The
Adelaide music 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 dysfunctioning
splendour as we bring you the highly satirical, laughingly
fictional and intellectually imbecile tales from our rock
& roll wasteland...
THE AMCATS + SHAMAN SON + MONA LISA OVERDRIVE "7" SINGLE LAUNCH PARTY" @ ROCKET BAR / Friday April 3rd 2009
Yes I'm at Rocket Bar again. No I haven't got a fucking clue how this happened. Maybe it's an electromagnetic effect. Maybe it's like on that island from "Lost". Maybe it's all those "pentagrams" they've been drawing up in Electric Circus downstairs. Maybe one day some "freak" methlab explosion will wipe this slate clean, they'll sift through the ashes, the glowsticks, the fluoro, the charred chicken flesh, the chattering teeth ground to dust and they'll discover the wizard behind the curtain pulling those puppet strings and he'll look just like me! Maybe David Lynch can direct it. When you spend all your nights howling at the moon, like this, you begin to doubt shit. Clearly I'm not just the one person anymore. I'm being ghost written by at least five people now. One of them's called "Dave". We're a conspiracy theory, we're through the looking glass now, only it's a pair of beer goggles and we're laughing too hard to care. Rocket Bar. How the fuck did this happen.. again? for the fourthtime in a row!? I swear I walk out those doors every night, fall arse-backwards into Supermild, curl up in the crawlspace out back, fall asleep and dream of anywhere but here. I dream of a life lived in Sundays throught to Thursdays, of well paid careers, wife and kids, nights spent in front of the television set, bloated and floating down river, dead and buried at age 55. I wake up in a cold sweat, only to find myself back at Rocket Bar again *phew*. Yes before you ask, this IS the same lamp by the bar you've seen a billion times before. No I don't take a new photo everytime I'm here. I actually keep a "file". Back when Eleanor used to work here she would dream of the day when she could sabotage this photo by throwing her shit-eating grin into frame at the very last minute. No such luck this time. I took this shot back in February and you were nowhere to be found.. HA! And yes, I change it up every once in a while when the menu changes. I'm also not of this Earth. I'm from outer space. Ask me about the drink specials!
I've learnt many a lesson at Rocket Bar. Thanks to Rocket Bar I eat all my food through a straw now, occassionally swapping nostrils to alleviate the burning sensation. "Oops there goes my colour and depth perception again!". Thanks to Rocket Bar I've learnt to dress only in shades of black and hide out in all the darkest corners of the room. Find your niche, your nook, your clique, your crooked path and grow increasingly batshit paranoid over just what everyone else is saying. I swear they're all out there lurking in the shadows still, longing to drink my blood. Take the wrong turn, fall down three flights of stairs and find yourself right back where you started again! Blind inches in front of your face. Deaf to anything above the plastic din of a four four beat. Scensters and fashion nazis. Assymetrical character assassins. Trust no-one. Divide and conquer. It's the decor that screams it out loudest of all. I'm sane and everyone else is crazy. Fuuuck I love this joint!
You can see it in all the smiling faces that serve you behind the bar. Blank and expressionless, nothing but broken shells of their former selves, wind whistling through their insect exoskeletons (aaaah the hospitality industry, don't you just love it!?). So reknown are they that an infamous Adelaide band even wrote a song about it. It's called "Put Your Finger In My Arse!" and yes it's a love song. But they're not all like that. Some of them eventually suffer fullblown nervous breakdowns and end up licking the walls at The Ed Castle instead. Others they simply "hide" out by the second bar. "Rocket Bar has a second bar!?" oh sure! it's just like an IQ test.. oh wait *cough* nevermind. Take "new girl" Kassandra for example. You'll find her yammering hysterically, barking mad at the red lights here like she's been stuck in a submarine all night (she only sees in "green" now). She's happy to be here. I mean REALLY happy. I mean really.. NEVER piss her off as chances are she'll be the first to splatter Rocket Bar walls to ceiling with your remains if ever she loses her shit out here! Did I ever mention how much I love this joint? Fuuuck I SO need to get drunk!
MONA LISA OVERDRIVE (***1/2) myspace :: And speaking of drunk here comes our opening act, and if you can't see the connection here then clearly you've never seen them live before (it's been too long hasn't it Alex?). Mona Lisa Overdrive. If the name sounds familiar, yet strangely "unfamiliar", it's possibly because you've spent the last six months in psychotherapy attempting to forget them ever since they last played in late November. Maybe you still wake up screaming, under the mistaken belief that they're playing in your bedroom, torchlit under their chins with unearthly grins on their faces; or maybe that's just me. Either way they were THAT band: Adelaide's most omnipresent in 2008. You couldn't get away from them. Like wind up toys and cuckoo clocks they kept on coming back, every damn week, to every damn venue, to every dickhead and their dog (even if no one showed up) till that "Stockholm Syndrome" took hold something fierce and you couldn't get enough of them. Wow.. to think six months later I actually miss them!? Whoaaa shit! Mona Lisa Overdrive. Sixties psychedelia in the vein of Velvet Underground, there's truly no other band in Adelaide that's quite like them. No two sets are ever the same, as chances are no two band members will ever play the same song at the same time. Like an octopus in an avalanche. Like an albatross attempting to breakdance in a tumble dryer. The beats, keys, vox and guitars: sure they don't fit, like square blocks smashing into round holes, and yet it comes together SO brilliantly! Even better? I don't think they've rehearsed in the last six months either. Best. Gig. EVER! That's not sarcasm (well ok.. maybe a little) it's a statement of fact. And it's all being driven tonight by Alex on drums and vocals. Like a passive aggressive Craig Nicholls spitting out a dictionary he'll send every song screaming over the abyss unsure over whether he's meant to be Martin Sheen or Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now (or both at the same time). Normally he'd be reined in by the "animatronic puppets" that surround him: Luke and Dave on guitars, Jess dive bombing the keys, but tonight they're so damn loose that even free jazz afficionados would explode from the impossible patterns that they weave. I'm loving this shit. They bribed me for my birthday with all their free drink passes (awww guys.. you're awesome!) all in the hope that I'd write a glowing review. I'm in the corner of this room right now, clawing my face off and screaming, crawling head to toe in imaginary ants; and I've got THEM to thank for it! It's been too long guys. Come back aaanytime!
SHAMAN SON (****) myspace :: I'd already seen this second act two weeks ago in this exact same spot and chances are with the exact same setlist too. I could've also just as easily copied that entire review word for word and none of you idiots would be any the wiser. As more than likely, just like me, your attention span is SO shot to shit these days thanks to ever present social networkings, google, youtube, wikipedia and bittorrents feeding our every whim and desire every damn second of our day, that not only can you not remember anything that's happened two weeks ago, let alone last Thursday (or even what you ate for breakfast this morning) but you haven't slept in well over three weeks either and now for some entirely unexplicable reason both of your kidneys have gone missing. WOOOOO!! Clearly NONE of this shit has anything to do with just how much we binge drink, or all the additives in our food, or all the drugs we're taking (caffeine? taurine!?), or the fact that all our conversations have been reduced to status updates fuck full of mispelled LOLcat acronyms and half forgotten pop culture references. Just as none of this shit has anything to do with Shaman Son tonight. How were they!? I'm asking you! By this point of the night I'd already downed at least six to seven beers, or maybe even twice that, and I'm already stuffed in a refrigerated filing cabinet somewhere in the Royal Adelaide Hospital whilst my brain floats disembodied in search of a new host. Yup, I'd like to take this moment to personally thank Keenan (aka: "The Metro Gnome") at The Ed Castle for shouting me one off his bartab earlier this evening, Wokka and Heidi for one over dinner, Kassandra at Rocket Bar for the two $3 beers the minute I walked in here two hours later and Mona Lisa Overdrive for finishing the job. Did I mention that it was my birthday yesterday? Sheeeiiit. Worst. Review. EVER. Shaman Son. I dimly recall they sounded a lot like The Music's first album and all the best feeding frenzy moments of Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix mixed up with a four car pile up. I vaguely remember their lead singer Ted Dempsey sounding like a lung puncture crossfaded with a bloodclot exploding all over the stage. Rob Webster on the bass exploding OFF the stage. Brendan from Lady Strangelove fucking up all the lights (damn you!). I remember little else. I'm writing this on a Monday still hungover, and if being stupidly drunk, it sounds anywhere as good as THIS? I should never have left! Shaman Son, you rock my teeny tiny peanut brain!
THE AMCATS (****1/2) myspace :: And speaking of.. well shit who HASN'T figured the overriding theme by now!? there's a drinking game I've invented in the last few days with THIS exact band in mind! Woweee.. whodathunkit!? Here's how you play.. trust me, it's awesome! Get the albums "De Stilj" and the first self titled (I won't say by who, but take ONE guess). Get our headlining act's equally exceptional debut EP "Go Amcats Go!" (you guys still selling those?). Rip both to mp3. Strip away any obvious singles (or any of those slow numbers) and throw it all into a shuffled playlist. Line up shot after shot of your preferred poison. Personally I'd pick a tequila shot with a tomato shot / tabasco chaser (but I've also been told on good authority that I'm clinically insane). Invite your friends. Fire up the playlist. Try and guess which is which. If you get any of them wrong, down a shot. Trust me. You'll be in a wheelbarrow and off to the emergency ward in next to no time (but only if any of your friends are still standing to send you on your way). Is this the highest compliment I can give? or biting criticism of the worst disorder? it's a bit of both really, but they're more than that. They're proving their worth, especially live, and with the release of their new seven inch single tonight: "Jang Jang Robot", The Amcats are finally finding their own unique buzz. It's all about the energy. That slapstick two tone chemistry. That critical mass in two atoms colliding as all four walls come crashing down around our ears. When you see them live you just can't get enough of it. That volatile blues shred. That shitcrazy chainsaw, chaingun and chewing gum spit delivery that knows no equal. Especially now (especially after The White Stripes fucked it up by releasing that silly "xylophone record"), especially when you're THIS drunk. And tonight in song after song "Shancat" and "Rencat" are absolutely killing it. So simple, so whimsically cheesey and yet SO psychotically upbeat all at the same time. Clearly I didn't remember any of it. Clearly I was SO fargone, on a tailspin trajectory, tearing it up on the dancefloor, that I was a lost cause. But I wouldn't have it any other way, in any other venue to send me into oblivion. Bring out the fire hoses, the sponges, pick up all those exploded chunks and place them in a pile, it doesn't matter in what order, I'll simply reassemble into human form like a T-1000 Terminator and come back for more. Whether you're Frankenstein, Wolfman or the Tinman, they'll provide all the mad buzz you'd need!
1:51AM - Fuuuck! I don't think I've been this hilariously drunk in ages! No wait.. clearly that's a lie. Clearly you all should know better than that by now. In fact I distinctly "recall" (or more accurately DON'T) me being in a similar state of hilarious dysfunction just last Saturday, and I'm pretty sure I should be dead by now (*cough* what again!?). Either way, an hour or so later I'm still face down in thick of it, eyes rolling back, on the dancefloor, tripping everyone over around me, making gargling noises and flapping my arms about. Sure I could've done this ALL night, but chances are Rocket Bar's "after hours" scenster swarm would've had other plans. It could've gotten ugly. Seeing that I was sinking fast, members from both Lady Strangelove and The Amcats took action. They briefly entertained a "window exit" for me but quickly reconsidered when it they concocted an even better plan by rolling me up in carpet and sending me barrelling down those three flight of stairs to safety. Sure I took the corners a little too sharply and I couldn't feel the left side of my face for the next three hours, but other than that it was a sweet ride.. I'd recommend it to anyone!
2:03AM - And then mere moments after we left, it finally happened. One of the barstaff at Rocket Bar finally loses their shit for real and with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic rifle, they pump round after round of fiery retribution into colleagues, co-workers and everyone else around them. There's nothing but hysterical screaming, wild panic, a gasline struck by a stray bullet intersecting (naaah wait, that's a water pistol!).. a moment cause in freeze-frame: eyes wide / mouths agape.. then a hideous explosion as a mile wide radius of Hindley Street comes to a flaming yet abrupt Frank Milleresque ending. Yup, I know what you're all thinking (besides: wow that'd be a freakingly awesome cinematic sequence to watch in slow-mo accompanied by anything off of Nine Inch Nails "The Fragile") but nope, it wasn't who you thought. It was actually the "quiet girl" who works at the door. Yup, it's always the one you least suspect aye? What's any of this got to do with us arriving at The Ed Castle just now!? *cough* Nothing really. Why do you ask?
2:47AM - Clearly I remember absolutely nothing of what the hell happened here the minute we walked in through those doors. Days later, quite possibly on a Sunday, someone added me on Facebook as a result, and just like everyone else I've ever accepted in the history of "social networking" I had no freaking clue who the fuck they were.. or if I'd ever met them. Awesome! Upon clarification she simply laughed and said "Ed Castle / Friday night". Damn. And people wonder why I'm still single!? Or am I? *cough* no really! If I've accidently gotten married to any one of you, or three of you at once, or I've sired any illegitimate love spawn, you'd tell me right!? I mean as much as I'd like to believe a WORD any these fools have to tell me.. who's to know?
2:50AM - As such it was here that Josh Strangelove (aka: "Drugsie") thought was good a time as any to produce a bottle of this.. this bottle of "whatever the fuck this shit is" (and clearly labelled as such). Why? because clearly this night wasn't nearly batshit insane enough already without throwing more yet fuel to the fire. So what the hell.. for the sake of science, I gave it a shot!
3:06AM - Which is why these photos of me wandering down Hindley Street mere moments later: howling, yammering, foaming, and chasing cars as they flew on by honking their car horns should come as a surprise to absolutely no one. Who took these photos? duuude.. I wish I knew.
3:07AM - Just like I'm at a total loss to explain why there's actually any of Hindley Street left. I mean if we were to take anything I've written, only four paragraphs ago, as nothing but verbatim: there should be nothing left of this place but a smoking crater where Rocket Bar, Electric Circus and The Crazyhorse once stood. We should be seeing that girl from Rocket Bar still skipping happily about this post apocalyptic wasteland, armed with a rocket launcher, sending car wreckage into orbit whilst whistling a sweet little tune. And yet here we are on Hindley Street like nothing ever happened!? Weird, it's almost like I'm simply making this shit up on the spot!? *pfft* NEVER!
3:13AM - The rest of my hunting party soon disappeared down those stairs into Supermild and to oblivion beyond, but I had other diabolical plans afoot here at the Bull And Bear instead. Ones that apparently involve yet another whizz-bang exciting installment of "Transmission". *cough* Still it wasn't their busiest night however, for as soon as I reached the entrance upstairs, I was told by the bouncer, in no uncertain terms, that they were closing up for the night and that there was no way in HELL I was ever going to bullshit my way in. Bugger. Guess that's it then huh? Time to go home..
3:17AM - So of course I did just what any other beer fueled nitwit would've done in a time like this. I thanked the bouncer for his time, walked back over to the OTHER side of the twin stairwell leading down, jumped the wall and walked right on in. Wow.. awesome security you got here!
3:30AM - Just as predicted it was absolutely dead in here (damn you Nick Hadley, you ridiculous fool.. see what you've done!?). Still it wasn't a total loss. I still managed to get a fucked up photo with DJ Ross Ross Ross here. As it clearly stipulates in the fine print of this blog, that if in any given instance I ever find myself at "Transmission", "Transmission Live" or "Sputnik", Ross should always make an entirely unnecessary appearance, but only if he appears to be well and truly twatted out of his skull. If ever we BOTH appear in the same photo at the same time, we should both look completely munted. I forget the real reasons why, although it may have something to do with the universe imploding if any one of us were ever to appear sober. It's one of many reasons why "Transmission" is as ridiculously popular as it is to this day.. with the possible exception of tonight. Oh and it may also explain why moments later I was discovered by the exact same bouncer I outsmarted moments earlier and turfed out onto the street. Ooops! That'll teach me.
3:41AM - Against all odds I make it back to Supermild alive. Even more remarkably I had absolutely no trouble blagging my way past the bouncer either. This of course would seem totally remarkable, until you remember just what kind of malformed circus freaks they tend to populate this place with (and the fact that I'm apparently a regular here *yeeeoouch!* enough said!).
3:53AM - Yup, I believe this photo here provides all the conclusive proof you're looking for. Of what exactly I'm not too sure, as I've since forgotten just what the fuck it is any of us did in here!? Who knows.. maybe we solved world hunger? global warming? the econonic crisis? found the cure for cancer? or discovered an unlimited source of renewable energy that could be tapped by society at large using nothing but a bent plastic spoon and whatever noxious gases are found emanating out of Brendan Strangelove's arse? But since we didn't think to write any of it down, all these amazing discoveries have since been lost to science. Oh well, there goes my Nobel Prize!
4:44AM - Soon after devising an ingenious plan to use the Large Hadron Supercollider at CERN to conclusively prove that the second moon of Mars is actually made of styrofoam and not only that, but it's hollow inside and filled with green M&Ms (I could explain it all to you now but trust me.. your head would explode) I stagger out of Supermild at last. I walk up Hindley Street, through that door, up three flights of stairs and pass out in Rocket Bar as clearly I've been living there for the past few weeks and this entire blog actually makes any kind of narrative sense in any kind of universe we could possibly ever exist in. Yup, just like you'll believe anything ELSE I'd say..
THE LEVITATORS + THE TORRENS LIVE @ ROCKET BAR / Saturday March 28th 2009
If ever you've wondered why I'm sounding like a crazy person recently (or in other words.. "what's new?") THIS is why. This is me at Rocket Bar for the third time in a row. This is me howling with laughter after a extended tour of duty I had at The Ed Castle that extended all the way back, uninterrupted, every week since late last October. This is me screaming up the walls when nobody's looking. I have the weirdest hobby, I really do! I'm a wild animal pacing back and forth in my cage, itching to break loose. I'm a cuckoo clock, a skipping record and a metronome kicking four to the floor. I'm a spastic synth and strobe lights and James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem's singing along, adenoids and all: "beats on repeat, beating on me.. from every car in the street.. there's a constant repeat, on repeat.. of your paranoid, heartbreaking beats.. on repeat". Block both nostrils and it'll explode out your ears.. YEAAAS!! I'm here because the best bands are always here, I wish they were elsewhere: The Grace Emily, Enigma Bar, Jive, Jade Monkey, The Metro, The Crown & Anchor, Producers Bar.. oh how I miss you! The whole scene is so hilariously out of whack, blame the economic downturn, or perhaps it's just me painting myself into a corner. Yup, here we are at Rocket Bar.. again. Here's that same desk lamp smiling from the bar, welcoming me back: "it's Groundhog Day!". Did I ever leave last night? Did I ever go home? I swear I went down those three flights of stairs and off into the beyond. Maybe it was all just a dream and any minute now that kid from The Sixth Sense will deliver that shitcrazy plot-twist!? whoaaa what a mindfuck!!
So this is me shaking those glass fragments out of my hair, that smell of alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, the fried chicken in circling footprints, headless and clucking ingrained deep into the linoleum, that ringing in my ears still echoing the bomb blast.. good morning sunshine! *fuck* I woke up next to YOU again!? horse's head! Yup, I swear I've been here for so long, people almost think me omnipotent, like the laws of physics don't apply; cartoon caricature. I begin to feel the curse of immortality, detachment, a dialtone continuous, a click then a disconnect. Fuck that.. I'm dead, I'm a ghost, I must be: Haley Joel Osment said so! (surely he must be into heroin by now). The seasons spin, the sun and moon dance through the sky, stars form rings, concentric ripples through spacetime, a continuous stream of traffic past my eyes and the faces blurring into one. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I'm one day older.. I don't "feel" any different? I'm front of stage again, another drumkit for the collection. I'm pretty sure it's not the property of Ryan Manolakis. Check my anti-terrorism checklist: Mr Wednesday, Like Leaves, BrotherSister, Cookie Baker, Bing Goes To Monaco (session drummer?) nope, no "Levitators" *phew* when everything looks the same around here, it helps to keep track of the differences..
10:44PM - Yup, I can see it now, any minute now on a live stage, that same routine, those same cliches, they simply change the names around: they're a buzz band, screaming metros in skinny jeans, strobes, a screaming oestrogen mass out front. They're shoeless, misbuttoned, matching haircuts by that one whacked out guy from Billy Bishop Goes To War or Skeletons when he's on an acid trip. They're screaming in unison, gang vocals, off mic. Someone's got a saxaphone, three of them have trombones. There's two people drumming at once, one on bongos and some nutjob's smashing a tambourine. The name's a full sentence, it's got exclamation marks, there's an animal mentioned in there somewhere. Mathias Northway's playing guitar, some girl's playing the bass, handclaps, microkorgs, everyone swapping instruments; and now they're playing next week at The Metro! They're ripping off Maynard James Keenan, Kings Of Leon or Pavement, they've just won Triple J Unearthed with sludge metal 10-15 minute solos and post rock, and now there's these two dickheads dressed head to toe in sheets!? *cough* say what now!? Now THIS is something I haven't seen before! sweet zombified Jebus.. who the fuck ARE these fantastical freaks!?
THE TORRENS (***1/2) myspace :: No shit.. THIS is what I fucking live for! this is why I keep coming back, this is why I made the return trip tonight.. YEAAAS!! This is The Torrens. They're quite possibly the worst band I've ever heard AND the third or fourth weirdest I've ever seen (and in the best way possible). Call them Z-grade, "so shit they're awesome", a stand up comedy act, or the sum total of eight years under the Bush Administration (and every comedy writer in the US in mourning ever since they left). This is that rarefied species of batshit insane, bordering on a suicide attempt that very few should ever attempt (especially on a live stage) without risking a war crimes tribunal. Think Ed Wood, Pauly Shore and Rob Scheider. Think Vanilla Ice, Tenacious D and Har Mar Superstar. Think Central Deli Band, Clue To Kalo, It's Warsaw! and Radio Spectacular!!! (those extra exclamations signify awesomeness!). OH YES! The Torrens are THAT face meltingly fiendish! They're a hiphop side project between Tom Ireland and Willie Budstrip from High Stakes (Adelaide's answer to AC/DC), and Vibro from The Beards banging the laptop beats. They're every reason why ex AFL footy players and brickies labourers should never mix binge drinking with karaoke, they're why fights break out. Led onto the stage tonight blind, in head to toe sheets with hats on, they'll stand there motionless to nintendo beats for an intro freaking us all the fuck out, before busting loose to a retarded, profanity laden, hiphop jam that mixes all the worst moments of Eminem's "Encore" album with Regurgitor, Gerling, Muscles, TISM, Flight Of The Conchords and The Streets. It's one continuous "dick and fart" gag, it only gets worse and worse. They're SO much less than the sum of their parts. Just look at them doing the "jazz hands" and cracking staccato baboon noises and *crap* I think I just pee'd a little! So spectularily shit, so abysmally awesome!! The Torrens. As much as I preferred High Stakes? duuude these hilarious fuckwits damn near saved my night!
11:06PM - And then just as they began tonight's set, they ended it with spastic pingpong techno bleeps, bloops and 808 beats, both Tom and Will standing motionless in head to toe sheets with hats on, saluting it like it was their national anthem. Imagine an entire audience gobsmacked, head scrambled and to the floor dribbling; now imagine moments later as out of my ear, a tiny alien with an oversized cranium and aviator goggles falls out gurgling. Fuuuck! It was a shortlived set, fifteen to twenty minutes and eight songs at most. It was a trojan horse, an ambush, a head stuck in a gas filled oven with a lit match; but I couldn't stop laughing for the rest of the night!
THE LEVITATORS (**1/2) myspace :: Which is just the kind of "light relief" you'll need when you face off against this band. This is The Levitators. They've been around for years, almost half a decade by my account. The last time I saw them was waaay back in 2005 at the Crown & Sceptre; and short of adding Sam Morrison as an MC (former lead singer of Snap To Zero) very little has changed. Still, there's a lot to like about this band. They're a live outfit that alternates between hammering breakbeat, hiphop, reggae, dub funk and drum & bass with a shitload of freestyle rapping. You can't help but fill a dancefloor with it, they're all around me tonight, hot chicks galore, getting their groove on and sweating it up.. but something's missing (and it's not just the lights). Imagine a propellant mix between The Cat Empire, Roni Size Reprazent, Red Snapper, Propellerheads and Pendulum. Or if you can remember that far back: simply imagine the sounds of The Baggsmen (ex "The Hive") from Sydney who pretty much obliterated the whole "live drum & bass" schtick with The Bird in Melbourne and you'd have it just about nailed. It was huuuge back in 1992 through to it's heyday in 1996 to 2000 with Goldie, Grooverider, Dillinja, Jump Up Show Down and all those Metalheadz compilations banging it fierce. Back when it was all about hoodies, puffy oversized silver jackets, headphones larger than your head, blunts, rooftop raves and mad vibrations you could feel all the way from Jamaica. Remember techstep, darkstep, dubstep and Ali G banging the "Junglist Massive"!? aaaaah memories! And as much as I loved this shit back in the day (and the crowd's loving it tonight) I'm clawing my face off to get the fuck away from it! There's a sign in The Grace Emily that rather neatly sums up my predicament: "drum machines have no soul". It's not because I agree: just listen to Aphex Twin, Squarepusher or anything Bjork's cooked up in the last decade if you want to start an argument.. but because with The Levitators here I believe the opposite is true. They may be talented musicians cracking it like killer robot. They may be able to grind a beat, a rhythm and a dope rhyme on a turn of a ten cent piece. They may even stumble upon the occassional Fatboy Slim infectious hook.. but when the single appeal of your live act tonight is a pack of musicians aping machines: where'd the freaking personality, the originality? damnit!! where's the soul?
1:48AM - All that madenning repetition for the last hour or more: beat after beat, buildup and breakdown, nonsensical rhymes looping over and over.. I mean did you watch that video I just posted!? FUCKING HELL!! It's just too much, it's driving me to the brink.. and yup, you've guessed the punchline that rhymes with that: I SO need a fucking drink! At long last the band stops, the DJs come up with an encore, hours upon hours of endless banging electro. Up those stairs they come: pillpoppers, pillmunchers, windowlickers, all munted five ways, filling up the dancefloor. They're a meat processing plant, mooing and chewing the scenery, they've got their blinkers on. I drink enough, nearly enough to think I'd actually join in *cough* but then I consider otherwise; and with The Torrens in tow, everyone's fleeing for the exit signs and into the streets below.
1:53AM - I'm seeing it everywhere I go now: society's law and order and all it's consequence. It's the same shit over and over. Clock on, clock off, when the weekend comes? "get your rocks off!". Sure I love a daily routine just as much as the next person, a regular schedule, something to look forward to, the power to predict, but since when did we vote free will out of the picture!? No shit.. I need some freaking chaos theory to fuck all of this up! We see it all again upon arriving at Jive, we see that line forming outside: blank expressions, single file, move one step forward, present your proof of age, get a stamp, walk through that door. Fuckit, why not skip that shit altogether? Get Tom to pull an "Obi Wan" on the bouncer and with little more than a nod it's straight to the bar!
1:57AM - So here we are again: witness to another clueless crowd, filling those four walls, heads stuck where the sun don't shine, whistling the same tune on a Saturday night. You gotta love it, you really do! It's like this every weekend, it used to be every alternate, now it's the same fucking thing everywhere you go, only the names change around: "Gosh!", "Glitter!", "Dig!", "Bang!", "Kick!", "Jizz!" (Dan V from Like Leaves came up with that one!). All one syllable words, bold letters, screaming with exclamations: no point confusing the masses now is there!? FUCK NO!
2:14AM - Still as much as we'd protest normally, screaming into every ear hole: "WAKE THE FUCK UP MAAAN! THE WHOLE WORLD'S GOING DOWN THE SHITTER!!", when you're in an altered state better described as "alcoholically abnormal" it's actually quite comforting to know you can simply dissappear into the one amorphous blob of human stupidity and cut loose. Wanna go completely fucking insane? set fire to shit? pull a knife? pick a fight? piss on the floor? cluck like a chicken? climb the balcony? smash up the furniture? trigger the exit sirens and get carried off in a straightjacket, laughing hysterically, moments before dawn? I bet you thought you were the only one huh? OOOH FUCK NO!! They're all around you tonight! They're Adelaide's number one growth industry (they're even forming bands). Still if I was you, I wouldn't wanna try any of that shit here: the security will fucking kill you *cough* still, just imagine what these idiots could accomplish!?
2:30AM - Thinking all of the above, it's moments like these that I wonder: where's a Joe Blogs or a Nick Hadley from the Dead Popes Of The Vatican when you need a good excuse for the barstaff to ban you for life!? (aaah remember the good 'ol days back in Shotz!? did they ever get those "teeth marks" out of the ceiling? good times!). Until I realise that for the general health and safety of everyone else around us (and that restraining order they're likely filing against both of them): it's probably best they're NOT here. Nope, with professional idiots like these running amok, making total dicks of themselves, dimly aware that most of this will end up on the internet (hmmm do you think these idiots ever learn? hell no!), then I think we've pretty much got this shit covered!
2:43AM - I swear every fucking time I'm in here, after a few too many beers (and a shot of tequila) it's the same comedy routine, so much so you could set your watch, place bets and make a drinking game out of it: all us idiots jumping up and down, shrieking like chimpanzees, pulling faces, pissing ourselves laughing. Does it ever get tiring!? Y'know, you'd think it would but nope.. every damn time! And does it ever get any easier writing stupid captions for it!? OOOH FUCK NO!!
2:57AM - Still just like every ill advised trip to Jive before: the show's over the minute Tom breaks the rules by attempting a misguided freestyle rap on "cattle mutilation and auto erotic asphyxiation", all accompanied by the sound of one of the exit sign sirens. He's promptly caught by the referee, somewhere in the second verse with his pants around his ankles, attempting to hump the foosball table: given a red card violation and sent off the playing field. Yup, just like every other damn time we're in Jive. You should've seen it when Joe Blogs did it.. hiiilarious!
3:26AM - At this point we all know my weekend is nothing more than a ride on rails, reality on autopilot, downward spiral trajectory all mapped out with a tag-team orange and green shotgun assault blasting away everything in sight. Fuuuuck.. imagine if they had THAT shit in pubs and clubs with a coin slot!? My life as an arcade game! I can see it now: all the smiling faces, the screaming, the lawsuits and newspaper headlines. As to what any of this has to do with me going to Supermild at the end of the night, absolutely nothing! I never go here. I'm never a hypocrite. I never make a mockery out of anything I might say. I live by all of my ridiculous absolutes!
3:57AM - I'm on a track just like I always am but clearly I've totally lost my train of thought too. It's derailed, way off course, smashed into a warehouse, bodies are falling out, burning, and screaming, and here comes the camera crews: which if nothing else, rather aptly describes my insane dancemoves at Supermild tonight. The good news is: nobody else around me can tell the difference, the bad news: pretty much everything else you see around you is barking insane.
4:01AM - Damn.. how LONG has it been since I got a stupid photo with Nick Bastiras (formerly from Tyger Tyger) here!? Too long I tell you.. too damn freaking long! More pissheads with spastic oversized afros I say! *cough* yup, I'm looking at this now and yeah.. let's never do this again!
4:09AM - Yup, there's always a well documented "blood alcohol" threshold at play here, a tipping point if you will. A before: where I'll NEVER take a camera out no matter how many faces you may pull in front of me begging and screaming for a photo that I'll post in this blog (and you'll likely regret moments after seeing it), and an after: an overload of that which we're witnessing right now. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to everyone, who by all appearances, I've never met before in my entire life. It's nothing new, it happens everytime I'm here. Just add me on Facebook like everyone else, and next time I stumble into you I'll completely forget who the fuck you are, only to repeat the process all over again! Isn't that right Jenna? or Kat? or Kane Banner? or that girl I always forget the name of (fuck she's awesome!) or that midget? or that other dude? or all those other hilarious malformed freaks I always see in here 24/7!? fuuuck I love this place!
4:16AM - Speaking of such, here's two prime suspects now. Jock Jacobs on the left you'll recognise as that 80's headbanging disaster lurking about in the beer garden almost everytime you stumble in here (and would you believe the beer money he spends on a weekly basis pays all the water and electricity that keeps this place open!? genius!). Whilst the girl on the right is Samia, I don't think we've ever had an actual conversation in our entire lives, but for some odd reason (quite possibly involving both of us getting hilariously drunk at some point) she's one of my facebook friends.. awesome huh? does anyone else smell something burning? nope.. just me then!
4:32AM - And speaking of "hilarious malformed freaks" here's two more familiar fuckwits you'll always find in Supermild *cough* ruining what would've otherwise been a cheesy "awwww!" moment captured on camera above.. and otherwise proving just how retardingly drunk we all are. Oh and if you're thinking of making a drinking game out of just how many times I write "retardingly drunk" in the ONE blog: feel free, because chances are nobody's EVER thought of that shit before!
4:37AM - Thus I would like to blame the following sequence of photos, that are by no means me being so ridiculously wasted I'm simply hitting the button like some kind of goldfish, on Izzy here and quite possibly that other munt ranga off to the left: who again, I've never met before in my entire life (at least not that I can remember, apologies if I've already added you on facebook).
4:39AM - Hmmm do you think this is just Izzy's lame excuse for shitload of crass publicity payback after losing out back in mid October when my previous camera was laughingly fucked up at one of his gigs at The Crown & Anchor? would we ever be that cynical? have I ever been that cynical? (who ME!? never!) or are we simply suffering short term memory loss here. Seriously I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about sometimes! We've never done this before.. everything is a new and exciting adventure!! Supermild!? *pfft* I've never been here in my life! WOOHEHAhAhAhA!!
4:40AM - Aaaaah fuckit y'know what? he's gotten away with this schtick for far too long! When IS Robotosaurus playing a gig next? It's time I get my own back. I'll bring my gridiron helmet, a fist full of steak knives, wire up some C4 and we'll have ourselves a little party: who's with me!?
4:41AM - And now in no relation to anything else I've written upto this point, feel free to insert your own Spoz's Rant time honoured cliche to wrap up this whole misadventure (and get your shot glasses at the ready!) with either: (a) some lamearse joke about needing to use the "blunt end of a fire extinguisher", (b) an off-hand joke that I'm a serial killer, (c) make reference to any of George A Romero's b-grade horror movie classics (which might I add I've never seen before in all my life, save for that shitty remake with Ving Rhames in it), or (d) mention the phrase "screaming hysterically out the door" because clearly my blog is THAT predictably formulaic.. YEAAAS!!!
4:44AM - Of course we all know I would've personally chosen option (c). Seriously, that freak in the front screams "zombie" like nothing else in here (or quite possibly this is what would happen if Pauline Hanson ever made it with Lurch from The Addams Family.. YES!!). Oh and I'd also like to point out that I'm ever so ridiculously proud of THIS shot outside of Supermild below, because now it means I don't have to recycle all those OTHERS I've been keeping on file. *cough* Yup, let's just forget I was ever here, that I'll back AGAIN next week, fade to black and roll the credits!
Everything repeats, every week it's the same 'ol shit with a different smell. I'm its ever shrinking attention span set to timelapse photography. I'm its eskimo trapped in a blizzard with fifty words for "snow". Driving myself insane, climbing up those walls, off the rails, by any means possible to sabotage and celebrate the chaos wherever I go: always one day older and never the wiser. The sounds of LCD Soundsystem tag-teaming for Hot Chip as they sing: "over and over and over and over and over.. like a monkey with a miniature cymbal.. the joy of repetition really is in you!". Me a few screws loose, knocking a dent in that wall, only to laugh out loud some more. Yup that's my blog! Really makes you want to throw yourself a molotov cocktail party now, doesn't it?
