ROOT!

“That’s Northcote for you” I mutter as a violent hustle of fists and feet sets in motion outside the NSC. For some reason, comedian Mick Molloy steps in rather authoritatively, though the fight disperses soon after...Halloween in Melbourne. Were looking more and more like America every day.

Anyway, enough piss and moaning, I’m here to see ROOT! and that’s reason enough to be optimistic. The band, spawned from the ashes of much-loved Aussie smart-arses TISM, are a country-fried, boot-scooting, culturally scathing rollicking good time. They played much from their debut record, Root Supposed He Was Out of the Question, including opening tribute I Wish I Was Tex Perkins (“...he’s every sun-kissed Aussie girl’s favourite kinda shady”). The band will undoubtedly be called such Andrew Bolt-isms as ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘disloyal’ to the great brown land, but to anyone with half a brain and any dash of a sense of humour, ROOT! are right on the money; especially with tracks like Spring Me Out of Caroline Springs, Caroline (“Come rescue me, I’m only twenty minutes from the CBD...if you drive at 250”) and I Still Call Australia “Ho” (“Welcome to Australia, the wide brown land, where we speak Ameri-can. Girls are divas, guys are playas, in the juice bar- what’s your flava?”).

The caustic wit of DC Root reflects many of our own concerns; the sweeping Americanisation of the country, vacuousness, consumerism...all the issues we try to pretend aren’t there when were attempting to feel a bit hopeful. ROOT! take our fears and loathes and criticisms and political annoyances and bound them up in four-minute sparks of merry cynicism. It’s hate that makes you dance. It's a tirade that actually makes you feel better. I’m A Little Emo was an interesting surprise, especially for rock nuts like ROOT!. Perhaps DC’s commanding presence has converted a few greasy, black-haired ‘mo kids somewhere? It’s a hopeful thought.

I never know to wrap up reviews succinctly and/or humorously enough so I’ll just say this; buy the album, see the band. It’s that simple, and I would rather see more ROOT CDs in people’s JB bags than the new brain-devastating Hilary Duff....who, I must say, should be put to the musical gallows for her rape and pillage of Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus. Threw up a bit when I saw that one.

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