Music Feeds - Issue 22

mUSIc Feeds

SUPPORTING THE INDEPENDENT MUSIC / ARTS SCENE OF SYDNEY AND BEYOND WWW.MUSICFEEDS.COM.AU

ISSUE 22 may 26 - June 9

e! e r F

tighter than a nun's schedule

GRIZZLY BEAR

FUJI COLLECTIVE DATAROCK N.A.S.A. TEMPER TRAP ASTRONOMY CLASS GALLOWS ST. HELENS ZEAHORSE NECRO SUI ZHEN

3

THE TEMPER TRAP

T E L ED Well we’re back again, and amazingly we are in one piece after the shenanigans involved in putting out our 21st issue, and even more amazingly this issue may be one of our best. But before I go on to tell you about what to expect in this fortnight’s issue of Music Feeds there are a few things I would like to say.

22

First off, Bud Tingwell is dead. I never met the man but I loved him like a father and I can only hope that somewhere in the genetic backlog of humanity there is a back up file and that we shall see Bud V.2.0 roaming around soon.

Secondly I would like to incite a call to arms against The Daily Telegraph for hassling Premier Rees about spending money on Brain Eno’s Luminous Festival rather than a three day visit from Tiger Woods.

Now I know that the fanatically conservative, wife beating, snag eating and impossibly feebleminded readers of this paper would rather golf than music (AC/DC already announced a tour, who needs more music!), but never would I have thought to see The Daily Telegraph support a black man entering our country.

by dan clarke. Photo by perou.

S

The Daily Telegraph just needs to face the facts that most people living in Sydney at least, if not the state and country, aren’t all jaded and bitter rightwing journalists who have been suffering under so many years of a Labour State Government that they have had to resort to child pornography, transvestite sex and gang rape to keep themselves at all interested in a world that is fast leaving them behind. Though you have to feel sorry for them, their lives must be a listless hell of boredom and sexless marriages.

Anyway finally I just want to say fuck Richard “Dick” Kingsmill and fuck triple j. I am so tired of turning on to 105.7 and instead of hearing something interesting or new being constantly bombarded with talentless hacks re-hashing tired musical stereotypes - only it’s either done on synths or the band are bringing back (insert worn out genre here). Why do I never hear Pivot? Where are The Drones or Seekae?

Anyway I’ll stop ranting here and move on to talking about the issue as I’m sure you’re all well tired of me and my sandy vagina.

The uber-hip purveyors of freaked out folk Grizzly Bear have taken up cover position this week on the back of the release of their sublime new album Veckatimest.

On the eve of arriving in Sydney to play Come Together, Norwegian electro pop powerhouse Datarock also dropped in for a bit of a work out with me this issue, giving me the lowdown on their love of Jane Fonda aerobics videos, Molly Ringwald and their latest album Red.

Sometimes writer and perennial pillow biter James Cotterell gets taken to the Gallows to see how the UK’s great hope for punk to come is shaping up. The Temper Trap check in with Dan Clarke from their London Also on a note of rubbish and uninspired local home, the king of controversy Necro shares music I have something to say to Daniel Johns. his views on feminism, Kanye West and what You are an ego-maniacal piece of shit who wouldn’t to expect at his soon approaching Australian know creativity if it came up and gave you a tour, and Astronomy Class’s Ozi Battla blowjob in a male bathroom. Young Modern comes out of orbit to chat to Zoltan Blazer must be one of the most stench ridden sonic turds about the group’s new LP The Pursuit Of this country has ever dropped out its musical arse Happiness.

But put aside their xenophobia (that’s a form of and I think it’s about time Silverchair got racism to the telegraph readers) they have, and thrown on the compost heap with the rest of this Jesse Hayward catches up with star Tiger they want. The best part of the article is country’s shit like Men At Work. studded collaboration masters N.A.S.A. when they bring in ‘celebrity manager’ Max and does a number on both Danimals and Markson (who manages such shining stars But it’s not just the mainstream acts that are in need Joe Doubleclick Chapman from Two as Ita Buttrose, Carson Kressley, Ian of a kick up the arse, a bunch of the indie bands are Fingers.

Kiernan, and a whole bunch of other people falling fast into the same pattern of churning out you couldn’t give a shit about) who weighs lifeless crap with no individuality or spark. Think On top of this we have interviews with St. into the debate claiming “Half the public don't of all the technically talented but altogether rubbish Helens, Zeahorse, Polo Club, Sui know who Brian Eno is and the other half bands you’ve seen in clubs and pubs over the years. I Zhen, Fink, and much more. are probably still on acid,” as the article then don’t care to mention any names suffice to say outside continues to include “Mr Markson wants the of a certain few artists such as Ghoul, i like That’s it, so excuse me while I retreat once Government to lobby Michael Jackson to cats, Kirin J Callinan, Fashion Launches more to my sensory deprivation tank to perform in Sydney, as he is doing in London.”

Rocket Launches The Winter People wallow again in the bliss of nothingness.

The Bird’s Robe Collective, Sherlock’s With the whole article implying Eno is a has Daughter and others I don’t have time to Keep your chin waxed and your chest trim till been, it’s laughable to then mention Jacko as an mention, Sydney’s local band scene is increasingly next time. alternative. I know, why don’t we get Stevie leaning toward becoming a group of glorified cover Nicks to come out then, she’s got a new album artists. I don’t care if you play guitar like Hendrix, Mikey and her original face, none of which I can say if all your songs sound like Zeppelin, I WANT about MJ. INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY! Music Feeds! It’s Cheaper Than An Abortion

EDITOR Mikey Carr michael.carr@musicfeeds.com.au ART DIRECTOR Dan Clarke dan@musicfeeds.com.au WEBMASTER Toby Smith toby.smith@musicfeeds.com.au

SUB EDITORS Rochelle Fernandez, Janet King, Clare Molesworth, Jesse Hayward CONTRIBUTORS Thomas Mitchell, James Paker, Amelia Schmidt, Kurt Davies, Corinne O'Keefe, Matt Lausch, Zarina Varley & Pep's Mum.

ome people have all the luck. I sit in my chilly office in the middle of Sydney, seeking solace in the still-frosty beer sitting in front of me, while Lorenzo, lead guitarist for The Temper Trap, is currently traipsing around Europe.

two weeks ago, which is pretty exciting. We've actually got a base now even though we've spent hardly any time there. We've been playing lots of gigs and getting quite a good response around England. We've gone into Europe a few times too.”

The band relocated to London a month ago to “spend a bit of time on the continent and try and build a fan base over here” Lorenzo says. “It was always our dream to at least come over here and give it a good crack early on.”

Australian fans might feel a little left out at this stage, given the debut Temper Trap album is due to be released next month and they won’t be in the country for quite some time after that.

Lorenzo is quick to reassure though.

He’s upbeat, and with good reason. I take another sip of my beer, naively hoping the alcohol will warm me up. Lorenzo tells me the last month of touring and performing has been somewhat of a blur.

“It's not that we don't love Australia, but we want to try and give our music a crack in every continent that we possibly can. We wouldn't be here today if it weren't for the fans that we have in Australia.”

“It's been bizarre, it doesn't feel like a month has actually passed. We moved into a house about

I jealously ask him how he did end up there, what attracted him to music in the first place.

He recalls being a “mad Michael Jackson freak when I was a kid. In most of the family videos I was doing my worst and probably best Michael Jackson impersonations so I've always really loved music.” Interim distractions like school and university came and went, but when he met the other members of The Temper Trap, things started to fall into place.

“I guess it really became apparent in the room with the other guys. They had a real drive and really wanted to succeed as musicians and so did I. I guess that's how it all came into fruition. I never thought my dreams could be realised until I met other people that had the same aspirations as I did.”

The band is signed to Infectious records worldwide, except in the US where it seems they will next be turning their attention. The decision to wait it out over there for more lucrative offers wasn’t entirely a financial one.

“It's probably more important to have an established label behind you in America. Luckily the label was gracious enough to let us do that.

We're still trying to finalise a deal. Hopefully that'll all be done soon and we can get the record released out there in about September. “ While plans for their next conquest are well underway, the band is being well received in Europe.

“We were in Germany last week where we did some shows with Glasvegas. The audience response was amazing, more than we could ever have hoped for.

In England, we're getting a bit of radio play so that always helps. It's amazing how influential the radio stations are over here.”

Temper Trap’s debut album, Conditions will be released in Australia on June 16th.

5

astronomy class C

ue Johann Strauss as we leisurely float past hoards of glistening stars occasionally interrupted by a hurtling meteor looping around a lumbering, complacent planet. Limbs weightless and body out of control, you’re probably wondering why we’re out here, floating through the cosmos, exposed to the unknown and possibly under the watchful eye of some distant, intelligent life. “If you haven’t heard already,” a garbled voice informs us over a two way radio, “2009 is the year of Astronomy and you’ve come to meet Ozi Batla, spaceman, rapper and voice of hiphop outfit Astronomy Class.”

The thick steel sheets of an airlock hiss to a close as we are greeted by a broad smile. I bounce off the ceiling and manage to shatter a neon vase. A thousand fluorescent fragments swirl around the room. Ozi just laughs, graceful in zero gravity.

Trying to catch the floating fragments I ask him how he’s been. “Things are good, the album’s just been out a couple of weeks now and seems to be going well.”

Ozi is referring to the second installment of the Astronomy Class saga. Titled Pursuit of Happiness, it’s a stripped back, raw example of unadulterated Aussie hiphop. “We obviously wanted to approach it differently to the last album and make it something unique. We wanted to make it a bit more punchy and immediately accessible.

by zoltan blazer

A lot of the songs are pretty short and there is no excess fat on there. There were probably three or four tracks that were really good tracks that we didn’t include on the album.”

Currently Ozi resides in outer space relentlessly performing a harrowing routine of altitude training in preparation for Astronomy Class’ upcoming tour. “We’ve been hitting the rehearsal studio and obviously had a few drinks, trying to replicate game day. It’s really coming along. A lot of the new tunes I think will replicate really well live. So yeah we are just looking forward to getting back out there. It’s been a while.”

This year Astronomy Class is teaming up with fellow hiphop aficionados, Thundamentals, for a nationwide tour. The fact that these two bands come from competing labels seems irrelevant. I scratch the back of my helmet and ask why the Australian hiphop scene has such a friendly and supportive culture.

“I think it’s probably something to do with the Australian mentality. But the main thing is that most of the key people involved all came up together and are aware that it was a lot harder to get stuff out there and get people along to shows a few years ago. Every release that came out was another building block in a way so I don’t think that the main people involved in the labels

have forgotten that. Before people had any kind of success everyone was working together and playing together.”

Ozi briefly pauses our conversation to float off to the cockpit and check on his ship’s orbit. It’s the perfect time to take a look around. There are screens everywhere streaming sci-fi classics like Aliens and Brazil, while X-men comics hover around the room blocking air vents. A certain source of inspiration is plain to see.

I ask how the name Astronomy Class came about and Ozi yells from the cockpit in response. “It just came about because of a few of the first tracks that I wrote. Midnight At The Observatory and also Brink Of War and Exist Strategy. There is a sci-fi theme there and I am a pretty big sci-fi fan. We kept on the sci-fi theme with War Of The Worlds and a few other tracks that are on this album as well. There is a hiphop and reggae tradition as well of that kind of outer space theme. We just were drawing on that as inspiration.”

Aside from a love for extraterrestrials and space opera the most noticeable theme on the album is collaboration. Artists from The Tongue to Ash Grunwald all feature, adding their own unique vocal spice. This diversity of musical influences and creativity generates a surprising new direction for Astronomy Class.

Unfortunately the stars did not align for every collaboration planned in Pursuit of Happiness. A combination of miscommunication and a lack of commitment led to one major international artist pulling out. “We were kind of glad that it didn’t happen,” Ozi reflects. “We just thought if it was going to be that hard and that person was going to be that difficult to get in touch with obviously their heart isn’t totally in the project.”

As we strap ourselves in for re-entry I realise that I might not be cut out for space travel. There’s a violent jolt forwards as we go into hyperdrive, hurtling back to Earth at incalculable speeds.

The whole time Ozi is beaming. He seems to be enjoying the futuristic jaunt perhaps a little to much. So I ask a man obviously obsessed with progress and evolution what he wants to see in the future of hiphop. His answer: retrograde.

“The RnB, hiphop major label stuff it’s just soulless. It’s just become so throw away. Maybe someday people will get rid of autotune and the same mix sounds and it could go back to beats made on SP12s and people rapping on 58s. Who knows it might go back to that raw grimey sound.”

Check out Astronomy Class's new album Pursuit Of Happiness out now on Elefant Traks through Inertia and be sure to catch the boys when they play Come Together on Sat June 6th.

6

E

ntering Oberfjord Gymnasium in Bergen Norway it’s very easy to spot Datarock’s Fredrik Saroea. Draped in one of the band’s trademark red tracksuits he waves me over as he partakes in a particularly energetic and suggestive aerobics workout in anticipation of returning to Australia to play Come Together.

and he has to hide underneath the desk of Molly Ringwald? You know, he is sitting under the desk, he is looking at her undies. So if you put it in slow motion you can actually see Molly Ringwald’s panties, for you know a good couple of seconds which would allow you to print a pretty nice picture of Molly Ringwald’s undies.”

The gym is packed with overweight fortysomethings all putting on a sickening display of fluid and undulating gelatinous flesh. “We have two festivals going on right now so there are a lot of people here,” he tells me in his Scandinavian drawl.

“You got to do it,” he commands, “and you have to print it very large, put it in the ceiling of your bedroom and then everytime you make love with someone you can think about Molly Ringwald,” he finishes with a tone of victory as I collapse in a heap on the gym mat.

Excited by the prospect of local music festivals, and festival goers, I eagerly press Fredrik for details of the event and where I might go to enjoy some of that famous Norwegian party spirit. “These two festivals, I wouldn’t be surprised if the average age is over 40,” he explains, laughing and gesturing to the rest of the room.

I come back to my senses a few moments later as Fredrik splashes some water on my face. I’m amazed to see the man has barely worked up a sweat. Intrigued and somewhat jealous I have to ask him where all the energy comes from.

“Can you imagine at the early 80s,” he asks me mid squat-thrust. “You had this culture of aerobics and exercise it was all because the 68ers, you know the hippies, they were getting old but they were all still into free sex and drugs and stuff. So the only way to make that all happen in 81, the same guys would have to work out, and there was not a better way to keep the free sex focus than aerobics, you know, like it’s not very sexy doing, like, a marathon.”

Assuming it only works on the band, or people who are equally deluded, I muster the strength to stand and insist Fredrik take me to a bar so I can replenish my journalistic fuel cells. Arriving at a local brasserie, the kind of place with animal heads on the walls and in the food, the barman pours me a heady pint of ale and I finally get to ask Fredrik about the band’s new album Red.

“You know when Spiderman puts on the black Spiderman suit and it has it’s own personality?

Well our tracksuit is like that, it’s a separate “I’m sure something crazy is going on though, individual, when you put it on you get a but I think it’s probably more the kind of sad separate personality,” he explains showing grown up version of going crazy, you know like me the exquisite inseam and stitching. “When infidelity in hotel rooms you put this on you’re “If you combine that opening a dancing hyperactive and stuff, the boring stuff.” hyper-energetic scene from Barbarella with the entertainment unit.

Ushering me over to And it all comes from aerobics videos Jane Fonda did the red tracksuit and a change room he hands me one of the that’s why the new in the early 80s, then you see album is called Red, famous red tracksuits and tells me to suit up cos the new album is how Datarock can come about. a tribute to the red in charmingly broken English. Five minutes tracksuit, the honorary It’s certainly a reaction to being member of Datarock, later I exit dressed head to toe in red and the red tracksuit, where exposed to Jane Fonda.” dreading what I know is all the fun comes next. Aerobics. from.”

I ask whether that 80s aerobics mentality is where Datarock draws its inspiration from and I am met with quite an unexpected answer.

“It’s a combination of Jane Fonda in the late 60s and the aerobics videos she did in the early 80s. You know the opening scene of Barbarella, the striptease, that is the best striptease, you know anti-gravity striptease, isn’t that something!” he almost yells, his head between his feet.

“If you combine that opening scene from Barbarella with the aerobics videos Jane Fonda did in the early 80s, then you see how Datarock can come about. It’s certainly a reaction to being exposed to Jane Fonda.”

Bemused and somewhat aroused I pursue this new Fonda-centric line of questions. “She was picking up girls for herself and her husband in the 70s so they could have fast threesomes” he continues kicking his legs up in front of him like a dancer. “In retrospect she feels like she was forced into it by her husband. I thought that sounds a little bit… you know, why would you go out and find a girl you could sleep with with your husband just under pressure. I think she was pretty liberated you know. She’s a Vietcong, sex orgy, aerobics anti-gravity striptease goddess.”

By this point I am exhausted, struggling to complete the intiricate routine of pelvic thrusts and lunges Fredrik is guiding me through.

Fredrik on the other hand is a picture of relaxation as he continues to speak to me in a calm and composed manner.

“Hey check it out,” he tells me mid pirouette.

“Last week I saw Breakfast Club again, and you know the scene where the tough guy comes into the room and the teacher comes back in

“The live show is kind of different to the first album, so I think Red is sort of a continuing of what happened on the first album but it’s like the essence of the first album combined with the essence of our live show.”

“What we wanted to do was to create an album that was perfect for our live show. It’s a little bit more energetic, it has a little bit more musicianship and it’s a little more suited to the high-octane live show that we do. It’s more tied in with songs like Sex Princess and Fa Fa Fa and Night Flight To Uranus, it doesn’t really have a new Computer Camp Love you know what I mean.”

I assure him that I do and ask him if he’s looking forward to coming back to Australia.

“Oh yeah,” he exclaims excitedly spilling a drink all over the woman next him and not even noticing.

“The only country that picked up on Datarock early was Australia, oh and Norway. I’m really looking forward to coming back to Australia because that’s really where it all started and that’s why we’ve been touring all around the world so hard. You know if it works in Norway and it works on the other side of the world in Australia then you know, lets go for it,” he tells me standing and raising his hand symbolically as a cheeky smile spreads across his face.

However by this point the woman he moistened has returned with the management.

Having been asked to leave as he is ‘making a scene’ I quickly make my exit in an attempt to avoid Norway’s draconian law enforcement.

As I leave I catch one last glimpse of Fredrik.

Arm around the woman, he’s leading the security staff through a few aerobics moves and the spilled drink seems forgotten. I guess you just can’t fight the power of the tracksuit.

7

9

by mikey carr

“D

o I feel like taking a shit when I’m onstage?” Brooklyn’s king of death rap Necro asks me. Having started out playing guitar in metal bands before his brother Ill Bill convinced him to try his hand at hip hop, Necro is a man apart in the world of hip hop, embracing metal imagery and art as well as the genre’s brutal attitude and approach to performance.

“Who doesn’t,” he continues as I remain mute in confusion, having never asked such a question. “The number one thing I would like to do is shit on stage, but I don’t think people want to see that show. If people wanted it I wouldn’t have a problem delivering it, but it doesn’t pay the bills, know what I mean?”

I assure him I do as I try to erase the image of him squatting onstage and uncoiling a weighty length of brown rope. Attempting to steer him away from the faecal focus the interview started with, I ask what’s been keeping him busy lately.

“What’s been keeping me from breaking my girls neck after sex? Nothing’s really been keeping me actually, maybe it’s just the little devil in my head telling me 'don’t don’t don’t she might suck your dick again'.

There’s always a fucking problem when it comes to me figuring out whether I want to break her neck, but you know we want to stay civilised on tour.”

“Is that hard?” I ask. “It’s not hard for me to stay civilised because I’m a pure gentleman; it’s just a fact that I have urges. When I see a female’s head my first instinct is to stick a bottle down her mouth just to see how far it can go down her throat, that’s only natural shit to do you know. I’m a pure gentleman though, I would never stick the bottle in her mouth or asshole without asking, it’s just that I’m so persuasive that after I ask as a gentleman they always agree. Women let me do whatever I want to them.”

Feeling a bit offended as well as somewhat aroused I’m eager to keep the interview moving. Our conversation moves on to discussing the commercial hip hop industry and of course mister sunglasses, Kayne West.

“Kanye, you know Kanye can rap. He’s ok you know, he knows how to make a beat and he can do all that but I don’t appreciate these awful faggots and I think he’s a homosexual. I think he’s an undercover faggot, I think he eats cock and I think any man that sports pink takes it up their ass and I think he’s in to that. He dresses like a homosexual, he acts like a homosexual and he supports homosexuals so you know yeah he can rap a little bit but so can a lot of faggots.”

At this point I’m pretty much giving up trying to control the interview, instead choosing to let Necro’s mind wander hoping it will wander away from the current focus of sexism and homophobia.

He last visited Australia in 2007, leaving a trail of raving fans as well as a hearty amount of understandably outraged people. “People should expect no energy at all, nothing,” he tells me of his upcoming shows in Australia. “When I do my show I’m going to be very lazy, I’m coming on stage high.

You should expect me to fall over by the second song and just fall asleep on stage. This is what I want everybody to expect. Don’t expect a good show, I’m not coming to Australia for that this time, I’m coming to sleep on stage.”

Assuming he’s taking the piss, I start to talk to him about why he started making hip hop music and what keeps him in the business today.

“I got in to fuck bitches all day and night,” he exclaims in response, with a sort of ‘what do you think’ tone in his voice. “Of course money is nice too you know and fans and writing good rap songs and all that but I would say nice pussy is good. Remember though, nice pussy is rare, most pussy smells so I’m talking about the good shit you know. Like good weed, hot pussy is hard to find.”

Again attempting to shift the conversation away from all things degrading, I ask about his love of guitar.

“Musically I do stuff for the art and guitar is a wonderful thing and I love guitar especially from a metal perspective. So it was definitely more than just bitches when it came to playing guitar but it always helps to impress a bitch if you can play some good shit,” he confides.

“Like, I would like to fuck that girl from Twilght, you know Kristin Stewart,” he continues, ignoring my interruptions.

“I don’t know why, there’s something about her that makes me want to make a whore out of her. I want to fuck her asshole you know, I want to see what she’s about naked. If she’s not on point I could abuse her you know like ‘you fucking whore. Go make me some fucking food you bitch. You big star, Twilight yeah ok I’ll show you Twilight you little fucking cunt.' She doesn’t really have the most banging body though, there’s just something about her you know, I want to cum in her fucking face.”

“Anything that gets the bitch interested in being the whore she was meant to be. A lot of times they don’t want to act like the whores they were meant to be, they want to act like they’re bigger than that. I know they’re lawyers, they’re doctors, no no no no, you’re a dick sucker and I’m going to get you to fucking realise you’re a dick sucker, somehow.”

“Now to get them into that mode that they were naturally meant to be, it requires a little brainwashing.

Like you run into a lawyer she’s like, “oh, I'm a lawyer” you know, she’s not going to suck a dick, she’s a lawyer! So you play guitar and she’s like ‘oh you’re so good on guitar,” now she’s realising she’s a dick sucker. Then you give her some liquor and she’s getting drunk and she’s a drunk dick sucker.”

“In the end of the day you gotta do what you gotta do to get her down to be what she was meant to be.

They’ll deny it all day saying they’re not this, they’re not that but in the end of the day every female lawyer on this planet is sucking some dick somewhere. But they get offended if you call them a dick sucker. I wouldn’t get offended if someone called me a pussy licker. Like ‘hey Necro, you’re a pussy licker.” Damn right.”

Feeling like I’m going to be lynched for this (even though I am laughing my arse off by this point) I try and wrap up the interview by asking Necro if there’s anything he wants to say to his Australian fans.

“I want to tell all the dick suckers in Australia to get ready,” he tells me as I start drafting the disclaimer to put on the article. “I’m bringing my dick with me so all the young female dick suckers, get your mouths ready. Not the male dick suckers though, they can deal with Kanye.”

Please don’t write to us about this, we know it’s offensive.

Catch Necro when he plays Manning Bar, Sydney, Saturday May 30, Hyde Park, Perth, Thursday June 4 and HQ, Adelaide, Friday June 5

EYE OF THE SPIDER

FEAT. I LIKE CATS & YES NUKES CLUB 77 THURSDAY 14TH MAY PHOTOS BY TYNAN CURRY REVIEW BY MIKEY CARR.

Club 77 has long held a reputation as a den of filth, debauchery and filthy debauchery. On the night I showed up not much had changed.

Opening act Yes Nukes delivered a passionate set of high energy post punk. The bass player and guitarist were both furious and skilled in their delivery but the drummer was the definite focus for me. Watching the speed with which he churned out fills was amazing, even more so when you consider the fact he was singing almost the whole time.

Next act i like cats, having long been a Music Feeds favourite, were why I was there that night. Not having seen them since they returned from travelling abroad over summer I was blown away by the improvement in not only the bands playing but the song structures.

Mexican bassist Jaie Gomez Gonzalez, having lost his dirty sanchez moustache, was the most marked improvement having gained a real mastery over his effects pedals, building shimmering walls of sound that set the stage for the ball-flooring tsunami of postrock the band deliver.

Guitarist/songers Rollo Anderson and Dylan Baskind both showed their steady hands and heaving glands, both demonstrating how to rock the fuck out while still remaining calm. Anderson’s scream in crowd favourite Monster was well worth a shilling or two, while Cellist Dominic Mercer could’ve have asked me for all the money I had and I’d have given it to him. Drummer William Newton Johnston put on quite a show, hitting the skins with the ferocity of a mountain lion that woke up halfway through being neutered.

I can’t stress how good this band can be when you catch them on a good night. Having seen them again a few days later at Progfest, the band delivering a set somewhat less impressive than this one, I must stress that they’re not perfect. Yet. Anyway the last band for the night was Eye Of The Spider. The band is sort of an indie rock super group with the bewitching and bedazzling Aleesha Dibbs on keys, Lucas from Atrocities on bass and Marc Silvers from Perfect Sandwich Records on guitar.

The lead singer Ariel, one of the only two members in the band without another project, has a voice you’d expect to find in a 300 pound black woman rather than in Ariel’s four feet of whiteness. Irrespective of her anachronistic voice, she delivers in a way that, regardless how many people try to kill or rape me tomorrow, is somewhat reminiscent of Janis.

As a whole though, the band have really come into their own. While particular members, such as guitarist Marc, may fall out of time or hit bum notes here and there, when the band pull it all together they produce a quite biblical sound. I’m happy to say on this night they succeeded.

Anyway after the gig I finished out the night in true 77 style, sharing a needle with a hooker. As I passed out on Miss Burt’s stubbly shoulder there wasn’t a single bad thought in my mind. Great gig.

11

POLO CLUB by jesse hayward

“T

hat doesn't even look real!” I cry as an 8-bit pterodactyl batters me off a precipice. I am suddenly falling through polygonal space, sure to meet my death where the map rendering ends, but am saved by a two-dimensional rope that somehow lassoes my three-dimensional form. The Urban Monk has come to the rescue.

“It may not look real, but if you die in the matrix, you die in real life.” Urban Monk and I are suspended in a virtual space imagined into being through the minds of Urban Monk and Camelot the Cameleon, the electrohop duo known as Polo Club. Tron meets Alex Kidd meets Dangerous Dave. I feel trapped in late80s graphics. Listening to Polo Club's debut album should give you the same feeling – that is, if you spent your childhood playing console games.

“I do a lot of 8-bit production. I love old school sound, old school games, anything old school. My girlfriend's little brother brought me a sega megadrive the other day cos mine was busted and I've been paying Sonic 2 heaps.”

You can hear the early video game influences in the album, titled The 13, both in the lyrics – such as the first track, Turn That Console Off – and in the many vocal filters, which make me think Lawnmower Man and terrible 3D imaging. Don't let the old school theme fool you into thinking this stuff is retro though. On the contrary, this album is some of the most refreshing Aussie hiphop around.

The tracks are funny and lyrical and sometimes unaffectedly fanciful; and are a slight departure from their live shows. The giant gorilla that is Polo Club's live show throws burning barrel after burning barrel into the audience, making the crowd jump for their lives.

“Cam and I are spontaneous dudes so when we play live we don't think about it too much aside from gettng our lights right. Other than that we just go a bit crazy and who knows whats going to happen. At a gig in south Gippsland we got a friend to dress up in a superhero outfit and go nuts on stage, people seemed to enjoy that.

If I had a choice I'd definitely have a B-grade superhero for a bodyguard. Something like Ben Stiller's character from Mystery Men with some pointless power, like he could open doors really fast or something. If I were a superhero my power would be being able to fly, obviously, also the abbility to sit down and do a remix with someone and not have to lift a finger, just controlling ProTools with my mind.”

Speaking of remixes, The 13 has a version of The Presets' track 'A New Sky'. “It's a Presets remake more than a remix. Cam is a massive fan of The Presets. He's always loved dance and electro stuff and I really like The Presets. When the album was being finished there were a few tracks on there we weren't really feeling and we wanted to get rid of some old stuff and do some new stuff. We were going to do an old song but then we thought, no, we'll do that track and send it off and see what we have to do to get it on the album. Everyone agreed and it ended up being easier than I thought.”

Sonic the Hedgehog rolls by in a blur of blue spines. In the distance we hear the chime of rings being collected and stowed in the hope of future lives. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 rolls past. Is it a reincarnation? A step up the spiritual ladder? Or just a flashier imitation?

“Producers in the US seem to do a lot of recycling of stuff. They find something that's old and go with it for a while, make a bit of money on it, and keep churning it out. They just switch the artist instead of the sound. When Timberland was producing Justin Timberlake's Future Sex/ Love Sounds or whatever, the production on that was different at the time you know, no-one was doing it, but now he's like everyone thought that was crazy so I'll just keep doing it. He's now done Nelly Furtado's album and even Chris Cornell's new album and that sounds like the Nelly album with Cornell singing. When we're working on tracks we always try to make the next track different from the one before. Not to the point where we break our own sound mold, Polo Club definitely have their own sound, but we certainly try to be different within the album.”

The 13 is available now in shops and online through AmpHead Music/The Orchard.

12

13

St. Helens

by mikey carr

T

here’s an old African proverb that goes something like ‘The fool speaks, the wise man listens.” Talking to Jarrod Quarrell, lead noise maker for Melbourne band St. Helens, I get the feeling I’m definitely the former. It’s not that he’s belligerent, or even unpleasant to talk to, but it does seem that he prefers to let his music speak for itself.

It’s a valid sentiment, though not particularly useful given I’m sitting across from him with pen in hand, eagerly poised to jot down every interesting quote he might throw my way. I guess it’s the curse of every even moderately successful band that they have to interact with the media at some point or another. Jarrod agrees.

“I realised that a lot of people who write about music are writers of other things as well,” Jarrod remarks to me

as he sips delicately at his piping hot espresso looking incredibly hung over and in great pain. “Maybe they're doing it for practise or they're doing it for money, I don’t know.”

“There's a lot of bad music writing out there,” he elaborates angrily, “just like there’s a lot of bad rock and roll. Sometimes bad press annoys me but I take it for what it is.”

Well he must not be too annoyed now then, even if his demeanour says otherwise, as St. Helens' debut Heavy Profession has been getting rave reviews all over town.

Rave magazine described the album as “sexy in a filthy/ gorgeous way,” with The Vine adding that “St. Helens make music that sounds like every bad thing you ever did – and damn it feels so good.”

With the media throwing about all this sexual innuendo I felt it necessary to ask Jarrod what actually inspired the album and after a few minutes of resistance and avoiding the question he opens up.

“It’s celebratory music. The songs are ultimately positive, and ultimately carry a positive message. It’s been called dark a lot but it wasn't coming from a dark place. Hopefully people will see us for what we are rather than what someone has said we are.”

Guessing that’s somewhat of a yes to my question, we get back to talking about the media coverage the band has received and how unexpected it was.

“This is the most coverage I've ever had in a band,”

he confides. “I've been in locally successful bands before but nothing like this.”

We start discussing how this project really differs from his other work and Jarrod quickly expresses a dislike of the topic, taking long pauses and giving short answers.

Trying again from a different angle I ask how working in this band has been different in terms of how they write or where they draw their inspiration.

“Well having two vocalists gives us a whole other world we can explore. Our guitarist plays keyboards and I play keyboards, the drummer's a good guitarist and keyboard player,” he tells me as he runs through the text messages on his phone. “There’s a lot of room to move. I feel like we've got all the elements to do as many different songs as we like.”

Amazed at his uncharacteristically detailed answer, it takes me a second to regroup and move on with the interview. I ask him what he thinks of Sydney compared to his hometown of Melbourne and what the band's plans are for the future, all of which are answered in monotone with little detail or simply a long pause peppered with half sentences.

By this point he seems a little worked up at my persistent questioning and I’m more than a little flustered with his stubborn determination to avoid my questions. He looks at his watch, giving me the international music journalism signal to wrap it up so I ask him, again, what he thinks it is about St. Helens that has earned so much positive press.

“I don’t know,” he yells at me from over the table. “ I just do what I do, a song's a song, I just take it for what it is.”

He stands up and leaves before I can say goodbye, obviously a little perturbed at my less than hangoverfriendly style of questioning. But as I watch him cross the busy street and jump on a tram I can’t help but empathise with him. Putting myself in his shoes the idea of having to meet some uppity young journo at 11 in the morning after having spent the previous night swimming in booze and women, well, I wouldn’t be particularly interested in an interview. Hell I wouldn’t have ever left the party.

St Helens' debut album Heavy Professionis is out now on Remote Control. Join the launch party at Spectrum on the 26th of June. St Helens also play the Northcote Social Club in Melbourne on the 30th of May.

14

15

danimals by jesse hayward

D

animals sound like peanut butter with sherbet sparkles. Their looped tunes are twinkly and smooth, reminding me of Play School and Radiohead.

It's fun electronica – simple loops of complex sounds with a vocal miasma that seeps through to the childhood fun strata of the mind. Jonti, the original Danimal, tells us things and we watch and listen. Come with us as we go through the round window for a story.

“The initial rough concept behind Danimals came about when I was really into the aesthetics of beat tapes that hip hop producers like Pete Rock or J Dilla would hand out to MCs. Tracks were really short, instantly engaging and pretty raw. And I wanted to hear that in a kind of pop context with Brian Wilson- and Stereolab-like arrangements. I haven’t stayed totally true to that concept, but I guess that’s what inspired it.”

Jonti originally performed a few shows with nothing but guts and a sampler, but this apparently didn't go down too well.

“They were borderline slapstick! As a result, I asked a few friends to do some shows as an experiment. Instantly we were writing, fusing personalities and making something more abstract and better! The band includes Julian Sudek from Mercy Arms, Moses Macrae from Good Buddha, and my Sherlock's Daughter bandmate Will Russell, who are all drummers and fingerpaint in their spare time.”

Jonti says it can get confusing with three drummers on stage, but says this is only because he still forgets everyone's name. He would like to point out, however, that the band is not sponsored by Danimals Yoghurt Drink for kids, but is named after the same.

C

by Rolf "Hairychest" Adams

hris Arnott meets me in the honeymoon suite at the Hilton Hotel.

I have readied the sauna for his arrival and placed bouquets of fresh roses on ever y available surface, strewing the bed with the fragrant loose petals. I hear his knock on the door and my heart jumps. I feel a tingle down my spine. He’s here!

We sit on the lounge like lovers, legs entwined, hands holding delicate flutes of champagne. I place my hand under his chin and slowly turn his face towards mine. Leaning closer, I look into his eyes and quietly ask “Where’d ya get the name Sunsets from, eh?”

“At the beginning I was so fuckin stoked to be able to put on our own gigs, in a pub that would give our punters free beer, that I didn't even think about the name. One of the Fringe Bar dudes threw around Sunsets and it just stuck.

I enjoy that it is both cr yptic and original.” Just like you Chris, my sweet prince of experimental folkpop.

I refill Chris’ glass and wedge a strawberr y onto the lip. Slowly I lick the coconut off a lamington and drool it into his glass. I smear the rest of the lamington on my chest, it leaves a trail of chocolate and cake pointing towards my bulging crotch, but Chris seems not to notice.

“So, sugarhoney funnydumpling, how did your album launch go the other week?”

“The launch went great man. I'm so used to playing and recording solo. This time I had a motley crew of lads playing with me, so it was

a dream start to a new release. Being able to start alone and build up to a full 6 piece was awesome. The band are on the single and B-sides so it’s a different colour to my last release ‘Far Beyond The Exits.’”

O Chris, your voice is like a megaphone, impersonally blaring the order to love you into my bleeding ears. I want him. I need him. I must have him. He senses my urgency and puts on another pair of pants, refusing to meet my eye as he talks about the idea behind Sunsets.

“There is a massive hunger for live music, ever yone wants it. And the more people are exposed to it the more they'll want and expect it. I wanted to do a night run by musicians for musicians and music lovers. So many "promoters" just pimp the bands and their audience, one of our acts even told us they had to pay to play a recent show and that just pisses me off. I like having a gig where all the acts walk a way with a bit of cash, have a decent rider so they can eat free and get a little boozed and play to an enthusiastic crowd. I also wanted to make a night where, as an audience, it doesn't matter if you know who’s playing you know it’s gonna be good quality music. We now have heaps of regulars that come each week regardless of the line-up so I'm pretty damn happy with that.”

Sun Sets is held weekly at The Fringe Bar in Paddington on Sundays. Entr y is only $8 and includes a free drink, so get down there and hopefully you'll have a chance at getting in to Chris' underpants.

“That's entirely intentional, you only see real ballers packin Danimals Yoghurt Drink. The chimp knows whats good.”

MusicFeeds entirely agrees with this statement. The chimp knows all. We domesticated primates have a pretty good idea of what's what too. It seems the apes that Jonti displays his work to are all teeth and hoots after Danimals' strange vibrations.

“I've only really showed my music to friends, other musicians, girls I liked, or whoever was around. And they’ve all been kind enough to save harsh criticisms for after I left the room.”

Danimals are still in the pubescent stage of the live music life cycle. Though receiving good response from crowds Jonti is aware that the band still has to go through the furious-masturbation, just-noticing-girls phase.

“Danimals band is gonna work on crystallizing the live set as it's still pretty brand new. I'm thinking of compiling the best tracks I've recorded into an introductory album and then maybe writing and recording a new one with the drummers. Also cooking up some stuff with some MCs and singers abroad. Im also working on a solo live beat symphony thing.

It's worth mentioning that most of my energy will probably be going to the other band I'm in, ‘Sherlocks Daughter,’ for the next couple of months, so depending how caught up I get in that, none of these projects might ever get finished!”

Danimals' next scheduled gig is on the 24th of June at Spectrum. These beats aren't brutal, they're buggy. If you like candy twitch, you'll love Danimals.

I

zeahorse

n a time where most bands sound like some unholy marriage of The Smiths, Gary Numan and insert-generic-electrodouche-collective here, Zeahorse are a bit of a rare find. With an upcoming show at Fuzzbox, Music Feeds’ favourite new band night, as well as about a thousand others over the next few weeks, we saddled up with guitarist and vocalist Morgan Anthony to talk long hair feedback and freak-outs.

Running a brush across the weighty flank of his stunning horse, Morgan Anthony is a picture of serenity. His band Zeahorse however are anything but.

Taking cues from 90s grunge and hardcore as well as blues and rock artists such as Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones not to mention Steve Albini and Shellac, Zeahorse have quickly built a reputation on standing out from the crowd of over-produced and polished pop rubbish.

They have a touring schedule that would make even the most stalwart of Kenyans ask for a Gatorade and a live show that Morgan describes as sounding like “the feeling of nails on a blackboard followed by a kiwi fruit. Oh and then stepping on a slug, barefoot.”

by mikey carr

I ask him whether he prefers feedback or freak-outs when it comes to getting a crowd excited. “It depends on the venue and the crowd,” he tells me as he puts a foot in a stirrup and lifts himself into the saddle.

“If the crowd’s being boring then a bit of feedback to send em’ walkin.”

As I scramble up onto my horse with all the style and grace of a Rugby League star, Morgan is already well ahead of me. Kicking the sides of my horse to try and catch up, it’s not long before I’ve lost control and start screaming for help like a little bitch. Coming up alongside me and gripping my horse by

the mane Morgan calms the great beast and we continue at a less genital-crushing pace.

Laughing at how rattled I was, Morgan starts telling me stories of performances gone wrong due to freak-outs ending in injury.

“I smacked my head on Xam’s head stock once, but my hair protected my skull,” he laughs, running a hand gratefully through his luscious blonde locks.

The story comes as no surprise to me having seen Morgan on stage a few times and wondering more than once how he manages to escape unscathed. However, I doubt that even the most square of blows would do little to rattle this musical cavalier, as the band have gone through the live music equivalent of a Spartan military academy.

With all the touring you’d be right to wonder how Zeahorse find any time to write or record. Putting the question to Morgan he seems ambivalent in regard to the bodily harm and mental stress he faces with the band's upcoming run of shows which will include 18 performances in just over two months.

“Well yeah I guess we're just going to tackle these shows coming up and keep writing,” he explains confidently. “We’re also going to Melbourne in July, which should be rad and we’ve just started to plan our debut E.P. We’ll probably hit the studio toward the end of the year.”

In and amongst all the touring, the boys have made the time to play Fuzzbox, a new night held every second Friday at the UTS Loft Bar designed to showcase some of the best independent bands our lovely city has to offer. As I ask him what to expect from the night a wide Grinch-like smirk spreads across his angelic face and for a second I’m worried he’s going to jump me.

“I might have my Shin ei Wah pedal by then, that’s pretty fuzzy,” he exclaims excitedly.

“Uni crowds are always fun, except for when they ask you to play Sneaky Sound System.

Just don’t expect us to be quiet.”

Like anyone was.

This colourful picture of amphibian torture aside, if you’re going to go to a Zeahorse show expect to come out of it a little harder of hearing. They construct towering spires of feedback which come crashing down upon the audience in a maelstrom of skullshattering decibels and mind-felching distortion.

Be sure to catch Zeahorse when they play Fuzzbox at UTS Loft Bar on the 29th of May with Megastick Fanfare and check out myspace.com/zeahorse band to have a look through their mammoth amount of upcoming shows.

17

by mikey carr. photo by tom hines.

16

“W

e haven’t really gotten underway yet,” Grizzly Bear singer and drummer Christopher Bear tells me. “We did one show in the UK last week, but pretty much we don’t get started for about another week.”

Having just recently released their latest album Veckatimest, the band are currently gearing up for their next tour. “It does feel a little bit like we’re training actually,” he tells me in response to my question about the band’s physical fitness regime. “We’re still a pretty DIY sort of operation, so we’re trying to write arrangements and re-arrange the songs in our own little way. But we’re very busy bees.”

With nine releases in 5 years, including three studio albums, as well as touring with TV On The Radio and Radiohead, playing shows with Paul Simon and appearing at such festivals as Coachella, Sasquatch, Roskilde and Pitchfork, they’re not just busy bees, these guys are almost German.

But the band’s Teutonic work ethic aside, Grizzly Bear’s music is a delicate mix of layering and production applied to acoustic guitar and vocal harmonies. If you imagine the Beach Boys and Nick Drake on acid (ok more acid), and add in a little Death Cab For Cutie on acid (for good measure) you’ll have some idea of what the band sound like.

Veckatimest, the bands third album, has been eagerly awaited by fans and critics alike for some time now and it sees the band embrace a more organic and natural sound.

“I think we really enjoy natural sounds and I think on this one we were sort of able to capture more natural sounds and just maybe not layer so many things on top of things and leave it sounding very simple and natural. There are parts that are definitely very built up and lush but I guess we sort of went through both extremes this time, like having a lot of really dense moments and then having very stripped down and natural moments as well.”

Having long been fans of collaborations and working with other artists, when they were offered the support slot

for the second leg of Radiohead’s American tour the band pounced on the opportunity like, well, like a Grizzly Bear.

“The Radiohead thing was like a dream,” Chris tells me, his voice going up in pitch with excitement. “They’ve been a favourite band of mine for a really long time. They put on an amazing show every night and we were all just super grateful to be able to play with them and share music with them and also just hang out with them, they’re all really sweet dudes.

“Not so much jamming really, I had gotten into a couple of really nerdy discussions with Johnny about laptop music and what sort of programs we were using, trading ideas and stuff, but there was never a proper jam session,” he explains, a hint of regret immediately apparent in his quavering voice.

However Thom and the poms aren’t the only heroes the band have had the chance to work with, having been specifically invited by Paul Simon to play with him for five nights as part of his month long residency at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music.

“It was really interesting taking his music and kind of completely reinterpreting it in what we do,” he tells me, sounding like a little kid on the end of the line. “It was also really interesting to get his take on it and to hear what other people did with his music.

“I think we actually changed it the most out of everyone, the other covers were fairly true to the original song but

we pretty much completely revamped Graceland and Mother & Child Reunion. I find those types of projects really fun. Taking a song, especially those songs because I’ve had a relationship with them since childhood, especially Graceland, to take them and then to be able to sort of put our own spin on it was really cool, especially because it’s with the man who wrote the song.”

“What was cool about playing with the orchestra was that we were able to do things we weren’t able to do before.

We were doing things that were more true to what was done on the album as a lot of the time we sort of have to reinterpret what goes on with our live arrangements.”

“It was very interesting, that was like one of the first shoots he did. We happened to be in Paris and one of the guys from the label we were with got a call in the middle of the day when we were out doing the tourist thing, and he was like ‘are you guys down to do some acoustic things at so and so’s apartment?’ We were like, ‘we don’t know we don’t really have it together,’ but somehow his sort of, spirit and character really pulled some interesting creative ideas out of us you know. He brought a bunch of beer and wine and a bunch of cute French girls, and yeah, it all worked out!”

One such occasion was when the band collaborated with Vincent Moon for one of his famous Take Away Shows, where the boys were placed in a bathroom and asked to play one of their songs acoustically.

With that venture also yielding an a‘capella performance of Knife as the band walked the street of gay Paris it would seem Moon’s formula of booze + women + band = great creative ideas, should be embraced worldwide.

It’s not hard to understand why the band attract so much attention from artists as varied as Radiohead and Paul Simon, as every album, especially Veckatimest, has a timeless and hypnotic quality that is so rare in popular music. It’s no surprise then to discover that, after playing with an orchestra, the band have decided that certain songs will only ever be played live with orchestral accompaniment.

With the band having already embraced France as well as many other countries, it would seem as though the time may indeed have come to venture to our fair shores. “Yes, yes indeed,” Christopher answers excitedly. “I think as of right now there’s sort of talk of sometime in the winter, well winter for us which would be perfect, it gets really bleak in New York around that time.” All the better for us.

Grizzly Bear’s third album Veckatimest is out now on Warped through Inertia.

19

by jesse hayward

N

ASA’s Sam “Squeak E. Clean” Spiegel is a busy man. Between surfing, working on Cee Lo’s and Spank Rock’s albums and working with Drew Barrymore on a film, he and the team have been flight-testing the new Explorer shuttles for the upcoming mission to Mars.

Currently in orbit around Phobos, Mars’ largest moon, we have a chat that lasts for hours, given the delays inherent in interstellar communications. I ask Sam how the flight tests are going.

“The truth is I really want to make some pop music right now, you know.” Tests must not be going so well then. “I’m not really feeling the mainstream of hip hop music right now and I think pop music is kind of better than hip hop pop music. I’m really kind of intrigued by the idea of the challenge of doing music that many many people love but also remains really tasteful and really good.”

Spiegel is the brother of director Spike Jonze, who gained critical acclaim for his Kaufman-penned films Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Jonze and Spiegel worked together on an ADIDAS television commercial entitled Hello Tomorrow, with Sam lending the score.

On Jonze: “We goof around a lot, we have fun. Both of us, you know, we’re pretty fun loving people. I think we understand each other really well though, there’s no, like, communication barrier

like there is sometimes when you’re working with new people, there’s just this really clear causeway of communication between us. Also it doesn’t hurt that we share a very similar taste.”

NASA released the album Spirit of Apollo in February of this year, but the album had been in production for five years. The album is packed with an eclectic megastar list of collaborators such as Tom Waits, John Frusciante, George Clinton and Ol’ Dirty Bastard, which was one of the reasons for the long production time. NASA had to wait up to three years for collaborator’s schedules to align favourably.

“Everyone’s really eclectic, everyone’s really open minded and it was something we really wanted to explore on the record. We feel we’re very eclectic DJs and very eclectic music fans and that’s something we feel really comes through on the album. It’s also something that is really kind of pervasive in society today - the idea of being open minded and not being locked down to one kind of music or one kind of aesthetic. Everyone is borrowing from everyone right now. I think music really makes you feel you know. It’s the most emotive art form and I think that is one of the biggest things that make people love it, that it makes you feel.”

Tom Waits appears on the album with rapper Kool Keith, a strange collaboration indeed. “As much as possible we tried to get people in the same room together you know so they can feed off each other and have chemistry. But we thought these two people are so amazing, so unique, and so in their own world

that we didn’t want to get them together cos they might just not get each other and just bug out.”

Spiegel is also taking a leaf from his brother’s book by directing and editing a documentary about the making of the epic album. I wonder how Sam deals with a different art form.

“It’s been really fun to be able to work in a different medium. It’s basically half documentary half animation.

We’ve been working with some of our favourite artists like Sage Vaughan, Shepard Fairey, Mark Gonzales, Marcel Dzama, and The Date Farmers, like all these amazing different people, we’ve been getting them to animate music videos and stuff for the film. So the film is like a bit of a cross genre experiment, in the same vein as the album.”

Spending time with some of the most unique musical artists in the world must have been like a five-year party, with a shitload of hard work thrown in too. How does one come down off such a high?

Isn’t it ever hard parting ways with collaborators?

“It’s sort of like a girlfriend, you have to appreciate the time you spent with them. You know it can be weird seeing them with someone else like a new boyfriend or whatever, but you know the time you had with the girl was great and you created some amazing moments together. Also there’s always that chance you might get back together.

“I love working with people, it’s definitely something I thrive on. It’s just fun you know, making music with people is fun cos it just feels like your hanging out with these people, having fun making music with a friend.

People inspire me as well, you know sometimes even just their personalities inspire me, just by hanging out and vibing and making me feel creative. But at the same time I like to work alone too, you know, I need the contrast.”

We leave Sam there, sitting in a tin can, far above the world. Planet Mars is red and the radio’s gone dead.

Make sure you check out Spirit of Apollo before Sam’s craft comes rocketing back towards Earth like the end of the dinosaur age all over again.

MOUSTACHE TRAIN PRESENTS...

KIRIN J CALLINAN, YO HO DIABLO, EYE OF THE SPIDER & OTHERS OXFORD AR T FACTORY THURSDAY 21ST MAY PHOTOS BY THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN REVIEW BY SVETLANA HUFFINGTON. Now, I was more than a bit wary when I entered the Oxford Art Factory on Thursday the 21st of May. With a line up consisting of everything from funk to psychedelic rock, stoner rock to shoegaze, I was anticipating quite a unique experience. Suffice to say I got one.

I didn’t catch many band names, a lot of them not being worth a mention, but playing early Eye Of The Spider really made an impression. Their loosey goosey brand of psy rock was a welcome change to all the upbeat pop rock and electro that had been blaring from both the stage and DJ booth earlier.

The singer, a pentagram hanging from her mic stand, had a voice that could command sea creatures if amplified underwater in the opinion of this humble reviewer. The guitarist looked like had had been smoking cones since he woke up, and judging by the aroma wafting off the stage I’m not far wrong.

The real highlight of the band though is keyboardist Aleesha Dibbs. Having seen her play in solo mode before many times it was really refreshing to see her playing more of a support role in the band. Support or not, for me she stole the show. Finger pounding down on the ivory like a pimp slap on a ho, she delivered an amazing set as did the rest of the band.

The next few bands don’t even warrant a mention, apart from The Jungle Fever Sessions who must be smoking something whack as Australians shouldn’t be that funky.

Yo Ho Diablo took to the stage with an awkward introduction from the emcee, letting loose an old school set of stoner rock and filthy grunge. With the bass player and drummer both sporting dreads and the singer guitarist having hair halfway down his arse I reckon this band should hit up a shampoo company for a sponsorship. No seriously, if they told me, ‘for strong roots and lasting shine use blah blah,’I’d buy it.

If you rock that hard you have no reason to lie.

The final act for the night Kirin J. Callinan was by far the highlight for me. With the crowd thinning out slightly due to the Holy Soul’s set starting in the sidebar next door, the main room of the Oxford Art Factory did seem a little empty to begin with, but the second Kirin started up there was no room at all, the sheer amount of sound coming off stage filling the room to capacity.

Joined on stage by two drummers, one of whom was his old Mercy Arms counter part Julian Sudek, Kirin had also brought in the aid of Paddy Harrowsmith and Tom Crandles from the recently returned Ghostwood.

I only know the second drummer as Alex, but by god he was a beast.

Anyway while being a little loose in part (a fact that can be easily forgiven considering the guys only had a few days to prepare as I found out later), the set was one of the most interesting and powerful performances I have seen recently.

Finishing up in his underwear with Manukah honey spilled all over his chin, Kirin look drained, destitute and fucking tired. I get the feeling he wasn’t happy with his set, but Kirin, if you’re reading this, you fucking rocked.

22

23

GALLOWS

A

fter their barnstorming 2006 debut, Orchestra of Wolves, Gallows are predicting the end of the world as we know it on the utterly brilliant Grey Britain. Axeman Steph carter gave the skinny to James Cotterell.

Gallows are a band whose reputation precedes them. Known for his hostility towards the press, it was inevitable that front man Frank Carter would be unavailable, having been relieved of his much hated press dues already. Instead his brother, guitarist Steph Carter, stepped in and proved just as passionate and wired during our conversation – his wit, street smarts and braggadocio all too apparent.

A band like Gallows are something too big to swallow for most, let alone stomach. Confrontation, darkness, grimace and menace are all the things Gallows thrive on, and ultimately live as a band each day. Grey Britain forewarns a dark forecast of the band’s home, England, as well as the world at large. From opening track ‘The Riverbank’, the epic darkness that is the reality of the modern world is thrust upon the listener. Sinister tidings and strings enforce this before the band launches into its signature form of assault and battery. As to the generational struggle (or lack of) the band proclaims, Steph says the situation is clear, but answers are not.

SUI ZHEN

by JAMES COTTERELL

“People just aren’t proud of where there from anymore – back in the old days people would just work as hard as they could to be the best they could be. But now the generation gap is getting smaller – people would rather just sit at home and get on the dole - receiving money from the government instead of working and being proud of where they’re from and being they best they could be... These people go and get their forty four pounds a week, go and buy drugs with that forty four pounds, then sell those drugs for a hundred pounds.

It’s just pointless – kids just get money to become drug dealers. I don’t know why people would want to live that way”.

Grey Britain offers evolutionary leaps and bounds from their previous album Orchestra of Wolves. The band entered the studio with the careening momentum, creating an a bold statement of an album, reeking with attitude, energy, and perhaps even an ideological movement – either fuck or get fucked.

Before ultra-nationalist accusations are flung the band’s way, Steph is quick to highlight it is people’s lack of motivation and utter apathy to the world around them that has lead them here. “Some serious change is needed, because we are so close to hitting rock bottom, we’ll need to hit rock bottom to start again. That’s the only way out of this. On the record we try to point it out, but as a band we personally have not got the answer – we as people make more fuckups than anybody we know.”

Garth Richardson's production (Rage Against the Machine, Biffy Clyro, Rise Against) provides the album with maximum impact – sonically as well as the attitude and fiery energy it creates – and is reminiscent of Guns 'n' Roses’ debut Appetite for Destruction – this is just one of those records that could change the face of music, whether the punters like it or not. Steph concurs Richardson was an important part of that, yet his meddling seemed minimal. “When he first came into our rehearsal space, he sat us down, and said ‘Let’s talk about changes to the music’ and we thought ‘fuck this’.

Then all he said was ‘in this one song let’s just add the chorus once more - the rest is fine’. We just all thought, fuck, one of the world’s best super producers just told us our music is ‘fine’ and we don’t need to change a thing! We all just thought ‘We’re fucking golden!’”

Far from philosophers, the band’s middle class attitudes and upbringing have had a large influence on their point of view. Even the band’s new press photos - showing them as nifty ‘mods’ - doesn’t hide the fact that they could (and would) kick the shit out of you at any point if you bumped into them in the street with a scowl.

Grey Britain has changed the game – aggressive street punk bands can use strings, pianos, and even acoustic guitars (the highlight being ‘The Vulture’), without turning into gutless whiners. It is the amalgamated sound of each great hard rock record of the last twenty years – not a flash in the pan, but a kick in the balls.

A point of amusement has often been the band’s three album, 1 million pounds Warner Brothers deal. . “I don’t think they really understood Gallows at the time, I really don’t. They claimed they got us – as with all labels, they wanted to be the first label that gets that new thing that’s exciting. Warner expected us to be the next Green Day or something, and when all five of us were like ‘they’ve given us a million pounds’, we knew they could never get that back. I don’t think Warner Brothers as a label know what we’re about.” The equivalent of this would be strolling into your local scummy off license looking for a packet of gum, but leaving with a packet of cigarettes – the band’s toxicity is that high.

The band’s passion for their music, and more importantly their live show, has meant pushing themselves to the point of mental and physical burnout.

One story is particularly stark. Steph’s repeated phrase, “I put my body through fucking hell every night” might seem like a recurring theme, but get a hold of this: “The other day we played in Leeds, and twenty minutes before we were to go on I was in our dressing room having an ECG scan with four paramedics because they thought my heart had caved in. I’ve nearly killed myself every song we’ve ever played on stage, in fact I hope I do kill myself one show!” Bands might say their hearts are in it, but it’s hard to deny a man who is actually willing to lose his for the sake of the music.

Grey Britain is out now on Warner Brothers.

by jesse hayward

B

ecky Freeman has a lovely voice. In her music, under the name Sui Zhen, she plucks her vocal cords to produce beautiful sounds which she shapes with her mouth to form words of love and longing. In her basement surgery, where I am strapped to a table, she plucks stray hairs from my leg and prepares to start cutting with the scalpel. Though I am quite attached to my leg, the sound of Becky’s voice is soothing and I am strangely complacent.

The shelves are lined with large cutting implements and plush dinosaur toys. Mark Ryden dolls stare eerily, cute and disturbing in equal measure. Sui Zhen plays softly, the blood flows and I feel warm and safe, though that may be the general anaesthetic. I ask Becky what she’s been up to and Becky responds with both tongue and scalpel.

“I've started working full time again and that’s because I just had 6 months off work last year. I was living off music which was awesome, but now I’ve started saving money to produce an album and to go overseas so I had to start working again.” Becky starts work on my leg, making a neat incision just above the knee. “Taking time off really made me more productive. I’ve almost finished writing the album and recently I’ve been doing heaps of demoing - just

trying to get the instrumentation right for the album songs and trying different arrangements. It’s pretty close but I probably won't be able to record for a little while yet.”

Becky removes my leg and sticks it into a large papiermâché dinosaur’s mouth. The dinosaur has a smile on it’s face and a bloody human leg in its smile.

“The recording process has so many possibilities so you have to be really decisive. You have to trust your instincts especially if you're on your own time, you have to give yourself limits and deadlines. I really enjoy performing live because you can communicate the songs personally, whereas if you record something and listen to it later, you're like 'hmm, I kinda see it differently now'.” Becky regards my bleeding form for a moment then decisively readies a bone saw. I ask her if she expresses herself in other ways, beyond music and impromptu surgery sculpture.

“Music is my first point of expression so I always come back to that. If I’m not doing music then I feel a bit useless. I can do other things of course but when I do music I feel I’m doing something right. The creative process inspires me to do even more creative stuff.”

The saw cuts through my flesh like snow and goes to work on the tibia.

“There’s no end to it. I want to create a body of work.

Someone told me I'd be making music for the rest of my life and I just thought about it and thought, yes, I am. Once you’ve had that thought it relaxes you a bit. It makes you feel comfortable, like, I can make this now and make something different later. I can always create new things.” Becky detaches my foot and puts it in front of a brontosaurus, which seems to stare in bemusement. Brontosauri are vegetarian after all.

“I really like the brontosaurus. For one thing it's a recognisable icon – I made felt dinosaur merch key rings and stuff and started selling them. But I also just like prehistoric creatures. I like thinking about dinosaurs because it makes me feel humble.

There was a different type of world before this one and there'll be a different one after. I like bringing otherworldly creatures into the music.”

nice. I’m very aware of the sound of my voice and the type of music that I write so I try to balance it out with some dark features so it doesn't sound too sweet. I think darkness is real, not everything is happy all the time. You can't really ignore it so I try to express it in my music.”

I certainly can’t ignore Becky’s dark side. My lower limbs are now integral to spatter art pieces placed around the room. I particularly like the tendons hanging from the Diplodicus mouth like bloody seaweed. Though I lie a bloody mess, I can’t help but admire Becky’s art, she is such a sweet lady.

“If I'm watching a person play and I know them, then I like the music better because I know where they're coming from. When I get to know people, if I don't like the person then it's hard to separate them from the music.”

Sui Zhen blends naïf lyrics and a little-girl-lost voice into a sweetly dark milieu. Alice is down the rabbit hole, falling in love with the rabbit and possibly planning to murder him later. I think the blood loss is getting to me. Why, Becky? Why are you and your music so sweet yet so dark?

“That’s just how things come out. In my head it might be a bit dark but because of the way I am it sounds

Becky is finished with extremities and looks at my face.

“Your nose is cute,” she says. I black out and the rest is lost in a dark warm mystery.

24

25

TWO FINGERS “A

lright boys, wake him up. Slap him around a little. Let’s have a little chat with Doubleclick here. The boss says he’s been hiding out wit Tobin, workin on somethin. We’re gonna find out what it is.”

My boys slap Joe ‘Doubleclick’ Chapman a few times, then pour a bucket of water over his head. He finally comes to, sputtering water. He looks around blearily then realises he’s tied to a chair in a dark room wit no windows. I show him a CD case. It is That Girl, by Two Fingers.

“Alright Doubleclick, what the hell is this?”

“That’s our new single, it came out May 4th. We’re quite excited about it,” Doubleclick babbles. I think he’s scared. That’s good. We like ‘em scared.

“Relax Doubleclick, we just want to have a little talk. Tell us about Tobin.

You met him in Brighton, right? Do you live there now?”

“Yes, I’ve been there for a couple of years but spent a couple of years before that living in Montreal, which allowed me to work with Amon side by side.” I don’t say anything. “He’s in California now. I’m hoping to get there later in the year. In the mean time we’re just doing things separately and playing the results to each other.

We can work independently.”

“That’s good. That’s ver y good. Now, tell me how you get your sound. The Boss thinks Brighton has somethin’ ta do wit it.”

“Brighton certainly. It’s not just the scene but the record shops as well.

Brighton has many second-hand record shops. Despite what they say about the record industr y – that noones buying music etc – virtually all the record shops are still alive there.

It means you can walk in and spend all day listening to LPs, then walk out with a bunch of music from around the world. Some things you buy cos you know they’re exactly what you want and other things you take a

chance on. It’s not just about finding odd little bits of hip hop, but also Middle Eastern music, African music, whatever it is. I often buy something because its got a musician on it who is on another record that I have.”

“Thank you Doubleclick, you’re being ver y informative. Keep goin like this and Lefty won’t have ta use the pliers.

Now, tell us where ya gotcha name.”

“It started because I worked with a friend at first and the two of us were tr ying to think of a name. We wanted to make music on computers which was unusual at the time, to do the whole thing with software, so we decided to call ourselves Doubleclick.

It just sort of stuck.”

“Oh yeah? Dat’s a good stor y. I won’t tell ya why we call dat guy Scrotum, cos it aint a good stor y. It’s a bad stor y. You wouldn’t like it. Tell us another stor y Doubleclick. Tell us what kinda music this album is.

What is it, hip hop? Dancehall? We’re confused over here.”

“It’s a tricky thing. In our heads it’s distinctly a hip hop record because we know the approach we use, but people who consider themselves strictly hip hop heads are going to have serious questions, because it doesn’t sound like the hip hop that people are used to. It doesn’t really fit into any other genre either, something I’m actually quite pleased about. We played our stuff to hip hop

people and they’d say its really dark, really weird, difficult to get their heads around. Then Amon’s fans are quite upset you know, they’d be saying ‘what’s this poppy fluff you’ve been making’. It’s either too dark or too light.”

“Ok Doubleclick. Enough about the album. The Boss will tell ya what he thinks of dat when the time comes.

Now we wanna hear about Tobin and you. What’s your connection to Tobin, huh?”

“The friendship between me an Amon is extremely important. When you’re collaborating it really helps to either know the person really well or not know them at all so you’re

completely disconnected. It’s great to work with him, its like an extension of the friendship. All the MCs that we worked with have been fantastic as well. Sway is extremely professional and friendly; he made the whole thing ver y easy. Miss Jade was great as well. She’s really down to earth and it was great to meet her. We had a lot of fun in the studio and ended up doing more tracks together than we originally decided to. It’s been great working with all of these people.”

“Well I spent last weekend icing cakes for a children’s party at the community centre. That’s not ver y hip hop is it? I do sculpting as well. I got into it by accident. My American girlfriend wanted the whole American Halloween experience and wanted me to car ve a pumpkin. I thought ‘if I’m going to car ve a pumpkin I’m really going to car ve a pumpkin’ and I went to town with it. I want to get into doing proper permanent sculptures in wood.”

“Well if you’re recommendin ‘em, we’ll have ta check ‘em out. Maybe Lefty will get to use his pliers after all. That can’t be all you do though Doubleclick, what else have ya been up to?”

“Well when you do, make sure the Boss sees a little of the cash flow, know what I’m sayin? Ok boys, let him loose. Ya done good Doubleclick, real good.”

26

fink

by thomas mitchell. Photo by Will Cooper Mitchell.

W

hen we catch up with Fin from Fink he has just finished touring with Gomez. Strangely enough I’ve just finished eating Guzman and Gomez, so in some way we’re both in the same place.

Fin is ready to chill, something he became ver y familiar with during his youth, listening to The Orb. “I had a totally dif ferent journey to most of my mates, they were intro gr unge and Nir vana, but I was buying dif ferent stuf f, trip hop, electronic.

I have always been up for new, interesting music. But the Orb has always been the bullocks for me, they’re the best.”

And when did he enjoy their music the most?

“When I was a student, ever yone listened to Orb. Just smoke weed and do nothing, chill out.”

Fin speaks with the kind of English accent that instantly makes him cool, like ever y character created by Guy Ritchie. It is this inherent cool that allowed Fin to make the transition from trip hop producer/DJ to singer songwriter, seamlessly. Although he admits it wasn’t that easy.

“It was tough transition, I didn’t want to do it at the star t. Being a producer is good, your faceless, nameless and you make money but being a musician is good for you soul.”

At Music Feeds we’re all about the soul, so Fin’s preaching to the conver ted. But won’t he miss those days/nights of pills for breakfast and beats for dinner? Fin was ver y much immersed in the club scene, so the shift is major.

“It’s physically impossible to do a record quicker then 18 months, but we’re going to tr y and do it ever y 18 months.”

As if this wasn’t enough Fin still produces music for bands, and his own side project, Sideshow, a dub step reggae act.

Talking about the dub step scene it’s obvious Fin is passionate about the music; he’s excitable and bubbly.

“A lot of good stuf f is coming out of Bristol, and Sideshow is into that. The heavy revved up bass stuf f, I’m not really up for, but the deep side, the Bristol side of it, bands like Scuba. The deep musical side, the reggae as opposed to hard-core acid stuf f, that’s more what I am into.”

Fin’s skillz as a producer have landed him gigs with Amy Winehouse, Zero7 and Mar tin Taylor, but it is clear that he has fallen in love with the music lifestyle, talking about guitars, amps and equipment with unbridled passion.

In between our formal inter view Q&A type thing, Fin tells me of crazy discos he saw in Berlin, some intense shit. Fink would be way out of place there he says, so where is there place on the musical landscape I ask?

“To me it kind of suits late night driving, or Sunday afternoon with the papers. Or if you are in a pretty emotional place, I tend to connect with those people. If you’re feeling intense, then just chill and listen.”

I get the feeling by ‘papers’ he means the ones you can roll, not the Guardian. Which is ok by us.

Before Fin leaves us, (of f the phone, he isn’t terminally ill) we need to know where he stands on the big issues. Analog or digital when it comes to recording?

“I think what really made me want to change was that clubland had changed, I don’t really want to go clubbing anymore. Also I really wanted to play live, so in order to play live I needed to do something. That kind of forced me into it really, become more a live per former, more of a musician.”

“I’m still an analog man. Doing it digital is quick and easy, and can do amazing stuf f, but with analog you can’t make mistakes, it forces you to play better. In the album, Sor t of Revolution you can hear the mistakes, because we did it in one take. That captures the energy, when you get overly digital you lose that.”

Speed has always been a par t of Fin’s life, in one form or another, so it’s no surprise his current record, Sor t of Revolution, has been finished at astonishing pace. And it seems to be the tip of the iceberg.

Speaking of losing things, Fin may just well lose his mind this year with his hectic schedule. We’ll leave it up to the man himself to break it down for you, because simply it’s exhausting to even read.

“We finished touring in October last year, in November we got into studio star ted mucking around, getting high. We wrote the record in November, recorded in December. In Januar y ever yone left me alone and I produced it, and in March it was done, and we were of f, came out in May.”

“Well, May 26th album comes out. Then big European tour. Album out in USA in June, then tour US, then back to UK. Release second single, then doing some random Swiss stuf f, maybe Canada, Japan. Then another British tour, then chill the fuck out in November.”

I need to take a breath after that, but Fin is still ready to go, telling me he plans to release material ever y eighteen months, giving himself a year and a half to get shit done.

Sounds good to us.

29

MC I

stand hunched over an old arcade machine. The lights and sounds from rows of these archaic video games fill the dimly lit room with their garish, almost desperate cries for attention.

I barely notice MC Lars approach as Ryu lets fly with a barrage of hadoukens. My Blanka stops, mid rollattack, and falls to the ground. Before he completes his slow motion death I let loose with a string of obscenities, pushing away from the machine and almost knocking Lars over in the process.

Recomposing myself, I try to make excuses for my defeat. The machine's rigged, it's a newer hacked version where everything is sped up. Lars looks unconvinced. We wander over to another machine.

Ten foot high monsters climb up and down buildings, smashing at their foundations and eating little pixellated people. It all begins to remind me of the cover of the new MC Lars album, This Gigantic Robot Kills. Turning my attention to the Laptop rapper, I ask what he might do with a similarly large cybernetic bully.

"Take it down to Orange County and destroy all of the reality TV garbage that has been dominating the airwaves. I'd make ska cool again."

A two-hit combo. Nice. We turn to look around at the almost abandoned arcade. A few older men stand in front of machines frantically smashing buttons, their faces bathed in that sick fluourescent glow. There

L ARS by dan clarke

were two reasons I suggested we meet here. The first I bring up by motioning to the haphazardly placed gamers, pointing out that there are no women to be seen. His music might appeal to these guys, but I wonder whether being associated with nerdcore makes it hard with the ladies.

"Extremely, which is why I always make the case that I'm not 'nerdcore.' I write music that is sometimes about 'nerdy topics', but at the core I'm not a nerd.

That's why I still do well with the ladies."

I've tried that tack myself. I'm not a nerd, I just like nerdy things. Looking at MC Lars, though, it seems like he can pull it off. With his Wu Tang Clan hoodie and strategically lowered jeans, he looks more like a cool frat boy than the posterchild for a small niche of chip-tune obsessed geeks. He looks so genuinely popular that I decide to quiz him on something particularly uncool. What would MC Lars do if the Zombie Apocalypse came tomorrow?

"I would stock up on shotguns and shotgun shells, and hide in a place with great food supplies and doors that make it impossible to get out." He answers without hesitation, as if he's tossed the idea around before. "I would make sure I had my studio, and create beats so incredibly pounding that they would explode the zombies heads as they tried to enter. It wouldn't be pretty, but it would get the job done. If this didn't work, eventually global warming would melt their heads, so we'd be chilling (not literally)."

I'm convinced. He can even make preparing for a fictitious war with the undead sound like an explosive house party. We start to wander through the aisles of machines, talk turning to the fading relevance of places like this one. I bring up my second clever journalistic analogy, and explain that I saw this place as a bit of a reflection on the decline of the major record labels in the past few years.

Lars 2006 single, Download This Song, was an indictment on the crimilisation of online music downloads and the eminent decline of major label superiority. He says "The Future of Music' was an awesome book by Dave Kusek that inspired me to write Download This Song. It's funny how much has come true in the past few years since that song dropped. I rapped about how 'music was a product, now it is a service.' This has increasingly come true as the bands who have put on great live shows are the ones who have 'stayed in the game'. The labels who have a brand recognition for putting out good music are the ones who have kept their loyal fans. Independent labels with tight rosters are still going strong."

Lars has his own record label, Horris Records, so he's ticked at least one of those boxes. I have to ask whether he thinks his live shows qualify as great. What can we expect, I enquire, from his latest Australian tour which is already in full swing?

"We have a full live band and a multi-media projection show. The Brisbane band A Year to Remember will serve as our backing band and will also open for us. It's pretty exciting because the last two times I just had my laptop, and this time we've got the full-on rock show!"

Lars' excitement seems to have upset the punters.

I realise again where we are as they turn as one from their machines and stare at us with the dogged determination of men who have invested far too much time in the welfare of pixellated cartoon characters. I turn to Lars with a bemused look. He shrugs. Taking our cue, we decide to leave. Before we part ways, I ask Lars whether he has any time on tour to write new material.

"I always try to write and record while on tour. I'm working on the next CD, as well as a record with K.Flay, a record with Jesse Dangerously, and a children's record. I'm also working on a graphic novel and some other non-music related projects.

Best believe I stay busy, son!!"

He goes to shake my hand, but fearing a complicated exchange I know I'll mess up, I go for the high five instead. He laughs, and starts jogging away down the street. I head back inside to teach that petulant Ryu a lesson.

PAINTINGS IN HOTEL ROOMS 14/05/09 - The Darlo Bar