Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Speckled Foam

ORIGINS: Penrith, NSW
GENRE: Ska-punk
YEARS ACTIVE: 1996-1999
 
MEMBERS:
RELEASES: 

  • Drink Drunk Punk (1997) - Download Here.
    • 1. They're Onto Me Now
    • 2. Teenage Sex
    • 3. CCFM
  • Everyone is Entitled to My Opinion (1998) - Download Here.
    • 1. Loser
    • 2. The One That Got Away
    • 3. Job Application
    • 4. Drive Through Romance
    • 5. Genital Warts
    • 6. High Impact Fairytale
  •  Silly People Never Die (1999) - Download Here.
    • Beer
    • Reason for Your Smile
    • Tease
    • What You Say
    • Getaway
  • Untitled Album (1998) - Download Here. 
    • 1. Somewhere in Nowhere
    • 2. Teenage Sex
    • 3. Cola Girl
    • 4. Beer
    • 5. Stranded
    • 6. This Vehicle is Fitted with 4WD
    • 7. Club Chix
    • 8. Getaway
    • 9. Tease
    • 10. Smile


SUMMARY: Named the night before their first house party gig (which lasted for three days in what turned out to be a backyard baptism of fire) Speckled Foam regrettably took inspiration for their name from the DIY sound insulation in drummer Martin Birrell's garage. To be fair, the insulation was undeniably both speckled and foam-like. Concerned they might confuse their early (five person) fanbase, they never changed the band name.

Speckled Foam largely owes its creation to Martin Koen, who pulled the people together, realised he wanted to play metal instead, and promptly went his own way. The band's first bass player also left the outfit after allegedly chasing another member of the group with a pointy uprooted 'For Sale' sign, one rather messy night. Werrington kids Joel 'Cool' Catanzaro and Martin 'The Biz' Birrell crossed to the wrong side of Dunheved Road and enlisted their mate and secondary axe man from Cambridge Park, Michael 'Tommo' Thompson (RIP). Joey then brought in Tim Walter (who would later go on to be a founding member of Unpaid Debt) who in addition to a Mohawk and Seven Hills punk cred, brought with him bass player 'Goonboy'. This lineup cemented the band's ska punk sound. 

Their first two releases were cassette tape demos which were self-recorded on a Tascam four track, the beginnings of Tim's many exploits as a sound engineer and producer. Their third release, Silly People Never Die, was a cassette recorded at some studio (no one remembers the name) using time the band won at a competition. Their album, which was being made for release in the era of the compact disc, never saw the light of day. 

The band secured a third place win at Youth Rock, which incidentally helped some absconding members get the extracurricular credits they needed to not fail high school. Their tech that day was a young Luke Shirker, who Joey would later live next door to on Unwins Bridge Road in St. Peters. Members of Bagster, Five Knuckle Shuffle, Unpaid Debt and more lived in the dilapidated row of town houses on Unwins Bridge Road, made famous and preserved from demolition because of the pub adjoining them, the Town and Country, which in better times had hosted a down on his luck country singer named Slim Dusty. It was there that he wrote a tune called 'The Pub with No Beer'. A short walk from the then-legendary Zen Studios, Unwins Bridge Road became a staging point for bands breaking out of the West, into the Inner West. 

The members of Speckled Foam went on to found and join bands including Unpaid Debt and Little More Than You. Tommo, who parted ways with the band early on, went on to join Barkode. His tragic passing at 19 prompted a brief Speckled Foam reunion and an acknowledgement among the surviving members that it was the best of times, regardless of the quality of the music (or lack thereof).  

Text supplied by someone who was there, 2024.

 SHOWS: 

 
ORAL HISTORY:
"Joe and some of his mates started the band. Not sure how long they were jamming before I came along. We used to jam in Tommo's lounge room, then in Biz's Dad's factory unit with a stereo/PA that my Dad had. He still has it in the garage."
Tim Walter, Noise Levels correspondence, 2024
 
"I played nothing before Speckled Foam. Played a tiny bit of bass with some guys from school, but none of us could play... at all. Tim walked into the Wastelands shop and we figured out we went to the same Sex Pistols show and we hit it off. It wasn't long after that Tim asked me to try out for Speckled Foam and I learn bass from there"
Chris 'Goonie' Duckworth, Noise Levels correspondence, 2024
 
"First gig I remember was a house party in Werrington. We got noise complaints and everyone from the party grabbed a piece of gear and we walked it through the neighbourhood to another house and continued."
Tim Walter, Noise Levels discussion, 2024
 
"Playing Youthrock was pretty good. My introverted self playing out to something like 1000 people. Penrith High School was also fun. Somehow Tim managed to get the whole high school doing the Chicken Dance to one of our songs"
Chris 'Goonie' Duckworth, Noise Levels correspondence, 2024 
 
"I took the school's 4-track home and just smashed the demos away. Then we won about 48 hours studio time from various band comps. We would turn up and always know a judge or two. Once we played a real shit one and Izzy (who sang in Cult 45) came up and said we were shit but we could still go through to the next round. We used to run out tapes off over the top of the cheapest cassettes we could find. Often old shitty bands that you'd pick up for 50 cents a pop. I think Biz's dad found a whole bunch of them for next to nothing. We would erase them then put a sticker on them, print a dodgy cover, and charge $5. We used to sell so many of them."
Tim Walter, Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

 
RELATED BANDS: Barkode, Little More Than You, Unpaid Debt, Hippycrits, My Name is John, Staunch
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