Leigh Blackmore - Worm Technology

Worm Technology

Blackmore had classical piano training, but his formative musical influences were The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Roxy Music, The Stooges, Genesis, Queen, Rick Wakeman, King Crimson, Television, XTC and such experimental bands as Henry Cow, Can and The Residents, as well as Australian bands such as The Church, The Models, Midnight Oil, Outline and Voight 465. He had jammed with garage bands in his high school years in Newcastle, New South Wales.

On moving back to Sydney in 1977, he played synthesisers and drums (and occasionally sang) with Sydney New Wave band Worm Technology and other bands. From a mixture of influences including prog and experimental rock, pop and punk, Worm Technology evolved their unique sound while living together in an old schoolhouse in Rozelle in Sydney. Blackmore had known Ian Walker in primary school; meanwhile Walker had befriended guitarist and synth player Greg Smith in high school. Smith was an early user of synthesisers, including the Steiner-Parker Synthacon.

One of their earliest recordings includes a reggae version of "Kookaburra", played strictly for laughs. A cassette-only album of punkish acoustic and vocal originals, "If You Don't Care for Your Scalp You Get Rabies" (1977) (its title taken from a line uttered by Terry Jones in the Monty Python episode "Mr Neutron"), performed by Blackmore, Walker and Smith, was released under the band name Tiploid Grundy and the Rabid Slime Moulds; while with Smith, Blackmore initially concentrated on composing electronic music using sequencers, including the Robert Fripp and Brian Eno-influenced "Music for Bookshops" (1979), and a concept-cycle, recorded on to reel-to-reel tape, called "The Guardian", based on a collaborative fantasy story written by the two.

The band stabilised as a four-piece rock band with live drums as Worm Technology, though synth-based instrumentals such as "Africa" often featured in their sets. Blackmore initially played electric organ, string machine (a non-proprietary version of the Mellotron) and synthesiser, with Smith as drummer and synth programmer, but Blackmore often drummed when Smith was playing guitar or bass. His drumming style was largely influenced by the Buzzcocks' John Mayer and The Jam`s Rick Buckler. For a time, Smith's girlfriend Myfanwy (Miffy) Ryan played violin with the band, but dropped out after a year. (Ryan has gone on in recent years to play with such renowned Australian folk bands as Madd Marianne, Wongawilli Band, and Denizen).

Worm Technology initially played covers by 1960s and 1970s acts including Kevin Ayers, Lou Reed, The Troggs, Them, The Human Beinz, Modern Lovers, Ramones, Elvis Costello, The Jam and The Buzzcocks, and punkified medleys of old TV cartoon theme tunes such as Astroboy, Marine Boy and Gigantor (WT were playing their version of the latter before Californian punk band The Dickies recorded it in 1980.). Their deconstructed version of "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones, featuring Walker's famed one-note guitar solo on an amplified tin toy guitar bought from an op shop, preceded Devo's take on the same number.

Worm Technology went on to perform mainly quirky originals, from "Here Come the Lonely Vegetables" to "Three Years on the Road", a country and western pisstake penned by Blackmore. Both Blackmore and Walker had both been particularly influenced by The Residents, The Velvet Underground and by Lenny Kaye's Nuggets series of reissues, influences which skewed their pop sensibility. John Gardner was consistently the bass player throughout Worm Technology's existence; he never contributed lyrics or music. Rhythm guitarist Malcolm Elliott and second vocalist Peter Rodgers entered, left and re-entered the band lineup at different periods. The band played one early gig where Blackmore had briefly left, under the moniker "Leigh Blackmore's Rainbow". Elliott and Rodgers also contributed song lyrics, as did mixer Garry Ryan, all of which were put to music by Greg Smith. Elliott's "Slept-On Hair" and "Simulus Stimulus", Ryan's "Cry Laughing Clown", "Technical Suicide" and "Pilot", and Rodger's "Who Do We Think We Are?" were all popular elements of Worm Technology's set. Many of Worm Technology's early gigs were at church halls, as several of the band members were Christians.(Rodgers went on to become an Anglican minister and missionary in Indonesia from 1991 to 2002; later Rector of St Stephen's, Newtown and Federal Secretary of the (Australian)Church Missionary Society).

Blackmore wrote many of their song lyrics, some in collaboration with vocalist Ian Walker (though Walker often wrote alone), and guitarist Greg Smith wrote much of the music, though Blackmore wrote both lyrics and music for some songs. The band put unique twists on some of their covers, such as playing Glen Campbell's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" in a Joy Division style, and doing a rock version of the Brian Eno/Cluster (band) piece "Broken Head".

Worm Technology played gigs at various inner-city venues such as the Vulcan Hotel, Taverners Hill Hotel, The Rehearsal Room and the Sussex Hotel. They participated in a number of annual Strawberry Hills Hotel band competitions, along with such contemporary bands as The Hard-Ons. Worm Technology also undertook tours including the 'We Are Not the New Dylan Tour' (1980) in which they played obscure NSW country towns, and the "Moo Cow Tour", in which they played in several Sydney milk-bars. The band also issued several issues of their official fanzine, Prince the Wonder Dog which were given away at gigs.

The band often parodied musical trends, as in "Dull Rappsville", a parody of early rap. Continuing their disdain of most rock posturing, the band played one tour with all members dressed as crooner Val Doonican, wearing cardigans and thick black spectacles. Lead vocalist Ian Walker's renowned stage act included using a toy rabbit owned in Blackmore's childhood as a prop for the song "Furry Animals", and standing on a chair throughout the song "The Tree (That was Not a Tree)". In the original song (Revenge of the) Phantom Agents (based on the 1960s Japanese TV series), the band threw cardboard shuriken into the audience. In 1980, Greg Smith wrote a rock opera, The Lift, in the vein of works such as Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and rehearsed Worm Technology intensively in its performance; a more serious work, it bemused many Worm Technology fans and received one live performance only; it was issued as both a studio and live cassette-only album. One song from the work, "Stereotypists", was re-vamped as "The Aliens" and became a set staple.

Worm Technology released several cassette-only albums including In Your Loungeroom (1985), containing two tracks imported from Ian Walker's side-project The Togs (which included Worm Technology band manager Rik Ford), and other songs including "Crimefighter" (sung as if by Batman)and the popular "Wombats" (lyrics Blackmore) in which Blackmore put together his synth solo by segueing keyboard lines from songs by Iggy Pop, Fischer Z, and The Angels (Australian band), and Smith took his guitar line from "Magazine Madonna" by Sherbet. The band's later original repertoire tended to include a mix of catchy synth-driven pop songs such as "So Alone" and "Can't Stand the Pace", straightahead rock numbers such as "Can't You See","The Light" "Love Grows Cold", and "The Height of Love", reflective songs such as "The King is Dead", "No Fear", and "Set your Mind Right" and danceable numbers like the ska number "(Put it in a) Nutshell", most of which were penned entirely by Smith.

Worm Technology had several offshoot bands including Koga Ninja (named after characters from the 1960s TV show The Samurai), in which the band members (Blackmore, Smith and Elliott) dressed up as ninjas. The band used synths and drum machines extensively. Koga Ninja released several cassette only live albums.

Blackmore largely gave up music when Worm Technology broke up, to concentrate on his writing, although Astropop, a short-lived synth duo featuring Blackmore and Smith (which extended Worm Technology's late emphasis on extended synthesiser-based numbers such as "Samurai") had some success playing electronica including Kraftwerk covers but never recorded. Blackmore played drums in Post-Mortem (1987), a band which featured Ian Walker from Worm Technology and Brian Pember from Sydney new wave band Crossroad/Surprise, and a guitarist only remembered as Colin. Blackmore later performed with the short-lived experimental group White Stains (1990) (named after Aleister Crowley's poetry volume), with illustrator and viola-player Gavin O'Keefe. White Stains released a cassette single "Acid Bath" (Blackmore/O'Keefe") backed with "The Finger", a musical interpretation of William Burrough's story about a man who cuts off his own finger.

Blackmore resumed playing music semi-professionally only in 2009 with the formation of the Illawarra-based 'popstalgia' trio The Third Road in which he plays bass and sings.