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...
DELUSIONS OF GRANDMA + LIKE LEAVES + JUNO LIVE @ FAD CAFE + ED CASTLE + NOVA CINEMA / Saturday March 1st 2008
I wake to the sound of an SMS going off. It's Alan (aka: the midget photographer, resident sharp shooter to the Governor Hindmarsh) wondering why I'm not at Soundwave Festival, featuring: The Offspring, Incubus, Motion City Soundtrack, Saosin, Alexisonfire and a fuckbucket of skeezy punk, emo and metal bands that I really couldn't be arsed seeing. Damn, shit like this has been happening to me all week! When it rains in this city, bring a shovel, otherwise you'll be upto your armpits licking toads and out've your fucking mind. Everywhere I go, another candy swarm of hundreds and thousands pins me to the walls with camera phones raised. Catch one of those and I miss five others in passing. Too much of a good thing, circuits overloading, push the red button: fight or flight? dude I may love this shit, but seriously, GET ME THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!!
8:41PM - Gulping airpockets on the bus and swinging fists past the zombie shuffle on Rundle Street, I hurl myself arse backwards into Nova Cinema, pull the pin, thrust the ticking pineapple into the sea of clawing hands, scream at the attending theatre staff to board up all the doors and windows and fly in a mad panic upstairs before the expanding shockwave finishes the job; catapulting me to freedom at the box office. Phew! Of course, I could've just stayed home and avoided all this needless bloodshed tonight.. but really, where'd the fun in that be?
JUNO (****1/2) myspace :: My chance salvation from frankenstein's monster comes in the form of this movie, Juno: a goofy little indie feature about a 16 year old girl who accidently falls pregnant. On the surface you'd think this would be the LAST place you'd expect to find me at on a Saturday night, but after winning a 2008 Academy Award for "Best Original Screenplay" and thanks in no small part to every dickhead and dog heaping praise on it over the last 3 months for being one of the BEST independent comedies of the year, who am I to argue? Disarmingly cute, quirky, foul mouthed, subtle and honest (with a kickarse indie slacker soundtrack and style to boot), it may be damn near impossible to watch this film and NOT wish you were 16 years old and pregnant. For bonus points in street cred: not only did I spot DJ Cut Chemist in a cameo as a high school chemistry teacher (sheeeiiit!), but it also features everyone's favourite uber geek Michael Cera. If you haven't heard of this snuffling dweeb yet, check his shit in the infamous internet show "Clark And Michael" and you'll know what weird fungii I've been huffing. Pure genius! :)
10:25PM - The film's finished moments ago, the air is still, the world is at peace. I'm out on the Nova balcony overlooking Rundle Street. Most of the festive dead have since responded to my "warning shot" and have fled to the four winds, likely to snack upon helpless street mimes caught unawares in the Persian Gardens. WAHOOO! the city is mine! I slip on my headphones, fire up Sonic Youth's "Daydream Nation" on the ipod and hit the streets once more.
11:06PM - With little rhyme, reason, thought or direction to guide me, I wash up ashore here at the Ed Castle on Currie Street to see what's cooking. Sure, it's freaking miles away if you're travelling on foot, but no distance is ever too far if you've got the music to take you.
LIKE LEAVES (***1/2) myspace :: By a chance coincidence (ie: one that nobody who reads this blog would ever believe) I soon stumble upon a live band jamming out on the darkening stage. Like Leaves: featuring "Charles Manson" on guitar, "Fidel Castro" on bass and "Frodo Baggins of The Shire" on drums. Although I only caught them for a hallucinatory instance (perhaps 2-3 songs at most) they still left enough of a passing impression to document here. Like Leaves; baffling the crap out've me with endless guitar fuzz when I first caught them at the Exeter over a month ago, tonight they've got a bare bones Grinderman vs My Disco vs Sonic Youth vibe that's really buzzing. Sure, "Fidel" may be missing that mic throughout the entire song but this live video still says it all.. awesome!
11:56PM - Moments later I arrive at FAD Cafe on Waymouth Street, again by no chance or coincidence. As much as I love my alcohol we all know I'm not just here for the Bee Stings..
For those of us in the know, there is an arcane ritual that plays out in this venue. Every month or so on a Saturday night quite like this one, inches past the witching hour: a drum kit makes an appearance, four wandering minstrels assemble and another chapter in freeform jazz stonerisms wordlessly convenes on the moonlit stage. Sure, you don't need weird sigils, a familiarity in conversational Latin or a goat sacrifice to summon it; but sometimes it helps..
DELUSIONS OF GRANDMA (****) myspace :: Any attempting to describe the freeform jazz of Delusions Of Grandma is rather akin to the literary twaddle you'd expect from a serial goon-bagger who's had you fooled he's a professional wine taster; all you're gonna get is a whole wealth of colourful adjectives and superlatives and nothing which bears even the slightest relevance to the truth (oh wait, isn't that this website?). Yup written language is a clumsy hand puppet even at the best of times and here it's gonna sound like Muhammad Ali trying to perform delicate brain surgery on an infant; so fuckit, I'll forgo all pretense. Delusions Of Grandma: simply put, are a direct conduit to the primordial soup that all pure creativity and inspiration is spawned from: a synaesthesia of words, sounds, images, smells and flavour. Empty your mind and drink your full. All else is irrelevant..
Of course I realise that I've just upended a truckload of twaddle in lieu of an actual review and now you don't have the first fucking clue what I'm on about, so fuckit, why not take sample this 7 minute video excerpt from their two sets tonight, and then you'll see just what I see.
2:10AM - The band continues to weave their witches brew as I depart: one thousand saxaphones bouncing off the walls of the Advertiser building, as I chuck on the headphones, crossfade in the astronaut refrains of Radiohead's "Kid A" and hit the streets once more.
I drift through the void, carving out my antiblog amongst the still night air to the bubbling refrains of "Everything In Its Right Place". There are no crowds here, no screaming lights, no queues or fanfare, just one long winding road and me and my wandering thoughts to guide me; here amongst the antithesis of all that is Adelaide right now? aaaah such bliss..
Still as relaxing as this all is drifting down Grenfell, listening to "How To Disappear Completely", dig deep enough into this album and eventually you'll lose your fucking mind to it. I mean shit, you've seen Thom Yorke haven't you? brilliant or not, he's a right fucking loony..
2:36AM - After checking in at the Cranka for my brain medicine (listening to "Treefingers" after 2AM will do that to you), I felt the need to find the masses again. I received word that some of my familiars may be hiding out in the Gardens, so I set out to find them.
I search high and low from Rundle to Rymill, through Silent Disco, SoCo shipping and beyond, and do not find a single sign of intelligent life (or otherwise) that would engage me..
I did however find these chips and gravy, so all was not lost.. mmmmm, gravy!
3:29AM - But as we ALL know a "quiet night out" always spells trouble. Just when I was hoping for this episode to be a subtlely nuanced character study of one man's alienation with the 21st century and his own methods for finding peace within it, in bursts Itchy & Scratchy (aka: Tibor and Chris). They haven't slept a wink since Thursday night, they've spent half the night picking fights with employees at quickie marts and Micky D's, they're looking for drunken depravity in all the wrong places and they want ME to their tour guide!? oooh crap, heeere we go again!
3:36AM - Despite all my advice to the contrary, after being kidnapped at the Cranka (I knew it was a mistake to return there!) next they thought it'd be a brilliant idea to hit up Shotz..
..at least until they realised just how entirely dead the dancefloor has become on a Saturday, now the facist bouncers have sucked all the life out've it, scaring away every drunken baboon that ever made this place entertaining. Damn Shotz what happened maaan, you used to be cool!
3:50AM - We agree to take the journey west down Grenfell way to the still thriving precincts of Hindley Street: Rocket, Enigma, Jive, Supermild, how could we go wrong? Of course, with these two knuckle draggers in tow, the commute takes a little LONGER than expected.
4:04AM - After much gasping, wheezing and complaining from Itchy & Scratchy, we soon crash land at Enigma Bar: gathering a colourful collection of grinning wreckage along the way..
To my surprise, the joint is pumping apeshit in the two room dancefloor upstairs. Damn, I guess this finally answers the question "where did those idiots from Shotz all fuck off to!?".
Aaaah look at them go! now all we need is one stray tennis ball for them to chase, the path of a speeding car to throw it into and we'd have ourselves a party to write home about.. weeee! :)
Entry into Shotz? $4. Urine expelled by Tibor outside of an unnamed office complex in Grenfell? 300mL. Walking all the way across town to get drunk here instead? 16 minutes. Capturing them busting retarded rockstar moves when they're entirely too drunk to stand upright? priceless!
4:30AM - With IQ levels rapidly dropping to below those at which vodka freezes, I concoct a last ditch plan to flee this sinking ship. One well aimed tennis ball in the form of "HEY! they got longnecks of Pale Ale at Supermild!", Itchy & Scratchy rush across the road dodge traffic and down those stairs; I pull the pin, thrust the ticking bucketbong into the sea of flailing dreds, scream at the attending bar staff to board up all the doors and windows and duck for cover until the expanding mushroom cloud finishes the job; flying me home to freedom at last! YES!
I don't need to find my entertainment no more, it finds me. Spoz's Rant, nowhere is safe!
