Guy Maddison - 1980s

1980s

Guy Maddison played in mid-1980s Perth-based punk group, Greenhouse Effect, with Paul Gill on guitar. By 1986 he moved to Sydney, he played bass guitar for noise rock band Lubricated Goat, sometimes under the pseudonym Buster Smallgoods, recording one album, Paddock of Love (July 1988). In 2003 Maddison recalled meeting Stu Spasm (aka Stuart Grey) by chance, "I was crossing the road one day on Cleveland Street ... and Stuart yelled out to me ... he asked me if I was doing anything and if I’d like to play the bass in Lubricated Goat" – they had previously met when Spasm was recording tracks in Perth with an earlier version of Lubricated Goat. The line-up of Lubricated Goat for Paddock of Love, alongside Maddison on bass guitar, and Spasm on vocals, guitar, synthesiser and bass guitar; were Pete Hartley on bass guitar and guitar; and Brett Ford on drums. In November 1988 the band lip-synched a nude performance of their track, "In the Raw", on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV program Blah Blah Blah, an event which created national media outrage. In 2009 Cousin Creep, an alternative music journalist, directed a documentary film, In the Raw, about the event.

In May 1989 Lubricated Goat followed with an extended play, Schadenfreude with Maddison and Spasm joined by Gene Ravet on drums (ex-Ragadoll, Space Juniors) and Charlie Tolnay on guitar (Grong Grong, King Snake Roost). Front man Spasm and Maddison were the only band members to tour the United States, they enlisted tour musicians, Renestair EJ on guitar and Martin Bland on drums. Maddison was an occasional member of the improvised group, The Unconscious Collective, and the mixed media experiment, Merge. In late 1989, after the US tour, Maddison left Lubricated Goat and formed a side project with former band mate, Hartley. The new group was Monroe’s Fur. At this time, Maddison relocated to Seattle, Washington.