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vanilla chainsaws info
The Vanilla Chainsaws rocked the stages between 1986 and 1995. Starting in Sydney Australia they quickly outgrew their hometown and started touring around Australia's other cities. On the backs of bands like X, Lime Spiders, Screaming Tribesmen, Japan's Star Club, The Johnny's, Mantissa and Celibate Rifles they toured countless times around the country. As their popularity spread they were voted in RAM's readers poll "best unrecorded act of 1986" (just 4 months after forming), they signed to Phantom Records, and over the next 2 years had a string of releases that topped the Australian Alternative charts. By late 1987 Phantom was already shipping bulk quantities of their records to Europe and this sparked the interest of Germanys Glitterhouse records to prepare a contract.... before long the Vanilla Chainsaws were signed and became stablemates with Soundgarden, Nirvana and The Sub-Pop and Amphetamine records catalogues. A truly prestigious place to sit.
simon
mark
In mid 1989 Glitterhouse released a the self titled Vanilla Chainsaws album, a compilation of the bands previous releases plus an extra unreleased song and a bonus 7" containing 2 studio outtakes.By this stage the band had sparked some interest from the USA and were invited to perform at the 1989 New Music Seminar in New York, and included an east coast tour playing places as CBGBs, Maxwell's, NY's Downtown Beirut and places like Boston, Rochester, and so forth. They had gigs booked in Chicago and LA but the band was unable to get across country.
After the East Coast of the America the band headed for England and played a string of shows in small dingy venues but made some headway, got favorable press and started carving their own niche. By Xmas 1989 Drew and guitarist Mark Alexander was all that was left of the band and they found themselves in Germany and wrote a cache of new songs. Old friend and Cosmic Psychos drummer Bill Walsh was in London so they got Bill over and recorded the "thousand" MiniLP for Glitterhouse. After the release they recruited a couple of local Germans Henning Werner and Chekov Helmker on rhythm section and started touring. They toured from Finland to Austria and from UK to East Germany and everywhere in between. During this time they played shows with The Lemonheads, Grant Hart (ex HuskerDu, Germanys Strangemen and Bullet Lavolta to name just a few. It would be almost 2 years before the boys would be back home.
1991 saw the Vanilla Chainsaws return home, return to the original lineup, rehook up with Phantom records and release the Red Lights MiniLP, and start touring Australia again. The popularity of Red Lights saw the band signing with Polygram Music Publishing and they released "Watching Me" and "worst Place in the world" CDs. During this time the band was plagued with member, management, and record label problems. Lack of touring and recording led to Simon forming side projects...Chernobyl Babies and Under The Gun. The last straw finally came when in 1995 the newly recorded "DOOM" EP was unable to secure a release..... Drew and Alexander disbanded the group.
To this day the Vanilla Chainsaws still enjoy a good reputation and the band are featured on websites from all over the globe. The band has released a 32 track double Compilation CD "whenLibertySmiles" thru TronadorMusic in Brazil, a mixture of "best of, rarities and unreleased" ALL studio tracks(!!!). there's also talk of a reunion tour of Brazil. Stay tuned for further developments!!!!
