The nature of Hobart’s
underground guitar music – only a couple of bars sympathetic to the sounds, the
sometimes-months-long gaps between gigs
– means that not every band gets to establish themselves, to build solid
performances or solid audiences. This can also mean that bands are constantly
in flux, constantly re-making themselves, and that every time they get up on
stage they are offering their songs in ways that may never again be seen.
The first of last Friday’s bands,
Treehouse, would have been lucky to get past security – they looked only a
couple of weeks past 16. They opened with a loud evocation of alcoholic mess
then slipped easily into a kind of wordless art-rock groove. The feel was loose
as fuck and a lot of the songs the three guys (the simplest make-up of guitar,
bass and drums) blitzed through in the best possible way. They had a lot of
ideas that lesser groups might like to sit and jam on, explore the sound for a
time. But Treehouse were keen to throw a song out there, let it do its thing
and not let it outstay its welcome. The singer stood straight, awkward, and
screamed through his songs, largely directing the rest of the band. The last
couple of numbers unfortunately had the guys on different pages - often an
intriguing sign though of a band finding their footing.
Mess O’ Reds looked like, to
borrow a friend’s phrase, Treehouse a couple of years down the line. Same three
piece make-up, same positions on stage, even down to the bass player affecting his mate’s lost-and-bored look. A couple of songs in and the area in front of
the stage beginning to fill, kids were streaming in, starting to buck and sway.
The singer came on all shouty, trying to push his guitar off his body as his
screamo instincts kicked in. The last fifteen minutes of the set were marred by
a mixer who was either deaf or uninterested in his job and decided to do
nothing about the too- loud bass. The guy holding the instrument onstage seemed
clueless – it probably sounded fine to him up there – but down the front the
more interesting parts of the songs, here played by the guitar, were completely
lost.
The nervousness and anticipation
from the now solid audience while Naked were setting up filled the room with a
most delicious tension, the band being heckled before they had a chance to slam
into the first song. The Justin Timberlake smoothed things into a sexy groove
(maybe another mistake by the man on the sound board, but this time a welcome
one).
Naked is the project headed by
one Kieran Sullivan and originally conceived and recorded solo in some dank Sandy
Bay bedsit. Said recordings were mostly put together on acoustic instruments
plugged into computers that push everything to its limit, leaving it quivering
with electricity (and not too far from early, acoustic Kitchen’s Floor). To flesh
out and ratchet up the live sound Kieran has pulled together three friends:
Robert on guitar, Jordan on bass and Mysterious Drummer Guy on tubs. Onstage
the need to just be loud and obnoxious and fun makes for proper audience
enjoyment. The songs themselves are manic. Some are structured; some are simply
moans and feedback and knockabout beats. Kieran stomped about the stage
gripping the mic at its base, hollering his dejection in a voice that was
toneless, faux-dumb and properly fierce. He had shirts flung onto his face from
a couple of male admirers who started a four-man mosh and danced while the band
drive full-bore through their set.
Not every amateur gets a chance
to make a musical mark. But if you’re in the right place at the right time and
manage to pay witness to some clever heads putting together this kind of raw,
debased guitar music it won't just transform you. It’ll make you a better human.
