Smokin' Gun single launch - Brighton Up Bar 18|4|13.

Lily So and the Bellows.

Bart and Jacob.

Bris-bloody-coe mate.

Camden.

Photos by Charles from The Sydney Standard

Can't Knock The Hustle - Friends Ago Show #2

FBi SOCIAL // 15 NOV

Iluka + Evil J and Saint Cecilia + Briscoe

The FBi Social show was just meant to be a nice warm up for the rest of the tour - that was before we booked a Brisbane show the night before. Instead it became a grueling test of our minds and bodies. It was part of FBi Radio's Supporter Drive so if nothing else it was for a very good cause. 

Side note: If you are not a supporter of this most excellent community radio station, sign up HERE. They are advancing the cause of the arts in a town that seems hell bent on stifling it. Full disclosure: I work at FBi, but I only work there because I love and believe in it.


In the morning, most of us had gone from the airport to work then to the venue for soundcheck, and we subbed in Luke Davison on the drums. On a macro level, the gig was really good but pretty uneventful, at the cellular level though it would have been bloody spectacular - no sleep, low blood sugar, synaptic activity 2% above what would be considered vegetative, yet somehow we managed to play something that resembled a great show. 

Side note [and contrary to how it might seem]: I effing love this tour slog stuff. It can feel really good to sustain injury for your music. Sometimes being in a band can feel like almost total bullshit - like 98% social media content aggregation, publicity, self-abasement and arselicking to get a gig and futile response chasing, and then 2% actual music. The pain most often comes in the form of a slow erosion of your resolve, a strangulation that works imperceptibly over the years until you quietly lose consciousness then wake up on your 40th birthday in an ice bath without your kidneys.

A rough tour is a short right to gut - it's the acute pain that gives immediate weight to the whole exploit of making and playing music. When most of a band's life is lived online in the documentation of minutia; in the quest for something viral and in confected tweet-sized press releases, doing something in the name of your music that you feel in your bones brings it all crashing back to reality. And work is good for you, it feels good to work hard at something and touring feels more legitimately like work than does posting goat remix vids to get your facebook algorithm humming.    

The album tour: gone but not entirely forgotten.

The last time we really talked, we were getting ready to tour a new album and we spoke as if all things were possible. In November last year we hit the road and set about collapsing all these possible states into one definitively onerous one.  I did mean to do a tour diary as we went but the tour was kinda all-consuming so now, three months later i am left with the shabby remembrances of an, at times, hilariously bumbling tour to sift through.

DISCLAIMER: While on the face of it, the tour was a bit of an ordeal, it fused us all together in a really profound way. Despite anything I may say, we had tonnes of fun.

Sim has a quiet 6am weep into Dee's lap

BLACK BEAR LODGE // 14 NOV

The Ray Mann Three + Briscoe

I wonder if the three people in the crowd knew how unlikely a feat it was that we had gotten there that Wednesday night to play for them. 

I wonder if they realised that we were sitting at desks and standing in front of classrooms and selling bargain instruments to people who love slap bass five hours prior, and about a thousand kilometres away. 

I wonder if they saw in my eyes the abject disappointment of someone who had hired an 8-seater van to save money on taxis only to need taxis anyway when a miscommunication about gear transport meant that the van pulled up to the airport way too full of drum kit to fit things like band members. 

I wonder if, while heading home from work that afternoon, these three punters had seen us waddling across town lugging amps and guitars and bits of drums because the only alley we could stop in during peak hour was so far away from the venue that the climatic conditions were different. 

I wonder, if as they were on their way in to Black Bear later that night they saw me fidgeting in that same alley like an itchy addict, waiting for a borrowed amp to arrive as the rest of the band stood on stage waiting to soundcheck.

I wonder if they realised that the free tacos we received upon checking in to our hostel at about 830pm were the first thing most of us had eaten that day. And that this simple gesture on the part of the hostel may have saved the three of them from a flirty and ultimately lethal hostage situation later that evening.

I wonder if they appreciated that the insults I hurled at them from the stage and the rollicking looseness of the set were a result of 4 medicinal shots of tequila, administered consecutively, and that they were absolutely vital in averting a stress-induced pant-soiling sob-fest.

I wonder if they noticed that Dee was pregnant and that Ross and Joel pulled a mighty double shift - playing drums and bass respectively for us then as two thirds of the Ray Mann Three.

I wonder if, in the wee hours as they lay wide-eyed in their beds, tormented by my chillingly accurate tequila-fuelled deconstructions of their characters, they could have known that Ross and I were driving deliriously around the greater Brisbane area trying to find the guy who lent us the drum kit so we could get the fuck back to the hostel to sleep for a couple of hours before we needed to be on a plane back to Sydney, back to our places of business before FBi Social that night.

Probably not.

Back baby.

The new song.

This is B.O.T.S. - the single we are releasing with the album, and the clip we made one sweaty-ass night in Dave and Kate's roof. Watch this, then on Nov 9 buy the album from a store ("i" or otherwise) then come to a show - we are touring the east coast in November and December and we are ready to melt some effing faces :)

Album tour time.

Good news Briscoe enthusiasts, our first album 'Friends Ago' is out on November 9 in stores and online! Check out the dates below and come to a show, it's gonna be some fuuuuuuuuuun shit.

Click HERE to join in.

Friday night at the Forbes.

THIS FRIDAY WITH THE KHANZ AND ANTONIO PAUL

Some photos from FBi Social, 13 September.

...by the lovely Dexter Cornelius.

Come for the free beer. Stay for the rad music, and in spite of the fact you missed the free beer.

An Evening with Ranger Spacey.

Animal lyrics as requested by Amanda Vallis Thompson on the Facebook.

Nobody knew when we were in school
That I'd grow up to be an animal.
Running around like kids at a pool
I grew up to be an animal, an animal.


Lock me away, whatever you say
I'm sick of feeling like I'm on the lam
A word to my face, they never did say
I guess I'm the animal you say I am
Oh I guess I'm the animal you say I am


Trying to do what I thought I could
It was never unthinkable
I made a mistake and undid the good
I grew up to be an animal, an animal


Lock me away, whatever you say
I'm sick of feeling like I'm on the lam
A word to my face, they never did say
I guess I'm the animal you say I am
I guess I'm the animal you say I am
Oh I guess I'm the animal you say I am


Nails into my hands, nails into my hands
Friends ago on the witness stand.

Tour pt 5 - Newcastle, the end.

THE GREAT NORTHERN // 9 JUNE

Yae!Tiger, Briscoe + Hopes

Brooke from Yae!Tiger organised this show and it was sort of the quid pro quo to the Wollongong gig (aka shit-stinking ordeal they had to drive 4 hrs down from Newcastle for). We had booked hostel beds for the night but Brooke and Shane insisted we stay at their place, come early for a barbeque and eat all the rest of their food at 2am. We're lucky they don't understand latin, or that they are excellent people. 

Brooke and Shane also have a 2 piece side project called The Si Claros which you should check out. They've just pressed their debut 7". I heard it at their place on this<<< 

Hopes were up first and I really dug it. A few people were scrunching up their noses but it was a young band and they were really going for something - it was a chunk of noise rock with some edgy vocal ideas and some killer fuzzed-out guitar hooks that were making me think of My Bloody Valentine. A little way off MBV but at least they were going for something outside the ambit of inbred, edgeless indie music.     

Luke Davison of Preachers fame was filling in for Ross on the drums. We had one rehearsal with him, one short rehearsal and he was all over it. He must really like Briscoe, like heaps more than the Preachers. 

The gig felt very good, a bit loose but in the best possible way. It was timely cos the one/two punch of Wollongong and the Lansdowne had me ready to do something i may have regretted, like sell all my instruments and get a Sydney mortgage.

Yae!Tiger were terrific again. Set opener Sleepworking is my fave at the moment I think. We drew the curtain on the tour and consummated our bandlove by jumping up with them and singing the ecstatic outro to the Gordon Shumway Experiment. Flaming Lips eat your hearts out. 

Thanks to everyone who came to a show, we really appreciate it - not just saying that. Next time we see you it'll be with an album for sale at the door.

Tour pt 4 - The Lansdowne.

THE LANSDOWNE // 24 MAY

Briscoe, Tales In Space, Capitol + The FireTree

A few of us had been sick all week and between soundcheck and the gig, I lost my voice.

Byron duo the FireTree had been shoehorned into the bill by the venue the day before and they Matt Corbied their way through some Angus and Julia Stone territory. They were sweet but played too early to make an impact. 

Capitol came next and didn't play my favourite Capitol song Velveteen. I was very cross, but they did Let You Down and their cover of Rebel Yell so I forgave them. 

LEEEEEEEEEEE!

Capitol hold a special place in our hearts because they were almost the lone witnesses of our first ever gig. Before Briscoe had even thought about gigging Yak, Dee, Dave, Kate and I were playing a Dusker show (the other band we are all in) in Katoomba with Capitol and a band from the mountains. The mountains band pulled out at the last minute and early evening contentment with a 2 band bill gave way to 11pm drunken insistence on a third - the outrageously under-prepared and drummerless virgin Briscoe. 

The pub was changing owners the following week and the bar staff apparently didn't care for the incoming administration enough to bother with tedious things like commerce. They emptied three bottles of tequila into us for free. Then we played. For an hour maybe... we don't even have that much material now that we've had a rehearsal, I shudder to think what the hell we were playing back then. This guy (left), Lee was his name, kept assuring me afterwards that we were artists, but I think I overheard him later assuring a chip in the table laminate that it was an artist so, we're pretty much artists. 

In the end both Lee and Capitol were just as trolleyed as us so the reality of the gig died that night along with most of our brain cells.

It was around the middle of Capitol's set this time around that I realised my voice was disappearing. 

Luke, Pieman and Bambi (TiS)

Tales In Space were next, an electro-pop rockin 3 piece fronted by Luke Bertoz who mixed the Briscoe record. Jesus they were good. They have been around for a while but I don't think I'm being overly biased when I say they have what it takes to make it, if that means anything whatsoever. For a small electro outfit they've struck the perfect balance between live playing and backing track. They are slick, busy and engaging on stage and the songs (especially their new ones) are fucking undeniable. 

We got on stage and while the others tuned up I strummed the first verse of the first song desperately to myself, trying in vain to squeeze out something resembling the melody. I had nothing. I was shitting myself. Jacob started the song, I started to sing, the sound guy started to turn down my mic. It felt like my voice was sandpaper being dragged up past my larynx, I definitely did some permanent damage but apparently this is what rock n roll is made of yes? Yak and Dee and Kate stepped up the backing vocals and Yak even covered a few guitar parts that he could see I was gonna be too preoccupied to bother with.

Man it sucked but I'm glad it happened - I've always feared this kind of thing but at least I know what to expect now - I know my kick-arse band will fill the gaps, I know that the people in the front will still clap despite their true feelings, and I know that most people will be listening only enough to know that we started and we finished.

"Good set man"
"Ha, thanks that's kind of you"
"Whoa are you losing your voice?" 

READ PART 5 HERE

Tour pt 3 - The Gong.

THE PATCH // 18 MAY

Paisley Park, Briscoe + Yae!Tiger

Owen from Y!T - Simply The Best

Raining. Dee and I got there first and we walked through a rowdy, harshly lit front bar to the band room at the back. It looked pretty decent - nice sized stage, good PA, lighting rig, dance floor, decent. THIS IS NOT WHERE YOU ARE PLAYING. Back out to the beige-tastic front bar where we were actually playing, we'd missed the stripping waitresses by five minutes - they'd left ripples of burbling misogyny in their wake though. The stage was dismal: shallow and wide with twin flat-screen gargoyles perched above it. Yae!Tiger politely disguised their horror as they arrived and to their credit, were very civil to me. I felt bad.

The Rugby League was switched off, most of the clientele vacated the premises and Y!T proceeded to rock what was left of the house. They were once a 6+ piece but they took a break and slimmed down to 4 and it really is a helluva rebirth. The songs, which were always great, are so much bolder and clearer as a four piece. It's pop that rarely goes where you expect it to, but still gets its hooks into you. Totally creative and engrossing. 

Half of Briscoe arrived just before we were set to go on, and the first words we said to each other were "one, two, three, four" then I proceeded to offend one of the only punters who had hung around in response to a heckle I may have misheard. It had been a rough week and this iced the cake. Context aside I think it was one of our tightest sets. Surprisingly, a group of people who had been drinking with their backs to us turned around when we finished and shouted "change yer name and play another set!" I'll be quoting that in the next press release for sure.

Locals Paisley Park came on after us for their maiden show and my heart broke for them as the sound guy tried without urgency or success to tame the feedback that was dominating their first few songs. His solution in the end was to turn off the singer's microphone and to rest on the laurels of that nobel-worthy decision for the next two songs. It. Sucked.

READ PART 4 HERE

Brooke and Cat (Y!T) getting psyched

Tour pt 2 - Canberra.

THE PHOENIX // 12 MAY

Briscoe, Waterford + Lavers

In contrast, Canberra was loud, small and sweaty. The place was heaving because it was nothing degrees outside and Groovin the Moo was on the following day so people arrived a day early to gee up and take all of the accommodation. This meant the gig would be a rager but we'd be homeless afterwards. Lucky we found a friend living in Palmerston with 27 couches in her otherwise modest house.

Lavers played first, in 2-piece double acoustic mode. Dom the singer is mega likeable on stage and their songs are solid but they were fighting against a rising tide of punters trying to find somewhere to settle and continue their conversations from outside. This is where a drumkit comes in handy. Dee and I were loving on Waterford's album 'Say OK' on the way down and their set cemented these songs in our minds, this one especially. 

<<<

They are literate, classy songwriters, breezy performers and such nice guys. I have a ton of time for them.

For us, squeezing on to the Phoenix stage means there's basically 6 layers of denim keeping the gig from becoming a group sex show, but it is one of my favourite places to play just because you feel like anything goes. Get up, get loose, get loud in a very confined space, sweat, swear, bump into shit... it's a gig with absolutely no pretence and a venue that actually supports original music and treats you better than you probably deserve. 

Lots of people thought that my Jacob t-shirt was actually Elliott Smith...

Bev (Ranger Spacey's drummer, right) who was down with his much better half Kat, got painted up and started a mosh during Seven of You. I appreciated it, even if the people he was jumping on didn't. Never change Bevis!

READ PART 3 HERE

Tour pt 1 - FBi Social.

The Day Job tour was interesting. I think saying we were "on" tour might be a bit misleading. More like we were "beside" tour, dipping in at showtime then immediately out again and back to reality for another seven arduous days. It was a sadistic cosmic coincidence that everyone in the band happened to be going through their own personal upheavals during this time. Mostly the shows felt like breaks of barely discernible reception in some heavy static. In this way it was tough to get the sense of being on tour as opposed to playing some unrelated gigs here and there but the one thing I can say is that a lot of learning happened.

FBi SOCIAL // 4 MAY
Briscoe, Bloods, Mushu + Lily So & Co

Despite being under-prepared for it, the FBi Social show was a happy success. It was our first headline show so I had a promoter's sweat on for most of the night, but plenty of people came and all the bands nailed it.

Lily So has a big band but still manages to create plenty of space around her songs with great restraint and really thoughtful arrangements. They played a beautiful set.

It was the first time I had seen Bloods and they were a lot of fun - catchy as hell and rocking the house through a Peavey practice amp, this is cool.

And Mushu are just one of those bands that I take friends to see and without fail they'll ask "why haven't these guys made it yet?" It was maybe the best Mushu set I've ever seen, and I've seen them roughly billions of times.

This felt like our most important show and we were appropriately jittery and excited, in a "yes that's her hand on my crotch: game on" kind of way but we kept our cool and walked out of there with big smiles and our gig bags slung strategically over our groinal regions.

Big ups to Dan Nash on the sound desk and Kimb who books the room - what a couple of legends.

READ PART 2 HERE

Photos by Kate Farquharson - http://www.facebook.com/katefarquharsonphotographer



         

Day Job Tour almost over, actual day job remains interminable.

Well the tour is almost done and the post-tour empty and broken feeling is kicking in. Maybe i'll post about the shows in greater depth in the next few days but for now I'll just say come to the Great Northern in Newcastle this Saturday night for the last show... the weather's gonna be nice, the hostel beds are cheap and the bands (Yae!Tiger, Hopes and Briscoe) are, in my opinion, excellent.

I took this video on my telephone of Yae!Tiger (who are great) at our Wollongong show (which was effing horrible). Because I thought I'd be clever and get a non-iPhone phone, the sound does not do them justice... it is a great song though. Go here to hear a version that doesn't sound like a Thurston Moore noise rock excursion. 

Oh yeah, the clip.

Written, directed, shot and edited by Briscoe.
Starring: Dee Dee and Benjamin Pask, Ana Munro, Denise Rachel Gaberman, Bart and Matthew Denaro

Playing shows why not.

This is happening.

BRISCOE GIG #1 
The Lansdowne Hotel - 19/01/12
The Owls
Briscoe
Jimi Linton (Solo)


I can see the Lansdowne from my office. I looked at it a lot on this day.

We were actually supposed to play our first show on a Thursday in mid December, but Jacob was hospitalised with gallstones on the tuesday night. He admitted himself after a rehearsal spent looking (but not sounding) particularly pale and disconcerted. He's a committed bastard godluvim.

We practiced our arses off leading up to that December false-start but with Yak in hospital and the standard xmas/new years absences, we didn't play together again until this Lansdowne gig.

But it was amazing.

I play with Jimi in Ranger Spacey so i know how good he is. If you see his solo stuff, pay attention. Listen to the lyrics. Hear him strap a vocal to a chord progression like an angry patient to a bed then administer the morphine til it sinks back into the covers. Heavyweight songs. Raucous rock'n'rollers from the north, The Owls played after us and they smashed it too. Plus they are total gentlemen. We've since shared the stage with them in Newcastle and if we never play a gig without them again i will be a happy kid.

____

Well. What a fucking thing your first gig is. What an absolute mess, what a jumble. You're brain trying to untangle your stupid fingers while recalling and spitting out lyrics in the right order, and close enough to in-key that people can listen to it. Then you look around at your friends, concentrating hard, sweating onto their instruments, making noise to join with your noise and occasionally acknowledging each other - brother and sisterhood in extremis. We knew the songs, no one else did. We were shouting secrets, we were letting cats out of bags, we were the only ones in the cabin who knew how to land the thing - it's the crazy rush you can only have at the beginning.

The shambles, though, is something I never want to lose. I don't think i ever want to be tight, when shit is on the brink of falling apart that's when you feel alive. It's also why i like a big band with lots of elements, SO MANY THINGS CAN GO WRONG IT'S THE BEST. I have this image in my head of the six of us at the top of a hill with our jackets caught in a car door. Handbrake: off. You'd wanna watch that right?