I am not my brother's keeper. Actually, to be more correct, I was not my brother's 'keeper. Didn't need to be. As in most Australian backyards we played 'electric wickie' as ground rules at the Yobbo Cricket Ground, commandeering the rusty old trampoline as a well-positioned backstop to keep the ball out of the lantana and scrub over the road. The bro was (and remains) a good six years younger, and a more rounded individual than I might have respected this by not bowling express pace chin music at him when he was eight and I was, um, fourteen. If he holds grudges he's good enough to pretend he doesn't.
It could have been the ritual floggings at backyard cricket and/or football that turned the lad against his brother's example of sports-obsessed, beer-fuelled yobbodom and towards the dark, dissolute path that he now treads - that of lyricist-guitarist in Triple J Unearthed nominated psychedelic rock group Rainbow Junk (did that sound suitably FM-radio-backannounce?) - but I'd like to think it's just the greater access to freebie top-shelf spirits and dirty, dirty rock chicks hot enough to need oven gloves for correct OH&S-approved handling. For that, he has to deal with the loneliness of the road, the tension with his old school buds that are now his bickering bandmates, the strain of having no fucking money whatsover and having to live with the arse out of his trousers - and when you have absolutely no arse to start with that's something of an imposition - and all the other grotty, miserable, soul-searching impositions of the long and winding road to being a rock star.
Would I swap? If I was 25 and unattached? Are you fucking kidding?
They're going a'ight, cheers for asking. The Junk basically formed out of the bro's seedy share house a block from the centre of town in Newcastle (which made it, more usefully for the bro, a block from the beach) while the lads were going to Newy Uni. After they'd graduated, and ran screaming from their local Cunterlink, they had some arsebrained scheme a few years ago of taking over the world via the US, which made perfect sense as the bro headed off on his OE to... London. Via Bali. And then Barcelona, and a bunch of other places, before finally meeting up with the rest of the lads in New York. Where none of them could actually work, being on tourist visas, so they ended up in Montreal... then somehow got to LA... then collectively and individually ran the fuck out of money, wits and visa and slunk back to Straya with their tails between their legs. Only to end up in the midst of a Melbourne winter - ignoring the risk-averse analysis of his non-creative brother who pointed out Brisvegas had a statistically comparable live scene to Mudbourne without the depressive winters or the self-sodomizing cost of living (and the chicks wear less, almost never a significant downside) - trying to cut it in one of the most competitive live music scenes around with a band heavy on life experience but light on gig-worn chops.
But like I say, they're going a'ight. The Junk have an indie EP out and are midway through a month of shows in Melbourne, playing such luminarious locales as the Espy, which by my barometer means they can definitely cut it. I'm not from Melbourne, not of Melbourne, and to be honest can't actually stand the place - eight degree weather in October, forty-eight degree weather in January, and AFL football on the front and back page of every newspaper, not to mention every fucker in between - but names and places like the Espy have a live-music currency which crosses state borders like that of the Hopetoun, the Great Northern or the Waterloo in more northern locales. So even though hundreds of unsigned (many unsignable) bands troll through their performance space each year, my bro playing the Espy is something I'm seriously and significantly proud of. That and convincing this otherwise intelligent looking songstress that she would be well served committing herself to a long-term, long-distance relationship with him which basically involves her flying across the world from London a bunch of times each year and banging the living, breathing, levitating fuck out of him for a couple of weeks.
Their sound? Yeah, a bit heavy on post-Californication Chili Peppers, to be honest. Probably not helped by the bro's vocal being pitched and mixed way-to-fuck up high, arguing the toss with his mate Jack's showboating lead guitar licks. Then again my idea of 'psychedelic rock' is Wolfmother or Are You Experienced, not the fuckin' Mars Volta, and the last album I bought was John Mayall's Bluesbreakers for twelve bucks at the Warehouse (apart from getting You Am I's latest for Xmas - a bit shit actually - on that note it must be almost time again for another World Of Bollocks New Music Roundup a.k.a. Dr Yobbo Slags Off New Albums He Bought And Shouldn't Have) so colour me irrelevant when it comes to Wot The Kids Are Listnin To. I'd be perfectly happy if they swaggered on stage drunk as 40 bastards, plundered through an massively overdriven, stack-shaking, up-to-eleven rendition of Back In Black, mooned the audience and fucked off backstage to sup tequila laybacks from the ample cleavage of the cutest of the Espy's bargirls. However it appears this isn't what today's finger-on-pulse scenesters regard as 'hip' or 'now', so I'll reluctantly cede to their better judgement on this.
So, denizens of Mudbourne, do yourself a favour, as a hat-wearing St Kilda supporter and prominent homosexual would say - go watch my bro's band at the Espy in midweek and let me know whether they suck or not.
The Doctor is OUT to go spin the Nightsmith again.
4 comments:
I'm gratified to hear that no quarter was expected nor given in the backyard - it'd be unstrayan.
And I'm also pleased to hear that your brother has chosen a career with such high payoff potential! His present girlfriend certainly has more than a few things going for her!
Pls let me know if they are heading North of the border some time. And best wishes for his career
Hope they are Lermy. The Mudbourne experiment seems like a waste of time IMHO. The lads are now all pretty much based in northern NSW from whence they came so it seems pretty pointless not to refocus on Brisvegas and/or the Goldie as their primary target - also given they all hate Melbourne anyway. They have contacts down there - mainly gig booking chicks who the bro has been, erm, cultivating - but it's not as though they couldn't establish new ones up there.
The GF does appear to have a few things in her favour. One of the more publishable ones is that her stuff is much more marketable - mashed up electro pop with chick lyricists is trendy as fuck at present (Lily Allen, Ting Tings, even the Rogue Traders I guess). A lot of the Junk's audience seems to be stoner males it would seem. Unsurprisingly as the bro's lyrics make as much sense as the Rev Fred Nile after nine cones (yours or his, wouldn't really matter).
Career... hmmm. Last I heard he was planning to move to Byron and fraudulate a dole diary for a living, in between band commitments. Generation Y eh?
Electric wickie - definitely. If your bro's GF ever comes to Sydney let me know. Make sure your bro isn't coming as well.
Definitely better off in Brisneyland. Less Emos, cheaper clothes and Felafel is basically a guide book for young out-of-my-arse blokes looking tro figure out careers.
Weirdest thing is how similar they look - tall, freaky, skeletal bottle blondes dressed by Yves St Vincent de Paul.
Yeah I reckon Brisvegas too - made me the man I am today, i.e. an irreverent pisshead with less culture than a tup of Yoplait - but like Mudbourne it's at least an hour to a decent surf from 'Vegas. Which would never do. Whereas fraudulating a dole diary in the comfort of Byron, with glassy lefts peeling off the point (or something) and hot and cold running Swedish backpackers on tap... yeah reckon I'd be all over that shit too.
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