Sir Gerbil

Yup, what we’re witness to here tonight is nothing short of a miracle! I’m a newborn believer maaan! Not in all that superstitious quackery that’s been fooling society for generations, pfft.. don’t make me laugh! Nick Cave said it best in Grinderman: “we are scientists, we do genetics, we leave religion to the psychos and fanatics”. Hallelujah brother!! We’re bringing the people together in a mad celebration! We’re drinking till the sun comes up! We’re achieving the impossible! You doubt me still? You want a sign? you want PROOF!? well, how about a “resurrection” then! for how else could we explain our opening act!? Sir Gerbil. No shit we thought they were looong dead! It’s been almost four years since they were last seen on the Adelaide scene. I can even give you the time and place when it last happened too: The Crown & Anchor, Saturday September the 24th 2005, in support of Melbourne band Jika, just after the Sydney Swans won the AFL Grand Final (a trivial note I know, but their lead singer Travis Moon was harping on about it all night long) fuck and what a show it was too! Of course I remember very little of it, just like many of their other shows I attended back in the day, I’ve got nothing but a drunken blur to show for it: an inflatable dolphin here, a spastic moshpit there, a mad music video with a psychedelic sock puppet chorus.. FUUUCK! It truly does my head in trying to make heads or tails of it! But that was part of their mad appeal. They were the quintessential spastic “party band”. The Adelaide scene used to have tonnes of them: Lazaro’s Dog and Tony Font Show instantly spring to mind; just like B12 vitamin shots to the skull when you needed them the most! And now they’re long gone, lost to a live circuit obssessed with petty scenster postering. And now that they’re back for a reunion gig tonight I realise just how much I miss them and all those other assinine acts, no shit! I mean sure, most of these band members have been involved in other wildly successful “side” projects: Andreas their guitarist was in Soft White Machine from 2005-2008, Geddy their bassplayer was in Munchkin from 2005-2007, Tony Irish their drummer was in everything from Barcode to The Black Doves and still ongoing in The Killgirls. But THIS is where it all began! Sir Gerbil. How do I even begin to describe it? In essence they’re a goofy funk metal outfit with unpredictable elements of hiphop and punk. A technicolour kindergarten mashup between the carnival extremes of Faith No More, Mr Bungle and Primus. A little bit of Blink 182, a little bit of The Beastie Boys from the eighties meets the vocal delivery of Serj Tankian. A rapid fire exhange between Travis’s cartoon delivery and Geddy’s shrill intensity. A gunning eighties guitar solo from Andreas and a slamming beat from Tony you could damn near fold a pretzel to. OOOH FUCK YEAH!! Like two charged electrodes to the nips they make you wanna throw yourself about a room till you’re black and blue. They’re everything you could ever ask for after one long month wandering the desert. I drank my fill, the crowd cheered them on, all their lifelong fans were in attendance. And then, just like that, after a mad cover of Electric Six’s “High Voltage” they were gone again. Shit damn, now THAT’S what I call an opening act!

The Rooftops

After the proverbial Romper Room shitstorm that was our opening act (aaah don’tcha just love it?) our second act brings with it a welcome dose of rest and relaxation. They’re like the musical equivalent of a giant beanbag, a bucket bong, a jumbo bag of Doritos and a boxset of BBC bird documentaries. Yup in the most hallucinogenic of terms that is the raw potency of The Rooftops. Or in slightly more coherent terms they hark back to a bygone area of early nineties acid jazz. Understandably most of you midgets wouldn’t have the foggiest clue what the fuck I’m on about, so a refresher course may be in order. When I think of The Rooftops I think of such bands as The Stereo MCs, the first two Massive Attack albums (especially the looser grooves you’d find in “Blue Lines”), a little bit of Groove Armada at their dopest and dare I say it one of those rare instances where mentioning both Jamiroquai and The Cat Empire in the same sentence ISN’T classified as an absolute insult but brings with it nothing but fond memories. Yup quite like Sir Gerbil before them, this clearly makes them an anachronism, almost laughably so, but no less welcoming in our time of need, in fact only more so! Yeah I know, in any other time I’d be poking mad fun at this shit. I mean I never really appreciated all that hippy crap that was coming out of Sydney back in the nineties, but THIS band gives me newfound appreciation. They’re a gateway drug through and through. I hear elements of D.I.G. (Directions In Groove), a little bit of Wicked Beat Sound System, maybe even a touch of the Supreme Beings Of Leisure from LA. The only difference here is that none of this shit is synthetic: it’s all organic, authentic, home grown and well baked like a fresh batch of “funny brownies”. In song after song of the loosest looping grooves you’ll imagine scenes of endless fields of green, soft sands warmed by a summer sun, crashing waves fit for surfing, bearded goons living off the grid with their post graduate girlfriends, and all those ecclectic granola grooves you could hope to find in an afternoon well spent at Womadelaide. No shit, it makes me want to don an oversized woolen beanie like a technicolour tea-cosy, smash that Bob Marley something fierce and play endless rounds of barefoot hacky sack with backpacker tourists and drug dealers. It’s such a mad buzz! I mean sure, the band performing this bliss may appear to be utterly emaciated and world weary to a fault (like they’re slowly starving to death). Their lead singer especially is practically a walking skeleton as he sways back and forth behind that microphone stand, saxaphone at hand, like he’s two kilo’s short of a Third World relief fund: but you sense true peace behind those sunken eyes that’s missing from so many other bands. And once you hear it yourself you can begin to understand how they’ve thrived for this long. They’re all about the buzz. They’re the ultimate in zen. They draw you in, despite yourself: hook, line and sinker. And as potentially hokey as that may be: that’s still a dream well worth believing in!

The Woohoo Revue

Our third act have quickly gained a reputation in the Adelaide scene as somewhat of an “urban legend”: a chinese whisper that grows ever more fantastical with every retelling, and it’s all thanks to one damn near infamous set they unleashed at The Crown & Anchor back in April this year. And yes I can tell you right now, it actually happened! I was there, I witnessed it first hand, I documented it in full, and even I don’t believe what it was that I saw that night. I guess it was just one of those gigs: one of those utterly insane, once-in-a-lifetime, clownshit improbable experiences that defies all logic; one that a live music site like this one damn near kills for! Or maybe it simply happens every week around here and I’ve never been privy to this shit up until now? Like there’s actually a whole other fantastical world that exists parallel to ours where a gyspy jazz folk instrumental act like THIS one can truly function in the modern world!? YES IT’S ACTUALLY POSSIBLE! I’ve seen it happen! Just like Santa Claus is real, the Easter Bunny exists, angels and extraterrestrials are still influencing major world events, The Loch Ness Monster is alive and well and sharing a penthouse apartment with Elvis Presley, or that Democracy can truly function in the Middle East without a heavy handed military presence. Yup, that’s The Woohoo Revue! Still I had my doubts (I mean just LOOK at them!). Which is why I’m back here again tonight to experience it once more. The Woohoo Revue. In many ways this band defies any logical explanation that could hope to encapsulate them: which is also why they’re so ridiculously awesome on a live stage! Call them what you will: a gypsy jazz band, a russian folk act, a roaring twenties instrumental swing ensemble; it barely scratches the surface. There are no parallels here. Are they a face-melting mashup between Merrie Melodies, Looney Toons, Danny Elfman, The Propellerheads, They Might Be Giants and a bar fight in a Wild West saloon? who cares!? The only thing that matters amongst the dizzying interweave of violin, saxophone, trumpet, guitar, bass and drums is the way it makes you wanna fuck shit up like a madman. Still I’ll admit I had my doubts, I didn’t think they could pull it off again. Back in the east end? oh sure it could happen! but here in the west end!? pfft.. don’t make me laugh! They’re much too cynical down here. But then five minutes in our feet start tapping, our heads starts nodding, and before you know it you’re totally lost to it. There’s really no doubt about it. There’s no room for arm folding, distant stares and conspiratorial mumblings in their presence. There’s NO way in hell you can resist this shit the minute they hit full swing. They simply flick a proverbial light switch and the entire audience explodes around us. Within an instant solid sublimes into gas and then a superheated plasma. We’re free radicals freaking, buzzing like fresh popped popcorn, like ping-pong balls to mouse traps. We’re a dancefloor frenzy that knows no limits of time nor space. Are we partying like it’s 2009 or 1899? It’s all the above! With The Woohoo Revue all things improbable are not only possible but inevitable. Forget the person next to you, forget everything else you know to be true, simply dive right in and enjoy the ride!

The Beards

And then along comes ANOTHER band!? Sheeiiit! It’s like when it rains it pours around here, you’re upto your armpits drowning in it, and next thing you know it some geriatric goon in a bath robe is pairing off animals into his oversized yacht to repopulate the planet again!? FUCK YEAH IT’S THE BEARDS!! Yeah I admit it, they’re a novelty act. Everything about them screams novelty act. I mean all they’ve ever do is one fucking punchline over and over like THAT’S gonna make it funnier: “oooh it’s The Beards! how could I have not see it before!? they’re a band about “beards”, they’ve all got “beards”, they play songs about “beards”, why the FUCK am I even writing this review anymore!?”. And to be honest I’ve almost been tempted to do just that. Instead of say reviewing them at length, I thought hey I could simply offer a series of one line responses like: “The Beards: does exactly as specified on the label”, “The Beards: they’ll grow on you!”, or “The Beards: they’re ostensibly about vampires and the reunification of Germany, no really, what do YOU think they’re about, genius!?” (Orange County, fuck I loved that movie!). But there’s more to them than just the fuzz that covers their faces, I swear! For one, as much as they only have one punchline to offer us it DOES get funnier everytime they play it. Secondly, they’re more than acutely aware of this accumulative effect: before every song they’ll make a note to remind the audience that it’s about “beards”, the only thing they ever talk about is “beards”, they’ll continue to play gigs until absolutely everyone in the entire world (women included) has grown a “beard”; fuckit they even performed at The World Beard And Moustache Championships in Alaska earlier this year just to really nail the point home that YES it’s all about “beards”. Thirdly, thanks to their insane devotion to the cause, they can’t help but gather a faithful following bordering on the downright fanatical wherever they go. They’re not just a live band: they’re a political movement, a religious cult and an overzealous infomercial all wrapped into one for these people. But once again we’re just scratching the surface here (pun intended). The truth of the matter is they couldn’t have done any of this if the music didn’t back it up. That’s the REAL secret behind The Beards, that’s the proverbial “wizard” behind the curtain! You see, next to every single one of their songs is actually an embarassingly “clean shaven” eighties rock anthem classic reclaimed with a generous growth. Look past the lyrics and you can’t help but sense that déjà vu under the surface, like they’re bordering on “Weird Al” Yankovic territory. In their setlist alone tonight I can hear elements of Dire Straits, The Police, Bryan Ferry, Bryan Adams and a whole host of other cheesy power ballads from commercial rock radio. All those song you’ve ever sung drunk, or more accurately howled at the top of your lungs, in a place you’re far too embarassed to admit you were in, at three o’clock in the morning. They’re all of that and more, in all their nostalgic glory only with a fuckload of fuzz. That’s the goldmine of embarassing riches they’ve tapped into and tweaked ever so slightly into such a winning formula. It’s been there in our collective consciousness all this time, waiting for its moment in the sun again, they’ve just been the first to give it the rich facial hair it deserved!

READ MORE FROM SPOZ’S RANT HERE.