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 PLUS-ONE talks turkey with POMOMOFO’s NIKOS ANDRONICOS about how his former seven-piece bagpipe funk band Haggis McShagus were going places before they realised that bagpipes were shit.
“Basically there were five guys on bagpipes – me on guitar, and Tim (Pomomofo drummer Tim McDonald) on drums. After a few gigs Tim and I decided that the bagpipe funk band would much better without the bagpipes.
“It is a fuck’n cool instrument,” Andronicos laments. “But it can only play in one key. We would go to rehearsal with all these great ideas and they can still only play in that one key”. From there Andronicos decided to defer life for a little while, and what better place than the university beer garden. “I ran into Tim in the beer garden after Mike (keyboardist Mike FWD) had just got hold of all these keyboards, and we thought, ‘why don’t we go for a jam?’” The next day through beer-goggled eyes they noticed an advertising flyer for a band comp – and guess what? They finished first at their campus, first in their state and 3rd in the national competition. When asked about the name Pomomofo, “You’re a Post Modern Mother F**ker” were the exact words used by Andronicos to describe a friend a couple of few years before. The name was shortened to Pomomofo, and as they say, the rest is tomorrow’s chip paper wrapping. The band have since gone from strength to strength playing industry gigs and headlining Rebel Rebel at Sydney’s Home nightclub. One of their latest conquests was the slaying of Jamie’s Kitchen. “It was just an incredible mis-match in terms of the fact that it was a cocktail party for the who’s who in Melbourne, and we turned up and dropped a synthesiser attack on them,” jokes Andronicos. Mixing French house in with ABBA classics and Ballroom Blitz, the boys survived until catching the ire of the head chef Jamie Oliver himself when they dropped New Kids On The Block’s Hanging Tough. Showing a sense of humour a mile-wide, Andronicos later joked to the heads of his label, Kitch 34, that he would love to do something with Speech from Arrested Development as the acts shared the label as a home in Australia. Kitch proved they had a sense of humour as well, setting the two groups up for a guest spot at a Cornelius gig. After a few hours rehearsing combined force hit the stage to perform a cover of Mr Wendell. “It was so bizarre,” says Andronicos. “I don’t think the crowd could quite believe it, but after the initial impact they all really got into it”. After the band plays the Good Vibrations festival this month, there’s no rest for the wicked. “We are going to bunker down and finish some demos we have been doing,” reveals Andronicos. “There are three new ones that we have road-tested, but we want have a few others to trial. Then hopefully we can get an album off the ground late next year.” Andronicos finishes off by stating that I’m a mofo – not wanting to take this lightly, I ask him if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. “It’s part payout, but more of a complement. Have you read Miles Davies’s autobiography – everyone’s a motherfucker, man. It’s the best compliment he could give out – for example he said…’man...that dizzy Gillespie...he’s a motherfucker’ – which is a good thing.” Pomomofo play as part of Good Vibrations (with the Beastie Boys, Snoop Dogg, Cassius, Timo Mass, and more) at Doug Jennings Park (The Spit), Gold Coast, this Sunday February 11. Their self-titled debut EP is out now through Kitch 34/Shock.
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