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...
TWO WAY RADIO "T-SHIRTS FADE" EP LAUNCH @ THE PROMETHEAN / Thursday April 21st 2011
I know it might not look like it sometimes (especially not with MY raging sarcasm... squeeee!) but I'm a music fan NOT a critic. All I ever wanna do is go out, get drunk, see awesome live music, get drunk with all the bands and artists responsible for said "awesome live music" laughing it retarded like a mad c*nt like there's no tomorrow (only to do it again next week!), like SHIT YEAAAH BABY!! except apparently there's a set limit to how long you can live this "life" no strings attached. Usually just shy of turning 24-25 (or just after you've completed your "uni degree" in retail, hospitality and dole bludging) until society at large frowns upon your "weekly piss-antics", or at the very least until all your scenester friends at The Ed Castle, Metro or Format give you the stink-eye for overstaying your welcome. I mean shit duuude isn't it enough to just enjoy this "music scene" for the music!? FUCK NOOOO!! It's just plain creepy, and weird, and you're much too old. You should've "retired" years ago and settled in for a "normal life" of 9-5 wage slavery, televised team sports, mortgage, divorce and suburban ennui like every other sadsack featured in A Current Affair or Today Tonight: bitching over neighbour disputes, fad diets and asylum seekers until you just wanna unload a shotgun into your face and end it all rather than buy into it... FUUUCK!! Or you can simply start or join a band of your own, or you can write a blog about it, and become "wildly celebrated" without actually being an authority on anything (HA HA HA who me!?) but I'm a music fan NOT a critic! I'm crap at being a "musician"! I hate writing reviews! And I don't mean the "writing" part, pfft... that shit's fucking hilarious! I mean all the endless "evaluation", the judgement, the harsh criticism, pfft... WHO AM I TO JUDGE IT!? (and yet all you lunatics keep on requesting it? GENIUS!!) especially when it comes to writing "bad reviews"... yeeeesh! why would ANYONE risk life and limb, certain death and willingly put themselves through this mad charade? as pissy justification to keep drinking well into your thirties in enjoying everything stupidly awesome that the Adelaide scene can offer!? YOU BETCHA!! So I play my part, I pretend I'm a journalist, and most of all I do everything in my power to avoid reviewing bands I'd rather not see; because pfft... fuck 'em, THAT'S WHY!!
And admittedly I've done it before. I DO accept the occassional "cold-call". It's how I discovered The Amcats back in June 2007 when they invited me to a Saturday night show at Producers Bar. It's how I discovered Lumonics back in February 2008 when they invited me to a Thursday night show at The Crown & Anchor. It's how I discovered Olivers Army in February THIS year when they invited me to... yeaaah well two out of three ain't bad (wait which "two" am I referring to?). We all know I'm fucking lazy, we all know I just go with what I know or WHO I KNOW, especially if I'm likely to get stupidly drunk with them in the beergarden afterwards or if they happen to be playing The Ed Castle so I'm almost guarenteed to scam me door entry (hello Popy Jane!) but not tonight! Tonight I've been invited by Two Way Radio to cover their EP launch party at The Promethean for "T-Shirts Fade" and I was crazy enough to accept. WHY!? because they emailed me a few months back, I was stupid enough to respond, so they took this as a "green light" to keep on emailing me because they actually thought I was a bona-fide music journalist who could totally provide them with that all important press coverage if they offered me free doorlisting, a free EP and advertising revenue... and who am I NOT to live upto their WILDLY UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS!! YEAAAS!!
But mostly it's because it's "Good Friday Eve" here (aka: last refuge for the damned) and if I don't get my mad fix of "live music" (read: gratuitous binge drinking) tonight, my head's gonna fucking explode TOMORROW night (when there'll be no licensed venue open in Adelaide who'll service my needs thanks to some barefoot hippy being nailed to a tree in Jerusalem 2000 years ago). And I would've chosen Ride Into The Sun headlining Producers Bar to celebrate this apocalyptic soiree instead: if it weren't for the fact I'd already seen them five times this year... and by covering them again for a sixth time tonight you might begin to suspect just how hilariously biased my blog really is in covering ONLY the live bands I want to see and hey is that Sincerely, Grizzly!? aaaawesome! (if only I hadn't blown that conspiracy open in the previous three paragraphs... OOOPS!!) because it's MY BLOG damnit and you can all get fucked if you disagree... or you can simply start your own blog because hey it's the internet and seriously what's stopping you idiots!? (because you'd much prefer to bitch about it "anonymously" in my comments!? HELL YEAAAH YOU DO!!) and then there's that whole "I'm a sucker for a launch party" thing, but mostly I'm here for our opening act. Yup I've seen them twice before, never blogged them, more to the fact I've been taunting them with it to the point their lead singer Chris-Lian Lloyd has been having nightmares over the mistaken belief that I "secretly hate his band" and it's been driving him insane wondering what I REALLY think of them... and THAT'S just the kind of stupidity I like to encourage on this blog! I mean just look at that "message" he left for me on their setlist: how could you NOT celebrate the mad shit out of that? Two Way Radio!? aaaah fuck 'em... it's ALL about The London Road Poets tonight!
Or yeaaah *cough* maybe I'll just review them next time...
THE LONDON ROAD POETS (****) - AAAAHAHahAhAHahAHA... JUST KIDDING!! (or am I?). No there actually IS a legitimate excuse for why I hadn't reviewed this band yet: because YES it actually has taken me this long (since they invited me to their launch party back in December, OOOPS!!) to figure them out; or yeaaah okay mostly it was just to fuck with them; but mostly because it's seriously taken me this long to figure them out and whether I actually liked their shit or not. For The London Road Poets are essentially TWO bands rolled into one with two wildly different "personalities" split into two different sets. In the first half they sound rather like a super cheesy Top-40 power ballad: like Shannon Noll, Bryan Adams and Jimmy Barnes teaming up to cover Mumford & Sons (although admittedly they do a bang up job of it). Or rather like seeing Russell Crowe's Thirty Odd Foot Of Grunts in a suburban pub on a Wednesday night... and yes it's totally my "dream" come true too! (moments before braining myself to death with an ashtray). It's all throaty, husky vocals from Chris-Lian Lloyd, lingering refrains, sweeping odes to long roads less travelled, all that alt country/folk/70's beige rock whatever-the-fuck (or in other words The Eagles "Hotel California" has a LOT to answer for here) and me seriously reconsidering my whole "I'm not drinking/I'm a REAL journalist!" schtick I'm running with tonight (please no pause for irony). But moments before I DO reach for that bucket and snorkel and that medical disclaimer, to sign my organs and a good part of my longterm memory away...? they then kick into their second half and I gotta say: my mind is just that teeny tiny bit blown! It's the maddest, grittiest hit of journeyman blues. It's freaking Joe Cocker at his Woodstock best meets Bruce Springsteen jamming. It's a pack of cigarettes serenading a whiskey bottle at a truckstop diner in a sandstorm while you drop acid with Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider. And it's no facsimile, it's a downright "demon possession" in just how well they've got the stage presence nailed. And arguably you could say both "extremes" are merely two sides to the same coin with a tempo change in between... and it's merely a lifetime of my personal prejudices here rearing their ugly head and Shannon Noll's (and all those other cock knockers') fault for ruining the slower songs. Because sooner or later this band WILL floor you like a tonne of bricks (especially in that one song I got on video... SHIT DAMN!!) you'll be standing their arms crossed thinking "this is shit, this is shit, this is shit" but then it'll be like "SHIT YEAAAH!!" because it happened to me here tonight! And once they reconcile all that into the ONE signature sound to call their own? we might have a serious contender on our hands (or at the very least 2011's pisstaking answer to Lyla). Yup that's The London Road Poets. It's a wanky band name I know, but sooner or later they'll grow on you something fierce!
IVORY (***) - Which then brings us to our second act here tonight; or at least it did after twenty odd minutes of me spacing out on the satin sofa cusions (which is admittedly one of the best things about The Promethean: they're total mad bandits for luxury style furnishings), sifting through upteen dud photos on my camera for swift deletion, stifling a yawn to near abouts falling asleep (as short of The London Road Poets who fled the fuck out of here the minute they finished tonight I didn't actually know anyone in here... weird!) only to be handed a sweet bribe in the form of beer from Two Way Radio's singer Tim Vann (duuude that's so not needed, but thank you!), only to almost fall asleep again (clearly from all the excitement), only to think "fuck this!" hitting the bar for a can of coke to pry my eyelids open again. Only to return to front of stage just in time for our second act here (YIPEEE convoluted introduction!) only to discover someone seated in one of the tables a few metres away (but in a plum spot) has got his iphone out filming the entire show and unless I want to flail about like a demented albatross in front of him he's now blocking me, which is of some concern because by the look of him he's possibly a parent here to see his kid's show tonight and it'd be rather rude for me to interfere (I mean who the hell am I riiight!?) and now the band's requesting the mixer turns down their stage lighting to a dull glimmer!? AWWWW CRAP!! Yup this is Ivory and clearly this ain't the best night for me to be writing a review on them, because they actually have a LOT of promise; at least once you get past just how near impossible it is to photograph any of them in the swirling inky blackness before me, besides their lead singer (which after "researching" it on facebook, myspace, unearthed and reverbnation I can only say with any kind of certainty is named either "Byron" or "Rob") the same who's apparently celebrating his mother's birthday tonight: she's in the crowd smiling and waving (awww isn't that nice?) next to his dad with his iphone filming and wait, why the FUCK aren't I at Producers Bar getting howlingly drunk right now rather than deal with this!? oh that's right I write a "music blog"... AAAAHAHAhAhAHA!! *ahem* Yup Ivory DO have a lot of promise as much as it's kinda tricky to figure out WHY. Their sound is somewhat ambiguous: like equal measures 90's UK indie and prog metal, or rather like a handful of other bands recently surfacing in the Adelaide scene like Red Apparition and Popy Jane who are equally ambiguous in sounding like equal measures Radiohead and Tool; or perhaps like post grunge Silverchair circa "Neon Ballroom" to "Diorama"; as much as in this instance you could also throw in everything from first album Coldplay, Muse, Verve and The Stone Roses and still not get any closer to unravelling what makes them tick. But at the very least they do form quite the entertaining stage dynamic. In both guitarist/vocalists "Byron" and "Rob" (or perhaps its the other way around!?) making a dab impersonation of early 90's Thom Yorke: the former with the spastic facials, the latter with the rat's nest hair and how that plays ever so colourfully against their bassplayer "Brent" who's fapping about with about as much cartoon intensity as a Wes Borland from Limp Bizkit. Yup ambiguous riiight? quite like the name "Ivory", seriously what the FUCK is that about!? but there's something about them, their mix of sounds, as undefined as they are (and let's just ignore the fact that "Rob" barely looks any older than twelve... yiiikes!) that might actually lead somewhere. Give them a year or so and who knows what they might come up with!?
LIKE KITES (**1/2) - Which brings us to an even "harder to define" third act, as much as they give us a whopping big clue on where they're coming from, when in the final quarter of their set their lead singer Thom Gardiner announces they're gonna perform a cover of his favourite band: "it's an Australian act, sing along if you know the lyrics, it's by Gyroscope"... and that pretty much sums them up doesn't it? *cough* I mean, yeaaah perhaps I should elaborate a bit further? Like Kites are an indie rock band. Yup, an indie rock band. In as much as that tells you absolutely shit-fuck-all on what they really sound like, as much as me listening to them for the full forty five minutes of their set tonight doesn't tell me much EITHER... save for the fact that they're comprised of guitar, bass, drums and lead vocals; and they like to thrash them loud. But if I would hazard a guess? I'd put them in the same ballpark as say British India, End Of Fashion and a whole host of other high rotated Australian acts on Triple J that I've long since forgotten the names to (anyone?) just as if I went ever so slightly crosseyed and squinted real hard I could almost imagine them sounding like an homogeneous mix between Placebo and Kyuss or rather like a diet coke version of Kasabian mixed with Queens Of The Stone Age. Hmmm. This isn't to say they're bad at it, in fact quite the contrary. They're brilliantly adequate as "musicians". From Thom Gardiner puncturing a lung (or two) belting out his lead vocals (equal parts Josh Homme and Brian Molko). Both him and Josh Marks thrashing their guitars like revved up chainsaws. Law Stapleton pulling mad shapes on bass like Lurch out of The Addams Family. To Paarth Sharma absolutely killing it on the drums. Duuude they have all the urgency, the focus, the mad aggression and the fuck-off intensity you could ever ask for in spades and shovels beating you upside the head... it's just that they're missing a little something I can actually relate to like a personality or a soul. I mean to me? it just sounds like "beige" being blasted a full volume, like an indie rock factory preset, like a whole lot of shouting in black and white... or perhaps I just need to listen to more Gyroscope? aaaah who the fuck knows!? Like Kites. Think of them as the musical equivalent of Budweiser: they've got all the alcohol and if nothing else they'll STILL get you drunk, but I ask you... where is the flavour!?
TWO WAY RADIO (***) - And now before we review our headlining act for their whizzbang EP launch and the real reason why I found myself here in the first place (ie: they invited me and silly me I accepted, maaan I SO GOTTA STOP DOING THAT!!) I should probably mention the music that's been playing between bands, and the not so teeny tiny part it may have played in tonight's proceedings. I mean granted it's not something I'd usually mention, or would ever deem relevant to any ongoing live band discussion; just like it's entirely pointless telling you now that the entire venue here, we're talking the entire Promethean Theatre (capacity approximately 200) is serviced by only TWO public toilets (one handicapped, one women's) and a single serve sized men's urinal, I mean pfft... who gives a fuck riiight!? (unless more than two people desperately need to take a crap at the same time... TRIVIAL DETAILS!!). Because arguably YES this "music" was just a stock standard shuffled playlist running straight off of someone's ipod (possibly the mixer's?) save for the fact it was ripped straight out of 2005. And I'm not just talking a few fluke tracks give or take a few years, I mean the entire selection sounded like a Triple J "Hottest 100" compilation circa 2005: Lily Allen, Bloc Party, Gorillaz, you name it (save for that one song by The Drums from 2010 and that Rage Against The Machine number from 2000?) but THAT wasn't the weirdest part. On more than one occassion (in fact I counted at least 7-8 times that it did this) it kept randomly playing shit off of The Killers "Hot Fuss" album. I mean we're talking almost every other song to the point it thrashed both "Mr Brightside" and "Smile Like You Mean It" TWICE. And the reason why this is so relevant? is because everytime I listened to a band tonight and attempted to access my mental "thesaurus" in finding 3-4 bands they kinda sounded like (standard procedure), my brain would keep coming up with The Killers, only reject it outright, only to come up with The Killers AGAIN, and then I couldn't think of anything else; it totally gave me a mental block. Which then brings us to our headlining act playing here just now, and yup... I could've sworn they sounded like The Killers. I mean obviously they don't, I mean pfft... that's just fucking crazy talk!? But quite like Like Kites before them (and to a certain extent Ivory) they had such an ambiguous "indie rock" meets "prog metal" sound to them I was hard pressed to pin anything else on them to describe it. Still, to their infinite credit? they really DO make it work "wonders" for them. I mean suuure they might sound kinda MOR (and then some!) but they're so blissfully inoffensive with it, effortlessly well rounded in both songcraft and performance they're musical "neurofen" of the best possible kind... and yeaaah that kinda sounds like an insult, but I SWEAR it's totally not! (okay maybe just a little!) but at the very least they DO possess two totally redeeming qualities that may STILL win you over. Firstly it's in Tim Vann's smoother than smooth vocals: like all the best bits of Josh Homme and Brandon Flowers combined, to the point you could "tranquilise" a rhinoceros with it and make it dance a tango, fuck it... you could practically serve his voice drizzled on pancakes, and I swear peeps would go crackfiends for it. Secondly they've got this ONE song "Dusty Ride" with this wacky breakbeat backing and Mariachi "high noon" guns blazing vibe to it: like Queens Of The Stone Age somehow teamed up with The Propellerheads or The Chemical Brothers and it kills like NOTHING ELSE... and I mean that literally, because every other song in their setlist practically sounds like a wet fart by comparison. In fact they should totally take that one song, ditch the rest, form an entirely new band around it and then we'd REALLY have something special. Yup that's Two Way Radio. They may not be the mad "discovery" I was hoping for... but hey, I'll still take all the good I can get!
11:55PM - And so here we are end of the show: and yeaaah it's a bit weirdly anticlimatic isn't it? especially considering it's meant to be a launch party and whatnot and wait... aren't there meant to be like balloons and streamers and shit exploding from the walls and ceiling and bubble machines and inflatable beachballs, and free candy, and wait... did I mention all the free candy? HA HA HA NO SERIOUSLY, WHAT KINDA CRAPSHACK PRODUCTION IS THIS!? Well as much as it WAS a momentous occassion for everyone involved, ooooh believe me there were goosebumps maaan! (no really, I totally counted at least three of them, WOOOO!!) and I so ain't underselling this shit in the slightest, it was just... well? let's just paraphrase Tim Vann from Two Way Radio when he helpfully reminded the crowd near the end of their set that: "the bar will be closing at 11:30PM tonight, oh and we're meant to leave by midnight because it's Good Friday tomorrow! YAAAY!!" and leave it at that... but now that you mention it? yes this bar IS a lovely shade of green and I SO wish I could've spent so much more time getting acquainted with it... DAMN YOU ZOMBIE JEBUS!!
And yeaaah screw looking for a punchline... I've got binge drinking to attend to!
12:17AM - Now obviously said task was easier said than done on this "Good Friday Eve" as most licensed pubs and clubs and whatnot: quite like The Promethean that I'd just left moments earlier, and in a "dangerous state" of sobriety I might add (and I don't quite get why I did that either!?) were forced to close at midnight, or nearabouts to it, or at least that what I was assuming save for a few notable exceptions like Producers Bar here. WHY Producers bar you might ask!? well actually there were SEVERAL reasons (completely unrelated to the fact I might occassionally scam drinks for free in publically endorsing this "retarded-arse rape dungeon" here on my blog? pfft... noooo!).
Namely spending some quiet time in peaceful contemplation of their cigarette butt "zen garden".
Or catching the last two songs of Ride Into The Sun's set tonight before they leave for Melbourne for the next week and half: as word is... not only are they hitting up The Tote, The Espy and The Brunswick (on April 28th, 29th and 30th respectively... so if you're in the neighbourhood on those nights like totally go check 'em out and shit) but they're also recording songs for an upcoming EP. And as much as you might think I'd follow that tidbit up with a pisstaking joke at their expense? (seriously take your pick maaan I got hundreds of them, squeeeeee!) yeaaah screw it... best of luck to them I say. No really! after what I've seen from this band in the past three months from both their live shows and their latest shit awesome EP "Goodbye Hipster, Hello Reality"? (which you can totally download/stream live here... and I highly recommend you do so) they can do no wrong! In fact they may be the closest thing the Adelaide scene has to a "sure thing" right about now; unless of course their guitarist Todd Lawrie forgets to pack his "lucky stripey shirt", in which case they're totally screwed (case in point: you ever seen him play a big show without it? EXACTLY!!).
But more for the fact, that if ever you DO want to embark on some serious binge drinking oblivion? (and let's face it "celebrating" Easter long weekend when you're not the least bit religious serves no other purpose BUT) well it's utterly pointless doing it on your own isn't it? in fact it's downright depressing! even more so if you do it with complete strangers (aaaah so that's why I didn't do it at The Promethean... professionalism be damned!). Nope ideally you require just the right inspiration in the hauntingly familiar: and I knew for certain that Producers Bar would be crawling with them tonight, and if the sight of these two in particular don't drive you to drink? THEN NOTHING WILL!!
12:49AM - And whoaaa shit... that seriously didn't take long now did it?
1:16AM - "Tabby Sexpanther": as much as that's not her real name, as much as I've long since FORGOTTEN her real name (as she's changed it so many times on Facebook) goosing it with a spastic novelty two-dimensional oversized cardboard bottle of vodka. HA HA HA I KNOW RIIIGHT!?
1:17AM - Todd Lawrie from Ride Into The Sun: amazing us all with his near "supernatural" ability to fog up a whiskey tumbler (as much as I assume it was actually originally filled with a gin & tonic) and then spell out the letters "S P O Z" around the circumference using ONLY the power of his mind (or perhaps the power of his mind to move his finger after breathing all over it) as much he told me that this photo totally wouldn't work in illustrating his shit awesome ability in "arts and crafts": because the only way we could see all four letters in their entirety would be to somehow use a full surround "three-dimensional camera", or perhaps take a series of photos as he's rotating it and make it into an animated GIF and HA HA HA no really, you're still reading about this shit... WHY!?
1:20AM - And that's Byron counting the bar takings at the end of the night, and yeaaah now it's just getting awkward... I mean is there anywhere else we can keep drinking tonight? ANYWHERE!?
2:10AM - Well obviously there wasn't, if I find myself here in Hepatitis J's: a little under an hour later, with Larissa "Larry Pisser" Perry from 20th Century Graduates, passed out in a booth with a drink on her head... as much as granted that IS amusing us all to no end right now, but we tried EVERYWHERE maaan! And by "everywhere" I clearly mean whichever pub was within the laziest proximity: namely The Exeter and then only because we were really desperate... The Austral, only they were both closing up. But no really, how brilliantly does she balance that drink on her head?
And oh no, crap now we've woken her... and what's that? oh nooo, nooo, the hair totally suits you!
And yup it's only THEN that she suddenly remembered she has THESE in her possession. Now obviously I'm not at total liberty to discuss what they were exactly: only that they took the night in a totally unexpected shitcrazy direction, LIKE SHIT JUST WENT TOTALLY NUTS!! or perhaps in an all too predictably "drunk" direction (nooo it can't be alcohol!) or perhaps we all went our separate ways, caught taxis and went home instead? but only after I walked all the way to Hindley Street (because that way it's totally $2-5 cheaper) only to discover that Red Square was still open for business... only to catch that taxi home, because seriously even I'm not THAT desperate; and we never spoke of this night ever again (except now in me posting a blog about it). Awesome huh!?
