After some days my chagrin subsided enough for me to leave the house. I’d had it in my mind for some time to check out a new café that had opened up a few streets away from home. I leapt into the bright morn full of hope.
I should have stayed in bed. Is there anything more heartbreaking than your breakfast expectations not being met? Than your coffee arriving like a busted radiator, an oily film on it, a bathroomy funk – not yours – filling the nose. ‘What are nose hairs for!’ you scream inwardly. And even the Xanax doesn’t help. The eggs arrive – good, not great, but anything is better than that coffee which tastes like arse; anything to get that out of your mouth. So you rake a few pubes – you know you won’t be proud about this later but you do it anyway (it’s such a vulnerable time of day) –, and hide them between two silver coins and drop them smiling in the ‘tips’ jar on your way out.
Outside the front I pick up a copy of the local street rag from a crate. I tuck it under my armpit through street upon street of Howard Arkley’s, before opening to “Live Reviews” as it drops on my living room table. I look hard. Thankfully her name does not appear. I don’t think I could have taken it. I picture her face burning on the inside of my skull and I’m suddenly filled with a swirling lust and hatred, much akin to the feeling of watching pornography. But now – there’s no doubt about it – my hatred is directed outwardly. How I envy the praying mantis and their superior customs. I resist slinking off to the bathroom and keep reading.
I scan the week’s debris – a host of bands I’ve never heard of…I stumble across Dick Diver:
“I had heard good things about this band, but not having seen them before, I was sceptical. The venue had a decent sized crowd, I suppose, for a weeknight at least and the hipster’s were out in full force. The venue was imbued with rich, pastel tones of light, thanks to a long overdue refurbishment from the management. Bout time guys! I remember seeing X play here just before they released Aspirations and the lights even then were terrible. Not that this mattered because the band would have outshone them anyway. Some bands imitate, others innovate, and then there’s X.
I arrived early to catch the aura for the occasion. Too many kids these days just rock up for one buzz band and then leave without staying for the rest of the show. Tonight one of the other bands had a member from Drowning in the Sandpit in them, so all the cool kids came down early to try catch a glimpse. She was looking conspicuously oh-so cool in a leather jacket and a new ‘I don’t give a fuck’ haircut.
"So, Dick Driver? Well, once you look past the name, anyone with a pair of ears could tell they were a poor man’s Television circa Adventure but without Tom Verlaine AND on valium. Two of the songs could have been passable had the two front-men – clearly trying to channel the Go-Betweens, come on guys make up your mind already! – been able to sing. Perhaps this was because they could best be described as ‘front-boys’. One of them hadn’t been told how to adjust his guitar strap, which appeared to be choking him, and the cross-eyed other one appeared to have honed his ‘singing face’ during times of childhood constipation. The bass player smiled way too much when he played. I mean, come on dude, you’ve got a show to play! Get the job done and then have a few beers. We all like to enjoy ourselves, but it’s hard to do when you’ve spent $6 of your hard earned on seeing four bands, and one of them clearly isn’t concentrating.
The only saving grace was their possession of a girl drummer who not only proved that the girls can do it just as good as the boys – she even carried her own kit out to her car (manual btw) – but who’s fondness for wacky T-shirts at least gave the audience something refreshing to look at. It will be a sad thing when she inevitably finds herself in the future onstage in something resembling swimwear rather than clothing. Oh well. So, Dick Driver: Remember you need at least 120 hours of practice before you get off your L’s.”
They could have at least had a photo. Their drummer did wear good T-shirts though, I thought closing the review. I put the kettle on.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
BlogMan
A story till our manager gets his shit back together.
BlogMan
My insides were seething as I finished it. How could someone miss the point by so much? Clearly he couldn’t play an instrument. He regretted that he’d given up on piano in grade four, but no one else did. And now the rest of us had to shoulder his chip. In bold beneath: RabbidJack – Darlinghurst. He was so typically Sydney – so bitchy, so stylish. Why couldn’t he just rack up a few lines, have a top night out and leave them alone?
And it was the way he had gone about it. The way he had given himself a license to say whatever he wanted, such stuff about a band that everyone loved so much! That with a flippant ‘obviously influenced by the guitar work of Thurston Moore’ or the mention of some hip new things from the West Coast – from Sacramento or Hoboken…like people actually gave a fuck about his blog! I mean, what kind of a fucking name was RabbidJack anyway?
I’d met him dozens of times. I knew his type, always carrying a pen and paper-pad round with him so very discreetly, never lifting his gaze lest anyone look at him for a change. Every show had at least one. I fancied him in retirement, the way his natural gait had come to resemble someone experiencing the infant stages of groin rash, or a bout of dysentery; his ooh-aahing-over-hot-coals walk, his Mr. Plod arms making small backwards circles with each shin-splintering step towards his weekly community radio slot. And his wife – dull and fat. She had no distinguishing features, was like a spy who had been trained to bury any shred of personality deep within till it gets lost. They would cancel each other out at dinner parties. Oh sure, their teacher/ journalist friends would humour them. But they’d all laugh afterwards at the impression they always left behind – like a gumboot print in wet mud that vanishes as quickly as it appears.
I scrolled down the page and felt better with the thought. But what was this…‘My Tracks’!? Ooh, so he did play! This would really cheer me up, I thought. I clicked on the sideways triangle, squirming with anticipation. I could see him now sitting at his 4-track, his head filled with smug wonder at how, like the Strokes in the early 00’s, he’d managed to somehow reinvigorate the entire world music scene. It was the simple equation of right place, right time, was all. Only this time it would be his astonishingly fresh take on Neu’s overlooked second album. Krautrock! Pfaa!
I kept scrolling, reading the comments as I waited for the bar that was dragging so painfully across the screen –
Wow! luv da trax xx
Heyyyy! wen r we gonna do beers?
Thx for the add. ox
Some lame rumour about Lady Gaga that was not even funny let alone clever. I looked at his top ten. 487 friends. Pfff! I skimmed across, recognising a few faces I had seen around, a couple of bands. One of them, a certain ‘buzz band’, I’d seen play a few times. They had more ‘buzz’ than a wasp in an empty solo can. How? I don’t know. But, it was true. Unsurprisingly they had a lot less fizz though. If only they could be slammed down as fast as my beloved friends, I thought. Ha! I began to enjoy my metaphor, thinking about the can’s bright and shiny outside, its hollowness within, how they would drown cruelly in the thin film of liquid at its bottom, when my speakers kicked in. There were no words, only – guitar, synth, bass, and drums. I listened again. I listened to the same three songs for the next few hours. I thought I could discern a familiar drum fill from a now broken-up 80’s Brisbane post-post-punk outfit, but I wasn’t sure. Was I confusing it with something else?
***
When Tim came round that evening I showed him the review from the show –
- What a fuckin’ tosser man!
- Oh, I know! I can’t believe he’d actually write that.
- It’s so Sydney man.
- SO Sydney! So conceited! You know I bet you he doesn’t even have a bookshelf!
I played him the songs. Given the space of time I could now see that they weren’t actually that good at all. Tim thought the same, and we were agreeing that they were actually pretty shit when he grabbed the mouse from me. In my previous state I had missed it: ‘My Pix’, in the top right corner. The happy squirming came back. I seized the mouse, clicked, and waited eagerly.
There were three of them bunched tightly on a couch – two lameo hipster boys and a frail girl wedged between them. Beneath, left to right was written: Ojay, Jacqui and Brak. I clicked on the next photo. The screen slowly unveiled – Jacqui Warren…
It took less than a second to register. It was torturous! The cut of her fringe, that crooked tooth, those bright dark lips – or was it the lipstick? –, her tattoo… A fucking tattoo for chrissakes!
It was all too much. I didn’t register Tim leaving. I didn’t even shut down properly; just hit the wall-switch, then tried to make out the liner notes to Cat Power as the page swam and the record spun.
BlogMan
My insides were seething as I finished it. How could someone miss the point by so much? Clearly he couldn’t play an instrument. He regretted that he’d given up on piano in grade four, but no one else did. And now the rest of us had to shoulder his chip. In bold beneath: RabbidJack – Darlinghurst. He was so typically Sydney – so bitchy, so stylish. Why couldn’t he just rack up a few lines, have a top night out and leave them alone?
And it was the way he had gone about it. The way he had given himself a license to say whatever he wanted, such stuff about a band that everyone loved so much! That with a flippant ‘obviously influenced by the guitar work of Thurston Moore’ or the mention of some hip new things from the West Coast – from Sacramento or Hoboken…like people actually gave a fuck about his blog! I mean, what kind of a fucking name was RabbidJack anyway?
I’d met him dozens of times. I knew his type, always carrying a pen and paper-pad round with him so very discreetly, never lifting his gaze lest anyone look at him for a change. Every show had at least one. I fancied him in retirement, the way his natural gait had come to resemble someone experiencing the infant stages of groin rash, or a bout of dysentery; his ooh-aahing-over-hot-coals walk, his Mr. Plod arms making small backwards circles with each shin-splintering step towards his weekly community radio slot. And his wife – dull and fat. She had no distinguishing features, was like a spy who had been trained to bury any shred of personality deep within till it gets lost. They would cancel each other out at dinner parties. Oh sure, their teacher/ journalist friends would humour them. But they’d all laugh afterwards at the impression they always left behind – like a gumboot print in wet mud that vanishes as quickly as it appears.
I scrolled down the page and felt better with the thought. But what was this…‘My Tracks’!? Ooh, so he did play! This would really cheer me up, I thought. I clicked on the sideways triangle, squirming with anticipation. I could see him now sitting at his 4-track, his head filled with smug wonder at how, like the Strokes in the early 00’s, he’d managed to somehow reinvigorate the entire world music scene. It was the simple equation of right place, right time, was all. Only this time it would be his astonishingly fresh take on Neu’s overlooked second album. Krautrock! Pfaa!
I kept scrolling, reading the comments as I waited for the bar that was dragging so painfully across the screen –
Wow! luv da trax xx
Heyyyy! wen r we gonna do beers?
Thx for the add. ox
Some lame rumour about Lady Gaga that was not even funny let alone clever. I looked at his top ten. 487 friends. Pfff! I skimmed across, recognising a few faces I had seen around, a couple of bands. One of them, a certain ‘buzz band’, I’d seen play a few times. They had more ‘buzz’ than a wasp in an empty solo can. How? I don’t know. But, it was true. Unsurprisingly they had a lot less fizz though. If only they could be slammed down as fast as my beloved friends, I thought. Ha! I began to enjoy my metaphor, thinking about the can’s bright and shiny outside, its hollowness within, how they would drown cruelly in the thin film of liquid at its bottom, when my speakers kicked in. There were no words, only – guitar, synth, bass, and drums. I listened again. I listened to the same three songs for the next few hours. I thought I could discern a familiar drum fill from a now broken-up 80’s Brisbane post-post-punk outfit, but I wasn’t sure. Was I confusing it with something else?
***
When Tim came round that evening I showed him the review from the show –
- What a fuckin’ tosser man!
- Oh, I know! I can’t believe he’d actually write that.
- It’s so Sydney man.
- SO Sydney! So conceited! You know I bet you he doesn’t even have a bookshelf!
I played him the songs. Given the space of time I could now see that they weren’t actually that good at all. Tim thought the same, and we were agreeing that they were actually pretty shit when he grabbed the mouse from me. In my previous state I had missed it: ‘My Pix’, in the top right corner. The happy squirming came back. I seized the mouse, clicked, and waited eagerly.
There were three of them bunched tightly on a couch – two lameo hipster boys and a frail girl wedged between them. Beneath, left to right was written: Ojay, Jacqui and Brak. I clicked on the next photo. The screen slowly unveiled – Jacqui Warren…
It took less than a second to register. It was torturous! The cut of her fringe, that crooked tooth, those bright dark lips – or was it the lipstick? –, her tattoo… A fucking tattoo for chrissakes!
It was all too much. I didn’t register Tim leaving. I didn’t even shut down properly; just hit the wall-switch, then tried to make out the liner notes to Cat Power as the page swam and the record spun.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
INTERVIEW WITH DICK PT.3
As an aside, I'm the manager of Dick and I run this blog. I'd put up the whole interview in one go but he took the only copy of THE LITTLE MAGAZINE we had and has taken to feeding bits of it underneath his door from time to time, texting me the following when they're ready: 'SCRAP READY. WALTZ TIME KNOCK ON DOOR. BRING NOODLES&BEER.XO'.
I'm not even sure if they're in the right order.
Last week I brought the wrong brand of noodles, hence the delay. Anyway, thanks to Maggi Beef Flavour, here's the very short part three:
LM: Recently the Hank Williams Foundation sent a bunch of unreleased, unrecorded lyrics of his out to a select group of artists, asking that they put music to them for a new record. The rumour is that you were involved...
DD: Well for a start there was a whole folder of them. I mean, just mountains of the shit. I was thinking I'd do one of them anyway, but I realised the world just doesn't need another song called "(insert adjective here) heart".
LM: But you're relatively unknown, how did they even find you in the first place?
DD: Cause I can do shit like this...(plays a rendition of Van Halen's "Jump")
I'm not even sure if they're in the right order.
Last week I brought the wrong brand of noodles, hence the delay. Anyway, thanks to Maggi Beef Flavour, here's the very short part three:
LM: Recently the Hank Williams Foundation sent a bunch of unreleased, unrecorded lyrics of his out to a select group of artists, asking that they put music to them for a new record. The rumour is that you were involved...
DD: Well for a start there was a whole folder of them. I mean, just mountains of the shit. I was thinking I'd do one of them anyway, but I realised the world just doesn't need another song called "(insert adjective here) heart".
LM: But you're relatively unknown, how did they even find you in the first place?
DD: Cause I can do shit like this...(plays a rendition of Van Halen's "Jump")
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
INTERVIEW WITH DICK PT. 2
DD: Yeah, but have you ever checked out my chops?
LM: You've also been described as a bunch of pussies.
DD: Yeah well whoever said that will be eating their words when they hear that we've got a box set's worth of narco-ballads up our sleeve, due for release soon.
LM: You've recently shot a film clip for your euro-inspired hit 'Snub Coupes Fish'.
DD: Yeah it's mostly me doing rad shit like running through the city in slow-mo, you know, and everybody is walking in the opposite direction, trying to stop me. Then I bang on a wall with my one good fist till it explodes. The director, Derrick Scout, is a modern genius. I'm talking Woody Allen, Bergman, Kubrick - fuck em: it's all Derrick Scout starting NOW. Hear me?
PT 3. COMING SOON
LM: You've also been described as a bunch of pussies.
DD: Yeah well whoever said that will be eating their words when they hear that we've got a box set's worth of narco-ballads up our sleeve, due for release soon.
LM: You've recently shot a film clip for your euro-inspired hit 'Snub Coupes Fish'.
DD: Yeah it's mostly me doing rad shit like running through the city in slow-mo, you know, and everybody is walking in the opposite direction, trying to stop me. Then I bang on a wall with my one good fist till it explodes. The director, Derrick Scout, is a modern genius. I'm talking Woody Allen, Bergman, Kubrick - fuck em: it's all Derrick Scout starting NOW. Hear me?
PT 3. COMING SOON
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