Lipstick Killers

★★★★

Strange Flash: Studio & Live ’78-81 GROWN UP WRONG! CD/LP

Two wild CDs of Aussie garage revival one-hit wonders.

Founded in the Sydney high-energy slipstream of Radio Birdman, Lipstick Killers released only one single during their brief lifetime, but it was enough for immortality: the next-wave-Nuggets ferocity of 1979’s Hindu Gods Of Love, produced by Birdman guitarist Deniz Tek. Incredibly, no studio album followed, and the band did not survive a move to Los Angeles, breaking up on the eve of a deal with Slash Records. This rear-view mirror mayhem – studio demos from 1978 and 1980; stage action in Adelaide and at the LA punk club Madame Wong’s – argues for what could have been. Live covers affirm the roots in play (Mitch Ryder, The 13th Floor Elevators), but it’s the blazing, bruising invention in the originals (Mesmerizer, Driving The Special Dead, Liquor Fit) that justifies the legend rightly attached to that lone single.