Schvendes - Twice The Man

Tue 31st Jan, 2006 in Music Reviews

In my first ever interview, I asked Little Birdy singer Katy Steele about being a woman in music. I received a bit of a hostile ‘How would I know any different?’ type of answer. According to an interview on Australia Music Online with singer/songwriter and bass player of Perth band Schvendes, Rachael Dease, the very question of what it’s like to be a female musician inspired her to write the single Twice the Man.

Schvendes formed in 2002 in Perth and is made up of Rachael Dease on vocals and bass, Tara John on Rhodes piano, Ant Gray on guitar, Tristen Parr on cello and Greg Hosking on drums.

Schvendes’ single Twice The Man features three tracks, two of which were recorded at the Amplifier Bar in July of 2005. Twice The Man was recorded and produced by Ben Franz, bass player for The Waifs. 

Twice The Man is appropriately the most marketable track on the single. The sound is dark and begins with grungy sounding guitars that would feel quite at home in the nineties. Dease’s voice is deep and with hoarseness she almost whispers in the verses.  It’s a moody dose of girl power. 

‘Cause I’m a cold and angry young lady
 and I got nothing left inside me, you see.
 I’m half the girl you see down before you,
 but I’m twice the man that you’ll ever be.

The most outstanding track is by far Oh Marlon, a song I listened to with a bit of trepidation after the press release described it as ‘decapitatingly sinister.’ But I’m happy to report I still have my head. Dease describes it as being written about an adopted, part-Samoan hillbilly serial killer from her dreams whom she is ‘hopelessly in love with.’  Pretty everyday stuff really.

Oh Marlon paces along brilliantly with creepy strums of Gray’s guitar and John’s haunting Rhodes. Dease quietly tells us, ‘

Now this is a story of a man I hold dear.
 My soul mate and lover but something I feared.

It reflects Dease’s love of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, as her story continues:

My lover’s not quite the straight road type. 
He comes to our bed slightly bloodstained
and he whispers ‘Darling, good night.’

Marlon disappears and leaves his woman with nothing but a note instructing her to burn the shed, filled with beheaded neighbours.  Is this making anyone else think of Wolf Creek like it is me?

She concludes in her recognisably Australian accent,

You just turned and you said “Every man needs a hobby…”

Hey Marlon, I hear some people really like stamp collecting.