Unfortunately I'm running late as usual, so I only catch the last two songs from Cabin Fever. The one they're playing as I walk in sounds like fairly orthodox stoner, while their closing number is faster and rockier, leaving me regretting not arriving in time to catch some more of their set.
Next up is the also ostensibly stoner 300 St Claire. I don't know what's happening with these guys because, while their music has always had some traditional Oz/Detroit undertones beneath its stoner surface, lately those tendencies have been starting to really dominate their sound. This is certainly far from being a bad thing though. Tonight the audience is presented with a focused display of hard and very serious rock action that is as unrelenting as it is encyclopedic. From the opening bent blues through a range of rock and punk influences (including a bit of riffage that more than just tips its hat to the Saints' "Know Your Product") they pump it out as if they're personally driving in the final nail of a coffin marked "bland top 40 radio rock".
Perhaps this shouldn't be surprising since guitarist Mick Poole comes from 8 Litre Urn via a brief flirtation with the Panadolls (he may even still be with the Panadolls, but until they choose to tread the boards again there's no way of knowing for sure who's still in and who's definitely not coming back for a return season) and drummer "Boogs" plays in both the garage/surf/punk Crusaders and the menacing, psycho-freakout Lowdorados. I'm still waiting for the CrankinHaus Records website (http://crankinhaus.tripod.com) to be updated with the band membership details so I can at last find out who the bass player is but, whoever he is, he's certainly worthy of the company he's keeping. According to CrankinHaus the band has an EP coming out in February, so hopefully we'll all know more then, if not before.
Did I say that 300 St Claire's set was encyclopedic? Well, so is Asteroid B612's and they've kept up to date with all the colour supplements and annual updates as well. Tonight's show presents a comprehensive rock'n'roll package which canvasses everything that is worth knowing, preserving and celebrating about rock'n'roll music from the 50s up to sounds so recent that they might be something you only heard for the first time on the radio this morning - unless you were listening to some electro/techno/spasmo crap, in which case the band has quite a different message for you (one which can probably best be summed up by the acronym FOAD), or to some mainstream FM rock station, in which case you won't have heard anything new for about a decade.
From the opening number, which starts with just vocalist Grahame Spittles backed up by brother John(ny Casino) on guitar, to the rollicking ending with a couple of marauding bass players coming up on stage and taking over the support vocals from the Asteroid's own bassist Scott Nash, what they proffer are great steaming chunks of rock, bodily torn straight from the haunch of the beast and served up fresher than the sashimi on a Japanese whaling trawler.
Of course it doesn't hurt a band's performance if the audience are completely on their side. Right from the outset they have a significant percentage of the audience uncontrollably spastic dancing down at the foot of the stage and even one maniac attempting to dive off the stage before the show was over. No need for anyone to resort to fancy costume dressing up to get into the swing on a night like this; those who had come for good music are getting all they could have asked for and more.
Such is their command of the evening, the band are even allowed to stop dead between some of the songs, either to retune, change instruments or simply pause reflectively without resorting to facile and insincere audience patter (because believe me, when Johnny C. has got something to impart to the audience, it's neither insincere nor half hearted), resulting in brief periods of completely dead air settling over the room. Other groups could easily die during such silences, needing to keep lurching forward to maintain hard won momentum, but with their songs accelerating from 0 to 60 in about half a heart beat once they get started, the 'roids can afford to take the break and the preceding lulls simply serve to throw the subsequent intensity of each song into sharp relief.
The adverts
for this show had said that the 'roids would have their new album "Readin'
Between The Lines" on sale for the first time anywhere but, as is the case
at so many Aussie independent record launches, copies hadn't actually filtered
through from the pressing plant/record company/distributor in time for the show.
However it should be available at all good record stores in a week or so (yeah,
I know those are few and far between these days, but if you've got one in your
town then haunt it until this record hits the shelves).
-
John McPharlin
