ISSUE NO. 1498 NOVEMBER 4, 2015
FREE Now picked up at 2,240+ places around Melbourne. beat.com.au
EVERY THING MELBOURNE
I N S I D E
PVT
MUMFORD AND SONS
After a two year absence the Sydney trio return for Melbourne Music Week.
Folk-turned-rock heroes are taking over stadiums across the country.
SARAH BLASKO
Australia's seminal singer/songwriter returns with her sixth studio album.
THE TEA PARTY
Celebrating 20 years since the release of their stunning third album.
KUTCHA EDWARDS
Educating and inspiring generations through song.
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BEAT PRESENTS
H I G HC O WTS ME UNF FS I O N FRIDAY29 FITZROY DECEMBER 18 PRINCE BANDROOM ST, ST.KILDA. TICKETS THOUGH OZTIX.COM.AU / 1300 762 545 ‘HOW IT WORKS’ NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL
‘IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU’ NOW AVAILABLE
Sat 7 November 5pm
NATIVE PLANTS Harmony and guitar-driven trio playing original pop propagated with 60s rock ‘n’ roll.
Sat 7 November 9pm
DR CRASK &
HIS SWINGIN’ ELIXIR
Get Lindy hoppin’ with swing tunes of the 30s and 40s. Whatever ails you, a dose of Dr Crask is in order.
Sun 8 Nov 3.30pm
WEEPING WILLOWS
Andy Wrigglesworth and Laura Coates singing tunes steeped in bluegrass tradition and draped in gothic Americana imagery.
Sun 8 Nov 5pm
MORELAND CITY SOUL REVUE
Get on board the soul train and check out this all-star cast of musos playing old soul and soulful funk.
Tuesdays:
TRIVIA
e h T k c MoC asbah
ht Every Monday Nig SpEC
Ial RoTA Ting
VeGAn MenU
5.30Pm 'tIl 10pM
SpECIalS t n I P P a e H Ze aNd C NEs fROm 7pm VeGAn BoNO Tu Pu K RoCk
With mysterious Mr. Drew, phone to book your table of up to 6
GRAMMY AWARD WINNING
GRAMMY AND
ACADEMY AWARD
WINNER
“Musical magic.” LA.COM “A wall of talent on stage.” DENVER WESTWORD “Easily one of the best nights of live music.” LAS VEGAS INFORMER
WITH SPECIAL GUEST
SHAKEY GRAVES
TUESDAY MARCH
29
HAMER HALL
WEDNESDAY MARCH
BLUESFEST
SIDESHOWS
KEITH RICHARDS
THURSDAY MARCH
CORNER 24 THE
GRAMMY AWARD WINNING SINGER FROM CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS
FEATURING
ROBERT RANDOLPH JOHN MEDESKI AND NORTH MISSISSIPPI ALLSTARS’ LUTHER DICKINSON & CODY DICKINSON
NASHVILLE SCENE
“He’s a cat that can do an Otis Redding.”
19
FORUM THEATRE
ON SALE NOW!
“Alabama’s next big success story”
MTV
CORNER 31 THE
SATURDAY MARCH
TICKETS FROM BLUESFESTTOURING.COM.AU 02 6685 8310 & THE VENUES MORE INFO FROM BLUESFESTTOURING.COM.AU
“The best effing voice I’ve ever heard.”
THU MAR
30
PALAIS THEATRE
“genre-splicing instrumental dexterity” ROLLING STONE
MONDAY MARCH
28 THE CORNER
“2015’s next big thing” THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY MARCH
CORNER 23 THE
“you feel every sweaty note, a full-tilt, damn the torpedoes showcase” STAR TELEGRAPH
“Nahko is quickly becoming one of the biggest, most relevant artists of our time. His lyrics are inspiring and life changing.” DOVE LIDDLE 2015
AMERICANA MUSIC ASSOCIATION AWARDS
2015 Artist of the Year 2015 Song of the Year NASHVILLE SCENE COUNTRY MUSIC
“A joyous rude-boy revue from an act as slick and brash as their shiny silver suits” NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY
SUNDAY MARCH
CORNER 27 THE
FRI MAR
25 THE CORNER
CRITICS POLL “Simpson 2014 Best Male Vocalist has 2014 Best Songwriter perfected AMERICAN the trick SONGWRITERS of Best Album of 2014 distilling THE PLAYLIST classic 2015 favourite country from song of the year many eras and moving away from it at theWEDNESDAY same time.” NPR MARCH
23 170 RUSSELL
WEDNESDAY MARCH
CORNER 30 THE
SONGHOY BLUES JACKSON BROWNE STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES THE WAILERS
PARADISE MUSIC FESTIVAL
27th - 29th NOVEMBER, 2015
LAKE MOUNTAIN ALPINE RESORT
ROLAND TINGS | MY DISCO LURCH & CHIEF | BLACK CAB | BLACK VANILLA TIRED LION | KIRKIS | CASSIUS SELECT | THE HARPOONS | FLYYING COLOURS SMILE | DORSAL FINS | DARTS | FRIENDSHIPS | TOTALLY MILD | CATLIPS OSLOW | JAALA | NULL | HABITS | THE INFANTS | STRICT FACE | LEISURE SUITE DEER | CALE SEXTON | ALTA | TINY LITTLE HOUSES | BROADWAY SOUNDS ANDREI EREMIN | 0.1 | MARCUS WHALE | AMATEUR DANCE | NEIGHBOURHOOD YOUTH GOOD MORNING | ASDASFR BAWD | POST PERCY | MISTY NIGHTS | NUTRITION THE COMPLETELY BOYS | IO | THOMAS TOUCHÉ
BATTLES “…when they’re in the zone, there’s not much like it.” - Pitchfork “They’re simply a can’t-miss act” - Consequence Of Sound
BATPISS 26 NOV MELBOURNE, MAX WATTS
SPECIAL GUESTS FOR BOTH SHOWS:
TICKETS FROM FEELPRESENTS.OZTIX.COM.AU, PH: 1300 762 545 & OZTIX OUTLETS
2016_ FRI. 12TH FEB. MELBOURNE MAX WATTS
TICKETS ON SALE NOW FROM MAXWATTS.COM.AU, PH: 1300 724 867 & IN PERSON AT ALL OZTIX OUTLETS
27 NOV GEELONG, BARWON CLUB TICKETS FROM OZTIX.COM.AU, PH: 1300 762 545 & OZTIX OUTLETS
ALSO TOURING... MIREL WAGNER / BUZZCOCKS / VIOLENT FEMMES / • FEELPRESENTS.COM • FACEBOOK.COM/FEELPRESENTS
ALBERT HAMMOND JR SET TO EMBARK ON 2016 TOUR
D E R R I C K M AY A N D J E F F M I L L S P L AY MY E R MUSIC BOWL WITH MSO Detroit techno heavyweights Jeff Mills and Derrick May are teaming up over January to bring Melbourne audiences a special one-night-only performance with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The exclusive Melbourne event, to be held on Saturday January 30 at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, will see Mills and May perform individual sets with the MSO, and closely follows last month’s sold out MSO live performance with Flight Facilities. Tickets go on sale Thursday November 12 through Ticketmaster.
THE CHILLS PREPARE FOR 2016 MELBOURNE SHOW
FACE THE MUSIC KICKS OFF NEXT WEEK
New Zealand indie veterans The Chills have locked in a one-off Melbourne show to celebrate their new release, Silver Bullets. Their first release in nearly two decades, the new release continues to see songwriter Martin Phillipps at the core. Marking a return for the group, the album comes in the wake of a tough time for Phillips who has overcome drug addiction, hepatitis C and cirrhosis of the liver. Catch The Chills return to the stage when they take over Max Watt’s on Friday January 15. Tickets via Ticketscout.
It’s easily one of Melbourne’s most important music industry dates for upcoming professionals, and you’d be crazy to miss it. The Face The Music industry conference and summit hosts two jam-packed days of panel sessions, keynote presentations, workshops and industry insight. Attendees can bend the ear of a key triple j influencer at the triple j Listening Lounge workshop or increase their digital awareness with DubFX, Yeo and M-PHAZES at The Evolution of Digital Music Production. Workshop reservations are open until Monday November 9, but places are limited so book fast. Face The Music goes down at Arts Centre Melbourne from Friday November 13 to Saturday November 14. Nab your tickets from the event’s webpage.
GBH HEAD OVER FOR AUSTRALIAN TOUR GBH are coming over to Australia for some storming live shows in 2016, taking their influential British hardcore to The Bendigo Hotel for the Melbourne leg of the tour. The Birmingham based punks rose to prominence in England during the early ‘80s when hardcore punk began inching toward heavy metal, still continuing the tradition of performing furious angst ridden shows. They’ll be ripping into The Bendigo Hotel on Friday February 26 next year. Head over to the venue’s website to grab your tickets now.
STIFF LITTLE FINGERS LOCK IN AUSTRALIAN SHOWS Lying at the forefront of the 1970s punk movement, Ireland based act Stiff Little Fingers have just announced that they’ll be heading to Australia for a run of shows over March and April. Forming in 1977, they started out writing about their own lives growing up at the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. In 1979 they became the first band ever to hit the UK Top 20 album charts on an independent label with their debut Inflammable Material, calling on youth to create their own reality. The band released three more albums before splitting in 1983. After reforming in 1987, they have released six more studio albums, playing with a consistently fluid lineup based around frontman Jake Burns for the nearly 30 years onwards. Stiff Little Fingers will tear through 170 Russell on Thursday March 31, get your stiff little fingers on tickets via the venue’s website. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 22
Legendary guitarist for The Strokes and accomplished solo performer Albert Hammond Jr is heading back to Australian shores in February for another ripper of a solo tour. After releasing his first solo album in five years, Momentary Masters, back in July, Albert Hammond Jr will bring his first ever headline tour to Australia for four shows in Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. As the guitarist for The Strokes for the last 17 years Hammond Jr. has sold multi-platinum albums across the globe. His solo career began with his 2006 debut, Yours To Keep. See Albert Hammond Jr at The Corner Hotel on Sunday February 21. Tickets go on sale Friday October 30 through the venue.
HARTS UNVEILS NATIONAL TOUR Your boy Harts has just released the first taste of his forthcoming second album, and to celebrate he’ll be launching the single with a run of national shows in January. All Rise (Play It Cool) will be launched with three intimate, headlining shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Harts will play Howler on Thursday January 14. Tickets are on sale through Moshtix.
KIT WARHURST ANNOUNCES MELBOURNE SINGLE LAUNCH SHOW WOMADELAIDE REVEAL PART TWO OF 2016 LINEUP This bad boy just keeps getting bigger and bigger. WOMADelaide have just added more than 30 artists to next year’s festival, taking place in March. Leading the second round of artists is UK’s Mercury Prize nominated and politically charged electronic act, Asian Dub Foundation. For over 20 years, Asian Dub Foundation’s musical diversity has seen them work alongside a number of artists including Sinead O’Connor in the 2003 collaboration 1000 Mirrors, share the stage with the Beastie Boys and with Primal Scream, and be invited by David Bowie to perform a live score to French filmmaker Mathieu Kassovit’s cult classic, La Haine in 2002. Also joining the lineup are French-Cuban twin sisters Ibeyi, eight-piece New York ensemble Hazmat Modine, and Israeliborn Ethiopian singer-actress Ester Rada. On the national front All Our Exes Live in Texas, Husky, and Mojo Juju are just some of the Australian acts now gracing the festival. More artists are set to be announced next month. WOMADelaide 2016 will also feature a major site installation titled Sacrilege, an interactive, life-sized inflatable replica of Stonehenge created by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller. WOMADelaide will take place at Botanic Park in Adelaide from Friday March 11 till Monday March 14. Full lineup and tickets are available on the festival’s website.
Best known for his work as the drummer of seminal Australian group Rocket Science, Kit Warhurst has returned with a solo project that will aim to establish him as an artist in his own right. Announcing the release of his new single, Nothing In Melbourne, Warhurst is eager to finally have something to call his own after spending years and years assisting others in the music industry. He’ll be taking over The Old Bar for a launch show on Thursday November 26. Head on over to the venue’s website for tickets and more details.
FREE $HIT THE LULU RAES Sydney boys The Lulu Raes only just came back from playing Bigsound and Small World Festival, as well as a national tour with Holy Holy. You’d think they’d be buggered by now, but they’ve only just started their own headline tour, coming into The Workers Club this Thursday night. Hit us up on beat.com.au/freeshit for a free double pass to the gig.
AMY The infamous Amy Winehouse documentary Amy, out now on DVD and Blu-Ray, offers an inside look at one of this generation’s most misunderstood artists through the use of rare interview footage and never before seen performances. To celebrate the home video release of Amy, a must have for any Winehouse fan, we’ve got a couple of DVD copies to give away. Check out beat.com. au/freeshit for the details.
F R I D AY N I G H T S AT NGV: UNDERGROUND LOVERS Friday Nights at NGV returns this week, giving visitors exclusive after-hours access to Masterpieces from the Hermitage: The Legacy of Catherine the Great. They’re also continuing their live music tradition, with a new set each week coming from a rotating lineup of Australian and international performers. Underground Lovers headline this week’s edition. Send your details to news@ngv.vic. gov.au with Beat Promotion in the subject line for your shot at a double pass to the opening.
BUILT TO SPILL UNVEIL 2016 SHOW In celebration of their latest album, Untethered Moon, Idaho group Built To Spill are set to head back to Australia next March. It’s been five years since their last trip over here, releasing two albums and replacing two band members during that time. Built To Spill have also launched another project, the synth-pop inspired The Electronic Anthropology Project. Built to Spill will play at Corner Hotel on Saturday March 12.
ACID BABY JESUS ANNOUNCE NOVEMBER SHOW Christ almighty. Psychedelic juggernaut Acid Baby Jesus have just launched their latest EP, Vegetable, and are taking to the stage to celebrate. Formed in Athens in 2009, the group have brought together the worlds of psychedelic rock and their own Grecian folk history. Recently, they played Austin Psych Fest and toured the world with the likes of The Night Beats and Black Lips. Get weird with Acid Baby Jesus when they hit The Curtin on Thursday November 12. Nab your tickets from the venue’s website.
WATCH INTERVIEWS, CHATS & AWKWARD SILENCES... BEAT.COM.AU/TV
BAR WEDNESDAYS
OPEN MIC
Show the Boogie Man what you’ve got!
THURSDAY 5 NOVEMBER
JOHN WILLIAMS’ BLUES BLUES BLUES DOUBLE SHOT OF BLUES BANDS
D R MALONE SOUTH BOUND SNAKE CHARMERS FRIDAY 6 NOVEMBER
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PRIVATE FUNCTION SUNDAY 8 NOVEMBER
MISSTUESDAY
CLASSIC SOUL AND BLUES AFTER WORK HAPPY HOUR FROM 5PM:
WED, THURS & FRI 160 HODDLE ST ABBOTSFORD
A ROUGH DIAMOND FROM 1985, UNEARTHED 30 YEARS LATER, POLISHED AND RELEASED AS A 2015 ‘DEBUT’
L I F E T I M E A C H I E V E M E N T AWA R D W I N N E R (‘BORN N BRED’ MUSIC VIDEO TV SHOW, ZNBC)
N O M I N AT E D F O R B E S T G L O B A L O R R E G G A E A L B U M (2015 THE AGE MUSIC VICTORIA AWARDS)
‘The overall co-ordination of the songs is striking. Larry has a lot to offer and seems set to stand out. This is possibly the most up-to-date reggae production from any Zambian artist’ - Charles Kachikoti, Zambia Daily Mail - August 1985 ‘The ultimate release of the album has an interesting background’ Kelvin Kachingwe, Zambia Daily Mail, July 2015
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ST PAUL AND THE BROKEN BONES ANNOUNCE 2016 MELBOURNE SHOW
mon - Fri til 7Pm - $6 Pints mondays - $15 Jugs mt goat sundays - $10 Jugs unicorn lager $5 cans every day/night
Wednesday 4th november
Jacky Winter extreme Wheeze PoPolice
8Pm $8
thursday 5th november
summer Flake
- launch
loWer Plenty sleePless nights shame brothers
7:30Pm $10
Friday 6th november
skyscraPer stan & the commission Flats - launch van Walker
8:30Pm $10
saturday 7th november
old gray mule (usa)
mightiest oF guns green tin
8:30Pm $10
sunday 8th november
beersoaked sundays:
big smoke the sugarcanes Julia Jacklin
8Pm $6
monday 9th november
mundane mondays:
drohtnung haraam comPlete
8Pm $5
tuesday 10th november
kate alexander art shoW:
tankerville gonzo Junk horses
7Pm $6
S O U N D WAV E R E V E A L F I R S T 2016 L I N E U P ANNOUNCEMENT After the almost eternal-seeming drip feed, Soundwave have finally officially announced the first round of acts for their 2016 incarnation. The 2016 festival will be headlined by Disturbed, who will be joined at the upper echelons of the bill by NOFX, Deftones, The Prodigy and Public Enemy, alongside the previously announced acts Bring Me The Horizon, Bullet For My Valentine and Refused. Rounding out the first announcement are Metal Allegiance, Hatebreed, Frenzal Rhomb, Failure, Lordi, Devil You Know, Moose Blood, Soulfly, Northlane, Dead Letter Circus, L7, Frnkiero and the Cellabration and Nothing But Thieves, with many more to be announced. After spanning two days in 2015, the festival will return to a one-day format next year. The Melbourne leg of the festival will fill the empty space left by Big Day Out, running on Australia Day. Soundwave 2016 will be held on Tuesday January 26 in Melbourne. Visit the Soundwave website for tickets for more information.
DIIV CONFIRM 2016 MELBOURNE SIDEHOW
SONGHOY BLUES REVEAL 2016 MELBOURNE SHOW
The Laneway festival sideshows just keep rolling in and the next on the list is Brooklyn's DIIV. On their first ever Australian tour the dream-pop outfit will play headline shows in Sydney and Melbourne, outside of their appearances at Laneway Festival. The band have recently released their new single Dopamine, the first taste of their forthcoming sophomore album Is The Is Are. DIIV will take over the Corner Hotel on Thursday February 11. Tickets are on sale now through the venue.
Desert blues act Songhoy Blues have announced that they will perform on Australian soil for the first time ever early next year. In what is set to be a mammoth tour for the world music purveyors, the band are set to perform at Byron Bay Bluesfest, Port Fairy Folk Festival, Golden Plains Music Festival and WOMADelaide, and they’ve just announced another headline show in Melbourne. You can catch Songhoy Blues in town at the Melbourne Recital Centre on Wednesday March 16.
PORT FAIRY FOLK F E S T I VA L R E V E A L THIRD LINEUP ANNOUNCEMENT FOR 2016
band bookings: bandbookings@theoldbar.com.au
www.thePuBlicBar.com.au
2 3 8 v i c t o r i a S t, n o r t h m e l B o u r n e oPen til 4am Fri/Sat
$8 Pints every day until 7Pm $10 Jugs every day until 8Pm $5 cans all the time Wednesday 4th november
SlimWoodsmith PickenS holiday James
7:30pm $7 thursday 5th november
Plotz - launch machine Gun sunrise mount defiance old etiquettes
7pm $8 Friday 6th november
one Girl fundraiser:
the BallS
coffin Wolf, uncle Geezer Brittle Bones, master Beta monkey Grip, saskatcheWan izzy mack & the Blacklist
DON MCGLASHAN UNVEILS MELBOURNE SHOW After just releasing his third album of his 30 year career, titled Lucky Stars, Don McGlashan is heading back to Australia to tour his latest album around the country in November. Lucky Stars is his first album in six years and follows on from his work with bands The Mutton Birds, The Front Lawn and Blam, Blam, Blam, as well as working on a number of film and TV soundtracks. Don McGlashan will play Melbourne Folk Club at Bakehouse Studios, with support from Jed Rowe, on Saturday November 14. Tickets are on sale through the venue.
After spending a strong 40 years in the business, The Port Fairy Folk Music Festival is celebrating once again next March with a massive lineup featuring over 100 acts across 20 venues, presenting 200 shows over four days. The third lineup features 21 acts including Ash Grunwald, Kate MillerHeidke, Robert Forster, Luka Bloom, Róisín O, The Rambling Boys, Mia Dyson, Songhoy Blues, Baby et Lulu, Dalriada, The Howard Family, Hog Stompin’ Zydegators, Tom Richardson, Tony McManus & Bepe Gambetta, The String Contingent, Raised By Eagles, Kate Burke & Ruth Hazleton, The Rumjacks, Nick Charles, Jaaleekaay and Lost In Surburbia. The 2016 Port Fairy Folk Festival will take place from Friday March 11 - Monday March 14. Hit their website for more details.
NGV ANNOUNCES LARGEST EVER F R I D AY N I G H T S MUSIC LINEUP FOR ANDY WARHOL | AI WEIWEI It’s back! NGV’s Friday Nights series has returned with a huge lineup, launching with after-hours access to groundbreaking exhibition, Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei - a work that brings together two of the most influential artists from the 20th and 21st centuries. Capping it off, a slew of Australian and international musicians will be playing one-off shows at the gallery. Sally Seltmann, Twerps, Bertie Blackman, Moon Duo, Neon Indian, The Apartments, Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders, James Chance & the Contortions, Jenny Hval, Luluc, Black Cab, Queen Sea Big Shark, Silicon, Ngaiire, Xylouris White, Blank Realm, Deradoorian and Regurgitator will all take the stage along with DJs and short exhibition talks. Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei explores the influence these artists have had on modern and contemporary life, focusing on the parallels, intersections and points of difference between the two artists’ practices. Surveying the scope of both artists’ careers, this major exhibition will present over 300 works, including major new commissions, immersive installations and a wide representation of paintings, sculpture, film, photography, publishing and social media. Friday Nights at NGV will run from Friday December 11 - Friday April 22 at the NGV International. For full details and bookings, head to their website.
Alabama sextet St Paul & The Broken Bones will make their debut sojourn Down Under next year. Visiting our shores for Bluesfest, the group have locked in a run of headline shows. Since the release of their debut album Half the City (produced by Ben Tanner of Alabama Shakes), they’ve gone on to play Lollapalooza, Coachella and recently supported The Rolling Stones. They’ll hit The Corner Hotel on Thursday March 24.
JAKARTA CRIERS L A U N C H N E W E P, TOUR With an east coast run of shows locked in this November, Brisbane four-piece Jakarta Criers are gearing up to celebrate the launch of their latest EP, Regal Twin. The band has previously toured with Australian heavyweights such as British India, Kingswood, Spiderbait and Stonefield as well as gracing the stages of Big Day Out, Valley Fiesta and the Caxton Street Festival. They’ll be playing at The Reverence Hotel on Thursday November 19 for their Melbourne leg of the tour. Hit up the Reverence’s website for tickets and more information.
GIRLPOOL LOCK IN AUSTRALIAN SHOWS
GRIMES CONFIRMS 2016 MELBOURNE SHOW Grimes has locked in a headline show in Melbourne to accompany her appearance at Laneway. Since first emerging in 2012 with her all-conquering debut Visions, Grimes has been at the forefront of electronic-laden indie pop. Her return next year will following the release of her sophomore record Art Angels, of which the first single Flesh Without Blood has just dropped. Catch her on Wednesday February 3 at 170 Russell.
Philadelphia based duo Girlpool have announced a trio of Australian shows this January, including a show at The Reverence Hotel. The tour follows the release of their debut album, Before The World Was Big, back in June. After forming in 2013, the pair - comprised of guitarist Cleo Tucker and bassist Harmony Tividad - have been making a name for themselves off the back of their drummer-less live performances and their honest songwriting, tackling concepts from awareness and respect to the simple feeling of being alone at a show. Girlpool will take over The Reverence Hotel, with support from Summer Flake, on Wednesday January 27. Tickets on sale through Handsome Tours.
7:30pm $10
Friday arvo
Baker’S DigeSt Jess parker
4pm free saturday 7th november
tttDc
leGends of motorsport olmeG tankerville
8:30pm $10 sunday 8th november
PuBlic Bar comeDY 4pm monday 9th november
the shifties the Groves lamB Boulevard
7:30pm $6 tuesday 10th november
also, draGons trash fairys rat hammock 7:30pm free
BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 24
PETER (BLACKIE) BLACK IS BACK FOR NEW ALBUM TOUR Returning from a seven week tour of Europe where he played a massive 44 shows in 46 days, Hard-Ons frontman Peter (Blackie) Black is back in Australia to promote his new solo album. Now promoting album number four, Clearly You Didn’t Like The Show, Peter Black will be performing his new album nationally, touring through most of November and leaking into December. He plays Old Bar on Friday November 27. Tickets and more details at The Old Bar’s website.
JENN GRANT RETURNS FOR AUSTRALIAN SHOWS Locking in a series of shows in November and December, Canadian singer/songwriter Jenn Grant has just released a double disc deluxe edition of her dreamy album, Compostela. The album features an impressive array of respected Canadian artists, including artists such as Buck 65, Ron Sexsmith and Rose Cousins, and has earned Grant high levels of praise along with two Juno Award nominations. Grant plays two shows in Melbourne, Wednesday November 25 at Self Preservation, and Saturday November 28 at a Homeward Sound House Concert in Collingwood. Grab your tickets from jenngrant.com.
FRENZAL RHOMB RETURN FOR URBAN SPREAD Australian punk royalty Frenzal Rhomb are hitting the ‘burbs this summer as part of the Urban Spread series, and it’s likely to be a friggin’ debaucherous mess. Known for their highly inappropriate stage antics, Frenzal will play for two nights that will undoubtedly end with punters sleeping on a silver goon pillow. With an A-list support crew of Clowns, Hard Aches and Heads Of Charm, tickets are sure to move quicker than those at the local RSL’s meat raffle. It’s happening on Friday January 8 at the Chelsea Heights Hotel, and then Saturday January 9 at the Village Green Hotel. Tickets via Urban Spread.
WATCH INTERVIEWS, CHATS & AWKWARD SILENCES... BEAT.COM.AU/TV
Wesley Anne - Bar • Restaurant • Etc -
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OD GO ES TIM
TOURING For all the latest tour dates check out beat.com.au
INTERNATIONAL FLEETWOOD MAC Rod Laver Arena November 4, Mt Dundeed Estate November 7 THE RUBBERBANDITS Max Watt’s November 6 NAUGHTY BY NATURE Trak Lounge November 6 SOUL-A-GO-GO Shebeen November 7 THE DARKNESS Forum Theatre November 7 THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS Forum Theatre November 7 MINI MANSIONS Ding Dong Lounge November 8 FLORENCE + THE MACHINE Sidney Myer Music Bowl November 10, 11 NICO & VINZ Prince Bandroom November 11 ACID BABY JESUS The Curtin November 12 AUSTRALASIAN WORLD MUSIC EXPO Various Venues November 12 – 15 THE TEA PARTY Palais Theatre November 13 MUMFORD & SONS Sidney Myer Music Bowl November 13 THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE Melbourne Town Hall November 15 POKÉMON SYMPHONIC EVOLUTIONS Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre November 13 DON MCGLASHAN Melbourne Folk Club, Bakehouse Studios November 14 HAUSCHKA Melbourne Recital Centre November 17 DEF LEPPARD Rod Laver Arena November 18 THE BEACH BOYS Palais Theatre November 18 LIVE The Forum November 19 ROBERT HENKE Melbourne Recital Centre, November 19 NILE Corner Hotel November 21 HANK MARVIN MEMO Music Hall November 21, 22 JON TOOGOOD Cherry Bar November 22 UB40 The Forum November 24 JENN GRANT Self Preservation November 25, Homeward Sound House Concert November 28 A TRIBE CALLED RED Northcote Social Club November 25 CALIFORNIA HONEYDROPS Caravan Music Club November 25, Northcote Social Club November 26 GANZ Platform One November 26 EARTHCORE Pyalong, Victoria November 26 – 30 PETER “BLACKIE” BLACK The Old Bar November 27 MARLON WILLIAMS Prince Bandroom November 27 RON SEXSMITH MEMO Music Hall November 27, Northcote Social Club November 28 TINY RUINS The Toff In Town, November 28 - 29 THE MAINE The Corner December 2 RISE AGAINST Margaret Court Arena December 2 GOAT + KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD The Croxton December 4 LAGWAGON Max Watt’s December 4 CHRIS CORNELL The Palais December 4 THE CORONAS Corner Hotel December 4 THE HOTELIER The Reverence Hotel December 4 MONO Corner Hotel December 5 ED SHEERAN AAMI Park December 5 STEREOSONIC Melbourne Showgrounds December 5 RATATAT 170 Russell December 6 UNWRITTEN LAW The Corner Hotel December 6 MERCURY REV Max Watt’s December 8 SAM SMITH Rod Laver Arena December 8 HALESTORM 170 Russell December 8 YELAWOLF Max Watt’s December 9 SHELLAC Corner Hotel December 9, 10 THURSTON MOORE Prince Bandroom December 10 JESSICA PRATT Northcote Social Club December 10 FATHER JOHN MISTY The Forum December 10 BULLY Howler December 10 THE BUREAU FESTIVAL Sidney Myer Music Bowl December 11 JULIA HOLTER Howler December 11 THE MISFITS Max Watt’s December 11 TAYLOR SWIFT AAMI Park December 11 MEREDITH MUSIC FESTIVAL Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre December 11-13 ELTON JOHN Rod Laver Arena December 11, Mt Duneed Estate December 12 THE EXPLOITED Max Watt’s December 12 UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS Corner Hotel December 13 FLOATING POINTS Coburg Velodrome December 13 A DAY TO REMEMBER + THE AMITY AFFLICTION Rod Laver Arena December 17 HOLEANDCORNER TBA December 19 EL VEZ Corner Hotel December 24 FALLS FESTIVAL Lorne December 28 – January 1 BEYOND THE VALLEY Lardner, Victoria December 29 – January 1 AGENT ORANGE Bendigo Hotel December 31 MAC MILLER The Forum January 2 GROUNDSWELL FESTIVAL Lake Tyers Beach January 2 KURT VILE The Forum January 3 WAVVES Max Watt’s January 3 WEIRD AL YANKOVIC The Palais Theatre January 3 MAC DEMARCO 170 Russel January 3 – 5 YUNG LEAN Prince Bandroom January 5 BØRNS The Corner January 5 BLOC PARTY The Forum January 5 DISCLOSURE Festival Hall January 6 BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 28
WHO'S ON TOUR, WHERE AND WHEN
TORO Y MOI Max Watt’s January 6 SOAK Northcote Social Club January 6 HALSEY The Forum January 6 PUSHA T Prince Bandroom January 6 YOUNG FATHERS The Corner January 7 FOALS Festival Hall January 7 ELLIPHANT Howler January 7 GARY CLARK JR The Forum January 7 OH WONDER Northcote Social Club January 7 LEON BRIDGES 170 Russell January 7 DJANGO DJANGO 170 Russell January 8 THE FLAMING LIPS The Palais January 8 JAMIE XX The Forum January 10 SO FRENCHY SO CHIC IN THE PARK Werribee Park January 11 NIGHTWISH The Forum Monday January 11 MOFO MONA January 13 - January 18 PRETTY LIGHTS Forum Theatre January 14 THE CHILLS Max Watt’s January 15 UNIFY South Gippsland January 16 – 17 JOANNA NEWSOM Arts Centre January 19 THE 1975 Festival Hall January 20 TURNSTILE Northcote Social Club January 20 THEE OH SEES Howler January 22 RAINBOW SERPENT FESTIVAL Lexton January 22 – 26 MICHAEL HURLEY Northcote Social Club January 23 SUGAR MOUNTAIN Victorian College of the Arts/ Melbourne Arts precinct January 23 GIRLPOOL The Reverence Hotel January 27 SOUNDWAVE 2016 TBA January 26 DERRICK MAY, JEFF MILLS & THE MSO Sidney Myer Music Bowl January 30 GRIMES 170 Russell February 3 JAMES BAY Festival Hall February 3 TOBIAS JESSE JR The Corner February 3 SHAMIR Howler February 4 CHVRCHES Forum Theatre February 9 THE INTERNET The Corner February 9 BEACH HOUSE 170 Russell February 10 DIIV The Corner February 11 PURITY RING + MAJICAL CLOUDZ Forum Theatre February 11 THUNDERCAT Max Watt’s February 11 HEALTH Howler February 11 BATTLES Max Watt’s February 12 METZ The Corner February 12 COMMON KINGS The Corner February 13 LANEWAY FESTIVAL Footscray Community Arts Centre February 13 SOILWORK 170 Russell February 16 A$AP ROCKY Margaret Court Arena February 17 REGGAE ROYALTY Palais Theatre February 18 WAXAHATCHEE Howler February 18 JD MCPHERSON Corner Hotel February 19 FAT FREDDY’S DROP The Forum February 19 ALBERT HAMMOND JR The Corner February 21 OCEAN COLOUR SCENE Max Watt’s February 23 THE GAME The Forum February 24 GBH The Bendigo Hotel February 26 CHI WAH WOW TOWN TBA February 26 – 28 SUFJAN STEVENS Hamer Hall February 26 SENSES FAIL Corner Hotel March 4 CLUTCH The Forum March 5 SLEATER-KINNEY The Croxton March 9 A FESTIVAL CALLED PANAMA Lone Star Valley March 11 - 13 PORT FAIRY FOLK FESTIVAL Port Fairy March 11 – 14 BUILT TO SPILL The Corner March 12 MADONNA Rod Laver Arena March 12, 13 GOLDEN PLAINS Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre March 12 – 14 PURE POP FOR NOW PEOPLE Rochford Wines, Yarra Valley March 12 JOHN GRANT The Forum March 13 BUZZCOCKS The Corner March 13 THE CHARLATONS 170 Russell March 13 SONGHOY BLUES Melbourne Recital Centre March 16 THE VIOLENT FEMMES The Corner March 17 BRYAN ADAMS Rod Laver Arena March 18 STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES Melbourne Recital Centre March 18, 19 TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND Forum Theatre March 19 KENDRICK LAMAR Rod Laver Arena March 21 STURGILL SIMPSON 170 Russell March 23 RHIANNON GIDDENS The Corner March 23 ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES The Corner March 24 BLUESFEST Byron Bay March 24 – 28 THE SELECTER Corner Hotel March 25 NAHKO AND MEDICINE FOR THE PEOPLE The Corner March 27 THE WORD The Corner March 28 THE DECEMBERISTS Hamer Hall March 29 MELISSA ETHERIDGE Palais Theatre March 30 VINTAGE TROUBLE The Corner March 30 STIFF LITTLE FINGERS 170 Russell March 31 ALLEN STONE The Corner March 31 JACKSON BROWNE Palais Theatre April 1 CITY AND COLOUR Sidney Myer Music Bowl April 2 BLACK SABBATH Rod Laver Arena April 19 JOSH GROBAN Palais Theatre April 25 IRON MAIDEN Rod Laver Arena May 9
PROUDLY PRESENTS DEC 18
BODYJAR & THE MEANIES
Prince Bandroom NOV 6-7 NOV 27-29
JAMGRASS FESTIVAL
Spotted Mallard & Bundoora Park
QUEENSCLIFF MUSIC FESTIVAL
Queenscliff NOV 12-15
NATIONAL CLOSET STRAIGHTS Bar Open November 6 MATT CORBY The Forum November 6 JOY. Shebeen November 6 MONTAIGNE Northcote Social Club November 6 TUKA The Corner November 6 DROWNING HORSE The Curtin November 6, The Tote November 7 NORTHLANE 170 Russell November 6, 7 (U18) CW STONEKING Thornbury Theatre November 6, Corner Hotel November 7 MSO BACK TO THE FUTURE LIVE The Plenary November 6, 7 JAMGRASS FESTIVAL Spotted Mallard November 6, Bundoora Park November 7 END OF THE LINE FESTIVAL Belgrave November 28 SUZANNAH ESPIE Thornbury Theatre November 7 THE CACTUS CHANNEL Cultural Bazaar November 7 SHINING BIRD Shadow Electric November 7 THE MURLOCS Howler November 7 TAME IMPALA Sidney Myer Music Bowl November 7 PARLOUR FERLA Shadow Electric November 11 THE AGE MUSIC VICTORIA AWARDS 170 Russell November 11 RANCH-O-RELAXO Mornington Peninsula November 14 – 15 SLUM SOCIABLE Northcote Social Club November 14 MOJO JUJU Max Watt’s November 12, Caravan Music Club November 14 THE VERNONS The Grace Darling November 13 GOING SWIMMING The Workers Club November 13 NOT FEST Public Bar November 13 – 15 MELBOURNE MUSIC WEEK Various Venues November 13 – November 20 MELBOURNE MUSIC WEEK OPENING NIGHT FT. GYPSY & THE CAT, DORSAL FINS Former Royal Women’s Hospital November 13 MELBOURNE MUSIC WEEK LIVE MUSIC SAFARI Various Venues November 13 – November 20 MATHAS Shebeen November 14, The Pelly Bar November 27 CRAYON FIELDS Howler November 14 HYBRID NIGHTMARES Prince Bandroom November 14 BEN ELY Some Velvet Morning November 14 CONRAD SEWELL Corner Hotel November 15 DAN SULTAN Northcote Social Club November 18 EMILY ULMAN The Gasometer Hotel November 18 JAKARTA CRIERS The Reverence Hotel November 19 SECTION 8 & FERDYDURKE’S ZOO Section 8 November 19 SARAH MCLEOD Northcote Social Club November 19 URBAN SPREAD Plaza Tavern November 19, Chelsea Heights Hotel November 20, Village Green Hotel November 21 KORAL & THE GOODBYE HORSES Spotted Mallard November 20 WHITE SUMMER Ding Dong Lounge November 20 BLIND MAN DEATH STARE Reverence Hotel November 20 THE BENNIES The Corner November 20 THE BELLIGERENTS Northcote Social Club November 20 PIERCE BROTHERS 170 Russell November 20 JEREMY NEALE Shebeen November 20 PANACEA FESTIVAL Riverview, Tatong, November 20-22 WAVES 2 WOODS Anglesea November 21 DREAM ON DREAMER Max Watt’s November 21 COLD CHISEL Hanging Rock Reserve November 21 MY DISCO The Shadow Electric November 21 SAL KIMBER & THE ROLLING WHEEL The Toff In Town November 21 LISA SALVO The Gasometer November 22 NORMIE ROWE & THE PLAYBOYS ORCHESTRA Yarraville Club November 22 NAKATOMI The Toff In Town November 22 NEWPORT SKA AND REGGAE FESTIVAL The
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AWME
Various Venues
Substation, Newport November 22 THE BO-WEEVILS Northcote Social Club November 22 KIT WARHURST The Old Bar November 26 THE MARK OF CAIN Max Watt’s November 26 THE CHARGE Whole Lotta Love November 27 MILWAUKEE BANKS Shebeen November 27 COOKIN ON 3 BURNERS Northcote Social Club November 27 BRITISH INDIA The Forum November 27 ROBERT FORSTER Thornbury Theatre November 27 MAN UP FESTIVAL Cherry Bar November 27-28 PARADISE MUSIC FESTIVAL Lake Mountain Alpine Resort, November 27-29 KILL DIRTY YOUTH The Tote November 28, Bendigo Hotel December 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 HERMITUDE Festival Hall November 28 QUEENSCLIFF MUSIC FESTIVAL Queenscliff November 27 – 29 PLTS Shebeen December 2 STELLAFAUNA The Evelyn Hotel December 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 YOU AM I 170 Russell December 4 WAAX The Workers Club December 4 APES The Workers Club December 5 CUSTARD The Toff In Town December 5 JAKUBI Max Watt’s December 5 AC/DC Etihad Stadium December 6, December 8 PAUL KELLY PRESENTS THE MERRI SOUL SESSIONS A Day On The Green December 6 LUCINDA WILLIAMS A Day On The Green December 7 UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA Corner Hotel December 8 FRANK YAMMA Melbourne Recital Centre December 11 MODELS Flying Saucer Club December 11 – 12 JARRYD JAMES AND MEG MAC The Forum December 12 URBAN SPREAD FT. DEAD LETTER CIRCUS Plaza Tavern December 10, Chelsea Heights December 11, Village Green December 12 TINPAN ORANGE Melbourne Folk Club December 13 BODYJAR & THE MEANIES Prince Bandroom December 18 XMAS EVEN The Evelyn Hotel December 19 – 20 LITTLE SEA Memo Music Hall December 20 NYE ON THE HILL December 31 – January 1 NEW YEAR’S EVIE Bruzzy’s Farm, Tallarook December 30 – January 2 FRENZAL RHOMB Chelsea Heights Hotel January 8, Village Green Hotel January 9 DEAD CITY RUINS Northcote Social Club January 9 HARTS Howler January 14 TONIGHT ALIVE Max Watt’s January 17 THE GOOCH PALMS The Curtin January 22 COURTNEY BARNETT Palais Theatre January 22 BEECHWORTH FESTIVAL Beechworth Asylum January 23 A DAY ON THE GREEN Michelton Wines, Nagambie January 23 BOY & BEAR Festival Hall January 23 SO PRESENT HITCHCOCK AND HERRMANN Hamer Hall February 5, 6 ST KILDA FESTIVAL St Kilda February 6 – 14 GIDEON BENSEN Shebeen February 12 JOSH PYKE Melbourne Zoo February 12 PARTY IN THE PADDOCK Burnscreek, Tasmania February 19 RIVERBOATS MUSIC FESTIVAL Murray River, Echucha February 19 - 21 DIED PRETTY Max Watt’s March 18 THE PENINSULA PICNIC Mornington March 20
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NGAIIRE I L L U M I N AT I N G AW M E By Natalie Rogers
Sydney-based singer Ngaiire might be tiny in stature, but she more than makes up for it in spirit and vocal power. As well as being supremely talented, she has a sensitivity and maturity beyond her years. “I’m quite lucky in that I’ve always been very intuitive with a solid idea of where I’m going, what I want to do, and what I want to experience,” Ngaiire says.
Born in Papua New Guinea, Ngaiire had already lived in three different countries by the time she was 16. She was diagnosed with cancer at age three while living in New Zealand, which had a significant impact on the woman she is today. Her 2013 single Dirty Hercules is a reflection on body image issues after remedial surgery left her with physical scars. But despite her early struggles, Ngaiire’s parents encouraged her into creative pursuits from a young age – their passion for opera, ballet and fashion rubbing off on her. “Music has always been the way I express myself,” she says. “When I was younger I always viewed songs as a form of poetry that didn’t necessarily need to make sense to anyone else.” In 2013 Ngaiire released her critically acclaimed debut album, Lamentations. The record showcases her natural songwriting talent and captured attention overseas, leading to an invitation to play Glastonbury and the opportunity to support soul and R&B heavyweights Alicia Keys and John Legend. However, to create her forthcoming sophomore LP (titled Blastoma, which is a form of cancer commonly found in children), she adopted a different approach. “The whole process of putting together this new album forced me to think about what I’m actually trying to say and what I want people to get from the lyrics,” she says. “In the past I’ve been quite nervous – I was very self-conscious of what people would think of my lyrics, so a lot of the time I mumbled my way through songs because I was embarrassed about whether people would think they were stupid. Now looking back, I think that was very much to do with my own want or need to learn how to construct a song better.” Blastoma’s lead single Once is a delicious taste of things to come. Ngaiire’s smooth and sultry vocals dance over a hypnotic backbeat with a restraint that illustrates her vocal control. The lyrics spell out the necessity of taking risks in order to reap rewards. The song was co-written with Megan Washington and long time collaborator Paul Mac, and Ngaiire’s quick to give credit where credit’s due. “Megan is a master of songwriting,” she says. “She’s so quick and witty – and always on the money.” Blastoma was produced by Mac and Jack Grace over a period of two years in multiple continents and time zones. “Blastoma happened somewhere between London and New York,” says Ngaiire. “At separate times Jack, Paul and I would be in different parts of the world, so we had to send tracks back and forth to each other – but the bulk of it was recorded in Paul’s studio in Newtown, Sydney. “Both Paul and Jack think a lot about structure and they’re very good at constructing perfect pop songs. Their influence is very much represented on Once and all the songs on Blastoma.” While Ngaiire is very open about the musical partnerships she’s forged in recent years, her personal and professional growth is largely due to her determined spirit and an unwavering commitment to her own artistry. The unpleasant experience of life as an Australian Idol contestant more than ten years ago only BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 30
led to a strengthening of her resolve – and the recent news that she’s been named as a finalist in APRA’s 2015 Professional Development Awards confirms she’s on the right track. “It’s been quite a journey,” she says. “I’ve definitely evolved and developed a lot and I think people will notice that in the new songs. There are one or two tracks that are similar to songs on Lamentations, but I focused more on melodies this time rather than trying to just belt out the words all the time, which was very different for me – and I really enjoyed it.” Those lucky enough to have seen Ngaiire play live recently have been treated to a few welcome surprises, as she’s added a few tracks from the forthcoming album to her setlist. “There’s a song called Diggin which is quite dance-y. It was written mostly by Paul and me, and it’s definitely one of my favourite songs to perform at the moment.”
“In the past I’ve been quite nervous – I was very self-conscious of what people would think of my lyrics, so a lot of the time I mumbled my way through songs because I was embarrassed about whether people would think they were stupid. Now looking back, I think that was very much to do with my own want or need to learn how to construct a song better.”
In October, Ngaiire carried out her first run of dates in the US. Her soulful vocals and effortless charm won over the discerning crowds at New York’s CMJ Music Marathon, leading Myspace to name her as one of the top-eight discoveries at the conference. Despite grieving the loss of a close relative and being under the weather, Ngaiire remained upbeat in the face of adversity. “It was really tough,” she says. “It was a bit scary losing my voice sometimes while we were there – but I laid off the alcohol and drank lots of tea, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We got a really good response, so I’m happy.” Ngaiire knows, now more than ever, that staying fit is key to taking her career to the next level. “It’s all about hydration,” she says. “I’m literally just learning that, because I’ve never been so busy. I did a couple of tours for Lamentations but this time around everything
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has been going really fast. Hydration, a good sleep and exercise – sounds so boring but it’s stuff you need to do, especially as you get older.” While learning ballet as a child may have instilled the self-discipline she’ll need to succeed in the long term, it was creative outlets like fashion design and art that brought out Ngaiire’s wild and rebellious streak. When she was in high school she attended a Machine Gun Fellatio gig (her first ever concert), which inspired her to fill her mother’s living room with large fake phalluses as part of her final major visual arts assessment. Her mother, who works in fashion design, always supported Ngaiire’s artistic side and supported the bold fashion statements that she’s since become known for. “In the future I’d love to have my own label and design my own clothes. I have in the past, but lately, because I’ve had so little time to do anything but singing, I’ve just been sourcing clothes from little designers around Australia. It’s really exciting, because there are a lot of cool people doing interesting stuff with fabrics and structural pieces, which is something that I think the Australian fashion world lacked. But still there’s a real need for designers to push boundaries. “Although in Melbourne especially, there’s more of that happening. People are thinking outside of the box and are very individualistic about what they like. I’ve always felt comfortable playing shows in Melbourne.” Ngaiire will return to Melbourne this month for an AWME showcase at Max Watt’s. “I’ve played AWME three times now, but this time will be very different because I’ll be showcasing a lot of tracks from the new album – so that will be exciting and a little bit nerveracking at the same time. I’m really looking forward to it.” On the night, she’ll be joined by a diverse lineup of Cumbia Cosmonauts, Latinaotearoa and Ella Thompson. “Ella’s incredible. It’s really nice to see people in my scene that are doing great things. It’s refreshing to see Ella get recognition for doing what she does – and she’s an incredible musician as well.” Blastoma is due early in the New Year, and in the lead up Ngaiire will appear at a range of summer festivals, including the sold-out Lorne Falls Festival. She’s also been providing backing vocals for Chet Faker on his major theatre tour – and she couldn’t be happier. “I got a call from his people and they said, ‘We want your backing section and we want you’.” Ngaiire is an ever-evolving artist whose authentic and unique body of work has already gained her a loyal following around the world. And the most exciting part is that her best work is yet to come. “When I was younger there was always an urgency to have an EP or to have an album out, but now I’m happy that things travelled at the speed that they did. I’ve learnt that it’s really important to enjoy your younger years and let the process happen naturally.” See NGAIIRE on Saturday November 14 at Max Watt’s as part of AWME 2015. She’s also set to appear at the Falls Festival in Lorne, VIC which runs from Monday December 28 to Friday January 1.
tHE COMIC STRIP
With Tyson Wray. Got thoughts, news, gossip, complaints or cat photos? Email tyson@beat.com.au or send by carrier pigeon before Friday 12pm.
Thursday Comedy Spectre
There’s always the biggest names in Australia at the European Bier Café on Thursday nights. This Thursday, the awesome Cal Wilson headlines, plus an awesome interstate and international lineup. Ben Lomas, hosts, plus Tegan Higginbotham, Guy Montgomery, and two surprise guests. This year they’ve had surprise guests like Wil Anderson, Stephen K Amos and Tony Martin, so you never know who you’re going to see there. There’s been massive audiences the last few weeks, so get down early to get a good seat. It’s all happening this Thursday November 5 at 8.30pm, at the European Bier Café, 120 Exhibition St, CBD, all for only $12.
Comedy at SPLEEN Mondays at Comedy at Spleen are always full, and this week will be no different. The only place to be on Mondays will be chockers full of laughs with guests and it’s the place where big names drop in. This Monday, Ivan Aristeguita hosts, plus there’s heaps of guests like Xavier Michelides, Dilruk Jayasinha, Roland Hoffman, Harrison Engstrom, Cam Marshall, some special guests and more. It’s this Monday November 9, at 41 Bourke St, CBD, at 8.30pm. It’s free to get in, but they appreciate a good gold coin donation at the door.
Kings of Comedy Kings of Comedy are back for another massive week with Garry Johal, Danielle Walker, Michael Chamberlin, Danny Klau, Luke Kidgell, John Dore, Chris Wainhouse, Mark Oszhka, Rebecca Douglas, Ari Matti and Simon Hughes. It goes down on Friday November 6 at La Di Da.
Critters Comedy After spending time in the comedy mecca of Los Angeles, Simon Taylor noticed a unique style to the comedy rooms. Many had two hosts bouncing off each other and the comedians were given more time on stage. Now returned to Melbourne, Simon decided to draw inspiration from his travels and start Critters Comedy: two hosts and four comics doing a solid stint on stage each. The venue is Gatekeeper Games, a hub of North Fitzroy board gaming. This week will feature Blake and Luka, Claire Hooper, Ben Knight, Trav Nash, Alasdair TremblayBirchall. Buy tickets on the door and come see Melbourne’s best comics do the sets they deserve. It begins on Wednesday October 28, $5 or free if you buy a board game.
Coming Up Briefs
Wednesday November 11 - Saturday December 5 Athenaeum Theatre
Project Hysteria
Wednesday November 11 - Sunday November 22 Trades Hall
Poppy Seed Festival
Wednesday November 11 - Sunday December 13 Various Venues
Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei
Lido on the Roof
Friday December 11 - Sunday April 24 National Gallery of Victoria
Lido Cinemas, the artiplex situated in the heart of Hawthorn that opened earlier this year, have launched the program for their rooftop cinema, set to launch in a fortnight. Lido on the Roof is Melbourne’s first rooftop cinema that features latest release films. The launch of Lido on the Roof will kick off in high style with the upcoming James Bond film, Spectre. The rooftop’s first season will also see Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Trumbo and Carol. “Melburnians have always had a love of rooftops, there’s something about a fabulous view while enjoying quality food and drink, which make it a great place to spend summer days and nights. We have such a stunning view here that it was a natural decision to launch a rooftop screen,” said Lido Cinemas owner Eddie Tamir. The first season of the much anticipated rooftop cinema will feature a program of special events to be revealed soon, and an extensive list of exciting films to screen until late April 2016. Lido on the Roof opens on Thursday November 12.
RICERCAR
Monster Fest
The works of classical composer Johann Sebastian Bach will merge with the world of contemporary theatre, with violin and drums duo The Twoks joining forces with the Present Tense Ensemble to craft a story of love, death and legacy. Combining elements of live music and performance designed to be experienced and heard inside and out of Theatre Works, all elements of the production including music, design and choreography are created based on loops, numbers and patterns – inspired by Bach’s idea that restriction creates freedom. The result is a 96 minute operatic experience, presented in 12 movements. RICERCAR runs at Theatre Works from Tuesday November 24 – Saturday December 12.
Did Halloween give you a taste for something ghoulish? Monster Fest is a three-day celebration of everything gloriously gory and grotesque in international cult cinema. Boasting a program packed with blood soaked thrillers that will have you on the edge of your seat, capping it off is a range of curated events from acting masterclasses to spooktacular parties. The official selection features 21 films including Bound to Vengance, Scare Campaign, Bite, Australiens, Vixen Velvet’s Zombie Massacre, Bunny the Killing Thing, Hellions and Howl – the story of a werewolf infiltrating a train carriage, leaving the passengers immobilised in an isolated British forest on a stormy night. The program also features two world premieres, with Queensland horror-western Bullets for the Dead making its debut screening alongside Cat Sick Blues. For those who prefer their screams in smaller doses come two short film programs, Monster Shorts and Trasharama, featuring some of the strangest and unsettling cult film making from across the globe. Rounding out Monster Fest is a range of events including opening and closing night parties, a special 10th anniversary screening of Australian horror classic Wolf Creek, a Kooks & Spooks trivia night, a screening of E.T. with an all-American style breakfast and Q&A with Dee Wallace (Mary), a rooftop Munsterpalooza burlesque show and a whole heap more. It’s all happening from Thursday November 26 – Sunday November 29 at Lido Cinemas.
Born In Sawdust The 2015 graduating class from the National Institute of Circus Art (NICA) are coming together to present Born in Sawdust, a new production that steps back through the history of circus. Directed by the internationally renowned Gavin Robins, Born in Sawdust celebrates the rich history of both circus performers and their trainers, specifically the trainers who have worked tirelessly with NICA itself. Connecting the past with the present, the production also features purposely created digital projections intertwined with the live acts. Born in Sawdust will run from Wednesday November 18 – Saturday November 28 at the National Circus Centre, Prahran.
La Verita
Thursday January 21 - Saturday January 23 Arts Centre Melbourne
The 24 Hour Experience The 24 Hour Experience is set to turn Ballarat into a cultural playground, when the town is taken over with a series of 24 live art events running every hour for 24 hours. The 24 Hour Experience showcases the works of artists and ordinary people who have been creatively inspired by the course of everyday life. Unfolding in real time, live projects occur at different locations to weave a tapestry of art and intrigue throughout the town. Events include Death Over Lunch – a candid conversation about sustainable burials and the afterlife, alongside hospital dance piece The Healing Maneuver. Things I Am Not Afraid Of will transform the Lucas Arts Space for a physical interpretation of mental illness, Playful, Curious, Cosmos takes audiences through a cosmic journey while Light at the End... will see Tasmanian artist Rose Turtle Ertler present an intimate performance in one of Ballarat’s iconic bluestone tunnels. Explore Ballarat and all the art it has to offer when The 24 Hour Experience takes over from noon Saturday November 21 – noon Sunday November 22.
Cameo Outdoor Cinema
Set in the picturesque Dandenong Ranges, the Cameo Outdoor Cinema is back with a program full of new-release films. Highlights include an opening session of new James Bond movie Spectre, followed by hotly anticipated screenings of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 and Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. Bring your little sister along to Hotel Transylvania 2 or Pixar’s latest, The Good Dinosaur. Come Christmas, festive specials include Love the Coopers and The Night Before starring Seth Rogan and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The cinema opens an hour before screening and picnicking is encouraged, with a hand wine bar on site. Fully licensed, Cameo is boasting a 14m widescreen, Dolby digital headphones and deckchair or beanbag seating on offer. Catch a film in the beautiful Dandenong Ranges from Thursday November 12.
Hollywood Retro Film Festival
Legendary Australian film critic Margaret Pomeranz has announced the first instalment of the Hollywood Retro Film Festival, of which she is a patron and cocurator. With it, 22 Hollywood classics from the first golden age of cinema will come to life on the big screen once more, lovingly restored to high quality digital format. Highlights include digitally remastered screenings of Gone with the Wind, The Grapes of Wrath, Casablanca and the iconic Citizen Kane. Elsewhere, Australian premieres and lesser known gems are on the cards with On the Waterfront starring Marlon Brando and the rarely seen The Razor’s Edge and The Ghost & Mrs Muir. The Hollywood Retro Film Festival will run from Saturday November 26 – Saturday December 2 at Cinema Nova.
Gin Sister
In a world where drinking is both celebrated and condemned, Gin Sister focuses on women’s relationship with alcohol by filtering it through the lens of Amy Winehouse, Sia Furler, Marguerite Duras and Chekov’s Three Sisters. Using a mashup of song, dance, personal stories and classical literature, Gin Sister follows on from the wreckage of a wild night out. The world premiere is directed by Matilda Award nominee Elizabeth Millington and features the awardwinning Emma Hall performing alongside Alice Cavanagh (Miss Fischers Murder Mysteries) and Jean Goodwin (Plunge, Devize Co.). Gin Sister runs from Wednesday November 25 – Sunday December 6 at Trades Hall as part of the Poppy Seed Festival. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 34
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BEFORE MARLON BRANDO… BEFORE 'STREETCAR'… STANLEY KOWALSKI WAS… JACK. SEE WHERE IT ALL BEGAN .
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ME, INC. – GENE SIMMONS ($34.95)
The fact that KISS is one of the most successful rock bands in the world is no accident. From the beginning Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley had a clear-cut vision of what they wanted to do and how they wanted to operate KISS as a business well before they ever first took the stage. Since deciding with Paul to manage the band themselves, Simmons has proved himself to be a formidable businessman, having sold over 100 million CDs and DVDs worldwide, overseen over 3,000 licensed merchandise items, and starred in the longest running celebrity reality show to date. More impressive is that he handles all of his business ventures on his own-no personal assistant, few handlers, and as little red tape as possible. In Me, Inc., Simmons shares a lifetime of field-tested and hard-won business advice that will provide readers with the tools needed to build a solid business strategy, harness the countless tools available in the digital age, network like hell, and be the architect for the business entity that is you.
PATTI SMITH COLLECTED LYRICS 1970-2015 – PATTI SMITH ($39.95)
An American original, Patti Smith is a multi- disciplined artist and performer. Her work is rooted in poetry, which infused her 1975 landmark album, Horses. A declaration of existence, Horses was described as “three chords merged with the power of the word”; it was graced with the now-iconic portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe, the subject of her award-winning memoir Just Kids.Initially published in 1998, Patti Smith’s Complete Lyrics was a testimony to her uncompromising poetic power. Now, on the fortieth anniversary of the release of Smith’s ground-breaking album, Collected Lyrics has been revised and expanded with more than thirtyfive additional songs, including her first, “Work Song,” written for Janis Joplin in 1970, and her most current, “Writer’s Song,” to be recorded in 2015. The collection is liberally illustrated with original manuscripts of lyrics from Smith’s extensive archive. Patti Smith’s work continues to retain its relevance, whether controversial, political, romantic, or spiritual. Collected Lyrics offers forty-five years of song, an enduring commemoration of Smith’s unique contribution to the canon of rock and roll.
KILL OR GET KILLED – REX APPLEGATE ($55)
the subject are judged.
This is the best and longest-selling book on close combat in history. Reprinted and in current use by the U.S. Marine Corps as an official training manual, it details methods of self-defense, offensive close combat, combat shooting and crowd-control techniques in riot situations. Colonel Rex Applegate is widely regarded as the father of modern close combat and combat shooting, and this book is considered the standard by which all other books on
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HOMEGROWN – ALAN SCHAEFER ($44.95)
Before Austin became the “live music capital of the world” and attracted tens of thousands of music fans, it had a vibrant local music scene that spanned late sixties psychedelic and avant-garde rock to early eighties punk. Venues such as the Vulcan Gas Company and the Armadillo World Headquarters hosted both innovative local musicians and big-name touring acts. Poster artists not only advertised the performances they visually defined the music and culture of Austin during this pivotal period. Their posters promoted an alternative lifestyle that permeated the city and reflected Austin’s transformation from a sleepy university town into a veritable oasis of underground artistic and cultural activity in the state of Texas.This book presents a definitive survey of music poster art produced in Austin between 1967 and 1982. It vividly illustrates four distinct generations of posters psychedelic art of the Vulcan Gas Company, early works from the Armadillo World Headquarters, an emerging variety of styles from the mid-1970s, and the radical visual aesthetic of punk produced by such renowned artists as Gilbert Shelton, Jim Franklin, Kerry Awn, Micael Priest, Guy Juke, Ken Featherston, NOXX, and Danny Garrett.
BORN TO DRUM – TONY BARELLI ($32.95)
The pulse of rock’n’roll-the drummer-finally gets its due in this unique, all-encompassing inside look at the history, artists, instruments, and culture of drumming. Beating the hell out of a drum kit is hard, sweaty, demanding work. Yet instead of being showered with respect, drummers are often viewed with derision-stereotyped as crazy, borderline psychotic, or just plain dumb. But as every musician knows, to have a great band you need a great drummer: Ginger Baker. John Bonham. Chad Smith. Stewart Copeland. Lars Ulrich. Neil Peart. For the first time, journalist Tony Barrell shines a long overdue spotlight on these musicians, offering an exciting look into their world, their art, and their personalities. In Born to Drum, Barrell explores the extraordinary history of the world’s most primitive instrument and the musicians who have made it legend. He interviews some of the most famous and revered and well-known drummers of our time-including Chad Smith, Ginger Baker, Clem Burke, Sheila E, Phil Collins, Nick Mason, Patty Schemel, Butch Vig, and Omar Hakim-who share astonishing truths about their work and lives.
CINDERELLA, OR THE LITTLE GLASS SLIPPER – CAMILLE ROSE GARCIA ($26.95)
From the acclaimed and popular illustrator of the New York Times bestseller Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Snow White, comes a unique and visually stunning spin on Cinderella. Charles Perrault’s story of a sweet-tempered young girl, forced into servitude by her evil stepmother and stepsisters, who finds true love with a handsome prince (with the help of a fairy godmother), has enchanted readers for more than 300 years. In this lavishly illustrated retelling of the classic fairy-tale, Camille Rose Garcia reimagines Cinderella through her distinctive visual aesthetic.
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Get Educated.
Are you having trouble deciding what to study and where to study? Are you unsure about where to go and who to discuss your options with?
Well, don’t stress, as the Beat Education Special is here to help give you some insight into the institutions offering unique courses in the music industry designed specifically to give your career in the industry the best possible start! From short courses through to TAFE and Bachelor Degree courses, we take a look at some of the most trusted names in the world of music and arts education. Whether you’re a recent high school graduate, or simply someone looking for a career change, there’s a course out there that’s tailored to you. We strongly suggest you take a good look at some of the amazing courses these institutions have on offer. Making a decision about the course you want to do can a tough one, but learning as much as you can will only make the decision easier. There’s a world of excellent options on offer here that offer prospective students access to state of the art facilities and the invaluable knowledge of leading industry professionals. So take some time to learn a bit more about what these institutions have to offer, and be confident in the knowledge that you’ve chosen the right one for you.
Abbey Road Institute Melbourne
The world famous Abbey Road Studios have commenced their ground breaking education initiative with Australia’s first Abbey Road Institute campus, which launched in Melbourne’s Southbank in August this year Australian students with a passion for audio, music production and the music business, now have the opportunity to study under the worlds most recognised and prestigious recording studio banner, with access to a high-end commercial grade infrastructure as well as techniques and insights behind some of the greatest music productions in history. Spanning over 80 years, the globally recognised Abbey Road Studios have been home to countless landmark recordings and pioneering advances in recording technology, encompassing celebrated works by many of the world’s most famous recording artists including The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Kanye West, Elton John, Frank Ocean, Elbow, Lady Gaga, Adele and more recently M.I.A, Ed Sheeran and Iggy Azalea. The Melbourne campus is now the first to have opened in the southern hemisphere. With the London institute housed in the legendary north London studio complex, additional locations in Paris and Berlin have also launched with further campuses in the planning stage for 2016. The full-time Music Production and Sound Engineering program is taught over 46 weeks by experienced and current music industry experts. Producers and label executives work alongside qualified lecturers, including guest lectures from renowned Australian and international engineers and producers. Australian CEO Paul Ledingham, a qualified audio engineer with 25 years experience in audio and creative media education, said of the new
initiative: “This is an unprecedented initiative from Abbey Road, the world’s most recognisable recording industry success story. We will now have the ability to bring the biggest names, brightest minds and most promising talent together for a world-class educational experience that is wholly designed to meet industry needs for Australian students.”
Intake dates: TBA, contact them for further information. Address: 1/135 Sturt St, Southbank. Phone: 1800 274 338 Email: melbourne@abbeyroadinstitute.com Website: abbeyroadinstitute.com.au
Australian Institute of Music In November 2015 AMEB, Australia’s leading provider of examinations for music, speech and drama, will launch an entirely new Musical Theatre syllabus along with a series of supporting music publications. Examinations from beginner Preliminary level through to pre-professional diploma level will be offered. The new publications include Grade books from Preliminary through to Grade 4, Technical Work and Sight reading books covering Preliminary through to Grade 8, and a set of Recorded Accompaniments for Preliminary to Grade 3. M U S I C A L-T H E AT R E . A M E B . E D U . AU
BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 38
The Australian Institute of Music (AIM) is a leading institution in the music education sector. With a reputation for incorporating a diverse range of hands-on teaching methods, the courses on offer at AIM offer students accredited tertiary music degrees through unique industry relevant programs. The Melbourne AIM campus has been operating since 2014. Since then it has established itself as an innovative facility with hands on courses in production, performance and management. Students are supported through their time at AIM, with each course having its own Head of Department atop its own list of teaching staff. They’ll have full access to the impressive purpose built facilities at AIM including performance spaces and music production studios with industry staff on-hand to help out. AIM also prides itself on offering innovative and customizable courses to ensure that all
EDUCATION SPECIAL
students can get exactly what they’re after from their course. Students can shape their studies to integrate performance, business management, marketing, individual instrument or voice lessons, audio and sound engineering, music production and many more specialised units. Some students also undertake industry placements as part of their course.
Intake dates: Trimester 1: January 18, trimester 2: May 9, trimester 3: August 29. Address: 120 King Street, CBD. Phone: (03) 8610 4222 Email: enquiries@aim.edu.au Website: aim.edu.au
MSO PRESENTS -
BACK TO THE FUTURE: Live in concert
ETERNAL YOUTH By James Di Fabrizio
Classic. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot these days. Often it’s a bit excessive, but in the case of Back to the Future, it’s an undoubtedly deserved title. From hoverboards to flying cars, flux capacitors to self-lacing Nikes, it’s a film series that captured the imagination of millions and became an icon of 20th Century pop culture. Capping it off is Alan Silvestri’s iconic score, rich with elements of triumph and dissonant fantasy. 30 years on from the original film’s release, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra will be performing the entire score live with the film projected overhead. At the helm of it all is acclaimed conductor Nicholas Buc, who has been a fan of Back to The Future and Silvestri’s score since childhood. “[Silvestri] really knocked it out of the park as far as I’m concerned,” says Buc. “He delivered in many ways a main theme that is so much larger than life, and fantastic, swashbuckling and thrilling. It really lifts the picture and carries you away to this other dimension.” Ahead of tackling this project with the MSO, Buc met with the composer in New York to discuss the score, and secured Silvestri’s blessing. “He’s happy for this to live on in its own little way, and for conductors to bring their own interpretation of the score,” he says. Don’t expect too many alterations of Silvestri’s vision, however. “I love the original so much
that part of me feels it’s like sacrilege if I deviate too much. For me, it’s doing justice to the original as much as I can.” There isn’t much orchestrated music in the first half of the original film, so Silvestri has actually composed new music to fill in gaps and flesh out scenes. Arrangements have been purposefully written to enrich the viewing experience as a whole, using familiar motifs to connect with the audience. “In my opinion, I think it’s better,” says Buc. “He actually takes a few themes that he wrote for the second and third films, and in a way foreshadows them in this
new presentation. He’s really weaved all the elements that he had for the three Back to the Future films and incorporated them into the new music. It feels very seamless and familiar. “There’s a bit where Marty’s mother Lorraine is talking about how she met [Marty’s father] George McFly. Silvestri has actually taken the love theme that he wrote for Doc Brown and his love interest in the third film and cross referenced it backwards to become this sort of love theme that was never there.” No matter how many times you’ve sat down to watch Back to the Future, you’ve certainly never experienced it like this. “The feeling is electric,” says Buc. “It not only makes you appreciate the music, but also the interaction with the film. It actually highlights all the other film making elements, the craft of the editing. It just makes you a bit more aware of it. To me, this is the way to enjoy films. It’s like opera of the 21st Century. We used to go and see the live actors on stage with the live music – this is just one step away from that. To have
it fully integrated is really thrilling. “Let’s be honest,” he adds, “symphony orchestras have their work cut out for them. There’s always this sort of image of the old, grey haired punter going along and watching Brahms and Mahler and whatnot.” In contrast, the Back to the Future concerts are an opportunity for fans to reconnect with the film they first fell in love with 30 years ago. This feeling of reverent, healthy nostalgia is what Buc wants to give to the audience. “There’s definitely a lingering message behind Back to the Future that’s made it so memorable and lasting all these years, and I really hope they hold on to that eternal youth.”
are great too, but I think Pharmacy really took off on streams like Spotify, which is absolutely amazing. It’s cool because you can go in and check what market that you’re big in, who’s listening, even the age. You can find who you’re making your music for.” The diversity between his various projects has granted Karlsson more freedom to indulge his true influences. For example, Galantis’ breakthrough single Peanut Butter Jelly features samples of American R&B singer Bettye Swann, one of Karlsson’s favourite artists. “It’s also about going back to my roots in hip hop,” he says. “This is my instrument, finding pieces of music and sampling to make it into a new thing. That’s how I start music, that’s how I learn – taking steps into making the beat then working towards lyrics, chords or whatever. Peanut Butter Jelly for me is about going back
to the roots of where I came from.” Peanut Butter Jelly has been especially successful in Australia, hitting number three on the ARIA singles chart, which gives Karlsson plenty of excitement for their upcoming visit to our shores. “I think it’s something where music that comes out of Australia is this cool pop music or indie with pop, which I think is something that’s really involved with what we do in Galantis or Miike Snow,” he says. “I think that might be the reason why we go well in Australia – because I really like the music coming out of there. Really cool stuff.”
Back To The Future will be performed by the MSO on Friday November 6 and Saturday November 7 at the Plenary, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Only tickets for the Saturday matinee show remain.
GALANTIS
O C E A N O F S TA R S By Thomas Brand
Swedish musician Christian Karlsson operates as one third of indie pop act Miike Snow, one half of songwriting and production duo Bloodshy & Avant and one half of electronic dance duo Galantis. With Bloodshy & Avant, he’s contributed to the success of some of the biggest names in modern pop, including Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez and Katy Perry. Perhaps most notably, they produced Britney Spears’ chart-topping hit, Toxic. However, whilst Karlsson might have an enviable CV, his work with Galantis sees him starting from scratch. “There’s no transferral of any listeners from Miike Snow to Galantis,” he says. “I don’t know why that is, but it feels like people don’t really look that far. Maybe when they’re super fans then maybe, but I don’t see that going on and I can’t tell you why. Every time it’s always a case of people who investigate will know about it, but the fans won’t follow that part of it. I think maybe it’s a different type of music or something. I don’t know if Galantis fans know what Miike Snow is, really. It’s been a few years. “I love having Miike Snow and Galantis because it lets me be creative,” he continues. “It’s always going to be fun work. I’ll make songs – this one’s for Miike Snow, this one is for Galantis. It helps with everything for me. I don’t have to try to make it more indie with Galantis because it’d shift to Miike Snow, or the opposite.
It gives me a lot of freedom, which is fun. Being a creative person opens a lot of doors, especially with two projects.” Despite not cashing in on Karlsson’s earlier successes, Galantis’ debut LP Pharmacy still managed to hit number one in Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums chart. Interestingly, a large portion of their listenership has found them via online music streaming platform Spotify, which doesn’t bother Karlsson. “I love streaming overall, but I think it’s going to be cool to see competition,” he says. “Right now it seems like there’s only one, and I think it could help music a lot more with some more big platforms. I like Spotify, but I’d like other things to compete with it – it would help both the listeners and the people making the music. All types of streaming, even YouTube or Soundcloud
GALANTIS are playing Stereosonic 2015, which goes down on Saturday December 5 at Melbourne Showgrounds. Pharmacy is available now via Warner.
INFECTED MUSHROOM
PUSHING CUTTING EDGE MUSIC Infected Mushroom have been one of the world leaders in electronic dance music for around 20 years now and things aren’t slowing down. If anything, they’re speeding up as the genre they helped cultivate continues to take the world by storm. We spoke to one half of the duo, Amit Duvdevani, ahead of their headline spot at this year’s Earthcore. Hi Amit, thanks for taking the time to chat with me. How are you and what are Infected Mushroom up to at the moment? We are doing great. Feels nice to be home after a couple weekends in Asia. We are spending some time with our families. Erez [Eisen] just got married, and I have three rascals running around. For your tour of Australia it’s going to be an old school set. What made you decide to bring back the oldies? We like to do these kind of sets now and then. It’s been a while since we performed this retro live set, and we feel the Aussie psy crowd will really appreciate it – they are hardcore. For career musicians, whatever they create always seems to get compared to their early stuff. How do you think your newer tracks stand up to your older material? It is hard to compare our new stuff with the music
we were making nearly 20 years ago. Back then it was very purely psy, yet still infused with that Infected sound. Now our music is very diverse, covering just about every genre imaginable, yet it still has that signature IM sound. Given you’ve been in the industry for a long time, how have you noticed EDM music’s evolved since its inception? Are there any places in particular that have surprised you with their growth of the genre? The scene has exploded in places like India and Southeast Asia. Every country in the world has their own journey with EDM; some are still new at it, and some are veterans. I’m happy to see that our music is now at the forefront of worldwide culture. You’ve got a lot of fans who are dedicated to a specific idea of your sound, which can sometimes stifle the chance for you to evolve. In making decisions that may be outside of your original sound, are you conscious about how these die-hard fans may react?
No. Listen, we love our fans more than anything in the world, but we are going to evolve whether they like it or not. It’s just a natural process for an artist. This is why we do old school sets every once in a while, so the fans who dig that old sound can still enjoy it. For as many old-school fans we might lose for evolving, we’ll gain four-fold for pushing cutting edge music. For your recent Animatronica tour in America we heard that people from Burning Man put your stage setup together. How much thought goes into the visual element of your show? We put tonnes of thought into the visual elements of the show. It’s important for people that come to see Infected leave feeling like they had a memorable experience, more than what they would get from just going to a nightclub. Also, we like to tickle all parts of the audience’s brain – the music and the visuals feed
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off each other. But yes, this year our Animatronica set involves Burning Man style mushrooms: one huge one in the back with moving parts that shoots cryo, and two little angry guys in front with lights that also shoot cryo into the audience. Couple those with our light and laser rig and it’s quite a trippy night. You’ll soon be heading to Earthcore, which you’ve played before. Do you have any fond memories of playing the festival down there? Every moment we had there was memorable. We love Earthcore and are super stoked to be heading back. We’re ready to blow the roof off. INFECTED MUSHROOM will appear at Earthcore, which runs Thursday November 26 – Monday November 30, in Pyalong, VIC. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 41
!!!
T he P arty A in ’ t O ver
By David James Young In the early-2000s, a curious dance/punk hybrid infiltrated the globe’s sweaty rock clubs and took over the still-blossoming blogosphere. In high rotation was a Northern Californian collective using three exclamation points (pronounced chk chk chk) as their name. After a low-key self-titled release, !!! came into their own with their sophomore LP, 2004’s Louden Up Now. While many of their contemporaries have since faded away, !!! are still at it and recently released their sixth LP, As If. Frontman Nic Offer is as incredulous as anyone that the band are still alive and kicking. “I’m truly surprised to be here after all this time and still with so many of the same people as when this band started,” he says. “It’s been fun for us the whole time that we’ve been doing it. People ask us why we’re still around and so many other bands like us have gone away. We can’t speak for them, obviously, I don’t know why they’re not here. I only know why we’re still here – and that’s because we still love doing this.” Released last month, As If is a timely and vital illustration of just how much fun Offer and co. are still having. There’s a sense of urgency in the album’s harderhitting tracks, which, given they were created during a time of considerable creative transformation, makes perfect sense. “We were kind of sitting around on our hands for awhile waiting for Thr!!!er [2013] to come out,” Offer says. “I started learning Ableton, and so did Mario
[Andreoni, guitar]. The two of us would come up with little beats or loops that we’d show one another, eventually bringing what we’d started over to Rafael [Cohen, keyboard/guitar/vocals]. He was already well across using Ableton, so he was able to clean things up really easily. “Before too long we had this massive backlog of demos – all the time we were promoting Thr!!!er, we had this whole other thing going on. We had 40 songs, eventually recording 20 of them. We then went even further and whittled them down to what ended up being the songs that made the album – our friends, people on the label and the rest of the band all had a hand in voting in and voting out songs.” Going from 40 songs down to the 11 that made the final album wasn’t an easy process. There were plenty of arguments and disagreements over what would eventually get pressed to disc and put on wax. However, as Offer testifies, it ultimately generated a positive outcome for the !!! camp. “The process really helped us look at what we were
creating a little more objectively. Of course there were songs that I was vouching for and really wanted to get through the voting system. When you’re saying yes, though, and at least a good share of people are saying no, you have to take a step back and think about what’s not working. It allows for the songs to develop and for us to work toward better songs as a collective.” While Offer’s confident they selected the strongest 11, they’re not done with what’s left of the 20 songs that made the shortlist. “You may well see another album in fairly close proximity to this one,” he says. “We’re tossing up the idea of taking them into the studio with another producer and seeing what more we can do.”
The earliest formation of !!! goes back to the mid-‘90s when Offer was brought in to front a new project that rose from the ashes of two Sacramento acts, Popesmashers and Black Liquorice. According to Offer, the key to their near 20 year career has been ensuring it never feels like a chore. “There’s something to not taking yourself so seriously. I mean, we take the creative process seriously, I suppose, but in a lot of ways we’re just laughing at ourselves the entire time. It’s music, after all. It should be fun, I think. It deserves to be fun.”
but somebody else in the band is, you sit back and you wait to be asked to perform, but you let the process go – you let whoever’s favouring the song rule the ball, so to speak. And quite often you’re very pleasantly surprised by something you didn’t think you’d like turn into something you love. But it’s a lot quicker, moving on your own.” The opportunity to craft an album under his own name saw Garvey indulge some influences that will perhaps surprise Elbow fans. “There’s not many genres of music that I haven’t found something in that I’ve really liked,” he says. “Even the odd club classic. I listen to all sorts of music. I really loved early hip hop, particularly when I was a kid.” In true Garvey style, the singer’s solo record is a
musically and lyrically detailed examination of highs and lows, triumphs and tribulations. Before he departs, Garvey is eager to assure Elbow devotees that he’s got no intention of leaving behind his friends in the group to go it alone permanently. “They’ve been popping into the studio this week while I’ve been rehearsing for my solo tour. [There’s] no need to worry – as soon as I’ve had my little fling I’ll be back in the studio with them boys, and all they’ll hear for the next six months is me saying, ‘Well, I didn’t do that on mine’.”
like it or if they’ll pass,” he says. “I never thought I’d do something like this. I had the arc of the story first, and I didn’t know what it was originally. I thought maybe it was a song, a screenplay, I didn’t know. But when I got down to writing it, a lot of characters I hadn’t even thought about suddenly occurred to me and it started taking on a life of its own. I guess that’s what happens. But I could always see this kind of end in sight. I could see where the story was going. I just wasn’t sure how to get there.” For the time being, we have Carousel One and the promise of seeing Sexsmith in action throughout November. Carousel One has been hailed as one of the strongest of his career; no faint praise for someone whose songs have already been embraced by smitten
fan and fellow songwriters alike. “You’d like to think if someone has chosen your song it’s because it speaks to them for whatever reason. Maybe they just like the melody, I don’t know. Leslie Feist did a cover of Secret Heart and I think most people know her version. Sometimes I’ll play it and someone will say, ‘Hey, I loved that Leslie Feist song you did’. But that’s how it goes. I just write, and try not to get too tripped over by it.”
!!!’s sixth LP As If is out now through Warp/Inertia.
Guy Garvey
H ol d ing C ourt By Chris Martin
Guy Garvey, frontman and lyricist of Manchester’s late bloomers Elbow, is an avid listener to new music. The silver-tongued vocalist hosts his own weekly BBC Radio show, which means he’s exposed to a legion of unsigned bands on a regular basis. With six Elbow albums in the bag, Garvey’s just released his debut solo LP, Courting The Squall. However, he’s not oblivious to the lack of opportunity for the current generation of emerging artists to develop their talents over time. “People listen to songs, not albums,” says Garvey. “Even if they do listen to albums, they don’t pay for them. And bands have to release more material to excuse going on tour just to survive as a band, otherwise they have to get a full-time job. And together writing music becomes so impractical that they don’t pursue it. “We need to work out a new business model to protect the music that we’re losing. We’re losing a generation of it. All the music that’s getting through – and I hate to say this, because it’s not that it’s bad music – but the only music that gets through is from people whose parents can bankroll them. So The Jam wouldn’t happen, The Clash wouldn’t happen, the fucking Beatles wouldn’t happen in this climate.” It might seem a pessimistic view to take at the outset of a solo career, but the unflappably humble Garvey knows he’s in a privileged position thanks to a long
and successful time at the front of one of Britain’s most respected alternative rock bands. Elbow’s latest full-length release, 2014’s The Take Off And Landing Of Everything, was their first to top the UK charts, arriving three years after the platinum-accredited Build A Rocket Boys! and six years after The Seldom Seen Kid, which won the prestigious Mercury Music Prize. Going solo remained an ambition of Garvey’s, and the process behind Courting The Squall was a refreshing one. “At one point I had seven amazing musicians playing things at my bidding, at two o’clock in the morning in a beautiful studio in Wiltshire – Peter Gabriel’s place,” he says. “And the minute I realised I didn’t like what we’d all been playing for a couple of hours, I went, ‘Stop. That’ll do. See you in the morning.’ And you can’t do that in a band. You know, you’ve got to see something through to the bitter end. If you’re not feeling a song
GUY GARVEY’s debut solo record Courting The Squall is out now through Universal.
RON SEXSMITH
RI D I N G T H E M ERRY- G O - RO U N D By Adam Norris Twenty years ago, Ron Sexsmith released his eponymous debut album, which started the ball rolling on one of the most quietly-smouldering, critically acclaimed careers in music today. Lauded by the likes of Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello, he has just dropped his 14th album, Carousel One, and will soon arrive for his first Australian tour since 2008. We were willing to forgive his protracted absence if he agreed to open up on his creative practice and plans for the future, and the Canadian songwriter didn’t disappoint. “There’s never a time when I’m not writing, I’m always working on something,” Sexsmith says. “I’m working on songs right now, in fact, for whatever my next record ends up being, and lately we’ve been touring a lot, so there really hasn’t been that much time for anything else. When I’m home though, I don’t really have a lot of hobbies. My friends and I might play ping pong sometimes, but other than that I like to just grab some drinks, go out and see a movie. It’s not a very exciting life really, but I quite like those moments when I’m at home and don’t have to be anywhere or be anybody.” It is an interesting aside, this notion of relaxing a public mask and slipping back into the everyday man. It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking the person depicted through Sexsmith’s vast catalogue of albums is the man himself; they seem so personable and direct. Either way, he’s certainly a songwriter whose influences are clear, and he does not shy away from expressing that in song. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 42
“On this record I think people can hear a whole range of artists who have influenced me,” says Sexsmith. “There’s a song called No One, which is very influenced by Roger Miller. A lot of the usual suspects: Gordon Lightfoot, The Beatles. I mean, I am 51, so most of the music that really influenced me was stuff I heard as a kid, and I’m just fortunate that I grew up in such a melodic period. I’ve just written a novel recently and I’m a big fan of Dickens, he was a big influence, although I wouldn’t quite dare compare my book to him. But these people just set a high bar, and you’re trying to reach it.” That Sexsmith has turned his hand to literature comes as a fine surprise. Though, with many other singers celebrated for their lyrical prowess – think Nick Cave, John Darnielle, or Colin Meloy – the shift across to novelist isn’t unprecedented. “I’ve never really done anything like this before. I’m in a holding pattern here, waiting to see if the publishers
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RON SEXSMITH plays the Caravan Music Club on Friday November 27 and Northcote Social Club on Saturday November 28. He’s also playing Queenscliff Music Festival, which runs from Friday November 27 till Sunday November 29.
MUMFORD & SONS
NOT WILLING TO BE PINNED DOWN By Adam Norris Since 2009’s Sigh No More rampaged across the globe – with its lead single Little Lion Man doing particularly well in Australia, winning the #1 spot on triple j’s Hottest 100 by the largest margin in the poll’s history – Mumford & Sons have soared from strength to strength. This year saw the release of Wilder Mind, which heralded a significant shift in the band’s sonic outlook. Beat chats with banjoist-cum-electric guitarist Winston Marshall ahead of the band’s triumphant return to Australia. Marshall is speaking from New York, where he has been recovering his energies after a hefty run of performances and an endless cavalcade of media jerks insisting on his time. Despite myself now adding to that chorus, he is in remarkably cheerful spirits. “We’ve got two months off now after we hit it pretty hard this summer,” he says. “We played Leeds, which is where all of the teenagers in Britain go to. Playing that was just amazing, Playing to kids is the best fucking audience you can play to. They don’t give a fuck, they have so much energy and they just give everything. Mixed crowds are great, but playing to kids is something else. They’ve drunk a shitload of beer, they don’t realise that it’s watered down, and they just go wild. I think they were two of the best gigs that we’ve ever had. Ever. So now, a couple of months off, and then we’re starting things up again in Australia.” While the UK foursome may still be recuperating at the time of our conversation, by the time the Mumford circus rolls into Australia they will be bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed. After all, they’ve long been committed to making every show a memorable one. “The pinnacle of the day is always going to be the gig, so you’re mostly saving your energy,” says Marshall. “You don’t want to blow out because those two hours on stage have to be fucking incredible. We have that mentality, where everything that happens during the day is leading up to being on stage. When we’re off tour, it relaxes. We’re all pretty knackered and it’ll take us a week or so to readjust. Right now we’ve started thinking about the next album, getting new songs together. We’re all based in slightly different places, so we all demo up by ourselves and then email each other ideas. That’s where we are now, really, emailing around ideas of what the next one is going to be.” Given that Wilder Mind was released just six months ago, it’s impressive to learn that the guys are already tossing around ideas for the next chapter in their sonic journey. Wilder Mind marked a conspicuous shift from the folk instrumentation of Sigh No More and 2012’s
Babel into the world of electricity. It’s an aspect of their sound audiences are less familiar with, and it remains an interesting area to explore. “The first demos that I’ve done for the new record sounds like Wilder Mind, in the same sense that the first demos from the last album sounded like a bit like the one before,” says Marshall. “You have to push yourself to do different things, and I think we’re really good at challenging each other in that sense. Marcus [Mumford, vocals/guitar] just sent through a demo and it’s like nothing I’ve heard him write before. It’s just
fucking awesome. He’s always good at that, way better than I am. We challenge each other, and because we all grew up together we won’t let anyone get away with too much. We won’t appease each other. The challenge within us is quite good, but also pretty heartbreaking. No one likes to see a song pushed down.”
never believe would happen,” she says. “They only let us know the day the tour started. We had some gigs booked in as well, so we just sat there thinking, ‘Can we actually do this?’ After an hour or two we thought, ‘I’d give up my job to be able to do this’.” It’s hard to find to many similarities between the two groups, but both have undeniably strong harmonies. All Our Exes Live In Texas’ finely crafted harmonies are one of their most identifiable assets, which add an added layer of complexity to their songs. “Harmonies are something we really want to push ourselves with,” says Crofts. “When you’re arranging and writing a song, it’s so easy to fall into a pattern of what you always do. It’s about spending time with a song and thinking, ‘What’s something really cool or really difficult that we can use to push ourselves to become better musicians through the song?’” In Crofts’ opinion, developing the group’s harmony
arrangements was just another step that led them to fall in love with folk music. While still heeding to tradition in a musical sense, All Our Exes introduce a perspective all of their own. “Being four women in Australia, I think there’s something special about that,” she says. “For me, the most important thing is that women have role models. Ultimately, young girls growing up in Australia need to see more girls doing what we’re doing. Whether that’s being a tour manager or a sound engineer, producing or onstage, I think it’s really important that Australia highlights these people, for the specific purpose of role models.”
MUMFORD & SONS play Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Thursday November 12 with support from The Vaccines and Future Islands. Wilder Mind is out now via Dew Process/Universal.
ALL OUR EXES LIVE IN TEXAS
STRENGTH IN HARMONY
By James Di Fabrizio
Boasting four unique voices, and four experienced songwriters in their own right, the members of All Our Exes Live In Texas come together to form something greater than the sum of its parts. After the release of their latest single, the brooding folk-pop gem Sailboat, the group have spent the past two months taking their charismatic charm to the festivals of Australia. All Our Exes Live In Texas formed just two years ago, and to rise through the ranks at the rate they have requires a phenomenal amount of drive and hard work, as well as that indefinable quality that only comes when the right people start making music together. “As soon as we started playing together, with our four personalities I think we found it really special and kind of magical,” says vocalist and ukulele player Hanna Crofts. “It’s been easy to get on a good path because people want to come our shows, they enjoy it when they do and they want to come back. At the same time, I just feel like I should show someone my phone – if I put it down for half an hour, I look back and I’ve got 42 text messages from the girls and my manager. Anyone in a band has to realise that it’s a 24 hour job, and that’s the
only way to do it.” It’s this combination of chemistry and work ethic that led to a watershed moment in the group’s career. Earlier this year, All Our Exes Live In Texas were chosen to support ‘90s pop royalty the Backstreet Boys on an arena tour around the country. As Crofts enthuses, landing a tour with Nick Carter and co. was a childhood dream come true. “All of us had Backstreet Boys posters around our bedrooms, and have been completely obsessed our entire lives,” she says. Perhaps you’re thinking that a four-piece folk band are a strange pick to accompany the group that produced such ubiquitous hits as I Want It That Way and Everybody (Backstreet’s Back), and Crofts felt the same. “It’s one of those things that you
SARAH BLASKO
THE DISCIPLINE OF POP By Adam Norris
Things aren’t off to a flying start with Sarah Blasko. The fault is entirely mine, given Blasko herself is as friendly and open as they come. But after listening to her splendid fifth album, Eternal Return, and finding myself enamoured with a sweep of songs, I quote the opening line of the first track, I Am Ready. “I never know what to say,” sings Blasko, and it seems like a portentous lyric after years or critical and commercial acclaim, and could potentially shed some light on her musical ethos. Turns out, I’ve missed the mark entirely. “That’s not the line,” Blasko laughs. “It’s, ‘I’ll never know what you said’.” So much for my theory of hidden clues and secret insights. Also, my hearing. But then, obfuscation has never really been the Sydney singer’s speciality. Blasko has always been one to wear her heart on her sleeve, and with Eternal Return this frankness has been invigorated. “I think I’ve always been trying to write a really good pop album through all of my records, and this one I tried to be a bit stricter,” she says. “I really wanted it to be quite relatable. Not in the sense that I was trying to work out what people wanted to hear, but I wanted it to be a tight pop album. I suppose it seemed like a really fun pursuit after doing something like the Sydney Dance Company project, or the film work of the last year. Those pieces can be longer, more meandering, you can just go off on a tangent. After that it was really
fun to write something that was disciplined in terms of trying to write a good pop song, to focus more on really strong melodies, which isn’t really what I was trying to do with the SDC stuff.” The Sydney Dance Company project Blasko refers to was her collaboration with composer Nick Wales on the soundtrack for Rafael Bonachela’s production, Emergence. It wasn’t the first time she’d been asked to collaborate – she also composed the music for Brendon Cowell’s 2015 film Ruben Guthrie. Although it’s a process that conjures unique rewards, collaborations with other musicians can be quite a delicate give-andtake. “I think it’s really difficult, and I feel like a lot of times I just run away from it,” says Blasko. “It’s very revealing. You’ve got to put a lot of effort into communicating, and I would much rather just do everything myself in a
ALL OUR EXES LIVE IN TEXAS will play Queenscliff Music Festival, from Friday November 27 – Sunday November 29, with Augie March, Harts, Kate Miller-Heidke and more.
room with the door closed. That’s how I started doing all this, just writing in my room. But I do think some of the best things I’ve done have been with other people. Some of the songs on this album were co-written, and I think they’re stronger melodically for having done that.” With a four-month old baby demanding her attention, Blasko’s times of actual solitude are greatly restricted. However, she’s nonetheless continued to perform, and although she has warmed to the idea of creative collaboration, she’s also quick to joke about throwing tantrums and hurling pianos at people. Eternal Return captures this duality, and while some have heralded it as an ode to the ‘80s, Blasko herself is more circumspect about such nostalgia. “A few people have commented that the album sounds really ‘80s, but I didn’t really want it to sound like a retro album. Maybe when people have heard the whole record it will change how they feel about it. I hear it as having some nostalgic qualities, but I kind of think it’s hard to place in a certain era. I think you just have it in the back of your mind what you’d like to do, and wait for the right time to do it. It’s like a door suddenly opens to something new.”
SARAH BLASKO’s new album Eternal Return comes out on Friday November 6 via EMI/Universal.
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KUTCHA EDWARDS
PA S T P RES EN T F U T U RE By Thomas Brand
After spending 26 years in the music industry, Kutcha Edwards has performed with some of the biggest names in Australian music, from Renee Geyer to Jimmy Barnes and many luminaries in between. However, while holding his own as an artist, he’s at a stage in his life where he’s focused on the bigger picture. Much like fellow Black Arm Band member Emma Donovan, Edwards is dedicated to engaging with indigenous youth as much as he possibly can. His phenomenal work ethic stems from a need to continue the history and stories of his forefathers. “What non-indigenous Australia needs to understand is that we’ve been singing these songs for over 40,000 years, we’re just contemporising our ideology in 2015,” says Edwards. “We’re just the contemporary bearers of cultural practice that has been done for millennia on this continent. New melodies to old songs. I’ve been at this game for 26 years. It’s been a hard slog, but it doesn’t detract me from what I need to pass on to not only non-indigenous Australia, but to our youth and how they can give voice to our people. “The kids are told to shut up and play outside, and when they muck up they have to come inside and they can’t do this or that, but I suppose I’m getting old. The supposed elders in the game we call the music industry, what we need to do now is educate our kids as to how to get these stories and song lines across in this new world. I’ve been at it since ‘89. Believe me man, it’s a slog.”
Despite working tirelessly at his self-appointed mission, Edwards is humble about his work. Other performers engaged with the indigenous community mightn’t have the time or energy to visit a community more than a few times a year, but Edwards makes sure he visits at least once a month after seeing out his other responsibilities – which have included performing at the Sydney Opera House. “Fair enough, I can do a gig in front of Gough Whitlam at the Sydney Opera House in what might have been 2007 or 2008, sitting in the front row when I was with the Black Arm Band,” he says. “Gough Whitlam. You just think, ‘What the?’ But the reality is, what’s the point of us doing a performance such as that in front of him? And you get Jimmy Barnes coming down in the bowels of the house with his wife and kids and stuff saying, ‘That was unbelievable. Can I get involved?’ And I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ The reality is that, while
I can’t speak on behalf of the ensemble or on behalf of Archie [Roach] or Ruby [Hunter], and I shouldn’t, the reality is that although I’m performing like that, I need to do the right thing by working with the community as well on the next day – by doing songwriting and engaging with the community and such. Stuff like that at the Redfern Community Centre so these kids can see their idols.” Edwards’ commitment to lending a hand stems from an appreciation for the opportunities he’s been granted. He wants to equalise the playing field by making sure today’s youth can have the same opportunities he’s had. “We’re supposed to inspire our kids to be doing this. I bet you half or probably all of Queensland is kicking balls over rugby goals, over what Jonathan Thurston did,
and that’s to inspire our kids. Not to glorify ourselves. So I might have been at Sydney opera house two days ago, but I’m here. My job is to help you write what you want to write, and play what you want to play so that you may get the opportunity to do what I did two days ago. No use pumping up your own tires. Doesn’t make sense to me.”
much going by the same process, which is giving each other files and then pulling things together and jamming a bit and getting the bits we like from that and then eventually getting together and playing it in the same room with the electronics. There’s an idealised way that a band writes something and then gets in a room and plays it, but that hasn’t really happened that much since the ‘60s when everyone was multi-tracking. If you read about The Rolling Stones making Exile On Main St, they went to a villa in the south of France and jammed for six months while partying and then eventually cut it all up into a record. I feel like, because we work with electronics, that’s pretty much how we operate too… Maybe with less drugs and wild parties.” PVT’s second album O Soundtrack My Heart was a notable progression from Make Me Love You, moving into darker, more forceful territory. 2010’s Church With No Magic marked the first appearance of vocals on a PVT release, which continued on 2013’s Homosapien,
perhaps their most accessible release to date. But despite the diversity, they’ll draw from each of their releases at the upcoming Melbourne date. “It’s really nice to have four records to choose from, and we’re also going to play some new material. It makes it easier to get a set together – when you’re a young band and you’ve only got one album, well you have no choice but to play that album and that album dictates the shape of your live set. But when you’ve got more to choose from you can shape it into some kind of bigger thing. Having said that, we can’t exactly play heaps from Make Me Love You, but there will be a few.”
KUTCHA EDWARDS plays the Shebeen Band Room, with Tolka and Rayella, on Friday November 13 for AWME 2015. He’s also playing the Big West Festival at Footscray Park Bowling Club on Saturday November 28.
PVT
M an V ersus M achine By Augustus Welby This weekend PVT kick off a quick run of dates in celebration of their tenth anniversary. The anniversary specifically relates to the band’s debut LP, Make Me Love You. However, while the album is ten years old, brothers Richard and Laurence Pike founded PVT (originally Pivot) around the turn of the millennium. With a fluctuating cast of collaborators, the pair spent a handful of years developing the band’s sound, culminating in that breakthrough release. “We were kind of a jam band and everyone had other projects,” says multi-instrumentalist, electronics operator and vocalist, Richard Pike. “But personally I wanted to get more serious about songwriting and production and I really was heavily into computers at the time, when laptops weren’t as common. I made it a mission to figure out how to record and was very interested in mixing live performance and electronics and how to pull them all together.” A completely instrumental album, Make Me Love You contains a lot of textural elements without ever being excessive. Multi-tracks of live drums, guitar and bass meet up with glitch electronics, keys and various other effects. There are moments of rhythmic insistence and masterful instrumental interplay, as well as plenty of gentler, reflective moments. “I think when you make a record things form before
you,” says Pike. “When you have one track that gives you this or that mood, you kind of want the next track you write to contrast that or to follow on from that. [Make Me Love You] had this intuitive process of, ‘These sound great. What else does the album need?’ It took a really nice shape in that regard. I think it feels like it’s got a nice flow to it.” These days PVT consists of Richard, Laurence and electronic musician Dave Miller, who joined shortly after the release of Make Me Love You. The trio are scattered through various parts of the world and work on new music separately, experimenting with different ways of generating songs and sending ideas back and forth via email. Interestingly, while the band members all lived in Sydney during the construction of Make Me Love You, the process wasn’t much different. “It was bits and pieces,” says Pike. “We’re still pretty
PVT play the Former Royal Women’s Hospital on Monday November 16, with support from Kirkis and Pearls, as part of Melbourne Music Week 2015. Make Me Love You vinyl 10th anniversary reissue is available now via PVT Music.
THE BELLIGERENTS
INSIDE OUT By Rod Whitf ield
The brand new Panacea Festival makes its debut in Northern Victoria in a few weeks time, bringing together an eclectic selection of music as well as art exhibitions, yoga workshops and all-round positive vibes. One of the standout acts on the lineup is The Belligerents, who are coming down from Brisbane for the festival, as well as a rare Melbourne headline date. Bass player and vocalist Konstantin Kersting believes that small, boutique festivals are able to keep it real more than the commercial big-hitters. “Those types of festivals, the ones that are organised locally, tend to have a really good and strong vibe because people actually go to see the music,” he says. “Whereas other festivals that are bigger, people seem to go to have a party and the music is more of a background thing. With the smaller ones, there’s always lots of local bands, and then maybe just one or two bigger headlines bands. People just seem to care a little bit more. ” Beginning life back in 2010 as more of a straightup dance band, The Belligerents have expanded their sound over the years, bringing in new styles and textures across a series of singles and EP releases. However, the band’s music continues to get punters moving. “It’s still a little bit dance-y,” says Kersting. “It was a lot more dance-y back in the day. That was how we started out, that was the kind of music we wanted to make. Now we’re pushing ourselves towards [being] a BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 44
bit rockier in our sound. A bit more organic, and not as straightforward dance. “Plus we’ve been playing around and experimenting with more psychedelic sounds, that’s what we’ve been trying to do in the last couple of years.” Evidence of this stylistic update can be found on the band’s new EP Outside:Inside. The Victorian dates kick off a massive nationwide tour in support of the release. “Melbourne is the first leg of the tour,” says Kersting. “Then we’re doing Perth; then we’re doing a festival up near Brisbane, called Jungle Love Festival; then we’re doing an actual Brisbane show; a Sunshine Coast show; then two Sydney shows and a Port Macquarie show – that’s a festival called Festival of the Sun. I think it’s ten dates on this tour, and that will be it for touring for this year.” This won’t be the first time the band have played in
Victoria, but Kersting promises a showcase of the different musical strings the band has recently added to their bow. “It will be completely different from the last time we were down there,” he says. “I think there’s only one song that we play from the old set, maybe two. So it’s a totally different set, totally different music, totally different vibe. It’s a lot more fast-paced, a lot more energetic. It’s supposed to take you to a different place, but people will still be able to have a good time. There’s a lot of psychedelic textures, a lot of more jammy parts, so it should be a whole lot of fun.” Panacea Festival boasts a diverse lineup, but the entire bill is characterised by an uptempo, fun vibe. “Delta
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Riggs will be great,” says Kersting. “The Drunk Mums boys will be playing, and they’re really, really funny dudes, so it should be a really fun day.” While this tour will bring The Belligerents’ 2015 to a close, there’s big things on the horizon for 2016. “We’re bunking down and finishing writing our debut album. We’re going away to record that early next year, and it’ll be out sometime next year.” Catch THE BELLIGERENTS at Panacea Festival, which runs from Friday November 20 – Sunday November 22 in Benalla, Victoria. You can also see them at Northcote Social Club on Friday November 20. Outside:Inside is out now.
GYPSY & THE CAT
DEFYING DEVOLUTION By Augustus Welby
Gypsy & The Cat first came to attention when triple j picked up their track Jona Vark in mid-2009. Despite having never played live, the Melbourne duo were soon catapulted to international success, signing with Sony Music and teaming up with drummer John Jenkins from The Streets/Lily Allen. The upward trajectory continued with the release of their next single, Time To Wander, and debut LP, Gilgamesh, in late 2010. Global tours ensued before the band’s second LP, The Late Blue, arrived in late-2012 – featuring the ubiquitous single, Bloom. However, after touring The Late Blue, the band kept quiet for nearly two years until re-emerging somewhat discretely with the Hearts A Gun EP this September. “It was a mixture of things,” says vocalist Xavier Bacash of the duo’s retreat from the spotlight. “Wanting to let time pass away a little bit and let that expectation wander off a bit. When the first record came out, from then on a myriad of bands came along and were doing that sound too. It got to the point where we had to change from then, so we wrote the second record and it was probably a bit far away from where we started for people. For the third record, we wanted it to be our biggest musical statement and it takes a long time to put that project together, so we knew we had to give a couple of years to it.” With interest regenerating, Gypsy & The Cat’s live absence will come to an end when they help launch the Melbourne Music Week hub next weekend. Given their two year sabbatical, the performance will be a bit
different to what they were doing in the wake of The Late Blue. “We’ve scaled down to a three-piece – a drummer, Lionel [Towers] and myself,” says Bacash. “So it’s more compact, it’s more electronic and probably energetic this way. We’re putting a visual show together with the audio, in keeping with the style of the tracks. We’re not really playing many old tracks. So it’s been a bit of a reshuffle, which is exciting, to do it again from scratch.” Emerging from the relative wilderness, you’d expect the band to be eager to remind audiences of their former glories. However, along with the new EP, this show inaugurates the next phase in the Gypsy & The Cat story. “We found that, especially on the second record, we were pigeonholed back into the first record – people
wanted to hear all that hear music,” says Bacash. “So it’s definitely been a relaunch in the sense that it’s like Gypsy & The Cat mark two. We’ve been writing for such a long time and creating new sounds. So just everything about the band is really quite different, besides the fact that I’m singing on everything – that’s the only common denominator.” However, with regards to the songs on Hearts A Gun, that’s not entirely true. Although the tracks are looser and more psychedelic, the record coheres with Gypsy & The Cat’s overall aesthetic, marrying a dance sensibility with classic pop melodiousness and simplicity. “We just have such a vast breadth of influences that it just comes out like that,” says Bacash. “Even the first record, we were a bit of genre chameleon. Jona Vark was very different to say Time To Wander – it was like Fleetwood Mac versus Tears For Fears, in a way.
So we’ve always sort of been like that, and that’s part of the reason, maybe, of why we did well – there was familiarity but it was also done in a different style. “We do have a very classical pop-style framework that we work to, just because we like that way of writing. I’m a massive pop fan, but also have a huge collection of old krautrock and psych rock from the ‘90s and UK punk and things like that. It all kind of comes in and out. Although there’s a cohesion between Hearts A Gun and the other work, I would say the next record is even further away.” GYPSY & THE CAT play the Former Royal Women’s Hospital, with Dorsal Fins and The Harpoons, on Friday November 13 as part of Melbourne Music Week 2015. Hearts A Gun is out now via Alsatian Music.
BEN OTTEWELL
R AT T LI N G O N By Tex Miller
In 1998, with an average age of 22, Brit rockers Gomez burst onto the music scene with their incredible debut album Bring It On. The boys out of North West England ended up taking out that year’s Mercury Prize for Best UK Album of the Year, a phenomenal feat given that The Verve’s Urban Hymns and Massive Attack’s Mezzanine were also nominated. Although it was 17 years ago, one of the band’s three lead vocalists Ben Ottewell hazily recalls being very young and drunk at the awards ceremony. Now less young and not quite so intoxicated, Ottewell will make a welcome return to Australia in November, this time in support of his second solo release Rattlebag. Ottewell is speaking down a phone line from his house in Brighton where the sun is shining and there is the faint sound of emergency sirens in the background. He speaks excitedly about heading back Down Under this week. “I am at the tail end of my summer/autumn UK tour and it feels really great to be coming back, and always a pleasure to play for the Australian audiences,” he says. “Tomorrow night I’m playing with Rich Robinson from The Black Crowes in London. I met Rich a few years ago when we played a show in Atlanta. It was awesome because he came up on stage and played Jealous Again with us and that was just fantastic.” Released in October last year, Rattlebag is a nice
follow up to 2011’s Shapes & Shadows. If you’re a fan of Gomez, you will immediately recognise Ottewell’s signature vocal timbre. However, his latest release also showcases some pretty ballsy blues riffs that will have you hooked in no time, regardless of whether you’re a Gomez follower. The record was co-written with Sam Genders of English folk band Tunng and gained positive reviews right across the board. “Some people like it more and some less, but generally it’s a positive thing,” says Ottewell. “No one has said anything nasty about it, which is good. It was a lot of fun to make in the studio and a really organic process, which you are able to hear in the songs.” Since releasing Whatever’s On Your Mind back in 2011,
the five members of Gomez have split into different directions, both physically and musically. At present, vocalist Ian Ball, drummer Olly Peacock and bassist Paul Blackburn reside in the US, whilst vocalist Tom Gray lives close to Ottewell in Brighton. Despite this, one can’t help but question whether there’s a new Gomez record in the pipeline. “That’s a common theme in interviews I got to admit, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to be the bearer of bad news, I don’t have any illusive exclusives,” says Ottewell. “All I know is that at some point in the future it will happen. It might not be tomorrow or next year, but we will get together and produce new stuff sometime. For a long time I’ve been thinking I should try to get away from the Gomez stuff, but they are good songs and a lot of them are mine so it seems silly to purposely upset people. If you come to these shows, you will hear a variety of stuff from my back catalogue.” Shapes & Shadows and Rattlebag are both astounding
listens with plenty of shared qualities, despite having completely different writing methods. With regards to the process behind his latest album, Ottewell says it was almost like starting again. “It was a really great experience being able to make this record. All of the songs on this first record were written over the course of ten years and were tunes that had sort of fallen through the cracks and not been ready to put onto a record. However this time around I started from scratch. Working with [producer] Will Golden again was fantastic, because we think along the same lines, so there is no problem there. It was the most fun that I’ve had in the studio since [1999’s] Liquid Skin.”
record,” says Bourke. “We still wanted things to have groove and to make music that people can move to. We decided to focus less on 125 beats per minute and super bass, I guess. We also moved away from having synths fill every instrumental element outside of vocals. We introduced more guitar, horn sections and different sorts of keyboards. I think we’ve been trying to transform an electronically focused group into a band. We still like those electronic elements but they play a more subtle role now.” New Order has been one of the leading comparisons when discussing City Calm Down. From the ashes of Joy Division, the ‘80s innovators became legendary for merging post-punk with a dance sensibility, making some groundbreaking pop music in the process. “Look, I would be lying if I said they weren’t a major influence,” Bourke says of the New Order comparison. “We listened to heaps of their stuff as a group, particularly when we were starting out. However, I don’t know if we’re super conscious of New Order when writing music. Some songs pay tribute to them in a big
way while others definitely don’t.” As the summer season draws near, Bourke keeps a level head about the festival schedule ahead. City Calm Down will be playing alongside the likes of Hot Chip and Julio Bashmore at Sugar Mountain as well as mixing with Bloc Party, Foals and Disclosure at Falls Festival. They also have Lost Paradise on the agenda, where they will be performing in the company of Angus & Julia Stone, Four Tet, and Jamie xx. Will these be some of the biggest audiences the band has played to? “Yes, by a long shot,” says Bourke. “It’s sort of crept up on us but hopefully people come and see us play. It’s really exciting to play alongside bands we have so much admiration and respect for.”
BEN OTTEWELL plays Northcote Social Club on Wednesday November 11, Sooki Lounge, Belgrave on Thursday November 12 and The Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick on Friday November 13.
CITY CALM DOWN
R E S T LE S S R EWA R D S By Annie Murney
Jack Bourke is sacrificing his lunch hour to take some media interviews. He is also recovering from a persistent cold, which is perhaps the product of juggling his day job with a hectic tour schedule. In spite of this, the City Calm Down frontman is upbeat and modest about his band’s snowballing success. The Melburnian four-piece have been creeping up the music scene ladder for some time now, and recently nabbed slots at some hotly anticipated summer festivals, such as Sugar Mountain and Falls Festival. Adding to the momentum, three singles have been released from their debut album, In a Restless House, which lands this weekend. “The tour has been really good,” says Bourke. City Calm Down’s first headline tour has been met with bundles of enthusiasm and legions of new fans. “We were kind of surprised people bought tickets,” he says. “Playing to rooms full of people has been really exciting and rewarding. We’re really looking forward to getting the album out so we can keep doing it.” The group spent nearly three years working on their debut album. “We finished recording in May,” says Bourke. “It’s funny looking back, because while it took a long time from start to finish, a lot of songs on the record came together in the last three or four months of writing. We had this exceptionally unproductive period before going into an exceptionally productive period. It doesn’t mean we wrote the album in three months
though. We probably wouldn’t have got there if we didn’t have the time beforehand.” City Calm Down released their breakthrough EP, Movements, back in 2012. The synth-heavy handful of tracks was full of ghostly echoes and punchy drum beats; think Cut Copy with softer edges. In a Restless House features a similarly shimmering sound with an extra layer of instrumentation. For instance, Son opens like a church hymn, weaving together organs and choral backing vocals. That said, the group have retained a degree of dance-friendliness – the thrumming Border on Control culminates in a killer chorus, while Your Fix bursts forth as an ‘80s pop banger, held together by steady guitar riffs. “We weren’t so much interested in making a dance
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CITY CALM DOWN’s debut album In a Restless House is out Friday November 6 via I Oh You. They’re playing the Falls Festival in Lorne, VIC, which runs from Monday December 28 to Friday January 1. Then they’ll hit Sugar Mountain at the Victorian College of the Arts on Saturday January 23, 2016. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 45
THE DARKNESS
H I S T O R Y I S H E R E T O S TA Y By Daniel Prior
When The Darkness first exposed themselves to the world of rock’n’roll, anyone who saw their tight pants and heard their climactic sounds couldn’t help but think they’d found the lost kings of rock. “I wasn’t surprised [about the band’s success], to be honest,” says frontman Justin Hawkins. “I kind of expected to be amazing and loved, just because I’m that kind of arsehole. We tell people what to expect. I was amazing them. I knew we’d have people worshipping us – not in the biblical sense, mind you, but close. Expect and ye shall receive.” For the past 15 years, Hawkins has been gyrating his hips onstage and driving fans wild with his group’s tongue-in-cheek brand of glam rock. It turns out the pants hold more than just his junk. “It’s a special trick we use in the studio. Whenever we’ve got to record a chorus I get a more generous cut, where if we’re working on a verse I pack everything in to get those high notes. It’s absolutely true. If you condense anything you get more out of it, so I do it for the music.” The Darkness continue to hold the world in their loving embrace and Hawkins believes the reason behind the band’s ongoing success is their own ambition. “The pressure is more from within the band. We’re all trying to be the best. That first album [2003’s Permission To Land] was our benchmark. It was such a strong album straight out of the gate. I mean, bands go their whole career without turning out something that good. So
we push ourselves to keep up at our own levels. I don’t think it’s in us just to churn out something that’s less than absolutely awesome. “When you get a little bit of success, it’s easy to keep going then. I mean, hell, I could be working at Starbucks or something, but instead I’m making incredible music. Success is our only propulsion. Our albums sell, people come to our shows, and with that success we get all the energy we need to keep doing it.” But 15 years is a long time, and to maintain the same passion and energy for music is one of the greatest challenges facing an artist. But Hawkins believes that, while you may not feel the same way you did when you first start making music, your levels of enthusiasm will always remain the same. “It’s hard to remember how it used to feel. It’s still exciting, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it. Whether it feels the same is hard to say. All sensations change
[but] something of the original must be there. I know I still get excited whenever we play – I don’t know if it’s the same excitement I felt at the beginning, but it’s still just as exciting.” The Darkness’ career has seen them release four studio albums and have numerous awards hurled their way, yet all the while people in the background continue to argue that rock is dead. Hawkins still laughs at a review that once claimed The Darkness were just a big-time ‘70s rock tribute band. “I think our sound keeps changing,” he says. “I wouldn’t say that our sound is a tribute to the ‘70s, but more inspired by the rock of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, simply because music from that time was almost always brilliant. If we felt the same about more modern stuff
we’d be inspired by that too, but I find the sound of the 2000s is shit – mostly because people are trying to find something new instead of something good.” With the band about to launch a new tour, Hawkins looks forward to travelling across Australia once again. “It’s been long overdue. All of Australia is brilliant. A lot of people are saying that Melbourne’s where it’s at, but we’re just really excited to get to Australia and get the tour going. It’s going to be brilliant.”
“Obviously we could do whatever we want, but we know that we do have a sound that works for us. That’s another thing – you don’t want to fall into repeating yourself. I don’t think Real Estate has done that yet. “For me, things like bringing strings into the picture, I’ve always talked about doing that with Real Estate stuff, but I don’t think it would’ve worked because the songs are already so lush. The cool thing about Real Estate, each person brings their own thing to the table and it sounds pretty lush without having too much on top. It was nice to leave room for that in these songs, or find the songs where there was room for it rather than just throwing [strings] on top of everything. It was a good learning experience. And having a song that just starts with acoustic guitar and vocals – just things that are a little bit outside of my comfort zone. I was definitely trying new things.” Many Moons has clearly been a constructive project
for Courtney, so the question looms as to whether it’s the start of something more long term. “I actually don’t know at this point,” he says. “It worked out really well because we finished the last Real Estate record and had all this time to kill. We were finishing all the artwork and putting the whole thing together – that took six months before the record even came out. This project was a way to stay busy. Especially right at the beginning, I started writing these songs and thought, ‘There’s really no reason for me to be putting these towards Real Estate, because any song I write now is not going to come out for another year or two years. So I may as well put it towards something else.’ I could see that happening again.”
this country, so you have to learn a lot of skills to be able to do that yourself. I know the whole ideology with Milk! Records really connected with what I was talking about in the workshops. So I brought my ideas over to Milk! Records and started to implement them, and they worked. “I think the community feel is definitely a factor, but essentially, it has to be the music. It has to be of the standard that prompts people to come and buy it and see it, or you don’t really have a label. There is a sense of community, we are friends and we do all play in each other’s bands, but we’re still particular about the songwriters and bands that we put out through the label.” While Cloher is certainly pleased and appreciative of the support her peers have shown her, she still says the greatest measurement of success is the reaction of the music loving community.
“I don’t know the name of their school, but there’s a group of adorable schoolgirls who come along to any underage show. They came up and they said that they’re all in different year levels, but they’re united by their love of Milk! Records. I think that kind of thing, hearing that back for me is the success. Hearing back from fans. We all fall in love with certain things and we all care about certain things in our lives, and it’s just cool that there are a few groups of people out there that care about what we’re doing.”
THE DARKNESS’ Last Of Our Kind is out now through Kobalt. Catch them at Forum Melbourne on Wednesday November 11.
MARTIN COURTNEY
C O M F O R TA B LY L E AV I N G HIS COMFORT ZONE By Augustus Welby
Originally a New Jersey boy, Real Estate frontman Martin Courtney recently jumped across the border to live in the small town of Beacon in Upstate New York. The bucolic scenery captured in the music video for his second solo single Northern Highway is a depiction of his new locale. The lyrics of Northern Highway speak of travelling the world and visiting various beautiful places, but never feeling compelled to move away from home. “Where I live now is about 45 minutes from where I grew up,” says Courtney. “It’s the same general idea, although it’s a pretty different town – the vibe is different. But just this region of the country, the Northeast, is definitely where I feel at home. Part of that song is just thinking about moving to different places in the world and realising that this is the area where I want to be.” Northern Highway is the second single from Courtney’s debut solo album Many Moons. Courtney has fronted Real Estate since 2009, leading the band on three LPs and several global tours. Musically, Many Moons brings some novel adornments to his songwriting: Northern Highway adopts a stripped-back country flavour, the chorus of Vestiges evokes ‘60s pop, and Foto contains luscious Phil Spector string work. But despite this,
nothing on Many Moons would sound out of place on a Real Estate album. “I was kind of just writing songs then I think I was trying to arrange them in ways that we might not do in Real Estate,” Courtney says. “So bringing in strings, or on Northern Highway having just one guitar part in that song – there’s an electric and an acoustic but they’re playing the same part. Whereas that would never happen in Real Estate because we always have lots of different stuff going on, at least two guitar melodies happening. I think it comes from the arrangements, but it’s true that any of these songs could’ve ended up on a Real Estate record.” While Courtney seized the opportunity to push these songs in different directions, he doesn’t feel constricted by Real Estate’s more democratic way of operating.
MARTIN COURTNEY’s Many Moons is out now via Domino.
MILK! RECORDS
A CO N V E R S AT I O N W I T H J E N C L O H E R By Keats Mulligan At the 2015 Carlton Dry Independent Music Awards, Milk! Records was awarded Best Independent Label for 2015. It’s recognition for their contribution to the local music community, and the significance of the moment wasn’t lost on the recipients. The importance of independent record labels in Australia is growing with every passing year. More so than just about any other institution, they enable artists to produce works that are uniquely representative, while also inspiring a host of others to do the same. The international success of Milk! Records acts such as Courtney Barnett has given credence to the idea that in the age of digitisation, the artist can retain some agency. We caught up with Jen Cloher, one of the labels driving forces and prominent artists to discuss the relevance of independent labels in Australia. “Courtney Barnett started it in 2012 to put out her first EP,” says Cloher. “I watched the label slowly develop. She asked friends of hers around Melbourne that she’d played with or had songwriting partnerships with to come and put their music up on Bandcamp under the Milk! Records label. So it was pretty simple, it was just an online store. I saw how well she communicated with people, particularly on social media. She really speaks directly to people and I think they find it refreshing. I think her whole approach and ethos as an artist is really genuine and low in bullshit. I saw people really connect BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 46
with Milk Records, and I thought I might release my third album through it. I’d worked with other indie labels in Melbourne and Sydney, and it was good, but I could see how that DIY, keep it small and keep it all approach was probably going to serve me better.” Milk! Records’ laidback accessibility is completely free of pretention. Despite Milk!’s humble origins, this uniquely Australian attitude meant the label had the capacity to grow into something much bigger than a simple Bandcamp page. The increasing popularity of the featured artists meant more exposure. Fortunately for those at Milk!, Cloher’s wealth of experience in the music industry fending for herself left her well poised to steer the label in a successful direction. “I’d been running workshops for independent artists where we just mainly talk about managing your own career, because there’s a real lack of good managers in
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The Carlton Dry Independent Music Awards were held in Melbourne on Thursday October 21, celebrating the triumphs of Australian independent music in 2015. For a full list of the winners head to beat.com.au
NORTHLANE
K E E P I N G T H E R O T AT B AY By Augustus Welby With two well-received LPs under their belt, Northlane were optimally placed to become Australia’s next internationally embraced metal band. However, things took an unexpectedly dire turn when original lead vocalist Adrian Fitipaldes left the band in September 2014. At this juncture, the remaining four members would’ve been forgiven for wallowing in disarray, but instead they instigated an open audition process in search of a new lead vocalist. By last November, not only had they appointed replacement vocalist Marcus Bridge, but also unleashed the new single Rot. In July 2015, Northlane unveiled their third LP, Node, and this week the Sydney quintet will kick off their Australian album tour. Beat speaks with guitarist Josh Smith and bassist Alex Milovic about their volatile 12 months. As with Northlane’s past releases, guitarist Jon Deiley laid down the musical foundations for Node before presenting his ideas to the rest of the band. While Deiley often brings in close to completed arrangements, the impression of him as a dictator who tells the rest of the band exactly what to do isn’t entirely valid. “On the last two albums he’s been writing on the road,” says Milovic. “So he’ll be like half way through and idea and then he’ll show the rest of us and someone will be like, ‘Maybe you could go in this direction.’ He’s relaxing a little more. He used to be very, like, ‘Until the song is done, no one’s hearing it’. “He writes probably 90 per cent of the music as it is and
goes, ‘OK this is a song,’ then we’ll give it to Josh and Marcus to write lyrics and me and Nic [Pettersen] to do the bass and the drums to it. But he’s never closed off to ideas. I know Nic’s put his own flavour to the drums and I’ve done some stuff on my end.” “When it comes to who does what in our band, instead of having a clear democracy, we each take care of what we’re best at,” says Smith. “I think that really gets the best out of people and it’s definitely the right formula for us to work with.” There’s a range of moods and textures featured on Node – notably an increase in ambient atmospherics compared to past releases, but still plenty of drilling heaviness. Produced by Thy Art Is Murder affiliate Will Putney, there’s a good balance between explosive sounds and relatively muted sounds. “The sonic characteristics of the record are something that really come to life in the studio with the assistance
of a producer,” says Smith. “Over time you learn to give up more control to a producer because you’re paying them to produce your record. You’re paying them to do their job because you trust them to do it. I remember when we did our first record [Discoveries 2011], we were more set in what we wanted to do for that record. Over time we’ve learnt to listen to other people a bit more. We’ve become a lot better at discussing ideas and trialling different approaches. Rather than being like, ‘No. This is what I’m going to record this with and I’m going to do everything how I want to do it.’ Because you don’t always know best.” The Node Australian tour kicks off this weekend. Northlane have already carried out a couple of overseas tours since the album came out and in contrast to past records, they didn’t face too many hurdles in representing the Node material live.
“Every time you go into the studio, you’ve learned from the last time you did it and you have a better understanding of how it’s going to translate in a live sense,” says Smith. “Node was written so that the songs would translate live better than anything we’d done before. And they definitely have the impact we want them to have when we play them live, without having to make any compromises or extensively use backing tracks or any bullshit like that.”
world where we were disruptors saying, ‘You can’t just play guitar, drums and bass any more.’ And that scared a lot of people. A lot of people accused us of co-opting the culture.” However, a story recently shared on the tour bus put it all into perspective. “Our Australian guitar tech was in Istanbul touring with Nick Cave or someone, and he was in the Grand Bazaar looking at jewellery or something and the stall owner comes up and says, ‘Are you a rock star?’ He says, ‘No but I work with rock musicians.’ The guy says ‘What kind of music?’ And our tech says, ‘I work for a band that blends world music and Led Zeppelin.’ And the guy says ‘Oh, like the Tea Party?’ and starting singing The Bazaar.” Although the band often get compared to Led Zeppelin, Chatwood says the world music influences came via an earlier source. “I guess it goes back to The Beatles, George Harrison. There’s the regular Beatles
from The Cavern Club, but then there was this whole other side to them. And then, yeah, Led Zeppelin and Robert Plant and Jimmy Page’s trips to Morocco. We just thought, ’Nobody has really dived deeper into that stuff.’ Then Sepultura worked with tribes in the Brazilian rainforest, but nobody had been mixing it with the rock genre. And once the record came out we started touring even more so and getting these excellent support slots, like Page and Plant. Prior to that we’d get feedback from fans – and from the critics who hated it – but then we’d hear from Trent Reznor, Lou Reed, Robert Plant, David Bowie, who heard our record and told us they liked it.”
says Larkins. “It took a long time based on the fact that a lot of the time spent on it could only be on weekends and things like that. We weren’t in a position where we could take a long time off work or spend a couple of weeks in the studio. It wouldn’t have worked out. We probably would have killed each other after that because of the lengths of the tracks.” In this day and age, writing material via long distance isn’t too uncommon, with many bands emailing ideas back and forth before getting together in the flesh. However, Larkins says this approach doesn’t suit Drowning Horse. “It’s not something that we can do. We’re a band that really relies on collaborating with each other. In rehearsal, when we first started, everything was very
visual-based. We’d look at each other for cues and all that sort of stuff. We’re all playing completely different things from one another – it’s not as simple as writing a riff and sending it through to each other. We really need to be in the same space to work on the new material. It’s unfortunate because that means we haven’t really worked on anything new since 2013, but because we haven’t performed or toured, a lot these songs are still fresh to us. We’re motivated to perform the songs as if they were brand new.”
NORTHLANE play Soundwave 2016 on Tuesday January 26 at Melbourne Showgrounds. They also play 170 Russell on Friday November 6 and Sunday November 8 plus an all ages show at Arrow on Swanston on Saturday November 7. Node is out now via UNFD.
THE TEA PARTY
CLOSE TO THE EDGE By Peter Hodgson
It’s difficult to describe the ripple that went through the Australian music community when The Tea Party hit in the ‘90s. They were one of those you-have-to-hear-this bands, passed around by word of mouth and hastily dubbed cassettes. Then the talk changed to, “Have you seen The Tea Party? I saw them play at a tiny club.” Before long, however, they were playing theatres throughout the country, and that’s where they are again now, having returned last year with their first LP in ten years. The Tea Party’s following surged with the release of 1995’s The Edges of Twilight. The Canadian trio’s second major label release was their first Australian top ten, and tracks such as Sister Awake, The Bazaar, Fire In The Head and Correspondences remain firm fan favourites. To commemorate the iconic record’s 20th anniversary, The Tea Party will perform it in its entirety around Australia this November. The band had a clear agenda when it came to writing The Edges Of Twilight. “We had just come off Splendor Solis, our first record, and we were trying to broach the subject of world music and rock’n’roll, utilising our instruments in unique tunings,” says bassist Stuart Chatwood. “For example, we couldn’t afford a sitar at the time so we’d tune a 12-string guitar like a sitar to get some ringing sympathetic notes happening and that sort of thing. But for The Edges Of Twilight we got
a record advance and we went through this mail order musical instrument catalogue and every single day a UPS truck would arrive with a different instrument. We’d go to the world music stores to buy CDs – and this was prior to the Internet, so you had to buy CDs and do research. We had the Harvard Dictionary of Music. We’d go to see world music concerts. Anything we could pick up. The idea was not to be masters of world music instruments, because each one of those instruments would take you 20 years to pick up. The idea was to bring new sounds into the process, expose people to different colours and aspects into that music and open peoples’ eyes.” Along the way there were detractors, critics who felt that three guys from Canada raised on Led Zeppelin had no business dabbling in the traditional musical forms of distant cultures. “We were living in a safe
THE TEA PARTY play The Palais Theatre on Friday November 13.
DROWNING HORSE
S T I LL B R E AT H I N G By Thomas Brand
Drowning Horse have been receiving critical praise for their crushing sludge-doom release, Sheltering Sky. Even though the album was released this year, the band had most of the material planned out as far back as 2013. They’ve managed to overcome a series of obstacles, balancing music with their day jobs and adjusting to their drummer’s move from Perth to Melbourne and are now ready to bring their punishing, lengthy tracks to stages across the country. While the group dynamic has changed since drummer James Wills moved interstate, guitarist Michael Larkins says that the band are still as unified as ever. “We’re all an important part of the band, we can’t replace a member,” he says. “It just means we don’t rehearse as much as we should, we don’t perform as often as we should, but I think the time apart is a blessing in disguise. It means we really appreciate the time we get when we get together to rehearse and perform and the like.” The time apart poses an obvious challenge for the band. Daily commitments along with the hurdle of long distance have reduced their ability to jam and work on new material. But they’re taking it all in their stride. “It doesn’t make it stale,” says Larkins. “In some bands, if you’re playing the same songs over and over it can get a little stale. If you’re trying to force songs over and over again, it’s not healthy. For a bit of time
apart, even playing the songs, it’s still fresh and we really enjoy it when we can do it. It’s great. We’re not ending the band based on James being away – there’s lots of bands we look up to, like Neurosis, who all have families or projects like that, so when they form it’s a rare occurrence and it could have been a couple of years between writing albums. We always want to make sure what we’re writing is perfect, I suppose. We don’t just want to write songs for the sake of it.” Long before Wills made his way across the country, the longwinded process leading up to the release of Sheltering Sky indicated the band were more than comfortable to take their time. “We’re all grownups, so we all have jobs and things, other commitments, other bands – we’re juggling a lot,”
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DROWNING HORSE are playing the John Curtin Hotel on Friday November 6 and The Tote on Saturday November 7. Sheltering Sky is available now courtesy of Art As Catharsis Records. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 47
Playing at The Fest this weekend, the band announced the good news on their way to play the punk rock festival noting, “The very first show I ever went to was in ‘96 in Vienna, Austria to see NOFX, Weezer and Lagwagon”. Waxahatchee have cancelled their European tour due to health issues. Katie Crutchfield announced issues are affecting her voice and she has been put on strict and immediate vocal rest. Hopefully all will be sorted in time for her return to Australia (with full band) this coming February. Brooks Wackerman, drummer of Bad Religion, has quit the band, taking to Twitter to announce the news. “After reassessing my future in music it was time for me to pursue another path,” he said. He joined the band way back in 2000 and the band have not made any announcement regarding their future plans. The Soundwave announcement finally dropped, after being delayed multiple times over the past couple of months. At the top of the bill are Disturbed joined by Deftones, Public Enemy and The Prodigy in a move that (combined with the January dates) is drawing some inevitable comparisons to Big Day Out. Also announced on the bill are NOFX, Hatebreed, Soulfly, L7, Nothing But Thieves, Frenzal Rhomb, Lordi, Devil You Know and Failure. It as a lot slimmer than previous lineups, but AJ Maddah has assured fans more acts will be announced soon. The Melbourne leg of Soundwave 2016 will take place on Tuesday January 26. Tickets are on sale now. Punk rock legends The Meanies and Bodyjar will join forces for a Christmas Party next month. The Prince Bandroom will host shenanigans on Friday December 18 and High Tension will provide support. Should be a swell time. Get tickets now at oztix.com. Frenzal Rhomb will team up with Clowns on an upcoming summer tour, which they’ve aptly named the Friendless Summer Tour. Frenzal will borrow a drummer to replace Gordy Forman who’s still nursing a very broken arm from an accident earlier in the year. Hopefully the rest of them can keep their bits together when they take on suburban venues like Chelsea Heights Hotel (Friday January 8) and Village Green Hotel in Mulgrave (Saturday January 9). Tickets are available now. All time, ultimate punks GBH will visit Australia next year. After 35 years these blokes are still going strong and still calling a crappy van home, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. They’ll play the Bendigo Hotel on February 26 and tickets should move fast. Get them from Thursday November 5 at thedrunkpromoter.com. Northlane’s big arse Node tour will start this week and with massive international names like August Burns Red supporting, you can bet the shows are going to be rather large. Don’t forget there’s an additional overage show on sale since the Friday November 6 gig sold out. The Melbourne all ages show has also been changed to Arrow on Swanston, don’t forget. Fat Wreck Chords have announced a new signing to their roster in the form of Portland’s Mean Jeans.
CORE GIG GUIDE WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 4:
• Canary Row, Lazy Eye Candy and the Big Face, The Boogie Woogie Boogie Board Boys at The Bendigo Hotel
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 6:
• Mindsnare, Outright, Bulldog Spirit, Rebirth at The Bendigo Hotel • Northlane, August Burns red, Like Moths To Flames, Buried In Verona, Ocean Grove at 170 Russell • Midnight Woolf, Pronto, The Scouts, Bad Vision, Swim Team, Thee Cha Cha Chaas at The Tote
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 7:
• Northlane, August Burns Red, Like Moths To Flames, Buried In Verona, Ocean Grove at Arrow On Swanston • The Wrath, AKF, The Balls, The Revengers, Commonly Insane at The Bendigo • Area 7, Mister Coffee, The Ramshackle Army, Foley at The Reverence Hotel • Tired breeds, Foxtrot, Tigers, Dilettantes, Laser Brains at The Reverence Hotel • They Might Be Giants at Forum Theatre • The Vacant Lot, Ausmuteants, Beef Jerk, Chook Race at The Tote • Spacebong, Extinct Exist, Drowning Horse, Contaminated, Tombsealer at The Tote • Cold Ground, Drexler, Wolfpack, Iscariot, Stumped, Abolicion at Bar 12
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 8:
• Northlane, August Burns Red, Like Moths To Flames, Buried In Verona, Ocean Grove at 170 Russell • DJ Anty (The Bennies), Never Get Tired film, George Maq at The Reverence Hotel
NEW SUPERJESUS SINGLE
MINDSNARE AT THE BENDIGO
Message from Mindsnare: “They said we’d never play a show with a different member and haven’t for the last 15 years, but Gordy is still banged up and unable to work. Massive thanks to Outright, Bulldog Spirit, Rebirth and the Bendigo Hotel who are all making this benefit happen.” Who is filling in for Mindsnare? We have Mr Alex Wakem from Hit List amongst others and Mindsnare would also like to thank Andy Murphy for the art. “He’s been responsible for so much Mindsnare art over the years and has always supported.” This Friday November 6 at The Bendigo Hotel. No presales, 18+ only.
UNCLE GEEZER AT THE PUBLIC BAR
Tasmanian hardcore band Uncle Geezer have recently made the move to Melbourne and have been playing around and taking names. They are a three-piece with just guitar, drums and dual vocals, but their intensity will melt your face. Smashing out 20 songs in 20 minutes, catch them at The Public Bar, North Melbourne on Friday November 6 with Coffin Wolf and Saturday November 21 with Hailgun.
BLACK MAJESTY & THE RADIO SUN DOUBLE ALBUM LAUNCH
St Peters Lane is the new single from The Superjesus and has been taken from their forthcoming EP. At radio now and due for release on Friday November 6, the song was written by Sarah McLeod and bassist Stuart Rudd, and explores a different kind of lyrical content for the band, drawn from McLeod’s real-life experience living on the edge of St Peters Lane, which is a popular hang-out for transvestite prostitutes. “I live on the beat for transvestite hookers in Darlinghurst,” McLeod says. “The windows to my studio look right out on to the road where they pick up, so it’s become a part of my life to observe them. When they get a customer they take them around to St Peters Lane, and then I see them stroll back out again about ten minutes later. It was hard not to write about such a fascinating subject. I feel they command respect because it would take so much guts for them to keep doing it night after night. They are always polite to me and they are relentless in their pursuit of work.” Catch them on Friday November 13 at the Corner Hotel with Cicadastone and She’s The Driver.
JAMGRASS MUSIC FESTIVAL LAUNCH PARTY
Jamgrass Music Festival celebrates its fifth year this November and is kicking things off with a huge launch party at The Spotted Mallard on Friday November 6. A tradition of the festival, the Friday night launch is always a high energy party, a reunion of musos and regular festival goers who keep coming back year after year. This year’s launch is headlined by Sydney band The Morrisons, Melbourne’s own Scrimshaw Four and a rare appearance by The Ramblin’ Roses who do a variety of classic songs by The Grateful Dead, The Band and other artists of that era. Doors will open at 6pm for dinner with music starting at 7pm.
The Cherry Bar on AC/DC Lane will host a double album launch for two of Australia’s best hard and heavy bands on Saturday November 7. Power metallers Black Majesty, who have recently returned from a few live gigs in Europe, will launch their new album Cross Of Thorns (mixed by ex-Helloween guitarist Roland Grapow) and melodic heavy rockers The Radio Sun will launch their new album Heaven Or Heartbreak, which was mixed by ex Danger Danger frontman Paul Laine. Merch will be available on the night.
NEW PANIC! AT THE DISCO ALBUM
NEW ESCAPE THE FATE
Toma Esto es (‘here it is’ in Spanish) still sounds great live and we were really excited about doing the launch shows to see how the songs are received. We’ve started to demo some new stuff, too, which is sounding great. The Record That Changed My Life: So many albums changed my life and inspired me as a person and a performer over the journey. If I had to pick one it, would be Back In Black by AC/DC. A friend at school put it on a cassette for me, and holy shit, it was like I’d been in a coma and woken
up by demons. I still listen to it now and for me, it is probably the greatest album of all time.
Panic! At The Disco has announced that their highly anticipated fifth studio album, Death of a Bachelor, will arrive everywhere on Friday January 15, 2016. The album is now available for pre-order on the iTunes Store accompanied by three instant downloads: Emperor’s New Clothes, Hallelujah and Victorious. In addition to the new album, Panic! released a new video for Emperor’s New Clothes, directed by award-winning filmmaker/choreographer Daniel “Cloud” Campos. The clip continues upon 2013’s Cloud-directed This Is Gospel video, which has earned close to 40 million views.
Escape The Fate have released their brand new album Hate Me via Eleven Seven Music/Sony Music Australia. “Lyrically, a lot of these tracks are based around the hate we’ve received over the years and just embracing that and using it to our own advantage,” Craig Mabbitt says. “I’ve had to step up to the plate lately, for the fans as much as anything else, because they take the name Escape The Fate very seriously and I owe them something for that, for all the support they’ve shown us over the years. It’s very humbling for me to be able to listen to this collection of songs and think about where we’ve come from and what we’ve been through to get to this point.”
SUICEITY
ON THE RECORD Beat sat down with Adam Cooper, powerhouse vocalist of seminal rockers Suiciety, to talk about his most influential records. The First Record I Bought: The first music I ever bought was when I was around ten-years-old. I got True Colours by Split Enz on vinyl. Mum took my wad of savings to the record store and made the purchase. I Got You was probably my favourite song at the time. I remember miming to the album with a tennis racquet in our back room. From then on all I ever wanted to do was sing in a rock band. The Last Record I Bought: The last music I bought was the Captives EP, Butterflies, Diamonds and Lightning. I love this band. I was made aware of them when we were included on the Brewtality Festival lineup. I looked up their stuff on YouTube and it instantly resonated with me. I saw them play live and it reconfirmed that they’re awesome. The First Thing I Recorded: I first got involved in performing through musical theatre at school. I was in a couple of bands through high school, but never recorded anything until BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 48
Suiciety did our first demo tapes. I haven’t heard those tapes in many moons, and not sure if I want to [laughs]. The Last Thing I Recorded: We haven’t recorded anything officially since Crawling Machine Edition EP in 1996. We recorded that one at Sing Sing with Kalju Tonuma. He’s a great producer. Totally mad. We decided to release it after we’d been catching up writing together. We were super keen to play live again, so it was a perfect opportunity to release the EP. The lead track
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Join SUICIETY to celebrate Crawling Machine Edition on Friday November 6 at The Music Man Megastore, Bendigo, Friday November 13 at The Eastern, Ballarat, Saturday November 28 at the Barwon Club, Geelong and Friday December 4 at San Remo Hotel. Crawling Machine Edition is out now through Desert Highways.
COMING UP WEDNESDAY 11TH NOVEMBER
LIVE BIG BAND KARAOKE
wednesday 4TH NOVEMBER
LABORASTORY
HALLOWEEN EDITION DOORS/DINNER 6PM
-
THURSDAY 5TH NOVEMBER
STEPHEN PIRGRAM (PIGRAM BROTHERS)
+ KERRYN TOLHURST + GAVIN PIGRAM DOOR/DINNER 6PM, SHOW TIME 8:30PM
FRIDAY 6TH NOVEMBER
JAMGRASS LAUNCH PARTY
FT. RAMBLIN’ ROSES, SCRIMSHAW FOUR ASTRO COBALT, LITTLE RABBIT, THE WEEPING WILLOWS
SHOW TIME 7:30PM, NO COVER CHARGE FRIDAY 13TH NOVEMBER
THE REBELLES + JASON & THE NIGHT OWLS
DOORS/DINNER 6PM, SHOW TIME 7PM
SATURDAY 7TH NOVEMBER
HOLY MOSES HEARTACHE ‘ALIVE & WELL’ LAUNCH $10 ENTRY FROM 8:30PM
SUNDAY 8TH NOVEMBER
CUBAN MATINEE MADNESS FT. CUBARTE
PLUS SELECTION OF CUBAN STREET FOODS AND COCKTAILS - SPONCERED BY SAILOR JERRY
2 X SETS FROM 5:30PM, NO COVER CHARGE
TUESDAYS’ IN NOVEMBER
FACT HUNT TRIVIA $5 TACOS + $16 JUGS OF THUNDER RD
QUIZ FROM 8PM - RESERVATIONS - samanda@spottedmallard.com NO COVER
$10 ENTRY FROM 8:30PM
$8 Pints Craft Beer
4pm-6pm Daily but Fridays 4pm-7pm KITCHEN HOURS Tues-Fri open 4pm Sat & Sun open 2pm
TICKETS
www.spottedmallard.com 314 Sydney Rd, Brunswick
MUSIC NEWS
YOUR COMPREHENSIVE LOCAL GUIDE
For all the latest news check out beat.com.au new batch of material due early 2016. Catch the quartet from 8pm at The Brunswick Hotel, every Thursday night in November. Entry is free.
STEPHEN PIGRAM
THE SPOT TED MALLARD
ELLA THOMPSON Hello. What are you doing at AWME 2015? I will be performing on November 14 at Max Watt’s with Ngaiire and Latinaotearoa. What do you think is unique about AWME and its role in cultivating Australian music? AWME gives a unique alternative to a regular gig by bringing acts together that may not usually share a show together. Also makes for a diverse night of music and culture for the audience. What can punters expect from the atmosphere of AWME and from your show? I think the AWME audiences are pretty open and welcoming which is a great atmosphere to perform in. Audiences can expect the unexpected. What’s your favourite experience from a previous AWME? I played with Kylie Auldist one year at AWME and The Bamboos the next year, both at the Hi-Fi which is now Max Watt’s. Both those shows were really fun it’s such a great venue to see music and perform in. Who are some artists that we should definitely be catching this year? Very excited to see Ngaiire and Emma Donavan play. If a movie was being set in AWME 2015, what would be the plot? David Attenborough The Deep, just watching lots of different types of fish. ELLA THOMPSON plays Max Watt's on Saturday November 14.
DEEP STREET SOUL Hello. Who are we speaking with and what’s your band/ you doing at AWME 2015? Mitch Power, I play guitar with Deep Street Soul and we’ll be doing our AWME showcase with The Meltdown and The Deans at Ding Dong Lounge on November 13. What do you think is unique about AWME and its role in cultivating Australian music? Just the fact that it’s a rare celebration of Australian music and our chance to prove that we’ve got world class talent going on down here. What can punters expect from the atmosphere of AWME and from your show? AWME is just one big celebration. It’s inviting people from around the world to see what we can accomplish all the way down here in the ‘burbs of the world. The internet is a beautiful thing and that’s helped countless bands be seen and signed by international labels, but there is no substitute for a live show. The grittiness, the vibe, the sounds, the hard hitting kit and the powerhouse vocals from Mighty May, that’s all stuff you just gotta see in the flesh. Who are some artists that we should definitely be catching this year? Hard to go past our mates Emma Donovan and The Putbacks. Also on my must-see list would be Quarter Street, Raised By Eagles, Ruby Boots and The Seven Ups. If a movie was being set in AWME 2015, what would be the plot? Something along the lines of the Mighty Ducks trilogy. Hometown kids go up against the best of the best and come out on top. DEEP STREET SOUL play Ding Dong Lounge with The Meltdown and The Deans on Friday November 13. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 50
JEMMA NICOLE YA H YA H S
Jemma Nicole is taking to Yah Yahs this week, bringing her goth Americana tunes to the venue in an intimate capacity. Singing from the heart and taking inspiration from the likes of Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Cash, Dylan and many more, she sings with an earnest tone and plays a mildly unsettling guitar. Catch Jemma Nicole when she hits Yah Yahs this Thursday November 5. Doors open at 7pm, entry is free.
DEAF AMBITIONS LABEL LAUNCH
Best known for his work with Broome’s much loved Pigram Brothers band, multi-instrumentalist Stephen Pigram is hitting The Spotted Mallard for a much needed country folk set. On this rare journey from his beloved Broome, Stephen will be performing with brother Gavin Pigram on percussion and Kerryn Tolhurst on guitar, mandolin and lap steel. Catch Stephen Pigram at The Spotted Mallard for some strings and other things. Doors open from 8pm, entry is $30.
CLAN ANALOGUE GRUMP YS GREEN
Clan Analogue are launching their new compilation at Grumpys Green this week. Titled Intone: Voice Abstractions, Clan Analogue are bringing a lineup of performers who specialise in voicescrambling experimental sonics. KOshowKO, City Frequencies, Wonderfeel, Automatic Teller Machine Machine and DJ Winduptoy all have tracks featured on the Intone compilation, showcasing their unique experimental and electronic treatments of the human voice. Pop on down to Grumpy’s Green this Thursday November 5, and catch some scrambled sounds with Clan Analogue. Doors open from 8pm, entry is free.
THE LUWOW
The age old question will finally be answered this Friday November 6 at The LuWoW, as ska and rockabilly go head to head with some of Melbourne’s best acts on offer. Rockabilly cover band Rosie & The Might Kings will throw a few oldies and originals into the mix, balancing things out with a set from local ska skunks The Resignators right after. The ‘50s inspired The Inferno’s turn the dial back to rockabilly, and DJ Duke Tedesco will be spinning some wax from whatever genre he sees fit. Throw in some Mai Tai specials and the ever popular Go Go Godesses, and there goes your Friday. Get down to the LuWoW this Friday November 6 from 8pm. Entry is $15 on the door.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 6
SUGAR TEETH
REBETIKA
Good grief, Yah Yahs are hosting Sugar Teeth this week. It’s set to be a big rock night, full of hair influenced by Pink Floyd, Patti Smith, Queens Of The Stone Age, Fleetwood Mac and Supertramp. What’s not to like? Catch Sugar Teeth down at Yah Yahs this Friday November 6. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $13.
T H E R E T R E AT H O T E L
Rebetika are heading down to The Retreat Hotel this Friday for a night of blues with a Mediterranean twist. They employ a style often referred to as the Greek blues, since like the blues, it grew out of a specific urban subculture and reflected the harsh realities of an oppressed subculture’s lifestyle. Rebetika will smooth you over with stories of love, loss, drugs, and Greek refugees. Join Rebetika at The Retreat Hotel this Friday November 6. Doors open at 9pm, entry is free.
HOWLER
Deaf Ambitions are celebrating their official label launch this week with a full live artists showcase at Howler. The showcase will feature some of Melbourne’s most exciting new talents, with local favourites Crepes, The Infants, Leisure Suite and Redspencer, performing alongside up-and-comers Tourist Dollars and Zone Out, rounded out by guest DJ performances from 3RRR’s Jason Moore and Simon Winkle. Catch the Deaf Ambitions Label Launch at Howler this Thursday November 5. Doors open at 7pm, entry is $13.
SKA VS ROCKABILLY
YA H YA H S
Catch Sarah Carroll & The Wilson Boys at The Drunken Poet this Friday November 6. Doors open at 8.30pm, entry is free.
THE ARBITER
THE REVERENCE HOTEL
The Reverence Hotel is hosting a headbanger of a show this Friday before the weekend rings in, featuring a five bill lineup in their noisy as hell band room. Openers This Life I Live are performing their debut live show, as The Weight Of Silence from Phillip Island, groove metallers The Nuremburg Code and Evolution of Self join the bill. Finishing the night are The Arbiter, a powerful metal four-piece which will get your head banging so hard it’ll snap clean off. Shoot on down to The Reverence Hotel this Friday November 6 and catch The Arbiter in action. Doors open at 7pm, entry is $12.
THE BLACK ALLEYS CHERRY BAR
The Black Alleys might have started rockin’ garage inspired tunes around three years ago, but that doesn’t mean they won’t go strong at Cherry Bar this week. Shoot on down and catch The Black Alleys as they unleash their show, described as a frenzied spectacle of unrestrained, anarchistic abandon. Come see what all the buzz is about with The Black Alleys this Friday November 6 at Cherry Bar. Doors open from 8pm, entry is $13.
MINDSNARE
THE BENDIGO HOTEL
SUICIETY
MUSIC MAN MEGASTORE, BENDIGO
In the event that you find yourself down Bendigo way on the weekend’s eve, pop your head down to The Music Man Megastore and catch Suiciety on their reformation tour. Forming in 1990, when Melbourne school mates hooked up over a love of skating and punk/hardcore/ metal/rock, Suiciety gleaned from all types of music styles, creating a signature sound of their own. Over the next six years the band rose to fame, taking on the live Australian circuit by storm and were invited onto the bill of the then notoriously cool touring juggernaut Big Day Out, plus a bloody storm of other impressive festivals and support slots. With supports coming from Mammoth Mammoth, Worm Crown, The Bitter Sweethearts and The Revengers, this one is probably worth the road trip. Catch Suiciety at The Music Man Megastore this Friday November 6. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $10.
Mindsnare have avoided playing a show with a different member for the last 15 years, but they’ve managed to get someone to fill out the lineup for a special show at The Bendigo Hotel this week. Featuring champions from Outright, Bulldog Spirit and Rebirth, the show goes on as a benefit to their mate Gordy who is banged up and unable to work. Catch a ripper of a hardcore show down at The Bendigo this Friday November 6 with Mindsnare. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $20.
MISCREANTS ARTISTS COLLECTIVE THE TOTE
As part of the Miscreants Artists Collective, The Tote is hosting a ripper of an upstairs gig to tie in with a nearby art installation. While the art goes down at Off The Kerb, The Tote will host some trashed up, mashed up, bashed up rock and roll respite. Catch the likes of Midnight Woolf, Pronto, Bad Vision, Tankerville, Swim Team, the Scouts and thee Cha Cha Chas when Miscreants Artists Collective takes over The Tote this Friday November 6. Doors open at 8.30pm, entry is free.
CAPTIVES
THE WORKERS CLUB
Captives are coming down to The Workers Club this Friday to unleash a beast of a punk show upon our mortal ears. Described by Rolling Stone as a band who create “the visceral thrill of being throttled by razor-sharp guitars, slapped around the head by thundering drums and screamed at by a man gargling glass”, they’re clearly set to blow the venue to pieces. Catch Captives at The Workers Club this Friday November 6. Doors open at 7.30pm, entry is $11.
DROWNING HORSE THE JOHN CURTIN
BUSY KINGDOM
THE BRUNSWICK HOTEL
Melbourne music scene regulars Busy Kingdom are coming down to the Brunny this week, kicking off their November residency with a performance on Thursday November 5. With three EP’s and an album under their belt, including this year’s self titled release, these will be Busy Kingdom’s last series of shows before recording a
SKYSCRAPER STAN & THE COMMISSION FLATS
SARAH CARROLL & THE WILSON BOYS
It’s been a long, cold eight months since Skyscraper Stan & The Commission Flats last played in Melbourne, and they’re finally ending the drought this Friday November 6. The OId Bar was the venue that gave the band their start, and it may well be the death of them too. Find out how they handle it from 8.30pm onwards, Friday night at The Old Bar. Entry is $10.
The mighty Sarah Carroll will be joined by The Wilson Boys for a show this week at The Drunken Poet. Carroll’s music reverberates with her wide and various influences; her coastal residence, home life with family, pets and friends, touring around Australia and the USA, and her countless years in the biz. Earthy, wry and heartfelt, Carroll’s songs carry with them a sense of calm with clear delivery.
THE OLD BAR
THE DRUNKEN POET
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In support of their second album, Sheltering Sky, Drowning Horse have locked in a show at The John Curtin in support of the release. The doom outfit, originally from Perth, feature members linking from acts including Extortion, Warthreat, Suffer and the now defunct Negative Reply. The group are now split between coasts, making this national tour will a rare one. Drowning Horse will play two shows in Melbourne – Friday November 6 at The Curtin, and Saturday November 7 at The Tote. They’re undoubtedly going to be some of the heaviest, most evil shows of this year, get around to at least one of them. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $10.
MUSIC NEWS
Q&A
YOUR COMPREHENSIVE LOCAL GUIDE
For all the latest news check out beat.com.au EAT THE DAMN ORANGE W H O L E L O T TA L O V E
Melbourne’s premier citrus themed punk-funk band Eat The Damn Orange headlines a huge night this Friday at Whole Lotta Love. Before eating the damn orange, rock’n’roll bandits Vulgar Born and heavy pop fiends Elusive will take to the stage to rock your socks right into next week. One More Weekend opens up the night in their last gig before taking a break to bunker down in the studio. A big night of music on offer, from 8pm this Friday at Whole Lotta Love. $5 entry.
the death, then celebrate her coronation as Queen Freak with a big disco party starring The Sugar Fed Leopards. Head down to the LuWoW this Friday night for a once in a lifetime opportunity, followed by some of the best music Melbourne has to offer. Remember to show up in costume, you can get some inspiration from the venue’s website.
this week for a special show. Deep in the midst of working on their second album, due for release next year, the band are gearing up for a night of sparkly instrumentals and psychedelic coastal grooves. Catch Shining Bird at Shadow Electric this Saturday November 7. Doors open at 7.30pm, entry is $12.
R E C O R D PA R A D I S E
THE WORKERS CLUB
Sydney septet Papa Pilko and The Binrats will be bringing their energetic live show out to The Workers Club in celebration of their debut album release. Produced by Wade Keighran at Sydney’s Linear Recording Studio, Till The End Of The Road showcases their familiar tunes along with a new style that have been developed over the past year. Catch Papa Pilko and The Binrats at The Workers Club this Saturday November 7. Doors open at 7.30pm, entry is $10.
SHADOW ELECTRIC
It’s been a big year for David Bowie fans in Melbourne, particularly with the immensely popular David Bowie Is Exhibition at ACMI – and it’s all being carried on at Shadow Electric. Shortly before the exhibition opened, Adam Rudegeair and his jazz quintet had launched The Bowie Project album with a sold-out performance at Stonnington Jazz Festival. Playing at the opening of the exhibition soon after, Adam came back to ACMI with his quintet to perform The Bowie Project as part of the weekend Bowie symposium. Since then, the project has continued to grow, selling out nights at The Paris Cat and performing last month as part of Kew Courthouse’s latest season. Now, The Bowie Project is going electric for one very special night at Shadow Electric. Swapping the horn section for guitar and percussion, The Electric Bowie Project will filter the compositions of David Bowie through the lens of 70s jazz-fusion, such as Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, Chick Corea Elektric Band, and Miles Davis’ A Tribute to Jack Johnson. Catch The Bowie Project when it hits Shadow Electric on Friday November 6. Doors open 7.30pm, tickets are $15+BF presale or $20 on the door.
DAN LETHBRIDGE & THE HANDSOME BASTARDS THE POST OFFICE HOTEL
Dan’s debut release, Dreamers of the World Unite, established him as one of Melbourne’s most likeable and idiosyncratic songwriters. The album took him on a year-long promotional tour, playing to audiences across Australia before winding up at New York’s famed Rockwood Music Hall. Now with some dark country influence coming from the bastards, Dan Lethbridge & The Handsome Bastards are heading to The Post Office Hotel this Friday November 6. They play two free entry sets from 9.30pm onwards.
RECORD PARADISE GARAGE SALE Grab yourself some cheap, cheap music merch at Record Paradise’s Garage Sale this Saturday November 7. They’re making some room for a fresh batch of records by selling off what sounds like almost everything - records, posters, CDs, DVDs, tapes and books are all going for just $1 each. There’ll be shelves and CD/record storages too in case you go a little overboard during the sale. Nab a bargain your mum’ll be proud of, from 10am to 4pm this Saturday.
PAPA PILKO AND THE BINRATS
THE BOWIE PROJECT
alternative rock and one of the most successful bands of the ‘90s. You can catch They Might Be Giants when they play at the Forum Theatre on Saturday November 7. Doors open at 8pm, tickets will set you back $88.
CHAMPAGNE INTERNET PRINCE PUBLIC BAR
Champagne Internet is throwing out hip hop, boogie, disco, electronic and vibes at the Prince Public Bar once again for your delight along with maybe a hangover or two. Mashing up the tracks fans love with the exuberance of a moustache, Champagne Internet gives attendees the chance to enjoy a Saturday night without an $80 cover charge. Come down to Prince Public Bar and take a swig with Champagne Internet this Saturday November 7. Doors open at 10.30pm with free entry.
GOOD TIMES FOREVER THE BRUNSWICK HOTEL
BLACKWOOD JACK YA H YA H S
Blackwood Jack are taking over Yah Yah’s for a show this weekend, gearing up to launch their latest EP, Triggers. Born and bred in Melbourne and Warrnambool, the self described musical zoo should have the venue jumping, especially with killer support acts in The Mary Goldsmiths and James Moloney & The Mad Dog Harrisons. Blackwood Jack takes over Yah Yahs this Saturday November 7 from 8pm. Entry is $13.
This Saturday November 7 sees Quarry Rat Records selling some top notch mix CD’s at the Brunny, all to raise money for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (great excuse for a gig too). There’s eleven rad bands on the lineup, with local legends Mighty Boys leading the charge. Entry is free, so you might as well spend some bucks on a CD. Good Times Forever, this Saturday from 4pm at The Brunswick Hotel.
HOWLER
CHERRY BAR
It’s going to be an all girl pop-punk party when The Skampz take to Cherry Bar this weekend. Featuring support from the likes of Dal Santo and Turn It Up, burn out your Sunday morning hangover by popping your head into the old C-bar and shaking up a storm. Catch The Skampz at Cherry this Sunday November 8. Doors open at 6pm with free entry.
Even though they’ve been keeping their heads down for the past couple of years, Area-7 haven’t formally broken up – and they’re ready to prove it at The Reverence Hotel this weekend. Known arguably as Australia’s most successful ska-punk band, Area-7 have graced countless festivals, toured with loved national acts such as The Living End, Jebediah and Eskimo Joe, along with releasing a gold album during their expansive career. You can catch Area-7 down at The Reverence Hotel this Saturday November 7. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $12.
White Noise Music are celebrating with a Summer Day Party at Railway Hotel in Brunswick this weekend, featuring the Dutch techno talents of Roy El Kei. El Kei was recently signed to Marco Bailey’s renowned MB Elektroniks label, and leads a superb lineup alongside Kris Akner, Ruby Slippers, Luke Lawrence, Sunset Silhouette, Hana Belictor, Silversix and local favourite Sorceress. Shove some beats into your T-hole with Roy El Kei at Railway Hotel this Sunday November 8. Doors open at 2pm, entry is $15.
BIG SMOKE
THE OLD BAR
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 7
DISCO DE FREAK
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
Live out your B-grade stardom dreams this Saturday November 7 at The LuWoW as they film scenes for the upcoming flick, Fags in the Fast Lane. Wanda, the giantess leader of the freak girl gang The Chompers will wrestle the Bad Ass Beast of the Bad Lands to
Following their incredibly successful Australian tour in 2013, They Might Be Giants have locked in a Melbourne show at The Forum this weekend. Originally forming as a duo in the early ‘80s, They Might Be Giants went on to become early pioneers of unconventional
THE LUWOW
F O R U M T H E AT R E
SHINING BIRD
SHADOW ELECTRIC
Having supported the likes of Kurt Vile, Franz Ferdinand, The Drones, PVT and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Shining Bird are hitting the Shadow Electric
Q&A
WHITE NOISE
THE REVERENCE HOTEL
The Murlocs are returning to Australia for a rare headline tour in support of their new single, Rolling On, as they lock in a show at Howler to celebrate. Expect a night of their distorted brand of soulful R&B as The Murlocs bring their mesmerising demented dance party to this intimate setting. Catch The Murlocs at Howler this Saturday November 7. Doors open at 8pm, entry is $23.
THE SKAMPZ
Hi Tali. Tell us a little about the music you make. The music I produce draws influence from R&B. I guess the end result is a darker interpretation of R&B merged with beats and a bit of grit. Brooding slow jams are what I’ve always been about. I like making music that is relatable and makes you feel a certain way when you listen to it, whether it helps you deal with a hard time you’re going through, or just having a rough day. Who would you consider to be your greatest musical inspiration? My biggest musical inspiration currently would be The Weeknd. He kind of pioneered alternative R&B in my opinion. The thing that really struck me about his earlier work on Trilogy was the dark undertones in the production that was a bit different from current and early R&B. You just released your EP, The Motions Of Heartache. Walk us through the writing and recording process. It was a journey. The writing process began about a year ago and it took me through a lot of really dark times in my life. It was a growing and learning experience. I put my soul into these songs and worked with the tracks until I was 100% happy with them. I recorded and produced the EP in my home studio myself. The EP was then mixed by Christian Scallan who is a God to me and has made the EP the finished product it now is. TALI SING will launch The Motions Of Heartache on Friday November 6 at the Grace Darling Hotel.
R A I LWA Y H O T E L
AREA-7
THE MURLOCS
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 8
Tali Sing
Melbourne rockers Big Smoke have gone from strength to strength since selling out their Try A Little Love single launch at The Old Bar back in February. They launched their vinyl EP Lately to a packed out Curtin band room, toured the nation supporting Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, and played Out On The Weekend. This week sees Big Smoke returning to The Old Bar, playing every Sunday night throughout November. Catch Big Smoke from 8pm, every Sunday in November at The Old Bar. $6 entry.
WATCH INTERVIEWS, CHATS & AWKWARD SILENCES... BEAT.COM.AU/TV
Lulu Raes
Hey! Who are we chatting with from The Lulu Raes and what’s your role in the band? I’m Marcus. I play bass guitar and I don’t have a driver’s license. You’ve been smashing the touring circuit lately, playing with Holy Holy and gracing stages at BIGSOUND and Small Worlds Festival. How does your live show compare to your recorded music? The live shows are fun, we don’t play any slow songs so it’s party party all night. We played in Brisbane recently and Eddie fell off the stage halfway through the second song. The band kept playing and he got back up and finished the song like a bloody Aussie legend. If you latest single, Burnout was a movie, what would the synopsis be? Four handsome young men walking around the city and finding bikes. They get dumplings and ride dodgem cars but that doesn’t make the final edit. Band makes millions of dollars. Credits. Why should we head along to your gig at The Workers Club on Thursday November 5? It will be a fun party. Our mates Neon Queen are on support and they’re fucking hectic as well. I just read the ticket website and “dangerous behaviour including crowd surfing, noshing and violent dancing is not allowed and will result in your immediate removal from this venue,” so you know that you will be safe and the trouble makers will be ejected. LULU RAES play The Workers Club on Thursday November 5. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 51
MUSIC NEWS
YOUR COMPREHENSIVE LOCAL GUIDE
For all the latest news check out beat.com.au MATT WALKER & LOST RAGAS
THE POST OFFICE HOTEL
Matt Walker has been a stalwart of the roots music scene for more than two decades now, and he may have found his perfect musical marriage with Lost Ragas. The quartet truly embody the phrase ‘cosmic country’, serving up a sound that packs classic country, power pop and rock’n’roll into one streamlined set. Matt Walker & Lost Ragas aren’t just playing The Post Office this Sunday; they’re playing it every damn Sunday in November. Catch their free entry set from 4.30pm.
DAVE WRIGHT & THE MIDNIGHT ELECTRIC W H O L E L O T TA L O V E
Dave Wright & The Midnight Electric are a seven-piece band with a rockin’ horn section who play narrative driven rock’n’roll. Think Hunters & Collectors via The Pogues, or Paul Kelly fronted by Johnny Cash. This Sunday November 8, Dave and the Midnight are smashing out a massive set at Whole Lotta Love that’s guaranteed to blow your hair back. Tenderising the crowd in the lead up are Christopher Sprake and the Bob Hutchison Band. Doors open 8pm with $10 entry.
settling into The Prince Public Bar, and once again they’re inviting you to catch a glimpse of Melbourne’s finest blues musicians in this intimate event. Head down to the bar for an evening of talent featuring artists not only from Australia, but all over the world as a special guest is dragged along each week, backed by the Elwood Blues Club All Stars. Catch the Elwood Blues Club at Prince Public Bar this Sunday November 8. Music begins from 5.30pm with free entry.
DROHTNUNG
THE BENDIGO HOTEL
RYAN DOWNEY
GRACE DARLI NG
SWISS ARMY WIVES THE DRUNKEN POET
If you’re craving some rich three-part harmony, Swiss Army Wives will have what you need down in the depths of the Drunken Poet this weekend. There’ll be soaring fiddle, questionable humour, vintage murder ballads and a spattering of original folk-noir when they take to the stage. Sporting a new EP hot off the press, make sure you catch Swiss Army Wives down at The Drunken Poet this Sunday November 8. Doors open at 4pm, entry is free.
Ryan Downey plays Grace Darling for the next three Sundays in November, celebrating the release of his latest single, Tidings. The project originated early in 2015, when a broken arm left Downey unable to play any instruments, halting his plans to begin work on a full length album. During his recovery, he indulged an idea he’d had in the past; of creating a completely a cappella record of songs by female songwriters. He then contributed two originals of his own, Tidings being one of them. To help celebrate the release, this week Ryan will be joined by special guests The Finks and Sagamore. Downey launches Tidings this Sunday November 8 at the Grace Darling. Doors open 6.30pm with $6 entry.
The Bendigo Hotel is hosting Drohtnung this weekend, the one man black metal project by the reverent Old. The Australian artist – who has also worked as a guest musician and vocalist for acts like Drowning the Light, Woods of Desolation, Forest Mysticism, Yhdarl and Broken Spirit – wanted to embrace the idea of “music as a philosophy and emotion”. This concept remains at the core of Drohtnung’s musical vision to this day, and translates seamlessly into his live shows. Catch Drohtnung at The Bendigo Hotel this Sunday November 8. Doors open at 8pm. MONDAY NOVEMBER 9
ELWOOD BLUES CLUB PRINCE PUBLIC BAR
The Elwood Blues Club has done a great job of
THANDO
THE TOFF IN TOWN
Thando is preparing her seven-piece band for their first residency at The Toff in Town. Over the course of November, she’ll be bringing a special show that celebrates the prowess of powerhouse vocals by paying tribute to the talents of Jennifer Holliday, Alicia Keys, Jill Scott and Whitney Houston – Jennifer Holiday being featured for the first show. With music composed by Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen, the first week of her residency will be celebrating Dreamgirls with well-loved songs such as Stepping to the Bad Side, I am Changing and the Tony Award winning And I am Telling You. She will be joined by special guests throughout the evening including StageArt’s male cast of Dreamgirls, and Melbourne soul act Fulton Street. Catch Thando working those fantastic windpipes at The Toff In Town this Monday November 9. Doors open at 7.30pm, entry is $16.
LOOKING FORWARD THE WOODLAND HUNTERS
T H E R E T R E AT H O T E L
The Woodland Hunters are heading into The Retreat Hotel this week, getting ready to chuck down some ‘60s psychedelia, ‘70s power rock and swamp influenced tracks for some lucky attendees. They believe the best music happens when styles intersect. They pay attention to groove, keep the raw bits in, and think everything should serve the song. Now, they’re ready to serve you. Catch The Woodland Hunters at The Retreat Hotel this Tuesday November 10. Doors open from 8.30pm, entry is free.
TASTE OF INDIE COLLECTIVE
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 10
THEM BRUINS CHERRY BAR
Crawling out of the warehouse they delicately fashioned themselves in, Them Bruins are taking to Cherry Bar for a night of rock and or roll. They’re the rock’n’roll itch that had to be scratched by Joel Griffith, Ben and Tim Woodmason, and Jimmy Campbell. Releasing a debut EP, full of turbo charged hooks and short sharp shouty sing-a-longs, Them Bruins have garnered killer reviews for their raucous live show. Catch Them Bruins as they make a noise or two down at Cherry Bar this Tuesday November 10. Doors open at 7.30pm with free entry.
BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 52
PRINCE PUBLIC BAR
As is the case every Tuesday, Taste Of Indie Collective are returning to Prince Public Bar – this week playing host to the Aspiring Songwriter’s Night. Featuring the performance talents of Jane Cameron, Sereja Strazhnik, Elise Cabret and Andrew Newman on stage, catch a first glance of some upcoming performers as they rip out fresh tunes for your beady little ear-holes. Hit up Aspiring Songwriter’s Night with Taste Of Indie Collective at Prince Public Bar, this Tuesday November 3. Doors open at 7.30pm, entry is free.
WATCH INTERVIEWS, CHATS & AWKWARD SILENCES... BEAT.COM.AU/TV
Thando
The Toff In Town Monday November 9,16,23,30
Acid Baby Jesus
The Curtin Thursday November 12
Going Swimming
The Workers Club Friday November 13
Salmonella Dub
Prince Bandroom Friday November 13
The Strain
The Brunswick Hotel Friday November 13
Crayon Fields
Howler Saturday September 14
A Tribute To Jesse Younan
The Wesley Anne Saturday November 14
The Last Juke Joint
End Of The Line Bar Saturday November 14
Hybrid Nightmares
Prince Public Bar Saturday November 14
Melbourne Music Week: Good Manners Showcase Ft Banoffee, I’lls, Kllo
Former Royal Women’s Hospital Tuesday November 17
The Beach Boys
Palais Theatre Wednesday November 18
Jakarta Criers
The Reverence Hotel Thursday November 19
Melbourne Music Week: New Orleans Street Party
WANT YOUR GIG LISTED IN MUSIC NEWS? EMAIL A PIC AND SHORT BLURB about the gig TO music@beat.com.au
Dodds St, Southbank Friday November 20
The Bennies
The Corner Hotel Friday November 20
The Bennies
The Corner Hotel Friday November 20
Dan Sultan
Montrose Town Centre Friday November 20,21
Grand Wazoo
The Spotted Mallard Saturday November 21
Hank Marvin
Memo Music Hall Saturday November 21, 22
Nakatomi
The Toff In Town Sunday November 22
LIVE
REPORTS FROM THE FRONT ROW
For more reviews go to beat.com.au/reviews CHET FAKER Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Friday October 30
HOZIER Palais Theatre, Friday October 30 Photos by David Harris
In amongst the costume-clad horde heading to Luna Park’s Halloween celebrations, an equally large crowd was filing into the Palais Theatre for the first of two sold-out dates from Irish singer/songwriter Hozier. The venue proved to be a perfect match for the musician’s soulful crooning and bluesy guitar work. Each note resonated through the theatre with a haunting authority that drew nothing but silence from the crowd as they sat mesmerised by every word, handclap and dirty guitar riff. Given the singer’s small back catalogue, you’d forgive him for having weak spots in the set, but these simply never came. Stomping blues numbers like To Be Alone and Angel of Small Death & the Codeine Scene generated plenty of excitement, while acoustic numbers were enough to give anyone chills. In a Week – a duet with fellow Irish singer/songwriter Karen Cowley – was a highlight, and perhaps one of the most bizarrely enchanting romantic ballads to ever exist. The rest of the set consisted of covers – The Beatles’ Blackbird and Ariana Grande’s Problem – as well as
Photo by Richard Lipp
Someone New and mega-hit Take Me to Church, which was unsurprisingly met with the utmost enthusiasm. Cherry Wine and Work Song, which both featured in the encore, were also standouts, showcasing the singer’s richly textured voice. The lanky Irishman was lovingly awkward and humble in front of the eager audience, nervously scratching his head and stating, “It’s always awkward when it’s quiet, it makes it obvious if I forget the words”. While the theatre may have been silent in the midst of songs, it was much the opposite at the end of the main set and encore, with the crowd erupting into a rapturous standing ovation on both occasions, leaving the singer equally bewildered. BY KELSEY BERRY LOVED: Irish accents. HATED: Rhythmless audience members who can’t clap in time. DRANK: Rekorderlig.
PULLED APART BY HORSES Ding Dong Lounge, Saturday October 31 On the same weekend that gambling debts and alcohol will tear Australian families apart, a fourpiece from Leeds, whose name is an allegory for the aforementioned societal corruption, came to Melbourne and demonstrated what a formidable rock outfit they’ve become. However, before we dissect Pulled Apart By Horses’ set, an honourable mention must go to primary support Heads Of Charm. The three lads were dressed as convicts and slayed through 35 minutes of undeniably Australian, dystopian rock. The set was reminiscent of the confessional rawness of highly regarded three-piece The Nation Blue. A large portion of Pulled Apart By Horses’ fans were switched onto this band via their 2010 breakthrough single High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive. For those who haven’t heard the song, it sounds a bit like every sub-genre of hard rock eloquently kick-flipped into an enthralling two minutes and 54 seconds. However, the set that was played tonight was a classic heavy metal set. The riffs were thick and the chord progressions fast as the band moved through material
mostly taken from their last two records, Blood (2014) and Tough Love (2012). Acknowledgement of the bands true rock roots came via a crushing rendition of Iggy Pop’s I Wanna Be Your Dog. The set had been so much hard rock and not at all punk that I almost would’ve been content if they hadn’t even played the aforementioned High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive. But of course they did and, of course, it was incredible. After a long break after walking off stage, the house music came on suggesting no encore. However, the backstage door crept open and Pulled Apart By Horses saw that not a soul had left, so they returned for two more. BY DAN WATT
Considering it bucketed rain the very next morning, it felt like Melbourne was definitely on the side of homegrown hero Chet Faker. The sun was shining brightly, creating the perfect setting for a night atop the grassy knoll of Sidney Myer’s amphitheatre. Faker handpicked each of his opening acts, including Australian-born singer Cleopold and a project called Awesome Tapes of Africa. With his futuristic melodies, New Zealand’s Silicon got everyone in a dancing mood as the sun was setting, while Melbourne duo Otologic used some percussion-heavy tunes to ensure everyone was ready for the main event. The crowd was going ballistic by the time Chet Faker hit the stage, joined by a full band and four back-up singers. He opened with a few crowd favourites like Melt, Love & Feeling, I’m Into You and Release Your Problems, which had even the dorkiest dads dancing like they had rhythm. Apparently every live show he attempts a new cover, and unfortunately this time it wasn’t the work of art many anticipated – trying his hand at The Carpenters’ Close To You and failing miserably. The tempo was way off. Moving on, anyone who wasn’t already up and dancing joined in for his popular cover of Blackstreet’s No Diggity, which he says he’ll “be putting to bed soon.” He followed with Flume’s Drop The Game and Blush.
1998 was perhaps the biggest song for the night, utilising the percussion backing and a light show that truly overwhelmed the senses. Special guest Marcus Marr joined Faker on stage for their collaboration The Trouble With Us, and the funk-heavy guitar work really upped the ante. One of his female back-up singers opened Gold, which he dedicated to the city and had everyone clapping along, before picking up an electric guitar for Dead Body. Things ended nicely with Cigarettes & Loneliness, which came with a super-long intro and had Faker on keys. The encore came quickly with a piano being wheeled out, starting with an unreleased song and everyone then lost their minds and voices to sing along with Talk Is Cheap. BY CHRIS BRIGHT
LOVED: 1998. HATED: His cover of The Carpenters’ Close To You. DRANK: Boag’s Draught cans.
LOVED: When the allegory between the bands name and the negative societal impacts of Melbourne Cup Weekend dawned on me. HATED: That Gandalf isn’t the real Secretary General of the UN. DRANK: Whole world.
DAN KELLY The Gasometer Hotel, Saturday October 31 Here’s an obliquely apt metaphor to describe the unique artist that is Dan Kelly. About halfway through tonight’s show he broke into Summer Wino from his 2004 debut The Tabloid Blues (apparently the first time the Dream Band had ever played the song). This prompted one particularly drunk crowd member to explode into utter hysterics. Not belligerent or drunk beyond the point of comprehension, but rather the performance of this song seemed to materialise a prized desire. Thus, he proceeded to sing along to every damn word, loud, off key and each line suffused with childlike glee, while also grabbing onto anyone in reaching distance in a show of miscued brotherhood. Seems a bit loutish, right? But given he was echoing lines such as “I’ve been reading lots of Charles Bukowski and all about the Motley Crüe/ Now I’m swirling and ducking like a punch drunk postman/ Hell bent on delivering you this song,” it almost made perfect sense. The song’s at once eloquent and a depiction of slacker hedonism. Prior to the final chorus, the otherwise freewheeling tune broke down to a near-whispered bridge. Our boy, however, simply wasn’t able to turn down his enthusiasm. This led to the lyrics “In all good saints lies a sinner/ And in all good sinners a saint/ I know I feel quite faint/ I put my hand up for a halo/ Patron saint of the second rate/ Wouldn’t that be great,” becoming more pronounced than ever. Kelly and the Dream Band were here to launch their latest LP Leisure Panic! and newer songs filled the setlist. In the satirical Melbourne vs Sydney, Kelly
proffers, “I’m just a bumpkin among the great auteurs.” His self-appraisal may be correct within the context of the song (essentially indicating that he’s not one of the cool kids), but he certainly owns an identifiable and strongly evolved songwriting style. At moments he’s scrappy, daggy and drunken, but his songs are marked with wit and intelligence. He doesn’t say things for approval or egghead kudos, but rather he’s a playful poet, who’d get as much of a kick out of these songs as anyone. They’re curious things, Dan Kelly songs, questioning, often amusing, sometimes ascerbic, but never angry. This was exemplified by the night’s final song Drunk On Election Night. It was presaged by the disclaimer that there isn’t anything wrong with cocksucking, and we should all suck as many as we like. The song laments another election going the way of the inept, and a continuing swing to the right. In the chorus, Kelly speaks of a “cocksucking, motherfucking playing on my mind.” It’s a tale borne of true disenchantment, but as is his wont, Kelly transforms it into an uplifting moment of allied dissent. BY AUGUSTUS WELBY LOVED: The Dream Band. HATED: Babysitters of the World Unite? DRANK: Red wine, summertime, two favourite friends of mine. CHECK OUT ALL THE LATEST NEWS, REVIEWS AND FREE SHIT AT BEAT.COM.AU
BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 53
ALBUM
of the
WEEK
top tens
PBS FM TOP TEN
1. Severe MY DISCO 2. Self-titled SON LITTLE 3. Manhattan JEFFREY LEWIS & LOS BOLTS 4. Intone (Voice Abstractions) CLAN ANALOGUE 5. Dillatronic J DILLA 6. Elaenia FLOATING POINTS 7. Blow My House Down HANNAH CAMERON 8. Blackfella Whitefella/Down City Streets EMMA DONOVAN AND THE PUTBACKS 9. Time Rolls By SUMMER FLAKE 10. Provenance VINCE JONES & PAUL GRABOWSKY
HEARTLAND RECORDS TOP TEN You Am I
Porridge & Hotsauce (Independent) Ten albums and 20-odd years into their history, You Am I aren’t out to make a fawning plea for your listenership. An indisputably self-aware outfit, they’re not vying to be emblazoned on the front pages of cool. Nevertheless, Porridge & Hotsauce contains some of the strongest power pop belters of the band’s storied career. There’s an inclination to paint You Am I as oldfashioned, rock’n’roll purists. While this impression is inherently reductive, Porridge & Hotsauce features plenty of corroborating moments. For instance, there’s the frenzied opening riff of Good Advices, drummer Rusty Hopkinson and bassist Andy Kent’s firetruck rhythms in Bon Vivants, the ripping lead guitar lines of Out To The Never, Now, and numerous occasions of vocalist Tim Rogers letting out a howled “Ye-ahh”. But as with just about every other You Am I album, Porridge & Hotsauce is a diverse beast. After the hanging-from-a-noose urgency of Good Advices, Bon Vivants introduces lubed up soul riffs and classic pop melodicism, recalling Big Star’s Radio City LP. Next up, No, A Minor Blue is bolstered by a rumbling castle of guitar tone and complementary lashings of chaotic feedback, leaning towards the youthful work of Sonic Youth or Mudhoney. Two Hands shines a country and western torch over the band’s soul influences, employing a horn section and female backing choir in a nod to the Stones’ Exile On Main St. The positively infectious One Drink At A Time adopts an orchestral
density akin to Mercury Rev. Amid all of the textural exploration, the momentum rarely drops. The one primary exception is the baroque pop ballad, Daemons. Plonked in the middle of the song sequence, the rest of lads take a breather while Rogers nestles in next to an acoustic guitar and string section, sparking thoughts of such impeccable tunesmiths as McCartney and Nilsson. All of these references are merely a guide, as nothing here plainly apes from the band’s rock and pop antecedents. It could be argued that You Am I records are chiefly distinguished by Rogers’ vocal style. He has a penchant for melodic hooks, but the delivery is never straight enough to qualify as conventionally catchy. He often leads melodies down an elliptical path, which conjures up a bittersweet feeling. Guitarist Davey Lane makes his vocal debut on two songs (Out To The Never, Now and Buzz The Boss, both of which he also composed), and neither diminishes the band’s essence. This indicates that You Am I are identified by more than just Rogers’ voice. Rather, it’s the way the four personalities unite, slavishly committed to the songs and so close knit that they recognise how to turn one another’s imperfections into assets. BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
SINGLES
SUFJAN STEVENS Hotline Bling (Live) (Independent) Sure, why not. PILLS Slugger (Independent) Sydney outfit Pills get dark and delightful on this, their “ode to the fine art of fisting”, with waves of cascading synth and vocal lines. Can be a bit much to take in on first listen, but it slowly works its way in with repetition, lubricating up nicely with uninhibited melodic intuition.
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BAD//DREEMS Bogan Pride (Ivy League) With lyrics such as “Big muscles pumping out of my sweatshirt”, it’s easy to see why critics are labelling Bogan Pride the most refined, nuanced commentary on contemporary Australia since Housos. GRIMES Flesh Without Blood (4AD/Remote Control) Really struggling to make a connection here, with power pop guitar chords firing like a statement with nothing to say, chugging into the void in a landscape where commercial radio hits are shaped by nuanced, inventive production. We don’t need an alternative, yet
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placing Flesh Without Blood either as an alternative or as straightfaced pop alignment fails to nurture impact – meandering where it would be better off driving home hooks. PAUL KELLY & COURTNEY BARNETT Charcoal Lane (Warner) Two folk heroes teaming up to pay homage to another folk hero, Paul Kelly and Courtney Barnett breeze with affable aplomb through Archie Roach’s Charcoal Lane, naturally complementing each other’s style. It’s a warm tribute, taken from an upcoming 25th anniversary reissue of Charcoal Lane, with additional cover versions. It’s enough to take away your misery.
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JACK LADDER & THE DREAMLANDERS F E AT. S H A R O N VA N E T T E N
K
To Keep & To Be Kept (Self Portrait) Old mate Jack Ladder can croon his way through a love song, and To Keep & To Be Kept is a bloody lovely love song. It’s a convergence of platitude and wry self-effacement, all centred around a genuine heart while retaining an endearing guard. Just as Dumb Love was the jewel in the Hurtsville crown, this is the finest moment of Playmates, released late last year. The sentiment rings true, echoing through a lush dream(lander)scape of sincere, classic instrumentation. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 54
RECORD PARADISE TOP TEN 1. Electric Glitter Boogie POWER 2. Parallax Error HIEROPHANTS 3. Return To The Moon EL VY 4. Fading Frontier DEERHUNTER 5. Thank Your Lucky Stars BEACH HOUSE 6. Bleeds ROOTS MANUVA 7. The Babe Rainbow EP THE BABE RAINBOW 8. Force The Zone CUNTZ 9. Grey Tickles, Black Pressure JOHN GRANT 10. Wear It Well EMILY ULMAN
AIR TOP TEN SINGLES
by lachlan
Please no one else apply for the role of Doggies mascot. I need this. I really do. JUSTIN BIEBER Hotline Bling (Remix) (Universal) Sure, why not.
1. The Belle Album LP AL GREEN 2. So There 2LP BEN FOLDS 3. Deja Entendu 2LP BRAND NEW 4. Built On Glass PINK VINYL CHET FAKER 5. Every Open Eye LP CHVRCHES 6. If I Should Go Before 2LP CITY & COLOUR 7. To Pimp A Butterfly 2LP KENDRICK LAMAR 8. Sonic Evolution 2LP MAD SEASON 9. Houston Publishing LP MARK LANEGAN 10. Frizzle Fry PINK VINYL LP PRIMUS
CHECK OUT ALL THE LATEST NEWS, REVIEWS AND FREE SHIT AT BEAT.COM.AU
1. Alive SIA 2. Fire And The Flood VANCE JOY 3. Hoops THE RUBENS 4. Chandelier SIA 5. Riptide VANCE JOY 6. Never Be MEG MAC 7. Elastic Heart SIA 8. Like Soda VIOLENT SOHO 9. The Buzz HERMITUDE 10. Heartburn WAFIA
BEAT’S TOP TEN WORLD MUSIC CLASSICS
1. Mouhamadou Bamba ORCHESTRA BAOBAB 2. Expensive Shit FELA KUTI 3. Allah Hoo Allah Hoo Allah Hoo NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN 4. Fantastic Man WILLIAM ONYEABOR 5. Thgnai Kor Chrer SIN SISAMOUTH 6. Trouble Maker CHRISSY ZEBBY TEMBO 7. Fano KASSA TESSEMA 8. Guru Bandana ALI AKBAR KHAN 9. Ja Fun Mi Dub KING SUNNY ADE 10. Chan Chan COMPAY SEGUNDO
ALBUMS New music in review this week - For more reviews go to beat.com.au/reviews
Bellusira
City Calm Down
The Healing
Loon Lake
In A Restless House
(Firestarter Music)
Low Res
(I Oh You)
The Healing is an appropriate title for this album from the formerly Melbourne, now LA-based rock act Bellusira. The band’s two core members, frontwoman Crystal Ignite and bassist Mark Dalbeth, have been through some seriously tough times during their personal and musical journeys, but continue to push ahead with their burgeoning career. This album makes a strong statement of fortitude, both with its music and message. The message, conveyed by the music, lyrics and Ignite’s impassioned delivery, is one of rising above pain and hard times. It’s best exemplified by the title track, which is a quiet, acoustic ballad full of positivity tinged with pain. It’s a poignant and unexpected way to close a hard hitting rock album. Though, there’s a nice balance of tough as nails rock and softer moments throughout The Healing’s track listing. When it comes time to rock, the band come at you in dynamic and powerful waves. Opener The Fight features fat grooves and subtle use of double kick drumming; lead single Black Seed hits hard and is catchy as hell. Across the record anthemic, fist pumping rock choruses abound, while the musicianship and production values are exemplary. Bold and feisty, Bellusira extend a collective middle finger to the tough times most of us face. This album could be a source of inspiration to someone experiencing pain, loss, depression, anxiety or any of the myriad other ills that people go through.
City Calm Down burst onto the scene in 2012 with their EP Movements, making quite the impression, then falling silent for almost three years. Turns out the boys are perfectionists and would go on to write over 60 songs before choosing the 11 that make up their debut album. And boy has it paid off. In A Restless House is an album that should be listened to in full. From opening track Intro to the closing title track, the songs are designed to feed off one another, illustrating just how much effort City Calm Down put into this project. Singer Jack Bourke’s unmistakable baritone is the clincher, setting the band apart and preventing this from being just been another moody indie rock album. Long time producer Malcolm Beasley has done a great job pushing the band towards a more organic sound – the addition of organs and horns to the creates a grandiose feeling, highlighted by top notch production. If you need more convincing to give this album a listen, do it for the raw emotion of Bourke’s voice. It’s enough to make your sexual organs weep. By Tegan Reeves
(Independent)
After mutually deciding to call it quits earlier this year, Low Res is Loon Lake’s last hurrah and goodbye letter to the music world. The split’s not due to an ugly falling out – the lads have described it as more of a wind-up than a break-up. Low Res was recorded live and selfproduced with no thinking, no synths and based on instincts. The result is a loud, fast-paced album, which is lyrically catchy, but somewhat lacking in variety as it becomes hard to tell one track from the next. However, the band had fun creating Low Res. Just Now is a stand-out track with a quick beat and crowd-pleasing lyrics, while the slower pace of Black Eyes is refreshing, but there’s perhaps too much sha-la-la-ing to captivate a listener. Head-banging final track Winona Ryder is repetitive but nevertheless cheery. Low Res will please long-time fans of Loon Lake, especially with the payas-you-feel pricing method, which allows people to rip it, copy it, sell it, or share it. The band just want it to be heard. Low Res is a good representation of Loon Lake’s raw and bullshit-free honesty. It’s fun but certainly not their best work. BY Shannon McKeogh
BY ROD WHITFIELD
MOGWAI
TERRIBLE TRUTHS
Central Belters
(Rock Action Records)
Astral Weeks (Expanded Edition)
(Bedroom Suck Records)
Best of collections are funny things – often they’re just money makers that creep in during the last months of the year, and they seem particularly anachronistic at a time when anyone can just collate their own compilations via streaming services. But, if care is taken with the curation and presentation of the collection, and some rarities are dropped in alongside the more familiar material, there is still a place for compilation albums. Scotland’s most famous post rock practitioners Mogwai have turned 20 and mark this milestone with the extensive, all-encompassing Central Belters. For a largely instrumental band that have only ever produced one vaguely poppy song (last year’s Teenage Exorcists), they sure know how to pull out the punchiest work from their albums. They also clearly know when something is worth including on an album (hence their remarkably consistent back catalogue of studio albums), but also when it isn’t. The last third of the 34-track Central Belters is the section comprising nonalbum and previously unreleased obscurities, and it doesn’t quite stand up to the towering quality of the first two discs. However, the furious, cathartic closing track My Father My King is well worth sticking around for. This compilation also allows us to take stock of how great these guys have been at churning out classic song titles – where else could you find a collection with songs called I Know You Are But What Am I?, I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead, and How To Be A Werewolf? BY CHRIS GIRDLER
Van Morrison
Terrible Truths
On their debut album, local trio Terrible Truths deliver post-punk sounds in the style of classic acts like The Slits and Siouxsie and the Banshees, but their music will also appeal to lovers of local contemporary acts like Love of Diagrams and Gold Class. The spiky dual vocals of Stacey Wilson and Rani Rose are central to their sound, and the thrill of this interplay comes across well on the recorded versions of their tracks. Their vocals are quite similar, which gives the impression of one split personality having its own internal conflicts, but doing it out loud, at full volume and right in your face. Framing the heady voices are bouncy baselines, jagged surf-rock guitars and drums that sometimes hold it all together and other times veer off on their own erratic trip. Terrible Truths is a mix of the familiar and the new, with the previously released tracks False Hope and Don Juan still standing strong as the band’s most memorable and powerful moments. This is just over 20 minutes worth of material, but the short running time feels about right – these fast and fleeting songs may average two minutes each, but they pack a lot in. Each of the tracks seem to spiral almost out of control, as if a surge of pent-up energy has suddenly been released. A lengthier collection might need more variation in style and tempo to keep the listener fully engaged, but for now, this is a sufficiently electrifying taster. BY CHRIS GIRDLER
(Warner Music)
No one who likes Van Morrison could be a bad person. Should world peace ever come about, it will be down to the universal recognition that everyone grew up listening to him. Over 47 years ago, Morrison recorded the eight tracks that make up both sides of Astral Weeks. Initial poor sales did nothing to stop the album becoming a critical favourite, and Warner have now released an expanded and remastered version. Featuring a total of 12 tracks, this release contains a couple of early takes and a couple of longer versions of select cuts from the original album. Beside You, Madame George, Ballerina, and Slim Slow Slider are the chosen tracks. As sublime as they are to hear, noticeably excluded from the expanded treatment is Sweet Thing, a sentimental favourite due to it being the only track on Astral Weeks with overtly romantic lyrics. Nearly 50 years on, each listen of Sweet Thing still acutely awakens the senses. Upon hearing the opening acoustic riff you are somehow born anew, ready to love again or inspired to continue loving. Such is the impact of Morrison’s lyrics, and a perfect summary of the song’s mysterious power lies in the line, “It’s me, I’m dynamite and I don’t know why.” Madame George is the standout of the bonus tracks. Stripped-back instead of expanded, Morrison’s measured delivery is as smooth as following the horizon on a long car ride. The first take of Beside You also features, and audio of session musicians directing Morrison is also included in the track. A superfluous decision to some, but a welcome time warp for those Morrison fans already inclined to lose themselves in his work. BY Hannah Joyner
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BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 55
GIG GUIDE
WHAT'S ON AROUND MELBOURNE THIS WEEK
For all the latest gigs check out beat.com.au
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 4 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC ••100/25/1 - feat: adam simmons + adrian
sherriff + phil mcleod + paul williamson + tony gould Conduit Arts, Fitzroy. 7:00pm. $15.00. ••big easy soul sessions Carlton Club, Melbourne Cbd. 8:00pm.
••dizzy’s big band with peter hearne Dizzy’s Jazz Club, Richmond. 8:00pm. $10.00.
••girls on key Open Studio, Northcote. 8:00pm.
••great romantics competition 2015 Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank. 3:00pm.
••julien wilson quartet 303, Northcote. 8:30pm.
••letters to you Paris Cat Jazz Club, Melbourne Cbd. 8:00pm. $15.00.
••madre monte + oscar jimenez + katherine
gailer Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Cbd. 9:00pm. ••monash recitals Paris Cat Jazz Club, Melbourne Cbd. 6:30pm. $15.00.
••stellafauna + danika + fieu Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. $12.00.
••the rookies The Rooks Return, Fitzroy. 8:00pm.
INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS ••bel (melancholia launch) + woodes + alice
ivy Shebeen, Melbourne Cbd. 7:30pm. $10.00. ••canary row + lazy eye candy + the big face & the boogie woogie boogie board boys Bendigo Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm.
••cl pleasure + god squad + jimmy chang Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood. 8:30pm.
••crying nut Max Watt’s, Melbourne. 7:30pm. $45.00.
••fleetwood mac Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne. 8:00pm. $305.75.
••hannah cameron + canary Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm. $15.00.
••jacky winter + extreme wheeze + popolice Old Bar, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. $8.00.
••josh cashman + anna o Workers Club, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. $15.00.
••open mic Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East. 6:00pm. ••open mic Hidden Garden, Ascot Vale. 7:00pm.
••pink harvest + gillian smiles Cherry Bar, Melbourne Cbd. 8:00pm. $5.00.
••rebecca barnard & billy miller (sing-a-
long) Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh. 7:00pm. $18.00. ••shrimpwitch + no waves + hi-tec emotions Tote Hotel, Collingwood. 7:00pm.
••worm crown + shit sex + tongue numbers Tote Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm. $5.00.
ACOUSTIC/COUNTRY/BLUES/FOLK ••doggerel Retreat Hotel, Brunswick. 8:30pm.
••jules boult Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy. 4:00pm.
••open mic Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbottsford. 9:00pm.
••open mic night Purple Emerald, Northcote. 8:00pm.
••open mic night Ascot Vale Hotel, Ascot Vale. 8:00pm.
••plum green + jennifer kingwell Wesley Anne, Northcote. 8:00pm. $10.00.
••rumble in the jungle - feat: joey elbows The Luwow, Fitzroy. 8:00pm.
••slim pickens + woodsmith + holiday james Public Bar, North Melbourne. 7:30pm. $7.00.
GIG OF THE WEEK!
••wine whiskey women - feat: tracey hogue
+ monique shelford Drunken Poet, West Melbourne. 8:00pm.
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 5
JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC ••100/25/1 - feat: adam simmons + brae grimes
+ mary doumany + howard cairns + lachlan davidson Conduit Arts, Fitzroy. 7:00pm. $15.00. ••midnight express - feat: prequel + edd fisher Toff In Town, Melbourne Cbd. 10:00pm. ••monash recitals Paris Cat Jazz Club, Melbourne Cbd. 6:30pm. $15.00.
••monique dimattina Paris Cat Jazz Club, Melbourne Cbd. 7:30pm. $20.00.
••paul williamson’s hammond combo 303, Northcote. 8:00pm. $10.00.
••sassy sisters Dizzy’s Jazz Club, Richmond. 8:00pm. $10.00.
••the good egg thursdays - feat: henry who
+ tigerfunk + lewis cancut Lucky Coq, Windsor.
7:00pm.
••the gumbo club - feat: the blues bash Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Cbd. 6:00pm.
••the sweethearts Cherry Bar, Melbourne Cbd.
JAMGRASS FESTIVAL
The psychedelic string fest Jamgrass Festival kicks off at Bundoora Park this Saturday November 7, sporting a raging no-filler lineup of Harts, Tinpan Orange, Mustered Courage and way too many other artists to name in this little tiny box. If bluegrass psych jams is your stuff, head to Bundoora Park from 11am.
10:00pm. $10.00.
••timbalero thursday La Di Da, Melbourne Cbd. 9:00pm. $10.00.
INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS ••bears (album fundraiser) + my elephant
ride + sun bazel Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood. 8:30pm. $10.00.
••busy kingdom + fear of flying + acoustic
foxx + gordon holland Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick. 8:00pm.
••byo vinyl night Fox Hotel, Collingwood. 7:30pm. ••deaf ambitions + crepes + the infants
+ leisure suite + redspencer + tourist dollars + zone out Howler, Brunswick. 8:00pm. $15.00.
••dj kieran o’sullivan Catfish, Fitzroy. 8:00pm.
••haïku + martel corporation + abrahm gunn Toff In Town, Melbourne Cbd. 7:00pm. $12.00.
••hospital + yell lo + grace anderson Tote
••showcase nights Purple Emerald, Northcote. 8:00pm. ••summer flake + lower plenty + sleepless
nights + shame brothers Old Bar, Fitzroy. 7:30pm. acre woods Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm.
••sleazy listening - feat: arks + richard kelly
••the in the out + the new pollution + 100 $8.00.
••the lulu raes + brother james + neon queen
yachtburner Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood.
••the settlement Baha Tacos & Tapas Bar, Rye. 8:30pm.
9:00pm. $5.00.
••alexandra pye Wesley Anne, Northcote. 6:00pm.
••traditional irish music session Drunken Poet,
••bon ton rhythms Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East.
$15.00.
••past present + blackpink + junkyard Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East. 7:00pm.
••plotz + machine gun sunrise + mount
defiance + old etiquettes Public Bar, North Melbourne. 7:00pm. $8.00.
de vries Bella Union Bar, Carlton. 8:00pm. $23.00.
INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS
Studio, Northcote. 7:00pm.
+ south bound snake charmers Mr Boogie Man
Bar, Abbottsford. 7:00pm.
••lachlan bryan & the wildes Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh. 8:00pm. $18.00.
••open mic night Drunken Poet, West Melbourne. 7:00pm. ••open mic nite Inkerman Hotel, Balaclava. 7:30pm.
••phil manning & russell morris + the shake
shack boogie house band + house blues dj Musicland, Fawkner. 7:00pm. $20.00.
••sean pollard Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford. 8:30pm.
••sean simmons Post Office Hotel, Coburg. 8:00pm.
••stephen pigram + kerryn tolhurst + gavin
pigram Spotted Mallard, Brunswick. 6:00pm. $28.00. ••the new savages The B.east, Brunswick East. 9:00pm. ••van walker + shane reilly Labour In Vain, Fitzroy. 8:00pm.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 6
9:00pm.
••abraxxas + intercranial tremors. sarspell
+ anient + eritherium 303, Northcote. 7:00pm. $12.00.
••bricks & past present Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick. 8:30pm.
••canary Workers Club, Geelong. 8:00pm. $10.00.
••captain spalding Customs House Hotel, Williamstown. 9:30pm.
••captives + slowly slowly + super best
friends + the wrath Workers Club, Fitzroy. 7:30pm. $11.00.
••dallas frasca Torquay Hotel, Torquay. 8:00pm. $19.90. ••drowning horse (sheltering sky launch)
+ gentlemen + whitehorse + scab eater + mutton John Curtin Hotel, Carlton. 8:00pm. $10.00. ••eat the damn orange + elusive + vulgar born + one more weekend Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East. 8:00pm. $5.00.
••einsteins toyboys + bellatrix Musicland, Fawkner. 7:30pm. $10.00.
••fleetwood mac Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne. 8:00pm. $101.85.
••halcyon drive Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Cbd. 9:00pm. $7.00.
JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC
••joy. + owen rabbit + joe mungovan Shebeen,
••100/25/1 - feat: adam simmons + steve
••lakes + mollusc Catfish, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. $10.00.
warner + jeff raglus + tom fryer + craig westwood Conduit Arts, Fitzroy. 7:00pm. $15.00. ••blowout Victoria Hotel, Brunswick. 9:00pm. ••champagne internet Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. ••cookin’ on 3 burners - feat: tex perkins + stella angelico Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick. 3:30pm. $32.00.
••dj vince peach Littlefoot Bar, Footscray. 8:00pm.
••elissa rodger sextet Paris Cat Jazz Club, Melbourne Cbd. 8:00pm. $20.00.
••erica bramham (golden songs of the silver
screen) Paris Cat Jazz Club, Melbourne Cbd. 6:30pm. $20.00.
••mark gardiner trio + dj dino the messiah Beach Of Brunswick, Brunswick. 9:00pm.
BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 56
West Melbourne. 6:00pm.
••what the funk fridays Purple Emerald, Northcote.
••john williams + shot of blues + dr malone
••olly friend Shebeen, Melbourne Cbd. 7:30pm. $10.00.
9:30pm.
8:30pm.
Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy. 8:30pm. $7.00.
conjurer Colonial Hotel, Melbourne Cbd. 8:30pm.
$10.00.
ACOUSTIC/COUNTRY/BLUES/FOLK
Belgrave. 6:30pm. $10.00.
••next - feat: sydonia + transience +
floyd thursby Open Studio, Northcote. 8:30pm.
••the steve martins Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East.
parker Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy. 7:00pm. ••jesse morris band + rosie miss chief Open
7:30pm.
+ hysteric + k hoop Toff In Town, Melbourne Cbd.
5:00pm.
••the barefoot orchestra + the wikimen + dj
••jemma nicole + alexander brown + jess
traumaboys + liquor snatch + the transitions + sans sheriff Laundry Bar, Fitzroy.
Hall (Arts Centre Melbourne), Southbank. 7:30pm. $60.00.
Workers Club, Fitzroy. 7:30pm. $12.00.
••watchtower (radiant moon launch) +
the chops + seasick lovers + cat pirate + sadie + rebellious bird + em & pia Sooki Lounge,
••mixed thursdays (psychobilly) - feat:
Musicland, Fawkner. 7:00pm. $10.00.
••seven deadly sins - feat: meow meow Hamer
••coco’s lunch (other plans launch) + doug
••luna deville + d.d. dumbo + frank society
••red candy + julia de matteis + renelophus
$10.00.
Hotel, Collingwood. 7:00pm.
••kindred art & live music fundraiser - feat:
••mashaka Dizzy’s Jazz Club, Richmond. 8:00pm. $10.00.
WATCH INTERVIEWS, CHATS & AWKWARD SILENCES... BEAT.COM.AU/TV
Melbourne Cbd. 7:30pm. $12.00.
••mindsnare + outright + bulldog spirit +
rebirth Bendigo Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm. $20.00.
••miscreants art/music exhibition opening -
feat: midnight woolf + pronto + bad vision + tankerville + more Tote Hotel, Collingwood. 9:00pm. ••montaigne + sophie lowe + jp klipspringer Northcote Social Club, Northcote. 8:30pm.
••northlane + august burns red + like moths
to flames + buried in verona + ocean grove 170 Russell, Melbourne Cbd. 8:00pm.
••one girl fundraiser - feat: the balls +
coffin wolf + uncle geezer + brittle bones + master beta + more Public Bar, North Melbourne.
7:30pm. $10.00.
••pony club (cpr fundraiser) + pony pal djs +
FLEETWOOD MAC
Fleetwood fucking Mac are playing two shows in Melbourne this week, and that sound you just heard was a sea of readers pulling out their phone to book tickets. Yes, we do have that many readers, thank you. We don’t even need to sell this to you, just remember the facts: Fleetwood Mac play Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday November 4, and Mt Dundeed Estate on November 7.
ryan vager + casey gourley Grace Darling Hotel,
Collingwood. 9:00pm. $10.00.
••shadows at bay + vi + death of art 24 Moons, Northcote. 8:00pm. $15.00.
••ska vs rockabilly - feat: resignators +
infernos + rosie The Luwow, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. ••stumped + poppin mommas + strawberry fist cake + blind man death stare + in the esky Black Hatt, Geelong. 8:30pm. $10.00. ••sugar teeth + the mary goldsmiths + willow darling + jordan clay Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. $13.00.
••swim season + residual + alex lahey Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm. $12.00.
••tali sing (the motions of heartache
launch) + junor + belove + evangeline Grace
Darling Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm. $12.00.
••the arbiter + evolution of self + the
nuremberg code + the weight of silence + this life i live Reverence Hotel, Footscray. 7:00pm.
$12.00.
••the black alleys + go van go + the
crookeds + low fly incline Cherry Bar, Melbourne Cbd. 8:00pm. $13.00.
••the electric bowie project - feat: adam
rudegeair + career advice The Shadow Electric, Abbotsford. 7:30pm. $15.00.
••the yard apes Reverence Hotel, Footscray. 8:30pm. ••the ’64 falcon Inkerman Hotel, Balaclava. 8:00pm. ••watt’s on presents Prince Public Bar, St Kilda . 8:30pm.
ACOUSTIC/COUNTRY/BLUES/FOLK ••baker’s digest + jess parker Public Bar, North Melbourne. 4:00pm.
••beccy cole Caravan Music Club, Oakleigh. 8:00pm. $25.00.
••chris wilson Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy. 5:15pm.
••cw stoneking Thornbury Theatre, Thornbury. 7:30pm.
••dan lethbridge & the handsome bastards Post Office Hotel, Coburg. 9:30pm.
••daveys fridays - feat: rob & tarquin +
MINI MANSIONS CW STONEKING
After just wrapping up a successful 36-stop tour from Manchester to Madrid, Aussie banjo bluesman C.W. Stoneking brings his boogaloo down to two Melbourne venues this week, rocking wares from his recent venture, Gon Boogaloo. Catch him on Friday November 6 at Thornbury Theatre, or Saturday November 7 at the Corner.
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 7 INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS ••sooki’s 2nd birthday - feat: mighty duke
& the lords + the bon scotts Sooki Lounge, Belgrave. 9:00pm.
••along shorelines + perseverer + bury the
kings + stuck out Musicland, Fawkner. 4:00pm. $10.00.
••area 7 + mister coffee + the ramshackle
army + foley! Reverence Hotel, Footscray. 8:00pm. $12.00.
••bang - feat: king parrot + legerity +
sarspell Royal Melbourne Hotel, Melbourne Cbd.
9:00pm. $20.00.
••ben mitchell Retreat Hotel, Brunswick. 5:00pm.
••black majesty + the radio sun Cherry Bar, Melbourne Cbd. 9:00pm. $13.00.
••blackwood jack + the mary goldsmiths +
james moloney & the mad dog harrisons + bill Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. $13.00. ••byo vinyl night The Monty Hotel, South Melbourne. 7:30pm.
••doctor goddard + borneo + flyying
colours djs Penny Black, Brunswick. 9:00pm. ••facades + lonefree + the rear admirals Pier Live, Frankston. 8:00pm. $10.00.
••from oslo Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy. 2:00am. $7.00.
••goodtimes forever - feat: rathammock +
mighty boys + the mona lisas + poison fish + junkyard + more Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick. 2:00pm.
••hello satellites Open Studio, Northcote. 5:00pm. ••holy moses heartache (alive & well
launch) Spotted Mallard, Brunswick. 8:30pm. $10.00.
••jaggers banquet (australia’s rolling
stones experience) Beverly Hills Live Chapel Street,
Prahran. 5:00pm. $5.00.
Fronted by Queens of the Stone Age bassist Michael Shuman, indie pop trio Mini Mansions have carved some room out of a busy touring schedule with Tame Impala to headline Ding Dong Lounge over the weekend. Catch ‘em there this Sunday November 8. ••the delvenes + mark adams Retreat Hotel,
••karaoke with zoe Customs House Hotel,
••the jeff henry band 303, Northcote. 8:00pm.
••the peeks Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Cbd. 9:00pm.
••mr alford Charles Weston Hotel, Brunswick. 6:30pm.
$20.00.
$7.00.
••the vacant lot + ausmuteants + beef jerk +
chook race Tote Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm. ••the wrath + akf + the balls + the revengers + commonly insane Bendigo Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm. $10.00.
••tired breeds + foxtrot + tigers +
dilettantes + laser brains Reverence Hotel,
Footscray. 8:00pm. $10.00.
••vanguard Black Hatt, Geelong. 8:30pm.
JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC ••100/25/1 - feat: adam simmons + caerwen
martin + mal webb + anto macaroni + domenico de clario Conduit Arts, Fitzroy. 7:00pm. $15.00.
••dr crask & his swinging elixir Union Hotel, Brunswick. 9:00pm.
••james whiting Paris Cat Jazz Club, Melbourne Cbd. 6:30pm. $25.00.
••los cojones + bev parker Open Studio, Northcote. 8:30pm.
••mozart’s requiem - feat: melbourne
••jules boult & the redeemers Big Huey’s Diner, South Melbourne. 8:00pm.
••nick barker Sooki Lounge, Belgrave. 9:00pm.
Centre, Southbank. 6:00pm. $28.00.
goldie + richie 1250 + dj manchild + andrew young + matt mcfetridge Shebeen, Melbourne Cbd.
8:00pm. $10.00.
••northside blues assembly The B.east, Brunswick East. 9:00pm.
••papa pilko & the bin rats The Loft, Warrnambool. 7:00pm.
••rebetika Retreat Hotel, Brunswick. 9:00pm.
••sarah carroll & the wilson boys Drunken Poet, West Melbourne. 8:30pm.
••skyscraper stan & the commission flats +
van walker Old Bar, Fitzroy. 8:30pm. $10.00. ••slipdixies Wesley Anne, Northcote. 6:00pm. ••steve lucas Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbottsford. 5:00pm. ••toby robinson band + the matt green band Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford. 8:30pm.
••zerafina zara & alleged associates Smokehouse 101, Maidstone. 7:00pm.
Theatre, Thornbury. 7:00pm. $25.00. 9:30pm.
••up up away + another batch + zol balint Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy. 8:30pm. $10.00.
ACOUSTIC/COUNTRY/BLUES/FOLK
Workers Club, Fitzroy. 7:30pm. $10.00.
••chris stockley band Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East.
rosemarys + two steps in the water + more
••claude hay Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine. 6:30pm.
••provocateur - feat: little lamb & the 24 Moons, Northcote. 8:30pm. $10.00.
••rocket science + empat lima + the steve
miller band + dj joe kokomo Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm. $25.00.
••ron s. peno trio Post Office Hotel, Coburg. 9:30pm. ••santanna + aura + vinten Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood. 9:00pm. $10.00.
••shining bird (river mouth launch) + ali
barter + cool sounds The Shadow Electric,
Abbotsford. 7:30pm. $12.00.
••spacebong + extinct exist + drowning
horse + more Tote Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm. ••tame impala + mini mansions + koi child Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne. 6:00pm. $59.00.
••the bitter sweethearts Retreat Hotel, Brunswick. 10:00pm.
ohs Forum Theatre, Melbourne Cbd. 8:00pm. $78.90.
••tttdc + legends of motorsport + olmeg
+ tankerville Public Bar, North Melbourne. 8:30pm.
$10.00.
••waz e james Drunken Poet, West Melbourne. 9:00pm.
Q&A
Centre, Southbank. 2:00pm. $28.00.
••the crave Littlefoot Bar, Footscray. 8:00pm.
9:00pm.
Town Hall, Brunswick. 6:00pm. $40.00.
••they might be giants + the flying so high-
$16.00.
••native plants Union Hotel, Brunswick. 5:00pm.
••jr reyne + nick bastiras Penny Black, Brunswick.
national park - feat: perch creek + the willie wagtails + rebellious bird Brunswick
••songs of the home front Melbourne Recital
••that gold street sound The B.east, Brunswick East.
the braves John Curtin Hotel, Carlton. 3:00pm. ••papa pilko & the binrats + la bastard + max savage & the false idols + joshua seymour
$18.00.
••the great concert for the great forest
clark quartet Dizzy’s Jazz Club, Richmond. 9:00pm.
••lovejoy + diet. + super x Workers Club, Fitzroy. ••new lease - feat: mezko + hi-tec emotions +
& ecology - feat: charlie marshall & the curious minds Flying Saucer Club, Elsternwick. 8:40pm.
Jazz Club, Melbourne Cbd. 9:00pm. $25.00.
••jamgrass launch party - feat: the
Brunswick. 6:00pm. $35.00.
••sublime songs of science metaphysics
••sarah maclaine + allen hermann + roger
••suzannah espie + the yearlings Thornbury
1:00pm. $6.00.
••riflebirds Labour In Vain, Fitzroy. 7:00pm.
••raleigh williams (does winehouse) Paris Cat
••little murders + the naysayers Yarra Hotel,
scrimshaw four + the morrisons + the ramblin’ roses + astro cobalt + little rabbit + the weeping willows Spotted Mallard,
tin Old Bar, Fitzroy. 8:30pm. $10.00.
••paul madigan Esu House, South Yarra. 8:00pm.
Centre, Southbank. 8:00pm. $74.00.
••heath cullen Basement Discs, Melbourne Cbd.
Abbotsford. 8:30pm.
••old gray mule + mightiest of guns + green
••phila para Prince Public Bar, St Kilda . 6:00pm.
••lime cordiale (u18 matinee) Northcote Social
12:45pm.
Ocean Grove. 7:00pm. $20.00.
symphony orchestra + benjamin northey + warren trevelyan-jones Melbourne Recital
brailey + jo neugebauer Mr Boogie Man Bar,
Club, Northcote. 1:00pm. $12.00.
Williamstown. 9:00pm.
••lloyd spiegel Piping Hot Chicken & Burger Grill,
••soul a-go-go - feat: vince peach + miss
Abbottsford. 8:00pm.
Brunswick. 5:00pm.
••the murlocs + orb Howler, Brunswick. 8:00pm.
••lime cordiale (road to paradise tour) Northcote Social Club, Northcote. 8:30pm. $12.00.
Bundoora. 12:00pm. $55.00.
Fawkner. 7:30pm. $20.00.
••the doors show + no stairway Musicland,
8:00pm.
••david grimson + joe guiton + nathan
richard in your mind + more Bundoora Park, ••joseph paola & the strains Edinburgh Castle,
••songs of the home front Melbourne Recital
Hotel, Balaclava. 8:00pm.
Perth’s Drowning Horse are currently on their first headlining national tour, supporting the release of their second album, Sheltering Sky. Suck shit other states, we’re the only city getting two performances; Friday November 6 at The Curtin, and Saturday November 7 at The Tote.
Brunswick. 8:00pm.
••john kendall & the shot glasses Inkerman
superfly djs Daveys Bar & Restaurant, Frankston.
DROWNING HORSE
9:30pm.
••cw stoneking + peter bibby Corner Hotel, Richmond. 1:30pm. $40.00.
••cw stoneking + peter bibby Corner Hotel, Richmond. 8:00pm.
••daryl roberts Wine Larder, Brighton. 6:00pm.
••dave adams trio Workers Club, Geelong. 8:00pm. ••dave wright & the midnight electric +
christopher sprake + bob hutchison band Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East. 8:00pm. $10.00.
••debra & emma’s oldenating - feat: kat o + dj
black kitty + she-ra Beach Of Brunswick, Brunswick.
9:00pm.
••grain of truth Wesley Anne, Northcote. 1:00pm. ••greg steps Wesley Anne, Northcote. 6:00pm.
••jamgrass music festival - feat: harts
+ tinpan orange + mustered courage +
CHECK OUT ALL THE LATEST NEWS, REVIEWS AND FREE SHIT AT BEAT.COM.AU
Goodtimes Forever!
Define your event in five words or less: Rad bands, good times, forever. How long have you been putting on events? Since my first year of art school when I was 18. I ran a student gallery and put on a bunch of pretty sketchy exhibitions. Also me and my housemates at the time ran a backyard venue, which was heaps fun. What has been your favourite event you’ve put on to date? I run a monthly art/music/film/poetry/everything night at Dane Certificate’s Magic Theatre in Brunswick. That’s probably my favourite because that venue’s rad, and sometimes Dane does magic tricks. I like magic. What inspires or has influenced your events the most? Rad friends who play in awesome bands. I pretty much started putting on shows because I wanted to see my friends play all the time forever. What do you think a promoter has to do these days to succeed? There’s a bunch of real good people putting on real good events in Melbourne, and I reckon they’re successful because of mutual support from other organisers. Go teamwork. Why should everyone come to your event? It’s free, it’s going to be awesome, and heaps of ghosts will probably be there. GOODTIMES FOREVER! happens on Saturday November 7 at the Brunswick Hotel, featuring Black Saloon Cowboys, Jacky T, Tolls, Poison Fish and more. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 57
GIG GUIDE
WHAT'S ON AROUND MELBOURNE THIS WEEK
THE PUSH PRESENT
ACCESS ALL AGES
For all the latest gigs check out beat.com.au
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 8
170 Russell, Melbourne Cbd. 7:30pm. $45.00.
JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC
••ryan downey + the finks + sagamore Grace
••100/25/1 - feat: anne norman + carolyn
••space bong + hords of the black cross +
connors + clinton green + david chesworth + eugene ughetti + more Conduit Arts, Fitzroy. 7:00pm. $15.00.
••azerbajani Thornbury Theatre, Thornbury. 6:30pm. $35.00.
••cubarte Spotted Mallard, Brunswick. 5:30pm.
••dylan boyd trio Daveys Bar & Restaurant, Frankston. 2:30pm.
••encuentro dos + tui mamaki Open Studio, Northcote. 8:00pm.
••home grown (end of year celebrations) Chapel Off Chapel, Prahran. 8:00pm. $25.00.
With grace kindellan
to flames + buried in verona + ocean grove Darling Hotel, Collingwood. 6:30pm. $6.00.
eskhaton + slothferatu Catfish, Fitzroy. 6:00pm.
$10.00.
••stumped + k-mart warriors + blind man
death stare + coffin wolf + more Brunswick Hotel, Brunswick. 4:00pm.
••the skampz + dal santo + turn it up Cherry Bar, Melbourne Cbd. 7:00pm.
••tom showtime + agent 86 + maars Penny Black, Brunswick. 7:00pm.
••zig zag & dreamin’ wild + school damage +
sewer side Grace Darling Hotel, Collingwood. 6:00pm. $5.00.
BIG SMOKE
Nothing says folk-country like a couple of $10 jugs, so thank god Big Smoke’s Sunday’s in November residency continues this week at the Old Bar with stunning supports The Sugarcanes and Julia Jacklin. Three acts, six bucks, from 8pm. ••matt corby + r.w grace Forum Theatre, Melbourne Cbd. 7:00pm.
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 10
ACOUSTIC/COUNTRY/BLUES/FOLK
JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC
••mayfield + soul safari duo Retreat Hotel,
••alex burns + ken borlase Big Huey’s Diner, South
••100/25/1 - feat: anne norman + carolyn
••misstuesday Mr Boogie Man Bar, Abbottsford. 5:00pm.
••bakersfield glee club Standard Hotel, Fitzroy.
••luau cowboys Victoria Hotel, Brunswick. 4:00pm. Brunswick. 7:30pm.
••moreland city soul revue Union Hotel,
Melbourne. 4:00pm.
7:00pm.
connors + clinton green + david chesworth + eugene ughetti + more Conduit Arts, Fitzroy. 7:00pm. $15.00.
Brunswick. 5:00pm.
••chris wilson band + mitch grainger Cherry
••anna’s go-go academy Bella Union Bar, Carlton.
7:30pm. $45.00.
••dan warner Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood. 4:00pm.
••christine manetta Dizzy’s Jazz Club, Richmond.
••simon tedeschi Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank. ••sunday soul sessions Purple Emerald, Northcote. 9:00pm.
••tamara kuldin Paris Cat Jazz Club, Melbourne Cbd. 9:00pm. $25.00.
••the cosmopolitans Littlefoot Bar, Footscray. 8:00pm. ••the steve martins Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East. 9:00pm.
••the winnebago lounge - feat: kiddo + mc
shane o’mara St Kilda Memo, St Kilda. 5:00pm. INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS ••a blonde moment Ascot Vale Hotel, Ascot Vale. 8:00pm.
••adam martin + swim season + travis
mccarthy Workers Club, Fitzroy. 7:00pm. $10.00. ••big smoke + the sugarcanes + julia jacklin Old Bar, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. $6.00.
••dave graney & the mistly + palm springs Northcote Social Club, Northcote. 1:30pm. $18.00.
••drohtnung + kollaps + armour group +
grist Bendigo Hotel, Collingwood. 8:00pm. ••etienne & the sankayi 303, Northcote. 4:00pm. ••jam at musicland sundays Musicland, Fawkner. 7:30pm.
••loose tooth + rolling blackouts + swim
team Tote Hotel, Collingwood. 5:00pm. ••melbourne artist showcase - feat: corey ernie + the charade + sasha andrea + the great emu war + more Musicland, Fawkner. 2:00pm. $15.00.
••mini mansions + gum Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne Cbd. 9:00pm. $40.10.
••never get tired (film premiere) - feat: dj
anty + georgia maq Reverence Hotel, Footscray.
3:00pm.
••northlane + august burns red + like moths
Bar, Melbourne Cbd. 3:00pm. $5.00.
••elwood blues club Prince Public Bar, St Kilda .
6:30pm. $10.00.
8:00pm. $10.00.
8:00pm.
••dedications - feat: benaud trio Melbourne
Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. $10.00.
••dedications - feat: benaud trio Melbourne
Abbotsford. 8:30pm.
••irish session Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East. 8:00pm.
••kaurna cronin + ben whiting + zoe ryan ••max savage & the false idols Yarra Hotel,
Recital Centre, Southbank. 3:00pm. $28.00. Recital Centre, Southbank. 6:00pm. $28.00.
••michelle gardiner Customs House Hotel,
••lyndal barry + teneha greco + madeline
••mitch grainger Drunken Poet, West Melbourne.
••nafasi + tiaryn + another batch Evelyn Hotel,
••open mic sunday Yah Yah’s, Fitzroy. 6:30pm.
INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS
Williamstown. 3:00pm. 6:30pm.
••paul bignell & the thornbury two Labour In
hance + julia de matteis 303, Northcote. 7:30pm. Fitzroy. 8:00pm. $5.00.
Vain, Fitzroy. 5:00pm.
••also dragons + trash fairys + rat hammock
Whole Lotta Love, Brunswick East. 5:30pm.
••florence & the machine + jack ladder
••quaterhorse + slim dime duo + tk bollinger ••sunday session - feat: brunsy Ferntree Gully Hotel, Ferntree Gully. 2:00pm.
••sunday sessions - feat: various artists Lucky Coq, Windsor. 4:00pm.
••swiss army wives Drunken Poet, West Melbourne. 4:00pm.
••the kraken Burger Buzz, Brunswick. 3:00pm.
Public Bar, North Melbourne. 7:30pm.
& the dreamlanders Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne. 7:00pm. $99.90.
••fresh industry showcases Revolver Upstairs, Prahran. 7:00pm.
••kate alexander art show - feat:
tankerville + gonzo + junk horses Old Bar,
Fitzroy. 7:00pm. $6.00.
••the lairs Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East. 5:30pm.
••mcrobin + imogen pemberton + jp
••the travis winters blues band The Water Rat
••my elephant ride + arbes + jimmy chang +
••timothy bowen + imogen pemberton Open
••them bruins + the duvtons + saint henry
••the t-bones Royal Oak Hotel, Fitzroy North. 4:00pm. Hotel, South Melbourne. 5:00pm. $5.00. Studio, Northcote. 5:00pm.
••van & cal walker Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy. 3:30pm.
••weeping willows Union Hotel, Brunswick. 3:30pm. ••will brown Inkerman Hotel, Balaclava. 4:00pm.
MONDAY NOVEMBER 9
JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC ••100/25/1 - feat: anne norman + carolyn
connors + clinton green + david chesworth + eugene ughetti + more Conduit Arts, Fitzroy. 7:00pm. $15.00.
••b-3 breakout Retreat Hotel, Brunswick. 8:30pm.
klipspringer Workers Club, Fitzroy. 7:30pm. $10.00. rvg + dj oritone Howler, Brunswick. 7:00pm. Cherry Bar, Melbourne Cbd. 7:00pm.
ACOUSTIC/COUNTRY/BLUES/FOLK ••krista polvere Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood. 8:30pm. ••matt corby + r.w grace Forum Theatre, Melbourne Cbd. 7:00pm.
••minnie marks Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy. 9:30pm.
••morning melodies - feat: les salisbury Powell Hotel, Footscray. 10:30am. $5.00.
••owen campbell Yarra Hotel, Abbotsford. 8:30pm. ••taste of indie tuesday - feat: aspiring
songwriter sessions Prince Public Bar, St Kilda .
8:00pm.
••bohjass 303, Northcote. 8:00pm.
••the woodland hunters Retreat Hotel, Brunswick.
••julien wilson trio Melbourne Recital Centre,
••tully sumner + jessica mclachlan + claire
••jazz party Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. Southbank. 7:00pm. $30.00.
••london haydn quartet Melbourne Recital Centre,
8:30pm.
johnstone Open Studio, Northcote. 7:00pm.
Southbank. 7:00pm. $39.00.
WANTED Acts wanted for Sunday rock shows contact: mark@gunnmusic.com.au Bands/Duos/Solo acts wanted for Acoustic/Indie Fest - contact: mark@gunnmusic.com.au MELBOURNE-BASED PROG METAL BAND CIRCADIAN PULSE are looking for a vocalist. See circadianpulse.com or call 0401 826 787 for more details. Rock/Metal acts wanted for local rock shows - contact: mark@gunnmusic.com.au EMPLOYMENT MODELING. We’re looking for confident women of all styles (aged 18+) for our pro-feminist photographic projects with an emphasis on style and creativity. Nude/ undies, paying $100 to $500 per shoot. Don’t overlook this til you’ve found out more about it. Rebecca 94956555 CONFESSIONS I accidentally locked myself in a portable toilet with a huntsman. He was guarding the door. #arachnophobia #igotthis BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 58
••thando (divas- jennifer holiday) + fulton
street + the do yo thangs + mayfield + au dre Toff In Town, Melbourne Cbd. 7:30pm. $13.00. INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS ••arbes + barcelos + mim cygler Workers Club, Fitzroy. 7:30pm. $3.00.
••cherry jam Cherry Bar, Melbourne Cbd. 8:00pm.
••drohtnung + haraam + complete Old Bar, Fitzroy. 8:00pm. $5.00.
••la danse macabre + brunswick massive
resident djs Rainbow Hotel, Fitzroy. 9:00pm.
••the shifties + the groves + lamb boulevard Public Bar, North Melbourne. 7:30pm. $6.00.
ACOUSTIC/COUNTRY/BLUES/FOLK ••mark wilson & jim banks Baha Tacos & Tapas Bar, Rye. 8:30pm. $10.00.
WATCH INTERVIEWS, CHATS & AWKWARD SILENCES... BEAT.COM.AU/TV
Face The Music is just over a week away and we are super excited. With two jam-packed days of panel sessions, keynote presentations, meeting opportunities, practical music workshops and intimate master classes, it’s the place to be for anyone who wants to work or play in the international music industry or the Melbourne music community. The keynote address will be delivered by JD Samson, an integral member of electronicfeminist-punk band Le Tigre and one of the world’s most visible, outspoken and inspiring gender queer performer/activists who will discuss the tensions between creating experimental punk music and the realities of running a band as a “business.” With the taste-making power of triple j growing and growing in its 40th year, there will also be a discussion of the influence that national airplay has for emerging artists and how decisions are made behind the scenes about playlisting and editorial segments. Internationally renowned music activist, founder of Un-Convention and co-director of In Place of War, Ruth Daniel will also be speaking at Face The Music 2015 with a strong DIY message for Australia’s independent artists. Morning Ritual is presenting two shows at 9am on both days of the conference to kick everything into gear before discussion begins. They will be held in the stunning MPavilion in Victoria Gardens with Alexander Gow (Oh Mercy) on Friday and D.D. Dumbo on Saturday. Face the Music Takes place on Friday November 13 and Saturday November 14 at the Arts Centre Melbourne with more information available at www.facethemusic. com.au. It’s going to be an exciting week to be a musician or a fan in Melbourne with AWME, Melbourne Music Week, Melbourne Music Symposium, The Age Music Victoria Awards and the APRA Screen Music Awards happening all over town. Melbourne Music Week are hosting Lunchbox Sessions all ages shows every day at their flagship venue, the abandoned Royal Women’s Hospital featuring artists like Zone Out, Jim Lawrie and Ella Thompson (GL and Dorsal Fins). Head to thatsmelbourne. com.au for more info. Want a chance to play in front of the massive crowds at the St. Kilda Festival 2016 and have your music recorded by a professional? Then you might want to apply for the Port Phillip FReeZA Committee’s Unsigned Music Battle. It’s open to any young person under the age of 25 who lives, works or goes to school in Port Phillip Council. Applications close on Sunday November 15 and the concert takes place on Sunday December 13 where the four chosen bands will battle it out on stage at Luna Park on its 103rd birthday. Check out www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/youthevents for more info. If you’re into psychedelic string bands and improv-jam bands then Jamgrass 2015 is the place for you this Saturday November 7. Set in the luscious surrounds of the heritage-listed Bundoora Park, this genre-crossing festival is celebrating its fifth anniversary with Harts, Tinpan Orange, Mustered Courage and many more. Check out www.jamgrass.com.au for tickets and more details. Tali Sing has released a slow-burning R&B single Hiding to launch his new EP The Motions of Heartache. Check it out on YouTube to see the tantalisingly dark video. Got news you’d like to share with us? Send it to push@thepush.com.au
All Ages Gig Guide Wednesday November 4 • FReeZA Push Start Battle of the Bands Encore w/ Kingswood, We are a Band Thing, Loose Bricks, Soul, Levi Smith, Unnamed Act, Empire, @ Nowingi Place, Hugh King Drive Mildura, 6pm– 11.45pm, $15 presale, $10 door price, www. milduraruralcitycouncil/youth, AA Saturday November 7 • Rockin’ the Carpark w/ Jackson Firebird, Smoke Stack Rhino, White Ligtning, Biull Barber and The Blackwood Shakedown, @ Edwards Street Car Park, 6-10pm, $5, www. yobendigo.com.au, AA
Wed 4th November
W I N E , W H I S K EY, W O M E N 8pm: Monique Shelford 9pm: Tracey Hogue Thurs 5TH November
7pm:
Open Mic Night Fri 6TH November
6pm: Traditional Irish Session
Sarah Carroll & The Wilson Boys Saturday 7th November 9pm: Waz E James Sunday 8th November 4pm: Swiss Army Wives 6.30pm: Mitch Grainger
8.30pm:
Tuesdays
TRIVIA The Drunken Poet, 65 Peel Street (directly opposite Queen Vic Market), Phone: 03 9348 9797. www.thedrunkenpoet.com.au
WEDNESDAY 4TH 7PM
DJ K.E.I & FRIENDS THURSDAY 5TH 7PM
JUNGLE FUNK RESIDENT MANCHILD
AFROBEAt, CUMBIA, FUNK, SAMBA & LIVE PRECUSSIONS WITH SPECIAL GUESTS FRIDAY 6TH 7PM
ROMANTIC TREATMENT SATURDAY 7TH 7PM
ADULTS ART CLUB SUNDAY 8TH 6PM
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH RETURNING TO THE LOFT FOR A ONE OFF THROWBACK PARTY!
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HYDRA REHEARSAL STUDIOS BOOK A ROOM! CALL: 0417 000 397 • 2000 WATT HK AUDIO/MACKIE PAs • TEN CLEAN, 30M2 ROOMS • STORAGE • DRUMKIT/AMP HIRE • AIR CON
INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH
MUSIC INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP
With Christie Eliezer * Stuff for this column to be emailed to <celiezer@netspace.net.au> by Friday 5pm
REPORT: 2015 “TIPPING POINT” FOR MUSIC SALES
2015 is the year that spending on digital formats and services will overtake physical formats, predicts the latest research by global analyst firm Ovum. Its author Simon Dyson says that digital spending will hit US$11.7bn (compared to $10.3bn for physical) “and reach US$15.7bn in 2020.” Despite the rise of streaming, total spent on recorded music will remain the same until 2020. Recorded Music Retail Sales Forecasts To 2020 suggests that retail value recorded music sales will contract in 2015 and 2016 before edging up 0.1% in 2017. But this rise will be short-lived and spending will fall in each of the three years to 2020 when it will be $3bn lower than it was in 2010. Ovum also say record companies will benefit most from the rising consumer shift from ownership to access because of the lower manufacturing and distribution costs of streaming. With downloads there are no manufacturing costs and minimal distribution expenses, the labels’ gross income from downloads is estimated at $2.6bn in 2015 and $1.4bn in 2020.
MUSIC VICTORIA WELCOMES NEW BOARD MEMBERS
Music Victoria’s annual general meeting at The Unknown Union saw Cassandra Pace re-elected, and DJ and promoter Sarah Blaby, business and digital marketing strategist Michelle Nicol and publicist and music industry lecturer Chrissie Vincent new additions to the board.
THE AGE MUSIC VICTORIA AWARDS ANNOUNCES CONFERENCE, EXHIBITION
Music Victoria and The Age honour this year’s Hall of Fame inductees with a free, public exhibition of 50 pieces of memorabilia (including an Angus Young schoolboy uniform) at Arts Centre Melbourne until March 28. Also a dedicated panel discussion is held at Face The Music on Friday November 13 from 12.30pm with inductees Bill Armstrong, Archie Roach, Murray Robertson (The Thunderbirds) and Carolyn Laffan (music curator, Arts Centre Melbourne). Also, Grinspoon’s Phil Jamieson is added to the HOF concert at the Palais on Friday November 20. $6 from each ticket sold goes to Support Act Ltd to help musicians in need.
Q&A
Arbes
What’s your name then? Oh, and the name of your band? My name’s Jess and I’m in a band called Arbes. And what do you do? I sing and fumble around on bass with my best mates Anita (drums) and Sam (guitar). Together we make really sentimental, but also often aggressive, dream pop. When did you start doing that? We formed at high school mid 2013. I have always played music separately with the two of them, but we eventually joined forces in music class and never looked back. If you weren’t doing that, what would you be doing? Living vicariously through friends who do it until they let me play tambourine or something. What makes you happiest about what you’re doing? For me it’s probably the whole thing of being able to connect to others through doing the thing that I love most in the world. It’s special to be able to command someone’s attention for any length of time and when you’re able to, I think it should come from a really sincere place. Basically it gives me immense joy to learn that someone is moved from something I care about doing. And what makes you unhappiest about what you’re doing? Not being able to do it all the time. What’s you proudest moment of doing what you do? Putting out our EP Swimmer this year and the kindness that we received from that felt something like pride maybe... or just bewilderment. ARBES start a four-week Monday night residency at The Workers Club on November 9. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 62
HIGHLANDS FESTIVAL AXED
New music festival Highlands, to be held in a secret location in Yea outside Melbourne last weekend, was axed at the last minute. Murrindindi Shire Council applied to the Melbourne Magistrates Court for promoters to cancel or face fines of up to $180,000. Council said it had no contact with promoters, nor had it given permission. A substitute 24-hour party at The Lounge with most of the acts was staged on Sunday.
were Good Morning for ten shows over seven days from NME, Spin (“sun dazed guitar tones”), Slant (“ridiculously catchy, sleepy jams that sound at once classically vintage and refreshingly new”) and DIY (“gorgeous from start to finish”). They number Tyler, The Creator and Growlers among their fans. • Noel Gallagher took the tube to London’s O2 Arena where he joined U2 onstage for I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and The Beatles’ All You Need Is Love.
APRA PDA FINALISTS ANNOUNCED
123 AGENCY SETS UP CORPORATE DIVISION
Eight winners of the 2015 APRA Professional Development Awards to help rising songwriters with their careers, will be announced on Tuesday November 24. The 35 finalists – from popular contemporary (three winners), classical, jazz, film and television, country, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) genres – are in line to share a $120,000 cash prize. Names include Marlon Williams, L-FRESH The LION, Briggs, Oscar Dawson and Timothy Carroll of Holy Holy, Thief, Ngaiire, Adam Eckersley, Dave Crowe, Jack Carty, Trials and Ruby Boots. The newly created Indigenous Music and Media Award of $12,000 is from the Smugglers of Light, a foundation set up in memory of EDM producer Eli Westlake, 21, who was killed on a Sydney street in 2008.
THINGS WE HEAR
• Which festival idea was knocked back by tourism authorities? • Which long retired singer/songwriter is contemplating a comeback? • Which five Byron Bay venues are being investigated for breaches of trading conditions after an Office of Liquor Gaming and Racing (OLGR) sweep of the tourist hub over the Labour day long weekend? • Which band was told by their new tour manager a night before their national tour he’d lost his driver’s licence? • Phil Collins, making a comeback, is returning to Australia. “I don’t think I want a very long tour. But I would like to play the stadiums in Australia and the far East, and that’s the only way to do that.” • Good Works: Aussie DJ Tommy Trash donated $30,000 to Little Kids Rock after playing a benefit concert for the US association which looks after under-served inner city students in Atlantic City and Philadelphia with music lessons. • Meantime, Melbourne singer/songwriter Abbey Stone is on Saturday November 21 playing a set at the Outrigger Laguna Phuket Beach Resort in Thailand for the Phuket Has Been Good To Us charity to provide free English lessons for over 1,000 underprivileged kids aged 3 to 18. • Tool’s Maynard James Keenan clarifies his statement that Tool fans are “insufferable retards”. He explains he was only talking about the fanatics in their following. “Our core fanbase aren’t fanatics. They’re music lovers, artists and good people. It’s the fanatics that are insufferable.” • Confessions of Ed Sheeran: “Jay Z called me an alien and I’ve never heard a Radiohead album.” • From February, Jimi Hendrix fans visiting London can visit the Brook Street flat where he lived 1968-69. It belonged to his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham (about whom he wrote The Wind Cries Mary and Foxy Lady, and now lives in Australia), and is now a Hendrix museum. • Chet Faker was on triple j to say that rumours about famous names being on his next album are over the top. After hook-ups with The Cactus Channel and Banks, names like Rick Rubin, Norwegian producer Todd Terje (he just said he’d been talking to him backstage) and Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson (they hung out together and wrote a song that’s not going to be used) were being bandied around. The New York City-based Faker also mentioned that he’s moved from Brooklyn into Manhattan. • While Slipknot were onstage in Portland, someone slipped backstage and stole Jim Root’s custom satin silver Fender. • A woman who sang “loudly and badly” through a UK performance of The Bodyguard was ejected from a theatre after she became aggressive to people who told her to shut up. • The inaugural Aus Music Festival in Warrnambool had a strong turnout. The impressive program included a songwriters’ concert, emerging talent showcase, a starstudded Archie Roach tribute, an exhibition of festival posters, a forum by Music Victoria on opportunities and guitar master classes. • Ballarat youth program Sonika, the town’s FReeZA committee, received $73,555 from the State government to continue its work. These include planning and staging live music events, workshops, the NXUS hip hop collective, and Sonic Air which helps young folk train for live-to-air radio with SYN FM and Voice FM. • One Australian act getting rave reviews at CMJ
The 123 Agency – which represents Kingswood, The Veronicas, Guy Pearce, Stonefield and At Sunset – has set up a corporate division. It will provide entertainment for corporate gala dinners, awards, sporting events and product launches. Agency founder Damian Costin said his books included top DJs and cover bands, and that 123’s overseas networks will also provide international names. 123 has done brand partnerships and festival curating for corporations in the past two and a half years. Involved in 123 Agency Corporate with Costin are corporate entertainment booker Taylor James and event/DJ booker Bec Boseley.
ALBERTS INKS RUSSELL MORRIS
Alberts signed veteran singer/songwriter Russell Morris to a worldwide publishing agreement. Morris has enjoyed a renaissance of late with his blues-themed albums including the platinum ARIA-winning Sharkmouth, Van Diemen’s Land and the new Red Dirt – Red Heart. The deal includes rights to his earlier hits as Wings Of An Eagle, Sweet Sweet Love and Mr. America.
NEW MUSICAL THEATRE SYLLABUS
The Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) launches a new syllabus on Tuesday November 10 in Musical Theatre. Also comes a series of music books to support musical theatre education from beginner to diploma levels.
TICKETBOOTH LAUNCHES BOOSTEDTIX
Australian and European ticketing company Ticketbooth has launched new events promotion software BoostedTix to benefit promoters and punters who earn extra money selling tickets to their social contacts. The latter can track their sales and earn commission and prizes through it. To stand out from similar social media platforms run by rival companies, BoostedTix has features such as Teams and Groups where ticket sellers can join forces and promote events together; URL Tracking Tag System to track sales from corporate groups, sponsors and in-store offerings; Self Signup for new sellers to sign up and get promoting instantly; and Custom Branded Festival Log Ins for event promoters to integrate their brand across this service. Ticketbooth CEO and founder Simon Guerrero said, “BoostedTix is one part of the rollout we have planned for Ticketbooth customers.”
PREATURES’ GUITARIST SETS UP OWN LABEL
The Preatures guitarist Gideon Bensen has set up his own label Puncture Records (through Universal Music) to release his solo EP next year. Debut single All New Low, unveiled on triple j last weekend, features Megan Washington on backing vocals, Jack Moffitt (Preatures) on guitar and Carlos Adura (Tambourine Girls) on drums. Bensen says during Preatures tours he’d work on tracks at all hours and places. “It took everything out of me, I was obsessed.” He approached producer
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LIFELINES Expecting: singer Kelly Clarkson and husband Brandon Blackstock revealed their second child will be a boy. Injured: French house producer DJ Snake, set for Stereosonic, cancelled some US shows after a car accident. Injured: Ruby Rose had to co-host the MTV European Video Awards in Milan limping and holding on to a cane after tearing her calf muscles on the set of action movie Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, while shooting in South Africa. In Court: Taylor Swift is counter-suing US radio host David Mueller who allegedly groped her during a 2013 meet-and-greet in Denver. Mueller sued her in September saying he was fired and banned from her concerts after her “false allegations” that he slipped his hand up her skirt, blaming the incident on another radio executive. If Swift wins, she’ll donate the money to charities “dedicated to protecting women from similar acts of sexual assault and personal disregard.” Died: MTV executive Peter Dougherty, 59, who helped develop the hip hop show Yo! MTV Raps, of a heart attack. Died: Diane Charlemagne, 51, ex-singer with Brit acts Urban Cookie Collective and 52nd Street, of cancer. She also worked with Moby, Goldie and a reformed D:Ream. Died: MTV host Sam Sarpong (of Yo Momma).
Tony Buchen with the idea of “an '80s/ '90s new wave soul record” to co-produce. While recording he began exploring hip hop and beat making inspired by NWA, Bomb da Bass, Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus and D’Angelo. He plays Shebeen on February 12.
YASS COUNCIL ON DRAGON DREAMING
Yass Valley Council has responded after NSW police said they’d push for the Dragon Dreaming festival not to be held in Yass next year. This was after the death of 23-year old Sydney woman Anneke Vo and 78 drug busts and three more charged with supply. Mayor Rowena Abbey said that its application is reviewed annually and will take into account the reports from the police, coroner and event organisers. 2500 people attended its seventh instalment over October 23 – 26, and comments on social media were that it was a musical blast and they felt safe there. Festival organisers posted a note of “sincerest condolences” to Vo’s family and friends. Ian and Helen Cathles who own the land where the festival is held also asked for the festival to continue, saying, “It is a music and lifestyle festival that has created its own community over many years and it has been an absolute pleasure to host them on our land.”
CHANGES AT SECRET SOUNDS TOURING
Changes at Secret Sounds Touring includes Marc Sousley moving from General Manager to the senior role of Promoter actively seeking international acts for Australian tours. Operations manager Sam Shaw becomes GM, while Blake Rayner joins in artist development to find emerging talent.
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SONGHOY BLUES WED 16 MARCH 7.30PM • TICKETS FROM $49
Acclaimed Malian band Songhoy Blues tours Australia for the first time with their debut release Music in Exile. A powerful and truly unique new band, their music bears elements of both contemporary rock and hip hop but with a deep attachment to the home-grown songs and dances of Mali’s Songhoy people as well as such iconic West African guitar heroes as Baba Salah and Ali Farka Touré.
‘TALKING HEADS FUNKY… GROWLINGLY BLUESY… CONTEMPLATIVE AND HYPNOTIC… A TRIUMPH.’ THE GUARDIAN (UK)
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