Nunbait

Nunbait
Origin Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Genres Punk rock
Years active 1989–1993, 2010
Labels Waterfront Records
Survival
Hippy Knight
Website http://www.myspace.com/nunbaitaustralia
Members Ian (Ivan) Fraser
Shaun Butcher
Mark Guthrie
Mathew Fante
Past members Jay Doherty

Nunbait were a Power Punk rock band from Sydney, Australia. They formed part of the thriving inner-city music scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s that featured artists such as The Cosmic Psychos, Frenzal Rhomb, and Kiss My Poodles Donkey, as well as Tumbleweed and The Meanies and Nitocris. Nunbait were leaders in the second wave of punk inspired bands that followed the Black Eye Records groups, such as Thug, Lubricated Goat and Box the Jesuit.

History

Nunbait formed in Sydney in 1989. Butcher and Guthrie had been in bands in Townsville; Guthrie later joined Fraser’s Brisbane proto-grunge 60s garage punk-inspired combo Dementia 13 (1984–1988).[1]

In the late-1980s, Butcher, Guthrie and Fraser migrated separately from Queensland to the Sydney suburb of Newtown, where they decided to form a band with Doherty, a native of Mudgee, who took up drums despite very limited experience. It was Doherty who named the band, apparently as a pun on ‘jailbait’. The band was variously referred to as “acid-psych”[2] and “noise rock”.[3] Doherty died in 1990.

The band’s first release was 500-copy run of a self-pressed single, “Track Trauma” (1990). After winning a battle of the bands at Sydney’s Lansdowne Hotel, Nunbait secured a contract with Australian underground label Waterfront Records,[4] which resulted in a mini-album, “The Hub” (named after a Newtown porn theatre), in 1990. The record contained six original tracks, albeit one (‘The Melting Hour’) which had its origins in “Dementia 13” days.[5]

Nunbait opened for Butthole Surfers (Burland Hall Newtown, 1991), Mudhoney (Phoenician Club Sydney, 1990), Einstürzende Neubauten and The Beasts of Bourbon (Phoenician Club Sydney 1991), Nirvana (Selinas, Sydney, February 1992),[6] Helmet (1991), Fugazi (1991) as well as performing tours/shows with Superchunk and Australian underground acts including Tumbleweed, Cosmic Psychos, and the Celibate Rifles.

A follow-up single, “Nowhere Fast”, mixed by Sub Pop’s Jack Endino and Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, was released on Waterfront in 1991, charting at #3 in the independent street music charts. Local label Survival released a 4-song EP, ‘Spinout’ in 1992 and the band’s final release, on tiny Melbourne label Hippy Knight, was a hastily mixed album, ‘Busted’, the production of which left the members extremely dissatisfied.

The band reformed for a short tour (with The Hard Ons) in 2010.

Personnel

Recordings

45s

Mini LP

Mini CD

CD

Compilations

References

  1. ↑ http://www.myspace.com/dementia13
  2. ↑ http://davidgerard.co.uk/pf/15/pf15.pdf
  3. ↑ http://www.last.fm/music/Nunbait/+wiki?ver=2
  4. ↑ http://www.nkvdrecords.com/watrdisc.htm
  5. ↑ http://www.nkvdrecords.com/auslpm_s.htm
  6. ↑ http://www.nirvanaguide.com/1992.php

Bibliography

External links

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