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 4TH ANNUAL SPOZ'S RANT AWARDS / PART I
ADELAIDE MUSIC SCENE / January - December 2011 / NOMINEES / PART II / PART III
Wow, so how did it come to THIS: another year, another fucked up installment of The Spoz's Rant Awards!? and it's what...the fourth year I've unleashed this insanity? I mean it begs the question now doesn't it...and I don't mean HOW IS IT I've kept this blog running against all the odds this year to get to this point...HAHAHAHA no seriously? hadn't we run this topic into the ground already? Like oh suuure! let's totally make my "recreational binge-drinking" into a fully fledged nine-to-five! sounds like an aaawesome plan! sounds like a genius plan: getting unsigned musicians to pay for gig advertising each week, it can't possibly fail! until it ALMOST FUCKING KILLED ME THAT'S WHAT!! (and we're talking on numerous occassions: risking actual death and/or dismemberment; or at the very least a protracted hospital stay due to illness, possibly mental self inflicted) and I'm not even kidding you maaan...I put myself through some serious "Francis Ford Coppola" shit to keep this blog happening in 2011; and it was fucking intense! and I perhaps enjoyed it a little too much and it's besides the point anyways (because yup...I've clearly gone off on another one of my ridiculous tangents again). No the REAL question is: why would the Adelaide scene invest so much interest in someone as wilfully misguided as myself writing up these silly awards in the first place? WHHHY!? HAHAHAHA because the Adelaide scene HAS NO official music industry awards THAT'S WHY! I mean we used to...they were called the SAMIAs. But then we got rid of them in 2006 (yeaaah remember Vegans In Leather? me neither! but apparently they won it every year despite not being an active concern for almost a decade) and now I'M ALL YOU'VE GOT; sobering thought innit? (easily enough to send ME to drink in judging this shit each year) for we live in a music scene that's verily seen the apocalypse maaan! We've had it all: from the pokies fucking up all our suburban live venues in the 90's to inner-city residential noise complaints killing off the rest; a "music scene" rendered all but invisible, possessing all the talent and little or no airplay or representation; a music scene only just now rising from the ashes! And until such time a bona-fide music industry award returns to do it actual justice again? yup welcome to The 4th Annual Spoz's Rant Awards! Admittedly it won't be much; in fact on so many levels it'll surely be a whole lot LESS and a continuing embarassment for everyone involved...but yeah fuck it, let's just celebrate the shit out of this insanity all the same!
THE MATT BANHAM AWARD: CARLA LIPPIS
Which then brings us to our first silly "awards" category. And for argument's sake? yeaaah let's just assume that we're already WELL AWARE just how completely fucking ridiculous this shit is; I mean these "awards", surely they achieve nothing, and none of it matters in the grand scheme of things, NONE OF IT...short of needlessly congratulating and overinflating the pissy egos of both the award recipients and the moron (yup that'd be me!) who took it upon himself to award them; which come to think of it? kinda makes them no different or diminished in value compared to any other fucked up awards ceremony you've ever seen...and even by THOSE incredibly lax "standards" still a whole lot better than The Aria Awards telecast back in 2010...so yeah let's just forget I ever mentioned it. This shit? 100% LEGIT YO!! (hell I'm even thinking of knocking up an awards show for next year!). Just like we'll ALSO assume that you already "get" that this FIRST award is bestowed upon that one lead singer in the Adelaide music scene who went above and beyond in embodying all the larger than life and now admittedly cliche values of being THE "lead singer" for 2011. So named after the infamous Matt Banham of No Through Road (a "giant dildo crushing the sun" if we ever saw one) who's presence will surely be missed in these parts ever since he moved to Sydney; if it weren't for the fact he still keeps posting new shit on youtube, and on twitter, and on facebook, AND OH DEAR GAWD MAKE HIM STOP ALREADY...WHO'S GONNA THINK OF THE CHILDREN!! but not before I watch that wacky xmas video again (it's like David Hasselhoff eating a burger off the floor set to music!). One who'd left such a glaring absence in the scene in 2011, one couldn't dream of replacing his schtick so soon...I mean we're obviously still in mourning here (sorry Jon Marco, I know you tried!) and as such? I've seen to fit to bestow this year's award to the one person who not only embodied all the gargantuan qualities of a "Matt Banham" in both exceptional vocal AND stage presence, but also acted as a welcome "respite" to all of Matt Banham egomaniacal dysfunctions (as Adelaide's answer to Bernard Black), just as...yup let's face it you also had to have been living under a rock, or a great many "rocks" lacking even half a bar of a wifi/phone reception to not know who she was this year: Carla Lippis from The Rules? OOOOH SHIT and I think I just peed a little in uttering her name just now too...THAT'S how fuckoff terrifying she was in 2011! Not just for her triple A-grade vocal delivery equal parts Aretha Franklin, Zack De La Rocha and Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket stuffed into the body of Liza Minnelli...but also in the way she delivered it live on stage: like a sawn-off shotgun at point-blank range, punching your pink bits clean through your throat out the back of your skull and shat onto the walls behind you...and in high heels no less! And even more remarkably? with a quiet no-nonsense approach to showmanship utterly bereft of alcoholic or arty farty excess that nearabout put everyone else but the most seasoned Vegas drag queens to shame in shit kicking professionalism!? I mean she wasn't at all possessive or arrogant about it...shit, she'll even give you singing lessons! she's more than happy to share the wealth! both an audience shitbricking 10ft tall behemoth belching fire from her lungs and humble almost to a fault? Yup for schooling us all in 2011 (and for letting us live to tell the tale), we salute you!
HONOURABLE MENTION: JOSH MOORE (as much as we shouldn't encourage him) / MARIO SPATE
THE LACHLAN WILSON AWARD: LACHLAN WILSON
But of course for every loud-mouthed loon itching to seize centre-stage, plant their proverbial flag hoisted up high and piss all over the audience with their golden pipes, proud as fuck to perform for pretty much anyone who'll let them (wow and apologies for the mental image I just painted there!) there's at least a dozen more "lead singers" who'd ask for anything but that, to be anywhere else BUT showcasing their craft in front of a large audience, preferring to hide in a quiet corner instead; or better yet phoning it all in from afar: under a ridiculous alias, via sock puppet proxy and buried under a haze of sound from a lo-fi "studio recording" done three weeks ago from their kid sister's bedroom...YES!! For these are the frontpersons defacto; most scruffy, increasingly forming a meek and mild majority, propped up behind mic stands, guitars, keys, laptops being artfully ambiguous; all the talent, nary the impetus to perform it in public, often pent in painfully shy introspection and harrowing self doubt, until one day they explode like an albatross thrown into a ceiling fan and it's a thing of superlative beauty...and THIS is their award that celebrates their quiet accomplishments! although not so loud as to frighten them back into the shadows; THIS is their moment to shine! And as much as I'd love to congratulate each and every one of these "proud" nominees equally as shrinking violets most exemplary, or for simply being a-grade vocal talents extraordinare with nary a hint of ego or theatrical artiface to promote themselves with? one went waaay beyond that call of duty, stood towering above all others in 2011, in being that prime example par excellence for the Adelaide scene (quite like he did the year before I might add) although frequently stooping down low so as not to draw untoward attention to himself: Lachlan Wilson from Steering By Stars. Yup, without a doubt he was EVERY dictionary definition and medical diagnosis of a "shrinking violet" in 2011; so much so he's even had this award's category renamed in his honour. Which you'd think would totally jinx him from winning his own award ever again (and perhaps point to some seriously fucked up near fictional "childhood trauma" he should probably get looked at possibly involving The Count from Sesame Street...hmmm?). But since no other "lead singer" this year has quite come close to equalling that combination of undeniable artistry and crippingly shy introspection...or hoped to match that signature "singing style" of his, that almost but doesn't quite sound like a sickly albino kid with freaky magical powers being drowned in a frozen winter lake in Manitoba, in a blizzard? (or at least that's how he sounded in 2010...now imagine that exact same scenario in 2011; only to up the tension that same kid's attempting to wrestle free from a straitjacket too!?) THAT'S the mad intensity that Lachlan Wilson wields on stage like a pro! that mad gut-wrenching intensity buried deep down inside him shackled like an emotional Houdini busting to be let free! and THAT'S why he again wins this award hands down as the shrinking ying to the "Matt Banham" exploding yang that we've since named after him this year!? HAHAHA *PHEW* YOU BETCHA!! But before you suggest this shit is rigged (and I swear the other nominees WERE in with a chance!) back when Steering By Stars released their first album, could you understand a single haunting ode he sung suppressed as they were under a billion effects pedals? No? And now that you CAN kind've decipher them with their latest single in 2011, was it any less harrowing...!? MY POINT EXACTLY!! He hasn't just mastered the art of "theatrical autism" to the nth degree, he's utterly redefined it!
AXE MURDERER OF THE YEAR: DAN CAVA
Now obviously this next award is for "guitarist of the year". As in the a-grade finest, most shit hot exemplary example to the art of guitaring that the Adelaide scene has produced this year, the one we should all be proud of...and as humble heartfelt thanks for making our world that much richer and brighter in strumming that wondrous five or six string? we should totally all shout them a beer, or twelve, or a bottle of none-too-shabby "plonk" from the nearest bottle-o and then pat them on the back and go "you da man!", and then petition the city council to erect a glorious bronze statue in their honour (or at the very least a loud cheer from the back of the room and a complimentary wristy from that girl they fancied) "SHIT YES!! BEST ADELAIDE GUITARIST FOR 2011!! WOOOO!!". But obviously I'm not one to simply out and say it, let alone declare it in writing. I mean pfft...do I look like I'm one to give upfront open praise that brazen? Do I look like I'm that naive: offering up a genuine compliment to an Adelaide muso without twisting it into a prize winning backhander!? SHIT THAT HEARTFELT AND SINCERE COULD KILL A MAN!! FUUUCK!! I mean this ain't America! this ain't an Oprah lovefest, this is Adelaide yo! Our music scene's the abused middle child of Australia! We're the butt of everyone's jokes! shit...we've been that way for decades, for generations! to the point our artists are SO accustomed to being grievously abused, insulted and ignored by the public at large; anything short of the most begrudging thumbs up and scathingly sarcastic endorsement, ESPECIALLY FROM THE INTERNET, is liable to give them all the BENDS!! I mean you should see how retarded our musicians get if they ever play to a capacity crowd here; or if they ever receive regular airplay and glowing praise from Triple J; or shit...even if they just get a teeny tiny endorsment in The Advertiser in the "Adelaide Confidential" section? it's sad, they really don't know how to react,it's killed off countless promising careers before they even got started, IT'S RUINED LIVES PEOPLE!! no...you gotta be "cruel to be kind" lest their heads explode. Which not only explains my entire fucked up philosophy in regards to "live reviews" (I'm so sorry everyone, I love your work but I'm doing this for your mental wellbeing!) but it's also all the more relevant to keep in mind when you consider THIS next award...why? BECAUSE YOU SOOO DON'T WANT TO ENCOURAGE A GUITARIST, OOOOH FUCK NO!! I mean don't get me wrong, I love what you do! I appreciate the mad hell out of it, I truly do, I can't get enough of it! I just know better than to tell that to your faces otherwise I'd never hear the end of it...FUUUCK!! No seriously! Every week AS IT IS: I'm getting a constant facebook feed of you freaks obsessing over your guitars, your pickups, your effect pedals...and do you know why I took so many photos of that shit in 2011? because a guitarist (no not Dougie from Quiet In The Lab! but nice of you to think that) begged me to provide more photos back in April, because apparently effects pedals to a guitarist = your version of porn; I'm not even kidding you! YOU FUCKS CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF THAT SHIT!! IT'S ALL I EVER HEAR ABOUT!! guitarists spouting an endless littany of who's buying what, selling what, or "LOOK WHAT I'VE GOT!!" in a 60's replica whatever-the-fuck with an accompanying photo devil fingers raised AAAAUUGGHH!! I mean do you REALLY think I'm stupid enough to add fuel to THAT fire!? FUCK NO!! And so for 2011, and in the quietest way possible here? take a bow Dan Cava from Surviving Sharks *cough*...you da man!
THE RYAN MANOLAKIS AWARD: RYAN MANOLAKIS
Now after years of extensive research in the Adelaide scene; and by "research" I obviously mean drinking; and since I choose to do all my "drinking" at live venues and have done so for the past 10-15 odd years instead of say somewhere people might actually want to "attend" on a Friday or Saturday night in the off-chance of "getting some"? (instead of oh I dunno listening to a guitarist bragging about the time they "MacGyvered" the pickup on their Fender Jaguar!? SHIT YEAAAS!!) everyone assumes I'm a crack expert on all things "live music", in quite the same way that being under the age of 30 and working as a janitor at a university campus in Boston suddenly makes you "Good Will Hunting"; which we all know it obviously DOESN'T and wait where the fuck was I again!? Utterly incapable of getting to the fucking point already without it unravelling in a retarded mess of misplaced punctuation and yet still managing to attract a "regular readership" of over 2000 each week? HAHAHA oh yeah..."RESEARCH". And as such? I've come to conclude a few undeniable truths about the Adelaide scene: firstly we appear to have a ridiculous overabundance in guitarists to the point that the Avant Gardeners can have six and a band losing their third can actually be called a "catastrophe" (well it IS isn't it? I mean have you heard how awesome three guitarists can sound? FUUUCK!!) and secondly that we have a chronic under-supply of drummers. Now obviously there's a perfectly logical explanation for both...and it's that buying a drumkit, practicing with it for years on end, only to cart it around from venue to venue acting as your band's go-to "designated driver": is not only a costly, annoying and wildly inconvenient habit to take up, but ultimately detrimental to your mental health...and by "mental health" I obviously mean DRINKING. Which is why there's so many guitarists in Adelaide and also why so many of them ultimately form psychedelic and stoner lo-fi surf bands acting as defacto "lead singers" in almost every other band you ever see of late: because not only is it dirt cheap (ie: all you need is a house brick and an unoccupied share-house to loot) and you can drink all you want and STILL play? you can also be near "career unemployed" stoned out of your mind with no shoes and people will still think you're Thurston Moore (sillier still that's probably how the real Thurston Moore got started in the first place!). Or conversely? and this is a theory I prefer to prescribe to...there's so many guitarists in Adelaide and so FEW drummers because Ryan Manolakis has been systematically killing the latter, eating them all and absorbing their powers like Darwinism acted out at its most extreme; or if you've ever seen Highlander? yup exactly like that...only with drumkits instead of samurai swords and Stanier's doing the soundtrack instead of Queen. Which not only explains HOW Ryan Manolakis has been ruling near unopposed drumming in everything from Mr Wednesday, Like Leaves, Cookie Baker, BrotherSister, Bing Goes To Monaco and Curses (and rumour has it soon to be jamming with Manor?) not to mention all the other upteen bands he's been drumming with over the years that I've foolishly forgotten the name of in all my..."extensive research" (Damo Suzuki Network!? shit there's another!); but also why this "drummer of the year" is named in his honour, and why he's been near undefeated in it...save for 2010 when Aidan Moyse from Hawks Of Alba wowed us all with his mad ability to play drums and glockenspiel at the same time (no mean feat!) and yes...why he must be stopped AT ALL COSTS. Only that'll be harder than you think now because he's also been building up an army of hardcore drummer "disciples" to surround himself with...because yup, not only does he play like a diabolical superarticulated octopus not of this dimension? he also teaches classes, and would you believe he also holds a top 2% ranking worldwide in "Rock Band" in this shit!? HAHAHA GET FUCKED!! only he's such an upstanding individual too, you couldn't possibly DREAM of giving it to anyone else? YOU BASTARD! Yup Ryan if ever there was a doubt in 2011? this award AGAIN goes to you; and yes I'm aware just how SILLY that sounds, but if ever you'd seen him play? you'd totally understand why!
SCENE STEALER OF THE YEAR: DAVE BLUMBERG
But then there are those who simply can't rest easy in life...in that life of lazy, aimless, well below the poverty line "luxury": as maybe the fifth or sixth or seventh (...or fifteenth?) wheel of a band, drinking all the beer rider, blaming it on the bass player...unless you happen to BE the bassplayer (in which case you can totally blame it on the keyboardist) playing the occassional solo, singing the odd backing vocal...just quietly enough so nobody ever suspects you're ever so slightly out of tune (aaah pfft...they can totally T-pain that shit in the recording right?), touring the country, mastering the art of the "ventriloquist fart", being THAT go-to circus clown in all the music vids who then gets flying tackled by all the adoring fans who love the shit out of you for it, sometimes inside AND out in the biblical sense in the unisex toilets, because hey you're just there to "enjoy the ride maaan!" and the enthusiasm's infectious! and otherwise living up the ultimate dream everyone who's ever done a partial arts degree pulling bongs at uni only to drop out and dodge bullets in a dole queue for the next 2-12 years has ever aspired to...NO REALLY, WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM WITH FREAKING PARADISE DAMNIT!? FUUUCK!! But no no, it's true! there are SOME musicians out there with actual, bona-fide, occassionally FREAKING SCARY career ambitions! and I don't just mean Ryan Manolakis slowly but surely and systematically replacing almost every other drummer in Adelaide either with himself or one of his freakishly talented minions/clones; as to be fair? drummers are immediately disqualified from winning this category as it's already assumed that they're playing in at least 3-4 bands to begin with...HA! No this category is to award those over-achieving "shining lights" of the Adelaide scene who don't see fit to sit on the sidelines slumming it, no they wanna be everywhere, doing it all, punching out the sun! And once their golden contribution is made known to you quite like a slap to the face and a subsequent slackjawed expression to the many upteen iterations they appear in? or for simply achieving above and beyond in multiple instrument swappings in the one band to the point you wonder if all the other members "performing" on stage are simply puppets under their control and it's all been a clever ruse? (disqualification: Aidan Moyse!) or shit maybe they just suffer from an undiagnosed attention deficit disorder and prescribe to the 'ol adage: "if at first you succeed at one thing, try everything, in as many different bands as possible, ALL AT THE SAME TIME!! AAAAHAHaHAhahAHAhAhA!!"? (yeaaah not that I'd accuse anyone HERE of employing that tactic *ahem*) you'll then wonder to yourself: no, no really how in the hell has the Adelaide scene ever survived without them!? And yup I can tell you now: it's been an absolute bitch to pick just ONE of these as winner too; to the point it's practically given me a nosebleed overwhelmed by all their wildly prolific and insane antics!? DUUUUDE!! So you know what...? fuck it! if you've been nominated? you more than deserve it, 50x over, take home a trophy, take all the trophies! here take my watch as well...gawd please don't hurt me! YOU GUYS ARE FREAKING INSANE YO!! you're doing way too much, all at once, switch to decaf or something before you kill someone...SHEEESH!! And as for why Dave Blumberg ultimately gets the award? well as much as he was in literally every second band in 2011 from Tea, The Creepers, Lemurian to Fake Tan (playing the clarinet!?) and in too many other spontaneous batshit happenings in between that I couldn't even HOPE to keep track of to more than over qualify him in omnipresence alone. Or for the fact you couldn't possibly ignore his stage presence: equal parts trainwreck, circus explosion and near statistically impossible "happy accident" all rolled into one; or rather like watching someone hurl himself arse backwards down a flight of stairs only to make a three-point-landing every time; equally as a brilliant as he was brilliantly inept and a comedy gift that kept on giving?HAHAHA AND HOW!! Mostly, yeaaah I'm just giving him this in the hopes he'll stop trying so hard to get noticed with it. I mean no shit, he was awesome...but in 2011 he was like a bad penny of awesome, I COULDN'T GET RID OF HIM!!
And so there we have it, the very first installment (of three) of The 4th Annual Spoz's Rant Awards. And yes I'm so very VERY sorry I had to put you through all that insanity too...I mean aren't the winners meant to give out their OWN heartfelt speeches for this kinda shit: thanking God, Satan, their manager, boyfriend, girlfriend, fuckpuppet, Centrelink/parole officer, parents, drug dealer whatever-the-fuck and "hi Grandma!" only for ME to cut them off woefully short with some kinda off-putting theme music? I MEAN WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT!? Adelaide's only music industry awards!? HAHAHA YOU BETCHA!! and until one of us comes up with something better...and please DO come up with something better! (this can't be doing us any favours) YOU CAN ALL GO SUCK IT IF YOU DISAGREE!! oh and *ahem* do please tune in for part II; you might still win something!
