Friday, July 19, 2024

Flyspeak

 
ORIGINS: Sydney, NSW
GENRE: Indie, Punk
YEARS ACTIVE: 1992-2001
 
MEMBERS:
  • Dave - Vocals, Guitar
  • Harry Avramidis - Bass, Vocals
  • Anatole Day - Drums
RELEASES: 
 
  • Edible '97 (1997) [Compilation]
    • Lateline

  • The Amazing Swimming Dog (1997) - Download Here.
    • 1. TV - Latenight
    • 2. Big Red / Little Red
    • 3. Indian Rubber Head
    • 4. Bedroom 103
    • 5. Conquistador
    • 6. Library (Not A)
    • 7. TV - Daytime 


  • Lateline (1998)
    • 1. Lateline
    • 2. After All
    • 3. Last Train Out of Sydney


  • The Box and the Beautiful (1999)
    •  Felix

SUMMARY: Flyspeak formed as a three-piece punk band before evolving into something more indie-sounding. Flyspeak played a lot of shows, including an early performance at the very first Homebake in Sydney, and released an EP that gained a cult following in Sydney. As time went on they had music released by both Chatterbox Records and Aristotle's Box. 

NOTE: The first-released track 'Lateline' is a different recording to the title track of the 1998 single.

SHOWS: 
ORAL HISTORY:
DAVE: Me and Harry grew up together. And we were the rare breed of punk/thrash/metal kind of wogs. Most young Greeks didn't go for that shit back in the '90s... they were more club/house focused. We were also more into skating than cars. Around the age of 15 we decided w would be a band. A band like the Clash of Dead Kennedys or The Hard-Ons. Hard-Ons made it seem doable - three piece... guts and not super technical. So we became a band. A punk band. Then we decided what we would each play based on who managed to buy what, first. Harry landed on bass. I went guitar because drums were too big. Anatole was a British weirdo raised in Papua New Guinea for some reason. His brothers raised him AC/DC orthodox. He spoke funny and was a big strong straight back guy; so perfect drum nutter. 
Dave (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024
 
HARRY: The band Dave and I really bonded over, when we were about 14 and had started hanging out daily, was the Dead Kennedys. They were probably the reason we wanted to be in a band together later on. I remember Dave also loved Hunters and Collectors and I loved Midnight Oil Tolly loved AC/DC. I think how proudly and uniquely Australian they sounded influenced us a lot. I used to listen to a lot of British stuff too like Joy Division, The Damned, Stone Roses, Madness, Blur, and Dave loved Metallica and Guns and Roses. We both loved and still do love Slayer! But we also listened to everything from Kraftwerk and The Chemical Brothers to Bob Dylan and Neil Young. And Cypress Hill - Tolly loved them! He would just play a cassette of Black Sunday on repeat in his tiny car. For like 2 years. We were total nerds for music. We loved and breathed it.  
Harry Avramidis (Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024
 

ANATOLE: Back in Year 10 at school, Harry, Dave and I, plus a couple more peeps, decided to form a band. I reluctantly brought a drum kit, having never played, and we then started jamming over the school holidays regularly and on most weekends through Years 11 and 12. Dave was quite the hard taskmaster but it made us get very good very quickly. Sometime in 1995 we became a three piece and settled on the name Flyspeak. It was kind of 'pop-punk'... I think we had a bit of a Strokes feel to us. We were influenced by bands like You Am I, Green Day, Nirvana... we certainly had a '90s sound but I think we would still go alright today if we were still gigging. Dave originally came up with the name 'Flyspeck', but I misread it on his list of names and said 'Flyspeak', which we all liked, so the name was a happy mistake really.
Anatole Day (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024
 
DAVE: We still had a few years left of high school, so basically all we did was practise at Anatole's dad's place behind the Excelsior Hotel near Central Station and teach ourselves to play the instruments we'd bought. We came in 100% cold. It worked out great. Played dumb house parties. Got less shitty... We did mainly parties, then the odd band competition.
Dave (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024
 
HARRY: Dave and I used to write about people we knew, nights out, or just our day to day existence. We were influenced a lot by bands like You Am I, Weezer (the Blue album and Pinkerton), Radio Birdman, The Clash... I think those bands all wrote songs that were particular to them and named streets and places and people in their worlds but in a way they wrote about very universal themes. That either consciously or subconsciously rubbed off on us. We used to listen to them constantly. We also loved Talking Heads, Beastie Boys, Black Flag, Sonic Youth, David Bowie, The Stooges. I wish it was as easy and cheap to record and release stuff back then as it is now. We used to write a lot! I think it was almost a song a day for a time and we would experiment with all different styles and influences. Because both Dave and I would write, it was prolific for the first two years of us as a band and every set we played we would be totally different to the last. As we were gigging so much we could test songs out, sometimes the day we wrote and put them together. Wish we had recorded more. The three of us all loved experimenting with sound so if we'd had access to home recording back then it would have been fun to see what we might have created together! We had a 4 track recorder that we used to record random samples and film soundtracks on... Dave and I loved Dario Argento, George Romero, and John Carpenter films we we used to muck around sometimes with imitating those soundtracks. We would spend hours just mucking around with Casio keyboards and effects pedals. Wish we'd recorded it but we had no end game. We would just do it and move on to the next thing and this was before home studios and computers became a thing. I guess sometimes things are best left in their time and place - it's fun to think back now, though. 
Harry Avramidis (Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

ANATOLE: We started practicing in our respective garages and basements and bedrooms. Just out of high school, I moved in with my dad and converted a basement level room into a practice room where we could practice at any hour without disturbing anyone (it was really well soundproofed). This was great because we would often come back from a gig and get straight back into writing and rehearsing while were still on a creative high. We started pretty much every rehearsal with a jam to get in the mood and get warmed up - this would often lead to the beginnings of a new song.
Anatole Day (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

BRUNO: I saw Flyspeak with my bandmate Ben at some ball at UTS in one of the halls there, with about 15 people in the audience. I loved them. They reminded me of Peabody in that same smartarse kinda way. Similar energy. And they covered 'Don't Change' by INXS, which is one of my favourite songs ever. 
Bruno Brayovic (Peabody), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

DAVE: Bruno B from Peabody was a real turning point. Once we were out in the world, those guys saw what we were doing, liked us, then showed us the ropes. Introduced us round. And then it was on. Bruno was a Chilean refugee via fuckin' Villawood. Peabody dudes were from out west. We were pretty clueless Inner City / Eastern Suburb rich kids. So we needed our horizons expanded. We didn't hide how lame we were. Nobody made a big deal. I think they do more now... We finally got pretty popular at the Sandringham Hotel in the early '90s. We played all the time. That's where I learned that heroin was not just in movies. Very cool time. Frenzal, Front End Loader, etc., made us feel like part of it all. 
Dave (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024
 
BRUNO: I guess both Peabody and Flyspeak were kinda outside of the whole inner-city scene, which was important if you wanted to be heard. Peabody got in their earlier mostly 'cause I'm a pub-hound and I'd drink till 5am in Newtown after seeing bands, so I met other bands and bookers and managers, etc. We probably played 10 or so shows with Flyspeak, including a great one we did at Feedback in Newtown on a Sunday night where we got about 150 people into the tiny venue.
Bruno Brayovic (Peabody), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024
 
 
HARRY: So many shows standout in my memory - playing Irresponsathon at the Hordern, playing a run of shows with Tumbleweed at Jindabyne, playing with Blue Meanies, Nitocris, Frenzal Rhomb... many shows with Frenzal Rhomb, they were really good to us. We also got to support international bands like Less Than Jake and Super Furry Animals on their Australian tours. Other gigs included our many shows with Lantern, Peabody, Phloem, Skulker, playing an Annandale show with Jebediah and The Vines, playing the Iron Duke with Gerling and Eskimo Joe - I think it was Eskimo Joe's first time to Sydney. Playing the Hopetoun with Motor Ace on one of their first visits to Sydney. Some of the early shows that were random house parties or community halls all around Greater Sydney and NSW also standout. Small venues like Feedback, which was above Newtown Train Station, were also really memorable, as was playing Revesby Workers supporting Spy vs. Spy. We loved every gig we played I think. They were always really fun nights.  
Harry Avramidis (Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

DAVE: We played all gigs we were offered, anywhere, anytime, with whoever. And slowly we got weirder and more twisted pop and new-wave, I guess. We watched a lot of Italian horror and got into the soundtracks by Goblin and bent Italian stuff. Not everyone liked it. We left a bunch of shit unrecorded and unreleased. I kind of like those jams the best and I'm kind of happy they will never see the light of day. 
Dave (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

ANATOLE: My three favourite songs would be 'Library (Not A)' because it was just unbridled teenage angst coming through, 'Last Train...' because I love the half-time breakdown, and 'After All' because that drum take was done on the first take and I nailed it! The recording process was awesome as I was studying audio engineering at AIM, so I was learning a lot. It's great to have a producer come in and revamp the songs with their own take on it, something you don't get when it's just the band members putting ideas down. 
Anatole Day (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

HARRY: The songs I am most proud of and would have loved to record were 'Paul's Rat's Tail' and 'Sam the Firefly'. They were fun to play live and crowds responded. I was really proud of the lyrics for both songs. The arrangements were great too. Another song that often creeps into my head is 'Bat and Ball', which Dave wrote very quickly one day. I think we played it only once or twice live but it was a great little song with great lyrics and I'm not sure why we didn't keep it in the set. I would've loved to have recorded that one as well. 'Gold' and 'Better' were other great tracks from Dave and always went down well live and I got to flex some Duran Duran style bass, haha. Very fun to play and Dave's lyrics were stellar. I think when we did the new wave, disco-punk thing - Flyspeak was in our happy place and it brought out the playful live sound in a way that came very naturally to us as players. All the songs I've just mentioned are in that camp. 
Harry Avramidis (Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

ANATOLE: The standout Flyspeak show for me was opening the 1996 Homebake Festival at Sydney Uni. We'd won the Sydney Uni band comp that year and as part of the prize we got to open the festival. It was a stand out due to our stage antics upon the conclusion of the set - once we finished, I donned a stack hat and Dave proceeded to smash an old acoustic guitar over my head. It did not break on the first attempt (which nearly knocked me out) and so he had another go of it while I was steadying myself... this time it shattered into a thousand pieces and set the crowd into a frenzy. I'm sure I suffered concussion but it was well worth it!
Anatole Day (Drums), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

REVIEW: If you put Dylan Lewis from Recovery in front of Front End Loader to play Supergrass-influenced songs, you'd pretty much encapsulate what Flyspeak have going... Pete Townshend windmills, flying-splits, and overall wank-rock flamboyance. (It was) a slick set with decibels to burn and some really catchy rock/pop melodies, like 'Top 40 Rock Song', the true-to-the-original 'Psycho Killer' and the Harry Avramidis-penned disco-rock piece whose name escapes me, even with the set list as an aide. Much of this quite large crowd were bobbing along through the majority of the set. Flyspeak are worthy of your punting cover charge!
Review of Hopetoun show (18th Feb, 2000), PC (Jacky) Gleeson, Music Reviews Website

HARRY: Technically Flyspeak only ever had the three members... we had a very short-lived band called Standard Equipment with the three of us plus a guy called Daniel Maurici on guitar. Around 2001, Dave and I (who were the primary songwriters in Flyspeak) started exploring other genres of music. Dave got really into alt-country/low-fi, and I started writing a lot of indie electro.
Harry Avramidis (Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024
 

 
DAVE: It's all step to the next step. And then we all moved on to something else when the momentum slowed down. Which I'm completely fine with. I love those guys forever. We still ride or die for each other. 
Dave (Vocals, Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2024

RELATED BANDS: The Teddysexuals, Peter Fonder, The Woods Themselves, Holly Throsby, Slumberjack, Dotcom, Twin Valve, The Rebounds, Lose the Dress, Sunset Retirement Club

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