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...
"WHAT HAPPENS ON MY NIGHT OFF, STAYS ON MY NIGHT OFF!" ..UNTIL I POST A BLOG ABOUT IT / Saturday August 28th 2010
Hi I'm Spoz and I run a "live music blog" on the Adelaide scene.. "WOWEEE.. YOUUU DON'T SAY!? please tell me MORE of the bleedingly obvious YOU FUCKING ARSECLOWN!!". Yeah yeah I know, but sometimes it really needs to be said just to remind us why we're here each week (or for those of you who've just tuned in: why you've been duped into reading it). Just as we're well aware this ISN'T a live music blog after all.. it's a binge drinking "lifestyle magazine" and I really ain't fooling anyone (just as this joke totally stopped being funny a LONG time ago). Either way duuude I gotta tell you.. running this blog is a BITCH, it's an absolute bitch! you wouldn't believe how much time and effort goes into it. I mean shit.. you're probably thinking it's all cocaine, cash parties and wall to wall strippers don't you? DON'T YOU!? YOU UNGRATEFUL FUCKS!! But it's NOT! it's really not, it's a living hell, I never get a moment's rest here and one day it will fucking kill me I swear! And the reason WHY isn't for any obvious reasons either. It's not everything you see happening on screen. It's not my nights out partying, drinking, laughing my liver inoperative, having the absolute time of my life.. FUCK MAAAN!! I could do that in my sleep, I could do that "Weekend At Bernie's" style and STILL rock the shit out of it! (aaaah and that was a fun night too! GOOD TIMES!!). Nope the real punishment here is in writing about it. And the worst of it is? every week I gotta come up with something "new" too! Every week, every fucking episode, I need to come up with a fresh concept or a theme to hide it behind, just so I can distract you from the simple fact that all I ever do is: go out, see bands and get drunk. That's all I ever do! "Well.. why don't you just go out, see bands, get drunk and NOT write about it then!? SHEEESH, TAKE A FUCKING HOLIDAY IF YOU'RE SO HUNG UP ABOUT IT!!". Yeaaah ok good point, even if I do feel a bit strange about having a conversation with myself here. And the fact is I've done that, plenty of that in fact, you've just never read about it. It's what I like to call "blowing a night off", it's the most fun you could ever have without being accountable for it and it's what I was very much planning to do AGAIN at The Exeter tonight; the difference being: for once you get to "read" about it. And if that ain't irony? I don't know what is!
Yup tonight was very much planning to be a non event. A TOTAL NON EVENT. HA HA HA duuude you weren't going to see shit. I mean hell, I still had a pending episode to complete on 20th Century Graduates: their launch party from last week (you might have read it already.. awesome huh? NO PLEASE DON'T FILE A COMPLAINT!!) and I knew I should have done it days ago (I've since back dated in the publishing so it looks like I was on deadline anyways.. HA!) and it was doing my head in. And the reason WHY was because the week leading upto it I simply had no fucking motivation. It happens sometimes, I totally blame it on the dreary winter weather draining the life out of me; as much as I spent most of that time playing retarded-arse video games, watching DVDs, flicking through back issues of XKCD and laughing my arse off.. I'm a contradiction, what can I say!? And tonight? oh I was paying for it in full. I totally blew my chance to see Megan Washington headline a sold out show at Jive (and hey, maybe I could've proposed marriage in my live review again). I totally blew off Günter & The Safeword playing at The Crown & Anchor. I totally blew off Jimmy & The Mirrors hosting a "Colour Party" at The Ed Castle (*phew* so dodged a bullet there too!). And instead I was totally glued to my laptop, screaming insults at the screen, wondering why I couldn't come up with anything. And then at long last I finished that final review (as much as it was 80% padding, 15% unnecessary superlative and 5% content) and then I thought "fuck it.. I'm gonna get drunk!". And one bus trip later? yup here I am at The Exeter staring at a drumkit. Hmmm?
Now obviously I'd put some thought into this; even if I almost always end up at The Exeter on my "night off" simply because it's next to Palace/Nova Cinema Complex where I can justify the whole binge-drinking exercise that follows with a preceding dose of "cinematic culture" (yes I'm rolling my eyes at that too and I haven't even told you WHY yet) in fact the last time I did this, actually leads to why I'm here tonight.. even if the movie in question "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" was showing at Norwood Cinema instead (maaan that places stinks!). Anyhoo.. turns out I had a beer at The Exeter afterwards, caught a bit of Bastard Sons Of Ruination (and I highly recommend them too, probably mentioned that before? ) and as I departed on my way to "binge drinking destination B" I bumped into Florentina Pergoleto, drummer for The Aves. I didn't know her for a can of beans, but she totally recommend I catch their band sometime (and beats me why too!? I mean it's like I'm stupidly "infamous" in the Adelaide scene but they forget what I'm infamous for: I RUIN LIVES PEOPLE, FUUUCK!!). In response I might have said something incredibly stupid, she added me on facebook anyways, and here's one of her cymbals now sticking it's tongue out at me.. go figure?
Of course there's many reasons why I picked this gig for my "night off" . Firstly they asked nicely. Secondly I very much enjoyed the idea of snubbing three (potentially) head explodingly a-grade gigs for this.. HA HA HA! EAT THAT YA FUCKS!! Thirdly they were playing two sets: one at 10, one at 11, which timed up rather nicely with my overriding urge to get rubbishingly shitfaced tonight (and at the very last minute I might add), suffer a skull fuckingly horrendous hangover the next day and delay the release of that 20th Century Graduates episode by even more than was entirely necessary (simply to drive their guitarist Alex Ciaravolo insane.. an ongoing hobby of mine) and since it was at The Exeter: the awesomest pub in all of Adelaide to get rubbishingly shitfaced at? it was pretty much a done deal. And as for why I'm writing a blog about it? yeaaah good question!
THE AVES (****1/2) myspace :: A question that was pretty much answered the minute they arrived on stage for their second set. Or more accurately after I caught the last five minutes of their FIRST set, downed two or three beers in the interim and thought "you know what? fuck this.. it'd be hilarious!" (as much as I'd already pulled this prank with that "nervous breakdown" blog back in March and with that Buster Fidez blog back in February but do we really care at this point?). Yup this is The Aves. Don't ask me how to pronounce it as I'm pretty sure I fucked it up myself (I mean is it with a "U" emphasis or an "A"?) but they are every reason justified for coming to The Exeter tonight.. DUUUDE ARE THEY EVER!! And if things turned out differently I totally would've caught them six weeks ago too at one of those infamous "alleyway shows": only a generator blew up, their show got cancelled, fifty odd people went to drink goon in a warehouse instead and..? oh yeaaah they're totally ONE OF THOSE BANDS (aka: The Witch, Fake Tan, Stan "You're Going To The Wrong Shows" Mahoney) but either way I'm no less thankful I caught up with them now. As such (and in the simplest of terms) think of them as Patti Smith fronts The Libertines: as much as their lead singer Lucy Campbell has that same "lived in" quality to her voice (as much as you could also throw in elements of Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane and maybe even Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on acoustic to round it out) while the band around her possesses that same jangling 60's style britpop swagger. But obviously that barely scratches the surface, there's so much more eclectic shit swirling about in here, so at a stretch think Patti Smith fronts The Libertines only mixed in with Pavement, The Strokes, Split Endz and an A-Z of New York inspired art punk (only in the purest primordial sense of it) then picture it performed in a style so blissfully casual and nonchalant they could totally fall out of bed horribly hungover, light up a cigarette and STILL cough up genius again and again and THAT'S what we're dealing with here.. "DUUUDE!!". Yes I know, and they only get better the more you hear it too. Fronted by Lucy with her loose rhythm guitar riffs, vocals half slurred (and all the better for it), she provides the main focus in selling it. But with the band absolutely killing it in accompaniment they're more an all-star ensemble in delivering it. Thomas Williams provides a proverbial "sketch pad" in scribbling flourishes and rapid fire solos on lead guitar; Tasman Strachan goes for a jerky, stabbing, swinging off kilter rhythm on bass; while Florentina Pergoleto pulls it all together with a spideringly light percussion on drums; and in combination they might sound equal measures dog's breakfast and happy go lucky in threadbare arrangement but it never fails to pull mad shapes in your mind all the same. More befuddlingly still their songs frequently and unexpectantly slip in and out of covers like they're using them as live performance "mix tapes": referencing everything from "Help" by The Beatles, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by Devo (by way of The Rolling Stones) to "Good Golly Miss Molly" by Little Richard and that's just to name a few. They perform a wacky love letter to Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park called "Ian Malcolm" (with Florentina on vocals). They perform a rapidfire homage to shambolic Alleyway shows in the form of "Alleyway Blitz". I mean there's just so much swimming about in this mess to inspire you it'd literally take hundreds of pissy indie disco "buzz bands" on a hundred microkorgs to match their genius and they'd still come up short; and I'm not the only one bugging out to this shit either. The crowd here are dancing up a swinging 60's storm, they're the ones screaming for an encore, only to scream for another encore after that, random passerbys are poking their heads in eyes wide as saucers only to join in the fun, I swear this beer I'm drinking has never tasted SO good, I mean WHERE THE HELL HAS THIS BAND BEEN ALL MY LIFE? FUUUCK!! Yup that's The Aves. Just when you thought I could blow the whole night off, get rubbishingly shitfaced and forget it all? they're the ones to pull me back in!
Just to sweeten the deal tonight, they were also giving away free copies of their demo. In fact their lead singer Lucy even tried to palm off two copies to me, only I gave a her weird look in response and she was all flustered "no.. no really, give one to a friend!" like she was peddling stolen goods all a sudden.. and so I did just that when Frank Lloyd (former drummer for Kytes Of Omar) walked by (he's got a new band apparently, who knew?). Oh and how ridiculously genius is that cover design? I'm told the band individually hand "painted" each and every one of them by kidnapping a prize pigeon to crap on it; seriously! And if you were real lucky you might even have scored one when it's a dove doing the doo-doo instead. Total collector's item in years to come? I'm sure of it!
Better yet here's the hand written tracklisting. As much as I'm utterly unsure whether they actually have a song called "The Aves" (it's a five track demo) or if they're just listing their band name up top, because otherwise there's a totally unlisted song in the middle with lyrics that go something along the lines of "being cockney at The Crown & Anchor" that doesn't relate to anything written here. Also I could've sworn the demo was called "The Inner Mind", it's not, it's actually self titled. Just as I'm also told other CDs sport such whimsical titles as "Lucy As A Youngster" and "Har Har". And if there's a thin trickle of blood pissing out of your left nostril right now because all of this randomness is causing you a fullblown aneurysm? don't worry you're not the only one! I mean is it just me or are all the most talented, creative, clownshit awesome bands in the Adelaide scene right now reduced to playing obscure-arse show in alleyways, warehouses, train stations and toilet cubicles? AND WHERE THE FUCK AM I IN COVERING ALL THIS!? I know.. I know! don't get me started! as much as it starts with "The Ed Castle" and ends with "I so don't know shit on what's REALLY going on with the Adelaide scene". And people wonder why I drink so much!? FUUUCK!!
1:33AM - Which by an all too convenient segue brings me back to the real task at hand tonight, and arguably what The Exeter was originally built for, and that's drinking myself into a blissful oblivion. I mean shit duuude it IS my "night off" afterall; as much as I really admit it's a lousy way to spend it, I mean c'mon don't I have any other hobbies in life!? do I even have a life at all!? I'M THIRTY FOUR FERFUCKSAKE!! Yes.. yes I do, I'm living it in the here and now, and lemme tell you maaan it's a fucking awesome thing to behold; I'm like a king amongst men! And as for why I'm photographing this corner of the bar right now to signify this utterly inauspicious moment? Well as much as it IS an annoying "nervous tick" of mine to pretty much shoot anything or anyone that's standing in front of me that isn't otherwise threatening me with a court ordered "cease and desist"? I'm just rather fond of this corner for its aesthetic qualities is all. No really, it's the "well worn" character of it that appeals to me the most: all those yellowing fliers, photos, business cards, the loosely scribbled gig listings.. how could I not drink the FUCK out of this pub in honour of that!?
2:31AM - Better yet.. it's only after gulping at it like a goldfish for a solid hour's drinking that I finally discover THIS staring at me right in the face "WHOAAA!!" (or if you don't quite get it yet, it's there on the left). I mean seriously on a freezing cold night like this, how could I possibly resist!?
3:12AM - And then when I finally DID regain partial function of my faculties again (brain.. what brain? I'm nothing but liver damage that's become self aware!) I realised just how genius a choice in beverage that was too.. OOOOH FUCK YEAH!! and this SO ain't gonna delay the publishing of that long delayed 20th Century Graduates episode until sometime after Monday morning is it!? HA HA HA of course not! My body is nothing but a temple and monkeys are pissing in it as I speak!
3:15AM - Closing time at The Exeter, taking a moment to soak it all in, all those scattering issues of Rip It Up very much living upto their namesake, fluttering about in absence of breeze. Aaaah 'tis a wondrous thing isn't it!? so simple, so utterly captivating! I mean sometimes there's just so much beauty in this world it's like I can't take it and my heart is just gonna cave in or explode or.. "what? oh hi security! yeaaah I know it's closing time, it's for a blog I'm writing, it's a problem, I'm dealing with it and no you don't have to throw me out I know where the exit sign is".
3:51AM - Now you might be wondering by this point if I did anything else other than stare into the infinite at The Exeter tonight and drink myself delerious like some weird loner guy. Now obviously the first answer to that is "no" and yes I've left a lot of detail out (aaaah the stories I could share.. the crazy adventures I got upto!). And secondly? ferfucksake maaan it's my "night off" and that's none of your business! I mean seriously I'm still entitled to a private life aren't I? I don't have to tell you everything do I!? what gives YOU the right to pry into my personal effects, huh? HUH!? oh I'm on the internet is THAT what you're telling me!? Sheeesh it's people like YOU that piss me off the most! I almost have the mind to post this on twitter, then on my facebook so that all my "friends" who I've never met before in my entire life can rightly comment their utter indignation over you having even asked that question! FUUUCK!! Oh and as for what all that's got to do with THIS photo? hehehehe yeaaah that's just me at Supermild. I've completely run out of punchlines to accompany that but shit damn I'm proud of this long neck bottle of beer all the same. It's like I'm hoisting a flag with it: "here's to my Saturday night and FUCK YOUSE ALL!!".
3:53AM - And it was moments later that I'm then interrupted by someone, I forget who exactly, clearly it's not important; who told me the even LESS important news that Griffy Griff was wearing a suit and tie. Griffy.. who? HA HA HA WHO THE FUCK CARES!? I SO gotta get me a photo of this!
And do you wanna know what's even more stupidly pointless than THAT!? following it up with a second photo featuring me being an hilarious dickhead in front of him! YEAAAS!! WOOOO!! Oh and I could also mention while I was doing this shit that I spotted Adam Liaw, winner of MasterChef 2010 having a quiet drink in the beergarden but I'm pretty sure that's of no interest to anyone.
4:45AM - Aaaah this truly was a Saturday night well wasted figuratively and literally as much as I honestly swear I had nothing at all to do with that beer bottle you see there on the right. Ooops!
Yup that's me writing a blog about the "night" I have when I'm not writing a blog about it. As much as it IS a blog and this is me using it as a pissy "excuse" to cover for it. Even more so when we consider THIS blog, just like every other blog you've ever read, is essentially the same blog told a thousand times over: I go out, see bands and get drunk. I do this every week. EVERY FUCKING WEEK!! It never gets old, it never gets dull, I could do this for the rest of my life! as much as it drives me screaming up a wall trying to come up with new ways to write about it. Even weirder still? in spite of all this you keep coming back to read about it. Aaaah I like that irony the best of all!
