Stiff stuff poppy, Aussies claim

'We're a pretty young band, really,' said Andrew Pendlebury, reflecting on the two-year history of the Sports. True enough, but in that time, the Melbourne sextet have built themselves a clean, powerful sound, a watertight stage act and a growing reputation.

They came to England to support Graham Parker on his tour earlier this year, courtesy of Stiff Records, who have released an EP featuring four of the Sports' own numbers. An album was more or less finished when I spoke to Andrew Pendlebury (gtr) and Steve Cummings (vocals). Stiff found the band after they supported GP on an Australian tour. Graham's manager Dave Robinson liked them and invited them over for the UK campaign, which gained the band a lot of attention. They followed that up with a few club dates which included The Nashville, where they were clearly in their element.

'We're more like a pub-rock sort of group,' said Steve Cummings, denying any new wave lineage. 'Punk couldn't really have the same effect in Australia as it did over here because it's a completely different economic climate, rather like America. There's a huge middle class thing in Australia.' Punk remained confined to voyeurs only. 'You'd get hairdressers wearing stuff through their noses. It was more of a fashion thing.'

'A few people took it seriously,' added the laconic Pendlebury.

An earful of the Sports EP gives a good indication of the band's points of departure — ringing guitars, harmonies, hooks built to last. Steve: 'We were teenagers in the prime time of pop music in the 60s. It didn't seem to be so formulated then, there seemed to be more variety. We probably got a mixture of all that pop stuff and R&B.'

Their strongest song is called Who Listens to the Radio, an instant grabber shorn of all excess baggage. Steve and Andrew write a lot of the band's material, along with Martin Armiger, the other guitarist. Andrew: 'Writing? I don't really think about it. But the songs are poppy, yeah.' Jackie de Shannon's Every Time You Walk in the Room features at Sports gigs too, which they've recorded. But the band listen to just about everything — Steely Dan, Little Feat, Captain Beefheart, the Ramones, the Pretenders. They reckon this could cause marketing problems.

'The Rumour like a whole variety of things, and we're very similar,' says Steve. 'It causes the Rumour a lot of problems. It's easy to market something if it's a Heavy Metal group or a funk band or a pop group — if it's just one thing. Stiff have had their biggest successes with individual artists like Ian Dury, Elvis Costello and Lene Lovich. They like us and everything but they don't know how to sell us.'

Australia, they say, is 'like a scaled down version of here'. Obviously the sheer size of the country dictates where and when a band plays. 'We play hotels and pubs in Australia,' explains Steve, 'but you get pubs over there that hold 1000 people. The money's pretty good. Usually, we'd, like, go to Sydney for a week and play all around Sydney, then all go to Adelaide for a week or all go to Brisbane for a week.'

'Melbourne's a really small circle,' adds Andrew. 'If somebody leaves a band in Melbourne, it's all over the city right away.'

The Sports like the range of music they've found in England. Reggae, for example, is just one of the missing links in the Australian set-up. Steve: 'That's the worst thing about Australia, that you never get any black music generally, it doesn't really come to Australia at all.' What do Australians like, then? 'It's not what they like, it's what they've got. It's so expensive to go out there and everything that a lot of groups don't go. Mainly you get things that are really popular in England or the States, like Genesis. Recently we've had a few more newer things, like Graham Parker, Elvis Costello and Blondie. Dire Straits first took off in Australia - Sultans of Swing was number one over there a year ago. Abba, too, first got popular in Australia, after Sweden.'

Further observations on the ongoing down-under situation, mainly from Steve:

Record companies: 'There's only a couple of independent labels in Australia, the rest are just like subsidiaries of British and American companies and they don't sign up local groups. We signed to this record company in Australia that's like Stiff, and we just signed to Stiff for England. The deal's just for a couple of albums, I think.'

'The guy who runs the Australian company is good friends with Dave Robinson, and he opened up the market in Japan for groups like Blondie. As far as we're concerned, it's mainly just an agreement between them, it's not very involved or anything.'

Music papers: 'They're very fickle over here. There's one weekly from Melbourne, which is just basically for information. Then there's Ram from Sydney, which is fortnightly and has reprints from NME, Sounds, Melody Maker and so on. They usually appear after the English paper has come out.' Andrew: 'The dailies devote a column or two to music. You usually get a splurge in the Sunday papers about rock 'n' roll or something.'

Beer, lager etc: 'Melbourne lager, Victoria bitter and Carlton. It's all run by the same brewery. They make Fosters too, but Fosters is more like a Barry Humphries thing.'

Andrew, who plays a Fender Telecaster Custom, turned out to be quite an expert on guitars. He's been playing for eight or nine years, and spent some time teaching the instrument. He recommends two Melbourne shops for guitarists, Fretted Instruments and Warehouse Sound. 'Also, there's a guy in Australia called Ian Noyce, who makes his own guitars. They're very expensive but they're excellent.'

The Sports hope to return to Blighty in September. Let's hope that the amps don't explode next time around, which apparently kept happening on this trip. I'll be back for another listen, anyway.

The, er, wires...

Op: How does a microphone work?

Eng: Well the er sound goes in 'ere and hits the er diaphragm and then goes down the cable and er into the board and fru the amp and out of the speaker... OK?

Op: Well yeah but er you mean the sound what is vibratin' the air er vibrates the er diaphr phr phr er thingummyjig and that does down the cable and into the board?

Eng: Yeah but the sound don't vibrate, the sound is the name what is given to the air what is vibrating already, for instance like when he hits the bass drum the skin goes in and out and that makes the air go in and out and then that makes the diaphragm go in and out and the wires that are stuck to the diaphragm go in and out of a magnet which causes a current to flow and that goes down the cable and into the board and then fru the amp and out of the speakers. Got it? Dig?

Op: Yeah well er almost. The er wires er go in and out of the er magnet like er er er er, no. Don't sort of er dig that.

Eng: Well you know what happens if you get a wire and move it in a magnetic field?

Op: Er... no.

Eng: No. No?

Op: No.

Eng: Didn't they teach you anything at school?

Op: Well, we did molecular biology and calculus and brain surgery but they er didn't mention about the er wire in the er magnet. They must have forgot er probably forgot. But I like soul music!!!

Eng: Well, you see what happens is that if you move a wire in a magnetic field a current flows, very very tiny but it flows, then it goes through some gizmos in the mic to give it a bit of poke like... it flows down the cable and into the board.

Op: What is a current?

Eng: Well you see everything has an atomic structure and in the atomic structure there is a nucleus which is surrounded by, amongst other things, electrons and the electrons are attracted to the nucleus but them what are the furthest away are easily dislodged in some materials better than others and they are called conductors and some won't move and they are called insulators. The electrons flow from the microphone down the copper wire, because copper is a good conductor, along the cable into the board. At the other end the speaker cone has coils of wire on it that go in and out of the magnets and they cause the cone to go in and out and the air vibrates and you hear the sound, right?

Op: Yeah I know now yeah. It's like your ear innit, you got an eardrum and that goes in and out and you hear the sound, only the mic has got a er thingummyjig with little wires in a magnet and that goes in and out and the electrons go down the cable and into the board and fru the amp and into the little wires on the speaker cones what are in the magnet and the cone goes in and out and we hear the sound er I mean the air vibratin' er the sound, yeah the sound.

Eng: Yeah that's it, you've got it. You've sussed it out. Great. Anything else?

Op: Well there is just one more thing er er er you know the U87s er er why do they have to have 48 volts goin' through them, is it because of the current er er...

Eng: Si-i-i-i-igh. Well, because the er sound goes in here er down the cable and... (Cont'd p.142)