A few days ago, Nenad sent a call-out for people to head down to 226 Clarendon St, East Melbourne to see his current outfit, Zero/Some, play on Saturday night, 'round 11ish. The email was quite heavy on the details but still rather cryptic, so it was with a faint sense of embarking into the unknown that I went out in search of the place, post-graduation ceremony. Turns out that the address is that of a large house, shared by nine people (if I heard right) who periodically throw it open for a huge party, complete with a makeshift bar with cheap alcohol, an outdoor courtyard with a dj and large projector screen (I caught bits of Fight Club while out there), and an upstairs 'band room'. Hundreds of people must have passed through and there were various people I knew to varying extents scattered through the throng, some of whom I spoke to and some not; I arrived with David and, apart from Nenad and various of his friends (and Pia), they included David M (from Historical Fictions), Liz (from both of my '05 2nd semester English subjects), Michael J, Sarah O'B (from dpc/book club), and at least a couple of people apart from DM who had graduated with me earlier in the day.
As to the music, well, the Sticks were pretty good, from what I heard of them. I wandered into the room a couple of songs into their set and was sort of in and out throughout (both physically and in terms of how much attention I was paying), but from what I heard they're basically a tight, bluesy outfit with (consequently) a tendency to sound as if they're doing cover versions (at one point, I could've sworn they were ripping into "Whole Lotta Love", which itself presumably ripped something earlier off...Led Zep arcana has never really been my thing, not even in high school...although of course they actually weren't).
And Zero/Some - Nenad's band...well, obviously I can't really get anywhere near an objective appraisal of the music, but as far as descriptive relevancies go, they're a two-piece, Nenad playing guitar and singing on the last track of their set, the other fellow (I met him in passing but can't recall his name) ringing up the beats on his laptop, doing some house-y vocals and also playing the flute. Influence/similarity-wise I was thinking Underworld, Primal Scream, Faithless, maybe even a bit of Future Sound of London, but this genre's not really my forte...anyway, I enjoyed the music (although, parochially, I would've liked more and louder guitar) - you could nod your head along to it, and there were some good moments...and of course it was good to see Nenad in the spotlight and doing his thing.
