Gareth Liddiard – of Tropical Fuck Storm and The Drones, among many other projects – is set to perform a one-off solo show in Melbourne next week.
The rocker will be taking to the Brunswick Ballroom on Thursday December 15, performing acoustically so “he can afford to buy Christmas presents for his children”. He’ll be joined by fellow singer-songwriter Michael Beach on support – find tickets for the show here.
Liddiard’s Tropical Fuck Storm – in which he plays with Fiona Kitschin, High Tension‘s Lauren Hammel and MOD CON‘s Erica Dunn – released their latest single, ‘The Golden Ratio’, last month. The cut arrived alongside news of a forthcoming 12-inch EP, ‘Submersive Behaviour’, due out on February 3 via Joyful Noise Recordings.
In addition to ‘The Golden Ratio’, the five-track release will also feature their August single ‘Moonburn’, as well as a redux of ‘Aspirin’ from their 2019 album ‘Braindrops’, a previously released cover of ‘Ann’ by The Stooges, and a 19-minute cover of Jimi Hendrix‘s ‘1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)’.
Speaking about their decision to cover the track, Liddiard said it was “an attempt to right the recent wrongs perpetrated against Hendrix’s classic ‘Angel’ by some idiot from One Direction doing a karaoke-style ‘tribute’ for Jimi’s 80th birthday.”
The band released their latest album in 2021, titled ‘Deep States’. Speaking to NME about the record, Liddiard said that they’d gone through long periods of pandemic-induced creative block before the album was finally finished.
“We need to be in the same room really, to have the zing that makes you wanna sing,” Liddiard told NME. “There was no motivation to [write]… we just had to go into postponement mode, which was all this bullshit officework that no one was getting paid for.”