Perhaps it was appropriate that The Television Addicts chose The Reverence Hotel in Footscray for the band’s only Melbourne show. The Television Addicts is the moniker chosen by Dave ‘Flick’ Faulkner and James Baker to play the songs of The Victims, the punk rock band formed by Faulkner, Baker and Dave Cardwell in Perth in 1977. Back then, with the tyranny of distance unaffected by the Internet or cheap air travel, Perth might’ve been in another geographical and cultural world. Perth was a long way to the west; similar, maybe – albeit on a smaller and more prejudicial scale – to the perceived remoteness of Melbourne’s western suburbs.
But Perth still had disaffected youth and punk rock. There was Baker, the pudding-bowled rock’n’roll aficionado who’d travelled to New York and seen The Heartbreakers at CBGBs, auditioned for The Clash in London, and formed The Victims from the ashes of his previous band, The Geeks, roping in a young Faulkner as the band’s singer and guitarist, and Cardwell on bass.
In true punk fashion, The Victims were a shooting star across the rock’n’roll sky, their public appearances in the dozens, and their contemporary recorded output negligible. Yet The Victims became a posthumous lightning rod for the punk rockers in Australia and across the world.
Tonight, 37 years after the band’s demise, Faulkner and Baker – joined by the Hard Ons’ Ray Ahn, whose fascination with The Victims’ juvenile garage punk style would seep into the Hard Ons’ modus operandi and rock’n’roll aesthetic – were in Melbourne for a night of classic Victims tracks. The demographic profile of the crowd was befitting for a band of The Victims’ age and status. Faulkner’s smiling demeanour is at odds with the teenage angst at the heart of much of The Victims’ repertoire. Baker may wear the scars of an indulgent rock’n’roll lifestyle, but he’s lost nothing of his original garage rock drumming brilliance. And on bass, Ray Ahn grins with the excitement of a school kid whose greatest rock’n’roll dream has just come true.
The songs are wild bursts of punk rock noise: most songs barely break the two-minute barrier, and you get the sense of a band that was pre-ordained to burn bright and fast. Baker’s lyrics are the classic stuff of adolescent musings: the perils of daytime television (TV Freak), high school crushes (High School Girl), even a rant at Perth’s annual Telethon. Faulkner stumbles over a few licks, and even jumps into I’m Flipped Out Over You to the bemusement of Baker and Ahn. Baker makes the odd mistake, but given he’d reportedly gone the technicolour yawn before the set, you can’t blame him. And since when was punk rock tightly choreographed, anyway?
No one wants the set to end, but it has to eventually. Television Addict – which in some quarters pips I’m Stranded as the best punk rock song released in Australia in the ‘70s – finishes out the main set, and there’s considerable rejoicing and yobbish shouting of the song’s chorus. The band returns briefly, finishing up with the pointed socio-musical commentary of Disco Junkies. You don’t get many better nights than tonight, and there aren’t many more important Australian punk rock bands than The Victims. This was a privilege and an honour to witness.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Loved: Hearing The Victims’ songs played live and watching the absolute legend that is James Baker on drums.
Hated: Navigating the streets of Footscray on the bike on the way home.
Drank: Coopers Pale Ale.
