Friday, July 25, 2014

Stations

Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood. June 8th 2014

A Really brilliant nights entertainment from the "minimum wage" crew, the 3 bands each played (surprisingly?) excellent sets, it was free, Upstairs at the Grace is a good place for bands and the sound was great..shame it was a Sunday really.
Stations get better every time they play, tonite they were so tight, vocals sounded great, keyboards spot on. A little bit of Xmal, a little bit of Danse Society....Ok so the singer needs to trade a bit of the enigmatic for the energetic maybe but hey what do I know?



Im not sure if this is half a song or the end of one and the beginning of another but it sounds awesome to me either way.

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Red Red Krovvy

Red Red Krovvy. Northcote Social Club. May 19, 2014


I don't really know anything about this band, I think they are from Queensland. 
Guitar, Drums and Vox. playing straight ahead Punk Rock with none of the trappings.

The brutal/swift/ramraid songs from the minimal lineup, with largely untreated guitar and vox manage to pack a  surprisingly hard and exhilarating impact...do they remind me of things like Action Pact, Rubella Ballet, Avengers? probly ..might just be cos of the girl singer though...there's definitely none of the postcard punk aesthetic, RRK are very boy/girl next door in their appearance, and I think thats a lot of the appeal.

Gold Class

Gold Class. The Catfish, Fitzroy. 12th July 2014
Missed the first band, Cold Life, after taking an hour to get to Fitzroy from Northcote on
the scenic route . The bit I heard sounded good while I was buying a beer but many points lost by the dude sitting at a little table behind the p.a.
School Damage are old pros now, playing their 2nd or 3rd gig! The set is packed with hits and they really take off on the couple of songs when the Indie Sonny/Cher ..err Lennon/Ono errr... Donny/Marie (stop it)vocals combine.

Gold Class on the other hand don't even need a runway, I had a listen to the bandcamp tracks before we came out and I was thinking at  best we may get a shambly-jangly pseudo-manc-rant type outfit... nope: it was all Class of the Gold variety.



The singer (in Bronski Beat Ben Sherman) sang with hands in pockets , his voice so strong and fitting the music brilliantly, the band was yer regulation guitar,bass and drums but I kept thinking there were keyboards cos the sound was so full, tight too : sounded like they have done their time in the rehearsal room.
 It reminded me of seeing the Smiths in the early days but they are far from a retro act..touches of Interpol in there for sure so I reckon its a sure bet they will be  "Coming to a stadium near you" imminently!!
I live in a cave so I hadn't seen Go-Genre Everything before...wasn't really sure what to expect but they were great. The set started with a song I knew for some reason  and included a cover of Snappers' "Buddy"...with an immense racket coming from the guitar/drum duo start to end.
A couple of times the band was having almost unbearable "play-skool presenter " amounts of fun, but hey the audience was too so we can forgive them that minor transgression.
Thighmaster bought the shambly-jangly so it was time for a swift Tequila in the bar downstairs and then off home to bed...the express way.