Are you proud to be Australian? Well, northern suburb-based eight-piece Mighty Boys sure are. Their scrappy brand of garage rock reflects a bunch of mates letting their life experience and surroundings seep into their sound. This is not the faux-occa-Peter-Russell-Clarke-singing-for-an-American-band Australiana of Smith Street Band and Luca Brasi, but a band that reflect the influence of crappy instruments, hot weather, fatty sausages, shitty jobs, and parking transport fines.
Opening song Hey Hey is a loose garage rock track that sonically references Radio Bird Man and Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Lyrically, this song covers Plucker Duck, racing tracks, Centrelink and, the origins of the title, TV show Hey Hey It’s Saturday.
Mighty Boys’ solid local following means their live shows are a rollicking, piss sinking good-time with plenty of sing-alongs. This accessibility resulted in Mighty Boys’ first EP getting somewhat of a cult following, with songs like Drinkin’ and Pickin’ ‘Em Up being veritable hits. But rather than relish in past success, Mighty Boys chose to leave these underground hits off the album and release only new material.
For fans of the aforementioned ‘old’ tunes, the song that fills the gap off Dole Cheque & Cabana is Hippy Shakes. A syncopated riff opens the song before the chorus of “I’ve got the shakes / I’ve got the hippy shakes” comes in. The verse then reveals that the song is about getting the shakes from being at a bush-doof, smoking exorbitant amounts of weed and shafting two pills.
This tongue-in-cheek insight combines with the song’s driving music to make Hippy Shakes a bucket load of fun and sublime to dance to (YouTube the film clip – it’s amazing).
Bad Pornography is a re-recording of an older Mighty Boys song, Shitty Blowjobs. This song tackles the very modern societal problem of porn addiction-caused flaccidity. Did you know that in Japan most couples between 30 and 40 stop having sex, not due to lack of sex drive, but because the male’s internet porn taste is so obscure and sophisticated that the husband is no longer aroused by normal sex? Whether Mighty Boys vocalists Keats and Baz are aware of it or not, they echo the findings of this research in the line: “These videos came and fucked my life up / How am I supposed to get stiffies anymore?”
Musically, Dole Cheque & Cabana is a punk rock record. Thematically, in its own deeply sardonic observational way, it is a punk record that comments on a period of Australian culture we will remember fondly in years to come. In an era of a hyper-information via the internet, even punk rockers like Mighty Boys are informed enough to know, that yes, modern life has its flaws, but it’s the best life we have.
BY DENVER MAXX
Best Track: Hippy Shakes
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