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 VASCO ERA + THE FUMES + THE NOVOCAINES LIVE @ JIVE / Saturday October 6th 2007
I am still alive. Through these lungs I still breathe. Here still writing these hyperlative words of garbage to you: ever faithful audience of wage slaves, arse clowns, sock puppets, fashion nazis, mental patients and drug addicts (aaaah feel the love!). How I do this every damn week? I do not know. I have been killed a million times and yet I keep coming back for more. I do not rest, I do not sleep. The heat, the noise, the stupidity, the energy, all these mad kittens clawing at the thin threads of all that is left of my sanity and just when I think I've beaten them all through ever increasing and impossible odds; along comes a gig like this. The ninth circle of hell: Jive, pitch black with the lights out, packed with 300 punching fists of glee and nothing but a compact camera and a plastic beer cup to fight my way to freedom.. oh dear gawd we're gonna die!!
THE NOVOCAINES This is the first band for the night; The Novocaines. They sound like a cross between a domestic cat shitting out an oversized house brick, a toddler having a temper tantrum with a whisky bottle mixed with all the bands that Jet have stolen their influences from (ie: everything from the early Beatles to the Rolling Stones) as performed by what appears to be rejects from a dodgy early 80's surf flick. Their songs barely push over the 2 minute mark, their rhythm section barely drops below that of a heart attack, they do one meanarse cover of Velvet Underground's "Waiting For My Man" and they play their entire set in the dark. As much as I'm cursing and swearing and falling flat on my face attempting to capture these howler monkeys in full flight, I gotta hand it to them; they sure know how to whip up one fuck of a frenzy!
THE FUMES As dark as The Novocaines made their opening set, follow up act The Fumes go one step even further into the blackening belly of the beast. Right now vampire bats are crashing into the walls around me and forming a small pile of leathery corpses at my feet in their futile attempt to find their way out, whilst this is me being near foolish and stubborn enough to attempt to capture all this madness without the use of a flash. Are these live photos of a 2 piece band thrashing it out to where the sun don't shine or a series of Rochart ink blot tests? who the fuck knows..
it takes almost half an hour of pointing my camera the wrong way under the mistaken impression I was taking photos of The Polyphonic Spree on casual day (whoaaa you mean to tell me these fugly-arse fools I'm pointing at is the AUDIENCE!?), till I finally admit defeat and hit up the flash: thus ending part two of tonight's ongoing bitch about the lights (although don't worry you'll be sure to read much MORE about it before this episode ends). As for the entirely insignificant matter of the live band, The Fumes? think of tonight's performance as being a pocket sized slide-guitar version of Spiderbait, the dirtiest extremes of Queens Of The Stone Age, The Eel's "Souljacker" album and The Doors at Jim Morrison's most hairy and bloated hammering out shredding guitar and drums at full fuckoff throttle. Chances are if they played this shit at AA meetings the road death toll would skyrocket overnight but we'd all die happy. Am I struck blind or blind drunk at this point? who freaking cares.. this ROCKS! :)
THE VASCO ERA and now finally we have the headlining act The Vasco Era.. or at least I THINK it's the Vasco Era. At this point (from all the brilliant shrieking cacophany they're conjuring up) they could drag out The White Stripes and torture them to death with piano wire and pliers and I'd STILL be none the wiser. We're beyond the event horizon now. No light dares escape. It's getting so dark out there I swear if they flicked the switch back on NOW my pupils would explode..
and so this is my common sense finally getting the better of me as I throw the 'ol slow-synchro (arty farty blurred) flash light back on: the last resort of a desperate rock photojournalist. Oh well, it could be worse I spose, at least there isn't a fuckoff volatile crowd pushing me up into the foldback speakers every 5 minutes, knocking my beer everywhere and flying over my head tonight.. you wouldn't do that to me Vasco Era, now would you.. right? riiiiiiight?
Ooops spoke too soon, look at those crazy bastards go! Yup, I've survived my fair share of insane moshpits in the past: Iggy And The Stooges, System Of A Down, Shihad, Airbourne, the infamous punk band The Dead Bollocks (with a whipper snipper and a dozen shredded heads of lettuce), Faith No More back in 1995, The Prodigy (or even the Young And Restless just last night!) but nothing is more fucked up than fighting through THIS in total darkness.. yeeeouch!
How the fuck I survived another one of these is anyone's guess? (as clearly the 5 or less hours of sleep I've had working myself to death all this week has rendered me speechless in the retelling of it.. weeeeeeee!). Suffice to say, next time The Vasco Era blows into town and pulls THIS kinda mishief on me again, I'm bring me mining helmet and a sledgehammer.. FUCK YEAAAH!! :)
Triumphant in once more cheating death for another night, we finally emerge outdoors again; only to be struck blind by the full screaming intensity of the pale moon light of Hindley St, only to continue to render ourselves deaf and dumb at the worst karaoke joint in Hindley St..
Aaaaaah, they really DON'T write song lyrics like they used to DO they? :)
YOUNG AND RESTLESS + FIRE! SANTA ROSA FIRE! LIVE @ ENIGMA BAR / Friday October 5th 2007
This is Enigma Bar, situated near the corner of Hindley St and Morphett St in the Adelaide CBD. This is Enigma Bar on a Friday night beating your skull into a luminous paste. This is Enigma Bar and your shattered remains curling up in a foetal position screaming at the top of your lungs praying for the white-hot eye bleeding pain to stop. This is Enigma Bar: the bar where all other bars go to die, oh dear gawd what the freaking HELL have I gotten myself into?
Forged in the fires of Mordor from obsidian blackrock, cold steel and the crushed up remains of a thousand and one pink teddy bears. Host to the most vile and vilainous scum of the universe. Purveyor of the grand stench of human decay. Prey to the most base of human desires. Home to a million and one beer taps and NONE of them server Coopers Pale Ale! Enigma Bar. It has been known by many other names throughout it's blackening history: most are unpronouncable to the mortal tongue, the rest taste distinctly like chicken.. mmmmm chicken!
Being as it may the prime abode of most foul misdeed and miscreant behaviour; just about anything stupid and unthinkable can be bought over the bar for the right price (excluding Coopers on tap of course *cough*). You name it, they've got it. Harvest organs, human souls, beach towels, prosthetic limbs, dim sims, glass eyes, heads in jars, blood, bile, semen from exotic animals, meat pies, frisbees, bootleg DVDs, walkman phones, catapults, crossbows, ice cream cones, nuclear detonation codes, tamogotchis, tampons, ipods, cattle prods, tickle me elmo's, weaponised anthrax, plutonium, bird flu, horse flu, spanish flu, hamster tubing, meerkats, mogwais and according to the tiny pink sign, yes there's even microwave popcorn!
Of course we didn't believe it either, I mean who in their peanut mind would ever present such a near fatal choking hazard to drunks who could barely tie their own shoelaces without falling down a flight of stairs and killing themselves? Enigma Bar, that's who! So in effort to "try anything stupid once" we thought we'd get one of the Adelaide music scene's many expendable bass players (bespectacled dweeb Brent from Quiet Child) to guinea pig it for us..
SKELETONS The flavour proved to be rich, buttery, stinging to the nostrils with just a hint of asbestos and rodent excrement. Mmmmhmmmm taste the adventure! Mere moments after this photo was taken Brent's small intestine tied itself into a knot, he collapsed dead in a pool of his own foaming vomit and moments after THAT his twitching remains were to be found on sale behind the bar for $12.50 with a serve of fried rice. Wow, cycle of life huh? *cough* and so it is at this rather bizarre and grisly juncture (whilst I duck off to get the sawdust) that we present the first band for the evening; Skeletons. They're the hammering dirge of 5 exciteable idiots drumming in 2 minute bursts, they're the sweet melody of disscordant shriekings set to astronaut jazz overtones, they're the rhythm section from Nick Cave's seminal early 80's art-punk act "The Birthday Party" in a life and death struggle with Primus and The Dirty Three, they're the cimematic score to the ultimate mind fuck in a can that David Lynch has never produced and dammit if they're not the coolest freaking live act of the night. Sure I doubt I could call any of this actual music, but as long as you don't mind poking your brain through your nose to stop it from falling out've your skull every 5 minutes then you're in for one helluva ride! wooooo!
In between bands I head back to the bar where I soon find myself in possession of a newly purchased novelty cowboy hat, mexican fireworks, duck whistle and a hand grenade..
FIRE! SANTA ROSA FIRE! before returning just in time for the next band: Fire! Santa Rosa Fire! To the uninitiated they sound just like The Rapture, The Klaxons, one of those Japanese cartoons that causes seizures.. to the rest of you you've all heard this spiel about a billion times before. So instead of writing yet MORE dribbling hyperbole to the point of brain injury, I'll present to you the height of inspired lyrical brilliance that is The Rapture's "Get Myself Into It"..
Holiday. Get away. I feel funny. Children's money.
Gonna get myself into it. Gonna get myself into it. Gonna get myself into it. Why not help me do it? Gonna get myself into it. Gonna get myself into it. Gonna get myself into it. Why not help me do it?
Hey! Hey! Hey! HEY!
*cough* and here's live some photos (seriously do you really wanna see the 2nd verse!? eeesh!)
and that's Fire! Santa Rosa Fire!: Adelaide's most ridiculous name for a live band (if you discount "Tony Font Show" and "Tokyo City Sex Shooters" *cough*), tearing yet another hole in the space-time continuum; and here's yet another satisfied fan spontaneously combusting at the excitement of it all (video footage now available over the bar in DVD, BluRay and Vodcast.. coming soon: snow domes, BBQ seasoning and fridge magnets.. weeeeeeee!).
YOUNG AND RESTLESS and speaking of human fireballs we're next presented with the ever-so-soothing sounds of headlining act Young And Restless. Within the first 5 minutes of their set I lose my beer to lead singer Karina Utomo using me as a human catapult to hurl herself headfirst into the crowd, the crowd loses their mind to a tidal wave of arms, legs, novelty cowboy hats, mexican fireworks, duck whistles and chokeable popcorn crashing all over the stage. The walls spin. They've got me surrounded. Predator and prey are one. No-one gets out alive. The rest is simply a blur..
Few words can describe the grinning horrors of what I experienced throughout the rest of their set; quite like attempting to cover this shitstorm in the following live photos proves about as effective as me being a first hand witness to a bridge collapse with anything left but a few spare teeth and one transmitting bar of a mobile phone to tell my tale. So I'll simply resort to using unintelligible shrieks and howls instead: "WAAUAGGHH!! WOOOO!! WOO!! ARROOOOGA AROOGA!! KAPOW!! BANG! BOOOOOM!! YAYAYAYAYAYA!! WEEEEEEE!!!" (and no I'm not just quoting yet another song by The Rapture). Sure, I could also go on to describe Young And Restless as sounding exactly like Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeah's giving birth to a whale whilst the entire New York Subway systems derails behind her into a twisting wreckage of concrete, steel and glass but words are meaningless here tonight. Getting out of this ALIVE is all that matters. It's nothing but survival instinct now. Fight or flight. Dog eat dog. Kill or be killed.
and as Katrina sails off into the sunset to the closing of yet another triumphant massacre (weeee.. stripes!) we take a moment to pause and reflect at all those who have fallen before us, and how much money we can make off selling their remains over the bar for beer.
To be the far and few who live to tell the tale? To bring fresh warning to those who dare challenge these hooting fiends to battle? To drink yet another night into spiraling oblivion? To escape Enigma Bar with most of my braincells still intact? To wake up the next day like nothing happened? How the fuck do I keep cheating death like this? OOOOH FUCK YEAAAAH! :)
