Wild Girls for Hire

Wild Girls for Hire

In the December 1965 edition of OZ magazine, Sydney, edited by Richard Neville and Richard Walsh and featuring the art of Martin Sharp, the following brief advertisement appeared on page 4, under the classified ads section:

This rather provocative and inviting notice - put together by Richard Neville and Paul Landa - in an equally provocative magazine, laid it out clearly for all to see - the Vamps were an exciting act and, most notably, the first female rock group in Australia. This is a claim which has never been disputed, and it was made a decade before that most famous of female rock groups - The Runaways from the United States - made their mark on the charts and in live performance around the world. Groups such as the Vamps were pioneers in an area of entertainment which was the domain of male musicians, and remains very much so to this day.

As "wild girls for hire" the Vamps were reflecting the rebellious spirit of the time and the attraction of youth to popular music as a form of self-expression. By 1966 the counter cultural revolutions sweeping through western societies such as the United States, Great Britain and Australia had well and truly hit the up-until-then dour and conservative Sydney. The wild scenes associated with the Beatles Australian tour of 1964 and the Rolling Stones the following year had opened a veritable Pandora's Box amongst the youth of the country. For decades they were constrained by the conservatism and class-based snobbishness inherent in Australia's position as a subservient outpost of the British Empire. Rock and roll music, and its various offshoots, offered them an out.

The Vamps were a reflection of the post-Menzies era as the sexual revolution and psychedelia took over metropolitan centres such as Sydney and Melbourne (the elderly and old-school conservative Robert Menzies resigned as Prime Minister on Australia Day, 26 January 1966, after being in office since 19 December 1949). Local record companies proliferated and released singles by bands such as Reverend Black and the Rocking Vickers and Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, whilst the Easybeats headed to England seeking fame and fortune. Hippies appeared on the scene, drug use increased, protest against the status quo featured in the daily papers, and OZ magazine - a flagship of the counter-culture in Australia - became even more outrageous, with the editors twice charged with issuing an obscene publication. Such was the opposition to change by authority, including government, the police and the church. Billy Thorpe grew his hair, criticism of the war in Vietnam became more intense and spread across university campuses, and the music scene rapidly evolved from the rebellious rock and roll of the late fifties and early sixties into decidedly more bluesy, rocky and sophisticated forms. The Vamps were definitely not Little Pattie, though in 1965 and 1966 her sweet, saccharine "stompie wompie" pop and the like reigned supreme on pop television shows such as Bandstand and in the Australian charts, even if the youth of the suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and other capital cities and metropolitan areas were listening to less mainstream music amidst a haze of alcohol and pot. The times were a changing, and something was indeed blowin' in the wind, to use the words of that great messiah of the sixties, Bob Dylan. The Vamps were out there to have a good time and entertain. "Wild girls for hire" was a statement of fact.

Female groups had been around for a long time, though usually in the form of vocal combinations such as the 1940s Andrews Sisters and so-called "girl groups" from the late fifties, including The Shirelles. The earliest female rock group - where the members played all their own instruments - was the American Goldie and the Gingerbreads, formed in 1962 and working through to 1967. They were quickly following by a plethora of similar groups, no doubt inspired by the success of The Beatles. Suzi Quatro and her sisters' The Pleasure Seekers from 1964 were a notable example. By the end of 1965 over forty such groups were performing around the world, according to the All-Female Bands of the 1960s website. These included The Fair Sect from New Zealand and the Vamps. Wikipedia at the beginning of 2014 listed 16 Australian female rock groups, and the Vamps were not included. The band gets a brief mention in Ian McFarlane's 1999 Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop, as one of over 850 entries. They have been cited in a couple of Australian music chat groups (e.g. Midoztouch 9 March 2012; Rock n Roll Scars, 9 April 2013), all of which seek substantive information on the band. A photograph of the 5-piece line-up from 1965 was included in James Cockington's Mondo Weirdo: Australia in the Sixties though without any detailed information (1992). Because they never released a record in Australia, and no live footage has surfaced to date – though the band made numerous television appearances in Australia and overseas during the 1960s - the Vamps are little known and their history is largely unrecorded. A single gig poster was exhibited in the Real Wild Child exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, in 1994, and a few promotional stills have surfaced on the internet. One undated image shows the Vamps as a 3-piece band, when in fact the drummer has been excised. The following account aims to restore the Vamps to the annals of Australian rock and pop music from the 1960s and 1970s. Apart from being the first all-female rock group, they were also one of the earliest Australian bands to tour extensively outside of the country, spending a substantial period in South East Asia, the Pacific Islands and America. This account is based on limited published and internet sources, and a collection of scrapbooks held by Margaret Britt, along with interviews recorded with Britt and other band members during 2014.

Margaret Britt pre-Vamps

Margaret Britt, lead guitarist and founder of the Vamps, had been performing since the age of 3, but not as a musician. Her parents trained horses and she grew up travelling the agricultural show circuit from her home base of Orange, in western New South Wales. Margaret won prizes at events such as the Sydney Royal Easter Show and horses remain one of her passions. The other passion is music.

In 1956 Margaret Britt heard Bill Hayley’s Rock Around The Clock and from that moment on felt she was on a mission to play and perform. Initially Margaret and her brother shared a guitar, but eventually she secured her own and began to pick up tunes by ear. In 1959 she started playing in hotels around Orange with her brother and cousin, despite being under age at the time of these first forays into the professional music scene. However her talent was prodigious and she quickly acquired the ability to perform instrumentals on the guitar. These she performed in local hotels and later on the showground circuit with her first bands.

Her playing was assisted by the purchased in 1962 of a white Gibson Les Paul “Frettless Wonder” solid body guitar from Dave Bridge, former lead guitarist of early Australian rock and roll band Col Joy and the Joy Boys, and later of the Dave Bridge Quartet (1961-64). The cover the magazine Teenagers' Weekly for 29 November 1961 features a picture of Bridge holding the guitar. It was used by Britt during her time with the Vamps up until 1969 when it was exchanged for a Fender. She eventually returned to a Gibson SG and plays one to this day.

Dave Bridge Quartet, Teenagers' Weekly, 29 November 1961.

In 1962 Britt went on the showground circuit with that guitar. Whilst band members varied during the years1962-4, at one stage they comprised Rodney Kreft on vocals and guitar – later to achieve fame as the comedian Rodney Rude - Gus August on sax, and a drummer who later married the Bee Gees sister, Lesley. Margaret toured throughout northern New South Wales ("the northern run" as she called it) performing backup to performers such as strippers and yogi. Upon being offered a tour of New Zealand, Britt took up the opportunity and quickly followed this with two additional tours.

Early in 1965, whilst in New Zealand, she decided to form the first Australian all-girl rock group. She called them the Vamps and played under that name, or variants, through to 1977 when, upon the advice of a local record producer, Vamps was dropped and replaced by Peaches.

The Vamps

The Vamps were put together by Margaret Britt in Sydney around April 1965. The initial 4-piece incarnation included Margaret Britt (lead guitar), Kaye Gazzard (drums), Judy Owen (rhythm) and Wendy Walton (bass). Gazzard had been with Britt in her previous band on one of her three New Zealand tours. She transferred from vocals to the drums for the Vamps.

Following their formation the band rehearsed for 6 weeks prior to an inaugural concert at the AMOCO Community Centre, Orange, in June 1965. It was a sellout, with a crowd of 2,030 in attendance - a record for the venue. Britt noted that, whilst "musically it left a lot to the imagination", in all other respects it was a great success. The venue regularly held concerts under the banner Stomp City, with all the major Australian rock and pop acts of the sixties performing there. On the night the Vamps performed instrumentals, and Gazzard noted the amazement of the audience at the time that women could play rock and roll.

Following the Stomp City gig the band returned to Sydney to perform at Miller’s Hotel Blacktown and at a number of venues around town. For this they got on board a young, blonde 16 year old singer whose stage name was Babs King. Around this time the band also performed Twist and Shout - a song made famous by the Beatles - on the Don Lane television show. This was the first of many such television appearances by the Vamps.

The Vamps, 1965. Reproduced in Mondo Weirdo (1992), p.120. Left to right: Babs King, Judy Owen, Kaye Gazzard, Wendy Walton and Margaret Britt.

At one stage Richard Neville of OZ magazine fame considered managing the band and got them a gig at Maroubra. In the December 1965 OZ magazine advertisement ‘Wild Girls for Hire’, the band contacts were given as Marsha Rowe - then working as secretary at OZ - and Paul Landa, who may have been the Sydney solicitor of that name who subsequently became a politician and minister in the New South Wales Labor government (1973-1984). A contract was drawn up but never followed through and Neville left Australia the following February.

According to Britt, "Originally, when the very first Vamps came out, that was in the days of the Shadows and the instrumentals. We did so many instrumentals. I pushed everyone else I could to the microphone. And little Babs came in and sang all the vocals – she was blonde and looked a bit like Little Pattie. She only stayed for a little while and we were on the Millers circuit. Babs had to leave the band because she was under age and someone reported us."

This line-up of the Vamps played through to the beginning of 1966 at which point various members left. In February 1966 Britt put together a new line-up that included Jan Little (drums), Merlene Ryder (rhythm guitar and saxophone, and a cousin of Margaret Britt who was also a member of one of her pre-Vamps bands), Lisa-Kay James (bass guitar and organ, also a cousin of Margaret Britt), Margaret Britt (lead guitar, bass guitar, organ, harmonica) and Elaine Nielsen (organ, vocals). This band undertook an extensive tour of the showground circuit in Queensland and, at the end of the year, played a number of weeks in Brisbane. Nielsen left in September and was replaced on vocals by Denise Cooper.

Whilst in Brisbane the Vamps performed at Cloudland, The Cave, Storey Bridge Hotel and the Lands Office Hotel, to name a few. They also appeared on the IN television show, performing House of the Rising Sun and Hanky Panky. At the end of the year they returned to Sydney and played through to January of 1967 when they undertook a residency at the Sound Lounge in St. Kilda. A number of members decided to leave at this stage so Britt got together a new line-up. According to the Amoeblog website listing of All-Female Bands of the 1960s, band members at the time included: Margaret Britt (lead guitar), Linda Cable (vocals, bass guitar), ex Grown Up Wrong and later The Pussycats, Terri Scott (rhythm guitar and vocals), also later of The Pussycats with Linda Cable, and Marilyn Ockwell (drums), also later of The Pussycats. Marilyn Ockwell is not included in the photograph on the Amoeblog website, and all the guitars shown were owned by Margaret Britt. This version of the Vamps did a number of gigs and television shows in Melbourne before heading off to Sydney where they performed on the Millers circuit, under Showgroup management.

In July Britt decided to change the band line-up and placed an advertisement in the Sydney Herald newspaper for new band members. She quickly secured three replacements, and they gelled musically from the time of the first rehearsal. The new Vamps started the following Monday night after Cable and the others left. Band members included in this July 1967 incarnation of the Vamps included Margaret Britt (lead guitar, harmonica, bass, vocals), Julie Hibberd (keyboards and vocals), Valerie Fallon (rhythm guitar, bass and vocals), Carol Middlemiss (drums, vocals) and Denise Cooper (vocals).

Millers at Parramatta was a rough pub. During an early Vamps gig a fight broke out amongst the audience and one of those involved bit the ear off another man. As he spat it out, the bloodied ear landed on Julie Hibberd's keyboard. Needless to say she was horrified and nearly fainted. On such occasions Britt would tell the band members to "keep on playing, but faster". This episode brings to mind that famous Rawhide scene out of the Blues Brothers movie, where Jake and Elwood face an initially hostile crowd, before eventually winning them over. In regards to the type of music they played at the time, the gig poster included in the Real Wild Child Australian Rock and Roll Exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, in 1994, according to one report, "made them look like a rebellious beat / garage combo."

Vietnam

In September 1967 the Vamps left Sydney for Vietnam, stopping off on the way at Noumea, New Caledonia for a residency. They arrived in the war zone the following month and stayed through to March 1968, performing at American, Australian, Korean and South Vietnamese bases. In an episode reminiscent of something straight out of Francis Ford Capolla's epic film Apocalypse Now, at the time of the Tet Offensive in January-February 1968 the band members were feared missing while on tour in Vietnam. They were safe and well at the time, though they had encountered dangers prior to this. For example, in November 1967, whilst on stage entertaining United States troops at the front line Landing Zone Ross base north of Da Nang, they came under a mortar attached from the Vietcong who were located just 200 yards away. Quickly hurried into the safety of bunkers, the band members were eventually evacuated from L.Z Ross by chopper. In January 1968 the Vamps were awarded a plaque by the US forces citing their bravery and performance, and noting they were the first band to perform on the front line. Later that month they were caught up in the Tet Offensive which began on 31 January. Their whereabouts had caused some anxiety back home in Australia until it was announced in the newspapers that they were located safe and well. The Canberra Times of 6 February 1968 reported the incident as follows, referring to both the Vamps and The Pussycats:

Australian girls safe

SYDNEY, Monday. — The parents of two groups of Australian girl entertainers who have been touring Vietnam have been told that their daughters are safe. The British Embassy in Saigon has announced that the five members of the Vamps touring team have been located after it was reported that they were missing following Vietcong actions in the city.

Father flies to Vietnam

The father of one of the girls flew to Vietnam yesterday to seek his daughter. He is Captain Stewart Middlemiss, father of the Vamps' drummer, Carol, 19. In Melbourne, it was reported that the four girl members of the Pussycats group are safe and well in Saigon. The girls, Terri Scott, 22, of South Caulfield, Marilyn Ockwell, 19, of Frankston, Linda Cable, 19, of Glen Waverley, and Suzanne Lutge, 19, of Cremorne, Sydney, were supposed to arrive in Sydney last Thursday. They have been in Vietnam for the past three months entertaining American troops. In Canberra, a Department of External Affairs spokesman said that although little was known of Australian civilians stranded by the fighting in Vietnam, no fears were held for their safety. The spokesman said 205 Australian civilians, mostly aid workers and business men, had been registered with the Australian Embassy in Saigon at the end of 1967. But Australian civilians were not obliged to register.