:: Thursday, August 26, 2010

20TH CENTURY GRADUATES + EAST END VILLAINS + SINCERELY, GRIZZLY
"PARKING INSPECTORS ARE PEOPLE TOO!" LAUNCH @ JIVE / Saturday August 21st 2010

I don't know about you maaan but right now, it's never been easier to be a cynical-arse bastard. HA HA HA duuude it's been the BEST!! Everything's pissing me off, everything's a bastard coated bastard with bastard filling (with a bastard cherry on top!) everything's gone hilariously to shit, I FUCKING LOVE THIS FEELING! I REALLY DO!! And not just because of the federal election, the same "federal election" that we're absolutely sick to death of hearing about, only we just voted in it and now we're worried some righteous prick of an arsehole is going to get elected into office. And by "righteous prick"? yeaaah I pretty much mean TAKE YOUR FUCKING PICK!! as no matter who we've "chosen" it's still a fucking politician! And it's not just the media either where all we get is tragedy after tragedy, natural disaster to "idiot inflicted" rape, pillage and murder only to be provided with "light relief" in current affairs, reality contests where everyone's a bitching backstabber (or bursting into tears) or it's a nonstop parade of procedural whatever-the-fuck where everyone's a walking rap sheet. And it's not just the internet where it's never been easier to unleash all that furious anger into countless websites, forums and blogs whether they deserve it or not (and I'm not just talking about youtube or 4chan here). And it's not just because almost everyone you know is working in customer service hell, or in a call centre, or a cube farm or on the receiving end to all three filing complaints. I mean it used to be "road rage" we suffered from, then it was "everything rage", now it's nothing but light entertainment (short of the occassional knife attack) it's ubiquitous, it's like oxygen, it's chasing red bull after red bull, screaming nicotine, caffeine and adrenaline withdrawal, sleep deprivation, shift work, rotating rosters, performance anxiety and long term unemployment! And don't even get me started on this FUCKING weather again: the coldest damn winter since 1997 that never ever ends, wearing us down until we can take it no more. Nope it's all the above maaan! It's everything joining forces in a perfect shitstorm of punching fists pounding our skulls in, it's the worst of the worst in us all magnified a hundred times over! I mean doesn't it just make you want to destroy shit? doesn't it just drive you COMPLETELY FUCKING INSANE!? YOU BET IT DOES!! Which is why we're here to completely lose our minds at Jive tonight.. AND NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON!!



Yup for not only is this "election night" tonight, aka: the worst foul fucked up night of televised torture you could ever submit yourself to (if ever you were crazy enough to stay home and watch it) where everything goes from bad to worse to utterly horrendous to mildly hopeful then largely ambivalent and then back again, or kinda like the Kübler-Ross "Five Stages of Death And Dying" only with more charts and graphs (and Kerry O'brien making frowny faces) BUT it's also the same night 20th Century Graduates (the happiest damn band in Adelaide.. and don't you just know it!) are launching their debut EP "Parking Inspectors Are People Too!" WOOOO!! I mean I know they never planned for this shit to coincide, I swear! but for the simple fact they did potentially offer us the ultimate antidote for THE WORST NIGHT OF THE YEAR!? awww it makes me SO ridiculously and deleriously happy I want to explode! I want to hug each and every one of them bawling like a baby, then I want to hug them some more (until it gets kinda "awkward") then I want to marry them all because that's how mad this shit is! I FREAKING LOVE YOU GUYS!! And I know I'm not the only one feeling this way either. I mean just LOOK at how ridiculously overjoyed Jive's resident doorbitch is to be here tonight.. aye? AAAYE!? And why wouldn't she be duuude? (no really, I don't care what you THINK she's totally smiling on the inside!) WE GOT SHOWBAGS PEOPLE! YEAAAS!!



But of course that's not all.. OOOOH FUCK NO!! not even at the front desk where the doorbitch is totally doing "mad somersaults" in her mind.. IN HER MIND!! because check it out duuudes: they totally got candy too! YES CANDY!! IN A FREAKING BOWL!! AND YOU CAN TOTALLY HELP YOURSELF TO IT TOO!? WHOAAA FUCK ME STUPID!! I mean just look at the colours, all these mad wonderful vibrant ridiculously sexy "I'd totally do them all on the table if it wasn't entirely indecent" colours! it's almost like I forgot half of them even existed until tonight I've been THAT starved of stimuli! I mean do you know what it's like to forget turquoise? or magenta? or sunshine lollipop yellow!? thank you 20th Century Graduates.. NO REALLY, THAAANK YOU!! you've damn near saved my life!



Yup so overwhelmed was I by the offer of free candy, and I mean shit duuude who wouldn't be? FREE CANDY FUCKING RULES BAAABY!! (in fact I might even have gone back for seconds and thirds and maybe even fourths *hic* excuse me!) that I totally forgot to pick up a showbag on my way through. YES, I KNOW!! And so after promptly addressing that "grievous" error, I returned all giddy and exciteable and spilled the contents out in front of me. Now like most of you I heard all kinds of rumours over what these showbags might "contain". Unfortunately most of them proved to be false (as let's face it there actually were NO rumours and I'm simply making shit up). For one they didn't contain any "Alex Ravioli" novelty paddle pops (didn't pass the taste test and the stick proved to be a "choking hazard"), or any Larissa Perry wind up barbies (dangerously explosive near religious iconography), or even the Jon Wignall inflatable "pool toy" (as they couldn't find an appropriate place to put the "blow valve"). However the party hat and complimentary copy of their CD were still more than welcome; in fact I even got credited in the liner notes! Or maybe they just printed them individually like that so they'd credit everyone. And if they didn't!? aaaah fuck it.. it's cardboard, just buff my name out with a set of keys and replace it with your own. Everyone wins!



And after laughing myself retarded for a solid eight minutes there over the fact I was "credited" in yet another CD by yet another Adelaide band, despite the fact I'm easily one of the worse things that's ever happened to this scene.. AND DON'T YOU KNOW IT!! (and if you think that's fucked up? you should've seen what happened when some Gold Coast band quoted me on the inside cover of THEIR album and then Vice Magazine got hold of it.. hiiilarity!) I suddenly realised I was still missing the "bigger picture" here: and that'd be their ridiculously shit awesome stage decorations. WHOAAA FUCK!! And how could I maaan? I mean I've never seen Jive look THIS festive! Not even when barstaff and security throw their weekly "cocaine cash parties" to celebrate yet another wildly successful night of Gosh (and would you believe DJ Craig has his own gold plated toilet seat thanks to that? true story!) what with all the streamers, balloons, bubble machine, confetti cannons and inflatable paraphernalia? and to think all THIS is but the tip of the iceberg for what's to come!? Yup hold onto your "pink bits" everyone, cause this shit's gonna be one fucked up a rollercoaster ride!



SINCERELY, GRIZZLY (****) myspace ::
Which brings us to our opening act. A curious choice if ever I saw one to support the happiest damn band in Adelaide (and quite possibly the planet if only The Grates hadn't already beaten them to it.. FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!) as they're hardly "the happiest damn band" themselves but at the same time they're hardly the angriest one either (especially not if you caught their "dancing dickhead in a bear suit" at their launch party back in February.. FUCK YEAAAH!!). In fact it's very possible that they were chosen tonight to ease us into this shit gradually. I mean clearly we're all in a fragile state of mind right now, we've just voted in the nastiest "hate filled" federal election in recent memory, too much "head exploding happiness" too soon could kill us (as much as it's done that already and we may need a spare pair of pants) and there's something about their frowny face expressions on stage tonight that reassures us. They're one of us maaan, they feel our pain! As much as their "pain" is different to ours and exceptionally more nerdly. You see as much as I can gather from studying them live and perhaps outside their rehearsal space with a pair of infra red goggles laughing my arse off (shit.. did I just say that out loud!?) Sincerely, Grizzly are never ones to be content with their lot, they're raging perfectionists at heart. Now a year ago this used to be because they were ridiculously ambitious in theory yet hilariously "shit" in practice, and yet at the same time you couldn't help but admire them for it: as much as a "newborn giraffe" might come to mind in describing it (no, not you Ben Revi). For in their exceptional uber-gooberness they aimed for so much MORE than just a cheesy "buzz band" sound for retarded metrosexuals to bump uglies to (because let's face it not everyone can be The Touch or Jimmy & The Mirrors and nor should they be). But after many months of tweaking and perfecting their shit to a fine artform? they may finally be catching up to their lofty ambitions (or at least some of them) and now most if not all of their hilarious fuckups are ones we simply "can't see". For this ain't just the same uber-goober "Sincerely, Grizzly" of old maaan.. they've truly grown in leaps and bounds! And they've done it the hard way too, they've built their own shit from the ground up piece by piece. Quite literally in fact by accumilating everything short of a "Cape Canaveral" in scramblers, deep fryers, waffle irons and surface to air missile launchers to express it; especially around their lead singer Josh Calligeros: the most impressive of which being the two amplifier he's got hooked up to his guitar tonight. And with both of them at his disposal? oh he's looping and interweaving his guitar riffs multiple times over each other like a cut and paste symphony, like a mad magician, and it's the awesomest shit ever! Granted it's a technique he's been working on right from the start, if a little disjointedly (most notably in "Two-Face" off their debut EP) but it's in the seamless way he's juggling three or four of them now that really melts your mind. But it's not just Josh pulling all the mad shapes either, far from it! It's as much Rowan Mount on drums slicing and dicing all the subtle nuances with added accuracy, adding all those angular accents, propelling it forward with that off kilter crunch, switching up that start/stop time signature. As much as it's Griffin Farley on bass and whatever the fuck kinda "magical powers" that beanie's giving him now (as much as it's two beanies, or maybe it's a tea cosie!?) either way whatever he's doing, he's killing it! And together they're forging this "sound", this genius sound that's equal measure geek and gargantuan, like Sonic Youth meets Shellac, like The National meets My Disco, like Radiohead meets Battles, like art meets math multiplied by fuzz. It's a brilliant thing to behold, so much more "fuller" in scope, as much as they're cursing and swearing on stage thinking it's STILL not good enough (or possibly because 20th Century Graduate's bubble machine fell over at one point, and now water's spilling all over their equipment.. ooops!). But such is the way of Sincerely, Grizzly: mad perfectionists, forever moving forward. They're fuck full of crazy ideas, they're arty and ambitious as fuck and with nearly enough shitcrazy equipment to bring it all to life? who knows WHAT they could achieve!?












EAST END VILLAINS (***1/2) myspace ::
Which from one "arty ambitious" extreme brings us to the exact opposite in our second act. YEAAAS!! Although not necessarily in the "bad way" (no seriously, why are you looking at me like that? I GAVE THEM THREE AND A HALF STARS HERE YOU UNGRATEFUL FUCKS!!) as I'll be sure to elaborate in following: give or take me throwing a few "hilarious" insults in at their expense. Yup this is the East End Villains. This is the first time I've ever seen them live, let alone even heard of them (short of some vague "name recognition" and a rumour that one of their members is brother to sister "Cat" the keyboardist from The Salvadors.. go figure?) but still, from hearing the first five minutes of them tonight? I can just tell they're gonna be retardingly "huge" in next to no time. Duuude.. you're gonna freaking love this shit! In short, everything about them screams "buzz band" popularity in the Adelaide scene circa 2010. Think Transmission Live or better yet Plus One, only they're one of those rare instances where all the fickle fashionistas actually FLOCK to the band room instead of simply fluttering off to comparing shoes and handbags dancing to the Baywatch Theme in The Ed Castle beergarden (and I think I mean that in a good way?), or think potential high rotation on Triple J a few shades short of an eye gouging human rights violation and you'd be pretty much in the ballpark. Or in other words they could be best described as an easy to please blend between Vampire Weekend, The Drums and The Foals. Or rather like Cloud Control done more "indie disco" with maybe a bit of Hungry Kids Of Hungary, Dappled Cities, The Kooks and The Wombats. Either way duuude? they're a "buzz band" through and through and the details probably don't matter much as long as you can dance retarded to it (and no that's totally not me rolling my eyes right now.. I swear!). In appearance they also fit the bill to a T. They're ridiculously clean cut, maybe even private school alumni "clean cut". All five of them have got the whole checkered shirts, clean shaven, pimply wide-eyed, hilariously enthusiastic shit going down (especially with their lead singer Brendan Connelly pulling an A-Z in goldfish expressions). And as much as you're probably switching off at this point.. there is ONE thing that saves them, and maybe even elevates them to raging levels of head exploding "awesomatude" here and that'd be their tandem percussion. Yes, tandem percussion. Again not the most original idea going, I mean almost every indie disco dickhead and their dog has been ripping this shit off fierce in the Adelaide scene since Wolf & Cub made it Triple J "mainstream" back in 2006 (don't even get me started on it!). But in the way THIS band hammers the fuck out of it: as a battle to the death between drummer Ben Zubreckyj and upright percussionist Hugh Black? in toe to toe synchronised psychotic precision? in just not ONE token outburst but throughout their entire set!? duuude it freaking kills like nothing else! So as much as I want to be a cynical-arse bastard to this? and believe me I'm itching to unleash with cruel and unusual here (I mean ferfucksake people, ANOTHER VAMPIRE WEEKEND KNOCK-OFF!?) they've still got me outgunned with the drums. Within five minutes they've got my head bopping. Within fifteen I'm bouncing off the walls pissing myself laughing to it (if only in my mind). They form a dancefloor with little or no effort; they're loving the shit out of it, so that by the end we totally forget just WHY we were so on edge in the first place? Yup that's the East End Villains. They may be just a "buzz band" in every sense of the word (and how!) but in the best way possible.













20TH CENTURY GRADUATES (*****) myspace ::
Which at long last brings us to our headlining act. YEAAAS!! AT LONG LAST!! And I'm not even kidding you duuude it's been four long hard harrowing months in hell without another mad dose of this shit to brighten up our drab and dreary lives.. "FOUR FUCKING MONTHS!? WHAT THE HELL KIND OF INSANE TORTURE IS THAT!?" yes I know arbitrary voice of indignation, YES I KNOW!! In fact if their liner notes are anything to go by: it's been anywhere between seven to nine months, damnit almost a whole freaking year waiting in vain, since they recorded this EP that they're launching tonight in a head exploding joygasm to the senses! But believe me maaan that wait has been well worth our while. I mean seriously.. if you thought all those showbags, candy, party hats, streamers, balloons, bubble machine, confetti cannons and an A-Z of inflatable paraphernalia was pushing this waaay past the point of ridiculous? (and by "ridiculous" I clearly mean TOTALLY FREAKING AWESOME!!) let alone all the toy soldiers, dinosaurs and whatever-the-fuck figurines they have plastered all over the keyboard too!? all THAT is merely entrée to what they've got in store for us in following. With the lights now dimming over the stage it all starts with an introductory video presentation, apparently edited up by their guitarist Alister Douglas in a forty eight hour meth amphatamine binge just prior to the show (as much as it was more likely a box of Froot Loops but no less hallucinatory) featuring a mad mashup collage of everything hilariously eclectic from archival jazz footage, SpongeBob SquarePants to The Graduate before introducing the band "Looney Toons" style as a series of oddball cartoon characters, the most apt of which ending in Jeremy Lake their drummer as Naboo from The Mighty Boosh (I mean pfft.. who didn't see that coming!?). Cue much mad cheering from the crowd as the bubble machine cascades over us, a few of us even bursting into tears we're so utterly overwhelmed by the emotion of it all, before the band themselves arrive on stage. And from here on in duuude? it's a total fucking blur, I'm struggling to remember anything here short of a mile wide grin.. IT'S FREAKING INSANE!! The first two songs "Parking Inspectors Are People Too!" and "Misery Jane" let loose in a riotous kaliedoscope of colour shat through the eye of an atomic blast. It's all bombastic horns from Andrew Marshall and Katey Sutcliffe and next to everyone else on and OFF stage bouncing off the ceiling in a giddy explosion of glee like the entire venue is suddenly inflatable and full of kittens and puppies; only for every other song to not only sustain but exceed this intensity in a note for note ninja assault. Everything's larger than life with the colour saturation tuned to iridescent (and not just because the stage lighting is going completely batshit beserk to match); it's the ultimate escapist catharsis with a B12 vitamin shot all rolled into one! And I'm not even kidding you duuude the crowd's totally losing their shit to this; some more loudly than others when an actual bra is seen flying onto stage (only to hit their bass player Jon Wignall at the end of fifth song "Break Like Stone".. go figure?). But the band just keeps on amping it up and up. And not just thanks to Larissa Perry on glockenspiel, melodica and tambourine doing her 60's "Jesus freak" cheerleader routine (although hell how can you possibly go wrong with that!?), or the whimsical sight of one Alister Douglas chasing his tail from one end of the stage to the other, but in just how ridiculously overjoyed their guitarist Alex "Emo" Ciaravolo looks to be here tonight (and if you're wondering WHY that's astounding? you need only look to this photo from a month ago.. ouch, I know!). And just when you think the energy levels might start "dipping" in the final third? they start ditching all their inflatable shit into the crowd too: inflatable saxaphone, guitar, microphone, followed by a beach ball that wreaks the most havoc (tipping over mic stands etc..) only to disappear behind the house speakers (at which point venue security saw fit to confiscate it before it killed someone) I mean what a fucking show! what a fucking experience! I mean is this shit still classified as an EP launch when we've lost all sensation from the neck down laughing our arses off!? IS THIS SHIT STILL LEGAL!? Yup that's the 20th Century Graduates. All else's forgotten, all else's forgiven, when we've got shit THIS head explodingly awesome? life suddenly seems that much more complete!





















HA HA HA whoaaa.. did I get ridiculously carried away with all those live photos or what!? FUUUCK!! (no really Jive whatever-the-fuck kinda ninja shit you've tweaked with your stage lighting in the past few months? I so wanna make mad mad love to it like a retarded moth let loose in a Daft Punk pyramid it's THAT ridiculously a-grade!). But it's not over yet, OOOOH FUCK NO!! As much as everyone in this room feels like they need a panadol and a good lie down right now (as much as I've barely covered any of it here and may need comprehensive hypnotherapy to recover it) after a little coaxing from one loud mouthed dickhead with a giant pink inflatable microphone (who me!?) they returned for a triumphant encore. It was a cover of They Might Be Giant's "Doctor Worm" and if you STILL believe that everything I've been writing upto this point here has been nothing but overblown hype? then let THIS accompanying live video speak for itself.. OOOOH FUCK YEAH!!



11:33PM - To say everything was "in an utter state of disarray" afterwards would be putting it rather mildly. Clearly all hopes for journalistic objectivity has long been pissed away (as much as it arguably never entered the picture in the first place, at least not since they bribed me with free candy.. WOOOO!!). Confetti, inflatable whatever-the-fuck, foldback speakers, plastic toy soldiers and musical instruments were scattered throughout (including one slightly trashed macbook that fell over during one of the "quieter songs"). Bar staff and security were doing their utmost to pry laughing audience members off the ceiling with oversized novelty spatulas and blast hoses. It's like an entire tickertape parade got loudly biblical with a carnival fun fair, leaving one fuck of a dry cleaning bill to show for it and a few hundred EPs as offspring. I mean not only did they pack out the dancefloor, not only did they open up the upstairs balcony and pack that out too, but they sold out the entire venue too!? DUUUDE!! And so.. with all five of my senses long since overwhelmed here, ringing off like telephones, I tentatively make my way towards the bar in search of beer.



11:34PM - Returning with a beer in hand (as clearly I didn't just take one look at the bar, and all the hoards of people swarming it like ravenous seagulls and think "aaaah fuck it!") I watch as Alister attempts a "token gesture" here with a broom. It's a trivial thing granted, probably not worth mentioning normally, except I couldn't help but be caught up in the peaceful symbolism of it (kinda like filming a lone plastic bag dance about in a pile of leaves, thinking it's all kinds of poetic); as much as I couldn't be arsed pitching in myself, because seriously who ELSE is gonna take all these photos and provide all this needless commentary while he's doing it? huh? HUH!? who's looking completely expendable NOW!? oh wait, Alister you just missed a spot.. sheeesh!



11:36PM - Still it's an all too brief interlude, as just like every other Saturday night at Jive, the live bands here are all but a teeny tiny "footnote" to the MAIN EVENT that follows; as yet another clusterfuck installment of Gosh all but obliterates any evidence 20th Century Graduates were even in here tonight mere seconds after they leave the stage. Now it may seem "insensitive" to think our headlining act is this hilariously insignificant, even when they sell this place out to capacity only to be rushed off stage in favour of a DJ (I mean hell, everyone needs a second gold toilet seat for the beach house right?) but don't beat yourself up over it, no matter how big the event? it happens TO EVERYONE, it's totally their way of making you feel special! It happened to Leader Cheetah, it happened to Lyla, it happened to The Finishing School, mixer Matt Hill's 40th birthday party, Cloud Control AND Steering By Stars; and no doubt it'll happen again to Washington when she sells out to capacity NEXT weekend only to be swiftly yanked off stage a few seconds shy of 11:30. Such is the cycle of life at Jive: never a dull moment, never an empty dancefloor, it's a beautiful thing to behold. "BAAAA-A-A-A!!" what? oh nothing! just admiring the view.. dance clubs, fuck I love 'em!



11:45PM - Which is why, clearly unrelated to anything you might have read, I figured I might continue celebrating 20th Century Graduate's "night of nights" backstage in a quiet dignified manner that only wearing two (maybe five) party hats on my head at once could possibly achieve.



And weren't the band simply overjoyed to see me too!



12:40AM - And when I eventually DID regain consciousness an hour later (only to discover that Larissa had stolen my shoes.. you fiend!) I found myself outside. Awesome! Now usually this'd be an opportune moment as any for me to hit The Ed Castle in encore in the hopes of catching their headlining act for "Plus One" (apparently it's The Sweet Decline tonight? hiiilarious!). Only I happened to accidently spot a few other band members from 20th Century Graduates leaving here instead with word of a rumoured "after party" upstairs at The Light. And so with nothing else left to lose? (short of three of my toes to frostbite.. DAMN YOU LARISSA!!) I figured I might join them.



12:45AM - Now as all (three) of you who read that episode a month ago would know all too well, having the 20th Century Graduates throw an after party upstairs at The Light was potentially one of the most ridiculously shit awesome plans imagineable in the history of "ridiculously shit awesome plans", and not just because of the $5 beers (well yeaaah.. it mostly IS that). And when you consider their bass player Jon Wignall is also venue booker and his father is part owner? duuude it's pretty much a slam dunk right!? YOU BETCHA!! Or at least that's what we thought arriving just now, only to discover they'd already booked it out for a 21st birthday party, and so we were stuck DOWNSTAIRS in the "Top 40 toilet" instead. Hmmm. Which admittedly wasn't as bad an outcome as you might think, as I'm pretty sure nobody got murdered while we were here (or at least not until we decided who had first dibs on Jon's bass guitar after disposing of his body). I mean we could totally bust this "donkey piñata" wide open and rock it waaay off the richter right? riiight!?



HA HA HA hmmm.. how DO we put this delicately?



1:01AM - And so no sooner had everyone ordered drinks and reluctantly found themselves a few spare bench seats to make themselves inconspicuous with outside? I thought "fuck this" and disappeared off to The Ed Castle instead. I mean say what you will about this place; it might be a fashionista shit dive, a hipster hell hole and a scenster open sewer, and I might make merciless fun of it any opportunity I get.. but damnit I still love drinking myself retarded here all the same.



1:06AM - Now amongst all the gratuitous binge drinking a misguided detour here would usually entail (and how!) as previously mentioned I was also hoping to maybe catch a set by The Sweet Decline. I mean I saw them dead SOBER at The Grace Emily six weeks ago, they totally didn't suck or blow the hind end of a horse or hamster and that's gotta count for something right? TOTALLY!! that's gotta be like the best endorsement you could possibly ever give a band: "doesn't make you imagine said band conducting acts of animal husbandry whilst teetotalled!? SCORE!!". However by the time I'd arrived tonight? yeaaah they were already packing up and leaving the stage. But it also could be claimed that I STILL caught the best part of their show regardless (depending on your definition) when their lead singer Tom Kennedy, all giddy and exciteable, showed me THIS.



Now obviously this isn't the first time we've seen this shit, so much so in fact you kinda wish I'd STOP showing it to you all the time (HA HA HA but c'mon duuude it's freaking hilarious!). And yes it's been called many names in the past, not least of which "USE A PICK YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!" as much as I like to call it "pulling a Sascha James Kenny", as much as it's been done by every other idiot and imbecile since from Anthony Candlish to Josh Calligeros, but it doesn't make it any less awesome.. OOOOH FUCK NO!! It's like a gift that keeps on giving it REALLY is! Which is why Tom here obviously felt compelled to share it with you now. Awwww I know, I totally wanna hurl too!



And yeaaah now it's just getting really awkward.



2:00AM - And so here I am at "Square One" an hour later. How the FUCK did this happen!? GLAD YOU DIDN'T ASK! Turns out moments after I fled the band room screaming hysterically for the beer garden only to drown my face in the nearest jug of pale, I bumped into a few of band members from Lyla. They suggest anywhere else but here, I was very much obliged to agree (it really doesn't need a reason.. but feel free to arbitrarily add a punchline that begins with Josh Moore and ends with The Touch) and so we made haste there. And by "made haste" I totally mean we did our utmost to catch a taxi down Currie Street, only for every one of them to speed off when they saw us (yeaaah ok, after they saw ME) only to lose the band somewhere past Light Square, only to charge up ahead, arrive at Rhino Room for "Square One" a club night I swear I haven't hit since December 2008, only to discover they're already closing up for the night.. OOOOH FUCK YEAH!!



2:08AM - And so clearly not losing my mind by this point (but still drinking nearly enough to compensate) I find myself here at The Crown & Anchor.. why? $5 dark ales duuude, THAT'S WHY!!



2:09AM - Of course there's SO many more reasons besides that, most I'm admittedly struggling to think of right now (but if it helps The Exeter was totally balls when I got there first) but at the very least you can't miss it for Saturday's "Hot! Damn!". Featuring both Anthony Candlish and Adam Vanderwerf from Ride Into The Sun spinning the DJ decks? EXPLODING JOYGASM OF THE MIND!? HELL YEAAAS!! I mean shit duuude where ELSE would you get to hear Gypsy Kings and David Bowie in the SAME set, aye? aaaye? am I totally blowing your mind yet!? WHOAAAA!! As such I was originally planning on totally taking the piss out of them by taking photos and video of a whistling empty dancefloor (or pretty much what I did last time I blogged the shit out of them back in June). Only when I turned up tonight I'm shocked to discover a packed dancefloor, or at least by "Crown & Anchor standards" (ie: just like any other dancefloor only with a few more weird bearded mental patients). So I thought "fuck it, I'll totally take photos of that.. it'll be hilarious!". Only that one weird bearded guy wasn't keen on that plan (his breath smelt like pickles!) the rest of them just looked at me funny like I was that guy out of One Hour Photo (Colin.. is that you!?) and so I quietly finished my dark ale in double time, did my best not to make eye contact with anyone glaring at me and speed dialing 000 "no really, for the thousandth time I swear, I have a ragingly popular scene blog it's on the interwebs and everything!" and high tailed it the fuck out of there.



2:53AM - And so yup.. it's off to The Ed Castle again.



3:05AM - As irony would have it it's here that I ultimately bump into what remained of 20th Century Graduates' raging "after party". The irony being of course that I'd just blown the past two hours travelling the entire length and breadth of the Adelaide CBD (twice) simply so I could find a better place to get drunk than downstairs at The Light, only to end up in three other locations arguably worse including The Crown & Anchor: where I almost get killed by someone who could've been me from the future.. I mean hell I've always wanted to try out the "grandfather paradox" if ever I got a time machine just to see if it'd blow up the universe (HA HA HA duuude it'd be freaking hilarious!) when I could've just stayed where I was and got a whole lot more drunk. Or in other words, from the look of everyone else around me? I clearly have some "catching up" to do.



3:13AM - Which possibly begins to explain this hilariously fucked up "black box recording" we got in following. As much as it doesn't explain much of anything and at best illustrates everything you should NEVER do to promote a band's debut EP whilst simultaneously being the most ridiculously awesome way to promote said EP while "accidently" destroying at least five copies in the process. YES I KNOW. I should also point out that this was totally Anthony Wignall's fault, he really should've known better. Just as it's totally not hypocritical of me to SAY that when I'm clearly the one egging him on (and rather loudly at that). Just as I can't possibly explain why Tom Krieg from The Battery Kids ends up in a tree. As such I apologise profusely for pretty much everything you're about to see. Oh and buy an EP: I've heard it once or twice, it's actually kinda good.. no really!



3:16AM - Suitably inspired by all this mindless vandalism (in every way we shouldn't and should totally be ashamed of ourselves) I took a dozen or so follow up photos to "commemorate" the occassion. Only most of them I couldn't publish, and not for the reasons you're thinking but mostly because they were pointing in the wrong direction and half of them weren't even in focus. We did however come up with the occassional moment of genius: like this fractured ode to "Wu-Tang".



3:24AM - And THIS photo that's probably best left unexplained. Hmmm?



3:33AM - Not surprisingly I next found myself here at Supermild. What WAS surprising however is how I physically got here at all, let alone bluffed my way past the bouncer by skipping the line entirely, when I'm pretty damn certain I was already home and fast asleep (or at least that's what I told the cops when they arrived at my front door the next day). Or for those of you still keeping score at home? yup I'm pretty sure my blood alcohol level has just caught up with everyone else's at The Ed Castle and may've even well exceeded them too (just as I'm even more sure that Anthony Wignall was declared dead 10 minutes ago). Awesome! who's up for another beer then!?



4:20AM - However quite like last night, there was fuckall worth documenting in here tonight, as much as I'm also saying this with a small measure of relief. I mean seriously sometimes you're better off NOT knowing every teeny tiny detail of all the stupid shit we do in here (as much as that's likely the sole reason half of you lunatics read this shit in the first place). Or at least that's what I thought until I bumped into THIS "genius" dressed as Doctor Livingstone. Livingstone WHO!? yeah I got no fucking clue either.. but he's totally wearing a safari suit maaan! And if you think THAT'S nuts? you should've seen that freak wearing nothing but a deep sea diving helmet giggling like a schoolgirl to the left of him. Or on second thoughts.. maybe not. Seriously this place weirds me the FUCK OUT sometimes and yet they serve long neck beers.. conflicted? you betcha!



4:35AM - Which is why after drinking one of those, shit like THIS suddenly becomes that much more wildly fascinating; as much as I really shouldn't boast about this, especially when my IQ has now reached parity with luke warm tap water. But still how awesome does that wedge of lime look reflecting in the bar top? (in search of one of the most annoying song lyrics in the history of songs published before The Black Eyed Peas). Aaaah sometimes I'm so overcome by this shit it just blows my mind. "YEAAAS!! MY CAMERA HAS MACRO ZOOM AND IT MAKES EVERYTHING AWESOME!!".



4:40AM - Only for my brain (or what little is left of it *hic*) to be blown completely sideways laughing in hysterics when I discover THIS in the Jive carpark leaving for my bus home. I mean to you it may just appear to be a half eaten long since discarded bag of fries from Hepatitis J's photographed by a mad man who should've long since been married with two kids, a 9-5 job and a mortgage instead of pissing his life away on a blog on a local scene that bears no consequence to anyone but the most criminally insane (read: arts graduates). But to ME? pfft.. this is nothing short of a radiant and resplendent dawn! this is a true renaissance of the spirit! this right here is the START OF EVERYTHING! and damn tasty too! except yeaaah.. forget you just read that last bit.



Yup, there's a million and one things to be pissed off about right now: a federal election and a record winter "coldwave" is but the tip of the iceberg here, and more is being added each day! But the good news is, as much as none of this shit is going away soon (for one we have a hung parliament at the mercy of three power mad independents and another dark depressing week of winter to deal with.. but HA HA HA at least we're not in Pakistan or stuck mine shaft in Chile!) the mind has the means to escape, escape to things so stupid and brilliant and insane and inspired they make us laugh almost in spite of ourselves.. duuude they make life worth living! And as much as they never provide the answers they sure as fuck DO help us forget the question! For shit never goes away, it happens with all too frequent regularity, it only gets worse and worse each day until it gets really stupendously fucked and then we die (and then someone posts a youtube comment comparing us to Nazi Germany). But as long as we can still find a way to escape it.. if only for a mad moment and laugh in the face of it? duuude I'll take that over a "grim alternative" any day!

Previously on Spoz's Rant: Princess One Point Five + Cheer Advisory Council + We Grow Up

:: Spoz 2:48 PM |
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