NEWCASTLE four-piece punk band Obat Batuk have just laid down 17 new tracks for an upcoming album with high hopes for a 2017 release on vinyl.
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With a name meaning cough medicine in Indonesian, the band formed in 2011 when guitarist Edo Ateng moved from Sydney to Newcastle. The band draws on 1980’s punk rock citing the likes of Minor Threat and defunct Perth-based band Rupture, as influences.
“We’re like early cave-man punk,” Edo Ateng said. “It’s very basic three chord simple punk played fast.”
The band says their live shows are “fun and really messy.”
“We can’t play very well, but it’s good,” Ateng said.
Humour plays a big role, both on stage within the songs themselves. The chief songwriters are Ateng and front man Gene-Trent Egan Boyd.
“Our most popular song would be F*** Off to Melbourne,” Ateng said.
The new 17 track album titled Songs about Tigers and Dragons and Sausages will be released on vinyl later this year. It follows the release of their 2015 recording Tiger Wants 17 Great Folk Songs from Newcastle, coincidentally also a 17 track product. The limited pressing of 300 was released on vinyl on the Consume Records label.
The most recent recording, which took place in Sydney, went smoothly and was laid down in five hours.
“It has a live sound,” Ateng said. “It’s not super-slick and perfect.”
They have also released two split recordings. Both recorded in 2012, the first was a split CD with Blue Mountains Band Ivan and the Backpackers. The second was a cassette split with Hobart Band Antechinus.
Nick French is on bass, Evan Cairney is on drums. And on a moderately interesting side note the band’s singer was named after Gene Pitney. Egan Boyd’s mother was a huge fan, and he was photographed with Pitney as a baby (The band really wanted this fact mentioned in the story, and they also wanted me to write that people should go to gigs and support their local music scene).
Follow them: facebook.com/obat-batuk