The Creases are that band
everybody’s been talking about for the last few months, ever since they were
miraculously signed with the prestigious Rough Trade Records. To give you a bit
of perspective, Rough Trade represent bands such as Belle and Sebastian,
Warpaint, The Palma Violets and The Strokes, a mere blip on Rough Trade’s indie
music monopoly.
It’s a story most people can get behind,
with the young members being clear underdogs in the music industry who will
hopefully put Brisbane on the map. If you’re another musician, however, it does
seem a bit unfair that The Creases, who have only been around for a few months,
have achieved the success most bands in Brisbane have been working toward for
years. How The Creases may differ from some of the other garage acts in
Brisbane and the reasons they may have found success is probably because their
sound is more accessible and they are more accessible too. Unfortunately, many
of the bands in Brisbane have a deadly Achilles Heel that prevents them from
having any success: they’re lack of motivation to promote their music, because
that would be seen as trying too hard, which isn’t very garage, now is it?
Nevertheless, The Creases did have
something to prove and I went down to Alhambra Lounge on Halloween to check it
all out.
Halloween is always a great night
to catch a gig, with the costumes and décor providing a festive atmosphere and
allowing most people to let loose a little more than they would have without
the costume. Supporting The Creases is Babaganouj, another line-up of hip young
kids reviving their nostalgic nighties roots with an inflection of pop-rock
tunes that recall bands like Hole, who the band covers with the song ‘Malibu’.
Leading this nighties-revival scene in Brisbane is the incredibly successful Go
Violets, who have lent two members to Babaganouj. Or maybe it is the other way around:
keeping track of the chronology of all these bands can be difficult when they
swap and share band members like sex partners. Thus, is the Brisbane music
scene.
Babaganouj’s sound is more
alternative rock than the bittersweet and intimate sound of Go Violets. Kind of
like the more daring and fun older brother. The band put on a nice show:
charismatic lead singer Charles Sale sports a clever Lou Reed Halloween
costume, flanked by the Go Violet girls Ruby McGregor and Harriette Pillbeam
decked out in white men’s shirts, with Hariette’s shirt covered in blood and
Ruby’s presumably being a homage to Pulp Fiction in combination with her
blunt black bob. There’s a good balance of energy here, with Charles providing
most of the zest, whilst the girls let him do his thing, always looking like
their enjoying themselves. As a result, the audience has a good time too. It’s
the kind of gig where everybody is dancing or at the very least, swaying, and
nobody is getting hurt. It’s a testament to the kind of people that flock to
these shows. Although a lot of people let out a unanimous groan whenever the
dreaded hipster is mentioned, at least these are the kind of kids who can put
on a silly costume, have fun and dance around without getting stupid.
Babaganouj take us back to the
nighties with their set, an era we remain in when The Creases take the stage.
All the band members from The Creases have costumes on too, with one of the
front-men, Jarrod Mahon, wearing oversized overalls that I’ve concluded may
have been a Backstreet Boys homage, although I can’t be sure. Maybe that’s just
his look. A lot of young bands have recently emerged in the indie rock music
scene with a hip retro look, but a mismatched bubblgegum, Backstreet Boys pop
sound, but the reverse is true with The Creases. The band applies a standard
pop formula to their tunes, otherwise they wouldn’t be catchy, but this is no
Backstreet Boys tribute. The sound is more mellow and grungy, but it’s hardly
anything groundbreaking. Even so, it doesn’t surprise me that they got signed
to Rough Trade. Go Violets prove that this repackaged 90s grunge sound and
image for indie kids sells.
But The Creases are hardly the
best Brisbane has to offer a major label like Rough Trade. The songs are fun
and the band puts on a good show, even crowd-surfing at a couple of points, but
it isn’t anything new. But at the end when half the audience and Babaganouj are
on the stage with The Creases and everybody is dancing, I can’t help but fall
prey to the infectious good vibes of the night and think that maybe, this is a
little special. There is definitely a lot of potential for these guys to become
something really cool. The single, ‘I Won’t Wait’, is the best song The Creases
have, but even then it’s only really a ‘good’ song: melodious and a little
scrappy (in a good way), with a bit of quirk thrown in with the singers’
trademark Australian accents, but it’s not anything mind-boggling. Still, ‘I
Won’t Wait,’ shows these guys can write a song, but the question remains, can
they write more than a good, clean, fun pop song and reinvent indie rock ala
Rough Trade’s The Strokes? Probably not, but that’s a hefty challenge. I think
we will see good things from these guys and that is what counts, especially
with Rough Trade guiding them.
Published by AAA Backstage.
Published by AAA Backstage.
No comments:
Post a Comment