Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Thursday 10 November 1988, page 33


Some Plunder and Pillage

Mark Uhlmann

encounters

The Plunderers

"WHEN we first went

to Sydney and they

asked us where we were from, we used to say Can-

berra [under our breath and] really

fast ... but now we're really proud (of it] and stand up for it,"

said Nic Dalton of the Plunderers,

a group formed in Canberra, but now Sydney-based. The band's second single will be launched at the ANU bar on Sat-urday.

"We don't think anyone should be ashamed of coming from Can-

berra ... Canberra has so many talented people in so many fields," he said.

Dalton (who called himself Nic Name) and Stevie Plunder (the only name he goes by now) founded the Plunderers in May, 1984, after playing with several other Canberra bands. Just before forming the Plunderers, the two had been in the "folk-pop" band Get Set Go, with Suzic and Jenny Higgie.

While "keeping the spirit" of their own band alive, the two

The Plunderers

played with the well-established group the Gadflys and at the end of 1984, the drummer of that group, who decided to start using the name of Peter Pillage, joined The Plunderers.

The Plunderers used their own

money to cut a single, the double A side, Strange Affection/Into the Ice in late 1985. Dalton said they lost money on the record but the print of 500 sold out.

After that the band moved to Melbourne for nine months. Dalton

said their time there was not a success, but a good learning experience.

They only played about 11 times and found it a "closed scene", reluctant to accept bands from outside the city.

After a tour of Sydney and "a full page article" on the band in the Sydney-based magazine RAM, the band, . after a few months back in Canberra, moved to the harbour city in late 1986.

Dalton said the band set itself two goals for 1987 — to build up a live following and to record with an established label — and it achieved both aims.

They recorded a version of Iggy Pop's No Fun for the Melbourne label Au Go Go, in the compilation

album Hard to Beat and in early 1988 the band released the EP Trust Us, on Green Fez records,

the trial label of Citadel Records. It debuted at number seven in the RAM Australian al

bum charts and stayed in the top 10 for several weeks.

Both Dalton on bass and Plunder,

on guitar, sing and write songs. In the past the one who wrote the song also sang it, but they plan to co-writc much more in future. The band's second single,

to be launched in Canberra on Saturday, is / Don't Mind/Dying,

again on the Green Fez label.

Pillage, the drummer, wrote the A side and Plunder the B, but in the new year Geoff Milne, formerly of the Sydney group Eastern

Dark, will take over on drums from Pillage.

Dalton said that the group's music was "pop-punk. — poppy melodic songs... with a powerful rhythm underneath".

Space Juniors, another Sydney-based band consisting of exCanberra

people, will support The Plunderers at Saturday's

launch.

Dalton said the new single would be available from Abels Records in Manuka and Impact Records at the Boulevard from next week and the band would be doing an album on the Citadel label next year.

The launch will take place on Saturday at the ANU Bar. Space Juniors will start at about 9.30pm and The Plunderers at 10.30pm, but Dalton advised coming early.