Issue #19 (September, 1994)

After reading the editorial to #4 it seems that we did venture into some advertising. What was the Murderess and I thinking? Was this going to be the start of something big scale? I highly doubt it though I did know at twenty bucks a full page and ten bucks a half, we were the cheapest in town! How else were we going to release more issues, fund compilation cassette (issue 5) and cover costs? Upstairs for thinking and downstairs for very little it seemed, but this was fun. Plus overheads between Denison St, Pemmell St (where The Murderess resided) and Eliza St (where Vicky our layout chief hung) were super cheap. We were all in the same suburb pretty much; Newtown/Enmore and no I am not going to go into any boring dialogue about how things were better in 1988.

The Leftovers:

Not to be confused with the ska band from the northern beaches, nor the punk band from Brisbane, these Leftovers had a short but worthy impact on what was happening around Sydney in the mid-late 90s. Mostly a five piece they played a lot of shows in and around Newtown, notably the Sandringham and Feedback. Their drummer Terrie has since gone on to drum for The Baddies plus Garry David and Beijing Bikini. Carl Redfern now plays in the wonderful pop band that is Golden Fang, named after the Chinese restaurant that was once next to the Lansdowne on Broadway. They have recorded a few albums which have been favourably received

Other guitarist Justin relocated to Melbourne many years back while their bassist Josh hasn't been sighted. Joe, their enigmatic frontperson and interviewee for this issue, has relocated back to Sydney after some time away.

Stigma:

One of my favourite acts of this period of time was Stigma. They reminded me of an early Go-Betweens and it was a demo that attracted me to them when booking Max's at the Petersham Inn. Their guitarist Tom Gleeson, who had long red hair at the time, was studying Maths/Statistics at Sydney University. Their drummer was Nick the Greek , while they had another member whose name I have completely forgotten. They weren't around for too long. If you do get your hands on that demo I'd love to hear it again. They did also release an EP called 'Museum' in 1994.

Of course, it is pretty well known that Tom Gleeson has done particularly well out of comedy. After Stigma disbanded, Tom well and truly pursued his love for comedy and performance. He also played in a band called The Fantastic Leslie but weirdly left Stigma out of any discussion. Hmm not sure why because they were damn good.  He went onto pursue degrees of fame in comedy and TV. Call out Stigma at one of his shows and let me know how that goes!

Ron S. Peno:

A real enigma of Australian independent music. His journey has already been well documented. Thanks to Voula, in issue 19 we managed to a get a different insight into Ron's life. Unfortunately it was sadly taken from us all, too early, via cancer a few years back. He saw huge success with Died Pretty, sang with his good friend Kim Salmon in the Darling Downs, and then later formed Ron Peno and the Superstitions.

Vale Ron S. Peno.