Sauce - Issue 60, 23-1-08

On the street every second Wednesday

Edition #60 23/01/08 - 06/02/08 Made in Tasmania

PAGE 2

SPOON

ROCK SALT

By Dave Williams

go ga ga ga ga ga at soundscape With Texas rock heavyweights Spoon hitching a ride southward during their upcoming Big Day Out run to play the Soundscape Festival on the 26th – all on the back of their much awaited sixth LP – Dave Williams got in touch with frontman Britt Daniel to find out, amongst other things, why they’d decide to call an album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga ‌ I was talking with Ben Kweller not so long ago, and he was saying that he did quite a bit of recording in your studio.

Am I remembering correctly?

Yeah, he did. It’s not my studio – it’s Jim, our drummer’s studio – and I wasn’t there for it. But I heard that it happened, yeah.

It’s the same studio where Spoon records – it’s just that I don’t own it. I own maybe three pieces of gear in there.

You’re coming to Australia, and doing shows all over the shop. What are your feelings, with that on your plate, so to speak?

Well, to be honest, we love going to Australia ‌ It’s definitely my favourite place to play outside of the United States ‌ We’ve never been invited to do the Big Day Out before, so it’s a big deal, you know?

Yeah. It seems like Spoon are “hitting the big time�, you know? [You’ve] gone from “that cult band� to the almost mainstream indie [act]. Is that kind of how it’s feeling?

What – you mean, even in Australia?

Maybe, yep.

Well I don’t know. I don’t know how it feels. I just kind of feel like ‌ we never expected to do that ‌ My life is fun – that’s all I can say.

Have you taken to that attitude all along? Or, at some point or another, have you thought, “Gee, I’d really like this band to be huge�? What have been your expectations up ‘til now?

I never wanted it to be huge, but there were times definitely when I wanted a few more comforts, you know? When I wanted to know that I’d have enough money to pay rent, or I wanted to know that, when we got on tour, we wouldn’t lose money, you know? Or that we’d be playing in front of more than twenty people ‌ Yeah, I wanted things to work better then. But I never wanted “hugenessâ€?, and even the level that we’re at now, which is by no means huge, is way bigger than the bands that I thought were the ultimate when we started out. I mean, when we started out, Guided By Voices was my absolute favourite band, and I thought ‌ in my eyes, they were huge ‌ But we sold a lot more records than them, and that just sort of blows my mind, you know?

Life’s pretty crazy, huh?

Yeah ‌ I still think those Guided By Voices records are incredible – especially mid-nineties. Your perception of success, it’s always changing.

called the Soundscape Festival ‌ People do produce records which run longer than your average Spoon album, and I read some comment [attributed to you] ‌ “just because an album can run to seventy minutes doesn’t mean it has to.â€? Is that something you remember?

Oh, I totally believe that, yeah.

What about your sets? What sort of length of set can we expect from Spoon in Tasmania?

Well, we’ll be limited by whatever the festival says, but when we play our own headlining shows, we’d be playing usually an hour-ten to an hour-twenty, something like that. Not too long. It doesn’t make you sore on your feet.

It’s almost like two Spoon albums.

[Laughs] Yeah, it’s almost [like that]. I mean, it’s a lot of fun, because our songs are generally pretty short.

Why do you think it’s worked out like that? Why do you think you’ve developed that style?

I don’t know – it’s just naturally me, you know? Maybe it’s just that songwriting’s painful, and I don’t want to extend it any longer. I get to a point where I go, “Oh, that’s good.� And then it’s done!

was it the same sort of difficulties that you’re having now?

I guess you’d be a bit more skilled and practiced, but what led you into songwriting in the first place?

Because I wanted to write songs – I wanted to make records.

That was what I was obsessed with, was records, so I wanted to make records. And I didn’t want to be a Frank Sinatra – I wanted to do it the way The Beatles did it or Prince does it or whatever. I wanted to write my own songs; I wanted to pretty much make the records myself, and go through that whole process, you know?

The album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga – is that a bit of a stab at album titles in general? Could it have been, maybe, Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah?

Well, that wouldn’t have been as ‌ “coolâ€? for me – that would

have been more of a statement. I mean, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga – for sure, I knew it was not a standard album title, but that kind of was what appealed to me about it. It was a title that was made up because the second song on the record sounds like that ‌ [Emulates sound of the rhythm] ‌ and before we had any words for it, that’s what we were calling it, you know? Just because it described the song – the sound of the song.

Spoon play the Soundscape Festival at Hobart’s Domain Regatta Grounds on the 26th of January. Oh, and if there’s a Micheal Hayes reading this, Britt says “wazzup.�

To listen to an MP3 of the full interview, go to www.sauce. net.au

May Maybe It’s Just That Songwriting’s Painful, ful, nger.

And I Don’t Want To Extend It Any Longer.

[Laughs] I’m not super-verbose, like somebody like Dylan, you know? I can’t really just write and write and write ‌ Or somebody like Connor Oberst, whose lyrics I really admire. I wish I was that kind of lyricist, but I’m not, so I don’t go on for six or seven verses, you know?

So when you say songwriting is painful, do you find that the song’s subject matter – what you’re writing about – is the painful part? Or is it actually the process that you find difficult or uncomfortable?

The process can be ‌ I mean, when it works, it is the happiest I am in my life, probably; if I sit down and get lucky and come up with a song, or finish something that I know is really done and really great, that’s the moment that I look for. But there’s a lot of legwork! [Laughs] There’s a lot of moments where you can’t come up with something brilliant, and a lot of times, when you’re just doing ‌ coming up with twenty verse ideas, and just not really liking any of them, you know? Where you’re focusing on the minutia, that’s harder, you know? It can get frustrating.

It’s all about expectations, you know? If I would just chill out a little bit more ‌ but I want it now! I’m writing a song, and I want this to work – now!

, i n u e n o t A oy u can stilcllass make it tory. if you hur

I wanted to talk about your set for when you come down to play, because you’re playing at a festival here in Tasmania

Has it always been like this? When you first started writing,

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1865

PAGE 3

LOW

ROCK SALT

By Steve Tauschke

roses beat the drums Alan Sparhawk, it seems, has two lives. The first is that of mild-mannered homebody and father-of-two in suburban Minnesota; the other, wild purveyor of white-noise guitar with Low, the long-running indie-rock trio he formed with drummer-vocalist, and wife Mimi Parker and original bassist John Nichols back in 1993. It’s a double life Sparhawk is still grappling with, but it’s a work-in-progress he takes happily in his stride.

“Sometimes the transition of travel can throw you off and it can take some adjustments,” says the quietly-spoken singer-guitarist from the US. “But I guess I’ve become accustomed to having these two worlds; one is very mobile and one is very dependent on me being at home doing day to day things.”

Sparhawk and Parker, both practising Mormons, “an influence on us as much as spirituality is an influence on anything you create,” have two young children and with it responsibilities that often find them carefully juggling their twin guises as parents and performers.

“Sometimes the kids come with us on the road and sometimes they stay here at the house with a friend of ours so that’s something we have to work around with our schedule,” says Sparhawk of his dual role.

“The day is definitely more defined now and you have to plan ahead as opposed to the old days when we’d just drive to the town and find out where the show was and just show up and play and then ask around if anybody knew a place where we could stay.

“Sometimes we couldn’t find one so we’d drive for a couple of hours after the show and finally get to bed at 4:30 in the morning. We’d make $150 a night and that’d be enough to keep us rolling. You just can’t do that with kids.”

Characterised by a slew of slow-burning albums during the indie-centric mid-90s, Low found themselves floating in the musical ether somewhere between the Flying Nun sound of the 1980s and the shoe-gazing movement that followed.

“I was more a fan of the fringe stuff like Loop and Moose,” confides Sparhawk. “Spacemen 3 were probably a way bigger influence on us too. I remember them doing Rollercoaster live on a cassette and it was like a bomb going off the first time I heard it.”

For 2007’s stellar and eighth album Drums and Guns, a decommissioned Catholic church was chosen as their preferred recording site.

“We have a studio here that’s built into an old church and it’s pretty cool,” says Sparhawk. “The acoustics are ridiculous

… It Would Have H Hav Completely Destroyed My Mind. Ha! and there’s this amazing pipe organ that’s twenty years old in there which we used a little bit on Trust, but very obscurely.”

The band’s unholy take on loud-quiet guitar rock has also earned them a loyal fan base, notably pockets of Europe where they continue to tour.

“It seemed like even early on we were always able to get shows over in Belgium and Holland and France and Germany and play for just enough people that made it worth it,” shrugs Sparhawk. “Looking back, I feel there it was just some twist of luck because there were just tons of other bands who were our peers and were bigger than us who could never travel overseas.

It just seemed like it didn’t work for them. But we were really lucky. Even with Australia, it’s three trips now and it’s just been this consistent build-up.”

Low return to Australia in the new year as a trio, with Matt Livingston on bass and pump organ, to perform as part of Don’t Look Back, a series of concerts by groups performing live chronological versions of select albums, in Low’s case 2001’s Things We Lost in the Fire. It’s a feat they achieved in London in 2006.

“We’re probably more dynamic now, more aggressive maybe, a little more air being moved and that’s something that has evolved over time,” notes Sparhawk who insists music has continued to be his saviour. “I feel lucky that it has always given me an outlet that I guess, especially now, I realise in life that if I didn’t have it would have completely destroyed my mind. Ha!” Drums And Guns is out now.

CONTENTS

4-11

ROCK SALT

9-10

THE CAGE

15

FEATURE

14-19

BANGERS AND MASH

15

DVD REVIEWS

16

CD REVIEWS

18

SKIN DEEP

19

EYEBALL KICKS

22

STREET FASHION

Phone: Advertising: Editorial:

03 6331 0701 advertising@sauce.net.au editorial@sauce.net.au

Editor David Williams

Sub-Editor Tom Wilson

Journalist Chris Rattray

Graphic Designer Chris Titmus

david@sauce.net.au

crattray@sauce.net.au

twilson@sauce.net.au

ctitmus@sauce.net.au

Adver tising Reps.

Gavin Mace

adver tising@sauce.net.au

Opinions expressed in Sauce are not necessarily those of the Editor or staff.

Next Edition Deadline : 1st Februar y Sauce #61, 6th February - 19th Februar y Special Thanks To Our Contributors: Lisa Howell, Shannon Stevens, David Walker, Richard Kemp, Lisa-Marie Rushton, Eloise Gurr, Clara Murray, Jai Wilson, Martin Blackwell and Dion Brooks PAGE 4

WHERE DO YOU GET LAUNCESTON

Launceston Airport Sauce Publishing Route 66 Cash Converters IGA Supermarket (Prospect) Hotel Tasmania City 2 Street Refresh café Sebachi Chilli DJ Commercial Hotel Sodium Coffee Republic Wills Music Elaia Café The Empire Hotel Internet King Barratts Music O’Keefe’s Hotel Lloyds Hotel Studio 19 The Riverview Hotel Launceston Library Irish Murphy’s Mojo Music The CD Centre The Princess Theatre The Royal Oak Hotel The Hub Gunners Arms Hotel James Hotel Launceston Backpackers Blue Café AMC Alanvale (Student Assoc) AMC Beauty Point (Student Assoc) Glenn Shephard Riverside Hair & Beauty Launceston Vistor Information Centre Star Hotel The Newstead Hotel Cunninghams UTAS Cafeteria UTAS Student Association UTAS Inveresk TAFE Alanvale Cafeteria TAFE Launceston Cafeteria TAFE Drysdale

HOBART

Hobart Airport Red Herring Surf Hobart Hostel Jetty Surf Entrepot Tracks Music Hollydene Lodge The Brisbane Hotel Ruffcut Records Mouse On Mars Internet Café Pelican Loft Internet Cafe Mayfair Tavern Doctor Syntax Hotel Prince of Wales Hotel The Loft Sodium Customs House Hotel McCann’s Music Centre Hobart Visitors Information centre Kingston Library Rosny Library Glenorchy Library Hobart Music Central City Backpackers Pickled Frog Backpackers Republic Bar & Café Knopwoods Retreat Queens Head Café & Bar Curly’s Bar Alley Cat Bar Irish Murphy’s Machine Café Conservatorium of Music (UTAS) Hotel SOHO Telegraph Hotel Syrup Kaos café Retro café Gay and Lesbian Community Centre Lewisham Tavern Tafe Drysdale (cafeteria) UTAS Sandy Bay UTAS Center For The Arts Metz on The Bay Aroma records Nourish café tasCAHRD Victoria Tavern State Cinema Raincheck Lounge New Sydney Hotel Beachside Hotel Lark Distillery

BURNIE Sirocco’s nightclub Red Herring Surf Collector’s Corner Burnie Library TAFE Burnie Cafeteria UTAS Burnie Student Assoc.

Xedos Haircutters Fosters Music Centre Beach Hotel Stage Door The Cafe

DEVONPORT Devonport Airport Passport Surf Surfin Style Red Hot CD’s Tasman House Spurs Saloon Canoe N Surf Molly Malones TAFE Devonport Devonport Visitor’s Centre Devonport City Library

ST HELENS The Village Store & More

SMITHTON Lizzy’s This “N” That

ULVERSTONE Ulverstone City Library

?

BATTLES

ROCK SALT

By Dave Williams

rice cooker saves gig Everyone fights battles at some stage. Whether you’re overcoming something in your mind, a bad situation, or an actual physical adversary, we’ve all had to do it. Sometimes we win.

Sometimes we lose. But when you’re a musician fighting with a shonky stage setup, sometimes only a component from an audience member’s rice cooker can save you, as Ian Williams – Battles guitarist and the guy John Cusack turned onto The Beta Band in High Fidelity – told SAUCE ahead of their Hobart show.

So what time is it where you are now, and where are you?

I’m in New York City. It’s about quarter-to-seven, Wednesday night. You’re probably … tomorrow.

And how have you spent your Wednesday?

Well, we’re done with touring – for now, at least – so we’re back home, and yeah … I hung out with my girlfriend for a while, and went to my manager’s office for a bit … I went and looked at guitars, and decided that I couldn’t afford any … and then I came home.

Tell me about the tour – how did everything go? Tell me a good story …

Touring went well … Ah …

Something must have gone horribly wrong at some point …

Yeah, yeah … We managed to play every show this year I think – we didn’t miss any …

How about somewhere where you were completely surprised by the reaction? Or there was some big surprise involved?

There’s a couple of options for you …

Let’s see … Brian Eno came to our show in London and hung out with us, and that was pretty surprising to me – I was like, “Whoa …”

Did Brian organise backstage passes and come and say hello and do all of that stuff? Or did you just find out that he went to the show?

Yeah, he came back, and he hung out with us, and then he came to another show after that …

Is that a bit weird? When someone you’ve never met before organises to go backstage and meet you and stuff? How does that feel?

Yeah … it’s cool. It sort of lets you know … it gives you a sense of, like, your music being beyond just your inner world or something. You’re like, “Whoa! It made it over there?”

We even joke, because the cover of our record is like mirrors that reflect into each other. We gave him a copy or something, and then we were like, “Oh, yeah … we kind of thought you wouldn’t have found out about this,” because we took it from the Fripp/Eno record cover … it was like a chain of reflections on one of his albums from the 70s … we took the same idea!

[Laughs]

don’t you? “Battles” is a great name – it’s one of those things people can really read into – and then “Mirrored” and “Atlas” … they’re all really single, iconic sorts of names …

Yeah, I guess so. I never thought of that.

THE FIRST TIME WE WENT TO ITALY … THERE THE W E… WAS SUCH LITTLE ROOM ON THE STAGE YS WE HAD TO PLAY LITERALLY SIDEWAYS

What have been some of the “Battles” that you can think of as stepping stones or things that you’ve had to overcome to get to where you are so far?

I don’t know – there are different, maybe watershed moments for the band. Obviously, simply meeting everybody … I meet everybody from different walks of life, but maybe it’s the “accident” of how I eventually asked each person to come and play in this music project that eventually turned into a band … that weird synergy … After that, we play our first show …

I’d say maybe getting hooked-up with Warp Records was a watershed moment for us … in terms of the shows, there were definitely some stepping stones.

What’s something that you’ve had to fight for, during the life of the band?

I think what it was in the past was maybe sort of technically pulling our shows off all the time … without any support at all; with no crew. You know, we would carry our eight amplifiers and our drum set. We would have no sound man at all. It was such a self-contained thing when we started touring, because we had no money or anything like that … and sometimes just absolutely ridiculous situations that we’d have to pull out of at shows … The first time we went to Italy, it was this festival, and we had to play … there was such little room on the stage because there were all these DJ dudes who have all these turntables up there, that we had to play literally sideways …

Basically, our stage setup was, like, perpendicular to the front of the stage. Just shows where it was like, “I have no idea if this is going to work.” On that same trip, the first time we played in England, we didn’t have a power converter for our electronics, and somebody ran home … some random person in the crowd ran home and got their rice cooker’s power converter or something like that, which they knew would work for us … Just by-the-seat-of-your-pants, weird technical crap-fests. I don’t know if it’s evident when you’re watching the show that all that stuff’s going on behind the scenes to make it work …

Battles play Hobart’s Republic Bar on the 30th of January.

To listen to an MP3 of the full interview, go to www.sauce. net.au

You guys love really strong, iconic words for your work,

THE GREEN MIST

By Tom Wilson

is tasmania threatened?

ROCK SALT

Is this just another rock band from the south? Well, considering their new album features contributions from members of both the Beasts Of Bourbon and The Violent Femmes, we’re going to say “no”. I spoke to Julien Poulson, who’s about to launch said new album in Hobart … Next Stop, Antarctica …

How did this project begin? What instigated it?

I had returned to Tasmania after eighteen years of living away from the island, with a view to rediscover some of the old tales I’d grown up with, and perhaps use the influence of the place to work on some kind of creative project. It started with a film idea, and within this, the idea to create a soundtrack to a Tasmanian narrative. Charlie Owen and I began to work on music ideas (this will be the next Mistophone release) but it was moving slowly. One day I was wandering around the music shops, and I noticed an almost illegible handwritten ad on the music board at MacFies’. It read “guitarist/vocalist needed for jamming/therapy…must love Iggy…” It was the only ad with humour, so I rang and met up with Stu Robertson (drums). We just thought “let’s make a band, have fun and travel the world – without a whole lot of effort.” This is what we’ve been doing.

You’re launching your debut Next Stop Antarctica at the Republic Bar on the 7th. What kind of production process did it have? Who did you work on it with, and where?

The album was recorded and completed very quickly. Rob Long tracked it all at Birdland Studios, and Lindsay Gravina mixed it. Having said this, a lot of the work was done hangin’ out the back of The Republic and other watering holes, just talking music and bands and really forming an idea of a stylistic way forward … Stu and I jammed a lot of the winter months

recording studio and a great group of people working with traditional Khmer musicians, particularly the few musicians who survived the Killing Fields of the Pol Pot regime and now lived to teach traditional music to young students. More recently CLA had attracted the support of Peter Gabriel and Dickie Chapel of Real World who had donated equipment and initiated some recording projects of Khmer musicians onto the world scene. Beyond culture preservation, the management at CLA was also initiating cultural hybrid projects and loved the idea of The Green Mist working with their musicians. Stu Robertson packed a bag of cymbals and headed over. We were introduced to some great musicians including Kong Nay and Ouch Savy (who will feature at WOMAD Australia and NZ this year) and started to recorded some wonderful stuff. Excuse the pun, but it’s been a truly mystical experience. We’re not finished yet, but definitely spending more time in Cambodia, and working towards a full album and documentary that features our blend of rock ‘n’ roll mixing with an ensemble of Khmer musicians. We also played a bunch of shows on a barge on the Mekong, drank loads of cheap beer and covered all the Took Tooks in Green Mist stickers.

In reviewing Next Stop Antarctica, one writer called it “inky and somber”. What do you think they meant by this? And to what extent was this intentional?

Ta Tasmania Is Still A Haven, But Under er Th Threat, hr And Once It’s Gone …Where Nex Next? xt? with different players joining us here and there. Didn’t take long to have a lot of material together – too much for one album, so we’ve ended up recording two albums. The next album is titled Dirt Weed and will come out on Mistophone later this year.

What’s the story behind the title of the album? Is it as much of a reference to Tasmania as one might think?

At one stage, we were spending a lot of time in the far south, and using the Southport Community centre to rehearse in …

Heading south is not the recommended direction to travel if you’re hoping to “head for success” as a Tasmanian band … so it’s kind of an in-joke, but also is quite fitting for the vibe of the album … heavily influenced by the idea that the rest of the world is afflicted by calamity, war, and environmental destruction, [while] Tasmania is still a haven, but under threat, and once it’s gone …where next?

I understand you guys were recently in Cambodia. What were you doing over there? And what can you tell me about this experience?

I was lucky enough to receive an Asialink residency, and this lead to Cambodian Living Arts where I discovered a small

Yeah … I like this description; don’t know if it reflects our intention, but it certainly conjures a great visual … like something seeping out and finding its own space within some other matter. Creating creeping atmospherics and evoking a filmic feel is certainly one of the aesthetic goals … there’s definitely a somber feel – sort of like rising damp in an old house.

You once described the band as “The good, the bad and the ugly of Australian rock ‘n’ roll.” So, in the band, who’s the good one, the bad one, and the ugly one?

I can’t for a moment describe the female cast – Tracy Redhead, Rosie Westbrook and Helen Cattanach – as bad or ugly. But as for the guys, not least myself, they all look more like wanted posters than poster boys! It’s all good, even when it’s bad.

The Green Mist play Hobart’s Republic Bar on the 7th of February and The Alley Cat Bar on the 8th. www.myspace.com/themysteriousgreenmist

PAGE 5

Republic Bar & Cafe

WEDNESDAY 30TH JANUARY

Battles

$30 pre/ $32 door 9:00pm

That 1 Guy

$15 pre/ $18 door 9:00pm

ADAM COUSENS “Music doesn’t mean anything unless it touches people,” he continued.

Although skilled at arranging orchestral pieces, Cousens sees lyrics as an efficient and enjoyable way to reach an audience and inspire change within them.

“It all comes down to people,” he said. “People are the most An accomplished student of music, Cousens important thing in this world.” embarked on his solo singing/songwriting career only a few years ago.

Cousens’ live sets appeal to audiences of all ages, but for varying reasons. He certainly makes music for the thinking Trained in both piano and brass, Cousens began person. The additional strength in his work though, is that it playing guitar and writing music as a way to is thoroughly delightful to listen to. express his opinions on identity and social injustice. Cousens uses music as a tool to question, Adam Cousens plays Hobart’s Republic Bar on the 24th and oftentimes challenge the status quo. “I can’t of January, the Alley Cat Bar on the 26th, and the Mella stand ‘wallpaper music’,” Cousens said.

Rock Festival in Smithton on the 2nd of February.

PAGE 6

23rd

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26th

Sat

26th

NICK CHARLES (Acoustic Roots Guitar) 9:00pm NATHAN WHELDEN & THE TWO TIMERS 9:00pm SUGARTRAIN $3 10:00pm BILLY WHITTON & THE HEPCATS 9:00pm - 12:00am SOUNDSCAPE AFTER PARTY: 2 Dogs (Resin Dogs) $10 w/ Soundscape Pass $20 Without 12:30am

THURSDAY 31ST JANUARY

Adam Cousens describes his sound as folk-dancerock; rough guitar finger-picking, smoothly bleeding vocals with a raspy edge; sometimes dancing music for the thinker, sometimes mellow and sombre, acoustic-stomping, guitar-slapping.

Ideas that will make you question, and melody that will have you singing by the last verse.

Wed

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1st

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RED EYES $12 pre / $15 door 9:00pm JOE PIERE 9:00pm JOEL PLASKETT (Canada) $10 9:00pm BATTLES $30 pre/ $32 door 9:00pm THAT 1 GUY (USA) $15 pre/ $18 door 9:00pm KARA GRAINGER + Band 10:00pm TBC 10:00pm KARA GRAINGER + Band 9:00pm G.B. BALDING 9:00pm JOE PIERE 9:00pm

JANU JA J ANU A NU N UARY U A ARY RY - F FE FEBRUARY EB EB BRUARY UAR AR RY

299 Elizabeth St North Hobart Ph. 6234 6954 www.republicbar.com

ROCK SALT

NATHAN WHELDON & THE TWO TIMERS By Tom Wilson

how to love a two-timer ...

ROCK SALT

2007 was a big year for Launceston folk-rockers Nathan Wheldon & The Two-Timers, but something tells me that this one’s going to be bigger … a lot bigger. With a cracker set at Falls under their belt and their flights booked for a Sydney trip that will see them finish off their new album, it seemed like a damn good idea to have a word with Mr. Wheldon …

What has been keeping you busy lately – musically and otherwise?

Wow, it never ends man! Seriously, trying to keep up with everything that’s going on in this place is near impossible.

Well, things are pretty exciting at the moment; we’re getting ready for our upcoming trip to Sydney, to finish recording our full-length album, organizing photoshoots, posters, our next mini-tour – you know, all that boring stuff! We’re always trying to push ourselves …

How did your Falls Festival set go? What’s your most distinct memory of it?

Falls was awesome! Not only the set, but the whole weekend. We got really looked-after by management; heaps of piss, backstage whenever we felt like it, met some stars – Angus and Julia Stone, Gotye, Tripod, just to name a few.

It was cool, we got to be “real” rock stars for that weekend, and we won’t forget it in a hurry. We played really well … oh, and it helps having your own foldback engineer too.

[Laughs] But yeah, big stage, festival atmosphere – it was swell man!

I Think Ta as Tasmania’s Got To Be Getting Sick Of Seeing Our Name On All The he rds!

Chalkboards!

You’re playing at the James on Australia Day. Out of interest, how do you view Australia Day? Does it have any special significance for you? Or is it just a good opportunity to get pissed?

Australia Day is my favourite holiday – it’s a good time of the year too. It’s summer and the cricket’s on, everyone’s getting all patriotic and stuff ... I love it, ‘cause I get a day off work, and I get to eat snags and drink beer.

On your MySpace is a quote – “Music is the shorthand of emotion.” What do you think this means? Why “shorthand”?

Music is powerful; everyone can relate certain points in their life to a song, lyric or melody. All human emotions can be expressed with a single chord, or a chorus or a moving guitar solo; depending on how you play it, music captures your emotion without all the words … It’s an expression!

But to be honest, I Googled music quotes, and that one came up! [Laughs] Two years ago, you released your debut album Like The Beatles Say … Looking back on that release, what do you see as its strengths, and maybe its weaknesses?

Geez, was it that long ago? Wow! Well, it was my first serious time spent in a studio and I was funding it, so it taught me a lot about time management and dealing with industry professionals. It was a really good project in that respect.

I think there were some good songs on there; Congratulations mainly – that’s the song that we’ve probably got the most success from. So it gave people a good taster of what I could do as a songwriter. I’m really looking forward to finishing the next one. It’s gonna be special to me! And hopefully you guys too!

Also, since incomplete sentences piss me off, what exactly do the Beatles say?

You’ll have to listen to the song … [laughs] What plans do you have to follow it up?

We’re heading off to Sydney in three weeks to finish the album, so the next two-three months will be spent organising printing, distribution and the CD launch.

I can’t give too much away about that, but no one has done what we’re going to do for the launch. It’s exciting! Midyear we‘re self-funding (at this stage) our first large-scale tour ... starting in Sydney, going on to Adelaide and then Melbourne, mainly to release the CD and to really push the name on a national level, which is the next thing we need to do.

We love playing in Tassie, but if we want to make this a success, we need to start looking abroad and selling ourselves to mainland audiences and to labels also. I think Tasmania’s got to be getting sick of seeing our name on all the chalkboards! So yeah, that’s the plan.

At this point in your career, what do you see as being your greatest achievement, and why? And how did this achievement affect you?

Playing at the Falls Festival would easily be the biggest gig we’ve played for sure! To be up against a hundred bands applying to play at Falls and get through was a great feeling of achievement. Now we can put that on our resume, and hopefully a lot more will follow on from that.

2007 was a really big year for the Two Timers; we did over fifty gigs in Tassie and Sydney, and that’s a big achievement for us also, so now we’ve done the hard work to get established, we can take a step back, and really refine our music and live show and just general direction.

When was the last time you were two-timed, so to speak?

Umm, next question …

And just for fun, if you were a cocktail, what would you be made up of, and what would you be called?

Yeast, water, barley and hops ... and I’d call it beer! Is that cheating? [Laughs] Nathan Wheldon & The Two-Timers play Launceston’s Irish Murphy’s on the 23rd of January, Hobart’s Republic Bar on the 24th, the James Hotel on the 27th, Irish Murphy’s in Hobart on the 31st, and the Mella Rock Festival in Smithton on the 2nd of February. nathanwheldon.com

PAGE 7

MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK

ROCK SALT

By Steve Tauschke

touring to stay alive

Hitting their melodic straps on their third album Even If It Kills Me, Minnesota quintet Motion City Soundtrack bring their savvy power-pop chops to Australian festival stages this summer. Steve Tauschke catches up with keyboardist Jesse Johnson.

You guys are on tour at the moment – what do you tend to do for kicks on the road?

The funny thing about it is that we are soooo boring! [Laughs] We honestly don’t really do anything; we just sit on the bus and read books and watch TV. At night we might go to a bar.

Actually, one time at a pub in Wales we had a day off and we ended up drinking with twelve local Welsh guys, and somehow at the end of the evening we were drinking tequila shots through our noses. That was an interesting experience!

Do you get the sense this album will take you to a new level?

So far it’s been fairly similar to when we released our last record. With that we toured constantly and that’s the best way for us to survive, to tour all the time. A few years ago we were doing like three hundred shows a year, and I think starting next year we’re doing Mexico City, Hawaii and Singapore and Australia – all in one big chunk. Touring is basically what we do to stay alive.

How was your sinus the next morning?

It made my head hurt! But it was ok.

Bands seem to be touring Asia beyond Japan these days.

Yeah, this will be our first time in Singapore, and I have no idea what to expect. [Laughs]

You’re coming out here for the Soundwave festival next year. What are you expecting?

Just what I’ve heard. It’s multi-cities in Australia. I’ve heard of the BDO festivals, so I’m guessing this is something similar, but with more of the younger crowd, I would guess.

Was there a noticeable turning point for the band over the last couple of years?

For us, the progression of the band has always been somewhat gradual, so it’s been a little bit at a time, but constantly growing, which is good. This time Australia’s been very receptive to us with radio, so we’re interested to see what that translates into, because we’ve never really had that before.

I’ve been enjoying the new album Even If It Kills Me in the car – tell us about the record’s shared production.

We originally had agreed to do the whole record with Adam Schlesinger from Fountains Of Wayne, and Eli Janney who used to play in a band called Girls Against Boys. But then we got a call from Ric Ocasek from The Cars, and he said he was interested and wanted to do some songs. He’s a legend in the rock ‘n’ roll world, and so he’s not someone you’d really say “no” to, or that you would even want to say “no” to. So we let Ric pick the songs.

Both [production] experiences were a little different. Ric was

straightforward and knew what he wanted and was very into old-school original recordings – you know, “We’re just going to go in and record a bunch of rock songs.” With Adam and Eli, we kind of got the basic stuff done, and then started playing around with pianos and glockenspiels and different back-up vocals and string arrangements. So we tried different things, and they were really playful, which was really fun. Overall, I think both producers were very cemented within the pop world, as far as rock is considered. At the heart of it all we’re a pop band – we were influenced by Weezer and the Pixies and certain bands from the 90s that were the pop bands of our time. So it was fun working with people who have that in mind.

So which songs did Ric work on?

Ric worked on This Is For Real, Last Night and Calling All Cops.

So most of the singles?

Well, we’re actually shooting a video tomorrow for It Had To Be You, which was an Adam Schlesinger and Eli song. But I think the Ric songs were a little more straightforward.

He has a certain production stamp, doesn’t he? Were you wary of not sounding too similar to Weezer?

With Ric, the other side of it was that we did no pre-production, and so he actually didn’t change our songs at all. We gave him

… We Were Drinking Tequila Shots ots Through Our Noses. That Was An T n Interesting Experience!

PAGE 8

the demos and we went in and recorded the songs just how we heard them. But, you know, the drum sounds and the thick guitars, we used the same engineer Chris Shaw who worked with Ric on the Weezer stuff, and so there’s that tone that I think Ric is really good at getting.

Do you still tend to write songs fairly quickly?

Freaks Me Out was written basically just a few days before we recorded our first record. It was pretty much done in a day.

When we’re writing nobody really necessarily comes in with a song; somebody might just have a guitar part, and Justin will literally hear a vocal melody right away, and start humming or whistling, and then we know that song will go really quickly.

He’s really amazing at that; he often has all the vocal melodies done for songs where he’s just singing jibberish, and then he’ll sit down and spend hours and hours perfecting the words after the song is written. So if it doesn’t happen right off the bat, then often we’ll just throw it away.

Motion City Soundtrack tour nationally with the Soundwave festival in February/March.

KARA GRAINGER

ROCK SALT

By Tom Wilson

when is it good to expose yourself in cafes?

With art imitating life so frequently, it’s often the case in the music world that the misfortune of one can, eventually, benefit many. Just ask Australian-born, U.S.-based singer-songwriter Kara Grainger, who dealt with the trauma of losing her house to fire by writing one of the stand-out songs on her forthcoming debut LP, Grand And Green River. She spoke to SAUCE ahead of a two-date trip to Hobart about the surrealism of Los Angeles, and having her music played in thousands of coffee shops across the US of A. You’ve spent the last two years over in the United States.

What lured you over there? And what have you been working on?

I decided to go to the United States because I was ready to experience a new life for a while, and was looking for a change of scene. I considered going to Europe, but my best friend, also a musician, was very keen to experience America, so we decided to set out together. I love Australia, and it it’s still where I feel most at home, but going to the United States enabled me to become a little closer to my idols, and people who have inspired me. I also went there in search of a producer to make my first solo record, and landed amongst a great bunch of very talented players.

LOS ANGELES L IS A VERY CONTRADICTORY PLACE … PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE FORGET ABOUT TH THE HE REST OF THE WORLD ORLD

the lyrics I wrote What do you consider to be the most important element in a song? What’s one thing a Kara Grainger song must have for you to be happy with it?

The most important elements to me are having a melody that matches the lyrics, and having lyrics that really convey your emotion, which generally only happens when I’ve written a song from a genuine experience or emotion.

One interesting feather in your cap is that you’ve got one of your songs playing in seven thousand Starbucks stores over in the States. How did this come about? And how do you feel

about your songs being used in such a corporate fashion?

One of the programmers for Starbucks stumbled upon me at SXSW in Austin, and has been on my side ever since. To me, the coffee stores are just another place people can hear my music.

What are your plans for after this tour?

My plans are to go to Memphis for a folk music conference … and then back to Austin, Texas where I have been spending a lot of time. I’ll then return at the end of March for more touring in Australia, when I’ll also release Grand and Green River …

Kara Grainger plays Hobart’s Republic Hotel on the 1st and 3rd of February.

Los Angeles, to those who haven’t been there, sounds like a very surreal place, compared to cities in Australia. To what extent would you agree with this? And what are some examples of that surrealism?

Los Angeles is a very contradictory place. It has beauty in the surrounding deserts and mountains, but has a lot of waste and poverty.

In general, traces of the hippy days remain, and the magic of Hollywood – there are so many very creative people living there.

It’s surreal, because it’s such a huge city with streets that run for miles. I believe this makes the people who live there forget about the rest of the world, because their city is so large and has so many problems of its own.

Last year you released your debut full-length, Grand And Green River. Looking back on this album, what do you see as its strengths and, maybe, its weaknesses?

The EP was released, but the full CD is not being released until the first week of April. I’m very happy with the CD, and I am usually very critical. It has many different moods, and the songs are quite diverse. I think the players who contributed were amazing.

What plans do you have to follow it up?

I will be recording again soon, and may release a few songs at a time This album features a duet with Amos Lee. How did you guys meet? And what was he like to work with?

Amos was working at the same studio as me; we were all hanging out one day and the producer asked him to share the song, and he did, Amos is a very musical person, and is the real deal when it comes to songwriting. He has a lot of integrity, and walks away from any musical situations he doesn’t believe in.

One of the stand-out tracks on the album is Sky Is Falling.

What is this song about? What events inspired it?

This was written after a series of unlucky events. My house had burnt down while I was on tour on the north coast. I was more psychologically affected than I thought, which was evident in

DVD REVIEWS THE CONDEMNED

CHERRY CRUSH

“The fight is on,” reads the tagline of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s first feature film. And this is pretty much where the smackdown lays. No exclamation mark! No capitalization. It’s just…on.

Which is an excuse you should use if you’re caught watching this tripe.

I’m a pretty easy person to please when it comes to movies, it takes a lot for me to dislike them or to want to stop them part way through. It’s not that I disliked Cherry Crush, it’s just that it was so completely uninteresting it was hard to tell it was a finished movie.

It didn’t want to commit to anything, a story, characters, or even to an ending! It features some unremarkable actors in average performances of boring and poorly developed characters.

The Condemned is nothing like you would expect from a WWE film. Looking at the sepia-toned cover, the hulking behemoth that is Stone Cold, and the overbearingly large type, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was another promo poster from Lost.

Castaways. Dirty clothing. Islands. It’s all there. Unfortunately, this film has more in common with the sledgehammer of guilt you get from a Catholic upbringing than anything resembling entertainment. Never has an action film been so heavy handed or so overbearing in hammering home a message as this film does. The central conceit of The Condemned is that watching violence is WRONG, and YOU’RE EVIL for doing so.

Jordan is a rich young guy who gets kicked out of his expensive high school for taking naked pictures of his female classmates and posting them on the ‘net. He starts attending a public school where he meets a girl named Shay who piques his interest.

For a guy who is supposed to have been suave enough to charm the clothes off many a teenage girl, he has very little personality, and is rather a depressing young man.

He has no mates that we see, and very little relationship with anyone in his life.

The premise is simple. What if Survivor really was survivor? If you could tune in and see death row prisoners having at each other “live” on the internet until only one was left, would that make for good viewing? Is it right or wrong? In this age of immediacy in media is it moral to broadcast death? Bringing condemned criminals together and letting them tear each other limb from limb is just entertainment isn’t it? Well, OF COURSE NOT! AND WE’RE GOING TO REMIND YOU OF THAT EACH AND EVERY TIME SOMETHING VIOLENT HAPPENS ON SCREEN! Irony is something that I like to find in a song by Alanis Morissette, not something I expect to find in purveyors of violence and exploitation. WWE has a long tradition of making violence between individuals an entertaining event. So what bitter irony is it that they make a film that’s all about violence, and then condemn the very audience that watches their product?

It’s a huge slap in the face to be told in no uncertain terms that YOU ARE WRONG for wanting to watch violence! Not only are the makers of this spectacle WRONG for making it, but the people logging on are WRONG as well! And how are these people punished for the WRONG they are doing? They all die horrible, violent deaths. Ridiculous.

There are no comedic foils, no worthy character development, and no style to this self-righteous clap-trap masquerading as an intelligent film about modern society and its faults.

The only positive things that can be said about this film are the cameos by a few recognisable Australian actors who seem

There are attempts to paint him as a passionate and dark photographer, but it’s not consistent. Soon he becomes an observer to Shay’s complicated life of lies, blackmail and murder.

And that might be the major downfall of this movie, the main character is an observer, perhaps as a mirror of his favourite pastime of photography, sitting on the sidelines of someone else’s action.

When the cops are on the hunt for the murderer, we aren’t worried they’ll catch him because he didn’t do it, and we aren’t really worried they’ll catch the girl because we don’t like her anyway. to come and go with uncanny speed. Somehow just because you say that you’re in Texas doesn’t mean that you’re not in Queensland. The gum trees and iconic houses are a dead giveaway. Stone Cold Steve Austin was looking for the success that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson enjoyed with Welcome To The Jungle, but sadly The Condemned remains buried in DVD purgatory, with no hope of parole.

I had some hopes for the performance of Nikki Reed, as although only young, she previously co-wrote and starred in Thirteen, but unfortunately she is dull and there is no chemistry between her and Jonathan Tucker who plays Jordan. .5 underdeveloped photographs out of 5

1 death-row inmate out of 5

ELOISE GURR DION BROOKS PAGE 9

AS I LAY DYING

THE CAGE

By Chris Titmus

tearing at the heart Touring last year’s An Ocean Between Us, there were more than one ocean between SAUCE and Tim as Chris Titmus went to the interview room and “dropped a Lebesis.” You wouldn’t think that metalcore legends As I Lay Dying would have a soft spot, but mention cute puppies, and you will be … err … laying there laughing! Tim shares the stresses of travel time and snoring tour managers …

Where are you at the moment?

We’re out on tour right now, in Texas.

How is that going for you?

It’s been a great tour. A club tour set has a more intimate feel.

All the shows are sold out ‘til March.

I want to talk to you about your latest album An Ocean Between Us. It came out in August last year – how has it gone, as opposed to your last album?

Sales-wise, it seems to be doing better than the last album – most people are curious about that when they ask that question.

But as far as … from my perspective, being on tour and playing these songs every night, I feel like it’s a great album in the sense [that] it is more diverse and it’s … it’s been [a] great way for us to connect to our fans; you know, [with] new material for them.

And a lot of fans, especially in the US … you know, they have seen us five or six times live, and it is something new for them to get excited about.

Yeah, definitely – the songs are really diverse in my opinion.

Why are they different, [and] what is different about them?

Well I think we just had more influences coming into this album. Probably one of the biggest factors that adds to the diversity is [that] there are more band members involved in the songwriting. Typically in the past, it is myself, or myself and Phil together, working on individual riffs, but this time Phil, Jordan, Nick and myself have all brought ideas to the table. In order to keep us more interested in what we were doing, we had to create an album which didn’t sound like our last album, especially because our last album was a concept album, so most of the songs had a very similar feel, and this time around they range from 80s thrash-type metal to, you know … a very melodic sound, which we are known for.

You produced a CD for a New York band, Sworn Enemy, as a side project. Is this correct?

Yeah, I’ve done the last two Sworn Enemy records actually.

How did that go for you?

Good. It was good to have a … you know, a new perspective in the studio, and just working with a band with a little bit of a different style of music. It definitely also kind of re-ignited my love for some of those early thrash-style bands that I listened to when I first got into metal. It sort of inspired me to work on some songwriting ideas of my own for a side project; I’ve actually been recording that, and I’ll probably finish it up after this tour is over, and hopefully put a couple of songs up online … You know, I’m not trying to take over the world with the next greatest thing. I just want to … have a side project as a different outlet, and [for] fun.

You’ve got Soundwave coming up in February/March. How do you think it will go?

I’m definitely looking forward to it. It is hard for me to guess what the response will be like, but I would assume that, you know, we’ll reach a lot of new fans. It’s a very diverse line-up, and a few times we came to Australia have been “club tour” situations, so we have established that we have some “die-hard” fans there, and now it’s a chance for us to not only play in front of those fans, but also fans of other band as well. I think that … you know, being a heavier band in the festival, it works to our advantage.

To go onto something a bit different, you have played at Cornerstone, which has a huge Christian following because it is a Christian event, and you have played at a heap of non-Christian events as well. In terms of the crowd and the gigs themselves, how do they differ?

If I was to make a stereotype, I would say that because the

Christian kids are usually more sheltered, I think that, you know, there is a little bit of awkwardness getting used to the idea of heavy music, especially in the live environment. You know, most of them haven’t had a chance to go to a lot of heavy music concerts before, and so once that little bit of that awkwardness gets out of the way, I think sometimes those kids … they’re the best crowds I’ve played for, ‘cause they go absolutely crazy ‘cause they’re excited to have that opportunity.

Do you and any other guys in the band have any “in-jokes” or anything like that with each other? In the office, one of our annoying habits or pranks … we throw a call at each other like “oh, your mum is” and then it will just escalate from there ... [Laughs] … that sort of thing – do you have any of that?

Ah, yeah … I mean, we’re always trying to give each other a hard time. I’d say we give each other a play on our last names … probably the most common one is, like … Phil our guitar player’s last name is Sgrosso, and so, instead of using that as his last name, we will try to interject that word into, like … if you have to go to the bathroom – “Oh, I gotta drop a Sgrosso”, something along that nature. That way, it is kind of demeaning each other, but of course in a very friendly way.

[Laughs] Does anyone else in the band or yourself have any strange or annoying habits?

Well, our tour manager and sound guy is the same guy; he snores like nobody I have ever heard before. He snores so bad.

There are twelve bunks on our bus right now on this tour, and there’s eleven of us on the tour together, and throughout the night we all wake up, no matter how far away you are from his bunk. I actually sleep in a completely different row … like, no matter how far away I am, I wake up at least three or four times a night. I feel bad for him ‘cause there are people who will always wake up and slap him in the face with a shoe or

something, and go back to bed. Other than that, I’ve been accused of being the guy that doesn’t shower enough, but interestingly everybody says that I don’t smell bad. It’s just the principle – you know, if I haven’t showered for a week, even if I don’t smell bad, it is still disgusting.

[Laughs] For someone who constantly screams, jumps around onstage, moshes like no tomorrow … do you have a soft spot? Do you like puppies?

Yeah [laughs] I have a little Boston terrier. He is actually the runt of the litter, so he is the smallest of all the puppies from the litter, and he’s full-grown right now but he’s only twelve pound and still looks like a puppy. I definitely have a soft spot for him. I actually miss him when I go on tour, which is pretty pathetic. [Laughs] I spend more time reading than you would probably expect from a typical touring musician, or somebody who is supposed to have a rock star mentality.

You know, when the show’s over, I will go back to the bus and read a book.

What would be the biggest downsides of being as big as you are?

Just the amount of travel time from being on tour constantly, missing my family and missing my little dog [laughs], you know? And just travel time makes it almost impossible to live what most people consider a “normal” life, and it can get uncomfortable at times, but it’s all worth it to have a job that you’re passionate about.

As I Lay Dying play at the Soundwave festival on the 25th and 27th of February.

To listen to an MP3 of the full interview go to www.sauce. net.au

He’s e s Only O Twelve Pound And Still Looks Like A Puppy … I Actually Miss Him Him When I Go On Tour Which Is Pretty Pathetic [Laughs]

PAGE 10

SOLAR THORN

THE CAGE

By Tom Wilson

what shines, then shows its spikes?

Meet Solar Thorn. From Hobart, they enjoy long walks on the beach, fireside chats, vampires, domination and torture, and are keen to meet fans with same interests for meaningful long-term relationship. If interested, catch them when they next unleash screaming metal hell at The Brisbane Hotel. Chrissy and Shelvo got in touch to speak on the forthcoming release …

I understand you guys have been doing some writing recently for an EP or a full-length. Who are you working on this with? And when do you expect to have it finished?

Shelvo: Yeah, we are planning to record soon, just not sure yet whether it’s going to be an EP or a full-length album. But we want to do it ASAP, however we also need to take the time to make sure we are happy with it, and that it’s a goodquality recording. We’re also still deciding who we want to record with – we just need to figure out the best option. The EP/album will be out this year with any luck.

Have you guys got a working title for it yet? What about song titles? (If you name a track “Revenge Of The Cute Bunny Rabbits”, I’ll buy you guys a round.)

Shelvo: [Laughs] I’d like to say you’ve got yourself a deal there, but unfortunately I can’t see that happening! Well ... we’ll keep it in mind. Maybe! As for an album title, I’m sure all of us have some ideas of what we might call it, but we haven’t really spoken about that yet. The songs are all named though, except for a new one we are currently writing, [which will be] hopefully ready for our gig with Blood

Duster on February 9th at The Brisbane.

At this point, what sets this new material apart from what Solar Thorn has done previously?

Chrissy: I find that our new material is more in-depth … more technical in a way. Lots of thought is put into the music and lyrics. We just try to write music we all like really.

You’ve said online that you only found out you could scream a few years ago. What prompted you to try this out?

Chrissy: Well, I was rather angry one day … and I was home alone … so I thought I’d give it a shot! Caned the shit out of my throat the first few times, but then I got used to it, and kept practicing over a few months before I had my first “band audition.”

What would you say are the key elements that define Solar Thorn – both in terms of style, and performing live?

Shelvo: As far as style goes, I think we’re pretty different from other bands in the Tassie metal scene, and performing

live I try and give it a hundred percent, and have an absolute blast at the same time.

What are some of the main themes and subject matter you draw on in your lyrics? And why do you think you’re drawn to that?

Chrissy: I tend to write about domination, torture, dark fantasy lands, disappointment, anger, vampiric-related things, necrophilia … the usual! Those topics really interest me (and more), so I enjoy thinking about them, and then writing down what I think.

Solar Thorn has gone through several line-up changes in its existence. In your eyes, how secure is the line-up now? Is Solar Thorn keeping each of you satisfied, in terms of your creativity?

Chrissy: I think that the line-up we have now is pretty solid. We’re all great friends and have similar ideas in mind of what we want, and how we want the band to progress. We all have a very wide taste in different genres too, so it keeps it interesting. Personally, it’s keeping me satisfied!

Now it’s time to play “Dissect The Song.” In terms of lyrics, what is the song Morbific Execution about?

Chrissy: Morbific Execution is about domination and torture – my two favourite topics! My mother actually helped me with the lyrics too! [That’s just plain disturbing … - Tom] Which metal bands in the Tassie scene do you guys have the most respect for, and why is that?

Shelvo: Ruins and Psycroptic! Those guys are great, as bands and as individual musicians. We hope to gig with either/both of them sometime soon; that’d be awesome. In fact, we’re playing with Psycroptic in March!

If you could sum up the existence of the band in one sentence, what would it be?

Shelvo & Chrissy: Let’s just say we enjoy riding in fish tractors.

Solar Thorn play the Brisbane Hotel in Hobart on the 26th of January and the 9th of February. www.myspace.com/solarthornofficial

Morbific Execution Is About Domination Dom And Torture … My Mother he er Actually Helped Me With The Lyrics

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Rewind

Republic Bar & Café

Ballpoint (CD Launch) + Stand Defiant + The

LAUNCESTON

WEDNESDAY 30TH HOBART

THURSDAY 31ST HOBART

SATURDAY 26TH HOBART

Mella Rock Festival

G.B. Balding

Alley Cat Bar

Brisbane Hotel

Adam Cousens @ 9:30PM

The Whores + Vulgar + Projection of

Republic Bar & Café

Aggression

Joe Piere

Solar Thorn + Zero Degrees Freedom +

Irish Murphy’s

The Hub

Lacerta + Estizar – ALL-AGES @ 4PM

Nathan Wheldon & The Two-Timers

Open Mic Night

Brisbane Hotel

LAUNCESTON

Cane (Last Show) + Anthony Rochester – 18+

Republic Bar & Café

WEDNESDAY 6TH HOBART

@ 9PM

That 1 Guy (USA) @ 9PM

Curly’s Bar

Syrup

Soundscape Festival – The Living End +

Adam Turner + Guests

BURNIE HOBART

Stage Door The Cafe 254 M ount St Upper Burnie 64322600

Dr. Fink Domain Regatta Grounds

Live music Woodfired pizzas Extensive bottleshop ph: 03 6331 1344 fax: 03 6331 2191 e: thenewsteadhotel@hotmail.com

SUNDAY 3RD HOBART

TUESDAY 5TH HOBART

The Native Cats (Debut Show) + Charles Du

SUNDAY 27TH OF JAN

160 Elphin Road L a u n c e s t o n TA S 7 2 5 0

MONDAY 28TH HOBART

Turnaround – 18+ @ 9PM

Alley Cat

Recliner

James Hotel

Joel Plaskett (Canada) @ 9PM FOR TICKET INFORMATION

Lizbon Bar

Republic Bar & Café

FRIDAY 25TH HOBART

Centertainment 6234 5998 or Moorilla 6277 9900

Break Even – Adam Turner + Guests

David Mc Eldowney + Ally Mok + Jane

Irish Murphy’s

SUNDAY 17th FEBRUARY

Syrup

Syrup

LAUNCESTON

GIG GUIDE

Curly’s Bar

Curly ’s Bar 112 Murray St 6234 5112 w w w.curlysbar.com.au

Syrup Rewind

R aincheck Lounge 392-394 Elizabeth Street 6234 5975

Alley Cat Bar

Wrest Point

Republic Bar 299 Elizabeth Street 6234 6954 w w w.republicbar.com

Kings + TSOMM @ 10:45PM

Riot Act @ 9PM

Rufus Wainwright

Lizbon Bar

Brisbane Hotel

Recliner

Nightmare On Brisbane St. – M.S.I. +

+ Krafty Kuts + Mia Dyson + Urthboy +

FRIDAY 1ST HOBART

Katalyst + Katchafire + Resin Dogs + Custom

Grinspoon + Blue King Brown + Spoon

The Brisbane Hotel 3 Brisbane St 6234 4920 thebrisbanehotelhobar t@gmail.com Syrup 1st Floor 39 Salamanca Place 6224 8249

Bumtuck + Lacerta + The Superkunts

The Alley Cat Bar 381 Elizabeth Street Nor th Hobar t 7000 6231 2299

Republic Bar & Café Billy Whitton & The Hepcats @ 9PM

CHEAP GUITAR

GUNNERS ARMS

Dean Markley Acoustic $14.95 Dean Markley Electric $10.95 D’Addario Acoustic $12.99 D’Addario Electric $9.99

Pizza & Beer

QUALITY ISN’T EXPENSIVE STRINGS IN STOCK AT

BARRATTS

BEWARE! There are some dreadful instruments available over the Internet & from some local stores. Always deal with a reputable music-specialist store!

LAUNCESTON

104 George St, Launceston 6331 9355 or help@barrattsmusic.com.au

10

$

(One pot per pizza) 23 LAWRENCE ST. L’TON - 6331 3891

Lonnies Niteclub 107 Brisbane St Launceston 6334 7889 w w w.lonniesniteclub.com James Hotel Realit y N iteclub / James Bar 122 York St Launceston 6334 7231 w w w.jameshotel.com.au The Hub 1Tamar Street Launceston 6334 9288

DELORAINE

Empire Hotel Deloraine 19 Emu Bay Road Deloraine 7304 0406 156 843

STREET FASHION

CHEEKO 19

KIRAWR 18

TOM 17

MEZ 17

Favourite Band: System Of A Down.

Favourite Band: Motley Crüe.

Favourite Favoourite Band: Pendulum.

Penduulum.

Favourite Favourite Band: After Afteer The Fall.

What was the last thing that made you mad?

Tom flogged my smokes.

What was the last thing that made you mad?

When my friend stole my smokes.

What was the last thing that made you mad?

I had to get up this morning.

What was the last thing that made you mad?

The stranger that just hugged me at work.

What’s the best thing that’s happened to you lately?

Got laid.

What’s the best thing that’s happened to you lately?

Watching Cheeko vomit out the window.

What’s the best thing that’s happened to you lately?

Stealing Cheeko’s smokes.

What’s the best thing that’s happened to you lately?

Got my job.

Who would you least like to see do a striptease?

Alan.

Who would you least like to see do a striptease?

Hugh.

Who would you least like to see do a striptease?

Your mum.

Who would you least like to see do a striptease?

The chick who sings in The Gossip.

What’s the most annoying thing about town?

Scene kids.

What’s the most annoying thing about town?

Robyn.

What’s the most annoying thing about town?

The happy store music.

What’s the most annoying thing about town?

The “cool” kids.

PAGE 14

FEATURE WENDY STAPLETON, DEBRA BYRNE & NIKKI NICHOLLS

GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS “Girls Girls Girls” promises to be a show of glamour, fun and fabulous songs sung by three very, very talented women Wendy is a highly versatile and gifted performer who is well remembered for her band Wendy and the Rockets, touring Australia and overseas with bands such as ZZ Top and Brian Adams. Play the Game, her self-penned single, rose to number two on the Australian charts. Wendy began her career at the age of nine at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Noel Coward’s Sail Away.

She has continued her theatrical career performing in Bad Boy Johnny, The Sentimental Bloke, What’s Going On, Two Up with Glen Shorrock, and I Only Wanna Be With You – The Dusty Springfield Story both in Australia and England. Wendy is an established actor, appearing in episodes of Blue Heelers and Halifax F.P. Cabaret is a favorite style of Wendy’s, and over the three years she has written and performed in Screen Gems, Dusty, Doris and Me and now joins Debra and Nikki in Girls Girls Girls.

… A Show That Is All About Being Women. n.

Nikki began her singing career at a very young age on a national Australian children’s variety TV show. After leaving school, she performed throughout Australia and overseas with bands such as Australian Crawl, Susie Quatro and the John Farnham Band, where she was one of the original members supporting Stevie Wonder, The Police, The Pretenders, Talking Heads.

In 1990 and 1991 she was Kylie Minogue’s backing vocalist and toured throughout the UK, Japan, Europe and Asia. Nikki has performed for many leading corporate companies such as GMH, Ford, Jet Set and Honda. She is one of Australia’s most sought-after session singers, and since the early 80s she has recorded many commercials, as well as performing on albums with John Farnham, Daryl Braithwaite and Nikki Webster.

AUSTRALIA DAY

SUNDAY 27TH JAN JAMES HOTEL the

Debra began her career at ten years of age on Young Talent Time, and has since been well-awarded for her performances on record, television, film and is now most known for her successful leading roles in theatre in Cats, Les Miserables, Jerry’s Girls, Hot Shoe Shuffle, and of course as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevarde. At fifteen Debra was voted Best Teenage TV Personality at the Logie Awards two years running, and was twice awarded Australia’s Queen of Pop. Debra has written, produced and performed on many albums – her album New Ways to Dream was highly praised both in Australia and overseas, receiving rave reviews in Billboard and Variety magazines. After playing the role of Fantine in Australia’s premier production of Les Miserables, the composers invited Debra to sing the role for the world symphonic recording which, in that year, won a Grammy Award for Best Theatre Musical Soundtrack.

With appearances on G.P., Police Rescue, The Secret Life of Us and numerous other television and film roles, Debra has established herself as both a respected singer and actor. Most recently she has enjoyed the collaboration with her partner Ced Le Meledo in their successful cabaret show Paris Melbourne.

Debra excels in a cabaret setting, and now, at forty-five years young, she is ready to celebrate being a woman by performing in a show that is all about being women.

(FORMERLY THE DEAD ABIGAILS)

Girls Girls Girls hits Stage Door The Café in Burnie on the 14th, 15th and 16th of February.

Contributors?

Would you like to contribute to Sauce? either doing CD or gig reviews, photograhy ... or make a suggestion as to what you could contribute?

Contact us at contributors@sauce.net.au

NATHAN WHELDON & THE TWO TIMERS 122 york street launceston 6334 7231 www.jameshotel.com.au www.jameshotel.com.

PAGE 15

ALICIA KEYS As I Am 8/10

BEST OF THE FORTNIGHT

You wait for fifty-two seconds before you get to the RnB on this album. First you are seduced with some classical piano and harpsichord, all played by the Lady of Keys herself. Don’t feel bad if you simper for some corsets or pantaloons. It’s only natural to yearn for the right dress code as the poignant notes bling the air in ultra-retro style. But then, the groove arrives from the dual du touches of Alicia and her creative partner, “Krucial,” and an the dress code changes. Alicia Keys is involved in every level lev of creation, from voice and instruments to production and an mixdowns. And it’s always sweet to hear an album from a woman who can write the groove, sing the groove, play the groove g and mix the groove. Talented women like Alicia Keys and a Imogen Heap are out there and getting more of the studio space s they deserve. But I digress.

MINISTRY OF SOUND Chillout Sessions 10 9/10 Tropical oceans encase the discs that promise a getaway from all your troubles. Damn but if it doesn’t deliver as hinted by the package. It’s like being in a movie and floating through a soundscape of Zen bliss.

Deep house, smooth acoustic, oh, and some of the most beautiful voices, with jazz, blues and even reggae flavours to seduce you.

Yes I like it – so much so that I struggle to evade all the dramatic introductory sentences and get on with the review.

I’d heard the mantra that is the name Ministry of Sound being bandied about, as mantras tend to be, for years now … but I didn’t go investigating until Chillout Sessions 10 arrived at the sauciest office in town. For starters, I was enamoured with the rapturous female vocals that were laced so generously on John Course and Goodwill’s selection. It’s as if these lads are immune to the predominant male vocals hitting the treasured airwaves of the J’s and the jaded pop songstresses on your commercial stations.

Clearly for the best buffet of bi-gendered vocals, one needs only to seek the cardboard oceans of this release… Disc one pampers you with a world of acoustica – that’s right, organic music peeps – like Jose Gonzalez, Angus & Julia Stone, and the sensual voice of Amyy o Winehouse. Disc two dispenses with the organic and ventures into electronica for your chillaxation. Taste with your ears the emotivee es flavours of It’s All True by Tracey Horn, get into some indie faves from Midnight Juggernauts and Hot Chip, and then just keep on going.

This is not an album for that special brand of listener looking to declare to the world that they bear a heavy burden of brain by seeking out complex music that takes time to understand ‘cos it’s just so darn clever. The themes are standard commercial music fodder. Alicia sings about lurve and being a woman, AKA a “superwoman” – thank you very much track two – and lurve ... did I mention lurve? As I Am is danceable in a sensual “hey baby let’s talk about luuurve” kind of way, and malleable in an “I need to unwind and get my honorary wigger on” kind of way too. But the dress code is up to you.

BOB SINCLAIR Live at the Playboy Mansion 7/10 International ladies’ man and spinner of dreams, Bob Sinclair is a natural for a live set at the Playboy Mansion, one of the hottest and most loved party locations in the world. Having played Paris’ most sophisticated clubs, Sinclair is now one of the most respected DJs in the world, forming his own record label and producing tracks like Gym Tonic, Love Generation and I Feel Like You, the track that cemented Bob’s smoother-than-smooth persona.

When the peaks just keep on peaking – whether it’s Grace Jones with I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango) or Class Action’s totally cool Weekend, how could anybody ever really want this party to end? It’s the sort of high-glamour music that makes you want to kick off your dancing shoes, jump on tables and party with all the crazy and beautiful people.

Bob Sinclair Live at the Playboy Mansion is a non-stop dance, pumping party hit, just like the real thing; it lets your imagination run wild. It’s a cruise through the most sensual dance tracks of the last three decades, hand-selected and mixed by the smooth and slick Mr. Sinclair. This is high-energy music, perfect for a hot summer’s pool party, and also the ideal cure for a bleary-eyed Monday morning.

In short, Live at the Playboy Mansion is one of the most memorable albums from Bob yet, proving that, although his party at the Mansion was a one-night-only event, it sure as hell doesn’t stop there.

JAI WILSON

CLARA MURRAY

CLARA MURRAY

Album Cover Not Available

MATT TILLEY Gotcha Calls – Three’s a Crowd 6/10

Although I’m a fan of prank calls, I know there are limits to it. Matt from Fox FM with the “Gotcha Call” crew shatter these limits into little particles.

However, these calls from a council member with a speech impediment or a senior detective from the AFP have by far dominated past prank call collections.

Now while the first disc is Matt acting as many different people, on the second CD Matt uses his skills with Arjib and Cecil, where we find Cecil “The Old Bugger” has a lovely conversation about what happens in a colonoscopy, and how many times the secretary can say bottom. What Goes Bang is an absolutely hilarious prank about customer relations and call centres, where the man gets passed back and forth over and over. So, despite the offensive nature of the calls some of the time, the comedic aspects are great.

The final track of the album is a compilation of people who registered on the do not call list – getting called, with all of this set to the Blue Danube waltz. Their reactions are as offensive as telemarketing harassment during tea time. If you like having a laugh at other people’s expense, go grab a copy.

LAURA KNIGHT Sunshine 7/10 For a debut EP from an acoustic/rock/pop artist, this is nothing less than a brilliant album, and is definitely worth a listen. The downsides that I can see are that it consists of merely four tracks, and … wait, that’s the only downside to the album. The lack of a beefier track-list is definitely compensated for by the record’s cheap going price, both on MySpace and BNM Records.

The title track starts off the album on an upbeat tone – a song about how everybody goes through life differently; “everybody’s got a story to tell / everyone’s gone from heaven to hell” and going on to say “The sun will shine again.” I can’t really say I had a favourite out of the four – the album was just a good product all-up. The clean sound really adds to the atmosphere of the songs, and I think this album shows just how good a first album from an Australian can be – it has great presentation, content, musicianship and production. The album is definitely a credit to her, the label and the scene. This is a must-buy for fans or collectors of Australian pop-edged acoustic rock music.

In other words, it’s definitely worth ten bucks.

RICHARD KEMP

RICHARD KEMP

GOD FORBID Sickness And Misery 1/10 New Jersey’s God Forbid are a metalcore/thrash quintet who, with their latest offering, has put their first EP and first studio album all on one album, with a new title, Sickness and Misery, along with new cover art. The album gives GF fans an insight in to the early days of a band that has now joined the elite list of American new wave metal bands. The band’s sound fuses solid aggression with dark intense heaviness, which all sounds muddy compared with their later albums.

From first track Amendment to the last, N2, they all have this painfully forced, strained screaming vocal approach over the top of an ever-changing composition, making you wonder if a chorus is coming up, as no one part is repeated. It’s very hard to distinguish what they are screeching about, and the music arrangement sounds all over the place. With their last offering, 2005’s IV: Constitution of Treason, the band was still keeping a raw heaviness to the music, except the vocals were much more melodic and clearer. It’s amazing that such a dreadful EP and first album could have been produced by this band. Their production, musicianship and presentation are all light years ahead of their woeful beginning. Sickness and Misery seems to be a fill-in release until a new album comes out, and it’s more for the diehard GF fans than just a fan of metalcore music … and that’s being charitable.

DAVID WALKER

TOMMY TRASH & THE STAFFORD BROTHERS Electro House Sessions 8/10 They’ve come direct from the clubs to the airwaves and right through to the charts – the craze that is electro house has finally taken hold. You definitely need to hunt down your brightlycoloured flares, big sunnies and every disco light you own for this one …

Mixed by two of Australia’s hottest properties, DJ/producer Tommy Trash and The Stafford Brothers, these guys prove they know exactly what they’re doing, putting together a two-disc mix album of the hottest hits around, from Justice D.A.N.C.E, super smash hit Monster by The Automatic, and my personal favourite He Not In by Chicken Lips, plus heaps more groovy electro-licious vibes to keep the party alive and pumping.

To get the most out of this album, you need to turn the speaks up to maximum volume, then invite all of your mates over for a huge, romping party. As for getting that party started, my favourite tunes would be Tyken feat. Awa Every Word, Mark Knight feat. Luciana (from Portobella) Party Animal, and The Presets’ Are You The One? The best thing about this album is that it combines all these talented artists to take you on a rollercoaster ride of rhythmic beats and rocking lyrics, which are sure to keep everybody ripping up the dance floor until the break of dawn.

LISA-MARIE RUSHTON

SHAGGY Intoxication 7/10 With his signature deep, throaty voice and extraordinarily long lyrical strains, Shaggy is back … and more shagadelic than ever before. First appearing on the music scene in the early 90s with his release of the groovy remix of ska classic Oh Carolina (which I still love), it’s effect was instantaneous, and he practically became a household name.

Now, after a decade, six albums (two of them multi-platinum), five number one hits and eleven top-ten singles worldwide, Shaggy still manages to produce those great funky reggae vibes that first won over his fans. Before turning into a multiplatinum, Grammy-winning artist, Shaggy was just a Jamaican teenager who would sneak out of his parents’ home to rub-a-dub in the club, and this album proudly highlights these beginnings, and his subsequent rise to stardom.

Intoxication starts off with a cool urban feel, with the song Can’t Hold Me followed by the smash hit Bonafide Girl, which also features Rik Rok, who collaborated with Shaggy in 2000 to create the popular release Hot Shot. Also featured on the album are some extremely talented artists, including Tony Gold, Rayven, Mischieve, Akon, Nasha, Sizzla Kalonji and Collie Buddz to help create a truly pumping party album.

My favourite track is What’s Love, the Tina Turner classic which has been re-created and smoothed over by the presence of Akon to create a fresh hip-hop feel. The high-energy beats and fast-paced lyrics are just unstoppable; with a classic urban feel and a touch of reggae, this album is a true dance party hit sure to please everyone.

LISA-MARIE RUSHTON

PAGE 16

THE CRASH Pony Ride 6.5/10 Finnish Rockers The Crash are back, hitting the pop music scene with their fifth album so far. Pony Ride is very much in the typical style of Britpop, with the high-pitched vocals and bouncy music. The title track from the album borders on the bizarre side in some places, with lyrics such as “Do you see a guy like me and a girl like you / shagging by the fire?” Teemu Brunila provides the vocals, which are highlighted in this track. He manages to get his voice substantially high in some parts, giving the song a very quirky touch.

The bonus “Australia only” track Still Alive mixes oldstyle groove with new age techno-pop to provide us with an interesting song. Again, the vocals stand out, due to the uniqueness of his voice, making this track one of the better ones off the album.

THE HONEY PALACE Eyes Open 8/10 Sydney-based trio The Honey Palace are set to release their third EP, Eyes Open – an unplugged compilation that follows up the success of their first two releases, She’s The One and Love Junkie. There are four new songs on this collection – the final two being remakes of the title track – but don’t let its short length bother you, because these guys are awesome.

The title track is a brilliant way to begin the EP, with rough, raw and strong vocals from Mark Wolfe, accompanied by a burly rock sound and a pop edge for extra flare. For me, the song reflects the struggle to sort your shit out; the pain within you, and the people around you trying to understand where you’re headed. The second track, Ode To Rescue My Love is a laidback rock song, with equally gripping vocals and guitar riffs.

YOUNG DIVAS New Attitude 8/10 Australian girl band Young Divas are back again, with a slight difference and a whole new edge. YD was originally formed from Australian Idol finalists Paulini Curuenavuli, Emily Williams, Kate DeAraugo and Ricki-Lee Coultar – in June 2007, when Ricki decided to leave the group to concentrate on her solo career after it took off, she was replaced with Jessica Mauboy. New Attitude is the group’s second album, but the first to include their new member. It follows up the double-platinum success of their first release, and consists of ten tracks revived by leading females in the industry, and given an up-to-date edge.

Track three is great, but it’s the song that follows, Matter of Time, which is my pick of the album – an acoustic number that proves itself to be another fine example of the band’s musical diversity!

Their voices accentuate each other and, overall, are strong, tidy and empowering; it is through their unique style, and the way it’s distributed, that their message becomes easier to understand. Turn Me Loose is the first track to be released from this new collection, and features New Zealand rapper Savage.

It is definitely my pick of the album. I think the Young Divas’ new age version has both surpassed and paid tribute to the original by Loverboy.

Other than the odd poorly-produced song, this album is one that is worth a bit of a listen.

For those of you who, like me, have never heard these guys before, you won’t fully understand the new direction these guys have gone in on this CD, but you’ll certainly enjoy the diversity which they deliver in each song. These guys are definitely worth giving a go.

Overall, this album is well-produced, and pays homage to the innovative classics. That said, one or two revived tracks is cool, but for a whole album to be made up of revived material doesn’t seem that creative, and doesn’t seem to be heading in the new direction that the group has been praised for.

SHANNON STEVENS

LISA HOWELL

LISA HOWELL

Thorn In My Side is the complete opposite of the last track. It is painfully slow, and just downright unappealing. The minimal instrumentation really doesn’t do the band justice – it’s simply a bad track for them. Personally, I feel that The Crash should best stay away from the ballads, and stick to the pop-rock-fuelled tracks which they pull off so well.

DISCOTOUCH

BANGERS & MASH

By Tom Wilson

hammering the house with a retro touch Much has changed since we last spoke to Hobart’s Discotouch way back in issue #40. But for those of you partial to the groove of his 70s-tinged house, don’t fret – two things haven’t changed at all. For one, he still gigs like a wild thing in and around Syrup … and in this photo, he still looks like a member of The (International) Noise Conspiracy ...

What defines you as a DJ? What makes you unique?

I would define myself as an entertainer – as a DJ, it’s your job to entertain a crowd and keep them on the dancefloor, and if it means he/she can play a lot of music they love too, then that’s even better. It’s tricky to find a middle ground; not compromising yourself too much, but then again, not becoming too selfish about what you play.

I think that even though it may sound like a cliché, the fact that you don’t follow what others do and develop your own style is an important thing about becoming a unique DJ. I love the sounds of the 70s, and I try to incorporate a lot of disco house into my sets, partly because I love playing it, but also because the songs have real staying power, and people really connect with it.

What genres do you usually dabble in? And what attracts you to these particular sounds?

My first love is house music in all flavours – funky, soulful, chilled, vocal and pumping house. Sometimes I like to throw in a more classic track, or maybe even a track that serves as a break from the constant beats of house music. What attracts me most, especially to vocal house music, is how the tracks are so much more like songs and not sequenced elements, with more of a driving beat behind them.

What production work have you done?

I’ve been working on a track recently which should see the light of day very soon. It’s called Got to Know and features the vocals of Michaela Young, a singer and friend of mine based in Hobart. With the release of the song, we’ll also be shooting a video clip at Syrup very soon, taking advantage of all those bright lights and the new look downstairs!

When and where do you usually play?

I play regularly at Syrup Nightclub in Salamanca, upstairs at the La Casa house nights and at special events. I also play at some bar gigs here and there when the opportunity arises.

Why did you first get into DJing, and how?

Well, a while ago I got into collecting vinyl, and the very first house record I bought was a remix of Jamiroquai’s Main Vein (the Knee Deep remix). I fell in love with it instantly, as I’d been a Jamiroquai fan for a long time.

Also, it so happened that a friend of mine had two 1210’s at his place which he won in a competition, but he hadn’t used them so I offered to buy them off him. It was a romantic union ever since!

What’s the best and worst thing about being a DJ?

The best thing about being a DJ is playing a song you love, and finding out that everyone else loves it too (or they just go nuts over it!). I’m not sure if I’d say there are really bad things about being a DJ, but certainly the not-verywell-thought-out requests can get a bit annoying. I mean, if I played some Barnesy right in the middle of a funky house set, I might as well not be playing house at all. It just wouldn’t make sense! I think there’s a great T-shirt out there that expresses this feeling …

IW Would Really Like To Be L Relaxing On My Luxury Yacht In The Middle Of Th The he Caribbean n What’s one song you will never, ever drop in one of your sets?

[Laughs] I will probably get asked for it now if I mention it, but anyway … Excluding inappropriate or non-house music songs, I’d have to say Flaunt It. I never understood why it made number one, and for so long. Guess I don’t pay much attention to the charts, hey?

Where would you like to be in five years?

Sydney or Melbourne, working as a DJ and pursuing the other end of the musical spectrum, that is my solo and band work involving piano. But above that, I would really like to be relaxing on my luxury yacht in the middle of the Caribbean, sipping champagne from a shoe and barking down the satellite phone to my broker. Isn’t that everyone’s dream, though?

Lastly, what’s the meaning of life?

To ask questions, of course!

If you want to be touched by disco, head to Hobart’s Syrup on the 8th and 15 th of February.

BANGERS & MASH

DJ EKO In a short and spectacular career, DJ Eko’s resume boasts concert, festival, television and radio appearances, along with major label production credits, a recording contract, and national corporate endorsement deals. Nurturing his skills on Australia’s fierce DJ battle circuit, Eko developed his technical finesse while competing against the country’s leading turntablists. The young Sydneysider would go on to conquer the scene and capture prestigious titles including the DMC and ITF Championship crowns – pinnacles of local competition.

A musician in the truest sense of the word, DJ Eko approaches the turntables as any musician would their more traditional instruments, using them to build emotion and atmosphere amongst his audience in dazzling displays of self-expression. Recognising his honest and innate aptitude for his craft, both Rane and Serato Scratch Live have secured sponsorship/endorsement deals with Eko, appointing him a national ambassador for their marketleading DJ products. Rocking sold-out stadiums and concert halls across Australia, DJ Eko has shared the stage with hip-hop’s elite, from Nelly to Cypress Hill, Naughty

By Nature to The Beatnuts, Q-Bert, DJ Craze, Pharcyde and DJ A-Trak [Kanye West’s DJ], amongst a host of others.

His exciting performances have been documented on television via MTV and Channel V, with his unique brand of turntable wizardry most recently attracting the interest of radio programmers. Away from the turntables, Eko is carving out a music production career that has already seen him collaborate with prominent international hip-hop talent.

DJ Eko plays Lonnies Niteclub on the 23rd of Feburary.

PAGE 17

JAN - FEB

WE HAVE WOOD FIRED PIZZAS!

Monday - Saturday 5pm till late

B A C K PA C K E R

BAR & CAFE

OM FR 6PM

ESDAYS

NIGHT TU C I M N E P O

9288 St Launceostmo/ bna 6c k3p3a4c k e r h u b 1 Tamwar ww.myspace.c

ht 24th Salsa Nig (TBC) la u b a k a h S 25th ht 31st Salsa Nig ip-Hop H t n o fr re o F 1st t Act io R e h T d n a ry 2nd Ro

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$23 Dorm per person $27 Twin per person

$49 Single room $54 Double room

ENTERTAINERS WANTED Send Demo, Bio & Photo to: 1 Tamar Street Launceston PAGE 18

THE PRESETS

BANGERS & MASH

By Tom Wilson

politics and pop mix with power Gosh, The Presets must love you! With barely enough time to scratch their bums between massive bouts of touring, you’d expect Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes to spend what little down-time they have getting some well-earned R&R. Instead, they’ve been going hammerand-tong in their Sydney-based studio to bring you nothing less than a full-length follow up to 2006’s Re-Sets. Bless ‘em! Ahead of their set at MS Fest next month, Julian spoke to me from Presets HQ about being the missing link between Nine Inch Nails and The Wiggles, and getting locked up with all of his people …

Where are you at the moment, man?

I’m in Sydney, in my little studio – still trying to work on the last couple of songs of our new record.

What can you tell me about it? Are you going for a fulllength?

Yeah, full-length record, and it’s coming out in April – the beginning of April. Yeah, we’re just trying to squeeze out another couple of songs out of our arses before we put it to bed.

What can you tell me about the sound of it? Is it sticking with what The Presets are known for? Is it going in some other kind of direction?

Well I guess … it’s obviously not a total departure from all the kind of music we’ve written in the past. It’s all still electro and kind of dance-y and kind of explosive and aggressive and all that kind of stuff. But I guess … we’ve been on the road for the last three years, touring all over the world, and we’ve had a really good opportunity to figure out what we really like to perform live, and work out what’s really fun. That’s kind of helped us with a lot of the new stuff. It’s definitely a fun record. But yeah, it’s kind of hard – still being in the middle of it, it’s strange; it’s hard to put a finger on what the whole thing sounds like. It’s going to be really good once we finish these last couple of songs … At the moment, we’re still in the thick of it.

The track that everyone seems to be going nuts for recently is My People. Lyrically, where did this song come from?

What’s it about?

Funnily [enough], originally … I guess … it’s kind of about boat people and detention centres and that kind of thing, and the way that we – Australians – sort of view immigrants and people from outside our country; the whole notion of “us and them” … When I wrote the song, I was pretty angry with the

political climate at the time, which has all since changed which I’m sort of pleased about. So that’s where the song came from originally, and I guess I wanted to try and write a song that put my thoughts out there on how badly we were treating people who were putting their faith in our country, you know? People trying to come here, and immigrate here. Then, as I wrote more and more of the song, it kind of took on lots of different lives …

I think the nice thing about it is that you can interpret it on lots of different levels. Obviously, “I’m here with all of my people / locked up with all of my people”, especially when I’m singing onstage in a club, it seems like I’m singing about our audience and our friends and our people, you know? So it works on that level as well.

I hear a little bit of Nine Inch Nails influence in that track …

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I’m a big fan of those guys, and, I guess, the sound of their songs – the sound of their keyboards and the sound of their drums … it’s a really tough kind of industrial sound, and we really like that. I guess we wanted to make our music a bit more “party” than theirs … I guess we’re sort of …

“Nine Inch Smiles” I think! [Laughs] I actually got asked to describe you guys to someone, and I said, “It’s Nine Inch Nails you can dance to.”

Yeah. I always say we sit somewhere between Nine Inch Nails and The Wiggles!

I ALWAYS S SAY WE SIT SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NINE INCH NAILS E AND THE WIGGLES!!

The Presets play MS Fest in Launceston on the 16th of February.

So it’s kind of taken on lots of different lives … I guess where it came from might not be where it’s ended up, but you can interpret it on a lot of different levels, hopefully.

To listen to an MP3 of the full interview, go to www.sauce. net.au

As you said, you’re working on these last few tracks … How would you describe your work ethic? Do you have a long concentration span? Or do you get distracted really easily?

Well, no – we’re both pretty disciplined guys, and I guess we’ve been on the road for so long, we haven’t really been able to write any new music. So when we got home from the touring – I think it was August last year – we pretty much had the next batch of touring mapped out for this year, and all we needed to do was write an album in between, you know? So it’s been crazy – we’ve really been under the pump, trying to work as hard as we can, so we’ve been working every day, and going through little mixing sessions at the end of each month. It has been really hard work. We’ve been mixing songs, and I’ve been madly trying to write lyrics for them as we mix them in the studio, you know? It’s been really full-on.

wednesdays 23 January

SELECTA 30 January

MR MEANER 6 February

DR FINK 13 February

SELECTA

Fridays

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DEAN STEVENSON

By Tom Wilson

make the turn towards true jazz A Melbournite who had the good sense to head to where the grass is greener and the water is cleaner (oh, he also came to Tasmania), Dean Stevenson has been making music in this state for eight years, and patrons of next month’s Clarence Jazz Festival will learn first hand that our jazz scene is all the better for it.

You’ll be playing the Clarence Jazz Festival in February.

Where do you see jazz sitting in the Tassie music scene?

And has its popularity grown in recent times?

It’s always been strong, but not in the “pop exposure” kind of way. But then, jazz never is. It’s an art that happens away from the light, and generally played to people more likely to sit and listen than the transitory nature of pop crowd. I’m being awfully brutal here, but pop crowds make judgments much quicker on the act, as they’re often under the impression there’s another choice around the corner – which is largely bollocks in my opinion. The next option could sound too similar to the last one, which can hardly be called good choice can it? Jazz is more like watching the artist paint the picture, whereas pop is more about looking at the final work and encouraging people to like it, which is why jazz will always be relevant even in its older styles, because the process of creation is always fascinating to watch and hear.

… Music For Music’s Sake …

M Mu Is Insular An And d Awful.

You’re playing as part of two bands – The Turn and Recliner. Which have you been doing the most work with recently, and what have you been working on?

The Turn are spontaneous and rare. Recliner are always working hard, largely thanks to the residency at the Lizbon Bar in north Hobart every Saturday night. We’ve been there three-and-a-half years now! It’s become this cool, grooveoriented, danceable jazz event. I love watching people enter the room when we’re playing. There’s a wonderful joy that people get at the sound of a fully happening Hammond Organ quartet. Played over a telephone line, it can quickly sound cheesy, but live it’s enveloping and so groovy. I’m so fortunate to play with this band every week, and especially with the incredible talent of Randal Muir (Hammond). Due to the late time we play and the nature of the room and lineup, we’ve often had spontaneous players turn up for the last set and sit in. It’s not an all-in jam band by any means, but some friends can drop by after a show and play for kicks.

Those nights are very cool. One night Nigel Kennedy turned up after playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with the TSO. He bought an electric violin in, and we played the most insane

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hour of ... whatever it was ... super-speed-punk-jazz! It was mad! But that’s what makes that gig and that band so exciting.

The Turn was formed much later than Recliner, and features two members of that band. Why was it formed?

Was it a case of wanting to do something musically that wasn’t suited for a band like Recliner?

The Turn is a rare get-together of people that I’m very excited about. It was inspired by a show last year that required a quick getting-together of guys for a late notice corporate show, and it turned out to be the most fun.

How would you describe the sound of The Turn?

Like watching an artist paint on blank canvas. There’s no pre-conception of anything. Once that first stroke is made, then it begins to move. But it can change at any moment, and be changed by anyone. There’s no charting or set pieces to follow. That may seem scary and irresponsible at times, but the richness comes from putting the music out there, into the hands of other players you trust absolutely with the care of the journey. Although we don’t begin a piece with a plan, it’s agreed we’re all in it for the ride. And we want the ride to be as exciting as possible – never the same thing twice, and the mood of the day affects everything. Kelly Ottaway is on keys, Richard Armstrong on bass, Alistair Dobson on

sax, and me on drums.

What releases have both these bands put out so far?

The Turn have no recordings as yet. With Recliner, we’ve been recording nights at Lizbon sporadically over the last three years, always with the idea of putting it out at some time. That time’s not been agreed on yet, but the material is there. It’s probably not far away.

What are some bands or artists that have inspired you – recently, and in the past?

The Turn is influenced by a collective of stuff really. I know we all love groups like Medeski, Martin and Wood and the Necks – totally groove-oriented bands, but exploring it live rather than from the chart. Kelly Ottaway (keyboards) is particularly amazing at that. Recliner are borrowing a bit from the Meters kind of sound these days – that kind of party groove, but still with [a] jazz base that keeps it fresh all the time.

You’re originally from Melbourne, but you moved here in 2000. How do you think this relocation has changed both the way you make music, and the music itself?

Personally, Tassie has brought out the best in me. There are some of the country’s finest players here – of this I have no doubt. And we get to see them often, because people still hold onto a love of live music here. It’s declining slowly as things like DVDs at home absorb people, but we’ll still be out there making music. We’ll be there.

To explain my music making? Well, to write or make music for music’s sake – or worse, to write music about music – is insular and awful. Music is about life, and from that end, my life here in Tassie is gorgeous, so music flows out that is reflective of that. I love playing and writing here.

Of all your projects, what one song do you think best reflects who you are as a person, and why?

My own songwriting and my solo shows are what reflect me best. But jazz cracks the walls that pop writing sets up.

I need the freedom of playing jazz and groove exploration to keep a healthy balance. The Turn is the biggest vitamin you can ever take. Trouble is, you don’t always know which mineral you’re gonna get. But you can be sure you’re gonna need it anyway.

Ultimately, what are your plans for after this festival?

To keep playing for as long as possible.

The Turn & Recliner play The Clarence Jazz Festival, which runs from the 19th to the 24th of February, and Recliner play the Lizbon Bar in Hobart every Saturday.

FALLS FESTIVAL 07 a round-up of our local tassie acts

By Martin Blackwell

Happy New Year everyone! The Falls Festival Music and Arts Festival for 2007-8 has now come to pass for another twelve calendar months. With a calamitous bang, which would still well and truly be ringing in the ears of its attendees, this two-day festival had enough acts and entertainment to fill many pages of a music magazine, but really, it felt like two thousand years of culture in itself.

For the 15,000 people whom attend this event, The Falls Music and Arts Festival in Marion Bay Tasmania is an exceptional foray into today’s art and pop culture with its representative bands being the peak of cutting edge genres.

People whom attend this festival are subject to the usual bump and grind of camping in tents, loud punters and long queues, but it all becomes worth it for the sheer exhilaration of the bands and the rich aesthetic and binding environmentalism, which the Falls Festival organisers espouse like a duty of care, having earlier in the year won the Banksia people’s choice award for sustainability standards of excellence as a clean, green event. The event is certainly one of the best of its kind in the country and a wonderful blueprint for larger shows, local councils and various demographics, as well as all other festivals of its kind anywhere in the world.

After the showcases which were held in Hobart and Launceston, a myriad of Tasmanian contestants were picked to perform at the event, as well as from Triple J’s Unearthed competition. These acts, so long in gestation, but thrilling in delivery throughout 2007 had the opportunity to showcase what they have got, and come the time to perform on the big stage, they delivered with consummate style and ease.

Meanwhile, in the Arts Village late in the evening, people were treated in the aesthetically rich confines (it looked like the village of asterix and the gauls) to wonderful pantomime, cabaret and comedy acts in the circus tents, featuring acts such as Schmozzle, Ryk Goddard and Roman Astra on the sitar.

Winner of the 2007 Triple J category for the festival was Hobart’s Charles Du Cane. Charles was the perfect start to the festival as first performer on day one. To those who were not there, here is some background information on Charles. Charles is our next great hope; a beat poet who at present is inspired enough to create a revival of social commentary and absurdism, so relevant and so handy for his peers and fellow musicians. With a beer in one hand and a radio microphone in the other, chanting verse and slapstick hokey redneck parodies over bass lines and samples (think country and blues meets DIY pop electronica and cabaret) single-handedly keeping people entertained and enchanted, but also educated, with his witty and insightful storytelling and crooning.

Charles, with his postmodern and absurdist lyricism and narratives, is a prophet of future DIY mash-pop – with the courage and conviction to break out of indie pubs and confines and bring messages to the people of a larger audience, of which those there assembled relished every

minute. First thing in the morning was a stroke of class, having Du Cane’s imitable sound wake people from their slumber and duly shaked from the tents.

Meanwhile, for those wanting a more relaxed start to their morning, caught Adam Cousens on the Field stage, playing his surf folk blueprint, and they were not disappointed by the set delivered by this up and coming troubadour of the local folk scene. Adam’s dedication sets a total precedent for his craft.

With big melody and soaring vocals, narratives and punch-lines about causes and good times and relaxed, solid and considered guitar lines, Adam sounded like a million dollars through the loud P.A, delivering songs such as When You Smile and Raise Your Glasses from the Running Over Rooftops EP.

into the twenty-eighth century. Certainly, Cal and Simon have a performing maturity now from their increasing bill of acts, having performed around the nation during 2007, at very nu-glam and nu-hip venues. Such a wonderful insight! Performing songs from their EP’s Number One and Electronic Sunset, songs such as Technology Illiterate and Live All Night made the audience rock like successful CPR. These beautiful guys shook the stage like a silver metal baby in a crib, like droids high on dust from a nearby nuclear starburst, filling the entire crowd with wonder-lust and excitement.

Winding up their show for an extended trip to Lorne Victoria and supporting the Presets later that evening, having mapped

… An Exceptional Foray Into Tod Today’s Art And Pop Culture, With Its Representative Bands Being Th The he Peak Of Cutting Edge Genres.

As a keen punter at many of Adam’s shows over the years, it seems like an epiphany to be attending the Falls and not see anyone more suited to its stage than Cousens, his songs just fit that place so well. You can see Adam performing soon in Hobart and Melbourne due to the substantive nature of his gigging schedule, his dedication to performance being so very much a tribute to him.

Later on day one, we saw two more Tasmanian acts, varying in their creative pastiche of sound and influences but nonetheless very much similarly overflowing with visceral energy and emotion The Scientists of Modern Music and Dirty Harry and the Rockets.

The Scientists of Modern Music played an intense set, considering the setting; they made perfect use of the outdoor PA in the field to a full audience and rapturous applause. To the ears and eyes of this punter, watching the TSOMM pour their synthesised metallic lava from the top of their solid mountain of creativity is enough to make you cry acid rain tears of pure joy – such a formula, such a plethora of sound to drag people, savvy or otherwise, kicking and screaming

a prolonged and impressive New Years whammy to take the year out on, TSOMM will be touring profusely during 2008 supporting the Dukes of Windsor, and you can be certain Cal and Simon will be composing the science fiction soundtrack for a collective consciousness long before their synths gather rust.

Dirty Harry and the Rockets were another such rock band that pulled out the stops and kicked out the jams in sensational style. They played the set immediately after the Scientists, and prepared everybody for the night to come. Hailing from Devonport, this quartet are strangers to the festival circuit, and a refreshing addition to the line-up at Falls. Raucous, gritty, power chord-driven rock stomps abounded on the earth, scattering wombats and Tassie devils in their burrows like their legion of fans expected. It was quite gratifying to see these guys pound the dust that day.

Day two, and those people who drank too much on the first night had no choice whatsoever in getting into the first act of the day; waking in their tents to the sounds of local altgothabilly rockers The No-Nos. Are vampires not meant to die at daybreak? Not this

time – The No-Nos, the vamp-rock band from Hobart did the inverse of what is normally expected from them. They brought everyone back to life, first thing in the morning. The unique and unmistakable sound of singer David Edmondson exorcised the demons of the first day with his unique rhythmic riff guitar sound, playing songs from the EP Get Off Your Heads with The No-Nos, becoming more vastly familiar to Tassie audiences for their show. Their last song capitulated with the ride cymbal going completely AWOL – guys, you ought to frame it like a platinum record.

Bridget Pross played an evocative and languid set to the people on day two, with sassy, hip songs exhibiting playful melodies and thoughtful metaphorical richness. A child of Launceston, Bridget has worked hard to grace the festival stages, and did not let anyone down, having an excellent repertoire of songs fitting the roots festival theme.

Playing songs from her album which is set to be released soon, titled I Wanted To, it is almost guaranteed that there will be many shows for Tasmanians over 2008. Bridget is a nominated musician for the Amplified Industry Conference’s Most Promising Musician, and Best Online Presence also. As she provided a backdrop to the setting sun, it was simply a beautiful moment.

Nathan Weldon and the Two Timers concluded the Tasmanian contingent on the main stage with an ambrosial roots set and resonance, which took the Field stage out for one and all.

They rocked it easily, the product of hard work over the course of two years.

Out of Launceston, a town where musicians can seemingly test their material to audiences and be prepared for any stage in Australia, the boys were a total blast to hang with afterwards, and the enthusiasm and creativity of this band was infectious to say the least.

The Falls Festival is here to stay, steadfast and solid as a gleaming example of entertainment, production, and environmental ethics, which truly is a credit to the state of Tasmania.

Watching the audiences elope together as a cumulative mass of spontaneity, parochialism and enthusiasm truly is infectious to both performer and punter alike, dedicated and ardent and constant to deliver on New Years Eve. Wishing all people that attended a good recovery from the revelry, I have to say – what a way to start 2008!

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VANDALISM

BANGERS & MASH

By Chris Titmus

the world demands more When the mercury is hitting the forty-one-degree mark, the last place most of us would want to be is a studio. Melbourne’s Andy Van probably didn’t have a choice. Both the national and international dance music scenes are keeping both he and the other two members of Vandalism very busy indeed, and sometimes a DJ needs to just crank up the air con and sweat it out, which is exactly what he did when SAUCE came calling …

So where are you at the moment?

Sunny Melbourne – forty-one degrees, working on tunes at the moment.

Christmas and New Year’s just went by – how’d you go?

Very good; I had a bunch of gigs in that month block. Did the big Onelove festival … the name escapes me now – it’ll come to me in about five seconds … I did a big New Year’s Eve gig out on the water in St. Kilda … Oh, the Onelove gig was Stereophonic, which had seventeen thousand people, which was nice … Just did a bit of that.

Also did another live gig … we’re always keeping busy. Did Darwin last week, so we’re always flying around the globe and the country trying to do gigs and live PAs and DJ sets and all that sort of stuff.

No rest for the wicked, mate.

No! And the scene’s really strong in Australia, so it keeps us very busy.

So what have you got planned for 2008?

Well we’re working on … we’ve got a new single that’s just been released on Vicious called Smash Disco. It’s been promo’d to DJs over the last few weeks, so it’s getting played quite a lot, so fingers-crossed on how that goes. There’s a bunch of mixes there, so we’re pretty confident that’s going to do pretty well.

It’s already on the Annual, so we were lucky to squeeze that on late last year, so that’s a big accolade, to have it on the Annual before DJs had even had it … but everyone sort of heard it and said, “Yeah, this is going to be a biggie.” We’ve got a new track that we’re working on with the U.K. artist Chicken Lips … they’re a sort of cool rock, indie dance group from the U.K., and we’ve just done a versus track with them, which we’re finishing up this week.

So what can you tell me about Vandalism? What are you guys about? What are the highlights, I suppose?

Well, for us, we’re a combination of, say, a dance artist and a live artist as well; we have a singer who sort of does vocals that are catchy, hooky, and does live performances … She’s almost like a crazy vixen onstage, doing mad dance routines and hand-stands, and climbs up on the scaffolding, and is very … She’s a little bit like … I don’t know if you’ve seen the singer from New Young Pony Club – very sort of active onstage.

We’ve done about fifty gigs around the world, including Ibiza, Russia, London … we’re getting gig offers now for Italy. We had a recent one from South America, which is pretty exciting … We’re getting a lot of offers around the world. So we’re just planning to do more of that, and more remixes.

She’s a bit like that – always wearing crazy outfits and layers and Converse runners, and she just nuts on stage.

Vandalism play The Observatory in Hobart on the 9th of February.

And we do a DJ set where we DJ for an hour-and-a-half and play all weird mash-ups and crazy electro stuff, and we finish up with Cassie doing a live performance.

vandalism.com.au

We just did a remix for Ministry U.K. … also doing another remix for Intentive … So we’ve got a lot of remixes, and people chasing us to give them a more electrified version of their record.

[OUR SINGER IS] A CRAZY VIXEN ONSTAGE, DOING MAD DANCE E ROUTINES AND HAND-STANDS …

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