Why is it tempting to only shoot the big fish?

Republished from Butterboxmedia.com

Andy Clockwise: Classique e femme - @ Newtown. Friday 6th August, 2004

I only heard the last two songs played by Brisbane band The Daybridges. Both, however, were punctuated with the occasional theremin solo. This bizarre piece of equipment resembles a primative contraption from Stalin-era Russia with its vertical and horizontal antennas for controlling pitch and volume.

The hands of the thereminist deftly orbit these sensitive extensions in an approaching or receding fashion coaxing from the instrument its spooky theme-from-the-Addams-family-like noise. Actually, watching a soloist crank the theremin was less awkward or conflicting than i’ve suggested. The owner of the highly developed ear and classically trained violinist hands responsible for the precise wrist action was Silas. His playing augments a simultaneously brutal yet incredibly delicate force to The Daybridges’ take on straight-ahead rock. It also revealed a minor theme for the night as Silas shares a formal education in music with Andy Clockwise and some of his lineup of ex-cons - that is to say, ex-conservatorium students. Andy was recipient of the prestigious Dame Joan Sutherland Musician of the Year Award

A recent gig at the Annandale saw The Daybridges support The Camels. The clearly cultured Silas mentioned this fact while gathering names for an email list post-gig. The Dale’s eatery also scored a big plug along with the band’s new soon to be released EP.

Bertie Blackman has a voice that is curdled, hurt and quite magnificent. It levitates towards the ceiling with all the buoyancy of thick blue smoke exhaled from the mouth of an agonized angel. She is part of the spirited evolution of Andy Clockwise, and he a part of hers. In the ever-changing public persona of the: it’s-all-happening-right-now year of 2004, her lyrics and his arrangements hang in time with elaborate fermenting. The uncompromising 2002 release “Criminal of Desire” was lyrically perfect, while melodically, the deep, super-smooth, penetrating beat of “Very Well”, from the same Blue Sky Pueblo EP, added a comfortable air of city girl lushness to her set of heart-and-humanity personal confessions.

There is no doubt that something in the styles and personalities of Bertie and Andy creates a chemistry which neither of them, so far, has quite been able to create with any other person. In a genre (urban pop, apparently…) where restraint can at times be desperately abandoned for some overly sentimental campfire indulgence, her narratives create a welcome shift in tone giving listeners something pragmatic to consider aside from the quaintly radical.

She also performed material from her new album, excluding the instantly identifiable - but not nauseous - pop of “Favourite Jeans.” The album, launched fittingly at The Vanguard in Newtown on the 19th of this month is called Headway.

This week Andy Clockwise told Ross Clelland from Drum Media how he, “still hasn’t found exactly what his style is.” The audience obviously profited from this tactful strategy as he segued from some frightful technical contretemps plaguing the venue all night into a relatively sparse arrangement of “Middle Man.” The youngish crowd looked enthralled as he drove home this stripped-down but captivating example of musical academia meets off-the-leash Vegas lounge act.

The night was billed as Andy’s stage show: Classique e femme. With Sandy Toggs, This Choir Kills Facists & a mini orchestra. La Toggs & her guitarist opened with a cabaret-style lip-sync of “Home,” which resulted in a little uncertainty from the future knockabouts present, who were nervously checking out each others leers. If the dudes in attendance appeared in some ways a little naive to all of this action, the girls were indeed razor sharp. The melodrama of drag has no middle ground, and what might have looked all very Oxford Street Saturday night, (circa ‘84) actually spoke volumes on the current state of youth-oriented radio programming. But then, the tricky @ Newtown hydraulic runway was whisked away and Andy, complete with mini orcheastra, began negotiating the surroundings that were to cause his low-level frustration.

When finally, the audio behaved with something approaching consistency, most of the brassier numbers from his mini-album Song Exihibition [Shock; 2002] were given a run. Right from the very moment I heard this debut - approximately one year ago at the Hopetoun Hotel “Every Song” video launch - I was absolutely convinced by its beautifully arranged landscape of sincere hooks and distinctive instrumentation. Such contributions to the derivitive nature of musical advancement oppose the ‘create a situation in which a band can happen’ ethos of pop and instead, set about presenting music that’s been put through a sieve of pop with wit, charm and intelligence, and without the frequently seen sense of autopilot insecurities. However, the lavish sound isn’t readily explained away by the usual ‘cast of thousands onstage’ theory. Each delivery of proclaimed urgency is divided by its own flourish of city block-size instrumental definer.

Unsurprisingly, Andy replaced the resignation he felt for the sound glitch, “This is the gig from hell!” with an organic intimacy evoking an urban opera. First, he questioned the cross-legged, audience seated directly in front of him with a well deserved, “What’s all this shit about?” Then, he pummelled them with every note from an insanely tight rhythm section, thickly enriched by the dizzying conscious of the mini orchestra. If the earlier songs were merely captivating, the final ones flowed like an absolute torrent of hormonally stirred blood.

The arduous and complex life of an elderly gigster (revealed to be somewhere over the age of 25) requires certain tactful obligations to the mythical standing of cool. Should one, for example, mosh? How much real moshing really occurs these day anyway? Have I chosen an act where moshing is expected? Or, would I? (And you thought the 50 sub-genres of pop were a little confusing.)

Ultimately moved by the rhythm into shaking my ass, and finding myself lodged in between some prime examples of what Dave McCormack accurately described as, “the beautiful girls” on his single “Inner West”, I purged my pointless chin-stroking to a far better end during “Sarcastic Boy,” “Every Song” and a very isolated improv of “Milkshake.”

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In common with both supports acts Andy Clockwise will release a new studio album shortly. A recording of Classique e femme was available for purchase on the night by subscription.

- Peter Thornton August, 2004