Gazoonga Attack

Gazoonga Attack are a great rock and roll group. The nearest thing, in local, kinda, terms is Radio Birdman’s January ’96 tour. Now, GazAtt don’t quite have the songs or the skills, which is hardly the point. They don’t have the history or the legend, either, but they have something rare and special – a charismatic gang identity. They give off that aura that makes you think, hey, this is what it mighta been like seeing The Who in ’64. Pennie Smith, in her classic series of pix of The Clash, referred to their natural ability to “pull shapes”. That is, they didn’t have to think about what they were doing, they just did it and looked ultra-fucking-fantastically cool. Gazoonga Attack do that on stage. They pull shapes like almost no-one I’ve ever seen.Whatever they do, it looks so right. Elea can put her foot up on the foldback wedge and not look like a wanker. Tamara can fall over on her back, keep on playing, and not look like a wanker. They can get away with it because they are so obviously into the moment, they’ve thrown themselves into rock and roll so completely that there is no artifice, no self-conciousness.What there is, is a massive, enormous passionate electric drive. I listened to their new CD about eight times yesterday while writing a review for a US online music mag who’ve promised me freebies (but will they be as much fun as “Sex Nerd”?) and within the four or five chord rocking format, inside and behind the stinkfinger rhythmic drive, is a depth and breadth of passion, desperation, loss, yearning that verges on the fucking scary.For all that, this wasn’t the best GazAtt show I’ve seen. It just wasn’t quite as intense as I’ve seen them. I blame Elea’s running shoes. Converses are okay, but Adidas or Puma or whatever are the province of lamearse boogie bullshit bands like The Angels or some such crap. Thing is, that even when down on their usual standards, they are still streets ahead, Brisbane to Sydney freeways ahead of their contemporaries who get all the press, all the attention… And more power to ‘em. A band that is allowed to develop at their own pace will be a better band than one that is pushed and promoted and shoved down punter’s throats and pressured, pressured, pressured.Gazoonga Attack look great, sound great, are great. I bought the CD and would’ve hung around longer to party on with all the rockin’ folks (the last rockin’ venue on lower Oxford St was Mars, at least 12 years ago) only I had to meet some people in some CBD bar and didn’t get home for another two days. That kinda shit is pretty easy to do when you’ve had a rock and roll blast of Gazoonga Attack quality. I would’ve ridden to Newcastle for the Saturday gig, except for the unfortunate motorcycle incident.Did anyone else notice that Big Jack Howard’s spreadeagled Victory Vees were uncannily like those Richard Nixon pulled when he was getting on the chopper after resigning (to avoid impeachment)? Art, of all kinds, peaks in time of repression. Sex, drugs and rock and roll can just be careless fun, but the rock and roll, especially, can stand for a whole lot more. Gazoonga Attack may not realise it, and may not care, but their singular attitude is a righteous expression of the right to dissent. And the right to dissent, folks, is not just what makes life worth living, it makes life, for us lucky Westerners, what it is.“I’m feeling dirty baby, wash me clean, I got a six-pack, a reefer and some nicotine.” Yeah, so fuck you, Dick Cheney, and fuck you Osama bin Laden, we got a life to live and we aint gonna waste it on people who just don’t fucking get what it means to be young and alive and searching for another peak experience. Now, I’m gonna take an XS650 for a test run, and I’ll be singing rock and roll songs all the way...Spectrum, Sydney, Oct 29 2004. words by Earl O'Neill