Songs for the Deaf

Yeeeaahhhh, back wit' anotha one. We continue with The Twelve Days Of Deafness, our drunken ramble through Dr Yobbo's hearing-impaired history of live music (in terms of actual gigs, rather than your common or garden variety Big Roque Festivals, which we've previously addressed under separate cover).

Having already dealt with Day One, a balmy Sydney evening in February '99, where Seedy and Your Correspondent headed to the brand-spanking UNSW unibar, only for everything to turn to Custard (as discussed in earlier media commitments), we proceed to:

THE SECOND-THROUGH-TWELFTH DAYS OF DEAFNESS
Day Two: Hard as a rock, deaf as a post
Sydney Entertainment Centre, early Feb 2001
AC/DC, Living End
On the highway to hell: Dawso and the King of Seed
This, in hindsight, is where the damage was done. A hundred decibels of the oldest of old skool RAWWWK bouncing around the concrete interior of the Syd Ent Cent was only going to provide one result: hearing shot to bits for most of a week. But it was worth it. We'd been hanging out to see Acca Dacca for a good five years beforehand, and when their 2000 album Stiff Upper Lip hit the shops with the promise of a tour to follow, anticipation gathered pace appreciably like a fat lady downhill on a tricycle. It didn't matter that when we did manage to sort tickets (for the last of the five scheduled shows), they were up in the rafters; nor that the promoters immediately opened ticket sales for a sixth show as soon as ours sold out. What mattered was that we were going to go see AC/DC, on their homecoming to Sydney.
The crowd were evenly split between haggard oldies who'd been there the first time the band had gone around, and younger punters like ourselves who'd come to the band later on; your point of differentiation was how recent and decent their tour T-shirts appeared, or how they took to Chris Cheney and the Living End cranking through a quite serviceable support set, fulfilling some of their own dreams if not so much those of the older punters. Interestingly, the pre-show PA music chosen by Angus and the boys was... the greatest hits of the Stones. Kinda had to be really. Then they were on, and opened with Back in Black - wished they hadn't, they always sounded a bit rusty first song in, and Back in Black deserves the best performance you can give it. Then, after the old bastards had warmed up, blasted out the cobwebs and got their contractually-obligated one-song-off-the-new-album (the title track) out of the way nice and early in proceedings, they proceeded to bust out a rock show that would have made slop-merchants like The Vines comprehensively stain themselves. Hard As A Rock remains memorable, if mainly for the videoclips playing in the background - pretty much every inappropriate cliche they could come up with (phallic-looking smokestack towers collapsing in reverse, trains going into tunnels, rockets launching, monkeys furiously on the job etc.) The Jack was given the full, filth-ridden treatment (as Bon once said, it's not really about a card game - maybe three-handed poker) and Angus went up into the lighting gantry for his obligatory ten minute solo. The laziest lead guitarist on God's green earth he may well be be, but that one scale he plays worked pretty well that night, and every other night he's had occasion to bust it out. They ended, of course, with For Those About To Rock, We Salute You. With the cannons and everything. Exactly as expected, but it didn't make it any less spectacular. AC/DC have lasted over thirty years for two reasons: one, they might only play three chords but they picked them very well in the first instance; and two, those old bastards know how to give a crowd value for money. Providing audiologist bills are factored out of the equation, of course.

Day Three: G'day cunts, we're Frenzal Rhomb from Newtown
UQ Big Gig, early Mar 2001
Frenzal Rhomb, Skunkhour
Wingman: AJ
UQ's O-Week Big Gigs resolutely rode the picket fence between being gigs or being festivals - they were multi-stage, open air events held down on the grassed Amphitheatre between main campus and the lake, but nothing of the scale of Livid or BDO, usually with only two or three bands you actually wanted to see (along with a few vaguely recognisable DJ acts in the doof tent, and for some unknown reason, George. Every fucking year.) But they cost fuck all to go to (particularly if you were a student, and particularly if you were already drunk enough from earlier in the afternoon to forego the beer tent queues) and were usually metric shiteloads of fun.
As he was known to do in search of a weekend on the craic and the turpentine, the big man himself AJ made the journey up from Parts Southward to partake in the beers, the music, and the crashing upon Chateau Dodgy's deceptively supportive floor. AJ had been known to bend an ear toward the work of Frenzal Rhomb in the past, notably using it to bugger up Your Correspondent's post-party spadework on one occasion by cranking Dugadugabowbow (whose sing-along chorus runs 'Well I think you're really nice but I couldn't bring myself to fuck you.') He had my best interests at heart. I think.
Anyway AJ and I got a few on board with Craigos then headed down to campus for the rock show. Skunkhour and Frenzals (and bloody George) were the crux of the issue on the main stage - a slightly eclectic combination, and while Skunkhour weren't necessarily my thing (on account of my failure to pull 20 cones a day), they eased through a mellow, involving and uplifting set which overlaid a smooth, positive glow over proceedings.
At least until Jay Whalley took the stage in a tartan suit (the same one they tried to return to a Townsville costume hire place on Give It Back Week on Triple J) and declared nasally and dischordantly, "G'day cunts, we're Frenzal Rhomb from Newtown." And his band proceeded to crash through the loudest, most offensive and fuckin' funniest set I'd ever had the pleasure of enjoying. Highlights were attempting to set a world record by playing their nine-second epic I Know Why Dinosaurs Became Extinct (It's Because They Learned How To Suck Their Own Cocks) six times within a minute; thoroughly (and justifiably) defiling the Home and Away theme; dedicating (I Got The Fuck Kicked Out Of Me By) Constable Care to the Queensland police service, the best cops money could buy; and alienating every hairy-chested feminist in the vicinity with their generous application of the word 'cunt'. Tops night out, really. And as Frenzal shows went, as I discovered with the passage of time, this wasn't a bad one. Craigos, who regretted missing the gig, did catch them with yours truly at the Waterloo a few years later. That show misses the list because of the cavalcade of shithouse punk acts that we had to sit through before the boys took the stage at half midnight. Instead we jump ahead by 12 months to...

Day Four: The art of being fuckin' suave
UQ Big Gig, early Mar 2002
You Am I, Eskimo Joe
Significant Other To Be: Megs
Hangers On: The rest of you bastards, trying to make me look stupid
Chateau Dodgy Version 2.0 was heavily occupied the afternoon of the 2002 Big Gig, courtesy all our drunken wanker ensemble of mates, not to mention the special on five-litre 'party kegs' of New which the bottle-o over the road was running at the time. Only one problem with that, as I realised to my horror as the afternoon lengthened into evening. I had a date. (Techically we all have one, but these things are best put behind us.) Depending on your source, my behaviour upon this realisation varied between calmly setting aside my beer and beginning a casual rehydration program, and running around like fuck climbing the walls and skolling black coffee. It has been claimed that I attempted to disguise my rising concern, and that of my companions, with the dismissive comment "Don't worry about me, I'll be all right. I'm fuckin' suave ay." However, this is obviously made up. Never believe Moff, he's a lying bastard.
On the way up the hill to campus, while being mercilessly sledged by the talentless arseclowns with whom I associated, I figured out what was the most important thing I had to do tonight. Get the fuck away from this lot of ballast. So, quite reasonably and rationally, I piss-bolted the remaining three blocks in order to make my rendezvous with Megs.
So, given that my wedding ring keeps clattering against the keyboard as I write this, you could figure things worked, pretty much. More in spite of my own genius than because of it, but I'll claim it. With thanks and kudos to Tim Rogers and You Are Him for the soundtrack. Eskimo Joe had played a workmanlike innings, more Boycott than Gilchrist but they'd held up an end, only striking dischord when publically deriding their own earlier material - the Sweater-era stuff which had carried them this far. That's absolutely shat me about Eskimo Joe's more recent work, to be honest - their willingness to slag off (and their refusal to play) the stuff which got them famous in the first place. But it was Timmy (Timmah!) and the boys who carried the day. I'd say I owe him a drink, but I suspect that's not going to help his cause in rehab.

Day Five: Sell out with me tonight
The Arena, Brisbane, April 2002 (I think)
Reel Big Fish, The Porkers
Team: Numerous, captain-coached by A. Zieren (Tewantin)
I actually have no clear recollection of when this gig actually was, even to the month, which means it must have been fucking epic. Zieren may remember better, given that he was organiser of the enterprise as the realest and biggest Reel Big Fish aficionado in our number. The rest of us drew our familiarity with their oeuvre from Take On Me, Sell Out, The Set Up (an absolutely killer riff) and their cameo in BASEketball. Aging Novocastrian ska band The Porkers made it an all-skank, all-the-time no-repeat playlist for the evening. First time at the Arena, a two-tiered rockpit with predictably stratospheric can prices and suitably skanky air that tasted like Dutch lager (mangled Dwarf reference thrown in for the benefit of our fearless leader for the eve.) Can't remember any of The Porkers' set - must have been a REALLY good night - but I remember the following about the Fish: (a) they fucking rocked and (b) they only played for an hour. Including encore. Tight as a fish as well, it seemed.

Day Six: Lillee Bowled Dilley Caught Milli Vanilli
The Metro, Sydney, Oct 2002
TISM, The Drugs
Crew: Megs, Mel, her ex who made Angst
This wasn't in the plan. The plan was to go to a Deadly Serious Science Conference in Sin City, behave ourselves like the professional researchers we were, and engage solely in high-level intellectual discourse. Not fuck off to the Arena on conference banquet night and watch a bunch of anonymous Melbourne Uni grads singing largely electronic songs about Thunderbirds, SBS sports presenters and being on the drug that killed River Phoenix. Mel - former flatmate, Origin sparring partner, freelance interior decorator (of the stylistic House of Macgyver) and sworn enemy of James Mathieson - was and remains a fellow TISM tragic, so when we touched base shortly after touching down in Sin City, the TISM show at the Metro appeared in conversation very promptly. We vetoed the support act - The Drugs, as someone once put it, didn't work; they were a one-hit act whose one hit (The Bold And The Beautiful) wasn't actually up to shit. The prematch entertainment we did catch was TISM's road crew playing various twee Top 40 pop songs randomly and intermittently sped up to Alvin and the Chipmunks hideousness. TISM, renown for their implausible outfits, came on dressed as artworks depicting their various album covers - this was their Best Off tour, plugging their greatest (or least commercially unviable) hits - and cranked through a great set, highlighted by their bluegrass hillbilly version of Defecate On My Face, possibly the only song ever written as a first-person account of Adolf Hitler's penchant for having Eva Braun go number two on him for his own sexual gratification. And, of course, frontman Ron Hitler-Barassi ended up in the crowd more than a handful of times, as he apparently always does, and ended up with his mask torn off at the end of the show, as he apparently quite often does. As with Top Gear's the Stig, the identity of the TISM boys remains officially a mystery. But no, it's not Rob Sitch or Tommy G from the D-Gen.

Day Seven: Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, am wearing it today
The Metro, Sydney, Apr 2003
The Datsuns, Sahara Hot Nights
Dragon fancier: Craigos
This was a fucking tops rock and roll show. Look, don't take my word for it, check out this review from massively self-interested and impossible-to-impress SMH music critic Bernard Zuel, who hates the rock and/or roll with a vehemency he usually reserves for neanderthal cretins from the western suburbs who spend less than a hundred dollars on haircuts.

Ah yes, old school values. It was still 15 minutes away from the scheduled stage time, in a town where getting any event to start only 10 or 15 minutes late is considered some achievement, but the Datsuns already had taken up position.

Guitarists' hair long and ready to fly? Check. A long, skinny lead singer with a mock pout to rival Kiss's Paul Stanley? Check. A stocky drummer looking capable of hitting things rather hard thank you? Check. Guitars worn at swinging angle? Check. Volume at 11? Check. It's time.

And so they launched into Cheap Trick's Hello There - sample lyric "hello there ladies and gentlemen/hello there ladies and gents, are you ready to rock?" - a song that posed a superfluous question. For having been more than primed by the support act, the Swedish quartet Sahara Hot Nights (fine entertainers who had the snarly sound and surly look of garage punk, if not any actual songs), we were ready to do anything.

We clapped in time; we sang backing vocals; we did call and response; we put our hands in the air and waved them all about. And we laughed a lot. Sometimes it was at the deliberate absurdity of it all. Look, if a band takes up the Ramones option and adopts the universal surname Datsun; if their two guitarists, Christian and Phil, regularly engage in back bends that would make a chiropractor grin with glee at the thought of future fees; if lead singer Dolf manages to both mince and menace, pout and prowl, then you know someone is having a lot of fun on stage.

While it's clear that the Datsuns aren't a parody band, they nonetheless know how to use the tools left behind by Cheap Trick, the Alice Cooper Band, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and the Stooges (and in one new song, '80s Australian underground favourites the Scientists) to press our teenage buttons. Sure there are riffs so meaty you could carve them, but you don't have a song called Fink For The Man (as in "you don't give a damn /you're just a fink for the man") and not understand irony.

And sometimes we were laughing because of the sheer thrill of it all. The thrill that comes from having your viscera realigned by a blockbusting song such as Supergyration. Or the little surge of latent sexiness during the bump and grind of Harmonic Generator. Or the physical pleasure of the neck-snapping, foot-stomping, so dumb/so good Motherf----- From Hell.

In less than an hour, they were gone. Yes, they came back on for a couple of incendiary encores, eventually accompanied by most of the Sahara Hot Nights, before closing again with Hello There. But when the lights came up it had been barely 70 minutes since the first note and yet no one felt short-changed.

Why? Well, there are smarter bands, there are long-lasting bands, there are more emotionally complex bands. But the beauty of a Datsuns gig is that you know while you are standing before them wrung out, sweaty, blood buzzing like Carl Lewis on pseudoephedrine and wanting more, the Datsuns are the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world at that moment.

It was a good trip, all told. Craigos, Seeds and myself had missioned south aboard the good ship Elvis (lived in 'Vegas, massive arse, had lots of hits); Seeds to see his family, Craigos and myself to see the Anzac Day match between St George and Easts, as well as the Datsuns at the Metro. And by fuck did we enjoy ourselves. Which left only one philosophically intransigent question: which of the four gorgeous punk rock hotties from the Sahara Hotnights would you bang first?
Or last, for that matter?

Day Eight: Don Casanova
The Waterloo Hotel, Brisbane, May 2003
The Donnas, The Casanovas
Drunks: Craigos and the Challenger (with a brief cameo from Megs)
A good season for the rock show, mid-'03. This was another great night, even despite ending up at that thoroughly dodgy Irish pub in the valley. Then again, how could it possibly go amiss combining under one roof (the low, wooden, curiously geometric ceiling of the Waterloo) one kick-arse rock group from Melbourne town (mates of the Datsuns, whose drummer had been wearing a Casanovas shirt at their Metro show) and one all-girl punk rock explosion from Palo Alto, California bursting with slutty rock songs about drinking, partying and, um, 'entertaining' boys?
Hmm. No real wonder Megs went home early. Probably to avoid listening to further argument between Craigos and Group Challen over whether the drummer or the guitarist was more worthy of the almighty pork sword of justive. The bass player, who spent much of the night cracking thoroughly shit jokes, got less of a mention in dispatches. As discussed in passing in our Festy Wrap, the girls rocked big but the Casas rocked bigger, shading it on the night by general assent - voting ran two to one with Challenger as the dissenting party; he was still fixated on the Donnas' drummer apparently. There's something about rock chicks, dammit. Sarah McLeod from the Superjebus wouldn't have been anywhere near as hot if she'd been a florist or a parking officer. (Aside: is she the only McLeod who has yet to turn up on McLeod's Daughters?)

Day Nine: Christ this place is a Zoo
The Zoo, Brisbane, Sept 2003
The Black Keys, Dallas Crane
Compadre: The Democratically Elected Monarch of Seed
Of the live venues scattered around the Valley of which your correspondent has frontline experience, the Zoo would rank up the sharp pointy end of the ratings. As well as this incendiary Black Keys show which comprises the ninth day of deafness, I have hazy recollections of seeing the Persian Rugs (the Gurus in mufti) and Even (the night after the Black Keys show, which says something about my dedication, bravery or stupidity.) It's intimate without being cramped, vibrant without being deafening, and cool without being pretentious or unwelcoming. Not unwelcoming, of course, unless you're on the rumbos in which case you're going to need to make alternative alcoholic arrangements for the evening, as the (female) proprietors don't sell it on the basis that it fuels violent (male) lunacy - and the Wallabies can concur, after far too many nights hauling Bundy Bear out of punchups with taxi drivers. (What, too soon?)
Unavailability of distilled molasses extract aside, you belong in the Zoo. Seeds and myself certainly did the night that the Black Keys came to town and sold the place out, ably backed by Dallas Crane, who'd be an excellent old-school rock and roll band if only they could write some actually decent songs. Seeds was atypically and unseasonably solvent, so we spent most of the support set downing beverages by the bar and scoping the vicinity. But by the time the Akron two-piece were front and centre, so were we; we'd collectively driven our other two housemates Megs and Craigos insane with hyper-rotation of their latest album Thickfreakness, so we were hardly going to sit dispassionately up the back and sip G&Ts for the duration. Another night where my lack of recollection augers well for it having been a bit of a fucking ripper, but I do remember them playing the Stooges' No Fun as an encore, which was fucking tops (if a completely misleading summation of the evening).

Day Ten: Local produce
Brisbane Riverstage, Nov 2003
Powderfinger, John Butler Trio
Wingperson: Megs
This was a masterclass of How To Do It. A band at the very top of their craft, honed through years of touring and recording, making their homecoming to their adoring local audience on the back of their biggest and best album to date. Powderfinger owned Brisbane, right to the point of having city streets named after their albums. Their two-night stand at the Riverstage in the Botanic Gardens will probably be looked upon someday as the absolute azimuth of their creative and popular arc. And I'm not just saying that because I was there. Heaven forbid a music writer (even a half-arsed amateur such as myself) to overemphasize the significance of a show he happened to be present at.
Like the UQ Big Gigs, this show had something of a festival vibe to it, right down to the dodgy satay vans up the back, wankers heaving their twiglet girlfriends onto their shoulders to fuck the view for everyone behind, and John Butler Trio playing as dusk fell. The key demographic this evening was couples who'd come along because the other was a Powderfinger fan - or maybe neither of them actually were but each thought the other was. In our case, neither of us pretented to be Powderfinger tragics but we both rated Vulture Street and about every second song before. I'd seen a preview of their Vulture Street set at Livid the previous year, before the album's release, but that was a festival show; this was Powderfinger on their Pat Malone. And they conspicuously failed to disappoint. The set effects and visuals were perfectly judged, the sound was surprisingly decent for an open-air show, and the band's performance was clearly infused with the vibrancy that came with shelving the tedious ballads in favour of some good old fashioned rock music, if only for an album. Highlights were the justly famous 'Stones remix' of Pick You Up - so far superior to the original it's astonishing they didn't record that version for the subsequent live album These Days - as well as the bluesy diversion into Led Zep's Bring It On Home during Like A Dog, and anything they played off Vulture Street. And it was Bernard's dad's birthday. Or his mum's. I forget.

Day Eleven: Jet set (about an hour fifteen with encore)
The Arena, May 2004
Jet, The Pictures, Vanlustbader
Turnout: Extensive, including Megs and the Dutchies
Don't drive from Coffs Harbour to Brisbane in an afternoon and then expect to stay awake for a rock show that night. Don't ask what the fuck I was doing in Coffs Harbour the day of a rock show, just to confirm that installing histology stainers in commercial pathology labs is not anywhere near as much fun as cloning five-arsed monkeys in research labs, or whatever it is I'm doing. I'm not telling and neither are the monkeys.Anyway, road fatigue aside, this was another good show (it'd have to be unless it wouldn't have made the list, yeah?)
Then again maybe fatigue can't be put aside, because as a gig it wasn't quite as good as Jet's BDO show in Sydney earlier in the year, and whether that was because this particular punter was still seeing double lines in his mind, who knows. Speaking of the middle of the road, Davey Lane's Pictures were surprisingly forgettable (for a guy who earns his regular paycheck as Tim Rogers' guitar 2IC in You Am I), but that might just have been down to the support act to the support act, Vanlustbader, who get a special mention (the only for a second-tier opening act here) for having a lead singer who was an absolute fucking mentalist and went off like a frog in a sock. The Pictures were wallpaper, and Jet was... Jet. Enthusiastic, a bit sloppy, and half-obscured by screaming oestrogenic fuckwits, but still worth the price of admission.

Day Twelve: Old school
Yamba Bowling Club, Easter Sat 2007
Hekyl and Jive (supported by: their families)
Lineup: All the same drunks who were at the Slightly Delayed Boxing Day BBQ earlier that day, including the keyboard player
So this could have easily been any Hekyl and Jive gig, or even Dynamo Hum... or, at a pinch, even Dr Zoom - namely that one at Maggie Moore's in Lismore, early '97, with Dawso and I shouting unhelpfully for 'Back In Black' between every song, or bellowing for drum solos out of the Captain on the skins.) Watching mates in covers bands got me into live music in the first place, which has provided me with a lot more than incipient industrial hearing loss - many nights of awesome memories, a shedload of life experiences, and a wife - so shout-outs to AJ and the Captain for harbouring sufficient musicianship, showmanship and trouser to turn up and play for bugger-all in pubs up and down the eastern seaboard for most of the last dozen years.
(And to us lot of loyal drunken bastards for turning up to shitholes like the Surfers Beergarden and watching you guys go round, of course...)

Next time: our 100th Edition Spectacularrrrr.
No idea at this stage what that'll be about, but it'll be spectacularrrrr, whatever it is.

The Doctor is OUT.

The Twelve Days Of Deafness

After the resounding response (or lack thereof) to our recent Condensed History of Australian Rock Festivals 2000-2005, the World of Bollocks is vaulting back into the skank-scented moshpits, unibars and dank sweaty venues of the Australian live music scene - well, bits of it anyway - with our latest special The Twelve Days Of Deafness: a dozen random gigs that in some small way made their own contributions to my treasured musical memories, rose-tinted recollections and unwavering tinnitus, all of which persist to this very day.
We begin, oddly enough, at the beginning.

THE TWELVE DAYS OF DEAFNESS
Day One: starts well, all turns to Custard later on
UNSW Roundhouse, late February 1999
Custard, Super Furry Animals, Eskimo Joe
Posse: Trusty wingman Seedyboy, probably half the Hovel as well

The Squarehouse, the 'old' uni bar at the University of NSW, was a decrepit, disgusting, frankly unhygienic old shithole where the air hung heavy and rank with a fetid cocktail composed of the fumes of cheap vodka and the hormones of even cheaper first-years. The dance floor was about the size of a public toilet cubicle and saw a similar amount of unsanitary behaviour (case in point 'The Triscott manouevre', pioneered by the son of a former Liberal cabinet minister, which largely consisted of sidling up to a girl of interest, unzipping, slapping one's dodger across one's palm and casually inquiring 'Yer keen?') The place utterly reeked of spilt beer, stale sweat, cheap perfume and cigarette smoke. The carpet glued itself to your feet with every step with the effluent of a thousand spilt Subzeros. The place was packed with charged-up college boys desperate to get a root, or to smack some bastard’s head in if they couldn’t. The bands who played the tiny stage there looked as though they were balancing on a miniature trampoline. And the clientele… let’s just say you were guaranteed to see some bizarre and troubling sights almost any night you named. A college acquaintance of your correspondent (names changed to protect the dubious), while lining up to take a slash in the truly third-world gentlemens’ facilities, reportedly witnessed a truly mythical creature, as fabled and as feared as Nessie or the Abominable Snowman: the Trough Monster.
"What the fuck is a Trough Monster?" I queried.
"The Trough Monster," said my contact, "is a monster, which is found in a trough. Usually of the appearance of a drunken male hominid, floundering about like a pig stuck in a canoe."
My contact was a bit of a wanker.
"You mean some poor bastard who’s fallen in because he’s completely fucking off-chops?"
"Well," he mused philosophilcally, "that’s the big question, isn't it? Has he fallen in because he’s too pissed to stand up… or is just the the sort of sick fucking cunt who happens to get off on doing sidestroke in the slashers while vindictive drunk bastards piss on him?"
"You're right," I nodded, "this is Sydney after all." Then a truly horrible thought crossed my mind. "You didn’t…"
"Me? Oh Christ no," he replied, reassuringly. "I didn’t want to give him the pleasure, just in case he was there to get off."
"Jesus fucking Christ,” I commented, a suggestion which when you think about it, is if not impossible, then at least onanistic. Sin City had a dark, fucked-up underbelly that rural folks like us sometimes struggled to comprehend. "So… you just left him there?"
Old mate shrugged. "He seemed to be OK. Had his head above water…"
"He’s probably still there," quipped Another Collegian. "Wonder how long a trough monster can survive in its natural environment?"
"Fair while," I predicted. "Could probably survive a decent length of time on those little yellow urinal cakes."



The Squarehouse: square

Now, as the year turned and the campus began to party like it was 1999, largely because it was, the fetid old Squarehouse uni bar was no longer. It’d expired and gone to meet its maker, rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible: it was an ex-unibar. Next door, the UNSW Union had extensively revamped an existing larger, circular building of dubious architectural value called the Roundhouse (these guys were original hey?) and this had become the new UNSW unibar. Where there had been rancid government-issue green carpet and Post-It Note sticky walls was now stainless steel, trendy soft furnishings and polished vinyl floors that resolutely refused to stick to your feet. As fellow college survivor, intermittent flatmate and trusty wingman Seeds pointed out at the time, it'd take six months of beer spillage to give the place any character. Seeds was a good judge of character, particularly that bestowed by consumption of beer.



the roundhouse: lower case is still in vogue, trendites




Eight years in and the floor still looks shiny and non-adherent: the college pissheads of New South are clearly trying hard enough

So after the venue was suitably broken-in and beered-on during O-Week, Seeds and I showed up for the Thursday night gig of Week One, which promised a triumvirate of then-Triple J faves: Welsh outfit Super Furry Animals bookended by emerging local acts Eskimo Joe from WA and Custard from Brisvegas. Though we, like the rest of the Hovel, were Thursday night unibar semi-regulars (as it was the only night the place had any life whatsoever), and while I'd spent many an evening at many a dodgy pub venue watching mates' covers bands go around, this was probably the first gig I remember going to for the sake of the bands, rather than turning up to a uni event and having some random band play in the background. It was the beginning of a love affair with live music that continues to this day. So it's for that, primarily, that this gig makes the Twelve Days of Deafness. And for the two-dollar-fifty stubbies of Tooheys Pils which were on promotion that night. Score.

For which I blame the lack of detail when it comes to recalling the actual performances. All the acts were fairly serviceable - Eskimo Joe (in their nascent Sweater/Ruby Tuesday era) had an engagingly L-plated naivety about them, the Welsh kiddies seemingly knew what they were doing (though I can only remember one of their songs, International Language of Screaming), and Custard had a lot more familiar songs to their repertoire than I'd first imagined - and even dropped a local reference into Girls Like That Don't Go For Guys Like Us ('For I am considering... A move to Parramatta...') Of course Dave McCormack would go on to bust out arseloads of local references writing songs about how the Inner West had all the beautiful girls, but that was a few years later after Custard had turned to, um, custard. When they were about the place, they were a decent outfit. Certainly seemed that way when bellowing along with a few thousand of one's closest friends about how I got a new apartment, baby, interior colour of red... and my only friend is my stereo receeeeeva playin' my favourite song, all night long...

Actually that'd get a bit tedious after a while wouldn't it?

In subsequent postings we'll review the rest of the Twelve Days of Deafness, when we can be arsed. In the meantime, OUT.

Manly: not very

Ah, Manly. It's good to have them back. As discussed in previous media commitments, during the Sea Eagles' last ten years of turning out shithouse football and being largely ignored, they've been missed. It's not been as much fun hating the Broncos, because they don't lose often enough to make it enjoyable. The Broncos have had the likes of Darren Lockyer, Alfie Langer and Wayne Bennett: unassuming, stoic and admirably effective, even from the southern side of the Tweed. By comparison, Manly's last decent side, that of the mid-90s, offers Terry Hill, John Hopoate, and Bozo Bloody Fulton: a clusterfuck of artless, talentless arseclowns. Not to mention Geoff Toovey, a whinging midget so insufferably irritating he was hated even by Manly fans. For generations, Manly have been the silvertails, had all the money, bought all the best players (particularly the ex-rugger-buggers - Rex 'The Moose' Mossop, Michael O'Connor, Matthew Fucking Ridge), had their people running the league (Arko and Quayle) and always, ALWAYS, got the rub of the green with the refereeing calls - case in point that ludicrous, more-than-dubious M.F. Ridge 'try', awarded by referee Charlie Manson, which tipped the '96 grand final in the direction of the penile-deficient peninsula partisans.

In short, Manly are cashed-up, self-obsessed cheats with a massively overinflated perception of their worth, importance and entitlement. And now they're trying to call US the silvertails. We begin with the SMH of August 19, in the run-up to the Monday night game between Souths and Manly:

Manly co-owner Max Delmege claims the cashed-up, Armani-suited South Sydney are more deserving of the "silvertails" tag than his own club.

"They've got Armani suits - we can't afford that," Delmege told The Sun-Herald. "I remember with Reuben F Scarf we used to get two suits for the price of one and a free tie and a free shirt.

"We should be known as the Manly Warringah Battlers."

Oh for fuck's sake. This from a multi-millionaire who made his coin in commercial property development. Who grew up in Maroubra, smack bang central in Souths territory.

Of all those in the broad church of rugby league with cause to hate Manly, South Sydney have more cause than most. That broken jaw which John Sattler famously played through the 1970 grand final with? Delivered by a cheating Manly prop. Who ended Souths' run of premierships after 1971? Manly. Who ensured there would be no golden generation of Souths football after the 1989 minor premiership by buying all our decent players? And Ian Roberts? Fuckin' Manly. Who wanted us kept out of the comp so they could get out of their shotgun marriage with Norths? Let me hear you say it up the back. Fuckin' Manly.

So yeah, we don't get on with the Manly Warringah Commercial Real Estate Tycoons.

And so it began all over again. Souths co-owner Peter Holmes a Court (himself not short of a few bob) pointed out that the silvertails tag might not sit quite as well with the socioeconomically depressed suburbs south of the CBD as it would with the 'gentrified suburbs of the north'. "Manly can try to shake off a decades-old tag of silvertails but trying to pass it off to South Sydney won't help them. The tag has negative connotations and suggests that you haven't done the hard yards … that does not apply to South Sydney. You can call any club a silvertail but there's only one club it will ever truly apply to."

Oooh SNAP. To which Delmege suggested Pete and Rusty (he of the dad who owned a Mascot muffler shop, the flagging Hollywood career and the band reminiscent of a fucking pile of shit) might want to let the players be the ones on the front and/or back pages. To which Mario Fenech pointed out the irony of a multimillionaire property developer crying poor. The greater mystery, aside from the Falcon's continuing TV career, is who the fuck would listen to a real estate agent for unbiased and factual information about anything whatsoever.

Team Souths ratcheted up the cross-harbour love-in by publishing a handy map for Manly fans with an interest in venturing free from their insular peninsula and finding out for themselves whether there actually is any land south of the Harbour Bridge, much against Northern Beaches folklore. Even so, Holmes a Court still figured there'd be lucky to get a hundred of the bastards down from their perch and slumming it with the plebs.



In a final act of Sea Igloo petulance someone calling themselves Manly CEO Chris Mayer responded in the Murdoch press declaring the Souths' co-owners 'attention seekers' and proclaiming: "Our supporters are warming up for the finals. They'll be there in their numbers on Monday night. We have bigger fish to fry than Souths."

Yeah, how'd that turn out for you, genius?



That Souths beat second-placed Manly in the actual game of football played on Monday night is truly great.

That they won the game with an 18-blot second half rampage which spoke volumes about the team's backbone and tenacity (and, by corollary, Manly's lack thereof) in the run-up to September is kick-arse.

That Joe Williams, one of the eleven halfbacks on Souths' books, there since the shit days of the early Noughties and now reluctantly being let go by the club, managed a man-of-the-match performance on his comeback to first grade, is fantastic - likewise his refusal to say a bad word against the club, or to sign for a rival NRL outfit (he's off to Toulouse to practice his French), says everything about the spirit behind the club and those who wear the coachwood and myrtle. (Or even the red and green. Thanks v. much H.G. Nelson.)

That the two competition points gained by toasting the Seed Bagels moves the Rabbitohs back into the top eight, and in a position to actually PLAY finals footy for the first time since 1989 (when the team only had one halfback instead of forty-three, but given that it was Phil Blake, that was a'ight), is to borrow a Spiderbait lyric, fucken awesome.

But that all of the above misery was visited upon a Manly side which actually had Geoff Toovey out on the park at the time - illegally barking coaching instructions at the defensive line while pretending to run drinks out to them in a stupid fluorescent shirt - was, in the parlance of a prominent Newcastle Knights boardmember, GOLD.

Glory, and indeed glory, to South Sydney.

Ironically, neither of the two attention seeking owners were actually at the game to capture all the glory and the camera-cut-aways-to-owners; both were in the States, doing their real jobs - Holmes a Court doing business, Crowe sorting acting deals. Not quite as blue collar as much of Rabbitohs Nation, but at least quietly going about doing the jobs that have made them successful enough to own a NRL club in the first place, instead of wanking on in the spotlight. Maybe Manly's Max Delmege could consider doing the same. Then again, one might figure that talking absolute bollocks and selling bullshit to the public is probably how he ended up a successful multi-millionaire real estate agent in the first place...

See you in September, you showboating silvertail bastards.

The Doctor is OUT.

A small slice of Onion™

NFL Reports Strong Sales Of Michael Vick's 2008 Jersey


Too good not to theft I'm afraid.

OUT.

Shirty, the slightly aggressive bear

One of the best things about my job is the fact I can turn up to work in jeans and a stupid T-shirt and people will think I've dressed up for the occasion. The only drawback of this is that finding newer and yet more stupid T-shirts becomes more of a challenge. Or an excuse to trawl the web looking for crap like this:

And I'm OUT.

Off yer Face (book)

"I've been flat out all morning," protested a Fellow Science Professional (female). "I've been sooooo busy I've only been able to check Facebook twice. Seriously."

So apparently, for those who came in late, there's this thing called Facebook. It is, allegedly, the shit. It's this month's MySpace (which presumably makes it this year's Blogger, or this decade's MSN Messenger, or so on.) You put your profile up and people you may or may not know send you superficial greetings and/or exploding sheep. Remind me again why I desperately need to be part of this latest online social revolution?

Facebookers (though some prefer Facenovelists) protest that, tweenie superficiality aside, it's really just a great way of keeping in touch with long-standing mates who've gone O/S and even tracking down old school friends. Thing is, I know where all my old school friends are. They're all at my house on Boxing Day scarfing burnt sausages, swilling the Old Man's superbly neurotoxic home brew and unmercifully sledging the Channel Nine commentary team. I know the day will end up with drunken backyard cricket involving taped-up tennis balls and one-hand one-bounce (beer-in-other-hand essential), and that the Captain will turn up about seven hours after kickoff, even if we forget to call him. (Only about 130 sleeps to go folks.) The rest of the class of '95 I can comfortably do without; you were all lovely people, but if all we have in common is surviving our physics teacher Wally Cameron's bioterrorist halitosis, we ain't got much.

But that, really, brings us to the underlying raison d'etre behind Facebook. If the point of Blogger is to have a medium for one's ill-considered shite to be spilled uncensoriously forth, and the point of MySpace is to get your unsigned-and-justifiably-so band a massive record deal (or, at the bare minimum, a few more roots), what's the point of Facebook? Well, it was explained to me by Another Scientist (for want of a more accurate descriptor), who declared that I simply had to see her Friendship Wheel. This, at the click of a laptop touchpad, displayed all her Facebook friendy-wendy-contacts as points around the circumference of a multicoloured circle. Grrrreat. But wait, there's more. I was bidden to 'check this out' as, at another mouseclick, spidery lines of interrelatedness were linked between the various individuals, representing how each person knew the other, and resulting in something that looked like a rather pants representation of the Tree of Life. This, I was clearly meant to understand, was Something Really Impressive.

So, the point of Facebook appears to be twofold:
(1) You can count up how many friends you have and use this information to compete with other people, just like you used to in kindergarten, and;
(2) You can represent diagrammatically how each of your friends knows each other. Which is good, because you might forget. Given that you probably introduced the motherfuckers in the first place when drunker than George Best.

Just so I'm clear on this, this is a chick thing, yeah?
(Apologies to Mr Appleby, the only owner-of-cruets I'm aware of who contributes to the Book of Face. Look for the Appleby Channel coming to Foxtel this summer.)

My Friendship Wheel, Tree, Piechart or Spiderweb Weaved On Crack would be surmised as follows. We have as one branch Team Old Skool; we have the Weird-But-Entertaining Sydney Fruit Loops, the Inveterate South East Queensland Pisshounds and the Miscellaneous Kiwis Who Somehow Got Dragged Along For The Ride. One may conceive these as discrete groups, but with isolated inbred relationships between them in places; basically it'd look like a genetic pedigree from Alabama, but presumably with less cousin-shagging. In summary: look, I may be a tad busy on occasion, but I don't need Arsebook to remind me who you people are.

And furthermore, in my day we had REAL exploding sheep. We had Worms, you see. At least until the Combantrin kicked in. Stop scratching it, it'll only get under your fingernails.

The Doctor is OUT.

Not doing things? Buy halves

Or so seems the plan down Redfern way. Looking to sell a half? Jason Taylor's your man. Having just shelled out to repossess Souths junior Craig 'Not the face!' Wing from leaseholders Easts, Rusty's red and greens are in the midst of a scrumbase selection shitfight with Joe Williams, John Sutton, Jeremy Smith, Eddie Paea and Ben Rogers competing for two starting spots in the Bunnies side. Throw Wing in and you can see why the Souths coach is at sixes and sevens. Ahem. Souths take on the Dragons this weekend at the ironically named WIN Stadium, which is as good a reason (and as flimsy an intro) as any to bring in our Round 22 NRL Preview. In mah day lad Roond 22 were t'end of t'comp, not like noooo, an' there were only a top five and all, none of this Macintyre Finals System bloody roobish, arrghh begorrah bollocks.

Friday Night Football
Manly vs Newcastle, Grahame Park, Gosford
Apparently last week was the 20th anniversary of the Broncs' debut touchup of reigning premiers Manly (best known either for the 44-10 scoreline or for Manly prop Don McKinnon caught short on live TV hanging a sly slash on-field - better still his day job was as a copper with the NSW Police); I actually thought 1988 was 19 years ago but then again I didn't go to high school in Queensland, as at the time noone did. In any case, one hopes this week's match will commemorate another glorious day in the memories of anyone who hates Manly, and therefore loves rugby league - their last-second capitulation to the Knights in the 1997 ARL Grand Final, the match that basically saved rugby league as a going concern. Newcastle are a thoroughly busted arse outfit at this stage of the game, while Manly are riding high after seeing off the similarly busted Broncos last week. Manly to win, unfortunately. While that 1988 game was the first step along the handover process that saw the Broncos theft Manly's mantle of the most hated team in all of rugby league, don't think we've forgotten how to hate you Northern Beaches clowns. There's still the stench of Bozo bloody Fulton, Terry fucking Hill and Matthew cunting Ridge about the place.

Wests vs Easts, The Grand Old Girl Stadium Australia, Homebush
Wests are up and down like Britney's smalls at present (here today, gone late today, as Frenzals once put it) while Easts are undefeated under Brad Fittler, aka Freddie, Adolf, Captain About-To-Cut-Loose, The Drunkest Man In The World (courtesy the front-desk officer at the Glebe Police Station) or that guy in the red and blue tie who kept stuffing his face every time the camera panned up to the coaches box last week. Wests have better cattle, Easts have better form. They're due to fall over. Wests in a close one. Man of the match likely to be Benji Marshall - having him defending on the wing is a smart, pragmatic call from a smart, pragmatic coach (any chance we can get Sheens back for Origin?)

Saturday Afternoon-Through-Evening-And-Into-The-Night Football
New Zealand vs Gold Coast, Mt Smart Stadium, Land O' The JAFAs
Or the Battle of the Sex Offenders as we're tagging it. Not likely to be that close - that stupendous 31-all draw against Sydney City Toyota Roosters last week was the latest in a long line of ballsy performances from the Warriors, whereas the Shitecans' last-up win against the Tigers was a statistical blip on both sides' behalves. Now if only the New Zealand Warriors could find some actual New Zealanders to play for them. Piri Weepu would be a good start. Choadafone Warriarse to win, pursued by daylight.

St George vs Souths, WIN Stadium, Wollongong Wollongong Dapto Wollongong
In the Charity Shield, the corresponding preseason fixture to this, big chinned cellphone specialist Mark Gasnier got absolutely no charity whatsoever (not the sort he's accustomed to anyway) and tore his pectoral muscle, critically foreshortening his season and even worse limiting his opportunities to hand out tickets to the Gun Show. He's since damaged a 'glute', which apparently is nothing to do with coach Nathan Brown's pledge to tear him a new arsehole if he didn't stop spending more time on the Footy Show than the rehab bench. Souths will likely play a team consisting entirely of leftover halves. This is what happens when you get a former number 7 to coach your side. Souths to WIN, solely on the advice of Janes Addiction: just because.

Parramatta vs Cronulla, Parramatta Stadium, Deep Amidst The Bogans
Back in the day, particularly in the post-Super League era when the Shire kiddies pretentiously demanded to be called simply 'The Sharks' (when did you wankers become a rugby franchise from Durban?), this was an easy one to pick: Parra, just on principle, because the Sharks were monkeyspankers. Now, not so much. Cronulla, even with the unlikeable Angry Ant wielding the clipboard, deserve more sympathy than the Eels for two completely irrational and unscientific reasons: one, Cronulla busting out their '80s playing strip for the year was a very cool way to pay tribute to the passing of Sludge Rogers the First, so maximum global restecp; and two, Parra coach Michael Hagan and chairman Denis Fitzgerald are both complete and utter cunts. Just trust me on this. Parra will win, the Ant will be Angry, and Timana Tahu will look like an absolute bargain given the relative fuck all the NSW Rugby Union paid for him.

Sundy Arvo Footy (Ay)
Canterbury vs Canberra, Kooee Stadium, Homebush
A game to sink your teeth into - presuming anyone makes it to the venue without getting shivved on the train by fulleh siiiick Dogs fans, this might be closer than you'd think. Canberra did everything but win on one of the most shite-flavoured road trips in the comp, up to KKKville to play the Cowboys. Meantime the Dogs have been oscillating sine-curve-stylez between arsey wins and flatteringly close losses. Large William Mason is out but declines to shut the fuck up about it; likewise many of their forwards are either injured or suspended. Having said all that, Dogs to bite back in this one.

Brisbane Norths vs Toowoomba Clydesdales, Olympic Park, Melbourne
Recapitulation of last year's NRL Grand Who Cares Fixture, with Brisbane attempting to set the record for the Most Busted Arse Concern In The History Of Football - Buddha Handy might get a run in the halves the way things are going - and Melbourne attempting in turn to see just how shit they can get away with playing while still managing to win football games. Our pick for Sunday afternoon: watch something else. Even reruns of Get Smart would be more entertaining. Actually watching this game may in fact be the dumbest thing short of cleaning your contact lenses with your own gob. Melbourne to win, should anybody still be awake at this particular juncture.

The token Monday night game designed to give alcoholics a reason to frequent the pub on a school night
Penrith vs North Queensland, Penrith Football Stadium, Even Deeper Amidst Boganville
Penrith are in form now that it doesn't matter, while the Cowboys are in woeful form now that it does. For further reference please consult the Macquarie Dictionary, under 'Massively Irrelevant'. The winner: whatever's on Fox Sports 2 at the same time.

The Doctor is OUT. Pending a fitness test on the morning of the game.