Not fab-keen on Mondays

Music is playing in the background. It’s the new CD by a band called The Woohoo Revue. We caught their act last night at The Red Rattler in Marrickville. TWR is a 6 piece band from Melbourne; five guys and a woman in a shiny lime green leotard and black tights who play gypsy-style folk / jazz (for the want of a better discription). They were a lot of fun. Spike danced herself sore. We had been drawn to the Red Rattler by the main attraction, Waiting For Guinness (a seven piece, all-male bunch who come from the same sort of musical place, maybe a bit more diverse in their interests with a broader range, a much larger array of instruments – maybe twenty or more between the performers – plus vocals, including original songs).

The music was excellent, the venue as good this time as it was on our first visit (inviting, friendly, over the top with Lesbian kitsch, including outré furnishings that I’ve said elsewhere look as if they’ve been salvaged from a 19^th Century Parisian brothel that’s gone out of business). Sadly there was a much smaller crowd last night than on the evening we caught The Barons Of Tang (when the place was jumping). There might have 50 or 60 people. Take out the venue crew, the bands’ guest lists and the sound guy and there may have been 30 or so of us paying at the door. That was a pity. Both bands deserved better. It obviously would have had an effect on the take at the door (at $20 per ticket, no one got rich last night). But the greatest effect was on the atmosphere. They are both bands that play music to dance to. With so few people in attendance it was almost impossible to build the momentum. Anyone getting up to dance – and quite a few did – looked and felt a bit exposed on the sparsely populated dance floor. There was no chance for dancers to lose themselves in the physicality of their movement. There was no crowd to vanish into then let yourself go. Folk danced and enjoyed themselves when they did so but it wasn’t quite the experience either the bands or the dancers had looked forward to at the start of the night.

But we had fun chatting to band members before and after the show – it’s that kind of place: small, intimate; band members taking money at the door on the way in and selling CDs at the door as we left. We bought one by each band. It’s been that music which has been playing behind me as I type these words, which turn out to have almost nothing to say about today – the last Monday of the working year for me. Thank God.

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Friday night is music night

(Eventually) we caught a bus to Marrickville and the excellent Red Rattler club ... highly recommended: accessible (which always helps); delightful (truly) bouncer on the door; texter drawn musical notes on one's wrist as proof of entry; red ... and I mean postbox red decor throughout; chairs and sofas that might have been rescued from a nineteenth century Parisian brothel and a decent, friendly, enthusiastic crowd (rather more black top, black frock, black stockings and black boots than one might have hoped for in an 'alternative' bunch but maybe there's still time for them to become confident enough to believe that colour can be cool also ...)

Spike had been drawn to the evening by the promised appearance of the Crooked Fiddle Band. They didn't disappoint. It was my first encounter with the band. I liked their set very much.



The headline band were the Barons Of Tang whom we saw play in the Sydney Festival Speigeltent in January. They were just as raucous at the Red Rattler, looking as if they were having a great time. They're a lot of fun.

The surprise of the night (at least to me) was the first act: the woefully named Captain Kickarse And The Awesomes. But what a trio ... drums, lead guitar and bass guitar; no vocals, just lots and lots of solid rock with the rhythm and blues undertones you'd expect from a buck of lads that were closer to Cream than Status Quo but had their very own charm and style. Good music.

As we waited for the bus Spike said she might not dance at the club. She was tired. She might just sit and enjoy the atmosphere. Ha! She was on the dance floor in time for the second number by the first act. She didn't sit down again for the best part of three hours.

Good night.
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