Inner City Sound is a 2CD set stand-alone companion piece to the cult book of the same name. First published in 1982, Clinton Walker’s Inner City Sound told the story of Australia’s punk/post-punk music underground, which paved the way world-wide for indie/alternative rock to follow and produced such seminal names as the SAINTS, RADIO BIRDMAN, NICK CAVE, GO-BETWEENS, TRIFFIDS, SCIENTISTS, X, SEVERED HEADS, SUPER-K and many more...
With a new, expanded edition of the book now out through Verse Chorus Press, Laughing Outlaw Records is proud to present the long-awaited “Inner City Soundtrack”.
With interest in the punk/post-punk era currently revived to a pervasive influence, the release of the Inner City Soundtrack is extremely timely.
Produced and annotated by Clinton Walker and re-mastered by the master himself, Don Bartley '" and including an extraordinary hand-drawn fold-out family tree poster '" Inner City Sound provides proof positive that Australia contributed as much as anyone to the D-I-Y revolution of the late 70s/early 80s: Over forty tracks, restored to a virgin vinyl glory, that still ring fresh and true, a mix of classics and rarities, many appearing on CD for the first time. Bristling with urgency and originality, this is an instant classic twenty years in the making.
REVIEWS
"After the same-titled book, a 2-CD set gathers known (Saints, GoBetweens) and obscure (Plug Uglies, Razar) into a fine audio history of the Oz punk/post-punk underground." **** MOJO MAGAZINE (UK)
"Twenty years in the making, Inner City Sound is a two disc import album from Australia that brings to the surface the underground punk and post-punk. The result is an amazing compilation of sounds brimming to the top with originality and mix of hard core punk music. Two discs of sounds that stem from the 70's and 80's with over 40 restored tracks make this a collection for all." 9.5 / 10! - The Celebrity Cafe Website
“It’s raining Australian 1970s and ‘80s underground compilations if you hadn’t already noticed and while they’re coming from different directions, each has a charm all its own. “Inner City Sound” is very much from the left-of-the-dial. It’s intended to be the musical companion to the re-printed and expanded book of the same name, a collection of zine articles assembled by long-time Australian writer/TV producer Clinton Walker and first published back in the mid-80s. It sits neatly as just that. Forty-eight tracks over two discs and a fold-out family tree make for a value package.
First, to what “Inner City Sound” isn’t and that’s a complete and comprehensive picture of what the various Oz underground scenes were over the span of 1975-85. I lapped up the original book of the same name '" went through two copies, so dodgy was the binding job on the first run - and pored over it for mentions of personal faves, but it was very much a patchwork of opinions and reviews. Whether you agreed with some of the contents, it nevertheless filled a very important gap.
Like the book, Clinton Walker brings to this compilation his own likes and biases. One of the things he never took to when he moved from Brisbane to Sydney was the so-called Detroit scene and its myriad offspring. There’s a bit of revisionist stuff to that effect in his confessional and very readable autobiography/musical history, “Stranded”. If you didn’t know that, the elemental nod to the genre in this set’s liners is a dead giveaway. The New Christs’ “No Next Time” looks like a token inclusion (even though you’re on flimsy ground if you regard that band as Detroit) and there are minor glitches in the Birdman-related branches of the family tree. Anyway, deal with it and move on. That's my bitch and it's now off my chest.
Walker’s musical stirrings began as a boy in Brizzy with his mates the Saints and they (the “real” Saints, that is) are represented by “Wild About You”. The Bailey Saints pop up on disc two with “Ghost Ships”. Both songs are easily procurable elsewhere so you have to ask why they were included. They do sit well in the tracking anyway. “Ghost Beat” is there from Ed Kuepper’s Laughing Clowns. Walker was an avid Birthday Party fan and “Release the Bats” is here. Was this really one of Kylie Minogue’s fave tunes before she started crooning with Ol’ Nick? It’s the archetypical Birthday party song I suppose, if again an obvious choice.
Harder to find is stuff from the likes of *** ***, tch-tch-tch, Voigt/465, Severed heads (the original “Dead Eyes Opened”), Equal Local, Machinations (the Phantom single of “Average Inadequacy”) and Seems Twice, all restored from vinyl. Seems Twice would have given Minuteman a run for their money with “songs” like “Look At It” (28 seconds of agitnoise, five seconds of fade out). The electronica/synth-based material doesn’t rock my boat much, but still sounds well ahead of the curve and far preferable to the mindlessness of today’s breaks and beats or whatever the fuck they call it.
What might be regarded as spikey punk’s flag is flown by Razar, the Leftovers and Last Words. I’m still none the wiser what’s punk and what’s not and Walker makes some valid points about all those labels in his notes. (He’s also said in the past that he couldn’t see the point of some of the stupider aspects of punk). The great X’s representation is “TV Blues”, a post-Cafeiro song that I personally adore, but the absence of something from “X-Aspirations” might surprise many. If you think the two-chord thrash content is a little light on, those Aberrant compilations are said to be coming down the pipeline in CD re-issue form anyway. While electronica merits a good look-in, understated/classic pop positively dominates with Sardine, the Triffids, the Apartments, Sekret Sekret, the Plug Uglies, the (great) Lonely Hearts and the GoBetweens all here, with lesser-known songs. It’s the diversions away from the obvious that work best for me.
The both great and hideous thing about digitisation is that you can set and forget, so if you have a CD rotel you can slot these discs in alongside “Do the Pop!”, “Born Out of Time” and “Tales of the Australian Underground”, crank it up and have a helluva good time. By my rough reckoning, that’s just shy of seven hours of music, with less than 25 percent duplication.Of course, that would spoil some very clever sequencing on Disc Two, but you get the point.
You could argue what should or shouldn’t have been included but frankly it’s a waste of time. If you don’t like it, go burn your own compilation disc. Fact is that there’s plenty here that’s damn near unprocurable anywhere else and you don’t have to be Record Collector Scum to enjoy it. **** - The Barman, i94-Bar Website
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