Young Charlatans were a briefly existing
Australian punk rock band comprising
Janine Hall
Janine Margaret Hall ( – 20 May 2008) was a New Zealand-born musician who played in early proto punk, punk rock and rock groups in Australia. On bass guitar she was a member of Rowland S. Howard's Young Charlatans (1977–1978), the Saints ...
on bass guitar,
Jeffrey Wegener on drums,
Ollie Olsen
Ollie Jngbert Christian Olsen (born Ian Christopher Olsen, 20 February 1958 – 16 October 2024) was an Australian multi-instrumentalist, composer and sound designer. From the mid-1970s until his later years, he performed, recorded and produced ...
on vocals and guitar and
Rowland S. Howard
Rowland Stuart Howard (24 October 1959 – 30 December 2009) was an Australian rock musician, guitarist and songwriter, best known for his work with the post-punk group The Birthday Party (band), The Birthday Party and his subsequent solo career ...
on guitar. They formed in 1977 and disbanded in the following year.
History
Young Charlatans formed in December 1977 in Melbourne, after Ollie Olsen met Rowland S. Howard.
They had both been in other bands, but after writing together, quit to form Young Charlatans. Jeffrey Wegener joined them on drums, and they moved to Sydney where they recruited bassist Janine Hall and began rehearsing.
The band took influences from Can, Neu, Roxy Music, David Bowie, and other 1970s music.
After moving back to
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
,
the band grew a strong reputation in the local scene,
and recorded the song
Shivers, originally written by Howard in 1976. Managed by
Bruce Milne
Bruce Milne (born 1957) is a prominent figure in the Australian music industry, a long-standing member of the grass-roots Melbourne music community who, after getting his start publishing a punk fanzine in the late 1970s, has done practically eve ...
, they were meant to release music on his new
Au Go Go Records
Au Go Go Records is a Melbourne, Australia based independent record label.
It was founded by Bruce Milne and Philip Morland from a house in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy in 1979 and was later operated by Greta Moon.
The label started releasing ...
label.
A recorded session was held, with nine songs recorded, but they would remain unreleased.
Olsen quit and rejoined the band several times, and one week after recording Shivers the Young Charlatans broke up in May 1978. At the time, they had only performed thirteen gigs together in Melbourne.
Their final performance was with
Boys Next Door at a benefit for ''Pulp'', a fanzine run by Bruce Milne and
Clinton Walker
Clinton Walker is an Australian writer, best known for his works on popular music. He wrote the books ''Highway to Hell'' (1994; a biography of Bon Scott), '' Buried Country'' (2000), ''History is Made at Night'' (2012), and others. He has als ...
.
Howard went to see Boys Next Door perform whenever he could, and would sometimes join them on stage.
By the end of 1978, Howard had officially joined Boys Next Door and they were performing "Shivers", a song he had written for the Young Charlatans. It was released as the second single by the Boys Next Door in 1979.
Another Young Charlatans song "Scatterbrain" was also released by Howard's new band in 1978.
After the Young Charlatans broke up, each member went on to other bands: Hall joined
the Saints, Wegener joined
Laughing Clowns
Laughing Clowns, sometimes written as The Laughing Clowns, were a post-punk band formed in Sydney in 1979. In five years, the band released three LPs, three EPs, and various singles and compilations. Laughing Clowns' sound is free jazz, bluegr ...
, Olsen formed
Whirlywirld and Howard joined Boys Next Door, which became
The Birthday Party.
The original Young Charlatans version of "Shivers" was later released in the cassette magazine ''
Fast Forward
To fast-forward is to move forwards through a recording at a speed faster than that at which it would usually be played, for example two times or two point five times. The recordings are usually audio, video or computer data. It is colloquiall ...
''s fourth issue (April 1981).
When Howard died in 2010, many people remembered the Young Charlatans and the impact the band had on them in the short time they existed.
Bruce Milne listed the Young Charlatans as one of the bands that defined early punk in Melbourne. Clinton Walker called them pioneers of the post-punk rock in Australia.
They became better known after breaking up due to the impact each band member had in their later careers.
References
{{Reflist
External links
Young Charlatans interview on ‘Music Around Us’ (1977)
Australian punk rock groups