Visualising the Lovely Stupid concept.

After 15 years and hundreds of live shows, Lovely Stupid Men guitarist Paul Romaine admits he still gets a bit nervous before a show.

“Our harp player has pulled a sicky,” he says, as vocalist Simon Rolph rushes past again looking harassed pre-show. “He rang up and said he was sick, but we aren’t convinced.”

The release party is at the Goethe Institut, and the musicians are sporting their most dapper suits and Paul’s hair is slicked down with enough gel to serve as a helmet on the bike ride home. After all, this is an auspicious occasion.

While TGL readers may recall a mistaken description of Lovely Stupid Men an expat band, a mistake online long enough to be spotted by Mr Rolph, with four Vietnamese members the Stupids are actually a “multilateral band”.

And what an international affair. The listing inside the CD cover names almost enough musicians to field a football team. The band just keeps on getting bigger, not to mention better.

Originally a down home pseudo country affair, the band now strums out an easy pop rock. Their tunes are simple, well constructed and earnest, but perhaps most importantly of all in a town of so much plagiarism, the songs are their own. These are all elements that segway nicely into sound – an album like a good scotch, easy tones retaining the warmth, but taking out the scorching fire.

Paul jokes and smokes before the show, recounting rock and roll stories from his past in New Zealand. Two of his previous bands hit the homeland indie charts, no small effort for a small country with big name musical exports.

The first outfit, Otto, were a group namedropped in knowing circles, drawing some serious super cool from drummer Pearl Runga. The second was thrash band Running House, a tale of woe for Paul. Told candidly, the story is hilariously stupid without any of the lovely.

As Running House filmed a video clip down at the infamous K-road markets in Auckland, NZ, fame and thrash fortune looked certain. On the day of the filming, Paul was brutally hung over, so much so that he failed to notice the booger dangling from his schnoz throughout the shoot. Either the footage would have to be shot again, or he would be doomed to be known as the booger man. Paul did what anyone would do; he fled NZ for the sunnier and less booger concerned shores of Vietnam.

The hilarity of the story taking the edge off the nerves, he seems more relaxed and ready to take to the stage. The big band assembles around their instruments. Sans harp player they are a slicker line up than the album cover listing, pared down to six. 

The Goethe Institut is the nest of German culture in Vietnam. Not that any of the band are German, it’s more that the operators of the Goethe couldn’t give a monkeys about nationality. With such an open attitude, the central courtyard is becoming one of the best art spaces the capital city has to offer - space that was fully utilised by Lovely Stupid Men.

Their release show was an evening of music, film and art that occupied the whole of the Goethe, and filled it to the gunwales with lovely stupid punters. Even though the band has been around for a good while already, the overwhelming crowd support was rousing, especially considering the bands hiatus from the scene when a particularly nasty accident rendered guitarist Paul unable to use one hand.

Surgery and Paul’s serious commitment to getting back on the six strings saw the band in the studio barely a year later. “Recording was crazy,” Paul said before the show. “It was eight hours a day, five days a week, plus working regular hours. Then after it was finished, I went straight back to New Zealand to get married. The last six months were crazy, but crazy good.”

And the graft has paid off. The finished product was touted on the night, a DVD/CD combo presented in a hardy metal case, all for the price of a ‘reasonable donation’, reasonable being suggested at VND150,000 (about US$10). As the band launched into arguably their best gig yet, the CDs began to sell like hot cakes.

The set list was a run through the songs on the CD, broken into two sets, between which a visual extravaganza was provided by artist Brian Ring, and another music video cut to one of their tracks. Sadly the promised video suffered that all too common “someone’s pinched the cable” fate that unravels even the most properly sound checked public performances in Hanoi.

The indoor art space was lined with the works of vocalist Simon Rolph, whose pen sketches offer deconstructed, simplified icons of day-to-day items. Birdcages and rice cookers were rendered in rough hand images lifted from the pages of the CD inlay to form an extension of the release party. Above them, images of Hanoi shot by Brian Ring on his motorbike prowlings are screened on a wall.

Brian’s visuals offer a lonely interpretation of everyday driving in Hanoi. The daytime streets and passing faces are underpinned by Lovely Stupid words in subtitle. The tandem effect is not melancholic, but renders the hard road images in a gentle frame, softening their flow. The indoor screening made for a nice juxtaposition against the night time and walking shots screened behind the band as they played, which visual mix master Keith Halstead had cut together especially for the purpose.

The pen sketches drew their own comment, as long-term expats noted a distinct similarity between Simon Rolphs work and the work of long since departed resident Paul Davis. “Paul was always ragging on [Simon] about that, saying like ‘I was doing that years ago, and you’re just getting to it now?’” one local writer recalled, albeit without malice.

Onstage, the band were joined by Ali Orr Ewing who wailed on the harmonica like there was no tomorrow. A rousing rendition of growing crowd fave Suzie played out as the CDs sold and the assembled music lovers supped more beers. With a total of 12 tracks on the album, several of which run out to around six minutes, the show ran long without being taxing. The long intermission gave plenty of time to take in the artwork and digest the first set.

All in all, the show was a sterling performance that defined the band and their first release.

After the show, several more drinks were imbibed as local musicians congregated to congratulate the band. And as one Lovely Stupid member slugged from a bottle of Bushmills like he’d stepped straight off a Guns and Roses gig, the crowd thinned and punters went away thoroughly entertained.

The Lovely Stupid Men ambled about the now empty Goethe Institut, pleased as punch with the show and ready to carry on with their respective Saturday evenings.

When in Hanoi, keep an eye on the listings. Lovely Stupid Men play fairly regularly at the Sofitel Metropol ‘Met Pub. Their self-titled CD is available by contacting: sirolph@yahoo.com 

The Good Life