Music- Spiderbait (supports The Spazzys, Neon, The Gingers)

The Age

Saturday November 5, 2005

DARREN LEVIN

What Spiderbait (supports The Spazzys, Neon, The Gingers)

Where Forum Theatre, 150 Flinders Street, city

When Today, doors 6.30pm. Tickets $46.60

www.spiderbait.com.au

After 15 years of slog, it took a cover of a Huddie Ledbetter tune (of all things) to propel Spiderbait into the mainstream.

Black Betty, a stomping piece of psycho blues, was reworked with extra snarl by Spiderbait on the Tonight Alright album, landing the band a long-awaited No.1 Australian single in 2004.

Oddly enough, it was the introduction to the band for many young listeners, despite the collective sales of Spiderbait's six albums approaching the half million mark.

"We'd talk to these excited kids who didn't know our previous albums," says drummer Kram (aka Mark Maher). "It was like Tonight Alright was our debut album in some ways."

For this reason the band's greatest hits runs in reverse chronological order, beginning with recent hits Black Betty and On My Way and ending with Circle K, released on indie label Au-go-go in 1991.

The band formed a year earlier in Melbourne, despite growing up together in the southern NSW town of Finley.

"We definitely aren't a normal band," Kram says. "There's a singing drummer, a painter bassist who doesn't smoke and a partying guitarist - but all of that helps make us unique."

They will play a selection of their greatest hits tonight. -- DARREN LEVIN

© 2005 The Age

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