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 BATTERY KIDS + THE KILLGIRLS + RADIO STAR ALBUM LAUNCH PARTY @ JIVE / Friday June 11th 2010
Aaaah winter! what's not to love? well FUCK duuude where do we begin? It's impossibly cold, dark, depressing and about a million and one other increasingly grim particulars that are liable to put you and just about everyone else around you into a foul fucking mood, especially if you're a habitual smoker and work a soul destroying nine to five job (and gee aren't I so glad I ain't stuck with either of those asinine afflictions.. PHEEEUW!!) and now I kinda wish I never brought it up in the first place. No shit! when's spring already? not for another eighty one days!? AWESOME!! hand me that shotgun and let's paint the walls and ceilings a spastic shade of crimson red with all our happy thoughts! WAAAUHAHAHaHAhAHaHAHAhAHaHA!! *Ahem* still.. all drastic interior decorating aside, this season does offer us ONE saving grace (especially if we're stupidly insane enough to run a live music blog) in winter just about everything goes "quiet" in the Adelaide scene.. YEAAAS!! I mean sure, it may only happen for a few weeks but when it DOES? I swear it's the most beautiful thing in the world! Last year we got hit with it "bad" in July, and oooh it was the worst! what with all the eight hours sleep I was getting on a regular basis and all the free time I had to take care of all the trivial crap like "earning a living" (until I realised I had no actual "employable" skills) and catching up with friends and family I hadn't seen in years (until I remembered why I lost touch with them in the first place) it truly was a blessing in disguise! And this year? oh I'm SO looking forward to it too! I'll finally get to install that digital set top box I bought waaay back in February (which I've since been using as a novelty paper weight), watch all those wacky TV shows I keep missing out on (I hear good things about "Breaking Bad".. it's a sitcom right?) I might even get into some serious vacuuming (no shit! friend of mine saw what my bedroom had been reduced to a few weeks back, totally freaked the fuck out and bought me a dust buster.. true story!). Of course none of that is likely to happen anytime too soon: especially not THIS weekend when there's SO MUCH INSANE SHIT GOING ON that I've resorted to hiding out in Urban Cow instead: rocking back and forth in foetal postion and screaming till the pain stops.. but it's still nice to dream isn't it?
But of course there IS another good reason why I'm at Urban Cow tonight, completely unrelated to the fact that I've gone completely batshit insane over the prospect of covering yet another epic LONG weekend for this blog without my whole head exploding (and hiding out in the one place short of a library, office complex or a church that no one would ever think to find me) and that would be for "Fräuleins Orchard": their shit awesome art exhibition they've got upstairs. Excited yet? pfft.. well you damn well SHOULD BE! They've totally got whizzbang postcards and everything!
And once you get past all those postcards: remarking over how wonderous the stone work is that went into the plinth that holds them aloft on the stairwell (I know riiight?) or better yet find yourself talking to the two members of Radio Spectacular!!! for a good ten minutes about whatever-the-fuck incomprehensible between gibberish and nonsense until you realise you're standing in the WRONG FUCKING STORE and Urban Cow is actually next door (hiiilarious!) you'll be sure to find a wealth of wonder on display here. Featuring art by Ruby Chew, Peta Alannah Chigwidden, Anna Creasy, Joelie Croser, Georgia Gabrielle, Elisa Mazzone, Naomi Murrell and Katrina Weber (and yes those links do lead to more of their works) in a wide range of mediums from painting, illustration to jewelry in a rich cornucopia of swirly girly expression.. I mean shit duuude what's not to love!?
Now obviously I'm not showing ALL the works on offer here: as that would kinda spoil the point of you getting off your arse and seeing it for yourself (and I highly recommend you do so too), just as this pissy little "show and tell" here hardly ranks as a review either. I mean fuck duuude, what do I know about art critique!? (short of completing four years of a Visual Arts degree at UniSA which proved emphatically that I should never go anywhere NEAR a drawing board or easel ever again if I know what's good for me.. YEEEOUCH!!) but it does make a nice change of pace from all the fuglyarse bands you keep seeing each and every damn week doesn't it? OH YOU BET IT DOES!!
It's open til Monday June 28th, upstairs Urban Cow, and if you don't know where that shit is: it's on Frome Road off Rundle Street, just around the corner from Rhino Room.. only a little further down towards North Terrace so you don't end up in a dress shop like I did for ten minutes at a time with a clueless expression on your face. No really it's totally awesome, I'm totally going back for seconds next week (as admittedly I spent most my time here taking photos for this fucked up blog instead of taking any notice of it) or better yet if you're well financed wage slave into blowing wads of cash about? some of it would look totally awesome on your walls too! (or at the very least buy up one of those coffee mugs downstairs that looks like a cartoon possum's experiencing an exploding orgasm on it, I'm sure they'll appreciate you for it). Aaaah fuck I love art! And am I just saying all that because one of the artists is a cute bartender at Supermild? pfft.. of course not!
THE AMCATS (***) myspace :: Which brings us to our first act for the night, the first of FOUR I might add, I know it's like you can almost hear the blood clot exploding in my brain as I write this.. except as we all know I killed mine off years ago in writing all these asinine reviews, so we'll battle on regardless shall we? (brain damage? what biarn dmagae!? WAAAUHAHaHAhAHAhAhAhA I NEVER HAD ONE TO BEGIN WITH!!). Which is why I'm ever so "overjoyed" to start the ball rolling with THIS band, The Amcats. Yup The Amcats truly they need no introduction to anyone who's ever read this blog before, the punchlines are likely well formed in your head; believe me I know, I've used them all up already! So much so in fact I've even done that "joke" about me using up all the OTHER jokes already and now I'm completely fucked for ideas.. FUCKED!! I mean what the hell do I even write about for an entire paragraph now so you can all skim past it under the pretense I actually had something new and insightful to say!? NOTHING THAT'S WHAT!! I mean don't get me wrong they're an awesome band and all, they've had their shining moments on stage, they've crafted some shit hot tunes with a debut EP and two seven inch vinyls to show for it (and more on the way!) and I know we're all thinking it, but duuude they're The (Fucking) White Stripes for $5.. I mean c'mon, what's not to love!? Their drummer Renee Renee Andrighetto could totally battle the SHIT out of Meg White and win without breaking a sweat, she's awesome maaan! (actually that doesn't say much, Meg White is pretty much dead weight even at the best of times.. but it's worth pointing out regardless!). But for all the good things going for them, and hell they've got that telepathic stage dynamic of theirs down to a fine art by now, it also could be said they've fallen into a bit of a comfortable "rut" with it too. You see with The Amcats (and tonight's performance is the perfect example of this) we can see just WHY The White Stripes went completely bonkers a few years back and released that wacky glockenspiel record just to "shake things up". Beyond a certain point it is actually possible to run out of ways of making a two piece blues band consisting of nothing but guitar and drums sound "fresh and exciting". Weird but true! I mean granted they're not quite "Mona Lisa Overdrive" in serial sameness yet, and I did JUST see them play almost the exact same setlist last week so that MAY be a contributing factor (and if this was your first time tonight? yeaaah you'd probably love the shit out of it) but we can all see the signs can't we? watch as they bash out a few catchy singles intersperced with "loose psychedelic jams", watch Shane McIntyre let loose his ridiculous chihuahua yelping accompanied by a whole lot of aimless guitar distortion, all that chugging progressions and Renee's pounding four four drums; rinse repeat ad nauseum.. I mean am I the only one stifling a yawn here? FUUUCK!! They've been doing the SAME THING for three years now. THREE YEARS!! They NEED some variety maaan, any variety to broaden the sound beyond JUST ANOTHER PSYCHE JAM. And I dare say when I saw Renee doing backup vocals on a song tonight I got a little too excited for my own good thinking they might go somewhere with it.. could you imagine it? But no there's something a little worn out with this "winning formula", it's like they've settled into their own private conversation/courtship ritual on stage and none of us are in on the joke. And yes I feel like a bit of a bastard in saying all this shit, I love these freaks, but can you help me out here!? TRY SOMETHING NEW!! ANYTHING!! I know you're good for it, surprise me! The Amcats? yeaaah, let's just forget I was even here. Or better yet next time try swapping places or something!? FUUUCK!!
RADIO STAR (***1/2) myspace :: Which brings us all "expectantly" to our second act hoping THEY'LL get this party started; while our first act ask the proverbial "waiter" for their check, reach for their coats and rush out the door (but hey, it's not like you can you blame them really, they were the first band up ON A FOUR BAND BILL!!) as we're presented with Radio Star from Melbourne.. YIPEEEE!! Yup you may remember them as the "blink and you'll miss it" opening act on another four band bill for The Shiny Brights EP launch back in March, you may remember them for coming up with such lyrical genius as "YOU MAKE MY HEART BEAT!! YOU MAKE MY HEART BEAT, YEAAAH!!" (oh yeaaah they're totally the next Bob Dylan aren't they!? BWAAAHAHAhAHAhAHaHA!!) or you may remember their hilarious (failed?) attempt to bribe me for a "good review" in following by gifting me a set of throwing darts.. ones which I could've sworn they stole from The Ed Castle front bar (and no you can't have them back, I'm still using them on my life sized poster of Jupiter Lead with dick and balls scribbled all over their foreheads) wait where was I again? oh yeah! writing up yet another idiotic live review for an interstate band who are clearly suckers for cruel and unusual punishment.. WAHOOOO!! (I know, they so gotta be glad they spent nine hours driving here FOR THIS aye?). Still to their credit, they DO make for a slightly better "impression" this time round. I mean sure many of the same songs from before STILL make an appearance in their setlist tonight: including the aforementioned dumbest song ever written outside of The Black Eyed Peas. And they're still kicking a retarding signature sound that's equal parts The Wombats meets Jimmy Eat World and Panic! At The Disco (egads!). But I dare say amongst all that shit there's also a few promising signs here that they're actually moving onto better things that DON'T simply involve a lowest common denominator in soundtracking softdrink endorsements, reality teen dramas for MTV, and me gouging out both my eyes screaming if ever they hit Triple J high rotation (just say NO Richard Kingsmill.. JUST SAY NO!!) and for wildly unsubstantiated proof of this? you need only look to the live video I captured tonight. Yup word is they wrote THIS "masterpiece" in the last week or so, and as much as it pains me to say this.. I actually kinda "like" it. I KNOW!! I never thought I'd say that about Radio Star either, but they may be onto something here! Think maybe LESS The Wombats meets full frontal lobotomy now and think more The Kaiser Chiefs meets the Klaxons and The Mystery Jets with a little bit of The Cure and Split Endz thrown in, and maybe we've got something that's still no less tragically scenster but almost "respectably" so. No really, there's actually more depth and range to these songs now, more texture, more space to breathe between all the spastic choruses. And coupled with their already well established knack for hammering out hideously infectious trigger happy party jams in a yelpingly unhinged falsetto; ones that are endlessly rife in angular guitar riffs, dit-dot "space invader" synths and pendulum swinging rhythms? and there may actually be hope for them yet! I mean fuck duuude if Fire! Santa Rosa, Fire! can find artistic integrity beyond all their years of ripping off covers of The Rapture and Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back", who knows what these idiots might accomplish in years to come!? Radio Star. Yup as much as their set tonight may be a sign of the impending apocalypse, this is me giving them one tentative thumbs up!
THE KILLGIRLS (****1/2) myspace :: Which brings us to our third act.. and I can't be the only one in expressing this sentiment in seeing them here tonight but FUCK DAMN DO I MISS THIS BAND!! No shit, ever since they threw their "Missing Disco" EP launch party at Queen's Theatre last year: a launch party the likes of which I dare say haven't been equalled in head exploding splendour SINCE (short of perhaps that "teeny tiny shindig" The Shiny Brights threw at HQ this year) it's like they've all but "vanished" from the Adelaide scene. I mean it's anyone's guess where they've been IN ALL THIS TIME, or what the hell they've been doing with it!? I mean pfft.. what? you tell me they've played a few "pissy little shows" at The Ed Castle and Rocket Bar with The Blow Waves (featuring members from former 90's band The Mavis's no less), played a whizzbang show at Arcade Lane, did a spot at this year's Fuse Festival "Explode" showcase back in February, another in support of the Adelaide Roller Derby stoush between the Mile Die Club and The Road Train Rollers barely two weeks ago (and you should've seen the photos too, fuck damn it must've been epic!) and that opening party for this year's Adelaide Festival Fringe performing to literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF SCREAMING REVELLERS accompanied by an African choir and dancing astronauts in tutus no less? FUUUCK OFF!! I mean yeaaah admittedly I've just answered my own question there, THEY'VE been everywhere in the past year or so and where the fuck have I been? following Sincerely Grizzly like they're The Grateful Dead all a sudden!? BWAAAHAHAHAhAhAhHahAHA YOU EIDIOT!! (but hell can you blame me duuude? that Josh Calligeros is a freaking genius I tells ya.. A GENIUS!!) but still, as much as my priorities have been severly out of whack with all the "festering garbage" I must've been occupying my time with, FUCK DAMN DO I MISS THIS BAND!! And in tonight's performance I can't help but slap myself silly over that fact again and again.. it's been too damn long duuude! For make no mistake, The Killgirls are the Adelaide scene's best kept secret. And I don't mean that sarcastically like they SHOULD BE A SECRET, like they're better off brushed under the carpet, but more like it's an absolute crime against nature that nobody outside of a small incestuous circlejerk of music geeks and freaks have even heard of them yet (no wait.. is this mic still on? HELLO!). Seriously it's fucking retarded how they could've gone unnoticed for this long! In stage presence alone they're utterly uncompromising, they're like two invisible hands throttling your neck, SCREAMING down your throat and working your adrenal gland like a punching bag until your only primal response is to FUCK AND FIGHT everything around you with a fist punching air as if the very survival of your species depends on it.. YEAAAS!! And in the songs they cook up? they totally back that up too.. I mean I dare you NOT to hunt down their EP and not feel the sudden diabolical urge to build and pilot your very own Japanese mecha through the Adelaide CBD screaming unholy vengeance against anyone and everyone that dares oppose you! I mean shit maaan it's almost embarassing to see them shoehorned into a teeny tiny stage like Jive here tonight. In widescreen apocalyptic scope they're nothing less than a stadium rock band swatting F-22 Raptors out of the air and belching fifty foot columns of fire to rival the output of the sun. They're a mythological leviathan smashed into a specimen jar no bigger than a tic tac container and you only want them to break free.. BREAK FREE DAMNIT!! BE THE OUTRAGEOUS SCREAMING LUNATICS WE WANT YOU TO BE!! NEVER SAY DIE!! KILL ALL UNBELIEVERS!! AAAUAUAUAUGGHHH!! *ahem* yeaaah I know, I'm clearly getting way too carried away here, but it's hard not to when you're witness to a set like THIS. Calling them "Nine Inch Nails skull fucking The Prodigy while The Presets take notes" barely even covers it (but feel free to quote me on it) THEY ARE THE BEAST. The Killgirls. I don't need to give you any setlist details of what they played tonight, or why it was so fucking epic, you needn't even ask duuude! You need only ask why you weren't here to witness it for yourself. FUCK. YES!!
THE BATTERY KIDS (*****) myspace :: Now if this was any OTHER night in Adelaide, we could simply go home now satisfied in a job well done: the Killgirls absolutely massacred everyone and everything in sight, there's nothing left standing but the foundations, a tower of ash and a multitude of shadows blasted into the walls and ceiling, like GAME OVER MAAAN!! (short of you know, having to identify all the "dental remains" afterwards.. YEEEOUCH!!). Except there's STILL the trivial matter of our headlining act to attend to and their goofy little album that they're launching with the impossibly long title: "We're All Hanging While The Rats Gather Around Typewriters And Write Ridiculously Overlong Run On Sentences That Couldn't Find A Full Stop Even If It Beat Them Repetively Over The Head With It.." yeaaah I know it's not REALLY called that, but do I really need to mention the REAL title again!? FUUUCK!! And I know what you're all thinking in following: "really? who needs an album launch from these shit weasels when there's so many other (arguably) more legitimate and artistically integral acts in the Adelaide scene, ones who haven't even coughed up a single, let alone an EP yet, who deserve so much more public exposure.. I mean c'mon The Battery Kids? GET FUCKED!!". And yes I hear you, I really do! And yes I COULD be like Pitchfork here and pick this apart with pliers and tell you in no uncertain terms WHY it would've been so much better if we could've traded THIS album with an album from Lumonics circa 2008 instead (aaaah could you imagine!?), and hell I could even be NME and come up with the hilarious tagline: "ever wanted to know what it would be like if Daniel Johns teamed up with My Chemical Romance and covered Muse? NO!? WELL GUESS WHAT THE BATTERY KIDS JUST DID!!". But then we'd be missing the whole point here wouldn't we? The Battery Kids never aspire to be high art, in quite the same way a late night falafel joint never aspires to be fine cuisine (especially not with all the rodent faeces they might sprinkle in there.. metaphoric or otherwise) but if we're nearly drunk enough we'll still flock to it like flies to shit regardless because it fulfills a need maaan.. or perhaps "need" is too strong a word but you get the point right? (just as they're nowhere near as embarassingly trashy as The Touch.. THANK FUCK!!). And yes I HAVE heard the album, maybe even more than once.. willingly, and duuude it's fucking hilarious! It's as dumb as a box of hammers too (and about as subtle) but it does exactly what it sets out to do: entertain in the loudest STUPIDEST way possible until you can't help but piss yourself laughing and speed your way into an emergency ward in riotous "celebration" of it. And as for why I'm defending it so vehemently all of a sudden? well in a roundabout way not only does it sum up perfectly WHY their launch party was so successful tonight: as let's face it The Battery Kids are no Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes or Battles; they're not music to endlessly contemplate and deconstruct in search of higher meaning like we're writing a masters thesis ferfucksake (but I'll be damned if I don't get awarded with an honourary one regardless!) but they DO make brilliant music to do yourself bodily harm to; and that's just what we did tonight.. OOOH FUCK YEAAAH DID WE EVER!! Just as I also was so utterly preoccupied with surviving all the above that I only ever wrote ONE word into my phone in lieu of "comprehensive notes" to effort to encapsulate it all: carnage.. yes "carnage". So it's just as well I took all these photos to cover for it otherwise I'd be completely bollocksed for coming up with witty commentary now wouldn't I? NO SHIT!! The Battery Kids. In the simplest of terms you just had to be here, but let's see me attempt to fill in the blanks regardless shall we?
First thing's first, when it comes to a launching an album (or whatever the fuck in a single, EP or seven inch vinyl) it helps to have a gimmick to "sell it". Obviously it's not always imperative, as if you're a band like Steering By Stars or Like Leaves you could probably get by with nothing but a few choice candles and a video projection for your bass player to throw shapes to and STILL get a standing ovation.. but let's face it this is usually the exception to the rule. For instance Sincerely Grizzly threw in a performing dickhead in a bear suit for THEIR EP launch, The Shiny Brights did likewise with a gesticulating twit in a tiger suit then threw in a shitstorm of hysterical nitwits wearing indian headresses just to disguise the fact they didn't have any actual "songs" to launch (pfft why are you looking at me like that.. we all know it's true!), while The Keepsakes simply have Jon Wignall. Or if you want to be really bold with it, you could do what Fire! Santa Rosa, Fire! did and laughingly call your album launch a "single launch" with accompanying film clip unveiling, only to follow that up with an hour long "album launch" encore three months later at Rocket Bar (and that's JUST how I'm gonna remember it too!). And as for The Battery Kids? well we all know they love to hammer that wacky Tim Burton apocalyptic "end of the world" schtick to the nth degree riiight? So just to really nail that point home!? aaaah fuck it why not throw in a bunch of go-go dancing zombie girls to accompany them on stage. See? what's NOT to love about these freaks!?
Better yet, when they're done frantically gyrating on stage to one of your shitcrazy 60's style instrumental, simply throw them into the audience to whip everyone up into a furthering frenzy. And yes I believe my facial expression here perfectly sums up the desired effect too, either that or I just squeaked out a nervous fart in response only to discover that it came out "three dimensional" but hey isn't that what all the best launch parties are about? head exploding hilarity followed by full blown bodily dysfunction? NO!? hmmm just as well I brought a "spare pair" then!
And speaking of toilet humour (and stooping to such for cheap laughs) there's always the "secret weapon" you can unleash in the form of your bass player. "WHOAAA FUCK you don't mean..!?" Yes I know.. this CAN be a risky move, as invariably your bass player (unless they're of the token "cute indie girl" variety) is a total fucking liability even at the best of times: you're constantly keeping them on a short leash, keeping them away from the beer rider, the groupies, your girlfriend, any kind of sharp or flammable object.. otherwise they'll be pissing up walls, dry humping everyone in sight, chasing parked cars and burning the whole joint to the ground (in other words need I mention Jon Wignall again!?). But when it comes to launch parties? aaaah fuck it let those maniacs fly free maaan! let them be the downed Black Hawk Helicopter you know them to be! Or in the case of Tom Krieg from The Battery Kids here: give him his very own wireless bass guitar and set him loose.. YEAAAS!! For not only will he charge into the crowd with giddy abandon (and attempt to dry hump everyone in sight) but he'll also be seen moments later "surfing" them all too. I mean seriously, short of an expensive dry cleaning bill and weeks of therapy, how could you go wrong?
And once you've sown all those "seeds of dissent", and with just the right amount of alcohol abuse (ie: see next to every other headline raging in the Sunday Mail as it relates to Hindley Street for "pointers") and the crowd will simply take care of the rest. AND HOW!! I mean don't get me wrong, I've seen my fair share of chaos and carnage at Jive before *yawn* and have the diminishing grasp of short term memory to prove it (lest we mention all the shitcrazy antics at The Keepsakes album launch or every time Philadelphia Grand Jury have toured here.. YEEEOUCH!!) but this, THIS I swear, was on a whole other level of the ragingly stupid.. duuude it was like the best shit ever!
I know riiight? and here I am without my crash helmet!? DUUUDE!!
Now MOST launch parties would simply be content to leave it at that, in the hopes their Medicare would cover the shortfall (and for cheap laughs? be sure to check out the video around the 2:10 mark and you can spot lead singer Shannon Juvan clocking Tom over the head with his guitar.. SCORE!!). But clearly The Battery Kids don't know when to quit, clearly they're never intending on playing Jive ever again because then they take it up ANOTHER level again. When someone, I forget who exactly (but I'm assuming it was Bowl Lipson on keys.. that rat bastard!) uttered those fateful words: "yeaaah let's just get everyone up on stage". Now in his defense he didn't really say it all that loudly, he kinda blurted it out off mic by "accident" hoping nobody would hear it in passing. Unfortunately a good fifty of us DID (and being the shit hot "journalist" that I am I'd be remiss if I didn't join them) resulting in all this idiocy you now see before you.. awesome huh?
Now I should mention in passing, hours earlier when I attempted to sneak my name on the door through Tom Krieg on facebook (as you do when you're a cheaparse bastard like me.. HA!), he jokingly replied with "5 stars commin up!" thinking it'd be a downright certainty. And as much as that DID actually happen? yeaaah I was really hoping that WOULDN'T happen, I mean could you imagine how much THIS shit is going to go straight to their heads? GUH!! I mean just look at Shannon here all shit grinning giving me two thumbs up, like he KNOWS I have no other choice but to write THIS review. And as much as it pains me to say this, as much as I did my utmost to avoid it? there's just no contest here is there!? Yup this is The Battery Kids owning ALL your shit tonight!
And THIS is all the retarding wreckage they left in their wake? aaaah they truly are a thing of beauty too aren't they!? I know, I'm having problems processing solid foods just looking at them!
12:42AM - But alas all good gigs/riots eventually have to come to an end, at least for the sake our rapidly deteriorating mental health (let alone the increasingly tenuous unified field theories binding spacetime together at Jive) and end it DID in a timely and orderly fashion: as Tam and her surly barstaff employees donned their asbestos onesies, fired up the flamethrowers and sent everyone screaming for the exit signs. And it would've been quite the sight too seeing them all scatter like cockroaches, seeing that one chance fool caught ablaze laughing his arse off as he windmilled his way towards Don Don Korean BBQ and an exploding inferno, but I was here backstage instead. Hiding away with the go-go dancing zombie girls and one Shannon Juvan who I swear wasn't invited (shooo damnit!) safe in the knowledge that they'd never feast on OUR brains as we'd been spending most the night (or in my case a whole lifetime) poisoning them with beer.
12:52AM - Emerging at last onto Hindley Street, an eerie silence filled the air.. as if it'd been forever and a day since I'd last seen the outside world (and not just in the writing of it!), an eerie silence broken only by the exciteable chatter of passerbys posing for facebook photos amongst the charred remnants of what was once The Battery Kids' exciteable fanbase. Hmmm. I took a moment of silence to remember all those who had fallen tonight, some still with mile wide grins and pint glasses held aloft from their skeletal wireframes; and then my eardrums popped, my hearing returned and the world was at peace again. Yup, I don't know about you but who's thirsty?
12:58AM - Now as I'd mentioned before there was like a trillion (nay a squillion) fuck off epic and insane events exploding all round this city tonight, and in choosing to cover The Battery Kids launch I'd easily missed out on at least half of them (and yes I realise the maths doesn't quite make sense there, but if you'd been through WHAT I'D BEEN THROUGH for the past five hours duuude? you'd totally understand!) a decision which would likely come back to haunt me for weeks hence when I hear about all the awesome shit I missed. So in "encore" I figured I'd try and catch AT LEAST the tail end of as many of these other events as possible before all the pubs closed for the night, or before my liver exploded.. you know, whichever wins out. First stop, The Ed Castle.
1:04AM - *AAARRGGHHH FUCK!!* Now if only I'd turned up half an hour earlier tonight THIS is where you would've seen me post an hilariously fucked up Delusions Of Grandma review rife with expletives and excess superlatives (and accompanying live photos) explaining just why they're one of the most skull fuckingly dope freeform psychedelic jazz acts in Adelaide. Except come to think of it I'm pretty sure they're the ONLY "skull fuckingly dope freeform psychedelic jazz act" in Adelaide but trust me duuude: they totally make a-grade balloon animals out of both smoking hemispheres of your brain, they're at least five kinds ridiculously awesome (with an option on a sixth) and you TOTALLY wanna get in on this shit. Worse still it's been almost two years since I'd last seen them play (back in September 2008 at The Crowd & Anchor if memory serves me) as they've had a rather annoying habit of playing Rhino Room since throughout 2009 (which as far as gig photographers go is an absolute no fly zone) and even then ONLY ANNOUNCED AT THE LAST MINUTE!? GUH!! So here I am rushing in to see them tonight, only to capture a seven minute video instead. Hmmm. Still from what little we can observe it appears there's been a bit of a lineup change with the addition of a second guitarist Cameron Sanderson and the notable (but I'm told "fleeting") absence of saxophonist Joel "Beardy" McMillan.. but all in all they're still cooking up the same brain twisting antics of old: where no singular song seems to possess any less than fifty nonsensical time changes. Genius, insanity or both? you be the judge.. but damnit I LIKE IT!!
1:41AM - With Delusions Of Grandma's done and dusted for the night, I was originally all set on flying out that door and hitting the east end for the Laide Magazine launch party at Rhino Room (I mean how could I possibly miss all that debauchery!? DUUUDE!!). Only instead I bump into Jeremy Lake from The Keepsakes/20th Century Graduates who suggests the EVEN BETTER PLAN of getting rubbishingly shitfaced in The Ed Castle beer garden and then hitting up Rhino Room soon after.
2:57AM - Only "soon after" translated into well over an hour later when we both finally manage to stumble our drunk arses over there.. YEAAAS!! only to discover the party was already over.. DAMNIT!! Still in my defense I was stealing a lot of DJ Azz Strangelove's beer rider back at The Ed so I'm half surprised I actually got anywhere at all. Still try telling that to Jarrad White, aka: (Totally Not) Jonah Hill from "Superbad" walking out of Rhino Room, who upon seeing me arrive, simply shakes his head sadly in a way that could only imply that I have just missed out on THE LAUNCH PARTY OF THE CENTURY.. except clearly that can't be right because IT'S ALREADY OVER!!
3:14AM - Still it's not all bad news as I did manage to walk away with (and by "walk away with" I clearly mean blatantly steal) a copy of Laide Magazine they had left lying around. And after giving it a quick skim flick I must say it's inspiring stuff! It's midway between a trashy scene zine and a glossy magazine. It's "chock full" of whimsical articles, features and interviews on Adelaide music, art and fashion (in other words it's a bit light on all three counts.. but it's only Issue One here so we can easily cut them some slack). And short of the fact it's utterly rife in spelling and grammar mistakes (yeaaah pfft.. like I can talk!) it's bound to a raging success in next to no time! I mean shit, when you think about it: with Excitement Machine long gone and Merge fast becoming little more than a memory (awww I know.. I loved that shit too!) they pretty much have the entire market to themselves don't they? Do us proud Laide Magazine.. DO US PROUD!! (and I'll be sure not to bear a grudge against you for leaving my fartarse column out of your first release.. HA!!).
3:31AM - Yup no prizes for guessing THIS one.. fuck I'm predictable!
4:51AM - Of course it wasn't nearly as simple as that tonight, for as it turns out the bouncer was only letting people inside who "already had stamps". Only from the look of his increasingly hyperventilant expression and hysterical hand gestures (ie: doing his utmost to ward off a six pack of shrieking baboons from gaining entry) this was possibly just a "ruse" to fool everyone into believing that Supermild had either reached capacity or was about to close up soon. So fuck it.. hedging a bet either way I walked straight upto him, flashed the stamp on my arm (that clearly didn't exist) and he nodded me through like nothing was out of the ordinary.. YEAAAS!! Spoz's Jedi Mind Trick: 1, befuddled bouncer: 0, Spoz wins! And as for what any of this shit has got to do with THIS photo of Ruby Chew an hour later? yeaaah I've got no idea.. but it sure is pretty ain't it?
Yup tonight was simply an impossible mission and a half to do justice in the one blog.. NO SHIT!! We dived into the deep end, we had access to too much information, too many options, and little by little we went insane. And as much as you may think it "cheap" to adapt a fucking quote from "Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" in effort to encapsulate it all? if you were here maaan you would've known! you would've seen it all with your own two eyes: pupils to pinpricks, synapses strobing! and you would've been damn near thankful, nay praying prostrate, to whichever shit ridiculous deities you worship to have crawled out of this human zoo alive with all your limbs intact.. FUUUCK!! And you know what makes it even more insane? we're only on the cusp of it duuude, the proverbial tip of the iceberg, the pissy little "episode one" installment to one fuck of a THREE PART epic long weekend.. and it totally makes my head explode just THINKING about it! So hold onto your popsicles peeps, because by the time we're through? (even if it takes me three whole weeks to write it) we're totally gonna need a whole new dictionary to make sense of it all!
