TISM SYNOPSIS

There has never been another band like TISM.

Here’s just a few highlights:

• They once accepted an ARIA award by calling the music industry a “septic boil on the buttock of humanity”

• They once performed as two TISMs playing different songs simultaneously from both ends of a venue

• They followed up their commercial breakthrough with a single titled: “I Might Be A Cunt But I’m Not A Fucking Cunt”

• They once performed in front of a full theatre production of Shakespeare’s “Othello” (which was unheard by the audience)

• They once did a press interview via megaphones and a 50 metre length of string which had to be taut if they were to answer a question

• Last year they released an album containing 70 minutes of silence

We could go on for hours.

And after 18 years, without explanation, TISM are back.

Of course, you do realise this is NOT their comeback. TISM played one show, ‘The Get Fucked Concert’, in 1983, and then split up. Their ‘comeback tour’ began the next day, and has been going for 39 years.

Why here? Why now? You can bet you’ll never get a straight answer out of TISM. Who or what the fuck is TISM? Masks. Costumes. Dancing. Pop music. House beats with suburban rock guitars. Obscenity, but also poetry and searing social commentary. Try to resist singing along to “I’m on the drug that killed River Phoenix” or “Greg, the stop sign!” or Defecate on my face”. Serious. Silly. Highbrow. Lowbrow. All of the above. And they’re likely to disappear again, so you’re witnessing a fleeting slice of Australian music history.

TISM don’t give a shit about us. Or even themselves. They are wonderfully, annoyingly, career-sabotagingly, uniquely - TISM.