THE LUCKSMITHS
What a group The Lucksmiths were… but first a bit about me me me.
I was in a band once. When I tell people about that band, I tell them three things. John Peel liked us. Frankie Stubbs from Leatherface liked us. And we once supported The Lucksmiths at a gig in a room above a pub in Newcastle (and whilst nobody came - which was hugely frustrating to me and my then flatmate and promotion whizz Paul Reed - the night felt a little bit like having one of my favourite bands all to myself).
The band - their band, The Lucksmiths, not mine - entered ‘Indie Heaven’ in 2009, though their legacy hasn’t faded, nor has my love for their songs. I had to speak to Marty Donald [guitar] and Mark Monnone [bass] for this website…
Let’s start at the beginning. It’s Melbourne. It’s 1993. There’s a new band on the scene. They’re called The Buzzards!
Marty: “The Buzzards wasn’t an actual band in any real sense! It grew out of a final-year high school project, where we were basically given the opportunity to do whatever we liked. I chose to write and record - straight to cassette! - a bunch of fairly execrable songs, enlisting a couple of much more talented friends to help me out — including Mark, who I’d become friends with, despite him being much cooler than me when he arrived at our school a year or two earlier. Ignoring the quality of the results, the whole thing was obviously enough fun for me to spend the next 30 years doing more or less the same thing…”
Mark, I believe you went to Finland and that band broke up…
Mark: “As Marty says, The Buzzards wasn’t really anything that could ‘break up’ as such, more just evolve into something more substantial, which could mean anything really – a camping trip, a tennis match… As it turns out, Tali [White, drums and vocals] - who was a year below us in school - had just completed his Year-12 and we all spent the summer making some songs together. In February 1993, I left the heat of Melbourne and flew to Finland with my mum to say farewell to her mum – my mummu – who passed away while we were still in the air, on the way over. We spent the month trudging through the snow and catching up with our Finnish family, people I hadn’t seen since I was a toddler. It was a profound time, a pivotal moment in my life. I knew when I got home I wanted to chase up Tali and Marty to turn our little project into a pop group that would endure for sixteen years… and continue to do interviews well after we’d broken up.”
Happy to oblige. Your first gig was supporting The Sugargliders, a band I really liked. What do you remember about that?
Marty: “Definitely a cool first show! The Sugargliders were Tali’s cousins, and I’m eternally grateful that they gave us that opportunity. It was at The Evelyn Hotel on Brunswick St, in Fitzroy — the epicentre of Melbourne’s inner-north music scene back then. I don’t remember too much about the show itself, aside from Mark playing what I think was a bongo - singular - on one song that we hadn’t come up with a bassline for. My clearest memories are of how nervous I was in the days leading up to it, and of getting the train into the city a couple of days afterwards and meeting Joel [Meadows] at Flinders Street Station so he could give us some money. I don’t know that it had occurred to me that we might get paid.”
I'm always impressed when I learn about indie pop bands from your part of the world, who existed prior to the ubiquity of the internet. How did these sounds make their way to you?
Marty: “When I was younger, I pored over mainstream music magazines and listened to commercial radio. As I got older and more discerning, these gave way to the overseas music press like the NME and community radio. Friends shared tapes, too; I remember an American exchange student at high school lending me a copy of the Pixies’ Doolittle, which I loved. I would also spend hours browsing in a few now-defunct Melbourne record stores, occasionally taking a punt on something that looked promising, and buying plenty of secondhand vinyl and cassettes at markets. When we started making music ourselves, and touring, the fanzine scene became particularly important in spreading the word; I remember being amazed when we first made it to the US at how extensive those indie networks were — and that there were people on the other side of the world who could sing along at our shows!”
Man, I’m a bit younger than you guys, but I’m so pleased I got to experience that world…
Marty: “It’s impossible to tell how much of this is simply nostalgia, but I do feel as though all the obstacles made moments of musical discovery a little more meaningful, somehow, than they might be today, when pretty much everything is a couple of clicks away, or served up to you by an algorithm. Of course, the massive flip side to this is that you can record a song in your bedroom that’s immediately heard around the world, so I don’t want to get too misty-eyed about it. We had a great perspective on this, as The Lucksmiths’ career basically coincided with the development of the internet, and the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. I do miss those record stores, though.”
Can you tell me a little bit about Candle Records? That label had such an impressive roster. There isn't a minute that's gone by in the last hour where I haven't wished I was there to see the roster perform 'We Are The World' by Michael Jackson at those shows they put on to mark the closure of the label…
Mark: “Sounds like a very slow hour! In all honesty though, that’s still one of my all-time stage highlights… and I’ve performed with bearded cage dancers, dressed as flamingos. It’s really not possible to overstate the significance of Candle Records in The Lucksmiths’ life – as DiY as we were, having the support and resources to back up our – often commercially unviable – ideas, was kind of unbelievable. Chris Crouch was endlessly open to some pretty loose ideas and very trusting in the face of imminent bankruptcy.”
Marty: “Candle Records was hugely important to me. As strong as the Melbourne music scene was back then, there weren’t too many bands making the sort of music we were, so it was invaluable to form such a close connection with like-minded comrades — many of whom remain among my closest friends. Beyond all the practical work that Crouchy did on our behalf, it felt pretty awesome to be part of something bigger than just our band.”
Where was your head at during The Lucksmiths run? Did you dream of pop stardom, or was being a modestly beloved DIY indie pop act enough?
Marty: “The latter. It was always nice to feel as though more people were hearing our music when we put a new record out, and to play some bigger shows or tour somewhere we’d never been before. But we were never particularly careerist in how we went about things. The focus was always simply on making the music we wanted to, which I think we knew wasn’t a recipe for commercial success — but that didn’t really worry me. None of the bands I loved were very successful either, so I felt as though we were in good company.”
Mark, can you talk a bit about your label, Lost & Lonesome? Tough gig running an indie label and only getting tougher I imagine…
“Thanks for asking. Yeah, it’s become a bit confusing of late but I’m still persevering like a masochist. When I started the label up in 1998, it was pretty low key – my friend Jane McCracken and I would go on surfing trips and scheme ways to release music by our friends’ bands, and our own. Jane was in The Foots whose self-titled debut CD was L&L001. We followed that with releases from some bands who The Lucksmiths had met on our first overseas tour – The Aislers Set from San Francisco and The Salteens from Vancouver, BC. Jane was smart and skipped out early but we still remain close friends. I guess my main aim initially was to connect all these awesome overseas bands with great indie pop bands from Australia like The Zebras and The Bank Holidays and open up touring possibilities for everyone. L&L has since put out about 120 releases, held a lot of fun shows, toured some Australian bands overseas and invited some amazing ones to Australia including Je Suis Animal, The Wedding Present, Still Flyin’, Yellow Fever and Sonny & The Sunsets. No-one’s made a stack of cash but I also haven’t lost any friends in the process… so what the hell, I’m gonna call that a success!”
Loads of your songs reference Australian Rules Football. I used to sometimes watch it when it was broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK, but I never really understood it and was a bit scared by the violence. I'll stick with our football, I think - but sell it to me!
Marty: “Greatest game in the world! I genuinely love it. It’s not quite as violent as it used to be, either. I especially love the opportunity - in ordinary times, at least - to take international visitors along to a game, as it’s a great spectacle even for a novice, despite the myriad bewildering rules. I think that experience encapsulates so much of what is great about Melbourne. I’m sure it exhausts non-fans endlessly, but the sport holds an incredibly prominent position in the day-to-day life of the city, blurring all sorts of other social boundaries. Its egalitarianism goes right back through the game’s history. If you look at photos from 100 years ago — when most sport was very much a male domain — Australian Rules crowds feature a remarkable number of women and children. Although it’s more of a national competition now, with teams based around the country, the AFL grew out of the Melbourne suburban league, and traces of that old geographical tribalism remain etched across the city. As much as the game itself, it’s these cultural aspects that I love…”
I think I might be close to at least investigating more…
Marty: “The mighty St Kilda Saints - beloved by both Mark and me, but by almost any historical measure the least successful club in the competition - have just bowed out of our first finals series for nine years and so, as another season passes by, we won’t be adding to our solitary premiership from around 123 years ago.”
So, a lot of the bands I talk to for this site were favourites of mine as a teenager, but I came to The Lucksmiths via the 2002 compilation Where Were We. I think I reviewed it for NME and there was certainly a little buzz in the UK about your band at that point. Did it feel like that from where you were standing?
Mark: “Yeah! It was always a blast visiting the UK with The Lucksmiths. Our first ever show there in 1998 was at the tiny Poetry Café and our last show was ten-years-later at the considerably larger Scala, so we certainly have a buzz to thank for that. Thanks for reviewing our album and contributing to the buzz! We were pretty lucky to have had Fortuna Pop! take us under their wing – between releasing our records, booking our tours and letting us crash on his floor for weeks on end, Sean Price really went out of his way for us. He even managed to do some fancy wangling, and get us on the opening slot for Jonathan Richman’s 2001 UK tour for which I’ll forever be indebted to him.”
Me and my friend Ross saw you! And now? You’re all in touch still?
Marty: “I can say we are still in contact. Me, Louis [Richter, guitar] and Mark still play together variously in numerous bands… Last Leaves, Monnone Alone and Mid-State Orange to name but a few. Tali is on extended hiatus whilst teaching school children how to learn school stuff.”
Well, thanks for doing this! Want to plug anything?
Mark: “The Lucksmiths' 1997 album A Good Kind of Nervous just came out on vinyl for the first time! Available from Lost And Lonesome and ace US label Matinée Recordings!”