The late Tom Hafey was adamant that football was, at its beating heart, a simple game: get ball, kick ball, chase ball. It’s doubtful Hafey paid as much attention to the choice between style and simplicity in rock’n’roll; if he had, he’d probably reckon Thee Gold Blooms have got the balance just right.
Thee Gold Blooms’ quest isn’t to change the world, and what’s wrong with that? The songs on the band’s debut album are the ubiquitous fare of adolescence – romantic attraction, sexual tension, unrequited love and the emotional weight of indecision. Musically, and Thee Gold Blooms have found themselves half a dozen chords and, in the greatest rock’n’roll tradition, that’s all that matters.
Listen closely, and you can hear The Everly Brothers in a Tacoma garage in Katie-Sue; Natalie is the best song The Black Lips haven’t recorded. We Can Hide is the soundtrack for a nervous high school afternoon with only a copy of the first Scientists album to held you through, Alana glows with the innocence of youth and the memories of a pre-coke Ricky Nelson and behind the loneliness of Night Time can be found the misunderstood brilliance of Buddy Holly.
My Girlfriend is a Nuggets-inspired romantic firecracker, Some Girls is about as banal as you need, and as wonderful as anything found on the floor of the Paisley Underground and Let Me Know yearns for an answer to every unresolved romantic proposition and only gets Bruce Johnston on amphetamines – which is a pretty damn good place to be. On Thee Gold Blooms’ Boogie,we get a Cramp-ishly excellent voodoo boogie jam, Do You Really Want Me is The Beatles via Painters and Dockers’ Nude School and Please Wake Me is the end of the night, when the booze has run drum, your girl has run off with that dickwit from the local footy team and life is festering pile of shit. But you’ve still got rock’n’roll, so that’s good enough – and if you’ve got Thee Gold Blooms on the stereo, things are looking on the up.
BY PATRICK EMERY
