Review: Gee Tee, Pleasants & Ghoulies at Marrickville Bowling Club

It’s Friday night at the Marrickville Bowling Club and a building crowd is here to see a three-punch instalment of punk music: Gee Tee, Pleasants and Ghoulies.

There’s a mixed crowd at the bowlo tonight. Some are evidently here for the gig, wearing punk t-shirts and sporting mullets (although maybe that’s just Marrickville). Others appear to be local regulars having a couple knock-off beers, stubby cooler and all.

Our headliners for the night are local egg punk specialists Gee Tee, led by Kel Mason, who’s the songwriter behind the outfit.

In support are garage punkers Pleasants and fellow egg punkers Ghoulies, both from Perth. They’re over here this weekend for a joint run of East coast shows across Sydney and Melbourne.

The egg punk scene in Australia, particularly in Sydney is one of my personal favourite local scenes. It’s a funny subgenre, marked by its thematic unseriousness. It sounds like fast fuzzy guitar riffs, highly compressed drums and poppy guitar and synth melodies. Songs are rarely much longer than 2 minutes, and it’s a lot of fun.

Gee Tee has definitely been at the forefront of the Sydney scene, alongside peer bands such as Tee Vee Repairmann and 1-800-Mikey, who are both fantastic in their own right.

As the crowd files in we open with Pleasants, who are a great band to watch live. The four-piece play an old school kind of punk, reminding me of 70’s Australian punk like The Saints. They roll through their setlist at rapid pace, from one 2 minute song to the next.

After a short break, Ghoulies take the stage. Interestingly three of their members also played in Pleasants, they just swapped around the instruments. They’re playing a fun, cartoony brand of egg punk, with two different vocalists swapping turns each song. A mosh pit opens up during their set, and I quickly cop a stray elbow to the side of the head. My fault of course, I chose to stand so close to the flailing limbs searching for a target.

After a final break between sets, Mason and the rest of Gee Tee emerge. He’s brandishing his trademark pink ski mask that he wears while performing, and quickly gets the crowd bumping into one another at high energy. His live band is an all-star cast of Sydney’s egg punk scene. On guitar he has the man behind Tee Vee Repairmann, and on keys the man behind 1-800-Mikey. It’s evidently a very supportive scene and community.

They roll through a number of crowd favourites, including Mutant World and (I Hate) Driving in the City. Bodies are flying and someone’s getting picked up off the ground seemingly every couple of seconds. They close with the strong Dudes in the Valley, before making their way off stage after a thrilling half hour.

According to social media posts of various members of the local punk scene, it’ll be the last Gee Tee show in Sydney for the near future. They have a tour of Europe through September and October this year, and you would assume their next Sydney show would be after this.

On their return, they’re definitely one to catch live.