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There are many great mysteries in this world that science has yet to provide answers for: UFOs, crop circles, Bigfoot, Santa Claus, the Loch Ness Monster, all those disappearing bees, just what exactly they put into Burger Rings (I’ve heard it’s an exotic mix of sulphurous ash, charcoal and saltpetre.. oh no waaiit, that’s gunpowder!), but none is more utterly insignificant than the mystery behind the “master plan” that goes into picking all the gigs for Spoz’s Rant each week. HOW do I choose one over the another? is it all determined by a single roll of the dice? a flip of the coin? some needlessly complex mathematical equation? ouiji boards? the flight pattern of birds? tea leaves? tuning into the white noise of my tv and bugging out for hours on end? Many of you may’ve also wondered if such a thing can be “bought”. What IS the price of a Spoz’s Rant? can it be coerced through bribery, blackmail, extortion, the offering of sexual favours? (*sigh* if only!) can it be quantified, measured or floated on the stock exchange? Indeed I’ve heard many a rumour, wild and improbable stories over the lengths some of you freak have gone to just to get noticed by this website. Yup, I bet you’re reading this right now, waist deep in burning goat carcasses, walls to ceiling covered in arcane sigils written in your own blood, banging both fists on your keyboard and screaming “WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME!!!?”. Regrettably I have no clear answers, sometimes this shit is a mystery EVEN to me! Out’ve all the ridiculously awesome choices I could’ve made tonight (and believe me I wish I could’ve made ALL of them): Children Collide, Spod and Skeletons at Jive? TZU and Poetikool Justice at Producers Bar? (or cough your pissy little gig?) what insane unseen force drove me to Urtext Studios instead!?

“WTF.. Urtext Studios!? I thought this rat infested hell hole got shut down yeeaars ago!?” yeah, I know!! I’m as shocked as you are! You need look no further than all my extensive coverage throughout 2007 to stop and wonder just how many laws of physics they had to defy to keep this place from collapsing in on itself poltergeist style. Urtext Studios: down Grenfell Street, just past the neon arrow that screams “SUIT HIRE!” and opposite the sushi train, where all house parties go to die! Urtext Studios: where beer bottles get thrown off balconies and cameras get dropped into plastic cups of pale ale! good times.. goooooood times! Yup, clearly they must be throwing one HELLUVA party tonight if I’m ditching everything else to go see it.. OOOOH YES!

Before the Aftermath

The first band tonight would’ve been the awesome side splitting headache that is Bronze Chariot; but since I’ve only just woke up a few hours ago in a cemetery just south of the Mexican border (wow.. again!?), clawed myself through six feet of compacted dirt, stole me some replacement clothes, had three slices of toast, freshly squeezed orange juice, chilled monkey brains, hijacked a black hawk helicopter only to crash land it into the Advertiser building to get here (pfffft no big loss); I arrived just in time for the second band instead (yeah I know it’s a piss poor excuse, but how else do I explain all these weird bruises I got last night!?). Before The Aftermath, otherwise known as “BTA” or “why the FUCK is that dog howling on my roof at 3AM!?” are everything that is awesome about the stoner rock sounds of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s badly dubbed onto a cassette tape and melting on the dashboard moments before your car flies into that stobe pole. They’re the sound of Meatloaf, Iron Maiden, Cold Chisel, AC/DC and the silent screams of all the braincells I’ve killed so far tonight, just so I could be nearly drunk enough to appreciate the finer points of all their cinderblock guitars and neanderthal screams. And they’re the LAST band you’d probably ever expect to see opening an art exhibition.. FUCK YEAAAAAH!

However, instead of blessing us with their usual meat flavour bludgeonings; tonight’s set is a much cruiser affair: more suited to the refined art crowd here tonight (ie: the festive swarm of knuckle draggers busily drinking everything in sight that isn’t nailed down and maddly scribbling dick ‘n balls all over Luke Davey’s installation). So smooth, so easy going, so whistfully nostalgic; Before The Aftermath are just the thing for Sunday afternoons by the barbecue, lazy games of backyard footy, starting fires in caravan parks, wife beatings, lynch mobbings, kicking your dog and for doing burnouts with a beaten up old brown Datsun in your supermarket parking lot. And seriously, what more could you ask for out’ve life? alcoholics unite! we have your anthem!

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Swords

Speaking of all things brown (and quite possibly Datsun related): many years ago after a few too many pints of piss (in one of those aimless moments when I’m prone to inventing entirely stupid things that should NEVER come to pass) I came up with a genius concept for a live band: nine bass players, one drummer, aka “The Sounds of Brown”: the ULTIMATE fuckoff mad science experiment to all things brown. The brown flavours, the brown smells, and oh yes! the oh so very rich sounds of the brown! “Wait.. you mean nothing but a 5-20Hz bottom end cranked out 10ft tall and a hammering beat to drive it home!?” FUCK YEAAAH! Thankfully I was never batcrazy enough to put this idea to fruition; but like all things awesome in this world, it didn’t take too long ‘til someone else gave birth to their own steaming monument to brown that could be none other than THIS brown band: Swords. A band so diabolical in its infinite browness that they compacted the nine richters of brown down to the density of two! Jolan on the left, Mark on the right, Steve in the middle!? two tuning forks and a metronome fist punching forth the very beast of brown!? YEAAS! Right from the outset, I knew we were in for something special!

But like all the best doomsday machines, Swords are cursed with one teeny tiny (quite possibly fatal) flaw. For all their awesome brown power, for all the arsenal (hehehe.. arse-nal!), being only two bass players and one drummer on stage, there’s only so many sounds you can ever possibly achieve WITH the brown. Yes, crazy I know! for surely this shit is limitless! But such was the challenge faced by Swords tonight as they attempted to broaden the scope of brown, with mixed results. Is this “lightly dappled” brown, “low tar mentholated” brown? “Sonic Youth” brown? or “please for the love of God, stop mentioning the colour” brown!? Hmmmm.. as much as I respect the awesome power of the brown in all its infinite flavours and densities, personally I still prefer when they just beat each other senseless with this shit.. fuckit, what do you think?

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Diplomat

Speaking of acquired tastes, up next we present Adelaide’s number one reason to clutch your head screaming, bleed profusely from your eyes and ears, only to be pronounced dead moments after you hit the floor; otherwise known as “Diplomat”. Yup, you can always spot a Diplomat fan: they’re the one’s with dumb grins on their faces whilst everyone else looks like the windswept chipmunk grimace from one of those 1950’s G-force simulators. They’re the ones walking down the street only to stop every 5 minutes, jam a finger up in their ear, wiggling it about in the vain hope the “phone will stop ringing”. They’re the ones hugging the speaker stacks at rock concerts, the ones you need to face in conversation. The legally deaf in mismatched shoes, corduroy pants, cardigans and flannel who exclusively work at Big Star. Contrary to popular belief, they didn’t get that way through excessive ipod misuse, but through liberal doses of the Diplomat! Oh yes! count yourself lucky to be in their rarefied presence tonight. Not through lack of motivation, but simply through all red tape required just so they can get council approval these days. And if ever you find yourself at a Diplomat gig, and the top of your head is gently tickled by the light snow of falling plaster, there’s no need to to run for your life moments before the roof collapses and kills everyone. Oh no! soak it all up with a smile.. death by Diplomat is the ONLY way to go!

Still, attempting to describe Diplomat in terms that don’t border on the bible or apocalyptic can be tricky at best. Maybe it IS true that deep down below all those layers of thrashing sound and psychotic chug there dwells a gentle soul? Maybe they really DO sound like the very best of 90’s post grunge and alternative: like a milk and cookies rendition of Something For Kate meets R.E.M. meets the soft loud dynamic of The Pixies and Nirvana, soothing you gently to an eternal sleep. And granted a true aficionado could easily discern such subtle differences falling between the notes: however, attempting to capture it all on a compact camera inches away from stage without your head exploding is a different matter. Try it for yourself: keep cranking the volume knob on this video, and the minute the sky turns purple? baaby you’ve hit the sweet spot! :)

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White Rhino

Urtext Studios experienced a somewhat lengthy delay before the final act could make its way to the stage tonight. I’m not sure exactly WHAT the holdup was. All I remember is what sounded like sirens, a crack team of structural engineers bursting through those doors in hazmat suits, someone (quite possibly a seismologist) frowning at the walls with a tuning fork, and one weird moment when everyone was required to wear hats made of tinfoil, stand on one leg, the lights were killed, a small tingle of electricity followed by a sharp smell of rotten eggs shot through the air, only to regain consciousness moments later to the sight of THIS band: White Rhino. Few words could possibly hope to describe them, although I hear if you gargle some pigment paint, slap your hand against the wall, spit on it, and then surround it all with mad scribbles of deer, horse and buffalo whilst stick figures attack them with spears; you’d be right on the money! White Rhino, verily they’re from a different age: some may say the mid to late 90’s, I like to think the Mesolithic. It’s all there in their furrowed brows, dredlocks, upright held bass and shit eating grins. It’s the sound of 10,000 years of civilisation pissed up the walls, beaten with clubs and burnt to the ground.. and damnit, don’t the crowds just go fucking apeshit to it!

On face value you’d think some knuckle dragging pack of baboons sounding like a bucket bong cross between Monster Magnet and The Doors as performed by a nu-metal knockoff would be the LAST band you’d ever expect to find headline an art exhibition opening. And normally you’d be correct, at least until you consider the 100 cartoons of beer and the 20-30 bottles of wine this crowd’s managed to plough through to get here. Sheeiiit! if you think THIS shit looks prehistoric, take a good look around you and you’ll see it coming right back at you in droves: in hues of blue, black and grey, shrieking in unison, banging their fist and pissing on the floors whilst from behind comes the gentle showering of splintered plywood of what was once Luke Davey’s masterpiece in urban planning!? Yup it ain’t rocket science, it ain’t even banging rocks, but in some way it’s an all too fitting end to “Bone Machine”. Even Tom Waits couldn’t ask for a better tribute!

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