MAYFIELD + THE BARON + TRIXIE PLAINLIVE @ THE CROWN & ANCHOR / Saturday November 10th 2007
Being a rock photojournalist for this fartarse indie publication has got to be one of the most suicidal death marches I've ever submitted myself to short of my hellish 9 to 5; ever more so when I happen to live at the sphincter end of this wide brown land. Nothing else screams "ghetto" more than the festering stains you'll find yourself frequenting here in spite of all your better judgement: behold the rat infested dive, the overflowing human toilet, the hollowed out and gutted, bleach bone and the mustily moth lit. Even strung out heroin junkies in Glasgow are blessed with more scenic abides than THIS to get a fix! (excluding the Jade Monkey of course: that joint be nothing but class!). If only interstate trippers could breathe deep, clutch their chest, turn white and collapse to their knees prostrate to the glory that is our local music venue. To be so blessed with such divine eye watering beauty as THIS, is a rare gift indeed! So let's all tear another "disposable" camera off that perforated bog roll, dodge another brown note and render our organ donor cards null and void as we delve into the very blackening heart of it..
as we behold this, our most glorious Crown & Anchor: nestled on the corner of Grenfell and Union St. I live here, I sleep here, I gather my pile of broken beer glasses, form a pillow, collapse and die here each and every damn night twitching in that corner behind those pool tables; clutching my shotgun and chasing those demons away. Sure we all know it's seen better days: it could use a fresh coat of paint, some plaster, some nails, a light blowtorching, carpet bombing, bulldozing and salting of the earth lest it rise to kill again but it's still my Crown & Anchor! My ever spiraling medical and psychiatric expense would be nothing without it and you're more than welcome to come visit me here any time.. right up until I change the locks!
and when my eyes aren't rolling back into my skull after another hard yard at the office, gargling incoherently and screaming fists at the fictional shapes that do dance and play for my own private amusement, I'm also known to host the occasional live band. Some of these "band nights" are even the stuff of legend, although clearly *cough* this ain't one of them (or is it? ;) )
TRIXIE PLAINOpening duties for the night goes to this cautionary tale of substance abuse: featuring in turn Adelaide's most infamous alcoholic trainwreck: W Shane (Smash-Off) Forster on drums, the mumbling incoherent stonerisms of Todd (Smiley Man) Loro on bass and everyone's desperate morning-after-reach-for-the-aspirin-bottle: Lindog (The Colonel) Starr on guitars. United they stand as the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future to damn near terrify even the likes of Pete Doherty into embracing the way of the cold turkey whilst inspiring the rest of us into packing out emergency wards in ever increasing numbers. Think back to the finest cuts of summer fuzz and slacker melody as found in early 90's grunge: Nirvana with "Molly's Lips", The Pixies with "Where Is My Mind?", Sonic Youth with "Sugar Cane" and pretty much everything you've since forgotten about Blind Melon or the The Lemonheads. These weathered and slurred vocals, these layers upon layers of sweet jangling dissonance and that beat that drives you to chase that hair of the dog again, again and again to numb out the pain? what's not to love? :)
THE BARONComing up sloppy seconds to blot out all six of our increasingly impaired senses we have YET another in a growing army of clones sprouting like a fungus from Adelaide's suburban funk-metal ghetto: Tony Font Show, Hekyl, Judge Mental, Superbee, Sommnium and now THIS band? Shit, how could we ever hope to tell them all apart? Tony Font Show already corner the market on hairdressing disasters, so clearly THAT's out.. fuck.. I know! let's have them all dress in goofy outfits, that's sure to work!! And thus we present The Baron, featuring: Al Capone on vocals, son of
Ben Revi (aka: "Revenge of the Nerds") on bass, some spaced out hippy reject from the "Madchester" scene on guitar (is that you Bez?) and one of Red Hot Chili Pepper's former band members who we all thought died in a freak petrol bowser fight accident back in the 80's but is miraculously alive and well and still playing on the drums. Damn! Clearly their music is really gonna suck if they went to all this effort, yet surprisingly it ain't actually all too shit. Sure like every other damn Adelaide funk-metal band, they sound like Mike Patton's back catalog cross-faded with Maynard James Keenan but they also manage to throw in some Black Sabbath, a dash of Death From Above 1979 and one helluva meat driven rhythm section. They're about as forgettable as a hard night on the turps, yet just as equally enjoyable!
and finally, we present the final swift kick to the nuts that is..
MAYFIELDAaaaaah yes, truly this headliner is the stuff of legend! and quite like many legends: Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, UFO's, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the exact whereabouts of Michael Jackson's penis, there is very little conclusive evidence to prove that any of this actually exist. Sure, increasing numbers of you may claim to have seen the Mayfield, heard the Mayfield, touched the Mayfield, nay even collected the moist droppings and excess hair of the Mayfield, but every time you dare to send a film crew to capture the Mayfield? nothing but noise..
clearly desperate times call for desperate measures: so in the biggest act of blatant celebrity stunt-casting since Fabrizio Moretti of The Strokes
gatecrashed this blog back in April, Spoz's Rant presents none other than Oscar nominated director Scott Hicks to do battle in the front lines. Sheeeeeiiiiit! We must be seriously desperate for ratings if we're pulling shit like THIS! :)
Yup, such is the hyperbolant media circus that surrounds this band's triumphant homecoming to the Cranka tonight: as they damn near make a lung puncturing stadium of lights in a venue the size (and approximate smell) of a toilet cubicle. Mayfield, they're the one pissy little grunge act that next to none of us have ever heard of before, playing loud enough to wake the dead and kill the living in a 30 block radius. They're Nirvana's "Bleach" as reinterpreted by Queens of The Stone Age blasted at over 130 decibels and drilled straight into your microwaved skull. They're a 5 pound steak force fed through your nostrils till your eyeballs burst. They're Robert DeNiro from Raging Bull, tree-trunked and no-necked, bashing his head against that prison wall over and over screaming for the pain to stop. They make Henry Rollins look like DJ Qualls and Motörhead sound like Lily Allen and they're about as intelligent as ramming a square peg into a round hole over and over and expecting a different result but just like any repetitive head injury: the more you hear it, the more you begin to really enjoy it.. ROCK! :)
and there goes another "quiet" night at the Crown & Anchor: reducing one and all to nothing but a smoking crater of unidentified body parts in the midst of it. And when the dust finally clears, and 10,000 years of civilisation comes crashing down around our ears: I bring in those water cannons, I admininster that capsicum spray and with a hail of rubber bullets I find my peace, I gather my pile of broken glass, I find my corner and I sleep forever more.. aaaaah! :)
Previously on Spoz's Rant:
Whiskey Go Go's + Mere Theory + No Through Road 
