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Post by joylesshouse on Dec 21, 2022 1:40:29 GMT
A lot of folks finally got smart this fall and paid Hue Blanc's Joyless Ones enough jack to play Gonerfest in Memphis Tennessee USA. It was the only way yours truly, considering the advanced state of my domestication, my advanced age, my not giving a fuck if I ever pick up a guitar again, as I have only precious little time for such childish garbage, was ever going to see one of these festivals. I went to enough Blackouts to get the gist. Nothing much has changed since then. Though Memphis is an infinitely cooler town than Chicago. (I trust I don't have to suck dick on the worst city in America in a forum that I HAVE BEEN ASSURED (BY WHOM I ASSUME IS THE CAPTAIN OF THIS WHOLE POINTLESS CRUISE TO NOWHERE??) no one reads! Anyhow, if you don't know that Memphis is more fun than Chicago you're probably spinning NIN records and cutting yourself. (Yuck)
Aaaaanywho.... if necessity is the mother of invention, then luck is the pussy that had me. Gonerfest made these sweet little booklets with a run down of all the bands that played (there were like 30 or 40) complete with pictures and little write ups and everything. They had bums handing these out like the hooker trading cards in Vegas to every befuddled tourist that wandered a block off of Beale Street. POINT BEING: I happen to have a neat little memory guide and template for a story that otherwise never would've happened. This will be like... a foray into rock journalism. If you will.
Let's do this the easy way.
Day1 Thursday
Band #1 David Nance & Mowed Sound: I don't know, didn't see them. We didn't get there early enough. It was like a 14 hour drive! We arrived on time to get barbecue, anyway.
Band #2 Research Reactor Core: This one should appeal heavily to the mongrels of greater Oceania! RRC are Aussies. They were quite good. The singer does a nice mongoloid act on stage. Aussie tardo rock/HC. The kind of stuff I find forgettable on recordings but enjoy live. The singer acquitted himself quite well to Casey's challenge to a drinking contest; 'good luck' he said without missing a beat. Smarter than he looks on stage, that fella. Runs a record label or something.
#3 Bennett: Meh... I don't know. Kinda Bowie-ish. I felt like the vibe was that you were supposed to be awed by the sexual ambiguity while Bennett gave you spooky, condescending looks. I'm sure it's great, I just... couldn't get on the ride. Like: I. Don't. Find. This. Titillating. But anyway, to each their own.
#4 Rosali: I din't see much of this. Off somewhere drinking/wandering? (this was the only night we had to pay for drinks btw) The bit I saw struck me as like a female Tom Petty. Or maybe she just looked like Tom Petty. IDK. Guitar driven, kind of airy. One of the guys bought a record so it must have been okay.
#5 The King Kahn & BBQ Show: This is the reason we came down early Thursday. Hadn't seen them in a long time. They were on a huge tour and you know what happens... Mark Sultan fucking gets Covid the night before the Gonerfest! Fuck me in the privy. So being a bunch of brilliant hicks, Gregg Cartwright & Jack Oblivion played with King Kahn. It was funny. Definitely worth seeing. You know, endearing watching your heros fuck up 2-chord songs just like you would.
#6 Shannon & The Clams: I had never seen them. I was completely sold. I love 50s early-60s styled rock and they do it amazingly well. Pristine vocals and expert musicianship. The singer/guitar guy has the whole disdainful prick attitude that plays nicely with the girl singer's lovely doomed crooner schtick. Fucking loved them.
....fuck that's a lot of writing. I will get on to day two... possibly tomorrow.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Dec 21, 2022 12:09:43 GMT
Top write-up, old man. What sort of crowd numbers we talking? 
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Post by joylesshouse on Dec 22, 2022 0:05:39 GMT
not sure... but I would say a couple thousand people? It was held at a right CAPITAL facility! an old train depot... there's a bar and the show space is out back, the stage is made of old freight cars... all kinds of space; like a one stage festival grounds, but. not too big. They had a porch off of the bar building where bands got free booze and could fraternize and look down at all the peasants... spectacular... THIS IS NOT PART OF THE OFFICIAL WRITE UP, BTW!
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Post by joylesshouse on Dec 22, 2022 1:24:12 GMT
Day 2 Friday
Band #1 Hue Blanc's Joyless Ones FFS!!: Great, obviously. That's why we got the prime slot: crack of noon flush under the nut-splitting sun of a 90-degree day in the American South! Cool thing about Friday was Tom Smith from Green Bay, Wi MC'd. So it felt kind of like a home game. At times I got the feeling we were receiving some lifetime pity-achievement award... but all the free piss rather soothed any sting that notion might have delivered.
Band #2 Freak Genes: From Manchester England. Right lads! Good angular, spastic new wave punk? Something like that. I made a crack about their newly dead monarch and they laughed politely. The one fella also acquitted himself splendidly to Casey's drinking challenge, threatened Casey physically I believe. Right on!
Band #3 Partner Look: More Aussies. Didn't see them. Eating barbecue.
Band #4 Freezing Hands: Desperately, or at least fairly earnestly tried to rally my mates to make it back on time to see these guys. They were billed as super-hooky pop-punk and the one dude was in some band that I saw play with the 45s in Green Bay a million years ago... ah, but we dragged our feet hoofing from the airbnb and only caught about a minute of their last song. but they were nice guys. and old.
Band #5 Aquarian Blood: meh... local heros of some sort... indie-meth-country? acoustic guitars and warshboards... IDK, didn't grab me.
Band #5 Serfs: um... kind of arty punk, synths, some kind of Pagans-esqu songs... all fine and good, but... the thing is... they had this incredibly hot blond girl in the band wearing a skirt that barely covered her privates... and though I'm as enlightened as the next guy and all about the art, of course... I found myself kind of distracted honestly, angling for a nice southwest vantage point by the front of the stage... They're from Cincinnati of all places.
Band #6 Sweet Knives: Fucking awesome. It's Alicia and Rich from The Lost Sounds with others. Bringing that certain edge that was unique to the Jay Retard affiliated bands–and proof that the edge didn't just come from Jay. Fast, riff-heavy catchy, angry, awesome. Makes you wanna punch somebody. Absolute pros.
Band #7 Green/Blue: Sounded like... they had to follow Sweet Knives, honestly. Left me limp. (To be fair my wiener is 44 years old)
Band #8 AWFM (A Weirdo From Memphis): A local rapper. Very weird, pretty entertaining. All in on the schtick. At one point he got a ladder and climbed up on top of the rail cars and led a chant of "Fuck my job, I hate goin' there". I feel you, Weirdo.
Band #9 Gee Tee: More Aussies! They were pretty good. Straight forward trashy tardo-rock. Pretty good songs. Good kids. The singer liked to use the word hooch-mamma in conversation. Seemed to drink pretty heavily.
Band #10 Spray Paint: Kind of reminded me of what we would sound like if we got stuck with a slot this late in the night. Like, what are we doing here?
Band #11 Snooper: My favorite band of the whole weekend. Revelatory. They must eat so much speed! Devo-influenced pogo punk. If that doesn't sound good to you, your on the wrong planet. Female singer, never stopped jumping up and down but somehow managed to deliver every line. Dudes in track suits with mullets, but not in the jerk-off frat boy style, more in the possibly seriously demented style. I felt like I was sixteen again, biffing about in the pit slamming the horrible local malt liquor that was the only free beer left at that point in the night. Absolute boner juice.
Band #12 Fred Lane & His Disheveled Monkeybiters: This was a fucking production. Fred Lane is apparently some kind of legend. I've actually really liked some of the stuff I've heard... kind of like demented swing/big band singer/songwriter stuff. Captain Beefheart-esque? It just didn't quite play for me after all the previous bands had me so jacked up. Also, they sound checked right before our set and the sound guy was having a fucking mental breakdown cuz the monkeybiters had a full horn section, strings, chorus, etc. that he was trying to deal with and thus our sound was fucked up for half our set. So maybe I held that against them. We left after about 15 minutes; I bought a bag of beef jerky and a 24-oz Sierra Nevada from a gas station, and hit the airbnb... where we found out the Hibachi Stranglers from Alabama were our neighbors in the duplex we were renting. We played with them in Kewaunee, WI about a hundred years ago! What are the fucking odds!
Shit, I guess I'll break down day 3 tomorrow. I'm tired. I work for a living you fucking slobs!!!
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Dec 22, 2022 11:35:04 GMT
Band #10 Spray Paint: Kind of reminded me of what we would sound like if we got stuck with a slot this late in the night. Like, what are we doing here?
In my mind, Spray Paint are "bigger" than all the other bands that played that day put together. |
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Dec 22, 2022 23:45:56 GMT
Band #5 Serfs: but... the thing is... they had this incredibly hot blond girl in the band wearing a skirt that barely covered her privates... and though I'm as enlightened as the next guy and all about the art, of course... I found myself kind of distracted honestly, angling for a nice southwest vantage point by the front of the stage...After a breathless dash thru google image search...  ....odd how you can trace her deevolution vie google images from 2013 when she was...   ...now I feel a bit dirty in my daddy bit. Great. Just great. Look what you've done Prokash! |
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Post by joylesshouse on Dec 23, 2022 0:15:44 GMT
Haven't heard any Spray Paint recordings to be fair. Also, to be fair, the above pictures mostly feature the face part of that lady.
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Post by joylesshouse on Dec 23, 2022 1:51:27 GMT
Saturday coming, baby... the pinnacle of any... however-many-day festival...
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Post by joylesshouse on Dec 23, 2022 19:47:51 GMT
Day 3 SATURDAY
Band 1 Leopardo: Didn't see 'em. This was the most hungover day of the festival, mind you.
Band 2 Screensaver: Didn't see 'em. Eating Gus's Fried Chicken at the time. You must try it if you never have. Spicy, fried, not broasted. By this point we had eaten Payne's, Cozy Corner & Gus's. The holy trilogy if you will. The weekend could end at this point.
Band 3 Retail Simps: Missed them, I think. Went to the record store at some point and picked up copies of Blastronaut (Lee Harvey Oswald Band) and The Empire Strikes Back (Country Teasers), biggies from back in the day that I listened to a lot but never had proper copies of. Now I do!
Band 4 Ibex Clone: Missed them too. Having a lot of bowel-related issues at this. point. Really WORKING at that fried chicken, if you know what I mean. Could've gone with the 2-piece instead of the half.
Band 5 Crime of Passing: The blond chick is back! I wanted to see this act for purely puerile purposes. Casey and I were having a whisky at the airbnb I think, staving off personal crisis and that sort of thing. Hadn't the gall to demand we sprint to the venue so I could spy an illicit spot of cooch. Missed 'em.
Band 6 Msr. Jeffrey Evans: I believe we walked up while Jeff Evans was finishing his last song. A Memphis legend and all, shame to miss him I'm sure. At this point I didn't care if I never laid eyes on another Southerner as long as I lived.
Band 7 New Buck Biloxi: Ok, this one's something of a stumper to me. I feel like I was at the venue at this point, but I don't remember seeing this band. We had forced our way back into the VIP area, so quite possibly I was 'taking the cure' at the private bar off the exclusive high porch. A note on human nature: if your going to start treating some lifelong dogs like rockstars, you better be ready with the piss and damn good property insurance.
Band 8 Michael Beach: Another Aussie! Fuck off mate! Couldn't tell you anything else about him except that Michael Zink said he was maybe his favorite act of the festival. So there's that.
Band 9 Sick Thoughts: I give up. I remember almost nothing about this weekend. Fuck me. I'm sure they were great.
Band 10 Negative Approach: Yes, THAT Negative Approach. I was only familiar with the name really, probably from reading MRR as a kid. They were fucking awesome. My favorite set of the weekend other than maybe Snooper. It's a close call. I even descended from the VIP to get right in the thick of it. Thank heavens, violence isn't dead yet! A huge lightening storm going off in the background while these sadistic old farts are just fucking hammering at it; the singer grimace-fucking the crowd like he was working on shitting a live bunny. Bravo to the precious fools who put this line up together!
Band 11 Compulsive Gamblers: Great of course. One of the bands that inspired our own pathetic attempts at making music. They're pros, musicians, the whole bit. And they're actually good fellas! True desperate southern gentlemen. A fine capper to a mixed-memory weekend. Cap that crapper and let's beat it back to Wisconsin, lads.
We didn't stick around for Sunday. We have jobs, families, all that depressing bullshit. I give Gonerfest 19 five stars! One highlight of the weekend that I forgot to include in the write up proper was Timmy Vulgar DJ-ing Friday night. Playing great shit, scratched up records... a band finishes their set and silence ensues... discontented murmuring from the crowd, where's Timmy? Oh shit, hold my beer! as Timmy comes flying down the staircase from the VIP. Haha... Just a lovefest for lovable losers like us. Will go again in another nineteen years.
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Post by joylesshouse on Dec 23, 2022 19:51:42 GMT
one omission: Day 3 Saturday Band 10.5 Tyvek: They're cool. We played with them in Green Bay back in the day. Sandwiched in between Negative Approach and the Compulsive Gamblers I just didn't have the attention span. Mostly wandered around the grounds barking at strangers
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Dec 23, 2022 23:24:54 GMT
Top effort, old fruit. Day 3 SATURDAY
Band 10 Negative Approach: Yes, THAT Negative Approach. I was only familiar with the name really, probably from reading MRR as a kid. They were fucking awesome. My favorite set of the weekend other than maybe Snooper. It's a close call. I even descended from the VIP to get right in the thick of it. Thank heavens, violence isn't dead yet! A huge lightening storm going off in the background while these sadistic old farts are just fucking hammering at it; the singer grimace-fucking the crowd like he was working on shitting a live bunny.
They must be old as shiiiiit.
Guessing it attracted a different crowd element to all youz garage turkeys too? |
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Post by joylesshouse on Dec 24, 2022 0:12:49 GMT
yeah man, he sounded great. and they were old. it felt like a kind of victory over everything that's happened in the past 20 years, a victory over style, etc. Harkening back to a time where punk meant something and you might get beat up if you act like a fatuous fart bag.
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Post by Sprague Dawley on Feb 14, 2023 0:01:45 GMT
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