Fear And Loathing In Port Macquarie Hardcore

Record Review: Shortlived LP

2009-03-29T13:30:00.002+11:00

When I'd first of Shorlived all I knew was they were from NZ and were often compared to Far Left Limit, the FLL was obviously enough to peak my curiosity as FLL have been one of my favorite bands since I started listening to harDCore.

My record player broke just before I bought this and was okay without having one for a while but when the record arived and it sat on my shelf for a couple of weeks I had to go out and buy a new player.

And I am glad I did!

This record is fucking great, thrashing fast hardcore with great lyrics sort of like a cross between FLL and Extortion and obviously the bands who influenced both those groups? who knows, I have a pretty hard time comparing bands and whatever. Its just super fast and pissed off music. Actually reminds me of why I started listening to this music in the first place. The drums crash and the vocals are so fast in places that its hard to believe there are actual words being screamed.

I can really relate to some of the lyrics for example in "Fundamentalist" - "I wanna go straight edge around all you alcholic punx/But hanging around with straightedgers makes me wanna get drunk"

and the song SAFE AND SECURE about not being 'safe' in this world at all ending with the line "Im safe in the knowledge that Im not safe at all"

This is a record you should try and track down. I think only 200 copies were made?

Propagandhi and Conation @ Bar On The Hill, Newcastle

2009-02-20T10:18:00.002+11:00

The last time Propagandhi toured was 12 years ago, I was 13 or 14 and JUST getting into music and if anything was only vaguely aware of them. The thing I remember most their tour shirt which was a typical redneck type guy with rifle sites on him. It may have said something about White Pride on it, but I haven't seen one for years and my memory is as faded as these shirts are likely to be these days.
Shit 12 years ago a vast majority of the people at the show would have been younger than 10, kinda makes me feel old.

It's well documented I have a massive hard-on for Conation and, we can be honest here because we are amongst friends, I was more excited to see them than Propgandhi. 2 or 3 years have passed since they played their "last" show and this was a once off Reunion only to play with Propagandhi, and who wouldn't turn that down?
They were so fucking great and just as tight as I remember them being. The records are amazing but their live sound is great. They played for half an hour and smashed through so many songs, I only didn't know one of them so I am unsure if it was a cover or a new song?
Such a great set they opened with Subject To The Artist, which is the one song that made me fall in love with them and ended it with Send The Liars To Abu Ghraib which is a new song that is a winner, its been available as a live track on the Darken Records NCHC comp cd.

Heres hoping Conation get back together and do a tour for their forthcoming new Album.

Propagandhi were amazing. There is not much else to be said about it. They were really fucking tight and fast and loud. Everything you would want from seeing a punk band live. They played a good mix of their older fat records sounding punk and their newer much harder "progressive thrash" sounding stuff. It must be hard for a band who hasn't toured here for 12 years and have released a couple of albums in that time to come up with the right balance of old stuff and new stuff to play from their newest album from 2 or 3 years ago and their album that hasn't been released yet. Before the show I found a leaked copy of the new album and was happy to find it improved on the sound of Potemkin City Limits, it even ups thrash level on some tracks. They played a couple of tracks of the new album and they were impressive.

Some bands you listen to live and then listen to their recorded stuff and you would rather listen to the CD or Record. After seeing Propagandhi live, no matter how good the recorded output is I would rather be seeing them live.

Photos Photos Photos

2009-01-22T19:35:00.003+11:00

Due to blogger being shit with handling images CLICK EACH PHOTO to see the whole image. I mean this is the internet you should be able to use without explicit instructions but some people may or may not be aware that, ya know, the images are bigger than the appear. Sort of like transformers, more than meets the eye.

Gunsquad first show/Pirate dress up

Gunsquad @ the dead walk!

Gunsquad sometime @ the MM

Built with pride first show, pirate dress up.

Black Lung, First show. Too punx for pirate dress up

Talkin Straights last show

Talkin Straight

Talkin Straight AGAIN

Black Lung last show

Black Lung Last Show

some of these might be a repost, but who cares. Certainly not you if this is the first time you've checked out this blog. All photos are from bands respective lamespace.coms

Reviews. Teargas Demo, Nuclear Sex Addict Demo, Shock Troop "Nightmare in 2012" LP

2009-01-21T13:16:00.002+11:00

I said I'd write some reviews. Here is the first batch of some mostly new releases. 2 Demo tapes from Australian bands and an LP from, I think, a German band.

The Teargas demo came out towards the end of 2008 and was raved about with almost everyone stating that it should have come out as a 7 Inch EP. The songs are really fucking good in a good fast hardcore way. The evidence shows I am the worst at describing music. Neil, the singer, was also in Draft Dodger so too mean it sounds a fair bit like them for obvious reasons, with less of a Negative Approach vibe.
But this really could have come out as a record if it wasn't for the slightly muffled recording, which might just be due to the transfer to tape.

Nuclear Sex Addict are a new band from Melbourne with members from Pisschrist and ABC Weapons and probably other bands. Right from the onset you know these guys are going to be playing some noisy Japanese hardcore. They have references to GAI and CONFUSE right on the art work. Its a really noisy and raw recording but as if you were expecting anything more? At times its just over distorted guitar fighting feedback. It even sounds as though it was recorded and then compressed at a low bit rate, or maybe this is just the I.T nerd coming out in me, all static and high frequency. There is also this weird mix of d-Beat that you can of have to hear to understand, it sort of doesn't work but at the same time this is when you can make out most of the guitar riffs of which there are plenty and they are blazing. 7 tracks from start to finish and when its done you want more.

Nightmare in 2012 from Shooktroop also came out late 2008. I don't know much about this band. They put out at least one 7inch that was a bit of a slow seller but is now hard to get? Its sort of a mess of Swedish hardcore/crust and Japanese hardcore. I really enjoy the music, its little thrash and the guitars are maybe a little glam, like GISM yeah I'm probably really far off on that one. The vocals are also pretty cool and not usually what I would expect to hear on something like this, really throaty and deep guttural screaming sorta like a grindcore or deathmetal style of vocals. The only thing I didn't like about this release is the vocals are a little bit cheesy and typical for this style of music all about how war sucks and fighting the gov'ment.
for example "hey our world is a place full of hate/humans are everywhere this victims of fate"
just makes me cringe. But whatever its not the message of the lyrics I don't like, its the delivery

SHOW: Tyre Swans/The Pocket

2009-01-14T23:02:00.003+11:00

This show was simply amazing.
Tyre Swans is made up of 3 singer/guitarists who have each written solo stuff and then decided to record an album playing together on each others songs then go on a tour of the East Coast.

3 guys with some of the most amazing and unique voices in what could be loosely described as "punk rock" although the music they are playing is far from punk.
The 3 members are, Jamie from Conation/Fear Like Us/A Death in The Family, Darren who was in Away From Now and Donnie who has sung in Caustic Soda and Blueline Medic.
Each singers voice really complements each other with them all being in the vein of being really rough and raw yet still being able to draw a lot of emotion and can really bring a lump in your throat if you listen to intense.

The Pocket, who I have written about previously, are now a full band but due to the fact we were having this as an outside show they for obvious reasons only played as the 2 piece that played with Defiance Ohio. Unlike last time I wasn't rushed off my feet and I got a chance to actually listen to them. Really fun, simple folk songs with just a touch of geeky awareness and awkwardness to them.

At first the night started out with a sort of band duel off, with the pocket one side and tyre swans on the other. The Pocket would play a song, then Tyre Swans would and so forth. Finally when some people turned up it was decided The Pocket would play the rest of their songs and Tyre Swans would play their songs.

Well I figured starting the thing at 8 would gives us enough light till around 9 ish. But by 8:30 it was already pretty dark, so Tyre Swans played in the glow of lights from phones and peoples digital cameras. Kind of sucked for them that the light was gone and they had to play via these shitty lights that wouldn't have even been as bright as one candle.

I could obviously write about this for a fairly long time but it will just slug along and get us no where. So lets stop this here before things get out of hand.

This also brings me to the most current events. Obviously I will continue to write about shows and bands that I attend. I might even throw in the odd review of whatever music/game/book/movies I have been getting into.

I probably won't end up doing a good job and end up looking like some scumbag elitist nazi, but hey if the shoe fits.

Band: XITWOUNDX

2009-01-09T20:15:00.002+11:00

Gary - Vocals, - Grant, Bass - Tom? - Drums, some dude I don't know the name of - Guitar

x it wound x. The newest band in Port is all young dudes who, with the exception of Gary, are doing their first band.

The band are trying to be clever with their name in the same way xfilesx are, but the band name just reads Zit Wounds to me. Maybe thats what they were trying to go for and if so I give them credit but I doubt it.

Its great on one hand to see a new band with new kids, but on the other hand they are just sounding like the last 3 bands to come from port. Heavy with mosh bits and fast bits ripping on deadstare and power violence.

I guess they are trying to be a bit more PV than mosh, with the lyrics trying to sound snotty and pissed off and really negative along the lines of xfilesx, for me it didn't work.

As I wrote in the post previous they have a song called Panic Attack that is inspired by h100s with the end lyrics "panic attack panic attack, attack in your fucking face" ending the song. Again I just didn't by it, Gary is always writing lyrics about being really angry and violent and they just seem really forced just like the song title that I can't remember but it was something along the lines of "I can't be friends with you if you like Earth Crisis and think they are all about the straight edge brotherhood"
With a long title like that who do they think they are, Drowning Man? <-- I have always wanted to name a song that

The first show was really sloppy and they would have been better off to not play and practice for another couple of months before playing. Who knows I might end up enjoying them if they record something amazing but at the moment its run of the mill popular hardcore.

SHOW: Ghost Town and The Street Youth @ Toms Shed

2009-01-09T19:59:00.003+11:00

This was the first show I went to at Toms Shed and found it pretty cool as a venue. Most of the bands suffered from not having a powerful enough PA to hear the Vocals over the guitars and the Guitars were too loud to be heard over the drums for the most part.

The first half of this show should have been called "the gary show" as all 3 local bands had him in them, in the end only 2 local bands played as God Eat God didn't play.

XITWOUNDX are a new band who I will write about next. This was their first show and it was pretty sloppy, I didn't enjoy it at all. They did a terrible cover of 5 days of shit from deadstare and when I was hanging around before the show I saw they had lyrics written out that I thought was "panic attack" by the h100s. Turns out it wasn't exactly a cover just stealing some of the lyrics of the cover, I didn't really by it.

Earthlings played a cover of a Life Love Regret song, it wasn't terrible but Drew forgot or couldn't sing the last half of the song.

The other bands were ordinary and I was pretty keen on getting out of there. I had wanted to check out Street Youth just to see what the fuck was supposed to be so good about them. I'd heard their songs and it was terrible. The guys vocals are really weird and almost sound like they would be more at home on a horrible "nu metal" cd.

One of the bands I heard, I couldn't say who but I am guessing it was Touch and Go, was Simon who played in Gun Squad and his new band. Terrible youth crew inspired shit. They did a terrible cover of a Minor Threat song that I am glad I was sitting outside for.

The other band that I heard was at a guess called Skyway. Fuck they were T E R R I B L E. Lots of people were really into them and it made me wonder if I was just an old bitter dude. I have never been able to cope with anyone who listen to hardcore and can still dig on bands like New Found Glory. Oh sure I like to listen to some pop punk every now and then and in my time I have dug some utter shite, so maybe 5 years I would have been stoked on this band but I doubt it as I have never been able to vibe on New Found Glory who these guys were totally ripping off.
They were enough too make me leave the show. No regets on that, I didn't even want to hear Ghost Town and my desire to see Street Youth was small at best.

Show: Black Lung last show @ Switch

2009-01-09T19:48:00.002+11:00

I was roped into doing this when I really didn't even want to play. Wilson, who were also playing their last show and bunch of other shitty bands played including some crap band "Liberation Front" from Newcastle or Sydney

This was again put on by one of the members from Wilson who I guess had been contacted by the band Liberation Front to put on a show for them as they toured or something? They had contacted Black Lung about a show and we simply ignored their request because they were pretty terrible. They sound like Anti-Flag or some American punk rock shit with fake politics on a major label.

I don't know who opened the show but they were obviously forgettable.
Black Lung had practiced the day before for the first time in months and even tho I didn't want to be doing it, it was actually pretty good to be playing again. I had every intention of just getting up and fucking around and not caring if it was in tune, time or whatever. This attitude worked a little too well because we all played really well and it was in my opinion one of the best times we played. As usual I dropped my pick a thousand times and just resorted to mashing the strings with my fingers. I bruised them up pretty good.
We gave shit to Liberation Front and the other bands who were too cool to come in and check us out.

Can't even be bothered writing about the other bands that played because I didn't enjoy them.
I laughed at Liberation Front for calling Black Lung a hardcore band. I guess compared to their wimpy American crap we sounded hardcore.

SHOW: God Eat God/Earthlings @ Toms

2009-01-09T19:45:00.003+11:00

I didn't go to this. I forgot it was on until it was finished. If I had of remembered I probably wouldn't have gone anyway.

Things I know or have heard about the show:

* A new local band played. I don't know who was in it. They weren't very good, apparently trying to do a circle jerks cover and failing
* Joey of Earthlings was tripping on Acid

Yeah so I dunno much about this. I guess if anyone has anything to say about it leave a comment on this post.

Venue: "Toms Shed"

2009-01-09T19:38:00.003+11:00

I don't believe many shows happened for a month or more as there was no more venues that could be used and many of the bands were either broken up or not sure what they were doing.

Toms Shed came along and sort of injected some new life into things. So far there has been 2 shows there with a 3rd having to be canceled due to the place being cleaned.

The venue is actually a carpet warehouse, out in the industrial estate. Tom is one of the younger dudes involved in the scene and one of his Parents own the place and allows Tom to use it for shows every so often. Its a pretty big space being a warehouse and could fit 100s of people in it if it werent for the fact there is carpet in there.

First time I was there I was kinda worried about how it would sound as its mostly just a huge empty concrete floored tin shed. But with the carpet in there covering 3 of the 4 walls it doesn't sound as terrible as you might think.

SHOW: House Show @ Home street

2009-01-09T19:17:00.002+11:00

Black Lung did not play this and it was Talkin Straights last show ever.

This was held in Garys bedroom at home street, the biggest room in the house that wasn't the lounge room or what was previously used as the band room. The band room had been taken as someones bedroom so everything was moved to another room.
Garys room was kinda small, it did fit 20 people or more in it tho with a little room to breath.
It was such a great idea to have it there even if I kinda felt out of place for not hanging out with most of the people at the show often if ever. But whatever i'm used to feeling out of place at shows, at home, with family or with friends so no big deal right?

Bands played pretty good with Earthlings opening with the riff from silverchairs "freak" kinda funny really because one of Black Lungs songs sounded like the same riff. I was kind of hoping that with such a small room lots of chaos would ensue but it didn't with people being fairly well behaved, until Earthlings played whatever Left For Dead cover they do and a few people went nuts trying to punch drew in the head. Thats what I wanted for the whole set. Joey is not a bass player his parts were really simple and could have put Sid Vicious to shame mostly just having to jam on an open string. They tried a couple of new songs without teaching them to Joey but its not like you could tell he wasn't playing the parts anyway.

God Eat God opened the afternoon, it was their first show and I was pretty impressed. They were really tight, which makes a change for a port bands first show. This is probably due to Ollie being a really impressive drummer. I'd not even heard what this band sounded like and I was chuckling at the "kvlt hardcore" on the flier. Like I said punk kids trying to pretend black metal is cool. I'd heard they were going for a "cult hardcore" sound and with Gill and Gary in the band I was expecting a h100s style hardcore band. It wasn't that sort of "cult hardcore" but I was actually impressed by it. I was really expecting Gill to lay some violence down on the people watching, he got a bit loose at one stage and then reeled it back in. If anyone is going to get away with fucking people up at shows its Gill he just looks so powerful when he is singing and I'd not like to be in his way.

Both Earthlings and God Eat God had their sets recoded on a little tape recorded by Gary and he released it as a split demo of sorts. Sound quality is pretty good considering how it was recorded, even if it is a little bass heavy. I've only ever listened to the God Eat God tracks tho.

and Finally Talkin Straight played their last show, they kind of sprung it on everyone even if we all had a feeling it would happen. I don't think Jamis really wanted to do it but he did it anyway and it was a fitting way for them to g out. Towards the end of the set he either forgot the words to songs or just couldn't be bothered so the grrls in the room took over most of the singing duties.

SHOW: Wilson @ switch

2009-01-08T21:58:00.004+11:00

There is a terrible flier for this somewhere but I can't find it so we are going to have to work from my hazy memory right here.

bands that played were

WILSON - Port
BLACK LUNG - Port
THE SCOUNDRELS - Port
POKERFACE - no idea...Kempsey?
BUILT WITH PRIDE - Port...these guys were supposed to play but didn't. Their drummer didn't turn up

I am sure another band played as well, but they were obviously terrible!

The show was put on by one of the members of Wilson. Wilson are metal-ish sounding band that Eli that drummer for Black Lung also played in. I haven't written about them on here because I don't think they fit into what this blog is about.

The show sucked and is only worth writing about for 2 reasons.

1. Pockerface were fucking terrible Rockstar wankers who played for 40 minutes, including a fucking drum solo were the guitarist put down his guitar and played along on the drums. Fucking terrible shit. At a guess it was probably lame "rock and roll" like metrosexual wankers dance to up at their local nightclub whilst sliping "roofies" into girls drinks to take home and rape.

2. As a result of their playing for so long any other bands that were billed to play had to either play an cut set or not play at all. God Eat God came along and asked to play and then were told they couldn't because of these chumps. A fight almost ensued as the port guys were giving these dicks shit for playing so long.

I found it quite ironic that a band like God Eat God who are supposedly so "anti-religious" would want to play at switch given that its owned by one of the biggest churches around here. For these guys its totally fine to play a christian owned venue. Oh yeah they were going to change their name to DOG EAT DOG so they wouldn't get in trouble. Religion is fine with them aslong as their band gets to play.

BAND: God Eat God

2009-01-08T21:44:00.002+11:00

Ollie- drums, Garry - Guitar, Gill - Vocals, Pat - bass

This was a weird kind of hybrid band who weren't really sure what they were going for. On one hand they were going for a Clevo style Ringworm mosh, on the other they were trying to be "grim" whatever the fuck that means. It means a bunch of hardcore kids who think its ironic to listen to black metal but pay out people who listen to it all the time.
They did a cover of Deadstare "5 days of shit" but I never heard them play it, just practice it

I was really into them at their first show. Its the one and only time I've seen them play so far and I think they are no longer a band. Anyway it was a good set and I just wished it would have got a bit more violent. At times it looked like Gill was going to let go and fuck shit up starting random violence but it never ensued and I was a little dissapointed. I'll write about that particular show in due time!

They played maybe 5 shows. I think they played one in newcastle with other bands were every band playing had to play an old newcastle hardcore band cover song, hence 5 days of shit. They also released a live split tape with Earthlings...obviously because Garry is in both bands.

At one stage I was asked to join the band on second guitar and said that would be fucking sweet because their sound really needed a second guitar to fill it out a bit. Gill also said they were thinking of going in a more crust/dBeat direction so I was even more stoked to be joining the band. This was after black lung had broken up so I was looking for a new band.

But it never eventuated, I went to jam with them a couple of times and people either couldn't make it or just not show up so I thought fuck it, these people are unreliable I've taken time out of my day for no reason I can't be bothered with them.

Not sure if they are together, last I heard Gill wasn't that into it anymore or something. Such a shame because I would really of liked to see what they became

SHOW: THE WAR @ MM

2009-01-08T21:33:00.002+11:00

Ugh this show was fucking terrible. Fucking meat head straight edge vegan jocks playing who spend too much time listening to Terror and Earth Crisis. Such a terrible vibe at this show. Usually MM shows were all cool and everyone is heaps laid back and just hanging out. Not this one. Due mostly I am sure to the out of town bands sticking to themselves and taking up a huge section of the room and not looking at all thrilled.
Jack Napier didn't play, like it matters because they are terrible at any rate.

Oh yeah and NO DRINKING? fuck those guys who do they think they are Ian Mckaye? The hate I have for those bands is unexplainable.

I believe this was actually earthlings first show, they only did 3 songs and it was over in 5 minutes. They opened with an Earth Crisis riff..firestorm? fucked if I know I don't listen to that shit.

I think this was my favorite Talkin Straight show, for whatever reason I was just really pumped to see them after missing them the week before. About 30 seconds into the first song the mic lead got caught on something. My leg. But lets not get into that. And ended up breaking. A lot of standing around was done whilst a replacement was found.
Oh yeah it was also their demo "release" show.

I left after they played because I had less than zero interest in seeing meatheads play meathead music. People say they were over violent in the pit and actually trying to hurt people. Fuck those guys. If it wasn't for the fact that I was in a band playing you couldn't have got me near that fucking place.

SHOW: Stop Dead @ Maritime

2009-01-08T21:25:00.002+11:00

Not sure but I believe wolves didn't play this show.
Also not sure if Earthlings played this or not. If they did it was their first show but I am fairly sure their first show was with The War the week after.
I actually left this show early so I missed a bunch of bands. I know Talkin Straight finished off the night and by all reports it was one of their best. Bummed I missed it but at the time I just could't sit through crappy mosh bands. This leads me to think Wolves may have played. Like I said I left early so I dunno anything.

HOW NOT TO DO A SHOW

2009-01-08T21:02:00.002+11:00

At some stage during the year, I think around the time of Skate and Donate some guys from Port thought it would be a grand idea to get together about 30 thousand bands from out of town no one had heard of, not invite any local bands and put on a 2 day benefit festival. and call it CARNAGE FOR A CAUSE.

Now I don't wanna rag on these guys too much because hey they were by some strange stretch of the imagination getting involved with the 'scene'

The problem was there was many many problems with the whole thing.

For one as I mentioned they invited lots of bands from out of town, most if not all of them unknown. Not that being an 'unknown' band is a bad thing but when you have 30 bands and 90% of the population only maybe hearing of a hand full of these prior to the show..
Add to that no local bands were asked to play. Local bands are going to be the card to an event like this.

The "cause" for the show essentially non existent with the only thing even remotely giving punters an idea of where their money was going was on the myspace saying "money going towards the homeless" They were also going to "keep" some of the money to put on ANOTHER event "next year"

The event was postponed many times eventually being canceled when the venue, the PCYC, was forced to move out as the people the were renting it off kicked them out.
At that stage the PCYC was unaware that the event was even happening and said that they hadn't even been contacted about it. This made the paper when a bunch of internet tough guys wrote comments on their myspace profile about burning down the curch that owned the building.

The so called 'promoters' of this event have no clue and when they organised a Carthapian show they DID ask Talkin Straight to play, but no others. By the time the show came around Talkin Straight had broken up and had no intention of playing. No other local bands were asked to play.
In some shit talking the promoter ending up saying "I am bring back bands to port"
Sorry buddy but they never went away, they were just well organised with local bands and didn't involve a bunch of shitty bands no one had heard of.

Band: Earthlings

2009-01-04T21:47:00.002+11:00

Drew- Vocals, Garry - Guitar, Joey - Bass, Ben - Drums

Fruity vegans playing fruity heavymosh music for morons.

No really ... this band are not my cup of tea.

But lets take a minute here and be honest they do what they do pretty well and if it wasn't for the fruity vegan shit I'd care about them more.

They took their name from some Vegan propaganda film and then raped Left For Dead with slow heavy mosh jams. Yeah they do a cover of some Left For Dead song I don't know what because I could care less about LFD. They also do a cover of a Life.Love.Regret song that I only heard once and thought was pretty cool to hear even if it took a while for me to recognize what it was, This has more to do with the venue than the playing of the cover.

Drew is such a fucking brutal front man and for me he is the only thing that keeps them slightly interesting for me. So much conviction and passion can be heard in vocals and some of his lyrics hit the right spots.
There is definitely the right touch of desperation and helplessness in the vocal delivery that not many singers have.

The recorded a live split tape with God Eat God who I will talk about later. They also recorded a demo in Newcastle but I am unsure if its available yet. Also to be featured on a bunch of international comps or something. Darken Records from Newcastle are also maybe throwing a little something together for them?

They seem pretty popular with other fruits and have played more shows out of port than in, they even supported Ceremony at their newcastle show. That would have been their second or 3rd show maybe?

I don't know what is happening with them as hardly any of them live in Port anymore and last I had heard Joey quit the band but they seem to have another show lined up so maybe he didn't quit or the found someone else to take his place.

Show: "frenzy at the fishbowl"

2009-01-04T21:23:00.003+11:00

Show was put on by The Scoundrels a band of young dudes from or close to Port Macquarie.

This was a pretty fun show and something different for a change with mostly punk rock bands instead of the usual cookie cutter hardcore stuff. Not that these punk bands were mind blowing in originality or execution but at the least they didn't play the same lame breakdown you've heard 20 times already that night.

Close Conflict are a bunch of young dudes and some old guy on drums who may very well have been one of the band members fathers. They supplied most of the gear and this was the first time we had a full good sounding PA. It was maybe a bit full on with 2 six foot speakers and a couple more wedges. Almost too full on for the size of the room. Almost. You can never be too full on when it comes to these things. Close Conflict were just not great at all playing a rip on so-cal style punk that was popular in the mid nineties with the skateboarding crowd. They did a cover of a NOFX song I believe, I didn't get into it not that I am a huge nofx fan. Infact I remember actively disliking them for a long time and have only recently decided to give a fuck about them.
They also have a song about the tv show "The O.C" with the main lyric being something along the lines of "the oc sucks dick"
When they were setting up their gear and the PA the sound checked an Oscar song but didn't play it during their set. I was pretty dissapointed they didn't play it.

As mentioned the scoundrels are a bunch of young guys from in or around the Port area. One of them or all of them or something lives on an Island and the only way to get there is via a boat. That rules.
I was pretty stoked on these guys because they had a good "who gives a fuck, its punk" attitude. Lots of false starts, mistimed chords and just not playing going on. This was probably due to them getting high under the Maritime and it being their first show. Drunk punk at its finest/worst. I can't remember what they sounded like but Rancid jumps to mind. Some may baulk at this idea but Rancid were once a semi decent band who went to shit over the years.

Whatever these guys were cool and the main reason they set the show up was because they wanted to play with Black Lung which kind of felt pretty cool but strange.

Black Lung played last and it was a nice fun set with the punk kids getting into it the most and circle pitting and jumping around instead of acting like tough dickheads and trying to out mosh the guys next to them.
We actually almost didn't play because Joey had been under the house getting high with the other dudes and was pretty damn stoned. He didn't feel like playing or was running on a little bit of the fear. We obviously played and it was one of the better sets we did. At the end a call for more went up. Having played all the songs we knew we tried to come up with something all of us knew. Tried and failed at "I dont wanna hear it" and then we tried "ready to fight" but Eli hadn't heard it and thus didn't know how it went so it was pretty terrible.
Then we tried to do "lexicon devil" that we learned when the band first started and did fairly well until Joey forgot the words dropped the mic and left the room. We kind of jammed on the riff for a while until it fizzed out.

There was a pretty good turn out for this show considering it was a weeknight and it was pissing down with rain for a good long time.

SHOW: The Dead Walk!

2008-12-30T09:23:00.003+11:00

This was put on by Joey from Black Lung who had been in contact with the band for a while trying to get em to come up to Port and play. This was the second last show on the tour and it was also one of their last shows ever as they had decided to break up whilst on the tour. Something to do with losing 2 guitarists in as many days. So it was their first, last and only Port show.

Switch is such a terrible venue, aside from being run by Christians, its this big concrete room with metal skate ramps all through it. Bands set up on one of the big fun boxes that is at least a meter off the floor and you can't hear shit. We set up with a fairly bad PA that would feedback if turned up too any sort of audible level and some crappy mics with short leads that just made it to the front of the stage.

Black Lung played and although it wasn't terrible it wasn't great. A lot has to do with the fucking stage and feeling like you are a thousand miles away from anyone add to that the fact you can't hear what anyone else is doing. Yuck.

Straight On played a pretty good set, in which the managed to break one of the mic leads by pulling too hard when it was already going as far as it could. Lucky we had at least one spare for the time being. They played Youth of Today and Straight Edge Revenge, when the dead walk got up they gave props to talkin straight for that.

Hundred Yard Gash is a new band from the guys who were in Evil Talons but with a new singer or something. Despite being friends with them I didn't check them out. Fairly sure in the Evil Talons way they didn't have a complete band anyway.

Every word were terrible.

The dead walk, are for me a strange band. I really don't like them very much recorded and I never have but live they are really fun. The first time I heard em I wasn't too impressed, lots of people were raving about them and I just didn't like it. Then I saw em live and was totally blown away, they were just to intense. When I got the chance to by their EP I was a little let down.
anyway..
They played real good, I think busting another mic lead and then fucking up another lead or mic or something. Since I was the guy who had got the PA and the mics and leads were mine I had to spend the entire set making sure that the PA wasn't dragged onto the ground and the last mic lead wasn't broken(which it ended up getting broken)
During their cover of "fight for your right" there was a huge pile on the was at least as high as the stage which I thought was pretty fucking impressive!

SHOW: Germ Head/Losing Streak/Ghost Town

2008-12-30T09:13:00.002+11:00

Also with PK and Gun Squad I am fairly sure.

So three bands from out of town doing a tour of sorts. The bands were full of the type of guy who posted on the cantstopwontstop forum. To be honest I wasn't in to any of them really. One band did a cover of Negative Approach "ready to fight" and thats about the only memorable thing of the day for me. I can't even really begin to describe any of the bands because I wasn't paying much attention to them and really didn't care. They were all in the mosh/heavy style from what I can remember.

Talkin Straight did a cover of Penywise "Bro Hym" with Drew singing in memory of one of his friends who had passed away a few months earlier. This was actually the highlight of the day for me just to see so much passion and emotion for someone, along with the 3 out of town bands being pulled together for their friend who had also passed away recently.

SHOW: First Maritme Show

2008-12-28T11:52:00.002+11:00

Here it is..the first hardcore show to happen at the Maritime and the first show for many port bands.
Crosscheck didn't play but that was fine with me because I really don't like them. Also not sure about cutloose I can only assume they did and I didn't like em.

Gunna be a bit hard to write about this show, I was pretty drunk. I'd brought one of those mini kegs the night before and brought it along to the show and spent the afternoon drinking it. Someone had brought some really nasty pre-mix bourbon (or something...) energy drink that had been on sale for fuck off cheap and I also got into a bit of that. yuck.

I am fairly sure the bands played in the order of the flier with maybe talkin straight playing last.
For just about everybands first show it was a lot of fun to check out what everyone was doing and basically use it for an excuse to hang out and cause some trouble.

Lucky I wasn't too drunk when Black Lung played. Its funny how even if your first show sucks it always feels like it was the greatest thing in the world. I can't objectivly say we were any good but it felt like we played real well for a first show. We were also the only band to not dress up in the lame pirate theme. Fuck dressing up is wack.

Talkin straight were billed as their first show but in reality it was their second having played in newcastle a week or 2 before hand I wasn't there but I believe they were out of tune with Gary playing in standard turing and Will playing in drop D. Whatever. That shit doesn't count, having your first show out of town is cheating.
Lots of fun with people going realitivly nuts. I climbed up on the chairs that were holding up the PA speakers and was diving into people.

Because crosscheck didn't play and the place was hired out for a couple of hours still a call for more music went up. As usual people were making jokes about a gogogo or bad mouth set. Bad Mouth almost played but none of us could remember anything, so Talkin Straight played a second set.

At the end of the show there was a huge goup photo being taken and I thought it was look really awesome if I could time it right I would run and dive through everyone just as the photo was taken. So I ran up miss timed the dive and landed straight on my head.

My friends dad owns an icecream van and turned up, I almost got in a fight with some fucking loser vegans for me telling them to fuck off and stop throwing bottle and shit at the van and trying to steal shit. fuck I hate you.

BAND: Gun Squad

2008-12-28T11:43:00.002+11:00

Members
Simon - vocals, Hedgey - Guitar, James - Drums, Jgor - bass

The last of the band that were around at this time, they have more in common with Built With Pride than any of the other bands around at this time. Both bands had members who are around the same age and they both played the sort of the same sound. Gun Squad pulled it off better live, but from memory their home recordings weren't anything to write home about.

They did a cover of Kids Like Us - "you know your life sucks.." Pretty sure I have written before about this band/song and how its the only one I like by them. It was always lots of fun when they busted this song out. Lots of kids going nuts with huge pile-on's and sing-a-longs.

So I think Simon lived out of town or was from out of town (Byron Bay) and moved back there or something. Hell for all I know he LIVED here and ended up moving to Byron..He now plays Guitar in some other band who played a show at Toms Shed which I will get to in due time.

Band: Black Lung

2008-12-19T11:58:00.003+11:00

Eli - Drums, Luke - Bass, Joey - Vocals, Shane - Guitar

Black Lung was the 3rd band I have played in and it was the most fun band I have done to date(not that that is saying much...)
Joey wanted to start I guess a hardcore/street punk influenced OI! band along the lines of Oipolloi. I was pretty stoked to play something different and a lot more fun than shitty hardcore.
Anyway we only ever wrote maybe 3 songs and played 2 or 3 covers and then every other song we came up with got chucked out. I don't think we ever really were a street punk/oi band. Mostly because no one was a skinhead. We are also the band that no one knew how to classify. Our first show we were billed as a thrash band...because I was playing in the band it was assumed to be thrash! ha! Thrash probably means "can't play for shit"

We played lots of shows in port, never making it out of port even tho we were asked a couple of times. We never recorded/released a demo even tho we recorded our practices and in my opinion it sounded perfect for the style of music we were playing. I think we had planned to do a demo tho.

In the end we broke up for a number of reasons. Joey was always getting sick so jamming/practice was rare and then the rest of the guys wanted to change style of music to Alt fucking country or some wack shit. I would rather cut my fucking balls off.

We played a last show, that at the time I didn't wanna play. The plan was to get up fuck around and not care how bad we sounded. Funny enough it was one of the best shows we played. Fuck. At least we went out on a good note

Band: Talkin' Straight

2008-12-19T11:45:00.002+11:00

Ben - Drums, Garry - Guitar, Jamis - Vocals, Will - Bass

Fruity Vegan Straight Edge Posi Youth Crew that actually played a fair few shows in and out of Port. They played their first show in Newcastle or something. Whatever my feelings on their particular lifestyle/diets they were actually really good and always lots of fun live. Jamis was the most exciting thing about the band who really pulled of the Ray Cappo snarl perfectly.

They were the first band to record/release a 'proper' demo. It didn't sound terrible but it did have it problems. the drums were far too low in the mix and just kept getting buried the longer the demo went. Whatever it was good to have something good from Port for a change, something that people in other cities were pretty stoked on...thanks to the hype machine that is the internet.

After playing heaps of shows, including going to Queensland, they broke up. I think 'personal' reasons was the excuse.

One day a band from Port will last longer than 6 months.

Band:Built With Pride

2008-12-19T11:27:00.004+11:00

So as I said lots of bands happened at pretty much the same time so its a bit hard to really write about who 'came first' when they all came at the same time really.

Matt-Bass, Craig-Guitar, Dan-Drums and Lance-Vox.

Anyway one of the first new bands I was aware of was this one. They had some other name first..something like Rectum? fucked if I know eh?
I think it was only Craig and someone else...they had a home recording of a Ramones cover which is was really the only reason I cared about them at that stage.

Somewhere along the line they changed their name to P.K (Which I think stood for pain killer..correct me if I am wrong) and got a full band together, later they changed their name to Built With Pride.

Like a lot of Port dudes this was everyone in the bands first time playing in a band and it kind of showed. I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean in a way that they would try things that most other people who were experienced in bands just wouldn't do or would be to embarrassed to try and for that I really liked them. Someone told me they didn't like them because they didn't sound like they knew what they were doing..these person is a tosser.
I mean fuck it is hardcore punk..you aren't SUPPOSED to know what you are doing, they were making the best of what they had. Never afraid of asking for help regarding home recordings and any number of other things.

The recorded a demo at home and it sounds really fucking impressive for a home demo. Talkin' Straight went and spent a fair sum of money on a demo and ..lets just say the Built With Pride demo SOUNDS better than a 'professional" studio job.

They were pretty sloppy live but really fun to watch, but what port band isn't?

I thought they had broken up but aparantly they are just on a 'break' and plan on recording again? I really do hope so

SHOW: Insurgents

2008-12-16T10:30:00.002+11:00

Insurgents are a bunch of fairly young guys playing hardcore that dudes twice their age grew up on, and they do it better than most bands that are trying to ape the style.
They had released 2 demos and then got picked up to release a 7" EP on Endless Blockades. As a result they did a tour of the East Coast, going all the way down to S.A and back up to Brissie where they are from.

This show was I think the last or second last on the tour and they opted to play here over somewhere like Newcastle.

They played at Home Street with Anal Discharge from Sydney(who feature members from The Pocket..who had played earlier..remember?) and a bunch of port dudes doing terrible covers under the guise of Panic Attack(with upside down T's to make upside down crosses..oh so punx) who were billed as playing their last show...which also happened to be their first and only.

I actually dunno what covers panic attack did..they did a Circle Jerks cover of wasted and some others that they messed up pretty bad. Some song they didn't remember the lyrics to so they made Cade from benchpress sing. Haha he was pretty pissed off. Maybe I shouldn't be too hard on them. Fair sure it was Drews' first time behind a drum kit. He looked confused as hell thats for sure.

Anal Discharge drove all the way from Sydney to play and that they did. Spazzy hardcore grind/thrash with un PC lyrics/Song titles .. I dunno what you would call it. Whatever I really liked it, they did a cover of Limp Wrist "I love hardcore boys/I love boys hardcore" that was fucking awesome. They probably lost most the PC fruits there, and the rest "didn't get it" or were too cool for it. These people are dicks.

At some stage the cops came around on a noise complaint or something and it was looking like Insurgents weren't going to be able to play. But we just told em 'Play as quick as you can..pigs probably won't come back if we finish this soon"
Insurgents said "sure..our set is less than 15 minutes anyway"
They finished in 10

Insurgents had a reputation of being a really good live band with lots of energy. Without seeing them before its hard to tell how this show went for them. Maybe it was the shitty PA, or them driving for a week or 2 or the crowd who (probably) wasn't too familur with them.
Whatever the reason they were good and I would have liked to of seen them somewhere with people who really were into them.

The EP rules. Buy it if its still in print?
I also think they broke up or are taking a break not long after this tour

Early 2008

2008-12-13T23:40:00.002+11:00

Summer 2008 was great with lots of bands and shows happening.
A lot of these bands started around the same time and with the exception of one all had their first show at the same show.

Also a fair few bands came in from out of town, some of them good. Some not so good.

Some of the highlights were/are.

First show for many bands
Insurgents
Straight On/Talkin Straight
Black Lung (heh!)
The Dead Walk.

Show: Sk8 and Donate

2008-12-13T23:36:00.000+11:00

I didn't go to this and completely forgot it was on until it was almost finished.
No Port bands played as far as I know, but it was put on by a bunch of dudes from Port who have done pretty much every other show since.

It was at switch skatepark, and I dunno what the line up was. I know Clean Break played.
Can't really write too much about something I didn't attend or know anything about but it earned its place on here.

Venue: Maritime Museum

2008-12-13T23:14:00.000+11:00

When I first called up the Maritime Museum for The Evens I remember they were pretty wary about letting it be used for live music with a bunch of kids and I had to convince them it was folk music and things would be pretty relaxed. I did the same thing when I spoke to them about the Fear Like Us show. So I sort of twisted the truth with the Fear Like Us thing...they might have been 'folk' but I sure as shit knew it wasn't going to be laid back.

Maybe between The Evens and Fear Like Us they relaxed on who could hire the place because I was pretty surprised to see someone was going to put on a hardcore show. I wondered what was said and done to let em do it?

Seems after the so called damage from the FLU show they were a bit more strict on the rules for hiring the place. It used to be cheap as chips. You could have it for like I think 30 bucks or something. Just like every other fucking place in Port they saw they could make a profit off of it so they jacked up the price. Okay it wasn't much more but it WAS more expensive and you needed a fairly expensive "bond".
The point is the got more expensive but I guess stopped caring as much about who or what the place was going to be used by/for and some hardcore kids jumped on it. I think there was maybe a show a month there for a while? real good times.

As I have written before the best thing about the MM is that its kind of small. Its just an old house and bands set up in the main room. You can fit 60 people in there if you cram em in there and don't mind the sweat!
So at almost every show (with the exception of one) there was this really great house party vibe with people just hanging out and checking out some music with their mates.
And unlike a 'normal' house show there wasn't this feeling of it being an exclusive thing people felt like they could just rock up and not have to worry if the people who live there are gunna start some shit with you.

A lot of port bands, infact pretty much all port bands at the time had their first show at this place. So even tho it was only used for a short time it has its place in the memory's of so many people.

In the end the people who own it stopped letting it get hired. See it was available to anyone who wanted it so people were hiring it for birthday parties and just like all good things it takes one fucking incident to fuck it up for the rest. Something about a party getting 'out of hand' and the cops turning up is what fucked it for hardcore.
Oh yeah I am sure we had our hand in having it get banned. We did accidentally damage it a couple of times but it was always paid for but those damages probably didn't help.

SHOW: Defiance, Ohio and Fear Like Us and The Pocket

2008-12-13T22:50:00.000+11:00

Not really a 'hardcore' show but whatever the fuck. deal with it.

First show back at the Maritime Museum and the first of many over a period of months. I'll write about the MM soon.

Anyway this was a really really great fun and drunken afternoon with everyone hanging out at the great Maritime just like it was a house party or something. Relaxing and drinking and eating food provided by garry in the sun waiting for bands to arrive from wherever it was they were coming from.

We had set up a (terrible) borrowed PA with some pretty dodgy cheap mics and other bits and pieces brought along by the guys from The () Pocket who came up from Sydney to play and were stoked to be playing with their favorite bands. Just really laid back acoustic folk guitar and banjo with a good sense of humor.

Its probably no secret to a lot of people Conation are one of if not my favorite band ever and a good part of that was Jamies' Vocals.
Fear Like Us is Jamies new band. I guess at a pinch you could call it folk rock or some wack music industry nonsense? Really fucking passionate lyrics/vocal delivery over great original guitars. So I was jumping out of my skin to see them. I mean fuck living in Port you hardly ever get to see bands unless you travel and I had missed out at least twice when FLU had gone to Sydney. Fear Like Us really did not dissapoint. Just the perfect music to have a smallish room full of (mostly) drunk people singing and dancing along. This show was a lot more 'punk rock' than most 'punk rock' shows and without being there it would be to hard to put into words.

So many people were smiling when Fear Like Us played. My only complaint is..they didn't play for nearly long enough ha!

Defiance, Ohio are the United States..and not from Ohio as you might assume but from Indianna ... go figure.
Acoustic Punk with strings! They played a really great fun set again with more drinking dancing and singing along. They had a few members switch it up and play different instruments. Not really familure with their back catologue but I guess they played a little bit of everything?

With something like 60 people crammed into the tiny room it got real hot and sweaty in there, so it was decided to head over to the beach for a midnight swim! I was too drunk and the last time I had been for a midnight swim I lost my clothes and had to walk home naked! so I decided it would be best for everyone if I just went home.

Next morning I had to go drop keys and shit back to the MM and they stung me with extra costs because aparantly there was a bunch of damage done? Whatever. As I was walking home I literally ran into the D,O/FLU crew heading out for a swim before they hit the road so I went with em.

SHOW: 1st HOME STREET SHOW

2008-12-08T19:25:00.000+11:00

A bunch of port dudes moved into a house with the perfect back room to play music in. So it became the place were we practice and put occasional shows on at, I guess it was also a hangout place for a bunch of them but I never did.

So anyway this was essentially a house warming party with bands and shit playing. Sindell Didn't play. But thats because they are terrible!

Wipe-out played their first and only show, as far I am aware. I don't really remember it to be honest. Again it wasn't terrible(otherwise I would have remembered) or awe inspiring (same again) Jackson took his pants of and and sort of leaned/hung from the divide between the rooms.

The stop dead singer was pretty drunk and I dunno...one of the guitar players took over playing, eventually the kicked the singer out and the same guitar player took over singing duties. At one stage gary was moshing and kick and smash one the windows. nice work being in the house less than a week and all! People were diving off the window leg and having a good time. some fucking fruit swung his fist into my balls. Fuck I hate people.

No Second Chances are okay I guess, not really into them tho. They do a cover of the only Kids Like Us song I like tho "you know your life sucks...bla bla bla" to I guess if you wanted to know what they sounded like just think fruity 80s "get low and mosh" stuff that was popular at the time?

SHOW: Stop Dead/Bad Mouth/Stop Dead

2008-12-08T19:14:00.000+11:00

This show will go down in history as the show with the most bands pulled out of or something.
It was also Bad Mouths' Last show. So Stop Dead opened and there was a fair bit of chaos with bodyboards being thrown around, people skating in the "pit" and a soft soccer ball being thrown around. Lots of fucking fun. Not really a fan of Stop Dead musically speaking, I guess it sort of metalic/mosh? Fuck I dunno. They did a cover of a Jungle Fever (a couple of times this set!)

Bad Mouth played and it was terrible. I dunno about everyone else but I just couldn't be fucked. Was using gear from the Stop Dead guys and the amp was just to fucking..not my kind of amp. So my guitar sounded like shit. I don't mind blown out as fuck distortion but this was just to fucking crap. I don't know, but I blame the amp. ha! We did our usual set, I think I might have kicked Garry at some stage because I saw him laying on the floor holding his knee. Opps.

Stop Dead played a second set but I bailed because I had beer at home to drink or something a thousand times more important.

The sea scout hall is pretty cool as a venue, but aside from this one show it hasn't been used since, it costs too much and is a pain in the arse to get as you need insurance(or need to know something who will be willing to 'lend' you theirs)
I think it'd be cool to use again if some "bigger" bands came into town, its fair easy to get to as is right by the river.

BAND: Wipeout

2008-12-08T19:05:00.000+11:00

This band, as far as I am aware, only played one show but were billed to play at least one other?
To be honest I really dunno much about them aside from it was

Luke- Bass
Garry-Guitar
Jackson- Vocals

and fucked if I can remember who played drums. If you really cared you could look up their myspace or whatever.
ok I looked it up and it was some dude Ryan.

From memory they played maybe Internal Affairs style hardcore? They did at least one cover (at their one show..more on this much later) I can't for the life of me remember who or what it was.

I guess they were maybe trying to go for a heavy/mosh metalic hardcore thing? They did some dodgy recordings that sounded somewhat okay.
I don't really have that much to say about this band. They weren't terrible and they weren't the greatest. I mean if they weren't a local band I wouldn't of even given them the time of day.

Dunno why the stopped playing, probably something to do with members moving out of town or something?

SHOW: Gills Backyard show

2008-12-04T18:03:00.000+11:00

So if you've been reading this you can maybe tell Port didn't really have a venue anywhere and we would put on shows wherever we could. This one was no different. This was also one of the most fun shows even if the bands weren't so great.
Bad Mouth and Evil Talons played(this time as drums and Guitar..played by the bass player!)
I mean this was just a bunch of friends hanging out listening to each others bands and drinking/catching up with each other.

I'd been up the night before drinking..and didn't get to bed till 6 in the morning or something and woke up at 8 in the morning or something..so I wasn't feeling the best for sure.

The setup was pretty simple crappy. My crappy drum kit, my crappy practice amp, Lukes' crappy practice amp and a crappy practice amp for the vocals. Oh yeah and all the amps were balanced on chairs.

Bad Mouth played first and it was pretty uneventful. That is until we played Ready To Fight and I got into it a little bit to much as gary was doing his dance moves to pick up the ladies I didn't see him and cracked him in the head with my guitar. Down he went pulling pretty much every amp down. Whatever I'm sure it looked cool(More like it looked like a bunch of idiots ...)

Evil Talons played as I have mentioned as a 2 piece. Pretty good considering. Everyone was moshing pretty hard, throwing each other around and jumping on each other with bodyboards.
Evil Talons do a left for dead cover(no idea what..fuck I hate that band) and did it so many times with heaps of people doing vocals. Highlight was probably Stu the ragger from Armidale singing a song about his love for VB

afterwards everyone treked over to luke/joeys house for joeys birthday and things got loose with people staging diving off the kitchen benches.

SHOW: kyklooppien sukupuutto

2008-12-04T17:39:00.001+11:00

Wow what a mouth full this bands' name is to say. Yeah go on try and pronounce it!
"that band from Finland with the long name", kyklooppien sukupuutto (from here on refereed to simply as K.S) came to port and played a short but sweet drunken set in the Shelly Beach car park!

This is going to be on of my personal favorite shows in Port, simply because it was pretty neat to do a real DIY show. Hired out a generator, borrowed some crappy amps and the worst drum kit you have ever seen/heard in your life and just played at the beach.

Was Bad Mouths' first show and it was pretty good considering we had only played together a handful of times? The cops showed up in our second song and the show was almost going to be off and KS would have come all this way for nothing. But someone managed to convince them we would be done within half an hour or less.

After the cops turned up it was decided that KS should play next, just in case they turned up again and were going to try some shit. A song or two into their set the generator died. We thought maybe we had blown it or something...or it had run out of fuel. We certainly didn't have any experience with the blasted things. People went off in search of fuel..I decided to take a look (using a lighter for light..real smart idea) and got it going. Yeah I think it just stalled of someshit?

anyway! KS were fucking great over the top blown out as fuck fast hardcore. I think most of the hardcore kids at the show were really into them.
Ks and Dave from Mercy Mercy records located somewhere in the backwaters of South Australia was their driver were a really good bunch of dudes. One of the KS guys had been drinking since something like 9am and was talking a lot of really funny shit that was a bit hard to understand at times. Later in the night he was jumping around with some tree branch out the back of his pants like a Kangaroo and chasing people down the street.

Evil Talons whose members are friends of most of the dudes in Port played last. Evil Talons come from Newcastle and have played 3 or 4 times in port and only ever once as a full band. This was their first show here and it was without a full band, I think James their singer couldn't make it so they had Callum (sure I fucked up your name, sorry buddy) fill in on vocals. They played the night before with KS in Newcastle so they were pretty stoked to play/see them again.

Yeah this was great and honestly its pretty surprising it happened as for a while it was on again/off again as venues and PAs and a whole bunch of other shit happened. So its pretty good it happened and just shows that you can put on a show anywhere/anyhow.

BAND: Bad Mouth

2008-12-01T22:21:00.000+11:00

BAD MOUTH
Active: early 05 to late 05
Members: Gill, Garry Luke, Shane
Influenced by/Sounds like:
Negative Approach, Minor Threat, Extortion?

Bad Mouth were the second band, but I guess the first 'full' band and the second one that both me and garry did.

We started I dunno, sometime in early '05. It was originally garry on vocals, Me on drums, some dude Tristan on guitar and Luke on bass. We jammed a couple of times and then I dunno something happened like Tristan lived too far away to come prac every week or some lame excuse, so It was decided I was going to play guitar. Somehow or another we roped Gill into playing drums. He had never played drums in his life!

I don't even know where we fit in within hardcore 'genres' but garry wrote most if not all the music and lyrics. I think the style we were going for was "America Hardcore". It was a real mish mash and it had potential to be pretty good, with some more time put into writing songs. It was mostly "right ... we need a fast song, now it needs a slow bit, go fast again and stop"
Pretty sloppy, and not in any of the good ways. we did a cover of negative approach "ready to fight" and minor threat - " I dont wanna hear it"
I hate covers, and we did both really badly.
I think the band only played 4 or 5 shows? We planned on doing a demo but some stuff happened and then no one liked the songs or could be bothered with new songs.

We didn't play a last show, we just a show and it was our last. It was pretty terrible. I was sick of the attitudes towards the band as no one seemed to give a fuck. I thought about it for weeks and how unhappy I was in the end I told gary I was going to quit, to which he told me it was over anyway. Yeah thanks for asking for my input.

SHOW: The Evens

2008-11-30T23:14:00.000+11:00

Ian (fucking) Mckay of MINOR (fucking) THREAT and FUGAZI came and played with his new band. Fuck.

But I'm getting ahead of myself in the excitement.

A fair amount of credit goes to Garry for this show. He originally contacted the dude who helping organise the tour for Australia. I dunno what happened but he didn't contact the dude back or whatever so I did the work and ended up speaking to Ian on the phone a couple of times.

This was the first show at the Maritime Museum and it almost didn't go ahead because the people who own it were afraid it was going get rowdy and their precious building would get messed up. In the end I had to explain that it was going to be "folk" music and they would be sitting down to play and they were both in their 40s.

In a radio interview on triple J Ian said he was really looking forward to playing the Port Macquarie show because the venue was just "a little shack on the beach"

Such a great day to hang out with Ian for an afternoon setting up the show and doing some errands for the band. I think a lot of people there were too scared to really talk to him, I mean what are you going to say to the dude?

Its not even anything to do with hero worship, but trying to find something meaningful to say to a guy who has been traveling around the world playing music for 20 years.

The place was packed and the evens were really good, heaps of crowd interaction with Ian cracking jokes and telling stories between songs.

After the show they stuck around for a while selling merch and taking photos with pretty much anyone that wanted one.

SHOW: Skate4Leukemia

2008-11-30T18:36:00.000+11:00

No Port bands played this show, but it was still a pretty important show in port. Running for 2 days to raise much needed funds for Leukemia it was put on by the same people who did the Port Invasion show. Dane had originally planned it to be some form of skate down the highway or something, but I believe the RTA turned it down or something?

Anyway it ended up turning into this show, run over 2 days with 24 hours non stop skating.

The highlight was seeing benchpress play and just tearing the place up after seeing so many shitty metalcore bands play all day.

SHOW: Port Invasion

2008-11-30T18:16:00.000+11:00

This was one of the first "big" shows in port and it was a lot of fucking fun. Go! Go! Go! played pretty woefully including probably the worst cover of a limpwrist song anyone is ever going to hear in 12 lifetimes. I managed to smash up my guitar at this show. It was supposed to be an impromptu 'dress up' show, so I wore a a dress and covered myself in fake blood. No one else wore anything even close to dress up. bunch of fucking jerks.

Lots of good times, I think either Jack Napier or Die Trying had brought along a huge stuffed tiger and that got thrown around the pit during whichever bands' set.

At one stage a someone fell into the wall and made a huge hole. At the end of the night everyone chipped in some cash to get it fixed. I think that really showed the spirit of the port mac hardcore 'community'

[gogogo]

BAND: GO! GO! GO!/thought police

2008-11-29T19:04:00.000+11:00

the thought police was not really a band, but it turned into go!x3
Pretty much was just me and gazgo recording shitty songs on our computer then sending them to eachother to sing or play guitar over/put really bad drum loops behind. We were looking for other members and were even going to get some girl play bass for us, but her parents dissaprooved because they were heaps christian or something and saw I was wearing a pisschrist t-shirt or something? I dunno. Its okay because she was already into shit music.
I wanted to sing, and garry was going to play guitar so we needed drums and bass, but it never happened. Oh yeah and I found a drummer once and we were going to have a jam, but in typical gary style he didn't show up.

Then I decided that we should change it up and i'd sing and play guitar if garry wanted to drum? so he did and we changed our name. pretty crappy name go! go! go!

We wrote a bunch of songs, did a really bad recording with guitar/bass/voice at my house then took that to someone elses place and recorded the drums. Garry hates this, but I didn't mind it ya know? I was just heaps stoked to have written and recorded some songs no matter how bad they were.

We only played a handful of shows none of which are worth writing about. We also did 2 terrible shows in newcastle. we also played the PORT INVASION show(which I will write about next)

we recorded a second demo that I think sounded better than the 1st even tho it had mostly the same songs, just before the second show in newcastle.
That Newcastle show was our 'last' show. I went away to melbourne and came back and garry didn't wanna do it anymore. I was pretty pissed off because I was pretty proud that we had done this, even if it had LOTS of room for improvement. whatever.

people claimed to like us, we even had one of my friends play us on the radio in Alaska haha.

Show: Jan 2005. knives of neptune.

2008-11-29T18:53:00.000+11:00

This was the last show I put on for a very long time. Reason being I moved out of home not long after and just couldn't be fucked/afford to do it with no one turning up to the shows. What a waste of time. This one I thought would attract people - since it was in the middle of summer and all.

Again at the pcyc in the little room out the back with a few sydney bands and The Knives of neptune from Melbourne.

I can't remember all the names of the sydney bands but they included tommyXgoodtimes and some other dudes who went onto form DIE TRYING, tommy now plays in CLEAN BREAK.

Tommy contacted me after buying the demo of my shitty solo music and said that it influenced his band or someshit? haha. Asked if they could come up and play a show.

The sydney bands were (from memory) all mosh/metal I guess in the style that DIE TRYING do. One band did a cover of an In Name And Blood song, pretty good times.
This was one of the most fun shows, despite no one turning up. The boys from sydney brought up a couple of mates and were just generally stoked to be playing and having a bit of a road trip.
They went around town and harrassed people into coming to the show. Still no one fucking came.

Knives of neptune had asked to play in port before but it fell through, this was a make up show I guess? They were really good, despite having to play on the broken PA and I think they couldn't play as a full band?

Show: My Disco/Agents of abhorrence

2008-11-29T11:32:00.000+11:00

This next show I decided that fuck it I'll do things my way and made the pcyc let me use the backroom. I guess this show really showed my attitude of "well I've heard of this band, so that means other people will have and they will all be stoked on the band" wrong wrong wrong. so lucky that both bands brought a bunch of their friends on tour with them because they would have played to my (then) girlfriend, my sister, maybe less than 5 other people and I.

Whatever. People are idiots and missed a really good show.

We didn't have a mic stand so we tapped the mic to a music stand. The PA was so broken it wasn't funny. I was really glad the band brought with them their sound guy because I would have been fucked.

AOA played first and really were amazing. super fast 2 piece grind with the drummer singing. Amazing technically guitar playing and tight drumming. They have put out a bunch of releases now including a split with Iron Lung and are now a 3 piece.

Again I played, but lets not talk about this.

My Disco are such a great band and as I said above I was of the attitude that I'd heard of them so other people in port will have and will equally be in love with them. They aren't really a "hardcore" band and the music is somewhat hard to describe. Harsh yet sparce. Whatever I've always been terrible at describing music. they were really good. Even managed to sell their CD to one of the cops that was working the pcyc

the first show

2008-11-24T16:06:00.000+11:00

Some time in 2004

Its safe to say there wasn't many(if any) 'hardcore' bands or shows in Port Macquarie for a pretty long time.
I didn't know anyone into music up here, let alone anyone into hardcore and punk. So I decided the best thing to do would be to organise some shows up here and hopefully get some people into coming out to see live bands and get into more DIY things.

The first show was with a new bands from out of town, a local port band and I played 'solo'
it was at the PCYC originally it was supposed to be in the small room out the back. Instead I got offered to have it in the main hall as they thought that they would get a couple of hundred people into the show. Whatever it was the first show that I had done so I was going to get whatever support and money I could get.
In the end about 45-50 people came and it was a bit of a fizzle. It was also the most amount of people to ever come to an early show. Whatever.

The bands that played

THE NEW JUSTICE TEAM - Sydney
This was one of their first shows. They hated playing the show. TNJT ended up releasing a demo cd, a 7" and a split CD

ROOM FOR A HARLOT - Newcastle
another band that had one of its first shows. They almost didn't play because one or two of the guitarists left the band or something? I dunno. Members went on to play in CAPTN MY CAPTN

ORGAN DONER KEBAB - Newcastle
They had played a bunch of shows before this one, including playing with Off Minor. Screamo/Thrash I guess maybe in the vein of Orchid and Off Minor

I can't remember what the local band was called, they weren't really good and they only played because they were the only band I even knew about. They played shitty metalcore sorta like Killswitch Engage I guess. Not even going to mention my shitty music.

In the beginning

2008-11-24T15:56:00.000+11:00

In this blog I will attempt to chronologically write about bands and shows in the past and present in Port Macquarie.

If anyone has any fliers or pics or any other info I would like to include it!