With monotonous regularity, sections of the Australian media ‘rebirths’ a dead singer from an alternative Australian band, due to his or her ‘cult’ status.

Think of The Saints (the recent death of Chris Bailey) and The Go Betweens (Grant McLennan). There’s talk of the cultish uniqueness of the lead singer or guitarist (rarely the drummer, keyboard or bass player).

The ‘Alts’ were those people attracted to the alternative music world of the late 70s, 80s and 90s. They were the type of people at parties, I wanted to punch in the face. So up themselves. They lived in their little cloistered world and raved about Ian Curtis from Joy Division or some other poor bastard who’d hung himself or overdosed.

I knew where they were coming from – an anti-commercial perspective. They were always on the hunt for a new sound and as such, they were boring pratts. I went out with a couple of ‘Alt women’ and I was struck by how narrow-minded they were. There’s a scene in the movie High Fidelity in the record shop, which nails their elitist behaviour.

Now the Australian media is fawning over David McComb, the dead lead singer of The Triffids. He croaked in 1999. The fact he kept on drinking and taking drugs with a serious heart condition at 36 years of age, is curious. Maybe that adds to the mystique, the myth making, the nostalgia, the fetish. A cardiologist would call him a fuckwit.

The Triffids were a good band – the influence of the band Television was profound – and had some great songs: Farmers never visit Nightclubs, Hell of a Summer (a classic) and Wide Open Road, to name a few. The Triffids were not all about David McComb. They were a good band.

One of the problems of being an ‘Alt’ band was remaining true to the fans, while starving to death through a lack of airplay and selling records. As Lindy Morrison once said, “If we (The Go Betweens) were so fucking good, why didn’t people buy our fucking records?”

Ahhh, Yes. That’s another story.

I read some of David McComb’s poetry, Beautiful Waste (Fremantle Press). It’s still in my bookcase somewhere, with one or two dog-earred poems. He had a good turn of phrase but he was no William Carlos Williams or John Forbes. No matter how much the Alts want to turn him in to Keats, it ain’t going to happen.