The Jackson Code
Encyclopedia
The Jackson Code are an Australia
n rock
band, formed in Perth
in 1989
.
. For the band's debut album, Snarski utilised the services of Amanda Pearson (vocals, percussion), Barry Turnbull (bass) and Mark Dawson (drums). The album, Del Musical Del Mismo Nombre was released in August 1989 on the Waterfront label (available only on vinyl) to critical acclaim, although it was re-released on CD in 1993. The main influence on the album was songwriter Snarski's trip to Spain, thus the title which when translated means "From the Musical of the Same Name". The band recorded the album in four days on a budget of $1000. The lush romanticism of the songs had critics searching for superlatives. Writing in Rolling Stone
, reviewer Jon Casimir called the album one of the minor masterpieces of 1989. As Casimir put it, the band took inspiration for its 'self-styled urban Romantic Cabaret' from German writers such as Brecht
and Weill
, as well as Tom Waits
. To promote the record they toured nationally twice, playing successful shows in Sydney and Melbourne. Rather than capitalise on such acclaim however, Snarski chose to take a break, spending two years travelling in Spain and the USA.
Snarksi revived The Jackson Code in 1992 and recorded a new album, Strange Cargo. Snarksi was joined in the recording studio by Pearson, Turnbull and Dawson, together with string, brass and 'hand-clap' sections. Strange Cargo was released on the Citadel label in August, 1992. 1993 also saw the band sign to RooArt
and produce one of that years finest, Draggin' The River. The album was released in December, 1993. The band's last studio album was The Things You Need, which was released in September, 1995. After touring with American crime writer James Ellroy
in 1996, Snarksi left Australia
for Europe finally settling in Madrid
.
The Jackson Code's drummer Mark Dawson plays with the Blackeyed Susans (he also worked with Ed Kuepper
). Kenny Davis Jr and Kathryn Wemyss
also played, abiet briefly with the Blackeyed Susans. Wemyss later performing with Midnight Oil
at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000, since then she has formed her own band called Wemo. Davis went on to join Decoder Ring
. Barry Turnbull and Mandy Pearson went on to form their own band, Love Me.
The Jackson Code's retrospective album of 1998, The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, a two disc compilation album (the first disc consists of tracks from the four studio albums and the second disc is full of rarities) was released in September, 1998. In 2003 Del Musical Del Mismo Nombre was re-issued on a CD format by Citadel Records.
In June, 2006 Snarksi travelled to Belgium
to sing with a specially reformed Triffids
lineup for ‘An Evening With The Triffids’ – an exhibition and show in remembrance of lead singer David McComb
.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band, formed in Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
in 1989
1989 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1989.-Events:*January 14 – Paul McCartney releases Снова в СССР exclusively in the USSR...
.
Biography
The Jackson Code were formed in 1989, following the breakup of Snarksi's earlier band, Chad's TreeChad's Tree
Chad's Tree are an Australian rock band, formed in Perth in 1983. The band's brittle, off-kilter sound evoked the sense of distance, desolation, harshness and loneliness of the Nullarbor Plain , much in the same fashion as fellow Perth outfit The Triffids.-Biography:The Snarskis were born in...
. For the band's debut album, Snarski utilised the services of Amanda Pearson (vocals, percussion), Barry Turnbull (bass) and Mark Dawson (drums). The album, Del Musical Del Mismo Nombre was released in August 1989 on the Waterfront label (available only on vinyl) to critical acclaim, although it was re-released on CD in 1993. The main influence on the album was songwriter Snarski's trip to Spain, thus the title which when translated means "From the Musical of the Same Name". The band recorded the album in four days on a budget of $1000. The lush romanticism of the songs had critics searching for superlatives. Writing in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone Australia
Rolling Stone Australia is an Australian-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published monthly, it is the Australian edition of the United States' Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone was initially released in Melbourne in May 1970 as a supplement in Revolution, an...
, reviewer Jon Casimir called the album one of the minor masterpieces of 1989. As Casimir put it, the band took inspiration for its 'self-styled urban Romantic Cabaret' from German writers such as Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
and Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
, as well as Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
. To promote the record they toured nationally twice, playing successful shows in Sydney and Melbourne. Rather than capitalise on such acclaim however, Snarski chose to take a break, spending two years travelling in Spain and the USA.
Snarksi revived The Jackson Code in 1992 and recorded a new album, Strange Cargo. Snarksi was joined in the recording studio by Pearson, Turnbull and Dawson, together with string, brass and 'hand-clap' sections. Strange Cargo was released on the Citadel label in August, 1992. 1993 also saw the band sign to RooArt
RooArt
rooArt was an Australian independent record label, founded in 1988 by INXS's then-manager, Chris Murphy. The label's roster included several well-known Australian bands and artists such as Crow, Ratcat, Screaming Jets, You Am I, Wendy Matthews, The Hummingbirds, The Trilobites and Amanda Brown...
and produce one of that years finest, Draggin' The River. The album was released in December, 1993. The band's last studio album was The Things You Need, which was released in September, 1995. After touring with American crime writer James Ellroy
James Ellroy
Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a so-called "telegraphic" prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black...
in 1996, Snarksi left Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
for Europe finally settling in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
.
'There was this one afternoon where I'd dropped everyone off and I was carting this amp up the stairs of - what's that theatre we played in St Kilda? I just put it down and decided, I've had enough of this.'
The Jackson Code's drummer Mark Dawson plays with the Blackeyed Susans (he also worked with Ed Kuepper
Ed Kuepper
Ed Kuepper is an Australian guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. He co-founded the seminal punk band The Saints, the experimental post-punk group Laughing Clowns and later the grunge-like The Aints...
). Kenny Davis Jr and Kathryn Wemyss
Kathy Wemyss
Kathy Wemyss is a multi-instrumentalist from Australia who was a member of Chad's Tree and The Jackson Code.-Biography:Wemyss was classically trained, due to her Salvation Army upbringing, but in the 1980s and 1990s performed in post punk and rock bands, playing live gigs in inner Sydney...
also played, abiet briefly with the Blackeyed Susans. Wemyss later performing with Midnight Oil
Midnight Oil
Midnight Oil , were an Australian rock band from Sydney originally performing as Farm from 1972 with drummer Rob Hirst, bass guitarist Andrew James and keyboard player/lead guitarist Jim Moginie...
at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000, since then she has formed her own band called Wemo. Davis went on to join Decoder Ring
Decoder Ring
Decoder Ring is an experimental electronic-rock crossover group from Australia.-Biography:Decoder Ring was formed in 2001, in Sydney, Australia. The original line-up consisted of Matt Fitzgerald Geoff Towner , Pete Kelly , Kenny Davis Jr &...
. Barry Turnbull and Mandy Pearson went on to form their own band, Love Me.
The Jackson Code's retrospective album of 1998, The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, a two disc compilation album (the first disc consists of tracks from the four studio albums and the second disc is full of rarities) was released in September, 1998. In 2003 Del Musical Del Mismo Nombre was re-issued on a CD format by Citadel Records.
In June, 2006 Snarksi travelled to Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
to sing with a specially reformed Triffids
The Triffids
The Triffids were a seminal Australian alternative rock and pop band formed in Perth, Western Australia, in May 1978 with charismatic, David McComb as singer-songwriter, guitarist, bass guitarist and keyboardist. They achieved negligible success in Australia, but greater success in the U.K...
lineup for ‘An Evening With The Triffids’ – an exhibition and show in remembrance of lead singer David McComb
David McComb
David Richard McComb was an Australian rock musician. He was the singer-songwriter of the Australian band, The Triffids.-Early years in Perth:...
.
Trivia
- The Jackson Code's "Everybody's Got Something To Lose" was included in the Australian TelevisionTelevisionTelevision is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
series Heartbreak HighHeartbreak HighHeartbreak High is an Australian television series that ran for seven years from 1994 to 1999. The series dealt with the students of Hartley High, a tough high school in a multi-racial area of Sydney, and proved to be a more gritty and fast-paced show than many of its contemporaries...
(Episode 9 - Series 1).
Members
- Mark Snarski - vocals, electric & acoustic guitar
- Kathryn Wemyss - vocals, trumpet, castanets
- Mark Dawson (aka Bongo Fury) - drums
- Jason Kain - electric & acoustic guitar
- Kenny Davis Jr - piano, hammond organ, accordion
- Barry Turnbull - electric & acoustic bass
- Mandy Pearson - vocals, percussion
Albums
- Del Musical Del Mismo Nombre - WaterfrontWaterfront RecordsWaterfront Records was an independent record label based in Sydney, that released recordings by some of Australia's most influential bands of the 1980s and 1990s.-History:...
(August, 1989) - Strange Cargo - Citadel (August, 1992)
- Draggin' The River - RaRooArtrooArt was an Australian independent record label, founded in 1988 by INXS's then-manager, Chris Murphy. The label's roster included several well-known Australian bands and artists such as Crow, Ratcat, Screaming Jets, You Am I, Wendy Matthews, The Hummingbirds, The Trilobites and Amanda Brown...
(December, 1993) - The Things You Need - Ra (September, 1995)
- The Second Greatest Story Ever Told - Hi Gloss (September, 1998) - (compilation album)
Singles
- "Who's Watching Who?" - Ra (September, 1993)
- "Poison Berries" - Ra (January, 1993)
- "Bring Yourself Home to Me" - Ra (January, 1994)
- "The Things You Need" - Ra (July, 1995)
Contributions
- Rockin' Bethlehem (1989) - "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"
- RockArt: The History of rooArt Records RooArtRooArtrooArt was an Australian independent record label, founded in 1988 by INXS's then-manager, Chris Murphy. The label's roster included several well-known Australian bands and artists such as Crow, Ratcat, Screaming Jets, You Am I, Wendy Matthews, The Hummingbirds, The Trilobites and Amanda Brown...
(2001) - "Who Cares Anyway?"
External links
- Unofficial website
- Blunt: A Biased History of Australian Rock - Bob Blunt. Prowling Tiger Press, 2001. ISBN 0 9586647 5 7.