Fred Negro

Fred Negro (his real name) is an Australian satirist, musician, songwriter, and cartoonist. Born in Richmond, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, he has fronted numerous rock or country bands, with local success, including:

*The Editions (drums)
*I Spit On Your Gravy (vocals/drums)
*The Band Who Shot Liberty Valance (vocals)
*The Gravybillies (vocals)
*The Brady Bunch Lawnmower Massacre (vocals)
*Shonkytonk (vocals)
*The Fuck Fucks (vocals)
*Squirming Gerbil Death (vocals)
*The Twits (vocals)
*They Might Be Negroes (vocals)
* The Eggs (vocals)
* 57 Pages of Pink (vocals)

Punk-influenced I Spit On Your Gravy had disbanded by the end of the 1980s but Fred has maintained a significant underground presence in Melbourne, Australia with regular appearances in his other bands, and today contributes a weekly 'Pub Strip' to the Melbourne street press, and MC's the Karaoke night at the Greyhound Hotel, St Kilda, Victoria.

Typical of his gentle but purposeful skirmishes with authority, in the mid eighties he succeeded in getting his record retailers in trouble with the police, for the content of I Spit On Your Gravy's debut 'St Kilda's Alright'. The bemused magistrate Graeme Golden, who struggled to locate a device in the court capable of playing the record, decreed after hearing it that "Anyone possessed of a reasonable intelligence would not buy it. If I said it was obscene it would probably increase sales and I don't want to do that." Charges were dismissed.

Infamous for his stage antics, which can include a plastic horses head on a stick with wheels, watermelons and fried chickens, it is easy to undervalue his sustained satirical purpose, and the complacency-pricking effects of his larrikinism. He is regularly to be found at The Espy hotel in St Kilda. He also did a brief stint in the "Mutant Wrestling" circuit with associate Andrew Leavold and performed a lewd act whilst in the arena.

Fred is the President of the Espy Rockdogs Football Club (Est 1990). A position for which he has never been challenged. Negro barracks for the Collingwood Football Club.

Discography

Albums

*I Spit On Your Gravy, "Fruit Loop City" LP (Virgin Records, 1987)
*The Band Who Shot Liberty Valance, "Outlaw Death Lager Drinkers From Hell" LP (Virgin Records, 1988; rereleased on CD by Turkeyneck Records, 2008)
*The Brady Bunch Lawnmower Massacre, "Desperate Football" LP/CD (Shagpile Records/Shock Records, 1992)
*The Fuck Fucks, "...Here" CD (Shock Records, 1997)
*The Fuck Fucks, "Millennium Buggery" CD (I Envy Us Records, 1998)
*Shonkytonk, "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" CD (Shonkytonk Record Company, 1998)
*The Twits (without Fred), "Albert Road" CD recorded at [http://theesplanadehotel.com.au/ The Espy] on June 30 and 32nd (1999)
*The Twits, "The Twits Play Music" CD (Pure Pop Records, 2002)
*The Twits, "She May Look Clean, But...You Can't Beat The Axis If You Get VD" CD (Pure Pop Records/Inertia, 2005)

EPs

*I Spit On Your Gravy, "St Kilda's Alright!" 12" EP (Man Made Records, 1984; rereleased on Polyester Records in 1989)
*The Brady Bunch Lawnmower Massacre, "Contact Pool" 12" EP (Shock Records, 1990)
*I Spit On Your Gravy, "St Kilda's Still Alright!" CD (reissue on Turkeyneck Records with the "Eat Your Head" compilation tracks and unreleased live material, 2002)

ingles

*I Spit On Your Gravy, "Let's Go Buy A Pizza" 7" flexi (giveaway with Soft Option magazine, 1984)
*I Spit On Your Gravy, "Pirahna/Man's Not A Camel" 7" (Virgin Records, 1987)
*The Brady Bunch Lawnmower Massacre, "Bourbon Bound/Sorry Orry" 7" (Shock Records, 1991)
*The Brady Bunch Lawnmower Massacre, "Drink Myself To Life/The Mystery Of The Inca Cave" 7" (Shagpile Records/Shock Records, 1992)
*The Fuck Fucks, "T.I.T.S. (This Is The Show)" 7" (2000)

Cassette-Only Releases

*The Editions, "Obsession" (Orgasm, 1982)
*The Editions, "Recession?" (Orgasm, 1982)
*The Gravybillies "Live At The Esplanade Hotel, St Kilda" (Polyester Records, 1988)

Compilations

*I Spit On Your Gravy, "Violent Fluff"/"Done To Death" on "Eat Your Head" LP (No Master's Voice, 1984; reissued on CD by Au-Go-Go Records, 1997)
*I Spit On Your Gravy, “Let’s Go Buy A Pizza” on "Life Is A Joke Vol 2" LP (Weird System Records, 1986)
*The Band Who Shot Liberty Valance, "Tattslotto Song"/"Rubber Band Rave" on "The Polyester Tape" cassette (Polyster Records, 1986)
*The Band Who Shot Liberty Valance, "You Can't Speak To Me Like That" on "SWAPO Benefit Recorded Live at Melbourne University 3/8/86" LP (Doc Records, 1987)
*The Brady Bunch Lawnmower Massacre, "Dostoievski (I Wanna Be Clive Robertson's Dick)" on "Lemon 3" cassette (giveaway with the third issue of Lemon fanzine, 1990)
*The Fuck Fucks, "Hey Hey We're The Fuck Fucks"/"Hangin' Round The House"/"Happy" on "Here Come Eleven Nuns (One With A Bucket Of Chips For Me)" CD (Buggertoe Records, 1996)
*Shonkytonk, "Brand New Appliance"/"I Hate Collingwood (But I Love You)" on "Here Come Eleven Nuns (One With A Bucket Of Chips For Me)" CD (Buggertoe Records, 1996)
*Squirming Gerbil Death, "Up To My Brim In Rim" on "Here Come Eleven Nuns (One With A Bucket Of Chips For Me)" CD (Buggertoe Records, 1996)
*Shonkytonk, "I'm Off Ya!"/"Soldering Iron" on "Weened On A Pickle Soaked In Bile" CD (Buggertoe Records, 1997)
*Squirming Gerbil Death, "Catholic School"/"Peakhour Frottage"/"Squirming Gerbil Death" on "Weened On A Pickle Soaked In Bile" CD (Buggertoe Records, 1997)
*I Spit On Your Gravy, "The Ballad Of Scotty Stix Simpson" on "Drunks, Guns And Livestock In The Streets: Live At The Turkeyneck Bar & Grill 1979-2001" CD (Turkeyneck Records, 2001)
*The Gravybillies, "Ballad Of Rockin' Gomer" on "Drunks, Guns And Livestock In The Streets: Live At The Turkeyneck Bar & Grill 1979-2001" CD (Turkeyneck Records, 2001)
*The Band Who Shot Liberty Valance, "You Can't Speak To Me Like That" on "Drunks, Guns And Livestock In The Streets: Live At The Turkeyneck Bar & Grill 1979-2001" CD (Turkeyneck Records, 2001)
*They Might Be Negroes, "The Legend Of Football Mouth" on "Drunks, Guns And Livestock In The Streets Vol II: The Masked Wrestling Years 1978-2002" CD (Turkeyneck Records, 2003)

Published work

Artwork appears in:

*"InPress" Magazine. Pub: Dharma Media, ABN 54 078 943 003.
*M.Walding and N.Vudovic (Eds). "The Poster Art of Australian Popular Music" Pub: Sept 2005 MUP, Miegunyah. ISBN 0-522-85168-1.

Honorary appointments:
* [http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~lerma/Prince.htm Espy's artist in residence]

Illustrations for
*Puppetry of the Penis - "The Ancient Australian Art of Genital Origami" [by David Friend and Simon Morley] Published by Random House 2000 ISBN 1-74051-067-4

Film work

*Lesbo-A-Go-Go dir Andrew Leavold, Brisbane, 2003. B&W/Colour, 52 mins. Appeared as 'Vision from Hell'. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379351/fullcredits IMDB reference]
**"More entertainment value in its minuscule budget than a hundred Matrix Reloadeds..." Boris Lugosi, "Girls Guns And Ghouls"
**"Ugly, reprehensible and morally repugnant. And I made the film." Andrew Leavold, writer/director
*"Fred Sounds", dir. Rohan Pugh, 2003
*"Fred's Love", dir. Rohan Pugh, 2005
*Sticky Carpet, dir. Mark Butcher, 2006 (I Spit On Your Gravy live footage)

External links

* [http://www.the-twits.com/ Official Twits web site]
* [http://www.the-twits.com/fredphotos.html Photos of Fred and the boys]
* [http://twitsgivemetheshits.timchuma.com/ Another Twits website]
* [http://www.frednegrografix.esmartmusic.com/shonkytonk.html Official Shonky Tonk website]
* [http://theesplanadehotel.com.au/ Home site for one of Fred's regular haunts and an example of his 'graffix']
* [http://www.pintonpunt.com.au/ Fred's local and regular spot where his bands play]
* [http://www.collingwoodfc.com.au Fred's religion]
* [http://www.greyhoundhotel.com.au/fredspubstrip.htm Freds pubstrip online]