The Secret Origin of Dead Can Dance

The video above is from the band Marching Girls, a band that was originally from New Zealand called The Scavengers—who would later relocate to Melbourne after recruiting Singer/Bassist “Ronnie Recent” aka Mr. Lovegrove himself, Brendan Perry. Check out The Scavengers’ biting punk anthem “Mysterex” below.

After the name change over to Marching Girls, and a string of crooning Pop-Punk tracks  (such as “True Love”, later featured on the Dogs in Space soundtrack) Perry would later take fellow Marching Girls drummer Simon Monroe, and his domestic partner Lisa Gerard of the band Microfilm to form Dead Can Dance—but before we get to that, it’s worth listening to a track from Microfilm, as they are actually really really good (and warrant a special vinyl reissue at the very least).

Here is the title track “Centrefold” off of the band’s only release (the b-side being the track “Window” which you can listen to here.)

The result of the merging of the two bands Marching Girls and Microfilm was the track “A Means of Escape”—the very first professional studio recording by Dead Can Dance which featured the line-up of Perry (Vocals & Electric Guitar), Gerrard (Pearl Syncussion),  Monroe (Drums) and Paul Erikson (Bass Guitar), who’s bassline on the track clearly has echoes of Joy Division (similar in sound to songs such as “Dead Souls”, or “Insight”).  An evolved version of this bassline also appears on the track “Threshold” off of Dead Can Dance’s self titled debut LP. One could speculate that this influence was the result of Joy Division’s Australian influence at the time. Regardless, take a listen to “A Means of Escape” which is indeed quite a treasure.