SPDFGH

Hailing from Sydney's western suburbs, where they started playing together at Campbelltown High School in 1990, the band were laughed at and not taken seriously at all in their hometown of Campbelltown. " 'Electric Boogie' was the first song I learnt on the guitar," said Wikky and this was to be the first song that inspired the four girls to form the band. After the hurtful isolation dealt out by their home crowd, Spdfgh decided to take their love to Sydney town. "Nobody had any faith in us whatsoever," Mel said in an interview in 1996. "When you're out there in Campbelltown, you're just not exposed to it (the Sydney music scene)." The band members began introducing themselves to the city's groups. Not by playing the venues, mind, but by the novel approach of following other bands around and delivering an impromptu acoustic set backstage or at soundcheck time. "That was our thing," said Wikky. "We used to get our guitars and go 'Hey, Ratcat are playing tonight, let's go and play them some songs'."

Though their initial repertoire consisted of a range of cover versions from acts like Sonic Youth and the Cure, the band credits those Sydney bands that they 'stalked' as a main source of inspiration (The Hummingbirds even getting a special dedication when their debut album came out). Spdfgh quickly proved that they were something to behold on stage as well as on tape. Their name came about kind of by accident when it was conjured up uisng the keys of a typewriter late one night when bassist Tania May was fooling around, going in an almost straight line across the keyboard.

'Grassroots' was released at the beginning of 1995 and contained five tracks intercut with spooky backwards talking. A video was made for the first track "Too Much", which was written by Tania, and contained the classic line, "I've been listening to too much, too much, just too much...Dinosaur!" Fast forward two years to Spdfgh playing at the Public Bar in Melbourne and J Mascis is in the crowd watching the band play whilst on a Dinosaur Jr tour of Australia. Tania belts out the words clearer than ever. Dirt Records released the 'Grassroots' EP in the US and Puncture magazine from the US described the EP as "the bastard offspring of Mudhoney and The Cannanes." The band quickly gained attention in other countries and early releases included a split-single called 'Gay Pride' (along with Pansy Division, Chumbawumba and others) on UK hardcore label Rugger Bugger which included an early demo record of a song called "Sweet" (Liz on guitar and vocals, also on the Dirt 7 inch).

The band's expanded vision became a little clearer on the stunning 'Leave Me Like This' LP (recorded in Autumn of 1995 and released in February 1996) which, while based in guitars & drums, showed a leaning towards hip hop, groove & all things funky. The album was also released in the US on New York-based Dirt Records. Three singles were released from the album "Wikky's Ode", "Give Me Time" and "The Pseudo Blues". Spdfgh got their songs into some Australian high-profile films with "Steal Mine" being included in the movie and soundtrack album of Love And Other Catastrophes and "Hey Freaky Stripper" and "Gun" included in The Well. The group disbanded in 1997.  

Members

Kim Bowers [Wikky Malone] (guitar, vocals), Liz Payne [Rosy Glo, Lou Marvel, Belle] (guitar, vocals), Tania Bowers [Tania May] (bass guitar, vocals), Melanie Thurgar [Finnius] (drums), 

Angela Morosin, (vocals)

References

Juice article by Simon Wooldridge, Feb 1996