Gus Franklin – vocals, drums, percussion, electric piano & synthesizer
Lachlan Franklin – backing vocals, guitar, synthesizer, handclaps
Ben Mason – backing vocals, guitar, handclaps
Ben Donnan – bass guitar, handclaps

The third single taken from the forthcoming Smallgoods LP Lost in the Woods (out Sept 24), ‘On With The Show’ is a slice of 70s-inspired keyboard pop pulled from the brain of drummer and producer Gus Franklin.

“I was deeply into a certain kooky dry esoteric keyboard-based songwriting and production style of the 1970s when we were making this record.” With a Supertramp-worthy electric piano intro riff coupled with bubbling bass guitar by Ben Donnan, ‘On With the Show’ is bursting with fruit-flavour.
 
Contrastingly, the song is sung directly from the point of view of a washed-up piano bar entertainer speaking directly to the diners he now plays to, beneath the sad bistro salad bar lights. Recalling the heady heydays of his musical past, he wishes to relive those moments through song, but can’t stop talking about the depression he experiences due to the realisation of his mundane life.

When the chorus hits, the oranges, boiled eggs and tomatoes from the all-you-dare-to-eat salad bar join in on backing vocals. The whole thing is lightly tossed through an upliftingly tasty and positive middle-eight dressing before taking things up a notch for the outro.
 
With Gus’ brother Lachlan Franklin and Ben Mason rounding out the Smallgoods numbers, huge harmonies are never out of the question, nor, for that matter, songwriting smarts; each of the three composers proving to be at the top of their game on the new album.  
 
Having recently visited the recording studio for the first time since their 2007 album Down on the Farm, the band’s original concept for Lost in the Woods was to record referential companion pieces to previous works – ‘On With the Show’ was penned as the sequel to the song ‘This is the Show’ from the 2004 Smallgoods EP of the same name.
 
Says Gus, “‘This is the Show’ was all about the larger-than-life comic book-styled presentation and over-the-top pop music we were doing at the time. We wanted to become Muppets. There was a lot of bland and understated music around in the mid-2000s, and we wanted to rail against that with music that busted out of the speakers with hooks and bold production… as good as we could achieve on a DIY shoestring budget.”

Lost in the Woods is out on September 24.