gig review : Chick BOOM! at the Sandringham Hotel (26/09/10)

(The irrepressible and iridescent Pilot Darcy (left), with wingwoman Hayley “T-Bird” Thorncraft [Photo by Fiona Chan])

by H. Punterman

Electro. It’s a word that inspires fear; outrage; panic. Wait, maybe I’m thinking of Jass*. I know it’s all the rage nowadays, but this reviewer for one is still having difficulty getting past its reputation as the “devil’s music”. It’s not as though teenagers aren’t surrounded by enough temptations already – do they really need to be encouraged to dance the Lindy-bop, Jitter-shuffle, and Foxy-do by popular music?

But I digress. Chick BOOM! [sic] is the latest addition to the towering monolith that is the Chicks with Picks musical empire. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last year or so, I strongly recommend you seek urgent medical attention; the lack of sunlight alone will most likely have led to a dangerous vitamin D deficiency. Even you will probably have heard of Chicks with Picks by now (perhaps on a radio lowered down to you by concerned friends or relatives? What was the reception like down there? Pretty bad, I bet? Eh?**). It is a popular girl-centric live music event held once a month at the Clare (a pub in Sydney’s picturesque Ultimo).

Chick BOOM! is an extension of the concept, swapping the laid-back grunge of the Clare Hotel for the…regular grunge of the Sandringham Hotel in Newtown. There’s a proper stage, and everything’s a little bit louder and a lot more danceable. This month the theme was “Electro”, and boy, when you give people an opportunity to wear shiny pants and dance, they take you up on it with gusto.

First up was misfit Bondi stalwart Pilot Darcy, re-named and refreshed after a recent musical tour de France. These days mostly playing catchy guitar pop, her beat and synth filled set was a pleasant throwback to her days as “SiN”. Probably the best act of the evening, the Pilot gave a flying lesson to the less experienced acts, and had the whole room shaking various body parts like so many polaroid pictures. If dance fever was a real disease, that whole venue would still be under quarantine. It was something of a shame we couldn’t see her shock of bleached-blonde hair on stage a bit later in the night, after the room had reached full capacity.

Then I went out for a hamburger at the place next door. I highly recommend ordering a “King Street Burger”, and getting them to add haloumi. Delicious. Later on, we were treated to a very tight set from Pink Ribbons. These guys are definitely going places; they put on a fine, fine show. They did, however, seem extremely concerned with letting the audience know how punk they were. “[We’re] punk as fuck!”, they kept shouting in one of their songs. Guys – and this goes for everyone – it’s okay to call yourself an electro band, particularly if you don’t have a drummer on stage. That is a totally cool genre label as well, and we will still like you. Then again, they’re pretty high up on Triple J Unearthed at the moment, with their primary style listed as Punk, so what do I know? I guess I wasn’t paying attention in that Sex Pistols documentary when they showed Sid Vicious plugging in his Apple Macbook. Anyhow, in summary: Pink Ribbons = rather good; check them out.

Flash forward, and we had crowd favourites Press Eject. One of them had a key-tar, and at this point I could pretty much just say “Nuff said”, and you would know it was good. What is it about what is, essentially, a small Casio with a neck-strap, that makes you feel that all is right with the world from the moment it’s seen on stage? It’s got to be the most awkward instrument ever invented, and yet it has that certain…je ne sais quoi***…I want one. These girls had the goods, I thought, and if I were listening to them at home I would probably disobey their order to “press eject”, and maybe even turn it up. The red-head has a great haircut, too.

After that I had to leave in order to catch the last performance of Sally Hackett’s show at the Newtown Theatre, but if the rest of Chick BOOM! was as good as those three acts, I’d say it’s well on its way to becoming something of an institution like its older sister.

* I was later informed that the spelling has been standardised as “Jazz”. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the pace at which our language evolves!
** I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to apologise for this, but I’m SORRY for taking so long to rescue you. Yes, I know you probably think it was my fault you were down there in the first place, because I told you I heard a trapped kitten, when really I’d just dropped my sunglasses and couldn’t be bothered getting them myself, and also I caused that medium-sized avalanche by singing Teenage Dreams by Katy Perry at the top of my lungs, which unfortunately sealed your fate. I would have come back within a day like I said, but finishing my writing is important! You know all those people who say that music is their life? I think it’s really likely they value music journalism equally. It’s like, I’ve got all these commitments, and sometimes it’s hard to prioritise, and anyway I let you keep the radio so stop complaining.
*** Uh…non, je ne regrette rien

Chicks with Picks is held on the second Sunday of every month at the Clare Hotel; doors at 4pm.
Chick BOOM! is held on the last Sunday of every month (or that seems to be the pattern, anyhow) at the Sandringham Hotel; doors at 5pm.