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www.handsometours.com new album TOGETHER out NOW
SELLING FAST!
TUESDAY JANUARY ENMORE THEATRE TICKETS FROM HANDSOMETOURS COM TICKETEK TICKETEK COM AU OR THE ENMORE THEATRE BOX OFĂŞCE ENMORETHEATRE COM AU OR
with special guests
LITTLE SCOUT
TICKETS FROM: HANDSOMETOURS.COM, moshtix.com.au, 1300 Get Tix (438 849) and all Moshtix outlets. Manning Bar (manningbar.com, 1300 762 545) and all Oztix outlets and the Venue Access centre
NEW ALBUM OUT NOW ON SHOCK VIA SOFT LIMIT CO OPERATIVE INTERPOLNYC COM
FUTURE OF THE LEFT
TOURING THEIR NEW ALBUM ‘WORK’. INCLUDES THE TRACKS ‘WALLS’ & ‘ FALL HARD’ WWW.SHOUTOUTLOUDS.COM
WEDNESDAY 5 JANUARY ANNANDALE HOTEL
Also appearing at:
PEAT’S RIDGE FESTIVAL GLENWORTH VALLEY, NSW WWW.PEATSRIDGEFESTIVAL.COM.AU
THE ANNANDALE , SUNDAY JANUARY 2
tickets available from www.handsometours.com www.annandalehotel.com or 02 9550 1078.
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Handsome Originals
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It’s A Shame About Ray
perform along with selected Lemonheads classics
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Wednesday 1 December Metro Theatre
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!!! THE ANTLERS ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI BEACH HOUSE SYDNEY COLLEGE OF THE ARTS BEAR IN HEAVEN (SCA) ROZELLE BLONDE REDHEAD CLOUD CONTROL TICKETS ON SALE CUT COPY DEERHUNTER FOALS GOTYE THE HOLIDAYS
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FRIDAY 5 NOVEMBER THE METRO THEATRE
+ SPECIAL GUESTS TO BE ANNOUNCED WITH YOUR HOSTS & DJS
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HARBOURLIFE Saturday 20th November
Metronomy Yacht Club DJs Knightlife Australia’s hottest act in Australia’s most spectacular venue
Fleet Steps, Mrs Macquaries Point Adjacent to Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
On sale midday Friday 22nd Oct fuzzy.com.au BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 11
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rock music news
welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on, down and around town. With Nathan Jolly and Cool Thomas
he said she said
WITH
BERKO FROM 2SER FOR 2SER’S ANNUAL SUBSCRIBE DRIVE station where I grew up, at age twelve. I joined 2SER in 1991 and created ‘Static’ a year or two after that. I’ve also worked on shows for triple j and FBi in the years since then - I’ve definitely got a radio addiction. You host ‘Static’ on 2ser - what’s been a highlight for you and the show? Highlights are always meeting my musical heroes, and picking their brains on how they create their art. Incredible interviewees have been James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem), Wayne Coyne (Flaming Lips), Bradford Cox (Deerhunter) and a very candid Rowland S Howard, just a few weeks before he passed away. I’ve also just done a race around the world, so I’ve spoken to a whole lot of exciting new bands that haven’t made it to Australia yet coming up on the show in the next few weeks are chats with Crocodiles, Factory Floor, Apache Beat, O Children and others.
he Brag is a huge supporter of local community radio – without it, there’d be little diversity hitting the airways, and we’d be left writing about the same bands over and over and over… This week is the second and final week of the annual
T
subscriber drive for 2ser; we caught up with long-time presenter Berko about why we should support the 31 year old station. So what’s your background in radio? I started doing a weekly show on a local
What’s the best thing about working at a station like 2ser? The best thing is probably its freedom. 2SER doesn’t have playlists of any kind, so the songs you hear on air are the direct (and
frequently wonderfully esoteric!) choices of each program-maker. There’s also always been a great camaraderie amongst its volunteers; knowing you’re “fighting the good fight,” and keeping genuinely alternative music and talks on the air, free from any corporate or government spin. Why should Sydney get behind 2SER? 2SER receives no government funding, so it depends on financial contributions from listeners and members of the community to get by. You’ll be helping to keep Sydney-centric alternative culture alive! And how can we help? Head to the ‘Hello Radio My Old Friend’ section of www.2ser.com - there you’ll find subscription rates, as well as details of the prizes you’ll be in the running for if you sign up. The major prize is two return flights to Malaysia, so get on board and show your public radio love! What: 2ser’s annual supporter drive ends on Saturday October 23 Where: 2ser.com - 107.3FM
MUM AT THE BEACH
This week MUM @ World Bar have amped up the summer vibe, which suits the annoyingly sweltering weather we’ve had of late. The Honey Month, Convaire, Vacations, The Retreat and Kite Club will be wrapping you in metaphorical beach towels and applying metaphorical zinc to your literal face, while upstairs, This Vacant Field, Orange Room and Maniac will be splashing you (with sound) just as you got dry... Friday night.
Deerhunter
PUBLISHERS: Adam Zammit & Rob Furst EDITOR IN CHIEF: Adam Zammit 9552 6333 adam@peergroupmedia.com EDITOR: Steph Harmon steph@thebrag.com 9552 6333 ARTS EDITOR & ASSOCIATE: Dee Jefferson dee@thebrag.com 9552 6333 STAFF WRITER: Jonno Seidler NEWS CO-ORDINATORS: Nathan Jolly, Cool Thomas, Chris Honnery
OLD MAN CHRISTMAS
November 25. Bring a small wrapped present to the Annandale, and place it under the Christmas tree, then relax and watch Old Man River, filled to the brim with Christmas sprit and goodwill for all man. It’s to support The Smith Family, and better than staying in watching To Grandma’s House We Go. More info coming soon…
ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Dara Gill SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Ashley Mar, Rosette Rouhana, Daniel Munns, Patrick Stevenson, Renee Rushbrook, Maja Baska, Jay Collier, Susan Bui, Andrew Green COVER PHOTOGRAPHY/DESIGN: Jefferton James SALES/MARKETING MANAGER: Blake Rayner 0404 304 929 / (02) 9552 6672 blake@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 9552 6618 les@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Sara Golchin - (02) 9552 6747 sara@thebrag.com GIG & CLUB GUIDE CO-ORDINATOR: Christian Moraga - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@thebrag.com (dance) INTERNS: Liz Brown, Rach Seneviratne REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Joshua Blackman, Mikey Carr, Bridie Connell, Bridie Connellan, Benjamin Cooper, Oliver Downes, Tony Edwards, Christie Eliezer, Murray Engleheart, Lucy Fokkema, Mike Gee, Thomas Gilmore, Alice Hart, Kate Hennessy, Chris Honnery, Nathan Jolly, Andy McLean, Amelia Schmidt, Romi Scodellaro, Xanthe Seacret, RK, Luke Telford, Caitlin Welsh, Beth Wilson, Alex Young Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this address 153 Bridge Road, Glebe NSW 2037 ph - (02) 9552 6333 fax - (02) 9552 6866 EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Publisher, Editor or Staff of The Brag. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE: Stephen Forde : accounts@furstmedia.com.au ph - (03) 9428 3600 fax - (03) 9428 3611 Furst Media, 3 Newton Street Richmond Victoria 3121 DEADLINES: Editorial Wednesday 12pm (no extensions) Art Work, Ad Bookings Thursday 12pm (no extensions) Ad Cancellations Tuesday 4pm Published by Cartrage P/L ACN 104026388 All content copyrighted to Cartrage 2003 DISTRIBUTION: Wanna get The Brag? email distribution@furstmedia.com.au or ph 03 9428 3600. PRINTED BY SPOTPRESS: www.spotpress.com.au 24 – 26 Lilian Fowler Place, Marrickville NSW 2204 Win a giveaway? Mail us a stamped and addressed envelope, and we’ll send your prize on over...
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LANEWAY FESTIVAL 2011!
Laneway Festval 2011. WOW. I mean seriously, WOW. The Antlers, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Beach House, Bear In Heaven, Blonde Redhead, Cloud Control, Cut Copy, Deerhunter, Foals, Gotye, The Holidays, Holy Fuck, Jenny & Johnny, Les Savy, Fav, Local Natives, Menomena, PVT, Rat Vs Possum, Stornoway, Two Door Cinema Club, Violent Soho, Warpaint , World’s End Press, Yeasayer and !!! (the band). !!! (the exclamation.)
CATS!
If you’re reading The Brag, you probably like cats - because let’s be honest, they’ve taken over indie-pop. And the Internet. And it’s so cute when they bring home colourful native birds like it ain’t no thang. Well now Hollie Matthew, Bears With Guns, Art Rush and the BNKDJ’s are putting on a night of music at 48 Little Oxford St (a new warehouse space), on Friday October 22 - and are donating proceeds (i.e. your $10 entry fee) to The Cat Protection Society. Sweet. Cats!
SWANS!
Any day now, some artsy producer from Brooklyn will release a biopic romanticising the “seminal, influential, world-defining” no-wave scene, and some second-rate Aston Kutcher will play Thurston Moore. Featured heavily will be Swans, because you can’t make a tele-movie about this scene without them. They’re finally heading to Australia for the first time, but it’s not til next March - by which time they will probably be even more seminal. Tickets on sale next week Wednesday October 27.
SPEAKEASY MONTHLY
The Basement is a cool, slinky little club - so it makes sense that new night Speakeasy
are debuting their series of monthly parties there. The first one is on October 21, and has a hugely hype-able line-up, featuring megastick fanfare (launching their new single), Domeyko/Gonzales and Fishing. Ten dollars to watch the bands, free entry afterwards - if you wanna party with the DJs.
DIMI DERO INC.
They are from Paris and they are Gareth Liddiard’s favourite European band - which means 80% of our readership will be at either Dimi Dero Inc’s Manly Fishos show Friday October 22, or at the Excelsior show the following night. Get thee to a reputable booking agency!
OPEN HOUSE
Sydney Opera House are holding their open day this weekend, so you can come along, poke about, run your fingers along the wallpaper, check the plumbing, kick the hot water tank, make inquiries about the floorboards - and while you’re there perhaps enjoy some of the musical acts playing, like Café Carnivale (live music from around the globe), Justo Diaz and Pape Mbaye, an artist from Senegal who’s played with Miles Davis, BB King and Ringo “awesome fills in ‘She Said She Said’” Starr. October 24!
The Reverend Horton Heat
THE REVEREND HORTON HEAT... AND WINE?
I swear we didn’t and couldn’t have invented this. Psychobilly champion The Reverend Horton Heat is coming for Meredith Music Festival (and of course some sideshows), and for unfathomable reasoning too awesome to explore, he’s developed and released a bottle of his own wine. Red or White. Or both? Visit revdownunder. com.au to find out more. And visit The Metro Theatre on December 11 to find The Reverend Horton Heat. Yay!
GIG OF THE WEEK
SPINDARELLA
WED 20 OCT PRIVATE FUNCTION
GRAND OPENING
N/A
HOT DAMN
AS SILENCE BREAKS FLATLINE DRAMA FOR ALL ETERNITY 8PM-$12/$15
SOSUEME presents a 90’s themed block party with exclusive set by our very special guest, Spinderella.
FRI 22 OCT
Re-visiting our old home for 1 night only! SOSUEME is bringing it back 1990s style with none other than the queen of 90’s cool Spinderella. Get decked out in your best 90's get up with mega pop classic jams busted out by our SOSUEME party brethren.
ALTER EGO MANIA THE UPSKIRTS
SPINDERELLA (SALT N PEPA) DJ MO DAV (LA) JOYRIDE KATO MAILER DAEMON LONEWOLF PLUS MANY MORE TBA! Friday Oct 22 - $15/$20
THE HOTEL CHARLIE
HOWL (EP LAUNCH)
SILENT ALARM
EVERY FRIDAY MEMBERS ONLY EVERY SATURDAY MEMBERS ONLY
WITH DJ'S BZURK, SNOWFLAKE MARKM, ABSYNTH
THUR 21 OCT
AFTER 11:30
WED 20 OCT WTF!
$5
8PM - $12
SAT 23 OCT THE
INITIATION (EP LAUNCH)
IKARII
WALKING WITH MIRRORS AFTER 11.30
P*A*S*H 8PM - $15
8PM-FREE
THUR 21 OCT
HOT DAMN SARAH SPANDEX HEARTATTACK MARK C NAT NOIZE
9PM-$12/$15
FRI 22 OCT
SOSUEME PRESENTS:
SPINDARELLA (SALT N PEPA) DJ MO DAV (LA)
JOYRIDE + KATO MAILER DAEMON LONEWOLF + MORE TBA 9PM-Pre $15/ $20 on door
SAT 23 OCT BURLESQUE 34B
“SHE CAME FROM MARS” FEATURING – KIRA HULA-LA
KITTY VAN HORNE + HOLLY J'ADOLL LAUREN LA ROUGE + MIMI MUNROE JADE TWIST + LUCILLE SPIELFUCHS DJ JACK SHIT
8:30PM - $20door
THUR 21 OCT
HOT DAMN
OLD SCHOOL PUNK/HARDCORE STRAIGHT UP, NO BULLSHIT
10PM-$12/$15
FRI 22 OCT VOID – DUBSTEP OPEN-DEX NIGHT
UP AND COMING DJ'S PLAYING DUBSTEP + GRIME FUNKY + UK GARAGE JUNGLE + DRUM N BASS
BURLESQUE BU THIS SATURDAY OCTOBER 23
10PM-$5
SAT 23 OCT PHOENIX RISING
MON-FRI
RESIDENT DJ'S INCLUDE DAN MURPHY, JOHAN KHOURY, MARK ALSOP, AND RADO,HIGH ENERGY HOUSE, VOCAL, UPLIFTING
10am TIL LATE
SAT 23 OCT HARD ON
SUN RECOVERY
4:30AM-$10
BEN DRAYTON STEVE SONIUS AVRA CYBELE LOVERTITS
SAT-SUN
9am TIL 6am 9am TIL LATE
HAPPY HOUR 5pm-7pm DAILY
11PM - $10/$15
34 - 44 Oxford St, Darlinghurst - www.exchangehotel.biz - 9331 2956
E INFO R O M R O u F ww.sae.ed
VISIT: w 0 723 338 CALL: 180
CRICOS: 00312F (NSW) 02047B (VIC) 02431E (WA) Please contact relevant campuses for further information regarding open days, tours, course programs and FEE HELP options.
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 15
rock music news
free stuff
welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on, down and around town. With Nathan Jolly and Cool Thomas
FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM
five things WITH
CHARLIE MAYFAIR (QLD) We make this unique kind of folk-fired pop music. We draw inspiration from bands like Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire, Radiohead, Fleetwood Mac and the song writing genius’ of Simon & Garfunkel and the Finn Brothers. Earlier this year we released our debut EP Watch My Hands, which has five tracks on it, lots of singing, driving acoustic guitar, chiming keys, droning organs, oohs & ahhs, cool percussive shit and some trumpets. We’ve just released our first video clip for single ‘If I Fell Down,’ which is on YouTube – we’re gypsies in it! Come to a live show and you can expect a performance with a lot of energy, emotion and storytelling delivered with rapturous three-part harmony vocal.
O
ne of my main childhood music memories is from when I was about eight, standing on a stage at a singing comp, doing a duet of the Pocahontas classic 'Colours Of The Wind'. My friend and I were dressed up in hand-made Heshin bag dresses. There is actual video footage, which I’m still not really living down. At home when I was a kid, we listened to tonnes of Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens. Mum was seriously into Annie Lennox and Tracy Chapman, which I dug too. Music has always been treasured and respected in my family, so that has seriously influenced my now-revered appreciation for music, and
made it really easy for me to choose to be a musician - to feel assured that it is the right thing to do with my life. Charlie Mayfair is a group of six Brisbanedwelling musicians and friends. We are Hannah Shepherd, Dave Di Marco, Will Weightman, Dave Christensen, Irena Lysiuk and Tom Abbott. We all come from diverse musical backgrounds - some of us are trained jazz musicians and one of our singers is a killer opera singer - but we all connect through our love of good pop music, harmonies and honest and thoughtful song writing. We’ve been playing together since the start of this year.
The indie music scene at the moment is surrounded by this competitive but community vibe. It’s really awesome. Everyone is pushing each other forward and at the same time being supportive and encouraging. We recently saw two of Boy & Bear’s shows, and they really inspired us. Not only are they all great guys, but amazing musicians, songwriters and professionals. Another band we saw who blew our minds was kyü. Drums and harmonies are two of our favourite instruments, so these girls won our hearts over instantly. Who: Charlie Mayfair Where: The Brass Monkey (Cronulla), The Brewery (Wollongong), The Supper Club (Darlinghurst) When: October 20, 21, 23
SMIRNOFF NIGHTLIFE
For the past month, the most salient elements of Aussie nightlife have been voted on by the public and selected by Aussie nightlife figure Dan Single, to be packed into a crate and shipped to another country - so they can party like we do. The Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project celebrates the nightlife of 14 diverse countries: each has a crate to be shipped to another. We’ll find out what made our crate at a VIP party on October 21, featuring Aston Shuffle, You Only Live Once, The E.L.F, a fashion parade, cocktail demonstrations, and integrated art – and probably some Smirnoff, too... If you’re over 18, we have a double pass to give away to the exclusive event - just tell us which country you’d like to swap nightlife with, and why: www.facebook.com/SmirnoffAustralia
THE NATIONAL MK II
The National sold out all their shows heaps quick – so they’re doing some more. The new Sydney gig is on January 7 at The Enmore, and the tickets are already on sale, through Ticketek. GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! (Although if you miss them on January 7 and 8 at The Enmore, you could catch them at Falls, Southbound or Sunset Sounds… Just sayin’.)
Doves
WASHED OUT
Get some chillwave up ya, bro. Washed Out is coming to bliss you hard for Meredith, but are also playing December 9 at the Oxford Arts Factory. Remind all your bootleg cassette loving, blogosphere trawling, I-was-listening-tothese-guys-a-year-ago touting chums to head to Moshtix and get dem tickets.
HANGING ROCK!
The last time anyone was drawn to visit Hanging Rock, it ended in a horrifying disappearance and the tragic waste of an immaculately prepared picnic basket (vegemite sandwiches are cut in triangles, peanut butter in rectangles). Hoping for a different outcome a mere penicillin-drenched century later, Leonard Cohen is performing a gig there on November 20, with awesome guests Paul Kelly, Clare Bowditch and Dan Sultan. Tickets for this, and his Sydney shows (November 8 & 9), are on sale now.
BELLES WILL LAUNCH
Belle Will Ring make warm, homespun albums that sound like they were beamed in from Laurel Canyon. The Blue Mountains isn’t quite there yet as a hippy mecca, but it will be. Until then, they’re launching their new single ‘Come North With Me Baby, Wow’ on November 26 at The Gaelic Theatre. Mama Kin
EL GUINCHO
MAMA KIN
Mama Kin will fondly remember 2010 as the year when she kicked an extreme amount of ass. She toured nationally with Cat Empire and internationally with John Butler and his merry, skate-boarding and selfsufficient Trio, released a critically acclaimed album, and played The Vanguard on October 28. We will see you there.
We’ve been so spoiled by Mistletone bringing such amazing bands to Australia that when we heard tropilicia-plundering El Guincho was playing The Gaelic on December 10, we weren’t as excited as we should have been. Now they’ve announced Catcall and megastick fanfare are supporting, and we put one and two together and can’t contain our excitement. At all. Go to this show!!
THREE EPS @ THE ANNANDALE
“Fuck this! I am going to a triple EP launch at The Annandale!” they will cry!
PLAYGROUND WEEKENDER 2011
Playground Weekender, anyone? Doves, Kool & The Gang, De La Soul, Kate Nash, Caribou, Four Tet, Roy Ayers, Tunng, Hungry Kids Of Hungary, Toro Y Moi, Danimals, King Tide, Meem… No joke. Huge. The camping festival will be held on February 17 to 20 at Wisemans Ferry, just a little drive North-ish that even comes with a free ferry ride! Tickets are on sale now.
On Saturday October 30, three Sydney bands join forces for the ultimate EP launch at the ‘Dale: Sticky Fingers, The Future Prehistoric
and The Colt 44. Tickets are $10 pre-sale through the Annandale Hotel’s website, or $15 on the door.
“Sometimes the stars seem closer than they should, like the more i knew the less i understood” - THE AUDREYS 16 :: BRAG :: 384 : 18:10:10
OPERA HOUSE SUNDAY DECEMBER 5 RESERVED SEATING
ON SALE THIS THURSDAY! 136 100 or ticketmaster.com.au, 02 9250 7777 or sydneyoperahouse.com Presented by Michael Coppel I gotanproject.com I coppel.com.au
New Album In Stores Now BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 17
dance music news
free stuff
welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Chris Honnery
FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM
he said she said WITH
ADAM ZWI OF MEGASTICK FANFARE Growing Up The Music You Make I had a cool little red Casio keyboard We just released a single, ‘June 1. 4. when I was a kid. The pre-recorded Strangelets’, which can be downloaded from stock tune was ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ by Wham! Now George Michael’s just come out of jail, and we’re all wearing fluoro short shorts. Full circle? Inspirations We listen to bands that are catchy 2. and poppy, but willing to experiment with their sound. Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House was really striking when I first heard it; its melodies and arrangements were so ambitious, yet carefully crafted something we’re coming to grips with in our own songwriting. kyü’s debut album also inspires us - they have simple and catchy melodies but construct a powerful atmosphere around them. They wrote those songs in such a short period of time. Their musical intuition is astounding. Your Crew Our crew includes our mothers’ cars, 3. our dwindling supply of split 7-inch vinyls with friends/heroines kyü (of our song ‘Brain Tooth’ and our kyü cover), and a shitload of heavy gear. Colleague-friends include the wily and indestructible Frey Lindsay, who recorded our soon-tobe-released album, and the famously garaged Jonathan Boulet, who mixed it.
The Chemical Brothers
our mailing list via MySpace. We wrote it surrounded by Shaun’s parents’ cream sofas and well-breasted paintings, which might explain its bounciness and energy. Most of our other songs were written in the clutterdungeon at Studio 93 (aka my house). Suffice to say, they sound a bit different. A megastick show involves a percussive opening fanfare, a technological complication and lots of saliva, sweat and broken drumsticks. Come and observe at The Basement on Thursday night!
5.
Music, Right Here, Right Now Sydney music is really coming into its own at the moment. The best thing about the local scene is how collaborative it is – everybody knows each other, supports each other, remixes each other and produces each other. One of the biggest obstacles for Australian bands is the cost of touring. The country is just so bloody big, so flights are expensive and drives are long. But it’s great to arrive in a city and be accommodated by an amazing band or a superfriendly manager with an awesome dog… Who: megastick fanfare With: Domeyko/Gonzalez, Fishing What: ‘Speakeasy’ launch Where: The Basement, Circular Quay
Future Music has unveiled the program for the Future Music Festival 2011, which features a panoply of acts that will sate neophytes and more discerning clubbers alike. The Chemical Brothers, Dizzee Rascal, MGMT and Mark Ronson and The Business Intl are all slotted to perform, while The Likes Of You tent will host some of the biggest acts in techno: Sven Vath, Loco Dice and Richie Hawtin, playing live under his Plastikman guise. Ke$ha, The Presets, Leftfield, Pendulum, Steve Angello, Etienne De Crecy and James Holroyd will also be throwing down. The Sydney event will be held on Saturday March 12 at Randwick Racecourse, with tickets on sale from 9am Thursday October 28.
KILLAQUEENZ @ TONE
KillaQueenz play Tone in Surry Hills this Friday October 22, with a lavish support cast headed by Just Blaze. KillaQueenz’s debut album Sistarhood combined hip hop and reggae sounds with beats produced by two of Australia’s most respected hip hop producers, Katalyst and M‐Phazes, and consolidated their place in the Aussie club milieu. Having performed at a stack of festivals including Good Vibrations and Parklife, KQ have a live show that boasts plenty of bite, which they will showcase ahead of Just Blaze, a renowned US hip hop producer who has applied his tweaking skills to the likes of Snoop Dogg and Kanye West in years gone by. The UK’s Sarah Love, Credo, Bad Ezzy and Cyberthief will also be representing, with entry for $15 on the door from 9pm (which includes free copy of Sistarhood).
USHER
Following the success of his sixth studio album Raymond v. Raymond and its EP followup Versus, R&B heartthrob Usher will tour Australia in the new year and perform at the Acer Arena in Sydney on Wednesday March 23. The American has sold a mountain of music over his career – apparently something in the vicinity of 45 million albums – and can move like the one and only Michael Jackson; indeed he is probably second only to Prince in his dancing abilities. Advance Usher tickets across all seating categories will be available from 9am this Tuesday October 19.
BRIAN ENO LP
Brian Eno is a man of many guises: ambient pioneer, hit producer behind ‘stadium acts’
A spot of healthy Wikipedia procrastination reveals Portland has produced some super duper talented folks. Courtney Love is known to have hailed from the Northwestern American town, among others (Elliot Smith, Black Francis of the Pixies and Joseph Buford Cox – inventor of the modern chainsaw chain). Oh, and did we mention indie-pop princess Mirah? Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn not only has a fucking rad middle name/last name combo, but talent to boot, and the gorgeous, catchy tunes to prove it. She launches her first downunder tour Thursday October 21 at the Red Rattler with support from The Smallgoods and Shiver Like Timber. To win a double pass tell us the name of Mirah’s first album.
NUEVO WONDERLAND
The Mansion (what used to be known as The Gaff) has undergone some big changes; apart from the obvious, there’s a bangin’ new Saturday night named Wonderland. Tumble down the rabbit hole (and past a few bouncers on your way down) into a fantastical, multi-levelled world of drinks, dancing and debauchery, to the sounds of electro, retro, hip hop, pop, house and party tunes… SFX DJs Bzurk and Snowflake have been given one rule: ‘anything goes’ (musically speaking of course), ‘cos y’know, in wonderland, anything can happen. Brace yourselves, party people. To win one of five double passes to the Wonderland Grand Opening Party on Saturday October 23, tell us which ride you miss most from Sydney’s deceased theme park, Wonderland. *tear*
When: Thursday October 21
like U2 and Coldplay, multimedia artist, technological innovator, world beat proponent, the curator of the inaugural Vivid LIVE festival, and a self-described ‘non-musician’. The question remains: which Eno will feature on his first album in five years, Small Craft on a Milk Sea? Eno’s most recent foray into the recording studio was a second collaboration with David Byrne, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today; but his new album - set to drop here in early November on Warp Records, through Inertia - purportedly explores different territory, inspired by his passion for film soundtracks of the early 1970s…
LOOSEKABOOSE
FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL. HUGE.
MIRAH DOWN-UNDER
Local tech emporium Loosekaboose welcomes back Alphatown, the trio that is Luke Mynott, Adam Zielonka and Andrew Maher, to The Civic Underground on Friday October 29. Internationally recognized, Alphatown oversee the Room To Manoeuvre Records label, and conflate electro, house and techno influences in the live performances they’ve been refining for over 15 years now. As ever, LK is a strictly local affair, and Phil Smart, Speakeasy’s Magda, Jimi Polar and Trinity will also be spinning over the course of the night. Doors open 10pm, and it’s $10 entry before midnight.
HUMAN LEAGUE RESURFACE
Sheffield synth-pop pioneers The Human League will release a new album on Wall Of Sound in 2011. The album is entitled Credo, and has been produced by fellow Steel City natives i-Monster (AKA I Monster), who you may remember for their Gunther Kallmannsampling single ‘Daydream In Blue’ back in ’01, the year Ivanisevic broke through at Wimbledon. Credo will be the League’s first studio album since 2001′s Secrets, and will be heralded by the release of new single ‘Night People’ in November.
DRAPHT SHOW & ALBUM
Perth hip-hop lad Drapht is preparing to release the follow-up to his Brothers Grimm album from ’08, an LP that spawned the radio hits ‘Jimmy Recard’ – #10 in the Triple J Hottest 100 – and ‘Falling’. After spending the majority of this year holed up in the studio, Drapht will release lead-off single ‘Rapunzel’ in the few weeks ahead of the LP The Life of Riley, which will drop in the new year. Drapht will be previewing new material when he plays The Gaelic Club on Saturday December 4, along with guests Dialectrix and Briggs.
BOUNDARY BONDS WITH...
LACE, ANNA WALGRA MMING MANAGER AND PRO DIRECTOR, UC LIVE!
What does your role involve? I select the entertainment program and manage the events and festivals on campus at the University of Canberra. What are some of the events you stage? As well as regular bar and refectory shows and jazz club nights, this year we staged Groovin’ the Moo, the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY 2010 concert, and the inaugural All Our Friends dance festival. Now we’re all set for our most iconic event, Stonefest: a 42-year tradition that will this year boast the biggest line-up yet, with Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Pendulum, Bliss N Eso and heaps more. How long does it take to organise a festival like Stonefest? Stonefest is an annual tradition, so the planning never ends! This year we started nutting out concepts early, programming around March and approaching acts soon thereafter. We announced the line-up in July, and since then we’ve been flat out promoting the festival and pulling together all the essential elements. We’re now at the business end - where we start building the site and finalising all the details! What has been your favourite Stonefest act to date? That’s so tough! For me, Stonefest is about those unforgettable moments - I’ll always remember newcomers The Presets blowing everyone away back in 2005, the spellbound crowd mimicking a Quan voodoo doll’s every move during a Regurgitator set in 2006, and Frenzal Rhomb’s Lindsay McDougall stapling a set list to a guy’s chest in 2009!
“If I could sell all my troubles somehow, I’d have more money than I’d know what to do with” - THE AUDREYS 18 :: BRAG :: 384 : 18:10:10
BONDI PARK, BONDI BEACH 路 8:30PM-3AM 路 TICKETS ON SALE MIDDAY 8TH OCTOBER FROM FUZZY.COM.AU PUBLIC SPACE IN BONDI AND THE STREETS SURROUNDING SHORE THING ARE DRUG AND ALCOHOL FREE ZONES AND WILL BE ENFORCED ON NYE. WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO USE PUBLIC TRANSPORT. FOR FULL TERMS & CONDITIONS VISIT FUZZY.COM.AU
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 19
free stuff
dance music news welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Chris Honnery onthefly.com.au WITH
ALISON WONDERLAND (SOSUEME)
five things
WITH VIVIENNE KINGSWOOD AND
DJ CRANE OF BAD WIVES
Growing Up [VK] My parents were both musicians. 1. My dad still plays in a rockabilly band on the weekends (bless him), and growing up I played sax and clarinet and guitar. I spent all my spare time either playing or listening to music (GEEK) so it was no quantum leap from muso to DJ! [DJC] I think mine and VK’s dads would have been in the same band had they both lived in the same country. My dad’s a guitar fanatic and also still plays in a band. 90s grunge got me playing guitar when I was 15, only to be seduced by the decks in more recent years.
2.
Inspirations [VK] Paul Weller has always managed to stay relevant, between The Jam, Style Council and his solo stuff. He’s had a crack at everything - tres cool dude! Also Herbie Hancock, he was so prolific and experimental… He made the freakin’ keytar cool! [DJC] This is the part when you list everything niche and obscure that makes you sound really cool and unique. I only like artists that start with B: Beastie Boys, Blur, Beck, Beatles, Beach House, Battles, Bjork, Billy Ocean, Beyonce…
3.
You [VK] DJ Crane and I were good mates for a long time before we decided to team up as BAD WIVES in 2007. We have a similar sense of party, like the same tunes and have the
same stamina. We also share a love of lipstick and costume jewellery. TRUE LOVE! [DJC] What she said… The Music You Make [VK] We will forever be bonded by a love of 4. hip hop, but we also love breaks, house, disco, electro, booty bass, funk, lo-fi electronica, pop, and indie rock. LOOK SHARP!, our new weekly party, will be primarily a deep disco/house/hiphop party vibe. Super cool summer sounds! [DJC] VK is reading my mind at the moment.
5.
Music, Right Here, Right Now [VK] Most venues feel the pinch from the lock-outs, new alcohol laws and licensing terms, noise complaints and unnecessary pressure from police. Sad thing is, none of these will make a difference to the way people choose to party. It just makes them crankier. And there’s nothing worse than a cranky drunk dude, stuck on Oxford Street because of a lock-out, who gets asked to ‘move along’ by five cops who won’t listen when he explains that he can’t leave because his mate has the keys… I’d want to punch someone too! RANT. [DJC] Right here right now? Donae’o - ‘Riot Music (Nextmen Remix)’. Can’t get enough of it. Who: BAD WIVES Where: LOOK SHARP! White Revolver, Cnr Curlewis St & Campbell Pde, Bondi When: Weekly, opens Friday October 22
on JJJ), and a cover of the Pet Shop Boys classic ‘West End Girls’ (a song some people claim to be the first rap #1 of all time). World’s End Press are embarking on a national tour in November, and will play Goodgod Small Club on Thursday November 18, ahead of national Laneway Festival dates in February.
Krafty Kuts
WONDERLAND
‘Wonderland’: a gritty drama starring Val Kilmer about ill-fated pornstar John Holmes (aka Dirk Diggler) - and coincidentally, the name of the new Saturday night weekly at The Mansion (ex-The Gaff), which launches this weekend. Running over multiple rooms and levels, the event promises to “deliver big time”. The music policy encompasses electro, retro, hip-hop, pop and house, courtesy of DJs Bzurk and Snowflake. Free entry before 10pm should induce punters to get their dancing shoes on early.
FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM
KILLAQUEENZ
When Pierre de Coubertin, father of the modern Olympics, first came up with the idea for the whole shabang, it’s unlikely his primary motivation was forming a hip hop dance troupe. Yet that is exactly what the crazy Frenchman did. Kween G and Belizean Bombshell met at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and decided to form KillaQueenz. Fresh from supporting the Lady herself (Gaga, that is) and bringing down the house at Parklife, these fine ladies are celebrating 10 years of KillaQueenz with a Ladies Love Hip Hop show at Tone, this Friday October 22. To see them drop their infamous beats just tell us your favourite Olympic Event.
RORY PHILLIPS (UK)
London disco stalwart Rory Phillips has been popped on a plane by the Generic Collective and Adult Disco to bring his eclectic disc spinning skillz to us Sydney folk at The Civic Underground, October 23. With a decade of experience under his belt, this synth prince will showcase his body of production work, including remixes of The Scissor Sisters, The xx, Chromeo, Robyn, and The White Lies. He’ll be flanked by Disco Punx’ own Charlie Chux, and (of course) those reliable party upstarts Generic DJs. This giveaway’s major prize will be a signed 12” copy of Rory Phillip’s remix of The Scissor Sisters’ ‘Fire With Fire’ as well as a double pass to the event. Holla! Two runners up will win a double pass each. To win, name one of the Generic DJs.
SMIRNOFF NIGHTLIFE EXCHANGE PROJECT
For the past month, Smirnoff has been asking the Australian public to vote on the best elements of our nightlife, as part of a huge global campaign: The Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project. Ksubi co-founder Dan Single has been selecting which items make the cut for Australia’s crate, the contents of which will be revealed this Thursday at an exclusive VIP send-off party at Sydney Dance Lounge in Walsh Bay (which you can win tickets to if you flick back a couple pages…). After this, the crate will be repacked and shipped off to another country, with Australia to receive a crate from a mystery country in exchange, which will be unpacked on November 27… Stay tuned for more!
Ben Korbel
KRAFTY KUTS
Perennial Aussie favourite Martin Reeves, a.k.a. Krafty Kuts, returns to Australia next month to catch the hotly-anticipated Ashes series. Aside from sating his passion for cricket, the breaks producer responsible for klub klassics like ‘Tell Me How You Feel’ and ‘Bass Phenomenon’ will be playing Chinese Landry’s Garden Party on Saturday November 20. Far from your typical club party, this will be an afternoon affair that starts at 3pm. Tickets available for $33.
CHINESE LAUNDRY NYE
Chinese Laundry will celebrate the New Year with an ‘out of this world’-themed bash featuring international headliners Nick Warren and Yuksek. Warren is an esteemed figure in the dance world, having formed half of Way Out West while also commanding respect in his own right through his releases on Global Underground and work as a solo artist. Warren will be playing for three hours out in the garden, while France’s Yuksek leads the charge inside ahead of Jeff Drake, Club Junque, Will Styles et al. $35 early bird tickets are available online.
PURPLE SNEAKERS
Purple Sneakers have a secret. We know it, but we can’t tell you. All we can say for now is that a secret headline DJ act, who’ve manned the decks at a bunch of major festivals, will be spinning at The Gladstone Hotel on Friday… We
can tell you that the lads from Howl will also be playing a DJ set, along with m.i.t, Benlucid, Nick Findlay, Fantomatique and one half of former Sneakers regulars Thirsty Dedds, who will be returning to the decks under the guise of Jeff Goldblum. And of course that’s all a precursor to the aforementioned surprise secret guest... $12 on the door from 7pm.
WORLD’S END PRESS
Melbourne cosmic disco quartet World’s End Press have just released their debut EP, The Fatihful - a taster for their forthcoming album Music For The World, which will drop in early 2011. Recorded in Melbourne’s Electric Dreams studio with producer Qua (Cornel Wilczek), The Fatihful incorporates psychedelic and disco-synth pop influences a la Primal Scream and Theatre of Disco in its anthemic title track (which has been getting a fair bit of airplay
WHAM! PRESENTS THE GOLDMINE ICON SERIES
From the blonde bombshell on the door to the teapots over the bar and a roster of some of Sydney’s most totally rad DJs (not to mention the occasional international), Wham! at World Bar has entrenched itself as something of an institution for clubbers and hedonists alike. Never ones to remain idle, the Wham! crew have conceived a new concept for the month of November: The Goldmine Icon Series. For each Saturday in November, Wham! have chosen an iconic Sydney DJ to program an entire night’s music from open to close. Encouraging DJs to dig deep into their crates and showcase their career as a whole, the Goldmine Icon Series promises a deeply personal sonic excursion. The ‘iconic’ DJs doing the programming for each weekend are as follows; November 6: Mark Dynamix, November 13: Illya, November 20: Ben Korbel, November 27: Simon Caldwell.
“When we reach that lonesome valley we won’t know lonesome anymore” - THE AUDREYS 20 :: BRAG :: 384 : 18:10:10
ALBUM LAUNCH
PROUDLY PRESENTS NOVEMBER 2010 FEBRUARY 2011
Dj Vadim Niche Productions presents
FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT NICHEPRODUCTIONS.COM.AU
the return of renowned beat maker
6 November TonE -sydney Thief
BECOME A FAN OF NICHE ON FOLLOW US ON @NICHEPRODUCTION
Tickets on sale now through: moshtix.com.au
&
suports:
Noel Boogie
AND STAY TUNED FOR MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS VERY SHORTLY
ELECTRIC WIRE HUSTLE SYDNEY — TONE
nicheproductions.com.au - djvadim.com
Wednesday 17th November 16 Wentworth Avenue Surry Hills (8PM) Tickets from moshtix.com.au myspace.com/electricwirehustle | electricwirehustle.com nicheproductions.com.au
niche productions Presents
LIVE AT ROUNDHOUSE WORLD
TOUR
dj support: Huwston + James Locksmith
Tickets now on sale: www.metrotheatre.com.au & www.ticketek.com.au for more info: nicheproductions.com.au myspace.com/femikuti afrobeatmusic.net
NEW
Tour dates and more details at:
UM
ALB
ON DH OU SE LO ND LIV E AT RO UN
www.fatfreddysdrop.com www.nicheproductions.com.au
Peace Music, Niche Productions & Max proudly present soul legends
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IT
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FRIDAY 3 DECEMBER THE GAELIC THEATRE
SATURDAY 4 DECEMBER SUBSONIC FESTIVAL
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT MOSHTIX.COM & ALL MOSHTIX OUTLETS
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THE BRAND NEW ALBUM ‘GET IT TOGETHER’ AND ‘GET IT TOGETHER - THE REMIXES’ AVAILABLE NOW AT MUSIC.SOLAROSA.COM, ITUNES & ALL GOOD RECORD STORES
FOR MORE INFO: SOLAROSA.COM, MUSIC.SOLAROSA.COM, MYSPACE.COM/SOLAROSAMUSIC & NICHEPRODUCTIONS.COM.AU
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Tickets On Sale Thursday 14th October: enmoretheatre.com.au koolandthegang.comĆŽĆŽÄ“ĆŽĆŽĆŽfacebook.com/pages/Kool-the-GangĆŽĆŽÄ“ĆŽĆŽĆŽpeacemusic.com.auĆŽĆŽÄ“ĆŽĆŽĆŽnicheproductions.com.au
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 21
Industrial Strength themusicnetwork.com
Industry Music News with Christie Eliezer
HORSCROFT TAKES EMI’S A&R GIG
GOLD FOR PENDULUM
Sydney producer Scott Horscroft takes over as Vice President of A&R at EMI Music Australia on November 1. Horscroft runs BigJesusBurger studios, and this year produced two chart hits: Birds Of Tokyo’s self-titled album and Little Red’s Midnight Remember. He’s worked in the past with The Presets, Silverchair and The Temper Trap. Horscroft replaces Craig Hawker who leaves EMI on October 29. Hawker calls Horscroft “one of the best music guys in the country,” saying that “his passion for the creative process puts him at the forefront of emerging talent, making him a perfect candidate for this role.”
AC/DC, CHUGG, ACER, UP FOR TOUR AWARDS AC/DC, promoter Michael Chugg and Sydney’s Acer Arena are among the finalists of the Billboard Touring Awards. They will be handed out in New York on November 4, and are based on global box office numbers reported to Billboard. AC/DC’s ‘Black Ice’ tour is up against U2’s ‘360’ and Bon Jovi’s ‘The Circle’ in both Top Tour and Top Draw categories. Sydney-formed AC/DC is also up twice for the Top Boxscore award, which recognises the highest-grossing single engagement for the time period of October 1 2009 to September 30 2010. Chugg Entertainment is up for Top Independent Promoter (International) against MCD in the U.K. and T4F in Brazil. Acer Arena is up against New York’s Madison Square Garden and London’s O2 Arena.
Life lines Married: INXS’s Kirk Pengilly and former surfing champion Layne Beachley, at his NSW South Coast property after a seven year relationship. The vows were taken at 10:10am on 10/10/10. Married: Sunshine Coast singer and former Australian Idol contestant Dan England, and Emily Richards, after meeting in 2003. Married: singer/actor Christine Anu and Simon Deutrom, at a reception centre in Wollongong. The guests had to dive inside when paparazzi swooped on the event in a helicopter. The couple dated when they were 14 in Cairns, went separate ways, and reconnected some years ago. Split: Christine Aguilera and music exec Jordan Bratman, after a five year marriage. Hurt: singer/actor Juliette Lewis ended with pains in her head, back and neck after a driver went through a red light, writing off her car and fleeing. In Court: retired New York fireman Robert Linhart, 59, told to stay ten blocks away from Madonna’s New York house, after scrawling love graffiti to her. Arrested: Californian hip hop trio The Imperial Stars, for blocking off an LA highway with their van during morning peak hour, while they played on top of it oblivious to the massive traffic jam they created. Died: legendary US soul singer Solomon Burke, 70, (‘Everybody Needs Somebody to Love’, ‘Cry To Me’), on a plane while arriving at an Amsterdam airport. Died: US “queen of gospel” Albertina Walker, 81, respiratory failure. Based in Chicago, she was a voice for the civil rights movement, gave $10 000 a year to aspiring singers, and once stopped the filming of Steve Martin’s Leap of Faith (1992) when she sang in a scene, causing the actors to burst into tears.
Dance expatriates Pendulum’s Immersion has gone gold for sales of 35 000 units in this country, reports Warner Music Australia. The band was nominated last month as Best Live Act in London’s Q awards.
APRA PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AWARDS BACK The APRA Professional Development Awards (PDAs) are presented every two years. They offer eight emerging Australian songwriters and composers a prize package valued at over $25 000 — made up of cash, products, travel, education and recognition. The 2011 PDAs close on Monday November 29, and winners will be announced in March. See www.apraamcos.com.au and follow the links.
FEMALE RAPPER SETS NEW RECORD US rapper Nicki Minaj has set a new record for a female rapper - she appears on seven songs in the US Top 200. Three are solo, and the other four are duets with Trey Songz, Jay Sean, Sean Kingston and Lil Wayne. The seven tracks have sold a combined 4.2 million copies this year.
SPACE INVADAS GET WORLD RELEASE Space Invadas’ debut album Soul:Fi gets a global release in January, through UK label BBE Records - home to Pete Rock, Will.I.AM, J Dilla, Madlib, Marley Marl, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Masters At Work, Roy Ayers and Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzales. The international version will have new mixes and tracks, including ‘Angel Maria’ which singer Steve Spacek wrote about his daughter. In addition, Japan’s Jazzy Sport is releasing a 7” single there in the new year.
CLOUD, SEA, KYU ON SOYA LIST The finalists of the music section of the Spirit of Youth Awards (SOYAs) are all from NSW — Cloud Control, Deep Sea Arcade and Kyu. For the first time this year, there’s also a People’s Choice Award. SOYA is open to anyone under 30, also covering film, photography, art and fashion - and gives each winner cash, flights and the chance to do a 12-month mentorship in their field around the world. Voting is open until November 1 at soya.com.au.
CREATIVE VIBES BACK WITH FAMILY YAH Recently revived Sydney dance label Creative Vibes has released Laneous and The Family Yah’s second album Found Things as the first cab off the rank. Label chief Peter Pasqual says he became fascinated with the act after experiencing their live atmosphere earlier this year at Brisbane’s West End.
THINGS WE HEAR * While Gurrumul sneaked into Byron to finish off his album (they flew in engineer Anthony Ruogolo who worked on their New York sessions), a club remix of his ‘Wukan’ has entered the UK dance charts at #19. ABC-TV has confirmed he will be profiled on the October 25 episode of Australian Story. * After their showcase at Perth’s One Movement, Melbourne hard rock band Stonefield were snapped up by Glastonbury booker Martin Elbourne to play the festival next year. Glastonbury might have U2 and Beyonce playing. * Hot on the viral circuit: a video of Lady Gaga when she was 15-year old awkward Stephanie Germanotta, appearing on The Sopranos. * Inertia is about to unveil plans for its 10th anniversary next month. * New Zealand DJ Iain Stables was left concussed, after a scuffle with a Jetstar employee at Auckland airport. He arrived three minutes after the 30-minute check in time. He asked the male employee to show some discretion. The Jetstar reportedly
snapped back “If you want that, why don’t you f*** off to Air New Zealand?” Stables flashed back, “You’re a loser and you work for a loser airline” - and claims the guy punched him in the back of the head. * Former Sony CEO Tommy Mottola will release his memoirs in 2012. The Last Starmaker covers his signing Carey, Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez and Gloria Estefan and, presumably, the time Michael Jackson called him a racist. * Latest singers leaked for INXS album: Ben Harper, Tricky, Vanessa Amorosi and Dan Sultan. * Will Eminem win a gong at next year’s Grammys? * Gabriella Cilmi will walk the Inca Trail to raise cash for Breast Cancer Care. Her mother Paula suffered it when Gabs was a child. * Chugg Entertainment confirms it bought into the Great Southern Blues Festival. * Jay-Z reportedly in talks to buy a piece of London soccer team Arsenal FC. * Byron Council will allow buskers to use amplified music in the town for a six-month trial – but they will have to use battery power.
AIR METALLICA!
PATTI CAKED
Air New Zealand got into the spirit of things when it flew 100 Metallica fans from Christchurch to their third Auckland show last week. The flight tickets were priced at $1, and were nabbed up in three minutes. On the day of the ‘Mission To Metallica’ flight, the pilots and attendants dressed up as metal stars and later had an air guitar duel at the end of the flight. Fans arriving at Christchurch airport were met by air guitarist legend Louis Ewen, a makeup artist to make them more “metal” and even a sniffer dog wearing a ‘Death Magnetic”’ bandana. On the flight, you got metal on the entertainment system, and complimentary bourbon & cola to get Metallica fans in the party mood.
Patti Smith didn’t want to record Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Because The Night’, her only major hit. It was a real love song, for a start, and Springers had been too afraid to finish it. But in new Springsteen documentary Promise: Darkness At The Edge Of Town, she says she’d been waiting in the studio through the night for her boyfriend Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith (MC5 member) to call. He was very late, so while she waited she listened to the song, figured it was OK and finished the lyrics along the lines of waiting for Smith at night to ring. “I think I was too cowardly to write it at the time,” Bruce said. “But she (Smith) was very brave, she had the courage... She turned it into this really beautiful love song.”
›› TMN TOP 40
The top 40 most ‘heard’ songs on Australian radio. TW LW TI HP P1 P2 P3 ARTIST
1
1
2
7
1 15 28 58 BRUNO MARS
TRACK
ATL/WMA
5 11 2 14 28 53 MIKE POSNER
COOLER THAN ME
SME
3
4
5
2 15 40 69 KINGS OF LEON
RADIOACTIVE
SME
4
7
5
4 12 29 62 RIHANNA
ONLY GIRL (IN THE WORLD)
DEF/UMA
5 NEW 1
5 14 33 60 PINK
RAISE YOUR GLASS
SME
6
6
5 14 28 52 CEE-LO GREEN
FU
WMUK/WMA
7
2 12 1 14 32 59 KATY PERRY
TEENAGE DREAM
CAP/EMI
8
3 12 1 14 26 53 TAIO CRUZ
DYNAMITE
ISL/UMA
9
8 11 6 12 36 62 THE SCRIPT
FOR THE FIRST TIME
SME UNI/UMA
7
10 14 5 10 11 26 46 NELLY
JUST A DREAM
WANNA TOUR INDIA?
11 13 15 8 17 35 55 BIRDS OF TOKYO
PLANS
CAP/EMI
The Planetary Group is offering artists an opportunity to tour India, through their partnership with Sonicbids and Only Much Louder. One Sonicbids artist will be selected for an all expenses paid tour in January to play cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Bangalore. See http://pg.planetaryontheweb. com/services/tour-series
12 12 9 12 12 26 52 ZOE BADWI
FREE FALLIN’
NEON/WMA
13 10 10 10 13 29 55 GOOD CHARLOTTE
LIKE IT’S HER BIRTHDAY
CAP/EMI
14 9 13 2 14 27 58 USHER FT. PITBULL
DJ GOT US FALLIN’ IN LOVE
SME
15 11 12 11 11 28 52 B.O.B FT. RIVERS CUOMO
MAGIC
ATL/WMA
16 15 11 11 13 24 52 KE$HA
TAKE IT OFF
SME
17 16 14 7 13 25 58 THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS
CLOSER TO THE EDGE
VIR/EMI
STONE, GYROS, PHILLYS FOR INSIDE FILM AWARDS Angus & Julia Stone, Gyroscope and Philadelphia Grand Jury are nominated in the Music Video category for the 2010 Inside Film Awards. The Stone siblings are up for their video for ‘Big Jet Plane’ directed by Kiku Ohe, the Gyros for the Luke Tierney-directed ‘Baby I’m Getting Better’ vid, and Philadelphia Grand Jury’s clip for ‘The Good News’ which was directed by Nick Pollack and Anne Robinson. The awards are held on Sunday November 14 at City Recital Hall, Angel Place.
FOR QUICK FUNDING Arts NSW’s Quick Response Project Funding is available for professional individuals, groups and small- to medium-sized organisations who’ve received an unexpected invitation to participate in a recognised national or international arts and cultural event or activity. There are four closing dates per year for Quick Response Project funding (August, November, February, May). The next closing date is November 1. Applications must be received by Arts NSW no later than 5pm on the closing date. See http://www.arts.nsw.gov.au/.
18 25 4 18 12 36 59 TRAIN
SAVE ME, SAN FRANCISCO
SME
19 19
FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT
SME
5 18 11 28 53 ADAM LAMBERT
20 17 12 4 14 27 54 LADY GAGA 21 26 9 22
22
21 12 23 41
20 1
14 42 76
DANCE IN THE DARK
INT/UMA
DUCK SAUCE
BARBARA STREISAND
ETC/UMA
UNCLE KRACKER
SMILE
ATL/WMA
23 20 9
10 13 36 88
TAYLOR SWIFT
MINE
BIG/UMA
24 32 4
24 11 26 49
JESSICA MAUBOY FT. SNOOP DOGG
GET ‘EM GIRLS
SME
25 21 20 5
TRAIN
IF IT’S LOVE
SME
26 30 15 15 12 39 53
15 43 68
NICKELBACK
THIS AFTERNOON
RR/WMA
27 31 19 1
ADAM LAMBERT
IF I HAD YOU
SME
28 27 11 21 10 27 61
STAN WALKER
CHOOSE YOU
SME
29 24 16 7
14 30 56
MICHAEL PAYNTER
LOVE THE FALL
SME
30 28 18 18 13 38 64
13 32 61
JOHN BUTLER TRIO
REVOLUTION
JAR/MGM
31 18 17 5
FLO RIDA FT. DAVID GUETTA
CLUB CAN’T HANDLE ME
ATL/WMA
GYROSCOPE
BABY, I’M GETTING BETTER
UMA
33 34 16 12 12 37 59
MAROON 5
MISERY
A&M/UMA
34 39 11 34 11 27 50
AMY MEREDITH
YOUNG AT HEART
SME
35 44 12 30 11 27 56
THE POTBELLEEZ
HELLO
VICIOUS/UMA
36 33 8
13 25 47
32 35 21 12 16 30 56
31 13 25 40
LITTLE RED
ROCK IT
LIB/UMA
16 26 42
SCOUTING FOR GIRLS
THIS AIN’T A LOVE SONG
SME
23 13 36 68
POWDERFINGER
IBERIAN DREAM
UMA
EMINEM FT. RIHANNA
LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE
INT/UMA
LIFEHOUSE
ALL IN
GEF/UMA
37 37 24 2 38 38 8
39 23 15 1 40 43 3
11 25 51
40 9
34 59
“I had a crack pipe for a rattle, a rat for a dog ” - THE SNOWDROPPERS 22 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
LABEL
JUST THE WAY YOU ARE
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 23
And The Memorable Disasters By Alasdair Duncan
A
nyone who’s seen Crystal Castles’ live show knows that it’s all about going to extremes, about pushing the noise level as high as it can get. The synths threaten to malfunction, singer Alice Glass shreds her vocal chords, and the end result is a screaming, sweaty catharsis with the crowd. “It’s all about connecting with people,” keyboard player and programmer Ethan Kath tells me. “The live show is an experience for us, where we share sweat and blood with people. And spit.” I was caught down the front during Crystal Castles’ set at last year’s Parklife festival, and I can’t say I disagree with Kath’s assessment – blood and spit were indeed involved. That Parklife show was great, but when I ask Kath if he remembers much about it, he tells me that for him and Alice the disasters are always more memorable than the successes. He illustrates the point. “We just toured South America, and we played this festival in a forest that was hours and hours away from any town or city... We had to ask children on the street where to turn and, like, a group of men walking sheep. We were like, ‘do you guys know if there’s a festival being set up around here?’, and they just pointed. This was after driving for four hours out of São Paulo. We got there and it was freezing cold and raining, and everyone was just hiding under trees,” he continues. “You remember things like that, you know?” Still, he maintains, it wasn’t as nerve-wracking as that time their entire road crew deserted them at once - it was getting hard following one of the busiest touring bands in the world. “They had all decided to leave us on the same day,” Kath says. “There was a love triangle involved too - two guys and a girl. When she said she was going home, they followed... It turns out she didn’t like either of them, which was actually pretty funny.”
Theoretically, Crystal Castles call Canada home; but they tour so much that they more or less live on the road - and it’s for this reason that most of their recording is done guerrilla-style. They set up keyboards, computers and sequencers when and where they can, to make the most of free time. One time, in Detroit, the duo recorded in an abandoned mall. “After we played there, there must have been three weeks off, so we found out about this strip mall that had been abandoned,” he tells me. “All the stores had just been left behind, and someone told us that we could set up our gear in any store we wanted to, and nobody would ever know or find out. The biggest factory in the area had shut down and everyone lost their jobs, which was, like, devastating for everyone, so a lot of people were leaving to look for work in other cities.”
Ethan and Alice made the most of their lessthan-salubrious surroundings. “We just set up our keyboards behind the store and lived there for three weeks,” says Kath, “in a cesspit filled with rats and whatever. It was like living in a ghost town – it was completely isolated.” They kept to themselves throughout that time, not exploring for fear of being found out. “Most of the strip mall was boarded up, and we didn’t want to tear stuff down and draw attention to ourselves in case someone happened to be passing by,” he recalls. “We just hid in the store.” Though a lot of their latest album was recorded in these kinds of settings, Ethan and Alice also spent some time in a professional studio - courtesy of friends they met on the road, Jacknife Lee and Paul Epworth. “We didn’t bring them in to help; it was more that we were on tour, going through their towns, and they invited us to use their studios, which was really nice of them. I have great things to say about them both; they just let us take over their studios for like a week each, and they were just really nice to us,” he continues, before a pause. “Usually people aren’t that nice to us.”
Crystal Castles II, released earlier this year, is an astoundingly good record, easing off on the distorted waves of electronic noise in favour of a spooky, early ‘90s-inspired dream pop sound. Alice’s vocals, harsh at times and ghostly at others, are woven around samples of Sigur Rós and Stina Nordenstam; while it’s a wintrysounding album - and not without its scary, abrasive moments - it’s still a record to get lost in, and play over and over again. The band see their sweaty live shows as deliberate contrasts to their recorded output. “We try to get people to connect with the live show,” Kath says, “and that’s the opposite of the albums, which we feel are really isolated, really lonely.” For the first few weeks after the new album came out, I listened to it on near-constant repeat. One of the things that really struck me was the indistinct quality of Alice’s vocals. The single ‘Celestica’, with its ‘When it’s cold outside, hold me’ chorus, is one of the few songs on the album with discernible lyrics – the rest is more or less creepy abstraction, and I was left more or less free to imagine that Alice was saying whatever I wanted to hear. For me, not knowing the lyrics made the whole thing cooler and scarier – but when I mention this to Kath, he tells me that Crystal Castles’ songs were never intended to be ambiguous. “The lyrics are totally clear to us,” he says, “so we assume that everyone will be able to hear them. We never wanted to hide anything. The kid who runs our website put them up on there, so they’re available to see.”
“We just set up our keyboards behind the store and lived there for three weeks, in a cesspit filled with rats... It was like living in a ghost town.”
Who: Crystal Castles What: Crystal Castles II is out now With: Tool, Rammstein, Bloody Beetroots DC77, Wolfmother, M.I.A, LCD Soundsystem, Lupe Fiasco, Grinderman and more What: Big Day Out 2011 @ Sydney Showground When: January 26 (sold out) & January 27
“I’ve got a hurt wide as the sea but all these things they comfort me” - THE AUDREYS 24 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
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Public Enemy Keeping It Real By Mikey Carr huck D is not a man you could ever accuse of laziness. Fronting New York’s seminal hip hop crew Public Enemy since the group’s inception in the late 80s, and starting his own record label, SLAMJamz, while remaining an active political voice throughout his career, testifying before congress about file sharing, co-hosting Unfiltered on Air America Radio, and being heavily involved with various different conventions, publications and demonstrations, he’s not one for taking it easy.
C
time now: laziness. This is performance art and a lot of people come to the table with the same skill set, so there has to be something that propels you beyond it - and it can only come through effort. In the case of Public Enemy people come up and tell us, ‘what a great show,’ and I just tell them look, we’ve got a motto, you know? Either look experienced and tight, or look old. And you can’t choose the latter, especially when you’re playing to an audience maybe half your age. You gotta make it happen.”
While his Public Enemy partner and hype man Flava Flav has been known to occasionally fall by the wayside (read: reality TV), Chuck is one of the few bastions of integrity left in hip hop. Never stumbling into the pitfalls of fame, and working tirelessly in his efforts to preserve and nurture the genre, Chuck D and his crew have been a constant presence in hip hop for the past 23 years. With a soon-to-be-released box set, and an upcoming tour of Australia in celebration of Fear Of A Black Planet’s 20-year anniversary, Public Enemy don’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down. “I don’t think there has ever been a ‘take it easy’ time, cos that’s not what we do,” Chuck tells me. “That’s one thing that’s hampered the art form for a long
Terse and to the point, Chuck’s way of speaking is well-considered, devoid of superfluous waffle. A vocal critic of the direction that modern hip hop has taken, and an eloquent voice on where it should be going, he’s driven by a sense of obligation toward the genre; a desire to see it well preserved. “Music is better maintained in other genres,” he says. “I’m always trying to bring that back to hip hop, to bring back a passion about understanding what’s important to keep it longrunning and relevant.” He rejects the bling-laden image of hip hop as pointless, and the genre’s obsession with materialism and sexism as self-defeating. Where many hip hop enthusiasts feel any experimentation with the genre that takes it off the street is tantamount to blasphemy, Chuck is eager to see the genre lift itself out of the rut he’s seen it in for the past two decades. “I’ve always thought that hip hop has been done haphazardly and lazily, in a way that legitimises a ghetto mentality that’s counter-productive at times. People just think that because it’s something that comes out of the ghetto, it shouldn’t be tampered with. I ask people, ‘If you’re gonna lay down in a bed, do you want the bed to be full of bed bugs?’”
“People think that because hip hop is something that comes out of the ghetto, it shouldn’t be tampered with. I ask people, ‘If you’re gonna lay down in a bed, do you want the bed to be full of bed bugs?’” Of course, Chuck still has hope for hip hop, citing the cadre of artists signed to SLAMJamz, as well as artists like The Roots, as signposts along the path hip hop must take. The key issue, in his view, is that the genre is so limited and narrowminded. “I think it should be an area that is very, very diverse,” he explains. “That’s what we should hope for: a very diverse hip hop scape. And I think it is. It’s the management of hip hop that’s been terrible, the handling of the radio shows that’s been terrible - it’s basically just throwing music at people, and you just can’t do that.” Looking back across the history of popular music over the past 20 years, it seems strange that Public Enemy were ever allowed to be successful. Considering their highly political lyrics and refusal to compromise when it came to their fans, in today’s music industry an outfit like theirs would more than likely suffer in obscurity. Just look at Dead Prez. “Back when we started, everyone was trying to pave a road, a particular identity for themselves,” Chuck continues. “In the beginning you had to; it had to be different to everything else. Now today you could say the whole drive is to sound similar to the next person, because whatever company is behind you has a very tight formulaic way on how it should work to be able to make some money.” With the media so pervasive in today’s world, and with the major labels so influential in the media, hip hop fans aren’t often given the chance to hear artists who push the genre. The issue then isn’t with hip hop; it’s with how hip hop is being delivered. “If I ask you, ‘how do you get your hip hop?’, would you say you wait for what floats to you?” he asks me. “That’s usually the case with most people - and if you wait until it floats to you like a piece of shit, it’s probably the problem. Cos most of the time, hip hop’s problems float to the top of the mainstream.” Luckily, we’ve still got Chuck D and Public Enemy bringing up sunken treasures from the depths. Who: Public Enemy With: Justice, Duck Sauce, Klaxons, Sleigh Bells, The Rapture, Tame Impala, Art Vs Science, Peaches, Erol Alkan & more Where: Field Day 2011 @ The Domain When: Saturday January 1, 2011 26 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
Ice Cube Straight Outta Compton By Hugh Robertson
T
here are few careers that have been so bewildering to the public eye as that of O’Shea Jackson. At the same time as starring in banal family comedies like Are We Done Yet? and his latest, The Lottery Ticket, Jackson has also played part in far more weighty matter - films like Three Kings, Barbershop and Boyz In The Hood. And through all of that, he’s simultaneously existed as Ice Cube. The hip hop career began in the mid-80s, when a seventeenyear-old Jackson started performing at parties hosted by Andre ‘Dr Dre’ Young. As Ice Cube, and a member of California’s iconic N.W.A, Jackson has been perhaps the standard-bearer for the aggressive, hyper-masculine world of gangsta rap. It’s a fascinating dichotomy. If few actors can survive a public life that’s even remotely ‘antifamily’, even fewer rappers have been able to do anything without ‘realness’; that appearance of living the lifestyle you rap about. Yet as the first superstars of hip-hop enter their middle age, their followers seem more forgiving of the rhymes they continue to write - based around a lifestyle that they haven’t lived for many, many years. Outside of being a successful actor, for instance, Jackson’s been married to the same woman since 1992, and they have four children together.
Straight Outta Compton to I Am The West, and everything in between.” Hip-hop has always been a young man’s game, but at 41, Jackson’s still going. He tells me it’s nothing new. “I mean, you don’t want Mick Jagger to stop, so why the fuck should Ice Cube? If Paul McCartney don’t have to stop, why does Dr. Dre? So, it’s basically, yeah, you’re right... But you still have fans from back in the day who are now in their 50s or 60s. They are still B-boys. They aren’t giving it up. “And you run into Afrika Bambaataa, and see what he talking about. Y’know what I mean? He talkin’ bout hip-hop, and some B-boy shit - but with grey hair coming out,” he laughs. “Retirement is something that old men do, and I’m a young man.” Who: Ice Cube What: I Am The West is out now Where: Big Top, Luna Park When: Friday October 22 More: Fat As Butter Festival, October 23 in Newcastle
It’s certainly a world away from ‘Fuck Tha Police’, a record so visceral in its rage that the members of N.W.A. were rumoured to be on the L.A.P.D’s ‘Most Wanted’ list for a time. Jackson never goes quite so far as to say he was simply acting the part of a militant, disaffected Compton teenager he suggests instead that both his goofy mugging for the cameras in AWTY?, and lyrics like “Today was a good day / Didn’t even have to use my AK”, come from different aspects of his own personality. “I don’t really consider myself a persona. I just be me,” he tells me. “And people didn’t realise that when I was doing N.W.A ... that I could still laugh with the best of them.” Jackson suggests tracking his essential self through his solo records, on which “you kind of get to be yourself”. And indeed, the Ice Cube oeuvre is all of a type - full of macho swagger and a reductive worldview that prioritises violence over almost everything. It’s unquestionably badass, and Cube is a damn fine MC - even when you see a rhyme coming, he can still shock you with the sheer intensity of his delivery. “Those records are... thorny”, he says, enjoying the sound of the word. “That’s what they’re made to be.”
“These days, getting an album is damn near like getting a soda out of the refrigerator. It’s anticlimactic... I remember when it was an event to get a new record.” The recording business has changed profoundly since Jackson got in the game, and he has a fairly bleak view of the current climate - which he talks about with an air of resignation. “These days, getting an album is damn near like getting a soda out of the refrigerator,” he says, ruefully. “It’s anti-climactic. I remember when people used to skip work, or skip school, and they were standing in line at the record stores - and it was an event to get a new record.” I suggest that albums leaking before their release date certainly can’t help - and it’s something that seems to especially occur in hip hop with alarming frequency. “Yeah,” he agrees, “and that hurts. But... the biggest problem in the industry is the fact that people think music is free. And music is becoming worthless.” There have been countless models and theories floated to counteract the falling value of the music industry, but Jackson’s own approach catches me by surprise. “You gotta stick with your true fans and just satisfy them, because those are the ones that are going to come to the show. So I don’t concern myself with hip hop fans no more; I concern myself with Ice Cube fans. And I do records for Ice Cube fans. And as long as they satisfied, I’m satisfied.” Ice Cube’s most recent record, I Am The West, was released just a month ago - and Jackson is coming to Sydney this week to show it off live. As with any artist with a back-catalogue like his, he assures me that there’s going to be plenty of old stuff too, for those rusted-on Ice Cube fans. It’s going to be “that hardcore hip-hop”, declares Jackson. “No band. Two turntables. Me and my man Dub C. And then 20 years of hip-hop, from BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 27
Low Still Searching, Still Growing, Still Learning By Mike Gee
D
uluth is a port city in Minnesota, whose population has shrunk in the past decade to just under 85,000. It has America’s largest freshwater aquarium, and the world’s biggest freshwater sandbar. And it has Low. Spawned in 1993, and steadily heading for its twentieth year, Low’s two key players - Alan Sparhawk (guitar, vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums, vocals) - are now married with two kids. The couple are Mormons who remain committed to Duluth; the band’s Chairkickers label fosters local talent, most of which come from Duluth or Minnesota and surrounding areas. Sparhawk also operates a recording studio in a deconsecrated church in the town. Good people, living a good life in a very low-key way. Pretty much what you’d expect from a band like Low. Minimalism isn’t easy to ‘get’ - it either grabs you or it doesn’t - and Low is minimalism through and through. Their songs are slow, echoing, reverb-laden burners which creep up around you to echo some vast loneliness. At times it’s extraordinarily beautiful, and at others it is eerie, the far side of scary. It’s like a crack in the psyche; not quite mad, but close. Minimalism isn’t easy to get, but Australia has always got Low. It could be that there’s something of the desert, the vastness, the oneness in the music that resonates with our sparse, huge country; and when I suggest that to Sparhawk, he agrees. Not one for necessarily summing up his own music, he at least recognises its elementalism. Camped on a phone in the Duluth studio, where Low is recording their long awaited follow-up to
“As long as we make music, there will be Low; it’s that simple... That desperate little kid trying to be somebody is still clawing at my neck.”
2007’s Drums and Guns, Sparhawk is easy to talk to. He’s a man slipping into his 40s with a sense of grace and a notion that being perfect isn’t possible, and being ignorant can be okay. He says he’s never planned more than six months ahead, and believes that’s what helped Low survive when most of their contemporaries are long gone. “We’ve definitely had a few things on our side,” he says. “Mimi and I being married puts an extra lock on the door. As long as we make music there will be Low; it’s that simple. Also, we ended up making music that doesn’t sound ridiculous to play when you’re in your 40s. It gave us enough leeway to grow old doing what we love. “Sure, everything does evolve and grow,” he continues. “You become aware of your abilities and you find different ways to do things, and different things to do… But I think the desperate kid that drives me still seems pretty desperate.” It seems like that kid haunts Sparhawk; some things don’t change - even ambition. “No, not for me. That desperate little kid trying to be understood by somebody is still clawing at my neck, so I’ll keep on trying. I think I’m writing pretty good songs,” he continues. “The longer you do something, the better you get - and then you start honing in on what you think is good.” He tells me, though, that in many ways, he’s still very ignorant. “I’ve learnt to be okay with that. That’s what lets me surprise myself every once in a while. That’s the trick – to trick yourself into forgetting you know anything. Being a little naive can make those magical moments occur.” And that’s Sparhawk in a nutshell. This grown man with so many ideas, still seeking the moments that take your breath away. For a musician, the trick is in the tail. The songwriting and recording process is often allconsuming, a bath of sensations, and when you walk away at the tail-end of it, there’s always one small question – can you listen back to the finished product? Sparhawk says it is a conundrum. “I really don’t like listening to a record, once it’s finished, for several years. The brain keeps a memory of how the music felt inside you. That feeling, and being that inside the music - the brain never forgets that feeling, so when you go back to listen you ask yourself,
‘Do I feel as satisfied as I did once?’. Ultimately, it’s never a satisfying experience - and so you go and look for something else. “But there is a flipside to the coin,” he continues. “After many years, when I’ve had time to forget, then it’s fun to look back and listen. Most of the time I’ll find a few surprises in a record, but it takes quite a few years before I get to that point - otherwise it just messes with your mind. “I always tell bands, ‘Never listen to your record on the way back from mixing’. It never leads to good things.”
And that takes us back to where we began – with Alan Sparhawk in the Duluth, Minnesota studio, recording the new Low album. “We’re very deep into overdubs, tracking, bells, guitar chinks and chanks, and oohs and aahs and more bells and whizzigigs.” ...It seems like a good place to be. Who: Low With: The Laurels Where: The Factory Theatre When: Friday October 22
Hot Hot Heat Scaring Off The Majors By Caitlin Welsh no radio singles, that he would be recording and producing the album himself – and that he had to, you know, teach himself how to do that first. “I kinda scared them a little bit,” he admits. “And it’s the coolest-sounding record we’ve ever done, and totally unique compared to what every other band is doing - but I can see why that was maybe a good technique to make the label let us go.” The band are now on Dangerbird Records in the US, and Dine Alone in Canada; the same label who are also home to Tokyo Police Club and our own Children Collide.
W
hether you wrapped your mouth around such twisters as “I been trippin from sipping on drippin dirty water taps,” or just waited til the chorus to bellow “BANDAJEZZ BANDAJEZZ BANDAJEHEHEZZ”, there was no escaping Hot Hot Heat’s catchy, yelping pop-punk in 2002. Before the British invasion of 2004-06, the Canadian outfit put their stamp on what was to be the decade’s dominant, angular sound early on, with their debut Make Up The Breakdown. They then bailed from Sub Pop Records to move to Warner, and followed up with the poptastic Elevator. While the album was generally well-received, for some fans its OC-soundtrack-ready single ‘Middle Of Nowhere’ signaled the beginning of the end. The sleek production and swelling strings of 2007’s Happiness Ltd. seemed to confirm what the title was intended to satirise: Hot Hot Heat had gone a little corporate. But then, around the beginning of 2008, the band and Warner went their separate ways. And 28 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
when their fourth LP Future Breeds dropped this year in a dust cloud of distortion, minor chords and fuck-you-eh punk energy, it was such an about-face that it seemed almost like an admission: yeah that wasn’t us, but this is. When I put this to frontman Steve Bays, I swear I can hear him rolling his eyes. “People have been really piqued by the concept of major label Vs indie label - it comes up in every interview,” he says. “I think people in general put too much emphasis on how much a major label affects the sound of a band. For ours, it was just a coincidence that I wanted to take the recording into my own hands at the same time that I wanted to go indie again. The things were connected; but leaving Warner didn’t change the sound.” He’s not kidding when he says they wanted to “go indie.” Bays says Warner allowed them to leave before the final album promised in their contract, because he told them there would be
Future Breeds is indeed a strong contender for their Coolest-Sounding Record. It has more in common with the raw energy of Breakdown than the two intervening albums - but they couldn’t have made this LP eight years ago. The inventive arrangements and considered delivery bear the hallmarks of a band with a decade of experience up their sleeve. That said, Bays’ debut as producer keeps it from sounding too slick – he clearly had no intention of buffing off the rough edges. “I had a bunch of ideas, the whole band had a bunch of ideas about what we wanted it to sound like,” he explains. “So I bought all the gear and taught myself how to record - I just did it DIY - and we handed in a finished album. I think that that’s maybe why people call it ‘returning to the roots’, because when we were first starting out we didn’t have anyone giving their opinion to us, and so it came out the way we wanted it to come out,” he continues. “[Future Breeds] definitely was a conscious effort to strip all outside ideas and opinions away.” I’m intrigued by this interpretation of “do-ityourself” – Bays implies that the contribution of a producer or any outsiders somehow corrupts the sound and the aesthetic. This “stripped-away”, artists-only DIY approach might be preferable for some bands, if only so frustrated fans can know for sure whether their idols have really lost their mojo, or if it’s just the influence of the army of co-writers and cigar-chomping Big Name Producers (I’m looking at you, Weezer). In any case, Hot Hot Heat certainly know by this point what they want to sound like. After two years playing in their homemade studio, followed by an extensive North American tour, Bays says that
“I bought all the gear and tought myself how to record - I just did it DIY. I think that’s maybe why people call Future Breeds ‘returning to the roots’” it’s crowd reactions that are the best indicator of what works. “You can totally think you know what’s going to work live, and then… more often it’s the underdog, [the song] that you didn’t think was anything, that just seems to work,” Bays says. “Like ‘Nobody’s Accusing You (Of Having A Good Time)’ - we put that one last on the album, and live it’s one of the best songs.” They’ll be taking that feedback straight back into the home studio when they get back from Australia - they’re planning to have another album out by mid-2011. Bays is quick to affirm that Hot Hot Heat finally feel like they’re on the right path. “I don’t know that we wanna re-invent the wheel on this album; I think we really like the sound that we got on Future Breeds. I think [the new album will] be a little bit better in a lot of ways, in that I think every album’s going to be better than the last one, so of course I’m gonna say that,” he adds, with a bit of a self-deprecating laugh. “Yeah, we’re always trying to find the line between hookiness and weird and different. But I say that every album.” Who: Hot Hot Heat What: Future Breeds is out through Shock Where: The Factory Theatre When: Thursday January 6 More: Also playing at Falls Festival, Southbound Festival and Sunset Sounds
GRAND OPENING - SATURDAY 23 OCTOBER ELECTRO ELECTRO E LE ECT TRO O RETRO RE ETRO E TR RO RO POP POP POP P HIP-HOP HIP-HOP H IP P-H HOP P HOUSE HOUSE HO HOU H OUSE OUSE E PARTY PARTY P AR RT TY Y CLUB CL CLUB LUB B
DJ BZURK (SFX) SNOWFLAKE (SFX) Dim Slim & Johny b
FREE ENTRY before 10pm
Cnr Oxford and Riley St, Darlinghurst BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 29
Bring Me The Horizon Heaven And Hell By Brent Balinski
“W
merchandise worldwide too. But for smaller bands still building a fanbase, touring to sell merchandise and make an income is imperative. Because of illegal downloading, piracy and everchanging record deals and contracts, indie/metal bands realistically don’t make a whole lot of their income from actual CD and digital music sales.”
e’re all very social people so it becomes easy to be distracted by friends, family, girlfriends - and as we had a considerably short amount of time to write the album, we could not afford to be distracted,” says Jona Weinhofen, guitarist with Sheffield’s Bring Me The Horizon. Craving a little privacy and undisturbed writing time, the five-piece hunkered down and went to work on There Is A Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen it. There Is A Heaven, Let’s Keep It A Secret. “We rented an old castle-style holiday manor on a loch in the Scottish highlands,” Weinhofen tells me. “This really helped speed along the writing process, rather than battling with noise restrictions and regular daily commitments.” Plonking down a wad of money and jamming until the small hours in a castle isn’t an option available to most bands. But then, of course, Bring Me The Horizon aren’t like most bands.
displaying “sincere emotion,” and being BMTH’s “finest and most diverse album to date.”
Moving further from the Norma Jean-ish vibe of their debut, Count Your Blessings, the Englishmen have experimented with strings, electronica, choirs and numerous guest vocal contributions. They tell me that the release is “in many ways, a concept album,” moving through “celestial euphoria” to humanity’s latent darkness and evil. Whatever you make of it, it’s ambitious, lavishly produced, and epic in the sonic ground it covers. Reviewers have so far praised it as
The songs are busy, multi-tracked and complex, but Weinhofen assures me that the band isn’t worried about being able to faithfully reproduce the music live. While it won’t always be as realistic as actually having the guest vocalists or strings on stage, technology makes the translation from studio to stage much more feasible. “We’ve discussed taking live strings and choirs on certain tours with us, as well as some of the guest vocalists,” he continues. “Fans
shouldn’t expect this at every show, but the way we’ll present our extra elements will not be subpar.” Clocking up about 270 shows a year on average, BMTH are constantly on the road and in the air. If you don’t catch them at Soundwave Festival in February, Weinhofen and his band-mates will be making their way out “by late next year” as headliners. “Touring is almost the only way we can make money in the industry these days,” says Weinhofen. “We’re lucky enough to be at a level where we sell a lot of t-shirts and other
There Is A Hell… will be featuring heavily at upcoming shows, too. “I think a lot of the new songs will become staples in our future setlists,” Weinhofen says. “We like to think we’ve written a full album of killer and no filler.” Who: Bring Me The Horizon What: There Is A Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen It… is out now through Shock Records With: Iron Maiden, Queens Of The Stone Age, One Day As Lion, Slayer, Slash, Bullet For My Valentine, Primus and more Where: Soundwave Festival @ Eastern Creek Raceway When: Sunday February 27
Fat Freddy’s Drop Blowing Their Own Trumpet By Denis Semchenko
we’re doing live – there’s a vibe at those shows, and we try to give the audience our best and enjoy ourselves… We just got back from Europe – we were there for a month and a half and that’s really far away, so we’re glad to be back home... being in Australia is like being back home anyway.”
R
elentless genre-blenders and certified festival-slayers, New Zealand’s Fat Freddy’s Drop have amassed a fearsome live reputation stretching far beyond their home town, with a dedicated following in Australia, an expanding European one and even a base in North America. Dukie’s soul-inflected vocals, mixed with the sevenpiece’s unique combination of reggae, dub, ska, techno and old-school rhythm & blues, makes for an eminently groovy, danceable and listenable mix. Like the majority of NZ “dub & bass” acts – Salmonella Dub, Shapeshifter and Tiki Taane being prime examples – they’re unafraid to take on virtually any style or genre, all the while maintaining their signature swing, and effortlessly going from chill to swagger. The outfit’s mastery of an infectious pulse is made even more impressive by the fact that Fat Freddy’s Drop have never had a live rhythm section, with longtime resident DJ Fitchie dropping the phat beats and the bass from his trusty MPC. In Kiwi-speak, they’re one mint proposition. Speaking from his hometown of Wellington, trumpeter Tony Chang – one third of the band’s scorching horn section – sounds like a man devoted to the joy of playing live, despite having to endure frequent lengthy sojourns. “Yes, definitely – we’re looking forward to coming back again,” he says about FFD’s impending return to Australia in his broad Kiwi accent. “It’s great; it seems like the audiences in Australia have really started to enjoy what
Those who witnessed the band’s riveting Splendour set may remember its assorted highlights – like any of Tony’s or saxophonist Chopper Reedz’ fiery solos, Dukie and Jetlag Johnson’s echo-drenched, dual-guitar halo that harked back to the best of UK shoegaze, or the towering, extended version of ‘Wandering Eye’. But one shaking, gold tracksuit top-clad figure (later proceeding to disrobe to a singlet and a pair of short shorts) seemed to forever stick in this writer’s memory. Firing up the already heaving, celebratory vibe at the Mix Up tent was the band’s own human barometer – trombonist Hopepa (Joe Lindsay), whose relentless, furious dancing provided ample visual entertainment. Fittingly, he was also the last of the band members to reluctantly leave the stage, staying on until the very last beat. “Exactly – he’s like a barometer,” Tony laughs. “You can tell the energy around us by watching him shake all around.” In their native Aotearoa, FFD are mixing it with some of the biggest names in the business. The outfit’s first full-length, 2005’s Based On A True S tory, debuted at number one and currently remains the second-highest-selling album in New Zealand. Their follow-up – 2009’s Dr Boondiggah & The Big BW – was also a chart-topper, and has since been certified double platinum. Only recently, the septet have released their second live album, Live At Roundhouse – a recording of a 2008 gig at the legendary London venue, that has hosted everyone from Led Zepp to Jimi Hendrix. Not content to rest on their laurels, and inspired into a slew of creative ideas by all the international travel, the merry Kiwis promise to deliver another crackin’ studio LP sooner than everyone might think. “It will be next year,” Tony assures. “We’re getting close to getting all the songs for the new album together.” Warning: there’ll be some dangerously intoxicating grooves cookin’ in that lab. Who: Fat Freddy’s Drop What: Live At Roundhouse is out now Where: The Enmore Theatre When: Thursday November 25
Dimi Dero Inc All The Way From Frogsland By Patrick Emery
B
eing a rock ’n’ roll band in France isn’t easy. Despite the country’s proud history in the arts, independent music remains a relatively marginal pursuit. “It’s getting harder and harder to play in France,” says Dimi Dero, frontman and guitarist of Dimi Dero Inc. “There are noise limitations, and the media is totally under the thumb of the major companies... I think in the last three years, three quarters of the gigs we’ve played were not in our own country,” Dero laughs. “I could hardly name ten good rock venues in Frogsland!” Dero grew up listening to David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Idol, before a friend of his sister gave him mix-tapes featuring punk bands from France and abroad. “I soon got addicted to The Stooges, New York Dolls, Heartbreakers - then a French label called Closer started to release Australian bands: The New Christs, Died Pretty, The Fun Things, etcetera.” Inspired by the “energy ... the smell of freedom” in The Stooges’ first album, Dero started playing drums in a band called Moby Dick, in 1989. “We were mainly playing covers of the bands listed above. I started to play guitar and sing a few years later, covering Johnny Thunders songs, then started to write my own stuff,” says Dero. While Dero has given his name to the band, their music is a group effort these days. “We were playing my first album in the beginning, so it made sense to do that under [my] name,” he remembers. “But after that, it became a real band; everybody is involved in the creative process. We’re not far from a 25% input each on the new album, really.” Dero’s love of Australian music is well known. “There’s a specificity [in Australian music] that’s hard to describe,” he explains. “We kind of feel the immensity of Australia in the music. There’s space, and freedom, and also a slight melancholy. But basically, we’re attracted to good
music. New York used to have a fantastic scene and awesome bands - but Australia provides some of the best bands of the planet.” The love of Australian music extends to Dero’s support for Australian musicians traveling through Paris – Dero has titled his spare room the ‘Kangaroom,’ for use by visiting musicians. “I pretend I run the Australian Rock Embassy in Paris with that”, he chuckles. “The list is too long, I will forget some, please forgive me - but we had Kim Salmon, The Drones, members of Monty Sparrow, Black Pony Express, Penny Ikinger…” Dero’s list goes on and on. For their latest album, Cremation Day in the Court of Miracles, Dimi Dero Inc turned to producer Rob Younger (Radio Birdman, The New Christs). “He first saw us live in Paris a few years ago, and our common friend Penny Ikinger was here too,” Dero recalls. “Penny came to us after the gig saying that Rob told her very positive things about us, and that he’d probably like to work with us someday… He totally knew where he wanted to lead us from the day one. He pushed us further in our own direction, not somewhere else. Somehow that was very relaxing, he was the ‘boss’ and we knew we could rely on him!” Dimi Dero Inc are on their way to Australia for the second time in two years. “We’ve got more muso friends in Australia than in France, so it’s always so much fun,” Dero says. “Last time we were here we spent two days at The Drones’ house in the country. Oh, and we saw our first kangaroos on the side of the road!” he laughs. Who: Dimi Dero Inc What: Cremation Day In The Court Of Miracles is out now through Mere Noise/MGM Where: Manly Fishos (w/ The Celibate Rifles) / Excelsior Hotel (w/ The New Christs, The Holy Soul) When: October 22 / October 23
“This city woman she ain’t never gonna let me leave” - THE SNOWDROPPERS 30 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
Bring Me The Horizon by Adam Elmakias
Indeed, their latest album was leaked before its release date; nevertheless, they’ve tried to look at the bright side of the situation. “We try to look at album leaks in a positive light. It adds hype to the release, with fans feeling special that they’ve heard it before it’s due out.”
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KillaQueenz A Killa Decade By Tyson Wray
T
he tale behind KillaQueenz, aka Kween G and Desiree, is an inspirational one. Both born into troubled and tragedy-riddled childhoods in Uganda and Belize respectively, the two moved to Australia in 2000 - and have since created one of our nation’s most influential and motivating hip hop duos. In the last few years alone, they’ve supported idols like Lady Gaga, Public Enemy, Wu-Tang Clan, Bone Thugs N Harmony and NASA; I ask Kween G about how it all came together for the pair. “We both came from different African dance groups, and we were both doing shows in Sydney before the Olympic Games - where we met during rehearsals,” she tells me. “We were still quite young; [Desiree] would come and stay at my house, and then I’d go and stay at hers. It was there we formed an awesome friendship.” They started making music at these sleepovers, too. “We’d create a simple beat and make up some lyrics to put over it,” Kween G says. “Basically making a lot of noise, and pissing off my dad.” KillaQueenz have risen through the ranks from these humble beginnings, acclaimed for their boisterous productions and energetic live performances. Kween G tells me it all culminated magnificently this year – the outfit’s tenth year together. “It’s been super-duperduper-super!” she laughs, of 2010.
Spindarella Let’s Talk About Decks By Bridie Connellan
“I can’t describe it any other way. We started the year on the festival circuit playing Sydney Festival, Good Vibrations and Groovin’ The Moo. We managed to tour with some of our favourite artists, and get support slots for some of our heroes…. We’ve been releasing music, making videos and basically touring all over Australia and New Zealand, blasting out shows.” On the eve of their 10 year anniversary, which they’ll be celebrating with a party at Tone this Friday, Kween G shares what she feels is the best thing that’s come of their success and partnership. “One of the most important things is that it means that we’ve been able to hold our friendship and our musicianship together for a decade. It never really hit us until last month that it’d really been that long; we never expected we’d have the opportunity to do this seriously, it was always just for fun,” she says. “The most important thing we’ve learnt from this partnership is that if you don’t stop, try your best and never give up you will get somewhere that you really want to be. We were extremely patient the entirety of our career. Whether or not 10 years later everyone knows who we are or not doesn’t matter - we’re just so thankful we’ve had the chance to release our music, play our shows and spread our message. It’s been a challenge, but it’s been a beautiful thing too.” The pair don’t shy from getting political, and feel that now is more important than ever to underpin the necessity of a positive outlook to refugee intake. “We are all from other countries, this is an indigenous country, and this is Aboriginal land. Before anyone begins to question immigrants or refugees, they need to realise that’s how the majority of [people] came to this country,” Kween G says passionately. “People go through different issues, and people grow up to be culturally different - it’s extremely hard for people to come here and adapt to the way of life. I had the same experience when I moved here from Uganda. Everyone needs to have the idea in their hearts, of making everyone feel welcome. Whether it’s a country, a job or a school, if we don’t give people the chance to show who they are and what they have to offer, then we’re not going to progress anywhere.” One thing’s for certain – this is only the beginning for KillaQueenz. What: Celebrating 10 Killa Years Of The Queenz With: KillaQueenz, DJ Sarah Love (UK), Josie Styles, Badezzy and more Where: Ladies Love Hip Hop @ Tone, Surry Hills When: Friday October 22
“I
’ma tell ya, don’t mistake her for a fella, the mix empress Spinderella.” As the backbeat and backbone of the world’s first Grammy-winning female rap group, only a fool would underestimate Deidra Jones. Providing the breaks, fills and luscious loops for Queens-based 90s hip hop duchesses Salt-N-Pepa (AKA Cheryl Wray and Sandra Denton), the throwback tunes of DJ Spinderella are most renowned as the staple of slamming house parties, nostalgia sessions and general packin’, mackin’, bamboozlin’ and smackin’ suckers with this trackin’. It’s time to throw the beat back in. Born and raised from a 7th floor abode in Brooklyn, Spindarella’s decision to pursue a career in the DJ-sphere was something of natural selection. As Jones explains, her dreams sprung from the street. “I grew up in New York, when hip hop was in its early stages,” she says. “I’d be outside with my friends playing tag, and would see the guys plugging up what appeared to be some kind of equipment to a light post. The gritty sounds of hip hop would play; it was an outdoor party.” Jones’ path to the decks was only encouraged by her vinyl-wielding 45-obsessed dad - not to mention high school beau DJ AD Supreme, who schooled her on tricks of the cross-fade. Working behind the decks has proved lucrative for Jones, as various TV stints and appearances are underscored by a steady eight-year gig producing, directing and hosting a hip hop, soul, R&B, funk, breaks and house radio show called ‘The Back Spin’, on Texas-based Radio-One Inc. KSOC 94.5 K-Soul... “Not feeling some of the music being put out today makes you appreciate what we grew up to,” she says. “Throwbacks keep me sane, and are the very reason we do The Back Spin.” As the backboning beats of Salt-N-Pepa, after replacing DJ Latoya Hanson as Spinderella from the group’s first album Hot, Cool & Vicious, Jones blitzed one hell of a feminine mystique in a largely male dominated industry. It was a fairytale shakeup the 39-year-old felt was a long time coming. “Hip hop needs a respectable front runner with an amazing story,” she says. “I’m more driven than ever. I fought long and hard throughout my years to make sure the female DJ is represented, and I’m proud and inspired to find so many young girls can actually be respected as a DJ. I know some females that are doper DJs than the guys. No question.” Despite disbanding in 2002, pursuing solo projects and Jones venting on the VH1 classic The Salt-N-Pepa Show that Denton and James never embraced their DJ as a legit group member, the three-piece tour de force are anything but past it. Salt-N-Pepa
took out the BET Lifetime Achievement Award this week, aptly titled ‘I Am Hip-Hop’. Jones denies ever suffering from press fatigue, and claims that the avalanche of breakup/ reunion/friendship questions sent her way are nothing by which to be irritated. “I don’t [get tired of those questions] ’cause the situation is everchanging,” she laughs. “People are so curious about us and I understand that.” Curiosity is inevitable for a group fronting the quintessential 80s anthems for man-candy like ‘Shoop’, ‘Push It’ and ‘None of Your Business’ alongside the skanky bass-laden 90s grind of ‘Giddy Up,’ and the slammin’ demand that we Talk About Sex, Baby. Selling over 15 million albums worldwide, co-lead Cheryl Wray (aka Salt) gushed to the Philadelphia Daily News last week, “Salt-N-Pepa were a phenomenon. Just like there is only one Beyonce, and one Janet [Jackson], there is only one Salt-n-Pepa.” Likewise, there is only one Deidra Jones – and she’ll be heading to Sydney this week, to DJ at SOSUEME’s 90’s House Party. As her frontladies so aptly voiced in their tribute track, “Spinderella’s not a fella that’s ok… Make believe what she can do indeed, you’re dealing with the Queen of Speed. Cuttin’ the beats with ease, makin’ the record bleed, now then, you know what I mean.” Word. Who: Spindarella (Salt-N-Pepa) With: DJ Mo Dav (LA), Joyride, Kato What: SOSUEME’s 90’s House Party @ QBar When: Friday October 22
Mirah New Life In The Old Days By Gav Ross
T
ouching down in Oceania for the first time in her decade-long career, Mirah is finally going to be able to appease loyal followers who’ve held on to a glimmer of hope that she’d one day appear. Although she’ll be touring as a three-piece and playing her own material this time around, the Philadelphia-born songstress has spent a good part of 2010 playing shows alongside Thao Nguyen, vocalist/guitarist from folk rockers Thao & The Get Down Stay Down. What began as an impromptu performance at the San Francisco Noise Pop Festival earlier in the year turned into a fully-fledged tour that saw each lass playing one another’s tunes, making the sets interestingly collaborative experiences. “Playing shows with Thao is fun - super fun,” Mirah says with enthusiasm. “It’s much easier in a way to share the front of the stage with someone else, and it’s also been a great experience to work on performing each other’s songs. It’s like a weird combination of karaoke and Guitar Hero, and some kind of game show where you just keep winning.” The pair just finished recording an album of material together, which they’ll be touring after they release it next year. Although she’s spent the majority of her career performing on her lonesome, the 36-year-old
has found herself joined by band members the last few years, to better recreate some of the sounds heard on her five solo albums. But she still regards solo shows as important; they’re not something she’s abandoned. “I did a solo tour a couple years back that ended up being more satisfying than I expected,” she contemplates. “I’d really gotten used to having more sound around me - more instruments, more people on stage - and I was worried that it would feel too empty with just li’l me. But instead I found that my focus was so strong... and l liked the silence between my songs. The first exposure to Mirah’s recorded material for many Aussies was probably 2004’s gorgeous C’Mon Miracle. There was a long wait of over four years between this and (a)spera, but she stayed productive by revisiting her past. In fact, Mirah has no aversions to going back and re-evaluating songs she completed in her early 20’s. 2008’s The Old Days Feeling, for instance, compiled a slew of out-of-print and never-beforeheard material from the late 90s. There are some fans who are actually fonder of this stripped-back sound than of her current album work. “Those were really fun times,” Mirah says, “when I was just running around with my cassette four-track and making things without any kind of filter of expectation. I’m not super organised about that
old material. I know there are things I’ve made that I’ve forgotten about, recordings I mailed off to somebody to be on some 7” or cassette compilation. Maybe someday I’ll really go through all my old cassettes that are in storage and find some more material, make an Old Days Feeling sequel, but who knows when I’ll get around to that... I’ll need some seriously rainy days - and nothing else. “If there wasn’t so much new to do and to record all the time, I’d want to do a project of re-recording everything I’ve ever recorded,” she tells me, when I ask about ‘While We Have The Sun’ - a track she re-recorded for (a)spera which was originally released six years prior. “I also have a four-track version of that song that was on a Portland compilation called PDX Pop Now a few years ago, and it’s totally different than either of the two album versions. I find it really fascinating to re-approach the same song in a number of different ways,” Mirah continues.She tells me there’s a disco version floating around of ‘Gone Are All The Days’ from (a)spera... “I think songs love to be breathed into in new ways.” Who: Mirah Where: The Red Rattler, Marrickville When: Thursday October 21
“Checking out the girls with my good ol’ boys, Jack Loneliness and Mr Mescaline” - THE SNOWDROPPERS 32 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
Pendulum The Pioneers By Tyson Wray
“I
don’t want to be one of those bands that gets old, tries and still fails. Seeing Axl Rose at Reading Festival still trying to hit the notes, still trying to keep it all together when his whole band has left him… I don’t really dig that.” It might seem presumptuous to be envisioning yourself as a future iconic musical legend, but for Pendulum’s front man Rob Swire, it’s a pretty well-founded optimism. The band, who relocated from Perth to the UK in 2003, are without a doubt one of Australia’s biggest contemporary exports – and with a new album that’s finally offered them the same huge success on their home soil, the pioneers of the drum and bass revolution can be excused for having their sights set high. After receiving monumental critical acclaim for their 2005 debut release Hold Your Colour and their 2008 sophomore In Silico, Pendulum returned in 2010 with their third studio album, Immersion. “Our main influences on Immersion was all of the electronic music we were listening to following the production of In Silico,” he tells me. “Ranging from dubstep, drum and bass and a whole lot of Nine Inch Nails, and shit like that. I’d say mainly we were trying to perfect the sound that we’d created on our previous albums,” he says, before pausing briefly. “I don’t really know how to describe our sound... If you were to describe The Beatles as a British 60s pop band, or The Prodigy as electro-punk, you’d really be underestimating those bands. I’d say that’s the same as us - there’s no genre or tag that really fits. It’s angelic, it’s electronic and it’s larger than life. I don’t think many people in electronic music really go after what we go for.”
for the band’s relationship with Australia - they’ve already sold out their Hordern show. “When we come to Australia this month, it’s going to be completely different to any show we’ve ever played down there. To date we’ve never had the same audience that we currently have in Australia, ever since our ABC remix blew the fucking roof off,” Swire says, referring to the band’s infamous take on the ABC News theme. “We’ve never really sold venues like we’re selling down there, and we’ve never had the chance to play to the number of people that we’re going to get to play to. So it’s going to be completely different,” he continues. “It’ll be an opportunity for Australians to see what Pendulum is really all about.” Who: Pendulum What: Immersion is out now With: Bliss N Eso, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Bluejuice, Cloud Control and more Where: Stonefest @ Canberra University When: Saturday October 30 More: November 5 @ The Hordern Pavilion (sold out), Future Music Festival 2011
“If you were to describe The Beatles as a British 60s pop band, or The Prodigy as electropunk, you’d really be underestimating those bands. I’d say that’s the same as us. There’s no genre or tag that really fits.” Underpinning the powerful and commanding productions on Immersion are the dynamic and energetic live performances which have cemented Pendulum’s fame on the international stage. “What does any band want to get out of their fans seeing them live?” Swire asks. “I don’t know, really. I guess we’re just trying to create an experience which people haven’t had before; our live band re-creating the sound that we can get together in the studio. Sometimes people get a bit sceptical of our live show - they say that there’s no way that we’re playing live, and some aspects must be mimed, but it’s not. If you watch closely and listen closely, you can hear the occasional thing go wrong; it’s definitely all live. The musicians and technology that we’ve put together are fantastic, and that’s how we get our sound across in our live show.” It’s the quality of sound and visuals that help differentiate Pendulum from other bands – which plays out especially well on the festival circuit. “You can go all day and never hear any sub-bass, but when we come on we’re always using 100% of the fucking bass rig, at any given club or festival. I think it’s something that a lot of people don’t hear, and something that not a lot of bands have - so usually when people hear a lot of bass from the other side of a festival, they’ll rush over and cram the tent to see what’s going on.” Pendulum are heading on a national tour, with a stop off to headline the University of Canberra’s huge Stonefest next week - with Bliss N Eso, Airbourne, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Cloud Control and heaps more. And they’ve just been announced for next year’s Future Music Festival. ”We’ve been touring the world as a live band for the past four years,” Swire says. “We’ve generally always tried to avoid the shitholes - but unfortunately some places you go, where you aren’t too well known, you’ve got to play in the toilet. Places like mid-Europe and Australia were very hard in the beginning, because we didn’t have that much of a fan base,” he tells me, and it’s true - the band has always done best abroad. “We just played Reading where we headlined the dance tent, and it was fucking epic. They closed all the other stages and we had the entire festival crammed into our tent. It’s indescribable.”
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT WWW.MOSHTIX.COM.AU 1300 GET TIX (438 849) ON YOUR MOBILE MOSHTIX.MOBI AND ALL MOSHTIX OUTLETS
After hitting #3 on the ARIA album charts, Pendulum’s Immersion certainly changed a lot BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 33
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brushstrokes WITH TATTOO ARTIST JOSH
ROELINK (TATUDHARMA STUDIO) Limited edition print, Josh Roelink
Can you tell us the story of your first tattoo? It was meant to be a tribal sun with a yin-yang in the centre and a Japanese wave flowing out from it. Thank god the artist didn’t show up, and when I asked if he was coming in, the answer was: ‘I don’t fucking know, fuck off.’ SOOOO, that was that. I ended up with a different design, from a different artist - a tribal sun with a Haida orca design in the centre. I’m not from that tribe, but I do appreciate the design and I seemed to identify with the alienation that the Haida people experienced in a culture established by colonial invaders - just the same as every other indigenous culture from every other continent. It was done in one of the oldest street shops in Sydney, Illustrated Man.
(from the USA) that had anything to do with tattooing. I was curious as hell, and just as determined. I was already illustrating freelance, but I hated the commercial and advertising world, so it seemed like the perfect choice for me. I had NO idea it would become what it has – it was for deadbeats, hookers and gangsters, and I liked the punk, lowbrow and underworld side of it all. It’s become so... watered down now. It makes me sad at times.
How and when did you decide to get into tattooing as a career? I decided about the very second I finished getting my first tattoo - 1990. It was so secretive, no one would tell me anything. There was no internet, only 2 magazines
What are some of your artistic influences? Hokusai, Kyosai, Utamaro - most Edo period woodblock artists actually. Horiyoshi III has been a massive inspiration for me - as has Trevor McStay who tattoos in Melbourne and has been a mentor for me.
KIRIN BIG IN JAPAN
Building on the success of the Kirin ‘Big in Japan’ exhibition last year, ksubi are back in the curatorial seat for 2010, presenting an avant-garde selection of artists from all corners of Japan, working across the fields of performance, video, music, noise and installation. Kirin ‘Big in Japan’ Sydney will take place on Tuesday November 16 at The Royal Hall of Industries, Moore Park – which suggests a veritable wonderland of poptastic goodness. The artist line-up this year includes music from instrumental krautrock girl group Nisennenmondai, and Kyoto’s Shabushabu and LakilakiwasMaho+ThaiDisco; fashion from acclaimed designer/artist Yoshikazu Yamagata (writtenafterwards), and sculptural surrealism from Yasushiro Suzuki… and heaps more. To get a taste of what you’re in for, head to biginjapan.com.au, the project’s blog.
BEG, BORROW, STEAL Beg, Borrow, Steal is a photographic exploration of the people, places and the creations behind the D.I.Y skateboarding movement, as viewed through the eyes of Tristan Still. Tristan has been skating and snapping since he was sixteen, armed with his dad’s discarded Pentax Spotmatic F, and a cheap’n’nasty deck from K Mart – which he shared with fellow skater and friend Daniel Lynch. In the past fourteen years, Tristan’s yearn to explore both art forms has led him to squat skate parks in Spain and the Netherlands, experimenting with the world’s largest mobile Polaroid camera, and then back to Sydney, where he teaches photography and digital imaging at COFA. Tristan’s images capture the DIY, punk ethos of skating, where the built environment is co-opted to create new spaces for play. Above: James - Bedroom Ramp Waterloo
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What is Morte about? The show is an artistic response to the artists’ thoughts and feelings about their own mortality. I did tell the artists to try and come up with artistic creations about their own death and mortality that didn’t involve just skulls and the like but... well, skulls are really fucking cool – and fun to paint/draw – so yes, there are a lot of skulls in the show. But then there are the odd pieces which are quite abstract, and not what you’d expect.
How did you choose the line-up of artists? It’s not necessarily just my favourite visual artists and tattooists - it’s people who’s work I find interesting in one way or another. There were many more artists I wanted in the show, but there is only so much room. I have no idea what I’m personally showing just now - hopefully by the end of this week I will have decided on one piece I’m relatively happy with. It’ll most likely have a skull in it. What: Morte, curated by Josh Roelink When: Opens October 21, from 6pm Where: LO-FI Collective / Lvl 3, 383 Bourke St, Taylor Square (above Kinselas) More: wearelofi.com.au / tatudharma.com
Billed as the world’s first street art disaster film, Banksy’s film debut might be a documentary, a mockumentary or an elaborate hoax – and possibly all three rolled into one. It’s clever, insightful, entertaining and hilarious; how often can you say that about a film? Thanks to Madman, who released it on DVD last week, we have five copies of the Special Edition DVD release of Exit Through The Gift Shop, which includes: • B Movie - an exclusive film tracing the life and crimes of Banksy. • Deleted scenes. • Life Remote Control (lawyer’s edit) - the movie that started it all, released for the first time. • Banksy-designed ‘2D' glasses. • Australia-only collectible art card. • Sticker pack. To get your hands on one of these, read our review on p.39 and tell us one other street artist featured in the film.
FLIGHTFALL AT THE FITZ
We have four double passes up for grabs to see Emily Calder’s electrifying new Australian play about passion, fidelity and the creative mind. Emily was handpicked by the Sydney Theatre Company for their Next Stage program, where Flightfall was developed and workshopped in conjunction with the Residents actors company, and Literary Manager Polly Rowe. Flightfall also features some of Australia’s hottest new young acting talent, from NIDA and WAAPA. Flightfall opens at the Old Fitzroy Theatre this Thursday October 21; we have four double passes up for grabs, for the performance on Saturday October 23, at 8pm. To get your hands on one, tell us one actor starring in the production. rocksurfers.org/flightfall
ART & ABOUT TALKS
Every Wednesday night during October, Art & About festival have been presenting free talks with the artists and curators behind this year’s public art projects. This Wednesday October 20 – the last of the series – you can catch Alasdair Nicol (of Reef Knot) talking about the Bike Bike project in Martin Place, and Jess Cook (of Token Imagination) talking about the Oh Alfred! project in Surry Hills. Community Collaborations: Creating Public Art runs from 6.30-7.30pm at the Burdekin Hotel on Oxford Street (beer!) and Art & About runs until October 24 (Sunday!) – so if you haven’t got along yet, then head to artandabout.com.au for inspiration. And directions.
NEW (DANCE) CREATIONS
We went along to Sydney Dance Company’s New Creations 2 last week, on the basis that the first one was incredible. Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela presented Australian Premieres of two of his favourite works: Irony of Fate (an exquisite duet between dancer Amy Hollingsworth and talented young British violinist Ruth Palmer) and the steamy Latin tango of Soledad – both performed with a level of technical precision and physical grace that quite frankly blows our mind. The third and final work is Satisfying Musical Moments, a new piece by Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat, in which SDC's 14 dancers pace the stage like a schoolyard, with all its power dynamics, while the music seesaws from dissonance to Schubert. Gat’s work would be unbearably anxious if it weren’t so precisely choreographed and executed. The result is nothing short of thrilling. But don’t listen to us… consider seeing it for yourself. It's on til October 23 at Sydney Theatre. sydneydancecompany.com
YOUR NAME IN LIGHTS
Last week we were encouraging you to get nude and muddy at the MCA, for Dadang Christanto’s performance installation Survivor; but our shy readers: Sydney Festival and Kaldor Public Art Projects are looking for 100,000 people to be part of Your Name In Lights, a huge digital work by one of contemporary art’s pre-eminent conceptual artists, John Baldessari. Located on the external wall of the Australian Museum for all the world to see, Your Name in Lights is a 30-metre screen that will be operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for all three weeks of the Festival. If you register at sydneyfestival.org.au/yourname, Baldessari will put YOUR name up in lights, for 15 seconds. In other happy news, get ready for a mid-November launch of the Sydney Festival program (otherwise known as 'your summer schedule') for January 8-30, 2011. OH YAY!
ANNIE LEIBOWITZ: A PHOTOGRAPHER'S LIFE
The Museum of Contemporary Art is hosting Annie Leibowitz: A Photographer’s Life, a retrospective of around 200 photos from the period of 1990-2005. Thanks to Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, Leibowitz is one of the most recognised portrait photographers in the world – from John and Yoko spooning to Nureyev on the beach, Bette Midler in a bed of roses, and a naked Demi Moore nursing her very pregnant belly, she has created some of our most iconic images. The exhibition’s most powerful photographs, however, are Leibowitz’s intimate blackand-white portraits of her family, and her long-term partner, Susan Sontag. The exhibition opens November 19, and entry is a measly $15/$10 (concession). Get along. mca.com.au
2SER SUPPORTER DRIVE
2SER's Annual Supporter Drive continues this week, giving you a chance to support Sydney's community radio culture AND win cool shit (flights to Malaysia, anyone?). Not to mention those supporter discounts... Over its 30 years, 2SER has been instrumental in shaping the Sydney we know and love today, so we reckon you should consider digging into those artsy pockets of yours (we know, it’s slim pickings) and subscribing. The first step is tuning in to 107.3FM and/or 2ser.com
FLICKER-UP/GREENFLICKS This years Flickerfest is shaping up to be extra special, featuring (amongst other things) two rad new programmes: FlickerUp, a national youth competition for short films from filmmakers under 18 years of age; and GreenFlicks, an international environmental short film competition, supporting messages of sustainability. Even better, Flickerfest have just announced that the entry deadline for these two programs has been extended until October 30. Entry deets at flickerfest.com.au
FILM FEVER
Oh golly, this week is all about filmmakers: SPAA Fringe is on this weekend at the Powerhouse Museum; the Play Now Act Now Festival is having its Grand Final Screening on Tuesday October 19 at the Vanguard (we will see you there btw); Tropfest have officially opened their call for entries (signature item KEYS); and our favourite short film night, Kino Sydney, is taking over Metro Screen for a marathon of movie-making madness: Kino Kabaret - a week-long festival where Sydney’s filmmakers get together to create all-new short films and screen them at themed party screenings. The catch? Each film has to go from idea to screen in 32 hours! Kabaret week is split into three sessions; filmmakers can participate in one session or all three. Session 1 is 19-20 October, Session 2 is 21-22 October, and Session 3 is held over the weekend of 23-24 October. The overall theme for the parties is ‘Game On’, and the specific themes include Card Shark, Hardcore, and Roller Riot. Game on indeed – head to kinosydney.com for all the deets.
Susan Sontag, Quai des Grands Augustins, Paris, 2002 © Annie Leibovitz
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ext up at LO-FI Collective is Morte, an exhibition of work exploring mortality, curated by one of Sydney’s most sought-after tattoo artists, Josh Roelink. This fella has a waitlist of about three years at the moment, so this may be your best short-term chance of owning a piece of his work, so to speak!
EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP - SPECIAL EDITION
The Conchords star discusses the double-edge sword of comedy success... and how there's a bit of his mother in Murray. By Nathan Jolly
It’s Rhys Darby Night
“H
e’s got that Peter Sellers elllers madness inside him.” .”” That's how Jim Carrey ey once described New-Zealander er Rhys Darby; but as he stands in the e foyer of the Sheraton, eating a chocolate colate bar and wearing a baseball cap ap over his ginger hair, it’s hard to o see Darby as anyone else but Murray rray - the hapless yet caring manager ag ger from HBO’s cult comedy Flight htt Of The Conchords. The clipped N NewewZealand accent and borrowed d facial expressions don’t help dispel the comparisons; neither do the he constant jibes at New Zealand, d, a key component of the Conchords’ ords’ humour. In Australia as part of his It’s R Rhys hys Darby Night stand up tour, he e has an endearing self-confidence; en nce; comments like "It's not a challenge le enge for me to make people laugh" would seem like idle boasting out of context, but from him they're m modest odest statements of fact, from a man n relieved to have found his calling. ing. In fact, Darby’s breaks came e easily asily and quickly, with the comedian n leap-frogging the NZ and Australian tralian market early in the piece afterr a successful stint at the Edinburgh rgh Fringe, where he befriended Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie. “We were the only K Kiwi iwi acts there, and were helping e each ach other out; I was doing the flyer-ing err-ing for them, Bret was doing the lights tss on my show,” he recalls. Clementt and McKenzie were courted by BBC BC for a radio show and HBO for a TV V series, and took Darby along for the ri ride. ide.
Rhyss Darby photo by Kate Little
Before all this, though, there w was as a misguided stint in the Armed d Forces... “When I was at school oo ol I had a feel for this glamourised version rssion of military life - from watching too o many films and TV shows - and the iidea dea of dropping in behind enemy lines es and rescuing P.O.Ws appealed. Off course then I joined the New Zealand d Army, and it was very different. I got lost a lot in the army, didn’t have m much uch sense of direction - I wasn’t the he e ideal soldier,” he laughs. “Good for m morale, orale, they said, but a bit of a joke. M More ore of a ’Voice To Entertain You’ sort ort of a guy.” What ultimately set Darby on h his is current career path, however, was a sort of smug sense that att he could do it better than others. ers. “I never tried doing stand up, a as s it wasn’t really a thing we had in New Zealand," he says. "So w when hen comics from Auckland came do down own to Christchurch, I went down to w watch atch them and thought to myself, ‘Wow, Wow, I could do stuff funnier than that. at.. Geez
should be doing this.’ So I got I sho ott up on stage and did a few Frank Spencer encer impersonations and got more laughs impe laughs than they did, and thought ‘Oh, h, this easy. I’ve been laughed at a allll my is eas life - it’s about time I got paid ffor or it!’” easy success allowed Darby His e byy the dence to jump into the deep confid ep end: went straight to the source, straight “I wen traight to the biggest festival in the world rld Edinburgh," he tells me. "Rather Edinb err than ignored, I went off the back o off my be ign own sself-confidence. I got an agent gent over tthere and got quite quickly y into top clubs, headlining the big the to g clubs. appearances happened after TV ap er that the opportunity to play overseas, and th errseas, up and I became a name in stand u p - by no me means a big name, but enough ugh to seen.” get se the role that really propelled But th ed Darby into the public consciousness ussness Murray, the Conchords’ was M
cheerfully incompetent manager. cheer ge er. Darby modelled the character on “a multitude of men I’d met ett in my life lif that were involved in some ome sort o of authoritative position and nd had no n idea what they were doing, oing, but m meant well.” He also admits tss a bit of his mother slipped into the he character, to the extent that Mu Murray chara urray is a ssurrogate parent for the two wo Conchords. Conc “Once I did that role, everyone turned their h heads and went, ‘who’s this hiis guy, where’d what where he come from, wow, wh hat a funny comedy character, we’ve e got to use this,' - because that’s what hat Americans do, they tend to jump Amer mp on the ball bless ba and grab it, and God bl less them for that. The director of Ye Yes es Man (Peyton (Peyto Reed) saw me and said, id d, 'I need to have that guy in my movie,' ovie,' and that th movie happened to have ave Jim Carrey Carre in it. It was a no-brainer.” r.”” Darby y sees the physical comedy dyy he
adopts part adopt in his stand up show as p art of a lineage that includes Buster Ke line Keaton, Charlie Charl Chaplin, Rowan Atkinson on n and Jim C Carrey. “The way they move e is a bit o of an art form. It’s all very w well ell having comic timing in the words dss you say, b but if you can get comic timing ming in you your physical movements as w well, ell, that to me gives you so much m more ore universal appeal… So I enjoy do doing unive oing impressions of dinosaurs, and I’ll impre ’ll always alway do it.” He laughs, realising ng the absurdity of this statement. “It’s ssilly. absur illy. There are shows without any dinosaur in nosaur impressions though…” impre Dinosaur impressions aside, what Dinos what resonates most about Darby is reson s the way in i which he holds comedy y as a pure pur art form. “The best comedy medy is always underground - it’s when alw hen it suddenly becomes mainstream sud ea am that it loses its bite,” he says, a as s we discuss his success in film di m and television. “It’s a double-edged televiss d
sword; sword you want it to be popular, but not too to popular. “The best thing about Conchords is that tha it was on all around the world, world but never on main channels - always alwa some obscure channel, in the middle of the night. And that’s m how comedy should be. It should be c found, found it should be a cool thing you talk about, like a club. It shouldn’t be a flashed ashe on the front page of news, ‘8:30pm ‘8:30p on a Wednesday night, Two and a Half Men, don’t miss it!’" he continues. "It should be more special contin than that.” t Wha It’s Rhys Darby Night What: When: October 27 and 28 Whe (EXTRA SHOW ADDED!) (EXT Where: Enmore Theatre Whe More: abpresents.com.au Mor
AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL SCREEN ARTS AND BROADCAST SCHOOL
DON’T MISS OUT aftrs.edu.au/awardcourses BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 35
Branch Nebula [DANCE] Art imitates life in this breathtaking piece of performance. By Simon Binns Erwin Fenis in Sweat
Cirque Mother Africa [DANCE/THEATRE] Bringing the cultural delights of Africa to Oz. By Barlow Redfearn
C
onceived as a concept in the early noughties and debuting in Germany in 2007, Cirque Mother Africa has toured the globe to great acclaim, and introduced the western world to an entirely new form of entertainment. African nations have a rich history of music, dance and performance art; but until recently the concept of an African circus – ‘circus’ in the European sense of the term – hadn’t existed. Winston Ruddle, founding father of the Cirque Mother Africa circus troupe and former breakdancer, acrobat and circus clown, is the performance artist responsible for introducing the world to the colour and wonder of this new art form. “When I first launched the show, audiences in the west were looking for different forms of entertainment,” says Winston. “In Europe there’s been so many different circuses in the past, and audiences needed a change. If you look at the circus market in Germany, for example, you have 300-400 different circuses using the same people working across all of them, and this has driven people away from the circus. What we’re trying to do is bring the circus alive again.“ Winston began his career in break dance in the early 80s, as part of Zimbabwe’s Kool Style Krew; in 1986 he transitioned into acrobatics, and joined Germany’s Continental Circus. It was during the following years, living and working in Europe, that he was introduced to the wonders of circus. As it happens, it was actually here in Australia
that he began to develop his idea for an entirely different circus form, whilst working for Silver’s Grand Magic Circus as part of an Egyptianthemed production. “What makes Mother Africa different, firstly, is the African music. It’s so so different to the music usually used in circus shows,” he says. "Also, the costumes and the colours that we use on the stage, and our overall presentation, is very different; we’re not the same as most circus people. And of course the energy – African’s have always been known for their energy.“ Created in Africa and performed by Africans, Cirque Mother Africa is not only unique from an entertainment point of view, but also provides a different avenue for western audiences to experience African culture. Featuring as many as 40 artists from nine different nations, this show is more than just a circus - it’s a celebration of the spirit of Africa. Furthermore, with a combined global audience in the vicinity of 2 million people, Winston and his troupe of performers have now become, in effect, cultural ambassadors for the continent. “Africa has so many different countries and cultures and there’s so much the world hasn’t seen,” says Winston. “I mean, there’s 52 countries and I don’t know how many hundreds of millions of people speaking so many thousands of different languages, and the media always only shows the poverty and the sickness; they never show the good side. Our show tries to portray the beauty of Africa; you know not everything in Africa is bad. This show transports people for two and a half hours to Africa and shows them the beauty of our continent.” What: Cirque Mother Africa When: October 26 – November 3 Where: State Theatre More: circus-mother-africa.de/en
B
ranch Nebula may have been around for twelve years, but their work is constantly taking people by surprise. Their last production, Paradise City, brought together a skater, a breakdancer, a BMX rider, an acrobat, a dancer and a singer to create a truly innovative work of contemporary dance theatre that was critically lauded across Australia and overseas. With their new show, Sweat, Branch Nebula have once again brought together a diverse group of performers, from Sri Lanka, Columbia, the Phillipines, Spain, Vietnam and Japan, to examine the anonymous, poorlypaid workers who contribute so much to our daily lives - mainly focusing on the service industries, like hospitality and cleaning. “We’ve got parkour, b-boying, contemporary dance, soccer, performance art and noise,” explains Mirabelle Wouters, co-director of Sweat. Unlike Paradise City where the performers’ specialised skill-sets, such as skating and BMX, became the focal point of the show, Sweat has required a merging of the skills with the themes of the piece - a process which has been quite a challenge for the group. “At first we tried to combine the menial work with the skills, but it kind of became a bit like a musical, a bit tacky in a way. We called it the Cinderella effect - someone’s mopping the floor then starts doing beautiful choreography, and we thought ‘that’s not right.’” Instead, the team have worked hard to find the right balance between bringing out the performers’ personalities using their skills, and exploring the themes of the piece through other means. The result is
a work that is based largely on creating a relationship between the audience and the performers. “In formal work, it’s very much about the relationship between performers on stage and how that evolves,” says Wouters, “but this time it’s very much about the relationship between the performers and the audience.” The venue for the upcoming show is ideal for a show like Sweat, with CarriageWorks’ cavernous Bay 20 enabling the performers to move amongst and around the audience. On the other hand, the unusually sparse arena has been a challenge for performer David Vo, whose speciality is parkour, an acrobatic discipline that entails moving efficiently through an area by utilising the terrain as a ‘prop’. Instead, Wouters explains, Vo works with the walls and the floor. "It’s pretty amazing how he can run up a wall!" For Claudia Escobar, a performance artist, the process has been incredibly enriching - particularly working with performers from completely different worlds. “In performance art there’s a way that we all go about things, and we understand our language, and sometimes we get very used to that,” she explains. “Working with other people makes you open up a little bit more” - although she laughs off the suggestion of learning parkour: “Brain parkour, maybe!” What: Branch Nebula presents Sweat, for Performance Space's Live Live season When: October 19 - 30, 2010 Where: Performance Space/ CarriageWorks More: performancespace.com.au
Summer Coda
[FILM] From Boogie Nights and The Big Lebowski to a rural romantic comedy, Richard Gray debuts. By Dee Jefferson
Nevertheless: at Cremorne’s Hayden Orpheum last week, the director introduced Sydney’s first public preview of his first feature: a romantic drama, set around the idyllic orange groves of Mildura. Besides talking about how much he loved the historic Orpheum, which reminded him of years spent working in Melbourne cinemas (from popcorn technician to projectionist), he closed earnestly, by saying something to the effect of: “we put a lot of time into the soundtrack, the sound design, and the pacing of this film; we wanted it to be worth that ticket price, and to really feel cinematic.” It’s a simple, statement, but one that reveals the most important qualities of this director and his film.
Rachael Taylor in Summer Coda
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Gray graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2003, but had been dreaming of making films since he was a kid. He describes being a teen and wondering how
the heck he could become the next Scorsese; and then he saw Boogie Nights. “I loved the heart mixed with the comedy, performed by phenomenal cast,” the director explains. “Then I read a PTA interview, where he explained that when he was a younger filmmaker he’d worried about how he was gonna make the next Goodfellas, when that type of story didn’t exist where he was growing up. Then he learnt that it did, it was just different - and there were amazing stories in his own backyard (like Boogie Nights, like Magnolia) that he could tell. That was the exact advice I needed when I was younger: look closer and write about things you can relate to. There are so many international-sized stories happening right around us.” When he got to film school, Gray adopted the meticulous dedication to the craft of filmmaking of directors like Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen Brothers (whose Fargo and Big Lebowski he singles out as favourites). Perhaps this is why Summer Coda looks, sounds and feels nothing like the low-budget indie it is. Fans and detractors alike are already agreeing on one thing: its technical credits are top notch, and the visuals are stunning. Gray originally drafted the script (then called Heidi) back in 2004; in 2005 it was runner-up in Australia’s Project Greenlight experiment; subsequently it was rejected from the Film
Finance Corporate (FFC) three times – at which point Gray set a self-imposed deadline, and decided to commence production, with or without the budget. He and his team of producers did the rounds of private investors, caps in hand, to bring together a modest budget for the shoot. Finally, last year, they had the budget, the perfect cast and crew, and a window of opportunity. Aussie expat and rising Hollywood star Rachael Taylor (Transformers, Cedar Boys) returned home to star as the recently-bereaved violinist, Heidi; Alex Dimitriades came out of TV-land to star opposite her, as a grieving orchard owner, Michael; and industry heavyweights Susie Porter and Jackie Weaver were locked into supporting roles. Getting up an independent Australian feature is a hard slog, with limited private funders and potential box-office, and indies competing against big-budget Hollywood fare for a limited number of screens and audience members. Gray looks at the bright side, however: “The one thing about independent features is you get final cut! I got to make this film exactly how I wanted it.” What: Summer Coda, Dir. Richard Gray When: Opens October 21 More: directors’ blog at summercoda.com
Branch Nebula/Sweat photo by James Brown
I
t all began with an image of a girl with a violin, busking to get home… For 30-yearold director Richard Gray, his debut feature – a labour of love that has taken six years from first draft to final cut – makes a whole lot of sense. For the rest of us, it’s a bit of a puzzle: Summer Coda is nothing like the film you’d expect from a self-confessed Coen Brothers and Wes Anderson fan, whose favourite film is Paul Thomas Anderson’s porn industry biopic Boogie Nights; and it’s possibly the last film you’d expect from someone who has been making reality TV for the last few years.
SAMMYJ & RANDY winner, best show 2010 melbourne int’l comedy festival
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Arts Snap
Film & Theatre Reviews
At the heart of the arts Where you went last week.
What's hot on the silver screen and the bareboards around town.
■ Film
RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE 3D Released October 14
the wall
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Filmed using James Cameron’s 3D Fusion technology, the fourth entry in this popular video-game-based series is easily the best; admittedly, it's hardly an achievement, given the low bar set by its predecessors. Resident Evil: Afterlife marks the return of Paul W.S. Anderson (Event Horizon, AVP, Death Race) to the director's chair, for the first time since he launched the series eight years ago. Having built his career on delivering big dumb action flicks, Anderson certainly doesn’t break the mould with Afterlife. The special effects are cheesy, with many sequences ripping off The Matrix, though the 3D element does add brief excitement to fight scenes, in particular one involving a ridiculously huge axe-wielding mutant.
06:10:10 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700
FBI's still life auction
PICS :: TL
The virtually non-existent plot kicks off with Alice (Milla Jovovich returning as the zombie butt-kicker) and her army of clones storming Umbrella Corp Headquarters in Japan. After a near fatal showdown aboard a plane and its subsequent crash, Alice sets out alone in search of her friends and survivors of the deadly T-Virus. Ali Larter (Heroes) reprises the role of Claire Redfield from Resident Evil: Extinction, and Wentworth Miller (Prison Break) joins the cast as her brother Chris (who fans will note is the protagonist from the original video game).
08:10:10 :: Art Gallery of New South Wales :: The Domain, Sydney
The film’s one strength is Jovovich (Anderson’s wife, incidentally). Clearly embracing her signature role, she portrays her character with such intense confidence that it temporarily distracts from the inherent blandness on screen. This may be an entirely unnecessary addition to the franchise, but spending 90 minutes with the leather-clad Milla is hardly a chore.
crime flick. While elements of the casting are questionable, the actors do the best with what they were given. Unfortunately this story is not strong enough to handle the pathos being piled on it. Beth Wilson ■ Theatre
PANIC
October 7-16 / Sydney Opera House PANIC is both a debaucherous romp in the forest of the great god Pan, and an adventure through the experience of a man. Visually delicious, this inter-disciplinary work by British theatre company Improbable fuses the intimate with grand spectacle, and the fantastical with the personal. PANIC feels more like an exploration than a play, and at times it might take the audience where they don’t want to go… but that’s just all part of the journey. The real adventurers are the performers, mainly non-actors – which gives the piece an endearing quality. Phelim McDermott leads the charge, alternating between playing himself, and various incarnations of the great god Pan - though the line between the two is intentionally blurry. Matilda Leyser, Lucy Foster and Angela Clerkin also drift between themselves and nymph-like beings, often functioning as enablers for McDermott to continue telling his story. What’s so great about PANIC is that it feels like an experiment for the cast, as if they are trying to make sense of it as much as the audience, while still being in control. Coupled with some glorious sound design and a dynamic set, the land of PANIC is full of sex, love and a desire to understand oneself. This piece maintains a complex web of themes while managing to be hilarious and, at times, delightfully challenging to watch, as the mystical and the individual become more and more entangled. Holly Orkin
Alex Lindsey Jones ■ Dance ■ Film
THE TOWN
paste modernism 2
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Released October 14
07:10:10 :: Lo-Fi Collective :: L3, 383 Bourke St Darlinghurst 93113100
Arts Exposed What's on our calendar... Its Pretty Good by Tom Polo
lies/lions/lines The Paper Mill 1 Angel Place (Cnr Ash St) Sydney CBD Opens October 20, 6-8pm The Paper Mill is an exciting new artistrun space located behind the mammoth Ivy complex on George St, and dedicated to celebrating paper-based arts. It opened last month, and has been rustling along with a series of workshops, events, exhibitions and artist residencies. Next up is lies/lions/ lines, which brings together a diverse bunch of talented young troublemakers to create works on paper – including experimental performance collective Bababa International, painter and SOYA-nominee Tom Polo, and sculptor Lionel Bawden (who does gorgeous, improbable things with coloured hexagonal pencils and polymer); PLUS Bonita Bub, Biljana Jancic, Adrian McDonald, Andrew Moran, Ivan Muñiz Reed, Benjamin Warren and Teo Treloar. thepapermill.org.au
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Following his critically acclaimed directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck’s sophomore feature sees him returning to his beloved Boston, and its criminal underbelly. Adapted from the novel Prince of Thieves, by Chuck Hogan, The Town follows a gang of bank robbers who all hail from Charlestown – an area of Boston that has more armed robbers per square mile than anywhere else in the world (a fact with which the film opens). Not content with directing credits alone, Affleck heads up the cast as Doug MacRay, a criminal with a heart and a brain. MacRay is part of a tight-knit group of bank robbers that includes the slightly unhinged Jem (Jeremy Renner of The Hurt Locker), ‘Gloansy’ the driver (Slaine) and (because you can’t have odd numbers of criminals) Desmond (Owen Burke). The gang holds up a bank, taking the manager Claire (Rebecca Hall) hostage. After releasing Claire they discover she lives in their neighbourhood, and could potentially finger them for the FBI. While Renner steals every scene he is in, other actors feel painfully out of place. Mad Men's Jon Hamm overacts the role of Agent Frawley, the FBI man who will do anything to catch his target. Also falling into clichéd territory is Pete Postlethwaite as the sociopathic florist Colm Fergus. Blake Lively (Gossip Girl) as Krista, MacRay’s sometime-lover, seems terribly miscast. The actress is too pretty and too young (or perhaps Affleck is too old) for her backstory. The Town is the classic one-last-job heist film. High adrenaline action sequences and the odd witty one-liner lift this film above what is essential a very average
GLOW October 13-16 / Seymour Centre A strange, half-formed, gluey creature writhes and scuttles across the glowing white floor. As the audience peers down at this primeval being, it utters weird, wordless cries, gasping and shrieking as though trying to break free of its crackling electric shadow. GLOW is a choreographic essay by Chunky Move's artistic director, Gideon Obarzanek, and interactive software creator Frieder Weiss. The exquisite solo performance by Helpmann award-winner Sara Black is lit solely by video projections generated in real-time by algorithms that respond to her movements, creating a seamless duet between dancer and technology. 95 percent of the choreography is performed on the ground, on top of a rectangular pool of white light; consequently, the dancer and projections seem to float. The short piece (only 26 minutes long) follows the dancer’s journey through a digital landscape of ‘biotech fiction’ as she slowly evolves, eventually shedding the slimy world of the projections, and standing upright as a human. In one striking sequence, Black seems covered in sparks and her body writhes as though electrocuted, fighting to shake free as Luke Smiles’ humming electronic score builds to a percussive explosion. In another, the dancer’s shadow breaks free, lagging behind her, trying to pull her back down. GLOW is the precursor to Chunky Move’s Mortal Engine - but where that longer ensemble work left me a little cold, this work soars. Not only is there a strong relationship created between dancer and technology, Obarzanek and Black have taken the time to connect with the audience, presenting a story that is both moving and unsettling. Lucy Fokkema
See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews
DVD Reviews What's been on our TV screens this week Two of this year's most anticipated releases...
ANIMAL KINGDOM
EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP
Madman Entertainment Released October 13 Animal Kingdom is up for seven IF Awards, and in the New York Times’ top-ten list for 2010 – so it's time to see for yourself what all the fuss is about. David Michôd’s feature debut is part of a larger tradition of Australian crime dramas that includes television series such as Janus, Phoenix and Underbelly; the films of David Caesar and Rowan Woods; Jonathan Teplitzky’s Getting’ Square, Andrew Dominik’s Chopper; and more recent examples like The Square and The Combination. For all that, this film is anything but formulaic. From head to toe, it throws out constant surprises, in narrative and tone. The ostensibly innocuous opening shot of a young man sitting on the couch watching Deal or No Deal next to his slumbering mother, is anything but. Disoriented, unsure whether we’re allowed to laugh, we are flung into the Cody family, one small microcosm within the jungle of Melbourne’s criminal underbelly. Our unwitting guide is Joshua “J” Cody (played by newcomer James Frecheville, in a brilliantly unlikely piece of casting), who is old enough to be drawn into his uncles’ schemes, but too young to be taken seriously. While set in roughly the same milieu as Underbelly, Michôd’s film is in no danger of glamorising Melbourne’s criminal underworld in the same way; it is far more interested (as its title suggests) in the power relationships between its characters. The overarching narrative follows a young man’s trajectory towards deciding his place in this terrain; its success is its ability to draw the viewer into J’s world for almost two hours, and make us care about an outcome that we cannot predict. Extras include a director's commentary and feature-length 'making of' documentary. Dee Jefferson
Madman Entertainment Released October 13
This much-hyped documentary by notorious UK street artist Banksy is a tour through a countercultural art movement as it transitions to mainstream; a who’s-who of the leading lights of the street art scene; a cautionary tale; a brilliant and hilarious farce; a groundbreaking feat of selfpromotion. It may also be an elaborate hoax against the media, and the public who are gullible enough to be lead by it. Narrated by actor Rhys Ifans, ETTGF is ostensibly a documentary about Thierry Guetta: a rag trader, compulsive videographer, and the cousin of French street artist Space Invada. Thierry ‘collects’ moments in life, and through his cousin he begins to ‘collect’ street artists, by following them around and documenting their work. Like a child whose set of baseball cards is one short of a fullhouse, he sets his sights on the world’s most notorious street artist: Banksy. The famously camera-shy artist lets the irritating Frenchman into his world; but when he cops a look at the first draft of Guetta’s street art ‘documentary’, Banksy decides to turn the cameras back on his videographer, who has in the meantime set up shop as a second-rate street artist, dubbing himself ‘Mr Brainwash’. The finished result is ETTGF – and our guides are Banksy and L.A. artist Shepard Fairey, the two most ‘collectible’ street artists in the world. Even as it lampoons Guetta’s artistic efforts, and in fact our whole culture of commercialisation, the film makes a case for the cultural ‘weight’ of his mentors. Not an easy feat, actually. Theory aside, this film is fabulously entertaining, and as full of complex and compelling characters as anything else at your local video store. Dee Jefferson
Street Level
30th Mar– 24th Apr 2011
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BE A PART OF THE
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“a lusty synth-riding chant of epic proportions with retro electro chimes” NME
With Lucille Spielfuchs
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ext up at 34B Burlesque is a bevy of interstellar beauties, for a cosmic night of burlesque delights. Hosted (as usual) by suave space man Francois Bublé, and accompanied by Tatooine turntablist Jack Shit, the star-lets for the evening are Kira Hula-la, Kitty van Horne, Holly J’aDoll, Mimi Munroe, Jade Twist, and 34B’s robotsongstress-comedienne-bombshell MC for the evening, Lauren La Rouge. And making her star-spangled 34B debut is the lovely Lucille Spielfuchs …
Lucille Spielfuchs photo by Michael Kery (michaelkery.com)
What’s your training/background as a performer? When I was a little kid I spent a lot of time pretending to be a cat. I think that’s where it all began. I did dance for a few years too; a little bit of everything. Then in high school I became fascinated by performance art and street theatre, and co-directed a circus-based theatre production, Paradoxical Pandemonium. I lived in Germany for some time afterwards and worked in theatre, assistant directing and performing – all before I headed back to Australia in 2008. I finished a design course and am now in university doing a double major in Theatre and Philosophy. Everything I do has an influence on my performances and I am learning as I go; you learn a lot more that way. How did you get into this mad, mad world of burlesque? I have some friends who are excellent photographers and have been involved in the burlesque scene for many years. I went along to some of their events and thought it was beautiful – moving art. This semester I decided to do part-time uni to concentrate on painting, and fell into another world instead. Tell us about your first show! Miss Burlesque Australia was my first ever burlesque performance. It was chaos! I had 3 minutes to get changed, and I remember running down the hall with my friend pulling at the corset strings. I got on stage a moment after it was tied and managed to be in full character. I thought, ‘if this is burlesque – excellent!’ Who are your performance inspirations? Amanda Palmer, Meow Meow and Liza Minnelli
THE NAKED + FAMOUS PASSIVE ME • AGGRESSIVE YOU - it’s not only their shows, it’s their attitude toward their passion. It’s the way it’s supposed to be; they’ve managed to stay real and it’s so beautiful to watch on stage or in interviews. They make art and they’re not afraid of it. What are you bringing to 34B this Saturday? Gosh. I don’t know yet. We’ll see on the night. Whatever it will be, it will be something new. The whole night is going to be amazing. I advise you to not miss it, you’ll be crying in some toilet somewhere if you do. It’s an opportunity to get away from it all; you’ll feel as though you’re in another galaxy far, far away. With drinks. What else is going on in 2010 for you? I’ll be performing at the Vanguard for a Melbourne Cup event, taking part in Dr Sketchys, maybe even visit The Peel. Lot’s of ‘Hey, I’m Lucille, here I am, enjoy the fucking show!’ What: She Came From Another Planet When: Saturday October 23 Where: 34B Burlesque/entry through Q Bar More: tenderloins.com.au
THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED DEBUT ALBUM Featuring Young Blood and Punching In A Dream
OUT NOW FRIDAY NOVEMBER 5TH, OXFORD ARTS FACTORY THENAKEDANDFAMOUS.COM
BRAG :: 834 :: 18:10:10 :: 39
Album Reviews What's been crossing our ears this week...
ALBUM OF THE WEEK HUNGRY KIDS OF HUNGARY
and save the best tunes for their record. Smart move from a smart band.
Escapades Mucho Bravado/EMI
This is becoming a golden year for Aussie music, isn’t it? Between this, PVT, The Holidays, Bag Raiders and Miami Horror, playlists are finally being filled by bands who could live down the street from you. Hungry Kids of Hungary are no exception; they tour relentlessly, release singles for nix and then blow us away with an album like this. Brisbane could be like the new New Orleans...
I’ll admit it, I wasn’t sold on ‘Wristwatch’, and ‘Scattered Diamonds’ seemed a bit throwaway for my liking. But hearing these tunes in the scheme of the larger picture that is Escapades, I have to applaud these guys on their excellent decision to whet indie kids’ appetites with punchy pop first -
BELLE & SEBASTIAN
The sleeker production values and big-musical-number strings and keys of The Life Pursuit and cinematic God Help The Girl are all evident here. And the go-go rhythms of ‘I Want The World To Stop’ and flawless call-andresponse cheekiness and jangling pace of ‘I’m Not Living In The Real World’ are all the better for the polish. And as he did on TLP, maestro Stuart Murdoch is pushing his voice a bit – in ‘Come On Sister’, a good-natured ode to girls you can’t shag when you’re wearing the comfy cardigan of monogamy, it’s hard not to picture him shimmying a little as he reaches for the high notes. If Norah Jones’ involvement (on one song) is a deal-breaker on any level, a) you probably take yourself a bit too seriously and b) have you heard the woman sing a note, ever? Her albums might put you to sleep, but her voice is like sex - with someone, like, really pretty and nice. Her vocal contribution on ‘Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John’ sounds like, well, a Norah Jones song - slow and a bit soporific - until halfway through, when she and Murdoch stop taking turns and twist up into gorgeously shy harmonies. I’d love to see her do more of this – like Emmylou Harris, but for bookish indie kids. I cherish the mannered sweetness of their previous albums - but that’s no reason to not embrace the band just for sounding kind of like grown-ups. Caitlin Welsh
That they sing as well as they play is a bonus, that their songs never tire is a plus, and that their album shows an impressive diversity of styles without ever losing its character earns extra points. Hungarian food keeps you full for hours after you eat it – kind of like this record. It's cucumber salad for the soul, people. Jonno Seidler
MARK RONSON & THE BUSINESS INTL.
Write About Love Rough Trade If you actively hate Belle & Sebastian a) you probably take yourself a bit too seriously, and b) you won’t like this. This is a Belle & Sebastian album, so adjectives like twee, literate, and retro are all still relevant. But after eight studio releases, they’re continuing neatly on their quest to be more than just the sardonic wallflowers at the indie pop prom.
There’s a big, impressive sound to this quartet, and some amazing writing that you only really hear when the tempo slows down. ‘Closer Apart’ seethes, ‘Eat Your Heart Out’ dazzles and ‘Let You Down’ evokes the better days of Kings Of Leon - albeit without the attitude problem.
Record Collection Sony Oh Mark, look what you’ve done. After an illustrious rise from partyboy hip-hop DJ through to full-blown arranger and producer, you finally let your vanity get the better of you. When you’re the man responsible for at least 30% or more of the biggest pop hits of the last five years, everyone expects a bit of ego. But what they don’t expect is an album full of originals in which only four are really listenable and the rest are selfserving and disposable. Lady GaGa, bless her heart, was right about one thing; you definitely can’t sing. You’d think that being able to assemble some of the best talent in the world at short notice would negate this problem, but it appears to have only made it worse. Who in their right mind casts themselves opposite Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon (‘Record Collection’) and expects to come out on top? Singing wobbling vintage hooks (‘Lose It’) and hoping Ghostface Killah will pick up the tab really just doesn’t cut it here... What really pains me, Mark, as someone who actually owned the album before Versions, is that I know exactly of what you’re capable - and it mostly arrives and disappears by the end of opener ‘Bang Bang Bang’. There’s nothing remotely retro about Miike Snow’s Andrew Wyatt, talented as he is; and though you did valiantly bring D’Angelo out of his hermit cave (‘Glass Mountain Trust’), he currently sounds like Ja Rule on a bad day. Perhaps more cohesiveness, less wank and a few less guests will help clear your vision. For it is an extraordinary vision, and I know this release is but a mere setback on your path to interminable greatness.
PHILIP SELWAY
RUSTIE
KISSES
Familial Bella Union
Sunburst EP Warp
The Heart Of The Nightlife Pod / Inertia
Far from the modernist film scores and reggae compilations that Jonny Greenwood crafts on his days off, and from the stern confections and electro-god collabs Thom Yorke favours when solo, there is Radiohead’s Philip Selway. Although famous for his metronomic skill behind the kit, Selway has been honing his singer-songwriter chops in the last few years. And in nonetoo-shabby company: he penned a couple of tracks as part of Neil Finn’s 7 Worlds Collide project/collective, playing and writing with Finn, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Eddie Vedder and Johnny Marr among countless other. Given these recent leanings toward the acoustic, it comes as less than a surprise that Selway’s first solo album references Wilco and Jose Gonzales more readily than, say, Can. As the title suggests, Familial is thematically basic – the lyrics revolve around themes of love, failure, fatherhood, childhood, fear and the contrast between the cocoon of home and the lurking terrors of the outside world. Selway is a married father of three, and lost his mother suddenly a few years ago - things that bubble up time and again through his lyrics. “I want to keep you from my mistakes,” he tells a baby son in ‘The Ties That Bind Us’; “Hold me, hold me/ I am like a child,” he sings in closer ‘The Witching Hour’, with the last lines “And those I love/ Will carry me home” repeating into an unassuming silence. ‘Beyond Reason’ thrums with an unmistakable Radiohead-y tension, but Selway’s day job casts no long shadows here...
Your biggest fan,
Familial is a wonderfully warm and surprisingly comforting listen – full of love, and buzzing with the kind of sad, contagious quiet that demands your full attention.
Jonno Seidler
Caitlin Welsh
Glasgow's Rustie is one of those artists who forces music critics to really go to town when coming up with informative, descriptive and self-absorbed rants. So here’s mine: Sunburst is the artificial sonics of early computer games delivered with the grandiose and dramatic sentiment of stadium rock, to the slow but unpredictable rhythms of grime, dubstep and crunk…. Pretty much. Anyway. After about seven years on the scene, Russel ‘Rustie’ Whyte is hovering somewhere between obscurity and cult status, earning recognition with remixes of Modeselektor, The Big Pink and MIA - but remaining too left of field to amass a mainstream following. The first track from his Sunburst EP, ‘Neko’, advances in a slow yet determined fanfare, as if we’re marching into battle… but it’s some sort of galactic battle… inside a computer. ‘Dragonfly’ ups the momentum, as Rustie manages to create an emotional, dramatic atmosphere while relying on the purely artificial. By ‘Beast Nite’, it's all become way too computerised for me to handle, with a chipmunk voice on loop yelling “Hai!” against a roving, space invaders-style synth. Follower ‘Chew’ sounds like a tape recorder rewinding at high speed for two minutes. I'd almost given up, before closer 'Hyperthrust' showcases the attitude and complexity that characterises Rustie’s best work. In general, Rustie tends to take artificiality too far; I’d love to see how he incorporates live instruments on stage whilst still staying true to his electronic base.
Mystery Twin Sensory Projects
Faux Pas, Rat Vs Possum, Love Connection… Melbourne-based indie label Sensory Projects are pretty much doing everything right this year. Their latest release is a textural and inspired bedroom-fidelity project from illustrator Cailan Burns, which'll wrap itself around your ears, creep tentacles inside your skull, and hug your brain warmly for a while. Burns’ debut is a floating, coherent and contemplative piece of
40 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
ambient electronica. Instrumental for the most part, there are ghostly, breathy and sweet Japanese vocals on tracks like ‘Tides’ and ‘Held For The Moment’ – courtesy of (what I imagine to be) Burns' ghostly, breathy and sweet Japanese wife, Yoshi. This is the kind of music that you’ll think You Actually Discovered when you were sitting crosslegged with your eyes closed, at a soundart night somewhere in Marrickville. (Two months later, you’ll read about it in an outdated blog post, shaking your fist and cursing that you never manage to get there first…)
The Heart Of The Nightlife also showcases the band's penchant for contrast. Like on ‘People Can Do The Most Amazing Things’ - an up-tempo, hook-driven number complemented with bongo playing, spiraling keyboard chords and a climactic vocal accompaniment. It's all so positive - until you hear the lyrics: ‘I just can’t work it out….I’ve got to get it right’. And it's the same story with their most accessible track, ‘Bermuda’: ‘I thought that all my friends were over me / Oh Bermuda, I’m alone / Bermuda, I’m all alone.” Lyrics at odds with the lush, sundrenched sounds. Even the lavish house featured on the album cover seems hauntingly empty.
Sunburst will not be to everyone’s taste - but within the head-caving glitch-fest, Rustie demonstrates a remarkable talent for layering, rhythm and harmony. Jordan Smith
Liz Brown
With the musical glitches of Qua and the pulsing prog of Mountains In The Sky, it was no great surprise to learn that the former’s Cornel Wilcsek and the latter’s John Lee both collaborated on this LP. The album design itself offers haunting, colourful, and mildly acidic depictions of a vibrant but natural otherworld; illustrations courtesy of Burns himself. It’s a beautiful digipack mural, with a tracklist disguised as a double-sided A4 poster. Nice. The artwork's terrain is fiery and bursting with shapes and activity, but the characters that inhabit it seem lonely, weighed down with their own thoughts. It suits the music perfectly. Thom Raine
‘Kisses’, and the elevator music of ‘Women Of The Club’, are both enjoyable tracks - the ambient layering and fuzzy reverberations on offer are enhanced by the intriguing relationship of Kivel and Edmundson, as we’re offered intimate glimpses into their relationship. And it’s hard not to imagine them writing these songs for each other, like in ‘Mightnight Lover,’ where Kivel confesses that he “would like to take you out / for a nice steak dinner/ just me and you…”
Kivel’s crooning voice, the album's slick production and the dreamy melodies are enough for you to tick the ‘chillwave buzz-band’ box that sits there next to their press shots. But the music won't pull you in for a second listen...
INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK MYSTERY TWIN
Jesse Kivel and Zinzi Edmundson are both a couple, and a band. The Heart Of The Nightlife is their first full-length release, and sees them set up camp somewhere between Washed Out and Beach House - though unfortunately without the same punch as either of their chillwave contemporaries.
OFFICE MIXTAPE Wondering what the 'experts' listen to? Here's the music that drives The Brag... for this week, anyway. MASSIVE ATTACK - Heligoland SEEKAE - Friendly Fires LIL WAYNE - I Am Not A Human Being
BROKEN BELLS - Broken Bells BOY & BEAR - With Emporer Antarctica
the w
ho’ s w ho o f o ur g r ea
KEVIN BORICH NATHAN CAVALERI STEVE EDMONDS (Jimmy Barnes)
PHIL EMMANUEL CHRIS KAMZELAS (Richard Clapton)
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om e test h
grown g
uitarists pay
o t he ho ma g e t
legen
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DAVE LESLIE (Baby Animals)
PETER NORTHCOTE (Dragon, John Farnham)
BOB SPENCER
(Skyhooks, Angels)
RANDALL WALLER
(Shania Twain, Keith Urban)
GRANT WALMSLEY
(Screaming Jets)
annd and
DAR IO MICK BORTOLIN SKELTON (Bas (B Basss))
(Dru (D ruums ms))
www.empiretouring.com.au
titick cckketek ettek.c ekk.ccom om.a .aau |1332 84 849
or Ennm or moorre Boox Of Offfiiccee | 95 Offi 9550 50 366666 50
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 41
live reviews
Little Red
LITTLE RED, SPARKADIA, KIMBRA The Metro Theatre Friday October 8
Tonight’s bill was just made for a Friday - three bands determined to make you shake your body from weekday drudgery into weekend celebration. Appropriately (given tonight’s headliners), Melbourne-based singer-songwriter Kimbra shimmies onto stage wearing a little red dress and a little red smile. And a big, BIG voice. Using a loop pedal she manages the neat trick of becoming her own backing chorus, with vocals that cascade over the freaky dance-pop tunes of her backing band (four guys, all dressed in braces, all as camp as a row of tents). We’ll hear more from this girl; of that I have no doubt. From the moment Sparkadia arrive, you know they mean business. Frontman Alex Burnett’s time in the UK hasn’t been misspent, and although only Burnett and Nic Hogan now remain from the original lineup, the band’s musicianship is still as sharp as their all-black attire. Sporting a remarkable quiff-and-jacket combo, Burnett is aiming to look like a young Johnny Cash, but actually ends up looking more like 1980s fop Rick Astley… and alarmingly, new song ‘China’ actually sounds like something Astley might have sung. It’s cheesy power balladry taken seriously; Sparkadia actually mean this. From opener ‘Morning Light’ to closer ‘Jealousy’, they remain po-faced and serious – but guess what? The crowd absolutely adores it. There's dancing and jumping and screaming and whooping throughout, with ear-bursting applause at the end.
Little Red by Averie Harvey
What we've been to see...
tea-towels at this show, there were ‘Dan Kelly’s Undersea Apocalypse Jam’ swimming caps a-plenty. Many of those who purchased this item were so excited they couldn’t wait til their next dip to get them on, and the period between sets echoed with the unmistakeable hello-nurse sound of snapping latex, as grinning fools stretched the sky-blue caps onto their domes. Bless. The openers, many-headed Melbourne outfit Love Connection, played to a fairly empty room, but gamely gave their pillowy rainbow-psych-rock all they had. The singer was a bit flat here and there, but he sings with enormous feeling - and I prefer guts to accuracy any day. Their self-titled album is really worth a listen, too. Big Scary are so great, you guys. White Stripes comparisons aren’t entirely lazy once you see them live – yes, they are a two-piece with a lady drummer and they kick the shit out of some dirty garage when they want to, but they’re also versatile and witty and really fucking good. At her best, Jo Syme nails the perfect midpoint between mathematical precision and looking like she’s having more fun than anyone in the room - and she was at her best at this show. Tom Iansek is not only a fantastic guitarist and easy on the eyes, but he has what might be one of the best voices in Australian rock right now. He’s still developing it, but it’s a terrifically versatile beast, and I’m not being hyperbolic or lazy when I compare him to Jeff Buckley. He doesn’t quite have the legend’s open-throated wail, but his falsetto is flawless and stunning (‘Hamilton’ is the best example.) They held the gathering crowd’s attention throughout their well-paced set, and not even the
Following Sparkadia’s well-drilled approach, Little Red appear a bit ramshackle. The vocals are occasionally lost in the mix, and other technical problems culminate in a blown amp. Dominic Byrne also appears to have forgotten his stage outfit; the rest of the band are resplendent in collared shirts, bowties, waistcoats and hats while his skinny frame is decorated with nothing but scruffy ripped jeans and an over-sized white t-shirt. Despite (or perhaps because of) all this, Little Red’s performance has warmth and humanity. They’re unfussy, they’re geeky and they can’t dance for shit – but their passion for their music is obvious. Tom Hartney croons with the best of them during ‘Place Called Love’, Quang Dinh pines and shines in the loser anthem ‘In My Bed’ while Dominic Byrne's dancing is heroically unco during ‘Slow Motion’. The crowd moves so hard during ‘Rock It’ that the room actually shakes and, after ‘Coca Cola’, the audience doesn’t cheer – they roar. Little Red welcome the weekend in thrilling, ragged, glorious style.
DAN KELLY, BIG SCARY, LOVE CONNECTION Annandale Hotel Saturday October 9
Dan Kelly’s merch table is one of my absolute favourites. While they’d apparently run out of ‘Dan Kelly’s Dream’ 42 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
Dan Kelly
Dan Kelly by Rosette Rouhana
Andy McLean
live reviews What we've been to see...
Mates Of State-ish poppy numbers slowed down the momentum.
KANYE WEST’S RUNAWAY
The Annandale has its own atmosphere in spades (“So this is cool,” said my sister, who was on her first visit. “Um, was that a cockroach?”), but it’s amazing what can be done with a few lights and fake vines wrapped around the mic stands. While the ‘Bindi Irwin Apocalypse Jam’ single tour earlier this year apparently had so many props onstage it made Carrot Top look subtle, Dan Kelly preferred to keep it simple for tonight’s show. The stage was decorated only with his boyishly handsome self (in what appeared to be a Mariah Carey t-shirt), a handsomely-attired Dream Band and heaps epic jamz.
“I think music is the loudest form of art,” says a black-suited, understated Kanye West, mid-way through his one hour Q & A - in what may be the closest many of us will ever get to the most innovative mind in music today. The Sydney Runaway screening was the celebrity event of the year, if only because the biggest celebrity in popular music (aside from Lady GaGa) managed to single-handedly dispel every myth about his output, his demeanour and his commitment to his work in one evening.
The lush and colourful Dream material translates even better than expected to live performance, and while the sound was a bit muddy at the back of the room and apparently downright sludgy in the middle, only Kelly’s between-song patter really suffered. ‘Dan Kelly’s Dream’, ‘The Decommissioner’, and twelve-minute finale ‘Poisoned Estuary Jam’ (think Mogwai in Hawaii) all blossom into blazing jams that spiral and fold back on themselves, suffused with Kelly’s trademark lysergic sweetness. ‘Bindi’ reveals itself to be composed of Stone Roses riffs and Journey solos, and Kelly’s wispy ukulele cover of Sinead O’Connor’s cover of ‘Nothing Compares To You’ gets an outing for the encore. The sound let the show down a little, but everyone left with their ears ringing and their eyes sparkling regardless.
Caitlin Welsh
BOREDOMS, HOLY BALM The Metro Theatre Monday October 11
Holy Balm trade in kosmische synthfueled disco, but with an honest pop bent; though reference points are largely Germanic, the band sounds thoroughly, reassuringly like Sydney. They play four pieces over 40 minutes - the first few are merciful kraut-pop gems, the final one an extended and unforgiving freakout that strings the room right out into the cerebral outer limits. The crowd’s left titillated, and baying for more. Yoshimi P-We, Seiichi Yamamoto and Yamantaka Eye take the stage quietly, accompanied by a phalanx of auxiliary drummers, who man five of the six kits on stage. Boredoms are here. Eyebrows raised, Yoshimi calls all to attention with an authoritative flam. Suddenly, a furious drum solo is heard from the back of the room: Yojiro Tatekawa is at a kit mounted on a stage carried by six men. He’s carried to the middle of the crowd to face Eye, who screams at the staged drummers, rousing a series of chaotic challenges. Yojiro responds in kind, is carried to the stage and accepted into the fold, completing the lineup.
Kanye West by Ken Leanfore
What follows is difficult to describe. Though there’s wrangled electronics, monster keyboard riffs and smatterings of guitarsynth, the focus here is on percussion. The six drummers – who include members of Hella and Ponytail – maintain a euphoric krautrock gallop for much of the set, caging the audience in dense, infectious polyrhythms. Occasionally the pace changes, pulling back into some skewed hip hop, or rescinding the chaos for snare rolls that mimic the sound of waves lapping on a beach. Perhaps the most wonderful thing to behold is how Boredoms operate as a unit. Eye strutting about the stage like a dreadlocked peacock, screaming cues, grunting, flailing passionately with coloured rods at a seven-necked telecaster, utterly possessed by the music. Yoshimi, cueing changes with a broad grin, chirping and cooing to the bright lights above as if to some percussive god and orchestrating complex call-and-response between drummers. After two hours, the audience is utterly exhausted. The band brings us all back to earth with a dense tribal workout and a gently sighing piece reminiscent of Seadrum. In anyone else’s hands, it would all have been too much.
Luke Telford
Hoyts Entertainment Quarter Monday October 11
From the gloriously oversaturated and highly stylised hip-hop-companion-to-A-SingleMan that was his forty-minute music video, through to an extended discussion on the nature of high and low culture, Kanye West turned out to be quite the opposite of what everyone expected. And for a longtime fan, it was a rare and wonderful experience that will probably never be repeated. Runaway, which showcases a bunch of new songs from West’s upcoming record, was breathtaking. From the extended ballet scene based around the title track through to the closing piece which samples Bon Iver’s ‘The Woods’, pretty much everything about it was as over the top as it was fascinatingly imaginative. After the film, West would reveal his plans to base the central phoenix character’s wings on work by Alexander McQueen, his huge battle with reining in his opinion when not in the studio (read: Taylor Swift), and how the entire film represented his own personal rise back from the ashes. What surprised me most was not only West’s humility (“There’s some stuff in here that’s so amateur that no director would do it, so I had to do it myself”), but also his expansive knowledge of world cultures, and impassioned railing against the high art establishment (“Why does ‘popular’ have to mean ‘bad’?”). From Thom Yorke to Fendi, Tokyo to Hawaii, West proved without a shadow of a doubt that not only does he love to talk, but he also knows explicitly what it is he’s talking about. For a man whose public persona has been constructed by contextually confused soundbites, hearing an unfiltered vision straight from the horse’s mouth was monumental.
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
THE WIDOWBIRDS
FINAL TICKETS RELEASED SPECIAL ENCORE PERFORMANCE THE METRO THIS SUNDAY (OCT 24)
New album ‘Wake up the nation’ out now
ticketek.com.au or 132 849, metrotheatre.com.au or 02 9550 3666
One thing everybody agreed upon was that the new tracks previewed in the film were some of West’s finest - a huge call, given that his first album topped many Best Of The Decade lists. But the rhymes were topnotch, the vocoders mostly absent and the hunger that West has to regain his place atop the hip hop heap was palpable. With many references to Michael Jackson, both visually and in the length of the film itself (an homage to the extended version of Thriller), it was clear where West’s ultimate aspirations lie. And though he’s still got a bit of soulsearching to do, massive projects like this - as brilliant as they are risky - show that he’s definitely on the right track. Now all we have to do it sit back and wait for record number five to totally destroy the radio this summer…
All the passion, all the power, all the hits (and more) in a powerful new full-band performance!
Jonno Seidler Kanye West
Level 1 Newcastle Leauges Club Saturday October 30 bigtix.com.au, oztix.com.au, or in person at the venue
Sydney Enmore Theatre Sunday October 31
New album out now!
132 849 or ticketek.com.au
ON SALE NOW! Presented by Michael Coppel I paulweller.com I edkowalczyk.com I coppel.com.au BRAG :: 384: 18:10:10 :: 43
The Minor Chord
The All Ages rant bought to you by Indent.net.au. By Meg Williams
Bag Raiders
OXFORD ART FACTORY
For the past four months the Oxford Art Factory have been challenging licensing limitations against daytime trade that would restrict the continuation of all-ages events. For a venue that has bought Tame Impala, Bag Raiders, Yves Klein Blue and Megan Washington to the ageinhibited reader, this worst case scenario would leave a serious void in inner city gigs. Last Monday, at a significant Sydney City Council meeting, friends and staff of OAF joined bands that have played the allages stage (including Tom from Papa vs. Pretty) in petitioning the limitations, and championing all-ages events. The proposal to modify limitations was met with positive feedback from Councillor Irene Doutney and Lord Mayor Clover Moore, suggesting a high level of support for the local live music scene by the City of Sydney council. Further meetings will nut out the final details, but this was an exuberant recognition of the importance of all-ages entertainment. So: on behalf of the Oxford Art Factory and Indent, and all those that go to all ages gigs, pat yourself on the back â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and thanks for the support!
HEROES FOR HIRE
From one establishment championing allages events to another: The Annandale Hotel have been running afternoon gigs with some of the finest, including pop punk, ah, heroes (?) Heroes for Hire, on Saturday October 23. Their infectious new single and film clip â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Come Away With Meâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is out now, and the daytime show includes supports The Bride, Built on Secrets and The Never Ever.
CONFESSION
On the eve of their maiden voyage to Europe, Melbourneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Confession have announced a string of all-ages, hardcore dates up the east coast - including F.I.T.Z. CafĂŠ in St Ives on Friday October 22 and at Centenary Hall at Albion Park on the Saturday. Supports include Hand Of Mercy and local (previously featured) Sienna Skies.
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The ABC has some landmark sounds and images - for example the Rage intro (which has never changed) and the news theme that you hear across their TV and radio broadcasts. Now, with many thanks to Perthians Pendulum, the ABC news theme has made contemporary dance club floors! Havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t heard it? YouTube that NOW! Or head down to the Hordern Pavilion on November 5 where they are touring in support of their most recent (not to mention #3 in Australia and #1 in the UK) album, Immersion. This latest release proves even more eclectic than the group's previous body of work, including collaborations with The Prodigyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Liam Howlett, Swedish metal group In Flames, and Porcupine Treeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Steven Wilson.
AUS MUSIC MONTH
The ultimate tribute to Australian Music is just around the corner, and what
better way to get involved than with triple jâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ausmusic Month, and its specially handpicked line-up of Bag Raiders, Horrorshow, The Holidays, The John Steel Singers, Hungry Kids of Hungary and Ball Park Music - championing the best of new Australian music at The Metro Theatre. Local friends The Holidays recently put out their debut album Post Paradise to acclaim reward and regular rotation at Indent HQ. Perfect for the recent bout of warm weather and lazy afternoons by the water. With a string of dates that tour the band nationally, in support of the new album, the only chance to see them if you are under the legal drinking age is at the triple j Ausmusic month party at The Metro. Tickets are cheap which means theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll go fast, so we highly recommend being organised and confirming your attendance to canvas the fresh crop of the current Australian music landscape. As always, tune into FBi every Wednesday from 5pm to hear The Minor Chord with actual human voices, tunes, humours
ALL AGES GIG PICKS FRIDAY OCTOBER 22
Confession with Sienna Skies and Hand of Mercy The FITZ CafĂŠ, St Ives
SATURDAY OCTOBER 23
Confession with Sienna Skies and Hand of Mercy Centenury Hall, Albion Park
SATURDAY OCTOBER 23
Heroes for Hire with The Bride, Built on Secrets and The Never Ever Annandale Hotel, 12pm
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 5 Pendulum The Hordern Pavilion
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 5
triple j Ausmusic Month Party With Bagraiders, The Holidays, Horrorshow and more The Metro Theatre
Horrorshow
Send pics, listings and any info to minorchords@thebrag.com 44 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
More than The Cure since 1989 with Murray Engleheart
SATURDAY OCTOBER
Remedy
23rd
Solomon Burke
Here at Remedy, Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s driven us nuts for quite some time that every time thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an archival DVD or bootleg release featuring The Who it almost invariably contains yet another reading of Tommy from start to finish. Sure, we know it was what they were touring on in the late 60s and early 70s, but enough already, you know? How many versions does a boy, any boy, really need? For this reason, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not all that wet and wild with the news that a new super-duper repackage of their classic slab, Live at Leeds is out in November, to mark the recordingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 40th anniversary. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spread over four discs and contains not one but two performances of said done-to-death rock opera. The package â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the added bells and whistles of which being the sole reason weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be forking out for it â&#x20AC;&#x201C; includes the entire Leeds show as well as the complete gig from Hull the night after.
SOLOMON BURKE
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination time again, with Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi, the J. Geils Band (who went kinda radio friendly with the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Centerfoldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; single in the 80s, but have an utterly killer back catalogue, including the Full House live set, Bloodshot and Love Stinks), Dr John and Tom Waits among a strange list of the deserving and (for us) the kinda premature. All will be revealed on March 14 in New York City.
SABBAFF
Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an idea: a big boxed set of Black Sabbath live material from most of the Ozzy days. 10 albums-worth at the very least â&#x20AC;&#x201C; like the Grateful Dead or Neil Youngâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s much-talked-about ultimate beastof-a box. How ridiculously righteous would such a project be? But for the moment we continue to get the stuff by drip feed. Most recently thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Past Lives, which brings together grabs from UK shows in 1973 that originally made up Sabbaffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s okay (but no cigar) Live at Last release â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which, curiously, has also just been reissued for some reason â&#x20AC;&#x201C; plus additional blasts from various other dates. On a related front: Heaven & Hellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Neon Knights: 30 Years of Heaven and Hell is a respectful tip of the wizardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cap to the late Ronnie James Dio. Due out in November, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a nice CD and DVD package that captures the band in full, big stage production flight, at the Wacken Festival in Germany in 2009.
ON THE TURNTABLE On the Remedy turntable is the self-titled slab of instrumental metalloidness by Sardonis, which pretty much falls into the vein of early Pelican, maybe Gore or even Greg Ginnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gone, but with an added ambient dimension. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tonal and atonal stuff you can do in metal that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really work in other genres, and this is a good example of exactly that. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve long felt that vocals sometimes just get in the way of the music anyway. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too early to tell, however, if this is a Godhead-type experience or not - but it sure is interesting. Also spinning is Miles Davisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; wonderfully firey Jack Johnson (which should not in any shape or form be confused by even the most casual reader of this column with the singer-songer of the same name). John McLaughlin ripping-it-the-fuck-up on guitar, like a razor across tightly-stretched canvas, is a joy.
KINGS OF LEON ALBUM LAUNCH LIVE BANDS:
CLOTHING LAUNCH
DJ SET
SIERRA MONTANA DELAMARE CITY LIGHTS FADE NEON HEART
FREE ENTRY BEFORE 9:30
ST JAMES HOTEL 114 CASTLEREAGH ST, CITY FREE
WE DN ESD ENTRY AY 20 OC TO BE R
@@
SDAYS WEDNE
Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not huge soul fans here at Remedy, never really have been, although we sure enjoy the intensity of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, James Brown and of course Aretha. Solomon Burke however never really did it for us. Maybe itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s because weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re music folks not voice folks, if you dig. (Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not really word folks either, unless theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re, you know, really, really good.) Nonetheless weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to acknowledge Mr Burkeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sad passing last week at the age of 70.
HALL OF FAME
GIVEAWAYS
THE WHO?
1,2,WOOP WOOP
TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS Radio Birdmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Deniz Tek got up for four songs with fellow Birdmanster Chris Klondike at the K manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tuesday night Sando residency last week, and a repeat of the moment is expected to take place this week, but for a whole set. The residency wraps up on the last Tuesday of this month. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s free, with several sets from 8-11pm. Who knows who will show up?
the Swansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; onslaught on March 12. For Frontier Touring members, pre-sale tix are available from 12 noon AEDT on October 25 to 12 noon AEDT October 26. General public tix on sale from 9am, October 27.
The glorious Reverend Horton Heat (aka Jim Heath) returneth, and not just for the Meredith Festival, but a show on December 11 at the Metro. Anyone whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been produced by Ministryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Al Jourgensen, played on the Drew Carey Show and whose sister was once briefly in Bon Scottâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s orbit during one of AC/DCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dates in Texas in the late 70sâ&#x20AC;Ś is just fine with us.
The New Christs are back at the Excelsior on October 23 with Dimi Dero Inc (France) along for the ride, as well as Carrie Phillis and the Downtown Three, featuring the mighty Johnny Casino.
Wow! We must have done something real good in a past life. The reformed Swans will be in Australia for the first time in March. Sydneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outstanding improv trio, The Necks, will join them as special (but not nowhere near as crushing) guests. The poor bloody Metro will have to withstand
$5 Vodka Energy all night
T.H.U.G, Young Docteurs, Musk, All In Brawl and Eager 13 are pumping it out at the Lansdowne this Friday October 22.
The Vanilla Chainsaws, who â&#x20AC;&#x201C; like too many with great promise â&#x20AC;&#x201C; had fate (among other things) conspire against their taking the planet by the throat, are back after almost 20 years. On November 20, the Sando at Newtown will host a one-off reformation with Simon Drew, Mark Alexander, Peter Kelly and Mick Hedges, along with support from speciallyreformed all-gal rockers the Rum Babas, and high-energy Newcastle mob, The Dragstrippers.
Send stuff for this column to remedy@ozemail.com.au by 6pm Wednesdays. All pics to art@thebrag please. www.myspace.com/remedy4rock
$4.50 local beers $4.50 house spirits
D M D DOORS DOORS OPEN 8PM DOORSOPEN OPEN8PM 8PM
INDIE, ELECTRO, ROCK, POP, HIP HOP PARTY CLUB
44 OXFORD ST, DARLINGHURST www.tarantulamusic.com.au BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 45
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hot damn
07:10:10 :: Spectrum :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93316245
PICS :: AM
melt
PICS :: AM
up all night out all week . . .
07:10:10 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700
club blink
PICS :: RO RR
teenage kicks
PICS :: AM
07:10:10 :: Melt :: 12 Kellett St, Kings Cross 93806060
23:07:10 08:10:10 :: Agincourt Hotel :: 871 George St City 92814566
A Triple EP Launch!
tom crawford
PICS :: RO
08:10:10 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93323711
08:10:10 :: Melt :: 12 Kellett St, Kings Cross 93806060 46 :: BRAG :: 384:: 18:10:10
party profile
die! die! die!
PICS :: TL
It’s called: A Triple EP Launch! It sounds like: Three innerwest Sydney bands celebrating the release of their debut EP on the same night under the same roof and on the same stage. Bands playing: Sticky Fingers, The Future Prehistoric, & The Colt 44s w/ special guests Goddog. Sell it to us: Three of Sydney’s best come together on one line-up: the rude boy rebel rockers Sticky Fingers; Sydney Uni Band-Comp-Grand-Finalists (phew!) The Future Prehistoric; and The Colt 44s, with their trademark eclectic mix of swamp-rock flavours. The bit we’ll remember in the AM: How many sexy birds are into these bands. And feeling sorry for the babes who wore heels and weren’t able to walk on “the carpet”. Crowd specs: Those who wish to attend the party (and after party) of the year. Wallet damage: $15 – happy hour $3 schooners from 7-9pm Where: The infamous Annandale Hotel When: Saturday October 30
) :: ASH LEY MAR :: DAN IEL S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER ROU HAN NA:: PATR ICK STE VEN SON :: SUSAN BUI: : AVE RIE E MUN S::M AJA BAS KA:: ROS ETT HARVEY
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 47
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sfx
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08:10:10 :: The Metro Theatre :: 624 George St City 92642666
dan kelly
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08:10:10 :: Annandale Hotel :: 17 Paramatta Rd Annandale 95501078
little red
PICS :: AH
jonneine zapata
PICS :: RO
up all night out all week . . .
09:10:10 :: Annandale Hotel :: 17 Paramatta Rd Annandale 95501078
09:10:10 :: St James Hotel :: 114 Castlereagh St City 92618277
Twist and Shout It sounds like: The soundtrack to The Big Chill if it was set in a Memphis chocolate factory and was about go-go dancers. DJs: Mr Chad, and Twist and Shout DJs Doctor J and Dylab A record you’ll hear on the night: ‘Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch (I Can’t Help Myself)’ by The Four Tops. And one you definitely won’t: Anything released after 1970. Sell it to us: Twist and Shout is back for another night of non-stop twisting, shouting and tailfeather shaking. Can’t get no satisfaction from other Sydney “dance” parties that waste your time with poetry, magic tricks, ping pong and peeps just standing around checking their iPhones? Well it’s our party and we want to be with you - all of the time! The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Like they say about the '60s: if you remember it then you weren’t there. Crowd Specs: Pretty women, dream lovers, devils in disguise and cool jerks. Wallet Damage: $5 money. That’s what we want. Where: Brighton Up Bar / Cnr Oxford & Riley Streets, Darlinghurst. When: Friday October 22, 9pm - 3am
48 :: BRAG :: 384:: 18:10:10
trash
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party profile
It’s called: Twist and Shout: 60s Dance Party #5
09:10:10 :: Plantation :: 2a Roslyn St Kings Cross 93607531 ) :: ASH LEY MAR :: DAN IEL S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER ROU HAN NA:: PATR ICK STE VEN SON :: SUSAN BUI: : AVE RIE E MUN S::M AJA BAS KA:: ROS ETT HARVEY
BY DEMAND, 2ND & FINAL SHOW SOLD OUT 11 & WEDNESDAY 15 DEC ACER ARENA, SATURDAY ON SALE THIS THURSDAY!
132 849 or ticketek.com.au
Presented by Michael Coppel linkinpark.com I coppel.com.au I musicforrelief.org
The New Album "A Thousand Suns" In Stores Now BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 49
small bars guide Smaller Than Your Average Hordern Pavilion...
Is there a bar we should know about? Email listings@thebrag.com
brag
TOKONOMA
TH
EK
OF
bar
E E W
THE BRAG’S GUIDE TO SYDNEY’S BEST NOOKS SYDNEY CITY
Alira Shop 120, 26 -32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont Wednesdays: $25 paella & glass of wine Ash St Cellar 1 Ash St, Sydney CBD Balcony Bar 46 Erskine St, Sydney CBD Firefly 17 Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay GoodGod Small Club / Jimmy Sing’s 53-55 Liverpool St, Sydney The Grasshopper Bar & Café Temperance Lane, Sydney CBD Number One Wine Bar 1 Alfred St, Circular Quay, Sydney Small Bar 48 Erskine Street, Sydney CBD Monday – Thursday 12pm – 3pm: any main meal, with glass of wine or beer for $20 Tone Venue 16 Wentworth Ave, Sydney CBD Verandah Bar 55 – 65 Elizabeth St, Sydney CBD Tuesdays 12pm – 9pm: $9 schnitzel
490 Crown Street Surry Hills THE HOSTS Hailing from London, Sunny has worked in first class establishments in England and Australia. He’s got a very personal approach with patrons, which keeps people coming back time and time again. Our award-winning bar manager Benito has worked in bars, managed bars, opened new bars and brought bars back from the dead. If you’re looking for an expert in the bar industry, Benito is the man. Beverley joined us from the W Hotel in Sydney – and she’s brought with her a wealth of experience in the hospitality industry. Head bartender and sommelier, Daniel, helped to open the Toko Bar back in 2007. After a few years at Toko, Daniel decided to travel the world and indulge himself in various cultures and
local food and drink. Daniel is a veteran in the bar industry, and has recently returned to the Toko family - but this time, as part of Tokonoma.
THE PITCH Tokonoma not only exudes style and sophistication, but it boasts the best cocktails in town. We have the most extensive Sake and Shochu lists in Australia, and an in-house DJ - and we also offer the same dinner menu as Toko. Patrons have the choice of sitting at the intimate private booths; or they’re able to sit in the midst of the buzz.
WHAT’S IN A NAME? ‘Tokonoma’ translates to a type of alcove – like a recessed space in a Japanese reception room, in which traditional Japanese items are usually displayed.
LOCATION LOCATION When Tokonoma was in the
planning process, the Toko directors were looking for a venue that would be able to bring their aspirations to life. Arabella was located right next door to Toko, and became available - so the directors snapped up the opportunity to open Tokonoma there. A further enticement was opening another restaurant on Sydney’s premier eat street – Crown St Surry Hills.
DESIGN INSPIRATIONS Tokonoma is the ‘yin’ to Toko’s ‘yang’ - softer, warmer, more inviting. A place to relax and escape the world outside.
SIGNATURE DRINKS Shochu tonics, sake, cocktails, Japanese whiskey and other expensive, hard to find spirits.
HINDSIGHT Staying true to the concept, whilst trying to create a practical working space.
brag cocktail of the week: Pour it in your mouth-hole... (responsibly).
White Sangria @ Goodgod Small Club 55 Liverpool Street, City best drunk with: friends during: the early evening until late (5 ‘til 5) while wearing: clothes and listening to: music. Ingredients: House-made ginger wine, Golden rum Brandy Licor 43 Apples and strawberries Method: We infuse apples with cinnamon, brandy and licor 43 until they are spicy and potent, and our ginger wine is also made in-house: served with fresh strawberries, golden rum and soda for sparkle. Glass: Served in a jug, with frosty steel cups. Garnish: A silver swizzle stick. 50 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
INNER WEST
Berkelouw Wine Bar 70 Norton Street, Leichhardt Friday 3pm – 8pm: 2-for-1 sparkling wine Bloodwood 416 King St, Newtown Corridor 153a King Street, Newtown Monday – Friday, 5-7pm: $9 mojitos Wednesday Mexican Night - $12 for a bowl of soup, crispy turkish bread and a glass of red wine. Different Drummer 185 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe Daily, 6 – 7:30pm: Cocktail Happy ‘Hour and a Half’ The Hive Bar 93 Erskineville Rd, Erskineville Monday - Thursday: any pizza with a free glass of wine or E’ville Pilsner, $12 Kuleto’s 157 King Street, Newtown Saturday 6-7pm: Happy Hour (2 for 1 cocktails) Madame Fling Flong Level 1, 169 King St, Newtown Tuesday: Movie Deal - $20 for mezze plate for one and a glass of wine or beer Rosebud Restaurant & Bar 654 Darling St. Rozelle Soni’s 169 King St, Newtown Well-Connected 35 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe
INNER EAST
Absinthe Salon 87 Albion St, Surry Hills Boteco 421 Cleveland St, Surry Hills Café Lounge 277 Goulburn Street, Darlinghurst Tuesdays, 6:30pm: Sin-e with live music, $5.50 champagne cocktails, free entry Ching-A-Lings 133 Oxford St, Surry Hills The Commons 32 Burton St, Darlinghurst Jazz Thursdays, from 8pm Doctor Pong 1a Burton Street, Darlinghurst Sundays: Doctor Pong’s Grand Royal Roast, $19 with DJs, mulled wine and fireplace Eau de Vie 229 Darlinghurst Road, Darlinghurst Thursdays, 8pm: jazz, free entry El Rocco @ Bar Me 154 Brougham St, King’s Cross The Falconer 31 Oxford St, Surry Hills Fringe Bar 106 Oxford St, Paddington Tuesdays, 7:15pm: Trivia Thursdays 6-9pm: all you can eat pizza Thursdays 9-11pm: $8 cocktails
Sundays, from 4pm: Lounge Olympics - exhibit your athletic prowess with favourites such as table tennis, foosball, giant Jenga, UNO & Connect Four. The Gazebo 2 Elizabeth Bay Rd, Potts Point Iguana Bar 13-15 Kellett St, King’s Cross The Local Taphouse 122 Flinders St, Darlinghurst Lo-Fi L2, 383 Bourke St Darlinghurst Low 302 302 Crown St, Surry Hills Name This Bar 197 Oxford St, Paddington Happy Hour every day 4pm – 7pm: $4 tap beers, $5 dumpling boxes, $6 mojitos The Passage 231a Victoria St, Darlinghurst Piano Room Cnr Darlinghurst & Kings Cross Rd, Kings Cross Pocket Bar 13 Burton St, Darlinghurst Mondays: ‘Pocket Change’ - $10 crepes Shady Pines 256 Crown St, Darlinghurst Solas Bar 557 Crown St, Surry Hills Stanley Street Station 85a Stanley St, Darlinghurst Sunday – Thursday 5pm-7pm: Early-bird dinner, two courses for $26 (excluding pork belly & New Yorker) Supper Club @ Will & Toby’s 134 Oxford St, Taylor Square, Darlinghurst Tea Parlour 569 Elizabeth St, Redfern Toko 490 Crown St, Surry Hills Tonic Lounge 62-64 Kellett St, Kings Cross Velluto 7/50 Macleay Street, Potts Point Saturday & Sunday, 2-5pm: High Tea The Winery 285a Crown St, Surry Hills Yullis 417 Crown St, Surry Hills
EAST
Bondi Social 262 Oxford Street, Bondi Junction Cream Tangerine Swiss Grand, Campbell Pde, Bondi Mocean 34A Campbell Pde, Bondi Beach Ravesi’s Corner of Campbell Pde & Hall St, Bondi Beach Thursday - Friday : 6pm - late Saturday: 3pm - late Sunday: 2pm - late Until August 31st: Winter Magic Specials, 2-course menu - $26 The Rum Diaries 288 Bondi Road, Bondi Mondays: Live acoustic sets, $5 house wine, $5 Coopers, $5 wedges Speakeasy Bar 83 Curlewis Street, Bondi Beach White Revolver Cnr Curlewis & Campbell Pde, Bondi Beach
NORTH
Firefly Lodge Lane Cove 24 Burns Bay Rd, Lane Cove Firefly Neutral 24 Young St, Neutral Bay Miss Marley’s Tequila Bar 32 Belgrave St, Manly Small Bar 85 Willoughby Rd, North Sydney The Winery 8-13 South Steyne, Manly
Your bar’s not here? We’ve missed something? Email us! listings@thebrag.com
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 51
g g guide gig g
send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com
pick of the week Wolfmother
MONDAY OCTOBER 18 ROCK & POP
Cass Eager & The Mo’ Debleys Hotel Gearin, Katoomba 8pm Creedence Clearwater Revisited (USA) Newcastle Entertainment Centre & Showground, Broadmeadow $114.50 (silver)–$126.35 (gold) 8pm Nicky Kurta Coogee Bay Hotel free 9pm Sarah Paton The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Songwriter Sessions @ Excelsior Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Unherd Open Mic: Derkajam Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm
SATURDAY OCTOBER 23
Camp Shortland, Newcastle Foreshore
Fat As Butter: Wolfmother, Ice Cube (USA), Sneaky Sound System, Bliss n Eso, Muscles, Children Collide, Grafton Primary, Yacht Club DJs, Ian Carey (USA), Vandalism, Kid Kenobi & MC Shureshock, Horrorshow, Static Revenger, The Jezabels, Tim & Jean, Cabins, Metals, Tenzin, The Beautiful Girls, Tame Impala, The Potbelleez, MM9 $117.35 12pm
JAZZ
Open Mic & Jazz/Latin Jam Session: Daniel Falero, Pierre Della Putta, Phil Taig, Rinske Geerlings, Ed Rapo Bar Me, Potts Point free 7pm The Coolerators 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm
TUESDAY OCTOBER 19 ROCK & POP
Beau Smith Duo Stamford Grand North Ryde, Macquarie Park free 6pm Chris Klondike Masuak & The North Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm If We Had A Boat, Mrs Bishop, Techban, Sam Jones Beach Rd Hotel, Bondi free 8.00pm Mandarin Band Rainforest Lounge, Bankstown Sports Club free 7.30pm Mandy Shamin University of Newcastle, Callaghan 12.30pm Menagerie: Violence in Action, 10k Freemen, Abortifacient, Vicious Cyclist, Pipe Dreamer Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm Open Mic Night Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle free 7pm Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Roller One, Caitlin Park Raval, Surry Hills $12 (+ bf) 8pm They Call Me Bruce Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm
JAZZ
James Valentine’s Supper Club: James Valentine Quartet Golden Sheaf Hotel, Double Bay free 7pm Paul Sun, Alex Compton, Monique Lysiak Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Soup Jam Session Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills free 6pm The Dilworths, Jess Pollard 505 Club, Surry Hills $8–$10 8.30pm
ACOUSTIC & FOLK
Andalusian Honey: The Renaissance Players The Great Hall, University of Sydney, Camperdown $35 7pm
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 20 ROCK & POP
Adam Lambert (USA) Enmore Theatre $63.50 6.30pm
Andy Mammers, Brendan James Dee Why Hotel free 7pm Baby Animals, Porcelain Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $40 (presale) 8pm Ben Finn Duo Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 6pm Bernie Hayes Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Charlie Mayfair, The Former Love Pirates, We Are the Bird Cage Brass Monkey, Cronulla $13.30 (presale) 8pm Final Flash, 1929 Indian Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle 8pm Goodnight Dynamite O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm Guttermouth (USA) Uni Bar, Wollongong University, Gwynneville $32.50 (presale) 8pm Hot Shots Band Hotel Gearin, Katoomba 8pm Jager Uprising: The On Fires, Thylacine Annandale Hotel $8 7pm Keith Hall Soldiers Point Bowling Club, Nelson Bay free 7pm Kym Campbell The View Factory, Newcastle free 8pm Kyu Otis Bar, Wollongong 8pm Mandy Shamin University of Newcastle, Callaghan 12.30pm Mike Bennett The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Nick Saxon Lizotte’s Restaurant, Lambton $14.50 7pm Open Mic Night Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7.30pm Open Mic Fubah on Copa, Copacabana free 7pm Open Mic Mars Hill Cafe, Parramatta free 8pm Set Sail, The Married Bachelors, The Forest Folk Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $5 8pm Sideshow: Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm The Phonies Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8pm The Study: Shanghai, Panzer Queen, Beaufields Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Two Minds Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm Uni Night Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 9pm White Brothers Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 6.30pm YourSpace Muso Showcase Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 7pm
JAZZ
A Little Lunch Music: TRIOZ, Cathy McCorkill City Recital Hall, Sydney $10 12.30pm Dan Barnett Sextet 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm Rasj Ryder, Jarred Keane, Chris North Oatley Hotel $6 8.30pm Wolf Mail (Canada) The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf)–$30 (at door) 9.30pm
ACOUSTIC/FOLK
Andalusian Honey: The Renaissance Players The Great Hall, University of Sydney, Camperdown $35 7pm Folk You Cancer - Singing For A Cure: The Falls, Eirwen Skye, Ruby for Lucy Hotel Hollywood, Surry Hills free 8pm
HIP HOP
Illy, MC 360, Skryptcha Harp Hotel, Wollongong $15.30 (presale) 8pm
THURSDAY OCTOBER 21 ROCK & POP
Andy Mammers Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm Chalkie White Windang Bowling Club 8pm Charlie Mayfair, Young Braves, Pom Pom, God Rest The Good Doctor Five Islands Brewing Company, Wollongong 8pm Clare Bowditch & the New Slang, Glenn Richards Uni Bar, Wollongong University, Gwynneville $24.50 (student)–$27.50 8pm Cloud Control, Seekae, Deep Sea Arcade Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm Concrete Blonde (USA), The Graveyard Train Enmore Theatre $67.60 7pm Crimson Lake Wickham Park Hotel, Islington free 8pm Crushed Ice Camden Valley Golf Resort, Catherine Field 6.30pm Danielle Spencer Raval, Surry Hills $15 (presale) 7.30pm Dimi Dero Inc (France) Mojo Music, Sydney free 5pm Green Mohair Suits Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8.30pm Guttermouth (USA) The Entrance Leagues Club, Bateau Bay $35 7.30pm Happy, Russell Crawford, Brian Estepa The Hive Bar, Erskineville free 7pm Holly Throsby The View Factory, Newcastle 7pm Hot Damn!: As Silence Breaks, Flatline Drama, For All Eternity, Hot Damn DJs Spectrum, Darlinghurst $12–$15 8pm I Dream In Transit, A Dead Forest Index, Sooners, Melody Nelson Melt Bar, Kings Cross $8 8.30pm Johnathan Devoy Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Matthew Barber, 49 Goodbyes Notes Live, Enmore 8pm megastick fanfare, Domeyko/ Gonzalez, Fishing The Basement, Circular Quay $10 8.30pm Menagerie: The Duchesses, Forenzies, Greenthief, Three Wise Monkeys, Rockethead Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 8pm Mirah (USA), The Smallgoods, Shiver Like Timber The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $42 (presale) 8pm Neon Tonics, New Strange Horizon, Ugly Bitch Annandale Hotel $8 8pm Old Men of Moss Mountain, Sick Python Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 11pm Petula Clark (UK) Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre, Nowra $64.50 (silver)–$69.50 (gold) 8pm Rob Devlin Piano Bar, Bankstown Sports Club free 8pm Roxwell Star City Sports Theatre & Bar, Pyrmont free 8pm Rufus Wainwright (USA) State Theatre, Sydney $97.50 (silver)–$119.50 (gold) 8pm Ryan Meeking Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $12 (+ bf)–$15 8pm Suite AZ, Steve Clisby Quartet Astral Bar, Star City, Pyrmont free 8pm The Angels, Black Label Auditorium, South Sydney Juniors, Kingsford $40 (+ bf) 8pm The Cashmere Revolution Sly Fox, Enmore free 8pm
“Where the fast food grease and the engine sounds, blend in with the smell of the bodies in the ground” - THE SNOWDROPPERS 52 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
gig guide
send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com
The Flatcats The Roxbury Hotel, Glebe 8.30pm The Fumes, Elliott Brood (Canada), The Tunstalls Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle $15 8pm The Suspects Marble Bar, Sydney free 8.30pm Thursday Live: Samantha Brave, Kate Gogarty Newport Arms Hotel free 7pm
JAZZ
JJ Son Con Idabelis 505 Club, Surry Hills $10–$15 8.30pm Paul Greene, Colin Moore Brass Monkey, Cronulla $15.30 (presale) 7pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm SIMA: Sirens Big Band The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $15 (member)–$20 8.30pm Steve Edmonds Empire Hotel, Annandale free 8pm
ACOUSTIC/FOLK
Acoustic Thursday Otis Bar, Wollongong free 8pm Totally Gourdgeous Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain $15– $20 8pm
COUNTRY
Bob Corbett, The Roo Grass Band Lizotte’s Restaurant, Lambton $15 Cash On Delivery, Douglass Bishop & the Bob Dylan Review The Vanguard, Newtown $16 (conc)– $20 (at door) 6.30pm
HIP HOP
Dust Tones: Gully Platoon, Kade MC,Joyride, Mike Who
Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Free 8pm Illy, MC 360, Skryptcha Bar on the Hill, University of Newcastle, Callaghan $17.90 8pm Phatchance Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 8pm
FRIDAY OCTOBER 22 ROCK & POP
28 Days, Cola Wars Coogee Diggers $18 (+ bf) 8pm Airbourne Metro Theatre, Sydney $25 7.30pm Akinga South Sydney Juniors, Kingsford 8pm Allstar Doyalson-Wyee RSL Club free 8.30pm Anne Kirkpatrick Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain $20 8pm Arc Icarus Uni Bar, Wollongong University, Gwynneville $10.50 (student)–$12.50 8pm Back 2 Rock Tilligerry RSL, Tanilba Bay free 8pm Bad Moon Rising - A Tribute to Creedence Clearwater Revival: Danny Marx, Floyd Vincent, Shane Flew, Nick Meredith, Lloyd G, Steve Bull The Basement, Circular Quay $26 (+ bf) 9.30pm Barnstorming Penrith Hotel free 10pm Beth Robertson Docks Hotel, Darling Harbour free 7.30pm Brash Asset Mattara Hotel, Newcastle free 8pm Brett O’Malley The Beachcomber Hotel, Toukley free 8pm
Brown Sugar Marble Bar, Sydney free 9.30pm Buddy Up Close & Personal Zenith Theatre, Chatswood $24–$26 8pm Casho Central Coast Leagues Club, Gosford free 6pm Celtic Woman (Ireland) Newcastle Entertainment Centre & Showground, Broadmeadow $109 (silver)–$350 7pm ChromeFest: At The Hop, The Rebel Rousers, DJ Aron Memorial Park, The Entrance free 5pm ChromeFest: Flattrackers The Entrance Leagues Club, Bateau Bay $10 8pm ChromeFest: Retro Rockets, Grizzly Adams Diggers @ The Entrance $10 (member)–$12.50 8pm Clare Bowditch & the New Slang, Glenn Richards Newcastle Leagues Club, Newcastle West $29.60 (presale)–$56.10 (incl CD) 8pm Confession, Sienna Skies Fitz Cafe, St Ives 8pm Dean Kyrwood The Seabreeze Hotel, Nelson Bay free 8pm Dimi Dero Inc (France), The Celibate Rifles, Mushroom Planet Manly Fisho’s $15 (+ bf) 8pm Formula Fire Station Hotel, Wallsend free 8.30pm Free Friday After Work Kendall Bar, Central Coast Leagues Club, Gosford free 5.30pm Galleon, Fisher King Melt Bar, Kings Cross 8pm Gay Paris, The Holy Soul, Betty Airs, Mother & Son The Polo Lounge and Supper Club, Darlinghurst $12.30 (+ bf) 8pm Granite Revolution Royal Inn Hotel, Waratah free 8pm
TUE 19 OCT
wed
20 Oct
(9:00PM - 12:00AM)
kyü
Groovin Hard Rainforest Lounge, Bankstown Sports Club free 9pm Guttermouth (USA) Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $35 (+ bf) 8pm Happy Hippies Celebrity Room, Blacktown RSL Club free 8pm Howl, Alter Ego Mania Spectrum, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf)– $12 (at door) 8pm Hue Williams Eastern Suburbs Legion Club, Waverley free 8pm Humdingers East Maitland Bowling Club free 8pm Ian Blakeney Piano Bar, Bankstown Sports Club free 8pm Jessica Cain Lake Macquarie Tavern, Mount Hutton free 7.30pm Johnny Flashback Duo Diggers @ The Entrance free 8pm Johnny Gleeson Astral Bar, Star City, Pyrmont free
ROCK-STEIN TRIVIA FREE ENTRY
THE STUDY presents
21 Oct
WED 20 OCT
(9:00PM - 12:00AM)
fri
22
THU 21 OCT
Oct
(5:00PM - 8:00PM)
(9:15PM - 1:00AM)
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
(4:30PM - 7:30PM)
(4:30PM - 7:30PM)
sat Oct
FREE ENTRY
COOPERS presents
thu
23
Juicy Fruit Warners Bay Hotel free 9pm kyü, The Psuche Ensemble Paddington Uniting Church $15 (+ bf) 8pm Levi Peden’s Tavern Hotel, Cessnock free 8.30pm Lisa Lombardo, Raquel Martinez, Tonino Speciale & The Sydney Sound Machine, Rebecca Verrier The Showroom, Bankstown Sports Club $7 (member)–$10 7.45pm Los Tres Monos, Pat Eyre, Corey Price The View Factory, Newcastle free 7pm Low (USA), The Laurels The Factory Theatre, Enmore $45.70 (+ bf) 8pm Mark Broughton Baulkham Hills Sports Club free 8pm Memory Loss Dundas Sports & Recreation Club free 8.30pm
sun
SATURDAY NIGHT
(9:00PM - 12:00AM)
24
FRI 22 OCT
SHANGHAI + PANZEER QUEEN + BEAUFIELDS
ENGAGE TO FALL + THE RAIDS CRASH TRAGIC + SUNS OF SU (EP LAUNCH)
GUTTERMOUTH (US) + SPEEDLAB + CHRIS DUKE & THE ROYALS + RUNNING BEAR WITH EAGLE EYE
SUNDAY NIGHT
SAT 23 OCT
Oct
MENAGERIE ft MISH + MENISCUS + NIKKO
(8:30PM - 12:00AM)
FREE ENTRY
+ SPACE PROJECT + HINTERLANDT COMING SOON
SUN 23 OCT
NPL POKER
SAT 30 OCT
FREE PARTY
FRI 05 NOV
SHIHAD
WWW.THEGAELIC.COM EVENT EVENT &&FUNCTION FUNCTIONBOOKINGS: BOOKINGS: clayton@selectmusic.com.au danielle@thegaelic.com BAND BANDBOOKINGS: BOOKINGS:clayton@selectmusic.com.au clayton@selectmusic.com.au
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 53
gig guide
send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Eliot Brood
Menagerie: Anubis, Solkyri, Grun, Dave Carr & The Fabulous / Contraption Candy’s Apartment, Kings Cross 8pm Milkmaids Caringbah Bizzo’s 8pm MUM: Kite Club, The Retreat, Vacations The World Bar, Kings Cross $10 (guestlist)–$15 9pm New Millenium Auburn Hotel free 7pm On the Road: Leroy Lee, The Maple Trail, Jack Carty, Chumpy The Vanguard, Newtown $15 6.30pm Pat Benatar, The Bangles (USA) Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour $275 (dinner & show) 6pm Paul Weller (UK) Enmore Theatre $99.90 7pm Purple Sneakers: Ben Lucid, M.I.T, Nick Findlay, Fantomatique, Jeff Goldblum Gladstone Hotel, Chippendale free 7pm Reel Sessions Star City Sports Theatre & Bar,
Pyrmont free 8pm Roadrunner Avoca Beach Hotel free 8.30pm Rob Henry Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm Ryan Meeking Hotel Gearin, Katoomba 8pm Sam & Jamie Show Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel free 7pm Service 30 MJ Finnegan’s Irish Pub, Newcastle free 10.30pm Slam Tango Iron Horse Inn, Cardiff free 6.30pm Soilwork (Sweden), Buried in Verona, Paradigm Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $49 (+ bf) 8pm Spectacular Feets Kurnell Recreation Club free 8pm Steve Werren Pippi’s at the Point, Speers Point free 6pm Stone Cold Sober Warilla Bowling Club, Barrack Heights free 8pm T.H.U.G, Musk, The Young Docteurs, All in Brawl, Eager 13 Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm The Angels, Black Label Rooty Hill RSL Club $40 (+ bf) 8pm The Bad & The Ugly Nelson Bay Bowling Club free 7.30pm The Break, Dog Trumpet Notes Live, Enmore $25.50 (+ bf) 7pm The Cover Up Scenic Lounge, Central Coast Leagues Club, Gosford free 8.30pm The Danny John Trio Newtown RSL Club free 8pm The Dead Walk, Every Word, No Second Chances, Grave Fears, Taken By Force Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West $10 8pm The Domestics, The Family Clan Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle The Doors Show Engadine Tavern free 9.30pm
The Fumes, Elliott Brood (Canada) Brass Monkey, Cronulla $15 (+ bf) 7pm The Ivys, The Bloodpoets Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm The V Dubs Shoal Bay Country Club Hotel free 8.45pm Tim & Jean, Alpine, Fishing Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $15 (+ bf) 8pm Usual Suspects Hawkesbury Hotel, Windsor free 7.45pm
JAZZ
Bridge City Jazz Band Club Ashfield free 7.30pm Full Swing Quartet Lane Cove Golf & Country Club, Northwood free 7.30pm Guy Strazz World Jazz Quartet 505 Club, Surry Hills $10–$15 8.30pm Paul Burton, Greg Bryce Empire Hotel, Annandale free 8pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 5.30pm SIMA: The World According to James The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $12 (member)–$18 8.30pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie, Tony Burkys Lane Cove Plaza free 5pm
ACOUSTIC/FOLK
Cafe Carnivale: George Doukas, Balcano Eastside Arts, Paddington $10 (child)–$28 8.15pm
HIP HOP
Dustones: Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Ice Cube (USA), Scorcher
The Big Top at Luna Park, Milsons Point $89.90 8pm Illy, MC 360, Skryptcha Annandale Hotel $18.40 (presale) 8pm Sosueme: Spinderella (USA) Q Bar, Darlinghurst 10pm
COUNTRY
Tori Darke Lambton Park Hotel free 7pm
SATURDAY OCTOBER 23 ROCK & POP
28 Days Hotel Gearin, Katoomba 8pm Akinga South Sydney Juniors, Kingsford 8pm All Star Trio, Blaze 36 Degrees Bar, Star City, Pyrmont free 8pm Allstar Peden’s Tavern Hotel, Cessnock free 8.30pm Blaze of Glory Riverstone Bowling & Recreation Club free 8.45pm Casho Bateau Bay Hotel free 8.30pm Celtic Woman (Ireland) Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour $109 (silver)–$350 7pm Charlie Mayfair, Bell Weather Department, Rainbow Chan The Polo Lounge and Supper Club, Darlinghurst 8pm Chris Byrne Duo Salamander Hotel, Soldiers Point free 8.30pm ChromeFest: At The Hop The Greens at The Entrance $10 ChromeFest: Atomic Hi-tones Diggers @ The Entrance $12.50
(member)–$15 8pm ChromeFest: River City Rumblers, The Rebel Rousers, John Ryan, Jimmy Dee, Summerland Kings Memorial Park, The Entrance free 10am Clare Bowditch & the New Slang, Glenn Richards Metro Theatre, Sydney $30 (+ bf) 7pm Confession, Sienna Skies, Hand Of Mercy Centenary Hall, Albion Park 6pm Dave Feint Bellbird Hotel free 8pm Dimi Dero Inc (France), The New Christs, The Holy Soul Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills 8pm E-Lixa Warners Bay Hotel free 9pm Fat As Butter: Wolfmother, Ice Cube (USA), Sneaky Sound System, Bliss n Eso, Muscles, Children Collide, Grafton Primary, Yacht Club DJs, Ian Carey (USA), Vandalism, Kid Kenobi & MC Shureshock, Horrorshow, Static Revenger, The Jezabels, Tim & Jean, Cabins, Metals, Tenzin, The Beautiful Girls, Tame Impala, The Potbelleez, Muscles, MM9 Camp Shortland, Newcastle $117.35 12pm Formula Avoca Beach Hotel free 8.30pm Funhouse MJ Finnegan’s Irish Pub, Newcastle free 10.30pm Funkstar Marble Bar, Sydney free 10.30pm GB3, Severin The Vanguard, Newtown $16 (+ bf)–$20 (at door) 6.30pm Guttermouth (USA) Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West $25 (+ bf) 8pm Heroes For Hire, The Bride, Built On Secrets, The Never Ever Annandale Hotel $12 (+ bf) 12pm Hey Poncho Pippi’s at the Point, Speers Point free 9pm
!! tim levy <tim@photodoco.com>
SOCIAL PHOTOGRAPHERS WANTED Can you take photos? Like going out? Join The Brag!!! We are after one more dedicated, keen and reliable social photographer to join the team and help us capture the essence of the Sydney scene on our Snap pages. You MUST: ■ Be available most evenings ■ Own camera & gear ■ Have a car ■ Be over 18 years of age (we’ll check!)
Please send your application to: tim@photodoco.com 54 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
gig guide send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Hot Gossip Shoal Bay Country Club Hotel free 8.45pm Ian Blakeney, Lionel Robinson Piano Bar, Bankstown Sports Club free 5.30pm Idol Gossip Bradford Hotel, Rutherford free 8pm Jersey Kerb Oatley Hotel free 8pm Jessica Cain MJ Finnegan’s Irish Pub, Newcastle free 8pm Jim Overend Bank Hotel, East Maitland 8pm Johnny Flashback Duo Diggers @ The Entrance free 8pm Keith Hall Khartoum Hotel, Cessnock free Kill Kurt Reifler Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 8pm Kim Bushrangers Bar & Brasserie, Largs free 7.30pm Lanie Lane, Liz Green Raval, Surry Hills $12 (+ bf) 7pm Leeroy & the Rats Catherine Hill Bay Hotel free 2.30pm Let the Mango Nelson Bay Bowling Club free 7.30pm Levi The Beachcomber Hotel, Toukley free 7pm Louise Hughes Macquarie Arms Hotel, Windsor free 2pm Mandi Jarry Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel free Marcus, Joseph & Evelyn Astral Bar, Star City, Pyrmont free 6pm Matt Banham Black Wire Records, Annandale Menagerie: Mish, Meniscus, Nikko, Space Project, Hinterlandt Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills free 8pm Midnight Shift, Grizzly Adams Ashfield RSL Club free 8.30pm Mr James Band Rainforest Lounge, Bankstown Sports Club free 9pm
Muddy Feet Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm NRG, Sam & Jamie Show Star City Sports Theatre & Bar, Pyrmont free 8pm One Non Blonde Brighton RSL Club, Brighton-LeSands free 8pm Paul Weller (UK) Enmore Theatre $99.90 7pm Rock Factor The Seabreeze Hotel, Nelson Bay free 8pm Ryan Meeking Brass Monkey, Cronulla 7pm Seattle Sound Celebrity Room, Blacktown RSL Club free 10pm Shade Of Red Miranda RSL Club free 9pm Sleepyhands, Kite Club Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Smudge, Bambino Koresh Grand Junction Hotel, Maitland $15 (presale) 8pm Sniffer Dogs, Jesse Robertson Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle 8pm Surround Sound: Operator Please, MM9, Beat It Out Casula Powerhouse $10 (+ bf) 4pm The 3 B’s Show Oakdale Workers Club 8pm The Break, Dog Trumpet, Chase The Sun Coogee Diggers $22 (+ bf)–$25 (at door) 8pm The Darker Half, Skintilla, Vendetta Of The Fallen, Tortured Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $12 7pm The Flaming Stars Eastern Suburbs Legion Club, Waverley free 7.30pm The Fumes, Elliott Brood (Canada) Notes Live, Enmore $20.95 (+ bf)– $43.35 (dinner & show) 7pm The Initiation, Walking With Mirrors, The Hotel Charlie, Ikarii Spectrum, Darlinghurst 8pm
The Radiators, Black Label CC’s Hotel, Campbelltown 8pm The Rebel Rousers Ettalong Bowling Club, Ettalong Beach free 7.30pm The V Dubs East Maitland Bowling Club free 8pm Velvet Hotel Cronulla Sharks free 8.30pm Viagra Falls Anna Bay Tavern free 8.30pm Zoltan Revesby Workers Club free 9.30pm
Charlie Mayfair
JAZZ
Jane Irving Quartet 505 Club, Surry Hills $10–$15 8.30pm Sally Street Trio Sean’s Kitchen, Sydney free 6pm SIMA: Joe Chindamo Trio The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $15 (member)–$20 8.30pm
COUNTRY
Jayne Denham Springwood District & Community Club $20 7.30pm
ACOUSTIC & FOLK
Chris Gudu (Zimbabwe) Zenith Theatre, Chatswood $24 (conc)–$26 8pm Gala of West African Music & Dance: One Africa, Jali Buba Kuyateh, Okapi Guitars, Aicha Keita The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf) 9.30pm Katherine Jenkins (Wales), Mark Vincent State Theatre, Sydney $110 (silver)–$199.90 (premium) 7.30pm Tasia, Billie Bradshaw, Sheena Miss Demeanour, Tall Paul (UK), Kael, Baby Blue Bergman, Aishwarya Chai The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $25 7.30pm The Troubadour Folk & Acoustic Music Club CWA Hall, Woy Woy $7 (member)–$10 7pm
SUNDAY OCTOBER 24 ROCK & POP
Andy Mammers Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel free 7.15pm Anita Hartmann, Allan Caswell Rainforest Lounge, Bankstown Sports Club free 2pm Blind Dogs Lick Premier Hotel, Broadmeadow free 4.30pm Cash & Co Doyalson-Wyee RSL Club free 5pm Charlie Mayfair, Anabelle Kay Pippi’s at the Point, Speers Point free 2.30pm Chase The Sun Beaches Hotel, Thirroul 5pm
Chris Byrne Docks Hotel, Darling Harbour free 5pm ChromeFest: Atomic Hi-tones, Miss Pixie, Jimmy Dee, At The Hop, John Ryan, DJ Vinney Memorial Park, The Entrance free 10am Dave Feint Wangi Hotel, Wangi Wangi free 3.30pm Deborah Sinclair Lake Macquarie Yacht Club, Belmont free 1.30pm DV8 (Netherlands) Catherine Hill Bay Hotel free 2.30pm Dynamic DJs Nelson Bay Bowling Club free 7.30pm Jamie Belmont Hotel free 2pm Jazzy Jess Harrigans Irish Pub, Pokolbin 1pm Johnny Casino & The Secrets Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm Johnny Rock Harbord Beach Hotel free 7.30pm Kaman Trio Star City Sports Theatre & Bar, Pyrmont free 8pm
OCTOBER
22 FRIDAY
HOWL DJ SET
M.I.T . FANTOMATIQUE NICK FINDLAY . BENLUCID JEFF GOLDBLUM
SUFJAN STEVENS THE AGE OF ADZ
GIVEAWAYS COURTESY OF SPUNK
NEON INDIAN
MIND CTRL: PSYCHIC CHASMS POSSESSED
GIVEAWAYS COURTESY OF POPFRENZY
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 55
gig guide
send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com
Kirsty Larkin Gateshead Tavern free 2pm Klassic Blak Ettalong Bowling Club, Ettalong Beach free 2pm Matt Bourne Oatley Hotel free 1pm Paul Weller (UK), The Widowbirds Metro Theatre, Sydney $79.90 7pm Ray’s OK - Ray Lonsdale benefit: Daredevil, Crane No.6, Mother Mars, Birdmouth, Arrowhead, Throwdown (USA), Red Bee, Last Trip Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $12 1pm Robin Lee Sinclair Band Marrickville Bowling and Recreation Club free 8pm Rockin the Kasbah The Gaff, Darlinghurst free 5pm Sienna Skies Oasis Youth Centre, Wyong 8pm Slimey Things, Captain Kickarse & The Awesomes, Pirate, Fuji Collective Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills 3pm Strikes Twice Bradford Hotel, Rutherford free 2pm Suite Nonchalant, Hanna & the Barbers, The Gilbert Gantry Union Annandale Hotel $12 (at door) 3pm Sunday Chill: The Sunroom Newport Arms Hotel free 3pm Super Jam Bateau Bay Hotel free 3pm The Break, Nick Saxon Lizotte’s Restaurant, Lambton $31 7pm The Darker Half, Skintilla, Rampage, Dark Order, Of Consequence The Lucky Australian, North St Marys $12 1pm The Fumes, Elliott Brood (Canada) Heritage Hotel, Bulli 8pm The Little Big Band Shoal Bay Resort free 1pm
56 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
JAZZ
Al Davey Scenic Lounge, Central Coast Leagues Club, Gosford free 2pm Beat the Blues: Hayley Warner Allan Border Oval, Mosman free 1.30pm Feral Swing Katz Rocksalt, Menai free 12pm Martinez Akustica Newtown Theatre $30 7pm Robbers Dogs Fortune of War Hotel, The Rocks free 3pm Songwriters @ the Factory The View Factory, Newcastle free 7pm The Subterraneans Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 6pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie, Paul Furniss Illawarra Master Builders Club, Wollongong free 2.30pm
COUNTRY
Brent Murphy Fubah on Copa, Copacabana free 2pm Rough Stock Macquarie Arms Hotel, Windsor free 2pm
ACOUSTIC & FOLK
Bluehouse Notes Live, Enmore $23.50 (presale) 6pm Hugh Wood Trio, Richard Vella, Henryk Gorecki Recital Hall West, Sydney Conservatorium of Music $10–$30 3pm Ilan Chester (Venezuala) The Basement, Circular Quay $45 (+ bf) 9.30pm Paul Greene, Colin Moore Vault 146, Windsor $15.30 (presale)–$40.80 (dinner & show) 7pm
gig picks
up all night out all week... Paul Weller
THURSDAY OCTOBER 21
Clare Bowditch
Concrete Blonde (USA), The Graveyard Train Enmore Theatre $67.60 7pm megastick fanfare, Domeyko/ Gonzalez, Fishing The Basement, Circular Quay $10 8pm Mirah (USA), The Smallgoods, Shiver Like Timber The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $42 (presale) 8pm Rufus Wainwright (USA) State Theatre, Sydney $97.50 (silver)–$119.50 (gold) 8pm
FRIDAY OCTOBER 22 Howl, Alter Ego Mania Spectrum, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf)–$12 (at door) 8pm
kyü, The Psuche Ensemble Paddington Uniting Church $15 (+ bf) 8pm Low (USA), The Laurels The Factory Theatre, Enmore $45.70 (+ bf) 8pm On the Road: Leroy Lee, The Maple Trail, Jack Carty, Chumpy The Vanguard, Newtown $15 6.30pm The Break, Dog Trumpet Notes Live, Enmore $25.50 (+ bf) 7pm
SATURDAY OCTOBER 23
Charlie Mayfair, Bell Weather Department, Rainbow Chan The Polo Lounge and Supper Club, Darlinghurst 8pm Clare Bowditch & The New Slang, Glenn Richards Metro Theatre, Sydney $30 (+ bf) 7pm Dimi Dero Inc (France), The New Christs, The Holy Soul Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills 8pm
SUNDAY OCTOBER 24
Paul Weller (UK), The Widowbirds Metro Theatre, Sydney $79.90 7pm
presents presents...
TUE CULT SINEMA 19th October 7:30pm
$5 suggested donation
WED JAGER UPRISING 20th October 7.30pm
w. The On Fires + The Thylacines + Macchiato + James the Grey
THU
The Annandale Hotel presents
21st October 8pm
$8 door
NEON TONICS + NEW STRANGE HORIZON With Ugly Bitch + more $8 door
FRI 22nd October 7.30pm
THE THREE UP TOUR featuring ILLY + 360 + SCRYPTCHA with Dutch $15 + bf
SAT 23rd October 8pm
SAT 23rd October 8pm
HEROES FOR HIRE
*All Ages* w. The Bride + Built on Secrets + The Never Ever $12 + bf
HEROES FOR HIRE w. The Bride + Built on Secrets + Evelyn $12 + bf
SUN 24th October Early Doors 3pm
SUITE NONCHALANT + HANNA & THE BARBERS with friends Billygoat & the Mongrels + Gilbert Gantry Union $10 door
#OME JOIN US IN OUR BEER GARDEN
3!4 35. AM PM "OOKINGS ARE ESSENTIAL ON
THE ANNANDALE CHRISTMAS SHOW with
OLD MAN RIVER
November 25th | FREE ENTRY Email Kristie@annandalehotel.com to RSVP COMING UP: JEBEDIAH | FUTURE OF THE LEFT | SHOUT OUT LOUDS | DIESEL |78 SAAB | STICKY FINGERS | PEABODY
0ARRAMATTA 2D !NNANDALE &ULL LIST OF UPCOMING SHOWS INFORMATION AND SHOW BOOKINGS VISIT
WWW ANNANDALEHOTEL COM
YOUR LIVE MUSIC CHANNEL
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 57
club guide send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com
club pick of the week FRIDAY OCTOBER 22
Daniel Bell Daigo and Cosmic Explorer free The Valve, Tempe Underground Tables host Ben Ji, DJs Discorossco, Gee Wiz, Loko 1, feat. Luke Dubs (Hermitude) and guests 6pm free
KillaQueenz
Tone, Surry Hills
KillaQueenz 10th Anniversary Show feat. Just Blaze (USA), DJ Sarah Love (UK), Josie Styles, Bad Ezzy, Cyberthief, hosted by MC Candy 9pm $15 MONDAY OCTOBER 18 Empire Hotel, Potts Point Bazaar HBK, I Low free Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills I Love 90s DJ Alloy, Grumpy Gramps free One World Sport, Parramatta Ricky Ro free Soho, Kings Cross Comedown free The Sugarmill, Kings Cross Mondays James Rawson (live), Kavi-R free V Bar, Sydney Monday Mambo Mambo G $5–$10 World Bar, Kings Cross Mondays at World Bar Ooh Face, Hot Carl and friends free 58 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
TUESDAY OCTOBER 19 Xxx Cruise Bar, Circular Quay DCE Salsa Lessons $20 Establishment, Sydney Rumba Motel DJs Willie Sabor and Guests free Martin Place Bar, Sydney Louis M, Sammy free Oatley Hotel Suburban Alternative DJ Mini Mullet free Opera Bar, Circular Quay DJ Jack Shit free The Gaff, Darlinghurst Coyote Tuesday Johnny B, Kid Finley free–$5 World Bar, Kings Cross Pop Panic Karaoke, DJs Shipwreck,
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 20 Bank Hotel, Newtown Girls’ Night DJ Beth Yen free Cruise Bar, Circular Quay Rockstar free Establishment, Sydney Mid Week Hurdle Nic Phillips, Craig Patterson free Fringe Bar, Paddington F.R.I.E.N.D/s $5 drinks & pizzas, free entry Gasworks Nightclub, Albion Hotel, Parramatta DJ Fresh free Goldfish, Kings Cross The Salsa Lounge Latin Mafia Sound System free The Argyle Hotel, Rocks Ben Peterson, Casa free The Eastern, Bondi Junction John Glover, Tenzin, Here’s Trouble, Cassian, U-Go-B, Steve Frank, Mistah Cee, Kavi-R free The Gaff, Darlinghurst New Generation Franny, Alex, Triky, Electroholics, Con-x-ion, Psygnosis, Calico, Kermy, Deceptikon free World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall/SUGD free
THURSDAY OCTOBER 21 202 Broadway, Chippendale Basic Foreign Dub, Headroom, Space Is The Place, Void free Beach Road Hotel, Bondi DJ Enari free Collingwood Hotel, Liverpool After School Detention DJ Rangi, Mac, K-Note MC Buddy Love free Cruise Bar, Circular Quay DJ Dwight ‘Chocolate’ Escobar free Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown Brett Hunt free Dug Out Bar, Burdekin Hotel Speakeasy Magda, Dave Fernandes Empire Hotel, Potts Point Episodes DJ Schoder, Wanted, Zahra, Jason K, Johar free Gasworks Nightclub, Albion Hotel, Parramatta Da Bomb with DJ Fresh free Goldfish, Kings Cross The Funk Quarter Phil Hudson, Phil Toke, Dave 54, Michael Wheatley free Home Terrace, Darling Harbour Unipackers Rnb, Top 40, Electro $5 Judgement Bar, Taylor Square Judgement Night Sex Worker & Ymerej, weekly guests free Kinselas Hotel, Darlinghurst
Simon Alexander free LO-FI, Darlinghurst Hamish Rosser, Bad Wives Mansions, Kings Cross Van Sereno and Cavan Te live on rotation free Q Bar, Darlinghurst Hot Damn! DJ Sarah Spandex, Mark C, Heart Attack $10–$12 Sapphire Suite, Kings Cross Flaunt Nacho Pop, Diaz, Eko, Tom Piper, R-Son, Zero Cool free Shelbourne Hotel, Sydney The Social Club Beth Yen free The Rouge, Darlinghurst Chaos! DJ Murray Lake, DJ Puma, Deckhead, Matt Saxton, Jwell Skoob, DJ Bart Smith $10 Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour Caramel free Tone, Surry Hills Loop Thursdays Rotating guests Simon Caldwell, Lorna Clarkson, Jimi Polar, Magda, Mark Murphy, Kali, Trinity, Dave Stuart, Raffi Darkchild, Jordan Deck & B.C. $15 World Bar, Kings Cross Teenage Kicks free
FRIDAY OCTOBER 22 Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach Dust Tones Gully Platoon, Kade MC, Joyride, Mike Who, 8pm free Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst Twist & Shout Mr Chad, Dylab, DJ Doctor J $5 Civic Undergound, Sydney Colour Plus One Robbie Lowe, Tim Culbert, Matt Rowan, Sari Amia and Ben Korbel 10pm $15 Collector Hotel, Parramatta Corner Shop Tikelz, DJ Browski, J Lyrikz, Naughty, Gunz free Cruise Bar, Circular Quay Johnny Vinyl, Strike free Gladstone Hotel, Chippendale Purple Sneakers Ben Lucid, M.I.T, Nick Findlay, Fantomatique, Jeff Goldblum $12 Goldfish, Kings Cross Sugar & Soul Phil Hudson, Paul Hatz, Agey, Danny De Sousa, Matt Cahill, Tom Kelly free Goodgod Small Club, Haymarket Dog House DJ sets from Matt Van Schie, Ted & Francis, Danimals $10 Home The Venue, Darling Harbour Sublime Peewee, John Ferris, Nasty, Hardforze, Aurora Astralis, Nick Farrell, D83Suae, Pulsar, Kinekt 4, Makio, Monk3y, RaversMVP, Jin Kang, Concept, Chubby, Juzzy Raver and Losty $17 pre, $25 door Kinselas, Taylor Square Toby Wilson free Kit & Kaboodle, Darlinghurst Falcona Fridays Falcona DJs, The Gameboys $10 LO-FI, Darlinghurst Dave 54, Shamozzle, D-funk Luna Park Big Top, Milsons Point Ice Cube (USA), Scorcher 8pm $90 Mansions, Kings Cross Nick Polly, Little Rich, Nick T, Stevie
S, Adrian Allen free Martin Place Bar, Martin Place Jimmy Mac, Sammy free Middle Bar, Kinselas, Darlinghurst Flavours on Friday MC Q-Bizzi, C-Bu, Trey, Mike Champion, Naiki, Tekkaman $20 Oatley Hotel We Love Oatley Hotel Fridays DJ Tone free Omega Lounge, Sydney Unwind Greg Summerfield, Matt Brunton free One7One, Potts Point Playtime Acid Jacks, Kristiano, Matt Nukewood, Ember, Pia, Joel Van Dee free, $10 after 11pm Opera Bar, Circular Quay Gian Arpino free Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Tim & Jean $18 Phoenix Bar, Darlinghurst Void Open Dex $5 Q Bar, Darlinghurst Sosueme Spinderella (USA) $10 on the door Raval, Surry Hills Listen Hear Huwston, Micah, James De La Cruz, Chris Coucouvinis free Sandringham Hotel, Newtown Louie Knuxx (NZ), Howlin Funk, BustaCap, Elevate, Semantic $8 Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Sapphire Fridays Miss Match, Rob Morrish, Dave 54, Kate Monroe, Chiller $10 guestlist Spectrum, Darlinghurst Silent Alarm Silent DJs $5 St James Hotel, Sydney Club Blink DJs Bzurk, Luke, Nick, Naked Dave, Firefly, Absynth Tank Nightclub, Sydney RnB Superclub G Wizard, Def Rok, Troy T, Eko, Lilo, Jayson, Losty, Ben Morris, Matt Nukewood, Charlie Brown, Oakes & Lennox, Venuto, Adrian M $20 The Loft, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo Indiot Kato, Somatik, Mailer Daemon free Simon Caldwell
club guide
send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com Bad Wives
The Rouge, Kings Cross Shock Horror Astrix, Kill the Landlord, Slappin’ Plastic, Trentertainment, Lego 9.30pm, free entry on guest list till 12. The Roxy Hotel, Parramatta Roxy Fridays $10, free for members The Sugarmill, Kings Cross The Gameboys, Calling In Sick, Joyride $10 after 10pm Tone, Surry Hills KillaQueenz 10th Anniversary Show feat. Just Blaze (USA), DJ Sarah Love (Uk), Josie Styles, Bad Ezzy, Cyberthief, hosted by MC Candy 9pm $15 White Revolver, Bondi Look Sharp Bad Wives, Cassette, Dax 10pm $10 before midnight World Bar, Kings Cross MUM DJs Cass (Chicks Who Love Guns), Myth 'n' Tropics, Hayley (Chain Gang), Alvin, Walkie Talkie, Animal Chin, Swim Team, 10th Avenue, Ohh Face, 16 Tacos, Cries Wolf $15 or free before 8pm
SATURDAY OCTOBER 23 202 Broadway, Chippendale Headroom Monk Fly, Jonny Faith, Know-U, Suburban Dark, Elliot $15 Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo Trash DJ M!Veg, DJ Absynth $12 Arthouse Hotel, Sydney Marcos Moran, Dante Rivera, Fdel, DJ Jacky, Cocama, DJ Dwight ‘Chocolate’ Escobar, Victor Lopez, Fabi & Andy, Fabilicious, Levi 5 Star, Nick Godoy, Jack Posada, Rhythm Brazil $20 Bank Hotel, Newtown Ben Kelly, Dan Adair free BB’s, Bondi Beach Wildlife DJs Mesan, James Roberts, Adriano Giorgi, Dinseh Sundar, Matt Singmin, Chris Kyle free Civic Underground, Sydney Rory Phillips (UK), Charlie Chux, Generic DJs 10pm $15+bf presale/$25 on door Clarence Hotel, Petersham
Caesars Sandy Bottom, Justin Scott, DJ Chip free Collingwood Hotel, Liverpool Slinky Saturdays DJ Steve, DJ Trisha free Cricketer's Arms, Surry Hills Pod War free Cruise Bar, Circular Quay DJ Simon Neal, Ben Vickers free Eastern Hotel, Bondi Junction I Love Saturdays Zannon, Tony Shock, Matt Ferreira, Tass, Akay, Don Juan, Dante Rivera, Dennis Agee, Willie Sabor, Oscar Cadena free Gasworks Nightclub, Albion Hotel, Parramatta DJs Matt Hoare and Andy Marc $10 Goodgod Small Club, CBD Hey Convict! Steele Bonus, Perfect Snatch, Marcus King, The Loin Brothers $15 Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney Circo Loco Jamie Jones, Davide Squillace, Robert Dietz, Jamie Lloyd, Little Fritter, Schwa, Franchi Bros, Matttt & Tomass $35 Home The Venue, Sydney Homemade Saturdays The 808s, Aladdin Royaal, James “Saxman” Spy, Matt Ferreira, Hannah Gibbs, Tony Venuto, Dave Austin, Flite, LKO, Seiz, Uncle Abe $20 VIP/$25 door Ivy, Sydney Pure Ivy Ian Carey (USA), Beth Yen, Tass, Cadel, Chloe West, Adam Jacob Den Danny De Sousa, Kocho and John Devecchis $20 Jacksons On George, Sydney Leno, Aladdin Royaal free Kinselas, Taylor Square Brynstar, Shaun Keble, Yin Yang, Beth Yen and Matt Hoare free Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Kitty Kitty Bang Bang Elaine Benes, Gabby, Cassette (NZ), Alison Wonderland free before 10pm, $10 after, members free all night LO-FI, Darlinghurst Vivienne Kingswood, M.I.T, Walkie Talkie Mansions, Kings Cross Reckless, Little Rich, Shaun Surgeon
Keeble, Nick Polly free Marrickville Bowling Club Mad Racket 12th Birthday Daniel Bell, Simon Caldwell, Ken Cloud, Zootie, Jimmi James, Jamie Lloyd, Noel Boogie Sinclair 10pm $35 Martin Place Bar, Sydney Bamboo Eko, Nude-E, Mirage, Shorty, Ace, Moto, Qrius, IllDJ $5 Opera Bar, Circular Quay Krishna Jones free Sackville Hotel, Rozelle Maike free Shelbourne Hotel, Sydney Shipwreck, Daniel Nall, Leon Pirello $10 after 10pm Soho, Potts Point Static Revenger free entry before 11pm Spectrum, Darlinghurst P*A*S*H Goldfoot, DJ Knife $7 St James Hotel, Sydney SFX DJs Bzurk, Snowflake Stonewall Hotel, Darlinghurst Greg Boladian, Nick J free The Argyle Hotel, Rocks MarcUs, Levi 5 Star, Phil Hudson free The Bank Nightclub, Kings Cross Sin City Don Juan, DJ Willie, Mista Kay, MC Q-Bizzi The Forum Theatre, Moore Park Surgeon (UK), Sub Bass Snarl, Biz, Victim, Index $30 (1st release)–$40 (+ bf) The Gaff, Darlinghurst Johnny B free The Manhattan Lounge, Martin Place Hushhh... DJs Stunna, Sonny, Special K $10 after 9pm The Mansion, Darlinghurst Wonderland: Grand Opening Party DJs Bzurk & Snowflake (SFX) $20/$15 host list, free before 10pm. The Rouge, Kings Cross Le Rouge Lavida, Ben Morris, Christian luke $10 before 11pm The Shannon Hotel, Chippendale Progression 64 DJ Key-Star free The Venue, Double Bay Pure House Ben Morris, Illya, Robbie Lowe, Matt Mandell, Ollie Brooke, Matt Roberts, Simon Caldwell, Kato, James Taylor, Lummy, Mitch Crosher, Phil Smart The View Factory, Newcastle Subdivision, DJ Jonathan free Tone, Surry Hills Scorcher $28 Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour Paul Moussa free World Bar, Kings Cross Wham! Circo Loco After Party James Taylor & MC Shureshock, Kato, Shivers (Act Yo Age), Illya, Raye Antonelli, Ben Korbel, Mitch Crosher, Disco Punx, Moriarty, Will Styles, Saez, Daigo $15 / $10 with Circo Loco wristband
S Y D N E Y
P R E M I ER E
OCTOBER 21ST THURSDAY 8PM UPSTAIRS IN THE REX ROOM
PRESENTS
GULLY PLATOON KADE MC MIKE WHO JOYRIDE 8PM FRIDAY
22ND OCTOBER COMING SOON
FLATWOUND + S.W.A.T DJS 24TH OCT LOVERS JUMP CREEK + MENDING MELISSA + RENAE KEARNEY + PAUL TURNER 26TH OCT
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 59
club guide
Deep Impressions
clubguide@thebrag.com
SUNDAY OCTOBER 24 Bank Hotel, Newtown DJ Eddie Coulter Beach Palace Hotel, Coogee Adam Katz, Benny Vibes, Soul Patrol free Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Bondi Sundays Flatwound, S.W.A.T DJs 6pm free Colombian Hotel (Downstairs), Darlinghurst Hotrod Sunday Sandi Hotrod and guests free Colombian Hotel (Upstairs), Darlinghurst The Deep Disko Phil Hudson, Michael Wheatley, Mark Matthews, Vincent Sebastian free Cruise Bar, Circular Quay Sassy Sundays free Goldfish, Kings Cross Martini Club Live Tom Kelly, Johnny Gleeson free Home Terrace, Sydney Spice After Hour Robbie
Lowe, Mattt & Tomass, Yokoo, Schwa $20/$10 Ice Bar, Sydney The Kitsch Sound System, Phil Hudson, Chloe West, Mark Matthews free Kings Cross Hotel Jammin Sundays free Kinselas Hotel, Darlinghurst The Fifth Dimension free Kit and Kaboodle, Darlinghurst Easy Sunday $10 (at door) Oatley Hotel Sunday Sessions DJ Tone & friends free Phoenix Bar, Darlinghurst Loose Ends DJ Matt Vaughan & guests Vinyl Richie & Craig Wilson $10 Sapphire Suite, Kings Cross Random Sundays Mike Rukus, Tom Piper, James Taylor, Matt Nukewood, Goodfella, Adam Lance, RobKAY free (guestlist)–$15 The Argyle Hotel, Rocks Charley Bo Funk, DJ BBG free
Underground Dance and Electronica with Chris Honnery The Bank Nightclub, Kings Cross Soul On Sunday Nino Brown, Don Juan free The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills B Side free The Bunker Bar, Kings Cross Marco Resmann free The Forbes Hotel, Sydney Church Of Techno Mitch Crosher, Kerry Wallace, Joey Kaz, Jey Tuppaea, Jaded, Shepz $5 The Sugarmill, Kings Cross Neighbourhood Kate Monroe free The Village, Sydney Sunday Surgery DJ Russ Dewbury and friends free Trademark Hotel, Darlinghurst Soul on Sunday Nino Brown, Don Juan Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour Miss Gabby free World Bar, Kings Cross Fortune! Disco Punx free
club picks
Riobert Dietz
I
n my substance-addled mind at least, this weekend marks the start of what will be a frenetic few months in local clubbing circles. Jamie Jones, Robert Dietz and Davide Squillace headline Circo Loco at Greenwood on Saturday afternoon through to nightfall, before Detroit auteur Dan Bell headlines Mad Racket’s 12th birthday a few hours later at Marrickville Bowling Club. And from there, we go sublime… It’s that time of year again where the big guns begin rolling out their lineups for next year’s festival season. First up we have Future Music, who have guaranteed the attention, and dare I say attendance, of any serious tech aficionado with the program for The Likes Of You tent, which features the gargantuan triumvirate of Richie Hawtin performing his live Plastikman show, Cocoon head honcho Sven Vath and Tunisian kingpin Loco Dice. As if that’s not impressive enough, veterans Leftfield will emerge from obscurity along with a plethora of more ‘accessible’ acts playing on more accessible stages, though I for one won’t be moving from the Likes Of You area for the entirety of my day out.
up all night out all week...
FRIDAY OCTOBER 22 Goodgod Small Club, Haymarket Dog House DJ sets from Matt Van Schie, Ted & Francis, Danimals $10 Luna Park Big Top, Milsons Point Ice Cube (USA), Scorcher 8pm $89.90
Not to be outdone, Playground Weekender have unveiled the first round of acts for their annual fiesta down on The Hawkesbury River, and it was the presence of two of my favourite acts from the past year on the bill, Caribou and Four Tet, that had me penciling Thursday 17 – Sunday 20 February into the imaginary diary. Damian Lazarus and Heidi are also set to spin, while perennial Playground favourite Mr. Tom Middleton returns, hopefully to play his traditional closing set – it wasn’t the same without him bringing the curtain down on the weekend last year.
Q Bar, Darlinghurst Sosueme Spinderella (USA) $10 on the door White Revolver, Bondi Beach Look Sharp Bad Wives, Cassette, Dax 9pm $10 before midnight
SATURDAY OCTOBER 23
Finally, for those hardened ravers after an even wilder trip, Victoria’s Rainbow Serpent Festival, held over the Australia day weekend out in the middle of nowhere should be high on your agenda. This year Wagon Repair mainman Mathew Jonson will be among the tech and prog acts representing, and insiders tell me there’s some notable drawcards still to be announced.
Civic Underground, Sydney Rory Phillips (UK), Charlie Chux, Generic DJs 10pm $15+bf presale/$25 on door Marrickville Bowling Club Mad Racket 12th Birthday Daniel Bell, Simon Caldwell, Ken Cloud, Zootie, Jimmi James, Jamie Lloyd, Noel Boogie, Sinclair 10pm $35 Rory Phillips
LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY OCTOBER 30
Superpitcher + Alexkid Subsonic Halloween Boat Party
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 5
Funk D’Void The Civic Underground
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 13 Shonky Name This Bar
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 20 Martin Buttrich Pulse Boat Party
the noughties). Presales for this can be procured online for only twenty bones – an absolute steal – so I certainly suggest you lock this one in. It’s time to turn the spotlight back on Caribou to conclude this week’s column as we focus on the impending release of Sun Remixes, a Caribou remix LP of reworks from his Sun album that was released earlier in the year. The tracklist is of the highest caliber, with DJ Koze, James Holden, Junior Boys, Fuck Buttons, Walls and Gavin Russom all contributing interpretations of cuts from what was an excellent release. Swim Remixes is due to hit shelves before the end of this month, making it a prime contender for the Christmas stocking and a good way to gear up for seeing Dan Smith and his band doing their thing in the flesh at Wiseman’s Ferry in February. Ain’t it great to be heading into another summer… Francois Dubois
Scottish producer Lars Sandberg, who releases under the monikers Funk D’Void and Francois Dubois, will play a spot at The Civic Underground for the aptly named Deeper Sounds on Friday November 5. Sandberg deals in deeper, prog-influenced tech soundscapes and has chalked up releases on Soma Records, Bedrock and Cocoon over the course of an accomplished career that has also encompassed remixes of Underworld, New Order and Kevin Saunderson. Personally, I’m a sucker for his collaboration with Andy Cato from Groove Armada, ‘Blood’, while I have an old podcast of his that was recorded from a set with Vincenzo at Moog nightclub in Barcelona a few years back that has been a mainstay on my iPod ever since I first heard it. Less experienced listeners who are after a distillation of Sandberg’s DJing proclivities ought to seek out his Sci.Fi.Hi.Fi. 04 compilation, which lived up to the high quality of the antecedent installments in the short-lived mix series in just about matching the efforts of Ewan Pearson, Luciano and Alex Smoke (and that’s saying something, as each was among my favourite mixes of
Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com. 60 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
Soul Sedation
Soul, Dub, Hip Hop & Bottom-heavy Beats with Tony Edwards
Soul Sedation goes live every Wednesday night on Bondi FM (88.0 or bondifm.com.au). Tune in 10pm 'til midnight to hear a deep and soulful selection of the tunes covered here, and plenty more that I don't have room for.
So next year’s Playground Weekender line-up is out there in the ether: Kool & The Gang, De La Soul, Caribou, Four Tet, Roy Ayers, Norman Jay, LTJ Bukem, King Tide and many more that fall out of the typical musical ‘care factor’ of this column. I’m impressed! And it seems, back by popular demand, that Tom Middleton will resume the festival closing throne this next year as well. It’s clear by now that everyone loves a festival closing old school rave set - and none more than the expat poms... Two of my favourite new soul artists will fill out a live double bill at Tone on November 12. NZ’s Isaac Aesili and our very own Ray Mann Three will both be flexing their soul muscle on the night. Aesili, who put out the incredibly impressive, self-released solo album Eye See last year, will be joined by Rachael Fraser, a fellow Kiwi vocalist with an equally incredible voice. The night is a joint production between Return Of The Real and Soul Power. In more NZ news, Auckland-based Sola Rosa are touring the country on the back of their new album, Get It Together – which features vocals from Spikey Tee, Bajka, MC Serocee, and Wellington voice Iva Lamkum, who will be joining them on the tour. There’s also Nextmen and TM Juke remixes of the singles out there for DJs. The band, who’ll play the Gaelic Club on Friday December 3, have over a decade of dub, soul, funk, latin and jazz behind them. Drum n bass fans heads up, a remixes album of Commix’s Call To Mind is now out on Metalheadz. It includes reworkings from Instra:mental, Pangaea, Dbridge, A Made Up Sound, Burial and Marcel Dettman. There’s ten new mixes all up, exploring realms like dub techno, garage, and of course dnb stylings. US hip hop fans will want to know about Black Milk’s fourth offering – Album Of The Year. The Detroit rapper has invited guests like Slum Village’s Elzhi, Royce Da 5’9, songstress Melanie Rutherford and AB onto the record. It’s out on Fatbeats. A studio whiz by the names of Teebs has just released his debut album through Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder imprint. The south Cali painter/skater was inspired to make beats by LA’s ever-impressionable Low End Theory club night. The record, Ardour, features eighteen dreamy, detailed tunes for you to wrap your ears around. Also look out for his Tropics EP, produced with UK producer Jackhigh. Funk and soul edit fans might well know the name Onur Engin, he’s made some damn fine ones in his time. The Turkish producer has put out a vinyl-only EP,
ON THE ROAD FRIDAY OCTOBER 22 Ice Cube Luna Park
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 17 Electric Wire Hustle Tone
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 20
Femi Kuti & The Positive Force The Metro
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 25 Fat Freddys Drop Enmore Theatre
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 26 DJ Krush The Basement
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 27 DNBBQ Manning Bar
DECEMBER 3-5
Subsonic Music Festival Barrington Tops
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 18
Kool & The Gang, Roy Ayers Enmore Theatre Origins, which takes on vintage material from Charles Sherell, Marvin Gaye, The Crusaders and Vic Ceasars and gives it that Engin makeover. Look it up on Plimsoll Records. Lee Perry’s new/old Sound System Scratch is a collection of reportedly unheard dubplates of Perry’s from ‘73-‘79. The release features nineteen tracks in all, including work from names like Augustus Pablo, Junior Murvin and many more vintage heroes. All the sounds and productions from the Black Ark Studio. Three true soul voices will take over the Basement on Saturday November 13, with a bill headed by NZ’s Bella Kalolo, and also featuring Sydney’s Nadeena Dixon, Perth’s Randa & The Soul Kingdom, and DJ support from NZ’s Ayesha. Headliner Kalolo is of Samoan, Tongan and Maori ancestry, and has an incredibly powerful voice. In the close proximity of the Basement the showcase should be a real treat for live soul music fans.
De La Soul
Send stuff for this column to tonyedwards001@gmail.com by 6pm Wednesdays. All pics to art@thebrag.com BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 61
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09:10:10 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700
08:10:10 :: Kit & Kaboodle :: 33-35 Darlinghurst Rd Kings Cross 9368 0300 62 :: BRAG :: 384: 18:10:10
Wonderland Grand Opening Party
It’s called: Wonderland - Grand Opening Party It sounds like: Electro, retro, hip hop, pop, house and party tunes all together; anything goes, get lost in the music and atmosphere of Won mixed derland. DJs/live acts playing: SFX regu lars DJ Bzurk and Snowflake (thes e two do everything together!) Sell it to us: This is what Sydney has been craving – a weekly that unite kinds of clubbing culture and peop le, a venue with multiple rooms and s all atmosphere, in a location that is great accessible for everyone! Think big and you’re still not close – so arrive early to avoid paying and queues! The bit we’ll remember in the AM: In Wonderland, memories are disto chances are you’ll lose yourself, rted and or your mind, in one (or all) of our rooms. Crowd specs: Leave your issue s at the door, this is Wonderland. Wallet damage: $20 entry, $15 on host list, free before 10pm. Where: The Mansion (ex The Gaff ), cnr Riley and Oxford Sts, Darlingh urst When: Saturday October 23
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falcona fridays
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09:10:10 :: The Rouge :: 39 Darlinghurst Rd Potts Point 8356 9800
party profile
le rouge
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09:10:10 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex Street Sydney 82959958
09:10:10 :: The Forum :: Entertainment Quarter Moore Park 9360 2610 ) ::DE CLA N HUC H :: ASH LEY S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER ROU HAN NA:: PATR ICK STE VEN SON :: SUSAN BUI: : TTE MAR :: DAN IEL MUN S::ROSE AVE RIE HARVEY
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08:10:10 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700
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08:10:10 :: The Gladstone Hotel :: 115 Regent St Chippendale 96993522
She Came From Another World
It’s called: She Came From Anot her World - An interstellar Burlesqu e at 34B It looks and sounds like: An inter galactic caravan of the most begu burlesque cabaret performers in iling the known universe! Performers/ DJs: Kira Hula-la, Kitty Jade Twist, Lucille Spielfuchs, Laur van Horne, Holly J’aDoll, Mimi Munroe, en La Rouge, Francois Buble, DJ Jack Shit. Sell it to us: There’s a flash of light ! all that can be made out are seve A multicoloured mist descends – as it clears n beguiling ladies of unearthly char glowing stage emblazoned: 34B! ms, and a The bit we’ll remember in the AM: divine otherworldly forms of our inter The rare charms, super human abilities and galactic ladies. Crowd specs: Barberellas, Princ ess Leias, bizarre nebulous beau ties, intergalactic dandies, Han Solos, androids, martians, magnificent muta colourful cosmonauts. nts and Wallet damage: $20 general adm ission / tenderloins.com.au Where: 34B Burlesque, 44 Oxfo rd St Darlinghurst (Q Bar entry) When: Saturday October 23, 8.30 pm
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sosueme: cypress hill
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party profile
09:07:10 :: Club 77 :: 77 William St Kings Cross 93613387
24:09:10 :: Q-Bar :: 34-44 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93601375 ) ::DE CLA N HUC H :: ASH LEY S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER E ROU HAN NA:: PATR ICK STE VEN SON :: SUSAN BUI: : ETT MAR :: DAN IEL MUN NS:: ROS AVE RIE HARVEY
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up all night out all week . . .
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06:10:10 :: Fringe Bar :: 106 Oxford Street Paddington 93605443
08:10:10 :: Tone Venue :: 116 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills
Dog House
. Crowd specs: You! mething doggy-style / $5 if you wear so cks bu 10 : ge ma CBD. Wallet da erpool St, Sydney b Kennel, 56-58 Liv Clu all Sm g Do od Where: The Go er 22 When: Friday Octob
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party profile
use It’s called: Dog Ho ha Men. of. Bark. Growl. Ba Jonti It sounds like: Wo ‘Terrier’ and Francis tiff ’ Van Schie, Ted worth its as g ‘M blo ew sic tth mu Ma ry g: eve DJs playin d every writer from orash, An . ctr als Ele nim le, Da rbo rd’ pe ‘Juvenile Haza s, Who The Hell, Hy ad Ro ey on (St ey bandwidth in Sydn ulade Unlimited). ie In The Disco Delicious, Ro Much Is That Dogg on the night: ‘How House ar al he l pic u’l Tro yo gli s ow ord (M Three rec Mix)’; ‘Be Your Dog b joke... Clu s l thi ca in Vo sta th su mi Window (Stars s about dogs to nk of any other song er mb nu r ReRub)’… Can’t thi ough 16 or whateve won’t: Warp (1 thr ely nit fi de h. u us yo Cr e e And on Or Purpl ven for that matter. the INTERNET they’re up to). Or Ra gs in the history of blo ey dn Sy st be e Th . Ana Robi And of AH Sell it to us: WO coming production raise funds for an up to up d me tea ve ha … t The House Of Dogs ot you’ll need for tha AM: The tetanus sh the in r be em rem The bit we’ll arm. nasty bite on your
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08:10:10 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex Street Sydney 82959958
08:10:10 :: GoodGod :: 55 Liverpool St. Sydney 92673787
66 :: BRAG :: 384: 18:10:10
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1GB BONUS DATA ON YOUR FIRST $30 RECHARGE
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THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW: Network unlocking fee applies to handsets. Limit 1 per customer (except SA) and no trade sales. Bonus data offer available to new customers only until 01/11/10. Bonus data is valid for 30 days, cannot be used overseas and can take up to 48 hours to be applied. Pre-Paid customers must recharge $20 in one transaction in the last 30 days to access Tribe in Australia. Our FairUse Policy applies. TM and are trade marks and registered trade marks of Telstra Corporation Limited, ABN 33 051 775 556. TEL3339 BRAG BONUS
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