I awoke this morning with a headache, usually induced by a hangover, alas this time it was having sat through My Disco last eve. MyDisco was a hoax, a trap set to fool those of us who hadn’t heard a great deal of sound/noise music before, or infact hadn’t heard much “indie music” hitherto. Having seen a plethora of bands playing at Cassette #9 on Vulcan Lane, I think it’s fair to say that you can tell if a band is average if you leave after their set not drenched in sweat. Cassette’s decor is great, don’t get me wrong, but their air-con system, if they have one, leaves alot to be desired. Usually, walking into that bar is like walking into a giant wall of sweat, and when that wall of sweat falls and you find yourself at a comfortable temperature, something must be wrong. MyDisco followed Brand New Math who delivered a great set, despite my being compared to a 2 year younger version of the lead singer, but MD failed to inspire anyone except for the few girls who had drunkenly stumbled across cassette having realised that Margie’s would not be pumping on that particular Thursday night; they heard bass and they came running.
To begin with, the bassist from MD, who unfortunately has an underrated and underused vocal talent, found himself latching onto a short bass riff and raping it for 6-7 minutes in every song. Each riff being an upbeat and fun sound, enjoyable on the LP, but the extended live version disappointingly became as irritating and repetitive, as 4 days of drum and bass would have been at Phat, half way through songs. The drummer, doing what a drum machine could have easily have done, added little but the pleasing aesthetic of a pretty face and a white t-shirt. The drum beat was as consistent as the bass line throughout every song and normally found the high-hat and bass drum in an embarrassingly close relationship, either that or you would see the snare sneaking in once in every eight constant kick drum beats. Either way the same pattern found itself being repeated at least once every 2 bars. The guitarist, however, added a little surprise to the songs, ‘little’ being the key word there, his dischordant noise drawing the crowd in, for a moment, before everyone realised that he was simply pashing the same unharmonic (yeah I made that word up) notes in a fairly regular pattern. Followed by a few moments with his guitar aimed at his massive marshall stack expecting some kind of revolutionary reverb.
At first MyDisco seemed like a very appealing option for those interested in diving into the more indie side of local(ish) music. However, on completion of the set, the ‘too cool for the cool’ crew left quickly, leaving the nom*D clad cassette crowd in attendance too try out pretentious one another by lying about how much they enjoyed and understood that set from the Australian counterparts. All the while keeping a mindful eye out for ‘party pic’ photographers so they could update facebook profile pictures. Elsewhere, the ‘too cool’ team hit Mcdonalds, finally getting the acoustic satisfaction they had been seeking after hearing Depeche Mode through the tinny speakers.
MyDisco = Fail. Stick to making cool album cover photoshoots. I hear there is good money in that these days
