Wild About You - A Tribute to the Australian Underground 1963

RUNNING JUMPING STANDING STILL

By Iain McIntyre

Running Jumping Standing Still in 1967

When the Missing Links split up in 1966 the band’s members scattered across the country and indeed the globe. Despite their often fractious relationship drummer/singer Andy James and guitarist Doug Ford opted to keep their fortunes together in the hope of further developing the noisier end of the Links sound. Sprinting into the suitably named Running Jumping Standing Still (RJSS), the duo soon built on their existing reputation for wild stage antics and howling rhythm and blues.

Sydney’s King Cross may have been the place to be in the early days of the beat boom, but by 1966 Melbourne was undoubtedly the nerve centre of Australian rock n roll. With new venues opening literally every week and musicians relocating from all points it was the obvious place from which to relaunch a stalled career. Since the duo were somewhat work shy (in the straight sense at least) there were also a number of economic factors to consider.

“We couldn’t live much longer the way we were living, so we decided to go to Melbourne because we felt there was bound to be more work. We knew that we could go into the Thumping Tum and do gigs there. We had a few places lined up. We tried to keep our edge raw.”

Doug Ford in conversation with Dean Mittlehauser, Livin’ End #4, 1985.

Running Jumping Standing Still

And keep it raw they did. Recruiting drummer Ian Robinson and bassist Rick Dalton (of The Pink Finks) the band embarked on a cacophonic mission to pioneer feedback as an Australian art form. Utilising a series of tasty R&B obscurities as well as the occasional Top 40 hit James ripped his throat apart while Ford tore out the most toe curling squalls of noise to ever hit the ears of Melburnians.

In just three months together, the Running, Jumping, Standing Still have broken £2,000 worth of equipment. Guitars have been broken over chairs, thrown across rooms, microphones flung in the air, guitars smashed on them, drums kicked in, many other indescribable things… To the R.J.S.S., feedback is like a drug, they become completely carried away, even to the extent of shaking, as if they were high on drugs.

Lily Brett, Go Set, 31/4/66.

Peter Newing and Doug Ford, 1967

Equally as startling RJSS’s stage show saw James put the band through their paces tearing it up James Brown style and pre-empting Alice Cooper with a mock execution of the band on the ‘Go! Show’. The obsession with driving their amps and themselves to the limit was best summed up by James himself in a hyperbolic Go Set interview.

“This isn’t a gimmick, although a lot of people say that we just turn on a performance, so that we can be labelled the wildest group, but that’s just not true. We are sincere in our addiction to feedback and believe it gives you a release. The sound can completely capture your mind and we have seen people who were nearly hypnotised by our music. You don’t just go on stage and go mad. Everything is sincere, you play and draw in the crowd with you and then comes the climax of feedback and smashing of instruments.”

Andy James in conversation with Lily Brett, Go Set, 31/4/66.

Despite attracting a growing following cracks in the band’s facade began to widen within months of their first appearance. James’ level of substance abuse may have fuelled his ability to startle and hold an audience, but it also had some rather grave effects on his health. Hitting the stage of the Thumpin’ Tum in December 1966 he suffered a brain haemorrhage during a soaring rendition of River Deep, Mountain High. He was to spend a month in hospital recovering.

“Andy had a health problem. He had a heavy drink problem for a start… There was a lot of methedrine, dexedrine around in those days. Pills like that, speed, basically… they were very bad medicine for Andy cos’ he was a highly strung person, when he had the stuff he was off his brain. I don’t want to put any detriment on the guy’s character because he was a very straight and honest guy… I remember the climax. Andy came onstage holding his head like he was in agony. He had been drinking and nothing would stop that guy, he was like a locomotive burning down the tracks. But this night something stopped him. He had this haemorrhage in his head and he kinda fell down on the floor. He was rolling around yelling “ARRRRGGGH” as if his head was splitting open from the pain.”

Doug Ford in conversation with Dean Mittlehauser, Livin’ End #4, 1985.

During his convalescence the band decided it would be better for all concerned if James moved on. Not to be discouraged however, the frenetic front man hurriedly knocked together the suitably named Andy James Asylum and was soon to be found chopping up cupboards on stage with an axe. Stints with a number of bands in Melbourne and Sydney (including The Action and Mother Superior) followed until one fateful day in 1972 when Mr James was ordered back to New Zealand by a group of Kings Cross hard men.

Following this forced repatriation he reverted to his original surname (Anderson) and embarked on an acting career that would see the one time wild man grace the television sets of millions in years to come. To his credit the Logie-award winning actor has never attempted to conceal his past and indeed credits it with giving him a leg up into the industry.

Picking up supplies in 1967

“I slid sideways into screen acting. I’d burned the candle at both ends as a rocker and I had to get out of the pubs and clubs or hit the wall… Anyway a TV producer was looking for someone to play a weird acid casualty DJ in a drama series- not a big stretch for me at the time! I must have been the weirdest one to turn up and they gave me the gig. While doing that I scored the role of Jim Sullivan in The Sullivans and it’s just gone on from there.”

Andy Anderson, www.andyanderson.com.au, 2001.

Back in March 1967 however James’ future in the world of show business was looking decidedly shaky as his former band’s debut single Diddy Wah Diddy/My Girl was released without him. RJSS’s live shows may have been famously chaotic affairs, but on this occasion the band was totally focussed, nailing every note and break as if their life depended on it. Taking the insistent feel of the Bo Diddley original and transforming it into a riff crunching monster Diddy Wah Diddy remains one of the finer moments in Australian R&B. In contrast the B-Side’s take on The Temptations smash is somewhat disappointing. Thankfully the boys avoided such balladry on their next release.

Exactly who sang on the band’s recordings is debatable due to the hazy memories of everyone involved. In his 1985 Livin’ End interview Ford maintained it was James, but contemporaries of the band such as Go-Set photographer Jim Colbert are adamant it was his replacement (ex Pleazer) Peter Newing. Comparing the vocals on the Diddy Wah Diddy single to those on the ‘Go Show’ recording which appeared on Half A Cow’s Missing Links compilation one is inclined to believe it was Newing, but then who knows for sure? Give both a listen and draw your own conclusions.

If James was indeed out of the band by the time they hit the studio then the new chum appears to have done a much better job than he was ever credited with. Further changes in the rhythm section soon saw Ford remain as the lone member of the original line up. Over the band’s remaining time Jamie Byrne, John Philips and Ian Ferguson would come and go in the bass department while Doug Lavery took over from Ian Robinson on drums. The band attempted to maintain their trademark live raucousness, but in an interview with Go Set Newing foreshadowed some ominous changes.

“We’re always going to try for a driving, more interesting sound. You’ve got to keep it varied with not too much non-commercial stuff. This going over people’s heads playing things they don’t know is what got the band in trouble last time.”

Peter Newing, Go-Set, 5/4/67.

“Going over people’s heads” however was pretty much the whole point and thanks to Newing’s commercial approach interest both inside and outside of the band began to fade. Doug Ford candidly summed up the effects of the line up changes in 1985.

“I think for me it was a bit of an anti-climax- in so much that I couldn’t find anybody to replace Andy. The only reason we got Newing in was because his girlfriend ran an agency and it was promising lots and lots of money every week, which we hadn’t had for a long time. I guess I kind of got brainwashed and once he was in there I realised he wasn’t the right person for the group… We tried to keep up the same wild stage act, but it was completely insipid compared to when Andy was there. I couldn’t put my best in because I didn’t feel that I was genuine about it, or that it meant it anything to me. And it didn’t, because the business had started to come into it and the pleasure and all those outlets I had just shut off… If Andy could have stuck with it, we would’ve come out with a lot more things, but like I said, he fused out”

Doug Ford in conversation with Dean Mittlehauser, Living End #4, 1985.

Doug Ford in repose

Regardless of this faltering attitude the band kicked along playing the Melbourne circuit before releasing a second Sunshine single She’s So Good To Me/Little Girl in August 1967. Once again the A-side highlighted the band’s ability to keep it tight in the studio by melding an incurably catchy chorus to a straight down the line beat and brash guitar accompaniment. The lyrics are pretty cool too with James/Newing singing the praises of a girl so boss that she “Gives a party for me every Saturday night/They’re the sort of parties I really enjoy/ There’s three other girls and I’m the only boy!”

The B-Side this time lives up to the band’s reputation for toughness offering up a no-frills straight ahead rocker. Rougher in every respect than the already frantic flip Little Girl sees our gravely throated vocalist promising that “You’re gonna be mine little girl, You’ve been through 18 years of hell.” Ideally this should have been a double A-Side, but with a chorus like that it just wasn’t likely to happen in Australia, even in 1967.

In spite of these superior qualities the single floundered in the charts. Having already suffered through two bands which had featured ever changing line-ups Ford now found himself with the offer of a place in a third, the hugely popular Masters Apprentices. Happily jumping ship the guitarist’s departure brought RJSS to a close. Linking up with a new partner in Jim Keays, Ford would go on to pen some of Australia’s most enduring psychedelic songs while cementing his reputation as a master guitar wrangler.

Recommended Listening:

An early version of Diddy Wah Diddy, which undoubtedly features James on vocals, can be heard on the Missing Links Driving Me Insane CD (Half A Cow). The single version can be found on the So You Want To Be A Rock n Roll Star compilation CD (Festival). The band’s other material can be elusive, but She’s So Good To Me and Little Girl appear on the Devils Children #3 and Pretty Ugly bootlegs.

Picture Credits:
All photograps from the collection of former Go Set photographer Jim Colbert. Reproduced with permission.