James Grim is both curating and playing the festival, now in its 2nd year. The show that takes over the whole Espy, James says, will spook the fake teeth and bandages off you. “If you took the best of B-grade horror and slasher films, Drunken Moon would be the soundtrack,” James begins. “You want horror? Just get in the front row for Batpiss. Or see me in my underwear. It’s all trick or treat down there!” A truly terrifying image, if there ever was one.
More importantly, Drunken Moon is a celebration of live music. The premise that gave Drunken Moon rise is simple. Every act on the multi-state bill will electrify the stage. This is James’ bonafide guarantee.
“I really wanted to create a platform where I could show off a lot of interstate bands to other states,” James says, mapping it out. “We come across bands that have never played Melbourne or Brisbane so we thought to create a touring-festival party and bring all those bands out.”
James has seen audiences craving quality live music in Australia. Drunken Moon is a real party for people who shout back twice as loud when music speaks to them.
“I’m not a fan of the shoegaze stuff,” James says, explaining Drunken Moon’s foundations. “I don’t want to see someone stare at their feet, looking to me that they don’t even like their own music. I wanna see a band, I don’t care what genre it is…I want them to sell it to me. I want them to deliver every nuance of what they love about each song. I want a visual spectacle. When I see bands like that? I just collect them. I’m like, ‘Yes!'”
Drunken Moon could be mistaken for a beer-soaked theatre of the macabre, but good live music transcends such narrow terms. Live music is a visceral experience, running invisible threads between fans and players like no other art form. “Maybe it isn’t theatrical,” James ponders, “Maybe the people performing it are so into what they do, it’s almost shamanic. They’re just possessed by the music that they love and they wanna vomit it all over the people in front of them.”
Bands on Drunken Moon’s bill bob up and down out of an underground, but by no means small, blues/punk/garage/rockabilly scene. Stalwarts such as King of the North, La Bastard and Digger and the Pussycats will jangle the stage alongside bands standing at the scene’s edge. For example, raw hardcore act Batpiss will sit beside one man rhythm and bluesman Rattlin’ Bones Blackwood. It’ll draw many fans from unlikely places, but that’s part of the festival’s appeal.
“I’m not in the business of changing people’s minds about music,” James explains. “But, if they come to see that one band that they love and that speaks to them and they see even one other band, that’s a bonus.
“We have Rattlin’ Bones Blackwood to Costa Mesa, a seven-piece Mexican style garage act. They are quite broad, but they all have swagger. It’s music that any kind of audience should be able to appreciate.”
BY TOM VALCANIS
