Victim Chant by Mouth

released August 17, 2017

Okay I will keep this short cause I think you should really be listening this cd without too much fanfare or preconceived ideas about the band. The first I had heard about Mouth apart from seeing their name in street press, was when Lindsay Gravina had told me about this band he had recorded. He knew that I would like them and suggested I put them out on my label Destroyer. I went into Birdland and Lindsay put it on while we were talking and straight away I was totally amazed at how cool it sounded. When Lindsay told me the humming sound at the start of One “Disease” was Cameron touching the end of his disconnected bass lead, I just thought it was genius. I asked when they were playing next and went to see them and asked them if they wanted to release the record with me, well, if they hadn’t got someone already. Needless to say their live performance floored me. Who the fuck were these guys? They came from Tasmania and had relocated over here to Melbourne. They had been playing shows and recorded one of the best debut albums anyone had done for ages.
Mouth had this kind of reckless, intense and one the edge kind of stage presence. Tim was manic, he played a Hondo guitar, voted worst guitar by Guitar Player Magazine 2 years running and strummed it with only 5 strings. His amp was some home made piece of shit but i made a sound you would die for. Cameron was thumping and feed-backing his bass pulverising the songs on while Paul kept it all together on drums, the songs cooly driving on. We put the record out. The Victim Chant cover art was done by the band. I remember Tim bringing in bits of different sized paper with all the photos and text cut and pasted on. I loved it! I think one page was written on a piece of timber. The guy under the sign on the Homophobia lyrics page is a friend of the band. It was taken at a local shopping centre in Hobart, it being a criminal offence in Tasmania at that time to be homosexual. When I saw that image I thought these guys aren’t your average rock band, there’s something more to them, that even through their artwork made the experience of their music more vital and intense.
Victim Chant got really good reviews and Subway Records in Germany released it pretty much as soon as they heard it, but by then the band had broken up. I still don’t know or understand why but I guess it had run its course and they all moved onto other bands or whatever. Too bad.
Just one other thing, did you ever at sometime see a band and wished you could have played in that band? Once I did.
Dave Thomas
Dias de Todos Santos, 2005.