Feedtime: Treacle Rock Renegades to Seattle Grunge Heroes

Certain pundits are of the belief the slide guitar is a restrictive medium, limited as a mechanism of stereotype. Boy, are they mistaken.

From the piss stench of an inner-city bar, Feedtime oozed, tearing the Sydney underground a raw arsehole with their mental-patient musings. Beyond demarcation, Rick Johnson (guitar/vocals) rebrands his Saigon knockoff as a minimal slide tailor made for punk rock. Off-kilter with the gurgling Allen Larkin (bass/vocals) chug-a-lug, and Tom Sturm’s (drums) ultrasound percussion, Johnson plays both protagonist and antagonist, beckoning listener investment while repulsing with a loose code of harmonic moral.

The band’s 1985 debut debased audiences to a tantric torture of quicksand waterboarding. To the untrained ear, the low-frequency drone is terrifying. From the introductory woof of the contemptuous Ha Ha, the delve into the opaque of guttural density promotes an erogenous nausea.

The following year, feedtime wound down their cycle of live shows to focus on recording. Two albums were released—Shovel, and covers album Cooper S, distributed by Sydney’s Aberrant Records. Considered as the trio’s magnum opus, Shovel informed the sound of the late-eighties Seattle grunge movement. Unbeknownst to the band, Green River’s Mark Arm and Steve Turner piqued at the treacle of Johnson’s slide guitar, choosing to incorporate a similar sludge on new project Mudhoney’s debut EP Superfuzz Bigmuff.

Often problematic, the notion of recording a covers album didn’t faze Feedtime. Featuring a mixture of classic pop (Beach Boys’ Fun Fun Fun) sixties rock (Rolling Stone’s The Last Time) proto-punk (The Stooges’ Ann) and a perverse version of Nancy Sinatra’s Lightning Girl, Cooper S proved a success, serving to hone the band’s pop sensibilities.

1989’s Suction signalled the end of Feedtime in its original inception. In a move proven as poorly timed, the plug was pulled at the conclusion of recording, thus bolstering the band’s obliviousness to the their overseas influence. Melodic, catchy, sporadically angelic, Suction increased Feedtime’s popularity, with tracks Motorbike Girl and I’ll Be Rested garnering frequent radio play. But Johnson was spent, and faced the onslaught of a nervous breakdown.

In 1995, with Larkin’s brother John replacing Tom Sturm on drums, feedtime reformed to play a series of live shows. Subsequently, a new album Billy was recorded and released on Minneapolis label Amphetamine Reptile. Despite its monster truck personification, the LP was met with languid affectation and the band fizzled once more.

2012 saw Seattle’s Sub Pop release the quintessential feedtime package featuring the first four albums. The Aberrant Years spurred a band resurgence, with the internet’s marketing power a novel factor. The impetus to finally perform in the United States propagated feedtime’s awareness of their stunning international influence.

2017’s Gas, released on Los Angeles label In the Red, analyses feedtime’s four-decade output succinctly—a down tuned, palsy Ramones for Kenworth drivers on the downward slope to a lithosphere of magma fondue. Listen to the coagulated final track Shovelhead for clarification.

A word of warning: swallow a probiotic and clench.