Killer Sheep was a Kings Cross band that played hillbilly grunge. The band was made up of Clinton Walker on bass, James A. Scanlon (ex-Craven Fops) on guitar, singer/guitarist Michael O’Connell (ex-Apartments and Xero), singer Astrid Munday and drummer James McKay. They came together initially to play in a talent quest at the Courthouse Hotel on Taylor Square in 1986. They were intent on mashing up country music, which they were all smitten by, with the thrashy sound of DIY punk because that was about all they were really capable of on their instruments. It was as if Jesus and the Mary Chain were playing bluegrass.
They started out playing covers, a lot of them you could have more accurately called bluegrass than country songs. In the mid-80s, there was swamp rock, psychobilly and cowpunk all over the place, and the band came from that same gene pool. They played “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms” but also did Tom T. Hall’s “Macleay Street In Sydney,” and duets like Waylon and Jessie's "I Ain't the One," which Michael and Astrid were great at doing. They rewrote Waylon's "Big D" to be "Big T," about Tamworth rather than Dallas. It was like it all started out as a bit of joke and kept on in search of a punchline.
They became a semi-viable inner-city attraction in Sydney in 1987. They played every weekend. They also played the Tamworth country music festival in January 1987 and returned triumphant to Sydney to go on to play all sorts of gigs, including residencies at now-storied pub venues like the Hopetoun, the Palace, the Petersham Inn, the Sandringham and the Harold Park. Killer Sheep broke up towards the end of 1987 because Michael O'Connor and Clinton Walker were going their separate ways overseas. They cut a number of songs in a home studio in Newtown before that. “Wild Down Home,” the eventual A side of the single, was written by Walker and O'Connell; on the flip side was O'Connell's “Don’t Turn Your Back.” They cut two other songs at those sessions, one a ballad written by Astrid called “Tell Me,” and the other a breakdown version of “I Saw the Light,” which was sometimes otherwise called “I Saw the White Light/White Heat.”
The single, which Bruce Milne charitably released on his Au-Go-Go label, might have sold twelve copies, but still went indy Top 20! Michael went on to become a successful businessman in North Carolina; Astrid went on to sing backing vocalss with Paul Kelly and others and released a couple of albums of her own, and happily she still continues to paint (she is a great painter). James McKay now works at the Sydney Theatre Company. And James Scanlon is still James Scanlon, and Sydney would be a poorer place without him and his hat, his dictionary and his umbrella.
Members
Clinton Walker (bass), James A. Scanlon (guitar) Michael O’Connell (vocals/guitar), Astrid Munday (vocals) James McKay (drums).
''Wild Down Home / Don't Turn Your Back'' 1987 Au-go-go
References
http://www.clintonwalker.com.au/killer-sheep.html
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