The Adelaide scene: to many of you it may be little more than a touring speed bump between Melbourne and Perth but to us it's a way of life. Feast within, on all its dysfunctional splendour, as we bring you the highly satirical, laughingly fictional and intellectually imbecile tales from our rock & roll wasteland...
THE SHINE + TONY FONT SHOW LIVE @ LIZARD LOUNGE / Saturday August 25th 2007
This is the Lizard Lounge live music venue, otherwise known as the Night Train complex on Light Square, otherwise known as the cheesiest song and dance dinner theatre restaurant in Adelaide. This place is of course not to be confused with that other place that used to be called the Lizard Lounge, otherwise known as the former downstairs basement Pizza Hutt on Hindley St, otherwise known as the most dingyarse low budget live music venue ever to grace the inner CBD since the infamous Cartoons live venue got condemned as a firehazard back in the late 90's. Yup, if you ever wanted to know what it would be like to perform in a crapshack medieval dungeon made out've styrofoam and cardboard, then THIS is the place for you! weeeee! :)
KYRI
Word on the street is that this theatrical shithole is hosting a whole bag of mixed nuts (ie: live bands) in honour of Penmonicus' 23rd birthday party. Some of you may know of him as the infamous pixel smileyface devil on myspaz, others may know him as "Luke", whilst the rest of you are likely losing interest now because I'm not mentioning anything involving lesbian porn or fireworks (I know you idiots like to operate). Either way fuckit; since there's no fairy bread, party pies, balloons or performing arseclowns to distract us, here's the first live band for the evening in the form of this two piece called Kyri. In short form insult they're a campfire coverband for strung out surfers on a vicious comedown at 3AM; or in other words imagine John Butler Trio attempting to cover the entire Maynard Keenan back catalogue from Tool to A Perfect Circle (especially the more mellowed out 2nd album "Thirteenth Step") with acoustic guitar, bongos, the occassional keyboards and a fuckload of nasal delivered menace. They're as passionately performed as they are annoying but to the casual listener (and from a distance) they're actually not all that crap. Hire 'em for your next Green's political rally.. weeeeeee! :)
TONY FONT SHOW
Up next is Tony Font Show.. yeah fuckit, you might as well stop reading now. Although, past all the million things you've likely read already I will go on the record and say that their new songs, ie: the stabbing riff pogo dance of "Selfish In Bed" and the start stop frenetics of "Truck Stop / Fuck Stop" are really fucking shit up A-grade. Get this (and more like it) on a shiny EP or LP frisbee as soon as possible and heads will be flying all over the fucking joint!
THE SHINE
The final headlining act for the night is a touring glamrock band from Melbourne called The Shine and no despite all efforts (or my seriously badass photography skills *cough*) the overload of shots you're about to witness here could not hope to fully capture the mindblowing wank and cheese intensity that erupted forth from stage. Imagine Motley Crew combining forces with Aerosmith, Warrant, Thin Lizzy, The Darkness and Van Halen and you still couldn't make a cow big enough to match the cheese production, if they ever played a double bill with fellow Melbournites Airbourne we'd all die from the lactose overload and if Dominoes ever dared to kidnap these guys to add to their artery clogging triple cheese and cheesy crust pizza recipe then they'd damn near usher in the Apocalypse. The Shine were nothing short of the most hilarious circus act I've seen all year. Still, as much as I'm laughing my arse off as they attempt to throw power-wanking rock moves into nearly every single damn one of my shots, I gotta hand it to them they REALLY know how to put on one fuck of an A-grade performance! You monkeys can party on down here aaanytime! :)
Understandably so, things get just a LITTLE bit out've hand near the end of their set as Penmonicus is invited to invade the stage with about 10-15 of his drunken friends (an act I admit I was a little guilty of joining in on meself *cough*), before the band proceeds to rock out with the remainder of the crowd OFF the stage. Translation: throw away the cheese, the cow and that pizza, we got our apocalypse and a bucket of chicken right along with it! FUCK YEAH!!
For entirely too drunken and blitheringly unfathomable reasons (isn't it always the way?) we kick on the afterparty at this all too familiar Kentucky Fried hotspot on Hindley St..
as tonight this farty 'ol circus tent is host to a DJ night run by Craig Black (previously Friday night resident at The Cranka) for an event called "Gosh!". From the looks of all the alcohol fueled baboons packing up to the ceiling going apeshit it appears to be a howling success..
case in point, Exhibit A: Matt from Tony Font Show..
Exhibit B: Smoking Man Dave, here featuring in a sequel to this infamous photo (the same one that featured in July's issue of everyone's favourite artscene street mag: Excitement Machine)
Exhibit C: Dave Zunovich in one of his more upright moments (and lets all be ever thankful that at least he's wearing clothes this time, unlike his infamous appearance in THIS music video)..
and while we're at it: Exhibits D, E, F, G and H (shit isn't that me in that last one?) proving once and for all, that just because you've managed to buy yourself a shiny new fuckoff ninja camera that could shoot 1 million angels dancing on a pinhead in perfect clarity, doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna make you look any LESS drunk at the end of the night for using it..
and so once more we bid farewell to yet another night of live music mayhem, beer fueled carnage and all the stupifying wreckage of flailing limbs and head concussions in between (join us! joooooooin us! muhahahaha!) that continues to forever close the divide between the dizzying heights of human artistic endeavour and all the arse scratching simian DNA that plunge us to newfound lows. Or if that closing statement's way too intellectual for you to grasp at this late (or early) an hour, consider Sean Kemp's ever so friendly parting gesture instead..
THE GELS CD LAUNCH LIVE @ WORLDSEND / Friday August 24th 2007
As you all should know well by now, SPOZ's RANT is no fartyarse lightweight when it comes to the insane bleeding edges of rock photojournalism. We don't just sit on the sidelines in our easy chairs with our press passes, waving our telescopic dildos in the air, pissing into each others pockets all night long. We thirst for blood. We thirst for chaos. We throw ourselves screaming into that eye of the storm and we damn near KILL ourselves again and AGAIN to provide YOU dweebs with your weekly dose of live music entertainment! This ain't no tea party, this ain't no bowls tournament, this ain't no teddy bear's picnic.. ooooh no kiddies, THIS IS WAR!
As such to not only survive but thrive in this apocalyptic battlefield of the ever present, we need the ultimate in badass ninja weaponry. Since March this year, that weapon of choice was this 7 megapixel SONY Cybershot DSC-W7O: a camera that I liked to call "Frisbee" for it's amazing aerodynamic qualities (and not so much for it's amazing crash landing abilities)..
but alas, through NO fault of my own *cough* this camera has now long since dead..
and so it came to pass that a new chosen one was called upon to take it's place in service to Spoz's Rant. It was no easy decision (I was almost tempted to pick the new bomb-proof Olympus instead) but after much lengthy research I finally decided upon this: the CANON IXUS 950 IS. I won't bore you with the details (which you can read about here or here) but in short, it IS the beast and can easily beat up YOUR pissyarse camera ANY day of the week!
I only just bought this camera tonight, rushed it home, ripped open the box, threw the battery onto the charger for 2 hours and then fled out the door the minute the little light went green. Yeah I know I probably should've read the manual, I probably should've prepared my gizmo a little more for the face melting carnage it was about to receive but with absolutely NO time to spare and the madness ever beckoning over that horizon, what else could I possibly do but charge headlong into oblivion with it in tow? And so here I am at the Worldsend for round 1 of the apocalypse: The Gels' CD launch and more oldskool CBGB style punk carnage than you could possibly hurl a molotov cocktail at. May the technicolour Jebus have mercy upon our spleens!
Note: all apologies for the following utterly slackarse gig reviews (and subsequent drunkeness) you are about to receive. Clearly this night I'm way too distracted by my shiny new camera ;)
DEAD POPES OF THE VATICAN
First band of the night is Dead Popes Of The Vatican: a smelly old Adelaide punk super group featuring fat bastard Ben from The Gels, pixie stick Lynda from Blow Up Betty, some other unfamiliar hairy git on the guitar and one all too familiar Nick Hadley (formely from Angelik) on the drums. In a fortune cookie review I could claim they sound just like The Ramones mixed up with Grinspoon, but since I spent most of this set wondering what all the crazy buttons on my new camera did, there's fat fucking chance I was paying ANY attention to them and there was a very good chance I was just making shit up on the spot. Still from what little I heard, as pissyarse beer fueled punk aggression goes, it was still pretty damn solid.
ALL FLIGHT CREW ARE DEAD
Next up is yet another Frankenstein supergroup called All Flight Crew Are Dead (or AFCAD for short). They are virtually indistinguishable from Dead Popes From The Vatican in almost every single way (hey look, it's Nick Parker from Angelik!) except for a few brief shining moments in the middle where they remind me of all the brilliance 90's Greenday fucking a chainsaw. Don't get me wrong though, I really quite like them in that utterly disposable punk kind've way (although again I'm still too busy fumbling around with my new camera to pay ANY attention to their set). It's at this point I'm then further distracted when a friend of mine tells me that she's since spotted over 7-8 Ramones t-shirts in the audience tonight (and one Mach Pelican t-shirt) so in hindsight, I could probably just shout "Oi Oi Oi, Lets Go!" over and over, smash a beer bottle against my forehead, call THAT a gig review and you'd still be happy.
THE GELS
Up next is the "headlining" act, The Gels. Somewhat satisfied now that I actually can take photos with this new camera without making a total dick of myself, I finally pay attention to that ever present screaming in my ears that sounds vaguely like what normal people call "music". This is The Gels, they sound just like Nirvana's "Bleach" album if Kurt Cobain was still alive, 20-30 years on, living homeless on the streets hurling trash cans and screaming abuse at random strangers, only to be dragged out of retirement by the rest of the band to play a reunion concert whilst strung out on goon. As such they're equally as shambolic as they are metronome punk precision and although they're ripping off most of The Ramones back catalog (just like every other freaking band this night), they still do it oh so brilliantly! (in fact they almost give those Japanese psycho's Mach Pelican a run for their money.. yeeeeouch!).
THE CHEVRON WHORES
Suprisingly enough, despite it being The Gels' CD launch and their supposed moment of glory, it turns out they're NOT the final band for the night. Weirder still, this last "headlining" act isn't even punk. Instead we're greeted with The Chevron Chores, a touring wank rock band from Queensland flip-flopping on stage like fish out've water to a rapidly dwindling crowd of punk rockers who'd rather meet oblivion at the bar than to subject themselves to this madness. Imagine mix between Guns N Roses, Van Halen and The RollingStones at their most cliche and you could possibly see why (although bonus points definitely go out to the badass name). I'm fucked if I could figure out WHY the hell they're filling the headlining spot for someone else's CD launch (all the way from Queensland no less) but hey if you can get past just how silly it is for them to be playing a beer fueled punk night like this, they actually aren't all that dodgy..
Still, we all know that I'm not paying any attention to the The Chevron Whores tonight (gee, I'm such a professional rock photojournalist aren't I?), as I'm soon joined by these all too familiar serial offenders idiots who, drawn quite like moths to the flame, proceed to assault my new camera with a whole host of these drunkarse mugshots..
and since I'm equally beyond retarded myself.. fuckit why not join in? ;)
*cough* since clearly all shred of journalistic integrity has since left the building, it's time we follow suit and flee into the first available taxi towards the Cranka to meet our oblivion head on..
as we round out the night with all the usual alcohol fueled retardation you've come to expect..
Aaaaah the Cranka at 3AM, could it get any lower on the evolutionary scale than this?
and thus, we bring to a close yet another classy Friday night of live music insanity and alcohol fueled depravity. What crazy adventures await my new camera in the future? Will the CANON IXUS 950 IS outlive the SONY DSC-W70? Will it outlive me? Will it gain self awareness, threaten to take over the US military and destroy the world in a post apocalyptic cybernetic battle for supremacy over planet earth? Who the fuck knows!? Stay tuned and find out! :)
