After a cheeky year long nap, Brissies epic The Blurst Of Times festival is returning in 2016, to once again set metaphorical fire to Fortitude Valley with an equal parts crunchy and gooey mix of guitar guided mayhem.
Ahead of its glorious return in a couple of weeks, we got a shit tonne of the acts on this year’s lineup, to regale us with the blurstiest blurst-filled gig they’ve ever played. Oh and yeh, we didn’t really define what we meant by the word ‘blurst’, instead leaving it up to the bands themselves to interpret, meaning we received tales of everything from explosive vomit-ridden sets to (a probably bullshit) gig at Bert Newtown’s house. Enjoy!
The Dune Rats
The blurst gig we ever played was a show in Charlotte in America. We had a fun time when we were off stage playing dice with some legendary lesbian couples but then we watched a shocker of a set, then played a shocker of a set and got the fuck out of that depressing hole.
The blurst we ever sounded was after coming back from USA jet lagged as fuck not sleeping for a couple of days out of our brains trying to play at an I OH YOU party.
Simi Lacroix
That would have to be a recent engagement at self-described Brisbane “dive bar”, Greaser. Though I doubt most of the young attractive crowd knew what to expect from Simi Lacroix, before long they were dancing, singing, touching, sweating, swooning and generally having the blurst time of their lives, and so was I.
THESE GUY
The blurst show we ever played was at Bert Newton’s birthday party last year (Bert is a good family friend of These Guy). Bert just kept shouting at us to play the theme song for Thunderbirds (his favourite track) but we were like, “no Bert, we are not that kind of band!” – it ended up getting kind of nasty but Bert is a sick, well-rounded guy and Bert will always come around to the right way if you just look directly into those TV-magic eyes of his and be reasonable about your point of view (but hopefully Bert can make it to the Blurst of Times).
WAAX
Our blurst gig ever, whatever that means… was a show late last year at Melbourne’s Workers Club. The show was actually pretty good, sound, crowd and vibe wise, but pretty much everything that could ever go wrong decided to at the same time. First of all our bass amp decided to cark it in the 3rd song, there was a spare but the sound dudes took about 5 minutes to set it up which left 2 guitarists a drummer and a vocalist to awkwardly jam through the event until it was fixed.
Directly afterwards our guitarist broke a string, one song later he got tangled in leads and fell backwards into the fucking drum kit taking out half of the drums and cymbals and almost knocking himself out. For the next song we were mostly just laughing, someones amp stopped working and another string was broken but it was a lot of fun… somehow.
Methyl Ethel
NYE in a basement an hour after midnight, when all the fun is over. There were 5 people when we started and zero halfway through the set. It was the third and final Funilingus show.
Hound
A stranger’s depressing house party (with a cover charge???) that lived and died in towering expressions of apathy and antipathy. Boy, we got 1989 Cricket Australia drunk after that one.
The Lulu Raes
The Blurst gig we’ve ever played was actually in the fair city of Bris at The Foundry. Two songs into the set Eddie got his foot tangled in a guitar cable and ejected himself from the stage landing face down on the sticky carpet. The band kept playing and he finished the song, then we got this really gnarly review pretty much saying we suck and that Eddie “puttered around dejectedly for the rest of the show”.
Moses Gunn Collective
A few years back in the early Moses days the band had a 1am monthly slot booked at the infamous Troubadour (presently re-owned and renamed Black Bear Lodge).
On one of these nights/mornings our slapstick of a drummer had a little tool much jungle juice and threw up all over his drum kit then passed out on the snare mid set. The night ended with our wordsmith of a front man reciting original poetry as the rest of the band had to drag old piss pot Staggy out the back door and down two flights of stairs. Nothing like the good old days. 🙂
Polish Club
There was one early gig we had where we learned a valuable lesson. We both ate a big arse burrito about 15 mins before our set and needless to say, things got a little blursty.
Australia
Tokyo Sing Song, Newtown, September 2015. A small room with an even smaller stage that opens at midnight and fills with positive vibes.
A covers band compiled of FBi Radio presenters (minus a singer) played later in the night; they started playing Talking Heads Burning down the House. I bolted on stage and grabbed a microphone immediately forgetting the lyrics. So awkwardly danced and occasionally shouted “burning down the house!”. It was a fun night.
Woodboot
The Blurst gig that Woodboot ever played ‘was with a bunch of suckers’. Woodboot vs Suckers.
Bad//Dreems
Some regional centre which shall remain nameless – we were on our first proper tour with Children Collide and Dune Rats. The in house sound guy introduced himself as “Lizard” and told us he’d just got out of a stint in the Big House for murder.
Obviously PAs had changed a lot during that time because he proceeded to pull a turd of a mix to the 5 people watching. Later in the evening the show had to be stopped when some local thugs beat up all the security guards, who hid away until the police arrived.
The Goon Sax
Our “blurst”, or at least strangest gig experience would have to have been a fairly early gig, at a small fashion show in Brisbane. On the night it bucketed down with rain, leaving us unable to play outside as intended, or plug in our instruments.
We decided it would be best if James and I just took turns in doing a few songs each before the fashion show started. Unfortunately it was raining so hard very few people turned up to the event, so before the fashion show began we just started playing our songs, sitting amongst clothes racks, to a group of 9 very disinterested models.
The sound was almost completely drowned out by the bucketing rain, but the 9 models were too busy getting into the alcohol, intended for the non-present audience and weren’t listening anyway.
Heads of Charm
Was playing drums one night. Packed house. Audience all around the stage, on the stage. Really getting into it. My eyes closed. Suddenly a huge speaker stack crashed on top of me and my kit. From blissful darkness to painful confusion. It was the best of times it was the blurst of times.
Crepes
Probably a Halloween show supporting the Murlocs in Ballarat. Very warm and rowdy hometown crowd, featuring our first ever crowd-surfer.
YELLOWCATREDCAT
We were getting wild onstage at a local venue and Isaac tried to climb onto the roof of the inside bar area. He was too drunk and lost his grip and fell off onto me who was standing in the middle of the audience area banging on a floor Tom. They shut us down and banned us from playing.
Bryce Schneider
The Blurst gig I’ve ever played was in Berlin on May 1st – it’s a public holiday and pretty much the biggest party the city throws. I drank all day, maybe broke a chair and my roommate played ‘drums’ with a collection of random shit in the venue. People were into it and I got a 20 Euro tip from an old guy – so I think we did alright.
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The Blurst of Times goes down in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley on April 16th 2016. Head to their FB for more deets and check out the full lineup and ticket links below!
The Blurst Of Times 2016
Saturday, 16th April
Various venues, Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley
Tickets: Oztix
The Blurst Of Times 2016 First Lineup Announcement
Dune Rats
BAD//DREEMS
Methyl Ethel
Kirin J Callinan
The John Steel Singers
Polish Club
The Murlocs
Moses Gunn Collective
The Lulu Raes
The Good Sax
Waax
Twin Haus
Endless Heights
Crepes
Deafcult
Hound
Bryce Schneider
Woodboot
Heads Of Charm
These Guy
Ciggy Pop
Simi Lacroix
Australia
YELLOWCATREDCAT
