It will come to a surprise to no one that I keep an annual spreadsheet for all the gigs I go to and all the bands I photograph; who, where, when, support acts, number of bands photographed, that sort of thing. Having updated the spreadsheet this week with a few gigs I hadn’t yet added, I realised that I’d completely forgotten about Trail of The Dead’s gig at The Hi-Fi. I guess it slipped my mind as it was at the end of a very long week of working in Melbourne, weekend overtime, BigSound, and more working. The day after the show was Frankly at The Powerhouse and the next morning I was back to Melbourne for a three week stint. So other than quickly editing a few photos of the headliners to submit for publication, the folder of photos on my hard drive lay un-noticed un-touched and the gig completely forgotten about.
Although I’ve seen them play a few times now, and would put in to cover them any time they played a show anywhere nearby, I still haven’t actually got any of their albums. I don’t actually know any of their song titles, I don’t even know their album titles, have no idea what anyone in the band is called and I definitely couldn’t sing or hum you one of their songs. Yet, despite all that, I just really like this band. It’s not just a photographic thing. Yes, they are great to photograph but I really like the music; it’s intricate and clever but not to the detriment of melody. Even after my three songs in the photo pit is done I still want to stick around and watch them play. Someone should recommend me a good starting point for them and I’ll try and remember next time I’m in town or ordering stuff from Amazon.
While opening band To The North didn’t do anything for me, I was really impressed by Nikko. After not seeing much of note at BigSound Live over the previous two nights, they were the perfect antidote to the sound of triple j daytime playlist and careerist bands who temper their creativity to get high rotation on the station. I was especially impressed by their drummer, who’s the best Brisbane drummer I’ve seen in a long while. I read today in Rave that they’re relocating to Melbourne which is a bit of a shame. Brisbane can’t have enough of good bands like them.
Best place to start is probably Source Tags And Codes – it was their breakthrough album, and the band have stated that the two albums before that were pretty much just building towards ST&C.
Also, it’s brilliant, and since its 10+ years old, you should be able to get it super cheap.
Cheers Liam. Will add to Wish List. Had a look around in Brisbane but wasn’t much on sale and what there was was edging towards the $30 mark which always puts me off.
Saw them an age ago at the post-September 11 Livid. Was epic. Can’t believe I haven’t caught them since.