Here is a list of my favourite non-famous bands. They are all very hip and underground. Some of them have broken up.

7 Day Weekend

The world’s best band is 7 Day Weekend. They’re like Chicks on Speed but funnier and cuter with lots of yelling in unison over cheesy drum machines. For each show they do, they make up different costumes - I’ve seen them as flowers and as pirates. Making their costumes must take up lots of time because they only have four or five songs and haven’t recorded any of them. Did I mention that they are HOT?

Burgers of Beef

Burgers of Beef aren’t really that obscure anymore but they have a new album out so I thought they needed a plug. They’re a penguin-related corduroy-enhanced trombone-compatible indie band from Perth. I like them because they fly the nerd flag proudly, but are still really entertaining to watch on stage. From what I hear they are all clowns and acrobats for their day jobs.

Tomas Ford’s Cabaret of Death

Tomas and I used to have a band, but when I left Perth he started playing his cabaret solo shows. His stuff is electroclash-style laptop action bordering on performance art - live shows are a mix of dark syrupy songs, destructive stage moves and harrassment of the audience. I think it’s going to get him arrested or severely beaten up one day, but in the meantime it’s beautiful and unique.

Service Station Youth

I don’t know much about these guys, but their songs are some weird shit. They’re pretty arty and experimental, but also fun at the same time. You can download their mp3s here - ‘There’s a Junkie at my Window’ is a good one. I think they’re from Melbourne.

Maple

Maple were something else entirely. People called them the shittest band ever, and in a sense they were, but they were also one of my favourites. They would play songs like ‘Anal Fisting’ - the words to which were pretty much ‘anal fisting’ repeated over and over again to the accompaniment of a drum machine and random guitar noodling. Although they had very little talent, they had a lot of fun. Which is what we should all aim for, really.

Uberfaust

Uberfaust are something we will never forget. They were a pretend German stadium rock band that had travelled forward in time from the 1980s - along the lines of Spinal Tap but they actually played gigs. Each member had his own personality and costume, and they would sing songs full of stupid jokes and lots of German puns - the crowd favourite, as I recall, was ‘Doppelfaustfick’ (it seems a lot of WA bands were writing songs about anal fisting at that point in time). They were the funniest thing ever, and for about a year they were super-hot, then they broke up. I think the joke wore out in the end.

The Fascist Fair Go Party

Along the lines of Uberfaust, FFGP were a 7-or-so-piece politically-oriented disco band. Each member also had a different character and they would use their songs to stage musicals with stupid, very contrived plots. I remember dancing with a giant cardboard robot at one of their shows. Everyone loved them, but they split up after their first album due to members leaving Perth.

What a trip down memory lane. If anyone from any of these bands reads this, please leave a comment and say hi :)