I missed the start of Summonus’ set, which is pretty slack considering it was their frontman (and UB photographer) Rod Hunt who put me on the guest list. But at least I had a good excuse. I was stoned and my car had overheated.

Having not smoked weed in a while I was feeling like a giggling high-schooler after his first joint when I jumped in the car to head to The Roundhouse. Driving was not a problem (for some reason I seem to be able to drive OK no matter what state I’m in), but there were so many strange and brilliant thoughts running through my head I couldn’t decide whether I was crazy or a complete genius. Just as I was about to start having a panic attack, I noticed the temperature gauge had shot up to a “you better pull over right now before you blow a head gasket” level, which sent me into a panic attack anyway.

I stopped at a Mobil service station nearby to buy some radiator coolant, but first I had to use the ATM. While I was getting cash out a not-particularly-attractive woman came into the servo and lined up behind me to use the machine. Once I’d finished, she stepped up to the ATM, which was situated at the back of the shop next to the car care products. As she punched in her numbers my eyes scanned over the shelves. There seemed to be every grade of engine oil as well as power steering fluid, anti-freeze/anti-boil, even 2-stroke, but no coolant. Because I was stoned I didn’t trust myself so I scanned over the shelves again, bending down to read every bottle just to make sure I hadn’t missed it. Suddenly I noticed the woman looking at me suspiciously out of the corner of her right eye and a huge wave of paranoia swept over me. Does she think I’m trying to get a sniff of her undies? Shit, I just need some coolant so I can get to the gig!

I ran out of there and drove to the BP down the street. They did have coolant, which my thirsty Falcon sucked up as soon as I started to pour it in. The whole five-litre bottle evaporated within seconds, so I walked over to the Air/Water station to re-fill it with tap water to top up the radiator. A car was parked next to it with a woman sitting in the driver’s seat dressed in Islam headscarf and her male passenger was just beginning to fill the tyres with air. I stuck my bottle under the tap and started to re-fill it when this guy, who’d only put air in one of the car’s four tyres, stood there staring at me. Maybe he was as whacked and paranoid as I was?

I asked him, “Are you OK mate?” Without saying a word he dropped the air hose and got back in the car. The female driver said something to him in another language, which presumably went something like, “What the fuck are you doing, you’ve only done one tyre, you gimp?” He said something back to her and they drove off. It was even weirder than the panty-sniffing incident a few minutes earlier.

Despite my scattered state of mind, I made a point of keeping the receipt for the “Castrol Radi-cool” so I had a valid excuse for missing Rod’s band. The receipt proved I was in Bexley with an overheating car at 19:12 hours, which meant there was no way I could have gotten to The Roundhouse at Kingsford by the scheduled kick-off time of 7:30pm.

When I finally arrived, Summonus were deep into a stoner-doom groove. Rod was up there working the big stage like a man who’s obviously seen his fair share of metal frontmen (which he has). He had all the moves – the big boot stride, the invisible orange squeeze, and oh, the things he can do with a mic chord. His hair also looked awesome being blown back by the onstage fans. The rest of the band were less animated, with drummer Nathan pounding a steady beat while guitarist Trav and bassist Keith stayed rooted to the spot riffing away.

They finished one song and started another called “Embodiment”. As Rod growled menacingly over the band’s down-tuned sludge, I started vague-ing out and thinking strange thoughts again. All of a sudden I had a moment of clarity. I finally came to understand the full implications of the term “stoner rock”! I’d never even thought about it before but in that one brief moment it all seemed to make sense.

I arrived back in the real world just as Summonus launched into a Bongzilla cover. The assembled crowd had begun to warm up a bit and quite a few mangy longhairs had been converted. As the band finished-up with the long and doomy “The Gallows”, their newly won-over fans played assorted air instruments and banged their heads slowly and methodically. Some even pulled out cameras and took pictures of Rod, which struck me as hilarious considering he’s the one normally taking photos of everyone else.

Between bands I spent time in the bar area out the back catching up with mates and trying to calm down. When Mastodon walked onstage there was a mad rush as everyone attempted to leave the bar immediately and get out into the venue itself. This created a huge bottleneck, which took at least half a song to clear. As we shuffled toward the exit fans were shouting out “woos” and “fuck yeahs”! This crowd was pumped.

I took up a spot somewhere near the dead centre of The Roundhouse. By this time Mastodon were well into “Oblivion”, the opener to their latest album Crack The Skye. Their singing sounded horrendous, but their fans didn’t help matters. Lame Ozzy rip-off vocals suck enough without hearing a bunch of dickheads trying to sing along in my earhole in that same whiny voice.

To be fair, the early mix didn’t do the band any favours. As the set went on the mixer was able to better hide the obvious deficiencies in their vocals, and thankfully the audience calmed down and stopped singing along as the band gradually lulled them into a coma with one of the most musically indulgent, ponderous and dull rock shows I’ve ever stood through.

There’s no question that when Mastodon rock, they can rock with the best of them. Sadly they choose to wank 99% of the time. If I wanted to watch dudes jerk off I could’ve stayed home and logged onto homohandjobs.com.

After boring all but their most dedicated fans half to death by playing Crack The Skye in its entirety, the four members left the stage while their moustachioed fill-in keyboardist made spooky sound effects. Give me a big, expensive keyboard and I reckon I could do that too.

The band then came back and played a forty-minute “encore” of older material, and even though this contained many more rockin’ moments than the first half, they’d killed the vibe long ago.

When the crowd is cheering more at the start of your set than at the end, you’re just not doing it right.

In years to come this gig will be known as the Great Heckler Massacre of 2010. It was a mismatch on par with Tyson versus Berbick or the earthquake versus Haiti – Andy ‘Falco’ Falkous and Kelson Mathias of Future Of The Left verbally pummelling some hapless fool who just didn’t know when to give up / shut up. Onya dickhead, you did Sydney real proud.

I missed roughly half of Further’s opening slot due to the early 7:30 start time but managed to get there in time to see them do “Romance!” as well as a handful of new tunes, including one brutal brooder I believe was titled “Low One”. Spod star Brent Griffin was filling in on bass for Andy Cowland who was away on annual leave and acquitted himself admirably under the circumstances. No obvious mistakes. Which is more than can be said for guitarist/vocalist Matt Coyte, who butchered the opening riff of one song so bad he made the band stop and start over.

I stood outside and smoked during Talons set, mainly in protest at the fact that they got to play after Further – is there no such thing as paying yer dues anymore?

Future Of The Left hit the boards at full pelt, throwing the same killer one-two combo that opens their recent second rekkid, Travels With Myself And Another, “Arming Eritrea” followed by “Chin Music”.

Spitting chunks of bubblegum like a hail of torpedo fire, the trio whipped The Annandale into a reckless frenzy. Four-hundred-odd pairs of feet defied the stickiness of the carpet as voices united in singsong.

“Wrigley Scott”, “Small Bones, Small Bodies” and “Plague Of Onces” formed a hard and fast triple-threat of tracks from the first album, Curses! (2007). Seldom have melody and brutality made such sensual bedfellows.

Cut to sad heckler scene…

Some half-cut sucker for punishment down the front starts yelling a bunch of inane shit – shit about the band being Welsh, shit about their old band Mclusky, shit like total shit. Falco (guitar/keys/vocals) and Kel (bass/vocals) respond with a volley of insults much too clever and complicated (even nonsensical!) for me to remember. Yet nothing can quell this idiot’s vigour for humiliation, nor improve his horrendous sense of humour. He just keeps coming back for more.

In between bouts of bash the heckler, FOTL delivered a barrage of vein-popping pop. Falco switched from guitar to keyboards for “Manchasm” and “You Need Satan More Than He Needs You”, the latter providing a fun scream-along during the “does it fuck like a man?” bit.

At one point they gave the audience a choice of what song they wanted to hear – either “The Lord Hates A Coward” from Curses! or “Drink Nike” from Travels With Myself. Obviously the crowd were always likely to go for the older tune, but I was rooting hard for “Drink Nike”. Not only is it one of the best songs on Travels with Myself, I’d already seen them do “Lord Hates A Coward” on the last tour. But hey, you can’t fight popular opinion, so “Lord Hates A Coward” it was. Certainly not a dud second prize by any stretch, it sounded twice as vicious as the recorded version.

Another song, another cameo from the heckling dip-shit. At first it was fun watching such a lopsided battle of wits, but after a while it became tedious, which created an air of frustration. Without saying it in so many words, the band implied that it might be a good idea for someone to drag this obnoxious turkey out and give him a good kicking so everyone could get on with rockin’ out in peace.

Closing the set with “My Gymnastic Past”, the band returned for an encore that began with “adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood” and ended with the unreleased “Cloak The Dagger”, which unravelled into rampant chaos.

Falco let his guitar amp bleed noise, stabbed his keyboard with a drumstick, then started to ritualistically dismantle Jack Egglestone’s drumkit while he was still playing it. Picking up each drum and cymbal, Falco would move each piece around teasingly, daring Jack to try and hit it, before retiring it to the centre of the stage.

Meanwhile, Kel had gone for a crowd surf. I was about halfway down the room, over towards the bar, when he surfed right up next to me. Initially I refused to get involved in holding him aloft – I’m lazy and he was sweaty – but then he indicated via a sort of pointing and thrusting motion that he wanted to head over to the bar. Suddenly I found myself isolated in a big gap between the mob of people holding him and his intended destination of the bar. I had no choice, I had to help grab him or he would have been on his arse. I stuck my hands up in the air and immediately regretted the decision as I felt the fucker’s weight bearing down on me, pushing on my head as he stabilized himself on the bar. Once up there, he did some cute little dance that seemed to impress the crowd but wouldn’t get anywhere near my list of Top 50 Annandale bar walks. A few seconds later, he was back onstage, where Falco had finished disassembling the drums. Kel grabbed his bass and Jack jumped on his ad-hock kit and the pair made improv punk noise until it was time to kick everyone out the pub.

Final score was Future Of The Left – 187, Heckler – nil.

King Khan fucked up my holidays. I’d already had two weeks down in Mollymook booked well before that Canadian-born Berlin-based ex-Spaceshit of Indian descent announced his intention to haul his mega-band of soulful Germans (yes, believe it or not, there is such a thing, and The Shrines prove it) and their cheerleader down to Australia for the first time. But he’s the King, so I gotta do things his way, which meant the highway for me, lots of highway.

I spent a couple of days down the South Coast swimming and getting drunk on the beach then drove the three hours back to Sydney on the day of the show. Bringing a bad case of Swimmer’s Ear up with me, both ears were clogged full of thick yellow goo, I was to spend the evening trying to shake the feeling I was underwater. The Oxford Art Factory decor didn’t help…

I walk down the stairs of OAF and there’s a Brian Jonestown Massacre tribute band playing in the front bar (well, it’s not really a “front bar” in the real sense. More like the smaller of two aquariums). It strikes me that I’ve never seen a band with so many electric guitarists sound so quiet before. Yellow goo is even better than expensive earplugs.

I meet up with some friends and we head into the main room. At first there’s hardly anybody there, but without me really noticing, it fills up quick and there’s a sizable crowd on-hand to greet local boyz ‘n’ the hood Royal Headache.

I love Royal Headache and I’ll shout from the top of every mobile phone tower in town. What separates them from a squallion other garagey punky poppy bands is they actually write songs, killer songs, played with a megaton of energy and no trace of irony. What’s more, they’ve got a singer with a voice. And he ain’t afraid to spin its wheels.

Sitting cool behind his Coke bottle specs, drummer Shorty doesn’t give much away, keeping to himself as he keeps a constant beat. In contrast, guitar player Lawrence and bassist Joe make love eyes at one another from across the stage. Either they’re having the time of their young lives up there, or they will be when they hop in the sack together later on. Frontman Shogun is far from your quintessential rock star. Wearing a blue bomber jacket with the sleeves pushed up and pulling his usual array of jerky stage moves, he looks (as my mate Joe so eloquently points out) like a King’s Cross speed freak at karaoke.

While the impact of loud music is lost on me slightly due to the yellow goo, I can hear human voices especially clearly, even over the bands. This is a good way to hear just how fine a singer Shogun is. He doesn’t just reach for the glory, he gets there.

They run through a bunch of their tunes, including two of the stand-outs from their forthcoming R.I.P Society 7”, “Surprise” and “Girls”, and close with the mid-paced anthem “Honey Joy”. Shame the crowd is full of cool young fucks who don’t really ever get into anything, ever. The band deserves better.

The DJ is spinning “Taxman” as The Shrines stroll onto the stage, one after the other. After a clichéd James Brown-style intro from the guitarist, King walks out looking very regal and kinda pimp-ish, dressed in a white leopard skin coat and sporting a fancy feather headdress. Strumming the chords to “(How Can I Keep You) Outta Harms Way”, he exudes the same effortlessness evident in all his records. He could just as easily be down on Mollymook beach with a fancy cocktail in his hand as rocking the house.

The band is tight, but not so uptight that you’d pick ‘em as Germans if you didn’t know already.

Not as manic as say Rocket From The Crypt, or James Brown, they take a more laidback approach. It’s more like chilled-out psych soul rock, as opposed to dudes trying to blow the whole house down.

The cheergirl looks like a half-witted Eskimo who ate too much pudding. For all the jumping up and down and smiling like a simpleton, I’m not convinced she adds much to the show beyond the freak factor. Talk about excess baggage. Or let’s not.

The set includes plenty of crowd favourites like “Land of the Freak”, “Took My Lady to Dinner”, “I Wanna Be a Girl” and “Shivers Down My Spine”. At one point King makes a wisecrack about Australia loving Indians, obviously a reference to the spate of recent racist attacks on people of Indian descent in Melbourne, which makes everyone feel nice and uncomfortable for a few seconds.

Closing out the set, they take “Take a Trip” to the outer limits before offering up their own soul infused take on The Saints’ “Know Your Product”. Shamefully, a lot of the audience don’t seem to recognise it, so the place doesn’t go as mental as it should. Learn your history people, this is basic shit!

For an encore, King emerges in a pair of purple undies (still with headdress and cape) as the band serve up some weird variation on Suicide’s “Ghost Rider”, followed by the rockin’ “No Regrets” and a brand newie called “Yes I Can’t”.

The final tune, “Live Fast Die Strong”, degenerates into a Sun Ra-inspired schmozzle, the whole band pulling their best free jazz moves. King repeats the “Space Is The Place” mantra as chaos unfolds all around him. Somehow he ends up in the crowd, as does French organist Fredovitch, as does his organ. When King finally fights his way back onto the stage, he anoints the first couple of rows by spitting water at them.

Three girls who’ve been dancing up onstage during the final few numbers end up with the band’s guitars around their necks feeding back wildly as the hairy Ded-head on drums pounds away.

I was so dumfounded by the spectacle I can’t even remember if the show ended or not. I staggered away thinking this was the best holiday away from holidays I could have imagined.

Down with yellow goo!

Royal Headache MySpace: www.myspace.com/royalheadache

By Damolition

So this is my first review and I start with the daunting task of reviewing the Dalai Lama’s recent public talk titled “Our Future, Who Is Responsible”, which was held at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

My sister had bought an extra ticket and invited me as her guest so we arranged to meet at the Oportos across from the venue for a quick snack before the show. While we were eating a pushy woman in her late-thirties started to interrupt everyone eating at the tables outside, begging for money for Hare Krishna. This is one of my pet hates. If I am eating or on the phone don’t fuckin’ interrupt me to ask for money!

So yes, I was short with her in my reply of “No”, but had to interrupt when my sister apologised. I said to my sister, “No, she should be the one that’s sorry, not you.” Then this smug bitch turned on me and said the attitude of the people across the road was so much better than this side of the street and told me she got money from all the monks seeing the Dalai Lama. I then told her I was going there too and she stared at my chicken nuggets and gave me a filthy and told me I was disgusting. I laughed and told her I was well aware of her organisation and that she was a hypocrite. She called me disgusting once more as we left to go see the talk.

I find it hard to believe the woman had a go at me after begging from all the monks then pissing off before the show even started. Opportunistic bitch.

We headed into the Entertainment Centre and found our seats close to the front on the right. Everyone was standing with hands in a prayer gesture. The first rows at the front were filled with monks in their robes which gave the place a more spiritual vibe. The stage was set up with a comfy chair for the Dalai Lama and his interpreter, as well as a rug and some plants.

The Dalai Lama appeared from the side looking rather fragile as he was escorted to his seat. Once there he made himself at home and took his time removing his shoes and then plonked his legs up on the chair into the lotus position.

Alan Madden, an Aboriginal elder, opened the talk by coming onstage and welcoming the Dalai Lama to his homeland with a small speech. After an embrace and handshake, he left and the Dalai Lama started his talk with the subject of Aboriginal people and people of third World Countries. Making the point that the most important way to improve their lives is by giving them more education, he then summoned Alan Madden to respond but joked that he’d probably left immediately after his welcome speech.

After this he told the audience not to hold high expectations from this talk, stating he was a human like the rest of us, and a Buddhist, and that he would simply speak from his experience. A woman two seats down from me immediately got up and left, which made me laugh.

His talk, which went for about an hour and a half, included topics such as tolerance for others being important for ones own well being; hate only destroys one’s self; material happiness from technology is only temporary; the past is gone and can not be changed so we must focus on the present and future; Karma, self-awareness and self-confidence are the keys to combating negativity; and that all religions are similar in the principles of their teachings and that it is mischievous people in these organisations that cause harm to the true message and the reputation of each religion.

There was a section at the end for questions from the audience and the Dalai Lama was very amusing with his answers and skipped over questions already asked during his talk the previous day.

A women asked what should she do now her husband was dead and he informed us all that in these situations we need to move on and focus on life, and that the departed would be sad to know of us feeling sad and mourning but if we progressed with our lives they would be happy.

A girl asked his advise on leaving her Muslim family tradition to become a Buddhist and he advised to learn the ways of Buddhism and other religions but remain a Muslim so as not to upset the family and that the principles are very much the same, each teaching love, tolerance and understanding.

When asked whom did he most admire he avoided the answer, saying he likes people for different reasons from the work they do in a certain area but he has the same respect for others in a different area. He made light of George Bush, saying he is a nice person even though he has caused some disasters, and mentioned his fondness for Martin Luther King.

When asked what the Australian people can do to help Tibet he said to go there and do your own research on the situation and to inform people of your findings and especially to inform the Chinese government of your research. He said they do not want to go back to the old ways in Tibet even if they had that option.

Overall my opinion of the Dalai Lama is that he is a very wise man with a great sense of humour and desires to improve the quality of life for everyone. I walked home thinking I need to work on my self-confidence and anger management. And now it’s time for a beer.

His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama’s site: www.dalailama.com

With the venue only announced to internerds on the day of the show, Monday’s ‘secret’ encore performance by Rhode Island duo Lightning Bolt – who had played the much bigger Manning Bar across the road on Saturday night – caught a few folks off-guard, not least the chief organiser/support act.

When Hermann’s doors opened at the whispered time of 7pm, the tour party was still on route from Brisbane after the previous evening’s Lightning Bolt / Primitive Calculators / Grey Daturas gig. As such, Robert McManus (tour promoter and member of Grey Daturas) was screaming southbound along the Pacific Highway when he should have been onstage opening the show under his solo noise guise, Black Widow. So, completely by default, the evening’s cherry-popping duties fell to Rice屎Corpse.

Rice屎Corpse is Justice Yeldham (aka Lucas Abela) re-contextualising his trademark glass-blowing noise act as a heavy freeform experimental trio. Originally a collaboration with a pair of talented Chinamen done as part of a ‘cultural exchange’ (that’s what it needs to be called or else the Government won’t give you any grant $$$, y’see), for local shows Lucas is backed by skin beating supremo Peter Kostic (Front End Loader, Hard-Ons, Regurgitator) and key-mashing organist Stuart Olsen (Mothra, Rand & Holland, Garbage & The Flowers).

Carrying less threat of blood spillage than the typical Justice Yeldham solo massacre, the combination of his breath, the piece of glass and a chain of distortion pedals sounds almost halfway ‘musical’ when combined as part of the ensemble.

But if Lucas is the ‘face’ of Rice屎Corpse, it’s really Pete that shovels the coal and dictates the changing moods. Perhaps mindful of the awesome reputation of headliners Lightning Bolt, the drummer barely let the intensity drop for a second, delivering a non-stop feast of improvised paradiddle-diddling that only really got soft during one particular passage.

With no actual songs to speak of, the highlight of the set for me was seeing Pete drop one of his sticks. Reaching over immediately to grab a fresh one off the top of the kick drum, the original dropped stick somehow bounced up off one of the drums and miraculously landed back in his hand and he barely even paused to smirk about it. It was one of those moments – bloody amazing. The drummer from Lightning Bolt may have done something equally as amazing, but I wouldn’t know ‘cos I couldn’t really see the bastard. But more on that later…

Up next were Crux, who thrashed up a crusty hardcore hellstorm in front of a loyal partisan crowd. Having recently announced their intention to break up in January, it was a bittersweet moment to see them at the peak of their powers.

Playing through a much bigger PA than they usually get at Maggotville, their sound was heavy and brutal and all that good stuff, although Anna Vo’s vocals could definitely have been lifted in the mix. Not only was she difficult to hear growling over the band’s racket, it was hard to hear her speak between songs. As she quietly explained the meaning behind one number (something about “consent”?!), a rowdy punter called out for her to speak up because he wanted to hear what she had to say. As death stares shot at the dude from all over the room, I momentarily considered backing him up – I thought he actually had a point. But then I decided he was too much of an obnoxious prick and shouldn’t be encouraged any further, so I just sipped beer and banged my head along with everyone else.

As soon as Crux were done the task of moving a load of musical gear and speaker boxes onto the floor began in earnest, as the Lightning Bolt fan boys and girls gathered tightly around the equipment to stake out the best viewing positions. All of them had no doubt been burned at a LB show before.

It’s a bit of a conundrum, this playing on the floor business. I get it that by not playing on a stage the band were initially trying to eliminate the divide between the band and audience. But in light of their current popularity it has the exact opposite effect – that of being even more exclusive and elitist. It creates a distinct culture of haves and have-nots – those that are stood one or two-deep and can therefore see what’s going on, and any of the suckers further back, who get to enjoy the great visual feast of the backs of other people’s heads for the whole show. Not to mention that it promotes unhealthy antagonism amongst the crowd when latecomers suddenly start jostling people’s girlfriends and shit. I fully believe in fighting for ones right to party, but in this instance it seems it could just easily be avoided if the band would get over their own ‘coolness’ and get up on the damn stage. But I digress…

As bassist Brian Gibson took to the non-stage and tooled up for action, drummer/vocalist Brian Chippendale tightened the straps on the leather facemask that houses his vocal mic before ominously clasping on a pair of heavy-duty blue earmuffs.

As anyone who has heard, seen, or felt Lightning Bolt live will attest; their sound blows minds, warps eardrums and turns sphincters inside out. Within about five seconds of starting, more than half the audience had lost 5% of its hearing, with others rushing to the bathroom to get toilet paper to stick in their ears.

Excruciating volume aside, what makes Lightning Bolt so impressive beyond the ability to create a noise louder than a fleet of jumbos is the incredible control both men wield over their instruments. They are ultra-fast, impossibly tight and unapologetically fucking LOUD!

After maybe 15 minutes of being aurally molested while catching only teasing glimpses of the two culprits through the crowd, I eventually retreated to the smoking zone out the back door, where I could hear just as well and see just as much as where I’d been before only with no sweaty people rubbing against me and less chance of a migraine later on.

Right on 11pm closing, Lightning Bolt punched out on the time clock. Punched it so damn hard, in fact, they practically ruined the rest of everyone’s working week.

————————————————-

Lightning Bolt MySpace: www.myspace.com/lightningboltbrians

Crux MySpace: www.myspace.com/cruxhc

Rice屎Corpse MySpace: www.myspace.com/justiceyeldham

Melbourne bands The Stabs and Witch Hats mustn’t have known what hit ‘em as they stepped off their respective planes earlier in the day to find Sydney engulfed in a killer heatwave. With the mercury pushing towards 40 (c) in parts of the metropolitan area, sporadic afternoon electrical storms merely added to the torment, failing to bring even a slight drop in the temperature as the relieving southerly decided to chuck a poorly-timed sickie.

The next day, as more than a hundred fires burned across New South Wales, state premier Nathan Rees (who I think is a total douche bag, BTW, and probably not a meteorological expert by any means) declared: “It has never been this hot, dry or windy in combination ever before.”

If it were physically possible to ‘sweat one’s balls off’, every dude in town would’ve been in the emergency ward. Humans tend to go a bit mental when roasted at such extreme temperatures – Queenslanders being the obvious example. I wasn’t in LA (or even alive) in ‘69, but I bet the night Manson’s crew creepy-crawled through the window at Polanski’s felt exactly like this one.

I’ll spare you the details of my sketchy train ride and subsequent hotfoot down George Street. Let’s just say I was relieved to arrive at La Campana sopping with sweat but otherwise unscathed.

For those who’ve never had the unique pleasure of a visit to La Campana Spanish Restaurant on Liverpool Street, imagine a Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmare waiting to happen with a funky little band room annexed onto the back.

After being treated poorly by the door staff (is the hand-held metal detector treatment really necessary?), rock show patrons are ushered down the stairs into the dimly lit restaurant through which they must walk to get to the ‘Goodgod Small Club’ at the far end. While I’m no expert on fine dining, it doesn’t take a cravat-wearing dandy-boy to realise it’s a far from desirable situation having sweaty, grungy music fans constantly moving back and forth through the middle of a private function where guests are trying to eat and enjoy the in-house entertainment (i.e. a Spanish grandmilf in a red dress prancing around on the dancefloor).

As I waited in the queue outside the door of Goodgod to pay the $12 entry I couldn’t help but pity the people down the end of the dining room trying to soak up the ‘cultural experience’ of the Spanish bird shaking her maracas while being simultaneously bombarded by murky, swamp rock frequencies from the back room.

In light of the insanity gripping the rest of the city, the inside of Goodgod was relatively chillaxed. If the restaurant seems like a write-off, the poky little band room is actually pretty sweet, with kooky décor, amicable bar-staff and a non-elitist come-as-you-are vibe.

Local troupe Ghosts Of Television were into their opening slot, with a healthy early crowd of around 50 to 100 already gathered. With a new LP, Forsaken Empire, for sale at the merch desk, the five-piece were eager to showcase mostly new stuff, which, even for someone not wholly au fait with their output like myself, seemed fairly easy to distinguish from their less adventurous old stuff.

Though I’m unaware of the titles, the two stand-out for me were one song built on a very odd, almost Zydeco-style rhythm driven further insane by guitar interplay that sounded like a couple of Zoot Horn Rollo clones engaged in perverted single-string coitus, and a doomier groove piece led by a Sabbathy bass riff that got a few young heads in attendance joyously banging along.

Witch Hats were out to hawk their latest effort, the excellent Solarium Down The Causeway 10”. With new dude Matt Cox on drums, the foursome kicked off by stringing together three of the new EPs’ six songs, but the venue’s fairly basic vocal PA set-up did them few favours. With kick and snare drums washed beneath flailing cymbals, Kris Buscombe’s vocal melodies – so crucial in distinguishing the band as being unique from other purveyors of similar post-punk – failed to translate effectively.

Throwing in one brand new song and a smattering of earlier ones, the highlight being “Jock The Untold” from their debut Wound Of A Little Horse EP, they managed to provoke little more than a few enthusiastic head nods. Maybe next time?

Like the two preceding acts, The Stabs have new product to promote in the form of their raw, visceral second full-length slab, Dead Wood. But rather than go for the hard sell right away, instead they thump into one of their oldest numbers, “That’s It”, from their first Weather Records 7” of ’04 (which has recently been re-pressed if you missed out first time). Despite having the fewest members of anyone else, the trio hits with close to double the brute force, with special mention reserved for drummer Matt “Buffy Tufnel” Gleeson. The bloke is an invalid who needs a cane just to walk, yet sit him on the stool and somehow he can hit and kick a drum-kit half to death.

Easily the most bizarre moment of the night came when bass player Mark Nielson led them off on an impromptu a-capella molestation of Glenn Miller’s “In The Mood” then claimed it was all because he was thinking about a friend’s dad’s funeral.

After playing for what felt like barely anytime at all, The Stabs announced that their last song would be “6 Ft Rodent” to howls of protest from the peanut gallery. Guitarist/vocalist Brendan Noonan got on the mic to explain they had to skip “No Hoper”, arguably the stand-out on Dead Wood, as he couldn’t hear his vocals sufficiently enough in the foldback to do the song justice. But the crowd wasn’t having a bar of it, and practically demanded it, shit vocals and all.

The band relented, and “No Hoper” ended up being one of the highlights. “Told you we couldn’t do that one,” said a smirking Noonan at the end.

Finishing with a slowed down and hard-bitten version of “6 Ft Rodent”, the set climaxed with Brendan rubbing the strings of his guitar up and down the tacky out-dated wall-tile-mural behind the stage before stabbing the headstock into the air conditioning duct, leaving the Fender hanging there feeding-back for just long enough that punters could capture the moment on their camera phones.

There’s people dropping dead all over Sydney from heat stroke and these cheeky Mexicans try and take out the air-conditioner – now that’s rock ‘n’ roll.

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The Stabs MySpace: www.myspace.com/thestabs

Witch Hats MySpace: www.myspace.com/witchhats

Ghosts Of Television MySpace: www.myspace.com/ghostsoftelevision