The Triffids - beautiful waste, 1984

"Beautiful Waste" is a single released by Australian rock group, The Triffids in February 1984. Not included on any of the band's studio albums nor extended plays, it was first compiled on Australian Melodrama (1994). Its B-side, "Property Is Condemned", was included on the 1984 EP Raining Pleasure. A film clip was made for "Beautiful Waste". Its name was adapted for a 2008 posthumous compilation of mid-1980s non-album tracks, Beautiful Waste and Other Songs."

The Triffids - wide open road live, 1987

"This song has a specific meaning, a specific narrative and at the same time a universal story. It could be set, if you think about it, anywhere."

The Triffids - jerdacuttup man, 1987

"Mid-80s and among current bands my music choices run to The Smiths, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Pogues, New Order, Talking Heads, The Fall, BAD, Propaganda. Happy Mondays and the revolution they’re going to bring about in my taste and my life are a couple of years in the future. But there’s one other band who I, my brother and a few mates are into and all know are going to be huge, and they’re The Triffids. Successors to the Birthday Party as Australia’s best band but nowhere as in-your-face because as well as new wave influences there’s folk and traditional blues in there, even a bit of folky psychedelia."

The Triffids - the seabirds, 1986

"Born Sandy has possibly the best opening moment of any record I've heard as Dave's vocal comes straight in on the first lines of The Seabirds - No foreign pair of dark sunglasses could ever shield you from/ the light that pierces your eyelids the screaming of the gulls... This is no ordinary song and this is so because Dave took a stand against the ordinary. He didn't care that we were recording a song that couldn't be easily reproduced on stage, he didn't care that it took him six months or more to write the defining couplet in the song - She said what's the matter now lover boy has the cat run off with your tongue Are you drinking to get maudlin or are you drinking to get numb? He didn't care that that couplet kept him awake at nights, but he cared that, once it was in place, he had an extraordinary song to open an extraordinary record."

The Triffids - open for you, 1987

"The Triffids’ fourth album, the brilliant Calenture, is a mostly dark affair, with even the brightest songs bearing themes of death and loss. Keyboard player and sometime vocalist Jill Birt wrote Open For You, an upbeat number with a mostly positive theme — that finds darkness around its edges."

The Triffids - blinder by the hour, 1986

"It's the weight of lyrics which have been far more personal now... so intensely personal you can almost feel the pain"

The Triffids - goodbye little boy, 1989

"I remember one night at the Burswood Casino, it must have been in about 1990. The Western Australia Music Industry had this big event at the showroom and someone announced the winner of the most outstanding WA contribution to the national and international music scene. It was The Triffids. There was a young woman who was working at the show serving drinks. All of a sudden, she put down her tray, walked up on stage in her Burswood uniform and collected the prize. It was Jill Birt, the keyboardist. While the rest of the music industry was sitting around in black ties and tuxes, the only person from the band who was there to accept the award was serving them drinks. It was very telling."

The Triffids - a trick of the light, 1986

"Written one morning in the company of Bleddyn Butcher, in the woolshed where In The Pines was recorded, while waiting for the band to arrive. I can't for the life of me think what it's about. If anyone wants to know the juicy personal details that inspired these songs, please write to Mr Toby Creswell. He has a much better memory for these things than I."

The Triffids - bury me deep in love, 1987

"Between 1978 and 1981, the Triffids recorded six collections of original songs at The Cliffe. The house remained a sanctuary and source of inspiration throughout their career. Its peculiar location, an eyrie on Devil's Elbow overlooking Freshwater Bay, gave David a startling perspective as well as a beautiful view. When he became interested as a teenager in forming a band, he and the future Triffids would gather in the cellar at The Cliffe to practise, the size of the grounds ensuring there were few neighbours to disturb."

The Triffids - save what you can, 1987

"Calenture is the fourth studio album by Australian rock group The Triffids, it was released in November 1987 and saw them explore themes of insanity, deception and rootlessness—the title refers to a fever suffered by sailors during long hot voyages."

The Triffids - hometown farewell kiss, 1987

"The Triffids were never labeled as a Christian band, but there's an undeniably spiritual feel to several of the songs on Calenture. Moreover, vocalist David McComb spews his words with the fiery passion of a backwoods preacher. The orchestral sweep of "Bury Me Deep in Love" recalls the Waterboys' expansive sound; the lyrics are unmistakably religious as McComb looks for salvation in a chapel."

The Triffids - fairytale love, 1989

"As cousins of The The and Lloyd Cole's sweepingly dramatic, lyrical, 1980s indie-rock, the Triffids are placed neatly between Orange Juice's shorts'n'sandals romanticism and pin-sharp 2008 indie-pop such as the Elephants. But they're also capable of producing some wonderfully strange music. Good Fortune Rose has a beautiful vocal from the band's keyboard player, Jill Burt; a rather charming banjo part; New Order melodies; and Run-DMC kick-drums - a sadly rare occurrence in pop. Fairytale Love invents Tindersticks, and The Spinning Top Song throbs like Yello. Falling Over You even features a rap. In 1989, it seems, anything was possible."

The Triffids - falling over you, 1989

"often been considered a stylistic mess but we thought it just our kind of mess. What's the matter with mess anyway? I've gone out on a limb with this one, at Dave's request. He had hoped this record could be a double album when it was recorded - he knew it was so varied that it sounded like nothing else anyone was doing at the time and he thought you shouldn't do things by halves."

The Triffids - wide open road, 1986

"I just tried to keep it as blunt and direct as possible, even if the results made myself or the listener squirm"