[MUSIC/Secret Gig ~VIC]
The Prince Bandroom – The Prince, Sat 19 Nov, 2022.
If you had told me a few months ago that I would be in a Melbourne pub at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon with 900 other (mostly) dudes to see a secret gig by ‘90s provocateurs (shit stirrers, ragbags – call them what you will) THIS IS SERIOUS MUM, I would have assumed you had dementia or at least long covid affecting your mental faculties. I mean it’s been 19 years since they last played anywhere. I mean a boy can dream but it seemed a finite impossibility.
There has been, it must be said, a flurry of activity, with a cavalcade of TISM releases, re-issues of old records (on vinyl, CD and cassette) and releases of unreleased material, live records, seven-inch singles (in multiple colours), t-shirts, posters etc. You could even buy a ‘Greg The Stop Sign’ stop sign. Interest was high and they were shifting a lot of units. So, a few months back the east-Coast only Good Things festival announced the exclusive return of THIS IS SERIOUS MUM at three all day festivals in the different states on three consecutive days in the first weekend of December., TISM tragics went into a full-blown meltdown. The band released a statement that plainly announced that these three shows would be ‘it’. No warm up shows, no tour, no new album. Three gigs and we are out. But then… you could never trust TISM to tell you the truth.
A couple of weeks ago at the Croxton Ballroom in Hawthorne, on a bill with other ‘90s alternative acts like Rebecca’s Empire, TISM appeared unannounced billed as Open Mic Tryouts. Blowing the roof off the joint and sending waves of euphoria through TISM fan land. The jungle drums then picked up with rumours of a second warm up show at The Prince which was an afternoon show featuring Regurgitator and Fauvism but word got around, people who knew people who knew people and tickets were bought on a hope and a dream. As I landed in Melbourne on Friday the first text I saw was the Sorry Gurge gig was cancelled due to COVID. But no sooner had my heart sunk the messages started to come through the hooded ones would indeed play. They sold 900 tickets with no posters, flyers or official announcement. Outside the St Kilda venue there is a line of people going round the corner over the hill and off into infinity. There is a undeclared, game of ‘Whose Got The Oldest, Rarest TISM tee shirt going on’, which is hilarious. We get inside and it’s pretty squeezy. Support act Our Carlson are on and my first impression is they present like an Aussie Sleaford Mods. Producer hanging near the lap top while a long-haired guy in a sort of Elvis jump suit stalks the stage and rants and raves. The only song I can recall was called Schapelle Corby Is A Goddess. I would see them again.
The entire room is aquiver with anticipation and as the stage is set, title cards placed and pole positions are jostled for. The lights go down and the play on is a new piece about Herb Alpert removing his own scrotum with a cheese grater to the tune of Spanish Flea. I am laughing and they are not even on the stage yet. And then, here they are. After two decades they don’t look a day older, at least, the masks don’t look any older. They are decked out is what I like to refer to as their Pyjama Noir outfits, plain black pants, long sleeve top and basic black hoods. Oddly, this adds to the special nature of this TISM event. We know they have new costumes, as previewed in the press for this tour and the Rage hosting, so they must be saving those for Good Times.
Starting with a classic TISM rant/poem The Art Income Dialect which ends with:
When I’m in the hospital
My face slashed down the middle
At least I won’t be called artistic
Or any of that piddle.
As if to emphasise the point they smash through three of the most brutal, machismo songs from their songbook the Bogan anthem I Drive A Truck, the accusatory Whatareya (Yob or Wanker) and the car park punch invitation to a punch up I’ll Ave Ya. 900 hundred backing vocalists yell each lyric and I have shed tears of joys twice, swept up in the moment. When they start Thunderbirds Are Coming Out I drop my bundle completely and find myself weeping with joy while singing at the top of my lungs. It’s not even my favourite TISM song, but fuck me gently, I am 60 years old, on the other side of the country, crammed into a pub on a Sunny afternoon and singing along with a band that I have worshipped for close to 40 years, that I never thought I’d ever see again. Let’s just say I’m a little overwhelmed. There is something unfathomably hilarious about them singing Lillie Caught Dilley Bowled Milli Vanilli and What Nationality is Les Murray, packed full of pop culture references only this audience of this vintage would understand and celebrate. I wonder how the fans of As I Lay Dying will cope next weekend. I’m Interested In Apathy, is a near perfect single for me. Thumping beat, funny as hell, full of braggadocio claims and despite its claims of Apathy, musically it builds and amps ever higher (when the horns kick in on the record – holy moly) and as it reaches it crescendo it all crumbles into a heap. Brilliant. Kinda missed the horns tonight, but still a highlight.
“That’s why I became a tree,” explains Ron Hilter Barrassi in answer to his own statements in a second diatribe Tradies Get The Ladies. Makes as much sense as anything else happening today. Everybody Else Has Had More Sex Than Me was one of the last singles (2005) which oddly became a chart hit in Germany and on YouTube thanks to the bunny-filled animated video. As the audience sings along with great gusto, one suspects it may also be true.
Like it’s cultural forebearer Dave Warner from The Suburbs ‘Suburban Boy’ sang about the rejection of the city slickers for the people from the outer ‘burbs, TISM’s The History Of Western Civilization also tells the tale of those from ‘way out west’ being rejected by the inner city bouncers and punters alike. More sing-a-long magic. Before the pulse rates and volume reached fever pitch with Greg The Stop Sign and Saturday Night Palsy. Greg is a banger on all levels, anthemic, full of hooks and a lyric that punctures the idea of who’s path is more worthy than another.
The rich kid becomes a junkie, the poor kid an advertiser
What a tragic waste of potential, being a junky’s not great either.
They were always a dichotomy. Attacking the jumped-up little bludgers and smarty pants up market tossers, while clearly highly educated articulate well read, Uni smart, TS Elliot quoting tossers themselves. Palsy is a song about the desperate quest from nightclub validation, predating the Insta ‘like’ culture by three decades. Rumour has it part of the reason for their masks was because they all had day jobs as teachers, barristers, etc which would not gel with some of their public antics.
Martin Scorcese Is Quite a Jovial Fellow leads us into Death Death Death Amway Amway Amway with more mass singing and tears from a grown man. Long ago TISM were dismissed by the doyens of the media as a ‘one joke band’, not worthy of serious consideration. They were shit it was claimed. A phrase they turn on themselves by creating o song of the same name. It’s a stance held dear to the hearts of their fans, TISM are shit, TISM are wankers, BUT they are OUR shitty wankers. They audience chants TISM are wankers and boo at the end of songs, which I don’t really understand, clearly everybody in the room is as thrilled as I am to be getting lambasted by the hooded ones once again after a decade-long smoko. As if to summarise this, The Prince Bandroom is engulfed with people singing along to the hook of The Mystery Of Art Explained which consists of the triumphant rebel yell of “I’M FUCKED IN THE HEAD”. (You’ll Never Be An Old Man) River sends a jolt through the room, dancing, chanting, mimicking the hand gestures.
For the whole night there has been choreography from the band, dancing washing paper plates, like a dark eisteddfod. They are dancing and leaping around with more energy than band a third of their age. They turn their backs on the audience for the start of Defecate On My Face, the single that started all this madness. It was not usual chart action content even back then, a song with a funky bassline, stark guitars, chanted chorus and dance moves and lyrics about Hitler’s penchant for coprophilia and declaring they ‘we have ways of making you poo’. It was their first 7’’ single released in a 12’’ sleeve sealed on all sides. It was a hint of what was to come. Absolutely brilliant.
Ron takes to the mic for a departing diatribe that one assumes is called Old School TISM:
That River Phoenix song was wrong
But I’m gonna sing it strong
Pretend my conscious still too young
To know the harm I might have done
Wisdom is useless, Age a prison
Let’s break free with old school TISM
Heckle sharper than the wit
And us play a medley of our hit
Doof-doof beats and then the bit
About how Nick Cave is so shit
Part catchy pop, part botulism
Let’s go sick with old school TISM
Reforming now it kinda sucks
But Good Things offered a million bucks
I feel like fuckin’ Kerry Packer
That’s more than the Optus hacker
Erectile dysfunction is a given
Just come backstage with old school TISM
And then they were gone. A punchy one hour set that seemed to go much longer. A dream come true for those gathered. Rumours of a third warm up show this weekend before hitting The Good Things tour the following weekend. And then what? Back into the stasis pods for another 20 years. There are some hints there is a brand-new album on the way, new costumes and the possibility of further live shows.
TISM are back baby and thank fuck for that!
500 stars out of 10
Ian Bell
Images courtesy of Ian Bell
SETLIST
Diatribe #1 The Art Income Dialect
I Drive A Truck
Whatareya
I’ll Ave Ya
Thunderbirds Are Coming Out
Lilli Caught Dilley Bowled Milli Vanilli
What Nationality Is Les Murray
I’m Interest In Apathy
Diatribe #2 Tradies Get The Ladies
Everybody Else Has Had More Sex Than Me
The History Of Western Civilization
Greg You Missed The Stop Sign
Saturday Night Palsy
Martin Scorsese Is Really A Quite Jovial Fellow
Death Death Death Amway Amway Amway
The Mystery Of Art Explained
(You’ll Never Be An) Old Man River
Defecate On My Face
Diatribe #3 Old School TISM
