When James Baker, Spencer Jones’ former partner in inebriated rock’n’roll crime and certified Australian rock legend, rode into town with his current two-piece folk-punk band The Painkillers, neither Jones nor Baker had any idea of events to follow.
Jones was already part-way through recording what he expected would be a solo record at Andrew McGee’s Empty Room studio in regional Victoria; with a few days to spare before returning to Perth, Baker joined Jones on the train to McGee’s property, subsequently agreeing to lay down drums on a few tracks. With an eye and ear to a magical musical collaboration, McGree had already invited regional neighbours Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin from The Drones to help out as well. And thus Spencer P. Jones And The Nothing Butts was born.
Jones and Baker had met originally in the then vibrant inner-city Sydney rock’n’roll scene of the early ’80s. New Zealand-born Jones had moved from Melbourne to Sydney to join The Johnnys in about 1982. Baker, who’d previously immersed himself directly in the New York and London punk scenes in the ’70s – Jones waxes lyrical about Baker’s tales of hanging out with everyone from Johnny Thunders to Nick Kent – had left Perth after the demise of the first incarnation of The Scientists, eventually teaming up with Dave Faulkner (with whom Baker had played in the legendary Perth progenitors The Victims), Roddy Radalj and Kimball Rendall in Le Hoodoo Gurus. When original Beasts Of Bourbon drummer Richard Ploog returned to his duties with The Church, Baker had been drafted into the self-described ‘inner-city supergroup’.
Fast-forward 30 years, and The Nothing Butts is portrayed as one of those serendipitous collaborations that will go down in history. “I said to James, ‘It’s a pity you’re not around all week, ‘cause you could come to Nagambie’, and he said he was there ’til Friday. We went up on Monday, stayed Monday and Tuesday. Andrew [McGree] contacted Gareth and Fiona, and said James and I were there, and did they want to come over – that’d make things interesting.”
Jones is full of admiration for the unique drumming abilities Baker brought to the nascent Nothing Butts project. “He’s got bucketloads of charisma,” Jones effuses. “When he locks in, he totally has his own style. He kind of sets his own pace – don’t expect him to jump onto your thing. If you listen to the recorded version of Let’s Get Funky on Black Milk, it doesn’t come in on the one, it comes in on the two. I do this intro, and everyone’s supposed to go ‘pow’, but it comes in half a beat later. And then from there, it goes like a steamroller – and that’s him playing drums. I rest my case.”
Baker was already familiar with Liddiard, having played with the Perth-born Drones singer and guitarist some years before Liddiard relocated on the East Coast. “I’d played some gigs with The Gutterville Splendour Six in Perth, which was the band Gareth was in before The Drones,” Baker says. “So I knew Gareth, and Fiona as well. It was great playing with both of them on this record – we clicked together really well.”
When it came to recording, both Jones and Baker were impressed by the quality of the collaboration. Liddiard surreptitiously slipped into the role of co-producer, much to Jones’ initial amusement, and subsequent satisfaction. “I remember the second session and I said, ‘You’re producing me, aren’t you?’, and he just looked up and smiled,” Jones laughs.
Jones compares Liddiard’s guitar style with the late Rowland S. Howland, who’d played on Slamming On The Brakes, the Jones track covered by The Drones some years ago. But it was Kitschin’s contribution that surprised Jones the most. “Fiona was maybe the real surprise,” Jones says. “I was already a fan of Gareth’s guitar playing, but Fiona was great, she was really solid. She’s a good musician, and later when we got the vocals going, she knew what I was trying to do, and it was pretty easy getting the ideas across to her to do it. So there were no egos.”
The songs that eventually appeared on Spencer P. Jones And The Nothing Butts were largely already written before Jones, Baker, Liddiard and Kitschin came together over three separate recording sessions. When He Finds Out came together after Jones took note a few choice chords Liddiard strung together during downtime in the recording process, while Baker brought with him the lyrics to Freak Out – inspired by Baker’s battles with the DTs. “[James] told me he had all these hallucinations from people in the room, people talking to him, and he’d be talking back,” Jones says. “And then he’d look around, and there was no-one there. It was crazy stuff – so he wrote it all down, and turned it into a song. I just think it’s great that the first time we recorded together he brought along the lyrics to Drop Out, and then 30 years later he brings the lyrics to Freak Out.”
With a solo record to finish, a collaboration with Kim Salmon and a new Escape Committee album to commence, Jones is adamant that the Nothing Butts will remain a brief, albeit memorable, event in his already colourful career. “We’re doing the right thing, we’re doing a little tour to promote it,” Jones says. “The Drones have got Drones business coming up in the new year, I’ll be getting busy, I’ve got a record to finish with Kim [Salmon], I have to make a record with the Escape Committee, and I’ve got to finish off this solo stuff, and get it off to France.”
BY IAN DAVIS
