Saturday, November 29, 2025

Purr


ORIGINS: Sydney, NSW
GENRE: Riot Grrrl, Punk, Alternative
YEARS ACTIVE: 1993-1996
 
MEMBERS:
RELEASES:

  • Split w/ Nitocris (1994)
    • 1. Grrly Things
  • Umbilical (1996) - Download Here.
    • 1. Umbilical
    • 2. Perfect Snatch
    • 3. Ringing
    • 4. Mogadon
    • 5. Bodyfat Injections
    • 6. Head in the Cupboard
  • Compilation-only Tracks 
    • Ashtray (1995) - on Half Life (Serum Records compilation)
    • Sportsgirl Nose Ring (1995) - on Rock 'N' Roll is Here to Pay (P-76 Records compilation)
    • Train (1995) - on Jerky (Purr Zine compilation)
SUMMARY: Inspired by the riot grrrl genre, Purr formed in Sydney and left their mark after just 3 or so years. Putting on their own shows, producing their own zine, and releasing their own music, Purr exemplified the DIY aesthetic of punk whilst also playing often with indie and alt-rock bands. The band broke up in '96. 
 
SHOWS: 
  • Feedback, Newtown - 7th August, 1994
  • The Bowlow, Camperdown - 18th August, 1994
  • The Bowlow, Camperdown - 15th December, 1994
  • Phoenician Club, Sydney - 18th December, 1994
  • The Bowlow, Camperdown - 6th January, 1995
  • Feedback, Newtown - 13th January, 1995
  • Feedback, Newtown - 8th February, 1995
  • Unknown Venue, Sydney - 17th February, 1995
  • Annandale Hotel, Annandale - 24th March, 1995
  • Feedback, Newtown - 25th May, 1995
  • Market Day, Musgrave Park, Brisbane - 29th April, 1995 [QLD]
  • Annandale Hotel, Annandale - 12th June, 1995
  • Agincourt Hotel, Sydney - 23rd June, 1995
  • Sunami, Wollongong - 9th July, 1995
  • Coyotes, Caringbah - 14th July, 1995
  • Annandale Hotel, Annandale - 16th July, 1995
  • Aspen Hotel, Jindabyne - 20th July, 1995
  • Phoenician Club, Sydney - 22nd July, 1995
  • Feedback, Newtown - 27th July, 1995
  • Feedback, Newtown - 26th October, 1995
  • Waterloo Tavern, Sydney - 28th October, 1995
  • Level 2, Gosford - 11th November, 1995
  • Feedback, Newtown - 7th January, 1996
  • Coyotes, Caringbah - 12th January, 1996
  • Waterloo Tavern, Sydney - 13th January, 1996
  • Annandale Hotel, Annadale - 18th January, 1996
  • Feedback, Newtown - 3rd May, 1996

ORAL HISTORY:
GINI: As a kid I wanted to play piano but it wasn't encouraged. Like many '70s kids, watching Countdown was an important weekly ritual. My dad used to play records on a Saturday night, mostly Beatles and Rolling Stones and some '50s pop. That made a huge impression on me. In my late teens most of my housemates and buddies played instruments. Hanging out while everyone jammed and we all talked about music - it was the best. As a musician I was a late bloomer - 20 or 21 was when I bought my first guitar.
Gini (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

KYLIE: I started Purr because I'd become absolutely obsessed with riot grrrl music. It was absolutely my thing and spoke to me deeply. The bands Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear changed me forever. I didn't really know anyone who had heard of riot grrrl - there were a few grrrls in Melbourne that I wrote to at that point, and in Queensland. I gathered some folks who were fun enough to agree to jam with me on some riot grrrl covers, just to feel it all out. But being pretty focussed, I found it hard to find anyone else as interested as I was, so this initial group of folks kinda melted away, or maybe I repelled them with my narrow vision at the time (I was a baby punk and probably not great at communicating as a grown up). I then came across Kristen as a friend of a friend in Newtown. She seemed to want to be in a band, any band, and here was a band. She was classically trained on cello, so played guitar... I already had a bass, so I played that. To get a drummer, I did what most people did back then, and put an ad in Drum Media. It mentioned Huggy Bear and riot grrrl, and Butthole Surfers as well. Wilton showed up - he was the only person we tried and he was perfecto. So that's how we formed.
Kylie (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025


KYLIE: Our first show was at Manly High School with Spiderbait and M!dget. We were not students at this school at all, only one of us was even from Sydney. We just got this show via some contacts. After that, we played shows regularly. 
Kylie (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

GINI: Three weeks after I got my first guitar, I heard Purr wanted a new guitarist. I fudged it for a good while as a Purr noob. The other members of the band had met before I came along - I replaced someone. In Purr I met our guitarist Kirst, drummer Wilton, and bassist Kylie - all at Wilton's house on Cleveland St near the Native Rose Hotel (now called The Rose). We had a little bonding session and a few weeks later played in the Sydney Uni band comp and got to the quarter finals (I'm unsure whether that's a flex).
Gini (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

KYLIE: I asked Gini, after mutual friends in the Daisygrinders suggested she might be interested. Both were amazing guitar players.
Kylie (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

GINI: Shortly after I joined the band, we recorded 'Grrly Things' for the Nitocris split. Our bassist/singer Kylie and the Nitocris singer Morgana plotted to make it happen.
Gini (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

KYLIE: Kirst and I live together, she'll play a song and then I'll play it with her and we all make up our own bits... I don't know about influences but we discussed the other day that TV is one of our biggest influences and video games, we have a song called 'Sonia', which is about Sonia from Mortal Kombat 'cause she has thighs of steel.  
Kylie (Vocals, Bass), Unidentified Zine 1, 1994

Unidentified Zine 1, 1994

GINI: We basically played for fun but I didn't care, it was more than worthwhile. It was also good timing to be in the scene at that time, during the '90s pub death rattle before gambling machines and 'gentrification' reshaped the culture completely. There are others who could better shed light on that phenomenon. Anyway we loved playing with our favourite bands - Fur, Mrs Naughty, Drill, M!dget, Lawnsmell, Tweezer, Nothing, Budd, my boyfriend's band The Daisygrinders, SPDFGH, Regurgitator, and Spiderbait. The band O! came over from Perth after I wrote them a letter. We booked many of our shows and played at some house parties too. Purr was all about rocking out (hard enough to make Wilton throw up).
Gini (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

KYLIE: We supported Bikini Kill on their first tour. Spitboy and Sleater Kinney stayed at my house on the tour when they formed and found Laura MacFarlane (first Sleater Kinney drummer). We played for two years and did a release on Swiveldisc. 
Kylie (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

GINI: We played at Market Day in Brisbane - we went up with Lawnsmell. It was ten people staying in one person's house. One person who lived there said we could stay and the others kind of went 'o.k.', so we kicked three or four people out of their own house for a few days and we just sat around, had lots of cones, went shopping.
Gini (Guitar), Unidentified Zine 2, 1994 

KYLIE: Out tour guide for Brisbane, Paul from Hateman, took us on a picnic. Wilton threw sausages off the cliff at the people below. Imagine having a sausage land on your head. You'd be looking around, going, "Where the fuck did that come from!" They were all cooked and greasy, so they were all slippery.
Kylie (Vocals, Bass), Unidentified Zine 2, 1994

GINI: Looking back, the main highlight, first and foremost, was travelling to Brisbane to play the 4ZZZ Market Day with Lawnsmell. The gig itself was a standout. Playing Mardi Gras in Melbourne with The Mavis's was also a good adventure. Other memories include playing at the Sando, the Annandale, the Bowlow, that firetrap above Newtown station (Feedback)... brake failures on the way to Manly High supporting Spiderbait and Regurgitator, and brake failures going down Bulli Pass to support Regurgitator again. Hosting and supporting Sleater Kinney felt really cool. Supporting Bikini Kill was musically a thrill but socially a disappointment, with the exception of Billy (Bikini Kill guitarist) - he was a nice guy. Maybe we were just too shy. Supporting Deniz Tek Band was way cool for me because I loved Radio Birdman so much and one of my sociology lecturers had written a book about them. Shout out to memory, it's mostly all still there!
Gini (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025 


GINI: The engineer on our EP, Andy Cowland, was an upstanding bloke. I should have done more guitar takes on that one. I loved our vocals and Kirsten played the most beautiful lead on 'Mogadon Sandwich'. I also remember Swiveldisc Craig's enviable hair and the mastering at Sony.
Gini (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025 

KYLIE: We dealt with the sexism of the '90s mostly by having bands with other people and queer folks playing our shows. Also by writing about feminist ideas in zines and in songs. That has been, I guess, my method - just disruption by being present in the scene, keeping the ideas of intersectional feminism in the community discourse. At times, it has caused people not to like me - if I challenged their status quo thinking around diversity in the punk scene. I refute the standard response of "can't we just make it about the music?" and the unfathomable, "can't we keep politics out of it and just enjoy the music?" Being uncompromising in my art and its manifestation. Not being nice, not being polite and pleasant. I've always been what seems to be called an "awful woman" in modern parlance. I love how language and the ideas of feminism and equality have progressed so far since the since the '90s. It's terrific - but of course, also still terrible. The punk scene is still refusing to learn. I urge readers to be cogniscent of all-male lineups. Just... notice them. Ask in your head: why? Why are there only men on this lineup? 5 bands... all men? Or one woman? Ask: why? And if you come up with an answer, as again, why is that the answer? If you go for long enough in asking why, it's always that merit isn't effective, and we need to actively lift up women, POC, and LGBTQ+ in our scene. Merit doesn't work. If it does, why are there still all-male lineups? Your merit argument implies it is because women are no good at music. So incorrect. I actually started in my previous band, Pretty Polly Mine, as the archetypal 'female lead singer' but it didn't hold enough power for me, so I picked up a bass and made my own band, Purr, with my own huge ideas injected into it. 
Kylie (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025



GINI: I left the band because I had to finish my studies. No dirt to dish, all love. Bummer that the band didn't continue after I quit.
Gini (Guitar), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025 

KYLIE: The band broke up around 1995... it was a band of personalities, that's for sure. Twenty year-olds are often highly strung and we all were. And then heroin was around and it affected people in and around the band. I have never tried heroin. Anyway, I was young and hadn't really learned how to be at all collaborative, and the band broke up due to a divergence of ideas, interests, and also friendships. We all grew up a bit more in that band and then found we were all different and wanted different things. After the demise of Purr I decided I couldn't lead a band as I wanted unless I picked up a guitar and wrote more. So somehow I got a cheap guitar and lost myself in my bedroom, writing and playing. Not learning guitar, and I have never learned guitar. Still can't play a chord other than a power chord and I just play my way now with very power chords. 
Kylie (Vocals, Bass), Noise Levels correspondence, 2025

RELATED BANDS: PGF, Prayer Group, Bitchcraft, Laura Panic, Pretty Polly Mine, When Robots Rule, Trashkitten, Tripitaka




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