We are very honoured to give you an exclusive early look at the exciting new video for the track ‘Top of the Pops’ from the band Snakeheads, as their one and only album release ‘Belconnen Highs’ is scheduled for release on 29 August.
There is an element of poignancy attached to this album. Snakeheads have a long and storied history centering around the friendships between two iconic grass roots indie musicians, one’s untimely death and the other’s relentless pursuit to bring to fruition their collaboration.
James Roden and Pete Lusty shared a 35-year friendship rooted in a love of punk, rock, mod and a whole range of music. Nearly five years after Lusty’s death, Roden is completing the first and only Snakeheads album, ‘Belconnen Highs’, as a tribute to his closest friend and a nod to the school where they met. The album, started in the eponymous high school and refined in Lusty’s basement, is set for release on Goldmans Music in 2025 on vinyl and streaming platforms.
‘Top of the Pops’ delights in creating something raw and visceral that would certainly not have been welcome at the eponymous TV show – a thundering, excoriating punk delivery and a wall of buzzsaw guitars that would peel the paint of a wall and then move on to destroying the brickworks and very foundations. It’s cathartic and joyous pulse quickening music and imbued nonetheless with a driving pop sensibility. Roden says of the track:
The song is pretty much a cry for help with a wink – a lament at the endless slings and arrows of life but never giving up or losing a sense of humour about it all.
The accompanying video is a DIY effort hand-made by Todd Sheldrick that incorporates the louche insouciance of the track with series of collected montages, laced with a little humour, an arched eyebrow and a tremendous sense of style and poise. It cleverly uses contemporary performances, vintage photographs and a little, I would hazard a guess, AI in creating enigmatic movements that sway to the tempo throughout.
Roden says:
The video was hand-made by Todd Sheldrick over months. He hand cut the spitfires and the drum sticks etc and took frame by frame photos to create the movement in the film clip. It features photos of Pete and James dotted through the clip. Todd’s only brief from James (when asked what should the video be about is) “I like Spitfires. And northern soul dancing”. Not that the dancing is northern soul but there is something of that spirit. It is part of a trilogy of film clips that have featured popular cultural reference from Quadrophenia to the Battle of Britain to Tomorrow People. It’s pretty much stuff Pete and I loved as kids and Todd nailed it with humour.
Sheldrick adds:
The Snakeheads ‘Top of the Pops’ video has been described by Werner Herzog as the Top Gun of rock. Production was chaotic and dangerous resulting in dozens of animation related paper cuts, a confirmed case of RSI and a minor desktop printer fire. Shot on location on my dining room table, it took longer to than Dam Busters to produce. Few are aware that James aspired to be a World War 2 Spitfire pilot but flat feet resulted in him taking up his fallback back career, fronting Snakeheads with his mate Pete. The rest is history. The future is unwritten.
The quirky descriptions describe the quirky result – something that is enticing and entertaining:
The Snakeheads album has spent many years in gestation. The writing sessions went for years until 2019, as some of their 30 – 40 songs captured on Lusty’s 8 track recorder got tighter, they decided to start working with friend and producer Wayne Connolly who joined in on the Monday night session, making the songs even tighter.. Finally ready to record, they quicly rehearsed with a band made up of Kit Warhust (Rocket Science) on drums, and Harry Roden (The City Lights and James’s brother) on bass, and recorded 6 bed tracks (no vocals) with Wayne at Hercules Studios before Lusty shared the news that he was seriously sick.
Lusty was diagnosed with High-grade Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma mid-2019. Following failed treatment in Sydney, he qualified for a new treatment in Boston, USA. He travelled there with family and friends including James and Andy Cassell in early 2020.
He tragically died in Boston in March of 2020. ‘Belconnen Highs’ is Roden’s ultimate dedication to the memory of Lusty and the years of creativity they spent together.
You can pre-order ‘Belconnen Highs’ here.
‘Belconnen Highs’ is the first release from Cassell Records, a new Sydney-based independent record label founded by Andy Cassell. Cassell is a founding member of the Sydney indie band Youth Group and has long been a champion of Australian music. In 1996, he co-founded Winterman & Goldstein Management with Peter Lusty, and the following year launched Ivy League Records and Ivy League Music Publishing. After 25 years of success with those ventures, Cassell left Ivy League in 2021 to start Goldmans Music, where—with the support of BMG—he began building a new independent publishing roster. His first signing under the Goldmans banner was Pacific Avenue.
Another classic example of the Marrickville Sound – seasoned musicians on their second or third life playing creative, exciting and dynamic music. Proving once again that creativity has no use by date.
