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 THIRD ANNUAL SPOZ'S RANT AWARDS / PART TWO ADELAIDE MUSIC SCENE / January - December 2010 / PART ONE / PART THREE
Hi everyone (yes all three of you stifling yawns and chirping crickets!) and welcome to Part Two of "The Third Annual Spoz's Rant Awards": the most hilariously pretentious, self indulgent and utterly superfluous "best of awards" for 2010 you'd ever care to read on the internet as judged by ME, the one jackass who should never be judge to anything! (and better yet it's totally on the Adelaide scene!? LIKE WOWEEE AND SHIT!!) except you've probably already got the general gist of THAT in my lengthy "introduction" to Part One (and if not follow the links and don't say I didn't warn you!) and as such? yeaaah it's kinda pointless repeating myself again. Hmmm. So how's everyone going then.. enjoy your Christmas? looking forward to New Years Eve? got any parties planned? you really don't give a shit either way and if ever we crossed paths in the street you'd stab me repeatedly in the neck and leave me to bleed out in the gutter!? HA HA HA AWESOME!! *ahem* suffice to say this is Part Two, the all important shit is in Part Three, so you're probably better off skipping most of these pissyarse "group awards" save for the last two (and perhaps the third to last as well) unless you happen to be nominated for any of it, in which case I'm so very VERY sorry I had to put you through all this (and if it helps I totally meant it as a compliment too.. please don't kill me!). Yup this's The Third Annual Spoz's Rant Awards (like whoop-di-fucking-doo!) this is me celebrating the living shit out of everything that the Adelaide scene had to offer us in 2010, and in keeping with all the glowing accolades I'll be sure to present in following? (and how!) here's a photo of two random pisswads and one Tom Kennedy from The Sweet Decline (an Adelaide band which I readily admit hasn't actually been nominated for anything this year but I assure you are totally awesome!) getting all up close and personal with a blood spattered guitar. One which I think we can all agree totally sums up the whole end of year "nostalgia trip" we got rocking in spades, dont'cha think?
TRAINWRECKS OF THE YEAR / THE CRYING GAME Aaaah I don't know about you but I love a good trainwreck, I really fucking do! And obviously I'm NOT talking literally here, it's a metaphorical notion of course: live band on a stage, a few screws loose to a fullblown apocalypse (no wait.. what did you THINK I was talking about!? sheeesh!) and I'm not talking about chance fuckups being passed off as "trainwrecks" either. I mean suuure you gotta make fun of THOSE, you gotta milk that shit for all it's worth (duuude c'mon, they're a piss taking goldmine!) but then you forgive and forget them: all those faulty leads, the busted amps, broken guitar strings, shoddy house mixers, nonexistent stage lighting, crowds who plum forget to show up, all the heavy police presence that DO (seriously one day I gotta catch me one of those alleyway shows.. if it damn near kills me!) and then you move on. Because accidents happen to everyone: happy or heinous? there's nothing special about them! they're simply part and parcel of performing live, they're the risk and reward of human error combined with complex electronics and excess alcoholics (and haven't we all been there too!?). No the real "trainwrecks" worth celebrating here, worth remembering? are the ones who do all this shit on purpose! Yup we're talking those chance few kamikaze professionals who flee not from chaos and carnage but openly encourage it as key to their modus operandi. We're talking bona-fide demolition experts who stop at nothing to leave their own indelible impact crater on the Adelaide scene. We're talking the most willfully stupid of the stupid aspiring to new heights in head exploding genius.. FUCK YEAAAS!! And in 2010 we sure as shit weren't short of fine examples to this most visceral and borderline violent of artistic expressions, ones we could all be proud of! (whilst cowering in fear under umbrellas and ponchos). And sure many of them might have been fleeting, once-off eye gouging spectacles.. NEVER TO BE REPEATED (or at least not until the next unwitting arts festival gave them carte blanche to re-enact them with a fresh unsuspecting audience) but then along came The Crying Game.. OOOOH FUCK!! Originally billed as an Adelaide allstar supergroup featuring members from: Fire! Santa Rosa, Fire!, Steering By Stars, No Through Road, Aviator Lane, The Waterslides and whatever-the-fuckarse insane "travelling circus" Matt Hayward used to perform in (in fact he was often billed as a "man of many talents" to further disguise his infamous origins) they were truly a sight for sore eyes and ears ringing off the hook. And on Saturday March the 6th they debuted at Format Festival in what was promised to be a ONE TIME ONLY "cover band" extravaganza performing all the best and worst yacht rock and stadium cheese the 1980's had to offer us. What we got instead? was a beer fueled karoake fist fight free-for-all where nobody (not even at the back of the room) was safe from being flying tackled and screamed at point blank in the face. It was nothing short of Fight Club: The Musical, a bag of angry cats stuffed into a washing machine and simultaneously the BEST and WORST live show we'd seen explode on (or off) a live stage.. duuude it was pure fucking carnage! Better yet (or worse.. depending on how you look at it) they didn't just stop at that ONE TIME ONLY performance either, they kept coming back again and again even more stupid and insane than before, they were a mad science experiment that simply WOULD NOT QUIT, they were The Crying Game! And for dragging the Adelaide scene down to brand new lows in 2010.. WE SALUTE YOU!!
NEWBORN GIRAFFES OF THE YEAR / RADIO SPECTACULAR!!! Every band has its awkward "formative phase". Well ok.. ALMOST every band, some have that particularly annoying knack of bypasssing that shit altogether by rehearsing solidly for a year or more so I can't take the piss out them when I ultimately trash their first show, which I think we can all agree is kinda "cheating" (as much as I'll still take the piss out of them regardless.. isn't that right Dougie from Quiet In The Lab!? WAHOOOO!!). The point is? it's truly nothing to be ashamed of, (almost) every one us have been through it at one point or another and eventually we all move on to bigger and brighter things (yes.. even Ben Revi). But before we DO there's always those first few live gigs to fumble through at Rhino Room or Cavern Club because we don't know any better, those first few months of not knowing what a "foldback" is and why it makes a world of difference to harass the house mixer constantly to turn it up (they'll retaliate by making the mics feedback), those first few songs we write of absolute rubbish that we SWEAR will get us signed on with Modular (ones that totally come with their own bitchin' handclap chorus!? HELL YEAAAS!!) until you harden the fuck up, kick Matt Hayward out of your band, only to hire a ridiculously cute female vocalist with the lung capacity of a squirrel, only to break that shit up, join a band with Tom Spall from Cortez with NO vocalist at which point the world is totally your oyster (not that I'm speaking of any specific example of course). Or you simply resign to the fact you'll always be shit, buy matching microkorgs and act as support act for The Touch (only to wind up signing on with Modular anyways). And it's this "formative phase", somewhere between your first gig and your demo launch that I like to call the "Newborn Giraffe" (so named after the visual of watching one attemping to walk for the first time). Especially for the more hilariously ungainly and adolescent of examples, or in other words: pretty much every single band Ben Revi has ever been in (except for the latest one). Now I realise it IS a little cruel of me to give it its own award here, as most bands DO eventually grow out of it (in fact I have all the confidence in the world that Box Elder will be Adelaide's answer to the Animal Collective, only five times more ridiculous awesome, only perhaps two years too late to do anything about it) but then again most bands AREN'T Radio Spectacular!!! Radio Spectacular!!! are a gift. A gift that keeps on giving and giving with three utterly excessive exclamation points to boot. A gift that admittedly I tried returning the first time I ever saw them (thinking they were the musical equivalent of a "badly knitted sweater with three arm holes" that your great aunt tries to pawn off to you on Christmas Day with a box of raisins and a gift certificate to Harris Scarfe) but now that I understand them better? I realise just how head explodingly brilliant they are! While most bands stop being "Newborn Giraffes" and start kicking arse, this one damn near went professional with it. They became the goofiest, clunkiest, fuck-ugly fantastic, technicolour spastic ode to knock kneed adolescence ever realised on a live stage. And even better? THEY ONLY GET INFINITELY WEIRDER WITH AGE TOO!? No really! take a good look at those photos below, watch their live video, both were taken from their "1000 Colours" launch party this year (they've been around for what.. three years now, THREE YEARS!?). And yes that IS their lead singer Phebe Rendulic wearing a cape. A CAPE. WITH STRIPES. IN GLITTER!! And yes that IS their guitarist Harry Worth wearing a chunky knit "Cosby" sweater. And wait? is that a bubble gun, with flashing lights!? HA HA HA DUUUDE!! HOW DOES THIS NOT BLOW YOUR MIND!? I mean yeaaah it might look like I'm endlessly mocking them for all this shit (and I am) but I'm in absolute awe of them too! They're not just "Newborn Giraffes" they're "Newborn Giraffes" thrown down a flight of stairs to a pumping SNES soundtrack. Radio Spectacular!!!? no shit! never ever stop being this stupidly goofy.. YOU ROCK MY WORLD!!
THE MONA LISA OVERDRIVE AWARD / SINCERELY, GRIZZLY Waaay back in the glory days of 2008, perhaps a little before your "time", perhaps even before you were born (wait who the fuck do I think is reading this then.. zygotes!?) there was this band called Mona Lisa Overdrive. Yes.. MONA LISA OVERDRIVE!! Maybe you've heard of them before? or yeaaah maybe not. Anyhoo if you hadn't? they were this near legendary four piece garage band (occassionally five piece whenever Mathias Northway would join them on third guitar and slide whistle) very much inspired by the sounds of The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground and on the odd occassion The Velvet Underground Manhattan Starship Project (ask your parents about them.. they were huge in the 80's) featuring the whizzbang talents of Alex Fewings on lead vocal and drums, Luke Mayes and Dave Wilke on guitar and Jessica Honeychurch on keys. They played maybe a few thousand gigs around town, a few gigs I might have attended, and then I swear they started following me to the point I couldn't escape them, and then things just got a little "weird". By year's end I'd reviewed them ten times.. TEN TIMES!! as much as you could hardly call any of the later ones actual "reviews" as they mostly just revolved around me "mad yammering" out of my batshit mind like I was John Malkovich stuck inside of John Malkovich's head, in that movie "Dangerous Liasons" (oh no wait, perhaps it's the other one!? hmmm) and then I started drinking heavily (because clearly I wasn't drinking heavy enough BEFORE) either way, ever since that fateful day? I vowed never again to put myself through that shit (ten times over, people! TEN TIMES!!) not for Mona Lisa Overdrive, not for anyone (as much as I also saw Tyger Tyger fourteen times that year but pfft.. THEY WERE FREAKING HILARIOUS!!) and then I came up with THIS: "The Mona Lisa Overdrive Award" as a dark reminder to any other Adelaide band to NEVER ever tread in their infamous footsteps. And for a brief moment it worked beautifully too! For all of 2009 I didn't even need to invoke its name once, they knew the legend well, they knew the risks of overexposure on Spoz's Rant, "NEVER AGAIN.. NEVEERRR!!". But then just before I could rest up easy in 2010? yup along comes Sincerely, Grizzly! And to start with they seemed innocuous enough: their guitarist Josh Calligeros all kinds of gangly and goofy, their bass player Griff Farley with his "lucky beanie", Rowan Mount and his electronic drumkit sounding for all the world like two wet noodles hitting wet newspaper over and over with the volume cranked.. "HA HA HA you guys!" how could you EVER get sick of that!? but then I kept seeing them, again and again, and no matter which gig I picked I couldn't escape them, they were freaking relentless! And as much as I might've been overreacting somewhat? as admittedly I only saw them live eight times this year, only wrote about them six of those times, and that last time in September (the night after I saw them on Friday night) I didn't even take photos but check out their mad cover of Zeta's "Hikikomori" that I recorded (oh I wasn't going insane at all!) what really pushed them over the edge into legitimate "Mona Lisa Overdrive" territory for me? were the wild rumours I heard anytime I totally lost my shit at the mere mention of their name and dared "skip a show". OH AND I HEARD ALL ABOUT IT TOO!! Like that one time in May when they shouted jugs of free beers for everyone and promised even more if more than fifty people showed up? Or that time (in July? August? September!?) when they got Rory O'Connor from Steering By Stars on stage (or perhaps it was Lachlan) and they trashed the fuck out of a drumkit? Or the time Griff on bass wore fifty beanies on his head, set himself on fire and sang Christmas Carols.. and that's just the shit I can remember? (and maybe I made that last one up?) AND I MISSED THEM!? FUUUCK OFF!! Yup Sincerely, Grizzly didn't just "pay their dues" in 2010, they went above and beyond in exploring all the giddy depths of live performance omnipresence. They made you kick yourself retarded for ditching them, even if you'd seen five times in the past week! And for never giving us a moment's rest in delivering all THAT? yup how could I not give them THIS!?
MOST OVERLOOKED OF THE YEAR/ THE TOUCH Aaaah I don't know about you duuudes? but I swear 2010 was one of the best years I've ever had with Spoz's Rant, THE BEST!! and do you wanna know why!? And noooo it's not for all the spastic festivals, the launch parties, the album releases, the sold out shows, the overabundance of head exploding talent and creativity that practically made my innards burst with effervescent glee to be a part of it.. and let us not forget Sincerely, Grizzly! (although admittedly yes all THAT was pretty freaking cool!). Nope better than that, 2010 was one of the best years I've ever had running this blog because not once did I ever write up a single live review of The Touch. NOT ONCE!! not once did I see a single live show of theirs, not ever, nada, zip, zilch, duuude it was a beautiful thing! in fact I kinda wish I could repeat that mad scam every damn year into perpetuity it was that mind blowingly awesome (as much as me making a running joke of it surely defeats the purpose) oh and it was everything I could ever have asked for AND SO MUCH MORE TOO!! And yet as much as I AM celebrating the shit out of my "small victory" here? (and then some) and as much as they'll undoubtfully be celebrating the same in countless bullets with their name on it they dodged here in 2010? (oh no need to thank me.. THANK YOU!!) there ARE no real winners with "Most Overlooked Of The Year" here. Nope, more so than any other year? this is a time for me to reflect upon all the little things I didn't do for the Adelaide scene in 2010, all the little things I didn't see, didn't write about, didn't publish or promote in pisstaking aplomb, and all the stupid and obvious ways in which I failed YOU as an audience! Yup those token three nominees listed below barely even begin to cover the mass atrocities I've committed in absenteeism this year (I may even have listed all three of them as an embarassing after thought too.. because hey at least I'd seen them all once, and maybe even wrote about them too!) just as I could've easily listed fifty more! And yeaaah I know I'm only ONE person here and I can only do so much, but WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING!? Like how for the first time ever, in thirteen years, I skipped out on the Adelaide Big Day Out in 2010? the same Adelaide Big Day Out when the 20th Century Graduates, Hawks Of Alba and The Thieves all had their shining moment in the sun!? Or how I missed out on all those subsequent shows by The Thieves (the maddest folk punk band you've never damn near seen!) even when they played WITH 20th Century Graduates AT The Ed Castle? no really where was I? WHO KNOWS!? (I mean aren't I always at the fucking Ed Castle!?). Or what about all those other awesome bands I failed to cover: like Coerce for a second year running? or Isle Of Vision.. even when they threw that epic launch party at The Ed Castle with The Amcats celebrating their split vinyl release? or God God Damnit Damnit, remember them!? Spacebong?Thunderclaw?Bronze Chariot?Robotosaurus!? as much as I featured some of the latter once or twice, but let's face it.. that ain't nearly enough! or all those other shows I missed at Format!? (yes Stan Mahoney, I'M GOING TO THE WRONG SHOWS!! you don't need to tell me twice!) Or what about The Fringe Festival Opening Night Parade with The Killgirls? or The Polyphonic Spree? or Brian Jonestown Massacre? or Black Rebel Motorcycle Club!? or all those other shitcrazy and insane shows you'll undoubtfully remind me about while I beat my head into this wall? Yup the fact is I've failed you in 2010. For all I did? I simply didn't do enough! I've been nothing but an embarassment, this is me hanging my sorry head in shame hoping you'll accept my apology.. PLEASE FORGIVE ME!! But still.. all that being said? that shit with me blackballing The Touch for a year? HA HA HA yeaaah that was pretty freaking schweet aye?
TOURING ACT OF THE YEAR / PHILADELPHIA GRAND JURY Still in between me doing "shit-fuck-all" this year besides farting loudly in the bathtub, drinking myself laughably unconscious on the toilet seat (in the nude, in the front yard, whilst passing cars loudly honk their horns at me), collecting toenail clippings, peeing into milk bottles, and attending upteen shows at The Ed Castle (it's where I like to drop off my dry cleaning dont'cha know!) I also did "squeeze" in the occassional "live touring act". For as much as Spoz's Rant IS ostensibly about me abusing the fuck out of countless Adelaide bands till they develop a psychiatric disorder they may never truly recover from (awww c'mon it's my way of making them feel special!) it's also about picking on countless interstate and international bands who wouldn't know any better, and when they finally do? they're at least half a dozen postcodes or timezones away so then they can't throw any punches at me.. YEAAAS!! Now obviously there were no shortage of shining examples this year (especially ones I scammed doorlisting for by blackmailing the support acts), ones we could all be proud to say we saw "waaay back when", which is kind've odd because I could've sworn they knew full well by now (thanks to countless Melbourne standup comedians) just how much of a steaming pile Adelaide IS, but all power to them for touring here regardless! No really, if you can win over an Adelaide audience you can pretty much win ANYONE over (yes even at The Oxford Arts Factory!) especially if you can actually get them to attend in the first place (yay ridiculous surburban sprawl, $50+ taxi fares, and fuckall buses running past 12AM on any other night other than a Saturday!). And for the ultimate example of this in 2010? yup we need look no further than Philadelphia Grand Jury. PHILADELPHIA GRAND JURY!! (what AGAIN? for the second year running!? GET FUCKED!!). Yup admittedly they might not be the most sophisticated or subtle of live acts we saw this year, they may not be the most highbrow, arty farty or distinguished, and hey this IS just my opinion (and no amount of you arguing is gonna change that) but even so? FUCK DAMN did they throw one hell of a party! They toured here twice in 2010, first in April and again in December; I covered the former for this blog when they packed out Jive to capacity (and not only blew the roof off the joint like it was foam off a fucking latte, but blew the roof off every other establishment in a one kilometre radius to boot). And if you were lucky enough to catch it? duuude you'd know exactly what I'm on about (and have multiple x-rays to prove it!). And if you didn't? yup you truly did miss out on the touring act of the year.. unless you caught their second tour at The Governor Hindmarsh in which case you'd totally know much better than I, so really there's no point me yammering any further is there!? (short of maybe pointing you in the vague direction of my original writeup to appreciate the full apocalyptic scope of what they "unleashed"). Either way, for lowering the average IQ of any room you've performed in? in a mass raucous retarded celebration of everything stupid and insane that the government's been fighting hard to crack down upon in binge drinking excess? (with bonus points allocated to a hairy and shirtless MC Bad Genius attempting to whip his own bass guitar with his belt whilst Berkfinger gets cannibalised by the crowd?) Philadelphia Grand Jury!? DUUUDES!! You might be bad for our mental health, but you're welcome to fuck shit up in this city any 'ol time!
EVENT OF THE YEAR / "PARKING INSPECTORS ARE PEOPLE TOO!" LAUNCH PARTY Now as much as it DOES say in the title: "Event Of The Year", this isn't me giving out an excess of glowing accolades in a mad celebration to the bleedingly obvious. And by "bleedingly obvious" I obviously mean all the established "events" we have in Adelaide any given year: the million and one fuckarse retarded music festivals that tour the nation from September to April in a shitcrazy symphony to giddy excess (where 90% of them inexplicably appear to be devoted to nothing but shitty indie dance, fake tans and fluoro). I mean pfft.. what would be the point in that!? Nope this is for all the homegrown festivities in between, the grassroots productions, those teeny tiny "token gestures" of head exploding awesomeatude that show the world (or at least the eastern states when they've stopped laughing at us for even trying) that maybe JUST MAYBE we have more to this proverbial armpit stain than just two bands and twenty people to rub together to make ourselves a vibrant music scene.. "hey look Sincerely, Grizzly's playing another gig at The Metro! squeeee!". And if nothing else? 2010 was the year Adelaide went fucking medieval with this shit. HA HA HA duuude did we ever! It was like a pissing contest to END ALL PISSING CONTESTS!! No matter where you looked, no matter how hard you tried to run and hide from them, pretty much every week of the year you'd care to mention it: some arseclown of a band was throwing an event to celebrate the raging fuck out of it. Duuude it was out of control! Launch parties maaan.. LAUNCH PARTIES!? FUUUCK!! all we ever heard about were freakings launch parties! demos, singles, EPs, albums upon albums till they were practically exploding out of our earholes? No shit! we simply had waaay too many of them, waaay too often, and little by little Spoz's Rant went fucking insane attempting to cover them all! and that was only the iceberg frosty nipple of it!? Yup and as much as I was buried under an avalanche of this insanity (and how!) this year to the point I had trouble getting a phone signal out, whilst simultaneously enjoying the fringe benefit of filling up my ipod with so much a grade homegrown it practically made my head spin (which will be sure to make Part Three of these "best of awards" all the more contentious attempting to pick my favourites amongst them.. GUH!!) the ones I truly appreciated most were the ones that went the extra mile, as not just "means to an end" in selling band merch but as riotous celebrations in their own right (and hell some of the best ones didn't even need to be launching anything to blow our minds like microwave popcorn!). And out of all the prime examples I could give my mad props and three thumbs up to with this award? the one that proved most memorable to me in 2010 was 20th Century Graduate's launch party for "Parking Inspectors Are People Too!"! Yup picture if you will: late August, tail end of a punishingly cold winter (that in hindsight didn't really end until summer). It's election night, we're sick to death of it, sick to death of everything, we couldn't be more pissed off, cynical, jaded or downright "murder-suicidal" even if we tried at the state of the world we're in. And then like a technicolour beacon in the dark? yup along comes 20th Century Graduates! The most spastically happy band in Adelaide, celebrating the most spastically happy launch party of the year at Jive? YEAAAS!! I mean no shit! you couldn't have planned this better even if you tried: they hit us up at exactly the right time, in the right sorry state of mind and they didn't let ANYONE leave until they were exploding cheesyarse grins ear-to-ear and mad tweaking out of their eyeballs! All the spastic balloons, streamers, confetti cannons, bubble machines, party hats, inflatable beach balls, free candy.. FREE CANDY!? duuude it went fucking beserk! it obliterated everyone in its path! Seriously! after this category five shitstorm blew through Jive? you didn't care what planet you were on, how drunk you were, why your pants were on the ceiling, or who the fuck just got elected to lead the country.. you just KNEW you SO partied the shit out of shit you wouldn't have to go near a bogroll or full flush toilet for a week! And better yet the EP they launched totally didn't blow goats either? Yup that was 20th Century Graduates showing us just how it was done! And for giving us the maddest fucking buzz all year? (and how!) duuude here's hoping there's an encore in 2011.. BEST PARTY EVER!!
Well that was Part Two in all its stupifying excess. Part Three is yet to come (unless it's been already written). And again, as is customary for a "best of awards" like this? (especially one that's been posted on the internet) now would be as good a moment as any to dump shit on me, in the comments box, over just how stupidly wrong I've gotten it.. YEAAAS!! MAKE ME PROUD INTERWEB!!
