XL Capris were an Australian indie-punk

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

 band formed in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 in 1978 by Julie Anderson, Tim Gooding, Johanna Pigott

Johanna Pigott

Johanna Paton Pigott is an Australian musician, singer/songwriter and screenwriter. Her best known hit songs are Dragon's "Rain" which peaked at #2 on the Australia singles charts in 1983 and John Farnham's "Age of Reason". "Rain" was co-written with partner Dragon's Todd Hunter and his brother...

 and Kimble Rendall

Kimble Rendall

Kimble Rendall is an Australian director, musician and writer mostly known for his Second unit direction of Matrix Reloaded , Matrix Revolutions , I, Robot , Casanova and Ghost Rider...

.

Their best known single was a punk version of Tommy Leonetti's

Tommy Leonetti

Tommy Leonetti was an American pop singer-songwriter and actor of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. In Australia his most famous song was "My City of Sydney" and was used by the Australian TV channel ATN7 in Sydney for station identification into the 1980s...

 "My City of Sydney" (1979). This single was the only Australian disc found in legendary UK DJ John Peel's "battered wooden box" of 142 favourite records when, following his death in 2004, the contents of the box were revealed to the public in a Channel 4 television special. XL Capris made two albums, Where Is Hank? (March, 1981) and Weeds (October, 1981) both produced by Todd Hunter

Todd Hunter

Todd Stuart Hunter is a New Zealand musician and composer known for his involvement in the band Dragon. Their best known songs are "April Sun in Cuba", "Are You Old Enough?", "Still in Love With You", and "Rain"...

 of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

/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...

n band Dragon

Dragon (band)

Dragon is a popular New Zealand rock band, they were formed in Auckland, New Zealand in January 1972 and relocated to Sydney, Australia in May 1975. They were previously led by singer Marc Hunter and are currently led by his brother bass player Todd Hunter...

 and released on their own label Axle Records. Hunter later joined XL Capris as guitarist and subsequently married Pigott; they became a successful songwriting team: cowriting "Rain" for Dragon and "Age of Reason" for John Farnham

John Farnham

John Peter Farnham, AO, formerly billed as Johnny Farnham , is an English-born Australian pop singer. He was a teen pop idol from 1964 to 1979, and has since forged a career as an adult contemporary singer. His career has mostly been as a solo artist although he briefly replaced Glenn Shorrock as...

.

Prior to forming the XL Capris, Gooding was a film and television screenwriter.(The Aunty Jack Show; Wollongong The Brave/Kev Kevanagh: Beyond The Infinite; Heatwave). He and Pigott worked together creating the 1984 ABC-TV

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

 series Sweet and Sour

Sweet and Sour (TV series)

Sweet and Sour is an Australian television series which screened on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1984. It was created by Tim Gooding and Johanna Pigott and was produced internally for the ABC by Jan Chapman...

 which chronicled the activities of a fictional band, The Takeaways, and their efforts to succeed in 1980s Sydney Pop music

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 scene.

Punk rock

Gooding and Pigott had studied Architecture during the early 1970s at the University of Sydney

University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...

 along with friend Angela Webber

Angela Webber

Angela Webber was an Australian author, TV writer, producer and comedian.-Early life:Webber was born in 1954 to Bruce Webber, the head of light entertainment for ABC radio, and Nan, a journalist...

. Early practice sessions by XL Capris were held in the front room of a rented house where Gooding (and later Rendall) lived. The mattress soundproofing was not effective and the band threatened with eviction. Practice was relocated to a lightproof and airproof shed in the grounds of the infamous Cockroach Towers.

Each band member had a punk nickname: Pigott (bass, vocal, keyboard, guitar) was 'Alligator Bagg', Gooding (guitar, keyboard, vocal): 'Errol Cruz', Anderson (drum): 'Nancy Serapax' and Rendall (guitar, vocal): 'Dag Rattler'.

Their first single was a punk

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 version of Tommy Leonetti's

Tommy Leonetti

Tommy Leonetti was an American pop singer-songwriter and actor of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. In Australia his most famous song was "My City of Sydney" and was used by the Australian TV channel ATN7 in Sydney for station identification into the 1980s...

 "My City of Sydney" (1979), arranged by Gooding. The promo video, recorded at the Sheraton Hotel in a room The Beatles had occupied during their Australian tour, featured the four band members in bed together! The single received much independent radio airplay but was not a commercial success. It is one of the 143 singles stored in a small wooden box by British DJ John Peel

John Peel

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...

 that is the subject of the television documentary John Peel's Record Box

John Peel's Record Box

John Peel's Record Box is a documentary film made by Elaine Shepherd, released on 14 November 2005 on Channel 4. It was nominated for Primetime Emmy Award....

.

"Skylab (Son of Telstar)", written by Gooding and Rendall, received radio airplay as a tape in mid 1979. It was never released as a single and did not appear on either of the XL Capris' two albums. The song does feature on later compilation albums featuring independent bands of the period.

Their next single, "World War Three" (October 1980, produced by Hunter) was written by Pigott and Hunter. Rendall left to form Le Hoodoo Gurus

Hoodoo Gurus

Hoodoo Gurus are an Australian rock band, formed in Sydney in 1981, by the mainstay Dave Faulkner and later joined by Richard Grossman , Mark Kingsmill , and Brad Shepherd...

 in January 1981. He later became a music video director and then a second unit director for the latter two Matrix series movies. He was replaced by Hunter (guitar), Michael Chirnside (bass) joined, Anderson left to be replaced by Michael Farmer (drums). Barry Blackler (drums) also joined.

Where Is Hank?"

First album was Where Is Hank? (March 1981, produced by Hunter). Gooding wrote ten of the fourteen tracks including two with Pigott. 'Hank' in the title was a German shepherd owned by Rendall: "Hank went to live on a farm at Nambucca Heads". 'Tosca' was the name of their landlady's cat and it was chased up a tree by Hank thus the album title Where Is Hank? is a pun on a 1980s TV ad for a chocolate bar: 'Where's George?' The response is ... 'gone for a Tosca!'.

Weeds

Second album was Weeds (October 1981, produced by Hunter). Pigott and Hunter wrote six songs including the single "Igloos" and Gooding wrote six songs. Hunter returned to Dragon (late 1981) and XL Capris dissolved in 1982. Gooding briefly joined Tactics and resumed screenwriting. He also wrote the successful Country & Western stage musical, "King Of Country".

Poster art

Street poster art

Street Poster Art

Street poster art is a kind of graffiti, more specifically categorized as "street art". Posters are usually hand-made or printed graphics on thin paper...

 featuring XL Capris include:
Toby Zoates' 1978 screenprint, XL Capris for the B-side of 1981 single "Red Bikini Runaway" called "K-Tel

K-tel

K-tel International is an "As-Seen-On-TV" company, which is most noted for its compilation music albums, such as "The Super Hits" series, "The Dynamic Hits" series and "The Number One Hits" series...

City" (Gooding) and has the band on the bonnet of a car crashing into a TV game show; and Paul Worstead's 1979 screenprints, Settlement Dance - Scarlet, XL-Capris and XL-Capris, Settlement - Beginning of School Holiday Dance.

Both album covers were created by Kent Whitmore.

Where Is Hank?

• Axle Records, released March, 1981.
• Recorded by Christo, Studio 301.
• Produced by Todd Hunter.

Tracklisting

1. "World War 3" (Johanna Pigott, Todd Hunter) — 3:38
2. "Fat Boy in the Swimming Pool" (Tim Gooding) — 2:53
3. "Red Bikini Runaway" (Gooding, Pigott) — 2:58
4. "Refrigerator Town" (Gooding) — 2:34
5. "Evelyn" (Pigott) — 2:36
6. "Hey Marvo!" — 0:07
7. "Police Exhibit" (Gooding) — 4:19
8. "Button B" (Gooding) — 2:49
9. "On the Beach" (Gooding) — 3:27
10. "Shark Horror" (Gooding) — 2:41
11. "Parramatta Road" (Gooding) — 2:46
12. "Hi Rise Heart" (Pigott, Gooding) — 3:00
13. "J O'K / Shout" (Gooding / Rudolph Isley, Ronald Isley, O'Kelly Isley Jr) — 5:24
14. "Ou Est Hank?" (Rendall) — 2:08

Tracklisting

1. "Tokyo" (Pigott, Hunter)
2. "Igloos" (Pigott, Hunter)
3. "Quiet World" (Pigott, Hunter)
4. "Killer Seas" (Gooding)
5. "Geography" (Gooding)
6. "Country Town" (Gooding)
7. "A M P" (Gooding)
8. "Spirit of Progress" aka "Ghost Train" (Gooding)
9. "Poor Excuse" (Gooding)
10. "Please Excuse Me (I've Got to Look After My Car)" aka "Car" (Pigott)
11. "Small Screen Cowboy" (Pigott, Hunter)
12. "Dark Star" (Pigott, Hunter)
13. "Luna" (Pigott, Hunter)

Singles

• "My City of Sydney" (Tommy Leonetti, Robert Troup) — 2:43 / "Dead Budgies" (Rendall) (1979)
• "World War 3" (Pigott, Hunter) / "Dusty" (Gooding) (October, 1980)
• "Red Bikini Runaway" (Gooding, Pigott) / "K-Tel City" (Gooding) (April, 1981)
• "Igloos"/"Elevator" (1981)