Squidfinger; Circus Murders; Cinema Prague, Metropolis, May 22, 1996

With a vast sea of fresh, frantic faces mingling with the local constabulary for the start of Kiss My WAMI volume 3, the Metropolis atmosphere was, for some, a bitter-sweet occasion. As the new look Fremantle ‘cleaners’ hovered about – badges and truncheons symbolising the new family-orientated Fremantle – the kids put their feet and torsos airbourne for three of the Port city’s favourite nutters.

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Caterpillar Now; Team Jedi, Grosvenor Hotel, May 18, 1996

What a great time to catch a couple of mooted maestros of our megalopolis! Ensconced in warm loungerooms throughout Perth, most of the local gig-going public were doing their benchpresses for this week’s Kiss My WAMI marathon, thus the hardest of hardcore heads got their chance to swing cats in near empty venues and check out up’n’comers in comparative comfort. Elbow space, even.

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Not Enough Rope; Honey, Fly By Night, May 11, 1996

greetings! i’m just doing my abdominal crunches for the dead can dance i/v tonight. oh well, back to the “ab roller plus” …

adm schwarzenegg aaarrgh.

With one’s back firmly planted against one of the many heaters spread throughout the Fly By Night Club you can sometimes forget that you are within a sheet-metal aircraft hanger. Similarly, when the syrupy languidness of one of those Ian Campbell/Sunday session ensembles warms the ears it amounts to a real cosy cocktail.

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Botticelli’s Angel; Mutt; Flashing Tablet, MX, May 4, 1996

Perth’s sonically-disjointed, indie-rock outfit Flashing Tablet would probably be the first to admit a slight genre clash in their place in this line-up … not that they disappointed. Here was a case of indie kids gone metal!

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In The Pines, Somerville Auditorium, April 13, 1996

Summer tentatively chased away the onset of autumn for the cosiest festival of the year yet again, the third instalment of RTR-FM’s In The Pines. Armed with grandma’s rug and dressed in grandpa’s trousers, the who’s who of Warwick, Willeton and Waroona invaded the prized electoral seat of Nedlands in an indie-kid celebration of all things live, local and original.

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Made To Fit; Maria Wilson and Friends, Fly By Night, March 30, 1996

The ‘Fly exists for gigs like this – punters armed with bottles of red, various cheeses and old whiskey barrels for the paddock-worn Blundstones to rest upon. Ah, and both kinds of music: country and western.

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Weathervane; Slugfest; Mosten Powell, Carlton Hotel, March 9, 1996

It was, I swear, the Zelda Fitzgerald Room of yore – the man sitting at the piano taking your money at the door; the musician sitting at his Wurlitzer, thumping out its wide selection of drum beats that he played with his feet while strumming a guitar; the viola player, back and to the right; the humidity …

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Panelbeater; The Nads, Harbourside, February 24, 1996

Just when you thought you had seen enough footy short-wearing meat axes wailing about their genitalia … whoa, here were The Nads. Strange, but once they got over the usual bum jokes and pretence that they were musicians, The Nads took the punters into that eeriest of territories, ‘ashamed giggle-ville’.

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Outstation; Butternut, MX and the Grosvenor Hotel, February 17, 1996

A two stage, single location gig like this is always a treat with loud riffsters Outstation in MX, followed soon after by the Frock (women in rock) supergroup Butternut in the Grosvenor frontroom.

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