:: Monday, August 27, 2007

THE GELS CD LAUNCH
LIVE @ WORLDSEND / Friday August 24th 2007

As you all should know well by now, SPOZ's RANT is no fartyarse lightweight when it comes to the insane bleeding edges of rock photojournalism. We don't just sit on the sidelines in our easy chairs with our press passes, waving our telescopic dildos in the air, pissing into each others pockets all night long. We thirst for blood. We thirst for chaos. We throw ourselves screaming into that eye of the storm and we damn near KILL ourselves again and AGAIN to provide YOU dweebs with your weekly dose of live music entertainment! This ain't no tea party, this ain't no bowls tournament, this ain't no teddy bear's picnic.. ooooh no kiddies, THIS IS WAR!

As such to not only survive but thrive in this apocalyptic battlefield of the ever present, we need the ultimate in badass ninja weaponry. Since March this year, that weapon of choice was this 7 megapixel SONY Cybershot DSC-W7O: a camera that I liked to call "Frisbee" for it's amazing aerodynamic qualities (and not so much for it's amazing crash landing abilities)..



but alas, through NO fault of my own *cough* this camera has now long since dead..



and so it came to pass that a new chosen one was called upon to take it's place in service to Spoz's Rant. It was no easy decision (I was almost tempted to pick the new bomb-proof Olympus instead) but after much lengthy research I finally decided upon this: the CANON IXUS 950 IS. I won't bore you with the details (which you can read about here or here) but in short, it IS the beast and can easily beat up YOUR pissyarse camera ANY day of the week!



I only just bought this camera tonight, rushed it home, ripped open the box, threw the battery onto the charger for 2 hours and then fled out the door the minute the little light went green. Yeah I know I probably should've read the manual, I probably should've prepared my gizmo a little more for the face melting carnage it was about to receive but with absolutely NO time to spare and the madness ever beckoning over that horizon, what else could I possibly do but charge headlong into oblivion with it in tow? And so here I am at the Worldsend for round 1 of the apocalypse: The Gels' CD launch and more oldskool CBGB style punk carnage than you could possibly hurl a molotov cocktail at. May the technicolour Jebus have mercy upon our spleens!

Note: all apologies for the following utterly slackarse gig reviews (and subsequent drunkeness) you are about to receive. Clearly this night I'm way too distracted by my shiny new camera ;)



DEAD POPES OF THE VATICAN

First band of the night is Dead Popes Of The Vatican: a smelly old Adelaide punk super group featuring fat bastard Ben from The Gels, pixie stick Lynda from Blow Up Betty, some other unfamiliar hairy git on the guitar and one all too familiar Nick Hadley (formely from Angelik) on the drums. In a fortune cookie review I could claim they sound just like The Ramones mixed up with Grinspoon, but since I spent most of this set wondering what all the crazy buttons on my new camera did, there's fat fucking chance I was paying ANY attention to them and there was a very good chance I was just making shit up on the spot. Still from what little I heard, as pissyarse beer fueled punk aggression goes, it was still pretty damn solid.











ALL FLIGHT CREW ARE DEAD

Next up is yet another Frankenstein supergroup called All Flight Crew Are Dead (or AFCAD for short). They are virtually indistinguishable from Dead Popes From The Vatican in almost every single way (hey look, it's Nick Parker from Angelik!) except for a few brief shining moments in the middle where they remind me of all the brilliance 90's Greenday fucking a chainsaw. Don't get me wrong though, I really quite like them in that utterly disposable punk kind've way (although again I'm still too busy fumbling around with my new camera to pay ANY attention to their set). It's at this point I'm then further distracted when a friend of mine tells me that she's since spotted over 7-8 Ramones t-shirts in the audience tonight (and one Mach Pelican t-shirt) so in hindsight, I could probably just shout "Oi Oi Oi, Lets Go!" over and over, smash a beer bottle against my forehead, call THAT a gig review and you'd still be happy.








THE GELS

Up next is the "headlining" act, The Gels. Somewhat satisfied now that I actually can take photos with this new camera without making a total dick of myself, I finally pay attention to that ever present screaming in my ears that sounds vaguely like what normal people call "music". This is The Gels, they sound just like Nirvana's "Bleach" album if Kurt Cobain was still alive, 20-30 years on, living homeless on the streets hurling trash cans and screaming abuse at random strangers, only to be dragged out of retirement by the rest of the band to play a reunion concert whilst strung out on goon. As such they're equally as shambolic as they are metronome punk precision and although they're ripping off most of The Ramones back catalog (just like every other freaking band this night), they still do it oh so brilliantly! (in fact they almost give those Japanese psycho's Mach Pelican a run for their money.. yeeeeouch!).











THE CHEVRON WHORES

Suprisingly enough, despite it being The Gels' CD launch and their supposed moment of glory, it turns out they're NOT the final band for the night. Weirder still, this last "headlining" act isn't even punk. Instead we're greeted with The Chevron Chores, a touring wank rock band from Queensland flip-flopping on stage like fish out've water to a rapidly dwindling crowd of punk rockers who'd rather meet oblivion at the bar than to subject themselves to this madness. Imagine mix between Guns N Roses, Van Halen and The RollingStones at their most cliche and you could possibly see why (although bonus points definitely go out to the badass name). I'm fucked if I could figure out WHY the hell they're filling the headlining spot for someone else's CD launch (all the way from Queensland no less) but hey if you can get past just how silly it is for them to be playing a beer fueled punk night like this, they actually aren't all that dodgy..









Still, we all know that I'm not paying any attention to the The Chevron Whores tonight (gee, I'm such a professional rock photojournalist aren't I?), as I'm soon joined by these all too familiar serial offenders idiots who, drawn quite like moths to the flame, proceed to assault my new camera with a whole host of these drunkarse mugshots..



and since I'm equally beyond retarded myself.. fuckit why not join in? ;)





*cough* since clearly all shred of journalistic integrity has since left the building, it's time we follow suit and flee into the first available taxi towards the Cranka to meet our oblivion head on..



as we round out the night with all the usual alcohol fueled retardation you've come to expect..







Aaaaah the Cranka at 3AM, could it get any lower on the evolutionary scale than this?



and thus, we bring to a close yet another classy Friday night of live music insanity and alcohol fueled depravity. What crazy adventures await my new camera in the future? Will the CANON IXUS 950 IS outlive the SONY DSC-W70? Will it outlive me? Will it gain self awareness, threaten to take over the US military and destroy the world in a post apocalyptic cybernetic battle for supremacy over planet earth? Who the fuck knows!? Stay tuned and find out! :)



Previously on Spoz's Rant: An End Has A Start

:: Spoz 11:16 PM |
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