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The Weevils
Our opening act hasn’t got an album out yet but if they did it’d likely be the most fuck off feral thing you’d ever hear moments before doing three lines of coke and a tab of acid, blacking out cold, waking up weeks later in a maximum security prison, on death row, completely oblivious to the fact that you were solely responsible for assassinating President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela using nothing but a cocktail olive and a rubber band, stark naked, whilst painted head to toe in blue body paint screaming hysterically in fluent Portugese; or yeah.. maybe that’s just me. The Weevils. In essence they’re a garage rock band channeling the very best in ear bleed from the late 50’s throught to the early 60’s with a few other insane punk and grunge influences thrown in for good measure (or one the best new Adelaide bands I’ve heard all year whilst simultaneously being one of the worst). Think of them as The Who mixed up with every shitty b-side from Nirvana and The Pixies as fronted by Craig Nicholls from The Vines attempting to cover Nick Cave’s “The Birthday Party”. Think of them as a teenage hormonal hissyfit gone horribly right. Or simply think of them as a hessian bag full of cats fighting, accompanied by the cheapest, nastiest guitars and amps that a quick trip to Crime Converters could possibly afford. Or maybe they’ll like nothing else at all. Everything about them is out of tune, out of whack, off key, jarringly loud and utterly unhinged with necks crooked, arms thrashing, coin operated and flailing; and yet they sound all the better for it. It’s any wonder how they do it, althought the fact that three of the band members are formerly from Skeletons (quite possibly the most skull-fuckingly genius hit of face melting jazz and incoherent screaming you never heard back in 2007-2008) may have something to do with it. The Weevils. Just like J. D. Salinger’s “Catcher In The Rye”, The Beatles “Helter Skelter” and every ultraviolent title developed by Id Software and Rockstar Games combined: if ever the CIA got their grubby hands on it we’d surely be upto our nips in desiccated carcasses in next to no time!
Like Leaves
Our second act tonight are currently in recording. It might be a full length album, a double disc or an EP and released onto CD, cassette, vinyl, eight-track, wax cylinder, clay tablet, internet download or etched into a gold plate stuffed into a deep space probe and shot beyond the orbit of Pluto; either way I can’t freaking wait to hear it. Of all the times I’ve seem them live, both this year and last (eleven times in total?) I’ve never gotten sick of them. They’re like a fine cuisine in that regard, a psychedelic sound you can eat and drink to the full, a sound that satiates the soul. Despite only having a handful of songs at their disposal, everytime I hear them I always pick up on something new. The most telling of which tonight is “Falling For A Fleeting Moment”. If ever you’ve seen them in the last six months you’d know it well. Both Dan and Juliet on vocals, those distinctly discordant guitars washing to and fro like waves on a beach on a cold winter’s night, a sound not too dissimilar to My Bloody Valentine meets Nine Inch Nails’ “The Fragile”. I like to think of it as the measuring stick to just how good a particular Like Leaves set is. It’s that fine line between fragile beauty and leaving something to warp on the dashboard. It’s just like a souffle. Get ONE ingredient wrong (especially the live sound) and it all goes belly up, Get it all right however and it’s like the best thing ever. And to the infinite credit of Matt Hills the mixer in residence (and the band themselves), tonight they freaking nail it. It’s probably the best rendition I’ve heard in months, it warms the entire set with a golden glow. Most other bands would be insane to consider a song as temperamental as THIS one as a centrepiece to their set but Like Leaves aren’t most bands. They take risks, they forge their own lysergic path. It’s bands like these you hope to see busting mad jams well into their triple digits like blues musicians. It’s bands like these you know are true artists. And as much as tonight’s set was essentially no different from the sets they’ve been playing for the last few months (short of a sequence shuffle), they did come up with ONE new surprise, a song called “Mercy Sound”. Featuring Juliet on vocals and channeling everything from Beth Gibbons from Portishead, Karin Dreijer Andersson from The Knife, Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane to PJ Harvey from the Desert Sessions; it’s everything you could ever ask for out of a Like Leaves song, that me attempting to string three to four superlatives and exciteable expletives together couldn’t possibly do justice. It’s songs like these and many others equally as brilliant tonight (their opening number “Fruit” with the teeny tiny finger cymbals was especially awe inspiring), that has me itching like crack addict for an album release. I’m told it’ll be sometime in August or September later this year. and dude? it couldn’t come soon enough!
No Through Road
On the grand scheme of things our third act tonight shouldn’t exist. They’re a freak anomaly bordering on the fictional. They’re an Adelaide band that’s actually released more than one album. Not just EPs, singles or brown paper bag demos but full length fucking albums. I know I hardly believed it myself, so I looked it up and there it was: “Monkey On A Rock”, “Too Much Or Not Enough” and their latest release “Winner”. That’s three whole albums they’ve unleashed. Four or more if you include “Lo-Fi Sandwich” and all those other recordings their lead singer Matt Banham released as a solo artist: “Girls Are The Devil”, “The Chelsea Theatre EP” and “Learning to Write Hate Songs” (to name but a few). Yup, where most bands promptly fall apart after less than two EPs, No Through Road have damn near made a career out of it. They’re far from a buzz band, a skinny jean, spastic synth, haircut, fluoro fashion disaster with dancepunk beats and angular riffs to fuck like jackrabbits to. They’re a messy, noisey, frequently belligerent, grouchy, anti-social and anti-establishment act to drink, mosh, and party to. They’re just like your grandfather: half crazed and yammering in a retirement village dreaming of the good ‘ol days when bands still played the beer gardens at The Austral and The Exeter. Don’t let their relatively youthful appearance fool you, they’ve been at it for years, they’ve been at it so long they don’t give a FUCK what you think. And in many ways THIS is why they’ve survived so long. It’s that blitheringly casual “dont-give-a-fuck” attitude that’s allowed them to thrive while many others have failed (that and the fact that Matt Banham may be the most annoying prolific artist in all of the Adelaide scene). You see it in every one of their gigs and tonight is no exception. Matt Banham out the front, tie askew, thrashing like an exorcism, hands raised in mad salute, swinging the microphone around on its lead like he’s blind drunk and swimming laps in a karoake bar. Band members crashing into each other like dodgem cars, swapping instruments and spilling about willy nilly like it’s more of a rehearsal space, an extended in-joke or Matt Banham’s personal comedy routine than an actual gig but it’s this laughable lack of polish and professionalism that makes them who they are: a band that fucking kills when they play live. For as much as the audience often misses the point (especially the scenster crowds who frequently freeze up to this schtick) they’re never short of being a feral free-for-all to let loose and obliterate to regardless (if only you’re crazy enough to join them). From the bottled heat of “Explosions” (featuring Paul from The Weevils busting a nut on the saxophone) to the primal screams of “Die For Something” to the aptly titled “Party To Survive” it’s one fuck of mad jam from beginning to end. Sure most of it’s lost on the crowd tonight as they simply stand there blinking like goldfish (save for a small scattering out front going berserk), but No Through Road couldn’t care less either way. No matter what, they’re still having the time of their lives.
Leader Cheetah
Which brings us to our headlining act: the band that everyone came here to see, in such high numbers in fact that they’ve just posted the “sold out” sign on the door; all for the chance to see an Adelaide band launch a stinking album? Yup, just a few short years ago such a rapturous applause would’ve been damn near unheard of. And yet if any band deserved it, it would be Leader Cheetah tonight. You can see it on their well worn faces, relieved to see hundreds of smiling faces beaming back at them. They’ve dragged themselves through all nine layers of hell to get to this point; especially brothers Dan and Joel Crannitch on vocals and drums respectively. For just a few short years ago they used to be in The Pharaohs, maaan those freaks were hilarious; you may’ve heard of them. Back in the day they were yet another up and coming Adelaide buzz band. Abrasively post punk, fuck full of dancepunk beats and angular riffs; they were right up there with Bit By Bats and Wolf & Cub in indie street cred, they even scored Triple J high rotation for such shrieking body popping anthems to alienation and woe as “Keelhaul” and “Broken Arm”. Their future was just about assured, they were everything Rocket Bar’s fashion nazis would’ve damn near shat a kidney for but something didn’t sit right with lead singer Dan Crannitch; it just wasn’t him. Midway through touring their angry little EP “Medicines” he picked up an acoustic guitar and penned “Bloodlines” and it all made sense. THIS is where he wanted to be. Moments later he ditched The Pharaohs and Leader Cheetah made their shiny debut with brothers Dan and Joel Crannitch joined by Dan Pash on guitar and Mark Harding on bass (I think they played their first gig to perhaps ten or twenty people at Urtext Studios back in mid May 2007!?). Clearly we all thought he’d gone completely insane. Nobody knew or understood what the fuck he was thinking with this whole alt-country schtick. Many of us wondered if those signature sideburns of his had simply taken root in his brain. But sure enough, in time, he proved us all wrong. “Bloodlines” was just a hint of what was to come. Triple J latched onto it, spun it into high rotation and had us all hooked through the latter part of 2008. So that by the time “The Sunspot Letters” was released in March this year, people flocked to it in droves. Its golden tones, earthy hues and homespun feel won people over and along with it scores of accolades and blogger buzz; thanks in part to the work of one Mark Kramer (producer for Galaxie 500, Low and Urge Overkill’s “You’ll Be A Woman Soon”) and also thanks to Dan Crannitch’s distinct vocal presence: possessing an oddly fragile, quavering nasal quality that reminds you of both a Vegas drag queen and Neil Young being dragged by his ankles through the desert. A voice quite unlike any other we’d ever heard in the Adelaide, let alone Australia. Yup, talent this unique and weirdly accomplished doesn’t come along very often and for once we sure as shit weren’t gonna let it go quietly. When Leader Cheetah finally spun by their home town for an album launch party tonight, we packed Jive to the ceiling in celebration.
Now I’ve seen my fair share of sold out shows and more often than not (especially when it’s hosted in Jive) it’s a fucking zoo. It’s a screaming throng of hilarious dickheads, sprouting camera phones, vomiting up surface to air human missiles with arms and legs flailing, beers spilling everywhere, broken glass, bruises and sore heads; followed by the barstaff spending the remainder of the night scraping suspicious stains off the ceiling. Sure that can be a good thing, many of the best nights have been just like that; but thankfully tonight was none of the above. It was still packed to the ceiling, but it was far less a shrieking monkey cage flinging faeces everywhere and more akin to that toasty feeling you get whilst watching the music video to Weezer’s “Island In The Sun”. Y’know the one directed by Spike Jonze with the band frolicking about with all the lion cubs, squirrels, bears, chimps and shit? If you don’t know what I’m getting at take a quick look, and chances are when you return you’ll be beaming with smiles; because THAT was what Leader Cheetah were like tonight. They were a warm winter fire and we were three hundred cats and dogs basking in its glow for the entirety of their set. From opening numbers “The Explorer” to “Alibi” with the three piece horn revelry joining them on stage, to “Bloodlines” and “Dianne” with Tom Spall (lead singer from Cortez) joining them with the violin: their well worn “busted sofa” of a sound drew you in. You could see it in Dan Crannitch’s odd arm twirling, Dan Pash’s oversized earmuffs, Joel Crannitch’s hillbilly beard bobbing to the beat and Mark Harding’s hunchback. You hear it in how fragile and yet how full every song sounds in that velvetly quaver. It’s all those little quirks and flaws both visual and audible that made them ever so much more strangely compelling, you couldn’t help but drift along to the journey. By the time “Spirit To The Bone” and “Fly Golden Arrow Pt 1” flew by we were in a whole other place where tumbleweeds blowing by on dusty roads weren’t seen as snarking metaphor for a city of suburban waste and existential ennui, but a place we could all call home. And when they returned for the encore and album outtake “Grass Castles”? duuude we never wanted to leave! Leader Cheetah not only owned this crowd, they freed it from all it’s worldly concern. Which when you consider they’re nothing but a “local band” fronted by a scruffy loon who pulls beers at The Exeter and yet they’re still playing to THIS shit tonight; is nothing short of a triumph. Adelaide? fuuuck, who knew it was possible!?
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