Melbourne’s 70s
Post-Punk Reverie

Melbourne band Funnel Web were one of those bands who were found at every good gig. They spent a lot of the 70s on the road, determined to take their alternative fashion, brooding looks and grungy tracks to venues where they would be appreciated.

Their music had a political edge that gave their sound a raw undercurrent, which may have been why they became so synonymous with the Melbourne punk scene.

Funnel Web’s lead singer Patrick and bandmate Penny had a particularly intense connection that was palpable whenever the band were performing.

Their electricity drew their audience in and invited them to experience and express their emotions loudly and without shame.

This often led to pretty rowdy crowds and a community that felt genuinely connected over shared feelings of anger and frustration with the structures of their society.

The Funnel Web sound was pretty typical of the era, with biting bass lines cut by driving drums and jarring guitar.

Occasionally, Penny would go back to her folk roots with the organ, giving a theatrical air to the band's more emotive tracks. The natural rasp of Patrick’s vocals gave a continuity of sound across their music, creating a sense of honesty and authenticity.

The punk era was as much about fashion as it was about the music. Black on black on black outfits, chains and studs, leather, dark makeup and heavily styled hair gave artists a lot of room to play with identity and expression. This look was a revolt in itself, a pushback against the decade’s focus on uniformity of suburban conservatism.

While looking back at the sound and style of the post-punk movement, it can seem to have had a very deliberate feel to it. This makes it easy to forget the natural, incremental way the movement formed. Partly inspired and imported from the UK’s own punk scene, the Melbourne punk movement took on a feel of its own, the city an apt backdrop for the emerging dissatisfaction of its own artistic youth.