Cast: Band vocalist: Quinsy Maclean Drummer: Clayton Jacboson Bass guitar: Adam Lerner Lead guitar: Lindsay Brundson Saxophonist: Wain Fimo, aka Wain Fimeri "Live" Band Music Mulaim Vela & Quinsy Maclean Additional Music Mulaim Vela Music Recording and Mixing Mark Woods at Trees Studio Vocals Quinsy Maclean Guitars Mulaim Vela Drums Phillip Calvert Bass Adam Learner Quinsy Maclean Lyrics: After the jokey end title about radiation sickness and the producers warning against physical activities for those wishing to prolong their lives after a nuclear blast, end credits begin, and with it a song, which isn't identified by name in the credits. Lyrics heard in the film: Well, I'm down Yeah, I'm down I was riding high But now I'm rock bottom I've since discovered that vacates the problem I'm down … but I'm not out. I'm cursed … I'm so cursed … There's a black cat that's strollin' across my way It looks like my troubles are here to stay Well, I'm down …but I'm not out … I'm in rags, hey, I'm dressed in rags And this one's off the rack at St Vincent's de Paul I ain't gunna go to the opera no more Well I'm down …ah, but I'm not out … Every day, every day, I lit the fuse I get the blues I think of things I think of things to say to you If I should see you down the street, yeah (instrumental solo) Every day … every day I get the blues I get the blues, I'll think of things I think of things to say to you … If I should see you down the street Well, I'm cursed, I'm so cursed … There's a black cat that's strollin' across my way It looks like my troubles are here to stay Well, I'm down …but I'm not out … I'm down, well I'm so sound Ah, I was running high, but now I'm rock bottom Well I've since discovered that fate hates a problem Well I'm down … but I'm not out … Well I feel down, yeah I'm real down But I'm not out … Well I'm so down, yeah I'm low down But I'm not out! (Raucous brass slides down and out, followed by a little laughter) In the special DVD release, the song is identified as "I'm Down", coming from the group's album Flame. Key Musicians: Mulaim Vela and Quinsy aka Quincy Maclean, were featured in a story in The Age on 10th February 2006, available online here, under the header Rising from Ruin: The late 1970s was a fertile period for music in Melbourne. Punk exploded onto the pages of magazines such as NME, local fanzines and public radio stations such as 3RMT (later 3RRR). Loud, raw and confronting sounds were being blasted out of bars such as Richmond's Tiger Lounge and St Kilda's dilapidated Seaview Ballroom by bands with intriguing names such as the Birthday Party, the Marching Girls, Microfilm, Fungus Brains and People With Chairs up their Noses. The shows would finish earlier than they do now, so there were always parties to go to afterwards where people would fraternise and network in scenes replicated by Richard Lowenstein in his film Dogs in Space. Young, impressionable Camberwell High students Ian "Quincy" McLean and Mulaim Vela soaked up the exciting new sights and sounds that would inspire them to write some of Melbourne's great songs of the '80s - Bad Gin, What a Hell'uva Woman, Kill Some Time, The Cure and They're Calling You Out. "The gigs used to start and finish earlier and people were so fired up, there would be this incredible circuit of parties afterwards, four or five nights a week," says Vela today. "You'd see people jamming and networking. And when gigs started ending later, with promoters cashing in on the energy that was there, people would be really frazzled." It was a time, McLean reminisces, when people made art for art's sake. "It was healthy because people never thought that their music would succeed commercially," he says. "There were no expectations. It was, 'This is what we are, this is what we do'. People did it for fun and expression." McLean and guitarist Vela, bassist Adam Learner and drummer Frank Borg formed the band Scrap Museum, who supported the Dead Kennedys and Iggy Pop when those US bands toured here. When the older and well- travelled former Birthday Party drummer Phil Calvert replaced Borg in 1984, the band changed its name to Blue Ruin. Like many of the bands around at the time - the Scientists, the Moodists, the Wreckery, the Triffids, the Go- Betweens and the Laughing Clowns - they would take their cue from punk and the blues to create a distinctly Australian form of post-punk. Blue Ruin - they took their name from an old term for bathtub gin - considered a lot of the blues cliched and much punk formulaic. Their mission statement, like their moniker, was to "mess with the blues". Produced by Tony Cohen, their raw, dark and menacing debut Such Sweet Thunder was an intimidating and intoxicating brew. Remastered and re- released this week on its 20th anniversary, it continues to rumble and tap into dark corners of the psyche with each listen. The follow-up Flame - to be re-released on its 20th anniversary next year - was better still, incorporating jazz and funk and replacing some of the harder edges with strings and Sharon Jessop's powerful gospel back-up vocals. Looking like a love child of Carl Perkins and Lux Interior, the charismatic and bequiffed McLean prowled the stage, a bar-room brawler, yelping, crooning and moaning in his whisky-soaked baritone voice, ready to fight any punk over a girl, a drink or a bet. Sadly, they don't seem to make frontmen of his ilk any more, but he will be strutting his stuff again on the Corner Hotel stage tomorrow night. McLean is remembered as one of the great frontmen of the '80s but he became a singer by accident. "We would get drunk with friends singing along to the stereo cranked up," he says. "A couple of friends who played guitar were arguing about who was going to be the singer and another friend said 'Get Quincy to do it, he's a much better singer than both of you'. I think that's the first time that any of us considered me as a singer." A lot of inspiration for their early songs came from McLean's experience as an orderly in a geriatric hospital. "What a Hell'uva Woman was written about this heavy old woman that I had to lift in and out of bed. She hated everybody, she was a real bitch, and she would order you around - 'Fetch that, boy'. It also inspired our first name, Scrap Museum - it was about death and ageing," McLean says. By 1984, the underground sound had been embraced by Melbourne and Blue Ruin filled venues such as the Corner Hotel two nights running. The band tried their luck in Britain but punters were more interested in the fledgling indie dance scene in Manchester. Despite interest from Geffen Records and reports that Atlantic Records music mogul Ahmet Ertegun had "danced on a table to Bad Gin", they returned without a deal. They released two more albums but never lived up to former glories. The tally of more labels than records (five albums on six labels), a lack of management, a loss of direction and shrinking fan base saw them call it a day in 1995. But the band don't regret trying their luck overseas. "Back then, becoming successful in Australia was like the kiss of death for the rest of the world," says McLean. "Once you became Cold Chisel or Hunters & Collectors, you couldn't make it outside Australia. Midnight Oil and Crowded House were exceptions, but they got out of Australia pretty quickly. We had already reached our poppiest moment by covering (Shocking Blue's) Venus and we really felt like we had to challenge ourselves by going somewhere we weren't known. And it was hard - like being the first of 12 bands on a bill to five people and a dog, the sound got cut early and the dog pissed on stage at the end of the gig. It was the pits. "Hunters & Collectors tried the US and England but they decided that Australia was where they were going to make it so they weeded out all of the interesting, experimental creative stuff in their music and became an Oz rock pop band. U2 have done it as well - sticking really close to what the public wants, but trying to be rootsy at the same time. "There is a tall-poppy syndrome in Australia, but when they take hold of someone and make them a legend, they overdo it and the band start believing the hype, and they get lazy and stop being creative. We wanted to keep challenging ourselves and made it really tough for ourselves, and didn't succeed." Despite this, McLean is philosophical about the band's demise. "It's a shitload of work considering there isn't any money in it. I don't know how it lasted 10 years. The more original you are, the more interesting you are, the harder it is to survive. Those bands usually survive on the strength of their commitment and their common goal, but when you've reached your peak and things start sliding backwards, that's when the gout sets in.