Lipstick Killers

One of the most exciting things to hit a stage anywhere in the late '70s and early '80s were an electroshock-jolt Sydney combo called the Lipstick Killers. Rarely seen outside their home town, they were a musical stun gun with short, sharp, super-charged songs about dead movie stars ("Human Crash"), schoolyard bashings ("Bully"), hippy cults ("Hindu Gods of Love") and limbless freak show performers like Prince Randian ("Sockman"). Formed from the ashes of Radio Birdman supports the Psychosurgeons and confrontational punks Filth, the Lipstick Killers had a reputation as Sydney's most energetic and theatrical band when they upped stakes and moved overseas. The best part of a year of no fame and ill-fortune (much of it spent down and out in West Hollywood) wound up when the band called it a day after moving to L.A. to kick-start an overseas career. They left behind a single on Voxx (the ball-tearing "Hindu Gods of Love" b/w "Shakedown USA") but nothing was heard until the Lipstick Killers came back (briefly) in the late '80s. The twin axis of the band's principals, singer Peter Tillman and guitarist Mark Taylor, did a year (with latter day Killer Steven Mather on bass) as the backbone of fearsome 60s punkers Dr Stone in the early '90s, but with that band's demise the book seemed closed, a posthumous album (Mesmerizer on Citadel) and two more singles ("Sockman" b/w "Pensioner Pie" on Vynil and a self-issued live 45) seemingly the postscript.

Mesmerizer (1984)

1. Hindu Gods of Love
2. Driving the Special Dead
3. Bongo Flip
4. Strange Flash
5. Let's Talk About Girls
6. Sock It to Me Baby
7. Dying Boy's Crawl
8. Twilight of the Idols
9. I've Got Levitation
10. Pharmaceutical Au-Go-Go
11. Out of Our Tree
12. Liquor Fit

format: mp3
bitrate: 192kbps
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