Discography

Brisbane’s Public Execution did justice to both murder punk and early US hardcore in the 1980s, writes TIM SCOTT. Their discography has just been jointly released by labels in Australia and England.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] “Summing up Brisbane, all I can say is it was the closest thing to a heavy, heavy junta-style police state I’ve ever been in. I was looking over my shoulder a lot!” – Jello Biafra, Maximum Rocknroll #10, 1983

On their return to San Francisco after an August 1983 Australian tour, Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra penned a scene report for punk fanzine Maximum Rocknroll.

As well as comparing US and Australian culture, he described a bunch of Aussie punk bands including Public Execution, who supported the Dead Kennedys at Brisbane’s Festival Hall alongside The Johnnies. “Another band who have some American thrashish tunes was Public Execution and were probably the most maniacal of the Australian bands I saw. The singer was a genuine nut on stage, with a really demented look in his eye, something you only usually find in Americans.”

‘Genuine nut’ and bassist Terry Devery formed Public Execution, or Pub Ex, on the south side of Brisbane in 1981 with guitarist Steve Playford and drummer Fred Noonan. Formed from the remnants of local garage bands Sabotage and Malicious Joy, the three-piece were influenced by the first wave of US hardcore and played an incendiary Black Flag/early-SST style of punk seasoned with some British sounds (Crisis, Flux of Pink Indians) as well as some good old-fashioned Brisbane yob.

“Brisbane had a healthy amount of cops not afraid to smash heads.”

Short Fuse Records (Mindsnare, Straightjacket Nation) and UK label La Vida Es En Mus have done an impressive job co-releasing this nine-track discography LP. It’s comprised of the band’s only official release in the ‘Methadone Slave’/‘SS Brigade’ 7”, a split tape with Kicks (An Execution of One’s Indulgence) and the Public Execution cassette EP, as well as a liner booklet that includes old photos, flyers, lyrics and words from Devery.

Brisbane in the early ’80s remained the most conservative of Australian capital cities. While it had a healthy amount of punk bands, it also had a healthy amount of cops not afraid to smash heads. Biafra at the time described premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen as a dictator similar to notorious Louisiana governor Huey Long and spoke of state intimidation and violent cops: “I met a lot of very warm people there, very radical in the head, but very afraid to talk. I felt safer walking around on the streets of East Berlin than I did in Brisbane.” While it’s no secret that Jello is not afraid of some hyperbole, it’s also no secret that this was the political climate of Brisbane of the time.

Despite this hostility (or maybe because of it) Brisbane had a vibrant punk scene, which centered on the Shake/Savage label was run in the late ’70s by David Holiday and Peter Miller from Just Urbain and Young Identities’ Rod McLeod (who recorded Public Execution’s first 7”). This scene is best documented on Dropkick Records’ Shakedown: Original Brisbane Punk 1978-83 compilation, which incudes all the recorded output by Just Urbain, Young Identities, Kicks and more.

“Sneering, nihilistic vocals and sped-up, punkified pub-rock riffs.”

Recorded in 1983, Public Execution’s demo sits at the cusp of this scene but, like the Australian murder punk bands of the time (a term coined from 2001 bootleg compilations including the Victims, Razar, the Chosen Few and which could also include local heroes the Left Overs and Psycho Surgeons), it was full of sneering, nihilistic vocals and sped-up, punkified pub-rock riffs. ‘Schizophrenia’ best encapsulates this Australian take of punk that is not quite US or UK.

While overall the songs’ subject don’t stray too far from early-’80s punk issues – anti-war (‘Say Goodbye to Tommy’), Marxist politics (‘Left Wing Refuse’) and consumerism (‘Merchant Girl’) – the music is frantic and spastic. The drumming of Noonan (who later went on to play in SixFtHick) in particular on tracks like ‘Say Goodbye to Tommy’ and ‘Winter Wine’ are a power-unit force that that led to the early-US-hardcore comparisons.

Album highlight ‘Winter Wine’ from the 1983 demo is an amazing piece of Australian punk rock that sounds like something that could have come from the first Victims EP. The sentiment is true to the best murder punk, with Devery snarling, “Cause life adds up to nothing/Then it adds up to something/When you’re pissed on winter wine.” ‘Rotting Corpse’, a later song recorded as a four-piece with Lindsay Dalgliesh joining on bass and freeing up Devery to become more ‘genuine nutty’ on stage, is different again, with a slowed-down, almost New Wave-y vibe.

This is a fantastic document of early-’80s Australian punk that sits nicely alongside this year’s reissues of Division Four and Venom P Stinger.

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‘Discography’ is out now through Short Fuse and La Vida Es En Mus. Order it here. Watch footage of Public Execution playing live in Brisbane last month.