FEATURES
Regurgitator Regurgitator are celebrating their 25th anniversary with a national tour that begins this weekend. BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
The trio, led by songwriters Ben Ely and Quan Yeomans, have been at it for a quarter of a century, but they’re not running out of ideas. After releasing their ninth studio album, HEADROXX, in August 2018, the Brisbane trio turned their focus to the children’s project, Regurgitator’s Pogogo Show. With the addition of a fourth member, Koko, the project’s first LP, The Really Really Really Really Boring Album, landed in March. They’ll be bringing the Pogogo silliness to the Lost Lands festival in early November. “The kids performer hat is quite demanding,” says Yeomans. “I have a lot of respect for people who do it, because it does take a lot out of you.” Yeomans has two young children himself and he’s enjoyed getting their two cents on the Pogogo Show material. “It’s really great when you’ve got kids and you can actually share your work with them a little bit and get some input, some feedback. It’s really lovely,” he says. Despite conducting this market research, Yeomans admits conceiving children’s songs and onstage routines has been challenging. For starters, kids are harder to read than drunk adults. “I have a long career of entertaining
drunk adults,” he says. “You can kind of read them and you can understand the cues and you can ask them to scream and they scream on cue. But kids, they kind of have a blanked out expression where they’re taking things in, so it’s very difficult to tell whether they’re really into it or whether they’re bored or what’s going on behind the scenes. “I often hear about parents who take their kids home after thinking they had a terrible time and they’re just raving about the time they had at the gig. So it’s really hard to tell.” Regurgitator formed in 1994 and released their debut EP early the following year. Although officially self-titled, it’s more commonly known as “Hamburger” thanks to its cover image. This inspired the name and artwork for the anniversary tour – Quarter Pounder: 25 Years of Being Consumed. Joining the ‘Gurg on the epic run around the country – which includes three Melbourne shows – are Japan’s Shonen Knife and fellow ‘90s journeymen The Fauves. “It should be really fun,” says Yeomans. “It’s more of a nostalgic trip than an innovation type thing, but it’s certainly going to be fun and we’re going to be pushing it a little bit in terms of visuals and costumes. “We’ve got a costume designer from
Brisbane working on some costumes, so there’s three or four different costume changes. That’s going to be pretty bizarre. Her name’s Cindy Vogels and she seems so happy to work with us because we’re just like, ‘do whatever you want, make it as crazy as you want, we don’t care, we’ll wear anything’. It should be pretty over the top, lots of colour.” After a second EP, New, arrived in late 1995, Regurgitator got stuck into their debut LP, Tu-Plang. Released via Warner Music in 1996, Tu-Plang’s iconic lead single, ‘I Sucked a Lot of Cock to Get Where I Am’, made the ‘Gurg’s irreverent spirit immediately apparent. Shock jock Alan Jones wasn’t too stoked about the song and pushed for its prohibition. Raising Jones’ ire is always good publicity and the song landed at number 23 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of 1996. The band’s next album is generally seen
as their magnum opus. Released in late 1997, Unit merged alt-rock and synth-pop with hip hop and Prince-inscribed dance music. Their nine-album catalogue is characterised by a similar rejection of stylistic boundaries, which will be represented in the anniversary tour setlists and visuals. “We wanted to do something completely unexpected for each genre,” Yeomans says. “The show’s kind of chronological, but also it breaks off into genres as well.”
experiences that combined to inspire that song,” says O’Connor, “but I guess ultimately it’s the feeling of being forced to be a cog in a masked machine and no one knows why the machine needs to run at all.” With a launch show to celebrate the release of ‘Muscle Memory’ coming up at Red Betty, O’Connor says that because Green Blanket have played the iconic venue before, they have a few things they want to make happen to make this one extra gnarly. “We really loved the atmosphere. We try to make every show unique and to some extent spontaneous. But I think we’ll have to pull a few rabbits out of the hat for this one.”
Supporting them on the night is Golden Age, a band O’Connor says Green Blanket chose pretty much just because they like them. “We just get along with them as people and musically they bring a nice deep wall of sonic pleasure. Plenty of guitar slaying and nice layers.”
Regurgitator celebrate 25 years at The Alexander Theatre in Clayton on Friday October 4 and San Remo’s Westernport Hotel on Saturday October 5. They’ll then hit up the Prince Bandroom, The Corner (sold out), The Lost Lands festival and Howler for a run of shows at the start of November. More info and tix via respective venue and festival websites.
Green Blanket
Green Blanket, known for their effervescent blend of pop, rock, indie, shoegaze, and space grunge, are back with a brand-new album, Who Am I Talking To?. BY ANNA ROSE
A four-piece from head to toe, the band create off-kilter tracks of love, despair, hate, comic relief and ambience – it’s a party for the ears and has seen them rise from their Geelong base into the Melbourne music consciousness. Their debut release, Raw Dingo, has come and gone, and Green Blanket have, according to vocalist and guitarist Max O’Connor, made several developments as a band – professionally and musically. “This time ‘round, [the album] is calmer, more cynical, but the humour still remains. I try to just stay on her good side,” he laughs. So what to expect from the sound in the new album? Well, that label of space grunge, quirky and endearing as it may be, may not be entirely accurate, and O’Connor is wonderfully whimsical when it comes to trying to sell Green Blanket and get punters along to their upcoming show at Red Betty. “It was a patron that labelled us that,” says O’Connor, “but essentially I would say it’s the mix of the instrumentation breakdowns, playful feedback and spicy lyrics that give it a space grunge feel.
“Ultimately it is up to the crowd to decide if that’s an appropriate label for us. As far as I’m aware neither of the four members have been cloned, so for that reason amongst many more we are 100 per cent unique. “The band’s not for sale, but if I had to conjure up some curiosity, I would offer the sensation of feeling like an organism instead of an algorithm whilst attending our shows.” There was an unabashed humour, a raw comedy but also a very rabid vein of punk in Green Blanket’s first release – now in Who Am I Talking To?, O’Connor takes a moment to contemplate and reflect on their journey, introspective whimsy bubbling to the surface again. “As human beings we are constantly growing and discovering. And I think it’s inevitable that those elements will always find their way into whatever art form you are indulging in at the time. “I guess, personally, the older I get the more accepting I become of my own flaws ... it’s trying to turn flaws into charm that is the trick.” A new album means a new single – ‘Muscle Memory’. “There’s several different
Green Blanket launch their new single, ‘Muscle Memory’, at Red Betty on Saturday October 5. It’s all free, head to the venue website for more info.
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