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K E E W T X NE N’T
DO OUT! S S I M ‘Poetic…enigmatic, unpredictable and utterly addictive…’ – NME
‘To-die-for harmonies easily justifying the current buzz’. – Q MAGAZINE
WITH
SPECIAL
‘Highly Recommended’ – THE AGE
GUESTS
LEADER CHEETAH & THE PAPER SCISSORS
THURSDAY 10 FEBRUARY METRO THEATRE [18+]
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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
five things WITH
DAN FROM THE OWLS Inspirations Queens of the Stone Age are the be all and 2. fuckin’ end all for us. I remember reading an interview with Nick Oliveri, and he said the band were just trying to make music that they liked – they didn’t give a shit if anyone else was into it. I think that lack of compromise in an industry that seems to be shying away from rock is an endearing quality seen less and less these days. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Radiohead, Bloc Party, The Strokes and anything Damon Albarn has touched is on high rotation, too. You There are four of us. Josh (rhythm, vocals), 3. Matt (drums) and myself (lead guitar) are friends
1.
Growing Up All of our parents came from pretty big working class families who were supportive of us following music - something their parents would’ve regarded as a bit of a pipe dream. The band have been good friends since
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, Caitlin Welsh NEWS CO-ORDINATORS: Nathan Jolly, Cool Thomas, Chris Honnery ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Dara Gill SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Susan Bui, Innerstyle, Ashley Mar, Daniel Munns, Rosette Rouhanna, Grant Sparkes-Carroll, Patrick Stevenson, Tom Tramonte COVER DESIGN: Sarah Bryant
from way back. Lewis (bass) came onto the scene late, but you’d never know – it feels like he was always there. Josh and myself had played together over the years and one day he walked into rehearsal with Lewis and said, “this guy is our bass player.” Matt literally learnt drums to play in the band - he went missing for like six months, and when he came back he could play. Really well. The band was complete.
childhood, so when one of us got our hands on something new, we were all introduced to it at the same time; grunge, garage pop, whatever was on offer. Having that shared history was a game-changer when the band kicked off.
The Music You Make QOTSA meets The Eels meets early 4. Radiohead. The last twelve months have been
NICHOLAS ROY
TEEPEE LIFE @ PGW
ALPINE
DOVES GROUNDED
Primus-sine metu is a fear of people with two first names, and if you suffer from this distressing and possibly fictional illness, you better stay away from The Vanguard on February 18. Melbourne troubadour Nicholas Roy is finally getting the chance to launch his debut album In A Shoebox Under The Bed, which was released back in October, and is really very good.
Melbourne’s best haunting indie-pop troupe Alpine are touring. It is their first headline tour and they’re dragging along Boy In A Box to make it twice as fun. Sydney gets its turn on Thursday February 24 at GoodGod Small Club. Tix are $12 presale through Moshtix, or $15 on the door. You can buy your menthol ciggies at the convenience store two doors up.
hectic, but it has paid off in spades. We played everywhere and were lucky enough to support the likes of The Jezabels, Cloud Control, Gyroscope and The Living End, to name a few. We’re currently in the studio putting the finishing touches on some new stuff. We’ve been moving between BJB Studios in Sydney and 301, working with engineer/producer Tony Buchan. The sound has matured a hell of a lot since last year’s release; it’s pretty exciting. Music, Right Here, Right Now Nothing’s free. There is no magic door that 5. leads to stardom, just shitloads of hard work and constant refinement. Not just my words, but the advice we’ve gotten from those lucky enough to be successful. The only other pitfall is musos who think they’re killing it. No one likes a wanker, regardless of whether or not you can play. Who: The Owls EP launch With: The Frowning Clouds, No Art, Forrests, The Shooting Party & more Where: MUM @ The World Bar When: Friday February 4
Recycled festival accommodation is a crafty science, but Teepee Life make it look like a stroll in the park; they’re celebrating their one-year anniversary at Playground Weekender with a new and improved Teepee Life village. It’s pretty much like a portable hotel, and it beats the crap out of the tent you got from your older brother that sweats in the sun and collapses when you sneeze. Head to teepeelife.com.au to book.
In more PGW-related news, Doves are jumping on the bandwagon of good acts cancelling Australian tours, after make the sad announcement that they won’t be heading out here for the festival, due to personal matters within the band… Sideshow tickets can be refunded from the point of purchase, and don’t blame the lady at the ticketing booth. It really isn’t her fault this time.
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: Conrad Richters - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@thebrag.com (dance) INTERNS: Liz Brown, Rach Seneviratne 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, Chris Honnery, Nathan Jolly, Alex Lindsay Jones, Amelia Schmidt, Romi Scodellaro, RK, Luke Telford, Alex Young
Grace Jones
GRACE JONES COMES BACK
Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this address 153 Bridge Road, Glebe NSW 2037 ph - (02) 9552 6333 fax - (02) 9552 6866
Look at your Leunig calendar. Yes yes, it’s very amusing, the man has a duck on his head, but check the date. If it’s later than February 1, tickets for the style icon and legendary diva Grace Jones’ April tour have already gone on sale. April 19 at the Entertainment Centre is when and where it all happens. Go to.
EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Publisher, Editor or Staff of The Brag. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE: Stephen Forde : accounts@furstmedia.com.au ph - (03) 9428 3600 fax - (03) 9428 3611 Furst Media, 3 Newton Street Richmond Victoria 3121 DEADLINES: Editorial Wednesday 12pm (no extensions) Art Work, Ad Bookings Thursday 12pm (no extensions) Ad Cancellations Tuesday 4pm Published by Cartrage P/L ACN 104026388 All content copyrighted to Cartrage 2003 DISTRIBUTION: Wanna get The Brag? email distribution@furstmedia.com.au or ph 03 9428 3600. PRINTED BY SPOTPRESS: www.spotpress.com.au 24 – 26 Lilian Fowler Place, Marrickville NSW 2204 Win a giveaway? Mail us a stamped and addressed envelope, and we’ll send your prize on over...
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LANEWAY SIDESHOWS
If you didn’t get it together in time for a Laneway ticket, do not fear: there are support groups available to help you cope. On Monday February 7, one will held by Two Door Cinema Club at the Enmore, another by Jenny & Jonny at Oxford Art Factory, a third by Yeasayer at The Metro, and a fourth by Menomena at The Factory. Tuesday February 8 will see Warpaint handing out comforting tea at Oxford Art Factory, Deerhunter organising a group hug at The Metro, and Stornoway passing nametags out at The Annandale. Wednesday February 9 has Ariel Pink affirming the crowd at The Manning Bar, Foals unstacking chairs at the Enmore, and !!! using The Metro as a publishing house for supportive zines. Finally, Thursday February 10 will see Les Savy Fav relapsing at The Manning Bar, Local Natives patting heads at The Metro and The Antlers and Bear In Heaven hosting bonding exercises up at The Annandale. Phew. Big week ahead, you guys.
FOSTER THE PEOPLE
Foster The People claim to hail from Hollywood, yet contain no movie or television stars. Not even Adam Brody. Despite these seemingly insurmountable odds, their track ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ managed to land at number 32 in this year’s Hottest 100 – and to celebrate this feat (or possibly to promote their new selftitled EP), they’re coming to Australia to play the Oxford Art Factory on Monday February 14. Tickets are on sale now.
I AM KLOOT @ THE GAELIC
Jackson McLaren is the lucky young musician who’s been plucked to play the support slot at I Am Kloot’s February 18 Gaelic Club show. If you haven’t heard the Klootsters (sic) before, YouTube the UK rock band’s song ‘Proof’, and then burn all your Snow Patrol CDs.
FLIGHT FACILITIES. THE SWISS. [LIVE] MITZI[LIVE]路ANDY WEBB路SOFTWAR路 SIMON CALDWELL路FUTURE CLASSIC DJS
SATURDAY 5 FEBRUARY THE CIVIC ACROSS TWO FLOORS!! BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 9
rock music news
free stuff
welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on, down and around town. By Nathan Jolly
five things WITH
FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM Old Man River
JONO FROM HELL CITY GLAMOURS was a fun place. The fact that they all listen to a lot of rock ‘n’ roll music and I don’t makes for a good difference of opinions in our band, methinks. We’re a rock band, heavy on the blues and grooves side of it. As an eclectic bunch, we kind of spin a few different elements; a little Stones, a dash of Hellacopters, some gentle Social Distortion and a smattering of garage/ Detroit rock, too. We’re currently in the midst of recording tracks in various places for our next album with various friends - potential foes after they spend a day stuck in a room with us. As for live: lots of party, loud bits, a fair bit of sweat and shit loads of fun, with at least one sing-a-long opportunity if you’re so inclined.
I
started out musically with the soundtrack to many a family camping trip; Pink Floyd, The Stones and America. I then got my first record, the amazing Hooked On Classics before finding my sister’s copy of Sex Pistols’ Rock n Roll Swindle, which taught me to swear well before my time. That and Painters & Dockers; the concept of Nude School fascinated me. My number one is Descendents. A young lady named Celeste played them to me off
her walkman one day in a Sizzler carpark during a spot of skateboarding. Changed my life forever, and sent me right down the path of wanting to play music. I’m an avid music collector and own a thousand or two CDs, but that’s the band that really changed me. Hell City Glamours are a lovely bunch of mostly long-haired fellows. We actually met when I had long hair and they had short hair. I met Oscar and Robbie at a skate spot many years ago, and Mo at Judgie back when it
Right now I’m a little scared for Sydney’s live music, with venues closing and being threatened with restricted trade. There’s great bands out there that we may never hear if councils don’t lighten the burden for supporting contemporary music. But let’s not be a negative nancy - there’s some rad bands around at the moment, such as everyone on the bill for our show, and of course the mighty Gay Paris. I’ll also make note that Papa vs Pretty are pretty damn amazing too. I saw them at OAF a few weeks ago, and had my mind blown. With: The Shooters Party, Joseph Liddy & The Skeleton Horse, Contraban Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Friday February 4
THEY MIX, WE DANCE, AGAIN NEW SEEKAE ALBUM
Sydney’s own beatsy electronic trio Seekae have announced that they’re (finally) releasing a new album, titled +Dome. It follows the highly acclaimed The Sound Of Trees Falling On People which we’re sure you love like a brother already. Rice Is Nice and Popfrenzy are working in harmony for a March 25 album release - keep your ear to the ground (or your eye to the BRAG) for news regarding shows, and make sure you buy this the day it comes out. Do it for Sydney.
PVT FREE SHOW
PVT have spent the past year cutting costs and lettrs wherever and whnevr they can, in order to give you, the loyl listner, the best bng for your bck. Their latest act of altruism is a free show which will see their smokey silhouettes at the Beach Road Hotel on Wednesday February 2, with Zeahorse in support. It’s with even more flagrant disregard to grammar and linguistics that they offer this: “This will almost definitely be our last headline show in Australia this year, so don’t
Seekae
Everybody’s favourite purple sneaks are still celebrating the release of their second installation in the We Mix You Dance series, which does pretty much what it says on the double-disc tin. Disc 1 is called ‘Can Dance’, with tracks by LCD Soundsystem, Darwin Deez, Washington, Flight Facilities, Tame Impala, Cloud Control, Miike Snow and also everyone else - mixed up by M.I.T & BenLucid. Disc 2 is called ‘Can’t Dance’, is mixed by PhDJ, and features our cover stars Deerhunter, along with Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, !!!, Sleigh Bells, Marina & The Diamonds and, well, all of the other people. They’re finally launching the thing at the new Purple Sneakers night - Last Night - at The
OLD MAN RIVER X PASSENGER
Troubadours Ohad Rein and Mike Rosenberg (Old Man River and Passenger respectively) will take to the road with Daniel Lee Kendall this February for an old-fashioned tour of Australia. Both musicians and their bag of tunes have that classic Beat generation vibe; the Van Morrison-esque Passenger actually funded his latest album entirely through busking. Off the back of a world tour with his talented band, Old Man River will strip down his album Trust to its raw, acoustic core for this tour only. The three artists will converge at The Annandale on February 11 for a rare and intimate evening; to win a double pass and a copy of both Old Man River’s and Passenger’s latest albums, name an artist featured on Flight Of The Crow.
Gaelic Theatre on Friday February 11, before taking off to do a whole national tour. Go along and make them work for it.
DRAKE & SILL TRIBUTE
If you like your heroes dead from drug addiction and their music full of fragile beauty, then you will not wanna miss Golden Folk at the Basement on Thursday February 3, where over 15 musicians will perform the music of Judee Sill and Nick Drake. Involved in this night of hushed majesty are members of The Wilson Pickers, Brisbane indie-alt-country-darlings The Gin Club, Sydney indie-bluegrass-darlings The Green Mohair Suits and indie darling/ songsmith Leroy Lee.
be missin’ out. Invite all, let’s make a motza out of it.”
GRATE NEWS
Ok, first the bad news. Drummer Alana has left The Grates to pursue culinary acts in Manhattan - which kind of sounds like the premise of the show that would have happened had Friends gone with the Monica spin off, instead of Joey. Now the Grate news. The remaining pair have recorded a third Grates album in Brooklyn, to be released in June. 19,20,20(11)!!!
Eagle & The Worm
Foals
TRIPLE J UNEARTHED CO-HEADLINE TOUR
We do indeed love Australian music, which is why we’ll all be heading down to the threeway co-headline tour between triple j Unearthed artists Ball Park Music, Eagle & The Worm and We Say Bamboulee. These three acts won Big Day Out slots in their respective cities (Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney for those playing at home), and now they’ll be banding together to traverse the East Coast of our sunburnt country. You can catch them at The Gaelic on Friday March 4; tickets are $10 on the door.
FOALLY SICK
Foals were booked for Laneway Festival, but rather than use the gap in the touring schedule to check out The Big Banana, The Big Oyster, The Big Bucket and Crazy John’s Mobile Shack, they’ve pencilled in some solo shows. February 9 sees them standing outside the Enmore Theatre, wondering if The Cat Protection Society is an actual shop or another indie rock band. They might play after, too.
“Fire and flames they are possessed / lay the spirits down to rest / the spirits are ventriloquists / they say the thing that must be said” – MENOMENA 10 :: BRAG :: 397 : 31:01:11
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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
he said she said WITH
NICK FROM SPIT SYNDICATE from friends’ older siblings that put us on the path that lead us to trying our hand at MCing. The most inspiring rapper at the moment has got to be J. Cole. He’s got a unique, sharp but very accessible style. We take inspiration wherever we can get it – from musicrelated things like incredible live shows, to the nonmusical realm like airports, traffic and world-shattering sex.
W
e grew up in the inner-West of Sydney on a healthy diet of music, graffiti and girls. It was the West Coast gangster rap that we picked up
BOOM CRASH OPERA
Spit Syndicate is Nick Lupi, Jimmy Nice and Joyride, but beyond that our crew is One Day, which also includes Horrorshow. We all grew up together and started dabbling in rapping together, too. I work as a tour guide on the Harbour Bridge, Jimmy works
ANDY FLETCHER
Depeche Mode’s Andy Fletcher will play a two-hour DJ set at the City Hotel on Wednesday Febraury 16. Easily one of the most influential and revered groups of modern times – think ‘Personal Jesus’, ‘Enjoy The Silence’, ‘Barrel Of A Gun’ etc – Depeche Mode haven’t toured Australia in aeons, and considering last year’s so-called ‘tour of the universe’ didn’t encompass the land Down Under, this might be the closest Aussie fans will get to the band in some time. Fletcher stated that the set will be “loosely based on my heritage with Depeche Mode; electro both old and new from the Human League to Alex Metric. I’ll be playing brand new DM mixes from respected producers such as Eric Prydz and Vince Clarke and classic old mixes such as ‘Personal Jesus’ by Francois K. You can expect some surprises as well, as I’ve been working on a few things in the studio especially for this forthcoming DJ tour.”
in child care and Joyride fits in DJ sets in between his rigorous work as a garden landscaper. Me and Jimmy have day jobs but the others eat off music. Cunts. I don’t like putting music into descriptive boxes, but the best way to describe our music is a fusion of new-world trip-hop, dub-step, nu-rave, pysch trance, ‘90s boom bap and folk music from the displaced Roma people. In all seriousness, our live show doesn’t stray too far from the classic ‘two MCs, one DJ’ hip hop format. We also have a live keyboard in our set and our DJ is way more talented than anyone else doing it nowadays. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry (probably more of the latter than the former), and you’ll wake up with a game-changing hangover. Oh and there’ll be girls at the show too - never used to happen at Aussie hip hop shows but, as Frank White once quipped, shit done changed. Amen. Sydney hip-hop is going stronger than it’s ever been, to my knowledge. Nothing shows that more than the QLD Flood fundraiser that was held last week. Sold out shortly after doors, and $11,000 raised. With: Nina Las Vegas, Joyride & more! Where: SOSUEME @ Oxford Art Factory When: Saturday February 5
CALVIN HARRIS
Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Mr ‘acceptable in the 80s’, the Scotsman who gets all the girls, Mr Calvin Harris! It’s been revealed that Harris will play a DJ set at the Greenwood Hotel on Sunday February 27 in addition to his dates supporting Rihanna nationally, and a slot at the official Mardi Gras Party on March 5. Those questioning Harris’ DJ pedigree will be given a chance to eat their words/bolster their critisism, and the show will double as promotion for the recently released Onelove Sonic Boombox compilation, which boasts a disc mixed by none other than… etc.
With more than 25 ‘band years’ under their belt, Boom Crash Opera have lasted longer than most marriages. Finding their feet in the Melbournian pub scene circa 1985, they quickly ascended both the scene and the ARIA charts, reaching number 5 in 1986 with their debut single ‘Great Wall’. Having achieved chart success through the ‘80s and ‘90s with singles ‘Onion Skin’, ‘Get Out Of The House’, ‘Best Thing’ and ‘Bettadaze’, their enduring timelessness has seen their songs remixed on a Ministry Of Sound compilation and used in a Mt Franklin water ad. They dust off the cobwebs to relive the heydays on February 5 at The Annandale. To win one of five doubles to the show, name the song used in the Mt Franklin ad.
FOSTER THE PEOPLE
Everyone everywhere in the world right now seems to be whistling Foster The People’s ridiculously infectious ‘Pumped Up Kicks’, which has earned itself the (unofficial) title of ‘BRAG’s #1 Most Whistle-able Tune of the Summer of 2010-11’. The LA trio is proving with each new song release that they’re more than just a one-trick pony, and are out to prove their worth with a line of shows down Australia’s east coast. We have two double passes to give away for their Oxford Art Factory show on February 14; to win one you gotta tell us what number Foster The People’s ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ achieved on triple j’s Hottest 100 last week. (Should’ve been higher)
confines of what was once a mining ground, German ‘stadium DJ’ and the star of Berlin Calling, Paul Kalkbrenner (apparently playing Chinese Laundry in Sydney on Saturday March 19!) will be spinning, along with Jarvis Cocker’s widely-loved and recently-reformed band Pulp, Robyn, The Streets and our very own Cut Copy. In terms of beats, Ellen Allien, Roman Flugel, Loco Dice, M.A.N.D.Y., Gui Boratto and Tensnake are also billed, and Innervisions act Ame will play live. See meltfestival.de for all the details (BYO German dictionary).
BFTO: MELT 2011
Following its rousing return last week, the ‘Better Festivals Than Ours’ segment rolls on, this week, focusing on Berlin’s Melt Festival, which will span the weekend of July 15-17. Held in the
Dead Prez
Sasha
SASHA
Progressive don and club deity Alexander Coe, aka Sasha, will play an additional performance to his set at Good Vibrations, at Chinese Laundry on Friday February 18. Despite Jam’s much-publicised “there will be no sideshows” statement vis-à-vis the Good Vibrations festival, Sydneysiders will have a second chance to see Sasha throw down in the more intimate (read: sweaty) setting of the Laundry. Having established himself as something of a ‘superstar DJ’ through the ‘90s via his b2b sets with John Digweed, Sasha’s versatility was evidenced on his debut studio album Airdrawndagger in 2002, an atmospheric and ambient release that more than holds up a decade on. His Involver compilations have also garnered mass acclaim, while his remix output has become increasingly eclectic over the years (see his Depeche Mode and Kasabian reworks in recent times). Tickets to this (non)sideshow have been available since Friday, so put your back in to it!
Simplex
SIMPLEX
DEAD PREZ
After their tour with the Big Day Out in 2010, hip hop pioneers Dead Prez return to Australia, to play Oxford Art Factory on Tuesday March 15. Inspired by self-defence parties such as the Black Panthers, the Florida-based pair - comprised of M-1 and Sticman have been crafting politically conscious material since the late ‘90s, releasing two studio albums (their 2000 debut, Let’s Get Free, featured production from a young Kanye West) and two underground mixtapes of highly political hip hop that draws inspiration from figures like Malcom X. No less an authority than London’s Daily Telegraph affirmed, “Dead Prez use music not to lie about having expensive cars or girlfriends with big bottoms, but to rail against the inequities in American society. They do so with an insight and honesty that is rare in any art-form, let alone hip hop.” It’s not all about the big bottoms, see.
Adelaide hip hop artist and Terra Firma member Simplex will drop his debut solo album Audio Biography on February 18 through Obese Records. Featuring a diverse array of guests, including renowned Australian hip hop artist Delta, South Africa’s Ranto Bokgo and Candice Monique, Audio Biography is purportedly a very personal affair, covering the issues of identity, relationships and careers. The press release offers rather poignantly, “Simplex laces in the beauty of maintaining a fighting stance in a world that controls us, and each of his tracks boasts a subtle rebellious streak that shows his own powerful approach to life.”
“Oh in the morning / I stumble / my way towards / the mirror and my makeup / it’s light out /and I now face just what I’m made of” – MENOMENA 12 :: BRAG :: 397 : 31:01:11
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free stuff
dance music news welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... With Chris Honnery
FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM
five things WITH
ROBBIE FROM THE DYNO MICS Growing Up I grew up on a hobby farm near Orange. 1. At home we listened to music a lot; I started
The Music You Make There are definitely a few different musical 4. places we are coming from, so I guess we just
playing instruments when I was six and basically haven’t stopped. In my teens we spent some time living in Japan. Not being able to understand the language, the TV was useless and my appreciation for music really took hold. It was pretty much always going to be music from then on, I think.
put it all together, find what feels good and run with it from there… All in all, we all really love hip hop and do lots of groove/soul/hip hop playing around town. Our single ‘Look Good Ft. Jack Carty’ adds Jack’s folk sensibilities to the mix. We recorded it at Gig Piglet Studios; Stefan Johnson did an absolutely amazing job as producer and engineer. He brought his own creativity to the table, but never let it get in the way of what we were going for. It was really fluid and easy. Live, we’re all about fat, tight grooves from the band, and amazing verses and showmanship from the Vuli and Bheki! I think it’s a bit of a new sound and a new vibe for Sydney.
Inspirations Too many to name! Robert Glasper, 2. Brad Mehldau, McCoy Tyner, Jay Dilla, The Roots… The list could go on and on! I think a lot of true inspiration really comes from things outside of music that you can express to yourself and communicate to others in a musical way. Your Crew The Dyno Mics is made up of Vuli and 3. Bheki Mkwanazi (MCs), Pat Harris (bass), Ben Panucci (guitar), Steve Lamante (drums) and myself on keys. It started when Vuli and I met at a party, I saw him freestyle, and after a few beers… “hey man, lets start a band!” Six months later we gradually got it together. Ben, Steve and I come from more of a jazz background, all studying together at Sydney’s Conservatorium, Pat has a lot of Latin playing under the belt with Watussi, and Vuli and Bheki are hip hop through and through with True Vibenation.
DE LA SOUL
2011 marks 20 years since the release of De La Soul’s landmark album De La Soul Is Dead, which featured cuts like ‘Keepin The Faith’ and ‘Pass The Plugs’. Fittingly, the pioneering troupe is touring Australia to coincide with this 20-year anniversary, and will play the Enmore Theatre on Thursday February 10. If last year’s soldout tour is any indication, you’d better not lag when it comes to procuring tickets for this one. Support slots have been secured by Obese Records’ Dialectrix, Prince Paul and Dizz1.
RICK WILHITE
Legendary Detroit artist Rick Wilhite will release his debut album, Analog Aquarium, this March. Wilhite has been throwing his weight around the city for decades, both as a solo producer and DJ, as part of Three Chairs with Theo Parrish, Marcellus Pittman and Kenny Dixon Jr (aka Moodymann), and as owner of the Vibes New & Rare Music record store. Analog Aquarium, however, marks his first ever album, collecting nine new Wilhite productions plus the 2005 track ‘Cosmic Jungle’ from the In the Dark (The Soul of Detroit) compilation. Parrish, Pittman and Osunlade make appearances on the album, which will be released on March 21 through Chicago label Still Music.
HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR NYC’s premiere bastion of the art of classic house and disco, Andy Butler’s Hercules
Music, Right Here, Right Now x The scene in Sydney is really getting so 5. much better. New venues like Tone and 505 are really keeping the scene healthy, not to mention the recent changes in liquor and entertainment licensing. The music and the musicians are there - we’ve just got to keep getting everyone inspired and creating and supporting live and recorded music! What: ‘Look Good’ single launch With: Jack Carty, Gabriel Clouston Where: Tone, Surry Hills When: Thursday February 3
FERRY CORSTEN
He may sound like the protagonist of a John Hughes film, but Ferry Corsten is actually one of Holland’s prime international exports, along with windmills and Gouda. Ferry developed an insatiable lust for dance music at the tender age of nine, kicking off what was to become an illustrious DJ career when he was only 16. From washing cars to save up for a new keyboard, to performing in front of thousands in countries around the world, Corsten’s distinctive blend of house, trance, electro and hardstyle has become synonymous with the who’s who of the dance universe. We have two double passes to give away to his performance at Home The Venue on February 4; to get your hands on one, tell us what his album title L.E.F. stands for.
& Love Affair outfit, is set to drop its second full-length offering, an 11-song record called Blue Songs, on January 31 via Moshi Moshi. Butler explained to The Guardian that “the titular theme refers to the ‘blue period’ of his adolescence, before music made him realise there were other people just like him out there.” Though Antony Hegarty and Nomi, who lent their considerable vocal talents to Hercules’ 2008 self-titled debut, are both absent this time around, core member Kim Ann Foxman returns, joined by live staple Shaun Wright, while Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke sings on ‘Step Up’, before the album closes with a cover of the Pet Shop Boys’ classic ‘It’s Alright’.
Potbelleez
PLATFORM HIP HOP FESTIVAL
Now in its fourth year, the Platform hip hop festival is headed to CarriageWorks for a month-long extravaganza in March. The focus will stretch beyond music to traverse dance, street art, photography, film and hip hop theatre, punctuated by performances from ‘serious playas’ from the international hip-hop stage. Rahzel (AKA the Godfather of Noyze), Supernatural and DJ JS-1 will unite for a one-off performance as The Magnificents on Saturday April 2, while you can also catch Korea’s B*Boy Blond, Poe 1 from the US and Germany ‘s B*Boy Storm as part of the event. Full program details are available at www. platformhiphop.com.au.
DANCE AID AUSTRALIA
On Wednesday February 9, Home The Venue will host Sydney’s leg of the Dance Aid benefit tour, with100% of Home’s profits – from door and bar – going directly to the victims of the Queensland floods. The lineup includes the likes of Act Yo Age, Anna Lunoe, The Aston Shuffle, Carl Kennedy, Dangerous Dan, Kobra Kai, The Potbelleez and Sam La More, among others. Tickets are $30, available online.
PLUS 1
Weekly tech bash Plus 1 welcomes international headliner Namito to The Civic Underground this Friday February 4. Dear Namito has remixed the likes of Client and Icelandic outfit GusGus; he first made a mark on the production front with his cut ‘City of Gods’ on Great Stuff. In recent times Namito unveiled his maiden LP, Eleven, on Martin Eyerer’s Kling Klong label, describing the album (in its presser) as a “deep excursion of thoughtfulness” – slightly abstract, no? The support cast for this is top drawer, with Matt Rowan making a welcome return to the decks along with Robbie Lowe and Mesan.
NAUM GABO ROBOPOP
Ferry Corsten
Playing pop hits from the 80s/90s/00s, pop hop and “alterna-retro-classixx” (sic), Robopop rolls on this Saturday February 5 at The Supper Club, located upstairs at 134 Oxford St. This weekend’s lineup includes newcomers Rigs & Rads and Bitty v Fran Damme alongside regulars Fantomatique, Kill The Landlord and T-Rompf. As it’s apparently International Nutella Day, the promoters are offering free Nutella treats to those who get there early - and you can also procure half-price entry before 11pm by emailing robopopclub@gmail.com
Scottish duo Naum Gabo, comprised of James Savage and JG Wilkes (one half of Optimo), are preparing to release a new 12”, Songs From A Great City, on Optimo Music. As Naum Gabo, the pair have remixed Hot Chip, Franz Ferdinand and Simian Mobile Disco, and this forthcoming two-track EP pays homage to their home city of Glasgow by reinterpreting classic songs by two Scottish acts. The first is a dancefloor-aimed update of
Simple Minds‘ 1981 epic ‘Theme For Great Cities’. As Optimo put it, it’s “an electro-trancefunk classic, pre-dating the rave scene by about 10 years”, and it’s long been a favoured weapon in the arsenals of proto-techno, Balearic and disco DJs. On the B-side, they tackle Fingerprintz’ 1979 track ‘Wet Job’, refashioning it as “a dark disco futuristic grooveride into doom”.
ADULT DISCO
On Saturday 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.
“Wading through this mess together / Hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder / Some may stumble, some may fall behind” – MENOMENA 14 :: BRAG :: 397 : 31:01:11
LIVE MUSIC... TS... E K R MA R MME SU BALMY NIGHTS... BEFORE/AFTER by Roland Schimmelpfennig Translated from the German by Dr Marlene J Norst 4 - 19 February 2011 Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company All Tickets $25 (incl. a free Little Creatures beer!)* Bookings (02) 9250 1777 or nextstage2011.com.au *transaction fees may apply, free beer over 18s only
Director Cristabel Sved Designer Justin Nardella Lighting & Audio Visual Designer Verity Hampson Composer/Sound Designer Max Lyandvert Choreographer Johanna Puglisi With Annie Byron, Justin Stewart Cotta, Zindzi Okenyo, Johanna Puglisi, Richard Pyros, Graeme Rhodes, Sophie Ross, Tahki Saul
FEBRUARY’S LIVE MUSIC... Fri 4 Feb Rescue Ships – 6pm and 6.45pm Tales in Space – 8pm and 8.45pm
Fri 11 Feb Justine Wahlin – 6pm and 6.45pm Bobby Virtue – 8pm and 8.45pm
Fri 18 Feb Ngaratya – 6pm and 6.45pm Ngaiire – 8pm and 8.45pm
Fri 25 Feb Belles will Ring – 6pm and 6.45pm The Lovetones – 8pm and 8.45pm
MAJOR SPONSOR
BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 15
The Music Network
themusicnetwork.com
Industry Music News with Christie Eliezer
RECORD ENTRIES FOR APRA’S PDAS
A record 2500 entries were made to APRA’s Professional Development Awards this year. Whittled down to 250 songwriters and composers, you can find them posted at apra-amcos.com.au - names include Andy Bull, CW Stoneking, Jackie Barnes, Leah Flanagan, 8 Ball Aitken, Matt Corby, Daniel Lee Kendall, Tristan Ludowyk, Eva Popov, Jessica Paige and Anthony Snape. These will be hacked down to eight finalists, due to be announced on March 14. There are six categories in all: popular contemporary (three awards), country, jazz, classical, film & television, and indigenous. Each winner gets a $25,000 package, including $12,000 cash and an Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch, with Logic Studio from APRA|AMCOS, a full day of studio time (including an engineer) at Studios 301, a distribution deal and more.
HAVILAH AT CARRIAGEWORKS
Lisa Havilah takes over as CEO of arts and culture hub CarriageWorks in February. She was most recently director of the Campbelltown Arts Centre, and other stints have included director roles at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and Wollongong’s Project Contemporary Art Space. She currently sits on the Arts NSW Strategic Industry Panel. She replaces Sue Hunt, who increased audience numbers from 30,000 to 190,000 per annum over three and a half years.
P!NK ACHIEVES NEW AUSSIE CHART FEAT…
P!nk’s Greatest Hits… So Far last week notched up its tenth week at the top of the ARIA chart. Chart historian Gavin Ryan points out that it now becomes the equal-third longest running GH/Best of collection to reign at #1. It also became the longest running No.1 album of the decade, beating Eminem’s nine weeks last year. (Susan Boyle spent eleven weeks there, but five of those were in 2009 - last decade). The P!nk album has stayed at #1 for
Life lines Engaged: former Spice Girls member Emma Bunton and partner of 12 years, Jade Jones - the former singer of the band Damaged. He proposed on her 35th birthday. She is expecting their second child. Engaged: Bliss N Eso MC Max McKinnon proposed to his startled girlfriend Megan Gander midway through their Sydney BDO set, before 35,000 people. The real ring didn’t arrive in time, so they used one owned by a late friend, which is worn by band DJ Izm. Married: American R&B singer Monica admits she secretly wed L.A. Laker Shannon Brown last November. Recovered: Former Divinyls singer Chrissy Amphlett announced via Facebook that she is clear of breast cancer. She was treated in her home base of New York after being diagnosed last October. In Court: Bob Marley’s family won a case against a Nevada company which made and sold clothes featuring his image. They were initially given $300,000 damages, with further damages to be determined. In Court: Michael Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter. Arrested: Ice-T’s son Tracy “Little Ice” Marrow Jr., 19, when he stepped outside a strip club to have a piss. Died: Steve Kurtz, 48, who launched and managed the early career of Christina Aguilera - no cause has been offered to the press.
THINGS WE HEAR * It wasn’t just Jon Stevens who missed his Jetstar flight from Perth to Brisbane last week - although he was the only one to be forcibly helped out by two cops, when an air attendant over-reacted to his changing seats. Stevens’ band, manager and road crew were also forced off the plane, and the aircraft was delayed for 40 minutes while all their baggage was offloaded. Jetstar and Qantas put a 24-hour ban on Stevens, and it was a scramble to get everyone on a later Virgin flight. They arrived in Brisbane and went straight from the airport to the fundraising show. Luckily, Stevens wasn’t thrown out of that one! * Has Village Roadshow’s plans to sell its 52.5% stake in Austereo hit a puddle? The Australian Financial Review claims that potential buyers are not impressed with the $400-$500 million pricetag, predicting that Austereo’s revenue and earnings will decline this year. * George Michael’s people are claiming that
the appearance of his profile (plus pic) on gay social network Scruff is the work of a hoaxer. * Fresh from Nas’ squabbles with the US tax office over spousal payment and back taxes, he now owes $6.46 million over four properties that he owns. * At the Sydney BDO, Iggy Pop caused a security scare when he invited people to come up onstage, while Airbourne singer Joel O’Keefe ignored warnings not to repeat his stunt of climbing up the scaffolding and playing guitar while dangling with one arm and one leg (which he did at the Gold Coast show). Lupe Fiasco did not repeat his Gold Coast antics of smashing a laptop and kicking over gear on the DJ table, after technical problems marred his set. As temperatures hit 40-degrees C, between 50,000 to 60,000 cups of water were handed out. At the first show, ten fans were hospitalised, mostly for falls, one for a drug overdose. Four were busted for drugs, two for assaulting cops. * Florence Welch has strange nightmares. “I suffer hallucinations about demons sitting on my chest. When the demons come,
as many weeks as seven other releases — Elton John’s Caribou (1974), Rod Stewart’s A Night On The Town (1976), Split Enz’s True Colours (1980), John and Yoko’s Double Fantasy (1980), the 1992 Australian Cast Recording for Jesus Christ Superstar (1992), Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill (1996) and Recurring Dream — Best of Crowded House (1996).
small team, 1 - 3 days per week. Applicants with music industry experience and/or education will be viewed favourably – and a passion for music is essential! Send a cover letter and resume to interns@macsta.com by Monday February 7.
…WHILE GLEE OVERTAKES ELVIS
Quick Response project is available for those who have received an unexpected invitation to participate in a national or international arts and cultural event. Individuals can apply for up to $3,000, while groups and small- to mediumsized organisations can try for up to $10,000. Next deadline is February 7 – see arts.nsw. gov.au
The cast of Glee have smashed Elvis Presley’s 50-year-old chart success in the UK. With their latest single ‘Toxic’, they are the fastest act to score 20 Top 40 hits. They did it in 57 weeks. Elvis scored 20 hits in 88 weeks. The Glee posse have sold two million singles and one million albums in the UK.
NEWCASTLE NIGHTCLUB KNOCKED BACK AGAIN
The Casino, Liquor and Gaming Control Authority knocked back a liquor licence for a second time, for Kensington nightclub in Newcastle. Its owners Wadalba Properties applied for the liquor licence transfer from the former Jolly Roger nightspot to the Hunter Street Kensington site. But police, health executives and activists protested, citing antisocial violence in the area. Wadalba tried again, this time agreeing to 23 conditions, including a lockout and trial period - but, no dice. Wadalba said it was “extremely disappointed’’ by the latest decision, as it had spent “an enormous amount of time and money on the venue”. The company added it would ‘‘assess its legal options and pursue all avenues to ensure the venue would open’’.
HEAT ON HOTTEST 100
While the inevitable grumbles continue over who should have topped the Hottest 100 list, triple j have released some figures. 155,222 voters (up 18% on last year) from 152 countries registered 1.26 million votes. Listeners across Australia and internationally held 3,526 Hottest 100 parties to tune in to the countdown (3,527 if you include the Sydney BDO which streamed the results). Australian acts made up 50% of the list. 26 artists (14 Aussies, 12 overseas) gained more than one placing. Acts with the most ranked songs include three entries each for Birds Of Tokyo, Bliss N Eso, Gypsy & The Cat, Pendulum, Washington, Mark Ronson & The Business Intl., Gorillaz and Arcade Fire – and triple j was celebrating the huge amount of Unearthed acts who made the cut.
DIGITAL RADIO PROJECT MANAGER
The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia is looking for a project manager for its Digital Radio Project. The project sets up and operates digital radio transmission and content delivery infrastructure for metropolitan-wide community digital radio licensees in Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane. More info at www.cbaa.org.au.
INTERNSHIP AT MACSTA MUSIC
Sydney-based artist management company Macsta Music Management — roster includes Pete Murray (co-managed), Thirsty Merc, and Twelve Foot Ninja — is looking for a young, bright and enthusiastic intern to join its
DEADLINE FOR QUICK RESPONSE FUNDING
sometimes I get up in the middle of the night and go to local skips for old paintings. I hang them in my bedroom.” * Promoter Michael Chugg was in fine form at the second Rolling Stone awards. The tequila-fuelled weary warehouse crowd kept talking over the magazine’s editor in chief Matt Coyte, so Chugg grabbed the mic and screeched at the liggers, “Fucking assholes, listen up! They’re putting on some free piss, it’s a bit weak granted, but shut up!” Later on when he picked up his The Immortal lifetime achievement trophy, he couldn’t resist another “Shut the fuck up!” before he sailed off into the night. * The restaurant which took over the site immortalised on the cover of the Beastie Boys’ 1989 album Paul’s Boutique (99 Rivington Street in Manhattan, NY) caught on fire and burned down. * Zoe Badwi’s video shoot for ‘Accidents Happen’ almost caused an accident when a resident on the Potts Point street fired a catapult at the crew, and threw water over the director and his cameras.
FOALS, ARCADE FIRE EARN NME NOMINATIONS
Foals led the nominations for the NME Shockwave awards, with five mentions in the major categories. They are up for Best British Band, Best Live Band, Best Album for Total Life Forever, Best Track for ‘Spanish Sahara’ and Best Artwork. Arcade Fire (four nominations) are also up for Best Live Band, and duke it out with My Chemical Romance for Best International Band, Best Album and Best Video. Up for Best British Band are Arctic Monkeys, Biffy Clyro, Foals, Kasabian and Muse; up for Best International Band are Kings Of Leon, The Drums and Vampire Weekend. 500,000 people voted, and the awards are on February 23 at London’s Brixton Academy.
› THE MUSIC NETWORK TOP 40 The top 40 for 2010 TW TW TI HP ARTIST
TRACK
LABEL
1
3
4
1 WYNTER GORDON
DIRTY TALK
NEON/WMA
2
1
7
1 CHRIS BROWN
YEAH 3X
SME
3
7
8
3 BIRDS OF TOKYO
WILD AT HEART
CAP/EMI
4
2
6
2 DAVID GUETTA FT. RIHANNA
WHO’S THAT CHICK?
VIR/EMI
5
5
9
ATL/WMA
1 BRUNO MARS
GRENADE
6 10 6
6 ALEXIS JORDAN
HAPPINESS
SME
7 11 4
7 ENRIQUE IGLESIAS FT. LUDACRIS
TONIGHT (I’M LOVING YOU)
INT/UMA
8 13 4
8 KATY PERRY
E.T.
CAP/EMI
9
3 NEON TREES
ANIMAL
MERC/UMA
6
9
10 12 2 10 BRITNEY SPEARS
HOLD IT AGAINST ME
SME
11 4
8
4 GUY SEBASTIAN FT. EVE
WHO’S THAT GIRL?
SME
12
9
1 PINK
F**KIN’ PERFECT
SME
13 14 12 1 KATY PERRY
FIREWORK
CAP/EMI
14 8
SING
WB/WMA
15 22 3 15 USHER
MORE
SME
16 16 6
9
8
6 MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE
FADED WHITE DRESS
SME
17 21 7 17 MARTIN SOLVEIG FT. DRAGONETTE
9 AMY MEREDITH
HELLO
HUS/UMA
18 67 2 18 RIHANNA
S&M
DEF/UMA
19 15 13 1 PINK
RAISE YOUR GLASS
SME
20 27
TURN AROUND (5, 4, 3, 2, 1)
ATL/WMA
WHAT THE HELL
SME
STAY THE NIGHT
ATUK/WMA
23 19 12 3 KE$HA
WE R WHO WE R
SME
24 41 4 24 LINKIN PARK
BURNING IN THE SKIES
WB/WMA
25 35 4 25 KANYE WEST
ALL OF THE LIGHTS
DEF/UMA
7 20 FLO RIDA
21 20 3 20 AVRIL LAVIGNE 22
17
13 17 JAMES BLUNT
26 18 10 12 JESSICA MAUBOY FT. LUDACRIS
SATURDAY NIGHT
SME
27 42 4 27 AFROJACK FT. EVA SIMONS
TAKE OVER CONTROL
HUS/UMA
28 31 27 8 BIRDS OF TOKYO
PLANS
CAP/EMI
29 39 9 22 KINGS OF LEON
PYRO
SME
30 30 19 1 BRUNO MARS
JUST THE WAY YOU ARE
ATL/WMA
31 28 17 2 KINGS OF LEON
RADIOACTIVE
SME
32 26 16 14 TRAIN
SAVE ME, SAN FRANCISCO
SME
33 23 13 3 ENRIQUE IGLESIAS FT. NICOLE SCHERZINGER
HEARTBEAT
INT/UMA
34 54 2 34 FAR EAST MOVEMENT FT. RYAN TEDDER
ROCKETEER
INT/UMA
35 25 10 10 GOOD CHARLOTTE
SEX ON THE RADIO
CAP/EMI
36 38 15 30 SHORT STACK
PLANETS
SMR/UMA
37 48 24 1 TAIO CRUZ
DYNAMITE
ISL/UMA
38 33 15 23 LIFEHOUSE
ALL IN
GEF/UMA
39 29 10 9 THE BLACK EYED PEAS
THE TIME (THE DIRTY BIT)
INT/UMA
40 34 17 14 ADAM LAMBERT
FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT SME
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“I hope that this shaking will help us awaken / Separated by skin ‘til we let ourselves in” MENOMENA 16 :: BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11
GET TESTED PLAY SAFE
BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 17
Deerhunter D
eerhunter are a deceptively peculiar band. To most newcomers, the hype that surrounds them is baffling; on the surface they’re essentially just another rock outfit, and in 2011 there’s no shortage of those. Time spent with their records is wellrewarded, however. Behind the loose indiepsychedelic rock and ambient smatterings of the group’s aesthetic lies an acute and engaging restlessness stemming in part from the peculiar worldview of frontman Bradford Cox, a self-proclaimed non-sexual homosexual who suffers from Marfan syndrome, the genetic condition responsible for his gaunt appearance. But the actual source of the breathless chaos at the centre of Deerhunter’s songcraft goes deeper still than Cox’s outsider aphorisms.
Soon after that meeting, which took place in 2001, Moses joined the band, initially playing keys and electronics. The two other original members - Paul Haper (drums) and Dan Walton (bass) - were eventually supplanted by Colin Mee on guitar and Justin Bosworth on bass, with Archuleta switching to drums. Bosworth later died in a skateboarding accident, to be replaced with Josh Fauver, and Pundt joined the band in 2004, following the release of its eponymous debut record (unofficially titled Turn It Up, Faggot). Shortly after the release of second album Cryptograms, Mee also left, under sanctimonious circumstances. Calling Deerhunter’s internal dynamic ‘turbulent’ would be an understatement.
The band started simply enough, explains percussionist and songwriter Moses Archuleta - a chance meeting through tenuous connections in Atlanta’s indie scene. “We were all just floating around a similar group of people in Atlanta at the same time, and just met through that,” he says. “Bradford has known Lockett (Pundt; guitar/vocals) a long time; they went to school together. Josh had been in some other bands, I ended up meeting him through shows I had done as well... It happened over time. I was putting on house shows and stuff, and went to check out this house one time that Bradford happened to be hanging out at. I was waiting to meet one of the girls from the house, and we just struck up a conversation.”
Given the circumstances surrounding the conception of Cryptograms (besides Bosworth’s death and various personnel changes, the initial recordings were abandoned due to production issues arising from Cox’s deteriorating mental health) it comes as no surprise that Archuleta singles out the completion of that album as the greatest achievement for the band; a monument to its endurance. “The thing I’m most proud of would probably be Cryptograms. But that has a lot to do with context,” he explains. “That album was made under the most dire circumstances in regards to the band, and through a lot of adversity. It all kind of came together in a way that ended up paying off, but it didn’t seem like that for
“Cryptograms was made under the most dire circumstances, and through a lot of adversity. It all came together in a way that ended up paying off - but it didn’t seem like that for a long time.”
Inside The Outsiders By Luke Telford
a long time.” Cryptograms ended up being Deerhunter’s big break, but its importance to Archuleta has a much deeper resonance - one that he’s reticent about sharing. “The reasons for saying that might be obvious… But it definitely means something that it all came together finally, that it all worked out because of that album,” he says. As Deerhunter’s longest standing member (other than Cox), Archuleta has become somewhat philosophical about how conflicts are resolved in such an intense working situation. “Anything from arguing, to angry silence, to…” he trails off. “It just depends on the situation. We all know each other pretty well, and in the end we find a way to make things work.” As with most great rock bands, creative differences occasionally result in momentary fissures, necessitating some members to skirt around the artistic vision of others. “When you’re dealing with four people working with that kind of intensity, and in that kind of proximity, there’s bound to be some sort of [friction]… You can’t have all four people in the spotlight constantly, with everything working 100%,” he explains. “There has to be this working understanding or compromise within that relationship; for everyone to realise that in the end, it’s for the greater good.” It’s not always a matter of stepping out of the spotlight so someone else can step into it, he explains. “Sometimes the best-case scenario is when you realise that someone has actually done a good thing for your ideas, and helped take it in a direction that you wouldn’t have normally [taken it],” he says. “[But] sometimes people are understandably really defensive about that kind of thing.” In stark contrast to the bi-polar concoction of Cryptograms or the group’s dazzling follow-up Microcastle, their third album, 2010’s Halcyon Digest, feels breezier and less weighed down by internal or external tension. “It was put together and conceived a lot more loosely than we’ve done before,” explains Archuleta.
“We just experimented a lot more with things outside of our comfort zone of guitar, bass, drums, and treated electronics. It was definitely much less of a live album and more of a studio album. We used the studio a lot more than we ever have before.” What’s perhaps most striking about Halcyon Digest is how effortlessly coherent it seems, sounding as though the members could’ve made it in their sleep – an impression enforced by the band’s breathtakingly watertight live shows. But Archuleta dismisses this as illusion. “It’s definitely a lot of effort,” he insists. ”A track like ‘Desire Lines’ may not sound like it, but it’s a really hard song to record and play right. Sometimes it’s harder to be more ‘in the middle’, or casual, or effortless, than to just play real loud and hard, or soft and subdued... That song really sits in the middle. It’s long but it’s poppy; it doesn’t have this huge rock’n’roll rock band thing to it, it kind of glides along - and it’s tricky to do that. There’s a lot more work than it may sound like.” For a band that works so hard to sound so completely and effortlessly adroit, it’s interesting to learn there is no over-arching goal for Deerhunter. “There’s no grand scheme or plan for it. You have to take it one day at a time, and I suppose we’re doing that. We’re going to do our best to just exist within our boundaries or walls and continue to… I suppose do more or less like what we have been doing,” he says cryptically. “Whatever variations of it come about naturally.” What: Halcyon Digest is out now through Popfrenzy Where: Laneway Festival @ Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle When: Sunday February 6 Sideshow: Tuesday February 8 @ Metro Theatre
“Went outside for awhile / No / to decide / I won’t won’t slip I won’t fall I won’t change / No…” – PVT 18 :: BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11
Cut Copy Three For Three By Jonno Seidler
I
f you’ve ever wondered what the special ingredient is when crafting yet another ethereal, world-beating disco-pop of a Cut Copy album, guitarist Tim Hoey has the answer: slumming it. For their impending third record, Zonoscope, the Melbourne fourpiece decided to forgo all creature comforts and lock themselves in an abandoned warehouse… as you do. “We recorded the majority of it during winter where there was no heating, so we all gathered around this one bar heater to keep things warm before the next take,” Hoey recalls, laughing. “Band poverty is a beautiful thing because we’re all in it together… We’re really suffering for our art.” While they were freezing their collective nuts off, Cut Copy also managed to keep it ghetto and step out of their comfort zone, by playing instruments they weren’t entirely proficient with (“to see if we could get a different sound out of them”) and wearing suits that were two sizes too small (“so regardless of what we were doing, we never felt one hundred percent comfortable”). It’s not a stretch to imagine that Album Number Four will be laid down in a restaurant freezer or six feet underground - but hey, if that’s what it takes to make this kind of music, so be it.
Crawling out from the freezing hell-hole of their self-imposed exile, Cutters (as they are affectionately known to everyone except emos) seem keen to get in front of a proper crowd again, especially since their only audience during their year of recording were a bunch of factory workers who toiled downstairs and sang karaoke at lunchtime. “We would stop at noon and listen to these workers sing these Japanese pop songs, and we actually recorded them on a daily basis, just so we could archive this amazingly obscure happening,” laughs Hoey. “On the plus side, we now have our fourth record in the can, which is pretty much just them. We’ve got them phasing in and phasing out over some drums and it’s done,” he laughs. “That’s how easy it is to make a record these days!” What: Zonoscope is out on Friday February 4, through Modular Where: Laneway Festival @ Sydney College of the Arts (SCA), Rozelle When: Sunday February 6. No sideshows just yet – stay tuned!
Despite their lapse into squalor, Zonoscope still sounds definitively like a Cut Copy album. As with it’s predecessor, the mega-successful In Ghost Colours, all the tracks flow into one another, as the band attempt to hold onto the slowly dying artform of the album as an entity. “Yeah, it’s almost career suicide to put a 15 minute song [closer ‘Sun God’] on a record, especially since a lot of bands are putting their stuff online,” Hoey says. “But everyone moves from one thing to the next without really absorbing any of it, and we always want to create albums. We don’t like doing singles - in fact, we don’t even choose them ourselves.” This makes life pretty difficult for pirates trying to rip and upload Cut Copy music onto the Internet. “It’s pretty funny, because most of the tracks have at least a fifteen second flow-over from the last one,” he explains, “so it sounds really strange if you chop it up.”
“We recorded the majority of it during winter where there was no heating, so we all gathered around this one bar heater to keep things warm before the next take. Band poverty is a beautiful thing because we’re all in it together…. Evidently living up to their moniker by cutting, copying (and pasting) big ideas together, Cut Copy decided to expand their listeners’ minds as well as their own on Zonoscope, on which most songs clock in around the five minute mark. “It came through a lot of jamming and working loops,” Hoey says. “Because we weren’t in an expensive studio and we weren’t constantly watching the clock or worrying about how much money we were spending, it gave us a lot of freedom to try out our ideas. I love those records where I put it on for the first time and say, ‘I have no idea what I just heard, but I want to go back to the beginning and listen to it again’” Zonoscope has actually been done and dusted for over five months, which means its release this week is a big relief for the Cut Copy tramps, who can now go back to comfy clothes and central heating. “It’s good for people to finally hear it. It’s just the nature of the beast these days, I think there’s a certain time period needed to ‘set up’ a record – whatever the hell that means.” As Hoey surmises, the longer they have to wait, the better it is for publicists to say the album is ‘much anticipated’ or ‘three years in the making’ - so it seems to work for the best. The band will be premiering their new stage show at the festival too, which Hoey assures me does not involve the use of giant lasers (though he does reveal that he hopes it will be “a bit more ambitious than just a standard rock or dance Cut Copy show that we’ve done in the past.”) They’re bringing a percussionist and replicas of the analog synths that they used to record, and basically setting up a studio in a live setting. Evidently, Hoey has forgotten the size of an average Laneway stage - but so long as there’s no pyrotechnics or lasers, none of the beautiful Laneway-goers will get hurt.
WED 9 BEACH RD HOTEL, BONDI BEACH Free Entry
THURS 10 HARP HOTEL, WOLLONGONG + Step Panther $8.00 + BF (pre sales) $12.00 (door sales) www.oztix.com.au
FRI 11 OXFORD ART FACTORY, SYDNEY + Step Panther $15.00 + BF (pre sales) $18.00 (door sales) www.oxfordartfactory.com www.moshtix.com.au
SAT 12 MONA VALE HOTEL, MONA VALE + The Ivys + Feeding Edgar $12.00 + BF (pre sales) $15.00 (door sales) www.moshtix.com.au
SUN 13 BRASS MONKEY, CRONULLA + Step Panther $12.00 + BF (pre sales) / $15.00 (door sales) www.brassmonkey.com.au | www.oztix.com.au
BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 19
Warpaint Nobody’s Fool By Jonno Seidler
H
ot property before they’d released so much as a note in 2009, Los Angeles quartet Warpaint are blistering now. Having traded in movie star drummer Shannyn Sossamon for Sydney-born legend Stella Mozgawa, the experimental, all-female rock group are in top form after last year’s critically acclaimed debut, The Fool. More My Bloody Valentine than The Donnas, the band are set to cement their cult status with their first tour down under, as a big ticket item on the Laneway lineup. And guitarist/vocalist/everywoman Theresa Wayman is more than a little excited. “Yeah, it’s your summer, right? All I know is that we’re part of this travelling festival with all of these amazing bands - it’s going to be incredible.” There was huge buzz around Warpaint after the release of their first EP, the John Fruscianteproduced Exquisite Corpse. The most blogged about artist according to blog-aggregator Hype Machine, the band’s label used the site to stream the entire debut upon its release, which set off a hectic cycle of touring that sent the band to Europe twice in 2010. “I feel like I understand what’s happening over there better than I do in the States,” laughs Wayman. “I mean, it’s so compact; when you’re in Germany, the place is so small and you just get it.” Theresa has the highly enviable position of being able to tick off international cities, and describing their reaction
to the band... “Yeah, for some reason Paris is a little stiff. I think I find that in bigger, more cosmopolitan locations, people have to look like they’re not interested, but then afterwards they tell everyone how much they liked it!” By the time they hit Australia, Warpaint will have semi-secretly recorded a new track, a contender for the final Twilight soundtrack. Though she seems a little embarrassed to be admitting it, Wayman is clearly aware of how many artists’ fortunes have changed significantly as a result of the vampire franchise. “We’ve spoken to them, and they like what we do so… fingers crossed!” Warpaint’s music certainly wouldn’t be out of place on a Twilight release; super-trippy, sometimes-menacing but often just dreamy songs, which feature lots of intricate guitar, effected vocals and some very serious rhythm section work. “We don’t have a bass player who just plays two notes,” Wayman explains. “Jenny [Lee Lindberg]’s lines are definitely very limber.” All of this compounds to make Warpaint’s live performances slightly more difficult than the usual indie-pop fair, something Theresa readily acknowledges. “It’s taken us a while to figure out our tone, particularly the way we can navigate our volume on stage when we add vocals – because we don’t like to play quiet!” she
says. “We really have a lot going on in our songs which is easier to place when you’re recording, but on stage that’s just not the case. We’ve had to do a lot of experimenting in regards to that, for sure.” Part of this experimentation harks back to their work with Chili Peppers’ Frusciante on Exquisite Corpse, who applied the treatment to the girls’ vocals that has almost become a Warpaint trademark. “Yeah, he just did it and we were like ‘Ok, cool!’” says Wayman. “You don’t hear it as intensely on this record - we mostly used reverb and did a bit of tweaking at the end. We don’t really want to get ourselves into a position where we can’t do it live.”
On finding out her interview is coming from Sydney, Theresa apologises profusely for not being able to get Mozgawa, the Sydney-born drummer, on the phone. “She’s got, like, eight interviews in an hour, all from Australia!” laughs Wayman. “Me, I don’t mind doing interviews. You know, it’s better than people not giving a shit about the music, so I can’t really complain.” What: The Fool is out now on Remote Control Where: Laneway Festival 2011 @ Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle When: Sunday February 6 Sideshow: Tuesday February 8 @ Oxford Art Factory with Richard In Your Mind
The Antlers On The Road To Recovery By Dee Jefferson
L
ike their Australian tour partners and fellow Brooklynites Bear in Heaven, The Antlers started as a solo project – in this case by New York native Peter Silberman. He self-released his debut album in 2006, did a very low-key indie release of the second, and had written the third by the time he realised he needed other band members. That third album, Hospice, was originally self-released in 2008. It was only in 2009 that French Kiss picked it up, and the album was re-recorded and released in its currently-available, polished form: an epic, post-rock saga of love, loss and despair. Hospice opens with ‘Prologue’; a fuzzy miasma of distortion, bent sound and a slowly descending minor staircase, backgrounded by chorals that might be howling winds - a single piano chord slowly but insistently taps out a beat against the darkness, and Pete Silberman’s vocals drift upwards to ‘Kettering’: Walking in that room when you had tubes in your arms, those singing morphine alarms out of tune kept you sleeping and even, and I didn’t believe them when they called you a hurricane thunderclap… On a now-defunct online album diary from 2008, Silberman defines “hospice” as ‘a program of medical and emotional care for the terminally ill’. The album is a quietly devastating journey through one man’s relationship with a dying partner in their last days; an album that leaves you wondering what the fuck exactly happened to Pete Silberman. The singer-songwriter was initially extremely cagey, but by 2010 he’d revealed that Hospice was based simultaneously on an unhealthy and traumatic relationship, an extended period spent in and around hospitals, the story of real life poet and depressive Sylvia Plath and on Leonard Michaels’ semi-autobiographical chronicle, Sylvia.
The more I researched, the more convinced I became that The Antlers creative output so far has been driven by Silberman; more specifically, by an extended period of emotional trauma and soul-searching, which he began with the folk-centric Uprooted, grappled with in the space-pop of In the Attic of the Universe, and did a full-blown, almost literary evaluation of in Hospice. It is with breathless anticipation, therefore, that I prepare to interview the singer-guitarist ahead of the band’s first Australian tour; and it is with some disappointment that I find myself suddenly and unexpectedly on the phone with drummer Michael Lerner. But perhaps it is appropriate; while Hospice is the break-out record for the band and the foundation of their dedicated fan-base, talking to Lerner is a reminder that The Antlers is no longer a one-man singer-songwriter project. The band is still in early days; we have no idea what will happen next, but the decisions The Antlers face, musically or otherwise, will be group ones. In fact when Lerner calls me he’s in the studio, where the band is recording their new album. “Hospice really came from a personal place, as far as Peter’s writing is concerned, and then Darby (Cicci, keys) and I came in to flesh out ideas. [For the next record], we’re coming from a much more democratic place, and everyone’s contributing ideas from the beginning. That’s how a lot of the songs are being created - just from us getting in a room together and playing,” he explains. “And with this [record] I think the music is more a focal point than the story, the way that Hospice was.” Coming off almost 18 months of touring on the back of Hospice, the trio are likely to debut some of their new music during their Australian tour – although when we speak it is November, and Lerner is still tentative. The Antlers are still very much in the throes of creating the new record; “We’re ready to play new songs, though, for sure,” he says. Where: Laneway Festival @ Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle When: Sunday February 6 Sideshow: Thursday February 10 @ The Annandale Hotel with Bear In Heaven
PVT
Pressure, Volume, Temperature By Amelia Schmidt
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aurence Pike, the mindblowingly talented drummer from PVT, has just been exercising. “I’m very sweaty,” he confirms. Watching the way that Pike man the skins, drumming seems the best workout he could do – but it’s not enough these days. “You do it every night on tour and it kind of results in a pretty decent workout, yeah,” he agrees, “but when I come home I don’t want to let myself go too much.” Perhaps drummers end up with one shoulder bigger than the other, like tennis players? Pike laughs at the thought. “I think maybe because I’m right handed my right arm’s a little bit bigger, but I’ve never measured it. I’m not that sort of guy, you know?” Abandoning this lifestyle-mag angle, I ask Pike what’s happening with PVT at the moment. After a good year of third-album hype and touring, it seems that, outside of a couple of festival spots, all’s quiet on the PVT front. “We’re all in Sydney at the moment,” Pike tells me. For a band that’s been pretty much all over the world recently, after recording their album across continents, it’s a fairly rare opportunity for some downtime in their hometown. “We’ve got a couple of shows coming up, and we’re having some nice relaxing time at the beach,” he says. But they’re not exactly twiddling their thumbs. “We’re about to get into doing some more work… Our vision is to make another record this year.” This seems ambitious for a band still coming to grips with performing their last release, Church With No Magic – the first album full of vocals, courtesy of Laurence’s brother Richard. “45-50 shows since [we started playing the album in Australia], the songs are a lot more comfortable, and we’re a lot more confident with it,” Pike says. “I feel like the live show’s taking on a different dimension.” Playing the album overseas has been an interesting adventure for the band, too. Pulling consistently huge crowds in Australia, I’m curious how the band is received elsewhere. “It’s hard to tell – it’s a weird time in the world, musically,” Pike muses. “There’s just so much music and
so many opinions. The internet’s a funny beast and it’s hard to really gauge what anything really means anymore. I feel more and more inclined to disconnect myself form the reception, and just think about the output.” But surely now would be the perfect time for PVT’s music to be reaching the wider world, with a renewed global interest in electronic music, and electronics in rock music - as anyone could tell from the Laneway lineup. “There’s definitely more openness now; people have access to a lot more things, and they’re hearing a lot more music that they may not have been exposed to before,” Pike agrees, “so I think the idea of being genre-specific is kind of starting to disappear. In that regard, I think audiences are more willing to accept the idea of someone on stage with a computer in a rock band. That’s quite positive.” The world is warming to PVT’s sound, but there’s still a sore point for Pike – the name change debacle of 2010, when the vowels were wrenched from their former title ‘Pivot’ by an American band who claimed the rights. “[I feel] much the same as how I felt about it last year, really: still pretty annoyed,” Pike grumbles. “It’s funny though; we’re going to be in the US and I think we’re going to be playing the town that those guys come from. I think Dave [Miller] really wants to hook up with them - but I don’t think that’s such a good idea...” Perhaps they could mend some bridges and play together as a supergroup? “Yeah, like, if we wanted to wear cargo pants and sound like Tool,” Pike quips sarcastically. “Chinstrap goatees. I might have to change my name to ‘Champ’.” Where: Laneway Festival 2011 @ Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle When: Sunday February 6 Sideshows: Wednesday February 2 @ Beach Road Hotel with Zeahorse
“Never in my whole life / nor in fantasy / would I end up here / dancing with the enemy” – PVT 20 :: BRAG :: 387 :: 31:01:11
Menomena Positive Tension By Steph Harmon n January 7 of this year, founding member Brent Knopf quit Menomena. The announcement was made a month after I spoke to frontman Danny Seim, and it came as no surprise; Danny formed Menomena in 2000 with Knopf and Justin Harris, and he told me that the latest album Mines almost killed them.
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kind of look back on the process, and that sort of tension has always been there. I think we’re just really strong-willed, opinionated people, especially when it comes to something as dear to our hearts as music,” he reasons. “It’s always going to be there. We’re just going to have to learn how to deal with it without killing each other.”
“I don’t want to be too negative, but yeah - it was pretty rough,” Danny says, from his backyard in Portland. In fact the band have been surprisingly open with the press: in order to stay together, they had to spend most of their time apart. “[Publicity] is always kind of hard,” Danny explains. “It’s usually someone else writing the bio, talking about how great the album is like, They’re approaching new sonic radio hit territory with this, their latest album... This time we thought, let’s just be honest. It sucked. It was pretty terrible most of the time. But it’s done now, and we’re proud.”
Either that, or someone will quit the band... When I spoke to Danny, he confirmed they’d be bringing Joe Haege to Australia, a fourth member to help flesh out the live show. (“We kind of had to decide between either that or playing to pre-recorded tracks,” he explains, “[which] seems kind of strange, almost like we’re lip syncing or faking something.”) But with the recent departure of Knopf (the company line is that it was amiable; he wants to focus on his solo project, Ramona Falls), they’ll bring another newbie, Paul Alcott. Fingers crossed the new foursome will all get along.
The music of Menomena is frantic, frenetic and mind-bogglingly complex, constantly interrupting itself with new ideas as it builds around an electrifying tension. It’s exciting, almost addictive, and their latest album Mines made year-end lists the world over. When I tell Danny it was in my top five, he’s genuinely grateful. “Huh,” he sighs. “Thanks - that’s actually really good to hear. It just seems like it took so long to make.”
Where: Laneway Festival @ SCA, Rozelle When: Sunday February 6 Sideshow: Monday February 7 @ The Factory Theatre, with Jinja Safari
Mines certainly did take a while... Friend And Foe, its predecessor, came out in January 2007; and before that was 2003’s I Am The Fun Blame Monster, an anagram of what it was - The First Menomena Album. “I guess all of the albums have taken a long time for us. We’ve been together for ten years this month, and just having three or four records done in that time…” Danny trails off, sounding almost disappointed with himself. “It’s just hard. All three of us are really particular, we all know exactly what we want - and it’s really democratic, all three of us have the same pull,” he explains. “So if any one of us tries to say, ‘okay, that song is finished’ – and this has happened in the past – and the other two resist and say ‘no, it can still be worked on’, it just drags out longer and longer,” he says. He sounds tired.
“We’re really strongwilled, opinionated people. The tension’s always going to be there. We’re just going to have to learn how to deal with it without killing each other.” It makes sense that the same tension which characterises the band’s music would be born from personality clashes within the group themselves. Partly to keep the fisticuffs to a minimum, Knopf designed ‘Deeler’, a digital loop recorder that would allow members to file each musical idea to a shared database. They could keep track of each segment of music over the years to play around with in their own time and, more importantly, in their own space. As well as letting Menomena work remotely from each other, Deeler makes their songwriting process completely egalitarian. The program also makes each song completely accretive, which goes some way to explaining the music itself: multitudes of independent layers that alternately nestle sweetly together, or violently bounce off each other. “[Without Deeler], there would probably be fewer ideas on any given song,” Knopf has previously said. “I also suspect that we’d never release any music, because we’d always be arguing.” Although working on each song cumulatively helped the trio stay together, it also created its own problems. Imagine spending a year developing something - let’s say, the perfect sandwich. Labouring over each ingredient, each condiment, each seed in each slice of bread, until it reaches perfection. You send it along to the next person to be improved, completed – and then you receive it back, chewed up and spat out... No wonder they fight a lot. “Yeah yeah yeah!” exclaims Danny. “Exactly! [We] work for like a year on one particular song or solo, and then have to have the trust to just let it go, and allow someone else to piss all over our canvas. I mean, that happened a lot,” he emphasises. “You just have to accept the fact that when all is said and done, it’s always going to come back as the sum of the parts rather than one person’s solo project.” Actually, these notions of trust and ownership lend a whole new reading to the album title: Mines. “With every album it seems like it’s so fresh in your mind, that it’s like, ‘oh this struggle is ten times worse than it was last time, we hate each other so much more now’,” Danny continues. “But we BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 21
Toro Y Moi
The Swiss
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Nothing Cheesy By RK
Getting Personal By Bridie Connellan
he Swiss have been together for more than ten years now, but it was only when Modular asked to give them a hand at the turn of the decade that they started really taking themselves seriously. “We were into different stuff,” says bassist Sid ‘Sidwho?’ Sidhu, of his Adelaide trio, “and we were still evolving as people.” Suddenly, with the attention of the boutique label, the lads were looking at things very differently, and whittling their disparate sounds into their own cool disco vibe.
t makes sense to be talking to Chaz Bundick in a space/time continuum. As a musical multitasker, graduate graphic designer, curator of a beautiful little blog Poor & Lonely, and general life-enthusiast, the round-glassestoting South Carolinian is sitting pretty in my yesterday, as he softly articulates down the line how incredible it is to speak to the future. Sure is grand to find someone equally as fascinated with world time. As the sole member of electronic outfit Toro Y Moi, every detail within Bundick’s approach to music, photography, design, and graphics sighs of youthful splendour, blades of tufty Buffalo grass, and loved-up fishing trips, with his blissful intuition for both sound and visuals. Alongside fellow experimentals Neon Indian, Washed Out, Memory Tapes and the inimitable Panda Bear, Bundick fronted the glo-fi summer of 2009, aka ‘chillwave’; a synthy brand of wistful electronic shoegaze-pop awash in samples and muted, self-harmonised vocals. Pretty, catchy, blissed-out tracks, described somewhat critically by American rock journo John Pareles as “recession-era music: low-budget and danceable.” But in labelling the sound of Toro Y Moi as something akin to “geek daydreams,” the only thing Pareles proved was his own age. As in, old. There, I said it. In the wake of the infectious debut LP Causers Of This, Bundick’s follow-up Underneath the Pine, released this month, is understandably copping a large warning from the hype police – but the 24-year-old assures me that sophomore pressure is actually an underrated muse. With ‘actual’ instruments sitting alongside the more characteristic electronics of TyM’s debut, Bundick says the second round is all about keeping it real. “[Underneath] has got more of a personal feel to it, for me. I was able to give a little more of myself to this because it’s not just through a computer,” he says. He found pleasure in separating the writing from the recording from the post-production, too. “It was almost a therapeutic way of keeping my conscience in check, by crafting a song.” Progressing swiftly past the one-trick stigma, and empowered by the creative control afforded by Carpark Records, the Columbian local took the time to think his second musical child through, drawing stimulation for Underneath the Pine from cinematic streams. “I was working on a few different projects, so I was thinking about the new album for a while,” he says, citing the work of Italian composer Piero Umiliani as a rousing influence. “It took me a while to discover some of the composers and film scores I became interested in, but I was really dreaming of that sound.”
Inspired by niche compilers like Madlib, Flying Lotus and J Dilla, Bundick’s ability to collect electronic samples is a skill well beyond his measly 24 years, as he humbly explains his love of finding that killer loop. But with his debut release emerging as something of a fusion between man and laptop, Bundick says the second album needed some real inspiration, and found as much respect for sampling as for song. “When we were making Causes, we were already interested in sampling [non-electronic music] - especially film scores, and disco and bass-funk kind of stuff. So I wanted to write that stuff organically [this time].” ‘Process’ is a word well-loved within this multitasker’s pocket of projects, the latest being his dance side-project Les Sins; a 12-inch Lina is spinning furiously already. But while supporters might aptly attribute this kind of commitment to skill and musical prowess, Bundick modestly gives kudos to technology. “Musicians harbour a lot of recording equipment at home now, as it’s becoming a sort of affordable hobby,” he says – and indeed, his blog cites music as his ‘Hobby’. “[As a homeproducer] I never really expected any of this to happen the way it did,” he admits. “It just snowballed.” What: Underneath the Pine is out February 23, through Mistletone With: De La Soul, Tricky, Caribou, Four Tet, Kool & The Gang, Roy Ayers and more Where: Playground Weekender @ Wisemans Ferry When: February 17-20 Sideshow: February 23 @ GOODGOD Small Club with Bon Chat, Bon Rat
laughs. “Tony [Mitolo, drums] slept in the studio for days on end to finalise one of the records; by the end of it he was going crazy, but the setup we had in there was amazing. We set up the vocal booth a certain way, and everything was geared up just right - it was cool.” As The Swiss prepare to take the stage of Adult Disco with their vintage gear in tow (Sid tells me they’ll be carrying “as much good stuff with them as possible”), the fans can prepare for an epic, energetic show. “There’s a really nice selection of gear on stage with us now,” he promises, “the show is getting better and better.”
That was all a little while ago now, so it’s no surprise that their style, sound and stage presence has evolved considerably since. But the boys are still keen, still elegant and still on top of their game - and if their producer Donnie Sloan (of Sneaky Sound fame) has his way, the lads are about to have a killer year. “I have to say, we had a pretty massive year last year. We did two European tours and also a U.S tour; it’s been a pretty hectic experience all round.” The Swiss’ Bubble Bath and Movement EPs have kept the fans sated as the band spends a little more time in the studio. “Pre-production for the next record is keeping us busy at the moment, and we’re kind of sitting here gearing up for the next season, which basically starts now!” Sid enthuses. “So I hope 2011 is as good - is better - than the last.” The topic of the type of music made by The Swiss is an interesting one for Sid, who tells me that they’re carving out their sound with an instrumental vibe. “We’re all capable of writing good tunes, so we’re trying to find the fine line between a smash and a dance floor hit,” he says. “I would say our music is cosmic, but rooted in the New York and Philadelphia sound from the 70s and 80s. And having Donnie as the producer is great, because it gives it all an amazing wrapping. It’s a fine blend; super-modern pop meets classic disco.” For the next record, they’re hoping to do things they’ve never done before, using all the skills that Donnie will be bringing to the table. “It’s like this avant-garde recording process and for us, we reckon the new stuff we’re doing is completely slammin’!” Adding to the re-invigoration of the team, the guys have their own studio now, allowing them to twiddle knobs in their own time. “We’re kind of pigs when it comes to that sort of thing,” Sid
With: Flight Facilities, Mitzi, Future Classic DJs, Simon Caldwell and more Where: Adult Disco @ The Civic When: Saturday February 5
Veara
Leave Them All Behind By Birdie
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If all goes to plan, Harrell claims Veara just might team up with McKinnon and Wade on the band’s next offering. It’s more about friendship, as Harrell points out, rather than a working partnership. “We’ve known A Day To Remember for a long time,” she explains. “When Jeremy and Andrew came to us with an offer to do the album for us, we were pretty speechless because it was kind of a dream come true. We were like, ‘fuck yeah!’, because we were friends with them and they’d always helped us out - and that’s the perfect combination to make a good record.
here’s only so much condescending crap you can take from small-minded folk before you decide to show them what you’re made of. And that’s exactly waht Brittany Harrell’s band Veara did with the album What We Left Behind – a big ‘fuck you’ to the Debbie-downers of her hometown of Augusta, Georgia. “Everything on this record has to do with what we were going through as a band over the course of the last few years,” reflects Harrell. “We hit some pretty bad roads on the way to here - we were going through so much shit on so many different levels, personally and band-wise. We lost some members along the way, people couldn’t make up their mind whether they were coming or going. And that was frustrating enough. “At the same time though, we pretty much had everybody saying ‘you can’t do this’ or ‘you’ll never get out of here’, which was a major bringdown. Probably the worst was having people from the town coming up to us and being smartasses, asking things like, ‘how’s your little band doing?’ So we took all that shit and we put it into our record. This is a ‘fuck you’ to all of them.” Produced by A Day To Remember frontman Jeremy McKinnon and engineered by Andrew Wade, What We Left Behind is a little bit New Found Glory and a little bit Blink 182, which made Veara one of the most exciting pop-punk newcomers of 2010. In 2011, however, it’s time to take it to a whole new level. “We’ve got so many plans for this band, and we’ve got some good
people behind us to help make it happen. At this stage, we really feel that we’re going to prove a lot of people wrong, especially those who tried to bring us down back at home.
some great new ideas for another album,” Harrell reveals. “We want to take all the good things we’ve done on What We Left Behind, and take it all a step further.
“Right now we feel like last year was a real starting point,” she continues, “but this year is going to be even bigger.” The band is touring with Millencolin, have fingers crossed for the Warped Tour, and are super excited about Soundwave Festival. “It just blows my mind! And we’re actually hoping to do a proper tour of Australia [later], if everything goes well.” The band has a new record in the works, too. “We’ve been fiddling around with guitars and coming up with
“We’re never going to be a ‘baby girl, ooh-la-la’ kind of band, and we’re never going to be a mosh/breakdowns kind of band either. We’re somewhere in between, I guess,” she says, when I ask about their music. “We’re happy with where we stand in the scheme of things, because when you look out into the crowd, you see such a variety of people all loving it equally. I really believe that’s pretty much what every band really wants, in the back of their mind.”
“The coolest thing about working with Jeremy in the studio was that when we discussed ideas for a song he knew exactly what was going through our heads, because he’s in a band as well,” she explains. “We know of a lot of bands who are not always in agreement with their producer, because the producer is coming from a different mindset, but Jeremy totally understood what we were talking about. There was nothing forced or compromised about this album, and that’s something we want to repeat.” What: What We Left Behind is out now With: Iron Maiden, Queens Of The Stone Age, One Day As A Lion, Primus, Slash and more Where: Soundwave Festival @ Eastern Creek Raceway When: Sunday February 27 More: Tuesday March 1 @ The Metro with Sum 41
“In control / in the Church With No Magic / I gave myself over to the guardians of good / in a heartbeat” – PVT 22 :: BRAG :: 387 :: 31:01:11
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BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 23
Deep Sea Arcade On A Shoestring By Oliver Downes According to Tim Morrissey, head honcho of The John Steel Singers and recent tour mate (read: partner in debauchery), Deep Sea Arcade collectively possess “the largest penises in Australia.” Thankfully, the Darlinghurst cafe in which I meet Nic McKenzie didn’t seem the best place to substantiate the claim. Possessor of a friendly face, with a floppy fringe shading keen eyes, McKenzie is the frontman of DSA, and he’s “absolutely rock bottom broke at the moment”. The Sydney band is the pop-rock baby of he and his school friend, bass player Nick Weaver; the pair share music-writing duties, while the former arduously polishes the lyrics himself. Drawing on a shared love for groups such as The Smiths, The Kinks, and The Beatles as well as assorted nineties Brit-pop, they’re certainly adept at constructing effective hooks. Theirs is the pop music of watery, reverb-soaked daydreams, its surface buoyancy undercut by lyrics that tend to dwell on the twisted longings of the unconscious. “I spend a lot of time on lyrics,” admits McKenzie, “I’m a perfectionist when it comes to that… I try and make them about something
ambiguous so that you can bring your own experience to them. I think that that’s actually how you communicate with people; that’s how you make something an interesting piece of work to experience, not just a self-indulgent write-itfor-yourself … I certainly don’t just write about my experience - I bring my experience to what I’m writing about.” Less interested in pouring his battered soul onto a tape recorder than lending slices of reality an edge that’s slightly creepy, manic and grinning, McKenzie’s method seems to be working. Singles ‘Crouch End’, ‘Don’t Be Sorry’ and ‘Lonely In Your Arms’ have received widespread radio airplay, with their wholesome musical vibe recalling for many the easy-going sound of 60s surf bands. McKenzie, however, remains bemused by the comparison. “To be completely honest, I haven’t ever been a big fan of surf music. People say that surf music comes out in our sound, but I guess it’s just an accident.” Perhaps then it’s just a by-product of the DSA Writing and Recording Standard Operating Procedure, in which McKenzie and Weaver immediately demo newly-minted songs before re-tracking and mixing as necessary, under the watchful eye of producer Simon Berkleman (of Philadelphia Grand Jury). Of utmost import is the desire to maintain the home-recorded quality of the demos, which will be showcased on the band’s forthcoming eight track mini-album that’s slated for release in March. “For the mini-album, we’re absolutely embracing DIY,” says McKenzie. “It feels like a good thing to do, having some way of bridging the singles that we’ve released, but keeping that flavour and vibe.”
“That’s the shit thing about being in an indie band in Australia. If you could break even forever then that would be cool, but the reality is that it’s difficult even doing that.” He tells me for the next full album they’ll step up that production quality; “[but] it would be a shame not to release that kind of DIY home recorded thing as a whole entity as well… We wanted to capture that rawness. You come up with a lyric, you record it, and there’s a natural vibe that you just can’t recreate,” he says, explaining what he calls “demo-itis”. “That’s the thing that we want - we want to have a minialbum that is our own masterpiece, and then license it and put it out.” Indeed, McKenzie is committed to keeping DSA a truly indie band for as long as is practical, self-funding and licensing the band’s recordings to ensure any revenue returns to the group. “[It’s] off our own bat, which feels good,” he remarks. “It’s hard to do that with an album because it’s like twelve songs and you actually need to have a budget, but for a minialbum you can do it on a shoestring.” Not that remaining independent is by any means easy, all band members keeping their day jobs to support their music; McKenzie himself works as a freelance film editor, making the DSA video clips himself. “For so many bands, that is a real struggle,” he says. “That’s the shit thing about being in an indie band in Australia. I mean, we’re not out to make money, but it’s difficult, and not many people want to talk about it… The cost of it is never ending, you’re always having to pay some kind of overhead… If you could break even forever then that would be cool, but the reality is that it’s difficult even doing that.” The main thing though is to focus on what’s important: the debauchery. Although Deep Sea Arcade has toured extensively over the last eighteen months – supporting Cloud Control, Hungry Kids of Hungary and Bluejuice among others – McKenzie drools uncontrollably at the prospect of the band’s upcoming tour with Surf City. “We’ve been working a lot on our live set, it’s become kind of a bit of an obsession for me… I saw Jinja Safari at Peats Ridge and was blown away by their live show. When I saw their show, it just felt like the energy never lagged. That’s something that I want: having a live show that never lags, is just full of flavour,” he continues, “creating this sort of ambience that’s relentless, that can be experienced from beginning to end.” With: Surf City Where: Mona Vale Hotel, Mona Vale / Brass Monkey, Cronulla When: February 12 / February 13 24 :: BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11
Faithless The Resurrection By Alfred Gorman
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he simple, elegant synth stabs and key progressions of Sister Bliss, a classically trained pianist, are the cornerstone of all the best Faithless tracks. Along with long-time studio collaborator Rollo and Maxi Jazz (who is probably still the only Buddhist rapper in a stadium dance band), Bliss has carved a niche in dance music folklore, with a UK trio who set the benchmark for live electronic bands.
It’s been 15 years for Faithless now, and after they toured their Greatest Hits five years ago, there were rumours it would be their last. A year later they returned with To All New Arrivals which Bliss dedicated to her first child - and rumours abounded again that it would be their final release. Now, four years on, they’re back again. “When we made Arrivals I was pregnant with my son, so that album had a very different energy - it was very reflective and melancholy,” she says. “I think maybe some of the people that got into Faithless in the early days - through the clubs, the dance - they might have been a bit disappointed. But you have to be true to yourself as an artist, and the only way you can do that is to make the music that expresses you at that particular moment.”
Sister Bliss is clearly very proud of the album, and remarks on its positive, sunny vibe - she thinks it stems from recording some in Jamaica, and some in LA. “Maxi’s been building a house for his mum over there and he went to visit her, and was sat on the balcony watching the sun come up - he wrote most of the lyrics for the album over there.” Bliss is sounding so positive about it all that I’m prompted to ask: do Faithless have another album or two left in them? “We never say never!” she exclaims. “Though it was a Herculean effort to get this one off the ground. It takes a lot of coordination and a lot of hard work, but the joy of making music to your own timetable can’t be underestimated. It feels great!” What: The Dance is out now With: Phoenix, Sasha, Nas, Damien Marley, Erykah Badu, Miike Snow and more Where: Good Vibrations Festival @ Centennial Park When: Saturday February 12
At this particular moment, Bliss is evidently pretty psyched: The Dance definitely sees a return to their original clubby sound. “New Arrivals was a mellower record, so this one I think was welcomed with open arms! I’m really proud of that, because that’s how we started. I wouldn’t be here talking to you if ‘Insomnia’ hadn’t been a club hit, and hadn’t been played by DJs,” she says. “Before we ever went near radio, it was the dancers on the dancefloor, responding to what they heard booming out of the speakers, that gave us the chance to put together a band and tour.”
“FOOT STOMPING, FOLKLORE BRILLIANCE”
Charging through questions like a well-rehearsed veteran, Sister Bliss is an affable geezette, still passionate and enthusiastic. “Dance music has become so big now, it’s become this global force. It’s become the new pop music; you’ve got R’n’B singers lining up to appear on generic European dance records! It’s changing the face of pop in America, which we never thought possible when we got our first record deal over there.
REVERB MAGAZINE
“I feel blessed to be part of a scene that has not withered and died, but gotten stronger and more diverse,” she continues. “I think what’s great is that the horrible, cheesy, disposable, commercial side is balanced with the underground, twisted, experimental side - I’m particularly interested in that side, but I think Faithless manages to straddle both.” They certainly are one of the few live dance acts that can hold their own with the big rock bands; their live shows are truly awesome. But who do Faithless admire on the current live circuit? “I love LCD Soundsystem - James Murphy’s just got that whole art-funk thing down to a tee. Prodigy are still absolutely rocking, they’ve come back and shown everyone how it’s done. I’m really looking forward to this Good Vibrations tour - it’s a genius line-up.” No doubt Bliss was disappointed when she heard the news of Janelle Monae’s cancellation, then: “I just saw her in the UK and she blew my mind!” The Dance features a few guest vocalists besides Maxi; Rollo’s sister Dido makes a return for two glorious tracks, and our own Dougy Mandagi of Temper Trap features on ‘Coming Around’. “Dougy’s such a star – he’s such a lovely guy,” Bliss gushes. “We were so lucky to get him into the studio; Temper Trap are so crazily busy at the moment. They’re one of those bands that properly move me; I think their music is outstanding and emotional. Dougy’s got the most beautiful voice, I’m so glad he’s on our album.”
“We were so lucky to get Dougy [Mandagi] into the studio; Temper Trap are so crazily busy at the moment. They’re one of those bands that properly move me.” The new album has also seen a change on the label side of things, with Faithless’ major label contract finally fulfilled. “Our major deal with Sony had come to an end and we were going to look for another one, but times have changed so much. Our management have also worked with Radiohead, so they’ve been at the forefront of looking at other ways to reach fans. So we’ve put it out ourselves, and it seems to be working out really well,” she explains. “We’ve done it in our own time; we weren’t subject to those pressures that a major label can put on you.
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BRASS MONKEY, CRONULLA, NSW. THE VANGUARD, NEWTOWN, NSW. CLARENDON GUESTHOUSE, KATOOMBA, NSW. LIZOTTE’S, KINCUMBER, NSW.
ALSO APPEARING AT PLAYGROUND WEEKENDER 17 - 21 FEB, WISEMANS FERRY, NSW.
WWW.MYSPACE.COM/JEZMEAD WWW.JEZMEAD.COM BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 25
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brushstrokes WITH POLLY
ROWE (LITERARY MANAGER, SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY) Sved and featuring STC’s Residents troupe. Besides the talent on offer, STC have dropped their Next Stage ticket prices, and acquired a refreshing new beer sponsor – which means that the gentle price of $25 will get you a ticket to the show and a delicious, preservative- and additive-free Little Creatures Pale Ale…(Sigh). So, Polly - what does your role involve? I’m responsible for all things plays and playwrights at STC. Next Stage and Rough Drafts are not exclusively about text-based theatre though, so don’t be deceived by my job title! The programs include a wide range of work that is distinctly different to our main stage offerings. It might be created by emerging artists or be formally inventive: either way it must feel fresh, new and at least at little bit risky!
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ast Tuesday we moseyed over to Wharf 2 to celebrate the launch of Sydney Theatre Company’s 2011 Next Stage program. Presided over by Literary Manager Polly Rowe and Associate Director Tom Wright, Next Stage is kind of like a halfway house between Sydney's independent theatre scene and STC’s Main Stage – but it’s also about programming risky and creatively adventurous works. For example, this year experimental performance collectives post and My Darling Patricia will bring shows to Wharf 2… First up, however, is Before/After (see our story on p28) directed by Cristabel
What’s your background/training? I studied drama as an undergraduate then went on to do an MPhil in Playwriting Studies at The University of Birmingham. When I finished my masters I began to read and assess plays for various theatre companies, which lead me to freelance work as a dramaturge. I was working as the Literary Associate at Belvoir before I joined STC three years ago. When/where did you first discover post? The first post show I saw was Shamelessly Glitzy Work. It was an unforgettable night in the theatre which included a sequence where the performers jump on the spot, shouting ‘come on ladies’ for what feels like it must be 10 minutes. It was an extraordinary feat of endurance for the performers - and the audience! I loved confident that our short doco (about the excruciating experience we recently had with a creepy locksmith who answered our emergency call) will be on that list… But we can’t be sure, so we’ll be checking tropfest. com/au/ from middayish on Monday. The end.
HEAD ON 2011
MULHOLLAND DRIVE
Following their inspired Woody Allen ‘Festival’, Cult Fridays are back at the Chauvel, with a range of cult films (read: films that initially drooped at the box office but went on to inspire cinephilia), including Mulholland Drive, The Graduate and Bonnie & Clyde. First cab off the rank is The Graduate (1967), screening at 8.30pm on Friday February 4 – but since we’ve been watching Twin Peaks on Sunday morning for the past month or so, we’re really jonesing for David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, in all its psychosexual, surrealist glory, which screens Friday February 11. All the details and tickets on sale at chauvelcinema.net.au
DUNGOG FILM FESTIVAL: IN THE RAW IN SYDNEY
As we mentioned a week or so ago, Dungog Film Festival is bringing its In The Raw script development initiative to Sydney this year, 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, with a series of bi-monthly events – kicking off with Matt Wheeldon’s AWGIE nominee Sleepwalker, a psychological thriller that 'explores the idea of a lie so great it splits reality in two.' The actors reading will be Wolf Creek and Underbelly star Kestie Morassi, and actress Leeanna Walsman (Saturn’s Return – STC 2009; Stockholm - STC 2010) with other cast members still to be announced. February 7 at Sydney Theatre dungogfilmfestival.org
TROPFEST 2011 FINALISTS
Tropfest announce their lineup of finalists this Monday January 31 – ten-or-so lucky filmmakers whose work will be screened at the gala screening in the Domain on Sunday February 20 (diary?). This year’s signature item was ‘keys’, and we’re reasonably 26 :: BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11
Snappers take note: submissions open this week for the Head On portrait photography prize. Now in its eighth year, Head On bills itself as the nation’s leading showcase of Australian portrait photography; we’re enamoured of it because it is open to amateurs and enthusiasts (not just the pros with the hell-expensive set-up). Best of all, the judging is done ‘blind’ – as in, the judges have no idea whose work they are evaluating at any given time. The judges this year are Judith Blackall (MCA Head of Artistic Programs), Sandra Harrison (SMH Photographic Managing Editor) and award-winning photographer Sean Izzard. Entries close on March 13, and all the entry requirements can be found at headon.com.au
that they were unafraid to push their art and the audience to the limits. When I told [STC's co-Artistic Director] Andrew Upton about them the next day he said ‘Wow! Get them in!’ I admire the originality of the work that post make. They borrow from contemporary performance, physical theatre, stand up comedy, and visual arts practice to make work that is idiosyncratic. How did you find My Darling Patricia’s Africa? MDP premiered Africa at Malthouse in Melbourne, which is where we first saw it. The audience were captivated by the work… as were we! It’s a story of two children who use the contents of their toy box to create an African safari in their suburban home. The troupe use puppets, broken toys and masks to tell a deeply moving story about imagination and escapism. What are the Next Stage Rough Drafts? Rough Drafts are week-long creative developments. They are a space for artists to experiment, explore new ideas and build relationships with collaborators. At the end of the week of creative development we have a free public showing, which could be anything from a powerpoint presentation about the process to an extremely rough staging of a play. They are very loose in form so, to some extent, they can be whatever our artists want them to be! What: Next Stage 2011 More: Rough Draft #9 takes place on Saturday February 26 at 5pm and is FREE. See sydneytheatre.com.au for more details.
FROM ELSEWHERE
Sometime BRAG-writer (and photographic contributor to Side Street Sydney, Australian Traveller and Yen Online) Liz Schaffer has an exhibition opening at TAP Gallery next week called From Elsewhere - her first solo photographic exhibition, in fact. Even better, she’s donating 25% of sales to the Queensland Flood Relief. If more people did this, then surely we wouldn’t have to submit to this ungodly Gillard levy. Right? Politics aside: Liz has a yen for landscapes, travel, and the smaller details of everyday life, and From Elsewhere is a series of 25 photographs that, in her words, “have a distinct wintery-feel and resulted in angry Italian pedestrians, missed trains, burial in snow and the problematic reluctance to return to Sydney’s sunny shores.” Finally, something we can all get behind. From Elsewhere runs from February 7 - 13 at TAP Gallery, 278 Palmer Street, Darlinghurst.
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or a lot of Gen Y, the only hip hop films you’ve seen would’ve been Fiddy’s Get Rich Or Die Tryin’, Marshall’s 8 Mile, and maybe, just maybe, Tupac’s Juice…and that was only ‘cos you wanted to see him say “Riverside, motherfucker”. If one looks beyond the past decade of cruddy hip hop films, there are some seriously historical gems out there. Wild Style is a fascinating insight into early NYC hip hop culture. Made in 1982, it was authentically filmed and features REAL graffiti, breakdancing, artists, DJs and rappers – including the inimitable Grandmaster Flash. Wild Style releases on DVD on February 9; thanks to Shock Entertainment, we have five copies (which include over an hour of bonus footage, commentary and interviews) up for grabs! To get your hands on one, name the director of this classic docu-drama.
SHORT+SWEET THEATRE
The Short+Sweet festival continues this week at Newtown Theatre (from Wed-Sun), expanding to The Parade Theatres (NIDA) from Tues-Sat for three weeks from next Tuesday, February 8. Born in Newtown in 2002, Short+Sweet (aka ‘The World’s Biggest Little Play Festival’) now spans Australia and parts of South-East Asia, presenting a large and eclectic lineup of plays under 10 minutes. There are about 170 works presented in this year’s festival. The festival, which features independent judges as well as audience voting, climaxes at the Gala Finals on March 11 and 12 (you might wanna put that in your diary, if you want to skim the cream off the top of this year’s festival). With contestants comprising a mix of students, amateurs and professionals, this is about as much of an adventure as your likely to find on Sydney’s stages this year… Details of line-up can be found at shortandsweet.org
SHORT CIRCUIT SEMINAR
Filmmakers should head along to Metro Screen this Tuesday for their Short Circuit Seminar, designed to prime emerging filmmakers for the promotional part of their job: getting their film seen. The 2-hour seminar will cover all the essentials of festival submission, where to screen your work locally, the value of aligning your film with a distributor, and the pros and cons of releasing your work online. Panellists include short-film-makers Lucas Crandles (Dark Heart Productions) and Victoria Waghorn (Punk Monk Propaganda), and SBS’s Shorts On Screen programmer, Nicola Hewitt. Tuesday February 1 from 6.30-8.30pm, Metro Screen (Paddington Town Hall). $15 for Metro Screen members, $20 for non-members. metroscreen.org.au
PROJECT 5
aMBUSH Gallery have announced the next instalment of Project 5, their ongoing fundraising collaboration with Western Sydney’s Information and Cultural Exchange (I.C.E.). Project 5 gathers four Aussie street artists to create a one-off piece of art, in front of an audience, to raise funds for I.C.E., who run creative arts programs for disadvantaged youth in Western Sydney. From the evening of Friday February 25 until Sunday February 27, you can head down to Cockle Bay Wharf and watch homegrown talent Kid Zoom, Stormie Mills, James Jirat Patradoon and Deb in action, while Future Classic deejays crank out sweet tunes. The completed work will then be sold at auction on Thursday March 3, with all the proceeds going to I.C.E. More info at project5.com.au
MOUNTAIN DRAWING
Mountain Drawing (the first time I felt at home) is a large-scale perspex sculpture and a series of plein air drawings by Sydney artist Peter Nelson, inspired by an artist’s residency undertaken in China. In Pete’s own words, “The drawings were completed during a 2009 study tour of China’s Hunan and Guanxi provinces, and later became the primary source material for this sculpture that was developed in 2010. This exhibition was inspired by urban architectural designs as well as organic geological formations (particularly the karst limestone peaks of Southern China).” Although the sculpture’s size makes it slightly unwieldy, we are seriously considering it for the living room. Mountain Drawing (the first time I felt at home) opens Tuesday February 8 at COFA's Kudos Gallery (6 Napier Street, Paddington) from 5-7.30pm. peteracnelson.com
127 Hours Academy Awardnominee James Franco puts himself between a rock and a hard place. By Alice Hart
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n April 2003, Aron Ralston, then 27, set out for a weekend of hiking amidst the dramatic natural beauty of the Canyonlands National Park in Utah. He made a terrible mistake that would cost him dearly, however – he didn’t tell a soul where he was going. He was climbing across Blue John Canyon when he slipped, knocking loose a large rock that jammed his right arm tight against the sandstone cliff face. Ralston was trapped, and as the hours passed he realised no one was coming to rescue him. Ralston did in fact survive, writing a bestselling book which in turn became the basis of the script for 127 Hours, by Academy Awardwinners Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire). It very nearly didn’t happen, however; Ralston was initially adamant that the only film version of his story that would do it justice was a documentary. It took some persuasion – and seeing Slumdog Millionaire – to convince him that Boyle and Beaufoy were the filmmakers for the job; and a major factor was finding the right leading man. Playing Ralston is 32-year-old James Franco, who first entered the mainstream consciousness with the television series Freaks and Geeks; however, his career breakthrough came when he won critical acclaim for his leading role in the made-for-television biopic James Dean, a performance that earned him Golden Globe, Emmy and Screen Actor’s Guild nominations. Since then, he has starred in an unusual mix of blockbuster, art-house
and indie comedy, including three Spider-Man films, the stoner comedy Pineapple Express, Gus Van Sant’s Milk, and Howl (as poet Allen Ginsberg). With 127 Hours, Franco hits the big league, with a tour-de-force performance that has so far been nominated for a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, Screen Actor's Guild and Independent Spirit awards, and an Oscar. The first time the actor watched the film, however, was a harrowing experience. He sat one row behind Aron Ralston, and found himself fretting that he hadn’t done a good job. “He was sitting with his wife and all throughout the movie, he kept leaning over and whispering to her and I thought, ‘oh god, I guess he hates it!’ It was like ‘what’s he saying?’ because I couldn’t see his face. I started to think maybe he’s thinking I didn’t do the part right. Then when the movie was over, I went up to Aron said ‘come on, man, tell me what you think? Was it okay?’ And he said that from a quarter of the way through to the end, he had been crying the whole time. I guess he had leaned over to his wife and he was just telling her about the real experience, getting her support.” Franco built his performance from tapes that Ralston recorded on his video camera during his five-day ordeal. Convinced that he would die in that lonely canyon, the young man recorded poignant farewell messages for his family and friends.
“He made them over the course of the five days and we could see his physical deterioration in the videos,” says Franco. “But in addition to that, it made me realise the power of the simplicity of his delivery. He’s not giving a Shakespearian death soliloquy; it’s not about what he’s saying, it’s the contrast of the knowledge of his own imminent death and just talking very intimately to his family - and that is what is so powerful.” Franco also spent quite a lot of one-on-one time with Ralston in preparation for the role – but notes that “the difference between talking to him in person and watching the videos, is that on the videos Aron doesn’t know that he’s going to survive - so it’s pure behaviour… As an actor I would call it gold, actor gold.” Even for those who didn't read Ralston’s book, there is one aspect of his story that was seared into the public consciousness through the extensive media coverage: the ordeal by which he amputated his own arm, with nothing more than a blunt penknife to pierce the skin, and using the very boulder that trapped him as a lever to break the bones in his forearm. This harrowing scene in the film has attracted much debate, and more than one critic had to walk out of the film’s premiere at Toronto International Film Festival. But for Franco it’s essential that audiences share that moment of release with the character, no matter how grisly it is.
“Danny is very aware of the sensitive nature of this kind of scene but first and foremost, we have to be loyal to what Aron went through; we have to respect what he went through. It took him over 40 minutes to cut his own arm off and our scene is like three minutes. To cut back on it any more would really short change what Aron went through.” As Franco explains, it’s also a crucial scene for the audience. “You have to make the experience a little difficult because it is a portal, not just for the character, but also for the audience to get through. You want to give them that experience of getting through this difficulty so that they can come out on the other side and have that relief on the other side.” With 127 Hours a strong contender in the awards season, and nominated for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Editing and Leading Role Oscars, perhaps the most telling praise for the film, and the most heartfelt, comes from the man who started it all – Aron Ralston. “James is so good that the first few times I watched it, was so real that I didn’t even think he was acting,” says Ralston. “His response and his emotions are so realistic. I think [he] did a phenomenal job.” What: 127 Hours, Dir. Danny Boyle When: Whe n: Ope Opens ns February Februa Feb ruary ry 10. 10
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Axis of Awesome [COMEDY] Conquering America Four Chords At a Time By Caitlin Welsh
Before/After [THEATRE] Cristabel Sved kicks off STC's Next Stage. By Simon Binns
A
fter ‘evil’ and ‘symmetry’, ‘awesome’ is the third most popular AutoComplete option in Google when you type in ‘Axis of’. When I inform Axis Of Awesome’s Lee Naimo, he’s quite impressed. “The axis of symmetry, especially, has been around for quite a while,” he muses, before confessing he recently had his own surreal AutoComplete moment: “The other day, really stupidly, I was wondering what happens if I typed ‘Lady Gaga is an…’ And I typed ‘i’ as in 'Lady Gaga is an idiot' and it came up 'Lady Gaga is an Illuminati.' And it came up with this column of things claiming to be proof that she’s in the Illuminati, how she uses all these symbols and things.” The internet is a wonderful place. Certainly Naimo, and his bandmates Jordan Raskopoulos and Benny Davis, have much for which to thank it. From humble beginnings in the Sydney theatresports and university revue scenes, the rock-comedy trio now have a significant international profile, count compulsive internet oversharer Ashton Kutcher among their fans, and will play three nights at a venue no less venerable than the Sydney Opera House this weekend - and all of this in no small part due to the viral success of ‘4 Chord Song’ on YouTube.
‘4 Chord Song’ is updated regularly as Davis’s prodigious ear discovers more examples; and while this particular act is nudging five years of age, Naimo is showing no signs of four-chord fatigue. “I feel very lucky that I’ve been able to ride Benny’s coattails, and that ‘4 Chord’ has opened so many doors for us,” he says with a laugh, adding that a lot of the Australian material’s had to be excised for the benefit of their upcoming US tour beginning in April this year. “Seeing as we’ve never really toured the States, nobody there has ever really seen ['4 Chords'] live before. So when you go to play a show and a lot of the people have come to see this song – and let’s face it, it’s the reason why a lot of people come to see us live – they still want to see it in person.”
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ydney Theatre Company’s Next Stage program has become a consistently exciting and crucial part of the theatre scene in Sydney, providing a solid middle ground between the independent and main stages. It has produced some genuinely exciting projects in the last few years, giving opportunities for burgeoning playwrights such as Ross Mueller and Anthony Weigh, innovative companies like The Border Project and The Suitcase Royale, and emerging theatre-makers, such as Shannon Murphy – and most recently, Cristabel Sved. For the Next Stage program's first 2011 offering, Sved will direct the English-language premiere of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Before/After - an expansive, kaleidoscopic vision of modern life that spans 40 different characters in a collection of 51 short scenes, taking in lust, whimsy, existential angst, and extraterrestrial encounters - with a heavy dose of magical realism. Schimmelpfennig is a prolific young German playwright whose work only made the leap to English-speaking countries relatively recently. (Incidentally, his For a Better World just finished a season at Griffin.) Before/ After is reflective of his overarching interest in contemporary life. “It looks at human beings contemplating the universe and contemplating a molecule, and everything in between,” says Sved. “There’s a definite sense in the background of the play that right now humanity’s tottering; we’re capable Director Cristbel Sved in rehearsal
The Axis of Awesome are a ways off becoming the Don McLean of musical comedy, however: “If people come to see ‘Four Chords’ and then stay or become fans of the other material, I guess that’s the goal," says Naimo.
of such amazing feats of beauty but we’re also quite destructive. It’s really poised on an edge.” The thematic breadth of Before/After is matched by its creative scope, which was the main element that drew Sved to the work. “I just loved the creative scope that writing like that gives you as a director and as performers and designers. The scenes are like 51 templates to improvise from…” Astoundingly, Sved and her team have managed to pull together the work with just four weeks of rehearsal – a feat which the director describes as hugely demanding. “It takes a particular kind of theatrical animal to do this kind of work, it’s not a straight actor, it’s actually people who have theatrical minds.” The theatrical animals in question include STC’s own Residents troupe, with Sophie Ross, Tahki Saul, Richard Pyros, and Zindzi Okenyo making up half of the cast. “They’ve taken care of the younger part of the age,” smiles Sved, while she sought out Annie Byron, Justin Stewart Cotta, Johanna Puglisi, and Graeme Rhodes to fill out the cast. Another key creative is well-known lighting designer Verity Hampson, who has taken control of the show’s multimedia aspect, which incorporates pre-recorded video and live-feed devices such as tiny palm-held cameras, all of which are projected onto the back wall of the stage. However it’s important to Sved that this is well integrated and doesn’t just feel like a gimmick. “The play is very much narrating itself a lot of the time, so the visual narration is part of the multi-dimensional view you’re getting into the story.” It’s this informed and dedicated approach to her work that has brought Sved out of the independent scene and onto our main stages. After assistant directing Uncle Vanya last year, this production is another stepping stone before she takes on The Business as part of Ralph Myers’ debut Belvoir Season. One assumes it’s all up from there, so get along and see Before/After so you can claim you were a fan of her work before the big companies came knocking.
The US tour will traverse the college circuit and include meetings with television networks - which suggests that big things are on the cards for the boys this year. In fact just weeks ago it was announced that the trio would be managed by the same company as Kanye, and represented by the same agency as 50 Cent. This, I conclude, makes them the most gangsta musical comedy rock band in the world. “Well, they also manage Alanis Morissette,” says Naimo seriously. “So we’re not the whitest act on their books, I guess.”
What: Before/After by Roland Schimmelpfennig; Dir. Cristabel Sved When: February 4 - 19
What: Songs in the Key of Awesome
Where: Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company
When: February 4 - 6
More: Tickets are $25 (includes a Little Creatures Pale Ale) sydneytheatre.com.au
Where: The Studio, Sydney Opera House More: sydneyoperahouse.com
Before/After - photo by Brett Boardman
A concoction of Davis’s that dates back to his Sydney University days, '4 Chord Song' is a montage of lyrical grabs from dozens of pop and rock hits, sung to a repeating round of the same four chords (think the beginning of ‘Don’t Stop Believing’). Like a comedic Girl Talk mix, the funny comes from the combination of recognition and revelation, as every song fits neatly into the chord structure – an idea so brilliantly simple, it seems amazing nobody thought of it before. The video, in its various official and non-official permutations, has racked up in excess of 17 million YouTube views.
Polixeni Papapetrou
[VISUAL ARTS] A Family Affair By Bridie Connell
A
s a stay-at-home mother and emerging photo media artist engaged with themes of performance, costume and identity, it seems only natural that Polixeni Papapetrou focused a lens on the antics of her dress-up-
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Entitled Tales from Elsewhere, the exhibition will focus on works Papapetrou has made in collaboration with her children Olympia and Solomon, whilst an accompanying digital archive sheds light on earlier projects. “I think it’ll be interesting to see the trajectory of my practice in one space,” Papapetrou enthuses. “I’ve worked with ideas ranging from fantasy and fiction to the acting-out of identities to portray different facets of childhood and present a picture of a more knowing child;
and as each body of work has emerged in my mind, I’ve evolved fresh visuals to suit.” From the Alice in Wonderland-inspired series Wonderland, featuring Olympia amid a series of colourful trompe l’oeil backdrops painted by her father, to the Picnic At Hanging Rock-style bushland scenery and girls in white dresses of Haunted Country, and the elaborate costumes and props of Dreamchild, Papapetrou’s visually arresting photographs offer broad appeal. Intellectually rigorous, yet beautifully styled and with immaculate attention to detail, they successfully balance the warmly familiar with the eerily unsettling. Despite her successes, however, Papapetrou’s career has not been without challenges. In the wake of the Bill Henson controversy, the July 2008 issue of Australian Art Monthly, featuring a naked Olympia on the cover, was withdrawn from sale – adding fuel to the fiery debate regarding the use of children in art. “I think what we’re witnessing is a cultural shift regarding not only the portrayal and participation of children in art, but also how we interact with children [in general],” she explains, “Artists are being watched in an almost paranoic way, and it’s alarming to see that even seemingly benign images of children have been questioned.” With the support of the art world and her family, Papapetrou remains undeterred. “Olympia, now aged 14, and Solomon, 12, are [and always have been] very involved in the ideas side of my work,”
she explains, “I can best describe the process as one that arises out of the collective family imagination.” On a holiday in Tokyo it was Olympia who convinced Papapetrou to buy the oversized animal head masks featured in the most recent series on show, Between Worlds. Featuring Olympia, Solomon and their friends sporting said masks in a variety of picturesque locales, ranging from a deer-headed figure on a mountain top, a seated gorilla in a charred clearing and two spotty Dalmatian pups skipping through a gloriously green topiary garden, the surreal series presents a previously unexplored quirkiness - begging the question: from where does Papapetrou most draw inspiration? “That’s a great question and I wish I had an answer,” the photographer admits. ”I love historical paintings for their use of ideas, subject matter, narrative, allegory, composition and use of light. I’ve been able to draw upon certain favourite paintings… but perhaps one of the greatest sources of inspiration comes from simply observing people and characters.”
What: Tales from Elsewhere: a Retrospective When: Friday February 4 - Saturday March 12 Where: Australian Centre for Photography More: acp.org.au / polixenipapapetrou.net
IMAGE: © Polixeni Papapetrou The Debutants 2009
happy toddler. More surprising, however, is that twelve years later, what began as a playful exchange between mother and child has developed into an extensive and critically-acclaimed body of work, and the subject of a major retrospective at the Australian Centre for Photography this February.
O N LY AT T H E M O V I E S
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Arts Snap
Film & Theatre Reviews
At the heart of the arts Where you went last week.
next stage
PICS :: GSP
What's hot on the silver screen and the bareboards around town.
25:01:11 :: Sydney Theatre Company:: Pier 4 Hickson Rd Walsh Bay 92501777
THE GIACOMO VARIATIONS Reviewed January 21 / Concert Hall, SOH Presented as the centrepiece of the Sydney Festival program, I was looking forward to a thrilling night of theatre; instead I found a show that felt like an amateur production with an incredibly large budget.
PICS :: TL
glipse: works in glass
Billed as both an opera and a play, the separate pieces seemed promising: Casanova’s memoirs have always been a point of fascination, with their fantastical tales of lust and love; the coupling of these with Mozart, who was writing during the same time period also makes sense; and John Malkovich, undoubtedly a gifted actor, seems perfect for the role of the elder, more reflective Giacomo. However, when these things came together, rather than forming a beautiful puzzle, the result was an uninteresting mess.
21:01:11 :: Chalkhorse Gallery :: 94 Cooper St Surry Hills 96998999
PICS :: AM
the wall
The idea seemed to be that Malkovich and his long time collaborator, Russian actress Ingeborga Dapkunaite, would take care of the acting segments of the work, whilst soprano Martene Grimson and baritone Andrei Bondarenko would take over whenever singing was required. However, there were also scenes where four characters were necessary, which led to some problematic crossovers, with neither of the singers being able to act, nor the actors particularly able to sing. There were also moments of weird doubling, where it was often hard to tell who was playing what characters and whether or not we were watching one or two Casanovas. I can’t help but feel that director Michael Sturminger must bear much of the burden for this confusion. The production had two saving graces. The Sydney Symphony was fantastic, giving glorious renditions of Mozart’s classic pieces as they were required. Renate Martin and Andreas Donhauser’s set and costumes were also stunning, from the three giant corseted dresses that provided the frames for the work, to the incredible dresses and tails that the performers paraded around in throughout the show.
19:01:11 :: The World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700
Arts Exposed
These elements were far from enough to bring the show up to Festival standard however, and Malkovich, the star whose name had sold out the Opera House, failed to take command of the performance at any point, and was instead left looking uncomfortable.
What's on our calendar...
Griffin Theatre Company presents
Speaking in Tongues
Wr: Andrew Bovell / Dir: Sam Strong Previews from February 4 / SBW Stables, Darlinghurst
Strong has a string of excellent productions to his name, including his production of Tom Holloway’s Red Sky Morning for Melbourne’s Red Stitch Theatre, which was nominated for six Green Room Awards; his bold production of Will Eno’s one-man monologue Thom Pain; and his critically acclaimed, visually playful production of David Hare’s The Power of Yes, for Belvoir. In his new role, and with the demise of Belvoir’s B Sharp program, Strong’s mission is to reposition Griffin as Sydney’s premiere independent theatre company, and draw Australia’s best theatre-makers back to the Stables – starting with this remount of a play that premiered at Griffin 15 years ago, and has been one of its biggest triumphs. This is a great chance to see one of the Sydney theatre scene’s new trendsetters in action. www.griffintheatre.com.au 30 :: BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11
Henry Florence ■ Sydney Festival
INVISIBLE ATOM (CAN) Speaking In Tongues photo by Michael Corridore
In May last year Sam Strong, the then-Literary Associate at Belvoir, was appointed Artistic Director of Griffin Theatre Company, taking the reigns of Sydney’s premiere ‘new writing’ theatre. Seven months later, we get a chance to see his debut production in that role – Andrew Bovell’s modern classic, which was remade for film as Lantana.
Reviewed January 25 / Seymour Centre A pair of fingers meanders across a strip of spotlight. A solitary voice informs us that we are witnesses to the reaching of an apex. Meet Atom. Not Adam, as in apple, Atom as in derived from the Greek word for indivisible; indivisible until now, comes the wry rejoinder. Written and performed by Nova Scotian Anthony Black, Invisible Atom is a monologue that recountss the intriguing tale of a mid-30s male from New York who has
risen from orphanhood to living the six-figuresalaried American Dream. Atom’s ethical quandaries about the acquisition of money – personally and in general – are brought to the fore after a work incident prompts him to chase up his birth parents’ medical details. A dropped file, some stolen documents and a sprint from a secretary later, and Atom finds himself embarking on a life-changing journey to London. Atom becomes increasingly suspended by inertia in a molecular soup of wealth and materiality. Does his disillusionment with material possessions stem from his lack of a solid familial base, or does his obsession with money cause him to perpetuate cycles of familial abandonment? Refreshingly, it’s left up to the audience to speculate about happenings and the possibility of solutions. Black deftly portrays Atom and at least eight other characters via an engrossing series of highly nuanced actions, gestures and accents. Delivered with a gently black humour, Invisible Atom opens a space in which serious issues are skirted without resorting to a pejorative moral absolutism. Andrew Geeves ■ Sydney Festival
ENTITY (UK) Reviewed January 27 / Sydney Theatre Opening with 19th century ‘scientific film’ of a running greyhound, its stringy muscles and gristly tendons stretching and shortening, Entity is an elegant and subtly unsettling study in movement. And the links to science don’t end there - which is unsurprising, as Entity sprang from choreographer Wayne McGregor’s ongoing interest in science and a collaboration with neuroscientists on a project called ‘Choreography and Cognition’. The dance-language that results dissects the tension between the thinking mind and the moving body. With undulating spines, dislocated-looking arms and wobbly knees, McGregor choreographs bizarre shapes that would be considered ungainly in the real world. Instead, they manage to interrogate your assumptions, short-circuit your expectations and achieve a new sort of beauty. The bodies of McGregor’s Random Dance Company are honed to perfection, kneading themselves into strange, gooey shapes with the elegant technique of ballerinas. And as the dancers strip down to nothing but black knickers, that sinuous technique is on full display. The duets and trios stand out – full of urgency and (characteristic) distortion, they nonetheless evoke a sexy energy. The work is divided into two parts with contrasting musical styles courtesy of classical composer Joby Talbot and Massive Attack collaborator Jon Hopkins. Talbot’s elegant yet driving score is a highlight, while Hopkins’ pounding, warping and ear-shatteringly loud electronic pieces made the performance seem like ‘contemporary dance’s dream of a rave’ (quote my disgruntled companion). But this is a minute criticism of a work that is sexy, weird and strangely - but profoundly beautiful. Lucy Fokkema
See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews
The Giacomo Variations photo by Nathalie Bauer / Food Chain photo by Prudence Upton
■ Sydney Festival
Film & Theatre Reviews What's been on our TV screens this week The Good, The Bad, and the Totally Unicorn.
■ Sydney Festival
FOOD CHAIN (U.K.) Reviewed January 26 Food Chain prods, pokes and eventually wrestles to the ground the tenuous line dividing humans and animals. In the topsy-turvy world created by directors Gavin Webber and Grayson Millwood, bears are perched high on the social ladder, conducting experiments in pursuit of humanity’s inner animal like a ‘David Attenborough film in reverse’. In one scene, two bears attempt to lure a terrified male camper down from the tree where he has taken refuge. Can they successfully tempt his animalistic appetites for food and sex? Throughout the piece, the characters swap guises, until the bears become moustachioed, be-suited human alpha males who attack the remaining campers - begging the question: at what point does the human become animal or vice versa?
Street Level With Well Dressed Vandals
Standout moments include a clever use of silhouette and shadow puppetry to evoke various creatures, and the final scene as the dancers clamber up and down the dead tree that forms the centrepiece of the set, in a kind of self-renewing food chain. The piece is built on solid foundations interesting (if overplayed) themes, talented performers and a gobsmackingly beautiful set courtesy of Moritz Muller - but is let down by its uneven pace and episodic feel. The bear-centric scenes are absurdist, comic and charming, as the two hulking furballs peer out at the audience, exchange sarcastic jokes and chew on humans. But the slow-paced, lyrical dance scenes seem to jar with this mood, making the work’s episodic construction obvious. Ultimately, Food Chain feels more patchy than successful pastiche. Lucy Fokkema
e’re delighted to hear that LO-FI Collective – having programmed six months of lowbrow visual arts last year – are back in 2011! With the much-anticipated third floor transformation of the former-Kinselas undergoing a brief hiatus, the LO-FI fellas have decided to sneak in a few more shows over summer – including some big internationals, like ABOVE (in his Aussie debut!) and Does, and a showcase of prints by local heros, courtesy of venue sponsor Roland DG. First cab off the rank, however, is Sydney-based lifestyle collective Well Dressed Vandals.
W
Who are WDV? And what are your backgrounds/training? Well Dressed Vandals is a mixture of people from a range of backgrounds including graphic artists, DJs, graffiti word sprayers, and failed Home & Away actors. We have come from around the world, with our current homes being in Sydney - giving us a great range of influences and inspirations. What is WDV – what do you do? We are ultimately a lifestyle collective with a focus on designing things that we want to wear and share with others. We create with fun and relevance in mind. When/why did you come about? The name ‘Well Dressed Vandals’ was given to us a number of years ago by Ray Martin on A Current Affair. When we decided to start up our collective we wanted to work under the name as we figured it still summed us up pretty well. We were inspired by what labels overseas were
doing but figured we could make something more relevant to us and our friends in terms of lifestyle and culture. What are you doing for your upcoming LO-FI show? Our upcoming show is basically a fashionably late launch party. We are all about having a good time so we are hoping for plenty of that while we exhibit our new collection as well as the designers and artists we have worked with – including Anton Benois (notorious for his Cleveland Indians/Chicago Bulls mash-up); Roach, who’s been flexing rap tags on the streets of Sydney for numerous years now; Numskull, who’s decorated a plethora of walls and gallery spaces; and Esjay, who takes upturns cherished images of our childhood, with a humorous twist. It will be a print-based show, with the opportunity to treat your ears and purchase our wears. What else is on the cards for 2011, projectwise? The year ahead will hopefully see us working with more designers and artists, expanding our collection, annoying more councils and having 2011-times more fun! What: Well Dressed Vandals – High End Hoodlums When: Thursday February 10, 6pm Where: LO-FI Collective / Lvl 3, 383 Bourke St (above Kinselas) More: wearelofi.com.au/collective
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Album Reviews What's been crossing our ears this week...
ALBUM OF THE WEEK THE STREETS
ever shied from mixing things up. But this album is altogether different.
Brace yourself, Streets fans. Computers And Blues, the fifth and final studio album from Mike Skinner, is so radical a departure from his typical oeuvre that, well... I just... argh, flabbergast!
Making his way back along a cobbled lane from a few pints at his local ruba-dub-dub, probably with some kind of broken heart, Skinner has been seriously dusted-up by pop’s ruthless bounce and glitter. Technological immersion has kicked him a few times while he was down too, and the resultant transformation is so unfamiliar as to be vaguely unnerving.
Computers And Blues Warner Music
More GarageBand than garage, Mike Skinner lays the surprises on thick and fast in his final album.
Not that Skinner hadn’t already demonstrated variety. From workingclass British tales as narrative (Original Pirate Material), to unified concept album (A Grand Don’t Come For Free), to delving into the lurks and perks of fame (Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living), to the geezer philosophy of Everything Is Borrowed, the Birmingham boy hasn’t
DURAN DURAN
FUJIYA & MIYAGI
All You Need Is Now Tapemodern
Ventriloquizzing Other Tongues
After the commercial disaster of their last effort Red Carpet Massacre, Duran Duran have taken a look in the mirror and decided that rejuvenating their classic 80s sound is the answer to their prayers. They’re partially correct. Producer Mark Ronson has a sympathetic ear, and the Birmingham band coat these songs with many of the features that marked their goldenera music: Nick Rhodes’ distinctive synths, John Taylor’s slinky basslines and the classic dance-rock hybrid that Duran Duran may not have created, but certainly perfected. Their new album has already been a big iTunes hit, with the hard copy version emerging by March. Their skill at swelling, atmospheric ballads continues with ‘Leave A Light On’, and they also manage to partially revive the spooky synth minimalism of key Rio track ‘The Chauffeur’ in two outstanding tunes: closing track ‘Before The Rain’ and the Kelisfeaturing ‘The Man Who Stole A Leopard’. But it’s the up-tempo singalongs that keep the fans coming back, and these are delivered with panache in the form of lead single and title track ‘All You Need Is Now’, the nervy ‘Being Followed’ and the propulsive ‘Blame The Machines’. The rapturous reception the record is receiving is partially a warm reaction to the return of the classic Duran Duran sound. But despite many strong moments, the album isn’t quite the triumph many are trumpeting; filler like ‘Runaway Runaway’ and ‘Girl Panic’ detract from the experience. Overall it’s still a very strong record. But, hey, I liked Red Carpet Massacre as well! Matt Thrower
The danger in reviewing a band which draws so overtly on a period of music history is the temptation to simply measure them against their predecessors. With Fujiya & Miyagi, that point of reference is early-to-mid 70s krautrock, a genre renowned for its open-minded tonal palette and pragmatic, muscular rhythms. Dispensing with cheap comparisons, the admirable thing about Ventriloquizzing is the way it dials down the Germanic austerity of its influences. It carries the same torch and remains faithful to their underlying philosophies, but holds a mirror up to the militant experimentalism, to reveal the original priority and imperative of the music: dance. This isn’t to say Ventriloquizzing isn’t dark – every synth texture feels wicked, and there are hundreds on here, massaging chthonic harmonics into every rift. But it manages to weigh that wickedness with a reassuring levity. It’s funky, but it’s dark. It’s sonically challenging, but in a way that insists you nod your head. This peculiar chiaroscuro is reflected in the record’s playfully janus-faced lyrics. “I’ll beat you / sixteen shades of black and blue” echoes the instrumental shadows of ‘Sixteen Shades of Black & Blue’, while the mocking aphorisms of ‘Taiwanese Boots’ climax hilariously with “sucking hummus off a plastic spoon / you look ridiculous”. ‘Pills’ marks the centre of the album, its chorus tying the themes together nicely over menacing fuzz guitar and effervescent keyboard stabs: ‘These little pills / may give you dizzy spells’. Ventriloquizzing is like great art; it’s brilliant and dark; playful and serious; weighty and frivolous. Such a shame that so many people will write it off as nostalgic gravedigging. Luke Telford
Long gone are the restless murk-andgrime minor keys and the spoken word accounts of drugged out, fucked up debaucherous regret and dodgy characters. In their place are shimmering, super catchy pop samples
as choruses (‘Without Thinking’, ‘Roof Of Your Car’), wordplay fun, autotune, 8bit, and tales themed around events as spurious as heartbreak-turned-tojoy over a misunderstood Facebook relationship status (‘OMG’). LOLWha? Skinner’s trademarked cheeky recitative briefly emerges on ‘ABC’, and his poetic, over-thinking sad-sack side comes back on ‘Blip On A Screen’ and ‘We Can Never Be Friends’ – but each time we get glimpses of the music he used to make, it’s beaten back by a cacophony of synthesisers, samples and effects that at times make the album more easily recognisable as Moby, Mylo or Kanye than The Streets. Andrew Geeves
CRYSTAL FIGHTERS
ASA
Star of Love Liberator Crystal Fighters sounds like a terrible 80s cartoon about NewAge space pilots, Amethyst and Jasper, who battle evil galactic corporations using only the power of healing rose quartz and essential oils. They are actually three English boys and two Spanish girIs, who claim to draw heavily on Basque folk and percussion in making their pastichey electro-pop. As ‘Swallow’ morphs from a panpiped ballad into a dubsteppy forest-rave and back again, it’s hard to imagine the live show not having its moments. (For a good ten seconds there, I was all FUCKYEAHBASQUERAVE.) They swing wildly from sugary calypsochanson to icily milquetoast club bangers that Rihanna would summarily discard like yesterday’s nipple covers, and sometimes hint at a talent for shimmering Europop synthesis, but they’re trying much too hard to fit into every possible current genre. On ‘I Do This Everyday’ (sic - it’s two words unless it’s an adjective, people) and Web hit ‘I Love London’, they ape M.I.A.’s Shoreditch patois over fourto-the-floor beats that are oppressive in their attempts to be visceral, and a robot-fart bass synth that sounds like your speakers aren’t hooked up properly. There’s no room in the mix, no space between noises to thrash and dance – it’s going for catchy, edgy harddance, and it sounds like a Skitzmix. If they’d approached this with a smidgen of Diplo’s fine-tuned genius for turning urban micro-genres into innovative, irresistible pop, or even just M.I.A.’s dictatorial bombast, it might have worked. Think of it as a musical Skip’s Scramble – more ingredients does not equal more deliciousness. They could mean every word of this - or it could be a calculated pastiche of 2010’s noisy-edgy, 2009’s tokengirl cutesy and 2011’s obscureethnic… Exhaustingly dull.
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
Beautiful Imperfection Cartell Music “I wanted to create something that would make people feel uplifted,” Asa has said of her second album, Beautiful Imperfection. After a preliminary listen, the French singer-songwriter of Nigerian descent - born Bukola Elemide - has fulfilled her brief. The album’s production value is remarkably smooth and the songs well constructed if, at times, slightly generic in sound. Although citing African diva Angelique Kidjo and fellow Nigerians Fela and Femi Kuti as influences, Elemide makes little use of rhythms, melodies and instrumentation from her ancestral country. As Janelle Monae’s visual doppelganger (blame the asymmetric fauxhawk and pedal pushers), Elemide’s music is more suited to a ‘Pop’ rather than ‘World’ classification; her deeply soulful croon echoes a diversity of artists including India Arie (‘Why Can’t We’), Lily Allen (‘Maybe’), Amy Winehouse (‘Be My Man’), Fiona Apple (‘Questions’) and, unexpectedly, Sneaker Pimps’ Kelli Dayton (‘Preacher Man’). That’s not to say imperfection doesn’t have its fair share of representation in the titular dichotomy. ‘This world is full of pain / There’s people dying everywhere / Can’t someone tell me who’s to blame?” Elemide queries on ‘Maybe’, before offering on 'The Way I Feel', “I feel pain / But as long as this world keeps turning round / I know it won’t last forever”. It’s a stoic brand of optimism which characterises the album; through her simple yet effective lyrics, Elemide communicates her resolute determination to experience life’s beauty regardless of its imperfections. Uplifting indeed. Anchored in a strong awareness of life’s bittersweet complexities, the beauty of Asa’s album resonates on a level deeper than synthetic smiles and air kisses.
The London Sessions EMI LCD Soundsystem benefit more than most from a live recording treatment, due in part to James Murphy’s obsession with sound, and in part to the group's innate ability to gel together as a singular unit. Brisk and electric, this album is a masterful piece of work that really couldn’t have come from anyone else. Riding high off their alleged retirement last year, The London Sessions offers new treatments of some of the punk-funkers’ most adored tunes, conveniently doubling as a far superior Best Of than anything their label will eventually put out. You hear more instruments and less faders, and the raw power that Murphy originally envisioned for his project finally sees the light of day. For proof, head straight to the end of the record for a cowbell-rocking, bass-stomping ‘Yr City’, which could take on The Rapture in a bar and whup their asses without breaking a sweat. If it’s even possible, the gang sound tighter and more limber than they do on their three records, stripped of excess production and attitude. You can really hear Murphy having fun for the first time in a long time with a choppier paced ‘Daft Punk’ - and even the sensuous, measured groove of ‘Get Innocuous’ has a freewheeling spontaneity to it. Its a joy to listen to, from the romance of ‘All I Want’ to the insistent pulse of ‘Pow Pow’. This live album is the next best thing to those who missed them last year or last week. The London Sessions may be Murphy and co.’s swan song, but man is it a good one. Jonno Seidler
Andrew Geeves Caitlin Welsh
INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK LITTLE MURDERS Dig For Plenty Off The Hip Records The mod revival of the late 1970s seems an eternity away: Vespa scooters, green parkas and Fred Perry shirts have given way to Subaru four-wheel drives, boot-cut denim jeans and pastel shirts. Mod music, rooted in the black soul and R’n’B sounds of the ‘60s, spliced with the attitude of punk, lives on - the mod subculture will never die - but right now, society seems as mod as a Leyland P76.
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But nobody’s told Little Murders. Undeniably one of Australia’s preeminent mod-revival bands, their hiatus effectively began in the late 1980s, but the Melbourne band has resurfaced with the band’s first album in over 25 years. Crucially, Dig For Plenty isn’t an attempt to dwell on, or rekindle, the band’s past glories; there’s no pretentious youthful attitude or sharpedged social commentary. It's just an album chock-full of melody and spice. Rob Griffiths’ songwriting has lost little, if any, of its precision. The rocking edge of ‘For You’ is packed full of loutish harmonies and Rickenbacker riffs, while ‘Pretty Penny’ is a perfectly
crafted power-pop song bursting straight out of central casting. ‘Roxy (I’m Digging Your Scene)’ is as sweet and fresh as teenage love in the back of the parents’ station wagon with Paul Weller on the radio; ‘Running Man’ throws up a bit of skiffle and Billy Bragg for good measure; ‘One More Chance’ spits out a lick worth bottling, preserving and savouring for time immemorial. The last time I had anything to do with a fashion magazine, pundits were talking about an ‘80s revival. Fuck that noise. Give me the glorious world of mod, and give me Little Murders any day. Peter Toohey
OFFICE MIXTAPE And here are the albums that have helped BRAG HQ get through the week...
PENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA - Union Cafe UNKLE - Where Did The Night Fall MENOMENA - I Am The Fun Blame Monster
HERMITUDE - Alleys To Valleys SUFJAN STE-VENS - The Age Of Adz
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live reviews What we've been to see...
THE MIDDLE EAST SHOWCASE Richard Wherrett Studio, STC/Walsh Bay Wednesday January 19
How do you judge the actual esteem a young band is held in, through all the floods of fleeting e-buzz and iHype? Well, it’s a good sign when their label hosts a showcase night in anticipation of their upcoming record – and it’s even more promising when a hushed eagerness precedes such an event. This much is true of The Middle East, Townsville’s young purveyors of wall-of-sound indie meets folk, amongst choral harmonies and impossibly catchy hooks. Their stunning debut EP The Recordings Of… was cause for nextbig-thing calls and the formation of an eager and admiring young fanbase, who sang their praises from as many roofs as the band had festival appearances. From Splendour to Glastonbury, The Middle East had been plying their trade with feverish regularity, all of which was responsible for that aforementioned eagerness to hear the band’s latest. The new iteration of The Middle East trace over the sounds created on their landmark sleeper debut, with an added maturity and complexity befitting their rise through the ranks. But there’s more to it than the plucked acoustics and angelic voices appearing within hallmark tracks like ‘The Darkest Side.’ The new material crosses varietal quirks; from the proudly Paul Kelly-inspired spoken-word tale of a soldier returned, to the strange and experimental finish to the night, which evokes Lou Reed fronting Sonic Youth. This certainly isn’t unrecognisable, but at no stage does it beat its head against the same well-paved wall. It’s the known tracks like the irresistible ‘Blood’ that get the biggest response, but the new material is actually better-rounded and less reliant on a hook or theme. While the band still mumble behind their microphones and spend time swapping their plethora of stringed instruments amongst themselves, there’s a maturity and confidence to their songwriting which is not just encouraging, but distinctly beautiful. The Middle East have been a talking point for a reason. There may be no shortage of bands of this ilk, but there’s few who do it with such sincerity and exuberance as the seven from Townsville. They’re not just earning their hype; with this upcoming album, they’re set to earn their stripes as well.
Max Easton
G LOVE AND PLUTONIC Oxford Art Factory Saturday January 15
Formed out of a common love for a sound described by Melbourne drummer, producer and rap stalwart Plutonic as a “meeting of hip hop and blues that bleeds equal parts swagger, braggadocio and self deprecation,” Moonshine Lemonade is an enigma. Given that so much of the success of G. Love, the Philadelphian rap-blues supreme, has been born out of a distinctly Southern sound and the old-school hip hop of Run DMC and the Beastie Boys, his pairing with a revered Australian producer seemed, at least on paper, a strange proposition. Thankfully, particularly for the masses descending on OAF for only the second performance under the G. Love and Plutonic moniker (with G. Love & Plutonic Lab joined by a bassist and a keyboardist), this strange proposition is transformed into funky reality. G. Love, as usual, fills the stage with infectious enthusiasm such that the crowd are jiving from the start, just because they wanna - early highlights include the hip-hop blues of ‘Fuck It’ and the crooning ‘Sweet Dreams, Southern Sunshine’. But where G. Love feels immediately at home in the room, taking long breaks to tune his guitar and chat to the audience, Plutonic’s offsiders - a bassist and a keyboardist - seem infinitely more cagey, as if hired as crack session artists who are constantly anxious about how the new material would go down. When G Love enters deep, harmonica-tinged territory, the band obligingly follows - but
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that’s a feeling that comes to characterise the night: obligation. G Love’s great personality challenges the band and they do respond, but often in a somewhat muted fashion. Where the contrast shows up most is when G. Love breaks down the unusuallystructured songs for a harmonica solo or guitar jam. Here, used to playing with the time-tested ‘Special Sauce’, he seems hemmed in by a band reluctant to really experiment and break loose. Needless to say, with an album cobbled together across the seas predominantly via email, and this only the live band’s second time testing out the new material, initial caution is understandable. If the canoodling, moshing and swaying masses are anything to go by, the foundations are certainly there. On a night in which the crowd entered with no real sense of what they were going to hear, we left the room pregnant with expectation. Moonshine Lemonade will be a good album – and a stellar live show will follow.
David Seidler
MATT & KIM, THEDEATHSET Beck’s Festival Bar Friday January 21
Sometimes a gig is less about the music and, at the risk of echoing Dennis Denuto in The Castle, more about ‘the vibe’. Such is the case this evening. From Brooklyn via Sydney via the Gold Coast, punk brats TheDeathSet emerge to The Jackson Five’s ‘I Want You Back’. “The band is on, motherfuckers!” shrills frontman Johnny Siera, channeling some sort of exotic cross between Sid Vicious and Andrej Pejic, with his cut off denim vest, shades and pleasing androgyny. A highly energetic set, including ‘Around The World’ and contagious new single ‘Slap Slap Slap Pound Up Down Snap’ (about a handshake – get your minds out of the gutter, kids), is accompanied by copious theatrics. Their musical and songwriting prowess isn’t earth shattering, but no one’s pretending it is: these boys are about performance, and perform they certainly do. The first Sydney show since they lost guitarist and songwriter Beau Velasco to an overdose while stationed in the UK, TheDeathSet’s welcoming welcome-back audience rapidly multiplies, with some impressive Lindy Hop-inspired moves breaking out on the dance floor. Pre-recorded samples are refreshingly interspersed between songs, providing welcome relief from bursts of high intensity. Matt & Kim appear and are REALLY EXCITED TO BE HERE, SYDNEY!!!! Having left New York the day before, this is their first 2011 show and, after thumping opener ‘I Wanna’, Matt admits to suffering from a “bangover – a hangover from too much headbanging”. Still, signs of jetlag are absent as the Brooklyn natives gambol through a setlist that strongly preferences older tracks; and, as usual, the couple continually induce extremecuteness overload. Whether it’s the permanent ‘look mum, no hands’ delight and satisfaction plastered across their faces, the ample opportunity and gratitude for crowd interaction, the impromptu cover of Alice Deejay’s ‘Better Off Alone’, Kim standing on the audience’s hands whilst booty-shaking to Major Lazer’s ‘Pon De Floor’ or Matt’s attempts at what look to be inverted yoga poses on his keyboard stool, I give in. Matt & Kim are stupidly adorable and their relentless vigour just makes me want to preserve them on my mantelpiece, OK? It’s no secret that Matt doesn’t have the greatest singing voice, with flatness and strain particularly noticeable as his excitement and/or pitch increases. But Matt & Kim’s exuberantly rapturous approach to life and music disseminates so widely throughout the audience that technical imperfections pale into insignificance. I guess it’s difficult to hate on hard-working musicians having the time of their lives. Especially when they’re so damn entertaining.
Andrew Geeves
live reviews What we've been to see...
PAUL KELLY: A TO Z City Recital Hall Sunday January 23
The Castle, David Boone’s moustache, Paul Kelly’s discography; if our blue singlets had sleeves, we’d wear our cultural icons on them. From A to Z, over four nights and through 100 songs, it’s stripped back versions of Kelly’s catalogue that we bear witness to as part of the Sydney Festival; an event that’s fast becoming an icon of this city in itself.
Lupe Fiasco by Ashley Mar
In the high-ceilinged bounds of the City Recital Hall, the thin and wizened figure of Paul Kelly straddles his acoustic guitar and begins the fourth night where the adjacent placard tells him to; with the letter S. From ‘Sweet Guy’ to ‘Zoe’ he strums and moans thirty undeniably Australian stories with an intimacy and earnestness that only a man of his standing can deliver. The feeling of sitting amongst several hundred people hanging off one man’s every word is exhilarating; a girl behind me gasps on recognition of ‘Winter Coat,’ a guy in front claps with unexpected enthusiasm for ‘She’s a Melody’ and I suppress the urge to echo Kelly’s every word. One of the most interesting parts of the night isn’t just Kelly’s performance, but the way in which people read his songs. ‘Right Outta My Head’ earned laughter from many in the audience, whereas to me it’s a song of yearning, desperation and turmoil. Conversely, songs like ‘They Thought I Was Asleep’ and ‘Your Lovin' is On My Mind’ are universal in their appeal; beautiful and familiar, they’re the kind of song that circles your memories in strangely intimate detail. Either he has an ability to read minds or is in possession of a superhuman empathy; regardless, it’s this quality which makes him so present in our national consciousness. While he takes some liberties with the A-Z format (an absence of V songs allows Dan Kelly - his nephew and electric accompanist time to play ‘Bindi Irwin Apocalypse Jam’ as a ‘Very’ good songwriter), it’s a charming way to
venture through his catalogue. From country to soul through rock and folk, Paul Kelly has created a musical legacy that stands as one of the finest this country has ever produced; and with the alphabet as our host, it’s a gushing claim that’s well and truly proven.
Max Easton
HEALTH, WIRE
Beck’s Festival Bar Tuesday January 20 HEALTH, LA’s self-labelled dance-punks, are part of the new wave of DJ/band hybrids whose set up is somewhat like a particularly elaborate Guitar Hero. After hearing a lot about their last Sydney show at Oxford Art Factory, I enter very eager to see them for myself. Not really having a frontman per se, the bassist/ pedal-masher of HEALTH definitely steals the show, using his impressive array of pedals to create the base of the tracks, which the band then build upon. While the drummer is near faultless in his execution, the guitarist and keyboardist seem a little flat on stage (compared with the bassist’s histrionics), but the crowd eat it up; the tumult tonight builds to such a point that a few punters are spat up on stage. HEALTH want you to go crazy - by their epileptic fits of showmanship, they feed energy to the crowd to make them let loose. Where HEALTH seem like some crazed raver nightmare, the bastard sons of Nine Inch Nails, Prodigy and post-hardcore, the UK’s Wire are a restrained bunch who let their music do the talking, with a keen sense of control. Playing a selection of songs from across their epic 35+ year career, Wire's set is ambitious; some audience members appreciate the variety, while others seem to want them to play material exclusively off their first three albums. While their former releases are my favourites, I was still interested to hear more obscure material from their later period; while not as
LUPE FIASCO
The Enmore Theatre Monday January 24 It’s a seriously sweaty night as we file in to the Enmore, and everyone is covered in a light sheen of perspiration. Hip hop gigs in Sydney always attract an odd crowd, and tonight is no different: pristine baseball caps and well-worn basketball singlets mingle with the checkered shirts and skinny-leg jeans of the hipster cognoscenti. The crowd is growing restless in the heat, and starts chanting his name a good ten minutes before he is due onstage - so when Lupe Fiasco does finally appear, it’s to a thunderous reception. He dances on stage to the guitar intro of ‘Shining Down’, looking like a rock star in his white blazer, and begins to work the room, moving from one side of the stage to the other, waving and touching hands as he goes. It really is superstar stuff – it’s just a shame you can’t hear his vocals over the full rock band that he’s playing with. The mix improves, but the gig itself never really hits top gear. Lupe is in fine form, but too-often leaves the crowd to sing the chorus, or finishes a song a verse early. And the sheer force of his band diminishes him, as his wonderful wordplay and superb flow get lost in the mix. There seem to be major problems with either his DJ or his gear – at one point, Lupe walks over to him during a song and kicks his equipment. Hard.
enjoyable as ‘Pink Flag’ or ‘Chairs Missing’, it was nice to see them refrain from playing a set of ‘hits’ - even if the term ‘hits’ is a bit of an oxymoron when applied to a band like Wire. The sound wasn’t as crisp as it was for HEALTH; a few songs seemed to bleed together, and some songs just didn’t sound right. The band themselves were very tight though, and pulled off a difficult show. If they did fail to capture the attention of some of the audience, it was presumably because
And twice he stops a song because it isn’t working for him. Despite all this, the man himself is a terrific performer, full of energy and flinging himself about with little regard for personal safety. And he’s got the crowd in the palm of his hand: he stops ‘Daydreaming’ after only a few seconds, beckons everyone to move closer to the stage, and drags 1,000 people toward him with only his charisma; he kills it, too, his performance almost violent in its intensity. He similarly monsters ‘Go Go Gadget Flow’, nailing the rapid-fire delivery while barely breaking a sweat. Sadly though, and as odd as it seems to say this, there just wasn’t enough Lupe Fiasco at Lupe Fiasco’s show.
Hugh Robertson
some people had just come for HEALTH. The two bands were a strange mix but they both represented, in my mind, the breadth of what we might call punk. HEALTH, with their wild performance energy, representing the Sex Pistols side of things; Wire, with their mood atmospherics and careful lyrics, showing a more Joy Division approach. I ended up enjoying both thoroughly.
Michael Carr
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snap sn ap
19:01:11 :: The Famous Spiegeltent :: Hyde Park North CBD
hello satellites
PICS :: TT
owen pallett
PICS :: TL
up all night out all week . . .
king tide
PICS :: TT
22:01:11 :: Excelsior Hotel :: Surry Hills 64 Foveaux St Surry Hills 92114945
little edan 22:01:11
PICS :: TT
22:01:11 :: Beach Road Hotel :: 71 Beach Road Bondi 91307247
:: The Gaelic Theatre :: 64 Devonshire St Surry Hills 92111687
It’s called: Jez Mead & Friends. It sounds like: An epic steam-train ride from the great midwest to the dirty south, through rosewood forests and past billowing steel-smelter smokestacks to your honky-tonk utopia.. Who’s playing? Jez Mead, Steve Smyth, Mardi Pannan, Mylee Grace. Sell it to us: This is a night for those who dig the talents of solo blues virtuosos; expect some serious fretboard finger work, plenty of howling at the moon, and enough foot-stomping goodness to rattle the Vanguard roof… There’s also a dinner/ show option if you’re that way inclined. The bit we’ll remember in the AM: We’ll it’s a Friday night so hopefully very little… But there may be a residual desire to take up the lagerphone. Crowd specs: 18+. Most will have ears of some kind. Wallet damage: Pre-sale = $10 +bf; meal+show = $39+bf; on the door = $14. Where: The Vanguard / 42 King St, Newtown When: Friday February 4, doors open at 6.30pm
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double dragon
PICS :: RR
party profile
Jez Mead & Friends
21:01:11 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93323711 AN BUI :: INNERSTYLE :: ASHLEY : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) :: SUS :: TOM TRAMONTE :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHERS NA HAN ROU ETTE POTPLANT :: ROS MAR :: DANIEL MUNNS :: SARAH
snap sn ap
health & wire
PICS :: RR
up all night out all week . . .
seekae
PICS :: RR
20:01:11 :: Beck's Bar - Hyde Park Barracks :: Macquarie St CBD 82392311
cobblestone jazz
PICS :: SP
20:01:11 :: Tone Venue :: 116 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills
22:01:11 :: Beck's Bar - Hyde Park Barracks :: Macquarie St CBD 82392311
It’s called: SOSUEME @ Oxford Art Factory It sounds like: Mozart… kind of.
DJs/live acts playing: Spit Syndicate (live), Nina Las Vegas, Joyride, Alison Wonderland, Crochet Crooks (live), Boats of Berlin (live), Electric Elements Crew (live). Sell it to us: After a capacity Christmas event, SOSUEME is back at Oxford Art, this time bringing you Aussie hip hop wonderboys Spit Syndicate! Get your bounce on to classics like ‘Starry Eyed’ and expect generous servings of the four elements of hip hop: rap, DJing, breakdance and Vodka Redbull. The bit we’ll remember in the AM: When you found yourself on stage freestyling! …And Jay-Z was there… And Tupac was there… and it’s possible you just dreamt it. Crowd specs: Thugs and shawties! Wallet damage: $15 from Moshtix. Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Saturday February 5, doors at 8pm.
AN BUI :: INNERSTYLE :: ASHLEY : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) :: SUS :: TOM TRAMONTE :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHERS NA HAN ROU ETTE POTPLANT :: ROS MAR :: DANIEL MUNNS :: SARAH
mos def
PICS :: AM
party profile
SOSUEME @ OAF
23:01:11 :: Enmore Theatre :: 118-132 Enmore Road, Newtown 9550 3666 BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 37
The Minor Chord
The All Ages rant bought to you by Indent.net.au. By Sean Calalang
ALL AGES GIG PICKS DOING IT FOR THE KIDS
In March last year I was lucky enough to grace South by Southwest with my presence. SXSW is the biggest international music conference (they have a film and interactive part too, but I only hung out with the musos), and it happens in Austin, Texas each year. One day I was sitting in on a panel of young people and youth workers who were putting on allages gigs around the world, and a certain Mr Kim Fowley decided to pop his head in and preach on behalf of young people. Fowley is an infamous manager, producer and one-time A&R, who had his Hollywood moment last year with the release of The Runaways, in which the filmmakers portrayed him as that legendary group’s insane and slightly offensive manager. In his SXSW outburst Fowley proclaimed that “record labels should only be signing acts that are 15 (NB The Runaways made platinum in Japan when they were 15), and if you are over 21 you are too old for the music industry”. Cynicism aside, the basic premise of Fowley’s words was faith in youth – which is a nice springboard for the rest of our column this week.
UNDERAGE SETS
MONDAY FEBRUARY 7 Two Door Cinema Club The Enmore Theatre
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 8 Deerhunter w/ Tiger Choir The Metro Theatre
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 9
Foals w/ Last Dinosaurs The Enmore Theatre
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 11
The Getaway Plan w/ Tonight Alive, Secrets in Scale The Metro Theatre Jeffreys, Bliss N Eso and industry experts from Video Hits, MySpace, Nova and Universal Music. It’s happening February 25 at the Seymour Centre (University of Sydney) - and there are discounts for group bookings.
FAIRPLAY
Fair Play - Anti-Corruption Youth Voices is a global competition for artists and bands under 35. The competition is to create a film clip for your band that highlights a role that youth play in combating and preventing corruption. This is a global competition, and the top three bands to submit the best film clips will win a trip to Kenya to compete in the global heat and perform in Nairobi. The band with the most public votes will win a whole heap of cash to go towards studio time, too. Competition closes March 20.
UPFRONT
First up: FBi’s Underage Sets competition is back for another year, calling for submissions from under-18s who wanna be Sydney’s next superstar DJ. All you have to do is submit your 30-minute mix to the station; the top five will then guest DJ on one of the five sunset shows (with Sydney’s current superstar DJs – Ro Sham Bo, Stolen Records, Anna Lunoe and Kato, James Taylor and Simon Caldwell). The public will vote for their choice of these five DJs, and the winner will walk away with nearly $5,000 in DJ equipment, an Ableton Live Suite, and five hours of training worth over $1,000. Entries close this Friday February 4, so see fbiradio.com for all the details, and get mixing!
MMAD
If you’re better behind the scenes, youth music charity Musicians Making a Difference (MMAD) is hosting an Access All Areas conference with a plethora of youth and music heros, including Gina
Festival season seems to stretch out a little bit past summer this year, with Laneway and Soundwave still to come, and the sideshows running thick and fast for the next month or so. Two Door Cinema Club, Deerhunter and Foals are all in Sydney next week, presenting a tough choice - but if one had to choose, Deerhunter’s most recent release, Halcyon Digest, is pure bliss, so they score my vote. Also that week, Melbourne punk rockers The Getaway Plan ignite the Metro Theatre, with local supports Tonight Alive and Secrets in Scale. It’s on the Friday and sounds like a sweet way to celebrate survival of the first week of school. That just about wraps it up for this week, but do remember to tune in to FBi radio 94.5fm each Wednesday at 5pm to hear about some all age’s picks from the team at The Minor Chord. Also, just a heads up: keep an eye out on the Indent website for coming update on how to RSVP for the Indent Open Day 2011. It’s happening on Friday March 11 and includes some big name acts singing the praises of young people in the industry. The Foals
Booking fee applies to all presale tickets. Presale tickets will always be cheaper than doorsales. All events are 18+ unless noted as All Ages. Management reserves the right to refuse entry. Please note a current ACCESS Card must be produced to receive USU Member’s Price.
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Remedy More than The Cure since 1989 with Murray Engleheart
JIM JONES REVUE
In searing heat, The Jim Jones Revue tore the roof off the Metro before a crowd that included Warren and Jim from Grinderman and Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie. The encore of ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’ saw Stooges sax man Steve Mackay join in for some blowing. But we tells ya, the next person to whinge at us that night about JJR just being “like Little Richard” - as if being in the image of the ‘Georgia Peach’ was a bad thing - was sure gonna get their arse whooped. Had these folks heard either of the albums by the band that they’d forked out to see? If so, what were they expecting? Italian prog?
RAW POWER
Our Big Day Out highlights? The guy from Airbourne climbing to the top - not halfway, mind - of the PA, The Deftones still grinding out a hell all their own after all these years, and of course The Stooges, reunited with Raw Power-era guitarist James Williamson, who gave this lineup a kick that the last simply didn’t have. (Incidentally Williamson, with his post-Stooge corporate background, was interviewed by the Australian Financial Review last week). It was just a pity that Iggy seemed more preoccupied with being Iggy (OK, throw mic stand a third time, now!) than actually commanding the stage; but we guess he’s earned the right to play himself. And when the only man on the planet who looks like he’s wearing a tight fitting fine leather jacket despite actually being naked from the waist up pulled a group of young punters from the crowd to, um, help out during ‘Shake Appeal’, you could almost hear the war vet blokes further back in the crowd who bought Raw Power back in the day sighing at the great injustices of life. For us though, it was near impossible to top Rammstein for sheer wallop and attention-getting. Here was the true sound of the Third Reich and everything that Marilyn Manson always wanted to be, but could never pull off. They were raw power, even without all the stuff that went boom!
PUNK ATTITUDE
Veteran UK rock writer Kris Needs has put together an album called Dirty Water: the Birth of Punk Attitude (Year Zero) that’s not your standard punk compilation (you know, with The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The Stooges doing yet another version of ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’). Nah, this is something much smarter that traces the roots back further and more deeply. Included are The Standells, The Seeds, Pink Fairies, Flamin’ Groovies, T. Rex, Monks, Jook (the early 70s UK outfit who had a look not unlike our own Coloured Balls), Mott the Hoople, Zolar X (The amazing LA band from the 70s that Dead Kennedy Jello Biafra once called “the missing link between Chrome and The Stooges”. Don’t let their Lost In Space costumes put you off!), Death, Silver Apples, Suicide, Last Poets, Dr. Feelgood, Can, Rocket From The Tombs, Hollywood Brats and The Saints.
WAH?
That huge Motörhead tour poster up Castle Hill way that we mentioned last week must now be covering someone’s entire lounge room wall. It disappeared within a day of our mention of it.
EUROPE '72
Here at Remedy, we heartily subscribe to the theory that size really does matter, simply because it does. The bringer of that size matters also. That’s why we’re among a number of people around the world who are pretty darn excited about a new box of Grateful Dead live recordings. It’s drawn from 1972, one of their best (if not the best) years of their career, when they seemed to be hovering a metre above the stage like some musical out-of-body experience, and taking audiences with them courtesy of jams that were so long, so intense and so spellbinding that you had to question how it was all possible purely on a whim. In April and May of that year they toured Europe for the first time, a trip that resulted in the Europe '72 set, the stunning One Hundred Year Hall album a little later, and most recently Rockin’ the Rhein. In September, all 22 shows from that tour will be released in a gigantic 60-plus CD box – that’s about 70 plus hours of pure Deadness – titled Europe '72: The Complete Recordings (and including, among other things, a hardcover coffee table book). Now for the bad news: the entire limited-edition run of 7,200 boxes sold out on pre-order in less than four days. All the music will be made available as separate sets, but it just won’t be the same as having what is sure to be the new high-tide mark in boxed sets.
2ND FEBRUARY - 8PM
STOOGES
The Stooges’ rise to fame and respectability continues with the release of a comp called The Stooges Collection – Australian Tour Edition, which is out now to coincide with their BDO appearances. It brings together the best of their self-titled debut, Funhouse and Raw Power efforts, plus four tracks – ‘Down On The Street’, ‘TV Eye’, ‘1970’ and ‘Funhouse’ – recorded in August 1970 at Ungano’s, and alternate versions of ‘1969’, ‘1970’ and ‘Funhouse’. Not bad at all. The Stooges
ON THE TURNTABLE On the Remedy turntable is Log’s Second Album from 2003, which we dusted off recently. Basically half of Wollongong’s Shifter and Canberra’s Pod People, this mob were all masked-up like a yobbo version of Slipknot, and played a fucked-up super-distorto boogie grind metal with not one but two bassists – Dave S and Jamie - who (in an ahead-of-their-time move) were titled Sunn 0))) Tractor No.1 and No. 2, respectively. We’re not sure if stuff by these guys is still in print, but grab what you can if you can - or email jeb@impedance.com.au to see if he still has any copies for sale. Also spinning is the joint reissue of Goatsnake’s long out of print debut album 1 and Dog Days EP with later-Sunn 0))) brontosaurus-killing guitarist Greg Anderson laying the ridiculously beyond-downtuned platform for what is an extraordinary meeting of Black Sabbath and bluesy cock rock.
TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS Tickets are humming along nicely for that further bout of Sydney Trade Union Club reunion show madness in March at the Excelsior in Surry Hills. Some special surprise guests are now set to be part of the action, along with Dropbears, The Spectre’s Revenge and Samurai Trash – all reforming specially for the shows. Dates
are March 12 (8pm to 12pm) and March 13 (5pm to 9 pm). This will be a beaut. In yet another strong Soundwave sideshow, Saxon are teaming up with The Sword for a clash of young bull and old bull metal. They’ll be at The Manning Bar on March 1.
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 :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 39
g g guide gig g
send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com
pick of the week
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 6
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle
St Jerome's Laneway Festival:
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti (USA), The Antlers (USA), Beach House (USA), Bear in Heaven (USA), Blonde Redhead (USA), !!! (USA), Cut Copy, Djanimals, Deerhunter (USA), Foals (UK), Gotye, Holy F*ck (Canada), Jenny & Jonny (USA), Les Savy Fav (USA), Local Natives (USA), Menomena (USA), Sherlock’s Daughter (NZ), Stornaway (UK), The Holidays, Two Door Cinema Club (Ireland), Violent Soho, Warpaint (USA), Cloud Control, PVT, Rat Vs Possum, World’s End Press, Yeasayer (USA), WIM, Architecture in Helsinki DJs, Toni Toni Lee, Levins, Lord Fitness, Prince Umberto
from 12pm
SOLD OUT
Local Natives
MONDAY JANUARY 31 ROCK & POP
David Agius Duo Opera Bar, Sydney Opera House free 8.30pm Monday Club Cock ‘N’ Bull Tavern, Bondi Junction 4pm Open Mic Night Macquarie Arms Hotel, Windsor free 7pm Outlier Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10pm Sarah Paton The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Songsalive: Kristian Jackson, Mark Wilkes, Nick Coady, Elle Kennard, Damien Enemark The Basement, Circular Quay $12 (+bf) 8pm The Songwriter Sessions Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Symphonicity: Sting (UK), Sydney Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $104.40-$304.40 8pm Unherd Open Mic: Derkajam Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm
JAZZ
Tom Vincent Trio 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 1 ROCK & POP
Adam Pringle Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Black Gardenia Opera Bar, Sydney free 8.30pm Embrace Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour 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 Steve Tonge O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm Symphonicity: Sting (UK), Sydney Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $104.40-$304.40 8pm The Naked & Famous (NZ) Oxford Art Factory $17 (+ bf) 8pm They Call Me Bruce Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm Tuesday Night Live: Thieves, Roger Lock, Leif Wilson, Kris Malcolm Rex Room, Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm
JAZZ
James Valentine’s Supper Club: James Valentine Quartet Golden Sheaf Hotel, Double Bay free 7pm Jazzgroove 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 2 ROCK & POP Warpaint
40 :: BRAG :: 397 : 31:01:11
Andy Mammers Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney
Sia Ben Finn Duo Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 6pm Cool Room: Charlie Brown Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill 8pm Embrace Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour free 7pm The Filth presents Sideshow: PVT, Zeahorse Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm Frank Tamsitt St James’ Church, Sydney free-$5 (donation) 1.15pm Goodnight Dynamite O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm Hussy Hicks, Matt Zarb, Minnie Marks Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why 8pm Jager Uprising: Vegan Mosquitos, Dali’s Angels, Distorted Sound Theory, 1929 Indian Annandale Hotel $8 7.30pm Mike Bennett The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Naked and Famous (NZ) Oxford Art Factory sold out 8pm Sia, The Holidays Enmore Theatre $66 (+ bf) 8pm Smoke & Mirrors: iOTA The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $60-$65 (+ bf) 9.30pm Soup Groove Session Escelsior Hotel, Surry Hills free 5.30pm Uni Night Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 9pm
JAZZ
Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Tina Harrod 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8pm
ACOUSTIC & FOLK Open Mic Night Coach and Horses Hotel, Randwick free 8pm
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 3 ROCK & POP
Brackets, Wayphaser Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Djanimals, Kirin J Callinan Goodgod Small Club $12 8pm Dylan Crew Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 8pm The Dyno Mics, Jack Carty, DJ Gabriel Clouston Tone, Surry Hills 8pm Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges (USA) Vault 146, Windsor 8pm
G4 Marble Bar, Sydney free 8.30pm Jaeger Uprising: Dead Love Annadale Hotel $8 7.30pm Jez Mead, Steve Smyth Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Mandi Jerry Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 8.30pm The Mission In Motion, Stealing O’Neal, Sierra Montana, I Am Villain Caringbah Bizzo’s $15.30 8pm Monannlisa Wilde Band, Dyan Tai, Supermatch Game The Valve, Tempe 7pm Nuts Camden Valley Golf Resort, Catherine Field free 6.30pm Open Mic Mars Hill Cafe, Parramatta free 8pm Sam Ferrano Guildford Leagues Club free 10pm Shep’s Stack Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why 8pm Smoke & Mirrors: iOTA The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $60-$65 (+ bf) 9.30pm Symphonicity: Sting (UK), Sydney Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $104.40-$304.40 8pm Tom Stone and the Soldiers of Fortune, Hot Cakes, Thylacine, Danny Yau Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 8pm The Widowbirds, Cats Are Black Raval, Surry Hills 8pm
JAZZ
Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Soul Nights, Roxanne Lebrasse Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour free 7pm The Vampires 505 Club, Surry Hills $10-$15 8.30pm
ACOUSTIC & FOLK
DJ Big Will, Bold Bongos Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill free 9pm Songs Of Nick Drake and Judee Sill: The Wilson Pickers, Leroy Lee, The Gin Club The Basement, Circular Quay $20–$68.80 (dinner & show) 9.30pm
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 4 ROCK & POP
Black Label Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills 8pm
g g guide gig g
send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Brown Sugar Marble Bar, Sydney free 9.30pm Damien Leith Vault 146, Windsor $34.70 (+ bf)–$60.20 (dinner & show) 8pm Endless Summer Beach Party Hawkesbury Hotel, Windsor free 8pm Fleetwood Mac Tribute: Cris E Thomas, Clare O’Meara, Tania Murray, Floyd Vincent, Danny Marx The Basement, Circular Quay $25–$73.80 (dinner & show) 9.30pm Hell City Glamours, The Shooters Party, Joseph Liddy & the Skeleton Horse, Contraban Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $12 (+ bf) 8pm Hooray For Everything Blacktown RSL Club free 8pm Innerwestlife Petersham Bowling Club free 7.30pm Jenny Marie Lang Guildford Leagues Club free 10pm Kelly Hope Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club, West Ryde free 8.30pm King Tide, Donny Widdlecombe Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Last Night: I Heart Hiroshima, Howl, Surecut Kids, Sampology, Hump Day Project, PhDJ, M.I.T, Fantomatique, Minou, Esteban Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $10 8pm The Led Zeppelin Show Engadine Tavern free 9.30pm The Maristians Rag and Famish Hotel, North Sydney free 8.30pm
Two’s Company Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 8pm Villagers (Ireland) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $35 (+ bf) 5.30pm Watussi, Martinez Annandale Hotel $15 (suggested donation to Flood Relief) 8pm
Hell City Glamours
JAZZ
Psycho Zydeco Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why 8pm The Road Crew Camden Valley Golf Resort, Catherine Field free 7pm Rockets, Enola Fall Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm The Rocks Markets by Moonlight: The Rescue Ships, Tales in Space The Rocks free 6pm Russ Ryan Orange Grove Hotel, Leichhardt free 8pm Self Is A Seed, Marlow Minus House Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor 8pm Smoke & Mirrors: iOTA The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $60-$65 (+ bf) 7.30pm, 9.30pm The Songs in the Key of
Mark Easton Engadine Bowling Club free MUM: The Owls, The Shooters Party, No Art, Little Lovers, Fabergettes, Wontake Lyons plus DJs: Walkie Talkie, Jack Shit, Glen Be Trippin, Nic Yorke, Kitty Munroe, 10th Avenue, Jaggernauts, Minou, FifiDoesDiDi, Biff! Bang! Pow! The World Bar, Kings Cross 8pm $10-$15 Nobody’s Fool, Black Label, Sunset Riot, Drover Mad Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $12 8pm Origin of Janken, Lawyers, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Drillsaw, Lie Doorman The Valve, Tempe 7pm Panorama Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm
Awesome: Axis of Awesome Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $30-$35 (+ bf) 8pm The Sun Records Story Penrith Panthers $36.50 7.30pm Symphonicity: Sting (UK), Sydney Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $104.40-$304.40 8pm Thrall Live at the Wall, Leichhardt $12 7.30pm Tim Pringle Albion Hotel, Parramatta free 6pm Travis Collins Campbelltown RSL $22 7.30pm Twilight at Taronga: Bjorn Again Taronga Zoo, Mosman $56.50 (child)–$68.50 (adult) 7pm all ages 7pm
Chuck Yates 505 Club, Surry Hills $10-$15 8.30pm Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges (USA) Notes Live, Enmore $25.50 (show only)–$47.95 (dinner & show) 7pm Ian Blakeney Workers Blacktown free 8pm SIMA: The Catholics The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10 (member)-$20 8.30pm Soul Nights Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour free 9pm
ACOUSTIC & FOLK
Cafe Carnivale: Mandie Vieirra, John Maddock, Moussa Diakite, Eddie Bronson, Jose Barroso, Victor Valdez, Justo Dia Eastside Arts, Paddington $22 (member)–$28 8.15pm Jez Mead The Vanguard, Newtown $10$14 6.30pm
COUNTRY
Kenny Rogers (USA), Sydney Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $35-$149 8pm
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 5 ROCK & POP
1927 Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why 8pm Abbie Cardwell & Her Leading Men The Vanguard, Newtown $11 (+ bf) 6.30pm Alex Legg Irish Gaelic Club, Surry Hills free 8pm Armageddon: Nazxul, Astriaal, Wardaemonic, Erebus, Enthroned Master The Factory Theatre, Enmore $35 (+ bf) 7pm Black List Rock Club: The Rumjacks, The Corps Notes Live, Enmore $12.25 8pm Bone, We Caught The Kraken, Nice Guys, Intentions Black Wire Records, Annandale $5 Boogie for Bana: Charity Turner, Heath Burdell, Primitive, Sambalouco, Lucille, Congo Funk, Dr Blanes The Loft, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo 7pm Boom Crash Opera, Nat Col & the Kings, Go With Colours Annandale Hotel $20 (+ bf) Bosom, Psychonanny and the Baby Shakers, The Hellves, White Knuckle Fever, DJ Alistair Erskine Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 8pm Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges (USA) Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm
WWW.THEGAELIC.COM
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SUNDAY NPL POKER
MONDAY JELLY WRESTLING
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2PM - FREE ENTRY - CASH PRIZES
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7PM - MUSIC & MOVIE TRIVIA
wed
02 Feb
(9:00PM - 12:00AM)
thu
03 Feb
(9:00PM - 12:00AM)
fri
WED 02 FEB
04
PRIVATE FUNCTION
Feb
(5:00PM - 8:00PM)
FREE ENTRY
GAELIC PRESENTS THU 03 FEB
SAT 05 FEB
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
I LOVE BETTY DRAPER
(4:30PM - 7:30PM)
COCKTAIL NIGHT & 50’s MUSIC sat
PURPLE SNEAKERS presents FRI 04 FEB
(9:15PM - 1:00AM)
05
LAST NIGHT
Feb
sun
SATURDAY NIGHT
06 Feb
(4:30PM - 7:30PM)
SUNDAY NIGHT
ft I HEART HIROSHIMA (LIVE) + SAMPOLOGY (DJ SET)
MADE IN MALTA
(9:00PM - 12:00AM)
(8:30PM - 12:00AM)
ft IRLA LOSCO + DJ RUBY + TENISHIA + MISS ROBERTA COMING SOON
FRI 11 FEB
LAST NIGHT
SAT 12 FEB
CUT WING
MON 13 FEB
FLOOD FUNDRAISER BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 41
g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Twilight at Taronga: Bjorn Again Taronga Zoo, Mosman $56.50 (child)–$68.50 (adult) 7pm The Underground City Blues Queensland Flood Relief Fundraiser: Frank Marcias, Los Amigos, Shane Pacey, Continental Robert Susz, Sally Street The Manhattan Lounge, Sydney $10 1pm Underlights, Macnaught Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Velvet Hotel Brighton RSL Club, BrightonLe-Sands free 8pm Villagers (Ireland) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $35 (+ bf) 5.30pm
Villagers
JAZZ Extreme Metal Show: Necrofeist, Driftwood Theory, Imperical, Illcontent, Letters of Carnage The Valve, Tempe 6pm Fleetwood Mac Tribute: Chris E Thomas, Clare O’Meara, Tania Murray, Floyd Vincent, Danny Marx, Amanda Easton, Steve Bull, Dave Kirby Dee Why RSL Club $25 8pm Funkstar Marble Bar, Sydney free 10.30pm Iron Jack, Stone Monks Coogee Diggers 8pm LW Major, Sam Buckingham Surry Hills Library free all ages 1pm Nick Van Breda, The (Temperamental) Pocket, Sam Buckingham Raval, Surry Hills 8pm Red Hot Chili Peppers Show Blacktown RSL Club free 8pm
Alphamama Club: Alphamama, Matt Mandell Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour free 8pm Chris Sharp & Andrew Vievers, Aaron Hopper 505 Club, Surry Hills $10-$15 8.30pm The Magic of Buble: Groovetime Big Band The Cube, Campbelltown $10 (member)-$15 7.15pm Paul Fisher Workers Blacktown free 9pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 5pm SIMA: Alister Spence Trio, Raymond MacDonald The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10 (member)-$20 8.30pm
Roc-A-Tac Guildford Leagues Club free 8pm Shihad (NZ), Electric Horse, Helm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach $28.60 8pm Sierra Montana, Rose of York, Alloway, Joel Leffler Caringbah Bizzo’s 8pm Smoke & Mirrors: iOTA The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $60-$65 (+ bf) 7.30pm, 9.30pm The Songs in the Key of Awesome: Axis of Awesome Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $30-$35 (+ bf) 8pm Tall Pop Syndrome Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm Tim Kendell Guildford Leagues Club free 10pm
ACOUSTIC & FOLK Cool Room Australian Hotel & Brewery,
Rouse Hill free 9pm Flamenco Italiano: Adam Scicluna, Sangre Espanola, Claudia Chambers, The Sopranos Band Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club, West Ryde $15 (member)-$18 8pm Greg Quill, Jon Brooks Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain 5pm Unplugged & Uncomplicated: True Vibe Nation, Ray Mann, DJ Skae, Sceptic & Dseeva, Nuzil Muzik, The Kumpnee CarriageWorks, Eveleigh free 12pm
COUNTRY
Kenny Rogers (USA), Sydney Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $35-$149 8pm Whitetop Mountaineers (USA) Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 6 ROCK & POP
2 Of Hearts Crossroads Hotel, Liverpool free 4.15pm Acoustic Showcase: The Cleanskins, The Broken Hands The Valve, Tempe 8pm Adam Harvey Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why 8pm Drive: Peter Northcote Bridge Hotel, Rozelle $10 3pm
SYDNEY TO KING GEORGE PARK & MANNING ST. ENTRANCE
Errol Renaud & Caribbean Soul, Carribean Soul Sugar Lounge, Manly Save the Kimberley Fundraiser: Charity Turner Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Smoke & Mirrors: iOTA The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $60-$65 (+ bf) 9.30pm The Songs in the Key of Awesome: Axis of Awesome Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $30-$35 (+ bf) 8pm St Jeromes Laneway Festival: Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, The Antlers (USA), Beach House (USA), Bear in Heaven (USA), Blonde Redhead (USA), !!! (USA), Cut Copy, Djanimals, Deerhunter (USA), Foals (England), Gotye, Holy F*ck (Canada), Jenny & Jonny (USA), Les Savy Fav (USA), Local Natives (USA), Menomena (USA), Two Door Cinema Club (Ireland), Sherlock’s Daughter (New Zealand), Stornoway (UK), The Holidays, Violent Soho, Warpaint (USA), Cloud Control, PVT, Rat Vs Possum, World’s End Press, Yeasayer (USA), WIM, Architecture in Helsinki DJs, Toni Toni Lee, Levins, Lord Fitness, Prince Umberto Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle $125 (final release) Tickets sold out 12pm The Subterraneans Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 6pm Teddy Serio’s Ministry of Truth, Lime Cordiale, Astrid Munday Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 5pm
Twilight at Taronga: Bjorn Again Taronga Zoo, Mosman $56.50 (child)–$68.50 (adult) 7pm The Underground City Blues Queensland Flood Relief Fundraiser: Frank Macias, Los Amigos, Shane Pacey, Continental Robert Susz, Sally Street The Manhattan Lounge, Sydney $10 1pm Work in Progress Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free
JAZZ
Blues Sunday: Mark Hopper Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Cremorne free 7pm Inner West Flood Benefit Concert: Sydney Brass, The Marrickville Symphony Orchestra, Leichhardt Espresso Chorus, Sydney Chamber Choir, The MLC Chamber Choir Marrickville Town Hall $15 (child)-$25 6.30pm Jive Bombers Cronulla RSL free 12pm
ACOUSTIC & FOLK
Matt Jackson Pontoon, Darling Harbour free Sunday Sounds The Apple Store, Sydney 3pm
COUNTRY
From Tamworth to Tennessee Workers Blacktown $5.50 (member)–$7.70 7.30pm Greg Quill, Jon Brooks Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain $20 5pm Robin Lee Sinclair Band Marrickville Bowling and Recreation Club free 4.20pm
FEBRUARY 6TH 2011 CAR PARK STAGE
TO BALMAIN RD. & ALL PUBLIC TRANSPORT & TAXIS
CUT COPY 8:55 - 9:55 PM FOALS 7:40 - 8:25 PM YEASAYER 6:25 - 7:10 PM TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB 5:10 - 5:55 PM BEACH HOUSE 3:55 - 4:40 PM JENNY AND JOHNNY 2:50 - 3:30 PM STORNOWAY 1:45 - 2:25 PM THE HOLIDAYS 12:55 - 1:25 PM WIM (TRIPLE J UNEARTHED) 12:10 - 12:35 PM
PARK AVENUE KIRKBRIDGE WAY
BOX OFFICE
E N T RY
THE GRAND LAWN RED BULL STAGE
EAT YOUR OWN EARS AND THE WINDISH AGENCY PRESENT THE INNER SANCTUM
PARKING
OWE CK T C L O S TA G E
R
ER INN TUM C S A N TA G E S
CAR PARK CAR PARK STAGE STAGE
GOTYE 8:50 - 9:40 PM DEERHUNTER 7:35 - 8:20 PM ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI 6:20 - 7:05 PM WARPAINT 5:05 - 5:50 PM CLOUD CONTROL 3:55 - 4:35 PM LOCAL NATIVES 2:50 - 3:30 PM PVT 1:45 - 2:25 PM THE ANTLERS 12:55 - 1:25 PM RAT VS POSSUM 12:05 - 12:35 PM
CLOCK TOWER STAGE
TO ROZELLE HOSPITAL ARTIST PARKING AND SITE ACCESS
!!! 9:00 - 9:50 PM HOLY FUCK 7:45 - 8:30 PM LES SAVY FAV 6:30 - 7:15 PM BLONDE REDHEAD 5:15 - 6:00 PM MENOMENA 4:05 - 4:45 PM BEAR IN HEAVEN 3:00 - 3:40 PM VIOLENT SOHO 1:55 - 2:35 PM WORLD’S END PRESS 1:05 - 1:35 PM
AIH AND GOODGOD PRESENT THE RED BULL STAGE
PLEASE USE THE RECYCLING BINS AND RESPECT YOUR SURROUNDINGS.
AIH DJS 7:00 - 8:00 PM TONI TONI LEE (LIVE PA SET) 6:15 - 7:00 PM CANYONS 5:15 - 6:15 PM LORD FITNESS & PRINCE UMBERTO 4:15 - 5:15 PM JIMMY SING (GOOD GOD) 3:30 - 4:15 PM SPIRAL STAIRS (DJ SET) 2:45 - 3:30 PM LEVINS (DJ SET) 2:00 - 2:45 PM TYSON KOH 1:00 - 2:00 PM
GATES OPEN 11:30 AM - PLAYING TIMES SUBJECT TO CHANGE Tracks between bands programmed by Declan Kelly & EYOE
42 :: BRAG :: 397 : 31:01:11
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gig picks
up all night out all week...
PVT
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 1 The Naked & Famous (New Zealand) Oxford Art Factory sold out 8pm
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 2 The Filth presents Sideshow: PVT, Zeahorse Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 3 Djanimals, Kirin J Callinan Goodgod Small Club $12 8pm The Dyno Mics, Jack Carty, DJ Gabriel Clouston
Tone, Surry Hills 8pm $15 Songs Of Nick Drake and Judee Sill: The Wilson Pickers, Leroy Lee, The Gin Club The Basement, Circular Quay $20 - $68.80 (+ bf) (dinner & show) 9pm
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 4 Hell City Glamours, The Shooters Party, Joseph Liddy & The Skeleton Horse, Contraban Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $12 (+ bf) 8pm Last Night: I Heart Hiroshima, Howl, Surecut Kids, Sampology, Hump Day Project, PhDJ, M.I.T, Fantomatique, Minou, Esteban Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $10 8pm
Jez Mead The Songs in the Key of Awesome: Axis of Awesome Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $30-$35 (+ bf) 7:30pm; 9:30pm Villagers (Ireland) The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $35 (+ bf) 5.30pm
fringe
SELL OUT SHOWS 2009 - 2010
WINNER
BEST AUSTRALIAN ACT
SYDNEY
COMEDY FESTIVAL
2010
Jez Mead & friends The Vanguard, Newtown $10-$14 6.30pm
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 5 Bosom, Psychonanny and The Baby Shakers, The Hellves, White Knuckle Fever, DJ Alistair Erskine Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 8pm
Axis Of Awesome
Unplugged & Uncomplicated: True Vibe Nation, Ray Mann, DJ Skae, Sceptic & Dseeva, Nuzil Muzik, The Kumpnee CarriageWorks, Eveleigh free 12pm
BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 43
club guide
send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com
club pick of the week Flight Facilities
SATURDAY 5TH FEBRUARY
Civic Underground, Sydney
Adult Disco
Flight Facilities, The Swiss, Mitzi, Simon Caldwell, Graz, Softwar, Andy Webb $20-$25 10pm MONDAY JANUARY 31 Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills I Love 90s Grumpy Gramps $5 (+ bf) 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Mondays free
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 1 The Gaff, Darlinghurst Kid Finley, Johnny B free 8pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst The Naked & Famous (NZ) $17 (+ bf) 8pm The Valve, Tempe Underground Tables: Ato, Myme, Gee Wiz free 6pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Pop Panic free 8pm
44 :: BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 2 Coolabar, Sydney Latin Dance Party Coolabar DJs $10 9.30pm Goodgod Small Club Front Bar, Sydney Special Moments Long John Saliva free 8pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst The Naked & Famous (NZ) sold out 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 X The Wall free 8pm
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 3 The Exchange Hotel, Oxford St P*A*S*H Hailer, Slow Wave + Pash DJs $10 9pm
The Gaff, Darlinghurst Kid Finley, Pee Wee Pete free 8pm Goodgod Small Club Front Bar, Sydney Club Al Levins free 8pm Home, The Venue I Heart Unipackers $5 10pm Macquarie Hotel, Sydney Sketch the Rhyme free 8pm Sugar Lounge, Manly Felipe & Simone free 8pm Valve Bar, Tempe Funk & Reggae Night 7pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Teenage Kicks Mick Jones, Mush, Urby, Monkey Genius, El Mariachi free 8pm
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 4 202 Broadway, Chippendale Cindee, Miss B, Marta Taylor, Grey Wolf, DJ Philf, Mitch Morris 9pm Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill DJ Retro free 9pm
Bar Europa, Sydney Illya free 8pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Neon Nights Cassian 8pm Candys Apartment Liquid Sky Vengeance vs Light Out!, Tongue & Cheek, Wizzfizzkidz, Detektives, 2busy 2kiss, Matt Bann, Say Oh! & Taylor Made $10-$15 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Dubstep Invasion Kid Kenobi, Glove Cats, Murda 1, Gabriel Clouston, Mark Bionic, Reload $15-$20 10pm Civic Underground, Sydney Plus +1 Namito, Robbie Lowe, Matt Rowan, Mesan $20 10pm Collingwood Hotel, Liverpool Fuego K-Note & DreadJuan, Mac, Dennis, C-Major, The Empress MC free (guestlist)-$20 9pm Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills Purple Sneakers presents Last Night I Heart Hiroshima, Howl, Surecut Kids, Sampology, Hump Day Project, PhDJ, M.I.T, Fantomatique, Minou, Esteban $10 8pm Home, The Venue Ferry Corsten, Marlo, Peewee Ferris & Amber Savage, Nik Fish & Scotty G, Nathan Cryptic & Arbor, Tim Piper, Matt Nukewood, Oakes & Lennox, Pulsar & Suae, Arbee, Nasty, Big Dan, Flite, Iko, Suga Shane, MC Losty $45 (+ bf) 10pm Ladylux, Kings Cross Shazam Steve Play, Arty Groove, I Am Sam, Zannon, Master of Funk, Joey V, Mr Bongolicious $10 free after 2am 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 Beats Antique, Sevot, Bumble, Daheen, Mankycranks $27 (presale)-$37 (at door) 8pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Distortion $15 11.30pm Pontoon, Darling Harbour Nic Philips free 9pm St James Hotel, Sydney Club Blink: Club Blink DJs 8pm Sugar Lounge, Manly Olsen, Martinez (Denmark) free 9pm Tank, Sydney G Wizard, Def Rok, Troy T, Eko, Lilo, Jayson, Losty,
Kid Kenobi
Ben Morris, Matt Nukewood, Charlie Brown, Oakes & Lennox, Venuto, Adrian M 9pm Tone, Surry Hills Twist & Shout Mr Chad, Doctor J, Dylabolical $5 9pm Wentworth Hotel, Homebush Wentworth Weekend Warm Up Wentworth DJs free 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross MUM The Owls, The Shooters, Party, No Art, Little Lovers, Fabergettes, Wontake, Lyons MUM DJs $10-$15 8pm
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 5 Candys Apartment Shake! Shake! Shake! Lights Out!, Zomg!, Disco Volante, Moo Who, Slipperywhenwet $10-$20 8pm Cargo Bar, Darling Harbour Garage Jon E, DJ GTB, Steve Daly, Bobtrot, J-Tech $10 10pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Aston Shuffle, Luke Chable, The Immigrant, Jeff Drake, Tag Team DJs, Club Junque Dirty D & Ahab, Nick!, Tones, Naiki, Mike Hyper,
Bounce Crew DJs $15-$25 9pm Civic Underground, Sydney Adult Disco Flight Facilities, The Swiss, Mitzi, Simon Caldwell, Graz, Softwar, Andy Web $20-$25 10pm 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 Exchange Hotel, Oxford St Ghettoblaster Doc Holiday takes the Shotgun, Bang Bang Rock n Roll, Pilots + DJs $10 9pm The Forbes Hotel, Sydney We Love Indie We Love Indie DJs $10 8pm Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills Made in Malta Ira Losco, Ruby, Tenishia, Miss Roberta, DJ Joey, Arty Groove, DJ Spiteri, Disarray $40 )+ bf) 8pm The Gaff, Darlinghurst Johnny B free 8pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney Element Laidback Luke (Hol), Angger Dimas (Ind), Oliver Twizt (Hol), Helena, Matt Nukewood, Tenzin, Ember, Glove Cats, Oakes & Lennox, Moonchild, Vengeance, Knocked Up The Aston Shuffle
club guide
club picks up all night out all week...
send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com Noise, SMS, Lights Out, Wolfpack, Slippery When Wet, Teez, Moowho, Jace, Sushi vs Digit, Here’s Trouble, Peeping Tom, Recess, Jack Bailey, Axle, Durtymindz, Smacktalk, Skinny, Autoclaws, We Monsta, Black Tie DJs, Yayogy, Pop The Hatch, Donnie Blood, Rudio $55 (+ bf) 12pm Home, The Venue Homemade The 808s, Aladdin Royaal, Matt Ferreira, James “Saxman” Spy, Hannah Gibbs,Venuto, Great Dane, Dave Austin, Flite, Seiz, I.K.O, Mc Uncle Abe Ladylux, Kings Cross Ladylux Saturdays Garry Todd, Totty Tastles, Steve Frank, Matty Saville $10$20 Macarthur Tavern, Campbelltown George B free 8pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Sosueme DJs, Spit Syndicate $15 (+ bf) 8pm
Phoenix Bar, Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst Phoenix Rising Dan Murphy, Johan Khoury, Mark Alsop $10 4am Pontoon, Darling Harbour Phil English, Nobby Grooves $10 8pm Soho, Potts Point Laidback Luke (Netherlands) 9pm St James Hotel, Sydney Trash Trash DJs 8pm Sugar Lounge, Manly Clarkey, Mike B free 10pm The World Bar, Kings Cross WHAM! Basskleph, James Taylor, Rob Kay, Levins, Ember, Negghead, Hannah Gibbs, E-Cats, Mehow, Temnein, Say Whut!?, Blotter Label Party $15-$20, 8pm
MC, New Dub City Sound, Firehouse, Bentley free 6pm The Forbes Hotel, Sydney Church Of Techno Mitch Crosher, Kerry Wallace, Joey Kaz, Jey Tuppaea, Jaded, Shepz $5 9pm Home Nightclub, Sydney Spice Simon Caldwell, YokoO, Mitch Crosher $20 5am Penrith Panthers Sunsets On The Terrace 2 Faced free 2pm Petersham Bowling Club Kojo $10 3pm Phoenix Bar, Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst Loose Ends Matt Vaughan free 10pm The Rouge, Kings Cross Cheap Thrill$ free 8pm Sugar Lounge, Manly Le Franchi Brothers free 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Disco Punx free
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 6
Spit Syndicate
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 3 Goodgod Small Club Front Bar, Sydney Club Al Levins free 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Teenage Kicks Mick Jones, Mush, Urby, Monkey Genius, El Mariachi free 8pm
Beach Road Hotel Rex Room, Bondi Beach The Sunday NiceUp! Ali I Heart Hiroshima
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 4 Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Neon Nights Cassian 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Dubstep Invasion Kid Kenobi, Glove Cats, Murda 1, Gabriel Clouston, Mark Bionic, Reload $15-$20 10pm
AND
BEST COAST
Home, The Venue Ferry Corsten, Marlo, Peewee Ferris & Amber Savage, Nik Fish & Scotty G, Nathan Cryptic & Arbor, Tim Piper, Matt Nukewood, Oakes & Lennox, Pulsar & Suae, Arbee, Nasty, Big Dan, Flite, Iko, Suga Shane, MC Losty $45 (+ bf) 10pm Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown Beats Antique, Sevlt, Bumble, Daheen, Manky Cranks $27 (presale)-$37 (at door) 8pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Distortion $15 11.30pm
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 5
Jeff Drake, Tag Team DJs, Club Junque, Dirty D & Ahab, Nick!, Tones, Naiki, Mike Hyper, Bounce Crew DJs $15-$25 9pm The Exchange Hotel, Oxford St Ghettoblaster Doc Holliday Takes The Shotgun, Bang Bang Rock n Roll, Pilots + DJs $10 9pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Sosueme DJs, Spit Syndicate $15 (+ bf) 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross WHAM! Bass Kleph, James Taylor, Rob Kay, Levins, Ember, Negghead, Hannah Gibbs, E-Cats, Mehow, Temnein, Say Whut!?, Blotter Label Party $15-$20, 8pm
Chinese Laundry, Sydney Aston Shuffle, Luke Chable, The Immigrant,
(LA) This is a very influential and cool band… I respect them so much. They were very revolutionary. They had a lot of guts to be doing stuff like that in the military society that was going on then. – KURT COBAIN
WED 9 MARCH SYDNEY ENMORE THEATRE W/RICHARD IN YOUR MIND TICKETEK.COM.AU
popfrenzy.com.au mutantes.com Also playing Golden Plains, Perth International Arts Festival BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 45
Deep Impressions Underground Dance and Electronica with Chris Honnery
Agoria
F
rench producer Sebastien Devaud, aka Agoria (a pseudonym derived from the ancient Greek word for ‘meeting place’), is about to release his third album, Impermanence, on his own InFiné label. The LP follows 2003’s Blossom and 2006’s The Green Armchair, as well as his recent soundtrack to the action flick Go Fast. “For the first time, I had complete freedom in creating my music,” Seb said of his latest album. “I don’t have the feeling any longer of having to work within certain boundaries and the result sounds more like me.” Despite this statement, the LP also sounds like a few other people as well, with 20-year-old female singer Kid A, enfant terrible Seth Troxler and even Detroit auteur Carl Craig guesting on the release. (Craig’s vocal on ‘Speechless’ is decidedly lascivious, asserting “I’m gonna drink whiskey out of your belly button”. Ah Carl, you old dog!) Impermanence aparently also includes a fair few melodic, instrumental cuts, such as the previously released ‘Libellules’, which was beautifully utilised on Agoria’s excellent Balance 016 compilation last year. There’s plenty of expectation surrounding Impermanence, and we’ll find out whether it’s worth the five-year wait when it hits shelves/online next month. Fresh from his Australia jaunt for Future Classic – and a surprisingly lukewarm review in this very publication last week – affable German producer Henrik Schwarz has announced that he plans to release no less than four albums this year, three of them in co-operation with Âme, Dixon and Bugge Wesseltoft. One has to snort this with a few grams of salt considering he has been working on his first solo album since the late cretaceous period. “My solo album is half-finished but won’t be near completion until autumn,” Henrik told Spank! when he was in town. (For the record, when I interviewed Henrik in November ’09 he estimated the album would be completed by March 2010, so one must again factor in his vague sense of time... although one also ought to cut the man some slack, considering he has to balance touring and music with fathering his young twin sons.) Henrik also revealed, “I have an album finished with Bugge Wesseltoft ready for release. I have nine written scores from my pieces ready to be recorded by a nine-piece classic ensemble by end of next month. That will be another album called Henrik Schwarz Instruments ready by summer. Ah yes and I forgot to mention ---” Do go on Henrik --- “I also wrote and played a filmscore with Âme and Dixon that is also ready for release, called A Critical Mass presents Das Cabinet Des Doktor Calidgari. So in a way there were four years of no albums but now we have four albums in one year. Not sure if that’s good or not but it should be exciting listening none-the-less.” It’s most definitely good, or rather ‘gut’, in my book, Henrik. This Saturday, Crosstown Rebels mainman Damian Lazarus headlines the AGWA Boat Party alongside Pete Herbert and Dicky Trisco. And I almost forgot: Art Department, the pairing of Kenny Glasgow and Jonny White, will also be playing. The much-hyped duo behind one of the most played cuts of last year, ‘Without You’, have divided more discerning types, but one
LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY FEBRUARY 5
Damian Lazarus, Art Department AGWA Boat Cruise
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 12
Vincenzo, Trus’Me, Butch Spice Midnight Cruise
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 17 Four Tet, Caribou Metro Theatre
SATURDAY MARCH 26 XHIN The Civic
cannot dispute their pulling powers. In fact it was only last Friday that I celebrated making deadline early – a rare occurrence indeed – by showing off my ‘clubber’s belly’ down at the beach. My ears pricked when I heard the ruffians beside me discussing this very party, and the presence of Art Department in particular. Ruffian 1: “Art Department will be sick bro!” Ruffian 2 replied with a remark that suggested he had absolutely no idea who Art Department were. Ruffian 1 proceeded to launch into a piercing, off-key rendition of U2’s ‘With Or Without You’ to the rough tune of ‘Without You’. A deft, postmodern medley, or a bumbling attempt at a cover? Either way, I’m not about to fault the enthusiasm that was on display. And that same enthusiasm will undoubtedly be flowing through the AGWA starship in spades this Saturday, a fiesta to which tickets were still available for purchase at the time of writing.
Damian Lazarus
Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com. 46 :: BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11
Soul Sedation
Soul, Dub, Hip Hop & Bottom-heavy Beats with Tony Edwards
Tokimonsta
This week: - Weds 2nd -
Gallery Burlesque Out of the Woods 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.
O
nce this goes to print the lucky ones among us will have seen Aloe Blacc at the Beck's Bar on his Good Things tour. It was this column’s album of 2010, and if you don’t own it yet, you’re truly missing out. The big single ‘I Need A Dollar’ paved the way in a hype sense, but there’s some beautiful music that emerges as you get deeper into the tracklist. ‘Loving You Is Killing Me’ is my favourite of the week. I haven’t heard a vocalist communicate this clearly in a long time; it’s a jaw-dropping, confronting style. US future-tronica wizard Tokimonsta has produced an amazing remix of Andreya Triana’s soul vocal ‘Far Closer’. It’s a supreme late-night headphone-style groove - really lovely work. On a funky breaks tip Basement Freaks have a new album out – Something Freaky. The title is pretty fat, old school disco breaks. Good solid party music on Jalapeno Records. There’s also a full-length digi-dub album out from Soom T and Disrupt; it’s deep, dirty and digital. From the Jahtari stable, it’s 8-bit, weed-inspired, chip hop and features Soom T, a female Scottish emcee with a badass attitude. Disrupt is the producer and Jahtari the label boss.
Ubiquity has released some vintage afro jazz in the form of The Afro Soul-Tet’s Afrodesia. It’s late night cocktail stuff, not dancefloor-orientated, but still very classy. Keep your ears peeled for Ramadanman’s Fabriclive #56. He’s an interestingly diverse producer from London who works through deep house, dubstep and jazz-based drums in his own productions. To local gig news, and Dead Prez are headed back our way after their BDO tour of last year. This column heard good things about the show. They’ll be on stage Tuesday March 15 at the OAF. Elefant Traks up the culture stakes by inviting us to 'An Evening With Ozi Batla'. Sounds sophisticated! He’ll be rocking the mic Saturday March 5 at Tone. And for the electronic heads there’s a UK funky, house, garage and dubstep fusion showcase coming our way, with Roska and Brainfeeder artist Lorn headlining yet another show at Tone, on Saturday February 26. Fort Knox Five will hit town in February for a Wednesday night set at Tone, with supports from Percussion Junction, Omegaman, James Locksmith and Bentley. Void and Niche Productions are co-promoting the DMZ / Digital Mystikz tour, but it’s still a way off in April. The renowned wizard producers will showcase their clubnight, label, and own productions on Friday April 8 at the Oxford Art Factory. Hopefully the sound in the venue is spot on for that night. Should be proper heavy!
ON THE ROAD THU FEB 10
SUN FEB 20
TUE MAR 15
FRI FEB 18
SAT 26 FEB
WED MAR 16
FEB 17 - 20
FRI APRIL 8
De La Soul, Prince Paul Enmore Theatre Kool & The Gang, Roy Ayers Enmore Theatre
SAT FEB 19
Mayer Hawthorne & The County Manning Bar
Roy Ayers The Basement Roska, Lorn Tone
Playground Weekender Wiseman’s Ferry
Dead Prez Oxford Art Factory
Horace Andy, Dub Asante Metro Theatre DMZ Oxford Art Factory
SUN FEB 27
- Thurs 3rd -
The Dyno Mics ‘Look Good’ launch party
- Fri 4th -
Twist and Shout Sydney’s favourite 60s dance party
www.tone.net.au facebook.com/tonesydney twitter.com/tonevenue 16 Wentworh Avenue, Surry Hills NSW 2010 (02) 9287 6440
Planet Asia, Copywrite Tone
Send stuff for this column to tonyedwards001@gmail.com by 6pm Wednesdays. All pics to art@thebrag.com BRAG :: 397:: 31:01:11 :: 47
snap
mum
PICS ::SB
up all night out all week . . .
siberian flood raiser
hot damn
:: GOODGOD :: 55 Liverpool St. Sydney 92673787
PICS :: AM
20:01:11
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21:01:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700
20:01:11 :: Spectrum :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93316245
It’s called: Adult Disco feat. Flight Facilities and The Swiss! It sounds like: Saturday night fever. Acts: Flight Facilities, The Swiss (live), Mitzi (live), Simon Caldwell, Softwar, Andy Webb, Graz, Future Classic DJs. Three records you’ll hear on the night: ‘Crave You’ – Flight Facilities (#19 in the Hottest 100, oh yeah!!!); ‘Bubble Bath’ – played live by The Swiss; ‘All I Heard’ – played live by our newest signing, Mitzi! Sell it to us: Super massive local disco heroe s Flight Facilities, and Australia’s best live muscle disco three-piece, The Swiss – going large across two floors and the laneway at the Civic. It’s also the Sydne y debut of our 50th vinyl release wizards, Mitzi.
The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Tony from The Swiss taking his shirt off and drumming everyone to death. Crowd specs: Adults and disco-enthusiasts … Wallet damage: $20 presale and more on the door. Where: The Civic / Cnr of Pitt & Goulburn St. When: Saturday February 5, 10pm till late late late!
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SMAC awards
PICS :: AM
party profile
Adult Disco
20:01:11 :: National Art School :: Forbes Street Darlinghurst 93398744 AN BUI :: INNERSTYLE :: ASHLEY : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) :: SUS :: TOM TRAMONTE OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHERS NA :: HAN ROU ETTE ROS :: T PLAN POT MAR :: DANIEL MUNNS :: SARAH
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no half steppin 21:01:11 :: Tone Venue :: 116 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills
dj marky
:: Manning Bar :: @ Sydney Uni City Rd Chippendale 95636107
PICS :: AM
21:01:11
chinese laundry
PICS :: RR
24:01:11 :: Enmore Theatre :: 118-132 Enmore Road, Newtown 9550 3666
PICS :: RR
lupe fiasco
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up all night out all week . . .
22:01:11 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex Street Sydney 82959958
It’s called: ROBOPOP It sounds like: Jumping over quadruple rainbo ws while riding a purple unicorn.
DJs: Fantomatique, Kill The Landlord, T Romp f, Bitty v Fran Damme, Rigs & Rads. Three records you’ll hear on the night: Limp Bizkit – ‘Break Stuff’; Belinda Carlisle – ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’; Smas hmouth – ‘All Star’. And one you definitely won’t: That dubstep remix of that track you heard once on Video Hits. Sell it to us: It’s the last ROBOPOP of summ er, so head down for some sunshine eargasms! P.S. Did you know Febru ary 5 is International Nutella Day!? We did! Come down early for Nutella treats from 10pm! The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Nutella stuck in our hair (between the rainbow juice unicorn jizm). Crowd specs: Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy! Wallet damage: $10 Where: Supper Club / Upstairs 134 Oxford St When: Saturday February 5, from 10pm
teenage kicks
PICS :: AM
party profile
ROBOPOP
20:01:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700 AN BUI :: INNERSTYLE :: ASHLEY : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) :: SUS :: TOM TRAMONTE :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHERS NA HAN ROU ETTE POTPLANT :: ROS MAR :: DANIEL MUNNS :: SARAH
BRAG :: 397 :: 31:01:11 :: 49
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last night
:: The Gaelic Theatre :: 64 Devonshire St Surry Hills 92111687
starfuckers
PICS :: AM
21:01:11
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up all night out all week . . .
chinese laundry
PICS :: AM
22:01:11 :: Club 77 :: 77 William St Kings Cross 93613387
21:01:11 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex Street Sydney 82959958
It’s called: GhettoBlaster It sounds like: LA Garage party meets reputa ble Sydney venue. Who’s playing? Live sets from Doc Holliday Takes The Shotgun, Bang Bang Rock’n’Roll and Pilots playing live sets. PLUS &Dimes, Girlthing, Cries Wolf and Shirts Off! DJs getting their hands dirty. Sell it to us: Live art walls, live bands, live DJs, an art exhibition, homemade (and spiked) lemonade for $5 - from a lemon ade check into GhettoBlaster on Facebook, $8 marga stand! - free beer when you rita buckets, $5 house beers, $6.50 shots and too much more.
The bit we’ll remember in the AM: To be frank, our patrons remember slivers from the night at best. Wallet damage: $10 entry. Where: QBar, VIP & 34b (The Exchange Hotel 34 Oxford street, Darlinghurst) When: February 5 from 9pm
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wham
PICS :: DM
party profile
GhettoBlaster
22:01:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700 AN BUI :: INNERSTYLE :: ASHLEY : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) :: SUS :: TOM TRAMONTE :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHERS NA HAN ROU ETTE POTPLANT :: ROS MAR :: DANIEL MUNNS :: SARAH
Red Floor Productions, Drum Media & 2ser present
Proudly P dly supporting supp pportingg
The Black Dog Institute t t
The
KORA Vasco Era C.W Stoneking & His Primitive Horn Orchestra
The Bamboos Space Invadas
Custom Kings Resin Dogs Papa Vs Pretty Eagle & The Worm
Chase The Sun Claude Hay
Zoe K & The Shadow Katz Sticky Fingers Lanie Lane Blackest Sabbath Dirty York Bonjah Ngariki Electric Band
FULLL WEEKEND ND T TIC TICKET CKET Includingg camping Includin p g $$130 ava availablee via the website website. w b (until sold out of course!) !)
Bowen & The Lucky Dutchmen + heaps eaps p more
www.thegumball.com.au
ARE YOU READY TO BE BIG DAY OUT PROOF? Defy everything that festival season throws at you with the smartphone that’s water and scratch resistant.
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