Last weekend Melbourne's Love of Diagrams rolled into our little shanty town to play some shows to launch their new album Nowhere Forever, which has been described as "best australian album in 15 years" by some weird guy on their facebook page.
Saturday's show was at The Burlesque Lounge, a venue I'd never been to before, apparently it was formerly the italian club or something. It's a nice venue but parking and loading in up those stairs is less than fun. Eraser's opened with their second show and received some criticism for being a little too close to Fab D's, which I thought was a little unfair and fairly untrue considering the thickness of FD and the clippy guitars of Erasers.
This was the first time I'd seen Frozen Ocean and I thought they were good, not much a fan of screamers though.
Extra credit for the decorated drum skins and backdrop/sign.
Wind Waker dragged themselves into the corner, where once stood a stage of ridiculous height, and played very well
considering the set consisted entirely of two 12 minute bass solo's which DID go through the PA contrary to the threats of the soundguy.
Douche Soundguy: "Here's your DI, do you have a patch lead?"
Bass Hero: "uhhh no, not on me"
Douche Soundguy: *stands with slouched shoulders carrying crossed arms and a face that bears the look "what are you some kind of fucking retard?"* "Well there's nothing I can do. It's my job to do the sound not to bring guitar equipment. Your just not gonna be in the mix."
Bass Hero: *smiling nicely* "That's ok"
Conclusion from two nights in a row/story of my life: soundguy's with bad hair (it was either dyed to cover the greys or a wig but same goes for dreadwhiteyman) are douchebags who have a problem with mic'ing nice early seventies Ampeg bass amps.
After that Astral Travel re cemented their position as the world's best Astral Travel by playing a very radical set which featured not only my favourite AT lyric ("GIMME WAY MORE VOCALS THANKS") but also Lowrey organ AND bass solos (which reminds me of Jack Bruce and Pino Palladino) in the same song. Unfortunately the recording of this set is marrrrrred a little by wind noise from the air-conditioning (same goes extra for WW recording).
Playing their first show on this side of the continent in far too long Love of Diagrams set up and played and were very fucking good. I was very impressed. It was kinda funny watching a band you like from the other side of this wide land using your equipment, would've been funnier if we had Wind Waker stencilled all over it though. I could go on to describe why they are good for a long time but I'll keep it short:
1. Good musicians.
2. Good songs.
3. Nice people.
It really was a fun night, until we walked onto the street carrying equipment and had to dodge police on horse back and an ambulance. Clancey saw a girl get hit by a taxi on the corner, of course the taxi driver was reluctant to hang around after possibly murdering a young lady so he tried to drive off only to meet the kind presence of her boyfriend beating his teeth into the headrest.
Northbridge is nice.
The Next day
LOD borrowed my amp on sunday which meant I could afford to go and see them again as well as Golden Staph's first gig and smRts last for the year. I chose to miss umpire, sorry I do not dig. Fremantle is a strange place for those of us who live east of the citadel, stranger still are the things the residents of the area throw out (The Supremes - Live at the Copa LP). Golden Staph are a "brand new supergroup" that features Ambro, Clairebro, Onbro, Patbro and Timbro on Voxbox, Farfisa, Battleaxe, Club skins and diddley bo, respectively. This was their first gig and it was surprisingly good, by which I don't mean I thought they'd be shit just I didn't expect it to be as locomotive tight-wise. I really liked it, it was nice the way the organ would creep through like smoke through floor boards and it's nice to see Timbro behind a guitar again. I hear they will release something soon.
smRts set up their artillery while I ordered food next door and played their bigbandelectrodancepop to a very appreciative crowd folk. Bad jokes aside it was, as always, a double drummer smokin' set. They are soon to work on an album for Heartless Robot Productions. You heard it here.
While Umpire played I ate my burger, it was delicious, I never realised pear and parmesan would go so well with chicken.
I guess you learn something everyday. I also learned that strange old people in freo like LOD and while listening to them enjoy esoteric dancing and translating song lyrics into mystic burnout freo people gibberish and shouting them between songs.
Love of Diagrams were also flooring that night too but you already knew this. Didn't you?
