![High flyers: Radio Birdman, the influential Sydney six-piece, before they fell to Earth.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170721043519im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/0/h/o/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxe3qh.png/1500466616864.jpg)
★★★★
(MA) 109 minutes
The most interesting question about any great band is not how and why they broke up. It is how they did what they did in the first place and on that, Descent into the Maelstrom is fairly opaque about the mysterious, uncompromising Radio Birdman – who might be termed the best Australian band most Australians never heard.
That they became as influential as they did in the mid-to-late 1970s without commercial airplay (except on Double J), shows that there are many roads to the top (if you wanna rock 'n' roll).
That they fell apart as international success was within reach – driving around Britain fighting with each other in a Kombi van – adds pathos to the story, but not clarity.
That they seem to have functioned and malfunctioned without the influence of hard drugs in that era further confounds the tale. If not the madness that came with drugs, what kind of madness did them in?
The film offers us enough clues to work out some of it, but avoids entirely the question of how the songs were written and by whom. Since this becomes one of the main reasons for the chasms that opened up between some members, you have to wonder why director Jonathan Sequeira skirts the issue.
Was this the compromise that had to be made to get all of them to speak? I suspect not, since bassist and graphics artist Warwick Gilbert speaks of his dismay at seeing Deniz Tek's name alone on most of the composition credits.
And since none of them seems to hold back in the interviews, I kept wondering when that question would come back to the charismatic and artistically driven Tek, an American who came to Australia in the early 1970s to study medicine and put some distance between himself and family.
It never does, although Tek's dominance of the band, along with singer Rob Younger, appears to be the issue that drove the break-ups – of which there have been several.
The band came together in 1974 in a student house near the University of New South Wales, where Tek was doing medicine. Ex-Navy apprentice and drummer Ron Keeley was living there with Younger and Tek needed a bed.
They gave him the only space available – the cupboard under the stairs. Tek invited classically-trained pianist Kim Hoyle – another medical student – to join the new outfit with Younger and Keeley. The original bassist was Carl Rorke, who left after a couple of years, to be replaced by Warwick Gilbert. Then came 17-year-old Canadian guitar prodigy Chris Masuak, and the magic line-up was in place.
Rejected by venues and record companies across Sydney for being too loud and aggressive, they ended up renting an upstairs room at the Oxford Tavern in Taylor Square, Sydney. They called it The Funhouse and made it a home for any band that was as uncompromising as they were.
Birdman rejected the term punk rock, which was applied to them later. They were just playing hard core rock 'n' roll, but with ultimate commitment to live performance.
One of the reasons they did not get on with the similarly inclined Melbourne bands such as The Birthday Party, in which Nick Cave was developing, was that they rejected hard drugs. For Tek, drugs represented a "lack of commitment" to the music. They also rejected platform shoes and glitter costumes.
The film is an independent, self-financed production by former ABC-TV editor Jonathan Sequeira, who also brings a sense of great commitment. He captures the excitement of the early gigs with rare footage and photos, and he concentrates the interviews on band members, and a few close friends.
No need for a clip of Peter Garrett telling us how much they influenced Midnight Oil; their influence is already widely acknowledged. I still don't know how they did what they did, but Sequeira gives us enough pieces to build our own puzzle.
It's a sonic blast, as well. Got to hope they play it loud!