Review by Steve Bennett

Just because your band makes music so bad no one would want to listen to it, you can’t just call it comedy – but that seems to be exactly what The Bad Father have done.

To call this strangely-dressed duo a parody of bad Eighties electro-pop would be to imply a level of humour they don’t appear to have. To a genre that’s already inherently ridiculous, they have added nothing. An hour of genuine hardcore German techno would have more laughs. The only discernable gag seems that they come from the unspecified European town of Klamidia. Geddit?

There are certainly no jokes in the usually incomprehensible lyrics, which might typically be something like: ‘You tilt me, 45 degrees/You’ve got me mixing up my numbers with my ABCs/Algebra loves looking at those double Ds/You tilt me, 45 degrees.’ That they are awful is supposed to be the point but, well, who would want to see an hour of awful Eurotrash music?

Called X and Y, he is a cuddly, self-proclaimed ‘faggot’ in mophead wig, spangles and boa, while she has a stern English-ish accent, is clad in a Lyrca catsuit/tuxedo and sports a clown’s whiteface. They look striking, that’s a given, and the presentation is impressive, with some well-put-together visuals – including a couple of delightfully patronising old public information films they’ve tracked down from the far reaches of YouTube.

Musically, too, they’re as close to the real thing as you’re likely to get without actually being The Buggles, and certainly perform with gusto. But authenticity is one thing, wit quite another.

They play with the ‘are they siblings or are they lovers?’ conundrum as teased by the White Stripes, and indeed by fellow Australian musical parodists Die Roten Punkte. And in a festival that already boasts one spoof Teutonic band, I’m not sure why anyone would want another.

Review date: 6 Apr 2010
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett