Lipstick Killers
Mesmerizer

 The usual story of a group of losers thrown into the fray in the American metropolis. The land of origin is still that red and magically fertile Australian bush of the late seventies, when Radio Birdman made a mess abroad trying to combine the garage punk aggressiveness of their compatriots Missing Links with the hard punk of the Stooges. In short, the Aussie scene had just taken a hard hit, when from the clogged sinks of Sydney emerged these Lipstick Killers, coalescing in a calcified formation from pre-existing punk bands that covered Stooges and Sonics. The bomb was certainly that garage-punk single known as "Hindu Gods of Love" produced by Deniz Tek which enchanted Greg Shaw of Bomp Records (a subsidiary of Voxx) due to its acid keyboards and tribal drumbeats, so much so that it was re-released in the USA in 1979.

 Yes, Greg Shaw: the beginning of the ruin for the Killers. Lured by the possibility of success in Los Angeles, they ended up sleeping in that rundown artists' motel known as the Tropicana Hotel (Tom Waits frequented it), which later turned out to be too luxurious for them, so they switched to an even more decrepit, cockroach-infested place. Nine months filled with blazing gigs with Peter Tillman brandishing a pole topped with a shrunken head and Mark Taylor bombarding the stoned kids in the audience with explosive riffs. Punk covers of "Let's talk about girl" by Chocolate Watchband, the immortal garage anthem of the Wailers "Out of our tree" made even hotter, "Sock it to me baby" by Mitch Ryder (from Detroit again), even "I've Got Levitation" by the Elevators, just when Roky Erykson was touring nearby with his Explosions. But the original songs of the band have their own power too, besides the legendary "Hindu Gods of Love", there are gems that drift into distorted psychedelia like "Strange Flash" and especially "Dying Boy's Crawl", a repeated guitar chord and tribal percussion accompanying Peter for over five minutes! The gripping "Pharmaceutical Au Go-Go" that brings heart and guts back to the essence of rock while tracks like "Liquor Fit" testify to the Australian love for the blood and sweat that Iggy used to spill on stage in the golden days.

 All this and more can be found in "Mesmerizer," a live album put together with makeshift means by jack-of-all-trades Chris D. from a cassette recording of one of those Los Angeles concerts, and I assure you that the feeling is the same filthy, desperate and at the same time angry that the Iguana and the Stooges unleashed on their audience. But the Lipstick Killers also had to fight with bills to pay, part-time jobs to survive, the bassist wandering around with a loose wheel for days through the city of angels...and so they exploded.

 After nine months, they returned to Sydney to try and rebuild their lives (it seems Peter is now a respected lawyer and Mike one of the world's largest collectors of '60s garage singles). They have played concerts again, had reunions, and even formed a new group but never entered a recording studio as Lipstick Killers and this almost-bootleg was released by the commendable Citadel in Australia only in 1984. By then the Killers, those who recreated the conditions for the revival of the Aussie sound, that particular sound that is a cross between the early '60s garage and punk, from which the Celibate Rifles, Lime Spiders, Exploding With Mice, etc. took their (re)starts...well, those Lipstick Killers were by then a distant meteor.

Post Scriptum: In 1984, the late Warren Zevon organized a rock-blues band along with R.E.M without Stipe, of course. They called it Hindu Love Gods and I have always liked to think it was a tribute to the Lipstick Killers' single. But I bet my turntable that from the heights of their greatness they hadn't even heard of those four Australian losers. Please, prove me wrong.