Seven or eight chaotic years into settling in Australia, maybe I finally had a little breathing room, because I started wondering — what do Sydney punks even do for fun?
Just googling “Sydney punk shows” turned up basically nothing useful. One day Miyoung dug all the way through Facebook and found something — info on a punk show happening at a pub near UTS in the city.
I called up Edang, and Miyoung and I headed to the Valve Bar. Edang got there first and was already sitting at the bar with a beer, waiting for us. Seeing him decked out head to toe in full punk gear, sitting there quietly, gazing off into the middle distance three or four meters ahead like he was lost deep in thought — it felt like he was saying, yeah, this guy’s been waiting for this too, missed this too, of course he has. Once the show started, the playing was as sloppy here as it is back in Korea, and the kids doing the slam pit and old guys like me hung back a bit, soaking in that raw, unpolished noise. If smoking had been allowed in there and a haze of cigarette smoke were hanging over the ceiling too, it would’ve been perfect… During the gaps while the next bands set up, everyone spilled outside in a mob and a loud, chaotic conversation broke out.
I jumped into the mix here and there too, saying “I’m Amuro, I’m Amuro” probably a dozen-plus times. As I kept saying it had genuinely been hard to find this place, an old punk about my dad’s age who introduced himself as James asked for my email, and from then on started sending me an updated list of every punk show happening in Sydney, every week.
And it was only after I’d made Facebook friends with a few of the punks there that show listings actually started showing up on my own timeline.
From then on, I chased down shows every weekend — Newtown, Sydenham, all over. Not long after, word came that there was going to be a punk picnic at Sydney Park, so the four of us — me, Miyoung, Edang, and Via (Edang and Sharon’s daughter) — packed an esky full of beer and headed over. Under the chimney at Sydney Park, the place was packed with punks, clustered in twos and threes, knocking back beers. I was still out there making the rounds introducing myself, and the moment I mentioned I played drums, eyes lit up — makes sense, since drummers are always in short supply here just like in Korea, good or bad doesn’t matter, if you could sit down and bang out a beat, you were a drummer. Supply never matches demand, so it’s extremely common for punk drummers to be juggling two or three bands at once.
A tall, skinny skinhead came up to me.
“Hey, you play drums?”
“Yeah, I can play pretty much anything except blast beats.”
“I’m Manuel.”
“I’m Amuro.”
“Want to start a band together?”
“Sure.”
And just like that, a band was formed.
The following week we booked a rehearsal room called Soundwork in Marrickville and tried playing together for the first time. Haha. He was terrible. Didn’t matter. Watching him show up with his own original songs and play guitar dead seriously despite being bad at it — there was something great about that.
After rehearsal we went into town for a round of beers and talked about punk, skinheads, Colombia, Korean punk, back and forth. Over the next few rehearsals, Jose joined on bass, and after four or five different singers came around wondering if they should give it a shot, Ben joined. The week after that, Oscar joined on guitar, and four or five songs came together fast.
No point overthinking it — we brought everyone into the office and recorded five songs. Not a real studio: my desk just happened to have a cheap USB audio interface on it. Drums went through an electronic kit, bass and guitar both went in direct with effects layered on in software afterward, and vocals got wrapped up on a $20 AliExpress microphone. Around then Jose left, headed back to Colombia, and Mick came in.
During a cigarette break, the five of us were talking about what to name the band, and landed on taking the first letter of each of our home countries — B for Barcelona, A for Australia, C for Colombia, K for Korea — spelling out BACK, and after playing around with it a bit more, it became The Back ups.