Welcome to the deep dive. We are really excited
you're joining us today because we are looking
into something totally fascinating. Oh, absolutely.
It's one of those stories that just it really
grabs you. Right. So I want you to imagine starting
a rock band, but you decide to just ban the one
instrument that tells everyone in the audience
how to move. Yeah, the rhythmic anchor. Exactly.
No snare drum, no cracking backbeat at all. Just
raw screaming. analog guitar noise, a heavily
distorted bass, and a kick drum pounding away
in the dark. Which, I mean, on paper sounds like
a recipe for a total train wreck. Oh, completely.
But in 1994, in the absolute geographic isolation
of Hobart Tasmania, a band did exactly this.
They kicked the foundation right out from under
the music, and somehow the whole structure stayed
standing. It's really the absolute definition
of an artistic high wire act. Yeah, that's a
great way to put it. Because when you look at
the mechanics of how under - background music
scenes actually evolve, it's rarely because someone
bought the best equipment or moved to the biggest
city. It's usually the opposite. Exactly. It
is almost always a story of severe constraints.
And this band, Sea Scouts, they are just a perfect
case study in how being completely cut off from
the global pop machine forces you to invent a
totally idiosyncratic sonic language just to
survive, really. So our mission today is to track
exactly how that language was built, right? How
it broke down and how it mutated. Because if
you're looking to discover hidden gems, or if
you want to understand the life cycle of pure
unadulterated noise rock, this is the blueprint.
It really is. So let's drop right into Hobart,
1994. A musician named Tim Evans has just seen
his former band, Mouth, fall apart. Which is
always a tough spot for a musician. Yeah. But
instead of packing it in, he starts jamming with
Zach von Bomberger. And Zach had been the front
man for another local outfit called UFO. Which,
amazingly, stood for Unlimited Friendly Objective.
I love that name so much. But anyway, right out
of the gate, they are a two piece. They are fusing
these thick, rough, analog guitar noises with
what they called hidden melodies. Hidden melodies,
yeah. and their rhythm section at this point,
it's literally just a mechanical drum machine.
Which immediately sets up this very specific
visceral tension. I mean, think about what happens
when you combine... raw, unpredictable analog
guitar feedback with the rigid, unfeeling pulse
of a drum machine. It's a clash. A total sonic
war zone. It's the organic, messy chaos of a
human being fighting against the perfect mathematical
timing of a machine. Right. And it requires a
massive amount of physical energy from the musicians
to make a two -piece setup feel full and commanding
in a live room. You have to fill all that empty
sonic space with sheer frequency and, well, And
their very first artifact as a duo perfectly
captures that DIY messy ethos. They put out an
EP called $100 ,000 Mammal. With Mammal intentionally
misspelled. Yes, exactly. Just the one M. But
the physical release itself is what fascinates
me here. It was a polycarbonate only pressing.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Now for anyone listening who's
used to just streaming music or even buying standard
vinyl, a polycarbonate record sounds like something
out of a science experiment. Well, it essentially
is. Because standard vinyl records, they're pressed
in a factory using a metal master stamp. It's
an industrial, relatively pristine process. Yeah,
it's uniform. Exactly. But polycarbonate records,
on the other hand, are often lathe cut. This
means someone is literally using a cutting needle
to carve the audio grooves directly into a sheet
of plastic. Like, by hand. Sometimes one by one,
in real time. It is significantly cheaper, incredibly
DIY, and, truthfully, it sounds physically rougher.
Oh, I bet. The audio fidelity is way lower, and
the record itself degrades faster the more you
play it. It is basically audio brutality in physical
form. That is wild. But it perfectly mirrored
their live shows, right? Yeah. Because those
early gigs were pure chaos. They were sharing
vocal duties, wrestling with feedback, and just
writing these incredibly heavy, repetitive loops.
Yeah, building that house without blueprints.
Exactly. But here is where the story takes a
massive left turn. Shortly after that polycarbonate
EP drops, they realize they want a human element
back in the rhythm section. So they bring in
a drummer named Monica Fickerall. And when she
joins Sea Scouts, she plays her entire kit with
a complete absence of a snare drum. Which fundamentally
breaks the rules of modern music. It really does.
I mean, to understand why this matters, you have
to look at the anatomy of a rock song. The snare
drum. That sharp, high -frequency crack that
usually hits on beats two and four, it's the
backbone of Western popular music. Oh, it's the
backbeat. Right. It is the punctuation mark at
the end of every musical sentence. It's what
tells your body to nod its head. Exactly. The
snare cuts through the low -end rumble of the
bass and the mid -range wash of the guitars.
It's like, it's the beacon. Precisely. So to
deliberately remove it isn't just a quirky, stylistic
choice. It is stubborn. It's disobedient, really.
Yeah, contumelius is the word that comes to mind.
Exactly. Without the sharp attack of the snare,
the low -end rumble and the high -end feedback
just swirl together. It creates this massive,
minimal, but surprisingly dense wall of sound.
But mechanically speaking, what does that actually
do to you as a listener? Like, if you are standing
in a sweaty club in Hobart and the backbeat is
just gone, what are you actually listening to?
Well, you are forced to listen actively. rather
than passively. Your brain naturally wants that
snare crack. We're conditioned for it. Exactly.
So when you deny the brain that resolution, it
starts frantically searching the rest of the
sonic landscape for structure. Taking away the
snare forces the listener to dive under the distortion.
To find those hidden melodies. Yes. You have
to focus on the driving pulse of the bass or
those hidden melodies buried inside the guitar
noise. The melody suddenly has to do all the
heavy lifting to propel the song forward. It
is a brilliant, totally counterintuitive constraint,
but there is a fatal flaw in relying entirely
on sheer force of will to hold your music together.
It's exhausting. It is physically and creatively
exhausting. The initial burst of energy sustains
them for a few months. They do a short punishing
tour of the Australian mainland, but then Ficker
leaves the band. And about six months later,
the entire project folds. It just burns out.
Yeah, it burns out. Which is really the classic
life cycle of these intense experimental projects.
When you build a sound based entirely on provocation
and tension, it naturally has a very short half
-life. But, you know, a truly weird idea rarely
stays dead. That's very true. We had a conceptual
pivot point in roughly 1996. Tim Evans decides
he has to reboot the band. So he brings in a
bassist named Alex Pope. OK, so a new lineup.
Yep. And then initially, they revert right back
to the original blueprint, just the two of them
writing new material and reinterpreting the old
songs over a drum machine again. Back to the
machine. Right. But then they recruit a new drummer,
Andy Hazel, who used to play in UFO with Zack.
Yeah. And when Andy Hazel sits down at the kit,
he brings the snare drum and the hi -hat back
into the mix. Oh, wow. That is a massive shift
in their sonic architecture. Okay, wait, I have
to push back hard on this. When I saw this in
the sources, I immediately thought, doesn't that
completely ruin the experiment? Well, they built
this entire identity around being the weird snare
-less noise band that defies the rules of rhythm.
Adding a snare and a hi -hat back in, doesn't
that just mean they gave up? Hmm. It sounds to
me like they smoothed out their edges just to
become a standard rock band and get more gigs.
I completely understand why it looks like a capitulation
on the surface. But if you look at the mechanics
of how a band survives past its first year, this
isn't a sellout. It's a necessary evolution.
Really? A necessary evolution? Absolutely. The
snareless setup was a fantastic grenade to throw
into the local scene, but it was also a severe
boundary. You can only write so many songs within
that specific void before you start repeating
yourself. Okay, that's fair. By bringing the
snare back, they didn't become a standard rock
band. I mean, they still sounded incredibly abrasive.
But they expanded their canvas. They gave themselves
the structural foundation they needed to build
a taller, more complex building, so to speak.
So they needed a new vessel for the noise. Exactly.
If they were going to survive and grow, they
had to adapt the vessel. And it seems that structural
evolution kept rolling, because Hazel's tenure
is actually really brief. Later in 1996, he's
replaced by Sarah Mae Libero on drums. Oh, right.
And she continues a fascinating trend the band
had. She plays the drums standing up. She's explicitly
compared to Moe Tucker from the Velvet Underground
in the source material. Which changes the entire
physicality of the music. Oh, so. Well, think
about the mechanics of drumming. When a drummer
is sitting down, They are using their ankles
and wrists to play complex, subdivided patterns.
But when a drummer is standing up, everything
changes. It's more full -body. It is primal.
You are using your entire body weight to strike
a floor tom and a snare. You aren't executing
rapid -fire drum fills. You are hammering out
a hypnotic, driving tribal rhythm. Oh man, that
visual just standing there hammering away. It
visually and sonically perfectly complements
that thick wall of analog guitar noise. It turns
the rhythm section into an anvil. I love that.
So with this reinforced lineup, Evans, Pope,
and Libero, they finally lock in and record their
first full -length album in 1997. It's called
Pattern Recognition. A great title too. Yeah.
And the way they recorded this is basically a
masterclass in the 1990s DIY underground ethos.
They recorded the entire thing on a four -track
cassette recorder, and the label, Chapter Music,
released it exclusively on vinyl. Which again
fundamentally shapes what the listener ultimately
hears. A four -track cassette recorder is exactly
what it sounds like. You only have four distinct
lanes of audio to work with. Right. Which sounds
impossible for a full band. If you have drums,
bass, vocals, and two guitar parts, you are already
out of lanes. Exactly. So bands had to bounce
tracks. You'd record the drums and bass on tracks
one and two, then mix them together and bounce
them onto track three just to free up space.
That sounds incredibly stressful. It is. And
every time you bounce analog tape, the audio
quality degrades. You get more tape hit. you
lose high -end clarity so it literally gets grittier
it does but more importantly it forces permanent
creative commitments once you mix those drums
and bass together you can never unmix them you
can't fix a slight mistake later you are committing
to the raw performance Wow and then releasing
it exclusively on vinyl amplifies that commitment
for the audience, doesn't it? Oh, for sure. Because
vinyl demands an active listening experience.
You can't just hit shuffle and walk into the
other room. You have to physically drop the needle,
listen to the sequence exactly as the band intended,
and then physically flip the record over to hear
the rest. Right. You are actively engaging with
the physical artifact. It creates an intimacy
between the band and the listener that digital
formats often lack. Well, speaking of digital
formats, that collision is about to happen. Because
right around 1997 and 1998, this highly localized
Tasmanian sound starts breaking out of its geographic
bubble. They start touring more, right? Yeah.
Sea Scouts are touring the major mainland cities
like Melbourne and Sydney. And they aren't just
playing tiny dive bars anymore. They are landing
massive support slots for major international
indie acts. We're talking pavement in 1997, archers
of loaf in 1998. the ultimate stress test for
an underground band. Oh, absolutely. I mean,
when you are opening for a band like Pavement,
who were essentially indie rock royalty at the
time, you are stepping onto a massive stage in
front of thousands of people who did not pay
to see you. Right. They're just waiting for the
headliner. Exactly. It tests whether that localized
abrasive Hobart noise can actually translate
to a cavernous room and win over a skeptical
crowd. And during this crucible, the lineup shifts.
Yet again, Sarah Mae Lubera leaves and their
original snare -less drummer, Monica Fickrell,
rejoins the group to jam a newer set of songs.
Full circle. Totally. They are gearing up for
their second album, Beacon of Hope, which they
record in 1998 for Unstable Ape Records. But
there is a detail from these recording sessions
that is just brilliant. Exactly. While recording
the new album, they deliberately went back and
re -recorded their first album, Pattern Recognition,
and their stated goal for this re -recording
was to make a version that was intentional. Oh,
right. They used the exact phrase. They wanted
it to be less scabby, specifically for a CD release.
Less scabby is such an incredibly evocative phrase.
I love that. So good. And it perfectly captures
the massive technological tension that underground
bands faced in the late 90s, you know, the format
wars. Okay, break that down for me. Why did moving
to CD force them to change how they played their
own songs? Because the medium dictates the message.
Think about cassette tapes and vinyl. They have
a natural noise floor. They have tape compression
and vinyl warmth. That warmth acts like a sonic
glue. It masks slight mistakes. It blends harsh
frequencies together. A raw, abrasive noise rock
band sounds right at home there because the medium
itself is slightly dirty. It's forgiving in a
way. Exactly. But a compact disc, a CD is binary.
It is ones and zeros. It has a massive dynamic
range and pristine digital clarity. So if your
guitar sounds like a dying lawnmower, the CD
is going to replicate that dying lawnmower with
terrifying microscopic precision. Exactly. It
exposes every single frequency. It strips away
the protective dirt of the analog tape. So re
-recording your songs to be less scabby is a
literal mechanical smoothing over of your abrasive
origins to survive audio demands of a new, unforgiving
format. That makes so much sense. Think about
any time you've had a wild, chaotic, brilliant
idea, but you have to present it to your boss
at a corporate meeting. You know, if you go in
there screaming and throwing paint, they'll kick
you out. Right, you have to adapt it. So what
do you do? You put it in a PowerPoint presentation,
you smooth the edges, you make it less scabby
so the wider audience can actually digest it.
That is exactly what Seascouts were facing. And
the translation worked. By 1999, they are operating
on an international scale. They put out a seven
-inch record on a Californian label called Zum.
The two tracks are Word is a Weapon and Destroy
Your Local McDonald's. Great titles. Yeah. And
amazingly, they were re -recordings of two songs
from the band's very first incarnation back in
1994. It really shows how cyclical the creative
process is. You start with this chaotic foundation,
you evolve, you learn how to translate your sound
for bigger rooms and clearer formats, and once
you have that platform, you reach right back
to your rawest beginnings and ship them to California.
And their physical reach matched their sonic
reach. In 1999, Sea Scouts embarked on a massive
tour of North America and Europe. They even joined
an Australian band called 99 for a string of
shows in Eastern Europe. Wow. Going from jamming
with a drum machine in Hobart to hauling gear
around Eastern Europe is a staggering trajectory.
It really is. But the problem with operating
at that level of intensity, especially doing
it DIY without a massive crew or major label
support, is that it takes an immense toll. Right.
A grenade eventually has to explode. The intense
burn of a noise rock band almost always comes
with a strict expiration date. They just can't
sustain it forever. Exactly. So they return home
later in 1999, and the decision is made to call
it quits. They play their final local shows in
Hobart, returning to the very rooms where it
all started. That's fitting. And then they wrap
up the entire Sea Scouts journey with a grand
final show at Melbourne's Corner Hotel on February
18th, 2000. A literal end of the millennium closing
of the book. But the truth is, the story of Sea
Scouts does not end on that stage at the Corner
Hotel. Because Sea Scouts weren't a dynasty,
they were a grenade. They went off and the shrapnel
hit everything the Australian underground for
the next two decades. Oh, the diaspora is incredible.
It is. When you trace the DNA of this band through
the projects these members formed afterward,
it totally redefines how we measure success.
Take Tim Evans, for example. He moves to Melbourne
and forms a band called Bird Blobs, releasing
an EP and two albums. Right. Then he takes that
raw energy to New York City, forming the bands
Degreaser and Bogandust. He drops a solo album
in 2016 called Wretched Wings. He even does a
stint on vocals for the legendary noise band
Venom P. Stinger. He essentially carried the
Hobart blueprint across the world. And the other
members took that chaotic training and applied
it in entirely new directions, too. Yeah, tell
me about Alex Pope. Well, look at the bassist,
Alex Pope. He takes the abrasive, relentless
energy of Sea Scouts and applies it to a completely
different extreme genre. He forms a highly regarded
black metal band called Ruins. Black metal? Yeah.
He took the noise ethos and weaponized it in
a new way. That's brilliant. And Zach von Baumburger
goes on to found bands like Gojjan or everything.
Monica Fickerle applies her driving primal rhythms
to bands like Love of Diagrams and Baseball.
And this is why we have to look past the idea
that a band is only successful if they last for
20 years and sell out stadiums. Oh, absolutely.
Sea Scouts only existed as an active touring
unit for about six years, but they functioned
like a creative crucible. The intense heat of
that collaboration forged these musicians. They
learned how to build something out of nothing.
Right. How to play without a safety net. How
to survive the format wars. And then they scattered,
populating and influencing an entire underground
ecosystem. And the bonds forged in that crucible
are essentially permanent. because in 2021, over
two decades after that final show at the Corner
Hotel, Tim Evans and Monica Fickrell actually
reunited. Did they really? Yeah, they formed
a brand new band together called the Misanthropes.
I love that. When you have shared that kind of
foundational experience, when you have stood
on a stage playing complex, brutal noise without
even a snare drum to anchor you, you develop
a musical shorthand with that person that never
really goes away. It's hardwired into you. It
is. It's just incredible to trace the footprint
of this one short -lived Tasmanian experiment.
But as we finish unpacking their history, there
is one detail buried in the archives that I cannot
stop thinking about. What is it? Well, we talked
about their transition from polycarbonate to
cassette to vinyl to CD. We talked about all
their releases. But the records show that in
1999, right before they broke up, Sea Scouts
made further studio recordings. Really? Yeah.
It was a combination of older songs and completely
new material. And to this day, those recordings
have never been released. Wow. It's a genuinely
haunting thought, isn't it? It is. I mean, we
live in a digital age where we operate under
the assumption that everything has been archived.
We assume every thought, every song, every photo
is instantly accessible, uploaded to a cloud
somewhere, ready to be streamed on demand. But
it isn't. Somewhere out there, sitting in a cardboard
box in a closet or buried on an obsolete hard
drive is an entire collection of music from an
internationally touring band. Just waiting. It
has been sitting there, totally unheard, for
over 25 years. It forces you to ponder the nature
of lost art, you know? It's a potent reminder
that not all of our cultural history has been
digitized and smoothed out yet. Some of it is
still scabby. Exactly. Some of it is still scabby,
still raw, and still waiting to be discovered.
Maybe building that house without a foundation,
kicking out the snare drum, and screaming over
the noise was all they ever needed to do. But
somewhere out there, hidden in the static, is
a final masterpiece canvas that no one has ever
seen. Thanks so much for joining us on this deep
dive. We'll catch you next time.