Taboo Tunes: A night to remember

Christine Lai thinks that live gigs are the best thing to happen for the music industry since lockdown blues.

content warning: mention of self-harm in lyrics

 My friend S and I make our way over to the charming hole-in-the-wall, finding ourselves a seat at a table amongst the pack. S orders a drink while my eyes roam the room, seeing an intimate crowd of about twenty who have made themselves at home. The crowd is sprawled out on the brown leather couches or up on the stools with highball glasses sat on their tables. Voices chat lightly and there is laughter against the rising thrum and fall of beats in the background, a gentle breeze sneaks in through the doors and white noise comfortably settles over us while S washes down his first drink of the night, a steady vodka lemonade. The night after all, is still young.

Taboo Performance, USyd’s society for student performance, could not have held their debut event at a better time. With the release of the long-awaited and coveted Spotify wrapped, end of exams and end of year approaching, ‘Taboo Tunes’ was warmly welcomed to the stage for an evening of new tunes, stellar vibes and rising stars at our adored Hermann’s Bar. 

A newly formed society, Taboo Performances is all inclusive to budding student musicians and connoisseurs alike from Usyd, though their event on Thursday (2 December), happened to feature performances exclusive to students from the Con, demonstrating a snippet of their vocal abilities. Taboo Performances are hoping to highlight the Con students’ talents and bring them over to the main campus to mix the two cohorts together, aiming to provide opportunities to musically inclined individuals and give them the space to perform across a breadth of genres. Their first event delivered a line-up that offered a diverse mix of live tracks, ranging from alternative, garage-grunge, rock and indie-folk.

Set 1: Zsa Zsa (They/She)

The opening act, Zsa Zsa Gyulay kicked off the night with an alternative grunge and rock sound, relishing in steady strumming patterns to echo a refrain that was present throughout their set - on fraying relationships in the modern age and a sardonic reflection on the party scene. With quipped lines like, “In my loving arms is the place to be, from around midnight to half past three/ If you try to say no they’ll spike your drink” (this imagery complements Alessia Cara’s Here and sheds a comment on the absence of consent during drink-spiking). Zsa Zsa’s vocals are layered and their oscillation between quick-paced melodies and the stripped veneer of electric guitar and their voice alone holds the stage in flux. Offering a rockier Cavetown-esque sound, their words, “this summer we’ll be reconciling, I’ll catch my feelings when we’re both on tv” stick.

In a sycophantic desire-fuelled mess, we live in abridged chaos, and Zsa Zsa offers no remedy to the cause, only a painted desire to channel it into music.

Insta: @zsa.zsa.gyulay

Bandcamp: https://zsazsa.bandcamp.com/

SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/zsa-zsa-gyulay

Set 2: Stella Ghost (She/Her)

Donning a green cardigan, a black top, bedazzled earrings and space buns, Stella Ghost brought the nonchalant-steely-gaze-rock-star-look to life, while her vocals offered a surprising soft and angelic tone. In Confession, the repeated two-beat phrasing situated itself in a grunge alternative soundscape and crescendoed alongside the lyrics, “I’ve got a confession that I want to tell you”. Cut with simpler melodies, Stella Ghost demands the audience to listen to her, bringing an honest and cathartic mode of storytelling that is guttural and striking.

Accompanied by Martin O’Flynn (Taboo’s event organiser for the night) on the electric guitar, Stella Ghost introduced her fourth song from the set, Love Drug, written in 2020 and currently out on Spotify under her moniker, Eve Sophia. Love Drug offers a psychedelic trip as Stella Ghost’s vocals tether a fraught desperation to the increasingly daunting proposition of self-harm and oscillates between impulse and inaction. Her lyrics, “I’ve been thinking about killing myself, but I don’t have the guts or a razor”, are whisper-sung (in Billie Eilish fashion), almost like she’s afraid that if she says these words any louder, they’ll suddenly ring true.

Stella Ghost gives me: Angie McMahon mixed with a more alternative version of May-A

Insta: @stellagh0st

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6QPCTt04td05IDSYl0mJGj

Set 3: Sky Bison (He/Him)

The smooth, low vocals of Sky Bison (Adam Crutcher) arrived at a new territory, situating us into the hushed goldmine of an alternative indie scene, unabashedly grounding the tracks with pleasing refrains. If I were to place him into the landscape of a film (not dissimilar to McFly’s presence in Just My Luck) I would imagine it to be in this vein: Sky Bison singing with a guitar over his shoulder, on the corner of a pub and bookshop in Brighton, with cobblestone streets and passers-by watching on. Sky Bison sings, “You’re your own worst enemy” and “I can’t feel for you what you don’t wanna feel”, presenting a subject mired in frustration. His request to “trust your blanket, not your walls”, offers us a small consolation to the fraying emotional bandwidth which the song encompasses.

His last song, Fallen Stars springs forth an indie/country swagger and occupies a funkier George Ezra/Jake Bugg mix.

Insta: @skybisonband

Set 4: Maddie Maronese (She/Her) 

The last set of the night featured Maddie Maronese, accompanied by Martin O’Flynn once more. A last-minute addition to the set, she was unencumbered by the quick change and took to the stage with ease, luring us in with her powerhouse vocals.

Termed as a “husky Adele” by S, I raise that point further to offer The Cranberries and Amy Winehouse to the mix. Maronese heroes a sultry ambience and sings of betting on losing days, and “spending late nights, you’re not special no matter what your mamma used to tell you”.

Insta: @maddie_maronese

Taboo Tunes endeavoured to provide a diverse range of performances by artists across genres and bounced off guitar arpeggios, ripping riffs and a lovely arrangement of vocals flickering between soft, idyllic, smooth and emphatic. The first of many events by Taboo Performances, this proved to be a hallmark for success, with a lovely atmosphere hosted at Hermann’s and quipped jokes in between sets like the classic, “why did the chicken cross the road?”- a joke which went unanswered before a chorus of laughter followed suit.

The triple threat of all good nights involves scribbling on cocktail napkins, downing beer jugs and choruses cheering in a room slowly coming undone while live music plays. Taboo Tunes is the place to be.