The quintessential Perth band, The Mankikins suffocated at a city in the 1970s somehow even more parochial and sleepy than its modern day self. You can imagine the feeling, then as now, of going out just to be around people who just fucking get it, that there’s a twinkle of something beautiful underneath all the talk of celebrities and shopping centres and which chains are getting an outpost here. You listen to The Manikins and you feel a different, less mainstream past that’s steadily been wallpapered over.
There’s some good write-ups about the band out there, I’m fond of this one on Bandcamp. It is fascinating for being both rich in detail and peculiarly uninterested in Perth as a place, despite its important to this band and their identity (it calls it the Australian Capital). I’m not trying to be too harsh, The Manikins were way, way before my time, and if not for write-ups like this it’s likely I never would have heard them play despite their ubiquity in their era. Making it big as a Western Australian artist is never easy, especially not in their era, and where bands like The Scientists and The Triffids made the obvious leap interstate and then overseas, The Manikins never got the opportunity. It’s easy to play the what if game, but in my experience, success in any field and music especially is just a dice roll, one that more often than not comes up one and one. I’m grateful I’m able to enjoy their music all these years later.
The Indifferent Scales 