The Triffids were an Australian alternative rock and pop band, formed in Perth, Western Australia, in 1978, with David McComb as singer-songwriter, guitarist, bass guitarist and keyboardist.McFarlane (1999). Encyclopedia entry for "The Triffids". Retrieved 19 December 2009.Spencer et al, (2007) 'Triffids, The' entry.Australian Rock Database entries: The Triffids: The Blackeyed Susans: Four Hours Sleep: John Kennedy Lawson Square Infirmary: Graham Lee: David McComb: They achieved some success in Australia, but greater success in the UK and Scandinavia in the 1980s before disbanding in 1989. Their best-known songs include "Wide Open Road" (February 1986) and "Bury Me Deep in Love" (October 1987). SBS television featured their 1986 album, Born Sandy Devotional, on the Great Australian Albums series in 2007, and in 2010 it ranked 5th in the book The 100 Best Australian Albums by Toby Creswell, Craig Mathieson and John O'Donnell.
According to music historian Ian McFarlane, "The Triffids remain one of Australia's best-loved, post-punk groups ... McComb ... infused his melancholy songs with stark yet beautiful and uniquely Australian imagery. Few songwriters managed to capture the feeling of isolation and fatalistic sense of despair of the Australian countryside."
History Formation and early years (1976–1981) In 1976 in Perth, high school students David McComb on acoustic and bass guitars and vocals and Alan "Alsy" MacDonald on drums and vocals, formed Dalsy as a multimedia project, making music, books and photographs. They wrote and performed songs with Phil Kakulas on guitars and vocals (all three later in the Blackeyed Susans),Spencer et al, (2007) 'Blackeyed Susans, The' entry. then soon became Blök Musik and Logic (for a day). In May 1978, they became the Triffids, taking their name from the post-apocalyptic novel by John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids. They were soon joined by Andrew McGowan on guitar and Julian Douglas-Smith on piano. When Byron Sinclair joined on bass guitar in September, McComb switched to rhythm guitar. The Triffids began partly in response to the punk rock movement. Writing in his diary as a teenager, McComb traced the band's emergence in Perth:
On the night of 27 November 1976, a tape was made by Alsy MacDonald, playing a single toy drum, and Dave McComb playing acoustic guitar. The multimedia group 'Dalsy' had come into being. Dalsy went on to make several remarkable tapes (mainly of original material): The Loft Tapes, Rock 'n' Roll Accountancy, Live at Ding Dongs, Bored Kids, Domestic Cosmos, People Are Strange Dalsy Are Stranger, Steve's and the seminal punk work, Pale Horse Have a Fit ... Dalsy did paintings, sculptures and poetry, and wrote a book named "Lunch". They were tinny and quirky, obsessive and manic, versatile and productive. They were also immensely unpopular ... The members of Dalsy grew to hate their audience. They still do, and this hate is an integral part of their music. Dalsy split up towards the end of 1977 ... They launched into 1978 as Blok Musik, with their famous Blok Musik tape ... In April, they played at the Leederville Town Hall Punk Fest, alongside Perth's punk rock contingent but, as usual, no one danced. After that they went home and metamorphosised into Logic. Within a day they changed their minds, and metamorphosised into the Triffids.
Between 1978 and 1981, McComb wrote over 100 original songs and the Triffids had recorded and independently released six cassette tapes, simply called, 1st (1978), 2nd (1978), 3rd (1979), 4th (1979), Tape 5 (1980) and Sixth (1981) (see List of The Triffids Cassettes). By 1979, Kakulas and Sinclair had left and were replaced by David's older brother, Robert McComb on violin and guitar, and Will Akers on bass guitar, and in 1980 Margaret Gillard joined on keyboards. At year's end, the band won a song competition run by the Western Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin University) Student Guild's radio show on 6NR (now Curtin FM), and in July 1981 they released their first single, "Stand Up", on the Shake Some Action label. MacDonald had briefly left the band for two months, and the single was recorded with Mark Peters as drummer.
Early recordings (1982–1984) Gillard and Akers left in February 1982 and were replaced by Jill Yates on keyboards and a returning Sinclair. April saw the release of Reverie, a four-track EP on Resonant Records. Around this time, due to the small population/market in Perth, the band started the long journey driving from Perth to Sydney, then Melbourne (and back again) to play shows, do some recording and to live for large periods of time, often in quite squalid conditions. By mid-year Sinclair had left again, and Martyn P. Casey joined the band on bass guitar in September 1982. For $150 a night, The Triffids' services as a support act were procured by The Reels, The Sunnyboys, The Church, Hunters & Collectors or Uncanny X-Men.
As a four-piece — Casey, David and Robert McComb and MacDonald — they signed to Mushroom Records' White Label in Melbourne and released a single, "Spanish Blue", in October 1982 and the Bad Timing and Other Stories EP in March 1983. By then, back in Sydney again, Jill Birt had joined on piano, organ and vocals. Soon after the release of Bad Timing and Other Stories, Mushroom Records let the band go. They signed with new Australian independent label Hot Records, which brought the independent scene some much needed cohesion. The Triffids were one of the bands leading Hot's drive into overseas markets, which partly led to the label's demise. The Triffids' debut album, Treeless Plain, released in November 1983, was critically acclaimed — described as a "magnificent, muscular piece of work that pounds out simple powerful rock songs — one of the best indie rock albums of its day" — but no singles were released from it. All tracks for Treeless Plain were recorded over twelve midnight-to-dawn sessions at Emerald City Studios, Sydney, in August and September 1983 with The Triffids producing. Their next single, "Beautiful Waste", appeared in February 1984 and was followed by the Raining Pleasure 12" EP in July—the title track, "Raining Pleasure", featured Birt on lead vocals and was cowritten by David McComb with Sydney musician James Paterson (JFK & the Cuban Crisis).Spencer et al, (2007) 'JFK and the Cuban' entry. Another track, "St. James Infirmary", is a traditional blues folksong, with their version preferred by Australian rock music journalist Toby Creswell in his book, 1001 Songs.
The Triffids, without Birt, recorded Lawson Square Infirmary at the Sydney Opera House, where they worked with Paterson on vocals, guitar, mandolin and piano; Graham Lee (John Kennedy's Love Gone Wrong and in Eric Bogle's backing band)Spencer et al, (2007) 'Lee, Graham' entry. on vocals, dobro and pedal steel guitar; and Daubney Carshott (a.k.a. Martyn Casey) on bass guitar.Spencer et al, (2007) 'Lawson Square Infirmary' entry. The six-track country music-style EP was issued by Hot Records in October under the band name, Lawson Square Infirmary. Lee recalled:
I taught primary school, travelled and ended up in Sydney, where I met the Triffids and first sat behind a pedal steel (in that order actually) [...] I met Dave [McComb] through James Paterson, who played in a band in Sydney called JFK and the Cuban Crisis. My initial impressions of Dave were: slightly eccentric, driven, something of a perfectionist, very intelligent.
By mid-1984, The Triffids had spent so much time travelling the between Perth in the west and Sydney on the east coast of Australia — David McComb estimated that they made this trip between 12 and 16 times — that they decided to travel that little bit further and headed to Europe.
UK and Europe (1984–1989) In late August 1984, the band relocated to London, where Treeless Plain and Raining Pleasure had been issued by Rough Trade Records to critical acclaim. Note: Houghton was The Triffids' publicist during 1984–1989. With little savings and five return plane tickets due to expire by Christmas, they gave themselves three months to make inroads in the UK. For their London debut they supported Rough Trade labelmates The Monochrome Set. Success was confirmed when they graced the January 1985 cover of the influential UK magazine NME, which predicted it would be 'The Year of The Triffids'.
In November 1984, they recorded Field of Glass, a three track 12" EP. Performed mostly live in BBC Studio 5 in London, it was released in February 1985. The title track, "Field of Glass", was not released on CD as the master tape could not be found—it was eventually discovered under David McComb's bed. In early 1985, the band acquired their final permanent member, Lee, who had performed on the mini-album Lawson Square Infirmary. Together the six-piece—Birt, Casey, Lee, MacDonald, David & Robert McComb—recorded a 12" EP You Don’t Miss Your Water. The A-side is a countrified version of William Bell's "You Don't Miss Your Water", which was released in August by Hot Records, but by then they were already back in London.
During 1985, the Triffids toured Europe, they were praised by the European press and played stadiums supporting Echo & the Bunnymen. A grass roots following developed as they toured western European countries, finding pockets of popularity in the Netherlands, Greece, Scandinavia, Ireland and Belgium. The band toured as part of the Summer Eurofestival circuit, performing at Glastonbury, Waterpop, Seinäjoki, Roskilde (40,000), T&W Belgium (35,000) and den Haag's Parkpop (pushing 100,000).
Unable to raise a major record deal and with low finances, Born Sandy Devotional was recorded in London in August 1985 with Gil Norton producing (who has also worked with Echo & the Bunnymen), and was released in March 1986. According to Ian McFarlane, Australian rock music historian, "[It] was full of some of the most lonely, spacious songs ever written, and it remains one of the best Australian albums of the 1980s." In 2007, the album was featured by SBS Television on the Great Australian Albums series. The band issued two versions of the "Wide Open Road" single—both a 7" and a 12" version. Born Sandy Devotional reached # 27 on the UK albums chart, and "Wide Open Road" peaked at No. 26 on the UK singles charts but only reached No. 64 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. Note: Used for Australian Singles and Albums charting from 1974 until ARIA created their own charts in mid-1988. In 1992, Kent back calculated chart positions for 1970–1974. Creswell stated that "Wide Open Road" was "an angry song that finds the cost of freedom is aloneness" in his book, 1001 Songs. In May 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th Anniversary celebrations, named it one of their Top 30 Australian songs of all time.
Their critical success in the UK boosted their profile back in Australia where they recorded In the Pines in early 1986, while awaiting the release of Born Sandy Devotional, which eventuated in March. In The Pines was recorded at the McCombs' family property in Ravensthorpe, south east of Perth, in a shearing shed on basic eight-track equipment. It was issued in January 1987 and took The Triffids deeper into folk and country music, with a lo-fi sensibility reminiscent of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes. The band backed Scottish musician Bill Drummond for his 1986 solo album The Man. The Triffids toured UK later in the year.