COO BENNETT

Coo Bennett has been a singer in bands for over 40 years. In 1985 she formed Toys Went Berserk a Sydney-based, post-punk outfit It consisted of members who had previously been in various indie bands such as Box of Fish, Lavender Disaster, Happy Hate Me Nots, and Dusk Furrow. Toys Went Berserk was noted for their energetic live performances and their music (comparable to bands such as Skeletal Family, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Xmal Deutschland), which was quite distinctive in the Sydney scene of the time.

They released numerous records, including six singles and three albums (two on vinyl and one CD), and toured in the US and Australia. Their goth-influenced version of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" was also featured on Andrew Denton's ABC-TV program The Money or the Gun, and was later released on the compilation album of the same name. The band recorded their last album, ''Sensory'', in the United States, with the Pixies' producer Gary Smith at the helm, and returned to the U.S. the following year to tour. The band split in early 1992.

Following the break-up Coo Bennett and guitarist Andy Jarvis moved to England and started a new band called Feast (1993–1998) and Houdini (1998–2001). In late 2003, they returned to Perth, starting their own label, Trickster Music. Toys Went Berserk have since regrouped twice for reunion shows; firstly in 1997 and for the second time in 2005, to promote the release of a new "best of" double album. Entitled The Bitter & the Sweet: Best and Rarest, it includes most of their studio releases, plus selected demos and live recordings. Bennett and Jarvis continue to perform regularly in various Perth-based outfits, including Rocket to Memphis. RTM have released four CDs of swamp/rockabilly/garage rock n roll: Swampwater Shuffle (2007), Hip-Shakin' Voodoo (2009), "Jungle Juice" (2011) and "Do The Crawl" (2013) and two vinyl singles "I'm Bad" (2011) and "Go Go" (2013), whilst also touring in Japan and the UK.

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