TEX
PERKINS@ Fish Records, George Street, Sydney
Thursday August 10, 2000
TEX
PERKINS
@ Fish Records, George Street, Sydney
Thursday August 10, 2000
So after
long months of exile in the wastelands of industrial Alexandria, the long promised
transfer into the city comes to pass and, bugger me, if Tex Perkins doesn't
turn out to be scheduled for a free lunchtime in-store promotion of his new
CD in the record shop right next door to the building where I now work. Having
missed his last Sydney show at the Excelsior, this goes some way toward rectifying
my loss.
Arriving a few minutes before the scheduled start, I find the band are tuning
up but there's not much of a crowd (Fish generally has techno/electro/spasmo
noise blasting out the door as I walk past, so perhaps Tex doesn't appeal to
their regular constituency), although the place fills up with passing office
workers once the band get going. In the meantime, it's just a few ageing industry
trendoids dressed in cool clothes at least 15 years too young for them and exchanging
loud, ostentatious "hello darlings" and lots of kissy kissy air pecks.
I didn't catch the drummer's name, but I don't think it was Jim White. Otherwise
it's the same lineup as on the album: Charlie Owen, Joel Silbersher and Murray
Paterson all sharing guitar, bass and keyboards duties while Tex stuck mainly
to his acoustic (though both he and Joel got to play Charlie's black Telecaster
on one song each). Tex was clearly aware of the marketing nature of this gig,
not that it would be too hard to distinguish between the usual late night beer
soaked pub crowd and the scrubbed and pressed audience staring silently and
expectantly up at him on Fish's mezzanine floor (the racks of Nintendo and Pokemon
games behind him would have been another giveaway), but was relaxed and unfazed
by the circumstances. He was equally unfazed by several technical mishaps during
the short set, though his reference to dunking the band and crew in the large
display fish tank and then letting the audience bob for whatever had fallen
out of their pockets did perhaps betray some small hint of frustration...
Being merely a promotional showcase, the band only had time to play a few songs
from the new album before they were interrupted so that a record company/store
minion could announce the availability of autographed copies of the new album
at the "special price of $24.95 for today".
"Hey, we're not finished yet," exclaimed Tex and we did get one more song, then
it was all over. Despite the fact that today's special price seemed to be the
same as yesterday's regular price, being a sucker for a souvenir I lined up
and bought a copy of the album but had some difficulty finding the promised
signature when I took it out of the bag (like those five-minute cooking programs
on the ABC, it had been a case of "here's one we prepared earlier" rather than
allowing prospective purchasers to queue up for a personal signature) until
I realised that the silver printed "tex" on the cover wasn't part of the original
design and was all the signature that was going - I guess Tex is as laconic
in print as in the flesh...
For those who've so far missed hearing the new album, "Dark Horses" follows
in footsteps of his first album ("Far Be It From Me"), but with far fewer guests,
giving it a more consistent sound. Despite the presence of the entire Tendrils
line up and the fact that Joel Silbersher and Murray Paterson share writing
credits on a couple of songs each, it is still recognisably a Tex Perkins project.
- John McPharlin
LET'S
GO BACK TO THE LIVE GIGS PORTAL
