_{Fuck The Neighbours leader Simon Chainsaw.}

Fuck The Neighbours
+ The Molly Fet Circuit
MoshPit Bar, St Peters, NSW

WORDS: Geoffrey Datson
IMAGES: The Barman

There was some confusion, so I’m arriving at the bright Saturday afternoon gig late.

Into the long dark venue.

It seemed there’d been some mishap?

A first responder with a head torch on  is stumbling through debris, where the stage used to be.

_{The Molly Fet Circuit.}

A conveyancer of chaos in a soup of mechanised noise. 

My ears and eyes adjusting.

The first responder is delivering a brimstone sermon to the dazed victims.

It’s an act!

Perhaps this is my first live brush with The Molly Fet Circuit? 

It was a name that had intrigued me online for a few years 

The soundscape is Throbbing Gristle/Suicide/The Fall with a unique harmonic clockwork twist to it.

A few songs later, and the first responder/lead singer has left the low stage and is hanging off my neck singing: “I want to crush your throat like never before”.

Or that’s what I heard and considered insightful; I have an intermittent stutter.

We are in the performance art realm now.

Digital shaman, facial oblivion, 

8bit musiks.

Sleaford Gristler.

This is sound from beyond time: Fill out the form, you will get the grant.

_{More Molly Fet Circuit. With lots of circuits.}

The intimacy of strangers.

Yes, i remember that from 1977 and the initial rush of punk rock.

So I move down to near the front window between acts.

Sitting sideways closer to the stage doesn’t work for me.

Outside, glorious summer sun is streaming down where King Street becomes the Princes Highway and i consider how closely English punk v1.2 was linked, in opposition, to British royalty, and there is some Australian punk royalty from that first wave about to hit the stage.

_{The core Fuck The Neighbours band: Bob Short, Simon Chainsaw and Bruce Callaway. Drummer Murray Shepherd is obscured.}

Fuck The Neighbours are members of The Saints, Filth, X, Evil Roomers, Kelpies, Hitmen.

The guy who nailed the Australian punk manifesto to the doors of the local music industry is amongst them.

They kick off with "Burn My Eye". It sounds authentic.

“Savage” and then "Kick Her Out".

_{Bassist Bob Short. Who isn't short.}

I was worried about the idea of punk nostalgia, the two concepts seem antithetical?

Though punk never lacked histrionics.

Now, a sizzling rendition of “I Don’t Want To Go Out". All sounding great and i'm plunging into a time tunnel.

A portal to 21-years-old  is opening in this 70-year-old’s life.

An anecdote, introduction? To Razar’s “Task Force”, something about Pig City?

But I’m hearing “Disco Sucks” bouncing back off the front window .

I can’t see the stage now, but I think they’ve changed singers.  

_{Simon uses a loud hailer to call other band members Mark Easton and Geof Holmes.} 

There’s a bracket of four great songs "New Kids Army”, "Don't Wanna Love” tying up with the eponymous "Fuck The Neighbours" 

There is more confusion (from me) as the guitarists swap.

“Oxford Street Nick” and “Hindu Gods of Love”. All too excellent.

A smorgasbord of modes delivered with appropriate venom.

But by this point I have become an unreliable witness.

Naivety plus deafness have slid me into a comfortable parallel universe of now militant nostalgia  

i recall fleeing. in joy, up King Street with “Wild Weekend” ringing in my ears.

Not sure who played what instrument on which songs but the ensemble effect was magnificent.