BUDD

Brisbane band Budd released two of the most brain-pulverizing albums of the 90s, 'Yakfat' (1993) and 'Naf' (1994). The initial lineup was Jeremy Finlayson (vocals, guitar), Dave (vocals, guitar), Garry Linaker (bass) and Jon (drums). The spectre of grunge still loomed large in the popular imagination at the time, and a lot of bands tried to out-do each other when it came to sheer volume and brute force. There was something a bit different about Budd though. As much as they might have been inspired by the overdriven sludge riffs of The Melvins or the bass-heavy proto-stoner thump of Kyuss, they quickly asserted their own sensibilities.

The result was a band that had a truly original approach, consciously or not. For listeners weaned on the inner-city art-punk of the 80s, their reductivist approach might even have resonated with the bludgeoning attack of feedtime or Grong Grong, but it was filtered through an appreciation for suburban metal, that was distinctly of its time. Of course, this rehabilitation of metal, which began with grunge’s exhumation of the bloated corpse of Black Sabbath (the ground softened by the Butthole Surfers a few years earlier), has continued ever since. These days the language of metal has penetrated and cross-fertilised just about every other genre of music one cares to mention, including the experimental avant-garde. Ironic really, for a type of music that was regarded as deeply conservative, even reactionary, in its early incarnation as working-class teen fodder.

So, Budd pretty much had their finger on the erratic pulse of the zeitgeist back then, but as so often happens in Australia, apart from a dedicated cult following, wider appreciation eluded them. It didn’t help that with the demise of their erstwhile record label Fellaheen in the late 90s (once responsible for releasing albums by luminaries such as Ben Lee, Sandpit, Pavement and Guided By Voices), their records soon became obscure collectors' items. Deprived of finding new audiences through re-issues, Budd became another footnote in the frustratingly inconsistently documented history of the Australian underground.

Members

Jeremy Finlayson (vocals, guitar), Gary Linaker (bass), John Morris (drums), Ngakau (bass), Nico (guitar), Peter Lee (drums), Matt "Tanzie" Tanner (bass), Craig Westwood (vocals, bass), Tom Jackman (drums), Campbell Robinson (drums), Nadia Markovic (bass), Lenny Markovic (drums),