Lubricated Goat

Lubricated Goat was an Australian noise rock band of the 1980s. They achieved brief notoriety for playing on a television program naked, wearing only their instruments and shoes. 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.

History

Lubricated Goat was formed by Sydney musician Stu Spasm (real name Stuart Grey). While returning from a visit to England, Spasm went to Perth to visit former Singing Dog drummer Brett Ford who was then playing in The Kryptonics with Peter Hartley.

While in Perth, Spasm 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 Spasm ran into Guy Maddison of Perth band the Greenhouse Effect (now a member of Mudhoney). Maddison, who was now living in Sydney, was offered 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 who were known to host art shows and nude discos.^[1] These events, however, were less common than they were reputed to be.

In 1988, Lubricated Goat released its debut full-length, Paddock of Love, which featured the track "In the Raw". The band subsequently lip-synced a nude performance of the song on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV program Blah Blah Blah, an event which created national media outrage. A documentary film was made about the event, also titled In the Raw, which explains how and why the band came to be nude in the first place.

Around this time there also was a lineup change. Hartley was sacked and Ford quit, to be replaced respectively by guitarist Charles Tolnay of Grong Grong and King Snake Roost and Gene Revet, drummer of The Space Juniors. In 1989, the new lineup recorded the EP Schadenfreude. Tolnay and Revet did not tour the US; Spasm and Maddison were instead joined by Renastair EJ (ex-Bloodloss) and Bland for the first US tour. Later, after Maddison's departure, this lineup recorded the full-length Psychedelicatessen with Lachlan McLeod on bass.

Lubricated Goat had its back catalog re-released via Amphetamine Reptile Records in the United States and on Normal in Europe before embarking on 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. The incident placed Lubricated Goat on hiatus.

Post-1980s

Various incarnations of Lubricated Goat (often featuring only Stu Spasm) have existed since the early 1990s, recording material for Sub Pop, PCP, Sympathy for the Record Industry and Reptilian. Among the members in the mid-2000s was Australian drummer Hayden Millsteed, also a founder of New York post-punk band Bell Hollow.

Spasm also played in Crunt, which featured his then-wife Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland as well as Jon Spencer Blues Explosion drummer Russell Simins.

In 2007, a brand new lineup of Lubricated Goat started writing and performing new songs alongside their older classics. This ensemble included Anne Mette Rasmussen on keyboards, sound effects and backup vocals; Creighton Chamberlain (formerly of Heroine Sheiks) on bass; and drummer Rich Hutchins (a former member of Live Skull, Of Cabbages and Kings, Sugartime, and Hungry March Band, currently performing with Phideaux).

The lineup changed again in 2009, with Creighton Chamberlain replaced by Jack Natz, formerly of the 1980s New Jersey punk band The Undead, as well as Black Snakes, Cop Shoot Cop and Red Expendables. Natz had previously also played bass in Lubricated Goat off and on from the late '90s through the mid-00's. Rasmussen left to form her own band LoveStruck, which also features both Spasm and Hutchins.

Discography

Albums

• Paddock of Love (Amphetamine Reptile [U.S.]/ Normal [Europe], 1988)
• Psychedelicatessen (Amphetamine Reptile [U.S.], 1990)
• Forces You Don't Understand (1994, PCP)

EPs

• Plays the Devil’s Music (Black Eye/ Amphetamine Reptile [U.S.], 1987)
• Schadenfreude 12" (Black Eye, 1989)

7" singles

• "Meating My Head" (Sub Pop, 1989) (part of Sub Pop Singles Club, on yellow vinyl)
• "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) (re-recorded versions with new lineup)

Appearances

• "Jason's Place" on Waste Sausage LP (Black Eye Records, 1987) (Australian only release)
• "Bad Times" on Dope-Guns-'N-Fucking in the Streets Volume Four double 7" (Amphetamine Reptile, 1990) (four-way split with Boss Hog, Thee Mighty Caesars and Vertigo) (also appeared on Dope-Guns-'N-Fucking in the Streets Volumes 4-7 CD; Amphetamine Reptile, 1990)

References

External links

• Trouser Press entry
• In The Raw documentary site