Notes

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The second and last studio album of the Coloured Balls (see the ‘Summer Jam’ and ‘Ball Power’ reviews for the first albums, and the review of Lobby Loyde’s ‘Plays With George Guitar’ for some pre-history), this one often receives short thrift due to the greater consistency of ‘Ball Power’, which is undoubtedly a better album overall. However, ‘Heavy Metal Kid’, although patchy and packed with some amount of filler, still contains some great music, and indeed, some of their hardest and punkiest tunes yet. Lobby has said that he’s happier with ‘Heavy Metal Kid’ than ‘Ball Power’ as an album, but I wouldn’t go that far myself. I like to think of this album as being analogous to Hard Stuff’s ‘Bolex Dementia’, with ‘Ball Power’ analogous to Hard Stuff’s debut ‘Bullet Proof’ (and the pre-Hard Stuff album by Daemon, ‘Entrance To Hell’, issued for the first time on Kissing Spell, which is basically earlier versions of the same tunes on ‘Bullet Proof’ plus some extra stuff). Not only are they in some slight ways similar respectively in approach, but people who check out the music of Hard Stuff often likewise proclaim the superiority of ‘Bullet Proof’ over ‘Bolex Dementia’. I can see what they’re getting at in saying that, but I think they’re both great albums in their way, just different. Sure, though, ‘Heavy Metal Kid’ contains definite filler but I don’t believe the same of ‘Bolex Dementia’. But the good stuff on this album makes up for the rest, and justifies its existence. I guess that’s a roundabout way of justifying this review, so let’s get into the music song by song.

‘Heavy Metal Kid’ [2:28] opens the album and is one of the most ferocious tracks the Balls did, a snarling howl of stomping bonehead punk metal that alone could justify their reputation. You can hear echoes of later hardcases such Johnny Moped and Skrewdriver (not that I endorse neo-Nazi skinheads, but their early cuts on the Chiswick ‘Long Shots, Dead Certs and Odds On Favourites’ sampler are pretty cool and that’s what I’m going from), but better and faster; in parts it also reminds of the punchy hard riffage of the first half of Hard Stuff’s ‘Roll a Rocket’ from ‘Bolex Dementia’, and parts of Rotomagus’ ‘Fightin’ Cock’, but sharper. It basically consists of two grinding riffs, one a faster distant relative of the skanky groove of ‘Human Being’, the other a brief but grinding ascension/descension of chords, and one extra sequence of chord changes jammed in, with an almost robotic processed vocal periodically screaming “heavy metal...” over and over in the ‘choruses’, but I can’t make out much of the rest of the snarled lyrics. Thankfully they’re printed on the inside cover –
“Speak up I can’t hear what you’re saying
Still can’t dig the game you are playing
We should all be praying even you
HEAVY METAL HEAVY METAL HEAVY METAL
Everybody seeks a happy end to life
But the kid found his in the end of a knife
Lived too close baby to the raging fire
Nothing else could take him any higher
HEAVY METAL KID
As his life closed he didn’t understand
It wasn’t the reward he would demand
It was like a book without an end
The kind you always want to extend
HEAVY METAL KID”
though I doubt if many of the Balls’ audience (see below) had much in the way of reading inclinations! It ends weirdly as all the guitars spindle off into a brain-splattered warp drive.
‘Do It’ [2:12] is a fairly straight forward hard rock’n’roll number with kind of doo-wop backing vocals, that’s fairly restrained in the mixing of the guitars, and has nothing at all to do with the well-known Pink Fairies track of the same name. More like the Flamin Groovies perhaps.
‘Just Because’ [3:43] is a simple three-chord rocker moving along at a moderate pace, but it’s not very hard or heavy. It’s got that positive but not chirpy rock vibe, like ‘we’re all driving along into the sunset and we’re gonna have a real great time at this party catching up with all our old mates and reliving fun times past’, although that’s not in the lyrics, which actually concern a kind of lamenting querying of the meaning of life, though as with the questing of ‘Human Being’ from the previous album ‘Ball Power’, there are no answers to be had, just the question, “What’s it all mean, babe?”
‘(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care’ [1:49] is kind of a silly doo-wop rock’n’roller, but without any doo-wopping in the background. It’s all light and jaunty and undistorted, but lots of fun, and brief if you don’t get into it. Lobby’s met a cutie but she ain’t with the program... “You don’t like crazy music, you don’t like rocking bands, you just want to go to a movie show, and sit there holding hands... You’re so square.... and baby I don’t care!”
‘Private Eye’ [4:17] opens with the howl of police sirens, horse carriages clonking by, and other sounds of a busy city at night, ending in a car crash and clattering gunfire before the instruments kick into a choppy riff. This is the tale of a kid who was pushed around and generally reviled at school, and who later became a private eye so he could lead a life of intrigue and violence straight out of a pulp novel, and laugh at his old tormentors who now had to admit he was pretty cool... at least to his face! but who are actually still laughing at him behind his back. The chorus prowls to that moody cool Peter Gunn riff as he stalks his prey down a back alley, .38 in hand and trenchcoat up around his big flappy ears.
‘See What I Mean’ [3:46] is an uncharacteristic soft ballad set to a slow, melancholic piano plod, with echoed, plaintive vocals and occasional swells of strings and a slow drum beat. Pretty soppy stuff really, and it doesn’t really sit well on an album like this – more suited to Elton John or Billy Joel perhaps! Maybe it satisfied some unfulfilled softer side to Lobby’s muse but I doubt it satisfied too many Balls fans. You can always skip past it, or sit it out, or use it as a toilet break, as it doesn’t go for too long (unless you’re of the view that one second of this is too long!).
‘Dance To The Music’ [3:25] fades in as though it had been going all day already, guitars grungily fuzzed but riding on a slow one-note 4/4 bass groove as the vocals are sung deep and laid back, with the backing harmony vocals uncharacteristically having their nuts in a vice instead of sounding blokey. All fairly predictable but not bad, it fades out once they’ve exhausted the groove. ‘Yes And No’ [0:50] is just a short spurt of quiet backwards sounds ending the side.
‘Back To You’ [6:16] opens side two with echoed guitar squiggles, all spaced, jittering and formless, before coalescing into a chunky, driving fast & heavy boogie groove out of nowhere, grinding along with snotty snarled vocals, also echoed. As it builds to a bridge there are swells of strings, but this time they’re not sappy, they actually suit the music and help build the atmosphere of flight. The guitars are flailing away like there’s no tomorrow, because the boys are on a boogie-ride into space like a Rory Gallagher band interpretation of Hawkwind, and they might not be back for dinner because they’re flying “back to you...” The boogie feel gives way to a spaced middle section as the strings (a mellotron?) soar and an exploratory guitar riff chisels out the scenery, descending into orbit and spiralling down to the surface of planet you with a quiet close.
‘Need Your Love’ [4:15] is a generic rock’n’roll doo-wop ballad (shit, where do they get off with this doo-wop stuff all of a sudden? I mean, it’s the 70’s, guys! Get over it! Leave that stuff to Daddy Cool and Sha Na Na) that doesn’t really warrant much further description, but it’s good stuff from here on.
‘Sitting Bull’ [3:35] chugs along on a simple thudding drum beat and three note hard riff with faux-Native American Indian “hey na na na, hey na na” chanting, a bit like Osage Tribe’s ‘Un Falco Nel Cielo’/‘Prehistoric Sound’ single in general approach but leaner and meaner, giving way to a more normal rock interlude for the chorus. It’s a mournful dirge acknowledging slain Indian braves of slaughters past, and the fact that no-one cares much these days anyway, nor is willing to admit the wrongs of such colonial racism and murder. At least ole Sitting Bull and co got their revenge when they stood up for their people at Little Bighorn.
‘Custer’s Last Stand’ [1:43] is a simple three-chord hard riff much like the one at the start of ‘That’s What Mama Said’ from ‘Ball Power’, crossed with this album’s title track but slower, repeating in a locked groove and carving out great hunks of sound as guitar grinds and solos over the top. This is more evocative of Sitting Bull’s men carving up those of Custer, than any homage to Custer himself.
‘Metal Feathers’ [2:20] is a mystic bong-portal of acoustic guitar pluckings and humming spacey synth lines swelling in the background, and reminds me a little of one of those beautiful-but-brief early Sabbath instrumental ballads like ‘Orchid’ but less classical/mediaeval, and it closes to a ticking clock with soft bells being struck slowly.
‘Tin Tango’ [2:08] is kind of an extension of ‘Custer’s Last Stand’, but with a different stomping malevolent riff, this time joined by bleeping and blooping synth sound effects and weird squishy mixing on some of the drum tracks. Near the end the other instruments fade and the synths go nuts á la Morton Subotnick falling across his synth controls, before they too fade. This track is rather analogous to Hard Stuff’s ‘Bolex Dementia’ (the song, not the whole album) in its approach.
‘Summation (U. Baby)’ [0:34] starts with the sounds of people laughing and chatting at a socialite-type party, then a recording of concert applause (of the opera variety) fades in and builds to a distorted climax, cutting to silence, and the album is over.

So, there you have it. A patchy album for sure, but containing enough great stuff to warrant checking it out if you’re into the Balls. The band ceased to exist shortly after the release of this album, and to explain why I’ll need to give a bit of background on the people who the Balls mainly appealed to. So, if you’re not interested in a bit of social history, you can stop reading here and skip to the last couple of paragraphs.

A large portion of the Balls’ most devoted fans were ‘sharpies’, an Australian youth culture from the late 60’s/early 70’s that may require some explanation to anyone who wasn’t living in south east Australia at that time. Sharpies were mainly – but not exclusively – a Melbourne phenomenon, springing from working class suburban youths who were generally hardcases who still took pride in their appearance and liked to look ‘sharp’ in their own simple and stylised but daggy way. Most of them were guys, though the rarer female sharpies were often of the sort who could go at it in a street fight without holding back and give as good as they got. Sharpies had an unusual preference in fashion, including short-cropped hair (though often long at the nape of the neck – somewhere between a skinhead buzz-cut and a mullet), tailor-made cardigans produced by a select few local Greek tailors, a particular cut of pants and particular types of shoes, preferably with solid pointy toes perfect for kicking kidneys or heads. The thing is, the world of sharpies was often a violent one and you had to be able to fight if the need arose. Primarily, you had to watch out if you weren’t yourself a sharpie, as they prowled the streets and public transport, and lurked at local milk bars and fish & chip shops to the point where if you wanted to go out it was best to take along as many friends as possible, and it wouldn’t hurt to be Bruce Lee, either. And even if you were a sharpie, if you happened to be alone or few and bumped into superior numbers from another gang (the gangs being defined by where they lived), it was best to run for it, because sharpies had a tendency to pounce on weakness and a fight or a chase at least meant some excitement, something to do, even if it meant stupid rivalries between gangs just because they were from a different neighbourhood. Sometimes gangs with some perceived grudge would meet and have huge public rumbles, along the lines of the notorious Brighton beach mods vs rockers riots and mini-riots of the mid-60’s in England. Incidentally Australia had mods of a kind as well, and here it was mods vs sharpies, but the mods had disappeared by the late 60’s and been replaced by hippies and freaks. Later, the world of sharpies began to also encompass people who dressed more closely to UK skinheads, but mostly without the racist and neo-Nazi connotations. These kinds of sharpies were sometimes looked down upon by the old-school variety as mindless idiots with no pride in their appearance.
It could be said that sharpies were the birthing place of what later became ‘bogans’ and ‘westies’ (the name depending on where you were from in Australia, this was/is a widespread lower-middle class suburban youth culture that evolved after sharpies disappeared [or rather, changed appearance so they could still get into clubs and meet girls], revolving around a love for metal and hard rock, drugs & booze, cars and good times, also with a particular dress sense – basically these were much the same kind of people as sharpies except they looked different), as well as being the pre-school for later true skinheads, career criminals and assorted sociopaths. Many sharpies simply settled down, had families and lived a relatively normal life.
Unfortunately the violence at gigs led to lots of problems which were neither forseen nor welcomed by the band. It could be hard to get gigs because promoters and venue owners were worried about what could happen due to the reputation of the predominantly sharpie audience for violence and general trouble. Non-sharpies were often too wary to go to see the band live except at outdoor festivals, which just meant a higher concentration of sharpies at most gigs. The band became associated with the bad reputation of their audience as though it was somehow their fault. At the same time, however, early on the band had welcomed this portion of their fanbase, presumably both because you can’t exactly dictate who your fans are, and because these were by and large the kids who could most relate to what the band were doing, which was hard and unpretentious, and the band members looked like sharpies too, though more casual in their dress sense. Besides which, if the sharpies liked you, you were safe from being hassled by them, which was naturally a good thing. Not that the boys in the band couldn’t take care of themselves, but they were generally nice guys who were unlikely to pick a fight without undue provocation, unlike many sharpies. And inside, Lobby was still a hippy in a way. But for their appearance and uncompromising approach the Balls were simply too much for general sensibilities at the time, and you had to be a brave soul either with heavy friends or able to handle yourself if you wanted to go and see them play, if you weren’t also a sharpie – or even if you were! But to get to the point, I’m not trying to idolise a bunch of bullies and idiotic thugs. The band members looked the part, but they didn’t espouse unnecessary violence and Lobby wouldn’t hurt a fly – except with volume, perhaps.

So, the upshot of all this was that the band chose to quietly dissolve and move on. Lobby got involved in various short-lived groups, eventually settling on Southern Electric (not to be confused with the touring band for Jim Keays, ex-Master’s Apprentices singer). With these guys he recorded a solo album, 1976’s ‘Obsecration’, which is mostly pretty ordinary blues-derived rock, though not exactly a bad album. Still, a far cry from the Coloured Balls. What is known only by a few, however, is that Lobby recorded a second disc’s worth of music which didn’t see the light of day. He’d planned on ‘Obsecration’ being a double LP, but the record company rejected the second part – which, I’ve been told by a friend who’s heard it, is all excellent space rock! Recently the master tapes resurfaced in an unlikely manner, and there are plans by Aztec Music, in collaboration with Vicious Sloth Collectables, to release it for the first time on CD some time this year (originally they’d planned to release it as disc 2 of the upcoming ‘Obsecration’ reissue, but it’s going to come out separately). Can’t wait for that one!
Following this, Lobby went to the UK for a couple of years, sitting in on sessions with the likes of Siouxsie & the Banshees, Roxy Music and The Police, before heading back home, briefly joining Rose Tattoo as a bassist (recording only an unreleased album and one side of a single for the Australian Marijuana Party, the uncharacteristic psychedelic funk rock ‘Release [sic? Realise?] Legalise’, backed with ‘Bong On Aussie’ by Colin Peterson) and making his last solo album, ‘Live With Dubs’ [Mushroom, 1979]. For much of the 80’s and 90’s he worked as a record producer and these days still occasionally plays live with his group Fish Tree Mother. I may not like everything he’s done, but Lobby Loyde is one true crusty gem in the history of Australian rock.( By JULIAN COPE - http://www.headheritage.co.uk )