of the genesis of Perth punk rock, told by the only folk who were really there in the very beginning - the founding members of the band.

Cheers

Ross Buncle  (2005)      CONTACT

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