Track by Track: Scrabbled

BEK MOORE of Brisbane icons Clag has a new band in Scrabbled, along with DUSTY ANASTASSIOU of Dag and members of Extrafoxx, Primitive Motion, Per Purpose and Gravel Samwidge. Their debut album is very much about living in Brisbane, right down to the title: ‘Welcome to Pig City’.

‘Brisbane Town’

Dusty: Most people move away from Brisbane eventually. When I first heard this song I had just moved to Brisbane, and was lucky enough to meet Bek and the rest of Scrabbled at Real Bad Music. I came along to a Scrabbled practice with my guitar and some beer and began my apprenticeship a la School of Rock. It’s now two years later and I am a shell of my former self. My only refuge lies in the thought of leaving this godforsaken city. D’oh. Oh well.

Bek: Brisbane was a-humming, there was something special going on … and I kept running into Dusty at the supermarket – one of my most hated chores – and he’d give me this big grin that’d make shopping easier. I just had to corrupt him and lure him into the band.

‘Jeebus Cried’

Dusty: I think Jesus would like this song if he were still with us today. It is a fun song about the pitfalls of organised religion and the people who use religious idols to justify war and other acts of hate. Depending on what you believe, Jesus may still be alive – he may be standing over my shoulder right now, reading each word as I type it. Hi Jesus ☺

Bek: Save me Jeebus, save me! Simpsons are cool, organised religion not so much.

‘Dead Noise’

Dusty: I met the guy Bek sings about in ‘Dead Noise’ just once. He was a vile creature – constantly coughing up phlegm in his bedroom and spitting in the corner, all the while uttering a slew of filthy swear words under his breath. A real brute. Naturally, when it came to putting music to Bek’s lyrics about her experiences living with him, I decided to go with an AC/DC chord progression. It’s Bon Scott meets Kitchen’s Floor.

Bek: Nicely put. He was such a cool guy when I knew him when we were both little punks working at 4ZZZ … people change. He really did have the whole passive-aggressive thing down pat like no one I have known before or since though.

‘New Pig City’

Dusty: G20, Campbell Newman, cops on Segues. Never has Brisbane felt so downright Orwellian.

Bek: Now you could really get a proper rant out of me on this one if we were in a political forum. I grew up during the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era in QLD and finished school just as the Fitzgerald Enquiry really got going … God, what can I say in simple form. There are more police everywhere you go, they look more like thugs than they have for the last 20 years. They are introducing ridiculous laws. Newman wants that Judiciary to answer to him … The Graffiti Task Force is one of their main initiatives, for Jeebus’s sake. Forget rapists and murderers, we need more cops on the street to police teenagers with spray cans, adults who dare to drop a cigarette butt or smoke in an open public zone that has been deemed ‘No Smoking’ or, more importantly, to fine you for ANY moving violation in your car. Brutality and revenue-raising are on the rise … and you just can’t seem to go anywhere without coming into contact with multiple police vehicles in some form or another. Feels like déjà vu to me.

This song pays homage to one of Brisbane’s best, The Parameters, and the music scene they were a part of.

‘Good Enuf Cunt’

Dusty: This is Scrabbled’s first love song. It’s not a wishy-washy love song; it’s a realistic love song. AS WE ALL KNOW, the truth about love is that it doesn’t exist. Like luck, you create your own perfect relationship through your outlook on life. Love is mostly a matter of realising that the one you’re with is good enough, cunt. Stop being so picky.

Bek: God, it was like I was 16 again. I was so head over heels and so was he by all accounts … but when you’re in love with a narcissist, expect no consistency!

‘Losing My Way’

Dusty: This song reminds me of Clifford Gardens Shopping Centre in Toowoomba – a hellish place where the crème of the social trash heap go to eat chicken and buy outdated computer games. A shopping experience like this during the Christmas holidays is enough to send anyone completely over the edge; units upon family units clambering over each other to be the first to break through the Kmart doors come Boxing Day. Naturally it is very easy for one to lose their way in this greasy throng.

Bek: I hate shopping centres every day… they’re just worse over Xmas.

‘Nervous by Nature’

Dusty: Someone at work recently told me that they had found the cure to cancer. This made me feel very nervous, as I was telling people on the phone that we hadn’t found it. My colleague told me the cure was in Texas. Naturally, I was in Brisbane, speaking to people in Australia. I was instantly reminded of the final scene in Man on the Moon. The thought of Jim Carrey lifted my spirits.

Bek: I am nervous by nature. Anxiety and mental illness are recurring themes in my lyricism…

‘W.A. (Western Australia in a Kia) ’

Dusty: The Big Prawn. The Surly Emu. The Really Long Highway. There are many attractions to see on the drive from Perth to Brisbane. For those on a tight deadline, cans of V and TUN tinnies will do the trick. There are too many kangaroos as it is. If you do manage to hit one – take it to your nearest Coles and they will exchange the carcass for a complimentary slab of Australian-themed sausages. I also like this one a lot because of Conwae [Burrell]’s beautiful singing.

Bek: Conwae wrote the riff, then I ad lib the rest. The words change every time but they come back to the desolation of the open road that stretches into forever…

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‘Welcome to Pig City’ is out now on cassette and digitally through Virtual Cool. Scrabbled launch the album tonight (Sept 12) at The Beetle Bar in Brisbane with Encounter Group and Bearded Iris; more info here.