So the other week was national mental health week, being someone who suffers with anxiety I know how it can really affect people, because not all forms of disability are really obvious to the naked eye.

any whilst thinking about mental health, it brought back memories of a very special band from Australia. So special that they all had certain needs, Special needs and their name was Rudely Interrupted

formed by a music therapist, they are a band from Melbourne who have pretty much every disability under the sun, Autism, Aspurges, Down Syndrome, Blindness and some of them have all of that and more.  They are the only band to my knowledge to have played in the United nations buildings in the states. So Bono can shove this up his crack pipe and smoke fat one.

They were booked to play in front of the international assembly for the disabled, which gave them a platform to play in front of people from all around the world.

I happened to come across Rudely Interrupted, because on their way over too the US, they decided to stop off in the UK and play a couple of shows, so they ended up playing Start the Bus. I remember the promoter telling me all about them, saying that they were a bit like a poppy version of Sonic Youth.

If anyone compares a band to the likes of Sonic Youth then you usually know you are onto a winner with me. so I remember turning up just as they had started, you see i had been at another gig previous on the same night. Those of you that know me know that I do this quite a lot.

I mean like I could not really express to you what I felt when I walked in! it was like being taken on some really joyous ride, with what i can only describe as being a comical but emotional tour de force. I mean so often people with these disabilities are looked down upon, I definitely wasnt the only person who was feeling the emotions.

There was one point when the bass player did an impersonation of someone sleepwalking, which had everyone laughing out loud in a way which people may not have expected. Its fair to say that they had some strong characters in their band.

Everyone who was there was just staring wide eyed, not really believing what they were seeing. They were supporting someone, who I cant quite remember who it was, but they went on stage and singer said from the off that they had been completely out played.  Stating how the hell could we follow that up. you could see everyone was very emotionally moved.

They have songs about what the singer can or cant see, in the fact that he can only see certain colours, for some reason Red and yellow, Heartbreak and the way that they have got over their disabilities.

Sounds wise there was comparisons that could be made to the aforementioned Sonic Youth, Psychedelic Furs and Joy Division. In fact they actually performed a wonky or human version of Psychedelic Furs Pretty in Pink

I also remember being interviewed by a documentary crew, and boy I found it hard to hold back the tears of joy, because there are no real public spokes people for anyone with these disabilities. You know there are no models with disabilities.


About bigjeffbristol

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s