FRAUD MILLIONAIRES + POETIKOOL JUSTICE + BOHOEFFERLIVE @ THE CROWN & SCEPTRE / Saturday April 5th 2008
The Adelaide music scene, like many of its interstate brethren is a schizophrenic mess. It is never one cohesive entity, but numerous bickering siblings in a constant state of flux. You have your rock, your punk rock, art rock, pop, indie, geek, electro, emo, alternative, roots, acoustic, electronic, psychedelic, noise, avant jazz, funk, funk metal, prog rock and hiphop scenes. Each to their own haunts, each to their own choice in recreational drug. And just like highschool I've never been satisfied to pick one of these splinter cells and stick with it. I just don't fit in anywhere, I never belonge to any one sound, my tastes are never that narrow; I go everywhere, I flit between the extremes and I've gone slowly insane attempting to make sense of it all. Does this make me a part of everything, or apart from everyone? there's only so long I can put my ipod into shuffle mode before I begin to question just where I end and you begin. Each night it's different and tonight it spits me out here at the Crown & Sceptre: home to the hiphop and breaks scene. What madness will I uncover this night? and will I get out of here alive?
Usually you wouldn't find me dead in this hiphop scene. Not to speak ill of the music, I quite dig the music on the odd occassion, but of all the scenes, hiphoppers above all others are invariably the most likely to stab a rock photographer on sight. All puffy jackets, gang signs and concealed weapons, you haven't tasted pure terror until you dare encroach upon their territory. But the Crown & Sceptre is different. It's the gateway drug, everyone's invited to THIS party!
BOHOEFFER (**1/2)
myspace ::
Not to be confused with a Berlin built S&M torture device that resembles a sausage maker in everything but sinister function (ie: see Nine Inch Nails' "
Happiness In Slavery" and prepare to administer the eye drops), Bohoeffer are a barefoot blues and roots band, who's appreciation of will entirely depend on how much you either love or loath Xavier Rudd. Since I personally can't stand this hippy shit (hey, even I have my limits!) you may wanna add 1 or 2 points to the score to balance things out (as by song craft alone they're actually pretty decent). Picture a rich nostril flaring nasal whine, shuffling acoustic guitar, laidback surf grooves and broken yodeling about.. um.. whatever the fuck it is these type of bands generally sing about. Mix in some elements of Jack Johnson, Shannon Noll and John Butler beaten into a head concussion and you wouldn't be far off the mark. Although I admit I was doing my best NOT to pay attention to the music here; instead I was testing out a shiny new
firmware hack for my camera to combat the increasingly pitch black settings I seem to find myself in of late. How I would've managed to get any of this shit in focus tonight without it is anyone's guess, but I was quite happy with the results..
POETIKOOL JUSTICE (****1/2)
myspace ::
Aussie hiphop is a strange breed, quite distinct from it's American cousins. Whilst American hiphop is militant as fuck: banging bling, bitches, blunts and 40s, shooting both barrels off and blowing a load over the life and grime of the ghetto; Aussie hiphop is just happy to space out on the couch all day, smoke trees of weed, drink, fuck and party. Of course there are always a few exceptions to the rule; The Roots are some of the finest funked out shit you'll ever hear from the USA (you really can't beat hiphop with a live band), whilst Australia's "finest export" the Hilltop Hoods make me wanna take my own trip on the Bohoeffer suicide machine than ever submit myself to their brand of militant shouting "life is hard" gangsta shit (even with the Adelaide symphony orchestra in tow). Sure, it's not like I'm inviting a gang of stupidarse thugs in puffy jackets to knife me to death next time I walk through a Coles parking lot at 3AM, but seriously how badly off can you ever be if you're a white middle class kid living in the suburbs? FUCK! Thankfully, Poetikool Justice are just what we're looking for: the ultimate a-grade Adelaide hiphop party band. They're Beastie Boys "Ill Communication" with phatter riffs. They're Butterfingers, The Herd and Koolism throwing a block party down the street whilst your grandmother breakdances in the driveway. Nothing about this band screams "gun violence" and everything about this band screams "let's hire a bouncy castle!". Light one up, dutch it up and pass it around, this is a band that lives to puff its dopearse grooves all over the joint..
Of course this would've usually been the moment I'd usually throw in some tasty live videos but considering it was so ridiculously dark in here I could barely see inches in front of my face; at least from the len's perspective (hmmm I wonder if this hacked firmware can do something about THAT), this crowd going apeshit speaks for itself. Feel free to join in aaaanytime..
FRAUD MILLIONAIRES (****)
myspace ::
Quite like Bohoeffer before, your appreciation of this headlining act will entirely depend on whether you love or loath the sounds of The Cat Empire. If you love this kinda shit: feel free to add 1/2 a point, or if you'd rather be knifed to death by a pack of knife wielding thugs in a Coles parkinglot than put up with the engorged sinuses of Felix Riebl honking "Hello Hello!" then deduct 2 points. Either way I dare say it's entirely impossible NOT to bounce around like a retarded pogo stick to this junk, as Fraud Millionaires manage to be an all too addictive reggae, hiphop, funk act in spite of all your insane efforts to resist it. As such, comparisons to The Cat Empire are all too obvious (lead vocalist John Roast does have a knack for aping Felix's distinct sleep walking slur) but there's also hints of The Police, Bob Mali and the Stereo MC's thrown in for good measure. Like all reggae acts before them they're not really the sharpest tools in the box: most of their songs frequently devolve into random covers and familiar lyrical refrains of everything from Snoop Dogg to cartoon theme tunes done dutched up and dub style, but considering most of the audience would be way too blitzed out've their skull to care, it still works brilliantly. They're everything that's awesome about Adelaide being the Amsterdam of the south and every reason why our public transport system doesn't work as a result. I can't feel my legs and everything around me has gone all Spongebob Squarepants; and dammit, I like it!
1:48AM - Feeling suitably disoriented, doped out but endlessly euphoric from my trip south of the border, I originally intended to be floating face down the river Torrens after gorging myself retarded in a bucket of KFC by now, but ever so mysteriously I ended up at Jive instead..
Sometimes I suspect foul play for my constant channel surfing throughout the venues of Adelaide. Is it hypnosis, mind control, fluoride in the water supply or psychoactive drugs pulling my puppet strings from one extreme to the next? All it takes is one look at DJ Craig skulking behind the decks at Jive for our answer this time around: it's gotta be voodoo blood rites. Dammit! I knew I should've got ridden of this funky juju amulet. I mean shit, why else have all the rubber chickens ever so mysteriously vanished from this venue? bird flu? pfffft!
Still no matter what paranormal forces may draw us in, or where we may come from; given nearly enough beer to stop a rhino, we'll all invariably gravitate to the same places by the end of the night. Oh yes, the missing link between us all is alive and well in THIS monkey pit tonight!
Hmmmm yes, I really do aspire to the giddy heights of the human condition here, don't I?
3:13AM - By this point of the night; not only do I realise that despite our difference, I share at least 99.5% with most of the people here and at least 98% DNA with a chimpanzee, but chances are that I also share at least 20% DNA with whatever's swimming at the bottom of this urinal..
3:33AM - Having returned to the moment of the Big Bang, quite like the closing sequence of 2001 Space Odyssey with all the stars whizzing past my eyes (and suspecting that last beer may be to blame) I find myself moments later (but quite possibly more than an hour later) wandering dazed and confused amongst the emptying streets in search of where the hell my brain went. Who am I, where am I, where did i come from and where the fuck is my drunkarse going to?
And so, suitably lost and found amongst the schizophrenic mess that is the Adelaide music scene, I took my supermarket trolley and I rode myself home; wherever the hell that home may be.
Previously on Spoz's Rant:
My Disco + Swords + Skeletons 
