Beat Rhythm Fashion release, and Barry Plankton puzzle
Yayy this week arrived my copy of Failsafe Records' new CD collecting the lost singles of early 80s Wellington band Beat Rhythm Fashion with their vast echoey chilling postpunk sound. The iconic, bewildering, gloriously dark song 'Turn of the Century' from 1981 is more distant from the insistent early 'Seventeen Seconds' Cure model of some other tracks. Great work by Failsafe.
But here's a puzzle that some Melbourne and Kiwi postpunkheads must be able to settle. Peter at dub dot dash passed on here the second-hand news that the brothers in Beat Rhythm Fashion, Nino Birch and Dan Birch, 'ended up in Melbourne, playing in a band called Barry Plankton'. Is this true? This link was how I found BRF in the first place, searching for Plankton time and their (equally lost, or more so now) 1991 record Sea Brains, which is sunny and magical and utterly diverse, 17 swirling pop songs just janglysmart enough, with three or four transporting tracks at the heart of the album - 'Walking Alone', 'Everyday', 'Dreaming is Easy', 'Major Drug' - which outdo There She Goes or any of the other perfect pop of the era. I saw Barry Plankton with their five singers in 1992 playing their guts out for maybe 20 people in Adelaide at the fringe club but I didn't say 'thanks!'. Anyway my Sea Brains album doesn't give the names of the band members, and the problem with the Birch bros story is that insistent googling comes up with four other guys who were in Barry Plankton: Bryan Colechin (Hugo Race), Des Hefner (Birthday Party), Wayne Drury, plus a Marty P. So unless two of those are the same person, then the two Birch bros couldn't have been in the 5-piece too. What's the truth?
5 Comments:
I knew the Birch Brothers in the late 1990's. Dan was toying with the name for a band "Jesus Chrysler". I don't know if anything came from it. Libby
Thanks Libby! Looks like they did it - http://www.jesuschrysler.freeservers.com/ - Are these the guys you know? couple of songs on youtube that I'll check out. With Barry Plankton, then, do you know if any of the guys in this video are the Birch brothers? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeFwX2Cy6Ns
Dan wasn't a member of barry Plankton. Nino used the name Nino Skempton
thanks bry3500! blast from the past ... I was dreaming of Barry Plankton in 1992 just this week roaming the old Adelaide Fringe buildings where they played ... cheers, kenelmdigby
Hi there. Nino here. Only I played for the planktons . Dan was still in NZ at the time ... he came over and we did form a band with des hefner and played a couple of gigs.. one supporting crowd house fir Neil's 30th birthday at the Venue (demolished now) in St kilda melb. Happy to clear that up for you :)
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