Harry Howard is an Australian musician who played bass guitar in Crime and the City Solution[1] and These Immortal Souls both also featuring his older brother, Rowland S. Howard. He then played guitar in Pink Stainless Tail for several years.
Harry now fronts his own band Harry Howard and the NDE where he sings his own songs and plays guitar. The band also includes Edwina Preston on backing vocals, Acetone organ and Stylophone, Clare Moore on drums and Dave Graney on bass guitar. It may be Harry Howard’s fate to forever be overshadowed by his late brother Rowland, but this would be a serious injustice. Despite the fact that young Harry was the bass player in These Immortal Souls, and thus will forever be associated with a mythical Melbourne netherworld of pallid skin and dank romanticism, he has been forging a career in his own right for a long time.
As guitarist in Pink Stainless Tail, Howard was a musical foil to the manic ramblings and gyrations of enigmatic front man Simon Strong – a flailing scarecrow amalgam of William Burroughs and Mark E Smith. In PST, Howard developed his slashing yet melodic six string style, so different to his brother’s, yet equally as inspired and unique. Marrying chiming ’60s garage chords with post-punk reductivism and psychedelic flourishes (more Syd Barrett than David Gilmour – the man has taste!), the end result was absolutely compelling to the group’s small coterie. Alas, eventually PST could no longer contain his desire to set out as a songsmith in his own right, and so tonight marked the debut of his very own band.
Expectations were high, as the back room at the Builders Arms slowly filled during Stu Thomas’ excellent solo support slot. The occasion was always going to draw out a few old goths and ex-junkies who seemingly hadn’t been to a rock gig since the Seaview Ballroom closed its doors. Thomas at times struggled to be heard over the clamour of middle-aged women in black witchy dresses arguing over seating arrangements, while a nauseating fug of bleach and patchouli hung in the air. Beer, however, was the drug of choice as Bad Orchestra powered through their set of skewed party rock. Then it was time to get up close and personal for a look at this new group.
Howard was flanked by his partner Edwina Preston on an ancient Farfisa organ and occasional vocals, while the rhythm section consisted of the king and queen of pop themselves: Dave Graney on bass and Clare Moore on drums, “back in post-punk mode” in their own words. True to that statement, they thumped away with the kind of reckless abandon and clattering urgency that comes from years spent as Moodists. It was the perfect accompaniment to Howard’s lacerating guitar strum and torrent of lyrics.
Becoming more confident with each song, Preston rose to the challenge, coaxing great wheezing slabs of noise out of her organ. She played a stylophone, a sort of miniature sythesiser, with equal force too – even though it’s not an instrument you’d typically hear in rock’n’roll (with the exception of a few Tall Dwarfs songs).
It will take a while for audiences to become familiar with the songs –there were a lot of them and each one was more compelling than the last – but it’s definitely possible to cite reference points for The Harry Howard Band’s ruckus. At various points, it was possible to detect shades of The Fall, Swell Maps or even early Stranglers in the repetition, raw chords and meaty rhythms. But this group isn’t interested in nostalgia. They are a new and vital addition to Melbourne’s ever-fecund musical undergrowth.