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BONDI BEACH 路 8:30PM-3AM 路 TICKETS ON SALE NOW 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
Metronomy Yacht Club DJs Knightlife HARBOURLIFE Saturday 20th November
Fleet Steps, Mrs Macquaries Point Adjacent to Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
On sale now fuzzy.com.au
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Special Guests Last Dinosaurs
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ON SALE FRIDAY 29.10 TOTAL LIFE FOREVER OUT NOW
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POPFRENZY & INTHEMIX PRESENT
Oxford Art Factory TUES 23 NOV + WORLD’S END PRESS + OLUGBENGA (METRONOMY) DJ SET TIX MOSHITX.COM.AU
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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
MAMA KIN (W.A)
M
y Dad was a frustrated musician. He always wanted to learn as a child, but wasn’t allowed to “indulge” in the arts - so when he became a Papa he was determined to set things right! We all had to learn instruments, and our house was a musical odyssey. I’m the youngest of six kids by a long way, and by the time I arrived there was a family band in full swing. The Maltese community around the western suburbs of Melbourne considered our home the hub of all things party-oriented! It was a crazy and wonderful home to grow up in, always full of music, and so many people and parties most weekends. Aretha Franklin is one of my all time faves. My older sister introduced me to a lot of blues and soul music really early on in my life, and it stuck. At the moment I am loving Martha Wainwright. I love musicians that just give what they got without getting hung up on a particular style or sound - they explore and follow the spirit of the song. I play music with Michael, my big brother. I love the honesty that we have with each other, sibling honesty, where you don’t have to cut corners and mince words - you can just lay it out as it is, and moveon(.org). On drums I have
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Where: The Vanguard, Newtown / The Brass Monkey, Cronulla When: Thursday October 28 / Friday October 29
Jez Mead
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Who: Mama Kin
Violent Soho have got it sorted. While most of you (especially YOU) were queening about being all po-mo with ‘80s mashups and fluoro outfits and ironic facial hair, Violent Soho were lifting Nirvana riffs and partying like it was 1992. It got them ARIA nominations, saw them relocate to Brooklyn (the home of grunge), and won them the support slot for Dinosaur Jr. And now they’ve got a new single (‘Narrow Ways’), are touring nationally with Children Collide (December 1 at Area Hotel in Griffith - and the following night at Roi Bar in Albury), and have been announced for Laneway. Get on it.
EDITOR: Harmin’ Harmon steph@thebrag.com 9552 6333 ARTS EDITOR & ASSOCIATE: Deatherson dee@thebrag.com 9552 6333 STAFF WRITER: Psycho Seidler NEWS CO-ORDINATORS: Nathan “I Killed Princess Di” Jolly, Ghoul Thomas, Chris Honnery
EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Publisher, Editor or Staff of The Brag.
The Australian music scene is pumping at the moment! You only have to look at the nominations for ‘Album of the Year’ at the ARIAs - where the majority are debut releases - to see that the scene is exciting and vibrant.
VIOLENT SOHO
PUBLISHERS: Adam Zammit & Rob Furst EDITOR IN CHIEF: Adam Zammit 9552 6333 adam@peergroupmedia.com
Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this address 153 Bridge Road, Glebe NSW 2037 ph - (02) 9552 6333 fax - (02) 9552 6866
I love being moved by music that’s doing it for me on all fronts; rhythm, melody, and lyrics. I strive for this in my music. On stage I try and strip back the veil between the stage and the audience, to be human and honest. We have a lot of fun and we love to connect through music. We give it all we got.
Meanwhile their forthcoming album is all about the joys and failure of commitment; which means if your relationship is a little iffy, this may tip it either way. Fun for everyone! Tickets go on sale Tuesday October 26.
Ariel Pink’s Hunted Graffiti
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
George Servanis, who I’ve watched for years - I’ve always loved his swing and attack and jungle filth! I’m a Mama for real, I have two kids and I sometimes struggle to strike the balance. It’s great touring with Michael and George not just because I love what they do musically, but because they really know me, they understand my life and they love my kids and my kids love them!
ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI
All that lo-fi, squelchy, glitchy, surf-tinged, cat-loving music you dig can be traced back to Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. Pretty much. Hanging around town on account of their national Laneway Festival tour, Ariel and co will kill the time between cities by playing the Manning Bar on February 9. The tour comes courtesy of our friends at Mistletone and, like most good things, The Brag is a presents partner. Tickets on sale now. Hop to!
FOR PEATS SAKE
Sure, the Peats Ridge lineup is amazing (Trentemoller, Built To Spill, Angus & Julia Stone, Shout Out Louds, PVT, Freestylers…), but everyone’s going kind of crazy for their sustainability at the moment – they just won ‘Best Achievement In Sustainability’ at the Australian Event Awards for the second year running. Aside from not leaving the hairdryer plugged in at the wall, the organisers have engaged Splashdown, Australia’s most professional toilet supplier, who will be turning toilet waste into compost (see festival guide for times). They’ll also charging a car levy to those who drive in order to reduce the carbon footprint, and will be supplying container deposits, campsite waste kits and running two stages on solar power. It’s like Ferngully, but with even more people dancing around dressed like fairies.
GET FREE FOR CHARITY
Not only are Billabong still at the forefront of wetsuit pencil-case design, they are also raising money for UNICEF’s Pakistan Flood Children’s Appeal. All you need to do is show up to Oxford Art Factory on November 24 and dish out $25, to watch The Vines and Operator Please. There will also be a Billabong Swim Fashion Show too. Good times, good cause. Win.
LAN PARTY PARTY
When I think Lan Party, I think of a bunch of guys eating cheese and bacon balls taunting each other via computer screens, drinking Fanta, spitting Family Guy quotes and having no chance of ever seeing a girl naked ever. Turns out they are also a Melbourne band who are sick of the symmetrical city, and are coming to our jagged haphazard harbour for two shows. November 6 at Déjà Vu Warehouse Party, and the following night at The Excelsior to launch their album, Personal Low.
THE PAPER SCISSORS ROCK ‘We Don’t Walk’ was everywhere a few years ago, and now Sydney’s The Paper Scissors are back to launch another single that will get lodged in your head like some form of fluoroparasite. The song is called ‘Lung Sum’, the launch is at Hermann’s Bar at Sydney Uni on October 29, and paper beats rock pretty much every time.
COLD WAR KIDS
We already knew Cold War Kids were heading down under to play a bunch of festivals (Falls Festival, Southbound and Sunset Sounds), but they’ve just announced a Sydney sideshow, too - on January 6 at the Enmore Theatre.
JEZ AND LANIE
Melbourne’s Jez Mead was born with a name that clearly required him to peruse the bluesy lifestyle. So after downing a tub of moonshine, Mead will blow into The Raval on November 27 in support of his ‘Town’s Too Small’ single. Lanie Lane, who was given a country singer’s name (but has a voice like Billie Holliday and a guitar called Betty), will be supporting Mead, with her blend of jazz, country, pop and charm. Do not miss this.
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AEONS
THE 80'S
THUR 28 OCT
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28 DAYS
After the massive amounts of fun of the last Inhouse Friday at Q, THE OCEAN THE SKY 8PM-$12/$15 when we had the BarStaff take control of FRI 29 OCT the decks, we've decided to see how good THE FILTH PRESENTS their music knowledge RED INK really is by flashing back (EP LAUNCH) to the 80's! NEW NAVY THE MONEY SMOKERS So get ready for a night 8PM $10 of Cyndi Lauper, Wham, Talking Heads and god SAT 30 OCT only knows what else the crew will pull out! Guest List Requests
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BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10 :: 13
rock music news
free stuff
welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on, down and around town. With Nathan Jolly and Cool Thomas
five things WITH TRISTAN FROM THE
Angus & Julia Stone
MONEY SMOKERS
Growing Up One of the earliest and most vivid 1. memories of music I have is driving
are a lot of different things happening sonically in The Money Smokers, but it all sounds like The Money Smokers, you know?
up the coast with Dad, listening to Neil Young’s Harvest. I didn’t really revisit that album ‘til I was older though - I was mostly into punk rock and hip hop. I got into rock and roll when I was about 18; I always had to be very diligent when it came to finding out about music when I was young, as I didn’t come from a particularly musical household. That journey of discovery has always been very exciting for me. Other numerous journeys of cosmic discovery were also very exciting, but those are stories for another day…
The Music You Make The Money Smokers, at our 4. core, are a rock n’ roll band, but that label doesn’t paint a full picture – it’s more like a peep-hole into what we do. When you see the full musical landscape, you get hints of sounds from people like Betty Davis and Gram Parsons. We just finished our debut EP, so you should be able to pick that up by the time you are reading this. The studio is a good place to be, but the live show is magic; the band is really dynamic - no two shows will ever be the same.
Inspirations A big inspiration for me would 2. have to be Keith Richards. He has
Music, Right Here, Right Now I think the live scene in Sydney is 5. doing well at the moment. There’s a
such a distinct style to whatever it is he’s doing. I really love Chris Robinson as well; I don’t think The Black Crowes get enough credit in Australia for the music they produce. Locally, Tim Rogers and Davey Lane have always killed it. The first time I heard You Am I was when #4 Record came out - I saw the video for ‘Rumble’, and that definitely changed shit for me.
lot of choice for what you’re into, and there’s usually something on most nights of the week. A few bands we’ve played with lately that are doing great things are the Delta Riggs and The Demon Parade – both definitely worth checking out when they’re passing through town.
You I’ve always wanted to be in a band 3. that can really play their instruments,
Who: The Money Smokers
where the individuals can explore their own musicianship and bring that into the service of the song. I feel like there
When: Every Friday in November
Where: Mum @ The World Bar
KYÜ AS A BUTTON
As I write this on a Friday afternoon, the BRAG staff are scrambling through their proofing to get out of the office early for kyü’s album launch. Should all the terror-reigning and gross cornercutting not result in kyü-fun, then we at least have their second album launch to look forward to - this Thursday October 28 at Goodgod Small Club. No need to sub! Print! PRINT!!!
FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM
PEATS RIDGE TICKETS The Peats Ridge Festival’s homepage features a hot air balloon, a love heart, bongo drums and a green tree frog. There’s probably no better way to capture the vibe of this chilled-out NYE festival than with those four objects. A smorgasbord of artists, including Angus & Julia Stone, Trentemoller, PVT, Kate Miller-Heidke, Cloud Control and Jinja Safari, will be there to pamper your ears over three days, turning people attending this festival into the luckiest of ducks. Well Brag readers, YOU and your BFFFL can be those ducks. To win a three-day camping double pass (worth $600+), tell us which Nelly Furtado song Angus & Julia Stone have covered...
one relevant to most of you is Tuesday February 8 at The Metro. If you haven’t got their latest album and care about things like this, Halcyon Digest scored some 9.2 action on everyone’s favourite p4k - and has been getting The Brag through deadline madness ever since Popfrenzy sent us a promo copy. We’ll see you up the front.
Metronomy
MOVEMBER
This probably will miss the mark with all of you hipbags who already have ironic moustaches but for the rest, Movember is almost here. For those of you who don’t have a terrible ‘tash already, this is your chance to don one for a good cause – for the rest, shave it off and try again. Register over at movember.com and help raise awareness about mens health; specifically, prostate cancer and depression.
Guineafowl
SARAH BLASKO VS. SEJA METRONOMY
For those who thought electro-pop was the domain of Pet-Shop-Boys plundering, Booshquoting hipsters, UK four-piece Metronomy are here to show you that you can create this kind of music without pretending to like Gary Numan. November 23 will see them at Oxford Art Factory with World’s End Press, and tickets went on sale this morning while you were eating reheated Subway and crying into your lap. Why are you so sad all the time? Cheer up! Metronomy are coming!
NEWTOWN FESTIVAL
If you live in Newtown and were planning to toss the ol’ gripball around Camperdown Park on November 14, then you will have roughly 80,000 people RUINING YOUR FUN. On the other hand, if you like community festivals, market stalls, happy high herbs and gozleme, you can have all of these things while watching bands like Stiff Gins, Snowdroppers, Mojo Juju and the Snake Oil Merchants, Skipping Girl Vinegar, Liz Martin, Get Folked (I see what they’ve done), Thundamentals, Dyan Tai, Alter Ego Mania, Guineafowl, Richard In Your Mind, megastick fanfare, The Paper Scissors, Brain Campeau and effloads more. Oh and there’s a dog show too. Entry is technically free, but give a gold coin, or maybe even a note…
THE GOOD SHIP
The Good Ship refer to themselves as ‘Brisbane’s favourite sons of pirate swagger’, which means that we instantly like them. They’re coming to Sydney on November 5 to play at The Excelsior Hotel for an tenner, to launch the cutely-titled ‘These Are A Few Of My Favorite Fling.’ It’s the latest single from their debut LP Avast Wretched Sea, which is an awesomely dark hoe-down that you should probably buy.
THE METRO’S MONSTER MASH
Ahh... Halloween... That special time of year that has absolutely nothing to do with Australia’s cultural heritage, but offers a good enough excuse for everyone to dress all sexy and go a bit crazy. Or is that Icecream Tuesdays? Either way, on October 30 The Metro is hosting one hell of a spooktacular, with Dappled Cities, Spod, The Laurels, Guineafowl and more playing for your benefit. Early bird tickets are
When acts tour together I like to imagine them fighting. So okay, Sarah Blasko wants to fight Seja heaps badly because she’s getting smashed on triple j and community stations, so Seja has agreed to a punch-on at the Enmore Theatre on Friday October 29. Tickets are on sale from the venue - so bring your mates, take your shirt off and fight each other. (Don’t actually do that.)
$25, pre-sale are $35, and on the door it’s $40. We just put our heads together at Brag HQ to weigh up the options, and it turns out ‘early bird’ is the most frugal option. Quick. On sale now.
TOY DEATH
Toy Death (that mob that make hilarious tunes from bent and broken toys while wearing costumes [awesome]) are running an ‘Electronics for Artists and Musicians’ workshop on the weekend of December 18 and 19, in Marrickville. Get your solder on and learn to make wacky sounds with cheap things. The eight hours over two days will set you back $160, but you have to book from toydeath.com
DEERHUNTING
One of the best parts about being a media outlet is seeing your logo on the poster of your favourite band’s tour. Deerhunter have just announced the sideshows they’ll be playing while they’re down here for Laneway – and the
Sarah Blasko
“I’ll be in my basement room with a needle and a spoon and another girl who can take my pain away”- Ladies And Gentlemen, THE ROLLING STONES 14 :: BRAG :: 385 : 25:10:10
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dance music news
free stuff
welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Chris Honnery
FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM
five things WITH Growing Up We didn’t have to grow up, we are grown 1. ups… Adults in fact! Our weekly party is called Adult Disco and I guess it’s aimed at people who want a Saturday night of dancefloor tunes aimed less at the kids who have just discovered going out at night. Inspirations One of the main ideas behind Adult 2. Disco is getting our favourite artists and DJs to Sydney, to play with us on a killer sound system with a friendly dancefloor. Some of the artists that we’ve been stoked to host include Henrik Schwarz, Todd Terje, Joakim, Holy Ghost!, Aeroplane, Chez Damier, Trevor Jackson, Classixx, Woolfy and Jacques
KYU ALBUM LAUNCH #2
CHAD OF FUTURE CLASSIC DJS Renault. Most people don’t talk about it, but not everyone that writes great tracks knows how to rock a dancefloor. We try to get acts that can do both. We also have our record label and are mega excited by all of the local producers we’re working with. People like Sidwho?, The Loin Brothers, Luke Million, Jamie Lloyd and Mitzi, a new band from Brisbane we’ve just signed for our 50th release. It’s pretty fun seeing songs from our local artists go from being an idea or a demo to being pressed on vinyl, and having some of our favourite DJs from around the world playing them.
etc. So that’s Nathan McLay, James McInnes, Jay Ryves and myself. We also have a pretty extended family of helpers and friends who chip in where they can. The Music You Make I guess we’ve become associated with 4. disco and deep house a fair bit lately. The music we’re putting out on the label is for the most part 12”s aimed at the dancefloor, though we’ve just started signing some bands that are a bit more indie and a bit less dancefloor. It’s nice to be working with music that we wouldn’t necessarily play in the club.
Crew Our crew is made up of the three of us that 3.Your Music, Right Here, Right Now work in the Future Classic office I think the scene in Sydney is pretty 5. on the label, touring, strong at the moment. For live music and publishing, design
parties there’s plenty going on, and there’s also a bunch of really great bands and producers making music locally who are just starting to get some play overseas. A lot of the international artists we tour are pleasantly surprised by the quality of the music being made by the locals here, as well as by the crowds they get to play to in the clubs. Who: Future Classic DJs, Simon Caldwell, Ken Cloud, Kali What: Really Scary Halloween Special @ Adult Disco Where: Civic Underground When: Saturday October 30
opulent nightspot will receive the ‘Pacha treatment’, with the party set to engulf every last crevasse of Ivy including the VIP areas like Pool Club and Changeroom. To fill all these areas, an elaborate local support cast of DJs has been assembled, with Flight Facilities, Matt Nugent, Johnny Gleeson, DJ Mo¹Funk and John Glover among those representing. Second Release tickets are available for $150 online.
ROBYN
Mos Def
MOS DEF
Acclaimed rapper and actor (Be Kind, Rewind) Mos Def has announced his first ever headline tour of Australia, the ‘Ecstatic Tour’, in support of his recent album of the same name. On his previous trip down under, Mos accompanied DJ Shadow - but this time he’ll be taking centre stage and showcasing cuts from The Ecstatic, along with older albums Black on Both Sides, The New Danger and True Magic. In more recent developments, Def has just signed on with Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music imprint for his next album, a further sign of the pair’s burgeoning creative relationship; West and Mos have collaborated several times over the years, most recently on the G.O.O.D. Friday track ‘Lord Lord Lord’. Mos Def will play The Enmore Theatre on Sunday January 9.
Robyn has announced the third album of this year’s Body Talk trilogy, following Body Talk Pt. 1 and Pt. 2. Guess what? It’s not called Pt. 3. In fact, it’s not really a new album. It collects five tracks from each of the trilogy’s first two parts, with five new Robyn cuts. The Swedish singer explains, “it was never my goal to break some kind of world record in how many songs I could release in a year. Although I think it would count as a pretty good attempt, it’s been about the process for me. It’s been very interesting to try and figure out a more organic way of making music. A way that is unbiased and has its starting point in what feels logical to me, but also to the listeners,” she says, ending on her vision of this record as the “Turbo” version of the past two Body Talk albums. Can’t knock a Street Fighter reference, right?
FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL, TICKETS THIS WEEK
Tickets for next year’s mammoth Future Music Festival go on sale 9am this Thursday, October 28. The line-up features a panoply of acts that should 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
Let the record show that first release tickets for The Ivy’s Pacha NYE event have already sold out - though considering the popularity of the international headliners Bob ‘Love Generation’ Sinclar and Basement ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ Jaxx, it’s no surprise tickets are moving fast. The
Snob Scrilla
TRIPLE EP LAUNCH
Three burgeoning Sydney bands are forming a triumvirate under which they will launch each of their debut EPs; and what better place to do it than at ye olde faithful, The Annandale. Rude boy rebel rockers Sticky Fingers will be getting sticky feet on the venue’s sticky carpet, joined by Sydney Uni band comp finalists The Future Prehistoric and swamprock metal punks The Colt 44s. The evening is going to be eclectic, ecstatic and erudite. No, it’s not actually going to be erudite, we just needed another word starting with E and that one sounded good. To win one of five double passes to the gig, on October 30, tell us what you were doing the last time you got sticky fingers. (Oh dear…)
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. Future Music Festival will fall on Saturday March 12 at Randwick Racecourse.
12TH PLANET @ CHINESE LAUNDRY
Direct from LA and fresh from supporting M.I.A, 12th Planet (a.k.a John Dadzie) arrives on our shores shortly courtesy of Fuzzy. Dadzie has amassed a formidable collection of original productions and remixes over the last few years, notably reworking Rusko’s crossover-smash ‘Hold On’ and DJ Sneak’s ‘Southern Boy’, and transforming Little Jinder’s ‘Youth Blood’ into one of this year’s more inventive dub anthems. Dadzie plays Chinese Laundry next Saturday November 5, with Will Styles, Rubio, Gabriel Clouston, Inna Riddim Sound, Temnein and MC Hayley Boa also representin’.
PVT RMX EP
Sydney’s prized export PVT (formerly Pivot) have just dropped a new EP: Light Up Bright Fires - a remix EP of the title track, which is lifted from their new album Church With No Magic - is out now on Warp via Inertia. The release follows ‘Window’, which was one of NME’s tracks of the week and spawned a frenetic first-person video that was featured on Pitchfork and NME. Currently on tour in America, PVT will return to our shores to play a series of dates in the New Year, as part of the Laneway Festival.
HARBOUR PARTY ADDITIONS
IVY NYE
kyü are Australia’s answer to Bowie, Bjork and Animal Collective, all at the same time. Okay, that’s a pretty grand claim, but hey, they are a pretty grand duo. Freya Berkhout and Alyx Dennison create immense experimental pop with nods to ethereal tribal sounds that make you forget that a) they’ve only been playing together for 12 months and b) kyü is only two people. After selling out their first album launch at the Paddington Uniting Church, they’ve decided to treat those who missed out to a second album launch on October 28 at Goodgod Small Club, supported by Pikelet and other special guests. To score one of two double passes to the Goodgod Small Club gig, tell us what Jonathan Boulet song kyü have covered.
More acts have been announced for the Harbour Party NYE fiesta at Luna Park. Snob Scrilla, Metals, Nina Las Vegas and The Only, whose debut single reached #1 on the Australian Independent Music Chart, will join international German heavyweights Digitalism, US house don Dennis Ferrer, underground sensation Sneaky Sound System and Dirty Bird’s Riva Starr playing at the prime vantage point. Fireworks, rides, beats and an all-round carnival atmosphere – not a bad way to drink in the New Year eh? Tickets are currently on sale.
BOUNDARY BONDS WITH...
KEVIN TRAN VISUAL ARTIST
Can you explain your art a little for us? I never really have a pre-planned aim or destination. I try to create smooth, natural textures that lock together to create some visual tension or character. After I feel there is enough energy and depth on the surface, I’ll start looking into the marks for cues to tell me what to do next. Where do you draw inspiration from? I guess I get inspired by people, places and things that happen in my life. Last year, I really got into house/ electro music and had a lot of fun at summer music festivals. So for my most recent body of work, ‘Strobe’, I drew on the vivid colours of festival lights and tried to capture a similar sort of visual energy in my images. Did you ever doubt your ability to make art your occupation? I was interested in fine art but studied a graphic design course at UTS instead, because it was the safer career option. I’ve been lucky to receive really encouraging response from my shows, and that gives me a huge amount of confidence to keep creating new work. Where’s the coolest place one of your pieces is? I had my first overseas group exhibition in Orange County, California. Back in the day, I had a crush on Anna from The O.C, so it was pretty cool to have my work up there. Check out kevintrandesign.com for more
“See the fire is sweepin’ our very street today. Burns like a red coal carpet , mad bull has lost its way”- Ladies And Gentlemen, THE ROLLING STONES 16 :: BRAG :: 385 : 25:10:10
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free stuff
dance music news welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Chris Honnery onthefly.com.au WITH
FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM
ALISON WONDERLAND (SOSUEME)
five things
WITH WESTERNSYNTHETICS Growing Up Bob Dylan was my first and most 1. enduring musical memory. My parents were very musical but nobody played instruments - but they taught me to be a musician. I am a historical materialist, so naturally I take the opinion that my subjective history historically has an ultimate and conclusive impact on my musical disposition. Inspirations Bob Dylan, James Brown, PJ 2. Harvey, Nick Cave, The Clash, Patti Smith, Rage Against The Machine. I remember the first time I heard Bob Dylan. It was the Desire album, and I was eight years old. The harmonica line in the song ‘Sara’ made me weep. It still does. At the moment, I’m inspired by Sydney band Cabins, as well as Brackets, Nick Cave, and my collaborations with Sofie Loizou. You I don’t have a band at the moment 3. this will change in 2011 - but I have a crew, called Void/Index. We met in the dark at Phoenix bar. We’re connected by our mutual distaste for wage slavery and our insatiable penchant for bass, combined with musical and spiritual escapism on
Friday nights (after a week of said slavery.) We always have different musical opinions, but that’s what ties us together. The Music You Make I make dubstep, techno and electronica, 4. deeply rooted in a punk ethos with a tendency for psychedelic escapism. My contemporaries are Sofie Loizou, Spherix, Flippo, Bec Paton, Kodama, Victim, Mark Pritchard, 3rd Eye, Gentleforce, Gravious, Monk Fly. Music, Right Here, Right Now The music scene (and art in general) 5. everywhere in the world is being hampered by the capitalist mode of production. Art is stifled by parasitic philistines not only exploiting the labour of artists, but moulding them into their bourgeois orthodoxy. The true liberation of art and culture can only come about via the liberation of humanity from the shackles of capitalism. This task can only be brought about by the working class of the world. The French workers are currently leading the way in this struggle. Prolétaires du monde entier unissez-vous! Who: Westernsynthetics Where: Index @ Phoenix Bar / Peats Ridge Festival
With five pseudonyms that revolve around the word ‘bone’ (Layzie Bone, Krayzie Bone, Wish Bone, Flesh-N-Bone and Bizzy Bone), Bone Thugs N Harmony sure know how to make their nicknames dope, as well as their beats. The fabled quintet have cemented their place in the annals of hip hop, with over 30 million album sales, Grammy awards, and collaborations with 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G to their name. The Bones have put on a second show at The Gaelic on November 21, having sold out their first Sydney show at the same venue. We have two double passes to donate to our sexy readers, just tell us what bone-inspired moniker you would adopt to become the 6th member of Bone Thugs N Harmony.
When: November 12 / December 29 – January 1
in the making. In the meantime he’s been collaborating with Michael Mayer under the ‘Supermayer’ alias. The pair’s slow burning debut LP Save The World spawned the club bomb ‘Two of Us’, and they’ve also crafted some memorable remixes for artists as diverse as Hot Chip, Alter Ego, our own Gotye and Rufus Wainwright. Support includes Tiago Oudman, Matt Aubusson, Diatribe and Jamie Lloyd over three levels of the cruiser. The boat departs Rose Bay wharf at 3.30pm and docks at 10pm, with final release tickets still available through residentadvisor.net
Mary J. Blige
BONE THUGS N HARMONY
SMIRNOFF NIGHTLIFE EXCHANGE: BRAZIL!
The Smirnoff saga continues. For those not up to speed, here’s where we’re up to: Smirnoff
vodka asked the Australian public to vote on the best elements of our nightlife as part of a global campaign called The Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project, which was coordinated largely through mediums like Facebook. Ksubi co-founder Dan Single selected which items made the cut to be placed in Australia’s crate, the contents of which were revealed in an exclusive bash last week that was hosted by the inimitable Matt Okine. Now for the new facts: it turns out Australia’s crate will be repacked and shipped off to Brazil, and we will in turn receive Brazil’s crate and unpack it on Saturday November 27 as part of a fiesta that also includes street performers, a Brazilian BBQ and party starters Bonde do Rolê headlining. For more information and the chance to be there, become a fan of Smirnoff Australia at facebook.com/SmirnoffAustralia
Koolism
RAGGAMUFFIN FESTIVAL
The annual reggae festival, Raggamuffin, returns in 2011 for its fourth consecutive year. Next year’s event will play host to the likes of nine-time Grammy Award-winner Mary J. Blige, The Original Wailers – and if you’re thinking Bob Marley and The Wailers you’re correct, as it’s three of the original members in their latest incarnation – Jimmy Cliff, Maxi Priest, Sean Paul, Ky-Mani Marley, The Black Seeds and The Red Eyes. Raggamuffin is slotted for Friday January 28 at Parramatta Park, with tickets on sale from Wednesday November 3.
MOUSE ON MARS
One for the heads: German electronic duo Mouse On Mars are touring Australia for the first time and play Oxford Art Factory this Saturday October 30. With a sound conflating ambient, experimental, rock and techno influences, Mouse On Mars are hugely respected by the electronic cognoscenti, and have chalked up a discography comprising eleven commended LPs, beginning with their debut album Vulvaland, a collection of “ambienthouse ectoplasms” in the mid-90s. While recent releases seemed to be building towards a more live and pop-infused sound, Mouse On Mars’ latest album Varcharz halted the pattern with its firmly experimental electronic foundation. Support on the night will come courtesy of Seekae and QUA - and you can read my riveting and informative interview with Mouse On Mars main man Jan St. Werner a little deeper in the mag.
JACK
Guess who’s back, back again. JACK is back, tell a friend. The complimentary bash dedicated to everything from house and disco to Chicago and ‘boogie’ will take over the Polo Lounge near Taylor Square this Friday. As usual, music will come courtesy of residents Mark Murphy – he of Spank Records fame – and Speakeasy’s Magda. Better still, it’s *free* to get in.
SUPERPITCHER
Kompakt kingpin Superpitcher plays Subsonic’s fancy dress Halloween Boat Party this Saturday from 3.30 - 10pm along with Frenchman Alexkid. On his last appearance down under Superpitcher put in a marathon performance at Livewire, and he returns on the back of his long-awaited sophomore album Kilimanjaro, an LP no less than six years
KOOLISM TOUR
After selling out their first run of album launch shows, Koolism - MC Hau and DJ Danielsan - have announced the next phase of their nationwide tour. The pair recently completed The Umu, an LP four years in the making. Hau says the album was “dedicated to the essence of original and classic hip hop, and the title is inspired by a Tongan word for an underground oven - a cooking technique that is practiced throughout the South Pacific… Dan and I, along with some close friends, have been cooking up this album since December 2006. And now, in 2010, we’re finally ready to serve it.” With the album out now on Remote Control Records, and lauded in this very publication as “fucking absolutely bumping” – positively Hemmingwayesque huh? – you can catch Koolism at Good Vibrations on Saturday February 12, or in Katoomba on Friday Nov 19 at Hotel Gearin if you want to see them sooner.
“Scarred old slaver knows he’s doin’ alright. Here him whip the women just around midnight”- Ladies And Gentlemen, THE ROLLING STONES 18 :: BRAG :: 385 : 25:10:10
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Industrial Strength themusicnetwork.com
Industry Music News with Christie Eliezer
DIGITAL SALES UP Digital music sales are expected to hit $360 million in Australia by 2014, says PricewaterhouseCoopers’ study the ‘Australian Entertainment and Media Outlook’. Since the expansion of legal download services five years ago, digital sales have soared. Last year there were 38 million digital music purchases compared to the sale of 28 million CD units. The consumer is definitely in the power seat now, with Google’s download service expected by Christmas - as a serious rival to Apple’s iTunes.
FOXTIX TAKES ON TICKETEK, TICKETMASTER Foxtix (foxtix.com.au) is a new national ticketing service set up by News Ltd to take on Ticketek and Ticketmaster. It will be led by Adam McArthur, also general manager of Moshtix. Promoters and venue managers will get increased coverage of events through News Ltd’s newspapers, websites and apps, and McArthur promises that consumers will benefit from new technology that will minimise scalping, and new ticketing delivery methods. They’ll be able to buy tickets on mobile devices and re-sell
Life lines Expecting: the juice is that Jay-Z and Beyoncé are unexpectedly expecting their first child — putting an end to her plans to do a world tour in 2011. Born: son Egypt Dean to Alicia Keys and husband Swizz Beatz. Married: rumours are that The Kills’ Jamie Hince and Kate Moss married in a low key ceremony in Sicily, in front of 40 friends. The couple became an item in 2007. Moss’ daughter Lila Grace was one of three ring bearers. Confirmed: Lady Gaga and her boyfriend Luc Carl are apparently so serious about each other that they’ve undergone a “spiritual” commitment ceremony under the moon, while on vacation on the island of Crete. Ill: Archie Roach, 55, is recovering in Broome Hospital after suffering a stroke while doing a workshop at the remote Warmun community, in the far north of WA. Ill: Chrissy Amphlett, 51, of Divinyls fame, who a few years ago revealed she had multiple sclerosis, now says she also has breast cancer. Recovering: Adam Yauch of The Beastie Boys is recovering from cancer, and he’s back in the studio working on their album Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 1 Arrested: Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder, Kareem “Biggs” Burke and 43 others, for their alleged involvement in a narcotic ring.
tickets, and choose their own seat at venues.
CHELSEA HOTEL UP FOR SALE New York’s Chelsea Hotel — where Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Smith, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison stayed — is up for sale. Celebrated in songs like Joni Mitchell’s ‘Chelsea Morning’ and Nico’s ‘Chelsea Girl’, it’s where Dylan Thomas and Sid Vicious’ girlfriend Nancy Spungen died.
SPLENDOUR ASKS FOR HELP The friends of Splendour In The Grass are urging fans to provide positive submissions for its application for a permanent home at the 660-acre North Byron Parklands, which is on public exhibition with the NSW Department of Planning. There’s an online form at www. bringsplendourhome.com.
THINGS WE HEAR * Vines singer Craig Nicholls joined the Smashing Pumpkins at their Sydney show on his own song, ‘Get Free’. * Just a week before being jailed for possession of ecstasy, US rapper T.I. talked a man down from a 22-storey building in Atlanta — by promising he could meet him when he came down. * Rumour going around the US hip hop scene is that scientists are studying the body of gossip columnist Kat Stacks, to determine how she beat AIDS. * Is Kings Cross nightclub operator John Ibrahim the new owner of the Bayswater Brasserie site?
RECORD REVENUE FOR APRA, AMCOS APRA|AMCOS posted a record revenue of $222.1 million for the financial year ending June 30 2010. This combined increase in revenue of 5.8% for the two societies meant that a record $194.6m was available for distribution to members and affiliated societies. Their joint digital download revenue was up 52.6%. APRA’s gross revenue – covering performance and broadcast income – grew by 8.0% during the year, to $172.4 million. Its general performance licensing revenue increased 21.6% to $50.6 million while its international revenue reached a record $21.9 million
CONTROL SELECTS 15 MUSIC MANAGERS
CONTROL: The Business of Music Management has selected 15 names to enter its program, designed to equip Australian music managers with strategic business skills. The program, which runs November 14 to August 2010, is presented by the Australian Music Industry Network (made up of peak state music associations), and supported by the Association of Artist Managers. Those from NSW are Megan Horan, Neil Hunt, Melanie Lake, Chelsea Sinnott, Jerry Soer and Julia Wilson.
VELLA INVENTS SONGCATCHER APP Sydney singer songwriter John Vella is releasing his SongCatcher app for the iPhone at the same time as his new Green MGM album Backbreaker, at the Annandale Hotel on November 4. SongCatcher is the first professional recording studio for the iPhone, with audio and MIDI recording. It has a resizable keyboard to play, ten different instruments, a MIDI editor and a mixer. The idea is that any musician or songwriter who comes up with an idea, wherever they are, can email them to their home immediately.
CDS FOR $1.60? The price of music albums should be slashed to around £1 (about A$1.60) suggested Rob Dickins, former head of Warner Music UK, at the In The City music conference in Manchester. He said that discounting and falling sales had already seen chart CDs drop from £12.99 to £6.99, and some retailers were selling them at £3.99. He believes that dropping the price would see more fans buy CDs on impulse and stop illegal downloading, while labels could make up the difference from merchandising and concert tickets. But other labels execs and artist managers dismissed the notion as “ridiculous” and “out of date”.
* Brisbane band Dead Letter Circus’ drummer Luke Williams told triple j that the concept for the video for new single ‘Cage’ came from singer Kim Benzie, via a traditional Native American dreamcatcher. He dreamed of a forest, later identified in regional Victoria, Mount Macedon. The lasers and smoke machines brought forth complaints from residents about an illegal rave, and a visit from the local cops. * The Black Keys finally got the trophy for winning ‘Breakthrough Video’ at the MTV awards — except it was attributed to Black Eyed Peas. The Keys posted on Facebook, “We are sure proud of Fergie!”
›› TMN TOP 40 The top 40 most ‘heard’ songs on Australian radio. TW LW TI HP P1 P2 P3 ARTIST
TRACK
LABEL
1
4
6
1 13 30 62 RIHANNA
ONLY GIRL (IN THE WORLD)
DEF/UMA
2
1
8
1 15 28 60 BRUNO MARS
JUST THE WAY YOU ARE
ATL/WMA
3
2 12 2 14 29 53 MIKE POSNER
COOLER THAN ME
SME SME
4
3
6
2 15 40 69 KINGS OF LEON
RADIOACTIVE
5
5
2
5 14 38 69 PINK
RAISE YOUR GLASS
SME
6
6
8
5 14 28 53 CEE-LO GREEN
FU
WMUK/WMA
7
8 13 1 14 26 57 TAIO CRUZ
DYNAMITE
ISL/UMA
8 10 6
JUST A DREAM
UNI/UMA
FOR THE FIRST TIME
SME
10 7 13 1 14 33 59 KATY PERRY
TEENAGE DREAM
CAP/EMI
11 11 16 8 17 35 55 BIRDS OF TOKYO
PLANS
CAP/EMI
12 12 10 12 12 26 53 ZOE BADWI
FREE FALLIN’
NEON/WMA
13 13 11 10 13 29 55 GOOD CHARLOTTE
LIKE IT’S HER BIRTHDAY
CAP/EMI
14 15 13 11 11 28 52 B.O.B FT. RIVERS CUOMO
MAGIC
ATL/WMA
15 18 5 15 13 39 68 TRAIN
SAVE ME, SAN FRANCISCO
SME
16 16 12 11 13 24 52 KE$HA
TAKE IT OFF
SME
9
8 11 26 46 NELLY
9 12 6 11 38 69 THE SCRIPT
17 17 15 7 13 26 58 THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS
CLOSER TO THE EDGE
VIR/EMI
18 14 14 2 14 27 58 USHER FT. PITBULL
DJ GOT US FALLIN’ IN LOVE
SME
19 19
FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT
SME
FIREWORK
CAP/EMI
6 18 10 29 53 ADAM LAMBERT
20 NEW 1 20 11 21 43 KATY PERRY 21 20 13 4
14 27 54
LADY GAGA
DANCE IN THE DARK
INT/UMA
21 5
15 41 61
TRAIN
IF IT’S LOVE
SME
23 21 10 21 12 24 44
DUCK SAUCE
BARBARA STREISAND
ETC/UMA
24 26 16 15 12 39 53
NICKELBACK
THIS AFTERNOON
RR/WMA
25 48 17 25 10 31 48
THE TEMPER TRAP
FADER
LIB/UMA
26 33 17 12 14 36 59
MAROON 5
MISERY
A&M/UMA
27 22 21 1
UNCLE KRACKER
SMILE
ATL/WMA
JESSICA MAUBOY FT. SNOOP DOGG
GET ‘EM GIRLS
SME
ADAM LAMBERT
IF I HAD YOU
SME
LITTLE RED
ROCK IT
LIB/UMA
MICHAEL PAYNTER
LOVE THE FALL
SME
POWDERFINGER
IBERIAN DREAM
UMA
33 30 19 18 13 37 64
JOHN BUTLER TRIO
REVOLUTION
JAR/MGM
34 47 5
3OH!3
DOUBLE VISION
ATL/WMA
FLO RIDA FT. DAVID GUETTA
CLUB CAN’T HANDLE ME
ATL/WMA GEF/UMA
22
25
28 24 5
24 11 26 50
29 27 20 1 30 36 9
10 32 61
23 12 36 68 34 11 23 45
35 31 18 5 36 40 4
14 30 56
30 13 26 41
31 29 17 7 32 38 9
14 40 69
12 25 46 35 65
LIFEHOUSE
ALL IN
37 28 12 21 10 27 61
36 9
STAN WALKER
CHOOSE YOU
SME
38 32 22 12 16 28 49
GYROSCOPE
BABY, I’M GETTING BETTER
UMA
39 37 25 2
SCOUTING FOR GIRLS
THIS AIN’T A LOVE SONG
SME
TAYLOR SWIFT
MINE
BIG/UMA
16 40 64
40 23 10 10 12 36 90
Stickers, posters, flyers, banners & design at very competetive prices. See our webpage for more info 20 :: BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10
* Robbie Williams says he’d have retired from pop music if he hadn’t rejoined Take That.
02 9317 5777 gnpprint@tpg.com.au
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Tainted Love
S
ean Byrne had a dream. “I woke up one morning with this image of a troubled kid – a Kurt Cobain type – and he was in a tuxedo, which was all bloodied; and tied to a chair in the middle of a balloon-littered floor, and there was a mirrorball above his head. I thought, ‘Right, who is this kid, how did he get into this situation, and how is he going to get out? Who’s done this to him?’” The kid is 17-year-old pot-smoking, heavy-metallistening Brent, who is struggling with grief and guilt after being behind the wheel during a car accident that killed his father. His captors are high school wallflower Lola (who is hiding more than just her feelings for Brent), and her unhinged Daddy. As to whether (or how) he gets out… let’s just say it’s Lola’s party, and she’ll make him cry if she wants to. Born in Tasmania, and growing up in Hobart with a film-obsessed father (“he used to drive to Launceston just to tape films that were showing on TV there”), Sean Byrne grew up saturated in film, but got sidetracked in university by a law degree. When he finally got to AFTRS, he was ready to get serious about filmmaking; by the time he graduated in 2001, he was starting to feel desperate. He’d already written a couple of feature film scripts, but realised they were too offbeat and ambitious for a first-time feature film director. “I felt like, well, I’m not really getting any younger, so I need to start thinking about what the market demands if I’m ever going to have a career.” Byrne turned to horror – a genre that provided the perfect launch-pad for filmmakers like Sam Raimi (Spiderman), Peter Jackson (LOTR), Spielberg and Coppola. “I was also excited by the fact that there aren’t really that many great horror films out there – over the last 20 years you could almost count them on one hand. I thought, if I can write something that has a depth of characterisation, and some twists and turns that people don’t expect, I’ll cut through the clutter.” And as writer and director of The Loved Ones, that’s precisely what Byrne has done. He’s cut through the clutter of average films that litter the
By B y Dee Jefferson international market, with a film that’s smart, sexy, deranged, and packs a serious visual punch. Besides being selected for more than twenty film festivals here and around the world, The Loved Ones has enchanted audiences, including die-hard genre fans. When it screened in Toronto International Film Festival’s prestigious ‘Midnight Madness’ sidebar last year (the world’s premier showcase for genre films) it won the People’s Choice Award, against studio films like Jennifer’s Body, Daybreakers, and George Romero’s Survival of the Dead. Winning at TIFF is a triumph for Byrne, in every sense. “Of all the festivals, the Midnight Madness sidebar is a good indication of how a film will play in a multiplex on a Friday or Saturday night,” he explains. “It doesn’t really have that sort of ‘art house’ or ‘festival’ prestige about it, it’s just really for the punters. The Loved Ones isn’t the most super-serious film in the world, it’s a whole lotta fun! It’s gleefully demented escapism; it’s a pizza-and-beer (or date night) kind of film.” Sure enough, The Loved Ones has generated word-of-mouth hype from punters; but it’s also flooring critics, who are marking Byrne as a talent to watch. Tastemakers like AintItCool. com, Bloodydisgusting.com, Fangoria and Twitchfilm.net, who don’t suffer fools lightly, cooed over the film’s attractive mix of compelling characters, prom-night dramas, and gross-out gore – sort of like Pretty In Pink meets Texas Chain Saw Massacre. While it embraces the conventions of its genre, The Loved Ones also subverts them – most obviously by reversing the usual gender roles between victim and villain, but also by keeping audiences off-balance, plot-wise. A horror fan since his teen years, Byrne cites Carrie, Evil Dead 2, Misery and Texas Chain Saw as influences, to varying degrees. “I’m a huge Sam Raimi fan; particularly Evil Dead 2, which is such a wildly inventive use of a single location – and just the deliciously twisted, fun tone that film has. Structurally, Misery was a template for me in terms of screenwriting; it’s another claustrophobic horror, where you’ve got
a girl who is torturing a guy – but also the way that Misery cuts out to the Sheriff and his wife, for moments of light relief.” The Loved Ones intertwines the bloody ordeal of Brent and Lola with a parallel (and interconnected, we discover) storyline about a more gently-mismatched prom couple, undergoing their own misadventures: Jamie (baby-faced newcomer Richard Wilson), who isn’t sure what’s more terrifying – asking the girl of his dreams to the prom, or the nervous ordeal of actually being her date; and Mia (Jessica McNamee of Packed To The Rafters), the raven-haired man-eater in question. At these moments, where the routine terror of high school dating is explored, you can see Byrne’s affection for the ‘80s teen dramedies of John Hughes (The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles) shining through. “And Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused – that’s my favourite teen film,” he adds. Byrne also cast The Loved Ones like a Hughes film, full of attractive archetypes who are just individual enough to be fascinating – including Aussie heartthrob Xavier Samuel (Twilight Saga: Eclipse) and Sydney thesp Robin McLeavy (A Street Car Named Desire – STC). Samuel, who recently finished filming the Elizabethan drama Anonymous (with Vanessa Redgrave, among others) was attracted to the complexity of Brent, and had been impressed by Byrne’s short film Advantage (2007). He sent Byrne an audition tape from LA. “I had seen the film September, so I knew that Xavier knew how to handle inner conflict,” Byrne recalls. He was looking for someone who was “not only good looking, and interesting looking, but also had a real command of his craft, and a strong internal presence – because I knew he would be strapped to a chair for 60% of the film, so he was going to have to tell so much through his eyes.” Samuel may be Australia’s hottest Hollywood export right now, but it’s Robin McLeavy who has got audiences and critics really sweating; Twitch sum up the general sentiment when they say, “she is absolutely magnetic, sure to
become a horror icon for the ages.” “She came in [to audition] and just knocked it out of the park,” laughs Byrne. “As a fan of actors, I just love watching that performance, because it treads this incredibly fine line between loneliness, brattiness, sexiness, and total insanity. I’m so excited about people seeing that performance; for me it’s one of the most electric, breakthrough performances by an Australian actor.” Although Byrne is being hailed as part of the new wave of Aussie horror, he feels like the cutting edge of the genre is actually happening in Europe, and lists filmmakers like Gaspar Noé (Irreversible), Michael Haneke (Funny Games; Antichrist) and Pascal Laugier (Martyrs) among his current inspirations. “European horror strips away the normal elements of horror – the clichéd score, the sound design and the obviousness of the script – and when something really horrible is happening, it tends to just sit back, be objective, and make the audience endure it. It doesn’t really let you off the hook.” The Loved Ones, however, is a more playful beast. “[Editor] Andy Canny and I really tried to push the confronting moments as far as we possibly could, but not so far that people are going to get up and walk out. It’s kind of like a pinball machine: the further you can pull back the lever, when you release it, the faster the pinball will fly around.” Which goes to the heart of why horror continues to be such a powerful and popular genre: the cathartic release of fear. “Horror often gets labelled as a disposable genre,” Byrne laments, “that’s just about sexy cardboard cut-outs getting killed in inventive ways. But really good horror films milk that moment between life and death. I mean, I can’t imagine anything more dramatic.” Who: The Loved Ones, Dir. Sean Byrne When: Opens November 4 Where: www.thelovedonesmovie.com
“I was raised by a toothless bearded hag. I was schooled with a strap right across my back” - Ladies And Gentlemen, THE ROLLING STONES 22 :: BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10
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Brian Wilson Just Keep Breathing By Oliver Downes
B
rian Wilson is a survivor. It can be heard in his voice; in a life which has overcome more than its share of turbulance, his is a stubborn yet graceful vitality that has found its purpose and expression through a persistent dedication to music. “Love means… to breath is to love I would say,” he affirms. “I’ve got a lot of love in my heart; all you gotta do is breath to love.” At 68, the pioneer of Californian surf pop, iconic frontman of The Beach Boys and composer of one of the most influential pop albums of the sixties, Pet Sounds, isn’t resting on any laurels. Speaking down the wire from Los Angeles ahead of an extended tour of the Australian capital cities, Wilson is crisp, matter of fact and to the point. That he’s still performing at all is in no small way miraculous - but a mechanical quality to some of his responses and a tendency to repeat himself are the only audible scars of the psychological illness that has ravaged his career. As principal songwriter of The Beach Boys, Wilson propelled the group to international fame in the early sixties with singles like ‘I Get Around’, ‘Surfin’ USA’ and ‘California Girls’. Pet Sounds, generally regarded as Wilson’s masterpiece, was released
in 1966 to muted acclaim, its import only becoming clear in subsequent decades. But his lush vocals, innovative production and densely experimental arrangements did have an immediate impact on at least one other group… “Pet Sounds inspired the Beatles,” he explains with enthusiasm, “which I think - the most famous group in the whole world, influenced by us? That’s a trip for me! John, Paul called me when they heard [it] and they both said they loved it … they flipped for it.” Tragically, from this watermark, Wilson imploded; band and label turmoil, the birth of his first daughter, the release of Sgt. Pepper (Wilson felt he was in deep and personal competition with the Beatles), and LSD overuse all combined to send him into a creative and psychological no man’s land. His follow-up to Pet Sounds, Smile, emerged stillborn as Smiley Smile in 1967, Wilson only returning to complete the project as originally envisioned in the early noughties. Releasing new material only intermittently through the 70s and barely at all through the subsequent two decades, Wilson’s creative stagnation was accompanied by an ongoing battle with inner demons. He was diagnosed with schizo associative disorder in the late 1980s, the development of which he directly attributes to his drug intake. Considering the enormous personal cost his youthful experimentation has exacted from him, it’s perhaps not so surprising that his views on psychedelic substances are these days less forbearing than in the past. “Do I have any regrets? Oh, of course I do!” he exclaims. “I wouldn’t have taken DRUGS if I’d had a marble in my head - if I’d had a brain in my head - and thought to say, ‘Well, what does this do to you when you take this drug?’ Well, I wouldn’t have taken the drug, right? When I found out how much damage it did to my brain?” - he chuckles, drily. “Very bad. That’s what I would have not done, taken drugs - and I would advise young people who get this interview not to take drugs.”
“I think people should write better melodies and sing a little sweeter, and knock off that stupid rap crap, y’know? Rap is really ridiculous.” The last decade has been considerably kinder to Wilson; his wife and four adopted children, as well as many productive collaborations, have provided him with much-needed stability. “I keep myself motivated by exercising, and I’ll play the piano and keep in touch with music, y’know? I walk about two and a half miles a day. Which is pretty damn good.” Apart from concluding his thirty-plus year labour of love with the release of Smile in 2004, he has released two collections of original material, as well as this year paying homage to one of his own idols on Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin. The result of an alliance between the Gershwin estate and Disney (Wilson is to record an album of Disney covers as part of the deal), the collection features a dozen covers of Gershwin classics as well as two Wilson originals, constructed from fragments left uncompleted at Gershwin’s death. “It was a joy because I love Gershwin, and I love his music,” he says. “They sent us over 104 unfinished Gershwin songs, with George himself playing piano. Can you believe that? That I’d get to work with George that way? This Gershwin album was a rough album for me to make, because I didn’t want to let my band members down or anyone down with the vocals, y’know?” Driven by a prodigious work ethic, Wilson continues to perform as much for its rehabilitative effects (“there is a therapeutic element to being on stage, it is good for you”), as for a belief that someone really needs to bring back the good vibes. “The music nowadays is not as positive and as warm, y’know? The music of this time, 2010, is very, very, very, VERY unbecoming to how I think music should be … I think people should write better melodies and sing a little sweeter, and knock off that stupid rap crap, y’know? Rap is really ridiculous.” What matters most, though, is to just keep on breathing. “What I most want to do is I want to get my health to the point where I’m not like, ‘Oh I can’t do this, or I can’t do this tour, I can’t write songs’ you know, stuff like that,” he says. “That’s where I want to be.” Who: Brian Wilson With: Chicago, America & Peter Frampton Where: Hope Estate Winery, Hunter Valley When: Saturday November 6 More: Brian Wilson is playing his own show on November 5 @ The Enmore 24 :: BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10
Kings Of Leon Back To The Rustic Roots By Christine Lan
M
atthew and Jared Followill were still teenagers when Kings Of Leons’ debut album, Youth And Young Manhood, was praised by Village Voice as “2003’s finest rock debut”. Its follow-up, Aha Shake Heartbreak, capitalised on their break - it featured in Rolling Stone’s ‘Top 100 Albums Of The Decade’. The band’s third album, Because Of The Times (2007), surprised their followers with a more polished and epic sound, showcased on hits like ‘On Call’ and ‘Fans’ - but it was 2008’s Only By The Night that summoned the stadium tours, unleashing the group’s most accessible rock ’n’ roll anthems to date: ‘Sex On Fire’ and ‘Use Somebody’. No sign is more indicative of a band’s stardom than the acrimonious debates fought out between their earliest fans. When Only By The Night sold over six million copies worldwide (it was Australia’s highest selling album in 2008), it proved too much for their older fan base. For some, the stadium-ready and populist anthems had strayed too far from the ragged and bluesy southern rock of their first two releases – but pleasing everybody is an impossible feat. Writing a record is a huge enough task in itself; attempting to understand the sensitivities of one’s listeners – whether chin-stroking thinkers, hitfollowers, brow-wrinkled cynics or social hipsters – is quite another. With their fifth album Come Around Sundown, Kings Of Leon have kept one eye on their own artistic trajectory, and the other on their increasingly expansive fan-base.
moving depiction of the band returning to their roots, and serves as a testament to KOL’s rustic blues influences. “It was great – that song started with a lap steel guitar that I bought in Los Angeles, and I played that line over and over,” Matthew enthuses. “I just thought it’d be really cool, ’cause it sounded kinda country and like our earlier stuff... like a Built To Spill-type song or something. I ended up getting together with the boys and showing them the guitar line and it just gave us a great feeling – we just thought, you know, ‘we’re in New York City and kinda missing home’... It’s good to go back to the roots-y feeling of the first record. “We just strived to not let it change us, really,” Matthew tells me at another point, when we talk about the success of Only By The Night. “We could have gone in and written 14 pop songs or whatever, but I think we just wanted to go in and not let the success go to our heads; we wanted to go in and make the best record that we could make. I’m pretty proud of it,” he continues. “I think we did a good job.” Who: Kings Of Leon What: Come Around Sundown is out now through Sony
Although the band seem to be revelling in their wide-spread success, headlining the world’s biggest festivals and their own sold-out stadium shows, moments of sheer confusion and doubt have also arisen. The most infamous incident was Caleb Followill’s own vicious criticism of their biggest hit, ‘Sex On Fire’, which he has since apologised for; the frontman had decried that he was “embarrassed to look out from the stage every night and see people who weren’t like me.” (He later explained that he was frightened, at times, by the intensity of their fame.) Talking to lead guitarist Matthew Followill – cousin of the three Followill brothers – it really does seem that few are more confused by it all than the band themselves. “For a while, we were just everyone’s secret or something,” he tells me. “And I’ve felt the same way before – you have this band that no one else knows about that you like so much and you think is so good. When Only By The Night came out and we got popular, I think the older fans were just like, ‘Oh, I don’t like them anymore. I want to like someone new’. But then, you get so many other fans, so I don’t know....”
“I mean, you can only hear so many times that your first two records were your best and then you got shit... It kinda gets into your brain.” Drummer Nathan Followill has recently said that KOL were barely scratching the surface of their musical and song-writing abilities. Irrespective of the listener’s expectations, how much pressure does the band apply on their own musical ambitions? “It’s really hard to tell what the fans are gonna like, because you’ll think the fans will like one thing and they end up not liking it at all,” laughs Matthew, “and then they’ll like something you thought they wouldn’t like very much... I think we learned that after making a couple of albums, and we started saying, ‘we just have to make music that makes us happy, music that we want to listen to and enjoy. And then hopefully the fans will like whatever we do.’ “So there’s definitely pressure,” he continues. “I mean, you can only hear so many times that your first two records were your best and then you got shit after that. So it’s like, okay, if everyone loves our first two records so much - it just kinda gets into your brain … and then you make songs like ‘Back Down South’ and ‘Pony Up’,” he says, referring to two of the roots/country and blues-influenced tracks on the new album. “It just happens that way, because you think ‘maybe we were better [back] then.’” Perhaps as a result, Come Around Sundown is more eclectic than KOL’s last two albums – it doesn’t discard their pop sensibilities but it’s slightly more experimental, and also recalls the long-missed elements that defined their first two records. The new album is, therefore, diverse enough to unsettle some and delight others. But regardless of the tantalising hooks of ‘Radioactive’ and the glistening pop of ‘Pyro’, it was the band’s adamant incorporation of their core influences and Southern roots that would prove particularly significant. ‘Back Down South’, for instance, is a BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10 :: 25
The Naked And Famous New Sounds From New Zealand By Tyson Wray
“I
t’s amazing how much a single song can do for a band,” Alisa Xayalith tells me, down the line from New Zealand. The singer and lyricist of The Naked & Famous has seen her band skyrocket to national and then international acclaim, all in the space of a year. “We put ‘Young Blood’ out on our Myspace and someone linked it on their Facebook page, and that got noticed by Neon Gold who decided to blog about it - which created a weird domino effect,” she continues. “We don’t have any overseas promotions team at all, it really just did the work all on its own. ‘Young Blood’ ended up travelling around the world through all of these different blogs, where people were just writing about it and sharing it with others - which created this weird but amazing buzz about us.” The buzz certainly helps. The band’s subsequent release debuted at #1 on the NZ album chart, making the young band the first kiwi group to do so in three years. The album, Passive Me, Aggressive You, is filled with the sorts of electroladen hooks and catchy pop moments that have found the quintet on Summer playlists both in their home country and across the Tasman. When I talk to Alisa, The Naked And Famous are on the eve of their biggest tour yet. “We’ve kept the album true to ourselves,” Alisa tells me of their debut. “All of our favourite aspects of music are in there; we’ve spread a
lot of our loves all throughout [it], so it’s quite varied.” She describes a male/female duality theme that’s common through the LP, with vocal duties shared between both her and co-vocalist Thom Powers. “There’s harsh and soft, dark and light and all of these different elements,” she shares, excitedly. “It’s easily been the biggest highlight of our career so far.” The album took them about a year and a half to write - and so far, it’s been really well received. Apart from the NZ album charts, the group also won the APRA ‘Silver Scroll’ award for ‘Young Blood’, “It was such an honour, because it’s a song-writing award voted for by other musicians. It means a lot.” The group’s recorded success has only been reinforced by the energetic, powerful and artistically honest live shows that’ve been shattering stages throughout New Zealand. “We try to keep our live performances as true to the recorded songs as possible. When we write a song, we always have the mindset and rule that if we aren’t going to be able to play it live, like if there’s an extra layer or two in the song, we won’t record it.” Alisa tells me the band are looking forward to their Australian album launch tour, which kicks off next week. “We’re not going over to Australia with any unrealistic expectations, but we’re hoping for a lot of fun. Our album’s just been
released there, and we want to just come over and take in the vibe and the atmosphere. We had a very brief visit for Big Sound [an annual music conference held in Brisbane], and it was really good. We’re hoping people will have listened to our new album and we can vibe off that, and put on a really great show.” Following the Aussie shows, the band are shipping off to New York and L.A – the first time they’ve toured further than across the Tasman.
“[It’s] a really big thing for us,” Alisa enthuses. After the stint in the states, they’re returning for Big Day Out 2011. And after that? “We’ve got absolutely no idea… Anything could happen.” What: Passive Me, Aggressive You is out now on Universal With: Alpine Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Friday November 5
Institut Polaire Musical Explorers By Nell Greco
I
t’s difficult to place Institut Polaire. You can’t describe the band as being from anywhere, as the members are sprawled between Australia’s East and West coastlines, or originally from the States - so let’s just say they dwell in the places around Perth and Melbourne. In a candid phone call with guitarist Ash Blakeley, our conversation ranged from topics like the band’s line-up (there’s usually seven of them, but sometimes there’s nine), to the history of Perth’s music scene, to colonisation and pioneering. It was the latter themes that particularly crept up when I asked him about the title of their debut album, Make Your Own Mayflower. “I think there’s an affinity with [colonisation] that Erik [Hecht, frontman] experiences, being American,” he tells me. “Maybe something to do with the fact that The Mayflower started off all those pioneering ventures...” But as he continues to explain the title, I hear a smile creeping into his voice. “Nah, it was just on the cover of some tacky 70s craft magazine, ‘Make Your Own Mayflower!’ [It was] some kind of crochet project.” Not the musical pioneering metaphor I’d envisaged, then... Blakeley was a founding member of the band with Erik and David Thirkettle-Watts, and tells me that “it was a really long road to getting this album done.” He’s not wrong. Institut Polaire formed in 2004 but it was three years before the release of their first EP, The Fauna And The Flora. ‘City Walls and Empires’ was their acclaimed debut single, and saw them nab a bunch of airplay on triple j, and walk away with the 2006 WAMi Song Of The Year award. But although it’s taken Institut Polaire three years to
record and produce Mayflower, upon first listen there’s a universality and almost timelessness to it. “It’s a three- or four-year snapshot of the band”, Blakeley tells me. “It probably comes down to the influences of Erik, and it’s something that still draws me to the songs that he writes. There’s an aesthetic to what he writes; it’s quite nostalgic in lots of ways, and he really has a sense of things that have already been around.” He tells me that open-minded songwriting also plays a large role in the rich, full-bodied sound that you hear in tracks off the album like ‘We Can’t Wait No More’ or ‘The Bright & Bore’. “Not everyone [in the band] comes from the same time and place, musically or physically. When you get a violin player or a trumpet player, there’s not many [of those] who come from a rock and roll background. We’re quite fortunate that the people that have come to play with the band, do.” Despite the laidback, easy mastery that rings through the music of Institut Polaire, Blakeley tells me their writing process is calculated to perfection. “There’s nothing haphazard about it. We all have our own ideas and stuff, but were all–“ he hesitates here, before laughing – “probably not good enough players to come up with ideas on the fly.” The admission surprises me, so he explains it a little; “Some of us have incredible musical heritage and are incredibly accomplished musicians - and then the rest of us maybe have an idea of the sound that we want … and we just make it happen!” Institut Polaire make their own rules, and prescribe to their own set of music-writing laws… In a way then, you could call them musical pioneers.
What: Make Your Own Mayflower is out now through Popfrenzy With: Cameras, Cam & Gab (Dead Letter Chorus) Where: Spectrum When: Friday November 5
78 Saab
Fast And Loose By Tyson Wray
F
or the past decade and a half, Sydney’s 78 Saab have been an integral part of the Australian music scene, playing a pivotal role on the festival circuit, hitting the road for strings of national tours and releasing hit after hit of good ol’ fashioned rock and roll. Following the recent release of their fourth studio album Good Fortune, vocalist Benjamin Nash explains how the record came to fruition. “On our previous albums, we spent a lot more time being pastoral, with a lot of organ and a lot of acoustic guitar. On this album, we really wanted to bring it back to an electric guitar focus,” he says. “We’re all also big vinyl enthusiasts, so we wanted to keep it very tight and compact, less than 40 minutes, like a lot of classic records.” Despite the positive album title, the release actually ended up a bit lyrically darker than their previous albums. “Over the past few years, all of us had gone through a few personal upheavals,” Nash explains. “Things like that you can’t help but feel affected by - and they somehow found their way into the lyrics.” Good Fortune thoroughly encompasses the energetic, classic and soulful songwriting that the quartet has been refining for the past 15 years. “We’ve definitely got a lot better at nailing our sound,” Nash says. “We recorded it really quickly; [it was] easily the quickest we’ve ever made an album.” It was only a few days of recording before the tracks were ready to be sent to producer Tim Whitten (Powderfinger, The Go-Betweens, Augie March). “Being an independent band, time is money... We want to get a really solid sound out of the studio, but there’s not much time,” he explains, of the quick turnover. “[You] have to do all the little things right. We all think it came together really well.” Renowned for their vibrant, vivacious and beastly live performances, Nash tells me about what 78 Saab strive for on stage. “I like to think
that, compared to all of the other rock bands, we play everything a little bit faster and a little bit looser. There’s obviously a few more beers involved,” he laughs. “In the studio it’s like a science to us, because we know the exact result we’re after – whereas when we’re playing live, we like to have a lot of fun, and bring out a few surprises. There’s no kind of concept when we’re coming into our shows; we like just coming onto the stage, plugging in and going from there,” he continues. “Also, I think we’ve got a really good back catalogue now, stretching about 14 years. We’re really able to pace our shows now, and choose where we want to take them.” After 15 years under the sweaty Aussie rock spotlight, Nash shares his future visions for 78 Saab, and their plans for evolution. “The main thing is just to ensure we keep ourselves excited and on our toes - if you grow stagnant, it really reflects in your music. We’ve reached an end point in the way we’ve gone about recording, especially with how we’ve gone into writing our last two albums,” he admits. “I think with everything we’ve been listening to lately, and the way we want to move ahead, we’re really keen to try out something new and maybe be a bit more expansive in our instrumentation. We’re really keen to see how the next few years turn out for us. We’re doing this because we love to make music, not because we’re making millions of dollars. If you don’t love something, you shouldn’t do it.” Who: 78 saab What: Good Fortune is out now through Other Tongues With: The Jewel & The Falcon, Yae!Tiger Where: The Annandale When: Friday October 29
“Baby, I can’t stay. You’ve got to roll me and call me the tumblin’ dice”- Ladies And Gentlemen, THE ROLLING STONES 26 :: BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10
Mouse On Mars The Illusory Simplicity By Chris Honnery
“H
onestly, I always hated synthesizers. I never liked keyboard players, I thought they were the most yuppie and uncoollooking guys in a band.” To anyone remotely familiar with his incredibly varied discography, Jan St. Werner’s confession would come as a surprise. From his solo work and side projects like Microstoria (with Markus Popp of Oval) and Von Sudenfed - a more “extroverted” club dance project - to his renowned Mouse On Mars incarnation with Andi Toma, Werner’s music has consistently hinged on exploring the sonic possibilities created by the synthesizer. Ahead of Mouse On Mars’ Australian debut Werner is in fine form, freely joking and discussing his output with a refreshing lack of pretension. Such an approach reflects the appeal of Mouse On Mars, as Werner and Toma approach their craft with a playfulness that belies the stereotype of the austere German electronic producer. “What Andi and me are doing, we create a very broad and very varied concept of music, where we can do very silly things as well as very complicated, very dense things,” Werner affirms. “What holds it together is there’s a certain ease in there; we do it for fun.” It was perhaps this dynamic that prompted The Presets to approach the pair to remix their single ‘My People’ back in 2008. “We met them at a festival in Scotland and they played the same stage we did. I think the music is quite different, but they like the mess we make,” Werner elucidates, with a delightfully self-deprecating turn of phrase. “A couple of weeks later they approached us and asked us if we’d rework a track of theirs, and we happily did.”
you’ve put in, make it into something that comes across naturally and could even compete with the simple sounds that one plays on a guitar.” Turning his attention to the future, Werner describes the forthcoming Mouse On Mars LP, due out next year, as a response to “the younger generation of producers - because they’ve really made things more wacky and ‘off’ again, which is really something we always liked about electronic music.” He divulges that listeners can expect “quite a difficult record” with lots of “of odd electro, dubstep sounds - but that’s something our music has always had, so it’s not that we’re really embracing a new interest.” Werner adds that there will also be some pop songs on the album, but is quick to qualify this statement. “They’re pop songs in the Mouse On Mars’ sense; it won’t be like a Kylie Minogue pop song,” he laughs. Who: Mouse On Mars With: Seekae, Qua Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Saturday October 30
SECRET SOUNDS PRESENTS BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL
Discussing Mouse On Mars’ output as a whole is no easy feat; one can perhaps glean more from Werner’s description of music as a currency that can disarm even the most ascetic of characters, rather than from a deconstruction of any of their albums. “Music is always something that’s so incredibly charming and so immediate. Even highbrow, intellectual people - you can so easily get them if you play them a beautiful tune,” Werners says. Reinventing themselves with every release, from the experimental overtones of Varcharz to the ambient-house ectoplasms of their debut album Vulvaland in the mid-90s, it is Mouse On Mars’ exuberant and often audacious approach to production that has seen the pair retain and reshape their salience, as trends and fans come and go. Werner explains the difficulties underlying Mouse On Mars’ approach to music quite succinctly. He pinpointing the main challenge as being “to make things that have been very intense and complex and time-absorbing sound like they were done without any effort at all.” He also reveals his delight in constructing “something that sounds like a light-hearted pop tune, that comes across like a simple, naïve melody, and to hide something in there so that when you listen to it repeatedly, you find a deep complexity … that’s something that Mouse On Mars has to offer.” At this point, one should cut back to our opening, as Werner retracts his synthesizer slight, expounding the instrument’s role in the pair’s productions. “What a keyboard does, it provides you with a sound which can be so abstract and different from anything else that it’s a great tool,” he says. “You create an acoustic structure, and you really need to listen closely to do that. For me, it comes close to the most perfect form of making music”.
“[The challenge is] to make things that have been very intense and complex and time-absorbing sound like they were done without any effort at all... The task is to make it all sound easy.” This approach to composition is tied to Werner’s fascination with the use of tape in early experimental music. His tone becomes increasingly ebullient as he marvels at how, “with limited possibilities, producers could create incredible sounds just by speeding up or slowing down the tape, reversing the recordings or adding delay or reverb; really examining the possibility of recorded sound. That, matched with a possibility of really creating a new sound by adding layers of waveform - that is what makes music interesting to me,” he states. “Then the task is to make it all sound easy, not academic and heavy, and make all the work that
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Emma Davis Don’t Think, Just Write By Oliver Downes
The Fingerstyle Sensation By Mike Gee
“I feel like a lot of people use guitar as a way of accompanying singing, so it’s just this thing that’s there for the sake of it. For me, the songs get their character from the guitar.” Davis began writing songs at a tender age under the influence of the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel albums slipped her way by her classical guitar teacher. A stint as the “gimmick” lead guitarist in an otherwise all-male, Chili Peppers-idolising high-school rock band allowed her to deal with the “terror of hearing the sound of one’s own voice in a microphone,” before she decided to forgo the Oxbridge future of her peers to pursue music at Boston’s Berklee College of Music – and finally followed her family to Australia. In between studying Italian (“you might not know this, but to major in something you don’t actually have to be very good at it”), learning to talk Aussie and schlepping in hospitality, songs began to be written. “I always start with the music,” she explains. “I always try to think as little as possible when I do that. If I sit down to write a song, I won’t write a song. If I sit down to play my guitar and am sitting there and not thinking, something will come. Because I have such a non-methodical way of working, writing a song might take a long time...”
E
mma Davis doesn’t put people in boxes so we should probably return the courtesy, and abstain from labelling when speaking of her music. Categories like ‘Female Singer Songwriter’ for example, while accurate, are singularly unhelpful in describing her style; her clear, sweet voice, her sure instinct for a story, and the way it’s all clothed with deft picking, folksy hooks and gently precise turns of phrase. Meeting for a leisurely breakfast of avocado on toast ahead of the release of her selftitled debut album, Davis seems like the sort of person who may not always feel the need to offer an opinion - but will deliver it with unerring aim when provoked. “I don’t think of myself as a singer, [but] as a guitarist who sings,” the Sydney-based artist tells me, with trace remnants of a London accent still clinging to her speech.
Andy McKee
As might recording an album. Davis spent the last year working sporadically with Sydney troubadour Brian Campeau in his homemade Newtown studio, placing older songs that were weighing down her pockets alongside newer material written over the last few months. “I think we worked well together, because we both had a similar idea of what should happen,” she says of the production partnership. “Both of us kind of felt like the songs were quite delicate. We tried to add to it really slowly so that we weren’t piling things on for the sake of it. [Campeau] inspires me because he doesn’t give a shit - he wants to do what he wants to do.”
he first time Andy McKee decided to learn guitar was after hearing the work of acclaimed guitarist Eric Johnson. These days, the pair tour together. It’s something McKee describes as “really mindblowing” - and why wouldn’t he? “That was my first exposure to instrumental music,” he tells me. “It was 1991, I was twelve years old, and he had a track called ‘Cliffs Of Dover’. It was just amazing.”
T
popular genre of music. It was just crazy how ‘Drifting’ was received.” And it had a pretty huge impact on his music sales, too... “Oh yes, it definitely had an effect,” McKee says. He tells me he woke up one morning to thirty orders – a big jump from the thirty orders a month he was used to... “That was how I first realised the video was on YouTube. I was selling CDs on my own website, literally from my garage.”
If that was amazing to the Topeka, Kansasborn McKee, what’s followed in his career is incredible. After consistent gigging around town, developing a small but solid fanbase who’d go to shows and buy music from his website, everything changed in 2006. His flagship song, ‘Drifting’, became a featured video on YouTube and MySpace – showcasing his astonishingly dexterous and percussive fingerstyle technique, it was viewed 33 million times on YouTube alone. To this day, it’s one of YouTube’s most viewed music clips - but it didn’t stop there. The track ‘Rylynn’ drew more than 15 million views, and his cover of ‘Africa’ hit 9 million views. Andy McKee had arrived.
By 2009, McKee was picked up by the fastgrowing US indie label Razor & Tie, which now distributes his records – they can be found on iTunes and Amazon now. And there are plenty of them, too: Nocturne (2001). Dreamcatcher (2004), Art Of Motion (2005), Gates of Gnomeria (2007), Common Ground EP (2009) and Joyland (2010). The latter is probably his most produced, with a couple of tracks that feature additional instrumentation, and a few covers too - like Tears For Fears’ ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’. It all comes with a 75-minute DVD, which includes the documentary Andy McKee: Joyland.
Over the phone, he’s an instantly likeable man, down-to-earth and without a hint of ego. “I struggle to explain that whole phenomenon, even today,” he tells me. “It’s not like it’s a
McKee sees nothing astonishing in his own style of playing - which really has to be seen to be believed. “I have a lot of influences,” he says. “Michael Hedges, Don Ross, Preston Reed, Billy McLaughlin, Pat Methany, Joe Satriani. I took a lot of those influences and blended them together, and I do what I do.” He also has a less-publicised personal taste for metal music. Among his favourites are Dream Theater, Iron Maiden, Pantera, and Metallica, while his ear also ranges towards the progressive rock of King Crimson, the quirkiness of Primus and the sublime beauty of Bjork. You get the feeling, as he talks, that Andy McKee is a work in progress. He doesn’t seem quite certain that all of this is real, and he doesn’t truck with any fanfare or too much hyperbole. He just gets on with what he’s doing; and there’s plenty to get on with. “Before I get to Sydney I’m doing Bangkok - then after Sydney, Seoul. And then I come home and relax a bit, do an instructional DVD and then pick up the Guitar Master Tour I’ve been doing with Eric Johnson and Peppino D’Agostino - in January 2011.” After that’s done, he’s off to the UK, Ireland and Europe. “Hopefully, in 2012, I’ll have time to do another album.”
And what does Emma Davis want to do? “If I try to write a song that’s going to relate to everyone, then it’s going to sound like a load of wank, and I’ll start saying things that I don’t really think. [I want my songs to] sound like that’s just how it was, like someone didn’t even write it, it was just there,” she continues. “That’s what I’m trying to do, and that’s why I try not to think when I write.” What: Emma Davis LP is out now
What: Joyland is out now
With: Leroy Lee, Agnes Kain
Where: The Basement
Where: The Red Rattler, Marrickville
When: Tuesday November 2
When: Friday October 29
Gareth Liddiard Go It Alone With The Drones’ Frontman By Patrick Emery
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areth Liddiard is about as far from pretension as you can humanly imagine. As lead singer, guitarist and songwriter with The Drones, and also in his solo guise, Liddiard is a compelling and charismatic writer and performer. But when asked to explain the science of his songwriting, the man is nonplussed. “There’s so much to write about, you can write about just about anything,” Liddiard figures. “Sometimes I think people who say they’ve got writer’s block, they’re only prepared to write about certain things, and they’ve run out of ideas about those things. Fuck styles or tastes – write about anything. Step in poo and write about that. My writing style is to bite off more than I can chew, and then chew like crazy, and turn something that shouldn’t be in a song into a song.” With The Drones on a rare break from touring and recording, their frontman has released his first solo album, Strange Tourist. According to Liddiard, there’s nothing especially unique in his solo material compared to his Drones output. “A Drones song is the same, except with more instruments,” he chuckles. “There’s two ways to make a solo record: the first is to write a bunch of songs and then get a bunch of people to play them with you, and the second is just to do it yourself. I’ve been the doing the former for yonks, so I figured I’d do the latter for once.”
Liddiard’s aptitude for a good story is evident throughout The Drones’ material - and on Strange Tourist, his stories are in full flight. Tightrope walkers, Winnebago sellers and intriguing country residents come together as part of Liddiard’s kaleidoscopic vision. “With my solo stuff, any instrumental bits would just be me doodling away on an acoustic guitar, which would probably be a bit dull. So I just leaned heavier on the whole vocals side. And because I’m not the greatest singer in the world, I was leaning heavy on the story side. So it naturally became lyrical,” he muses. “Most of the stuff that’s going on in the songs is usually true, but it’s kind of out of context. But the Winnebago thing is bullshit. I had a gap to fill,” he laughs. Once an idea has been hatched, he says, the resultant story gradually appears. “More often than not, the story evolves as I’m writing it... The hardest thing is to find something to write about first of all. I generally don’t wait for that, I just fucking get started, and see what happens.” The title of Liddiard’s solo record, Strange Tourist, sits well with his itinerant lifestyle as a member of a regularly touring band. Touring still provides Liddiard with plenty of inspiration for songwriting. “When you’re touring with a band, you get to see parts of the country you wouldn’t see if you were just a normal tourist,” he explains. “A touring band will generally have a better idea about the
country they’re touring than a tourist who’s just taking photos. We see tons of really weird shit – you just see the real thing. There’s countless weirdness out there,” Liddiard says dryly. For the recording of Strange Tourist, Liddiard and partner (and Drones bass player) Fiona Kitchin ventured north to a nineteenth century mansion in Yass, where producer Burke Reid was staying, with “out of control, Gone With The Wind staircases.” Liddiard says it was easy to get a vibe out of that old place, but it didn’t directly inspire the writing. “If anything, it made us enthused. It’s like when you’re on holiday – you’re generally a lot more exuberant then. So being up there just energised the whole process, rather than bringing in some conceptual element.” Having now lived in northern Victoria for a few years, Liddiard does confess to using his country neighbours and immediate social circle for occasional lyrical inspiration... “It’s all in there,” he says. “If they look in there, they’ll probably see themselves.” What: Gareth Liddiard (The Drones) What: Strange Tourist is out now through Shock Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Saturday November 20
“I went down to the Chelsea drugstore to get your prescription filled”- Ladies And Gentlemen, THE ROLLING STONES 28 :: BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10
Femi Kuti And The Positive Force By Michael Carr
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emi Kuti is a rare type of artist in today’s music world. Son of Fela Kuti, the creator of afrobeat and an outspoken critic of Africa’s corrupt political systems, both music and activism run in Femi’s blood. Having first played sax in his father’s band before going on to form The Positive Force in 1988, for over 20 years Femi has toured the world, serving as a prominent voice against oppression and injustice in Africa. He’ll be spreading his message in Sydney next month, with his fourteen-piece band in tow.
Unlike other high profile activists, your Bonos and your Geldofs, Femi has been directly affected by the corruption in his homeland; his family suffered for years at the hands of the Nigerian government and military. While for decades the regime attempted to silence both Femi and his father, the most shocking case of persecution occurred in 1977 when 1000 Nigerian soldiers attacked Fela’s home in reaction to his album Zombie’s condemnation of the Nigerian military. During the attack, Fela was beaten almost to death and his elderly mother was thrown from a window, causing fatal injuries. His home and recording studio were burnt to the ground, along with all of his instruments, equipment and master tapes. This entire incident was ruled by a government inquiry to be the act of an “unknown soldier”.
While resolute that this is the only way to solve Africa’s current problems, he doesn’t think it will happen anytime soon: “I doubt I will see it in my lifetime.” The key obstacle, Femi says, is apathy - and a debilitating lack of interest on the part of the everyday people. It is because citizens of industrialised nations allow our governments to propagate a pattern of negative action in Africa that these problems still exist. “Ordinary people on the street don’t think about this,” he explains to me, with an understanding tone. “They’re too busy taking their children to school and making ends meet. The last thing on their mind is what their governments are doing outside their borders.” The message of Femi’s music is that it’s up to us to end the injustices. There’s no greater force than the human conscience, through which he believes we can end the culture of exploitation that has seen Africa crippled since the colonial age. While he never judges people for their lack of action, Femi does hope to make us judge ourselves. Who: Femi Kuti And The Positive Force Where: The Metro Theatre When: Saturday November 20
Despite being dealt such a blow by the government, Fela refused to give up, continuing to release albums and remaining politically active until his death in 1997. Since then, Femi has striven to uphold his father’s legacy in the face of government oppression. But while the Nigerian government have never let up (they attempted to shut down Femi’s club The Afrika Shrine even as recently as last year), as Femi’s international profile grows the government have found it harder and harder to get away with their attempts to silence him. “There is a lot of international pressure on them, so they’re trying to keep it quiet,” he tells me somberly, of their attempts to close his club. “They don’t like it, but there is nothing they can do about it.”
PRESENTS
Even with Femi currently safe from persecution, he still remains passionate and dedicated to achieving reform in the troubled continent, shining a light on issues that the western media often fear to touch. “I talk about injustice and corruption in my music. Western governments have always had an interest in Africa and have contributed to the corruption and injustice here, and it is they who are responsible for the downfall of Africa. It should be in the foreground of the news, but I think it’s hard for people in places like Australia to hear that, because you don’t want to hear that kind of news - and your governments don’t want you to know what is going on in Africa, because they are involved,” he explains. “So I understand why you don’t hear about Africa in the news.”
“Ordinary people are too busy taking their children to school and making ends meet. The last thing on their mind is what their governments are doing outside their borders.” Where a lot of us in wealthy western nations pass off foreign problems as having little to do with us, Femi believes that Africa suffers so that we may prosper. The success of our powerhouse economies is dependent on being able to source cheap resources from Africa. Our governments know this and therefore have forged numerous shady alliances with oppressive and corrupt regimes over the years, in an attempt to buoy up our excessive lifestyles. “They closed their eyes to the injustice here, and it makes sense why they don’t say a word about it,” Femi continues. “It is only ever in the news when ordinary journalists with nothing to gain or lose come over and see these injustices, and even then they have to fight to get their stories out to the people.” With his and his father’s fame having grown in recent years (the story of Fela’s life has even been turned into a Broadway musical), Femi is thankful for having seen improvement in his lifetime. But he is adamant that more could be done, calling for people from the industrialised world to demand that their governments take responsibility for their support of corrupt regimes. “We need to tackle the problem by not supporting corrupt governments, by exposing corrupt governments, to not let them bank in Europe, and to expose the money that they have in banks in Europe.”
FACTORY THEATRE / SYDNEY FRIDAY 19TH NOV (LIC A/A) TICKETS AT W W W.AMYMEREDITH.COM.AU/TICKETS
DEBUT ALBUM
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brushstrokes WITH TOM
BALLARD
(and in no particular order): Matt Okine, Rhys Nicholson, Dave Jory, Michael Hing, Daniel Townes, Eric Hutton and special musical guest, Elana Stone. What’s your background in comedy? How’d you get started? It all began with a desperate need for attention. I had wanted to be an actor since I was 8, but one day in high school they were asking for entries for this high school comedy competition called Class Clowns, and it seemed like another way for me to try and get strangers’ approval. I entered, got to the national final, met Ross Noble and was promptly hooked. Since then, of course, I’ve partaken in many a sexual favour in order to get where I am.
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his Thursday award-winning comedian and triple j breakfast co-host Tom Ballard (Good News Week, 7PM Project) is taking the stage with a random assortment of acquaintances who he thinks are funny, for your viewing pleasure. Everyone on the bill is very nice and very funny and if you want anything more out of a comedy show, you’re simply greedy. The acquaintances include
What’s the biggest ‘on air’ crisis you’ve had to deal with to date? The main one that comes to mind is the day of our AFL Grand Final Friday Special Show. Everything went wrong; the computers and CD players crashed, the microphones were screwy, we threw to hip-hop producer M-Phazes who was live in the studio to play a song and none of his equipment worked; and to top it all off, we had budding young presenters from a local community radio station in to see how they do it “in the big leagues”. It was humiliating. Also there was that time when we were talking to a caller live on air and then both of our headphones stopped working, so we were broadcasting without any idea what anything sounded like. EPIC RADIO FAIL LOL. Your job is all about early mornings; have you become one of those insufferable whinging people? How do you deal with it? Generally, I feel like I deal with the early
starts pretty well. I like to lean towards the “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” philosophy. There are occasions when I find myself getting a bit snappy in the afternoons if I haven’t had my nanna nap; that’s when shit gets real in Ballard-town. You’ve moved to Sydney from Melbourne. How do their comedy scenes compare? For all its reputation as the “comedy capital of Australia”, Melbourne can actually be a really hard place to make a living in live comedy. Having said that, I do love that city and absolutely nothing compares to the Melbourne Comedy Festival; but Sydney has a lot going for it, too. The Sydney Comedy Store is the best comedy club in the country, the Mic In Hand night in Glebe is brilliant and, most importantly, the cocaine is more readily available here, hence the more frenzied laughter. Seven comedians and a muso climb onto a stage. What happens next? The worst impro night in history. Unless of course you’re referring to MY comedy night, in which case: hilarity ensues, courtesy of these super-talented comedians’ awesome material, people laugh and clap, Elana Stone sells a shitload of CDs and I’m hailed as a visionary genius and become the David Letterman of the Australian comedy scene. Yes, it IS exciting. What: Tom Ballard and Acquaintances When: Thursday October 28, 8pm Where: Oxford Art Factory More: Tix $15 from moshtix.com
TOTES GREEN
Babes, plastic bags are so 2008; even Coles ‘green bags’ are totally passé… Cotton totes are the new black – and the way of the ‘future’ is making your own (after which, history suggests, there will be an implausible retro-fetish for plastic bags…) In between, you might like to get involved in The Produce Bag Project, where ‘retired’ restaurant linen is repurposed and handmade into re-usable produce bags. Run by Darlinghurst design studio Green is a Beautiful Colour and LA-based studio GriffinMade, The Produce Bag Project launches at Taylor Square’s Sustainable Markets this Saturday, October 30 from 10am-1pm – so head down, and look for the screen-printing area...
LIVE LIVE (LIV-LUYV)
and the river was dust [Josephine Starrs & Leon Cmielewski]
CABINET #5
LETTER WRITERS
Dear Letter Writers: thanks for last week’s missive; we wish we received more letters just like it (although we were dismayed to notice that it was photocopied…) We would be delighted to join your letter writing excursion on Saturday October 30; I mean, the Botanical Gardens on a Spring day, with good people, good food, and not an iPhone in sight – what’s not to love? We’re bringing our best stationary and a selection of pens, with the hopes of impressing, and maybe even making some new friends… We’re gonna get there around 1pm, I guess we’ll just follow the trail of envelopes until we get to the Main Pond. Affectionately, BRAG.
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It’s been a long time between Cabinets, but Rinse Out Inc (the folks behind Underbelly Arts Fest) are bringing it back this month, to celebrate Halloween. Performances include the comedic stylings of Nick Coyle (Pig Island) and Adriano Cappelletta (Cubbyhouse), and troublemaker Zoe Coombs Marr of performance trio post (who we hope will be doing something from her Next Wave solo show…) The ladies from Umbrella Theatre will present their wickedly dark puppetry, and your ear holes will rejoice to the live strains of Ninja the Bungee (Luke Dubs from Hermitude, Mick Stuart from Rumpunch and Aaron O’Neil from Yen) and DJ Uncle Jam, while your eye-holes will be stunned by visuals from Justin Maynard (Native Resolution). So it’s a sort of musicyartsy-performancy afternoon shindig, to help ease you into your working week. $10 on the door, Sunday October 31 from 7pm at Red Rattler, 6 Faversham St, Marrickville.
IMPERIAL FRIGHT NIGHT
And... If you like PPR, Imperial Panda Festival and Nick Coyle, then BOY do we have a treat for you: a fundraiser for next year’s IPF, featuring short fiction read (aloud!) by a selection of troublemakers, including Pig Island’s intrepid comedians Nick Coyle and Claudia O’Doherty, and writer/thesps Toby Schmitz and Rita Kalnejais. Besides the horrifically harrowing Halloween tales, the shindig his hosted by Miles O’Neil (Suitcase
Performance Space launched their Live Live season last week, with Branch Nebula’s physical-theatre piece Sweat (showing until October 30); and two immense and immersive installations: Incompatible Elements (new media) and Trashcan Dreams (old media, aka ‘found objects’) – also showing until October 30. Opening next week (November 4 – 13) is Nightshifters an ambitious project of moving-image works by eight foremost Australian-based video and new media artists – which our new friend Harry suspects “will be shit-hot”. The project is "responsive to both the cathedralic (Harry, is this a word?) and labyrinthine nature of CarriageWorks and the sense of the potential for works of both scale and intervention that many artists feel when they encounter the building for the first time." To see who’s ‘shit-hot’ head to performancespace.com.au
THE LOVED ONES
Halloween is not strictly an Australian custom, but it’s a helluva good excuse to celebrate horror. A page or so across, we’ve reviewed a couple of classics that have just been released on DVD; on our cover we’ve got the new wave of horror talent – The Loved Ones. Like a mix between Pretty in Pink and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (the Tope Hooper original, yo), this is one gleefully demented ride to wrap your head around. It also features one of the best horror villains in recent years, as played by Sydney stage-darling Robin McLeavy. We have ten in-season double passes up for grabs to see The Loved Ones – to get your hands on one, read our feature on p.20 and tell us one horror maestro director Sean Byrne was inspired by. then you should be supporting the people who keep that scene alive while you’re off doing your laundry. Supporter plans start at just $4 a month, and signing up puts you in the draw to win a trip to Melbourne, sound systems, festival tickets, magazine subscriptions, a Fender guitar, a year’s supply of beer…! Tune in to 94.5fm or head over to fbiradio.com this week – those prize draws close on October 31.
Royale) and Simone Page Jones – which augurs some kind of musical entertainment. Saturday October 30 from 7.30pm at The Red Rattler, 6 Faversham St Marrickville – tix are $15 at the door.
FLEA MARKET
On the subject of hipsters: Dear Pluto are holding their inaugural Outdoor Flea Market this weekend, featuring their special blend of vintage, designer and good-quality used clothing, accessories, music, books, collectables (and other one-of-a-kind treasures). If you sleep through it, don’t cry: Dear Pluto have their regular vintage sales every weekend. If you just generally don’t wake up on weekends, or hate clothes, you can head along on Monday nights to catch a retro movie; this Monday (October 25 – tonight?) is Karate Kid, but if you miss THAT, you can take your too-cool-for-school self over to www.dearpluto.com and try and to formulate some kind of back-up plan… For the rest of you, head to 5A Wilshire Street, Surry Hills this Sunday October 31 from 10am-4pm.
INSTANT KARMA WITH 94.5
Something about giving and receiving good energy… FBi Radio’s Instant Karma Supporter Drive is happening right now at 94.5fm, so make a date this week with your friendly community radio station – and not one of those dates where you ‘forget’ your wallet. Even if you’re not a regular listener, if you have any interest in Sydney’s music, arts and culture,
Artwork by SYKE / photo by Chad Drake.
CHANGING LANES
On September 19 the inaugural Changing Lanes Festival packed music, art, fashion, food and performance into Newtown’s Eliza Street, along with 2000 punters, for an afternoon of awesome. During the event, a series of panels was painted by local artists; on November 4, punters will have a chance to check out the Changing Lanes mural at aMBUSH Gallery, and bid on the panels in a silent auction, with all proceeds going to FBi Radio. Additional works from artists Max Berry, SMC[3], EARS, Gem Lark, Vars, HOUL, Syke, Chad Drake, Skel, Tulsi, Bennett and Sprinkles will also be exhibited and available for purchase. Changing Lanes opens November 4 from 6-9pm, and runs until November 7. ambushgallery.com
The Social Network
Jesse Eisenberg talks Facebook, fencing, and channelling our generation's most powerful entrepreneur. By Dee Jefferson
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s much as I’d like Jesse Eisenberg to be boasting a hangover at 3pm in the afternoon after a hard night out on the town, he’s actually just extremely jetlagged. “I’m having trouble sleeping at the moment,” he says, smiling almost apologetically, and toying non-commitally with an unopened packet of Berocca. Luckily for him, those piercing babyblues cut through his slightly wan complexion; in fact, he’s far more handsome in person than his various on-screen personas suggest. Serially cast as an overly-earnest young intellectual in films like The Squid and the Whale and Adventureland, Eisenberg’s career so far has been premised on odd looks and social awkwardness; in person, he’s more charming. Eisenberg is in Sydney to promote The Social Network, in which he plays Mark Zuckerberg, the web entrepreneur who created Facebook in 2003. Theoretically, the 26-yearold actor (almost the same age as Zuckerberg) is part of the first ‘Facebook generation’ – but in fact, he doesn’t have an account (or any other kind of social networking account). “When I started acting in movies I was about 18 years old, and I was so excited that people might write about me on the internet,” Eisenberg tells me. “But as soon as I read what they wrote, I was immediately mortified. What people write about actors on the internet tends to be very cruel – they have the safety of anonymity. And so when Facebook came around, I was so turned off the idea of writing anything else about myself on the internet, and contributing to that, that I never got a page.”
The Social Network may be Eisenberg’s first major leading role, but the character of Zuckerberg (as written by West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin), seems like a variation on his ‘intense, socially awkward young man’ schtick. I ask him how important it is for him to find a piece of himself in every role he takes. His reply, while interesting, doesn’t exactly answer the question. “I look for two things: one is if the writer put thought into the character, and whether the character can exist outside the narrow parameters of the movie – which means, like, you know, so often characters are really just in service of a plot, and they really have no inner life. I would say 99% of movie characters are like that. Usually in a movie there are only one or two characters that seem like they may have a life outside the very strict plot. This movie happens to offer many characters who have that inner life, because Aaron Sorkin is so talented and can create that. “The other thing I look for is whether I can do something with the role. A character might be great, but I might think that I would not be able to play it – I’ve felt that way many times. And I want to bring something of myself to [each role]. This movie is unique, because it had both of those [factors] in extreme. Aaron has created such an interesting and richly-textured person – a guy who’s both enigmatic, but by the end of the movie totally understandable; a guy who’s desperate to interact, but doesn’t know how, and instead of it being comedicly uncomfortable, it’s tragic and intense.” Eisenberg is under no illusions that Zuckerberg the person, and Zuckerberg the film character are the same thing. Sorkin and director David Fincher have also clearly acknowledged that this is a dramatic
version of events, much of which is formulated through speculation - and none of which is based on interviews with Zuckerberg himself (who refused to meet or cooperate with the filmmakers). Even so, Eisenberg was charged with the complex task of thoroughly researching his subject, and filtering that into the specific parameters of the character. Holding two versions of the one person inside you for any length of time seems mentally demanding at best – but Eisenberg seems to have divided it into ‘Zuckerberg on public record’ (actual Zuckerberg) and ‘Zuckerberg in private’ (the film version). He seems to have focused on taking physical data from the public record, and combined it with an inner life written by Sorkin. “I’d watch a lot of videos of him, and I’d try to find something very specific – like the way he licks his lips, or the way he blinks when he’s feeling uncomfortable, or the way he stands; I found that he stands in this unique way where he isolates the top half of his body, and keeps his arms in his pockets; I read that he was a fencer, so I took fencing lessons, and it kind of showed me how to stand… I was able to use the real person in order to help create this character version of him.” Mark Zuckerberg is currently outranking Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in estimated wealth and influence, and even though his empire may seem more limited than theirs in scope (he has just one product, where they have many), only the Google empire could challenge Facebook in the ‘information’ stakes. With 500 million members and counting (that’s approximately 1 in every 14 people), Zuckerberg’s Facebook network is larger than the United States – and most other nations. Bearing all this in mind, I ask Eisenberg whether his research turned up any interesting surprises about the enigmatic webpreneur. “Yeah. The main thing I was surprised by, again and again, was how little he cared for money. You know, he’s worth 7 billion dollars; he’s the youngest billionaire in the world. You initially think that somebody who’s so rich must be interested in making a lot of money – you wonder what else could have driven them to be so wealthy? For Mark, I genuinely believe that if he could do it for free he would.”
What: The Social Network When: Released October 28
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©Rolling Stones photo by Ethan Russell. All Rights Reserved
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Age aside, there is at least one interesting parallel between Eisenberg and Zuckerberg: their discomfort with social situations, and their creative response to that discomfort. Zuckerberg, whose antisocial tendencies are renowned among friends and colleagues, built a network where people could control their social interactions, and even create an idealised image of themselves. Eisenberg, on the other hand, joined the theatre.
“Well, you know, I had a very difficult time in high school,” the actor admits. “I had trouble fitting in, making friends; and so to cope with that I found an outlet, and that was theatre. When I did plays, I felt much more comfortable being this other person, being this character, than being myself in school. I think Mark is motivated by many of the same things: he feels uncomfortable at school; he feels uncomfortable having an in-person interaction; but instead of feeling bad for himself, he creates a world that he feels more comfortable in.” (At which point I can’t help wondering, is Eisenberg describing himself or Zuckerberg right now?)
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olling Stones fans take note: For the first time in over 30 years, concert footage from the their legendary 1972 tour is coming to a cinema near you, with the re-mastered and restored release of Ladies & Gentlemen… The Rolling Stones. Originally filmed in 16mm, and released in 1974, Ladies and Gentlemen features the Stones in a career-defining moment, during their 1972 North American tour promoting Exile on Main Street. The music played on that spectacular tour included what would later be known as some of the band’s greatest all-time hits – including ‘Brown Sugar’, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, ‘Tumbling Dice’ and ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’.
Ladies & Gentlemen… The Rolling Stones will screen exclusively on Thursday October 28 at Greater Union, Event, Birch Carroll & Coyle, Village and selected independent cinemas. Thanks to Rialto, we have 10 in-season double passes up for grabs – to get your hands on one, email freestuff@ thebrag.com with the name of the film’s director.
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The Sweetest Thing [THEATRE] A breath of fresh (sea) air at Belvoir. By Simon Binns
Flightfall [THEATRE] A mystery of creative collaborations By Beth Wilson hen I speak to Emily Calder, Flightfall is a week from opening at the Old Fitzroy Theatre, and the young playwright can hardly believe it. “It is feeling very surreal at the moment. It’s been two years of lots and lots of re-drafting. In my mind I never really imagined it would be on.” For the 26-year-old NIDA graduate, it’s a significant milestone: her first produced full-length play. Covering topics of fidelity, passion and creativity, Flightfall has a young cast of talented up-and-coming Australian actors, and will be directed by Calder’s fellow NIDA graduate, Mark Grentell.
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In fact, Grentell has been an instrumental to Flightfall from its inception. “Mark approached me at the end of my Playwrights Studio year at NIDA, and he wanted me to write about a particular subject,” Calder explains. “It was very broad in scope and I struggled to find the story I wanted to tell to represent that.” It was a bit of fortuitous timing that saw Calder’s first draft become part of Sydney Theatre Company’s Next Stage program. “Mark was working as an assistant director on a production here (STC) and he mentioned our project, and they had some workshops they were offering to writers.” Calder credits Next Stage as an integral force in the play’s development “We had a really amazing three day workshop at the STC and we had three of the young female actors [from the STC’s Residents] basically doing lots of improvisations, and I wrote a whole lot of new scenes from it.” Calder is enthusiastic about the need for artistic collaborations throughout the whole writing process. “One of the sweetest words to my ear is ‘workshop’. You are sitting there all alone in your room, and you read the words out to yourself, but until you actually hear them coming from someone else... I’ve been so lucky to have fantastic actors reading for me, the whole way through.”
In Grentell's production of Flightfall Augusta Miller (Happy Feet) plays Nina, an artist who is seduced by her new muse (played by Ryan Corr of Packed to the Rafters), causing tension with her boyfriend Sam (James Elliot) and her best friend Jo (Alexandra Fisher). Although Calder will discuss the play’s themes and tone she is a little coy about the plot. “Flightfall is a bit of a mystery play, so I can’t give too much away... the play is about this artist and her story. It is about art, and what happens with her and her boyfriend, but it also represents poetically something else, which you find out about at the end.” At a certain point, with the show cast, and its premiere season approaching, Calder had to let go of her baby. “Mark and I had discussed the need to give the director and the actors the script by themselves, and not have the pressure of the writer in the room. I kind of really missed being [in rehearsals], because I loved it so much, and I have to admit I did have that initial ‘oh my baby’ – which I think is typical to all writers.” There’s always the ‘next thing’ to look forward to, however. “There has been so much work put into it, it would be wonderful if it had a run somewhere else, or got picked up for another venue,” Calder reflects. “I hope it will open doors so I can write more. I suppose everyone would just love to do it again, I think.” What: Flightfall, by Emily Calder; Dir. Mark Grentell When: October 27 – November 13 Where: The Old Fitzroy Theatre, 129 Dowling St, Woolloomooloo More: rocksurfers.org/flightfall
ne of the most exciting things about a company putting on a new Australian work in Sydney is that we get to attend the 'World Premiere Season'. So far this year, Belvoir have given us Tommy Murphy’s sliceof-life Gwen In Purgatory, and the passionate storytelling of Scott Rankin’s Namatjira. Next up is Verity Laughton’s The Sweetest Thing, which goes up at B Sharp this week under the careful direction of Sarah Goodes.
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controlling… it’s an interesting collision of these philosophies.”
Goodes, whose production of The Schelling Point recently closed at the Old Fitzroy Theatre – and who will be making her Main Stage debut at Sydney Theatre Company next year – is no stranger to the intimate downstairs Belvoir space – this will be her fifth production there. Its intimacy is well matched for Laughton’s new work, which Goodes describes as “very atmospheric.”
Rather than forming some sort of narrative backdrop, Elliot’s projections are much more abstract, and attempt to bring a sense of poetic detail to the work. “It’s a way of zooming in on things… like those moments when you feel very alive and your senses are quite heightened.” Maguire, meanwhile, "has created this beautiful soundscape of birds through instruments, and it’s really informed the look and feel of the piece.”
A story of love and family, The Sweetest Thing centres around the character of Sarah who, in the wake of her mother’s death, flees to New Zealand – and into the arms of Jimmy. This relationship, which changes everything, is the focus of the play; but in the process, Sarah’s family relations are put under the microscope. This far from a basic family drama, however. “The play loosely explores chaos theory,” Goodes explains, “the fundamental basis being that chaos is a creative force, not just a destructive one.” It is little surprise that in a play exploring chaos, the ocean is a major motif – in a literal and metaphorical sense. “If a family is a little port and all these little ships sail out of the port, where they all end up and how they get there is very different, even though they came from the same port,” says Goodes. “[Jimmy’s] philosophy of life is 'you go where the tide takes you', whereas Sarah’s mother and sisters attempt to be much more
Key to Goodes’ production are cinematographer Bonnie Elliot and composer Emily Maguire. “It’s quite realistic language, but it’s a slightly heightened world, so the music and the projection lift it up to this poetic level, and then it floats back down into the reality of the scenes.”
This production also sees a welcome return to the stage for an actress who is perhaps best known for her work on the small screen. Diana Glenn, who made her name in The Secret Life Of Us and Satisfaction, will take the lead role, of Sarah. Goodes is excited to see her back on stage. “She’s a wonderful actress, very funny and fresh and sharp.” Most of all, Goodes is excited to bring what she thinks will be a really positive theatre experience to Sydney audiences. “It’s got a really melancholic but beautiful feel to it; it’s a very life-affirming piece.” What: The Sweetest Thing by Verity Laughton; Dir. Sarah Goodes When: October 28 – November 21 Where: Belvoir Street, Downstairs
Sammy J
[COMEDY] Not for kids. By Bridie Connellan
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others of Sydney, hear this: for all the puppets, enchanted woodlands and merry tunes, Sammy J is not G rated. “When you carry a juice box and stand next to a puppet you often get mothers bringing their young children along to your show,” says the comedian. “We’ve stressed to the Opera House that it’s something to be very wary about. The number of times I’ve walked out onstage to see a few little children sitting in the front row mortified because we’ve just dropped the third ‘fuck’ of the show ten seconds in…” This seems to have been the only mishap for Sammy J’s Forest of Dreams, which was nominated for Best Show at the 2008 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, enjoyed rave reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe, and even had a season in London’s West End. 27-year-old Melburnian Sam McMillan, aka Sammy J, is taking it all in his stride. Fresh from Melbourne Fringe 34 :: BRAG :: 385:: 25:10:10
Festival last month, and his smaller one-man stand-up show Skinny Man, Modern World, the comedian is barely taking time to regroup before jumping back onstage with a new show, alongside buddy and puppeteer Heath McIvor. And, of course, Randy, Sammy J’s fuzzy sidekick. “Randy is rather an exaggerated version of Heath,” Sammy admits. “He’s a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, wash-up of a puppet, who has seen much of the world. The two compliment each other. Randy is more likely to have dodgy creditors and drug dealers chasing him up, whereas Sammy J is much more likely to be worried about what order his socks have been placed in a drawer.” In their upcoming show, Ricketts Lane, Sam gets to explore some of his own alter egos, for a change. Sammy J’s ‘Shit-Kicking Tax Lawyer’ character has personal resonance for the comedian, who dropped out of a law degree at Melbourne University. “The most natural role for me, as a bit of an anal nerd, was to play a bit of an anal tax lawyer nerd,” he says. “[Ricketts Lane] is almost like a Sliding Doors moment, because I quit law to pursue comedy and the character is what would have happened if I hadn’t done that… ironically played out in a comedy show.” Harking back to his 2006 debut, Sammy J’s 55 Minute National Tour, the comedian admits his recent stint at the Melbourne Fringe took
fans of Forest of Dreams slightly aback, as his more personal and candid stand-up allowed the Melburnian to reveal a less outlandish side of his comedic style. Nevertheless: from experience within the Australian and international comedy circuit, Sammy J knows the difficulties of selling a funny. “It’s an ongoing battle between pleasing yourself and pleasing other people, and the dream is to achieve a style of comedy that does both,” he laughs. “Ideally though, you say something in front of lots of people and if there’s silence, you don’t say it again.” But in a competitive Australian comedy scene, does the former law kid find his chosen industry somewhat cutthroat? “I think it is as supportive as it is competitive and I’ve always seen comedy like any other workplace; lovely people and douchebags,” he says. “I have often found myself to be quite pigeonholed as the daggy guy who plays the keyboard, or the guy with the puppets, and it’s quite nice running away from definitions as much as you can. You do get sucked under quite a lot, but it’s The Dream not to. [Sticking to your own style] is the karma equivalent of ‘chill the fuck out everybody’. Put that on my tombstone, ‘Everyone just chill the fuck out.’” What: Sammy J and Randy in Ricketts Lane When: Opens November 11 - 20 Where: Studio, Sydney Opera House
SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY AND UBS INVESTMENT BANK PRESENT
BY SAM SHEPARD
DIRECTOR PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN SET DESIGNER RICHARD ROBERTS COSTUME DESIGNER ALICE BABIDGE LIGHTING DESIGNER PAUL JACKSON COMPOSER & SOUND DESIGNER MAX LYANDVERT WITH WAYNE BLAIR, BRENDAN COWELL, ALAN DUKES, HEATHER MITCHELL WHARF 1, SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY 27 OCTOBER – 18 DECEMBER | TICKETS FROM $30* BOOKINGS (02) 9250 1777 SYDNEYTHEATRE.COM.AU/TRUE-WEST
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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.
tunnelism
PICS :: TL
Life As We Know It
14:10:10 :: Lo-Fi Collective :: L3, 383 Bourke St Darlinghurst 93113100
■ Film
LIFE AS WE KNOW IT Released October 21 Life As We Know It is the latest in a string of romantic comedies in which Katherine Heigl plays an uptight 30-something single woman, whose life revolves around finding the right guy, until she takes lessons from the sexy, charmingly irresponsible bachelor, and gets hitched… Really Hollywood, you’re blowing my mind.
PICS :: AM
evenings in aesthetica
In Life As We Know It, two 30-something opposites who hate each other are unexpectedly thrown together when their mutual best friends die in a car crash, and leave the two in joint custody of their baby girl. Holly (Heigl) is a serially single self-employed foodie who hasn’t found the right guy; Messer (Josh Duhamel) is a good-time bachelor who’s sexy, fun, and as irresponsible as Holly is uptight. (There’s a running gag in the film about the neighbours drooling over how hot Messer is; there’s also a running gag about how tragically single Holly is.)
13:10:10 :: Name This Bar :: 197 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93562123
PICS :: AM
gorman house auction
Although she’s been acting since her teens (My Father The Hero) Heigl’s break-out role was Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up – which seems to have propelled her into a string of variations on the ‘desperate single girl’: in 27 Dresses, she’s a dependable PA who is always the bridesmaid and never the bride; in The Ugly Truth, she’s a TV producer whose impossibly high romantic standards make her ‘no fun’; in The Killers she’s a young single woman who is saved from a bad break-up by marriage to a hunky assassin… I like Heigl: she’s a great actress with a flair for comedy, and it’s always satisfying watching her sling zingers in the faces of people who think she’s too blonde and too nice to have it in her. Someone needs to write her a new role.
13:10:10 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700
Dee Jefferson ■ Film
MADE IN DAGENHAM
Arts Exposed What's on our calendar... Evidence - The Trail Continues by Kerrie Argent
Sculpture By The Sea: 2010 October 28 – November 14 Bondi – Tamarama / FREE! Apart from the beach and the skate bowl, this has to be the most affordable thing to do in Bondi these days… Sculpture By The Sea – a free, public exhibition of accessible and often witty art – launches this Thursday. In its 14th year, the Bondi institution promises punters another epic wander between over 100 wondrous works. Among the exhibitors this year are Slovakian expats Tomas Misura and Leonard Sabol – artisan blacksmiths whose inventive and instinctive work with different metals will contrast with the scenery to no doubt stunning effect. For ideas and inspiration, see sculpturebythesea.com
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Released October 28 Based on real events, Made in Dagenham explores womens' struggle against sexual discrimination in '60s-era England. Brits do social commentary films very well. Kitchen sink dramas are staples of their film industry - often bleak, harrowing films about Britain’s working class. So it is a pleasant surprise that director Nigel Cole hasn’t taken this story of factory strikes and union movements down this gritty route, but has instead given us a fun, up-beat dramedy. When the female machinists at American car giant Ford’s UK manufacturing plants are reclassified as unskilled labour and are moved to a lower pay salary, the employees at the factory in Dagenham, a borough in Greater London, move for industrial action. Lead by shy but passionate worker Rita O’Grady (Sally Hawkins), the women stage the first ever female strike, scaring both Ford and the Unions. What follows is a stalemate that raises issues of gender and rights, forcing the British Government to take notice. The competition between domestic duties and principles pull the women in differing
directions, giving some shade to the film’s overall light atmosphere. While Made in Dagenham’s message is loud and clear, the script’s witty dialogue and the cast’s performances stop it from being belligerent, or overly self-righteous. Hawkins is fantastic as Rita, a woman who finds her voice fighting for sexual equality. There is a delightful cheekiness, as well as stern determination, to the character that makes her a charming lead. Also brilliant is Miranda Richardson as Secretary of State Barbara Castle, whose role shows off another side to women in the workforce. The film does overload the '60s clichés. Fashion and make-up are emphasised to the point where they are less setting and more proof that we are in the '60s - indeed we must be because there are hot-pants and massive beehives everywhere. But this is a small problem in what is overall a heart-warming and delightful film. The spirit of standing up and being counted is an important message that Made In Dagenham spreads by being entertaining rather than moralising. Beth Wilson ■ Film
RED Released October 28 Patience in needed when it comes to Hollywood’s latest live-action adaptation of a graphic novel; but for all its many flaws, RED often counters with a moment of such brilliant lunacy that it’s hard not to fall head over popcorn for it. The film focuses on a group of Retired and Extremely Dangerous CIA super-agents, living out their post-espionage careers in mundane fashion. For Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), only his daily telephone flirt with Mary Louise Parker’s pension fund consultant breaks the monotony. Things change, however, when someone orders a hit on Moses and his former crew (Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, and John Malkovich), launching them back into action – a bit older, a bit less sexy, but just as lethal. RED hits its targets only half of the time. Supposedly-snappy one-liners don’t always succeed, an overbearing score distracts, and Robert Schwetke’s (The Time Traveller’s Wife) direction ranges from dizzying, in its action sequences, to lethargic for the moments in between. What saves it is a choice cast who deliver entertaining performances. Malkovich plays the loon unlike any other, and the oneupmanship between Willis’s veteran and Karl Urban’s young buck (an agent assigned to catch him), gives way to some fine fight sequences. Yet it is Mirren who is truly sublime, pulling off elegance and gunplay, and stealing the movie from the lads. It is when she enters the picture that RED finally comes into its own, as its sporadic elements gel into a solid, yet underachieving action comedy. Matthew Pejkovic
See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews
Street Level
DVD Reviews What's been on our TV screens this week Two Halloween releases for horror fans and noobs alike...
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: DOUBLE FEATURE Warner Home Video Released October 13
This double release features both Wes Craven’s original slasher and the recent revisionist spin from music-video director Samuel Bayer. In 1984, Craven introduced one of cinema’s most iconic villains – the ephemeral, stripy-sweatered Freddy Krueger – and one of its most enduring franchises. Unlike its trashy contemporary, Friday the 13th, the Elm Street franchise had compelling premise, one fuelled by our collective nightmares of adolescence. The original is easily the highpoint of the nine-film series, and while the dream sequences were perhaps not as extravagant as those in the sequels, the low budget chills remain as fresh and effective as they were back in the '80s. That’s more than can be said for Bayer’s remake. Under the banner of Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes, the studio also responsible for rehashes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th, the 2010 Elm Street has better production values but less character, freshness and atmosphere, and an annoying penchant for lazy jump scares. Jackie Earle Hayley, rehashing his Rorschach rasp from Watchmen, is good as Krueger, but the screenwriters’ diffuse the villain by switching him from child murderer to child rapist, and give him an explicit origin scene that only makes him more sympathetic. Isn’t Krueger meant to be an allegorical bogeyman rather than a tragic, real-world figure? Bayer nonetheless crafts some evocative images and Rooney Mara is fine in the Heather Langenkamp role; but it’s not enough to justify the film’s rather cynical existence. Stick with the original (an easy four stars), rather than the remake (a generous two), available by itself in a cheaper, more feature-packed 2-disc edition.
THE EVIL DEAD
did happen. I can’t really explain what happened so I let my film images do the talking. The resulting images reflected the ethos which Burning Man is built upon. It reveals an irony in human nature set amongst an almost post-apocalyptic landscape. I wanted the pictures to be as bare and ‘naked’ as the setting, a place which is removed from commodity-driven community, and built upon an anti-conformist ethos.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Released October 27
Made in 1981, this is the horror film that put Sam Raimi on the map, and began his career; it’s also become one of the classics of the horror genre. It basically takes zombies to a cabin in the woods, where five friends are trying to have a romantic weekend away. There are some genuine frights, but mostly this is a gore-tastic b-movie that’s heaps of fun. Six years later it was remade by Raimi as Evil Dead 2, which favoured the camp aspects of the original over the horror. (A lot of people prefer it actually). In an ideal world, our generation would experience Evil Dead first in a cinema, followed by watching the DVD with commentary turned on – partly to understand why it was so popular in its day, and partly because the story behind the making of the film is so fascinating. My first time was with the previous ‘Collectors Edition’ DVD release, from the local Blockbuster. This new SPHE release will likely supersede that, because it’s new, and partly because it’s got better special features. The previous edition had an awesome commentary track with Raimi and producer Rob Tapert, that actually related to what was happening on-screen, and explained (among other things) the thinking behind the 'WTF!' scene where Cheryl gets raped by vines (necessary commentary, fellas!) This new release has an all-new commentary track, which combines Raimi and Tapert with leading man Bruce Campbell; fascinating as it is, it has almost nothing to do with what’s happening on screen. So: if you are interested in exploring, try and get the old and new ‘Special Edition’ versions – it's worth it. Dee Jefferson
Joshua Blackman
With photographer Cara Stricker
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t’s been a long time between cups of coffee, but since we last caught up with Cara, we’ve been following her adventures via her blog – including photo and film shoots for Sydney-based fashion labels and bands, illustrated animations, and her recent snaps from backstage at NY Fashion Week. Next up is an exhibition of snaps she took during a recent trip to Burning Man Festival in Nevada. What’s going on in New York at the moment? And why?! Gonzalez, in his bathrobe. I’m exploring there at the moment, to move there next year. The reason why... why not?! What have been some of the highlights? Seeing Ivory tower, losing it in the desert. Making chicken schnitzel wraps for 7 days with cheese, getting to see the shimmer of New York turn into a familiar place (I’m hoping this realisation ends). What’s the story behind It was kind of like this? I went to Burning Man as one of my friends had a ticket and I jumped on the opportunity months and months ago. Only in the weeks leading up to it did I realise what I had done, and what I was in for. I guess my camera was an excuse for me to be ok with going. If all else fails, you lose your mind, and get lost in the desert... Actually that kind of
What is your camera/lens of choice at the moment? My camera of choice is my Contax 35mm camera, which I took with me to shoot in Black Rock desert. You always seem to have your fingers in lots of interesting pies – what projects are you currently working on, or upcoming, that are exciting you? A lot of film work actually. Both short films and weird and wonderful fashion films. You did a film degree, and specialized in animation – any temptation to do more of that? I LOVE animation. There is definitely another animation in the works for the future, but not till next year. I usually have to have a break after finishing one, ‘til I forget the painstaking hours of creating frame-by-frame animation. What or who is inspiring you at the moment?  The desert and Middle America is a big source of inspiration at the moment. Normality. What: Cara Stricker - It was kind of like this When: Opens October 28 from 6pm Where: LO-FI Collective / Lvl 3, 383 Bourke Street, Taylor Square More: wearelofi.com.au / carastricker.com
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Album Reviews What's been crossing our ears this week...
ALBUM OF THE WEEK SUFJAN STEVENS The Age of Adz Asthmatic Kitty/Spunk
Sufjan Stevens is a stupendously talented musician and songwriter, and there are beautiful songs here. But you have to give it time, as on first listen they appear trapped under an abstruse and often alienating crust of glittering glitches and electronic abrasion. The hints of esoteric influence you can hear in the mannered structures and shifting time signatures of Michigan or Illinois are back in force; we won’t be hearing a chillwave Hello! To California any time soon. For those camped out in Illinois, it’s been a long five years; but Stevens doesn’t look like he’ll be back that way in a hurry. So suck it up – this is the next stop.
SQUAREPUSHER Shobaleader One: d’Demonstrator Warp
Squarepusher has made a few interesting decisions over the course of his career. In 1998 he released an alarmingly impressive sample-driven album that appeared to be a tribute to taking vast amounts of acid and listening to Miles Davis. In 2001, fed up with physical instrumentation, he released Go Plastic - a record that wallowed in playful digital brutality. In 2009, apparently bored of the über-synthetic approach, he crafted the fusion concept album Just A Souvenir - a work that spiralled out of a daydream in which he envisioned a band that performed in front of an enormous technicolour coathanger, and whose guitarist could speed and slow time at will... More than a few fans thought he’d finally lost his marbles. Shobaleader One: d’Demonstrator is an album by the imaginary band that was the subject of Just A Souvenir. It’s outrageously garish, enormous fun, and a highly successful experiment in absurd self-referentiality. The aesthetic is quite pleasing; all coruscating synths, emphatic percussion, vocodered vocals and the occasional bit of guitar shredding. It’s also very much a band record; it sounds more vital than just a bloke with a bass and a computer. What many may have trouble with is the music itself; it’s unapologetically cheesy, taking the bizarre philosophy behind JAS’s arrangements and transposing them onto songs that blend FM-radio R&B hits with 70’s prog. If you’re of the opinion that slap bass is an unforgivable sin, it might be best to steer clear. But if you like Frank Zappa at his most tongue in cheek, and are willing to forgive Squarepusher for disappearing up his own ass, this album will tickle you pink. Luke Telford
Opener ‘Futile Devices’ is a familiar – not to say tired delicacy of double-tracked vocals, fingerpicked ostinatos and childlike idolatry. “And when I sleep on your couch I feel very safe / and when you bring the blankets I cover up my face,” Sufjan breathes; it’s simple and organic, and there is much of
PEABODY
During the pounding ‘Black Narcissus’, guitars weave in and out but never overshadow the scattered religious iconography, and the despair of having "no tears left to cry". This is radio-friendly stuff that thumps along with a ready enthusiasm for the hopelessness of it all. But the clever marriage of lyrics about urban nihilism within a pop product is negated somewhat by the following tracks which end up, for the most part, engaging in obvious, clashing guitar keys. Pushing Chalmie's vocals to the back of the mix also creates an unfortunately staid vibe - not a great idea, as this instrument is one of the band's strongest weapons. As a result, the resultant scuzzy aesthetic seems uninspired rather than compelling. The band give themselves more room to move on longer tracks like ‘Mirror Mirror,’ where the melody ambles down a well-trod road. But the difficulty here is that in spite of the gradual build, the eventual punch of the guitars is all too limp. A broad range of work, Loose Manifesto unfortunately lacks the maturity or striking power that we now expect from such an engaging live act. Benjamin Cooper
The electronics’ purpose becomes a bit clearer if you factor in the influence of the late artist Royal Robertson, whose work appears on the cover and inspired many of the darker themes. Robertson was a paranoid schizophrenic whose style was a clash of pop naïveté and apocalyptic fury (they both appear on this album: autotune and swearing), and the washes of damaged sound often seem to echo the anguished frustrations of a damaged mind. To cherry-pick the sweeter, more accessible moments out of the album and skip the hard bits misses the point – it’s not easy, but it is beautiful. Caitlin Welsh
BEN FOLDS & NICK HORNBY
Loose Manifesto Peabrain Recordings Peabody aren’t fashionable, and they’re never going to be; they're too rough for commercial radio, and not clean enough for the hipsters. For the rest of us though, their appeal has always been Ben Chalmie’s nasal resonance amidst the surrounding restraint of his band's instrumentation. When the gang are throwing down the short shouty tracks, all you wanna do is snap your head and kick the stage edge. The challenge for them is whether they can create something memorable from the longer, recorded numbers - and on their fourth LP, the results are mixed.
that beloved and opulent sound in almost every song on this album. But after the gap between track one and track two, something happens: a sample, a synth and a drum machine. The problem for some has been that they find the electronic, synthetic sounds maintained throughout the rest of the album disruptive, overwhelming and alienating. But I think that’s the point.
Having to work with someone else's words clearly seems to have defied Folds’ instinctive songwriting style, which has never seemed anything but effortless. On a couple of tracks he seems to have pulled some orphan melodies from the swirling pop pensieve I imagine his brain to be, and forced them onto the lyrics like a child’s Sunday clothes: charming, yes, but not comfortable. ‘Picture Window’ and ‘Password’ are nice ideas but awkwardly realised; ‘Levi Johnston’s Blues’ appropriates the famous MySpace bio into a fun chorus, but the verses reveal it’s a one-note joke. Lonely Avenue still has its share of home runs. ‘Your Dogs’ lopes along on a classic, jaunty Folds piano, with flippant Moog interludes and whoaohs; and the story – a man struggling to maintain his tolerance in the face of a punk neighbour – is pithy, beautifully structured and hilarious. ‘Claire’s Ninth’ is lovely in the spare, simple words of its young protagonist and her damaged parents, exemplifying Hornby’s gift for revealing the quiet ways people are unintentionally cruel to one another. ‘Saskia Hamilton’ sees Folds in fine piano-murdering form, with Kate Miller-Heidke’s soprano going all out in the background.
For much of the past decade, Lil Wayne has been (probably) the best rapper alive. His wordplay is dexterous, his humour infectious, and more often than not his beats are the best going around. 2008’s Tha Carter III was massive, selling 3.5 million copies in the US alone, and winning almost as many accolades. There aren’t many artists who can shift that many discs any more. Sadly, Human Being is not going to trouble the scorers to anywhere near the same extent. This is not nearly his best work. The beats are predictable and dull by comparison, and Wayne’s usually stellar poetry has deserted him. It’s just the same old casual misogyny, mindless violence and scatological obsession that plagues almost every modern rap album, with only the briefest flashes of genius that were all over Carter III. There are also far too many cooks. Nearly every track features a guest performer from Weezy’s own Cash Money stable (Drake, Jay Sean, Lil Twist...), and you just know it’s more about marketing than anything else – witness Nicki Minaj on 'What's Wrong With Them', singing the hook like a Rihanna-lite instead of unleashing like the badass MC that she is. When he steps out on his own on the title track though, Weezy kills it; the intensity of his flow spars with the thick guitar riff playing over the top of him, ducking and weaving in and out like a prize fighter. It’s really the only time we’re reminded of his greatness on a fairly ordinary album. We can only hope he’s getting the crap out of the way before Tha Carter IV, slated for next year. We wait with bated breath.
As a Ben Folds album, it’s a little uneven - but as a short story anthology, it’s rather lovely.
From anyone else, Human Being would be ok. But Weezy F. Baby is much, much better than this.
Caitlin Welsh
Hugh Robertson
INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK MATT CORBY Transition To Colour Communion
When I received Matt Corby’s last single ‘Light Home’, I had no idea who he was. I thought the song was amazing, and said as much in my review. Later, when I realised he was an Australian Idol finalist, I thought, Woops. Literally Woops. The conclusion would have been the same, but the introduction would have been significantly more condescending, possibly defensive; I know it’s hard to believe, but, despite all likely probability, etc...
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In hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t have the opportunity to take the piss, because Matt Corby is a legitimately talented artist who deserves to put all that Idol shit behind him. Transition To Colour is Corby’s second EP, recorded in London and released through Communion - a UK indie label co-run by Ben Lovett (Mumford & Sons). A hypnotic collection of glimmering indie folk, the EP is a surprisingly mature work from the 19-year-old Sydney singer-songwriter. Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake and Damien Rice swim ghostly through the songs, but Corby’s art is his own. Pianos trickle and swell throughout the record, strings hum and
acoustic guitars pick their way through the songs, with the quiet skitter of drums driving everything forward. Corby’s voice is beautiful, swinging easily from warm, whispering lows to brief, wailing highs. On 'Winter', the carefully paced instrumentation barely changes, and there is scarcely more than one lyric in the song (“winter is coming, way too soon”), but his voice wraps around the notes, letting them breathe and expand and giving the track a mesmerising depth. The soulful folk and lush production values are unselfconscious and devoid of irony, and completely outside of contemporary music trends. But Corby’s EP is brave and confident, and the music is inarguably refined. Simone Ubaldi
The Memory Machine EMI
I Am Not A Human Being Cash Money
Lonely Avenue Nonesuch
Ben Folds is an astonishing storyteller, adept at creating characters with witty, oblique phrases and able to make you tear up with two notes. And Nick Hornby gets pop music absolutely - everyone who can name Rob Fleming/Gordon’s All-Time Top Five Breakups knows that. So hopes were high for their collaboration on this suite of storysongs; perhaps too high to have ever been quite met, especially for a rabid fan-girl like myself.
JULIA STONE
LIL WAYNE
Julia Stone’s debut solo effort is a real anachronism – it’s almost as if The Memory Machine was placed lovingly into a time capsule in the ‘40s, exhumed this year for a reminder of halcyon days. It's been recorded with real intimacy; you can hear every honeyed whisper, every vulnerable rasp, every delicate slide of a finger down the frets of a nylon guitar. I want Julia to serenade me into a deep slumber in a goat’s milk bath every evening... Is that weird? The warm orchestral strings morph and shape themselves around the thick, cyclic guitar in ‘My Baby’, and at once you're thrust into Julia’s plight with unrequited love: “Clouds will cover my eyes / I’ll try to hide / But I won’t leave you”. Seriously, who’s treating her like this? Who do they think they are? At points the album does tumble into moments of tiresome Kimya Dawsonesque indie folk, with deliberately kitsch and awkward lyrics like, “We wandered around your streets / With sewn on button eyes.” And the ukulele in ‘Where Does The Love Go’ trivialises Julia’s gorgeous poetic musings, making me wish it had been recorded with her trusty six-string instead. Julia doesn’t deviate far from the musical path she’s renowned for, but she does show glimpses of innovation. ‘The Horse With The Wings’ subtly infuses flute and electric guitar into the mix, and ‘Winter On The Weekend’, with its brooding French horn solo and Latin chord progressions, feels like a song that was born to be sung in Spanish. Buy a chai, lie on the grass, plug in your earphones and lose yourself in your one hour lunch break. That’s what I did. Rach Seneviratne
OFFICE MIXTAPE Wondering what the 'experts' listen to? Here's the music that drives The Brag... for this week, anyway. ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI - Scared Famous THE SCARE - Oozevoodoo O/S/T - The Rocky Horrror Picture Show
THE HORRORS - Strange House MEATLOAF - Bat Out Of Hell
An Evening With
All the passion, all the power, all the hits (and more)
neil finn
in a powerful new full-band performance!
This Saturday
Level 1 Newcastle Leauges Club
York Theatre
bigtix.com.au, oztix.com.au, or in person at the venue
This Sunday
New album out now!
Sydney Enmore Theatre 132 849 or ticketek.com.au
Book Now!
at the Seymour Centre
Thursday November 18 On Sale This Friday seymour.usyd.edu.au or 02 9351 7940, ticketmaster.com.au or 136 100
Presented by Michael Coppel I edkowalczyk.com I myspace.com/neilfinn I coppel.com.au
BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10 :: 39
live reviews What we've been to see...
Tame Impala by Will Reichelkt
Tame Impala
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT Sydney Opera House Thursday October 14
The ticket says ‘Rufus performs entire concert’, and it isn’t kidding. Tonight’s audience, many of whom have been hanging out to see the Canadian piano prodigy since he cancelled his tour earlier this year, are in for two and a half hours of the most flamboyant performer this side of Cosi Fan Tutte. Rufus is as bizarre as he is mesmerising, as uptight as he is lovable and near impossible to categorise or pin down. Of course, the delayed appearance is as a result of the death of his mother Kate McGarrigle, whose demise spawned Wainwright’s latest album. In her honour, he performs the entire thing start to finish in the first act - with specific directions to the crowd not to applaud until he leaves the stage. Of course, you have to account for the way he enters; clad in a black robe that wouldn’t look out of place in a Harry Potter sequel, with a trail which extends from one side of the expansive stage to the other. Confronting, poignant and deeply moving, Wainwright’s first half, as Andy Bull so correctly notes later, is “like a breath in.” Thankfully for the restless public, the even longer coda is a matching breath out. Bounding on stage in skinny red jeans and a pink scarf, Rufus Pt. 2 appears to be a completely different person to the mourner whose wishes we respected the first time around. With a healthy back catalogue of great tunes of a slightly sunnier disposition (well, not all of them), Rufus entertains and astounds in equal measures with nods to his earlier albums, including a fabulous rendition of ‘Poses’ and the obligatory ‘Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk.’ As talented as he is gay, Wainwright indulges his fans with his phenomenal piano playing and rich baritone, which this reviewer could honestly listen to for days without being bored. What Wainwright possesses that so many other performers lack is expression; he can hold notes and draw blood from the most unlikely of places, has unbelievable diaphragm control and plays better than many classical symphony pianists. Although he pauses at one point to say “Shit, I just realised I’m playing the Sydney Opera House”, the reality is that there’s nowhere more appropriate for this great talent than here. Let’s hope he comes back to bring his opera, Prima Donna, to the Cyndi Lauper House (as he tells us he allegedly referred to it as a child) - because even a two and half hours, there’s so much more Wainwright for us to hear. Jonno Seidler
TAME IMPALA, THE JOHN STEEL SINGERS Enmore Theatre, Thursday October 14
Three years ago, the friend I brought along tonight saw Tame Impala play in a scunge ridden hole in the wall at Hoxton, to about fifty of London’s most in-the-know dropouts. Oh how things have changed. The hordes were out in force tonight, Kevin Parker and Co. pulling an apparently sellout crowd to the Enmore.
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Brisbane’s The John Steel Singers have their live set nailed down at the moment, ripping through a medley of material from the soon-to-be-released debut that we’re all hanging out for. They didn’t get the crowd quite as revved up tonight as they have in the past, however; a lack of engagement with the audience, coupled with a certain going-through-the-motions combined to prevent lift-off, in spite of the guest appearance by Tame Impala drummer Jay Watson (double kit action! woo!) for signature track ‘Rainbow Kraut’. Perhaps the band are saving it up for their album launch tour – or the crowd simply hadn’t had enough bevvies. A half hour later and Perth’s Tame Impala amble onto stage, blowing straight through ‘It Is Not Meant To Be’ and ‘Solitude Is Bliss’. The band have a tendency to play their songs considerably slower live than the recorded versions – and these songs in particular – and the results are laid-back, verging on horizontal. Fortunately, those unable to concentrate on anything else (hi, how’s it going) could simply sit back and pick out shapes (the ABC logo, love hearts and the marshmallow man from Ghostbusters were all observed) in the synchronised projections that accompanied the expansive, abstract jams that filled out bulk of the show. Although their cover of ‘Remember Me’ is beginning to reach its use-by date, it was great to hear ‘Glass Half Full Of Wine’ off the Tame Impala EP. But if the JSS had difficulty engaging with this crowd, a spotlight-illumined Kevin Parker barely tried, a tight sense of scripted control emanating from his corner of the stage, accompanied by the odd monosyllabic grunt. An almost total lack of affect succeeded in keeping an entire theatre of fans at arm’s length - not that they seemed to realise. Tame Impala make admirable music. Bloody difficult to warm to, but. Oliver Downes
THE HOLIDAYS, PAPA VS PRETTY The Gaelic Club Saturday October 16
The day preceding this night was, quite possibly, the most horrible day of weather that’s happened this year. Not a great omen for Sydney’s Papa Vs Pretty. Equal parts awkward and charming, the young lads played to a fairly unresponsive audience to begin with - but as the boys got into the groove they managed to take most of crowd with them. When he announced that their next song would be single ‘Heavy Harm’ (from the EP of the same name, that signed to EMI imprint Peace & Riot) and the crowd erupted into cheers, lead singer Thomas Rawle, seemed genuinely surprised and thrilled – “You know our song?! Woo! That’s awesome!” With a bit of practice in the stage presence department, there’s a lot of talent to be cultivated here. A fair number of the audience were right to wonder if the live set of The Holidays would match the irresistible flurry of sunny energy on the album they were launching,
live reviews What we've been to see...
Post Paradise. But happily, the Sydney band managed to wrap the cold, sodden audience in a warm cocoon of tropical electro-pop almost immediately. Playing triple j favourite ‘Moonlight Hours’ early on did wonders to get the crowd jumping. Even in slower, lesser-known numbers, like ‘Indian Summer Anniversary’, The Holidays managed to effortlessly hold the attention of the crowd, who were more than happy to make up words to songs they didn’t know and smile hugely at the strangers next to them. It just went to show that the extra time taken to work on their unique bongothrobbing breezy guitar-synth mishmash was time well spent. By the time they got to ‘Golden Sky’, lead singer Simon Jones had ditched the guitar, freeing himself to jump energetically up and down and around the stage, while the crowd screamed the chorus back. The cowbells were a-ringin’ and the crowd were a-singin’. My plus-one didn’t know a single song of theirs, but it didn’t matter a bit - she still rated it gig of the year. With such an ample supply of tropical tunes, all the crowd needed was a Pina Colada, an inflatable pool to sit in, and a mate to haphazardly slap on some sun block. The Gaelic failed to provide any of these, but I still learnt two very important things: firstly, more bands should use bongos and secondly, there’s nothing better to do on a dreary, rainy Saturday night than hang with The Holidays. Liz Brown
SMASHING PUMPKINS Big Top, Luna Park Saturday October 16
Smashing Pumpkins by Rosette Rouhanna
Most of the sold-out Big Top crowd seemed to just be really pleased to be there. The main worry was that, with a potential 44 new songs to choose from just from the latest record (the track-by-track release of Teargarden by Kaleidyscope), it was conceivable that The Billy Show could fill the scheduled two hours and not play a single thing recorded before 2009. Luckily, ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’, ‘Today’, ‘Cherub Rock’, ‘Stand Inside Your Love’, ‘Zero’, and ‘Tonight, Tonight’ all made an appearance, as well as Zeitgeist’s ‘Tarantula’ - and the
scoured-raw distortion-fest that used to be ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ and is as awesome as it is pretentious. But the old tunes felt rushed and toothless, with only ‘Cherub’ feeling like it had some grunt behind it. The punters seemed to be having a good time, but it felt cursory, and snarky, perhaps worse than if they hadn’t played them at all. During the intermission show, Billy Corgie And The Infinite Between-Song Patter, it was clear he was a bit sick of it all: “Man, I just wanna play the songs and go home and eat my chicken.” The current line-up does have some good substance – poached Veruca Salt/ Spinerette bassist Nicole Fiorentino is especially great, chilled and gutsy. It’s tempting to suggest that maybe, just maybe, part of the appeal of recruiting a drummer who’s younger than the actual band is being able to lord it over him a bit – Mike Byrne, now 20, was a lifelong Pumpkins fan when he auditioned for the spot last year, and it’s hard to imagine him standing up to Billy too much. That being said, kid can drum. When the band broke out a monstrous (though truncated) cover of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Moby Dick’, Billy grinning like a fool as he and Jeff Schroeder shredduelled, they quite rightly left Byrne to not disgrace himself even a little bit on the skins; he topped it off with a well-earned whack on the giant gong behind him. The Vines’ Craig Nicholls reprised his appearance at Tame Impala earlier this year, duetting with Billy on a riotous ‘Get Free’ - which was great fun with two extra guitars. (You get one more, Craig. Choose wisely; Iggy’s coming, you know…) Then Billy warned us that the final song went for half an hour. He wasn’t joking – and I stayed purely out of my obligation as The Brag’s Pumpkins Correspondent. Most of the new stuff seemed overegged at best and toothless pap at worst; it may play out better on record, but my hopes are not high after Billy Corgie And The Infinite Encore. Nobody’s saying it’s got to be enormous fun playing the same songs for nigh-on twenty years, Billy. We understand that we’re not going to hear every single and beloved B-side every time we go see our favourite band. But you don’t have to be a little bitch about it. Caitlin Welsh
The Smashing Pumpkins
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The Minor Chord The All Ages rant bought to you by Indent.net.au. By Kate Dean
Sarah Blasko
The sun has finally decided to come out from behind those dreary clouds, but rather than some celebration, school mode has settled, as exciting as that is. Before we riot due to boredom, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s put a little fun into our lives â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and what provides more enjoyment than some pretty rockinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; music?
And just when you thought it was all done and dusted, Fisher's pull out one more headline, straight from the US, and along similar pop punk/rock lines: Valencia. From Philadelphia, the group are about two weeks from putting out their new album, Dancing With A Ghost, and Fisher's are giving away a double pass to go backstage and meet the band before they jump on stage. Hit up indent.net.au for all the details. Otherwise get down to Bradbury park this Sunday November 7. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s free!
SARAH BLASKO
NO SLEEP â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;TIL
The one we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help but adore, Sarah Blasko, is finally home for an Australian tour after gallivanting around Europe. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not forgetting the fans under 18; sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be playing at the Enmore this Friday for a retrospective program of her entire repertoire.
UNEARTHED
Those guys at triple j just keep on giving, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t they? Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re running a competition through their Unearthed initiative. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know if you have heard of it, but thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s this festival called Big Day Out thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kind of fantastic, and even better - itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all-ages. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only one thing better than going to BDO, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s playing at Big Day Out! So upload a song to triple j Unearthed by November 7, and you could be one of the two lucky bands to open at BDO Sydney. Oh and it gets even better: you get paid $750 for your set. Not a bad stepping stone to get your band known, hey?
CITIES AND COUNTRIES
Don't be fooled - neither of these bands are from the countries that they namecheck. Brisbane's Hungry Kids Of Hungary are playing the Factory Theatre on Friday November 12 with Big Scary (a Melbourne duo that play excellent instruments like the glokenspeil, the shaker, and the roto toms) and Ball Park Music (more Brisbaneites). Ball Park have a new single out, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Sad Rude Future Dudeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s free from their myspace. Our other faves, Philadelphia Grand Jury, are back from their international escapades and playing on Saturday November 13 at the Metro Theatre on George street. They just released a new single, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Save our Townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s everywhere. They're touring with Howl (Unearthed High winners!) and Bearhug.
FISHERS GIG
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Remember when we spoke about the free festival happening in Campbelltown? Fisher's Gig? Well they announced their headline acts last week and boy are you in for a treat. Electro-rock group MM9 and pop-punksters Tonight Alive. MM9 just played Surround Sound out in Liverpool last week (which rocked), and are often referred to as a breath of fresh air in a genre that can easily become predictable. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in the middle of a national tour, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re sure the all-ages stopover in Campbelltown wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t disappoint. Plus Tonight Aliveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s self-titled debut album shot to number one on the iTunes alternative chart after a mere SIX hours. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re touring in support of their most recent release, All Shapes And Disguises.
Those of you fond of a heavier set up, there is plenty for you as well. Oldies (well when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re still in school everyone is old) NOFX and Frenzal Rhomb are amongst the lineup along with Dropkick Murphys, Parkway Drive, Megadeath, A Day To Remember â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and a whole lot more sure to get your ears ringing for days. You have a fair bit of time until this one (it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t until halfway through December) so start saving your pennies now. As always donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forget to tune in for The Minor Chord with Eva and Kate on FBi 94.5 on a Wednesday afternoon around 5ish.
ALL AGES GIG PICKS FRIDAY OCTOBER 29 Sarah Blasko The Enmore Theatre
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 7
Fisherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gig: Valencia (US), MM9, Tonight Alive Bradbury Park, Campbelltown from midday.
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 12
Hungry Kids Of Hungary, Big Scary, Ball Park Music The Factory Theatre, Marrickville
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 13
Philadelphia Grand Jury, Howl, Bearhug Metro Theatre, Sydney
Bearhug
Send pics, listings and any info to minorchords@thebrag.com 42 :: BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10
More than The Cure since 1989 with Murray Engleheart
Motorhead
SATURDAY OCTOBER
Remedy
HALLOWEEN HA H A AL LL L LOOOW L W WE EE E E EN N HAL ALL LLO PA P PARTY A AR RTY RT R TTYY ART
30th
:30pm fore 9ntil 11pm e b e fre rinks u $4 d
MOTT THE HOOPLE
Despite all the excitement about their reunion in London – that was what, this time last year? – Mott The Hoople didn’t exactly look like Gods who were denied their true moment, but (with the exception of the immediately-recognisable Ian Hunter) more like some bunch of old geezers from their local. Sure, we know, we can’t talk about aging gracefully. But that was never a contracted part of our job description. Anyways, a Mott boxed set that’s been tough to get for a while seems to have been reissued – and it’s a killer. The four-record set, Performance 19701974, brings together a 1970 show from the UK with four others drawn from several of their subsequent US tours.
DELUXE REISSUES
Not sure if we’ve run this theory past you before, but we reckon that in the future no one will ever release an initial album. Instead, they’ll go straight to the deluxe reissue. Proof of this is not only in the recent re-release of that still-kinda-new (or so it seems) Queens Of The Stone Age album, but stuff like the revamp of Clutch’s Robot Hive/Exodus with a live DVD and a track listing ramped up to a whopping 23 songs.
PINKERTON
Continuing in that same theme, in November Weezer re-release their Pinkerton effort, pumped up with more than a normal album’s-worth of previously
unreleased stuff – 16 new tracks in all, including some from their performance at the Reading Festival in the UK in 1996, the year the recording first came out.
DUNGEN
Prolific Swede acid eaters, Dungen, who really are comparable to no one but Dungen themselves, and released Skit I Allt in September, are the latest and maybe most left-field act (so far) to be enlisted by Jack White to do a single for his Third Man label.
ROADBURN
Next year’s Roadburn Festival in Holland continues to take on a distinctly left-field form with the announcement that doom jazz masters The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble will be making an appearance at the event. They’re more a fucked up – in a good way – movie soundtrack than a respect filled, faithful nod to Albert Ayler or Coltrane however.
ACE OF SPADES
MONSTERS BALL BANDS
We weren’t really knocked sideways in any sense by Electric Wizard’s last effort, Witchcult Today, which wasn’t as earthmoving as we wanted; but that don’t mean we can’t be excited about their next one, which is due out on November 1. It’s called Black Masses and the first shot from it is a song titled ‘Venus In Furs’, which might or might not be a version of the Velvet Underground song of the same name. But really, it’d have to be, wouldn’t it?
LIVE
ELECTRIC WIZARD
FANCY DRESS - WIN PRIZES
ST JAMES HOTEL 114 CASTLEREAGH ST, CITY
A new version of Motorhead’s ‘Ace Of Spades’ is about to spearhead TV ads for Carlsberg beer offshoot Kronenbourg 1664, with Lemmy wailing away on harmonica (as he occasionally has been doing on-stage for the past few years) - the irony being that the Lemmster doesn’t drink beer. But hey, at least they’re not doing an ad for butter like John Lydon did. Nonetheless, the move will no doubt encourage some bright spark to put out yet another Motorhead compilation. We’re hoping they resist the urge.
THE SOFT BULLETIN
We’ve mentioned already that The Flaming Lips are playing their classic The Soft Bulletin album – the next best thing to having to drag your bad self outta bed on a Sunday to go to church – as part of ATP’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ series in London in July. But now they’re doing a more local (for them) version of the show on New Year’s Eve, in hometown Oklahoma City.
ON THE TURNTABLE On the Remedy turntable is GBH’s blazing City Baby and Iggy Pop’s Kill City, which has recently been remixed and reissued, and leaves absolutely all his solo stuff since then in the dust. The guy started to believe what people said about him in the mid70s, and it all turned to shit from there. Also spinning is Dylan’s recently released The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964, which is volume nine in that extraordinary official bootleg series of his, and has been getting some serious ongoing attention. No small feat that given it should be common knowledge by this point that we’re not huge fans of the whole singer-songwriter thing, even if it is His Bobness - but this is one extraordinary set of songs that at times are closer to rural blues than (gulp!) folk.
TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS My Disco celebrate the release of their Little Joy album with dates next month. On November 24 they’re at the ANU Bar, Canberra with Hoodlum Shouts and Spartak, on November 25 at The Cambridge (Newcastle) with Alps and Bare Grillz and November 26 at The Manning Bar with Dead Farmers and Laurenz (PVT). Further to our item in last week's column, Damo Suzuki will be at the Excelsior on November 21 with The Holy Soul, while Naked On the Vague will be opening the night. The Suzuki/Holy Soul live album we mentioned will be on sale at the gig,
but get in quick as the show is damn near sold out already. The Hitmen, Decline of the Reptiles, and the Cool Charmers are at the Jets Sports Club (Tempe) on November 13. It’s the last show for a while for The Hitmen who are farewelling guitarist Klondike, who’s off on a European adventure. The night will also be the launch of the new Hitmen album, Dancin’ Time 78-79. On October 29, the Hell City Glamours are supporting Gay Paris at Oxford Street’s Supper Club, with Smokestack Orchestra and The Watt Riot.
Send stuff for this column to remedy@ozemail.com.au by 6pm Wednesdays. All pics to art@thebrag please. www.myspace.com/remedy4rock BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10 :: 43
snap sn ap
arobi single launch
PICS :RO
up all night out all week . . .
happy wednesday
PICS :: AM
15:09:10 :: Melt :: 12 Kellett St, Kings Cross 93806060
14:10:10 :: Spectrum :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93316245
club blink
PICS :: RO
hot damn
PICS :: TL
13:10:10 :: Spectrum :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93316245
15:10:10 :: St James Hotel :: 114 Castlereagh St City 9261 8277
The Paper Scissors party profile
It’s called: The Paper Scissors' ‘Lung Sum’ single launch party. It sounds like: Post-indie soul. Bands: The Paper Scissors w/ guests: Halal How Are You?! and Kids at Risk, plus DJs Tyson (2SER/FBi) and Dara Gill. Three songs you’ll hear on the night: ‘Lung Sum’, ‘We Don’t Walk’, and maybe some Shakira (according to Tyson). Sell it to us: We have a new song, off a new album, so we’re throwing a party – and we put on a fine party. We will make you dance, sing, cry, make love (well maybe later - you may get kicked out if you try this in the venue), dance some more… You’ve heard it on the radio now come check it with your ear holes, don’t just fucking sit at home and ‘like’ it on Facebook! The bit we’ll remember in the AM: You’ll still be there in the AM, dummy, as we have Dara and Tyson manning the wheels of steel after the bands. Crowd specs: All types - as long you are a good spud and ready to party. Wallet damage: $12 oztix/ $15 door Where: Hermanns Bar (Sydney Uni)
mum
PICS ::JD
When: Friday October 29
15:10:10 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700 44 :: BRAG :: 385:: 25:10:10
) :: ASH LEY MAR :: ROS ETT E S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO REIC HELT :: PATR ICK OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER WILL :: IE NZO :: SOF II MCK ENZ ROU HAN NA :: JULI AN DELORE STE VEN SON
TO O G S ED PROCE ISTAN
PAK S ’ F E UNIC FLOOD EAL PP A S ’ N u a RE . D g L r I o H C nicef.
ALL
u www.
THE VINES
OPERATOR PLEASE
FLIGHT FACILITIES x PURPLE SNEAKER DJ - PhDJ SOSUEME DJs x MUM DJs OXFORD ARTS FACTORY
DOORS OPEN 7.30PM | 38-46 OXFORD ST, DARLINGHURST TICKETS: $25 + BF FROM WWW.MOSHTIX.COM.AU + DESIGNFORHUMANITY.COM
BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10 :: 45
snap sn ap
paramore
PICS :: AM
up all night out all week . . .
trash
PICS :: RO
15:10:10 :: Entertainment Centre :: 35 Harbour Street, Darling Harbour 9320 4200
02:10:10 :: Plantation :: 2a Roslyn St Kings Cross 93607531
46 :: BRAG :: 385:: 25:10:10
) :: ASH LEY MAR :: ROS ETT E S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO REIC HELT :: PATR ICK OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER WILL :: IE ENZ NZO :: SOF II MCK ROU HAN NA :: JULI AN DELORE STE VEN SON
BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10 :: 47
snap sn ap
14:10:10 :: Enmore Theatre :: 118-132 Enmore Road, Newtown 9550 3666
PICS :: RO
smashing pumpkins
PICS :: WR
tame impala
16:10:10 :: Annandale Hotel :: 17 Paramatta Rd Annandale 95501078
sage francis
PICS :: TL
you am i
PICS :: TL
up all night out all week . . .
17:10:10 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93323711
16:10:10 :: Luna Park :: 1 Olympic Drive Milsons Point 99226644
We Love Indie It sounds like: A blue light disco in 1986. DJs/live acts playing: Guest DJ sets from the best international bands and our amazing local DJ cartel, including Lone Wolf, Miss Velveteen, DJ & Coke, Cunningpants, Legohead and Urby, Mick Jones. Sell it to us: We Love Indie is like a turbo-powered ninja with a bazooka in his arse aiming his sensual missiles straight at your eardrums. Heaps of your favourite indie and alternative tracks, great location and cheap drinks. The bit we’ll remember in the AM: You won’t remember anything, but for once you’ll wake up with money in your back pocket, we guarantee it… or your money back. Crowd specs: Fans of indie rock, indie disco, indie electro and indie pants. No pretentiousness, ego checking is available in the cloakroom. Wallet damage: $10 and not much more…it’s a pub the booze is cheap! Where: The Forbes Hotel / 30 York St, Sydney CBD. When: Every Saturday from November 6.
48 :: BRAG :: 385:: 25:10:10
laneous & the family yah 15:10:10
PICS :: AM
party profile
It’s called: We Love Indie
:: The Gaelic Theatre :: 64 Devonshire St Surry Hills 92111687
) :: ASH LEY MAR :: ROS ETT E S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO REIC HELT :: PATR ICK OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER WILL NZO :: SOF II MCK ENZ IE :: ROU HAN NA :: JULI AN DELORE STE VEN SON
BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10 :: 49
small bars guide Smaller Than Your Average Hordern Pavilion...
Is there a bar we should know about? Email listings@thebrag.com
288 Bondi Road, Bondi Beach THE HOSTS Owners Mark Tarrant and James Hudson are known to host The Rum Diaries when time permits, but Colin Duignan is your ‘main man’: host, manager and locally favoured Canadian. Colin heads a gorgeous young group of staff, all of whom have refreshingly accessible personalities on the job. The owners all met in the heyday of Middle Bar, and formed a friendship and eventual partnership that lead to The Rum Diaries; an expression of their passion for literature, rum and kind service.
THE PITCH From the storied Cocktail Diary, to the mouth-watering shared menu, we offer the complete package. It’s not tapas - it’s social dining. It’s professional service in a comfortable, relaxed atmosphere. From the moment you hear the scratchy record player outside, spinning anything from Kamal to Led Zeppelin, you know that there is something different about this bar. With an inviting red glow that emanates throughout the
dark wooden interior, lighting up the dozens of international Rum choices, The Rum Diaries offers a change from the standard.
WHAT’S IN A NAME? The Rum Diary is a famous (read infamous) novel from the late Hunter S. Thompson. It weaves a tale of a young freelance journalist living in Puerto Rico, and his many misadventures with women, his life choices and, of course, his violent alcoholic lust. It would be hard to embody all these things in a name alone, so the staff and regulars at The Diaries do their bit too, to keep the tales of misadventure alive…
TH
EK
bar
OF
The Rum Diaries
brag
E E W
an original 1920s cash register, a bottle of Maximo that hangs from the ceiling in a safe(!), and gorgeous pieces of old furniture throughout - with their life encounters etched onto their surfaces.
SIGNATURE DRINK? Try our notorious ‘Zombie’ cocktail – a secret blend of rums, shaken with passionfruit, falernum and pink grapefruit juice, and served flaming in a Tiki mug. What’s in a name you ask? Simple; after a couple of these, you’ll be about as useful as a Zombie. We suggest prebooking a taxi for the ride home.
HINDSIGHT
DESIGN INSPIRATIONS? The venue was built and designed by the owners, and one of the business partners Mark Bowey - who has a very strong creative background, and an interest in aesthetics. Wanting to create somewhere with a consistent theme and a warm and welcoming atmosphere were key goals; a restaurant with historic pieces throughout. The bar has railway sleepers, menus attached to cupboard doors, a secret room behind a revolving bookcase,
Well, once the money was squeezed out of a rock, our next greatest challenge (the rock being the largest) was putting our minds and our bodies to work to actually build the bar that we’d spent so long talking about building. These days, the daily challenge is finding that pretty penny at the end of every hard day worked… But with or without the penny, The Rum Diaries story and its characters continue to unfold on Bondi Road, each and every week.
brag cocktail of the week: Pour it in your mouth-hole... (responsibly).
The Lady In Red @ Café Lounge
277 Goulburn Street, Surry Hills best drunk with: your special one during: warm summer evenings while wearing: ruby red lipstick and listening to: great live music at The Lounge. Ingredients: blueberry, raspberry & black peppercorninfused Belvedere vodka, watermelon Method: strain our in-house infused vodka with crushed watermelon, and pour straight into the glass Glass: chilled martini glass Garnish: a necklace of red fruits 50 :: BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10
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
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
presents presents...
TUE CULT SINEMA 26th October 7:30pm
$5 suggested donation
WED JAGER UPRISING FINAL #2 27th October 7pm
w. Veridian + Cherrylane + Activate Deathray + One Jonathon Who will walk away with $1,000 cash prize??? $8 door
THU 28st October 8pm
DIESEL SEVEN AXES TO GRIND w. Kim Churchill $35.80 + bf
FRI 29nd October 8pm
78 Saab ALBUM LAUNCH w. The Jewel & the Falcon + Yae! Tiger $13 + bf
SAT TRIPLE EP LAUNCH 30th October 7.30pm
W. STICKY FINGERS + THE FUTURE PREHISTORICS + THE COLT 44ʼS $10 + bf
SUN sCREAMING SUNDAY *All Ages* 31st October Midday
w. Broken Riot + Big Smoky + Bedlam in Belgium + Another Minute Past Midnight + Hey Fever + Perfect Revolution + Calling Mayday + Delamare
$12 door
SUN 31st October 5pm
SUNDAY DRIVE *The Last Sunday of Every Month* Featuring Juliawhy? + The Foreign Objects + Tom Stone & the Soldiers of Fortune + Birdcage + more $10 door with $1 going to FBI
#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: PEABODY | SKA WEEKENDER | TALES IN SPACE | JOHN VELLA | BREAKING ORBIT
0ARRAMATTA 2D !NNANDALE &ULL LIST OF UPCOMING SHOWS INFORMATION AND SHOW BOOKINGS VISIT
WWW ANNANDALEHOTEL COM
YOUR LIVE MUSIC CHANNEL
BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10 :: 51
g g guide gig g
send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com
pick of the week Kyü
ACOUSTIC & FOLK
Residents: Lovers Jump Creek, Mending Melissa, Renae Kearney, Paul Turner Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Songsalive!: Russell Neal Off Broadway, Ultimo free 7pm
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 27 ROCK & POP
THURSDAY OCTOBER 28
GoodGod Small Club, Sydney
kyü, Pikelet (solo), special guests & DJs $10 (+ bf), $12 (on door) 8pm MONDAY OCTOBER 25 Mandi Jarry Coogee Bay Hotel free 9pm Peter Northcote The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf) 8pm 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
JAZZ
Greg Coffin Trio 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm Jim Gannon Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm
Chris Klondike Masuak & The North Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Deborah Conway, Willy Zygier Vault 146, Windsor $23.50 (presale)–$49 (dinner & show) 7pm Kevin Bloody Wilson Waves Nightclub, Towradgi 8pm Mandarin Band Rainforest Lounge, Bankstown Sports Club free 7.30pm Open Mic Night Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle free 7pm Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Steve Tonge O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm They Call Me Bruce Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm Tuesday Unplugged Uni Bar, Wollongong University, Gwynneville free 4pm
ACOUSTIC/FOLK
Songsalive!: April Sky, Helmut Uhlmann Kellys On King, Newtown free 7pm Songsalive!: Kristian Jackson, Lisalive, Pete Loveridge, Roger Corbett, Eddie Boyd, Saunders and Stowe, Russell Neal, Under the Purple Tree Springwood Sports Club free 7.30pm
TUESDAY OCTOBER 26 ROCK & POP
Beau Smith Duo Stamford Grand North Ryde, Macquarie Park free 6pm
JAZZ
Club Jazz Open Mic Night The Manhattan Lounge, Sydney free 7pm Electric Empire Raval, Surry Hills $15 (presale) 7.30pm Fugawe, Matt McMahon Trio 505 Club, Surry Hills $8–$10 8.30pm James Valentine’s Supper Club: James Valentine Quartet Golden Sheaf Hotel, Double Bay free 7pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Rob Eastwood Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm
Andy Mammers Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm B!G, Lucinda Peters Notes Live, Enmore $17.85 (presale)–$18 (at door) 7pm Ben Finn Duo Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 6pm Boy & Bear, Passenger (UK), The Chemist Harp Hotel, Wollongong 8pm Chicago, America (USA), Peter Frampton (UK) Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour $127.64 (C Res)– $158.33 (A Res) 6.15pm Deborah Conway, Elana Stone Brass Monkey, Cronulla $28.60 8pm Fur Burka Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Happy Hippies Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 6.30pm Jager Uprising: Veridian, Cherrylane, Activate Death Ray, One Jonathon Annandale Hotel $8 7pm Keith Hall Soldiers Point Bowling Club, Nelson Bay free 7pm Kill Kurt Reifler Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle 8pm Live n Local Lizotte’s Restaurant, Lambton $13.50 7pm Mike Bennett The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm 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 Sam & Jamie Show Dee Why Hotel free 7pm Set Sail, Patrick James, The Tourist Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $5 8pm Sideshow: Seabellies, Red Ink, Maniac Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm The Phonies Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8pm The Study: Super Florence Jam, One Flew East, The Monks of Mellonwah Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Tom Trelawny O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm Tommy Pickett, Isaac Cheong, Dani Carr The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf) 8pm Uni Night Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 9pm YourSpace Muso Showcase Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 7pm
JAZZ
Aaron Choulai’s Sisia Natuna 505 Club, Surry Hills $15–$20 8.30pm Electric Empire Raval, Surry Hills $15 (presale) 7.30pm Lucy Sassoon Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm
Mama Kin
ACOUSTIC/FOLK
Folk You Cancer - Singing For A Cure: The Falls, Miss Little, Rosie Catalano Hotel Hollywood, Surry Hills free Songsalive!: Pave Leclair, TAOS Coach & Horses Hotel, Randwick free 7pm Songwriters & Open Mic: Lucky Luke, Laura Beasant, Paul Walker, Simon Li, Adam Kiss, Russell Neal Mars Hill Café, Parramatta free 7.30pm
THURSDAY OCTOBER 28 ROCK & POP
Andrew Morris, Halfway, Ben Salter Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $15.90 (presale) 8pm Boy & Bear, Passenger (UK), The Chemist Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West 8pm Brian King Piano Bar, Bankstown Sports Club free 8pm CDB Warners Bay Hotel free 7pm Counterfeit Tribute Night (Aussie Rock): Rex Havoc & The Corruptible Gals Banned, Sally Hackett, The Walk On By, Yu Si Liu, Luna Bugs, Alice Terry, Handsome Sons, Janise Shanley & Stephen Farrell, Don Macleod, Richiko & Shannon, The Junkyard Advisory, Solomon Barbar, Dave Sattout, The Glimmer, Christian Brimo, Ben Breidis & That Girl The Roxbury Hotel, Glebe $10 or $5 for under 18s 7pm Deborah Conway, Willy Zygier Notes Live, Enmore $28.60 (presale) 8pm Diesel, Kim Churchill Annandale Hotel $35.80 (+ bf) 8pm Final Flash Coogee Diggers free 8pm G3 Marble Bar, Sydney free 8.30pm Green Mohair Suits Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8.30pm Hot Damn!: 28 Days, Hot Damn DJs Spectrum, Darlinghurst $12–$15 8pm Jetstar Sunsets Charity Flight: Powderfinger Sydney Airport, Mascot $249 5pm Jo Vill Windang Bowling Club 6pm Johnathan Devoy Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm kyü, Pikelet Goodgod Small Club, Sydney 8pm Mama Kin, Fergus Brown The Vanguard, Newtown $18–$22 6pm Mark Seymour Lizotte’s Restaurant, Lambton $40 (show only)–$110 7pm Monkey Killed Johnny, The Cashmere Revolution, Crooked Sunrise Sly Fox, Enmore free 8pm Morning Melodies: Steve St Clair Penrith RSL $6 10.30am Natural Selection: Winter People, The Decorated Generals, Griffith Goat Boy Melt Bar, Kings Cross $10 9pm Peabody Harp Hotel, Wollongong 8pm Reyes De La Onda Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 12am Roxwell Star City Sports Theatre & Bar, Pyrmont free 8pm Sarah Blasko, Seja Civic Theatre, Civic Precinct Newcastle $51 8pm Sophie Hutchings, Seaworthy, Tied Hands Raval, Surry Hills $15.90 (presale) 7.30pm Suite AZ, Steve Clisby Quartet Astral Bar, Star City, Pyrmont free 8pm
The Lucky Wonders Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 9pm The Music of Fela Kuti: The Strides, Afro Moses The Basement, Circular Quay $16 (+ bf)–$26 (at door) 8.30pm The SideTracked Fiasco The Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt $8 8.30pm Thursday Live: Samantha Brave, Kate Gogarty Newport Arms Hotel free 7pm
JAZZ
D.I.G. Brass Monkey, Cronulla $30.60 (presale) 7pm Didi Mudigdo Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges (USA) Clarendon Guest House, Katoomba $32 (show only)–$74 (dinner & show) 7pm Lionel Robinson Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Sara Serpa 505 Club, Surry Hills $15–$20 8.30pm Steve Edmonds Empire Hotel, Annandale free 8pm
ACOUSTIC/FOLK
Acoustic Thursday Otis Bar, Wollongong free 8pm Rock Out With Your Wok Out: Daniel Hopkins Narrabeen Sands free 7.30pm Songsalive!: Ben Osmo, Craig Edmondson, Mark Wilkes, Nic Alexander, Nick Coady, Men With Day Jobs, Carolyn Crysdale Penshurst RSL free 7pm Songsalive!: Dennis Aubrey’s Songwriters Night @Newtown RSL free 7pm Songsalive!: Kristian Jackson, Under the Purple Tree Henry Lawson Club, Werrington County free 7.30pm Songsalive!: Russell Neal Raby Tavern free 7pm
“I’ll shout. I’ll scream I’ll kill the king. I’ll rail at all his servants” - Ladies And Gentlemen, THE ROLLING STONES 52 :: BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10
gig guide
send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com
HIP HOP
Phatchance, Coptic Soldier, Johnny Utah Hostage X, Wollongong $5 8pm
FRIDAY OCTOBER 29 ROCK & POP
2 Of Hearts Padstow RSL Club free 8pm 2days Hits Eastern Suburbs Leagues Club, Bondi Junction free 9pm 78 Saab, The Jewel & The Falcon, Yae!Tiger Annandale Hotel $13 8pm Alter Ego Windang Bowling Club free 7.30pm Antoine Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm Back 2 Rock Nelson Bay Bowling Club free 7.30pm Beth Yen Astral Bar, Star City, Pyrmont free 7pm Black Label CC’s Hotel, Campbelltown 8pm Boy & Bear, Passenger (UK), The Chemist Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $15 (+ bf) 8pm Brett O’Malley The Seabreeze Hotel, Nelson Bay free 8pm Broadway Mile, Falling For Beloved, Crystal Cove, Inhale The Sea Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle West $10 8pm Brown Sugar Marble Bar, Sydney free 9.30pm Chartbusters Campbelltown Catholic Club free 9pm
Chicago, America (USA), Peter Frampton (UK) WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong $125 (+ bf)–$155 (gold) 6.15pm Cloud Control, Seekae, Deep Sea Arcade Hotel Gearin, Katoomba $17 (+ bf)–$22 (at door) 8pm Covergirl Blacktown RSL Club free 8pm Dirty Love Warners Bay Hotel free 9pm Don Hopkins Dee Why RSL Club free 8pm Dr Don’s Double Dose Riverview Shopping Centre, Windsor free 8pm Emma Davis, Leroy Lee, Agnes Kain The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $1 (+ bf)–$15 (at door) 8pm Final Flash, Dead Letter Chorus, Caitlin Park Notes Live, Enmore $14.30 (presale) 7pm Forever Rod: Dave Battah Workers Blacktown $15 (member)–$17 8pm Formula Blackbutt Hotel, New Lambton free 8.45pm Free Friday After Work Kendall Bar, Central Coast Leagues Club, Gosford free 5.30pm Gay Paris, The Smoke Stack Orchestra, The Watt Riot The Polo Lounge and Supper Club, Darlinghurst $12.30 (+ bf) 8pm Grafton Primary The Grand Hotel, Wollongong 8pm Groovin Hard Rainforest Lounge, Bankstown Sports Club free 9pm Hue Williams Gladstone Hotel, Dulwich Hill free 7.30pm Humdingers Soldiers Point Bowling Club, Nelson Bay free 7pm
In Pieces Cronulla Sharks free 8.30pm Jason Hicks Docks Hotel, Darling Harbour free 7.30pm Jessica Cain Peden’s Tavern Hotel, Cessnock free 8.30pm Jon English, Jonah’s Road The Showroom, Bankstown Sports Club $15 (member)–$20 7.45pm Katrina Baulkham Hills Sports Club free 8pm Keith Hall The Beachcomber Hotel, Toukley free 8pm Kim Gock Piano Bar, Bankstown Sports Club free 8pm Kirsty Larkin Lake Macquarie Tavern, Mount Hutton free 7.30pm Kym Campbell Central Coast Leagues Club, Gosford free 5.30pm Leeroy & the Rats Avoca Beach Hotel free 8.30pm Mad Cow Cronulla RSL free 8.30pm Mama Kin, Fergus Brown, Colin Moore Brass Monkey, Cronulla $17–$20 8pm Max Smidt Caringbah Bizzo’s 8pm Misbehave MJ Finnegan’s Irish Pub, Newcastle free 10.30pm Moniters The Valve, Tempe 8pm MUM: The Rocketsmiths, Cosmo Black, Blonde on Blonde, Convaire, Leeroy Macqueen & The Gussets, Hey Fever, The Money Smokers The World Bar, Kings Cross $15 New Millenium Auburn Hotel free 7pm Nick Kingswell Pippi’s at the Point, Speers Point
TUE 26 OCT
wed
27 Oct
(9:00PM - 12:00AM)
free 6pm Original Sin INXS Show Heathcote Hotel free 8pm Overload Shoal Bay Country Club Hotel free 8.45pm Peter Grant Star City Sports Theatre & Bar, Pyrmont free 8pm Purple Sneakers: The Paper Scissors DJ Set, Jane Gazzo, Ben Lucid vs Kill The Landlord, KidnBird, Monica Devcic Gladstone Hotel, Chippendale free 7pm Real Deal Iron Horse Inn, Cardiff free 6.30pm Red Fire Red, Rabble Rabble, The Presence Manly Fisho’s $10 8pm Red Ink Spectrum, Darlinghurst $15 (+ bf) 8pm Rolling Stoned Hawkesbury Hotel, Windsor free 7.45pm Sarah Blasko, Seja Enmore Theatre $72.10 7pm Scul Hazzards, Teen Ax And Silver Moon Blackwire Records, Annandale Service 30 Mayfield Ex Services Club Ltd free 8.30pm Shade Of Red Matraville Hotel free 8pm Skyscraper Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel free 7pm Stone Cold Sober Crown on McCredie Hotel, Guildford West free 8pm Sydney Blues Festival: Dallas Frasco, Chase The Sun, The Fumes, Claude Hay, Adam Hole, Marji Curran, The Snowdroppers, Marshall & the Fro, The Wildes, Richard Clapton, Kevin Borich, Don Hopkins, Rob Grosser, The Detonators, Bondi Cigars, Tice & Evans, The Driving Conditions, The Forever Young Band, Dave
Bridge City Jazz Band
FREE ENTRY
ROCK-STEIN TRIVIA THE STUDY presents
28 Oct
WED 27 OCT
(9:00PM - 12:00AM)
fri
29
THU 28 OCT
Oct
(5:00PM - 8:00PM)
(9:15PM - 1:00AM)
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON FRI 29 OCT
(4:30PM - 7:30PM)
30
JAZZ
COOPERS presents
thu
sat
Tice Band, Jasmin Rae, Dai Pritchard, Gail Page Band, Lianna Rose, Glen Cardier & the Sideshow, 19twenty, Mark Easton, 2 Girls Will, Luke Carra Duo, Cletis Carr, Anikko, Wards Express, Swamphouse, Geoff Achison & the Souldiggers, Brett Hunt, Richard Perso, Hat Fitz, Cara Robinson, Stray Roots, Chasm City Blues, Transit Lane, Colleen Fricker, Lucy Desoto, Kane Denally, Jack Derwin, Linda Mizzi Various Venues, Windsor $109 (early bird) 11am The Bad & The Ugly Mattara Hotel, Newcastle free 8pm The Detonators Matraville RSL Club free 8pm The Joe Kings, Monkey Boy, Le Venge, Ming Kings Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $12 8pm The Paper Scissors Hermann’s, Darlington $12 (+ bf)– $15 (at door) 8pm The Preachers, The Black Paintings Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm The Road Crew Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL free 10pm The Ska Masters The Crest Hotel Sylvania free 8pm The Urge Fire Station Hotel, Wallsend free 8.30pm The V Dubs The Shaft Tavern, Elermore Vale free 8.30pm The Wharf Sessions: Sierra Fin Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company, Walsh Bay free 10pm Yarr-Fest!: Lord, Dreadnaught, Voyager, Hermina, Se Bon Kira Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $15 (+ bf) 8pm
SATURDAY NIGHT
Oct
sun
31 Oct
(9:00PM - 12:00AM)
super FLORENCE jam
+ ONE FLEW EAST + MONKS OF MELLONWAH DEVINE ELECTRIC + THE SACRED TRUTH + SOLID EARTH + MAD CHARLIE
LORD + DREADNAUGHT + VOYAGER + HEMINA + SE BON KI RA
(4:30PM - 7:30PM)
SAT 30 OCT
SUNDAY NIGHT
FREE ENTRY
(8:30PM - 12:00AM)
FREE PARTY
FREE ENTRY
COMING SOON SUN 31 OCT
NPL POKER
FRI 05 NOV
SHIHAD
FRI 12 NOV
MUSCLES
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 :: 385 :: 25:10:10 :: 53
gig guide send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Club Ashfield free 7.30pm D.I.G., Laura Stitt The Basement, Circular Quay $32 (+ bf) 9.30pm David Campbell North Sydney Leagues Club, Cammeray $55 7.30pm Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges (USA) Lizotte’s Restaurant, Lambton $32 (show only)–$67 (dinner & show) 7pm Full Swing Quartet Lane Cove Golf & Country Club, Northwood free 7.30pm Grace Knight Moby’s Whale Beach $42 8.30pm Jef Neve Trio 505 Club, Surry Hills $15–$20 8.30pm Pod Brothers Empire Hotel, Annandale free 8pm SIMA: The Arrebato Ensemble The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $15 (member)–$20 8.30pm Urban Gypsies, Fantine The Vanguard, Newtown $18 (conc)– $20 (+ bf) 6.30pm Waiting for Guinness Clarendon Guest House, Katoomba $20 (show only)–$62 (dinner & show) 7pm
ACOUSTIC/FOLK
Cafe Carnivale: Davood Tabrizi & the Far Seas, Balcano Eastside Arts, Paddington $10 (child)–$28 8.15pm
HIP HOP
Dustones: Torcha & B-Don(Obese), Surreal(Suburban Intellect), The Flows, Noel Boogie, Mike Who Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm
COUNTRY
Chuck’s Wagon, Roland K Smith & the Sinners, Mo Trowell & The Delivery, The Dennis Boys Band Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $15 8pm Cletis Carr, Stray Roots Macquarie Arms Hotel, Windsor free 8pm
SATURDAY OCTOBER 30 ROCK & POP
80s Radio The Beachcomber Hotel, Toukley free 8pm Antoine Demarest Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel free BBH DJs Bateau Bay Hotel free 8.30pm Big Rich Breakers Country Club, Wamberal free 7.30pm Border Thieves, Blonde On Blonde Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Dappled Cities
54 :: BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10
Brothers in Arms: Rex Goh, Phil Emmanuel, Stuart French, Kevin Bennett, Andy Bickers, Floyd Vincent, Tony Mitchell, Clare O’Meara, Nik Pringadi, Chris Whitten Civic Theatre, Civic Precinct Newcastle $89 (B Res)–$99 (A Res) 8pm Bunt, The Owls, The Hatty Fatners Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle free–$6 8pm Caramel, Blaze 36 Degrees Bar, Star City, Pyrmont free 8pm Cash & Co The Seabreeze Hotel, Nelson Bay free 8pm Cell (NZ) Oxford Tavern, Wollongong 8pm Chasm City Blues, Jack Derwin, Linda Mizzi Macquarie Arms Hotel, Windsor free 2pm Crash Avoca Beach Hotel free 8.30pm Creedence & Beyond Greta Workers Sports & Recreation Club free Cutaway North Ryde RSL Community Club free 8pm Daemon Foetal Harvest, Rituals of the Oak, Backyard Mortuary, Troldhaugen, Lustration, Myraeth, Cunt Butcher, Synperium, Granny Fist, DJ Metal Matt Newtown RSL Club 5pm Dan Granero The Old Pub, Woy Woy free 8pm Dark Side of the Moon: Art Rush, Rex Havoc, Ben Love (Los Alamos), Yu Si Liu, Casey Foxtrot, Uri Bolooki, Ben Reah, Alice Terry, Sally Hackett & Nancy C Mylott, Justin Holt & Max Farrell I Have A Dream Mural on King St, Newtown free 10pm David Clemente, Lily Dior Trio Astral Bar, Star City, Pyrmont free 6pm Dead Letter Chorus, Final Flash Brass Monkey, Cronulla $18.90 (presale) 7pm Double Whammy Brighton RSL Club, Brighton-LeSands free 8pm Dreadnaught Hotel Gearin, Katoomba 8pm E-Lixa Cronulla RSL free 8.30pm Ed Kowalczyk (USA) Newcastle Leagues Club, Newcastle West $48.50 (+ bf) 8pm Formula MJ Finnegan’s Irish Pub, Newcastle free 10.30pm Grafton Primary Caringbah Bizzo’s $20 (+bf) 8pm Halloween Monster Mash: Dappled Cities, Spod, Last Dinosaurs, The Laurels, Guineafowl, Magnetic Heads, Fishing, Who The Hell DJs Metro Theatre, Sydney $35 (+ bf) 6pm Hit Machine Campbelltown Catholic Club free 8.30pm Holly Throsby, Kieran Ryan Clarendon Guest House, Katoomba $20 (show only)–$62 (dinner &
show) 7pm Jamie Crowne Plaza Terrigal free 1pm Karen O’Shea Bushrangers Bar & Brasserie, Largs free 7.30pm Kate Vigo, Brianna Carpenter Raval, Surry Hills $18.90 (presale) 7.30pm Keith Armitage Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm Kim Gock, Joanna Melas Piano Bar, Bankstown Sports Club free 5.30pm Kirsty Larkin Central Coast Leagues Club, Gosford free 9pm Kylie Loves Robbie Diggers @ The Entrance free 8.30pm Kym Campbell MJ Finnegan’s Irish Pub, Newcastle free 8pm Mark Lee Woy Woy & District Rugby League Football Club free 7.30pm Mark Lee Newcastle Jockey Club, Broadmeadow free 1pm Midas Touch: The Harlem Knights, Nasser T Notes Live, Enmore $30 (+ bf)–$52 (dinner & show) 7pm Minus House ‘Set Yourself Apart’ single launch, The Evening Son, Lunar Calm, Light Noise, Vienna Circus Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $12 7.30pm Mr Chad, Vertigo Star City Sports Theatre & Bar, Pyrmont free 8pm Original Sin INXS Show, Saturday Night - Cold Chisel Tribute Band Dee Why RSL Club free 8pm Pop Fiction Castle Hill RSL Club free 10pm Radio Active Pippi’s at the Point, Speers Point free 9pm Radio City Cats Marble Bar, Sydney free 10.30pm Real Deal Peden’s Tavern Hotel, Cessnock free 8.30pm Rolling Stoned Dundas Sports & Recreation Club free 9pm Samhain Hollows: Dark Order, Mass Burial, Sagacity, Unholy Vendetta, Damarill, Corotted, Chud, The Black Horizon, Demonic Tempest, Frostbite Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 1.30pm Seamus Earley, Bayne Bacon, Jonas Jost The Showroom, Bankstown Sports Club $7 (member)–$10 7.15pm Service 30 Blackbutt Hotel, New Lambton free 8.45pm SFX: Tonight Alive, Chemical Transport, Melody Black, Dear Life St James Hotel, City $15 Shivoo Shoal Bay Country Club Hotel free 8.45pm Spectacular Feets Anna Bay Tavern free 8.30pm Triple EP Launch: Sticky Fingers, Future Prehistoric, The Colt 44s Annandale Hotel $10 (+ bf) 7.30pm Summerland Kings Catherine Hill Bay Hotel free 2.30pm Sydney Blues Festival: Dallas Frasco, Chase The Sun, The Fumes, Claude Hay, Adam Hole, Marji Curran, The Snowdroppers, Marshall & the Fro, The Wildes, Richard Clapton, Kevin Borich, Don Hopkins, Rob Grosser, The Detonators, Bondi Cigars, Tice & Evans, The Driving Conditions, The Forever Young Band, Dave Tice Band, Jasmin Rae, Dai Pritchard, Gail Page Band, Lianna Rose, Glen Cardier & the Sideshow, 19twenty, Mark Easton, 2 Girls Will, Luke Carra Duo, Cletis Carr, Anikko, Wards Express, Swamphouse, Geoff Achison & the Souldiggers, Brett Hunt, Richard Perso, Hat Fitz, Cara Robinson, Stray Roots, Chasm City Blues, Transit Lane, Colleen Fricker, Lucy Desoto, Kane Denally, Jack Derwin, Linda Mizzi Various Venues, Windsor $109 (early bird) 11am Tattoo Festival 2010: Crisis Penrith Panthers $20 11am
Chase The Sun
The 3 B’s Show Wallarah Bay Recreation Club, Gorokan 8pm The Bad & The Ugly Warners Bay Hotel free 9pm The Darker Half, Voyager, Lord, Grim Desire Newcastle District Tennis Club, Broadmeadow $20 12pm The Doors Show Blacktown RSL Club free 10pm The Eve of Emergency: Sicaria, A World Less Cruel, Missing Tam, Eye Maze, Porn Ring, EDFM, The Institute of Curiosity The Valve, Tempe $10 5.30pm The Flaming Stars Eastern Suburbs Legion Club, Waverley free 7.30pm The Joe Kings Wickham Park Hotel, Islington 8pm The Led Zeppelin Show Blacktown RSL Club free 11.30pm The Moops Salamander Hotel, Soldiers Point free 8.30pm The Paid Saturday: Six 60 (NZ) Beach Road Hotel, Bondi $15 8pm The Pigs Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain $15 8pm The Rebel Rousers St Marys Band Club free 9pm The Rock Monsters Oatley Hotel free 8pm The Urge Bradford Hotel, Rutherford free 8pm Under the Blue Moon Festival: Mz Ann Thropik, Shiv-R, Jukebox Zombies, Pom Pom, Lunar Module, Requiem The Factory Theatre, Enmore $25 (+ bf) 7pm Van Bogan, The Patriarchs, The Chilltons Manly Fisho’s $10 (at door) 8pm Viagra Falls East Maitland Bowling Club free
JAZZ
Andy Baylor & His Cajun Combo Marrickville Bowling and Recreation Club $15 8pm Jazz in the Vines: A Tribute to Motown: Kate Ceberano, James Morrison, Doug Parkinson, Bruce Mathiske, Adrian Cunningham Quartet, Dojo Cuts Tyrrells Vineyard, Pokolbin $70 (+ bf) 10am Jive Bombers Penrith RSL free 12pm Klezmer Connexion 505 Club, Surry Hills $10–$15 8.30pm Sally Street Trio Sean’s Kitchen, Sydney free 6pm SIMA: The Arrebato Ensemble The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $15 (member)–$20 8.30pm
ACOUSTIC & FOLK
Latin America Solidarity Fiesta: Pochoman, DJ Sanchez, Jorge Martinez, Gato Felix Addison Road Community Centre, Marrickville $10–$25 7pm
COUNTRY
Chuck’s Wagon, Roland K Smith & the Sinners, Mo Trowell & the Delivery, The Dennis Boys Band Hamilton Station Hotel, Islington $15 8pm
SUNDAY OCTOBER 31 ROCK & POP
2days Hits Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 11pm Afro Moses Pippi’s at the Point, Speers Point 2.30pm Andy Mammers Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel free 7.15pm Anthony Hughes Oatley Hotel free 1pm Bosom, Dead Rabids, Screemin Bobkats Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills free 5pm Boy & Bear, Passenger (UK), The Chemist Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $15 (+ bf) 8pm Casho Isobar, Newcastle free 1pm Chontia Gateshead Tavern free 2pm Chris Gudu (Zimbabwe) The Vanguard, Newtown $20 (+ bf)–$25 (at door) 6.30pm Dale The Pub With No Beer Brewery, Taylors Arms free 1pm Drive: Peter Northcote Bridge Hotel, Rozelle $10 3.30pm Ed Kowalczyk (USA) Enmore Theatre $69.60 (+ bf) 8pm Elvis Tribute Show Sydney Harbour Cruise Rhythmboat (departs Pyrmont Bay Wharf) $49 11.45am Fiona Leigh-Jones Harbord Beach Hotel free 7.30pm Geoff Jones, Cate Rainforest Lounge, Bankstown Sports Club free 2pm Halloween at the Petersham Bowlo: Transat, Hailer, Frontiers in Photography Petersham Bowling Club $10 6pm Helpful Halloween Party: Helpful Kitchen Gods, Men With Facial Hair, White Horses, Kirk Voids, Dr Delites Gladstone Hotel Chippendale Free 5pm Holly Throsby, Kieran Ryan Brass Monkey, Cronulla $19.90 (presale) 7pm Jamie Docks Hotel, Darling Harbour free 5pm Jason Hicks Wangi Hotel, Wangi Wangi free 3.30pm Jessica Cain Belmont Hotel free 2pm Kaman Trio Star City Sports Theatre & Bar, Pyrmont free 8pm Mark Lee The Entrance Leagues Club, Bateau Bay free 12pm No Brakes Marrickville Bowling and Recreation Club free 8pm Norton Street Italian Festa: Dina David, Juliana Melfi, Brigitte & Rachael Norton Street, Leichhardt free 10am Oom Pah Pah Band Peden’s Tavern Hotel, Cessnock free 6pm Powerage Catherine Hill Bay Hotel free 2.30pm
gig picks
gig guide
send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Rob Cass & the Cosmic Cowboys Bradford Hotel, Rutherford free 2pm Rockin the Kasbah The Mansion, Darlinghurst free 5pm Sumptuous: Katie Noonan Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House $40 (C Res)–$75 (premium) 7pm Sunday Chill: The Sunroom Newport Arms Hotel free 3pm Sunday Drive Annandale Hotel $10 5pm Sway Shoal Bay Resort free 1pm Sydney Blues Festival: Dallas Frasco, Chase The Sun, The Fumes, Claude Hay, Adam Hole, Marji Curran, The Snowdroppers, Marshall & the Fro, The Wildes, Richard Clapton, Kevin Borich, Don Hopkins, Rob Grosser, The Detonators, Bondi Cigars, Tice & Evans, The Driving Conditions, The Forever Young Band, Dave Tice Band, Jasmin Rae, Dai Pritchard, Gail Page Band, Lianna Rose, Glen Cardier & the Sideshow, 19twenty, Mark Easton, 2 Girls Will, Luke Carra Duo, Cletis Carr, Anikko, Wards Express, Swamphouse, Geoff Achison & the Souldiggers, Brett Hunt, Richard Perso, Hat Fitz, Cara Robinson, Stray Roots, Chasm City Blues, Transit Lane, Colleen Fricker, Lucy Desoto, Kane Denally, Jack Derwin, Linda Mizzi Various Venues, Windsor $109 (early bird) 11am The Baddies Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm The Mighty Kingsnakes Premier Hotel, Broadmeadow free 4.30pm Zoltan Penrith Panthers free 1.30pm
up all night out all week...
JAZZ
Alan Jones Scenic Lounge, Central Coast Leagues Club, Gosford free 2pm Deborah Conway, Willy Zygier Clarendon Guest House, Katoomba $35 (show only)–$77 (dinner & show) 6.30pm Didi Mudigdo Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Feral Swing Katz Rocksalt, Menai free 12pm Renee Geyer Lizotte’s Restaurant, Lambton $42 (show only)–$99.50 (dinner & show) 7pm Robbers Dogs Fortune of War Hotel, The Rocks free 3pm Sydney Blues Society Blues Jam: Bruce Dongers Down Home Quartet, Sydney Blues Society Botany View Hotel, Newtown free 6pm The Subterraneans Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 6pm
ACOUSTIC & FOLK
Songsalive!: Confession&Denial, Shane Coombe, Peter Jones, Hayley Legg, Gilbert Whyte, Russell Neal Cat and Fiddle Hotel, Balmain free 2pm
COUNTRY
Belrose Country Music Club Belrose Bowling Club free 2pm Lucy Desoto & The Handsome Devils, 2 Girls Will, The Blues Pirates Macquarie Arms Hotel, Windsor free 2pm Nicki Gillis, Bryen Willems Penrith RSL free 2pm Shawn Lidster Fubah on Copa, Copacabana free 2pm
Boy & Bear
Fishing, Who The Hell DJs Metro Theatre, Sydney $35 (+ bf) 6pm Triple EP Launch: Sticky Fingers, Future Prehistoric, The Colt 44s Annandale Hotel $10 (+ bf) 7.30pm
SUNDAY OCTOBER 31
Boy & Bear, Passenger (UK), The Chemist Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $15 (+ bf) 8pm Holly Throsby, Kieran Ryan Brass Monkey, Cronulla $19.90 (presale) 7pm
THURSDAY OCTOBER 28
Sarah Blasko, Seja Enmore Theatre $72.10 7pm
Mama Kin, Fergus Brown The Vanguard, Newtown $18 (+bf), $22 on door 6:30 pm
Scul Hazzards, Teen Ax, Silver Moon Black Wire Records, Annandale
FRIDAY OCTOBER 29
The Paper Scissors Hermann’s, Darlington $12 (+ bf)–$15 (at door) 8pm
78 Saab, The Jewel & The Falcon, Yae!Tiger Annandale Hotel $13 (+ bf) 8pm Emma Davis, Leroy Lee, Agnes Kain The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $1 (+ bf)–$15 (at door) 8pm Final Flash, Dead Letter Chorus, Caitlin Park Notes Live, Enmore $14.30 (presale) 7pm
SATURDAY OCTOBER 30
Halloween Monster Mash: Dappled Cities, Spod, Last Dinosaurs, The Laurels, Guineafowl, Magnetic Heads, Holly Throsby
HALLOWEEN BLOOD BATH!
OCTOBER
29 FRIDAY
PAPER SCISSORS DJ SET JANE GAZZO
BENLUCID . KID N BIRD KILL THE LANDLORD MONICA DEVCIC
ZOLA JESUS
STRIDULUM II
GIVEAWAYS COURTESY OF POD
APACHE BEAT LAST CHANTS
GIVEAWAYS COURTESY OF POD
BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10 :: 55
club guide send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com
club pick of the week SATURDAY OCTOBER 30
Alex Kidd The Argyle Hotel, Rocks Ben Peterson, Casa free The Sugarmill, Kings Cross Battery Operated DJ Matt Hoare free World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall/SUGD free Mouse On Mars
Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst
Mouse on Mars (GER), Seekae, Qua $39.80 (presale) MONDAY OCTOBER 25 Empire Hotel, Potts Point Bazaar HBK, I Low 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
TUESDAY OCTOBER 26 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 The Valve, Tempe Underground Tables Ben Ji, DJs Discorossco, Loko 1, Gee Wiz World Bar, Kings Cross Pop Panic Karaoke, DJs Shipwreck, Daigo and Cosmic Explorer free
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 27 Bank Hotel, Newtown Girls’ Night Miss B free Fringe Bar, Paddington F.R.I.E.N.D/s $5 drinks & pizzas, free entry Goldfish, Kings Cross The Salsa Lounge Latin Mafia Sound System free Sly Fox, Enmore Queer Central Sveta, DJ Beth, DJ Bel free
THURSDAY OCTOBER 28 Collingwood Hotel, Liverpool After School Detention DJ Rangi, Mac, K-Note MC Buddy Love free Cruise Bar, Circular Quay DJ Dwight ‘Chocolate’ Escobar 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 The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville Eye Tunes Flicks, Urban Crew, Taylor Maid, Zygotic, Quyness, Anacrusis, Emmanual, Vengeance $15–$20 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 The Vines DJs, Urby, Johnny Segment, Mick Jones free
(live), DJ Damien Goundrie free Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Dust Tones Torcha & B-Don, Surreal (Suburban Intellect), The Flows, Noel Boogie, Mike Who, 8pm free Candy’s Apartment, Kings Cross Liquid Sky Mustard Pimp, Strip Steve & Das Glow, DJs: Vamp DJ crew $10/$15 Chinese Laundry, Sydney Bar 9 (UK), Doctor Werewolf, Blood Bank, Benny Cohen, Raye Antonelli, Daniel Farley, Brenden Fing, Sushi $15 before 11pm & $20 after Civic Undergound, Sydney Loosekaboose Plus One Alphatown, Phil Smart, Magda, Jimi Polar, Trinity $15 Collector Hotel, Parramatta Corner Shop Tikelz, DJ Browski, J Lyrikz, Naughty, Gunz free Cruise Bar, Circular Quay Johnny Vinyl, Strike free Establishment Hotel Carnival La Fiesta Sound System and Special guest DJs all night free Favela, Potts Point Spektre, Matttttt, Foundation, Matt Formosa, Jamie Mattimore $15-$25 Gladstone Hotel, Chippendale The Paper Scissors DJ Set, Jane Gazzo, Ben Lucid vs Kill The Landlord, Kid n Bird, Monica Devcic $12 Goldfish, Kings Cross Sugar & Soul Phil Hudson, Paul Hatz, Agey, Danny De Sousa, Matt Cahill, Tom Kelly free Grand Hotel, Wyong Grafton Primary, Infusion $23 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 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 Opera Bar, Circular Quay Gian Arpino free Q Bar, Darlinghurst Sosueme $10 on the door Raval, Surry Hills Listen Hear Huwston, Micah, James De La Cruz, Chris Coucouvinis free Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Sapphire Fridays Miss Match, Rob Morrish, Dave 54, Kate Monroe, Chiller $10 guestlist Shush, Newtown SPL (USA), Sook, Boot, Sofie Loizou, Distemper, Actuator, Conduct MC, Highly Dubious, Sariss, Erecsean, Foreigndub, Sam Da Chemist $15 Spectrum, Darlinghurst Silent Alarm Silent DJs $5 The Gameboys
FRIDAY OCTOBER 29 Bank Hotel, Newtown Absolut Fridays Boogaloo Crew
“Go easy with your cold fandango. I’ll stick my knife right down your throat” - Ladies And Gentlemen, THE ROLLING STONES 56 :: BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10
club guide
THE SIDESHOW WEDNESDAYS
send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com Joyride
+ MANIAC + NEW NAVY
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 The Argyle Hotel, Rocks John Devechis, Heidi, DJ BBG free The Polo Lounge, Darlinghurst Jack Mark Murphy, Magda The Rouge, Kings Cross Trouble Club Derty Rich, Marky Mark, Spends C, Athson, King Lee $10 The Roxy Hotel, Parramatta Roxy Fridays $10, free for members The Sugarmill, Kings Cross The Gameboys, Calling In Sick, Joyride $10 after 10pm Tonic Lounge, Kings Cross Tonic Fridays $15 Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour Warped free
White Revolver, Bondi LOOK SHARP! Bad Wives $10 before midnight World Bar, Kings Cross MUM Walkie Talkie, Felix Lloyd, Cosmic Explorer, 10th Avenue, Jack Shit, Mark C, Bobby Six & Meowcat, Seabas, Jang, Mush, Jaggernauts, Wet Lungs $10
SATURDAY OCTOBER 30 202 Broadway, Chippendale Headroom Monk Fly, Jonny Faith, Know-U, Suburban Dark, Elliot $15 Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo Trash DJ M!Veg, DJ Absynth $12 Bank Hotel, Newtown DJs Beth Yen, Ash Turner free BB’s, Bondi Beach Wildlife DJs Mesan, James Roberts, Adriano Giorgi, Dinseh Sundar, Matt Joshua Heath
Singmin, Chris Kyle free Candy’s Apartment, Kings Cross Heat Zomg! Kittenz, Sweet Distortion, Hooloigans $15/$25 Carmen’s Nightclub, Miranda Halloween Rave Gramophonedzie, Why Don’t You, Three Fingers, The Awkward Boys, Matt Rad, Oscar the Grouch Chinese Laundry, Sydney Hostage, Kasey Taylor, Doom, Jeff Drake, Club Junque + Julez, A-Tonez, Kane Bligh, Scott Wright, DJ Moto, Titty Tassles, Marky Mark $15-$25 Civic Underground, Sydney Adult Disco Simon Caldwell, Ken Cloud, Kali, Future Classic DJs $10 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 Empire Hotel/Plantations, Potts Point Spooktacular Raye Antonelli, Foundation, Steve Frank Fanny’s of Newcastle Goldfish, Kings Cross Abel, Tom Kelly, Phil Hudson, Ross Middleton on Sax free Home, 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 Jolyon Petch, Graham Cordery, Minx, Jack McCord, Adam Jacob, Mark Matthews, Robbie Santiago, Alley Oop, Danny De Sousa $20 Kinselas, Taylor S quare 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 Martin Place Bar, Sydney Bamboo Eko, Nude-E, Mirage, Shorty, Ace, Moto, Qrius, IllDJ $5 Melt Bar, Kings Cross Joshua Heath (USA), Monkey Tennis DJs, Husky, Marcus, Matt Roberts and more 9pm $15
27TH OCTOBER - 8PM
TORCHA & B-DON PRESENTS
8PM FRIDAY
29TH OCT THE FLOWS NOEL BOOGIE SURREAL MIKE WHO
COMING SOON
LOVERS JUMP CREEK + MENDING MELISSA + RENAE KEARNEY + PAUL TURNER 26TH OCT SIX60 30TH OCT THE STRIDES + S.W.A.T DJS 31ST OCT GOOM OF DOOM + SLOW DOWN HONEY + KIDS AT RISK 3RD NOV
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 57
club guide
Deep Impressions
clubguide@thebrag.com Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Mouse on Mars (GER), Seekae, Qua $39.80 pre Q Bar, Darlinghurst Ghetto Halloween Boonie, Alpine Circuit, The Weekenders, Paul Done, Wacks, J3Nova, Roof, Leonid Technological Park 9pm $10/$15 Rose Bay Wharf Attack of the Superpitcher - Halloween Boat Cruise Superpitcher (GER), Alex Kidd (UK), Matt Aubusson, Robbie Lowe, Tiago Oudman (Germany), Diatribe, Jamie Lloyd, Dean Dixon, Dave Stuart, Le Franchi Brothers, Jordan Deck, MSG, Marcotix, Renegade Dub Rescue $60 (+ bf) Sackville Hotel, Rozelle Maike free Shelbourne Hotel, Sydney Shipwreck, Daniel Nall, Leon Pirello $10 after 10pm Spectrum, Darlinghurst P*A*S*H Goldfoot, DJ Knife $7 The Bank Nightclub, Kings Cross Sin City Don Juan, DJ Willie, Mista Kay, MC Q-Bizzi The Dolphin Hotel, Surry Hills DJ Chris Skinner, DJ Carl O’Brien free The Gaff, Darlinghurst Johnny B free The Manhattan Lounge, Martin Place Hushhh... DJs Stunna, Sonny, Special K $10 after 9pm The Mansion, Darlinghurst Wonderland Johnny B free before 10pm. The Rouge, Kings Cross Le Rouge Super C, Keli Hart,
Underground Dance and Electronica with Chris Honnery
Chris Fraser, Guy Tarento $10 before 11pm Tone, Surry Hills Tan Cracker’s Soul Club Gian Arpino, Tom Tutton, Kinetic, Gordan $10 Verandah Bar, Sydney The Booty Bar George B, Nasser T, Lenno, K Sera Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour Paul Moussa free World Bar, Kings Cross Whamoween! James Taylor, Ben Morris, RobKAY, Adam Bozzetto, Venuto, D*Funk, Kali, Reno, E-Cats, Richie Carter, Temnein, Wedding Ring Fingers, Pipemix $15 before 10pm, $20 after
SUNDAY OCTOBER 31 Bank Hotel, Newtown David DC Beach Palace Hotel, Coogee Adam Katz, Benny Vibes, Soul Patrol 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 Goldfish, Kings Cross Martini Club Live Tom Kelly, Johnny Gleeson free Home Terrace, Sydney Spice After Hour Simon Caldwell, DJ Aureal, Marcotix $20/$10 Ice Bar, Sydney
club picks up all night out all week...
FRIDAY OCTOBER 29 Civic Undergound, Sydney Loosekaboose Plus One Alphatown, Phil Smart, Magda, Jimi Polar, Trinity $15
SATURDAY OCTOBER 30 Melt Bar, Kings Cross Joshua Heath (USA), Monkey Tennis DJs, Husky, Marcus, Matt Roberts and more 9pm $15 Q Bar, Darlinghurst Ghetto Halloween Boonie, Alpine Circuit, The Weekenders, Paul Done, Wacks, J3Nova, Roof, Leonid Technological Park 9pm $10/$15 Rose Bay Wharf Attack of the Superpitcher - Halloween Boat Cruise Superpitcher (GER), Alex Kidd (UK), Matt Aubusson, Robbie Lowe, Tiago Oudman (GER), Diatribe, Jamie Lloyd, Dean Dixon, Dave Stuart, Le Franchi Brothers, Jordan Deck, MSG, Marcotix, Renegade Dub Rescue $60 (+ bf) World Bar, Kings Cross Whamoween! James Taylor, Ben Morris, RobKAY, Adam Bozzetto, Venuto, D*Funk, Kali, Reno, E-Cats, Richie Carter, Temnein, Wedding Ring Fingers, Pipemix $15 before 10pm, $20 after.
Superpitcher
The Kitsch Sound System, Phil Hudson, Chloe West, Mark Matthews free Kings Cross Hotel Jammin Sundays 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 The Bank Nightclub, Kings Cross Soul On Sunday Nino Brown, Don Juan free The Bunker Bar, Kings Cross Marco Resmann free The Forbes Hotel, Sydney Church Of Techno Defined by Rhythm, Rob Zobec, Altay Altin, Vinae, Shepz $10 The Rouge, Kings Cross Cheap Thrill$ John Glover, Matt Nukewood, Will Bailey (UK), J Smoove free The Sugarmill, Kings Cross Neighbourhood Kate Monroe The Village, Sydney Sunday Surgery DJ Russ Dewbury and friends free Trademark Hotel, Darlinghurst Soul on Sunday Nino Brown, Don Juan World Bar, Kings Cross Fortune! Disco Punx $15
Carl Craig
A
s if the forthcoming D25 bash featuring Carl Craig, Theo Parrish and Moodymann isn’t enough, HaHa have announced details of their own Detroit techno party, which boasts the imposing dual headliners of Juan ‘the magic man’ Atkins and Vince Watson. Dubbed the Godfather of Techno, a hyperbole not far from the truth, Atkins is also commonly referred to as part of the ‘Belleville Three’, alongside Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, and had a huge influence on emerging Detroit producers such as Mr. Craig and Stacey Pullen when they were first starting out. Working under the Model 500 and Cybotron monikers, the latter a project with Rick Davies, Atkins produced a host of seminal cuts throughout the ‘80s and early ‘90s and conceived the Metroplex label, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this very year (again with the 25 years of Detroit techno motif). Word has it that Atkins will be treating us to a special “influences set” comprised of sounds that pricked his ears during his early Cybotron and Model 500 Days, (re)exploring early electro, house and electro-funk soundscapes. Scotsman Vince Watson has picked up the baton where Atkins – largely silent on the production front these days – left off, expanding on the Detroit template constructed by Atkins et al with productions imbued with intricate analogue keyboard arrangements. Watson has crafted six LPs since first emerging in the mid ‘90s, while also releasing on Craig’s Planet E label and overseeing his very own Bio Music label. Watson will be playing live, and with this bash kicking off at 10pm on Saturday November 27, it represents an alluring later option for those braving Stereosonic during the daytime. For the past few years, indie/dance troupe LCD Soundsystem have been working a cover of Paperclip People’s ‘Throw’ into their live sets. Discerning, temperamental older folk will inform you that the disco-fired techno original was produced by (that man again) Carl Craig and first released on Planet E way back in 1994, though you’d never be able to guess it by how fresh it still sounds today. It has been confirmed that Planet E is set to re-issue the track on vinyl, with the A-side given over to a studio rendition by LCD which until now has only been available as an iTunes extra bundled with This Is Happening - and the American iTunes at that. I certainly didn’t receive no cover of ‘Throw’ when I grabbed the This Is Happening EP through the impoverished Aussie iTunes. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY OCTOBER 30
Superpitcher + Alexkid Subsonic Halloween Boat Party
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 5
Funk D’Void The Civic Underground
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 27
Juan Atkins + Vince Watson Marrickville Bowling Club
FRIDAY DECEMBER 4 Ricardo Villalobos The Metro Theatre
illustrates how Jaar’s music has appeal for aficionados of contrasting palettes. Anyhow, Jaar’s next venture is all about the youth factor, as it pits Jaar alongside fledgling – and we’re talking practically infantile – producers Nikita Quasim and Soul Keita. Keita is a 17-year-old originally from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, who creates tracks using his 808 drum machine, while Quasim is a 20-year-old Russian who “explores her interest in sound with incremental and minute elements”. The ten track EP is a digital-only release that features three tracks by each of the artists as well as one three-way collaboration between the trio under the moniker of the ‘Clown n’ Sunset Collective’. It’s out with the old and in with the new in a big way on Ines, which I certainly advise more discerning readers to investigate further. See you in your most magnificently misconceived costume for the Superpitcher Halloween boat bash on Saturday! Nicolas Jaar
With all the focus on the veterans this week – I hear some of the more disrespectful and downright brattish readers throwing ‘dinosaurs’ slurs around up the back of the classroom – it’s probably fitting that we close with a focus on the new breed, the next generation if you will (Deep Impressions is all about subtle contrasts and balance after all). One of the producers of the past year, Nicolas Jaar, who is only twenty years old, is set to release a new compilation, Ines, through his Clown and Sunset label. Jaar is a New Yorkbased producer affiliated with the ‘so hot right now’ Wolf + Lamb label who broke through when Seth Troxler included his beautiful and plangent comedown cut ‘A Time For Us’ on his Boogybytes mix. Local honcho Nathan McLay of Future Classic also included ‘A Time For Us’ on a promo mix he compiled for Adult Disco, which
Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com. 58 :: 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.
J-Rocc
For anyone getting into the sounds of digital/neuva cumbia and the ZZK record label, I would heartily recommend looking up Melbourne’s Cumbia Cosmonauts, Australia’s first cumbia sound system. Look out for their early releases on Melbourne independent label Scattermusic. They’re playing the Shine On Festival down in western Victoria this November. J-Rocc has released the first single off his forthcoming album, Some Cold Rock Stuff. ‘Play This Too’ is a 12-inch/EP, with bonus beats ‘Star’ and ‘Party (Boogie Man Remix)’, and has been getting BBC radio support from heads like Gilles P. In more Gilles news: keep your ears peeled for Brownswood Bubblers 6, soon to come!
ON THE ROAD
Subsonic festival’s live dub, reggae, and beats line-up looks like this: Kora (NZ), Sola Rosa (NZ), Watussi, Tijuana Cartel (Bris), Hermitude and JuJu Mana. I won’t get into the tech side of the lineup, I’ll leave that to my Europe-yearning cultural-inferiority-complex-stricken colleague across the page.
SAT NOV 6
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.
WED NOV 17
Hip hop producer/maestro Chasm (masquerading as Dr. Don-Don) and local hero Joyride have teemed up on the dancefloor-focused tune ‘No Other’.
DJ Krush The Basement
Tan Cracker’s Soul Club takes over Tone this Saturday night. Selectors Gian Arpino, Tom Tutton, Kinetic, Gordon ‘Savage’ Watson and Gonzo will all be spinning the black wax at the fun/soul 45s only night. Look out for the new Bastard Jazz album sampler, Hear No Evil Vol 2. It features both downtempo and dancefloor-styled jazz, reggae and beats from Dhundee, Jugoe, Double Identity, Oneman and Kolm K. The king of the dnb scene Andy C will drop the 5th version in his esteemed Nightlife series. Get involved for your dose of double-drop action. Katalyst has a new album on the way. A single from his third full-length will lay the foundation – ‘Day Into Night’. The track features “long time collaborator soul sister Stephanie McKay (NY), and gives
DJ Vadim Tone
FRI NOV 12
Isaac Aesili + Rachel Frazer + Ray Mann 3 Tone Electric Wire Hustle Tone
SAT NOV 20
Femi Kuti & The Positive Force The Metro
THURS NOV 25 Fat Freddy’s Drop Enmore Theatre
FRI NOV 26 SAT NOV 27
DNBBQ Manning Bar (USYD)
DEC 3-5
Subsonic Music Festival Barrington Tops
FRI FEB 18
Kool & The Gang + Roy Ayers Enmore Theatre us a taste of what’s to come on the new Katalyst album, the title of which he is keeping close to his chest.” New Katalyst record for the summer, steeped in dopeness. The single’s out November 13. National youth broadcaster triple j has selected Illy’s second album, The Chase, as this week’s feature album. Hope some of you caught the Melbourne emcee’s show at the Annandale the weekend just gone.
Cumbia Cosmonauts
Send stuff for this column to tonyedwards001@gmail.com by 6pm Wednesdays. All pics to art@thebrag.com BRAG :: 385 :: 25:10:10 :: 59
snap sn ap
tangent magazine launch
PICS :: TL
up all night out all week . . .
chinese laundry
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17:10:10 :: 320-330 George St Sydney 92403000
falcona fridays
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16:10:10 :: Tone Venue :: 116 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills
15:10:10 :: Kit & Kaboodle :: 33-35 Darlinghurst Rd Kings Cross 9368 0300 60 :: BRAG :: 384: 18:10:10
Purple Sneakers
It’s called: Purple Sneakers Hallo ween Blood Bath It sounds like: A million screamin g banshees (singing Wavves’ ‘King Beach’) of the DJs/live acts playing: Paper Scis sors Guts’ Gazzo, Ben‘Eat Your Brains’Luc ‘Stabby, Stabby’ DJ Set, Jane ‘Blood & id vs Kill(ed) The Landlord, Kid (of N Bird, Monica Deadchick the corn) Sell it to us: All your favourite indie Best dressed will win a bloody (yet tracks packaged up in an unholy bloodbath! awesome) prize and the best attem will score free beverages. pts of the The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Making moves to a zombie DJ and out with a giant banana. making Crowd specs: Ghouls, sexy pirat es, oversized fruit, sea creatures , Michael Jackson, the undead… Wallet damage: 12 bones or 10 for Uni students/FBi supporters Where: The Gladstone Hotel /115 Regent St, Chippendale When: Friday October 29
loop
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dj libre
party profile
15:10:10 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex Street Sydney 82959958
14:10:10 :: Tone Venue :: 116 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills
) :: ASH LEY MAR :: ROS ETT E S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO REIC HELT :: PATR ICK OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER WILL NZO :: SOF II MCK ENZ IE :: ROU HAN NA :: JULI AN DELORE STE VEN SON
snap
warm suga nights
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up all night out all week . . .
purple sneakers
PICS :: MB
16:10:10 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93323711
starfuckers
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15:10:10 :: The Gladstone Hotel :: 115 Regent St Chippendale 96993522
16:07:10 :: Club 77 :: 77 William St Kings Cross 93613387
It’s called: I Love 90s It sounds like: Britney Spears, MC Hammer, Backstreet Boys, Wu-Tang Spice Girls, Guns N Roses, Nirva Clan, na and Salt-N-Pepa - all those party tunes that you used to be embarrassed to like, but are now proud to get down to. DJs/live acts playing: Jelly Wres tling, The Jerks, DJ Alloy and Grum py Gramps. Sell it to us: This night is bringing something a little different to Sydn ey, and looking to capture the vibe of over seas parties like Full Moon, Tubing, Ibiza and Cancun.
The bit we’ll remember in the AM: $4.50 standard spirits, 90s music, giveaways and embarrassing antic s. Crowd specs: people who just can’t get enough, and want to find a party actually fun. that is Wallet damage: Free before 10pm / $5 after. Where: The Gaelic Hotel / 64 Devo nshire Street, Surry Hills When: Launches Monday Novembe r 1, then every Monday nigh
t after!
girl thing
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party profile
I Love 90s
16:10:10 :: Q-Bar :: 34-44 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93601375 ) :: ASH LEY MAR :: ROS ETT E S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO REIC HELT :: PATR ICK OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER WILL NZO :: SOF II MCK ENZ IE :: ROU HAN NA :: JULI AN DELORE STE VEN SON
BRAG :: 384 :: 18:10:10 :: 61
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grand central
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up all night out all week . . .
mc evidence
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14:10:10 :: Kit & Kaboodle :: 33-35 Darlinghurst Rd Kings Cross 9368 0300
15:10:10 :: Tone Venue :: 116 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills
WHAMOWEEN!
teenage kicks
PICS :: TL
party profile
OWEEN! chcock’s It’s called: WHAM ined with Alfred Hit s theme song comb e Jaw ok e Str Th n e: Vo e lik ud ds It soun rr and Cla remixed by Riva Sta Bozzetto, am Psycho soundtrack Ad y, Ka b lor, Ben Morris, Ro Tay s gers, me Fin Ja g g: Rin yin DJs/live acts pla hie Carter, Wedding no, Kali, E-Cats, Ric Re , nk Fu D* to, nu Ve ix. N! Temnein, BJ, Pipem things WHAMOWEE ts, a club decked out all po ’s, tea DJ ry 14 s, sca om at, Ro om 5 Sell it to us: poke a witches bro n ca u yo n tha sic more genres of mu n… morialise the occasio face a photo booth to me look on your cabby’s and ht the AM: The strange nig in t r las be did em u yo rem ’ll at The bit we life story, wh er you tell him your while wearing your on the way home aft you next week –all h wit ! AM WH to if he wants to come scream mask. t’s go CRAZY!!! WHAMOWEEN!! Le Crowd specs: It’s ight if you dress up 5 or $10 before midn Wallet damage: $1 Rd, Kings Cross Bar / 24 Bayswater Where: The World tober 30. When: Saturday Oc
garden party
PICS :: DM
14:10:10 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700
wham
PICS :: SM
16:10:10 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex Street Sydney 82959958
16:10:10 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700 62 :: BRAG :: 384: 18:10:10
) :: ASH LEY MAR :: ROS ETT E S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO REIC HELT :: PATR ICK OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER WILL NZO :: SOF II MCK ENZ IE :: ROU HAN NA :: JULI AN DELORE STE VEN SON
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