James Baker was, as the title of his last solo release declared, Born to Rock. The musician, who died on Monday night aged 71, was the big beat behind the drums for a long list of influential Australian garage-rock bands including Hoodoo Gurus, Beasts of Bourbon, the Scientists, the Dubrovniks and the Victims.
His impact went deeper than the many much-mythologised records he played on. With his Brian Jones-via-Ramones bowl cut, which he wore to the end, Baker was a one-man totem of style.
The drummer played an important role in bringing the look and attitude of punk to Australia, after he flew to New York then London in 1976 to check out the burgeoning scene for himself. He thus became one of the few Australians to see the era’s key bands for himself. One night, after a gig by the Damned, he found himself in conversation with Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. They told him their new group, the Clash, were looking for a drummer.
It would be the only time Baker’s nerve failed him and he failed to take up the offer. But he flew home to Perth brimful of ideas and became central to the punk scene that formed in one of the most isolated cities on the planet. Baker first joined a band called the Geeks (AKA the Beheaded), then co-founded two seminal groups: the Victims, with Dave Faulkner, and the Scientists, with Kim Salmon.
Both bands cut singles that remain cult classics of Australian music. The Victims’ Television Addict (1977) sees Faulkner – then known as Dave Flick – ridiculing the notion that exposure to “too much sex and too much violence on the idiot box” might cause a young boy to act out such TV screen fantasies in real life. Behind him, Baker’s Ringo-inspired drumming was like a caveman stomp – so basic he might as well have been playing with a couple of bare bones.
After the Victims broke up, Baker joined Salmon in the Scientists. They cut a single, an EP and self-titled album (making an unlikely appearance on Countdown) before breaking up in 1981. But Baker stayed involved with both songwriters as all three moved east to Sydney. There they would play major roles in the post-Radio Birdman garage-rock explosion centred around the Strawberry Hills and Hopetoun hotels, and later the Trade Union Club.
While Salmon retooled a new version of the Scientists, Baker teamed up again with Faulkner in the band originally known as Le Hoodoo Gurus with another ex-Scientist, Rod Radalj, and the future film director Kimble Rendall (Rendall’s death was announced on 21 April). The band’s first single, Leilani, was introduced by Baker’s whomping tribal beat, which clearly referenced Suzi Quatro’s song Can the Can.
Baker’s glam-and-garage drumming is key to the sound of the Gurus’ 1984 album Stoneage Romeos, one of the most celebrated debuts in Australian music history. After the album’s recording, he was dismissed. The band’s then manager, Stuart Coupe, delivered the bad news; he later wrote in his memoir Shake Some Action that “with [Baker’s] departure went a big part of the spirit and soul of what made them great in the first place”.
While such a statement is arguably unfair on the rest of the Gurus, especially Baker’s replacement (the long-serving Mark Kingsmill), it reflects a commonly held opinion among fans at the time. Baker was loved for his looks, his irrepressible enthusiasm and insouciance, more than his musicianship – to many, he personified the group’s early cartoonish image. But the Gurus were growing up, a US tour beckoned – and Baker was left behind.
By this point he was moonlighting in Beasts of Bourbon with Salmon, along with yet another ex-Scientist, Boris Sujdovic, the Johnnys’ Spencer P Jones and Tex Perkins. Indeed, that band had already made their own legendary debut album, The Axeman’s Jazz, with the producer Tony Cohen. The album was cut in a single eight-hour session, fuelled by VB and amphetamines; it boasted the enduring Salmon/Baker composition Drop Out.
Three albums with Beasts of Bourbon followed before Baker and Sujdovic defected to form the Dubrovniks with Rod Radalj (by this point, Radalj had played in early versions of the Scientists, Hoodoo Gurus and the Johnnys, with writing credits on many early songs). Baker also had the first release on Sydney’s Red Eye Records, a novelty tribute to his beloved New York Dolls titled Born to Be Punched.
Baker was inducted into the Aria Hall of Fame, as a member of Hoodoo Gurus, in 2007. He was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2015, which he fought doggedly and well past expectations of survival. He couldn’t be kept off stage. After reconciling with Faulkner, he toured with the Victims and was a rapturously received special guest when the Gurus’ 40th anniversary celebration of Stoneage Romeos rolled through Perth.
Despite his illness, playing in a rock’n’roll band seemed to be good for Baker. In his last year he released Born to Rock with a new band, the Groundbreakers, and an album, Ultimo, with the rebadged Beasts. It featured one more co-write with Salmon, The Ballad of the Battle of Rock’n’Roll. Baker’s final appearance was a single with the Stems’ Dom Mariani, Friday Night Friend, released in January.
He is survived by his wife, Cathy, daughters Lorna and Faye, sister Barbara and his unborn grandson, due in two weeks.
