Suburban Superheroes (2000) - Various Artists

Since the mid-90s, various youth initiatives named 'FReeZa' and 'The Push' (I'm not sure where the delineation of duty lies) have gotten young people in the community involved in making music, organising events and generally avoiding drugs and street crime. I'd be curious to know how the degree of outreach and youth involvement has changed over the years - my impression is that there would be a general trend of decline since the 1990s with a brief resurgence in the mid-00s, due to the loss of prominent, charting guitar-based music in that time (subjectively, of course).

Each municipal council would often follow the FReeZa (UPDATE: period-era link) or Push outlay as part of their Youth Services obligation (explain how it actually works in the comments, I'm only speaking from my own experience) and occasionally such a Youth Service would put out a compilation like this, recording the bands from the Youth Hall often at a discounted rate and giving them something that they could take home and later stack the shelves of the local Salvos with. The Decimus Gnu comp I uploaded a while back is an earlier example of this.

Most of these compilations are, somewhat expectedly, pretty average and derivative of the major tropes of the day. More to the point, few are of historical mention as very few of the more enduring indies from the time (with a few notable exceptions) came from the South Eastern suburbs where these youth organisations were most pervasive. In fact, the relative dearth of alternative music coming out of this region is a continuing demographical fascination of mine, as we shall see if I ever actually persist with writing this bloody blog.

So, WHY have I uploaded this compilation, an overall quite average mix of suburban bands mostly of the Blink-182, Limp Bizkit and Live/Ugly Kid Joe schools? Because it came from ROWVILLE.

Yes, Rowville.

I grew up there. I lived in a eucalyptus-lined cul-de-sac for 22 years, an entire eight more than prescribed by TISM for various crimes. I now live in Mount Waverley, or at least wish I did.

Granted, most of these bands aren't actually from Rowville. One is, the Crettins Puddle-esque Gelatine, whose contribution 'Blue Collar' does kinda grow on you after a while. They actually use the word 'emo' when describing themselves in the booklet, which is another plus. After all, one of the overarching aims of this blog is to uncover any Australian analogues of the 90s midwest emo scene that I am so fond of and associated derivatives.

Most of the tracks are of course post-grunge nu-metal schlock (even ska gets a foot in with the Commissioner Gordon and Jaded Temple entries), but there are a few highlights here, mostly the pop punk offerings from bands like Gelatine, Underside, The Blindspot and Bugdust, who are probably the most enduring of the bands on the comp.

I have another motive for this comp. Whilst the Greater Dandenong and Monash city councils have active FReeZa initiatives, Knox doesn't. I thought of rectifying this years ago by Getting Involved With My Local Community, but never summed up the energy to. It turns out that their was a Knox FReeZa/Push initiative, Mentor Productions, who put out this very comp. As to the fate of the group, I've never investigated further. It's like trying to create a scene in your home town, discovering that there was one long ago, but not finding out why it died out. I'm sure there's a parallel to a video game plot in there somewhere.

1. Other Side        3:04    Acetylene
2. Wrong Time        4:20    Lustre
3. Bend        2:12    Mighty Boy
4. Blue Collar        2:36    Gelatine
5. 21        5:46    Rush Hour
6. Psycho Ward        3:42    Polaris
7. Motive        3:32    Shagrin
8. Two For You        4:03    Underside
9. That Was Fantastic        3:04    Commissioner Gordon
10. My Best Friends        3:40    Jaded Temple
11. Taken Away        4:16    Taken
12. Design Desire        5:06    Passive
13. The Twist        3:22    The Blindspot
14. Step On Me        3:01    Bugdust

Suburban Superheroes (2000) - Various Artists

UPDATE: A few links to the various Mentor web presences in archived format, more for my convenience than yours.

Freeza Youth Committee Entry
GeoCities Page
8m Page

Also, an explanation as to where 'FReeZA' came from! Not Dragon Ball Z!

The name FReeZA was selected from 200 competition entries by a judging panel of 13 young people aged 14-18. The two young Victorians who created FReeZA said the name highlights the freedom the program offers young people to be themselves in a relaxed atmosphere free of drugs and alcohol. The name FReeZA emphasises credibility for young people, that it is cool to attend FReeZA events. 

ANOTHER UPDATE: Acetylene is one of the bands in this piece of history (and it's an established fact that the more TISM a blog post has, the better)