Crab Smasher

Sandringham Hotel 12/08/2011

2011-08-26T11:22:00.000+10:00

Sandringham Hotel 12/08/2011

2011-08-16T18:22:00.001+10:00

Scattered Order album launch - Sandringham Hotel 12/08/2011

2011-07-12T13:48:00.001+10:00

- SCATTERED ORDER -

launching: A Solar Rush Towards a Treble Heaven

+ KASHA (act)

+ PEON (melb)

+ CRAB SMASHER

+ JUSGO MOSH
+ Short films by TONY LAWRENCE

Friday August 12th - The Sandringham Hotel - $12

The return of Scattered Order with "A solar rush towards a treble heaven".

Post/Punk noisemeisters continue to confound audiences with their ever shifting collage of sounds and ideas.

There's a dusty vault that people occasionally nod towards, mumbling the words “Sydney Post Punk”. There's a group called Scattered Order that every so often lurches out of the shadows of that vault, plugs in some machines, busts up some genres, hands over another recording and disappears once again.

They have been doing something similar since 1979, when original

members Michael Tee and Mitch Jones began to make noise together and founded the M Squared label along the way. Despite becoming invisible for parts of their 30 plus year career, Scattered Order have remained determinedly audible, with recordings on the M Squared, Volition, Rather be Vinyl, Klanggalerie and Vinyl on Demand labels.

Stylistically they tend to shapeshift with each recording project and

line up change. 2011 sees the band joined by renowned sound artist Shane Fahey in a sonic assault of samples, noise, guitars and

synthesisers. Having released the limited edition CDr “It's behind

you” in May this year the band have played several shows and continued to record, culminating in “A sonic rush towards a treble heaven”.

With their assembled collection of eccentric sound tools, Scattered

Order have spent this year fermenting another set of dangerous sonic gases: sometimes absurdly pleasant, sometimes scarily abrasive, always multi-layered and certainly hurtling towards a blissful destination.

“Scattered Order has always been about bending and treating a whole range of music sources and influences. Using the personnel and technology that is to hand we try to create music that sears your brain.” Mitch Jones 2009

If you can't stand the darkness get out of the shade.

www.scatteredorder.com

www.octopuspi.com

Indefinite Hibernation

2011-05-31T15:17:00.001+10:00

We formed Crab Smasher nearly 20 years ago when we were just 12 years old. Today we stand by the same rules now as we did back then ... if the band stops being fun and if it's no longer fulfilling creatively, then we need to stop.

Therefore after much soul searching we wanted to let you know that we're putting Crab Smasher into "indefinite hibernation" and we've decided to each do our own thing for the foreseeable future.

We assure you that this decision has not been taken lightly. In fact we've been struggling with it for quite a while now.

Back in 2009 we went into the studio to start work on a record. Initially things were going well and as a result we did some shows in 2010 to maintain creative momentum. However, over the months that followed in the studio it became clear to us that we were moving in different directions. Despite our best efforts over the last year or so, it's become increasingly clear that the spark simply isn't there between the three of us at the moment.

As a result we've decided to put the band into 'a deep sleep' while we all do other things that we find more inspiring right now. This means that Crab Smasher won't be making music together or playing shows any time soon. It also means that the three of us won't be working together unless and until it feels right again.

We understand some of you may be disappointed by this news but we really see it as a liberating and positive step for us at this point in our lives.

We also want to make it really clear that this decision has been made with the best possible intentions. We've always tried our hearts out to make the best music we could possibly make at the time - regardless of commercial consequences.

The three of us still truly care about each other. At the moment Nicholas’s busy in the studio recording his own music, Grant is working on various business, musical and charitable ventures while Marnie is creating a film soundtrack and working on other musical projects. We hope you'll continue to take an interest in our individual work over the years ahead.

In closing we'd like to acknowledge all the people 'behind the scenes' who've helped us keep this train on the tracks since we first started playing in a garage. There are too many to name but they know who they are and we truly appreciate all their love and hard work.

Above all though we want to thank you for all your support in good times and bad. You've put up with our long breaks between albums, our constantly changing musical styles and lots more. The unbelievable loyalty we've been shown by you our audience, and our friends, has never gone unnoticed or unappreciated. That’s why we wanted to tell you first.

With Sincere Thanks For Your Understanding.

Sweet Dreams.

Grant, Marnie, and Nicholas.

TOTALLY AUTUMN FESTIVAL 2011

2011-04-08T01:35:00.000+10:00

SPRING BREAK!! PRESENTS:

TOTALLY AUTUMN FESTIVAL 2011

11AM SATURDAY APRIL 9, THE CROATIAN CLUB, NEWCASTLE, AUSTRALIA

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS $25 (BUY)
TICKETS $30 AT THE DOOR (IF AVAILABLE)

FULL LINEUP:

EAT SKULL (USA) + MY DISCO (VIC) + SLUG GUTS (QLD) + ANGEL EYES (VIC) + HOLY BALM (SYD) + THE LAURELS (SYD) + ELECTRIC JELLYFISH (US/VIC) + ALPS + TV COLOURS (ACT) + DEAD FARMERS (SYD) + SECRETS (NZ) + THE HOLY SOUL (SYD) + WHORES (SYD) + CRAB SMASHER + WOOLLEN KITS (VIC) + RITES WILD (SA) + BARE GRILLZ + RAT KING + SLEEPWALKS (QLD) + COCK SAFARI + THE FIGHTING LEAGUE (ACT) + THE NUGS + CISTERN CORRUPT + PHOBIAC + BAT YOGHURT + DJ ANGELA BERMUDA (CIRCLE PIT)
+ “LADYZ IN NOYZ” SHOWCASE FEAT: | DAISY BUCHANAN | FESTIVE JACKALS | ONION | ONNIE ART | ORANJ PUNJABI | BONNIE MERCER |

REVIEW: Thick Mosquito Sky (Negative Guest List #17)

2011-04-07T11:53:00.000+10:00

Since their formation as a solely noise/drone duo in 2002, Crab Smasher have released a bucket bong full of tapes and CD-R’s. In the last few years their membership has swelled to include two more characters, evolving into a band that sounds like they play songs. Real songs. The improvised recordings on offer here chiefly combine elements of psych and pop, while still maintaining their familiar noisy approach. Thick Mosquito Sky lurches into life with the densely layered “The Dancing Girl And The Burning Town”, before breaking into the great, almost J Div sounding, post-punk jam, “Europa”. Much of the second side of Thick Mosquito Sky approaches the same kind of space-cadet rock that Blank Realm have been leaking out for the last coupla years. The tracks move from detached ambience into shambolic, blown-out rock before the side concludes.This is the best release I’ve heard from Crab Smasher so far, apart from 2007’s Impossible Monsters 3” (recently re-released). This is recommended for fans of all things New, Weird and Australian.
-c.b

REVIEW: Thick Mosquito Sky (Cyclic Defrost)

2011-04-07T11:42:00.002+10:00

For a band with a release called DOOM+DOOM=OMG!!! in its discography, Crab Smasher really isn’t all that menacing — or silly. The Newcastle quartet pursues a sort of full-band drone, but it’s often more ambient or post-punk than doom. Yet there’s consistently a mysterious, engaging quality to the band, not to mention a free-for-all range well beyond most instrumental improv acts. Recorded live, half at home and half in a Sydney studio, this cassette mini-album is limited to 60 copies (including download) but is also available as a download. (And you can stream it for free: http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com) Listening on tape is a bonus, as the iffyness of the medium can become one more part of the wobbly atmosphere.
Wielding guitar, bass, drums, synths, and sampler, the band kicks off Thick Mosquito Sky with the U.S Maple-ish ‘The Dancing Girl And The Burning Town’, thin and blown-out at the same time. It sinks its hooks in quickly, whereas the seven-minute ‘Europa’ is like a noise track slowed to the rate of a blissful IV drip. ‘Deep Water Attack’ is a brief, squishy detour living up to its title, and the tape’s first side ends with ‘Digging A Hole In A Dried Up Lake’, a meek and eventually glistening, watery drone. It’s a bit cosmic and quite pretty, especially at the end.
The second side sees Crab Smasher no easier to predict. We move from the spooky, misshapen ‘Spaghetti Helmet’ and the brutalised melody of ‘The Ice’ to the appropriately submerged ‘Separated By The Distance Of Oceans’ and the bass-searching, guitar-skittering ‘Snakes In The Grass’. The blurting ‘The Science Of Running Really Fast’ is almost surf-ish at times and leads us to the closing ‘Battle Of The Bands’, which is siren-like before accelerating and then suddenly finishing. The tracks seem to bleed together in memory almost the second a new one is upon us. And true to the band’s volatile intentions, songs collapse and explode at any given moment.

Doug Wallen

http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/blog/2010/09/22/crab-smasher-%E2%80%93-thick-mosquito-sky-monstera-deliciosa/

REVIEW: Thick Mosquito Sky (Grind&Punishment)

2011-04-07T11:40:00.000+10:00

Living in the mid-Atlantic, people around here take their crabs pretty fucking seriously. In fact, my oft stated for preference for the sweeter, larger and more satisfying snow crab over the native beautiful swimmers is noted by acquaintances as just one more datum in a lifetime of local culinary apostasy.So to have Australian audio alchemists Crab Smasher cross my musical transit had me intrigued for the name alone. Far from the musical pastures where I typically graze, Thick Mosquito Sky is choked with insectile waves slow moving electronic apocalypse, ambient astronomy and lapping waves of curlicue guitars. The album stumbles along like a heavily sedated Mogwai, the interludes between Minus the Bear songs stretched to the limits of their tensile strength or something already remixed by Justin Broadrick
The whole experience slithers around your pineal gland like hypnotic waves of an electronic ocean breaking against a faintly heard shore of traditional instrumentation. The ghost in Crab Smasher’s noise making machines is post-Barrett/pre-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd (think Meddle) being slowly spooled out like a kitten with a ball of yarn, particularly on the stunning, understated and damn near subliminal “Europa,” which creeps up on you over its seven minute running time, building just shy of rocking the fuck out. It’s absolutely the sort of piece I’d point on endless repeat right before drowsing off in a comfy chair. Whle “Deep Water Attack” reaches near-blasting speeds and “Digging a Hole in a Dried Up Lake” crackles like a theramin played with a ping pong ball, those are the exceptions in a generally sedate 40 minutes of so of musical trance induction.
Not something I’m going to be jamming on a regular basis, but definitely a cool addition to my small collection of chillout music.
Crab Smasher is Bandcamped out here if you’re intrigued.

Andrew Childers

http://grindandpunishment.blogspot.com/2010/07/g-review-crab-smasher.html

REVIEW: Thick Mosquito Sky (Mess+Noise)

2011-04-07T11:36:00.000+10:00

Crab Smasher are at the epicentre of an incredibly fertile experimental music scene in Newcastle. Like many new music practitioners around the globe, they realise they don’t need to be based in a big city to spread their music to receptive ears because they never relied on traditional venues and avenues of promotion to start with. Grant Hunter runs his own record label, Monstera Deliciosa, and Crab Smasher’s releases are available as digital downloads or very limited editions of physical copies, which makes sound economic sense. The philosophy behind both band and label is simple: if the existing world won’t accommodate you, construct your own.

Working within the parameters of a fairly standard band set-up, Crab Smasher use guitar, bass and drums alongside an array of synths and electronic effects. What they do with these elements falls somewhere between improvised noise rock and explorative soundscapes. Hunter, Nicholas French, Nathan Martin and Marnie Vaughn have developed the kind of rare musical synergy that comes from spending a lot of time living and making music together without the expectation of making it a career.

Like New Zealand’s free music exponents The Dead C, one gets the sense that these 10 tracks are excerpts of a large, sprawling jam session. They seem edited down to capture those moments when the music gels into song-like structures, which sustain for a few minutes before falling apart again. The result is a snapshot of four people engaged in spontaneous creation, but their concentration and skill is palpable throughout.

Variety and careful track sequencing is the key to Thick Mosquito Sky. Opening song ‘The Dancing Girl And The Burning Town’ begins with a wig-out (the kind most bands would only pull out at the end of a particularly fierce set), but soon morphs into rhythmic noise pulses, overlaid with wild guitar soloing. ‘Dead Water Attack’ is a brief blast of power rock, while ‘Digging A Hole In A Dried Up Lake’ is atmospheric, consisting of keyboard and effects, with minimal percussion from Vaughn.

Like all the best improvised music, this album is about the freeing of ideas and the passage of time. Its sounds evoke rather than describe, and meanings are allusive rather than prescriptive. By utilising conventional instrumentation and song durations, Crab Smasher deliberately position themselves in the context of rock and pop music, while operating without its narrow conception of style and commodity. It’s a canny political act, pointing towards a merging of the popular and the experimental, without compromising the sheer joy of getting together to invent new music without rules.

by René Schaefer

http://www.messandnoise.com/releases/2000673

REVIEW: Impossible Monsters (Mess+Noise)

2011-04-07T11:34:00.000+10:00

Crab Smasher’s music isn’t as gleefully violent as their name might suggest. Based in Newcastle, the duo released two documents of their pop-inflected experimentalism last year: a Trapdoor Tapes cassette vividly entitled Doom+Doom=OMG! as well as this twenty minute EP. Despite its brevity, Impossible Monsters – their tenth release to date - manages to cram at least eight largely contrasting styles across twenty minutes, with a sense of wistfulness permeating most of the proceedings.

Wistful, because despite Crab Smasher’s noise-orientated means their music is ultimately approachable and illustrative. While it’s common for bands of Crab Smasher’s ilk to extend their abstractions over a longer period of time, to give ideas the opportunity to crystallize, these guys don’t stuff around. The two opening tracks start the EP on harsh terrain – clinical white noise bursts puncture through barely-audible hum on ‘I Am Error’, while ‘Killing With Kindness’ wields scraps of noise in a more confrontational and less ominous way. Pleasantly enough, ‘The Moon Rattled Inside Her’ takes a complete left turn into bedroom pop cum science fiction soundtrack, while ‘A Sad Day For Everybody’ recalls Italian instrumentalists Larsen in the way the slowly paced rhythm breathes starkly and threateningly, mapping the ascendancy of noise and murk in the mix.

Indeed, it’s these colourful contrasts that make Impossible Monsters a compelling, if slightly puzzling listen. There doesn’t appear to be any common thread running through these tracks, and often the brevity of the tracks can be frustrating. Still, Crab Smasher get it right most of the time because they have the audacity to do what isn’t expected of them, and if that means sometimes they lose a bit of focus, that’s a worthwhile compromise.

by Shaun Prescott

http://www.messandnoise.com/releases/2000022

HOME Nightclub 13/10/2010

2010-10-13T22:34:00.003+11:00

Croatian Wickham Sports Club 11/09/2010

2010-09-11T22:49:00.001+10:00

Croatian Wickham Sports Club 30/07/2010

2010-07-30T22:54:00.001+10:00

Red Rattler 15/07/2010

2010-07-15T23:03:00.002+10:00

Photos by Paul Eggins

FEATURE: Crab Smasher :: It Is What It Is (Throw Shapes)

2010-07-01T21:45:00.014+10:00

Its half past two on a Sunday morning in Alexandria and Marnie Vaughn’s birthday party has been a great success. The party theme was the humble Rubik’s Cube, guests being required to come dressed in blank primary coloured garb. Earlier in the evening a frenzied clothes swap ensued as people in various stages of inebriation attempted to become the first to assemble a complete outfit in a single colour. The young man who won is stalking around downstairs, dressed in a uniform yellow. His prize: a rainbow umbrella.
We sit on Marnie’s bed, attempting to talk about Crab Smasher, the experimental noise / cheese-slathered pop outfit in which she plays drums. This is difficult. Out the window, Will, a young gentleman dressed in Himalayan garb, souvenirs from a recent trip to Nepal, is attempting to negotiate with police in reference to a noise complaint, irate neighbours taking umbrage to the hardcore punk being cranked from the stereo in the backyard. Neither of us are tremendously impressed by the choice of music either, preferring the Pixies that are competing for attention from the lounge.

“I was in my brother’s band called Anal Discharge” says Marnie, an assured twenty-two year old with a ready laugh. “We had a show and my brother wanted to replace me with another drummer who was my boyfriend at the time… it was a touch awkward, [as] my brother chose the other drummer to play the show. Crab Smasher said ‘Hey, we need a drummer, come and play with us.’ I was seventeen – I didn’t even know what noise music was at the time.”

Will strides back into the room, stopping in front of Marnie. “Hey, can you help us get the music off? There’s like six cop cars.” He holds up his hand, one finger adorned with an over-sized ring, and starts laughing, relating his exchange with one of the officers. “I fuckin’ shook his hand and cut it open”. He wanders off to tell more people of this amusing encounter without waiting for a response. Someone is playing Fur Elise on the honky tonk downstairs, Beethoven adding a suitably civilised edge to proceedings.

“I like improvising because it’s always different and you always react to the audience” Marnie continues. “It’s also very dependent on everyone’s mood and how we respond to each other. It’s great to be able to react to the audience and not have a set that you always just play. It can be rather nerve-wracking, it can go well, it might not – it’s difficult just overcoming that. There’s always an element of uncertainty. Expectations I think are always difficult – I like that no one really expects us to amaze them.”

Drumming is only one of Marnie’s talents. Aside from undertaking a Masters in Gallery Administration, she is an accomplished photographer, the downstairs lounge area being heavily decorated with her work, although she seems to spend more time “working in a horrible world where photography is commercial and brides are my enemy.” Above her bed hangs one of her pieces, a surreal primordial swamp scene: a Hadrosaur stands in the foreground, its vivid golden shape drawing the eye away from a pair of demonic eyes that emerge from the drenching green murk. I later discover that she used a garden gnome as a model.

An endearing youth with big brown eyes comes up to us. “Oh, is this an interview?” We explain that we’re talking about Crab Smasher. It quickly emerges that he is an avowed fan, his favourite Crab Smasher moment being Grant Hunter, the band’s de facto leader, or possibly someone else (the details are hazy), playing a typewriter at an impromptu gig at Grant’s old house in Newcastle. We sit and introduce ourselves. “I’m really drunk” says Simo Soo, “but I’m still here.” The pianist seems to have given up, although noise still emanates from the backyard in a half-heard background scuzz. It’s getting late.

“Have you got enough material?” Marnie asks.
“Well… about fifteen minutes” I reply.
“Fifteen, oh that’s a lot of minutes. I’m surprised I could talk for fifteen minutes about Crab Smasher.”
“Really?”
“Usually I let Grant talk and if I talk he gets angry about what I talk about. ‘That’s not what it’s about!’ The whole time I’ve been in the band it’s been like, ‘So Grant, what’s it about? I’m an artist, I can understand these things!’ and he would never tell me. It’s a mystery. It is what it is.”

***

It’s a chilly, somewhat desultory day in Newcastle. Aside from a few window shoppers and the odd bored-looking white-collar worker, the Hunter St mall in the middle of the city is deserted. It’s certainly doubtful whether many of the clothing or record chain outlets lining the main drag are bringing in much in the way of custom.

It’s pleasant enough on the other side of the railway line however, sunshine occasionally trickling through the clouds where we sit outside the Brewery, the stately flat-screen adorned boozatorium that squats next to the grey expanse of Hunter River. A middle aged man stands fishing off the end of the wharf, while seagulls play noisy territorial games in the puddles next to our table.

Perhaps it’s just the reheated pumpkin risotto and gargantuan banana smoothie that served as breakfast sloshing around his system, but Grant Hunter, artist, stoic, electronic wizard and self-confessed “bossiest member” of Crab Smasher, is in a talkative mood, despite being here on sufferance. His distaste stems from the fact that the Brewery and nearby Fanny’s nightclub are apparently focal points for the kind of nightlife that finds the dispensation of random beatings to be the highlight of any given evening. “If you’re out at night by yourself, you’re just a target for being assaulted” he tells me.

Crumbling commercial infrastructure and seeming stagnation of the local economy notwithstanding, Newcastle has changed considerably for the better over the last year – it was “like a ghost town” says Hunter. Although much of the CBD’s business real estate stands dormant, bought up by property developers with an eye toward eventually constructing a Westfield-style megamall, a ballooning number of the empty shop-fronts and office spaces have been occupied by young creative sorts, shielded from the prohibitive horrors of commercial rents under the enveloping wing of the Renew Newcastle scheme.

Conceived by arts philanthropist Marcus Westbury (writer, broadcaster and founder of the Newcastle-based This Is Not Art festival) and modelled on a similar project of urban regeneration in Glasgow, the project is aimed at keeping the mall area of the CBD active by providing space for people to pursue creative or community focussed interests. Successful examples include a millinery (The Mad Hatter, its front window resembling a race day madam’s wet dream), an animation studio (with the delightful moniker of Specially Trained Monkeys) and zine shop (the Bird in the Hand, run by the formidable Susy Pow).

Before we crossed over into enemy territory, Hunter gave a brief tour of Art Hive, the small art gallery and catacomb of studio spaces that he co-directs and utilises along with a number of other local artists. “There’s a lot of good people doing stuff under the radar of the rest of the country” says Hunter of the project. “You’re able to create opportunities for yourself without having to rely too much on other people. You just put your head down and do what you like without really worrying about it.”

“Do what you like” along with “don’t take any of it too seriously” and “it’s all about having fun” may as well form the unofficial tripartite band motto for Crab Smasher, a group that take outright pleasure in conforming to no one’s expectations but their own. The band began life as a duo back in 2002 when Hunter and fellow crustacean demolition expert Nicholas French (guitar) started making “really bad, cheesy stuff” for their own amusement on Windows Sound Recorder, uploading their sonic doodlings online for whoever cared to look. “We didn’t know how to play any of the songs live” says Hunter “[so] we just improvised, [which then] influenced how we recorded. We did that for a while – then we started taking it all too seriously.”

Boredom with making “arty noise stuff” was accompanied by a sense of going through the motions, as well as a recognition of the very real danger of the group disappearing up their own collective fundament. Hunter certainly seems to prefer party cats to chin strokers: “We were playing with lots of dudes who were really pretentious” he reflects, “people chewing chips into a microphone and making really boring noise music. We realised that we were kind of going down that path, [so] we went back to where we started, recording and layering stuff, but trying to get as far away from that sort of serious art noise as possible. So we started recording pop songs – I don’t know whether it was just to confuse people or to amuse ourselves.”

Of course, there’s pop songs and then there’s pop songs, Crab Smasher’s take on the genre being not dissimilar to Hunter’s version of breakfast: uncontained exercises in improvisatory dementia, suggestions of melody emerging from all manner of droning ambience, grinding scuzz and electronic discordance, all within a friendly verse chorus structure.

“It became a question of improvising smarter” he explains. “We stopped playing the twenty minute noise pieces that we had been and [started] playing songs without writing them, writing them on the spot with the emphasis on melody, rhythm and all the kind of stuff that pop music’s all about and trying to do that live. We kind of sound like a weird sort of rock band now. In the last year or so we’ve improvised stuff that’s in a pop song structure that we’ve recorded and then memorised from the recordings and then tried to play live. It’s sort of a backwards way of doing it.”

It’s perhaps unsurprising that for a group that takes unalloyed delight in provoking a reaction from its audience, Crab Smasher have practically exhausted the limited possibilities provided by the watering holes of Newcastle. Given some of the absurdities they’ve put up with, this may well be for the best, archaic curfew laws and militant security guards on two occasions gifting the group with the joyous experience of being locked out of their own gig. “It was ridiculous!” says Hunter. “They didn’t pay us and then they wouldn’t let us take the rest of our gear home. That’s the kind of stuff you deal with when you play in pubs.”

Not that such challenges have stopped them from taking on drinking establishments up and down the Central Coast, one night at a “pretty rough” pub in Wyong providing a crystallising moment as to the band’s raison d’être. “We had some new gear and were totally harsh and chaotic and noisy and the sound guy pulled the plug after nine minutes and the house DJ wanted to beat us up. From that point on we convinced ourselves that we were serious improvisers and that became the point of doing the band, creating something in the moment – later our recordings became more about documenting that process.”

Although such fearlessness can only be marvelled at, no wonder that Hunter prefers the infinitely friendlier forums provided by house parties, warehouses, galleries or Vox Cyclops, the nearby underground record shop (another Renew Newcastle project) run by the folks from fellow noise-meisters Castings, the mutual encouragement provided by this tight knit community of culture manufacturers as well as the solid friendships that lie at the group’s core perhaps helping to explain Crab Smasher’s surprising longevity. “There’s a really supportive group of friends that’re doing similar stuff around town. It’s really low key” he says. “I think that that’s much more valuable.”

As well as generously streaming all of their material through their website (newer stuff for a small nominal fee), Crab Smasher put an exceptional amount of effort into producing small runs of aesthetically interesting physical products, adorning a steady flow of releases with the original artwork of band members as well as that of illustrator or cartoonist friends. Their new cassette Thick Mosquito Sky is a case in point, a total of sixty covers having been hand screened in a tri-coloured design. “It was a bit of a nightmare trying to get it all to line up” sighs Hunter, “I like that they’re all a bit different and uneven though. They’ve each got their own character.”

While recognition from initiatives such as New Weird Australia have undoubtedly provided satisfying ego-boosts, it’s clear that fundamentally the band gain most fulfilment making music by and for themselves while gleaning as much amusement from it as possible. “I try not to get too philosophical about DIY” Hunter muses. “it’s just a means to an end. None of us agree on anything, but we go into a room and something comes out. It’s not identifiable as being any set thing, it’s its own thing. It’s just us having fun together. That’s what it’s all about – we’d probably be doing it even if we didn’t invite people to listen to us. Just us in a room, doing it.”

***

It’s Friday night at the Hardware Gallery and a girl has just thrown up in the corridor. “I drank warm beer” she gasps weakly to the concerned lip-ringed woman who moves to assist her before she vanishes into the bathroom, mortified. A pair of gallery attendants nearby seem more interested in apportioning blame for allowing the girl entry than locating a bucket and mop. It’s a minor shemozzle. Ah well. Better out than in.

The front room of the gallery is elegantly lit, people standing around chatting and sipping wine. A young woman in what look to be second hand men’s clothes stands to one side, painting a pair of female figures on a large canvas. Her hands work quickly, her face a picture of absolute focus; it’s a moot point as to whether she’s working to a plan or making it up on the spot. Not that it seems to matter either way.

Vinyl twelve inch records, painted with an amazing array of designs line the walls – a pair of large mutated ears; a man in a suit with the head of a beagle smoking a pipe stands before a blackboard inscribed “A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence”; one enterprising sculptor has created a glass duplicate of the vinyl single of 90s dance hit Groove is in the Heart by Deee-Lite, recording the resulting scratch-ridden cacophony and making it available for the public’s consideration through a pair of headphones next to the artefact. The original beat is almost perceptible within the resulting din, a half-remembered image emerging through fog.

In a shadowy corner in the back room, Grant is fussing over a small bank of sound equipment, adjusting levels on the keyboard, twiddling knobs, completely oblivious to the surprised squawks of people stepping over the splatter of vomit in the corridor. Marnie looks nervous sitting next to him, occasionally picking up her sticks before replacing them, while Nicholas French, his face obscured by a heavy mop of blonde hair, and bassist Nathan Martin fiddle with their instruments in the corner opposite.

Finally they begin, the music commencing without any clear signal to the sparse audience, the fading murmur of the listeners blurring into the growing soft distortion emanating from Nicholas’ guitar. People stream into the darkened space, standing in a thick clump at the back while others form a cross legged semi-circle a respectful metre or so around the band.

Alien sounds emerge from the noise, both harsh and strangely muted, Grant yelping into a microphone before twisting and contorting the sound around the ostinato of the guitar. Then Marnie kicks into action and suddenly the noise is transformed, Grant moving to the synthesizer, a twist of harmony curling out to twine around the bass line – lines of attention focus the band members on one another, cues being given and responded to.

The room is pulsing now with a jaunty beat – why isn’t anyone dancing? – Nicholas striding over to stand in front of the desk, ripping a new theme into the mix, the sound kicking up a further gear for a long minute before they allow the layered noise to dissipate back into the air. “That was fantastic” someone calls out as people start to clap. The girl with the lip ring is standing close by. “That was shit” she mouths into a friend’s ear. “C’mon, I want more wine.”

By Oliver Downes

Contains material originally published at Throw Shapes.

Thick Mosquito Sky

2010-06-01T12:22:00.000+10:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com/album/thick-mosquito-sky"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Thick Mosquito Sky by Crab Smasher&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Live at Auraltered State

2010-05-15T01:27:00.003+10:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-auraltered-state"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Live At Auraltered State by Crab Smasher&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;
Auraltered States is a series of eight free concerts conducted across 2010 focussing on the music of New South Wales as heard through the ears of Lucas Abela. These performances will cross a wide spectrum of music from the state, focused on presenting evenings of contrasting music’s from some of our more irreverent, innovative, unusual and original artists from now, then and the future. All shows will be held at the new Performance Space Clubhouse, situated in bay #12 This series has been kindly supported by the NSW ministry of the arts.

Grant Hunter - Electronics
Nicholas French - Guitar
Marnie Vaughn - Drums
Nathan Martin - Bass

Recorded live by Lucas Abela at Auraltered State #2, March 6 2010

The Doctor Is In... Over His Head

2010-04-03T12:27:00.000+11:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com/album/the-doctor-is-in-over-his-head"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;The Doctor Is In... Over His Head by Crab Smasher&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

LIVE REVIEW: Excelsior Hotel Sydney 17/02/2010 (Blitz Magazine)

2010-02-20T12:49:00.002+11:00

Unable to drink Jaeger Bombs (doctors orders), an evening of Avante Guarde and experimental noise was selected over Jaeger Uprising. Defektro kicked off with a set up that looked more like a table of alien weaponry than a musical arsenal. The extreme low waveforms, grinding industrial and literally flaming outro set the standard for the proceedings. Crab Smasher took us from Pavement to Suicide (the band), with moments of Devo laced with Casiotone; Equal parts noise and melody, heads were nodding appreciatively if not arrhythmically. Varlets forgot they were playing, but managed to show up and squeeze in ten minutes of more traditional guitar torture / Synth / drums. Headlining with trumpet, precision drumming and two guitars (one mostly played with a metal bus sign, the other with saturated with effects) was Forenzics. This four piece was something beyond sound scape and more in the direction of early Mogwai baiting Oren Ambarchi and Battles. One could almost sense John Zorn astral travelling around this show, with a broad but crooked metaphysical smile.

Cris Lapa

http://www.arc.unsw.edu.au/Blitz-Magazine-27.aspx

Excelsior Hotel 17/02/2010

2010-02-17T17:39:00.001+11:00

CAMERA 01 + EDIT | edwin budhi
CAMERA 02 + SOUND MIX | matthew syres
LIVE SOUND | dylan mitrovich
LIGHTS | tim dennis

[via hopliteandpackhorse.blogspot.com ]

Red Rattler 13/01/2010

2010-01-13T23:03:00.001+11:00

Cambridge Hotel 04/12/2009

2009-12-04T23:01:00.002+11:00

Share The Germs, Halve The Germs

2009-11-13T01:39:00.000+11:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com/album/share-the-germs-halve-the-germs"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Share The Germs, Halve The Germs by Crab Smasher&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Forever!

2009-09-21T01:45:00.010+10:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com/album/forever"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Forever! by Crab Smasher&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Grant Hunter - Electronics/Synth/Voice
Nicholas French - Guitar
Marnie Vaughn - Drums/Percussion

Tracks 1-3 Recorded live at The Lock Up Exercise Yard, Newcastle Australia 4/7/2009
Tracks 4-7 Recorded live at Akemi, Medlow Bath Australia 21/6/2009
Recorded to ZOOM H4 Digital Recorder by Nicholas French

Cover Photograph by Nicholas Pitt

Hamilton Station Hotel 11/09/2009

2009-09-11T23:41:00.001+10:00

LIVE REVIEW: Dirty Shirlows, Sydney 24/04/2009 (Mess+Noise)

2009-04-25T12:19:00.002+10:00

When bands like Crab Smasher play there’s the tendency for punters to sit cross-legged on the floor nursing their longnecks. It could just be old-fashioned Romanesque sloth, but it might also have to do with the notion that, if you’re seeing an experimental rock band, you’re engaging with something much too cerebral to permit the stupid tribal act of dancing.
Among plenty of other folk, I sat for the first half of Crab Smasher’s set. Their recordings waver between languid atmospherics and subtlety-shirking punk-rock lunacy, so sitting down seemed the precautionary thing to do. Seeing Crab Smasher live brings clarity to everything they’ve committed to record though. They have a fey, bubblegum punk demeanour that belies the type of aural decimation they sometimes indulge in on record, and the group often look childishly proud of the weird riffage they’re emitting, like a child repeating their parents’ profanities to a friend. It’s a big, sloppy morass of unrefined rock textures, cindering noise, and a tom-happy rhythmic scaffolding provided by Marnie Vaughn, who smiles gaily throughout the whole set while maintaining a steady up-tempo.

Crab Smasher plays a very base, vivisected version of rock, where the textures of the instruments and the sound of amplification itself bleed all over the place with the gratuity of a Troma casualty. Hilarious extremes are their forte, but they’re a pop band through and through – Crab Smasher don’t emit the aura that they’re (puts on best revolutionary voice) “pushing forward through a climate of musical mediocrity”. If anything, Crab Smasher just seems determined to get every last goddamned arse off the floor tonight. They succeeded, at least, where I was involved.

by Shaun Prescott

http://messandnoise.com/events/2000691

Going Off At The Swamp 29/03/2009

2009-03-29T19:37:00.005+11:00

Grant Hunter - Electronics, Guitar
Nicholas French - Guitar
Marnie Vaughn - Drums
Nathan Martin - Bass
Jeff Brown - Drums

Video recorded by David Kevin Smith

Glitch Bar 20/02/2009

2009-02-20T19:35:00.000+11:00

INTERVIEW: Interview With Grant Hunter of Crab Smasher (Rollaroll)

2009-01-25T22:13:00.005+11:00

Crab Smasher are one of the most interesting new bands from Australia that I’ve come accross recently. Based in Newcastle, NSW, Crab Smasher are described as a experimental noise/pop band by Last.FM and lean towards a wide range of styles including post-rock, noise, drone, psychadelic rock and experimental rock (although these aren’t conscious or intentional influences). Playing recently at La Campana, supporting Euguene Chadbourne, was Crab Smasher’s first show in Sydney for about two years, and they certainly put on an excellent show. I caught up recently with Grant Hunter from the band to interview him about things such as Crab Smasher’s history, tour and release schedule, as well as his views on the Newcastle experimental music scene.

I recently saw your set at La Campana supporting Eugene Chadbourne who came out here recently for the NOW now Festival in the Blue Mountains. Not having heard your stuff before I didn’t know what to expect, but you all came across as strong, confident live performers nestling nicely between a Velvet Underground “too cool to care” proto-punk attitude and a totally enjoyable and fun freak-out jam session, with elements of 1960s psychedelic and or progressive rock (stomping on the tambourine by the bassist really gave it that feel and reminded me specifically of Can, Frank Zappa and Pink Floyd), post rock, post-punk, noise, drone and ambience. I found the instrumentation intriguing – electric bass guitar, electric guitar, vocals (in the broad sense of the term), electronics and two drum kits. How did it develop to this point? What’s the story behind Crab Smasher?
In 2002 I started a band called Crab Smasher with my best friends Nicholas French and Chloe Russell. We were living on the Central Coast of NSW and all of the bands were emulating One Dollar Short etc and we wanted to try to shake things up a little so we used Windows Sound Recorder to record about 3 albums worth of really annoying 2 minute novelty song/experiments with lots of pitch shifted vocals and bad poetry and downloaded techno samples and really complicated multi-tracking on a constantly crashing PC. We put all this stuff on the internet and in 2004 with basically zero musical skill we were asked to play live and accidentally became an improv noise band. We added and subtracted members here and there, moved to Newcastle and were most active as a mostly ambient/drone duo with pop aspirations around 2006-7. Last year we added the amazing rhythm section of Nathan Martin, Jeffrey Brown, and Marnie Vaughn, and it all feels brand new again. We’re still trying to shake things up to some extent, but now we sound a bit more like a band, I suppose we want to try and fit in too.
That show with Eugene Chadbourne was really good fun. It was exciting to play in Sydney again, we’d neglected to do so for two years.

Who would you say are your primary influences?
I am influenced by Nicholas French, Nathan Martin, Marnie Vaughn, and Jeffrey Brown. I try not to be too influenced directly by other bands, even if it is unavoidable sometimes. We’re always going to have bits and pieces of ideas that we’ve picked up from other places, I’m like a big sponge. I don’t know that it is something that I can easily narrow down, and even if I were to try, it would be contradicted by some other influence. You mentioned post rock, punk, noise, drone etc above, so obviously all of that, but I don’t know where it comes from because that’s not necessarily the music that primarily interests me, and the rest of the band have really varied tastes too. I appreciate that you detected such a varied range of styles though. I like being unpredictable, the clash of sensibilities keeps things exciting. We just play what comes out of us, and that’s always going to evolve in unexpected ways. At shows people often compare us to these obscure bands I’ve never heard of, so it’s always fun to eventually track them down to see who we’re supposed to be ripping off.

Is your music improvised, composed or a bit of both?
Our live performances are 100% improvised. Some of our recorded releases, particularly Impossible Monsters, involved a considerable amount of post-production, processing and manipulation of recorded elements, but I see the studio as a tool to be used as any other instrument. Some of our peers seem to think the more compositional stuff is a bit of a cop-out compared to our live improvisations, whereas other people really prefer the fluffy pop songs. We’ve often toyed with the idea of introducing more structure to our live sets, but improvisation is just so radical when it works. I don’t think we’d ever abandon it, no matter how much we want to be super rich pop stars. With our recent live sets we’ve made a conscious effort to try and keep our ideas short and sweet, more song-like structures. We’re still improvising, but trying to think outside the box of the long-form noise and drone pieces. I just want to perform quality work, whether it’s playing live or putting out a song. I think we’ll always be willing to explore new ideas, regardless of good taste or what the hipsters might be doing.

Do you think your sound is uniquely Australian?
By virtue of the fact that we’re Australians making it I suppose I would have to say yes. I don’t know if i can pick anything uniquely Australian about the music that we make, but I’d agree that there could be such a thing as an “Australian sound” when talking about noise music or whatever. Surely there is something identifiable that makes us stand out from our international counterparts. Our environment contributes considerably to our music and I’d assume it would be similar for other Australian artists. Maybe it’s just the attitudes and aesthetics of the artists here. We’ve never been spoiled. There is a really healthy underground community of people who are making new music, putting on shows in their houses, burning CDs to trade with some other band from interstate. So maybe I am lumping all of these bands together when I think of an Australian sound, because they’re all my mates. We all play together, and help each other out with shows and gear and beds, and I identify them as being part of a big noisy family. Australia has some of the most interesting bands in the world, and there are definitely people overseas that recognize that.

How many releases to date have you released as Crab Smasher?
Our first three albums Crocodile Box and The Johnny Mars, David Intolerant and The Seventeen Screaming Kids, and Dr. Snake and 200 Bearded Skinnys, are so far removed from what we’re doing now that I hesitate to mention them. However, there’s some really weird stuff to be found if you look. Todd McFarlane Crushes The Tyranny Of Corporate America is really dense noise, abrasive yet melodic, to have ants.. was the first improv jam we put on a CD, Serie Una Di Collaborazione is a CD of seven improvs with various special guests, it’s a bit hit-and-miss. We wanted to do another one of these but still haven’t recorded anything, or secured anybody to play on it. ORCA is a subtle whale song jam with Nick Senger from Castings, it’s one of my favourite live recordings, Impossible Monsters is us trying really hard to be a pop band, it’s really all over the place and scattered, but it is a pretty solid representation of what we were capable of at the time. It’s also a good precursor to what we’re doing now. We recorded some live stuff with the new lineup and released it as an internet download called The Picky Eater. It wasn’t really meant to be an official thing, but people seem to be responding to it nicely. Recordings of most of our live shows are online for free, eliminating the temptation to release hundreds of hard-to-find live albums a year like every other noise band in the universe.

Is there any material in the works?
We are slowly starting work on a new full length “studio” album, and we’ll hopefully have a cassette or something out this year too. We are also contributing a track to a compilation of Nancy Vandal covers to coincide with their reunion tour in March/April.

What about your live performances, what is Crab Smasher up to this year? I know you’re doing some shows in Melbourne this February with Scissor Lock.
We just take things as they come. We’re all involved in a number of different bands, jobs, art projects, so finding the time to play shows is a bit of a juggling act. We made a conscious effort to try and get to Melbourne again this year, and I’m glad it’s come together so soon. Touring with Scissor Lock should be really interesting as Marcus Whale is a genuinely sweet human being. We’re going to be launching the Scissor Lock/Mousetrapreplica collaboration A Tin Teardrop, which I’m putting out on my bedroom record label Monstera Deliciosa. I think the plan is to try and line up a collaborative set with him while we’re there. After that we have a small trip planned to Lismore in April, and anything could happen after that.

What is the experimental music scene in Newcastle like, is there a force there and if so what do you make of it?
We have a few great bands and not enough venues, not enough people coming out to see bands. The usual complaints. It’s starting to seem like some people have this perception of Newcastle as having a bit of a strong emerging experimental music scene, because of the bands that are based here, but it’s not the case. Newcastle is a big scary ghost town. It’s really only generic jock metal and hardcore shows that seem to be sustaining themselves. We tried to run a warehouse performance space for two years here and despite a number of really great shows, it was a real shame to see international acts show up to play to 10-15 people. It’s not like in Brisbane or Sydney where there seems to be more of a culture for going out to see bands in basements and lounge rooms every week. Every now and then something positive will start up, There was a sometimes great weekly night at the Croatian Sports Club, but that’s over now. The Hamilton Station Hotel is sometimes receptive to weirdo music, but the place is seeming increasingly violent lately. Other than that, not much. For the town that is home to the This Is Not Art festival, the support really isn’t here for the other 360 days a year.

What current bands, musicians and/or artists are doing stuff that interest you?
Go Genre Everything, Taste Of Teeth, McClane, Young Lions, Francis Plagne, Sarah Humphreys, Mart Brennan, Kitchens Floor, Grannyfist, Sam Buckingham, Polyfox and The Union Of The Most Ghosts, The (temperamental) Pocket.

And lastly why the name “Crab Smasher”?
We wanted to be an awesome-dumb band like Bolt Thrower but couldn’t play death metal with computers.

http://rollaroll.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/interview-with-grant-hunter-of-crab-smasher/

Hamilton Station Hotel 16/01/2009

2009-01-16T23:00:00.000+11:00

La Campana 14/01/2009

2009-01-14T19:31:00.001+11:00

Grant Hunter - Electronics
Nicholas French - Guitar
Marnie Vaughn - Drums
Nathan Martin - Bass
Jeff Brown - Drums

Fay Street 07/12/2008

2008-12-07T19:27:00.002+11:00

Grant Hunter - Percussion etc.
Nicholas French - Guitar
Marnie Vaughn - Drums
Nathan Martin - Guitar
Jake Robertson - Drums

The Picky Eater

2008-10-23T01:54:00.001+11:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com/album/the-picky-eater"&amp;gt;The Picky Eater by Crab Smasher&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Grant Hunter - voice/electronics
Nicholas French - guitar
Marnie Vaughn - drums
Nathan Martin - bass
Jeff Brown - drums

Recorded live at Fay Street, Lake Munmorah to Zoom H4 portable recorder by Nicholas French 10/08/2008. Unauthorized Artwork by Debbi Tehrani.

Concrete Forest 14/09/08

2008-09-14T23:34:00.000+10:00

Photo by Alex Gillies

Kurt's Place 11/07/08

2008-07-11T23:07:00.001+10:00

Grand Hotel Wyong 20/04/2008

2008-04-20T23:46:00.000+10:00

REVIEW: Impossible Monsters (Reverb Street Press #018)

2008-01-08T02:56:00.000+11:00

This duo is one of the few genuinely interesting acts around Newcastle. Usually specializing in the creation of improvised, often harsh, noise soundscapes, here Crab Smasher have a crack at delivering their 'Top 40' release. Yes, their latest 3-inch is a pleasant surprise - and 'pleasant' is not a word you'd often hear applied to these guys. The third track off Impossible Monsters, 'The Moon Rattled Inside Her', is the real winner. A driving, vaguely Kraut-rock, pop song, it is all the better for its conventional nature.
3/5

Carl Dixon

Impossible Monsters

2007-10-01T02:11:00.000+10:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com/album/impossible-monsters"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Impossible Monsters by Crab Smasher&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Grant Hunter - electronics/synth/guitar/bass/percussion/voice
Nicholas French - guitar/percussion
James Kritzler - saxophone (on "The Moon Rattled Inside Her")

Recorded by Grant Hunter at his Mum's house in Wyee Point, and 40 Annie Street, Newcastle

Cover Art by Mike Foxall @ www.xraystudios.com

REVIEW: DOOM+DOOM=OMG!!! (Reverb Street Press #014)

2007-09-08T02:47:00.002+10:00

This, the umpteenth release from prolific Newcastle duo Crabsmasher, is hardly the simple arithmetic it purports to be. It drifts along, with inevitable cassette hiss for accompaniment, like Black Dice on a lazy Sunday. With scant regard for typical song structures, the five tracks could at times pass for background noise or random field recordings. Yet, if this is simply the sound of life passing you by, then you must lead a strangely fulfilling existence; one that is based on improvisation but which nestles into repetitive patterns with rather disturbing ease. 3/5

Carl Dixon

The Grand Hotel 29/06/2007

2007-06-29T19:14:00.008+10:00

Grant Hunter - Electronics
Nicholas French - Guitar
Matt Ranzetta - Bass
Adam Park - Tapes
Jasper Hunt - Drums

Winter Tragic Festival 24/06/2007

2007-06-24T14:47:00.002+10:00

DOOM+DOOM=OMG!!!

2007-03-29T02:33:00.001+10:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com/album/doom-doom-omg"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;DOOM+DOOM=OMG!!! by Crab Smasher&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;
Grant Hunter - Electronics/Bass/Guitar
Nicholas French - Guitar/Keyboard

Recorded by Grant Hunter at 40 Annie Street, Newcastle 2007

Art by Matt Niccoli

Summer Winds Festival 13/01/2007

2007-01-13T18:45:00.002+11:00

Lan Franchi’s Memorial Discotheque 16/09/2006

2006-09-16T23:25:00.001+10:00

Annie Street Gallery 26/08/2006

2006-08-26T18:35:00.004+10:00

Serie Una Di Collaborazione

2006-06-30T02:39:00.002+10:00

Serie Una Di Collaborazione by Crab Smasher

ORCA

2006-06-25T03:24:00.000+10:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com/album/orca"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Orca by Crab Smasher&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;
Grant Hunter - Electronics/Percussion/Bicycle
Nicholas French - Synth
Nick Senger - Guitar/Percussion/ Bicycle

Recorded live by Grant Hunter at 40 Annie Street, Newcastle 24/05/2006

Annie Street Gallery 05/05/2006

2006-05-06T12:00:00.000+10:00

To Have Ants...

2006-04-06T21:28:00.004+10:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com/album/to-have-ants"&amp;gt;To Have Ants... by Crab Smasher&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Released as 3" CDR limited to 43 copies, each with unique handpainted artwork.

GRANT HUNTER - Electronics, Voice
NICHOLAS FRENCH - Guitar, Cassette
CHLOE RUSSELL - Drums, Percussion, Voice

Recorded by Grant, March 23 2006 Wyee NSW Australia.
Cover Art by Grant and Nick

Going Off At The Swamp 02/04/2006

2006-04-02T14:32:00.001+10:00

Photos by Kevin Bull

Hegarty House 17/12/2005

2005-12-18T13:54:00.000+11:00

Visible Ink 16/12/2005

2005-12-16T18:20:00.001+11:00

Todd McFarlane Crushes The Tyranny Of Corporate America

2005-10-31T03:29:00.001+11:00

Todd McFarlane Crushes The Tyranny Of Corporate America by Crab Smasher

Going Off At The Swamp 10/04/2005

2005-04-10T18:17:00.000+10:00

2004-10-09T19:53:00.002+10:00

Crocodile Box And The Johnny Mars

2002-04-26T23:17:00.004+10:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://crabsmasher.bandcamp.com/album/crocodile-box-and-the-johnny-mars"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Crocodile Box And The Johnny Mars by Crab Smasher&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

All songs written and recorded by Grant Hunter and Nicholas French at Windows Sound Recorder studios, Central Coast NSW Australia.
Death vocals on Track #21 by Sarah Humphreys.
Cover Model by Froggy