With no support and two sets Ed Kuepper shredded and shredded and shredded for a solid two hours through the aid of his kaleidoscopic brand of grunged up, gunged up psychedelic-pub rock. Even though the band was only a three piece with bass and drums added as a rhythm section supporting Ed, you could of sworn there was two or sometimes three guitars all taking up the gauntlet of mind-melting riffing. All over the place songs were expanded and given huge sections for Kuepper to let loose. Never relying on just technique and ability, Ed instead played somewhere in between driving rhythm and crazy-arse hysterical soloing. The band lived and died by Ed’s passion with the guitar. Out of his mind on some sort of vaguely different astral plane he wrenched out of this one guitar all the noise of a broken and wasted philharmonic orchestra. Often I was left questioning how the hell he was making what seemed like multiple noises and tunes from one simple axe. Take nothing away from The Kowalski Collective, his support band, they were solid as it comes and if you ignored the strange pelvis thrusting dancing of Peter Oxley the bass player they were faultless. Jeffrey Wegener, the drummer who made regular soirees to the bar was especially important, acting as the metronome by which you judged when and how screwed up the band was going to play.
Ed Kuepper’s gigs are afforded a certain flexibility by the extensive back catalogue he’s accrued both as a member of The Saints, The Laughing Clowns, and The Aint’s and as an unbelievably prolific solo artist. There is over 20 albums of original material he’s been involved in, most of the time as the musical and conceptual driving force. So the gig could have included songs running from acoustic folk to punk from psychedelia to grunge, from pretty much any music you could think of really. All the songs were revved up and messed around with to make them fit into the electrified three-piece setting. For the new songs from his as he says – œmost under-promoted album ever’, Jean Lee and the Yellow Dog this approach was brilliant. It came off at almost every turn and his version of Miracles, maybe the centrepiece of the album was nothing short of drop dead amazing, and so bizarrely and rewardingly intense. The true – œmade it all worth while’ moment of the gig. And the other songs off the album were generally fantastic as well. Yellow Dog was introduced with a monologue about the album’s back story (the album is about a prostitute, the last woman hanged in Australia, and her two boyfriends) that contextualised the bluesed-up tune perfectly. Also memorable was Skinny Jean, in which Ed took the harness once again and riffed his way through another, grungey Neil-Youngian guitar jam, all by himself.
But it was the awesomely high-quality of these new songs and the paranoid but endearing – œno-one buys my album’ interjections by Ed throughout the gig that best evidenced the theory that artists are best when they’re playing what they’ve just written or made, what is fresh in their mind and their life. Kuepper has enough great songs to draw upon and he tried to make the most of this with the gig opener Electrical Storm, Everything I’ve Got Belongs To You and an at times great, at times misstep version of Lah Di Doh. These were songs that on record were either acoustic based or significantly different on record and unfortunately they weren’t as easily transferable to the medium of Kuepper’s choice that night. Having said that, there were two key, older moments that could compare to Miracles. A ripping version of The Laughing Clowns’ (his band after the Saints) theme song that was the only true punk moment of the night and the closer, a mind-altering version of Little Fiddle that DID benefit hugely from being electrified and grunged up.
No matter what though, when the songs or the performances weren’t up to scratch you could always bail-back and revel in Kuepper’s guitar work. Whether it was being amazed at how he was making it make the sounds it did, or just letting yourself lose touch with reality in the stoned haze of his psychedelic sounds, you could choose at any time to be texturised into simple oblivion. There was a hint of him being too old, but it didn’t affect his instrumental dexterity much and only really reared its ugly head when you felt he wasn’t as passionate about the song he was playing as he could have been. He’s a legend of Australian music and when you sit back and look at everything he’s released, it’s a wowing experience. Take his guitar playing and treasure it. It’s unique, it’s loud, it’s distorted and it’s so damn impressive to watch and hear. That’s what he had to offer on this night, and deliver with axe in hand, he did.
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