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[title]When Melbourne alt-rock band Tism were announced as one of the main acts for this year’s Good Things festival back in June, it was something of a special moment for those in the Australian music scene.
Here was a band who had long been absent from our collective consciousness (18 years, to be precise), and whose legacy as not only troublemakers, but musicians and live performers preceded them. Thus, it meant we were likely about to be drawn back into the group’s calculated lunacy multiple times over the coming months as we tended towards Good Things’ kick off in December.
But from the point of view of both a journalist and a longtime dedicated fan of the band, it meant the chance of interviewing the band was back on the table. Stories have long been traded throughout the band’s fanbase about the ridiculous hoops that Tism would make journalists jump through. Of note are the oft-repeated tales of a journalist forced to interview the band in a freezer, or another whose interview took place in a Melbourne restaurant while dressed in a wetsuit.
Soon after the announcement of their reunion, I took a chance and had my first chat with the group. As expected, it was 20 minutes of abject futility. Attempts to ask questions about their reunion, their return to the Australian music scene, and what fans could expect when they return to the stage later this year fell upon deaf ears.
Rather, instead of providing me with an invaluable insight into the mind of Tism, I was instead met with discussions of The Kid Laroi, their desire to see Herb Alpert and the Ray Conniff Singers at Good Things (neither of whom are actually on the lineup), a literary quiz on Gerard Manley Hopkins, and a lengthy rumination on the importance of modern dentistry.
On one hand, this was exactly what one would expect from interviewing founding frontmen Humphrey B. Flaubert and Ron Hitler-Barassi. Why would anyone go into a discussion with Tism and expect to participate in a lengthy, far-reaching, informative discussion into their artistry and creative process anyway?
But on the other hand, I like to consider myself as something of a journalist, and if I’m emerging from the telephonic battlefront that is an interview with Tism without a single shred of information in regards to what’s on the horizon for them, have I really done my job?
Just last week, another opportunity came my way to chat with the pair. Still sporting the bruised ego and shattered pride that comes packaged by way of an interview with them, I’ll admit I was a little hesitant. But this time, I had a couple of aces up my sleeve. We spoke a day before the release of their Collected Versus compilation, for which I had penned the accompanying liner notes.
Surely that would help transcend the typically-adversarial gulf that lay between us, right? Or, failing that, at least I was across their schtick. After all, I’d interviewed them recently; I was sharp, I was aware, and I was ready. Sadly, I was cursed by my own hubris.
As the phone rang, a nervous final glance toward my prepared questions served as a reminder to keep the entire process – as Tism themselves once said in one of their songs – “short, sweet, and vitriolic”, urging myself to remain on the front foot so as to sabotage any hopes of Flaubert or Hitler-Barassi getting the better of me. To my abject horror, however, it felt as though I had simply picked up the phone mid-conversation, joining in on the continuation of our previous discussion.
“Now I actually think molar work is important, it's much neglected,” opined the familiar voice of Hitler-Barassi. “There's the flashier front teeth, where it's all about presentation, but without the molars working, it's an uncomfortable life.”
This was not the start I was hoping for. Another 20 minutes spent discussing modern dentistry was not how I wanted to pass the time in this interview. I needed an out – anything to allow me to get in control and barrel in with a question of my own. But before I had time to think, Hitler-Barassi was asking me a question.
“You meet The Kid Laroi socially – not in a rock and roll context, let's just say, at the bread shop,” he requested. “How do you address him?”
Flustered, a feeble attempt to take control manifested by way of my own suggestion that “formally or casually” would be the way to go (as opposed to all other options available). But now I was in the thick of it, and even a late attempt to suggest “mate” as an option saw the conversational tsunami that is Tism wash over me as they discussed the cultural significance of the suburban bakery.
“I think a bread shop is such an important, symbolic part [of social life], because of the dusting,” offered Flaubert. “The dusting of cinnamon on the croissant, or the dusting of flour over the bread, which I feel is a kind of religious and ceremonial act. And it does bring to mind the great Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass.”
I could see we were getting nowhere fast. I suggested that perhaps we were taking something of an unnecessary leap in connecting the two concepts, though this served as to only fuel the fire more.
“I think that as I explain it to you further, Tyler, you'll come to understand that that was not such a massive leap,” retorted Flaubert. “In fact the quotidian nature of dusting can be no better expressed in the terrible, in the absolutely appalling death of Herb Alpert at his own hand.
“Which is a little-known story in the rock circles, but I know, Tyler, that you are here to print the hard stuff,” he added. “You're here to break the story.”
“Stuff like, ‘What are you wearing?’, the Good Things festival and all that, that's not of any interest to you,” Hitler-Barassi wrongly suggested.
But what was the story behind the death of Alpert? How did he meet his ostensible, untimely end? Given this conversation had apparently found its level, it was time to at least understand the topic de jour. I pushed my questions off to the side as I pressed onwards.
“Well, he grated off his own scrotum. That's pretty much what happened,” explained Flaubert in graphic detail. “It took him months, because he did not choose the brutal setting, the brutal carrot julienning setting, which takes massive chunks out of your ball bag. No, he chose the light dusting."
“That's why, if we take it back to ‘how do you address The Kid Laroi in the bread shop’, we were thinking that question was bouncing around in Herb's mind, and led him to this terrible end.”
The notion of someone slowly meeting their painful end began to resonate with me. This Sisyphean effort of attempting to interview Tism was indeed one that could be likened to the visceral imagery which was being offered up by the group. This, however, seemed to be their plan as they began to connect the dots, underlining the similarities between Alpert’s supposed actions and the futile exercise that lay before me.
“Into the valley of death rode the four horsemen. That image was going through Herb’s mind, and much in the way that young Tyler Jenke has interviewed Tism once, and returned a second time,” Flaubert noted. “He had to sit there and listen to two fuckwits go on about dental work."
“But Tyler is there with the grater, he is removing it with his red right hand, he is taking off the second testicle as we speak. Literally, as we speak. He's thinking of all those questions that he needs to ask.”
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. Truthfully, I’d expected as such, and my list of questions was admittedly minimal, but I felt as though I needed to get something from the pair. However, that would likely have to wait as they continued on with their tirade.
“I just admire you Tyler,” Flaubert continued. “Because the futility of trying to have an interview with Tism, it's The Loneliness Of The Long-Distance Runner, but there'll be no payoff in the end. You do know that?"
“And this is not going to end well,” he added. “It'll end with you on the floor of the bathroom, surrounded by a halo of your own scrotal tissue…”
It was beginning to look like a preferable option, but regardless, I was intrigued as to just where the pair were actually going with this. Moments later, my answer came as they directed me to Paris, discussing the supposed monument at Paris’ Père Lachaise Cemetery dedicated to Alpert’s legacy.
According to Hitler-Barassi and Flaubert, if one was to file past the grave of Jim Morrison and past the locations which will day be occupied by other Morrisons (“Van Morrison's planning to go there when he dies,” explains Flaubert. “Lindy Morrison, the drummer for The Go-Betweens, and Scott Morrison will be having five graves there”), you’ll be met with a beautiful marble memorial, not unlike the memorial that adorns Flaubert’s kitchen splashback thanks to the funds provided by the Good Things team.
“And did you know, Tyler, that The Kid Laroi’s real name is Herb; Herb Laroi,” Flaubert continued. “So, really, in summation, we're hoping to do a really good show at Good Things. We're gonna play all the hits.”
“We hope that we’ll have new albums out,” echoed Hitler-Barassi.
“Yes, the good people at Good Things are going to love us,” added Flaubert. “All of the members of Tism are Scott Morrison, as you would know, and we're hoping that everyone comes together in a communal celebration of the life of Herb Alpert.”
If ever I was going to take control of the narrative, now was the time. “Does any of this matter considering that Herb Alpert is still alive?” I questioned. “Does that happen to play into things at all?”
“Did you Google him?” asked Hitler-Barassi. “We probably should’ve done that before this interview.”
Truly, it probably would've saved a lot of time on all fronts.
But what of Tism’s upcoming shows? What did they have in store for the Good Things crowd in December? Did they care to take in sets from the likes of Bring Me The Horizon, Deftones, or tourmates-turned-supposed-rivals Regurgitator? It looks like we’ll never know, because rather than answer any of my hard-hitting questions, the pair were more interested in setting the record straight.
“I do like that an interview we’ve just done has appeared in NME with some fabulous disclaimers at the end,” Flaubert noted. “Don’t bother reading the interview, just read the disclaimers at the end, they are magnificent.”
It was starting to look as though I’d also need to turn my entire write-up into one lone disclaimer, setting the record straight in regards to the alternative facts offered by the group.
“I think, really, you should cut all this previous stuff we've said for the last 19 minutes and 54 seconds and just go with disclaimers,” suggests Flaubert. “Pop in one about The Kid Laroi."
“Pop in the disclaimer that ‘addressing him as “mate” is quite a normal, Australian thing to do’, and ‘please don’t be discouraged, reader, as addressing The Kid Laroi, should you see him at a bread shop, but he doesn’t go to bread shops, he is in his private jet having bread fed to him – various sourdoughs – by the very living, and very healthy Herb Alpert.’”
Thank goodness neither Herb Alpert or The Kid Laroi are actually on the Good Things lineup; we’d never hear the end of it.
Good Things Festival is on December 2. You can pick up tickets to see Tism, but unfortunately not Herb Alpert, at the website.