DO YOU WANNA HEAR SATAN?and so it comes to pass, that on this one score and sixth day of the first month of this mortal calendar and extenuating henceforth upon this week's end that does follow it quite like onto a weekend most leisurly and lengtheny, that this ere land of sunburn and heat of frying egg be visited upon by a swirling plague of hysteria, a fermenting epidemic the likes of which few but the most steadfast of us mere mortals can stand against lest we be laughed at and called a migrant, a poofta or worse yet a kiwi.. for quite like the cyclic ebb and flow of the seasons (what with the falling of the leaves and the multiplying of rabbits and such) this plague would visit us each year at this juncture most coincidental to wreak it's foul vengeance upon us all.. as reduced to the level of mere simpletons we fall.. and stupidly thus, we rise like an army to stampede thru our city streets, sporting grounds and drinking establishments, crushing all under foot, conjuring all manner of foul and demonic apparitions and spirits of high frivolity to aid our cause.. all in the name of proximal sovereignty, the raising aloft of tiny novelty flags, consumptions of animal carcasses most chargrilled and imbibements most swirling, pungent and foul.. oh so many foul deeds we do enact, all for the sake of this one day, a day most apocalytic under any other name.. and yet, for one we choose but one name, AUSTRALIA DAY.. oh yes my fellow midgets! quake ye all in fear for we do not know these deeds most diabolical that we unleash!
*ahem* yup, if the idiotic "ye olde englishe" mumbo jumbo wasn't nearly enough of a clue, if you escaped THIS weekend without the kind've skull wrenching hangover that'd damn near flatline a rhinoceros like the one I got, then count y'self lucky.. coz hooooly crap was this a messy one! :)
FRIDAY NIGHT
my stupifying adventures in apocalyptic grinning nihilism begins this weekend at 4PM when I'm visited by strange beings from another world.. I dunno whether they originated from the PLAEDIES star cluster, planets orbiting one of the many trinary dwarf systems in the SMALL MAGELLIC CLOUD, the multitude of rectinal colonies firmly wedged within the planet URANUS or even some other far off orbiting planetoid where the sun refuses to shine (PLUTO? GOOFY? fucked if I know?)
either way, I soon find myself teleported by these interstellar beings into the western suburbs to play the brand new shiny NINTENDO Wii with some fellow abductees for the next few lazy hours of the afternoon.. yeah, weird I know (especially if you've ever played that mindfuck of a game called WARIO WARE SMOOTH MOVES whooaaa!).. of course usually beings of this ilk would see fit to jam large metal transmitting objects up every available crevice before dumping you days later in a field; naked, dazed, confused and coughing up ping pong balls like some rape-victim of an intergalactic fraternity hazing.. so really, considering my options I was more than happy to oblige with their madenning video game experiments (sure you may look like a dickhead flapping the controller about and shrieking like a monkey for hours on end, but damn is that Wii still a fuckload of fun!)
anyhoo.. after a few hours of this, suitably befuddled and yet enriched by my otherworldly exploits.. my alien hosts rather helpfully dropped me off at my next destination, with HEATH's AUSTRALIA DAY BBQ at 6:30PM.. as we stained our livers into oblivion with this scruffy twit and his fellow arse scratching lower primates..
of course, no AUSTRALIA DAY BBQ is ever complete without..
A) a glorious assortment of mind numbing beverages as blessed here by miniature bong buddha..
B) an exotic selection of the finest BBQ meats we could find (*cough* I swear it was like this when I got here!)
A) and of course, lets not forget all of us patriotic souls standing proud and tall for all things righteous about our great and glorious nation by drinking ourselves retarded to the point that we can't stands no more! yeeeehoooooo!
yup, doesn't it just make you feel ever so proud to be AUSTRALIAN? *sniff* stand tall and sing along with me if you will.. "Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free.. um.. something something, wot'ever the fuck kind of lyric is 'girt by seaaaaa?' with nature's spoils.. and being ruled by horse ugly royals.. our cricket team will fuck the rest!.. so lets all bollocks the queen, forget the next lines to the song and Advaaaaance Australia Faaaaaiiir!" (oh yeah, I'm gonna be killed for sure.. bwahahahaha!)
(oh and the less said about AUGIE MARCH winning the
TRIPLE J HOTTEST 100, the better.. seriously, AUGIE MARCH!!?? WHAT THE FUCK WERE ALL YOU PEOPLE THINKING!!??)
*ahem* anyhoo.. after fulfilling our patriotic duty on this hallowed day of days by drinking ourselves retarded to the point of unconsciousness and devouring enough charred animal flesh to depopulate an entire ecosystem.. we took to terrorising the city streets with our nationalistic furvour, arriving here at FOWLERS LIVE for the live music portion of our evening's entertainment.. with BEFORE THE AFTERMATH, ILLICIT EVE and BOOSTER playing in support of COLOURBLIND's CD LAUNCH tonight (although considering how far gone I was at this point, we could've all been entertained by performing squirrels and been none the wiser)
ILLICIT EVEand so, with my brain shrunken to walnut size and swimming in a sea of my own gurgling inebriancy, I arrive just in time for the second band of the night, ILLICIT EVE as they fire it up on stage..
of course, here would usually be the time for me to write up yet another one of my hilariously unprofessional, comically insulting and exceptionally biased live gig reviews (oh yes, we DO accept your many generous bribes, keep them coming!) as I'd proceed to mock (and yet ever so obliquely praise) the performing talents of the squeakingly blond EMILY SMART, punching it out on vocals and guitar..
make some comically insulting reference to the psychedelic, hair flailing bass guitar fury of the one they call FLICK, ie: she rocks on stage out quite like a wet dog attempting to dry itself at the beach..
and last but not least, I could make passing mention of what looks to be a mature age DUNGEONS & DRAGONS enthusiast filling in on drums here, since their other drummer (aka: CHEWIE) has decided to bugger off on tour with GUY SEBASTIAN instead..
"ha! have at thee foul beast! with my shiny +5 elvish drumsticks of glorious decapitance!!"
but since this is AUSTRALIA DAY and as such, exceptional circumstances to even be coherant enough to stand upright, let alone focus on simple objects without bursting into fits of laughter and blacking out cold.. there's no chance in hell I could possibly remember ANYTHING of what the hell happened during this gig..
I mean shit.. for all I know, FLICK could've channeled some freakyarse LED ZEPPELIN chugging frequency, got possessed by some fuckoff demonic LINDA BLAIR shit, thrown herself screaming off stage, beaten someone to within an inch of their lives with her bass guitar before exploding in a human fireball and taking out half the audience with her..
whilst EMILY SMART here could've sung in arcane dialects not heard since the ancient SUMERIANS of 3000 B.C., conjured up a swirling vortex to the 9th plane of HELL, from which a 3 headed SUCCUBUS of unmentionable gurgling horror emerged to make festive balloon animals of our spleens..
only to be resoundly defeated in battle by this bespectacled loon, who'd conveniently discovered all of the beast's mortal weaknesses by reading up on his 3rd EDITION D&D MONSTER MANUAL before the gig.. "wow, you mean I can kill this thing using nothing but kitchen salt and a twice blessed spatula!? ZEUS BE PRAISED!"
but obviously none of this happened, because otherwise I'd have all the shit hot photos to prove it.. bugger.. I'm strangely disappointed somehow.. oh well, still a good gig tho' :)
BOOSTERand now that ILLICIT EVE have reached an apocalyptic end to their 70's hair rock / fuzz pop set and disappeared from the prime material plane, I'm then ambushed by the next act back stage, as SEAN KEMP presents me with the setlist for tonight's BOOSTER gig.. which, although on the surface may appear as if SEAN's just making yet ANOTHER cheesy attempt to hog for publicity on this blog (*cough* you publicity whore!) if you read between the lines, you soon realised that this is in fact a carefully concealed plea for help.. as more than likely his fragile brain has fallen foul of demonic forces that were brought into being just moments earlier by ILLICIT EVE and their psychedelic witches brew..
sure, you wouldnt've picked up the signs initially, as for the most part the set began like it always does.. with SEAN smashing out his signature retarding fury in hammering percussion and shrieking falsetto's..
JOSH "CHOPPER" BIGGS looked to be up to his usual tricks, chugging out brown note after brown note of bass guitar stainage.. channeling all the stoner rock fury of QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE..
whilst as always CRAIG LEWIS, quite like rain man.. is seen lost in his little world of noodling guitar solos and shredding guitar feedback.. blissfully unaware of the terrors that would soon unfold..
and it's very likely that I'm just talking shit here about "demon possession", since I'm in far beyond a condition tonight to explain anything concrete of what actually happened..
I mean shit, as we all know, this ain't the FIRST time I've fabricated shit for this blog.. if all the antics during my LADY STRANGELOVE reviews actually took place in real life, our fair stench of a city would be fuck full of vampire bats and steaming craters by now (aaah, if only huh? if only? :) )
but if you were one of the chosen few lucky enough to be here to witness this incident firsthand tonight.. this unimaginable circus of the bizarre that unfolded during their final song, PROZAC.. then you'll understand why I'm attempting to explain it all away as some kinda freakyarse demon possession.. coz whooaaa dude.. as much as I tried to capture HALF of the insanity that soon unfolded here on camera, it barely scratches the surface of what we really witnessed tonight..
watch as their carefully orchestrated precision beast of rock rapidly spirals out've control in the last few minutes, when during their PROZAC interlude and accompanied by a mixture of honking theramin feedback, squealing guitars and fuzzing subsonic dissonance..a deranged SEAN KEMP flies at guitarist CRAIG LEWIS, and wrestles him into the speaker stacks..
before launching at the front of his drumkit and firing up the cymbals into a hissing waterfall of sound, throwing CRAIG once more into the speaker stacks.. running around in retarding circles like a dog chasing his tail whilst the rest of the band play on looking more and more confused (in what amounts to be a 3-4 minute fuckoff space-jam that'd even give PINK FLOYD's DARK SIDE OF THE MOON album a run for their money)
before he finally launches back behind the drumkit to finish the song, takes a victory swig of his water bottle, sprays it all up in the air above him, swallows some of it the wrong way down, and then promptly doubles over on the floor ejecting it all in gargling sprays of vomit on stage..
mmmmmm.. swirling chunks of regurgitated WORLDSEND burger.. so creaaamy! :)
and here I am attempting and failing to capture all these crazier moments but always arriving seconds too late to photograph it all (or otherwise too bug-eyed horrified by the madness unfolding to focus on my camera) like whoaaa maan, if only I thought to get a video of this, it'd be a freaking hit on YOUTUBE (right up there with video footage of the vicious beatings someone received during a REALIST FEW gig
a few weeks ago) damn, where's a NIGHT LIVE TV crew when ya need 'em? as for whether this was demon possession? you be the judge ;)
and now to put all these horrors behind us, here's a nice arty photo of SEAN's drumkit to clear your head.. look at how the light hits the cymbals? aint it pretty? :)
COLOURBLIND*phew* where wuz I? oh yeah! from the looks of the photos here.. up next we have the final headlining act, COLOURBLIND, thrashing it out the stage in a howling fury of garage rock at 11:30PM..
above is a photo of their midget lead singer, below is a photo of the bass player..
um.. here's one of the guitarists who appears to be attempting to channel the HUNCHBACK of NOTRE DAME in some lunatic power rock move..
and errr.. yup, there's the lead singer chick again.. shot at a really low angle so as to make her appear infinitely taller than she actually is (coz I swear she's only like 2 foot tall..)
whaaheey look! there's another one.. um.. he plays guitar.. obviously.. coz he's the.. um.. guitar playing.. guy? yeaaah! look at him go with his.. um.. guitar stuff.. wooooooo!
yup, you can just tell, that by this point of the night that I'm so beyond stupid from all the mind numbing antics since 4PM today (damn you AUSTRALIA DAY! DAAAAMN YOOOOU!!) that I've got next to nothing to report on this final band tonight.. but as much as I can dimly remember, their rent-a-crowd was running a riot in front of stage, the band was shredding it out to within an inch of their lives so it must've been one helluva performance.. and yet despite their fiendish brilliance.. all I can manage at this point in the swirling grey mush that was once my brain is "I'm a goldfish! camera goes click! I'm a goldfish! camera goes click! I'm a goldfish! weeeeee more beer! glub glub glub!"..
and no, when she's doing THIS to the camera, it reaaally ain't helping..
so I'll leave this horribly unprofessional gig review with this parting shot of the drummer, reminding us all with his t-shirt of what's important on this night.. yes, that's right kiddies.. it's AUSTRALIA DAY goddamit.. a proud nation where we're free to kill all of our braincells, riot on the streets, beat up anyone who doesn't look ocker enough, vote for corrupt conservative so they can fuckup all our working rights and send us to wars on false pretenses, suck up to the USA at every available opportunity, including a flat refusal to sign the KYOTO protocol despite suffering thru the worst drought in 1000 years that is very likely CAUSED by global warming, whilst we're happily governed by horse ugly monarchs that live thousands of miles away (spose it could be worse? PRESIDENT HOWARD anyone!? yeeeouch!), living comfortably in the knowledge that our sporting teams could beat all of YOUR sporting teams in pretty much everything but the OLYMPICS.. and safe in the knowledge I have the freedom to say all of the above without being shot dead in the street.. gawd I love this country! :)
and now with COLOURBLIND done for the night, and with all the bouncers frantically trying to herd us all out into the street.. I leave FOWLERS at around 1AM..
find myself all too predictably here (isn't it about time you guys painted the walls a different colour or somethin? I'm seriously running out've new angles I can take of this place.. sheeesh!)
drinking myself into further levels of amnesia with all the usual arse-scratching primates found climbing up the walls and flinging poo in this place in the uglier hours of the morning..
"oh the horror! the HORROR!"
till finally at around 3:30AM, and despite possessing the awe inspiring intellect of a bucket of fish heads.. I somehow managed to get me the fuck out've the CRANKA before I did anything too unimaginably stupid (at least, nothing that I can remember.. bwahahahaha!) as I threw myself into the last SICKBUCKET of the night and home to a waiting team of paramedics..
*phew* and that brings to a close one helluva messy AUSTRALIA DAY celebration.. though organs may fail me, and eyes may roll back in my skull.. as I collapse a dribbling ruin at the end of it all, I feel ever so much more damn patriotic and AUSTRALIAN for serving it so.. weeee! :)
SATURDAY NIGHT
I wake up today a jumbling mismatch of limbs and internal organs, quite like as if a crack team of 2'' tall surgeons had dismantled me in my sleep, scattered all the pieces to all four corners of my house, lost the instructions manual.. panicked.. put me back together any which way they saw fit (mostly back to front).. realised there was some crucial piece still left over.. had a fight over it's importance (pffffft, who needs a frontal lobe anywaze?), discovered I was waking up.. and in a blind panic jumped screaming out the window to the saftey of their tiny flying space-ship before I could discover what happened.. yup, the jury is still out on whether they were the SAME aliens from yesterday.. but either way, feeling altogether like a disambiguated turnip (cheers EZZA!) I was in no fit state for walking the streets.. and yet, ever the sucker for punishment, I'm at it again regardless.. arriving here at the JADE MONKEY at 9PM..
and I knew I was in a particularly fucked up state tonight, when arriving here.. I was planning to say "um yeah hi! I'm on the doorlist tonight, under the name of SPOZ?" but instead, what came out sounded somewhat like the noise a walrus breaking wind.. so it's just as well the person at the door was fluent in my fractured dialect, otherwise I would've still been there blowing bubbles out've me nose and looking blank and expressionless till well into Tuesday ;)
DELUSIONS OF GRANDMAupon entry, I limp to the bar and seek my hair of the dog from ZAC the psychic bartender and collapse in the beer garden, till the first act for the night, DELUSIONS OF GRANDMA arrive on stage at 10PM..
DELUSIONS OF GRANDMA feature JOEL from THE DAIRY BROTHERS unleashing a howling shitstorm of squeals and strangled goose sounds on the saxaphone, JESS from DOUBLE HANDED cutting up brain damaging experimental riffs on guitar, NICK from SOFT WHITE MACHINE (wearing a bizarre fencing / bee keepers hood) on space cadet drums, and some other dude rather infamously known as "SLAPPY" punching it out juggernaut riffs on the bass (I didn't really know him, but apparently he's got a reputation).. as they combined to create something that could only be described as experiencing the avant garde jazz saxaphone stylings of COLTRANE on a particularly face melting LSD hit, mashed up with the CHEMICAL BROTHERS and a DAVID LYNCH film.. they performed in a loose free-form style, without vocals, without much discernible structure (although they would occassionally kick into overdrive with howling dervishes of funk that damn near rivaled the CHEMICAL's shitstorm grind "DENMARK" for ferocity before dipping back into spaciness) making for one insane maelstrom of avante garde that had my hungover carcass grinning ear to ear..
like whoaaa maaan.. this shit played just how my damaged brain felt.. only infinitely more poetic.. in fact it was such a potent brew that it damn near destroyed my camera in attempts to photograph it (I see it as no coincidence that my ill prepared equipment chose to spew static all over the screen the minute their gig started) hence my sparse selection of photographs captured here, as I spent the next 1/2 an hour cursing over my camera that refused to cooperate..
perhaps my camera knew the world wasn't ready yet for that which it saw, or perhaps it's just waaaaay past it's use by date.. either way.. I found it altogether weird that it started working again the minute this band LEFT the stage.. coincidence? I think not ;)
SCREAMING GIBBONanyhoo.. now that DELUSIONS OF GRANDMA have finished conjuring their swirling insanity for the night (and with my camera mysteriously roaring back into life) the next band, the SCREAMING GIBBON flings it's musical poo on stage at 11PM..
a band which as much as I could gather, were formed in honour of all things late 60's to early 70's flailing AMERICAN hippy hair rock..
ie: channel everything from ERIC CLAPTON, CREEDANCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL, PETER FRAMPTON, THE ALLMAN BROTHERS, THE EAGLES and quite possibly even that wackyarse fictional band, STILLWATER from the movie ALMOST FAMOUS.. and that'd be yer monkey.. er.. gibbon to be more exact ;)
and yet, as cool as they were on stage (and despite the promo posters that would hint otherwise) the SCREAMING GIBBONS unfortunately did not feature ANY actual gibbons on stage.. I know, I'm as disappointed as you are..
as despite all imaginings to the contrary.. there was nary a gibbon, pygmy marmoset, baboon, rhesus, colobus or even an exciteably brachiating macaque in sight.. shit, they didn't even have a midget jumping around in a monkey suit.. which is altogether mystifying.. I mean, just think of what they could've done.. a team of 12 exciteable marmosets collectively playing the drums? whilst some pissed off gibbon screams into a mic? duuude.. it'd broaden people's miiinds maaan..
although I will perhaps concede that the lead singer, who tore into his guitar with solo after solo of squealing dissonance and hooting and hollaring in accompanyment like a chorus of drunks spilling out onto UNION ST at 4AM.. did somewhat resemble a member of the lesser evolved..
and so, despite their lack of any confirmed tree dwelling primates, their crazy stage antics did more than enough to bring that hairy arse scratching simian spirit alive.. sure it was retro as all fuck, and occassionally bordering on the cheesy (especially when they busted out with the CLAPTON cover) but damn did it rock all the same.. wooooooo!
and now with the SCREAMING GIBBON's set near the end, I thought a change of scenery was in order.. so at around 11:45AM or so, I ducked out've JADE MONKEY and made my way to the hooting zoological cesspool off FROME ROAD known as the RHINO ROOM..
FIRE! SANTA ROSA, FIRE!to catch the last 10-15 minutes of FIRE! SANTA ROSA, FIRE!'s set..
and although it felt unseasonably chilly everywhere else in the city this evening.. here in the RHINO ROOM, with these indie tragics tearing it up on stage to a hoard of their deranged fans.. it felt like I had just stuck my head in the oven, like holy crap dude was it a STINKER in here tonight!
and from the looks of it, there was something else particularly odd about tonight's set too..
I couldn't quite place it at first, perhaps I'd just missed the crucial first 1/2 that would helpfully explain away all this nonsense.. perhaps they also had an equally lobotomising journey into oblivion as I had the night before.. perhaps it was the weirdly fermenting sauna on stage doing funny things to their headspace.. whatever it was, it was sure warping my brain severe..
either way, despite them sounding just as howlingly intense and funked out angular rocking as their usual spiky dancepunk mashup grooves of all things THE RAPTURE vs INTERPOL..
looking at them doing their weird shit on stage tonight, it was really starting to look more like a WHAM tribute concert as performed by a highschool rock eisteddfod students on a meth-amphetamine binge, than any kind've conventional gig..
and when they then closed up their set with their crowd favourite cover of JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE's "SEXY BACK" and all hell broke loose with a free-for-all on stage the likes of which no mere mortal should ever witness.. it was like the last nail to the coffin of all that was left of my sanity.. I mean shit.. first it's ILLICIT EVE and their foul conjurings, BOOSTER's projectile vomiting antics, DELUSIONS OF GRANDMA causing my camera to malfunction.. and now this!? dammit.. who's gonna think of the children!!??
yup, it looks like everyone's dabbling into voodoo rites, demon possessions and decapitating chicken cults this weekend.. and dammit, they got to YOU too MATT HILLS!? be afraid.. be very afraaid..
yup, either everyone here was dipping into LADY STRANGELOVE's candy stash.. or I'd just stumbled into the opening of ADELAIDE's hellmouth.. either way, I wasn't gonna stick around too long to find out.. eeeeeeee!
and so, I did my very best to rescue as many innocent beers as I could from over the bar and promptly fled the scene before it was too late..
arriving here at the EXETER at around 1AM or so.. to continue the beer fueled festivities in this infinitely more peaceful and stoner lo-fi surround.. sure, I wouldn't exactly call it hallowed turf.. but, due it's convenient promixity to the wafting garlic fumes of the FALAFEL house down the street, it would hafta do in a pinch..
and so it is here that I spend the next 1/2 hour or so, with this group of fellow space travellers, hiding out in this beer garden sanctuary from the many multitudes of fermenting horrors that did present themselves this weekend..
forming a circle around the table and holding aloft our hastily fashioned talismans to keep all the bad juju at bay..
"oh ye foul spirits of the netherworlds, fear this our smoking skull of doom we have fashioned! for surely it'll petrify all who dare cross our threshold with it's ethereal red death beams.. MUHAHAHAHAHA!!"
finally, with most of the netherworld spirits since migrating to NECROMANCY at ENIGMA in HINDLEY ST to boogie on out with all the gothic misfits.. we breathed a sigh of relief that our grim vigil was over.. and so, parting ways.. I next headed to places most utterly repetitive, here at the BROWN & STINKY to while away the remains of the night..
only to be ambushed by this zombie hoard lying in wait inside.. bugger.. ain't nowhere safe?
and so barracading myself upstairs, and cursing myself that I'd just returned that smoking skull talisman to LOUISE from 200 MOTELS (D'OH!), I found solace firstly in the fact that zombies are usually utterly crap with climbing stairs and secondly with this rather obnoxious selection of paintings upstairs.. which curiously enough seemed to perfectly parallel all my most hallucinogenic delusions this weekend.. hmmmmm.. trippy..
and it is here, that this most diabolical of AUSTRALIA DAY long weekend ends at 4AM, with me all the more confused and brain damaged than when I started it.. hmmmmm were all these events witnessed these last few nights sure harbingers of the apocalypse? is this the rapture? the end of days? the coming of the great big white hankerchief? fucked if I know.. all I DO know.. is if this weekend didn't kill me.. then surely the ADELAIDE BIG DAY OUT next weekend WILL.. eeeeeeeee! :)
Previously on Spoz's Rant:
Follow My Ruin 
