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...
MY DISCO + ROBOTOSAURUS + DOE "LIL' JOY TOUR" @ FOWLERS LIVE / Friday November 19th 2010
I tell you what maaan but it takes truly extraordinarily circumstances to bring me here to Fowlers Live on a Friday night. And I don't just mean because I near abouts drank myself into a "dirt lap" LAST Friday night to the point that some of you more casual observers might have wondered if I'd ever "dig myself out again" (aaaah what can I say? I DO love living life to the fullest.. WOOOO!!). No I mean more for the fact that I'm HERE at Fowlers Live. Yes, FOWLERS LIVE. I mean since when am I here!? Well for the most part it's nothing personal, there's no real bad blood between us, this ain't no Rocket Bar of seething animosity, Ed Castle of mind numbing contempt or Crown & Anchor of mysteriously long forgotten.. "duuude what happened!? YOU USED TO BE COOOL!!" HA HA HA yeaaah maybe back in 2006 you were! (ooops.. did I just say that out loud!?) but now that I think about it? it HAS been almost eighteen months (save for a Laneway Festival or two) since I've been here, so what gives!? well admittedly they're petty reasons at best.. but this IS a petty blog so fuck it LET'S AIR THEM ALL!! Firstly to the best of my knowledge it caters predominantly to the punk, emo, hardcore and metal scenes; not really my kind of "scene" (and I don't care if this makes me biased.. I don't get paid for this shit damnit!). Secondly this makes most (if not all) of their shows "all-ages" and I freaking HATE all-ages shows (as much as they all seem to love their punk, emo, hardcore and metal). And it's not because I have anything against all you ankle biters getting into live music, shit like that should be encourage it's an awesome thing! I just don't want to be around it all when it's happening: they always start ridiculously early (like 7PM early) and end well before midnight, so you're completely lost over what the fuck to do with the rest of your night; the venue will be half filled at best and just about as ragingly enthusiastic; the smallest and angriest in the audience will always dominate the frontlines and give you daggers if you dare encroach on their "territory", so you'll always get dud camera angles or elbows to the face. Thirdly all the walls will be pitch black, utterly nondescript, and there's usually next to no stage lighting, so even if you DO get a good angle most of your shots will be balls anyways. And don't get me started with beers being served in those itty bitty plastic cups either. No seriously.. what the fuck am I doing here again!?
Well short of the fact they're frequently host to one of Adelaide's most genuinely a-grade (and long serving) doorgirls Avalon Sperring, the same Avalon who sold me a ticket to sold out show by The Grates at Adelaide Uni Bar back in 2006 and snuck me in for free to The Presets at Fowlers Live in the same year when I was dead broke (and she didn't even know I wrote this blog at the time!? awww shit she's nothing but solid gold in my books!) but more for TWO WORDS above all else would make me scramble to attend just about any shitdive knee deep in its namesake for a chance to see them live: My Disco. "MY FUCKING DISCO!? HELL THE FUCK YES!!". Or perhaps I'm one of only a select few individuals totally crapping a spleen over this, as I admit they're a niche band from Melbourne with an equally niche (but fanatical) following, but it HAS been well over two years (touring overseas predominantly) since we'd seen them live, and I couldn't ask for a better time than NOW for their return.. why? oh I'll tell you WHY! because they're musical meditation pure and simple, they're chugging minimalism at its best, chinese green tea for the mind magnified a hundred fold; like the sound of your proverbial "harddrive" being defragged, reformatted and all your infrastructure being reinstalled squeaky clean to start good as new again!? OH YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT BAAABY!! And after killing myself hilariously stupid with beer or worse, in what could only be considered a kamikaze downward trajectory of apocalyptic proportions for the past month or so (aaaah what can I say? it's been a hard winter well past its due date this year and its "ending" sure as shit needed celebrating!) it's momentary clarity like theirs that I truly crave the most. There's no need for me to get retardingly drunk at this show, I don't need to drink at all, merely soak it all in like a sponge. For tonight I'll finally rid my head of all the accumilative clutter, I'll rebalance that equilibrium, that near impossible equation that are my nights out on the Adelaide scene. It'll just be me, a few hundred freaks equally dysfunctioning and a ticking metronome to set my shit back in order? aaaah I ask you duuude.. what better reason to be at Fowlers Live tonight than THAT!?
DOE (****) myspace :: Now originally I wasn't going to write up ANY of this shit tonight: the past few months running this blog have well and truly burnt me out to the core (totally self inflicted of course) to the point that I wondered out loud why I was even torturing myself with this insanity in the first place (yeaaah did I mention I don't get paid squat for this shit and it makes me increasingly unemployable to boot!? WAHOOO!!). So tonight I figured fuck it.. I'd simply do THIS show for my own benefit (read: much needed therapy) internet audience be damned. But then I saw our opening act and within the first few minutes of their set? I just knew I had to blog the living SHIT out of them. Granted I'd already heard the name, in fact I'd heard whispers of their shit for a few weeks now, maybe even months, to the point that almost every "dickhead and their dog" I'd bumped into lately had asked me whether I'd heard of them or formed an opinion yet (really!? and why would anyone give a flying fuck what I THINK!? oh riiight the whole "blog" thing.. eeeesh!) like they were collectively trying to send me a subtle clue that maybe I should go see them already (a "subtle clue" that I'd usually respond to by acting in the complete opposite just to spite them). But here tonight I can very much appreciate what all the hype is about, and more than that? for ONCE it seems to be more than justified. Yup this is Doe. They're a post rock instrumental act, but before you all drop off to sleep on me I totally mean that in the best way possible, and not as a laughingly dismissive insult (ie: eluding to a total wankfest) that you'd half suspect. Nope formed between current (or former) members of other illustrious Adelaide acts: namely Tom Spall on lead guitar from Cortez and The Sea Thieves, Tom McCarthy-Jones on bass from The Honey Pies, and Harry Freeman on drums from Young Hearts Fail (ok.. three out of four ain't bad) plus Dave Harry on rhythm guitar and Brad Cameron on laptop and synths from who-the-fuck-knows where!? this is an instrumental post rock act that skips the "snooze button" entirely, in conjuring up nothing short of a candy coated feast to both the auditory canals and the cerebral cortex. Or in other words? think of them as everything awesome from the gentle guitar noodlings of say Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky to the heavy handed instrumental backing of say Fuck Buttons, Battles, Helmet or Zach De La Rocha's One Day As A Lion. Or in the way that they combine both extremes into the one cohesive whole? think equal measures Russian Circles meets Nine Inch Nails' "Ghosts I-IV" and you'd be spot on the money. But what really makes it memorable is in the range, the colours and the character throughout, and how each of their song has their own quirky way of expressing itself. It's not so much a seamless "pea-soup" from beginning to end lulling you into a mind numbing trance as it is a constant and explosive exchange between attack and retreat that keeps you constantly engaged. Opening number "Trills" sets the pace in womblike fuzz only to give way to a stabbing brutality in minimalist chunk (rendered so loud that it practically sets your teeth on edge) and it plays with this polarising dynamic throughout. From serene temple "gongs" and slow cycling white noise to stabbingly brutal bursts of chainsaw aggression, dirt and noise, there's never a dull moment in between. But what's most impressive is in how all five band members juggle it all without missing a beat no matter how crazy it gets. Even when Tom McCarthy-Jones' bass lead cuts out in the middle of second song "Oui!" (or maybe it was the third?) only to see him to storm off stage (it's hard to miss when you watch the video too) the other band members simply cover for the shortfall like it's business as usual (with Brad Cameron especially on laptops and synths working the low end to compensate) so no one ever notices if anything is amiss. And for all the violent and chaotic extremes they express, and all the detours they take in tweaking knobs on their effects pedals it's actually quite relaxing as much as its perplexing. Like equal measures brutal catharsis made blissfully contemplative? Yup that's Doe. They may've only played a handful of shows so far (maybe five or six at most) but if tonight's set is any indication, we're gonna be hearing a lot more of them in months to come!
ROBOTOSAURUS (****) myspace :: And then just when we thought we had nothing but a night of blissfully cathartic and mathematic meditation ahead of us (or more accurately the screaming Marshall stack equivalent) along comes our second act to "fuck it all up" like a pack of hyenas let loose in a public library.. "Robotosaurus? ROBOTOSAURUS!? WHOAAA FUCKING FUCK FUCK!!". Yup originally this support slot was going to be filled by the somewhat more mild mannered (but no less tortured) sounds of Batrider, only they since pulled out for "unspecified reasons" and I'm not sure if it was a last minute cancellation, or whether they were booked by mistake to begin with. But in a weird way I'm glad that they did, for as ridiculously awesome as Batrider are (and yes I totally have the hideously biased live reviews to qualify that claim) no live act in Adelaide quite entertains (read: "scares the living shit out of you whilst simultaneously doubling you over in uncontrollable fits of laughter") quite like Robotosaurus. And yes I say that with a certain amount of experience too. In fact some of you might remember them rather "infamously" from the first time I saw them live at The Crown & Anchor back in October 2008: where within just five minutes of them arriving on stage my camera got obliterated by an exploding wingnut in the crowd, only for their lead singer "Izzy Stabs" to be carried off limping hours later with a bloodied up bandage wrapped around his skull (because apparently he might have had a little too much acid that night and tried to put his head inside a whiskey bottle). And as much as they were perhaps a little too "sedate" the second time around for me back in July 2009 at Enigma Bar? (but perhaps only because their kamikaze support act Hospital The Musical all but upstaged them in declaring "all out war" on the audience, leaving them to play only a 15 minute set before storming off stage) tonight's installment sure as shit DOESN'T disappoint. And I got fair warning of what to expect too, when I sparked up a quick "conversation" with Izzy just prior to their set: where according to him (or what I could roughly translate from his near incomprehensible slur) he'd just downed a bottle of gin that day, almost got thrown out of the tour van from Melbourne for his troubles and now he was "completely fucked"; then he stumbled on stage, joined the rest of the band and near abouts tore the roof off the joint? Yup if ever there was a reason to celebrate the raging fuck out of this band, THAT would be it! And as for me attempting to describe any of it in any kind of detail? yeaaah good luck with that! For there is NO WAY IN HELL you can "passively" review Robotosaurus live, at least not if you're foolish enough to throw yourself headfirst into the fray with camera in hand looking to document it.. OOOOH FUCK NO!! It's a full contact adrenaline charged "flight or fight" blood sport jacked up to eleven. It's combat photography at its most head explodingly stupid. It's a mad buzz like no other if ever you get out alive.. YEAAAS!! we're talking drinks flung left right and centre and into your camera lens, we're talking mic stands and foldbacks uprooted like trees and aimed directly at your head, and all the while Izzy torpedoes himself into the crowd without warning to verbally and physically abuse anyone within reach!? Yup and all you can hope to do amongst this escalating shitstorm is be quick enough on your feet to get the fuck away, whilst simultaneously inching ever closer to it so you won't miss out on any of the action. Awesome huh!? YOU BETCHA!! And as such I'm at a total loss to describe just what the fuck they sounded like. Maybe Dillinger Escape Plan if I knew what I was on about (as much as they'd likely laugh over such a comparison). Or better yet? imagine nothing less than pure unadulterated rage: pure fist punching, eye gouging, head exploding rage microwaving your insides and out. Imagine intense intestinal pain gouging out your abdomen at volumes that'd make your ears piss rivers of blood in unison if only they weren't already ringing off the hook. Imagine hell itself erupting to squealing guitars and a schizophrenic start stop metronome, while their lead singer lurches about in a mad stupor howling and shrieking like a busted car alarm, like a human inferno in search of a fire extinguisher to mate with. And as much as this is just the one emotion pushed well beyond the point of ridiculous here? there's a surprising amount of range and depth to it too!? Yup that's Robotosaurus. They're a life and death struggle and you crawling out the other end with a mad grin on your face (and if you're lucky all your teeth still accounted for) but either way? WHAT A RUSH!!
MY DISCO (****1/2) myspace :: Which brings us to our headlining act. The same headlining act I've been waiting two whole years to see live on stage again and I'm not even kidding YOU duuude.. it's been two whole years FAAAR TOO FREAKING LONG (and I doubt I'm the only one expressing this "weirdly enthused" sentiment either). For as much as My Disco here could be considered an "acquired taste" bordering on batshit insanity at best, and the audial equivalent of chinese water torture at worst (or in other words? I dare you to experience all eight minutes and forty one seconds of the "sublime genius" that is An Even Sun from their second album "Paradise" drilling into your skull like a spastic woodpecker WITHOUT going completely mad in the process) once you zone into the metronomic zen of it and go slightly crosseyed bugging out to it? I swear maaan.. nothing else quite beats it! Still all this is arguably old news now. Tonight is the first night of their national tour in launching their NEW album "Little Joy". They'll be playing it in its entirety: all nine songs from beginning to end, in sequential order and rumour has it it's slightly more accessible maybe even downright "poppier" than previous albums (yes I know.. I totally heard alarm bells ringing too). But to their credit they really DO set the scene in selling it to us tonight. Arriving on stage somberly dressed in muted tones of white, grey and black; and with the stage lighting dimmed accordingly (or at best muted tones of yellow fading into impenetrable black) the feel here is decidedly Spartan. And by "Spartan" I clearly mean it totally suits the minimal mood of My Disco perfectly (and puts the emphasis squarely on the music more than the musicians performing it) and totally NOT how all the above will translate into me "beating my camera functions black and blue" screaming obscenities for the entire duration attempting to get any of it in focus (especially Rohan Rebeiro on drums who all but disappears into the background). I mean granted I'll totally be doing that anyways, it's driving me fucking insane here, but I'm also kinda digging the sparse aesthetic it creates too: especially in the way that Ben Andrews' guitar reflects all that light back over the Marshall stacks (and I didn't really get a photo of it but take my word for it, it was truly something else!) but yeaaah that's neither here or there. What's of more pressing concern however is the live mix, and to put it bluntly it blows. I mean the bass and drums are just fine (and downright hypnotic) on their own, but then Liam Andrews vocals are mixed so damn low you can hardly hear him, especially when he's singing over the top of Ben's frequently thrashing guitar, which is mixed so ludicrously loud the minute he starts playing it THAT'S all you can ever hear sand blasting your eardrums. Hmmm. But once you get passed all that, and let your imagination run riot in filling in the "missing links"? (like 90% of what Liam is actually singing!?) the music truly speaks for itself. From first song Closer there is a lot that's still familiar here: Ben's morse code guitar repeating like a mantra, paired with a Liam's hypnotic pulse progression on bass (and yes he's doing the same goofy "turkey bob" whilst playing it too) but there's something altogether different with Rohan's drumming. Less stabbing on the four four now, it has this curiously tribal, rolling, syncopated feel that fills all the haunting spaces they used to leave between the notes. And it's this layering that becomes more apparent in second song Young in how the guitar cascades to match in accompany Liam's monk like chanting. Third song Turn pushes the tribal drumming to the forefront as a theme all of its own, and then things start to get really "interesting" (at least for the likes of My Disco). From fourth song Sun Bear to sixth song Lil' Joy they delve into strangely "watercolour" territory, a gentle repose in slow strummed guitar: that feels both oddly alien as it does weirdly inevitable (from militant math rock to stoner post rock, whodathunkit?). But past all these quirky "experiments" in broadening their iconic austerity (and quite brilliantly so too) what really resonated with me are the final two songs Rivers and A Turreted Berg. Especially the former which starts out with just bass, drum and Liam's lyrical refrain "there are others.. others just like me, there are others.. others just like me" and I swear it kills just like the "classics". For as much as they're trying new things? they still love their droning minimalism. Yup that's My Disco. Their live mix might have left a little to be desired tonight but once you tune out those teeny tiny "distractions" and focus on what's left here? it's still one HELL of a hypnotic buzz!
11:57PM - With My Disco finishing up for the night: just one album "Little Joy" played from beginning to end in mechanical math rock precision with no encores (and you could argue none were needed either as "the journey was now complete") it was like a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders, like I'd been given back all the "R.E.M. sleep" I'd been missing from these past six months to a year (or fuck it.. maybe even two years since last they played!?) and everything in my mind was now suitably stored and filed away just where it belonged. Aaaah! All of it completely unrelated to the fact I hadn't been drinking tonight of course, but now that I mention it? yeaaah that might have been a "teeny tiny contributing factor". I mean shit duuude if we're gonna "reboot The Matrix" here to the meditative math rock of three musicians tapping out a morse code like spastic woodpeckers for what feels like hours on end, why fuck it up by getting hilariously drunk to it? I mean admittedly it would be a fuckload lot of fun if I DID (HA HA HA imagine if I took equal measures meth amphetamine and acid to it too!? weeee!) but it would kinda defeat the purpose now wouldn't it!? A "sobering" sentiment you may want to bear in mind here for the rest of this "episode", when it turns out I'm a total hypocrite and I invariably DO get spastically drunk anyways (WOOOO!!) but in the meantime, yeaaah let's all picture me calmly sipping my water here and being a civilised member of society for once.. and yes I'm a little weirded out by that concept too.
12:12AM - So just to ensure my body doesn't go into complete shock and shutdown on me, I figured fuck it.. I'd compliment it with a packet of Toobs here. What ARE "Toobs" exactly? well shit duuude I was kinda hoping you'd tell me!? they're even more of a dietary enigma than Burger Rings! (your number one dietary source of asbestos and car tires don'tcha know!) but at the very least I just KNEW that I was getting at least three of my "five minor food groups" in this shit (namely: salt, sugar, carcinogens, caffeine and alcohol). And so suitably satiated, I picked up a copy of My Disco's "Little Joy" album: completely unrelated to the fact I couldn't find a working bittorrent for it for a few weeks prior to this (*ahem* no.. not at all!) or for the fact I'll be using it as a cheat sheet for the majority of that "live" review I'll be writing on them (did I mention how "balls" the live mix was!?) and then just before security kicked us all out? I headed out that door.
12:30AM - Now obviously there's no prizes for guessing where I went next, so much so I'll totally skip the lame formality of me posting that same stock standard "establishing shot" I've been using for six months now and instead go straight to the "lame excuse" for why I'm actually in here (besides the fact it's still nowhere near as dodgy as Enigma Bar, pale ales are still cheaper than Worldsend.. I think? and I'm way too lazy to walk the further distance to The Grace Emily) and that would be the shiny new lighting rig that they've just got installed in the band room.. OOOOH SHIT YEAH!! No really! after well over a YEAR of me constantly bitching about it? just short of having a mental illness named after me thanks to its ever madenning sequence of BRIGHT RED then dull black, blue and yellow crapping all over my live photos? (and yes I even had reccuring nightmares about that too) short of that teeny tiny (but no less welcome) "upgrade" a month ago? it appears the reign of terror is finally over!? OH YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT BAAABY!! Yup I heard wind of it from house mixer Alex Ciaravolo on Thursday (he was tripping balls celebrating it) apparently it got installed on Monday (the dude they hired it from even added me on facebook.. whodathunkit!?) and tonight I just HAD to see it for myself.. and I tell you maaan it truly IS a beauty to behold!
And this is the whizzbang control unit they're using to operates it too (no, not the crappyarse one on the left, I totally mean the fuck off shiny one on the right.. woooo!). It's all LED light based I think? programmable to any colour you so choose, with three of them mounted on the back wall just above the curtains to the left (see above photo that Alex Ciaravolo is nonchalantly sneaking a cameo appearance in.. you fiend!), and two more of them mounted on the wall to the right of the mixing desk, and there might be even more of them scattered about too (as to be honest I was way too spastically flabbergasted to make a proper head count of them all) and.. yeaaah you so don't give a fuck about any of this crap do you? I know! I'm totally geeking out here but you know what? SCREW YOU GUYS!! this is MY blog damnit and I'm so gonna celebrate it for all its worth!
12:45AM - Or at least I did until I figured out just who that band was that was playing on stage (and who they might have been supporting for their final reunion gig.. yiiikes!) and made a calm yet hasty (nay flailing and screaming) retreat into the beergarden before they could have a chance to spot me and get this weird idea in their head that maybe I'd totally want to write up a whimsical live review on them (and no.. no, you SO wouldn't want to me to do that either!). And as for what any of this incidental crap has got to do with this exciteable crowd of people posing for this wacky group shot just now? pfft.. fucked if I know duuude! but aren't you SO glad I included it anyways!?
1:00AM - Yup clearly I had to get the fuck out of the west end, sooner the better, completely unrelated to the fact I might have been waaay too "sober" to handle any of this shit right now (as in I hadn't drunk any beer at ALL and I'd likely be returning much later tonight once I'd sufficiently "resolved" that crisis) so with that in mind I walked to The Exeter. Yes.. THE EXETER! Granted it was a ridiculously long distance to walk for a beer: what with me being on the west end of Currie Street and it being on the east end of Rundle (and The Grace Emily was just around the corner? WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING!?) but times like these clearly called for nothing less.. and I knew I was onto a good thing too when I passed by THIS pedestrian sign. And as for why would that be of any significance you might ask!? well you need only see this "award winning" photo of Joe Blogs from three years ago making a total dick of himself with one to understand. Yup if that doesn't inspire every one of you to binge drink yourselves into a congenital brain defect.. I don't know what will!
1:16AM - And the second sign I knew I was onto a good thing? was moments later, somewhere around Grenfell (and all of five minutes away from The Exeter) when I'm promptly kidnapped by a random passing car and dumped by a back alley near Rhino Room to speed me on my way. And by "kidnapped" I clearly mean I was more than happy to oblige as these two grinning pisswits Carli and Lucy (no not that Lucy, or that Lucy, or that one who's in The Aves, the OTHER Lucy) were in the passenger seat at the time and they just so happened to be heading in the same way (and yes this shit really DOES happen to me on a regular basis too!). And it's only later that I finally recognised who the "assailant" was who drove me here.. none other than Jon Marco from The Honey Pies. "Who!?" aaaah who the fuck cares it's not important (he was in the blog last week). What IS important is that I documented this utterly inauspicious occassion with both Carli and Lucy (who for the sake of convience we'll call "Original Lucy") in this back alley just now, as they attempt to finish off their drinks from a house warming party moments earlier. Not because any of this is of ANY importance to anyone (I mean shit duuude.. since when is it ever!?) but purely because when both of them saw THIS photo moments later they both shrieked "DELETE!! DEEELEEETE!!" and as such? it obviously amused me to no end to disregard all that and publish it regardless.. YEAAAS!!
1:53AM - Such as "Totally Not John Malkovich" here (surreptitiously included as part of the background). Who despite all repeated queries to the contrary, emphatically denied he was in fact John Malkovich (pfft.. well obviously he's lying!) or even his second cousin once removed (although we didn't really ask him that, so shit duuude maybe he was!?). Just like none of us, including the man in question, could name two movies he'd actually been in BESIDES "Being John Malkovich". No seriously! I dare any of you fools, without the aid of IMDb, Google or Wikipedia (or any number of internet search tools or ipod apps) to come up with an answer to that. Totally twisting your brain into a balloon animal ain't it!? (and no, you don't get any points for "Dangerous Liasons" either).
1:57AM - Or Georgia here.. shrieking hysterically attempting to avoid getting her photo taken just now, whilst simultaneously enacting her OWN "revenge" by taking a photo of me in return. And yes I realise there's something ever so slightly "passive aggressively" narcissistic about that shit (even in a world where facebook photo tagging exists) but that's not the real reason why I saw fit to publish this. Nope that would be the mildly bemused expression of that dude rolling a cigarette on the right there.. how freaking funny is that shit!? not really? yeaaah I know I got nothing here.
2:59AM - Just like this near "nondescript" photo at the bar an hour later, made slightly more "descript" by the fact there would've been TWO bartenders in this shot just now, if the second one didn't run away screaming. Yeaaah I know, I truly do amuse myself in the dumbest ways don't I?
3:07AM - Speaking of such, with The Exeter now closing up for the night I'd probably need to start looking elsewhere for my mind numbing amusement (and by "mind numbing" I clearly mean somewhere that was still serving it). I of course suggested the bleedingly obvious at 182 Hindley Street (yeaaah you know the one) but both Carli and Original Lucy had a different plan: The Crown & Anchor. And I was so super eager to go there too that I totally wasn't stalling HERE just now taking photos of this street art that I found along the way on Union Street instead. Weird! Now you've likely seen it all before, it's the first time for me however. And as much as I can gather? it appears to be a giant pink dog cocking its leg to pee on a street sign.. awesome huh? TOTALLY!!
Because what makes it all the more puzzling is that it appears to be accompanied by THIS poem, or perhaps it's a short story? or perhaps it's song lyrics!? (I doubt they're Frank Sinatra's though) as much as it likely has nothing to do with Craige Andrae's "Pink Dog" in the first place and it's likely arrived here by chance.. save for one teeny tiny detail you may not be getting here in this photo: the immense scale of it. This isn't just some teeny tiny "slip of paper" that I'm shooting up close here, it's much MUCH bigger. We're talking poster size, maybe even anywhere from A1 to A0 in printing terms.. DUUUDE!! I mean hell doesn't weird shit like that just blow your mind sideways sometimes!? or maybe not.. wait, where did everyone go again? The Crown & Anchor? REALLY!?
3:08AM - *Sigh* I know.. it just isn't the same is it?
3:14AM - Still as much as their outside seating has become increasingly paranoid to the point of a police state (so much so I was half surprised I wasn't told to move on just taking that photo), and all the "Jim Beam the label behind live music" banners over the live stage have given new meaning to "big name sponsorship" well beyond the point of rude and ridiculous (and don't get me started with all the punks, skeezeheads and dribbling weirdos who made this place SO fuck off awesome being kicked out only to relocate to Squatters Arms) it's still the same The Crown & Anchor by the main bar.. OH YES!! no matter how much we mock, resent and openly loathe this shitdive to the point we downright avoid it for months on end, it's still the same "loud and proud human toilet" we've all grown to love! A sentiment that clearly has nothing to do with THESE photos I'm taking of Carli and Original Lucy just now whilst pissing myself laughing by the pool tables. No, that's merely for my own entertainment.. and possibly to throw their game off too while I'm at it.
Aaaah and I ask you, how is THAT not an awesome photo!?
3:25AM - Fourth beer of the night. FOURTH BEER OF THE NIGHT. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING tastes quite tastes as sweet as "the fourth beer of the night": with the possible exception of the first, second and third beers of the night.. and wuh, what? oh I'm nowhere near drunk yet, I just really like beer and I felt that this photo was entirely necessary in expressing that. Mmmm beer!
3:40AM - And it's somewhere between finishing THAT beer and very much considering my fifth that I happened to notice that DJ Craig (he of Saturday night "Gosh" infamy at Jive) was spinning tunes here tonight. Neither Carli or Original Lucy believed me of course, so for laughs I waltzed right upto the DJ booth, took THIS photo without even uttering a word and then waltzed right back again to prove that he was (or perhaps it was more of a charleston or a lindy hop?) and as for what ANY of this has got to do with anything else? nothing really, I just felt like pointing it out just now.
4:04AM - And then for no good reason whatsoever (completely unrelated to last drinks being called at The Crown & Anchor) I found myself HERE. Now normally I'd cook up some near fanciful story like I magically teleported here, or astrally projected, or got kidnapped by a passing car full of pissweasels and deposited here (pfft.. like that ever happens!) but since I've only had four beers so far tonight? yeaaah I pretty much walked here.. but if it helps, totally imagine me doing the "worm" instead (and to be fair? that isn't far removed from how I normally get here anyways).
4:06AM - And speaking of all those OTHER nights where I'd be well and truly floating in a jar of pickles (and how!) by the time I got here? it appears Supermild has found it's own unique way to address the "gross imbalance" that my relative sobriety has inflicted upon the universe tonight (like a billion beer bottles crying in terror only to be suddenly silenced?) by presenting us with their very own "substitute Spoz" for the evening: Ross Osmon. He's here celebrating a wildly successful night of presenting Muscles at Adelaide Uni Bar supported by The Touch and Beirut Bathouse (and believe me I'm totally kicking myself stupid over the fact I missed that one too!). And obviously this isn't the first time we've ever seen him THIS hilariously obliterated, it's very much his specialty (as much as he's been sipping nothing but teeny tiny cups of tea all night and he's merely an exceptional "actor") but this may possibly be the first time we've ever seen him here at Supermild; either way? just look at him go! *sniff* I know.. he does me ever so "proud", HE REALLY DOES!!
And yes I do realise that's Rhys Bowkett, former lead singer of The Trafalgars doing his utmost to be overly conspicuous in both those photos above, but yeaaah we'll just choose to ignore that shit shall we? (I mean pfft.. "Ralph Wiggum" had all the raging talent in that band, and he knows it!).
4:15AM - But of course there were many more stupendous reasons for why "Stupormild" was THE shit hot ridiculous place to be tonight, completely unrelated to me making cheap shots at former or current Adelaide bands that sound a little too much like Oasis or Jet for their own good.. "what, Lyla!?" (no The Trafalgars you idiots!) and that was DJ Curtis here. Yup you may remember this bearded goon as former guitarist, fluatist and shitcrazy mandolin player for Clue To Kalo (a band so spastically twee they were practically the dictionary definition of tongue tied and knock kneed). But what you might have forgotten (and if prompted may recall with misty eyed nostalgia) is how ridiculously shit hot this mad cat was as a DJ at Rocket Bar and Supermild back in the day. And we ain't talking skull raping "four to the floor" techno here, we ain't talking shittyarse indie disco, we be talking the craziest, most goofyarse and damn near infectious 1940's to 1960's doo-wop, soul, swinging Motown insanity happening. I mean just look at him losing his shit to it.. HELL YEAAAS!!
Yup he may only have been filling in for the occassional song during Griffy Griff's set tonight and pulling gonzo shapes on the dancefloor with Gloria to boot here (see? how is this cat not a living legend!?) but when he swaps over on Friday nights in two weeks time (and Griffy Griff swaps out for Thursdays instead) shit's gonna go fucking beserk in here! I mean in all honesty I might only be here in the first place because they totally serve long necks of beer, and at some unspecified point someone might have accidently confused a blithering alcoholic like ME as some kinda A-list fashionista who could totally skip the line and scam himself free entry everytime he walks in here (HA HA HA no really.. what the fuck is that all about!?) but this? THIS is just the icing on the cake!
5:10AM - Aaaah I ask you.. when everything's "coming up Millhouse" like this, how could you not drink yourself near delerious in riotous celebration till well after closing.. huh? HUH!? and is that Mistletoe I see there? WHOAAAA FUCK!! *cough* or on second thoughts yeaaah maybe I should back away slowly from that shit before we do some real damage here.. GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!!
Yup I may not look it in the end: like a gross contradiction to even consider it, like a mad science experiment gone horribly HORRIBLY wrong more than it could ever come right (or rather like every OTHER hilariously fucked up night documented the Adelaide scene only with an added ironic twist thinking the "cancer" could ever be the "cure" here) but THIS night I swear totally put shit back into whack, it totally realigned ying with yang, drunk with sober, genius with insanity, all that feng shui and chakra crap and made it spin tricks like a fucking yo-yo! I mean sure I may have limped into Fowlers Live at the beginning every definition a "raving lunatic" and crawled out of Supermild at the other end every definition a "dribbling idiot", and many of you may consider them both to be one and the same.. but you'd be mistaken! There wasn't any "hangover" the next day, no damage to control, no nothing at all but a clear conscience and a whistling breeze through both my ears as my brain flew out the door! Which I think we can all agree is the best place to be, because now that everything's back in working order? I have the distinct satisfaction of fucking it all up once more!
