Violent Soho + Boondall Boys @ The Zoo Carpark

Australia music seems to be intrinsically linked to a notion that the best Australian bands have to play to tiny audiences in tiny venues, get little attention in their own city, let alone the rest of the country, due to the parochial tendencies of each major city/state and the unhealthy competiveness that goes along with it, move overseas, get the recognition they deserve and then, and only then, can they return to Australia be hailed as all conquering heroes by the general population and the mainstream music media and newspapers who had zero interest when they were playing the small/cheap/free local shows and the early in the evening support slots to better known/more popular international and Sydney/Melbourne acts.

From The Saints to The Go-Betweens, from Nick Cave to The Triffids, continuing through to a current age when bands like The Drones seem to garner a much higher degree of respect and recognition outside of Australia than within it. Even moving away from the plight of Australia’s better bands, Jet‘s and The Vines‘ success was largely based on the UK music media championing both bands when most Australians had no idea that the bands even existed and even Gabriella Cilmi and Sam Sparro’s UK success means the Australian music industry were falling over themselves to give them ARIA awards last year. In the UK it’s the complete opposite; go to somewhere like the USA and make it big before you’ve at least tried to do it in the UK and no one will take you seriously (see: Bush. Although they were also hampered by the fact that they were rubbish, basically the 1990’s version of Nickelback).

Violent Soho seem to be the latest band to embark on this well trodden career path, having signed to Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace record label and playing the UK’s Download Festival in June 2009, to go with previous overseas tours in 2008.

Tonight they’re playing a free show to celebrate Tym Guitars’ Anne Street Shop’s 1st anniversary, along with the Boondall Boys, in The Zoo’s car park. By right the place should be packed (or as much as you can pack out a car park) but looking around it’s the same familiar faces that you see at every Soho gig, the usual suspects you see at most local shows and the unequivocal, unwavering supporters from other Brisbane bands, most of whom have shared a stage with band over the last few years. In some ways it’s great; it’s like being a teenager again and having a special secret band that you share with a few like-minded souls with good taste in music and that you don’t want to share with the world, lest the mainstream success change them, spoil them, and yet you can’t help but think that they deserve to be playing to much bigger crowds somewhere a lot more luxurious than the Zoo car park in the middle of May.

The Courier Mail’s Briz Bands blog, where ‘Candi and Khan explore Brisbane’s vibrant music scene with news, pic galleries, videos and tracks from some of Australia’s edgiest new artists’ has a solitary blog posting about the band related to when they got the Black Francis tour support last year, the usual press release cut and paste blog they excel at; it was written by ‘Carts’, who mysteriously went MIA and was replaced by Khan, who is only able to write about hip-hop…

By right Violent Soho should be the ones with the number one records, with the Rolling Stone features, the extended interviews on Video Hits, on constant rotation on Triple J, playing the sell-out shows at huge venues, being lined up for the ARIAs. But the people of Australia have spoken. And they want Eskimo Joe. At least they do this year.  But history has shown us that should Violent Soho make their return accompanied with column inches in foreign music papers, having had their records played on overseas radio stations and played some high profile festival and tour support slots, the rest of Australia, outside those gathered tonight and similar cliques in other cities, will start to pay attention. 

More photos on Flickr.

Violent Soho

Boondall Boys

3 Responses to “Violent Soho + Boondall Boys @ The Zoo Carpark”

  1. I see no BB photos.

  2. didn't work, dunno why. Is also missing Soho photo. never actually checked these FB notes so not sure if they always miss photos. Everything on blog + likn to more on Flickr – http://www.notaphoto.com/violent-soho-boondall-boys-the-zoo-carpark

  3. great, the boondall boys record is GENIUS, so good, somebody has converted it for DL.

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