fEEDTIME

Rick Johnson and Allen Larkin had met at a Parramatta secondary school in the early 1970s. They formed feedtime, in December 1979, as a duo with Johnson on guitar and lead vocals and Larkin on bass guitar and vocals. The band's name is stylised with a lowercase 'f'. They were soon joined on drums by Dave Carter who was replaced, in turn, by Nella Mobbs and in 1982 by Tom Sturm.

The group's debut album, 'feedtime', was independently released late in 1985. Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, felt their "music mixed grinding guitars and driving beats with an unsettling ambience." John L. Murphy of Pop Matters opined that they "approached maximum if not R&B than blues-punk. Certainly raw, they reissued sound oddly spacious within unsettling digital clarity. Allen's frazzled bass, Rick's churning 'electric slide guitar', and Tom's primal drums thud like their names: no nonsense, no added frills." Ned Raggett of AllMusic described the album, "From the opening hoarse crawl and gargle of 'Ha Ha,' feedtime on its debut sounds like its members were out to not merely perforate eardrums, but flat out bludgeon skulls."

Their debut single, "Fractured", was issued in September 1986 via Sydney-based label, Aberrant Records. It presaged their second album, 'Shovel' (February 1987), which, along with the subsequent Aberrant albums, was also released in the United States via Rough Trade Records. AllMusic's John Dougan felt it was "perhaps their best album, but it's definitely not for the faint of heart. Simplistic, crudely played, thuddingly repetitive rock muck punctuated by harsh vocals with some of the most extreme music to be considered rock & roll ever conceived." Robert Christgau opined that they were a "little slower and more old-fashioned than the IRT the Ramones/Dolls came in on, which definitely doesn't mean they're slow or old-fashioned. Just an art band cum power trio that's spent nine years perfecting its sonic wisdom."

In May 1988 they issued their third studio album, 'Cooper-S'; according to McFarlane it "featured all cover versions done in the inimitable feedtime style of raw and heavy thrash." Christgau felt "Most cover albums trip over their own roots – self-conscious simplicity is too neat a trick to bring off a dozen times running." Trouser Press' Andrea Enthal and Ira Robbins observed that it "applies Feedtime's noisy shredder to cover versions... with its tuneless spirited roar, feedback slide experiments and an occasionally untuned bass. Without casting aspersions on Feedtime, it's safe to assume that none of the songs' authors would be able to recognize their handiwork in these rumbling renditions."

A fourth studio album, 'Suction' (early 1989), appeared prior to the group's disbandment in February. Raggett opined that the "last album of their 1980s existence makes for one hell of a farewell. Whether or not it was the exercise of the covers album 'Cooper-S' that found the trio letting its hooks come forward more than ever, Suction easily challenges (and often beats) the Jesus and Mary Chain when it comes to the 'melody + noise' equation."

The group had been planning their first US tour when emotional and psychological issues resulted in their breakup: Johnson "later admitted having suffered a nervous breakdown." He recalled, "I got to the point where I would either kill myself or commit murder." He later clarified that feedtime "broke up because I was having a breakdown, that's all. There was a lot of anger and darkness that underlaid a lot of feedtime's makeup. I had to remake myself or die. Allen felt that he might have to do some repair work as well. ... Some stuff about feedtime involves very hard stuff and needs to be left alone."

McFarlane declared that they were "one of the most uncompromising and influential groups to emerge from Sydney's early 1980s inner-city scene... there was only one other band that could match them for sheer sonic force and rhythmic density: the notorious X."

feedtime reunited in 1995 with Johnson and Larkin joined by the latter's younger brother, John Larkin on drums. In April 1996 the trio released their fifth studio album, 'Billy' via Black Hole Records in Australia and Amphetamine Reptile in the US. They supported US group, Unsane for a tour of the Australian east coast, followed in April 1997 with an Australian support slot for UK group, the Damned, alongside fellow Sydney-siders, X.

The mid-1980s line-up of Johnson, Larkin and Sturm reunited in 2011 for two shows in Sydney and one in San Francisco, for the tenth anniversary of S.S. Records, followed by a US tour the following year, in conjunction with Sub Pop's reissue of their first four albums as the compilation, 'The Aberrant Years'. On 3 April 2012, they performed their first ever in-studio live radio performance on WFMU, a community radio station in New Jersey. In October 2015, the reunited Johnson-Larkin-Sturm line-up recorded their sixth studio album, 'Gas', with Mikey Young of Total Control. The album was released on In the Red Records in March 2017.

Members

Rick Johnson (guitar, vocals), Al Larkin (bass), Tom Sturm (drums), John Larkin (drums), Nella Mobbs (drums), Dave Carter (drums)

SINGLES
''Fractured / Safari / Rumble'' 1986 Aberrant 
''Don't Tell Me / Small Talk'' 1987 Aberrant 
''Weekend Warrior'' 1996 Black Hole
''Flatiron / Stick Up Jack 2015 Sub Pop

ALBUMS
'feedtime' 1985
'Shovel' 1986 Aberrant
'Cooper-S' 1988 Aberrant
'Suction' 1989 Aberrant
'Billy'1996Amphetamine Reptile
'Gas' 2017 In The Red

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedtime