The Touch, A Devil Amongst TheTailors, Young Hearts Fail @Rocket Bar, Adelaide(23/03/09)

Tue 10th Mar, 2009 in Gig Reviews

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Everywhere we turn the arrows are all pointing the same way. It’s hard to miss the signs. There’s no u-turns, no exit lanes, just straight down. They’ve done away with all the sandwich boards and the ringing bells. They’ve got it all in hi-def, surround sound and updated in real-time now. It’s the one growth industry we can count on. Circling like vultures, thickening black clouds, microphones and autocues at the ready, gleefully picking at the carcass while it’s still walking and talking, before it’s even gone cold. Firestorms, floods, financial ruin and mass hysteria? it’s all just background radiation. We should be feeling something, anything, but we’re numb thumbing the remote and switching the channel. We’re still alive; they’re missing the point. The big picture is well and truly FUBAR? The big picture is always FUBAR! the big picture can take care of itself. One hundred monkeys is all we can handle, beyond that its science fiction. It’s human frailty, it’s a beautiful thing, why else do we keep coming back for more? No.. let’s gather that which we hold dear, let’s hoard it all and hide out in our concrete bunkers and wait for those bombs to drop; and then laugh when they don’t. It’s not all fucked! Take this lamp for instance. Forever photogenic lamp: two handles, bubble varnish, by the bar, by the corner at Rocket Bar. When everything else around us has gone to shit we can always count on this lamp. Cocktail menus may change, bartenders may come and go, the crowds may grow ever dimmer and dumber (and how!) but that lamp shines ever so bright! It’s showing us the way. Where exactly I do not know? quite possibly the first exit sign the fuck OUT of here.. but it’s there regardless! It gives us hope: little lamp by the bar, microcosm to the macro, the one thing we’re doing right; or the second if we count that awesomely cute (and utterly batshit insane) new bartender chick they hired (no really.. someone give her a raise!). It’s best to remember the little details like that. We may all know where this story is heading but we’re holding on, holding on for dear life, you and me baaaby, we’ll make it through.. you’ll see!

YOUNG HEARTS FAIL
Yup, we may’ve fallen on hard times, we may be here at Rocket Bar of all places tonight but we’re looking to all the positives as we slip inextricably further into that abyss (still maybe I should’ve taken that lamp when I had the chance because if this is our “canary in the coal mine”? duuude we’re all fucked!). Young Hearts Fail. They’re a million voices crying out in unison then suddenly silenced. They’re every mixer in town for the last two months cranking one channel up on full, frowning, checking their leads, tapping that microphone, frowning a whole lot more only to realise their shit ain’t broken and it’s actually meant to “sound” like that. She’s called Xixi Cao. Impossible to miss her, impossible to take your eyes off her, she captivates you even as the light bends around her; she’s a shrinking violet way beyond the visual spectrum. She’s truth to the adage that silence can be truly deafening, she’s their lead singer (yes I’m aware of the irony and I’m loving every minute of it!). She redefines goth in quite the same way that a forty foot plummet to your death refines “pothole”; she embodies Young Hearts Fail completely. Other names for her band may also include: “Teen Epic Fail”, “The Eighties Suicide Wrist-Vein Disaster” and “In Space Nobody Can Hear You Scream”. In fact she’s an entire thesaurus devoted to the awkwardly shy. This is punctuated all the more by the band that surrounds her: Tobias Jacobson wringing woe from his guitar like a blackening downpour, his brother Isaac machine gunning the bass like the entire body count at the Battle of the Somme, whilst Harry Freeman drills the drums like nothing short of death himself. They throttle each song until the room itself runs out of oxygen, until we all asphyxiate, collapse and die. They’re a thunderous onslaught, a tiny whimper, a squeak and then polite applause. And as much as they’ve been slowly but surely honing their craft and finding their “voice” (some songs even have defineable breaks in them now!) right here is where it’s truly at! Catch them now before they wisen up, go all “puffy shirt”, white powder faces, and zombie stares and proceed to scare the shit out of small children. Young Hearts Fail? I think I love you!

A DEVIL AMONGST THE TAILORS
Which only makes our second support all the more fucking insane to experience. A “stark contrast” is one way to put it, “explosive decompression” is another, or more accurately: “oh my fucking crap an air bubble the size of a basketball just burst in my eye socket and now I’m gonna die!”. Yup, that’s A Devil Amongst The Tailors! Or for those of you unitiated, they’re the epitome of a loud and proud Aussie “hiphop” tradition and everything awesome that it exemplifies. Or in other words everything “awesome” that is exemplified by two comfortably middleclass louts from the suburbs having a shouting match, over bass and drums; over all the ghetto inequity that comes from having adequate social security, a quarter acre block, a game of backyard cricket, a drive through bottle-o on every corner, sun surf and more loose bitches and blunts than you could possibly know what to do with.. fuuuck! Sure I realise this may defeat the purpose of being a hiphop artist in the first place but hey what would I know!? Public Enemy? The Roots? Saul Williams? Mos Def? Zach De La Rocha? pffft clearly I’m listening to the wrong shit here! Yup, this is Aussie hiphop at its finest! Embrace the irony! A Devil Amongst The Tailors. They’re as much a loose mix between The Beastie boys, A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul as they’re a mix between Butterfingers, Bluejuice, The Herd and pack of AFL footy players on an Grand Final winning fender bender. They’re a “band” owning the stage, that crowd in front of the stage and everyone else in this entire venue with little more than a rhythm section. And they’re all the shouting and jumping about a stage you could possibly ever handle in the space of 45 minutes without your head exploding. I can’t deny it, they sure as shit know to rock it, it’s a circus out here tonight and they’re living the dream! And when they finish up with their smash hit “Summertime”? The same song that came #5 in Fresh FM’s top 92 songs for 2008? (that same song that in NO way rips off Ice Cube’s “It Was A Good Day” in ANY way shape or form!?) simply brilliant!! This is A Devil Amongst The Tailors leaving nothing but beer cans, bucket bongs and empty pizza boxes in their wake: and this is me becoming a born again believer in the awesome power of Aussie hiphop!! YEAAAS!!

THE TOUCH
It’s true, I’m endlessly entertained by the stupidest things. Does that make this blog nothing more than an exercise in backhanded compliment? an insult to your intelligence? an ever escalating “in joke” on the Adelaide scene? the lowest form of journalism? I like to think all the above. The quirks, the character, the flaws, the fuckups, it’s a celebration of the human condition; I truly believe that! Exposing all these insane little details that make me laugh myself retarded, exploiting them, mocking them mercilessly; its why I keep coming back for more! (no shit.. three or four years in duuude, you’ll take what you can get!). Which is why I’m endlessly thankful that bands like The Touch exist. No really, I am! So utterly, blithering, hilariously naive! So tragically scenster! Making complete and utter dicks of themselves wherever they go at every available opportunity!? They’re the best thing to happen to this scene ever since Tony Font Show broke up and we lost the undeniable genius that was Lee Cowan! (maaaan that guy was hilariously stupid! he was everything this blog could ever ask for!). And now we have Josh Moore, lead singer for The Touch!? Yeah I don’t know who’s worse either, but I’m glad this idiot’s stumbling about regardless. I mean shit.. how could we possibly deny what he’s given to the Adelaide scene!? such lyrical genius as: “get your rat out.. get your rat out tonight!”, or: “face down, arse up, that’s the way we like to fuck!”. Such mastery of the English language! I don’t know how he manages to breathe AND blink at the same time without killing himself down a flight of stairs!? His constant and clueless verbal outbursts between songs and his ridiculous ego!? We cannot deny that he is THE Ashton Kutcher of the Adelaide scene! And better yet, the band he fronts? The Touch!? Duuude where do we begin? Sure we could say they sound like a cross between The Foals, The Moving Units, Los Valentinos (especially in reference to their earlier material) and the stage antics of Cut Off Your Hands; and as much as I’m willing to admit they’ve actually improved over the last year.. no shit! (there’s even a few new songs starting to show a surprising amount of “depth”) but we all know why we’re here. The Touch entertain us for all the stupidest reasons, for all the best reasons, for all the wrong reasons, for all reasons which were in no way helped when they foolishly decided to invite ME up on stage to dance like twit during “Froth Party”; I had to deduct a half point for THAT crime against humanity (and if you saw me up there you’ll sure as shit know why!). Here’s to you The Touch: you may be hilarious idiots on a live stage but you still make a killing all the same!

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