Music Feeds Issue 24 - The Japan Issue

3

T E L ED Konichiwa bitches! Music Feeds is turning Japanese in tribute to the gods of post rock Mono releasing their sixth studio album Hymn To The Immortal Wind. You may have noticed all the Japanese text on the cover. We translated all the English on the cover into Japanese using an Internet translator so as to make things a bit more authentic.

Then we thought, ‘wait a minute, that means all 15 seconds of hard work we put into writing those catch lines will go to waste!’ So we came up with the solution of printing a double cover with English on it. By then however we’d forgotten what we’d written so we had no choice other than to translate them back from Japanese with an internet translator and the results are… well just turn to the back to check it out.

24

Anyway Mono and how they inspired this issue.

When we first got the interview I was overjoyed.

In my ensuing enthusiasm I packed the feeds crew off to Ding Dong Lounge near central for some karaoke, binge drinking and dangerously unrehearsed re-enactments of my favourite samurai movie scenes. Ending up alone in Kings Cross looking everywhere for a Japanese massage with a happy ending and settling for Thai instead I was struck in a moment of pre-orgasm ire with the inspiration to dedicate an entire issue to Japan.

Why you ask? Why not. No, why specifically did a rub n tug inspire this you correct? Oh, well I can’t really explain but my mind is at it’s best when my loins are in the firm grasp of a South East Asian woman.

However no more details about my ‘creative process’ let’s talk about why Japan is by far the coolest country in the world. Think of all it’s given us; Playstations, Samurai, Sushi, Bukake, Ninjas, Harajuku girls, Taiko drumming, Nintendo. I mean Nintendo alone… strike that, Super Mario and Zelda alone in my eyes qualify at least that Japanese culture has much higher levels of awesomefacation than western culture.

When you then add on top of that anime, Ramen noodles and geishas let alone the endless stream of other awesome things this wonderland has given us, it soon becomes apparent that not only are the Japanese earth bound gods, but that as gods they should be allowed to re-shape the world as they see fit, if not at least Australia. Let’s face it, they’d be fucking way better than Nathan Rees or Kevin Rudd.

I mean you can buy a pair of panties soiled by a twelve-year-old girl over there. That may be one of the most disgusting things about their culture

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

- that there is market for that sort of perversion (as if there isn’t a black market for them here as well.) The fact that their government looks at that and sees a moral issue rather than a legal one and then, and here’s the kicker, decides to butt the fuck out, that proves that Japan is a truer example of democracy that Australia, the United States or The UK put together. You can even buy alcohol and cigarettes on the street from vending machines thanks to the fact that the country hasn’t been hijacked by a bunch of fun hating sodomites walking around in faggotty robes masquerading as the voice of God. New art forms such as anime and manga are embraced and pursued to their creative limits.

Compare Spirited Away to The Sponge Bob Movie. Akira to The Little Mermaid. Their music, which while in the mainstream more resembles a twisted parody of our own demented pop stars than anything else, in the underground is pushed forward by the scene with fans demanding innovation and creativity instead of familiarity and danceability. What other country could produce the percussive bedlam that is Boredoms, who else but the Japanese would give us Afrirampo.

must constantly re-evaluate their morals and practices in regard to where they stand in time, and that to stand in the way of progress is to fight a battle that cannot be won, only dragged out for generations.

But that’s enough of me ranting. Let’s get down to business and check out what we have in store for you this issue.

As mentioned, the cover story this issue and running editorial muse is Japanese band Mono.

Having miraculously managed to record an album which features a 24-piece orchestra live to tape in 12 days (including orchestral mixing), I catch up with guitarist Taka to discuss the bands’ superhuman prowess.

Also keeping on topic for The Japan Issue we have a selection of photographs of Japan appearing courtesy of MFTV D.O.P. and jack-of-all-trades Hugh Allen. Check out some of the panoramas he got for us and tell me you don’t want to move to Japan.

Leaving the Japan inspired content behind, The Reverend himself Jon McClure caught up with us, instigating debates and smoking a few spliffs But putting aside my own cultural bias toward the at the same time, Porn Star turned actress Sasha Japanese for a moment (however brief), comparing Grey left me feeling sexually intimidated, while Japan’s level of infrastructure to our own hammers Fat Freddy’s Drop, Sarah Blasko, Yves home our ant like stature next to them. While cars Klein Blue, The Jezabels and Augie March are Japan’s main means of transportation, in terms all dropped in for a bit of sushi and sake. of usage they are the lowest of all G8 countries, and while new and used cars are inexpensive and efficient their government uses car ownership fees We also caught up with Jager Uprising Finalists and fuel levies to promote energy efficiency.

The Winter People and uncharted finalists Foxx On Fire and Hot Little Hands for And their trains. Oh God the trains. With a a bout of liver crippling binge drinking in some number of different train companies competing deranged attempt to curry favour with the sponsors for market share, Japan’s trains, while being before Aleks & The Ramps came to the rescue technologically advanced with stations centrally with some kebabs and a pack of Stuyvos. located, are also notoriously punctual. Let’s not get started with how far ahead they are in the fields Chicks On Speed stopped by to steal our radio of technology, machinery, medicine and robotic for more speed. The Galvatrons left a bunch of research and theory. lemurs in the office and Brendan Welch has been hanging around on his own all week. Hey at least he I could go on and on listing the almost infinite fucking woke up unlike Jordie Lane who slept in. reasons that I feel irrevocably prove Japan should be in charge of the world but really there’s only one We also have a story on the upcoming Internet thing left I need to say.

TV series Sharehouse Zombie Apocalypse, Psytrance artist Sienis, and more.

Look at Japan’s history. It would be difficult to find another nation more steeped in history or We’ve just launched MusicFeeds.TV, MFTV with more ties to its old ways and traditions. Now for short too so log on and check out or new consider how forward thinking and innovative interviews, short films, video clips and other they manage to be in spite of this. They marry a assorted oddities of interest. respect for their culture and the customs of their ancestors with an open view of the future and an Mikey understanding that to survive and thrive humans

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.

THE WINTER PEOPLE by thomas mitchell

I

t’s a conveniently cool twelve degrees when I talk to Dylan from Winter People. He’s rugged up in the skin of a hyena and I’m feeling over dressed.

He eases the tension by explaining the name of the band.

“Well we had a sort of collective historical fiction vision of actual winter people. We were going for this 19th century gypsy aesthetic, where people lived in caves and transient people would come through the village, appearing from the blizzard. The men would be bearded, the women strong.”

I’m hooked in at the mention of strong women, imagining Xena rocking out on bass. The reality isn’t far off, with the band consisting of two girls on violin, and then some dudes on bass, guitar and drums. It sounds like a packed tribe to me, but Dylan reveals, “I think we may need to increase numbers.”

Now either Winter People don’t have many friends, or the Sydney scene needs to step up its game. I have a feeling it is the latter. If the band wins the prize, $10,000 worth of recording etc, they may have to use some of the monies to buy new members. Change is on the horizon Dylan tells me.

“The drummer and the violinist are going on a university exchange for a year. It’s a real shame because I think we’re just finding to find our feet with each other. You begin to find each other, and things begin to happen more organically and it feels like we’re just approaching that point.”

He is visibly disappointed but losing members is a reality of 19th century gypsy life. To lift his spirits I compliment him, with complete sincerity, on the quality of the bands EP, The Dog Years. The production is crisp, and the sound richer then MJ’s kids. (too soon?)

While dealing with the obvious issues of surviving in the cold months, hibernation and the ice age, the band also faces a tough challenge at JAEGERFEST. Storming into the final, despite a lacklustre showing of support at the semi. Where the groupies at?!

“Well thanks. The drums were recorded in some ass end studio, it cost like 300 bucks compared to the normal thousand you’d pay. We recorded everything else at my house in my bedroom with one mic.”

“I was impressed they let us go through because I imagined it was a numbers game, like how many of your friends you can get to turn up. And at out semifinal we didn’t have a lot of people show.”

“Things sounded alright, except the snare. Then I spent two months mixing it, trying to make it perfect.

I wanted to give it to people and not have to worry about the production, or preface it by telling them

we recorded at home. I wanted to know it was high quality and if they didn’t like it, it was because they just didn’t like our music.”

Recorded at home? When it comes to DIY home recording Paris has nothing on Dylan. The EP could’ve easily been produced in a top-end studio, with expensive equipment with shit loads of buttons. Alas it wasn’t.

Their music itself is about as consistent as the bands historical origins. Dylan claims to be a gypsy from the 19th century, but as we speak he pulls out an iPhone.

Anachronistic anyone? But that’s what makes the band so unique and their music so listenable; the blend of influences they use to create a new sound.

“Well like I said, it’s the gypsies, imagine these people they know ancient things, things forgotten by scholars, but at the same time they know super-modern information. I wanted to combine these in a way, not some shitty thrown together sound, but properly.

And eventually I thought the grandeur of rock would compliment the emotional directness of folk music.”

I’m impressed by the words ‘grandeur’ and ‘emotional directness’ but I’m more impressed by his folky roots. He lists the usual suspects as influences (Dylan, Cohen and Waits) but obviously has a deep love for the genre.

“Although a lot of the current folk bands have got the sweetness of folk music down pat, I just hope some of the more intellectual side begins to come out. My influences were intellectually complex and had ideas and concepts in their music.”

In the 19th century the English language was infinitely more beautiful then it currently is. The word ‘gangsta’ wasn’t in the dictionary. So naturally Dylan is a lover of words and all things grammatical.

Words are one of his numerous lyrical inspirations, so he claims.

“Oh, I like words themselves. Inspiration wise, everywhere, seeing something happen, reading a book, coming home drunk. I’ll hear a flow of syllables, a combination and I need to hang onto it.”

I leave the interview, hoping Winter People, with their strangely wonderful music and outlandish history, don’t change with the seasons.

Check out www.winterpeople.com.au for more info.

A download of The Dog Years EP is available now.

5

S P A C E

P R O J ECT J U L Y

2 4 t h

E x c e l s i o r H o t e l S u r r y H i l l s 8 p m w i t h

E P

sarah blasko

S h a n g h a i M e n i s c u s

L A U N C H

w w w . s p a c e p r o j e c t . c o m . a u

Presented by the Bird’s Robe Collective www.myspace.com/birdsrobe

by dan clarke. photo by C. Morris.

R

emember that Missy Higgins chick? Yeah, the one with the painfully inoffensive acoustic pop songs that just wouldn’t die a quick death, lingering in the airwaves and permeating into ads and TV spots until even her fans started to get annoyed. Well, there’s another female Australian singer-songwriter who has been doing the same thing, only for some time longer and a quite whole lot better.

“I just thought 'what the hell?'” she explains. “It was a great place to be, and I was really excited to be there but there was a moment there when I wondered what the heck I was doing.”

“I thought it was a good time to take one” Sarah Blasko explains of her recent seven day escape from the rigour of releasing her new album, As Day Follows Night.

“It's like you've been waiting for years for the right guy to come along and then you meet him and you just want to show him off.”

It's her third long player, but that didn’t mean there was less stress in the studio. “I think I find a lot of things stressful” she laughs. “I don't think this one got any easier than the last one. I think subconsciously I like to make things difficult for myself.”

She's alluding to the fact that for As Day Follows Night, Blasko travelled to Sweden, the frozen land of mead horns and wenches to do the recording.

The catharsis at the end of the stressful rainbow of writing and recording will come when she gets her hands on a physical copy of the album, and can finally share it with the world.

Just like meeting a life partner though recording the album was a big move, one that took Blasko right out of her comfort zone.

“It was really liberating, but it was a little bit scary. I wasn't sure whether I was capable of it.

Feeling like you're the leader of something, it's a stressful thing, but that's what’s exhilarating about it at the same time. It's your vision, your ideas and all these wonderful people are helping you achieve it.”

On her last two records, fellow songwriter Robert F Cranny was on hand to co-write and produce her work.

This time around the pressure was on - she was on her own working with a Swedish producer, Peter, Bjorn & John’s Bjorn Yttling, someone she'd never met before and who wasn't really familiar with her back catalogue.

The sometimes sparse arrangements on As Day Follows Night, “some parts of songs there's little else than vocals, double bass and drums” give way at moments to the grandeur of strings, a bit of instrumental saw, baritone saxophones and banjos.

“To me that was a really important part of this record.

He was somebody who heard the songs as they were and what I wanted to do with them and took them completely at face value. He wasn't concerned about the past and to me that was really liberating.”

Hitting the road soon in support of the new album, Blasko tells me she’ll have a decidedly different collection of instruments with her in an attempt to convey the fuller, grandiose sound of her new work. Of her back catalogue, Blasko says, “I'll definitely do the old stuff, but I think I want to kind of reinvent them a bit.

I'll have to find a way of adapting them to this new sound. In a way it's kind of a jazz sound, the new record.”

The more shoegaze-acoustic-balladry sound of Blasko’s earlier albums has changed with the times and, perhaps, maturity. Working with Yttling, discovering “new, or different ways of doing things in the studio” on the new album too has given Blasko the chance to shape the overall intent of the record.

“The new album, I think it's very different. I think you'll hear people saying it's a departure but I don't think that can be true when you're a solo artist. I feel the new album is more true to myself than the other records. I feel like it's quite strong in that sense.”

If you’re not going to catch Sarah at Splendour, she’s doing shows with Jack Ladder in Bellingen on July 23rd and Lismore on July 24th otherwise keep your eyes and ears peeled for her national tour in October and Novemeber. As Day Follows Night is out July 10th on Dew Process.

6

7

REVEREND AND THE MAKERS by mikey carr

JON ‘THE REVEREND’ MCCLURE ON FRENCH KISSING IN THE CHAOS AND FUCKING CAPITALISM WITH IT’S OWN DILDOS…

H

aving fought drug addiction, in band romantic troubles, bitter critics and Nazi death threats, Jon McClure is subject to as much torment as the main character of a Mel Gibson film.

“There’s nothing they can do man,” he continues. “Like if some journalist writes some bullshit racist headline, he’s going to get a hundred people at his office going ‘what the fuck d’you think you’re doing man.”

Well, deciding that all of that wasn’t enough, his latest album, A French Kiss In The Chaos has seen the politically driven songwriter from Sheffield taking on social apathy, commercialised culture and sensationalist media while getting rave reviews at the same time.

And it’s having an effect as McClure and his ideas gain recognition outside of the music world, even amongst royalty and academics.

“There are a few reasons for that,” he tells me in his scrappy accent, a twinkle in his eye. “Firstly, I’ve made a better record, which helps,” he laughs. “And the other thing is that the way the world’s going, the things I’ve been saying over the past few years match the sort of rhetoric of the times more than the first album did if you know what I mean. I feel like the guy who wears a sweater for ten years then all of a sudden it’s fashionable, like the world’s done all the work.”

McClure has long been an outspoken voice in the fight against the commercialisation of popular culture, and has quite specific views on where we went wrong as a society.

“Ever since The Strokes, who I really liked, there’s been like an era of vacuous fuckin haircuts. You know they travel halfway round the world to play in Australia and stand there like that, like they don’t even want to fuckin’ be there. Well fuck you man, what a shit way to be.”

“But the bands who 'ave followed The Strokes are the real problem. They’re all beautiful looking, kind of, but the problem is that these people haven’t said anything about anything, they’ve stood for nothing.”

“One of the people I’m going to visit later in the year is Hugo Chavez, the President of Venuzuela, a fuckin genius man. He’s got a saying ‘it’s not merely enough to look like a revolutionary, you have to be one.’ So there’s a little bit of a sea change coming where people are like ‘you know what I don’t want to just stand there and look pretty, I want to stand for something, to mean something, to do something.”

And do something he has. Fed up with the bullshit of our celebrity obsessed society, McClure along with Tom Clarke (The Enemy), Carl Barat (Dirty Pretty Things), Drew McConnell (Babyshambles) and other friends offer fans the chance to host a gig in their own homes all in return for pinning celebrities, asking them tough questions and recording their stupid answers.

“They film it on their mobile and send it over on the laptop, we’re using the very tools of venture capitalists against ‘em, we’re fucking ‘em with their own dildos, beating them with their own stick you know what I mean man.”

Only too well when it comes to the former I’m afraid.

“Even Prince Charles fuckin’ asked me to this Nobel Prize symposium to give a speech,” he tells me with a tone of surprise and pride. “So there’s 20 odd Nobel Prize winners and me, (laugh) and every single one of them came out with the same conclusion, ‘how can we do anything unless there’s a large constituent of people who want a change?’ And I’m saying, ‘force the agenda, start making people act responsibly.’”

But it’s not just positive attention that’s been coming Jon’s way from the world of diplomacy, corporate back scratching and the liberal exchange of fellatio that is modern politics.

“In Britain and Europe the Nazi party has a lot of power you know, they have a bunch of seats and stuff and I’ve had a load of death threats from them cos of the album and the response it’s been getting. You know I’ve had people ringing me house and all kinds of gnarly shit.”

“So I wrote this song called Manifesto/ People Shapers which is about them giving me death threats. I mean I go out the back at every gig with a guitar, there are thousands of people around me, I could get jumped at any moment right, so it was fuckin’ scary man.”

What caused such a stir in the end though was all possible due to Jon’s obsession with using social networking sites as social awareness tools.

“I’m on Twitter right,” he tells me lighting up again, “and all these people are following me so I thought I’d leak this track online against the wishes of the record label and people went fuckin barmy man, and all these prime time TV shows were ringing me up and wanting me to come on as a guest.”

“People have been afraid to be those people, the John Lennon’s, the Neil Young’s, the and I don’t think it’s that they don’t want to preach, it’s just that they don’t want to compromise their financial earnings. I mean you start saying some things, I mean I’ve been out there for the past four years, people calling me some nutter, and suddenly now they think I’m talking sense. But you start saying some of the things that I’ve said…” he pauses for a quiet laugh. “Let’s just say the people who hate me hate me deeply, and I think that’s more about them not wanting to risk losing money than anything else.”

Aside from dealing with resentment from the corporate and conservative worlds Jon also had to deal with his own personal issues in the making of A French Kiss In the Chaos.

“I got a bit fucked up during the making of the album on a personal level, cos the girl in the band, I went out with her, split up with her,” he explains matter of factly but with a faint hint of regret in his voice. “I went out with her, split up with her, went back out with my ex, went out with her again, got the death threats, and we took a lot more fuckin drugs and we lost a few members. So you mix all that stuff up and it’s pretty heady brew man.”

Indeed. But however heady the brew, Jon has downed it and had a shot of Tequila on the way out of the pub with the album stirring up a whole mess of praise.

“The response has been great, people calling me and saying it’s a work of genius and what not. I’ve never had that you know, I guess sometimes you just put your sword in the dirt and do your own thing and the world turns and you just catch it in the right place, which is sort of what’s happening now.”

“It’s like a fire, and sorry to use that analogy cos I know you guys have had a bit of a problem with fire recently but that’s what it is man. There’s a little bit of a thing bubbling here and I’d like to just stick a torch in it and leave a fire burning.

This is the fucking time to do it man, everything is percolating.”

In the end though what’s most important and central to Jon’s mission to use an overly dramatic term, is the idea of bringing people together with music and instigating debate.

“I don’t want to come here like Gordon Ramsey and lecture you. More what I’m about is just telling you that you have the power in your own hands to do shit and not just accept bullshit. You know, we can make music that will mean something.”

“It’s about a dialogue man, talk to everyone.

Instigate debate. And that’s what’s so good about music it brings people together. I mean I can take it as far left field as I want, make it as psychedelic and political as I want, but in the end I love pop music man. Just plain simple good tunes. It’s like a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, in the end you need to write some boss tunes to make people pay attention. Without that, all the politics and ideals is sort of meaningless, you need the music to bring the people together.”

“The worlds changing man, and music should be a part of it man, and the musicians of this world are starting to step up to the job again after we’ve been shying away from it for the past 20 years.”

A French Kiss In The Chaos will be out on July 31st on Wall Of Sound through Mushroom. Check out the band at myspace.com/reverendmusic, but most importantly check out instigatedebate.com and get the word from The Reverend and the crew.

Successfully ‘Instigating Debate’ in the UK, Jon’s turning his sites on Australia to stir up discussion.

9

D

ennis Coles, better known to the world as Ghostface Killah of the Wu Tang Clan, is undoubtedly one of hip hop’s most consistent and fascinating artists, a man who pens underworld narratives as gripping as Scorcese films, and the personification of comic book hero Ironman more than a decade before Robert Downey Jr – however geography is not one of the New York native’s strengths.

“How’s the beaches and everything, are they good?” Coles asks at the end of an interview about his upcoming tour Down Under. I regret having to be the bearer of bad news as I explain that he’ll be leaving a summer behind in the Northern Hemisphere and flying into a rather brisk Australian winter.

“I wanted to go on the beaches, lay in some sand,” he says. As someone visiting Australian shores for the first time, who could blame him?

Coles describes his set as “a lot of energy, a lot of classic songs, Wu Tang classic songs.” He’ll be touring with his DJ and members of Wu-affiliates Theodore Unit.

After debuting with the Wu Tang Clan on their classic 1993 debut Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers), Coles launched his solo career in 1996 with Ironman. Setting the tone for the rest of his career, the album was a critically acclaimed blend of dizzying narratives, mind-boggling nonsequiturs and heartbreakingly soulful production.

“I just found out I was diabetic,” Coles says of making the album. “It was cold outside, I remember I wasn’t really, really, really in the frame of mind that I wanted to be in, where I left off at Cuban Linx, it seemed like it started going somewhere else.”

While his solo debut was just one of many classics from the Wu Tang Clan in the mid-90s – following on from gems like Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx (on which Coles featured prominently), GZA’s Liquid Swords and Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version – he avoided the group’s tendency towards sub par second albums with the equally outstanding Supreme Clientele in 2000.

Since then his career has been marked by consistently tight releases, often chronicling harsh realities of life in the ghetto and the ins and outs of dealing crack cocaine. He will, however, be making a departure from his established formula with his soon to be released eighth studio album – a hip hop / R&B project.

“You grow up, you know what I mean? You could talk about all the guns and crack you want all day but at the same time we’re getting older,” says Coles. “I don’t want to be 40 years old, talking about crack.”

When asked if the album will be in the style of Back Like That, an R&B tinged, Ne-Yo featuring single from his 2006 album Fishscale, he answers in the affirmative.

While Coles describes his new project as being on some “grown man shit”, don’t get it twisted and think Ghostface is going soft. Take, for instance, the aforementioned Back Like That. Over the song’s introduction, Ghostface can be heard speaking to a love rival, who his girlfriend has run off with. He takes the rival aside for a man to man exchange.

“It wasn’t really even that big, man, you know?

Nah, it’s alright duke,” Ghostface says calmly, over the song’s melancholy keys and sampled crooning. “But anyway yo, let me get that coat. Let me get those jeans, and let me get that rock on your finger. Oh it’s stuck? Then I’ll take the whole finger then man…”

In addition to the hip hop / R&B solo album, Ghostface reveals that he will also be starting work on the next Wu Tang Clan album later this year – despite famously criticising the production of their last album, 2007’s 8 Diagrams, and even releasing his last solo album, The Big Doe Rehab, on the same day, essentially putting himself in direct competition with the group.

DANIMALS + GHOUL + CHAMBERS SPECTRUM WEDNESDAY 24TH JUNE PHOTOS BY KUR T DAVIES REVIEW BY MIKEY CARR. It seems that in Sydney you are often cursed to seeing some of the best gigs in rooms with hardly any people in them. Well the 24th was one of those nights (as was the Ouch My Face show also featured in this issue), a night where the walk up the stairs into Spectrum was met with expected results and friendly smiles from the usual suspects seen at Ghoul shows.

First act up Danimals were the stand out of the night in my mind, not so much because they were tighter or anything but more because the way they were making decisions on stage, toying with things, having fun and trying new things gave the whole set a playful and fun feeling that matched beautifully with the synth and percussion driven psych rock that is Danimals.

Made up of Sherlock’s Daughter electronics and keys wizard Jonti Danilewitz and drummer Will “Russdog Rodriguez” Russell, Mercy Arms and Nevada Strange drummer Julian Sudek and drummer and synth player Moses, Danimals is sort of a strange mix of indie rock, tribal rhythms, synth indulgence and IDM. The best way to describe it would to imagine what the music to a video game based on David Bowie’s life would sound like if it was made by Flying Lotus and Portishead.

Jonti plays the role of front man and singer, as well as playing keys, guitar and handling effects and a bunch of other crazy shit I can’t even really begin to wrap my head around. The rest of the band sort of switch around with Sudek and Moses switching between the drum kit and synths while Russdog Rod jumps between his snare-glokenspiel-floor tom set up and the kit with Sudek.

Ghoul were up next and despite numerous technical difficulties (does a strap breaking a lot count as technical?) the band delivered one of the strongest sets I’ve ever seen the band play. Serbian, a track off their EP got the shit rocked out of it and Ivan treated us to their now infamous cover of The Smiths’ Hand In Glove before revealing it would be the last time they played the cover.

The band’s use of a floor tom for extra percussion, while a little clichéd now is nevertheless very effective and the mounting tribal rhythms as well as all the band’s interesting melodic and sonic ideas meant that the show, while not always sounding as polished as it could, never stagnated and kept the audience interested and attentive.

I didn’t stay for much of Chambers. Their singer’s voice was very strong, somewhat reminiscent of TVOTR, but the rest of the band’s part came off as boring and repetitive to me. To be fair I was baked out of my brain and it had been a very long day that I was happy to see end, but I just wasn’t impressed. I will however endeavour to see them again as having to walk on stage as half the people in the room walk out can’t be the most confidence-building event to have to go through.

12

M

ichael Tomlinson from Yves Klein Blue sounds tired. Like ten whiskeys deep, rock bottom, tired.

The cause of his anxiety?

Recession? No. Rising price of fuel? Unlikely.

Rather it is the bir th of a new album, the release of a record, which has Michael crawling the walls.

“Yeah for a while there I was pacing down the halls ripping my hair out tr ying to finish the

damn thing. But now its been done for a while, but again its weird because people are star ting to hear it. We’ve been living with this record for a year, working on it for a year and people are finally star ting to hear it.”

While the prospect of punters hearing the album is daunting, imagine being uprooted from sunny Brisbane to sunny LA to record it. Yves Klein Blue waved goodbye to BrisVegas and instead chose LA as their destination. It’s obvious that it was a learning cur ve for the band.

13

“So we went over to LA, which is the first huge thing, to work with a producer, Kevin Yagoones.

When we got there we thought we were ready to cut the songs live. But Kevin was like, play this song, so we did. Then he was like, play it with just the kick dr um and the snare and just the bass, and we played it and we realized the bass and the dr ums were just totally out of whack.”

While Kevin may sound a little demanding it was just the kind of push the band needed.

It led to many beer-soaked recording sessions, Yves Klein Blue desperately searching for unity.

Michael admits there was a division in their playing style, and par t of the ‘LA experience’ was finding a way to play together.

“It takes a great band to tr uly be playing together. We weren’t doing that, we learnt that. Kevin’s contribution to the record was to say straight down the line when he thought something wasn’t working or was missing, then it was up to us to find it, and up the standard.”

At this point lesser individuals, myself included, would’ve chucked it in and come home, but Michael and his band mates stuck to it.

“It was intense. It was confrontational. We’re really proud of what we’ve done, it was a huge emotional experience, from writing it, to studio time, mixing, just getting it per fect.”

With the album done and dusted the band now faces a tour, which brings a whole new set of problems. Issue one, combining the album and live show into one.

“I think certainly things get a lot meaner live, louder, faster. I mean I don’t really think there is anything on the record we did that we couldn’t recreate live," he tells me with gusto. "Well we did get a horn section in for the album and we can’t do that. Oh and a guy from Wilco plays pedals on a track,

so we couldn’t do that,” he confesses somewhat sheepishly.

But with musicians as with ever yone, lacking enthusiasm is something that happens from time to time. Sometimes I don’t feel like writing a wonderfully articulate and equally witty article, but I have to. Similarly sometimes musos don’t want to be on stage on a particular night, but Michael explains that it is a fleeting thought.

“I mean there are some nights where you feel you’d rather not play a gig, but that lasts about halfway through the first song. There is nothing better then being on stage. When the crowd gives back it becomes this feedback cycle of excitement.”

Those who have seen Yves on stage know Michael is telling the truth. The live show is energetic and sensual, like having sex while skipping.

No wonder they've found popularity overseas.

Yves Klein Blue has toured three times abroad, learning invaluable lessons along the way.

“The last time we had much more know how when it came to touring overseas. Using hired gear, and transformers and power, it is all about getting conver ters for stuf f, just weird shit.”

Admittedly this wasn’t the rock n roll answer I had hoped for. I was expecting something along the lines of ‘when someone smashes the hotel room, always blame the drummer.’ Luckily though, this last tour's electricity wasn't confined to conver ters and power points.

“Wait wait, the best night I had was in New York. We had this cool gig at some Warehouse in Brooklyn, dilapidated and shit. They were selling beers for a dollar fifty. The mic kept electrocuting me, so I put my sock on it, so

I kept tasting my feet all night, and getting electrocuted.”

I ask if he was shocked, but he ignores me and continues his stor y.

“Then we went over to Greenwich Village after the gig, to some pub and it was down the bottom of a pizza place, and it was The Strokes bar. So we were hanging out with Juliette Lewis and Fabrizio Moretti and Drew Barr ymore, and it was just fucking surreal.”

Enough said.

Ragged and Ecstatic is out now through Dew Process. Yves Klein Blue play Oxford Ar ts on Saturday 4th July. Visit www.yveskleinblue.com for more info.

15

by Claudia Santangelo

R

emember Mr. Squiggle? The crew behind Sketch The Rhyme sure do. In an effort to bring together the old friends of art and music, Sketch The Ryme sees a group of MCs freestyle about what a group of artists are drawing and audiences are invited to participate as the improvisation is structured into games.

With four artists, four rappers, four musos and a trail of special guests, Sketch The Rhyme showcases some of Sydney’s most talented musicians and artists in an interesting, engaging and unique way.

We’re sitting on the couches in Buzzz Bar with my old skool tape recorder perched between us. Joel Rapaport, Claire Nakazawa and me. I should disclose now, I manage Sketch The Rhyme, I saw their birth at Underbelly Lab + Festival 08 and their most recent show at Hibernian blew me away. I just came on board with them and I’m very very excited about this act.

GHOUL SPECTRUM

BY KURT DAVIES

Sketch The Rhyme is Joel's brain child which he finds the time to mother in between his musical duties for ‘The Phonies’, ‘Mama Cita’ and of course ‘Rapaport’.

He said it all started with the idea to have art and rapping at the same time - “ I always liked having something to rap about... it’s like battling, your stimulus is your opponent so I practice using a magazine for

stimuli, or a friends drawing, battling with stick figures – that’s where ‘Sketch’ started really”.

He collected his rappers, found artists and through meetings and brainstorms came up with the games “it was my initial idea but all the games were collaboration between people who hadn’t collaborated before, I think that’s why it was a lot of fun”. Claire is an artist for Sketch the Rhyme, known for her regular Sydney exhibits, in the gallery and on the street. I asked Claire what the artists brought to the table - “in the making we showed what was possible and what was not, speed of the drawing, being really imaginative, coming up with things on the spot… it’s a different style of art”

The live music, courtesy of Sydney hip hop gents ‘The Phonies’ create the foundation for the show but Joel says “the real originality of the show is the artists and rappers”.

The games were influenced by Pictionary, theatre sports, live animation, shows like ‘Spicks and Specks’ and of course Mr Squiggle. The group is also influenced by hip hop theatre and live art.

Sketch The Rhyme was developed last year in Underbelly Public Arts Lab and then showcased for the first time at the two day festival. It was here that Melbourne Fringe first discovered Sketch flying a handful of them down for a cut-down show in 08. The whole troupe are now heading to Melbourne Fringe in September for a seven night run in the ‘Hub’s’ Ballroom. From Underbelly to now Joel says “it has developed, we’ve gotten better at it, more games, but same concept”. Claire says the artists are more confident with a live audience - “the rappers have been performing live for years before hand, for us, Underbelly was the very first time. It’s become a lot easier… having an audience there takes a bit of getting used to”.

“Both of these elements are growing… and we're kind of in the middle of them… a cool place to be,” Joel tells me as Claire adds “the special thing is we’re combining it all together.” The game element means there’s a bit of friendly competition going on but as Claire puts it “we all need each other so much to make it work”.

But the audience is very much part of the show as ‘Sketch’ asks the audience for topics, squiggles and a lot of noise – “like guess the topic, crowd cheers when you get it, we need them”. Claire adds “the more the audience is into it, the more they’re excited, the more we get more into it and the better the show, it’s all about the vibe.”

The nature of improvisation and audience interaction makes every show different. Joel stresses the need for Sketch the Rhyme to always be fresh - “which is why we have to keep evolving the games to make it interesting for ourselves” and one of the reasons why they have different guests every show - “Guests keep us on our toes”.

Sketch the Rhyme's appeal stretches from kids to grandparents, from the underground to the mainstream from hip hop lovers to haters. Joel comments “people have come up and said, ‘I hate hip hop I’ve never liked rap in my life but that was amazing’… Anyone can watch it, older people think its funny… little kids love it… I think that’s one of the most exciting things about it”.

Along with Joel, Sketch rappers include Tuka (Rumpunch, Thundamentals), Jesswon (Thundamentals) and Larry (Reverse Polarities). Artists alongside Claire are ‘Duckman’, ‘How?’, ‘Creon’ and ‘Edgar’.

Sketch is now doing regular monthly shows in Sydney; catch them this weekend on the 4th of July at Hibernian House, then again in August and their September show is at the Annandale on the 10th.

For more info, head over to http://www.myspace.com/sketchtherhyme

“I

kiko

16

by mikey carr

can’t wait to get some of those beerfed massaged cows into my belly,” Kiko tells me as we discuss her recent tour of Japan.

“Japan was a big delightful surprise! I was blessed to be dropped in a DJ community which happened to like Kiko music, and asked for remixes which I’d perform live in clubs. That led to recording opportunities and also being able to perform at the Japan Music Week Launch Party. I couldn’t have planned for a better outcome or better time.”

From the get go I’m surprised by Kiko’s enthusiasm and tendency toward hyperbole.

The word ‘love’ resurfaces again and again and everything she tells me is told with the energy and vibrancy of an artist left somehow uncrushed by the horrors of the music industry.

“Creativity by no means stops at song writing!” she exclaims laughing in response to me asking how she balances the business with the art. “It’s not even about having a good voice either. It comes down to how you are with people, venues, producers, how you design your image, what message you want to share, communicating with agents, managers, being clear, how you do your book keeping, whether you keep the receipts… I used to hate that stuff, but now see it as a creative challenge, like song writing.”

That’s definitely a healthy way of looking at it. I wish I could have the same approach to cleaning my toilet. Maybe if I looked at it like restoring a historical monument.

Anyway I digress. It’s obvious that Kiko is a woman not to be trifled with, yet at the same time I don’t think you could find a better project partner anywhere. She sort of reminds me of that kid at school who did all the work in the group project. A valuable asset.

Speaking of teamwork, aside from her solo career Kiko eagerly pursues co-writing opportunities with other songwriters. “I really enjoy co-writing and

have a lot of fun with it. Over the last 2 years I have made some great contacts with producers where writing is fun and effortless. It's relationships like that I like to nurture and continue to work with.

We blend our production styles and my vocals.

Something about those relationships is priceless and very creative.”

Such relationships spread beyond even our humble borders with the globe-trotting songstress strumming up work with producers and artists as well as her guitar when she’s on tour. “Whilst in Japan I also met a few Japanese producers who were interested in writing tracks together which we can quite easily do across shores. There is also a producer in Brazil I am currently writing with as well as a few Sydney producers of varying production styles I’m writing tracks with. More likely for their releases though, but some of those songs may end up on Kiko releases.”

Her most recent release Like No Other is out now, although it seems that waiting for it to be released was the hardest part about the whole process.

“I’m not the most patient person and that EP has been ready for while, though with travelling it has not been the right time to release. I feel complete and satisfied, relieved and excited it’s getting out now. I’m curious and scared to see how it will be received.”

Just like the aforementioned workaholic child, Kiko seems to be unable to take any time off. Concerned for her health I suggest she should take a holiday from song writing and chill out.

“It’s not something I can stop. It’ll invade my sleep and I‘ll shrivel up and die if I leave it for too long. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane and balanced.”

Classic workaholic response. Do yourself and Kiko a favour and go see her when she launches her album at Notes on Enmore Road This Friday July 3rd and tell her to settle down.

Her new album Like No Other is out now.

sharehouse zombie

apocalypse

I

by jesse hayward

t is 2009, December. Two months after the zombie apocalypse rained bemusement and inconvenience down upon the people of Australia. Our homeland security defences fell easily; none were prepared for the menace of the walking dead. Rohan Harris, the writer and director at the core of Expect Problems Productions, talks to us about his prophetic series and dispels rumours of involvement in a zombie-raising conspiracy.

We are sitting outside the Crown hotel in the city with a few beers and a couple of shotguns. There is a crowd of zombies pushing ineffectually against the low, relatively weak barrier made of shrubs that separates the licensed area from the crazed madness of the zombie apocalypse. Every so often one of them manages to climb atop the terracotta pot containing the plants, at which point we use the shotgun to disperse them over a wide area. It’s fun, if nothing else.

Zombies. They’re slow, walking corpses. Are they really that much of a problem? To the seven people trapped in the sharehouse of Sharehouse Zombie Apocalypse, they’re more of a logistical issue, making missions to the shop slightly more fraught with danger than usual. Rohan has, of course, thought about the items necessary for survival after the dead rise.

“Toilet paper is a must. Not only is it good for hygienic reasons, but if you get bored and the zombies end up being more 'Sharehouse Zombie Apocalypse' than '28 Days Later', then you can use your spare toilet paper to dress up some Zombies as an Egyptian Mummy.

You know - just for fun! Secondly, you'd need tins of food with a long shelf life - baked beans are good.

And thirdly, you'd need a large collection of industrial strength rubber bands. That way, you can use your cans of baked beans as ammunition for a rubberband-based anti-zombie can-launcher!”

Rohan picks up one of the shotties and fires it directly into the face of a huge zombie wearing a muumuu.

The zombie’s head explodes and she (it?) falls backwards, scattering the mob of undead. Rohan is obviously a quick shot. “Our shoot was about 7-8 days in total, spread over weekends. We filmed the entire block of 7 episodes in one batch, spread over that time - so, in fact, Episode 1 was one of the last episodes to have a rough cut completed.”

SZA is a masterpiece of amateur production. The cinematography is raw, yet clear. The ambience is mundane and realistic. The acting is just extroverted enough to be comic while the dry humour of Rohan’s writing keeps the episodes on the right side of farce. ”Most of the actors in SZA are relatively fresh - Symon (Clay) had never acted before, and my only experience was bit parts in my other projects, which I'd originally taken because another actor became unavailable at short notice. Steven O'Donnell (Mike Hattrick) has quite a bit of experience as an actor - I think his first appearance in a film was in a brief scene with Geoffrey Rush in 'Swimming Upstream' - something he loved so much it convinced him to pursue it professionally. Lara (Skyler) had done stage work before doing SZA with us, much like Kurtis (Mole) did before his move into (almost exclusively doing) film projects.”

Kurtis Wakefield is not only brilliant with a shotgun, but he acts good and does other stuff good too. “Kurtis' most important job as co-director was to effectively take over as director whenever I was on-screen.

Because, while it's one thing to know what you want in terms of shots, coverage and performance, it's almost impossible for someone without years of experience to manage lines and performance on top of directing the performance of the scene. So, for those scenes where I'm on camera we'd discuss what the important beats and tone we wanted were, and then he'd then take over. As for scenes we shared together - well, those we had to spend a bit more time on.”

The series is complete now, and the first episode is available to watch on Musicfeeds.TV so check it out.

Rohan is not resting on his laurels however. “We'd love to make a second season of Sharehouse Zombie Apocalypse, if we can raise enough from donations to fund the shoot - the scripts, as written, are a bit more logistically complicated than season one. That's a bit of a fun side-project, however. Ideally, our next project will be one of the features we've been developing over the last twelve months. Just which one will probably be determined by the kind of budget we're able to wrangle - but they're both dry & dark comedies, much like Sharehouse Zombie Apocalypse.”

The interview over, we stand to leave. Cocking our shotguns, we walk out into a world without immediately available hygienic disposables. May Satan have mercy on our souls.

OUCH MY FACE

FAIT ACCOMPLI and ZEAHORSE PHOTOS BY KURT DAVIES

O.M.F FAIT ACCOMPLI + ZEAHORSE CLUB 77 THURSDAY 25TH JUNE PHOTOS BY KURT DAVIES REVIEW BY MIKEY CARR.

I love Club 77. It’s filthy red walled rooms are hallowed halls to any underage drinker or substance obsessed teenagers from central Sydney because of it’s dedication to putting on scabby punk music and skull simmering psych, kraut, shoegaze and any other obscure variant on rock you can throw a vomit soaked packet of Camels at.

It’s true they did lose their way with the fluoro fuelled vapid expanse of sweaty flesh and low self esteem that was Bang Gang, and it’s true they do still play host to their own fair share of bad shit, but for Christ sake it has fucking character in spades and on a Thursday night the music rocks.

With previous nights offering such luminous acts such as I like cats, Warhorse, The Goons Of Doom and others, on the night in question I arrived ready to be blown headfirst up my ass by power-punk three piece Ouch My Face and their worthy supports Zeahorse and Fait Accompli.

First up were Zeahorse who despite the fact the room was nearly empty, delivered a set so powerful it’d have Chuck Norris running home to change his tampon. I cannot stress how fucking good this band is. They take 90s grunge and pre-punk and post punk and throw it all together with a bit of psychedelia and shoegaze (look how many genres I can reference, la di da) into a heaving pile of rhythm, distortion, feedback and energy and bring it crashing down all over the stage like a busload of disabled giraffes. And once they pry themselves up from the mass of spotted limbs and whining amps they dive straight into another bought of blissful sonic somersaults.

Go see them live; the recordings on their MySpace don’t do it justice.

Next up was Fait Accompli. Taking to the stage with lots of energy and gusto, the Sydney three piece crashed through the set with bassist and Goons Of Doom guitarist Killer delighting the crowd with his theatrics including playing with a bottle of Cooper’s Green and doing a bit of a feed back dance that ended in a colourful and distortion filled squat slam of his bass into the amp.

Ouch My Face were last on stage and with this being the first of three gigs the Melbourne band would be playing in Sydney the room was less packed than it should have been. Regardless a few filthy loyalists were in attendance, hunched over their drinks looking weary faced and bleary eyed, before being knocked out of their seats by the musical sledgehammer of rusty gold that is singer Celeste Potter’s near possessed presence on stage.

While in between songs Celeste sounds shy and sweet, the minute she launches into some of her thrillingly jarring vocals she changes into a shining Valkyrie of punk glory. Lines like “I’m trading my good senses for the things I hate the most,” when filled with the energy Potter has in her delivery are truly decimating to that part of your brain that tells you not to rock out like a man deranged.

Another part of what makes this band so special is Celeste and bassist Steven Huf’s evil use of effects and feedback and the positively demonic results they churn out at high decibels. Watching the band play two days later at The My Filthy Riot Save FBi Show, I saw Zeahorse singer/guitarist/ pedal-wizard Morgan Anthony staring in glee at Celeste’s confident foot work on the effects.

All in all despite the poor attendance this was one of the five best indie gigs I’ve seen this year. Thursdays at 77 deliver again.

21

“I

jordie lane

do have to settle down,” Jordie Lane explains about his on tour behaviour. “I have a long way to go still, and I shouldn't have had so many beers after some gigs, but it’s hard when you're in a pub. What else are you meant to do?”

Damn straight Jordie, damn straight.

“The best thing about the road though is you can start fresh again each new place and even if its a trick of the mind, it makes you fell rejuvenated as you go.”

Rejuvenation of the slumberous sort is of particular relevance to Jordie Lane’s music, specifically to his debut LP Sleeping Patterns.

“Ever since I was born I have loved staying up as late as I could, and being a full time muso means I can still do that... So it should be pretty obvious that I hate mornings... But the irony of this album is that much of it was written in the early morning, although I must admit that is from staying up all night,” he concedes with a laugh.

by mikey carr

When asked about whether his reluctance to tuck in at night might have had an effect on the song writing he’s emphatic in his response.

“Oh most definitely! You tend to have different phases of drowsiness, then manic bursts, then dark thoughts.

These are all complimented by the fact that you get this overwhelming feeling that you have the power of the whole world all to yourself when everyone else is sleeping, like some hippy spiritual thing, tapping into some kind of unseen energy source.”

The album itself is a timeless wander down familiar roads of blues, country and folk, somehow given new life by being seen through Jordie’s weary and bleary eyes.

“I really like the idea that the music comes across as timeless. I listen to a lot of old music, but I spend a lot of time indulging in modern pop culture in the form of television and internet and maybe its that combination which makes it hard to put it in a time specific basket.”

Currently on tour, and as mentioned before needing a bit of a break from the ah, “rigours” of life on the road, Jordie reflects on the place the madness started. The Melbourne album launch.

“It was a great weekend. Sold 2 shows out, but I think some people were disappointed because I had announced that it was a sleep over (in the theme of the album title and all), and some folk brought their sleeping bags with them. But the venue weren't to happy about people crashing. So lets just say it was like a bomb site on the day after at my house. I couldn't let them freeze in the streets?”

Having recorded Sleeping Patterns with of host of veteran Melbourne musos I eagerly ask if Jordie will be bringing any friends along.

“Well No. When we all get rich and famous we can take a 20 piece melbourne super band around the world, but till then, much of my touring is solo, or putting together local musos to form the band... And might I say Jeremy Edwards and George from The Dust Radio band are bloody brilliant playing my stuff.”

With a reputation for delivering an amazing live show I ask Jordie to explain what makes one of his gigs different from the album. “I have a lot more songs I do and I'd say I think the live thing is more what I’m good at , than recording to be honest. I've done so much over the years and I love playing with the audience and interacting with them...

Rather than just song, song, sip of water, song.”

With an already weight plate of achievements on his sturdy musical dining table Jordie seems relaxed and confident about the future, an attitude both rare and envied by most on the music industry right now.

“It's a great feeling to have the album done. There’s a sense of relief definitely, and also a sense of closure.

Many songs on there have been written over a long period of time and to have them out there on a record gives it almost like a stamp that says "there you go Jordie, you can move onto something new now.”

And move he will with a host of different projects on the horizon. “Well looks like I'll be doing many collaborative project. A pop album and a blues record… oh and I would like to make a film… and be a goats cheese farmer.”

Sure mate, get some sleep.

Jordie’s debut LP Sleeping Patterns is out now and be sure to catch him when he plays The Vanguard with Lamplight, Lanie Lane and Adrian Deutsch this Saturday July 4th.

23

ZEAHORSE CLUB 77

BY KURT DAVIES

brendan welch

I

by mikey carr & corinne o'keefe

’m not gonna lie to you - Brendan Welch is a hard person to get to know. Self-confessed “elusive, mysterious lone gunman” (a mouthful, I know) - he doesn’t let on much.

Talking to him over the phone, our conversation goes back and forth in dribs and drabs and you can tell Brendan isn't used to having to talk himself up.

"The Gleaner is my first LP," he tells me. "The record’s actually been done for more than a year.

We’ve taken our time, so it’s more a release than anything."

See, modest. The album he so grandly describes as his 'first EP' was produced and co-written by Something For Kate's Paul Dempsey and has been earning Mr Welch quite the reputation as a heartfelt troubadour, having drawn comparisons to the likes of Johnny Cash, Willy Nelson and Townes Van Vandt.

It seems this modesty extends to his approach to performance as Brendan prefers to remain aloof from the scene, standing on his own feet rather than hanging on to the coat tails of a fad or movement.

"Melbourne itself is great for starting out," says Brendan as he explains how he got going as a performer. "I used to play open stage nights. That’s probably the closest I’ve been to being part of the scene. But I have to say I’m not really in the scene, I do it a bit on my own. I really should get out there more and make connections.”

chicks on speed by carrie fellner. PHoto by Matti Hillig.

“W

e do a lot of things most people would be ashamed of all the time,” admits Melissa Hogan, lead singer of female outfit ‘Chicks on Speed’ “But shame is not in my terminology ever since I humped a car in the pouring rain for our film Visitors... I mean traffic stopped, you do not stop traffic in NYC. Ever.”

In a scene where bands tend to take themselves a little too seriously, Chicks on Speed are a much-needed breath – or shall we say gust – of fresh air. In fact, the band found its humble roots as a joke act; parodying other bands by carting around their own smorgasbord of fake merchandise (including a t-shirt, cassette tape and paper record).

In 2009 they are producing eccentric, irresistibly catchy dance tunes that land somewhere between The Teenagers, CSS and The Prodigy…on speed.

“We think it is a healthy strategy to exaggerate or say the unusual and then before you know it, it becomes common place.

Culture must move ahead,“ says lead singer Melissa.

Chicks on Speed have just released their fifth album, Cutting the Edge. Having shared the stage with flamboyant contemporaries Peaches and Le Tigre they see themselves as a ‘musical collective’ and this album was no different: “It was great working with Douglas Gordon, because, being an art star, he reminded us of pop pleasures. The instant feed back, the delivering of a show in the moment,” In the meantime Chicks on Speed have been on an amphetamine-fuelled frenzy of activity. As well as running their own record label, Chicks on Speed Records, they set up art exhibitions, design clothes, and have written a book.

If that hasn’t blown your experimental radar they have even created their own kooky set of instruments, ‘Objekt Instruments’, including a high-heeled shoe guitar. I asked Melissa where such a bizarre idea came from?

“For a while we took a guitar, just to play it in 'we don’t play guitars' that was fun, but too ironic to last too long. Then we took our miked up cigar box and the sewing machine more seriously. This lead on to more and more.”

Despite the band’s do-it-yourself style, they don’t limit themselves to a niche audience and are open to releases on major record labels: “We licence all the time, to films or commercials or anything, we don't say no.

Our first job is as artists and the purpose is for music to be heard. We like the music to be used in other people's work, we embrace being part of the world we live in, though we are not satisfied with a lot of things.”

With such a gargantuan workload, perhaps the band’s moniker is more fitting than I originally thought?

“Sometimes the brain does hurt, but it is the kind of pleasurable pain of a good hard run.

"What is important is that the projects bleed into each other. The fashion is the art, the museum is the celebration of live art, the contemporary, pop becomes activism and the Girl Monsters invade the ivory tower of theory with a street edge and humour,” smiles Melissa.

Of course, she admits, it’s early days yet. ’”We still really want to build a building, of course this would require being on to one project for a few years intensively, so perhaps for that we have to wait until some of the speed wears off.”

“I don’t know,” he continues mid thought. “To me it’s a ver y private thing. I’ve never been in a band or worked with other people.”

Private or not, Brendan has managed to bring himself to spread his musical wings, having played to a sold out audience for his Melbourne launch for The Gleaner. As Sydney is the next target on the horizon for this lone gunman of song, with Welch bringing up support and backing band Plastic Palace Alice, I ask him what he’s expecting for the Harbour city.

“I looking for ward to coming up to Sydney.

The Plastic Palace Alice Partnership is going pretty well - the bass player’s my housemate so we’ve spent a lot of time together.”

“I’m also finishing up writing a newer batch of songs,” he continues. “I’ve probably about enough to do another record already… but I don’t really know how long you’re meant to give,” he chortles lightly. “There’s never a plan… but I think things generally work out as long as you pay attention.”

With all the attention he’s getting though I think Brendan won’t be a lone gunman for ver y much longer.

Be sure to catch Brendan when he plays The Hopetoun on July 10th.

The Gleaner is out now.

24

Hymn To The Immortal Wind is by no means an exception to this, with Taka writing the score for a 24 piece orchestra.

Picking up some darts Taka proceeds to explain where the idea to use an orchestra originated..

“I love classical music so I had wanted to work with an orchestra for a long time,” Taka tells me throwing a bullseye first try, before squeezing two more in next to it. “ However, it's still important to us that we can still make the same music just as a quartet, which is why I arranged the songs so that we could play them by ourselves on tour as well.”

“When I wrote the score, it was really complicated and I was not sure how it would sound live with the real orchestra,” he explains quietly as he leaves the table and motions for me to follow him into the next room. “But we were so happy when we started recording in the studio because everything synchronized just as we'd imagined and the emotion of the live players was beautiful.”

You’d assume that having to wrap your head around so many instruments would mean the band had to suffer through unending coffeefuelled recording sessions, staying up till all hours fine tuning the reverb on the piccolos and making sure the French horn doesn’t sound too pompous. You’d be wrong.

BY MIKEY CARR

S

itting at his living room table deftly removing pieces from a Jenga tower as he simultaneously solves his fifth sudoku square of the day, Mono founder Takaakira ‘Taka’ Goto greets me warmly into his home, never once stopping what he’s doing.

Having formed over ten years ago, over that time Mono have proven themselves to be one of the most forward thinking and progressive bands working in music today. Their most recent album,

25

“Actually our recording sessions go by really quickly with Steve. Normally we start recording at noon and finish around 10 pm. We prefer to have a few fresh takes instead of dragging it on. So we really just need a couple sessions to record all of our songs. We spent 12 days to make Hymn, including the orchestra sessions and mixing,” he explains casually removing the darts, repeating his triple perfect score and moving into the next room. “I don't think we drank that much coffee,” he adds as I enter the room to find him working on two computers at once.

The Steve to which Taka is referring to is Steve Albini, a living legend who not only recorded and produced Nirvana’s In Utero, The Dirty Three’s Ocean Songs and Pixies’ Surfer Rosa (no to mention countless others) but also founded

and fronted underground post-punk legends Shellac. Albini has been working with the band since their third album Walking Cloud And Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered And The Sun Shined, and according to Taka is the real reason why the band manages to churn out orchestral recordings so quickly.

“Before we met Steve, we didn't feel as comfortable during recording sessions because there were not many people who understood the sound we wanted to create,” Taka recounts as pages of equations fly over both screens at an alarming speed.

“Our relationship has definitely grown stronger over the years - it's usually minimal discussion and we get right down to business - and Steve

really understands our music and how we want to portray it in recordings. He allows us the freedom we need and then does his part so well, it's wonderful teamwork.”

With Albini and the band both sharing a deep love of and loyalty to analogue recording, the fact that Hymn’s score called for a 24 piece orchestra didn’t at all dissuade them from recording live to tape.

“It's really important to us that our recordings mirror our live sound as much as possible. This is why we are always playing together during recording sessions, as if it were our live show.”

At this point the equations stop and Taka moves over to a strange looking metal oblong in the

corner, pressing a big red button with Japanese characters on it and dropping a handful of what look like metal shavings into a slot on top. “Even though I think digital sound is beautiful for many bands,” he continues, speaking a little louder so as to be heard over the violent bubbling sound emanating from the oblong, “I just feel it does not suit our sound very well.

As he finishes his statement, the bubbling sounds stops and there is a loud pop, sort of like the sound of pulling your legs out of mud, and Taka moves back over to oblong, leaving the game of Tetris he just started on pause. He puts his hand into a small whole on the side and pulls out a gold nugget.

Shit, what can’t he do.

“I really love the organic sounds of old film scores or Led Zeppelin because they are less polished. I suppose it adds some sort of timeless and realistic quality about it. Somehow I feel like digital sounds make the emotion in our songs weaker and too different from our live show. When we all play together during recording, I can feel the energy of the other members and feel that we are creating something as a band. I love this moment.”

Mono’s Hymn To The Immortal Wind is out now on Valve Records through MGM and keep your eyes peeled for a tour later this year, their show a few years back at Manning was biblical.

26

aleks and the ramps

A

leks and the Ramps have been doing a lot lately. Touring the nation after releasing their album Midnight Believer, they found time to grab an office and fire up the speakerphone to tell me about their music and their love of deep friend confectionery.

Their creation, much like my creation, was an accident, Aleks tells me.

“Well it was a little bit of an accident, I recorded an EP on my own, then got some friends in to help. I got my friend Simon to mix it, he is now in the band. Then we figured we’d form a temporary band so we could launch the EP, like a one off show.”

What the band didn’t plan for was the stunning success of their EP Launch, the music quickly embraced by the scarf-wearing, Coopers Pale-drinking crowd of Brunswick.

“People seemed to like the music, and I don’t know how the fuck it happened but somehow there were heaps of people there, and I got kind of freaked out.

So I went for a walk and had a snickers to avoid Mick Turner from the Dirty Three, cause I fucking love that band. Deep fried snickers ease the nerves.”

by thomas mitchell

This mention of deep fried chocolate sparks a tenminute debate on whether snickers or mars bar is better deep-fried. For the sake of convenience I’ve edited the transcript but for the record, Mars Bar came out on top.

While the rest of the band presumably sits in a refugee camp on the USA-Canada border being subjected to cruel punishment, Aleks is here talking to me, explaining how the band gets their strange sound.

Anyway, it’s clear the band is very tight, and their international adventures have only strengthened the bond. They recently popped over to New Zealand for a quick visit.

“We’re five people who listen to lots of different music, so when we get together we can’t just say, lets sound like this, and we don’t want to do that. In terms of songwriting, there are so many types of music floating around. I listen to Neil Diamond, I like him, but I don’t think he is an influence.”

Moving away from chocolate just briefly, I wanted to know about the tour. They recently rocked out at the Hoey, and are heading off to Hobart, Adelaide and Melbourne. It’s almost nationwide!

While Neil Diamond is probably kicking himself, it’s great for the rest of us. The unique sound of the Ramps hasn’t gone unnoticed. Their single Antique Limb, is getting high rotation on radio and thus far Aleks is pleased with the progress.

“Well it is, if you imagine the nation isn’t as wide as it is. Say it extends to Adelaide only. And Sydney. And Hobart. Melbourne too, obviously.”

The set list will be tastier then a mars bar (deep fried or otherwise), packed with songs from the new album, which was recorded, mainly in a shed? According to the bio. I’ll get Aleks to sort things out.

“We went to NZ earlier this year. I definitely think NZ-ers are different, they heckle so much more, and they’re drunker and rougher. They’re still funny and friendly, and they bought us drinks and offered us places to stay.”

They then entered Canada and the USA armed with nothing but the adult version of a permission slip from your mum.

“Canada last year. We dipped into the States, into Washington, but illegally. We didn’t tour Canada legally either. We basically had letters from our mums saying we were really nice and just wanted to play some music. Like a permission slip. Although we did have a letter from the festival (North by North East) saying we were exempt from visa requirements.”

“Yeah it’s going well, we’re pretty happy. People seem to like it, I was shown a print out the other day with some statistics and apparently it was the most played song on community radio or something. We beat the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.”

Yeah? “Yeah” I ask Aleks if the band stressed over what single to release, knowing that the song would act as an advertisement for the entire album.

“No way, well yeah. The single is like the bait to lure them in, it is like the mini sized bounty to our pack of Cadbury Celebrations."

That’s the third chocolate reference so far for those counting at home.

“Actually it is true. We did a session in Eastern Bloc studio, in Hawthorn. That was drums, bass and guitar.

Then we did the idiosyncratic stuff and the vocals we saved for when we weren’t spending thousands of dollars, and just recorded them in our shed at the back of our house. The majority of it was done in the shed in Brunswick, but it is important to do the drums properly so we needed the studio time.”

He makes a good point, and when the songs sound that good, who cares if they were recorded in a shed.

Check out www.aleksandtheramps.com for more info.

Midnight Believer is out now through Stomp.

JAPAN PHOTOS BY HUGH ALLAN

34

35

FAT FREDDY'S DROP by jesse hayward

F

at Freddy’s Drop have just given birth to a brand new bouncing baby album, entitled Dr Boondigga & The Big BW. To celebrate, Hopepa and the boys are playing with lego and other educational blocks in their psychedelic funhouse. I interrupt Hopepa as he attempts to place a block atop an impossible, Escher-like structure. His concentration broken, the tower topples and scatters blocks everywhere. Hopepa gives me the crazy eye for a second then begins his building anew.

“We’re really happy to have gotten the baby out, totally stoked to have it done. We were like nervous parents before it came out, seven expectant dads waiting for the final push, right

up to when Lou sent it off to be mastered, we were pacing the hallways. We’re really happy with the response from everyone, it’s been fantastic.”

For those not already fans, the dub seven-piece from Wellington take their name indirectly from the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, a comic created by Gilbert Shelton in 1968 – a time when the name Gilbert was still acceptable.

“Fat Freddy was one of the brothers and there was a strip called Fat Freddy’s Cat which inspired an acid tab in Wellington in the mid to late nineties. That acid was surprisingly strong and seemed to have a big effect on all the people around town.”

That effect seems to extend through the band outwards, in an ever-increasing spiral of musical hysteria. Fat Freddy’s fans can be extreme in their adoration of the band. The last time they played in Sydney the audience kept up a call for an encore long after the boys had left the stage following their first encore. Hopepa tells us at times people can get pretty crazy.

“The time before the last time we played at the Enmore, this woman got up on stage, locked her arms around my waist and wouldn’t let go. She kept yelling in my ear, “I’m never letting you go! I’m never letting you go!” This security guard came on stage and tried to pull her off. I was playing a solo at the time but because she’d locked her arms around my waist I was getting pulled off stage by the security

guard too. I felt a bit sorry for her because she must have been kicked out and missed the rest of the gig.

When we first started it was a Wellington scene, so it was a bit smaller, so it’s really strange to go to a different country and get mauled by fans.”

Though the band has been around for close to ten years now, their first studio album was released in 2006. Since then the group have made great strides towards international fame, garnering favourable press from dub, reggae and soul enthusiasts all over the world.

“Playing Glastonbury was pretty strange. Being kneedeep in mud, walking through the rain and mud with your gear. We were wearing plastic bin liners down to the waist to try to keep our costumes dry

on the way to the stage. Also, playing in crazy little places in Italy to people who don’t know your music was pretty wild. Interesting cultural exchanges like that are great. Playing on a wharf in Poland was very strange. It’s amazing the random places that people know you.”

These blocks and toys belong to Hopepa’s son, a feisty little tyke already set on becoming a star.

“It’s hard to keep him off the stage some times.

You know how, if your father is a truck driver, you want to drive the trucks too, follow in your father’s footsteps, well he’s like that which is pretty sweet.”

Hopepa tells us Fat Freddy’s sound has evolved since their latest offering. The album should surprise and delight current fans and hopefully attract some new ones, with a smattering of everything on display. “We’ve been playing with a lot of different influences and genres. We’re probably more on a soul trip than a reggae trip this time. We’ve even got a couple of up-tempo techno numbers. We’ve kind of just gotten all our toys out of the toybox, gotten all the lego out to play.”

While Fat Freddy’s Drop play often in clubs and pubs where children are inappropriate, Hopepa says he likes it when the kids get a chance to have a dance too. “Outdoor gigs where kids can come along are great. I like the sweaty club gigs but those nice summer days with a park and the kids and picnics and stuff, it just makes for a really nice vibe.”

We should be getting a taste of those vibes again soon. “We’ll let the album marinate for a bit, give people a chance to get to know the songs and we’ll

have a few sessions writing some new stuff and a bit of a winter hiatus and be back with you guys in the summer again for more good vibes.

“We really enjoy doing our own shows where we can stretch it out for a good two hours. The festivals are great for introducing new people to our music and stuff but you need to see our own show to get the full Fat Freddy’s experience. It’s quite hard to squeeze our set into an hour as we only get to play a couple of songs. We tend to stretch our songs out a little bit. When you get into a trance-like state where you’ve been grooving with a song for fifteen minutes, you really start to get inside it. It kinda pisses people off when they’re grooving away to a song, and the song finishes just as they’re getting into it.”

You really must see Fat Freddy’s live. As has been mentioned a few times in this article, the vibe is really good. Hopepa places the last block on the top of his impressive edifice and smiles.

“The album is out and now we can relax.”

Check out the new album from Fat Freddy’s Drop, Mr Boondigga and The Big BW, out now on The Drop through Intertia

37

by MIKEY CARR

“I

was on set one day and this guy and I got in this argument over lube,” porn icon Sasha Grey tells me with a laugh, making me feel even more uncomfortable than before.

We’re sitting across from each other in high back red chairs and I’ve never felt more intimidated by a woman in my life.

Starring in Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, The Girlfriend Experience, Sasha is not your run-of-the-mill porn star. But the film is only part of what sets her aside from her siliconeriddled contemporaries and makes her so intimidating.

Having gone into porn at the tender age of 18 and earning herself a reputation as one of the industry’s most extreme stars when in her first scene she asked porn veteran Rocco Siffredi to punch her in the stomach, Sasha has been garnering a lot of attention from the media due to her enterprising approach to porn as a business as well as her outspoken views on sexuality.

“Our sexuality is still an untapped part of people, of people’s nature,” she explains as I lose myself in her deep brown eyes. “It is the last taboo, it’s the last thing we’re not comfortable to talk about, and I think some people want it to remain taboo because it’s that much more dangerous to them if it’s out in the open because they’re so ashamed.”

“People treat it like it’s something you should talk about behind a curtain with a couple of your friends, but the minute we’re open and honest about it we’re condemned for it. You know, we glorify people like Hugh Hefner and, I mean I have nothing wrong with the man, but once a woman steps forward with her sexuality and she’s independent and liberated and she’s young and has goals and aspirations, then she’s a slut. Ok fine, you can place your judgements on me but I don’t have to subscribe to them.”

She finishes her answer and I’m left stumbling for my next question, having left them somewhere in her eyes or cleavage.

Regaining my senses, I ask her about what made her want to move into porn in the first place.

“I was going to college and I was working full time. I was really busy and I really had no time to myself so when I did I would watch a lot of porn,” she giggles, “and to put it simply I saw a blank canvas that needed to be painted.”

“I saw porn as an opportunity to continue to explore my sexuality in a really safe environment and to encourage men and women to not be ashamed of who they are.

I’m not saying, hey everyone get into to porn and not feel ashamed you know, I’m just saying I’m one of the people to say ‘hey it is ok,’ because there are very few younger female, sex-positive icons for other young females to relate to.”

OUCH MY FACE CLUB 77

BY KURT DAVIES

Managing to hold onto my wits by picturing Barry Humphries and Burt Newton GrecoRoman wrestling in a vat of creamed corn, the conversation drifts over to her now

famous appearance on The Tyra Banks show where Ms Banks, having conveniently forgotten she founded her career on the psuedo porn that is the Victoria’s Secret catalogue, accused Sasha of having no morals and helping to contribute to the decline of American society.

I don’t know about you but in my eyes just because your breasts are covered by a thousand dollars worth of fabric doesn’t make them anymore artistic than a pair covered in a few mls of semen.

“The whole thing with that show is, I knew going into it they were going to exploit me, and I was fine with that because I got something out of it. We both used it each other, but in the end was I pissed off? Yes, of course, they didn’t show the things I really spoke about which is the most frustrating part of it, not being called a slut.”

“The funny thing is though, that that was two years ago, you know, I’m over it but I still get people contacting me all the time saying I saw you on Tyra and I loved what you said etc, so it’s strange how things like that can work out.”

And work out it has with Sasha moving on to projects such as The Girlfriend Experience, while Tyra remains the impotent queen of her tiny kingdom of daytime talk. The film itself, which sees Sasha playing the part of Chelsea, a high priced escort who offers her clients not just sex but a simulated relationship, is one of Soderbergh’s most experimental and innovative films to date.

Shot with a 4K-Red digital camera that’s so light sensitive that only two scenes in the film need lighting other than what was naturally in the room, it was all shot in 16 days on a budget of US$1.7 million.

He also decided to cast non-professional actors in the roles, using a script that was more of an outline with which the actors were encouraged to improvise. The result is that the conversations in the film play out like conversations in real life with the characters speaking over each other and stumbling on their words.

“I think that’s part of the beauty of this film, it’s not supposed to be perfectly scripted with everybody saying the right thing at the right time.”

Much like my abysmal attempt at an interview. Once again caught in my own web of arousal induced brain shutdown I decide to wrap things up, make a few clumsy attempts at asking her out for a drink and take my leave.

Talking to her was interesting and exciting but as I’m leaving the room an all too familiar pain strikes me. The pain of walking away from a gorgeous confident woman who you know you’ll never get to fuck.

God I’m pathetic.

The Girlfriend Experience will be out in September through Icon Film Distribution, but be sure to head to tube8.com if you want to see some of her other films.

38

augie march by mikey carr

“I

think generally we’re pretty true to the album versions,” Augie March keyboardist Kiernan Box tells me in reference to how the band approach playing live. “There’s usually a reasonable preoccupation with reproducing parts from the album, but on the last tour we did – the acoustic tour where we just played at some smaller, more candle-lit venues - we really tried to reinvent the songs from the recorded versions, you know changed the temp, the arrangements, maybe for the first time.”

With the band releasing their fourth studio album last year and having already completed two national tours since then, it’s understandable that Kiernan is eager to be able to have a bit of a play around with the songs, especially since the band’s song writing process has gotten progressively tighter since their third album Moo You Bloody Choir.

“I hope for this next tour that we’re doing we can do more of that - introduce a bit more of that freedom. You’re probably right, that over time the band has become a little more perfectionist - that’s a nice way of saying it - a little less improvised and more planned.

But for this next tour that we’re doing we’re just trying to represent every era of the band, so we’ll go back to look at Sunset Studies and Strange Bird, but cos it’ll be the last tour for a while I think there might be a little bit of trying to loosen the belt a bit and let it all hang out a little more.”

But a loose belt might not be the best option for the band considering the pounds they must be shedding with their tireless touring.

“Yeah look, we’ve been solid but we haven’t been relentless,” he assures me putting to bed my anxiety over loosing the band to stress induced aneurisms. “We’ve done two tours of our own and quite a lot of special appearances and festivals, as well as a couple of supports… I mean we’ve been out there but it hasn’t been insanely busy - it’s not like a couple of years ago when we were tyring to get somewhere in America - we were going to the states every few months, that was hard.

We’ve been doing it a little more at our own pace this time.”

However doing it at their own pace isn’t always so easy, like when the band flew to Auckland to record their latest album Watch Me Disappear.

“We had problems,” he explains in a calm tone of acceptance. “We had trouble getting in a sort of musical groove with that record, I think it took a lot longer than we intended.

But going away changing the backdrop, taking yourself out of your comfort zone - they’re all good things for recording. Having said that, I think next time we’d probably go the other way and do it in a more comfortable way, close to home, not so intense. But that always happens with records, whatever you did last time you want to do it different next time. You’re constantly trying to reposition yourself.”

Things weren’t always this way with recording though as Kiernan describes his first experience working with the band on their 2001 offering Strange Bird.

“I have very fond memories of how that came together. It was very intuitive. There was a lot of rehearsing for it and a lot of prep and a lot of thought went into it but in the end it just sort of clicked, we didn’t have any sort of difficult midwifery issues. It was an easy delivery,” he surmises with a well-earned hint of satisfaction at the metaphor. “Whereas the album after that seemed a lot more difficult,” he continues.

“It just didn’t happen as spontaneously, as magically as that one.”

Nearing the end of our time I ask what the band have planned after the tour.

“Well, I don’t know,” he replies, “we have been fairly busy, there hasn’t been a lot of time to really think about that. I know Glen Richards, the lead signer and songwriter has a strong desire to do a solo record so I would expect to see that before too long.”

“I’m working on a couple of albums - one with a band and one which is a little more of a duo project I’ve got going. You know, I hope everyone continues musical projects but it’s quite possible they won’t. It can take it out of you, being in a band and I’d understand if people wanted to do something totally different.”

Let’s hope not.

Be sure to check out Augie March when their Watch Me Set My Strange Sun You Bloody Choir tour hits the Metro on July 17.

ZEAHORSE CLUB 77

BY KURT DAVIES

40

41

B

ased in Melbourne, Paul Housden, Edward Housden, Geno Carrapetta and James Ratsasane have got themselves a band with some serious duds and musical ways (“Apocalyptic Disco Noir”. Their words.)

They also have an extremely decent explanation of how they got together: “Paul and I have known each other the longest, being brothers and all.” keys man Edward told us via internet electricity.

“We then met Geno, who was just stepping out of a gothic haze. The three of us then willed ourselves to meet the most psychedelic bass player going round. It was then that Jimmy mysteriously materialised before us.”

That’s rad, but why the name?

“Well the band is actually named after an Italian dish, Volpe Su Fuoco. Poor villagers in the farmlands of Southern Italy would catch a fox and literally light it on fire before eating it. These days it’s considered a delicacy.”

Now, I’m 80% sure this is bullshit, and I know it must be, and Google’s telling me that I’m probably right, and they’ve previously said they’re named after 80’s UK icon Paul Fox x, but I just can’t bring myself to call it. And anyway, listen to their music and maybe you’ll agree that there’s something fitting about the image of hungry peasants chasing around an animal (Read: their single, Mission Abort).

You might not hear the “Apocalyptic disco-noir for the dance floor and explosive cosmic-psychedelia” they say their live style encompasses, but you can’t say they’re not tight, eclectic and fun as hell.

To top this off, the dudes have got some potent head brains in their already talentfilled skulls (Edward is a filmmaker, Paul is a psychologist, James is an artist and Geno is a philosopher), plus they have all the tight suits and looks to drive the people wild and they know how to commit to it all: “Once, whilst performing at the Berlin Lounge in the Gold Coast, during our set finale, Geno overzealously jumped off his drum kit into a low hanging chandelier, causing severe burns to his arm.”

But what can we get if we vote for them?

Maybe you, the darling listener, want something more than just the satisfaction that you helped some talented guys get to a well deserved spot. Well be heartened, Scrooge, because Edward laid it down for us.

“Firstly, people should vote for us so that we can win the competition. Secondly, we’re kind of struggling at the moment financially, we really need that money just to eat.”

“And finally, if people do vote for us, they can come and hang out with us on the yacht we’ll be buying with the $25,000.”

So there you are, a promise to risk starvation in the name of getting you boated up.

How does that make you feel? Taking all the glamour while the band will probably have to rely on their talent, the Splendour gig, some impressive non-musical skills and their (very possibly fictionalised) Volpe Su Fuoco.

But maybe that sounds ok to you.

Check out the guys at myspace.com/fox xonfire and be sure to catch them in the final of uncharTED on Thursday 9th July @ Oxford Art Factory.

43

by mikey carr

“I

t’s a pretty ridiculous, synth driven, massively produced sci-fi epic… but it’s not a concept album,” Johnny, lead singer/ guitarist of The Galvatrons tells me of the band’s debut album, Lazer Graf fitti.

‘No 3 minute long ambient synth interludes then?” I ask.

“Just a bit at the end where me and Gamma disappear up our own asses for about 15 mins, but you’re allowed to do that on the last track.”

Yet despite how proud of the album the boys are, they are quick to highlight that it’s not going to re-invent Rock n Roll and that it is ver y much an album they won’t make again.

“We’re under no illusions, this is the sor t of record you only make once, and I think we put ever ything that we wanted to put in this record all that finishing high school sor t of stuf f. But yeah I think there are a lot of bands who make this record three or four times and we’re not going to be one of those bands.”

With a live show rife with joking around and other onstage silliness, the band have been accused by some as being nothing more than another Darkness-esque fad destined to fade like their colour ful jumpsuits.

FAIT ACCOMPLI CLUB 77

BY KURT DAVIES

While some bands might be discouraged by such hateful remarks, The Galvatrons on the other hand seem positively stoked about it.

“Yeah you want people to either love or hate you,” Johnny explains. “You don’t want that middle of the road thing. No one wants that.”

“Besides,” bassist Condor interjects, “if people hate you they’re talking about you, so they’re promoting you, you win,” he laughs.

Having become accustomed to the delicate egos and airbr ushed self-image of most bands today, this attitude comes as a breath of fresh air to this jaded and bitter journo. However, regardless of how refreshing such a view is, one has to doubt what ar tist tell you so I inquired fur ther about how and why they spor t such a nonchalant perspective toward criticism.

“By not giving it a shit really,” synth lord Gamma divulges with a quiet giggle. “It’s the easiest way to go about it really, just say this is what we do, we’re just going to have fun doing it. The lauding or the derision comes later.”

The band also earned themselves quite a reputation as time travellers from the future sent back to the past to revive the flailing flag of rock.

Eager to find out why a band from the future would make music that sounds like it’s from the 80s, I pushed Johnny to tell me what their orders from the day after tomorrow were.

“We’re not from the future,” he groans most likely having had to say this multiple times already today. “I said that a couple of times at gigs, you know ‘we’re the Galvatrons we’re from the future’ kind of a catchy little thing, I had fun with it you know, it’s not like we’re this massively serious band. But then people star ted writing literal reviews, and asking us about it inter views. We thought it was a bit weird that people sor t of latched onto that.”

A little disappointed at not being regaled with H.G.Wellsian tales of a future gone horribly wrong, I push on, asking what we can expect the Galvatrons to sound like when they finally do get to the future.

“It’s just going to get glitchier I think,” says Gamma. “I think in about 20 years it’s just going to be glitches and bleeps.” Seizure Aphex Halen I suggest to which the band er upts in laughter. “Yeah totally,” Johnny adds, “just big fat synths and guitar over glitches and bleeps. Kids will be air dr umming like this…” he explains by seizuring violently in his chair.

After the rest of the band restrains me from jamming my belt into his mouth in a misguided ef for t to stop him swallowing his tongue, I ask the band about what it’s like to be a Galvatron on tour.

“We’re quite well behaved. We play the show and we go home,” Condor answers all too quickly.

“Bullshit, the last time we played in The Gold Coast, Condor didn’t even come home with us, he just met us in Sydney,” Johnny laughs before continuing. “Yeah Gamma doesn’t even remember the show, there’s a lot of Scotch involved when we play the Gold Coast. But yeah there’s always some sor t of weird shit going on when we’re on tour, then you get back to the hire car and it’s full of lemurs you know, you can’t escape it.”

Surely if anything a Lemur would be quite easy to escape from. But hey who cares, I’m inter viewing them because of their music, not their knowledge on lower primates.

Be sure to check out Lazer Graf fitti when it comes out on July 3rd on Warner Music.

The band will also be touring with Something With Numbers throughout July and August, see myspace/thegalvatrons for more info.

Musicfeeds.tv

online and loving it!

45

by jack vening

H

ot Little Hands (Tim Harvey, James Harvey, Royce Akers, Raph Hammond and Brigitte Hart) is one of those bands with a name you’re surprised hasn’t already been used, because surely everyone knows that it’s just the perfect name for a band, right? And then you might get angry that someone else thought of it first or even Google it to see if these guys took inspiration from some old group. Because shit, it’s a really good name for a band.

and Royce told us. “Where is there a better test than the dance floor? If the people don’t like the music, they don’t hit the floor. This is where HLH sharpened their hooks.”

Luckily, Hot Little Hands aren’t the type to have a cool name and a lacklustre product (i.e. every high school band I was ever in). Despite their three-word summary (“Raw like sushi”), the folks at Hot Little Hands have a wonderfully constructed sound, very self-assured and hard to pin to any one musical setting.

“Tim and James are brothers, James and Raph are best friends since kindergarten, Tim and Royce met through girlfriends and everyone’s friends with Brig.”

“Hot Little Hands started out playing parties - as a celebration of popular music and culture.” Tim

So they may have hooks and a misleading name (though Hot Little Hooks wouldn’t be as sexy, I guess) but that doesn’t stop them from knowing the dynamic of their audience and pursuing it to a wonderful satisfaction. How, then, did these likeminded individuals gravitate together?

Lordy, do I hate incidental meetings of talent.

Where do these people come from? How do they all know each other? Am I in too many tone-deaf circles? And another inter-related band. Maybe same-blood band members are

the answer: just look at Van Halen and, who else, Sonny and Cher? It’s a good recipe.

Fun seems to be paramount for Hot Little Hands, right down to the construction of the music: “Tim is the main song writer, but we all workshop all our parts into one massively fun party.”

And it shows. There doesn’t seem to be a huge amount tying their songs together other than goddamn it makes you want to dance. You don’t even care how. Let it kill you, just do it. What, though, has this culminated in, other than allowing the band a strong shot at twenty-five large?

“A young lady in a gorilla suit once jumped up on stage and dived into the crowd. I think she was after our bananas.”

You may think that’s a silly assumption, but how much time can you have to research apes when you’ve been playing Laneway, supporting Who Made Who, making all the people of Christendom dance, all the while chasing that ultimate goal of “Getting big in Japan, playing Japanese versions of our songs. In Japanese.”

And of course, the final, selfless act of good will, and the real reason for competing: “If we win, you win. And if you win, we win. And if we all win, well, that’s world peace right?”

Well that gets me right [points to chest] here.

Visit the Hot Little Hands over at myspace.com/hotlittlehands and be sure to catch them in the final of uncharTED on Thursday 9th July @ Oxford Art Factory.

Musicfeeds.tv

better than a mango even

47

I

meet Eki ‘Sienis’ Jokisalo outside the entrance of the Psychedelic Circus, a travelling carnival of psychonauts, general freaks and brain-twisting geeks. We pack ourselves to the brim with baby mushies and pelt headlong into the midst of the rabble. Right near the entrance is a sound stage where numerous DJs are lined up to play. Sienis inspects the playlist.

“Most of the music that labels release has become boring and predictable, I want to be surprised! And drop this "morning music", "night music" bullshit and play the music that feels right at that very moment! I must say it’s the lack of true, pure, mindless, unpredictable fun that’s missing from the psy scene.” Eki dances for a bit then runs further into the throbbing crowds.

The first Sienis track I ever heard was Rubbabong, way back when. From the moment I identified the sample in the track as Rowley Birkin QC, a character from the UK sketch program The Fast Show, I was hooked. The combination of funny samples and high-BPM madness allows Sienis to pump some of that missing fun back into the musical scene.

“When I use samples, they are ones that I feel are connected to and that convey the same feeling or thoughts I want to express with my music, but many times I pick them out of context.

The storyline should always be told mainly by the music and the samples need to jive with everything else, not just be there to fill the breaks with COOL.”

OUCH MY FACE CLUB 77

BY KURT DAVIES

Sienis uses many samples from comedy, movies and from cartoons, such as The Simpsons and Invader Zim. “Invader Zim is the most intelligent cartoon I’ve ever had the privilege of watching.

It has become a source of inspiration as well, it’s the most seriously unserious cartoon ever, and that’s how I got the name for my second album, when describing Invader Zim to my friends. I love the way Jhonen Vasquez builds up a mood with

the massive tools of sound and visuals, just to then mess with you once he’s got your undivided attention, simply genius! The first time I saw it my friend had to pause it, cos I was hitting my knee and laughing so hard I could hardly breathe!”

We trawl through the swelling masses and from our brows sweat begins to drip. The mushrooms are kicking in and everything is cloaked in a fine, sparkly mist. I just saw a contortionist stick his head through his legs, and then he seemed to twist through an invisible dimension and disappear. Man, it’s hot. If we were in Sweden, Sienis’ home, perhaps it wouldn’t be so damn hot!

“Overall the people are very friendly in Sweden and you can find some really nice parties. I have to say that I prefer the outdoor forest parties in Sweden (to Australian parties). The club parties on the other hand can get a bit too commercial for my taste. So far I haven’t played at a winter outdoor party but there was one organizer from Finland once asking me to come and play at a forest party in the winter. It never happened probably because they were not sure if enough people would show up. I was really keen on it cause they promised a sauna and bar and everything, it would’ve been quite an experience!”

Sienis’ music is relentlessly upbeat. I saw him perform in the morning at the Metaphysics party last year. Atop the ridge, in the cold air, the sun just starting to come up… People seemed to think the music was going to get all melody-like, all soft and mushy. They were wrong. The beat kicked in and the dance floor lurched – some people left immediately, the tempo just too much. Sienis was playing tracks off the new album and they sounded sublime.

“I love the fact that, with psytrance, there are no rules as to what kind of sounds I can use or how I’m supposed to build my tracks. I love the energy most of it has, the momentum and the

sheer power of it. It’s the only kind of music I can dance to without having to hold back one bit.

But when I’m bored of listening to electronic music I usually fall into stuff like jazz, classical music, Reggae, World music, Finnish tango and any soulful pieces I might find.”

It’s good to see some of that carnival atmosphere coming back to psy parties. Getting the psychedelic back into psytrance. “What I really want to express with music is for people not to take things so goddamned seriously! Everything is at a constant change and I’ve noticed that putting people into a situation where they have to deal with something unexpected, it’s like shaking people into awareness out of the daily habits that we all fall into. Laugh at your own silly habits and reactions to music and daily impulses.

In the end all that really matters is that we all have fun!”

Sienis should be back to perform soon, hopefully.

We can at least rely on the fact that Australia has its hooks into Eki and isn’t going to release him from its clutches of awesome any time soon. “I love the fact that you’re generally so laid back and know that things don’t have to be so serious all the time. I like how the nature is beautiful, strong and keeps you on your toes. I like ‘The Chaser´s War on Everything’ and the fact that you guys have that show called ‘Rage’ that plays any music video you send them, at least once! And finally, you have one of the best upcoming labels in the world called ‘Peyotii Recordings’.”

We leave the carnival, our heads awash with colours and our ears ringing with amazing sights.

Eki has won a plush Machine Elf and I have chilli ice cream in my pants. A good time was had by all.

Sienis’ second album, Seriously Unserious, is out next month through Peyotii Recordings.