This month, Canada’s The Flatliners pay Australia a long overdue visit to bash out selections from their most recent banger Dead Language, as well as their esteeeeeemed and amazing back catalogue. We’ve been tracking these dudes since they played at an ungoldly hour at a crass, punx kiddie nightclub many moons ago and are still just as enamoured by their ENDLESS hooks and smashing live show as we were back then (and we were the kind of knobs that attended crass, punx kiddie nightclubs, so y’know, prone to fanboying a lot).

Before they land here, Blerg spoke to vocalist Chris Cresswell to discuss pop culture and his favourite picks for passing the time on those goddamn long haul flights.

TV PICK: Nathan For You

“That dude is hilarious and Canadian too, which is cool. He is like drier than Larry David man, it’s ridiculous. If no-one has seen the show, basically it’s just all kind of like a farce. He’s shooting around LA reality-TV style and going to local businesses with these hair-brained schemes to improve their businesses but they’re all just ridiculous ideas to the point where I don’t know how he gets away with a lot of the stuff or people to sign release forms to actually appear in it. I don’t know how he doesn’t crack when he’s filming it because it’s nuts.”

PODCAST PICK: Taggart and Torrens

“I don’t know if you’re a Trailer Park Boys fan or not, but the guy who plays J-Roc named Jonathan Torrens who’s been acting forever and was the host of a TV show when he was like 16 called Street Cents and has his own talk show called Jonovision when I was a kid that I watched all the time and had bands like Sum 41 first TV performance on Jonovision. Anyways he also has a podcast now and it’s him and the old drummer, Jeremy Taggart from a very big Canadian band called Our Lady Peace. 

“There’s not much of a formula for their podcast like they have little bits they do, which are amazing, but it’s kind of just those two guys riffing. They have such an amazing chemistry and they’re both such funny guys. They’re kind of free-balling it as well which is kind of amazing because they’ve done like 50 episodes of this show and it’s all entertaining. We got the opportunity to play as the musical entertainment during their intermission of their first live gig they did as a podcast and that was so fun. We all grew up on Our Lady Peace the band and we all love Trailer Park Boys, so to be in the midst of those guys and be fans of the podcast was great.”

More info at www.taggartntorrens.ca

PODCAST PICK: Turned Out A Punk

“Damian Abrahams from Fucked Up’s podcast, It’s really cool because he just gets people from all walks of life, normally musicians, but also like Fred Armisen was on his show recently who started off as a musician as well as being a comedian, and each person just tells their story about how they got into punk.”

More info at audioboom.com

TV PICK: The Last Man On Earth

“A new favourite of mine, it’s a great show with Will Forte and he’s hilarious. It’s crazy because the first season of that show aired this past April/May and season 2 is already out. That’s pretty wild. I don’t remember a show ever doing that.”

PODCAST PICK: WTF with Marc Maron

“I don’t listen to it every week but I think it’s really interesting and think he’s a good interviewer and has a really cool collection of guests on it. It’s crazy that Barack Obama was on it. That’s nuts. And that show reaches a lot of different people which I think is the point of a podcast.”

More info at www.wtfpod.com

The Flatliners tour Australia with Lagwagon this November and December. 

Tickets and further details via Blue Murder

Thursday 26th November – The Northern, Byron Bay
Friday 27th November – The Triffid, Brisbane
Saturday 28th November – Metro, Sydney
Sunday 29th November – Entrance Leagues, Central Coast
Wednesday 2nd December – Barwon Club, Geelong
Friday 4th December – Max Watts, Melbourne
Saturday 5th December – Unibar, Adelaide
Sunday 6th December – Amplifier, Perth