Geld is a hardcore band from Melbourne. Their latest record, Currency // Castration, is out now on Relapse Records.
(Photo Credit: Anita Shao)
I became an Australian teenager this year. Moving in 2010 after living in some of the world’s most exotic cities — Mexico, Copenhagen, London, Roscommon — I did not expect Melbourne to be the most idiosyncratic of all. Even less did I imagine the myriad ways the Australian psyche plays out in Australian music.
Growing up in the Irish countryside was itself rather akin to a bad trip, whereas 13 years in Australia have steadily revealed a “floating world” of familiar-yet-exotic ephemera, the social and physical landscape like a psychedelic haze of half-remembered hallucinations. Growing simultaneously, a slow realization that the sound of Antipodean rock & roll is a reflection of the same-same-but-different social elements which characterize the colony.
As a child, “the land Down Under” was a fever dream of Mad Max, Kylie Minogue, Ned Kelly, and killer sharks. Getting about the gutters of Europe in the early ‘00s, our shitty punk bands started crossing paths with shitty punk bands from Australia. They were generally on the same buzz: constant piss-taking mockery executed with just enough wit not to wear out its welcome — but only just.
I came to learn they had a word for this: larrikinism. The Encyclopedia Britannica, with typical Britishness, defines the larrikin as follows:
“Australian slang term of unknown origin popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It signifies a young hoodlum or hooligan in the impoverished subculture of urban Australia.”
So basically, it’s eshays before eshays, lads before lads, and working class people before they were defined by middle class academics.
What makes Australian mainstream culture so maddeningly, frustratingly, intriguingly endearing — larrikin or not — is that on the surface, it’s a carnivalesque reimagining of typically chauvinistic Western tropes, albeit inverted and re-enacted, and with a frivolously cavalier approach to propriety. This is the frat party bit.
Meanwhile, just beneath the surface lies the trailer park — this is where the rest of us live, getting by with a suspiciously wry charm, which is vengefully droll, aggressively independent, forever testing boundaries, and continually striving to get one over on that horrible cunt from the big end of town.
Mainstream Oz is a heaving, pulsating cowl of darkness — recklessly hedonistic and unexpectedly conservative. Corrupt cynicism dominates many aspects of society, whatever the focus, giving new life to the more-than-a-century-old quotation from British Army General Sir Archibald Murray when speaking of the ANZACs (Australia and New Zealand’s WWI troops):
“I have never seen a body of men in uniform with less idea of discipline.”
In Australia, we all walk in line, constantly attempting to trip each other up. Tall poppy conformity collides with outrageously explosive transgression. The Australian psyche is indivisibly wedded to low culture, to risk without consequence, to a devil-may-care vein of black humor that will drink the bottle shop dry and dob you in for being the one who stole the keys (everyone knows who stole the keys, and it wasn’t you). Just another day in the colony.
That includes rock & roll.
Why? Well, that’s what we’re here to vaguely investigate. Instead of the standard (boring) way of trying to dance about architecture by comparing one band’s sound to another, I’m going to compare one band to another in the context of what idiosyncratic Aussie trait they display. Thank you for this opportunity to alienate absolutely everyone and die in a hail of gunfire — get this up ya:
1. Trait: That brooding sense of the uncanny in the seemingly familiar — the Antipodean Southern Gothic whereby comforting aspects become threatening and vice versa, until it all blends together into an eerily cozy shrug.
Classic: Icehouse
Modern: Low Life
2. Trait: Taking a joke far enough that everyone gets so uncomfortable that they leave the room, possibly for years, only to come back again when everyone else gets boring and runs out of beer/speed.
Classic: Sadistik Execution
Modern: Oily Boys
3. Trait: Saying “yessir” and doffing the cap, while surreptitiously getting on with whatever the fuck youse were trying to do before some cunt from South Australia tried to boss you around.
Classic: Radio Birdman
Modern: Orion
4. Trait: Taking the mickey out of anyone who gets too big for their boots, in a cheekily disarming manner that means you somehow get away with it AND manage not to cop the same treatment yourself.
Classic: Coloured Balls
Modern: Power
5. Trait: Doing things in the old-fashioned way while adding your own timeless twist, keeping things just familiar enough to be straightforward but new enough to stay relevant, meanwhile attempting fight anyone who looks at you sideways.
Classic Exponent: Rose Tattoo
Modern Exponent: Civic
6. Trait: Being absolutely bonkers while sticking to some vague vision that nobody understands except you, but still tolerates ‘cus it’s actually a pretty good time having you and your weird mates around.
Classic: Dead Can Dance
Modern: Total Control
7. Trait: Connection and love for Country expounded through cautious optimism, acknowledging things could be better while looking ahead.
Classic: Warumpi Band
Modern: King Stingray
8. Trait: Ignoring the wankers, quietly getting on with things with an attitude of grit and resilience, getting it done regardless of who’s paying attention.
Classic: Dragon
Modern: Mindsnare
9. Trait: The irrepressible urge towards saying something obvious, in as loud a way as possible, to the point that nobody can ignore it, even if they want to, and eventually end up pretending they always agreed even after sneering at it for ages.
Classic: AC/DC
Modern: The Chats
10. Trait: Driving like you’re in Max Mad while casually threatening everyone with an aristocratic disregard for consequences.
Classic: Depression
Modern: Rort
It’s a good party if you can handle the madness — you’re invited, bring a friend.
(Photo Credit: Anita Shao)
