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JOSHUA TREE
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[CONTENTS]
[Canberra’s Entertainment Guide]
#498
OCT/NOV
Thanks Dale Mail: PO Box 713 Civic Square, ACT 2608
RAAVE TAPES
Publisher Radar Media Pty Ltd.
p. 38
General Manager Allan Sko T: (02) 6257 4360 E: advertising@bmamag.com Editor Hayden Fritzlaff E: editorial@bmamag.com Accounts Manager Ashish Doshi T: (02) 6247 4816 E: accounts@bmamag.com Sub-Editor Sharona Lin Graphic Designer Hayden Fritzlaff
SHOEB AHMAD
Film Editor Majella Carmody
p. 19
RACHEL MARIA COX
PHOTO BY ANNA MAYBERRY
p. 20
PHOTO BY CATH CONNELL
Entertainment Guide Editor Nicola Sheville Social Media Manager Sharona Lin Columnists Cody Atkinson, Dan Bigna, Pip Gazard & Neve Van Boxel, Cara Lennon, Sharona Lin, Josh Nixon, Peter O’Rourke, Alice Worley, Josh Martin Contributors (This Issue) Glen Martin, Jarrod McGrath, Rory McCartney, Evan Dorian, Peter Hollo, Shoeb Ahmad, Matt Parnell, Sam Ingham, Andrew Myers, Kashmira Mohamed Zagor, Belinda Healey, Azim Zain, John Harvey, Ellie Windred
GENESIS OWUSU
p. 26
VALLIS ALPS
JESS LOCKE
BOO SEEKA
p. 23
NEXT ISSUE #499 OUT Wednesday November 8 EDITORIAL DEADLINE Friday October 27 ADVERTISING DEADLINE Friday November 3 ABN 76 097 301 730 BMA Magazine is independently owned and published. Opinions expressed in BMA Magazine are not necessarily those of the editor, publisher or staff.
ES 199 T 2 PAGE 14
p. 29
LITERATURE IN REVIEW ALBUM REVIEWS FILM REVIEWS THE WORD ON GIGS ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE
p. 35
LOVE/ p. CHAMBERLAIN
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FROM THE BOSSMAN
EDITOR’S BLAB
[THE ART OF SAYING GOODBYE] BY ALLAN SKO
[CONFLICTING CONFLICTS OF INTEREST] WITH HAYDEN FRITZLAFF
[ALLAN@BMAMAG.COM]
[EDITORIAL@BMAMAG.COM]
“Ohhhhhhhhh and time, Moves on like a train, And disappears into the night sky Yeeeeeeeeah, I still Get a sad feeling inside To see the red taillights wave goodbye…” Lior - ‘This Old Love’ It’s a simply gorgeous tune from our part-Egyptian friend Lior (his former manager, Nick Boshier one of the finest people you’ll care to meet - is one half of the excellent Soulmates… The more you know). “To see the red taillights wave goodbye” is such a striking image. I remember hearing that some 12 years ago, and that sentiment has stayed with me ever since. The power of art. As well as being a beautiful ballad, is also serves as a handy intro to this month’s Bossman column which – as the title succinctly suggests – is all about the Art of Saying Goodbye. Now worry not; this isn’t going to be some heavy-handed hamfisted “deep” piece of writing. I don’t have enough of a soul to attempt that for a start. But more an observation on how much emfar-sis we put on saying goodbye. I was married once. Not worth going into the details, but we have two amazing children out of it, so TOTES worth it. I only mention this because our respective families had very different methods of parting ways. Of “saying goodbye”, if you will. I was raised in a family where every second of your departure should be observed. Awkwardly pulling out of the driveway; making your way up the airport exit ramp; tripping over your shoelace as you clumsily make your way out of the gate… All captured under the scrutiny of loving parents. Because – and I may get a little dark here, I apologise – this could very well be the last time we see each other. The world is a vast and vicious
place… Who knows? Might as well get in a solid “goodbye” just in case this is the last time we see each other. My beloved in-laws were/are the polar opposite. Sometimes I didn’t even know they’d gone. It was time to leave, and leave they did. I actually admired that. Such efficiency! You need to go? And you go! Genius! No gingerly navigating the steep parking bay whilst parents watch on, nor trying not to trip on your own shoelace under the watchful glare of your betters. I like it! THIS… Is the good stuff. In the aforementioned split, I handed over the car to the beloved primary careholder, which means I have been exclusively taking Uber for the past year. I know the company itself has come under some very understandable scrutiny, but in Canberra it’s simply fantastic. There hasn’t been a single person I haven’t been entranced, fascinated or intrigued by… People from Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, India, Russia, England, fuck, even CANBERRA, all with a history, a story, a background. I bloody love learning about people and their history. And I will travel with these folk for some 10-20 minutes, learning about their beliefs, their philosophies, what makes them tick, what they’re going to do after they clock off. And then the time comes to say goodbye. And in ten short minutes, you can create enough of a bond, with what was prior a perfect stranger, that you stand in your driveway as they’re reversing, and you give each other a wave goodbye, as if they were a beloved relative. That’s happened more often than not with me. And I love it. For the all the hate kicking around in the world at present, it’s those little moments that keep me filled with hope and love.
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Keeping tabs on all the happenings in town isn’t (and shouldn’t be) possible. From the artists just starting out, ecstatic at the chance to play a stage like Phoenix’s, to the world-conquerors who barely stop in their hometown anymore because it’s too small a market, Canberra is a multi-layered, manyfaceted being. If you’re at a loss as to how to navigate the web of tiny listings in the back of this mag and Facebook events that keep clogging up your feed, I’ve picked out four super-sweet happenings that I’m down-like-a-clown excited for right now. Why four? Because this column is quite narrow. Nightmare on East Row II: Electric Boogaloo – Azim Zain is organising annual decade-worshiping, retro Halloween nights at a rate much faster than that at which decades are actually created. We can only assume a 2000s night is in the works for 2018, but where too from there? If your head doesn’t wrap around that temporality, get it around this stacked lineup instead; featuring Newcastle hero Rachel Maria Cox, Wollongong’s resident sweet boys Jacob plus local faves, Azim Zain and His Lovely Bones, Dalmacia, and Capes. It’ll be a wild time no matter which way you slice it. October 28, Phoenix. Ralph Indie presents: Love/ Chamberlain – I took a screenwriting class at uni, and I would invent fictional conversations between disparate celebrities just to practice writing dialogue (what would Flying Lotus have to say to Julia Gillard?). Suffice it to say I haven’t written a screenplay since, but Bridget Mackey takes this idea and runs with it in her brand new theatre work, Love/Chamberlain. As the title cryptically suggests, it puts forward an alternate history where Courtney Love and Lindy Chamberlain meet on a deserted highway in rural Australia. You can read all about it, and the chat
I had with Mackey, on page 55 of this here mag. The work is part of Ainslie + Gorman Arts Centres’ invaluable Ralph Indie Program for emerging theatre-users. Highly recommended, November 7-12. RAAVE Tapes – There’s this seedy old club in Newcastle called The Argyle House that RAAVE Tapes managed to convert into a labyrinthine festival a couple of months ago, rife with punks, stoners and sick riffs. It was enormous fun and the crowd for RAAVE Tapes’ headlining set reached unsafe levels of turntness. While I wouldn’t necessary hire the band as crowd marshalls, I am in full support of their commitment to changing the default dynamic at gigs. Music ought to be about safe spaces, and it takes input from everyone involved to make it so. By some cruel twist of fate, I’ll be in Newcastle while Newcastle’s favourite dance-punks hit Transit Br on October 26. But read Josh Martin’s epic interview with Joab Eastley of the band on page 38, and make plans to head to the show. En Plein Air – To me, En Plein Air seems like a lot of things; it’s a response to the indifference with which student concerns are so often met, it’s an exercise in cross-disciplinary collaboration between visual and sound artists, it’s an attempt to address the status quo around inaccessibility at music events and, perhaps most importantly, it’s a studentled pathway into the wider professional arts community. Even if you disagree with these strategic outcomes, you can’t argue with a lineup that sports Dalmacia, h., Lost Coast, House of Strangers and Aphir. Friday October 13 outside the ANU School of Music. P.S. ‘You Pissed Me Off’ has entered an indefinite hiatus and will only return on the anniversary of its breakout debut album or when the dollar improves.
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[TIDBITS]
UPCOMING GIGS
Hip-Hop Exchange Fundraiser / Local Hip-Hop / Fri October 13 / Transit Bar Jedbrii, Lash, Chloe DMND and WeirdoGvng grace Transit Bar ahead of the first ever Hip-Hop Exchange in 2018. This will involve sending a New York artist to tour Australia; performing live shows, engage in workshops and more, and upon conclusion of the Australian tour, Australian
artist(s) will travel to New York and repeat the process in the US. To help fundraise and spread awareness for the project join local acts for a night of live hiphop and gathering of the local scene. [8pm / $11.50 via moshtix. com.au]
Floriade Fringe / Fringe Festival / Thu-Sat October 19-21 / Haig Park, Braddon Presented by The Village, the first ever Floriade Fringe presents an alternative utopian environment where experimentation is the norm. The site is dotted by caravans and containers workshopping the ideas of the future. Expect the delightful and experimental, with works from Australian Dance Party, DJ Dead
Joke and Francis McNaire. Music from L-Fresh The Lion, Brass Knuckle Brass Band, Moaning Lisa, The Burnt Sausages and many more will enliven the CBD. For all those who think Floriade is drab and boring, think again! [entry by donation / more at floriadeaustralia.com/fringe]
Day of the Dead Fiesta / Latin American Fiesta / Sat November 4 / Ainslie Arts Centre Experience the vibes and atmosphere of a Latin American Fiesta at this family-friendly celebration of music, dance, Lucha Libre and art over one huge day. Catch DJs and cultural exhibitions, market and food stalls, a kids Piñata, face painting for everyone and live music from The New Monos (Melb/Argentina) PAGE 16
and Los Chavos among others. Hop onto the bus provided and head to Harmonie German Club at 8pm forauthentic Mexican Wrestling, with the Day of the Dead Battle presented by Lucha Fantastica continuing. [1pm12am / $16.67 kids, $32.34 adults via eventbrite.com]
The RSL National, Veterans Film Festival / Film Festival / Wed-Sun October 18-22 / Various From animated oral history of American ‘Dougboys’ to World War 11 drama’s, everyday veteran experiences to accepting LGBTQ family life, and everything in between, the VFF delivers an eclectic program of films. Catch 13 Minutes (German) on opening night at the Australian
War Memorial, telling the story of the failed assiassination of Adolf Hitler in 1939. The Red Poppy Awards take place on closing night at the Australian Defence Force Academy, awarding trophies in three film categories. [veteransfilmfestival.com for more info]
Benny Walker / Live Music / Sun October 22 / Smith’s Alternative Winner of the “Best Aboriginal Act of the Year” at 2016’s The Age Music Victoria Awards, Yorta Yorta singer/songwriter Benny Walker is the real deal. His lyrics and epic tales of love and loss are mixed with his passion for people, the land, summer vibes and grooves that go deep. New single ‘Ghost’ is no exception. Co-written with
ARIA Award winning producer Jan Skubiszewski who also produced Benny’s forthcoming six-track EP Undercover, ‘Ghost’ calls out the “powerhungry, shortsighted people trying to fuck up our world .” [4pm / $15 via smithsalternative. com]
Rockabilly Roundup / Retro Festival / Sun November 19 / Old Canberra Inn Get dressed up and ready to dance the day. Australia’s high priests of Roots Rock ‘n’ Roll The Detonators (Victoria) will headline this event, with sets from Mother Truckers (NSW), The Crossbones (ACT), The Rousabouts (ACT) plus Rockabilly DJs completing the all-day rockin’ line-up. Expect to find pin-up and vintage clothing,
jewellery and more at the Retro Market from 11am before the bands kick off at 1pm. Cool off with a refreshing craft beer and feast on fabulous food. This event is family friendly and includes a great play area for the kids. [11am / free entry oldcanberrainn.com. au]
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CAPITAL YOUNGSTER [THE WORD ON ALL AGES MUSIC] PIP GAZARD & NEVE VAN BOXSEL FROM TEEN JESUS AND THE JEAN TEASERS [JEAN.TEASERS@GMAIL.COM]
Howdy folks, pleased to meet you! We’re your new underage gig go-to-gals! Being in an underage band in Canberra, we understand the struggle one youngin can face when looking for a good night out and we’re here to help! The Canberra music scene actually has a lot to offer if you know the right places. Generally, if you’re really in a pickle, places such as The Polish Club, The Front Gallery and Café, and Mulgara are great venues for blossoming fledglings, although there are more options when accompanied by an adult. We recently saw Sodium Sunday, Salad Buoy and Marlon Bando play a sick underage gig at The Front Gallery and Cafe. The night started with a great set from Sodium Sunday, which was followed by Salad Buoy, a new young Canberra band. Their 45-minute set incorporated tunes similar to those of Mild High Club, HOMESHAKE, and Mac Demarco. The night was still young (like us!) and the always energetic Marlon Bando graced us with their presence. Their short but sweet punk songs brought everyone to their feet and really demonstrated the immense variety of the young Canberra music scene. We also want to shout out Bleach It Clean, Dalmacia, Lucy Sugerman and Neon Highways, who are all fantastic underage bands and artists that you’ll most likely be able to catch around Canberra. As for upcoming underage gigs here’s the laydown kiddies! Floriade this year, has been a real blast! Bands such as Azim Zain and His Lovely Bones, String Elephants (more like ‘Spring PAGE 18
Elephants’, amirite, ladies?), and Mondecreen have been playing throughout the month. But wait! There’s more! On Thursday October 12 Sophie Rainbow will be playing at 4pm before yours truly, Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers. We’ll be playing at 5pm, followed by Harry Cleverdon, who is on at 6pm. Then on Friday and Saturday, bands including Rose in Hand, Neon Honey + Magnifik and String Elephants will end Canberra’s iconic flower festival with a BANG! If you’re preppin’ for a freaky Friday the 13th, think again! Because this Friday October 13th, En Plein Air is something to really look forward to. All ages AND all amazing! Taking to the stage will be (drum roll!) Dalmacia, House of Strangers, h., Lost Coast and Aphir! The night commences at 5pm at ANU School of Music. There’s a $20 entry fee but it’s all worth it. To top it all off, if you feel like a road trip to the wonderful city of Sydney, get ready for the second XraySpeX of 2017. It is on Saturday November 4, at the amazing Oxford Art Factory and begins at midday. The Belligerents, Jack River and Bleeding Knees Club will be playing, among many others (TJJT included!!). Definitely not one to miss. To end our first ever column we’d like to say a massive thank you to Hayden, the new editor of this amazing magazine that is currently in your little paws, right this moment. Be sure to come back next month! Same bat time, same bat channel, Love from Neve and Pip xox
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UNMASKING “romance” BY GLEN MARTIN PHOTO BY ANNA MAYBERRY
You know SHOEB AHMAD, right? Tireless musical polymath, owner of hellosQuare records and the Brick Lane studio in Canberra’s south, an internationally admired musician who has played with a multitude of genre-hopping acts including Spartak, Tangents and Agency? Thing is, as evidenced by their upcoming solo record, Ahmad’s story is richer and more layered than perhaps you’d previously imagined. “quiver” is a record that fearlessly dives into some of the biggest questions a person can ponder, addressing gender, race and religion. It’s a hyper-vulnerable and brave artistic statement from a person ready to open up. The single “mask-ed” dropped earlier this year, and Ahmad is readying the release of the second single, ‘romance’, with a string of shows to celebrate in November. It’s a magnificently slinky, grooveladen pop record, perhaps another unexpected element for listeners familiar with Ahmad’s collaborative work. “Funnily enough, I started off as a solo performer – mainly because I never really knew anyone else who was into the same music as me – but I’ve always been collaborative in nature when it comes to making music. So I guess when it came to make a proper solo record, I had to figure out if I wanted full control of the songs or if I was creating collages using sounds from others but arranged around a basic song structure from me. “My first solo album watch/ illuminate came out in 2011-2012 and that was definitely more collage-like – lots of electronics, a lot of left-of-centre textures but with a written core around Flying
Nun/New songs
Order-inspired
pop
“That kind of indie pop has always been an essential part of my songwriting in a way – those melancholic melodies creeping their way through jangle or keyboard leads.
“I wanted to make an album that I would enjoy listening to – easy listening for an adult like me.” What is most notable about this incarnation of Ahmad’s musical output is just how brave and open it is, and how well the work negotiates tough subjects with a sonic lightness. “I’m happy I’ve done it and put myself out there. Gender is a brutal thing to think about but I also looked at race and religion because those three strands of identity for me are at fever pitch all of the time right now, it’s always on my mind. I’m now sure I want this music to make its way into the world, if only to reach that one person who knows that I empathise with them and their circumstances.”
I wouldn’t be writing what I do without Canberra’s melancholic autumns or blooming springs “With the upcoming solo album, I wanted to move away from electronic sounds and create something completely organic.” That drive to create a different, more human kind of sound could be read as a natural extension of the subject matter Shoeb decided to tackle lyrically and thematically. “The move away from electronics to all organic instrumentation ended up tying in with the idea of creating a mask to hide behind as well. “I had something to speak about – not only just for the therapy but also to put myself out there as [someone who is] strong in their vulnerability.”
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Amongst the emotional and personal upheaval the new work charts, Shoeb Ahmad’s commitment to Canberra remains unchanged. As many contemporaries have left town or shut up shop, Ahmad has stayed put, and believes in Canberra as a vital cultural centre with a reserve of untapped potential. “Canberra still not being rated as a place to stay creatively bugs me a lot. I don’t get it and I don’t understand it. “Musically, it should be Australia’s equivalent to Austin, Chapel Hill or DC because of actual socioeconomic demographics, it ticks every box and culturally
it does too. “I stayed here because there was nothing better for me in the other cities. I didn’t want to leave a good thing without the promise of something better. The natural space and clean air I’m privy to is more than enough to keep it tight here – a clear mind for inspiration. “I wouldn’t be writing what I do without Canberra’s melancholic autumns or blooming springs, that’s for sure. City pressure just isn’t for me.” “romance” is also noteworthy for nailing one of the toughest tricks to pull off in the musical book – a straight ahead adult love song that avoids anything remotely mawkish or sentimental. “[It’s] a no-frills song to my wife, letting her know that I needed her there for me, letting her know that I’m still the same person inside as the one who made the promise to look after her and if I have changed, that it has made me a better person to be there for her. “I think getting older and being comfortable with it has made me relaxed about how I approach music-making and what I want to do so in that sense, I’m charting/ documenting my life year by year. “I’m basically ok with the idea that a lot of people won’t like or get the music I make and why I’ve made it, but I know that there are people who love it because it’s ticking all their boxes and turns out, we’ll probably have a lot in common too.” SHOEB AHMAD launches ‘romance’ at Mulgara on Friday November 20 from 8pm, joined by KELLIE LLOYD (Screamfeeder), VIDEO BREEZY and SLEEPING DØGS. Tickets are $10.
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DRAWING STRONGER LINES “The people who are pushing for this aren’t the ones who need to hear it. It’s the people who have never felt unsafe in their life who need to realise that’s not a universal experience.”
PHOTO BY CATH CONNELL @bmamag
RACHEL MARIA COX UNITING SAD GRRRLS
BY ALICE WORLEY
I’m sitting at The Front Café & Gallery like I do every Sunday, but this is a little different. Instead of typing away mindlessly for hours on end, I’m counting down the minutes to the time that I need to call and interview RACHEL MARIA COX. It’s like when a crush gives you their number, but you haven’t given yours back, so you’re the one that needs to call and you can’t stop skipping about in your head, fretting about calling and sounding less coherent and demure than you would desire.
“This has been happening for a really long time and it’s getting really frustrating,” they say. “The exciting thing is that people are actually listening now and it is becoming the norm, it’s finally just getting more mainstream media attention with the rise of more mainstream forms of feminism. I’m looking forward to seeing a change.”
In case you didn’t know, Rachel Maria Cox is the big, beautiful brain behind the Sad Grrrls Club label, a label that has signed acts such as Antonia & the Lazy Susans, Dog Dirt, and Sportsbra. They are a champion for inclusion and gender diversity in music and Cox’s new album, Untidy Lines, was recently discussed in none other than Rolling Stone.
“The people who are pushing for this aren’t the ones who need to hear it. It’s the people
Sad Grrrls Club is sort of a portmanteau of the Riot Grrrl movement and Sad Girl Theory. I was very keen to ask about how Sad Grrls began. Cox explains, “I took a joke too far. I was sick of being the only non-male on lineups and was joking about it with Essem, and the rest, as they say, is history.” Finding its beginnings in 2015, Sad Grrls Club started as a touring festival, performing with local acts from each major city around Australia. Upon the festival’s conclusion, attendees were asking what was next for the collective, and so the label was born. Over the last two years, it has brought together a wonderful and diverse array of non-male musicians, producers, recording engineers, photographers, and the list goes on. Sad Grrrls Fest will be celebrating its third year running in November. Touring acts will include Major Leagues, Moaning Lisa, Huntly,
and Antonia & The Lazy Susans, plus local acts included for each leg of the tour.
They went on to discuss that it’s not an issue that only people feeling the brunt of these prejudices and injustices should be becoming aware of – in fact, quite the opposite.
I’m looking forward to seeing a change
After a bit more chatting, we got onto a very hot topic; inclusion and safety for gig attendees. It is, of course, an issue that the music scene has been dealing with for some time now, but it seems to be gaining the recognition it deserves in more recent times. The Last Exposure recently released a single on this issue called ‘The Boys’. Moaning Lisa members Charlie Versagi and Hayley Manwaring made a viral video in which they discussed issues they’d been having with hotheads causing discomfort and abuse to both attendees and band members at their shows. And Camp Cope also discussed the issue in their feature in last month’s BMA Magazine. So I query Cox as to why it’s become such a talked-about subject.
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who have never felt unsafe in their life who need to realise that’s not a universal experience.” Any event you spot on the Sad Grrrls Club page will have the disclaimer ‘ALL SAD GRRRLS CLUB EVENTS ARE SAFER SPACES’, specifying the wish to be free of sexism, racism, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, ableism, wh*rephobia, classism, and any other forms of discrimination or oppression. As you read it, you are brutally reminded of just how many ignorant and hateful people there are in this world and it really bums you out that this even needs to be said. But thank you, Sad Grrrls Club, for saying it.
can find more and more relatable as you bang it out over and over in the car. In particular tracks like ‘Emotionally Untidy’ and ‘Misery Kink’ are really useful for singing along to either sadly or angrily, or perhaps a little bit of both, as you think about an ex-partner that’s really given you the run around. As I talk to more and more people in Canberra about Cox, you realise just how influential they are. They have an ocean of fans here, all hopelessly devoted and who glow when you talk about them and their music. You can see these local fans reflecting on the lyrics with their eyes closed and a smile pushing their cheeks upward and you just realise that this music is the real deal. I’ll end by giving you a little advice. If you are planning on playing Untidy Lines to have a bit of a cry to, be sure to make ‘Stronger Lines’ the last track you listen to so you can belt out “I am stronger now than I’ve ever been before,” and leave your Rachel Maria Cox session on a high. There’s a reason it’s the last track on the album. Trust me. RACHEL MARIA COX, along with JACOB, AZIM ZAIN & HIS LOVELY BONES, DALMACIA, RAISED AS WOLVES and CAPES, hits The Phoenix for ‘Nightmare On East Row II: Electric Boogaloo’ on Saturday October 28 from 7pm. Tickets $10 on the door.
This latest release of Cox’s, Untidy Lines, is such an emotionally driven album. Something that you PAGE 21
BACK TO THE BEGINNING BY REBECCA ADAMS From the shores of Sydney to globally recognized band, TONIGHT ALIVE is living proof that you can achieve anything you like if you put your mind to it. Starting at a very young age the band has accomplished so much throughout their career. When I was in high school I didn’t even know what I wanted for lunch. When they were in high school Tonight Alive was recording their first EP. Since 2008, Tonight Alive have shared the stage with household names, sold thousands of albums, and have made a name for themselves in the rock music scene. The Aussie rockers are heading home and back to where it all began, revisiting all the rooms they used to play at when they first started. The Back To The Beginnings tour is kicking off in Canberra, then heading to Wollongong, Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne. Having been touring overseas for some time now, Tonight Alive are excited to come back to Australia to play intimate shows for their fans. “We’re not going on town with production and all those things,” says lead vocalist, Jenna McDougall. “It is just about the setlist and a good time to get in touch with everybody [fans] and to remind them what it used to be like in a way. “In the business everybody is always trying to look bigger than they are. We love playing big shows but I think it’s going to be really humbling and bring everything back to perspective to play club shows in Australia again, because it will help you PAGE 22
channel what’s really important, which is delivering a message through the songs and to bring an energy to the room to make everyone feel good in that moment. “ Since their third studio album, Limitless which was released in 2016, Tonight Alive somehow found time in their busy schedule to go to Thailand to record a new album earlier in the year. The recording process was said to be
Now unfortunately you don’t see a lot of girl member bands anymore, so Tonight Alive announced a rare competition for local bands with female members. The winners of each city would have an opportunity of a lifetime to support Tonight Alive in the opening slot of the Back To Beginnings tour. “It’s been on the cards for ages but we hadn’t done a headline show in Australia for a long time. That is one of the benefits of doing your own tour is setting the tone and making all the rules. It just felt right. There were a lot of great entries and choosing one band from each city was hard.” Supporting them throughout the whole tour is Melbourne band The Beautiful Monument, who might I
Our whole idea of recording time was we wanted to be in a relaxed environment more relaxed and free. “Our whole idea of recording time was we wanted to be in a relaxed environment that fostered creativity and inspiration as that’s the kind of band that we are. We are the type people who never holiday and never have time off so it’s nice to combine the two”. Some bands can’t even make it to two albums so making it to four is saying something about their talent. The Aussie rockers have been going on for nearly a decade and it’s safe to say that the music industry is changing, but that doesn’t seem to concern them.
win over. When you come back to Australia nothing like that matters.” Jenna McDougall has made a name for herself not only in the rock scene (and for her cool hair styles) but in the pop music scene also. She featured in Aussie rapper Illy’s single ‘Oh My’. Can we expect her leaving the band to pursue solo projects in the near future? Don’t worry... not any time soon. “At the moment I am completely dedicated to the band. I know for sure that I will be playing and writing music no matter what project that is in, so I do look forward to exploring those possibilities.” Having just kicked off a tour with American band A Day To Remember, it is safe to say that Tonight Alive is not stopping anytime soon, and thank god for that. TONIGHT ALIVE hit Canberra at The Basement on October 31. Tickets via livenation.com.au.
add is an all-girl band and also Australian, which is a bonus. Throughout the shows you can expect a mixture of old favourites, as well songs from their new album. Having played at these venues already and being used to play to thousands of people, you wonder if the band will still get nervous before each show, or if it would be a breath of fresh air. “It feels like we are coming back to ourselves, back to home, and back to the start that is sort of what we reminiscing on when we named the tour. It feels like you know everybody in the crowd it’s not like you have a whole crowd of people that you have to @bmamag
SOMETHING IN THE AIR
BY JARROD MCGRATH PHOTO BY IAN LAIDLAW
BOO SEEKA have one of the most unique sounds in Australian music at the moment. I find their mix of beats, melody and beautiful vocals extremely intriguing. My quest is to quiz Sammy Seeka enough to try discover how they developed this. “Ben has always played guitar,” he says. “He’s got great rhythm so then you put him on a drum kit and he’ll play beautiful beats. For me I used to always play guitar, sang a little bit but not nearly as well as Ben, and then when we started this band we thought ‘we don’t need two guitars’ so I thought, ‘well what can I do then?’ I picked up some sampling pads and a few keyboard synths and just learnt on the fly really. I still practice keys most days of the week to try and improve.”
that so they’re fucking great gigs to go to.” Of course, with such a unique sound there has to be a large range of influences. “We have different influences because of our different backgrounds,” says Sammy Seeka. “Ben, with a singer songwriter background, has influences like Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, and Neil Young, Bob Dylan and all that era of beautiful songwriting and workmanship. For me, for this project it was
I thought learning about their songwriting process might give further clues as to how they developed their sound. “Every song comes about in a different way. Sometimes I’ll make a piece of music and show that to Ben and he’ll write lyrics and put vocals over the top. Sometimes he will come to me with a vocal melody and lyric that he’s playing over his strummed guitar and we will build a backing track around that. “They’re probably the two main ways things come together, other times we’ll just come
For me, for this project it was about ‘okay, I’ve got to make electronic music that can suit this
Their instrument history still only explains some of their evolution and unique sound. In an attempt to understand their influences I was curious about Sam’s favourite gigs as a punter. “Yeah, there’s a few. One that stands out, well every time I see them, they’re one of my favourite bands of all time, is The Prodigy. The last time I saw them was about two years ago in Sydney and it was just one of those times where you lose the plot, go out and have a fun night running around, getting in a few circle pits and what not and feeling a really good release. Then on the other hand I went and saw Matt Corby maybe going back five years now. I’m a big Matt Corby fan and just what he did in a completely different realm to The Prodigy had me as equally blown away and I still get chills from
just entertain you while you’re driving to work or sitting at home. It’s gotta have that essential music undertone to it and not just be a floor filler.”
about ‘okay, I’ve got to make electronic music that can suit this, and we want it to be fun and sound edgy and interesting,’ so I started listening to a lot more Massive Attack and Moby and all that kind of electronic music that isn’t just necessarily for a dancefloor but electronic music that you can happily put a record on and listen to at home, that sort of thing. I used to DJ and produce a lot of electronic dance music like house and techno so I was very much in the club scene. I was pulling myself out of that to stop just writing pure dance music and to write music that can make people dance but also can
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into my studio with a bunch of instruments and we’ll just jam and jam and jam and if we find something that hits us we’ll just run with that idea and work on it together. There’s kinda no rules to it. That’s why a lot of the songs on Never Too Soon sound so diverse.” The duo have experienced some nice successes in their short career so far, selling out shows in the UK, making the Hottest 100 from their Unearthed release and recently having Never Too Soon as the feature album on Triple J. When Sammy Seeka spoke about some of this I could sense a real
appreciation and excitement. “A couple of standout ones would be ‘Deception Bay’ getting in 50 of the Hottest 100 in our first year. We’d only just started out. I was on a footy field with a hundred mates for Australia Day that year just like running down the field getting obscenely drunk. We had the radio blaring and 50 came on and pretty much the last thing I remember of the day was the start of ‘Deception Bay’ getting played. I don’t even remember the end of it because I think everyone was just funnelling vodka and beer down my throat. Yeah, that moment was a pretty special one. Playing Splendour in The Grass and seeing the crowd that turned out for us, that’s another one I like and playing Red Rocks Amphitheatre over in America; it was phenomenal, there was something special in the air there.” Given their success and evolution, it’s only fitting that the group will be playing bigger venues on their upcoming tour, including our own Academy Club (a very fitting venue as it’s also evolved into hosting more live music over the past year). “We’ve played Transit Bar, like probably the last four times we’ve been to Canberra, and we thought: we love Transit Bar but it’s a little venue so let’s try and step it up a bit this time. We’ve sold it out the last few times so we thought let’s try something a bit bigger. We heard it’s a cool venue too.” Be part of the evolution and get along to BOO SEEKA at Academy Club on Saturday November 18. Tickets are $21.50 through Moshtix.
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ARTIST TO ARTIST
BY AUTHOR
Good friends and Tangents bandmates, Evan Dorrian of SPARTAK and Peter Hollo of raven, chat about familiar settings, escaping clichés and making music as solo artists. PHOTO BY ZK PHOTO
IN THE NIGHT
DARK
OF
Evan Dorrian: The new raven album is beautiful and I’m not just saying that cause we’re in a band together... There are many intriguing things about it, but first I want to know about the album title the night is dark, the night is silent, the night is bright, the night is loud – it captures the mood of the record perfectly, but where did it come from? Peter Hollo: For me, the music always comes before the titles. I guess it’s instrumental music, and to me it’s rarely descriptive, so as it came together, I started giving the tracks single word titles – compact, open to interpretation. When it came to naming the album I really wanted a contrast to that curtness. I think as well as the evocativeness of having a little poem as a title, I like the slightly transgressive nature of just pushing the length a little too far – although not quite to Fiona Apple lengths! ED: The record is calm, minimal and spacious but not ambient at its – it seems underpinned by emotion more than anything else. Was there a narrative in mind and what was influencing you at the time musically? PH: As a label, I shy away from ‘ambient’ as much as I shy away from ‘classical’. Of course, this instinct is unfair because there are elements of both in my music. Generally, I tend to gravitate towards slowly evolving musical forms and as a bass player PAGE 24
(on the cello), I love ponderous dub basslines – which pervade drum’n’bass, dubstep, doom/ sludge metal and other forms. Surprisingly, the only narrative comes from the fact that it’s all written by me, and from the way I curated the final album. ED: In terms of recording and editing, how did you create this new raven album? PH: For this album, I chose to record in a beautiful woodpanelled studio (the same at which Tangents was birthed seven years ago), with professional gear and a sound engineer. This was unusual for me as my usual process is a back and forth between recording/ creating and producing/mixing. Ideas can be laid down, then chopped & processed before the next phase of overdubs and remakes occurs. The loop-based pieces were built up one layer at a time in Pro Tools. The other pieces were recorded more linearly than I’m used to, with less scope for tinkering as we went along. Much of the editing and mixing work was ceded to Chris Hancock, the talented & sympathetic engineer I worked with but in early 2017, I loaded all the stems into Reaper and performed some invasive surgery on many of the tracks, overdubbing noises and additional beats, re-structuring and re-mixing, bringing some of that messy, iterative autocannibalism back to the recordings.
NIGHT SHIFT PH: I’ve admired the solo work of both you & SHOEB (AHMAD) for a long time (longer than Tangents has existed) and was actually pleased with Spartak’s songwriting turn a few years ago - it was great hearing your voice as a songwriter (and literally as a singer) coming out there. ED: Thanks man! When we spent time writing and arranging songs, we did it a similar way to what you described above, trying to keep the spontaneity but also going back in to do the “invasive surgery”. Since then I’ve been putting all my songwriting energy into a solo effort that has proved to be a mammoth effort… counting nearly four years in the making and still going. Shoeb’s been doing the same, with her solo album release imminent. PH: Is the way Spartak’s music evolves and coalesces something that takes focus to achieve? ED: Spartak is evolving or devolving to more of the free form guitar, drums and processing effort again but with all the new life baggage and experience that we bring along with us of course. It takes focus, but not on ‘achieving’ anything in particular aside from being in the moment. I’m sure we’ll change again before long and take an unexpected turn again. PH: Spartak’s free and spontaneous nature is something that’s directly inspired me as a
solo artist. I try to keep my musical background at arm’s length – rock, world, jazz, even classical music – and draw from electronic music and noise/drone/lo-fi, but I actually find it takes concerted effort to escape the formal and even melodic constraints of my musical origins. I’m interested in whether you’ve found the same – is your incredible tight-but-loose drumming style something that comes naturally? ED: I definitely understand the need to try and escape your influences or the obvious associations that come from a particular instrument. My drumming in Spartak kinda did come naturally but also with that constant analytical voice wanting me to avoid certain things, whether it be playing in time, sounding too rock or jazz or virtuosic… it’s definitely all based around me trying to escape the drums somehow – which is ridiculous. In fact I think that’s why I’m really drawn to your record as all the glitch elements help to throw things off kilter and change up the sense of context. But it’s very tastefully done – I love the spacious ‘Amen’ breaks that slip in and out. Bloody well done mate! raven and SPARTAK perform at Drill Hall Gallery with ALPHAMALE on Saturday October 21 from 8pm. Tickets $10 at the door.
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GENESIS OWUSU GOING B-F NOT A-Z
BY MATT PARNELL
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Off the back of a year when he released his debut solo project, GENESIS OWUSU is continuing that momentum with a massive single and his first headline tour. The single, ‘Sideways’, is a massive deviation from conventional rap music, but shouldn’t come as a surprise to listeners given Genesis Owusu’s musical history. Even considering this, he wasn’t expecting the success it’s recently had. “I dunno, I was expecting it to be more divisive,” he says. “It’s not really rap, it’s not anything I’ve done before. I was expecting it to be divisive but the reaction has been… good.” The track, featuring Australian ‘multidimensional, polyrhythmic gangster shit’ band Hiatus Kaiyote, got Triple J play early on and quickly became one of Owusu’s most popular songs, according to Spotify. On working with Hiatus Kaiyote, who have had international success, including a Grammy nomination, Owusu says, “I was a fan, definitely. I just love the jazz influence in general, so it made sense. We recorded a bunch of stuff, and that really stood out.” Earlier this year, he released Cardrive EP, a collection of tracks he’d been building towards over the past three years. “There’s a direction, and I made it so that you can either listen to the direction or not. There’s songs that just slap, and there’s songs where you can hear the direction. If there was a narrative, it wouldn’t be A-Z, it’s like B-F, there is a line but it’s not the whole thing. It was the contrast, of internal and external, what was happening really. I was in Year 12 when I wrote the EP, so it was like a huge time, the whole ‘you have to do well in all this, this is the rest of your life.’ I was lowkey going through some depression but externally that was when my music started popping a bit, Triple J started noticing, there was a real internal and external contrast and that kinda influenced the EP.” The EP itself contains a hefty amount of juxtaposition, as
well as clear external, non-rap influences. It also showcases his dexterity as an artist, and makes the transition from his early work with older brother Citizen Kay to the recent single much less jarring. The influences outside of rap music seem to make up so much of the new single, and hint at a new artistic direction. According to the man himself, of late a lot of the stuff he has been listening to is music that exists almost parallel to hip hop, such as King Krule, or otherwise could be cited as being a key influence on the genre itself. “[I’ve been] listening to a lot of King Krule, Hiatus Kaiyote,” he says. “Lotta old stuff; Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis. Try to listen to a bit of everything really, try and get some sort of influence.” While
UNCONSCIOUS INSPIRATION “a lot of the time it’s subconscious, like I’ll listen to a song by one person and then it might have some kind of subconscious settling, without really noticing.” To promote ‘Sideways’, and what seem to be further singles he hinted at, Genesis Owusu is hitting the road for his first headline tour. He’s no stranger to touring/live shows, having played support numerous times for local
I’m gonna do everything
the influences aren’t immediate, and he isn’t making 45-minute jazz epics, what is clear is that Genesis Owusu’s music isn’t the kind of thing you think of if you only listen to rap. The way Owusu cites these influences affecting him is in a more abstract than direct manner, with it being less of a direct ‘influence’ as much as something he hears and eventually recognises in the music he creates. As he puts it, “a lot of the time it’s subconscious, like I’ll listen to a song by one person and then it might have some kind of subconscious settling, without really noticing.”
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and further afield rappers, as well as playing at festivals such as Laneway and Groovin The Moo, and this experience should show on the upcoming tour. The live show should replicate the album experience, with Owusu planning for it to have “a momentum, where, how the EP goes like chill vibes, goes up, comes back down, that’s kinda how the setlist is, keep that momentum, kind of a narrative.” On the topic of support artists, he kept pretty quiet, hinting only that it could be literally anything, with a focus on local artists, saying that it could be rappers; “here and there – my influences are kind of everywhere, so I’d like to represent that, might be a metal
band, might be a jazz band”. He also mentioned that he was branching out past the conventional rap sphere of creativity, going from rapper to multi-instrumentalist. “I’m gonna do everything, catch me with a banjo next year. I’m learning keyboard, wanna learn saxophone, that’d be wild. I bought a harmonica.” This would, I feel, translate fucking excellently to a live show. All in all, Genesis Owusu is still showing why he’s one of Australia’s brightest young acts. He never seems content with one thing, constantly evolving his sound, live show, and general presence in to something completely different from what you expect from anyone else. Although he’s currently only working on singles, to reflect the state of the rap game, when those singles form something cohesive it’s going to be unreal. GENESIS OWUSU hits Transit Bar on Saturday October 28 at 8pm. Tickets $15.29 through Moshtix.
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DANCE THE DROP [THE WORD ON DANCE MUSIC] WITH PETER ‘KAZUKI’ O’ROURKE [CONTACT@KAZUKI.COM.AU]
I must say, I’m very proud of our little capital territory right now. Canberra will be the first place in Australia to have a government backed, LEGAL pill testing trial for a festival. Taking place at Spilt Milk this year, a bunch of rad peeps will bring a heap of serious science gear to the festival, and run an accurate, judgement-free (and policefree) service to see if your MDMA really is what you paid for. Not to condone (but neither to condemn) drug use, but MDMA, acid and host of other whizzers, laughers and screamers have been part of dance music and rave culture since the start. We wouldn’t have the legacy of techno, trance and house if it wasn’t for the 1988 acid-house summer of love, and to ignore the role of ecstasy would be denying history. Unfortunately, our dear leaders in their collective wisdom decided that the manufacture of certain party enhancers were better in the hands of gangsters and amateur chemists rather than professionals (although I doubt any amateur is capable of
making LSD). Instead of having them created to a standard (like I dunno... alcohol?), consuming them is much more risky than needs be. Still, people will continue to alter their consciousness, so why not make it safer and see if it’s actually something nasty that you really don’t want to eat? And that includes that bag of ‘coke’ actually being a gram of ket instead. And with sets from Mallrat, Feki or King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard to catch this year, you’d know you’d rather be on the dance floor than having a rough time after swallowing a dodgy pill.
some spooky beats, while on Friday October 20 Paces comes to Academy for some house music action.
Hopefully the trial will be a rip-roaring success, and paves the way for the rest of the nation to follow. It’s been working in parts of Europe for years, and there’s no reason why it can’t here in Australia…
Drum and bass crew Headz are Rolling have some a cool gig on Friday October 27 at Kyte, with a vinyl only night For The Record, with plenty of local selectas!
In the meantime, there are gigs to check out! First up Shockone at Academy for the Dark Machine album launch on Friday October 13 – fancy some bass music? Thursday October 19 sees Capitalloween at Kyte for
My crew Department of Late Nights has teamed up with Electric Gardens Festival to run a bit of a launch party here in Canberra for the festival. It all kicks off on Saturday October 21 at Kyte, with Richie Carrera and Tristan Case headlining, joining B-tham, Peekz and yours’ truly. If psytrance is more your thing rather than house and techno, Abyss takes place that same night in the bush – keep your ears to the underground and you’ll find it!
Dragon Dreaming Festival, taking place Fri-Mon November 3¬–6 near Wee Jasper. It’s a damn fine festival, and I’m pretty stoked to be playing some tunes there again this year! I’m sure there are some more gigs around this month, but after this massive couple of long weekends of tunes, promoters probably needed a break to collect their thoughts – some more stuff will surely be announced, so check Facebook or follow me on Instagram @KazukiCanberra.
Friday November 11 sees Dept of Late Nights bring a heavy hitter from Melbourne up for Agency at Kyte, we’ll be announcing in a few weeks. Hard Envy has another gig at Cube, with Francesco Zeta from Italy joining a heap of awesome locals on the 11th as well. Oh, and another shout out to
MALLRAT
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ACROSS OCEANS BY SHARONA LIN
PHOTO BY CYBELE MALINOWSKI
David Ansari, one half of dreamy, acoustronic, international duo VALLIS ALPS, is very apologetic on the phone. His other half, Parissa Tosif, was meant to speak to me, but is sick. “She’s quite good at interviews,” he says, “so hopefully I can live up to her, hopefully I can punch in the same weight class.” Vallis Alps have been pretty busy since they released their debut EP in 2015 – they’ve gone viral, had two tracks in Triple J’s Hottest 100, and played what seems like every Australian festival in the past two years, as well as a casual world tour. Ansari, the multi-instrumentalist and beatmaker to Tosif’s ethereal vocals, is incredibly modest when talking about how it all happened. “Well, we just got really lucky early on. When we put out our music the internet kind of found us. We didn’t set things up well for a huge launch of any kind, but it kind of went viral early on.” Now that they’ve established themselves, it’s about remaining relevant. “The challenge once you’re super viral is you have all this attention and everyone’s attention span goes to something else. But for us what we’ve found is that we’ve been really lucky because a lot of people who come to our shows now are people who have found us in the last month. But at the same time we have a really good amount of support from people who have been listening from the beginning.” Of course, that luck is mixed in with a lot of hard work. Ansari and Tosif are remarkably self-sufficient from a creative
standpoint. “We do all the production, all the mixing, all the writing, the recording, the graphic design,” Ansari explains. “So because of that we’re sort of able to get by without a lot of the resources a lot of other bands might need. So far, it’s kind of just been what’s worked for us.” The independence this grants them (they’re not signed to a label) allows them to put music out whenever they’re ready to. Take ‘Oceans’, which came out in
for the band, while retaining the essence and magic of their music. “It aligned with the themes we wanted to write to, and one of them was resilience,” Ansari says. “And so ‘Oceans’ kind of became a song about that, and also became its own thing. So it’s sort of in between carrying your weight, but also kind of like a fun pop song. So it’s sort of in between those worlds.” In between a world tour, two acclaimed EPs and a lot of writing, Vallis Alps have barely had time to breathe. “Really from the beginning of our roots as a band, it’s just been catching up to the momentum that came out of nowhere for us,” Ansari says. The band’s last show for the year is at Spilt Milk in November, and they’ll take some time off
The energy wave you ride is different than other shows, different than any other experience September. Ansari made the beat on a plane back in May, just after the Fables EP came out, and the song came together quickly. “We just ride the wave of creativity and even if it comes in the middle of a tour year, we’ll put it out,” Ansari says. “We didn’t really want to sit on ‘Oceans’ for too long. Because the more you sit on something that’s done, the less excited you are about it and the less likely you are to release it. So we thought, what the heck, it’s done, let’s just put it out.” The new single signals another conceptual and musical shift
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from touring in 2018. “So now it’s kind of the first time we can slow down a bit and say great, what do we want to accomplish musically, and who do we want to work with to do that? So now it’s sort of the first time we’ve been able to have those conversations. So hopefully next year we’ll start to explore collaborations more. Because we’ve sort of found our own rhythm as collaborators ourselves, between Parissa and I.”
wrote their debut EP together in a month in Seattle, and released it two years later. They’ve both been based in Sydney since 2015, but are due for a shake up. “I’m actually moving to New York in December, so we’ll be apart again,” Ansari reveals. “Even when we’re in the same city, we spend a lot of time on our own working on individual ideas and come together and smash things out from a decision standpoint. So I guess we’ll be working remotely together soon, again.” In addition, Tosif is taking some time to focus on finishing law school, while Ansari is working on his side project, Crew Cuts, a panel discussion with other musicians. But first, Spilt Milk. “We’ll be playing a bit of new music for that. I’m just really excited. Festivals generally, when we first started, were the most terrifying thing. But now we kind of have a rhythm of how we perform, and a really good team around us. The energy wave you ride is different than other shows, different than any other experience. It’s just a mass of people. And to experience that in Canberra is really special for us. Canberra’s dope.” Vallis Alps play the sold out Spilt Milk Festival on Saturday November 25.
Ansari is originally from Seattle, while Tosif hails from Canberra; they met in Israel on a gap year, PAGE 29
from the whole history on Friday October 20.
METALISE
[THE WORD ON METAL] WITH JOSH NIXON [DOOMTILDEATH@HOTMAIL.COM]
Lifeisnoise had a quiet couple of months by their own high standards, but came back with the announcement of the third Australian (and first New Zealand) tour of indomitable stoner titans Sleep in January next year. The show will once again be at the Manning Bar in Sydney on Friday January 19. The Melbourne show on the 20th sold out in three days prompting a second date to be added – if you’re keen, head south for their Max Watt’s date on the 21st which still has a few tickets left. Speaking of sold out Melbourne shows, Australia’s most successful and enduring grindcore institutions announced on Facebook that the end was
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nigh a couple of weeks back when bassist Jason PC made the call that Blood Duster were calling time on their 26-year career. Citing that while they were still enjoying the shows, the time was right to say farewell and announced a show at The Corner Hotel with tickets for a fan-friendly $6.66. They sold out in ten hours. Fuck…I’m Dead will be reforming with the original drum machine line up for the festivities, joined by Contaminated, Blunt Shove, Dead Root and Christ Crusher for the show at the Corner on Saturday December 9. They will put out a special release entitled All The Remains with all the B-sides/rarities and lost goodies
The Canberra connection to all this, is that due to the superfast sell out, the band dealt with stories of scalpers by announcing a secret secondlast show the night before at the band’s spiritual home, The Tote in Collingwood on Friday December 8. Along with Holy Serpent, The Ruiner and Headless, locals Witchskull and Mental Cavity will join them for this special secondlast send off. Mental Cavity have received a lot of press and favourable reviews for the debut fulllength Aneurysm through EVP Recordings. It’s a top notch effort that I encourage you to either purchase or at least check out the video for the lead track ‘Bleak Outlook’ on Youtube. Both Witchskull and Mental Cavity will support Sydney death metal lords Daemon Pyre alongside Panic Burst and Terravorous on November 17 at The Basement in Belconnen which is one to keep in mind as the nights warm up.
In The Capital III on Saturday October 14 with honorary ACT Basement regulars Frankenbok headlining over the awesome SA act In:Extremis – who I don’t think have visited town since the ’90s, – Horrorwood Manequins, DepriVation, Demonatrix, Lycanthrope, Noveaux, Na Maza, Kld Creature, Kitten Hurricane, Maris King, pitchfork, Taliesin and Eviscerate the Crown. Metal Fiesta 13 is going to also heat up Halloween this year on Friday October 27 at The Basement. It’s a fantastic bill of top notch local and interstate talent headed by our 50%own The Levitation Hex, with come-backing Wollongongers Segression, Our Last Enemy, Immorium, Maris King, Beast Impalor, Black Mountain, Blight Worms and Clarity of Chaos. As it’s Halloween, don’t forget to dress up in something truly frightening. In the case of the Basement’s regular clientele, a suit and tie would probably suffice.
Couple of big Basement shows on the local front as well with Chaos
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NATIONAL LIVE MUSIC AWARDS
ACT NOMINEES
PHOTO BY MARIA GRACE HUNDER
LIVE ACT OF THE YEAR GLITORIS CAPES HELENA POP MOANING LISA THE ANSAH BROTHERS (Citizen Kay and Genesis Owusu) Now that both brothers find themselves in fast-moving solo careers, the Ansah Brothers name gives them space for those ideas that don’t fit neatly under the Citizen Kay or Genesis Owusu banners.
LIVE EVENT OF THE YEAR SPILT MILK GROOVIN THE MOO MULGARA PRESENTS NO FRONT FENCES ‘DIY til I die’ seems a simple enough ethos to adopt, but Mulgara took DIY arts to new territory with their innaugural three-day festival. Curated and managed with love and dedication, No Front Fences saw interstate and local artists visiting backyards and carports as well as tried-and-true stages.
THE NATIONAL FOLK FESTIVAL
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LIVE VOICE OF THE YEAR BETH MONZO Betty Alto ELLA HUNT The Lowlands “The musical equivalent of a hug ... suited equally to your share house living room and a cavernous theatre.” Ella Hunt has only grown as a songwriter and performers since we wrote this last year.
NATHAN GUBLER The Blade Winner, Space Party, The Sinbirds ALICE COTTEE No Hausfrau, Glitoris and Alice Cottee AZIM ZAIN Azim Zain & His Lovely Bones, Elk Locker
LIVE VENUE OF THE YEAR SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE THE PHOENIX The Phoenix is a second home for Canberra’s creatives. With rumours circulating in March that the venue may be on the brink of closure, the community responded with a spontaneous night of acoustic music on the steps outside.
TRANSIT BAR LOBROW GALLERY & BAR THE BASEMENT
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BMA BAND
PROFILE [LOCAL ACTS TO WATCH]
Where did your band name come from? We were really stuck on a name, but it actually came from us sitting in Katherine’s bedroom and we were looking around the room for inspiration, and saw a Nirvana poster she has on her wall. It’s a photo shoot from when they were in London, sitting in front of the Dalmacia Hotel, which has since been torn down. Describe your sound. It’s always a struggle fitting ourselves into a genre, but we’d probably say we play indie/alternative rock. Who are your influences, musical or otherwise?
PHOTO BY ADAM THOMAS
DALMACIA Group members: Ash O’Leary (lead vocals/bass), Katherine Bray (drums/vocals), Georgia Hannaford (guitar/vocals)
We draw inspiration from Arctic Monkeys, Foo Fighters, Royal Blood, Camp Cope, Red Hot Chili Peppers and so on. What’s the most memorable experience you’ve had while performing? During our first ever show, we played ‘Everybody’ by the Backstreet Boys and all of our friends in the audience and some of the other bands jumped up on stage and started dancing and singing with us, it was incredible! It became a kind of tradition whenever we play it, they still do it at gigs too! Of what are you proudest so far? We’ve shared the stage with some incredible bands including Jeff Rosenstock and The Last Exposure and we’re very proud of everything we’ve achieved in the past year! It’s been a super busy time, but probably our proudest achievement is playing with Wet Lips for our first ever interstate show at Urge Records in Wollongong. We brought a bunch of our mates down too, and it was an awesome gig and so much fun! What are your plans for the future? At the moment we’re planning on recording and releasing our music to take the next step as a band. It’s super exciting and we can’t wait! As for
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the future, we really wanna stay together as a band and experience as much as we can for as long as we can. What makes you laugh? When one of our friends, Matt, crowdsurfs and jumps up on stage and takes his shirt off during our last song at almost all of our shows. One time, he started crowdsurfing at the Phoenix and no one really was carrying him so he kind of fell upside down before our friends saved him! What pisses you off? Probably when we say “Can’t Stop” instead of “Can’t Stop This” which is the actual title to one of our songs, but we’ve changed that song around like seven times so we always mess up the name. I guess you could say we just can’t stop changing it! What about the Canberra scene would you change? The Canberra scene is thriving at the moment, it’s really great and there’s a real community coming to everyone’s shows; bands supporting other bands shows is so important. The only thing we would change is maybe more venues around Canberra, but the scene is constantly growing and it’s super supportive and great! What are your upcoming gigs? We have heaps coming up! On the 13th of October we’re playing the En Plein Air Festival at ANU, the 14th at Lobrow Gallery and Bar, the 18th we’re doing “Wodenstock” which is a gig and workshop for students at the Woden School, the 21st at the Basement for the Rock For Tara charity show, and the 28th at the Phoenix for a huge Halloween gig with a bunch of our favourite bands! It’s a big month ahead for us! Contact info: dalmaciaband@gmail.com.au facebook.com/dalmaciaband triplejunearthed.com/artist/ dalmacia (there will be more uploaded up on it soon so keep an eye out!)
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PUNK & DISORDERLY [THE WORD ON PUNK] WITH ALICE WORLEY [ALICE.WORLEY@OUTLOOK.COM]
The Punk Gig Guide Sat Oct 14 – Bleach it Clean, Signs & Symbols, Ambulare, House of Strangers @ The Front Gallery and Café Sat Oct 14 – Teen Jesus and The Jean Teasers & Friends w/ Dalmacia, Hopeless Youth Group, Neon Highways and Michael Malone – LoBrow Gallery & Bar Sat Oct 28 – Nightmare on East Row II: Electric Boogaloo w/ Azim Zain and His Lovely Bones, Rachel Maria Cox, Jacob, Raised As Wolves, Dalmacia and Capes – The Phoenix Fri Nov 3 – Babyfreeze EP launch w/ Coolio Desgracias & Housemouse, The Norah Jones Half Hour and devdsp – LoBrow Gallery & Bar Sat Nov 4 – Heart Beach, Passive Smoke, House of Strangers, Little Lunch – The Phoenix
So I got to live the dream and see the beautiful Camp Cope! And with so many friends as well! Managed to shuffle my shortarse self to (almost) the front. They had such a presence as they came on, everyone was just losing it. And as much as they have that rock star stance and swagger, they still looked so chuffed to be standing in front of us all, which is just such a fantastic vibe for a band to project. Opening with ‘Done’, it was a sea of punk-loving girls jumping up and down and screaming every lyric. The most touching feeling washed over The Basement as we felt that instrumental break to raise our fists and scream “I only want to be like you, because sister, I admired you.” It was such a feeling that I looked around and watched as these beautiful fans in the crowd were weeping but still sporting the biggest smiles on their euphoric faces. We were also blessed with some very impressive support acts. Worriers, a punk band from Brooklyn, NY, were such a captivating bunch. A very dreamy and melodic take on the punk genre, their instrumentals were simply divine and Lauren Denitzio is a beautiful singer and
HELENA POP - PHOTO BY ALICE WORLEY
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songwriter. As they played their latest single, ‘Gaslighter’, I fell a little more in love with them. They have a full-length album called Imaginary Life which has been described as “a masterfully created punk record” by the Village Voice. Check them the fuck out, people.
seen a lot of bands like them in Canberra before. Reminded me of my days in the old Phoenix watching Fossil Rabbit, but on a more magnified scale, as Fossil Rabbit was a solo act. Highly recommend checking out Lost Coast if you’re an appreciator of amazing instrumentals.
We also got to indulge in some of The Last Exposure (SYD) on this amazingly empowering night. They always play so well. Chelsea is a master at singing to her audience, and Hayley, Nathan, and Jake are all just so good at what they do.
Slagatha Christie, I mean, c’mon, you’ve heard me gush about them a million times now. You know that I love them. Their costumes at this gig were a little frightening I must admit. Jess and Kate donning body-suits with enlarged faces of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. Apparently Stephen was supposed to be wearing Donald Trump, but it hadn’t arrived yet. Boo!
They only negative I’ll say for the night is that I do kind of wish there was at least one local act on the bill. It would have been a huge deal for an up and coming female punk band, such as Teen Jesus and The Jean Teasers, to be able to say “Yeah, I played with Camp Cope. Isn’t that unreal?” but c’est la vie. Maybe next time. Helena Pop had a really banging EP launch at Phoenix entitled ‘Post-Apocalyptic’, playing with Slagatha Christie and Lost Coast. This was my first Lost Coast experience, my second being only a week later at the Sign & Symbols gig, and I was super impressed. I haven’t
And Helena Pop. What can I say except “this is what punk rock is”. Every gig you folks perform at The Phoenix is just a big, sweaty, sing-a-long for all your Canberra fam and it’s always so much fun, so thank you for the good times. That was the biggest, smelliest group hug I’ve ever been in and I fucking loved every second. Must mention, Azim Zain and His Lovely Bones have released some tunes! Beautiful tracks that have been masterfully recorded with some very stunning cover art, Between Who We Are and Who We Used To Be is a musthave to add to your Canberra collection and is still being toured around the country. Also, on the topic of local releases, Jim Dusty’s Taking Inventory will have been released by the time this issue is printed and I’m sure it’s going to be magic. And I really have to have one of the new Black Flag-inspired shirts he’s been teasing us with on his social media pages. They are amazing and I’ll take ten thank you very much. PAGE 33
PLANET OF SOUND Planet of Sound is our column celebrating the wide history of music. In this month’s entry, Dan Bigna addresses MUSIC TASTE; arrogance and the obscure.Subject An arrogant taste in music can piss people off in seconds, but the persistence that drives the hunt for the good stuff is mostly worth it. To backtrack, I always get a kick when walking past McDonalds in the city bus interchange and getting a blast of excitable classical music. Something like Wagner’s epic ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ somehow makes perfect sense while patrons dip that last chicken Mcnugget into the remnants of the dipping sauce as people scurry past with an extra spring in their step from Wagner’s call to arms. I recently walked past the same McDonalds on my way to Landspeed Records and was treated to the grandiosity of Richard Strauss’ ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra,’ better known as the eternally thrilling opening music to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey. This would have encouraged patrons to consider the meaning of human existence while dipping into the sweet and sour – the right and proper thing to do. I was on my way to Landspeed to purchase the latest album from Japanese noise merchants Boris who were apparently on the verge of calling it a day but decided to release a doom/stoner monster instead, titled Dear. As I briskly walked through Garema Place, I wondered what might happen to the patronage of the interchange McDonalds if Boris rather than Richard Strauss was blasted through the speakers. Maybe lines would form out the door, but this is probably one more deluded fantasy from a music fan who naively attempts to apply the principles of French writer Jean Genet’s subverted morality principles to the world of music
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by weighing up the possibility that the music underground will once again rise up to bask in the mainstream as Nirvana managed back in 1991 when their singular brand of highly charged punk rock knocked Michael Jackson from the top of the charts. Admittedly, it is also possible that I gravitate to the lesser known stuff in the hope of impressing the staff behind the counter at Landspeed Records with my highly evolved taste. Although, what would they care about yet another self-
anyway, because obtaining the Boris album was consolation enough, as was the hard liquor at Shorty’s that followed and then the purchase of a couple of books that enthusiastically celebrate the music underground and by association all those socially maladjusted music geeks who wallow in it. Jeanette Leech’s Fearless: The Making of Post-Rock details how deconstructing rock music became a hallowed mission for successive generations of free thinking musicians, and the comprehensive survey of former Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore’s many side projects, We Sing a New Language by Nick Soulsby (reviewed in the previous issue of BMA) obsessively explores how deconstructing rock music can satisfy the desires of the most obscurity driven music fan. It has been heartening to read about the many nonconcessions experimental musicians make when engaged in total creativity, and the sheer randomness that sometimes goes into non-contrived art.
you won’t always get what you want
righteous music devotee who acts like their taste in art is the only one that matters? Besides, it is near impossible to strike up any meaningful conversation as they slip the latest valuable purchase into a yellow bag while you stare awkwardly at a stack of Foo Fighters albums on the countertop. It doesn’t matter
“During the concert a guy shouted ‘fuck shit up’ … and that’s how the album got titled,” turntablist Christian Marclay says, referring to the 2000 album Fuck Shit Up recorded by Moore, fellow Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo and Marclay at the esteemed Victoriaville festival in Canada. And it is this sheer open ended approach to music
making that should receive attention from fans who use good art to kick everyday habit and routine up the backside, but with the expectation that you won’t always get what you want. To illustrate, I picked up a copy of the latest Queens of the Stone Age album Villains and then headed out for a quick drink. I spotted a girl who I vaguely recalled had once pissed me off at a house party because she was loudly proclaiming that Coldplay were misunderstood and underappreciated by people who should apparently know better. I already understood that she wouldn’t ordinarily give people like me the time of day given her striking physical appearance, but the Coldplay rant aside, I nevertheless hoped that some personal quality might give me an entry point of some kind. I quietly nursed my beer while pretending to read my own stuff in BMA. She eventually came up to me, noticed the Queens album and asked if I liked the band. I said I thought they had been getting more mainstream as time went on. This didn’t go down well and she must have also noticed the growing hole in the underarm of my woollen David Jones jumper as I lifted the beer for another hit because she turned without another word and quickly disappeared into the crowd as I glanced longingly at her gorgeous tanned legs. Well, you can’t win ‘em all as the cliché goes, but so long as Thurston Moore is out there somewhere participating in yet another outsider project everything will be ok. DAN BIGNA
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NEVER THE ODD ONE OUT
BY MATT PARNELL
At the time of this interview, I’d seen JESS LOCKE twice and was about to see her play live for the third time, all in support roles. However, with her latest album and solo tour coming up around the corner, it was as good a time as any to get to know an artist who’s seemingly become a bit of a Swiss army knife for touring bands, having toured this year (so far) with Ceres, the Smith Street Band and Jeff Rosenstock.
A lot of the bands I’ve gotten used to playing with aren’t necessarily similar in sound to me, but in attitude
On these tours, Jess Locke and her particular sound, which has transformed in to an electric guitar driven, small band vibe, has seemed the odd one out. On this apparent juxtaposition, Jess said, “a lot of the bands I’ve gotten used to playing with aren’t necessarily similar in sound to me, but in attitude. I think I’ve spent a lot of time playing in a specific circle in Melbourne and Sydney where that’s the scene that welcomed me so I’ve found myself playing in different acts and it’s cool to have a mixed lineup.” Additionally, she says these are bands that contribute to a sense of community and have similar approaches to the way they do things. “There’s a communal vibe, certain bands feel like they’re just trying to get ahead and other groups are more like doing it together, they’re playing the show with you, not like competing. Other scenes kinda feel a bit competitive, there’s that kinda vibe, which is nice.” In terms of the growing success of Australian bands both at home and overseas, particularly self-managed bands, she says “I think you notice there has been a lot of local bands that have really made it big, which isn’t something you’ve seen in a while, so it’s inspiring to see that self-managed artists and people from pretty specific music scenes are being taken on board by a wider audience.” JESS LOCKE’s album, Universe, drops Friday October 20, and she hits The Phoenix on Wednesday November 8. Tickets are $10 + bf through Oztix.
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LAST SNOWFALL
BY RORY MCCARTNEY
After ten years of mayhem, blues rockers THE SNOWDROPPERS are calling it quits. However, they are hitting the road for a final series of shows, playing Too Late to Pray in full, plus a selection of favourite hits, and BMA spoke to screaming frontman Jeremy Davidson (aka Johnny Wishbone) about the band’s heritage. Asked about the reason for the band’s dissolution and if it was a matter of life getting in the way Davidson said, “We’ve been at it for ten years and it’s just sort of time. There’s no bad blood, and we just want to go out with a bang, rather than fizzle away after 11 or 12 years.” The Snowdroppers debut was playing at the burlesque variety show Good Drugs and Bad Women. Davidson remembers it as one of the bigger gigs the band played, although the punters were there for the ladies, rather than the band. “I remember being petrified. I don’t remember much of the gig itself, apart from the fear. We played a few of our own originals, and it was exciting.” The band evolved its style over three LPs, with Moving Out of Eden having a stronger rock sound. “For us it was a natural progression, moving away from a rockabilly-country sound to a bluesy rock sound. I think all of our stuff retained its ‘blueseyness’ over the years.” Asked about whether Too Late to Pray has a special place in band members’ hearts Davidson says, “I think it holds more of a place in our fans’ hearts, maybe. It’s the one we get the most requests
from. Maybe that was our peak; we peaked too early and it was all downhill from there. So we thought, let’s revisit the glory days.” Extra shows have been scheduled in Sydney and Melbourne as initial gigs have been sold out. “It’s been pleasantly surprising. We were not expecting it at all, so it’s really humbling.” On best gigs, Davidson recalls, “vThere have been so many, but I always remember Bluesfests. They were just fantastic, to play a crowd that size was an incredible experience. It was humbling for people to take time out to see us, when they could have seen a myriad of other more professional bands.” The end of The Snowdroppers does not mark the end of the line, musically, for Davidson. “There will be period of reassessment, perhaps mourning, after the final show. I have some solo stuff in the works, with JD and the Hungermen.”CT THE SNOWDROPPERS, with special guests THE BARREN SPINSTERS and TTEEN JESUS AND THE JEAN TEASERS, host their Canberra farewell at Transit Bar on Saturday October 21. Doors at 8pm. Tickets $25 +bf available through Moshtix.
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STAYING TRUE
BY RORY MCCARTNEY
THE BELLIGERENTS are on a roll, having launched a debut LP six years into their time together as a band and having scored air time on Triple J for songs including ‘Flash’. Now the psych/pop five-piece from Brisbane are coming to Canberra as part of their album launch tour. I spoke to bassist Konstantin Kersting about the band’s progress to date. Some of the band members met each other through dating each other’s sisters and, for most of them, The Belligerents was their first band experience.
almost stifled creativity. “We had to figure out as a band what we wanted to do, and our style of music has changed dramatically since the 2012 EP She Calls the Shots. At first, we tried to please other people too much. Parklife was our first experience of success and we were keen to keep it going, so we fell into the trap of thinking, let’s make something other people might like. This made us fall out of love with the music we were making.” The band did not release anything for about two years and it was not until a move to self-producing and
This made us fall out of love with the music we were making “While all of us had been playing music for years, this was the virgin band for most of us. I started playing violin at four and Andy (Andrew Balzat, synth/vocals) was really good at piano when he was younger. Stag (Samuel Sargent, drums) had played in hardcore bands in Canberra before, including possibly the band that became Hands Like Houses, before he moved to Brisbane.” In 2012 the band achieved their first real milestone on its road to success, winning a spot playing at Parklife in Brisbane through Triple J Unearthed. “This weekend coming is the five-year anniversary of what was the first time we played on a big festival stage, and were able to hang out with some bigger bands. It was very exciting, for sure.” Asked why it took six years before the band issued its debut LP, Kersting explained the development of The Belligerents’ sound, and how early success
the release of the single ‘In My Way’ that the band realised that this was what they really wanted to make. “We stopped caring what everyone else thought and made what we liked. That was when our sound started to change a lot.” The issue of the EP Outside:Inside firmed up the band’s style, indicating the general sonic approach the debut album would take. In an unusual move, the band avoided road testing several album tracks at gigs, until it was time for the launch tour. “For me, it feels weird if you see a band doing an album tour, but they have been playing the songs off the record live for the last year. We really wanted to hold back playing some songs, especially those that sound a bit different, until the album was released.” THE BELLIGERENTS, together with BUS VIPERS, play Transit Bar on Thursday November 9. Doors at 8pm. Tickets $20 through Oztix.
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R A AV E THE
REGULATED BY JOSH MARTIN
Affability is an underrated attribute in all musicians, and even more so in dance-punk. Acerbic ironicisms characterized the oh-soself-aware personalities of the 2000s pioneering New York scene, but now that the early noughties are just faded memories of Crocs and rock revivals, it has never been cooler to be like Joab Eastley of Newcastle up-and-comers RAAVE TAPES, the mecca of indie nice guys. Preschool teacher by day, RAAVER, by night, Eastley is so overwhelmingly positive in conversation, its almost startling. Overflowing with Novocastrian (a term for a citizen of Newcastle) patriotism, Eastley happily spends minutes to plug local bands; contemporaries, ankle biters and forefathers. Try as he might however, it’s impossible to ignore RAAVE Tape’s own raucous tunes as the most exciting thing currently coming out of the city; thundering danceability somewhere between infected garage-rock and dark electronica abstractions. They’re as much influenced by Gwen Stefani as they are Bloc Party according to Eastley, if not more Gwen. “I do a lot of cool dance moves which are heaps Gwen Stefani,” he says. “I could be her Akon. All I know that she’s doing right now is being fifty and still looking amazing. She’s one of those people that just never age. Maybe she’s a vampire. Yep. Gwen Stefani is a vampire.”
to it back we figured out what direction we wanted to go.” ‘k-bye’ is the purest distillation of the band’s enormity and twisted effect mastery yet; squelching bass and robotic guitar tics erupt, while Eastley strains to new vocal lengths on the best refrain of the year: “I don’t know what you
‘k-bye’ I was like, right, ketamine. Ketamine is horses, we need to do The Saddle Club... I called him, driving home, and just had this idea for the clip, and just rattled off this entire script and he was like ‘okay, write that down and I’ll try to make that work,’” he laughs. Bizarro ideas like these certainly culminate in a boisterous live show, but Eastley emphasises a sense of care that is sorely missed from many performers. “Playing smaller venues without security, crowd control is a big issue for us. The safe spaces, Your Choice movement, we are really trying to get behind that. I love partying but we need to do positive partying. It does come down to the artist a lot. Halfway through a set I’ll go, ‘Hey! Turn to the person next to you and ask if they’re having fun. Are they having fun? Good. Let’s make
Gwen Stefani is a vampire said to me, but it sounded like ketamine.”
The band in their second incarnation (swapping in Lewis Horne on drums and Lindsay O’Connell on bass) are about to set out on their ‘k-bye’ tour, scouring the eastern coast with their loopy live shows.
“I did the vocals heaps hungover, pushing through it. I’ve definitely got to a point with my voice where I can do that, cause back in the day I couldn’t really scream that well, or sing that high. Just through continuously playing so many shows, doing it over and over again, my voice has been pushing higher and higher. We’ll see how high it can go, hopefully I’ll end up like The Darkness one day.” Eastley is only halfjoking, manifesting his own harebrained throwback for ‘k-bye’s music video, The Saddle Club.
“Our first EP was just three guys playing some music together, and we didn’t really have any idea about what we were doing. That sort of worked, and listening
“I have really stupid ideas and it’s someone else’s job to make them actually work. I’ve got to plug James Fox, he’s the director who shot all this stuff. With
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TA P E S
sure that keeps happening. If they’re not having fun, you let us know alright.’ Never have fun at the expense of someone else.” This approach to crowd control is emblematic of the caring attitude that Eastley takes to all manners of performance – as part of No-Fi records, RAAVE Tapes take a keen interest in diverse gig curation, something that puts ANU Bar and Greenroom’s recent gaffes in neat perspective. “With every bill we bring females and non-males to town because we don’t have that many nonmale bands (in Newcastle). We have a few and they’re great but they can’t play every bill every week. It’s really great to be able to put them on that pedestal and show other young people in the city that it’s possible. “
RAAVE
Eastley’s grassroots fostering of diverse groups of young musicians in a town the size of Newcastle resonates for frustrated Canberrans and our revolving door venue scene. “Newcastle doesn’t have community radio. We only have Triple J so if you’re not getting J play, you’re not really known which is such a shitty thing. We are trying to make Newcastle a bit of a thing, because we have been left off too many tours for my liking lately, so we’re trying to bring a few more to town.” The kindredship runs even deeper with Canberra, having already been given the proper introduction to the capital’s nightlife by local garage punkers Marlon Bando. “They go hard don’t they? We’d never been to Canberra before, so I said to the guys who were keen to go out for a beer afterwards, can you please take me on a tour of Canberra? I wanna start with the cool nice pubs, and slowly degrade into places that you shouldn’t go. And it was great, we had some beers at some nice fancy places, where we felt silly and then we went to some cool bar, like uh, The Phoenix, had a few beers there, met the owners and then we ended up at the really shitty big club, what is it?” “Mooseheads?” I venture. “Mooooooseheads! I should start an event for our Canberra show, official afterparty at Mooseheads at midnight. Tell everyone I’ll meet you there.” You heard the man. You can catch RAAVE TAPES’ explosive live show at Transit Bar on Thursday October 26. Tickets $13.24 via Moshtix.
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MAKE YOUR RAAVE SPACE A SAFE SPACE: “Halfway through a set I’ll go, ‘Hey! Turn to the person next to you and ask if they’re having fun. Are they having fun? Good. Let’s make sure that keeps happening. If they’re not having fun, you let us know alright.’ Never have fun at the expense of someone else.” - Joab Eastley
PHOTO BY LAZYBONES
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REFORMING THE RIGHT WAY BY JOSH MARTIN Other than populist movements and craft beer, the 2010s are probably most notably defined by the phenomenon of the band reunion. For the first time, popular music has started to scrape the bottom of the wellspring of originality, leaning on the refurbishment of relic rockers to sell concert tickets. Reformer and singersongwriter/guitarist, Jodi Phillis, of 90s heroes THE CLOUDS, feels a little conflicted about doing it herself. “Everyone’s doing it. It’s something that I don’t think is that healthy. I mean I’m doing it but at the same time, why is this happening? Where are all the young bands? It’s kind of strange. It’s not something I feel altogether excited about.” Phillis laughs. For The Clouds however, it’s certainly no case of making a quick buck on an arena tour. The band soared in the early nineties with their utterly unique brand of angelic-grunge juxtaposition, fronted by Phillis and bassist Trish Young’s iconic harmonies. The band tragically crumbled in 1997 in the face of weakening success and the “ageist” forces of triple j. Many cried a classic act lost too soon, as most members were forced to put away the ripped flannel and guitars for stable work. What few understood perhaps, is that Phillis herself was grappling with something more crippling than artistic acrimony: chronic insomnia. “It’s something that’s plagued me ever since The Clouds started touring, and one of the major reasons I had to stop and why I haven’t kind of been able to do PAGE 40
that much of it, even for the music that I’ve done since The Clouds.” Phillis persevered, her musical obsession overwhelming the serious psychological deficit that it posed, carving out an intimate solo career amongst other ventures. Frankly, Phillis says, she didn’t have a choice. “If I wasn’t doing this I may as well be dead. Seriously... You get to a certain point where you can’t turn back, you know who you are, and if you know that there is music in you that needs to come out then you just have to go for it even harder as you get older. I’m deciding to go harder.” After recently finding a “lifechanging” cure, Phillis has come out the other side with a well-worn tapestry of life experience, engaging in pursuits outside of musicianship that are no less essential: motherhood and working for the dole. One particularly “wonderful” workfor the dole experience in a charity book shop in The Cloud’s interim years provoked a grand epiphany. “There’s so many kinds of people on this planet. I think as a musician if you stay in that
musicians bubble, only mixing with musicians and creative people and cool groovy people, you’re really not seeing the real world, so it’s really good to get out there and do different stuff.” The difficult circumstances surrounding a reunion of The Clouds has assured that they won’t be part of the crusty reformation narrative. “We would feel really like we’d sold out if we just kept playing the old songs. That would be the most unappealing thing for us to do. Whether or not people are going to care about the new stuff that we do, cause I know a lot of people are going to want to hear the old favourites, but they’re just going to have to suck it up and put up with our new songs. That’s why we do it, because we enjoy trying new things and that hasn’t changed.” The determinability resulted in the tantalizingly brief EP Zaffre from earlier this year, the band’s first recorded music in twenty years. The three tracks are a paroxysm of the bubbling creativity that gestated over the hiatus period, maintaining a sharp bubblegum sensibility while existing in a brand new frame of dreamy influences. “We’ve reached this mature point where we just take each song for what it is. Because we were [back in the 90s] playing all the time and the big grunge thing was happening, we just kind of went with that. Now we’re just four weird little friends that like playing music together. We do whatever we want, there’s no scene that we’re part of.” Forthcoming
single
‘Beautiful
Nothingness’ brandishes this lack of constraint with relish, Phillis remarking that its aspirational benchmark was Daft Punk. The jaunty bass groove and Nile Rogers guitar scratch certainly departs from the grunge-affected tunes of their heyday, perhaps also due to the fact that creativity has never been a more critical resource. “We live in different parts of the country now. It’s been challenging working long distance, it works but it’s a bit slow. We have to work out how we are going to do an album because we’ll have to work a bit faster than we have done. Everyone works except me so it’s everyone arranging their lives to get time off and commit solely to The Clouds.” Enough commitment was garnered to organise their national tour with their old tourmates and, of course, fellow reformers the Falling Joys, rousing the hearts of nostalgia junkies and young pundits alike. “The Clouds were going to go away on tour anyway, because the last time we went out it was the Day on the Green, and we weren’t allowed to do any sideshows because of that contract. Our old manager came back on board with us and suggested going out with the Falling Joys who he used to manage as well and it was one big happy family. So we’re all revisiting that world, it’s great!”. It’s a family reunion well earnt. Catch THE CLOUDS at UC Refectory with THE FALLING JOYS on Friday November 3 on their Beautiful Nothingness Tour. Tickets $44.90 via Oztix. ‘Beautiful Nothingness’ is out on Monday October 16.
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Exhibitionist | Arts in the ACT
NINJAS AND ROMANCE BY SHARONA LIN
© 2017 ‘RADIANCE’ FILM PARTNERS / KINOSHITA, COMME DES CINEMAS, KUMIE
In 1997, the JAPANESE FILM FESTIVAL screened three films in North Sydney, selected by former Festival Director Masafumi Konomi. 21 years later, the festival screens over 40 films over several programs – the main, classic and regional programs. Margarett Cortez has been the film festival’s program coordinator since 2015, overseeing its 20th year with an audience of 26,100. The films are curated by the arts and culture team. “It’s always been a consensus,” Cortez says of film selection. The team is comprised mostly of Australian staff, which means that they are able to program films that appeal to Australian audiences. “We try to program more films with females, more films by auteurs, films with LGBTI themes,” Cortez says. “LGBTI people don’t have a lot of presence in Japanese media, and obviously we’re still fighting for that here too.” Since the Japanese Film Festival PAGE 42
“We listen to our audience a lot,” Cortez says, which is why the Australian program is generally quite comedy and drama heavy. She also notes different thematic preferences across Australia. “Sydney and Melbourne prefer arthouse festival titles, while Canberra and Adelaide like dramas and comedy. And Perth likes crime mysteries.” On top of that, the team works hard to bring films that have been
It’s always been a consensus
first started, a lot has changed in the cultural landscape. Films like Spirited Away have shown Western audiences that anime is not just for children, while the internet, and distributors like Madman have brought anime to mainstream Australian audiences. But the festival isn’t just anime and Kurosawa.
well received overseas (“Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, for example,” Cortez says), but of course, their priority is to bring well made films to Australia. The mission of the film festival is to “eventually carve out more space for Japanese cinema in Australia,” Cortez says. The festival will open with Mumon:
The Land of Stealth, an action film about a deadly ninja who accidentally triggers a deadly samurai vs ninja battle in his province. It will close with Radiance, a romantic drama about a writer of audio guides for the visually impaired and a photographer who is going blind. “It’s a beautiful film, it’s a title that a lot of people will enjoy even if they don’t watch a lot of Japanese films – it’s very Japanese.” Essentially, there’s plenty for everyone at the Japanese Film Festival, which is bringing its classics program to ARC Cinema at the National Film and Sound Archives. The abridged classics program will show three films in Canberra, paying tribute to the late director Seijun Suzuki. This is the pilot year – next year, they hope to bring it back, bigger and better. The 2017 Japanese Film Festival kicks off in Canberra on Friday October 13 at Dendy Cinemas. Tickets at japanesefilmfestival.net.
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[Arts]
ROLLERCOASTER OF EMOTIONS BY HAYDEN FRITZLAFF Victor Diaz is a passionate man. This much is clear from the moment we start our conversation. He’s on hands free in his car – in transit between Lucha Libre engagements I imagine – and we’re chatting about the DAY OF THE DEAD BATTLE, the cabaret-meets-WWE-meets-Latin American history lesson that he’s bringing to Canberra as part of this year’s Day of the Dead festivities. It’s more than just a wrestling demonstration, this much I know, but I soon discover I have a lot to learn. “I mean the main idea is obviously Mexican wrestling,” explains Diaz. “But it’s a complete Mexican cultural experience. I’m from Mexico myself and we also have a Mexican party together with the Mexican wrestling.” “Since I was a kid I was into Mexican wrestling. For Mexican kids, Mexican wrestling is kind of like our Mexican superheroes. Like, Americans will have Captain America and Superman. In Mexico we have Luchadors, these masked wrestlers. Some of them they used to have films where they were fighting against vampires, zombies. Things like that. “So when I was growing up I was always interested in that. But you grow up and you kind of forget a little about it. But when I moved to Australia I was importing Mexican hand-decorated masks. I was selling them in summertime at the Queen Victoria Markets. This one day a woman arrived and she asked me if the people were wearing the masks in Mexico and if it’s a Mexican fetish. And I started laughing, until I realised she was actually serious.
And then I explained it to her and she really liked the idea behind it. “Back in those days, this is maybe five years ago, I was already organising Latin parties in Melbourne. And I thought, ‘what about doing a Latin party but this time with Mexican wrestling?’ and that’s how it all started.” The multi-faceted nature of Mexican wrestling makes it difficult to categorise. At first glance, it’s a sport, albeit a flamboyant one. But there’s drama as well, and a depth of culture in the way the masks are created and held in sanctity. Diaz’s parties bring an element of cabaret to the spectacle too, with music
erected Mexican wrestling arena in the middle of the room. “Come ready for the unexpected,” he says. “And also, know that it’s a very random night out with friends. It’s a lot of fun, especially when you’re enjoying it with your friends. You’re going to yell a lot, you’re going to scream a lot, you’re gonna laugh, you’re gonna hate some wrestlers, you’re gonna go crazy for the girls. Yeah, it’s a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions.” The Day of the Dead Battle forms part of a wider celebration of Latin culture taking place around town on November 4. Over at Ainslie Arts Centre, the Day of the Dead Fiesta will see live music, art and food before the over-18s head to the Harmonie German Club for the grand battle at 9pm. But Diaz and his crew will be at the festival during the day, putting on rousing wrestling demonstrations and spreading the word about Lucha Libre culture. “We’re gonna do a demonstration of Mexican wrestling moves, we’re gonna have two of our wrestlers there showing people how we do some of our special Mexican wrestling moves, and then we’re
We can make it feel like it’s not just a show but a complete spectacle and acrobatics. I ask him where it sits for him on the entertainment spectrum.
gonna have a competition especially for the kids, though maybe we’ll have some adults joining in…”
“It’s actually a mix of lots of things,” he says. “It’s a sport, but at the same time it’s got that element of show and that element of entertainment.”
Diaz pauses for a moment, considering how much he ought to let slip about the day’s festivities. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you more about it, keep it a surprise,” he continues.
As one of the uninitiated myself, I ask Diaz what to expect when I walk into the German Club to see a newly-
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twist his arm. I get the sense Diaz is a showman in the non-wrestling parts of his life as much as in his work. “Oh, why not,” he says, finally. “We’re gonna give them a mask from a Mexican wrestler as part of the completion. That’s going to be a lot of fun, both the demonstration and the show. And this is the first time we’re going to Canberra, so we’re really looking forward to it. It’ll be good fun, we’ll have something very special prepared for Canberra. “The venue gets transformed into a Mexican arena for the show. But we’ve been doing it for years, we’ve done it in Melbourne, we’ve done it in Sydney. We have done it in China as well, in Singapore too. So yeah, we have all the logistics worked out so we can give the best experience to people. We can make it feel like it’s not just a show but a complete spectacle. And then of course there’s the party element to it as well.”
The DAY OF THE DEAD BATTLE takes place on November 4 at Harmonie German Club from 9pm. Tickets are $45 via luchalibre. com.au. The DAY OF THE DEAD FIEST is held on November 4 at Aisnlie Arts Centre from 1pm8pm. After the wrestling, head to the DAY OF THE DEAD AFTER PARTY at Highball Express from midnight.
It doesn’t take much from me to
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[Film]
Exhibitionist | Arts in the ACT
NOTHING IS OFF LIMITS
BY HAYDEN FRITZLAFF
Pippa Grandison is on her lunchbreak. It’s day two of rehearsals for BOYS WILL BE BOYS, the bitingly satirical play that delves Wolf of Wall Street-style into the ‘man’s world’ of the trading room floor. “It’s a bit of a, well,” says Grandison, pausing to think. “I can’t say that word, can I? It’s a bit of a, uh, brain explosion at the moment, because we’re working through the text and there’s a lot of it. But it’s great, it’s really fun. A great bunch of people and all women in the cast which is new for me. I’ve never been in an all-female cast before, that I’m aware of.” Grandison plays Astrid, the rutheless trader who looks back down the career ladder at the pieces of the glass ceiling she’s burst right through. Astrid is fearless and driven, but constantly conscious of the way in which she holds herself, continually aware of the men breathing down her neck. It’s apparent that working with an all-female cast brings a different dynamic, but it’s tricky for Grandison to pinpoint exactly why. “It’s more of a feeling, more of an interesting place,” she says. “I mean, in this industry everyone’s pretty loose and open with each other. As actors we’re kind of born that way you know, we operate from an emotional place all the time and nothing’s really off limits in conversation in my experience. It doesn’t feel any more safe or any different really, it’s kind of an intangible thing. There’s maybe a comradery, or a deeper understanding of each other. “She’s completely the opposite to me,” says Grandison, reflecting on her relationship to Astrid. “She’s the flip of me. I know as actors we play other characters, but quite often you’ll find
something in those characters that’s like you. But in terms of who she is, how she approaches the world, She’s a very, very powerful, confident, unapologetic woman. She’s in your face and just doesn’t care what you think. And any kind of vulterability she has is buried so deep that you almost can’t see it, find it. “Pippa, me, I’m kind of the flip of that. I’m an open wound, my emotions – it’s a heart on sleeve kind of thing. And to be completely courageous and walk into a room and own it with confidence is an unlikely event for me. So that was exciting. It’s quite empowering playing a woman like that. I’m finding inner strength that I haven’t really had to dig for before, so that’s great.” For Grandison, the process of inhabiting a world and a character goes beyond the personal connections. Coming in on day one and sitting down with the creative team – the set, costume, lighting, music and sound design – becomes one of the most vital and rewarding aspects of the production. “That’s why I like doing theatre in smaller spaces sometimes,” she says. “Everyone’s in there together in the trenches. Theatre,
NO HOLDS BARRED Pippa Grandison plays ruthless financial trader, Astrid. when you feel you’re part of a big team and everyone’s working together and you can have input and share with each other then it becomes a safer place to expose yourself in a way. “It’s of the utmost importance what the creative team does when you’re an actor. How you’re lit can determine a mood. It’s your space as your character, it’s where you live, where you work, these are the spaces where you spend a lot of time. And in a way, it kind of forms who you are for the audience. Everyone’s reading the piece and finding their space within it. We’re all in the same boat I guess.” *** “Yesterday was a bit of a whirlwind,” says Isha Menon. “Already Caroline [Stacey, director] has done a lot of work setting up the design and the atmosphere. So we went from 10 to 6:30 without even really realising the time.”
we operate from an emotional place all the time and nothing’s really off limits that’s what its’ supposed to be about for me, I know that sounds a bit wanky, but the craft is such an exposing place to be, depending on the character. And
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Menon plays Priya, a junior on the trading room floor who finds herself under the mentorship of Grandison’s Astrid. Like her co-star, Menon sees the almost immediate sense of comradery
within the cast an abstract but vital part of bringing such adversarial characters to life. “I feel yesterday it was strange in a good way,” she says. “Halfway through the day it was just weirdly familiar with everyone. And I think you need that in this sort of play because it is so bitingly satirical, and it’s got really black humour. “Already when we did a read through, it’s very intense. So it’ll be really great to have that real companionship and friendship in the cast to balance what’s probably going to be a pretty tense atmosphere when we actually get up there. I’m hoping that’s what will happen.” In a play filled with dark humour, navigating the tension between the contextually unapologetic and stepping over the line falls largely to the actors and their tone. “There are so many moments like that in the play,” Says Menon. “Because it’s so satirical – people will be making jokes about suicide, about all sorts of things where you find yourself laughing, and you feel bad for laughing but you can’t help it because it’s just so bad. “I think there’s a couple of points in the play where the joke goes too far. The scene for me that’s really heavy was the scene @bmamag
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[Arts]
FAMILIAR UNFAMILIARITY Isha Menon plays Astrid’s protoge, Priyah.
where my character, Priyah, has to approach the main character, Astrid, after being raped at a party and telling her that she’s going to go to the police. But Astrid just keeps up the tone of the play, completely making light of it, saying ‘oh, you just had a
feel safe, but there are definitely spaces where you do sense that people are kind of expecting you to behave in a certain way, or change yourself in a way, and you get kind of ticks when you tick off that list of ways you’re supposed to behave. And it is
I think there are a couple of points in the play where the joke goes too far bad night of sex’, making jokes about it. And that for me was the scene, when we read it yesterday, that I thought was really intense.” And Melissa Bubnic’s script doesn’t “prettify” any of it. It’s a balance that, when struck, shines a light on the often stark reality faced outside the world of the play. “The finance world is a great setting for the play in that it’s much more obvious and it’s much more seeable,” says Menon of the parallels between Boys Will Be Boys and the theatre industry itself. “With Astrid, there is this very conscious way in which she sculpts herself and behaves. But yeah, I would say that in places like theatre, it’s not as overt but there is definitely a sense, there are pockets of it.
kind of a power play, when you feel like you almost have to pit yourself against maybe the only other woman in the cast just to get approval and power.” Boys Will Be Boys appears, in many ways, to be a dramatised power-play, using the created universe inside the theatre to draw out those merciless corners of the professional world. “I would say it’s that way pretty much anywhere in the world.” BOYS WILL BE BOYS runs between October 27-November 11 at The Street Theatre. Tickets from $30. Visit thestreet.org.au for more performance times and tickets.
“I’ve been lucky in the places I’ve worked in, I’ve been able to facebook.com/bmamagazine
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Exhibitionist | Arts in the ACT wearing strands of crystals hanging from her neck was glamorous and her finale performance of the spider dance with Caroline with metres of black lace hanging from the ceiling and pouncing movements was quirky, almost orgasmic yet feminine.
IN REVIEW THE EXOTIC LIVES OF LOLA MONTEZ TUGGERANONG ARTS CENTRE WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 13
Congratulations Jackie Smith and Moira Finucane, the entire crowd was captivated, with many staying out well past their bedtime to meet and greet the performers afterwards. Around 100 people jammed into the bar area before the show, lounging around in bohemianstyled opulence, picking at tapas plates and enjoying several glasses of good quality wine whilst waiting for the doors to the theatre to open. The largely mature-aged crowd squished happily into the seating in the amphitheatre whilst the painted backdrop, low lighting, long red velvet drapes and brightly lit Chinese lanterns set the ambience for the 90-minute show. With just a large wooden
trunk at the back centre of stage and a chair draped with a fringed scarf, the simplicity of the set design was the perfect level of decoration to not distract from the performance. Lola Montez (Caroline Lee) sauntered onto the set, wearing a black taffeta gown with red satin lining, Swarovski-encrusted straps and a red bow, and her hair half up with a red rose. She was constantly flirtatious, sensual and passionate, speaking clearly and effortlessly for the entire show. Her performance was strong, her
IN REVIEW
NIGHTFEST
COMMONWEALTH PARK SUN OCTOBER 1
NightFest is a celebration of all things floral and fluorescent. The event is spread over two weekends of fun, frivolity and entertainment held at twilight on the banks of Commonwealth Park. Visitors are encouraged to “discover the weird and the wonderful in a nocturnal playground.” As Floriade winds down, NightFest comes alive at dusk. Lights and strobes stutter above and around patrons in awe, looking for prime opportunities for both family photos and Instagram worthy photos. Art
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installations included a jungle of neon tentacles that hung like the branches of weeping willows named The Vines. People weaved through these electronic tendrils, brushing passed the overhanging LED limbs in a haze of multicoloured lights. Two entirely choreographed light shows set in rhythm to music by Coldplay, Muse and other unbashful current electronic hits. Patron-favourite The Cathedral Of Light returned ready for all the couples, lovers and Tinder dates to pose under the illuminated tunnel. The vast and various stalls were all
acting talent very obvious and the finale spider dance routine where she stripped completely nude, whilst proclaiming loudly about her body being nobody’s but hers bought long-lasting applause from the entire crowd.
SAM INGHAM
Holly Durant performed as Caroline’s alter ego with stunning dance and burlesque performances. Her intense raptor-like bird of paradise routine was spectacular, their brief duet of flamenco dancing was traditionally beautiful.,her gorgeous singing of ‘Feel Good’ lined up featuring Fat Cat Pottery, The Fudgemen Gluten Free and Casada Massage Products, just to name a few. The neatly tucked Café Sol offered downtime away from the shimmering lights with tranquil view over the lake from the large open seating area. The Floral Emporium was an exquisite cocktail bar with outdoor furniture and elaborate indoor plants surrounded by a sea of tulips. In the distance you could hear a band playing a rendition of Paul Simon’s hit ‘You Can Call Me Al’. Children, teenagers and adults alike were flocking and queuing up down the platform and almost reaching the ticket booth for the eye-catching carousel that stood out like a revolving monolith of flickering bulbs. Stage 88 offered superb performances by the ADFA Jazz Band, indie rock band Azim Zain And His Lovely Bones, Teen Jesus And The Jean Teasers, The Gypsy Scholars, the acrobatic and pyrotechnics defying Circus Inferno, ANU School Of Music, The Blue Angel And Dr Weiderman and singer-songwriter Bob Evans
of Jebediah fame. On the Roving stage we had the Spring Lantern by the Australian Dance Party as they adorn ghostly, lanternlike suits performing song and dance routines. Drumassault is a Canberra-based group of musicians who play traditional percussive instruments from Guinea, West Africa. The tight, complex performances are just one example of their reputable skill set that audiences would not usually have the pleasure of seeing. Their infectious rhythms drew in mass crowds. Canon Collective NightFest Instameet was another highlight of the Roving stage. Nighty-eight percent of all fixtures at NightFest proudly acquired power from LED light sources meaning a more environmentally safe and caring experience. Floriade and NightFest have no plans to slow down after thirty years in bloom, and this year’s instalments were a credit to the behind the scenes team’s dedication towards green thumbery. ANDREW MYERS
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[Reviews]
Rowan McGinness
Describe your art practice. I’m currently in my third year of studying painting at ANU School of Art and Design. I’ve been currently working with mixed media to create highly textured abstract paintings which invoke an urge to touch. When, how and why did you get into it? I’ve loved painting for as long as I can remember. I never thought of going to art school though til I attended the 2013 Graduate Exhibition at the ANU School of Art. It made me realise that I could pursue art as a career. So I put all my effort into building a portfolio which would allow me to study painting. What ideas do you explore through your art? I’m very interested in how textured paintings play with your senses of sight and touch.
[ARTIST PROFILE] make me want to explore other I’ve been exploring the different techniques to create texture. textures I can create or work Of what are you proudest so with, and how these textures far? interact with each other. Who/what influences you as an artist? I have many influences but my main ones at the moment would be Clyfford Still and Elwyn Lynn. Still influences with his colour combinations and his view on painting has completely changed how I see paintings now. An article on the NGA’s website states that Still preferred “to stress the elements of painting – colour, shape, size – and their formal relationships as his subject-matter.” I’ve found that this is how I’ve been painting this year. Lynn’s works influence mine visually. I find his works to be very stimulating because of how textural they are. He uses a range of different materials within the same painting. His works
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I did a series of portraits last year that I am very proud of. They were made for a digital painting course. The aim was to balance the digital with the painterly while responding to the short story ‘Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I painted the portraits in Photoshop then printed them onto canvas. I then painted on both sides of a glass panel. On one of the sides I painted parts of the portrait and on the other I painted a wallpaper pattern. I then attached the glass panels to the portraits.
What about the local scene would you change? I feel as if art isn’t well appreciated in the wider community. I don’t know how to change that but that’s what I would want to change. What are your upcoming performances/exhibitions? I’m currently concentrating on the 2017 Graduated Exhibition which will be on the November 24. Contact info: mcginnesrf@gmail.com facebook.com/ RowanArtDesignandPhotography
What are your plans for the future? I’ve applied to do honours next year. Eventually I would love to do many group and solo exhibitions and hopefully residences around Australia and internationally.
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Ex
[Object / Possession 3 - Monica Styles] PAGE 48
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[Canberra Artists]
Exhibitionist | Arts in the ACT
Monica Styles [ARTIST PROFILE]
Oscar Mortlock [ARTIST PROFILE]
Describe your art practice.
or go unnoticed.
Describe your art practice.
I am a photographic and video artist.
Who/what influences you as an artist?
When, how and why did you get into it?
At the moment I am very influenced by the American Pop Artists. In particular Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons. But generally I am influenced by super ordinary things. If you have a look at my Instagram (@ mostyles) it’s literally shower heads and toilet rolls. Everyday objects are very inspiring to me. Of what are you proudest so far?
I have only recently found the pleasure of capturing emotions in portraiture. My studies have introduced me to the challenge in realism and I have only started exploring the possibilities.
Ahh it was a bit of an accident. I had been studying in Melbourne and was really unhappy with my course so I made some quite hysterical calls to the ANU School of Art begging them to take a late submission. The PhotoMedia department agreed to give me a late interview and I was luckily able to begin my course the next year. That was six years ago now, and apparently the medium agreed with me because I am still practicing. What ideas do you explore through your art? My interest is in the banal. Through my practice I aim to heighten the everyday into something appreciated in a creative way. Currently this is carried out by isolating ordinary objects and placing them within the ‘white cube’. Through this convention I place importance on the banal forcing the viewer to reconsider what might otherwise be taken for granted
I quite like my series ‘Disposable Women’. I think it was the first photo series I have made where I was able to successfully comment on something important to me while including humour in the work. I want to do more of that.
When, how and why did you get into it? I started using oil paints at the beginning of high school and experienced the excitement of work produced over time. What ideas do you explore through your art? I try to explore human interaction and illustrate the emotions we hide from ourselves.
The narratives depicted by Peter Paul Rubens’ paintings have always amazed me and I strive to one day be able to paint with such depth. What are your plans for the future? I don’t really have a plan; however, I want to continue improving my skills. What are your upcoming performances/exhibitions? The Grad show at the School of Art. Contact info: o.mortlock@yahoo.com.au 0410783039 Instagram: @o.mortlock
Who/what influences you as an artist?
What are your plans for the future? My plan is to try and master the magical art of balancing money and creative output, and be happy. What about the local scene would you change? Someone please donate heaps of money to the art school. I would love to see that place packed with too many teachers and students with too much materials. It was a pretty sad thing to watch our department be depleted of resources, and it had a huge impact on what we were able to do as students, so I would love to see that change. What are your upcoming performances/exhibitions? I have a piece in the Inner North Art Prize next week, and early next year I will be having a show in South Durras. So please everyone come down for a swim and see some art! Contact info:
[Object / Possession 4 - Monica Styles]
sayhello@monicastyles.com.au
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[Falling Out - Oscar Mortlock]
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Exhibitionist | Arts in the ACT
Mirabel FitzGerald
Describe your art practice. My art practice consists primarily of works-on-paper, particularly intaglio prints. I employ multiple techniques including etching, colour relief, rubbings, ink stencil and monotype, with an emphasis on experimentation. I develop ideas from drawings, collage and sometimes photographs. I use the etching process in quite an exploratory way. Turning an image every which way, you explore its permutations. Each variation questions representation, perception, art and, of course, the artist’s role in the making of it. I begin with an outside source derived from something seen, and as I develop the work it takes over and dictates to me. When, how and why did you get into it? I went to art school after leaving school and studied painting but always enjoyed printmaking. When I was working and slotting in part time jobs I found that the
[ARTIST PROFILE] gums, with their delicate colours, rhythm of the print process suited are another source and they can me better than the concentrated be replicated in the colours and time needed for painting. I also markings of the shale rocks. enjoy process, it helps me to These experiences are the think and respond in an intuitive sources for my images. I have way. used direct rubbings, sometimes As I developed my interest in it called frottages, to record the I began teaching printmaking, textures of tree-bark and the which consolidated my practice. beetles’ carvings in dead trees. I’ve now been making art all my These have been re-imagined, adult life. suggesting stands of trees, rock patterns and tidal movements. What ideas do you explore through your art? Who/what influences you as an artist? Living on the south coast of NSW, my current work develops from The environment I live in is the the landscape; experiencing the strongest influence on my work. forest, the sea and the tides, the At present that is a beautiful rock and the beach, the weather. and stimulating source of light, colour and natural beauty. I’m I mostly avoid depicting the constantly presented with visual landscape, but am drawn to the ideas from micro details to the details and textures of the light whole sweep of sea and sky. in the trees, foliage of plants, the Aside from those immediate coastline and the sea. influences I have spent most of Many of the fallen trees are my life looking at art in a deep inscribed with the intricate and extensive way. Other artists tracks of Longicorn Beetles. enrich my vocabulary and ways These patterns are repeated in of making. the trails visible in rock-pools of Of what are you proudest so black periwinkles through the far? sand. The blotchy patterns of Eucalyptus Maculata, the spotted
Probably just keeping on making art and still finding it an adventure and process of discovery. If I was too pleased with the last work I might not make any more! What are your plans for the future? I plan to keep making art, discovering new things, enjoying the pleasure of doing it because I want to, without the pressures of the many things that distract you earlier in life. What about the local scene would you change? I would like it if Australia valued art and culture, and particularly artists, as much as sport and money. What are your exhibitions?
upcoming
Unearthed by Mirabel FitzGerald Opening times: Tue–Sun, 10am– 4pm. Showing: 21/10–12/11 2017, Belconnen Arts Centre Contact info: contact@mirabelfitzgerald.com www.mirabelfitzgerald.com
[Marbled Sea - Mirabel FitzGerald] PAGE 50
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[Canberra Artists]
Annika Romeyn
Describe your art practice. I am a visual artist working across the mediums of drawing, printmaking and painting. When, how and why did you get into it? I have always been creative, but particularly feel in love with drawing in my college and university years in Canberra and Baltimore. Art is a fulfilling life and career path because it is always challenging and often surprising. Art encourages curiosity, is an avenue for expression and provides a strong sense of purpose no matter what else is happening in my life. What ideas do you explore through your art? My work is about being in the landscape and the experience of wonder and mutability that comes with a close and patient observation of nature. The catalyst for my current exhibition Precipice was the Bathurst Regional Gallery Artist in Residence program, which saw me spend a month walking and drawing outdoors around Golden Gully in the historic goldrush town of Hill End, NSW. In Hill End I experienced a surreal landscape bearing the scars of colonial mining – raw and damaged, yet intriguing and somehow transcendent. Focusing on sheer cliff faces and twisted trees - fallen or teetering on the precipice, I have been thinking about erosion, impermanence and the precarious state of our natural environment.
[ARTIST PROFILE] Ballarat. So many good things different time periods, styles and are unexpected so I would like cultures, all of which feeds back to remain open and just plan into my art. to continue making, exploring, travelling, collaborating, evolving Of what are you proudest so and generally making the most of far? every opportunity that comes my I am very proud of my current way. solo exhibition Precipice at ANCA What about the local scene Gallery. The body of work is would you change? ambitious in scale and one that I have worked hard to realise. I feel fortunate to be part of a It is always exciting to see my very supportive arts community practice evolving and improving in Canberra and find living in and to feel new ideas and Canberra very conducive to processes building momentum. making work. There are so many It is particularly exciting to be high quality exhibitions and arts having a solo exhibition in my events happening in Canberra hometown of Canberra (for the on a regular basis, I would just first time since 2013) as it’s like to see the audience extend particularly special to share a a bit further beyond the arts new body of work family and community and for all Canberrans friends. to feel welcome to visit the What are your plans for the future? I’m looking forward to continuing to explore some of the ideas and processes that have emerged from my latest body of work as well as starting work on a solo exhibition for the 2018 Biennale of Australian Art in
fantastic smaller contemporary galleries and arts organisations tucked away in the inner suburbs. What are your upcoming performances/exhibitions?
hours: Wed-Sun 12-5pm). At 2pm on Saturday October 21st Holly Downes and Chris Stone of The String Contingent will perform a suite of music composed in response to this exhibition. Upcoming: Into the Wilderness, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, December 5-22 2017 Solo exhibition, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne, May 1-19 2018 Solo exhibition, Biennale of Australian Art, Ballarat, Sep 21Nov 6 2018 9th International Printmaking Biennial Douro, Portugal, Aug 1031 Oct 2018 Contact info: www.annika-romeyn.com annikaromeyn@gmail.com Instagram: @annika_lucy Annika is represented by Flinders Lane Gallery, www.flg.com.au
On now: Precipice, ANCA Gallery, Dickson, Canberra, October 4-22 (Opening
Who/what influences you as an artist? I’ve had some wonderful teachers, colleagues, mentors and friends that have all influenced me in various ways – even if I haven’t immediately comprehended their advice it often finds a way back into my thoughts and work. I have also been working as an Educator at the National Gallery of Australia for a number of years and that time spent looking, researching and discussing has helped me to develop a very broad appreciation for art across facebook.com/bmamagazine
[Chasm 1 (2017) monotype-on-paper, 228cmx168cm in-studio - Annika Romeyn] PAGE 51
Exhibitionist | Arts in the ACT
Mahala Hill
Describe your art practice. My art practice is based on material exploration that leads to conceptual ideas which then evolve into ceramic sculpture. As a contemporary ceramic artist, I strive to push both the limits and the pre-conceived notions of my medium, ceramics. I have vivid memories of making sand and mud pies in my mother’s best Tupperware, heaped to the brim and garnished with weeds. Very little has changed. I still spend almost every day elbow deep, completely covered, in mud. I am currently finishing my Honours degree in Visual Art at the ANU School of Art and design. Process and materials are the most significant aspects of my practice, I begin any idea or new body of work by process and material experimentation. The ‘burn out’ has driven my ascetic and conceptual thinking for the past few years. A ‘burn out’ is a shell-like form which is left after the combustible organic plant material inside a layer of liquid clay is burnt away. I have developed a process whereby I source organic plant matter, I then hand-dip in bone china slip and high fire in a kiln to force the organic material to burn out. The residual matter is a ghostly, shell-like phantom form or ‘burn out’ spectre, simultaneously evoking traces of a life and loss. The ‘burn outs’ embody fragility; the components are cold white, can be under a millimetre-thick, often translucent, and vary
[ARTIST PROFILE] glaze components and most from highly textured to smooth importantly the firing – I could depending on the original plant manipulate nature to produce matter. The process of creating what I saw. I am inspired by the a clay form directly from infinite possibilities that clay transformed organic matter is a offers and the challenges that it crucial element that underpins presents. my exploration of what happens, What ideas do you explore and what is currently happening through your art? in the environment. Through this process of re-materialisation, Recently I have been exploring the trace components from the curiosity, wonder, beauty and ‘burn outs’ directly reference how by using these elements I and synonymise the state of can raise awareness of pressing the ecosystems and the species environmental issues. Over depicted. the past two years I have been focusing on the bleaching of When, how and why did you get the Great Barrier Reef and the into it? survival of Australian endangered Coming from a creative family, art species. practice was a given. However, Who/what influences you as an it was ‘making’ that I felt the artist? greatest affinity with. If I could not instil a two-dimensional I take my main inspiration from the image with the vitality that I natural world, my fascination for desired I would try to make it flora and fauna has always been with clay or found objects. My what I draw upon when creating ideas needed presence and clay new work. I love exploring the gave me this instantly. Enrolling varied landscapes that this world in a Bachelor of Visual Arts at the has to offer, the colours, form and Australian National University I textures that are waiting to be discovered just how malleable found never cease to amaze me. and dynamic clay could be. Growing up in rural New South Under the tutelage of Greg Wales I was privileged with living Daly, I was exposed to a world in a disparate environment of where ceramics was neither sprawling bushland laid next terracotta pots nor porcelain to the vibrant coast lines of the teacups but literally anything I Southern Ocean. I spent every could imagine. Working as an summer at the beach, snorkelling assistant to master firer Fred along the rocks, fascinated by the Olsen, during the 2015 Ceramics eerie and spectacular creatures Triennale, my passion for firing which inhabit its depths and was truly ignited. I realised that corners. The multiplicity of my by learning to control my medium surrounds gave me an insatiable precisely – clay composition, curiosity for nature and a
desire to replicate the sense of bewilderment and unknown that it arouses. I also enjoy researching and responding to how humans have tried to understand and categorise the natural world. Natural history museums, scientific collections and inparticular cabinets of curiosities have been most influential on my conceptualising. Of what are you proudest so far? I am most proudest of the uniqueness of my art work and the innovation of techniques through my studio investigation. What are your plans for the future? To continue creating art that provokes discussion about environmental issues and simultaneously pushing the boundaries of what ceramics can do. As many exhibitions as possible while undertaking national and international residencies. Long term my career goal as an artist is to have my work in national and international collections. What about the local scene would you change? I would like to see more experimental exhibition spaces that showcase emerging contemporary artists. What are your upcoming performances/exhibitions? ANU School of Art and Design Graduating Exhibition 2017 – opening November 24 at 6pm. Collaborative Exhibition between five ceramic artist and furniture designers – opening on November 8 at 6pm at Anvil Studio, the Hamlet, Braddon. Contact info: Facebook: Mahala Hill - Artist Instagram: @Mahala_M_Hill mahalahillceramics.com.au mahala_hill@hotmail.com 0411785021
[Inner Glow, 2016. Bone china, glaze, Varied Dimensions, Photo by John Daly - Mahala Hill] PAGE 52
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[Food [Literature & Drink]
LITERATURE IN REVIEW WITH CARA LENNON The Golden House Salman Rushdie [Jonathan Cape; 2017] The Golden House is offering 18 from Salman Rushdie, darling of the Booker Prize panel. In his newest novel we see René, an aspiring screenwriter, tracking the movements of his mysterious neighbours the Goldens. René works his way closer to the family in the hopes of finding material to use for a movie, but rapidly becomes entangled in drama reminiscent of the ancient and epic. In many ways this novel is pointedly contemporary. It rides the rollercoaster of the last decade of American politics through the eyes of a middleclass, politically moderate left-winger, asking what much of the world is asking – how did things go so wrong after Obama? Although not central to the narrative, a recognisably Trump-esque character looms in the background, contemptible and terrifying, reminding us we no longer need to go down the rabbit-hole to get to Wonderland. Wonderland has come to us, with all its absurd and horrible monsters. Wonderland has also come for the Golden family, who live in the bubble of fantasy available to those with immense wealth. Rushdie is famously an exponent of magical realism, creating recognisably realworld environments and then raising the question of magical influence in a way that can’t fully be answered. In this case, the privileged Goldens barely have a foot in reality to begin with, their father Nero insisting that they are modern day Caesars and that they adopt names from classic Roman/Greek history and myth. This of course opens the door to mythological villains. Writers writing about writers writing is a situation to be
LOLCOL [FUNNY THINGS]
5 SIGNS HE’S REALLY INTO YOU (AND IS ALSO A GHOST) BY ELLIE WINDRED
It’s 2017 and boy are young people are taking risks! Smoking, driving cars, developing mental illnesses and not talking about them – you know, the same as their parents except it’s all on the internet. approached with caution. It begs the question of how much an author is writing about themselves, and can unintentionally give readers the impression they’re seeing behind the scenes while the play is still in motion. And, frankly, it just feels a bit pat. Rushdie’s version of this scenario is well executed though – René’s attempts to document the antics of the Golden family leave it open to interpretation whether the creeping fairy tale elements are a product of his overactive imagination. His tendency to link everything back to a book or movie gets old though. The constant wade through references to movies both mainstream and independent results in some frustrating skim-reading in an otherwise well-paced plot. Rushdie’s writing style is earthy and immediate, compiling characters with a relentless barrage of analogy and metaphor. The social, political and physical terrain all get the same treatment. And while the plot may have the simplicity of a fairy tale, it groans under the load of complex themes and personalities. A novel in the tradition of The Great Gatsby and I, Claudius. The Golden House allows us the twin pleasures of passing judgement on the excesses of beautiful jerks while experiencing those excesses vicariously.
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If we believe the A Current Affair segment that our Nan told us about last week, the population of the 18-30s age bracket should be declining rapidly by now as we collectively drop dead from an overdose of Shame and Sin. So what are the chances that someone you’ve matched with on Tinder or met at that foam party is now dead? And will you choose to let that get in the way of a potentially Chill relationship?
things in, but when you have a look in there, all you can find is crisp, white sheets. 4. He calls you unexpectedly at 3am. He sounds drunk. He’s hard to understand – but you think you can make out the phrase “I’m so scared that you can see right through me,” repeated over and over. 5. Suddenly, he’s too busy for dates. You see him liking Beetoota Advocate posts on Facebook but he’s leaving you on read. Texts become sparse. Eventually he just… sort of… fades away. (he’s ghosting you)
Five Signs He’s Really Into You (and is also a ghost): 1. He takes you on thoughtful dates – like watching the sun set from the top of a mountain. Or to an art class in the park. As long as it’s pottery. He’s strangely good at pottery. He insists on sitting behind you to guide your hands. 2. He is there for you in times of need or grief, and says comforting things like “If your Nan was still here, I’m sure she would say she loves you... and also that the family fortune is buried under the ELM tree.” 3. You give him a drawer in your cupboard to keep a few PAGE 53
Exhibitionist | Arts in the ACT
MEETING ON A HIGHWAY
BY HAYDEN FRITZLAFF
It turns out that neither Bridget Mackey nor I is a morning person. Not today at least. It’s just after 9am, and we’re on opposite ends of the phone line, each with a coffee in hand. Mackey has been working on the script for her play LOVE/CHAMBERLAIN between her two homes, Melbourne and Canberra, and production is about to kick into gear. “Yes, we had a development a couple of months ago with Ainslie and Gorman,” she says. “I’ve been working on the script already. It’s really exciting. Everyone’s really on board with the idea. Ainslie and Gorman have been really supportive.” The premise of her play is a bizarre and wonderful one: a chance meeting between Courtney Love and Lindy Chamberlain on the Federal Highway at midnight, both en route to consult an oracle. It would appear the two have a lot to talk about. “They just kind of waltzed into my head,” says Mackey. “I was on a plane on the way from Sydney to Melbourne late at night and they just sat in my head and had a conversation about Quentin Tarantino. Often when I write plays – I think with every play I’ve written – there’s been an image or an idea that I haven’t been able to understand. Then through the process of writing I begin unpacking it. So with this I was like, ‘what would those two women have to say to each other?’ And the more I researched the more I found commonalities between them.” The stage appears to be the perfect place to bring this encounter into
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focus. I wonder whether it could’ve worked out another way, and how Mackey must’ve considered the space in which the interactions takes place. “With this play I had a very strong location for where it was set,” she says. “It appeared on a highway, so that kind of space. I normally see it in a theatre, and see the set design as much as the real space, if that makes sense.
that you have to let go of control a bit. But sometimes that’s better than what you could have thought.” Love/Chamberlain accommodates the telling of a larger story. Using the tenuous geographical and social connections between two characters, and playing on the known truths about their lives, it brings out the uncertainties, and draws attention to the way they’re individually portrayed and viewed. “I’m playing around with the audience’s expectations of who they are,” says Mackey, of the titular characters. “For me that’s the benefit of playing around with famous people, with real people. There might be some people who don’t know who those characters are, but I’m working with the assumption that people are going to come in with an idea or a judgement of the women they’re watching.
I think often the more specific you are about something, the easier it is for people to relate to it in a lot of ways. “We haven’t gone into production yet – we’re still looking for a set designer. I think there are some things that are going to be a bit challenging. But yeah, I try to think about, when I’m writing, how it would actually be able to appear on a stage. “ And it’s always nice when people take on board your ideas. Someone might come and say, ‘actually, what you’ve asked me to do is impossible, but how about we do it this way?’ and then you go, ‘ok that works better,’ you know. I think the great thing about collaborative work is
And I’m kind of messing around with that. It’s a bigger thing about how we judge public figures, and specifically the behaviour of women in the public eye. But I’m also being very specific about Courtney Love and Lindy Chamberlains’ lives.
a lot of times in their lives where they could have met. Like they both lived in Seattle at the same time, or they could have both been in Sydney for a press release, so there are these imaginary opportunities. I’m inventing the truth; at this point in time, they would have had these things going on, and if they met at that time what would they have had to say to each other.” The Ralph Indie program, which enables emerging theatre producers, writers and directors to make their visions a reality, has perhaps inadvertently become a home for dramatic works that challenge ingrained perceptions. Last month’s Fuse addressed the boundaries between sound and movement, and in 2016 Vinegar Tom played on the implication of guilt. So too, Love/Chamberlain seeks out the connections between two disparate characters in order to address our perceptions of them. “I think that in terms of the driving force of the play, they’re both looking for an answer,” says Mackey. “Whenever they meet they’re always looking for something.” LOVE/CHAMBERLAIN runs from November 8-12 at the Ralph Wilson theatre, Gorman Arts Centre. Tickets from $25 via eventbrite.com
“I think often the more specific you are about something, the easier it is for people to relate to it in a lot of ways. It’s the fact that it’s true. “There’s a third character who’s an oracle. That’s kind of the magic realism part of the script where I can make stuff up. There’s actually
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[Arts]
FOOD JUNKY
[THE WORD ON LOCAL FOOD & DRINK] WITH SHARONA LIN [SHARONA@POPCULTURE-Y.COM]
Let’s talk about how great dumplings are. Almost every culture in the world does them, because you just can’t go wrong with delicious fillings wrapped up in a little dough parcel. When I first moved to Canberra, I missed my little hole-in-the-wall dumpling place back in Melbourne’s Chinatown something fierce.
resident trendy AF fusion restaurant. If I sound a little dismissive, it’s mostly because I can’t afford to eat there very much – trendy equals pricey. Still, they do delicious prawn and chicken dumplings, shiitake and water chestnut dumplings and phenomental Peking duck soup dumplings. I dream about them sometimes.
But luckily, I found CBD Dumpling House straight away. The kitchen is visible through glass, which means you can watch the chefs at work if that’s something that takes your fancy – personally I love watching them pull that noodle dough and make those little dumpling parcels. Even if you don’t like to watch your food being made in front of your eyes, they do fresh, piping-hot dumplings for a reasonable price. Wash them down with some cold Tsing-Tao.
For dumplings a little off the beaten track is Dumpling Inn in Macquarie. It’s a suburban restaurant that seems pretty average but actually does great, cheap, filling, wholesome food. Mr Wei’s also rates a mention, although it’s probably more well-known for its roast duck (SO GOOD).
Another place I was introduced to (in my first week in Canberra, in fact) is Akiba, Canberra’s
And finally, Yat Bun Tong in Braddon. I visited recently with a group of friends and it feels like we ordered half the menu. Luckily, every dish was wonderful and we basically licked every plate clean. They’re also opening another store in Belconnen soon. The
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store will replace a Nandos, which means Belconnen, and the entire universe, will be slightly better off. I know I skipped a lot of delicious, non-Chinese dumpling places – that’s for next month. In the meantime, the Durham Cider Festival at, no-duh, The Durham, celebrates World Apple Day on Saturday October 21. Yum, apples! No bookings needed. Another suspiciously pretend-sounding day is World Champagne Day, but hey, who am I to knock an excuse to drink? 4pm-7pm, Friday October 27, The House of Bubbles is hosting an event dedicated to champagne. Learn, discover, relax and of course, drink. There are a range of ticket options starting at $66 + bf, from Eventbrite.
21, 12:30-2:30pm. Tickets are $105 from marbleandgrain. com.au. And finally, The Forage, a showcase of street food and other delicious things, is on from 2pm-7pm, also on Saturday October 21 at Little National Hotel in Barton. I’m particularly excited for the debut of . See you there!
Marble and Grain are running another one of their excellent masterclasses and this month, it’s whisky. Saturday October
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ENVIRO FILM
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@bmamag
SLOP OF THE POPS WITH JOSHUA MARTIN
Exploring the murkiest, most absurd and experimental corners of music, that you’ve probably never heard of, and may never want to hear of again. There are few sounds possible at the sacred family dinner table as excruciating as when your least favourite relative scrapes the plate with a knife. As well as solidifying your distrust of that awful great aunt who reads TV Week at every meal, the searingly high frequency reverberates in your eardrum to a painful depth, making you wince. Neuroscientists have studied human’s reactions to such agonising sounds, pinpointing the most heinous kind as those within the 2,000 to 5,000 Hz frequency range. An unpleasant sound within this range, like a knife on a plate, increases activity in the amygdala, the emotional part of the brain (therefore also the one that promotes your distaste of your great aunt) which in turn modulates the auditory nerve, making you despise it even more. So if these high frequency sounds inspire feelings of revulsion, why does discordance fascinate the musically inclined? In your average rock ‘n’ roll track, this is because melodic tones co-exist with dissonance, producing a spiraling trip across the emotional spectrum. Dissonance is useful here because it allows us to appreciate consonance. This however, only accounts for acts up until the likes of Sonic Youth or the Pixies, rock outfits who wield unruly tones of guitar feedback as tools of contrast. Some music decides not to merely dip its toes in the heaving waters of dissonance but plunge itself deep underwater, tie itself to the ocean floor, and bash its head against its own knees. Such a violent analogy is almost not enough for harsh noise mastermind, Masami Akita, AKA Merzbow, arguably the assault-leader in chief of the explosively bizarre Japanoise scene. For nearly thirty-five years, Merzbow has prolifically produced “music” (I’m starting to think this column could be called “Music in Inverted Commas”) analgous to most only as pure obliterative pain. There are no rhythms, no melody, no discernible
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instruments, in fact, it’s impossible to trace the source of any of his sounds. Why then, is such atonal Armageddon even slightly appealing, when my amygdala should be triggering an aneurysm? The answer lies in pure sonic possibility. Merzbow’s magnum opus (of sorts) is 1996 effort Pulse Demon, a nuclear howl of white noise and static, impenetrable by design. The warping optical illusion of black and white lines that adorn its cover is a headache in of itself, yet its minimalism clues you into a crucial fact: Merzbow is not trying to shock you. There is no obscene performance art, no overt political strikes, no garish statement attempted. Merzbow’s live performances are often a bemusingly subdued affair, as he stands alone in front of a dizzying array of samplers and effect pedals, viewed by a motionless crowd. While obviously not for everyone, tracks like “Worms Plastic Earthbound” exemplify the breathless exhilaration and raw unpredictability that harsh noise can offer. Its glitchy shrieks are a carefully composed odyssey in calamitous catharsis, a demented exorcism, that shifts from breakbeat baritone groans, to feedback gargling. tThere is no convention that applies to its deconstructed sound, melting into muffled desolation, only to reform in howling insistence once again. Merzbow doesn’t attempt to communicate anything but what he presents, describing it as his own undiluted sensation. Explaining its appeal is akin to explaining why Jackson Pollock’s famous abstract painting ‘Blue Poles’ has merit; its superficially unappealing and seemingly random construction is an offering of infinite meaning to the audience, allowing them to find personal meaning within its colourful bounds. The perverse possibility of dissonance is far greater than that of finite consonant melody, so next time you visit your irritating great aunt, smile. She may one day be your favourite harsh noise artist.
SINGLES IN
FOCUS WITH CODY ATKINSON
MONTERO ‘VIBRATIONS’ [
]
This is nearly too over the top, and too lush, in the return from Montero, who might be better known as Austalia’s pre-eminent music cartoonist. Vibrations is all soft-psych and big pop sounds, sweeping string sounds and crashing cymbals. It might take a couple of listens, but when it clicks it’s like a time machine to happy past time.
NEW AGE GROUP ‘LOSING MY MIND’ [
]
It doesn’t even take two bloody minutes, but it’s all New Age Group needs to suck you in on their new single – probably closer to about 15 seconds to be fair. Landing somewhere in the fertile middle ground of power guitar pop and 70s-styled punk, the locals find a pretty solid place on ‘Losing My Mind’. If I was a better writer I’d have a pun here based on the title, but I don’t so just listen to the damn song because it’s good.n’t minutes, but it’s all New
CHELSEA WOLFE ‘16 PSYCHE’ [
]
There’s some heavy shit at play on ‘16 Psyche’, but the best moments probably happen when there is slightly less going on. There are walls of guitars, and the echo-y vocals provide a pretty nice bit of interplay. Wolfe has a lot of ideas intermingling, and it takes a bit of skill to get them to work together smoothly rather than crashing into each other.
POST MALONE FEAT. 21 SAVAGE ‘ROCKSTAR’ [
]
Fuck this is bad. I mean sometimes I try to breakdown the ways about how these songs are bad, but there are only so many words I get to use here. It just goes fucking nowhere. The chorus is dire, and not remotely catchy even after multiple listens. This song is as deep as a puddle in the middle of the Sahara during the dry season.
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[ALBUM REVIEWS]
ALBUM IN
FOCUS
DAVID BOWIE A NEW CAREER IN A NEW TOWN 1977-1982 [PARLOPHONE] [
]
As his fame grew in the mid 1970s, David Bowie struggled in Los Angeles with the increasing burden of the rocknroll lifestyle. A dedicated artist who became disillusioned with commercial entertainment fakery, he relocated to Berlin with Iggy Pop in tow and proceeded to rid himself of vacuous showbiz trappings and related drug abuse by embracing the considerably more austere environs of Cold War Germany. He also adopted the progressive vision of German psychedelic music, otherwise referred to as Krautrock. The result was an astonishing burst of creativity captured here on this beautifully remastered collection of recordings that document a key period in Bowie’s career. As with the previous two sets in this definitive series of Bowie reissues, the compilers have done a stunning job with the packaging; going to great lengths to ensure the cover art looks good and the liner notes are highly detailed and include insightful and entertaining observations from producer Tony Visconti who was a crucial presence on these recordings. The pristine remastering also illuminates a multitude of sonic details as never heard before with such clarity. In fact, an absurdly large number of delights can be found on this set. Bowie had paved the way for grand scale experimentation on the 1976 album masterpiece Station to Station, the concluding statement on the previous set Who Can I Be Now: 1974-1976. The next album Low (1977) introduces this collection and was influenced in equal measures by the enveloping electronic textures explored by
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myriad German groups and melodic punk/ new wave concision. One crucial addition to the Bowie universe was sound artist Brian Eno who brought with him a bunch of otherworldly electronic effects that producer Visconti integrated into an intoxicating swirl of sound you could dance to. The demons from the LA experience arrive early on Low track ‘Breaking Glass’ on which Bowie could be reporting on himself when he sings, “such a wonderful person but you got problems” while a striking electro motif emphasises the point. The first half of Low ambitiously captures the vibe of the times with the terseness and pointed observations of punk rock. Side two brings out the atmospherics and this is where Eno’s influence really kicks in. The psychedelic feel of German electronic music and studioas-instrument experimentation add an extra spark to the sound and take listeners well beyond their comfort zones. The textures unfold at a languid pace and the overall effect invites deeper listening. Low was a total creative success and laid the foundation for the following three studio albums Heroes, Lodger and Scary Monsters included here in sparkling remastered form and comprising some of Bowie’s most challenging and compelling work. The standouts on Heroes (1977) are the title track, an extraordinary example of a simple melody made epic; ‘Sons of the Silent Age’ on which Bowie turns an abstracted and highly modern cabaret feel on the verses into an intensely emotional plea to his lover in the chorus, and the opening track ‘Beauty and the Beast’, a hardwired disco number that undoubtedly influenced all manner of European electronica in the years ahead. Lodger (1979) is the final Bowie/Eno collaboration and although not as enduring as Low and Heroes, nevertheless takes the dance beats to newly imagined zones while simultaneously pre-empting glossy new wave music in the following decade. Although not forming part of the ‘Berlin trilogy’, Scary Monsters is the last word on this period of Bowie’s music and is arguably the last great Bowie album with Robert Fripp’s over-thetop guitar angularity punctuating ‘Fashion’, and the clipped theatrics of ‘Ashes to Ashes’ putting to rest the tortured adventures of Major Tom. Not everything here is great; the performances on the two versions of the live 1978 double album Stage comes across as somewhat stilted and the inclusion of the Heroes EP was simply unnecessary. But the trajectory from Low to Scary Monsters is signposted by some of the greatest music ever recorded.
DAN BIGNA
VARIOUS OST HIGHLIGHTS
[BOSS BATTLE RECORDS]
[
]
Calling all gamers! Have you ever wondered who, apart from obviously well-known bands/ artists, created the music which powers you along as you shoot it out with spies/aliens/ zombies? Well, a collaboration between Boss Battle Records and Remote Control has seen the launching of a label dedicated to video game original soundtracks (OST). The mix is more varied than you might expect as, while synths/keyboards rule, there are a couple of other genres thrown in. Tracks are predominantly instrumentals, but a couple of vocalists sneak in too. The mood stretches from the comic book character vibe of Garrett Williamson’s ‘Nailed It’ (from Obliteracers), to the high-tech synth gloss of ‘Bag Season’ by Phonetic Hero + Kubbi (from Sky Rogue). Ogre’s ‘snidelyWhiplash’, with its combo of needle sharp and deep, throbbing keys is typical of the high energy, frantically paced sound associated with video gaming. However, feeding | ear’s ‘Orwell’ uses a subtler technique; softer and slower. Protodome’s ‘Sunset Strip’ is super funky and saxophone driven, with Garrett Williamson also showing his more soulful side in the Obliteracers title track. Ben Matthews injects the soulful vocals of Holli Scott in ‘No Good’, the cool brass highlights and spaced piano notes helping tell a tale of regret and failed romance. The Pearce-Pickering Barrelhouse Jazz Band serves up an old timey feel, with the male vocals, clarinet, honky tonk piano and brushes on skins in ‘Sweet Ginger Green’ (from This is the Police). Near the close, feeding | ear returns with ‘Outrun the Wolves’ which recalls the sound of the Alan Parsons Project’s Eye in the Sky album. It’s ideal driving/mood music for gamers, when they want to give their fingers a rest from the consoles. RORY MCCARTNEY
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QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE VILLAINS [MATADOR]
[
MOGWAI EVERY COUNTRY’S SUN [SPUNK/TEMPORARY RESIDENCE]
]
Queens Of The Stone Age have been bearing the torch for rock music since 1996. Formed after the disintegration of stoner rock giants Kyuss, guitarist and songwriter Josh Homme stepped up to the microphone. Here we are 22 years later with six albums under their leather belts, we have album number seven – Villains. It’s produced by Mark Ronson (yes, Bruno Mars’ mate – he’s also worked with Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, Duran Duran and Kevin Parker of Tame Impala). But don’t let this irk you, we still have that signature Queens groove and thump, but now with jazzy synths and a spring in their step. Villains is in the vein of Era Vulagris’s poppy grunge but mixes in some of …Like Clockwork’s ballistic riffs. This album is the first disc to not feature a myriad of guest musicians/friends (Lullabies To Paralyse had Billy Gibbons and Jack Black, and …Like Clockwork had Trent Reznor, Alex Turner and Elton John). Ghoulish groans and fuzzy synths guide us into long awaited opener ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me’, which was first introduced in album teaser video Face The Truth. Those drums, that bass, take me now! Lead single ‘The Way You Used To Do’ has you tapping your foot in time from the get-go. ‘Fortress’ slows down to let you breathe and take in the atmosphere. ‘Un-Reborn Again’ is a melancholic gem. ‘Hideaway’ has a breezy, soft rock feel. ‘The Evil Has Landed’ hones in Homme’s side project Them Crooked Vultures with distorted funk. Closing track ‘Villains Of Circumstance’ shows why Homme is nicknamed “Ginger Elvis”. This album is a grower, and it has already enveloped me. Play this album now, play this album loud. ANDREW MYERS
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A lot has changed since Mogwai Young Team put its unique stamp on the musical landscape and two decades since they started, Every Country’s Sun might be the first Mogwai album to truly reconcile their indie pop teenage years with their penchant for sonic blast meltdowns as well as their ever-expanding foray into electronic soundscapes. Recorded with past producer Dave Fridmann in upstate New York, it seems fitting that the group took the opportunity of making their first album without long time guitarist John Cummings to head out of their Glasgow habitat again and to a location that proves to be helpful in resetting their focus to craft some of their most dynamic songs yet. Following on Rave Tapes, the cool synths and kraut-rock impulses that have slowly become a feature of Mogwai’s songwriting take centre stage on tracks such as ‘Crossing The Road Material’ and the opener ‘Coolverine’ whilst the second half of the album take their freak out tendencies and refine them into sophisticated metal-punk slayers, with the distorted riffs of ‘Battered At A Scramble’ going back to back to the sludgy noise rocker ‘Old Poisons’. What brings Every Country’s Sun together are the upbeat melodies threaded throughout the album and this comes to the fore with ‘Party In The Dark’, a clear highlight that sees a tale of soul-searching married to sugary pop leads and a skipping heartbeat. It’s refreshing to see a group so hardwired to their history continue to push boundaries and it is testament to their self-belief that even as the group changes shape, their music continues to shine. SHOEB AHMAD
YUSUF / CAT STEVENS THE LAUGHING APPLE [DECCA RECORDS] ]
The Laughing Apple is an album drenched in nostalgia – both for career Cat Stevens fans and a younger audience, who know him as a road trip family soundtracks. This is likely intentional on Stevens’ part, as this is the album that is the most like an old-school Cat Stevens album since his conversion to Islam and subsequent name change to Yusuf Islam. Like as not, this is due to the fact that the album songs, down to the title track, genuinely ARE old school Cat Stevens songs, slightly reworked. Throughout the album, Yusuf’s unique voice shines over pared back instrumentals, in a manner that tonally resembles nursery rhymes. Three of the standout tracks on the album definitely act on this, with ‘The Laughing Apple’, ‘Mary and the Little Lamb’, and ‘Northern Wind (Death of Billy the Kid)’ lyrically resembling children’s stories. The effect this has is for an almost ridiculously pleasant listening experience, where you’ll feel warmth and happiness just non-stop. Throughout, I found myself remarking on just how fucking nice everything sounds when it’s rolled in to one. Yusuf’s age adds a different sphere to ‘Grandsons’, where the refrain, “That’s why my blood’s still warm and I’m not getting better / Time’s passing away / Because I’ve got a thing about seeing my grandson grow old,” absolutely has a different meaning to when it was written in Yusuf’s youth. In ‘Grandsons’, as in many songs, Yusuf’s softened voice adds a gravity to the lyrics, and there’s an underlying passion that an artist only gets after 50 years of doing it. The Laughing Apple is out and out one of the best listening experiences I’ve had this year, and is an album that is hard to encapsulate in to words, due to the feeling you get from listening to it. It’s a great warm weather, early spring album, seemingly designed for sitting on a deck in the sun with this playing in the background. MATT PARNELL
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[ALBUM REVIEWS]
OR’S EDIT ICE CHO LENKA ATTUNE
[SKIPALONG RECORDS]
[
[RHINO ENTERTAINMENT]
]
Former acting school stablemate of Cate Blanchett, Lenka Kripac appeared in a variety of Australian TV series before turning her creative energy to music. After contributing to Paul Mac’s 2005 LP and being a member of Decoder Ring, she launched her solo career with a self-titled record in 2008. Attune, her fifth studio album, saw her take more control of the recording process, self-producing for the first time. The record carries a core theme about the natural world, commencing with the bird song captured in field recordings in the opener ‘Every Bird That Sings’. The bright, wistful sound sets the tone for the record, continuing Lenka’s brand of indie pop that combines her elfin voice with a mixture of bright and catchy tunes. Songs like ‘Arrow’, with their gossamer vocals, recall the sound of Enya. The dreamy ‘Slow Lane’ conveys wise advice about not letting life rush us off our feet, with lines like “Doing our best to do nothing today”. The track epitomises the charm of Lenka being her own backing singer, using her own voice for vocal overlaps. ‘Homo Sapien’ provides the most original lyrics, in a song that mixes romance with the work of Charles Darwin with, “I evolved to love you,” and, “Let’s continue the species.” There are forays into a mainstream pop vibe too. ‘Heal’ stands out with its electro feel and sharp beats while the catchy tune of ‘Bittersweet’ rides on a synthetic glockenspiel sound. Closer ‘Disappear’ tells of our return to the elements after living life to the full. Not as sombre as it sounds, the message is rolled out brightly as Lenka cheerfully sings, “I’ll be the atmosphere.” (Highly recommended for greenie funerals!) RORY MCCARTNEY
THE DOORS THE SINGLES [
[WARP RECORDS]
]
The Doors have been praised by fans and critics alike as one of rock’s most prominent and important American bands of the past fifty years, most notably by Rolling Stone magazine. Fronted by the enigmatic Jim Morrison who crooned and swayed through eight albums until his untimely death at 27 years old. The foursome were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Their music has featured in Forrest Gump, The Simpsons, Jarhead, Platoon, Apocalypse Now and the video games Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 and Rock Band. The Singles dives head first into the hits ‘Break On Through (To The Other Side)’, ‘End Of The Night’, ‘Light My Fire’ and ‘The Crystal Ship’ all from their debut album released that same year. ‘Love Me Two Times’ is a blues-riff central hit from sophomore album Strange Days. The offbeat rhythm of ‘Moonlight Drive’ dances with a bottleneck guitar lead. ‘The Unknown Soldier’ is Morrison’s retaliation towards the Vietnam War with manic shouting, chuckling and the lyrics, “Breakfast where the news is read / Television children fed / Unborn living, living dead / Bullets strike the helmet’s head.” ‘Hello, I Love You’ still has that powerful, fuzzy guitar riff that hasn’t aged a bit. The frantic ‘Touch Me’ melts you into your chair as Mr Mojo Risin’ sonically lulls you. ‘Riders On The Storm’ is an ethereal trip. This expansive album is impressive but it does come with some shortfalls: ‘Stoned Immaculate’, ‘Peace Frog’, ‘Soul Kitchen’ and the eleven-minute-long opus ‘The End’ are missing – four Doors songs that are staples to their discography. This is definitely a best of album, but not the best of album. ANDREW MYERS
MOUNT KIMBIE LOVE WHAT SURVIVES [
]
In a recent interview, Mount Kimbie’s Kai Campos mentioned that with Love What Survives, they wanted to write an album that stuck to the same rhythm from start to finish, an idea so absurd and bold but would create tension in its insistence. While not wholly following this mantra to the word, they’ve certainly dropped one of the finest albums of 2017 with this economic set of lo-tech electronic pop. The “nag-nag-nag” rhythms provide the perfect counterpoint to the warbling synths and deep bass tones throughout the album, delivering a nuanced take on post-punk that inhabits the live space rather than sit behind screens like today’s desktop bandits. As with their last album, the duo return to an open collaborative process with the results taking the group to many extremes – off kilter Afrobeat on the Micachu sung ‘Marilyn’, tangling James Blake in a sound collage on ‘We Go Home Together’ and letting King Krule snarl about a city’s underbelly over the breakneck ‘Blue Train Lines’. However, on an album full of highlights, highest praise is reserved for the trio of opener ‘Four Years And One Day’, ‘You Look Certain (I’m Not So Sure)’ and ‘Delta’. Similarly kept in line with a metronomic bounce, all three share a mournful melodic sensibility that has been key to Mount Kimbie staying ahead of their peers. Having been at the top of the “post-dubstep” class since their debut, it’s rewarding as a listener to hear Mount Kimbie follow their creative instincts and not be limited by what’s happening at the moment but feel comfortable to look back while exploring what is possible as they push on. SHOEB AHMAD
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SAATSUMA OVERFLOW [INDEPENDENT]
[
]
Saatsuma is the Melbourne based electronic pair Memphis Kelly and Cesar Rodrigues. A duo when they record, the band expands to a five piece in order to replicate the magic of the complex electro interweavings of its music in a live setting. Kelly’s singing is soft, with rounded edges and a sponge-like, squeezable texture, making it perfect for the more dream pop aspects of this release. What it lacks in variation of tone is more than made up for by the tricky overlaps and electro-morphing featured in the album. ‘Intro’, a mixture of rippling and throbbing keys, is like a soundtrack in search of some visuals. The title ‘Overflow’ well represents the fluid nature of the music in that particular track, with clever lyrics which weave in multiple references to liquids. The deep bass line serves as an undertow, with the injection of cute sounds like the calls of small creatures. ‘Sky’ is very adventurous in the textural sense, taking on a more tactile sound with a solidity not present in earlier tracks, as hard surfaces come together in a rapid, but brief, contact. Later, it features running water, before multifaceted synth products cut deeply into the humming at the core of the track. Dappled keys, a ghostly vocal and insistent, rapid beats come together in ‘Crescent’, a song about the impact of the moon on human emotion. It conjures up pictures of dancers in a burntout dome atop Mt Stromlo, moving beneath a lunar dominated sky. While suitable in parts for dancing, the LP is more suited to background, casual listening, or dedicated chilling, as it playfully explores the nature of electro sound. RORY MCCARTNEY
DAUGHTER MUSIC FROM BEFORE THE STORM [4AD]
[
[
]
What an atmospheric piece this is. How delightfully rich, soothing and emotive. Daughter, with consistent attentiveness and sensitivity, set the mood for the highly anticipated sequel of Life Is Strange, a groundbreaking episodic video game, with their latest album, Music From Before The Storm. The London-based trio, formed in 2010, have steadily risen in popularity since their debut album If You Leave (2013), and their sound has only become more refined and detailed with time. Daughter continually produce innovative music without compromising their integrity. Music From Before The Storm consists of mainly instrumental pieces. Typically, Elena Tonra’s haunting vocals drive their compositions. Here, we see a far more even balance between the three musicians, with clever vocal manipulations, tight drums and reverberated guitar. ‘I Can’t Live Here Anymore’ is an eerie number, made up of synthesisers and crackling radio lines. ‘Flaws’ is almost reminiscent of a Studio Ghibli soundtrack piece, lead by a gentle piano before breaking into a soaring rock composition. There is little to fault with this album. Daughter’s melancholic tone suits the ambience of Life Is Strange, so listeners can presume to find the follow-up game to be similarly driven by emotion. Each track has been carefully crafted and finessed by the musicians, seemingly to only further excitement around the videogame’s release. If only for the purpose of nit picking, lyrically the band falter a little. “I can’t be bothered with the teachers, always tryin’ to shape the way I act,” is an example whereby the band plays too heavily into the angst-ridden teenager trope. Music From Before The Storm arcs and swells, leaving its listener with ringing ears and a full heart.
KASHMIRA MOHAMED ZAGOR
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BRITISH INDIA FORGETTING THE FUTURE [LIBERATION RECORDS] ]
Once upon a time, guitar bands swapping their guitars for synthesisers was akin to sacrilege; a blasphemous sign of disrespect to the cokedup rock gods. Nowadays, picking up a guitar in the first place puts you behind the contemporary line. British India are survivors of this stubborn tradition who, albeit never revolutionary, put out solid material at a workman’s pace. Over the last turbulent eleven years, the group has traversed the cigarette littered path of garage punk to arrive at the pantheon of “maturity”, in all its restraint, and invariably to their detriment. The band’s decision to bring on Holy Holy’s Oscar Dawson as an outside production wizard for their sixth album Forgetting the Future was creative necessity, and despite the titles apathy, renders it a promising one. Dawson applies a glossy veneer to the ten tracks, swaddling meat and potatoes guitar sounds with oozing synths that provide heft and pathos in its best moments, while jarring at its worst. Singer-guitarist Declan Melia’s impassioned howl into the studio wind sets a tone of contemplation also distinct from the ex-girlfriend diatribes of the past. Melia uses a personal lens to explore grander political topics without ever broaching them specifically on “Midnight Homie (Best Friends)” (My best friend is better than your best friend ... my false god is better than your false god.”) Ultimately however, lyrical development is ornamentation to the musical shocks of the record, as the band showcases their most uncharacteristic songs yet: “I Wanna Go Where I Can See The Ocean” is a soaring, wispy synth ode to letting go that would have been once unthinkable for the band, while the swirling balladry of “Absolutely Disgusting” only just falls short of its high-flown ambitions. Songs are often bookended by snippets of erratic samples and studio noodling which hint at something a little more striking than the pretensions of rock anthemicism that continues to permeate British India’s music. Forgetting the Future is an auspicious effort, but perhaps it’s time they threw the rock out with the roll. JOSH MARTIN
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Questioning
?
HATING
with Cody Atkinson
There are few greater joys in life than listening to a song for the first time that you fall in love with. Listening to one that you hate might be one of them. This week, Questioning looks at hating music, and why we do so. So why hate music? Music is good, right? Some people get more joy out of the things they hate than the things that they like. Shitting on bands has become an art form for some. But it is also a lot easier to do that actually liking something. It’s much easier for someone to dote about how much they hate something, rather than open themselves up to criticism by pronouncing their love for something actually worthwhile. Especially if everyone hates the same thing. Yeah, when the object of derision has a lot of focus on it, then everyone feels better about hating the same thing. A sort of extrinsic reward for shared hatred of just targets. Which is why everyone tends to hate Bieber, or Smash Mouth, or Nickelback. And it is pretty easy to hate Nickelback... EXTREMELY EASY. You know something is easy to make fun of when even your uncle Dave has a sick burn about them. “Something something Nickelback something something” was the basis of about 40% of all music jokes post-2005, after the period about making fun of “emos” died down. Fuck, I remembered happened...
that
Yeah, not a great time for public discourse. Hating Nickelback is easy, which is why so many people hate them. It’s hard to make complex assessments about music; to assess your likes and interests and go out on a limb. But it’s really easy to make fun of Nickelback because the case has already been made for you. They write songs like ‘S.E.X.’, without much hint of irony or subtlety, and a little bit rapey if you take the
lyric “‘no is a dirty word” at face value. They largely play big, dumb rock music about bad decisions and life choices, but without much hint of self-improvement or acknowledgement. And even when they go a little softer, in ballad country, they somehow sound even more clichéd. But why are we talking about Nickelback in 2017? Why would anyone still care about them? Because people still love them. Nickelback seemingly exists in a world where there is no middle ground – just people loving or hating them. ‘How You Remind Me’ was the fourth biggest selling song of the 2000s. Some people apparently love them. So how do you reach peak hatability? Surprisingly, the most critical factor seems to be popularity or success. No-one likes to punch down, and it’s impossible to make fun of something that you don’t know about. If a million shit bands record a trillion shit albums in the woods and no-one hears, no-one can make fun of them. I mean Muse are a much easier target than my unreleased drone recordings, even though both are probably as good as each other. Sorta makes sense... Secondly, you either have to be outright bad, cheesy, boring or (preferably) all three. It’s pretty hard to hate something that’s actually good or something you like. Like all culturally related judgements, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but a lot less people hate Nick Cave than Creed. Even if you don’t like the type of music that Cave deals in, you can at least see that he is good at it. Whilst you can understand every note and lyrical intention of a
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Buckcherry song and think “hey, this is a piece of shit. Buckcherry are shit. ‘Crazy Bitch’ is a truly awful song.” Indeed. But sometimes it shifts a bit, especially where the music is of the slightly less hip variety, and popular, daggy appeal can easily slip to something slightly different – ironic devotion. Huh? Well look at Daryl Braithwaite. Braithwaite first hit the spotlight over forty years ago with Sherbet, a band that had to change their name twice in an attempt to be taken seriously (to “Highway” and “The Sherbs” respectively). Seriously. The freaking Sherbs. If you can make fun of Nickelback, surely you can make room for a band called The Sherbs. Fuck me... Braithwaite eventually did what all hirsute singers of that era of Australian pop/rock bands did – went solo. Then he did the other thing that all hirsute singers of that era of Australian pop/rock bands did – went to ground and then had a comeback. Somehow, about two decades on from his initial burst of fame, Braithwaite became a commodity again. It was in this career revival that Braithwaite recorded a cover of a Rickie Lee Jones track called ‘The Horses’. Wait...’The Horses’ is a cover? Yep – the tune was co-written by one of the dudes from Steely Dan. Kinda like Barnsey’s ‘Working Class Man’ was written by the guy from Journey. Mind. Blown. I know, right? Fair chunk of Australian pop/rock “classics” were written by totally other
people. By classics I mean tracks filling up The Biggest BBQ Album 6, or any other of the five prequels in the illustrious Big BBQ Album series. Anyway, turns out kids these days love ‘The Horses’, and Braithwaite by extension. I mean he is due to play at Falls Festival this year. He even re-signed to a major label – Sony – in a period where major labels are seemingly signing fewer Australian bands than ever. Because kids love a cheesy cover that is probably an inferior version of the original because it is in a couple of ads and it has a craptastic video. And that pubs in country Australia have played it as a “get the fuck out of this pub” song for the last few years, as an alternative to ‘Khe Sanh’. Are you saying that Braithwaite and ‘The Horses’ is worse than Nickelback? I mean I hate to sound unAustralian, but probably? If not worse, then in the same category of average-to-shithouse music that I would prefer not to listen to. Maybe without Nickelback’s rapey lyrics. But the passage of time, and persistent local myth building has put Braithwaite in the “true Aussie Legend” of Barnsey, Farnsey and all other “-arnesy’s” out there. Is time a critical factor? There seems to be a sweet spot for cultural rediscovery and positive appraisal – about two decades or so on from the original act. This might tie back to the popularity issue mentioned above – if it’s no longer popular, the easy target is no longer there. And after a couple of decades the nostaligia of youth, either real or imagined, kicks in and somehow clouds the ears when they listen to things like Dave Matthews Band.
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[FILM REVIEWS]
THE WORD ON FILM BLADE RUNNER 2049 [ Let’s take a moment to reflect on the brilliant work of cinematographer Roger Deakins – including The Secret Garden (1993), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Big Lebowski (1998), No Country for Old Men (2007), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), True Grit (2010), Skyfall (2012), Prisoners (2013) and Sicario (2015). He’s been nominated for 13 Oscars in a career spanning 33 years, but hasn’t yet been able to nab one of those little golden statuettes. However, his work on Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (2017) is already garnering serious buzz – perhaps this could be his year? QUOTE OF THE ISSUE “DARLING, IF YOU SAVE THE WORLD, I’LL GET YOU A BACKSTAGE PASS.” ELTON JOHN (AS HIMSELF), KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE
WATCH OUT FOR... Cunard British Film Festival: The Cunard British Film Festival returns in this October with a standout selection of prestige film and box office hits from the British Isles. Oct 25 – Nov 15, Palace Electric Cinema. Good Time (2017): Constantine “Connie” Nikas embarks on a twisted odyssey through the city’s underworld in an increasingly desperate and dangerous attempt to get his younger brother out of prison. Starring Robert Pattinson. Released Thus Oct 12. Blue (2017): Documentary. The very nature of the sea is being irretrievably altered by industrial scale fishing, habitat destruction, species loss and pollution. Released Thu Oct 12.
]
Like its predecessor, Villeneuve’s sequel is, at heart, a lingering meditation, dressed in a noir detective skin. Ryan Gosling’s Officer K, an impassive replicant hunter, harbours, like his virtual companion and intimate, Joi (Ana de Armas) and even his eventual nemesis, Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), a yearning to be human, craving acceptance as something more than a ‘skin job’ or slave. This longing leads K from a routine ‘retirement’ into a hunt for the child of the original Blade Runner’s fugitive lovers, fanning a hope that he might just be ‘special’. Villeneuve is faithful to key elements of Ridley Scott’s 1982 opus. The world of Blade Runner 2049 is recognisable with soundtrack, set design and visual effects all offering familiar cues. However this is unmistakably Villeneuve’s vision. Where Scott excelled in clustering colours and visual effects and obsessedover claustrophobic and cluttered interiors, Villeneuve (assisted by designer Dennis Gassner and cinematographer Roger Deakins) opts for high angle tracking shots, streamlined and open framed sets, shooting whole sequences coded in a single colour, concentrating his palette to its barest elements. Likewise, Harrison Ford (reprising Deckard) anchors the core of this film with his mastery of understatement and gesture, but real credit goes to Villeneuve and his screenwriters (Hampton Fancher, Michael Green). Understanding what Scott failed to about his own masterpiece, they avoid Scott’s revisionist (Deckard = replicant) gimmickry, to draw-out the existential and ethical core of Philip K Dick’s original vision. AJP THOMAS
BATTLE OF THE SEXES [
]
The Battle of the Sexes builds up to its finale recounting how nine women professionals fought for equal pay and conditions. Stymied by an old boys club reluctant to change, expelled from their professional association, the renegades establish the Virginia Slims League and eventually the Women’s Tennis Association of today. That this remains topical might be dispiriting were it not for Simon Beaufoy’s (Slumdog Millionaire) pacey script which juggles subplots with warmth and wit. That Big Tobacco is the saviour of the new league becomes a running gag. Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Farris (Little Miss Sunshine) so faithfully recreate a 1973 set, costumes, soundtrack (patronising sexism) that intercut archive footage feels seamless. Ticking off the sports movie boxes (training montage, big match build-up), the film’s real emotional core is the married Billie Jean King’s struggle with her attraction to another woman. And tone is the key here. Dayton and Farris find perfect doubles partners in Emma Stone and Steve Carell. Stone’s performance, welljudged and restrained, serves well. Her understated delivery grounds the big moments offcourt. As the self-destructive Riggs, Carell ably supports with his stock in trade – needy, unaware, blowhard mouthpiece for an ageing generation’s imperilled masculinity. Wearing its liberal heart on its progressive sleeve, the only jarring note comes as Alan Cumming’s fairy godmother (the renegades’ stylist) offers a contemporary bromide, predicting a time we can love who we want without fear. AJP THOMAS
KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE [
]
Why is it that such an unexpectedly and joyously guanopsychotic Pygmalionmeets-James-Bond sleeper hit as 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service could serve us such a lacklustre sequel? Despite the ostensible ‘star power’ employed by director Matthew Vaughan in Kingsman: The Golden Circle (including the likes of Jeff Bridges, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry and even Sir Elton John), it becomes blindingly clear that all that glitters is not gold. This time, the villain is 1950s-obsessed illegal-drugtrade-monopoliser, Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore). She’s like Mad Men’s answer to Sweeney Todd: an immaculately dressed psychopath with a penchant for shredding her expendable cronies in an industrial-sized kitchen mincer. Moore is great, but like her fellow American cast members, is critically underused. At times, you may wonder whether Kingsman 2 may as well have been titled Kingsman: Where in the World is Channing Tatum? or, Kingsman: The Curse of the Cameo. The strength of this film undoubtedly lies in its action sequences: there’s an abundance of slick, highly-stylised fight choreography (feat. on-point slo-mo), complete with seriously sweet gadgets (I’ll take one of those electric lassos, thank you very much). It seems odd that one could accuse a Kingsman film of suffering from a lack of focus, but the Pygmalion lynchpin of the original film is wanting here. Vaughan forgoes an interesting and simple ‘clash-of-cultures’ story arc between the Kingsman and their American brethren, the Statesmen, in favour of a number of ‘meh’ sub-plots which ultimately contributes to film’s muddled purpose. MAJELLA CARMODY
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THE EMOJI MOVIE [
]
Before we judge the voice actors of The Emoji Movie, let us all reflect on our sources of income, and remember that very few of us have completely fulfilling jobs. For actors too, with bills to pay and careers to sustain, bad work is better than no work. That said, apparently Sir Patrick Stewart was really excited about voicing a talking poo. Gene (T. J. Miller) is a young ‘meh’ face excited to start his first day at his job inside a texting app inside a smartphone. It turns out, of course, that he’s capable of more than his programmed emotion, and when he fails to emote properly at the right moment, disaster ensues. Authority figure Smiley (Maya Rudolph) declares Gene a ‘malfunction’, and he goes on the run, with the formerly popular Hi-5 emoji (James Cordern) and a helpful ‘hacker’ emoji Jailbreak (Anna Faris), through several different apps inside the phone. Eventually they all come back to where they started, and resolve the plot. Occasionally a movie will perfectly capture the spirit of an age. The Emoji Movie is a film of our time, and our pointless, cynical, corporate-branded world, where despair is probably the only reasonable reaction to it all, and all we can really hope for is 86 minutes of bright colours to keep the children distracted (who, if they know what’s good for them, will be playing on their smartphones instead). JEONGHYUN KIM
MOTHER! [
]
Darren Aronofsky’s follow-up to Black Swan makes that film look like Forrest Gump. You would be hard-pressed to find a more demented, off-the-rails two hours of filmmaking in recent memory. Jennifer Lawrence is the young wife of acclaimed poet Javier Bardem. They live in a secluded mansion, in a clearing in the woods. She has painstakingly rebuilt it for him all on her own, after a fire had destroyed it years ago. There’s a lot going on in this house (a stupendous creation in its own right) which creaks, groans and shudders like the best haunted houses. But more than the house are the parade of bad mannered home invaders welcomed into the house by Bardem, as Lawrence looks on in helpless horror. The film keeps you guessing about what’s really going on, until in the final act it explodes into one of the most relentlessly thrilling sequences you will see on celluloid. This will be very probably the most talked about movie of the year, whether you will love it or hate it. See this film. See it on the biggest screen you can, while you can. I can’t say you won’t regret it, but you won’t see anything like it. Much has been written about what Mother! really means. My best advice is to forget about the analysis and let yourself get pulled along for the ride. It will nauseate and exhilarate. BEN YAN
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[THE WORD ON GIGS]
ART SCHOOL BALL -EUPHORIAANU SCHOOL OF ART SUN OCTOBER 1
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PHOTOS BY MARIA KOULOURIS
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[THE WORD ON GIGS]
CAMP COPE
THE BASEMENT TUE SEPTEMBER 19
PHOTOS BY LEHAN ZHANG
Those booking festivals could learn a thing or two from The Basement on Tuesday night. After all the controversy around male-dominated lineups, here was a sold out lineup filled with feminist, indie-punk excellence. The Last Exposure kicked off the evening, and by the time Brooklyn melodic punk rockers Worriers took the stage, The Basement was packed full of fans nodding along to frontwoman Lauren Denitzio’s impassioned vocals backed by a kickass live band. However, it was clear that everyone in the room was waiting for one band. Camp Cope have been an unstoppable force in the past year, and greeted Canberra with the frenetic, no-holdsbarred energy that has propelled them from pub gigs to American tours in their relatively short time making music. The band record their tracks live, but their actual live show is even better. Frontwoman Georgia ‘Maq’ McDonald occasionally chatted to the crowd, covering everything from anger at gendered toilets PAGE 68
to musings about Tuesdays. Her slightly awkward, rambling demeanour was markedly different from her fierce vocals on tracks like ‘Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams’, which was incredibly endearing. The crowd sang and shouted along to hits like ‘Done’ and ‘Lost: Season One’, and were also treated to an as-yet unrecorded track about gender discrimination in the music industry, with electric lines like, “It’s another man telling us we can’t fill up the room / it’s another man telling us to book a smaller venue.” In the hands of a lesser band, the song might come off as trite, but this band breathe earnest life into it. I can’t wait to see what Camp Cope do next. SHARONA LIN
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SHONEN KNIFE
THE BASEMENT THU SEPTEMBER 28 Indonesia’s Senyama set the tone for this weird and wonderful musical adventure. The duo gave us an intriguing open with their experimental soundscape involving a homemade string contraption and vocal explorations that had the large crowd in awe. Whilst it certainly demonstrated originality and talent it didn’t quite hold my attention beyond my 15-minutes of “WTF is this?” Locals Glitoris bring some pizazz to our scene with their punk rock assault that got us closer to what was to come. I did appreciate the quiet and more withdrawn sections of their compositions tonight, but I think the crowd loved their energy with many up the front showing support. However, Shonen Knife owned tonight. Their happiness shone through immediately as they graced the stage with their massive smiles and pop energy. Throughout their set TEX, DON AND CHARLIE THE STREET THEATRE TUE SEPTEMBER 5 TCan seasoned musicians exude charm, without having the weathered feel that comes with some who have been in the game a long time? Absolutely. Tex, Don and Charlie oozed confidence on stage. They gave the impression they were having a lot of fun, while effortlessly switching between instruments as if they could play them in their sleep. These three accomplished men are those enticing, confident musicians who are self-assured enough to take their time. While they’ve been making music for decades now, it’s been a while between drinks. It is easy to see they’re quietly content that the band is back on the tour circuit, showcasing their new album You Don’t Know Lonely. Tex Perkins (The Cruel Sea), Don Walker (Cold Chisel) and Charlie Owen are like an unassuming supergroup. Their songs conjure up images of outback and rural
they continued to showcase the triumphant energy of joy, gratitude and fun. After they told us “how happy they were to finally be playing Canberra” and chanted “Canberra Rock City” we were graced with ‘Jump Into The New World’ and the bopping commenced. Their sense of fun and universality, with a variety of songs about their love of food, was a welcome change to the mood of the night. They demonstrated an appreciation of equality in the way they shared the stage, vocals and musical prowess engaging the audience with Ramones-like guitar bows (even their guitar solos appeared to be smiling). Integrating the funnest, most accessible instrument into their set, the kazoo, only enhanced this. By the time they had us clapping along to ‘All You Can Eat’ there wasn’t a happier audience in the country. Throwing in ‘Daydream Believer’ in their encore topped it all off as perfectly as Ice Magic and sprinkles on your favourite ice cream. JARROD MCGRATH Australia, seedy bars and misfit characters, like sex workers- and drug dealers. Perkins has a special skill of letting notes and lines in songs linger. His distinctive, deep voice filled the hushed theatre and his comical commentary between songs and banter with Don and Charlie eased the silence. There was, of course, some of Perkins’ theatrical sneering and brooding thrown in for good measure. ‘A Man In Conflict With Nature’ was a melancholy song. ‘Just Your Luck’ featured glorious, moody blues guitar solos from Charlie Owen. There were old gems too, like ‘Sitting In A Bar’. The mysterious, spoken-word song ‘Harry Was a Bad Bugger’ was magnificent. With Don Walker’s Aussie/American twang echoing through the theatre, it was almost like watching a Tarantino film come to life. Tex, Don and Charlie may have been on the scene for some time, but it seems they’ve got a lot more music in them for years to come. BELINDA HEALY
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LOS LABIOS
TRANSIT BAR WED SEPTEMBER 27
PHOTO BY
T I had high expectations for tonight and they were exceeded! This started with Betty Alto. I’d never caught them before, they’re now one of my favourite locals. Their mix of musical influences creates a sound I can only describe as a fun, funky Camp Cope dining out with Kings of Leon. Having played Floriade on their way to this show their banter spoke of their preference for the dedicated crowd and stage at Transit and the delicious pizza they serve. They were a perfect warm up for our Spanish rockstar headliners (having been personally selected by Los Labios is further testament to the Spaniards exceptional musical radar).
and buzz tonight that I haven’t felt since seeing Sweden’s The Hives, proving these European rock masters have studied the greats and pulled it all together for the modern era. A band that seems to dream as big as me, their aspirational vibe means I can only hope they return ASAP bigger than tonight even. JARROD MCGRATH
Los Labios’ attention to detail for creating the perfect live rock show was exemplary down to their footwear. Their clothing (including several changes by singer Sammy Taylor) matched the danger, energy and skill of their performance. Quickly igniting the tiny crowd they had us in awe leading to the biggest camera to audience ratio I’ve ever seen. It was like this show was so unbelievably good that we had to capture it to prove to all who weren’t there, and to check we weren’t dreaming. The stage was too small to contain Sammy, as he swaggered around the venue, disappearing sidestage, bouncing around the crowd and giving some cameras their own close ups. There was a rock energy PAGE 69
[THE WORD ON GIGS]
PLACEBO
AIS ARENA THU SEPTEMBER 14
Pulling out one my favourite songs, ‘Trigger’, early in their set had me drawn into Deaf Havana. The five-piece had more of a Kings of Leon meets Smashing Pumpkins vibe than I expected, highlighting my possible preference for American music. I think many were pleasantly surprised with our support act. But the main reason we were all there that night was evident once Placebo’s stage show commenced with a video of ‘Every Me, Every You.’ Projected onto four separate large screens, this opening showcased one of the main features of their show, their very flashy lighting and visuals. Opening with ‘Pure Morning’ built anticipation for a fine setlist. Aside from the one main speech from Brian early in the set there was not much interaction with the crowd outside of this and their videos, which was a little disappointing. But being somewhat intriguing has been a feature of the band over the years. Once I set aside my cynicism about their visual PAGE 70
PHOTOS BY MEGAN LEAHY
showand focussed on their tight sound during ‘Special K’ I realised we Canberrans really were so lucky to be getting this in our home town (and to think they had cancelled their Perth show a few days before). By the time we got ‘Bitter End’ and a double encore (concluded with a cover of Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’) they had somewhat won over this part-time fan, and I was actually left still wanting more (they didn’t play ‘36 Degrees’ or ‘Every Me Every You’, damn). JARROD MCGRATH @bmamag
AJJ
TRANSIT BAR SAT SEPTEMBER 30
Local anti-folk band Helena Pop were the perfect pick to open for Seattle folk-punks AJJ. I’ve never been shy about expressing my love for this band. And this was one of the best sets I’ve ever seen them play. The band gave an audience of people new and old a taste of their eclectic sound, with frontman Jack Livingston’s intricate songwriting and intelligent, life-affirming lyricism winning over some new fans as evidenced by the number of new faces singing along to hook of their banger ‘Punk’s Dead…’ Antonia & the Lazy Susans’ rise from local Blue Mountains/ Sydney cuties to one of the most charming young bands in the country has been nothing short of incredible since the release of their debut EP Closure, gaining them the coveted national touring slot with AJJ. Despite the fatigue of doing the full tour appearing to have taken its toll on the young band and a breaking string halfway through their set, frontwoman Antonia Susan’s impeccable vocals and the band’s infectious songs were still able to elicit a number of
singalongs from the crowd who came forward. Definitely a band to watch. Admittedly, I was not at all familiar with AJJ’s material going into this show. However, by the end of the set, I was definitely a fan. Playing a full hour filled with choice cuts from their discography reaching all the way back to 2007’s ‘People Who Can Eat People…’, highlights including ‘Cody’s Theme’ and ‘Kokopelli Face Tattoo’. Sean Bonnette’s clever, eccentric songwriting was matched by his offbeat stage presence, making it evident why AJJ has the following it does. AJJ closed their main set with their epic slow burner ‘Big Bird’ in which Bonnette waded his way into the gracious Transit crowd to sing for the bulk of the song before returning to his guitar to finish. And then, playing ‘Rejoice’ as a solo encore? Goddamn. What a band. AZIM ZAIN
PHOTOS BY LEHAN ZHANG
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PAGE 71
[THE WORD ON GIGS]
GRINSPOON
and energy a bit more to bring us closer to our headliner’s sound.
CHRISTOPHER CROSS
“I’m way too sober” is a phrase you might’ve expected from Phil Jamieson back in the era when Guide to Better Living was released. Tonight it was the chant of the crowd, as extensive bar queues and the venue running out of most booze options put a bit of a dampener on the night.
Phil’s opening comment of “Are you all pissed?” was somewhat ironic given the poor bar options tonight. Once Grinspoon launched into their set though, the focus was swiftly redirected to their raw energy and superb sound. Compared to seeing the group ‘back in the day’ though, tonight lacked the spontaneity and danger I love about Grinners, possibly because doing the album from start to finish meant you knew what was coming next.
CANBERRA THEATRE CENTRE SUN SEPTEMBER 17
UC REFECTORY SAT SEPTEMBER 16
Now that ANU Bar has closed, Canberra needs a venue to house shows of this calibre and I was hoping UC may have lifted their game in recognition of this (staff mopping floors and cleaning up half way through the headliners set also made me feel unwelcome). But you can’t let a bad venue dictate the quality of the musical performances. Brisbane’s Good Boy warmed up the early crowd with their pleasant indie rock. Their style was a nice segue into Hockey Dad’s set which upped the pace
The encore made up for this though, starting with Phil strumming his acoustic guitar from upstairs and looking over the crowd. By the time they’d punched out their post-Guide hits and closed with ‘More Than You Are’ any unfulfilled desires weren’t to do with the music. JARROD MCGRATH
Christopher Cross made a huge splash with his self-titled album in 1979, before disappearing into relative obscurity from the early 1980s. It has been a couple of decades since he last toured Australia, and Cross admitted that a lot of his albums are now “out of print” and only available in market stalls, but Canberran fans had their loyalty rewarded with an inspiring show on Sunday night. Supported by a four-piece band, the set list drew heavily on Cross’ first LP. After the opening instrumental, Cross pleased the punters with his huge hit ‘Sailing’. A video of exotic locations in the background transported the audience to another time and space, far from the rows of seats in the darkened theatre.
with glowing saxophone bursts and ripples of electric piano, that recalled a more romantic, atmospheric sound from decades ago. Some arrangements had been reworked to allow the band to strut their stuff, and the bass player showed his skills with a long solo in ‘Walking in Avalon’, while the combined voices of the backing vocalists made the song shimmer. His excellent supporting singers did much more than just provide backing vocals, playing a big part in delivering the songs. No mean guitarist, the singer-songwriter played four electric and three acoustic guitars during the show, letting his fingers fly along the fretboard on ‘Ride Like the Wind’. It was the last night of the tour, and Cross and his band played ‘Au Revoir’, a song they had only created that day to mark the last show, so I guess Canberra had the world premiere of that song. RORY MCCARTNEY
It was the sort of lush atmospheric music, replete
PHOTOS BY RICKY LLOYD
PAGE 72
@bmamag
YOURS AND OWLS
STUART PARK, NSW SAT SEPTEMBER 30-OCTOBER 1
This has to be the best festival I’ve come across since Groovin The Moo. The way I have long admired GTM’s size and ability to get a diverse range of acts (including some lesser known acts with stellar live shows) was replicated here. For me in particular I loved the amount of ‘punk rock’ acts on the side stage and most of my time was spent at this stage. As I got acquainted with my new festival’s set up I overheard Ruby Fields on the main stage and appreciated their Garbage cover and current Triple J rotated single ‘P Plates.’ After loading up my wrist band with funds to make my cashless purchases I headed to the Out of Space stage and caught a bit of WAAX. The five-piece had a Yeah Yeah Yeahs vibe especially due to the female lead’s similarity to Karen O. They appeared to have a few fans as punters could be seen approaching the stage singing along to some songs. I then headed back to the main stage to check out Ali Barter for my first time. Given she had sold out Transit Bar on her current tour I somewhat expected a bigger crowd, but it still was only 1.30pm so I guess there may have been a few ticket holders doing some pre-loading on their way. She topped off my female lead start to the festival as the windy weather made her look like she was in a perfect film clip as the breeze blew her hair. Once she got to ‘Light Them On Fire’ and ‘Please Stay’ the sing-a-longs had started within the crowd and it stayed that way until the closer ‘Girlie Bits.’ One may not expect sport to feature as part of a festival review, however this was grand final weekend, and for me in particular my beloved Richmond Tigers were hoping to win their first premiership in 37 years. Fortunately for me the organisers incorporated this into the day showing the game on the smaller Rad Stage. Watching the game amongst a wild crowd as you listen to Alex Leahy and City Calm Down in the background proved to be one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. The crowd was like a mosh as they cheered on the game
amongst the smell of meat pies and weed. I took off at half time to check out of my drawcards for the festival Wavves. I wasn’t disappointed in choosing them over the 3rd quarter as it was one of the wildest moshes I’ve experienced in a while as they punched out their hits such as ‘King of The Beach’ in their frantic 30 minutes. I also overheard an audience member commenting on Bliss N Eso’s show at ANU bar and was able to have a local chat about the closing of that beloved venue. Pumped up from their set I ran back to the Rad Stage to be blessed with watching the Tigers win the match. The roar of the crowd on the siren was nothing short of spectacular as they poured beer over this Richmond beanie-wearing punter. Northeast House Party were a perfect act to have a celebratory dance to. The six-piece mix a good blend of rock, pop and dance. As they asked the audience “Does anyone know who Dustin Martin is?” they reignited my footy excitement. When they then proclaimed: “This is a Metallica song,” but launched into Blink 182’s ‘Dammit’ I was buzzing like an adrenaline-injected honey bee. By the time they did ‘For You’ I was a complete convert and will now proclaim them one of my favourite acts to dance to. The pre-show music for The Preatures was filled with classic Oz rock and built anticipation. Unfortunately they didn’t live up to this. With Gideon gone I feel they lack a bit of the energy and excitement of their former years. Some of the new songs, such as ‘Mess It Up’, had remnants of the that past energy but I otherwise got a bit bored and decided to prepare for one of my other drawcards Bad// Dreems. They didn’t disappoint as their energy created another ‘dangerous’ mosh on the side stage. A little fatigued by now I decided to observe Dune Rats as I recovered and explored more of the festival (tip: the 10c refund for recycling your cans wasn’t worth the effort and GTM’s offer of $1 is far more worthwhile). Having our local boys SAFIA top off the day as headliners was the perfect day one celebratory closer of things I love (music,
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Canberra and AFL). Day two continued to prove that the side stages were more appealing to me. As I left food vans to head to the main stage I was drawn into the tiny Rad Stage by Jacob. Their distorted pop punk had something unique about it and they became one of my discoveries of the festival. It’s taken me too long to finally see Holy Holy. Besides how great they were I was also shocked to see four of them on stage and had to fact check myself on their status as a two-piece. They had somewhat of a chilled vibe with rock undertones that created a danceability to it all (reminding me of some British acts). By the time they gave us ‘True Lovers’ and ‘Darwinism’ they proved to be one of my other favourites of the festival. The Frenzal Rhomb to Dune Rat t-shirt ratio increased on day two, indicating a more ‘mature’ crowd possibly here for our elder statesmen headlining today. There also appeared to be fewer people today (ticket sales confirmed this too), but this suited this reviewer backing up after a big day one. As I made my crowd observations I was once again drawn into the Rad Stage for Totty. Their female vocals made them somewhat of a heavier punker Alex Leahy, and were more my style than latest sensations Confidence Man. I did my job and went and watched them on the main stage. I get they are fun and ‘the kids’ appeared to enjoy dancing around to them, but I wouldn’t say they are overly talented, and are more like modern karaoke. When I trotted over to the side stage early to prepare for my other drawcard AJJ I was flabbergasted by the few people there compared to acts of the same calibre on this stage the day before. Once the Phoenix four-piece entered the stage to The Wiggles ‘Hot Potato’ I couldn’t help but think ‘pity the fools’ who were missing this. I somewhat felt the same about myself having had to miss their show at Transit the night before where they played a much longer set (which I discovered from a fellow hard-core fan waiting in the mosh with me pre-show). Concluding their short set with ‘Goodbye Oh Goodbye’ was perfect despite my desire for more. I caught the end of A.B Original and realised where all the people were. They were certainly energetic and had the crowd pumping. I
scampered back to my favourite stage to catch Mexican band, Le Butcherettes. Lead vocalist Terri Gender Bender was like a warrior on a mission as she screamed with a vengeance at the crowd. The group still look quite young and proved they could be a future force of music to be reckoned with. The Orwells continued the punk energy of the stage as their lanky singer wandered around the stage with a cool swagger. His moves and their breed of music reminded me of a classic battle of USA vs UK punk rock. Holy shit Sunday! The music today proved to take me to as high a plane as watching my team win the day before. As I once again approached the main stage for Illy I was blown away by his energy and remembered how much I love that dude. His set was jam packed with hits and as I downed an espresso martini from a plastic ‘vote yes’ cup I was transformed to a world of dance and inspiration. At The Drive In didn’t quite do the same thing for me yet I couldn’t help admire their musical precision and energy as singer Cedric Bixler performed his mic stand acrobatics and the group punched out their tunes that have certainly had an influence on some current acts today. I was keen to see Sorority Noise but was only able to check out the start of their set as they clashed with Spain’s’ Los Labios on the tiny Rad Stage, and after loving their show at Transit on the Wednesday before I was keen to see their festival set. Adorning their t-shirt all day I had also told them I would try to get a crowd over to them and had been promoting them to punters throughout the festival. Unfortunately my marketing hadn’t worked and there were a handful of us there to party with one of the best live rock bands I’ve seen in a while (it was pleasing to run into a fellow BMA reviewer here though, proving this magazine and our city know good music). As I left the grounds there was one thing left to try, the random breath test machine on offer for those driving. Fortunately, I wasn’t, as my reading broke their machine, but that’s because I think it may have been testing for ‘rabid bloody music’ loving levels of passion. Yours and Owls, I’ll see you next year for sure. JARROD MCGRATH
PAGE 73
[ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE]
EXHIBITIONS AROUND TOWN
Infrastructure by Christopher Oates
Unearthed by Mirabel Fitzgerald
M16 ARTSPACE
The works are a response to living and working by the sea in the spotted gum forest of the South Coast. The images originate in descriptions of the environment although they frequently become abstracted in the studio process. Free.
Tues–Sun, 10am–4pm Oct 21-Nov12
BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE
The Price of Gold by Stuart Whitelaw
This exhibition is an exploration and celebration of the landscape of the Deua River. The Deua flows through wilderness and National Park providing coastal communities of Eurobodalla with water for households and for growing food. Free.
Tues–Sun, 10am–4pm Oct 21-Nov12
BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE
Cut-Out by Meredith Hughes and Naomi Zouwer
From cutting and reconfiguring, unexpected relations come into play. Fluidity emerges and endlessness transpires with possibility. And as compelling, are the spaces that remain. The re-contextualising function of the cut-out reveals the materiality of the in-between. In this exhibition Naomi Zouwer and Meredith Hughes use textile installation to investigate the cut-out. Cut-out draws upon the lineage of the artistic cut-out from artists such as Matisse and Sally Smart and from traditional and contemporary quilting practices. Free.
Tues–Sun, 10am–4pm Oct 21-Nov12
BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE
Self ID by Ainslie Village artists, Tilly Davey, Lee Grant and Blaide Lallemand Showing until 15 October. Open Wed-Sun 12-5pm. FREE. M16 ARTSPACE
Templum by Michele England
Showing until 15 October. Open Wed-Sun 12-5pm. FREE. M16 ARTSPACE
Amplified by Andrea McCuaig
Showing until 15 October. Open Wed-Sun 12-5pm. FREE. M16 ARTSPACE
Drawing Comfort by Talei Emberson, Dimity Kidston, Valerie Kirk, Suzanne Knight, Sharon Peoples and Annie Trevillian SShowing until 19 October. Open Wed-Sun 12-5pm. FREE. M16 ARTSPACE
Entangled Mysteries by Sally Blake
Showing until 19 October. Open Wed-Sun 12-5pm. FREE.
ART EXHIBITIONS
Showing until 19 October. Open Wed-Sun 12-5pm. FREE.
REST - an exhibition of printed porcelain vessels and wall pieces by Tania Vrancic, curated by Peter Haynes Showing 11/10-30/10 Tues-Sun 10am-4pm
FORM STUDIO AND GALLERY
PRESENCE - Two Visions of Landscapes by Ros Auld and Claire Primrose, curated by Peter Haynes Showing 11/10-30/10 Tues-Sun 10am-4pm FORM STUDIO AND GALLERY
Dempsey’s People: a folio of British street portraits 18241844 The first exhibition to showcase the compelling watercolours of itinerant painter John Dempsey. 10am – 5pm. $10. Showing until 22/10 NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
Nicholas Harding: 28 Portraits A selection of portraits featuring recent oil portraits, delicate gouaches and bold ink and charcoal drawings. 10am-5pm. Free. Showing until 26/11 NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
Inner North Art Prize The Inner North Art Prize is a community-based and communityfunded art prize managed and supported by a group of local residents. Founded in 2016, the aim of the Prize is to connect local artists, art-interested residents and other supporters by creating a significant annual community art event for the Inner North. 8am-7:30pm. FREE. Showing until October 29. FRONT GALLERY & CAFE
Waving the Red Flag: Chinese posters 1949-1976 The authorities in the early decades of the People’s Republic of China used posters to instruct and mobilize the general populace. A10am-5pm. FREE. Showing until February 2. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA
Feathers, Fur and Fins exhibition Images of animals by members of Instagrammers Canberra. Showing until October 25. TUGGERANONG ARTS CENTRE
Precipice by Annika Romeyn A solo exhibition of drawings and prints about being in the landscape, observation and erosion. Opening 6pm 4 Oct. ANCA GALLERY
Naturescapes by Melinda Heal Is a fresh view on textile dyeing as well as examining the way we represent and reflect upon the natural world around us. Opening 6pm 25 Oct. ANCA GALLERY
M16 ARTSPACE
PAGE 74
@bmamag
[ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE] WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 11
Friday Night Live
THEATRE
Blues, rock and much more with weekly gigs. For more information visit harmonieclub.com.au. 8pm
UNDER SEDATION
Shock One
Canberra verse, remixed. Weaves together the old and the new, sung and spoken, published and drafted, applauded and unknown, earnest and irreverent, and transforms performance poetry from slam to stage. $25-$35. Info and times at thestreet.org.au THE STREET THEATRE
LIVE MUSIC Wednesday Lunchtime Live
Entry $10 (Refreshments and program included). Or by donation. 12:30am– 1:30am WESLEY UNITING CHURCH
Acoustic Pints: Sad Old Bastard Night III Vorn Doolette, Evan Buckley, Jim Sharrock & Frank Vulture. 8:00 pm THE PHOENIX
THURSDAY OCTOBER 12 LIVE MUSIC Majora
With ‘The Colours Are’ and Lost Coast. Tix $10 on the Door. THE BASEMENT
HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB
Shock One live at Academy. ACADEMY CLUB
DANCE Not Like Others
Tickets at QL2.org.au.
OCT 11 – OCT 19 SUNDAY OCTOBER 15 THEATRE Strictly Ballroom The Musical
ERINDALE THEATRE
COMEDY
This uncompromising and dark production explores the tense relationship and prejudices between those that have, and those that have not. Dark in its humour and bawdy in its romantic hijinks, The Merchant of Venice takes audiences on a journey of love, mercy and justice.
Arj Barker is arguably Australia’s favourite American comedian. In recent years, he has spent more time in our country than his own and has come to understand our culture perhaps better than we understand it ourselves. His stand-up is both insightful and pointed, like a mind-reading thumb tack, if there was one of those. 8pm CANBERRA THEATRE CENTRE
SATURDAY OCTOBER 14 LIVE MUSIC Citizen Kay
Infor and tickets at moshtix.com.au TRANSIT BAR
Code Red
Environmental Film Festival Australia: Let There Be Light
Strictly Ballroom the Musical tells the inspiring story of Scott Hastings, a championship ballroom dancer who defies all the rules and follows his heart, not only to find his true calling but also his true love. Tickets at philo.org.au
THEATRE 3
Arj Barker- Organic
FILM
The Merchant of Venice
THE PLAYHOUSE
MONDAY OCTOBER 16 LIVE MUSIC 2XX Local n Live Presents The Bootleg Sessions
With Cognisant, Parrots With Piercings, Starlight Skullchild (Azim Zain) & Faux Paw. 8pm THE PHOENIX
TUESDAY OCTOBER 17
The Environmental Film Festival presents a special screening of Canadian documentary Let There Be Light. As the race for fossil-free energy intensifies, can nuclear fusion can save us from the climate crisis? Let There Be Light tells the incredible story of the most complex machine ever invented: the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), currently being built in southern France. Emmy Award winning director Mila Aung-Thwin will be in attendance and participate in a panel discussion. 5:30pm NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA
SOMETHING DIFFERENT
The Hellenic presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Fri and Sat night.
TRIVIA
BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!
Karaoke at the Phoenix.
Jeff and Deej duo
Hidden Canberra
THE PHOENIX
COMEDY
THE BURNS CLUB
THE PHOENIX
Isaiah B Brunt Band 7:00 pm
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB OF AUSTRALIA
Piss Weak Karaoke
THE HELLENIC CLUB WODEN
THE PHOENIX
Fine blues harp and cruisin’ tunes from this super cool duo!
Mick Meredith
The Socialites
GINNINDERA LABOR CLUB
The Mawson club presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Sat night.
GALLERY OPENINGS
Luka Lesson
$16.50 at the door. 7:30pm
Presence/Rest Exhibition Openings
Presence by Ros Auld and Claire Primrose. Rest by Tania Vrancic. Both Curated by Peter Haynes. 6pm FORM STUDIO & GALLERY
FRIDAY OCTOBER 13 LIVE MUSIC Special K
The Hellenic presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Fri and Sat night. THE HELLENIC CLUB WODEN
Psynonemous Album Launch Tour
With Gods of Eden, Anno Domini, Hybrid Nightmares. Tix at the door. 7:00 pm THE BASEMENT
THE MAWSON CLUB
With Kahl Wallis. Luka and Kahl have collaborated on a powerful new world/ hip-hop song called Living Artefact, which has been received very well so far with love from triple j’s Hip-Hop Show, Roots ‘n’ All, FBi Radio and more. Tickets at eventbrite.com.au
Hot Potato Band Tix at the door.
THE BASEMENT
WESLEY UNITING CHURCH
Tom Fell Sextet
Boney M
Frankenbok and 14 other Metal bands. $25 at door. THE BASEMENT
The King Hits
With Royal Chant & DJ Bo Loserr. $10/$5. 9pm THE PHOENIX
DANCE Not Like Others
Tickets at QL2.org.au. THEATRE 3
Oktoberfest Parklands
THE PHOENIX
Wednesday Lunchtime Live
Entry $10 (Refreshments and program included). Or by donation. 12:30am– 1:30am
Chaos in the Capital
HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB
With Funkytrop, Rumblr & Triply. $10. 8pm.
LIVE MUSIC
Tribute to Charles Mingus. $22/$15. 6pm.
SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Friday 13th Fiesta
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 18
THE NISHI PLAYHOUSE
Fred Smith
Info at harmonieclub.com.au. 8pm
Anti-Poverty Week Trivia Special With Chris Endrey. 7pm.
Don your Lederhosen & celebrate Oktoberfest like never before! PATRICK WHITE LAWNS
Canberra Roller Derby League Double Header Bouts. 6pm. Info and tickets at www.crdl.com.au. SOUTHERN CROSS STADIUM
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ANU POP-UP VILLAGE
With Maizie Williams. 7:30pm. Tickets $79.90 – $119.90 at canberratheatrecentre.com.au. CANBERRA THEATRE CENTRE
THEATRE Strictly Ballroom The Musical Strictly Ballroom the Musical tells the inspiring story of Scott Hastings, a championship ballroom dancer who defies all the rules. Tickets at philo.org.au ERINDALE THEATRE
The Merchant of Venice
This uncompromising and dark production explores the tense relationship and prejudices between those that have, and those that have not. THE PLAYHOUSE
Slam Poetry. 7:30pm
THEATRE Strictly Ballroom The Musical Strictly Ballroom the Musical tells the inspiring story of Scott Hastings, a championship ballroom dancer who defies all the rules. Tickets at philo.org.au ERINDALE THEATRE
The Merchant of Venice
This uncompromising and dark production explores the tense relationship and prejudices between those that have, and those that have not. THE PLAYHOUSE
THURSDAY OCTOBER 19 LIVE MUSIC The Cherry Pickers 7pm
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB OF AUSTRALIA
Piss Weak Karaoke Karaoke at the Phoenix. THE PHOENIX
GALLERY OPENINGS Messengers ‘17 exhibition opening
Opening of exhibition showcasing work by students in The Messengers Program. Free. 6:30pm TUGGERANONG ARTS CENTRE
DANCE Sorry Mum I’m Going Out
Dance 4 Dystrophy. Gold coin donation. THE BASEMENT
PAGE 75
[ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE] THURSDAY OCTOBER 19 SOMETHING DIFFERENT FLORIADE FRINGE
A festival of theatre, art, food & dancing. HAIG PARK
FRIDAY OCTOBER 20 LIVE MUSIC Friday Night Live
Blues, rock and much more with weekly gigs. For more information visit harmonieclub.com.au. 8pm HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB
Acolyte
Supports TBA. Tix $18.40 @ Oztix. THE BASEMENT
Blue Frost
The Hellenic presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Fri and Sat night. THE HELLENIC CLUB WODEN
The Big Vacation Tour
Feat Mathas, Omar Musa, Rapaport, P Smurf + special guests. TRANSIT BAR
Paces
Paces live at Academy. ACADEMY CLUB
Flickertale
Chumpke Reunion Show
With Renegade Peacock and Space is Dead. Tix $10 @ the door. THE BASEMENT
Diversity
Dance the night away to all your favourite covers – popular club act Diversity is back! THE BURNS CLUB
Smooth Ops
The Hellenic presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Fri and Sat night. THE HELLENIC CLUB WODEN
Peter Hollo Album Launch
Sydney based cellist Peter Hollo launches his new album, The night is dark, the night is silent, the night is bright, the night is loud, of melodic electronics, supported by Spartak and Alphamale. $10. 8pm DRILL HALL GALLERY
Rock for Tara
All Proceeds to the Tara Costigan Foundation. Dalmacia, Gravelrash, Clinical Fist and Sally Chicane. Tix $20 @ the door. 8pm. THE BASEMENT
The Bottlers
With Semen & Garfuckel & Billy Puntton. $10. THE PHOENIX
SOMETHING DIFFERENT FLORIADE FRINGE
With Palace Revolution & Sally Chicane. $10/$5.
A festival of theatre, art, food & dancing.
THE PHOENIX
HAIG PARK
GALLERY OPENINGS
GALLERY OPENINGS
Exhibition Opening
Artist in Residence – Unearthed by Mirabel Fitzgerald
Join us for drinks and nibbles to celebrate the opening of three new exhibitions; Cut-Out by Meredith Hughes and Naomi Zouwer, The Price of Gold by Stuart Whitelaw and Unearthed by Mirabel Fitzgerald. All welcome. Free. 5:30pm BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE
SOMETHING DIFFERENT FLORIADE FRINGE
A festival of theatre, art, food & dancing. HAIG PARK
The Rocky Horror Party
A Jazida Production. Live music, drag, burlesque. $10 – $28 via Eventbrite. 8pm. POLIT BAR
SATURDAY OCTOBER 21 LIVE MUSIC Cherrypickers
The Mawson club presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Sat night. THE MAWSON CLUB
Mirabel will be sitting in with the exhibition, a great opportunity to meet and chat with her. Free. 12pm. BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE
WORKSHOPS How Sound Works
Achieving the best sound for your instrument, sounds for practising vs performing and how sounds and tone motivate. More information at musicforcanberra.org.au/ AINSLIE ARTS CENTRE
SUNDAY OCTOBER 22 LIVE MUSIC Benny Walker
Wine, Women & Soul tour. Info at bennywalkermusic.com SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE
OCT 19 – OCT 27 Clowns
Joining Clowns will be Melbourne’s European-blooded-blackened-Italianmetal-pop prodigy Pagan, who have been receiving rave reviews for their relentless live shows and intense recordings. TRANSIT BAR
THEATRE Strictly Ballroom The Musical Strictly Ballroom the Musical tells the inspiring story of Scott Hastings, a championship ballroom dancer who defies all the rules. Tickets at philo.org.au ERINDALE THEATRE
MONDAY OCTOBER 23 LIVE MUSIC Slushii
Live at Academy ACADEMY CLUB
Alice Cooper
40th Anniversary Tour 2017. With very special guest Ace Frehley. 7pm. From $122.25 via Ticketek. AIS ARENA
The Bootleg Sessions
With Susie, Yoshitake EXPE, Blade Gang & Sam King. THE PHOENIX
TUESDAY OCTOBER 24 LIVE MUSIC Heuristic
The Hellenic presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Fri and Sat night. THE HELLENIC CLUB WODEN
Midnight Oil
With Something For Kate. 6pm. Tickets $81.50 + bf at Ticketek. AIS ARENA
TRIVIA Mystery Trivia Rides Again Trivia at the Phoenix. 7pm. THE PHOENIX
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 25 LIVE MUSIC Wednesday Lunchtime Live
Entry $10 (Refreshments and program included). Or by donation. 12:30am– 1:30am WESLEY UNITING CHURCH
COMEDY Open Mic Comedy At The Phoenix
Jimi Jackson Live at Academy ACADEMY CLUB
THEATRE Strictly Ballroom The Musical Strictly Ballroom the Musical tells the inspiring story of Scott Hastings, a championship ballroom dancer who defies all the rules. Tickets at philo.org.au ERINDALE THEATRE
THURSDAY OCTOBER 26 LIVE MUSIC Jimmy Maddon
With Wesley and the Crushers, Local Horror and more. Tickets @ the Door. THE BASEMENT
Raave Tapes K Bye tour.
TRANSIT BAR
Tundrel
With Cognisant and The Silencio (QLD). THE BASEMENT
Piss Weak Karaoke Karaoke at the Phoenix. THE PHOENIX
TALKS Animals in Literature
Children’s author Dr Stephanie Owen Reeder in conversation with Irma Gold for ACT Children’s Week. Free. 6pm. TUGGERANONG ARTS CENTRE
FRIDAY OCTOBER 27 LIVE MUSIC Friday Night Live
Blues, rock and much more with weekly gigs. For more information visit harmonieclub.com.au. 8pm HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB
Beale & Baxter
Some of the hottest, swingiest, rockiest, soulful, funkiest blues around. Free. 8pm HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB
Metal Fiesta 13
10 Acts performing over two stages. Tix $20 @ Moshtix. THE BASEMENT
Heuristic
The Hellenic presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Fri and Sat night. THE HELLENIC CLUB WODEN
Elk Road
Live at Academy. ACADEMY CLUB
The Veebees
With Meat Cake & Coffin. $10. 9pm THE PHOENIX
Open Mic Comedy at The Phoenix. Free. 8pm. THE PHOENIX
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facebook.com/bmamagazine
PAGE 77
[ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE] FRIDAY OCTOBER 27
SUNDAY OCTOBER 29
OCT 27 – NOV 8 WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 1
DANCE
LIVE MUSIC
LIVE MUSIC
Fresh Faced Funk
Heartsounds
Wednesday Lunchtime Live
New urban dance work from fresh Funk’s Young Choreographers Initiative. 7.30pm Friday & Saturday, 5pm Sunday. Adult $20, Student $15. TUGGERANONG ARTS CENTRET
SATURDAY OCTOBER 28 LIVE MUSIC Code Red duo
One of Canberra’s best duos present all the latest hits! THE BURNS CLUB
Jetson 5
The Hellenic presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Fri and Sat night. THE HELLENIC CLUB WODEN
Jonval
With Signs and Symbols and Myriad Ways. Tix $10 THE BASEMENT
Nightmare on East Row II
Azim Zain and His Lovely Bones, Rachel Maria Cox, Raised as Wolves, Jacob, Dalmacia & Capes. $10. 7pm THE PHOENIX
Special K
With Nerdlinger and more TBA. 6pm THE PHOENIX
DANCE FRESH FACED FUNK
New urban dance work from fresh Funk’s Young Choreographers Initiative. 7.30pm Friday & Saturday, 5pm Sunday. Adult $20, Student $15. TUGGERANONG ARTS CENTRET
GALLERY OPENINGS Artists in Conversation – Unearthed by Mirabel Fitzgerald
Join in conversation with Mirabel as she illuminates both the ideas and content of her work as well as discussing the techniques and processes used. 2pm. Free BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE
Artist in Residence – Unearthed by Mirabel Fitzgerald Mirabel will be sitting in with the exhibition, a great opportunity to meet and chat with her. 12pm Free. BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 3 LIVE MUSIC CoverArt
Entry $10 (Refreshments and program included). Or by donation. 12:30am– 1:30am
The Hellenic presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Fri and Sat night.
WESLEY UNITING CHURCH
THE HELLENIC CLUB WODEN
Gary France Ensemble
Hollow World
$22/$15/$10. Bookings at gpage40@ bigpond.net.au. ANU POP-UP VILLAGE
Acoustic Pints
With Boots Byers & Friends. Free. THE PHOENIX
THEATRE Boys Will Be Boys By Melissa Bubnic.
THE STREET THEATRE
The Popular Mechanicals Using snippets of the existing text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream along with a gloriously cod version of Shakespearean English, the play exalts in its own roughness, extravagance of expression and frequent obscenity—in the nicest possible way. THE PLAYHOUSE
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 2
With guests Greytomb, Claret Ash. THE BASEMENT
Tarlo Mack
Info at thebasementcanberra.com.au THE BASEMENT
19Twenty + Tomcat Playground
Raw, Australian primal rock/roots meets traditional blues and swing. $20-$30. 8pm HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB
Friday Night Live
Blues, rock and much more with weekly gigs. For more information visit harmonieclub.com.au. HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB
The Clouds
The Clouds are hitting the road on a national tour in November to support the release of a brand new single ‘Beautiful Nothingness’ and to answer the call from fans around the country. $44.90. 8pm UC REFECTORY
Morning TV
The Mawson club presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Sat night.
THEATRE
Piss Weak Karaoke
THE PHOENIX
Transvaal Diamond Syndicate
THE STREET THEATRE
Karaoke at the Phoenix. THE PHOENIX
THEATRE
WORKSHOPS
80s Mania
The Popular Mechanicals
THE MAWSON CLUB
One of Australia’s finest foot-stompin’, hard hittin’ Blues Rock outfits. $15$25. 8pm. HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB
DANCE Fresh Faced Funk New urban dance work from fresh Funk’s Young Choreographers Initiative. 7.30pm Friday & Saturday, 5pm Sunday. Adult $20, Student $15. TUGGERANONG ARTS CENTRET
SOMETHING DIFFERENT AIDs Action Council Fairday
SpringOut Pride Festival is Canberra’s queer cultural festival which affirms the pride, joy, dignity and identity of Canberra’s LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer) communities through events of celebration. Be prepared for music, fun, laughter, community, information and a whole lot of flair at Fair Day 2017. Presented by ACT Government and Ainslie Arts Centre. Free. 11am GORMAN ARTS CENTRE
Canberra Zombie Walk
Raising Money for the Brain Foundation. Free. GAREMA PLACE
COMEDY Luke Heggie
Academy Comedy Club. ACADEMY CLUB
Boys Will Be Boys By Melissa Bubnic.
Artist Workshop – Cut-Out
Drop in and cut-out. Drop in and explore the cut out. Using methods inspired by Naomi and Meredith’s own unique approaches to the cut-out, traditional and contemporary quilting practices participants will experiment and innovate by dismantling and re-configuring materials. All ages welcome. 10am BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE
MONDAY OCTOBER 30 LIVE MUSIC The Bootleg Sessions
With Pleased To Jive You, Fantastic Athletes, The Bee Cons & Up First. Free. THE PHOENIX
Between the Lines Halloween Party
7 local bands and Fancy Dress Prizes Tix $17.09 on sale at ticketbud.com. THE BASEMENT
TUESDAY OCTOBER 31 LIVE MUSIC Tonight Alive
With Special Guests The Beautiful Monument. Tix from Ticketmaster $49.60. 7:30pm.
With Go West, The Cutting Crew, Wang Chung, Taylor Dayne and Paul Young. Dinner (optional) at 6pm, show at 8pm. Tickets start at $91.65 + bf via Ticketek. CANBERRA SOUTHERN CROSS CLUB (WODEN)
THEATRE The Popular Mechanicals Using snippets of the existing text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream along with a gloriously cod version of Shakespearean English, the play exalts in its own roughness, extravagance of expression and frequent obscenity—in the nicest possible way. THE PLAYHOUSE
With String Elephants & Teen Jesus & The Jean Teasers. $10. 9pm
Using snippets of the existing text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream along with a gloriously cod version of Shakespearean English, the play exalts in its own roughness, extravagance of expression and frequent obscenity—in the nicest possible way. THE PLAYHOUSE
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 4 LIVE MUSIC Hit & Run duo
Popular local duo pump out your favourites! THE BURNS CLUB
Rick Price
Brought to Life A ‘Dead Man Walkin’ Tour. $20-$30. HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB
Listings are a free community service. Email editorial@bmamag.com to have your events appear each issue.
For up-to-date listings, visit bmamag.com/gigguide.
THE BASEMENT
TRIVIA Halloween Trivia
Trivia at the Phoenix. 7pm THE PHOENIX
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LIVE MUSIC
NEXT ISSUE: #499
OUT NOV 8
@bmamag
Heart Beach
With Passive Smoke, Little Lunch & House Of Strangers. $10. 8pm THE PHOENIX
Jetson 5
The Mawson club presents Canberra’s best current dance, pop and rock covers acts every Sat night.
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 7 THEATRE Ralph Indie: Love/Chamberlain
THE MAWSON CLUB
THEATRE The Popular Mechanicals Using snippets of the existing text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream along with a gloriously cod version of Shakespearean English, the play exalts in its own roughness, extravagance of expression and frequent obscenity—in the nicest possible way. THE PLAYHOUSE
SOMETHING DIFFERENT Narrabundah College – Class of ’86-88 – 30th Reunion STOP PRESS…Narrabundah College Classes of 86-88 are holding their… gulp…30th-ish reunions! Tell your friends. POLIT BAR
Day of the Dead Fiesta
Live Bands, Food and Market Stalls, Mexican Wrestling All Ages Demonstration. $10-$30. 1pm-8pm AINSLIE ARTS CENTRE
Mexican Wrestling
Authentic Mexican Wrestling and a Live Band. $45. 9pm-midnight HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB
Day of the Dead After Party
With Afro Latin tunes from DJ DeDe. Free. Midnight-3am HIGHBALL EXPRESS
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 5 LIVE MUSIC
Courtney Love and Lindy Chamberlain cross paths on the Federal Highway at midnight, on their way to consult an oracle. Love/Chamberlain is a hyper-real fantasy portrait of Courtney Love and Lindy Chamberlain. These time-travelling apparitions meet each other after the disappearance of baby Azaria and in the ferment of rumour following Kurt Cobain’s death. Multiple performance times. Tickets $20 (preview only), $25 concession, $30 full, $35 supporter $20 via agac.com.au
RALPH WILSON THEATRE, GORMAN ARTS CENTRE
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 8 LIVE MUSIC Wednesday Lunchtime Live
Entry $10 (Refreshments and program included). Or by donation. 12:30am– 1:30am
Trio With A Twist
WESLEY UNITING CHURCH
TUGGERANONG ARTS CENTRE
Bonnie Raitt unabashedly dubbed him “the ninth wonder of the world.” 8pm
The Twilight Classical Concert Series presents The Lanyon Trio in ‘Trio with a Twist’. Adult $35, Student $20. 5pm.
WORKSHOPS Artist Workshop – Cut-Out
Drop in and cut-out. Drop in and explore the cut out. Using methods inspired by Naomi and Meredith’s own unique approaches to the cut-out, traditional and contemporary quilting practices participants will experiment and innovate by dismantling and re-configuring materials. All ages welcome. 10am BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE
THEATRE Boys Will Be Boys By Melissa Bubnic.
THE STREET THEATRE
a
Jon Cleary & the Absolute Monster Gentlemen THE PLAYHOUSE
THEATRE Ralph Indie: Love/Chamberlain Courtney Love and Lindy Chamberlain cross paths on the Federal Highway at midnight, on their way to consult an oracle. Love/Chamberlain is a hyper-real fantasy portrait of Courtney Love and Lindy Chamberlain. These time-travelling apparitions meet each other after the disappearance of baby Azaria and in the ferment of rumour following Kurt Cobain’s death. Multiple performance times. Tickets $20 (preview only), $25 concession, $30 full, $35 supporter $20 via agac.com.au
RALPH WILSON THEATRE, GORMAN ARTS CENTRE
Boys Will Be Boys By Melissa Bubnic.
THE STREET THEATRE
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PAGE 79