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sidestage issue four the screen issue silversun pickups the temper trap mat t and kim of montreal
#004
the kills louis xiv the presets van she the
grates children collide sidestage issue four the screen issue silversun pickups the temper trap mat t and kim of montreal the kills louis xiv the presets van she the grates children collide sidestage issue four the screen issue silversun pickups the temper trap mat t and kim of montreal the kills louis xiv the presets van she the grates now
with
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Mas F eatthead ure
Con t en s T emper Tt rap
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issue 004, October 2009
The September issue. Unlike the documentary movie of the same name that follows the creation of Vogue’s September issue, there aren’t many Anna Wintour-esque tantrums in the Sidestage offices. In fact, there are no Sidestage offices, so we’re able to bypass that completely. And it’s October now, anyway. While inversely proportional content-wise to Vogue’s September issue, this issue of Sidestage has also been a long time coming. Featured within we have interviews with Silversun Pickups, Matt + Kim and The Temper Trap and photos of The Kills, of Montreal, Louis XIV, The Presets, The Grates, Children Collide and Van She.
the screen issue
This issue has seen us undergo a format change of sorts. Instead of a two-page spread, Sidestage is now a two-page spread on one page. Such a dramatic change. It is now best viewed in full-screen mode much like a video would be, hence our theme; stills from music videos line this issue’s page backgrounds. We’ve also set up a Sidestage Tumblr to follow, if you are so inclined, featuring videos, songs and anything else we can’t shove into the zine. So enjoy issue #004. We’re always looking for contributors, especially writers so if you’re interested, hit us up on sidestage@gmail.com. love Kate & Natasha xx
co-founder and art director
contributors
Natasha Theoharous
Chrissy Gee Andrew McMillen Josh Oxlee Albert Santos Natasha Theoharous Kate Walton
co-founder and contents editor Kate Walton
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feature The Temper Trap
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photography of Montreal
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photography The Presets, Van She
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interview Silversun Pickups
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review The Presets, Van She
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photography The Kills, Louis XIV
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interview Matt + Kim
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insight How To Be a Live Music Critic
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seelistendrink
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F F ea ea t t ure ure
the temper trap
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T emper emper T T rap rap T Lorenzo Sillito sounds like a good son. He greets me on the phone like a well-behaved boy, hastily informing me that he’s at his Melbourne home while the rest of his band are at their current headquarters in London. With impeccable manners and an articulate manner to his answers, all appears well with the guitarist of Australia’s latest buzz band, The Temper Trap. Alas, he breaks. Their debut record, Conditions, is one that’s atmospheric, with delayed guitar riffs, heavy beats and a variety of instrumental cameos, but when asked about the use of a strings section on certain tracks, he gulps with hesitation, like a father trying to explain to his child the truth about Santa. “The string section is actually programmed,” he admits.” There’s only one real violin which our engineer managed to put down.” His thoughts quickly change to bringing the positives out from the situation. “It gave it that real grainy kind of sound.” That said, Lorenzo’s confidence in his own finished product is more than evident. And after almost a year of positive buzz from all corners of the globe – including a feature alongside Lady Gaga and Passion Pit on BBC’s Sounds of 2009 – European tours and high-end production values, it’s hard to argue otherwise. But when compared to the early works of The Temper Trap – at the time a band that lived out of a van as they emulated the angular rock sounds of Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand – Conditions is a grand departure. Lorenzo attributes the change in form to the band’s own artistic ambitions. “Over time we were able to hone our sound a little bit more and get away from the angsty, guitar-driven songs that we were writing back then,” he iterates. “Move towards stuff with a little bit more soul and more textual layers. We just made a conscious decision to try and create a bit more of a wall of sound. Have more textual layers incorporated into the music, as well as having guitar hooks and other catchy elements in there as well.”
By Albert Santos
As well as a change in tempo, a change in location also welcomed the band into their new era. As they moved their operations overseas,
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T emper T rap F ea t ure following in the footsteps of Howling Bells, The Drones and Nick Cave, their public profile noticeably increased. The question must be asked: Does an Australian band have to go elsewhere for worldwide success? “There’s just more opportunities over there [in Britain]. You’ve got a much wider audience, plenty more countries to visit,” Lorenzo acknowledges. He does, however, defend the position of the Australian record label on the matter. “I think all Australian record labels want their musicians to get to the greatest heights. It’s just sometimes they don’t have the opportunity to. I guess we’re just lucky enough to have that opportunity to go over there.” One of the many lucky opportunities offered to The Temper Trap was the production talent of Jim Abbiss, renowned for his work with Kasabian, UNKLE and Arctic Monkeys. “Getting him was pure chance,” Lorenzo says. “None of us actually knew what he had done before he said that he was interested in recording our band. The interesting thing was that we had all already listened to a lot of his work [without knowing he was involved].” Where Jim’s skills became invaluable was in transferring The Temper Trap’s on-stage energy onto the record. “It’s difficult, especially when doing consecutive takes of a song, to keep that energy up,” Lorenzo utters as he reflects upon time in the studio. “That’s where Jim really came to the forefront. He was able to stop us and go ‘Okay, have a listen to these’ and give us the specific direction to get that energetic sound on the record.” Aside from Jim Abbiss’ contribution, much of Conditions’ soulful sound grew from vocalist and songwriter Dougie Mandagi’s personal experimentation. “He was listening to a lot of stuff with soulful voices and started to experiment more with falsetto. The songs we wrote around the lyrics and the lyrics he built around the songs just came out that way. “It was a conscious effort of Dougie’s behalf, because he always said he wanted more soul as it wasn’t so evident in our earlier work.” As we joke about the redundancy of live albums, the conversation ultimately lands on the publicity and hype the band has received over the past 12 months. Known for being both a gift and a curse to up-
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and-coming bands, the hype machine has been credited for both the success and failure of many of this decade’s biggest acts. While most bands are either decidedly happy or cynical about the prospect of being featured so prominently by the media, Lorenzo seems bemused and even slightly oblivious. “Hype is a thing that just happens. We never expected that there would be this much talk about our band. We just tried to do the things that we know how to do.” He does, however, understand that with any praise there will always be detractors. “Already just yesterday, the record didn’t get that great a review from someone. There’s always going to be people out there who don’t like it. You just can’t control it really. We just want to try to work hard and impress everyone that comes to our shows. That’s what we keep our minds set on.” With the criticism has come the age-old music critic tradition of comparisons. In the Temper Trap’s case, it has been the market leaders of stadium-sized music – U2. Lorenzo, however, doesn’t see the link. “I think only one song [on Conditions] really sounds like U2 and I think that’s [lead single and 500 Days of Summer trailer soundtrack] ‘Sweet Disposition’. That was a fluke; I was listening to a bit of U2 at the time and I always liked playing with delay and I just stumbled upon that guitar riff. It’s pretty flattering, though. We like their records and hopefully one day we’ll get to play with them.” Despite The Temper Trap’s musical progressions, Lorenzo admits to still having a soft spot for their earlier work. “I tried to push [the band] to play ‘My Sun’ at our last show in Australia,” he admits. “But it didn’t really go down very well. We actually did practice it and it sounded better than it ever had. “There might be a day where we play those songs again, but for now we’re focused on moving forward.”
Conditions is out now on Liberation.
Pho t ography F ea t ure
of Montreal Manning Bar, Sydney
March 3, 2009
By Kate Walton
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In erview Ft ea t ure
Silversun pickups
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Silversun T emper pickups T rap Big opening question, what was it like opening for Metallica (at SXSW)? It was pretty insane actually. It was a little intimidating at first but it actually ended up being a pretty good show. When the doors first opened it was like ten people deep at the front of the stage, all wearing Metallica shirts and I thought, “wow, this could go really bad,” but it ended up being a really good time. It was just one of those things where it’s like, “wow, didn’t think this would ever happen,” but yeah, it was good, we had a blast. Are you a Metallica fan yourself? Um, I don’t know if I’d call myself a ‘big’ Metallica fan. I remember I used to listen to them a lot when I was a skater when I was like 13/14 and that was like actually the coolest part of the show, they played for like an hour and a half and they played like a ton of old stuff that like I remember from that period. Like Creeping Death and For Whom the Bell Tolls and that was kind of cool because they were literally playing the songs I kind of know so it was like “Alright! Totally! I know all the words to this song, crazy.” Somewhere in the back of your head they all sort of jump forward like “wow, that’s really weird, I still remember all the words to ‘One’!” In Australia there is really nothing to compare SXSW to; what’s the experience like? It’s… crazy. The city of Austin I think boasts more music venues per capita than any city in the United States; there are literally two whole streets that’s just venues, all next door to each other for like six blocks each. So people from all over the place just descend on it. There’s just thousands of drunk, sweaty people just wandering around in the street and seas of white tour vans everywhere trying to get to all 16 shows that you’re playing in four days, it’s just this big crazy chaotic mess but its really fun. Even as big as it’s gotten, it still presents the opportunity to randomly discover a band you’ve never heard of that’s like the greatest thing ever. It’s perfect for that. Did any bands particularly stand out this year?
Josh Oxlee talks to Joe Lester, keyboardist for Californian band Silversun Pickups about SXSW, touring and well , Guitar Hero.
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Silversun Pickups F ea t ure Honestly this year, I hate to say it, we didn’t really get enough of a chance to go out and see bands as much as we’d like to, but there were ones that I wanted to see and heard were good. It was sort of a different animal for us this year, we were busy but in a different way. The last time we were there I think we played seven shows in four days and at each show there’s six bands and just by virtue of playing you get to see a ton of other bands. We only did two proper shows this time so we really didn’t have time unfortunately. Guitar Hero sponsored the Metallica show, and I see you are releasing two tracks from your new album Swoon onto the game. How important is that sort of publicity? I’m not really sure. It seemed like a really fun thing to do for us. We all know the game and as opposed to just selling your song to a commercial or something, it’s engaging people [who] are actually playing it. It exposes people to music they didn’t know about. It could be important in that respect, we don’t really know what the effect will be but it seemed like a fun opportunity. Hopefully it’s good! Hopefully someone in some random town will come onto the level with the Swoon songs and decide they like it and buy the record. Even if it’s just a fun song to play, that’s kind of cool. ‘Lazy Eye’ is one of my favourite songs to play on Guitar Hero. Oh is it really? Brian actually played it for the first time and said it’s actually harder to play on Guitar Hero than it is on guitar! As a keyboardist myself this question always intrigues me – how hard is it to recreate such atmospheric tones live? It sort of depends. Some of the stuff translates well, [but] live and studio stuff is just two different animals. There are certain things that Brian and me did on the record that there’s just no way we could do with [only] four arms. If we had two more arms each we could cover all those parts. It’s about working out what part will have the most impact live and [what] other parts… sound neat on the record. We just can’t do it [all] live [but] the song really isn’t going to suffer without [the studio parts]. So it’s a process of selection more than anything else.
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Silversun T emper Pickups T rap I saw an image of Brian’s guitar effect set up; it seemed pretty intense. Oh, [laughs] wait until you see the new one. When you make a new record you get to try out a bunch of new pedals and gadgets. There’s a bunch of new pedals and things he used that he wants to be able to have with him so… it’s bigger. Did you get more freedom to try out new things after the success of the first album? We’ve been really lucky in the sense that our label has always let us do what we wanted and they were open to letting us spend more time in the studio this time around to fine tune stuff. So in that sense, yeah we did have more freedom. They always sort of let us loose and were like “do your thing” so there was no pressure apart from ourselves to make a good record as far as we were concerned. So yeah, we got more time, which was nice. Did that desire for freedom come into account when choosing a label? You know, I think maybe subconsciously. Our whole main thing was when we decided to try and find a record label – because we live in LA and all the major labels are headquartered here or have big offices here. We have friends who had been on major labels and we had heard these horror stories about a guy who got signed and made a record and then the majors sat on it for so long that by the time it came out he was so hurting for money he was painting the A&R guy’s house. We just want to make records and just go on tour and when Dangerbird came around we had just gone to the guy who runs it for advice. Because Nicky, the bass player, had known him for years and we had been looking at a couple of other labels and he was just like “I just started this label, let me sign you.” It seemed like a good idea because it was small and kind of manageable and it’s worked out well so far. Their office is only two blocks from our house and if I have a question I can just walk over there and ask them. They’re just there. You don’t have to call some secretary and wait to get back from them. To a lot of people Silversun Pickups would have came out of nowhere with ‘Lazy Eye. Which I think was on The O.C.? How do you stop yourselves from being another “flash in the pan” buzz bands so to speak?
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Silversun Pickups F ea t ure That song sort of gained popularity and helped us a lot but we’ve been a band for six years so what other people might see as the “hot buzz band”, it’s like, dude, we’ve been touring for a long time, it’s not like we just got together and made this song and a month later we were on the radio. That song was written over the course of five years and changed and evolved. I guess we’ve never seen ourselves like that. We’ve just wanted to keep making records that we’re proud of. If it does well enough that we can tour on it, then awesome, we can tour on it. I don’t think any of us have aspirations to be like “top of the pops” or whatever. I hear you’ve been touring for two years straight or something? Yeah, the first record came out in the US in July of 2006 and even before that we were on tour for five months before we went in to record [the album]. Then we recorded that and pretty much toured until the end of 2007, so we were out for quite awhile. Did anything particular stand out from that tour? I think just travelling in general was pretty amazing. We got the opportunity to go to a lot of places. The fact that we got to make a living playing music is something that we were all really excited about and felt really blessed for that opportunity. We just get to make music now, which is pretty awesome. We all had day jobs up until four or five months after the first record came out and then we got so busy that we just couldn’t keep them anymore and we could just get by making music. We all made the decision to just go for it and it’s worked out really well so far. I think the fact that we got to go to Australia and Europe and Japan was great. Any plans for coming back to Australia? Yeah we are just now starting to get touring stuff together so we are going to start getting busy in the middle of May. If we have any control over it we definitely will, we had a great time the last time we were there so I hope so, sooner rather than later. I’m sure the opportunity will arise. Swoon is out now on Dangerbird
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Pho t ography F ea t ure
The Kills Louis XIV Prince Bandroom, Melbourne April 3, 2009
By Kate Walton
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Insigh t
how to be a live music critic
by Andrew McMillen
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How t o be a l ive music cri t ic •
You must smile smugly when informing the door staff that you are attending on behalf of your allotted publication.
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You may use several sentences to comment or complain about external factors that led to you missing half or all of the first band’s set.
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You may attempt to capture the zeitgeist wherever possible, by referring to wider societal, economic or meteorological factors.
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You must understand the importance of the zeitgeist if you are a music critic.
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You may refer to the bands’ stage attire or between-song banter if you are unable to accurately or coherently describe their music.
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You may refer to the venue’s drink prices and the temperament of the bar staff only if you are still short of the word limit, even after describing stage attire and between-song banter.
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You must not use more than half of your word limit to describe the bands’ music. This is a waste of valuable words, which could be better devoted to describing stage attire, between-song banter, drink prices and/or bar staff temperament.
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You must make reference to other artists’ sound when describing any band, for comparisons are the lifeblood of the music critic.
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You may describe a band’s sound as ‘(genre)-tinged’, ‘robust’, ‘edgy’ or ‘angular’, even though you know that these words are meaningless filler.
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You may not research support bands on MySpace before the show.
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You may insist that you did not research the support bands on MySpace before the show because you wanted to “be surprised”.
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You may insist that you did not research the support bands on MySpace before the show because you wanted to “approach with an open mind”.
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You must never concede that the real reason you did not research the support bands on MySpace before the show is because you are lazy.
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How t o be a l ive music cri t ic •
You may get inappropriately drunk, scrawl meaningless notes which you can’t decipher the next day, forget most of what happened during the show and rely on friends’ accounts and sheer bullshit to scrape together your pitiful pile of words to meet the limit.
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You must realise that the above description accurately captures the actions of most music critics.
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You may drink no alcohol, take thoughtful notes, and live vicariously through the rest of the drinking crowd, purely to perpetuate the stereotype that all journalists are hard drinkers.
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You may not have “just a couple” of drinks. This is completely unheard of.
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You may slightly nod your head to the rhythm of the bass drum.
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You may alternate between slightly nodding your head and slightly tapping your right foot to the rhythm of the bass drum.
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You may not, at any point, gyrate your body or move your arms in response to the music.
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You may only move your arms to imbibe your drink, or when writing notes while in the process of capturing your thoughts of pure brilliance.
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You must have your notebook and pen at the ready whenever a band is playing, in order to capture your thoughts of pure brilliance at the exact moment they come to you.
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You may use the above act for overtly advertising that you are a music critic.
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You may tell members of the opposite sex that you are a music critic when they ask why you are taking notes.
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You may lick your lips before responding to the above question, as the questioner will undoubtedly want to make out with you immediately after discovering that you are a music critic.
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You must refer to any weekday night as a “school night”. While there is some contention as to whether Thursday and Sunday
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qualify as “school nights”, there are no exceptions to Friday or Saturday. •
You must have a smug smile on your face as you write the words “school night”, as if it’s some incredibly clever and original phrase.
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You must treat every show you see as a music critic with the utmost sincerity, because watching three bands play music to people for a few hours is the most important thing in the world.
Find more of Andrew’s writing, including this post at andrewmcmillen. com
Pho t ography
The PRESETS VAN SHE AIS STADIUM, CANBERRA
27 May, 2009
By Kate Walton
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F ea t ure
The PRESETS VAN SHE
AIS STADIUM, CANBERRA 27 May, 2009
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T emper T rap The last time The Presets played in Canberra was in November 2008 at the Foreshore Summer Music Festival which, woefully, I had missed out on acquiring tickets for. The silver lining was that the festival was met with unseasonable downpours and arctic conditions, so missing out hadn’t seemed such a tragedy after all. Thankfully, six months down the track Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes graciously brought their distinctive brand of energetic dance-punk back to the capital, much to the delight of approximately 3000 hyped Canberrans. Originally the show had been slated to take place at the ANU Bar, but the tickets sold out with such unprecedented speed that the event was upgraded to the AIS Arena. Initially your intrepid reviewer had been relegated to the nosebleed section by the powers that be, where my concerns about the quality of the sound in the Arena were confirmed – while watching the openers Van She it appeared that the space was too big, with too few people, and far too much echo-ey concrete (the bain of any music lover’s existence). Perturbed by the sound quality in the higher sections of the seating, I weaselled my way into the GA section and was delighted to find the sound improve beyond belief, and it only got better as the crowed poured in before the main act. Van She did what any support act is supposed to do, with more pizzazz than I had expected. They succeeded in getting the kids in the front row pumped up for the Presets, simultaneously providing inoffensive background music to the old farts like myself standing around drinking beer and catching up with friends. The band occasionally busted out a catchy tune or two, but over all the fact that they come across as a tribute band to 80s high school ‘prom’ music relegates them to the status of ‘totally forgettable’.
By Chrissy Gee
The Presets have come a long way since I first saw them in a tent at the Falls Festival four years ago, but one thing about their live performance which has remained the same is their total dedication to working as hard as they can and having as good a time as they can. It’s no secret that their popularity has exploded over the past eighteen months, and while some of the attendees at their live shows are more your run-ofthe-mill ‘dance music junkies’ who creep out of the woodwork at the slightest hint of a strobe light, the Presets’ actual performances have
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Review become more professional, more high tech and more exciting. Most importantly, the energy they bring to their shows is utterly infectious: it’s nearly impossible to have a bad time at their gigs, no matter how annoying the fluoro-clad, glowstick-waving dickheads might be. The Presets have proven themselves as masters of suspense: they began the show loitering in the shadows as the opening strains of 'Talk Like That' collectively raised all of our pulses, before bursting on to the stage and jolting the crowd into a frenzy. The set was an excellent mix of both albums, including crowd favourites 'Yippiyo-ay', 'If I Know You', and 'This Boy’s In Love'. Julian and Kim really know how to treat an audience: when to bust out an old favourite (such as 2008’s über anthem, 'My People') and when to ease off with a mellow groove like 'The Girl and the Sea', effectively letting the crowd’s hearts recover before manipulating us into another dancing delirium. Most impressive was the band’s ability to take the old favourite 'Are You The One?' and reshape it into a version even more exciting and compelling than the original. Stripped right back, the live track has an air of tribal simplicity which draws the crowd into a trance, focusing on the verses and suspense-fully teasing us with the chorus, sending everyone crazy with the anticipation. This music seemed to stick to the air in the venue, and I felt like I could feel the song on my skin – the beat was so loud and penetrating it was vibrating my ribcage. Throughout the gig we were also treated to a truly incredible and beautiful light show. Such a thrilling and innovative use of lighting really adds to the whole ambience of the live show, and for the most part it was so intense I wondered how the recreational drug users were coping. Their encore was a sumptuous rendition of Apocalypso’s 'Anywhere', closing of course with their 2005 instant classic 'I Go Hard, I Go Home'. Despite later reports that singer Julian Hamilton had been ill and that the rest of the tour was postponed, he gave an excellent performance singing with feeling and without inhibition. His counterpart Kim Moyes also performed admirably, showcasing his drumming talent as well as his thoroughly entertaining dancing, and at one point even bowing
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T he Prese t s prostrate to the crowd as if before a great Sultan. Hamilton expressed his gratitude with a simple, ‘Thank you, Canberra,’ and they were off. Sublime. Go hard and go home we did.
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in t erview
matt & kim
ma t t + kim
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Picture the scene: It’s a damp Thursday morning and the last twenty minutes have been spent trying to get a faulty calling card to work, each failed attempt steadily increasing the level of panic. When I finally get an answer, all fear fades when a cheerier-than-ordinary response echoes through the receiver: Helllllo? Hello! Am I speaking to Matt? This is he. How’re you? Good thanks! How are you today? Sorry, what? I couldn’t hear you, there was this beep. That’s how it begins, shitty cell reception, awesome dude. It all balances out, really. Matt Johnson along with Kimberly Schifino, make up the two halves of eponymous Brooklyn-based duo Matt and Kim; Matt on keyboards, Kim on drums and both sharing vocal duties. Since releasing their energetic, upbeat self-titled album in 2006, the two have gained a following reaching far beyond New York City, bringing them to Australia last year and again this May. But as we speak, Johnston and Schifino are on a States-wide tour with Antipodean sensations Cut Copy. Johnston has very much picked up on my nerves and has taken lead of the situation. We’re in the middle of a rainy day right now on the way to Atlanta, Georgia. In the van, just to give you a setting. Just woke up from a nap, it was pretty good. It’s like, nine a.m. where you are, right? See what I mean? Dude. With an impeccable pronunciation of Australian place names, for an American. I know you have a few “links” to Australia. What do you plan on doing out here, other than playing gigs? Well, we came to Australia in summer 2008 and it was awesome. We were coming out of freezing cold New York to the tropical wonderland that is Australia in January. We did all the tourist stuff; we went to this park with all these bats. Wait, what’s the park, do you know Sydney well? Where in Australia are you?
by Natasha Theoharous
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ma t t + kim I’m in Melbourne but I’m trying to think of where you’re referring. It’s like the park with the Opera House in it. But I swear, there were trees there that I swear were full of a hundred thousand of these giant bats. All just hanging upside down. This real freaky ass shit. I’m sure we’ll go back there to see if they’re still around. When we were in Brisbane we saw a bit of the city and Melbourne, we didn’t get to see that much but when we come back, we’d love to see more. Seeing as you’re touring with Melburnians at the moment, you could maybe get some insider city tips from Cut Copy? Yeah, we’ve already been chatting with them about our journey over there because they won’t be touring at the time and just hanging out, so yeah. Everyone on that crew seems to have somewhere different that they know about and– wait, wait, tell me this: Mike from [Melburnian electronica outfit] Knightlife, who is also tour with us, says that we can call it “Mel-borrrn” while we’re there. Will we make everyone there angry? Yes. [laughs] That’s what I’m saying! I think he’s just trying to get us in trouble. He is, definitely. Upon hearing that, Melburnians narrow their eyes and will shoot you a “You’re not from around here, are you mate?” Ah, yeah. See, he was saying “nah, it’s just an accent thing, you know?” But then again, Kim and him have been giving each other a hard time all tour so I’m sure he’s just pulling our legs. I will just stick with the “Melbin” thing. We were in North Carolina last night and Tim [Hoey, Cut Copy bassist] saw these two people drinking Foster’s in the front row. Now we know that in Australia, Foster’s is the last beer you would ever want to drink. Now, Tim calls them out and I said, into the mic, no, actually that’s Cut Copy’s favourite beer; everyone should buy Cut Copy a Foster’s. I wanted to see them get 800 of these big cans of beer and be all “Goddamn that Matt!” It sounds like an awesome tour. Why, after a similar kind of intense touring situation, did decide to go to childhood home in rural Vermont to record Grand, your second album? We decided to go somewhere where there’d be absolutely no distractions. Where we were in Vermont is pretty much the equivalent
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ma t t + kim of your outback, I think. We flew from Melbourne to Perth, and [where we were recording in Vermont] is one hundred percent farmland. I feel like that was like being right in the middle of Melbourne and Perth; nothing. There’s just no distractions, somewhere we could just sit and focus and have all the time even though it kinda made Kim start losing her mind after about six weeks. I spent eighteen years there so I guess my mind was somewhat lost but not completely. Kim though, has never been somewhere so rural for so long and yeah. She’s also completely terrified of nature. That would have been a great mix for her. If we’re in a really dangerous part of Brooklyn where someone may potentially mug and kill you, she doesn’t mind but if she’s in the middle of the woods and it’s really dark, she’s so scared that like, Freddy or Jason is going to pop out of the woods and just start slashing. Speaking of, how do you feel about being known as a “Brooklyn band”? We’ve been a lot of places and granted, it’s hard to judge a place having been there for only one day but we definitely don’t see ourselves as living anywhere other than where we are. So by that, we’re very proud to be a “Brooklyn band” but the tag has these other connotations that we don’t identify with, like the snobbery some bands from the area have. Grand Street, where you live, seems to form a large part of your identity; “Grand” being both the name of your second album and song on your first. Why is that so? When we were writing [the second album] we could not come up with a goddamn album title. I mean, we couldn’t come up with a band name for so long. Someone asked us to play a show and we couldn’t think of a name to call ourselves by so they just listed us by our actual names. It seemed to fit so we then became Matt and Kim. All in all though, the Grand references were a way to talk about home. In that time [during touring and recording] we had spent more time away from Brooklyn than we had in the past ten years. So “Grand” ended up being this motivator of sorts.
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ma t t + kim Grand sees a lot of new sounds for the band, including slower songs and an eclectic range of instrumentation. What’s your favourite cut from the album? It’s tough to say and in all honesty, I was just listening to our album this morning. I think it’s funny that a lot of bands get the master copy of their album, listen to it only once and then never again. But as a band, you’re in the position to write and record exactly what you want from music, or at least it’s the most honest way to operate. As I was listening to it again I was all “damn; yeah!” getting all excited and proud over it. “I’ll Take Us Home” is one of my favourites but it’s an everchanging thing. “Lessons Learned”, that Kim sings on, after not having sung in so many years, is also fave. Your music is the type you just dance insanely to, what type of music do you personally go “all-out” to? Baltimore-style DJs and that hard-hitting Southern hip-hop produced by guys like Swizz Beatz that has done stuff for T.I. that just makes you want to go fucking nuts. You managed to do SXSW this year while on tour between Chicago and Toronto. How was that experience? It was stressful as hell. If you were to drive it, it would have been 24 hours so we flew from Chicago to Austin. We were there for 12 hours and had all these interviews and our show but it was totally fun and I’m so glad we went. We then rejoined the tour in Toronto, flew from Toronto to New York, to Boston then DC and we were just completely exhausted.
Grand is out now on Popfrenzy in Australia and on Fader in the US
How did you find the chance to enjoy yourself down there? Kim and our tour manager left our hotel at 3am after dropping me off – I was completely spent – to go to some after party down on 6th Street, where they saw numerous people drunk and broken-down crying in the middle of the street. That’s how exhausted and tired you get at SXSW. This was the first day of SXSW. People really hit it hard. You and Kim both living and touring together constantly, do you fight often? In any other situation, we would have probably murdered each other by now but for some reason, Kim and I are lucky that we’re able to
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ma t t + kim get along in the course of spending an unbelievable amount of time together. I don’t think there are any two people in the world that spend more time together than we do. In any past relationships I’ve been in we would have been at each other’s throats but Kim and I, we have our disagreements but they’re so minuet that it ‘s… really impressive. Not that you have much down time, but how do you choose to spend your time off? When we take down time, we like to take it super down low. I’m speaking TV series box sets and a “quality” DVD collection filled with shameless romantic comedies and stuff like that. Lately we’ve been watching a lot of LOST and 30 Rock. When we’re active, we’re out every night playing gigs, so when we’re at home we like to stay there and not move anywhere so we just sit in front of the idiot box and let it rot our brains. And the conversation ends much like it began; fading off into the atmosphere, the faint promise of “until Melbin!” giving way to silence once again. Upgrade your cellular infrastructure, Georgia.
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pho t ography
the grates children collide ANU bar, CANBERRA
6 May, 2009
By Kate Walton
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chil dren col l ide
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chil dren col l ide
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chil dren col l ide
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t he gra t es
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t he gra t es
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t he gra t es
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t he gra t es
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t he gra t es
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t he gra t es
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t he gra t es
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t he gra t es
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See l is t en Drink
see:
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See L is t en Drink
Drink: the 19th meredith music festival, 11th, 12th & 13th december, meredith, victoria, australia Sure, it’s sold out but with acts like Animal Collective, Akron/Family, Jarvis Cocker, Why?, Patrick Wolf and Sia, best find yourself a ticket. skins series 3, monday 10pm on sbs australia
Caffeinated beverages. Like crack but (more) socially acceptable. Sweet semester-fuelling elixir. Marijuana? No, this is the gateway drug right here.
Being on the other side of the world to everyone else means that there’s a six month delay on all media releases. ponyo, limited released 14 august in the united states and canada, 27 august in australia and 5 february 2010 in the uk.
Listen:
Cooing noises constitutes an adequate review, right? So damn cute. Figure 1: Kate’s preferred method of caffienated beverage consumption, chai.
A photographic example of Natasha’s preferred method of caffienated beverage consumption, injecting coffee directly into her eyeballs, has been excluded in accordance to the standards of common decency. Dappled Cities, Zounds
The xx, xx
The Fiery Furnaces, I’m Going Away
That, and soy latte sounds so much less hardcore.
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Pos t scrip t Music video stills are taken from: 1, 26
for tomorrow blur directed by Julien Temple
2
razzmatazz pulp directed by Martin Wallace and Jarvis Cocker
3,5
date with the night yeah yeah yeahs directed by Patrick Daughters
4
going nowhere cut copy directed by Kris Moyes
6
main offender the hives directed by Kalle Haglund
7, 14, 24, 42 this is hardcore pulp directed by Doug Nichol 8
lipgloss pulp directed by Martin Wallace and Jarvis Cocker
9, 10
time supergrass directed by Dom & Nic
11
obstacle 1 interpol directed by Floria Sigismondi
12
c’mon c’mon the von bondies directed by Charles Jensen
13
do you remember the first time pulp directed by Pedro Romhanyi
15, 16, 36
you made me realise my bloody valentine directed by Douglas Hart
17
let’s make love and listen to death from above css directed by Cat Solen
18
welcome to the black parade my chemical romance directed by Samuel Bayer
19
juicebox the strokes directed by Michael Palmieri
20, 27, 31, 37 blue monday new order director unknown 21
cut your hair (alternate) pavement directed by Dan Koretzky and Rian Murphy
22
babies pulp directed by Martin Wallace and Jarvis Cocker
23
whip it devo directed by Gerald Casale
25
circle. square. triangle test icicles director unknown
28
babies (1994 version) pulp directed by Pedro Romhanyi
29
reptilia the strokes directed by Jake Scott
30
help the aged pulp directed by Hammer & Tongs
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there’s no other way blur directed by Dave Balfe
33, 34
triple trouble beastie boys directed by Nathaniel Hornblower
35, 40
stereo pavement directed by Jon Kelsey
37, 39
feed me with your kiss my bloody valentine directed by Douglas Hart
41
saturdays cut copy directed by Alter and Dan Whitford
43
sabotage beastie boys directed by Spike Jones
typefaces: unibody designed by Underware (free licence) ff scala sans pro
issue 004, october 2009 sidestagezine.com