In 1977, as punk rock was hitting Melbourne in its small and explosive manner I heard from Bruce Milne about a band called The Boys Next Door who were the real deal. These guys meant it and were destined to be the leading band on the scene. They were going to play a gig in a church hall somewhere in Mount Waverley and we just had to get there. There wasn’t a big audience and we recognised many of the faces there from places like the Tiger Room but when the Boys Next Door came on they just exploded. Mostly the work of the charismatic lead singer Nick Cave but the rest of the band were no slouches either with Mick Harvey particularly impressing with his lead/rhythm guitar. You just knew they were going to be the anointed ones. I saw many of their early shows and my bands The Fiction and later Little Murders regularly supported them.
They also introduced me to this great Alice Cooper song. Released before his string of hits in the seventies it was a standout youth anthem. Johnny Rotten even mimed to it for his Sex Pistols audition. I dug out Alice Cooper’s greatest hits and found quite a few great songs I had missed.
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