Posts tagged ‘Music’
A Typical Gig in Sydney – Three Wise Monkeys Bar
We recently played a gig at Three Wise Monkeys Bar in central Sydney. For those that don’t know, 3 Wise Monkeys is a questionable bar. Why? The patrons (mostly young European backpackers) have questionable hygiene and questionable substances in their blood, there are questionable stains on the toilet walls, questionable odours permeating the corners and questionable amounts of change are handed back after each round of drinks bought.
Several highlights of the night:
- A fat British man in a suit had consumed a questionable pill and entertained the crowd near the stage with his dancing stylings. This consisted of running stationary on the spot with a big grin on his sweaty, shiny face. In fact I have a sneaking suspicion it was Peter Kay. The funny thing was that even between songs he continued running stationary on the spot with no music to back him up.
- Free beer for the band. That’s always a highlight for me. Would be slightly better however if we didn’t have to redeem them with rather large, tacky pink paper vouchers that we hand over to the bar. Hardly a cool look.
- A wannabe hip hop dancer (see the 6 types of drunk dancer) who had recently used up her 20 hour gift-voucher at the solarium last week. Well, that’s my only explanation….or she might have decided that painting every inch of her skin with orange crayon would have the same effect. Anyway, she had her hands in the air for every song, akin to a born-again christian raising her arms to God in a church service. Unlike a church service however, she had a see-through white top on purchased from the toddler section at K-Mart, and 2 inches of muffin-top oozing down all sides of her jeans. She looked like an Oompa Loompa auditioning for a Christian Hip Hop music video.
- The DJ. I’ve always been amused by the type of people large establishments employ. Their bouncers are always power-hungry meat-heads who failed the police-recruits drug test. They decided that bouncing (is that what you call the profession?) would be a similar legitimate way to spend time punching unfortunate souls in the head. Their DJ’s are unintelligent wannabe musicians who don’t understand a thing about music and think semi-quavers are the side effects of a bad coke session, syncopation is the Italian word for the job that you go to during the day, and Beethoven is a sub-breed of St Bernard dog. On this particular night, the DJ insisted on screaming out “G’DAY SYDNEY HOW YA’S GOING!! FUCKING WHOA!!!” at the start of every song. I think this particular DJ learnt English from the Russian botox-blonde Eurovision presenter.
I'm a DJ. I get all the girls
Now for the sad part of the night. After the gig, my band members and I were standing outside a nearby kebab store, and witnessed two Asian males in a heated argument. One had a rather large head, one had glasses. To my horror, Glasses punched BigHead rather hard in the mouth with a left jab. As BigHead was stumbling backward, Glasses executed a perfectly formed right roundhouse kick to the head that would have made Mr Miyagi proud. BigHead was out cold before he even reached the ground, a victim of a drunken violent ‘friend’. Robbo and I grabbed Glasses and shoved him backward as he prepared to finish the job with a soccer-ball kick to the head.
The police arrived very soon after and threw Glasses on the ground, arrested him and took him away. We all made individual statements to the police following the incident.
In an effort to give Glasses a taste of being physically assaulted and violated, I added in my statement “I heard what they were arguing about. Glasses was trying to convince BigHead to insert a condom laden with cocaine deep inside his anus. Glasses had previously done this an hour before and it wasn’t noticeable at all unless you shove a finger deep inside there.”
I hope he suffers.
Eurovision 2009
Following on from my rant on the sad nature of Australian television, I’m finding myself sitting on the couch watching Eurovision Moskva 2009.
Next to me, my girlfriend is rapt at the ‘live’history being written in front of our eyes. She cannot understand why I am currently laughing harder than Dr Hibbert in a pot-smoking session. As a European she takes this very seriously, Eurovision being such an integral part of their culture and all. Nowadays, mainland European toddlers can sing last years Eurovision winning song “Your Love Is All Over My Face” before they can walk.
Isn’t it amusing how all Russian Eurovision TV presenters (well, at least these two anyway) insist on shouting at the absolute top of their voices.
They must believe we will be a bit more forgiving of their rudimentary English if they imagine they’re communicating with down-syndrome deaf pensioners.
10 minutes earlier, the barbie-doll blonde and gay-sailor Fabio lookalike male presenter (I’ll call them Botox-Mole and Popeye as I can’t spell their names) introduced “Eurovision – 2009′s Most-Anticipated Event” (according to the tv ad…I’m confused here because the man at the train station said the second coming of Jesus is this year) with the following dialogue:
Popeye: “HELLO!!!!”
Botox-Mole: “HELLO!!!!”
“HELLO EUROPE!!!!”
“HELLO EVERYBODY!!!!”
“WELCOME EUROVISION!!!!!”
“HELLO!!!!”
“WELCOME!!!”
“HELLO WELCOME EUROVISION!!!!”
….and with that, the first act went on.
Eurovision rules stipulate original music only. Czech Republic was disqualified for performing a cover version of 'YMCA'
Andorra sang “Gimme gimme your time, Show me show me your mind”. The entire song consisted of those same lyrics. Pretty thought provoking.
Belarus was quite good if you fancy 50 year old long-haired blonde men in skin-tight white suits with pierced ears and waxed chests.
Armenia’s singer got his costume inspiration from the second installment of Lord of the Rings. His dancers were inspired by the second installment of Harry Potter.
Macedonia looked like a cross between Meatloaf and Buddha, sounded like it too. Okay, admittedly I’ve personally never heard Buddha sing (although my mate Davo fervently insists that he has) but you get the point. Imagine if they did pair up to do a song, their comeback song could be called “Reincarnated Bat Out Of Hell”.
Finland wore a bandanna in an attempt to emulate Kid Rock. He actually resembled (visually and audibly) a throat-cancer patient.
Portugal attempted the virginal Sound-Of-Music look with frilly dresses. However, this was contrasted by over-enthusiastic musicians with exaggerated hand-movements strumming inappropriately sized instruments (is it really necessary to swing your arm Elvis-like in a circular motion when playing a 20cm ukulele made from bone?).
Malta made the bold decision to front their best vocalist in the country, regardless of looks, bust or hamstring-flexibility. The result was a grossly over-weight redhead squeezed into a size 10 sparkly dress who reminded me of Miss-Piggy doing karaoke.
Boznia Herzegovina (try telling that to the ladies next time you’re asked where you’re from) basically just sang their national anthem over-zealously in reggae. Shivers down the spine.
…oh wait Botox-Mole and Popeye are back on:
“THANK YOU EUROVISION 2009!!!!”
“HELLO!!!!”
“WE VOTE NOW!!!!”
“WHOA!!!!”
“OKAY EVERYBODY!!!!”
“HELLO WHOOOOO!!!!”
“EVERYBODY VOTE TV OKAY!!!!”
“HELLO VOTE!!!!”
“EUROPE VOTING!!!!”
“WELCOME EUROVISION VOTING!!!!”
I can’t wait for the box-set DVD.
The Six Types of Drunk Dancer
Are we human, or are we dancer?
We played a gig at St Marys Leagues Club last Saturday night. (side note: you know you’ve made it in the music industry when you’ve played that club). St Marys is a western Sydney suburb, about 1 hour drive west of the city, 9935 miles from America. The Leagues Club is typical of a good standard Australian RSL/footy club with cheap beer, fast salmonella-free bistro and plenty of pokies.
Don’t get me wrong, it was actually a pretty good gig and the oldies there really loved us. Now, I’m not pretending to be an eastern-suburbs snob now that I’m living in Bondi, but it’s always good fun watching the oldies out in the western suburbs really rocking out to a good tune.
So, whilst on stage (we were on for a good 3 hours), I watched the dancers and segregated them into six groups based on their dancing styles. Who said men couldn’t multi task?
Sharon used this as an opportunity to rehearse for her "So You Think You Can Dance" audition
The Six Types of Drunk Dancer
The Handbag Dancer - Typically a younger, style-conscious, female. Found shuffling on the dance floor clutching her imitation-Gucci handbag with stiff, unmoving arms. Often also falls under the Non-Smiler category.
The Reality Show Wannabe – The glammed-up dancer that spent their weeknights practicing their disco moves in front of the mirror. Now that they have an audience, the Britney and Jennifer moves can break out.
Inappropriate Salsa Dancers – Couples busting out with salsa/tango moves to totally inappropriate music. Obviously had dance classes during the week and thought that this was a perfect opportunity to practice their moves. Unfortunately, Green Day’s ‘Welcome to Paradise’is hardly ideal to gain confidence in Double Reverse Spins.
The Non-Smiler – These dancers bop around – pulling out the great moves, but with a serious “I have to appear cool by not smiling” look on their face. This unfortunately often translates to looking like they just found out their cat passed away from diabetes.
The Head Nodder – Typically blokes, the Head Nodder doesn’t have any other moves in their inventory but nodding their head out of time to the music. Classic stance is keeping their hands in pockets. Often there because of the close presence of HandBag Dancers.
Wannabe Black Dancers – Wannabe Black Dancers attempt the same pre-rehearsed hip-hop moves to every song. However, they have two problems. 1, They’re not black. 2, They can’t dance
Drunk sluts – Obviously out to get laid, the drunk sluts will rub against and dirty-dance with any guy that looks twice at them.
The Cureheads in Teatro Caupolicán, Santiago, Chile.
Well….so I’ve been thinking and that previous theme will clearly not last more than one more post.
Back to back meetings all day today and I’m completely and utterly exhausted, and it’s not even home time yet! Proposals, WIP meetings, more proposals….
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