Forte #611

Planning a function? Forte's got you covered! pg.21

ISSUE #611 ball ar at | bell arine | Bendigo | ca stlemaine | geelong | surf coa st | warrnambool |

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ALSO FEATURING: Geelong After Dark, Maconda Blowout, Agent 37, Tom Ballard, Forest falls and heaps more!

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Plus all the latest local entertainment news, music and movie reviews and all your favourite Forte columns!

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ed's note Everyone likes a good ol’ party right? Well that’s why we’re bringing you our functions issue. It seems like the perfect time of year to get your friends together for a night of crazy fun. But don’t let me talk you into anything, flick to page 25 for the start of our feature and let the venues do the talking.

Aside from looking at a few venues, we’ve taken a close look at our cover band Red Fang, turns out they’re big Simon

forte issue #611 thursday 30 APRIL 2015

and Garfunkel fans, who knew? I was lucky enough to have a chat to the icon that is Kasey Chambers, and trust me, she lives up to the reputation and was full to the brim with stories and words of wisdom as we chatted. Tom Ballard makes a special Forte appearance on page 53 and how could we not forget the legend that is Bam Magera, who our writer Abbey King was lucky enough to share some tales (and many swear words) with.

tag us on instagram!

In side news, we’re proud to welcome the new arts and lifestyle magazine PRJKTR to the streets of Geelong. Check them out, they’re some cool kids producing even cooler stuff. That’s enough from me though, I’ll be heading off to Groovin’ the Moo over the weekend which you’ll hear all about in our next issue. Stay classy Geelong!

Amanda & the Forte Team

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Ph: 03 5229 7969 PO Box 978 Geelong VIC 3220 fortemag.com.au

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Win a double pass to Simon & Garfunkel: The Concert at Geelong (May 9) or Bendigo (May 22)!

To enter please email your name, number, code word ‘GARFUNKEL’ and your chosen show to amanda@fortemag.com.au.

Advertisers and agents are advised that all advertising copy is their responsibility under the trade practices act. Advertisements are published in good faith and on the understanding that the content is legitimate and lawful. Advertisers and or agents submit advertisements at their own risk. The editor and creators hold no responsibility whatsoever for the content of the magazine in the case that it may offend. Forte accepts no responsibility for errors or omissions. Forte reserves the right to edit all articles and letters.

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artwork@fortemag.com.au @yo_ jimbo contributors

Anthony Morris, Adem Ali, Alastair McGibbon, Amanda Sherring, Andrew Pretorius, Cameron Brogden, Chris Cruz, Chris Lambie, Daniel Lock, Emily Hurst, Jessica Alves, Dr John Lamp, Kara Ready, Montana Agustin, Natalie Rogers, Paul S Taylor, Tex Miller, Wylie Caird, Xavier Fenell, Tony Montana printed by

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in the

t h e l a t e s t n a t i o n a l & INTERNATIONAL music & enterta inment ne w s

shows the progression the band has made. “We took our time to write this record, and I’m really glad we did,” says lead singer/ guitarist Brittany Howard.

“We were able to sit down and think about what’s exciting to us. This record is full of genre-bending songs.”

The Hateful Eight Not going to lie, when the creation of The Hateful Eight was delayed due to leaks, a huge part of me died. But that was a long time ago and now with the teaser trailer out, it’s time to welcome the film with open arms. While the trailer is just a cartoon version with no actors revealed, it still names the eight main characters, we can’t wait to see “The Cow Puncher”.

Game on Tarantino, we’re ready for your best.

Splendourous Line Up It seems like a lot has happened in the Splendour world between issues. The line up is out and we’re guessing by now all tickets would be exhausted. Minus those dodgy few charging three times the price on Gumtree. Nonetheless, here’s some of the killer line up you hopefully got tickets to see: Blur, Florence and the Machine, Mark Ronson, Tame Impala (pictured), The Wombats, Death Cab for Cutie, the Dandy Warhols, Azealia Banks, Best Coast, Everything Everything, San Cisco, Megan Washington, Ryan Adams and many, many more.

Not a Stiff One Remember that time you kissed that girl right beside Mars, with the perfect view of the stars and all that solar stuff ?

Neither do I, but with a little help from the Stiffy’s new clip ‘Kissy Kissy’ maybe you can force your

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mind into pretending it happened. Done through the best cartoons we’ve seen in a while (thanks to Chris Edser and Jarrod Prince) it makes an entertaining watch while the Stiffy’s flex their new serious venture into the rock world. Give it a watch, we promise

there’ll be no regrets.

Don’t Stop ‘Till You Make It Getting to play overseas, for us poor isolated Australians is kind of a big deal. It’s an even bigger deal when it’s a relatively new band like

The Smith Street Band and it’s Reading and Leeds festival in the UK, gosh darn these boys are tops! The announcement also marks the return to Europe in August with a set of shows over there. Do us proud boys! Don’t do anything Forte wouldn’t do.

Alabama Shakes, Musically Delicious Following up from a four time Grammy nominated album is a tough title to beat, but by gosh, I think Alabama Shakes may have just done it. Their sophomore release Sound & Color is out now and

Cherry Rock is Upon Us All you rock lovers out there, make sure you head down to the annual Cherry Rock festival on at Cherry Bar, May 10. The playing times have been announced with festivities official kicking off at 12.10pm and Red Fang closing the rock side of things at 8.05pm. Let’s hope this gig will shake the neighbours once more, chances it will as there are 13 acts across two stages, and better yet there’s no clashes. As if you haven’t already looked up the public transport timetable to get there.

Looking Back on Great Times Themata is easily one of the most iconic and powerful rock albums in Australian history, and with the 10-year anniversary of its creation this year, we’d say it’s only fitting the Karnivool guys did something to celebrate.

As well as a Themata tour to revisit the album, the band have released a mini documentary that stitches together moments around Themata’s creation.

If you’re a fan this is certainly one to watch.

When Dinosaurs Roamed the World...

Jurassic Park is back, need I say more? This time around the movie instalment has been renamed Jurassic World and features Chris Pratt as a raptor trainer, with dinosaurs that are geneticallymodified and smarter than all those we’ve seen before. The trailer is out now but the countdown to June 11 seems like too long to wait!

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t h e l a t e s t n a t i o n a l & INTERNATIONAL music & enterta inment ne w s

Guitar Hero Is Back Yes, it has been a while between drinks for the folk at Guitar Hero, but now that the brand is in new hands they’ve given it a significant upgrade. The game will return as Guitar Hero Live and feature live footage from gigs. It will almost seem as if the thousands of fans you’re playing to are screaming for you, if it weren’t for your mum yelling in the background to get off the TV. Whoops. Still, this one could be worth the hours and crippling pinky pain.

Time to Fly Home Like many bands Birds of Tokyo found themselves relocated to the US for 2014, and in that time they wrote four songs about being away from home in a strange new land. As frontman Ian Kenny explains, “some people send postcards when they’re away. Others post their travel pic’s on Instagram. We decided to write a few songs inspired by our time in LA and we’re sending those out instead.” The four tracks are out now on the Anchor EP. There’s also a tour to follow, so hit up170 Russell in Melbourne on June 3.

Supporting the Peeps

Star Wars: Rogue one

The Peep Tempel are hitting the road, but they’re not doing it alone. The band have just announced their supporting acts and Melbourne is lucky to have YIS and Pselodux sharing their tunes. Get to the Howler on May 23 to hear it in the flesh.

There must be something in the air as it seems all the major movie series are making their comebacks.

You’ve probably already watched the trailer a thousand times, but for those who haven’t Star Wars: Rogue One serves as a stand alone film and tells

the tale a band of resistance fighters who unite to steal the Death Star. Sounds like there’ll be lots of lightsaber action in this one.

You Can’t Tame the Conan It may seem like an odd pairing, but Tame Impala just played live on the Conan O’Brien show

and they killed it. No seriously, go check it out if you don’t believe us.

Cosmic Trouble Combine the Cosmic Psychos, new LP celebrations and the Dune Rats and you’re certain to be in for a good time.

They’re known separately for their shit faced

shenanigans so we can’t wait to see what happens.

The crazy combo will hit Max Watts (though you’ve known and loved it as the Hi-fi) on June 13. I’d leave your good clothes at home and stock up on pain killers for the morning after.

The Future of Music Just what is the future of music and technology? If this is something you’ve been pondering for a little while, it’s probably time you sought out some answers. Next month General Assembly will play host to a panel of industry experts who can give you such an answer.

Tune Into the Future: the Intersection of Music and Tech will run on May 7, with RSVP’s taken online.

Seether Are Coming Down Under To celebrate their sixth release, the multiplatinum alt-rock trio Seether are heading back to Australia shores for a national tour.

Music is their life, so it’s only fair you came along and shared it with them, as drummer John Humphrey puts it: “I’ve never considered doing anything else. Music has been my whole life. If I wasn’t playing with Seether I would probably be playing drums in a band in a bar somewhere, or a wedding or bar mitzvah.”

They’ll be hitting up the Forum Theatre in Melbourne on July 4.

Not So Holy Holy Holy’s new single has taken a new direction from their sombre, sweet tunes of before. This time around ‘You Cannot Call For Love Like a Dog’ takes a darker turn with a driving bass, atmospheric swells and sharp guitar breaks. We likey, we likey a lot.

Jungle Giants Sellout Everyone loves a sellout, no not that kind the good one. And The Jungle Giants can add it to their list as their Melbourne show has just sold out. Though fear not, they’ve added another for May 14 at Howler. But be quick, chances are they’ll be repeat offenders.

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The Birthday Cake Customs House Lawn 7.30pm & 8.30pm Presented by Citizen Theatre

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Etch Gallery 215 Moorabool Street 6.00pm-9.30pm Presented by Karen Mayo

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T H E THURSDAY 30TH APRIL BABUSHKA BAR (Ballarat): Jakobi Kai BARWON HEADS HOTEL: Trivia Night from 7:30pm BEAVS BAR: Levi Anderson BIRD ROCK CAFE (Jan Juc) - Live and Local, $13 Pizza night BRIDGE HOTEL (Castlemaine): Kutcha Edwards, Shiralee Hood COSTA HALL, DEAKIN UNIVERSITY: Kasey Chambers EDGE GEELONG: Live Music and DJ ELEPHANT & CASTLE: $20 Asahi Seafood & Chips Night EUREKA: Thirsty Thursday with local resident DJs GATEWAY PLAZA SHOPPING CENTRE (Warrnambool): Silvers Circus GPAC: A Few Good Men LIGHTHOUSE THEATRE (Warrnambool): 360 Allstars LORD OF THE ISLES: Trivia in the courtyard MARTIANS CAFE: $25 International Night including drink PISTOL PETE’s: Georgia Rodgers THE SPHINX HOTEL: Schnitzel Night from $13 ST JAMES: Live DJs SUTTONS HOUSE OF MUSIC (Ballarat): International Jazz Day Jam

FRIDAY 1ST MAY BABUSHKA BAR (Ballarat): The Old Married Couple, Arkie T Williams, Katie Who BARWON CLUB: Luca Brasi, Lunatics on Pogo Sticks, Crowbait, Brittle Bones, Daybreak BARWON HEADS HOTEL: Happy Hour 5-7pm, Meat Raffle & Members Draw BEAVS BAR: Live Music BELMONT HOTEL: Zane Carroll BIRD ROCK CAFE (Jan Juc): Happy Hour 5-7pm BRIDGE HOTEL (Castlemaine): The Shabbab, Mesa Cosa CHERRY BAR: The Shrine, Child, Flour

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CITY QUARTER BAR: Friday Unwind from 5pm. Live with live entertainment and DJ THE EASTERN: Tsugnarly EDGE GEELONG: Live Music and DJ ELEPHANT AND CASTLE: Thank Guinness It’s Friday EUREKA HOTEL: Live DJs GATEWAY PLAZA SHOPPING CENTRE (Warrnambool): Silvers Circus GPAC: Legally Blonde, A Few Good Men THE GROVEDALE HOTEL: Levi & Cody HOME HOUSE: Homehouse Fridays Party with live DJs KAROVA LOUNGE (Ballarat): ME THE LORD NELSON: Happy Hour 5pm-7pm MAX HOTEL: Trojan ODYSSEYTAVERN AND BREWERY: Sidey OLD HEPBURN HOTEL: Twilight Makers Market PISTOL PETES: Wilson & White SAINTS & SAILORS (Portarlington): Live Music ST JAMES: Live DJs

SATURDAY 2ND MAY BARWON CLUB: Glittergang BEAVS BAR: Live Music BELMONT HOTEL: Matty Orchard BENDED: Uno Dance Club: Glass Mirrors BIRD ROCK CAFE (Jan Juc): Live Music and Happy Hour 5-7pm BLUES TRAM (Bendigo): Emilee South, Benjamin James Caldwell BRIDGE HOTEL (Castlemaine): John Dowler, Little Murders, Rob Craw THE EASTERN: Claws & Organs, The Loveless EDGE: Live Music and DJ EUREKA: $5 Night, Live DJS GATEWAY PLAZA SHOPPING CENTRE (Warrnambool): Silvers Circus GPAC: Legally Blonde, A Few Good Men GROVEDALE COMMUNITY HUB: Wellbeing and Inner Peace Festival THE GROVEDALE

HOTEL: Thom HOMEHOUSE: Darren Elliott, DJ Horizon, Michael Hallam, Jordan Cambie, Lab22, Matt Rech THE LOFT (Warrnambool): Bareback Titty Squad MAX HOTEL: Wooshka NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB: Epicure LP Launch ODYSSEYTAVERN AND BREWERY: Ben Dew OLD HEPBURN HOTEL: Gabe Atkinson PISTOL PETE’S: The Wayne Jury Three SAINTS & SAILORS (Portarlington): Live Music ST JAMES: Live DJs SUTTONS HOUSE OF MUSIC (Ballarat): Sam Boon Quartet

SUNDAY 3RD MAY BARWON CLUB: Test Pilot Molly, DJ Helmer BIRD ROCK CAFÉ (Jan Juc): Steak and Parmi Night, Happy Hour 5-6pm CITY QUARTER: Perfect Sunday Sesh Live music and DJ from 4pm EDGE GEELONG: Live Music and DJ ELEPHANT & CASTLE: Live Jazz from 3-6pm and Parmi Night GATEWAY PLAZA SHOPPING CENTRE (Warrnambool): Silvers Circus GEELONG RSL: $13 Carvery lunch GROVEDALE HOTEL: McRobin ODYSSEYTAVERN AND BREWERY: Rach Brennan SAINTS & SAILORS (Portarlington): Live Music ST JAMES: Live Music & DJs THE SPHINX HOTEL: Carvery from $17 THE WORKERS CLUB GEELONG: The Kite Machine (Lauch Show) SUTTONS HOUSE OF MUSIC (Ballarat): Giorgio Albanese

MONDAY 4TH MAY BENDED: Steak night ELEPHANT & CASTLE: $20 Steak & Drink night GEELONG RSL: Members Draw, over $3000 in prizes to be won!

OLD HEPBURN HOTEL (Hepburn Springs): Parmi night THE SPHINX HOTEL: Meals for $11

TUESDAY 5TH MAY BENDED: Parmi night BLACK HATT: Bachata Dance Classes ELEPHANT & CASTLE: $20 Steak & Drink night GEELONG RSL: Steak Night $13 OLD HEPBURN HOTEL (Hepburn Springs): Parmi night PISTOL PETES: Open Mic (book now)

WEDNESDAY 6TH MAY BABUSHKA BAR (Ballarat): Karaoke THE BARWON HEADS HOTEL: Master of Dartness and Poker from 7pm BEAVS BAR: Open Mic, Karaoke BENDED: Second chance & pub quiz ELEPHANT AND CASTLE: Trivia Night from 8pm.

GEELONG (52 Garden St): No Lights No Lycra GEELONG RSL: Pot and Parmi Night $13 GOLD DIGGERS ARMS: Spinning Wheel and a lot of Parmi’s from $14.50 KAROVA LOUNGE (Ballarat): British India MAX HOTEL: Lukey’s Open Mic Night ODYSSEY TAVERN AND BREWERY: Paddle and Platter Night OLD HEPBURN HOTEL (Hepburn Springs): Roast night PISTOL PETES: Food and Blues WYNDHAM CULTURAL CENTRE (Werribee): The Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis Show

THURSDAY 7TH MAY BABUSHKA BAR (Ballarat): Nick Saxon BEAVS BAR: Live Music BIRD ROCK CAFE (Jan Juc): Live and Local, $13 Pizza night THE CAPITAL (Bendigo): Troy CassarDaley EDGE GEELONG: Live

Music and DJ ELEPHANT & CASTLE: $20 Asahi Seafood & Chips Night EUREKA: Thirsty Thursday with local resident DJ’S GPAC: Legally Blonde LORD OF THE ISLES: Trivia in the courtyard MARTIANS CAFE: $25 International Night including drink OLD HEPBURN HOTEL (Hepburn Springs): Roast night THE SPHINX HOTEL: Schnitzel Night from $13 ST JAMES: Live DJs

FRIDAY 8TH MAY BABUSHKA BAR (Ballarat): Brad Butcher BARWON CLUB: BARN YARD FRIDAYS: Luke Stein, Shorty, Pinky, PCPS BARWON HEADS HOTEL: Happy Hour 5-7pm, Meat Raffle & Members Draw BEAVS BAR: Live Music BELMONT HOTEL: Lachy Cartledge BIRD ROCK CAFE (Jan Juc): Happy Hour 5-7pm BRIDGE HOTEL (Castlemaine): Thomas Hugh, Shannon Bourne, Lisa Marmur CHERRY BAR: Beastwars, Horsehunter, Dr Colossus, Holy Serpent CITY QUARTER BAR: Friday Unwind from 5pm. Live with live entertainment and DJ CORNER HOTEL (Melbourne): Everclear EDGE GEELONG: Live Music and DJ ELEPHANT AND CASTLE: Thank Guinness It’s Friday EUREKA HOTEL: Live DJs GATEWAY HOTEL: That’s Good For Footy Panel Show Live 12-2pm GPAC: Legally Blonde THE GROVEDALE HOTEL: Good Faces For Radio HOME HOUSE: Homehouse Fridays Party with DJs LIGHTHOUSE (Warrnambool): Troy Cassar-Daley THE LOFT (Warrnambool): Kallidad THE LORD NELSON: Happy Hour 5pm-7pm MAX HOTEL: 3 On The

c alendar Tree ODYSSEYTAVERN AND BREWERY: Luke Pote OLD HEPBURN HOTEL: The Bassey THE PALMS @CROWN (Melbourne): The Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis Show PISTOL PETES: Sam Nicholson SAINTS & SAILORS (Portarlington): Live Music SHADOW ELECTRIC BANDROOM (Melbourne): Martin King, Jack & the Kids (EP Launch), Soviet X-Ray Record Club, Sleepy Dreamers, RKDA SUTTONS HOUSE OF MUSIC (Ballarat): Pugsley Buzzard WHOLE LOTTA LOVE (Melbourne): Miss Quincy THE WORKERS CLUB GEELONG: Lurch & Chief

SATURDAY 9TH MAY BABUSHKA BAR (Ballarat): BabushDoof Psytrance Party BARWON CLUB: Red Fang BEAVS BAR: Live Music BELMONT HOTEL: Cal Young BENDED: Uno Dance Club: Cassian BIRD ROCK CAFE (Jan Juc): Live Music and Happy Hour 5-7pm BRIDGE HOTEL (Castlemaine): Levitating Churches, Damn the Torpedos THE EASTERN: Totally Mild, Monnone Alone, Bleach Boys EDGE: Live Music and DJ EUREKA: $5 Night, Live DJS GPAC: Simon & Garfunkel the Concert, Legally Blonde THE GROVEDALE HOTEL: Abe Anderson The HIFI (Melbourne): 360 HOMEHOUSE: AK, Rimmy, Shameless KAROVA LOUNGE (Ballarat): New Bones LIGHTHOUSE THEATRE (Warrnambool): The Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis Show THE LOFT (Warrnambool): The Art MAX HOTEL: Hey

Charger ODYSSEYTAVERN AND BREWERY: Jimmy Graham OLD HEPBURN HOTEL: SPG THE PALMS @CROWN (Melbourne): Troy Cassar-Daley PISTOL PETE’S: The Hornets SAINTS & SAILORS (Portarlington): Live Music SUTTONS HOUSE OF MUSIC (Ballarat): Astonishing Achievements - The Henry Station Story YAH YAHS: Beastwars, Hits

MONDAY 11TH MAY

SUNDAY 10TH MAY MOTHER’S DAY

TUESDAY 12TH MAY

BARWON CLUB: Good Faces for Radio BIRD ROCK CAFÉ (Jan Juc): Steak and Parmi Night, Happy Hour 5-6pm CHERRY ROCK FEST @ CHERRY BAR: Red Fang, Warped, The Shrine, Beastwars, Clowns and more CITY QUARTER: Perfect Sunday Sesh Live music and DJ from 4pm EDGE GEELONG: Live Music and DJ ELEPHANT & CASTLE: Live Jazz from 3-6pm and Parmi Night GEELONG RSL: $13 Carvery lunch GPAC: The Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis Show GROVEDALE HOTEL: McRobin LIGHTHOUSE THEATRE (Warrnambool): Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow LORD NELSON: Sunday Funday Live Music ODYSSEYTAVERN AND BREWERY: Jim Jamz, Rach Brennan, special Mother’s Day dessert platter OLD HEPBURN HOTEL: Mother’s Day Lunch, Leah Flanagan SAINTS & SAILORS (Portarlington): Live Music THE SPHINX HOTEL: Carvery from $17 SUTTONS HOUSE OF MUSIC (Ballarat): Astonishing Achievements - The Henry Station Story

BARWON CLUB: $10 Parmis BENDED: Steak night CHERRY BAR: Cherry Jam Monday’s ELEPHANT & CASTLE: $20 Steak & Drink night GEELONG RSL: Members Draw, over $3000 in prizes to be won!

GPAC: Sleeping Beauty OLD HEPBURN HOTEL (Hepburn Springs): Parmi night THE SPHINX HOTEL: Meals for $11

BENDED: Parmi night ELEPHANT & CASTLE: $20 Steak & Drink night GEELONG RSL: Steak Night $13 OLD HEPBURN HOTEL (Hepburn Springs): Parmi night

WEDNESDAY 13TH MAY BABUSHKA BAR (Ballarat): Karaoke THE BARWON HEADS HOTEL: Master of Dartness and Poker from 7pm BEAVS BAR: Open Mic, Karaoke BENDED: Second chance & pub quiz THE CAPITAL (Bendigo): The Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis Show ELEPHANT AND CASTLE: Trivia Night from 8pm. Have fun win prizes book a table GEELONG (52 Garden St): No Lights No Lycra GEELONG RSL: Pot and Parmi Night $13 GOLD DIGGERS ARMS: Spinning Wheel and a lot of Parmi’s from $14.50 GPAC: 51 Shades of Maggie MAX HOTEL: Lukey’s Open Mic Night ODYSSEY TAVERN AND BREWERY: Paddle and Platter Night OLD HEPBURN HOTEL (Hepburn Springs): Roast night PISTOL PETES: Food and Blues

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Red FanG FEATURE STORY Written by Tex Miller

Red Fang are about to make the trek out to Australia for their second time ever. Bryan Giles guitarist for the Portland stoner rock group, cannot wait as their first trip back in 2013 at Soundwave was such a memorable experience for the group. Having released their third studio album in 2013 Whales and Leeches when I speak to Giles, he reveals to me that the band has just started work on the follow up.

“Right now man! I am at home in Portland, Oregon and it feels great. I am really enjoying the time at home. It’s been a pretty mild winter this year and so it’s been beautiful. We’ve had a lot of time to sit down and write music, which is something that we have really needed to do. The flowers are in bloom and the fourth album is underway. It’s by no means completed yet, but we have quite a start on it,” he says.

The latest record Whales and Leeches was produced by Chris Funk – a member of American folk rockers The Decemberists who hails from the same town as Red Fang.

“That record, it was underdressed. We had about three and a half months to write the majority of the record. We went in with some ideas, but nothing fully worked out. It was a very crazy time indeed and we wrote so many songs in that period. It was the most stressful that I have been going into the studio,” Bryan says.

“On previous occasions, we would write and when the songs were at a stage that we felt we could lay them down, we would head into the studio and record. It was the first time that we booked studio time without knowing what was going to happen – that’s something that we don’t really want to repeat. We will record this album, when we are good and ready, there is no point rushing it.”

From just a quick Google you are able to watch Redfang absolutely obliterate the stage of David Letterman. You may ask yourself what a stoner rock band from Portland, Oregon is doing on Letterman, but talking about the experience Giles is just as surprised as you.

“It was terrifying…It’s one of those things where we got an email and we responded sarcastically because we thought it was a joke. She came back and said no seriously when are you available to do this and we said whenever they wanted us,” he says.

“It was very frightening but something that I always wanted to do. I was really afraid that I would make a fool of myself on national television. It was like a terrifying rollercoaster where as soon as you get off, you want to get back in line. We practised the song six times before the show. It was awesome, and we got to play with the legendary Paul Shaffer! Man! That guy was in the Blues Brothers!”

Having researched extensively for this interview, one of the coolest aspects to Bryan Giles is his love for Simon and Garfunkel. Yes, he plays in one of the most energetic and heavy rock bands around, but he still loves ‘Sounds of Silence’ more than the next guy. “My mum was a big fan. I remember when I was little, I’d be playing with my Tonka trucks and listening to Bridge Over Troubled Water. I stand behind them, they are great songwriters and it is super catchy. There are some songs though that these days I find a bit corny. You know that one that goes ‘Hello lamppost, what you knowin’? I’ve come to watch your flowers growing? ‘Feelin’ Groovy’ is an awesome track and whenever ‘Cecilia’ comes on the radio, I crank that up and belt it out at the top of my voice.”

Talking about the opportunity for a Paul Simon and Bryan Giles acoustic collaborative album, Giles jests about how fun it would be to hit up the studio with the legendary singer/songwriter. “Oh! As if that would ever happen, absolutely I would be on board for that. I’m pretty sure they would be all for trying to protect their reputation, but if Simon is keen to hit the studio with me for an album of covers or something, I am definitely down for that. If you know those guys, let them know I’m in.”

One of the biggest shows of the past 12 months for the band is without a doubt their tour with Swedish rock royalty Opeth and In Flames. To share the stage with such superstars of the genre would be an incredible experience for any musician and was a pinch yourself moment for Giles. “Both those bands have been around for 20 plus years, and they are really cool down to earth guys. So in that sense, it was really comfortable. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go over for our band, like putting salt on icecream or something. They are really technical progressive experimental music and we, by comparison, are cavemen. I wasn’t sure how knuckle-dragging would go over with their crowd, but I really enjoyed playing with those guys.”

Talking about the impending tour of Australia, which kicks off in the next couple of weeks, I was quick to ask Giles whether there was something peculiar to their show that would be special for Australian audiences to see. “Surprises eh? I think we are going to play some new stuff for ya and so you can keep an ear out for new material. We are randomly going to kill two or three people in the audience every night, so you should get your will in order before you come out.”

Luckily, Giles was joking about the killing, but their high energy no holds barred performance is set to rock throughout Victoria featuring a headline spot at Cherry Rock. As a band that has been around for 10 years and has played on Metallica’s Orion festival be sure to see these guys while you can.

When&Where: The Barwon Club, Geelong – May 9 & Cherry Rock Festival @ Cherry Bar, Melbourne – May 10

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MEW Written by Natalie Rogers

“I remember the first piece of music I ever owned was ‘Love Cats’ 7’ by The Cure,” smiled front man Jonas Bjerre. “I played it on 33 [rpm], not knowing it was meant to be played on 45 – it was in very slow motion,” he laughed. “I couldn’t make out what he was singing (also my English wasn’t so good then) so I just kinda made up my own interpretation of what he was saying.

“Until one day I remember reading what the actual lyrics were and I was so disappointed because it didn’t fit my vision of the song,” Bjerre continued. “I mean, it’s a great lyric – I’m not trying to insult Robert Smith – but when I was a kid I had a different idea of what the song was about, you know? That’s why I love to leave my lyrics open to interpretation – they’re abstract and hopefully create imagery that makes you feel something. We get caught up in the detail, that’s why it took us so long to finish this album and why it’s very gratifying to finally be able to share it with other people.”

Fans of the band have waited six long years for the follow-up to No More Stories Are Told Today, I’m Sorry They Washed Away // No More Stories, The World is Grey, I’m Tired, Let’s Wash Away’ Keeping with the tradition of enigmatic album titles, Danish art rockers MEW are proud to announce the release of their sixth studio album +- (pronounced plus minus), out now through [PIAS].

Known for their indie-pop sensibilities and penchant for

layered production +- is everything you’d expect and more. “We put so much of ourselves into every little part, and that’s why it feels so valuable to us,” Bjerre explained. “Although I do think we learned a lot making this record, I think we can speed things up in the future – but we say that every time!” he grinned.

“We just had so much fun, I enjoyed every minute of it.”

Bjerre says that the addition of Bloc Party guitarist Russell Lissack on ‘My Complications’ added to the experience, as did the return of bassist Johan Wolhert after his departure in 2006 to focus on becoming a father.

“Having him [Johan] back is another beautiful thing – we’re like family. To be honest, we’re all really close.

We grew up musically together, none of us ever had any formal training, we

learned how to play music together. We didn’t know what the name of the chords were, we just struck our guitars and we liked the way it sounded. That’s how we got into it – it’s kinda like our own musical language.

“We’ve also have some made-up Danish words we use once in a while, like ‘frengers’,” he smiled. Also the title of their 2003 breakthrough album, “A frenger is a person who is not quite a friend and not quite a

the lyrics and that sort of thing. I feel like we didn’t quite get to breaking point yet, we were almost accidentally doing that on the first album and what we did with this one was learn about some of our favourite songs and classic songs that we like and next time will be the one where we break it.”

As with everything Miami Horror does, there’s always that one thing, element or choice of clothing that’s a bit odd. Aside from venturing into creating hand-made sunglasses, something that Benjamin has always wanted to do but it simply felt out of reach, and air fresheners, there’s always been a fascination for the odd with the band.

“It’s a clash of my personal instinct anyway.

I really appreciate the

classy beauty element of life but I also appreciate the freaky weird side of life as well. I’m often trying to suppress that and it’s like this constant battle between those two extremes and they come through the music I guess,” Benjamin says.

While the band are currently touring around America with no dates as yet for an Australian tour, it seems that Benjamin is much more interested in your thoughts on the album.

“I’m more just interested in seeing people’s reactions to the actual album, because the album is what sticks in the industry and doesn’t change over time. You can always improve a live song but once the album’s done, that’s it. I kind of like to hear what people think more about that,” he says.

Dishy picked up a guitar after seeing The Angels in Geelong when he was 17. ‘‘I remember seeing those guys and thinking that’s cool, so I just hacked away at it. I didn’t get into a proper band until I went to do a season at Hotham. We only had three months to get a staff band together and we used to play all the ‘90s grunge stuff, that’s when I started to get really into it.”

Unlike most ideas that crop up at a party, this one stuck. They got together a week later and started jamming.

About a month after that, at an Eddy Current Suppression Ring show, they met Col, who was no stranger to being in a punk band himself. He had once played with the band Tracta and like the rest was missing the buzz

he got from performing and writing music.

Drummer Mick moved overseas and was replaced by Adam, still affected by the break up of Magic Dirt and the death of bass guitarist Dean Turner, Adam explains his hesitation to play music again until he heard Macondo Blowout playing in a rehearsal studio he was working at. They all got talking and the guys asked him to play with them, “If it wasn’t for these guys I never would have played again.” Macondo Blowout was complete again and it was time to kick some serious arse!

The first gig they all played together was one of their most memorable, it was Rock the Mole at Torquay Hotel, a night organised by a good friend of Macondo

Release: +- available at all good retailers now

stranger,” Bjerre explained.

Australia is full of potential frengers of the band – in fact there’s a Facebook page devoted entirely to a campaign to have MEW tour the country for the first time ever. Good news Mewstralian’s – Bjerre is aware of your efforts and hopes to meet you all soon.

“I don’t know exactly when yet, but we’re working very hard to make it possible,” he said. “I feel terrible because

it’s a dream of mine to go, and we know that there are people who like what we do in Australia and they’re waiting for us to come.”

Become a frenger and show your support at www. facebook.com/mewstralia.

Miami Horror Written by Amanda Sherring

They often say your friends are your hardest critics and it turns out for Benjamin Plant, of Miami Horror, that with their newest release, All Possible Futures, his friends couldn’t fault it. “Even having close friends enjoy it was a shock,” Benjamin says.

“I don’t expect them to [enjoy it], I feel like I would have expected them to back in the day but I feel like we’ve released a few singles that I wouldn’t really bother even telling them about. But they’re the ones coming to me and saying this album is effing great.”

Benjamin’s friend’s aren’t alone in their appreciation either, even though the album has only been out for a brief moment the praise is still rolling in, and is something that they’re all pretty happy about.

This time around there’s a notable difference in the sound Miami Horror have created, which can partially be put to their relocation to LA but it’s also a reflection of where they’re at musically.

“I think [this album] we were still learning and moreso we used a lot of common song writing tools but at the same time in our first world you don’t really hear people using them much. It was more just about learning how to use a pre-chorus and post-chorus and weird little things that you don’t normally have names for,” he says.

“Also just to think about tension and release and relating the music to the emotion of the song and to

Release: All Possible Futures is available at all good retailers now

Macondo Blowout Written by Montana Agustin, Photo by Mitsukasov Photography

I could start off this article using the standard introductory formula: ‘Macondo Blowout, a local Torquay punk rock band are just about to launch an amazing EP, so keep an eye out for them...blah, blah, blah’ but not only is that boring as bat shit, they also deserve more. It became pretty obvious while sitting around talking to these guys how bloody into music they are and how much they love making music, as a result a standard introduction would be completely sub-standard.

The beers had been cracked open and the conversation with lead singer, Colin (Col), drummer and ex-drummer for Magic Dirt, Adam, guitarist, Dishy and bass player, Marty started to flow. There were no egos around this table, just a crew doing what they love, for the love of it, nothing more, nothing less.

“Playing in a band is just heaps of fun. I love being on stage, love the entire process, love the writing and putting it all together and when you go on stage and you see everyone tapping their feet along to a riff, that’s the driver really,” Col explains.

Macondo Blowout came about like most good ideas in life: at a party. Marty, Dishy and ex-drummer Mick were at a mates 40th and started to talk about how they all missed playing. All three had played in bands for the most part of their lives, Marty in Canada and 20 forte

When & Where: Rock the Mole @ Torquay Hotel, Torquay – May 23 Release: Invisible Enemy EP out May 23

Blowout and dedicated to raising funds for the Melanoma Institute of Australia. The night was not only a success in raising cash, it was also one of the best gigs they can recall playing, “Everyone was there for such a good reason, there was no bullshit. Everyone loved the music, loved the night and we just had

an absolute ball.”

Luckily for you Rock the Mole 2015 is just around the corner and Macondo Blowout will be ripping it up with the likes of Battle Axe Howlers and a truck load of other awesome bands at the Torquay Pub. The night will also be the launch of Macondo Blowout’s EP, they were nice enough to give me a listen and let’s just say that if you like punk, rock n’ roll or just getting loose in general, you’ll love Invisible Enemy.

High energy and drenched in attitude, listening to this EP is like being at a Macondo gig, soaked in sweat, jumping around and rocking out – top optional.

These guys know their music, are driven by music, appreciate music and are all round great blokes. If you think rock or dirty arse punk is dead, you obviously haven’t heard of Macondo Blowout. Be sure to like them on Facebook for future local gigs. macondoblowout. bandcamp.com

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Divine Ascension pg.43

Hail to the Chief

Get Your Body Groovin’

Everyone digs a little stoner-swirl jampsych. And because everyone digs a little stoner-swirl jam-psych, everyone digs a little Lurch & Chief. Featuring five manly men and one womanly woman, the band recently announced a little tour in support of their brand-spanking new EP, Breathe.

For those interested in the recording process, you can have a read of their journal over at lcepjournal.tumblr.com.

Have you done it? Good to hear. Now that you have done so, you should take note of their upcoming gigs. You’ll have fun.

Then they’ll have fun. And we can all have fun together. The Workers Club, Geelong – May 8; The Karova, Ballarat – May 14; and The Loft, Warrnambool – May 16.

Hey kids, put down those bibles because it is Groovin the Moo time. It’s this weekend, of course, and because we here at Forte occasionally like to be helpful, here is some stuff we feel you should know. Gates open at 10:30 a.m., with the first band hitting the stage at 11:00 a.m. The last band checks out at around 10:30 p.m. I know you’re probably very excited, but so are a lot of others, so please be patient. There are no passouts, so once you’re there you’re in for the long haul. There is BYO no alcohol, so don’t try to sneak anything in. It’s disruptive and unnecessary. You can, however, bring in food – but no vodka sandwiches or anything like that. Feel free to take a happy snap, but leave the pro gear at home. Have fun.

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Help Shuffle Us To Europe As a comedian, performing in Edinburgh is the dream. For Elena Gabrielle it's become a firm reality as Elena – and her team – behind the performance 'The Shuffle Show' have been invited to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August.

Given the festival has kickstarted careers for comedians such as Tim Minchin in the past, this could mean big things for the Geelong local. To help them get over there, the group are hosting a fundraising night at Gin & Co on May 14 – raffles and prizes are a guarantee.

Pete's Superband A superband of sorts is coming to Geelong to play Pistol Pete's Food and Blues on May 9. The Hornets is one of the finest blues bands going around and features many of the country’s well known musicians. Singer song-writer Craig Horne together with guitarist Jeff Burstin from Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons and the Black Sorrows, are joined

by Wayne Duncan from Daddy Cool on bass. This is one not to be missed, the venue has limited spaces remaining so book ahead to avoid disappointment.

Boy Oh Boyes She’s one of the most badass guitarists out there, and Fiona Boyes is all ours.

Boyes has been recording and performing for more than 25 years over which time she has released more than a dozen albums and picked up a whopping 15 Australian Blues Awards.

But this doesn’t come close to painting the picture.

She was the first woman and non-American to win the International Blues Challenge in Memphis and has Blues Hall of Famer ‘Pinetop Perkins’ calling her the best finger-picking guitarist since Memphis Minnie.

With a tour of the UK and Europe lined up for mid-year, you’re gonna want to get your fix of her blues travelogue now. The Piping Hot Chicken Shop, Ocean Grove – May 16.

Hounded by Forest Falls There is a lot of love in the air for Melbourne folksters Forest Falls. Taking to Pozible last year, the band easily made their goal, resulting in the band’s sophomore EP Hounds, due for release tomorrow, May 1. The EP features the single of the same name.

Now, if you’re looking for a little viewing pleasure to go with your listening pleasure, be sure to check out its accompanying clip.

Filmed in Melbourne by production company An Architect Photographed My Undies (Vance Joy, Pierce Brothers), the clip follows the story of 22 forte

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a couple of passionate lovers, touching on themes of igniting, letting go, reigniting and perhaps just burning out. The Workers Club, Geelong – May 10.

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World Wild Awesome I am not a rocket scientologist, but it’s safe to say the ’80s were awesome. The movies were awesome. The music was awesome. Sometimes they combined, like in the majestic Cobra.

(Spoiler: Sylvester Stallone cuts his pizza with scissors.) With a dose of ’80s Miami Vice-like nostalgia, Adelaide’s Jarrad Lee Jackson, who rolls with the name World Wild, released his ode to the skate and surf scene, ‘Coast to Coast’, late last year. He kinda digs the ’80s, as we discovered through an interview with Rip It Up last year. He said: “When I write music I have imagery up, like Olivia Newton-John posters and ’80s skateboards, and I have a ’80s movie in my head, where they’re on a yacht at Miami Beach or something. I imagine this perfect world of everyone having the best life ever. Writing music, for me, is all imagination.

I feel like I’m in Never-never Land, making up themes in my head of a movie I’ve never seen, or piecing bits from other movies and characters. It’s all imaginary, and I try to capture that through sound.” And now there is plenty more ’80s-inspired shiny synth pop for you to gorge on – his debut EP, Caribbean Gold. The Karova, Ballarat – May 21.

World Sideshow Festival Something very special is taking place in Ballarat next month. Stepping out for its first (of hopefully many) outing is the World Sideshow Festival, a celebration of all things sideshow. Once called the circus’ dirtier cousin, the popularity has once again surged in recent times – and ‘In the Loop’ territory has the frontrow seat. Performers include Samora Squid, a Tasmanian who swallows swords, sings songs and bends his body upside down and inside out; Erik Sprague, aka ‘The Lizard Man’, a man known the world-over for his physical transformation; and Lilikoi Kaos, one of Australia’s biggest circus and sideshow stars.

Ballarat – May 21-23. Hit worldsideshowfestival.com for more.

For Rozi, From Nick Brothers can be pretty awesome, at times when they’re not present. And so we discover that welltravelled songman Nick Saxon would borrow his younger brother’s Maton 325 when he was out of the house, studiously strumming away at the same chord over and over and over again. Indeed, when little brother’s away, Nick Saxon did play.

These days he is a musician, performer, surfer, television presenter and brand ambassador who has performed and busked his way across Spain, Greece, Germany, Prague, Bulgaria, France and the UK. However, it was not through music but through his work as a presenter for National Geographic where Nick met Rozi, a blind musician whose home was swept away during the 2014 flooding. Taking to the road, Nick will be playing a string of fundraiser shows, making available a special EP titled For Rozi: A Pilgrim’s Journey. The release will be available on USB stick.

Nick: “I always take my guitar with me, and lyric book for any spontaneous moments in-between travel, like waiting at an airport in South America for a flight, hitching a horse and cart in Malaysia, or riding an elephant in Nepal, that creates moments and etch their identity into my memory and last forever.” Babushka Bar, Ballarat – May 7.

Screwed, Blued & Tattooed Newstead Short Story Tattoo is an eclectic event that combines academics with artists, politics with fiction, history with poetry, orators with musicians and new voices with literary masters.

There will be themed sessions galore, with the likes of Christos Tsiolkas (The Slap), Clementine Ford, Joe Dolce, Annabel Tellis (The Book of Shane Warne Love Poetry) and Bella Frisky among the special guests for 2015. A highlight is the appearance of Aboriginal activist, actor, artist and agitator Gary Foley, who will be bringing a world-first via the inaugural Gary Foley Lecture as a part of the parochial Anarchism, Activism, Asperger’s and Advocacy session.

Newstead – May 1-3.

County Livin’ Blues Echuca-Moama has a couple of ripping festivals coming up. First up is their Winter Blues festival, which runs across July 24, 25 & 26. Some 40 artists are expected to play to numbers pushing 20,000 when this beauty rides into town. Early artists include Jimi Hocking, Claude Hay and Cleveland Blues.

Further information is available through webdesign-echuca.info. The following month, country roads will take you home. Taking place from August 7 through August 9, the Echuca-Moama Country Music Festival welcomes three days of entertainment under one roof. Early artists include Roland Storm, The Good Time Band and Craig Giles. Further information is available through echucamoamacmf.com.

National Celtic Festival The 2015 National Celtic Festival has unveiled its line-up, and it’s so good you’ll be dancing a wee jig.

International artists include Brian Kennedy, Ciaran O’Grady & Aifric Boylan, Cherry Grove (pictured), Feis Rois, Fiona Ross Band, Mairead Hurley & Ado Barker, The Duplets and Theatre C21 – Stephen Kelly, while national artists include A Rose and Thorns, Barleyshakes, Borderline Kaylee, Charm of Finches, Classically Celtic, Eric Purdie, Kelly Family Band, Mandy Keating & Helen McLachlan, Melbourne Comhaltas ‘Taste of Irish’, Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Club, Moondance – Van Morrison Tribute Band, Peter Larkins & Helen Begley, Sásta, Tawny, The Simpson Three, Tolka, Working Dog Union, Zeon, Portarlington Harmonica Club, Bay City Strings, Celtic Piping Club, Christian College Ceilidh Band, Cathie’s Celtic Dance, Geelong Scottish Dance and Celtic Dancing Club of Noumea. Home to Australia’s largest and most diverse Celtic celebration, the National Celtic Festival clocks up a dozen years in 2015 and is thrilled to welcome another year of Celtic music, dancing, songs and jigs, pipers and drummers, markets, displays, workshops, sessions and so much more. Portarlington – June 5-8. For further information and ticket sales refer to nationalcelticfestival.com. The full program is to be announced next month.

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A Change Will Do You Good Lily and the Drum at are it again, sweeping across the nation in support of their latest album Welcome Change.

Contemporary retro rock, blues and roots with a dash of rockabilly is how they go about business, a sound that has kept Lily Higgins and John Yacka pretty busy since their debut performance at Adelaide’s Promethean Theatre a handful of years ago. MusicSA: “This album is effortless, and I don’t mean that in the bad sense! Lily and the Drum just have music flowing from their veins, that they don’t need to put in an effort, it just seems to come naturally to them. Ability just oozes out of their pores and you can hear this musical love right here on their latest release.” Theatre Royal, Castlemaine – May 16.

Hidden Treasures Bendigo’s Jack and the Kids will play a hometown show next month in support of their debut EP Treasures. Heavily influenced by the likes of Pearl Jam and Silverchair, as well as more recent groups such as The Jezabels, Daughter and Volcano Choir, Jack and the Kids enjoyed their 2014 supporting bands including Snakadaktal and The Kite String Tangle. With Treasures you have an EP bursting with driving pianos and synths alongside guitars soaked in reverb. It was recorded and mixed

by Alex Quayle, whose credits include Birds of Tokyo and Flume. Music Man, Bendigo – May 7.

They will be joined by Brisbane’s Soviet X-Ray Record Club and locals The Ivory Knives and Tusk.

Mmm, Nachos Get the margaritas ready because Chicago’s Weekend Nachos are making their way Down Under in June. Sharing a name with one of the

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tastiest foods the world has known, the band is widely regarded as ‘powerviolence’ kings.

They formed back in 2004 out of DeKalb, the same town in which Charles Bronson was formed, with the objective of making music that combined furious playing with really slow, brutal heavy parts.

Their latest studio album is 2013’s Still, although last year they released a split with Wojczech. The Karova, Ballarat – June 10. The band wishes to advise us that their only knowledge of Australia comes from the classic Simpsons episode, Bart vs.

Australia.

In the Garden of Eden It’s not all that long now before songbird Karise Eden kicks off her ‘Things I’ve Done’ tour, named after her album of the same name. Chances are you will know Karise as the winner of The Voice in 2012. Then the age of 19, Karise was breaking records for the most number of singles in the national sales chart – four songs in the Top 5 ARIA singles chart, no less. She would also have the biggest selling album for a local artist for the year. Things I’ve Done is her first original album, following on from 2012’s everywhere album My Journey. For those who missed it, her Australian Story feature can be found through abc.net.au.

Regent Cinemas, Ballarat – June 18 & The Capital, Bendigo – June 20.

Hello, I’m Johnny Cash When it comes to music, few names are held in such high regard as Johnny Cash. Daniel Thompson has been doing a fine job of recreating the man’s legend through his show Johnny Cash: The Concert and now he is thrilled to welcome his new show, In Solitary.

Featuring songs spanning Cash’s entire career, In Solitary takes a look at the man he was, the

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man he became and the legend that has grown since his death in 2003.

Accompanied by longtime friend and collaborator Mike Carr, Daniel Thompson’s In Solitary will be on the road until June. APAC, Ararat – April 30; COPACC, Colac – May 3; The Bridge, Castlemaine – May 15; and The Loft, Warrnambool – May 16.

Check out the Forte Freebies on page 10!

Don’t Mention the War A dozen episodes is all it took for Fawlty Towers to become a classic TV show. In a list compiled by the British Film Institute in 2000, the chaotic sitcom topped the list, beating out the likes of Catchy Come Home, Doctor Who, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Parkinson.

In 1997, Faulty Towers the Dining Experience debuted in Brisbane.

Today, eight teams of casts tour the world, bringing Basil, Cybil and Manuel into your dining room. What you get is a three-course meal and a two-hour largely improvised show. Ballarat Golf Club, Ballarat – June 17 & The Newnorthern, Castlemaine – June 18.

The local cast features Karen Hamilton (Sybil), Geoffrey Reczek (Manuel) and Ron Kelly (Basil).

In Blues We Trust One man, one voice, singing and playing the blues is how we are introduced to John McNamara. 2014 was a golden year for John. He won the Melbourne Blues Appreciation Society (MBAS) Blues Challenge in the solo/duo division, winning him a spot at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, and also released his debut album, Alone with the Blues. He also has two successful Edinburgh Fringe Festivals under his belt, as well as tours of Germany and Singapore, not to mention tours alongside the likes of

A Good Hart is Easy to Find When you have a guy like Prince in your corner you know you’re doing something right. Daniel Hart, better known as Harts, is a singer-songwriter, multiinstrumentalist and composer whose blend of styles is setting the world on fire.

Prince had heard some of his tracks and checked him out on YouTube. Liking what he heard, he contacted Daniel, inviting him to Paisley Park. “I thought it was a scam at first, like a Nigerian prince scam, but my manager looked over it and it was legit,” he told FasterLouder’s Lachlan Kanoniuk. “I sent my number and one morning I got a call, and it was Prince. He spoke to me and invited me over.” Things don’t get much cooler than having that on your resume. Recently, Harts took to triple j as part of their popular Like a Version segment, taking on ‘Aerial Love’ by Daniel Johns. He also performed ‘Red & Blue’, a single lifted from his debut album Daydreamer. If all this wasn’t enough, the rising star is also set to release a new EP in June, which will be complemented by a big ol’ tour. Breakthrough is the title of the forthcoming fivetrack release, written, recorded and produced entirely by Harts. The Karova, Ballarat – June 6 & The Loft, Warrnambool – June 7.

Joanne Shaw Taylor, Jon Stevens, Rick Price, Diesel, Shannon Knoll and Russell Morris. The Main Bar, Ballarat – May 23 & Goldmines Hotel, Bendigo – June 14.

Bendigo – May 20; and Lighthouse Theatre, Warrnambool – May 22.

For tickets please check in on beingmiriam.com.au.

Something Important to Say

The life and times of Brisbane-born, Melbourne-based Dan Parsons hasn’t always been easy, but the rough times have arguably made him a better man and musician.

After his relocation to Melbourne, the songman found himself in the position of going stretches where affording food was but a dream. Things got better when he became a hired gun for Kate MillerHeidke, touring Southeast Asia and the States. It was during this time that he began stepping out more frequently as a solo performer. With two albums down and a third on the way, the tide has indeed turned for Parsons.

His new single is ‘I’ll Live and I’ll Die’, which he is during throughout May.

Born in Oxford, England, Miriam Margolyes is an internationally renowned actress and voice artist who Australia likes to claim as one of our own.

First gaining recognition for her work as a voice artist, Miriam’s first major role was as Elephant Ethel in the 1977 feature Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers.

In her new show The Importance of Being Miriam, Miriam inhabits over twenty characters, with an impressive array of accents, as she reflects on the influences which have helped shape her life and career. Her Majesty’s Theatre, Ballarat – May 19; Ulumbarra Theatre,

Live and Let Die

Babushka Bar, Ballarat – May 22.

Simply Divine With their blend of thick, driving rhythms, atmospheric layers, intricate solos and powerful, emotive vocals, Divine Ascension has struck a loud chord with metal fans. Part of the band’s appeal is frontwoman Jennifer Borg, whose voice once heard is not easily forgotten. They formed out of Melbourne in 2007 after guitarist Robb Inglis placed an ad in melband. Drummer Luke Wenczel was first to spot the ad, and the others were soon to follow.

Divine Ascension was chosen as their name – it was the only one everyone agreed upon. The band has released two albums in 2011’s As the Truth Appears and 2014’s Liberator. Music Man, Bendigo – May 15 & The Barwon, Geelong – May 30.

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Bendigo’s Ulumbarra Theatre will play host to the World Premiere Season of NED – A New Australian Musical, the musical production based on the legend and history of the infamous Ned Kelly. The production coincides with the Bendigo Art Gallery’s Imagining Ned exhibition (until June 28).

Produced by Groaning Dam Productions, the musical has been in development since 2011. NED tells the story of an ordinary boy, born to an Irish immigrant family, who would become a celebrated figure – a man who, even after more than 130 years after his death, captivates the imagination. Adding to the experience, NED will commence as you enter the theatre with a walk underneath the gallows on the site of the former Sandhurst Gaol. Composer and lyricist of NED, Bendigo’s own Adam Lyon (King Kong): “I think it’s a fantastic opportunity to tell a truly regional story, written and produced by regional people, having its World Premiere here in Bendigo for the opening of the new Ulumbarra Theatre which has been amazingly integrated into the old Sandhurst Gaol.”

Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo – May 21-30.

A preview of the production can be found by hitting up YouTube and searching Ned the Musical – Such is Life.

The Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis Show

Q&A

The likeness is uncanny, simply looking at Tom Stevens and Tony Lewis and you can instantly see the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in them. Hear their jokes and witness their chemistry on stage and it’s a whole other story, it’s as if the original show has been pulled from the TV and brought back to life. We had a chat to the performers about how they got together as the infamous duo.

Hi guys, thanks for taking the time to chat with Forte magazine, how are you and what are you up to at the moment?

Tom: Thank you for your interest in what we do! Right now I’m watching Wheel Of Fortune...I love that show!!!!

You’ve obviously got a huge background individually as the character, but is it nice to finally have Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis together in the one show?

Tony: I had always dreamed of having a “Dean” for my Jerry, but never in my wildest dreams did I think there was someone out there that had his look, sound and attention to detail. One night after a show, I found a clip of Tom Stevens on YouTube and in my almost 27 years (at that time) had never seen anything closer to Dean than Tom. In fact, I initially thought he was miming. I woke my wife at 3.30am and insisted she come watch his clip. I wrote to Tom and we began communicating via email and Skype.

When we appeared together for the first time, it was like finding my left shoe – we were a perfect fit. Tom is like my alter equivalent from the other side of the globe. He

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Brothers in Arms

Fun4Kids Festival

The Fangs Are Out

Jacqui Newland is Letting Go

Good Times & Great Vibes

Rebel with a Cause

Australian Country Music Award winners in 2009, 2010 and 2012, and Group of the Year at the 2010 Australian Independent Country Music Awards – it’s not a bad little resume the Davidson Brothers are carving out. Hamish and Lachlan Davidson grew up in rural Victoria in a town called Yinnar to become one of the country’s hottest bluegrass acts. Multiinstrumentalists on the banjo, fiddle and mandolin, their most recent release is 2014’s Wanderlust, an eleventrack album of original material, three of which are instrumentals. While the album is entrenched in bluegrass, the brothers have injected elements of folk and roots. Goldmines Hotel, Bendigo – May 24.

Tickets for 2015’s Fun4Kids Festival go on sale in May. Widely regarded as Australia’s best festival for children, the festival is made up of several fun zones aimed to both entertain and educate. Activities, games and workshops all feature. Taking a look at last year’s event, and we saw a 2.5-acre village host 16 different zones ranging from cooking to creating, baby animals to woodwork. In order to keep things fresh, some of the zones will change in 2015; however, if you have a look at the website listed below you’ll get a better feel of what is in store. The Fun4Kids Festival takes place in Warrnambool from June 28 to July 4.

Take an early look at things by hitting up fun4kids. com.au.

Please make feel welcome Portland’s Red Fang, who are gracing us with their presence on their first headlining tour. While the heavy-hitting band did take in Soundwave in 2013, this tour casts the spotlight firmly on them.

The band released their latest (and third) album, Whales and Leeches, in 2013. Metal Injection: “Red Fang forged their sound into the new stoner rock benchmark, and will be regarded as their best full album to date.

Kick back with a PBR and enjoy.” The Barwon Club, Geelong – May 9.

Please note that the first 100 payers at each show will receive a free limited edition tour poster, which you will be able to collect from the merchandise table.

Geelong’s Jacqui Newland turned to Oz rock royalty when it came to her audition for the 2011 season of The X Factor, busting out AC/ DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’.

Following her elimination, Jacqui has spent the years since writing and recording her EP Let Go. Speaking to the Geelong Advertiser at the beginning of the month, Jacqui said: “I’ve been writing for this for about a year now; I first thought I wanted to do a single release, but it didn’t show the versatility of my songs so I decided to do five songs on an EP … This way I feel it takes the listeners on more of a journey and it gives me more leeway to express myself as a singer and songwriter.” The Workers Club, Geelong – May 9.

Formed in 2010 and with members from Australia, Chile and Brazil, sevenpiece roots-reggae outfit Rasta Unity is a beautiful, vibrant ball of sound. It’s not difficult to pick their influences – Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Toots, Marcia Griffiths, I-Threes, Third World, The Wailing Souls are all there, combining the forces of Jamaican rocksteady and roots music. The band released their debut EP, Global Warning, at The Corner in Melbourne last year as part of a bash to celebrate Bob Marley’s birthday. Wolseley Wines – June 7. They’ll be joined at the gig by Squid.

This is the final gig of the venue’s season, so put on your best threads and get on down to some feel-good tunes.

Reece Mastin has returned to the music world with new EP Rebel and the Reason, his first new collection of tracks in a couple of years.

With a new label and new management, things are taking a different shape in recent times for The X Factor winner. Speaking with Speaker TV about his shift to independence, Reece said: “It’s a different way of thinking about things that trouble you and it feels a lot more powerful. For me, it makes me feel more in control about the situations I’m in, even when I’ve not been physically or verbally able to say anything or speak my truth.” The Capital, Bendigo – June 19.

According to Reece, the new material is a little edgier than his previous work.

Koroit Irish Festival

Echuca’s Riverboats Music Festival will take place from February 19 to 21 in 2016.

Early bird tickets are available for the Queenscliff Music Festival, which takes place across November 27, 28 & 29. Punk rocker Luca Brasi will do every little thing they can do to entertain you at Geelong’s Barwon Hotel, tomorrow night, May 1. In last-minute news, Kutcha Edwards and Shiralee Hood take in The Bridge, Castlemaine tonight, April 30. The Art checks into The Loft, Warrnambool on May 9. Richie Langford drops by Martians Café, Deans Marsh on June 6. Amie Brûlée & Her Swinging Jazz Band serves up a vintage dance night at Ballarat’s Mechanics Institute on May 9. The National Wool Museum’s Scarf Festival opens to the public June 5, running under the banner ‘Coastlines’. Morth celebrate their one-year anniversary at Music Man, Bendigo on May 9. Painters and Dockers have a date with Wolseley Wines on May 10.

The Right Destination

NED: The Musical

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Ladles and jellyfish, Ben Salter is set to release his new album next month. Hoorah! The Stars My Destination is album number two for the songman, recorded at a farm in Central Queensland with Dan Luscombe behind the wheel and with fellow Gin Clubbers Adrian Stoyles and Angus Agars on deck. It also features Liz Stringer, John Bedggood and Seja Vogel, because it’s hard to go wrong with that quality. As you probably know, Ben has a pretty good track record having been a founding member of Giants of Science, The Gin Club and The Wilson Pickers. His newie follows on from his debut solo album The Cat and the EP European Vacation.

The Bridge, Castlemaine – May 30. knew when to say what line where, I knew when to interject on his lines or not. It was unrehearsed spontaneous and as fresh as the real Dean and Jerry.

It was in a word: magic.

We are even the same age difference as they were.

Uncanny!

You’ve got a pretty extensive tour coming up, how long did it all take to get together, prepare and rehearse for?

Tom: The thing about working with another professional who knows his craft is you don’t have to worry about rehearsal.

We come up with a concept and a small script and then the rest is just going with it. Sometimes we will just do something off the cuff and say, “That was hysterical we gotta add that to the show!” I personally have never had as much fun and looked forward to working as I do with this show. Tony is truly my brother from another mother.

What’s the best thing about being able to play

The Saint of Rock Michael John was born in the UK, grew up in New Zealand, and then moved to Australia, so there is a lot of goodness that helps fuel his band Arcane Saints. After rounding up some players who shared his vision, the band set about touring as hard as anyone. Along the way, they caught the attention of Toby Wright (Alice in Chains, Metallica), who invited them to record with him in Nashville. The result was their debut album, Turning the Tide. Earlier this year the band released In the Shade of the Juniper, a new six-track EP, this time featuring the talents of Scott Horscroft (Silverchair, Birds of Tokyo). The EP features Shut Up and Choke Me’s Shar Dee. Music Man, Bendigo – May 2.

A Little Ego is Good As a musician, you never quite know where you’re going to meet like-minded friends. For singer/ drummer/songwriter Terry Gardiner and producer/songwriter Jerome Higgins, their paths crossed at a kindergarten working bee. Discovering they shared a love of Bowie, The Beatles and Britpop, they spent the next two years in a small studio nutting out a sound that brought together the ’70s and ’90s with contemporary production values. They called themselves The Starks, and their debut album is The Earth & The Ego. Featuring a guest spot from Dallas Crane’s Dallas Larkin and John Farnham’s long-term saxophonist Steve Williams, the album is a psychedelic pop trip.

The Bridge, Castlemaine – May 16.

Sucked in Big Time With the co-headlining tour of Supersuckers and The BellRays slowing but surely creeping up, you’re still in luck when it comes to tickets for their shows at The Barwon, Geelong on May 27 and The Karova, Ballarat on May 28. Both bands have been in the business for a long, long time. The Supersuckers – of which Lemmy of Motorhead said: “If you don’t like the Supersuckers, you don’t like rock’n’roll” – formed as The Black Supersuckers back in 1988 out of Tuscon, Arizona. Their latest album is 2014’s Get the Hell. The BellRays, meanwhile, formed in the early 1990s out of Riverside, California.

Their latest release is 2010’s Black Lightning.

Tickets are available through Oztix.

Held in the small rural town of Koroit, located between Warrnambool and Port Fairy, the Koroit Irish Festival welcomes a fine touch of green this weekend. Despite having a population of around 2000 people, the festival packs one hell of a punch. Mike Brady (‘Up There Cazaly’) is this year’s ambassador, while Damien Leith, Maria Forde, Oh Pep, Old Melbourne Road, Cill Airne, The Kilmurphys, Tommy, Tuddy & Mick, Kayla Dwyer, Rusty O’Bucks, Melissa Bowman and the O’Shea Ryan Dancers will perform. A highlight of the festival is the Australian Danny Boy Championship.

The Koroit Irish Festival takes place from May 1 through May 3, with all you need to know found at koroitirishfestival.com.au.

Baby One More Time

When & Where: Wyndham Cultural Centre, Werribee – May 6, The Palms at Crown, Melbourne – May 8, The Lighthouse Theatre, Warrnambool – May 9, GPAC, Geelong – May 10 & The Capital, Bendigo – May 13

your character?

Tom: The best thing about being Dean is that I can be as relaxed as I want because that was Dean....if I screw up a line or mess up a song I just make a joke about it. Dean loved spontaneity.

And why should people come along to the show?

Tom: If people want to be transported back to an era that will bring back fond memories of their past as well as introduce their children to the world’s most famous

musical/comedy team, then they should see this show.

Even if you never knew Martin and Lewis you will laugh and enjoy this show.

Tony: Audiences can expect to see Dean and Jerry’s like never before, with fresh skits, new characters and surprises, historians can certainly expect the great songs and duets in two part harmony.

Thanks again for taking the time to talk with us, is there anything else you’d like to share?

Tony: I leave you with two great quotes from our audience members in USA: “ H.g.wells did invent a time machine – you guys are living proof ” “OMG, it was great to see you guys in colour”

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Planning a function? Forte's got you covered!

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Barwon Club Hotel

Situated just a stones throw from the ambience of the Barwon River; stands a venue with a special ambience of its very own.

The iconic Barwon Club Hotel has the atmosphere, function areas, facilities, attention to detail and most importantly the food and beverage options to make a roaring success of any function.

Outside The Barwon Club patrons can take advantage of the modern, relaxing ‘Barn’ function area that has become a real

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highlight for many over the past four years. Featuring a bar of its own and opening onto an alfresco area, the Barn is the ideal place to host a daytime or evening function any time of the week and at any time of the year. Hosting 40 to 140 people; food and beverage packages can be discussed with the chef and manager to meet patrons’ every requirement and budget. From a gourmet barbecue with mates to an engagement party catered with delicious finger-food right, through to a fully catered sit-down

Batesford Hotel

meal, the Barn is the perfect setting.

Inside a second great function area option is available – with a special twist.

The Back Lounge can seat up to 120 people for functions and with a dance floor, stage and its own PA system, the Lounge transforms into a band room, allowing gigs hosting audiences of up to 300 people.

According to Greg Dodds owner of the Barwon Club both function areas offer something different.

“The Barn has a really fantastic party

atmosphere because of the way it’s set up, with the indoor/ outdoor areas a wonderful advantage.

And the Back Lounge/ Band Room is a unique venue to host all kinds of gigs.”

For more information and to discuss your next function call The Barwon Club on 5221 4584.

Batesford Hotel caters for the most intimate to the most extravagant wedding.

They offer a wide range of packages including sit down, cocktail and rotisserie buffet style.

Location: 509 Moorabool Street, South Geelong Phone: 03 5221 4584 Open Hours: Monday – Saturday: 11.00am – Late, Sunday: 3.00pm - Late

Situated on the edge of the Moorabool River and framed by the blue stone bridge dating from 1859, the hotel’s Moorabool Reception Room and Garden offers a romantic, boutique

style location perfect for your ceremony and reception. The room features a private bar, stage, dance floor, open fire place and outdoor deck.

Award winning cuisine combined with their professional and experienced wedding planner ensures that no detail is overlooked and your special day is just the way you dreamed.

The Moorabool Room and Garden also caters to Garden parties, Birthday Parties (18th & 21st Birthdays are not catered to), Anniversaries, Christenings, First Communion Celebrations, Funerals / Wakes and Corporate functions.

This really is the perfect venue to hold your special event whatever that may be.

The Hotel is situated a short 10 minute

drive from the heart of Geelong and offers ample parking.

Please contact Tanya Bennett to book an appointment to find out more about their packages and arrange a tour of the venue.

Location: 700 Old Ballarat Rd, Batesford Phone: 03 5276 1201 email: tanya@batesfordhotel. com.au

GROVEDALEHOTEL

DIFFERENT SPACES FOR

> THE JUKE / GARDEN BAR

> THE JUKE / GARDEN BAR

DIFFERENT OCCASIONS

> THE TERRACE

> THE TERRACE

WEB. GROVEDALEHOTEL.COM.AU

MAKE YOUR NEXT FUNCTION A MEMORABLE ONE AT THE GROVEDALE

WANT TO KNOW MORE OR MAKE A BOOKING? SEVERAL SPACES TO CHOOSE FROM

Contact Peta Tanis - 1300 GROVEDALE (1300476833)

CATERING FROM 10-150 GUESTS

or functions@grovedalehotel.com.au

OPEN & PRIVATE FUNCTIONS PREMIUM & CASUAL SET MENUS ROAMING CANAPÉS & PLATTERS

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Customs House

Customs House are proud of its versatility with functions.

The picture-perfect ambience is unique in the region, with a elegant décor that will make your special event unforgettable.

They offer packages that are tailored around your ideas and will endeavour to make every wish come true.

The building consists of the main dining room, two private

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dining rooms and Bar 1856.

Customs House can accommodate anything from a small intimate gathering, to a larger event of up to 150 guests. The main room is large and open with an inviting setting. The two private dining rooms are located behind the main restaurant area, both rooms are exclusive, private and luxurious: the first being the Balmain Room

Elephant & Castle

and the second the Cornish Room. Each room can combine to be one and both offer laptop plug in for presentations displayed on 50inch LCDs.

There’s plenty of options for music, with the ability to hire a DJ, use the in house system or bring in an iPod and listen to your own music.

The venue caters for just about all

events, including birthdays, corporate functions, weddings, engagements, private high teas, baby showers, hens days, Christmas functions they really do it all.

Location: 57-59 Brougham Street, Geelong (Waterfront Facing, Basement Level) Phone: 03 5246 6500 WEB: customshouse.biz

Boasting over 130 years of history, The Elephant and Castle feels like a home away from home. After one visit to this iconic Geelong venue, you will have discovered your new ‘local’. The warm and inviting atmosphere provides the perfect venue for groups of any size to come in, relax and have a good time on their next special occasion.

Welcoming sit down dinners to cocktail

or canape events, the Elephant and Castle is renowned for providing patrons with a variety of choices to cater to their every whim, taking all the stress out of the often chaotic planning process. With a large open bar, velvetcushioned chairs and couches situated by beautiful red gum tables, this truly is the local pub experience at its most decadent.

If you are looking for a

venue that guarantees good food and the same high quality service then the Elephant and Castle is the place to be.

Functions Manager, Mari-Carmen, says; “We are consistent in our service of food, being a local pub it is of the greatest of importance that we continue to be consistent in delivering great affordable food”.

To host your next function at the

Elephant and Castle, or to find out more about the function packages available, contact the team on 5221 3707, for email enquires: enquiries@ elephantandcastle. com.au and to visit the website: www. elephantandcastle. com.au Location: 158 McKillop St, East Geelong Phone: 03 5221 3707 Open Hours: 11am-12am 7 days

Geelong Football Club

Simonds Stadium offers rooms for any occasion, from a formal inner sanctum “Brownlow Room Experience” for 20 up to a seated dinner for over 300. Even a multi-room event for over 1000 people.

Boy, there really is no function too big or small for these guys!

It is easy to feel the aura of those that have passed through the ground especially in the older stands where real legends have stood and told their story. Contrasted by the contemporary ‘Captain’s’ and ‘Alex Popescu’ rooms with floor to ceiling windows and all modern facilities.

The Club can cater for the youngest birthday party through to 18th and 21st celebrations and beyond! With its spectacular views, many couples have selected these rooms on their special day to Wed! The venue has an extensive Liquor Licence across the stadium and whether it be a live band for 500 people, a 80’s inspired Disco or the most sophisticated cocktail party Simonds Stadium has you covered!

With easy access and parking for up to 500 cars Simonds is the most accessible inner city function centre.

Renowned for the highest quality Food and Beverage, the club source locally where possible so their produce is the freshest and the menu’s cater for the most discerning palette.

With personable and professional events and function managers your event will be handled personally by one of their great team where they aim to deliver beyond your expectations!

Your options are endless with a Geelong Cats Function it truly is the place where they can pretty much cater to anyones needs, even if you don’t support the

Geelong Hummer Limo’s

Cats! New General Manager Chris Shine and his team are ready to work with you to help make your dream event a reality, as their desire is to deliver Hospitality the Geelong Way! Give them a call today to book in the event of your life, phone: (03) 5225 2367 Functions are held at Simonds Stadium/Kilgour St, Geelong VIC 3220, Australia Location: Simonds Stadium/ Kilgour St, Geelong Phone: 03 5225 2367 web: clubcatsgeelong. com.au/

Geelong Hummer Limo’s are the region’s premier transport service, covering Geelong, the Surfcoast, Melbourne and surrounding areas. Their red carpet treatment will add that touch of class to your special occasion.

The Geelong Hummer Limo experience offers only the most professional chauffeurs who are dressed to impress and fully licensed by the Victorian Taxi

Directorate. On arrival and departure a red carpet rollout to and from destinations is an absolute must.

The drivers are skilled to capture your moments in the Hummer with a professional camera and photos can either be emailed or saved to a storage device for delivery.

The vehicle contains a 14-16 seater with full chrome pack for extra bling. It is unique in that it has a nintendo

64 with Mario Kart - the only Hummer in the world with this gaming console.

Underbody neon lights and electric entry and exit steps and full three tone leather interior will make you really feel like a star with five flat-screen TVs, two fully equipped bars, a state of the art Karaoke system, and disco flooring with fibre optic ceilings. You will never want to get out and may even choose to spend your whole event cruising the streets in

true luxury style.

They offer services for any function, including weddings and hen’s nights, corporate transfers and events, graduations, formals and debutants, birthdays, and fantastic night-out’s including concerts and Valentine’s Day romance.

Phone: 0488 705 172 web: geelonghummer limousines.net.au

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Geelong RSL

Grovedale Hotel

Speaking with Joel Taylor from The Grovedale Hotel, it seems there is a lot on offer at this local gem.

The Geelong RSL has years of character and charm but with all the conveniences of modern day dining.

Displaying their commitment to the local community and ensuring the continued success of return patrons the Geelong RSL showcases some of the best prices in town.

Their food is exquisite and the atmosphere is fun making for the perfect all around event. Holding

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functions for pretty much everything (sorry no 18th Birthdays) their team of experts are available to make your event the very best it can be.

Head Chef, David Harper and Functions Coordinator, Mitchell Van Es agree that at the Geelong RSL; “We are very competitively priced and are able to cater to your every need”. The recently renovated function rooms in Geelong are

clean, modern and spacious, and there are various sized board rooms available.

If you are looking for a bit of casual entertainment on the weekend while enjoying one of the sumptuous meals off their renowned menu, keep an eye on their fantastic monthly events on offer. Their ever changing monthly lineup is sure to offer some great theatre and soulful tunes.

So when it comes to booking your next function check out the Geelong RSL with their great and friendly service, terrific shows, safe environment and of course their show-stopping food.

Location: 50 Barwon Heads Road, Belmont Phone: 03 5241 1766 Open Hours: Hours: 9.30am – 11.30pm / 12:30 Fri & Sat

“At the Grovedale Hotel we have four options for your function needs,” he tells. “The Wisteria room can cater for up to 150 people either informal or formal occasions. If you’re looking for a formal event for up to 300 we can transform our award winning Portofino’s Restaurant into your ideal function room.

Our Juke Garden Bar and Tiger Bar also host more relaxed open style functions which are proving popular!”

Given so many fabulous options The Grovedale Hotel really can cater for everything; informal and formal, they’ve got you covered.

Aesthetically the venue is a sight to behold with a contemporary moden vibe imbuing the Wisteria Function Room and Portofino’s Restaurant. Whilst the Tiger Bar has a more relaxed feel for all styles of celebratory events, and the Terrace function space has a casual dining feel for the smaller more intimate functions,” Joel beams.

With some incredible feedback from patrons and party goers it’s not just Joel that sees

how much this local gem has to offer, “Our customers often remark about our large choice of options both for food and also rooms and styles. We offer a high quality of customer service that is well regarded by our customer base.

While the choice of food is impressive, the price of the venue is what really blows you away. Open style functions and cocktail functions in any of our spaces can enjoy a roaming style platter selection with prices starting at $39 and two-three course meals starting at $38$44 while a premium dining menu starting at $50+ is available

for all functions. The Grovedale can also set you up with a suitable drinks or tab package if needed.

Also availaible is the impressive Terrace Room which is brand new and completely glam. This tranquil option will be everyone’s first choice all year round, where you can seat up to 70 friends or 100 standing.

Location: 236 Surfcoast Hwy Grovedale Phone: 03 52432814 Open Hours: Venue 9am – 5am and Functions 7am – 1am

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The Lord Nelson

The Lord Nelson is situated right in the heart of Geelong’s CBD and in walking distance to the beautiful waterfront making it the perfect venue to hold your private function. From Birthday parties to leaving dos, corporate events to big nights out, they will make sure your party will be one to remember.

Golden Plate award

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winner of 2014 for ‘Best Hotel’, the Lord Nelson will offer you a premier night of hospitality. There are several separate areas in the venue, each with a different designation, creating a variety of experiences. Whatever your preference, they are sure to have a setting that will suit you. They also now boast an impressive beer garden, that is considered to be the best in Geelong.

The Max Hotel

If you are organising a private party for work colleagues, friends or family then the friendly team at The Lord Nelson are on hand to help you through every step.

Their mix of food, drink and atmosphere will amaze your guests. They can also devise you a bespoke menu for your private party, depending on your needs and requirements. If you

need a personalised theme then our friendly staff can ensure that this is the case. All you need to do is speak to the function manager of The Lord Nelson.

Location: Malop Street & Bellerine St, Geelong Phone: 03 5222 8756 WEB: thelordnelson.com.au

The Max Hotel has undergone several refurbishments since its establishment in 1854 and the venue we see today is a true credit to its visionaries both in the past and the present. With three amazing spaces that cater to various needs The Max has solidified itself as one of Geelong’s premier function venues.

With such a strong commitment to client satisfaction The Max is able to provide a rich service for anybody

looking to have a fantastic function, conference, event or party. In fact such is the diversity of The Max and with their knowledge of throwing the perfect party they are able to put on a variety of different events from a Dance Party, Corporate Conference, Wedding Reception, Cocktail Party, Engagement Party even Hens and Bucks Parties.

picturesque bay views.

Levels two and three showcasing the stunning sights perfectly.

What makes The Max that extra special is their stunning location and

The third level room meanwhile contains stunning lighting that

Level two can hold up to 150 people and also has a private bar, a large deck, stage, full lighting rig and can host 150 people comfortably.

The room comes with light rigs, plus full upto-date night life music system for your event, plus the ability to play your own iPod playlists.

helps sets the mood for any occasion, it too comes with a fantastic sound-system, with iPod connectivity. It is the perfect setting for a variety of events.

Birthday parties of all ages are are possible at the venue, including 18th celebrations.

Location:

2 Gheringhap Street, Geelong Phone: 03 5229 5504 WEB: maxhotelgeelong. com.au

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Mrs Hyde

With Mrs Hyde’s sophisticated and majestic décor there is no need for additional enhancing on your behalf. Comprising of the main dining room and two private function rooms, Mrs Hyde can accommodate anything from a small intimate gathering to a larger event of up to 200 or more guests.

Mrs Hyde is available for anything from

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Newtown Event Centre

weddings and engagements to corporate weekday meetings and workshops.

The main ‘Chesterfield Room’ is large and open with a romantic inviting ambience and holds around 200 people standing. Or you can choose one of the two private functions rooms, with the first being the dark and alluring ‘Black Cigar Room’ holding 60 standing and the second

being the gorgeous feminine ‘Tea Room’ with 45 standing.

Their selection of food and beverages cannot be rivalled and packages can be tailored to suit both your requirements and budget. The music is versatile in every room.

You can hire a DJ, have Live a live band, simply set your iPod on shuffle or you can leave it up to the specific catered for genres on

the in-house system.

There is plenty of parking around Mrs Hyde, with options on the street in font of the venue as well as an off-street complex at the rear.

Location: 11 Malop Street, Geelong Phone: 03 5223 1228 web: mrshyde.com.au

If you are looking for the ideal Geelong hire venue, reception hall or conference rooms for your next social or corporate event, be sure to look into the Newtown Event Centre. The Geelong function rooms are perfectly suited as a wedding reception venue, birthday party venue, training room facilities, presentation night venue or exhibition centre. With complete

catering facilities and full bar, they can cater for fully seated two or three course dining, finger food for cocktail parties or light snacks for corporate training events.

Centrally located in the prestige suburb of Newtown, the venue boasts two separate rooms, one main room that accommodates for up to 150 people seated or 400 people in

a Cocktail style event.

There is also a smaller room on offer that seats 40 or caters for up to 80 people standing.

There is ample parking both on and off-street. The newly built rooms contain modern facilities with full disabled access. The food is 1st class food and can be altered to suit your needs, there is a fantastic PA system whether you choose

to have a live band, DJ or play your iPod playlist on shuffle.

They have a whole team of friendly staff who are there to help and are ready to make your night unforgettable.

Location: 40 Read Street, Geelong Phone: 0447 770 648 web: newtowneventcentre. com.au

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Opium Bar

From an 18th to an engagement, a corporate function to a hens party, Opium is one cosy cocktail bar that can cater to your every desire.

A seasoned host for an endless variety of events its prime location on James Street, in the hub of Geelong’s night-life scene, makes Opium the perfect spot to celebrate with your guests.

The modern décor with an Asian influence, the great

music, friendly bar staff and security, ensure that the atmosphere at Opium is always inviting.

Opium stocks a fantastic range of local and foreign beer, and the Opium team are willing to make a variety of exotic award winning cocktails to help you party in style.

Free function room hire and a no minimum spend policy are two of the many advantages of hosting your next event at Opium,

Slate Pool Lounge

making it a fitting location for events with a tight budget.

Opium holds up to 115 people and has a full DJ set up with iPod/USB connections.

Owner of the venue, Paul Shakespeare says; “We have hosted over two hundred functions at Opium Bar and it’s all good news. Patrons appreciate our no-fuss approach to events, our quick responses to booking requests, our position in the

CBD, and our ability to cater to the unique needs of our clients”.

When you’re looking for a relaxed vibe, friendly staff, and a stress-free approach for your event, contact Paul and the team at Opium.

Location: 15 James St, Geelong Phone: 0422 065 455 Open Hours: 6PM-Late, Thur – Sat Available for Functions 7 days from midday

Are you looking for a function with a twist; a sense of something different and a sense of something truly cool?

Then welcome to Slate Pool Lounge. A stylish pool club boasting the finest tables and sleekest furnishings Slate is certainly a location that will have people talking.

With tables given the stamp of approval by owner and renowned local snooker champ Johl Younger, a game

of pool is always a great way to break the game and break the ice with your guests. Much more than your average pool lounge though, Slate offers a relaxing atmosphere that invites patrons to chill out with a beverage and be blown away by their latest state-ofthe-art sound system, stylishly furnished three levels, mezzanine level and their popular outdoor room.

Slate has thirteen large plasma screens

showing music film clips as well as AFL matches. Featuring free function room hire the team at Slate are dedicated to bringing their highest level of satisfaction to you and your partygoers.

Their motto; it’s all about the fun, laughter and entertainment. During the week Slate plays host to a number of pool leagues for all skill levels with great prizes available. So

if you want to evoke your inner hustler, show off your skills to a room full of family, friends or coworkers and of course have a whole lot of fun then contact Slate today about booking your next function.

Location: 50 Little Ryrie Street, Geelong Phone: 03 52 232 911 web: slatepoollounge. com.au

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is available for your exclusive use. We can accommodate up to complete with inbuilt AV system, just perfect for that breakfast or smaller function. Talk to us about exclusive use of the room pecial staff function or work party.

Sporting Globe Bar & Grill

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When it comes to functions, one name that stands out is Geelong’s Sporting Globe Bar & Grill. With access to an exclusive room, stateof-the-art facilities and their function manager by your side, your special event becomes a breeze.

“We have a variety of versatile function rooms, catering for a range of events from casual birthdays to formal receptions, club presentations and corporate events,” says Venue Manager Paige Beyer . “Ideally located in the centre of town on Ryrie St the venue is perfect for your next function. Our function manager will tailor your event to the desired style and budget. Our packages cater for sit-down dinner and cocktail events, with per head or per platter

Rooms

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Room One Restaurant/Café:

pricing. We also provide à la carte service for small groups.”

The Sporting Globe Bar & Grill realise that not every function is the same and so they offer three main function areas. ‘The Cocktail Bar’ is the largest of these, catering for up to 350 people (standing).

Decked out with a large private bar, dance floor and balcony overlooking Union Street, The Cocktail Bar is perfect for large numbers or those that enjoy a little more room. Other features to this room include state-of-the-art lighting, stage area, live music equipment and two projectors.

The ‘Beer Garden’ is suited for the more casual gathering. The expansive bar opens onto a wooden deck with outdoor seating

and a retractable roof, while a 3.75m2 big screen, large gas heater, pool table and 6 x 40” screens allows guests to stay warm and keep an eye on the score.

Lastly, the ‘Lounge Bar’ is perfect for secluded gatherings. Situated upstairs, its private bar and smoking balcony is perfect for an intimate dinner with family or friends. And with its 2 x 40” inch screens, the Lounge Bar can also double as a presentation area.

Once you have selected your room, why not take a look at their catering. Here we once again hand it over to Paige Beyer. “The Sporting Globe offers great catering options for your function with a range of cocktail style platters or set menu options for seated

events. Platters start at $39ea and feature items from our much loved restaurant menu including buffalo wings, barramundi and chip boxes and desserts. Set menus of two-courses or three-courses can be organised with our function manager.”

Room selected: check.

Catering organised: check. What about them tunes? The Cocktail Bar features a stage that has hosted some first-class talent and comes fully equipped with PA system, speakers and DJ decks. They also house a modern sound system with an extensive music library, or if you prefer you can connect your own mp3 player.

There you have it.

Everything you need to make your function a memorable one can be found at the Sporting Globe Bar & Grill, where their hard work means your enjoyment. Street parking is available.

Fully licensed venue. For further information or to generate your own function quote today hit up sportingglobe. com.au.

Location: 175-177 Ryrie Street, Geelong Phone: 03 5224 2600 web: sportingglobe.com.au

Wool Exchange Entertainment Complex

Whether you are looking for a formal or informal setting our restaurant/ café area is available for your exclusive use. We can accommodate up to 70 guests, complete with inbuilt AV system, just perfect for that breakfast meeting, or smaller function. Talk to us about exclusive use of the room for that special staff function or work party.

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days, staff information sessions, training sessions or meetings he art concert sound and lighting, included in the venueplanning rental.

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Technical Equipment:

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Complex. As a result venue is great for functions on the larger Technical Equipment:the beautiful heritage Weddings/Parties/Anything: listed venue with scale, there are three of the art concert sound and lighting, the venuerooms rental.

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Exchange Entertainment Complex Cafe - Functions - Catering - Live Entertainment St, Geelong, Victoria, 3220 222322 woolexchange.com.au www.thewoolexchange.com.au AV specialist, Music Workshop and is subject to additional fees.

With a team of experienced chefs, the Wool Exchange A multi level room, ideal for larger conferences, trade shows musicExchange Entertainment The Wool Complex Entertainment

Room Three

38 forte

Given that the Wool Exchange Entertainment Complex has helped bring such international and national music acts as Karnivool, Pete Catering for both Murray and Amity food and drinks can Affliction to Geelong, be covered by the they are well adept at Cafe venue - Functions - Catering - Live Entertainment in various food handling large crowds

Corio St, Geelong, Victoria, 3220 events and larger weddings. We can easily accommodate44up to 680 T (03) 52 222322 KYIWXW MR GSGOXEMP QSHI SV HIWMKR XLI VSSQ ERH PIZIPW XS ]SYV YRMUYI E info@thewoolexchange.com.au www.thewoolexchange.com.au VIUYMVIQIRXW

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packages on offer. As the venue is located in the heart of the city, it’s easily accessible for out-of-towners or even for those a bit more local to the region and there is ample parking around.

and as a venue have made it possible for such large acts to visit the region. The venue has hosted live music acts and various weddings – something they are known for – as they do have a built in AV equipment and can supply an AV specialist for an extra cost.

Location: 44 Corio St, Geelong Phone: 03 5222 2322 WEB: thewoolexchange. com.au

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Arts / Culture / Lifestyle

We're also on We're also on the interwebs!_ the interwebs!_

Words — Yasmin Mobayad / Laura Bentley.

People — Ian Ballis / Lucy Hardie/ ghsdude.

Pictures — Paige Hocking / Zoe Boyd / Ethan Keay.

WWW.PRJKTR.COM.AU WWW.PRJKTR.COM.AU

PRJKTR Magazine showcases creatives and collectives based in Geelong, alongside diverse individuals & their innovative ideas. Issue one out now! www.prjktr.com.au

forte 39

PRJKTR

Café Culture

DARRIWILL F A R M As the days are getting cooler, it’s only natural for us to seek comfort in the meals we eat. Our stomachs crave the warmth found in hearty winter meals of slow-cooked lamb, healthy soups and the rich butterscotch sauce of a sticky date pudding. These are all items found at the Darriwill Farm Café and meals that head chef Josh Beaumont loves to cook.

“It’s just really flavoursome food,” he says. “It’s all good food and it’s my menu so everything I’ve put on it I love to cook.”

With six weeks to perfect the autumn menu, tested mostly through specials run during the period, the café is set to have another change in the coming weeks, fully welcoming the hearty dishes of winter onto their plates.

Ingredients are sourced as locally as possible, with meat from Sage Beef in Bannockburn, eggs from Kossies in Stonehaven and only organic vegetables to be used. The love for their ingredients follows through in their dishes, as everything from the first breakfast served to the afternoon treat is made in house.

“Everything is made in house – or as much of it as possible. That means sauces, soups, as much as we can, the only thing we can’t do is bake our own bread here,” Josh says.

There’s a clear love for the food that they serve up at Darriwill Farm Café and it’s reflected in the regulars that stream through their door week after week.

“We’ve got people that come in here seven days a week – a few times a day even – and we know their coffee, our staff know exactly what they’re going to order and how they like it,” he says.

With the change in menu has also brought on a new coffee supplier, Julius Meinl , also stocked at the Darriwill Farm Café in Hamilton. Another similarity between the Hamilton venue is the shop attached, with the ethos of bringing quality farm produce to locals without the long trip.

Though the shop sells more than just your deli meats, oils and gourmet treats, there’s also homeware items, hampers and Geelong-made chocolate, all serving as the perfect gifts for a loved one.

With a strong focus on local, quality produce and with love put into each dish, Darriwill Farm Café is easily a spot that can become part of the daily routine.

Where: Shop 10-11, 65-71 Barrabool Road, Highton Phone: 03 5241 2933 Retail: Mon-Sat 9am-5pm; Sun 10am-3pm Café: Mon-Sun 7.30am-5pm Written & photographed by Amanda Sherring

40 forte

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42 forte

Divine Ascension LOCAL FEATURE STORY Written by Amanda Sherring

It’s a beautiful sunny day and guitarist Karl Szulik is sitting at the beach, waiting for the surf to pick up so he can take part in his other love, aside from music that is. “I’ve been surfing since I was a kid; my dad had always been in love with the ocean. He was into spear fishing, surfing and scuba diving so I was always the kid who grew up in the western suburbs and everyone would be playing football or going out partying in high school and I’d be down surfing at the beach or playing guitar at night.

So I’m a bit of a black sheep in that respect,” he says.

It’s being the “black sheep” that led Karl to be a part of numerous bands before settling on the perfect fit in Divine Ascension. Even with full time jobs, the band members all seem to make it work, even landing a gig supporting Kamelot on their tour.

“I remember opening for them and playing ‘Dawn Brings No Mercy’ and in there there’s a big keyboard interlude in the middle of the song and I went side of stage to get a drink and Thomas Youngblood was just standing there side of stage watching our set,” Karl says.

“He was extremely nice and said that he loved the sound and was telling us after the show to get over to Japan and was just generally really helpful. It was extremely humbling of someone with that status to be watching our set and talk with a humble guy from the Western suburbs.”

At that stage the band had only released their demo, but they’ve since released Liberator, their sophomore release with a slight change in band members and sound.

“This album we had two new members so we had six guys, Dave who plays keys obviously made a very different influence on the album from last time. As we didn’t really have a keys player and there was Jason who is a magnificent guitar player as well, so there are different ideas that are coming through from the last album,” he says.

While the keyboardist has had a strong influence on their sound, much credit can be paid to lead singer Jennifer Borg who has helped shaped the band’s unique sound they produce.

In the metal scene, having a female lead can be a heavily criticised decision, though picking Jennifer was simply decided upon by her incredible vocals, which you can witness in any Divine Ascension track.

“Originally we decided to work with Jen because we were looking for a male singer and no one cut it.

Then she came along and had no idea about metal but just loved the music that we were creating and had an

amazing voice so jumped on. We would have had a male singer if someone had of come along with a great voice and a good attitude – but it didn’t work out that way,” he says.

Though it’s probably lucky Jennifer came along, as there seems to be a connection between the band members that enables them to create music to the best of their ability. With Karl taking the reign for instrumentals and Jennifer writing the lyrics, the two seem to be in the same wavelength.

“We found that a lot of the stories Jen came up with lyrics wise actually worked out really well. A few of the ideas that she came up with were exactly the ideas that we had in mind. Which was kind of a little bit scary,” Karl says.

“For example the acoustic track for ‘Memoria’s Longing’, I had that idea for about 10 years or so and I had the idea of what I wanted the song to be about but I refrained from telling Jen what I wanted it to be about.

I really wanted to let her showcase her voice and I sent it to her as just a rough demo and when she sent it back to me, I remember getting goosebumps, because what she was singing about was the exact topic that I wanted the song to be about. It was as if she read my mind.”

While everything has worked out so far, the band are hardly in the mindset of getting lost in the moment.

“Most of the time we’re so busy planning things, that

we’re too busy to think if we’ve made it or done well.

That probably sounds a bit strange but that’s just how we work,” he says.

Even while they mightn’t think they’ve made it, there are still fans out there creating fanzines, delivering praise and like one particular fan, creating YouTube clips based off a whole album.

“There was even a guy called Harry from Germany and he created an entire DVD from our first album.

Each song would link to different videos and sections – he spent ages on it. So he created an entire DVD with our first album, and the first album is over an hour long.

He then uploaded it to YouTube and sent us that clip to it” Karl says.

Even to those fans who haven’t made something physical the band can see, Karl gives his thanks for making what they do possible and helping to drive their passion. “We’re so passionate and we absolutely love it. There’s no real money in this kind of scene unless you’re at Kamelot’s level. So the main drive behind us is motivation and the love to do it,” Karl says.

When&Where: Musicman Megastore, Bendigo – May 15 & The Barwon Club, Geelong – May 30

forte 43

FROC K IT How To Wear Sneakers Outside Of The Gym

Written by Katherine Reynolds www.katthewanderer.com | facebook/katthewanderer | @katthewanderer

Written by Jessica Alves | @jessicazalves

Sneakers are one of my favourite ways to dress down an overly dressed up outfit, which is something I fall into the trap of quite often. I just can’t help myself when I’m putting together an outfit in the morning, and I somehow always end up being a little too dressed up. Basically, sneakers are my outfit life-savers.

Gone are the days of sneaker shaming people wearing joggers and jeans. ‘Lifestyle Sneakers’ are essentially pretty looking runners that can be worn at the gym, or just on a regular day-to-day basis while doing errands, and to top it off, they’re much more comfortable than heels.

But there are so many people — including myself, at one point — that are indifferent to the idea of wearing sneakers in combination with your normal everyday outfit.

There’s just something about the whole ‘joggersand-jeans’ combination that brings on heart palpitations in younger generations.

Many of us simply cannot shake off the strange feeling that we’re slowly merging into our parents. But never fear, there are ways that you can style sneakers so you can avoid what I like to call the ‘Uncle Jimmy’ look.

It’s important to have a good balance of dressy casual when you’re putting together

your sneaker themed outfit.

Tailored pieces, such as blazers or coats, tend to add a lot of sophistication – as the contrast of the clean and structured garment helps to counteract the casual nature of the sneakers.

In warmer temperatures, button down shirts will also have a similar effect.

Sneakers are often viewed as quite boyish and unkept, so to curb that harshness, pair sneakers with luxurious fabrics, such as leathers, silks, cashmeres, sequins or even fur — the faux kind, of course. I love this combination because it gives such girly and feminine fabrics a very masculine and tom-boyish spin.

Handbags are my one true vice. Seriously, I love them more than is healthy. I feel as if bags are less an accessory than they are an essential component of your outfit and life. To me, my bag is just as important as what top you’re wearing, if not more so as it’s essentially my home away from home. With your bag, you want to go for something a little structured to help sharpen up the look, and again, balance out the relaxed nature of the sneakers. The rest is up to you! It doesn’t matter if it’s a cross body, clutch or even a backpack, if it’s structured, it’ll do the trick.

Finally, if you do wear them with pants or jeans, which

ENGLISH PUB CULTURE.

I highly recommend, I find that they look best when you’re flashing a bit of ankle. Ankle grazers or cropped bottoms are what you want to go for. Alternatively, just roll up the cuffs of your jeans.

A midi or maxi skirt will also show off a little bit of the ankle and will also add a bit of a feminine edge to the outfit. That’s that, it really is that easy. Don’t forget that you can always experiment with different brands and different styles of sneaker as well, just do it!

Where’s Joss?

Playing to thousands seems to be a common thing for the young Geelong band Where’s Joss? And they’re set for a performance in front of 50,000 as the halftime entertainment for the Adelaide Crows vs Port Adelaide match. We had a chat to Joss Russell about playing to a big crowd, his side project and going solo.

Hey Joss, thanks for chatting to Forte! How are you and what are you up to at the moment?

No worries Forte, thanks for having me! At the moment I’m in full preparation mode for the Adelaide oval gig that’s coming up. We’ve been rehearsing heaps in the last few weeks making sure all the songs are as tight as possible. I’m also working on a fashion label as a side project, with a great local team from Geelong. It’s called Hammock Islandwear, and it’s a bit of a casual and sporty twist on typical preppy fashion.

You can check out some of our designs on Facebook.

We’ve seen you’ve had quite a few gigs since you last graced our cover, how have things been going for you gig-wise?

I’ve been doing a lot of solo stuff, playing at venues like the Peroni Lounge at Simonds Stadium – a 44 forte

nice premium lounge area with great seating in front where you can watch the game and rub shoulders with some of Geelong’s big hitters. I’ve also been doing a lot of gigs for a local company called Plan It Roxie who are doing some awesome stuff around Geelong as well as regular solo gigs at some great pubs in addition to venues in Melbourne. You can catch me playing at Grovedale Hotel and Torquay Hotel about once a month or at the Peroni Lounge at most Geelong Cats home games.

Things are definitely doing well seeing as you’ll be playing as the halftime entertainment for the Adelaide Crows vs Port Adelaide game. Are you nervous about playing to a crowd of 50,000?

A few months ago when we got confirmation that the gig was booked I immediately got nervous and that still hasn’t subsided. I would say the excitement definitely outweighs the nervousness though. The Rolling Stones played to

53,500 at Adelaide Oval so we’re hoping to beat them!

Does it make it easier that you can’t pick out the faces and they’re just a blur of people as opposed to an intimate gig where you can make some serious eye contact?

Yeah, I think that makes it easier. But most people will be eating pies, talking to their mates and getting ready to watch the footy anyway. Even though they can hear us they won’t be actively critiquing us, and that makes me feel better. But we will have the mosh pit in front of us to draw energy from!

We heard a whisper this might be the last performance for ‘Where’s Joss’, is this true?

Yeah, I decided to leave the band about a month ago for a few reasons. I wanted the added freedom that comes from being a solo musician, in that you can play whichever songs you like, whenever you like, and you can change them up on the spot, adding another chorus or an extra solo or whatever you like. And if my voice

is tired at the end of a long weekend of gigs, I can just play in a lower key. The best part though is the simplicity and ease with which you can organise everything.

The boys weren’t happy about me quitting, and when I let them know, a couple of them couldn’t figure out what to say for a couple of days.

I think they felt betrayed which really sucks. It’s one of the toughest things about having to work in a professional context with your friends.

We’re expecting there to be a few more big gigs coming up, what’s in store over the next six months?

I pretty much want to play as many solo gigs as I can (hopefully three per weekend) because playing music is what keeps me alive. If you want to come and see me you can check me out on Facebook as ‘Where’s Joss?’ or you can go to my website www.wheresjoss.com.

Thanks again for the chat, is there anything else you’d like to share?

Always a pleasure Forte, thanks for having me.

When&Where: Catch them play at the Adelaide Crows vs Port Adelaide game via Fox Sports on the day (3pm, May 3).

I’ve been living in England for almost three years now, and if there’s something that makes me fall even more in love with this country, it’s got to be the traditional English pubs. These pubs aren’t just places to drink, they’re social hubs and the centre of a community – the neighbourhood living room, if you will. Everyone comes together; strangers, locals, and friends all connect over a tasty pint. It is the best representation of English culture, with its quiet atmosphere, traditional setting and classy ways.

Walking into a pub encourages you to feel like you’re walking back in time

(most of them are centuries old, after all). With its low beamed ceilings, doors that are a little too short for the typical height of a person these days, uneven floors, and some questionable decorating. Not only that, but you’ll be welcomed with local beers and hearty, customary food (think along the lines of bangers and mash, fish and chips, steak and kidney pie, or a Ploughmans). The English love nothing more than a relaxing pint and a hot, carb filled meal.

In the winter you’ll most likely find a roaring fire in the corner of a pub, with punters competing for the closest seat, and in the summer, a nice beer garden with drinkers catching the last of the sun. One of the

Jack and the Kids There must be something in the air down in Bendigo as they’ve put out yet another stellar band.

We had a chat to Jack Kennedy from Jack and the Kids about why bigger is better, breaking tendons and what it’s like musically growing up in regional Victoria.

Hey Jack, thanks for chatting to Forte, how are you and what are you up to at the moment?

Hey! Thanks for having me, I have just finished work for the day which is always great!

So you officially launched the EP, congratulations! How are you feeling about the release?

There are a lot of different feelings, but I must say we are very excited about it. I am sure there will be that sense of feeling that we are finally letting go of something we have worked hard on for a number of months now.

How long was this one in the works for?

We started laying demo’s down in my makeshift bedroom studio about 18 months ago for the record.

However, some of the songs such as ‘Where Did You Go’ were first written about four years ago.

It’ll also be premiering on Tone Deaf, that must feel pretty unreal?

We are really excited about the premiere and we can’t thank Tone Deaf enough for premiering the EP for us!

Growing up in Bendigo, have you found it’s been a great environment for your music to flourish?

Growing up I used to go and watch some of the local gigs in town that were ran by the local council or Freeza. There was a period when I was about 16 where I really liked the emo-punk music and that sort of music was really big at the time. The local scene at the minute is very vibrant and with events like the Blues & Roots festival, and when the odd touring band stopping over at Starbar or The Black Swan it gives the locals a chance to play with some great bands.

Do you think there is a difference at all between what the regional and city bands are producing?

I think there is a difference. There are obviously a lot more studios and producers in the city compared to Bendigo, so I guess naturally that has to have an impact. But don’t get me wrong, there are some great artists making and producing their own music that are based in Bendigo. This years GTM winners Fountaineer have not long released their debut single and it’s an amazing track. We went to the city to record the EP, that was mainly due to I knew some

best things about these pubs is that dogs are welcome.

Yes, you heard right, dogs!

Drinkers and their four legged friends are often seen as part of the furniture in these establishments, as they are there so often and they seem to take up the majority of space on the floor, but it’s also incredible because it allows drinkers and dogs alike to socialise.

One of my favourite aspects of pubs is their interesting name.

There are a lot of pubs that predictably celebrate the Royals, which is reflected in their title, like The Crown, The Prince of Wales, The Duke, that kind of thing. But there are some truly strange ones, like The Bull and Spectacles, The Cat and Custard Pot, The Bunch of Carrots, and Leg of Mutton and Cauliflower.

Strange, right? Then you’ll find the classics, like The Nags Head, The Black Horse, The Red Lion, The Royal Oak, Fox and Hounds, you get the picture.

The culture of a pub is something you won’t find anywhere else but in the UK. Strangers will share stories and become friends, the locals will sit in their regular seats, chatting nonsense and constantly with a full pint in their hands, and the nights will slowly roll on by. Heading to a traditional, old pub is something everyone should do when they’re in England or anywhere in the UK. The people are lovely, the beer’s good, and it’s an experience you’ll never forget. Cheers to that!

When&Where: Musicman, Bendigo – May 7 & Shadow Electric, Abbotsford – May 8

people who had recorded at Salt Studios(where the EP as recorded) and their stuff came up really well.

You actually performed quite a bit as a solo musician, what made you decide to enter the band world?

I started off playing some solo gigs, which was really good fun, however, I had a sound in my head that I wanted to produce and needed to get a band together to be able to do it. Two of the other boys in the band, we played in a cover band together about four years ago so it was also about wanting to make and perform originally music with them.

And you managed to snap a tendon in your finger, how’d that happen?

I did it playing football, was very nasty.

But it’s all good now I’m guessing! I’ve heard that you’ve added in a lot more synth to your live shows of late. Did the Kite String Tangle or Snakadaktal impart any wisdom onto you all?

Both of those artists are definitely some of my modern day influences, so I guess you could say have put some wisdom into the song writing. Especially TKST, what that man does is amazing! Adding more synth and keys into the show was probably about making the music more atmospheric.

Thanks again for chatting with us, is there anything else you’d like to share?

Thanks for having me Forte. I would just like to say thanks to anyone who has listened to us or come to a show. It would be great to see you at our EP launch shows in Bendigo and Melbourne!

MINI CLASSIFIEDS Send your info to editorial@fortemag.com.au Individual use only, not for commercial purposes Local Bendigo Band Looking for Female singer, cover music, gigs waiting, phone Chris 0403258151 DRUMMER WANTED! Any age is ok, as long as you can play. Call 0430971319 Bass Player Wanted for dynamic (gigging) blues rock three-piece. Contact 0430971319 for more info.

Bass Player Wanted Experienced Bass player required for established working covers band: think Blondie, Free, Cream, SRV, CCR, Fleetwood Mac, Garry Moore and popular ‘60s/on wood bands.Own gear and transport a must. rehearsals at Ocean Grove.Call Ray on 0418512975 for more info.

Singer wanted for original band doing a mix of retro styles - soul, funk, latin rock, gospel, R&B, groove based stuff.

Over an album's worth of material already written, studio recordings, gigs etc.

Looking for the right voice so drop us a line and we'll take it from there! ben@ bellemusique.com.au Experienced 22 y/o singer, songwriter, guitarist looking for a drummer, bassist and lead guitarist to start up an original rock band based in Geelong. Inf luences: QOTSA, Sublime & Dave Grohl. Contact Tom at: 0487067083

When&Where: Grovedale Neighbourhood House - May 2, 9am-4pm

Geelong Well Being & Inner Peace Festival Finding inner peace is often a difficult thing, and even when we think we’ve got there, there’s always things to learn and room for improvement. Luckily, there’s a Geelong festival providing us with such an opportunity on May 2.

“I think all of us will find we have much to do on our personal development and that it is a process that continues on as life and knowledge is always expanding,” Shirley from the Greater Geelong Spiritualist Centre Inc says.

Realising that we all need the chance

to grow constantly, both mentally and physically, and seeing that there wasn’t a real opportunity in Geelong to do so was the basis for the Well Being and Inner Peace Festival, now in its third year.

“The idea came from a desire to provide a platform for our members and friends

to share their various skills and to promote just some of the options available for health and well being in Geelong,” she says.

The opportunities to improve your health and well being are plentiful with various activities lined up for the day.

There will be laughter therapy facilitated

by Philippa Challis, a Dance for Fitness workshop, Mediumship Workshop, Meditation groups, Qi Gong and African Drumming.

A number of lectures touching on the topics of Native Indian Spirituality, Healing Modalities and Proof of Survival Demonstrations will

also run for the day.

On top of the already overflowing list, there’ll be 12 psychic mediums on the day and over 20 stalls of crystals, books, art and more.

Shirley has placed much importance in the facilitators of each activity, as the wisdom they impart onto you is of huge importance.

“What I look for is honesty and integrity in the people I select.

Fortunately for us there is no shortage of these qualities in our supporters,” she says.

There are actually too many talented professionals in the Geelong region that there simply isn’t space

for everyone, though it’s an exciting sign for possible growth.

Aside from just generally enjoying the day Shirley hopes attendees will, “have a fun filled relaxed day and take away some new knowledge or a greater awareness of their Spiritual Self; which in turn helps them along their life’s pathway. I would also like to think that to some extent everyone will leave with a greater acceptance of self and that the day was of good value.”

Lecture and workshop times can be found on www.greaterg eelongspiritualistcentre .com.au.

ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS HERE! CALL LUKE ON 0422 809 042

forte 45

World Sideshow Festival Q&A

Swallowing swords, contorting bodies and outrageous cabaret are all part of Shep Huntly’s world, and later next month he’s giving you a bit of a taster of it. Over three days the World Sideshow Festival – a first for Australia and the world – will bring to the forefront the talent in sideshow acts thanks to performances from a number of Guinness World record holders and other talented individuals.

Hi Shep, thanks for taking the time to chat to Forte, how are you and what are you up to right now?

That’s fine, thanks for supporting the World Sideshow Festival! Right now I’m sitting on my deck in Byron Bay plotting the finer points of the festival.

Things must be busy in preparing for the upcoming event, what first sparked the idea?

I have been watching sideshow grow in popularity around the globe for the last 15 years – it’s just getting more and more popular. Major circuses and very successful cabaret shows are now featuring sideshow acts. There are sword swallowers and contortionists on TV talent shows and people are more and more into unusual entertainment.

As I was watching all this happening I figured it was time to celebrate the art form with a festival.

You’ve also got a background in performing how long have you been into sideshow and circus entertainment, do you remember the moment where you wanted to become a performer?

I have been performing since I was a kid. I always knew I wanted to be a performer. I went to two universities to study acting, but I found what I was looking for when I discovered circus in Ballarat in the late ‘80s. One thing led to another and I found sideshow in the mid ‘90s.

Being a performer, does it then make it easier or more difficult for you to choose the performers?

Easier for sure. I see a lot of shows and over the years I have developed a nose for what’s good and what’s not.

What kind of calibre of performers can punters expect from the event?

The top of the tree – only the best. I have selected some of the best sideshow artists on the planet. No joke.

Four performers hold Guinness world records, one, The Space Cowboy, holds 33 individual records, more than any other Australian. So the cast are truly elite performers.

Aerial Manx is the first and only human being on the

Geelong After Dark A night of discovery, of short, sharp and edgy art – as ordinary spaces by day transform at night into something exciting, unexpected – and very much alive.

Last year’s Geelong After Dark attracted a 6,000 strong audience to the city centre for a night of free pop-up performances, mini-exhibitions and light installations.

Geelong After Dark 2015 is programmed to be even bigger and brighter with the most creative of contributions by our most innovative local artists.

For one night only the city will come alive and surprise at every turn with an alpaca procession, musical acts, virtual Antarctica, dance pop-ups, Afghan tea house, opera, travelling suitcases of art, tuba quartet, soundscapes, giant puppets, silent disco, underground performances, shadow puppets, Little Shop of Horris interactive art, light projections, pop up choirs, rooftop cinema, drumming and theatre.

Geelong Mayor Darryn Lyons is not only proud and passionate about Geelong After Dark, but this year will also be part of two performances – the alpaca procession and silent disco.

“I absolutely love what Geelong After Dark brings to the heart of Geelong.

Creative, colourful and spontaneous performances – it’s art for everyone and is a great night out. There are more than 80 performances to discover. A great way to make an ordinary Friday night truly extraordinary – and it’s all free,” said the Mayor.

“Bring friends, bring family and explore central Geelong as our streets, laneways and cafes come alive with light, music, people and art!”

When & Where: Various locations around Geelong, May 8 @ 6-10pm View the map and program of highlights: geelongafterdark.com.au 46 forte

Pictured: Shep Huntly When&Where: Mechanics Institute, Ballarat – May 21-23

planet who can swallow a sword and perform acrobatics AT THE SAME TIME. It sounds impossible and everyone thought it was until he proved us all wrong. His show Not Dead Yet shows us what is possible if we set our minds to it.

The are four featured

shows, two of them The Dark Party and The League of Sideshow Superstars are well established acts and the other two, Not dead Yet and The Syndicate are newer younger acts.

And why should everyone embrace the ‘New Sideshow’?

There’s literally something for everyone. The Dark Party have performed at The National Theatre of London and The Sydney Opera House. They are masters of dark silent clowning, their show has a depth and theatricality never before seen in sideshow. It appeals to sophisticated theatre patrons. On the other side of the spectrum, Captain Ruin,

the leader of the Syndicate has just been asked to perform with legendary punk bands Subhumans and Millions of Dead Cops.

The League of Sideshow Superstars not only feature The Lizardman and the Space Cowboy but also Lilikoi Koas who is currently starring in Circus Oz – she is the amazing redhead hula hooper. Each act in that show goes for three to five minutes so if you are not super impressed by one act you will be by the next.

Is bringing the new sideshow to the forefront something you’ve wanted to do for a while?

Yes, when I started The Happy Sideshow back in the late ‘90s the idea was to bring the artform to the mainstream. It’s there now. Mission nearly complete. I woke up one morning about two years ago and thought, if I don’t make this festival happen now, in Australia, someone in America will do it soon and I’ll never forgive myself. Australia and Australian artists are largely responsible for the global sideshow explosion and we deserve to have The World Sideshow Festival in our backyard What makes Ballarat a great location for such an event?

It’s close to Melbourne airport and it’s cold, gothic and beautiful. It’s got Rex Hardware, head of live production at Federation University. Fed Uni Live are are producing partners and we couldn’t do this festival without the drive and passion of Rex Hardware – he is a true Ballarat legend Thanks again for the chat, is there anything else you’d like to add?

Nothing like this has happened anywhere in the world and now it’s happening in Ballarat.

People from Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and even Perth have already bought tickets, They are coming from all over the country. Go to www. worldsideshowfestival. com and follow the blue link, choose one show or buy a festival pass, but get your tickets now – I would hate the locals to miss out!

Agent 37 Q&A

These might be the last few shows for a little while, but Agent 37 will soon be back on stage bringing us the good times. We had a chat with Dave, guitarist and singer, on the band’s best moments and their final last words (well, final for now).

Hi guys, thanks for taking the time to chat to Forte, how are you and what are you up to?

No problem at all. We’re good thanks! We’re in the process of learning a bunch of new songs to play at our shows over the next month or so.

So we saw it’s your last three shows for a little while, how come you guys are taking a break?

We’ve got a couple of reasons for having a break from gigging. We’ve got plans for recording a new album, or at least the first part of a new album. We’ll have some more details about that soon though. The other reason is that Curt and his wife are having a baby, and Curt is taking some time off from the band so he can focus on his family.

We’ve got to say you chose well for the venues, was it hard to decide where to play your last shows?

Honestly, it wasn’t too hard at all. The Brunswick Hotel is one of our favourite Melbourne venues, the staff are great, and we always have a blast playing there. And Karova Lounge is our hometown venue, again, the staff are great, and it’s easily one of the best places we’ve ever played.

Amazing venue.

Do these venues hold any memories for you all as a band?

We’ve played a lot of allday shows at the Brunswick Hotel, and they’ve always been super fun, even the one time we got stuck in traffic and ended up playing a seven song, 10 minute set with a fill in drummer. We played a tribute show for Tony Sly last year which raised over $600 for charity and have possibly played more Melbourne shows there than any other venue.

Karova Lounge is a pretty special place for us as well. We’ve played so many amazing shows there with bands like The Bennies, Clowns, and even Frenzal Rhomb. We also launched our first album there back in August 2014 with a tonne of our friends there, which was pretty special as well.

I guess just overall, what’s been your favourite memory from being in the band?

When & Where: The Brunswick Hotel, Melbourne – May 15 & Karova Lounge, Ballarat – May 29

It’s got to be supporting Frenzal Rhomb back in January this year. We played to a completely packed Karova Lounge, with Frenzal watching us from side of stage. For Curt and I (Dave), it had been one of the things we’d talked about doing since we first started playing in bands together, almost 15 years ago. So that’s definitely a favourite memory, and the biggest highlight of this band’s career.

As it’s the last three shows, will you be holding nothing back?

Oh definitely not. If we’re not all half dead passed out on stage at the end of the May 29 show, something is definitely wrong. Really though, we always put everything into our

shows, and these three will be no exception.

How should fans prepare for the shows?

Well we’d hope they’d have our album already, but if not, it’s available online at http://agent37.bandcamp.com for $10. So they should listen to that for sure, and get ready to see us cram more songs than you’d think possible into a short time period.

Will you all be having a celebration of your own after the last gig at May 29?

Of course – if we’re not all half dead passed out on stage that is! We’ll be at Karova Lounge, so I’m sure the beers will flow and we’ll kick back after we finish. Although, we have

to follow The Ramshackle Army for that show so the bar will be set pretty high.

Thanks again for chatting with us and for sharing your music with us over the years, final last words?

Thank you for the opportunity! Final words..

I guess we should say something poignant right?

How about this: Thanks to all our friends and fans and fellow bands that come to see us play, or play shows with us, and everyone who buys our merch and music.

You’re not going to want to miss these last shows either! We’ve got some new songs that will be on our upcoming album that we’re trying out, and we feel like they’re right up there with the best we’ve written. So come on out and have a beer, or five, and help send us off in style! Also make sure you like our facebook page (www.facebook.com/ agent37band) to keep up with how the recordings are coming along during our break. Cheers from Dave, Curt, Jamie and Zach

Forest Falls Written by Tex Miller

Chatting to the lead singer Jon O’Neill of Forest Falls, it’s quite peculiar that he is so sprightly this early in the morning, given that it’s 9am on a Friday. It’s only natural, that we begin to discuss each other’s morning routines.

“I usually get up at 6:30am and go through all of my emails. After that, I either head along to my day job, (unfortunately the music doesn’t pay for itself at the moment) I am a barista at my café Oscar Mike – otherwise I’ll pick up my guitar and go through some poetry, to get the brain and creative juices flowing. I am a big believer in feeding your mind positively right at the start of the day.”

The new EP for the band is called Hounds and is the follow up to 2014’s Julia. Produced by the one and only Wayne Connolly, who has worked with Boy and Bear and The Paper Kites, it is a blissful electro pop listen and can be compared quite easily to the sounds of Snakadaktal, with indie guitars and synths thrown in for good measure.

Talking about the writing process of the band, I’m quick to find out that there are several different ways that the band write.

“It’s either music first like a riff or it could be a vocal melody first. In relation to the song ‘Hounds’, Gabe had a killer chord combination and for me it evoked an emotion

that took me back to a part in my life where I was concentrating on perspectives. The song is about a conflict between two couples and I wanted to be a fly on the wall,” he says.

Talking about the process for this EP, one of the main changes to their early work was having Connolly at the head of the beast in the producer role. “Wayne was absolutely amazing to work with. Right from the get go, he felt like a part of the band. I guess that when we first started it was quite like how we went about recording Julia, but eventually we found that we needed to step back from the song. Wayne was really good at working to everybody’s strengths and making them feel so comfortable. The silliest idea was the best one to go

When & Where: Workers Club, Geelong – May 10 and residency at Workers Club, Melbourne on May 6, 13, 20 and 27

with and he really nurtured the best out of the band on this recording. Wayne, in saying that, was the best person to work with. He has so much talent on the faders and he has so many ideas to give in terms of Australia’s music,” Jon says.

From chatting so positively about the experience with Mr Connolly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned up in a producer role in the future.

The new EP is glistening with energy and vibrance throughout each of the six tracks. Forest Falls will be heading back to Geelong to play at the Workers Club on May 10 as part of their tour – which includes a residency at the Workers in Melbourne. “We feel really good about the opportunity to play at the Geelong contingent. It’s such a musical institution in Melbourne and I’m excited to hit the stage. I think that Geelong has a great music

scene, and most of the band originates from Torquay. So in a matter of speaking it’s a Forest Falls hometown show. Come out people of Geelong and see Hounds in it’s entirety.

See you there mate!”

Simon & Garfunkel: The Concert Written by Natalie Rogers

The sounds of Simon and Garfunkel defined the sixties, echoing the attitude of a changing generation. Their flawless musicianship and faultless harmonies have cemented their reputation as one of the most successful duos of all time. To celebrate their legacy one of Australia’s most distinguished vocal duos, Mark Shelley and John Robertson, take on the pair’s catalogue of hits in Simon and Garfunkel: The Concert.

“This show is such a pleasure to do,” smiled Shelley, when we caught up ahead of their show at the GPAC on May 9. “It’s a really enjoyable night of great music – we have as much fun performing the show as the audience does. John and I tell jokes and follow up the songs with stories. We love it – we feel quite privileged to play these incredible songs, and we have a fantastic backing band behind us as well. This show is just a joy.”

Shelley and Robertson are veterans of the stage and have been performing together for almost three decades. “John and I have been working together for over 25 years, almost a quarter of a century. We started off when we were [ahem] 25 years younger,” he grinned.

“We’ve done everything from theatre, corporate gigs, TV and radio jingles, cruises and session recording.

You name it, we’ve done it!

“We jokingly refer to ourselves as the ‘world fameless duo’. We’ve travelled all over the country performing and making friends – it’s been great.”

Worlds apart from the original twosome (who, despite being celebrated for their beautiful harmonies, could barely stand the sight of each other), the onstage chemistry between Shelley and Robertson is delightful. “We’ve been singing together for so long, and like Simon and Garfunkel, a lot of what we do is based on vocal harmonies, so it seemed like a natural step for us to put this show together.

That, and the fact that we also both genuinely love Paul Simon’s song writing

When & Where: GPAC, Geelong – May 9 & Capital Theatre, Bendigo – May 22

and both grew-up listening to them – it was really a no-brainer.”

Inspired to re-create the music of Simon and Garfunkel’s reunion concert, back in 1981 at New York’s Central Park, Shelley and Robertson believe their set-list will satisfy even the most discerning folk fans. “You’ll hear ‘Scarborough Fair’, ’The Sound of Silence’ and ‘Mrs Robertson’ – all the favourites. ‘El Condor Pasa’ and of course ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’,” he continued.

“But I love ‘Kathy’s Song’ – there’s a real story behind it and the lyrics are so gorgeous. All the songs are incredible.

“The music transports people back in time – I can see it in people’s faces when I look out into the audience. It’s like a blast from the past – the memories come flooding back. I remember sitting cross-legged on the primary school floor and hearing ‘The Boxer’ for the first time.

Even at that age, I thought, ‘Wow, this is amazing’.”

Throw on a striped tee or turtleneck and relive the golden age of folk music with two of the country’s finest entertainers as they pay tribute to an era’s original odd couple. forte 47

Forte Columns

PULP Written by Alastair McGibbon

too heavy to hug Written by Paul S Taylor

Welcome to THTH, Forte’s premier source of all things heavy, hard, fast and metal.

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s when a band releases a ‘best of ’ album.

And if there’s another thing I hate amongst all the other things I hate, is when that band is at least kinda like a metal band. It somehow cheapens the music to something like, well, pop music.

Speaking of cheap, I’m currently enjoying driving around to Korn’s ambitiously titled Greatest Hits Vol. 1. The most recent track on the 18 track delight is ‘Y’all Want A Single” from their sixth, 2003 album Take A Look In The Mirror and considering Korn haven’t really released a decent album since the band’s third album, 1998’s Follow The Leader, you might think there’s a lot of filler on the compilation.

But oddly, this is all killer no filler.

The first two previously unreleased tracks ‘Word Up!’ and their rendition of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ are pretty decent tracks. That ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ cover is easily one of the best covers ever. Then the album works back through the band’s “hits” from most recent to least recent and ends with ‘Blind’. Well, it technically ends with a remix of ‘Freak On A Leash’, but that doesn’t count. So, there are songs like ‘Did My Time’ and ‘Here To Stay’ that are pretty catchy and flow into each other well then there are the Issues tracks which all sit well up against the preceding tracks.

Then it flows into the Follow The Leader “hits” then the album takes a big twist as it flows from ‘Freak On A Leash’ to ‘Twist’ from the band’s second album, this is quite possibly the only stumble on the album as the two songs are so different. Then it’s onto the favourites from their first album.

The more you listen to the compilation the more it becomes evident that Korn aren’t really a numetal band, they are in fact, a pop rock band. The compilation does what a good compilation does and showcases the band’s true sound and in this case it has reduced Korn to what they really are and probably have always been, a pop-rock band with a bit of an edge here and there.

Want to listen to something different? Check out the super rare Saudi black metal stylings of AlNamrood.

In other news

Silverstein will be at 170 Russell on Friday May 8.

Suffocation and Decapitated will play the Corner Hotel on Saturday May 9.

Motley Crue will play their final tour Melbourne show at Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday May 12 and another show on Wednesday May 13 with special guest Alice Cooper.

King Parrott will release their new album Dead Set on Friday May 15.

Voyager will play The Evelyn on Friday May 29.

Karnivool will play The Wool Exchange on Saturday 16 May. Decimatus and Envenomed will play the Barwo Club on June 5.

The Black Dahlia Murder will play three shows at the Northcote Social Club, one of Saturday June 20, an all ages show on the arvo of Sunday June 21 and 18+ evening show on Sunday June 21.

Machine Head will play 170 Russell on Tuesday June 23.

48 forte

LOL!

blues news Written by John (Dr John) Lamp Proudly pesented by The Sleepy Hollow Blues Club

The festival season is largely over.

This is something that I have mixed feeling about – yes, they are great fun, but more often than not I end up on the microphone end of a live coverage for 94.7 the Pulse.

I’m not complaining, well, not complaining much, but it does take a fair bit of enjoyment out of the equation when you spend time organising and finding people to interview.

In fairness, I have to say that there are some organisers who value our contribution and perform the shepherding for us, and it’s much appreciated (especially you Desiree).

A major exception to the festival season is the Echuca Winter Blues Festival, which is cool but dry (weather) and cool and not so dry (enjoyment!). Now is the time to check you have tickets etc sorted for that.

So, even though your attention turns to inside gigs, preferably with a roaring fire to add atmosphere, there are still some open air venues which are a pleasure to head off to.

This was brought home recently when I went to see Nicky Bomba and Bustamento at Wolesley Wines.

Strictly speaking Bustamento is reggae/ska rather than blues, but they are excellent musicians and performers. In any case, reggae has very similar origins as blues, let’s not forget that Fats Domino and Allen Toussaint are credited as early exponents, not to mention that other Dr John over in New Orleans all of whom are known as blues performers.

The afternoon was sensational, the music was great, the performance was great and the wood-oven pizzas were great also.

If you’ve never seen Nicky and Bustamento, you should put that on the ‘to do’ list asap.

Interestingly, for a cold and occasionally rainy afternoon, it was a very comfortable venue, and dancing to the beats kept people warmer than they expected.

Wolesley Wines is on the Hendy Main Rd at Parapparap. The venue itself is well off the road in a couple of the work sheds. “Sheds” doesn’t really do them justice. The two sheds face each other, with a concrete apron between them, about half of which is roofed.

The bands set up in one, facing out, and the audience is largely under cover facing the band. Will, of course, has his excellent wines and beers on sale, and there is a wood fired pizza oven, operating at high speed turning out some great pizzas.

It’s an ongoing source of amazement to me that the location produces a high quality sound.

How that happens is a complete mystery, but very enjoyable. I have done some live recordings there which turned out broadcast quality.

Chris Wilson, Sarah Carroll, Dave Steel, Beachnicks, Ross Hannaford, Lisa Miller, Victoriana Gaye, The Dark Ales, John Van Goes, The Grapes and Rebecca Barnard are just some of the people who have played Wolesley Wines recently.

There’s some good gigs coming up as well. Don’t let the weather get you down, Wolesley Wines is a great semi-outdoor venue.

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen – this week, we’re delving into unexplored territory! Despite being slightly slow on the uptake, I’ve finally got my hands on a copy of Tom Taylor’s The Deep: Here Be Dragons. This little beauty is published by Australian publishing house Gestalt Publishing, who you might remember from my column a while back. Tom Taylor is really starting to make waves in the comic book world – he’s well known for his work on multiple Star Wars titles for Dark Horse, as well as writing the surprise digital smash hit (and video game tie-in) Injustice: Gods Among Us and has most recently been writing Superior Iron Man for Marvel. Mr Taylor’s been pretty darn busy lately, so clearly he knows what he’s doing – but how does his earlier, indie work compare to his DC/ Marvel lines? The answer: it’s pretty damn good.

The first in a multi-volume series, The Deep: Here Be Dragons follows the adventures of the Nekton family, the latest in a long line of deep-sea explorers, as they cruise around in their submarine – the Aronnax (seriously, who wouldn’t want their own sub?) – and investigate all the dark, spooky and mysterious corners of the ocean where no one has been before. Nekton patriarch William, his wife Kaiko and their kids Fontaine and Antaeus all share one defining attribute: they love the sea, and everything in it. When a gigantic sea monster is sighted in Greenland, rampaging around and destroying ships, the Nektons are intrigued and decide to investigate.

The Nektons’ skills are pushed to the limit as they avoid the ravenous monster and deal with a less-thenreputable reporter.

PUNK! Written by Christopher Cruz

My all-time favourite Christian skate/pop/punk band Slick Shoes are reforming for only two shows. Boourns. They’ll be opening for MXPX and Five Iron Frenzy in Santa Ana, California, on July 24 and 25. No further plans have been made.

Yowsa, how awesome is the line up looking for the Shaky Knees Music Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, May 8-10 looking?! The Strokes, Social Distortion, The Pixies, Death From Above 1979, Flogging Molly, Mariachi El Bronx, Frank Turner, The Bronx and Brand New, amongst many, many others. Two Australian acts will also be taking part: Tame Impala (please, no jokes calling them LAME Impala, as that’s just plain mean, no matter HOW accurate) and Xavier (snoozefest) Rudd. As much as I’d love to have seen some Aussie punk bands on the bill, I can’t actually think of any that have made a big enough of an impact overseas, other than Frenzal Rhomb and The Living End, to warrant inclusion. Shoot yourself if you were about to suggest that The Smith Street Band is a punk band, because they’re not.

Let’s be clear here, because a lot of people like to think they have a handle on what punk rock is or isn’t.

Unfortunately, it IS more than just an “I don’t give a fuck what other people think of me” or “I play by my own rules” attitude, because a LOT of people have that attitude in life.

Doing what you want to do and being passionate about it is all well and good,

One of the best things about The Deep is its all-ages appeal – it’s got a bit of a scary patch, but nothing the little’uns would find too taxing – and while it will more than likely have a reputation as a kids’ comic, it’s still an engaging read for adults. Taylor is excellent when it comes to fleshing out his characters – for example, his use of Green Arrow and Harley Quinn in Injustice: Year One was just masterful – and The Deep is no exception. The banter between the characters is both amusing and endearing (“Have faith in the fish”), and generally keeps the atmosphere aboard what would otherwise be a rather empty sub pretty light. While the ethnic diversity of the Nektons has been praised by critics – William is black, and Kaiko of Asian descent – the book itself treats it as a nonissue; it’s never brought up, and there is no grandstanding about the necessity of diverse character line ups – everything just is as it is. That kind of positive move without the usual kind of “Look at how progressive I am” promotion is, quite frankly, awesome. It’s one thing to try to buck the trend with comics, but it takes a lot more skill to do so without being obnoxious – something other writers could take lessons in.

Artist James Brouwer is also a big part of The Deep’s appeal. He can effortlessly switch between dark, spooky underwater settings (think the Mariana Trench) and the bright, cartoony interior of the Aronnax.

Every character’s unique look – not just the main cast – makes them stand out, and makes the whole shebang that much more appealing.

If you’re looking for something for kids, or something light-hearted to cheer you up, The Deep: Here Be Dragons should be high on your list. but by THAT reasoning, Justice Crew and One Direction would be punk bands. See the point I’m trying to make here? If you have a hipster beard, or wear flannel, or don’t listen to actual punk bands at all, I hate to break it to ya, but you’re not punk rock.

Looking “punk” isn’t only about trying to look “different” (because, let’s face it, there are LOTS of ways to look “different”), it helps us identify and find each other. And it’s fun to dye your hair or tear your clothes! It’s not about conforming to a scene, it’s about creating a community of like-minded people, and we’re a lot nicer than the general public might think.

Of course, punk rock has countless sub-genres, including hardcore, ska, pop punk and emo, but those have become scenes of their own, and these scenes rarely interact. These genres do, however, have a shared origin, and more openminded punks certainly enjoy many aspects of all of them.

But what’s this influx of indie/ twangy/semi-acoustic emo rock doing, infiltrating the punk scene? What do bands like Have/Hold and Columbus have to offer the punk scene, other than vaguely hardcore-sounding band names? Is it the gratingly exaggerated Australian accents they sing with?

Their Cotton On wardrobes? Because if THAT’S the case, Jebediah did it all sooo much better a real long time ago.

If this is punk rock, this is punk rock aimed at that blonde kid from that show Talking ‘Bout Your Generation.

You know, the one that somehow sounds sort of British, but is actually from Queensland and now makes Optus commercials. FML. More rambling next time, kids, when I resume regular broadcasting, and not just emo pissing and moaning!

pop culture

THE NIGHT VIBE

Written by Anthony Morris

Written by Tex Miller thenightvibe.com.au

Kinne ’s back, and if you don’t know who Kinne is… well, that’s probably not your fault. One-time YouTube comedians turned 7Mate TV personality Troy Kinne show arrived on Seven’s digital channel last year to a decent burst of publicity before suffering the fate of pretty much all local content on a digital HD channel.

Remember how we were promised that the commercial network’s new channels would provide a chance for us to see all those US imports that sounded great but never made it to free-toair? Does Go! broadcast anything these days that isn’t repeats of Top Gear and The Big Bang Theory?

At least Ten uses Eleven for Neighbours and all those animated shows that they don’t have time for thanks to Masterchef. To be fair to Seven, they are the only network creating original content for their digital channels… even if to date the stand-out example has been Paul Fenech’s no-rent “reality” series Bogan Hunters. But with Kinne, 7Mate found themselves on a winner: while Troy’s comedy persona is the usual knockabout Aussie larrikin that these days can easily feel out of touch and stale, Kinne himself is sharp enough to – at least some of the time – put that persona in sketches where the joke is on him. It didn’t hurt in the slightest that Kinne and his writers – unlike pretty much everyone else in Australian comedy outside of Shaun Micallef and his team – seemed to realise that the secret to a good comedy sketch was more than just a solid premise: more often than not his sketches worked not so much because of the basic idea but more thanks to a quirky performance or midsketch twist that gave that basic idea a surprising (well, for sketch comedy) twist.

This second season sees Roz Hammond (most recently seen in Mad as Hell) and Ronny Chieng joining the cast, which should further broaden out the show’s appeal – even if there’s no threat of Kinne ditching material like “Things never said on a buck’s night” and “New Boyfriend vs Real Boyfriend”. He hasn’t moved all that far from his YouTube roots either, which is kind of a mixed blessing: it means a lot of his material moves fast, which is a plus (the faster he gets through jokes the more jokes he can air, which means that even if a joke bombs there’s another close behind), but it also means a lot of his material remains fairly broad, even if he does make an effort with his sketches to, as he said in a recent interview, “make sure the woman ‘wins’.” The onthe-street stuff can be a bit uneven too – using actual Tinder pick-up lines in real life is funny if you like awkward encounters, not so funny from any other direction. The real strength here is Kinne himself: he’s blokey enough to have the kind of mainstream appeal required on commercial TV, but he’s able to undercut the blokey stuff when it’s what a joke requires (as seen in the early sketch where he plays a game show host nowhere near over his ex). Sketch comedy has a pretty bad rep in this country at the moment; Troy Kinne is doing his best to raise the bar.

One of the most important aspects of a band is being able to back it up live. You can make as many little tips and tricks in the studio to your album and whilst there are ways to make you sound like the biggest band in the world, if you can’t back it up when you hit the stage to play, then there really is no point in being in a band. It’s how you earn your money and being able to back up your album or EP in the live arena is an essential thing. I know that this may seem like a captain obvious kind of thing, however, playing live is such a fun experience and over the years, capturing the essence of the live stage show has been something we will look upon for years.

I know it may seem like I am just rambling on with no premise to this Night Vibe column, however, what are the greatest live albums of all time? There has been some considerable talk over the past few weeks about the albums that you need to own.

Keeping the thrill of a live performance when putting it onto tape is a tricky art, but there are some exceptional albums that you should at least hear once before you die.

Over the next few paragraphs I could list every one of the live albums on this list, however I don’t think that would be very educational. Instead I’m going to highlight some of the albums in my mind that hit the mould as the best live release. If you check them out then all well and good, but it’s not a necessity.

Recorded throughout 10 different cities from Paris to Birmingham, Atlanta to Dublin, Glitter and Doom is one absolute ultimate live package. The name Tom Waits is a legendary one around the music scene these days and this live 2008 disc is absolutely bloody sensational.

Recorded over the period of two months, this album is somewhat a retrospective of Waits’ career. The gravely and distinctive sound of Waits’ music is on show and even if you’re not the biggest fan, you should appreciate his masterful lyrics and song writing none the less.

One of the coolest openings to a live album is without a doubt, The Concert in Central Park the 1981 reunion of Simon and Garfunkel. The band is simply sensational, the tunes are awesome and no doubt this is sure to raise a few sing-a-longs. Opening with ‘Mrs Robinson’ the album showcases songs from the illustrious career of the duo. Focussing mainly on Paul Simon, it’s a relaxing listen and one that helped raise $51,000 for Central Park. Originally, the duo were disappointed by their performance, however, as time went on it became a truly classic record. No matter of the quarrels and drama that the duo may have had with each other, this is the duo at their best. Essential soft soothing listening.

How could you go past talking about live albums without mentioning one of the greatest live bands of all time. The one, the only Deep Purple. Made in Japan is the product of their first live shows in Japan.

Having secretly recorded live shows and broadcast them on radio, the record company took it upon themselves to suggest recording a live disc for publicity. What came out can only be described as a journey through rock music that you simply have to experience. It’s the sixth greatest live album of all time as voted in 2012. Featuring all your favourite Deep Purple tunes including a sensational version of ‘Smoke on the Water’ and ‘Lazy’, the coolest thing about this disc is it features the band in their original line up. Ritchie (Blackmore, lead guitar) rips it up, so what are you waiting for? Jump online or head down to your record store to discover some of the greatest live albums ever. There are many more as you can imagine and maybe in another Night Vibe column, I will reveal a few more to you.

If you were wondering, Nirvana Unplugged in New York took out the recent poll and although it is an amazing disc, I am unsure whether it is the greatest live release of all time. The Who Live at Leeds is a stronger contender I feel especially given the epic tap-stick intro to ‘Magic Bus’.

Now there is something to check out!

SPORT RELAUNCED AMAZING NEW FIT OUT, SAME GREAT FOOD

175 RYRIE ST GEELONG BOOK NOW SPORTINGGLOBE.COM.AU OR CALL 5244 2600

TAKE in up close and personal performances from Bendigo Blues & Roots Music Festival’s finest talent as you travel the streets of THE CITY aboard AN historic tram.

UPCOMING DATES

Saturday May 2nd - 2pm

Emilee South + Benjamin James Caldwell

Saturday May 30th - 2pm Marisa Quigley Duo + King Maxwell

Saturday July 11th - 2pm

Tony J King + Alawishus Jones & The Outright Lies

Saturday August 22nd - 2pm Luke Watt + Cass (Cassie Ward & Bianca Maes)

Friday September 25th - 6pm Rattlin’ Bones Blackwood + Michael Pollitt (Mr Black & Blues)

TICKETS Tickets are limited and are available from the Bendigo Visitor Centre on

(03) 5434 6060 or online at: www.bendigotourism.com/ bendigo-blues-tram

FESTIVAL WEEKEND

Friday November 6th - 7pm, Saturday November 7th - 2pm Saturday November 7th - 8pm, Sunday November 8th- 1pm Artists to be announced.

forte 49

Refining the Palette

Emerging Writers Festival

Pop Up Plants

While it mightn’t be a local festival, the line up has been released and it’s more than worth a trip on public transport to get there. With the likes of Adrian Craddock (editor of Smith Journal), Clementine Ford (Daily Life writer) and Andy Griffiths (children’s book writer) amongst others sharing their wisdom there’s bound to be something of interest. Whether you’re a wannabe writer, an avid reader or looking to kill some time make sure you head to the Emerging Writers’ Festival (May 26 – June 5).

Written by Amanda Sherring

Not one for outdoor gardening, Ria Stewart soon took to the interior of her house, filling it with potted wonders giving new life and vibrancy to each corner of her home.

“I’ve always loved gardening, but I’ve never had much luck with outdoor gardening. But I’ve always been able to keep indoor plants alive and happy – I just love having plants indoors,” Ria says.

What started as a popup store at the river end of Pakington Street in a vacant block, soon took a trip down the street to the bustling King of the Castle cafe.

Ria soon set up shop, so to speak, and has been at the popular cafe for around six months now. Her time spent in the space is clear as soon as you walk in. Pot plants are propped up on shelves, hidden in corners and overflowing from her counter, with each one adding a new sense of life to the venue.

“I love being here, it’s a really good environment to be in, everyone’s so happy, and there’s always a flow of

people coming through the door – but I’d like to stay here,” she says.

“Robbie’s very nice and has let me put my stuff everywhere. Probably about once a week I’ll move everything around.”

While she hasn’t studied plants specifically, Ria holds a lot of knowledge about the care needed for each plant.

As she points out various plants in the cafe, also ones she has at home, it soon becomes clear that having an easy to look after plant is the goal.

“They’re all easy care plants, Zanzibar Gem there thrives of neglect, you don’t even need to water it,” she says gesturing to the hardy looking plant on the shelf.

“It’s easy because there’s so many people that come in here and know nothing about plants and say they kill everything they come home with, so all the plants

are really easy to look after.”

And Ria isn’t simply someone looking for a trend to jump on and profit from, she is a firm lover of indoor plants and as she tells me her house is full of them.

“Overflowing, it’s actually really crazy,” she laughs.

“Ever since I’ve put a few plants in my bedroom I feel like I wake up in the morning and I wake up better. I dunno, I’ve slept clearer or something.”

As one of the only stockists in Geelong for Vessel and Vine pots, she also stocks various sized terrariums and with a shipment of miniature marble pots soon to come in, Pop Up Plants has easily become one of the hot spots when buying presents, whether they’re a treat for yourself or a much loved friend.

Pop Up Plants can be found at King of the Castle cafe, 24 Pakington St, Geelong West or on Facebook (www.facebook. com/pages/Pop-UpPlants).

Last Curtain Call

Burn Book

The end is nigh for A Few Good Men at GPAC and it’s about time you went along to see it. Tackling the well known American classic by Aaron Sorkin, the story is full of wit, intrigue, suspense and men in uniforms. The last screening will be on May 2 at 7.30pm.

Don't let the heading fool you, this isn't a dishing on everyone the author hates, instead Burnt is a novel that explores the realm of female infidelity, when male infidelity is something that we're all too familiar with. The novel, out June 2, is written by J.D Watt who just so happened to also manage a band named Mother Tucker.

Written in Light Written in Light brings together the work of five artists, and creates a space where their neon work exploring cultural references, social commentary and human experience can be displayed. The pieces are created from gas captured within glass and made by Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, Jon Campbell, Sanja Pahoki and Kiron Robinson.

Written in Light is on display at Geelong Gallery until May 10, admission is free. [pictured: Any Worries/Many Worries (2010) by Kiron Robinson]

GPAC’s 2015 Deakin University Theatre Season presents

GPAC’s 2015 Deakin University Theatre Season presents

Thursday 21st - Friday 22nd May, 8:00pm Saturday 23rd May, 1:00pm The Playhouse

Wednesday 27th May, 7:30pm | Thursday 28th - Friday 29th, 7:00pm Saturday 30th May, 1:00pm & 7:00pm The Playhouse

Rotunda

50 forte

Storm Boy

Refining the Palette

Pivotonian Cinema Aside from starting a petition for Village Cinemas to allow them to reopen The Pix in Geelong West (you can sign the petition via their Facebook) they have announced their next lot of films to be screened. Dior and I, the Spongebob Movie and Leviathan have all made the cut, including a one off screening of It Follows. As the Pivotonian site so precisely puts it: “After a strange sexual encounter, a teenager finds herself haunted by nightmarish visions and the inescapable sense that something is after her.” The movie will screen on May 7 at 7.30pm.

Mother’s Day Classic Mum’s are the best. They clean our dirty laundry, make us dinner and constantly remind us to finish our homework, so what better way to celebrate on Mother’s Day than with the Mother’s Day Classic. The run can be done either over 4km or 8km (at a leisurely walk or run) and begins at the Eastern Beach Reserve on May 10. There will be a variety of entertainment on the day as well as prizes and awards. The race will take on the day entrants but online entries can be done up until May 9. Visit the site (www.mothersdayclassic.com.au) for more information.

Legally Blonde the Musical

Written by Amanda Sherring

It’s natural as human beings for us to be inspired by one thing or another, and ironically for Jennifer Stirk it was the very show she’s just been cast in. “I actually saw Legally Blonde on Broadway about 10 years ago and I just fell in love with it. I knew the movie but the music was just amazing and the lead performer Laura Bell Bundy was probably one of my biggest role models in the performing arts industry,” she says.

“So it’s been a big part of me wanting to be a part of Legally Blonde when it came to Geelong – I had to have a go at it.”

A couple of auditions later and Jennifer landed the role of Paulette Bonafonte, the softly spoken “trailer-trash” beautician who Elle Woods befriends and one of Jennifer’s favourite characters.

Though there’s a slight difference between the Paulette we know played

by Jennifer Coolidge in the film and the persona her character takes on stage.

“The movie version of Paulette is quite a shy woman with low self-esteem who is a

bit of a dag really. The Paulette in the musical is so brash and sassy and she’s just had such a hard life being treated so badly by her partners but she’s still got that sassy beautiful nature about her. She loves fashion, beauty and make up and, for me, she’s basically the Elle on the wrong side of the tracks. So Elle is what she would have wanted to be had she had those opportunities when she was younger,” she says.

Talking with Jennifer I can hear the energy she exudes through every answer, and it’s only natural for the director to cast her in such a role as Paulette’s. Though Jennifer shares a bit

more in common with her character than just her bubbly nature.

“Honestly I’ve had my fair share of bad relationships, horror horror relationships like Paulette and I’ve always been very romantic,” Jennifer adds with a laugh.

“I have my own dress style, I like to be unique and change my hair colour all the time, which is what Paulette’s like as well. So I guess in those sets of things I’m quite similar.”

While Jennifer may take a fancy to changing her hair, she’s recently gone from pink to purple and back to her natural shade of strawberry blonde, she

takes a greater love in playing the comedic role.

“I like doing a lot of the comedic sort of roles, I find that they’re a lot more enjoyable.

Especially during the performances because people love comedy, you can’t really go wrong with that,” Jennifer says.

Also recently performing at the Comedy Festival in the sold out season for Live and Let Spy, there’s bound to be some laughs at Jennifer’s take on Paulette, how could there not when there’s even a bend n’ snap song for fans of the movie.

When&Where:

Geelong Performing Arts Centre – May 1-9

“ The Paulette in the musical is so brash and sassy and she’s just had such a hard life being treated so badly by her partners but she’s still got that sassy beautiful nature about her.”

Karingal KarnivART KarnivART is a unique art exhibition featuring high quality artwork created by artists with a disability or a mental illness. The 2015 event is proudly sponsored by Technology One and City of Greater Geelong.

The exhibition will be open from May 7-29 at the Karingallery, 4 James St, Geelong.

Analogue Academy Aside from being Geelong’s resident film developers and camera hirers (seriously, get on it) we thought it was worth mentioning that the cafe/gallery/chill space now is set up with couches and Nintendos. Possibly making it the ultimate hang spot in the city. They also sell mugs, what’s not to like. Head down to 20 Cuzens Place, Geelong to check it out. We take no blame if you never leave.

www.courthouse.org.au

What’s on this month at CHYA A FUNNY THING NED HAPPE AT SCHO OL

#LUMOS Interactive Art installation in the gallery, as part of Geelong After Dark

Friday 8th May 6pm – 10pm P: 5224 2815

FREE

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED AT SCHOOL 10 week Theatre workshop

23rd April – 25th June

BUYMARR The artwork of Nathan Djerrkura, as part of NAIDOC week.

27th May– 9th June

FREE

E: reception@courthouse.org.au

forte 51

Amelia Anderson Photography Written by Amanda Sherring

Behind everything Amelia Anderson does there’s a fierce drive to achieve the unthinkable. When finishing high school seemed like an unachievable task, a small deal with a peer proved to be just the motivation she needed to succeed.

“I was trying to look for any avenue to get out of high school – I really didn’t like it,” Amelia says with a smile.

“I managed to get an interview with the International College of Photography and I went along there and showed him my portfolio. Straight away he said, ‘You’ve got a scholarship, but on one condition: you have to finish school’. He saw the importance of me finishing school so that kept me motivated to finish up.”

With an even stronger focus on photography after finishing her course at the ICP, Amelia took a trip to South America. While travelling overseas wasn’t new for her – she’d previously travelled to Mexico, Fiji and Europe – she had a new take on capturing the cultures she was experiencing.

“I went on a Contiki tour bus so while everyone was sitting in the back and sleeping, I was always sitting up front with the driver with my camera on me,” she says.

“They were all relaxing a lot of the time and I really felt like I couldn’t stop because the scenery was so amazing over there. I think my camera bag that I took with me was about 20kgs – something really heavy – so I had that strapped to my front and then my traveller backpack on my back.”

Her determination to pursue photography has since continued, and even having two young children a daughter Indiana, 4, and son Hudson, 2, hasn’t slowed her down.

The kids have actually accompanied Amelia while taking photos in Kenneth Creek, and in fact, the Cockatoo image purchased recently by Dale and Sophie from The Block was captured at that very location.

“Every time I go anywhere there I put the camera bag in the back of the pram and go with the kids. I know there’s wildlife down there and I wanted to get a photo of a cockatoo, but whether I’d get the right positioning or something I didn’t know. But it all just fell into place and just worked,” she says.

It doesn’t take much to see the immense detail of each photo that Amelia captures, and it’s a testament to her talent that each one has been captured in a chance encounter.

With the level of detail achieved in each shot, it’s almost as if Amelia has shared the same air as the animal she’s capturing. I couldn’t help but ask, just how close does she get?

“I get pretty close. Actually I get very close,” Amelia says as a smile spreads across her face.

“The other day over the Easter weekend I almost got attacked by a koala. I was from here to maybe the end of the table away and he went to swipe me as I was taking pictures.”

By luck and proximity, Amelia takes the perfect shot worthy of a spot on any wall. And while her eye may be drawn to birds, there have been other animals, people and landscapes that have fallen in line with her lens.

The drive is very much there, but also the patience to do it right. “I don’t want to go too far and rush things, I want to do them properly,” she says.

And while there’s no question Amelia loves her kids – they are often the helpers in styling shoots and her assistants on photography excursions – she still wants to be recognised for her passion and not just as a mother.

“I just want to be successful, and so often I’m ‘just a mum’,” she says.

Amelia’s work can be purchased from her website ameliaandersonphotography.com, perused on her Facebook facebook.com/pages/AMELIA-ANDERSONPHOTOGRAPHY/ or seen in the flesh at Living Etc or Ballyhoo Arts.

Psychic Medium

Isabella Gentilin

Q&A

Raised as a creative child, it’s that connection to creativity that enabled Isabella Gentilin to interact with Spirit. We had a chat to the psychic medium ahead of her Geelong show at the Carlton.

Hi Isabella, thanks so much for taking the time to chat to Forte, what are you up to at the moment?

You’re welcome.

I’m currently working on a couple of books, organising psychic events and some workshops. This is all in between raising three children!

An accomplished author and psychic medium, could you please tell us a little about your talents and how you came to possess them?

I have been writing, drawing and creating ever since I can remember.

I think through being allowed to entertain imagination as a child – and through unconditional support – I am able to connect with Spirit to receive messages and to help people heal. The books are also another way people can enable themselves to connect with their own Higher Self and really live a life of their dreams.

I believe everyone has the power to heal and communicate with Spirit, although society has placed rules, as such, where now it is almost feared if it isn’t seen, or cannot be proven in any scientific way. This is unfortunate, as when one is creatively connected 52 forte

– whether it be through artwork, cooking, writing, or speaking directly with Spirit (including Angels and loved ones) – they are able to really articulate what they want from life, find their purpose and decrease the sense of separateness.

You have an event coming up at The Carlton Hotel, are you familiar to the Geelong region?

I am not a local of the Geelong region, in saying that, my family and I often take day trips to Geelong as we love it so much. I love the area, the beaches, the atmosphere and feel almost ‘pulled’ to Geelong. I have also had a huge interest of people from Geelong, so I believe this is where I am meant to be at the moment.

What can people expect when they attend your event?

People can expect to be guided by Spirit.

They can also expect to be connected with loved ones who have passed and receive messages from them. It really is about coming with an open mind and an open heart to receive. I hope to create a sacred space for all those attending and for each participant to leave feeling empowered and happy. Each event is

different; each beautiful in its own right.

What is some of the best advise you could give to those who are in search of Spirit?

Open your heart.

Open your mind. Leave doubt and fear at the door and walk in knowing that you are always guided, always watched and always safe. No path is a bad path, just allow yourself to be open to beauty and miracles each and every day.

Who would you recommend attending your event and why?

Anybody who is interested in connecting with loved ones who have passed and anyone who is needing some support at the moment.

The messages are not only for those who have lost someone, but also for those who are searching for light in their life.

Anyone who is wanting closure or direction or confirmation. And, for

anyone who may be curious.

Have you got anything else you would like to share with us?

I am constantly updating my Facebook page at Isabella Gentilin Author, and my website www.isabellagentilin. com.au and would love to connect with people daily. I love to write inspired quotes and gratitude posts as well as any messages which may be coming through.

On occasion I also run a competition for a mini reading (either Tarot or Angel oracle) and people can purchase a copy of my books through either the website, by personal message, through the publishers or at any of my events. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everybody for their ongoing support. Be blessed.

When&Where:

Carlton Hotel, Geelong – May 21

Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow with Tom Ballard Q&A

You’d know his voice if you heard it but chances are you wouldn’t be intimite with the jokes his penis is involved in – jokes that Tom will kindly be sharing with audiences as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow.

We had a chat to Tom about what he’s been up to post-triple j and general funny stuff.

Hi Tom, thanks so much for chatting to us, where are you and what are you up to at the moment?

I’m currently in my hotel’s cafe in Melbourne, awaiting a big fat pasta lunch that I’m going to demolish with my facehole.

We started this leg of the Roadshow last night in Bundoora and tonight we’re heading to Bayswater.

Showbiz!

What have been some of your MICF festival highlights from this year?

I didn’t get to see a whole bunch of shows, but I loved Josie Long, Sammy J & Randy, Becky Lucas, Tommy Dassalo, Karl Chandler, James Acaster and Myq Kaplan. Hmm – I guess that’s a few. But hands down the best moment of the entire three and a half weeks was on the final night when a very drunk Lawrence

Mooney slapped me in the face in the street whilst Stephen K Amos looked on and giggled.

You still have Sydney and Perth Comedy Festivals as well as the Roadshow booked in over the coming months.

What are your plans for the rest of the year, will you be making any international appearances?

I will indeed – I’m going to be doing my first ever show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. I am terrified and excited and thrilled and worried and terrified. All of the emotions.

Since leaving the triple j breakfast, you’ve been very focused on your stand up, even releasing the DVD of your ‘Is What He Is’ tour and a recording of ‘Since 1989’. Have you got plans to be releasing any new recordings during this busy year?

I would seriously love

to; I feel I have a new solid hour of material that I’d be keen to record in some way and get out there. It’s just the tricky practicalities of it – I’d want to make sure it’s filmed/recorded really well and could be released via my website at a reasonable price.

Trust me, if it happens, I’ll be banging on about it for ages.

As a regional Victorian native, are you looking forward to heading out on the Roadshow tour?

I really am! I have a lot of family in Horsham so it will be fun to gig there, and MCing a big sold out show in my home town of Warrnambool means a lot to me. MAYBE NOW THOSE KIDS FROM HIGH SCHOOL WILL SEE I’M COOL… Do you find the regional shows very different from the big city crowds?

Probably the major difference is their level of excitement about the gig, to be honest.

For a lot of these crowds, the Roadshow is the only live comedy they’re seeing all year, so they’re PUMPED. If they get on board with your dickheadedry, it’s exhilarating.

Do you get back to your hometown, Warrnambool, very often and how do you like performing there?

I was just there at the start of this week after the Comedy Festival ended to see Mum and Dad and take advantage of their home cooking – that was lovely. Going back is great, it really is a lovely town and a bunch of my friends still live there and I love catching up with them.

I grew up performing in the local amateur musical theatre company productions which I LOVED (probably a little bit too much), but in terms of comedy, well...in 2010 I booked out the main theatre for a “One Night Only” show, and only sold about 90 of the available 320 tickets. That was a nice little reality check – turns out I’m not

quite Hughesy yet.

What can fans expect from you at this year’s show?

Because I haven’t toured to any of these places before, I’ve really got about seven years of jokes to draw on, so expect me to be banging on about my favourite heckles, my penis and its whacky adventures, life, death, God, music and [INSERT LOCAL REFERENCE HERE].

As arguably one of Class Clowns and RAW Comedy’s most successful comics, what advise can you give to a buddying funnyman or woman?

STOP DOING IT IMMEDIATELY YOU’RE NOT FUNNY AND THIS INDUSTRY IS OVERCROWDED.... and if that didn’t deter you, good for you. Figure out what makes you funny and try to find your original voice. Don’t panic if that takes anywhere between 5 and 20 years. Screw the money, awards and reviews – if you’re not doing it because you love comedy, then get out.

Also – ignore all advice.

Including this.

When&Where:

Ararat Performing Arts Centre - Ararat - May 8, Aireys Pub, Aireys Inlet - May 9, The Lighthouse Theatre, Warrnambool - May 10, Her Majesty’s Theatre, Ballarat - June 12, Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo - June 18 & Colac Performing Arts and Cultural Centre, Colac - June 20.

regional victoria's #1 music and entertainment magazine and online service!

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Kasey Chambers Written by Amanda Sherring, Photo by Dexter Cornelius

On sitting down at my laptop to write this article, I was stumped on where to start, how do you capture such a person as Kasey Chambers in a mere 550 words? Kasey has been an inspiration to many, a mother of three and musically to many more around the world, an ARIA award winner, but most of all, she’s real.

“I don’t really live a famous life, I live quite a normal one – even on the road,” Kasey admits. “I don’t have much of a chance to get my head up in the clouds and if I ever do my kids bring me back down to earth pretty quickly.”

Proof that she’s just like the rest of us and with the desire to dance barefoot in the beaten down muddy earth, Kasey attended her 15th Bluesfest this year, though not as a performer.

“I have a lot of people saying you must miss playing when you go to Bluesfest but I get a whole different thing out of it when I get to go and not play. I get to just be an audience member and enjoy everyone else playing and I love that as well. I don’t have to worry about putting makeup on – you’ve gotta love that!” Kasey beams.

Whether she’s on the stage with the lights shining upon her and the crowd screaming her name, or a blank face in a crowd of thousands, Kasey lives and breathes music.

As a seasoned musician and privy to musical talent, Kasey often makes time for the “little guys” and ensures she gives praise to the unknown, the young and the emerging in the music world.

“Some of my favourite artists are ones that people

“ I get to just be an audience member [at Bluesfest] and enjoy everyone else playing and I love that as well!”

have still never heard of, and that excites me about music too because it does show you that not everything has been done yet. It reminds me of me when I was first starting out in some ways too,” she says.

“I think it’s hard being part of an industry where there’s a whole side of the industry that is so cynical. I’ve got these new young guys in my band at the moment, who are 19 years old and two amazing musicians, but having them on the road makes me less jaded. It reminds me of how lucky we are to do this as a job. I just like that little reminder and it’s often the new people in music that remind you of that and bring it back to what it’s really about.”

Despite the hardships felt from life and the industry, Kasey Chambers is still the same at heart as she was as the blue-eyed 18-year-old we came to know through her family band the Dead Ringer Band.

She stepped out as a 23-year-old on her own and while her father may hit the road with her like old times, she’s easily became one of the key faces of Australian music history of her own accord.

When & Where: Costa Hall, Geelong – April 30

Bam Margera: Fuckface Unstoppable Written by Abbey King

Bam Margera is a man of many talents and has done plenty in his 35 years, from his pro-skateboarding career to his TV shows and movies including Jackass, Viva La Bam, Haggard and Minghags, to name just a few. His current musical project, Fuckface Unstoppable lands in Australia next month and will play nine shows all around the county.

I spoke with Bam just as he arrived home to Westchester, Pennsylvania after a trip to what is arguably his second home in Finland, where he had been securing a very special new band member.

“I’ve just been in Finland, practising some new songs with legendary guitar player Andy McCoy from Iggy Pop and Hanoi Rocks. He’s going to be doing the Australian shows with us, so we’re pretty excited,” Bam says.

Many would know Andy McCoy as the famed lead guitarist and songwriter of ‘80s rock band, Hanoi Rocks. A long time friend of Bam, he will be joining the band for this very special tour. McCoy has worked with many other big name rocks acts of the ‘80s and ‘90s and is very well respected by the likes of Dave Grohl. He has had to remain in Europe for the past few decades following a ban on re-entering the US for trying to use manufactured money in the ‘90s. This August however, he will finally be allowed to return.

“We’re actually going to be filming a movie the whole time we’re in Australia called Earth Rocker. It’s about how Andy’s been banned from the US for 20 years for having counterfeit money during the Guns and Roses tour and what not, but now he’s finally allowed back. I’ve been dealing with the lawyers to get him back there, so that’s what the movie is going to be about,” Bam says.

The last time Fuckface Unstoppable were over here things got pretty out of hand, with reports of extensive hotel damage and Bam even punched a fan while on stage, but he tells me things may have to go a little differently this time.

“I had a $40,000 bill at the end of it all because I like to paint in my spare time. Me and painting – 54 forte

especially oil painting – it can get everywhere and every fucking hotel room cost me like $5,000 to clean it. So I promised my Dad I would not bring paint on this trip! I’ve got to find something else to do with my time this trip, not painting that’s for sure!” he laughs.

New Zealand will miss out on seeing FFU this time around and contrary to what Bam’s brother Jess posted to their fans on Twitter, Bam insists they aren’t banned from the country, rather just not welcome at the airport.

“I’m allowed to get in there, I’m just banned from the Auckland airport. What happened was, somebody fucking roofied me at a CKY show. I had to get on a flight right after that and I couldn’t move.

So I was on this bench and the police are telling me to get up but I kept getting sleepier and I couldn’t get up!

Somebody seriously spiked my drink and I just couldn’t get up, it was really weird!” he says, laughing.

The band are really excited to be coming out and between the shows and filming the movie will have little

When & Where: Barwon Club Hotel, Geelong – May 14 & Corner Hotel, Melbourne – May 15

time for themselves. “I love coming out and playing the shows, people always ask, ‘Man, don’t you get sick of the touring?’ but the only part I get sick of is the waiting around before the show happens – that’s the hard part. The shows are the fun part,” he says.

“We kind of just play it by ear, because when you’re in such a big group, it’s hard to do much really. This time we have a camera crew and a plot, so we’ll have lots of interviews and scenes to be filming during any spare time we have.”

The band are about to hit the studio

and get recording on some new material.

In terms of their setlist for the tour though Bam says that they won’t pull out too much of the new stuff and will be sure to play the old favourites along with some covers.

“We’re in the studio right now, so hopefully we’ll get everything done before we get to Australia. There’ll probably be two or three new songs, I don’t wanna overkill it with stuff people haven’t heard yet because even the covers that we do, no one ever knows them! We want to play good music that no one’s heard of, you

know usually when bands do a cover they do like, ‘Enter Sandman’ that everyone fucking knows.”

It’s been two years since the band have toured Australia and with its new members it will be interesting to see how they have progressed. Bam will be kept busy following the tour, between producing his movie and new music, the star will also be bringing out his own clothing label, named Irve Rocker, with a line also for women called Princess Paranoia.

Exclusive interview with...

Forte Columns

POPCULTCHA OWNER, ASH HOWARD Figurines, busts, bobble heads, statues, comics and cards; these are just some of the things that you will find at the geek heaven known as Popcultcha.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS TRAILER REVIEW

THE TOP TEN STAR WARS CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME Each week Michael and Dando get together and discuss their Top 5 of a particular topic, combining them to make the Torrent This Top Ten List: DANDO

MICHAEL

5. Yoda

5. Padme Amidala

4. R2D2

4. General Grievous

3. Chewbacca

3. Jawas

2. Darth Vader

2. Boba Fett

1. Han Solo

1. Jango Fett

Do you agree?

Check out NEW episodes of the ‘Torrent This Top Ten’ every Wednesday night at youtube.com/ torrentthistv

6 THINGS YOU COULD’VE GOOGLED ABOUT PORN 1. There are more than 4.2 million porn websites in the U.S alone.

2. At any second of the day, more than 30 million people are watching porn.

3. It is punishable by death to watch porn in North Korea.

4. Despite being retired, Jenna Jameson still earns $30 million annually from

her movies.

5. Jackie Chan was in a 1975 porn film titled ‘All In The Family’.

6. Until 2004, www.whitehouse.com was a porn site.

NEW episodes of ‘Things You Could’ve Googled’ air Tuesday nights at youtube.com/torrentthistv

TOM & KIAM TOLERATE MUSIC

Sparkly Lucasfilm logo, expectation!

Panning shot, Tattooine, ruins of a Star Destroyer! Look at the size of this thing! (Drooling sound) Voiceover.

Luke? Izzat you? Vader’s helmet. Kind of looks like a half deflated balloon. Burnt, warped, bit of skull in there. That’s dark man. Star Wars is always confronting when it goes dark. Artoo, ROBOT HAND! Come on dude in hood, you HAVE to be Luke right? Lightsaber passed over to, sister, has the Force.

So, Leia then yes? Low flying X-Wing Squadron over water. WHOOSH! Broadsaber! New ball droid BB-8 rolling from EXPLOSIONS! Ninja Sith guy, ahh Kylo Ren, the guy with the Broadsaber. New Stormtroopers standing before a new banner for the Empire? New faction? New heroine Rey. EXPLOSIONS! Tie Fighter, Stormtrooper flying in the air, PEW PEW! LASERS! John Boyega’s Finn in Stormtrooper armour. Star Destroyer in space. Whoa, who’s that cool new chrome Stormtrooper? Cape, gun, general look reminiscent of Boba Fett? I want to know MORE damn you! TELL me who you are! ZOOM SHOT Millenium Falcon chased into bowels of downed Star Destroyer

by Tie Fighter. More WHOOSH! PEW PEW EXPLOSIONS!!!

“Chewie, We’re home!”

And like that, with three words, the world hyperventilated with ecstasy in unison. Now, I may or may not have written this while making the sound effects and playing with toys but I do feel like a kid again and that’s fine by me. In what is already a big year for film, I think we’re going to save the best for last. In my opinion, Star Wars is the be all and end all of pop culture and the release of this can’t come soon enough. December, come at me!

Written by Sean Watts; Sean writes a weekly coloumn on all things popculture attorrentthis.tv/articles

“Hey Tom, did you hear that GWAR are getting sued for stealing their former singer’s ashes?”

COLLECTIBLE CORNER:

“What, how?

Where from?”

Originally available from Red Rooster to coincide with the film’s release, this mug was part of a set of four, also including Scar, Timon and Pumbaa.

The Lion King ‘Simba’ Mug

“Well he was cremated at a ceremony they dubbed a ‘GWARB-Q’...”

threw them up and called it a ‘spuneral’, right?”

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

For more ridiculous music news, watch NEW episodes of ‘Tom & Kiam Tolerate Music’ weeknights at youtube.com/torrentthistv

“Wait, let me guess, then they ate his ashes,

Youtube:

“My folks and my uncle started retailing 21 years ago as a small store called Card Mania in Geelong,” explains Howard. “It started as a result of my younger brother and I collecting basketball cards on a family holiday in the States during Shaq’s rookie year. We wound up traipsing the country looking for card shops and my folks saw that it was actually an industry over there, and started something small here in Geelong when we returned.”

It wasn’t long before Card Mania had become one of Geelong’s most popular stores, meaning Ash’s father John and uncle Glenn had to leave behind 27 years of combined service for Target Australia to cope with the demand, but in doing so would also be pursuing their dream.

Howard reveals, “From that point we built a wholesale business called Ikon Collectables, and about eight years ago I joined the company with a view to bring back the long lost art of retailing collectables in Australia. We closed Card Mania, re-branded, re-focused and established an eCommerce strategy that is now popcultcha.com, seven years on.”

A cats man through-and-through, Howard ensures that despite the enormous growth of Popcultcha in recent years, there are no plans for the store to ever leave its original home of Geelong. “The business was built in Geelong and will always stay in Geelong. It gives me a good sense of pride to know that we are running a business here that is continually growing and employing local people.” So how does Howard see the current business climate of our region?

“Geelong is in the process of re-inventing itself, and I think it’s exciting. I have a love/hate relationship with the place, despite having been born and raised here.

Over the last 18 months I have seen a heap of cool stuff happening

With this positive attitude, several years working in London’s legal industry as well as being a chartered accountant, Howard proves he has the right mindset to achieve his ultimate vision for Popcultcha.

“I have always been a firm believer that to be successful at retail in this industry, you need to have both a physical and online presence. They compliment each other perfectly and feed off one another”, he says, “We deal with all walks of life and some prefer the face-to-face customer experience, others prefer the online purchasing.

The online store allows us to reach markets all over the world, so it will always be a more dominant avenue of retail for us.” One would have to assume that in order to successfully run such a geek-orientated store, you’d have to be a geek yourself, right? Think again.

“If you ask that question to my staff they’d roll around on the floor laughing,” jokes Howard. “I’m a child of the late ‘70s, grew up in the ‘80s, so my idea of awesome stuff is The Lost Boys and Revenge of the Nerds! I don’t really do sci-fi, I am far too much of a realist. I guess you could say I am a business nerd; accountant/lawyer who spends far too much time working on his business. Yeah, business nerd, we’ll go with that!” he says with a laugh.

Although he may not be a geek at heart, he certainly understands what his customers are looking for. “Our customer base is very knowledgeable as well as very niche. Quite often they know more about items than we do, which is always challenging. They also have very high expectations of us, so we find ourselves always battling.”

This may be a direct reference to last year’s Christmas period, which saw Popcultcha well exceed its sales predictions, capping off another successful year for the local brand.

“More often than not, we are trying our arses off to do our best, we’re just simply overwhelmed by the amount of product coming through the pipeline and the runaway growth of this industry.” On top of this, the staff are often left scratching their heads at the requests they sometimes receive from hardcore collectors.

“There are dudes out there that put the 40 Year Old Virgin to shame,” reveals Howard. “At the same time, I want them to be happy. They are parting with their hard-earned cash to collect

these things, so we want them to love it. It’s often difficult balancing that with very unreasonable people on very trivial matters. It is fun to say the least!”

Not only can you find Popcultcha via their website or Geelong store, but they also boast an impressive stand at the popular Supanova conventions, which started last month. The idea of working amongst a flurry of celebrities and cosplay may sound appealing, however Howard stresses that isn’t always the case.”It’s bloody hard work in reality, since we have one of the biggest convention stands around. It takes a heap of preparation and labour, but we have a pretty hefty crew on hand making it happen and they always do an awesome job.” It’s not always doom and gloom though. “I do like the Popcultcha crew team meals, and especially the late night Popcultcha Karaoke, it definitely keeps me young.”

So as they grow from strength to strength in Australia’s geek world, it seems there isn’t much left for Popcultcha to achieve. As we’ve established though, Howard likes to keep his finger on the pulse, and has many new ideas that he plans to implement in 2015.

“We don’t chase rainbows here, we are pretty cool and reasonable about where we see ourselves going forward. You won’t see us going out guns blazing trying to disrupt, we are all about steady, sustained growth. We want to deepen our range and offering, so I want to focus more of my time sourcing cooler stuff for our Australian customers.” Most importantly however, Howard enjoys his job and it reflects in the company’s direction. “The great thing about Popcultcha is that nothing defines what sort of store we can be, it is totally a blank canvas. That to me is exciting in itself. We want to continue doing things quicker and offer better customer outcomes, but at the same time, be a sustainable business. You may see a new store or two, who knows. We have a lot of projects on the go at the moment and we need to bed them down one at a time, to make sure we get them right.”

So what’s his ultimate goal for 2015?

“To finish answering the thousands of emails we have from customers right at the moment!” Looks like it’s going to be another busy year.

For more articles, visit torrentthis.tv/articles

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NOTE: All of our collectibles are proudly on display in the Torrent This studio, getting the recognition they deserve from all of our guests.

Whilst the Popcultcha brand has technically only existed for the past seven years, director Ash Howard and his family have actually been playing a major role in the lives of Geelong geeks for over two decades. These days they are considered Australia’s largest and most extensive online store of pop-culture merchandise, however even this many-headed beast had a humble beginning.

and it is really starting to turn the corner. Geelong is a great place to raise your kids and the people here are very loyal, so if we embrace that and get some young entrepreneurial spirit injected into the town, I think it can really go places.”

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captain

barwon club

barwon club

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grovedale hotel

captain

grovedale hotel

beavs bar

beavs bar

eureka

the max hotel

eureka

the max hotel

the max hotel

slate pool lounge

forte 57

home house

st james

pistol pete's

st james

st james

eureka

the max hotel

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pistol pete's

slate pool lounge

odyssey tavern

forte 59

Film Reviews

Films reviewed by Anthony Morris

t h e w rap The Duff

The Longest Ride

Avengers: Age of Ultron Comic books – at least, the ones from the two major commercial publishers – don’t work like most other media. They’re serialised entertainment, even more so than most television, where the actual unit you pay to read (the comic itself ) isn’t the same length as the stories being told. And not just in a “this story runs for six issues” way either: characters can have individual “story arcs” that run longer than any one story, or they can appear in a self-contained scene then vanish from that comic book series. So when Avengers: Age of Ultron is described as ‘the most comic book movie ever”, what they really mean is that it’s like reading an individual issue of a comic book: it might contain a beginning, middle and end, but for just about all the characters it’s just a slice of their on-going saga.

Technically this is a movie

about the rise and fall of Ultron ( James Spader), a self-aware computer created by Tony “Iron Man” Stark (Robert Downey Jr) and Bruce “The Incredible Hulk” Banner (Mark Ruffalo) to defend the planet against the kind of alien attack that happened in the previous – and frankly, better – Avengers film. But Ultron turns evil the moment he’s switched on, then jets around never quite explaining the motives behind his plan to wipe out humanity in order to force it to evolve or something: he’s a dull villain and his evil scheme is nutty even by super-villain standards. That’s because Marvel – which is now part of Disney – isn’t all that interested in villains: the good guys are where the marketing money is, and all too often this film feels like an exercise in brand maintenance as it works hard to keep all your favourite Disney characters exciting without changing them any as characters.

You know, like an actual story might do.

To be fair, pretty much everyone here gets a string of decent character moments, most notably Banner, Hawkeye ( Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) – who are the three characters without their own movie series – while the more established characters largely look annoyed to be here. The action scenes are plentiful yet never really jaw-dropping in the way that the ones in Fast & Furious 7 sometimes managed to be, while writer/ director Joss Whedon’s usual quips feel a little burnt out here, adding to the impression of a film about a bunch of tired guys going through the motions rather than a group of heroes energetically stepping up.

But that’s what this film is about. It’s a vision of a never-ending treadmill that individual characters might be able to escape from but that the Marvel Universe as a whole – and the audience watching them – never, ever can.

It’s Nicholas Sparks movie time again, and you know what that means: young lovers from two different worlds trying to make it work while some old guy – or just a bunch of his letters – lurk around in the background and hand out useful advice. Luke Collins (Scott Eastwood) is a professional bull rider who’s struggling to make a comeback after Rango the killer bull kicked his ass, while Sophia Danko (Britt Robertson) is a fine arts student set to take on an internship at a snooty New York gallery. In and around Luke and Sophia’s struggle to find a rain storm to kiss in, The Longest Ride also contains a 1940s era romance between Jewish refugee Ruth (Oona Chaplin) and small town tailor Ira ( Jack Huston) who grows up to be the old guy (Alan Alda) who provides a sturdy romantic example to Sophia after she and Luke go their separate ways.

But because Sparks knows that the secret to his success both as a novelist and as a novelist who keeps getting his books turned into movies, is keeping everyone (and

The big problem with writing stories about World War One is that there’s really only one story you can tell about World War One, and that’s that War is pointless. World War Two is the one with all the exciting, heroic stuff, Vietnam is the crazy war, everything more recent has to be treated very carefully to show respect to those who fought and everything more ancient is so far in the past you can do whatever you like. But World War One stories always end the same way: it was a senseless waste of life and we should all do our best to make sure it never happens again… even though it clearly has happened a number of times again already.

The thing that excuses Testament of Youth from just being more of the same is that Vera Brittain’s autobiography was written not long after the war, before all the clichés became clichés. So while for anyone even remotely familiar with the way these stories work, there’s nothing here that will come as even the

There’s a certain kind of action movie that likes to think it’s about more than just shooting bad guys and blowing up stuff. You can tell when you’re watching one of these films, because they’re almost always set in Africa, home of loads of gun-toting henchman that movie stars can kill while feeling bad that colonialism has made large swathes of the continent the perfect place to stage an action movie - and so it turns out to be in The Gunman.

Terrier (Sean Penn) is part of a security team in the Congo in the mid-noughties, with a health worker girlfriend ( Jasmine Trinca) and an aid worker buddy ( Javier Bardem) who has a not-so-secret crush on her. Problem is, the two guys are really part of a corporate hit squad, and when Terrier is ordered to pull the trigger on the Congo’s mining minister (who poses a threat to Western mining interests), he also has to leave the country – and his girlfriend. Fast forward to now and

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY *Final Sessions* May 04 – 7pm (Her) / 9pm (Him) X+Y Apr 29 – 7.30pm / May 11 – 7.30pm SPONGEBOB: SPONGE OUT OF WATER May 02 – 2.30pm / May 03 – 12pm / May 10 – 1.50pm LEVIATHAN *Russian w/ English subs* May 01 – 7.30pm / May 03 – 2pm *All Tix $15 / May 10 – 5pm LOVE IS STRANGE May 02 – 9pm / May 03 – 7.30pm / May 05 – 7.30pm / May 08 – 6.45pm / May 13 – 7.30pm SHAUN THE SHEEP May 02 – 12.30pm & 4.30pm / May 09 – 5pm / May 10 – 12pm DIOR & I Apr 30 – 7.30pm / May 02 – 7pm / May 03 – 5pm / May 06 – 7.30pm / May 08 – 8.45pm / May 09 – 7pm IT FOLLOWS *Pivotonian Exclusive* May 07 – 7.30pm / May 09 – 9pm / May 10 – 8pm COMING SOON... Clouds of Sils Maria (May 14) / Kumiko (May 21) / Banksy Does New York (May 21)

60 forte

Blake Lively refuses to age or die in this romantic drama, that’s less about what it would be like to be immortal and more about what a bummer it would be to meet a hot guy two weeks before you had to leave your old life behind forever.

Fast & Furious 7 The best action franchise of our time continues to be pretty darn good, as the joys of driving fast cars around while stuff explodes is explored even further in a variety of exotic locations while Vin Diesel occasionally talks about the importance of family. The best movie currently in cinemas.

Cinderella Disney have remade the classic with one eye on future sales, so there’s no fast-dating comedy or overly wonky CGI that’ll make this perfectly entertaining but hardly special film seem out of style in a decade’s time.

Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart are a pretty good double act, so while the idea here is pretty lame – Ferrell is a clueless white millionaire who hires Hart to toughen him up when he’s sentenced to prison for a crime he didn’t commit – there’s enough laughs here to make this a tolerable experience.

The Gunman

Harrington) the clear front-runner.

Then war is declared, everyone is frightfully eager to enlist, and being World War One things end up badly for pretty much everyone. As Vera’s story, this focuses more than usual on the grief and horror those left behind had to deal with, and the film itself focuses on the concrete details of how such things are felt – the dread of the arrival of the telegram boy, sinking to your knees in the mud in despair. It may be the same old story, but a century on it still has the power to hurt.

The Age of Adaline

Get Hard

Testament of Youth

smallest of surprises. This is a story that helped form those clichés, which gives it a power (and in some ways a shamelessness about doing what seems to us today to be the obvious thing) that gives the story a strength that a modern day attempt to cover the same ground would lack.

Before the war, Vera (Alicia Vikander) has two big worries: would her father (Dominic West) allow her to try out for Oxford and which one of her brother’s friends should she go out with, with sensitive poet Roland (Kit

he means everyone) in the cinema happy, this also features such diverse material as a World War 2 “battle” so generic it could have been fought against the Germans, the Japanese, the Italians, or the cast of Hogan’s Heroes; at least two lectures on modern art; a sod-kicker child who shows up to school wearing a T-shirt and overalls; a sorority house full of half-dressed giggling girls; male butt shots and brief topless female nudity; at least two dramatic sequences involving bull’s names being pulled out of a hat; cowboys in leather chaps; the terms “Buckin’ crown”, “buck-offs” and “buckle”; young lovers kissing while swimming; at least one lecture on the importance of cowboy hats; and the further adventures of Rango, the killer bull that, according to one rodeo announcer, “needs no introduction”. It’s completely clichéd and totally lacking in surprises, but it’s also the kind of film that can be a lot of fun so long as you’re willing to go with the flow – of tears, as it’s not messing around when it comes to piling on the supposedly sad stuff towards the back half. Sparks did write The Notebook, after all.

It’s been way too long since we had a high school comedy, let alone one as fun as this turns out to be. While the “DUFF” (designated ugly fat friend) gimmick is a good one, this is basically a solid teen rom-com with a good line in witty quips, and as such should not be missed.

Terrier is back in Africa working with an aid organisation for real, but when a hit squad comes looking for him he’s forced to dig up his past in the hope of finding out who wants him dead before they get their wish.

The frequently shirtless Penn certainly has muscled up enough to be a credible threat, and a subplot involving a long-term injury (the result of being too close to too many explosions) provides some reasonable moments of weakness for his enemies to exploit. So taken purely as a thriller this gets the job done – thanks largely to some efficiently brutal action sequences.

But the occasional nods towards geopolitical and commercial realities rarely give this the depth it’s reaching for, and the characters – Terrier included – rarely display even a second dimension. It’s dumb fun that wants to be smart… at least, it does until it dispatches a bad guy via stampeding bull. Once you’ve sunk to that level, then all bets are off.

Tickets: $10 concession $12 adult Licensed Candy Bar More movie times and info available online pivotcinema.com.au The Ukranian Community Hall, 57 Pakington St, Geelong West

Home Aliens conquer Earth (don’t worry, they’re nice aliens), but one little girl is still on the loose, and when she teams up with the only alien who actually likes socialising (and who may have accidentally let the alien’s arch-enemy know where they’re hiding out) there’s a whole lot of havoc to be wreaked.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 He’s back! In a slightly bigger mall! It’s difficult to believe that every single person who saw the first one hasn’t grown out of the desire to see Kevin James on a segway, but just in case you haven’t, you now have this.

Music Reviews

JJ Grey & Mofro

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

OL’ GLORY (Provogue) Warner

QUARTERS

Growing up in Jacksonville Florida, JJ Grey aspired to a performance range from Jerry Reed to Otis Redding. Along the way, he absorbed influences from Run-DMC to Motown. This is his 9th recording fronting the band formerly known simply as ‘Mofro’, their first on the Provogue label. The current line up packs all the tools required for a big brassy delivery of soulful blues, funk, gospel and countrified grooves. Horns, organ, harmonica and harmonies combine to cheer the weariest soul.

Grey’s earnest pipes are an invitation to positivity. ‘Everything Is A Song’ warms up the set in glorious ensemble style. The track could have just as easily served as album closer, in the vein of a joyous extended live encore. ‘The Island’ presents Grey the vocalist as white-hot blue-eyed balladeer – skirting Mraz ‘All Of Me’ territory. He sings of the dark days of southern slavery with guest Luther Dickinson on dreamy slide guitar. ‘Every Minute’ is an easygoing West Coast country rocker with soaring horns, infectious rhythms and trails off with tasty guitar from Derek Trucks. ‘A Night To Remember’ (Think ‘Heartache Tonight’) and ‘Turn Loose’ bring a little

Flightless/Remote Control Records

Memphis attitude.

Grey worked with long time co-producer/engineer Dan Prothero. They capture the current Mofro line up as the epitome of studio session pros: Anthony Cole (drums), Andrew Trube (guitar), Anthony Farrell (organ), Todd Smallie (bass),

Best Coast

but let’s be honest, they’ve come a long way since those early days of Crazy For You and this album does a great job of showcasing that.

‘Heaven Sent’ cements itself on a solid drum beat, simple guitar riff and even simpler lyrics – what can I

Miami Horror

different band, if this were a CD I think I may have actually taken it out to check. ‘Compound Fracture’ is an all-round great track. There’s a sort of soulful-rock ‘70s vibe and while elements in the previous song mightn’t have worked I can’t really fault this one.

Where was this track five minutes ago?

There’s really a lot to take in in this album and it’s not the kind of thing you can sum up in one sitting. There are so many different styles, genres, techniques and topics covered in each track.

Clearly the band have sought a lot of different inspirations from this release, but the main constant seems to be the ‘70s vibe. I’d check out ‘Compound Fracture’, ‘Spring’ and ‘Thin Line’.

Oh, and did I mention ‘Thin Line’? Seriously, it’s a goodie.

My one piece of advice: skip the first track, it’s a confusing introduction to an otherwise pretty standout release. This is also the kind of album that isn’t a listen from start to finish release, it’s best taken in fractions, so throw it on your iPod and shuffle this baby up!

Reviewed by Amanda Sherring

They Might Be Giants

you will be less aware of. He is actually a Sydney-based composer who works with the Sydney Dance Company.

Emergence gives a brilliant taste of experimental pop music, delivered with the lush and familiar vocals of Sarah Blasko. While it mightn’t be a similar sound for the vocalist –

completely out of her genre would be putting it modestly – there’s something about it that just really works. It’s almost as if the tracks have been created around Blasko’s vocal range and ability.

‘Burning Moment’ is easily the highlight of the release.

There seems to be an overflow of emotion in the track and the piano and Blasko’s muttering paired with her perfect reach in pitch make it a stunning track.

The album is a dark and disturbing listen and isn’t the kind of thing to be played alone in a dark room – unless you like your psyche being penetrated that is. Through the use of gentle panting, pitterpattering and dripping water, your perspective of the possibilities of pop music will be forever altered.

Reviewed by Amanda Sherring

Harvest Records

My Morning Jacket THE WATERFALL Capitol Records

I’m not going to lie, when I heard the opening track ‘Believe’ I was sure it was the beginning of a Disney soundtrack – and I don’t really like Disney. Though luckily, all strange choices in sound effects aside, the song made up for itself. There was still a bit of my feeling a bit uneasy at the balance between the synth, keys and vocals and whether they actually worked together at all?

Second off the bat and it seems to be a completely

Nick Wales & Sarah Blasko EMERGENCE Create Control

There’s an instant darkness that envelops you as ‘Killer’ begins. The song is layered with synth beats rolling over each other and it isn’t until about two minutes into this track when Sarah Blasko’s haunting vocals come in.

The two minute mark is the same moment you realise this is possibly one of the best collaborations ever.

Sarah Blasko is known as a talented singer-songwriter internationally but Nick Wales is a name that many of

were melodic, laid back and free.

The guitar and lyrics are what really make this track incredible.

‘God Is In The Rhythm’ is downright weird – I love it.

It’s a sound trip that lasts for around 11 minutes and alters your perception of things purely through music. I couldn’t even try to explain it, you just need to

Brian Wilson

say, sometimes simple is best.

And that guitar solo, just yes.

Over the years the Best Coast sound has changed, this time around there’s less fuzz than before, no more of the country twangs in the previous record or even the humour seen in past lyrics.

This time it’s stripped back and much more serious as Bethany Cosentino sings of medication, heartbreak and insomnia.

The album mightn’t ring true for die-hard Best Coast fans, but there’s still a charm in the new ‘90s pop sound. Be sure to reserve a spot for ‘So Unaware’, ‘Heaven Sent’ and ‘California Nights’ on your iPod. Reviewed by Amanda Sherring

CALIFORNIA NIGHTS As soon as something even hints at being a little bit grunge ‘90s pop, I’m sold.

While they’re not 100 per cent in that bracket, even just hanging around the edges of the genre is enough for me.

Opening number ‘Feeling OK’ is a little bit of a sing-along track, and it does get a bit sugary-sweet in sections but it’s still OK in my book.

There’s still the same Californian vibe that made us fall in love with the band,

Dennis Marion (trumpet) and Jeff Dazey (saxophone). With Grey on a whole bunch of Fenders and Gibsons and more, they capture the party-time live vibe the band’s known for.

Damn fine product with the definitive stamp of the good ol’ U.S. of A. Reviewed by Chris Lambie

Seriously, I cannot fault this album.

Quarters by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is probably one of the best albums I’ve ever listened to, it’s like they’ve travelled back in time to learn the secrets of the great psychedelic rockers, come back and reinvented it to make their own beautifully unique sound.

Each track is an experiment with sound, and these days with so much ‘same same’ garbage out there, it’s a breathe of fresh air.

Complex and hypnotic this is psychedelic rock at its finest, I might go as far as to say that they could be compared to the sounds of The Doors, which as a die-hard fan is a really big call for me to make.

There’s only four tracks on the album, which explains the name Quarters, but each one runs for around 10 minutes, so screw it, I’m going to review each one. The first track, ‘The River’ is a brilliant introduction to the experience you’re about to have.

Instrumentally flawless, it takes you by the hand and leads you down a strange and wonderful path of sounds.

Talk about being taken to another era, ‘Infinite Rise’ is like being thrown back to the late ‘60s early ‘70s where the sounds

expect to hear Brian do. However, that is something that makes this album so great. All the preconceptions that you might have in your mind about Brian and the Beach Boys stuff is completely blown on this album.

With collaborations with the

likes of She and Him and Kacey Musgraves, to name but just a few, you should check this album out.

As you’d expect, it is great upbeat song writing and if you’re a Beach Boys nut, you probably have already ventured out to buy it. Love and Mercy is the new film about Brian’s musical time in the Beach Boys and so this album couldn’t come at a better time. Featuring John Cusack, the film looks fantastic so keep your eyes out for that.

A true visionary has delivered one of the best albums of 2015, and you should have it in your collection. Electro and upbeat, throw this on at dinner parties and you will be commended for your music choice.

Reviewed by Tex Miller

Plant has said of this album that they really went back to the roots of song writing, learning all the rules of what makes a good song great.

It shows through in each track as there’s just something so perfect about the compilation of each song.

With its slow build, harmonising and heavy synth beats ‘Wild Motion’ is set to be the clear favourite on the album. It’s the kind of track where everyone immediately stops what they’re doing to dance along to it. Though the highlight for me is a tie between ‘All It Ever Was’ and ‘Another Rise, Another Fall’ – the latter of which I highly recommend for any ‘80s disco-pop fans.

Listening to the album from start to finish, there’s plenty of reason for the boys to be proud of this one. All Possible Futures is a varied listen but one that works from the very first synth beat dropped. This is possibly one of the best releases of the year.

Reviewed by Amanda Sherring

these guys get, it’s a little grittier than the rest of the songs on the album. It’s dark and melancholy and takes you somewhere. ‘End of the Rope’ is also another one to look out for, it’s got a big band and a burlesque vibe to it which makes it broodingly raw and seductive.

Amongst this goodness there are some tracks that are, well, a little boring. ‘Good to be Alive’ didn’t really go anywhere and it was somewhat juvenile, lyrically and melodically. ‘Answer’ is another track that I don’t think will be setting the world on fire, it’s slow and not captivating – boring.

The absolute stand out track is Pt 1 of ‘Music Jail’, it’s full of drums and violins that create a beautiful gypsy rock tune, is that an accordion I can hear? Someone pass me a hula hoop, stat! The style and tune remind me of the old Melbourne gypsy band, Rapskallion. All in all, Glean is definitely worth a listen, there are some amazing tracks to be heard, but if you like your rock dirty and raw you might be a little let down.

Reviewed by Montana Agustin

NO PIER PRESSURE Capitol Records

When you’ve written songs like ‘Good Vibrations’ and possibly the greatest song in ‘God Only Knows’, what do you do with yourself ? If you’re Brian Wilson, you don’t sit still that’s what. Having had such an illustrious career in The Beach Boys, in No Pier Pressure he creates some awesome tracks and it’s not what you expect by any stretch of the imagination – ‘Runaway Dancer’ is a prime example of this. Poppy electro dance is something that I’d never

ALL POSSIBLE FUTURES Remote Control

The sunny sugar-pop sounds of opening track ‘American Dream’ roll in and with eyes closed scenes of a roadtrip along Route 66 instantly spring to mind. There’s an infectious happiness and it’s the kind of track you can’t help but feel delighted to listen to.

‘Real Slow’, and much of the rest of the album, has that hint of old school disco and it’s quite refreshing to see a band revisit the happy tunes of days past. Benjamin

GLEAN Breakaway Recordings

They Might Be Giants have been around since 1982, but there’s been talk that 2015 is the big year for the band. I can see the appeal of these guys, I really can, but I can’t say that I’m now a massive fan after listening to Glean. Their genre is classed as rock but I’m not too sure about that, as it’s not the rock I’m used to, it’s more alternative pop, laced with rock.

Though there are some really great tracks on this album, ‘Underwater Woman’ is probably the closest to rock

listen. ‘Lonely Steel Sheet Flyer’ has some killer riffs to back up the eerie lyrics and amazing relaxed drum sounds. This one, like the rest, plucks you from reality and throws you into a place far more fun and free.

There’s not one bad thing to say about King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard or this mind altering album, not one. Do yourself a favour and listen to Quarters!

Reviewed by Montana Agustin

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Music Reviews

Narana Unplugged Narana Aboriginal Cultural Centre, April 18 Ezekiel Ox, Josh Seymour & Tim Durkin, Mick Ryan & Oliver Fox, Nathan Seeckts and Olly Friend The inaugural Narana Unplugged event on Saturday harnessed picture perfect weather and an enthusiastic crowd immersing themselves’ in the relaxed vibe that permeated Narana’s amazing natural setting and unique performance spaces.

Kicking off with a traditional Welcome To Country Ceremony the eclectic line up of artists showcased their talents as well as a wide range of musical styles over multiple stages. Opening up proceedings local Geelong lad Olly Friend played to a packed deck at Café Narana, nailing his mellow acoustics with maturity beyond his years, also providing a glimpse of material from his forthcoming release.

Nathan Seeckts, sans his band The Dead City Lights, bought not only his booming vocals but his engaging lyrical storytelling approach which came to the fore, building a relaxed rapport with the midday crowd.

Mick Ryan and Oliver Fox of The Louds playing more sedate acoustic versions of their songs showed promoting equality and social issues through music can definitely be achieved in a post

punk rock’n’roll context.

Josh Seymour and Tim Durkin of Cherrywood fame provided a stripped down stomped out version of their trademark altcountry stylings as an acoustic duo which won them many new fans. Swapping mikes and rapid

fire banter along with a good old fashioned mandolin and guitar double throwdown.

The inimitable Ezekiel Ox arrived late but kept punters milling around The Circle with a sense of anticipation for his one man cyber-cabaret loop station.

Highlights being the politically charged single ‘The Past, Present and Future’ with a little help from local Didgeridoo player Lyndon Perry.

Ezekiel Ox also threw in crowd pleasing covers ‘Working 9 to 5’

by Dolly Parton as well as Johnny

Farnham classic ‘You’re The Voice’ prompting a crowd sing-a-long.

“Narana Unplugged is part of our efforts to engage with the local community in new ways and we hope this will be the first of many music events and performances as part of Narana’s wider cultural

education program,” said Raymond Walters, Narana’s Reconciliation Initiatives Manager.

Stay tuned for future Narana Unplugged events in the coming months and a major event announcement for summer 2015.

Written by Lincon Boyd

Anyway, there is one problem with setting your own hours and then setting those hours to “maximum sleep in”. What happens when one of your neighbours decides it’s time to turn their house into a construction site?

Actually, let’s step back a moment: roughly a week and a half ago I was woken up bright and early by the amazingly annoying tones of my next door neighbour conversing loudly with someone in his back yard. My neighbour is a man in his fifties, with a nasally voice that doesn’t seem to work below 60 decibels, which can turn the most beautiful and musical poetry into something a Dalek shouts before blowing you up. So being slowly pulled out of an all-too-brief slumber by the sounds of him arguing with someone was, as the French say, a bit shit. At least it didn’t take me long to figure out what was going on: he’d hired a guy to paint his house, then had decided to tell the guy exactly how to do his job while the painter said things like,

“Well, I’m telling you-” and “Listen, this has to be done-“ in the tiny gaps where my neighbour drew breath. He’d hired a guy to do a job that he thought he could do better: sadly, this was not a surprise coming from my neighbour.

So for the next five mornings I was woken up by either a): my neighbour “helpfully” telling the painter what to do for an hour at a time, b): the painter bashing his metal ladder against the side of the house, or c): the painter taking calls for other jobs every five minutes. As I had no idea when this was going to end, each night I kept on working late (OK, getting drunk on the couch), hoping tomorrow would be the morning that my nightmare would end. I guess eventually it did, only I didn’t actually notice when the painter stopped waking me up because on the sixth morning I was woken up by an exciting new sound: someone throwing big lumps of concrete into a steel truck out the front of my house.

And we’re not talking about gradually

building up to it and only making the big sounds at, say, 8.30am or so when you could reasonably expect most people – not me, of course, but most people – to be awake. No, this shit started at 7.02am (I know, because I checked my clock to see what time this crazy noise was happening at), which suggests to me the guys stood by the truck with the lumps of concrete ready to throw in and waited until the earliest possible legal moment to do so. And then they kept on doing it all through the morning, though after a while they were filling the trucks up with dirt and the real noise was the endless heavy idling diesel trucks, because it’s easier to leave them running than to shut them off even though they’re parked on a suburban street for seven or eight hours.

For the first two days of this I figured the neighbours were building a backyard shed, as that was what they’d told me six months or so ago.

But what shed requires the removal

of six dump trucks full of dirt? It was a mystery I had plenty of time to ponder, especially as after the first day I’d figured that had to be the end of it so had continued with my usual schedule and been woken up early by yet again more trucks. But day three brought the answer: they were installing a swimming pool.

And once they’d had it craned in over their house and into the back yard I figured that was the end of the week – well, eight or nine days - of ruined nights and I could finally start to sleep off this hangover. Of course not: while I’d been distracted by the pool installation, the person on the other side of my house had decided to get in a bobcat and start tearing up their backyard to build – I don’t know, Uncle Tom’s Shit Shack – and next morning without the giant trucks out the front muffling the bobcat’s sound there it was loud and clear and getting me up well before a decent hour. I’m not sure it was

loud enough to completely muffle the 25 minutes worth of obscenities I shouted over the back fence; it didn’t matter because the driver was wearing earmuffs – of course he was because those things are fucking loud which was why he waited until 7.30am before revving the guts out of it, thanks dickhead – but once I kicked a hole in the fence – I like to think he got the message. I probably should have put some shoes on first, mind you.

Last Words

grog watch Tony “Tonight, on A Current Affair…”

Montana

Pretty much the only good thing about being such an obvious drunk that none of your workmates actually want to look at you, is that you get to do a lot of your work from home.

As I have never really bothered adjusting my body clock to grown-up scheduling, when I do work from home I tend to sleep in late and then work late – you know, like pretty much all normal humans would do given half the chance. Sorry, but if you’re a “morning person” then you disgust me with your freakish, unnatural ways, and the sooner we get some kind of forced segregation to move you all onto King Island where your creepy need to wake up bright and chirpy before the crack of dawn can be isolated from decent regular folks the better.

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