Track by Track: Kim & Leanne

KIM SALMON dissects his first proper duo album with erstwhile Scientists bandmate Leanne Chock, from near rapping to a reclaimed Stones cover.

You have to understand a bit about this band to ‘get’ the story of their songs.

Kim and Leanne were members of The Scientists back at the end of their ‘reign in hades’ back in the ’80s. Leanne was the Scientists’ gorgeous but tough tour manager and when the band suddenly started to go through drummers at a Spinal Tap rate, she was the only successful graft. In subsequent reformations we began by employing session players but when Leanne got up and played, the punters were unanimous that she had the sound and style to reanimate the monster correctly. Nowadays I live in Melbourne working as a teacher and muso and Leanne lives in Sydney working as a truancy officer.

A couple of years ago she and I walked into some shows and have done a few since playing Scientists songs. My friend and musical collaborator Mike Stranges suggested that we make a bunch of songs for the duo, and so it was that we set about the task of writing songs Brill Building style. We then demoed and sent them up to Sydney for Leanne to learn and then for her and I to record when we were together.

‘The Science Test’

I’d had the idea to make a song with just one bass note/chord in the backing, with the chord/harmonic structure coming entirely from its combination with the melody line. I’ve had the idea since about the time of The Surrealists Just Because You Can’t See It… album [from 1989]. Just never got around to trying the idea out! One day I did – but well after the recording sessions and Leanne was back home. We grabbed a bar or two of Leanne’s drums from ‘In A Nick/Just A Tick , looped and treated it … and along with two minutes and 49 seconds of me buzz-sawing on a G note … voila. The lyrics, like most of my lyrics, developed from the phrases I made up on the spot when I first sang the idea. The phrase ‘now and then’ came up straightaway and pretty much gave me the story.

‘Carry On Baggage’

Leanne, Mike and I are all fairly neurotic types who are no strangers to the ‘shrink’s couch. Mike liked the phrase ‘Carry On Baggage’ for a song. I liked that Leanne and I obviously carried Scientists baggage with us. I proceeded to try and link every ‘Carry On’ film title I could think of into a song. Mike helped me with the airline reference by providing such lines as “Is there a limit to this carry on?/We’ve really got to get it checked.” At some point in the project he’d presented me with what he thought sounded like a Kinks riff but I thought it much more ‘punk’. I decide to sing over that and we had a song!

‘Ow Baby Baby’

The Scientists existed in two distinct phases: the earlier, more pop/punk phase and the later, dark and primitive era. Each was very good at its own but not very good at the other. Kim and Leanne can do both. This song definitely references the pop rock phase and the penchant of James Baker for using the word ‘Baby’. It also subverts the word back with lots of contraceptive/pregnancy/sex puns.

‘Dead Flowers’

Leanne said she’d wanted to do a version of this song for some time. I was not so sure. With its ‘country rock’ sounds and Jagger’s camp pseudo-Southern stylings, this one was definitely a candidate for some corrective reinterpretation, which I think was very successful. It’s good to hear a decent song under there played correctly at long last!

‘Freudian Slippers’

Leanne is particularly good at executing drum parts with weird-arsed timing going on, a la The Scientists’ ‘Solid Gold Hell’ and ‘Murderess in a Purple Dress’. Like the former song, this one’s a rewrite of the ‘Set It on Fire’ riff with an extra beat thrown into some of the bars. The line “Went to see my shrink and she said what do you think” was really just the first line that popped into my head when attempting to sing a melody. It gave us the story, which is about girlfriends who behave like amateur psychologists. In my defence and in the interests of non-misogyny, I will say that this song is obviously sung from my perspective, which happens to be a male one. It may be that many women have had boyfriends of this ilk…

‘Rude Embryos’

A few years back I was carjacked – some kids who’d been chroming dragged me from my car, punched me and took off one night after a gig in North Fitzroy. They had bleak dead-end lives and I just happened to intercept their arc of mischief. I never took it personally or bore them malice. This song is me ‘processing’ the events of that strange night.

‘Hard to Get’

This one is almost a ‘rap’. It’s about the kind of people who are always talking themselves and their lives up like they’re going somewhere, but you ask them the same questions at different stages and you notice they’re still in the same place. Harsh I know, but sometimes ya gotta tell it like it is!

‘In a Nick/Just a Tick’

This is about the kind of behaviour people endure from other people when they think it’s ‘normal’. Musically I like this song because it has a guitar solo, a drum solo, a breakdown, four verses, numerous screams and yelps, all in the space of one minute 29 seconds!

‘So Naive’

I was trying to write a riff like something off Kill City but people keep saying Big Star! Lyrics are about getting over the delirium of being in love and having a harsh look at oneself.

‘DDouble Negativ’

We were going for the kind of fractured chord sound people nowadays associate with ‘post-punk’. Richard Hell and the Voidoids was a reference point. This song also has a very theatrical element to it. Almost Rocky Horror or Bat Out of Hell Meatloaf – or so we think.

‘Get a Hold of Your World’

You know that book What Would Keith Richards Do? This song is a case of what would Jim (Morrison) do? When writing this it reminded us of The Doors and from then on we asked ourselves the question “What would Jimbo do?” every time an artistic decision came up. (Let’s face it: all our decisions are artistic!) When we tracked this song we couldn’t get it to have the same vibe as the demo version until it dawned on us once again. This song is definitely a hark back to ‘This Is My Happy Hour’ by The Scientists. And how did I approach vocals for that one? The classic ’80s Morrison pseudo-baritone a la Ian McCulloch.

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‘True West’ is out now independently on CD and digital.