beasts

Tonight I guess was the end of an era. Not some epoch that resonates with the rest of humanity, but the end of some stuff for me. I kind of have a list of bands that I thought could play my venue that I love and I think I saw the last of those bands tonight. And I dropped a fucking fortune on them while I was at it.


Of course despite the lack of punters (we fell about 50 heads short of the guarantee) they were fabulous. Swamp rock ahoy! The guitars were dirty, the rhythms were were by turns fat and off kilter and Tex sang like the Antipodean bastard son of Howlin' Wolf that he is. The Beasts of Bourbon have mined the dirtier seams of Oz rock since the mid eighties. By turns arrogant, misogynist and charming they are the polar opposite of either the polite nu-folk or desperately corporate emo wankers that comprise so many tours these days. Even at their advanced ages stories of of fisticuffs a couple of shows before and dark murmurs of lifestyle issues are rife. Instead of leaving me stressing over numbers in the office Shaun the booker dragged me out into the bar and in between shots of 'bucca and Jack and Cokes I had my own little wake for the way rock used to be.