Garage daze.

transferred from butterboxmedia.com

Le Doogan & Seismic: Mona Vale Hotel. Friday 3rd September, 2004.

To me, the embodiment of late ’70s violent musical energy being handcuffed by a progressively watered down ’80s rock emerged at the Mona Vale Hotel back when I watched Alex Smith from Moving Pictures use that What About Me chorus as a drink order. Besides sounding so out of key that he would’ve had to hotwire his car if he’d planned on driving home that night, why didn’t he simply just take a bottle onstage like everyone else?


Since the irritatingly slow departure of those brown rice, karma and Rhinestone hippy days some major renovations have transformed this Northern Beaches pub into The All New Mona Vale Hotel. At least the parallel horrors of acres of polished floorboards, burnished metal portico and such have so far been avoided. Instead there’s live entertainment in two areas, copious TAB outlets, plus a sunken dining area offset by limpid sublit pools with some of those extra large indoor garden chairs. Upon said chairs long-legged beach beauties occasionally settle, which elicits the convincing evidence that life affords for the existentialist principle that we cannot be something without first pretending to be that very thing.

Le Doogan aren’t tethered to any cyclic detritus of new rock. They wander the undulating ground of cleanly defined rhythmic permutations that are relatively impervious to the mercurial swings of taste often sending followers of fashion spiraling into obscurity. Their string-bending, country soul sound is delivered with a barrage of rockabilly drumming by the indomitably hard working Johnny McBryde. The dynamics of tone are strengthened by the dark brown blues vocals of Paul Przybyla and Luke Munro. And the clever observations made in the lyrical themes of loss, longing and betrayal are given a frisson of pleasure by the crying strings of Mark Histon’s lap steel.

A four-track EP entitled BreakDown was recorded at Homebush West’s Keynote Studios and released last May. Working closely with studio owners Dan Rossides and Tony Hysteck was according to Paul, “Amazing in what we didn’t know about production.” The effect is a varied palette upon which the band’s idiosyncratic strength and atmosphere of a particular place are sensitively augmented by the non-intrusive dabbles of Hysteck and Rossides.

A mere two songs into their vigorous eleven number set, touring Canadian band Seismic offered the first five people who approached the stage with five bucks a copy of their Portions CD [Coqi Records; 2003]. Bassist from Ottawa Jason Leen looked almost melancholic as I shrewdly materialized from side stage and availed myself of this highly favourable transaction. In much the same way, the alchemy of Seismic’s narratives remained submerged until the sonic force of their live arrangements recapitulated. Only then did the high-indie nostalgia and apparent enthusiasm about negative social values appear in frontman Dean Watson’s lyrics. Once the textual, atmospheric sounds emptied out some of their luxuriously arty historical associations (think Uncle Tupelo’s first three albums), the lyrics begin to frolic around in all the usual enviromentally friendly ways. And for a little life support, a smattering of evil empire exhortations on the prevailing culture are thrown into some rather obtuse skepticism about desire and responsibility.

Of course, i’ve listened to Portions several times. The bar band’s lament, as bewailed by the bar patrons, is that it’s hard to connect without knowing the songs. Set opener “I&I” was followed by “SOS” and both songs showed mournful, hollow-bodied (at times) sounding compositions transcending the usual melodic swaggering so many of their brutal alt-country cousins possess. They’re not deconstructing emotional openness, but highlighting rhythm in a sometimes surprisingly stark way. There’s a certain easiness between the abstract and the concrete that isn’t some ambitiously renamed malfunction.

Loon mentioned they’d rehearsed fairly constantly of late, and the evidence of repeated instrument-switching onstage confirmed this. Although they’d awkwardly though competitively sold their four-year-in-the-making CD at exactly the same price as Le Doogan’s debut EP, they played a showcase set before peelin-out to the next of their fifteen-gig barnstormin’ of Australian pubs. With an abundance of effects pedals and assorted technowizardry in front of them, they weren’t, however, upstaged by any style over substance. The significant touchstones of a talking soul weren’t lost on the walking wounded present as fake authenticity made a brave comeback.

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In other news from the Tasmanian end of the city, (joke-joke! But technically, anywhere north of St Leonards) Nick and John from Discovery Records at Hornsby will relocate to Glebe during October. Occupying two locations at different times over the past decade, this much-loved vinyl collectors paradise is an essential service for technological fringe-dwellers on the delta of alluvial land that surrounds the Hawkesbury River.

Under the new name of Ready Steady, the same delectably collectable copies of rare, cheap and moderately priced vinyl ‘n’ books will be made available to the ears and eyes of the Inner West. A second store, born from the same Discovery partnership, will soon open at Erskinville. This store, along with numerous uncommonly seen records, features the selling and buying of old wares, objet d’ art plus relics and will be named Relvolve.

- Peter Thornton September, 2004