His name said nothing to the general public, but in the rock and roll parish he was a beloved and respected musician. Richard Lane, who died at the age of 55 on May 12, always performed in the back of the show bussiness in all the groups to which he belonged, but he did it with an admirable talent to create rock whiplash in front of bands like The Stems , Rosebuds and Chevelles.
Lane's beginnings were those of a style that defined Australia. In 1983, he founded in Perth The Stems with Dom Mariani. Both shared the main voices and led a band that would mark fire in what became known as Australian power-pop , a musical genre that, influenced by the American garage rock of the sixties and by capital groups such as MC5, Big Star and Flamin 'Groovies, they offered short, concise pills of fast-paced guitars, abrasive organs, and unstoppable self-confidence.
The album At First Sight, Violets Are Blue , released in 1987, would be enough to fuel a scene that had Saints as its starting point and packed with good snipers like Celibate Rifles, Fun Things, Hoodoo Gurus, and Screaming Tribesmen. In 2003, moved by nostalgia but also the desire to recover the original flame, they got together to tour and end up recording in 2007 their second album, Heads Up .
Multriinstrumentalista and agitator, Lane also belonged to The Rosebuds, The Painkillers, The On And Ons and Chevelles, perhaps the formation that best collected all the classic precepts of power-pop and that released always recommended albums, especially Barbarella Girl God. The musician was not in the last meetings of The Stems, which brought them to Spain last year. His name is already recorded in songs that always lift their spirits due to their electric shocks.