He's on smoko. Leave him alone.

November 28, 2018 12:57 PM

Stumbling around YouTube, at 4 in the morning while drunk on coffee, as one does, I came across the inexplicably entrancing video for Smoko by Australian...punk? Garage? No... band The Chats. So I did some digging and I mean, it's certainly not Australian pub rock. Down the rabbit hole I went, where I found out that "smoko" is an unofficial smoke break. Mostly I learned that "yobbo punk", while certainly not the official term, is real, often Gold Coastian, GLORIOUS, and will make your day.

I also learned that Fuckwit City is the place where I belong (because I didn't know about the beer-dribbling shirtless yobbo majesty of the Cosmic Psychos), that everything I do is Bullshit (but the shirtless guzzling-beer-from-a-shoe every-video-features-head-injuries-from-skateboard-falls Dune Rats still like it), that the Eddy Current Suppression Ring have nothing to do when they Get Up Morning, the lead singer of the Drunk Mums would rather to to the Pub On My Own, Jurassic Nark has had a Blood Nose for days in a row, and that Mini Skirt has strong feelings about Long Socks.

posted by saysthis (24 comments total)

Previously.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 1:07 PM on November 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

If Swino liked music, Fuckwit City is the sort of thing he would have listened to.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:10 PM on November 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

Sending this to my Australian work colleagues asking about their Smoko policies and potential relocation.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:19 PM on November 28, 2018

Have watched this dozens of times, thought I had got it out of my system, then I see this link and have to click on it again right away.
posted by carter at 2:15 PM on November 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

ｉｓ  ｉｔ  ｓｍｏｋｏ？
posted by helicomatic at 2:28 PM on November 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I’ve heard from people who’ve spent several months living in AU that ‘smoko’ is also used for any short break, even if nothing is smoked. I’ll defer to our antipodean friends for confirmation/denial/ or elaboration as necessary.

Great stuff though, I like their song about bus fare too.
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:38 PM on November 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

This is fantastic.
posted by TheCoug at 2:40 PM on November 28, 2018

If Swino liked music, Fuckwit City is the sort of thing he would have listened to.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:10 AM on November 29 [1 favorite +] [!]

COSMIC PSYCHOS - MAKING OF CUM THE RAW PRAWN, in which the Cosmic Psychos discuss their creative process, which appears to be shitty beer.

Eddie Vedder and Matt Lukin talk about Cosmic Psychos, apparently they seem like they would fight you but they actually won't. "There's no reading between the lines with their lyrics."

Beer, snags and punk riffs at Mad Macka’s Guitar School, in which we discover the man behind Fuckwit City has a law degree.
posted by saysthis at 2:42 PM on November 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

You should also be looking at Amyl and the Sniffers, Tyrannamen (audio only unfortunately).
posted by awfurby at 2:58 PM on November 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

‘Milk crate throne’ is a great phrase.
posted by jjderooy at 3:08 PM on November 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

You should also be looking at Amyl and the Sniffers, Tyrannamen (audio only unfortunately).
posted by awfurby at 6:58 AM on November 29 [1 favorite −] [!]

Loving Amyl and the Sniffers!
posted by saysthis at 3:09 PM on November 28, 2018

Yeah, smoko just means break, you don't have to smoke. It is perhaps a more commonly used term among those that do though.

It's not really unofficial either, I've heard plenty of managers use it (myself included) in formal-ish ways to tell people when they get their break. It's probably not used within the reserve bank or anything though.
posted by deadwax at 3:49 PM on November 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

ON SMOKO

dammit I thought I’d escaped this song’s grasp lol
posted by nikaspark at 4:02 PM on November 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh man, the Cosmic Psychos are still alive? How is that even possible?
posted by ardgedee at 4:06 PM on November 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Still doing the odd gig, I believe.
posted by pompomtom at 7:07 PM on November 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

If you want more of this sort of thing, there's the 1970s Sharpie subculture (and before that, the "bodgie" subculture), a native working-class rock culture that was a precursor to Australian pub-rock; there was an annotated compilation titled When Sharpies Ruled The World.

A lot of Australian post-punk (such as the famous inner-Melbourne "little band" scene, chronicled in the 1986 film Dogs In Space) was, at least in part, a reaction to the testosterone-heavy dullness of the pub-rock monoculture of 1970s Australia.
posted by acb at 2:48 AM on November 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

This makes me happy.
posted by MexicanYenta at 2:57 AM on November 29, 2018

(such as the famous inner-Melbourne "little band" scene, chronicled in the 1986 film Dogs In Space)

Holy second-post-that-would-defy-quota-and-time-to-make this is...I found a torrent of Dogs in Space and am watching the first minutes and I am incredibly grateful to metafilter for being a place where the sharing of these things happens. Thank you, acb.
posted by saysthis at 3:07 AM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I dunno what it's called, its definitely a genre though.
There's some kind of connection there back to The Birthday Party etc
(and a colleague just today introduced me to Venom P. Stinger, so there you go).

For a slightly less aggro kind of lo-fi, check out Courtney Barnett.
posted by nickzoic at 3:58 AM on November 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

For a slightly less aggro kind of lo-fi, check out Courtney Barnett.

Who's somewhere between Aussie pub-rock and dolewave (i.e., a laconic, shambolic Australian analogue to indiepop that filled the void after the Lucksmiths broke up).
posted by acb at 4:44 AM on November 29, 2018

Four Loko for Smoko
posted by Juffo-Wup at 5:57 PM on November 29, 2018

We even used to call the 5 minute morning tea break smoko at one school I went to.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 8:24 AM on November 30, 2018

btw is this the Aussie punk thread?
Oh goody!
Here's The Saints.
posted by carter at 2:59 PM on December 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

btw is this the Aussie punk thread?

I don't know if it is, but that's a thread that should exist if it doesn't yet, and it should be somewhere accessible for longer than the front page. My post quota is up (I think) so if someone smarter than me wants a go... I'm legit on smoko. Maybe next month?
posted by saysthis at 2:28 PM on December 10, 2018