Pretoria’s noise rockers, the Sticky Antlers, release their second album, Tupperware Tombstone, and then call it a day
It’s not often that you attend a band’s album launch when the gig is also functioning as their farewell. But, then again, the Sticky Antlers have never struck me as a band all that interested in the norm.
Their demise has left the Pretoria noise rockers in a reflective mood as they sit down to chat to the Mail & Guardian a few hours before their final set at Johannesburg’s dingy live-music venue, The Bohemian.
“We are very scared of reforming,” says bassist Martinique Pelser. “If we find ourselves in a position to play together again we’ll just choose a new name. The Sticky Antlers are over,” says guitarist Damon Civin.
Recently Civin was accepted for a full scholarship to study mathematics at Cambridge University, which is the reason for the Sticky Antlers coming to an end.
“It’s disheartening, really,” says drummer Jaco Amino. “I’m very sad,” says Pelser. “I love this band a lot. I am still going to cry tonight.”
“I told Andres [Schonfeldt — the Sticky Antlers’ lead guitarist] I don’t think we’ll ever find that kind of chemistry again, so we must just keep it [to] the two of us,” says Pelser.
And that’s exactly what Pelser and Schonfeldt have done, forming a new stripped-back punk band called the Make Overs.
Before the Sticky Antlers had even played their final show the duo were already gigging, with Pelser shifting to drums. They have plans to record almost 20 songs they have already written, with release dates planned within the next three months.
Schonfeldt has also teamed up with Amino to form an experimental band called the Pity Fucks. “We can’t sit still,” says Pelser. “We always have to be making music.”
Having released music under the monikers If You Are What You Eat I Could Be You By Tomorrow, When Animals Attack and Poodle Piss, the Sticky Antlers have been responsible for some of the noisiest experimental music to come out of South Africa. But they are going out on a high, with their new album, Tupperware Tombstone, marking their finest moment yet.
Although 2008’s self-titled debut album was a momentous slab of punk, with highlights including Blind Horse and Company, its 2010 successor is a throbbing, muscular dose, ripped and lean. Its monstrous grooves present the Sticky Antlers as a serious shit-kicking outfit.
Drawing inspiration from the work of Sonic Youth, Clinic, The Fall, The Boredoms, Black Flag and The Wipers, it’s pure punk glory.
“I feel this album is a truer reflection of our original idea,” says Civin. “Our music is either completely hypnotic or psychotic — there are no grey areas,” says Pelser. “We always aimed for that, but the first album wasn’t hypnotic enough.”
“A lot of people seemed to be really freaked out by the first album,” says Schonfeldt. “They would bring the CDs back and tell us that they were damaged and not playing properly in their CD players.” The band bursts into laughter after Schonfeldt tells this anecdote.
“We started this band to piss people off,” says Pelser. “We wanted to be unprofessional and proud of it.”
“You guys may have had that choice,” quips Civin. The band laughs again.
Civin and Amino joined the band as non-musicians who were learning to play guitar and drums as they went along.
“By the time we finished the last album we had songs left over and we just started playing them live,” says Civin. “Then we realised that we weren’t playing any of the album’s songs live any more.”
So the band knuckled down for six months in a garage with a 16-track tape machine and began recording Tupperware Tombstone.
The results are spectacular. The Outside World is an early highlight, with Pelser sounding like a young Kim Gordon chanting “hypnotic, not psychotic”, and the crunching riffs of the title track are also among the album’s best.
The Worm Has Turned is another special Antlers’ moment, with the band locked into a Crampsesque groove, gothic in its sensibilities.
The album is available in a limited-edition format, packaged with a two-hour DVD, titled Like It Never Really Happened.
The DVD is packed full of garage rehearsal jams, scintillating live performances, animated music videos and behind-the-scenes goofiness. It traces the 32 months that the Sticky Antlers were around, edited down from 40 hours of footage.
So besides a B-sides album that the band say they will release in a few years, this is the last Sticky Antlers music that will ever see the light of day.
One can only hope that other South African rock musicians have taken note of their DIY work ethic and indomitable spirit so that the example they have set will not be lost.
And for those who will miss those spellbinding gigs we have become accustomed to, there is always more to come from the Make Overs and the Pity Fucks.
As Pelser says near the close of the interview: “Don’t worry, you’ll get your pity fuck.” This leads to a band discussion about whether pity fucks are given or received.
Damn, I am going to miss the Antlers.