Words: Michel Rowland
Photos: Vince Cabrera
It has been nine months since I saw either LUNG or Trauma Party live, each at different dates on the New Zealand leg of Schkeuditzer Kreuz’s Swan Grinding tour, back in late January. It seems fitting that it is not only Halloween, but Kieren (Schkeuditzer Kreuz)’s birthday, so I have worn my Swan Grinder tee to mark the occasion.
I’m meeting regular gig-buddy Natalie at the venue early, so we can catch up before things get loud. While I wait, local gig photographer Vince Cabrera and I discover that we’ve both just arrived in Wellington from the Hutt Valley on the same train. I am soon joined by Natalie, and a few other familiar faces begin to file in. Kirsty from Trauma Party, Dave and Zak (and brother Niko) from LUNG, Xan and Victoria from Angel 11 x 11… There is even a surprise appearance by old mucker Mikel from Christchurch, whom I’ve not seen since the previous Schkeuditzer Kreuz NZ tour in 2023. The circumstances of his being here in Wellington could certainly have been a lot happier, but it’s a nice surprise, nonetheless. Mikel remembers when his old band, the mighty post-industrial no-wave noise merchants Leonard Nimoy, played with LUNG. My best guess is that this would have been c.1993, on LUNG’s Three Heads on a Plate tour.
I might normally expect to have seen a few more folks tonight, but presumably Halloween has pulled many of us between a few more prospects than just any other Saturday. The crowd that eventually gathers is a small but enthusiastic mix of LUNG’s regulars, perhaps a handful of the other bands’ local followers (albeit not many, given that two of the four bands are from out of town), and a few random revellers for Halloween. With around three quarters of the bandmembers aged between their fifties and sixties, a good chunk of the faithful few are of a similar vintage – old enough to remember all of this post-punk business from the first time around. Among the younger set, it is occasionally difficult to distinguish the small clutch of goths from those of their peers in Halloween costumes. A young man dressed as Johnny Bravo is offering chocolates and Werther’s Originals to all in attendance, although quite a few people seem not to make the Halloween = candy connection, and regard him with suspicion. The Werther’s, meanwhile, have been steadily melting in his back jeans pocket. Outside on Riddiford Street, as the night grows dark, the usual Newtown nightlife is increasingly dotted with small groups dressed for Halloween, while the spillover from the Toa Samoa and Tonga Community Rugby League Parade sees a steady flow of utes (pick-up trucks) flying Samoan or Tongan flags up and down the main drag.
I have been trying to stay off the booze for a while now, with varying degrees of success, and am apprehensive about what will be the first gig I have attended in many years without being buoyed by alcohol. I need not have worried. I am in good company so far as non-drinkers go, and aside from being a great little bar and venue, MOON put on a pretty good selection of non-alcoholic beverages, as well as making some bloody good pizza. And it turns out that, contrary to what I’ve been telling myself for decades, I am in fact quite capable of socialising and enjoying music with old friends, without also having to be inebriated. Who knew?
Opening act is Whanganui duo Angel 11 x 11, comprising Xan Tesla and Victoria Singh. As with LUNG and Trauma Party, the last time I saw these two was when I conscripted Victoria (alias DJ Virago, of Dark Entries Dance Night) to DJ at Schkeuditzer Kreuz’s Wellington show in January, and she arrived with new beau Xan in tow. Xan’s music I knew primarily from his days in Nelson blackmetal / doom outfit Beltane, around the 1990s and early 2000s. Victoria I remember seeing live for the first time back around 1997, when she was a sort of avantgarde gothic sleaze cabaret singer called Satina Saturnina, singing a song about how she fucked her Barbie.
11 x11
I have earlier spent some time negotiating with Victoria to purchase one of their very limited-edition of 11 handmade CD-R ‘maxi-singles’. She seems reluctant to part with even one, and far more interested in showing me the display case she has decorated and brought them in. It is a very nice display case, to be fair. The suggestion that I might pay $11 for #11 of 11 seems to finally tip the scales in my favour.
If I hadn’t listened to their demos on Bandcamp earlier, I might have been expecting sludgy, doom-laden post-industrial fringe performance art, but Angel 11 x 11 are something altogether more entertaining. This is more like glammed-up electro-goth: a backdrop of grandiose ‘80s drum machines and atmospheric synth programming, overlaid with histrionic guitar solos on a Flying V, and minimalist post-punk basslines enshrouded in chorus and flanger… part Specimen, part Sisters, and (as Vince astutely observes) part Sigue Sigue Sputnik.
Undisputed frontrunners for the Most Halloween-Appropriate Band of the Night Award, Angel 11 x 11 are as much a visual presence as a musical one. Xan, on lead vocals and guitar, is a sinewy spider from Mars in leather trousers, both disco reptile and funky alligator, his eye makeup a nod to Pris from Blade Runner. His long, slender form hunches and contorts to drape itself over and around the mic stand, and sometimes seems to completely envelop his guitar. Victoria, on bass and backing vocals, is a smouldering hot mess of layered op-shop furs and négligés, making expressive Nina Hagen eyes at the audience from beneath Siouxsie-esque kohl. She doesn’t so much approach the microphone as she does stalk it like a cat and pounce upon it, before fellating it into submission. They are a gloriously tongue-in-cheek rock’n’roll pastiche, and magnificent fun that had me grinning from ear-to-ear for much of their set.
Next on the bill were Paper Fortune, the one band I had no prior knowledge of whatsoever. They are a fourpiece, fronted by Esther Tempest and Emmie Ellis, who trade lead vocal duties and alternate between lead and rhythm guitars. Esther is a southpaw, which further adds to the symmetry of dual frontpersons. Their opening number was a languid, swooning, indie guitar ballad that verged onto alt-country / dreampop terrain, while the rest of their set was a largely up-tempo blend of alternative rock, indie guitar pop, and occasional forays into grungier riot grrrl territory.
Paper Fortune
I wish I had managed to swipe a setlist, or that I had since been able to find more than two demos from four years ago online, because then I would be able to tell you which songs I liked best. But I do know that one of them was called ‘Fairweather Friend’, which featured a beautiful, soaring vocal from Emmie, calling to mind (for me, at least) some of Tanya Donnelly’s more commanding moments during her tenure with Throwing Muses. It was a brand-new song, apparently, on its first live outing, and while the band didn’t quite stick the landing at the end, that did little to spoil it, as it felt as though it was supposed to collapse into chaos anyway.
Not necessarily the sort of thing I’d ordinarily go out of my way to see, Paper Fortune nevertheless made a convincing case for themselves. And if nothing else, I came away wishing there was more of their music available to listen to, which is surely a good sign.
Having made their way from Waiheke Island to Wellington this weekend, with another gig in Whanganui and a side-mission in Levin along the way, Trauma Party launch into their set at MOON with latest single ‘Roll Up (It’s the New Truth)’, from the debut EP Because You’ve Been Good. Its rumbling, jagged tumult immediately sets the tone for the band to blaze their way through previously unreleased tracks ‘Fuckface’, ‘Bad Things (Happen in Small Towns)’, and brand-new song ‘Flamingos’, with scarcely a pause between them, bridged by guitarist Derek Solomon’s wall-to-wall feedback, and a few cryptic words of introduction from frontman Buddy Olson. The band’s apparent commitment to touring every provincial shithole in the North Island lately has certainly paid dividends, which are nowhere more apparent than on ‘Bad Things (Happen in Small Towns)’: a song that drummer Kirsty Swanney ploughs into with aggressive enthusiasm.
Since I last saw them in Auckland, Swanney has gone from a solid, energetic drummer, albeit occasionally a little awkward and stiff, to a veritable fucking powerhouse. Routinely dealing with bogan male underestimations of the female bandmember has stoked her (f)ire and given her something to prove, and it shows. She brings to the stage that same contagious sense of absolute joy at playing that she always did, but now moves seamlessly between thunderous, rolling tom-driven arrangements and syncopated, twitching, off-kilter post-punk backdrops, through to even occasionally basic DIY garage punk backbeats, where that is what the song calls for. Throughout, her playing is powerful, dynamic and fluid, with an instinctive musicality that extends well beyond mere time-keeping.
Bassist Ron K’s undulating, grinding basslines work particularly well in tandem with Kirsty’s oceanic rhythms, an interplay and musical rapport dating back to their time together in post-punk outfit Glass Cell. Onstage, Ron himself cuts a comparatively discreet figure among Trauma Party’s larger-than-life personalities, slight of frame and quietly unassuming in his presence. There is nothing slight about the sonic gravity of his bass, however, which occupies its own considerable space within the band’s sound. Indeed, there is an economy without austerity to Trauma Party’s arrangements, with every instrument making full use of the space afforded to it, leaving nothing wasted or wanting.
The whole band has become more intensely focused. They are somehow more raucous, rowdy and raw than ever, yet simultaneously more tightly honed, well-oiled and streamlined. Where Derek Solomon’s guitar lines on earlier singles ‘Speak to Me’ and ‘Sharks’ tended towards the spritely, spiky melodicism of Magazine or Wire, both songs in a live setting now carry more of the sonic heft and muscular, corrugated-iron guitar style of Solomon’s earlier punk, metal, and industrial rock background. That increased resonance and density is even more pronounced across the newer material making up the majority of their set. Solomon fills the roles of both sideman and bandleader equally well, commanding stage right as the band’s musical director on guitar, while serving as a vocal foil to frontman Buddy Olson.
Offstage, the white-haired Olson presents as a softly spoken, unassuming, warm but somewhat reticent sort of chap. Onstage, he immediately transforms into that late twentieth century countercultural archetype of rock’n’roll frontman as poet, shaman and guru: a lyrical conduit for both the band and the audience’s collective neurodivergence and sociopolitical anxieties. As animistic shapeshifter, he is at once Saruman the White and the Wild Man of Borneo, Ian Anderson, Jim Morrison, J Mascis and Obi-Wan Kenobi. With ‘Flamingos’ he delivers the imperative to shake-shake-shake one’s pink tailfeather whilst furnishing us with an instructive demonstration, replete with shared catcalls of “Hoo! Hoo!” from both Olson and Solomon. Buddy doesn’t so much do The Swim during ‘Sharks’ as allow his arms to become sea-serpents, whose unified ambition is to illustrate the line “sharks in the river” to the audience, through a form of interpretive dance known only to sea-serpents who are also arms. He introduces ‘City Shines’ as a song of appreciation for people who adorn trains with spray-painted artworks, and as if by magic, you are listening to the unstoppable force of a train going by. “I see my name go by”, he roars, “I’m a fucking God!”. ‘Molotov Disco’ meanwhile gives us the line “It’s a revolution, it’s a dancefloor banger / Every revolution needs a dancefloor banger.”
At least eight of their eleven songs tonight are destined for a debut album, scheduled to start tracking in earnest this month, if I recall correctly. I can scarcely wait.
Trauma Party
LUNG frontman Dave White has screamed himself hoarse the night beforehand, opening for Mudhoney in Tauranga. His solution tonight, it seems, is to scream himself even hoarser. He sounds as if he has been gargling Tom Waits’s cigarette ash for mouthwash.
Earlier in the day, by some strange, synchronistic turn of events, I had just received a review of LUNG’s latest album, Fog, from Austrian alternative rock print zine, SLAM. The reviewer described the band as: “Somewhere between garage, post-punk and grunge… wild and idiosyncratic… between genius and madness… LUNG rage away on Fog as though there were no tomorrow, anarchic and always surprising… almost as though THE STOOGES and SONIC YOUTH had been reincarnated together…”
I didn’t get a spare moment to send it to Dave before I had to catch my train into town. In fact, fuck. I still haven’t sent it to him.
We – that is the vaping and / or smoking contingent – have gone back outside again during the changeover between bands. As LUNG take the stage, I hear Dave impatiently begin to strike at his guitar, and I see bassist James Woods break from a casual stroll into a hurried sprint across the few short metres between the toilets and the stage.
Presumably, you have to be well-heeled to follow Dave’s lead. The sonic equivalent of Captain Ahab, he leads a devoted skeleton crew of James and drummer Zak White (who is also Dave’s son) to the depths of hell and back in pursuit of some crazed vision known only to Dave. And a formidable crew they make. James’s lurching, churning, staggering bass does as much of the melodic heavy lifting as it does hold down the bottom end, while Dave’s guitars repeatedly veer off into unbridled noise. Zak’s drumming is gargantuan. Beneath the sheer scale and velocity of it there is also intricacy and rhythmic invention, from swinging, loping 3/4 and 6/8 time-signatures, to breakneck punkabilly hoedowns, to more complex, tempestuous fills where the songs allow space for them. James and Zak’s obvious technical proficiency, however, is never showy, and never threatens to overpower the raw DIY ethos of LUNG. They are the anchor stone to which Dave’s madcap tangents are tethered, while he is the lightning rod through which their collective energies are channelled into something altogether more volatile.
The list of songs at Dave’s feet is more like a series of suggestions than a prescribed setlist. I can’t remember what they opened with, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t ‘Full Moon’. It may have been ‘Slaughterhouse’. It was one of those slow, churning, darker ones in any case, and it was to be the last of those for the night, before Dave launched the band headlong into a set of mostly short, sharp, bombastic blasts of noise-punk from Fog. As Derek from Trauma Party points out, MOON’s inhouse sound-tech Warwick understands that the full impact of LUNG’s music demands volume.
LUNG
The wildly popular recent single ‘Isolated Gun’ follows, before being abruptly upstaged by ‘Blood Clot’ and its barking-mad hook “Run! Run! Run! / Run! Run! Run! / Run! Run! Run! / Run! Run! Run!”. Maryanne is invited to join Dave on vocals for ‘RALPH’, a song about Maryanne’s cat, Ralph. The lyrics consist largely of Dave and Maryanne in a call-and-response round of screeching at Ralph. “RALPH!”, shrieks Dave. “NAUGHTY!”, squawks Maryanne.
‘Xtra Spank’ is a live highlight, driven by its propulsive, repetitive guitar riff and yeehawing psychobilly stonk. I’m pretty sure ‘Blue Al’ gets cut from the set altogether. Dave, whose day job is driving a recycle truck for Wellington City Council, insists that if we listen closely to the lyrics to ‘Recycle Man’, we will learn how to do his job. The lyrics proceed as follows: “Recycle! Recycle Man! Recycle-cycle-cycle-cycle man! Can! Can! Can! Can! Can! Can! Can-Can!” As training seminars go, I feel one could be forgiven for coming away feeling woefully underqualified.
‘Panda’ is yet another highlight. Stripped of the atmospheric synth intro and warbling organs of the album version, it works just as well as a stark, jaunty little slab of blunt-force avant-noise-punk trauma, alongside its Fog siblings. ‘Firestarter’ comes about as close as we’re going to get to another darker, moodier track, although that’s entirely relative to the frantic pace of the other Fog material.
At some point, James begins mocking Dave (68) for being an old-age pensioner, before confessing that he (James) is actually just enjoying not being the oldest member of a band for a change. Later, James will insist that Dave needs to tune his guitar. “What for?!”, I demand to know from the peanut gallery. In between bashing away at it like a percussive instrument, scratching and scraping at the strings in a frenzied squall, and holding it aloft over his amp for feedback, he has scarcely fretted more than three actual notes on the beleaguered Thunderbird all night. Dave protests that he hasn’t tuned his guitar since the ‘80s. Regardless, it is dutifully retired in favour of a supposedly “in tune” Telecaster copy.
Dave points out that almost the entirety of their set has thus far been from the latest album, before lobbing a copy of the LP blindly into the front row, where the person in the French Maid costume seems quite delighted at her prize. He introduces their next song, ‘Swing’, from 1991’s debut Cactii, as “one for all the old cunts.” As it becomes apparent that they are nearing the end of their set, the diehards dutifully commence baying for more. Dave shuffles about, pensively scanning the “setlist” at his feet for the five or six songs they haven’t yet played. “Did you say one more, or two more?” he teases. The roar for two more is unanimous. “Right, one more then.” Bastard… He introduces the aptly named ‘Dinosaurs’ as the first LUNG song ever written, before pointing out that Zak wasn’t even born yet.
Shortly after midnight and it’s all over, whereupon Natalie and most of the crowd empties out quite quickly. A few dregs and stragglers hover about, myself and Mikel among them, while the bands pack down and load out. I snag myself a Trauma Party t-shirt from Kirsty and a handprinted and stencilled copy of Because You’ve Been Good on CD-R, and skulk about a little longer before saying my goodbyes and ordering an Uber. It’s a rather steep $90 ride back to Upper Hutt at this hour on a Saturday, but I’ve easily saved more than that on not drinking. Coupled with free entry for me and Nat, and Trauma Party refusing to let me pay for merch, turns out to be a pretty cheap night out, all in all. Four bands worth seeing, a few old friends worth catching up with, and considerably more fun than I’d anticipated, under the circumstances. I could get used to this.
