Icons: Powder Monkeys

Timed with a sold-out reunion/tribute and a reissue of their debut album, which has been out of print for 15 years, PATRICK EMERY spoke to John Nolan, Timmy Jack Ray and Dave Laing about the life, work, tragedy and legacy of Tim Hemensley and the immortal Melbourne rock ‘n’ roll institution Powder Monkeys.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Tim Hemensley’s death in 2003 robbed Australia, and the world, of one of its most precocious, outspoken and passionate rock ’n’ roll talents. It also spelt the end for The Powder Monkeys, the explosive, confrontational and infamous band formed by Hemensley and guitarist John Nolan in 1991.

The Powder Monkeys played rock ’n’ roll like their lives depended on it, combining the resilience of the Australian pub rock tradition, the sonic brutality of Motorhead, the anti-establishment rhetoric of the MC5 and the fuck-you attitude of the West Coast hardcore punk scene.

In their 12-year career, the Powder Monkeys released three studio albums (1993’s Smashed on a Knee and 1995’s Time Wounds All Heels, both on Dave Laing’s Dogmeat label, and 2000’s Lost City Blues on The Hellacopters’ White Jazz label), a live album in 1999’s Blood Sweat and Beers, a couple of EPs and a host of singles and one-off contributions to compilations around the world. An eight-track record featuring the band’s last recordings, Outta Control Rock ’n’ Roll, was released posthumously in 2005 on Richard Stanley’s Dropkick Records.

But it was in the live environment that the band thrived. Short in stature, tough of mind and large of heart, Hemensley spat lyrics laced with invective and humour across a crowd of aurally damaged punters. Nolan churned out punk riffs with freakish abandon while drummer Timmy Jack Ray thrashed his kit like a man working off an insult. No-one ever succeeded completely in capturing the intensity of a Powder Monkeys show on record – and, arguably, no-one ever could.

Ten years after Hemensley’s death, and 12 years after Nolan’s own brush with death, the Powder Monkeys are treading the stage again. Celebrating the life and work of Hemensley, and the re-release of Smashed on a Knee (remastered by Mikey Young), Nolan, Ray and a shopping list of friends, fans and contemporaries will come together at The Tote Hotel this Sunday for a tribute to Hemensley.

John Nolan: I grew up in a sporty family, so I had to play sport. It was only when we sold the farm and moved to Geelong and I changed schools – I went to St Joseph’s in Geelong. I had about two friends, so by my second year I made a concerted plan about how I could get out of going to school. I came up with a pretty good plan that worked. By about a third of the way through the year, I quit and got a job as a store man at Treasureway. My first paycheck was $97, and I went into Geelong and bought a $70 Hondo Stratocaster copy – which was about the cheapest guitar you could buy. And then I taught myself to play guitar.

A bit later, Dave Thomas, who’s older than me, he was working at Kmart in the electrical department. He always had his little punk rock bands going. We rode our push bikes down to this town hall in Separation Street in Geelong, and borrowed Dave’s band’s equipment [and] played our crappy little set. I think that band did three gigs. I ended up not liking that band too much – the friend I started it with was going into that British Echo & The Bunnymen direction, and I was getting more into The Cramps and The Gun Club.

I met Warwick [Brown], who was a friend of my older sister’s, and he wanted to join my band. Then Dean [Bateup] said we should start a band, so they all joined this band I had, and we basically became this cover band [Behind the Magnolia Curtain]. We’d play this place in the middle of Geelong run by this spaced-out hippie guy. We’d never headline, we’d always support. We played with the Huxton Creepers, Scrap Museum, the Wet Taxis. I met a lot of older people, who had amazing record collections.

“Every day we’d get up and just play music. Three years of doing that, and we put this band together, Big Muff – before Mudhoney!”

A bit later we got this great house in Geelong for about $20 a week. That’s when I started growing my hair out, and I got the sack from work. In the front room of the house we had a drum kit, an amp; we even had a Hammond organ. Every day we’d get up and just play music. Three years of doing that, and we put this band together, Big Muff – before Mudhoney! We played about three gigs, and the last one was at a pub called the Telegraph Hotel. I’d known Dave for years, and he saw me play that night. He had this punk band that was going nowhere, and out of the blue he asked me to join this band.

At this stage my house was starting to fall apart, and most of the people were going off on that crusty Nimbin route that I wasn’t a fan of, so I thought I’d try this band out. I’ve got this clipping at home that says “Guitar boost for Noise,” because they were called White Noise. It’s got a picture of me. Out of Behind the Magnolia Curtain came me, who joined Bored!, and Warwick and Andy, who went to Sunset Strip. I think Dave Laing wanted to put something out of ours, but he didn’t like the name White Noise. I don’t know why we called ourselves Bored!

Nolan had known Tim Hemensley since the latter’s tenure in teenage rock sensation GOD.

Nolan: I met the GOD boys when I was playing in Bored!. The first time I met them it was Sean Greenway’s father’s turn to bring the underage boys down to the venue. Immediately I played devil’s advocate to these kids – I think the first thing I said to them was to offer to get them a beer!

So we were really good friends with those guys, and I really clicked with Tim in particular. They were an incredible live band. Two shows in particular that I remember at the Prince of Wales – one they supported Celibate Rifles, and another they supported Mass Appeal. My friend Andy was their mixer, and he worked out how to get them huge through the PA. I stood next to the mixing desk and they sounded like fucking Motorhead. Tim was a maniac – he’d be on drums, on bass, on guitar, and when they did ‘Meat Cleaver Boy’ he’d leap into the audience!

When Nolan’s previous band Behind the Magnolia Curtain broke up, Nolan joined Bored!, the band formed by fellow Geelong punk rock fan Dave Thomas. After the demise of GOD, Hemensley joined Bored! on bass, staying with the band just long enough to tour Europe in the late 1980s.

Nolan: After Bored! did [1989’s] Negative Waves, which dragged on a long time – that was me trying to produce a record. I pretty well said to Dave after that record that I thought that band had run its course, so I sort of quit. Then two weeks later Dave came up to my place, and GOD had just broken up. He said we should kick Grant out, and get Tim in. And that’s when things started to really intense with Bored! – some of those shows with Tim were the most intense rock ’n’ roll shows. But after about four months of Tim being in Bored!, he’d had it, he wanted to pull it all down.

“I thought if Bored! had played its cards right, it could’ve gone places. But it didn’t work out that way.”

I’d just found out we were going to Europe. I had to sit Tim down and told him “Look, I’ve earned this fucking tour!” So I had to cut a deal with him, and said if he could hold it together for another six months we’d go to Europe together, and when we come back I’ll quit with him. I didn’t want to, because I thought if Bored! had played its cards right, it could’ve gone places. But it didn’t work out that way – the first gig we played when we got back, Tim walked off stage in front of a packed-out Eureka Hotel, three-quarters of the way through the gig, and that was the end of the band. And I quit afterwards.

While Nolan and Hemensley had discussed forming a band together while still playing in Bored!, it took a good year before the pair put their own band together. Originally a five-piece, the Powder Monkeys played their first gig at the Great Britain Hotel in 1991 before a packed crowd.

Nolan: In 1991 I joined Hoss for a year. I started getting worried that I’d blown it, because we’d always said we were going to do something together. Then he finally asked me – he must’ve been writing songs for a year. And even then, it took us about six gigs to get rid of the rhythm guitarist.

The original Powder Monkeys were a five-piece, with Nolan and Hemensley joined by Aydn Hibbert on rhythm guitar, Jed Sayers on harmonica and Timmy Jack Ray on drums.

Nolan: The original conception of the band that Tim and I discussed, it was this sprawling five-piece: bluesy, twin guitar. Tim had this high school friend who could play harp. This guy who was playing rhythm guitar wasn’t really a rhythm guitarist – he was a lead guitarist – so our heads clashed straight away, and he didn’t last very long.

Timmy Jack Ray: I first moved to Melbourne from Tasmania, with our band Truck Head. I was living in Collingwood. I met Tim because we got Sean Greenway as our bass player in Truck Head. Tim would come to our shows, and he was very supportive. I met John when Tim and John when they first starting getting the Powder Monkeys together with Aidan – who I knew because he was also Tasmanian – and they would come around and rehearse. One day they asked me to sit on drums and keep time. We played ‘I Stand Bare’, pretty much as you hear it on the record. And shortly after that they asked me to join.

“My idea for the band was about the respect we had for the great Australian tradition of hard rock.”

Nolan: My idea for the band, which Tim agreed with, was about the respect we had for the great Australian tradition of hard rock – from The Easybeats through to Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs Live at Sunbury, AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, all that stuff. There was that Australian tradition that Australian bands played in pubs – people in the ‘burbs worked all week, they come out on the weekend and you had to put up or fuck off; there was no room for fancy-pancy stuff. That was what gave Australian pub that real tough edge. But at the same time Tim and I realised that we’d grown up listening to West Coast hardcore punk. So to be completely honest to ourselves, we had to have both of those elements.

The Powder Monkeys played their first gig at the Great Britain Hotel in Richmond in 1991, in front of a crowd bristling with excitement and expectation.

Dave Laing [Dogmeat Records]: I was there at the first show. It was a pretty big deal for the particular scene – for people into Hoss, Bored!, etc. Of course I’d known and worked with Tim and John when they were in Bored!. I knew John as far back as Behind the Magnolia Curtain and Tim in GOD. I knew Aydn from The Philisteins, and I knew TJ through The Philisteins. It actually took Tim and John forever to get something together after they left Bored! – John briefly joined Hoss because he was sick of waiting – so there was a lot of anticipation. They had a readymade audience locally.

Ray: We supported Hoss at our first gig at the Great Britain. I’d heard a lot about the Bored! stuff, and people were excited about it. It was packed, and I’d never played to a packed GB before. It was a great night.

Laing: That first gig, they were incredible. Like I say in the thing I wrote for the [reissued Smashed on a Knee] CD, I remember them being a bit slower and more measured earlier on. Which make the riffs sound a bit more monolithic. A bit more of a ’70s rock thing maybe. They sounded big, hard and heavy.

Despite only playing a handful of gigs, Dogmeat label boss Dave Laing was keen to get the fledgling band into the studio. With the songs still being worked in by the band, and the members of the band not entirely comfortable with the production and engineering input, the resulting product, ‘Smashed on a Knee’, didn’t completely meet either the band’s, or its fans’, expectations.

Laing: Tim and John did initial mix and it sounded shit – flat and gutless. Fortunately [Mike] Mariconda was on hand and he got it sounding great. But Tim and John thought there wasn’t enough bottom end in it, so they bumped up the bottom during the mastering stage and it just flattened out again.

Nolan: The problem with our first album was that we’d only really played about four gigs, and Dave Laing had us in the studio already! We hadn’t even found our groove by that time. So we were still this stilted five-piece band.

“I don’t think local studios knew how to record loud rock ’n’ roll.”

Laing: [Smashed on a Knee] was just a crappy recording. In the early ’90s I don’t think local studios really knew how to record loud rock ’n’ roll. The horrible studio sounds of the ’80s were still recent – no one had figured out to keep things simple and honest and powerful. It was a lost art then. I hear recording by any number of local bands now – from Eddy Current to King Gizzard to whoever – and hear great-sounding recordings that probably cost half as much to make as what it cost back then.

Smashed on a Knee was recorded at the same studio that Hoss did their first couple of albums and Bored! did their second and third, but the Powder Monkeys didn’t get nearly as good a sound. I think Joel and Dave Thomas probably had figured out how to use the studio better. The Splatterheads and Freeloaders also recorded there and didn’t get great results. The Sunset Strip and Seminal Rats too – they probably got better sounds.

Ray: I was thrilled when I first heard it because I’d never recorded anything before. But at the time we hadn’t got to know the songs too well. When we were recording it, we set up to do that rhythm tracks. Tim had a microphone set up in the studio, and for some of the songs Tim would do a guide vocal track which was basically just ‘Change!’ when we’d go into the chorus, and ‘Change!’ when we’d go into the verse. Listening back on it, the songs changed a little bit after we got to know them better and we were more confident and solid. For me, because it was my first recording, and we wanted to get the songs right, I didn’t really step out of the circle and put lots of good fills in it – I was more interested in getting the timing right.

Laing: Who ever really does capture their live sound perfectly on record? Does Funhouse captured the intensity of the Stooges in 1970? Does Stranded capture the live energy of The Saints in ’76? Probably not. Live performance involves being there, seeing it, and being hit by incredible volume. Recordings never capture the physical environment. But if you played any Powder Monkeys recording at deafening volume through a PA and drank numerous pots of beer while doing it, it would probably sound as good as they did live. This newly mastered version of Smashed on a Knee sounds great.

Shortly after the recording process concluded, rhythm guitarist Adyn Hibbert left the band. When harmonica player Jed Sayers departed not long after, the Powder Monkeys solidified into their classic three-person line-up.

“We didn’t even kick him out; he just didn’t turn up for another practice.”

Nolan: Tim called me one day and told me to read Beat or Inpress, and it says “Powder Monkeys won’t be playing for the next two or three months because one of the members is going away.” Tim said he didn’t know anything about it, and neither did I – Aydn had put it in because he was going to Nimbin with his girlfriend, so he expected us to just sit on our arses! So I said to Tim, “Let’s play as many gigs as we can while he’s away.”

So it was TJ, Tim and the harp player – who was really only playing harp on three or four songs – we found that groove. Aiden came back, and we did one gig with him Ballarat, and it was so horrendous! He never came back – we didn’t even kick him out; he just didn’t turn up for another practice.

Laing: When they went from a five-piece to a three-piece, they got faster and tighter – a bit closer to hardcore maybe. Their energy levels were absolutely incredible. At their best in the mid-’90s, I really seriously can’t imagine there was a better hard rock ‘n’ roll band in the world. I certainly never saw one.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Nolan: I noticed that every new song that Tim wrote for the band didn’t seem to have a harmonica part. So we were going in that direction. And we didn’t even really have to kick the harmonica play out. We had a rule that no girlfriends could come on tour, unless they organised their own travel and accommodation. Our harmonica player took his girlfriend on tour to Tasmania, with disastrous consequences, so that was the end of him. So we were stripped down to a three-piece.

Ray: I guess it was better at that stage [after Hibbert and Sayers left] in the sense that we were more familiar with the songs. I didn’t have anything to do with the other guys leaving, because I didn’t feel it was my place at the time. I knew this was Tim and John’s baby, so I stayed out of any big decisions for the band. But we did find our place together. Tim and I had a really strong rhythm connection – we’d play together really well. He would do little bass runs, and I’d play along to that. And when I did little fills, he’d play along to my fills. And a lot of John’s guitar playing isn’t just the chords, it’s the little riffs in between. Tim and I were the foundation, and John would do the decoration and colour.

The other notable aspect of the Powder Monkeys’ milieu was Hemensley’s lyrics. Hemensley came from a literary family – his father Kris was a notable figure in the Australian poetry scene, and his parents ran a bookstore in Melbourne – and his ability to write lyrics replete with tales of persecution, alienation, frustration and rebellion became critical to the Powder Monkeys’ appeal.

“Just look at Tim’s lyrics – there’s no ‘baby, baby, baby’ in there.”

Nolan: With this 10th anniversary concert coming up, everyone’s wanting to learn the lyrics, and Tim never gave his lyrics to anyone. So TJ and I are going through and trying to work out the lyrics. And I’ve realised that this is what separates us from all other bands. Just look at Tim’s lyrics – there’s no ‘baby, baby, baby’ in there.

It was cathartic and comic rolled into one. That cathartic element was so important to all of us, especially when the horrible mid-to-late ’90s came along, and this was the only good thing left in our lives. You’d get onto stage and take this potentially self-destructive anger, and channel it into your instrument, and you’d look out and see the crowd getting into it, and you’d have turned this negative into a positive experience.

Sometimes with Tim’s lyrics, I know at least three songs that could literally be pages of Tim’s diary torn out, because I remember the nights! ‘Persecution Blues’ is not an event song, but ‘Get the Girl Straight’ – I remember that night. ‘Another Nite in Hell’ is a series of events in Tim’s life with his interactions with police. The first single, ‘Ying Yang’, is about a night Tim and his friends dropped acid and went to Chaser’s. But he also had a great sense of humour. His father is a writer, and Tim was surrounded by books. Even when I first met him, Tim was so well read.

With artistic decisions, I never tried to second-guess Tim. Smashed on a Knee comes from one of Tim’s old wrestling cards. And the album [cover] being the Hindenburg! And the title of the second record, Time Wounds All Heels, that was graffiti around the corner from Tim’s house, just near where Shock [Records] used to be. Tim took a photo of it, and about two weeks after the council cleaned it off the wall.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Backed by Hemensley’s lyrics, the Powder Monkeys’ public attitude was located squarely in the rebellious rock ’n’ roll tradition. Hemensley refused resolutely to bow to external pressure; his public and private commentary was as sincere as it was confrontational.

Nolan: There was this funny thing about Tim: if something came along for the band, even when Tim knew it was good for the band, he’d just want to tear it down, just for the hell of it. But when Rick Rubin wanted to sign us, he was all for that.

Ray: Tim certainly wouldn’t hold back if he had something to say! His lyrics were a blend of getting things off his chest, and he’d express himself in that way.

Laing: Tim grew up with poetry and literature as well as punk rock – his lyrics were very carefully composed. They were honest as well as being laced with irony. They were incredibly funny and very powerful. He was a great lyricist. Even going back before the band – his two songs with Bored!, ‘Conquest’ and especially ‘Take It Out On You’ are incredible, and even ‘The Day They Buried Hemensley’ on the GOD album, that’s brilliant.

Ray: Maybe that confrontational attitude did hinder us. If Tim had something to say, bang, he’d say it, that’s for sure. I’m sure that put some people’s noses out of joint. But we thought, fuck it, take us warts and all or don’t – that’s up to you. If Tim had an opinion on something, he wouldn’t back down from anything. So that might have hurt us in some respects, but we weren’t there to play the game. It was about being ourselves, and not pretending to be someone we weren’t.

“They didn’t want to play to a more mainstream audience – whenever they did, they abused them.”

Laing: They never really could have gotten bigger – they were too confrontational, and too self-sabotaging. They didn’t want to play to a more mainstream audience – whenever they did, they abused them. What could and should have happened is their popularity should have spread wider. It sort of happened – they got to Europe – but if they haven’t fucked themselves up they could have succeeded worldwide on an underground level, like someone like Dead Moon did, or like the Cosmic Psychos did maybe.

Airfares were more expensive then, and this was early days of the internet really – if they’d kept their shit together things would’ve got easier and it might have happened. But they were pretty much in decline before that happened to John, I think – it needed to have happened earlier.

The Powder Monkeys eventually came to the notice of famed producer Rick Rubin, who offered the band a deal with Onion Records, the subsidiary of his American Recordings label. For a while it seemed that the Powder Monkeys would break through to a major international audience. It was not to be.

Nolan: We hired Dave Vodicka, and I remember this contract going back and forth from America. I remember going down to Vodicka’s office and we signed contracts, a three-album deal. When we were recording the second album, Dave Laing came in one day and told us we had to do a cover of ‘The Wizard’ by the Black Sabbath. The reason behind that was that [Steven Hanft] was doing his first feature-length film, Kill the Moonlight, and it was somehow tied up with American. The deal was that we do this song for this movie soundtrack, and when we get to America, he’ll do our first film clip. I’ve never seen the film, but I know three people who’ve got the CD soundtrack, and our song is on there.

Laing: The whole thing with American Recordings was kind of a beat-up (which I’m probably to blame for) – it was really only a small subsidiary of American, and although I was told that Rick Rubin had heard the band and dug it, it wasn’t like he was ever going to have any hands-on involvement. The subsidiary was called Onion Recordings and released albums by the great Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments and I think a band called The Stiffs – obviously neither of them set the world on fire. The deal fell through because, I think, the label guy Johan Kugelberg, was on his way out. Not that he ever said that – he just went silent on us.

Nolan: It was such a shit, because we were at our peak. We were going to be distributed by Warner Brothers USA, for fuck’s sake! Rick Rubin had this point man, this Swedish guy, and he just dropped off the radar. Dave Laing tried to ring him, left messages, write emails, he’d never reply. Then we read that Rick Rubin’s studio has been burnt down, and then that David Geffen has bought American Records.

Finally Dave gets hold of this Swedish guy, and he says we were just on a subsidiary of American. Rick Rubin had handpicked 10 bands from around the world, and we were one of them, and we all got screwed up the arse. Dave never says that that’s what killed Dogmeat, but I’ve always felt that that was the final nail in Dogmeat’s coffin.

In 1995, the Powder Monkeys released its second album, ‘Time Wounds All Heels’. With its title taken from a graffiti splashed on a wall near Hemensley’s childhood home, it went closer to capturing the Powder Monkeys’ intense live attack.

“When we got into a proper, slick-as-snot studio with a killer sound guy, we proceeded to nearly do a live record.”

Nolan: Smashed on a Knee was recorded in a pretty average Tascam 24-track home studio, but which was still pretty slick. But Time Wounds All Heels was done with Chris Thompson (who Tim and I believed to be one of the best engineers and mixers around – he did the classic Birthday Party LPs like Junkyard with Tony Cohen, although back then Tony was way out of our league in the money stakes). When we got into a proper, slick-as-snot studio with a killer sound guy, we proceeded to nearly do a live record. Not the vocals but some of those tracks are just us three, with no overdub guitars. I remember quite a few were first takes – no shit!

Laing: I reckon Times Wounds All Heels sounds great. A really thick and powerful sound. That was Chris Thompson recording them at the then very new ABC studios at Southbank. A big room, and not a cheap studio. Then their third album, which they did in Sweden, has a slightly thinner, scratchier sound again. Actually the best-sounding thing they even did was the 4-track recording of ‘I Thank You’ that they did out the back at Greville Records. That’s incredible. John’s guitar sound on that was never better. I wish they’d done their albums like that – would’ve saved a lot of money and would have resulted in records that would have blown people’s minds around the world.

Nolan: The thing I remember the most about the second LP was that it was when my junk habit was getting out of control. The first LP was totally pre-junk for the band. With the second, I sort of was the first to really get a habit. I remember that most about Time Wounds.

When the Powder Monkeys played a gig at Sandown Raceway north of Melbourne – apparently, at the suggestion of headliners the Hoodoo Gurus – the result was typical chaotic Powder Monkeys. Ray had left the band’s hotel early in the morning for a walk, the only problem being that he was stark naked, save for a sheet liberated from the hotel. The Launceston constabulary found Ray slumped in the doorway of a service station and took him back to the local lock-up, causing him to miss the plane back to the mainland.

Nolan: We had toured Tasmania. Tasmania was one of our greatest hunting grounds, especially in Launceston. We played there one night and they wouldn’t let us go. It got to the point where Tim said, “We don’t know any more songs!” and they said, “We don’t care – play ‘em all again!” And later that night Tim got arrested after being found naked on the street, so he missed the plane back to Melbourne. I think he was trying to get away from a woman who was mixing our set, and who tried to get into his room.

Ray: I can neither confirm nor deny exactly what happened because honestly I don’t remember. I wouldn’t take that as gospel because I don’t remember what happened, but we came up with that story afterwards to explain something so inexplicable.

Nolan: Because Tim wasn’t there, we’d got the drummer from Redshift to fill in and he was ready to play, when all of a sudden there was this ruckus and there’s a speedboat roaring across the lake and TJ waving his shirt saying, “Don’t start without me!”

Ray: After I was released from the lock-up and we got to the airport, and finally got to Melbourne, we had to catch a taxi out to Sandown, and we were very much running out of time. We managed to get there in time but we walked in the gate, and there was a huge lake between us and the stage, and it would’ve taken us a good 20 to 25 minutes to walk all around it.

“I jumped out of the boat to great applause and got straight on stage.”

But luckily enough they were having a water skiing display which had just finished, and we offered them as much money as we could to drive us across on the boat, which only took about four minutes, so it was pretty lucky and I got there just in time. I jumped out of the boat to great applause and got straight on stage and it was ‘1-2-3-4 bang!’ and we started playing. I suppose if you’re going to make an entrance, make it a good one.

By the end of the decade, things were starting to spiral out of control. Each of the members of the band was nursing a drug habit, and while the band remained as potent a live force as ever, the internal fabric of the band was gradually unravelling. In 2001 Ray, a willing participant in the Powder Monkeys’ nefarious nocturnal activities, was asked to leave after missing an afternoon gig. His place was taken by Todd McNear from the Seminal Rats.

Ray: By time I left in 2001, we’d had a dark few years, so to speak. We’d played together for 10 years, and it was a bit like a marriage … you start to get on each other’s nerves. There was one show when I turned up late – but in my defense I thought it was an early evening show, not an afternoon show, so by the time I got there Tim and John had already finished playing and I walked in and basically got the “We can’t do this anymore” and that it’d run its course, so to speak.

I must say it was somewhat of a blessing in hindsight. I was a bit over it at the time, and when they said it was enough, it wasn’t a shock, to be honest. I was a bit taken back, but the writing was on the wall. Looking back on it now, it was a bit of blessing to not have a reason to be around that. I got my act together and moved back to Hobart.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] By the time of the band’s 10th anniversary, the Powder Monkeys had become a Melbourne rock ’n’ roll institution. But the Powder Monkeys’ fortunes were about to take a turn for the worse. Ray licked his wounds, tied up the threads of his life, and moved back to Hobart, where he continued playing with the Surfin Poobahs and, more recently, The Roobs. In late 2001 John Nolan suffered an acute asthma attack, precipitated by a spring cleaning session in his house, and challenging a body battered into submission by years of drug abuse.

Nolan: We had kicked TJ out before my accident. The last time we went to Sydney was with Todd McNear. Two months after we got back – officially on the files at the Alfred Hospital, it says that John Nolan died of an asthma attack. I was brain dead for four and a half minutes, then I spent a year in rehabilitation, learning how to walk again.

The opportunity to support New York punk legends The Dictators provided the catalyst for Nolan’s return to the stage. It was to be the second-to-last Powder Monkeys gig.

Nolan: I should’ve still been in hospital, but The Dictators came to Australia, Tim’s and my favourite band. Tim said, “We’ve got to play this gig!” There was no place for us to play, so I had to come up with a cunning plan. Then later that year we played with Dead Moon, and that was our last-ever gig. By the following July, Tim was dead. So it went down pretty quick, which was tragic, because he was a guy I thought would live forever.

After Hemensley’s death in July 2003, Nolan retreated from view, not returning to the stage until Spencer P Jones asked him to join his band, The Escape Committee.

Nolan: I was doing much greater quantities [of drugs] than those guys [when Hemensley died]. After Tim died I fell into a massive depression that I barely came out of. It was a horrible time. Finally, Spencer P Jones brought my Marshall back from Scandanavia, and then in 2007 Spencer asked me to play in his band and that got me motivated again. And I’ve been back to Europe twice since then.

Each since Hemensley’s death, friends and family have gathered in the front bar of The Tote to celebrate Hemensley’s life and contribution to the local, national and international music scene. This year Hemensley’s parents agreed to a tribute event featuring the Tim Hemensley name and brand.

Nolan: Every anniversary of Tim’s death, Tim’s parents, some friends and I get together at The Tote and we have a drink for Tim. And who could have thought that on the 10th anniversary, Kris and Retta would have agreed that we could celebrate Tim’s legacy.

“I started seeing on social media about this special gig with [like] 120 bands. It turns out I’ve got to learn a few more songs!”

Ray: John emailed me a little while ago, and said they were re-releasing Smashed on a Knee, and there were some ideas about having a show. I might have misread the phone call, but I was under the impression that we were going to get up at the end of the night and play a few songs just a bit of a surprise after a normal three-band night at the Tote. And then I started seeing on social media about this special gig with 120 bands, and all this stuff! So it turns out that I’ve got to learn a few more songs!

Nolan: We had to get the perfect bass player, so we’ve got this guy, Mike Findlay, from Geelong. I’ve been practising with him every Sunday in Geelong. We’ve picked the singers for each song. And my new band, the Power Line Sneakers, is playing as well. And the whole day will start off at Victoria Park. Mary Mihelakos has got council permission for us to play there at the Tim Hemensley Cup. So people who haven’t been able to get a ticket to the Tote show can see us play there. And before we play at the Tote, Matty Mustang and Joel [Silbersher] are going to join TJ and I on stage and we’re going to do a couple of GOD songs. Then we’re going to do 14 Powder Monkeys songs.

Dave Laing: It’s hard to say what the Powder Monkeys’ legacy is today. I think the kind of heavy-duty, intense rock ’n’ roll they played is not particularly in favour with the current generation. The current garage/punk thing is either more of a goofy ’60s-type thing – which I dig – or a more arty, ironic post-punk kind of thing, which is almost an anti-rock ‘n’ roll thing. No one wants to be seen as too heavy or serious or rock ’n’ roll anymore. Maybe that ‘new rock’ crap of the early 2000s put paid to that. Too much of that was so try-hard and lacking in substance – it gave rock a bad name and gave the next generation something to react against rather than follow. There’s been too much bad, pose-y rock. Which is a shame.

It is gratifying, though, that more people who are into rock seem to be talking about the Powder Monkeys at the moment than when they were around in the first place. I think that comes down to their quality and to the strength of Tim’s personality really. He’s become something of any icon hasn’t he? He’d be pretty happy – and amused – by that.

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The reissue of ‘Smashed on a Knee’ is out now through Fuse, with a 20-page booklet featuring essays from Mike Mariconda, David Laing, Joel Silbersher, Deniz Tek, Dave Lang and John Nolan. It launches this Sunday (July 21) at the sold-out Tote event ‘I Thank You – A Tribute to Tim Hemensley’. At 11am the same day, the Hemensley Cup footy match kicks off at Victoria Park in Abbotsford, with a halftime set by Powder Monkeys with guest singers. Entry is a gold coin.