Lost Valentinos - Album Launch 14/8/2009

Roxanne
Fun place; has a nicely intimate stage. On this particular night they were selling Melbourne Bitter longnecks for a reasonable $10 and in a possibly deceptive move on the venue's part I was consequently unable to recognise other key venue quality indicators.

Last Dinosaurs
This four piece from brisbane sounded heavily influenced by phoenix. Which wasn't such a bad thing as we missed them on their recent Ausie tour. Kind of happy and pretty average sounding in general. I wouldn't go out of my way to see them again but I wouldn't try to not see them again.

Ghostwood
I have to say they were the highlight of the night for me; their well executed noise interludes stood out of the slightly psychedelic shoegaze. Awesome name as well, apparently they used to be called ghosts *shit name* glad they had a change of heart! I'll look out for these guys.

Lost Valentinos
I liked the show and I was lucky enough to be really close to the stage for the main act but
to be perfectly honest, by this stage the longnecks had thoroughly taken their toll on my consciousness and I currently can't remember a thing about their performance. Jim assures me it was great, so I can't wait to see them...again?

Veludo (31/7/2009)

Veludo

Had a good night despite:  no beer taps, crappy sound, cover charge and to top it off, a guy puked in a urinal next to me; a good indicator that the clientele were what I imagine are the kind of people a "no dickheads" sign is attempting to dissuade.  OK, well it probably wasn’t that bad but I think you can judge it for yourself based on the above description!

Mr Jigga

Electro dub step funk is the genre we decided they were after the show. They made nice use of extra curricular percussion and really deep grooving bass lines. Funk is awesome in it's own right and coincidently often used to inappropriately describe music, eg. "It's, like, so funky". This however was not the case for Mr Jigga, some of their songs were genuine Brown funk. Others made use of a vocalist who's style could be compared to Wiley....and some of us agreed that one song sounded a bit too much like Rolex, but you know, it happens. I think Mr Jigga were absolutely perfect for the night, Veludo was not much of a gig venue but probably because people were there to get drunk, dance and cheat on their husbands! In this sense I'd say Jigga were loved by the majority of people in the room, but I don't go for that kind if thing and I was in the mood for some mathcore metal anyway.

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.