Recorded live at the Wizbah Saturday April 25 1986
Recorded live at the Shenton Park Hotel Friday June 26 1987
MOIST
Foreword by Dolph Subway / An introduction by Ron Pickett / Fire In The Library / Planet 70s / Cockroach / Love Pump / Sexual Magnet / Woman Of My Dreams / Diddley Squat / Break Your Fast / Backpacking / Let's All Be Happy / The Night I Lost My Soul At Craps / An outroduction by Ron Pickett / Afterword by Dolph Subway
Recorded at two studios in March and November 1986, this album was first released in early 1987 on cassette, and enjoyed a modestly widespread circulation over a couple of years. The song "Busy Man" was added to later cassette runs, and in the 1990s, the original digital mix-down masters were found and the album remastered for CD, copies of which have been distributed to various ex-band members and aficionados. Because the tracks were originally mixed down onto a VHS tape using digital encoding, it enabled the new CD master to be much cleaner than the original 1/4" analog reels that originally became the final edited masters used for any cassette runs back in the 1980s. In short, this CD version is superior to the original in terms of audio fidelity.
LIVE AT THE WIZBAH VOLUME 1 - JANUARY 29 1986
Ron Pickett introduction #1 / Love Pump / Where Is My Man / Catholic / Blues Rap / Planet 70s / Ron Pickett introduction #2 / Break Your Fast / Backpacking / Diddley Squat / The Night I Lost My Soul At Craps
A desk recording, from a cassette, mixed by local whiz-kid sound engineer James Hewgill. The band sounds raw and a little bit under-rehearsed, but there is a good sized audience. The date is a little tentative, but it is certainly one of Love Pump's first Wizbah gigs. Ron Pickett's introduction drags on for over four minutes, and inbetween songs, the bands sounds very unsure of what they are going to do next. The tape is switched off after "Craps", omitting "I've Been Saved" and "Cherry (I Love You)", the latter of which had a backing track that had to be played on the actual cassette player that was taping the gig.
LIVE AT THE WIZBAH VOLUME 2 - MARCH 15 1986
Love Pump / Where Is My Man / Planet 70s / Catholic / Blues Rap / I've Been Saved / Sexual Magnet / Diddley Squat / Backpacking / The Night I Lost My Soul At Craps / Break Your Fast / Fondle Me / Let's All Be Happy
Again, a desk recording from a cassette, courtesy of James Hewgill once again, but this time mixed in stereo. Hewgill was about to record five of these songs over the next week at his studio in Northlake. This is a complete gig (with exception of the Ron Pickett introduction). It features the first live performance of "Let's All Be Happy", the band's then current "new song". At one point in this show, there is a lengthy pause (two minutes) while someone finds a Phillips-head screwdriver to fix Tiger Turbo's bass guitar strap.
LIVE AT THE WIZBAH VOLUME 3 - JUNE 14 1986
Fondle Me / Break Your Fast / Blues Rap / Catholic / Planet 70s / Let's All Be Happy / I've Been Saved / Love Pump / Where Is My Man (first half)
This is the last of the three known Wizbah tapes, taken from cassettes of desk mixes by James Hewgill. This recording was made about two months after the previous recording, and shows a band with an edgier sound than before, brasher and more confident. The audience is small enough for Big Jim to be on first name terms with most of them, and the intimacy is highlighted when bassist Tiger Turbo successfully manages to solicit a drink from the audience. At one point Ron Pickett rather engagingly promises barbeque packs for the best dancers. The band is certainly tighter than before, and can move from one song to the next reasonably quickly when they want to. Unfortunately, only the entire first set plus the first two songs of the second set were captured on one side of a C-90 cassette. The rest of the set would have most likely included "Backpacking", "Diddley Squat" and "Craps", before ending with "Sexual Magnet" and the band's newest song "Fire In The Library". It is also entirely possible that another song, an obscure composition written around that time called "Number One" was performed on this occasion. This tape represents possibly the last Wizbah gig by Love Pump, and quite possibly the last gig for this lineup of the band as well.
LIVE AT THE SHENTS - JUNE 19 1987
false start / soundcheck jam / Play That Funky Music / Break Your Fast / Backpacking / Diddley Squat / Catholic / Sannu / intermission / Woman Of My Dreams / Busy Man / Fondle Me / Cockroach / The Night I Lost My Soul At Craps / Psychic Oasis / Sexual Magnet / Love Pump / after-gig ambience
Most tapes of live shows that exist of Love Pump and other bands of that era are line recordings taken from the "front of house" output of the mixing desk. But this gig was recorded onto my Sony Walkman cassette recorder (with its two inbuilt condenser mikes) from the vantage point of the top of the mixing desk itself. So, although the result is a truer representation of the sound of the band playing that night, the audio fidelity is quite poor. Some amusing audience comments can be heard though, particularly some disparaging comments by members of the Waltons who noticed my Walkman running during Love Pump's set. Apart from preserving several minutes of after-gig hubbub for posterity, this tape also captures part of a jam from the afternoon's soundcheck, where Whip Creme (Adrian) sings "Don't Wanna Bump WIth No Big Fat Woman" over a funk groove. The gig itself celebrates bassist Rock Hard's (Manoli Vayakoulos) 21st birthday. The song "Sannu" appears to have its first public performance tonight.
LIVE AT THE SHENTS - JUNE 26 1987
Play That Funky Music / Break Your Fast / Backpacking / Diddley Squat / Catholic / Sannu / Jam & Ron Pickett announcement / I've Been Saved / Woman Of My Dreams / Busy Man / Fondle Me / The Night I Lost My Soul At Craps / Sexual Magnet / Love Pump
Perhaps I was unhappy with the result of the previous week's taping and tried again. This time, the gig is a line recording, taken at the same venue - the Shenton Park Hotel - the following Friday night. The band is reasonably tight and quite spirited. Whip (Adrian) Creme is in particularly good form this night, especially in the second set, and keeps the proceedings flowing from song to song. Lead guitarist Snake (Peter Hobbs) invites Bertram, his soon-to-be brother-in-law, up on the stage to play drums on "Sannu". Ron Pickett (Fred) takes the opportunity to launch into an acerbic diatribe about the WA Police Force for some obscure reason before his song "I've Been Saved".
THE FRED GILBERT STORY
(Max Lax Drama Hour:) The Fred Gilbert Story Part 1-3 - including excerpts from "The Price Of Alcohol" "Surfing WA" "Hi Morandi" and "I've Been Saved" / (Enemies Of Style:) That's Life / Sexual Perversion / Jaws / Things Happen / Dickie / (Glenn Rogers:) Nemesis / (The Cock-Knees:) Give A Little Twist / What Is Love? / (The Inevitable Boo:) 6NR Radio plug / I Heard Them Crying / (Kayser Morse & Tarin:) Ambient Jam / (Enemies Of Style:) Evil Fred II / (Fingerhead:) Sweet Potato / (Waltons:) radio interview & Feel For The Land / (The Fat:) Amazing Party / (Love Pump:) Love Pump interview / (The Inevitable Boo:) The Inevitable Boo / (Gilbert Morse & Tarin:) The Price Of Alcohol (reprise)
This compilation was conceived around mid 1990 as an audio letter to Fred, who had moved away from his old home town of Perth and started life anew elsewhere. The project was finally realised a year later in 1991, principally by Peter Morse and Trevor Hilton, who recorded a lengthy radio play and audio documentary about Fred (and his alter-ego Ron Pickett), as well as compiling music from various related bands and artists to fill out the rest of the cassette. Unfortunately, what with one thing and another, Fred, who was living in Sydney at that time, never received the end product, and so this compilation languished for about a decade until it was lovingly remastered for CD, and it is believed that Fred recently finally got to hear it after all this time. His reaction to it, however, is not known.
