The Beasts Of Bourbon, Dan Kelly & The Alpha Males, Digger & The Pussycats @ The Gaelic Club, 20/02/2004

The Tex Perkins-fronted rock greats return to Sydney to take on The Gaelic Club. Were they up to it?

It's a big ask, supporting The Beasts of Bourbon. It must be intimidating, if Digger & The Pussycats vocalist/guitarist Sam's to be believed: towards the end of the two-piece's set, he waved a couple of wristbands about and asked if anyone wanted to come backstage and be scared by Tex Perkins with him.

There didn't seem to be any takers.

That aside, the duo's set was great. Their hyperactive take on punky rock power was little short of infectious. With lots of leaping about, songs about cars, guns and death, their enthusiasm was catching: especially when you consider that it sounded (and looked) like they'd just rolled out of a bedroom somewhere where they'd been practising their Big Rock Moves for a couple of years. Hell, it's hard to add aplomb to your performance when you're playing drums on a stand-up kit, but Andy managed it. This was wonderfully stupid bedroom rockin'-out at its finest. More!

Sadly, the lure of cheap beer meant that this reviewer missed most of Dan Kelly & The Alpha Males. Judging from the amount of people who'd squeezed into The Gaelic Club to see their set (it was as packed as it'd normally be for a headlining act), they were an act not to be missed. But in the little I saw, it was obvious that their groove had been firmly established by set's end, with most heads bobbing in time with their hip-swinging tunes. There was even, in the last song, room for a drum solo - the big rock theme of the night was continuing.

Finally, it was time. The Beasts of Bourbon swaggered onstage with Pat Bourke (Dallas Crane) bravely standing in for Brian Hooper, who'd suffered serious back and internal injuries after falling from a balcony, and for whom a donation bucket had been positioned at the front door. Jumping into The Low Road, the band's sound was as tense as it'd ever been. At this point in their evolution, there's a certain
air of addictive ruin-skating that's missing, but it's been replaced with a muscularity that's well-honed. Indeed, the Beasts have always been loud enough to terrify, but it's only now that you get a feeling that they know how to use that blackjack in the back pocket - and have no compunction about doing so. Older Beasts gigs seemed to be more about the crowd waiting for the whole show to fall apart - now it's more about audience waiting for the band to go batshit insane and either kill or fuck everyone in the venue. Or both.

As if to prove that they meant business, the second song of the night was Chase The Dragon. There'd be no quarter for the rest of the set, which drew heavily on material from The Low Road. There were mellow singalong moments - Ride On being a crowd favourite - and more frenzied aural attacks in the form of tunes like Saturated. Charlie Owen's incendiary soloing throughout was a highlight.

Broadly speaking, there's two types of people who go to Beasts gigs: those who want to shag Tex, and those that want to be Tex. And the reason for this? Two words: Cocksucker Blues. Amid a howl of almost neanderthal guitar, the band's version of the Jagger/Richards classic tore the place up. Sporting a flower in his hair from an audience member, Tex played up the role of the lonesome schoolboy - beseeching, horny and sneering - as the band ground on behind him, creating a cavern of feedback. If you'd ever wanted to see a crowd sit right in a frontman's palm, this was the place to be.

Bringing an ecstatic crowd to fever-pitch with the second-encore wham of Let's Get Funky, The Beasts Of Bourbon left the stage having proved - once more - that they're the consummate rock band. The closest things we've got to the Stones? Certainly, they're our nation's closest contenders to capped-letter Rock Gods that're still unafraid to crank it.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Barb Waters - Rosa Duet

Barb Waters' duets album is a homely gem.

Rosa Duet is one of those rare albums that feels like you've lived with it for years, even as you hear it for the first time. It's a labour of love for Melbourne's Barb Waters. Her clear - yet grained - voice is what anchors each of the songs, though never in a particularly dominating way. Indeed, the album - a series of duets with a number of Waters' muso mates, including Rob Snarski, Nick Barker, Anna Burley and Cyndi Boste - is a study in give-and-take. There's a sense of playfulness about the songs that gives Rosa Duet a unique appeal.

Musically, the songs are relatively similar in tone. There's that laid-back, just-making-it groove that was once practised by The Badloves, and there's more than a touch of the sort of countrified folk that bands like The Jayhawks or Love Me call home. Alt-country? This disc sounds a little too cheery for that, no matter how mopey some lyrics may seem. Indeed, there's a sense of wistful observation that pervades the album. There's looking back and there's learning - but there's never hopeless despair. Light always glimmers - however far off - in Waters' world.

Highlights of the album include Wipe Away My Tears, the tune that's closest to the genesis of Rosa Duet. Lisa Miller and Rebecca Barnard -
two artists who shared the stage with Waters for a "Back Porch" gig, from whence the idea of a personal, shared series of songs came - provide vocals that verge on the spine-tingling. Kim Salmon's vocal duties on Make It Count possess his requisite sneer, while the band ply a Calexico-style trail, all Morricone horns and giddy-up guitar lines. I Won't See You Again, with Matt Walker, is a pretty standard done-me-wrong tune, but it's one of the most emotionally-effective tunes on disc. It gutters out in a series of bent notes, providing perhaps Rosa Duet's darkest moment. The pace is picked up with Jessie (Me And You) which - over the top of a gloriously driving progression with church-house organ - features the rich vocal interplay of Waters and Anna Burley. A similar acceleration occurs on the Git-accompanied Further Down The Line, before the album's closer, a rootsy, dirty tune with Ashley Davies (Make Some Decision) brings it on home, in true bottleneck style.

Rosa Duet proves to be the perfect soundtrack to an lugubrious afternoon with a couple of drinks as the sun filters through the blinds. It possesses a simplicity and sense of artistic ebullience that gives it an honesty that's endearing - so much so that it's hard to highlight any one song over the others. Recommended.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

What Is Music? @ Annandale Hotel, Sydney, 13/02/2004

Are you tough enough for Fushitsusha? Well are ya, punk?

Experimental or avant-garde music is occasionally referred to as "difficult listening". It's probably a phrase that was coined by someone after they survived a Fushitsusha gig. Don't get me wrong - there were many moments of crystalline brilliance - but this was a gig that was always going to require a bit of perseverance.

Fushitsusha are, is, essentially, Keiji Haino. He's a gargantuan figure in the Japanese music world, though he's probably got more in common with JD Salinger in terms of his willingness to meet the press or press the flesh. This band is basically his excuse to be the loudest man on earth. From behind wraparound sunglasses, dressed head to foot in black and sporting a haircut so severe that it suggests a goth Ramone pixie, Haino would spend most of this evening playing through a wall of amps pushed louder than any I'd ever heard. Like The Who, Fushitsusha aim to win you over by steamrolling you with the volume of the performance. Unlike The Who, Fushitsusha could easily beat you to death with it. The band currently records as a two-piece, but it seemed that tonight the spotlight was the main man's alone. Perhaps Yasushi Ozawa knew what was coming. The crowd certainly didn't.

Punters who'd turned up and were expecting the minimalist joy of Haino's Tenshi No Gijinka album were about to be rudely awakened. Incense burned as the man took to a stage, darkened except for small lights over guitar effects pedals and a table of assorted beat-boxes and mixing equipment. The beatboxes shuddered into life, powering overdriven kick-drum hits into the stomachs of the crowd - eliciting audible responses from many. Like a wraith, Haino yowled into the mic with a tortured, untranslatable scream of pain. Hair flailed everywhere, and the room didn't know whether to laugh or flee. It was on. And on Black Friday, no less.

A number of What Is Music? performers mingled through the crowd. Merzbow, Tony Buck, Chris Abrahams, Matthew Chaumont and Mattin - amongst others - circulated, testing the waters from different parts of the room. Intriguingly, the sound of the music played did change, depending on one's vantage point, but there was - in the end - no escape from its gargantuan, moss-encrusted fingers. The music wasn't especially easily broken up into parts. True, there were junctures where the crowd could applaud what was going on, but for the most part it seems that Fushitsusha is, like a collapsing universe, aware only of its own existence. The fact that an audience was present seemed merely coincidental: there was no reaction between the crowd and the performer, who seemed lost in his own pained reverie. Alternating between guitar and wild, electronic drum soloing - almost always with that unique banshee wail riding roughshod over the top - Haino played extended improve pieces in half-hour (or so) shards. Basic walls-of-feedback playing suddenly became echoing, psych-rock freakouts that sounded like they were occurring backwards. Moments of gentle strumming - actual chord progressions! - segued into cod-blues, spaz-funk and theremin-accompanied epic soundtracks. It's difficult to describe the flow as it seemed completely driven by the performer's grim-lipped whim, but it seemed to all fit - the question was largely whether you were going to survive the onslaught.

It was around the halfway mark when the crowd really began to thin out. For the first time in gigging memory at The Annandale, there was a fair bit of space around me. Getting to the front was simple. The trip to the bar wasn't filled with spilling-hazards. It was rather disturbing. Around the (very reasonably-priced!) merchandise table, punters interested in bolstering their CD collections acted much as I'd imagine London residents during The Blitz did - as if there wasn't the sound of destruction all around. Except for the fact that in WW2, doodlebug bombs were never miked and fed through a wall of amps cranked to eleven. It was a strange scene, but it seemed that many in the room shared the same feelings of battle-weariness. It's difficult to describe the masochism that is sometimes required to get into the groove with the avant-garde, but the Annandale was, tonight, sprinkled with troupers willing to stick it out while others fled.

After nearly three hours of uninterrupted playing, the show came to a close. Haino simply tripped lightly off the stage and fled to the back of the Annandale. Heartfelt - though tired - applause resulted, and the crowd shared a number of "we did it!" looks. The exhaustion was palpable - it's difficult to say how many people stuck around for the post-gig DJ work because I was, within minutes, flowing like molasses towards my home and my bed. (It's probably worth noting that my ears were still ringing the next day when I awoke. That's either the most rockin' thing ever, or the most terrifying musical injury I've ever sustained.)

If the Scouts gave out patches for surviving Fushitsusha gigs, they'd be all-black. And those who'd stayed tonight had - by braving some hellacious noise and discovering some moments of tranquil beauty - earned them thrice over.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

What Is Music? @ Gaelic Club, Sydney, 12/02/2004

What Is Music? is a festival that's been running since 1993 and aims to show gig-goers that there's more to music than three chords and the truth. Judging from the mixture of baffled and ecstatic faces seen in The Gaelic Club this evening, the education continues.

As punters entered the room, Matthew Chaumont was already well under way. Seated in front of the stage, manning a couple of computers, a mixer, and what appeared to be a large speaker attached to a couple of metres of industrial ducting. Apparently called Metaphenomena, the piece was a series of bowel-shakingly low tones with a satisfyingly dirty texture. It was a piece that was designed to be felt, too - walking in front of the duct's opening, the amount of air being shifted was easily noticeable. A bell tree, set up on stage and awaiting another artist, began to create small harmonics because of the vibrations being sent through the building. It's surprising how beautiful something so seemingly free of variation can be.

While Chaumont's large pipe was stowed at front-of-stage, Staubgold Sound System kicked in, albeit with a couple of static shards thrown in for effect. Playing between all the artists' sets, the SSS ensured a low-key, mostly percussive and submerged-sounding atmosphere prevailed.

James Heighway's set - easily one of the night's best - consisted of constant manipulation of a bank of wave-generating electronics. Perched over a multi-knobbed box, Heighway coaxed a number of sounds into the air - from oldschool, Kraftwerk-chunky buzzsaws to what sounded like faux bird-calls. If there's such a thing as sine wave channel-surfing, then this set was it - and it provided the perfect background for closed eye visualisations. While the music created was entirely the product of machines and signal decay, it also overcame the inhumanity of its machinery to become something beautiful - just fantastic.

Scott Horscroft's ensemble took the stage for an extended piece using eight bells and more musicians. With six guitar players, the spectre of Glenn Branca loomed over the stage, but what was played was a little more low-key to begin with: a tribal-feel longform piece that seemed to have been pulled from a mystery cult's rites. Bells rang with guitars tuned sympathetically, creating an interplay that was more rhythmic than melodic. These beginnings bode well, but it seems that somewhere along the line, brevity was lost: the ensemble sustained their theme (over some fairly straight-sounding drumming which seemed to rob the piece of some important mystery) much longer than was good for it - eventually falling into the predictably cacophonous "everybody play now!" ending that seemed to sell everyone onstage short. A pity, given that before there was kowtowing to Godspeed You Black Emperor length, there was something really compelling in Horscroft's composition.

Next, a duo. Matthew Earle and Mattin - hailing from Newtown and Basque Country, respectively - set up a tabletop soundslinging battle. (Mattin, it must also be noted, bears more than a passing resemblance to a sober Shane MacGowan - if that's not an oxymoron.) With a set that opens with a lot of high-frequency
noise (or silence?), they lose the crowd early. The attention needed to digest this sound creation/deconstruction isn't easily attained because there's not a whole lot, aurally, to hang on to - until some way into the performance when an anvil of white noise is dropped into the room. Nothing makes people pay attention like a blast of ear-shredding volume. Without a seemingly distinct end, Mattin closes the laptop and walks off: apparently, that's it. Confused? So is everyone else.

Noriko Tujiko - armed with a laptop and the best footwear of the evening - offers her unique brand of Japanese pop to the crowd. It's easy to reference other so-called 'quirky' female vocalists, but that'd be selling this performer's particular brand of dark pop short. With careful lifting from other sources - the theme from I Dream Of Jeannie seems to make an appearance - her music has a sinuous quality that's very appealing. There's a sort of Portishead feel of things not revealed flowing through the music as Noriko sings with herself, vocal lines multiplied by machine. "I cannot make music/I don't wanna sing" she croons over a tune that's half confection and half rotting digital corpse - winning the audience but also ensuring that her edge stays intact. Genius.

And then, the noisy moment that the room had filled for: Merzbow. Otherwise known as Masami Akita, the defining artist of noise music took the stage with an air of quiet boredom. Armed with a pair of headphones, two Macs and a mixer, he proceeded to produce almost an hour of unrelenting tonal abuse in his inimitable style. Rather than focusing on high-end tones, this set seemed more aligned to his work on Mezzrow or Merzbeat - a dense sea of gut-roiling sounds that were felt as much as heard, panning from side to side of the stage. The crowd went wild for it - some, eyes closed, hanging onto the stage trying to find an anchor in the chaos, while some others went into holy-roller spasms. A guy next to me played an invisible saxophone during the set, while two girls over the other side of the stage clasped chunks of wood to their chests and grinned incessantly. Whether this was ecstasy of a musical nature or otherwise I couldn't quite say.

The way Merzbow sat, impassively tweaking his two laptops in the midst of this vortex of noise was quite soothing - zen, to use a much-bandied-about phrase. Though the air seemed to rip at the ears and viscera of the gig-goers, the quiet concentration on the face of the artist served as a grounding point, a lightning rod - a handy thing to have when it sounds like there's a 747 about to land in your backside. After roughly an hour of explorations in tone and texture he stood up and made for the side of stage - perhaps the only man in the room without ringing ears.

Whether these acts qualified as music varied from punter to punter - some were shocked into early departure by the angularity of the offerings, while others could be seen headbanging like the tones on offer were classic AC/DC - but there could be nobody doubting the sheer power of what they'd just seen. Love it or hate it, this is as far from a tired three-piece going through the motions as you'll get.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

SixFtHick, The Tremors, Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side, Stag and Rocky Outcrop @ Annandale Hotel, Sydney, 30/01/04

SixFtHick show Sydney what it means to keep it in the family. Be afraid - be very afraid.

This evening's entertainment is billed as a family affair. SixFtHick are keeping it in the family for the purposes of this Sydney jaunt, so what follows could be sort of what you'd expect at a talent quest in which the talent's drawn from your own relatives. Strap in.

At some times, Rocky Outcrop is the drummer for the headliners. At other times, he's a one-man band (lapsteel and drummachine/dodgy sequencer) who drags songs like Wake Up, Little Susie kicking and screaming into the '80s with air-drum solo, Poison-stylee goodness. Though members of his own musical entourage might heckle, the (admittedly sparse) crowd seem to dig the Outcrop take on rock. Though his gesticulations about how you make a milkshake (take a guess, ladies) weren't received well, his set closer, a cover of the deservedly-famous High-Heeled Sneakers (including the ad-libbed "Put on your strap-on, baby/'Cause we're switchin' spots tonight") is something early arrivals won't forget easily or without the help of therapy. Either way - genius.

Stag's set isn't as well received. While the band - guitarist Dan Baebler is normally SixFtHick's bassplayer, though in Stag mode he assumes the Rock God mantle - have a reasonably good cache of tunes, they seem to come across a little faux-whinge. Perhaps on a different bill they'd've worked a little better, but the accelerator-to-floor stupidity of the headliners throw Stag's take on life into sharp relief. Admittedly, the band started to really cook towards the end of their set, but not enough to sustain interest.

Gentle Ben And His Sensitive Side's set, by way of contrast, is dead-set sleazy goodness. Pitched somewhere between Kim Salmon and Peter Fenton (with a touch of the Jarvis Cocker kitchen-sinkery thrown in for good measure), the band's set has a Bacharach-in-a-bordello feel that's greatly intriguing. Think velvet curtains. Think Morricone on mescaline and you're getting there. Low-key arrangements turned the Annandale into a cocktail bar. The mustachio'd Ben - looking somewhat like a crooning Errol Flynn - caresses the tunes in a way that makes you believe he's just on the verge of holding them down and having their wicked way with 'em. Occasionally muscular - particularly when brother Geoff joins in on vocal duties - there's a delicious tenderness that almost verges on the cynical but pulls back in time. Tasty, tasty stuff - hopefully due for a full-lengther soon.

The Tremors - having played somewhat larger crowds in their role as Powderfinger's
support - are blinding. Despite initial keyboard troubles, the purveyors of soulful, motoring groove (with organ and trumpet goodness added), they rip into a set that takes the tunes from the Can I Get A Whiskey? EP that little bit further. In particular, Keep It On seemed to have teeth this evening, and it wasn't long before the whole room was moving. Like SixFtHick, The Tremors are a little sold out by their recordings - the fuzzy voodoo of their live show isn't quite captured in disc form. Still, the religious/bubblerock ethos of the band battle through the smoke machine and, from the looks of it, win over the Annandale's crowd with one hand tied behind its back.

SixFtHick take the stage in a now-packed Annandale bearing the typically northern rider of attitude and pineapples. Admittedly, there's booze in them thar pointy fruits, and one will end up the front of a vocalist's trousers - just before his underwear's worn like a wrestler's one-piece - but it's nice to know that the idiocy of the band's set starts early. (Something that's confirmed when a "resort-wear"-clad guitarist appears, and readies himself to rock with a thong-bearing foot squarely planted on the foldback wedge. Ripping into Daddy's Home, the crazy train's off, launched into a set that sees a number of favourite tunes (Oysters, I Was Just Cleaning It And It Went Off, I Work Better In The Dark) given an airing. Hell, the band plays most of their songbook, but with an energy that's hard to beat - and the crowd laps it up.

The evening comes to an All In Flames end with speaker-jumping brothers screaming bloody murder, accompanied by front-row punters lucky enough to score mustachio'd attentions. The set - while missing some of the violence (glass smashing, snap-kicked punters, obvious self-harm) that's come to mark a typical performance - has been solid from start to finish. Good, but not the total fear-for-your-personal-safety gig experience had in other venues. Some punters in attendance have written off SixFtHick as being "a bit too cock-centric", but hell - isn't that the point? As long as rock'n'roll - itself a slang term for knocking boots, albeit musically - continues, boys exploring their knob-obsessions on stage will persist. And, gawd love 'em, SixFtHick are in the forefront, though with more humour and backwoods savvy than any mere Morrison could muster. Something this gloriously stupid could only come from Queensland, so - like the pineapple-muching punters left in the wake of the band's set - raise your tropical fruits and give cheer.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.

Spencer P. Jones - Fait Accompli

Spencer P. Jones's fourth album - featuring members of The Violent Femmes and Television - is a triumph of observation.

Spencer P. Jones has some stories to tell, so you better pull up a chair and give the man some goddamn respect. Fait Accompli, his fourth solo album, is a collection of sodden, overdriven songs that detail the more dank parts of life, but with an intelligence and self-awareness that makes this stand above any other "I was done wrong" album you'll hear.

This sentiment - the acknowledgement of the vicarious nature of blues/hard-time music listeners and the rejection of same - is most forcefully conveyed on Muse, towards the album's end:

I am not your fucking muse
So please don't get me confused
With what you think I am

It's true: Jones switches hats so often over the course of twelve songs that it's often hard to tell if he's taking the piss or being genuine - but either way, it only adds to the personal mythologising that's carried out through the songs. Unlike others, however, he's got the balls and the seriousness to carry it off in earnest.

On the back of the Fait Accompli booklet is a grainy, saturated picture of a hatchet, stuck in a stump. Around its base, pieces of wood - and on the left, something that could either be a burnt block or a head - lie, halved. It's a potent image that's easily applicable to the sonic stew cooked up through the forty-odd minutes of songs the image decorates. Through the album's length, the idea of being discarded or of discarding recurs with some force. Phone calls to travel agents, shoot-outs, dumpings and arse-kickings abound, over a soundtrack that veers from punk to cowpoke to grind blues. And, somehow, it all just works.

Wherever/Whatever finds Jones coming on like an overamped Dylan, namechecking Kerouac and Cassidy in a tale of journeying that's only diverted by a switchback guitar solo. It sets the scene for the rest of the album, too - the shadow of Dylan crops up here and there, but the writing never feels like forelock-tugging. It's too good for that.

There's an honesty that's undiluted through this album, whether Jones is embuing characters with life or merely telling his own story. When I Write My Book, the album's most mellow song (at least until the prickly solo!) is a personal acceptance of truth. It's a rejection of lies and rejection, and a statement of fearlessness that's grounded in honesty that's not overwrought or crass. It's breathtakingly simple, but devastating, all the more so because you get a sense that it's Jones at his most naked. Similarly, The Whole Way Down - a widescreen tale of loss and forgotten days - hits home with the force of a slide-lined haymaker. These are songs you'll be playing in a couple of years.

I Wanna Hand To Hold When I Go To Hell is Fait Accompli's hidden gem. It begins with a chiming guitar overture before mutating into a more pissed-off AC/DC tune, replete with Bon Scott sneer. And then, the chorus kicks in - no more slashing chords, but tight, melodic guitar work and surf party "ooh-eee-ooh"s. It's fabulous, and possesses a grunty playfulness that's matched only by Mean Arnold, a well-delivered arse-kicking of a certain national broadcaster's former programmer that blends steel-caps, musical dedication and the tastiest slide soloing this side of a George Harrison record.

There's three sets of musos backing Jones's steel-wool guitar on Fait Accompli; Cow Penalty, The Beeks and The Escape Committee. Despite The Beeks' claiming a Television bod and a Violent Femmes player amongst their number, it's The Escape Committee - the newest band - who feature most prominently through the disc. And rightly so - it's this ensemble that seems to provide the most powerful channel for his muse. There's a sense of overamping, of cowpoke swagger that sits well with the louche, tripping lyricism of songs like Wasn't Born Yesterday. At once laid-back and knuckle-crackingly tense, there's a great, breathing feel on show here that just works.

Fait Accompli is, simply, a great album. It could only be improved if it came with a pack of cigarettes and some whiskey. That way, you'd have a complete evening in one hit.

This article originally appeared on FasterLouder.com.au. I am no longer associated with that website and, as copyright owner, have moved it here for permanent record.