Legendary Melbourne electronic trio TISM just dropped a live album from their early days of debauchery and indecency. It reveals just how entertaining they actually were, being one of the funniest live acts circulating the Australian electronic scene in the late ’80s.
In true TISM style, they quietly uploaded Live At The Corner Hotel 30 May 1988, to a few digital streaming platforms on Good Friday. It hasn’t actually been officially released to anywhere or anything other than Spotify or Apple Music.
The TISM album contains 18 raw tracks recorded a few months before the release of their debut album, Great Truckin’ Songs Of The Renaissance
TISM (an acronym for This Is Serious Mum) were a seven-piece band who never revealed their identities. Their wore known for their witty humour, wearing masks on stage and playing under various individual pseudonyms.
“We desired to circumvent the cult of personality that is inherent in rock music by choosing to remain anonymous. Unlike every other band in rock we chose to be anonymous. The answer that makes me sound good would probably also incorporate some lengthy discussion about Brechtian alienation techniques, about our post-modernist grasp of ever cooling universe, and a dehumanising society encapsulated in the somewhat paramilitary aspect of our clothing. All of those things would make me sound good, but actually we’re really boring guys.” – Humphrey B. Flaubert on Return of the Pop Vigilantes
The bootleg TISM album, Live At The Corner Hotel 30 May 1988, released on April 10
After only just recently uploading their music to Spotify, this live release confirms TISM’s active online status. I think we’re all hoping for a few more treats from the TISM back-catalogue in the near future!
