Royal Derby Hotel (17/7/2009)

So our grand plans to go to a new venue with a fun band fell through (not so much fell through as were based on lies), but we did manage to do exactly what we did the Friday before hand.... which was see Greasers at the Royal Derby. But.... just to make things interesting for the readers of this blog, management was kind enough to totally flip the furniture around, so the stage was moved, there were less couches...... but the songs remained the same.

The Cuckoos

The Cuckoos have a member of Little Red in them. They play music that sounds like it could be from a US Highschool prom. I presume all their songs are about girls in dresses. I have a dopey grin on my face when I listen to their songs. When I played lovely day on their myspace I was the 35th person to listen to it. They had an EP for sale on the night which I wish I had of bought.

The Hondas

The Hondas have a member of Little Red in them. They play music that sounds like it could be from a US Highschool prom. I presume all their songs are about girls in dresses. Except for the song I am a homosexual. I have a dopey grin on my face when I listen to their songs. The aforementioned song is super gay in the best way (Sans- Buttsecks). Song of the night.

Greasers

Greasers have a member of Little Red in them. They play music that sounds like it could be from a US Highschool prom. I presume all their songs are about girls in dresses. Except for the song Shelly, which is about a girl getting out of her dress. I have a dopey grin on my face when I listen to their songs. You can download their whole album for free here, which everyone should do... because it's better than listening to Lady Gaga or any other shit. Apparently Jet have a new CD coming out... fuck that off and download this instead. It'll save you some coin. Wolfmother have something coming out too... if you could tape over cds like you could casettes, I would buy the wolfmother cd and tape this over the top of it. Greasers, you're fun. So fun you made me agressive just now.

They've got one more week of their residency, so check them out 31st of July. No excuses please.

Shake Some Action (16/7/2009)

onesixone

Although they had what appeared to only be two beers on tap, they soon redeemed by the thursday night special: $2 pots. The venue itself had buckets of mood with a Saturday Night Fever style light-up dance floor and upstairs had a green laser lit beer garden with an open roof.

The Hawaiian Islands
They played some slightly poppy, post rock but definitely not in a bad way; like if weezer had a punk-metal side project. The singer had heaps of energy, at a couple of points in the show he came and sang in my face; not at all afraid of penetrating the crowd's space. So rather than the band inviting the crowd to move forward and occupy the void around the front of the stage the singer filled the space and dominated it - in fact he only slowed down for half a song.  It was a good show and we'll look for them again.  By the way, how cool is the gig poster!

These Vessels 
The other extreme of poppy in a bad way, a bit girly and very camp. The music was uninteresting and very typically average. I didn't really get the vocalist's off key style. I also got the impression that the majority of the crowd there because they were friends with the band. The singer did do one thing right though: after announcing about 9 times that this would be the last song, during it he jumped off the stage and crowd surfed around the small room.

Shake Some Action (9/7/09)

Shake some Action is a club night for 16 year olds at 161 in Prahran. It's near my house, has bands playing and has beers for 2 bucks. So even tho I looked like a full pederast, I hit the place on it's re-opening night.

DOZERS

I'd seen them before, a few weeks ago, but due to a rediculous amount of Peach Schnaps I could remember shit about them, so tonight was a good re-introduction. Of course, as soon as the bassist did a handstand it all came flooding back, and it was fun. I've decided I really like this band, one of my new favourite Melbourne bands, if for no other reason than the second to last track they played at this gig. Awesome guitar noise, t-shirt tearing drums and a bass line that would put the Amazing Jonathan to shame. The sound on their myspace is a bit spaz though, so just actually go see them to check it out.

REPTILES

While I didn't get into Reptiles nearly as much as the above crowd, nor as much as I got into Dozers, they still had their moments, and the song Bughouse on their myspace is better than new socks. Actually.... listening to it, I think I like it a lot. But during this gig I wasn't feeling it so much, maybe I was still thinking about how Dozers rocked it, or I was worried about getting kicked out by the bouncers because I can grow facial hair. This band has Suicide as a top friend on myspace, and seeing as I have a bit of a boner for them at the moment, that's a bonus point.

Suicide are a band by the way. Don't plan an intervention just yet.

BRITISH INDIA

Fart. Poop. Shit. Puddle. Pants.

I didn't watch them because I don't like them and wanted the "secret act" to be someone else.

The Royal Derby Hotel (10/7/2009)

The Royal Derby Hotel  
Located on brunswick st, fitzroy. This place has a great selection of tap beers, armchairs and couches. Another cool thing we noticed was that each band's sound check played along to the venue music; this was much appreciated as the music was pretty decent and it gets annoying when it's jarring loud noises that interrupt the atmosphere. I almost forgot on fridays they have $2.50 pots of beer! Nice! The only thing going against this brilliant venue was poor acoustics and lack of a stage, but that could be seen as a good thing as you're always going to get an intimate show.

Madonna
A punky, regea band from melbourne, not the pop idol from the US as a certain gig website would have you believe (prints them as "Madonna (USA)"), luckily we were privy to this information and didn't have our hearts set on hearing 'like a virgin'. Their drummer was nuts (quite fast, he also requested that they stop playing while he tuned it: committed to the sound, like it) and their use of synth worked well.

This War
Played a slightly more regea style of music than Madonna and it's odd that I don't have more to say. Check this!

The Greasers
As I've said before, these guys are lots of fun to see. At the moment I'd say about half their songs are not all that special, but the rest are quite well written in my opinion; interesting bass lines, original riffs and one song in particular (I believe it's called "Shelly") is really fun. Catch them if you get a chance, they are well worth the outing.  Listen to them on the Triple J unearthed website.

Early Work - The Evelyn (25/6/2009)

Really hard to write about this, as it was a work colleague. So perhaps I'll lay down the facts, and you can do the review yourself. There is a myspace page here.

3/4 piece band.

Grungy pop.

Songs about dead cats and girls with long hair.

2nd gig ever.

The songs live sound a bunch louder and dirtier than on the myspaz.

The Evelyn, as always, had weird sound and it all seems really cliquey. I always feel like I'm interupting some sort of club. Don't like it very much. We only stayed for the one band, then got some pizza. yum yum. Apparently the next band we missed were a concept group about a bunch of Cannabilstic Antarctic explorers. Fun! Also, the headlining band - Your Animal - have a nice cover of Cryin' on their space. Listen and enjoy. No club silencio though.

DAN'S BIRTHDAY GIG - LOW RENT RESIDENCY @ THE NOISE BAR (27/6/2009)

Sulphur Creek Project
Are a 5 piece blues cover band. They were fun, featured some decent bongos and quite skillful guitar work. They played my least favorite Guitar Hero III track (Pride and Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughan), but I'll forgive them.

Low Rent
Just like they did a fortnight ago, they rocked the noise bar once again. An aspect of their show that stood out to me was the use of reverb on the drums, it was particularly noticeable and awesome on the first track.
Another stand out feature was a cover that they performed. Not so much because the original is a great song - it really isn't - but more because the version they played was so drastically different to the original. This difference is proof of the quality of Low Rent's songwriting ability. The song is Kylie Minogue's On a night like this, but I assure you it was so different that even during the second time I'd heard it up until the chorus I didn't realise it was a cover. I recommend you make the journey over to Brunswick on Saturday the 11th, it is well worth the effort.
Now I'd like to leave you with a special treat! Below is a video I recorded during the show on my mobile - I hope you like it, please excuse the quality of the video!

Tucker B's - The Tote (13/6/2009)

After a few attempts, we finally made it to the Tote for the first time in 2009. For those not aware, the Tote has battled the last 6 months with the crazy Licencing people which eventually caused them to close for about 2 weeks a month back. But they're all set to go now, and on this night, the Tote was at it's best. It's stinky, full of people, has plastic glasses, stupidly loud audio, and a really fun pinball machine. And the bands were reasonable too.

Miniature Submarines

Another band which decided to really forgo writing a good song, instead just buggin everyone with a whole bunch of noise. I'm not against noise, but it really has it's place. Like in 1992 by Blur (Going crazy for their album 13 right now). The band is actually a way for the guy in the above picture to play his tunes live.... as far as I can remember the lady and the bear weren't on stage. But it was dark. The song playing on their (his) myspace seems decent enough, but nothing like I remember hearing. Probably won't cry if I never see them again.

Umpire

I didn't expect to like this band because they are from Perth. I don't like Eskimo Joe. I don't like Little Birdy. I don't like Jebediah. But I do like the Panics. And I do like Umpire. They had cool little pop songs with titles that make pretty girls smile. Like 'Streamers' and 'Feed Swans Chocolate'. Listening to them again now confirms that I did enjoy them, and didn't just like the fact that pretty girls around me were all smiling. Listen to their songs on their myspace. Streamers kinda sounds like Band of Horses or something akin to that, so if that sounds like something you might like, than you might like that or something like that. And yes, I am aware of that last sentence.

SPOD

St Helens were going to play tonight (which was the main reason for us going) but they pulled out at the last minute, and replaced by Tucker B's travelling keyboardist Spod. Win! Spod is a guy from Sydney who once snorted a party popper and has never come down from it. I had his latest album, didn't really dig it thatta much, but after finally seeing the live "experience", I dug it out and am going a little shit for it. It's fun on a bun. Spod went all huggsy with the audience, we laughed, we cried, we sang, we got scared we were going to get hugged, then we laughed again. Oh, and danced. The crowd were obviously expecting the moody rock of St Helens seemed a little underwhelmed at what I imagine is the total opposite of moody rock that you can hear above, but by the end of the show there were smiles all round. Cats! Go to the myspace and listen to Make You Sweat, may party song of the hour.

hmmm...I had to comment on this this one; I'd agree that SPOD was fun to watch, but not Cedric Baxter-Zavala (The Mars Volta) crowd surfing over your head kind of awesome fun, more like watching a retarded kid play a xylophone poorly kind of fun.  PAT

Tucker B's

FACTS ABOUT TUCKER B'S (Because I knew/know shitall about them)

• The Tucker B’s were formed at the end of 1994 by Matt Rudas and Andrew Houston
• They have released 7 albums
• They have gone through more Drummers than Spinal Tap

End of facts. I had only previously knowingly heard one song... their latest singleish thing. They wore silly costumes and Spod was playing keyboards. They had battles on stage. Some people think they are the shit, other people think they are just shit. They're more polarising than Vanilla Sky. This is one of the reviews I do when I really need the music to speak for itself, so I write short sentences. Just go to the myspace and listen, probably worth checking out if you like the music and like silly costumes. I recommend set it on fire... which I remember enjoying quite a lotload.