Bored! : 198?-

Interviews/Articles - more on the way (so don't panic!)...
Trethewie, David, 1997, "Bored! - Barwon Club Hotel", Beat Magazine. "Welcome to the high school reunion," was Dave Thomas's first onstage quip at Bored's first show in almost two years. The last time the band played was just after Dave had returned from Germany in early '96, bringing with him a group of dour Berliners called Neon Dorn, who played like Fugazi with German accents.
At the time Dave had just joined Magic Dirt and that younger band gradually became his No. 1 priority but how things change in the space of two years. Dave exited Magic Dirt some time in June or July of this year due to both internal and external pressures and has taken a couple of months to reassess the situation, and have a bit of fun by getting Bored! back together for a brief reunion. The lineup this time is a four-piece with Matt Randall from Trigger on rhythm guitar, longtime drummer Buzz, bassist Russell Baricevic and Dave on lead guitar and vocals.
The sets for the two shows were pretty much the same - opening with "Feed the Dog" followed by (I can't remember the exact order) 'Mr 10%', 'Waiting' and 'Over the Edge', 'Motherfuckin' Motherfucker' among others, along with covers of the Damned's 'Born to Kill' and Pere Ubu's 'Final Solution'. The Barwon Club crowd was typically on edge, but this was the liveliest I'd seen the notorious Geelong haunt in a long time. A fight broke out just after the Bloodsucking Freaks support set (over a game of pool or something) but there was mostly positive energy with this being an opportunity to catch up with old acquaintances. Aside from a few hardcore drunks hanging out at the bar, all eyes were on Bored! as they launched into the bluesy riff that signals the start of 'Feed the Dog'. The normally quietly-spoken Dave Thomas becomes a different person onstage - letting out an Iggy Pop howl before the this very Stoogey number kicks in - "Fred the dawg!" da-na-na-na.
The amazing thing about Bored! is how they manage to be so rock without coming off like a bunch of ridiculous self-parodies. I guess that's the result of years of absorbing hardcore Detroit freak music. The Melbourne gig was on a larger scale and didn't have the claustrophobic intensity of the Barwon Club gig. Playing on the well-lit main stage, you wouldn't have known that this was a band coming off a lengthy hiatus. The members looked completely natural in their respective roles, Randall as hunched-over rhythm workhorse, blond-tipped Baricevic as visual focus and Dave leading from the side. Thomas took a bit of a tumble as he mistimed one of his trademark quick-turns-to-face-the-amp but he was on his feet quickly and laughing at himself, clearly relishing being a frontman once again Richard, bassist from the Onyas, went from looking agitated in the wings to taking the stage and abusing the crowd as the band ripped into 'Motherfuckin' Motherfucker' (a song which the Onyas covered on their Cosmic Psychos/Melvins support with vocal help from Thomas and ex-Bored! bassist Tim Hemensley). Thomas was having sound trouble at this stage and was hunched over his pedals. Richard responded by trying to mount his shoulders. "The Onyas suck!" someone yelled as the song finished. A lengthy feedback-drenched version of 'Final Solution' finished the set.

Trethewie, David, 1999, 'Bored, Bloodsucking Freaks, The Tote', Beat Magazine
Despite what other people are saying about an early"80s revival I'm seeing more and more evidence in a resurgence of interest in late '80s L.A. hard rock. I'm seeing increasing numbers of otherwise normal-looking people grooving around in Van Halen T-shirts and other merchandise of the era. I heard more evidence of this at The Tote on this particular night Adeiaide's Bloodsucking Freaks opened their set with an instrumental version of Guns 'n' Roses' 'Paradise City' of all songs.
    The 'Cocksucking Geeks' as they're prone to refer to themselves as, play palatable old school punk rock, nothing to rock your world but they put on a good show. There was the usual mixture of old and new Bored! fans in attendance, these things are always a reunion of sorts.
    The Bored! set was similar to November '97's, a mix of originals from all periods and lineups of the band interspersed with skilifully picked covers of the Wipers, Pere Ubu, etc.
    An interesting point comes up here, as Pere Ubu were in town around the same time, what would Cleveland's Dave Thomas make of another guy named Dave Thomas playing 'Final Solution' in a Mellbourne pub. See you again next year.

Tauschke, Steve, 1999, 'Bored', Beat Magazine
Bored's Dave Thomas tells Steve Tauschke the band's shows this weekend are more a party than anyone's idea of an official reunion.
Beat: You seem happy just to pop in and out of retirement every year?
Dave: "Yeah, it's good... you know we're all friends and we like to get together now and then and play the songs and do the casual show."
Beat: Have you thought about recording an album, perhaps a live album?
Dave: "Well, we've been asked to do some stuff and we've talked about trying to get together and write a few songs. It's a possibility of compiling a, you know, I hate the term, but a best of, maybe 15 of the best songs or something."
Beat: Who asked you?
Dave: "Subway, in Germany. We might get them to put it out in and Germany and Kelly Laing's got a label out through Corduroy Records so we're going to do some vinyl copies of it and sell them here. We're not worried about trying to do it here. Subway have always asked us to do another record and they want us to go back overseas but because of all these other (personal) things we've been doing it never happened ... I dunno, I don't just wanna be one of these bands that kind (of) does this reunion thing and then starts to do new songs but it doesn't really work. But we still have fun together. (Guitarist) Matt has put up a website, because that's the kind of stuff he's doing now and its pretty good. It's got a lot of good stuff on it, all the necessary facts and figures, embarassing photos, all that kind of stuff."
Beat: Press snippets from obscure fanzines, that sort of thing, huh?
Dave: "Yeah, it's got a few things like that. I think we're going to add to it because we've been going through mu kind of archives, checking out what we can put on."
Beat: You could probably arrange an entire European tour over the net couldn't you? Bouncing e-mails back and forth.
Dave: "Yeah, I think the Powder Monkeys are actually working on taht at the moment, putting together their tour through e-mail. I think (Guitarist) John's right into it. If you really decide you want to do something like that I think you can do it."
Beat: With the album, are you thinking along the lines of what Birdman did - throw in one or two new tracks among the oldies?
Dave: "No, I think if we went in to do some new stuff I'd like to be able to do an album's worth rather than re-do some of the old ones. If we do it, it will be just because we want to do it, just work on some new songs. It wouldn't be like, "OK, let's go and start reheasing once a week, let's start writing new songs, let's get an album together, then let's start planning a trip to Sydney, then one to Adelaide, then Queensland, you know, doing it all over again."
Beat: You couldn't handle that?
Dave: "No, no way. It would have to something that we do that we'er not going to worry about. Trying to do a single and all that stuff that bands do now - and what we did in the past- it would have to be really casual... And I don't want to be marketed as a kind of "legend". You know how you see some bands that have reformed inthe past... and it just fails. It's just shitty. No matter how good you are I don't think you can get back what you had, say, five or six years ago, or longer."
Beat: Although I must say seeing you last year at the Corner kind of rekindled some of those old feelings. I mean you must be proud of the tunes you wrote in your early twenties because you're still playing them?
Dave: "Yeah, it's good and one of the best things about that show was that it felt like a gig from the old days. We could do the gig ourselves, headline it then and get the bands that we wanted to play. We were totally in charge of it and tried to be involved in it as much as possible and make it special. And people came out of the wood workfor it and got into it."
Beat: You did another show recently with the Hellacopters in Geelong. What did you make of them?
Dave: "They were pretty good. They kind of like all the stuff that I was into when I first started. If they'd been around 10 years ago I probably would have blown my mind. But I think they do some great stuff and they've got some great songs... they've got the right look and they play some great riffs. I think that kind of stuff is coming back. In Europe, I think they're quite big and there seems to be a lot of people into that guitar rock now that it's more Detroity sounding than West Coast, or whatever. One of the great things about European bands is that when they're into it then they get right it, they have the look, everything. And then try as much as possible to get the exact same sound."
Beat: Do you still have much to do with contacts you made on your early trips to Europe?
Dave: "Yeah, only like friends, not so much with labels or people from clubs."
Beat: I guess the band website will be good for contacts?
Dave: "Yeah, we've had a few things already. There's a Swedish band called the Space Cowboys, they've already contacted us and they're planning to do a cover of "Motherfuckin' Motherfucker". They wanted to the words (laughs)."