Upstairs at Bar Open, Yarbles tore a new orifice in the brutalised corpse of punk rock. The lead singer paced and prowled in front of the stage. His vocals pierced the crowd’s cerebral cortex. The band thrashed like a crocodile wrestling its prey in a death roll. It was chaotic, but it held together.
The set finished, and I walked over to Old Bar where Parsnip were about to play. I remember the first time I had parsnip. Sitting in a mashed heap next to the chop on my plate, it looked like potato. But it tasted weird; only a heavy dousing of Worcestershire sauce got me through the trauma. But this Parsnip was invigorating. Three-chord garage rock with pop sensibility, guitar, bass, drums and keys. It’s basic, and that’s why it worked. If only parsnips were as satisfying.
I got back to Bar Open to hear a final shattering scream from Morta Lenta, playing its penultimate show and last gig in Melbourne. I worked through temporal and geographical logistics and calculated I had just enough time to hear a song from Lazertits at the Old Bar before Cable Ties set up at Bar Open. That song turned out to be Gender Studies, the punked-up ode to gender political theory.
Cable Ties were good. Fucking fantastic, in fact. Hollering vocals, a rhythm section as tight as a sexualised religious metaphor and a punk rock attack worthy of being given the keys to the city of Olympia, Washington. The band’s 7” single last year was a couple of 3-minute punk gems. But here there were some furious jams, sort-of Fugazi meets Sleater-Kinney and it was utterly compelling. It’s one of those defining rock’n’roll moments that takes you out of your comfort zone, wrests you away from your pathetic financial and administrative concerns and bends your head into a better place. Rock’n’roll can save your soul.
Back to the Old Bar and Swim Team were setting up. Good songs, catchy melodies, the Go-Gos playing The Stems on the Sunset Strip. Swim Team were launching their new EP, Holiday, a release packed full of those invigorating pop tracks that make you want to start a band, even if you can’t play music and have less stage presence than a cockroach at Drury Lane. Live, the music is even better. You can listen, you can watch, you can dance, you can do whatever you want – provided you’re not a dickhead, which is apparently an instruction missed by someone in the beer garden after the set. When you’d had the opportunity, sorry, privilege to hear a glistening pop track like Are You Forgetting Something, surely you should be lathered in respect? There might have been something wrong, but sure as hell I can’t remember what it was.
Words by Patrick Emery
Image by Andrew Bibby
