Teeth and Tongue

Teeth and Tongue, Courtney Barnett, Abottsford Convent.

Best bit of the night was bike riding down (and back up)  the side of the Yarra in the dark with a very real possibility of winding up in the soup at every turn, and the venue was pretty cool : the Abbotsford convent technical college.. a bit communist work house, a bit Blakes Seven budget sci-fi set set and a bit 70s NHS hospital ward. There were sharks and rays projected onto the back wall into a sort of Play school window AND there were table tennis tables WITH paddles AND balls!

 

So Teeth and Tongue are a pop singer (with some backing musicians), ... ok there's nothing wrong with that ,,but who goes to see pop groups in Melbourne in 2013, where's the money in that lark?...without Hey Hey its Saturday and Recovery  how does she ever expect to get anywhere? ok shes very pretty, ok she can sing, ok she can play...but pleeeease no more Simple Minds arm waving and condescending Bert Newton entertainer by numbers between song banter....just not my type I guess....they played this one and Its a  good contender for pop song of the decade though.. Darryl would(ve) love(d) it:
 

 

 

 ....I came expecting a cute but quirky,  singer/songwriter, 12 string, chick lit , navel inspecting,

 Australiana fest but the Courtney Barnetts are a guitar band of the old school, I mean REALLY old school: think Dream Syndicate, Green on Red, Robin Hitchcock....some of the songs chip a couple of carats off the Gram parsons/Smithereens mother lode,  but it was with carpet bombing not precision drones....by the time they reached the encores I had drifted back to the table tennis/green room but was mentally transported further to the bad old 90s at the punters club, days when it was considered socially acceptable to round off a 90 minute set with  a interminably dull "bluesy" passion killer and a 3 week long Wah-Wah guitar solo led RRRock "work out"...Then It rained on the way home, and it was all up hill....you will tell me if I'm whinging again, won't you?