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...
BATRIDER + NO THROUGH ROAD LIVE @ ED CASTLE / Saturday March 8th 2008
When you're killing yourself stupid to keep up with this "silly season", it helps not to think about it: how hot it's been, how exhausting it's been, how little time I've had to recover since I ran this rollercoaster the night before, the week before, this last month, how I've run out've every other opening gambit for these nightly episodes and now I'm resorting to THIS one, how many people are reading this, how many will get my jokes, how many won't, how much beer I drank the night before, how damaged my brain feels, how I can't seem to string two words together, how hot it's been, how I'm sometimes the only one out there, how stupid I look when I'm taking photos when I am, how I do it regardless, how I must be some kind've robot, how that bugs the crap out've me, how insane this becomes, how hot it's been, how I've just spent the last 20 minutes walking from The Exeter to get here to the Ed Castle, how it all adds up. I go in, I shoot, I get the hell out, I write all week; read all about it! phew.. it REALLY helps not to think about it!
It's Saturday night, I'm hiding out here at the Ed Castle, I was here the night before and if any of you playing at home haven't figured this all out yet: I've gone fucking insane and out've my mind with all this shit. Every year it's the same. For the second night in a row, thousands of shoeless hippies are smoking trees of weed and celebrating at YET another festival: "Womad" in the east parklands and I still haven't caught up with the Persian Gardens and the Adelaide Arts Festival the week before. Could it be possible that we have too much over stimulation in February and March? couldn't they just, oh I dunno, spread them around a little? Just one more week! just one more week in this fucking HEAT WAVE and the screaming will finally stop! wooheHAhaHAHA!! *cough* oh hey look, here's some live bands! brain damage? pffft.. what brain damage!?
NO THROUGH ROAD (****1/2) myspace :: From first impressions; watching singer Matt Banham stagger blindly around the stage, doubled over, flapping his tiny arms about, shrieking like a wounded beast, you could easily be forgiven for thinking this was simply a 3AM Karaoke session at a 40th birthday party gone wrong. One man screaming himself hoarse to a runaway stampede of greasy chicken/whisky stained blues? the constant instrument swapping? the pissant heckling between band members? the howling breakdowns? how it makes me want to drink myself into a coma? it's all so sloppy and inebriated that I'm surprised it hasn't died of liver failure, but damn does it rock the fuck out! If I had a nervous breakdown with a full backing band, I could only hope to sound half as insane as this!
Oh and I could bring forth all manner of pale comparisons from my musical thesaurus to explain what the fuck all this sounds like (ie: chuck in everything from Tapes N Tapes, Weezer, Ben Kweller to Modest Mouse) I could even explain why apparently nobody's playing the drums in any of these photos, but you're much better not asking such questions (especially about the drums). Just down three shots of whisky, watch THIS video and all shall be revealed..
BATRIDER (****) myspace :: Lurking figures scurry for safety from the piercing light, this scream, this smell of barbecue, this human hotplate, this slow drawl collapsing on the floor, twitching, eyes rolling with a gurgling death rattle then nothing but darkness and a squeal of feedback? Save for an applause at the end this could be just about anywhere in the midst of this heatwave. Batrider, quite like No Through Road in the prequel, spoke in unintelligible squeals and grunts EXACTLY how we all feel tonight. They're the smashed beer bottle to the face, they're the tear gas, tazers and tranquiliser darts sent to take down the beast, they're the many sounds of awesome you'd get from a cage match to the death between a bare knuckle Courtney Love and PJ Harvey armed with a chainsaw. If Kurt Cobain was reincarnated as a Women's maximum security penitentary, this would be the sound of the prison riot burning it to the ground. Batrider? OOOH FUCK YEAAAH!
And for those of you who spent all of Saturday night passed out cold in a bathtub full of ice instead of here at the Ed Castle, here's one of their "cruisier" numbers captured on video..
2:03AM - After spending the next few hours, post Batrider, dazed and confused, flapping my arms about in a futile search throughout the beer gardens and in the front bar to find where my tiny peanut brain had since crawled off to (I could've sworn it was hiding in the bar fridges, but I guess not!); I next sought my solitude and sanctuary here at Jive on Hindley Street..
..only to find myself up to my armpits in a festive swarm of howler monkeys..
..where quite predictably it doesn't take long, before I stumble upon the usual oddball collection of intellectual fullstops and gargling head injuries that only 2AM on a Saturday can provide.
2:50AM - From out've nowhere (although quite possibly stolen from someone else when they left it by the foosball table), a novelty Superman mask makes an appearance. Since we all know I can't let an opportunity THIS stupid go to waste, I decide to have some fun with it..
3:27AM - And depending on how you interpretted that freakyarse nightclub scene from the movie "Vanilla Sky", the following video snippet here may either be the most hilarious thing you've EVER SEEN, or I'll be paying your psychiatric bills for the next 3 years..
*phew* and then if that wasn't entirely disturbing enough, why not share it around?
Wahoooooo! watch at that pencil neck dweeb bust a move! FUCK YEAAAAH!!
4:07AM - I can't quite remember much of what happened next, just snippets: panic, flames, a sea of punching fists, the blare of sirens, smoke everywhere. Next thing I know it I'm running, running down Hindley Street, running for my life. Some may say the world wasn't quite ready for this, and these people would be right. I ran with that accursed mask, I ran with it all the way to Victoria Square and dumped it, lest its mischief reign terror upon us all once more.
4:12AM - And in absolutely no relation to anything you've just witnessed above, here I am in the blind alley between Currie and Waymouth holding up a "loading zone" sign, weeeeeee!!
*cough* aaaand so, be sure to tune in next week when we start our nationwide search for a brand new host, in a talent contest we like to call: "Adelaide's Next Suicide Bomber!". If you're 18 or above, have an IQ of 80 or below, like loud noises, possess at least one fuctioning kidney and you're handy with knives and explosives, Spoz's Rant would like to hear from YOU!
