As a passionate music lover, I am a big fan of live albums. Whether it be Neil Young’s 1991 live album Weld, Kiss’ 1976 live album Alive or The Melvins mind fuck live album Colossus of Destiny, they capture that raw essence of a moment in time – like lightning in a bottle. It’s often a world away from their studio work, an opportunity to hear a band loosen up, the songs evolve, and become something entirely new. This is very much the case for Melbourne experimental Noise/Psych/Punk rockers Tropical Fuck Storm who made it clear from the onset of this sold-out night at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall in late 2022. Where they literally came to tear things up.
Tropical Fuck Storm have been creating dissonant noise mayhem since 2017. Consisting of Gareth Liddiard on guitar and vocals and Fiona Kitschin on bass and backing vocals, both of whom were formally of the Drones. They’re joined by Erica Dunn on vocals, guitar and keys from MOD CON, Harmony and Palm Springs, and Lauren Hammel from High Tension on drums and programming.
The first thing that stands out to me on this live recording is the overwhelming crowd response to TFS entering the stage. The bizarre dub sounds of “Men’s only costume party” fade into Gareth Liddiard’s unhinged guitar sound that violently attacks the listeners senses. Setting the scene and giving me the strange feeling of walking down some seedy underbelly of a side street, coming across a club with limited access, and hearing these frantic sounds coming from within. In this foreboding dreamlike setting, I enter and explore further, and hear the uncomfortable and uncompromising sounds of opening track “Braindrops”. Suddenly I am overwhelmed and flooded with intentions to persist further with caution. The desperate urgency of its abrasive sounds, give me an ominous feeling, that I couldn’t stop listening to this, even if I wanted to. There is something unique to TFS’s delivery of their music that is undeniable and hard to shut off from.
The music feels out of control, like you can’t tell where it’s going. It’s urgent and dangerous, you don’t know what ’s coming next! Whether it’s thunderous guitar textures, synth oscillations, or the sheer desperation in Gareth’s vocal delivery, where he shrieks uncontrollably over wounded and weary backing vocals – perhaps life on the road is more difficult than we thought.
This album as an absolute treat listening to it on headphone because you hear all the intricate madness of the incredible guitar work, feedback, dissonance and shrieks giving the impression of a joyous noisy cacophony.The sometimes incoherence of the guitars brings together this kind of beautiful, unhinged unison. There’s keys and synth flourishes which work well with overall TFS landscape. The song ‘New Romeo Agent’ peels away layers of demented, futuristic Shoegaze/punk with a bossa nova like introduction, that’s not only uncomfortable, but a little disturbing. And Erica Dunn delivers a beautifully painful vocal performance telling the tragic story of an extraterrestrial romance gone horribly wrong.
Gareth brings some of his finest wit to the stage and its rowdy Chicago audience. Asking the audience what’s the ‘hot goss in Chicago?’ Only to have that iconic response of ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie’. To which Gareth happily retorts ‘It’s the Aussie invasion! You’ll all be playing fucking cricket next.’ Feedback erupts into one of my favourite TFS songs ‘You Let My Tires Down’ – possibly the closest song in terms of vibe to the Drones. With its uneasy sonic tapestries, it ducks and weaves into a familiar verse groove, punctuated by Gareth’s unequivocal vocal stylings that are undeniable and exclusively his own. This song boasts those uniquely unforgiving lyrics, that only Gareth Liddiard can deliver. Like telling a story about a third party where lyrics like “I Picked her car up from the depot, I had my lunch at China Rose, and then Snorting half a gram of Australia’s finest homemade Coke”, set a scene of uncertainty and possible despair.
There are lots of incredible renditions of TFS songs on this live recording, like ‘Chameleon Paint’, the post punk barking’s of the Birthday Party tinged ‘Rubber Bullies’ and the unsettling grievance of ‘Paradise’. But for good measure TFS have worked into the set two utterly relentless cover songs that demand the listener’s undivided attention. The first being a cover of the Stooges song ‘Ann’ off their 1969 debut album. TFS take this song’s skeleton and shape shift it to a hauntingly beautiful piece of reparable infidelity. Ron Ashton’s wah wah guitar is still there, but Fiona Kitschin’s stunningly desperate vocal delivery replaces Iggy’s spoken intricacies on the original, climaxing in an undeniable scream into guitar oblivion. And like the original, the outro part of the song titled ‘The Dance of Romance’ enters this live version of the song – which is an extended part of ‘Änn’ on the Deluxe version of this Stooges album.
The live set finally comes to an unanticipated end with a cover version of the Bee Gee’s ‘Staying Alive.’ Never to be heard with a feedback driven introduction, TFS pulsate their way through the song as if their lives depended on it or they had a gun to their head. It’s shameless, full blown and hectic. You can hear the paint literally peeling off the walls of the venue with this dissonant version of a disco staple. It’s extremely courageous, and downright offensive.
The album as a whole has the ferocity, urgency and humour of Tropical Fuck Storm’s musical onslaught. Creating its own weather system in Chicago this night, and firmly capturing A Tropical Fuck Storm in a bottle.
