“Darcy, in continuing this interview, are you beginning to sense, deep in your bones, that you're going to get nothing out of it?”
Anyone with even a passing understanding of TISM (now operating under the slightly modified moniker TSIM) knows that attempting to wrangle a solitary straight answer out of traditional band spokesmen, Humphrey B. Flaubert and Ron, is simply a fool’s errand. And for this green journalist, today’s interview was no exception.
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TISM joins the call, under the impression they’re speaking with someone from Mixmaster Magazine. Humphrey laments, “We had a whole load of information we wanted to discuss about how to get the peaks of your meringue mix just right.”
Ron attempts to confer with me regarding the best setting for a Mixmaster to get your meringue to have a crusty outer and a fluffy interior. As much as I want to join in on all this cookery chat, I have to show my hand – I know nothing about baking. TISM threatens to end the interview, but instead immediately turns to discussing the sensuality of the phrase “firm meringue”. I posit that the phrase does possess a “certain implication”.
The call drops out. I’m left wondering if this was a deliberate move.
By what I suspect was an act of divine intervention, I manage to re-establish contact with Humphrey and Ron. Humphrey asks if this publication is more comparable to Kerrang! Magazine (the famous UK publication covering rock, punk and heavy metal music since 1981). We’re certainly closer than where we were with Mixmaster, but he still seems a little perturbed when I inform him our magazine focuses on music gear, instruments and production.
“We certainly don’t produce music. I don’t know who steered you in that direction. But good luck. I think that your career is on an upward trajectory, Darcy. Your name, Darcy Smart, is a beautiful stage name.”
We again travel through an extremely lengthy bypass, this time regarding the virtues of my name. Humphrey suggests that with such a strong and implicative surname, I would be a suitable candidate for the Liberal Party (no thanks). Ron finds the gender neutral aspect of my first name to be commendable, assuring me that, whilst they are both heteronormative, they are not “heteronormative monsters” and support Mixdown’s “bi-monthly” endeavours.
Photo: High Voltage Photography
We’re nearly halfway through the time allotted for the interview when TISM finally throws me a bone and allows me a privilege rarely afforded to those who are granted an interview with them, to actually ask a question.
It’s been nearly four years since TISM re-reunited (the group performed a single, disastrous show in 1983, which instigated their initial split; they reunited the following year before a second, lengthier disappearance in 2004), once again coiling their dastardly talons around the ass-end of the Australian music industry. I’m wondering what their motivation is to continue past their Good Things Festival re-reunion dates in 2022, through to announcing the No Mistakes tour.
Ron is curt in his reply: “Private school fees. See, our youngest is still in year 10. So, three more years and it’s over.”
I note that on the No Mistakes tour, TISM plans to play “radically different” sets each show. I want to know what fans might expect and whether it’s going to be difficult learning and performing a lot of long-dormant material from their back catalogue.
Ron is completely unfazed by this notion, “We’ve got it. One set is in Times New Roman, set two is in Curvature, and the third is in Arial. Set four is in Wingdings. So we’ll have radically different sets. Some sets will be bold, some sets will be italicised. Some set lists will be laminated. So our set lists are going to be completely different for every show.”
Picking up on Ron’s savant-level knowledge of font sets, I ask which version of Wingdings he’ll want to use for set four. This pleases the masked frontman.
“This is why you’re called Darcy Smart! That is just a marvellous question. I mean, over all the years, that’s nearly the best. You’ve caught us on the hop. I know that we’ve ripped an Australian icon apart, damaged the chairs unapologetically, our new Right-Wing, Pro Pauline Hanson, Totally Support Immigration Mitigation name – all those things are shameful, but not thinking about which exact font set of Wingdings we’re going to use for a setlist. Darcy, you should join The Age and the investigative journalist unit. This is Four Corners stuff.”
I’m flattered, but internally, I’m desperate to try and get more legitimate questions answered. Instead, we go down another, mostly Wingdings-related interlude that carries on for several minutes.
Humphrey expresses his desire for the Liberal Party to focus on key issues like “How many versions of Wingdings are there?” before going down the conspiracy route.
“I was only chatting to Candace Owens the other day, who was telling me the U.S should have invaded Australia during COVID. And she said to me that there are as many versions of Wingdings as there are non-secateurs in my garden shed.”
Ron wants to see the Wingdings question added to the Australian Values Test. They then propound that I could, in fact, be the leader of a new Centrist political party, using the font as part of our marketing strategy. “Darcy Smart: Leader of the Wingdings”, Humphrey suggests. I think it has a nice ring to it.
Photo: High Voltage Photography
TISM’s performances exist in the exact centre of the universe between chaos and creation. Recently, in May, the group presented Wankers of the World Unite! at PICA in Melbourne. The show culminated in three separate TISMs playing three different songs across three different stages, a panic-attack-inducing experience that can only be described as an elaborate form of auditory terrorism.
With this in mind, I finally get another chance to ask a question that’s even remotely relevant to what the band is here to promote. In response to my query about whether the shows on the No Mistakes tour will attempt to rival the high calibre of production we’ve seen them mount in Sydney and Melbourne already this year, Humphrey declares that the next stage show will involve copious amounts of curaçao (a liqueur derived from a Caribbean variety of orange).
Providing an extraneous level of detail, Humphrey says, “We’re going to fill the stage with curaçao. Cascading floods of curaçao will come from the stage into the audience, much like a floating cloud of dry ice that sort of floats across the stage at about shin height.
I saw a little-known band called Sebastian Hardie at the Robert Blackwood Hall at Monash University in the ’70s. They were into curaçao very early, and we hope to emulate that. The audience will have had so much curaçao that their skin will turn a strange colour of grey, much like the characters in Bizarro World.”
We continue down the booze chat path for a short while longer. For some reason, Ron seems to think I’ll have a vested knowledge of Brandivino from my teenage years (which he says was “yesterday”). I get a rise out of the guys when I say the only thing I know about Brandivino is that Jimmy Barnes mentions it in Cold Chisel’s classic ‘Breakfast at Sweethearts’.
Ron chuckles. Humphrey talks about what a great word that is to use in a pop song, emphatically singing “Brand-i-vinooo” a few times before they decide that Jimmy et al should have gone with curaçao instead. Ron talks about the image the song paints of Sydney, exclaiming that it was calling out for a curaçao reference.
Photo: High Voltage Photography
For the first and only time during the entire interview, it looks like I have TISM exactly where I want them. This was my in to asking about the state of ruin the iconic Sydney Opera House was subject to in the wake of TISM’s two-night stand there in April, performing Machiavelli and The Four Seasons in full. The band received a damage claim from SOH to the tune of $18,488.88. I scurrilously suggest that this may be the reason why the band are suddenly going under their new moniker, TSIM, in a convoluted attempt to avoid seedy debt collectors who may now have a vested interest in breaking all 14 of their ankles.
Humphrey takes this line of enquiry very seriously and states matter-of-factly, “There are obviously a lot of shady connections with that band that you refer to, which isn’t TSIM – their connection with the Rocksman Promotions Company, which was purportedly bringing Candace Owens out here for a tour. Also, the links between that aforementioned group and the recent bombings of a nightclub connected to an escaped underworld figure. But I think REDACTED, the CEO of the REDACTED, knows the real answer to who’s been doing those bombings. But I can’t say anymore because our owner, Abdul Hamad, has requested that we keep this matter with the lawyers.”
Ron supplements, “We can’t be clearer than that. TSIM – Totally Support Immigration Mitigation – has nothing at all to do with the disgraceful actions of… I don’t even know the name of that other band. Nothing to do with them. We deny any liability; we deny any connection. And we would also like to say that Donald Runnicles (who conducted Mahler’s Sixth Symphony at SOH between the two TISM shows) is well known for REDACTED in REDACTED.”
At this stage, I risk letting my figurative balaclava slip. The reality is I’m slightly more than a casual fan of the group and ask a question that could be a giveaway: “Have there been any recent additions to The List of People Who TISM Think Are F****d in the Head?”, referencing the infamous diatribe found in their song, ‘The Mystery of the Artist Explained’.
Ron pauses for thought. “Well, not you, Darcy – you’re marvellous. Thank you for the Wingdings. We’ll research that. Thank you for the curaçao and meringue recipe. That’s a marvellous effort. Best of luck in your new career in the Liberal Party. You and Alex Antic will be marvellous leaders for our country. And just remember that we Totally Support Immigration Mitigation on our new pro-Pauline Hanson, pro-Barnarby Joyce tour that is kicking off in Orange. All other shows have been cancelled. We’re playing eight nights in Orange.”
After being decimated for 20 minutes with non-sequiturs and obscure references, my now weathered soul could not take any more. I went for a simple out, asking if they had any parting words for the readers of Mixdown.
Ron wishes us luck with a hitherto unmentioned soufflé, but it is Humphrey who gets the final word.
Any guesses as to what he chooses to end the interview on?
“Wingdings!”
P.S. The author has since discovered that a speed of about four on your Mixmaster is ideal for meringue. This will avoid an over-incorporation of air, which would result in the meringue possibly cracking whilst cooking.
TSIM No Mistakes tour dates
Despite Ron’s claim that all shows have been cancelled in place of an eight-night stand in Orange, you’ll actually find them playing here:
- 10 July: Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival
- 22 August: Darwin Festival
- 7 October: Forum, Melbourne
- 8 October: Forum, Melbourne
- 17 October: Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
- 21 October: Canberra Theatre, Canberra
- 24 October: Metro City, Perth
- 30 October: Enmore Theatre, Sydney
- 31 October: Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Head here for tickets.
