Unstoppable Forces @ Summer Tones

I have very little recall regarding Mistletone’s fun-filled Summer Tones music party. The guy who protects patrons by keeping recalcitrants at bay wouldn’t let me into the kitchen to have a pizza at the end of the night. Not to worry De Campo and I moseyed over to the 24 hr Mcdonalds. Sadly it was closed. There were a number of people milling there for whatever reason. I guess they were surprised as we were that it was shut. We walked to Acland Street and found a burger joint. The streets were rather quiet kind of refreshing when you consider the state of Brunswick street these days. I fell asleep back at our hotel room midway through eating my Mexican-themed cheeseburger with guacamole and jalapenos. I woke up this morning and ate it cold. It was still pretty good though I wouldn’t give it more than two stars. I had some of de Campo’s too because she hadn’t finished hers either. She didn’t find it was very good cold. It was thoughtful of her to put them in the refrigerator and told her as much.

We got our things together, showered and tried to become more human. We talked about the wild night we just had. I remarked on my garbling remarkably incoherent self. I vaulted on stage during the Panel of Judges set and was just as quickly ordered off by their none-too-amused singer. Probably a good move in retrospect. I did the same thing at Applecore last weekend during Actor/Model and flipped the keyboard switch on Ricky’s guitar pedal, the sound cut out prematurely ending their set.

Unstoppable Forces DJ’ed when the doors opened yesterday. Feisty Jes Cogger who DJs in the front bar on weekends, showed up to give us moral support, which was lovely. The essential Carla (‘oh my darling, hot, hot Steve’) Thomas was our entourage. The decks were located at the top of the stairs of what is one of Melbourne’s most excellent drinking rooms. We had a great time and we played a lot of sweet tracks. From memory we spun Silver Jews’ Party Barge, Travelling Wilbury’s Handle with Care, De Campo played three in a row, Slumber Party Madeupmymind, She & Him’s something or other, Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s Wrapped Up, then I played three in a row, while De Campo went to get Coronas, Flying Burrito Bros’ Burrito #2, a cool live version of Pavement’s Father to a Sister of a Thought and Kath Bloom’s We didn’t do this to you. My memory becomes hazy after this, I can remember what we played I just can’t remember the exact order they were played in. Under the Blacklight by Rilo Kiley, Royal Trux’ The Spectre, Spoon’s Don’t You Evah, Billy Squier’s In the Dark, Tommy Roe’s Sweet Pea, Straight down to the Bitter End by Yo La Tengo, Lilliput’s Igel, The Breeder’s Tipp City, Cotton Fields by CCR, Rebound by Sebadoh, Sunday Girl (French) by Blondie (that was for Carla) and again Rilo Kiley with Smoke Detector.

The Treetops started playing, we left the turntables smoking and took our gear back to the nearby hotel and drank some peach vodka with Jes and Carla and watched American Idol. The Novotel is not a hotel I would recommend. Between the hotel and the pub was a park and we lounged there before heading back to the club to watch Kes Band.





I love the Kes Band, but this set seemed to plod more than usual. I complained about this to Simon Grounds, a man who knows about this stuff and Simon said you got to hand it to them they came with a plan to play turgidly and they stuck to it. I was just pissed that the music didn’t make me dance. I shot a query at one of the Mistletone directors about liquid compensation for our amazing DJ set and he pointed me upstairs to the green room where I saw Dan Deacon eat the largest chunk of guacamole I have ever seen. Just this huge blob of guac teetering on this strip of red capsicum. Subliminally I suppose, guacamole would play an important part in my choice of eats throughout the rest of the day. Quesadillas for dinner and the aforementioned burger at 2am.

Three stages and hundred or so bands. The basement bar was home to the best most-debauched action and out of some real good ones, I think the Twerps’ set was my favourite. I’m totally smitten with those guys. Last night was a fricking riot.