Biography
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Years Active
1986 – present (38 years)
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Founded In
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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Members
- Guy Maddison
- Martin Bland
Lubricated Goat was an Australian noise rock band of the 1980s. They achieved brief notoriety for playing on a television program naked, with only their instruments. Mainly influenced by bands like The Stooges and The Birthday Party, they are credited for playing a grimy, confrontational style of rock which preceded grunge and 1990s noise rock.
Lubricated Goat was formed by Stu Spasm (real name Stuart Grey). Spasm had previously been in bands such as Singing Dog with Nick Barker, and Salamander Jim with Tex Perkins. Upon returning from England, Spasm went to Perth to visit with Singing Dog drummer Brett Ford who was then playing in The Kryptonics with Peter Hartley.
While in Perth, Stu recorded side one of what later became the Plays The Devil’s Music EP at No Sweat Studios with Ford and Hartley. Side two was recorded in Adelaide on a 4-track with drummer Martin Bland (Bloodloss/Salamander Jim).
Lubricated Goat signed to Red Eye Records offshoot Black Eye Records. The band soon relocated to Sydney where Stu met Guy Maddison of the Greenhouse Effect (now in Mudhoney) and offered him the opportunity to play bass for Lubricated Goat. The majority of the band lived on Cleveland Street in an old run-down three-story mansion which was soon dubbed "Gracelands." The house was a creative haven for musicians and artists that were known to host art shows and nude discos.
In 1988, Lubricated Goat released its debut full length, Paddock Of Love, which featured the track "In The Raw". This song was later lip-synched to in the nude on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV program Blah Blah Blah, an event which created national media outrage. A documentary film has been made about the performance, also titled In The Raw, which explains how/why the band came to be nude in the first place.
Around this time there also was a line-up change, with Hartley and Ford sacked and replaced by guitarist Sir Charles Tolnay Esquire of Grong Grong and Gene, drummer of The Space Juniors. In 1989, the new lineup recorded the EP Schadenfreude and the full-length Psychedelicatessen.
Lubricated Goat had its back catalog re-released via Amphetamine Reptile Records in the United States, and on Normal in Europe, before making its first American tour in mid-1989. In 1990, Lubricated Goat commenced its first European tour, one that was plagued with tragedy via the stabbing of Spasm in Berlin in 1990 or 1991. The incident placed Lubricated Goat on hiatus.
Various incarnations of Lubricated Goat, often featuring only Stu Spasm, have since existed, recording material for Sub Pop, PCP, Sympathy for the Record Industry and REPTILIAN. Spasm also played in Crunt (which featured his then-wife Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland) and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion drummer Russell Simins.
Albums:
* Paddock Of Love (Amphetamine Reptile / Normal , 1988)
* Psychedelicatessen (Amphetamine Reptile , 1989)
* Forces You Don't Understand (1994, PCP)
EPs:
* Plays The Devil’s Music 12" (Black Eye/ Amphetamine Reptile , 1987)
* Schadenfreude 12" (Black Eye, 1989)
7" singles:
* "Meating My Head" (Sub Pop, 1989) (part of Sub Pop Singles Club, on yellow vinyl)
* "Bad Times" on Dope-Guns-'N-Fucking In The Streets Volume Four (double 7") (Amphetamine Reptile, 199_) (4-way split with L. Goat, Boss Hog, Thee Mighty Caesars, Vertigo) (later appeared on the Dope-Guns-'N-Fucking In The Streets Volumes 4-7 CD, on AmRep)
* "Shut Your Mind" (Sympathy For The Record Industry, 1992) (U.K.; on yellow vinyl)
* "Play Dead" (Sub Pop, 1993) (on red vinyl)
Compilation album
* The Great Old Ones (Reptilian, 2003 or 2004) (all re-recorded versions w/ new lineup)
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