Back in the saddle!

After a brief hiatus I reckon it’s time to get back where no one wants us – on the stage of a dingy pub. I’m looking forward to getting back into it and the band has been working on some new material which we can hopefully showcase soon.See the “Upcoming Gigs” for a more detailed listing.

I’ve been in India for the past month, hence the Hindu inspired poster, and have come back with a hatred of all things religious – except the imagery. The hypocricy of organised religion is probably no more apparent than in third world countries and other places where there is a large division between rich and poor. It seems people are able to switch on and off when their fundamental beliefs apply. So called “Holy Men” forcing their views onto tourists, claiming good karma when it is obvious they are only serving themselves. Scammers wearing the signs of spiritual faith that see no problem in the fact that they are openly ripping off innocent people for their own personal gain. Broken, homeless people lining the streets being stepped over by the elite in their designer duds and European cars.

Religion should not only be ignored, but I believe it should be actively opposed for all the injustice, war and damage it has done in this world. All for the sake of fairy tales. My god is bigger than yours. I say “FUCK RELIGION!” and that’s about as political as I get. Prez

Goin’ Orf!

Yep, it’s true. Bits of Shit are gonna play the hardcore ball of the season. Teaming up with the mighty EXTORTION we get to play host to the hardcore supergroup OFF!. It’s hard to believe we’re gonna be sharing the stage with a couple of my childhood heroes – Black Flag/Circle Jerks screamer Keith Morris and Redd Kross bass guitar genius Steve McDonald! And it’s gonna be an all ages show held at the place where the Bits of Shit finally decided to kill off Galeforce and grow some balls! Get fuckin’ on it!

My favourite part is that the Bits of Shit name finally appears on an official Raymond Pettibon penned poster! If only my seventeen year old self could see me now. All grown up…on the outside.

Anyway, here’s a random selection of photos.

• BOS – Boss of Scandinavia. The only place to eat true viking food in Newtown, Sydney
• BOS MAN – check the dribbling fools buckle. Sydney was full of BOSMEN. This guy was from the Street art expo at Cockatoo Island
• CANDYMAN – tape art in the toilets at The Gaso – The President in a previous guise
• BIN MAN – The pallbearer after a toughie – Gaso
• BITSA1 – Satan drives a Mazda

Keeping On

Well, we had a ball in Sydney but I’m not gonna write anything about it here because I’m not feeling too crash hot at the moment. All I can say is, is that the folk in that part of the world looked after us, all the bands were great, and Bits of Shit gave it their best shot. Cheers Timbo for organising this chaos.

This gig is coming up on Thursday as part of the Tote’s 30th birthday bash. I’m looking forward to playing with what was one of my favourite bands growing up.

Good Times

Well, the house arrest of the glorious Tote has come to an end and I must say, it was a fuckin’ good time. The staff treated us really well…kept the beer flowing, and the crowds just got bigger and rowdier and crazier and uglier and friendlier. It’s hard to pick a highlight as all the shows were completely different.

Total Control brought in a huge crowd. You couldn’t get to the the toilets for love nor money and thankfully, most of the crowd stayed. They pretty much left the keyboards alone for their set and blew evryone away with their complex paradiddling style of spastic rock.

Manny Fox Hangman’s Club brought in a more sophisticated crowd but they were just as lively once the music kicked off. A highlight of that night was when Danny took to crawling along the bar. I have a feeling that was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.Their version of “Just a Gigolo” brought memories of Mum’s brief fling with solo period David Lee Roth flooding back. Soopoib.

Pneumatic Slaughter commanded a small, intense group of ragamuffins with their brand of crust. I was personally very impressed by singer Pete’s heckling during our set. I love a bit of two and fro between the band and the audience…it helps break down the barriers and allows everyone to relax and get stupid.

King Leghorn are pretty much cut from the same cloth as us…and the same generation. Their hysterical energy was infectious and ploughed the way for a really fun, relaxing gig. Real nice.

And it all kicked off with the glorious Murdered Birds. Hillbilly, bluegrass wopface of the highest calibre that paved the way for a month of beer-soaked Satdee arvos at one of my all time favourite pubs.

July was a great month for us, and August is shaping up to be a good one too. Get on it.

House RULES!

Bits of Shit began their residuncy at The Tote on the weekend which got off to a cracking start. The Murdered Birds set the tone for the day with their stylish, backward ways. Top harmonies. Finger pickin’ goodness. Whole lotta love.

The mood was set…ready to be destroyed. I hope we achieved this. Check it out for yourself on the sample of clips submitted to Youtube by an unnamed source. Thank you Source.

There are a few more videos from that show on Youtube. You can get most of them by following us at our “Bits of Shit Youtube Channel”.

All and all a top start to our stay at our new digs. Come on down. It’s gonna be a fun month.

PS: A big Thank you to the crew at The Marquis of Lorne, Per, Stanners and of cource the always brilliant Terry McCarthy Special for the dinner show on Sunday. We had a ball and the waft of shit emanating from the cellar made it an extra special evening.

Confederacy of Dunces – July Residuncy

So, Bits of Shit have a redundancy, sorry, residency at the glorious Tote during the month of July. I probably should have thought this one through before blindly accepting the last minute offer from Amanda. A band had obviously pulled out, left her high and dry so we came to the rescue. Unfortunately there are a few things working against us in taking this gig that I didn’t consider at the time it was offered to me. They are:

1. It’s in the middle of winter and most people are too precious to leave the warmth of the living room at this time of year.
2. A lot of my friends are old, have kids and want to spend the mid-year school break with their family. Some of them even want to get out of town! (selfish bastards)
3. As it is last minute, I’m having trouble finding support bands, especially considering most of my friends are old etc – see above.
4. There are five Saturdays in July.
5. The football’s on.

Anyway, we will soldier on regardless. It’s gonna be a hoot. I’m really looking forward to it and I think it’s starting to shape up as a really interesting and diverse month for us, and The Tote. Plus we get paid and free beer to jam in a pub! Check out the listings in the Upcoming Gigs page for more details and for God’s sake, GET OFF YOUR ARSE AND COME AND SEE US AT THE TOTE THIS JULY!

Retreat…while you can

What a fuckin’ ball we had playing in the heart of Brunswick County last Friday night. I was a bit nervous beforehand. You get some unsavoury types at The Retreat. By unsavoury I mean suburban boneheads that come to the big smoke for a night on the turps, get freaked out by the inner-city types and then start lashing out in anxiety driven anguish. I also invited a group of my workmates, who all turned up, so I was a bit apprehensive about leaving myself so exposed to them. Worlds were colliding.

Thankfully everyone was relaxed, well lubricated, and simply wanted to have a good time. And we did. Once the pallbearer put on his protective clothing we were away. Jammin’. Jazzin’. Experimenting our fuckin’ heads off.

Cheers to Ralph, Duncan and Eliza from the River of Snakes for organising this one – I never would have imagined playing at The Retreat but it worked out fine. Here’s a few snaps.

Brunny

Had a fun time at the Brunswick Hotel the other night – especially with the older crowd. Here are some snaps.

Don’t forget to come down to the Retreat on Friday!

Stuff

We had a crack at a recording on the weekend but it turned into a comedy of errors – a very BLACK comedy. Pete discovered he was missing his microphones so I drove to his place in Footscray to pick them up. This meant driving through Saturday afternoon, chickenhead, knuckledragging, backpackingarsehole Queen Victoria Market traffic. A mere 15-20 kilometres round trip ended up taking close to two fucking hours! As if this wasn’t bad enough, when we finally started recording, with the hour and a half we had left, the bitching bass amp decided to give us all the silent treatment. FARK!

So, it wasn’t the most successful session and tempers were frayed. However, we are the mighty Bits of Shit and we will arise from this headfuck a stronger and meatier unit. Unfortunately it means I haven’t got any new tunes to share but we should have some for you soon. If there’s one thing I learnt, it’s that pressure cookers sometimes explode – great art takes time.

Andrew from 3-toed sloth sent me down some photos from the righteous Clovelly Bowls Club gig with the staunch feedtime. This was truly a highlight of my amateur musical career to be able to share the stage with these childhood idols of mine. There were three main influences on my musical aspirations as a youngster and they were all bass players: Ian Rilen from X, Steve McDonald from Redd Kross and Al from feedtime. The industrial grunt that Al achieved on such a simple instrument is a thing of beauty. He makes the bass sing. It leads the show with a heart the size of Pharlap. Golly gosh I love the way he plays bass, and we were there. Sucked in!

Here are some photos from the night – none of us. Left to right: 3-toed sloth, feedtime, Meat Thump.

While I was updating the blog I noticed this clip on youtube. It made me proud. Kinda like the President of The Orphans in The Warriors when he shows them the news clipping recounting some of the ‘heavy shit’ they’ve been doing. Pathetic pride.

It’s alive!

After getting sick to death of Myspace and its many shortcomings, I decided to start the Bits of Shit blog to keep all you members informed. Hopefully this will be a better medium for us.

Got a few gigs coming up but this is the only one that I have made a poster for so far. Playing at The Retreat Hotel with the fantasic River of Snakes. They feature Raul from Magic Dirt fame and play a pretty straight forward, hard hitting grunge. They are a Geelong band after all. Really looking forward to this gig. It should be a bizarre experience playing in that cowboy themed bandroom they have there – hence the flyer.

We’re also playing at The Brunswick Hotel on Thursday the 26th of May with our bruddas the Buftie Boys as well as the very well travelled King Leghorn. Looking forward to catching these guys again. I don’t think I’ve seen them since the early nineties. Also joining us on the night are the Red Twenties – should be fun.

Anyway, there you have it. The first entry. Stay tuned for more shitty news in the coming weeks.

Stay brown,

The President.