MADE IN SYDNEY FEBRUARY 22, 2017
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TH REE YEARS OF
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WHERE HAVE THE Y GOT US?
UNLOCK SYDNEY SYDNEY I WANT U BACK
WE DESERVE DIVERSITY
CUT SH▲PES N OT NSW - THE POLICE STATE C U LT U R E
NO FUN
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HOLY HOLY CHIMER IC A T HE PROV INCI A L A ND MUCH MOR E
CAMERON AVERY
ELECTRIC GUEST
THUNDERCAT
The Tame Impala bassist steps out solo.
"I don't want people to hate Americans because of the idiot in the White House."
Brainfeeder's bass star shares new music with the world.
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“The bottom line is this: Sydney is quieter now. Its streets are emptier, its lights are out.” (12-15) 4
The Frontline
22
Chimerica
6
Industrial Strength
23
Richard 3
8
Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth reveals the torment that inspired their new album
24-25 Inside Jokes, arts reviews, Game On
9
Electric Guest don’t want Donald Trump to leave the rest of the world hating America
32-33 10-11
Cameron Avery, Thunder, Holy Holy
12-15 Three Years Of The Sydney Lockouts: A City Under Siege 16
Album reviews, First Drafts
18-19 Allday poster: win a Groovin the Moo double pass
9
20
Mardi Gras Comedy Festival
21
Out & About
26-27 The Provincial reviewed, how American cuisine took over the world, Bar of the Week 28-30 Live reviews 31
Gig Guide
32-33 Thundercat is the world’s most in-demand bass player, Off The Record 34
Endgrain, beats reviews
“These words don’t describe the music that’s being made right now, they’re inadequate.” (8)
ALLDAY To celebrate Allday’s appearance at Groovin the Moo 2017, the BRAG is giving away a double pass to the soldout Maitland leg of the festival! For your chance to win: 1. Take a selfie with our Allday poster in the centrefold of this week’s BRAG 2. Post it to Instagram, tagging @thebragmag, @alldaychubbyboy and @ groovinthemoo 3. Use the hashtags #bragallday and #gtm2017 4. Follow @thebragmag to find out if you’ve won The best pic wins a double pass to Groovin the Moo at Maitland Showground on Saturday April 29! Competition closes Wednesday March 1
the frontline with Ben Rochlin, Abbey Lenton and Poppy Reid ISSUE 701: Wednesday February 22, 2017 PRINT & DIGITAL EDITOR: Chris Martin chris.martin@seventhstreet.media SUB-EDITOR: Joseph Earp STAFF WRITERS: Nathan Jolly, Adam Norris, Augustus Welby NEWS: Abbey Leonton, Poppy Reid, Ben Rochlin ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant PHOTOGRAPHERS: Ashley Mar, Benjamin Hunt ADVERTISING: Tony Pecotic - 0425 237 974 tony.pecotic@seventhstreet.media PUBLISHER: Seventh Street Media CEO, SEVENTH STREET MEDIA: Luke Girgis - luke.girgis@seventhstreet.media MANAGING EDITOR: Poppy Reid poppy.reid@seventhstreet.media THE GODFATHER: Sam
LIVE AND LOCAL AT PARRA
An action-packed day of live music will hit Parramatta this Saturday February 25 with 40 musicians playing in various pubs, cafes, record stores and places you might not expect. A total of 15 venues will host the live and local acts, including Centenary Square, Crown Hotel, Beatdisc Records and more. Carla Wehbe, Trevor Brown Trio, Abbey Gardner and Waza are among the long list of acts. Find out more at cityofparramatta.nsw. gov.au.
5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche
GIG GUIDE: gigguide@thebrag.com AWESOME INTERNS: Anna Wilson, Harriet Flitcroft, Ben Rochlin, Abbey Lenton REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Nat Amat, Arca Bayburt, Chelsea Deeley, Christie Eliezer, Matthew Galea, Emily Gibb, Jennifer Hoddinett, Emily Meller, David Molloy, Annie Murney, Adam Norris, George Nott, Daniel Prior, Natalie Rogers, Erin Rooney, Spencer Scott, Natalie Salvo, Leonardo Silvestrini, Jade Smith, Aaron Streatfeild, Jessica Westcott, Anna Wilson, Stephanie Yip, David James Young
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5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche, the highly praised comedy stage show, is heading to Glen Street Theatre in Belrose this March. Set during the 1950s, 5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche is a comedy about five women celebrating their annual quiche breakfast, despite the threat of nuclear annihilation. It will star Catherine Alcorn, Lauren Galloway, Lauren Jackson, Ashlee Lollback and Bianca Zouppas and be directed by Nathanael Cooper, following a production of the play that won NY Fringe Festival’s best overall production in 2012. The season runs from Tuesday March 21 – Sunday March 26.
THE TIME HAS COME
Melbourne metal band Twelve Foot Ninja are gearing up for a show at Manning Bar as part of their national Sick Tour, which is under way now. Twelve Foot Ninja will hit Sydney’s Manning Bar on Saturday March 11 for another instalment of nasty noise. The five-piece from Melbourne have been bringing their tunes to fans since 2012, even supporting Disturbed on their 2016 tour of Australia. On the program is a lineup of new releases, Australian premieres and a weekly classic for Throwback Thursday. Highlights include The Lego Batman Movie, A Cure For Wellness, The Boss Baby, A Few Less Men, Trolls and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Sydney’s Moonlight Cinema is held at the Belvedere Amphitheatre in Centennial Park. It finishes up on Sunday April 2.
Midnight Oil
Frontier Touring has announced the Midnight Oil news we’ve been waiting for since 2002. The band’s new world tour, The Great Circle, will run for six months, starting with a special pub gig in Sydney (to be revealed) and closing at The Domain. It marks the band’s biggest tour since the release of fourth album 10-1 in 1982. The classic Oils lineup will also take in Coffs Harbour, the Hunter Valley, Canberra, Cairns, Rockhampton, the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Alice Springs, regional Victoria and Darwin. Pre-sale tickets are available this Thursday February 23. See the Oils at The Domain on Saturday November 11 with John Butler Trio and A.B. Original.
5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche photo © Dylan Evans
PRINTED BY SPOTPRESS: spotpress.com.au 24 – 26 Lilian Fowler Place, Marrickville NSW 2204
A QUICHE TRIP THROUGH HISTORY
FULLY SICK NINJAS
Midnight Oil photo by Oliver Eclipse
MOVIES UNDER MOONLIGHT
Ahead of the final month of its 2016/17 season, Moonlight Cinema has announced what films you’ll be watching under the stars in March.
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New Orleans-based jazz, funk and hip hop act Hot 8 Brass Band will hit Oxford Art Factory in support of their upcoming album, On The Spot. Already, the band has released four albums over its 20-year career, and has seen many musicians come and go from its lineup. Join the party at OAF on Wednesday March 8. Dance sensation No Lights No Lycra will bring an end to this year’s All About Women festival in March. No Lights No Lycra is a dance community that began in Melbourne and is now found at over 76 locations around the world. The dance sessions have no rules, techniques or teachers, and only encourage freedom. Over each of the hour-long sessions, your only job is to hit the dancefloor (in the cover of darkness) and dance, without any worries or judgement. No Lights No Lycra is happening at the Sydney Opera House’s Main Rehearsal Room on Sunday March 5.
EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher, editors or staff of the BRAG.
Twelve Foot Ninja
HOT 8 HIT THE SPOT
NO LIGHTS NO LYCRA
Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this NEW address Level 2, 9-13 Bibby St, Chiswick NSW 2046
DEADLINES: Editorial: Friday 12pm (no extensions) Ad bookings: Friday 5pm (no extensions) Fishished art: No later than 2pm Monday Ad cancellations: Friday 4pm Deadlines are strictly adhered to. Published by Seventh Street Media Pty Ltd All content copyrighted to Seventh Street Media 2017
MATERIAL BOYS
For the first time ever, fans of Things Of Stone And Wood will get to see the band perform the album The Yearning in full. 25 years since its release, The Yearning has not only propelled the career of Things Of Stone And Wood, it helped cement their place in Melbourne folklore. The band will play all 14 album tracks, including of course ‘Happy Birthday Helen’, as well as some other crowd favourites. With support from Club Hoy, the show will be a must-see for all ’90s folk enthusiasts. See it at Newtown Social Club on Saturday March 26.
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BRAG :: 701 :: 22:02:17 :: 5
Industrial Strength Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer
THINGS WE HEAR • How soon is “soon”? Ed Sheeran didn’t announce his Australian tour during his recent visit, but he did tell New Zealand fans through a Warner Music video he’d be touring there shortly. • Metallica’s James Hetfield was livid after his mic tech issue during the band’s Grammy set with Lady Gaga. He kicked over his mic stand and threw his guitar offstage. “I’d never seen him like that in 20 years,” said drummer Lars Ulrich. • How did Dave Mustaine of Megadeth respond after the Grammys band played Metallica’s ‘Master Of Puppets’ when he picked up an award? “I didn’t even notice it. It just sounded like some music in the background,” he said. • Is US movie streaming company MatrixStream negotiating with local service providers to enter the Australian market?
• Which four promoters of a long-gone Australian festival decided to celebrate its anniversary by journeying to its bush site and blasting out a 90-minute bootleg cassette of the event – and then at midnight found themselves bogged and had to ring a mate to tow them out? • After ten years in Melbourne, this year’s AIR Awards will be staged in Adelaide in July as part of a three-year deal with the South Australian Government to build Adelaide up as a UNESCO City of Music. • To mark the fact that heavy afternoon thunderstorms had stopped by the time Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band walked onto the stage at the Hope Estate winery in the Hunter Valley, they kicked off their set with an impromptu version of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Who’ll Stop The Rain’. The show included The Boss signing a guy’s arm so he can get it tattooed, and pulling up a girl in an oversized ‘Born To Run’ T-shirt to sing a chorus.
• Additionally, at his Brisbane show, Springsteen spotted a sign held up by Nathan Testa that read: “Missed school, in the shit now, can I play ‘Growin’ Up’ with you?” Bruce asked if Testa knew the song’s guitar parts and then got him up onstage. Midway through, Bruce told the kid about his first guitar – “I realised it wasn’t about how well you played it, it was about how good you looked doing it” – and shared guitar poses. • After his Leeds show, Drake treated his crew to £500 ($809.20) of Nando’s chicken. And following the Manchester show, a suicidal man was seen on top of a bridge threatening to jump off. Drake’s entourage asked the cops if they wanted the singer to talk the man down but he was politely refused. • Natalie and Brock Henry of alt-country band The Wayward Henrys have taken over Peppertown Café in Newcastle and introduced live music on the weekends. most streamed songs included ‘Purple Rain’, ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, ‘When Doves Cry’, ‘Little Red Corvette’ and ‘Kiss’.
Jet
TWO MORE SYDNEY BARS SET TO OPEN LATER
As part of its move to relax restrictions on trading hours for certain venues, the NSW Government has approved two more extended closing time applications. The World Bar in Kings Cross will now trade until 3:30am and will lock out new patrons at 2am. Stonewall on Oxford Street will also close half an hour later.
AUSSIES LAUNCH MANAGEMENT CO. IN NASHVILLE
JET SIGN GLOBAL DEAL WITH BMG
Jet, fresh off a tour with Bruce Springsteen and three subsequent headlining dates, have just signed a worldwide publishing deal with BMG. The deal includes all the band’s albums, including international hits ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’, ‘Cold Hard Bitch’, ‘Look What You’ve Done’ and ‘Rollover DJ’. At this stage, the deal is merely an indication that BMG intends to get more Jet songs into films, TV spots, advertisements and games. It’s not clear if the recent touring dates mean the band plans to write and record new songs.
SYDNEY VENUES SUGGEST ‘CITY SAFE’ TO GOVERNMENT
In the same way that Queensland venue operators managed to stop their state’s introduction of 1:30am lockouts this month by offering to install $10,000 ID scanners, 20 music venue operators in the Sydney CBD and Kings Cross have come up with a proposal for the New South Wales Government. The planned measure is called City Safe, and aims to allow venues that have proven themselves risk-free to become exempt from lockouts. Such establishments will then be called ‘Sydney safe venues’ and will serve as safe houses to punters in the area if they’re feeling anxious or intimidated. The staff will be trained to call the police or ambulances if need be, or to offer basic medical assistance. The ‘non-risk’ rating is set to be measured by AusComply, a company that monitors such data for the hospitality and security sectors around the country. If a venue proves ‘risky’, then the establishment will comply with the lockout laws again. AusCompany is collecting signatures for a petition in order to force the NSW Parliament to debate the issue.
THE TEN BEST SONGS TO HAVE SEX TO
6 :: BRAG :: 701 :: 22:02:17
The NSW Labor Party could be making it official policy that Sydney venues that host acoustic gigs should be considered ‘low impact’ and thus no longer require development approvals from local councils. The push comes from the MPs and councillors who set up Labor Loves Live Music late last year. They say the plight of the Harold Park Hotel – which had to briefl y close its long-time Sunday afternoon acoustic courtyard sessions after a single complaint by a newly arrived resident, a situation the City of Sydney helped resolve – could be repeated for other venues.
PRINCE GETS FIVE MILLION STREAMS IN TWO DAYS
No wonder Prince’s estate used legal tactics to break his wish that his music only be streamed by Tidal, and fought against the clock to ensure that the streaming of his music return to all the major services include Spotify and Apple Music by the night of the Grammys. They knew the Prince tribute would cause a stampede of streaming, and sure enough there were 4.77 million streams in the first two days in the US alone. The
The Cantina Band
NORDOFF-ROBBINS MUSIC QUIZ RETURNS
PACKAGES OFFERED FOR OVERSEAS FESTIVALS
Aussies are renowned for travelling overseas to catch festivals. To fulfil that particular need, Sweat Tours is offering one-stop packages that include festival tickets, accommodation, transfers and associated tourist activities in each city. The Ultra Music pack has already sold out, though packages are still available for Governors Ball in New York City and Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas. Go to sweattours.com for more information.
METALLICA, BIFFY CLYRO, 5SOS WIN NME AWARDS
At the recent NME Awards, Metallica picked up Best International Band, Biffy Clyro earned Best British Band, Bastille were awarded Best British Album for Wild World and Sydney’s Five Seconds Of Summer were again voted Worst Band. Other winners included MIA (for Best British Female), Skepta (British Male), Frank Ocean (International Male), Christine and The Queens (International Female, Best Track for ‘Tilted’), Dua Lipa (Newcomer), The 1975 (Live Band), Slaves’ ‘Consume Or Be Consumed’ (Video), Glastonbury (Festival), Oasis (Supersonic for music film, Be Here Now for reissue), Adele (Festival Headliner), Beyoncé (Hero) and Pet Shop Boys (Godlike Genius).
AUSSIES CAN VOTE FOR IHEARTRADIO AWARDS
For the first time, Australians can vote in the fourth iHeartRadio Music Awards, to be held at the Forum in Los Angeles on Sunday March 5. Last year the ceremony generated 115 billion impressions and 3.2 million tweets. This year Drake leads the nominations with 12, followed by The Chainsmokers with 11. New categories added include those for best music video, record label and producer.
Lifelines Dating: Mariah Carey officially confirmed she’s going out with her dancer Bryan Tanaka. She wants to keep their relationship “private”, which is presumably why she posted an Instagram pic of them in a hot tub.
The fight-to-the-death Nordoff-Robbins Music Quiz is set to be held once more on Thursday March 23 at Crystal Palace in Luna Park. As part of the fundraiser for Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, the music industry will come out in full force to test its trivia skills. ARIA, APRA, Sony, Universal, Pandora, Spotify and Seventh Street Media are among those competing. The JB Hi-Fi team are the defending champions from 2016. Tickets are available at musicquiz. eventbrite.com.
Recovering: members of The Dillinger Escape Plan in Poland after a truck crashed into their broken-down bus.
WARNER MUSIC HITS $1B STREAMING CLUB
In Court: The US websites, mags and TV stations who in 2014 erroneously reported that the man who cut off his penis and jumped off a second storey balcony was Marques Andre Johnson – a member of the Wu-Tang Clanaffiliated outfit Killa Beez – have escaped a libel suit. A Maryland court decided Johnson took too long to sue.
Warner Music has joined the US$1 billion streaming club, generating $1.007 billion from the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. Universal Music was the first to crack the $1 billion mark via streaming in December 2016. Streaming now makes up 49.4% of Warner Music’s recorded music revenue, with physical accounting for 36.1% and downloads 14.5%. The company’s publishing arm, Warner/Chappell, generated $124 million in the last three months of 2016, up 6.9% on the previous period.
HILLTOPS $10K GRANT RETURNS
The Hilltop Hoods Initiative will return for a 12th year, offering emerging hip hop and soul artists a $10,000 grant to cover costs of manufacturing, promoting and distributing an album or EP. The acts have to be APRA AMCOS members who have not released a commercial album on an industryrecognised label. The winner will also receive legal advice from David Vodicka and Media Arts Lawyers, plus a Love Police merchandise start-up kit. Past winners include Astro Travellers, Sarah Connor, Jimblah, Chelsea Jane, Runforyourlife and I Am D, the latter of which released his M.N.T.N.S EP through the Hoods’ own
Investigated: Justin Bieber (reportedly) by police for headbutting a guy who was filming him outside a pre-Grammy event. The young singer/brat asked him to stop a couple of times but was ignored.
Died: British singer Peter Skellern (1972 hit ‘You’re A Lady’) from brain cancer. After being diagnosed, he turned to religion and became a priest. Died: Trish Doan, 31, bassist with Canadian metal band Kittie, who’d been suffering from depression. She lived in Australia for a time while learning to surf. Died: Dominican DJ Luis Manuel Medina and his producer Leo Martinez, shot by three men in the studio while reading news during a Facebook Live broadcast. Died: Walter ‘Junie’ Morrison, 62, of Ohio Players and Parliament-Funkadelic fame.
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Jet photo by Ashley Mar
Australians have either elegant or weird tastes when it comes to playing music as they have sex. According to music streaming service Spotify, The Cantina Band theme from the Star Wars: A New Hope soundtrack by John Williams is our most common tune to blast while going at it. Globally, the song most used in the bedroom in 2016 was Rihanna’s ‘Sex With Me’. Other hits on the list included Jeremih’s ‘Birthday Sex’, SoMo’s ‘Ride’, The Weeknd’s ‘Earned It’, Trey Songz’s ‘Slow Motion’, Ginuwine’s ‘Pony’ and Cheat Codes’ ‘Sex’.
LABOR PUSHES FOR ACOUSTIC GIG EXEMPTIONS
Artist manager Melissa Core and brandmaker Rick Caballo have launched a management company in Nashville named Velvet Stone Management. Their partners in the venture are two high-profi le Nashville identities: entertainment attorney John Mason (whose clients include Reba McEntire, Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, Smokey Robinson, Travis Tritt, Olivia Newton-John, Shakira and Brian Wilson) and producer Tony Brown (George Strait, Trisha Yearwood, Jimmy Buffet, Brooks & Dunn, Steve Earle and Lyle Lovett). Velvet Stone’s first signing is The O’Connor Band, featuring Mark O’Connor.
Golden Era Records. More info is available at apraamcos.com.au/hilltop-hoodsinitiative.
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SATURDAY AFTERNOON
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27 Feb
in the Atrium
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10:00PM 2:00AM
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28 Feb
BRAG :: 701 :: 22:02:17 :: 7
FEATURE
Dirty Projectors How The Heavy Heart Breaks By Anna Wilson
D
as well as Longstreth’s personal life. Painful though it was, Longstreth set out to create an album that tested both his own emotions and musical abilities.
“It’s been a good year,” he says. “The video for ‘Cool Your Heart’ has just come out, and you know, it’s always a surreal thing to see the thing you’ve been working on for months or years is finally something everyone can see.”
“I think the story the record tells is of starting in complete emotional devastation and going through these various trials and tribulations,” he says. “I think of the album as a three-act structure, and each of the acts is three songs – the last act is very forward listening, about opening your eyes again to the world and letting air in your lungs and thinking about what it would mean to love again. I see it as looking back at the past with acceptance and reconciliation.”
irty Projectors are an ever-changing band. The eclectic US pop collective has witnessed its share of ups and downs over the years, but so far 2017 has been a time of positive progress. However, as the band’s founder and sole remaining original member Dave Longstreth explains, after all the effort and work that goes into a new release, things can still feel a little strange.
Dirty Projectors’ self-titled new record is, without question, a break-up album. The themes, lyrics and melodies all point towards anguish, heartbreak and eventual healing. After the demise of her relationship with Longstreth, vocalist Amber Coffman left the band, leaving a crevice in the group’s music
“I FEEL LIKE THAT ABOUT GENRE: THESE WORDS DON’T DESCRIBE THE MUSIC THAT’S BEING MADE RIGHT NOW, THEY’RE INADEQUATE.”
The departure of Coffman became both a topic for the songs and an engine for creative leaps. In taking a new approach to his vocals, Longstreth sought extreme diversity. “When I was writing these songs and realising they were different to other releases, it felt like something to explore, that absence, and a reason to explore my own voice. “One thing I did was to take time with the vocals. ‘How do I wanna sing this?’ ‘What if I push this harder here?’ ‘What if I sing this whole song pretty quiet?’ Experimenting with the performance in that way is something I haven’t given myself the space to do in prior records – my own performance in the past has been somewhat of an afterthought.” Encouraging as it is to hear that Longstreth is finally able to focus closely on his position within the group, he speaks as if he has become a solo artist, though Dirty Projectors are ostensibly still a band. So after surviving through so many lineup changes over the years, why has Longstreth never thought about striking out on his own?
“THE STORY THE RECORD TELLS IS OF STARTING IN COMPLETE EMOTIONAL DEVASTATION AND GOING THROUGH THESE VARIOUS TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS.” “I feel like with Dirty Projectors, something I started when I was 19 or 20, I wanted to make a musical home that could accommodate any exploration I wanted to go on, and I figured I wanted there to be a lot musically that I wanted to try. There still is, actually, and so yeah… There are no two Dirty Projector albums that have the same qualities. It’s always been what you’re describing, a self-exploration within a group. I feel very free in it.” Free the new album may be, but the heavy subject matter explores prayer-like overtones, like a pleading gospel of self-retribution. Longstreth, however, still declines to put a genre or label on his work. “I feel like one of the best things about the internet is the way it sort of showed us that what we thought of as hard and fast walls between different genres, different communities, are not walls at all,” he says. “It’s just vapour, and styles are much more porous – a lot of the genre affirmations aren’t as clear as you would be led to believe. “Just hearing about rock music or soul or indie … the way we’ve been living so much in a short time, our old analogue institutions feel out of step and incapable of dealing with the things our culture are going through. I feel like that about genre: these words don’t describe the music that’s being made right now, they’re inadequate, they’re not useful.
“A lot of this album is a meditation on nostalgia and sorrow and longing and things of that nature. It would be useful to define it as one thing, but the risk is being reductive. But then the risk of not defining it would be that it just has no shape. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m trying to leave it up to the listener, that people will think about what I’m bringing.” What: Dirty Projectors out Friday February 24 through Domino 8 :: BRAG :: 701 : 22:02:17
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Dirty Projectors photo by Jason Frank Rothenberg
“That being said, genre as a concept, I think it’s useful to put a frame around something that people, musicians, listeners can say, ‘This is the approximate world of what you’re going to hear, this is the general area of what you’re going to feel and these are some of the instruments that are going be used in the creation.’ That being said, I think there are so many genres now we don’t have names for.
Electric Guest
FEATURE
Charged With Emotion By Anna Wilson
“I
don’t want our president to make the rest of the world hate Americans. I don’t want people to hate Americans because of the idiot that other idiots put in the White House. I just have a fear of people fucking us up because of him – no, not a fear, but I can understand why people hate America. We’ve got to stick together and work to get the asshole out of office.”
“EVEN WHEN WE STARTED RECORDING THE ALBUM, WE WERE PUSHED A LITTLE MORE AND ENDED UP HAPPIER THAN WE THOUGHT.”
Matthew Compton spits his words furiously. All he’s be asked is whether Electric Guest have “I agree, writing music is rushed,” adds anything they want their Australian fans to know Taccone. “It’s something that has shifted in – and Compton certainly does. the last six years, where a lot of bands or groups now are inviting a lot of writers to Minutes before this impassioned and co-write stuff. All these bands, they want a hit unexpected outburst, Compton and his musical and are inviting random writers, and I think partner Asa Taccone are sitting contentedly it makes the music more generic. A lot of in Taccone’s LA apartment, enjoying vegan bands may have been a smaller band, but at chocolate ice cream in between a run of least they had an identity. interviews. The majority of our discussion is tentative, punctuated by conflicting emotions “That’s what we wanted to do: this album we from the blasé to the extreme (evidently). And had no writers, [but] at least it’ll be more of that’s what life has been like for Electric Guest ourselves.” lately: the American electropop duo have been What: Plural out now through Dew Process/ on an up and down journey of doubt and selfUniversal deprecation, facing challenges to their careers, their friendship and themselves. After the breakout success of their 2012 debut Mondo, Taccone found himself at odds with the benefits of fame. He took time out to record a solo album. Once he had finished, he scrapped it. It was a particularly tough time for Taccone, one that found him searching for solidarity and reassurance through music. “I was going through a difficult time in my life,” he says. “It was a dark time, and the record I initially wrote, it was pretty dark, sombre.” Naturally, Taccone’s reclusive period had an impact on Compton. Though he managed to interrupt Taccone’s stupor with a little collaboration, he kept himself busy elsewhere. “I mean, for me, when we were done off the first record we all took a little time off – I was kind of always around to add stuff, but I did have my own things going on; touring with other artists, worked on a movie,” Compton says. “When we reshaped and got working seriously, well, we couldn’t be more happy with the results.” Once Taccone reunited with Compton to create Plural, the focus and energy from the dark times were channelled into something wholly new. However, as Compton readily agrees, Plural wouldn’t be what it is without Taccone having experienced that painful stage in his life. “Definitely. It’s not about doing your own thing, but literally, since the last record and this record came out, we’ve not stopped writing – we’ve written 30 songs that aren’t on Plural. “The learning process was about what only the two of us could do – even when we started recording the album, we were pushed a little more and ended up happier than we thought, and produced the record you have today.” “Initially it started as something and became something else,” adds Taccone. “There was this thing of plurality of ourselves, the external self you present to the world, but over the course of writing it, I really just wanted to write songs that weren’t shrouded in vague lyrics. For this time in my life I felt it was a little pretentious and I wanted to see if I could write a concise song with heightened lyrics – a lot of them are about love and relationships, but really, it’s about coming back from something different, about seeing the light again within yourself.” Out of the dark and into the light indeed, Electric Guest happily agree that all aspects of music are fun again. “Fun? Oh yeah, we remember that word,” chuckles Taccone. “Plural as a record was so much fun to write, and we had this last year to write a bunch of new songs – they all feel fresh, nothing feels sterile, so yeah, it was really fun.” Needless to say, when the music-making process is hurried, it stops being enjoyable. Outside factors are often involved, pushing a musician to release their work before it’s ready. Electric Guest are well aware of the need to retain their creative control. “In terms of timeframes, definitely [the process is rushed], says Compton. “The label want something out as soon as possible. But for us I wanted to make a good album – we can write great singles and that, but that’s not what we wanna focus on.”
“IT’S ABOUT COMING BACK FROM SOMETHING DIFFERENT, ABOUT SEEING THE LIGHT AGAIN WITHIN YOURSELF.” thebrag.com
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Holy Holy A Work Of Art By Zanda Wilson
A
ussie musicians Tim Carroll and Oscar Dawson formed Holy Holy in 2013, and to describe their transformation and growth as a band over the past four years as anything less than meteoric would be a disservice to the passion and talent of these two incredible songwriters. Hailing from Brisbane and Melbourne respectively, they met as English teachers in Southeast Asia, reconnected in Europe in 2011, and released Holy Holy’s debut EP The Pacifi c in 2013. Fast-forward to 2017, and with a debut album under their belts, Carroll and Dawson are gearing up to release their second full-length record Paint, which is set to be a significant departure from what we’ve come to know as the Holy Holy sound.
Cameron Avery Ripe And Real By Emily Gibb
L
et’s get this out of the way: yes, Cameron Avery is the bassist for Tame Impala. Yes, his debut solo album, Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams is about to drop. But Tame Impala it is not. While Avery numbers among Western Australia’s multi-talented, multi-instrumental musical collective of friends and labelmates – including Kevin Parker, Nicholas Allbrook and Jay ‘Gum’ Watson – his music stands out significantly, not least for its old Hollywood rock’n’roll qualities, sweeping cinematic strings and literal, intimate lyrics. It’s not the kind of music Avery’s always made, but it’s what he’s always wanted to.
“I think it took me a little while to admit it to myself,” he says. “I guess it just took a little bit of growing up. With Allbrook/Avery, Pond and The Growl, I’ve made tonnes of lo-fi-sounding records. I wanted to make something that was like an old record that I’ve listened to [and] loved when I was growing up. I love film music, especially old film scores; I love the drama you can get from some of the instrumentation. It took me a little while to get around to realising that this kind of music makes me feel great.” We’re chatting in the corner of a Redfern cafe, thousands of kilometres away from the LA landscape Avery now calls home and where the record took shape. He’s candid – ostensibly at ease despite a subliminal nervous rubbing of his collarbone – and intently holds his gaze with an almost-healed black eye. Rewind to 2014, though, and Avery had already started writing songs for Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams at home in Fremantle before relocating to California, where the record’s serendipitous formation helped him mature and figure out what really works best for his music. “I recorded a lot of it at ElectroVox Studios on Melrose, which is
10 :: BRAG :: 701 :: 22:02:17
incredible,” he says. “It’s an old sound stage that they used to do all the strings for Paramount movies. We did a lot of the strings for my album in the same room that they did Psycho. LA has some of the most incredible studios in the world [and] the best recording infrastructure I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s amazing – it’s pretty inspiring.” Avery’s love of film scores and the cinematic qualities of music meant the recording of Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams couldn’t have happened in a more appropriate location. The strings were added thanks to Arcade Fire collaborator Owen Pallett. Other peers like guitarist Benji Lysaght and producer Jonathan Wilson also offered their services to Avery, who found himself opening up to and enjoying working with others – a prospect he hadn’t entertained in the past. “I’m not really a big collaborator – I never used to be,” he corrects himself. “I’m a bit of a control freak, so I would produce and do all the instruments and write it all, but that was so fun, doing ‘C’est Toi’ with Jonathan, and it sort of opened me up. I get a kick out of working with other people now, like way more. I like the idea of collaborating and I find I’m probably better at that than I am just trying to do it all on my own. All my friends, whether it’s Kevin or Jay, they do everything on their own, and I like the conversation of and getting to a place where you can help each other make something.”
“IT TOOK ME A LITTLE WHILE TO GET AROUND TO REALISING THAT THIS KIND OF MUSIC MAKES ME FEEL GREAT.”
While Avery moved away from a completely solo approach to making music like his mates in WA, their influence was still significant. “Literally the biggest influences I get – it’s almost more conceptual,” says Avery. “I look up to my peers and how they do things. I was heavily influenced by Kevin, he is obviously amazing and just how he does things – the way he can holistically look at something when he’s making it. Or like, Al Turner [of Arctic Monkeys] is one of my closest friends, and he was a big influence when I was making this album and a big voicing board, like: ‘Is this good or is this bad?’ I mean, I’d already made my record but then he did this [The Last] Shadow Puppets thing, which is sort of cut from the same cloth, I guess.” However, that’s about where the contemporary influences end for Avery. “I don’t really listen to a lot of new stuff. This comes from Elvis Presley, Johnny Hartman and Etta James, a lot of old stuff like that, but I try and bring it into more of a modern sense,” he explains. And he’s certainly done that: Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams lacks cheesy nostalgia but manages to nod to the ‘old’ with a current approach. Avery brought his solo show to Sydney’s Newtown Social Club in January, and a return may be on the cards after tours in America in Europe. “I wanna put this thing out called Etcetera, which is like a bunch of other songs that would obviously give off the same vibe,” he says. “I’ve started fiddling around with new songs. If I get some time towards the end of the year, I’ll get back in the studio. Hopefully I can get back here and do some more shows. If the record goes well and people like it, then I’ll play here in May or June.” What: Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams out Friday March 10 through Anti-/Spinning Top
Although they initially questioned the direction the record was taking, Dawson and Carroll decided to give in to the inevitability that the sound of the new album wouldn’t be completely familiar or comfortable, at least at first. “There were a couple of moments with some of the songs where we were wondering whether we should
“There’s no way to answer that question if you try, because Holy Holy just does what it does,” Dawson says. “Sometimes you just have to try and not be too definitive about that, you just have to let it happen. So in both of those cases we ended up just letting it happen and doing it and we were glad we did it. It was a chance to try something that we weren’t totally comfortable with at first, and now I can’t imagine us not having done those songs now.” It was always going to be difficult to depart from a sound that had been so well received on their first album, 2015’s When The Storms Would Come, knowing that their fans wouldn’t necessarily embrace the new music straight away. But for Dawson it was a necessary leap of faith. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable about our fans embracing anything really, because I don’t think you can demand that of people – you can’t just expect people to follow your feet,” he says. “It’s important to me that people listen to our music, and that they feel something when they hear it. We just have to determine whether we feel something ourselves and hope that when you extrapolate that then other people will feel something too. It makes me feel something, and I guess that’s the fi rst step.” The first two singles from the new record, ‘Darwinism’ and ‘Elevator’, were used to test the waters, and based on their reception it appears that fans are loving what
Thunder Crashing Down Under By Anna Wilson
A
h, the ’80s – when the hair was high and the heels were even higher. It was a time when masculinity could be found within a feminine shell, as pretty boys donned lipstick onstage while they riffed through guitar-heavy songs about girls and getting wasted. There’s something different to be said, however, for Thunder, who never partook in the mainstream stereotypes that typified their contemporaries. The London hard rock delegation have made their own mark as musical legends: since their formation in 1989, they’ve notched up nearly two dozen top 50 singles in their homeland, cultivated a reputation as unmitigated live performers and count Axl Rose (Guns N’ Roses) and David Coverdale (Whitesnake) among their fans.
Thunder guitarist Luke Morley is more than happy to share tales of days gone by. “The late ’80s and early ’90s was an interesting time for rock music – the early ’80s had all been about the synth, the strange haircut,” he recalls. “During that period we were trying to find our niche, I guess. Danny [Bowes, singer] and I jumped on a plane in ’87 to the States, first to New York where we crashed on a mate’s floor for a week, then to LA. “There was lots going on in LA – Guns N’ Roses were huge, Aerosmith were having a resurgence, Metallica were coming through – the kind of songs I was writing at the time I sensed were gonna work and come through. We met Andy Taylor [Duran Duran], who ironically was a New Romantic. Well, at least I thought he was when I met him,” Morley chuckles. “The first Thunder
“WE NEVER SAW OURSELVES AS A BUNCH OF PRETTY BOYS WITH BIG HAIR.” album did well in the UK and we found ourselves off to the races – and we’ve never looked back.” Indeed, Thunder formed at the tail end of hard rock’s peak, and yet somehow managed to wheedle a position within the genre that would not only survive the changing years, but give rise to a recalcitrant can-do attitude. “We never thought about it too much,” says Morley. “We didn’t overanalyse what we were doing. We started out a jeans and T-shirt kind of band – there might have a bit of back-combing, but we weren’t into the lippy! Our favourite bands – The Who, Free, these are all bands who were like, ‘This is us: you don’t like it, go fuck yourself,’ and that was our attitude; we were quite arrogant. We didn’t kind of aspire to fit in that whole LA big hair scene. We were always a bluesy group, kind of outside all that a little bit. “Don’t get me wrong, I love some of those bands – Guns N’ Roses’ first album is a masterpiece and it inspired Backstreet Symphony [Thunder’s first album]. We always see ourselves as being of the English blues rock heritage thing; we never saw ourselves as a bunch of pretty boys with big hair.” These days, Thunder need not worry about being perceived as pretty boys with big hair – for the
thebrag.com
Cameron Avery photo by Delilah Jesinkey
“WE DID A LOT OF THE STRINGS FOR MY ALBUM IN THE SAME ROOM THAT THEY DID PSYCHO.”
For Dawson, the rapid progression of their style up to this point has always just been a naturally flowing process. “It’s hard to say what the key moments were, because when you’re doing it, it’s hard to divide that time up into discrete sections,” he says. “One thing just flows into another. There’s a couple of songs on the record that we were back and forth on, and we weren’t sure whether to record them, or whether they were part of what we could call our sound.”
continue to pursue them, thinking, ‘Is this really something Holy Holy would do?’
“I WOULDN’T FEEL COMFORTABLE ABOUT OUR FANS EMBRACING ANYTHING REALLY, BECAUSE I DON’T THINK YOU CAN DEMAND THAT OF PEOPLE.” the guys are doing. “As we were finishing these two songs we were writing new ones and exploring the sound more, and they were almost stepping stones in a way, or signposts on the road to where we’re at now,” Dawson says. “Those releases were like throwing a small stone in the water and letting it ripple before throwing a fucking boulder in the water – I don’t know if anything we do will make that big a splash, but at the very least we’re stepping towards the album.” The release of Paint will be special for another reason too. Dawson and Carroll have curated a series of four paintings from different artists called ‘Painting To Paint’ to be released alongside four songs from the album, time-lapsed into a video. It was an idea that began by approaching revered Australian artist James Drinkwater and asking him to create the album’s cover artwork. “Tim came up with the title for the record before we even finished writing it, which is Paint,” Dawson explains. “For me the title is very visual and I think the music is visual, with its soundscapes and
tones creating a visual aspect in your mind. “So from a visual perspective, Paint as a title almost encouraged that. In a way we wrote for the title a little bit, which might seem backwards but I found it a cool way to approach it,” chuckles Dawson. “And James
Drinkwater is an artist we’ve known for a long time. We got to the end of last year and we were exploring ideas for the artwork for the record and he came to mind. “So we just asked him, ‘Would you be interested in doing the cover art or contributing one of your
works?’ I thought it was a bit of a long shot, and he came back with a one-sentence response just saying, ‘Yeah, I’d love to.’ He showed us two different pieces that he’d done over the past year or so, and we tried a few out and one of them just felt like it fi t. So that’s the cover art for the record,
but he didn’t paint that bespoke, it wasn’t painted for the record. But for me it sums up what I hope the record looks like in the mind of the listener.” What: Paint out Friday February 24 through Wonderlick/Sony
“IT’S IMPORTANT TO ME THAT PEOPLE LISTEN TO OUR MUSIC, AND THAT THEY FEEL SOMETHING WHEN THEY HEAR IT.”
most part, the poor buggers are older men with no hair. The ravages of age aside, the thirst to make music is still as fresh as ever. With their latest album Rip It Up just released, creative inspiration is still rife, even if the focuses within the music have shifted. “Nobody can hide or deny the fact they’re getting older,” says Morley. “If I were still writing songs about chasing girls around barrooms, there’d be something wrong. You look at the world from your age, and you have to have some sort of dignity about what you do. That doesn’t mean it has to be boring, you just adjust – you’ve gotta do it how you feel it.
Thunder photo by Jason Joyce
“Some of the music I’d say is more restrained in its playing, but I think that’s just age – you have to leave room. One of the things you try and do is leave enough space around everything – minimal is good, do what’s needed, let the songs breathe – and if it all comes together in the right way it should be good. Over the years we’ve gotten better at doing that, and this album is certainly the most musically developed of our career and I’m so excited about that.” The term ‘underrated’ has often been used in reference to Thunder. Given the length of their career, it’s interesting they’ve never wished for more mainstream recognition. Or have they? “I think we have been a little overlooked by mainstream media in the UK,” says Morley. “But I don’t think we’re the only band that has. It’s kind of frustrating, yes, but we
make music primarily for ourselves and if mainstream media can’t embrace it then there’s nothing we can do about it. In life it’s only effective to do things you have control over.”
But finally, Thunder have become recognised enough that they are coming to Australia on tour – and it’s only taken them 27 years. “We’re really looking forward to it,” enthuses Morley. “It’s bizarre it’s taken us so far
in our career before coming down for the first time. We’ve always enjoyed travelling, so roll on March.” When asked if he’s looking forward to meeting Thunder’s Australian
fans, Morley guffaws: “I’m looking forward to meeting both of them!” Where: Factory Theatre When: Tuesday March 7
“IF I WERE STILL WRITING SONGS ABOUT CHASING GIRLS AROUND BARROOMS, THERE’D BE SOMETHING WRONG.” thebrag.com
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FEATURE
THREE YEARS OF THE SYDNEY
LOCKOUTS
A CITY UNDER SIEGE BY JOSEPH E A R P
LOCKED OUT FOR GOOD: SYDNEY’S DYING BUSINESSES “In moments of crisis, people are willing to hand over a great deal of power to anyone who claims to have a magic cure.” – NAOMI KLEIN, THE SHOCK DOCTRINE “This town is coming like a ghost town / All the clubs have been closed down.” – THE SPECIALS
O
n July 29, 2015, after over a decade of high-profile events and consistent trade, Hugo’s Lounge in Kings Cross announced its closure. Understandably, the venue’s demise hit its owner, Dave Evans, hard. Speaking to the press, he sounded like a man robbed, and his tone was one of anger, not regret or despair. “This is like the last dance for us,” Evans said. “For 15 years Hugo’s has been at the forefront of Sydney entertainment. People knew they were going to have a great time here in a safe environment. That was our culture.”
But as distressed as Evans might have been, the news hit the venue’s 70 employees even harder. After all, Evans, the brother of the decorated chef Pete Evans and a minor celebrity unto himself, had the resources and backing to bounce back: Hugo’s’ sister venues, including a successful outlet in Manly, remained open, and though the entrepreneur’s empire wobbled, it did not fall. But for Evans’ staff – a number of whom had been working at the venue since it opened way back in 2000 – the future was not so certain. Some of them threatened to sue, to take back even a relatively small portion of the revenue and security they claimed had been stolen from them. Others went to the press, ready to slander a catastrophically ‘one size fits all’ set of lockout laws that applied tremendous pressure to Sydney’s already threatened live music scene; legislation that was already proving ineffective in addressing a problem that years of studies had proved was as cultural as it was criminal. The lawsuit never went ahead. The committed Hugo’s staff looked for work elsewhere. Evans focused on his other enterprises. And the venue itself sat dormant, while other clubs and pubs around Sydney – Soho, The Flinders, Q Bar – followed suit, shutting their doors and laying off their staff. Controversial senator David Leyonhjelm, a firebrand better known for his crudity than his prescience, put it well: “Nobody seems to care,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald at the time. And nobody on a governmental level has really ever pretended to care since. No matter how furious the opposition to the lockout laws has become – no matter how many protests have been organised or anthems have been released or petitions have been signed – the response from the New South Wales State Government has been vicious, sustained indifference. The laws have outlived two Premiers, Barry O’Farrell and Mike Baird, not to mention a host of venues and businesses dotted throughout the city. And in all that time – three long years in which Sydney’s cultural life has been directly and repeatedly threatened – the laws have shifted in only the most minor of ways.
“THE LAWS HAVE REMAINED UNCHANGED, STANDING AS A TESTAMENT TO THE STUBBORNNESS OF A GOVERNMENT COMMITTED TO WAGING A CULTURAL WAR.” 12 :: BRAG :: 701 :: 22:02:17
Barry O’Farrell
“From the outset, these laws have been about fixing a serious problem. Violence had spiralled out of control, people were literally being punched to death in the city, and there were city streets too dangerous to stroll down on a Friday night.” – MIKE BAIRD
O
n January 20, 2014, fresh from one of his many holidays, and with his mechanical, mediatrained hands flicking in and out to underscore all the right beats of his speech, NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell addressed the outbreak of “coward punch” incidents that had led to the deaths of two young men, Daniel Christie and Thomas Kelly.
thebrag.com
BarryO’Farrell photo by Eva Rinaldi/Flickr
Indeed, as Sydney’s live music scene has weathered blow after blow – as thousands have become unemployed, as streets have emptied and livelihoods have been threatened – the laws have remained ever-present, standing as a stunning testament to the stubbornness of a government committed to waging nothing less than a cultural war.
IN THE BEGINNING: HOW THE
LOCKOUTS CAME ABOUT
York St, Sydney photo by Brianna Elton
It was a typically lifeless lecture, mumbled out in O’Farrell’s dry, dreary tones. Indeed, it would barely be worth remembering were it not for a conclusion in which the Premier accidentally criticised the measures his government was weeks away from unleashing: the lockout laws that were set to enforce a 1:30am shut-out time for all venues in the CBD, a 3am deadline for last drinks, and a restriction on the sale of all takeaway alcohol after 10pm. “I make the point again: there is no simple, single solution to tackle effectively the problem of alcohol and drug-fuelled violence,” said O’Farrell, a man who was ready to offer a single solution to the problem of alcohol-fuelled violence while remaining deaf to all other options. That O’Farrell revealed himself as a hypocrite should come as no surprise – history has already selected him to play the role of a wine-swilling Nixon type, and his legacy is one marked by corruption and a systematic neglect of Sydney’s needs. But it is nonetheless curious that he so accurately nailed the lockout laws’ most glaring
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flaw – even if the line was more likely born out of his desire to secure himself a ‘get out of jail free’ card than any kind of foresight. At the time, O’Farrell was a politician under incredible pressure, both from a public searching for easy answers and an unsteady, Tony Abbottled Liberal Party hierarchy that was struggling with likeability issues even at that nascent stage. And there were facts concerning the Christie and Kelly deaths that made them particularly distressing to Australians. Two young, middle class men – society’s most visible and scrutinised demographic – had been killed in a manner both senseless and inherently public, and television sets across the country were awash with images of the victims’ grieving parents. “Breathing is almost impossible,” said Michael Christie, father of 18-year-old coward punch victim Daniel, in a series of quotes that were widely reported by the media. “Sometimes you wish you would just stop breathing.” Even though Australians were still statistically
more at risk from domestic violence, or car accidents, or any of the other much more commonplace tragedies available for the general public to meet, the randomness of the Christie and Kelly crimes made them all the more terrifying. These young men had died without rhyme or reason – marked for death simply because of where they happened to be standing; simply because they’d decided to grab a quick drink – and Australians at large became obsessed with the tragic nature of the crimes. For months, that obsession manifested itself as wall-to-wall media coverage, and the endless lecturing and catastrophizing of politicians. It seemed to be of no matter to such people that for decades a range of academic reports had argued that the true cause of violence in Australia is a range of cultural issues, or that framing a complicated issue in narrower terms was a dangerous oversimplification. Nor did anyone seem to take much time to reflect on the precedent of somewhere like Germany, a nation with much greater levels of alcohol consumption but a lower rate of alcohol-fuelled violence.
“THERE IS NO SIMPLE, SINGLE SOLUTION TO TACKLE EFFECTIVELY THE PROBLEM OF ALCOHOL AND DRUGFUELLED VIOLENCE.” – BARRY O’FARRELL IN 2014 No. Instead of viewing violence as a complex problem – one fixable through awareness-raising programs, better support for mental health services, a reduction in the wage gap and a generally improved treatment of women – the commentators clamoured for one, fix-all solution; a single piece of legislation that could be applied to a range of issues disguised as one. And when they got it – when the lockout laws were introduced to the NSW Parliament on January 31, 2014 – they celebrated a restriction as though it were a breakthrough; a great tragedy as though it were an act of grace.
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“THE BOTTOM LINE IS THIS: SYDNEY IS QUIETER NOW. ITS STREETS ARE EMPTIER, ITS LIGHTS ARE OUT.”
THE POLITICS OF AVOIDING BLAME: O’FARRELL, BAIRD AND BEYOND “Sydney, once the best city in the world, has become an international joke thanks to the NSW Liberal Government.” – MATT BARRIE
S
ydney’s lockout laws and the statewide restrictions on takeaway alcohol came into effect on February 24, 2014. Some three years since, the casualties of the laws are still growing. It is hard not to succumb to hyperbole when describing the pall that has fallen over Sydney – such is the catastrophic impact of the laws that even the most measured description of its effects sounds hysterical.
“This is the greatest city in the world and it is now safer and more vibrant than ever.” – MIKE
The Star
BAIRD
Weatherburn was not alone in his opposition to Baird’s reading of the numbers. As the SMH pointed out in February 2016, even those who penned the 2015 City of Sydney report were uncertain that the legislation had contributed in any meaningful way to a decrease in violence. “There does not appear to be a direct relationship between the concentration of licensed premises and the incidence of antisocial behaviour,” the report found.
Not even facts and figures are free from frenzy. A City of Sydney report released in 2015 reads like a terminal cancer diagnosis, and the staggering 84 per cent decrease in Kings Cross foot traffic is so drastic as to be hard to believe. 800 nightly visitors to the area have been lost, while the CBD’s south has similarly been deprived of some 720 punters every evening. And that’s not even to mention the sudden drying up of venues and businesses: as the SMH reported, “over 30 shops” have emptied out of a 300-metre area in the city, while “as many as ten well-known late night venues within the lockout zone have closed”.
Yet in brazen defiance of the facts, the State Government has spent three long years
Mike Baird’s controversial ‘graffiti removal day’ Facebook post
determinedly holding up the lockout laws as nothing but a success. When pressed to justify the legislation, O’Farrell’s successor Mike Baird claimed without a shred of irony that the move had “saved lives”, proving unwilling to take into account the thousands of business owners, musicians, publicans and even taxi drivers whose jobs and livelihoods had been lost. All the while, the government brazenly cherry-picked data, rifling through statistics and choosing facts to fit the story it had so haphazardly written. Entire reports were composed based on false equivalence, and Baird and his peers determinedly defended a decision that soon proved akin to cutting the head off a victim of the flu in order to stop their nose from dripping.
behaviour] incidents in the City of Sydney LGA, and their peak coincides with last drinks and closing time for many venues at 3am on Saturday,” read the 2015 council report. That’s not even to mention the underreported cases of violence that occur at The Star casino, a hub of aggression that falls curiously and worryingly outside the lockout laws’ reach. “[The Star] paints an inaccurate picture of the level of violence at the casino,” found a confidential governmental report late last year, as reported by the ABC. “Of concern is the fact that violent incidents are not being reported to police in many instances, irrespective of the apparent severity of the incident.”
Because although it is certainly true that incidences of antisocial behaviour have continued to fall across the CBD following the introduction of the laws, such outbreaks of violence have actually increased in regularity when compared to the per capita population. There are fewer people in Kings Cross each night, but people aren’t committing fewer antisocial acts, and while the lockout laws might have practically emptied our streets, they haven’t changed the behaviour of the people who still walk them.
Claiming any kind of success from statistics that don’t actually support such an optimistic attitude is deluded – or worse, a deliberate attempt to distort the truth. Indeed, the Baird premiership was long characterised by an attempt to skew the data surrounding the lockout laws, and his need to categorically deny Sydney’s cultural dearth was almost compulsive. As the months ticked on and more and more venues continued to close, Baird proved he was willing to do whatever it took to dodge the onus of blame – even going so far as to claim responsibility for a pre-existing slump in antisocial behaviour.
For example, the upturn in violence and antisocial behaviour that occurs around closing time – the so-called ‘danger hour’ that has long been considered the least safe period to be out in public – is still there, and all the lockout laws have managed to do is move this window of aggression earlier into the night. “Kings Cross continues to have the highest proportion of serious ASB [antisocial
“The problem with that is assaults have been coming down in NSW since 2008, so you had this pre-existing downward trend,” statistician Dr. Don Weatherburn told the ABC in early 2016, refuting a host of misleading statistics Baird had quoted in a Facebook post in which he characterised the lockout laws’ effects as merely meaning punters couldn’t “impulse-buy a bottle of white wine after 10pm”.
“AS THE MONTHS TICKED ON AND MORE AND MORE VENUES CONTINUED TO CLOSE, BAIRD PROVED HE WAS WILLING TO DO WHATEVER IT TOOK TO DODGE THE ONUS OF BLAME.” 14 :: BRAG :: 701 :: 22:02:17
• Of course, it would be wrong to imply that the laws have only been defended by politicians. There are others still who have celebrated the lockouts, not least of all doctors and nurses employed at hospitals across the CBD, many of whom have characterised the legislation as literally life-saving. In a widely shared piece written for the SMH, Toby Hall of St Vincent’s Hospital claimed the lockouts had almost completely thinned out emergency wards around Sydney. “Talk to any of the doctors and nurses who witnessed the tsunami of mostly young people affected by alcohol-fuelled violence prior to the lockout and they’ll tell you the past 12 months have been like working at a different hospital,” ran a particularly praiseworthy quote. But in a manner similar to the defence mounted by politicians, such an account falls victim to a confusion between correlation and causation. First-hand, eyewitness stories might seem especially convincing to audiences swayed by ‘honest’ narrators and emotionally delivered ‘facts’, but in a purely empirical sense, they provide nothing like hard enough evidence. These kinds of untested assumptions and claims that one variable has had a direct impact upon the other – that the lockout laws have definitively halted alcohol-fuelled violence in the CBD – are well-known to statisticians and scientists. Such haphazardly concocted results even have a name: they’re called spurious correlations, and they represent the kind of unscientific assumptions that are poked fun of by pranksters who can plot a nearperfect rise and fall between the number of films Nicholas Cage has appeared in and the number of people who have drowned in pools. “Correlation does not imply causation,” explains Professor Richard Kemp, a lecturer,
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Graph courtesy NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research / The Star photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons
The facts are what they are, and the bottom line is this: Sydney is quieter now. Its streets are emptier, its lights are out. As Matt Barrie so memorably noted in his striking essay on the lockout laws, ‘Would The Last Person In Sydney Please Turn The Lights Out?’, it feels like every day comes with the news of a new venue closure, and businesses are suffering hard from the knock-on effects of the mass exodus plaguing the CBD.
But such data has never once seemed to sway the politicians involved with the case; those officials convinced they are taking the only reasonable course of action even as experts tell them otherwise. In the face of facts, politicians like Baird and his successor Gladys Berejiklian have chosen denial. And when confronted with the death of a culture they have been elected to protect, they have fallen curiously and determinedly quiet.
THREE YEARS OF THE SYDNEY LOCKOUTS A CITY UNDER SIEGE psychologist and statistician at the University of New South Wales. “For example, as the temperature increases, the number of ice creams sold increases. But that doesn’t mean that ice cream sales cause the temperature change. There is not a causal relationship in that direction. “Sometimes things can co-occur that do not result in causation. Sometimes it’s not even clear what the direction of causality is: whether ‘A’ is causing ‘B’ or ‘B’ is causing ‘A’. Or it could be that there is a third interrelated variable, or even a fourth and a fifth. All these things are possible, but you don’t know by
FEATURE
Flume at the 2016 ARIA Awards
measuring two variables and seeing that they change at the same time.” As a result, as striking as accounts like Hall’s might be, and as endlessly as politicians and medical professions claim a direct relationship between a decrease in violent behaviour and the lockout laws, such claims should viewed with a sceptical eye. “The only way to properly measure the effect of [the lockout laws] in a strictly statistical sense would be if they did an experiment where they replicated the laws in a number of different cities to factor out statistical ‘noise’,” says Kemp.
THE SOUND OF SILENCE: CULTURE BEHIND BARS “You’re going to tell me when I have to go to bed? Who the fuck are you?” – JAMEEL MAJAM, THE LOCKHEARTS
O
f all Sydney’s local industries, perhaps none has been hit harder by the lockouts than its music scene. Mid-level venues have been obliterated, and the standard range of opportunities once available for musicians hoping to make it big are steadily shrinking by the day.
“The thing that we find the saddest is that the smaller venues, the ones that support the emerging artists and give brand new musicians a go, are suffering and closing their doors at a scary rate,” says Sophie McComish, lead singer of the rising local band Body Type and publicist for indie record label Inertia. “Obviously alcohol-fuelled violence is [a] public problem, but you can’t blame the cultural sector for that,” she says. “Especially when other big cities around the world have a thriving 24-hour culture without needing to instigate these outrageous, restrictive laws. These venues are where communities are formed, where underground culture is born. How can a music scene flourish if there’s no support at the formative level?” Simply put, the answer is that it can’t – or at least, not without a range of hopeful creatives first giving up the hope of making music fulltime and thinning out the pack of dreamers. Venues struggling to make ends meet now have to consider the cost of booking bands, and the laws have seen publicans carefully weigh up the merit of supporting the live scene while never once being able to ignore the cost of such backing. As a result, a striking number of Sydney’s creative types have looked to emigrate, and Melbourne – once viewed by a bulk of Sydneysiders as a slightly poncey, expensive holiday destination – is now being considered as a serious place to resettle. “It’s almost a little bit masochistic to try and make it in Sydney as a creative person,” says another musician, who asked to remain anonymous. “You just don’t really see the point, when it’s so easy to move to a different city that seems to actually care whether you can make money.”
And all these factors don’t just hurt your typical three-piece rock band. Sydney’s EDM and club scene has been equally harmed. Goodgod Small Club, once a cultural mecca for the burgeoning electronic community in Australia, was put up for sale in September 2015, and though the venue has reopened under different names since, its heyday has never quite been replicated. “So many of us individually felt the change and how much the lockout laws had affected small businesses and the nightlife community,” DJ Nina Las Vegas told Billboard last year. “We’re not an antisocial community, which is what the government called us initially. We’re a very social, caring, creating, and understanding community. We were never part of the problem.”
REBELLION AND RESURRECTION: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? “You gotta fight for your right to party.” – BEASTIE BOYS
Furthermore, while our country’s electronic scene has been so attacked at home, its heroes are simultaneously putting Australia on the cultural map internationally – an irony that has not gone unnoticed. Flume, the alias of Sydney-born musician Harley Streten, won a Grammy this month for Best Dance/ Electronic Album; Bag Raiders, an Australian electro two-piece, continue to sell out tours in America; and a range of mid-level bands such as The Preatures are drawing massive commercial attention to the antipodean musical scene.
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“You’d have to be an idiot to deny what [those artists have] done for the Australian music scene internationally,” says Jameel Majam of The Lockhearts. “We’ve seen some artists on social media coming out in defiance saying we’re protesting a very first world problem. But we’re not just whining because our playtime has been cut short – it’s about the cultural economy, the vibrancy and heartbeat of our city.
And after three years of lockouts, giving up seems like a viable option for some. It is too difficult to battle such an unforgiving amount of governmentally directed pressure every single day; too hopeless to keep on performing when faced with a music-going public that often chooses to stay in, rather than venturing out into a deserted city to catch bands in an embattled pub.
“It’s about corruption and it’s about our civil fucking liberties. You’re going to tell me when I have to go to bed? Who the fuck are you? It starts somewhere. I don’t care that people are only paying attention now that it affects them directly – at least they’re fucking paying attention.”
uring the production of this article, the BRAG reached out to a number of Australian musicians. Some wrote lengthy, eloquent responses to our questions; some cut straight to the point. Some used their real names; others preferred to protect themselves with anonymity. But of all the replies, the one that struck closest to home was delivered by a band that ignored the BRAG’s set of questions and responded with a brief, fiveword statement. “I feel kind of useless,” said the anonymous artist.
And yet for every artist willing to give up, there is another still willing to fight. The NSW Government may long have decided to uphold sustained indifference as its default response, but that hasn’t stopped sprawling, crowd-funded institutions like Keep Sydney Open from organising protests. Even when faced with Supreme Court-ordered directives
Body Type
It’s a defiant attitude echoed by McComish. “We have a lot of faith in the underground scene here,” she says. “Communities are forming to actively challenge the laws that they feel are unjust. Sydney is still an amazing city, and there are so many people pushing to make a change and keep the culture alive: Paradise Daily, Dinosaur City, Bad Day Out, Coven, Black Wire Records are so important at this time.” There are even some who believe that the lockout laws have had an unintended positive impact on Sydney’s cultural scene. You only truly value something when it’s at risk, after all, and the threat of closure has reinvigorated a range of cultural institutions. Bands as high-profile as Thundamentals have released videos and statements defending the city’s heartbeat, and Flume used his time in the ARIA Awards spotlight last year to rail against those who would threaten the institutions that helped him find his voice.
And still more are talking to the press about the laws. Artists as diverse as Wu-Tang Clan, Hannibal Buress, Danny Brown and Flight Facilities have all taken the time to put pressure on NSW’s politicians; to force them into doing their job to protect the city they have been elected to serve.
“Venues will continue to be shut down, emerging artists will continue to move away, and there will be less opportunities for music to exist in the heart of the city,” says McComish of Sydney’s future.
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“I think there are some positives on the horizon,” says Majam, a vocal protester against those willing to characterise Sydney’s music scene as dead and gone. “For example, the laws have brought camaraderie between artists. [They’re] banding together. We feel like we actually have a voice thanks to movements like Keep Sydney Open. It’s nice to see so many people caring so deeply about this issue.”
“I want to say a big thank you to the venues, especially the small venues and the small parties that are doing what they’re doing, because that’s where music evolves, that’s where all the exciting stuff happens, and that’s what’s getting shut down right now,” he said, his ARIA trophy held tight in his hands.
Needless to say, such mass migration has its own dangerous domino effect. The more creatives that evacuate the Sydney scene, the less people there are to support its at-risk cultural community, and the snowballing number of patrons choosing to stay at home is a disturbing trend in itself.
The laws are also having their own equally dangerous impact on the touring capabilities of international acts. For promoters and managers, visiting Sydney is now considered a financial risk – merely a complicated and costly way of fulfilling the word of those bands that promise a truly national Australian tour. “You know you’re going to lose money when you book a Sydney show,” one anonymous tour promoter tells the BRAG. “You just kind of have to accept that.”
to shut down its gatherings, its founder Tyson Koh has remained defiant, and the organisation has become a rallying point for all those who hold the arts community in this country dear.
“VENUES WILL CONTINUE TO BE SHUT DOWN, EMERGING ARTISTS WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE AWAY, AND THERE WILL BE LESS OPPORTUNITIES FOR MUSIC TO EXIST IN THE HEART OF THE CITY.” – SOPHIE MCCOMISH, BODY T YPE
The prevailing thought process is one of cautious optimism. It is no use pretending that the lockout laws haven’t decimated industries; that venues across the city aren’t at risk. But neither is it worth arguing that our culture is dead. “Barry O’Farrell, Baird and that corrupt bunch of wankers tried to do their best to make Sydney a clean place or whatever is good for residential market value,” Majam says. “But they forget that the human race is a living, thriving beast. When faced with adversity, we evolve.” ■
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Album Reviews What's been crossing our ears this week...
ALBUM OF THE WEEK PISSED JEANS Why Love Now Sub Pop/Inertia
You can judge this one by its cover. That garish pink eyesore, with that awkward, atonal band photo slap bang in the middle? Yeah, that about sums up the hobbled horror that is Pissed Jean’s new outing, a kitsch, brutal exercise in upsetting snotty-nosed critics and punk purists alike.
‘Love Without Emotion’ is the sweaty, latex-clad gimp toiling around in a basement co-owned by Birthday Party-era Nick Cave and David Lee Roth, and ‘I’m A Man’ is Marquis de Sade rewritten by Andy Kaufman, all stilted porn dialogue and rising horror, with author Lindsay Hunter taking on vocal duties to spit out a series of increasingly lewd come-ons.
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In their quest to offer up the most unpleasant tones they can find, the Pennsylvanians have shifted their sound from post-hardcore stylings to what could feasibly be called ‘pig-fuck rock’. Every song sounds like an anthem written to introduce some methaddicted wrestler as they stagger out into a dive bar to pound the piss from a stranger, and there is a kind of softcore ’80s ugliness to the proceedings.
It’s not nice. None of it is. Nor is it pleasant, or appetising, or ear-wormy, or likeable. But it is unstoppable – as unstoppable as a tumour, or the slow, thick spread of gout. Joseph Earp
“Every song sounds like an anthem written to introduce some meth-addicted wrestler.”
INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK HIPPO CAMPUS Landmark Transgressive
Take one part Vampire Weekend, one part Circa Waves, sprinkle in some pluck, prep and pep and you’ll have something akin to the sunny jams served up in Landmark, the debut album from Minnesotan millennials Hippo Campus. There’s a youthful exuberance to these 13 tracks fuelled by lolloping drums, sing-song guitar riffs and boisterous bursts of brass, falsetto and whistling – but don’t write off this record as juvenile. Amid the talk of backyard break-ups (‘Simple Season’), drunken dials (‘Tuesday’) stolen touches (‘Boyish’) and potinfluenced ponderings (‘Vacation’) is an impressively focused sound. Melodies are tight (and damn catchy), production seamless
(thanks to BJ Burton, the producer behind Bon Iver) and lyrics inflected with wit and wisdom. Take ‘Way It Goes’, a tongue-in-cheek takedown of the band’s own lackadaisical indie vibe and hipsterdom, for example. Or there’s the familiar sketch of the artistic soul, “So pretentious that she almost thought it cool”, in ‘Poems’, and the alarmingly accurate motto for 20-somethings, “All we ever knew is
what we didn’t have”, found in toetapping single ‘Boyish’. In playfully embracing and exposing the contradictions of adolescence, Landmark sets itself apart from the milieu of other jangly indie rock. Who knows? Ezra Koenig might even approve. Jennifer Hoddinett
“There’s a youthful exuberance to these 13 tracks fuelled by lolloping drums, sing-song guitar riffs and boisterous bursts of brass, falsetto and whistling.”
FIRST DRAFTS Unearthed demos and unfinished hits, as heard by Nathan Jolly GUNS N’ ROSES – ‘NOVEMBER RAIN’ By the time the version of the song we are all familiar with surfaced in 1991, the guitar had been replaced with rolling piano lines, Rose had fastidiously crafted an entire string orchestra’s worth of arrangements using only artificial digital keyboard tones, and this version’s laconic, hypnotic feel had been replaced by high drama, a slowburning crescendo, and Slash standing on a grand piano, delivering a blistering lead solo.
A
year before Guns N’ Roses released Appetite For Destruction, the hard-rocking debut record that sold 30 million copies and set them up as the most dangerous band in the world, Slash was sitting cross-legged, picking an acoustic guitar while Axl Rose delivered the most earnest, yearning lyrics of his career. The song was a five-minute ballad named ‘November Rain’, and it was demoed, then shelved. With the Laurel Canyon-style finger-picking, and Rose’s echoed, emotive vocals, this song sounds like something Jackson Browne and the Eagles would have smashed out in the early ’70s while on peyote buttons. Rose is restrained in his vocal delivery, the tone of the guitars are like a warm bath, and you could imagine Joni Mitchell covering this version in concert and changing very little about it.
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As mentioned, this version of the song was recorded in 1986, predating the band’s debut record. Had this plaintive ballad been included on their first album, it could have changed the Gunners’ entire trajectory. Maybe the album would have been completely ignored save for this one, obvious crossover single, casting them in the same light as hard-rocking ’80s metal bands like Mr. Big and Extreme who became largely known for fey acoustic songs that stray wildly from the rest of the band’s sound. Completely missing in this early arrangement are the lead guitar breakdowns, the entire dramatic coda (the ‘doncha think that ya need somebody’ bit), and the middle eight. While these elements undeniably add to the composition of the song, making it the nine-minute evergreen epic it is, it is also nice to hear this heavy-lidded version just roll by, unhurried. Turn off, your mind, relax and float downstream. After all, you’re in the jungle, baby. Listen to the original ‘November Rain’ demo at thebrag.com.
“Had this plaintive ballad been included on their first album, it could have changed the Gunners’ entire trajectory.” thebrag.com
19.02.17
WIL WAGNER
@ OXFORD ART FACTORY
BY ASHLEY MAR
ALLDAY
Mardi Gras
Comedy Festival 2017 For the first time in 25 years, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras will have its own festival of comedy.
Some of the funniest stand-ups from Australia and around the world are coming to the Sydney stage over three nights next week. Find out more and book at frontiercomedy.com/mardigras.
Tuesday February
28
Mardi Gras Comedy Gala Enmore Theatre
The Mardi Gras Comedy Festival kicks off with a massive gala event hosted by Em Rusciano and Bob Downe. The fast-paced night of laughs includes spots by Dixie Longate (US), Panti Bliss (Ire), Bridget Everett (US), Hannah Gadsby, Tom Ballard, Axis Of Awesome, Stephen K Amos (UK), Shiralee Hood, Alice Fraser, Neel Kolhatkar, Joel Kim Booster (US), Emma Willmann (US) and more!
Wednesday March
1
Panti Bliss Enmore Theatre
The so-called ‘Queen of Ireland’ Panti Bliss has definitely earned her title. This Irish drag queen and social activist went viral in 2014 with a speech about homophobia, inspiring the ‘Pantigate’ controversy. Join Panti’s journey at the Mardi Gras Comedy Festival this month.
Dixie Longate Factory Theatre
America’s most famous Tupperware lady brings her Southern-tinged comedy to the Southern Hemisphere. You’ve never seen plastic used like this before.
Thursday March
2
Bridget Everett Max Watt’s Sydney
Bridget Everett’s no-holdsbarred comedy has to be seen to be believed. The US comedy star made her name with a song about titties, and she’ll definitely be in your face at her Sydney show.
out & about Queer(ish) matters with Arca Bayburt
A Moment With Cloudy Rhodes
C
loudy Rhodes is a Sydney-based filmmaker with a decidedly queer gaze. She’s been described as one of Australia’s most exciting emerging artists, with her abstract and distinctive style embodied within her photography and films. Her first short film, Lo Loves You, is an unapologetically queer and impassioned debut. Now, she sits down with Out & About to discuss her craft. How long have you been making films? Not long. Lo Loves You was my first experience of shooting moving image and that was about two years ago, so I’m pretty fresh. Did you know you wanted to make films for a long time before you made Lo Loves You? Yeah, I did, but I was always really intimidated by it. I always made images – photos, collages and stuff – but I got frustrated because I wanted to tell stories and those mediums felt limiting to me. Making films felt like a more meaningful way to spend my time. Did you make a conscious decision to make gay films? No, not at all. I just tell personal stories. I think a film is so much work, so much goes into it, that it needs to be something you’re connected to and care about. So you wouldn’t necessarily say you have a political agenda. I just want to tell stories that I feel connected to and can identify with, and I also want to tell stories that need to be told. I guess there is a bit of politics in all of that, but for me, the emotions come first. With Lo Loves You I didn’t think about it as political – I was just telling a personal story – but I guess all gay love stories become political.
Cloudy Rhodes Would you say you make films as a response to that unfulfilled need we all had as baby queers, to see some representation of ourselves on the screen? Yeah, 100 per cent. If you’re emotionally moved by a film, then that film is good, but when you can identify with something more closely you’re always going to have amplified emotions. When I watch gay love stories I’m so much more moved and invested, because I can relate. I had a moment as a teenager when I watched my first-ever film with a central gay romance and found myself inexplicably invested despite having nurtured a healthy disdain for the genre. I was like, “Oh wow, so this must be what straight people feel like all the time!” Yeah exactly! That’s exactly it! I had the same experience. Has anybody ever given you shit, professionally, for the gay content of your films? My latest film – the script wasn’t originally
a gay story. It was an interracial love story, but the politics became way too complicated. So I made the choice to make it a love story between two girls. In making that choice, surprisingly, I had people who were apprehensive about it because they were afraid I’d be pigeonholed as a gay filmmaker. What was your response to that? I am a gay filmmaker. So you just decided to go ahead and make it despite that feedback? Yeah, I just made it and I will continue to make those films. What’s next for you? What are you working on at the moment? I’ve got a feature I want to get into development; it’s in very early concept stages. I’ll keep making films that move me, and it’ll always be from the female gaze, you know? I’m never going to have the perspective of a straight white guy. Like you said, you want to tell the stories that need to be told. Exactly.
Lo Loves You
this week… On Friday February 24, head over to Work-Shop in Redfern for queer artist Kim Leutwyler’s drunk painting class. The class is for everybody regardless of their level, and total beginners are encouraged. The term ‘drunk painting’ is meant figuratively (but there will be some cheeky drinks available). Using acrylic paint as the medium, students will learn about paint application, brush
thebrag.com
work, colour mixing and abstract painting. You don’t need to bring anything, just turn up and have fun. On Saturday February 25, mosey on down to the St George Sailing Club in Sans Souci for Bad Dog’s Gaylien, the gay space party you didn’t know you needed. The lineup features Stephen Sonius, Bill Cotsis, Annabelle Gaspar, Ben Drayton and Kevin Davidson. Tickets are
available from Max Black (Newtown), The Toolshed (Darlinghurst), Hair of the Dog (Surry Hills) and Happy Endings (Redfern). They will also be available at the door in a limited quantity. Also on Saturday February 25, The Shift Club on Oxford Street is hosting Club Arak, a night for queers of all backgrounds to come together and get down to the best Arabic music served up by DJ Chadi.
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arts in focus FEATURE
Chimerica [THEATRE] New Frontiers By Adam Norris
T
he 1989 pro-democracy protests in China gave us the iconic image of ‘Tank Man’, the anonymous shopper staring down a wall of Type 59s the day after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In February 2017 we have an alarmist, belligerent leader of a superpower at the onset of his presidency; who knows what image may come
free stuff head to: thebrag.com/freeshit Superhal
SUPERHAL
Shakespeare is getting a makeover with Superhal, a production opening at NIDA Parade Theatre in March. Written and directed by John Galea, the play uses classic characters from Shakespeare’s Henriad and recasts them using imagery and archetypes of the superhero genre. It’s the latest from The Puzzle Collective, a company of artists, writers, actors and engineers looking to bring something different to the stage. The cast includes Richard Hilliar, Emily Weare, John Michael Burdon and David Attrill. Superhal plays from Tuesday March 7 – Saturday March 18, and we’re giving away a double pass to opening night. Enter at thebrag. com/freeshit. 22 :: BRAG :: 701 :: 22:02:17
“WE HAVEN’T SEEN THIS MANY ASIAN ACTORS TOGETHER ONSTAGE, ESPECIALLY AT THE STC. IT’S GROUNDBREAKING FOR A LOT OF US.” to define the uncertainty ahead? Relations between China and the US have rarely boded this poorly, and yet Chimerica was written long before the rise of Trump or Xi Jinping’s foray into the South China Sea. Jason Chong, one of the co-stars of Sydney Theatre Company’s Australian premiere, explains how this 2012 play is suddenly very timely. “I think it’s very relevant,” Chong says, stepping out from rehearsals. “There are moments in the play where some of the characters talk about the lead-up to the re-election of Obama. So there’s a bit of that going on, and that gives us a sense of the timeline. But I think people will find the irony of what’s happening within the play and what’s currently happening quite interesting. I don’t know if it’s the brilliance of [playwright] Lucy Kirkwood that she could see this all happening, because there are moments here where you stop and think, ‘Now that’s just uncanny. This was written when?’ If you don’t have the political landscape present in your head – either today, or what it was back then – or if you know it well, either way, you’ll still take away a lot from this production.” Chimerica is an epic production. With fi ve acts spread across three hours, it is an ambitious undertaking, not least because of the 21 NIDA students enlisted to flesh out the story’s international scope. From New York to Beijing, we follow the efforts of two men – Chong’s character Zhang Lin and Mark Winter’s Joe Schofield – attempting to uncover the identity behind one of the century’s most defining acts of protest. “We’re seeing two characters who are counterpoints of these big powerhouses,” Chong explains. “[Winter] plays a photojournalist who took an iconic photo of the Tank Man
back in ’89 in the pro-democracy uprising, and my character is a student who loses his wife and unborn child during this massacre. So both are dealing with PTSD, and when people go through that sort of trauma, like going through a war, you tend to flock towards that same kind of person, because only they will understand what you’ve been through. We become friends because of it, but then he hears that possibly the man who stood against the tanks could be living. So he’s fascinated; I’m fascinated by the prospect of that. And the rest of the play is a detective story, in trying to unfold where this person is, what are the questions you would ask such a person.” History today is moving faster than ever, and there are smartphones everywhere to document its progress. Acceleration can be an invigorating thing, but once the ride starts rattling on its track and the wind starts to sting, that momentum can turn treacherous. People grow distrustful and frightened; governments turn vicious. The US has been rattling its sabre towards China with escalating force over the last several months, but despite the rhetoric and posturing, the history binding these two countries together is strong. Whether that strength is enough to anchor two increasingly polemic identities, however, remains to be seen. “It resonates right now in the political landscape in which we’re living, particularly between those two powerhouses,” says Chong. “After the GFC, China bailed out something like $1.7 trillion of America’s foreign debt. So there’s this connection between the two countries, but there’s this disparity in the way each country operates. Clearly, the Communist Party has a tight rein on censorship in China while there’s such capitalism in the United States. The US has
this idea of spending money to make money, whereas, culturally speaking, China tends to save money for that rainy day. And then of course you have Trump’s last few weeks, wanting to control the media and tightly control borders. So we’re seeing an interesting time in our history, and this particular play touches on that very much.” Politics aside, at its core Chimerica seems a production concerned with the human cost of history – what becomes of the survivors once the dust of trauma settles? What became of Tank Man, or the drivers of the Type 59s themselves? It is an emotional production, and one that requires tremendous efforts from its cast to maintain the truth behind the fi ction. “I’ve just come out of a rehearsal, where I’m being interrogated,” Chong says. “And there’s an emotional and physical drain as a performer there. But it’s also your job as a performer to arc that. It’s about finding where you need to put the energy, looking at your journey over the fi ve acts and to work out where we need to amp it up, where you need to slow down the wheels. It’s organic, because it won’t happen overnight to get to where you need to be. “It’s a special piece, which we haven’t seen in Australia. We also haven’t seen this many Asian actors together onstage, especially at the STC. It’s groundbreaking for a lot of us. This 2017 season there’s diversity across the board, and stories that reflect what we are as Australians right now. It’s exciting.” What: Chimerica Where: Roslyn Packer Theatre When: Tuesday February 28 – Saturday April 1 thebrag.com
arts in focus FEATURE
Richard 3 [THEATRE] A Cruel Leader By Adam Norris
M
ost theatre seasons are blessed with a production that generates buzz long before opening night rolls around. Be it the calibre of the cast and crew, or the esteem of the play itself, some productions just have a knack for getting tongues talking. Early in the year it may be, but already Bell Shakespeare’s production of Richard 3 has those in the industry on tenterhooks. With Kate Mulvany as the charming titular villain, it promises to be a dark interpretation of an already bloody story. Rose Riley talks us through her role, and why this tale of power and cruelty can’t help but resonate beyond the stage. “I’m playing Lady Anne, who was a real person though not a lot is known about her,” Riley explains. In the background, the sounds of rehearsal add a nice theatrical touch to the conversation. “She’s married to Richard, though not for a terribly long time before he gets rid of her. I’ve never seen any other productions of Richard 3, just snippets at drama school, and have seen the Ian McKellan film. When you take on a Shakespeare character, which is a character that has been performed so many times before, I always try and start afresh: start with my own understanding, and take what you’re given from the script and work up from there.
“I THINK NO MATTER WHEN YOU PUT ON ONE OF SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS, YOU’LL HAPPILY AND EASILY FIND CONTEMPORARY PARALLELS.” “There’s so much to learn from one of the history plays. Especially for myself; I haven’t performed or even studied one of the histories until now. It’s such a dense world with so much to learn. These family trees spanning generations, characters that all intertwine. So there’s been a huge evolution in my understanding of this world. It’s weird to think back to day one, and how much can happen in the last five weeks. It’s pretty massive.” Richard III – deformed in both body and deed – is one of literature’s great monsters. His ambition for the crown sees him betray enemy and ally with equal compunction. Macbeth could at least share crimes with his wife; Richard’s sole fealty is to power. Although it was not Bell Shakespeare’s intention to mount a commentary on contemporary events – and indeed, it seems quite keen to avoid obvious parallels – it is impossible to witness such a duplicitous ascent to leadership without being reminded of certain international figures. “I think no matter when you put on one of Shakespeare’s plays, you’ll happily and easily find contemporary parallels. That speaks about the accessibility, the timelessness of his plays. So you can draw those conclusions any time, but certainly with the Trump campaign and presidency,” Riley laughs.
Richard 3 photo by Pierre Toussaint
“It’s something we’ve tried to avoid in the rehearsal room because I think everyone is trying to avoid it already in life, because it’s such a constant topic of stress. So here, we can’t help but occasionally mention certain things, but we’re trying to steer clear a little. We’re not doing a production of American politics, you know? It’s not, ‘Is Trump Richard?’, but that is unavoidable. In a time of anxiety and fear and corrupt leadership, those things are so prevalent in the play – it’s impossible not to make that connection. “Richard III is one of the most tantalising villains,” she continues. “Any production, it’s going to be about him. Other plays, like Romeo And Juliet, it’s about the lovers and that spark. But with Richard, it’s really a personality piece. Especially having Kate play Richard, that’s a huge drawcard for many reasons. He’s very charming, and is one of the great anti-heroes. And having it played by a woman is really adding to the excitement.” What: Richard 3 Where: Playhouse, Sydney Opera House When: Saturday February 25 – Saturday April 1 thebrag.com
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arts in focus
arts reviews
inside jokes
■ Film
T2 TRAINSPOTTING
Comedy, Life and Bullshit with Cameron James
In cinemas Thursday February 23 Bruce Springsteen
“Nostalgia – that’s what you’re here for,” says Sick Boy. “You’re a tourist in your own youth.” As are we, drawn back into the struggles of Danny Boyle’s skagboys 20 years on, visiting old friends we’re astonished to find still alive. We’re not the only ones – Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) is a tourist now, too, having “chosen life” and whisked off to Amsterdam with the crew’s scam money in ’96. Begbie (Robert Carlyle) is in the slammer, Spud (Ewen Bremner) is failing rehab, and ‘Sick Boy’ Simon (Jonny Lee Miller) is running a dead-end pub with four regulars. But with Renton back, Simon’s not as willing to forgive and forget as he seems.
T
here aren’t enough nicknames in comedy. Musicians have got all the good nicknames locked up. Elvis is The King. Beyoncé’s The Queen. Prince is self-explanatory. Aretha Franklin is the Godmother of Soul. Sinatra is the Chairman of the Board. Bruce Springsteen’s The Boss.
If I got into rock’n’roll now, I’d be lucky to end up with the nickname ‘The Assistant Regional Manager’. I’m here to rock, roll, and make sure we hit those KPIs. There’s an idea in comedy that performers are only good when they’re hungry. Once they hit a level of success and comfort, they plateau and become Russell Bland. I don’t know if people feel the same way about rock stars, but if that’s the case, nobody told Bruce Springsteen. I saw The Boss at that big arena in Homebush that has changed names 50 times the other week, and the guy sweats more than the entire Sydney Kings team (Apparently they’re a basketball team that play in that arena? I saw the signs there, but I don’t know anything about them. I did drama in high school).
the crowd, and at one point I reached up and changed it to selfie mode so he’ll have great footage of all the angry Gen Xers behind him. A fun game to play is placing bets on the standing stamina of the old fans in the house. At some point, without fail, Springsteen will call out for everyone to get on their feet and clap along. Some people last a verse and chorus, some make it to the guitar solo, and the most determined older fan will make it to the end of the song, but they won’t be playing mixed tennis with the other couples on Wednesday.
“IF I GOT INTO ROCK’N’ROLL NOW, I’D BE LUCKY TO END UP WITH THE NICKNAME ‘THE ASSISTANT REGIONAL MANAGER’.”
The guy is 67 years old, but he has the energy of 60 seven-year-olds. He runs around the stage like a man half my age. He climbs the barricades. He did laps of the entire arena. He crowd-surfed for almost all of ‘Hungry Heart’, while singing. Then two-and-ahalf hours into his three-hour show, he asked the crowd, “Are you guys doin’ OK?” 20,000 people were like, “Yeah, are you OK, Bruce?” I mean, I know he’s The Boss, but surely he can delegate some of that running around to The Intern or something.
Whenever you go see these older legends, you get to witness the ageing process – not just onstage, but in the crowd as well. When Jurassic 5 came out here a few years back, about 30 per cent of their crowd was filming it on their iPhones, while the other 70 per cent were around when phones had curly chords. One kid had his phone up above his head for the whole show, filming above
Friday February 24: Green Lights Comedy at The Gaelic Club. One of Sydney’s best comedy
The last time Iggy Pop (The Godfather of Punk) came out with The Stooges, I was right on the barrier and Iggy grabbed me by the shoulders and sang the first chorus of ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ right into my face. It was such a rush. As he left, I remember thinking, “That was a special connection between a fan and a performer, and I am so grateful that in that split second he decided to choose me to bond with.” His touch felt inclusive and fl eeting and like something I’d never forget. An hour and a half later, after pushing Iggy’s sweaty dong off my head for the 15th time while he was crowd-surfi ng, I was like, “Iggy, please give me some space.”
nights hosted by my podcast co-host Alexei Toliopoulos, headlined by club favourite Justin Hamilton. Sunday February 26: The John Conway Tonight Show at Cafe Lounge. Conway is Australia’s funniest, weirdest latenight host who doesn’t
As for the boys, they’re off the skag now – mostly – scraping together what meagre existence they can. Simon’s angrier, less pretty boy and more thug, taking cues from the malevolent Begbie. And then there’s Spud, whom Bremner has always portrayed as a gangly fawn, too innocent for the world and the addiction that wracks him. But in the absence of smack, new addictions fill the void. Renton’s jogging, Simon’s scheming and Begbie’s ripping off houses at night. Eventually, Spud turns to writing, becoming author avatar for Irvine Welsh and ret-conning the writer into the
world. The hobbies fall aside as the third act reels in to deliver a king-hitting finale, itself arising from obsession. For the viewer, the pure nostalgia hit is cut with grit. Inevitably, Renton revisits his iconic ‘Choose Life’ monologue that adorns uni student
■ Film
HIDDEN FIGURES In cinemas now Hidden Figures is classic Oscar-bait – based on a true story, loaded with exposition and emotional shouting, and led by an awardwinning cast. And though it may come as a surprise, it’s also one of the most affecting and enjoyable films of the summer. Katherine Goble (Taraji P. Henson) has always been the smartest person in any given room, owing to her prodigious mathematical skills. But in the divided Virginia of 1961, the colour of her skin dictates her station, as it does those of co-workers Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe). As NASA endeavours to put a man into Earth’s orbit, the trio become unexpectedly crucial to the mission’s success. There could not be a more timely film about the past. Goble is a black single mother fighting for respect in a casually vicious working environment; Vaughan is doing more than her pay cheque’s worth of work and always looking out for her colleagues; and Jackson is striving to be recognised for her skills in a state where blacks cannot go to the same schools as whites. Post-Black Lives Matter, it’s a story America needs to hear, as these battles are far from over. As Levi Jackson (Aldis Hodge) puts it, “Civil rights ain’t always civil,” but our lead trio are, forging forward with grace, dignity and ingenuity despite the odds. One adorable sequence involves Levi innocently mansplaining a mechanical pencil to his engineer wife – Monáe’s beatific expression says it all. Director/co-writer Theodore Melfi draws a subtle correlation to the importance of science’s looking outward, in an age where experts and astronauts are resented and sidelined. In the words of Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), “We get to the peak together, or we don’t get there at all.”
Impressively, the screenplay by Melfi and Allison Schroeder covers the whole gamut of opposition faced by African-Americans – from the outwardly racist (segregation and staring); to white allies (Harrison); to the more insidious, unintended prejudice of people like Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst). In a defining moment, Mitchell says, “I have nothing against y’all,” and Vaughan floors the audience by saying, “I know you probably believe that.” But why quote the film so often in a review? It draws attention to how quoteworthy Melfi and Schroeder’s script is, loaded with phrases you could slap on a bumper sticker. These are the catch cries for a generation of black women, and for anyone who believes in the fight for equal rights. What an incredible moment in cinema history, for Monáe and the near-mythic Mahershala Ali to star in this film and its co-nominee for Best Picture, Moonlight. It also boasts the grooviest soundtrack of the year, cobbled together from the triggering work of Hans Zimmer and the ’60s funk stylings of Pharrell Williams, somehow both contemporary and current. Not to mention that it takes a lot to get this critic engaged in a film featuring The Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons, a bit player dwarfed by star turns around him. Ultimately, Hidden Figures rests on the accomplishments of Henson, Spencer, Monáe and the incredible women they portray. It gets the feet moving, the heart pumping, the laughs coming and the story of black America pushing further into the light. Cinema needs these figures, and thanks to their story, they’ll never be hidden again.
David Molloy
have a TV show. Yet. This show has great guests, music, sketches and lots of insanity.
Bruce Springsteen photo by Ashley Mar
what’s funny this week?
I don’t know what it is about seeing a musician live that makes you want to touch them. I’m a normal person. I don’t see photos of Kanye or Dune Rats and think, ‘Man, I’d love to touch that person’s hands.’ But three songs into a set, when the singer approaches the edge of the stage and holds their hands out over the crowd, I’m like, “I’ll hold your hand, Yeezy! Sing the croissant line to me!” I still don’t know what comes over me.
It’s best not to rewatch Trainspotting before jumping into T2, as Boyle’s return to the makeshift family of junkies that skyrocketed him to success carries with it the weight of those many years in between. His drunken
tilts and coke-fuelled smash cuts are textbook by now; the thrill of recognising each backwards-glancing frame tempered by age. It’s impossible for him to make a film without at least a dozen breathtaking images, but he’s more exacting now, lingering over his history.
Tuesday February 28: Macquarie University. This show always packs out with huge guests and a wild vibe. I’m MCing this one, so come and buy me a beer.
Cameron James is a stand-up comedian. You can follow him on Twitter at @iamcameronjames, or in the streets. 24 :: BRAG :: 701 :: 22:02:17
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arts in focus
game on Gaming news and reviews with Adam Guetti
2017
After a few slower months, March really heats things up with a slew of game releases you’re going to want to get your mitts on.
First up on Wednesday March 1 is Horizon Zero Dawn – an incredibly pretty adventure that begs the question, what if mankind were no longer the dominant species and instead ruled by robotic dinosaurs? It’s out exclusively for PS4. Skip ahead to Friday March 3, however, and you’ll land on one of the biggest days of the year when the Nintendo Switch lands on store shelves. Along with it will be a slew of launch titles including 1-2-Switch, Super Bomberman R, Just Dance 2017, Skylanders Imaginators and of course the long-awaited The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild. Then on Tuesday March 7 it’s time to visit Bolivia with Ghost Recon Wildlands (PS4, XBO, PC). It’s the latest Ubisoft franchise to feature an open world and should definitely be played with friends. walls everywhere. (The phrase was apparently cribbed from a 1980s Scottish anti-drug campaign). It seems naff in the trailer, but by its end, it bubbles over into a fountain of bile, as 20 years of repressed rage finally erupts. The world has changed, even if the characters haven’t, and yet Boyle’s trainspotters still manage to function as ciphers in our time.
Any sequel is cut, stepped on – the first high was irreplicable, and Boyle knows it. T2 Trainspotting advertises itself as designer drug, but the needle is still used. Who needs a future when you have the past? David Molloy
Most of you, however, will be patiently waiting until Thursday March 23, for that is the day you’ll be able to boot up Mass Effect Andromeda on PS4, XBO and PC. Breaking away from the new trilogy, expect to fight new enemies, make new friends and explore past the Milky Way. Wrapping things up on Friday March 31 is Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 Remix. For those still managing to keep track, that means this is a collection of the two previously released collections based within the classic Disney universe – now for PS4 gamers.
Destined For More
During a presentation accompanying its fourth quarter 2016 earnings report, Activision confirmed that Destiny 2 will be released in 2017. It’s not just another expansion to the base 2014 title, as the publisher claims it to be a full sequel designed to “broaden the franchise’s global reach, which along with follow-on content plans, sets the stage for growth”.
NEWS
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In a later call, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg stated that “development is going great, and it is indeed on track for release”. Activision also said Destiny will aim for a “great cinematic story” this time after complaints of a lacklustre narrative in the original. There is still no word, however, as to whether or not the game will make it to PC.
Expanding The Wild
In a slightly unexpected move, Nintendo has revealed that its upcoming Zelda title, Breath Of The Wild, will be getting two pieces of downloadable content during 2017 – both available through a Zelda Expansion Pass. While Australian pricing hasn’t yet been confirmed at time of writing, one DLC pack will add “a Cave of Trials challenge, a new hard mode and a new feature for the in-game map”, while the other includes “new challenges that will let players enjoy a new dungeon and a new original story”. The Expansion Pass will be available for both the Nintendo Switch and Wii U versions of the game, but it’s worth noting that the content packs cannot be purchased individually.
Review: Hitman: The Complete First Season (PS4, XBO, PC)
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o say that the release method of the latest iteration of Hitman was controversial would be an understatement. Doled out in an episodic format over the course of nearly a year, the drip-fed approach to content was lamented by many fans. The good news, though, is that with all episodes now available we have Hitman: The Complete First Season to combine them into one killer package. Though the game is only comprised of eight missions, they act more like miniature sandboxes that have been well developed and designed for replayability. They’re also wonderfully varied, taking you anywhere from a Parisian mansion to a high-tech spa – all of which make the most of a plethora of paths and a robust control scheme.
■ Theatre
A STRATEGIC PLAN
Difficulty can vary quite wildly depending on the mission, but if you’re really struggling there’s always the Track Opportunity function that helps you through each assassination. That said, doing so can take away from the unexpected yet enjoyable thrills the series is known for, but either way, there’s no doubt that Agent 47 is back in fine form. Here’s to a second season.
Playing at SBW Stables Theatre until Saturday March 11 Griffin Theatre Company is kicking off its 2017 season with a bang. No, sorry. A band. Andrew (Justin Smith) is a former rock musician, floundering in his first ‘real job’. Bureaucracy, red tape, funding issues and shitty colleagues are getting in the way of his big plans for the youth music program he’s been hired to head up. It’s clearly pushing him to the edge, and we spend most of the play wondering how far he’s going to go. A Strategic Plan begins in medias res: Andrew is wandering the halls of a government building, music blaring, when he’s approached by his legal aide, asking if he’s ready for his hearing. He clearly doesn’t really know what’s going on; unfortunately, neither does the audience, and as we skip back in the storyline it takes us a little longer to catch up than we’re totally comfortable with. That said, A Strategic Plan is funny. It’s full of adroit malapropisms, clever cultural references and characters that are so obvious they shouldn’t work, but somehow do – Briallen Clarke as the HR professional is just perfect. It’s also idealistic – Justin, and Emele Ugavule as wannabe producer Jill, make us all want to feel that way about music. The play’s use of the tiny space is every bit as creative as you’d expect from Griffin, and the flashes forwards and backwards are smoothly linked. Plus, the intermittent musical interludes are a neat addition. A Strategic Plan doesn’t entirely live up to the expectations of the explosive story that it sets up in the first scene, but in the (slightly meandering) process of getting where it’s going, it certainly makes some pertinent points about the death of live music in the face of corporate Australia today.
Review: Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (PS4, XBO, PC)
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n hindsight, Resident Evil 6 was not a great game. With an abundance of playable characters and a story that zigzagged about, it was a clear sign that the Resident Evil series had lost its way. Perhaps Capcom agreed, because Resident Evil 7: Biohazard shakes things up considerably. In many ways, this reboot of sorts takes more than a few creative cues from recent competitors like Alien: Isolation and P.T., but is still able to blend them into the inherent Resident Evil formula to create an experience that feels genuinely fresh. Events centre around newcomer Ethan Winters, an everyman who receives a cryptic video from his missing wife that sends him to an incredibly rundown manor in Louisiana. Naturally creepy things that go bump in the night ensue, but it’s to the game’s credit that they’re all incredibly effective, even for horror fans. The visual refresh works wonders for the game’s design and although scares might not be constant, gameplay remains thrilling throughout as you attempt to uncover mysteries and escape your dangerous kidnappers. In many ways, Biohazard draws elements from the first Resident Evil, but that’s just fine, because in doing so Capcom has managed to reinvigorate the series and craft one incredibly effective survival horror title.
Hannah Warren thebrag.com
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FOOD + DRINK
bar
OF
ADDRESS: 77 WILLIAM ST, DARLINGHURST PHONE NUMBER: 0435 910 713 WEBSITE: CLUB77.COM.AU OPENING HOURS: FRI – SUN 9PM-3:30AM
TH
EK
CLUB 77
FEATURE
E E W
How US Cuisine Conquered The World BY JOSEPH EARP
Tell us about your bar: Club 77 has been one of Sydney’s clubbing institutions for over 20 years, showcasing local and international talent and giving artists a platform in which they can release their music and perform. We host a range of different dance events weekly, catering to anyone and everyone with a good attitude and a passion for music and dancing. What’s on the menu? Lights snacks to complement the ever-changing cocktail menu! Care for a drink? Our signature cocktail is the lemon meringue pie – a sweet mix of limoncello, vodka and lemon, shaken and served in a Martini glass. It’s a sweet, fruity lemon dessert to kick the night into gear. Sounds: Disco, house and techno with select speciality event nights hosting a range of different genres. Our Facebook page constantly has updates on upcoming events. Highlights: 77 is a basement rave dungeon hosting weekly dance events with regular international guests catering for anyone and everything. Come enjoy a recently renovated and more sophisticated bar and the nicest security and staff in Sydney. The bill comes to: Get a cocktail and a nice snack for $22.
OK, so the United States might not be the most popular country in the world at the moment, thanks in no small part to the orange goblin they have elected to run the free world and the associated quasifascist cronies he has surrounding him like flies on shit. But not even Donald Trump and his no-goodnik pals have managed to slow down the inexorable global takeover of US cuisine, and American food remains a surprisingly high-couture delight in continents as far-flung as Europe and yes, even Australia. American food’s transition from guilty pleasure to gustatory high art has been a slow one, taking place over a space of years rather than months. Five to six decades ago, US cuisine was internationally considered to be without voice; an amalgamation of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and European food styles that all curiously clashed and were ignored by foreigners who largely believed American cooking got about as complicated as McDonald’s. The more traditional and unique recipes were hidden away in America’s Deep South, where Creole staples like gumbo were landlocked national delicacies, never truly managing to catch the attention of an international stage. Even in the ’80s, Australians still considered fast food joints and various forms of microwave cooking to be the sum total of American food styles, and chefs serving US recipes were forced to deal with the stereotype that the food they served would be chewy, cheese-heavy and strikingly artificial. It was an established understanding amongst Aussies that food from the States was basic and salt-heavy, and that the American national palette had no tuning for richness. Indeed, in order to reach the mainstream, US-style cooking had to piggyback off a different movement altogether. The American food revolution that has overtaken Australia and led to an influx of US restaurants and bars such as Newtown’s excellent Hartsyard and Miss Peaches was achieved off the Hartsyard
26 :: BRAG :: 701 :: 22:02:17
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FOOD + DRINK
REVIEW
Above: Gumbo
back of the sudden interest in ‘comfort food’ that was sparked in the early 2000s, and chefs were forced to capitalise on that trend to truly infiltrate the public consciousness. See, some 17 years ago, there was a concerted effort by chefs to move good food away from its sniffy and pretentious reputation; to reclaim it from expensive restaurants and restore it to the people. Chefs like Anthony Bourdain and Tom Parker Bowles spearheaded such a cultural overthrow, what with their unpretentious styles and cheerfully down-to-earth mannerisms. They emphasised tasty, inexpensive and altogether minimal ingredients with strong flavours, while utilising rapid cooking times and everyday kitchen equipment. And in doing so they allowed people to feel good about what was typically considered lazy or basic food.
“In order to reach the mainstream, US-style cooking had to piggyback off a different movement altogether.” Thus the comfort food movement began to spread, opening the floodgates to a range of other styles – including the now popularised form of US cuisine that has so caught Australia’s imagination. That’s why American food as we know it in this country today is minimal in terms of ingredients used; why it includes such simple delights as crumbed fried chicken, and rich gumbo boiled slowly in the one pot. It is US cuisine we eat when we go to Hartsyard, but it’s also part of the comfort food craze too, a natural extension of the obsession with hamburgers and starchy foodstuffs that so dominated the world almost two decades ago. So as America continues to threaten and endanger our global political balance, becoming ever more unpopular in the process, their food shows no sign of leaving our plates. After all, it would take a lot of bad blood indeed to sour the taste of a crumbed leg of chicken in an Australian’s mouth.
The Provincial BY JESSICA WESTCOTT
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PRICE PER MAIN:
$: $0-10 $$: $10-20 $$$: $20-35 $$$$: $35-50 $$$$$: $50+
love a good chunk of rustic charm. Having grown up in the middle of “Where the heck is that?” in Central New South Wales, something about a restaurant that looks like it wouldn’t be out of place in a vineyard really speaks to me.
The Provincial is cut right out of the sunny, tree-dotted campagnes of southern France, and, between the corrugated iron walls and polished timber windows, you get the sense that you’re about to dine in a very fancy abandoned church. In fact, the window itself has been directly taken from the old CBA in Martin Place, and large caramel timber beams cut through the whitewashed inner facade. Solid leather and timber furniture adorns the bright open space, and French antiques hand-picked from local markets complete the detailing. The Provincial is a passion project between brothers John Paul and Joe Hawach, and showcases a blend of family cooking and Franco-Argentinian flair. The shining star of the venue is a wildfire charcoal parrilla, reminiscent of the grand Argentinian tradition of family barbecue. However, this grill – crafted from iron and Queensland fruit tree – was made in Spain, and is the centrepoint of the entire menu. Despite the name, the food here is a little more upmarket than provincial. Which is a decidedly Rozellean trait – the folks here aren’t averse to chucking an extra dime in the pot for a quality feed. A balance of sophistication and familiarity is the mode du jour. But onto the food, lovingly crafted by executive chef Patrick Dang, a master of French cuisine and the humble Spanish barbecue. I’m greeted by the glorious Frenchman Florian, who brings out a rosé-inspired cocktail as big as my head. It’s delicious. Very sweet, but on a 40-degree day the fact it is cold is enough
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I’m greeted by the glorious Frenchman Florian, who brings out a rosé-inspired cocktail as big as my head. It’s delicious.
for me. We start with scallops: the soft and creamy consistency is beautifully complemented by the radish chicken crackling. Side note: this reviewer is revelling in the trend of restaurants making stuff that is not a chip, into a chip. It’s a theme, apparently. Five stars. A predominately European wine list features a selection of wines by the glass and bottle, while a cocktail menu of Bellinis and a fusion of fruits like pineapple, cucumber and agave is on offer. The Provincial martini packs a punch, with Mr Black espresso, vanilla and Ketel One vodka. A beautiful heirloom tomato salad is brought out with a prime rib and a wagyu short rib which, expectedly, falls off the bone. The watermelon salsa is a nice touch, bringing a freshness to the meat without a full side salad. The plating is beautiful, and the serving sizes err on the side of generous. Our meat is paired with a Shaky Bridge Pinot Noir from central Otago, New Zealand – an adventurous but delightful choice, with a palate of dark chocolate and spices. For dessert we sample the dark chocolate, infused with Earl Grey and green tea cake; a marinated strawberry three ways with a gorgeous basil, ice cream and pistachio sponge; and the deconstructed lemon cheesecake with Chantilly cream and lime sugar. The marinated strawberries are a delight; a simple yet well-executed idea that is beautifully matched with fresh basil ice cream, which, don’t worry, is anything but savoury. Overall, if you’re looking for a venue that can offer fine dining at a more than fair price, then look no further than this new haunt in Rozelle. Although you may want to call ahead: it’s been booked out almost every weekend since its opening in January.
More: theprovincial.co
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Where: Union Place, 124 Terry St, Rozelle
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up all night out all week . . .
live reviews What we’ve been out to see...
PHOTOGRAPHER :: ASHLEY MAR
GEORGE, FELIX RIEBL, JACK CARTY Taronga Zoo Friday February 17
Uncertainty is in the air ahead of our headliners’ first Sydney show for over a decade – Taronga has been rained out for most of the afternoon, and intermittent showers still loom as the crowd snakes its way through the elaborate maze that leads to the gardens. After that ordeal, it’s nice to have Jack Carty serve as a calming presence, treating early arrivals to his perfectly charming, quaint folk stylings. Whether it’s the front bar of a pub or in tonight’s stunning surrounds, Carty always makes his audience feel immediately at home. He’s quickly followed by Felix Riebl, normally of The Cat Empire and here performing mostly from his collected works released under his own name. It’s an interesting contrast to see the man usually found bouncing around the stage at the helm of one of the country’s most in-demand live acts sitting pensively at a keyboard and delivering a handful of world-music-flavoured lite-pop tunes. Truthfully, though, that may be the only genuinely interesting thing about Riebl’s solo music. It’s not objectively bad, but it lacks presence and memorability. Nice to hear Riebl stick it to the coal-passing politicians before The Cat Empire’s ‘No Longer There’, though. It was almost 15 years ago that George first broke through on a national scale with their landmark debut, Polyserena, promptly shooting vocalist/keyboardist Katie Noonan to stardom as one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary singers. It may seem like a literal lifetime ago – or even two for some attendees, given how many children are present – but if tonight makes anything clear, it’s that these songs were never forgotten. They were sung, shared and relived well after the Brisbane natives called it quits – and, for all the band members’ efforts since their 2005 split, these tracks remained their best-known and most treasured.
yellowcard 17:02:17 :: Enmore Theatre :: 118-132 Enmore Rd Newtown 9550 3666
Watching the five of them performing again makes it feel as if no time has passed since those days, and yet it’s hard not to get lost in the wave of nostalgia that comes with the likes of ‘Breathe In Now’, ‘Special Ones’ and ‘Breaking It Slowly’. The Noonan siblings still sound exceptional, their bandmates are still effortlessly professional and the utter elation the crowd exudes while singing along (or mouthing along, daring not to scale Katie’s heights) is infectious. No thunderstorm was ever going to hold back the return of George. Honestly, it just couldn’t. David James Young
JAMES TAYLOR ICC Sydney Theatre Tuesday February 14
A myriad of adjectives come to mind when one thinks of James Taylor – singer, songwriter, guitarist, occasional actor and American folk icon. Perhaps the most fitting one, however, would be ‘beloved’. It takes all of a stroll out onto centre stage and a tip of his cap to elicit a huge round of applause – some even take the initiative even further by presenting the man of the hour with a standing ovation. Not ten minutes later, he’s fielding a half-dozen “I love you”s from all across the room – fitting, given the date – and assuring every last caller-out that he loves them too.
wil wagner
PICS :: AM
As Taylor introduces his ten-piece backing band across the course of the show, he makes a point of embracing each one of them and making note of their individual accomplishments. When the rest of the band takes leave during intermission, Taylor remains onstage to sign as many autographs and take as many selfies as he can for the full 20 minutes, only stopping when the lights go back down. Across the two-and-a-half-hour show, Taylor draws from his classic hits right up to his 2015 album Before This World,
jokingly justifying the latter’s inclusion by telling the crowd it “sounds like the old tunes anyway”. The crowd goes pin-drop quiet in captivation during ‘Carolina In My Mind’ and ‘Fire And Rain’, but is just as quickly on its feet for joyous sing-alongs like ‘Mexico’ and ‘How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)’. His bandmates are in full swing, with particular highlights coming from powerhouse drummer Steve Gadd and Blues Brothers alum ‘Blue’ Lou Marini on the saxophone. Taylor is also backed by a trio of exceptional backing vocalists, who fill out the unmistakable harmonies of ‘You’ve Got A Friend’ and steal the show during ‘Shower The People’. As far as gentle, nostalgic arena shows go, one couldn’t ask for a great deal more than what Taylor and co. offer up this evening. Although astronauts in the middle of an interstellar crisis may not have the time for Taylor’s unique brand of bittersweet folk rock, a crowd of mostly over-55s on a pleasant Tuesday evening have all the time in the world. Thanks, old friend. David James Young
KISHI BASHI, TALL TALL TREES Oxford Art Factory Thursday February 16
Don’t judge a book by its cover, the saying goes. By judging Mike Savino, AKA Tall Tall Trees, purely on surface value before a note is played – hirsute, well-dressed, wielding a banjo – one might expect an apple that doesn’t fall far from the Mumford family tree. The book we’re presented with, however, tells a very different story. Savino is a masterful, inventive performer, building up loops through a mix of percussion and distortion pedals. Matched with his impressive singing range, he quickly gets the audience onside. When Savino calls for rhythmic claps to keep the beat or for the crowd to try out its best falsetto on one of his hooks, people are instantly responsive. There’s just something about Savino’s magnetism that allows his performance style to resonate so soundly – even when he screws up a loop or loses power on his side of the stage, the response is instantly forgiving, mixed with amazement he was able to assemble something so meticulous to begin with. By the time you read this, Savino’s third LP Freedays will be out in the world. It comes with a strong recommendation for those seeking nu-folk from an unconventional place. In 2014, Kaoru Ishibashi performed his first-ever headlining show in Sydney at a sold-out Newtown Social Club. Literally surrounding himself with fans on the small stage, it was a beautiful and memorable performance that would be difficult to match for most musicians. Thankfully, as is well-documented by now, the man who performs as Kishi Bashi is not most musicians. He is chameleonic, versatile and consistently entertaining, regardless of what stylistic path he chooses to take. With Savino returning to the stage, as well as drummer Seth Hendershot, Ishibashi conducts his first full-band headliner with aplomb. There are moments of bittersweet beauty, such as ‘I Am The Antichrist To You’ and opener ‘Statues In A Gallery’, which stun the audience into silence. By contrast, there are also huge, spontaneous dance parties with the killer hat-trick of ‘The Ballad Of Mr. Steak’, ‘Philosophize In It! Chemicalize With It!’ and ‘It All Began With A Burst’. No matter where the trio land, they handle themselves impeccably throughout, all the while joking around with their admittedly terrible Australian accents and in-jokes about vernacular and local food. Misty eyes, meat pies and worn-through dancing shoes – that’s a Kishi Bashi full-band show for you, folks. David James Young
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LUDOVICO EINAUDI Sydney Opera House Wednesday February 15
Truth be told, I find it difficult to review classical music at the best of times – and let’s be clear, catching Ludovico Einaudi at a packed-to-the-sails Opera House was just such an occasion – since my knowledge of composition and context is a touch uneven. What exactly is the canon here? Is this man taking his cues from Mozart or Schubert? A more fitting comparison, for me at least, might be Spielberg. There is something so very cinematic to Einaudi’s work, a sense of story that lends itself to the most vivid flights of imaginative fancy. To hear the Italian master is to be given the soundtrack to your own private epic, and it certainly didn’t hurt that the darkened auditorium of the Concert Hall was not unlike a cinema; a sprawl of strangers rapt in their seats, following score as you ordinarily follow story. Even so, there was something slightly skewed across the performance that took me some time to identify. Einaudi is the most streamed classical artist in the world, and such popularity is evidenced in his audience; I can’t recall ever seeing such a wide range of ages at a gig. But taken as a whole, there is a repetitiveness to the performance; a reliance on a handful of key compositional elements (like rhythmic
JET, BLOODS
Taronga Zoo Sunday February 19 It’s been a hot minute since sugar-and-spice pop-punk delights Bloods were playing shows with any regularity. Still, if there’s one way to make a comeback, it’s on the grand stage of Taronga Zoo, playing to a largely unfamiliar audience and scoring new fans along the way. Now with a second guitarist filling out their sound, the Sydney band pulls out a tight set that collates early favourites (‘Goodnight’, ‘Into My Arms’), set staples (‘Want It’) and a crowd-pleasing cover (The Romantics’ ‘What I Like About You’, not played by the band for a couple of years) for good measure. There’s new material on offer, too, which hopefully means that a follow-up to 2014’s Work It Out is not far off. Needless to say, it’s sounding great, matching Bloods’ love of the three Rs (Ramones,
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ticking across various instruments – bells, guitar, piano) to lend urgency to each song. Individually the effect is startling, but linked across two hours of music it begins to homogenise where each composition is leading. Einaudi is also the undisputed master of the melodramatic silhouette. The final note of any performance must seemingly be accompanied by searching hands slowly rising from the keys in backlit triumph, or by an aloft fist, a head turned up and to the side in contemplation; it’s a small complaint, but a regular one. Indeed, my principal gripes all stem from a lack of variation, of spontaneity. It didn’t prevent me from truly loving the stirring sweep of Einaudi in full flight, but the problem with encouraging such cinematic pondering in your audience is the threat of having their minds wander from the moment, and despite the standing ovation and the undisguised weeping of many around me, too often were we left to our own devices. Does watching Einaudi live offer anything distinct from what you’ll experience streaming him? Within the music itself, not really. But there is such pleasure to be had in allowing the compositions to carry you away; of seeing each song swell to life. It was beautiful, and it was frustrating. Adam Norris
Ronettes and Raveonettes) with the skills they have collectively accumulated in the six or so years since their inception. Even with rain looming, it’s impossible to be unhappy with Bloods playing – all you’ve got to do is bring your walls down and get to dancing. Oh, and maybe laugh at a couple of pun-ishingly bad jokes from bassist Victoria ‘Sweetie’ Zamora. Naturally. Jet are one of the more recent additions to the list of much-hyped reunions, and the anticipation for the band’s arrival is palpable – not least of all because there’s a 20-minute delay on account of the very very frightening thunderbolts and lightning. Thankfully, Jet respond to this urgency by leading with the one-two punch of ‘Last Chance’ and ‘Get What You Need’ from their landmark debut, 2003’s Get Born. From there, it’s a brief history of the band across its three studio albums and half-dozen major singles, with the quartet (joined by keyboardist Louis Macklin
and The Wolfgramm Sisters on backing vocals) holding down the fort as if their six-year live absence didn’t leave a single dent in their proverbial armour. DJs are rolled over. Money gets put where mouths are. Rock’n’roll. Admittedly, the set is at least a couple of songs overlong, and the uncertain pacing means too many mid-tempo tracks are clogged together. Still, when Nic Cester wanders over to pick up a tambourine and ask the question that made him and his brother and their two best mates superstars to begin with, you’re too busy singing obnoxiously loud to sweat the small stuff. David James Young PHOTOGRAPHER :: ASHLEY MAR
five things WITH Growing Up I grew up in a house with five 1. kids who were all learning the violin
(badly) at the same time – there is no worse sound in the world than that. My parents weren’t musicians but they did encourage it a lot. I picked up the guitar at 17 by learning ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ and never looked back.
BEDE KENNEDY FROM CASTLECOMER
same way, with an acoustic guitar, recorded into a voice memo on the phone and then played out with the band until it’s sitting really nicely with all of us. Once that is done we usually think about it for a few weeks, and then we go into the studio and quickly knock it out. We are yet to do a big stint in a studio so it’s currently a day per song.
Inspirations Music, Right Here, There are too many artists that Right Now 2. 5. inspire me, but for now I’ll just say Music right now is amazing. I hear Stevie Wonder because I watched a documentary last night on his career and how he was pioneering the use of Moog synths in the ’70s. Your Band The band is me, Patch, Joe, 3. Neely and Tom. We’re brothers,
cousins and a best friend. We didn’t have much musical talent before we decided to start a band, so we were really bad for a long while, but then we got better by playing a lot of shows. Music You Make All of our music is written in the 4. The thebrag.com
an album like M83 – Junk, Chance The Rapper – Coloring Book or Two Door Cinema Club’s new one, and I get inspired and excited to write more music. Things like venues closing down and no one buying music are sad, but for a band like us who have only known that side to the industry, we just focus on creating the best songs possible and going to as many gigs that we can get to. With: The Gypsy Scholars Where: Selina’s @ Coogee Bay Hotel When: Friday February 24
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up all night out all week . . .
mountain sounds festival 2017
HUNT PHOTOGRAPHER :: BENJAMIN
18:02:17 :: Mount Penang Parklands :: Central Coast
five things WITH
GREG ARNOLD FROM THINGS OF STONE AND WOOD Growing Up A formative musical 1. experience for me, really
early on, was listening to Mum play piano. Then came K-Tel bargain albums (Superbad and Fantastic) which kept us happily glam rockin’, naff popping and soft country ballading until the overwhelming Sunday night religion of Countdown took over. I loved the ‘hooray for everything’ vibe. The first gig I ever went to was a Suzi Quatro show at Festival Hall, and my dad still asks of the entire musical universe: “Yeah, but how does it compare with Suzi?” Then I managed to hustle my way into my brother’s bands and here we are. Inspirations I’m not on my own with 2. this one, but for me, there’s The Beatles and then there’s everybody else. I remember an uncle in Adelaide letting us listen to his Sgt. 30 :: BRAG :: 701 :: 22:02:17
Pepper’s if we cleaned it with alcohol before and after playing it. Your Band Got to love my band. 3. They’re ace. Tony Floyd:
singing drummer extraordinaire, teenage jazz wunderkind, backstage frisbee cricket inventor and a totally tops brother-in-law too. Mikey Allen: mate from school, nuanced bass playing, inspired harmony singing, film and game scoring, fountain of youth discovering happy machine. James Black: playing everything brilliantly, producing (once managing), sage counsel delivering, RocKwiz orchestra-ing, maestro-philosopher. Also tops bloke. Who could stay mad at those guys? The Music You Make This tour is a really nice journey back to our first album. We’re playing The Yearning from start to finish.
4.
I have to say, listening to that album is always a pretty overwhelming experience for me, so I’m looking forward to playing the dang thing from start to finish for the first time. Especially as we are with our old touring buddies Club Hoy. Music, Right Here, Right Now 5. I live in Geneva at the moment,
and it really makes you appreciate how exciting the Australian music scene is. There’s always so much energy and it is so good at adapting to change. I’m thrilled to see so many of my ex-students (such as Alexander Biggs, The Outdoor Type and Stonefield) making a splash. With: Club Hoy, The Old Married Couple Where: Newtown Social Club When: Sunday March 26
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g g guide gig g
the BRAG presents
send your listings to : gigguide@seventhstreet.media
TURIN BRAKES Newtown Social Club Monday April 10
pick of the week
For our full gig and club listings, head to thebrag.com/gig-guide.
TREVOR HALL
Newtown Social Club Wednesday April 12
MILES ELECTRIC BAND
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 22
Conor Oberst
Enmore Theatre Thursday April 13
Ionia + Slow Ships The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 7pm. $7.
NATIONAL FOLK FESTIVAL 2017
Peter Black + Forest Pooky Midnight Special, Newtown. 7pm. Free.
Exhibition Park, Canberra Thursday April 13 – Monday April 17
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 23
CORINNE BAILEY RAE
Totally Unicorn The Chippo Hotel, Chippendale. 8pm. $14.
MONDAY FEBRUARY 27 Sydney Opera House
Conor Oberst 8:30pm. $49.
Metro Theatre Sunday April 16
NIKKI HILL
Unity Floors + Sachet + Married Man Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 7pm. $12.
Newtown Social Club Monday April 17
THE STRUMBELLAS
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 24
Oxford Art Factory Monday April 17
ST PAUL AND THE BROKEN BONES
Descendents Enmore Theatre, Enmore. 7:45pm. $82.
Metro Theatre Wednesday April 19
Nuclear Assault Manning Bar, Camperdown. 6pm. $60. Queen Porter Stomp + Inspector Gadge The Gasoline Pony, Marrickville. 7pm. $7. 3:30pm. Free.
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 25 Bjorn Again Taronga Zoo, Mosman. 6pm. $75. The Creases + Good Boy Hudson Ballroom, Sydney. 7pm. $17. Warpaint Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point. 9pm. $58.
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 26 Explosions In The Sky
Secret Garden 2017 – feat: Alex Lahey + Body Type + The Jezabels + Habits + Le Fruit + Donny Benet + Set Mo + Spod + more Downes Family Farm, Brownlow Hill. 12pm. $195. Stormcellar Catherine Hill Bay Hotel, Catherine Hill Bay. 2pm. Free.
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 28 Lany + Pumarosa Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $38.
Jagwar Ma + Jack River + The Babe Rainbow Towradgi Beach Hotel, Towradgi.
Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point. Thursday February 23. 9pm. $49.
Conor Oberst photo by Amelie Raoul
Texan post-rock icons Explosions In The Sky are among the world leaders in instrumental songwriting, and their new album The Wilderness will inspire a spectacular live show.
Katy Steele + Hazlett
Animals As Leaders + Plini + Nick Johnstone
Newtown Social Club, Newtown. Saturday February 25. 8pm. $23.
Metro Theatre, Sydney. Sunday February 26. 7:30pm. $61.10.
The former Little Birdy frontwoman has released her debut solo album, Human, and she’ll captivate Newtown audiences as part of her national launch tour.
Bow down to your new animal overlords as they celebrate their fourth LP, The Madness Of Many, with this Aussie tour following dates in the US and Europe.
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brag beats FEATURE
Off The Record Dance and Electronica with Alex Chetverikov
“I DON’T DO EVERYTHING THAT PEOPLE ASK ME TO DO, BUT THANKFULLY MOST PEOPLE ARE NORMALLY IMPRESSED.”
In what is even more of a surprise than Thundercat’s shift in musical motif, ‘Show You The Way’ features an impressive array of ’80s superstars, including past collaborators Michael McDonald and ‘Footloose’ singer Kenny Loggins. “It took for me joking about it on the radio for it to actually happen,” laughs Bruner. “To start with, my piano player that tours with me had also toured with Kenny, and I actually only recently found out that his kids were fans of my music. I feel like Kenny just wanted to explore and create again, and we did. We challenged each other in different ways and tried to come up with something between us that was cool, and it just worked.” Releasing four full-length solo albums in six years is quite a feat, and a testament to Bruner’s work ethic. In between all that, he is a regular contributor to tracks by many of today’s top artists, providing basslines for Kendrick Lamar, Kamasi Washington, Childish Gambino, and Brainfeeder label fi gurehead Flying Lotus, who signed Thundercat to his independent imprint after the release of his first album in 2011. Brainfeeder is home to an impressive roster of musicians, and Bruner draws inspiration from them all. “I think that Brainfeeder is meant for people to connect in the way in which they normally would,” he says. “I feel like the label has really challenged me, and you can hear the infl uence between each artist. There aren’t many labels like that out there, so I’m very grateful to have met Flying Lotus and all the people that I’ve worked with on the label. I think that it’s very important for that to be shown and that to be
Thundercat
“Yeah, I think that’s defi nitely true,” Bruner says. “A lot of the time with the album there’s a lot of things happening that kind of explore stuff that I’ve never really done before. But ultimately, it’s not even about that. I mean, everybody hears it differently. I put myself out there and it’s up to the people to fi nd their own translation of what it is. I don’t necessarily try to lead people in a certain direction. I just talk about what I see and how I feel. But yeah, I defi nitely wanted to do the whole happy thing. I’m glad people are realising that and taking it that way.”
From A Place Of Bass By Benjamin Potter
T
o put it quite simply, Stephen Bruner, better known as Thundercat, is on fire. But it’s not just the high-quality array of artists who long to include his bassdriven genius on their own tracks – Thundercat’s original output is turning heads too. His album Drunk, set for release this week, has already spawned singles like ‘Show You The Way’ and ‘Friend Zone’, revealing a new side of the Brainfeeder genius: one that ditches his dark undertones of the past and gives fans a fresh outlook on his future.
French Touch F
rench touch (or French disco house) was an important part of my entry into electronic music. While we’re just about all familiar with Daft Punk, digging even just a tiny bit deeper into labels like Roulé, Disques Solid, Vulture Music and Robsoul unearths an incredible wealth of French talent that has soundtracked the lives of millions of people worldwide for the last 25 years (Pépé Bradock and Aubrey remain two active, forwardthinking producers who, quite unbelievably, never claimed the plaudits they deserve). Fast-forward to the last five years and to something of a renaissance in French electronic music, with more than a handful of record labels reinvigorating house music with their brand of funk, jazz and soul.
To paraphrase The Smiths; yes, you can stop me, you’ve heard this one before. Making 4/4 sound fresh? Pfff. “House being influenced by funk, jazz and soul? C’mon mate. That probably describes stuff released every day!” These French producers, however, are bringing their own distinctive take to the saturated house music market. That’s not something we fi nd very often any more, and, even as lauded Parisian clubs continue to close down (Sydney is certainly not alone), it’s incredibly refreshing to see longstanding music crews break out on their own. Here are four nuggets that might sway you.
portrayed. I’m just happy that I’m around for it to happen, you know?
“I always try to go into things with an open mind, and not look at it with anything other than uncertainty. But there’s a lot of beauty in that, because it helps me to give my all on whatever I’m doing. I don’t do everything that people ask me to do, but thankfully most people are normally impressed,” he laughs.
While collaborations are seen as his forte, Bruner has dabbled in other projects beyond his solo career, including writing music for fi lm. His most recent endeavour has been working on Flying Lotus’ first horror fi lm, Kuso, which The Verge called “the grossest movie ever made”. “I feel like Kuso is kind of like Lotus’ brainchild, and I wouldn’t dare interject into something that’s ultimately his,” Bruner says. “He told me he wanted to put an album out while he was doing it, but I kind of wanted him to be by himself because I feel like it was very personal for him. “I was defi nitely involved in it, like always, and even in the fi lm sometimes you can tell parts where Lotus and I created some fucked up shit. But this was solely his idea, and I’m happy that it came about. But I kind of just stood back and watched the master work, you know? I’ve never really written for fi lm before, but I defi nitely see some in the future – it’s a lot of fun.” As for what else lies ahead, Bruner remains coy, but there’s no doubt he’ll be invading our ears for years to come. “I mean, I like to keep it quiet, I don’t really like to blab my mouth or anything,” he says. “But ideally, there are a couple of things in the works – I just don’t like to speak too soon. “I don’t know man, it’s a deep sea and I’m down to be carried off somewhere.” What: Drunk out Friday February 24 through Brainfeeder/Inertia
“I ALWAYS TRY TO GO INTO THINGS WITH AN OPEN MIND, AND NOT LOOK AT IT WITH ANYTHING OTHER THAN UNCERTAINTY.” thebrag.com
An Introduction To
Mad Rey
Paul Cut
D.KO Records might just be the pick of the lot, boasting a very healthy roster of consistent producers. One of their most successful releases, Quartier Sex is equal parts slamming jit and sultry downtempo funk, with ‘Tribute To Roy Ayers’ a particular favourite.
Paul Cut’s aesthetic is slightly smoother, with an emphasis on the jacking bass. The title is fitting – these are smoky, jazzy basement jams, and no surprise that Moodymann showed ‘Else’ some love when touring France.
Quartier Sex (D.KO Records)
Basement Jam (Popcorn Records)
Sweely
Chineurs De House: Calm Down Homie (La Chinerie) Sweely perfectly blends together a downtempo selection of breakbeat, squelching acid synth, and vocals that aren’t far off ’90s R&B.
VA
Those Guys (Ondulé Recordings) Mid-tempo looped disco samples abound, and they’re emblematic of the label’s overall goal: to bring the groove.
Mad Rey
THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST
It’s not so much releases this week, as classic mixes/sets from the first-ever Detroit Electronic Music Festival back in 2000, an event that few at the time would have predicted to be welcomed so quickly, so warmly and so openly by the city. These are now freely available on YouTube, featuring mixes from Stacey Pullen, Mike Huckaby and more.
RECOMMENDED Robag Wruhme
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 25
SUNDAY MARCH 12
FRIDAY MARCH 10
SATURDAY MARCH 18
Cassette, Marc Jarvin Goodbar Robag Wruhme The ArtHouse Axel Boman & Mike Servito Goodbar
Rahaan, Soul Of Sydney DJs TBA
Pete Herbert & Dicky Trisco TBA Talaboman – John Talabot & Axel Boman Jam Gallery
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up all night out all week . . .
live review What we’ve been out to see... SUMMER DANCE #2 National Art School Sunday February 19
The second episode of this year’s Summer Dance series took place in the sandstone comforts of Darlinghurst’s National Art School over the weekend. Refreshingly compact in its size and stage design, it’s fast become Sydney’s yearly signature Sunday session. With the Summer Dance event now into its third season, Astral People have made a remarkable effort to curate an incredible bill year after year, plucking veterans and up-and-comers alike to satisfy even the most nitpicking of critics. After playing host to one of Europe’s most sought-after DJs, Palms Trax, in January, its followup dance session was distinctly local in flavour, but no less in pedigree. The highlight of the day was arguably the second cab off the rank, live outfit The Possé. Featuring a well-respected, seasoned stock of Australian electronic music producers and musicians, their driving jazz-funk built a hell of a groove. Front and centre on bass duties was festival favourite Touch Sensitive, whose funky, fleshy basslines gradually grew bolder as the band built from a simmering repose. Armed with the ever-reliable Juno60 synthesizer, Andrew Bruce expertly flavoured the groove with graceful jazzy keys. The performance culminated in ‘MS-DOS’, a track built on a dusty bass-
and-keys Detroit rhythm, and its short, insistent guitar riff evoked a French house twist. This was live house music, a distinction no less aided by a faithful rendition of Mr. Fingers’ house anthem ‘Can You Feel It’. With the sun fading fast, CC:Disco! took the reins for the coveted Sunday evening spot, stirring the fresh-faced young crowd with a high-energy set of ’80s boogie and tribal rhythms. She is championed for her outstanding radio shows, and her bubbly character and proven tastemaking were on full show. The Bermuda trio then followed, led by Melbourne’s effervescent analogue synthesist Harvey Sutherland. Following a remarkable string of releases transcendent of genre, Sutherland’s productions are revered for their characteristic restraint. The live format afforded these extended boogie explorations the chance to evolve. Alongside looped rhythms, the relentless, tireless drumming of Graeme Pogson supplied a platform for both the delayed echoes of Tamil Rogeon’s electric violin and Sutherland’s Juno-60 synth noodling and modulations, adding layers to the underlying melodic synth motifs. Rogeon was featured sparingly throughout the performance, the nuance of his strings a little lost in the mix, but his bombastic character spurred the now-lively crowd onto a greater gear. Alex Chetverikov
five things WITH
Growing Up Growing up there 1. were always instruments
around the house. My dad played bass in a few bands and Mum played guitar. My brother came up playing mainly piano and bass and I played classical/jazz trumpet and a bit of guitar also. I always wanted to play the drums and when I found producing I fell in love with the rhythmic aspect of beatmaking, which I guess has led me to dance music.
bliss n eso
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Inspirations The music that’s stuck 2. with me the most throughout
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the years is early Bonobo and similar vibed stuff. LPs like Animal Magic and Dial ‘M’ For Monkey made me want to produce early on. The music that then made me want to produce for the dancefloor was the stuff coming out of the UK in the 2004-2012 period – labels like DMZ, Tectonic, Deep Medi, Tempa. Recently I’ve been loving the stuff coming from Cassius Select and
ENDGRAIN
Cop Envy, who are based in Sydney, who have been pushing forward that kind of UK sound in that 120130bpm format. Swamp 81 from London are doing a similar thing with the same vibe from the old 140bpm days but progressing it in a new way. Your Crew I guess I’ve made 3. plenty of friends in Sydney
over the past few years. With Translate Sound System we’ve been involved in parties with the Dungeon Events guys and the Yolk/ Chipped guys and have done a few things in between, and then recently signing with October Records for a few releases of my own stuff under the new project Endgrain. During the day I try and look busy maintaining virtual server infrastructure for a gas company in North Ryde. The Music You Make And Play 4. I play a bit of everything,
a mix of old and new, with a couple of my own (and friends’) bits thrown in. Lots of UK-flavoured stuff, and mainly vinyl, but I’m starting to warm up to the convenience and consistency of digital. Music, Right Here, Right Now 5. Sydney has been busier
than ever despite the lockouts and the tough environment for venues. The warehouse scene has been going strong, and even though we don’t have as rich a dance culture history as other cities I’m hopeful for what the next few years will bring – hopefully more Sydney-based labels, artists, sound systems and music-centric nightlife! What: October Nights With: Lancelot, Amateur Dance, Mira Boru and more Where: The Civic Underground When: Friday March 3
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AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND TOUR 2017
TUESDAY 4TH APRIL ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY Tickets and information available at alterbridge.com | mjrpresents.com
New album The Last Hero out now!
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