Botox

Catfood Press, East Brunswick. Sunday Nov 2nd 2014.

Botox are from Adelaide, up to Melbs for the Maggot Fest Festival...which I never even went near.. doh. 
This is a brilliant band - latest in the rising tide of totally informed, impeccably influenced , criminally low tech , synth-punk units that continue to crop up from nowhere driving forward an already strong sub-sub-sub Genre that is becoming an increasingly Aus. centric phenomenon.
Maybe not...but I loved 'em.

Catfood Press is of course an awesome (if at times uncomfortable) venue: I had been there a few times in the "days of scram" and this afternoons packed, heaving, sweaty and happy set goes down for me as one of the best  they've ever hosted.

Jonny Telafone

The M-Pavillion, Queen Victoria Gardens. Oct 26 2014

Where better for Melbourne's most nocturnal of tortured torch singers to launch his new single? In a coffee kiosk in the middle of a tourist infested City park on a pristine spring Sunday arvo...works for me....although some of the lyrical content (well one song particularly) wasn't exactly PG content..

I couldn't help thinking that this was probably the first time Jonny had been out in the daylight for some time, then he took his shirt off and it was obvious....

White Lung

Howler, Brunswick. Jun 9th 2014
I wrote a poem about this gig:

""the front row is all cameras, the second : boys with hard ons,

and all the punks saved their money, and the dykes went home early.

and the venue is lovely, the p.a is a dream.

and the nipples so pert, panty lines are unseen.

fuck off back to Canada."

Repairs

Grace Darling, Collingwood. 8th June 2014.

MY EYES MY EYES!!! This band is so good..but that strobe was sooooo brutal. This tune is (another) untitled work in progress from Melbournes most cool, most untogether , most suicide channelling band...

NUN

Odeon Hobart (DARK MOFO) June 21st 2014

So, I won flights to Hobart from Quantas..and who wouldn't want to be there to see the last ever Total Control gig? The weather was unbelievable (considering it was the shortest day of mid winter) and I never expected to be eating outside on solstice..unfortunately this factor bought out the locals so it was impossible to get into any of the festival events..there was a 500m queue for the foodhall and the Afterlife "party" was just dangerously stupidly overcrowded....they put HTRK on first , so we missed them and then Native Cats went on an hour early so we nearly missed them (after pushing through a crowd trying to get in or out of one of 2 bars in the building (next to the second stage)) but NUN delivered bigtime (phew : it was a really dodgy set at the Bendigo the week before!!) looking very cool under the inverted cross...Funny how I managed to tape Kino...again..

After that it all got really unpleasant (if you weren't as wrecked as the locals) and we watched a typically daggy scruff garage rock TC set from the balcony upstairs ...only song I recognised was "Meds" (again) ...none of the magic promised by the hype for the new LP ...rest in peace I guess.

Stations

Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood. June 8th 2014

A Really brilliant nights entertainment from the "minimum wage" crew, the 3 bands each played (surprisingly?) excellent sets, it was free, Upstairs at the Grace is a good place for bands and the sound was great..shame it was a Sunday really.
Stations get better every time they play, tonite they were so tight, vocals sounded great, keyboards spot on. A little bit of Xmal, a little bit of Danse Society....Ok so the singer needs to trade a bit of the enigmatic for the energetic maybe but hey what do I know?

Im not sure if this is half a song or the end of one and the beginning of another but it sounds awesome to me either way.

Red Red Krovvy

Red Red Krovvy. Northcote Social Club. May 19, 2014


I don't really know anything about this band, I think they are from Queensland. 
Guitar, Drums and Vox. playing straight ahead Punk Rock with none of the trappings.

The brutal/swift/ramraid songs from the minimal lineup, with largely untreated guitar and vox manage to pack a  surprisingly hard and exhilarating impact...do they remind me of things like Action Pact, Rubella Ballet, Avengers? probly ..might just be cos of the girl singer though...there's definitely none of the postcard punk aesthetic, RRK are very boy/girl next door in their appearance, and I think thats a lot of the appeal.

Gold Class

Gold Class. The Catfish, Fitzroy. 12th July 2014
Missed the first band, Cold Life, after taking an hour to get to Fitzroy from Northcote on

the scenic route . The bit I heard sounded good while I was buying a beer but many points lost by the dude sitting at a little table behind the p.a.
School Damage are old pros now, playing their 2nd or 3rd gig! The set is packed with hits and they really take off on the couple of songs when the Indie Sonny/Cher ..err Lennon/Ono errr... Donny/Marie (stop it)vocals combine.

Gold Class on the other hand don't even need a runway, I had a listen to the bandcamp tracks before we came out and I was thinking at  best we may get a shambly-jangly pseudo-manc-rant type outfit... nope: it was all Class of the Gold variety.

The singer (in Bronski Beat Ben Sherman) sang with hands in pockets , his voice so strong and fitting the music brilliantly, the band was yer regulation guitar,bass and drums but I kept thinking there were keyboards cos the sound was so full, tight too : sounded like they have done their time in the rehearsal room.
 It reminded me of seeing the Smiths in the early days but they are far from a retro act..touches of Interpol in there for sure so I reckon its a sure bet they will be  "Coming to a stadium near you" imminently!!
I live in a cave so I hadn't seen Go-Genre Everything before...wasn't really sure what to expect but they were great. The set started with a song I knew for some reason  and included a cover of Snappers' "Buddy"...with an immense racket coming from the guitar/drum duo start to end.
A couple of times the band was having almost unbearable "play-skool presenter " amounts of fun, but hey the audience was too so we can forgive them that minor transgression.
Thighmaster bought the shambly-jangly so it was time for a swift Tequila in the bar downstairs and then off home to bed...the express way.

Masses

hmmm new geschflect editorial policy is - same as before : no slagging, but now 10 words or less...its the only way I can keep up. so...

Enjoyed much more than last time, exciting, floor, good,  new guitarist, energy, better haircuts.

Dead Boomers

Dead Boomers. Northcote Social Club, April 7th 2014.

Tonite was the first time Id seen the Dead Boomers, and they were fuckin mind-blowingly intense. Noise, Noise, Noise and furious demeneted distorted vocal bark. With foot on monitor , Emo hairdo dangling over low slung equipment table and those concrete crushing Big Black binary beats : its just so Rock And Roll and so ANTI Rock and Roll.

 
I love those hand grip things the guys use ( hang on where did I see that before? Hans Harms? yep now I remember: batteries run out ..great set) literally SQUEEEZING the hideously mangled sound out (or whatever it is the thing actually does) in some sort of macho inverted muscle building death-grip spasm... Awesome.

School Damage

School Damage. Northcote Social Club, April 7th 2014

School Damage are yet another side project for Jake Ausmuteant (alongside Carolyn Pronto who (wo)mans the keyboards) , the band have swelled from the initial 2 piece who recorded their debut cassette with a drummer and bass player making up the numbers. This was their first live performance ( the bass player had her flash/prompt cards spread all over the stage in front of her) but it was pretty impressive despite some hesitant moments: very melbourne, old skool, poppy, indie rock maybe but with some gorgeous echo's of the Shop Assistants in the vocals and tom-tom action (yeh : get a second drummer!!).
Rumour has it there is a single in the pipeline and Im sure they will become a staple of the gig circuit as winter wears on.



The tunes on the (sold out) debut cassette are all a bit more fragile than the big band sound and well worth a listen from here:

Multiple Man

Multiple Man. Boney, April 4th 2014

Multiple Man were down to support the release of their new single Guilt Culture (released on the insanely cool Detonic Recordings label) , and they got both sides of that out of the way pretty quickly, along with the previous release Body Double, you get the impression that the brothers are finding it hard to keep on top of a flood of ideas and energy at the moment , and  the new songs that made up the bulk of the set take them up to the next couple of levels in terms of dynamics, hooks and danceability.



The rhythms are monstrous and unrestrainable: I don't think I've been to too many gigs in
Melbourne were the whole room is dancing to the band, but tonight the entire crowd was heaving.  The NSC show was a little more restrained but still there was a pretty impressive amount of shimmying for late on a school night, you have to have something pretty wrong with you to stay standing still in front of these guys.
Extra brownie points for the Heresy T-shirt too....a very obscure UK hardcore band from the late 80's...I think I saw them with the Stupids once,,, yeh I know:  such a train spotter.

Vacuum

Vacuum, Pony April 4th 2014.

Vacuum is most of  ASPS and some of  NUN, so it was a fairly safe bet they weren't going to play acoustic folk covers.
The women operated from and across a table loaded with synths, pedals, effects and god knows what else, feverishly working the gear into the release of a throbbing droning and oscillating electro pulse, the colossal beats and wash of the noise squall softened and textured  by occasional dual moaning chant vocals riding over and through and meshed into it all as and when needed.
The music was oppressive (in a good (?)way) and reminded me of some old industrial flagellation like Laibach or Neubaten , at times almost Swans like in its S&M delivery..

While I appreciate that its easier to wheel a pre-prepared table of cable spaghetti on to the stage it does become a bit of a barrier between artiste and audience, gimme kneeling on the floor, or a precariously balanced shopping trolley/bar stool/beercrate stack any day. ..more of an observation than anything though : the songs were as cold as ice , heavy as lead and as unstoppable as an avalanche..it would not be wise to get too close.

Cloud Control

Cloud Control, Joes Surf Shack, Sorrento. March 28th 2014.

On what must surely be the last weekend of our fading  Indian summer, with what definitely was the first flu of an impending Melbourne winter, what could be better than this? 
Sitting in the sun, beer in hand, sea at your back watching the best pop group in Australia do their stuff to a largely disinterested group of pre-footy diners.

They played a brief set of their hits (it was free after all, and they are playing twice a day for a month all in the aid of promoting some beer.. I missed  the name..) , and of course I chose to tape one of their less mesmerising songs: more Mamas and Papas than Coldplay but hey! there's a large proportion of the world (Now including Gwyneth) who would be quite happy with that. Its not exaggerating to say the vocal harmonies are up in that league too (no, not that of the unconsciously couplers'), very  pretty. I know I shouldn't...but I like em.

Wire

Wire, Corner Hotel, Richmond. 21st Feb 2014

I probably first heard wire in 1977, when a mate made me a tape of the "Live at the Roxy LP".... "this ones dedicated to loopin Ada, and its called 12xU"..they played it when I finally got to see them (also at the Corner) first time they came to Melbourne.  Those early tunes (heard from mono cassette players under railway viaducts, by dark canals, or in dangerously driven and overcrowded first cars) were so of their time and so not:  angular and angry , clever and poppy , structured and deconstructed.
The band imploded after 1-5-4, an epic set of lush and truly fractured love songs to a deluded self that was the soundtrack to many of the mistakes, cruelties and naiveties I committed at that time of my life.  That album for a long time remaining the high point of their achievements for me.

The hits resumed again later in the 80's with the new electro tainted Wire once again subverting the norm with songs like Dot-Dash, Kidney Bingos, Ahead ("bring on the special guest: a monkey caught stealing") while settling down nicely next to it on the bench arm casually thrown around its shoulder.
I don't pretend to have followed the band into the naughties ( I knew they were there, but had other more important things going on.. like life and all that )  but I'm glad I did buy "Changes Become us" (as a 50th birthday present to myself), the songs are breathtakingly gorgeous and  echo through the years back to 1-5-4 and even earlier and bang!: like a kiss from my teenage sweetheart I'm lost again.
So how did it go meeting that teenage crush 35 years later? She looked older obviously, and while I could see (presumably as strangers would) the old bodies and thinning hair the inspiration, warmth and strangeness that informs every one of their songs left me as buzzing with excitement and joy as I had been as a pimply youth.

Its a stupid analogy, because if you really met your dream girl you wouldn't just turn your back at the end of the set and walk back to the train without even buying a t-shirt would you? How many mistakes, cruelties and naiveties can one guy get away with?

Pioneers of good Science

Pioneers of good Science, Danes Magic Shop , Jan 25th 2014

I always under estimate how far it is to Brunswick....I blame it on deceptive google maps (this way be monsters), and  melways with missing pages...anyhow it was an epic ride out to Sydney road and luckily not too hard to find Danes Magic shop, a very classy setup down a back alley, with classy wall murals , classy seats, classy satin curtains , a classy bar  and an impressive range of fart powder. Mr Certificate did tricks between the bands which was really cool and turned the evening into something very different from your run of the mill pub backroom trial by ennui. 
( did I feel a dickhead for assuming it was a squat/shop/frontroom gig and  bringing a couple of stubbies in a paper bag? yep).

Of course it was too dark for my recording device but Pioneers of good science were great in that cuddly un-user friendly shoegaze with brains way that they are. And this song (off their white vinyl 12")...was ...just ...magic!



you don't know me, you don't know me at all.you don't know me, you don't know me at all.you don't know me, you don't know me at all.you don't know me, you don't know me at all.you don't know me, you don't know me at all.you don't know me, you don't know me at all.you don't know me, you don't know me at all.you don't know me, you don't know me at all.you don't know me, you don't know me at all.you don't know me, you don't know me at all.............................................................................................

Litter took an age to get set up , behind closed curtains, but they were on a mission to record every one of their 10 songs at each of their 10 gigs for release on a 10" ( in 10 years time probably) so there was lots of mike taping and mac tweaking involved.

Faced with another extended gear shuffling and snare tapping session before Map Ends played I'm afraid I bailed, a long bike ride down a scary Merri creek bike path beckoned and Id had enough by then.

Ausmuteants

Tote Front Bar, Collingwood. Jan 11 2014
If I had gone to last weeks episode of the Cuntz Tote residency then I think I would have seen them every weekend since the end of November....and you know? there IS such a thing as too much of a really bad thing.
Anyway this week the front bar was heaving (once the 'Muteants (supporting)  finally gave up on the "technical issues" wank and got their shit together (aka found the power lead)), people tearing themselves away from the high risk BBQ in the beer garden and pouring back into the front bar when the band kicked into another brilliant set.
One day I'm gonna get a decent camera but until then: Heres a fake disco Jam from Melbourne's fav fake synth punk band in fake super 8...

Hmm just realised this as bad as my first attempt to film these guys in 2012...

Julie Ruin

Corner Hotel, Richmond. Jan 15 2014

What a difference a week makes: if the crowd for Deafheaven was 90% males who didn't have a girlfriend, then tonight it was 90% women who did and I was kicking myself for not wearing my flower print dress and full sleeve tat ensemble..
The vibe was great: the Corner was packed to capacity but still it seemed everyone had a little bit of space to dance and I only got told off once for getting in someone's way.

So Kathleen is a bona fide legend and we hung on every word she said and sang, no "Run so fast" (which really wouldn't have worked live)  but "Goodnight Goodbye" , "Come On!" and "Just my type" delivered the pop hits most bands only dream of, the mix was kind to Kathleen's vocals (or rather to our ears) and she looked great (yes, I know.. but...), seemed to be of good health and having fun even though the dance moves were arguably appropriate to her age ...unlike the outfit which can only be described as "Feminist Statement".
Last time I saw her ( 20 years ago at the Bull and Gate....) Bikini Kills' (boy) guitarist had to wear a pigs head through the entire set so I guess those statements are getting more refined (if no more decipherable to a poor hetero/chauvinist/running dog lackey of paternalism like myself) over time, but It was all brilliant ...and so nice to see bands at the top of their game playing shows in little old Oz.

Ohms

Ohms , Tote Front Bar, Collingwood. Dec 21st 2013

This turned out to be one of those fabulous Melbourne summer nights that started early, finished earlier and didn't really need the jumper you almost lost at each stop. Tom Lincoln and Ohms at the Tote, Footy (we won) in the city, Cuntz and TV colours at the Vice party and then back to the Tote Cobra Bar for dancing to crap jazz/blues/beebop tunes and somehow I got home with the money I left with!!! (I didn't wake up next to a half finished  curry/kebab but heh 5 out of 6 aint bad..).

Anyway back to Ohms :  This is the turbo-powered punky-pop sparkler-topped bottomless-low-carb-mocktail that Debbie Harry would've Dyed her roots for (err I mean "did"). The girl/boy voices go together like 7/11 Slurpees and yesterdays Donuts, with really irresistible (chuckle- irresistible - Ohms ..get it?) harmonies and tormenting earworm choruses that last well beyond the use by date.


Following the new Geschlect editorial policy I am compelled to say this group had a good beat , splendid glow in the dark fluoro pink bass strings, and the singer was cute.... and they have a good name too....ah enough of this - Im gonna stick the boot in!!!

For some reason I have a "Dancehall Crashers" cd and the vox really remind of that band , but that Cd is a bit of a guilty secret, you see I have a bit of problem getting too enthusiastic about pop groups with cute girls in , I keep thinking "go get ready for your prom or whatever" ..prove to me you really are ugly on the inside like the rest of us...but this time I just concentrated on the dayglo bass strings so it wasn't a problem....

For me the better tunes came towards the end of the set when her voice started to rasp a bit, So I'm gonna skip poking fun at the battle of the bands stage presence and the Crown-casino-Bacharach-esque number (which was actually pretty good but dont tell anyone) and give my "dix ponts" to the last song , the gloriously titled "Nightmares of Gene Simmons"  where a "Brain that wouldnt die"-like verse sets up  a nearly, (not quite), but touching on, "This is my fist" chorus ..resulting in : pure-downhill slalom punky-pop-magic.


mmmmm that reminds me:  I love "This is my fist" ..so while you are at it listen to this puppy for an idea of  where  pop-punk might lead  when you cut the saccharine with a bit of strychnine , snort a couple of lines of it and find something to get REALLY pissed off about.