Popture

is what it is.

I have just learned that Brendon Annesley has died. I did not know him personally and I am conscious of grief-jacking. So I’ll just say, of the hundreds of performances from local bands that I have seen, his was the most honest. As the writer of the Negative Guest List fanzine he probably would have hated this, but below is reproduced my review, published in Rave, of his band Meat Thump. An obituary can be found here and an interview in Vice here.MEAT THUMP WOODLAND FRIDAY AUGUST 26 Not more than a dozen people have arrived as Meat Thump start their set and the music tonight feels equally checked out. Lead guitar is rarely strummed but pleasingly contorted into distortion from the most beaten down amp I’ve ever seen. The bass player tweaks away and the drummer is holding it together even with that tambourine sitting inexplicably on the floor tom. Vocals are droned at a pitch that blends incomprehensibly into the swirl while the singer casts his eyes off into hazy middle distance.  The guy making John Cale sounds on the keys refuses to face the crowd at all. Songs finish when they’ve chewed all the flavour out of them. It’s gloriously ruined and the most compelling performance I’ve seen from a local band in some time.

I have just learned that Brendon Annesley has died. I did not know him personally and I am conscious of grief-jacking. So I’ll just say, of the hundreds of performances from local bands that I have seen, his was the most honest. As the writer of the Negative Guest List fanzine he probably would have hated this, but below is reproduced my review, published in Rave, of his band Meat Thump. An obituary can be found here and an interview in Vice here.

MEAT THUMP

WOODLAND FRIDAY AUGUST 26

Not more than a dozen people have arrived as Meat Thump start their set and the music tonight feels equally checked out. Lead guitar is rarely strummed but pleasingly contorted into distortion from the most beaten down amp I’ve ever seen. The bass player tweaks away and the drummer is holding it together even with that tambourine sitting inexplicably on the floor tom. Vocals are droned at a pitch that blends incomprehensibly into the swirl while the singer casts his eyes off into hazy middle distance.  The guy making John Cale sounds on the keys refuses to face the crowd at all. Songs finish when they’ve chewed all the flavour out of them. It’s gloriously ruined and the most compelling performance I’ve seen from a local band in some time.