VA VA VOOM

Rip It Up, Issue 173, 1 December 1991, Page 18

VA VA VOOM

Sensitive, inner-city Sydney band the Hummingbirds landed their Rooart record deal by accident. Having formed the band for fun in 1987, they were still finding their way when they decided to make an eight track demo. Unbeknown to them, someone in the next room taped a copy and sent it to Sydney’s hip Triple J station who immediately placed it on high rotation. Before they knew what was happening people were phoning to offer the Hummingbirds gigs, they were signed to Rooart and set to work on their first album, Lovebuzz, released in 1989. Of course, compared to Barnsey and Farnsey and the Oil and INXS, a band like the Hummingbirds sounds a bit left-field to Australian ears. Dazzled by their sudden elevation to label status, the Hummingbirds succumbed to pressure to make an album that sounded “consistent” and. “professional” enough to appeal to corporate rock radio stations. With the result that they didn't please themselves orthe corporate rock radio stations. Which is why lead guitarist Simon Holmes (here on a fleeting visit for one Hummingbirds show at the Gluepot) launches into an impassioned attack on the evils of modern commercial andthe strangehold it has on contemporary pop. | - “Fortunately we don’t depend on FM radio stations to play our music. The fact of the matter is thatin - Australia the FM stations don't play music that is at all engaging to anybody, they're playing music for the braindead. | can't believe people can sit there and listen to that stuff — American corporate rock or Australian photocopies of it, and dance music if they have to. They're so begrudging about playing anything interesting, they're scared of anything threatening or provocative. And | thought music was supposed to be about provoking a response. The only way things can change is if enough people stand up and say ‘we want this changed’ and the nature of the world is that most people won't do that, therefore FM radio is going fo stay the way it is.” But the Hummingbirds have : always enjoyed student radio support, to the extent that they could go to America fo promote Lovebuzz and play to 400 plus crowds in 25 shows across America purely through college radio support. With a new album, Va Va Voom under their belt, they’ve sold about 30 or 40,000 records in the States so far, but Simon says they’re not preoccupied with sales. . “| don't care about all those things like becoming mega-popular and

successful. | don't see what that's got to do with actually being good at your job.” Along with Ratcat and the Clouds, the Hummingbirds are considered an “alternative” band in Australia, if only because they started outin Sydney’s inner-city scene. Ratcat have gone on to achieve number one chart success and sound about as original as Bryan Adams, but the Hummingbirds and the Clouds have a litle more artistic credibility (both

bands have females on bass and guitar which must stand for somethingin the landof Castlemaine 4X). _ Despite the distance they've travelled, Simon admits that he doesn’t know how many more albums the Hummingbirds will make. “Ifs just that the amount of time and thought that goes into it is not really proportional fo what you get out of it and | don't think that many people listen nearly as closelyto what you're trying to say as you'd like them to. Music is a diversion to most people, but | know that | agonise about every second that goes on one of our records. It would be nice o know that someone was listening and getting what | was trying fo say, because for me there's all kinds of levels to everything we put on a record.” The Hummiungbirds, like their friends Ratcat, started out trying to write pop songs “halfway between the Carpenters and Throbbing

Gristle”, songs that combined melody with a raw edge. But Va Va Voom sounds deceptively sweet. Simon: “Well, that was a mistake that we made. It's a record that has to be listened to eight or ten times before it starts to make sense. We felt we'd made the brash record and we didn’t want to do that again so being normal human beings we

went to the opposite extreme, we wanted to make a deceptive record which sounded straightforward and pleasant but actually had a fair bit going on underneath. | thinkit's a rather artifical sounding record

which in retrospect | wish it hadn't been. At the same time, what we wanted to do was each songwriter would go in and put every musical part down themselves — guitar, bass keyboards. We got people in to play the viola and horn sections but we don't let the fact that we don’t know how to play something stop us from giving it a shot.” They've since recorded an EP (due out in January) and a new single, an obscure Donovan cover called You've Just Gotta Know My Mind'. The Hummingbirds know how to make the 60's connection. Simon: ‘I hate the fact that the 60’ gets invoked where we're - concerned. But | think cil the qualities of pop music were at a much higher level of sophistication then than they have been since. All the really big artists were certainly trying different things all the time and innovation was a matter of course rather than an exception. That's what | admire about the 607,

and | don't think things were nearly as compartmentalised as everything is now. The Beatles were the greatest band of all time because they weren't afraid to throw everything out the window and do exactly what they wanted to and they didn't care if it didn't sound like them, that was the whole point — innovation and a complete lack of concern for people’s expectations or losing money or whatever. Its difficult o find anyone to look up to these days. | love Soundgarden,” (noficing their new album in my bag), “but if's obvious they're just doing the

Zep/Sabbath thing, throwing in a bit of art and a bit of fashion with long hair and shorts. | don't think anyone's trying to actually push the envelope, create anything original. Its as if the entire community has decided, okay, rock and rollis dead so all we want to do is just regurgitate it.” Whether the Hummingbirds manage to sidestep that particular trap is debatable, but its good to - know that some bands are determined fo struggle against the avalanche of corporate crap suffocating contemporary rock/pop. It you're not a metal band or a rap/dance band you might as well forget it, or be assigned to the oblivion of “alternative” land. Meanwhile, the Hummingbirds will confinue to nick song titles from Jimi Hendrix and make music that sounds like the Bangles meets the Byrds — quiet pop with conviction forthe post-video generation. 4

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