The Dada Tapes

A new compilation covers the depth and breadth of Perth’s transient underground scene, writes STEPH KRETOWICZ.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Dada Records has been around since the dawn of Perth punk in the ’70s –arguably the beginning of the local original music scene. That’s 40 years of remaining defiantly on the edge of the commercial industries, with an overload of stock and not much turnover to show for it. Eighties pub rock came and went, Trax and Sanity shrank in the ’90s, while the new millennium saw once core music venues, Amplifier and The Hydey, introduce a dress-code. The Bakery picked up the surplus of flannel and dirty sneakers before shutting for almost two years.

Dada still stands through it all; if not with its stairs more worn and founding owner Rob Samson more bemused. It was up to staff members to create a neutral space for Perth’s splintered sub cultural map to convene and Dada’s “Garage Gigs” was born. The large back shed on Pier Street in Perth’s CBD now plays host to a myriad of bands, normally relegated to the houses and rehearsal studios of their respective cliques. Now you can find a most diverse cross-section of the city’s scattered monocultures represented in the self-financed, no budget release of live music from the past three years, The Dada Tapes.

Recorded by organiser Ben Stewart and others on a one-track, the compilation was assembled within the span of two weeks from deciding to put it out. It’s a culmination of free events put together on borrowed equipment, volunteer helpers designing posters, making soup and performances by bands with the hope, but never the guarantee, of a few free beers. Twenty-two outfits were chosen out of 40, with recording quality and song-length playing a part in the selection process. Some bands that played and didn’t get a mention were Golden Staph and Diger Rokwell, as well as shop friends POND and Wigwam. But most, in one way or another, were represented by association in the final mix.

The recording spans the spectrum of local music – from The Clean-inspired punk of Astral Travel to the experimental noise making of Salamander (others didn’t make it for sheer length of their tracks). It wouldn’t be a fair summary without the anachronistic boys club psychedelia (sprung from the same bud as Tame Impala, POND et al.) in pseudo-joke bands Electric Gooch (funk) and The Good Boys (white boy hip-hop from the suburban middle). Even the tedious indie-rock WA is apparently known for gets a shot with Sonpsilo Circus.

“The recording spans the spectrum of local music – from The Clean-inspired punk of Astral Travel to the experimental noise making of Salamander.”

The tracklisting is thoughtfully sequenced so that it flows like an album, allowing for Royal Vomit’s brilliant 15-minute expedition of washed-out vocal distortion pride of place with an abridged intro-lude. The Tigers have more than a decade of experience on Mental Powers, but a blast of reverb to end their track ‘Beautiful Forest’ heralds the rumbling speakers of the latter’s ‘Ology’ to follow. The theme of frenetic rhythm is carried on from Astral Travel’s ‘POVO’ through to one of Predrag Delibasich’s many projects, SmRts, with ‘Curious Bird’; while it wouldn’t be an ending without the transcendental psych epic of ‘Diendo’ from These Shipwrecks.

As you’d imagine for a DIY project such as this one, sound quality isn't always the greatest, with vocals being hard to hear, bass lines blown-out. But there’s beauty in the accidents. Jane Harris’ poignant untitled track sees her classically striking vocals underwritten by sparse instrumentals on a backdrop of actual rain, or The Good Boys’ congenial banter follows the break-beat exhibitionism of ‘Dr X’. Some of these bands’ line-ups, set-lists and names have changed since being recorded, while a couple have since disbanded. That makes The Dada Tapes, not only a record of a cross-section of a scene, at a particular point in time, but a poignant reminder of its own transience.

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‘The Dada Tapes’ is out now independently.