RIFLES UNVEIL NEW LINE-UP

Celibate Rifles
@ the ABC, Studio 22
Thursday April 19, 2001

Studio 22 has really been churning them through just lately. When I was there for the Scientists reunion a couple of weeks ago, I found much to my regret that I'd just missed Tex Perkins earlier that afternoon. I couldn't go to any of the sessions last week and forget now who was being recorded then, but it was three or four acts on their way to the West Coast Blues & Roots Festival (but not Tony Joe White unfortunately) and now this week there were another three or four spread over a couple of days.

You Am I's session in the evening was already chock-a-block when I rang up for a ticket, but the Rifles' session scheduled for earlier that afternoon still had plenty of room, due no doubt to it being during working hours rather than any lack of popularity (which clearly remains high, as has been evidenced by the good attendances at all recent gigs). With this being the first public appearance of the new line up, following the departure of Jim Leone and Nik Rieth a month ago, there was no way I was going to let something as trivial as paid employment stand in my way. Fortunately I'm on contract by the hour, so when I'm not there it isn't costing my employer anything, which makes for a fairly relaxed attitude towards an occasional absence during the day (unlike the guy sitting next to me, who was very worried throughout the show about being caught on camera and subsequently called to account by his boss).

Slipping into my secret identity as the I94's roving concert cam, at least until the Barman's digital contraption is back in action, I contacted the Rifles' through their web site to negotiate agreement for me to take a few shots during the show. No worries. Having seen a couple of guys running around with cameras during the Scientists show and copping some passing agro from ABC staff who were unhappy about anyone potentially getting in the way of their own cameras, I decided to get to the studio a little early and smooth the way (but not early enough, as it turned out, to catch the sound check).

All the ABC staff were surprisingly relaxed about me being there; downright friendly in fact. As far as they were concerned, if it was okay with the band then they couldn't see any reason to object (hmm, maybe I should tried to bring in a DAT recorder as well, or would that have gilding the lily?). Their only reservations were that there be no use of a flash (apparently it gives their lighting guys heart attacks all around, as they think a globe has blown somewhere) and they wanted me to stick to the spot where the cameras would be pointing least (since the idea of having an audience during the recording is to foster the illusion of a rockin' night out, not amateur night at the local WEA photography for beginners class).

The position they gave me had its good and bad points. Good: I was facing the formidable trio of Lovelock, Steedman and Morris (and they were facing me); bad: I was behind the "new" members recently returned to the fold, Paul Larsen and Michael Couvret (technically the third time he's joined this band), so the only photos I was ever going to get of them would be of their backs or the occasional darkened silhouette. Someone else observed that the new boys didn't look like they'd be getting much screen time in this configuration, to which Kent quipped that this could turn out to be very convenient... since this was the first public outing of this line up and they were still on trial, if they didn't measure up, it would make it much easier to cut them out of the shots later on...

After host Clinton Walker ran through his introduction several times, but regular attendees are used to this, the set got under way with "Jesus On TV" and then went into "World Keeps Turning", which sounded a little lackluster. No worries, they just turned round and did it again; this time sounding much better, until they stumbled right at the end. Damien Lovelock was all for having a third tilt at it right then and there, but was persuaded to take the band through the rest of the set first, on the promise that they could have another go at anything they were unhappy with at the end.

Mr Lovelock in particular seemed uncharacteristically nervous to begin with, even asking the audience for the words to the third verse of "World Keeps Turning" and inviting anyone who knew them to join him at the microphone, but loosened up as the session progressed. Apparently they'd only had time for two rehearsals with this line up and understandably there were some false starts and meanderings off the path as they worked their way through the set ("You can edit that out later, can't you?"; "Yeah, no worries Damien"), which leaned most heavily on "Blind Ear" and the latest album, but with a sprinkling of oldies like "Ice Blue", "New Mistakes" and "Pretty Pictures" and an acoustic version of the much more recent "This Gift" for a bit of variety.

At one point in the proceedings Kent seemed to have blown up his amp, which resulted in a brief hiatus for remonstrations and reparations of a technical nature, during which we were given a potted history of Studio 22, the physical space not the show that is. Apparently it has been host to all of the ABC greats including Mr Squiggle and most recently (as recently as that morning!) Playschool. This was of great interest to Dave Morris, who freely admitted that he watches it in the mornings with his daughter, but was of course immediately accused by the other band members of continuing to watch it after his daughter has left for school...

There was no "G's Gone", which I could see on a copy of the setlist over the shoulder of one of the cameramen, but we did get the foreshadowed third run through of "World Keeps Turning" and by Jove I think they got it that time, but then as always all too soon it was over.

As the proceedings were being wrapped up, we were told that the two sessions that day would be the last recordings for this series, but that it already looks like there'll be a fourth series commissioned. Crickey, they haven't started broadcasting this series yet and it's already over, while the Rifles suffered staff loses that would stop many bands dead in their tracks, yet they're back on the boards again already. Talk about the fast pace of modern life!

On the way out I stopped to say a few thank yous to some of the stage crew and was nearly crushed in a major drum kit jam as the stagehands were racing to change all the equipment over and the outgoing Rifles kit nearly collided with the incoming You Am I kit, yours truly momentarily caught in the big squeeze in-between. Obviously the fast paced world of TV is principally the province of the fleet of foot, but even the tortoises amongst us can be grateful that the ABC provides Studio 22 and that it hasn't fallen into the same rut as the likes of JJJ, but instead continues to offer a national outlet for local bands who still have something original to offer and the defiance to soldier on with it, even when they are continually so unfairly overlooked in other quarters because they don't fit some shitty stereotype drawn up overseas.- John McPharlin

[Note: this latest series of Studio 22 finally began going to air on Thursday 26th of April]

(and ask Mr Squiggle what he's having as well - tell him it's on me)

BACK TO THE LIVE SHOWS PORTAL

BACK TO THE BAR