anatomy · of · distance

Beat/Inpress said that Minimum Chips were playing at the Cue Bar tonight, with a number of other bands I hadn't heard of. So I caught the tram down.

When I walked past, I heard thrashy punk/metal-type music wafting down from upstairs; bad sign #1. Bad sign #2 was that the blackboard-like surface at the front gave playing times for three bands, none of whom were Minimum Chips. Perhaps it was from yesterday, I thought.

I went upstairs. The room was filled with mooks in backward baseball caps and oversized shorts. On the stage, a band apparently named Inseminoid, and consisting of three darklings in hairspray, ghoulish make-up (think very dodgy goth meets outer-suburban bogan) and tattered black clothes were thrashing out a tune. The chap at the door confirmed that Minimum Chips weren't on tonight, so I went home.

("Inseminoid". Now there's a classy band name, right up there with "Gonnoretard" or "Filthy Maggoty Whatsit". Or indeed the band names seen on photocopied posters on traffic-light poles all over the outer suburbs in the mid-90s ("Necrosis", "Necrotomy" and so on, until the grunge twowordsstucktogether meme took off).)