August 31st, 2013 
Stuart Source: 1983 09 18 Floreat Hotel, Perth, Australia Cassette
“I’m putting up a cat fence, to keep out the cats…”
It could have been one of the all time great opening song lines, if not for it being nestled in a period of band self destruction and, perhaps, having a subject of unwanted cats. Cats do not sit comfortably with the post capitalism apocalyptic visions of The Fireman’s Curse or the hard drinking, hard loving, truck driving, beer swilling Jaws.
What on earth IS this?
True Believers has known that this track exists for the better part of a decade, but until the Vault was opened, it remained unheard by everyone not at a 1983 concert. It’s another one where the divisions in the band are resulting in songs following quite noticeably different paths. Cat Fence seems similar to the path taken with Long Walk Home, another great unreleased 1983 track that we put on-line almost one year ago.
Next week, I am thinking of something from Ghost Nation. Suggestions?
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Lyrically this one is pretty odd. They still sound pretty humorless and struggling to get ideas to be cohesive. They have lost that grandeur they were capable of and stuff just doesn’t groove as much. However there is that solidity and rawness that came in with the Jaws era. A great missing link! Be really interesting if tracks like this and Long Walk were handled in the studio as well to get fairer assessment than a board tape can give.
Its funny as well that they had quite a bit of extra material besides the tracks on the Curse LP but they never recorded them to appear as b-sides!
Good points Mark. And yes, it’s unfortunate that I haven’t found an era studio tape at all, because my suspicion is that at least one song was recorded for Curse but never used, even as a b-side, when it could have (the song is ‘Stiff’, which has already been posted). Cat Fence and Long Walk Home seem to have appeared after Curse.
Wow…I was at this show, is there any more out there? It was a Sunday session, very small crowd (smallest ever I’d experienced at a Hunters gig). They still had all the noisy gear on stage (water heater or gas cylinder, and bones). Was very enjoyable to watch and experience, as I hadn’t seen them for ages…but obviously the band was in a different frame of mind. Thanks very much!
Hi Mark – we have the entire show 🙂 I really hope that some day, in some form, I can release full shows. Rob would want to edit/improve any recordings before they can be distributed in this format… so what was it like being at a Fireman’s Curse era gig, anyway!? 🙂
Well it was a long time ago Stuart so my recollections are somewhat dimmed by the intervening years…
The Floreat was a bit if a beer barn, more at home hosting cover bands and it seemed a strange choice at the time. But it was a Sunday afternoon and my favorite band was in town. I actually really like Fireman’s Curse, it was so Australian, the themes and the music were harsh as the sunburnt country. I guess my enjoyment wasn’t shared by many, except the 30 or 40 people there. I do remember enjoying the gig, but not too much of the actual songs played which is really disappointing now that I have the opportunity to share the experience…