Biography

LOOSE MANIFESTO

Released Friday 1 October 2010 on Peabrain Recordings, via MGM Distribution

There’s a scene in an episode of The Simpsons where former child star, Mickey Rooney says, “I was the number one box office draw from 1939 to 1940” and Bart replies, “Wow, spanning two decades”. Well, technically, Peabody’s career has now spanned three decades, having started in 1995. That’s pretty good considering these days if you’re 17 and you haven’t had a song feature on an ad for an iPhone App you might as well delete your MySpace site.

In that time Peabody has released three albums – Professional Againster (2002), The New Violence (2005) and Prospero (2008); several singles and EPs; toured nationally and internationally; played  the Big Day Out, Homebake, Livid, Come Together and Essential festivals, warehouses, pubs, clubs and parties; shared stages with the likes of You Am I, Youth Group, The Hoodoo Gurus, The Mess Hall, Dappled Cities, Midnight Juggernauts and The Hard Ons; been on the radio, not been on the radio, been popular, unpopular, cool to dislike and trendy to love.

Loose Manifesto is Peabody’s fourth album. It was recorded in four short days in a small shack in Ball’s Head, Sydney, overlooking navy and fishing ships and an old coal loading dock. It was recorded on the same 8-track tape machine that Nirvana recorded their debut album, Bleach.

Engineer, friend and colleague, Tim Kevin came across this machine via Midnight Oil axeman, Jim Moginie, so you can imagine the history it has been part of. Now you can add Loose Manifesto to the list.

Espousing all the punk rock aesthetics and themes of the Swiss World War I ‘anti-art’ movement, Dada (or Dadaism), this album ridicules the meaninglessness of the modern world through a series of short bursts, aural assaults, hypnotic rhythms, verbal sprays and carefully crafted diatribes.

Nothing is safe from Ben Chamie’s poison pen via Bruno Brayovic’s forked tongue. Band clones, Evel Knievel’s doubters, inbred hicks in car accidents and the state of the world in general all get the piss taken out of them and ultimately all end up as part of this manifesto for letting it slide.

Loose Manifesto revisits angry Peabody (‘Already Won’, ‘Choking’, ‘Loose Manifesto’) but still retains some of the melody (‘No New Riffs’, ‘I’ve Been Waiting’) and even includes the band’s first ever genuine guitar solo (‘It Can’t Be Done’).

This is also the first time the band has donned the producer’s hat. Not having Jamie Hutchings at the helm for the first time was like Dad being away for the weekend. So on Loose Manifesto, Peabody did whatever any self-respecting teenager would do if they were left home alone … whatever the fuck they wanted.