A You Tube-Off With Ruined Fortune and the Stevens

You can tell a lot about the musical tastes of a person by the You Tube videos they share. If someone is telling you to check out Rebecca Black or a guy doing an acoustic cover of Smashing Pumpkin’s “Tonight, Tonight” it’s a pretty good sign that they are not your true friend.

Ahead of the Ruined Fortune, Stevens and Meat Tray gig Noisey is presenting with RIP Society and Pistonhead in Sydney next Thursday, we test the friendship of Nic from Ruined Fortune and Trav and Alex from the Stevens by asking them to share and comment on You Tube clips.

Consider the gig a sayonara show of sorts as it will be the Stevens last in Australia before they take their charming, thoughtful and dexterous guitar pop to the USA. Angie Bermuda from Ruined Fortune will also soon be heading overseas for a Straight Arrows and solo tour.

Opening the night is new Sydney band Meat Tray and their primal and punkish black metal. Entry is free but you need to RSVP HERE!

Nic’s Videos to the Stevens

Venom – Live at City Gardens

Alex MacFarlane: After school we’d go to my friend K-Man’s house to watch this bad Channel 31 video clip show. They only showed around five videos, one of which was usually Slipknots “Wait and Bleed”. So whenever there wasn't anything on we would watch one of his four concert DVDs, that included Slayer: War at the War Field, Metallica: Binge and Purge, and Venom: Live in London. I remember Mantas wearing this black karate outfit and Cronos ripping one of the worst bass solos since Michael Anthony from Van Halen went crazy on his Jack Daniels bass. To be honest I never liked Venom as much as my Discman CD wallet at the time may have suggested.

Travis MacDonald: I don’t have much of a connection to Venom myself. Here is a comment from a real fan;

SOS – "Kathy Don’t Go"

Alex MacFarlane: This is pretty sick but there are a number of puzzling things here. Is it from a concept album? Does a later track reveal what the Satanic CEO character was doing with his collated rice purchasing information? Does that bung lead guitar tone that sounds like an electric uke through a Behringer Flanger pedal re-appear?

Travis MacDonald: When barcodes were introduced in the 70s and 80s a popular conspiracy theory was that they subtly hid the number 666. A lot of Christian communities got riled up and convinced that it was a collaboration between the devil and big business to harvest souls. I’m not sure if that message properly translated into pop music, probably better off as a Venom song.

Beat Rhythm Fashion- "Turn of the Century"

Alex MacFarlane: I'll have to check these fellas out a little more as this is a real pleasant tune! Nic you seem to be pretty into the future supermarket theme here.

Travis MacDonald: Nice sounds and it has everything the band name suggests. I hadn't heard of this band before.

The Stevens Videos to Nic

Mark E Smith Reads Football Results

Nic Warnock: Smith is easily one of the greatest figures in music of all time and the Fall are an incredibly liberating group and proof that music can be anybody's game. Smith helped remove that template of what a "musician" (a word I would never call myself) should be. Not just the educated art students reclaiming music from the sophisticated guitar heroes but also the docker, the town pest, the chemist, the florist are all potential rock stars. The Fall were an early bridge in my and Angie's friendship, eight years or so ago. I don't think it's an obvious or even conscious influence but the sardonic, dry humour and celebration of the banal in Ruined Fortune probably could be traced back to exposure to The Fall. I am in desperate search of this Mark E Smith spoken word CD if anyone would like to trade.

Chris Holmes Interviewed in a Pool

Nic Warnock: This is from Decline Of Western Civilization 2: The Metal Years. A very entertaining but sad film. Thinking about it now the film included what I'd now consider awesome, special, even visionary bands such as Kiss, Alice Cooper and Motorhead being incorporated into the realm of classic rock, devil hand symbol, Sunset Strip glam excess caricature. I mean I like some Poison songs but they aren't even on the same planet as Motorhead. I've never listened to WASP actually but this solo effort from Chris Holmes is revisited every once and a while.

Goth Public Access TV

Nic Warnock: I wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much as I did. I wonder how invested this guy is in the goth life? Is this a character on his show or just a goth that is able to make light of the darkness? Is The Osbourne's TV show t-shirt the ultimate tribute to one of the founders of dark and heavy music? I like the poem a lot and the looseness of this program. Amateurs rule!

Noisey, Pistonhead and RIP Society present Ruined Fortune, The Stevens, Meat Tray at the Lansdowne Hotel Thursday August 21. Entry is free but you need to RSVP here.

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