Gazoonga Attack

Gazoonga Attack 'Sex Nerd' Album Launch - Spectrum [Sydney] Friday 29 October, 2004.

There aint too many places I’d rather be than a noisy, smoky little bar full of rock and roll and all the attendant sights and sounds and smells. I’ve been doing this since I was 13 and it still takes me away to a better world. So, yeah, I was happier than a pig in slops. The barmaid in the cutdown AC/DC T-shirt and red and white striped hair was knocking back shots and I was pacing myself, sorta.

Hey, I was having a ball, old and new comrades, ugly blokes and cute chicks and all sortsa folks to rock around and have a quick, intense chat with and move on, yeah, keep moving, keep at it, cos yr not gonna live forever, eh? Not here for a long time, just a good time, a great time, and we better make the most of it....

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 themselve 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 uncannilly 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 sixpack, a reefer and some nicotine." Yeah, so fuck you, Dick Cheney, and fuck you Usama 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. - www.i94bar.com

Four ultra-spunks from the slimy streets of Brisbane's Fortitude Valley, Gazoonga Attack are not like tons of other chick rock bands. Face it, most of 'em are a bunch of pussies. And before all ou self-righteous, PC fascists start throwing burning bras at me, I'm not puttine chicks in rock down. It's just a fact that almost every all-female rock abnd has at least one weak link. Most have more. But in Gazoonga Attack that's not the case.

Starting at the rear, drummer Renae Collett hits hard and solid.  So hard and solid infact that she once filled in for Pete Kostic in the mighty Front End Loader.  Thwock! 

To one side of the stage stands blonde, pigtailed guitarist/vocalist Serinda Rogers, screaming in a register normally reserved for helium sucking banshees.  Bang! 

On the other side you'll find rock's ultimate goddess, Tamara Bell, wind-milling on her six-string and
throwing down whiskey soaked soul vocals.  Whammo! 

Bassist/vocalist Elea Logan prowls and prances about the stage, always taking time for some foot on the foldback rock moves, giving the heavy dyke presence at the front a pleasant thrill.  Pow!

As a band, they keep it tight. Listen to their new debut full-length SEX NERD, or see them live to get full effect.  There are no weak links, and none of these gals are pussies.  They are four deadly rock chicks who don't give a shit that they're chicks, only that they rock.  Zzap! - Blunt Magazine, Australia

Like Bon Scott and Joan Jett, GAZOONGA ATTACK are straight-up 100 per cent rock as they finally launch their debut album SEX NERD.  With no need for fanfare or even an intro, Tamara, Elea, Renae and Serinda slink onto the stage, plug in and let the rest speak for
itself.  The first few tunes come thick and fast so by the time they let loose with 'Down The Alibi' the room is getting sweaty.  'Flash In The Panty' shows the three-girl frontline unloading on the crowd while 'Disko #69' establishes a pit
of people dancing, jumping and cascading around the front of the room.  It's a sight not
enough seen in this venue.

The ball-bustingly heavy 'Hacienda Motor Inn' is stretched to epic proportions and combined with an explosion of balloons, champagne and even a gimp, leaving everyone within arms reach with that sweet, sticky feeling.  The set comes to a glorious climax with a fine rendition of The Stooges' 'Loose'.

Tonight is more sex than nerd and more fun than a good... - Timeoff Magazine, Brisbane

3 stars out of 5.

Earlier this year, Gazoonga Attack disappeared into Airlock Studios to record a punk album. Sex Nerd is the result. Opener 'Random Act Of The Devil' is the perfect flagship – raw, rich and born from the fiery bellies of four fierce women.

Simultaneously reckless and zealously controlled, Sex Nerd veers between the caught-in-your-throat hooks of 'Disko #69' and the thrashed-out 'Careful Now'.

Gazoonga Attack's secret weapon is the luxury of having multiple cannonball voices at their disposal, the album seemlessly switches between three different varieties of gut-busting vocal attack.

'Muthafuk It Off' demonstrates that you can be seething with world-fuelled bile and focus it into a coherent and blistering two-minute grenade, while 'Play That Junky Music, White Boy' shows that beneath their coal-eating exterior there beats a choking and pummelled pop heart.

Gazoonga Attack have achieved something of a dream record. Somehow combining the raw, unfettered energy of their live shows with the warmth and cohesiveness offered by the studio environment. As such, highlights 'Easey Street', '3am & Who Are You?' and 'Test Strip' are given room to swing their callused fists while still being wrangled with a vilatile sense of unity.

Sex Nerd is the album the Gazoongas were born to make. - Timeoff Magazine, Brisbane

Sex Nerd: 3 stars out of 5.

Seems the tough chicks who smoked in the dunnies, wore too much make-up and beat up nerdy
boys after school turned out Most Likely To Succeed after all.  Gritty, jarring, insanely catchy and packing a gutsy harmonic edge that lifts them above the pack, Brisbane's
Gazoonga Attack flaunt their no-bullshit independent attitude on these 14 tight tracks (recorded in seven days).  Even incorporating occasional rock and metal aspects, it's all straight-down-the-line punk-rock.

But what the energetic four may lack in arrangement, they more than make up for with enthusiasm and fuck-you spirit, breaking tattooed hearts aplenty with their raw production and making a mighty sonic stand. - Rollingstone Magazine, Australia

"It was like Fat Camp!" Elea from GAZOONGA ATTACK describes their harrowing recoding sessions to DANNY MISCELLANEOUS.

"Renae's just woken up and she's waring her bra and some jeans and there's beer bottles everywhere." Gazoonga Attack's femme fatale bass player Elea is describing with a charming, expletive peppered manner the aftermath a monstrous evening spent at a friend's beach house.

"This place looks like a YMCA," a bedraggled male voice barks in the background. The mere image is giving me a hangover. To their credit it is 11am Saturday morning, the equivalent of midnight to these nocturnal divas of punk rock mayhem, so to catch any member reasonably coherent at this point is a plus.

The previous evening saw the all-girl, all-rock quintet play a show at the Kings Beach Tavern, Queensland and, true to form for the state's renowned open-mindedness (?!), have received a mixed response. "The crowd just didn't know what the fuck to expect," says Elea. "We heard someone saying 'What were those bitches screaming about?'" Though they did manage to have a positive effect on one punter in particular, "This dude comes up to me and goes, 'I don't usually like originals'!!" Elea laughs with a slightly maniacal disbelief. "But the crowds other than weird places like that have been fucking unreal."

Well what else can you expect from the sun soaked masses of Queensland's relaxed coastal towns? Describing their sound simply as loud and abrasive, Gazoonga Attack probably startled the bogan out of 'em. An example of a typical GA show: "There's usually lots of beer being thrown everywhere, sometimes down our throats, sometimes all over the stage. Sometimes it's a bit dangerous – we've nearly all been electrocuted a million times." Hearing all this over the phone I'm really starting to feel like the straight guy.

Gazoonga Attack are carving up the east coast this month promoting their debut album Sex Nerd, recorded at Ian Haug's (Powderfinger) Airlock Studios by legendary rock producer/engineer JonBoyRock. From all accounts the experience, though worthwhile, could be likened to a weeklong military drill. However hard the girls were, JonBoyRock was harder. "He made us play so hard all week, oh my god I had bruises all over myself just from playing bass." Drummer Renae also felt the sting of JonBoyRock's hard-ass producing techniques. "Renae drummed and drummed and drummed." says Elea empathetically. "Sometimes JonBoyRock would even leave the room and be sitting around the kitchen with Tamara, Serinda and me and we'd be like 'What's Renae doing? Should we tell her to stop?' and he'd be like, 'Oh no. Don't worry about that.' It was like Fat Camp!

Hesitantly I ask Elea what, apart from reputedly being JonBoyRock's strickly hush-hush nickname, the album title SexNerd refers to. "Don't you think it's funny when you see a total nerd at a bus stop, and he's wearing glasses and he looks like the glangliest geek. Then you see a girl get off at that bus stop and you think 'they're going to have furious mad sex later and he's going to be like Fabio!' That's what sex nerd means to me." I chickle gingerly, not having the faintest idea what she's on about.

Back at the beach house things are getting weirder. "Renae's just stepped out of the house and she's wearing this cap with an aerial and an ear-piece on it!" Elea laughs uncontrollably. It certainly seems the content part of the interview is over.

"She found it round the beach house we're at." More laughter.

Ok time to go...

"It's like a grandpa radio hat!"

Ok I get it...

"I can imagine some dude getting a head job wearing this thing listening to 4BH. That's a sex nerd."

Dial tone.
- Inpress Magazine, Melbourne