Perfume Genius
Learning
*** 1/2
Learning is a devastating little record. What it lacks in longevity it compensates for in intensity, with a lyric sheet constructed almost entirely around an unflinching look at the three A’s – abuse, addiction and alienation. Creating richly heartfelt songs seems to have provided Seattle-local Mike Hadreas with a cathartic means of purging a painful past.
The intimacy of the lyrics are alleviated somewhat by disarmingly vibrant music. Most songs in the collection are grounded in chord loops hammered out with Cat Power-style minimalism on what sounds like a battered old brown honky-tonk in someone’s aunt’s lounge room, and the lo-fi recording lends the sound a comforting warmth. Over this sturdy foundation, Hadreas sweetly warbles of the lost and broken people who “didn’t have a family to begin with” (‘Lookout, Lookout’), his waifish voice carrying the kind of aching compassion redolent of Sufjan Stevens, in ‘John Wayne Gacy, Jnr’ mode.
The apparent safety of suburbia is no protection for characters like the tortured high school teacher in ‘Mr Peterson’ or ‘Perry’, who struggles on despite “marks healing on your hands”. But amidst the pain glimmer moments of redemptive beauty, like the woman and child who go out into the backyard to watch the moon rise in ‘When,’ or the luxuriant synths of ‘Gay Angels’ and ‘No Problem’ – where Hadreas dispenses with lyrics altogether and allows himself to revel in the twisting possibilities of his voice.
Although limited by an unrelenting minor palette, imperfect recording and the wrenching content of Hadreas’ biography, Learning is an unassuming but crushing debut.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 372, July 26th 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Reviewing your life, one misadventure at a time
Emerging from the gelatinous quagmire of television comedy, Review with Myles Barlow has quickly proven itself one of the most entertaining and original Australian comedies to grace our television screens in recent years. Each half hour episode sees the earnest Myles responding to letters from a curious public by purposefully undergoing all manner of human experience – such as compulsive theft, voyeurism, acrimonious divorce, and sex with a male prostitute – before offering a critical analysis and star rating.
Myles’ ‘real world’ alter ego Phil Lloyd is in good spirits when we catch up, excitement at the impending airing of Review’s second season being eclipsed by his status as a newly fledged father – having a month-old baby “kind of puts everything else into total perspective,” he informs me.
As with so many great ideas, Review was born out of a booze-fuelled evening, shared by Lloyd and his long-time writing partner Trent O’Donnell. “I started giving things a rating” he explains, “[like] a stain on the carpet, I gave it a stupid analytical dissection and a star rating. In our drunken state we thought it was pretty funny and we thought, well wouldn’t it be funny if there was a guy who applied the whole arts critic rating framework to real life objects. So we started doing that then we took it to experiences and it snowballed from there.”
From these innocuous beginnings, the pair took the idea to Sydney-based Starchild Productions, developing four initial sketches under their own steam, before pitching a pilot to the various Australian broadcasters – Auntie being the only one savvy enough to take the bait.
Season one yielded paydirt, their efforts being rewarded with critical praise, a couple of AFI awards and the enduring buzz of word-of-mouth recommendations. Says Lloyd, “it’s always a worry, when you go out on a limb and do your own thing, whether everyone else will find it funny or not; so it was heartening to get a good response.”
As with shows such as The Office, The Thick of It or Summer Heights High, Review employs a fly-on-the-wall mockumentary style, generating laughs through the excruciating situations that Myles determinedly braves. Segments have an eerie tendency to end in acts of gross inebriation, unforgiveable duplicity, utter degradation, or some happy combination of all three.
“I’m a fan of all those comedies,” admits Lloyd. “We don’t try to emulate anything, but we are fans of that stuff so it probably comes through in our work. That’s certainly my favourite kind of comedy, that’s got some teeth and is sort of a bit awkward and uncomfortable, and that’s certainly what we try and do with Review. A lot of the feedback is that it’s sometimes really hard to watch – which we take as a compliment.”
Although Review is often as painful as funny, Lloyd is adamant that being ‘controversial’ for its own sake was never the goal. “If we go there it has to be justified, even if it’s very dark … Sometimes we can be gratuitous, but hopefully it’s funny because its gratuitous; it’s so ridiculously extreme and over-the-top that it’s stupid; it’s funny because he shouldn’t have gone that far.”
Pushing things to the limit might well be the duo’s unspoken mantra; it’s also the underlying principle of Myles Barlow’s elaborate metaphors, which meander off on tangents of their own. “They’re the hardest bit to write because they’re so verbose and absurd and often nonsensical” explains Lloyd, “they take a lot of work, we’ll write them and rewrite them over and over – it’s all about the language…
“[Also] there’s a certain absurdity about having an expert give something a rating out of five stars and telling you how good something is. I guess we play on that, that’s kind of the character of Myles, why he’s ridiculous at times and why his summations are…” he pauses to reflect, before admitting, “Maybe we are having a little dig there; not consciously though.”
In a case of art imitating life, season two features Myles starting his own cult (promising his disciples salvation through ‘the five stars towards enlightenment’), enjoying the dubious thrill of being a B-Grade celebrity, and acting out the popular fantasy of killing Kyle Sandilands. A more generous budget has also enabled Myles, already a man of the world, to become much more of a globetrotter, his critical dedication taking him to India, Europe and the United States.
While obviously pleased with the fruits of his labour, Lloyd is unassuming about the show’s future. “I think the concept holds up okay. I think it’ll hold up as long as he’s doing new and interesting things, but that’s the trick with anything I guess, coming up with new ideas that have enough legs to sustain it. I wouldn’t want to keep pushing it so that everyone gets tired of it.” With a show that hits the mark as consistently as Review, this isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 371, July 19th 2010
Myles’ ‘real world’ alter ego Phil Lloyd is in good spirits when we catch up, excitement at the impending airing of Review’s second season being eclipsed by his status as a newly fledged father – having a month-old baby “kind of puts everything else into total perspective,” he informs me.
As with so many great ideas, Review was born out of a booze-fuelled evening, shared by Lloyd and his long-time writing partner Trent O’Donnell. “I started giving things a rating” he explains, “[like] a stain on the carpet, I gave it a stupid analytical dissection and a star rating. In our drunken state we thought it was pretty funny and we thought, well wouldn’t it be funny if there was a guy who applied the whole arts critic rating framework to real life objects. So we started doing that then we took it to experiences and it snowballed from there.”
From these innocuous beginnings, the pair took the idea to Sydney-based Starchild Productions, developing four initial sketches under their own steam, before pitching a pilot to the various Australian broadcasters – Auntie being the only one savvy enough to take the bait.
Season one yielded paydirt, their efforts being rewarded with critical praise, a couple of AFI awards and the enduring buzz of word-of-mouth recommendations. Says Lloyd, “it’s always a worry, when you go out on a limb and do your own thing, whether everyone else will find it funny or not; so it was heartening to get a good response.”
As with shows such as The Office, The Thick of It or Summer Heights High, Review employs a fly-on-the-wall mockumentary style, generating laughs through the excruciating situations that Myles determinedly braves. Segments have an eerie tendency to end in acts of gross inebriation, unforgiveable duplicity, utter degradation, or some happy combination of all three.
“I’m a fan of all those comedies,” admits Lloyd. “We don’t try to emulate anything, but we are fans of that stuff so it probably comes through in our work. That’s certainly my favourite kind of comedy, that’s got some teeth and is sort of a bit awkward and uncomfortable, and that’s certainly what we try and do with Review. A lot of the feedback is that it’s sometimes really hard to watch – which we take as a compliment.”
Although Review is often as painful as funny, Lloyd is adamant that being ‘controversial’ for its own sake was never the goal. “If we go there it has to be justified, even if it’s very dark … Sometimes we can be gratuitous, but hopefully it’s funny because its gratuitous; it’s so ridiculously extreme and over-the-top that it’s stupid; it’s funny because he shouldn’t have gone that far.”
Pushing things to the limit might well be the duo’s unspoken mantra; it’s also the underlying principle of Myles Barlow’s elaborate metaphors, which meander off on tangents of their own. “They’re the hardest bit to write because they’re so verbose and absurd and often nonsensical” explains Lloyd, “they take a lot of work, we’ll write them and rewrite them over and over – it’s all about the language…
“[Also] there’s a certain absurdity about having an expert give something a rating out of five stars and telling you how good something is. I guess we play on that, that’s kind of the character of Myles, why he’s ridiculous at times and why his summations are…” he pauses to reflect, before admitting, “Maybe we are having a little dig there; not consciously though.”
In a case of art imitating life, season two features Myles starting his own cult (promising his disciples salvation through ‘the five stars towards enlightenment’), enjoying the dubious thrill of being a B-Grade celebrity, and acting out the popular fantasy of killing Kyle Sandilands. A more generous budget has also enabled Myles, already a man of the world, to become much more of a globetrotter, his critical dedication taking him to India, Europe and the United States.
While obviously pleased with the fruits of his labour, Lloyd is unassuming about the show’s future. “I think the concept holds up okay. I think it’ll hold up as long as he’s doing new and interesting things, but that’s the trick with anything I guess, coming up with new ideas that have enough legs to sustain it. I wouldn’t want to keep pushing it so that everyone gets tired of it.” With a show that hits the mark as consistently as Review, this isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 371, July 19th 2010
The Boat People - Dear Darkly
The Boat People
Dear Darkly
*** 1/2
Brisbane’s The Boat People have a lot in common with fellow indie-popsters Dappled Cities. Both groups have built dedicated local followings in their respective capitals, garnering critical acclaim for music that combines intelligent lyrics with poppy, upbeat tunes – while always just falling short of broader commercial success. With Dear Darkly, the Boaties seem to have arrived at a similar point to that reached last year by the Sydneysiders with Zounds, producing not only their most mature and ambitious statement to date, but also one with the most potential for wider recognition.
There’s a sense of self-possessed assurance at work here – especially with tracks like opener ‘Under The Ocean’ or ‘Live In The Dark’, which are buoyed along by effortlessly hummable melodies, and shimmeringly consonant textures. Lyrically the album conjures an all-too-familiar world of weekends spent with a slab of beer for company, and evenings of television and takeaway – reflecting relationship stagnation and malaise with lines like “you’re an antidote to an ugly world” (‘Antidote’) balancing the weariness of “things used to be terrific / now they’re barely anodyne” (‘Soporific’).
Songwriters Robin Waters and James O’Brien are confident enough to throw in the odd experiment, ensuring that things never get dull. But they don’t always hit the mark. First single ‘Echo Stick Guitars,’ for example, is as likely to piss off as many as it charms, its absurdly bouncy videogame-chant being a dalliance with electro that quickly wears thin. The compulsively danceable ‘Dance To My Pain’ or ‘Too Much In My Mind’ are more effective.
A laid back collection of thoughtful pop goodness that generally succeeds on its own terms.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 371, July 19th 2010
Dear Darkly
*** 1/2
Brisbane’s The Boat People have a lot in common with fellow indie-popsters Dappled Cities. Both groups have built dedicated local followings in their respective capitals, garnering critical acclaim for music that combines intelligent lyrics with poppy, upbeat tunes – while always just falling short of broader commercial success. With Dear Darkly, the Boaties seem to have arrived at a similar point to that reached last year by the Sydneysiders with Zounds, producing not only their most mature and ambitious statement to date, but also one with the most potential for wider recognition.
There’s a sense of self-possessed assurance at work here – especially with tracks like opener ‘Under The Ocean’ or ‘Live In The Dark’, which are buoyed along by effortlessly hummable melodies, and shimmeringly consonant textures. Lyrically the album conjures an all-too-familiar world of weekends spent with a slab of beer for company, and evenings of television and takeaway – reflecting relationship stagnation and malaise with lines like “you’re an antidote to an ugly world” (‘Antidote’) balancing the weariness of “things used to be terrific / now they’re barely anodyne” (‘Soporific’).
Songwriters Robin Waters and James O’Brien are confident enough to throw in the odd experiment, ensuring that things never get dull. But they don’t always hit the mark. First single ‘Echo Stick Guitars,’ for example, is as likely to piss off as many as it charms, its absurdly bouncy videogame-chant being a dalliance with electro that quickly wears thin. The compulsively danceable ‘Dance To My Pain’ or ‘Too Much In My Mind’ are more effective.
A laid back collection of thoughtful pop goodness that generally succeeds on its own terms.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 371, July 19th 2010
Beach Fossils - Self-titled
Beach Fossils
Beach Fossils
***
Beach Fossils’ self-titled debut technically ticks all the right boxes. Recorded last year by South Carolina’s Dustin Payseur from the comfort of his new Brooklyn bedroom, it’s an immaculately-assembled and disciplined collection of low-fi pop – drenched with the kind of day-glo nostalgia that’s going down so well at the moment.
The album’s strength is the unaffected simplicity of Payseur’s song-writing, which beguiles with a combination of deceptively uncomplicated riffs and naïve lyrics, evoking a craving for uncontained spaces and sunny afternoons wiled away in undisturbed indolence. It’s quite similar in this sense to label-mates Best Coast: but where Bethany Cosentino’s songs are endearing in their unadorned candour, Payseur’s have a tendency to wallow in a maudlin yearning for escape.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that; but after a while a sense of uniformity begins to set in, the emotions evoked on a song like ‘Lazy Day’ (remembering a day spent lolling around outside) being strikingly similar to those suggested by ‘Vacation’ (skipping town to a place where “the trees and sky collide”) or ‘Golden Age’ (“everything’s blue from the top of the sky to underneath you”).
The lyrical consistency isn’t helped by the interchangeable feel of the music – Payseur’s reliance on the loop pedal to develop songs dooms them to becoming rigorous little exercises in knitted guitars. Not even his attractively reverb-saturated vocals prevent them from becoming dully repetitive.
While Beach Fossils is a good-enough listen, the album’s wistful charms are quickly forgotten after a few spins.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 371, July 19th 2010
Beach Fossils
***
Beach Fossils’ self-titled debut technically ticks all the right boxes. Recorded last year by South Carolina’s Dustin Payseur from the comfort of his new Brooklyn bedroom, it’s an immaculately-assembled and disciplined collection of low-fi pop – drenched with the kind of day-glo nostalgia that’s going down so well at the moment.
The album’s strength is the unaffected simplicity of Payseur’s song-writing, which beguiles with a combination of deceptively uncomplicated riffs and naïve lyrics, evoking a craving for uncontained spaces and sunny afternoons wiled away in undisturbed indolence. It’s quite similar in this sense to label-mates Best Coast: but where Bethany Cosentino’s songs are endearing in their unadorned candour, Payseur’s have a tendency to wallow in a maudlin yearning for escape.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that; but after a while a sense of uniformity begins to set in, the emotions evoked on a song like ‘Lazy Day’ (remembering a day spent lolling around outside) being strikingly similar to those suggested by ‘Vacation’ (skipping town to a place where “the trees and sky collide”) or ‘Golden Age’ (“everything’s blue from the top of the sky to underneath you”).
The lyrical consistency isn’t helped by the interchangeable feel of the music – Payseur’s reliance on the loop pedal to develop songs dooms them to becoming rigorous little exercises in knitted guitars. Not even his attractively reverb-saturated vocals prevent them from becoming dully repetitive.
While Beach Fossils is a good-enough listen, the album’s wistful charms are quickly forgotten after a few spins.
First published in The Brag, Iss. 371, July 19th 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Big Scary
Two things about Melbournite two-piece Big Scary (full stop): a) their name is charmingly inapt, containing all the solemn eyed intensity of a child passing judgement on a thunderstorm and b) they are versatile, ambitious, assured and well and truly on the make.
Big Scary formed back in 2008 after Tom Iansek (guitar, piano, vocals) and Jo Syme (drums, guitar, ukulele, vocals) returned toAustralia
The results are eclectic, the band sailing through bright, heady waters where defining choices have yet to be made and each new song is an entity unto itself. Their EP At the Mercy of the Elements mixed crunchy garage (‘Hey Somebody’) with piano-driven indie (‘Falling Away’) while their new release Autumn veers into Bon Iver inflected folk. So, what’s the go?
“I guess we’re trying to figure that out for ourselves” says Tom. “We write parts based on what it feels like the song should have. We sort of mix it up as much as we can and try and make it fun for ourselves and squeeze as much out of being a two piece as we can.”
‘Squeeze in as much as fits’ may as well be the band motto, with ‘ain’t nothin’ gonna stop us!’ running in close second. With At the Mercy of the Elements only released in February, the band has already moved onto bigger things, with Autumn being their first EP release in a planned set of four, one for each season slated for release over the course of 2010.
“The idea of nature is a bit of a recurring theme in our music and my lyrics” explains Tom. “We recorded [At the Mercy of the Elements] during a week of crazy weather at the end of last year – fire, rain, dust storms and hail, all at the same time, all over the country. I suppose that’s where the four seasons idea stemmed from originally.”
It’s a lovely idea that’s off to a promising start. While b-side ‘Microwave Pizza’ is a finely crafted miniature, reflective of the self-disclosed influence of Bon Iver on the songwriter, ‘Autumn’ is a warm and wistful piece of pop, suggesting bracing mornings with a nip in the air as well as a certain precipitatory nursery rhyme.
“I’m definitely a cold weather person” says Tom. “Autumn is my favourite season – I get over summer really quickly, it’s just a bit of a drain by the end and I can’t wait for it to be over. Autumn it cools down and you can actually start to do stuff again. In autumn I really come alive, creatively and in other ways.”
Wanderlust for example, the travel bug having well and truly sunk its teeth. Big Scary just returned from a five week tour around and about supporting the Vasco Era – which was “SO MUCH fun” – and are planning on accompanying the release of each of their seasonal EPs with a tour to different parts of the country. Tom is enthusiastic about the possibilities.
“Before the tour I loved recording and I still do love being in a studio. But I really love being on stage. It’s really a great adrenalin rush, it’s just forty minutes of fun. I think we’ve surprised ourselves.”
Big Scary formed back in 2008 after Tom Iansek (guitar, piano, vocals) and Jo Syme (drums, guitar, ukulele, vocals) returned to
The results are eclectic, the band sailing through bright, heady waters where defining choices have yet to be made and each new song is an entity unto itself. Their EP At the Mercy of the Elements mixed crunchy garage (‘Hey Somebody’) with piano-driven indie (‘Falling Away’) while their new release Autumn veers into Bon Iver inflected folk. So, what’s the go?
“I guess we’re trying to figure that out for ourselves” says Tom. “We write parts based on what it feels like the song should have. We sort of mix it up as much as we can and try and make it fun for ourselves and squeeze as much out of being a two piece as we can.”
‘Squeeze in as much as fits’ may as well be the band motto, with ‘ain’t nothin’ gonna stop us!’ running in close second. With At the Mercy of the Elements only released in February, the band has already moved onto bigger things, with Autumn being their first EP release in a planned set of four, one for each season slated for release over the course of 2010.
“The idea of nature is a bit of a recurring theme in our music and my lyrics” explains Tom. “We recorded [At the Mercy of the Elements] during a week of crazy weather at the end of last year – fire, rain, dust storms and hail, all at the same time, all over the country. I suppose that’s where the four seasons idea stemmed from originally.”
It’s a lovely idea that’s off to a promising start. While b-side ‘Microwave Pizza’ is a finely crafted miniature, reflective of the self-disclosed influence of Bon Iver on the songwriter, ‘Autumn’ is a warm and wistful piece of pop, suggesting bracing mornings with a nip in the air as well as a certain precipitatory nursery rhyme.
“I’m definitely a cold weather person” says Tom. “Autumn is my favourite season – I get over summer really quickly, it’s just a bit of a drain by the end and I can’t wait for it to be over. Autumn it cools down and you can actually start to do stuff again. In autumn I really come alive, creatively and in other ways.”
Wanderlust for example, the travel bug having well and truly sunk its teeth. Big Scary just returned from a five week tour around and about supporting the Vasco Era – which was “SO MUCH fun” – and are planning on accompanying the release of each of their seasonal EPs with a tour to different parts of the country. Tom is enthusiastic about the possibilities.
“Before the tour I loved recording and I still do love being in a studio. But I really love being on stage. It’s really a great adrenalin rush, it’s just forty minutes of fun. I think we’ve surprised ourselves.”
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Crab Smasher :: It Is What It Is
Its half past two on a Sunday morning in Alexandria and Marnie Vaughn’s birthday party has been a great success. The party theme was the humble Rubik’s Cube, guests being required to come dressed in blank primary coloured garb. Earlier in the evening a frenzied clothes swap ensued as people in various stages of inebriation attempted to become the first to assemble a complete outfit in a single colour. The young man who won is stalking around downstairs, dressed in a uniform yellow. His prize: a rainbow umbrella.
We sit on Marnie’s bed, attempting to talk about Crab Smasher, the experimental noise / cheese-slathered pop outfit in which she plays drums. This is difficult. Out the window, Will, a young gentleman dressed in Himalayan garb, souvenirs from a recent trip to Nepal, is attempting to negotiate with police in reference to a noise complaint, irate neighbours taking umbrage to the hardcore punk being cranked from the stereo in the backyard. Neither of us are tremendously impressed by the choice of music either, preferring the Pixies that are competing for attention from the lounge.
“I was in my brother’s band called Anal Discharge” says Marnie, an assured twenty-two year old with a ready laugh. “We had a show and my brother wanted to replace me with another drummer who was my boyfriend at the time… it was a touch awkward, [as] my brother chose the other drummer to play the show. Crab Smasher said ‘Hey, we need a drummer, come and play with us.’ I was seventeen – I didn’t even know what noise music was at the time.”Will strides back into the room, stopping in front of Marnie. “Hey, can you help us get the music off? There’s like six cop cars.” He holds up his hand, one finger adorned with an over-sized ring, and starts laughing, relating his exchange with one of the officers. “I fuckin’ shook his hand and cut it open”. He wanders off to tell more people of this amusing encounter without waiting for a response. Someone is playing Fur Elise on the honky tonk downstairs, Beethoven adding a suitably civilised edge to proceedings.
“I like improvising because it’s always different and you always react to the audience” Marnie continues. “It’s also very dependent on everyone’s mood and how we respond to each other. It’s great to be able to react to the audience and not have a set that you always just play. It can be rather nerve-wracking, it can go well, it might not – it’s difficult just overcoming that. There’s always an element of uncertainty. Expectations I think are always difficult – I like that no one really expects us to amaze them.”
Drumming is only one of Marnie’s talents. Aside from undertaking a Masters in Gallery Administration, she is an accomplished photographer, the downstairs lounge area being heavily decorated with her work, although she seems to spend more time “working in a horrible world where photography is commercial and brides are my enemy.” Above her bed hangs one of her pieces, a surreal primordial swamp scene: a Hadrosaur stands in the foreground, its vivid golden shape drawing the eye away from a pair of demonic eyes that emerge from the drenching green murk. I later discover that she used a garden gnome as a model.
An endearing youth with big brown eyes comes up to us. “Oh, is this an interview?” We explain that we’re talking about Crab Smasher. It quickly emerges that he is an avowed fan, his favourite Crab Smasher moment being Grant Hunter, the band’s de facto leader, or possibly someone else (the details are hazy), playing a typewriter at an impromptu gig at Grant’s old house in Newcastle. We sit and introduce ourselves. “I’m really drunk” says Simo Soo, “but I’m still here.” The pianist seems to have given up, although noise still emanates from the backyard in a half-heard background scuzz. It’s getting late.
“Have you got enough material?” Marnie asks.
“Well… about fifteen minutes” I reply.
“Fifteen, oh that’s a lot of minutes. I’m surprised I could talk for fifteen minutes about Crab Smasher.”
“Really?”
“Usually I let Grant talk and if I talk he gets angry about what I talk about. ‘That’s not what it’s about!’ The whole time I’ve been in the band it’s been like, ‘So Grant, what’s it about? I’m an artist, I can understand these things!’ and he would never tell me. It’s a mystery. It is what it is.”
***
It’s a chilly, somewhat desultory day in Newcastle. Aside from a few window shoppers and the odd bored-looking white-collar worker, the Hunter St mall in the middle of the city is deserted. It’s certainly doubtful whether many of the clothing or record chain outlets lining the main drag are bringing in much in the way of custom.
It’s pleasant enough on the other side of the railway line however, sunshine occasionally trickling through the clouds where we sit outside the Brewery, the stately flat-screen adorned boozatorium that squats next to the grey expanse of Hunter River. A middle aged man stands fishing off the end of the wharf, while seagulls play noisy territorial games in the puddles next to our table.
Perhaps it’s just the reheated pumpkin risotto and gargantuan banana smoothie that served as breakfast sloshing around his system, but Grant Hunter, artist, stoic, electronic wizard and self-confessed “bossiest member” of Crab Smasher, is in a talkative mood, despite being here on sufferance. His distaste stems from the fact that the Brewery and nearby Fanny’s nightclub are apparently focal points for the kind of nightlife that finds the dispensation of random beatings to be the highlight of any given evening. “If you’re out at night by yourself, you’re just a target for being assaulted” he tells me.
Crumbling commercial infrastructure and seeming stagnation of the local economy notwithstanding, Newcastle has changed considerably for the better over the last year – it was “like a ghost town” says Hunter. Although much of the CBD’s business real estate stands dormant, bought up by property developers with an eye toward eventually constructing a Westfield-style megamall, a ballooning number of the empty shop-fronts and office spaces have been occupied by young creative sorts, shielded from the prohibitive horrors of commercial rents under the enveloping wing of the Renew Newcastle scheme.
Conceived by arts philanthropist Marcus Westbury (writer, broadcaster and founder of the Newcastle-based This Is Not Art festival) and modelled on a similar project of urban regeneration in Glasgow, the project is aimed at keeping the mall area of the CBD active by providing space for people to pursue creative or community focussed interests. Successful examples include a millinery (The Mad Hatter, its front window resembling a race day madam’s wet dream), an animation studio (with the delightful moniker of Specially Trained Monkeys) and zine shop (the Bird in the Hand, run by the formidable Susy Pow).
Before we crossed over into enemy territory, Hunter gave a brief tour of Art Hive, the small art gallery and catacomb of studio spaces that he co-directs and utilises along with a number of other local artists. “There’s a lot of good people doing stuff under the radar of the rest of the country” says Hunter of the project. “You’re able to create opportunities for yourself without having to rely too much on other people. You just put your head down and do what you like without really worrying about it.”
“Do what you like” along with “don’t take any of it too seriously” and “it’s all about having fun” may as well form the unofficial tripartite band motto for Crab Smasher, a group that take outright pleasure in conforming to no one’s expectations but their own. The band began life as a duo back in 2002 when Hunter and fellow crustacean demolition expert Nicholas French (guitar) started making “really bad, cheesy stuff” for their own amusement on Windows Sound Recorder, uploading their sonic doodlings online for whoever cared to look. “We didn’t know how to play any of the songs live” says Hunter “[so] we just improvised, [which then] influenced how we recorded. We did that for a while – then we started taking it all too seriously.”
Boredom with making “arty noise stuff” was accompanied by a sense of going through the motions, as well as a recognition of the very real danger of the group disappearing up their own collective fundament. Hunter certainly seems to prefer party cats to chin strokers: “We were playing with lots of dudes who were really pretentious” he reflects, “people chewing chips into a microphone and making really boring noise music. We realised that we were kind of going down that path, [so] we went back to where we started, recording and layering stuff, but trying to get as far away from that sort of serious art noise as possible. So we started recording pop songs – I don’t know whether it was just to confuse people or to amuse ourselves.”
Of course, there’s pop songs and then there’s pop songs, Crab Smasher’s take on the genre being not dissimilar to Hunter’s version of breakfast: uncontained exercises in improvisatory dementia, suggestions of melody emerging from all manner of droning ambience, grinding scuzz and electronic discordance, all within a friendly verse chorus structure.
“It became a question of improvising smarter” he explains. “We stopped playing the twenty minute noise pieces that we had been and [started] playing songs without writing them, writing them on the spot with the emphasis on melody, rhythm and all the kind of stuff that pop music’s all about and trying to do that live. We kind of sound like a weird sort of rock band now. In the last year or so we’ve improvised stuff that’s in a pop song structure that we’ve recorded and then memorised from the recordings and then tried to play live. It’s sort of a backwards way of doing it.”
It’s perhaps unsurprising that for a group that takes unalloyed delight in provoking a reaction from its audience, Crab Smasher have practically exhausted the limited possibilities provided by the watering holes of Newcastle. Given some of the absurdities they’ve put up with, this may well be for the best, archaic curfew laws and militant security guards on two occasions gifting the group with the joyous experience of being locked out of their own gig. “It was ridiculous!” says Hunter. “They didn’t pay us and then they wouldn’t let us take the rest of our gear home. That’s the kind of stuff you deal with when you play in pubs.”
Not that such challenges have stopped them from taking on drinking establishments up and down the Central Coast, one night at a “pretty rough” pub in Wyong providing a crystallising moment as to the band’s raison d’être. “We had some new gear and were totally harsh and chaotic and noisy and the sound guy pulled the plug after nine minutes and the house DJ wanted to beat us up. From that point on we convinced ourselves that we were serious improvisers and that became the point of doing the band, creating something in the moment – later our recordings became more about documenting that process.”
Although such fearlessness can only be marvelled at, no wonder that Hunter prefers the infinitely friendlier forums provided by house parties, warehouses, galleries or Vox Cyclops, the nearby underground record shop (another Renew Newcastle project) run by the folks from fellow noise-meisters Castings, the mutual encouragement provided by this tight knit community of culture manufacturers as well as the solid friendships that lie at the group’s core perhaps helping to explain Crab Smasher’s surprising longevity. “There’s a really supportive group of friends that’re doing similar stuff around town. It’s really low key” he says. “I think that that’s much more valuable.”
As well as generously streaming all of their material through their website (newer stuff for a small nominal fee), Crab Smasher put an exceptional amount of effort into producing small runs of aesthetically interesting physical products, adorning a steady flow of releases with the original artwork of band members as well as that of illustrator or cartoonist friends. Their new cassette Thick Mosquito Sky is a case in point, a total of sixty covers having been hand screened in a tri-coloured design. “It was a bit of a nightmare trying to get it all to line up” sighs Hunter, “I like that they’re all a bit different and uneven though. They’ve each got their own character.”
While recognition from initiatives such as New Weird Australia have undoubtedly provided satisfying ego-boosts, it’s clear that fundamentally the band gain most fulfilment making music by and for themselves while gleaning as much amusement from it as possible. “I try not to get too philosophical about DIY” Hunter muses. “it’s just a means to an end. None of us agree on anything, but we go into a room and something comes out. It’s not identifiable as being any set thing, it’s its own thing. It’s just us having fun together. That’s what it’s all about – we’d probably be doing it even if we didn’t invite people to listen to us. Just us in a room, doing it.”
***
It’s Friday night at the Hardware Gallery and a girl has just thrown up in the corridor. “I drank warm beer” she gasps weakly to the concerned lip-ringed woman who moves to assist her before she vanishes into the bathroom, mortified. A pair of gallery attendants nearby seem more interested in apportioning blame for allowing the girl entry than locating a bucket and mop. It’s a minor shemozzle. Ah well. Better out than in.
The front room of the gallery is elegantly lit, people standing around chatting and sipping wine. A young woman in what look to be second hand men’s clothes stands to one side, painting a pair of female figures on a large canvas. Her hands work quickly, her face a picture of absolute focus; it’s a moot point as to whether she’s working to a plan or making it up on the spot. Not that it seems to matter either way.
Vinyl twelve inch records, painted with an amazing array of designs line the walls – a pair of large mutated ears; a man in a suit with the head of a beagle smoking a pipe stands before a blackboard inscribed “A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence”; one enterprising sculptor has created a glass duplicate of the vinyl single of 90s dance hit Groove is in the Heart by Deee-Lite, recording the resulting scratch-ridden cacophony and making it available for the public’s consideration through a pair of headphones next to the artefact. The original beat is almost perceptible within the resulting din, a half-remembered image emerging through fog.
In a shadowy corner in the back room, Grant is fussing over a small bank of sound equipment, adjusting levels on the keyboard, twiddling knobs, completely oblivious to the surprised squawks of people stepping over the splatter of vomit in the corridor. Marnie looks nervous sitting next to him, occasionally picking up her sticks before replacing them, while Nicholas French, his face obscured by a heavy mop of blonde hair, and bassist Nathan Martin fiddle with their instruments in the corner opposite.
Finally they begin, the music commencing without any clear signal to the sparse audience, the fading murmur of the listeners blurring into the growing soft distortion emanating from Nicholas’ guitar. People stream into the darkened space, standing in a thick clump at the back while others form a cross legged semi-circle a respectful metre or so around the band.
Alien sounds emerge from the noise, both harsh and strangely muted, Grant yelping into a microphone before twisting and contorting the sound around the ostinato of the guitar. Then Marnie kicks into action and suddenly the noise is transformed, Grant moving to the synthesizer, a twist of harmony curling out to twine around the bass line – lines of attention focus the band members on one another, cues being given and responded to.
The room is pulsing now with a jaunty beat – why isn’t anyone dancing? – Nicholas striding over to stand in front of the desk, ripping a new theme into the mix, the sound kicking up a further gear for a long minute before they allow the layered noise to dissipate back into the air. “That was fantastic” someone calls out as people start to clap. The girl with the lip ring is standing close by. “That was shit” she mouths into a friend’s ear. “C’mon, I want more wine.”
Contains material originally published at Throw Shapes.
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