new001: BH Collection Launch (Sep 8 in Marrickville) w/ BED WETTIN' BAD BOYS, ITCHY & THE NITS, OSBO, PHOTOGENIC, JACKY WUNDER
+++BH zine collection launching in september + an ode to SYD's finest___
A (not so) soft announce for a (not so) new BARELY HUMAN project coming in a few week’s time! On Sunday September 8th at the Portugal Madeira Club in Marrickville, BH will be hosting a gig and DIY Swap Meet to launch a book collection of zines, essays and scripts from ten years of BARELY HUMAN. It goes back through the podcast scripts, the original print essays, blogs, website posts, and unpublished notes, all collected in a self-published/edited/typeset 300-page book that looks alarmingly like a real book. Initially in a limited first edition of 150 copies, this has only been for sale to paid subscribers from over the years as a thank you (hit me up if you missed the email) and will go forth to the public after the launch. In the meantime, below is a little bit about the bands who’ll be playing on the day, who you should listen to, and even watch LIVE… on September 8th 2024 at 1 Denby St, Marrickville for $20-30 PWYC commencing around 3pm. Hope to see you there if you can make it!
As BARELY HUMAN evolved over the years, it became clear to me that I wasn’t really trying to shed the curse of RANDY NEWMAN / BUTTHOLE SURFERS / etc fandom, and only partially wanted to give the underrecognised/misunderstood their dues. When I was forced to dig into the subtext while putting together this collection, it felt more like I’d been trying to justify my chosen way of life within ~DIY punk land~. Whether that was to myself or an outsider who might have been looking for the kind of things my friends and I had discovered, I don’t know… but in going back through all this writing to assemble the collected edition of BARELY HUMAN, I had time to think of the bands, friends and structures (community?) that pulled me into DIY and kept me there (or sometimes even brought me back in after trying to quit.) This launch show (and the written primer below) is an ode to some of those people, who (and I don’t say this lightly) gave me something to live for when work, life and the personal took their toll. This is the line-up for the event, and some explanation for why I think they fit into the lineage of underground musician I’ve spent many years trying to document!
BED WETTIN’ BAD BOYS
A couple years back, I went through my hard drive looking for old writing to steal from (some of which is here), and was surprised at how often I tried and failed to write about BED WETTIN’ BAD BOYS. Album reviews, interviews, live reviews, cameo appearances in long rambling essays, all trying to express why this is the stuff to a readership who only sometimes wanted to hear it. They were important to me because they were partly responsible for me ever wanting to get involved too, supporting You Am I at the Annandale around 2010. That night, BED WETTIN’ BAD BOYS blew me away, but through their relative lack of musicality and anti-rock dog VS rock dog aesthetic, seemed to almost offend the people I went to the show with. These people asked afterwards, “why can’t they sing and what’s with the name?”, and I wouldn’t hear it! It was one of the first times I realised that I never really enjoyed the music I’d been listening to, had been seeking out something else entirely, and might have just found it.
The era of BWBB that I first saw was a transitional period from their instrument swapping, stand-up drummer, three-piece years responsible for their first 7” titled Best Band in Sydney / Worst Band in Sydney (a dichotomy that was more than just a tagline), into the full blown rock band format with Doug on drums (a true loyalist, to my knowledge he hasn’t played in any other bands for any length of time; he also went to high school with my cousin!) There have been some very funny moments related tangentially to the band. Sometimes it was out of their control (their first LP Ready For Boredom was erroneously labelled a ‘dolewave’ record just as the term was kicking off, and was even declared “the greatest rock album of all time” by a Guardian columnist). Sometimes it was just to do with their outspoken bassist Nic (RIP SOCIETY labelhead who had a brief moment of infamy after heckling one recipient of an Australian Independent Record Award, a music industry construct for ‘independent’ record labels that tended to exclude anything run outside of industry control). The members of the band also spiral out into a web of other DIY groups in this city and beyond who have all proven equally as (if not more) important: Joe (ROYAL HEADACHE, OSBO, VIPP), Ben (RED RED KROVVY, THE BABY) and Nic (MODEL CITIZEN, RUINED FORTUNE, CIRCLE PIT, countless others). In any other era that kinda lineage is a mythology!
BED WETTIN’ BAD BOYS continued to improve musically (second LP Rot is an underrated record that seemed to get lost on release), and remained true to their guiding ethos of doing it on their own, building up a community around them, and pushing their skillset right to the edge while eschewing trained musicianship along the way. It’s proof in classic DIY fashion that anyone can do this shit, and it’s an honour to have become friends with them over their years (even if no one in the band seemed to notice that BASIC HUMAN covered ‘Lone Wolf’ on the night we supported them.) I once joked with Kim of PHOTOGENIC that we should get BED WETTIN’ BAD BOYS tramp stamps, but as much of a bad idea as this is objectively, when I write shit like the above down, I reckon I could still have my arm twisted!
PHOTOGENIC
Many of the members of PHOTOGENIC I might even have met at BED WETTIN’ BAD BOYS shows. Either way, I knew the members as friends before they started their band, forming in 2017 as a part of a wave of new Sydney groups starting up with first-time members. Truly one of the joys of spending/wasting all your free time on DIY music is seeing friends coalesce into a band, and PHOTOGENIC always felt like a neat and tidy collaboration to me rather than the project of any one person; they have always had good synergy. I can’t think of anyone else who has sounded much like them so find references hard to pin down, their many influences and styles mashed together to create something their own. When I think of them, I think of three things: Kim’s lyrics to the bridge of ‘Clue’ (“you’re a piece of shit stuck between my toes”); Peta’s perfect guitar line that backs that lyric (a wildly eerie sliding solo that really gets up the nerves); and the power of first hearing their unreleased song ‘Fried Brains’ and its belter of a chorus (“don’t look at me / don’t come near me / I’m medicated: fried brains”). I feel like I’ve embarrassed myself as aspirant #1 PHOTOGENIC fan, in part because it was so damn exciting on a personal level to see my friends who had supported the local DIY community for so long join their first band in their late-twenties, and fucken rule at it. Their demo tape is an underrated masterclass in serious punk comedy, and though they lost some momentum trying to find a new drummer (after the departures of Bryony and then Rowe, both of BB & THE BLIPS) which was not helped by the shaky pandemic years, they’ve recently returned victoriously to the fold with Steph (DISPLAY HOMES, EX-COLLEAGUE) at the kit. Never stopping at just one band, they’ve become a kind of retrospective supergroup: Allie of short-lived, but excellent outfits MUM and DRAINO; Lucy trading thuggish bass rif duties in favour of guitar in THE BABY (RIP) and now OSBO; and Kim (previously of ABIGAIL & DAISY and MARRIED MAN) now playing bass in VIPP. It brings me endless joy to see their live set, and knowing they’ve just recorded a half dozen songs for a forthcoming 7” makes me feel as though all is right; nature, it heals.
OSBO
Also featuring members of one branch of an evolving family tree from PHOTOGENIC (Lucy) and BED WETTIN’ BAD BOYS (Joe), OSBO now also feature members of THE BABY (Ravi, Lucy), ALOHA UNITS (Jake) and TIM & THE BOYS (…Tim). These groups don’t really dabble in anything that would suggest that one of the best hardcore bands in town could be made as a byproduct, but the result speaks for itself! OSBO have become a go-to and dependable member of a Sydney bill in recent years, capable of refreshing the air with hardcore catharsis without that ‘rebooting the franchise’ feeling that sometimes comes with the genre. It’s been said that their sound is ‘80s US hardcore worship, but there’s more to it than that, though I haven’t got the tools to describe why that’s the case. I guess you could say that OSBO are really filling a VOID in the contemporary punk sound, with allegiances to NO TREND in the historical hardcore milieu. In my mind, the point of difference here comes from a unique balance of warring elements, where Ravi’s pulsing bass lines act as anchors of restraint for a band that’s desperate to shift up a gear: Jake flies around the kit and Joe seeks the most manic guitar-lines possible within these constraints. This creates so much goddamned tension within the song, that Tim’s vocal then sounds like my internal monologue during a particularly acute meltdown gives perfect service to the project. I think that hardcore functions best when it carries that kind of strained energy, and I experience close to no emotions when watching four virtuosos ply their trade to style (what are we doing here, tasting wine?) So maybe half my love for them comes from the fact that they’re just proving my own personal beliefs. No studs, patches, battle jackets or silos here: an everyperson band capable of playing a role on any kind of bill, all while retaining a strictly DIY ethos. (Fan trivia: OSBO is a secret, yet very innocent, acronym.)
JACKY WUNDER
I first met JACKY WUNDER at a pick-up touch footy game and marvelled at his pace, instinct and drive to chase down and dive for a wily grubber kick to the corner. I could go on about the image of him streaking away down the sideline with curled locks blowing in the breeze (he has since shaved his head), but will stick to his musical contributions instead. I’ve never seen him play, and thanks to my blissful year off Instagram, didn’t even know he played music until a video of his whole band performance (as JACKY & THE WUNDERZ) did the rounds last year. Dressed in character with red suit and knitted mask, at one point wielding a chainsaw, all while horns and keys play out a pulsing pseudo-jazz death march for a 3am after-show drink in a pokies den. It feels to me like latter day THE FLESH EATERS filtered through the antagonistic avant-garde stylings of ELECTRIC EELS few live shows, as delivered by an alt-universe FRANK SIDEBOTTOM, if he had a more adventurous approach to the drum machine. As much as I’ve long been a believer in the un-costumed everyperson aesthetic (see all the bands above maybe), I also crave live sets that do something out of the ordinary. JACKY WUNDER then scratches my itch of seeing someone toy with schtick and gimmick, attempting to reach for something that’s not been seen before (at least in context), and never really giving a shit about where the result gets pigeonholed. Also a member of the collective that has kept PROP RECORDS going in Ashfield for the past year, it never hurts to feel that a band/musician is contributing to more than just their own musical development, and PROP has become one of the few low pressure and actually fun places to play for a newly formed band in Sydney. Jacky is also one of the few people that can completely improve my mood if I bump into him for even five minutes, a quality that is hard to find, but I’ll stop here because it now sounds like I’m giving a speech at his birthday!
ITCHY & THE NITS
Though I don’t know the members of ITCHY & THE NITS personally, they’re a band that feels almost as important to me as any of the friends above, largely because they cracked my cynicism for music after the lost years of 2020-22. At that time, I’d grown jaded by the state of underground punk and its operations, which had evolved to feel like reserve grade for the aspirant profiteer, with music that seemed either depressed and humourless, formulaic and insincere, or made with whatever ethical framework aligned to the interests of the NSW hospitality industry. When I did manage to pull my head of my arse and try to catch up on what I’d missed, it was ITCHY & THE NITS who made me believe again! It was three new contributors in a group that sounded unique to the bands around them; they seemed to have an aversion to overcomplicating their music, and found the difficult balance in a dumb/smart sense of humour, their juvenile themes delivered for genuine fun rather than just egg-punk genre trimming. On their first tape, ‘Itchy & the Nits Theme’ (which is played at the beginning and end of each set live) made me cackle, ‘Eva’s Got a Parasite’ has stuck in my head for months, and ‘I’m Not Listenin’ pulls off the kind of snotty garage anthem that a thousand bands have tried and failed to nail since the mid-20th Century. Props must also be given to their commitment to the bit (on the back cover to their just-released Worst Of… LP, “we don’t know who itchy is and we don’t know who the nits are so STOP asking” / on the insert, a one page illustrated lyric sheet to ‘Crabs’.) This is very clearly the stuff!
Though I’ve heard ITCHY & THE NITS described mostly by way of early RAMONES and garage of the ‘screwdriver punched through a speaker cone to simulate fuzz’ variety, to me they’re like a second coming if THE URINALS in the form of a trio of early-twenties neo-mods from Sydney. I appreciate that they’ve moved fast too, pressing their 2022 tape to vinyl for a recent LP that led a US tour; they’ve come back with a whole heap of new songs which see them push the formula just far enough, but not so far that they ascend to something other than what’s working. It’s a reminder to all prescriptive DIY bands playing by the unwritten rules of stepping slowly from tape to tape to 7” to LP that there’s a 90% chance the band breaks up before you get to step three… so strike while the iron’s hot baby!
+++A Note on the DIY Swap Meet___
Some days I look around the tiny home office I work out of, look at the dead stock from my abandoned record label and think: ‘when oh when is someone gonna buy ninety TIM & THE BOYS LPs, a hundred BASIC HUMAN 7”s, fifty ROMANCE 7”s and a handful of BASIC HUMAN tees?’ The answer of course…is never. But it does bring to mind the hundreds of bands, labels and distros in every corner of the globe who ask themselves the same question every time they run out of storage space. So this DIY swap meet idea has been kicking around for some time, and this is an open invite to anyone with a box of records, zines, tapes or tees under their bed to trade on the day. Looks like quite a few tables are coming already, so bring your unused DIY artefacts down for recirculation to the masses! No vendor fees or booking necessary (just the ticket price for the bands), just come along and see if that ill-fitting t-shirt can find a new home (e.g. dunno how I ever pulled off a cropped medium CRAZY SPIRIT tee, but it’s yours if you want it!)
+++More Launch Info___
Tickets to the event ($20-30 PWYC), and pre-purchase of the book for pick-up on the day are available here. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Entry is free for First Nations attendees in acknowledgement of this event occuring on stolen, unceded Gadigal land. You can select a free First Nations ticket via the ticket link, or let us know at the door.
The event proper starts at 3pm, but we’ll be opening the swap meet doors at 2pm to allow for a lower sensory hour (no music, and smaller crowds for those who’d appreciate it). Bands will begin after 3:30pm to give time for anyone attending the weekly rally for Palestine in the city.
The bandroom is accessed by a flight of stairs and a steep ramp designed for vehicles (though it will be closed to cars on the day.) While the ramp can be used for chair accessibility, it is steep, and you’ll likely need some assistance. Please email me (max@barelyhuman.info) if you need a hand on the day, or speak to staff on arrival who can help.
The ticket price contributes towards booking and hire fees, a sound person, an even split between the bands, as well as a donation to PARA (Palestine Australia Relief & Action), to whom you can donate any time here.
+++A Note on Getting the Book___
The book is currently available for sale to paid subscribers OR you can purchase the book for collection at the launch on Sept 8th at the ticket link here. Apologies for making shit so complicated all the time, but I wanna serve the loyalists and then the launch first before figuring out whether it’s worth printing a second edition (in BUTTHOLE SURFERS PCPPEP green?) before stocking shops and popping it on the BH bandcamp. Hit me up if you’d like to stock it or re-print it overseas to distro too!
