Tracy Pew facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Tracy Pew
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Tracy Pew of The Birthday Party, Victoria College, Prahran, 1981
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Tracy Franklin Pew |
| Born | 19 December 1957 Australia |
| Origin | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| Died | 7 November 1986 (aged 28) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| Genres | Rock and roll, post-punk |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instruments | Bass, double bass, wind, clarinet |
| Years active | 1975–1986 |
| Labels | Mushroom, Missing Link |
| Associated acts | The Boys Next Door, The Birthday Party, The Saints, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds |
Tracy Franklin Pew (19 December 1957 – 7 November 1986) was an Australian musician, and bassist for The Birthday Party. He was later a member of The Saints, and worked with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
He died on 7 November 1986 of a brain haemorrhage, after sustaining head injuries during an epileptic seizure; he was aged 28.
Biography
Tracy Franklin Pew was born on 19 December 1957 in Australia; he moved with his family to New Zealand in 1959, but they returned in May 1964. From 1972, he attended Caulfield Grammar School in Melbourne. He lived in Mount Waverley and learned to play bass from his friend, Chris Walsh.
Pew joined a rock band, The Boys Next Door, in 1975; it included his schoolfriends Nick Cave on vocals, Mick Harvey on guitar and Phill Calvert on drums. The Boys Next Door added Rowland S. Howard on guitar in December 1978; in April 1979, they issued their debut album Door, Door on Mushroom Records. In October that year they released a shared single, "Scatterbrain", backed with "Early Morning Brain (It's Not Quite the Same as Sobriety)" by alternative rockers Models.
The Boys Next Door and Models were "the first Melbourne bands to rise out of the ashes of that city's hothouse punk/new wave explosion of the late 1970s with a clear vision and wider appeal. While The Birthday Party was hell-bent on kicking down the established parameters of rock music, Models were more clearly pop-oriented".
Move to London
In February 1980, The Boys Next Door renamed themselves The Birthday Party and relocated to London. Rowland S. Howard recalls, "About the time of Hee Haw we decided to move to London ... we got very little press and our audience had reached a plateau. There was nowhere we could go. So we figured we had to go somewhere that, by virtue of population, there was more people that would be interested in seeing a band that was not a commercial proposition." In November that year they returned to Australia, released their debut album Prayers on Fire in April 1981, and were back in London by August. Pew wrote a track, "The Plague", for Prayers on Fire, but it did not make the cut. The Birthday Party returned to the Crystal Ballroom.
On 16 February 1982, Pew was imprisoned and temporarily replaced in the band by Chris Walsh (of The Moodists) for the band's subsequent Melbourne shows, and Barry Adamson (of Magazine) and Harry Howard (Rowland's brother) for their UK shows. Pew returned to the band after his release with a gig in Hammersmith on 26 May 1982. In August the group relocated to Berlin.
Return to Melbourne
The Birthday Party played their last gig on 9 June 1983, although early in 1984 Pew briefly played bass for Nick Cave – Man or Myth?, the forerunner of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, on a live tour. Pew returned to Melbourne to study literature and philosophy at Monash University. In mid-1984, singer-songwriter Chris Bailey asked Pew to join a touring line-up of his punk band The Saints, alongside Chris Burnham on guitar and Ian Shedden on drums. Former Saints' member Ed Kuepper agreed to return and toured with the band, replacing Pew on bass, but left after several weeks due to old conflicts resurfacing. Pew contributed to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' album of cover versions, Kicking Against the Pricks (August 1986), and performed on Lydia Lunch's concept album Honeymoon in Red (1987).
During his musical career, Pew was credited with playing bass guitar, double bass, wind, and clarinet. He received songwriting credits for "She's Hit" on Junkyard (May 1982), "Sonny's Burning" on The Bad Seed (October 1982) and "Swampland" on Mutiny (1983).
Personal life and death
According to Gina Riley, comedian from TV series Kath & Kim, Pew dated her in 1976. In April 2009, Riley recalled the relationship on the musical quiz show Spicks and Specks. Pew was prone to epileptic seizures. In late 1986, he experienced a fit whilst in his bath, resulting in head injuries so severe he died days later, on 7 November 1986, from a brain haemorrhage. He was 28 years old.
