We're All Looking For That Something - The Scientists

The Scientists

Back to Australia for a bit here. Now here's a band that took some work for me to track down.

It's 1997. I've officially gone nuts for the Aussies. And I keep hearing about this dude named Kim Salmon and his band the Scientists. There are echoes of their existence on other albums I owned, such as "Kim's Dirt" from the first Dirty Three album (which Salmon wrote.) And there was a huge enticing entry on Kim Salmon in the true bible of all things Rock and Roll at least up until 1991.  All right cool. Sounds great, let me check out this band The Scientists.

Not so fast. The Scientists turned out to be the most difficult Australian band for me to acquire. I found a few albums by Kim Salmon and the Surrealists (Kim's later project), but this supposedly legendary, influential rock'n'roll behemoth remained unattainable. I was pissed on this planet that I couldn't find copies of Scientists albums like "Pissed on Another Planet."  My Australian hook-up couldn't help me. Goldmine magazine couldn't help me. The legendary rock band from Columbus that I was talking to at a party (New Bomb Turks, by the way) couldn't help me (though they told me it would be worth the search.) So while my frustration grew so did the legend of how f--in' great the Scientists would be.

So sometimes you just gotta keep talking to people cuz you never know when you'll say the right thing to the right person. (As an aside, I should probably apply that concept to my current job search.) So one day I'm in a theatre "rehearsal."  Okay, really I'm sitting around while the fearless leader tries to re-animate a corpse or affix a dildo to Tiresias or something. And I noticed the scary goth opera girl I had a little crush on was carrying around a Nick Cave LP. So I started talking rock'n'roll. Now maybe another dude would have thought "Cool, the gorgeous girl has something in common with me, maybe I can work this into a date." Well I was thinking "Cool, the gorgeous girl has something in common with me, maybe she can make me a tape. If she doesn't decapitate me."

Well wouldn't you know, the scary goth opera girl DID have some Scientists music. "Yeah, I'd be happy to put that on tape for you. But why are you hiding in the corner?"

So I finally had my Scientists!!! And maybe the music wasn't the earth-shaking revelation I had built it up to be but it was still damn good. Eventually I was able to round out the collection with some original vinyl.
Kim Salmon has continued to put out some really diverse albums with the Surrealists, The Business and several other groups. According to Wikipedia, he also teaches music as a "day job."  What kind of world do we live in where Kim Salmon has to have a day job.

Oh, a few months ago I ran into the scary goth opera girl again. And she's not so scary (she's got all of my records.)  Turns out she's incredibly nice and in an awesome new band with her husband. Check them out.  And check out the Scientists.

Set it on fire by the Scientists

Nowadays you can buy music by The Scientists on Amazon