[ATTENDED: October 21, 2022] Psychedelic Porn Crumpets [rescheduled from May 5, 2022]
I’m not exactly sure how I discovered Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. They are an Australian band and they are weird and pretty wonderful.
I wondered if they had any connection to fellow weird and wonderful Australians King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, but Perth and Melbourne are over 2,000 miles apart and it takes about 36 hours to drive from one to the other. Which is about as long as it would take for someone in NJ to drive to Las Vegas.
Seeing them at Underground Arts was really fun because I was right up on the stage–I got to see Rodney the Turtle sing backing vocals).
I’ve listened to the band’s records a bunch, but somehow I didn’t expect the crowd to be quite so frenzied. The songs are fast and frenzied (and not really psychedelic at all) and a Friday night Philly crowd is just waiting for a chance to slam and surf. I was luckily just off to the side so I wasn’t in the pit at all.
PPC have three guitarists. Jack McEwan is the band’s vocalist and main songwriter (he’s actually British, but moved to Australia when he a teenager. Luke Parish is the lead guitarist for the band, although McEwan also plays lead and Chris Young plays the guitar/keyboard (which also includes lead–sometimes all three play leads at the same time). Danny Caddy is the band’s drummer. Wayan Billondana plays bass. He was in front of me on the stage and his bass playing was outstanding.
The show opened up with the band placing Rodney the Turtle front and center. I was concerned that someone might try to walk off with Rodney, but the fans behaved themselves. And he sat patiently until a spotlight shone on him as operatic music started.
As the operatic song came to a close, the band came out and bashed into “Tally-ho,” a fast song full of wild guitar and funky rhythms that set the tone for the night.
The band jumped all over their discography, playing songs from their 5 albums.
Songs like “Lava Lamp Pisco” feature these wonderfully catchy high notes (sung and played on guitar) that act as a massive hook. But no hook is as big and catchy as the riff of “Bill’s Mandolin” which got the crowd bouncing. The floor would have been bouncing if we weren’t underground on bedrock.
More terrific riffs followed in “Mundungus” and then things slowed down for a breather in “Found God in a Tomato” the first of many from their debut album. Things stayed mellow and actually got jazzy for the only track from High Visceral Part 2, “November.”
Like Acid Dad, PPC projected psychedelic images behind them. It was cool when it showed up on them and their faces swirled around.
People went berserk for the riff of “Hymn for a Droid.” I assume that most of us knew PPC because of And Now for the Whatchamacallit which i think was the first (and only for a while) PPC record you could get here. I happen to love this song especially the middle section which sounds like one of my favorite Supergrass songs.
Even though they released their latest album Nigh Gnomes fairly recently, they only played two songs from it (“Lava Lamp” and the thumping and rocking “Acid Dent.”
The band was genuinely excited to be playing to a large (for them…in the States) crowd. They had previously played to 100 person rooms and this room was four times the size. And the crowd was really into it.
They ended the set with three songs from High Visceral Part 1–the three opening tracks in reverse order. “Marmalade March,” has a series of great catchy riffs as the march proceeds to stomp all over the song. “Cubensis Lenses” continues the riffing that culminated in a spectacular encore of “Cornflake,” which they stretched out far longer than its three minute recorded version. It shifts back and forth between a big catchy riff and very mellow verses.
My son’s friend had seen them in New York the night before and he said I would love the show and I absolutely did. It really got me out of my funk of less than stellar shows. Which is just as well as there were two more shows in the next two nights.
- Tally-Ho ¿
- Lava Lamp Pisco ♠
- Bill’s Mandolin &
- Mundungus ¿
- Found God in a Tomato ¶
- November ¶¶
- Mr. Prism ¿
- Hymn for a Droid &
- Acid Dent ♠
- Marmalade March ¶
- Cubensis Lenses ¶
encore - Cornflake ¶
♠ Night Gnomes (2022)
¿ SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound (2021)
& And Now for the Whatchamacallit (2019)
¶¶ High Visceral (Part 2) (2017)
¶ High Visceral (Part 1) (2016)
