LCMR-017 THE BENT ELBOWS - ST LUCIA ROAD 7" EP

RELEASE DATE: 22/12/17

First 50 orders receive a bonus Bent Elbows beer coaster made by Tony Stirker.

In 1981, Brisbane's post-punk music scene were primarily centred around the 279 Club at the Exchange Hotel on Edward Street from Thursday night through to Sunday night for a solid year. Of course not every mainstream-eschewing band played at this inner-city venue and the Bent Elbows certainly were such a group.

The band were so independent that they were aloof to the scene(s) around them and simply did their own thing and one of those was record an EP - independently of course!

What was recorded as demos suddenly appeared on a 7" though EMI Custom in the spring of 1981, hence the spontaneity heard during elements of the recording; not to mention the mistakes. Soon after its release, boxes of records were stolen out of the band's car. Now these stories seem almost cliched as they are Brisbane-centric but given its unavailability and its sightings on the open market all few and far between, the stories and legends all seem to make sense as this is one of the river city's more scarce records to find in any condition.

So eventually, the core of the band - the Baker brothers - drifted to Sydney and released another EP before the 1980s came to a close.

The post-Saints musical landscape of Brisbane during its first five years (1977-1982) threw up a relatively wide range of styles across a broad range of influences with varying degrees of a more commercial aspiration. With the Bent Elbows, it's hard to tell exactly where they wanted their music to be but standing between a beer soaked carpet and a nicotine-stained ceiling is where the St. Lucia Road EP feels right at home.

This reissue is mastered from the original 1/4" tapes by Bruce Callaway and the cover art have been screen printed (maintaining the original offset cover art) in silver ink in an edition of 150.

A1 St. Lucia Road
A2 Free-way Connection

B1 Scoring Sugar
B2 Chip On The Shoulder Boy

Tony Stirker - vocals
Matthew Baker - guitar
Bruce Iliff - keyboards
Robert Russian - bass
Martin Melville - drums

Engineers - Doug Hills and Peter Flynn

...if you'd like a fair idea of what to expect, here is a vinyl rip from the 1981 EP: