I've made it my business lately to see The Elephant Men, a new-ish Wgtn rock trio, as often as possible. Predictably my inner-sloth caused me to miss them at their biggest gig, supporting Trinity Roots at the Town Hall last month, but let's not dwell on that...
Of course the Elephant Man was John Merrick, a 19th-century Englishman afflicted with a disfiguring congenital disease - Proteous Syndrome - who with the help of a certain kindly Dr. Frederick Treves, was able to regain the dignity he lost after years spent as a catastrophically deformed side-show freak. David Lynch, that notorious arbiter of the aberrant, made a movie called The Elephant Man in 1980, starring the very great John Hurt as the E-man. The similarly great David Bowie starred as the Elephant Man in the 1980 stage production of the story. A silent movie called Her Elephant Man was also made in 1920 by Scott R. Dunlap but this is actually a love story about a man who looks after elephants. A documentary called Curse of the Elephant Man was made in 2003 in which 'a distinguished cast of experts from three continents try to solve the mystery of his disease and answer two intriguing questions: what was the awful affliction, and could it happen again?'
The band features Chris Palmer on guitar, Craig Taylor on bass and Rick Cranson on drums. None of them are particularly disfigured but it's encouraging to see these poor creatures able to take a much more active part in today's progressive society. All have been seen in other outfits too, demonstrating again the truly eclectic nature of so many of these local talents.
This is a short piece on the band that I wrote for Secret City - a monthly broadsheet put out jointly by Enjoy Public Art Gallery and Happy...
Postscript: The Fingers, another band with Chris Palmer on guitar and ostensibly featuring journeyman percussionist Chris O'Conner on drums, performed on Thursday night at Happy as part of the line-up of Meatwaters'04. Kieren Monaghan filled in on the night for the stranded-in-Christchurch O'Connor. I'm not sure if the band-name is a reference to any films about infamous side-show-freak attractions or not - possibly the Beast with Five Fingers ["It walks like a spider... it stalks like a cobra!"]? They were frenetic, entirely improvised and more abrasive than The Elephant Men and really, really, good as well...The Elephant Men are no ordinary band. They out there in the hinterland... lurking roun' the fringes of rock and jazz; and they def'nittly gone a bit feral. They're hairy but they're top musicians; they can play the shit outta their axes and they got no shortage of chops. But don't be afraid - this ain't no lame fusion thing. These boys play with all the fire of post-rock's extreme-noise-terror, the angular sonic ebullience of the greatest New-York-1978 No Wave outfits, and the funk of a broke-ass steamroller... and to this melange add the vocals of Chris Palmer, who sings like a fallen angel half the way through a bottle of tequila. But crucially, they's doin' it with the improvising grace of three guys talkin' their very peculiar language. If you gonna start me namecheckin' then I gotta say equal parts Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica and Jeff Buckley or sommat or even Tim Buckley and then some freakish No Wave ensemble like DNA or the first Golden Palominos LP. For my pick this is easily the best live band around at the moment and you don't want to pass up a chance to see them hollerin' live... I did and I'm still cursing my lazy ass about it.
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