This Is Serious Mum (better known by their acronym TISM) are a seven-piece satirical rock band, formed in Melbourne, Australia in December 1982.
Known for their hybrid of electronic dance music and rock 'n' roll, their high-energy live shows, and their humorous lyrics, TISM developed a steady underground/independent following until 1995 when their third album Machiavelli and the Four Seasons reached the Australian national top 10. They split after the release of their sixth album, The White Albun, in 2004.
In June 2022, TISM announced they would reform for the music festival Good Things in December; they returned to the stage for the first time in 18 years in November for three secret warm-up shows prior to the festival. On 1st December 2023 they released their first new single in almost 20 years, "I've Gone Hillsong", and teased upcoming shows on the east coast of Australia, as well as an appearance at Mona Foma festival in Hobart in early 2024. In October 2024, they released their seventh studio album, Death to Art, supported by a national headline tour.
TISM's lyrics frequently address Australian popular culture, current affairs, literature and art, the entertainment and music industries, celebrities, politics and sport (particularly Australian rules football).
The History of TISM (1982-1999)[]
1982[]
It's late 1982. Somewhere, for some reason, This Is Serious Mum (TISM) hatches. During the next twelve months TISM aimlessly write over 100 songs, which are immediately discarded due to lack of interest. No-one knew or cared. Those were the days. In retrospect, this was TISM's artistic zenith.
The material ranged from the bombastic "The Art-Income Dialectic" to clear, profound statements found in songs like "Babies Bite Back" and the semi-autobiographical "I'm Style Deaf". This is the period where TISM most clearly show their roots: paeans to their idols, Chuck Berry ("Johnny To B. Or Not To B. Good") and The Goanna Band ("Stop The Franklin's Flow").
The final gasp of this creative golden age was the tour de force, "Screaming Mongoloid Unbound". A rock opera in four parts, "...Mongoloid" has never been performed live, largely because it isn't very good.
1983[]
By December 1983, TISM decide they require an injection of new talent. They duly write letters to Paul Keating, Philip Roth and Eddie Van Halen offering each one the position of lead tambourine in This Is Serious Mum. Two members of the Federal Police respond on behalf of the Treasurer. He declined.
Late in 1983, TISM appear in pubic for the first time. To a select group, they performed what was simultaneously their debut and farewell gig, entitled The Get Fucked Concert. The gig was an artistic and commercial failure. flushed with their achievement, TISM duly split up.
1985[]
TISM live at University of Melbourne, 1985
Over 18 months after their farewell performance, TISM completely sell out their artistic principles to begin a series of re-union gigs. The rot sets in. As support act to Melbourne's Shower Scene From Psycho, TISM offend and appall their first few audiences in short 30 minute bursts. We're still looking for whoever was responsible, but TISM got enough of a reaction to justify recording a single.
"Defecate On My Face" b/w "Death Death Death Amway Amway Amway" is taped at York Street studios, Sunday October 6th 1985. The band soon received further confirmation of their secular artistic decline by winning the 3RRR Battle of the Bands competition at Albert Park Lake, on Saturday the 9th of November. During TISM's final award winning set, the entire PA breaks down. TISM, leaping about and generally haranguing the audience, apparently don't notice. Neither do the judges. Pity.
By late 1985 TISM play their first headline spots at The Tote and The Club. They also film a video clip for "Defecate On My Face" with Jill Holt and record "The Art-Income Dialectic" at Aztec Studios as part of their 3RRR prize on Sunday, the 24th of November. (At least two more tracks, "If You Want the Toilet, You're In It" and "When You're Happy And You Know It Kill Yourself", were recorded. However, TISM have lost their masters of this session.)
TISM support Orchestra of Skin and Bone at the Aberdeen Hotel, Fitzroy on Saturday the 30th, and the Orchestra conductor, Mr. Ollie Olsen, later attempts to slit his wrists on stage. Any connection between this action and TISM's new song, "Kill Yourself Now and Avoid the Rush" is presumably coincidental.
1986[]
TISM enjoy an intense round of Mouse Trap on SBS television, 1986
TISM start 1986 with an interview with 3RRR's Bohdan X on Friday, February 21st. They answer using texta pens on pieces of paper. Later that evening TISM play The User's Club. The canker is spreading. In what is clearly the turning point in their artistic careers, TISM are called "scum" by Nico after supporting her at The Prince of Wales on Wednesday the 5th of March. By April TISM are playing to a full house at The Prince of Wales. So what.
On Friday, May 23rd TISM attacks Ian Meldrum with All-Bran and orange juice when he appears on the 3RRR Breakfast Show. In the evening TISM model their new "Choose Bad Smack" smocks at The Club to an increasingly unstable crowd. TISM record at Timbertop Studios for a future release in June 1986.
TISM's debut single, "Defecate on My Face", is released on Elvis Records in July. It is a 7 inch record in a 12 inch cover with all sides glued together. People all over Melbourne begin hacking their way into the cover to hear the record. TISM launch the single at The Prince of Wales in front of 870 people, on Friday the 11th of July. Apart from a typically bombastic and rigid TISM performance, the audience are shown some of TISM's merchandising, such as TISM string; TISM no interest, no obligation loans and TISM boat hire. Will people never learn?
In order to meet the growing requests for more information, the band releases a press release designed to provide all the details the public should know about TISM. TISM give an interview, to Juke’s Mara Smarelli and RAM’s Adrian Ryan. The interview is conducted on a football oval. Interviewers and interviewees stand 50 metres apart separated by a piece of string, using megaphones to communicate. TISM refuse to answer any questions unless the string is taut. Unbelievably, Smarelli finds something positive to write out of this shambles, whilst Ryan takes the more traditional serious rock journalist approach, attempting to take TISM to the cleaners. Sadly, Ryan didn't realise that TISM had three loads of washing on the line before he got out of bed. So there.
TISM achieve a life time goal of practising their deception to the inner city private school crowd when they play to another full house at the Armadale Hotel. TISM enjoy an intense round of Mouse Trap on SBS television. TISM hand flowers and message cards to their audience. Crawlers. TISM invades the prime time radio show of 3RRR anchorman Steven "The Ghost" Walker. Calling him 'Jeremy', they begin with a pointless speech, then introduce a fire alarm, trumpet, live drum kit and high-revving, smoke billowing lawn mower to the studio, before hastily retreating into the haze of the night.
August I986, and TISM turn 'Club Go-Fast' into 'Club Goat-Fast' at Chasers. With continual promises that their performance will end with the coming of goat, TISM’s fiasco explodes onto the stage complete with a supporting cast of 20 in formal attire. As their squealing rubbish draws to its conclusion, a huge white banner with the word 'goat' painted on it is lowered and, for reasons unknown to all, especially TISM, a cage is brought out and uncovered to reveal a live duck.
TISM give an interview with the glossy up-market Follow Me magazine wearing huge ridiculous costumes in the middle of a busy St. Kilda pizza parlour. They answer Follow Me’s hopeful questions with verbatim slabs of John Lennon's Playboy interview, whilst fiddling simultaneously with five cassette players. Not surprisingly, Follow Me doesn't bother to print the story.
TISM release a mini-album entitled Form and Meaning Reach Ultimate Communion in November. Side one, entitled Form, contained three tracks recorded in the studio, whilst the other side, entitled Meaning, contained five tracks recorded in their own bedroom, including an unlisted country version of "Defecate on My Face". The cover contained huge, mind-numbing spiels about "Form" and "Meaning" and a fold-out poster featuring another pointless definition of rock music. These definitions were supposedly taken from Chapters 7 and 9 of TISM’s Guide To Little Aesthetics, a fictional publication that did not exist - another puerile in-joke.
The record quickly went to number one on the alternative charts, a meaningless development. Complimentary copies were sent to the rock press, accompanied by a series of reviews written by TISM, which ranged from mindlessly positive to totally vindictive and damning. RAM's John Encarno, perhaps annoyed at having his job done for him, tried extremely hard to outline that he wasn't one of TISM's dupes, and that he had thought of ways to criticise TISM that even they hadn't thought of. Quite a fine effort, really.
TISM begin a mini-tour with Big Pig in Melbourne, On Friday, November 28th, at The Prince of Wales. 1,100 people squeeze in. whilst The Club closes the door at 10:30 on Saturday night. TISM and Big Pig hit Adelaide's Le Rox. TISM are greeted with shocked silence by the unprepared Adelaide crowd, which refuses to go nearer than 20 feet from the stage. Just like the good old days. TISM complete the tour in Sydney, where they are received rapturously at the Graphics Art Club and abused at The Kardomah Kafe.
TISM completes the year with an invitation only performance at The Club which is filmed for the SBS show The Noise and a New Year's Eve performance with Paul Kelly and The Coloured Girls upstairs at The Venue to a crowd of 2,000. Annette Shun-Wah describes TISM as a "warped aerobics class" as their performance is screened on The Noise and repeated twice later due to viewer demand. Why, oh why? Meanwhile TISM begin a three-month hibernation period.
1987[]
On Sunday, February 15th at the Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne, TISM is awarded the "Most Original New Band" in the 3RRR/Najee Rock Awards. They briefly appear to assault the trophy with bunches of flowers. On Friday the 20th of March TISM return to the public under the name The Mist in an unannounced, unpublicised 25-minute performance in front of 20 unlucky people at The Prince of Wales.
First official performances for the year occurred on the 10th and 11th of April at The Club. Wearing paintings on their heads TISM perform new material to full houses on both nights. TISM perform at the disastrous "Superfest". They are ordered on 45 minutes before their scheduled starting time and thus spend most of their shortened set performing to a handful of unfortunates in a giant freezing tent. Fitting, really.
TISM records the next single, "40 Years Then Death" b/w "The Back Upon Which Jezza Jumped", in May 1987 at Platinum studios in Melbourne with Chris Corr. TISM go through their 'Rose Period' for two nights at The Prince of Wales, drawing 600 and 900 people respectively. They open with a slide display of the List of people TISM Want to Get Fucked. They play illuminated by shades of red only and while they perform an artist covers the backdrop with a giant mural. A waste of time.
In June 1987 TISM headline their first campus show at Melbourne University. During two power failures TISM prove they can still orchestrate an unmitigated disaster. TISM soil the cover of Beat magazine and subsequently play the Beat Warehouse Party. In the freezing, squalid gloom, the audience are granted ten minutes of beautiful, beautiful silence as TISM’s power supply cuts out. Sadly, nothing is permanent in this world. TISM return to stage. In disgusts someone rips out their lower dentures end leaves them in the band's dressing room. TISM, suitably chasened, spent the next two months undergoing complex dental surgery.
On Friday the 18th of September, TISM pay a return visit to Stephen (Jeremy) Walker's Skull Cave. The blubbering 3RRR programme director is covered in a sheet as the band, instruments and all, file into the tiny studio and explode into a chaotic live version of their new song "The Ballad of John Bohnam’s Coke Roadie". Listeners all over Melbourne tune into 101.9 FOX. After a blessed two months of silence, TISM return to play The Prince Of Wales to mark the release of "40 Years (Then Death)" on Wednesday the 23rd. In a typically empty gesture, the band passes a 10 foot cardboard facsimile of the record to the audience, who subsequently destroy it. This neatly symbolises the depths to which both TISM and their audience have descended.
The single is released with no label, no artwork and no identification, in a clear plastic cover. This appears to mark TISM’s intention to return to their obscure roots, however the move fails and the record sells. In fact, it becomes the first TISM song to be playable by EON-FM, a vicious insult that surely only the band themselves would have drawn pleasure from. TISM also ruin the RMIT Centenary Ball at The Melbourne Town Hall. They played.
John Peters, possibly the only man more stupid than TISM, surveys in disgust as the brainwashed youth of Melbourne push "40 Years (Then Death)" to number 3 on the EON-FM 'Top 8 at 8' in October. Peters' lame excuse: he doesn't pick them, he only plays them. One crushingly deluded youth even rings the station to impersonate a member of TISM. If only he knew.
TISM play two shows at the Old Greek Theatre. 1,000 people squeeze in to experience discomfort as only TISM can guarantee. Giant cartoon slides accompany TISM's petty ode to girls at Chasers, whilst giant phosphorescent numbers perch atop the TISM members' heads. TISM attempt to repeat their ten minutes of silence at the Beat party a few months earlier, as the power is completely cut twice during the set. Sadly, TISM return after each power failure. On the second night, TISM play to a special no alcohol, under 18 audience. The great majority of the youngsters ignore the band to concentrate on courting each other. There is more wisdom in children than men know.
TISM prepare their motor mowers for a second visit to Sydney in December. They prepare with two full house shows at The Corner Hotel, Friday the 4th and Saturday the 5th. TISM stomp onstage with their heads immersed in flowers and the horticultural imagery is completed when two motor mowers are wheeled on during the last song, filling the room with dangerous acrid fumes. On the second night, TISM become perhaps the first band in history to have a lawnmower stolen from a rock and roll show.
After restocking their lawnmower supply TISM complete another whirlwind tour of Sydney. The lawnmowers go with them everywhere, including the studios of 2JJJ. After cruising through Kings Cross, to find some quiche, TISM burst into 2JJJ to explain their 'Get Rich Quiche' theory. Later that evening TISM further alienates the already alienated Sydney audiences with the first of two shows at the Trade Union Club. During a rendition of "U2 Brute?", which asserts that Adolf Hitler invented rock and roll - one distressed punter yelled out "fascists" and is immortalised on tape for future use. The Sydney audiences somehow warmed to this the coldest of bands, and the barriers to TISM's tedious infection continue to erode.
TISM complete another wasted year with a New Year's Eve show at the Old Greek Theatre. Blue Rum, TISM's special guests, return for an encore dressed in balaclavas, a superb gesture of mockery which is largely ignored by the drunken fools baying for TISM. In an act of solidarity, TISM themselves indicate their own low standing during the performance by staging, and winning, the 1987 Fuckwit of the Year Award. Tough competition came from Derryn Hinch, the Channel Ten News Team and Dogs In Space. The masses remain unconvinced, even when the band present them with a set of 15 foot high TISM letters which are obliterated within seconds. The fact that, after all this, the audience continues to cheer, sends the disillusioned TISM members back into hiding.
1988[]
In January 1988, TISM, determined to prove their utter worthlessness to the world, embark upon their biggest project to date, the recording of their epic corpus of nonsense, Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance. They set up camp at Platinum Studios with the ever foolish Chris Corr and renowned troubleshooter Mark Woods, who is given the impossible task of attempting to make sense out of TISM’s noxious exhalations. They are joined by Englishman Clive Martin whose recent work wih The Cure suggests he ought to know better. TISM begin work on some of their most treasured abominations: "Saturday Night Palsy", "Choose Bad Smack", "I Drive a Truck", "The Mystery of the Artist Explained" and so on and so on. Sheer tedium. Recording of Great Truckin' Songs continues into February.
The only benefit to the public at large is that this dubious project keeps TISM securely locked away for three full months, except for one solitary performance at The Venue on Friday, February 5th. It is there that a startled customer at the bar has his drink snatched by one of the idiots running amok in the audience with a radio microphone as the rest of TISM crash deafeningly on. The monolthic garbage of Great Truckin’ Songs moves on to Trees Studios in March where scraps of live tape, radio interviews and excerpts from the genuine, unprostituted origins of TISM are pieced together in typically ad hoc fashion to be included in this ominously expanding package. Already over two full albums of churning twaddle have been recorded.
In April TISM emerges from the frenzied recording sessions to play a return show at the Palace on Friday 29th, preceded by a performance at Geelong’s Barwon Club on Saturday the 9th. At Geelong the frightened audience are introduced to new TISM material such as "Mein Kampf Fire Has Gone Out" (alternatively known as "Opium is the Religion of the Masses"). At the Palace the exotically tacky interior seems tasteful by comparison with TISM who display their "Ted Commandment" headgear. They are accompanied by a full mandolin orchestra with conductor and a member of the Australian Opera Company, neither of which raise this juggernaut from its awful descent.
In May the first single from Great Truckin' Songs is released: "The Ballad of John Bonham's Coke Roadie" b/w "(I Think I’ve Got) Mick Jagger Worked Out". It reaches the EON-FM "Top 8 at 8". TISM rub it in with a show at Frankston’s 21st Century Dance Club on Thursday May 12th. It's a pink monstrosity with a revolving dance floor, which is invaded by 600 local youths eager to have their night spoiled. It is.
It appears that few are immune to the effects of TISM's creeping sickness, except perhaps the major record companies who, probably more through their own pants-wetting fear than any clear-sighted decisiveness, reject TISM's insulting request for financial assistance. Independent label Musicland is however, prepared to be dumped into distributing the forthcoming album, and it soon finds out how unpleasant dealing with TISM is. The main sticking point was the cover, which reportedly cost six times the normal amount to print. Such needless waste is the very essence of TISM.
Meanwhile EON's Billy Pinnell brings his credibility into disrepute with several hyperbolic predictions about the coming release. TISM, wondering whether the close proximity of the sea has any effect on the wholesale misinterpretation of their garbage, test the theory with a weekend of shows at Mentone, Geelong and The Corner Hotel. Further new material fails to turn away the audiences, who fill the houses at the last two shows. TISM's anger at this is expressed in senseless onstage wreckage of microphones and sections of the ceiling. Puerile.
TISM, the fishermen of rock, reel them in yet again in June. A bogus survey about the late, great Ricky May, gets righteous people everywhere up in arms. But no, fools! It was a ruse, a shocking trick to gain the attention of TISM's number one hero, Jade Hurley. Sadly, it works, as Hurley is quoted in The Truth saying, "who are these guys anyway?" TISM also reopen The Club, complete with a pig on a spit and an effigy of Louis Armstrong. Frustrated with the tiny stage, they attempt an extension via the ceiling. A member of the audience later sues for injuries sustained. This could mean the end for This Is Serious Mum - we can only hope.
In July, Rolling Stone magazine, purveyor of serious musical taste and certainly far superior to gimmicky rot like TISM, mistakenly decide to interview the band. Howard Stringer, the hapless journalist is made to dress in a wet suit and meet the band in yet another St. Kilda eatery, where his carefully researched questions, are answered by the band in song form. Such a stupid gesture is only worth ignoring, and when Howard duly attempts to do so in his article, the cynical, manipulative TISM management force him to rewrite. The final article appears a travesty of Howard's original work of art. At the very least, he manages to make a few telling and original observations about the shallowness of TISM's music. 1 nil to Howard.
After another weekend of shows at The Club in September (the 2nd, 3rd and 4th), where TISM's newest and silliest tin foil look is revealed, the awful day finally arrives, Great Truckin’ Songs of the Renaissance is unleashed on the world. The album is as bombastic and overblown as feared. A double album set, it contains one album of slickly produced, squealing, inane pop songs, and another record composed of radio snippets, half songs, outbursts of vitriolic meaninglessness and puzzling backward messages. It contains the proviso that "This record isn’t as good as the other one". One can't help but recognise that, for once, TISM got it right.
As usual, nobody listens. Molly Meldrum votes it his album of the week on Hey Hey It's Saturday and it bumbles its way onto the commercial charts, reaching No. 12 on Fox-FM and No.8 on 3XY. Whilst some misguided people claim it as a ground breaking achievement for an independent release, 3XY showing far better judgement, quickly changes its entire format to easy listening. Young fools all over Melbourne flock to purchase one of the limited edition albums with TISM’s original cover design. These sell out quickly to be replaced by the cheaper version of the already cheap idea.
The loathsome Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance logo is soon found on T-shirts, bumper stickers and a huge backdrop which sits behind the bands typically facile extravaganza of an album launch at The Palace on Wednesday, September 21st. Fifteen Hundred paying masochists and a guest list of over 300 squeeze in to see TISM, supported by the latest product of the Split Enz family tree, Schnell Fenster. TISM’s chaotic arrival to the stage is asssited by a fashion parade of 49 extras wearing past TISM costumes. The debacle is filmed and later released as the aptly titled Shoddy and Poor video.
TISM finish September by wrecking the kiddies’ fun on The Factory, complete with obligatory motor mowers. Yawn. More television exposure follows. In October we see a live telecast from the Old Greek Theatre of the TISM pollutant, minus expletives, for the trial public television station, TVU. The following week TISM give two further doses of their punishment to audiences at The Club, one of which is filmed for ABC’s Rock Arena. TISM's appearance, after being shown a second time, causes the series to be abandoned. If only TISM would follow suit.
In December TISM show that their taste in art is far greater than their taste in music. On the 2nd they perform to 1,800 screaming weirdos at The Palace with a backdrop of Melbourne's finest young painters. Led by the brilliant John Campbell, the artists create rapid-fire masterpieces while the band degrades their very presence. A week later; TISM's self-inflated Hindenburg size ego falls to earth in flames when an audience of 350 at Adelaide's Le Rox fails to pay the band's huge overhead costs, and they plunge into debt. Victory!
The band retires to lick their wounds at Leak Van Vlalen's beachside hideaway. Rather than follow the advice of all that represents good taste, they decide to plunge onward, composing over 30 new songs that will be slowly sifted through for a horrific new album in the coming year. The year ends with two funkier degenerate rituals at The Club. Whilst TISM drone on, a roving reporter interviews members of TISM's deluded audience with predictably unintelligible results.
During this period, deluded sections of the media from Adelaide, Brisbane and NSW request interviews with TISM. Consistent with their spurious artistic snobbery, TISM refuse. Foolishly, the same people ask for written replies to their questions. luckily, the intelligence, integrity and honesty of our great media empires is such that they won't be soiled by this drivel None of TISM's replies are printed in full; most are ignored. Another year. What waste of human life.
1989[]
Humphrey B. Flaubert live at Livid Festival, 1989
With their turgid double album Great Truckin’ Songs of the Renaissance entering more homes than it ever deserved to, TISM return from a period of greatly appreciated silence to once more drag their accursed act around the country from Canberra to Coolangatta. They return to Melbourne by headlining an outdoor performance on a stage in Russell Street to mark the opening of the Virgin Megastore, on Monday March 13th. How such an exciting new business venture could want to sully their name by association with TISM defies belief.
However, it seems the pointed bone of TISM has poisoned many a mind. "Saturday Night Palsy", the second single from the album, lingers like broken wind from a dog on the edge of the National Top 40, garners a ridiculous amount of commercial airplay and precipitates an invitation for the band to appear on hitherto popular national TV show Hey Hey It's Saturday. The show normally features tasteful recording artists such as John Farnham, but on this night viewers are assaulted by the sight of 7 so-called TISM members beginning the song, to be joined by another 7 in yet another stupid costume complete with microphone, dance steps and instruments, then another different 7 and another, until 28 pointlessly garbed fools cavort around the small studio stag, creating such an embarrassing waste of Saturday night viewing, that it renders John Blackman's characteristically un-humorous voice-overs totally unnecessary.
Talented filmmaker Peter Bain-Hogg is double-crossed into working on a film clip for the single. It features scenes of a good looking, street wise, popular young gent who swings from one exclusive Melbourne nightclub to the next, with free drink-cards, friends on the door and women on his arm, until in the final scene he smilingly places a large noose around his neck and hangs himself, his busy diary falling from his stiffly swinging corpse in the final shot. The clip is shown on late night video shows, MTV and Rage, but the final horrific scene is cut in a superb act of bowdlerisation, thus rendering the clip exactly the same as every other slickly produced clip of groovy models having a good time. What beautiful irony.
July sees yet another single cynically dredged from Great Truckin’ Songs; an ode to a man who knows the meaning of "I’ve suffered for my art. Now it’s your turn" even more than TISM, "Martin Scorsese is Really Quite a Jovial Fellow". TISM mourn appropriately with trips to Melbourne's outer suburban beer barns and further torture sprees in Sydney and Brisbane.
The year is closed with a De Mille-like display of awfulness, when Brisbane promoters, clearly suffering from the after-effects of trachoma and gerrymander, invite TISM to headline a giant all day, open-air event called the Livid Festival, on December 2nd at the Brisbane Showgrounds. The supporting cast features Pop Will Eat Itself, Died Pretty and The Hummingbirds, and over 3000 completely deluded fans stream in on a day when, unlike TISM, the country's other greatest joke, The National Party are kicked off their faltering pedestal in the Queensland state elections.
TISM ponce onto the stage at the close of this famous evening and emit a jabbering belch of non-music into the warm night, wearing ten foot high phosphorescent numbers atop their heads, and yelling the name of Bjelke Peterson's failed successor Russell Cooper, like a war cry. More frighteningly, the 3000 strong throng yells back even louder. A pillaging horde of Tartars would seem like Rosemary Margin by comparison, No wonder they had 32 years of National Party rule.
Meanwhile, the Kemal Ataturks of rock return to their home town for three year-closing shows at the Old Greek Theatre. On these occasions, they dangle clothes lines complete with pegged up washing from huge prohibitively expensive scaffolding trees on either side of the theatre, and perform in front of a bank of washing machines and dryers instead of amplifiers, whilst a group of old women iron clothes on a platform above the band. The room is a wash with pyjamas underwear and track-suits, while a thousand paying customers stare in apoplexy. TISM, satisfied that they had plunged into almost criminal debt, disappear for six months.
1990[]
Why oh why must they always return? The first half of 1990 is ominously pleasant, the calm in the eye of TISM’s stuhl-encrusted cyclone. But there are encouraging signs. The new TISM single is entitled "I Don't Want TISM I Want A Girlfriend", and is the kind of whining rot that true balladeers like Paul Kelly or Steve Cummings wouldn't even stoop to vomit on.
This of course is nothing new, but at last one or two heads begin to rise from playing hooker to TISM’s disease ridden glans penis, and notice what the members of TISM had been trying to flagrantly announce all along - TISM aren't very good. Such arbiters of taste such as 3RRR anchorman Steven Walker flinch at the bald lack of a "punchline" in the new TISM song, and even though the bands career had begun at "nadir", and progressed downwards from there, it was only now that for those supposedly "in the know", it had ever so subtly become "uncool" to like TISM.
This was re-enforced when it was rumoured that TISM were being courted by major record labels. TISM's final relations with former label Musicland bring images of rats and sinking ships to mind. Not long after being rid of TISM, Musicland went bust. The only consolidation being that they took TISM’s money with them. Every sad story has a happy side. TISM carry out negotiations with CBS, the biggest record label in the world, but are eventually signed to the other giant in the bidding, Polygram.
The sticking point seemed to be TISM's insistence on having complete control over every petty decision, and their disinclination to get off their smugly non-artistic sofas to tour or do any promotional activity unless they felt like it. CBS, laughing at TISM's unmerited pomposity refused to pay the band the kind of massive, strings-attached monetary advance that they summarily toss off into every other two-bit latest fad cesspool, and negotiations gradually freeze into confrontation. Thinking they had scored a "coup" (reminiscent of the Russian Communist Party's last days) Polygram stepped in and signed TISM for an undisclosed fee. Why undisclosed? The same reason TISM wear masks, presumably.
Hot shot studio whiz producers Peter Blyton and Laurence Maddy make a disastrous career move when they accept the brief of unveiling TISM to the masses with the backing of Polygram’s corporate muscle. TISM, frightened at the prospect of popularity, present the producers with 40 of their most banal leftover ideas, and recording begins. For the next four months the album festers toward completion, the band sinking into ennui and becoming less and less involved, concerned instead with rejecting every single marketing strategy put forward by the record company, and pumping all their finances and bankrupt creativity into a book, due for release almost at the same time as the album. This is the kind of commercially suicidal decision that TISM held like a raised index finger in the face of their multinational benefactors.
The beautiful silence ends as TISM return for a series of shows in and around Melbourne. On July 26th at Monash University, the future intellectuals of an obviously doomed Melbourne pack into the auditorium, and the crush is so intense that the bolts holding together the temporary stage are sheered off and it begins to drift apart as the band appropriately careers into "It's Novel! It's Unique!! It's Shithouse!!!". The performance is aborted after three songs and the beleaguered promoter has to climb onto the rapidly disintegrating stage to plea for the crowd to step back, rather reminiscent of Jagger at Altamont. Finally the show continues with a human barrier of kamikaze security guards linking arms in front of the band, who show their ingratitude with a blisteringly rotten set.
TISM carry out their chilling threat and release a book entitled The TISM Guide to Little Aesthetics. It is a predictably intelligence-insulting collection of press releases, lyrics, interviews and paraphernalia. Encompassing 250 pages of dense prose, the book was impounded a week prior to release on the advice of the bands lawyers, while a handful of potentially libellous references were blotted out. Only a book burning of Stalin-esque proportions could have atoned for the offence to public taste that the eventual release of this book precipitated. The sluggish response to the book indicated either that TISM fans had experienced a sudden attack of discernment, or more likely, that they couldn’t read.
Radio station 3RRR-FM become TISM’s latest victim when they foolishly engage the band to headline a benefit show at the Palace in Melbourne on Wednesday the 26th of September. TISM, agreeing malevolently to play for costs only, present a stunning debacle of excess, featuring a wedding reception which takes place on giant platforms behind the band, complete with fully attired bridal party, reception band and best man's speech. The groom, apparently aware of his duplicity in this sham against sensibility, promptly vomits all over the bridal table, and the expensively gowned bride and bridesmaids are forced to sit in a steaming feted pool of bile, with TISM, deafeningly droning on in full view of well over a thousand people. The ultimate TISM experience.
The 3RRR management begin to wish they were the bride when they discover what "costs" means at a TISM show. The concert was designed to boost the stations flagging coffers, but TISM's costs are way in excess of the huge door takings, and 3RRR discover to their horror that they have just created history by holding the first benefit to lose rather than make money.
Polygram step up to the TISM guillotine with 3RRR's blood still fresh on the blade. The new TISM album is released - entitled Hot Dogma, it is another double album, and features 25 full length compositions of staggering inanity, tarted up into a smooth seamless stretch of noise by the ill-fated production team rather like putting lipstick on a cadaver. It is packaged in a lavish display of Polygram money, but with the annoying TISM touch of having the song titles printed in Chinese. TISM insist that the only versions with English song titles be immediately shipped to Polygram's Asian markets.
The first single lifted from the album is "The History of Western Civilisation" which becomes a particular favourite with Sydney based DJs on Triple J radio, presumably because they don’t understand the puerile geographical commentary in the lyric. TISM perform the new album in Melbourne with a quasi-spiritual theme, burning hundreds of candles on stage, perhaps symbolising the artistic hell they have lured their audience into. The press reacts generally with wisdom, although a few poor fools who ought to know better find something positive to say about the album. Rolling Stone again prove themselves to be far more superior to their peers by completely ignoring the release. Well done chaps!
TISM's disdain for the press sees them responding to interview requests only via fax machine. Hard-working, intelligent creative journalists find their probing questions metaphorically urinated on. It is not surprising that most articles on TISM attack their spineless non-art savagely. lf only the public would take heed. One journalist, attempting to provoke a meaningful response, faxes the band questions about the causes of World War II. The fax that returns from TISM answers the question literally, to the tune of twelve typed pages of historical postulation. To think that we could have had one more tree in a forest...
The Melbourne Age believe they have a "scoop" when TISM agree to stage a meeting. However, the hapless journalist is met by TISM management, only to be taken to a flotation tank and told to strip off end get into the tank. Once inside the tank, TISM's answers are piped in to the poor man, who returns to his editor with virtually nothing to write.
The groaning Hot Dogma tour lurches through Adelaide, Sydney and the Gold Coast. Yet another huge Livid Festival, on December 8th in Brisbane, featuring marvellous Seattle grunge rockers Mudhoney, is stymied by the headlining appearance of TISM. The tour and the year is finally put out of its misery with two nights in Melbourne, where TISM are assisted by a cast of thirty who sit behind the band raising a series of huge letters which form the titles of the songs and joining in with some of the band's otiose aerobic movements. Fittingly, the TISM video being snapped up in the foyer by brainwashed acolytes eager to part with their money, is entitled Shoddy and Poor.
1991[]
TISM in shiny costumes, 1991
Following limply on from their interstate cavortings of the previous year, TISM embark on a propaganda tour through various tertiary campuses, like a dose of Ford Pills through the formative consciousness of the nation. The Queensland University show sees them again supported by the undeserving Pop Will Eat Itself, whose night is further sabotaged by a power black out in mid-set. The University promoters cynically shoehorn 1700 fans into a venue designed to accommodate little more than a thousand, which at least means that by the time the long programme, complete with delays, is finished, the asphyxiating, exhausted audience give TISM the lukewarm response they deserve.
The travelling freaks sideshow continues with two nights at The Club in Melbourne, the scene of many a past TISM failure. Next at an open air performance for the RMIT campus, an inventive rogue manages to creep past backstage security and achieves a major victory for all right thinking people by stealing two TISM guitars, worth over $2000.00. An insurance firm, with reassuring reliability, squeezes out of re-paying the band through a minor loophole. There is indeed honour among thieves.
The next single taken from Hot Dogma is "Let's Form a Company", a dreary sing-around-the-camp-fire dirge. While the B-side features a version of "The Judeo-Christian Ethic" played and sung not by TISM, but in fact by renowned Melbourne guitar/vocal duo Rebecca Barnard and Shane O’Mara. This hauntingly beautiful piece of music almost persuades one to believe that TISM can write a song, but that is until Barnard’s gorgeous voice tussles with lines like "bend over Fido and let me knead your bottom".
Another walletful of Polygram money is thrown away on a film clip, based on tacky late night advertising, with rapidly cut shots of TISM merchandising and live performance. However, commercial radio stations, in a rare moment of taste, don't respond to the single, claiming that it does not fit with their "new dance format", and the film clip becomes a hugely expensive white elephant.
TISM appear on ABC live comedy show The Big Gig, performing some of their latest embarrassments. The wacky camera angles, designed to make dull bands look interesting, fail to work on TISM who typically compound the problem by going through one set of moves for the cameramen at rehearsal, and then completely ignoring this during the performance, leaping into the audience endangering expensive studio equipment and scrawling offensive messages wherever close up camera shots were attempted. Not surprisingly, the band is not invited on the show again.
Another national tour commences in Sydney, where respected young artist Tim Jones attempts to ruin his reputation by constructing a sculpture with ready made materials around the band while they blast out their discordant nonsense. With the garishly offensive poster of a bloodied suicide note from a failed businessman promoting "Let's Form a Company" in the record stores, the tour moves for the first time to Perth, who ought to know all about cynical business manipulation, end yet impossibly manage to like TISM.
A keen young Melbourne rock journalist pesters TISM management for an in person interview, and heartily congratulates himself when the offer is granted. The sad young fool is then met at an outer suburban railway station on a dark cold evening, blindfolded and taken to a huge meat freezer inside a unknown factory. Here, in misty sub-zero temperatures he finds three alleged members of TISM wearing huge boiler suits, sipping cups of chilled wine. He attempts to push on, jogging on the spot and slapping his arms around him to stave off the dangerous cold, while the "TISM" members answer his provocative questions with straight-forward, totally deadpan answers. Finally he is rescued by TISM management, and later after a few days convalescence, he at least wins a belated victory by completely ignoring the circumstances and location of the interview in his article, and simply focusing on TISM’s rather dull and confused answers. The contradictions he brilliantly spots in TISM’s replies are used later by another Melbourne journalist in a savage attack on the band.
TISM decide that eight months of intermittent live performance is enough, and thankfully perform their last shows for the year at the Old Greek Theatre. They decide to celebrate with an overdraft exploding extravaganza of pointlessness, which is filmed and recorded for a full length video entitled Incontinent in Ten Continents. The band, at various points in their squawking performance, are augmented by a brass section, a Tympani player, a bagpipe band, a Tuba ensemble, female singers, a dance troupe, and twenty electric guitarists who stand motionless for the duration of "The Fosters Car Park Boogie" only to play one chord in unison at the very end of the song. For the finale, the entire cast squeezes onto the stage for the final numbers, while the mindless audience slam-dance away oblivious. Not long after, the Greek Theatre management flee and the venue is permanently closed down.
While TISM take their fingers off the torture button for a prolonged rest, the executive who signed the band to Polygram abandons the company, and the label heads contemplate the giant mistake they had made. Despite their considerable financial input, Polygram's hopes of making TISM "crossover" have failed, and amidst the atmosphere of confrontation and acrimony, the label, faced with further embarrassing pay outs to the band, takes the only sane option and sacks them. TISM duly satisfied with the damage and enmity in their wake, go into semi-retirement.
1992[]
TISM in the studio with Tony Cohen
The enterprising (but clearly foolish) independent label Shock Records signs TISM’s back catalogue, and promptly re-releases Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance and a new compilation album entitled Gentlemen, Start Your Egos. It is a collection comprising the since deleted Form and Meaning Reach Ultimate Communion EP, as well as rare B-side tracks, and two previously unreleased versions of early songs. The cover juxtaposes sepia-toned photographs of Oscar Wilde and Ted Whitten in a style bereft of all significance or artistic merit as only TISM know how to do.
Sales of both collections confirm that there are still indeed many people ready to be duped, and indicate ominous stirrings from the hibernating TISM camp. Tense weeks pass with still no public appearance from the Band, but this shimmering blissful silence is finally broken. Without any advertising via press radio or TV, TISM begin a month of completely unannounced appearances at various small rock clubs in Melbourne. Like a promo slogan for Jaws 2, unsuspecting club goers find horrific sights waiting for them on this neigh out, as the balaclava clad fun-spoilers push onto stage and defecate their way through 30 minutes of completely new material with energy and enthusiasm that portents great sorrow and gnashing of teeth for rock fans in the near future.
At Lounge, at T. Coitus' second ever TISM gig, the crowd of techno-stomping "be seen" name dropper acid droppers stand in enraged silence as the awkward tuneless TISM backyard abortion squelches through its grimy paces, while wretched fans at the Tote are sprayed in melted chocolate as a TISM member gyrates around the rapidly emptying dancefloor with a Bamix and a milkshake.
A packed house at the Prince Of Wales to see the Beasts Of Bourbon begin to regret every cent of their admission money when they retreat to the back bar to find TISM crashing away on a small stage. Then, as quickly as TISM began appearing, they disappear again, having played shows in Melbourne to audiences that never intended to see them, and completely ignoring their own rabid following. The only reference to TISM in the press is a small article on band names, dredged up from the past where a TISM member was asked why they chose the name. "Because 'Nick Barker and The Reptiles' was already taken" came the reply. Well you asked for it, imbecile.
Another fleeting dose of TISM Berri-Berri occurs in Queensland, where the band flies in to play Brisbane, Surfers Paradise and Mooloolaba on the 8th, 9th and 10th of May, and skulks away under cover of darkness. The frightening news leaks out that legendary engineer Tony Cohen, who had worked on just about every ground breaking Australian album in the last 15 years, had actually agreed to fly back from working with Nick Cave, to mastermind the new TISM album. The project, although veiled with secrecy, is reportedly bashed out in a mere few days, in a return to the kind of unabashed amateurism that made early TISM recordings so violently unlistenable. Cohen himself is heard on the album describing the band as a bunch of "pathetic little wankers", and promptly arranged to move as soon as possible to Berlin.
The new TISM album, sickeningly titled The Beasts of Suburban rises from Davy Jones’ locker into record stores across the nation. It is a mini-album marketed at a thankfully lower price, and contains such pox-ridden musical enemas as "If You’re Ugly Forget It" and "Lillee Caught Dilley Bowled Milli Vanilli". The band decide that too much fun is a good thing, and prepare to spread their own virile stand of aural Hepatitis around the country in a massive national tour. The worst is yet to come.
The Beasts of Suburban tour is the largest TISM have undertaken, and unbelievably, larger audiences than ever before line up to have their fun spoiled. From a modest beginning on July 24th at the Baxter Tavern in Melbourne's outer beach suburbs, TISM, wearing grotesquely over-sized basketball uniforms, leave their travelling pogrom against taste through Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide and back to Melbourne.
It is virtually impossible to escape TISM, as their propaganda sweeps the country, aided by airplay of their shameful ode to TV personality Sophie Lee, entitled "Get Thee To A Nunnery". Ms. Lee makes the fatal mistake of lowering herself to TISM's uncharted level by appearing on top national FM station Triple J, and denouncing the band and song. The announcer spoiled the point of Ms. Lee's complaint by playing the song. It was, they claimed, the ingrained Australian syndrome of bashing any female media personality who becomes prominent. On Melbourne's 3RRR, the lead singer of an unknown but highly credible band accuses TISM of being little catholic masturbators and claims the song objectifies women. Why didn't any of them just say that the song was a load of old crap?
Meanwhile, three hundred punters don't realise how lucky they are to be locked out of TISM's show at Sydney's Phoenician club, and at the Palace in Melbourne. TISM break the record previously set by Nirvana for the most safety regulation violations - ignoring the number of lemmings squashed into the venue while hugely compensating the promoter for the torture of having to deal with TISM. Even with a worthwhile band, the evening would have been unbearable due to heat and claustrophobic crowd. TISM ram home the nails, posturing limply in front of a team of sculptors who create a mock Melbourne skyline, which is ceremoniously destroyed at the awful debacle’s climax.
The end of such a major tour should mean peace for the listening public, but only a month later, with all the reassuming familiarity of a continually dislocating pelvis, TISM returns. They are inconceivably chosen to headline a 12 hour all ages extravaganza on Sunday the 8th of November, called Pushover. They appear along with a stacked bill of far better bands, such as Frente, Ratcat, The Clouds and The Hard Ons. It's organised by the "Push", a Government funded youth organisation - "no wonder the Government lost the election" moaned TISM in a rare press quote, as they stepped onstage at Melbourne’s Exhibition Building in front of 4000 young lambs to the slaughter. Fortunately the abominable acoustics of the huge old building rendered TISM’s fetid message unintelligible, but the reaction they received from the young crowd augured frighteningly for the future.
This was followed by another show at the Palace - this time on Friday the 13th. Unthinkably, 3RRR had again called upon TISM to donate their questionable services to a benefit in aid of a new radio transmitter. As Midnight Oil once sang, "Short Memory..." Again the airwaves were distended with the goitre of TISM, this time a version of "We Are The World" sung with the help of RRR radio personalities. They made little difference.
The night itself was yet another nightmarish journey. The packed crowd, squashed to danger point at the lip of the stage, were confronted with a curtain opening to reveal nothing, TISM had begun playing at the opposite end of the room on a tiny stage. There followed a crush like some scene out of Dante’s seventh layer of hell, only to find TISM ducking away after 2 songs to re-appear on the the main stage. Amid catcalls and abuse, the crush again began. TISM did this twice more to the audience until the incredibly stupid finale, where 2 identical "TISM's" played different songs simultaneously on the two stages, creating a sensation not unlike being stuck between two radio stations, albeit at deafening volume. The TISM faithful were completely confused and elated, some even trying to stage dive up one end while the audience were watching the band at the other end. Is liking TISM not punishment enough?
The year ended with shows in Canberra and Sydney where TISM bobbed about in eight foot high headgear, revealing frightening new material to a deluded reception at Selina's nightclub. In the foyer, videos of the September show at the Palace, entitled Boys N The Hoods were snapped up by people who don't know the meaning of "waste".
Once more, TISM hauled their bloated girth into the lice-ridden athletic support of song writing. Beware the Ides of March.
1993[]
The organisers of the Big Day Out are clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel when they include TISM on an otherwise sparkling bill of local and overseas rock icons, held at Melbourne’s Showgrounds on the 24th of January, a rather stormy summer day. If there truly is a God-like being, it proved itself to be benevolent - sheets of blinding rain poured all the way through TISM's set; but omnipotent - TISM continue blasting onward despite water gushing through rips in the stage tent onto their equipment and the possibility of a mass electrical accident is tantalisingly apparent, but sadly not forthcoming. TISM themselves know their true worth: They held up cards pleading the audience to move to where Sonic Youth are playing. Thousands of near drowned punters ignore them in a heaving mass of self delusion, whilst TISM, flopping flatulently about in monstrous balloon costumes, are sadly not electrocuted.
Further quasi-Woodstock concerts are violated by TISM's version of Altamont. At the Torquay Football ground on the 30th and later at Bendigo University, countless unfortunates watch TISM grind their way through flatulent new material. Fortunately as summer's embers die, the heinous masked punishers put away their touring cattle truck and peace once more settles on our land.
After a merciful four month hiatus, TISM return to their subterranean recording studio to carve new shapes out of their flyblown Council Tip of creativity. Unbelievably, crack producer Tony Cohen is seen heading into the same studio in July. Extortion of the worst kind is the only possible explanation. Meanwhile, rumours of TISM's non-existence circulate and the world seems a better place, because TISM do not publicly appear for a full 7 months.
In September TISM release a five track CD entitled Australia the Lucky C*nt. TISM's initial plan to release it as a pre-album single stiffs at the starting blocks when it is withdrawn after one week in the shops on the advice of the lawyers of a famous Australian artist. The lawyers threaten court action after TISM use his artwork. A second, modified cover is also rejected by the artist, delaying even further the CD's release. The forces of good will always prevail over the forces of evil, and when the CD is re-released finally, with new artwork and title, it is met with little fanfare, and sells poorly. The title is changed to Censored Due to Legal Advice after police confiscate stock from a Melbourne store on the grounds of the previous title's obscenity.
Riding on the back of this less than successful venture, TISM play a brief, pointless eastern states tour, wearing spandex jumpsuits and flashing head pieces. 2000 people push into Selina's in Sydney on the 30th of October, flying in the face of good taste and dumbfounding those who had fervently hoped to see the end of TISM. The year ends with another morally vacuous youth brainwashing at the Push Over all ages event, where other more credible artists are heckled by tunnel-visioned TISM acolytes, and a frightening new breed, the young TISM fan, begins to appear.
1994[]
TISM live in 1994
TISM again appear on the Big Day Out tour in January, confirming the wise monkey impenetrability of the promoters and the 6000 punters who crammed Sydney's Hordern Pavilion for a glimpse of TISM's corpulent corporate look. After enduring consecutive sets from Soundgarden, several TISM members simultaneously suffer nervous breakdowns and spend the rest of the tour in the Boiler Room, sedated by the pulsating blips of techno music.
Following this experience, TISM decide to consign their fully recorded new album to the bin on the grounds of it "not being very good." Oh, NOW we wake up, do we? Eight months of beautiful silence follows. No word from Cess Pool De TISM. Fragments of news filter through eventually, of computer breakdowns and of the band returning to their "plastic roots."
In August, A band calling itself "Machiavelli and the Four Seasons" begins playing suspiciously TISM-like songs in small Melbourne clubs. It is in fact TISM, displaying its new batch of soulless disco ditties, more vapid, more monotonous, more atonal than ever before. The beautiful silence is further shattered by the release of a pulsing techno single which gathers some airplay on JJJ, and goes by the name of "Jung Talent Time". TISM maintain that "Jung Talent Time" is their best single ever, largely because of the fact that they had absolutely nothing to do with it.
1995[]
TISM on the Machiavelli and the Four Seasons tour, 1995
1995 will surely go down as the most tragic year in TISM's history. The year kicks of on January 6th at the Byron Bay Festival. As unbelievable as it sounds, immediately after this festival TISM are invited onto the Big Day Out yet AGAIN. Fortunately, they elect only to play the Melbourne date, but just when the rest of the country thinks it's safe, TISM set out to spoil O-week for University freshmen all over the country with their 90210-Week tour. It takes in multiple Universities in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and the ACT.
The brainwashed youth at these shows make a hit out of TISM's next single, "(He'll Never Be An) Ol' Man River" by requesting it night after night on JJJ's RequestFest radio show. For some reason, the station's music director, Arnold Frollows, allows Machiavelli and the Four Seasons to become JJJ's Album of the Week. We suspect that he was inebriated at the time. Just to make sure, TISM stage a false interview on Helen Razor's Hard Coffee drive-time show, which they sabotage by arriving only in time for the final sentence to be read. Meanwhile, "Ol' Man River" becomes TISM's second single ever to taint the Australian Top 40 chart. Not quite astounded enough, TISM set out on their biggest tour yet, attempting to rope in more clueless teenagers.
After an impromptu live performance on 3RRR's Skull Cave on the afternoon of Friday July 7th, the tour kicks off at The Palace, and goes on to do nearly two laps of the country. TISM wear safari suits and plastic brain headpieces, and the madness is sometimes capped off with an encore performance of AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock". Meanwhile a new single is projectile vomited across radio - "Greg! The Stop Sign!!". This brainless pop music even weasels it's way onto the Austereo network's playlist, who also make Machiavelli their Album of the Week. The video for this new single is shot in the St Kilda Football Club locker rooms, which coincides nicely with a benefit show that TISM do for said football club on September 6th at the Prince Of Wales.
TISM sit perched over the toilet bowl of rock, reading their copy of Rolling Stone and discover that their album has earned 2.5 stars out of 5 in the review section - which by TISM's logic, means it must be a bit. Worse still, they find themselves in rags ranging from TV Week and Who magazines to Ralph monthly and back again. Even the public are unable to escape the sudden TISM media blitz. Disgusted radio listeners who turn off Martin/Molloy's nationally broadcasted TISM interview and put on the telly are only confronted by two masked figures hosting ABC's Rage. Here they discover that the only thing worse than TISM is Brian Eno's 14 minute Ambient Box Set documentary.
The entire situation snowballs onwards, and builds like a pulsing orgasm into an incredibly sickening climax that is undeniably TISM's darkest ever moment: Machiavelli and the Four Seasons hits #9 on the National Aria top 40 list. A panic stricken TISM deliriously force out the next single, the aptly titled "Garbage", and let out a giant sigh of relief as is it is completely ignored by the entire country. The nightmare appears to be ending, and 25 shows later the tour ends at Fridays in Mooloolaba on Sunday October 29th.
However, all too aware of the coming Christmas period, TISM attempt to squeeze a few more dollars out of their sponge-like fans by throwing all of their past albums into a box set, along with 30 or so unreleased songs and a glossy booklet, and expecting people to pay 80 bucks for it. Idiots. Strangely, most of the box sets are purchased by people who already own all of the albums it contains, and thus it's quite difficult to say who is stupider: the band or their fans?
TISM play the MMM Music Week concert at the Prince of Wales on November 25th, before concluding the year with one final index finger raised to the music industry - they are awarded with the Aria Award for Best Independent Release of 1995. SBS soccer commentator Les Murray accepts the award on the band's behalf, and Single Gun Theory apparently then split up.
1996[]
Surprise, surprise. TISM begin 1996 by appearing on the Big Day Out, which by now is a national tour taking in Perth, Adelaide, Surfer's Paradise, Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. It also marks TISM's first overseas foray - somehow they get through customs and end up performing in Auckland, New Zealand on Friday January 19th as part of the deal. Sadly, they make it back to Australia and continue the tour, albeit with one member strapped into a wheelchair.
Still surfing the Machiavelli wave, TISM put out a "gold" 2 CD edition of the album to celebrate the fact that it has by now sold over 100,000 units. The new edition includes a bonus CD featuring B-sides from the album's singles. The five new "songs" featured on this bonus CD turn out to be nothing but diatribes courtesy of Ron Hitler-Barassi, but unfortunately TISM aren't gaoled for false advertising.
In June TISM venture to the Northern Territory for their first ever show at Darwin High School, and Australia then cheers as TISM once again leave the country. They head back to New Zealand for a show at the Powerhouse in Auckland, before landing in London, UK for the groundbreaking You'll Never Walk Again tour. TISM appall the English with three shows, including a support slot with Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine on October 1st. The final show is at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, and it's clear that TISM have definitely left their mark on a small number of Brits - whether that's a good or bad thing remains to be seen.
Back in Australia, TISM continue to milk the success of Machiavelli, this time packaging it with what the band claim is the first ever live album to be recorded entirely in a studio: Machines Against the Rage. Another world first for TISM, it comes in a 2 CD fat-pack, complete with new silver artwork. Meanwhile, a 5th single, "All Homeboys are Dickheads", is planned, featuring remixes by up-and-coming Aussie DJ Josh Abrahams. Luckily the single slips into complete obscurity and never actually makes it pass the promo stages.
And so, after ending the year with two early December dates in Western Australia, TISM go back to their dens to sit down and try to figure out how badly they've blown their budget.
1997[]
A very pleasant year for Australian music. The youth network JJJ continues to spread its own conformative brand of individualism to far flung regions of the country. Similarly, pay TV becomes common across the continent, meaning more musical exposure on the hard hitting Channel [V]. Yet TISM are nowhere to be seen.
Little do the public know that the band are feverishly working on a new album, with up and coming Australian producer Magoo, who has just worked on Regurgitator's decidedly electronic album, Unit. TISM spend virtually all year making their follow up to Machiavelli, and hence there's no time for pooncing about ln front of paying audiences.
Like some sort of sick and twisted intermission, TISM record a "one off" single which is released in July, the ill-fated "Shut Up – The Footy's on the Radio". The song is actually written for a Triple M competition, looking for a footy theme that "doesn't resort to naming every player in AFL's history." The other entries (if any) mustn't be any good, because somehow TISM comes out on top, and their throwaway techno-rock can be heard throughout the AFL season on MMM nationally. As if that isn't enough, the band release the song as a single which the public can buy if they so desire, which they don't. The silence returns.
TISM promise that "Shut Up..." won't appear on their new album, and also state, by way of a chicken shit apology, that it "won't be a mini-album." Another single is shipped out in time for Christmas, the plainly titled "Yob". It doesn't make a large impact on the commercial or "alternative" airwaves, although somehow the crude B-side "The Last Australian Guitar Hero" is the most requested song for one solitary night on JJJ's RequestFest.
Music lovers everywhere are pleased to see that judging from the cover of the single, TISM appear to have been mauled by a canine, and celebrate the fact that December 31st will mean that TISM have gone 3 years without putting out an album.
1998[]
Ron Hitler-Barassi naked at a TISM show, 1998
The quietness continues. Many are undoubtedly fooled by this long period of dormancy into thinking that TISM no longer exist. In April, a strange TISM-esque band called "Smacka My Bitch Up Fitzgibbon" plays a show at the Punters Club in Fitzroy, followed by "The Impossible Poonces" who perform the next night. That same evening, TISM decide to converse with their rabid fans via an online web chat, which is broadcast from their new website, www.tism.wanker.com. Incidentally, this is the title of the album they are about to release.
The lead single goes largely unnoticed. Only 3RRR in Melbourne are brave enough to air the track, while the video clip, which features, among other sexually oriented scenes, an ex-stripper performing fellatio on a man in a Jeff Kennett mask, as well as blatant cocaine use, is for some reason not shown on the ABC's music program Rage.
TISM play at Adelaide's Indyfest, giving punters a taste of the new tracks and also debuting their new "Hooked on Crap" medley, which features a montage of older TISM tracks. The band then continue the internet theme by doing another live web chat, this time from the studios of Channel [V], where they also complain about poor lighting design and discuss fashion with Jabbatron, before performing the diatribe "Michael Hutchence in Hell" live on his show The Joint.
TISM do a brief pre-album stint around the Eastern states, including a gig at The Woolshed in Geelong on May 15th. But on June 2nd, the calm before the storm ends. The new TISM album hits shelves, and contains 12 brand new incredibly polished and skillfully produced tracks. The diversity of the new album confuses TISM fans everywhere, while JJJ immediately jump on the disco track, "Whatareya?".
The album also comes with a bonus disc full of noises which TISM insist are songs, and a large number of retailers both large and small actually send this disc back to the record company, believing that it is indeed a faulty pressing. Furthermore, the internet theme manifests itself with the CD-ROM component, which TISM now claim to be "a load of shit". At least it included the banned video for the single "I Might Be a C*nt, But I'm Not a Fucking C*nt".
By late June, the album has received mixed reviews from virtually every magazine in the country, and TISM invade the Recovery TV program to perform their new single "Whatareya?" live to the nation before setting out on the Caveat Emptour with The Fauves and Regurgitator. Still promoting their hit Unit album, Regurgitator pull big crowds. TISM's stage show includes personal messages from Prime Minister John Howard, as well as dancing TISM figurines being projected onto a backdrop. TISM aim powerful Halogen lamps at concert goers in the front row, and indulge in a Minogue-esque mid-set costume change. To cap it all off, the tour brings with it an on-stage inflatable castle, complete with shrieking kiddies.
This circus of nonsense chicanes through South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, and back down the East Coast, even visiting Tasmania and doing some more shows for their close neighbours in New Zealand at the Power Station, Auckland on July 31st, and the Indigo Bar, Wellington on August 1st. Occasionally the show ends with all 3 bands appearing on stage for a grand finale of immensely silly proportions.
TISM do a homecoming show at Monash University in Melbourne, and then go back to headquarters for a short hibernation period. In the meantime, a new TISM video is being manically purchased by the obsessed fans. Confusingly, it's called Gold! Gold!! Gold!!!, just like their bonus CD from 1996. wanker.com continues to sell... slowly. November sees the release of another single, this time "Thunderbirds are Coming Out" which has been remixed for the radio listening public. The track enjoys some popularity but doesn't quite match "Whatareya?"'s #2 position in the JJJ weekly Net 50 chart.
The band head back to the ABC studios on October 31st and invade Recovery a second time, this time bringing their inflatable bouncy castles which most of the audience ending up pouncing all over, while various members of TISM play their new single or read the business section of The Age, depending on how they feel. TISM undoubtedly achieve some sort of record when they enlist around 30 other Melbourne bands to appear in their latest video clip rather than doing it themselves.
On December 5 TISM play at Sydney's annual Homebake festival in the newly built Sydney Domain. Modelling their new red and silver-spike suits, TISM look like mentally handicapped dinosaurs as they rock through a solid set. Evidently, the band have either been practising or cheating, because they're actually sounding rather good. They also debut two new tracks, written during their mid-year siesta, which the crowd slam-dance to mindlessly.
TISM seem to be entering some sort of rare, mysterious, and usually unreachable zone of quality. Channel [V] later broadcast TISM's entire Homebake set, and unsuspecting teenagers everywhere witness the bands on-stage totem-tennis match, along with revamped TISM classics such as "Death Death Death Amway Amway Amway".
The band are announced to play Sydney's Soap Festival, but it's cancelled and they end up playing another, located at Glenworth. They then fly to Perth and bring in the new year with thousands of drunken punters at the Margaret River gig. For once, everyone seems happy.
1999[]
TISM had kept in touch with their fans throughout 1998 via their wanker.com website. Some fans embraced this new, loving side of TISM, while others trashed the message boards with insightful messages such as "fuck of yoo wankas!!", "TISM are pooftas!", etcetera etcetera.
The band hinted that a second national tour might occur but sadly this is not forthcoming, and now thousands of TISM junkies find themselves being left cold-turkey. This is not a good thing; fans are nervous, jittery, twitching, breaking out in sweat, and indeed they almost induce riots when TISM state that there are no plans to be on the 1999 Big Day Out comeback tour.
But as fate would have it, German outfit Rammstein, famous for their onstage antics (including simulated gay fellatio and fire breathing, among other things) are unable to make the tour due to one of their members breaking his leg. Who on earth can fill the gaping orifice left in the mammoth bill by the cancellation of these Kraut weirdos? Well, we don't know, But the promoters make do with TISM for the Sydney and Melbourne dates of the tour. TISM fans in these cities are elated. Fans elsewhere are completely shitted off.
Queenslanders find some solace when TISM decide to play 2 February shows for them - the 19th in Brisbane, and Saturday the 20th at The Playroom, in Surfer's Paradise - before slipping back into obscurity. It is around this time that TISM management begin contacting a number of online fans who have their own "unofficial" TISM websites. It turns out that the tism.wanker.com address, which TISM concede was "a thinly veiled marketing ploy", has expired, and TISM need a new website, which they preferably won't have to lift a finger for.
The new site, www.tism.net exists online for little over a month, before vanishing into the vast abyss of the internet. It seems to have a voodoo-like effect on TISM, who find themselves turning back promoters, and electing to scrap all of their newly written songs and starting again. The band are also slated to appear on the Channel 9 show Molloy, but Mick finds his informal chat show axed before it's first series is over.
So after a short break, TISM begin an intense 2 month rehearsal/writing regimen. Come September, they have a shortlist of around 15 new songs, with titles like "Totally Addicted to Skase". These are performed to a select few, and though hopes are high among fans, the consensus of the insiders turns out to be "Nearly, but not quite." Even TISM have standards, and this time they're not fucking about. They begin writing again immediately.
Electing not to do a New Year's Eve gig, instead the band contracts gastro and spends the night lavatory-bound - a fitting way to say "Get Fucked" to 1999.
Members[]
Current line-up[]
TISM, 2004
- Humphrey B. Flaubert – vocals, programming, percussion (1982-2004; 2022–)
- Ron Hitler-Barassi – vocals (1983–2004; 2022–)
- Jock Cheese – bass, vocals, guitar (1982–2004; 2022–)
- Eugene de la Hot-Croix Bun – keyboards, vocals (1982–2004; 2022–)
- Vladimir Lenin-McCartney (II) – guitar (2024–)
- Les Miserables (II) – dancing, vocals, saxophone (1991–2004; 2022–)
- Jon St. Peenis (II) – dancing, vocals (1991–2004; 2022–)
Past members[]
- Genre B. Goode – vocals (1982–1985)
- Leak Van Vlalen – guitar (1982–1991)
- Les Miserables (I) – dancing (1982–1991)
- Jon St. Peenis (I) – dancing, saxophone (1982–1991)
- Tokin' Blackman (aka Tony Coitus) – guitar, orchestral arrangements (1991-2004; died 2008)
- Vladimir Lenin-McCartney (I) – guitar (2022–2024)
Discography[]
- see TISM discography
- Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance (1988)
- Hot Dogma (1990)
- Machiavelli and the Four Seasons (1995)
- www.tism.wanker.com (1998)
- De Rigueurmortis (2001)
- The White Albun (2004)
- Death to Art (2024)
Videography[]
- see TISM videography
- The TISM Television Primer (1989)
- Shoddy and Poor (1989)
- Incontinent in Ten Continents (1992)
- Boyz N The Hoods (1992)
- Gold! Gold!! Gold!!! (1998)
- The White Albun (2004)
Bibliography[]
- The TISM Guide to Little Aesthetics (1990)
Live shows[]
- see TISM live shows
- The Get Fucked Concert (1983)
- Form and Meaning Reach Ultimate Communion mini-tour (1986)
- Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance tour (1988)
- Hot Dogma tour (1990)
- Beasts of Suburban tour (1992)
- 90210-Week (1995)
- Machiavelli and the Four Seasons tour (1995)
- You'll Never Walk Again (1996)
- Impossible Poonces (1998)
- Fatboy SlimDusty (2001)
- Best Off tour (2002-2003)
- The White Albun tour (2004)
- Good Things Festival (2022)
- Death to Art tour (2024)
See also[]
- Damian Cowell
- Root!
- The DC3
- Damian Cowell's Disco Machine
- Peter Minack
- C.W.G. (Campaigning with Grant)
- Jack Holt
- Platter
- The Collaborators
- Eugene Cester
- Sean Kelly
- RealiTISM
- James "Jock" Paull
- Andrew Miglietti
- Mark Fessey
- List of TISM bedroom recordings
- genre b.goode
External links[]
- TISM at Vicious Threads
- www.tism.com.au (archived 3 February 2001 by archive.org)