NEWS FROM THE ROAD 1 - RICS BAR, BRISBANEThis was a cool little trendy bar. There's nothing in Newcastle that you can really compare it to; it's small and they don't have much of a pa but the crowd seemed to want to be there and hear some music. If you've seen 'High Fidelity' it's the sort of bar that Rob and the Musical Moron Twins would go and hang out.
It turns out one of the bar workers was our 'friend' from Myspace and a few other internet acquaintances showed up too. It was good to see a few punters come in off the street, we were playing in the mall in the middle of Fortitude Valley on the Easter long weekend so there were plenty of cats around. Al described Bell Divers, (the band who played after us) as the epitome of indie rock. They played a set of quaint pop tunes and everyone seemed to enjoy it.
We decided to crash in Brisbane with Trav and Fallon and arrived at their place to find it filled with free steak and beer. We hung around and checked out the city the next day which was rad. Lots of cool architecture and fake beaches and footbridges. Then back to the Gold Coast.
NEWS FROM THE ROAD 2 - CHOP HOUSE, GOLD COASTWe basically did nothing all week. Mental note: don't book 3 gigs in a different state when two of them are 5 days apart. We got really excited on Thursday 'cause we went to rehearse at a local studio, just because it was something to do.
The Chop House was somewhat reminiscent of the Bamboo Lounge in
Goodfellas. Part diner, part pool hall. It was right on the Esplanade at Surfer's Paradise with the beach just across the road. Consequently there were a whole lot of sk8er bois and grlz around and not a lot of rock kids that night. Some guy walked up to Jore, who was having a Coke from Maccas, took his drink, had a sip, put it down and said "Good on ya, mate!" WTF? Anywho, we played our set to a pretty empty room. Kudos to the Burns twins who were there from Newcastle for rocking up and sharing an hour of their collective birthday with us.
The Handsome Women was like Nick Cave replaced Adam Duritz from Counting Crows and invited a strangely erratic punk bass player. That doesn't make much sense, but the singer definitely had some Cave-esque intensity and we couldn't quite figure out what the rest of the band sounded like. it was good to see Matt Slavin, of previous Paperadio and Chinese New Year fame, pounding the crap out of the skins again.
NEWS FROM THE ROAD 3 - THE ALLEY BAR, BRISBANENo kidding, it's an actual bowling alley. When you're stanind in the toilets you can hear the machine that dumps the used pins on the big pile out the back and lathes the new ones to replace them.
We didn't get to see much of the first band because we waited around for two hours for a soundcheck that never happened and then went to get some food. We'd played with Glasshouse (2nd band) before in Newcastle. Three cheers for Stew (bass) who filed in on vox when their singer lost his voice. Maybe now Dan will rethink his pre-gig ritual of inhaling a cactus before every show. JB nearly broke his spine wen he sat on one of the deceptively soft-looking chairs and went crashing straight through to the floor.
We met some more MySpacers and sold some more CDs. When we got back to Trav and Fal's not only was the
Sabotage video on, but also the full 20min feature of
Thriller. We were so impressed that we decided to leave one of Jore's toms in Brisbane instead of putting it in the car, and moonwalk the 900km home.
NEWS FROM THE ROAD 4 - THE OXFORD TAVERN, WOLLONGONGWe'd heard this was the venue to play in the Gong but it looks like an RSL when you walk in. There's plasticy tables and chairs in front of the stage with those Keno pencils and stuff.
This was the first in what became a ritual of arriving at the venue way too early and having to kil several hours between loading in and playing. It was prety cold and there weren't many people there; one old bastard misinterpreted a joke about everybody being at church and for the rest of the night kept yelling out for us to play covers by The Church. JB attempted to find a compromise by throwing a melody from the old hymn "Lord Be Merciful To Me" into one of his solos, but this appeared not to satisfy said bastard. We sold no CDs and hightailed it back north to Sydney.
Just before the security guard almost ran over JB's camera in the carpark.
NEWS FROM THE ROAD 5 - THE CAT & FIDDLE, BALMAINWhat a relief to be back at the Cat where they have a decent PA and generally get a crowd who are keen to see some bands. We were disappointed that Andy (the sound guy from the last time we played here) was away but his replacement bot only did a top job but also bought our EP.
One of the good things about the Cat is that the room is pretty shallow so you always have a nice bunch of people up the front. As it happens, a decent crowd showed up to welcome us back and we got rid of some more CDs. We caught a few tunes from the last band, Acid Eyeliner, but being just a touch too old to relate to their scene we retired to the front bar to scribble scenes from Lethal Weapon 1 all over a coaster. Check it out:
NEWS FROM THE ROAD 6 - LANSDOWNE HOTEL, SYDNEYDefinitely the biggest gig of the tour so far. We got a bit worried wen we saw the worksheet, which said we were on at 12:30AM, but everyone stuck around. Some people who saw us at the Cat last night brought their friends along tonight and there must have been about 200 in there. We learned our lesson from the Oxford and went back to Rach's for dinner after loading in. We got back to the pub when Hey Da Vinci were playing. They belted out a very tight and energetic set. Our set went over well, especially with one plamboyant dancer up the front, and then it was back to Rach's for a little drinky.
Someone decided it was a good idea to make a hobo fire in this metal bin thing out the back. They were right. Pete cooked a hunk of roo by holding it over the flames with a pair of tongs. The sun was starting to come up before everyone went to sleep and the place looked like a real mess.
Now, we like to think we're pretty good at making music but what we're REALLY good at is a fryup. It's become a Glass Army tradition that after a big gig we make up a huge breakfast for whoever hung on from the night before, and this morning was probably the best we've done. Bacon, eggs, toast, mushrooms, hash brown, coffee and juice. The perfect hangover cure.
Check out TTJ's review of the gig
NEWS FROM THE ROAD 7 - GRAND CENTRAL HOTEL, LITHGOWLithgow was really cold and ultra-deserted. Al tried to get some chicken and chips from one of the local shops but was told they were out of chicken. So guess what the next customer got - CHICKEN AND EFFING CHIPS!
This gig was another example of getting to the venue several hours early and having to wait around for ages to play. This was also our first free hotel room of the tour. We were on the top floor and, even though it had a good view, we had to climb up and down a zillion stairs every time we forgot something. The icing onthe cake was the bathroom; it had one of those pain-in-the-arse timed light switches that pops back out every 2 minutes, so if you're having a shower you end up with no light.
We kicked off at about 10pm to the 5 old blokes who were already there drinking at the time, and they kept calling out for us to play Khe Sanh. We threw a couple of covers into the first set but the onlookers were only vaguely interested in the first place so it probably wouldn't have made much difference. Oh yeah, plus Al was getting zapped in the mouth by the microphone every time he touched it. We still had a lot of work ahead of us; we were the only band of the night so we had to play for a total of three hours.
By the time it hit 1 o'clock we were buggered, even though we wouldn't have played to more than 15 people at any given time during the night. We were realy looking forward to seeing TOOL guest program RAGE but you couldn't use the tv in the upstairs lobby after 10:30. Wen we woke up we hit the road bright and early and took our freezing arses further up the mountain.
The view from our hotel room onto the empty Lithgow street below.
NEWS FROM THE ROAD 8 - HOTEL GEARIN, KATOOMBAWe had a great time in Katoomba. The coffee was good and even though it was still cold, at least people existed there and were walking around doing and saying things. We rugged up in scarves and big jackets so we could walk around looking like our post-rock idols, taking heaps of photos in the mountainous surrounds. The gale-forced wind almost cost Jore his life when it took hold of his huge trenchcoat, and we had to to grab him by the shoulders and haul him to the ground.
The pub we played in was a bit art deco with big upstairs rooms ad staircases. Apparently the moose head on the wall wasn't a trophy, it was just sticking throughthe wall from the kitchen where they hack bits off its arse to sell as $5 steaks in the bistro. Al named it Bruce and it received several song dedications throughout the course of the evening. But then again, being one of four in the audience it had pretty good odds.
The gig itself was a bit of a non-event. We literally played to the other act, Heather and Gareth from "The Good," who were also from Newcastle. Keith, the organiser, hooked us both up with a room so we hung out for a bit afterwards and did cool breakfast and mountains hangs in the morning. Come Monday afternoon we didn't really want to leave and were making plans to build a studio up there when we become rich and famous millionaire playboy superstars.
NEWS FROM THE ROAD 9 - THE OLD MANLY BOATSHED, MANLY A few devotees made the mid-week trek over to Manly, and the middle-aged regulars filled out the room to a respectable density. Unfortunately, there was weird foldback and no room onstage so it was a bit of a mission cranking out the loud bits. Good to be back in Sydney, though. We caught up with mates, packed up our shit, dressed up in suits and prepared for the drive south to our nation's glorious capital.
Photos by TTJ
NEWS FROM THE ROAD 10 - TOAST NIGHTCLUB, CANBERRAOur street directory had been printed
just after Federation, so most of the streets were news to us. We loaded in through some sort of secret underground passageway into Toast. The frontage was inconspicuous enough, but on the inside it looked like some kind of cool chillout club, where the public servants flock after work for Martinis and Massive Attack.
The stage was nice and huge, and we were the only band scheduled to use it so we took our sweet time loading in and chatting with the friendly proprietor. It was cold ourtside, but we playes ahot set. See how I used "cold" and "hot" to tie two otherwise unrelated things together? That's why we have ME writing the lyrics, baby. Cheers to Brian for giving us free takeaways and being a generally easygoing cat.
Some cool dudes we met on the way to Canberra
Some of the highbrow graffiti in the bathrooms at Toast
NEWS FROM THE ROAD 11 - POT BELLY BAR, CANBERRAAfter crashing the night with old school buddy Bron, we decided to check out the well-maintained sights of Canberra. We dodged schoolgirls in the War Memorial and visited the House of Representatives to impersonate out frontbench heroes from Question Time. The Pot Belly Bar is a restaurant by day and a raucous Irish pub by night.
The night opened with the shit-hot melodies of
From The South, followed by the sweaty Bluebottle-Strokes rock of our MySpace mates,
The Guests. By the time we took the stage there was a fun-lovin' crowd of young Canberrans bouncing around up the front. Through some kind of freakish gear warp, the face-zapping PA from Lithgow had somehow made its way to the ACT and Al copped another few volts through the mouth. "Happy Birthday in G Major" brought the house down, and we had a generally tops night. And another killer barbecue breakfast at Bron's the following morn.
NEWS FROM THE ROAD 12 - THE ROB ROY, MELBOURNEWe spent about seventeen zillion dollars on fuel driving down to Victoria the day before, so when we got there we were feeling a bit stingy. After arriving around 8PM, a little more fuel was used driving up and down Sydney Rd haggling for a motel room. Most of the next day was spent cruising around Melbourne looking for a park, until we finally took the stage at about 9PM. Of course, there were very few people in the room at the time, but we got an exciting response, met some rad Melbournians, sold some EPs and hooked into out rider while Light Says Solo and
Pitching Woo wowed us with their sweet tunes. At 1AM we hit the road and drove all night, straight to Sydney for a huge nap. No more shows for us, but we hung out and saw some other bands, finally getting very hammered and very sick.
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