music

:: the mothers

The Mothers was originally an all-girl punk group, but ultimately we were destined to have the token male member(s).

As the Mothers was my band I stayed through all the lineup changes. My favourite lineup was the first one that played live with me on guitar and singing, Nat on guitar, Jo on bass and Rick on drums. In this lineup we released a 7" single called "Drives Me Wild" with the B-side a cover of an old Link Wray track called "Get Outta My Life". The wonderful guys, Chris, Steve and Frank of legendary shop and label, Waterfront Records put out the single and my girlfriend, Wendy (of Sister Sludge) did the cover art.

The Mothers was a weekend band, we all held down jobs or study and rocked out on the weekends. There still weren't many girls around in bands, especially playing instruments. Two other girl bands that we liked were Melbourne trash/pop group 'The Wet Ones' and punk band 'Gash'.

Nat and Jo eventually left the Mothers and then Luke and Cris joined on guitar and bass respectively. I ended up going out with Luke - BIG MISTAKE! When will I learn not to fall in love with people I'm in bands with? (Though I guess it's not surprising that so many inter-band relationships develop, rock and roll is all about sex hey?)

Rick, Cris, Luke and I recorded the mini-album of thrash punk/pop called "12 Incher" featuring original gems like "Furry Fetish", "Weekend", "You Don't Love Me", "Dirge" and "Escape". Waterfront put this out again and Wendy again did the artwork.

There was to be another line up change with Rick leaving and mega-rock drummer Arnold joining, and we kept going for another year or so, but then Cris left to form her own band, Kaktus Mantras. (They broke up last year which was a major bummer because they were truly wonderful. They put out an EP called "Dwarf Baby" - try to track it down, you could maybe get a copy from Phantom Records, Pitt Street, Sydney, Australia.) We got another player, Diane, who was a great bassist, probably the best musician out of all of us, and we actually started to sound quite tight and some major labels started sniffing around. But then Luke and I broke up in a very messy way and Arnold and I knew it was time to let go.

Sean Lowry had seen me in the Mothers - when he rang me to invite me to form Def FX with him he said the most memorable Mothers gig he'd seen was on the second floor of the Sydney Trade Union Club a year before. He said he thought it was cool to see a girl singing punk songs and playing a guitar covered in Suicidal Tendencies stickers while wearing a long white dress and black top hat (a la Stevie Nicks).

related info

sister sludge
the mothers
def fx

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