TISM have released their first new single in over 20 years, I’ve Gone Hillsong.
An instant TISM earworm, I've Gone Hillsong puts the poo-jogger, Italian terrorism and our former PM together as only TISM can. The new track is also accompanied today by a brand new music video, showcasing the band's 2022 Good Things Festival set alongside singalong-ready lyrics.
The single is released in conjunction with the exciting news that TISM will be performing three East Coast mainland shows in early 2024. Fans should head here to sign up for the freshest news on the live shows as soon as it comes to hand.
In the wake of the singles release the band issued the following statement.
"If there’s one thing the Voice referendum has taught us, it’s that the way to bring our divided nation together is by members of minority groups saying things white men want to hear.
That’s why we at TISM have decided, in the spirit of unity, to acknowledge the many things we have in common with the people at Advance: oldness, whiteness, heterosexuality, impotence. Both of us hate Get Up, mainly ’cos we can’t anymore.
For too long old white people have been silenced. It’s quite a shock, frankly, to see people in cabinet who you didn’t know already from the golf club. So Advance and us had a chat after a very ticklish wedge shot at the 17th, and produced a list of people from so-called “minority groups” who will say all the things we truly think, but are too full of gin and tonic to enunciate without slurring. It’s just like how Barnaby and Tony and the whole of Sky News gets so excited when Jacinta Nampijinpa Price finally says out loud all the things the voices in their heads have been whispering to them for so many years, but she gets away with it because she’s black! Who would’ve thought that would’ve worked! Thank god grandpapa didn’t breed ’em out after all!
Another similarity between Advance – whose referendum campaign director told phone volunteers to not identify themselves as being from the No campaign, to then raise bogus suggestions of financial compensation to Indigenous Australians if it succeeded, and explained to them that uncertainty, doubt and fear were the keys to victory – and TISM, who are a masked and pseudonymous group – is a total commitment to openness.
So here’s the TISM-Advance list of the issues on which we have been silenced, and the suggested minority spokespeople who would speak for us. We’ve included those of our notes that remained distinguishable from the golf scores, which was a pain in the arse, especially given we haven’t had this legalled yet, and we’ll probably have to think of another press release idea anyway:
The Mundine-Price ‘This Needs a Minority Spokesperson’ Issues List
Issue 1: You’re not allowed to even look at a pretty woman anymore.
Details: What says “I value you as a person” more than staring at someone’s rack?
Minority Spokesperson: Moira Deeming
Notes: Hot. Christian. Touched by Jesus, doesn’t seem to mind. Nice rack.
Issue 2: Aboriginal disadvantage.
Details: Actually, this has been solved now, as far as we’re concerned.
Minority Spokespersons: Warren Mundine and Jacinta
Notes: Look, it’s true we haven’t talked to them about it lately. Frankly, these two say a lot of things, but the only bit we remember is the most important message of all: nothing has ever been our fault.
Issue 3: Protecting heterosexual marriage
Details: If there’s one time you value the sanctity of marriage, it’s when you’ve just finished banging the intern. Imagine having to talk to her when you’re home trying to watch Kayo!
Minority Spokesperson: Barnaby Joyce
Notes: Disappointed not to have got an invite to the wedding, but prepared to wait for the next time.
Issue 4: Endangered species
Details: We need an animal representative from a nearly extinct species to deny there’s any problem, and we need one fast, before they’re all gone.
Minority Spokesperson: A trained dolphin – we could use fish treats to make it nod and shake its head, and when it’s asked, “Are you endangered, Robby?”, it very aggressively signifies no, in a manner that implies this is only a concern for inner city elites.
Notes: Look, even we know this is fucking stupid, but it was suggested by Richard Colbeck, he worked really hard on the PowerPoint; yes, it was unfortunate when he used crayon on the interactive white board, but he’s a nice boy, tries hard, 6/10. And for white men like us, if that doesn’t get you a cabinet post, what’s the world coming to?
Issue 5: Greta Thunberg
Details: She shits blokes like us, she really shits us, we don’t know why, it’s like someone’s turned on a Van de Graaff generator, and all our hair sticks up and we go fucking nuts.
(By the way, that reference to Van de Graaff shows that we do respect science. This was an instrument invented by Eddie Van de Graaff, who also played on such hits as “Jump”, “Hot For Teacher”, and “Centrefold.”)
(By the way by the way, Maurice Newman has just pointed out that Centrefold was the J. Geils Band, which just shows what a stickler he is for authentic scientific investigation, which is no surprise, given he was the one who exploded the myth of global warming by his poetry-based research regarding Australia having always been a land of “drought and flooding rains”, and his more obscure use of Sylvia Plath’s Tulips: “The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.” As he has explained so convincingly, this shows that plant species have been influenced by climatic anomalies since at least 1965.)
Minority Spokesperson: We need to find an anti-Greta: a young female with no moral sense prepared to publicly humiliate herself by spreading senseless opinions and shallow, disingenuous, dangerous propaganda. This would be produced in very short video form, with lots of dancing and colourful text. If only social media had someone like that!
Notes: Shit rack.
Issue 6: Smarmy left-leaning rock bands.
Details: Fucking ARIA award speeches!
Minority Spokesperson: TISM
Notes: Obvious.
Finally, what the fuck is going on with all the pearl-clutching over the band members fighting onstage at the Brian Jonestown Massacre gig?
That’s nothing! You should see what it’s like at a Liberal Party caucus meeting, especially down in the Victorian division. Oh, those epic nights, when the hard-right boys take off their cardigans; Angus Taylor’s dangerous nipples start pointing like a rutting satyr’s; and a group of us with bloody faces feast on the entrails of the last moderate, whilst, rising from the scuffle, pale white rumps breach majestically, like the leviathan above the watery main. There’s no wussy safety curtain then, folks – there’s nothing at all to protect you from these people who think they should be running the country.
Also, TISM ANNOUNCE NEW FULL LENGTH MUSICAL THEATRE PRODUCTION.
We have released via streaming services the theme tune to our upcoming musical theatre extravaganza set amongst gangsters, hustlers and crap games, where Sky Masterson, an inveterate gambler, is trying to invite devout Sarah Brown on a date, all set in the seedy speakeasy scene of ancient Egypt: “Sarcophagi and Dolls.”
TISM would like to apologize for that last joke. We’d try to get Chat GPT to produce another one-liner, but that takes the internet, and we’re with Optus.
A second track is included in the digital upload titled Schopenhauer's SUV the band does not seem to be drawing attention to it though, as it is a spoken word poem and not likely to please the current streaming demigods overseeing playlisting culture.
I've Gone Hillsong is further proof that in the history of Australian popular music, there’s never been anyone quite like TISM. A confounding mix of the profane and the profound, highbrow and lowbrow, TISM was an enduringly massive cult act that gatecrashed the mainstream charts in the 90s and became an iconic part of the era.
Anyone who was there will have a memory of TISM’s performance-art live shows, their urban myth-like media appearances, or just their suspiciously silly earworm songs. TISM disappeared without announcement in 2004, seemingly for good, yet inexplicably resurfaced 18 years later to play the 2022 Good Things Festival. In typical fashion, TISM has always maintained that the band broke up after their first appearance in 1984 and every subsequent performance has been a comeback.
Noted for their dark humour, sarcastic delivery and melodic songwriting, the seven members of TISM appear in public as a pseudonymous, semi-paramilitary collective masked in a variety of balaclavas (usually as part of a more elaborate costume) and are known for their "chaotic" appearances in Australian media, often frustrating interviewers with absurd non-sequiturs and tongue-in-cheek nihilism.
They developed and enjoyed a large following throughout the 1980s and 1990s, issuing a number of singles, albums, videos, and a book (The TISM Guide to Little Aesthetics). Backed by the successful singles (He'll Never Be An) Ol' Man River and Greg! The Stop Sign!!, their third album, Machiavelli and the Four Seasons, reached the Australian national top 10 in 1995, won Best Independent Release at that year's ARIA Music Awards, and was certified Gold in January 1996.
I've Gone Hillsong is out now.
