The Early Days (Part 1)

Frank, Ron and I started rehearsing in early '83. We were joined by a bunch of friends who helped out on drums and bass. Eventually we got Colin Barwick (drums) and Ike Lickliter (bass) from my previous band 'The End' to join and we started playing some sporadic shows around inner Sydney. We went through a variety of names - including 'Final Solution' (from an old Pere Ubu song) before settling on Died Pretty. It was actually a recycled name that Ron had used in Brisbane after The 31st broke up. The Brisbane "Died Pretty' was basically the first incarnation of The Screaming Tribesmen with Ron out front. They only played a handful of shows before Ron left for Sydney. Then when Mick took over the vocals they changed their name to The Screaming Tribesmen.

We had a show coming up and no-one (as usual) could agree on a name so we used Died Pretty as a temporary measure, we just forgot to change it later. Before we knew it, it had stuck.

We were rehearsing a lot of new songs but the early set also included a bunch of old End tunes to tide us over until we had enough of own material. This wasn't a big stretch as three of the five people in the band were from 'The End' and Frank had interviewed me a few times while The End was going (which is how we met) and written some nice reviews. Ron had also been a big fan the band, and The 31st and The End often played shows together in Brisbane. But he did let me know that we needed a better singer –  namely him.....

These are some pics (thanks Colin!) from a very early show at the Southern Cross Hotel in Surry Hills (later to be renamed The Strawberry Hills) with Colin and Ike.

Our first ever review! - B-Side (1984)

Another piece from RAM around the time of the release of 'Out of the Unknown'

These songs come from rehearsals around mid- to late 83' with Colin Barwick on drums, Jonathan 'Ike' Lickliter on bass, Frank Brunetti on Keyboards, Ron on Vocals and me on guitar.

To Sleep and Dream was our original 'set closer' and often veered off into some pretty uncharted territory. We never got around to recording it as by the time we got into the studio we had worked up a few other 'longer' numbers like 'Mirror Blues and 'Desperate Hours' bit of a shame really - it still sounds pretty good....