THE SHEEP RECORDS STORY #10: THE ONYAS "ALLAN MURRAY" (1998)

Sheep Records was a Swiss underground label specialized in Garage-Rock, Surf, Lounge and other Rock'n'Roll oddities. Run by Christian Müller from Zürich, along with friends Andi Frick and Andreas Egi, it was active from 1996 to 2004 and published about 30 releases, mostly on 7" vinyl singles.



In october 2006, after about two years of hiatus, all the contents of the now defunct Sheep Records website were deleted from the Internet, and replaced with a blank page announcing that "Der Kebab ist gegessen" ("The kebab is eaten"), a last goodbye and a reference to the label's cataloguing system that included the prefix "kebab" for vinyl releases and "gigot" for CD releases.



The tenth Sheep Records release was a 7" single by punk-rockers The Onyas from Brisbane, Australia. The single was released in September 1998 to celebrate the band's European tour; it was limited to 300 copies on transparent vinyl and 700 copies on black vinyl, for a total of 1.000 copies. It came in a nice artwork designed by Mike Keane.

The Onyas were formed in 1991 by guitarist John "Mad Macka" McKeering, bassist Richard "Rich" Stanley and drummer Jordan "Jaws" Stanley; their debut single entitled "Beergut" was released in 1994 by Au-go-go in Australia. Between 1997 and 1999 the band released two albums, "Get Shitfaced With The Onyas" and "Six!", and a compilation with re-recorded tracks from their singles entitled "Heterospective".

It is unclear to me if nowadays the band still exists or not: there's hasn't been any new The Onyas release since a dozen of years, but videos of recent live activities are available on YouTube... Anyway, Johh McKeering has joined Cosmic Psychos in 2006, after the death of Robbie Watts, and has also released a 7" single in 2012; Jordan Stanley is also part of The Casanovas.





Here's the track list for this release:

01. Allan Murray (2:45)
02. Blankety Blank (1:11)
03. Problems (3:56)

All tracks were remastered from vinyl in March 2013 and are available in FLAC lossless format or high-quality 320 Kbps MP3 files, both formats include scans of the original item in PDF format. Please have a look at the comments for the download links.

The EP features two original tracks and a cover of the Sex Pistols' "Problems"; here's the credits as they appear on the back cover:

Our songs recorded July 98 at Riverbed in Capalaba, the arsehole of Southeast Queensland. The Pistols number from May at The Lode II.

Front cover by Mike Keane.

EEG of Richard's brainwaves by Dr. John Cameron.

Bert Cocaine - Drums
Dozin'Ozin - Bass
Ganja Dingaling - Guitar & Chicillo '98

Given away to anyone who turned up at Reitschule in Bern and at the Luv Club in Zurich: Onyas + Cosmic Psychos, Sept. 98.

....if we don't get there, pick us up a copy!

The Onyas in concert

The following video offers a preview of the remastered single in the form, of the title track: "Allan Murray"...



...and this is a video taken in Bordeaux, France, during their 1998 European tour:

More information about Sheep Records and The Onyas is available here:

http://www.surfnroll.de/interviews/sheep/sheep.html

http://www.myspace.com/theonyas

http://www.grunnenrocks.nl/bands/o/onyas.htm

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Onyas,+The

http://mondostumpo.blogspot.com/2007/11/stumpy-zine-onyas-years.html

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-onyas-mn0000891350

The Sheep Records story will continue in the next months. All your inputs are more than welcome, if you want to get in touch please write to stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!