All I Do Is Listen @ Gasometer Hotel

Mining Boom in: ‘Patti Smith The Musical’.

Leadlight overhangs, stained wood panelling and musty carpet in all its patterned glory…Friday nights in the upstairs bandroom at the Gasometer always feel like a night in nonna’s lounge room rather than a suitable place to wig out.  This lounge room however, is beset by the slight fragrance of feet and lager, and everyone’s knitted attire has worked up the walls of the bandroom to the dewy consistency of a public sauna.

Bored Nothing are done when I arrive (sadface) but this is another typical occasion where I’ve missed a good support band in favour of food. No pity for the small group sitting on the floor for the first half of King Tears Mortuary’s set though. Are locals devoid of detaching their bodily vessels from musty carpet? Did the kids confuse King Tears for the bedtime story happening at the Snakadaktal show down the road? Standing room only pals…show some respect.

KTM plays ‘Crash Report’ and some other songs I don’t know the name of. Vocal tennis between KTM’s frontdude + woman and some edgy basslines offer a sullied ray of sunshine to all the background mumbling from everybody up the back. Dronesome surf-punk played well tends to hang it’s loose, lackadaisical fanfare over the room between sets. Since I’m stopping by at optimism, I should probably apologize for knocking over someone’s full pint of lager all over door guy (sorry Thom) + discretely blaming negligence on King Tears bassist.

There’s a dashing side profile of some guy with a mullet on the cover of Mining Boom’s EP. Their lead singer is wearing an akubra, while the keyboardist dons a ‘Slim Dusty: The Movie’ tshirt. No one is leaving disappointed tonight.

There are several times where Mining Boom’s lead guy wanders off with his back to the crowd to during solos, but by the time he turns around I can’t decide if I’m weirded out by the resemblance to Patti Smith, or aroused by the thought of Patti Smith stumbling across the Nullabor in a bush hat and a tropical shirt. Patti here sings songs about the land, lust and longing – notably, the subtleties of ‘Craigie’, where he repeats ‘ONE DAY I’M GONNA BASH THAT C*NT’ in time with some chimey keyboard major chords and the sort of sincerity that would make Gareth Liddiard narrating an Ambi Pur commercial seem a reasonably casual affair.

Thanks to All I Do Is Listen, as well as JACK YOUNGER who took maneuvered his way around limited lighting to take the set of rad photos below.