DEAD POPES OF THE VATICAN + TONY FONT SHOWLIVE @ ENIGMA BAR / Friday December 14th 2007
Up until this very moment I had spent all of Monday night (and 1/2 of Tuesday) killing myself stupid writing up this week's episode of Spoz's Rant. It was brilliant. It was epic. It was nothing short of the ultimate send off in poetic sentiment I'd always dreamed of before fucking off into the sunset and posting nothing but wordless "summer hiatus" blogs from here to 2008. But, as the more observant would notice, the crucial word in this paragraph is the qualifier "was". What is (thanks in no small part to a keyboard fuckup and a badly timed Blogger "autosave"), is now "was". Nothing but 3 simple letters "ing" and no way for me to Ctrl Z the fuck out've it. You could not understate the volume of expletive erupting from my head at this moment.. but as they say, the show must go on. So thus we present what would've been the entire summation of my Friday night's antics, reduced to something I coughed up in the last 5 minutes. Enjoy! :)
This is me photographing Enigma Bar from various different (and apparently arty) angles. This is me (in my ever so subtle way) taking the piss out've how vacuous a bar can look at 9PM on a Friday night. Rest assured though, given a few hours this place will be crawling to the ceiling with all manner of knuckle dragging simpletons shrieking along to AC/DC and Van Halen. Oh how we love Enigma Bar and it's way of continually reminding us of how little difference 2% in DNA from a chimpanzee makes when you pile a few dozen drinks on top of it..
and I would've written something entirely too clever for my own good here to caption this photo, but since I'm still desperate trawling through Google in effort to "recover my lost blog post, you arse-sucking goat fucking waste of a terminating virus vector!" I didn't come up anything. Still, doesn't that guitar look ever so pretty basking in the pre-show Enigma low lights.. aaaaaaah :)
BACK$EAT ROMEOSBeing one clearly (and infamously) prone to obvious lowbrow insults with no actual follow up research (or observational skills) clearly this entire gig review was going to boil down to three things. 1) "hey look there's a dollar sign in the band's name, ooooh! how fucking clever!". 2) Pete "The Stud" (ie: the Pleistocene throwback lurching about on guitar with his rattyarse dreds) may very well be the most fuck-off ugly beast ever to stradle a lead guitar in an Adelaide live band, period. 3) this band is ever more awesome a fuckoff punk band because of it.
UNCUT WHITE NOISEI only hastily jotted down one note of observation on my phone's SMS whilst listening to this second band: "Freddy Mercury gets done for manslaughter, fights himself out've jail using nothing but a picnic fork and a malformed spatula". I laughed myself silly for the remainder of their set over how infinitely clever I was and as a result failed to actually come up with anything intelligent to summase what the fuck they sounded like, or anything equally as clever about the rest of the band. Oh well, they're a greasyarse punk band from Melbourne, what do they care? *cough* Still thanks to their lead singer hurling a lurgie into the air at the beginning of their set (only to accidently land square into my eye) they sure made for one fuck of a first impression.
TONY FONT SHOWThanks in no small part to some arseclown behind the decks fucking with the house lights, all my best laid plans in capturing some seriously badass epic shots of this band has been reduced to something resembling a motion blurred pink stain. Fuckers! Then again, this IS Tony Font Show we're talking about here. Seriously, haven't I done enough damage already? Inconclusive notes (as jotted in SMS drafts on my phone during their live set) make reference to: 1) Matt the bass player's increasingly more than passing resemblance to someone you cross to the other side of the street from in effort to avoid giving your spare change and cigarettes to. 2) how much Rich on guitar makes for an all too disturbingly attractive woman (see their new promo shot on their
myspaz if you don't believe me.. pheeeuuuuuwww!). 3) "Things To Do In A Ditch", why oh why did they remix that fucker with that stupidarse pause in the middle that trips you up into the foldbacks whilst attempting to kill yourself moshing to it? 4) and I'm wasting this much space writing on a Tony Font Show set again, for what reason? Oh yeah.. they fucking rock!
Of course, no Tony Font Show gig is ever complete without a brief roundup of all the evolutionary throwbacks you're sure to find in increasing and threatening numbers fronting the stage. As we present everyone's favourite Enigma Bar speciality: "Romper Stomper", doing his very best to piss off everyone in a 5 row radius with his excessive Iggy Pop dance moves..
A more than healthy showing of the metal scene Neanderthal fraternity, here giving their mad props of gratitude with unintelligible squeaks, grunts and simple hand gestures..
Oh look, it's a wee little leprecaun lady sprout up from the beer garden to have a festive jig.. how cute! wait.. *ow* FUCK! NOT IN THE EYE! NOT IN THE EYE!! AARRGH YOUUU BITCH!!
and people still wonder how I managed to go through 4 cameras this year?
Short of being poledanced on my Morgan the space-cadet from Belittle League, being the frequent walking bullseye Matt Hayward's "Central Deli Band" or having a fatwa called on you by one infamous female bass player from an up and coming Adelaide punk band *cough* Tony Font Show is not a band to be appreciated by the bookish or easily deckchair foldable: as Lee their lead singer in Sideshow Bob hair will frequently attest to each and every gig after serial offender Jimmy the twizzle stick goes for the howling takedown..
and people wonder why their lyrics are so disjointed after this many head injuries? sheeeiiiit! :)
DEAD POPES OF THE VATICANYup, who say's you need to be yet another Adelaide band with an entirely too long 4 word name, when you could be an Adelaide band with an even longer and entirely unnecessary 5 word name. Dead Popes Of The Vatican. Yup, that's all I could come up with tonight. Damn! that joke is even lamer than my entire opening gambit of writing a blog around my previous blog getting erased. Hey kids, watch me jump this shark over and over! Seriously, I've been writing this shit for over 2 years now? Fucking hell man! Shouldn't I be dead by now? Come to think of it, considering the veteran pedigree of THIS band, shouldn't they ALL be dead by now!? (there, see me turn it all around at the last minute? ooooo!). Ben "The Refrigerator" Gel from The Gels on lead vocals, Paul "Pablo" Vainickis (from the mother of all headkickers Muscle Car) on guitar, Lynda "Dedrick" Beliah (from Blow Up Betty) on the bass and that all too annoyingly familiar scene stealing twit Nick "The Dick" Hadley (formely from Angelik) beating himself blind on the skins? Yup, if all of recorded music history proves one thing, it's that Audioslave was an entirely shit band getting in the way of a Zach De La Rocha reunion and Dead Popes Of The Vatican are anything but. My entire inability to write a coherant review as the direct result to drinking myself to death in Viking salute to this band speaks for itself.. FUCK YEAAH!
and in closing, we present these shitty flash photos in homage to lead guitarist Pablo, hastily tacked on at the end after I spend an entire set in vain attempting to get a focused shot of him thrashing out like a tornado in all too dreaded "dark patch". Oh well, it could be worse, lets all be thankful I actually managed to last an entire show here without capturing that omnipresent "EXIT" sign that hovers stage left from the drumkit.. geeeez that thing pisses me off! FUCK!
Just as predicted lo so many hastily written paragraphs before and thanks in no small part to a grand showing of how Darwin's "Origin Of The Species" can play in reverse, Enigma Bar is soon overrun with a veritable sneeze guard smorgasboard of knuckle dragging simpletons shrieking along to AC/DC and Van Halen. My 2% blood alcohol level bids me to join them.
Where it's all fun and games and licking of the windows and falling about the floor, till yet another one of my ghosts of "shoddily written gig reviews" past comes back to haunt me in the form of these 2 grinning Witches of Halfwitt: Rebecca and Anna "Toxic" from a cheerfully fartarse Adelaide punk band who's name conveniently
escapes me.. *cough* Seriously what is it about Adelaide punk bands that readily invites all manner of ridicule? One of these days I'm gonna wake up hanging upside down in an abattoir witness to a whole lynch mob of 'em.. aaaaah, I can only but wish! Why else would I continue to kill myself each week, if not for them! :)
and so as my rapidly dwindling IQ slips over the horizon once more, we bid farewell not only to Enigma Bar: host to yet another shortening of my lifespan, but also to an ever so fitting (and laughingly unprofessional) close to yet another marathon year of Spoz's Rant. 2007: so many stories to tell, so few coherant memories! Let's all do it again next year! WOOOOOO! :)
Previously on Spoz's Rant:
Control + Raucoustra 
