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...
THE SECOND ANNUAL SPOZ'S RANT AWARDS / PART THREE ADELAIDE MUSIC SCENE / January - December 2009
Yup it's THAT madenning time of year again, that "blissfully" mindnumbing purgatory around Christmas to New Year's: when next to every single one of our "favourite" music sites (and maybe even a few of the shit ones) abandon all pretense in providing us with any new original content, and instead provide us with all of these fucked up end of year "best-of" retrospectives. Why? because EVERYONE LOVES a "best-of" retrospective don't they!? OOOOH SHIT YEAH WE DO!! With the possible exception of every one of you nitwits out there rolling their eyes at me right now if it weren't for the fact that you're simultaneously too bored to care. YEAAAS!! I know, believe me I know! I FEEL YOUR PAIN!! I mean shit do we really need another lamearse "best-of" retrospective? Do we really need another half baked opinion on the year that was? Do we really need another overlong "awards ceremony" to encapsulate it all (and especially from someone as wilfully ill informed as me!?) FUUUCK NO!! WE WILL NOT GLORIFY HALF BAKED NOSTALGIA!! WE WILL NOT PUBLISH A "GREATEST HITS" COMPILATION SIMPLY FOR THE EXCESSIVE WEB HITS!! WE WILL NOT STOOP TO THIS ASSININE LEVEL OF SELF CONGRATULATING DEPRAVITY!! Which is why without a hint of irony (and especially after all the endless accolades and death threats we received from The First Annual Spoz's Rant Awards last year) we're back for more THIS YEAR with "The Second Annual Spoz's Rant Awards"! Yup this is LAST installment. You've already read this same introduction two times before, it's time to put you all out of your misery as we bring you the very best of 2009!
DEMO OF THE YEAR WINNER: HUMBLE BEE "WHEN I SHOULD BE SLEEPING" Save for the most nerdly of music enthusiasts and obssessive freaks, the demo recording is the rarest of rare commodities. Frantically burnt onto plastic platters, transferred through bits and bytes, changing hands on a daily basis between radio stations, record labels and live venues: most of them almost never see the light of day, many more are simply binned on delivery. It's almost as if they're a running joke in the music industry since nobody apparently ever "listens" to them. In every sense they're spam, they're fast food, they're trash personified, they're NOT designed for public consumption. Rough and ready, half baked, laughingly disorganised, works in progress with little disregard for mastering, mixing or packaging? fuck maaan it's almost an insult to consider them worthy of more than just a fleeting glance! But there ARE exceptions to the rule, those who truly make their humble demo into nothing less than a homespun masterpiece. And if ever you manage to track one of them down duuude? aaaah no shit it's like Christmas Day! it's like being part of a secret society, it's like the blueprints to the Death Star itself; or yeaaah perhaps I'm just a tragic scene geek for this shit (I mean fuck I DO write my own music blog ferfucksake!). Either way if you scored any of THESE sweet demos in 2009? you'll know just like I do that they were worth their weight in gold! Take The Honey Pies demo for example. I forget where I dug it up exactly (best bet is to either hit their myspace or piece it together from the three songs available on their Triple J Unearthed) and I'm pretty sure that coverart ISN'T official either but you can't deny the genius that went into it. Every song here is a self contained masterpiece of warmth and character, but the lyrics that went into their acoustic number "Sold My Soul" especially are nothing but gold! Then there's the Like Leaves demo. Distributed free at just a few of their live shows (I believe I snagged mine at the Wolf & Cub launch) it's only two tracks: "Swordfight" and "Fruit" stuffed into a folded brown paper bag (I shit you not), but both are so mindblowingly epic it's like a whole album in miniature, you can't help but want more. But the ultimate statement this year was truly made by Humble Bee, so much so you could almost accuse them of cheating with their demo (if only in name) "When I Should Be Sleeping". Recorded in various bedrooms, mastered haphazardly, burnt onto CD, packaged with inkjet printing, and then released as a FULL TEN TRACK ALBUM (with accompanying launch party!?) it's rough hewn quality only makes the "confessional" singer songwriter content within all the sweeter to experience. No shit! with all the warmth of a handwritten letter, they turn all of their whimsical quirks into strengths of character that only but win you over again and again. I mean seriously, can we still consider this a demo if it's THIS freaking good or are they just fucking with me here? Either way I quite simply couldn't ignore it. Hunt it down, fire it up at 3AM (quite as the title suggests) so clunky, so simple, so utterly brilliant!
SINGLE OF THE YEAR WINNER: LYLA "ALL DRESSED UP AND NO RELEASE" A lot of so-called industry experts love to claim that the future of music is ALL in the "single". Their logic being that ever since people started downloading everything illegally back in the late nineties and playing it in shuffle mode on their winamp, itunes, ipods, iphones or whatever-the-fuck: nobody had the patience for albums anymore. I mean who cares right!? who has the time or the attention span to last all of forty five minutes in a world where Mafia Wars and Farmville exists!? YEAH FUCK THE ALBUM MAAAN, LET'S GO FREAKING NUTS!! And thus in this brave new world of "consumer convenience" (which they often claim is nothing but a dead certainty) we'll simply experience all our music in nothing but teeny tiny soundbytes, in white headphones, three to four minutes at a time at 99 cents a pop, or even better if we bought the ringtone, or better yet as a lucrative Guitar Hero or Rock Band download. Which I think we can all agree is nothing but crap and nothing more than a last ditched effort by the industry as a whole to extort yet MORE money out of LESS content (in what is clearly nothing more than a dying business model that's well past its use-by-date.. you fiends!). No really! the only reason we DON'T "listen to albums" anymore is because YOU the record labels fucked them up in the first place with upteen pissy pop artists YOU MANUFACTURED, padding out two or three of their disposable "hit singles", with little more than musical styrofoam. FUUUCK!! Still if you CAN ignore all the cheesy commercialism (or Triple J high rotation) that goes into them? you can't deny all the awesome impact a "single" can make when it hits at exactly the right time in the right place and makes you want ever so much MORE. And with these three examples this year? they did all that and then some in 2009! Take The Amcats for example. For the longest time, me and next to everyone else around me pretty much dismissed them as little more than a goofyarse clone of The White Stripes. But with both of their seven inch singles this year ("Jang Jang Robot" arguably being the most memorable: as it was simply the first) they finally captured all that volatile energy found in their live sets, distilled it into two catchy as fuck singles, and proved they had their own thing going (only to be made yet more awesome by being pressed onto vinyl with added b-side blues jams? SCORE!!). Then there was Fire! Santa Rosa Fire! After spending most of 2009 cooking up their debut album: we knew they were onto a really good thing when they released their third single "Witch House". A single which not only followed up on all the promise offered by "War Coward" but also hinted on something so much more: the promise of an upcoming album release that'd be well worth the wait. And then there was Lyla with "All Dressed Up And No Release". And OOOOH SHIT that single was a mad buzz wasn't it? I mean the first time I heard it (and captured it on video) back in November 2008 I just couldn't get rid of it! Its howling chorus and dirtyarse rock vibe drove me nuts like nothing else, so much so that I was actually shocked it took them until September THIS year to finally unleash it on record. With a shitcrazy release party and an awesomely tripped out b-side "It's All Mine" to accompany it (complete with psychedelic swirling sitar) it truly transcended the simple notion of a "single" and became ever so much more: a diabolical beast that just would not quit without a silver bullet between it's eyes and an accompanying album to satiate it? Yup just like all singles should!
EXTENDED PLAY OF THE YEAR WINNER: LADY STRANGELOVE "FREAKQUENCIES" Aaaah this is the shit right here isn't it? THIS is what the Adelaide scene is all about: producing EPs. We're the best at it, no shit it's all we ever DO around here! We breed hundreds of new bands each year solely for this purpose. It's the best thing ever! We get them playing live in all the shit dives for anywhere between eighteen months to three years just to humour them. All those tours to Melbourne and Sydney!? it's just for show! The minute they release one or two of these cherished EPs? FUCK 'EM ALL!! break that shit up, shuffle them around, form new bands and then START MAKING YET MORE EPs!! YEAAAS!! Every month or so I keep adding yet more of them. I simply don't know where the fuck they keep coming from either: I keep finding them in my pockets, in the post, screaming at me from inboxes and jumping out of trees. It's insane! They're piling upto the ceiling, it's like an elephant's graveyard, they're driving me to distraction, I simply can't get enough of them, no really! don't EVER stop sending me EPs, WOOOOHEHEHAhAHahAHA!! Yup that's the humble EP alright: an Adelaide "institution" in EVERY sense that I clearly BELONG in one after witnessing so many of these rat fuckers being spawned in the past decade or so. And as such I like to think that I'm a rank authority on what makes them tick. OOOOH.. trust me I know! Still trying to decide between a quality release and another one you THINK is quality but is in actual fact a flaming turd covered in tinsel? Then you've come to the right place! For THIS right here is the cream of the crop for 2009. Take Bing Goes To Monaco and their debut EP "Inter-species Back-up" for example. Produced by the infamous Matt Hills and featuring the finest harmonies of both Freya Adele and Anny Duff (and a guest appearance by the omnipresent Ryan Manolakis on drums) it's five songs of nothing but pure bliss! It's like spending a breezy Sunday afternoon spacing out under dappled trees watching the clouds whizz by. Beaming smiles, fields of green, bucolic bliss, lazy picnics, blissfully tipsy on fine wine!? OOOOH SHIT YEAH!! And if you're just about to doze off there (don't worry I mean that in GOOD way!) there's always The Killgirls and their self titled EP to provide just the shitcrazy jolt of energy you need! It practically explodes in your face like a jumbo bag of pop rocks jammed into a Pepsi, laced with crack cocaine, welded shut and shot into a microwave. Or in other words like all the best bits of Nine Inch Nails crossed with the Klaxons, The Presets, concentrated into five sharp blasts of dance carnage and losing none of the intensity? No shit! it's anyone's guess how it hasn't killed anyone yet; it's THAT fucking insane! And then if all that awesomeness still ain't enough for you? you can't go wrong with the long anticipated second release from Lady Strangelove. From beginning to end of THIS five track odyssey it never ceases to amaze me or twist my brain into an exciteable oscillating pretzel over JUST how trippy it is! It's like the perfect collision point between shitcrazy psychedelica and hammering electronica. And there's so much colour, range and texture to explore in here too! From the opening bomb blasts of "Hypnotized" and "Dunes" to the cruisy space jams of "Childs" and "Universe" to the shifting breakbeats of "In Meltdown" it's a full 360 rollercoaster mad jam you'll wanna take again and again! And ever since I got it two months ago!? believe me I'm there maaan, I've never even left! Aaaah Adelaide is there anything you CAN'T do in an EP form!? in 2009, not fucking likely!
ALBUM OF THE YEAR WINNER: LEADER CHEETAH "THE SUNSPOT LETTERS" What you're witnessing here almost NEVER happens in the Adelaide scene: the album release. I mean fuck you've read all that shit above: we produce EPs maaan, that's what we do! Why? because almost none of our bands survive long enough to produce albums, that's why! (yeaaah ok with the possible exception of the Hilltop Hoods who've produced like a BILLION of them but seriously, what do we care about Aussie hiphop!? BWAAAAHAhAhAHAhA!!). Yup as many of you may be well aware: albums are ridiculously expensive to make, even at the best of times, especially if you want to do anything useful with them (like get signed to a record label) and it's a whole lot worse if you don't have a fulltime job to finance it too (and even if you do? how can you ever find the time for it!? FUCKING HELL!!). I mean they're needlessly complex, hopelessly arduous, they take months, even years to do justice, they will eat up your patience, your sanity and your very will to live, and by the end? you may not even like what you've produced simply because every single song you've written SINCE THEN sounds so much better!? DUUUDE!! I mean no wonder we produce so many EPs. Who want's to go through all that!? NOBODY!! And yet despite all that? albums STILL get made!? WHOAAA!! Weirder still maaan? In 2009 we couldn't get enough of them! No shit! Just in June alone we launched nine of them. NINE ALBUMS!! I mean this is Adelaide we're talking about ferfucksake, the touring speed bump of Australia!!? HOW IN THE HELL DID ALL THIS HAPPEN!? Yup I don't know how: whether if it was simply a fluke or whether we're actually living in a golden age all a sudden (and you'd think I would've got a memo about that too) but either way? WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE!? I mean there were just SO MANY awesome albums to choose from this year it was freaking retarded. So much so I feel like I'm insulting each and every one of you now by NOT praising all of your hard work as nothing short of a crowning accomplishment; because it IS maaan! Still with all that said, for all the wealth of albums that got released, three definitely stood out for me as the best (although believe me it was a close call!). Take No Through Road and their third album "Winner" for example, it was everything the title suggests and so much more (even if it's a little ironic that it only got "nominated" in this award). I mean just their second song alone: "Party To Survive" was like a freaking anthem for my life, and the rest of it? just nails that inebriated groove song after song like the morning after one FUCK of an alcoholic fender bender. Part berocca, part nasty hit of KFC, nicotine, and hair of the dog all rolled into one: it stirs you into battle again and again even if you only have one leg left to stand on. And then there was Quiet Child's "Evening Bell". Arguably a long time coming (and by a "long time coming" we pretty much mean ever since we heard this band play in the first place) in only eight tracks it delivered nothing less than an emotional rinse out. Equal parts turbulent, melancholic, operatic, and contemplative, you seriously had to be made of stone and encased in a block of ice NOT to be moved by it. And then came Leader Cheetah's "The Sunspot Letters". This one completely hit me by surprise. No shit, I even remember when I first heard that debut single "Bloodlines" at 4AM on some blog somewhere (Who The Bloody Hell Are They?) and it just floored me. And then when the album hit? that combination of world weary and well travelled delivered in such richly golden tones: I mean shit I don't even LIKE "alt country" or all that wacky "Neil Young" crap (in fact if you ask them they don't like the comparison either) but I just couldn't stop spinning it regardless, I still can't, it's like a gravity well, it pulls you under and you can't help but wallow in it. And it's not just my favourite Adelaide album in 2009 either, it transcends all that shit, it's just a classic overall. I mean who knew that this crappy little city could produce all this? And yet here we are!? Awesome huh!
LIVE VENUE OF THE YEAR / WINNER: JIVE It's often been said that "you should work never with children or animals" (and especially not at the same time and ESPECIALLY not if the Catholic priesthood is involved). Which is not only "solid advice" for anyone who's ever worked in the entertainment industry; isn't that right Steve Irwin!? (hmmm.. too soon?) but it also rings true for many other life threatening professions as well (like say: working as an animal mascot at Disneyland whilst simultaneously hoping to keep both of your testicles intact). Which is why it never ceases to amaze me that people STILL choose to run live music venues (or weirder still? choose to open new ones!? WHOAAA!!). I mean when you stop to think about it, there's just so many variables that could possibly go wrong here. It's a balancing act verging on the impossible: between the choice in live band, the promoter, the mixer, the PA, the lighting, the barstaff, the crowds, the security, the overall vibe of a place, whether it's catering to indie, emo, metal, hiphop, dance or pop ("rock" what the fuck is that!?) and somehow hoping to make MONEY out of it!? Shit! no wonder so many pubs have pokies and DJs instead; it's just too much of a head fuck! Being a quality live venue, a popular live venue and a profitable live venue are NOT one and the same. In fact they're constantly at odds which each other, and most frequently flit between one hilarious extreme to the next (often on different nights of the week) simply to make ends meet. So if ever you encountered that perfect mix of influences out there!? count yourself lucky duuude! You're witness to nothing short of a miracle! And especially here in 2009? shit only got that much more fickle! In fact the only venues you could TRULY rely upon this year for any kind of consistency were the age old classics. Especially when all the usual suspects (who I won't dare name names) got way too ridiculously "fashionable" (read: hilariously shit) for their own good. Take The Grace Emily for example. Anytime it got too crazy out there? anytime my sanity was hanging by a thread!? THIS was perfect place to restore my humanity! There was just something about it maaan: it's richness of character, its shitcrazy knick-knacks, it's well worn furnishings and pissdrunk regulars that just felt like home to me! And as for the Jade Monkey? seriously has that place ever done me wrong!? Not just for playing host to the most ridiculously cheerful bartender in the music business: "Psychic" Zac (who just so happens to run the joint.. hmmm funny that!) but also because its relaxed atmosphere was just so utterly devoid of pretense!? HELL YEAH!! Ever since it opened it nailed that vibe, and it just keeps on rocking solid as ever! But the real surprise this year was Jive. No shit! I mean it was never a "bad" venue per se, it always had its curious quirks (not least of which its distinctive brand of "Soup Nazi" belligerent bartender and just how many "gallows" blues bands it seemed to attract) but thanks to stealing Matt Hills from The Ed Castle as their house mixer they "coincidentally" started pulling so many more quality live acts (and it's not like they didn't have their fair share to begin with!). I mean there were just SO many ridiculously awesome shows to choose from it's impossible to list them all. Not least of which: Tame Impala, Bluejuice and Philadelphia Grand Jury, Leader Cheetah (both times they toured), The Beards and The Woohoo Revue, The Fumes, Oh Mercy and Washington.. the list goes on! And it wasn't just the bands either: the lighting, the sound, the chilled out atmosphere (even with the occassional "hiccup") it all just came into balance like never before. No shit.. Jive, who knew? and yet we kept on coming back for more!? aaaah what's not to love!
NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR / WINNER:20TH CENTURY GRADUATES Yup right from the get go I knew ALL the nominees for this category in 2009 would be laughingly askew from what most of us would ever consider the definition of a "new artist" (and not just a whole bunch of "old artists" simply reforming themselves under a "new name"). I know, believe me I know! Clearly these rat bastards are rorting the system something fierce for the sake of their own overinflating egos (not naming names.. *cough* Alex Ciaravolo formerly from Lumonics *cough* you baaastard!) but you know what!? I'm perfectly ok with that. No really! Thanks to half the bands in the Adelaide scene breaking up all at once at the beginning of THIS year or the middle of last year (or at least it sure as shit felt like that!) this was the only way we could ever resolve the inevitable "talent shortfall" without having an unmitigated disaster on our hands. And thus I feel the need to profusely apologise to the following "legitimate" new artists who would've otherwise been in contention: Bing Goes To Monaco, The Giveaways, Jay Walker & The Pedestrians and Sincerely Grizzly. You were brilliant, each and every one of you, but clearly you didn't steal nearly enough former band members from Lumonics, Mr Wednesday, Soft White Machine, Swords, Tony Font Show or Zeta to qualify. I'm so VERY sorry, you never had a chance! And thus we present you with our ACTUAL nominees for this year: who for the most part look a lot like the nominees from last year, only under slightly different aliases. YEAAAS!! But don't ever think this reflects badly on them, pfft.. not in the slightest! It only makes them all the more fiendishly inspired! Take Cortez for example. By any other definition they're a shiny new band that almost immediately scored accolades for themselves this year with a powerfully accomplished combination of grunge, noise, artpunk and math rock. And if we didn't already know them all (save for James Hastings on bass) from both Mirrorline and Loemax back in the day? we would actually be pleasantly surprised by their steep vertical climb to greatness. Instead we'll simply just nod our heads knowingly and say "we told you so". Or what about Two Suns. Arguably a lot about them WAS "brand new" as they featured both the unknown talents of Ben Smith on drums and Dave "Smoking Man" Jones on bass. However they also featured the ever infamous Mathias Northway on guitar: who if we didn't already recognise him from Late Night Matinee back in 2007, would definitely recognise him as Mona Lisa Overdrive's serial gun for hire for most of 2008. Still for the simple fact that they could all combine to produce such blissfully profound psychedelia (ie: very much in the realm of Mogwai meets Massive Attack, Pink Floyd and Tool) easily qualifies them for head exploding levels of greatness. But the one new band here that REALLY made a "name for themselves" like no other in 2009 was undoubtfully the 20th Century Graduates. Featuring members from Lumonics, The Keepsakes, The Warsaw Flowers (and a few festive sprinkles in between) what was most inspiring about their new shit (that somehow made them even better than their old shit) was in just how spastically cheerful it sounded. No shit, they were seriously just the happiest damn band in all the Adelaide scene! Every gig they played, everywhere they went, they lit up the room with pure unadulterated joy. Even when they were stuffed into the impossible blackness of Rocket Bar and left to die (aaaah fuck I loved that joint!) they still couldn't help but beam ear to ear, they were THAT ridiculously awesome! They forged a "timeless" sound, they were an instant classic, they made indie pop infectious in the best way possible! 20th Century Graduates. Just like a mad blast of vitamin C and B12: hear them once and you'll wonder just how you ever lived without them!
ARTIST OF THE YEAR / WINNER:LIKE LEAVES And now at long last we've reached the final chapter. Oh yes! THIS IS IT MAAAN!! this is that one shining moment in blogging "history" that you'll be sure to argue over for days, weeks and maybe even months ahead, pouring over every iota of its "grand significance" to the Adelaide scene at large (which let's face it ain't all that much) as we present to you the one and only "Artist Of The Year" award! OOOOH FUCK YEAH!! Yup we all know the score here: this is the one award reserved every year for only the boldest and brightest amongst us all. The ONE band above all else that I just can't fucking shut up about, and couldn't shut up about ALL YEAR LONG beyond the point of mental illness (I mean no shit!) because fuck damnit to receive an award THIS eye gougingly awesome!? they just had to be THAT skull fuckingly brilliant! NO SHIT!! But hey before we reveal what's clearly written in the heading here (oh and congratulations by the way.. you know, for what it's worth!?) let's give due credit to the two proud nominees here who in no way made my decision ANY easier in the slightest (in fact they only made it harder!). Take Leader Cheetah for example. I mean what excessive praise hasn't already been lumped upon them to the point of embarassment by the blogging community in general!? No shit duuude, they're like "The Animal Collective" of the Adelaide scene! For not only did they produce one of THE best albums in 2009, and an album that continues to reveal new riches everytime I hear it. But as a live act they were simply beyond compare! Like an open fireplace, ever inviting, ever crackling with warmth, character and golden hue everytime you heard them. And ever the modest too, in that everytime they played they always teamed up with some of the finest supporting acts to upstage them and make it an event to truly remember!? FUCK DAMN!! To be genius enough to pick The Middle East, Like Leaves and No Through Road, Cloud Control and 20th Century Graduates as your co-conspirators? I mean how can you possibly go wrong with that shit!? YOU CAN'T, that's how! (and to think all this genius came from two of the same idiots who used to be in The Pharaohs!? DUUUDE!!). And then what about Steering By Stars!? FUUUCK!! All those shitcrazy soundscapes cooked up on guitar, all those interweaving textures in keys, drums and bass, all that turbulence in vocals ranging from the seethingly malevolent to the soothingly introspective!? So utterly cinematic and epic! Fuck.. they even had a xylophone solo too! Arguably I could've just given them "New Artist Of The Year" and be done with it, but they SO quickly made a name for themselves in the Adelaide scene as an accomplished act in their own right, that most of us simply assumed they'd been at it for YEARS! And to think they're cooking up an album of such unbelievable awesomeness even as I speak!? SHIT YES!! And as for Like Leaves? I mean who DIDN'T see this one coming all the back to 2008!? There's just no way I can fault this band. Live they're an experience all to themselves. And their iconic sound? as much as I could easly deconstruct it into its subatomic influences: equal parts My Disco meets The Mars Volta and Josh Homme's "The Desert Sessions" (ie: think swirlingly dense but rhythmically articulate psychedelia) quite like Leader Cheetah and Steering By Stars before them they simply made it their own "unique shit". They were THE sound of "Like Leaves": a sound that simply fed your ears and made your synapses sing a symphony. A sound with so much range and depth, with each of these four musicians bringing so much character to it? I mean no shit, I just can't shut up about them to the point I sound like a fucking car alarm here but believe me they're just THAT kind of band! And if you STILL don't believe me!? watch the videos: realise they're just the tip of the iceberg and GO SEE THEM LIVE. You'll thank me afterwards! Oh and can someone please sign them to a shit awesome indie label already!? FUUUCK!! Enough said!
*Phew* I KNOW huh!? And yet I've STILL left so many people out here. Because let's face it this year wouldn't nearly have been the same without: 20th Century Graduates, ABlackwell, Admundsens Flag, Adrian Deutsch, Ambush Marketing, Alpen, The Amcats, Angelik, Angie Hart, Anny Duff, Antony Of The Future, Anya McNicol-Windram, Aphelion, Architecture In Helsinki, Artax Mission, Asteroid Belt, Avant Gardeners, Aviator Lane, Bachelor Of Arts, The Baron, The Barons Of Tang, The Battery Kids, The Beards, Ben Revi, Billy Bishop Goes To War, Billy Bob’s BBQ Jam Band, Bing Goes To Monaco, Blackchords, Bluejuice, Booster, Bronze Chariot, BrotherSister, The Bumblebeez, Buraka Som Sistema, The Burning Sea, Bushido, Bye Bye Mountain, Cheer Advisory Council, Cloud Control, Coerce, Colonel Kernel, Cookie Baker, Cortez, The Dairy Brothers, Damo Suzuki Network, Dangerous!, The Dark Lights Dead Popes Of The Vatican, Deadly Are The Naked, Deja Entendu, A Devil Amongst The Tailors, Double Handed, The Drones, Dukes Of Windsor, Elvis, Empire Vagabond, Endless Nameless, The Exploders, Fair Maiden, The FAK, Fear And Loathing, Femme Fatales, Fire! Santa Rosa Fire!, Foxx On Fire, From The Dead Sea, The Fumes, Galaxy Cat, Ghost Walk, Girl Talk, The Giveaways, God God Damnit Damnit, Grimey, Gunter & The Safe Word, Harry Freeman, Hey Fever, The Hold Steady, The Honey Pies, Hospital The Musical, Humble Bee, The Irresponsibles, The Impossible Quiche, Isle Of Vision, Jackson Firebird, Jay Walker And The Pedestrians, Jimmy & The Mirrors, Jon Marco, Jupiter Lead, The Keepsakes, The Killgirls, Kirk Special, Kittyhawk, Kytes Of Omar, Lady Strangelove, Leader Cheetah, Levitators, Like Leaves, Lost Valentinos, The Lucksmiths, Luke Eygenraam, Lumonics, Lyla, Marla Singer, Mathematic, Matt Banham, Matthew Barlow, Mayfield, The Middle East, Mike Radzevicius, The Mischief, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Mountains In The Sky, The Mourning Sons, No Through Road, Oh Mercy, Oh My Guard!, Pablo Libido & The Wild Robots, Philadelphia Grand Jury, Pimpin’ Horus, Pivot, PostDeathPost, Quiet Child, Radio Spectacular!!!, Robotosaurus, Roger That, Rooftops, Rook, Rory O’Connor, Saint Huck, Satan’s Cheerleaders, The Scare, The Scarlet Ives, The Sea Thieves, Shaman Son, Shame Spiral, She Said You, Shiloh, The Shiny Brights, Simon & Jenny, Sincerely Grizzly, Sir Gerbil, Squeaker, Steering By Stars, Stereolab, The Swiss, Swords, Sydonia, Tame Impala, Tantivy Fair, Teenagersintokyo, Temper Trap, The Thieves, Thomas Capogreco, Tiger Et Ghost, Tom Ugly, The Torrens, The Touch, The Tripping Lilies, This City Sunrise, Thunderclaw, Treetops, Trixie Plain, Two Suns, The Woohoo Revue, Uncle Chunk, Van Cleef, The Warsaw Flowers, Washington, The Waterslides, The Weevils, Willie McRae Band, Wintermild, Wolf & Cub, Young Hearts Fail, Young River And The Vultures Of Virtue, Your Motive For, Yves Klein Blue and Zeta. And then of course how could we possibly forget all YOU colourful characters out there in the Adelaide scene. No shit! Those who I otherwise would've given a "Photogenic Fuckwit Of The Year" award to (and we all know Simone would've got it for being the ongoing bane of my blogging existence) but hell? why celebrate ONE when we can simply celebrate you all! No really, stay being ridiculously awesome Adelaide! It's for YOU and my ongoing urge to get retardingly drunk that I keep coming back!
And so there we have it. It's been insane, it's been extreme, it's been one written missive after the other until I swear my head would explode. And now with this final paragraph it's done and dusted, dead and buried and gone for good: it's one whole year burning in a funeral pyre and sent sailing off into the sunset. YES!! So long 2009, bring on 2010. Something tells me it's gonna be huge!
