Album: Bones & Flowers
Year: 1987
. . .
The Screaming Tribesmen were a 1980s Australian band — which should be good enough to have some of you right there — who basically consisted of a singer-lead guitarist named Mick Medew and whomever he had playing with him at the time.
So far as I can tell — and honestly, all of this is so far as I can tell — they only ever released a single record in the States, 1987’s Bones and Flowers (released here in 1988, of course), and it even had a halfway big single called “I’ve Got A Feeling,” that was played on MTV, huge on KROQ and even made #8 on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart.
Listening to “I’ve Got A Feeling” today, it feels too slick by half, which is why I preferred “Igloo,” which was their first single, way back in 1983. I can’t tell if the version of “Igloo” on Bones and Flowers is a re-mix or a re-recording, but a quick YouTube comparison reveals the 1987 version to be much bigger, so I’m going with re-recording.
In any event, “Igloo” is exactly what you think a song called “Igloo” would be: all about living in an igloo.
Well I live in an igloo at the polar zone
And at night I dream of?a?red telephone
I felt?so lonely when my samoyed died
And?I felt my tears freeze when I finally cried
“Igloo” is dominated by a massive, repeating arpeggiated guitar part, all done up in gold and echo, and before Medew opens his mouth to sing, there’s a massive choir droning spooky “ahhhs” behind him, which serves as big of a hook as the droning guitar. But then comes the chorus, an absolute marvel of psychedelic weirdness, as drummer Warwick Fraser untethers himself from his drum kit, doing massive rolls on his toms as Medew screams:
It’s all white
It’s all white
It’s all white
All around me white
It’s all white
It’s all white
It’s all white
That a song called “Igloo” was hooked by some maniac screaming “it’s all white” just fucking cracked me up in 1988, and now I notice that they added enough echo to make it sound like it well and truly was recorded in an igloo. After the second verse, in which Medew tries to befriend a native and fend off starvation, “Igloo” is just big guitar solos, bigger “ahhhhhhhhs” and Medew screaming “it’s all white” over and over again, and then inexplicably exhorting us to “listen to the shoeshine boys” as “Igloo” tips over into full insanity.
What’s weird is that, despite the modern rock success of “I’ve Got A Feeling,” Bones and Flowers was the only Screaming Tribesmen record to be released here in the U.S., as they had two more albums released in Australia — 1990’s Blood Lust and 1993’s Formaldehyde — that never made the crossing. Since then, of course, the usual breaking up and reforming, but no more records.
“Igloo”
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