The Brag #395

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SMALL SHOT. BIG NIGHT. FRU0490_TB_365x255.indd 1

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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 TIGER

CHOIR (TAS) that desk doesn’t work so well anymore... Elliot is at university. Sam and Hamish have those sort of jobs you get when you don’t want to start a career yet. Hamish works in a post office, and Sam works in the university Co-op bookstore.

We recorded our first EP ourselves next to the South Hobart tipface, but this time around we started recording on Bruny Island, about an hour away from the city. We got a bit of cabin fever (though not as bad as Jack Nicholson in The Shining), and at one point tried to row the dinghy away from isolation to a party in Hobart - but the oars were pretty broken.

We forgot a bunch of gear, so only a few of the upcoming album songs are from that session; the upshot was there was quite a lot of fishing.

We discovered shellfish are a little easier to catch, and good in pasta. That dish was probably in our top 30 instances of late night cookups.

We were all in other bands around Hobart but wanted to do something more pop and weirder-sounding - so we got into a spare room and started writing songs. Woozy

samples were made, a drum-kit upholstered in red shag-pile and the rest just happened.

There was a fair amount of Earl Gray tea and doughnuts in the mix too. Literally in the mix,

KATIE NOONAN AND THE CAPTAINS

PUBLISHERS: Adam Zammit & Rob Furst EDITOR IN CHIEF: Adam Zammit 9552 6333 adam@peergroupmedia.com EDITOR: Steph Harmon steph@thebrag.com 9552 6333 ARTS EDITOR & ASSOCIATE: Dee Jefferson dee@thebrag.com 9552 6333 STAFF WRITER: Jonno Seidler NEWS CO-ORDINATORS: Nathan Jolly, Cool Thomas, Chris Honnery ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Dara Gill SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Monique Easton, Ashley Mar, Daniel Munns, Wesley Nel, Rosette Rouhanna, Patrick Stevenson COVER DESIGN: Sarah Bryant SALES/MARKETING MANAGER: Blake Rayner 0404 304 929 / (02) 9552 6672 blake@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 9552 6618 les@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Jessie Pink - (02) 9552 6747 jessie@thebrag.com GIG & CLUB GUIDE CO-ORDINATOR: Christian Moraga - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@thebrag.com (dance) INTERNS: Liz Brown, Rach Seneviratne

I saw The Essential George in a CD store, and obvious overkill aside, it reminded me that Katie Noonan has a great voice. So good that she made an album with her mother and it couldn’t even kill her career. Now she’s teamed up with a rogue gang called The Captains and is touring the country, playing March 5 at The Factory Theatre.

ART VS SCIENCE VS GOLD VS EXPERIMENTATION

Art vs Science. It’s a tough call. Science gave us the telescope, penicillin, the automobile and the fridge-freezer. Art gave us In The Aeroplane Over The Sea and that painting with the melting clock. While you mull that conundrum over, pencil in February 25 as the date when Art vs Science’s debut album The Experiment finally drops - and think about the fact that their Magic Fountain EP has just gone Gold. Impressive? Yes.

MR. PEABODY

Peabody have been around since 1997. That’s a lot of amp lugging, drum packing-up, and trying to split $62.75 four ways. Friday January

We ended up tracking most of the album at Sam’s family home in the far-out-greatersuburban-Hobart area, and at Elliot’s house in South Hobart. It’s more musically diverse than the EP, and comprises a mix of stuff on different tracks including dub chops, country licks, electronic noise freakouts, choral hymns, spoken-word physics lectures, twangy banjo

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Where: The World Bar, Kings Cross More: Supporting Deerhunter @ The Metro Theatre, Tuesday February 8

ANBERLIN SIDEWAVE @ MANNING BAR

Look up indie-pop-punk in a dictionary and the song ‘Apple Shampoo’ will play (oh yeah - it’s an audio dictionary). Three other bands that are flying the flag for the genre are Anberlin, The Starting Line and Bayside - who are all playing a huge Soundwave Sideshow on February 28 at Manning Bar. Be there.

Natturale

NATTURALE 4 FRANTI

Like most artists with long and varied careers, Michael Franti is at the stage where he can release an album inspired by that old rock cliché moment - when your appendix bursts in the middle of a tour. He is touring said album (The Sound of Sunshine) in April, stopping at the Enmore on the 24th for herbal tea and an evening show. They’ve just announced the support: Natturale, better known as Natalie Pa’apa’a of Blue King Brown.

It’s a done deal!

LAST NIGHT

The good folk of Purple Sneakers have put together another insane line-up at The Gaelic to sate your indie music appetite. Edwin Congreave of Foals will be stopping by for a DJ set, while TheDeathSet (welcome home, boys) will also hit the decks. On top of that, Jonathan Boulet and We Say Bamboulee will be doing their thang LIVE. Slap some DJ sets from PhDJ, M.I.T, BenLucid, Fantomatique, Minou and Wacks on top, and the scales of ‘Awesome’ are totally maxing out. Head to The Gaelic on Friday January 21. 8pm till late; $10 entry.

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When: Friday January 21

If you’re at trivia on a Thursday night and the question is “Does Darren Hanlon kick an inordinate amount of arse everytime he plays live?”, the answer is “yes”, preferably in capitals and glitter pen. He has a new EP out, the delightfully titled Butterfly Bones, and will be launching it March 3 at Factory Theatre. Also, the answer to question 7 is (usually) Dave Coulier.

EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Publisher, Editor or Staff of The Brag.

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Hobart’s music scene is smallish and insular, which seems to encourage a pretty diverse range of sounds and styles. No one band is particularly similar to another within the scene, which leads to some pretty cool mixed bags at local gigs. The best gig we’ve seen lately was the Hobart + Music = Yeah! Festival.

The festival was spread across three house parties, and we saw heaps of great bands like The Parking Lot Experiments, Tantrums, Zeal and The Native Cats.

BUTTERFLY BONES

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We all like different things, but all appreciate bands like The Beta Band, The Books, Modest Mouse, Four Tet, Deerhunter, Deerhoof, Caribou, A Tribe Called Quest, The Tibetan Space Program. Seeing our friends play in local bands can be just as inspiring, as can be a good game of tennis with a boombox and a goonbox.

28 will see the band try to get a park outside of Spectrum, before they rock the stage with their rocktastic rock moves and rock songs about rocking. Supported by The Go Roll Your Bones, and that friend of yours who keeps going on about how live music is dead since The Hopetoun closed. (It’s not).

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Simon Binns, Joshua Blackman, Mikey Carr, Benjamin Cooper, Oliver Downes, Max Easton, Tony Edwards, Christie Eliezer, Murray Engleheart, Lucy Fokkema, Mike Gee, Andrew Geeves, Thomas Gilmore, Kate Hennessy, Chris Honnery, Nathan Jolly, Alex Lindsay Jones, Andy McLean, Amelia Schmidt, Romi Scodellaro, RK, Luke Telford, Caitlin Welsh, Beth Wilson, Alex Young

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and loopy vocals. There’s also some straight up guitar pop.

Deep Sea Arcade

DEEP SEA ARCADE & SURF CITY

The mention of Deep Sea Arcade and New Zealand’s Surf City makes me think of The Beach Boys, Donkey Kong and those longboards the guys that hit on Gidget used to use. These are all good things, and so is the fact that the two bands are teaming up for a co-headlining tour across the country, stopping in at Oxford Art Factory on February 11 (supported by the very excellent Step Panther) before heading further out the next night to play Mona Vale Hotel (supported by The Ivys from Tasmania). Tickets through Moshtix; wetsuits courtesy of Rip Curl (probably.)

THE LEISURE SUIT

Does the sound of guitar-based retro-pop tickle your fancy? Well Grant Shanahan, who’s served as a member of the Sydney music scene since the late 80s, is back with a new band: The Leisure Suit. The group has decided to finally launch Into The Antipodes Sun, the album which they released mid last year – and they’ll be playing with Laughing Outlaw labelmate (and ARIA nominated) Perry Keyes in support. Head to the Sandringham Hotel in Newtown this Thursday to check it out.

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rock music news

free stuff

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on, down and around town. By Nathan Jolly

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

he said she said WITH

Os Mutantes

LARISSA MCKAY I worked at a music store a few years ago and met some really cool people. Adam Pecar plays bass, and he introduced me to his mate Andrew Warren who plays drums, who then knew Jordan Roach who plays guitar. I’m so lucky – they’re so talented and creative and we get along really well. There’s nothing like being on that stage with your mates, creating something special.

I’ve made two EPs here in Oz: Soldier, with Larissa & The Wild Grey, and Just The Wind as a solo effort. They’re both up on iTunes. I moved over to London about a year ago and things are going really well. I supported Bertie Blackman, Eskimo Joe and Sarah Blasko which was bloody awesome, and a few weeks ago I recorded my latest single with Macks Faulkron in London. It’s called ‘Hey You’, and the video launch is at The Vanguard on Wednesday. I’m here in Oz for a few months, playing shows but also recording again - this time with my band.

I

vividly remember the first time I sung in front of an audience; it was my school talent quest, and I was eight. I sung ‘I’m Dreaming of A White Christmas’ (Jesus!), and I remember practicing in my family room for ages. I was really nervous but also quite proud that I’d finally done it.

My great uncle is an artist, my grandma was a pianst, my mum was a dancer and my dad managed a band, so creativity runs through the family tree.

My favourite childhood albums were Madonna’s Immaculate Collection and MJ’s Bad. I mainly listened to rock n roll and pop music growing up, and it’s definitely shaped my taste and songwriting choices. I’ve been living in London for a year, and it’s been amazing in terms of broadening my tastes. Yeasayer, Hot Chip, Band of Horses and Caribou are some of my favourites at the moment, along with longstanding faves like Sara Bareilles, John Mayer and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

I’ve been a little out of the Sydney scene, but I have to say, as an unsigned artist, we really have it made here. Street press, triple j and FBi make it easier for us to get our music out there so that if it’s good, it’ll get heard. In London, they don’t have anything like that; you just gotta keep gigging your arse off.

What: ‘Hey You’ Video Launch Where: The Vanguard, Newtown When: Wednesday January 19

OS MUTANTES & BEST COAST

If you’re a fan of the absurdist Brazilian godfathers of pop, Os Mutantes, then you’re in good company. With props from Beck and Sean Lennon, and being branded as “revolutionary” by Sir Kurt Cobain, these legends from the 60s were Brazil’s generational answer to The Beatles. Combining British and American psychedelic, pop and rock influences with traditional Brazilian bossa nova, tropacalia and samba, their inimitable sound has been described by Devendra Banhart as music “without an expiration date”. After a hiatus from the 70s to the early 2000s, Os Mutantes have returned from the musical wilderness and are playing on March 9 at The Enmore Theatre with LA’s so-hot-rightnow Best Coast. To win a double pass, tell us the name of Os Mutantes’ 2009 album.

Straight Arrows

LES SAVY FAV + STRAIGHT ARROWS

If your 9 to 5 job sees you sitting on Mess and Noise all day, judging skuzzy indie pop bands and sharing that whining Steve Albini article about how major labels are killing the music industry, then you’ll already know that New York’s Les Savy Fav and Sydney’s Straight Arrows are two very fine bands. The two of them are playing February 10 in Sydney, but instead of having to rush from one to the other while missing neither (see: The Flintstones, where Fred had to go between Pebbles’ birthday party and a Stonemasons meeting), you can stay at the Manning Bar, because they’re playing together.

TWIST AND SHOUT @ TONE Guineafowl

The 60s was a decade of love, peace, and war.

Mainly though, it was about shimmying to boss tunes, which is why Twist and Shout, Sydney’s premier 60s dance party, is the best fun in the entire universe. They’re re-launching at Tone in Surry Hills on February 4 - but prior to that, they’re providing the vestibule entrance music for the Sydney Festival’s Trocadero Dance Palace at Sydney Town Hall, January 19-22.

MANI IS THE RESURRECTION

Mani, the genius bass player from The Stone Roses and Primal Scream, is swaggering down to the World Bar on January 27 to spin a few tunes, innit? Last time he did this, he unleashed a mind-bending mix of Madchester that made us feel like we were in the Hacienda. Fookin’ well up for it, me.

WHOAADELAIDE GUINEAFOWL TOUR

Guineafowl will be doing an huge headline tour to celebrate the release of the Hello Anxiety EP. You can catch them with We Say Bamboulee and Cameras at Oxford Art Factory on Friday February 18, or at Northern Star in Newcastle with Of The Red Sea and Long Island Sound the next night. Both $10 presale, or $12 on the door.

What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, WOMADelaide. Anyways, even though they already have over 550 artists from 34 countries, they have added seven more. Brazilian siesta-loving Tropicalia band Os Mutantes, the legendary Archie Roach, Canadian junk percussionists ScrapArtsMusic, Germany’s gypsy folk group 17 Hippies, Ukraine-based DakhaBrakha, Reunion Island’s (not a reality show) Nathalie Natiembé, and the sexy, superb Martha Wainwright. It all happens March 11-14 at Botanic Park in Adelaide. Go to Adelaide!

MGMT

GET ME THE MANAGEMENT

Last time MGMT came out, they did the following awesome things: 1) Played a fifteen minute prog-rock song called ‘Siberian Breaks’; 2) Followed this with a face-melting ‘Time To Pretend’ as a way to reward us for indulging them; 3) Packed up the drumkit during the 90 second musical breakdown in ‘Kids’; 4) Sang ‘Kids’ karaoke-style over their CD - not even a backing track, just the CD; 5) Got ‘Electric Feel’ out of the way by the second song; 6) Threw in inappropriate solos at every chance. Now they’re coming back to do it all again, Thursday March 10 at Enmore Theatre - before Future Music Festival on March 12.

SHACK UP AT PGW

Playground Weekender have just announced the lineup for The Shack, which they’re billing as “PGW’s very own dive bar in the heart of the festival.” It’s got a bit of a vintage theme of 50s grunge, rockabilly, blues and swing, with live kicks from Lanie Lane, The Money Smokers, Mojo Juju, Jez Mead, Fait Accompli, Dark Bells and heaps more. As if the festival wasn’t already going to be huge... Tricky? De La Soul?

Caribou? Doves? Four Tet? Lamb? Kool & The Gang? Tunng? Hungry Kids of Hungary?

Magnetic Heads? …It goes down February 17 – 20, at Wisemans Ferry on the Hawkesbury.

GAY PARIS <3 QLD @ THE ‘DALE

Sydney rock kings Gay Paris have joined with the Annandale Hotel to raise some cash for the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal, to help QLD out with the floods. Eden’s March, Tierra Outlaws, Baby X and The Monks of Mellonwah are also confirmed for the event, with more to come. If you feel like rocking out hard for a seriously good cause, scream “I GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THIS, I’M GOING TO THE ANNANDALE” on Thursday Jan 20. Entry is $10, and it goes to a good place.

“It must just be the colors and the kids that keep me alive, ‘cause I wanna go right away to a January night” – CAT POWER 10 :: BRAG :: 394 : 10:01:11

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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

DANGEROUS DAN FOR FLOOD AID FUNDRAISER into music together at home, falling in love with Michael Jackson and performing the ‘Bad’ dance at the Currumbin Valley Church Christmas pageant, and random things like that.

Inspirations The three songs that have moved me 2. the most: 1. ‘Around The World’ by Daft Punk

Growing Up I grew up in a bassinet in the back 1. of a VW. My dad was in a wedding band called Touch And Go, so I spent my early years touring regional NSW, much like a Ministry Of Sound sessions tour these days… Then my little brother Beni came along and we slowed down, and slowly got

- I could not understand how sound could sound like that. Lying on my silk sheets in my disco-inspired room, my dad and I would try and break it down. 2. ‘If I Ever Feel Better’ by Phoenix - after three years of only listening to dance music compilations from Judge Jules, Boy George and Pete Tong, I desperately craved some rock n roll and some SONGS. I heard Phoenix on the radio, drove straight into the city and bought their first album, United. Listening to it in the car on the way home, I’ll never forget when ‘If I Ever Feel Better’ came on; I’d never heard such a perfect song, it made me wanna cry. 3. ‘Love Is What I Got’ by Sublime - growing up as a surfer and now loving bands again (thanks to Phoenix), I rebelled a bit from my dance music craze and fell in love with this reggae hybrid summer jam.

3.

Your Crew Originally the crew was me and my brother Beni. We were Dangerous Dan and Bumpin’ Benny B’s Bargain Basement Booty Bar. We then teamed up with Ajax

and became the DAMN DJs; then teamed up with Gus and Doom to become the Bang Gang; then all teamed up with others to create more. Currently, I’m spending most of my time with Black Angus, working on a project called You Only Live Once; it’s the ultimate all-encompassing lifestyle.

The Music You Make Three of my own with my man Nicky 4.

Vanshe: ’Around The World Again’; ’The Ritz’; ’Looking For The Beat’. I’m also working on some things with Riton, Tiga and Angus - and hopefully one day, me and Beni can find some time to do some damage together.

Music, Right Here, Right Now It’s good, it’s bad, it’s terrible, it’s 5. amazing... Things are changing so quick at the moment that as soon as you think one genre is fucked, something great comes out. You never know what to expect, so don’t judge anything or put something down - you never know how things are gonna end up.

With: Bag Raiders DJs, SOSUEME DJs, Hey Now, Ro Sham Bo, Alison Wonderland and more Where: Flood Aid @ Kit & Kaboodle When: Sunday January 23 How Much: $10. All proceeds go to the Queensland Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal.

BLONDE REDHEAD

In a super-ironic twist, not one member of the Blonde Redhead trio has blonde or red hair! Comprised of New Yorkers Kazu Makino and twin brothers Amedeo and Simone Pace, their music evolves and transforms with effortless fluidity through each new song; from Sonic Youth-esque experimentation, to atmospheric, bittersweet soundscapes. Makino’s visual imagery and ethereal vocals blend with the dreamy psychedelia of the twin brothers, traversing everything from minimalistic instrumentation to lavish orchestral arrangements… Have these guys rinse your brain with audio goodness on January 29 at The Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. We have five double passes. To win, name their most recent album.

COBBLESTONE JAZZ

The highly touted electronic ‘super-troupe’ Cobblestone Jazz make their Australian debut this Saturday at the Beck’s Bar, and tickets are still available! For those who came in late, Cobblestone Jazz is Wagon Repair mainman Mathew Jonson’s band project; they explore and improvise their way through acid jazz and psychedelic techno soundscapes. Having released two cracking LPs and singles like ‘Dump Truck’ and ‘India In Me’, the inside word was always that the cost of luring the three core members (I know The Mole guested on their most recent LP The Modern Deep Left Quartet, but to the best of my knowledge he is not touring with them) to our shores would prove too expensive. Enter the folk behind the Sydney Festival. As a bonus, Mathew Jonson will also be playing a DJ set, with support from Murat Kilic, of Reckless Republic fame.

The Tongue

Tricky

BOUNDARY BONDS WITH...

BELINDA HEALY, RAH RAH PR

Tell us about what Rah Rah PR does?

Rah Rah PR is primarily a music publicity and marketing company, but I do some writing, bookings, product and fashion publicity too. Rah Rah has only been running for a year, and in that time I’ve worked for some really exciting clients like Rhythm and Vines festival, Electrofringe festival, and many events run by Mistrust Music, Interview, Twisted Audio and The Clarity.

GOODGOD SIBERIAN NIGHTS

TONE FLOOD FUNDRAISER

The Aussie hip-hop community is also banding together to put on a fundraiser for victims of the Queensland Floods at Tone this Wednesday January 19. ‘Blood’s Thicker Than Water’ will feature a special appearance from Melbourne’s Briggs (Golden Era), and a stellar line-up of Sydney hip hop acts including Spit Syndicate (Obese), The Tongue (Elefant Traks), Dialectrix (Obese), LookUP Crew and The Last Kinection, with more to be announced over the coming days. DJs Frenzie, Josie Styles, Jaytee, Cold Crush and Shantan Wantan Ichiban will also be representing, alongside other DJs TBC. All proceeds from door sales and donations will be donated to the Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal, with entry $20 from 7pm.

Tonight’s forecast – a freeeeze is coming!

Siberian Nights returns to GOODGOD with a vengeance, for three events over the coming weeks. On Thursday January 20, seminal Krautrock band Guru Guru are headlining ahead of Nhomea, FLRL, Expo 88 feat.

Joel Stern and assorted DJs for a QLD flood fundraiser. On Thursday February 3, crowd favourites The GOODGOD House Band return (who could forget their cover of Guru Josh last time around?) to belt out some live house music karaoke classics, while Thursday February 18 is a free event, the launch of ‘Erik Omen In Atlantis’ cassette, which features Erik Omen, In Atlantis DJs and the Juggernauts DJs among others. Tickets are $12 at the door for each individual show, or you can book all three for $20.

TORO Y MOI

Following the resounding success of their Little Dragon bash, Future Classic will continue with their series of intimate mid-week live gigs at GOODGOD Small Club. This time around, 23-year-old Columbian prodigy Chaz Bundick [oh grow up, would you?], aka Toro Y Moi, will take centre stage. The venerable Alan McGee recently tipped Toro Y Moi as the “new pop sound of 2010” in his list of 15 acts destined for big things in The Guardian, lauding Bundick’s “futuristic new pop sound”. Further to McGee’s praise, I’ll add that those attending this can expect young Toro to delve into everything from “freak-folk and R&B to French house”. Tres bien.

The Future Classic DJs will also be spinnin’; things kick-off at 8pm on Wednesday February 23.

TRICKY

Trip hop pioneer Tricky will play a Sydney sideshow at The Metro on Saturday February 19, in addition to his performance at the Playground Weekender Festival. Tricky has recently released his ninth LP, Mixed Race, which featured a guest spot from Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie. Originally a member of the Wild Bunch, who later became Massive Attack, Tricky released his debut solo album Maxinquaye back in 1995 and has since collaborated with the likes of Elvis Costello, Tool, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bjork, Alison Goldfrapp, PJ Harvey and Nelly Furtado. He’s also notorious for his claim to be Goldie’s nephew – a claim that was readily refuted by the gold-toothed DnB don... Tricky will be performing with a full band, including Francesca Belmont on vocals.

Tickets are on sale now.

What drove you to start up your own business?

I worked for a couple of publicity companies for a few years, but was doing a little of my own stuff for friends on the side. After making contacts in the media and realising I had lots of friends in the industry who needed help with publicity, it went from there.

Has the way you do PR for acts changed in the past five years?

Yes. With the rise in popularity of Facebook and Twitter, I’ve embraced them and taken to using them as a primary marketing tool. The internet has changed the way PR works – you can get information out to the world without having to use the traditional avenues, and information can become public immediately. Also, the online arena is now massive, whereas five years ago the focus was more on radio and street press. On top of this, there just seems to be more festivals, artists and events every year, so it’s important to give media a great angle or something different so that you stand out from the masses.

“Please don’t let me drift too far. Keep me safe and sound where you are” – CAT POWER 12 :: BRAG :: 394 : 10:01:11

FESTIVAL OF

THE VOICE

10 HOURS OF FREE MUSIC,

6 STAGES, 70 BIG VOICES 11AM–9PM, 26 JANUARY

BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11 :: 13

free stuff

dance music news

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... With Chris Honnery

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

he said she said

WITH

DAN STRICKER FOR SIBERIAN FLOOD FUNDRAISER

I

grew up playing in bands in a lot of garages. I was listening to music from the early 90s, and my parents’ old 60s and 70s records, until unfortunately a whole bunch of records got thrown out by a cleaner. Then I started buying my own.

For the night, we just try play music that our friends and us like. Anything from 70s krautrock to horror film soundtracks, disco, 40s and 50s rock n roll - we even have a live band that plays 90s house music covers time to time.

We’re inspired by all the great music in the city and around, so we get bands to come in and play.

Everyone involved does so many things.

Djanimals and Kirin J Callinan are the first people we’ve released on Siberia Records (followed now by Erik Omen In Atlantis), so they come in and either play or DJ under many guises.

It’s just friends and

Guilty Simpson

Phat Kat

friends of friends, and their mums and cats.

Siberia Records is the Midnight Juggernauts’ label, so we’ve always done all the Juggernauts releases, as it’s our band ;). Now we’re working on some limited releases like cassettes, vinyl, cologne (yep), for people like Djanimals, Kirin J Callinan, Erik Omen In Atlantis, and many more very soon… We try to make each one special, so we use see-through vinyl, hazy colour prints, thick stock – things that cost a lot of money!

LAST NIGHT

Purple Sneakers have given birth to an amazing, raucous weekly party delight called Last Night. They seem to have adopted the attitude that every Friday night could be our last (hence the name, probably), and with that in mind have brought us Edwin Congreave of Foals fame for a DJ set, as well as Death Set, PhDJ, M.I.T, Ben Lucid and more gracing the decks. That’s a pretty good night, yuss? WELL IT GETS MORE RIDONK. Jonathan Boulet plays live, with the summery We Say Bamboulee in tow as well. We have five double passes to give away, so you can bring a date (or a wingman) to the Gaelic Theatre on January 21 – just tell us what instrument Edwin Congreave plays for Foals.

There’s so much good stuff going on, here and in the big wide WORLD. If you work hard at something and put it out there online now, it’ll do good things. Music and art are always blurring – it’s a great time for that, as it’s so easy to put out material... I’ve been away touring for the last few months, so I’ve been hanging out on tumblr rather than at the Excelsior.

What: Siberian Records presents Siberian Nights - Siberian Flood Fundraiser With: Mani from GURU GURU (GER), Nhomea, FLRL, Expo 88, Nhomea, FLRL and more TBC Where: GOODGOD Small Club, 55 Liverpool St When: Thursday January 20 How Much: $12. All proceeds go to the Queensland Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal.

Ford and Jas Shaw) previously, having provided guest vocals on the track ‘Cruel Intentions’ for the pair’s Temporary Pleasures album back in ’09. Recorded in the UK in August, SMD both co-wrote and took production duties on the EP, purportedly capturing a “softer evocative side” to Beth’s powerful, nay robust, vocals, though the result is still very much a dancefloor-friendly stonker - as one would expect from a project cooked up by such flamboyant sonic chefs.

CHEMISTRY @ CIVIC

Chemistry returns to The Civic Underground this Friday January 21 with a headline slot from Germany’s Dave DK, a fine purveyor of deep grooves who’s notched up a series of noteworthy releases on Sasse’s Moodmusic label. The night will be something of a Moodmusic label showcase, with Melbourne’s deep house connoisseur Mike Buhl – a chap who has also released on the label – spinning ahead of a strong local cast including Carlos

PhDJ Zarate and Yokoo. While downstairs will be about deep grooves, upstairs will offer a counterpoint with the disco sounds of Kali and the Loin Brothers. Presale tickets are available through Resident Advisor.

DRAKE, JAMIE XX COLLABORATE

There’d been talk of this for a little while, but it seems the cat’s now well and truly out of the bag: Jamie xx is working on the new Drake album. The Canadian rapper has told Radio 1 [via BBC Newsbeat] that the pair are “working on [second Drake album] Take Care together… Jamie is probably one of the most exciting producers I’ve ever heard.” Drake will also be guesting on the next album by Florence and the Machine, whose Florence Welch joined him onstage in London recently.

According to Drake, “we listened to all her new music, and I picked which song I really wanted to get on.”

GUILTY SIMPSON AND PHAT KAT

Two of Detroit’s finest hip-hop artists, Guilty Simpson and Phat Kat, headline a double bill at Tone nightclub on Saturday January 22. Simpson is regarded as one of the most creative MCs of his generation, and has worked with everyone from Eminem, D12 and Slum Village to Black Milk and of course J-Dilla. Phat Kat (a.k.a. Ronnie Cash) is responsible for the celebrated LP Carte Blanche, released in 2007 on Look Records, and those attending this gig can expect to be treated to a preview of material from his forthcoming album Katakombz, slotted for release this year. Support duties go to the Seekae DJs, Dizz1 & friends and Cold Crush DJs.

ADULT DISCO

On Saturday night, Adult Disco expands to engulf both floors of The Civic in a celebration of homegrown disco muscle featuring Sydney duo Flight Facilities, Modular disco troupe The Swiss and rising stars Mitzi from Brisbane.

Flight Facilities launched their single ‘Crave You’ – a “sun-kissed earworm” – at Adult Disco last July, and the track has since made it onto high rotation on triple j, so this represents a homecoming of sorts for them. Mitzi on the other hand are relative newcomers, with the four-piece set to introduce attendees to their brand of “lazy disco grooves and anthemic pop”.

Joining the fray will be Mad Racket’s Simon Caldwell alongside Graz, Softwar, Andy Webb and the resident Future Classic DJs.

THE BRIDGE UNLEASHED

Calling all tech-heads: The Bridge is a new piece of music production software designed by

the creators of Ableton and Serato. Rather than attempting to explain how it works and ultimately baffling you, I’d recommend heading along to Favela on Tuesday January 18, where the Purple Sneakers DJs (alongside a selection of other local DJs, producers and certified Ableton trainers) will show you “what the future holds for live music”. It should be pretty peachy testing The Bridge on the booming Funktion One soundsystem, and there’s going to be DJ sets kicking on after the demo - plus $2000 worth of software and training are being given away.

You can sign up to attend for free merely by registering via ableton.com/bridge-tour-sydney

BETH DITTO VS SMD

The Gossip’s Beth Ditto has unveiled details of her side project, with a four-track EP to be released in March on Deconstructed records which features Simian Mobile Disco. Ditto had already teamed up with SMD (the duo of James

Hey Now DJs

FALCONA FLOOD AID FUNDRAISER

Falcona and The Keystone Group are presenting a special event this Sunday January 23 at Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, with all profits raised to be put towards the Queensland Government’s Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal Fund, in response to the destructive floods of last week. Dropping by to spin some tunes will be Bag Raiders DJs, Dangerous Dan, SOSUEME DJS, Ro Sham Bo, Alison Wonderland, Hump Day Project, Kato, Hey Now, Joyride and MUM DJs, with complimentary drinks and canapés provided on arrival. From 7pm, entry $10 and full details about the fund at qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html

“Swords and Arches, Bones and Cement, the Lights and the Dark of the innocent of Men” – CAT POWER 14 :: BRAG :: 394 : 10:01:11

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Photo: Jarvis Cocker performing Further Complications for Live; Peaches, Warren Ellis, Kram, Martha Wainwright, Juliette Lewis, Rufus Wainwright, Sarah Blasko and Gareth Liddiard performing for Live.

The Music Network

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Industry Music News with Christie Eliezer

MYSPACE CLOSING AUSSIE OFFICE There’s a lot of spin about all this. But, (a) it looks like News Corp will close Myspace’s Australian office at the end of the month.

And (b) it’s looking to sell it off. Last week News slashed 500 MySpace jobs worldwide (or 47% if its staff). The Australian sales and content operations will be outsourced, leaving 40 people out of work; News Digital Media is reported to be taking over ad sales in Australia. MySpace Australia head Rebekah Horne is likely to move to the US (where the social site is regrouping), and CEO Nick Love will stay on in some capacity.

Communications director Darain Faraz has left after four years. The German and UK operations have also suffered the same fate. News Corp paid US$560 million in 2005 and has been publicly critical about its turnover, replacing some of its major execs in America. It posted a loss of US$156 million last November. Word is that News’ restructure is a prequel for a sale, but US-based CEO Mike Jones denied this, adding, “We are committed to rebuilding the company with an entrepreneurial culture and an emphasis on technical innovation.” But according to a Bloomberg report, Jones has revealed to employees that they are looking at a number of possibilities: a sale, a merger, a spinout.

Life lines Engaged: Country singer Shania Twain to business executive Frederic Thiebaud.

Twain divorced her first husband, record producer Robert “Mutt” Lange, after he had an affair with Twain’s best friend Marie-Anne Thiebaud - who was married to Frederic.

Engaged: Lily Allen and Sam Cooper, after he proposed at sunset on the balcony of their Bali hotel suite.

Split: John Mellencamp and third wife Elaine, after 20 years and two sons - Hud and Speck. They met when she shot the cover of his 1991 album Whenever We Wanted.

Sued: Record producer Jellybean Benitez and his House of Fun Music, by Spirit One Music Group for US$10 million damages over Madonna’s 1983 hit ‘Holiday’. Jellybean offered the song to Madonna when she cut her first album, and it became her first hit.

Spirit One says it owns 50% of the song’s copyright, and says that Jellybean “repeatedly, systematically and intentionally made delinquent and tardy payments,” and claims he “concocted flimsy, bad-faith excuses for its inaccuracy”.

Jailed: A 35-year-old American woman for leaving her developmentally delayed 7-yearold son alone at the 2010 Boise Music Festival in Idaho, while she went off dancing and hunting down autographs.

Reconciled: Rapper Lil’ Wayne and Florida hit producer Jim Jonsin have ended their royalty dispute. Jonsin was one of the producers on Lil’ Wayne’s massive hit album Tha Carter III, and says he was never paid for the track ‘Lollipop,’ which was also a major chart hit. Jonsin says that he and the rapper always remained cool throughout.

Died: Former Cash Money rapper Magnolia Shorty, 28, found with 26 bullet holes, in a housing projects in her native New Orleans. She first came to attention on Juvenile’s ‘3rd Ward Solja’.

Died: Gerry Rafferty, of Stealers Wheel and Baker Street fame, 63, illness caused by alcoholism.

MUSOS VS AIRLINES Skyrocketing excess baggage charges, and being forced to store fragile equipment in the cargo hold, are two nightmares faced by musicians when they travel by air. National peak music association AMIN is part of a taskforce initiated by airline V Australia to develop strategies to address the problems in late January. AMIN has set up an online survey (www.amin.org.au) to find out what concerns musicians, and also to compile a snapshot of artists who fly. The taskforce is the latest in V Australia’s alliance with the live music sector, which has included a compilation of indigenous musicians Home 2, and a dedicated in-flight indigenous music channel called Red Channel. Last month, Qantas reversed a policy that forced musicians to store all their instruments except violins and violas in the hold. A Facebook campaign triggered by Perth saxplayer Jamie Oehlers gained 8700 signatures and negative publicity in the mainstream media for Qantas. Under its new policy, Qantas allows any instrument that does not exceed 81 centimetres in length, 30 centimetres in height or 19 centimetres in depth. But AMIN says that Qantas has not addressed excess baggage charges.

BON JOVI TOPS POLLSTAR LIST Bon Jovi’s ‘The Circle’ show was the highestearning tour of 2010, taking US$201.1m worldwide for 80 shows, according to music trade publication Pollstar. AC/DC were at second spot with ticket sales totaling $177m from 40 shows, followed by U2 with $160.9m for 32 dates and Lady Gaga with $133.6m from 138 shows. Metallica ($110m) rounded off the Top 5.

FUSE TAPS DAVE LAING, TOBY CRESWELL Music, books and film distributor Fuse has recruited long-time Shock Records label manager and A&R Dave Laing and former Rolling Stone Australia and Juice editor Toby Creswell. Laing takes over a newly-created position in Expansion and Development, working alongside GM Richard Mohr, an appointment certain to create confusion with Fuse’s long time National Sales Manager, Dave Lang. Aside from distributing international and local labels, Fuse also operates the seven Title stores and book publisher Strangelove Press. In April, they will launch a new magazine, Strangelove, with Creswell as its editor, covering music, films and books. It will have an initial national run of 20 000.

OK COMPUTER GREATEST ALBUM OF PAST 25 YEARS Radiohead’s OK Computer was named the greatest album of the past 25 years by readers of Q Magazine. Nirvana’s Nevermind came second and Oasis took third and fourth place with (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? and Definitely Maybe. In fifth place was Whatever People Say I Am by Arctic Monkeys followed

by U2’s The Joshua Tree, The Stone Roses’ The Stone Roses, Radiohead’s The Bends, U2’s Achtung Baby and Muse’s Black Holes And Revelations.

ROGUES SPLIT WITH SONY Rogue Traders have parted with Sony Music, they twittered, after the label wasn’t happy with the direction of their new album. The band’s management confirms it’s in talks with other labels.

ART VS SCIENCE GO GOLD Art Vs Science saw their Magic Fountain EP go gold, just as they announced that their The Experiment album will be out on February 25. They do a London club tour in February, followed by a trip to Japan with MTV Australia.

PURPLE SNEAKERS SEEKS NATIONAL EVENTS MANAGER Music events company Purple Sneakers is looking for a full time National Events Manager, based either in Sydney or Melbourne. You need a strong background in marketing and/or event promotion, with experience in running events. You need experience managing a team and you must be prepared to travel interstate regularly, work late nights and on the weekend. Forward your CV with a cover letter to jobs@purplesneakers. com.au by January 28.

SHERBET REUNITE FOR HARVEY Sherbet will reunite for a benefit show for its guitarist Harvey James, who is battling inoperable lung cancer. Gimme That

THINGS WE HEAR * Sony Music’s cloud-based Unlimited digital music service - which launched before Christmas in the UK and Ireland will arrive in Australia as part of a roll-out to eight other territories. It features six million tracks from Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, EMI Music and Sony Music. * Drowning Pool are “devastated” that Arizona rampage killer Jared Lee Loughner posted their 2001 single, ‘Bodies’, as a YouTube video. * The Go! Team will shortly post Australian dates this year on their website.

* The new Michael Jackson CD sold 3 million copies worldwide by the end of 2010. * Is Rihanna to sue Kodak over a campaign in the US, where they used her name alongside Drake, Pitbull, and Trey Songz?

They got their permission, but not hers. * Paramore founding members Josh and Zac Farro say they were forced out of the band after years of their label and management backing singer Hayley Williams in battles for control. * Pharrell Williams confirmed he is working on tracks for the next Madonna album, as well as Neptunes music and the score for another Despicable Me film.

Guitar will be held on Thursday February 17 at Factory Theatre in Marrickville. Also on the bill are Richard Clapton, Renee Geyer, Dragon, Ian Moss, Swanee, Kevin Borich and Lindsay Wells of Healing Force.

A ‘Band of Friends’, featuring Harvey along with Garth Porter, Lindsay Wells, Harry Brus, Lucius Borich, and Harvey’s two sons Gabriel James and Joshua James, is also on the bill.

club owner Lili Chel was being grilled about links to the Nomads bikie gang (her husband Scott Orrock was their president, now retired).

Now the Rouge is fighting Council’s moves in the Land and Environment Court to close at 3am, alleging 68 incidents. One of these was the club hosting a private party by a builder friend for his workers - with strippers, dildos and onstage sex.

VENUES #1: NEWTOWN RSL CLOSES DOORS

ALTIYAN CHILDS GOES PLATINUM

The @Newtown RSL has closed its doors suddenly, and with it, the newly developed Shush nightclub on the top floor. It was a blow for booking agency Burgess Ventures, which took over running events at Shush last September, to turn the 500-capacity room into a local mecca which has been pulling capacity crowds of late.

X Factor Australia winner Altiyan Childs’ eponymous debut album went platinum in its first week, after debuting on the ARIA chart at #4. Childs kicked off his first East Coast tour on Friday.

VENUES #2: ROUGE TO CLOSE EARLY? Moulin Rouge nightclub in Kings Cross is back in the spotlight over its trading hours.

Last September, it was trying to get Council to extend its licence from 3am to 6am, and

BIG DAY OUT APP The Big Day Out released a free iPhone app which allows patrons to schedule which acts to catch. The ‘Take A Picture’ feature allows them to upload their photographs at the festival to their Facebook account - and the best picture wins a trip to Lollapalooza 2011 in Chicago. Go to bigdayout.com for

› THE MUSIC NETWORK TOP 40 The top 40 for 2010 YE TI HP ARTIST

TRACK

LABEL

1 42 1 Train

Hey, Soul Sister

SME

2 43 7 Lifehouse

Halfway Gone

GEF/UMA

3 40 6 John Butler Trio

Close To You

JAR/MGM

4 39 6 Jet

Seventeen

VIR/EMI

5 39 2 Adam Lambert

Whataya Want From Me

SME

6 40 7 Muse

Undisclosed Desires

WBUK/WMA

7 48 14 Powderfi nger

Burn Your Name

UMA

8 42 1 Jason Derulo

In My Head

WB/WMA

9 31 2 Scouting For Girls

This Ain’t A Love Song

SME

10 41 15 John Mayer

Heartbreak Warfare

COL/SME UMA

11 37 4 Vanessa Amorosi ft. Seany B

Mr. Mysterious

12 47 6 Rob Thomas

Give Me The Meltdown

ATL/WMA

13 36 1 David Guetta ft. Kid Cudi

Memories

VIR/EMI

14 27 5 Train

If It’s Love

SME

15 35 4 Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce

Telephone

INT/UMA

16 40 12 Rob Thomas

Mockingbird

ATL/WMA

17 30 1 Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg

California Gurls

CAP/EMI

18 31 1 Owl City

Fireflies

UNI/UMA

19 26

1 Adam Lambert

If I Had You

SME

20 27

1 Uncle Kracker

Smile

ATL/WMA

Richard Vission & Static Revenger ft. Luciana

I Like That

VICIOUS/UMA

Lady Gaga

Alejandro

INT/UMA

23 29 3

Taio Cruz

Break Your Heart

ISL/UMA

24 31 8

Pink

Ave Mary A

SME

25 28 1

Enrique Iglesias ft. Pitbull

I Like It

INT/UMA

26 30 4

David Guetta

Gettin’ Over

VIR/EMI

27 28 12

Gyroscope

Baby, I’m Getting Better

UMA SME

21 35 12 22

28

1

28 31 1

Usher ft. Will.i.am

OMG

29 33 11

Amy Meredith

Lying

SME

30 31 4

Brian McFadden ft. Kevin Rudolf

Just Say So

ISL/UMA

31 30 11

Thirsty Merc

Mousetrap Heart

MUSH/WMA

32 28 2

B.o.B ft. Bruno Mars

Nothin’ On You

ATL/WMA

33 41 24

Mumford & Sons

Little Lion Man

DEW/UMA

34 32 11

Powderfi nger

Sail The Wildest Stretch

UMA

35 27 6

Ke$ha

Your Love Is My Drug

SME

36 20 2

Usher ft. Pitbull

DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love

SME

37 27 8

Michael Buble

Haven’t Met You Yet

WB/WMA

38 23 7

Michael Paynter

Love The Fall

SME

39 28 5

Orianthi

According To You

GEF/UMA

40 31 2

John Butler Trio

One Way Road

JAR/MGM

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Aronofsky on set

A ballerina dances on the edge of sanity in Darren Aronofsky’s latest sucker-punch thriller. By Joshua Blackman lack Swan is not a ballet movie – at least not in the conventional sense. A loose retelling of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, the film follows a prima ballerina as she struggles to master the twin lead roles. The technically brilliant but sexually repressed Nina (played by Natalie Portman) is a perfect match for the White Swan; she struggles, on the other hand, to embody the sensuality and guile of the Black Swan. When talented new dancer and free spirit Lily (Mila Kunis) joins the company, Nina feels increasingly threatened. Compounded by pressure from the predatory company director and her screwloose mother, her hold on reality begins to disintegrate and we find ourselves following her into the evermore-hallucinatory realm of psychological horror.

A strong contender for the upcoming Academy Awards, Black Swan has already won over critics and American audiences, but the praise isn’t unanimous. Asked for their impressions, dancers from the Royal Ballet described Black Swan as “a very lazy movie, featuring every ballet cliché going,” and cited the inability of Portman to represent a ballet dancer as a serious flaw. The recurring criticism was that the movie was overblown. But really, would you expect anything less from the director of the drug-fuelled dystopia Requiem for a Dream?

“The story of Swan Lake is that during the day she’s a swan, and at night she’s a half-swan and halfhuman creature, so it’s a werewolf tale,” says Aronofsky. “I was excited to make a were-swan movie.”

Aronofsky first conceived of the

project a decade ago. “I went to see a production of Swan Lake, which I thought was just a bunch of girls in tutus,” he says. “I didn’t know what it was. But when I saw that there was a Black Swan and a White Swan, played by one dancer, it was kind of a Eureka moment; it was like ‘oh wow, a double…’ So then it started to come together...”

Black Swan: inside the rarified world of a New York ballet company.

For his prima ballerina Aronofsky turned to Natalie Portman, who slimmed down and underwent a year of rigorous physical training. “She’s tough. She’s a tiny little girl but she’s built of some strong material and she really went for it, over and over and over again,” the director enthuses.

It’s a bravura performance, the strongest of Portman’s career. The fact that she’s more actress than dancer (though she’s no slouch in that department either, and does most of her own routines) is indicative of why Black Swan is less a film about ballet than it is about the sacrifices needed to create great art.

This being Aronofsky, Black Swan is also a directorial tour-de-force of visceral thrills - something Italy’s head of state discovered first hand at the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival. “They sat me next to the President of Italy, who was eightysomething years old,” Aronofsky recalls. “I’m thinking, ‘Oh my god, this film has ecstasy, lesbians, rave, self-mutilation...’ So I leant over and I said, ‘I’m really sorry for what’s about to happen. It’s really an upsetting movie, and I don’t know what to say...’

He said, ‘Don’t worry, I will try not to feel any emotion.’ And then at the end of the film I turned to him and he said, ‘I tried but I felt emotion.’ So it was a good victory for me.”

Mila Kunis takes on her biggest role yet, in Black Swan.

“Why do you want to dance?” It’s a simple question, put to Moira Shearer’s ballerina in the 1948 masterpiece, The Red Shoes; she retorts with another: “Why do you want to live?”

This famous quote sums up the central theme – and dilemma – driving this and countless other movies about ballet. And it has to be that way, since ballet is arguably the most challenging and all-encompassing dance form. Girls – and they are just girls – train intensively, at the expense of relationships and any notion of a normal life. If they’re lucky they’ll gain admission to a prestigious ballet company. If they’re even luckier, they’ll get some starring roles and a career that may last into their late 20s.

After that, their bodies are past their prime.

Traditionally, it’s been difficult to find the right balance between dramatic integrity and impressive dance sequences in ballet films. Is it better to cast an actor with limited dance ability, or a dancer with questionable acting chops? One film that finds a good balance is Robert Altman’s The Company from 2003. It’s a virtually plotless presentation of a year within Chicago’s

Joffrey Ballet, benefitting from magnificent dance sequences and a lead performance by former dancer Neve Campbell.

It’s one of the few nondocumentary films to take the reality of ballet life seriously.

On the flip side is a movie like Center Stage, a glorified teen movie that stars Amanda Schull and Zoe Saldana and features decent contemporary ballet performances. For schmaltz, there’s nothing better than 1977’s The Turning Point, which has the dubious distinction of being nominated for 11 Academy Awards and winning none (an honour it shares with The Color Purple), but nonetheless features the sublime dancing of renowned ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Black Swan features many of the usual tropes of these films (crazy mothers, the demanding company director, life vs. art), but in contrast to all but the fairytale-esque, Technicolor grandeur of The Red Shoes, Aronofsky’s film feels more akin to Polanski’s Repulsion or even Dario Argento’s classic horror film, Suspiria (also ostensibly set at a ballet academy), than it does the usual ballet movie. This may in part explain why Black Swan has received a mixed response from the ballet world.

Not many people saw Darren Aronofsky’s gut-wrenching odyssey of drug addiction, Requiem for a Dream, during its cinema release in 2000.

Even fewer saw his first film, Pi, a bizarre trip into the mind of a mathematics genius who believes he can decipher the stockmarket. Both have since gone on to achieve cult status via DVD. And to those select few cinephiles back in 1998, it was already clear that Aronofsky was a major new talent.

A graduate of both Harvard and the American Film Institute, Aronofsky studied social anthropology but also took classes in animation and liveaction film. It took half a decade for him to arrive with the idea and means to make Pi, which was entirely funded through $100 donations from friends and family.

Both Pi and Requiem for a Dream were critically acclaimed, and while his recent efforts The Wrestler and Black Swan continue this trend, one of his most intriguing films is his ambitious but flawed third feature, The Fountain (2006).

Originally conceived on a $70 million budget and set to star Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, Aronofsky was forced to rewrite the script after Pitt left and the budget was slashed by half.

The resulting film, starring Hugh Jackman and the director’s then-wife, Rachel Weisz, The Fountain received a mixed response. It deals with nothing less than the cycle of life and death and the reality of facing one’s mortality.

They’re grand themes for a filmmaker to take on, but Aronofsky has always suggested a broader canvas to his very specific stories of obsession, addiction and the relentless pursuit of the unattainable, whether it be describing the world through numbers (Pi), satisfaction through drugs (Requiem) or perfection through art (Black Swan). Plus, he’s an unsubtle genius who delights in jolting his audiences with some of the most delirious and visceral hammerblows in cinema.

Next up Aronofsky reunites with Hugh Jackman in X-Men spinoff The Wolverine, no doubt breathing creative life into what could otherwise have been a very conventional comic book film. On the basis of this director’s slate so far, at least we can be sure he’ll pull no punches.

What: Black Swan When: Opens January 20 More: blackswan-movie.com.au

“Sometimes the same is different, but mostly it’s the same, these mysteries of life, that just ain’t my thing” – QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE 18 :: BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11

BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11 :: 19

CocoRosie The Treasure Hunt By Oliver Downes dub-step and electronica, with results that are unerringly their own. “There is a sort of treasure hunt feeling that we have when we’re making music,” muses Bianca. “It’s kind of like creating a sort of alchemy of distinct parts that don’t necessarily belong together.”

This willingness to pull aspects of distinct genres into their own self-contained world, while transfiguring them in the process, perhaps accounts for the instantly striking quality of their music. While their ultra-lo-fi exercise in Francophilia, 2004’s La Maison de Mon Reve, attracted no small degree of attention (prompting Touch and Go Records to take the uncommon step of seeking out the sisters’ signatures), it was with their 2005 follow-up Noah’s Ark that they made their mark. While guest spots from Antony Hegarty (and a subsequent touring slot with the angel-voiced androgene) certainly didn’t hurt the cause, the album is a stunning musical confrontation of the residual warping effects of childhood traumas and externally imposed religious faith; a high mark that record number three, The Adventures Ghosthorse and Stillborn (2007), failed to reach.

The twilight world of last year’s Grey Oceans presented a return to form, albeit one wrapped in foreboding, and largely acoustic, clothing. As musically diverse as ever (see the collision of honky-tonk piano, hand-claps and jungle beats of ‘Hopscotch’ for example, or the sombre piano and lush strings of ‘Lemonade’), Grey Oceans is marked by a meditative atmosphere, Bianca’s lyrics reflecting her preoccupation with the natural world - or as she puts it, “the perfection of imperfection.”

I

t’s hard to think of a group able to elicit more strident responses than avant-pop duo CocoRosie. Since their personal reunion after a decade of estrangement, sisters Bianca and Sierra Casady have divided listeners with four albums of ferociously individualistic music.

Although many have been captivated by their visually intense live shows and adamantly eccentric explorations of sonic texture, others have been put off by Bianca’s curdled vocals or the suspicion that very little lies beneath the duo’s Bohemian posing.

Taking a break from work on her upcoming art exhibition in Japan, Bianca isn’t fazed by the pair’s

critics. “I think it takes a lot of self-indulgence to be an artist,” she comments through a blocked nose (Southern France not being the warmest of places to spend the winter). “Really, for us, it’s a sort of ecstasy … We are the ones who are getting a lot of pleasure out of it first. I don’t think we’d be doing it otherwise, and that’s really our compass for our work; it’s based on our bliss.”

In practice, this wide-eyed willingness to throw out any rulebooks and to follow their own impulses is what defines the CocoRosie modus operandi, which sees them assemble elements from a vast range of sources, including classical (Sierra is a trained opera singer), blues, hip-hop,

Although the album is easily the duo’s most cohesive and accessible collection to date, for Bianca the process of music-making remains a laborious one, each song representing a plunge into the unknown. “We [started with] less of a map than in the beginning actually, which is partly what took the record so long to come together,” she explains. “We started out with a lot of dancey, more poppy music just as a kind of a naughty exercise in a really different direction, but after a couple of years … the record became a lot more melancholic and acoustic and more stripped down – much to our surprise. So we really improvised more than ever with this record.”

“It takes a lot of selfindulgence to be an artist... For us, it’s a sort of ecstasy. It’s based on our bliss.”

While their previous work has featured guest artists like Antony and Devendra Banhart, with Grey Oceans the pair took the unusual step of allowing a third party into the writing process, the contributions of pianist Gael Rakotondrabe providing some extra glue. “[It was] very luxurious to work with a musician who’s really capable of improvising in any genre of music,” says Bianca of the experience. “I think it allowed us to travel even more quickly, more vastly into these different genres… He brought a certain fluidity to the music which made the record more musical in a sense, more melodic.”

To foster the sort of bubble in which their creative processes flourish, the sisters maintain their isolation from the rest of the world for as much of the time as they can get away with, even while on tour. “Real life for me can be more stressful,” says Bianca. “All we do [on tour is] focus on preparing ourselves for performing. There’s nothing else to think about and we don’t keep telephones with us or anything, so the outside world can’t even really contact us… Just being near nature in a personless landscape is what really propels my poetry and my ideas these days.”

Remaining apart certainly seems to provide the kind of uninhibited space necessary for the ongoing reinvention of the fabulous beast that is CocoRosie - but things are set to be shaken up completely following upcoming Australian appearances. “After we have our Asian/Australian tour, we’re going to really completely reshape our band and kind of start from scratch, and we’re pretty excited about that. We’re gonna really just have the two of us working together again.”

With: Ólöf Arnalds Where: Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House When: Tuesday January 25

Cat Power Sunny Disposition By Chad Parkhill

I

t was with some trepidation that I approached interviewing Chan Marshall – the style icon, rehab survivor, and singersongwriter better known as Cat Power. Not that she’s famous for primadonna antics à la Alison Goldfrapp, but she does have a reputation for being more than a little distant. Her first concert DVD (Speaking For Trees) was, after all, filmed in an isolated location where the only audience were trees, and her early concerts were notorious for stage antics like hiding behind the piano, giving lengthy monologues, and cutting songs short when she tired of them.

Then there are her well-known personal struggles, including alcoholism and a stint in the psych ward of Mount Sinai hospital. And although it’s clear she’s gotten her act together over the past few years – beginning with the lighter disposition of The Greatest and continuing through to her measured, mellow, and assured live performances (not counting the infamous meltdown at the Metro) – I’m still not sure which Chan Marshall I’ll end up speaking to. Will she be the flighty, inattentive genius? Or the candid, eloquent survivor?

As it turns out, Marshall is a little more complicated than a simple dichotomy suggests.

She’s cheerful and polite, asking me how I’m doing in her low, slow drawl - but she

“It’s like having a ton of babies, and you have to decide which ones get to have a public life.

I’m not saying that my songs are as precious as a child, but I’m still going a little bonkers trying to figure it out.”

20 :: BRAG :: 394 :: 10:01:11

also makes it clear that there are quite a few subjects on which she doesn’t want to be drawn.

I start by talking to her about Sun, the muchdelayed record she’s working on which will be her first album of original material since 2006’s The Greatest. “I started it out about two years ago; I think that was just the way of life I had adapted to,” she tells me, explaining the long gap between LPs. “Touring was what I always did, and I never ever thought it was different to what anyone else ever did, I thought it was normal. So I slowed down and started writing.”

Originally, the album was intended to be mostly songs Marshall had already written. “But now, some time later, I’m not recording the older songs I had thought were going to be the core of Sun - and I’ve written more songs …” She trails off. “Sorry, this is so boring!” she giggles, as though uncomfortable talking about herself.

“This is the first time I’ve ever had time off to write an album,” she explains. “There’s a couple of writers I know, painters I know, who’ve had a situation like that - but for me, it’s the first time anything like that’s happened. I do a tour occasionally, but I’m not running around the globe any more. I don’t know if that’s changed the way that the songs are being written, or musically being recorded, but…” she trails again. One of the difficulties Marshall is currently battling is the process of choosing what goes and what stays in the album. “It’s like having a split personality,” she says. “It’s like having a ton of babies, and you have to decide which ones get to have a public life. Which ones do you send to school, which ones do you do home-schooling with? I’m not saying that my songs are as precious as a child, but I’m still going a little bonkers trying to figure it out,” she admits. “There’s also the aesthetic differences in the material, given the amount of time I’ve been recording: which ones do I respect, and which ones am I tricked into respecting because they’ve been around for a few years? Which ones do I truly respect and value, and which ones are just familiar to me?”

Marshall relies only on herself as a producer, so the responsibility is all hers. “I’ve always been the person, the producer – if there’s eight songs

out of 30 [I’ve written] that [make the album], I have to make that call,” she says. “I’ve always played iffy songs to friends, but the confusing part of that is that every friend always likes the song that the other friends didn’t like - so there’s nobody’s opinion I hold greater than mine. I’m not saying my opinion is greater than anybody else’s - there are times where I don’t trust my opinion about something that’s confusing the shit out of me - but I don’t know how I’d work with a producer.”

Despite taking a break from touring to focus on Sun, Marshall has still made the time to visit Australia, a country she clearly holds dear. She tours here frequently, which in the past has included a support slot for homegrown hero Nick Cave; in fact, she recorded

the entirety of her breakthrough album Moon Pix in Melbourne with members of Dirty Three, whose drummer Jim White plays in Marshall’s touring band, Dirty Delta Blues. So what is the basis of her close connection to Australia? “The country reminds me of something,” she says. “I love the terrain, I love the landscape. Maybe it’s based on a romanticised observation of the people, but there’s something earthy about [Australia]. It’s not industrialised – there’s major cities, obviously, but I just love all that earth you have over there, and all the people you’ve got walking on it.”

Where: Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House When: Sunday January 30

BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11 :: 21

Miike Snow

Mark Ronson Unlimited Business By RK

Fresh And Organic By Reuben Adams

M

ark Ronson has had a fairly decent streak of good luck. He claims he didn’t intend to make an album that turned hip-hop into everyone-friendly music; nor did he anticipate that Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen would go on to sell millions of records. Oh, and he didn’t mean to collect three Grammy’s either. It all happened, but in Mark’s world, it certainly wasn’t planned that way.

“My earliest memories were of being around my parents, listening to music - and then waking up in the middle of the night to listen to music, and pretend to play drums. I got a mini drum kit and played and played them, and that sort of got me into hip hop, when I was about 17.” A musical upbringing didn’t hurt, given that Ronson

M

iike Snow appear to thrive on ambiguity. Comprising acclaimed Swedish production/songwriting duo Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg (aka Bloodshy & Avant) and American lead singer Andrew Wyatt, it’s often difficult to get a clear picture of what these guys are about with a confusing name like that. The masks don’t help either - but thankfully, their music speaks for itself. Formed in 2007, their eponymous 2009 debut took the world by storm with its mix of indie and electronica, spawning massive tracks like ‘Silvia’, ‘Animal’ and the heartbreakingly beautiful ‘Sans Soleil’, with Miike Snow reveling in disparate elements fused together into something fresh and exciting.

A couple of years on, and Winnberg doesn’t see his band moving in any predictable direction; their history has been marked by an ability to grow in an organic way, without looking ahead too much. I ask him if it was strange including Wyatt into their team, after Karlsson and he had worked together for so many years - but he doesn’t see it like that. “It seemed pretty obvious how it should go down after we met; we more or less immediately started messing around together in the studio,” remembers Winnberg. “We didn’t have any long term plans with the project.”

This is a common thread in the conversation, and perhaps why Miike Snow has achieved such heady success in such a short amount of time - although granted, all parties have been writing and producing under different pseudonyms for years now. This organic, almost unrefined approach is fundamental to their live shows, and to that end, much of the equipment that they use is over 20 years old.

“Yeah, for us it works really well, because if something drops out or goes wrong there is

always someone else who can jump in. That’s the bad thing about technology; if you’re using computers and something goes wrong, everything goes silent,” he explains. “It pushes us creatively to find a solution to a problem that we might be having during a set.”

wasn’t classically trained in the strictest sense of the word. Perhaps being astute is more apt a description for the music legend. “From there, I started learning to DJ and playing on the radio,” he continues. “I made a name for myself playing in clubs in New York City, and I was getting into production. And because I was a DJ in those clubs, guys like Q-Tip, Puffy and Mos Def were around - and my first production projects sort of went from there,” he explains. “I got my first deal with Elektra, then there was a song with Ghostface - and the big break happened about five years ago, when I did the record for Amy Winehouse.”

It was those kaleidoscopic talents matched with a streak of luck that ensured Ronson’s continued success. He isn’t a one-genre DJ, nor is he confined to one small space in the production business. “I was definitely always into hip hop that was what always made me want to produce beats. Even on my first record I was lucky to have Questlove from the Roots play drums, so by the time I met Amy I was really ready to produce a bit of a band-type setup,” Ronson explains.

Has all of this success created the ongoing pressure to succeed, or merely the desire? “Well, there is kind of pressure in a way. There is a part of me that says that success affords you a bit of freedom, and the whole point with Record Collection was to make something new,” he says.

“Music that is equally rooted in hip hop and stuff.”

Producing the great Duran Duran for what was their 13th studio effort, All You Need Is Now, was no small feat either. Then there was his own recent album – the fourth – along with everything else on his somewhat prolific agenda. “The past year was really spent working on Record Collection and then finishing the Duran Duran album, which will be out at the end of the year.

They were one of my favourite bands as a kid, so it was a mission to return them to what made them so great,” explains Ronson. “Then I also finished the album for The Black Lips who are a band that I really like; and then another side project with a few guys that conceptually I want to align with some 60s stuff. That will be interesting too.”

Adding to the ambiguity of the band is the masks they use, both in press shots and on stage. Is it a self-indulgent attempt at anonymity, I wonder, or a legitimate artistic decision? Turns out they’ve never really thought about it all that much… “Nothing is really thought out with us; we just stumble upon stuff. We found some masks in Camden at The Roundhouse, we bought a bunch and we started using them that night,” he chuckles. “Gradually, we’ve started using them as part of the way that we think the show should look, but it’s really just a case of incorporating stuff that we stumble upon.

“That goes for equipment as well,” he continues. “We started using a really awkward percussion instrument in our shows - we found the set in a pawn shop in Washington and we took it on stage with us that night.

That’s the big thing about having the setup that we have - we can be completely open to changing stuff up.”

The message then for attendees of this year’s huge Good Vibrations Festival? Open your minds for Miike Snow; these music marvels have the ability to turn seemingly innocuous pop music into something deeply transcendental.

There’s no letting up for one of the most important men in electronic music right now. And for Ronson, the accolades and the attention are a gentle reminder that he’s still in the right place at the right time.

Who: Mark Ronson & The Business INTL

With: Faithless, Phoenix, Janelle Monae, Erykah Badu, Ludacris, Yolanda Be Cool and more

With: MGMT, The Chemical Brothers, Dizzee Rascal Zane Low and more

Where: Good Vibrations @ Centennial Park

Where: Future Music Festival @ Randwick Racecourse

When: Saturday February 12

When: Sunday March 12

Kool & The Gang Celebrate! By Tyson Wray

D

orky press shot aside, Kool & The Gang have to be one of the all-time most infectious, funkiest and entertaining bands. Renowned for their flavourful infusion of multi-genres and their hook-laden records, the New Jersey group have spent over four decades releasing some of the world’s most vibrant and long-standing funk tracks around; we’re talking tracks like ‘Celebrate’, ‘Get Down On It’ and ‘Ladies’ Night’. On the eve of their long-awaited return to Australia, Robert “Kool” Bell talks to me about where their legendary past has led them. “We’ve been touring a lot the last six months,” he says. “We’ve also been working on quite a bit of new material... Things are still very busy and most importantly we’re still enjoying ourselves. We’re very lucky.”

“In the 60s we were very young,” Bell explains.

“It was like a training ground for us. We played a lot in Jersey City in a place called The Coffee House, which would have jazz artists every Sunday. So pretty much our first love was jazz; one of the first names we called ourselves was The Jazz Jacks.” The group soon moved into soul territory, changing their name to Kool & The Gang when they released their first record in 1969. It was as back-up band for mo-town acts that they saw their music swing between jazz and RnB – “and of course we were listening to bands like Sly and the Family Stone, which was another major early influence for us,” he continues. “So from

the beginning we were writing and playing tracks ranging from jazz to funk to RnB; it was all quite different, but that’s how we learnt.

That was the beginning for Kool & The Gang, and still influences how we continue to make records.”

These records don’t just feature artistic explorations and ingenious songwriting, but soundtracks of harmony, revelry and, dare I say it, Celebration. They’ve sold an astounding 120 million records throughout their career, and the impact and message conveyed has been immeasurable. “We try to make music for people to enjoy, and that music brings people together. We’ve had so much love and understanding - the world can always use a little of that. Our mission statement would be that, in a way, we try to bring about world unity.”

With an average age of sixty, Kool & The Gang’s live performances still embody the soul and playfulness of their youth. With 2011 marking their 47th year of playing together, Bell reveals that the fundamentals of their show still remain unchanged. “We keep a high energy show. There’s a lot of dancing going on, there’s a lot of costumes and it’s generally quite a party, with a really good feeling about it,” he says. And to all of you thinking of heading down to a show, don’t worry; they’ll play all the favourites. “When we play a concert, we

try to cover the whole catalogue. We play stuff that we wrote all through our career from the 60s, 70s, and 80s right up until modern day. It usually works for us.”

The band are looking forward to coming back to Australia, where they’ll be headlining Playground Weekender festival with Doves, Lamb, Tricky and De La Soul among others.

“We’re really excited,” Kool says. “We haven’t been there in quite a long time, so we’re really hyped up about returning, and looking forward to seeing our fans and playing a lot of fun shows.” Most importantly, The Gang show no signs of slowing down.

“We’re excited about 2011. We plan to play a lot more shows around the world... We’re also working on a new album called Still Kool, and my brother is currently working on an online television show - Real Kool TV. We’re also talking about possibly doing a musical in Las Vegas,” he shares, before pausing to laugh.

“What can I say? Kool & the Gang have a busy schedule for the next few years.”

With: Doves, Lamb, Tricky, De La Soul, You Am I, Kate Nash, Caribou, Fourtet and more Where: Playground Weekender @ Wisemans Ferry When: February 17 - 20 More: Enmore Theatre on Feb 18, with Roy Ayers

“You want a reason? How’s about “Because”? You ain’t a has been if you never was.” – QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE 22 :: BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11

New Found Glory All Uphill From Here By Birdie

T

ell vocalist Jordan Pundik that New Found Glory are considered the best pop-punk band in history, and he’ll giggle and tell you it makes him feel funny. As far as the frontman of the Florida five-piece is concerned, he’s just a regular dude who you wouldn’t even look at twice in a crowd - yet Pundik’s band are responsible for six full-length albums of some of the most memorable pop-punk tunes of the last ten years. And before the month is out, New Found Glory will make that seven.

“We’ve decided to take the whole month of January for recording,” Pundik announces. “We’re trying to have the majority of the songs done and ready to go before we start touring again – like, at least the basic melodies and demos.” He tells me the workload is a pretty fair split between three of the band members. Guitarist Chad Gilbert comes up with a riff and puts some fake drums to it, and then Pundik and Steve Klein work out the lyrics and melodies over video chat. “Like I said, this is the very beginning of [the next album] - who knows what it could end up sounding like.”

Either way, Pundik and the band are hoping they’ll get to show off some new material to their Aussie fanbase come Soundwave Festival. It’s the third time in three years that New Found Glory will be returning to our shores. Fast becoming regulars down under, Pundik says the band couldn’t say no to another Soundwave offer, after having such a good time last year. “The line up looks great [this year] - I can’t believe how many bands I’m actually looking forward to seeing! I really want to see Gang Of Four and Gaslight Anthem most of all,” he tells me. “The best part is that there are so many bands from the US who we know really well personally. When we have to catch a plane from one place to the next, they’ll usually group the same bunch of bands together on the plane for the whole tour. You can imagine what it’s like – you’ve got like 10 or 11 bands all together, plus the crew and everything else…”

was about money - it seemed to us that he was genuinely a fan of the band and wanted to help us out, and do what was best for us. We still talked to some other labels, but I guess in the back of our minds we always knew that we’d choose Epitaph.

It’s so important that they let you have all the freedom to be as original as possible.”

While Pundik agrees that major labels can often hinder the originality and experimentation of bands, he also adds that most of the time, the problem also has a lot to do with the mentality of the band members themselves. “I don’t want to sound like the old bitter guy because I’m not, it’s just that a lot of kids don’t want to step out of the box - and they just want everything to be handed to them,” he explains.

“It would help if people knew a little bit of history behind their favourite music.”

What: Not Without A Fight is out now on Epitaph With: Iron Maiden, Slayer, Queens Of The Stone Age, Slash, Primus, Rob Zombie and heaps more Where: Soundwave Festival @ Eastern Creek Raceway When: Sunday February 27

“I don’t want to sound like the old bitter guy, it’s just that a lot of kids don’t want to step out of the box. It would help if people knew a little bit of history behind their favourite music.”

While Pundik realises that the band’s set won’t be particularly long thanks to the tight schedule of the festival, he says that fans are in for a bit of a ‘greatest hits’-style performance. “We actually released a greatest hits record in 2008,” he adds. “It’s pretty weird to even say that; that’s something that happens to bands that have been together for like 30 years or something!”

The album, Hits, featured only one new song (‘Situations’) among singles like ‘Dressed To Kill’, ‘My Friend’s Over You’ and ‘All Downhill From Here’. “It was pretty much a way for us to sum up the first 10 years of our band… We just wanted to present something to our fans; to be able to say, ‘This is our first 10 years as a band in a nutshell’. Each of the songs on there depicts the style of each album and where we were at the time - personally, lyrically, musically.”

It’s New Found Glory’s 2009 release Not Without A Fight that Pundik claims is his favourite, if only for the fact that the band got to work with longtime friend and producer Mark Hoppus, of Blink 182. “Working with Mark was rad!” enthuses the frontman. “It was laid-back and easy.” He explains that when they came off tour, the band were in a limbo state, searching for who to work with again. “We didn’t have the money to put behind a recording, so we called Mark because we’d known him for a long time. The whole recording was just how we wanted it to be – it was comfortable, there was no time-wasting getting to know each other, and he let us call all the shots, which is the way it’s supposed to be.

We didn’t have a record deal then, and Mark let us use the studio and worked with us anyway while we were trying to figure that out.”

Under significant stress trying to solve the label problem, Hoppus continued to reassure the band that things would work themselves out - which they indeed did, when the band signed to the bastion of punk, the legendary Epitaph label.

“Epitaph is just massive for punk rock; pretty much all of our favourite artists have been on that label. It was Brett [Gurewitz, label owner] who contacted us pretty much as soon as the Geffen contract finished; we had no idea how he could have known about it so quickly. He’s a very realistic guy and he knew that none of this

. y a d o t e t a r b Cele . w o r r o m o t n i a g a t i e v i L Australia Day isn’t just about freedom and wide-open spaces. We’re not just celebrating our diverse blend of cultures. And it’s not just about friends coming together for an all-day eat-a-thon. We celebrate on 26 January because tomorrow, we get to live it all over again.

To find out about celebrations near you, visit australiaday.org.au

BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11 :: 23

Last week we put together a special exploring all of our most anticipated picks from the Sydney Festival program, but the spread of temptations was of such a magnitude that it threatened to overwhelm. After all, there's only so many hours in a week, and some of those need to be spent doing things like sleeping, eating, and bringing home the bacon. So we broke it into two, and are back this week with the second instalment. Given the following pages, some might say we saved the best for last... Shrug. Enjoy.

Crossroads and Compromise

By Jordan Smith

W

ally De Backer (Gotye, to your playlist) is exactly the kind of artist one wants to interview - genuine, open, funny and a bit eccentric. In a constantly bubbling stream of eloquent chatter, the Belgium-born and Melbourne-based artist paints a very candid picture of the difficulties he faces, what keeps him going and how he’s changed - in the same amount of time it takes most artists to say they’re “very fortunate” and “working hard on the new tour.”

Our conversation traverses every which way, as De Backer energetically follows through on every tangent; so for the purposes of coherency (and with a defiant grin to every HSC English teacher who warned me never to write articles as recounts) I’ll relay this chronologically.

Somewhat surprisingly, De Backer was a comparatively late bloomer, taking up his first instrument (every neighbour’s delight - the drums) at the ripe old age of 16. He doesn’t remember the first song he wrote, but admits it’s probably cringe-worthy now – he’s in no hurry to go digging it up.

“You might find somebody you don’t connect with anymore and realise it’s yourself at one stage!” De Backer took some time discovering and developing his voice as a teenager, starting off only singing baritone on account of a healthy obsession with Depeche Mode... “I do distinctly remember my mum telling me ‘maybe you should

just stick to drums… you’re pretty good on drums, but singing - not so much.’ I didn’t really take that to heart though. I just thought, ‘well I’ll show you!’ ” These days it’s safe to say that mum has been “shown”, as De Backer’s vocals are a defining aspect of the sound of Gotye. To anyone that sings, or has tried to sing, join me in marvelling at the accuracy of his summary of the relationship between our voice and ourselves: “On some level, your voice is the most transcendent expression you can make of something you feel or want to express. I find being able to sing just as frustrating as I do liberating, as you get more aware of your limitations and the instrument you have in your throat,” he says.

“You want to express things you think you feel, but you can’t quite make the sound that you want to hear coming out of your throat… It can be especially frustrating, because you feel a bit closer to the sound of your voice than maybe you do an instrument that you play.” Try and sing along to ‘Heart’s a Mess’ and tell me you don’t know what he’s talking about…

Fast-forward now to the making of his long-awaited fourth album (which is almost finished - he pinkie

promises). Following the mantra of “strike while it’s fresh,” De Backer has pieced this album together through a variety of methods and places: from Melbourne studios, to a barn on his parent’s land, to the back of a bus between Hamburg and Munich. Some parts were arranged with samples on a laptop, others born from more traditional man-at-the-piano songwriting methods. Place affects music, says De

Whilst hanging the final baubles on his album, De Backer has been preparing for his upcoming live performances (Sydneysiders can catch him in his own show at City Recital Hall, and at Laneway Festival). He reveals that although he’s very happy with the final product, the show is quite different from his original vision. “I’ve always had ideas for a multifaceted audiovisual performance, but I now realise I have to take baby steps.

We went out there looking to do something very elaborate, and after

finely-wrought storytelling. Instead, The Age Of Adz was a record about feeling and fearing, in no place more specific than the terrifying landscape of the mind – and layered over it all were strata of noise and electromechanical disturbance that, at first, seemed like nothing so much as a small but significant betrayal.

For those familiar with Stevens’ second album, Enjoy Your Rabbit – a concept album about the Chinese zodiac that was far more experimental sonically than what came immediately before or after – it was less of a shock, but for Stevens himself, it’s still pretty conservative.

“I think I’ve always been obsessed with noise,” he says. “I love going to see shows where it’s just made-up noise. I remember seeing a lot of shows around ten years ago with the members of Sonic Youth – they weren’t playing as a band, they were playing individually, just improvising with downtown New York jazz people. You know, playing a whole hour of just white-noise feedback.

Learn The Language

By Caitlin Welsh

F

ive years after Illinois – a gobsmackingly epic achievement of orchestration and mythology, like an Americanhistory lesson taught by Van Dyke Parks - Sufjan Stevens has finally released another studio longplayer.

The long-awaited Full-Length Album Of Songs follows a procession of wonderfully discombobulating 24 :: BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11

projects: a multimedia package including a modern-classical work about a New York road, accompanied by footage of the aforementioned infrastructure and a Viewmaster reel; an album of offcuts from the Illinois sessions, called Avalanche; bootlegs of ten-minute songs about birds and peace; and in August last year, an hour-long EP released with zero notice or fanfare on Stevens’ Bandcamp site.

Fans had long known that the infamous “50 States Project” was on the shelf, probably permanently; but it was difficult at first to come to terms with the fact that with it had gone Michigan and Illinois’s particularly perfect blend of orchestral scope, folk intimacy and

Backer. “The sense of place gives me a more personal memory of creating certain songs; it can often be richer than if you’ve grabbed lots of digital samples from all over the place and put them together.” Such an approach can have its difficulties at times, though - De Backer encountered a bunch of hassles recording in some awkward spaces, and went to peculiar lengths to cut out the ambient sounds: “I’ve cut open mattresses in share-houses and stuck who knows what on the walls,” he laughs - but it’s not indie unless you’ve recorded somewhere impractical, right?

“I do consider myself a folk songwriter, still, at the heart of it all,” he goes on. “I’m still very much rooted in narrative and songwriting, and lyrics and melody, you know – and beauty. Beauty is really key to everything I do.” The broad jumble of Adz’s abrasive textures, he says, is a way of widening his own concepts of beauty as well as expanding the listener’s experience. “I’m allowing for a lot more of the cacophony that’s developed and worked its way into the song, and I think for some people aesthetically it’s a little jarring.

But for me, that’s always been part of my vernacular.”

In interviews as early as 2006, Stevens admitted to being sick of his voice, and wanting to “sabotage” the prettiness of his music with noise. “I kept it at bay quite self-consciously,” he says now. “Illinois’s a very populist

record. I would interject little noise diversions here and there but they were really controlled, you know, because I was focused on a very conservative harmonic orthodoxy…

There’s so much more to discover [in Adz] because you have to really confront it as a listener and come to terms with it on your own – it isn’t spoonfed to you.”

Sufjan describes beauty as “suspiciously easy.” “The visage of a beautiful woman or a handsome man is so perfect and formalised and it has such an immediate, galvanising effect on the viewer…

I’m very suspicious of that,” he says.

“And the more and more I think it over, I’m kind of interested in the opposite of that – finding meaning and value in ugliness.”

The other, related thematic concerns of Adz draw on the work of “outsider” artist Royal Robertson – who was responsible for the album artwork. Suffering from paranoid schizophrenia that eventually cost him his family and employment, Robertson lived the rest of his life alone, with delusions of being a prophet foretelling the impending apocalypse. Stevens, who had been researching Robertson as he scored a friend’s documentary on outsider artists, found himself repeatedly drawn to Robertson’s story and to his brash, disorderly, naïve art. “He didn’t really have a sense of distinguishing between reality and fiction, and I think I found that really fascinating – not so much with the mental illness, because I think it’s very unfortunate, the life he had to live in isolation and in poverty – but as a state of mind,” explains Stevens. “As a musician I’m always having to juggle between the life of the imagination and the life of the ordinary world… I think a lot of my music confuses those two things. And I find that Royal, he really embraced that – the fantasy world, the world of the imagination.”

three months of trying it just wasn’t coming together.

“It’s hard because I feel like I’m moving in two directions,” he continues. “One direction is trying to take my music to a completely live environment where I’m using a mini orchestra of 15-20 people …

The focus of the whole show will be around the music and about how I interact as part of that ensemble or conducting that ensemble.” The other direction, he says, is where the liveness is secondary to the experience; the music exists around a projection between two screens, where Wally himself is just a sillouette. It’s this vision which has had to be sidelined for now. “It’s a bit debilitating, to be completely honest with you - having these ambitions and things you want to do, and trying to live between the incredible limitations that a stage at Laneway has, and the greater possibilities that a theatre offers.”

As the writer of “pop-rock music that maybe wants to be something artier,” De Backer is often dealing with contradictions in realising his vision. “[The trick is] working out whether that’s a compromise that really cuts against something you hold dear, or whether it’s just an inevitable compromise you make so many times a day just to have a music career.”

What: City Recital Hall, Angel Place When: Thursday January 27 More: Laneway Festival, Sydney February 6 @ SCA with Chk Chk Chk, Beach House, Deerhunter, Holy Fuck and more

When I proffer my interpretation of The Noise’s place in the sonic landscape of the album – that it represents the sort of psychological white-noise produced by an unwell mind – Stevens muses that this is “probably an accurate reading”. (“There’s a kind of interior noise in the body that I’ve always been fascinated with,” he says.) But he discourages me from dwelling on the jarring effect of the record’s electronic aspects, and laughs when I agree that it’s “not exactly Metal Machine Music”.

“No! It’s really not that aggressive or noisy or cacophonous – once you begin to learn the language of the record, it becomes really harmonious after a while. And it isn’t meant to be provocative, you know – I’m not creating rebellious music here.”

The main shock of Adz was not The Noise in and of itself, but rather how much of a departure from the much-worshipped Illinois it seemed.

But as Stevens says, once the listener “learns the language”, the beauty emerges from beneath the noise, all the sweeter for having been a little hard-won; his three sold-out shows in Sydney this month attest to the fact that his fans will follow him wherever he goes. “I never underestimate the listener, you know? I think people have tremendous capacity for change.

People are really open to trying something out.

“I don’t think this stuff is all that weird, once you get beyond the surface of it,” he says, adding with a laugh, “things could get a lot weirder.

And I kinda hope they do.”

What: The Age Of Adz is out now through Spunk Where: January 27, 28 / January 29 When: Sydney Opera House / The State Theatre

That 10%

By Mikey Carr

L

ongevity in a market as fickle as the music industry is no easy task; and according to traditional industry wisdom, doing so without catering to trends is near impossible. Seminal UK post-punkers Wire, however, have managed to weather the eroding forces of creative conformity and genre-herding, over a career which has spanned 34 legendary years of relentless defiance against the conglomerate of the mainstream.

“My basic principle is that 90% of everything is shit, and the music market divides in accordance with that principle,” says Colin Newman, Wire’s singer and guitarist. “90% of people who buy records aren’t really interested in music, they just want to get the record everyone else is talking about.

To them, it’s like owning the right stereo or the right TV. I’m not saying these people are dumb - they may be in the top 10% of sport or visual art. The other 10% of the music market, though, are completely the opposite; they know what they like so much that they’re annoyed by all the other rubbish that does so well. From my point of view, with anything that I work on, I can only think of that 10%.”

Formed in 1976, Wire rose to cult status with their first three albums, Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154. From then on, their early punk sound evolved into a more structured and complex aesthetic as they experimented with both arrangements and composition as well as guitar effects and synthesizers. Following on from that, Wire defied even their own conventions, their later work touching on genres like drum n bass and hip hop. With their creative compass in a constant state of flux, what drives the band is, to put it simply, instinct.

“My personal theory is that the act of creativity is not something that comes from the intellect,” Colin explains, choosing his words with meticulous care. “Either you’re really dumb or you’re really clever when you create, but creation is not related to how you’re thinking about it. You can think about it and contextualise and conceptualise everything afterwards, and you need to be able to make sense of it and how it works; but in the process of creating it you need to try and keep it as pure as possible. It should be instinctual, and at best it should be pure instinct. You have no idea why you did it, you just did it and it worked out.” Still, he says, instinct alone does not a killer album make…

"If you work in an instinctual way, you need to able to tell which ideas are good and which ideas are crap,” he laughs.

This approach, and the band’s trajectory, is very much at odds with how a lot of today’s music is made, and how lots of bands’ careers develop. In the current creative climate, genre and the right set of influences often seem more important than the actual music – and bands expend a lot of time and effort making sure they tick all the right boxes.

A hint of My Bloody Valentine, a touch of Muddy Waters, borrowing a drum sound from '60s soul and a synth sound from Vangelis…

Music reviews often seem more like a lesson in recent music history than a critical evaluation of a band's work. For Colin, this paradigm is one he finds Wire disconnected from.

“I don’t think Wire understands anything about influence, in the way a band from the '90s or the last decade do,” he says. “We live in a post-concept world, in terms of how influence interacts with music. If you look at something like MySpace, the three genres a band chooses and their list of influences - that defines the band. They say blah blah blah, and they have a list of influences, and by looking at that you can see how they’re constructing themselves. I don’t think a band from our vintage would ever have any interest in constructing ourselves in that manner.”

Wire’s current album, Red Barked Tree, harks back to the sound of the albums they made in the '70s. For the first time in 30 years Colin wrote the songs on acoustic guitar, proving yet again that the band are willing to defy even their pattern-defying, cutting-edge image. The album, which was recorded in less than a week, showcases the band’s laissez-fair attitude and their lack of concern with anything but the music - an approach that has led them to create some of the most influential and important music of the last half century, rather than some of the most successful music of the past six months.

“Music has become so genrecompartmentalised that in order to sell the music, you have to be in a genre,” Colin continues. “You have to be in a genre that sells, and you have to be doing all the things that that genre dictates, which is a very un-instinctual way of creating. From my point of view, [genre] is an obstacle to creativity.

People still manage to create in spite of that, but I would find it to be very difficult.

The world has become very formalised in the way that genre classification is what you engage with when you talk about music, and I think that misses the point. Personally, I feel like I simultaneously belong to about 25 different genres - some of which are mutually exclusive.”

With: Health Where: Beck’s Festival Bar When: Thursday January 20

On Keeping Fit Andrew Geeves

“I

t’s taking a common word that you see all over the place and recontextualising it - playing with how context can change images, and how things are normally perceived,” explains Jake Duszik, in a laidback drawl. The vocalist for L.A. noise outfit HEALTH is articulating the meaning behind their name, a relatively pedestrian moniker given their distinctive approach to musicmaking.

As it turns out, using recontextualisation to challenge perceptions and offer a different perspective is a central and purposeful feature of HEALTH’s music. Comprising Duszik, John Famiglietti, Jupiter Keyes and BJ Miller, the group may be best known for the Crystal Castles remix of their song ‘Crimewave’ appearing on Disco, an album of remixed tracks from HEALTH’s selftitled, debut studio album. In a similar vein, last year’s Disco 2 corresponded to the group’s second studio album, Get Color.

“It’s really fun to hear reinterpretations by other artists,” Duszik enthuses of the remix albums. “We find people that we like, and try to select songs we feel would work with their strengths. We’re into doing remix albums that are stand-alone, not just an after-thought for further market saturation.

So long as they’re good, we’ll do them for each album.” The result so far has been highly enjoyable and fulfilling end products.

“I love getting the remixes because in a sense you get a song for free. We’re so proud of them, but we don’t have to work at it. We find an artist that we really respect and enjoy [and get them to] make a remix – and then we have this song that we can listen to without having any hubris, because it’s not really our song."

Wire photo by Adam Scott

Given the frequency with which Duszik drops terms like ‘recontextualisation’, ‘juxtaposition’ and other buzzwords that seem calculated to slot almost too neatly into the zeitgeist, one could be forgiven for writing HEALTH off as vacuous, navel-gazing pin-up boys for musical postmodernity (or, at least, an explicit embracing of its ideals). Refreshingly though, HEALTH take themselves much less seriously than that. Their canon of work is grounded in a genuinely LOLworthy sense of humour - ensuring that their ‘musical aesthetic’ doesn’t come across as a narcissistic, postmodern circle jerk.

As Duszik explains, mixing serious musicianship with a sense of humour comes as second nature to the band.

“Ultimately we take our music absolutely seriously; we don’t do anything in jest in terms of our music. But we’re goofy guys and we love humour. It has become part of who we are as a band. We have an intimate relationship with our fans by virtue of our music, [but] if it takes our fancy to make fun of ourselves or make an idiotic tour promo video, then we just do it.”

The group are certainly no strangers to the promo video. Accompanied by a soundtrack of '80s saxophone so appalling it would make Kenny G blush, one YouTube clip records the band as they embark on an ocean dive in order to investigate a ‘”long unexplained erotic connection” with dolphins. Another video, entitled ‘Health Is Not Afraid Of You’, shows the group ‘training’ for their 2010 tour of Australia and New Zealand, by ripping posters of Crocodile Dundee in half and mercilessly beating a DVD of Fellowship Of The Ring with a baseball bat, whilst doing star jumps and one-armed push-ups.

But can’t humour be a little gimmicky?

Well, yes - but according to Duszik, that’s the whole point. “In this day and age, things are different,” he says. “Everybody’s on Facebook and Twitter. If you look at someone like Kanye West, what he’s done so beautifully this year is make music and do all these things that keep it interesting and fun for the fans.”

Any claims of neglect from HEALTH’s fan base would be unsubstantiated, given the amount of time and effort the band puts into establishing interaction with their supporters. Amongst creating tattoo designs and offering merchandise signed in blood for their loyal followers, the US release of Get Color was accompanied by a particularly innovative sweepstake competition. Reminiscent of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 60 coloured tickets corresponding to specific prizes were randomly inserted inside copies of the album. While the golden ticket first prize of return flights to spend three days with the band was claimed by a gentleman from New York, maybe surprisingly, not one of the four violet tickets was redeemed – which would have entitled the claimant to arts and crafts time with the band via a drunken video chat. Similarly, an astrological consultation with Jupiter’s mother and a bag of hair belonging to his cat went begging…

What should Australian audiences expect from HEALTH at their Sydney Festival performance later this month? “It’ll be as loud as hell,” Duszik promises. “We put ourselves all the way into a very physical, energetic, aggressive performance. We get panty and sweaty and fucked up at the end of every show. We like seeing the live shows as cathartic - not only for us, but hopefully for the audience too.” With volume, energy, sweatiness and catharsis guaranteed, it’s left up to the imagination what else HEALTH will be able to pull out of their bag of tricks this time around…

With: Wire Where: Beck’s Festival Bar When: Thursday January 20

BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:10 :: 25

Music

TheDeathSet Get Crazy

By Topher Healy

A

lot has happened since Johnny Siera met Beau Velasco on the Gold Coast in mid-2005.

The pair formed TheDeathSet and moved to Sydney, before re-locating across the Pacific to Baltimore, Philadelphia and finally to Brooklyn.

They flourished in New York until late 2009, when the music industry was devastated to hear that Velasco had been found dead in his New York studio, after a drug overdose.

Holly Miranda

S

ongstress Holly Miranda released her XL label debut in 2010 - and despite coming out very early in the year, The Magician's Private Library proved to be one of the stayers of the past 12 months. Internationally and locally, the album has deservedly featured on end of year lists, so it’s good timing that Holly is back in Australia again.

I open our interview by congratulating her on the album, and ask how she felt at the end of the process. “It was such an incredible experience making this album that when it was done I had mixed feelings,” she tells me. “It’s a record I’m very proud of, so I was happy to see it completed - but also quite sad to see the time in the studio end.”

Recorded with and produced by Dave Sitek (member of TV On The Radio, solo artist, and acclaimed producer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), The Magician's Private Library is aesthetically both brittle and bold. Miranda’s voice is offset with occasionally grand-scale orchestral arrangements courtesy of Sitek, with broad washes and wiry beats.

The album is aflutter with tonal delights which seethe in the back, while Holly’s honey tones sneakily draw your attention forward, to the front. It ends up listening a little bit like The Songwriter Vs. The Studio, with the end result an album which feels and sounds both classic and contemporary at the same time.

LINE UP

INCLUDES

Given that The Magician’s Private Library was written and recorded some time ago, and Holly has been spruiking the tunes live for

at least the past twelve months, I wondered if time and familiarity might have dulled the songs’ appeal for her. “Songs are always changing and evolving, but I think the core sentiment is the same,” she answers.

“They are all very close to my heart.

I still love the songs and the album.”

Holly has an extensive musical background, having written songs and played in bands since her teens. The Magician’s Private Library subsequently feels like the work of a mature songwriter and musician in the vein of Joni Mitchell, Polly Harvey or Sarah Blasko. But that said, there’s a fragility which runs through the songs, and a vulnerability which draws the listener in close: a precious commodity.

TheDeathSet will be unleashing Michel Poiccard in March this

“Last year was very hard,” he continues, “but I think with this band, when we decide to do something we just go full steam. Writing the record was a long process - but with the help of XXXChange, and collabs with Diplo and Spank Rock, I feel very fulfilled with what we came up with.

I’m excited to let people hear it.”

The album features a cover of ‘Little Drummer Boy’ with Spank Rock’s Naeem – a peculiarly surprising choice... “Some bizarre stove-top liquor concoction was involved,” Sierra laughs. “Naeem and I are great friends, and it was just some ridiculous Christmas fun. We wanted to surprise our mutual friend with a treat... it was fun to get dapper and

be Bowie. We were just laughing the whole time recording the song and video - I’m surprised it even got finished.”

Michel Poiccard will be coming out on Ninja Tune, a label TheDeathSet have always been fans of. “Releasing music with them is an honour and a privilege. They have always been left-field and represented the weirder sides of many styles of music, so I'm stoked to be part of the family.”

He assures me that Sydney will be getting a preview of some of the new tracks at the show next week, too.

“Still the spastic energy, but I’d like to think the new songs have more depth in the songwriting than the just 150% balls-to-the-wall of the last record.

Even some slower songs - who would have thought?” And what should Sydney audiences bring to the mix?

“Just themselves and a willingness to get loose. A maybe-too-simple but very important truth is that the crazier everyone gets, the more fun it is.

Trust me.”

What: Michel Poiccard will be out in March, through Ninja Tune With: Matt and Kim Where: Beck’s Festival Bar When: Friday January 21

Coming all the way from Detroit, Michigan, Holly is performing for the second time in Australia in just over six months. It's also her second tour in support of The Magician's Private Library; so after a busy 2010 performing in the States and Europe, one wonders if Holly has new songs on the boil - or even better, a new album in the works? The answer is yes. “I took a long break, and now I’m getting back into it. I needed some time off from touring and some time of just having a normal life, before I had anything [new] to say.”

DeathSet photo by Brock Fetch

Back For More

By Steve Phillips

Beau’s passing was a tragedy mourned by fans, the industry and of course the band themselves; Sierra tells me there was a time there where TheDeathSet felt they might not want to continue. “Beau passing was just so, so heavy; just yesterday I visited his family,” he tells me from the Gold Coast. “But we decided as a group to make this [next] record a celebration of his life, rather than let the sadness and despair encompass the great things that we and the band were proud of. And to continue to do so."

year; their second album of genresmashing indie-punk. A few weeks before the floods hit when we talk, he seems happy to be on home soil.

“The weird thing is that Australia is the territory we have played the least - and we're from here. But I love coming home,” Sierra says. “And to be hedonistically honest, I am seriously on my endless summer steez.

Escape the New York winter, come home and enjoy the Oz summer, play some awesome shows… That’s a life I enjoy.

So what’s she most looking forward to in the next twelve months? “There are so many things I want to do this year, but if I had to pick one, I’d say making a new album.”

What: The Magician’s Private Library is out now through Popfrenzy Where: The Famous Spiegeltent When: January 15, 5:30pm / January 16 & 18, 7pm

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Staten Island Ferry, you’d probably film it in a similar way to what we would.”

I

t's been 16 years since, as uni students, Gob Squad formed their multidisciplinary performance group to get free entry into Glastonbury Festival. This January they visit Australia for the first time, to share Super Night Shot, a series of performances based around hour-long, site-specific filmmaking adventures.

This is how it works: four of the Gob Squad crew take video cameras and head out individually into Sydney. They’ll all have their own, perfectly synchronised stopwatches. They’ll start filming at exactly the same time, and an hour later, they’ll return to the Opera House, rewind the tapes, and play each of their adventures on four screens, mixing the sound on the spot.

own hurdles, and a conclusion which is not always triumphant, but always heartfelt. Thom attributes some of the public’s willingness to participate to their bare bones approach – the performers aren’t followed by a crew, but operate the camera themselves.

“We’re totally alone,” she explains. “We use normal domestic cameras, the sort of cameras that people are very, very used to using in their own birthday parties and weddings and things.

You know that thing where you hold your mobile phone in front of you to take a photo of you and your friend? It’s a bit like that really. I think the audience relate to the camera work because it’s kind of stuff that they do themselves. If you went on a trip to New York and you went on the

Whilst in Australia we’re used to improvised pieces being created for comedy purposes, Gob Squad’s productions are often referred to as touching and moving.

Peaches

“I think it’s somehow really life-affirming in a sense, and it can make you feel very warm towards your fellow humans, as it were, because people do tend to want to be involved and they want to join in and people tell you amazing stories,” says Thom. “We say that sometimes they try and make films to be like real life but we’re trying to make real life a bit more like films.”

When: January 25-30 at 9pm Where: The Studio, Sydney Opera House More: sydneyfestival.org.au/super Invisible Atom photo by Nick Rudnicki

By Lou Pardi

As terrifying as this might sound to a performer, Gob Squad have designed a tight structure for their adventure, which they’ve performed all over the world, in English and non-English speaking communities. Apart from filming live – that means no stopping the camera, no tucks, no editing – the squad are required to involve civilians in their antics, and perform set actions at prescribed intervals. The actions might include a costume change, which the squad members have been known to execute in a restaurant or bar – to the shock of disconcerted onlookers.

This careful structure means that the four films combine to tell a story along the lines of a Hollywood film – with a hero, who has his her

music where the only person’s opinion I had to worry about was my own, well, it’s been ages.”

Entity photo by Ravi Deepres

By Lucy Fokkema.

J

oby Talbot expects surprises. As an awardwinning classical composer, his works are frequently reinterpreted by musicians, choreographers, film directors and TV producers, sometimes with astonishing results.

“I really like that process of letting go of things - it’s like pushing a paper boat out into a pond,” Talbot explains. “The last time I wrote a piece of

By Lucy Fokkema.

“I

f you like musicals, it’s a musical. If you like music or dance, it’s that. It’s sort of funny because what we’re trying to create is an environment, it’s creating a club or a place as much as a show.”

Talbot is speaking from his home in wintery Britain (“It’s snowing here, it’s cold and it’s miserable. Pouring.”) about Entity, a large-scale production by acclaimed English choreographer Wayne McGregor, featuring four of Talbot’s classical pieces.

Entity blends movement, machinery, music and light in McGregor’s trademark style. His company Random Dance have a reputation for “brainy” choreography, and Entity sprang from McGregor’s ongoing interest in science, and a collaboration with neuroscientists on a project called ‘Choreography and Cognition’.

The resulting choreographic language dissects the tension between the thinking mind and the moving body. McGregor aims to analyse locomotion itself, trying to identify the decisionmaking process of his choreography, so that he can re-route it and avoid the obvious choices.

According to one British reviewer, ”[Random Dance] take movement apart even as they dance it.” Watching the trailers online, you get a sense of gluey movement, coiling muscles, nervy detail and rubbery limbs, bodies moving in unpredictable ways.

Billed as a diptych, Entity is built around two contrasting musical styles - Talbot’s classical fare, and commissioned electronic pieces

by Massive Attack collaborator Jon Hopkins (last seen in Sydney as part of Brian Eno’s

Talbot, who started composing at the tender age of nine, studied composition (while performing in orchestras and playing bass guitar in a band) at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and has since written classical and concert works, scores for film and television and collaborated with Tom Jones, Paul McCartney, Air and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Talbot and McGregor have collaborated on three works thus far: Entity (Random Dance, 2008), Chroma (Royal Ballet, 2006) and Genus (Paris Opera Ballet, 2007). “What I think works so very well with Wayne’s dance and my music is that combination of very sensual, emotional language that is somehow contained within this really rigid, thought-through logical structure,” muses Talbot. "That, in a different way, is kind of what I’ve been trying to do with my music for years.”

When: January 26-30 Where: Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay More: sydneyfestival.org.au/entity

What we do know is this: for four nights this Sydney Festival, Kris and his team will transform the Sydney Town Hall into a haven for lindy-hoppers, rockabillies, toe-tapping swingsters and anyone who wants to brush up on their cha cha cha.

The event takes its name from the original Trocadero, Sydney’s most glamorous palais de dance in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Located on George Street, ‘The Troc’ (as it was affectionately known) was the dance floor for over one million pairs of twinkle-toed feet between 1936 and 1970.

For Sydney Festival punters, it will be as if the Troc never closed. “We’re envisioning a fictional present

Now Kris is channelling his considerable expertise into the Troc; with the help of band-leader and MC Dan Barrett, Kris has updated original swing classics and mixed them with hits by Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera that have been specially arranged in best swinging style. "We’ve done the Scissor Sisters like it’s the Andrews Sisters!” bubbles Stewart. This quirky playlist will be

By Dee Jefferson

“T

here’s a quote by Stephen Hawking that I love,” says Canadian theatremaker Anthony Black – “Something like, 'Physics is the study of the very small, and the very large.'”

The epic and the intimate coexist in Black’s hit one-man show Invisible Atom, which uses one man’s story of love, loss, and the search for his father, to explore ideas of particle physics and free-market economics – in under an hour.

Now in its sixth touring year, and 100-somethingth performance, Invisible Atom began life in 2004, as a stream of consciousness monologue from the perspective of a man searching for meaning in an increasingly chaotic world.

After a conversation with a friend about the convergence of different sciences into one simple set of ‘laws’, Black’s monologue evolved into a story that would allow him to explore the modern man’s existential angst, through the lens of both economics and science.

Our protagonist is Atom (played

by Black), a stockbroker whom circumstance has recently robbed of his family and financial welfare. Embarking on a search for his unknown father, Atom’s quest leads him back to the forefathers of free market capitalism and physics: Adam Smith and Isaac Newton.

“I realised that I was bastardising these economic and scientific ideas, and that lead me to explore the idea of bastards, and the concept that this character might be the descendant of both these men,” Black explains.

where the Trocadero still exists,” Kris explains. A fictional present where swing is the pop music of the day, where the lighting is low and the band is jumping. But don’t expect a staid nostalgia piece.

“It’s not going to be a lovely, sepia-toned ABC doco, it’s hopefully going to be a lot more exciting and contemporary,” Kris assures me.

Kris comes to the Trocadero with an impeccable music theatre pedigree, fresh from directing the 2010 Sydney Fringe Festival and his role as resident director of the Australian version of Wicked. In fact he’s directed and produced award-winning musical theatre shows pretty much everywhere: in Europe, in his native Australia and in that Mecca of musicals, New York. He was the founding director of the prestigious New York Musical Theatre Festival, the genre’s largest annual event anywhere in the world. But one of the proudest achievements in his varied career, he says with a laugh, is ‘directing a production of Guys and Dolls in Darwin’.

Kris Stewart is talking about the Trocadero Dance Palace. Like the rest of us, Kris won’t know exactly what he has on his hands until opening night, when the audience’s participation will be as important a part of the performance as his carefully mixed cocktail of nightclub, floorshow and roaring party.

'Luminous' festival in 2009). But as Talbot points out, the sounds are subtly connected and his pieces have a distinctly contemporary spice.

Manual Override, featuring looped phrases performed by string musicians, was inspired by the Dirty Three’s Warren Ellis. Motion Detector was influenced by “cello goddess” Maya Beiser’s performance in which she “fights a losing battle with feedback.”

performed live by a 17-piece all-girl ensemble, the Sirens Big Band. Add dance lessons from lindy hop specialists Swing Patrol, aerial artists, sultry chanteuse Lanie Lane and a troupe of dancers choreographed by So You Think You Can Dance’s Cameron Mitchell, and you’re away.

“I’m looking forward to that big moment when the big band kicks into gear and Dan and Lanie are both singing,” says Kris, still buzzing from a rehearsal. ”When people first realise they can get up and the band’s wailing on and there’s a full dancefloor.”

Where: Sydney Town Hall, George St When: January 19-22; pre-show dance class at 6.30pm, show at 7.30pm (1hr 20) More: sydneyfestival.org.au/trocadero

The entire show is played out in a one-metre-square stage – a staging device that came courtesy of the show’s director (and Black’s wife, incidentally) Anne-Marie Kerr, who (besides being a physicist) studied at the Jacques Lecoq school of physical theatre – which counts Geoffrey Rush amongst its famous alumni.

As per Lecoq, one of Invisible Atom’s key principles is the use of as small a space as possible, to tell as epic a tale as can be conceived; its success lies in Black and Kerr’s inventive storytelling solutions (which include finger puppetry) and a dazzlingly smart script. And, of course, the imaginations of the audience.

When: January 24–30, early and late Where: Downstairs Theatre, Seymour Centre More: sydneyfestival.org.au/atom BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:10 :: 27

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brushstrokes WITH HANNAH

GADSBY How do you think you’ve evolved as a comedian since then?

I have the ability to talk for longer than 5 minutes now. That’s a relief. I also talk about more contemporary happenings as opposed to just mining my childhood. I find it very difficult to let jokes go, so I am trying to always improve them or change them so I can keep it fresh.

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ydney heats for RAW Comedy, Australia’s biggest open-mic comedy competition, are being held this month and next. Anyone who has earned less than $500 from performing comedy is eligible to compete, using five minutes of new, original comedy material – so aspiring comedians after for a path to fame and glory should look no further. A case in point is RAW Comedy 2006 winner, Hannah Gadsby…

What did winning RAW Comedy do for you?

I guess it gave me industry kudos. It certainly gave me confidence and a taste for success.

These are very important things if you want to keep the ball rolling.

When, where and WHY did you decide to take up stand-up?

2005. I was drifting about. I had just finished cycling around Vietnam and was recovering from pancreatitis and I thought while the going is good...

Have you always favoured self-deprecation?

I have always tried to keep my head down.

Comes from being from a large family with an erratic mother. The art of deflection was a critical survival skill.

What about your upbringing/background predisposed you to comedy?

I have an eccentric mum and I am from a small town in Tasmania that was, for the first 17 years of my life, my entire universe. This has meant my adult life has been spent assessing and reassessing my formative years.

Tell us about your first ‘outing’: amazing or dreadful?

It was amazing. I held the small crowd in the palm of my hand. I had not felt that kind of power since I learnt to talk like Donald Duck in grade three.

At what point did comedy become a career?

Mid-way through 2009 I had to stop working at my brother’s fruit and veg shop because I was travelling too much for comedy and my slightly surly attitude was bad for business. I worked out that I was making just enough to survive on and I thought: well why not give this a crack. I haven’t looked back.

We hear your writing a book; what's it about?

My book is about my long and varied medical history and it is, I am discovering, a very slow process. I struggle when I don’t have the instant gratification of a live audience.

How did you conquer the RAW Comedy field in 2006?

I have been told on more than one occasion that I had it in the bag before I even got to the microphone. I certainly got my first laugh well before I opened my mouth. The final was being filmed for the ABC and the swooping camera crane genuinely spooked me as I ambled across stage. I jumped and then looked slightly cross and this amused many of those witnessing the event. That’s the magic of live performance.

When can Sydneysiders next see you?

I am bringing my new show, Mrs Chuckles, to Belvoir Street's downstairs theatre in February. It is about the art of small talk and how shit I am at it.

What: RAW Comedy - Sydney heats When: January 17, 24 & 31; February 7, 14, 21 & 28 - at 8.30pm Where: Comedy Store, Entertainment Quarter More: comedyfestival.com.au/raw

THE GREEN HORNET In one of the more mind-bending film pedigrees in recent history, perennial dreamer Michel Gondry (The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) teams up with the writers of Superbad to reimagine beloved ‘30s radio series The Green Hornet, about a reformed playboy and his martial-arts sidekick Kato, and their gadget-heavy crime-fighting adventures. It’s a popular story, spawning a ‘60s TV series starring Bruce Lee, and a couple of feature film spin-offs in the ‘40s.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, rumour has it that this project has been in the pipeline for the last decade or so, with various interesting names (e.g. Kevin Smith, Jet Li) bandied around… We’re happy to see that it ended up with Gondry, ensuring lashings of childlike enthusiasm. Adapted for screen by Superbad and Pineapple Express writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, The Green Hornet reimagines the story in modern LA, where recently bereaved and newly-minted media magnate Britt Reid (Rogen) teams up with one of his father’s more resourceful employees, Kato (Jay Chou), to do something meaningful with his life: fight crime.

The Green Hornet opens on January 20.

Thanks to Sony Pictures we have 20 in-season double passes up for grabs, to catch the film in your choice of 2D or glorious 3D. To get your hands on one, email us with the name of one other Gondry film.

PINE STREET ARTS

IN THE MOOD FOR <3

With Chinese New Year celebrations just around the corner, this screening at White Rabbit Gallery caught our eye. 2011 is, of course, the Year Of The Rabbit; and while there are no rabbits in Wong Kar-Wai’s millenial arthouse hit In the Mood for Love, it compensates by featuring Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung in the most desperately tragic love story this side of Romeo & Juliet. Set in '60s Hong Kong and shot by Chris Doyle, whose colour-saturated film frames are works of art in their own right, this film should be seen on a big screen. Head along to White Rabbit this Sunday January 23 at 2pm (or go early, and catch the tail end of their Big Bang exhibition, featuring wild and wonderful works like Wang Zhiyuan’s 11-metre tower of discarded plastic containers…)

30 Balfour St, Chippendale. whiterabbitcollection.org

PLATFORM ARTS

Platform Hip Hop Festival is taking its shit to the next level this March, with a lineup that includes legendary beatboxer Rahzel, MC Supernatural and DJ JS1 (Rock Steady Crew). These three will provide the jawdropping climax to three weeks of workshops, exhibitions, performances, live graf sessions and street art tours, featuring the cream of Sydney's hip hop scene. The festival has also commissioned local photographer Nick Bassett, whose work has graced the pages of Acclaim and Australian Art Review, to create a series of ‘action portraits’ of local b-boys, exhibiting at Carriageworks from March 17 – April 9. We're most excited, however, about Funk It Up About Nothing, a parody of Shakespeare's loopy romcom concocted by Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and featuring a cast of international hip hop stars. Full lineup and details at platformhiphop.com.au 30 :: BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11

If you’re 26 years or under and creative (or even just curious) then Pine Street Creative Arts Centre is the place for you. They’ve got a bunch of opportunities coming up over the next couple of months, including their usual program of super-cheap courses (street art, digital animation, Gocco printing, etc) where you can join professional artists for 4 week, 6 week and 8 week programs to learn some awesome artistic skills. They’re also currently doing a call-out for young artists and performers who want to get involved in smARTarts, the annual youth arts and cultural festival that will run from April 1-17 this year. All the deets can be found at cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/pinestreet

The Debutants (2009) © Polixeni Papapetrou

DUNGOG IN THE RAW

Good news for aspiring screenwriters! This year Dungog Film Festival is bringing its In The Raw script development initiative to Sydney, for the first time. Part of DFF since 2008, In The Raw is a script development program where actors read selected unproduced screenplays to a live audience.

This year the program has been expanded to a series of bi-monthly events – kicking off on February 7 at Sydney Theatre.

Curious punters can head along to watch the 'performance' - it's free, but you need to register in advance via the Sydney Theatre box office or website. And for prospective entrants, here’s a story to grease your wheels: In The Raw 2008 enabled writer-director Pauline Chan to get her feature Mei Mei into production; the film will be released later this year, and stars Guy Pearce and Claudia Karvan. Um, YES PLEASE! More info about In The Raw at dungogfilmfestival.org

NO LIGHTS NO LYCRA

No Lights No Lycra is back in business after a brief Christmas break! For the uninitiated, NLNL is basically your nightly bedroom dance jam taken to the next level. There is no light, no lycra, rules. It’s kind of like Clint Eastwood, if he were locked in a very dark basement – but probably less coordinated, and definitely with less bullet wounds… Curious punters can head along to Curious Works studio in Surry Hills on Tuesday nights at 8pm, with $5 in their pockets, and their dancing shoes in tow.

(P.S. the door fee goes towards empowering disadvantaged communities across Australia, so chill out). nlnlsydney.blogspot.com

PIER 2/3 APPLICATIONS

Submissions close on January 28 for notfor-profit arts organizations interested in using Pier 2/3 in Walsh Bay for arts, cultural and

TALES FROM ELSEWHERE

Having created a stir last year with her exhibition at Stills Gallery, photo-artist Polixeni Papapetrou is back in the spotlight next month, with the first major retrospective of her work, hosted by the Australian Centre for Photography. Papapetrou is internationally acclaimed, with a body of work stretching back more than two decades.

Tales From Elsewhere will focus on a number of series that she has created over the last decade in collaboration with her children and their friends. To quote the presser: the images use play and dress-ups to explore the complex and often contradictory attitudes of the adult world towards children. They also look a-may-zing. Opens February 5, runs til March 12. acp.org.au

creative purposes. WHAT!?! Yes, correct: you’d be in the same hood as Cate, Andrew, Fratelli’s, Sydney Dance Company, ATYP… Not to mention harbour views, and a sea breeze to stiffen your creative resolve... Pier 2/3 sits squarely within Clover’s ‘Cultural Ribbon’, which is being hailed as “a vibrant

cultural precinct that extends from the Opera House, to the performance centre of Wharf 4/5 and links to the new development at Barangaroo”. Somewhere you want to be, yes?

Information can be downloaded from arts.nsw. gov.au, and registrations of interest close on January 28. Early birds, worms, etcetera.

Michael Winterbottom talks about his controversial film noir, The Killer Inside Me

Dark Passenger

By Dee Jefferson

T

he Killer Inside Me was infamously the most hated film at Sundance 2010, where it premiered to audience outrage over its graphic depiction of violence against women (notably a scene in which Jessica Alba’s face is beaten into a pulp). The film mostly failed to get out of the shadow of this controversy, with critical discussion getting bogged down in the ethics of representing violence on screen - so I am reluctant to rehash it with director Michael Winterbottom when we talk on the eve of the DVD release.

Envisioned as a faithful adaptation of Jim Thompson’s eponymous pulp noir novella, The Killer Inside Me takes us inside the mind of Lou Ford (Casey Affleck), a deputy sheriff with a dark secret and plenty of skeletons in the closet. When Lou gets involved with a local prostitute (played by Alba), the emotional fallout sets in motion a killing spree that makes it increasingly impossible for him to balance his public image with his private misdemeanours.

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In Winterbottom’s diverse slate of feature film work over the last fifteen years, it’s neither the first time the British director has attracted controversy, nor the first time he has favoured unflinching realism over the niceties of cinematic convention. A case in both points is the outcry over the too-realistic sex scenes in his 2004 film 9 Songs. And to the extent that they both explore the delusions of a serial killer, The Killer Inside Me might almost be a companion piece to his feature debut, Butterfly Kiss – except that Winterbottom would argue that the violence in The Killer Inside Me is from the mind of Thompson, rather than himself.

Winterbottom came across Thompson’s book while researching another film project, which ultimately fell through. Instantly drawn to its tight plotting and immersive psychological atmosphere, he discovered that a pair of American producers had been trying to get the picture up for about eleven years, with no success – despite the fact that Thompson is somewhat revered in Hollywood, and has been successfully adapted to the screen in seminal films like The Getaway and The Grifters.

“They’d been struggling," Winterbottom says, "they’d had Sean Penn involved at one point, John Curran involved at one point, Andrew Dominik (the Australian expat behind Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James) involved at one point – a huge number of people interested in directing it, but they’d never been able to get the money together.”

It’s easy to see why producers might struggle to raise finance for a film that has no heroic or redeeming characters, and traverses the kind of dark, unpleasant subject matter that is not part of the mainstream palate. It’s less easy, on the other hand, to understand why a director might sign on to the project with such enthusiasm.

“Afterwards you can try and rationalise it, you know – this reason or that reason – but it doesn’t actually come from that place, it just sort of comes from a gut feeling that this is a good thing to do. But if I was trying to rationalise it, one thing I’d say is that noir is a style of writing or genre that has been very popular in film at different times, so there’s an attraction to doing a film in that kind of area."

Digging a little deeper, Winterbottom reveals a more personal motivation: “My dad is a big detective fiction fan, you know cheap thrillers and all of that, so he’s always giving me those kind of books. Most of them are quite throwaway; they’re enjoyable while you’re reading them, but afterwards you put them aside and forget them. And I think Thompson is one of the exceptions.

“When I read it, The Killer Inside Me stayed with me, and had a big emotional impact. And it is dark – there’s a sense of the possibilities of love, and how they’re destroyed; and the futility of the way in which they’re destroyed, and the sort of pointlessness of it all. So it stayed with me emotionally; I suppose that’s why I thought it would be good to do that book rather than another from that genre.”

Winterbottom has had to defend the film’s depiction of violence countless times since Sundance, and his steadfast refrain has been that the film’s violence is first and foremost faithful to the novel. He has also attracted less savoury accusations of misogyny, arising from two female protagonists who appear to be willing – even slavish – participants in Lou’s sadomasochistic punishments. What wasn’t clear to most viewers, apparently, was that the entire film is seen through Lou’s increasingly delusional lens; a world view in which all his killings are entirely justified, and in which his female victims are mere reflections from a childhood trauma.

Pulling off an ‘empathetic’ portrait of a sadistic killer whose victims include women and children

is not just hard in Hollywood. In general, audiences prefer to see bad guys punished, murder victims that are disposable, or stories in which killers are sidelined by the heroic law enforcers or citizens who bring them down.

Although Winterbottom is reluctant to concede anything as great as sympathy for Lou Ford, it’s his humanist intent that sustains The Killer Inside Me. “It’s pretty obvious that Lou’s not a hero,” Winterbottom demurs, “but I think that Thompson writes him vividly enough, or kind of gets under his skin enough, or is just a good enough writer, that it makes you feel like there is a kind of truth in what Thompson is writing about; that there are people like that. Lou feels very inadequate, he feels he doesn’t deserve happiness, he feels he doesn’t deserve to be close to someone. So the fact that [these women] touch him and kind of love him and want to be with him, is what makes him kind of destroy them.

“And so yes, [The Killer Inside Me] is dark, but it’s about someone who should be able to be happy – like everyone should be able to be happy – but kind of destroys the possibilities he has for happiness. Which is something I think a lot of people do.”

What: The Killer Inside Me is out now on DVD through Icon Home Entertainment More: Thanks to Icon, we have 5 copies of this DVD up for grabs. To get your hands on one, email freestuff@thebrag.com with the name of the actress pictured above!

Burlesque Royale W

ith a killer lineup headlined by British burlesque queen Immodesty Blaize (pictured right and left), and the Melbourne instalment already sold out, Burlesque Royale looks set to tear Sydney’s State Theatre apart this Saturday January 22, in an explosion of feathers, strategically-placed fans, sequins and satin.

Featuring a who’s-who of the local and international scenes, and held in the plush red-and-gold Art Deco orgasm that is the State Theatre, Burlesque Royale offers to transport punters back in time to glamour’s heyday. Besides Immodesty Blaize, the line-up features the cream of the international burlesque scene: Miss Exotic World 2009 Kahlani Kokonuts (USA), Michelle L’Amour (USA) and New Orleans’ Queen of Burlesque Perle Noire. On the homefront, some of BRAG’s favourite ladies are taking the stage, including feisty partners-in-crime Lauren La Rouge and Holly J’aDoll, plus Danica Lee and Kelly Ann Doll. Meanwhile, duelling magicians Mada & Vegas will bring their ‘cabaret noir’ touch to the proceedings.

WIN

It all goes down on January 22 at the State Theatre, and we have two double passes to give away! To get your hands on one, tell us the name of the event’s super-femme MC. burlesqueroyale.com.au BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11 :: 31

Arts Snap

Film & Theatre Reviews

At the heart of the arts Where you went last week.

(aka BRAG reviewers wet their pants about stuff going on round town.)

Soap ■ Performance

SOAP

Until January 23 / Sydney Opera House

flickerfest opening night

PICS :: SR

There were two things I wanted from Soap: the first was to be blown away by amazing acrobatics; the second was to get wet. I got both my wishes. A blend of circus, dance and comedy, Soap is a very rare beast indeed: a show that lives up to the hype.

07:01:11 :: Bondi Pavillion :: Queen Elizabeth Dr, Bondi Beach 83623400

Arts Exposed What's on our calendar...

After taking our seats to the sounds of Bobby Darin’s 1958 hit ‘Splish Splash’, the curtain rises to reveal six bath tubs. Taking centre stage is Lithuanian opera diva Lina Navakaite, who provides live singing throughout the show to accompany the varied soundtrack. The five tubs around her are seemingly empty, until the beat of Gnarls Barkley’s infectious ‘Crazy’ drops and the body parts start to appear. This first number plays to the comedy side of the show, with various parts of the performers appearing and disappearing out of the tubs, punctuated by various bath-related gags. The humour is sustained throughout the show, particularly by a female character whose first appearance involves spraying water on the audience.

However, it is not long before the jawdropping physical skills begin to take pride of place.

The variety of the skills on display is truly dazzling, from juggling with one’s feet whilst laying in a bath tub, to onehanded trapeze work, to simply stunning dance based around the central image of the bath. The central piece, however, is the acrobatic stunt that takes place in a full bathtub. As 21-year-old Eike von Stuckenbrok rises out of the tub, spraying water everywhere, the breath rises in every audiences member’s lungs. The stage gets gradually more and more covered in water, as he throws himself around the tub, eventually holding himself in the air, one handed, from its edge.

What makes Soap so appealing, however, is the way the unique skillsets of the performers are presented. The direction from Markus Pabst and Maximilian Rambaek is superb and the lighting is just gorgeous, allowing every acrobatic moment to have its fullest effect. A perfect night of breathtaking entertainment.

Henry Florence ■ Film

BLACK SWAN Released January 20

Sydney Festival 2011 presents

SMOKE & MIRRORS Runs until February 6 / World Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park Everyone’s raving about Craig Illot’s blend of circus, cabaret, magic and music, which follows a similar tone and format to La Clique. At it’s first outing during Sydney Festival 2010, iOTA thoroughly charmed the pants of us with his manic Hedwig-meets-Rocky Horror MC routine. In the last twelve months the troupe have honed the show to perfection, receiving rave reviews at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. So if you like mind-blowing magic, madcap music, bearded ladies, trapeze dancers and musclemen – and you want to hear the ‘Fuck Me To My Happy Place’ song - then this vaudevillian treat is for you. Presale tickets have sold out, but you can always get the Sydney Festival’s special ‘Tix for next-to nix’ from 8am on the day, for a bargain $25 - first in best dressed, from Sydney Festival's Martin Place ticket booth near George Street. sydneyfestival.org.au/smoke 32 :: BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11

In keeping with the theme of movies from last year, Black Swan deals with a fractured persona and the line between the real and the unreal. It’s also a visceral psychological thriller from the director of Pi and Requiem for a Dream.

Darren Aronofsky has made a ballet movie that’s less about ballet than the relentless pursuit of artistic perfection.

That’s the singular obsession of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), a talented ballerina in the latter stages of her career.

She’s desperate to obtain the dual role of the White and Black Swan in her company’s upcoming production of Swan

As Nina becomes increasingly obsessed, she becomes paranoid about Lily (Mila Kunis), a new dancer who is everything she is not: confident, sensual and outspoken. Not helping matters is her domineering mother (an intense Barbara Hershey), a nutjob in the order of Piper Laurie's looney from Carrie.

Then Aronofsky goes all surreal on us (a la Polanski's 1965 masterpiece, Repulsion) and Nina starts hallucinating doppelgangers while clawing at an everworsening rash on her back. As reality and dream become one we question the authenticity of what we're seeing. What's real? What's imagined? Does it matter?

As in many of his movies, Aronofsky places you in the mind of his protagonist, and what's extraordinary about Black Swan is that he doesn’t let the movie itself spiral out of control. He delights in pummelling us with excessive, dream-like hysterics, and there’s even a smattering of body horror that recalls the early work of David Cronenberg.

What keeps the film from tipping over into absurdity is Portman’s outstanding performance. She’s as good here as she’s ever been. Everyone is good here, including comeback-girl Winona Ryder, who plays the company’s bitter retiring star.

Filmed in grainy, hand-held 16mm, Aronofsky’s camera swoops and stalks Nina like a lurking bogeyman, which lends the dance sequences an unusual intimacy and momentum. Equal credit for the film’s intensity must be given to composer Clint Mansell, who takes the most dramatic parts of Tchaikovsky’s score for Swan Lake and turns it into the most operatic, relentless movie score in recent memory, to the point where once it’s all over, you just want to crawl into a shuddering heap to recover.

Joshua Blackman ■ Sydney Festival

SMOKE & MIRRORS Until February 6 / Famous Spiegeltent Sitting amongst the ornate and charmingly makeshift surrounds of the Famous Spiegeltent is, in itself, always a wonderful experience. But when you get the chance to see high-quality cabaret being performed within its temporary walls, the venue has the ability to take the spectator on a journey to world long lost.

Smoke & Mirrors is unequivocally highquality cabaret. Fusing acrobatics, magic, rock and roll, cabaret, and circus, this spectacular show was a phenomenon at last year’s Sydney Festival, and has since become a global smash hit.

Returning with the same production as last year, Smoke & Mirrors is a sexually and socially ambiguous variety show, which features numerous performers each with a specialised talent. However, even though Smoke & Mirrors features at least a dozen different performers specialising in disconnected art forms, the show is far from erratic. Instead it is cleverly and carefully structured around its star (and the show’s ringmaster of sorts) iOTA, and his four-piece band. iOTA, much like the Famous Spiegeltent, is a throwback to a time long since past.

Part drag queen, part clown and part glam rocker, he and his phenomenally talented band are the stars of the show. With the ability to seamlessly move from such disparate musical styles as jazz freak-out to vaudevillian ballad, the Smoke & Mirrors band are much more than the musical back-drop to a cabaret performance. They are instead the heart and soul of this carefully crafted and visually sumptuous feast of burlesque antics.

Barlow Redfearn

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

Soap photo by Lutske Veenstra

Lake, but the taskmaster company director (played by Vincent Cassel) feels she lacks the sexual and improvisational freedom required for the seductive Black Swan: “Perfection is not just about control,” he says, “It’s also about letting go.”

DVD Reviews What's been on our TV screens this week Summer breaks.

SALT

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

Sony Pictures Home Ent. Released December 22 It’s an immense relief to review action-thriller with a directors’ commentary; usually those are reserved for the ‘special editions’ that distributors don’t think they need to send out for review. As director Phillip Noyce says in the first sentence in his commentary track, Salt is the 15th feature film he has directed since his $25,000 debut Backroads in 1977. Since then, he has become one of Australia’s most successful (and bankable) filmmaking exports, balancing excellent art-house and Australian productions like Rabbit Proof Fence and The Quiet American with blockbuster fare like Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and The Bone Collector (where he first worked with Angelina Jolie).

Salt is an old-fashioned spy action-thriller with a neo-Cold War twist, starring Jolie (in a part that was originally written for Tom Cruise) as CIA super-agent Evelyn Salt, whose marriage and job are torn apart when a Russian defector walks into the CIA and claims that she is in fact a Russian secret agent. The audience must first (along with her colleagues) ponder whether that’s the case, and then whether she will come out on top against the slew of American and Russian personnel trying to take her down.

Noyce does a great commentary, informative about historical context and his own personal history – including the fact that his father was a member of the Australian ‘Z Force’ (the Australian equivalent of America’s pre-CIA OSS force) during WW2 - which family history he credits with his longstanding attraction to spy stories.

Besides solid special features, Salt is immensely enjoyable for what it is, refusing to take itself more seriously than its slim premise warrants, and keeping you guessing until the end.

Dee Jefferson

Hopscotch Entertainment Released January 6 Hindsight’s a great thing. I must admit to succumbing to the hype around Lisa Cholodenko’s latest film.

After all, her feature debut High Art is one of our generation’s best queer cult films; and since her output ratio is about one film per four years, a new one is something to look forward to. And yes, the idea of Annette Bening and Julianne Moore playing a married couple was exciting on a few levels. As it turns out, a second viewing of The Kids Are All Right reduced it to its rightful status: a beautifully handled dramedy that’s far funnier than you’d expect, with outstanding performances – which summarises the attraction of all Cholodenko’s films, to a greater or lesser extent.

Bookended by the perspective and words of its teenage protagonists Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Lazer (Josh Hutcherson), the film mostly focuses on the complex relationship between Jules and Nic, their gay moms. Besides the usual pitfalls of middle age and marriage, Jules and Nic have the carpet pulled out from under them when Joni and Lazer announce that they have struck up a relationship with their spermdonor father, Paul (Mark Ruffalo). The coming of Paul is like the winds of change: the kids are presented with a new set of life values, Nic senses a threat to her parental prerogatives, and Jules succumbs to a passionate affair…

The best thing about Cholodenko is her ability to make mainstream films about queer characters, and the total absence of politicallycorrect proselytising.This film could be made for a heterosexual context just as easily – but why would Cholodenko do that? Although its title and structure suggest the kids are the focus, it’s the scenes between Jules and Nic, and the performances behind these, that really distinguish The Kids Are All Right.

18 Tu Legend of the Guardians: 19 We 20 21 22 23 *

Th Fr Sa Su

The Owls of Ga’Hoole 3D PG The Girl Who Played with Fire MA15+ Grease Sing-along* PG Megamind 3D* PG The Social Network M The Social Network M

No free list

Centennial Park Tickets at moonlight.com.au or at the gate.

Gates open at 7pm, screenings at approx. 8.15pm

Dee Jefferson

Street Level With Danica Lee quickly! Since then I’ve become interested in staging shows and bringing my own vision of burlesque entertainment to audiences.

What are your signature routines?

I’m best known for my classic burlesque style.

It’s a balanced package of glitz and glamour that doesn’t take itself too seriously. My signature routine would have to be my classic American striptease (it’s also my favourite), which incorporates the subtlety of an age gone by, where it took a mere bump of the hips to create a scandal. It’s my little nod to simpler times…

How did Burlesque Royale come into being?

It started out as something a bit smaller, but as more people became interested it was clear that this was going to be BIG. I’d staged some Fringe shows as well as some smaller burlesque events in Sydney and had a burning desire to move to the next level. So I sent off some emails, and the rest, as they say, is history.

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esides being one of Sydney’s more unique Burlesque acts, Danica Lee produces shows – including the inaugural Burlesque Royale, which seems set to be our most sumptuous burlesque affair yet, set in the art deco splendour of the State Theatre. Danica has scooped up the cream of the international burlesque scene, including Immodesty Blaize (UK), Miss Exotic World 2009 Kahlani Kokonuts (USA), Michelle L’Amour (USA) and New Orleans’ Queen of Burlesque, Perle Noire. On the homefront, some of BRAG’s favourite ladies are taking the stage, including feisty partners-in-crime Lauren La Rouge and Holly J’aDoll. Meanwhile, duelling magicians Mada & Vegas will bring their ‘cabaret noir’ touch to the proceedings.

What is your background and training?

I’ve been performing for the last four or so years. I took a few local classes in Sydney, but none of them really made me feel ‘burlesque’. So, I decided to do some research and found that I had a real passion for it – it became more than a hobby very

You have some pretty killer international headliners – how did you pick these ladies?

Call it my Burlesque Dream Team. Immodesty, Kalani, Michelle and Perle all bring their very own brand of burlesque with them. They are all unique, and they are all freaking fabulous!

There were so many peformers on my wishlist for this show, but there is only so much space in my guestroom.

Apart from the talent, how are you creating atmosphere on the night?

This is where our audiences come in! A burlesque show is all about enjoying yourself and getting into the spirit of the show and the performer in front of you. We certainly encourage whistles, whoops and applause at all times. Plus there will be lots of shiny sparkly things. Everyone wins.

What: Burlesque Royale When: Saturday January 22 Where: State Theatre / Market St, CBD More: burlesqueroyale.com.au BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11 :: 33

Album Reviews What's been crossing our ears this week...

ALBUM OF THE WEEK IRON & WINE

of plaintive images builds on itself unrelentingly, piling soft guitar echoes and a tearing little synth over the hypnotic pace of the melody until just before it becomes overwhelming. Ben Gibbard is going to be so pissed he didn’t write it.

Kiss Each Other Clean Remote Control/4AD

Endlessly fascinating, and flawlessly executed – if anyone still doubted it, Kiss shows that Sam Beam can do pretty much anything he wants.

Before anyone goes bleating about how Sam Beam sold his soul when he jumped from Sub Pop to Warner for his latest (US) release and you can totally hear it in that slick, hollow major-label production, it’s necessary to point out, as Beam did to Billboard last month, that Kiss Each Other Clean was finished before the deal was inked. He was clearly anticipating the criticism, though, because Kiss is sleeker and richer and just plain bigger than anything he’s previously attempted. The woolly, precarious intimacy of his early recordings, while discernible in parts, has finally given way to a lush and fully-realised sound.

The stunning opener ‘Walking Far From Home’ unfurls gently, but devastatingly – Beam’s slow, unbroken trail

THE GREENHORNES Four Stars Third Man Records/ Liberator You might recognise the names Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler from The Raconteurs or The Dead Weather - but what you might not know is that, along with singer/ guitarist Craig Fox, they've been kicking around in The Greenhornes for nigh on fifteen years, delivering rockin’, 60s-throwback garage rock straight to your ear holes. And they do it damn well, each of their three previous LPs holding their own in a crowded field against offerings from the likes of The White Stripes, and all those bands whose names start with ‘Black’; as in Keys, Angels, Mountain and Rebel Motorcycle Club.

On hiatus since 2005, with Four Stars the Greenhornes have picked up right where they left off. While none of the sounds here are groundbreaking, they are reliable - and the real joy of this band is that although they do cover well-worn ground, they cover it so well. There’s a slight psych element to it too, calling to mind The Zombies at their best, or Thirteenth Floor Elevators at their most coherent.

The only disappointment with the album is that Fox seems to have been far more thorough with his vocals on this album. Perhaps it is age, or perhaps a deliberate stylistic choice, but I do miss the intensity of his voice on the first three LPs. There’s much more actual singing here, with recognisable notes and melody, whereas before he had a tendency to just yelp and growl all over the record a la Jack White or Iggy, preferring emoting over staying in tune. It’s a minor quibble, though, and doesn’t detract from the songs at all.

Tied together with AM-radio sweetness and crisp production, the rest of Kiss explores a defiantly unfashionable nostalgia: one for droopy afternoon R&B grooves, for affably loungey sax and flute twirls, for Paul Simon and Jimmy Buffett and Harry Nilsson and John Martyn sipping cold beer and swapping stories into the small hours. But there’s also an effortless emotional and, for Beam, artistic resonance that draws a lot of its power from the motif of the river, which recurs unselfconsciously through most of the songs – the imagery called to mind is of both perpetual motion and reassuring constancy.

Caitlin Welsh

T.I.

M.I.A.

ADELE

WIRE

No Mercy Grand Hustle/Atlantic

Vicki Leekx vickileekx.com

21 XL

Red Barked Tree Popfrenzy

Lil Wayne gets out of jail and puts out an album; T.I. goes in and does the same. In his guest spot on opener 'Welcome To The World', Kanye West blames both incarcerations on the system, which forces rappers to drive around in cars full of drugs and guns and violate their probation...

But where Wayne’s post-penitentiary album was just a solid Lil Wayne album (it was cut before he went in), No Mercy is all about T.I. doing time, because it gives his life of “fast money, flashy cars” an element of struggle.

In the liner notes, there’s a quote from political activist Helen Keller on the subject of hardship, beside a moody black-and-white photo of T.I., looking pained and pretending he knows what she’s talking about. He clearly doesn’t; the only real complaint he can muster is, “Same clown that was Twitpic-ing at my wedding / On the same Twitter page, disrespecting.”

That’s in ‘Get Back Up’, which he spends a chunk of minimising his crimes before magnanimously accepting responsibility for them.

The hubris peaks when he claims to be the second coming of 2Pac, over a sample of what I can only assume is Pac spinning in his grave. Much better is ‘Amazing’, a hooky hyphy track blessed with The Neptunes’ production - his only complaint there is having too many girls to choose from.

Forget all this post-dub, glitch-hop, ambient chill-fi crap. This is rock and roll, and it’s damn good fun.

T.I. sounds spoilt and disconnected from reality, which is the only explanation for the guest spot in ‘Castle Walls’. If you don’t want to sound like a whiny, over-moneyed princess, getting Christina Aguilera to sing, “Everyone thinks that I have it all / But it’s so empty living behind these castle walls” is a mistake.

Andrew Geeves

Jody Macgregor

M.I.A spent 2010 as a parody of herself, turning her naughty streak into an annoyingly paranoid and often nasty streak; posting a journalist’s personal information online, incessantly commenting on the evils of Facebook (with no relevant facts to back her up), and releasing a concept album light on concept and heavy on heavy-handed ideas and ham-fisted attempts at political speech.

So it was heartening when on New Year’s Eve, she released this 36-minute mixtape - a freewheeling and chaotic collection of beats, ideas and sounds which prove that that when M.I.A isn’t trying to make a grand statement, she’s still capable of recording exciting, unselfconscious music. The odd anti-Internet sentiment is still all too apparent (Vicki Leekx, geddit?), but where MAYA smashed you in the face with ear-bleeding obviousness (and one of the worst cover-art-as-statements in recent times), this mixtape flings ideas at you and then hastily rolls on before you have time to absorb whatever cloudy sloganeering just occurred.

Although broken up in sections via accompanying titles, Vicki Leekx is one 36-minute track, and should be listened to as such. Highlights include the glitchy introductory one-two of ‘The World/Bamboo Go’, the cold anger and warm-synth workout of ‘Gen N-E-Y’, the baiting, beat-driven ‘Marsha/Britney’ (“You wanna be a model for American Apparel”), the infectious chant of ‘You My Love’ and the strong closer ‘Get Around’, which echoes ‘Paper Planes’ at times.

M.I.A may have mis-stepped in 2010, but she certainly isn’t experiencing a dearth of ideas.

This mixtape won’t win any nonfans over; the best thing about it is attempting, and struggling, to keep up with M.I.A in full flight.

At age 19, Adele Adkins sounded like a confident thirty-year-old which means that two years and a continental shift later, she’s well into her emotional middle age. With all the usual trappings that come from recording with Zen master Rick Rubin, 21 is not as initially stunning as its predecessor, but it grows substantially with each repeat listen.

With a voice so large it could dwarf the whole of England, Adele’s challenge has always been finding songs big enough to handle her power. Unsurprisingly, it’s with ballads like the deftly swung ‘One And Only’ and rolling piano of ‘Turning Tables’ that Adele truly sounds at home. That being said, there’s some exciting, up-tempo stuff to be savoured here, too. ‘Rumour Has It’ flexes and cracks like the song Duffy never wrote, while the 90s R&B vibe of ‘He Won’t Go’ turns out to be one of the most enjoyable moments of the record.

What there isn’t here is something as sassy or accessible as ‘Right As Rain’ or ‘Cold Shoulder’. This may simply be a sign of growth, but it will alienate earlier fans.

The music is still fantastic and it’s impossible to fault Adkins’ treatment of everything she touches, but the lyrics are occasionally pedestrian and lack the kind of fire that made her such a drawcard with 19. There’s also the rather dramatic shift into country with ‘Don’t You Remember’ which, truth be told, I’d rather not remember - it’s just not a good move for her.

She’s a real talent and this is still an early chapter in a very long history, especially given her actual age. 21 is a remarkable piece of work - and a real grower.

Jonno Seidler

Dead Man Gets No 2nd Chance Repressed Records

Applause, a spoken introduction, a Muppet vocal that sounds more Cookie Monster than Tom Waits, and a solemn lone guitar. The first minute of the debut release from Newtown's Repressed Records certainly doesn’t ease you in with anything approaching accessibility.

But then again, those who are aware of Damo Suzuki’s work during his fouryear stint with German krautrock group

34 :: BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11

The pull to shrug this album off as flaccid dad-rock is whittled gently away by the chorus of opener ‘Please Take’: "Fuck off out of my face / you take up too much space." It’s a gauchely arresting line, but one that commands your attention, drawing it to the muted lushness of the layers and layers of atmospheric guitars that seethe beneath the façade of the track, barely perceptible and repletely unsettling.

It’s not all laidback post-punk balladry, though; the impatiently vitriolic ‘Two Minutes’ could’ve easily elbowed its way onto Pink Flag (stripped of the 2011 production standards, of course).

A track as intensely pragmatic as ‘A Flat Tent’ is difficult to dislike, the way it marches from handclaps to straight up vintage Wire. ‘Clay’ seems to openly brag of the unassuming popsmarts that penned ‘Outdoor Miner’, and the way ‘Moreover’ bulldozes your ears with that guitar sound really raises the hackles in anticipation of their upcoming shows.

Red Barked Tree is a nifty piece of work that feels a bit like Bowie’s last couple of albums; older and a bit wiser, but lacking none of that crucial, indefinable thing that made them quite so fucking brilliant in the first place.

Luke Telford

Nathan Jolly

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK DAMO SUZUKI AND THE HOLY SOUL

It’s tempting to dismiss new work from a band of avant-pop veterans like Wire as formulaic and predictable, but you’re kidding yourself if you do; the music sounds over-familiar because they helped to define the genre, and indie bands have been ripping them off ever since. But unlike many of their contemporaries, Wire never actually stopped, and it’s probably this air of resolved momentum that lets them create records as surprisingly vital and refreshing as Red Barked Tree.

Can won’t be surprised by any of that.

Things straighten out before too long, and Suzuki’s unusual vocal phrasing and sonorous, expressive voice achieves a hypnotic tone - punctuated by the occasional drop back to Muppet-voice.

Recorded live in February 2008 at a show in Melbourne, this disc is split into two tracks of roughly half an hour each (‘A Stone Of Fortune’ and ‘Strangers In Blue’). To most, that may sound like death; but as the band rolls along, so does the time, and the result is two perfectly formed pieces of music that contain enough space and spontaneity to appear improvised, and enough weight and interplay to appear meticulously structured.

At the risk of raising the ire of Can fans, this album really works because of Sydney’s The Holy Soul; without such a strong, interesting backing band, Suzuki would fail to hold the attention of most fair-weather listeners for the hour-long duration of the record. Kate Wilson’s brilliant drumming anchors both ‘sides’ perfectly; the interplay between Hunter and Marden’s guitars adds emotion and bite to Suzuki’s phrasing; and when Worrad lets loose (particularly towards the middle of ‘Strangers In Blue’), it drives the entire feel of the band.

If you like The Holy Soul, buy this record. If you like Suzuki, buy this record. Just buy this record.

Nathan Jolly

OFFICE MIXTAPE And here are the albums that have helped BRAG HQ get through the week...

THE DRONES - Gala Mill ERYKAH BADU - New Amerykah Part Two THE ANTLERS - Uprooted

SMITH WESTERNS - Dye It Blonde DUFFY - Endlessly

Strong sex scene, themes and violence

BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11 :: 35

The Minor Chord

The All Ages rant bought to you by Indent.net.au. By Sean Calalang

British India

+ JPS + SPIKEY TEE + FOREIGNDUB

from the team at The Loft! Hey, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how bands like The Seabellies got started.

So sometimes Indent, supporter of The Minor Chord and all-ages entertainment generally, gives out cash money to teams of young people who are interested in staging their own music events. This week Indent has announced its 2011 grant recipients across two categories: The Grass Roots Grant (for entry level events) and the Event Development Grant (for the more established festivals, tours and shows with MASSIVE headliners).

The full list of all the grant recipients, which mark out a lovely gig plan for the year, are up on the Indent website â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but we thought weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d profile some of the local teams and their proposed events. Up on the north side of the bridge, a band competition (or PreFest) will prelude the return of ShoreFest. ShoreFest is an all-ages festival in St Leonards Park that hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been in existence since Frenzal Rhomb rocked the main billing. Its return is a good thing, as (besides a no-doubt killer line-up) it boasts rides, comps, stalls and more â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and is FREE. Keeping with the theme of free festivals, our mates down in the belly of the Shire will be upping their game and making their Down The Park event in Cronulla even bigger and better than last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re keeping the headline act under tight wraps for now, but with previous yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s billings including The Take, Parkway Drive, British India and Amy Meredith, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re feeling optimistic. Not only will you be treated to a day in the sun, but you can also get amongst skate demos and carnival-esque activities. Again free and happening in Youth Week.

Finally: our lovely neighbours up in Newcastle at The Loft Youth Centre are planning to expand their current end-ofyear event into an outdoor local music festival, to be held across three stages on the Newcastle Foreshore. This event will showcase the talents of more than 20 local performers; but the most exciting part about the Loftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual all-ages event calendar is you. Yes! For budding event promoters and bands, they offer event subsidy grants for their premier youth venue. So itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in a band in Sydney and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been playing around the traps a bit and are really keen to break out to our surrounding regional centres: these subsidy grants make it just that little bit more affordable to tour to another town, and they come with stacks of event management support and local knowledge

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Remember, you can catch The Minor Chord over the airwaves on FBi Radio 94.5FM, every Wednesday from five oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock. Our brilliant presenters, Eva and Kate, will guide you through everything you need to know on the all-ages front.

ALL AGES GIG PICKS MONDAY JANUARY 24 nd

Street Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2 Birthday Feat. Mos Def Speed Street Liverpool

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 5

Summer Sun Youth Festival Marshall and the Fro, Vital Heights and more Inverell Rugby Park

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Street University, in case youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not aware, was founded by The Ted Noffs Foundation and is a free educational, artistic and recreational youth centre on Speed Street in Liverpool. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s run by young people and for young people, and their birthday celebrations from midday will include dance/beat-making workshops, performances, MC battles, a live graf piece and a free BBQ. Free food and entertainment = best second birthday ever.

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Now weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got the year planned out, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s look to this week. Our friends at Street University are having their second birthday this coming Monday January 24, and as testament to just how amazing this collective are they are bringing down none other than Mos Def to celebrate. I know, right? Who are they going to get next year - Jay Z? It has only just been announced and the finer details of whether heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be performing or just participating in the hip hop workshops and demonstrations is unclear - so stay tuned to the Indent website or tune in on Wednesday to FBi to hear more.

Mos Def

Send pics, listings and any info to minorchords@thebrag.com 36 :: BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11

Remedy More than The Cure since 1989 with Murray Engleheart

AC/DC DOCO

There’s a BBC radio doco on AC/DC being put together at the moment with some local voices among the interviewees. Word is that the show will be narrated by one Russell Crowe...

Gerry ‘Baker Street’ Rafferty? We’re sure he was a nice man n’ all, but come on! The loss of Mick Karn from Japan the same day of course went totally unnoticed as, incredibly and with rare exception, did the loss of Captain Beefheart in December.

JOAN JETT

RIP CAPTAIN BEEFHEART

Joan Jett delivered a textbook display of rock god galdom at that super special one-off show at the Annandale. She gave us virtually everything we wanted to hear, right from the opener of ‘Bad Reputation’ through to Gary Glitter’s ‘Do You Want To Touch Me’, ‘I Love Rock n’ Roll’ (of course!) and ‘Crimson and Clover’, plus some Runaways’ goodies, including ‘Cherry Bomb’ (double of course!). The pacing of the set was kinda curious, in that she didn’t close with ‘I Love R and R’, and played many hits earlier on - but really all that was missing was the glorious sneer of ‘Too Bad On Your Birthday’.

EARTHLESS

Gig of the year even at this very early stage might well go to Earthless for their mindfuck of a performance at the Annandale the night after Ms Jett. Like the Jimi Hendrix Experience playing Sabbath in the ‘everything segueing into everything else’ style of the Grateful Dead, this instrumental power-trio from heaven are the best advert for music-for-the-sheer-grace-and-glory-ofmusic we’ve come across in a long, long time. Driven by the relentlessly inventive drumming of Mario Rubalcaba (of Hot Snakes and Rocket From The Crypt fame) rather than the endless soloing of former Nebula guitarist Isaiah Mitchell, their literally blistering set and much of their momentum was cut dead when the PA collapsed. But after about 15 minutes – a break filled by a drum solo – they ploughed on without the PA, which they didn’t need for vocals anyway.

They returned with a grab of Zep’s ‘Moby Dick’ before venturing back into their freeflowing rock larva. Simply extraordinary stuff; we can’t rant and rave too highly. They were preceded by an amazing set by Nunchukka Superfly, who were the other greatest rock band on the planet that night.

TOP GEAR

Flicking stations recently we stumbled across James Blunt on Top Gear. Bad enough, right? Much worse was he had the audacity to be wearing a Motörhead t-shirt.

THE GRINCH STRIKES

One-time Black Flag bassist Kira Roessler had a stack of gear and various other treasures stolen from her home in LA just after Christmas.

PASSINGS

Was anyone else stunned by the avalanche of media attention given to the passing of

Speaking of the good Captain, when we have a bad day we often play his sprawling and rather skewed delta blues epic ‘Tarotplane’ from the Mirror Man album. The title (as you should already know) is a piss-take on the blues standard ‘Terraplane Blues’, and incorporates such time-honoured blues lines as "You’re gonna need somebody on your vine". But that alone wasn’t the charm. The meat in the exercise comes several minutes into the song, when Beefheart leans into a sax solo that has all the charm of an eightyear-old’s first lesson on the instrument and a raw abrasion to match. It’s become a near-ceremonial moment in our little world and when it approaches, everyone has to stop whatever they’re doing and pay silent ‘what the fuck’-type homage. Trout Mask Replica was – for us – his masterpiece; a new language made by inverting the old forms of blues and jazz. Coupled with a voice that was the future link between Howlin’ Wolf and Tom Waits, Trout Mask was every bit as revolutionary (if not more so) than the first Velvet Underground effort. But the Captain became a recluse, painting in the desert. No Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speeches for him – in fact, not even nominations. And no high-brow career either, à la Lou Reed and John Cale. Maybe that was for the best, in a sense. But him dying on December 17 at the age of 69 without any of the spoils of his genius, just lots of lip service from those who have done well from being anywhere near his orbit, is just plain wrong.

BORIS LIVE

The mighty and ever-on-the-move Boris have a DVD out called Live in Japan, which was shot at the final date of the tour for the Smile slab.

ON THE TURNTABLE On the Remedy turntable is Orange Goblin’s Big Black – complete with our fave sound mix, which has the vocals sitting barely above the rumble of the band – and The Screaming Blue Messiahs’ Gun Shy. Ah, the Messiahs. Know ‘em? They were the Godhead UK rock act of the late 80s that really mattered. But as Thee Hypnotics - another tragically ignored by the masses English outfit - found a few years later, greatness in and of itself don’t matter shit. Anyway, while Gun Shy is a killer, the Messiahs were really something, period. A killer power-trio from rock parts unknown, with a manner that had no use for guitar solos, coupled to songs with titles like ‘Twin Cadillac Valentine’, ‘Jesus Chrysler Drives A Dodge’, and their “hit” – ‘I Wanna Be A Flintstone’. They were the lager lads lead by big bald and confronting guitarist and vocalist Bill Carter, who was dreaming of an America that was far stranger than truth; and lo, they were very damn good.

TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS Motörhead return to our shores this year.

On March 30 they’ll be at the Big Top at Luna Park.

program they will repeat on March 25 at The Basement, and on March 26 at Live @ Lizottes in Newcastle.

With a recent run of sold-out solo shows under his belt, Ed Kuepper is back in action in March with former sparringpartner Mark Dawson on drums, for a new look at classic Kuepper slabs Electrical Storm (1985) and Today Wonder (1990).

On March 24 the pair will be at Live @ Lizottes in Kincumber, performing Electrical Storm and Today Wonder over two sets – a

There’s another bout of Sydney Trade Union Club reunion shows coming in March, once again at the Excelsior in Surry Hills. There’ll be three acts from back in the day: Dropbears with surprise special guests, along with The Spectre’s Revenge and Samurai Trash - all reforming specially for the shows. There’ll be two nights: March 12 from 8-12pm, and March 13 from 5-9pm.

Send stuff for next year's first column back to remedy@ ozemail.com.au, by 6pm Wednesday January 5. All pics to art@thebrag please. www.myspace.com/remedy4rock BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11 :: 37

live reviews What we've been to see...

The Annandale Hotel Friday January 7 A couple of metres away, a woman is relieving her bladder into an empty schooner glass; I love rock ‘n’ roll. To her right, one fist among many is pumping enthusiastically in the air, exhibiting a red wristband proudly emblazoned with that c word that rhymes with blunt… so put another dime in the jukebox, baby.

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts are 25 minutes late on stage and an increasing sense of restlessness is setting in amongst a vibrant sea of boys and girls of all ages, united in their love for powerdyke haircuts, obtaining tickets to a gig that sold out in two minutes, and wearing excessive amounts of eyeliner and black. Given the amount of body heat being generated by sticky masses this evening, I hope Joan & Co. will appear before spontaneous internal combustion occurs, en masse.

Not a moment too soon, the ‘Bad Reputation’ riff peals out. Embracing an incomprehensibly sexy, drowned rat aesthetic that becomes more pronounced as the night wears on, the mock snarls of a sinewy, gum-chewing, glistening Jett are offset perfectly by her cheeky, impish grin. At 52, she’s certainly showing no signs of slowing down. Joined by a configuration of The Blackhearts, including animated showpony bassist Acey Slade and longtime collaborative legend Kenny Laguna on keys, Jett owns the stage from the moment she appears, with her unique brand of affable antagonism.

‘Cherry Bomb’ is met with deafening applause and a flurry of arms. “I would’ve been here a bit earlier but I couldn’t get my fucking pants on, they were a little bit sticky,” shares Jett, before instructing, “All get sticky now, don’t be shy!” The crowd obey with reckless abandon through a comprehensive, career-spanning setlist, including material from The Runaways (‘You Drive Me Wild’), the '80s (‘The French Song’, ‘I Hate Myself for Loving You’) and '90s (‘Backlash’, ‘Fetish’), her most recent album, Sinner (‘Change The World’, ‘Naked’), and the well known covers (‘Crimson and Clover’, ‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll, ‘Everyday People’, ‘A.C.D.C’).

At the end of the performance, dazed audience members exchange awed glances in silent reverence, acknowledging the privilege of having just witnessed The Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll prove well and truly deserving of her moniker. As faithful subjects, we could not have been happier.

Andrew Geeves

SLEIGH BELLS The Forum Saturday January 8 There’s a curious solemnity to the way Sleigh Bells party. There were hints of it, especially in the promo material – I loved the photo of them sitting in a pew in their trademark Wayfarers, the deadpan cool kids just gritting their teeth through chapel so they could go have a cigarette. And while there’s wit and levity in their overblown, all-in-the-red crunk-metal-pop, when it comes to making people dance, they do Not. Fuck. Around.

There were some pre-gig lineup changes, but for all Seekae’s many excellent qualities I think Rat vs Possum were actually a much better fit on the night. Their brand of lushly bratty sonic assault (“electro-psych?” I wondered vaguely, before remembering one of my New Year’s resolutions was to stop inventing absurd subgenres) was an ideal lead-in for the headliners.

This is what happens at a Sleigh Bells show: they set up, like, eleventy black, hulking Marshall speakers at the back of the stage – you know, so you can see your impending doom. The intro music is a minute, maybe two, of proper hardcore guitars – a nod, perhaps, to Derek Miller’s musical heritage – before the boyish man himself enters and, unsmiling, assumes the position (“about to rock”). Alexis Krauss is the real rock star, though – her voice, barely audible above the blast, is more a rhythm instrument than anything else, a signpost for us to gabble similar noises as we whip our hair back and forth and whatnot.

Opening with ‘Tell ‘Em’, and barrelling through a set featuring all but two of the album’s 11 tracks, plus swaggering B-side ‘Holly’, they seem to drag out each song just a little – just when it seems over and you catch your breath, Krauss draws another, and you’re hurled into one last cycle of build, drop, thrash.

It’s a shame they still haven’t worked out a live version of ‘Rachel’ that they’re happy with – ‘Rill Rill’ is a welcome respite, a refreshing Tupperware full of orange quarters and dreamy Funkadelic samples before we head back out into battle, and ‘Rachel’’s spare synth drive would have provided another little blip of variety in the short, intense set. That said, the level of energy maintained between songs is impressive; there are no sheepish, sweaty glances in our corner, because there’s just enough time to exchange an OMFG-face with your neighbour before Miller tears another strip off his guitar and it starts over again. Krauss turns the venue into a benevolent dictatorship – we do what she says, and we like it.

There have been complaints from some quarters about the fact that Krauss and Miller use a backing track. Fuck that. He can only play one guitar at a time, and anyway, you’re not there for the musicality. You’re there for the sheer visceral joy of shit getting raucous. Nobody was admiring Miller’s fingering – we were all too busy throwing our bodies at the noise. When was the last time you screamed at the top of your lungs? Got punched in the neck and didn’t care? With music like this, trivial things like technical prowess don’t seem important.

flying lotus

PICS :: TL

JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS

07:01:11 :: The Forum :: The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park 93602610 set and it was much better received at The Basement last time he came through Sydney. Much respect to the man, but most of the crowd was there to go mental, and his pace was a little laidback.

FLYING LOTUS, THE GASLAMP KILLER, DÂM-FUNK, OPIOU The Forum Friday January 7 The Forum was packed-out to a full house, with the line-up attracting people from a diverse range of scenes. (The strong bill also served as something of a replacement for the Days Like This festival that’s not running this year.) As it turned out, Hudson Mohawke broke his foot and tore a ligament, so he didn’t end up making the tour; the promoter (Niche) replaced him with Melbourne-based acid breakbeat producer Opiou, who opened proceedings.

Flying Lotus was the next to man-up, touring this time around with a live setup of bass and drum kit, plus himself on laptop and effects. It might have been the cans I’d consumed by then but once again I was a little underwhelmed. Having seen him dominate that room with a heavy futurebeat set a couple of years back, using all the showmanship in the world, the live, slightly intellectual, instrumental showcase that we heard was a radically different approach. It was good, for sure, but just not that heavy.

Opiou is a child born of the Victorian doof scene - I’ve seen him twice at outdoor events this summer and he brought the The Gaslamp Killer on the other hand, house down both times - so the inner was everything that room had been waiting city dubstep kids took a while to get their for all night, and the place exploded as heads around him, the breakbeat tempo soon as his set started. The energy that initially throwing a lot of people off. The was unreleased during the DâM-FunK guy produces fat, chunky, 808-influenced and Fly Lo sets came rushing out. GLK breakbeat, utilising Dre and Roots Manuva uses a different approach every time acapellas over the top of his beats, and his he tours, but this set was heavy on the sets range over hardcore acid Dave Tipperdetailed, hi-fi dubstep. One of the most esque breaks into cheeky gangsta-boogie theatrical entertainers to emerge from the style grooves. He’s developed a distinct re-invigorated beat scene, he thrashed sound, he pretty much plays all his own around behind the decks, using his stuff from what I can tell, and he brought TOM MARto::move twisting figure and his hair ASH LEY ) :: even CHO D HON some live effectsTOG intoRAP the Forum set asLEV Y (HEA TIM : S HER JAY ::was SON PHO VEN ELY STE LOV to every little nuance of the beats he ICK OUR PATR :: NA HAN well. By the end of his set I think he’dETT wonE ROU TE :: DAN IEL MUN NS :: ROS MON dropping.

He’s just a genuinely crazy TRA over a lot of new fans. Definitely a rising LIER :: SUSAN BUI COL bastard. This was his fourth Sydney set star. (including Playground) for my count, and he hasn’t failed us yet. Don’t miss this guy, Up next was DâM-FunK, and while I love he’s the shit. the guy a lot, I don’t think the Forum is his stage. His set is a soulful, personal Tony Two-Tone

Caitlin Welsh

The Enmore Theatre Saturday January 8 Insomnia has many causes. For someone with an excitement threshold low enough to outshine Tim Shaw’s when he’s in close vicinity to a set of steak knives, many-anight’s sleep has been lost thanks to burstingout-of-skin-anticipation of certain events on the horizon. Given the calibre of the performers tonight, loss of a week’s sleep leading up to January 8 seems an appropriate, nay, downright necessary token of respect.

Entering the Enmore Furnace, The Middle East’s luscious sounds are a welcome distraction from unpleasant-sauna-experience déjà vu. Filling the venue with their multilayered sonic landscape, the talented Townsville-based musicians give a refined, professional, headliner-worthy performance.

The silhouetted figure of a stumbling Matt Berninger serves as a reminder that The

38 :: BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11

National can be more of a depressant than I’m ready to admit.

As demonstrated this evening, the songs written by Berninger and the Dessner brothers stand out on account of being characterised by a kind of harrowing beauty - a beauty reliant on its juxtaposition with desperate melancholy.

With his maudlin, tortured on-stage persona, Berninger is the powerful, emphatic embodiment of his band’s slightly unsettling aesthetic - his pacing, shouting, fidgeting and mumbled interactions with the crowd serving as a consistent, thorn-in-the-side reminder of the inherent wretchedness of (his? the?) human condition.

The National wallow delightfully in this groove and work it hard in their favour, heightening the believability of a performance grounded in accomplished technical and compositional skill. Lyrics such as “We’re half awake in a fake empire” (‘Fake Empire’), “I was afraid / I’d eat your brains / ‘cause I’m evil”

the national

PICS :: ME

THE NATIONAL, THE MIDDLE EAST

08:01:11 :: The Enmore Theatre :: 130 Enmore Rd Newtown 95503666 (‘Conversation 16’), “The floors are falling out from everybody I know” (‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’) and the rallying shouts of “Squalor Victoria!” (‘Squalor Victoria’) puncture with astounding resonance.

Berninger ventures deep out into the audience on three separate occasions. As somewhat of an indicator of the emotional contagion running rampant tonight, the masses converge and fervently try to nuzzle

his sweat-drenched receding hairline whilst any sense of repulsion that might normally accompany such an act is mitigated.

A completely acoustic, sing-along rendition of ‘Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks’ to finish leaves no doubt that we have just borne witness to a performance that was devastatingly good, in all senses of the word.

Andrew Geeves

BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11 :: 39

snap sn ap

the dynamites

PICS :: AM

up all night out all week . . .

09:01:11 :: Beck's Bar :: Hyde Park Barracks, Macquarie Street CBD 82392311

It’s called: Purple Sneakers presents LAST NIGHT It sounds like: Every indie act that ever made your pants damp.

DJs/live acts: Edwin Congreave (Foals) DJ Set, Jonathan Boulet (live), TheDeathSet DJs, We Say Bamboulee (live), PhDJ, BenLucid, Fantomatique, M.I.T, Minou, WACKS. Sell it to us: It’s everything you ever loved about Purple Sneakers, but with fake grass, booths, extra rooms, more couches, extra-cheap booze and LIVE BANDS!!!

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Standing on the balcony watching the crowd heave to the Foals DJ set, and rambling that the fruit from your champagne punch counts as your five-a-day.

Crowd specs: Geek hot babes, cardigan-clad dudes, band fiends, DJ worshippers and booze hounds.

Wallet damage: $10 Where: The Gaelic, 64 Devonshire St, Surry Hills

festival first night

PICS :: AM

party profile

LAST NIGHT

08:01:11 :: Sydney Festival 2011 :: Domain, Martin Place, Sydney CBD

When: Friday January 21 ) :: ASH LEY MAR :: TOM S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER IEL MUN NS :: MON IQUE EASTON TRA MON TE :: SUSAN BUI :: DAN

40 :: BRAG :: 394: 10:01:11

snap sn ap

hot hot heat

PICS :: TT

up all night out all week . . .

last night

sleigh bells 08:01:11

:: The Gaelic Theatre :: 64 Devonshire St Surry Hills 92111687

PICS :: TT

07:01:11

PICS :: DM

06:01:11 :: The Factory :: 105 Victoria Road Enmore 95503666

:: The Forum :: Entertainment Quarter Moore Park

It’s called: Little Eden It sounds like: Rock show meets alternative nightclub meets jazz lounge meets tea-and-board-games night.

Live acts: Ben Jorgensen (ex Armor For Sleep frontman, from the States), The Initiation, Soapbox Summer.

Sell it to us: Ben Jorgensen’s first time in Australia & party times downstairs + chilled times & warm drinks upstairs. AND! $4 punch all night, and a $100 bar tab up for grabs if you get onto Facebook and hit ‘Attending’.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: That sweet part at the end of your night when you DIDN’T have to angry-drunkenly traipse the streets looking for a warm place to sit, because it was right at the top of the stairs the whole time.

Crowd specs: If you love any kind of alternative music, we love you.

Wallet damage: $16/oztix.com.au, $18 on a list, $20/door before 11pm

n.e.r.d

PICS :: TL

party profile

Little Eden

07:01:11 :: Hordern Pavilion :: 1 Driver Ave Moore Park 93834000

Where: The Gaelic Club When: Saturday January 22, from 8pm

) :: ASH LEY MAR :: TOM S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER IEL MUN NS :: MON IQUE EASTON DAN :: BUI TRA MON TE :: SUSAN

BRAG :: 394 :: 10:01:11 :: 41

Presented by

Gig Guide

send your listings to: gigguide@thebrag.com

pick of the week Jonathon Boulet

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Judy Collins, Chris Bailey The Basement, Circular Quay $85 (+bf) 9.30pm

TUESDAY JANUARY 18 ROCK & POP

FRIDAY JANUARY 21

Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills

Purple Sneakers presents

Last Night: Jonathan Boulet, We Say Bamboulee, Edwin Congreave (Foals) DJ Set, TheDeathSet DJs, PhDJ, M.I.T., Fantomatique, Ben Lucid $10 8pm MONDAY JANUARY 17 ROCK & POP

Bandaluzia Flamenco, Mash’a Legacy Camelot, Marrickville 8pm Bernie The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm

Dean Haitani Dee Why RSL Club, free 6.30pm Kick It To Mars Scruffy Murphy’s, Sydney free 10pm The Songwriter Sessions Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Steve Tonge O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm

Adam Pringle Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Bno Rockshow Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 8pm Brass Knuckles, God God Dammit Dammit, Serious Break, The Solid Ones Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm Embrace Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour free 7pm An Evening of Chamber Music: Philip Glass (USA), Wendy Sutter City Recital Hall, Sydney $60$75 8pm Holly Miranda (USA) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $45 (+bf) 7pm JP O’Malley’s Hotel Darlinghurst free 7pm A Night at the Quad – Mad Bastards: The Pilgrim Brothers, Alex Lloyd Quadrangle, The University of Sydney, Camperdown $25$30 7pm Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Smoke & Mirrors: iOTA The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $60-$65 (+ bf) 9.30pm They Call Me Bruce Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm

JAZZ

Garfish, Casey Golden Trio 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm Lah-Lah’s Musical Wonderland The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park Noth, Sydney $15 (+ bf) 10am, 11.15am Nag Champa Opera Bar, Sydney free 8.30pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Tony Slavich Dee Why RSL Club, free 6.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Judy Collins, Chris Bailey The Basement, Circular Quay $65-$85 (+ bf) 9.30pm Nadya, Glitch Jukebox Camelot, Marrickville 8pm The Walking Who, Ivy Street Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 6pm

COUNTRY

John Williamson Dural Country Club $26-$40 all ages 8.30pm

Unherd Open Mic: Derkajam Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm

JAZZ

Jasper Leak 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 19 ROCK & POP

Andy Mammers Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm Ben Finn Duo Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 6pm

Embrace Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour free 7pm Gemma The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Goodnight Dynamite O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm Happy Hippies Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 6.30pm Jager Uprising: Kramer, Near The Saint, The Walking Who, The Pastics Annandale Hotel $8 7.30pm King Fallen, Wizard, Raprager, 46 Clicks Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 8pm Mark Da Costa & Dan Spillane Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9pm Marty From Reckless Novotel, Homebush free 4pm Mavis & her China Pigs Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Nuts Camden Valley Golf Resort, Catherine Field free 6.30pm Outlier Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 11pm Owen Pallett (Canada) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $45 (+ bf) 7pm Rose of York, Black Matches, Vince Purcell, Matt Nash Brass Monkey, Cronulla $12 8pm Simon Powls (USA) St James’ Church, Sydney free-$5 1.15pm Slow Down Honey, Kids At Risk, Saloons Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Smoke & Mirrors: iOTA The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $60-$65 (+ bf) 9.30pm Uni Night Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm We Are Debaser, Teal, The Little Ghost, Darly’s Angels Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm YourSpace: Jules Backman, Mechanical Black, HalfWayHomeBuoy (Sweden), Sally Hackett, Yu Si Liu & Rex Havoc, Justine Wahlin, Sam The Lion Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 7pm

JAZZ

Harbourside Carols: Dave Halls Band Bradfield Park, Milsons Point free 5.30pm James Sherlock 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm Jo Elms Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm Lah-Lah’s Musical Wonderland The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $15 (+ bf) 10am, 11.15am Pape MBaye, Chosani Afrique Camelot, Marrickville 8pm Peter Head Harbour View, The Rocks free 8pm The Study ft. 6Noir, Jack Carty, Johnny Tool, Annabelle Kay Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills free 7pm Troc Party Nights: Orkestra del Sol (UK) Sydney Town Hall $30 10pm Trocadero Dance Palace: Sirens Big Band Sydney Town Hall $40-$50 7.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Judy Collins, Chris Bailey The Basement, Circular Quay $85 (+ bf) 9.30pm Larissa McKay The Vanguard, Newtown 8pm A Night at the Quad – One Night the Moon: Kev Carmody Quadrangle, The University of Sydney, Camperdown $25$30 7pm

THURSDAY JANUARY 20 ROCK & POP

031 Rockshow Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 11pm Andy Mammers Northies-Cronulla Hotel – Sports Bar 9.15pm Anthems Of Oz The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 11pm Cambo Observer Hotel, The Rocks 9.30pm Edens March, Tierra Outlaws, Baby X, The Monks of Mellonwah Annandale Hotel $10 (+ bf) 7.30pm G4 Marble Bar, Sydney free 8pm Indy Warhol: Push Pull, DJ Nic Yorke Lansdowne Hotel, Broadway free 8pm JD Burgess, Halfway Homeboy, Velvet Spurs, Chordblood Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Jimmy Mann Club Fivedock 7pm Johnathon Devoy Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown, free 8pm Katie Perry Suppression Ring, Michael Crafter, Simo Smoo Soo, Intentions, Lucia Daft, Big Dumb Kid Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 8pm Kinetic Method Opera Bar, Sydney free 8.30pm The Leisure Suit, Perry Keyes, Bek-Jean Stewart Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm Local Produce: Fortune Fails, Oreana, Le Venge, Crash Tragic Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills free 8pm Luke Dixon Harbord Beach Hotel free Michael McGlynn Greengate Hotel, Killara 8pm Nicky Kurta Duo Dee Why Hotel 8.30pm A Night at the Quad – The Tracker: Archie Roach Quadrangle, The University of Sydney, Camperdown $25$30 7pm Open Mic Mars Hill Café, Parramatta free 8pm Owen Pallett (Canada) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $45 (+ bf) 7pm Paul Kelly: The A to Z Shows City Recital Hall, Sydney $35$70 7.30pm Sam & Jamie Trio Maloneys Hotel, Sydney 9.30pm Smoke & Mirrors: iOTA The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $60-$65 (+ bf) 9.30pm Take 2 Newport Arms Hotel free 7.30pm Wire (UK), Health (USA), Jinx, Continental Breakfast Beck’s Festival Bar, Sydney $38 (+ bf) 8pm

“Once you’re lost in twillights’s blue, You don’t find your way, the way finds you...” – QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE 42 :: BRAG :: 395 : 17:01:11

Presented by Pres

Gig Guide

send your listings to: gigguide@thebrag.com

JAZZ

GTS Blacktown RSL Club free 8pm Hip Not Hop Hillside Hotel, Castle Hill 8pm Innerwestlife Petersham Bowling Club free 7.30pm Josh McIvor Novotel – Brewery Bar, Olympic Park 5pm Jungle Kings Kirribilli Hotel, Castle Hill 8pm Just 2 Customs House Bar, Sydney free 7pm Last Night: Jonathan Boulet, We Say Bamboulee, The Death Set DJs, PhDJ, M.I.T., Fantomatique, Ben Lucid, Edwin Congreave (Foals) DJ Set Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $10 8pm Luke Dixon Parramatta RSL 5pm Made in Japan, Winter Street Pilots Notes Live, Enmore 8pm Mandi Jarry Ettamogah Hotel, Rouse Hill 6pm The Maristians Rag and Famish Hotel, North Sydney free 8.30pm Matt Jones PJ Gallaghers, Drummoyne 9pm Matt & Kim (USA), The Death Set, DJ Zan Rowe, Kato Beck’s Festival Bar, Sydney $38 (+ bf) 8pm Matt Price Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm Maz Mazak vs No Qualms Northies-Cronulla Hotel – Northies Bar 5.30pm Millenium Bug Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm

Lansdowne Hotel, Broadway free 8pm Brown Sugar Marble Bar, Sydney free 9.30pm Carl Fidler O’Malley’s Hotel, Kings Cross 8pm Counterfeit: Captain Obvious, The Deyvesons, The Real Thing, The Gentle Blooding, Patton Pending, Male Patton Baldness Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Dan Lawrence Macquarie Hotel, Liverpool 4.30pm Dan Lawrence, Rob Henry Observer Hotel, The Rocks 8.30pm Dan Spillane Mean Fiddler Hotel, Rouse Hill 9pm Dave White Duo Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel 7pm Double Dragon: WIM, Donny Benet, The Holy Soul, Domeyko/Gonzalez, Preachers, Disco Club, Ghoul, Pets With Pets, Reckless Vagina, Piano Is Drunk, Drop Tank, Juan Cortez, The Pages, White Ox, Max Gosford, Il Foe Oxford Art Factory $5 8pm Duo Demons Mosman RSL Club free 10pm Eager 13, Solid Gold Bastards, Lollipop Sugar Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Flipside Duo Club Fivedock 8pm Glenn Whitehall Panthers, North Richmond free 8pm The Green Day Show Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10pm

Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Craig Laird Duo Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 8.30pm DJ Big Will, Bold Bongos Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill free 9pm Sarah Jane O’Hara The Vanguard, Newtown

FRIDAY JANUARY 21 ROCK & POP

Andy Kelly Band, Robin Brown, Peka Engadine Bowling Club free 8pm Andy Mammers Duo Penrith Panther – Terrace Bar 6pm Australian Red Hot Chili Peppers Show Engadine Tavern free 9.30pm The Bakelite Age, Bittersweet Kicks, Small Town Incident, Tierra Outlaws Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $12 8pm Beau Smith Greengate Hotel, Killara 5pm Ben Finn Adams Tavern, Blacktown 8.15pm Black Diamond Hearts, Daniel Lissing Duo Crows Nest Hotel 6pm Bonney Read Music, Harmonic Generator, Seek The Silence

MUM: Virgo Rising, Tiger Choir, Red Ink, Loon Lake, Saloons, The Future Prehistoric, Parapluie, Big Dumb Kid, Walkie Talkie, Glen be Trippin, Swim Team DJs, Kapow, Bobby Six & Meowcat, Jack Shit, Nude DJs, My Melody, 10th Avenue, Meekins The World Bar, Kings Cross $10-$15 8pm Nicky Kurta Grand Hotel, Rockdale 5.30pm Nova Tone Taren Point Bowling Club free 7.30pm The NOW now Festival: Sky Needle, Yan Jun, Natasha Anderson, Ben Byrne, Amanda Stewart, Rueben Derrick, Simon Ferenci, Milica Stefanovic, Evan Dorrian, Embedded The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $15-$85 6pm Owen Pallett (Canada) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $45 (+ bf) 5.30pm Paul Kelly: The A to Z Shows City Recital Hall, Sydney $35$70 7.30pm The Road Crew Penrith Hotel free 10pm The Rocks Markets by Moonlight: Mama Kin, Jess Ribeiro The Rocks Market free 6pm Ron Osborn Matravilla RSL Club free 8pm Skillet (USA) Metro Theatre, Sydney $44 (+ bf) licensed all ages 8pm Smoke & Mirrors: iOTA The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $60-$65 (+ bf) 7.30pm, 9.30pm

Matt & Kim

Thunderstruck – AC/DC Show Bull & Bush, Baulkham Hills 10.30pm Tim Pringle Chatswood RSL free 5pm Tribute to Ronne James Dio Live at the Wall, Leichhardt $10 7pm Upside Down Miss Jane, Bitsu, DMF, Old Time Glory

Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10-$12 8pm The Upskirts, The What, The Vangarde, Electric Elements Crew, The Great Apes Annandale Hotel $10 (+ bf) 7.30pm Way Split Peachtree Hotel, Penrith free 10pm

WWW.THEGAELIC.COM

OPEN 10AM- 4PM

$12 or LESS MEALS

$5 PINTS @5

SUNDAY NPL POKER

MONDAY I 90’s

TUESDAY ROCKSTEIN

2PM - FREE ENTRY - CASH PRIZES

7PM - DRINKS SPECIALS + DJ’s

7PM - MUSIC & MOVIE TRIVIA

19 Jan

20 Jan

6NOIR + JACK CARTY

fri

Jan

+ JOHNNY TOOK + ANNABELLE KAY

(5:00PM - 8:00PM)

SAT 22 JAN

(9:15PM - 1:00AM)

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

FORTUNE FAILS + OREANA

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

+ Lé VENGE + CRASH TRAGIC sat

PURPLE SNEAKERS presents FRI 21 JAN

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

21

LOCAL PRODUCE THU 20 JAN

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

thu

FREE ENTRY

THE STUDY presents WED 19 JAN

wed

22

LAST NIGHT

Jan

sun

SATURDAY NIGHT

23 Jan

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SUNDAY NIGHT

ft JONATHAN BOULET (LIVE) + FOALS (DJs) + THE DEATH SET (DJs) LITTLE EDEN ft

BEN JORGENSEN

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

+ THE INITIATION + LASDIES & GENTLEMEN COMING SOON

FRI 28 JAN

LAST NIGHT

FRI 04 FEB

LAST NIGHT

SAT 05 FEB

MADE IN MALTA BRAG :: 395 :: 17:01:11 :: 43

Presented by

Gig Guide

send your listings to: gigguide@thebrag.com Ólöf Arnalds

Wet Zelko Jewells Tavern, Central Coast 8pm The Wharf Sessions: Passenger (UK) Wharf 1, Sydney Theatre Company, Walsh Bay free 10pm Zoltan PJ Gallaghers, Parramatta 8.30pm

JAZZ

50/50: Toot Toot Toots, Dirty Vintage The Vanguard, Newtown 8pm Boom! Bap! Pow! Raval, Surry Hills 8pm Joe Robinson The Basement, Circular Quay $20-$25 (+ bf) 9.30pm A Night at the Quad – The Boys: The Necks Quadrangle, The University of Sydney, Camperdown $25$30 7pm Soul Nights Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour free 9pm Troc Party Nights: Orkestra del Sol (UK) Parramatta Town Hall $25$30 9pm Troc Party Nights: Royal Crown Revue (USA) Sydney Town Hall $40 10pm Trocadero Dance Palace: Sirens Big Band Sydney Town Hall $40-$50 7.30pm Zac Hurren Trio 505 Club, Surry Hills $15 8.30pm

COUNTRY

George Mann Humph Hall, Allamble Heights $15-$25 7pm

SATURDAY JANUARY 22 ROCK & POP

After Party Band Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm Alter Ego Matraville RSL Club free 8pm Andy & the Cruisers Club Liverpool free 8pm Andy Mammers Duo Peach Tree Hotel, Penrith 9pm Anthill Mob Kro Bar, East Leagues Club free 8.30pm

44 :: BRAG :: 395 : 17:01:11

Ben Finn Ettamogah Hotel, Rouse Hill Ben Jorgensen (USA) Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $16 (+ bf) 8pm Blue Venom Engadine Tavern free 9.30pm Caramel Maloneys Hotel, Sydney 10pm Circle Pit Goodgod Small Club, Sydney 8pm Cobblestone Jazz, Matthew Jonson, Murat Kilic, Peret Mako Beck’s Festival Bar, Sydney $38 (+ bf) 8pm Colm Mac Com Iomaire (Ireland) Sutherland Entertainment Centre $42-$45 (+ bf) 8pm The Conspiracy, Amodus, Everything Comes Up Milhouse Caringbah Bizzo’s 8pm Dan Spillane Brewhouse – Marayong 7.30pm Dave Stevens, Steve Tonge Observer Hotel, The Rocks 4pm Dora D Duo Australian Hotel & Brewery, Annangrove 8.30pm Dragon, Steve Smyth, Kate Gogaty, Howling Bells DJs Lansdowne Hotel, Broadway free 8pm Duo Demons Kareela Golf & Social Club free 8pm Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges (USA) Vault 146, Windsor $25.50$51 8pm Funkstar Marble Bar, Sydney free 10.30pm Gary Johns Mean Fiddler Hotel, Rouse Hill 7.30pm Get The Party Started: The Pink Show Blacktown RSL Club free 10pm Hat Trick feat. Natalie Conway Northies-Cronulla Hotel – Northies Bar 6pm Heath Burdell Northies-Cronulla Hotel – Sports Bar 8.45pm Hello Satellites, Collarbones, Anna Chase, Melody Nelson Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $12 8pm Ignition Crows Nest Hotel 11.15pm Iron Bar Hotel The Vanguard, Newtown

JJ Duo Miranda RSL Club free 9pm Josh McIvor Bankstown Sports Club 7pm King Tide, Sticky Fingers Beach Road Hotel, Bondi $12 6pm Little Eden ft. Ben Jorgensen (USA) The Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $16 (+ bf) 8pm Luke Dixon Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel 4pm Mandi Jarry Trio Kirribilli Hotel 8pm Mark Travers PJ Gallaghers, Parramatta 8pm Matt Jones Duo Del Rio Country Club, Wisemans Ferry 7.30pm Movers & Seconders Mars Hill Café, Parramatta free 8.30pm Nicky Kurta Greengate Hotel, Killara 8pm The NOW now Festival: Cleptoclectics, Peon, 48/4, Jenson Brewster, Undermorast, Roil, Rosalind Hall, Alice HuiSheng Chang, John Blades, Peter Blamey The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $15-$85 6pm Nova Tone The Belvedere Hotel, Sydney free 8pm The Official Blues Brothers Revue: Wayne Catania, Kieron Lafferty Auditorium, Workers Blacktown $18-$20 7.30pm Olof Arnalds (Iceland) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $35 (+ bf) 5.30pm Paul Kelly: The A to Z Shows City Recital Hall, Sydney $35-$70 7.30pm Peace and Love Festival: Novakayn, Amanda Baker, Gail Page, Ghost Road, Cookie Baker, The Latonas, Beats Working, Simon Wright & The Eclective, The Bridge Between, Ethen Joe, Beth and Ben, Kotadama, Jaycen Phoenix Valve Bar, Tempe 12pm Peter Northcote Notes Live, Enmore $23.50 7pm Rebecca Johnson Band Oatley Hotel free 8pm Replika Rock Trio Carousel Inn, Rooty Hill free 9.30pm Rob Henry Duo Harbord Beach Hotel 8pm Reese & Tim Newport Arms Hotel free 7.30pm Rip It Up Eastern Suburbs Legion Club, Waverley free 8pm Rob Henry Duo Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm Sarah Paton Rydges, Parramatta 5pm

Silverama Silverchair Show, Powderfinger Show Blacktown RSL Club free 10pm Smoke & Mirrors: iOTA The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $60-$65 (+ bf) 7.30pm, 9.30pm Sons of Mercury Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10pm Sounds of Detroit, Phat Kat, Guilty Simpson Tone, Surry Hills $35 (+ bf) 8.30pm Sound Proofed Mean Fiddler Hotel – The Woolshed, Rouse Hill 10pm Spy Vs Spy Celebrity Room, Blacktown RSL Club free 10pm Steve Edmonds Band Bull & Bush, Baulkham Hills Steve Tonge Duo O’Malleys Hotel, Kings Cross 10pm Stolen Clones Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain $10 8pm Tice & Evans, Kaki Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm Tony Williams PJ Gallaghers, Drummoyne 9pm Trashbags Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst 9pm Under the Southern Cross Metalfest: Hemina, Earth, Mongrel, Killrazor, Nobody’s Fool, Embodied, Roadside Burial, The Veil, Nemephyxia, Head Hammer, Letter of Carnage Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $20 1pm The Understatement, DPNP, Andee Van Damage, Neontonics Manly Fisho’s 8pm The Vaudeville Smash, Brendan MacLean Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Twilight at Taronga: Yvonne Kenny Taronga Zoo, Mosman $56.50-$68.50 all ages 7pm We’re Back Riverwood Inn free 8pm

JAZZ

Alphamama Club: Alphamama, Matt Mandell Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour free 8pm Kafe Kool Supper Club, Fairfield RSL Club free 7pm Mark Broughton Workers Blacktown free 8pm Organic Food Markets: Paul Sun, Ray Martin, Didi Mudigdo Roverside Girls High School, Gladesville free all ages 9.30am Paul Sun, Alex Compton, Cameron Andrews

Larrikin’s Café & Lounge Bar, Walsh Bay free all ages 6pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 5pm Pugsley Buzzard 505 Club, Surry Hills $15-$20 8.30pm Troc Party Nights: Orkestra del Sol (UK) Parramatta Town Hall $25$30 9pm Troc Party Nights: Royal Crown Revue (USA) Sydney Town Hall $40 10pm Trocadero Dance Palace: Sirens Big Band Sydney Town Hall $40-$50 7.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Cool Rool Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill free 9pm Dean Carroll Earthworks Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 7pm

SUNDAY JANUARY 23 ROCK & POP

Andy Mammers Duo Cronulla RSL 6pm Armstrong Brown The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 4.30pm Billy And I Mean Fiddler Hotel, Rouse Hill 1pm Carl Fidler, Rob Henry, Geoff Rana Observer Hotel, The Rocks Colm Mac Con Iomaire (Ireland) Riverside Theatres, Parramatta $40-$50 (+ bf) 7pm The Dirty Grotto, Baby X, Blatant Audio The Valve, Tempe 5pm Errol Renaud & Caribbean Soul, Carribean Soul Sugar Lounge, Manly free 6pm Glenn Whitehall Oatley Hotel free 2pm Heath Burdell Mounties, Mt Pritchard 2pm Helpful Kitchen Gods, Ruby Wilde, JD Burgees, Fables, Hiske & Bukhu, Dr Delites Gladstone Hotel, Chippendale free 4.30pm Jimmy Buffet & the Coral Reefer Band Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $119-$169 8pm Johnny Rock Harbord Beach Hotel free 6pm Josh McIvor O’Malley Hotel, Kings Cross 4pm Kirk Burgess Collaroy Beach Hotel free 3pm Kojo, BattleSnake, The

Leafs, Transfat, Frontiers in Photography Petersham Bowling Club $10 3pm Lelly K, Nothing But Jam The Valve, Tempe $15 1.30pm Los Skeletone Blues, Los Skeletone Blue Lansdowne Hotel, Broadway 2pm Makin Whoopee Club Fivedock 4pm Mandi Jarry Trio Northies-Cronulla Hotel – Northies Bar 2.30pm Matt Jones, David Agius Duo Ettamogah Hotel, Rouse Hill Matt Price Woolwish Pier Hotel 2pm Nathan Foley Lizotte’s Resteraunt, Dee Why $28 7pm A Night at the Quad – Somersault: Decoder Ring Quadrangle, The University of Sydney, Camperdown $25$30 7pm The NOW now Festival: The Splinter Orchestra, Alex White, Yan Jun, Jim Denley, Chris Abrahams, Joel Stern, Tony Buck The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $15-$85 6pm Olof Arnalds (Iceland) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $35 (+ bf) 7pm Paul Kelly: The A to Z Shows City Recital Hall, Sydney $35-$70 7.30pm Reckless Northies-Cronulla Hotel – Sports Bar 6pm Rockin in the Kasbah The Gaff, Darlinghust free 5pm Smoke & Mirrors: iOTA The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $60-$65 (+ bf) 9.30pm Stir Crazy Riverstone Sports Hotel free 2pm Structures Fall, Running Guns, Louis London, Sundae Thursday, Giggly Rose, Nikki Thornburn, The Future Prehistoric, JNR Trio Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 1pm Sunday Chill: The Sunroom Newport Arms Hotel free 3pm They Call Me Bruce Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel 4pm Wards Express Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm Williams Brothers PJ Gallaghers, Parramatta 8pm

JAZZ

Blues Sunday: Mark Hopper Artichoke Gallery Café, Cremorne free 7pm Paul Sun, Alex Compton, Monique Lyslak Addison Road Community Centre, Marrickville free all ages 9.30am Troc Party Nights: Royal Crown Revue (USA) Sutherland Entertainment Centre $42-$45 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Glenn Whitehall Oatley Hotel free 1pm Matt Jackson Pontoon, Darling Harbour free 2pm Pete The Belvedere Hotel, Sydney free 5pm

COUNTRY

Hello Satellites

The Graveyard Train, Puta Madre Brothers The Vanguard, Newtown $15 (+ bf) 6.30pm Lelly K, Nothing But Jam Valve Bar, Tempe 1pm

Presented by Pres

SIDESHOW WEDNESDAYS

gig picks

$ DB=L :M KBLD $ L:EHHGL

Circle Pit

TUESDAY JANUARY 18 An Evening of Chamber Music: Philip Glass (USA), Wendy Sutter City Recital Hall, Sydney $60 (+ bf) 8pm Holly Miranda (USA) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $45 (+bf) 7pm

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 19 Slow Down Honey, Kids At Risk, Saloons Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 6pm Larissa McKay The Vanguard, Newtown 8pm $8 (+ bf), $10 at door

THURSDAY JANUARY 20 The Leisure Suit, Perry Keyes, Bek-Jean Stewart Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm Owen Pallett (Canada) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $45 (+ bf) 7pm Wire (UK), Health (USA), Jinx, Continental Breakfast Beck’s Festival Bar, Sydney $38 (+ bf) 8pm

Prehistoric, Parapluie, Big Dumb Kid, Walkie Talkie, Glen be Trippin, Swim Team DJs, Kapow, Bobby Six & Meowcat, Jack Shit, Nude DJs, My Melody, 10th Avenue, Meekins The World Bar, Kings Cross $10-$15 8pm

SATURDAY JANUARY 22 Circle Pit Goodgod Small Club, Sydney 8pm Hello Satellites, Collarbones, Anna Chase, Melody Nelson Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $12 8pm Olof Arnalds (Iceland) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $35 (+ bf) 5.30pm

SUNDAY JANUARY 23 The NOW now Festival: The Splinter Orchestra, Alex White, Yan Jun, Jim Denley, Chris Abrahams, Joel Stern, Tony Buck The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $15$85 6pm Paul Kelly: The A to Z Shows City Recital Hall, Sydney $50-$70 7.30pm Paul Kelly

FRIDAY JANUARY 21 A Night at the Quad – The Boys: The Necks Quadrangle, The University of Sydney, Camperdown $25-$30 7pm Double Dragon 3: WIM, Donny Benet, The Holy Soul, Domeyko/Gonzalez, Preachers, Disco Club, Ghoul, Pets With Pets, Reckless Vagina, Piano is Drunk, Drop Tank, Juan Cortez, The Pages, White Ox, Max Gosford, Il Foe Oxford Art Factory $5 8pm Matt & Kim (USA), The Death Set, DJ Zan Rowe, Kato Beck’s Festival Bar, Sydney $38 (+ bf) 8pm MUM: Virgo Rising, Tiger Choir, Red Ink, Loon Lake, Saloons, The Future

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club guide

send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com

club pick of the week Bag Raiders

Red Herrin Showcase 8pm Goodgod Small Club Frontbar, Sydney Special Moments Long John Saliva free 8pm Sugar Lounge, Manly The Bucket Room free 8pm Wentworth Hotel, Homebush Uni Night DJ Nicky M, Dream One free 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Flying Colours Group Art Show, Dubstep Party free

THURSDAY JANUARY 20

SATURDAY JANUARY 22

Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, King Cross

Flood Aid

Bag Raiders (DJ Set), Dangerous Dan, Sosueme DJs, Ro Sham Bo, Alison Wonderland, Hump Day Project, Kato, Hey Now, Joyride, MUM DJs $10 - all proceeds to Queensland Premier's Flood Relief Appeal 7pm MONDAY JANUARY 17 The Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills I Love 90s ft. Full Moon Party Grumpy Grandpa $5 (+ bf) 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Mondays 16 Tacos free

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TUESDAY JANUARY 18 The Gaff, Darlinghurst Kid Finley, Johnny B free 8pm The Valve, Tempe Underground Tables Ato, Myme, Gee Wiz free 6pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Pop Panic Karaoke, DJ Shipwreck, Daigo, Mista Killa free

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 19 Beck’s Festival Bar, Sydney Scribe (NZ), Ru C.L., Radical Son, Katalyst, Hau Latukefu $30 (+ bf) 8pm Coolabar, Sydney Latin Dance Party Coolabar DJs $10 9.30pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney

Arthouse Hotel, Sydney Mojito Central Dante Rivera, DJ Vicco free 9pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi The Camera Club DJ Alex free 8pm Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills V.I.P. Thursdays Tikelz, Moto, J Lyrikz, Naiki, Rkayz, Mistah Cee 8pm The Gaff, Darlinghurst Kid Finley, Pee Wee Pete free 8pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Siberian Flood Fundraiser Mani Neumier (Guru Guru) DJ set, Nhomea, FLRL, Expo + more $12, 9pm Goodgod Small Club Front Bar, Sydney Club Al Levins free 8pm Home The Venue, Sydney Unipackers Flite, IKO, Uncle Abe, Scotty G, Big Dan free$10 10pm Macquarie Hotel, Sydney Sketch the Rhyme free 8pm Martin Place Bar, Sydney Louis M free 5pm Sugar Lounge, Manly Felipe & Simone free 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Teenage Kicks Mani (Primal Scream / Stone Roses) DJ Set, Urby, Johnny Segment, Monkey Genius, Mucky Fingers free

FRIDAY JANUARY 21 202 Broadway, Chippendale Cindee, Miss B, Marta Taylor, Grey Wolf, DJ Philf, Mitch Morris 9pm ARQ Nightclub, Darlinghurst United Colours of Trance Binary Finary, Raptor, Ruby, Ange, Duress, Pato De Gomah $20-$25 10pm Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill DJ Retro free 9pm Bar Europa, Sydney Illya free 8pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Neon Nights Nina Las Vegas, Kato free 8pm Blackbird Café, Sydney Nuendo, Veeo, Jay-P free 9pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Liquid Sky Diskoriot, Sohda, Sweet Distortion, J-Mac $10$15 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Dubrave Party Haters (Top Piper + Klaus Hill), Will Styles, MC Shureshock, Struz, Gabriel Clouston, Moriarty, Deli, Temnien, MC Hayley Boa $15-$20 9pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour DJ Shamus, DJ Mike Silver, DJ Anders free 5pm Collingwood Hotel, Liverpool Fuego K-Note & DreadJuan, Mac, Dennis, C-Major, The Empress MC free (guestlist) 9pm The Exchange Hotel, Sydney P*A*S*H Summer Series

Monsieur Moon, Bridgemary Kiss, P*A*S*H DJs and Q-Raoke $10 The Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills Purple Sneakers Presents Last Night Edwin Congreave (Foals) DJ Set, Jonathan Boulet, We Say Bamboulee, The Death Set DJs, PhDJ, M.I.T., Fantomatique, Ben Lucid $10 8pm The Gaff, Darlinghurst The Hellfire Club DJ Jay, Sveta, Tolokshe $25 9.30pm Goodgod Small Club Front Bar, Sydney Rip It Up! Rae Le Hero, Roberto de Roque free 5pm Home Rooftop, Sydney Sublime Flite, IKO, MC Sugar Shane, Peewee Ferris, Losty, Arbor, Hard Forze, Big Dan, Ravine $20-$25 11pm Jacksons On George Luna Lounge, Sydney House and Guest DJs free Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, Kings Cross Falcona Fridays Howling Bells DJs, DJ Hansom, Hobophonics, Starjumps $10 10pm Le Panic, Kings Cross Box Social MYD, 3Hundreds, Sotiris, Jamie What, 14th Minute, Jordan F $10 9pm Macarthur Tavern, Campbelltown DJ Michael free 8pm Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown DJ Marky (Brazil), Stamina MC, Jps, Spikey Tee, Foreign Dub $38 (+ bf) 8pm Oatley Hotel We Love Oatley Fridays DJ Tone free 8pm Phoenix Bar, Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst Bootie Bonanza Phoenix DJs free 8pm Pontoon, Darling Harbour Nic Philips free 9pm Sting Bar, Cronulla Electro Sessions DJ Soda, JustMore DJs, Brosman, Knocked Up Noise, Matt Mandrell, Riggers free 8pm Tank, Sydney G-Wizard, Def Rok, Troy T, Eko, Lilo, Jayson, Losty, Ben Morris, Matt Nukewood, Charlie Brown, Oakes & Lennox, Venuto, Adrian M 9pm Tao Ultra Lounge, Sydney Tao Fridays DJ Husky, Yogi, DJ Marc Us, Dan Copping, DJ Agey, Frankie Romano, Phil Toke free 9pm Watershed, Darling Harbour Bring on the Weekend Club Miami free Wentworth Hotel, Homebush Wentworth Weekend Warm Up Wentworth DJs free 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross MUM Virgo Rising, Tiger Choir, Red Ink, Loon Lake, Saloons, The Future Prehistoric, Parapluie, Big Dumb Kid, Walkie Talkie, Glen be Trippin, Swim

Team DJs, Kapow, Bobby Six & Meowcat, Jack Shit, Nude DJs, My Melody, 10th Avenue, Meekins $10-$15 8pm

SATURDAY JANUARY 22 Arthouse Hotel, Sydney Roger Sanchez (USA) $30$40 (+ bf) 9.30pm Beck’s Festival Bar, Sydney Cobblestone Jazz, Matthew Jonson, Murat Kilic, Peret Mako, $38 (+ bf) 8pm Blackbird Café, Sydney Nuendo, Veeo, Jay-P free 9pm Candys Apartment Ritual Teez, SMS, The Kid, Zomg!, Kittenz, Disco Volante, La Dooda Peeda $10-$20 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Garden Party Stanton Warriors (UK), Q45, Naany, A-Tonez, MC Adam Zae $30$35 (+ bf) 3pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Quivver (USA), Ajax, Tim Mcgee, Jeff Drake, Spenda C, Rodskeez, Dave Stuart, Mo’Funk, Murray Lake, Marky Mark $15-$25 10pm Civic Underground, Sydney Adult Disco Toby Tobias, The Francis Inferno Orchestra, Blank Canvas DJs $20 (+ bf) 10pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour DJ Jeddy Rowland, DJ Anders free 8pm Empire Hotel, Darlinghurst The Temple Alex K, Sunset Bros, Outsource, Rata, Steve Play, Andre Jay, Dk1, Wilz, Frantic, Benino G, Blinky, ScottyO, Nick Nova, Danny P, Rath free 9pm The Forbes Hotel, Sydney We Love Indie We Love Indie DJs $10 8pm The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills Little Eden Ben Jorgensen (ex-Armor For Sleep, USA), The Initiation, Soapbox Summer $16 (+bf) 8pm The Gaff, Darlinghurst Johnny B free 8pm Home The Venue, Sydney Homemade The 808s, Aladdin Royaal, James Saxman, Matt Ferreira, Hannah Gibbs, Venuto, Dave Austin, Great Dane, Flite, IKO, DJ Selz, Uncle Abe $20$25 9pm Jacksons On George Luna Lounge, Sydney House and Guests DJs free Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, King Cross Flood Aid Bag Raiders (DJ Set), Dangerous Dan, Sosueme DJs, Ro Sham Bo, Alison Wonderland, Hump Day Project, Kato, Hey Now, Joyride, MUM DJs $10 7pm Hotel Chambers, Sydney Red Room Troy T, DJ Marky

club guide

send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com Phat Kat & Guilty Simpson

K-Note, Mac, Mike Champion free (guestlist) 8pm Macarthur Tavern, Campbelltown George B free 8pm Pontoon, Darling Harbour Phil English, Nobby Grooves $10 8pm Sugar Lounge, Manly Clarkey, Mike B free 10pm Tone, Surry Hills Sounds of Detroit Phat Kat, Guilty Simpson $35 (+ bf) 8.30pm Watershed, Darling Harbour Skybar free The World Bar, Kings Cross WHAM Two Fresh, James

Taylor, Levins, Illya, Negghead, Garry Todd, Adam Bozzetto, Disco Punx, Boonie, Miss Gabby, Mitch Crosner, Temnein, Joe Gadget $15-$20 8pm

SUNDAY JANUARY 23 Beach Road Hotel Rex Room, Bondi The Sunday NiceUp! True Vibe Nation, Dub Dentist, Mike Who, DJ Ability free 6pm

Enmore Theatre Mos Def (USA), Dizz1, Spit Syndicate $72-$106.10 8pm Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor Cover Notes free 8.30pm The Forbes Hotel, Sydney Church of Techno Mitch Crosher, Kerry Wallace, Joey Kaz, Jey Tuppea, Jaded, Shepz $5 9pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney Kaskade (USA) 6pm Home Terrace, Sydney Spice Alex Wolfenden, DJ YokoO, Trinity, Sam Roberts $20 5am Jacksons On George Pool Bar, Sydney Aphrodisiac Industry Night House and Guest DJs free LO-FI, Darlinghurst Mos Def’s Red Earth Road Trip Fundraiser After Party $60 (+ bf) 10pm Oatley Hotel Sunday Sessions DJ Tone, Undie Sundie DJs free 7pm Penrith Panthers Sunsets On The Terrace 2 Faced free 2pm Phoenix Bar, Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst Loose Ends Matt Vaughn free 10pm The Rouge, Kings Cross Cheap Thrill$ free 8pm The Roxy Theatre, Parramatta Memories Six Fingers, Kistiano Carroll, Charlie Brown, Banzel, DJ Regz 2pm Sugar Lounge, Manly Le Franchi Brothers free 9pm Watershed, Darling Harbour DJ Matt Roberts free The World Bar, Kings Cross Fortune Disco Punx free 6pm

club picks up all night out all week...

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 19

Beck’s Festival Bar Scribe (NZ), Ru C.L., Radical Son, Katalyst, Hau Latukefu $30 8pm

THURSDAY JANUARY 20

Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Siberian Flood Fundraiser Mani Neumier (Guru Guru) DJ set, Nhomea, FLRL, Expo and more $12 9pm

The World Bar, Kings X Teenage Kicks Mani (Primal Scream / Stone Roses) DJ Set, Urby, Johnny Segment, Monkey Genius, Mucky Fingers free

FRIDAY JANUARY 21

Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Neon Nights Nina Las Vegas, Kato free 8pm Manning Bar DJ Marky (Brazil), Stamina MC, Jps, Spikey Tee, Foreign Dub $42.85 (+ bf) 8pm

SATURDAY JANUARY 22 Beck’s Festival Bar Cobblestone Jazz,

Matthew Jonson, Murat Kilic, Peret Mako, $38 (+ bf) 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Garden Party Stanton Warriors (UK), Q45, Naany, A-Tonez, MC Adam Zae $30-$35 (+ bf) 3pm The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills Little Eden Ben Jorgensen (ex-Armor For Sleep, USA), The Initiation, Soapbox Summer $16 (+bf) 8pm Tone, Surry Hills Sounds of Detroit Phat Kat, Guilty Simpson, Seekae DJs $35 (+ bf) 8.30pm

SUNDAY JANUARY 23 Enmore Theatre Mos Def (USA), Dizz1, Spit Syndicate $72$106.10 8pm

Scribe

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Deep Impressions Underground Dance and Electronica with Chris Honnery

Derrick Carter

C

lubbing institution Fabric have just revealed details of the next instalment in their renowned compilation series, with news surfacing that the 56th Fabric will be mixed and compiled by none other than Chicago legend Derrick Carter. Following the brilliant but arcane experimentalism of Shackleton, a glance at the tracklist seemingly infers that Carter will explore more accessible house realms via material from the likes of Johnny D, DJ Sneak and, er, Roger Sanchez. Younger and more impressionable readers ought to know that Carter was of course a key ‘playa’ in the Chicago scene during the 90s, and Fabric 56 is purportedly a reflection of the sounds that Carter is currently spinning in clubs around the world. As he himself explains, “I have some new stuff, some old stuff, some special stuff. Tried to give it that kind of treatment so it’s authentic, and real and valid and present. It’s Derrick. All day.” Oh please, spare us the perfunctory dribble and self-congratulation, Derrick; in the future, if you’re going to issue an official statement at least try and make it half decent or get someone else to write it for you. Let us hope dear Derrick was in better form when putting together Fabric 56; I have a feeling that’s a very safe bet.

Nine years after his last album, Italian techno stalwart Marco ‘Toyota’ Carola has emerged from production hibernation and will unleash a new LP, Play It Loud!

– a title that serves as an appropriate piece of advice for listeners of techno at the best of times, and especially fans of Carola’s layered brand of rolling tech. “I called it ‘Play It Loud!’ because I think my music is based a lot on the groove and the bassline,” Carola told me via Skype. “I don’t think I ever play a record if it doesn’t have a bassline. So I think the way this album makes most sense is when you actually play it on a big soundsystem.

Something like an iPod speakers won’t probably make much sense of it.” Out March 7 on Richie Hawtin’s hallowed Minus imprint, Play It Loud! will feature 18 new tracks that Carola decided to blend together to evoke the mood of his DJ sets. “I had the concept of creating an album of new music that’s also a mix CD because that’s the way I produce,” Carola offered, between swigs of what I’m guessing was Evian. “I was born as a DJ, so most of my productions were made for DJs. It wouldn’t make sense to me to produce an album with single tracks, because those tracks were created to be mixed. I was really focusing on what I could create, and Minus gave me a free opportunity to do that with no restriction.”

LOOKING DEEPER FRIDAY JANUARY 21 Dave DK The Civic

SATURDAY JANUARY 22 Cobblestone Jazz The Beck’s Bar

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 5

Damian Lazarus & Art Department AGWA Boat Cruise

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 12 Butch & Vincenzo Spice Midnight Cruise

such as No Regular Play. “The concept for this mix was originally going to be to use our favourite tracks from the last two years - y’know, classic stuff,” drawled Wolf + Lamb main man Gadi Mizrahi. “But then we thought it might be a stronger idea to do something that was about our world. We have such a strong sense of collective about the way we do things on the Wolf + Lamb label... We figured if we could bring that to a mix and keep it in the family, with people who’ve released on the label, we would have something special.” We’ll find out just how special it is come March when this puppy gets released, and all Wolf + Lamb fans will no doubt already be aware that Art Department are making their Australian debut aboard the AGWA Starship in a few weeks time; so aware, in fact, that I’m not going to set this week’s sprightly column back by rehashing previously covered material and risk spoiling a perfect ending. (Especially after last week’s halfassed Radio Slave rerun, eh Chris? - ed.)

The next edition of !K7’s DJ Kicks series is mixed by American duos Wolf + Lamb and Soul Clap, key figures in the house renaissance of late. The release incorporates 27 tracks – nine of which are exclusive – including cuts by current electronic ‘it boy’ Nicolas Jaar, nascent Crosstown Rebels producer Deniz Kurtel and fast-rising duo Benoit & Sergio, along with all the Wolf + Lamb ‘big guns’

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com.

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Soul Sedation

Soul, Dub, Hip Hop & Bottom-heavy Beats with Tony Edwards

Javelin

This week: - Thurs 20th 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.

A

fter something of a delay, Brownswood Bubblers Six is finally in Soul Sedation’s possession, and it’s a distinctly positive start to the year.

2011 – the year of the tune? The first track that really caught my ear was the sampleheavy ‘Intervales Theme’ from Brooklyn based duo Javelin (check their EP Jamz n Jemz). But you have to get further through the compilation to really get to the standout, a slow burning dubstep remix from London producer Planas. He’s taken the Submotion Orchestra’s amazing vocal ‘Finest Hour’ and laid down some very fine production work around it - it’s almost like a Global Underground style prog-dubstep track, a sound the oldies will appreciate no doubt. You can find plenty of Planas’ work available to buy online, but the majority of it is heavy dancefloor dubstep action. After hearing this, Soul Sedation thinks the man has a career on the headphone end of the spectrum as well.

A label that had a big 2010 is a London outfit by the name of First Word. They’ve gathered a brilliant bunch of musicians, vocalists and producers together to create a roster that must be the envy of the global jazz community. Just prior to Christmas they released the free compilation Two Syllables Vol 5, of with an impressive diversity of sounds. The Ariya Astrobeat Arkestra bring the afrobeat, Kid Kanevil with his own brand of futurebeat, Narow P with the neo soul, and Wayne Lotek with some ragga hip hop. It can’t hurt to look it up; it’s free after all.

Freddie Cruger is back in ’11 under a new alias, forming the group Wildcookie with vocalist Anthony Mills. ‘Heroine’ is the first single to emerge, and it’s deep, jazzy, and soulful hip hop. Seems the new project could be a melancholy, downbeat affair.

Stone’s Throw have re-released some quality 80s funk from one-time JBs drummer, Tony Cook. Back To Reality contains Cook’s most memorable hits, like ‘On The Floor’ and ‘Video Rock’, plus some unreleased material - and some brand new tracks are included as well. Funk heads will want to know all about it.

The party season remains in full swing as the announcements keep coming: Roy Ayers will play a solo show at the Basement on Sunday February 20, so anyone not “Playgrounding” might like to get themselves along to that show.

In a seemingly fitting move, Dust Tones moves from the Beach Rd Hotel this year to… Tone. There’s some wordplay fun to be had there, but I’m too hungover to get my head around it right now. They kick

off monthly Saturdays on January 29 with this dope line-up: Raashan Ahmad of the Crown City Rockers, Perth’s Paper Plane Project, Astronomy Class Sound System, Mike Who, DJ Ability, Noel Boogie, Gabriel Clouston and Bentley.

In a feast of all things electronica, Benji B and Mark Pritchard will headline Tone on Thursday January 27. Benji B will be rocking the UK funky, dubstep and future electronica no doubt - look out for his club brand Deviation - and Pritchard will be flexing his eclectic underground style.

There’s also an essential DnB party just over the horizon, with DJ Marky & Stamina MC appearing at the Manning Bar on Friday January 21. Support comes from Melbourne’s JPS and all rounder Spikey Tee. All signs point to large amounts of rinsing at that gig.

And the old masters De La Soul are bringing the clan out to Aus perform their 1991 album De La Soul Is Dead in full. It goes down Thursday February 10 at the Enmore Theatre. Should be a good oldfashioned knees up. Welcome to 2011!

Make sure you soak up some of this late summer action while you can, because it doesn’t last forever. Peace.

ON THE ROAD

Seekae Headline show - Fri 21st -

No Half Stepp’n Sydney’s favourite boogie down - Sat 22nd -

THU FEB 10

GUILTY SIMPSON & PHAT KAT

FRI FEB 18

Sounds of Detroit

FRI JAN 21

DJ Marky & Stamina MC Manning Bar

SAT JAN 29

Dust Tones Ft Rashaan Ahmad Tone

De La Soul, Prince Paul Enmore Theatre

Kool & The Gang, Roy Ayers Enmore Theatre

SAT FEB 19

Mayer Hawthorne & The County Manning Bar

SUN FEB 20 Roy Ayers The Basement

FEB 17 - 20

Playground Weekender Wiseman’s Ferry

www.tone.net.au facebook.com/tonesydney twitter.com/tonevenue

WED MARCH 16

Horace Andy, Dub Asante The Metro Theatre

Send stuff for this column to tonyedwards001@gmail.com by 6pm Wednesdays. All pics to art@thebrag.com

16 Wentworh Avenue, Surry Hills NSW 2010 (02) 9287 6440 BRAG :: 395:: 17:01:11 :: 49

snap

teenage kicks

PICS :: TT

up all night out all week . . .

falcona fridays

PICS :: PS

06:01:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

chinese laundry

PICS :: AM

07:01:11 :: Kit & Kaboodle :: 33-35 Darlinghurst Rd Kings Cross 9368 0300

07:01:11 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex Street Sydney 82959958

It’s called: P*A*S*H - Summer Series It sounds like: Fun. DJs/live acts: Monsieur Moon, Bridgemary

Kiss, P*A*S*H DJs and Q-Raoke Sell it to us: So you probably know that P*A*S *H is the DJ night that has been running after the bands in Spectrum since the venue opened six years ago. Over summer, while Spectrum is being renovated, we’re moving the party upstairs to Q Bar, and we’re inviting some of our favourite bands to join us.

Each Friday over summer there will be bands , karaoke and DJs across two rooms.

Crowd specs: Everyday people.

Wallet damage: $10 Where: Q Bar, 44 Oxford St, Darlinghurst

erol alkan

PICS :: TL

party profile

P*A*S*H

06:01:11 The Metro Theatre :: 624 George St City 92642666

When: Friday January 21, 9pm til way late

50 :: BRAG :: 394: 10:01:11

) :: ASH LEY MAR :: DAN IEL S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER :: NA MUN NS :: ROS ETT E ROU HAN

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snap sn ap

hot damn

PICS :: TT

up all night out all week . . .

distortion

PICS :: TT

06:01:11 :: Spectrum :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93316245

wham!

PICS :: DM

07:01:11 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93323711

08:01:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

It’s called: Garden Party feat. Stanton Warrio rs.

It sounds like: Booty-shakin’ bass-driven goodn ess!

DJs/live acts playing: The incredible Stanto n Warriors will be playing a fourhour set, with local supports A-Tonez featur ing MC Adam Zae, Q45 & Naany!

Sell it to us: The now-famous garden partie s at Chinese Laundry have been the talk of the summer, hosting huge artists like Krafty Kuts, Sub Focus, Nero, Chase & Status, Hybrid and loads more! They are always MASSIVE and seriously, who doesn’t love partying to world -class artists outdoors?

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Partying from beginning to end and loving every minute of it!

Crowd specs: Total dudes and babe-o-licio us dudettes!

Wallet damage: $35+bf from moshtix.com.au Where: Chinese Laundry (corner King & Susse x streets, CBD) When: Saturday January 22, 3-10pm

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starfuckers

PICS :: AM

party profile

Garden Party feat.

Stanton Warriors.

01:01:11 :: Club 77 :: 77 William St Kings Cross 93613387 ) :: ASH LEY MAR :: DAN IEL S : TIM LEV Y (HEA D HON CHO OUR LOV ELY PHOTOG RAP HER :: NA MUN NS :: ROS ETT E ROU HAN

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07:01:11 :: Qbar :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93316245

howl

PICS :: TT

pash

PICS :: TT

up all night out all week . . .

dâm funk

PICS :: TL

07:01:11 :: Tone Venue :: 116 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills

06:01:11 :: Tone Venue :: 116 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills

It’s called: DJ Marky and Stamina MC It sounds like: Drum’n’Bass royalty Who’s spinning? DJ Marky with Stamina MC as well as Foreigndub, Spikey Tee, Deejay Low and Fiend.

Sell it to us: Launching the brand new Fabric live Mix #55, DJ Marky and Stamina MC bring together the hottest local acts for a solid night of heavy DnB and electronica beats.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Partying to beats by the hottest Drum’n’Bass producer in the world.

Crowd specs: Anyone keen for a good night out.

Wallet damage: $38+bf Where: Manning Bar, Sydney University

When: Friday January 21

chinese laundry

PICS :: AM

party profile

DJ Marky & Stamina MC

08:01:11 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex Street Sydney 82959958

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54 :: BRAG :: 394: 10:01:11

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