polaroids of androids

Baseball + Ohana + Dead China Doll + Psychonanny and the Babyshakers @ Spectrum - 07/04/2008

If shows were dessert treats then last Saturday evening would have been a lovely triple-decked mud cake with extra topping, sprinkles and a large firecracker in the middle. If this website was PG I would describe the show as 'a splendid evening of entertaining'. Because it's not I will go as far to say it was a 'fucking faultless three and a half of musical head-fucking'.

Psychonanny and the Babyshakers opened things up and, although not exactly our cup of tea, they delivered an entertaining show. Their style exists somewhere on the meeting spot of 70's doo-wop, alt-country and hard punching ruckus punk. They had a lot of support from the solid early-bird crowd that had already starting filling up the venue. It was lovely to see Spectrum at about three quarters capacity by the time Psychonanny finished up and local heavy hitters, Dead China Doll, took to the stage.

Dead China Doll are a fucking brilliant band. They combine eleven different genres and cover it all in a thick coating of wild punk and can strip paint off walls and then have it's way with the bricks underneath. They played a noisy set that combined a cello, a saxophone and several hairy gentlemen smashing their instruments around the place. The band's MySpazz promises an album soon and, although it's still probably too early to call, we are gonna say it will be THE BEST ALBUM OF 2008. Take that Yeasayer.

Wollongong's finest, Ohana, filled the last support slot and, continuing from their show a few months back at The Cad Factory, rocked it - hard. Their set saw a lovely battle between math rock precision and loose punk rock rhythms played out with an endless series of unpredictable twists and bends thrown in to keep it all interesting. They have really started to nail their unique sound.

The new songs Ohana showed off sounded brilliant. The mere mention of a new single due out in a couple of months (in lovely 7" format) as well as a new album before the end of the year is enough to get us understandably moist.

Baseball frontman, Thick Passage, stripped down from his white fur coats/pants get-up to a more suitable singlet/athletic shorts attire only moments before the band was due to hit the stage. This affirmed our sneaking suspicion that Passage was going to 'bring the thunder'. Thunder was more than brought and Baseball's set, which primarily drew from their latest offering, was the kind of musical experience that would convert nuns to satanic cult members and vice versa. Their set was raw, unrestricted, brutal and several other words that when said out load conjure up an image of a wild boar ripping the torso out of a buff young viking fella.

Passage's violin got punished as he thrashed away, accompanied fantastically by the rest of the band that played solidly throughout their wild, yet well executed, 40 minute set. It was an energetic and solidly entertaining performance and a fantastic way to top off a solid night's worth of cake entertainment.

After the show our ears stumbled on the news that the organisers, the Hit The Switch peeps, are planning to go back to putting on 'nights' similar as they did last year above the now extinct Newtown Hotel. The new venue is still in the Newtown/Enmore region and the plan is for them to re-kick it off in early May. Their previous nights were a whole lotta fun, powered by the unique combination of great bands (Straight Arrows etc), DJ's playing 70's tunes and a lovely, friendly atmosphere. We will you posted on the details of the 'return night' as it gets closer.