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Hunters and Collectors
 Hunters
And Collectors carved a unique path and place for themselves in Australian
rock culture. The group was originally formed in post-punk 1981 in Melbourne as a collective rather
than a band, an excursion into funk-rock rhythms and industrial Kraut-rock.
(They named themselves after a song by Can). They ended up the thinking
man's pub band.
Growing
out of an earlier inner-suburban Melbourne group, The Jetsonnes, Hunters
And Collectors' early performances are remembered as chaotic, with audience
members encouraged to join in on the banging of rubbish bin lids or fire
extinguishers. The extended line-up included a massed horn section known as
the Horns Of Contempt. Inside all this was singer Mark Seymour, with an ear
for a melody and a taste for lyrical poetry. But for the moment even the
lyrics were a shared expression.
 Illustrating the
dichotomy at work in July 1982 the band's first single 'Talking To A
Stranger' featured a concise edited version of the song on one side and a
full length seven minute version on the other side. The single's theme of
alienation and anguish is one the band would return to, but for the moment
the group's emphasis was the free-form side of their work. Their sound
engineer was considered an official band member.
In a
sign of the times, Mushroom Records specifically created White Records to
house Hunters And Collectors, a new 'alternative' label for artists
determined to control their own musical destinies.
The
Hunters' first, self-titled album was produced by Tony Cohen. The Hunters'
reputation spread to Europe where a stripped-back band spent six months in
1983, recording a second album 'The Fireman's Curse' in Germany with
producer Connie Plank (Can, Kraftwerk). Pruned back to its essentials the
band recorded another album with Plank, 'The Jaws Of Life' and a
single-only song 'Throw Your Arms Around Me' in the 'Talking To A Stranger'
mould. Hunters And Collectors was at a crossroads.
After a
live album came 'Human Frailty' where singer Mark Seymour's themes of
alienation and sexual politics came to the fore. The band had discovered
how to tap the unique vein they had unearthed; where, in a sweat-dripping
venue packed to the rafters with a beer swilling macho rock fans the
audience would and could at the top of their voices unselfconsciously sing
along to a chorus like "you don't make me feel like a woman any
more".
A newly
recorded 'Throw Your
Arms Around Me' (YouTube) became one of the undisputed classic songs of
Australian rock, and from now until their end Hunters And Collectors would
remain one of Australian rock's favourite live attractions. The shifting
line-up consolidated around the group's evolved style, a
passionately-voiced exploration into the human condition, supported by
street-credible rock and roll.
While
successive studio albums did their best to extend Mark's themes and explore
new sounds to varying degrees of success, adding to the group's national
and worldwide status, more than anything it was the live performances fans
were waiting for. With each new album it was increasingly the older
material radio wanted to play. In the end Hunters And Collectors was
strangled by its own legend.
In 1998 the band announced they were recording
their final album, 'Juggernaut', and supported it with a farewell tour.
Mark Seymour released a solo album 'King Without A Clue', continuing his
relentless search for meaning through song. When one Sunday in Melbourne
sound man John Archer auctioned off the personally-designed PA which had
been carried by the band for almost twenty years it signalled not just the
end of Hunters And Collectors but the end also of Australian music's post
punk era. Mark Seymour has embarked on a solo career.
Hunters
and Collectors reunited for their first full gig since 1998 on December 3,
2011 at the V8's in Sydney.
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