The Leaps & Bounds Festival takes its name from a Paul Kelly song. Like so much of Kelly’s oeuvre, the song indulges populist aspects of Melbourne culture: Richmond hill, footy at the MCG, the clock on the silos on the banks of the Yarra. But the festival itself celebrates a different edge of Melbourne; the gritty, sometimes seedy and always vibrant independent music scene, the same sub-culture within which Kelly evolved, starting in his distant days with the High Rise Bombers and the Dots.
Halfway through Shit Sex’s set and their lead singer’s hirsute, half-naked and big-bodied appearance draws a stark reminder to the profane commentary occasionally directed toward The Onyas’ John ‘Mad Macka’ McKeering. Shit Sex’s abrasive punk rock sound is a fucked-up collage of the Cosmic Psychos, Suicidal Tendencies and The Dead Boys. There’s a track about a new skateboard stolen at a party, and it’s fucking hilarious. This is genuine street punk poetry, par excellence. John Cooper Clarke eat your heart out.
This could very well be the fourth iteration of The Dacios taking the stage tonight. The first time around Kirsty Stegwazi was on bass; later on, Kim Volkman had a run and fattened the sound so much it needed a health warning. Gus was on drums, but then he went out country. And then The Dacios disappeared from view.
After an extended hiatus, The Dacios are back, now sporting a five-piece lineup. With the enigmatically brilliant Bonnie Mercer now in the fold, Linda Johnstone’s out front, her guitar no longer slung around her neck. The sound’s different, but no less brutal. Mercer’s jagged licks slice across Bean’s chainsaw rock’n’roll riffs; there’s a bit of a Fugazi thickness and Patti Smith band punk edge to the set, and that’s always a good thing.
The material is taken primarily from the as-yet-unreleased new album, the belated successor to 2009’s superb Monkey’s Blood. Liberty’s Lovers is the only old song that gets a run, and when that grinding riff rings out, there’s a lot of tough love in the air. Linda is a little bit Patti Smith, a little bit Angie Pepper and a whole lot of punk rock attitude, and the rhythm section packs a punch that’d send George Foreman to the floor. The night ends with Buzzards, and The Dacios have torn another new orifice in Melbourne rock’n’roll. You can take your middle-class singalong melodies and shove them up your convertible Saab: this is what Melbourne is all about.
BY PATRICK EMERY
LOVED:Buzzards (last track).
HATED: The fact that it was quicker to go downstairs to the front bar to buy a beer than get one adjacent to the band room.
DRANK: Cooper’s Dark.
