The bloodlines of some Sydney indie bands can twist into almost biblical proportions. Members come and go, and sometimes come back again. Musical approaches and volume change as band names are tried and discarded because some moniker didn’t look quite right in some streetpress ad.
Lets go back to still fondly remembered late-’90’s guitar contenders Disneyfist. Who begat Half Miler, with a slight sideline begat as Scratchergirl somewhere in there as well. Singer Gynia Favot decamps to the UK. Drummer Simon Gibson follows. A few members come and go including famously “that stoner guy bassist who played one gig, went over to Gynia at the end of the set, said ‘You don’t like me very much, do you?’ and walked out into the London night – and we never saw or heard of him again”.
They return, guitarist Andy Meehan settles into place, and Simon convinces his brother Adam to be bassist. And kinda by accident, kinda by design, Adam’s spoken word performance poetry – which he was well into before joining the band – slips into the cracks of some of the songs. The Miler release an album which they now describe as ‘like a fullstop to what we were doing’, and further begatting sees the band now known as Modern Giant pull some seemingly disparate ideas together to come up with something outside the square of being ‘just a good guitar band with good pop songs’.
The first real example of what Modern Giant is now about was the indie radio favourite The Band’s Broken Up. It’s half-resigned, half-joyous memory refrain of ‘Midnight Oil, The Hummingbirds, The Clash’ almost a mantra and password to a generation for whom that triumvirate were formative influences of their music fandom. All of Modern Giant happily admit to being of that particularly passionate sub-group.
“Sometimes the poetry wraps itself round the music, sometimes we add the music to Adam’s words,” Simon explains.
“I just thought our stories weren’t being told in the music. We revere these stories from overseas, hip hop tales and whatnot,” Adam almost despairs. “I want it to be a bit more Paul Kelly than P.Diddy.”
“I’ve never been to New York, but I’ve been to Port Macquarie – so I wrote a song about there. I just wanted a local sense to come out.”
“And sometimes we know when its not working,” Andy agrees. Thus, there are songs on their debut album, Satellite Nights, where Adam’s words centre the songs, other times when they are a sweet harmonied guitar pop band, Gynia’s vocal style an unabashed nod to those fine Sydney bands of that ilk. Production by former Hummingbird Simon Holmes adds some cachet to that comparison.
It’s not just in the songs where they can spot when its not sitting right. Another trademark of a Modern Giant show is their video and film backdrops that are soundtracked, sometimes very literally, by the songs. Simon takes responsibility: “I always liked the idea of having something else visual going on than just a band playing onstage – and I found these two old tellys – just the kind I imagined – at a St Vinnies for $7 each. It’s got to the point where the last job I do before we start playing is turning the tv’s on – sometimes it feels like that’s the moment we know we have to turn on as well.”
“But we’re still not gonna wear white,” Gynia smiles with a quiet determination. Apparently Simon’s fully developed idea was to have the visuals actually projected onto the band members. Pale clothing being necessary for the effect. “OK, white is not the great rock and roll colour,” Simon allows. “But I did try it, but when I had a few people come up and ask me for double choc-tops, I admitted the Mr Whippy look was probably not the best idea.”
Catch Modern Giant:
Saturday May 14, Hopetoun Hotel Sydney with Smudge & The Wellingtons
Friday, 3 June, Rob Roy Hotel, Fitzroy with Ben Birchall & Jane Vs World
Saturday, 4 June, The Union, Prahran, with The Basics, The Rumours & Shoot the Gennie
