Sea Scouts

Bio:

Further links:

qdcomic.com/seascouts/seascouts.html
zumonline.com/seascouts.html
furia.com/page.cgi?type=twas&id=twas0235entry2

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Taken from koti.mbnet.fi/larinerg/seascouts

The story of Sea Scouts

Sea Scouts were an Australian noise-rock group. They were formed in early 1995 and they broke up in early 2000. Their music has often been compared to early Sonic Youth, Joy Division or Unwound even though there are no bands that really compare to them. Combining tribal-like drumming, heavily distorted bass lines, noisy guitars, violent screaming and overwhelming feeling of non-forced angst, they're still truly unique and they deserve this small tribute my site tries to offer.

Sea Scouts were formed by Tim Evans, a former frontman of Mouth and Zach von Bamburger, frontman of Unlimited Friendly Objective in early 1995 in the town of Hobart in Tasmania. The duo originally started jamming and experimenting with drum machine before Monika Fikerle strengthened the group with her drumming skills for a few months before quitting in favor of another local group called Surgery. Tim and Zach continued as a duo, again with a drum machine.

They recorded their first release as a duo in mid-1995. It was an EP, titled $100,000 Dollar Mamal (sic). It was pressed on 10'' polycarbonate by Peter King in New Zealand and released through Tim's own label Infinity in early 1996. Being printed on a low quality polycarbonate, it has been said to sound really bad. The copies were also really fragile which means that most of the copies are probably in an unlistenable condition by now. Rumor has it that the songs were good, though.

Sea Scouts went through many line-up changes in their early days. They had at least four short-time drummers in 1995-1996, the most famous being Dave Nuss of the legendary psych-folk group No-Neck Blues Band from United States. He helped Sea Scouts on their second, totally improvised tour. Janelle and Renae both helped them out during tours around Tasmania and the mainland.

Sea Scouts took a short hiatus in early 1996. Zach didn't re-join the group after the hiatus was over and was replaced by Alex Pope. Andy Hazel helped Tim and Alex out for a couple of shows before Sara Mae Libero, who previously was member of The Stickmen on their short-lived first line-up, replaced him and became Sea Scouts' first long-lasting drummer.

The trio began to record their first full-length album. They didn't have too much money at the moment to spend on a real studio so they did the recordings on a 4-track in a home studio, someone's kitchen in Hobart, to be exact. The sessions took place in the first day of spring in 1996. The sound quality wasn't exactly hi-fi but definitely better than the EP. The album was called Pattern Recognition and it was released on 12'' vinyl by Tim's Infinity and Guy Blackman's Chapter Music in early 1997.

Sara left the Sea Scouts around October 1997 and their first drummer Monika re-joined the band. This line-up was going to last until the very end. By early 1998, all members had relocated themselves from Hobart to Melbourne. They recorded their second, much darker and more polished album Beacon of Hope during that summer. It is usually considered to be their finest release. It was released on the following December as a co-release between Patsy and Unstable Ape Records.

Finally they had money and resources to do their recordings properly in a real studio so they decided to completely re-record Pattern Recognition and then reissue it on CD for the first time. The recording sessions took place in December 1998 and a new version of Pattern Recognition was released early in the following spring also by Patsy and Unstable Ape. Even though some people prefer the rougher and rawer sound of the original vinyl, the CD reissue is usually considered to be better of the two.

They also visited the studio in February 1999 to once again re-record some of their older material from the original line-up of Tim and Zach: songs called Word as a Weapon and Destroy Your Local McDonalds, both of which originally written already in 1995. Both songs were released on a 7'' single by a Californian label called Zum. Zum also helped in numerous other ways: they released Beacon of Hope in the USA, distributed their both albums there and even arranged a US tour. Sea Scouts also did a long European tour with another great Australian indie band called Ninetynine that year.

Unfortunately for fans, Sea Scouts announced that they were going to break up in 2000. They played their last show at the Corner Hotel, Melbourne in February 18th, 2000 (a piece of trivia: they played a cover version of Elvis Presley song Always on My Mind on that gig). Sea Scouts were no more. There are some rumors about the band recording more of their old material and even some new songs during the last few months of their existence but there really isn't any official confirmation of this. There is yet a slight hope for some sort of posthumous release. Don't hold your breath waiting, though.

So what have the Scouts been doing after the break-up? Tim formed a post-punk band called Bird Blobs with Ian Wadley of Minimum Chips in 2000. Zach currently plays in Go Genre Everything. Alex first returned to Hobart to play in Vodka Party. He currently focuses his energy to a Hobart-based black metal band called Ruins. Monika was a member of The Bites for a short while. She also played with The Grimm and Jihad Against America through their whole existence and she plays drums in Love of Diagrams and bass in Baseball at the moment.

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MP3s OF SEA SCOUTS & RELATED ENSEMBLES:

DEATH BED CONVERSION & RAPED BY NOISE - DEATH BED PROGRESSION

Tracklist: 01. Death Bed Progression Performers: Paul Banbury (Raped By Noise) - guitar, effects, ebow;
Ben Bridgford (Raped By Noise) - guitar, effects;
David Freedman (Death Bed Progression) - tuba, effects;
Alex Pope (Death Bed Progression) - guitar, effects;
Lee Ritson (Death Bed Progression) - oscillators, signal generators

Collaboration entitled 'Death Bed Progression' (1999, live in an indoor basketball court in North Hobart, recorded to super 8 video, transferred to a cassette as single channel stereo recording, ripped to dual stereo uncompressed PCM wave file and encoded to lame 320kbps cbr mp3). For further information on Raped By Noise check their myspace myspace.com/noisefucked

M3DIAFIRE DOWNLOAD - copy this to your browser: is.gd/2wp3h (Because MySpace won't allow linking to m3diafire links!?)

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Sea Scouts live @ The Sound Vault, West Melbourne, Saturday July 04th 1998 (remastered)

MEGAUPLOAD DOWNLOAD: http://is.gd/4Ty0A

Member Since:

September 16, 2008

Members:

Sea Scouts
Tim Evans vocals and guitar
Zach von Bamburger vocals and bass, 1995-1996
Alex Pope vocals and bass, 1996-2000
Monika Fikerle drums, 1995 & 1997-2000
Dave Nuss drums, 1995
Janelle drums, 1995
Renae drums, 1995
Andy Hazel drums, 1996
Sara Mae Libero drums, 1996-1997
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Lee Ritson live sound, (1997?)-2000
(''He's our sound man. He's very much part of the band.'')

Influences:

Sonic Youth, Mouth, Unlimited Friendly Object, The Birthday Party, Tasmania, black metal and lots more

Sounds Like:

People that will never be a scout of the sea

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Record Label:

formerly Chapter, Patsy & Unstable Ape