On Friday morning I noticed a headline on the news feed streamed into the lift in our office building: “Listening to music can relieve stress and contribute to a sense of wellbeing, study shows”. While the scientific basis of the research wasn’t apparent, anecdotally the study results rang true, none more so than at tonight’s Monsters of Jangle evening at The Tote.
Melbourne’s legendary mod pop outfit Little Murders – still going strong 35 years after the ‘70s mod revival – and Ash Naylor, a man whose repertoire of songs is larger than Paul Keating’s catalogue of scathing critiques, had already completed their sets by the time we braved the torrential rain and arrived at The Tote.
The last time I’d had the opportunity of seeing Stoneage Hearts was over ten years ago, when the rain also poured down and Dom Mariani and Ian Wettenhall joined drummer Mick Baty in the second version of the band. This time Baty’s enlisted Tony Dyer, Simon Kay and David Hine; for a recalibrated and rejuvenated Stoneage Hearts according to rumour, the latest incarnation of Stoneage Hearts coagulated around a common interest in Red Kross’s Researching the Blues. The songs from the new Stoneage Hearts album Hung Up (On You) pack a tough melodic punch, and the sun-drenched attitude is at odds with the shitty weather outside.
Dom Mariani hasn’t played a DM3 gig in Melbourne in about 15 years. On the back of renewed local and overseas interest, Mariani has called up his original DM3 colleagues Toni Italiano and Pascal Bartalone, the latter’s outfit of business shirt, tie and waist coast rendering the best-dressed rock’n’roll drummer since Charlie Watts in 1965.
Mariani has a stranglehold on the powerpop construct. Foolish, Far From Here, the interminably brilliant 1 Times, 2 Times Devastated and everything else. Mariani is alternately the sun-drenched pop song-smith and the grimacing garage rocker waging war against the insipid forces of corporate rock. There’s the occasional dip into The Someloves catalogue, and there are only satisfied grins to be seen across the largely mature rock’n’roll crowd. There’s a tribute to The Raspberries; the first encore commenced with Badfinger’s No Matter What and concludes with a guest-packed version of Big Star’s When My Baby’s Beside Me.
The lights dim but Mariani loiters in the wings, calling Italiano and Bartalone for an impromptu rendition of The Plimsouls’ Zero Hour. As the band departs for the last time, I ponder the headline I saw in the lift earlier in the day. Music is good for the soul, and DM3 is a band of powerpop spiritual beauty.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Loved: The Big Star cover. Fuck, does it get any better than this?
Hated: A wet bike seat on the way home.
Drank: Cooper’s Pale.
