The Brag #408

N ON

AS SEE

K

S WEE

NEW GOOD

TED BY DIRECBROUGH AL AN

THE 2 ND ANNUAL

CHOPPER’ S BONZA YOU BEWDY G’DAY BIG F ** KIN ANZAC DAY SHOW VIRGIN MOBILE METRO THEATRE

7 PM MONDAY APR 25 As seen on Good News Week, Spicks & Specks, y Festival Gala.

Thank God You’re Here and the Melbourne Comedy

VIRGIN MOBILE METRO THEATRE

SAT, APR 30 - SUN, MAY 1 TWO SHOWS ONLY! WINNERS BEST SHOW BARRY AWARD FOR

2010 MELB MELBOURNE BOURNE INTERNAT INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FFESTIVAL

As heard on Nova and their song ‘The Hawk’, the 2010 sell-out musical comedy hit returns!

Felicity Ward.

Honestly.

The Story of Captain Entree

The Factory Theatre (Boiler Room)

7:30pm April 28-May 1

Seymour Centre (Sound Lounge)

THREE SHOWS ONLY

7:30PM April 27-30

7DD@>C<H/ %' .%'% +.++ lll#hnYcZnXdbZYn[Zhi#Xdb#Vj

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 3

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

KIM CHURCHILL RÁV THOMAS

NEW ALBUM ‘THE SOUND OF SUNSHINE’ OUT NOW

SUNDAY 24 APRIL ENMORE THEATRE 132 849

THIS SUNDAY – DON’T MISS OUT! F R O N T I E RT O U R I N G . C O M 4 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

MICHAELFRANTI.COM

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 5

6 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

VILLAGE SOUNDS AND SECRET SERVICE PRESENT THE 11TH ANNUAL ARTS & MUSIC FESTIVAL

FRIDAY 29, SATURDAY 30, SUNDAY 31 JULY 2011 TICKETS ON SALE 9AM THURSDAY 5 MAY 3 DAYS U ONSITE CAMPING U MULTI STAGES

WOODFORDIA, WOODROW ROAD, WOODFORD QUEENSLAND 1.5 HOURS NORTH OF BRISBANE U ALL AGES & LICENSED COLDPLAY (ONLY AUSTRALIAN SHOW) U KANYE WEST (ONLY AUSTRALIAN SHOW) U JANE’S ADDICTION U THE HIVES U PULP U THE LIVING END THE MARS VOLTA U REGINA SPEKTOR (ONLY 2011 SHOW...ANYWHERE) U BLISS N ESO U PNAU U MOGWAI (ONLY AUSTRALIAN SHOW) U DJ SHADOW U FRIENDLY FIRES GLASVEGAS U THE GRATES U DEVENDRA BANHART AND THE GROGS U MODEST MOUSE U THE MIDDLE EAST U KAISER CHIEFS U JAMES BLAKE U KELE U THE VINES ELBOW U ESKIMO JOE U NOAH AND THE WHALE U CHILDREN COLLIDE U THIEVERY CORPORATION U CUT COPY U ISOBEL CAMPBELL AND MARK LANEGAN BLUEJUICE UÊ THE KILLS U BLACK JOE LEWIS & THE HONEYBEARS (FEATURING THE RELATIVES) U ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI U FOSTER THE PEOPLE THE PANICS U JEBEDIAH U THE VACCINES U GOMEZ U BOY AND BEAR U GOTYE U DOES IT OFFEND YOU, YEAH? U CLOUD CONTROL MONA U SPARKADIA U WARPAINT U MUSCLES (LIVE) U FITZ AND THE TANTRUMS U THE JEZABELS U DRAPHT U BRITISH SEA POWER U TIM & JEAN LEADER CHEETAH U GROUPLOVE U SEEKER LOVER KEEPER U YELLE U KIMBRA U PHRASE U OH MERCY U DANANANANAYKROYD U THE BLACK SEEDS MARQUES TOLIVER U THE HOLIDAYS U GHOUL U LIAM FINN UÊ THE HERD U YOUNG THE GIANT U GUINEAFOWL U HUNGRY KIDS OF HUNGARY JINJA SAFARI U WILD BEASTS U ILLY U CUT OFF YOUR HANDS U GARETH LIDDIARD U ALPINE U WORLD’S END PRESS U MOSMAN ALDER U LANIE LANE PLUS DJ’S THE ASTON SHUFFLE U FLIGHT FACILITIES U D-CUP (WE NO SPEAK AMERICANO) U AJAX (MEGA JAM SET) U HOODRAT & DANGEROUS DAN UÊLIGHT YEAR UÊHOOPS CASSIAN U WAX MOTIF U KATO U TONI TONI LEE U CHARLIE CHUX U TRANTER U TRIPLE J UNEARTHED WINNER AND LOCAL ACTS TO BE ANNOUNCED TICKETS AVAILABLE ONLINE FROM MOSHTIX.COM.AU

VISIT SPLENDOURINTHEGRASS.COM FOR UPDATES BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 7

8 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 9

rock music news

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... With Nathan Jolly and Cool Thomas

he said she said WITH

PARIS FROM HOWLER

W

e’ve been playing music forever and ever. Back when I was a little one my dad used to put on tunes ranging from real rocking stuff by Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones to more souly and bluesy stuff by Aretha Franklin and Creedence Clearwater Revival. We would hang out for hours on end and just listen to songs and have fun. As soon as I was big enough I would get my arse behind the drum kit and bust loose!

I met the real bad boys in the band, Tommy and Mickey, in 2008. We met through the Bondi Wave Music Project which is an awesome and mostly governmentfunded program for musicians to meet other musicians, form bands and try to take it to the next level.

I think it’s pretty important nowadays to listen to a lot of different styles. I hit up everything from The Rolling Stones (they’re just too good) to Stevie Wonder to A Day To Remember to Deadmau5. I think that listening to a big bunch of different music styles can have a positive impact on the way you write your own music. I’ve used pop/ punk beats in our band a few times and they seem to fit in quite nicely (at least I think

they sound pretty hot!)

My crew would have to be my homeboys in Howler, Tommy and Mickey and our roadie. We especially love our buddies that trek it far and wide to see us, and who spend their dollars on an entry fee rather than on a tasty goon sack! Much love, fellas!

We play rock/blues music. At the moment we’re playing heaps of live shows, and in a few months we’re gonna hit the studio and hopefully make something extra cool and extra fat! Hit us up on the Facebook and the MySpace, come to a gig, say hi, hang out and have funs! We always like meeting new dudes and girls.

We’ve been lucky enough to jam it up live with the Hoodoo Gurus and The Break. Both those bands have been massive inspirations and have also given us feedback on how we can play better and get our music out there more. We’re hell grateful to them!

With: The Owls, The Summervilles and more Where: Wolfden @ Phoenix Bar, Oxford Street When: Saturday April 23

$12 presale through Moshtix, which includes the compilation. Bam!

ESKIMO JOE TOUR

‘When We Were Kids’ is the name of the new Eskimo Joe tour, and I’d sorta hoped the title referred to the fact they’ll be focusing on their early material like ‘Sweater’, ‘Turn Up Your Stereo’, ‘Video Piracy’, ‘Coco Pops’ and other juvenile gems. Turns out it’s an acoustic tour that will see the band preview new tracks from their fifth album, along with the usual slew of hits they tend to casually throw into sets. May 28 at the Gaelic Club. If you like the ‘Joe, you gotta go (unofficial show slogan).

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 WRITERS: Jonno Seidler, Caitlin Welsh NEWS CO-ORDINATORS: Nathan Jolly, Cool Thomas, Chris Honnery ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alan Parry SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Katrina Clarke, Mitchell Jay, Bianca Khalil, Ashley Mar, Daniel Munns, Thomas Peachey, Patrick Stevenson COVER DESIGN: Sarah Bryant SALES/MARKETING MANAGER: Blake Rayner 0404 304 929 / (02) 9552 6672 blake@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 9552 6618 les@thebrag.com GIG & CLUB GUIDE CO-ORDINATOR: Conrad Richters - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@thebrag.com (dance) INTERNS: Sigourney Berndt, Lenny Adam REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Simon Binns, Joshua Blackman, Mikey Carr, Oliver Downes, Max Easton, Tony Edwards, Christie Eliezer, Murray Engleheart, Lucy Fokkema, Max Easton, Mike Gee, Thomas Gilmore, Chris Honnery, Nathan Jolly, Alex Lindsay Jones, Peter Neathway, Romi Scodellaro, Rach Seneviratne, RK, Luke Telford, Rick Warner Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this address 153 Bridge Road, Glebe NSW 2037 ph - (02) 9552 6333 fax - (02) 9552 6866 EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Publisher, Editor or Staff of The Brag.

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE: Stephen Forde : accounts@furstmedia.com.au ph - (03) 9428 3600 fax - (03) 9428 3611 Furst Media, 3 Newton Street Richmond Victoria 3121 DEADLINES: Editorial Wednesday 12pm (no extensions) Art Work, Ad Bookings Thursday 12pm (no extensions) Ad Cancellations Tuesday 4pm Published by Cartrage P/L ACN 104026388 All content copyrighted to Cartrage 2003 DISTRIBUTION: Wanna get The Brag? Email distribution@furstmedia. com.au or phone 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...

10 :: BRAG :: 408 : 18:04:11

Snowman

Jane's Addiction

SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS 2011

Isn’t it funny that out of Chris Martin and tweet-freak Kanye West, Martin was the one that went online and blabbed about their Splendour booking ahead of time… Or maybe Gwyneth hopped on while Chris was still signed in – she’s such a joker, eh? We’ll never truly know. What we do know is the massive lineup for this year, that we still hadn’t stopped talking about come Deadline Friday last week: Coldplay and Kanye, in their only Australian shows, Jane’s Addiction, Modest Mouse, The Hives, Pulp, The Kills, The Mars Volta, Noah And The Whale, Fitz And The Tantrums, Warpaint, The Living End, Devendra Banhart And The Grogs, DJ Shadow, Mogwai (also Only Australian Show), The Vines, The Mars Volta, Friendly Fires, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Regina Spektor (in her only 2011 show anywhere), and many, many more. Tickets are on sale from May 5 through Moshtix, so be online 9am and help us break the Internet! Every click counts.

CHOCOLATE CAKE FIASCO

BANDWAGON

I bet 21 years ago, when David Bridie and his friends started a band called My Friend The Chocolate Cake, they never thought they’d still be cramming the name onto tour posters in 2011. Two decades, eight albums, and several ARIAs later, the sextet are on the verge of releasing the excellent Fiasco album (out this Friday April 22, buy it from a proper record store), the band is hitting The Basement on June 4 to launch it in style. Which means, wear shoes.

Melbourne band Wagons sound less Australian than Kylie Minogue these days, possibly because they have recently signed on to big American touring agency High Road Touring (Wilco, Lucinda Williams, Ween) and have been zigzagging up and down the states like a Simon and Garfunkel song. They have an album out in early May (Rumble, Shake and Tumble) and will be launching it on June 25 at the Annandale. Assuming it’s still around, of course.

MEGASTICK FANFARE

POPBOOMERANG

Sydney favourites Megastick Fanfare have announced that they’re finally releasing their debut album, Grit Aglow – recorded in their home studio, with co-producing credits going to friend Frey Lindsay, and mixing handled by Mr. Jonathan Boulet, and we have it on excellent authority that it’s A Very Good Listen, Indeed.

The album has been described as a “diverse, jagged soundscape that takes shape through the process of interweaving and unravelling textural and melodic elements, atop insistent bass lines.” Excited yet? It comes out on May 6, though the prolific Other Tongues.

If you’re a fan of Aussie pop then you are no doubt a fan of Melbourne label Popboomerang, who are releasing Electric & Eclectic Rarities Volume 1, a 20-track rarities compilation which betrays the embarrassment of riches the label has in their vault (despite mp3 technology, label owner Scott still insists on storing the masters in an actual vault). The night is set for May 7 and features live sets from The Aerial Maps, Skipping Girl Vinegar frontman Mark Lang, the un-AC/DC-esque Bon Scotts, Russell Crawford and The Stickmen and the most audibly pleasing band name in the universe, Celadore. Tickets are

SNOWMAN RELEASE ABSENSE, BECOME ABSENT

Isn’t it sad when things end? It’s bad enough when it comes like a bolt out of the blue, but it’s an altogether more crushing feeling when you realise during the actual last gasp. Perth band Snowman came to the realisation that they were all but finished (the rhythm section moving to Iceland and starting a family was probably the main clue), so they decided to record one last album to wrap everything up in a neat little trilogy. Their final album Absence is released April 22 via Dot Dash/Remote Control Records, and is as haunting and bittersweet as you’d expect.

THURS 21st & 28th

April from 7pm

$5

or FREE D! WITH THIS A

1st Floor of The Oxford Hotel.

134 Oxford St Darlinghurst.

Sydney-based jazz quartet specialise in reinterpreting a cocktail of ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s rock classics from the past fifty years, and turn them into delicious lounge cover versions.

The Acca Daiquiris take a splash of your favorite classics, mix them with a dash of kitsch and serve them on the chilled side of the rocks. Everyone is on the menu from Frank Sinatra’s “Witchcraft” to the “Stairway to Heaven” and Britney Spears.

Get drunk on the Acca Daiquiris ...

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 11

rock music news

free stuff

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... With Nathan Jolly and Cool Thomas

five things WITH

MIND OVER MATTER

LITTLE BUSHMAN Bushman’s musical influences stem mostly from my love of 60s psychedelic rock. We try to keep our songs relevant to what is going on around us politically, but we also try to keep our music honest and sincere. Not many of our songs are the ‘radio friendly’ three minutes, because that compromises and squashes the songs to fit more advertising in. I have my own studio where we have just finished the latest Little Bushman album, Te Oranga.

W

hen I look back on my childhood years, I feel very lucky. My parents weren’t rich by any means - Dad was a storeman and Mum a telephone operator - but we had a great upbringing. Both of my parents were musical and we seemed to have sings-along parties at our house on a regular basis. We kids (three boys) were all encouraged to learn an instrument, but by default we all learned how to play each other’s various instruments. Sibling rivalry.

I have come across many inspirational musicians and people during my life.

APPLICATIONS OPEN FOR WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL

Applications for the Australasian World Music Expo (AWME) have just opened, and Melbourne is readying herself to host us all on November 17 through 20. While it’s sad that Limp Bizkit will never make it through the selection process, it’s good to know that over 300 other musicians (you’re all like, ‘there are other musicians?’), 400 local and international delegates and over 8000 audience members enjoyed the four days of the festival last year. Think about how awesome this year will be! If you tinker with a tabla, hit up the AWME website and apply.

KARNIVOOL, FOOL

If you have a friend that always pulls out of seeing bands at the last moment with the “I’ll just see them next time they come around”

My first saxophone tutor, Jim Thorne, first introduced me to the hot LA session musos at the time - Steve Gadd, Marcus Miller, Quincy Jones - when I was 11 years old. My parents would thrash their 50s rock ‘n’ roll and my older brother Richard would thrash his Bob Marley, Cream and Jimi Hendrix. The one cool radio station in Whangarei during the 80s was KCC FM, who played mostly The Bangles and Bryan Adams - and then I’d sit with the school big band and play Glen Miller swing! So I was exposed to all these different types of music growing up.

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

Fundamentally, I like to compose music that is sincere - not background café music or plastic barbie pop. At the moment I’m getting more in touch with my country/folk side, and I’m really loving vocal harmony. I’ve been listening to Crosby, Stills and Nash and the Golden Gate Quartet, and I just get such a euphoric feeling when I hear three or more voices creating beautiful harmony. So that’s probably going to influence my next venture.

I think the music scene is exploding! I think the accessibility of all music around the world has opened people’s ears, so hopefully more honest underground music will start to see the light of day, and the pop bullshit out there will be recognised for what it is: pre-teenage money-making rubbish!

With: The Widowbirds Where: The Gaelic Theatre

Aussie hip hop outfit Mind Over Matter’s latest release, Just Like Fireworks, has got some critics touting it as “the Oz hip hop album of the year.” Currently on rotation on both FBi and triple j, Mind Over Matter will be launching the album nationally over the next two months, supported by fellow Aussie rappers Coptic Soldier and Johnny Utah. The crew are set to unleash their new live set on Sydney audiences at the Oxford Art Factory this Friday April 21. To score a double pass to an energetic party full of great samples and cracking flow, hit us up with the name of the city that the Mind Over Matter crew hail from.

WE HAD PARTIES

Strap on them bunny ears and head down to The Gaelic Theatre this Easter Sunday.

Nope, they’re not promising hot cross buns or chocolate eggs, but we have it on good authority (still-being-hungover-from-lastyear) that We Had Parties will be better than all that. This year, the all-in huge and hectic party is spread across two levels, and themed ‘Rumble In The Jungle’.

Ditch your pretty evening shoes because Sydney’s favourite parties can’t wait to get them dirty: the guys and girls from Last Night (Purple Sneakers), Mum, Teen Spirit, Girl Thing, F.R.I.E.N.D/s, Ghetto Blaster and P*A*S*H* will be spinning til the wee hours. You can score a double pass to the most party boxing-ring junglethemed club this city has seen, by telling us who starred as Muhammed in the movie Ali. Easssyyy.

When: Thursday April 21

excuse, well that shit won’t wash when it comes to Karnivool’s June 18 Roundhouse show - the band are making it very clear that this is their only Australian tour in 2011. So you can let him/ her know in advance.

WIM

BHAGAVAD GUITARS

Do you know what took less than 14 years? The entire career of The Beatles! So, it would appear that Bhagavad Guitars have taken their time to release Unfamiliar Places, their first record in that same amount of time... These guys ruled the Aussie indie pop scene during the 90s and now they’re back to teach the kids how to jangle (or something). They launch the record at Notes in Newtown on May 6, with support from Alannah and Simon from Hummingbirds (referred to in this very news piece as “the best band EVER”), The Glammarays (feat. Jodi Phillis) and Peter “Hi, I’m in Crow!” Fenton.

RELEASING AN ALBUM ON A WIM

While it is the cleverest headline you have ever read, it’s about as far from the truth as you can get. Sydney’s WIM (yep, they like it in caps) have been working at it for a while, shrouded in a cloud of mystery and hype while concocting their own brand of brooding folkrock. Now is their time to show it off, with their self-titled debut album hitting shelves at the end of May, thanks to Modular. Stay tuned for the tour…

REVELRY RIDERS & CHILDREN COLLIDERS

Aa

MAATES

So, American post-post-punk outfit Aa (or Big A little a) are heading to our shores for their first Australian tour. There’s not a whole lot we can say to prepare you for their ecstatic artpunk DIY stylings - have a listen online, and then open a new tab to book those tickets. If that isn’t enough to get you excited, Melbourne’s Rat Vs Possum are going to be dragged along for the ride, so if you missed them tear it up at Laneway Festival, this is your chance.

Red Rattler, Marrickville on Friday May 6. More info and tickets are available on the Red Rattler’s website.

The only thing I can compare to the awesomeness of Young Revelry’s live show is a fresh meatball sub with mozzarella, extra pepperoni, truckloads of pickles and mayonnaise. You’re a little tentative at first, but try it once and you’ll never look back. Catch Young Revelry and Red Riders (R.I.P) when they support Children Collide at the Metro Theatre, on Thursday April 21. Tickets are $25 though OzTix.

ESCAPE THE FATE

Those devilish post-hardcore rockers from Las Vegas, Escape The Fate, are here to tear down the walls (wall?) of the UNSW Roundhouse. Cut the sleeves of that faded black shirt and gear up to get loose. For those of you who are into the scene, you don’t need any more convincing so we’ll hit you with the facts: Saturday April 30, all ages, tickets through Ticketek now.

INNER WESTSIDE

So you enjoy the idea of the Inner West Festival, but your close-minded indie ways have prevented you from liking anything that doesn’t sound like Wowee Zowee. Or perhaps you’re far too street to listen to anything without a beat that drops like a cop after a 187 (that’s right). Well, there’s no need to cross-pollinate, because the Inner West Festival has a hip hop day and an indie, fringy, bring your cat day (don’t bring your cat). Saturday April 23 is the hip hop day, with 40s being tipped to tha curb all day long by Ozi Batla, Sketch The Rhyme, Reverse Polarities, Tuka (Thundamentals), Vegas Aces, True Vibe Nation and more, while on the following day (let’s call this one ‘Easter Sunday’), Zeahorse, The Green Mohair Suits, Hy-Test, Fait Accompli, Hailer, Only The Sea Slugs, Animal Shapes, Andy Golledge, Easy Company and more will be trying to find enough inputs for all of their pedals.

April 23 & 24 (this Easter long weekend) at the Sandringham. Tickets on sale now from Moshtix. Happy long weekend!

“I was born in the ‘80s with that summertime love / then I changed the whole game like ‘what have I done?’ – BLISS N ESO 12 :: BRAG :: 408 : 18:04:11

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 13

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

Joris Voorn

MC SMILES FROM MIND OVER MATTER Backstreet Boys in primary school one minute, and then bumping Puff Daddy’s ‘Come With Me’ from the Godzilla soundtrack the next. Saturday morning Rage pretty much raised us both - so we’ve both had a strong interest in music from an early age. Our parents didn’t feel that hip hop was a very viable option for a career, but they’ve recently come around.

Rappers like Redman, Bubba Sparkxxx, Eminem, Slug and Bliss n Eso have been favourites of ours for years. I can remember the first time I heard every one of them - it was such a cool period of life back at age fifteen, every week we were discovering new artists that influenced us. My CD collection was recently insured for $10,000, so that gives you a rough idea about how much we enjoyed discovering new artists. Artists that speak so honestly about their own lives and experiences inspire us.

O

ur childhood definitely effected our choice to become musicians. Willow was listening to Eazy-E in grade two, and I was pretending I was Nick Carter from the

Eso from Bliss n Eso got Willow into hip hop; they grew up together. Every so often, Eso would bring Willow CDs from A Tribe Called Quest, ICP, Eazy-E etc. I began falling into hip hop during the early years of high school, after Willow opened my eyes to the value of lyrical content for an artist... We’re in an extended crew called I Forget, Sorry!, consisting of Phatchance, Coptic Soldier, Johnny Utah and us. Jon Reichardt is a close friend and very

talented singer/multi-instrumentalist that we’ve been working with much more recently, too - a name to look out for!

We love everything from Rar Rar party hip hop to electro to rock to emo rap. Sage Francis to Justice to Apathy to Metallica. Our latest release, Just Like Fireworks, has a range of musical styles on it, from boom bap hip hop to reggae to electro to rock. In our live show you can expect a lot of energy, a couple laughs and live instrumentation.

I love the Australian music scene. In Australian hip hop especially, the artists who are talented are doing well, so there’s some quality control going on. As it’s still a growing genre there isn’t heaps of room at the top, which is an obstacle for hip hop artists hoping to achieve a high level of radio play. Bliss n Eso have always inspired us, especially with their live show.

Lyrically, we’re pretty critical and thus harder dudes to impress, but we love Phrase, Drapht and Phatchance to name a few!

With: Just Like Fireworks is out now through Other Tongues With: Coptic Soldier, Johnny Utah Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Thursday April 21

reasons for the postponement and apologises to the promoters and fans - he assures us he’ll be back later in 2011”. The show will go on, and Melbourne producer Tornado Wallace, aka Lewie Day, will be boarding a plane to take a spot on the lineup alongside the inimitable Simon Caldwell.

Promoters are offering a full refund, however here’s the better option; Picnic are also offering a $20 discount to those that have bought presale tickets and still want to head along for a bit of groovin’ on Easter Sunday. Across town, Anthony Pappa has been forced to cancel his tour of Australia after falling ill in New York, and won’t be mixing alongside Desyn Masiello at Golden Cage at Soho on Sunday night. Masiello has offered to play a marathon five-hour set to fill the void left by Pappa’s absence though, and fill it he will; as something of a specialist DJ, Masiello rarely disappoints with his smooth and adventurous mix of house, prog and tech sounds – make sure you check out his classic Balance mix if you haven’t already.

N-TYPE

SPICE AFLOAT

Avast, ye land lubbers! All aboard the good ship SPICE Afloat! Popular clubbing institution SPICE returns on May 14, with The Netherlands’ Joris Voorn playing skipper to a midnight cruise on Sydney Harbour. Sure to drive the custombuilt Bella Vista with a bangin’ high energy house/techno set, Voorn will be accompanied by label co-owner Edwin Oosterwall, with local support coming from Sydney favourites Murat Kilic and Matttt & Tomass, as well as Nic Scali and Sam Roberts. Sure to beckon a crew who takes the dance floor seriously, the pre-sale to this limited capacity event has already sold out. To plunder your way to one of two single passes, give us the name of Voorn and Oosterwall’s label.

RED RACK’EM AT RACKET

Described by Gilles Peterson as “not being able to put a foot wrong right now”, Danny Berman aka Red Rack’em aka Hot Coins headlines the next Mad Racket bash on Saturday April 23 at Marrickville Bowling Club.

Berman has built up a following through a string of releases on labels like Tirk, Untracked, Home Taping, Undertone and his own Bergerac imprint, through which he released his critically acclaimed debut album, The Early Years. In addition to his own productions, which traverse a sonic palette of house, techno and disco influences, Berman has crafted remixes for Tricky, Joubert Singers, The Revenge and Ron Basejam, while I’m told his ‘Smugglers Inn’ radio show/podcast regularly pulls in thousands of listeners around the globe. As ever, you can grab tickets ahead of the gig through the dance music bazaar that is Spank Records on Bourke St, Surry Hills.

Del The Funky Homosapien

VOID’S FOURTH BIRTHDAY

Void has unveiled the lineup for its fourth birthday celebration on Saturday May 14 at Oxford Art Factory, which will feature a man considered by many to be the world’s finest dubstep DJ, N-TYPE. (Though here at Brag, we find such labels superfluous, so let’s just all agree that the man does what he does damn well.) N-TYPE was the guest of honour at Void’s first birthday back in ’08, but he’s accomplished a fair bit since that visit - last year he toured with the likes of Pendulum and The Prodigy, while in ’09 he released his second mix album, the ninth instalment of the Rinse mix series that was hailed as “the new definitive compilation series for pirate music enthusiasts”. This birthday party ain’t just about one man though; Garage Pressure, Victim, Swindle, Prize, Preacha and Low Society DJs will also be pushing a mix of dubstep, hip hop, grime and future beats across two rooms of the Oxford Art Factory. $20 presale tickets can be procured through www.voidsound.com

CURDED DISCO

Jackin’ house exponent James Curd, he of the quirky pop troupe The Greenskeepers, will play a headline set for Adult Disco on Saturday May 7. Rather than using the old Greenskeepers hook - you know all about the song ‘Lotion’, right? - it’s more refreshing to approach this via a discerning perusal of Curd’s recent solo output. Curd’s hip house jam ‘We Just Won’t Stop’ was signed to James Murphy’s DFA Records and backed by Sydney’s own Kato, and his latest release on Permanent Vacation ‘Open Up Your Mind’ has been garnering accolades from those ‘in the know’. To bring you

up to speed on the remix front, the man has recently reworked the likes of Flight Facilities, Poolside and Kim Ann Foxman from Hercules and Love Affair. Adult Disco kicks off at 10pm on May 7, at the usual spot of The Civic Underground.

OMAR-S AND PAPPA: EASTER PULLOUTS

Two of the big guns slotted to perform in Sydney this weekend have unfortunately each cancelled their performances. Omar-S will not be performing for Picnic at Tone on Sunday, with an official statement elucidating that “Omar is citing personal

DEL THE FUNKY HOMOSAPIEN

Iconic hip hop producer Del The Funky Homosapien has just released an epic new album, Golden Era. Now before you dismiss this as typically hyperbolic street press spin, allow me to qualify the use of the word ‘epic’: Golden Era is a 3CD set consisting of ten new songs and two albums never before released physically, Funk Man and Automatic Statik, which amounts to a total of 34 tracks. Epic. Del has built up an imposing sonic pedigree after getting his start rapping with his cousin Ice Cube, as a member of Cube’s backing band. Aside from releasing two critically acclaimed albums, I Wish My Brother George Was Here and 3rd Eye Vision, Del was a driving force behind the esoteric Gorillaz project, providing the vocals on the smash single ‘Clint Eastwood’. Del’s latest coup is available through Other Tongues.

‘As long as the Amazon, as deep as the Congo / the heart of the party, the beats on the bongo’ – BLISS N ESO 14 :: BRAG :: 408 : 18:04:11

ILLUSIVE PRESENTS

2011

HORDERN PAVILION LICENSED ALL AGES

SATURDAY MAY 28 (SOLD OUT )

2ND & FINAL SHOW: SAT FRI MAY JUNE274 P LU S

(U SA)

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! TICKETEK.COM.AU OR PH 132 849 THE #1 ALBUM ~ RUNNING ON AIR AVA I LA B L E I N STO R E S & O N L I N E

BLISSNESO.COM

I LLU S I V E.C O M.AU BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 15

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH

GOLDEN ERA

Growing Up It started in the late 70s and 1. early 80s when I was emerging from my love of disco, and Cameo introduced me to my first cod piece. From there I learned not to sweat the technique while jetting from Long Beach to Brooklyn trying to figure out why my best friends were being shot and killed. While all this was going down I found myself in the jungles of London, before I landed on a two step garage.

And the rest, they say, is history.

Inspirations A combination of roller 2. skates, mirror balls, glitter, violins, flaring, pop lockin’, stoops, 40s, ghettoblasters, SP1200s, baseball caps, all 36 chambers, Aiya Nappa, Top Of The Pops, 60Hz, South London, the Valve - they all made me who I am today.

Your Crew Rick James, Prince, Evelyn 3.

King, George Clinton, KRS1, Pete Rock, Mobb Deep, Bootcamp, Dirt McGirt, EPMD,

Nate Dogg, Eazy E, Mack 10, Artful Dodger, MJ Cole, Wookie, Ms Dynamite, Ragga Twins, Top Cat. We all met at the best times of our lives.

The Music You Make Golden Era is a group of music lovers 4. who do parties. We promote various DJs who mix everything from hip hop to jungle to UK garage. Expect a bunch of DJs playing 90% original vinyl. Playing the best jams - the way it’s s’posed to be.

Music, Right Here, Right Now Well as you have probably noticed, I’m 5. mostly stuck in the best times of my lives, however I’m always looking forward and am pretty excited about the new eras of the UK funky and glitch hop stuff. The main thing new musos need is a forum to express themselves.

Hopefully I can help with that, by showcasing someone new every month! As for the best place in Sydney for music? That has to be Golden Era at FBi Social, upstairs at the new Kings Cross Hotel!

Where: Golden Era Where: FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel When: Friday April 29

KEEP DEEP

“Love Deadmau5? You may well fucking hate this,” begins the rather entertaining presser from Co-Op and Monkey Tennis, about their forthcoming ‘Keep Deep’ bash. The lineup comprises the core crew of CO-OP and Monkey Tennis DJs alongside guest spinsters the That Keen crew and BJ, Radar, Disco Stu and Mr Danny Monk, all of whom will be lurking about the atmospheric confines of Tone nightclub on Saturday April 30. Doors open at 10pm, and $10 entry can be procured merely by emailing names to co_op_club@hotmail.com

CIRCO LOCO EASTER

Skrillex

CREAMFIELDS

Tickets are still available to Creamfields Festival, which returns on Saturday 30 April at the Hordern Pavilion and surrounding areas. Deadmau5, Martin Solveig, Skrillex, Chuckie, Simon Patterson, Gabriel & Dresden, Surkin, Dada Life, Umek, Nadastrom and Tim Green will all represent, but Coffee Boy’s pick is definitely the delectable back-to-back pairing of auteurs Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May, playing under their collective ‘Hi Tek Soul‘ moniker, for a 25 years of Detroit techno anniversary/nostalgia set at the Spice Stage. Tickets are still available through multiple online outlets.

KOMPAKT’S JAPAN BENEFIT COMPILATION

Cologne-based microhouse/minimal techno/ quirky pop label Kompakt has put together a digital compilation to raise funds for Japan, which has just been made available for purchase online as of last week. The 34-track compilation includes cuts handpicked by owners of Kompakt-distributed labels Ostgut Ton, BPitch Control and Dial, and features tracks from Efdemin, Nick Höppner and Kompakt co-founder Michael Mayer, along with a number of exclusive cuts from the likes of Lawrence, SCSI-9, Kaito and UK-based artist Out of Plato’s Cave. When purchased through Bandcamp or Other Music, all of the proceeds from the collection go directly to the Red Cross Society for Japan. You can buy the tracks individually, but given the calibre of artists who have contributed, it’s hard to go past grabbing the whole thing from kompakt-japan-benefit.bandcamp.com

ALTON MILLER

Our House Sydney returns on Easter Sunday by hosting a pioneer of the house oeuvre, Detroit’s Alton Miller. Visiting Australia for the first time in over ten years, the man from the motor city returns Down Under to celebrate

On the back of the Squillace affair in October, Circo Loco returns to Greenwood this Sunday with a lineup consisting of international talismans like Visionquest’s Ryan Crosson – responsible for the excellent, Seth Troxler/ Michael Mayer endorsed ‘Birds + Souls’ cut from last year – Circo Loco stalwart Andrew Grant and UK duo Audiojack. Furthermore,

The Go! Team

THE GO! TEAM

In case you missed our cover last week: Brighton beat-makers The Go! Team are coming to Sydney, raring to take their audience on a sonic adventure through their pastiche of hip-hop-indie-dance-garagerock-inspired madness. The six-piece will be accompanied by feel-good electronic duo and rising local stars Fishing, as well as the Purple Sneakers DJs. Word on the street is this will be an unmissably fun and eclectic live show. The party takes place at The Metro Theatre on Wednesday May 4.

Tell us what The Go! Team’s latest album is called, for a shot at a double pass.

DFA’s Shit Robot is also on the bill after making his Aussie debut for Deep Impressions at GoodGod Small Club in a memorable romp last January. There’s also a strong local contingent representing, led by Le Brond and Ben Korbel and the DFA-endorsed Aussie duo Canyons all playing in various nooks and crannies of the Greenwood Hotel, which will be packed. Secure your attendance by purchasing a ticket in advance through Resident Advisor.

WE HAD PARTIES

The fifth annual We Had Parties bash will take over The Gaelic Club on Easter Sunday April 24. Themed ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, the fiesta features several well-known local party crews combining powers in honour of the Easter bunny. Representatives from Last Night (aka Purple Sneakers), Mum, Girl Thing, Teen Spirit, F.R.I.E.N.D/S, Ghetto Blaster and P*A*S*H will be throwing down over two arenas. Advance tickets can be purchased online for $20.

UNKLE

the 20th anniversary of Detroit’s legendary club ‘The Music Institute’, which he co-founded with George Baker and Chez Damier. Having released on canonical labels such as Planet E, Peace Frog and F-com, Miller is touring on the back of the release of his latest album, Light Years Away. Miller will be spinning at The Manhattan Lounge, Lower Ground, 50 Elizabeth St in Martin Place, with support from Phil Toke, Michael Zac and Eadie Ramia.

TRENTEMØLLER LATE NIGHT TALES

After previous editions by Four Tet, Fatboy Slim, Lindstrom, Jamiroquai and Groove Armada, the next episode in the Late Night Tales series comes courtesy of Danish electronic producer Trentemøller. Though many associate the man with his clubbier cuts, Trentemøller also has a penchant for indie and acoustic sounds, as was evidenced on his excellent Harbour Boat Trips - 01: Copenhagen compilation, and by the looks of the tracklist he’ll continue down this same path. Trentemøller’s Late Night Tales includes cuts from The Black Angels, Nick Cave, The Velvet Underground, Mazzy Star and Trentemøller’s rework of Chris Isaak’s ‘Blue Hotel’. You’ll be able to grab it in about a month’s time when it’s officially released – no illegal downloading in the interim, now…

UNKLE

James Lavelle’s UNKLE project is performing at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on Monday May 9, accompanied by a string section. UNKLE first rose to prominence with their debut LP Psyence Fiction, a hugely popular and critically acclaimed release that featured guest spots from Thom Yorke, Richard Ashcroft and Ian Brown amongst others. Since then the project has continue to evolve, with guest collaborators and more long-term band members coming and going amid reports that Lavelle is something of a prickly customer. However accurate those reports may be, the man is certainly a talent, so don’t let personal judgments impede you from seeing Lavelle and a full live band performing a selection of hits plus new material from UNKLE’s excellent 2010 release, Where Did the Night Fall, at such a picturesque venue as the Opera House. Tickets are available from $55 through sydneyoperahouse.com

‘You see time stops still in the eye of the storm / the foundation of my home where my rhyming was born’ – Bliss N Eso 16 :: BRAG :: 408 : 18:04:11

THIS LONG WEEKEND!

A GOSPEL CELEBRATION STARRING

THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA FEATURING

AUSTRALASIAN WORLD

MUSIC EXPO 2011 1 7 - 20 NOVEMBER | MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA FOUR DAYS OF THE FINEST ROOTS MUSIC FROM A U S T R A L I A , A S I A , T H E P A C I F I C A N D B E Y O N D. SHOWCASE CONCERTS | INDUSTRY FORUMS | CONFERENCE SESSIONS

ARTIST SHOWCASE APPLICATIONS CLOSE APRIL 29

WITH

MAVIS STAPLES AND HER BAND

*A TRANSACTION FEE OF $5 - $8.50 APPLIES TO ALL BOOKINGS, EXCEPT INSIDERS

TO APPLY VISIT: www.awme.com.au

TERRASPHERE P R OD U C T ION S

M E D I A PA R T N E R S THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN ASSISTED BY THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS, ITS ARTS FUNDING AND ADVISORY BODY.

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 17

The Music Network

themusicnetwork.com

Industry Music News with Christie Eliezer

Lifelines In Court: Foo Fighters fan Jonathan Samuel Kirkpatrick, 23, pleaded guilty to jumping the fence at the band’s benefit show, in the Brisbane Magistrate’s Court. He explained his friend was inside with his ticket.

Magistrate Liz Hall gave no penalty, as he’d spent five hours in custody and missed the show.

Fined: Mackay clubber Dylan Jai Pain, 23, $125 for patting a police drug detection dog. Police had already told clubbers not to touch the pooches as it can break the invisible “detection bubble” around them which allows them to sniff out different types of drugs. Pain had already been warned once before.

Charged: Kiwi rapper Tiki Taane, for doing a version of NWA’s ‘Fuck Tha Police’ — just as cops entered the nightclub in the North Island town of Tauranga. He tried to explain it was coincidental but they weren’t impressed.

Died: Bill Pitcock IV, guitarist with The Dwight Twilley Band, cause unknown.

Died: US folk singer Gil Robbins, 80. He was a member of the early 1960s group the Highwaymen, and father of actor/director Tim Robbins.

Died: ABC Queensland broadcaster Bruce Short, aged 84. In his 32-year career, he hosted its breakfast show and its jazz-orientated Saturday night show ‘Short And Sweet’, and presented the TV news.

SPLENDOUR RETURN DELAYED? While Splendour In The Grass is creating a buzz over last week’s artist announcement, the new NSW government is pissing on its parade. The development application for its North Byron Parklands site in Yelgun could be delayed, reports The Byron Shire News. The site lodged its application last August to the NSW Planning Department under Part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, which deals with major projects. But within weeks of coming into power, the O’Farrell regime scrapped Part 3A, saying it wants to give planning powers back to local communities. “Transitional arrangements” (bureaucratspeak for: huh?) are being put in place to cope with 500 Part 3A applications already in the system. Splendour and the other festivals at the Parklands site were hoping for a decision this month. They won’t be holding their breath.

VENUES #1: THE VANGUARD RETURNS

Newtown lost the Vanguard Jazz and Blues Restaurant when it was sold, but new owner Russell Beattie has revived it as The Vanguard Theatre. He wants to put “the

18 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

sex, danger and excitement back into live entertainment”, with primarily live music as well as burlesque, theatre, comedy, dance and film screenings. “I want The Vanguard to represent Newtown, to be a bridge from the underground to the more mainstream forms of entertainment,” he said.

VENUES #2: PSST! BACKROOM OPENS

David Freeman has closed down Lady Lux and will unveil its replacement, Backroom, on April 21. It’s based on the 1920s speakeasies in America, with secluded booths, and spirits brought to tables in briefcases.

VENUES #3: ROCK LILY OFFICIALLY LAUNCHES

The 200-capacity live music venue and bar Rock Lily at Star City already opened earlier this month, hosting an intimate show of Snoop Dogg and Nelly. But the official launch is this Wednesday April 20, with Washington and Art vs Science. Other acts booked to appear afterwards are Animals Shapes, Only The Sea Slugs and Frankie.

The venue also boasts the largest selection of tequila in Australia - 120 types.

See www.futurestar.com.au.

VENUES #4: FREE FALL AT THE CUBE

Performance art meets live music at Free Fall, a new artist-run initiative held every Friday and Saturday night in the Cube at Oxford Art Factory. Artist/curator John A Douglas together with the Factory and Chalk Horse gallery are offering a platform for young contemporary artists working across different mediums. OAF owner Mark Gerber says it’s the first time an artist has curated at the venue.

RED BULL MOVES TO MADRID

Due to the disasters in Japan, Red Bull Music Academy 2011 has been moved from Tokyo to Madrid. As a result, the application deadline has been extended until April 26. It will be held from October 23 to November 25; see www.redbullmusicacademy.com for more information.

‘STRONGER’ GETS THE SWEAT SET

Kanye West’s ‘Stronger’ has been chosen as the most popular work-out song in America, beating the perennial Rocky theme.

The Gold’s Gym chain polled 20,000 of its customers and fitness-inclined celebs, asking them to choose from 64 tracks. Also in the final four were Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’, Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Boom Boom Pow’ and Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Welcome to the Jungle’.

Will Farrell picked Technotronic’s ‘Pump Up The Jam’, Brooke Shields nominated Foreigner’s ‘Hot Blooded’, pro skateboarder Ryan Sheckler picked ‘Kickstart My Heart’

by Motley Crue and Gabrille Reece chose ‘B.O.B.’ by Outkast.

STOP START SIGNS PLUTO JONZE

Sydney based label Stop Start, home to Hungry Kids Of Hungary, Old Man River and Maniac, has signed Pluto Jonze. Pluto, aka Lachlan Nicholson, was 22 when he picked up the 2009 Tropfest Music Award, Tropscore. His self-titled debut EP, produced

by Pluto alongside Tony Espie, is out May 6.

THINGS WE HEAR

* When Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Bow Wow and Busta Rhymes arrived on the Gold Coast they hightailed it straight to Culture Kings streetwear store at Southport, and bought $25,000 of gear in an hour. Incidentally, many of the Supafest acts had such a great time that they asked promoters John Denison and Dwayne Cross to do a run of 10 Supafest dates through Europe this year. * While the music media was speculating over the bill for Splendour In The Grass in the weeks leading to the announcement last Wednesday, the public wasn’t any less interested. The Splendour website had 1.8 million hits in the first 45 minutes after the bill went live at 8:30am. * Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker album has gone gold in Australia. * The mainstream media was suggesting that Altiyan Childs’s public meltdown might see him cut adrift from both his record label

Stop Start label head Andy Bryan says, “The crew at Stop Start has been excited with the prospect of working with Pluto Jonze since we first heard his demos.”

WANNA GET LAID?

Wanna get laid on your first date? Simple, get someone who’s into Nirvana or Metallica; avoid anyone who professes to dig Coldplay.

A poll by dating site Tastebuds.fm matched people’s love lives with their musical preference, and how far they’d go on their first date. 82% of those most likely to “go to town” liked Nirvana, and 81% dug Metallica. Others on the list were Linkin Park (80%), Pink Floyd (79%), Red Hot Chili Peppers (77%), Beatles (76%), Muse (74%), Radiohead (74%), Kings of Leon (73%) and Coldplay (68%).

BIG SOUND SPEAKERS ANNOUNCED

Creation Records and Poptones founder Alan McGee - the man who signed Oasis, Primal Scream and The Hives - will be visiting Australia in September. He will be one of the speakers at the Big Sound conference in Brisbane held September 7-9. Other international speakers announced so far are David Enthoven & Tim Clark of ie:music (who manage Robbie Williams, Jimmy Page and Ladyhawke), and Matador Record’s Natalie Judge.

SONGWRITING CONTEST DEADLINE

The Australian Songwriting Association’s Australian Songwriting Contest is open to pros and amateurs, just as long as their entered song is not signed to a publishing company. The ASA has 60 judges from the music industry covering the 13 categories.

See www.asai.org.au - deadline is April 30.

AXL & EX-MANAGER STILL SNARLING

Moves for Axl Rose and former Guns N’ Roses manager Irving Azoff to hold meditation sessions before their court case have proven unsuccessful. But lawyers said they would continue trying before the case hits the courtroom on April 26. Azoff served papers on Rose in March 2010, claiming the singer owes his company Front Line Management more than $1.8 million, and

Sony Music and his management. Sony had no comment. But there was a press report that the disappearance of Childs’s photo from the David Champion Management website suggested a parting of ways, prompting a counter-comment by Champion, who told us, “Altiyan Childs is and has always been managed since winning X Factor by Parade Artists Pty Limited.” * Will Coldplay play the opening of the London 2012 Olympics? The Dartington Hall Trust, which will commission the Olympics song, had Chris Martin at the top of their list. They want to get the rest of the band involved. * EMI’s owners say it will only be sold as one unit, not broken up. * Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams tattooed ‘Shave Me’ on her ankle to remind her to shave it when the band goes on the road. * Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne face a massive tax bill in the U.S: $1.7 million.

broke an oral promise to pay the company a 15% commission for Gunners shows in Taipei, Seoul, Japan, Canada and South America. Rose countersued last May 17, claiming that Azoff tried to pressure him to reunite with the original Guns N’ Roses lineup and failed to properly promote the Chinese Democracy album. Rose also claimed Azoff lied about a prospective Van Halen super tour.

BLACK HITS 100 MILLION VIEWS

Rebecca Black’s video for ‘Friday’ might have some fans frothing at the mouth, but last week it hit 100 million views on YouTube. It is now the #42 most viewed video on YouTube.

Alas, she has a long way to go before she catches up with all-time YouTube winner, Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’ with 515 million views.

Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ is #2 with 367 million views, and Shakira’s ‘Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)’ is #3 with 329 million.

HOW MUCH AD REVENUE IS RADIO PULLING?

Are radio stations bullshitting about the revenue they are making from ads? That’s what The Australian is asking. Two different sets of figures were released in the same week. The radio’s association Commercial Radio Australia claimed — using figures supplied by the stations — that metropolitan revenues were up by 0.3 per cent for March to just under $60 million. But figures from advertising measurement firm SMI, drawn directly from the booking data of Australia’s biggest media agencies, showed radio advertising traded by media agencies plummeted 16.29% to $39.8m compared with the same period last year. The CRA told The Australian that SMI data does not cover revenue advertisers book directly with a radio station, and does not cover the bookings of every media agency.

NEW NAMES LEAD WA NOMINATIONS

Newcomers Split Seconds and singersongwriter Felicity Groom lead the nominations for the Wamingtons aka the WAMi awards, to be held in Perth. Tame Impala had five, Birds of Tokyo four, and dance producer ShockOne had three. See wam.asn.au for full list.

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 19

Released just last week, the road to Kosciuzsko began back in 2007. Dave Parkin of Red Jezebel, who owns and runs Blackbird Studios in Perth and eventually wound up producing the album, gave the band a few days free in the studio to “bash out” the dozen or so songs they had. “And then we started recording properly in about 2008, and now we’re into 2011 - so really the whole process took… four years,” Kevin says, giving the others a can-youbelieve-it grin.

But there’s no hint of weariness – they’re tripping over each other to stress how positive a step it was to spread out the recording over such a long period. “It was the most fun recording we’ve ever had,” the frontman declares, without qualification. “I think we’re a lot more open-minded in the studio now and a lot more willing to allow band members to experiment with whatever they want to do …

I think we allowed ourselves for the first time really to sound like whatever we wanted to be.

As long as everyone liked it and it sounded good.” “With a bit of encouragement. Drink more of this! Smoke more of that!” Chris adds.

“In theory, we could have made a hip hop record,” Kevin continues solemnly. “You know, if it sounded good.”

What they did make is possibly their best album since the whip-smart garage swagger of Slightly Odway. The sonic trademarks are all there: the unfussy hooks and brickshithouse guitar crashes, the contrasting moments of laconic tenderness, and Kevin’s ever-present broad accent and nasal timbre, milder after nearly 15 years, but no less distinctive. But there’s also sense of exploration and variety on Kosciuszko that’s exciting to hear. Opener ‘Lost My Nerve’ arrives with the laddish charm of a You Am I single, before shifting gears into a thrashing mire of solid guitar and galactic feedback tweaks; the airy power-pop of ‘She’s Like A Comet’ has already been welcomed onto radio waves nationwide, with good reason; ‘Freakin’ Out’ flirts with harmonic synth-pop; ‘Under Your Bed’ is two minutes of shitkicking 1996 garage-punk, original flavour. (“Yeah, Kev plays the piano!” Chris says excitedly – this is clearly a big deal.)

“We tried to attribute a different aesthetic to each song,” Kevin explains. “I had to make sure that each song had its own individuality, that there was an angle, something different for each.” “And there was more of an idea to not repeat ourselves, you know?” Chris adds.

“There were a few songs that made it through to being mostly recorded but didn’t make the final cut for the record, because we felt that they were maybe too similar to things we’d done in the past.”

It might surprise fans to learn that it’s taken most of their 16 years of playing together for Jebediah to make a record they’re 100% happy with. “Every other record we’ve made, there are things I would have done differently,” admits Kevin. “I think this will be the first record we’ve ever made where I won’t listen back to it in a year’s time and think, oh, we should have done this or should have done that.”

“You get a different perspective on it,” says Vanessa. “You get to sit with a song for six months before you go back in the studio.

Because [those second thoughts] happened in the middle of recording… It’s like, ‘Oh, we should have done that – we’ll do it when we’re in the studio next!’”

Never Gone

By Caitlin Welsh

I

n the grim café of an Ultimo hotel, Kevin Mitchell raises an eyebrow grandly and makes a declaration. “In the words of Phil Jamieson: ‘Don’t call it a comeback, it’s hardly a comeback if you’re never…’”

He trails off. “I forget how it goes.” The Jebediah frontman’s sheepish expression is all it takes to send bandmates Vanessa Thornton and Chris Daymond into fits of undignified, contagious giggles.

The last word of the line is “gone” – it’s hardly a comeback if you’re never gone. I had to look it up myself, given that Grinspoon’s limply protesting single (titled, obtusely, ‘Comeback’) didn’t exactly make a large dent in the public consciousness on its release in 2009. This was just before the ‘90s revival that currently has us in its talons, and fans of those mid-to-late ‘90s

triple j stalwarts like Grinners, Powderfinger, Regurgitator, Custard and Jebediah were stuck with either flaccid mainstream reincarnations of the bands they’d come of age with, or nothing at all. Skip to late 2010, and an increasingly cordial Custard are playing irregular shows around the country; the ‘Gurge are selfreleasing reassuringly weird singles; the ‘Finger bow out gracefully before things get sad; and Jebediah announce a brand new album on indie-pop label of the moment, Brisbane heroes Dew Process. Nineties kids have much to celebrate.

Unlike Jamieson & Co., though, Jebediah really did seem to go away for a little while. After the relatively lukewarm performance of their solid fourth album, 2004’s self-released Braxton Hicks, they’ve been fairly quiet, performing the

“This will be the first record we’ve ever made where I won’t listen back to it in a year’s time and think, oh, we should have done this or we should have done that.”

odd festival set and exploring side projects of varying notoriety – sparking persistent rumours of that death-knell euphemism: “hiatus”. Most visible was Kevin, who did well with solo project Bob Evans and supergroup Basement Birds, projects whose success seemed to spell the end of the Jebs. What most people don’t realise, though, is that the four high school friends – Kevin, his brother Brett on drums, bassist Vanessa and guitarist Chris – never stopped playing together at all.

“After we finished the Braxton touring, we decided we’d have six months [off] and everyone went and did their own thing. And after that six months we just started jamming or whatever, whenever we were all in Perth together,” explains Vanessa (whose famously changeable pixie-punk headsuit is bleached blonde these days). Gradually, the idea of making an album emerged at its own pace.

“There was no pressure from any one corner of the group like, ‘Come on, we’ve got to get the next Jebediah record happening,’” says Kevin.

The band had day jobs and other projects in the interim (although Wikipedia claims that Brett, who’s not present for our interview, has been “sitting on his arse, maybe” - and the other three have no better suggestions as to how he’s been using his time).

Whatever you do, just don’t accuse them of cashing in on that ‘90s revival. Kevin recalls: “I came across someone that said that our reason for ‘getting back together’, having another record, were very transparent – it’s obviously a cash grab.” At that, Vanessa stifles another loud hoot of slightly hysterical laughter. “That is just, to anybody who plays in bands - I mean, if we wanted to make money this would be the last thing that we would do,” he continues. “And I daresay that the person who made that comment probably makes a lot more money than I do, and probably works for some shitty corporation or whatever, and there’s probably a lot more grounds for them being a sellout than me.” (“A money-grabber,” interjects Ness, with relish, and Chris nods sagely.) “But no, I feel quite comfortable with the fact that we’ve always done things for the right reasons.”

What: Kosciuszko is out now through Dew Process With: Violent Soho and Young Revelry Where: The Factory Theatre, Sydney / The Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle When: Friday May 27 / Saturday May 28

‘Real magic isn’t card tricks, big cribs and cars, bitch / it’s making something out of nothing through this hardship’ – BLISS N ESO 20 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

/ 33 4 6 /

8: ; %< ; = " < 3 %! ) '> ? K QX ' > ? % Q#X ' Z !Q# ' Z ?[ Q)

_ _ _ _ Q Q _ %Q ^ % Q^ Q Q^ Q^ %Q Q Q ^ Q ^^ < Q < < Q ^^ ] \ ] \ " " \ ] " < < " < " " Q

Q)

? ? ?

% % % ? %

^ ^ Q %Q ^ ? %Q < ? %< % %< ? % ? : ? : ? : Q Q Q : ?

666)"8 3q|"q ) 4|)q `8 j /q33X w w z38"8 K4 X z38"8 #8{? Q : " < " %<

MONDAY, TUESDAY & THURSDAY Happy Hour 5 - 7pm $5 Schooners*, $10 Jugs*, $10 Cocktails & $20 Sangria. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Share the Loveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; - Any 2 Share Plates ! " # %! ' ()

WEDNESDAY Late night @ Bedlam Lounge 9pm - late $5 Taco Plates, $5 Schooners*, $10 Jugs* & $10 Cocktails.

FRIDAY Happy Hour 5 - 7pm.

SATURDAY â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Sleepless Saturdaysâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Guest DJâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s til late.

SUNDAY â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;SUNDAY SESSIONSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; - DJ on the Terrace.

@ Bedlam Lounge, $5 Taco Plates, $5 Schooners*, $10 Jugs* & $10 Cocktails.

Bedlam Bar + Food supports the responsible service and consumption of alcohol at all times.

WWW.BEDLAMBAR.COM.AU UNIVERSITY HALL, 2-12 GLEBE POINT RD, GLEBE *Exclusive to Bedlam Blonde

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 21

Jethro Tull On Flutes, Flights And Living In The Future By Mitchel Brown about Jethro Tull developed with Anderson attempting to live up to public misconceptions, with his tongue planted firmly in cheek. Like that iconic image of him, for instance, striking a one-legged flute-playing Krishna-like pose on stage. “It was one of those things I didn’t really think too much about, until I started reading references to it,” Anderson says of the famous stance, which started out as just a “quirky little balancing kind of thing.” And the reviews just kept on bringing it up. “It was something I found myself having to remind myself to do during concerts, particularly during the first three songs when press photographers would be snapping away like piranhas in front of me.

You give them the one-legged bit, so that these poor people can get home for an early bed.”

I

an Anderson is one of the only musicians who can claim that Eric Clapton inspired him not to play the guitar. As any true Jethro Tull fan already knows, the eccentric frontman traded in his electric guitar for a flute after deciding he was never going to as good as the legendary bluesman. Because of that, Jethro Tull - one of the quirkiest and most unique bands in the history of rock n roll - will forever be remembered as “the rock band with the flute player”. But why pick the flute? As Anderson tells it, it was just an impulse buy.

“By pure chance, at the moment that I decided I was going to give up playing not-very-good guitar, I was in a music shop in the north of England,” he recalls. “I was going to leave that part of the country and try to make my musical career, however short that turned out to be, in the south of England. And I just thought, ‘Well, I could sell the guitar and

take the money, or I could exchange it for something else.’” He ended up finding a £30 microphone first, and let his eyes wander across the store walls until they landed on a flute. “It was shiny and compact and looked like the sort of thing a homeless musician could carry in his coat pocket, so I just said on a pure impulse, ‘And how much is the flute there on the wall?’” Valued at another £30, the deal was set - and he traded in his 1960s Fender Stratocaster. “A ‘60s Strat today could cost anywhere up to the value of $30,000, so it doesn’t seem like it was a very good trade, on paper anyway. But of course in reality it was a marvellous opportunity to be in there with a new instrument that hadn’t really featured in the world of rock - and strangely hasn’t really since.”

If Anderson’s spontaneous purchase suggests he doesn’t take himself too seriously, it suggests correctly. So much of what endures

It’s this kind of dry but playful humour that has typified Anderson throughout his 40-plus-year tenure at the helm of Jethro Tull. The band will make their final appearance on Australian soil later this year as part of the enormous 2011 Bluesfest, but Anderson has no intentions of abandoning his band. Rather, at 63 years of age, he is simply struggling to deal with the demands of touring the world - particularly by plane. “For me, coming to Australia is something I decided I was never going to do again,” he confesses.

“My growing fear of flying over the last year has become rather more focused as a result of a number of recent incidents, so I’m just generally unhappy about going to far off places. Especially flying at night, which I find unbelievably terrifying and claustrophobic. I’m usually okay with the shorter flights lasting an hour or two, but the idea of facing 23 hours locked up in a metal crate absolutely terrifies me.”

On board for the trek down under will be Anderson’s trusty and carefully-chosen collection of flutes, which has now expanded well beyond that original purchase. “I probably have about 10 flutes,” he explains, “and all of them I occasionally play. Mainly for my own amusement at home, though; there are some flutes that I wouldn’t take out of the house because they’re a bit valuable.” There’s one flute in the collection that definitely won’t be making an appearance down under – because currently, it’s not even on Earth. “I got an email from space,” Anderson remarks unexpectedly,

“I found myself having to remind myself to do it during concerts...

You give them the onelegged bit, so that these poor people can get home for an early bed.” “from Colonel Cady Coleman of US Air Force Retirees, who went up to the international space station to meet my flute, which is currently in orbit… She’s an amateur flute player in an astronaut band, would you believe?

In Houston there is a band of ex-astronauts who get together occasionally and play in some local bar, and she’s the flute player. So somehow, through some Texas radio station, they tracked me down and put me in touch with the lady...” It’s an appropriately bizarre story from a bizarre individual - and if you Google it, you can find footage of Anderson on the ground and Coleman in orbit, performing the first Earth/Space flute duet.

“It may well be that when I’m dead and gone, there are some sort of 3D holograms or whatever playing in the future,” Anderson continues. “I think we will find a time when we can project live performance in a very realistic way into theatres or people’s homes. It’s not beyond the bounds of reason and not strictly in the realms of science fiction.” A somewhat farfetched notion perhaps, but no more so than how 3D television would have seemed decades ago - or, for that matter, how a world famous rock band fronted by a flautist would have seemed prior to 1967…

Where: State Theatre When: April 26 & 27 More: Also appearing alongside Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, B.B. King, Washington and heaps more at Bluesfest in Byron Bay, from April 21 - 26.

M EN T PR ES EN TS CH UG G EN TE RTAI N

both “A present day icon for lovers of d blues, folk, and country... designe for sunny days and highways” Q

!

W O N E L A S N O S T E K TIC Y R O T C A F T R A D R O F X O Y A M H Y0014378 T Sm.DauA| 13 E U T 849 moshtix.co K WEBSITE TON AROUND AUSTRALIA. CHEC ALSO TOURING WITH WASHING 22 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

FOR DETAILS.

www.lissie.com lii i www.chuggentertainment.com

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 23

Jessica Mauboy

She’s No Barbie Doll By Roxy Burt

Australia’s R&B Queen By Birdie

F

irst it was Beyonce who got blown away by her Australian support act, and now Chris Brown is about to see what it is that makes Jessica Mauboy a superstar in her own right. A lot has happened for the Darwin girl in the five years since she came runner up in Australian Idol – and the reception of last year’s gold-certified sophomore album Get ‘Em Girls served as solid proof of that.

“The biggest issue that we have in Australia is that we’re not together or united in the R&B scene,” Mauboy tells me. “When you release something that’s R&B, people are like, ‘Oh, you sound so American!’ But I think the key is that all music is the same, everybody is re-making something else - just look at the popularity of sampling! We should be more united, instead of trying to set other people aside or label them. Nobody should be left out.

“I used to be quite disappointed with R&B coming out of Australia, because people just didn’t believe in it. That made me want to do it even more.” Mauboy temporarily relocated to Los Angeles to record Get ‘Em Girls - but while it was the experience of a lifetime, it

HorrorPops

reinforced just how much the singer felt at home in Australia. “I went to the ‘States to work with people who live and breathe R&B,” she explains. “I don’t think I could live there though, because it’s very glitzy and fabulous! My land is very tribal, we grew up telling dreamtime stories, and I came from a small community.”

With an Indonesian father and an indigenous mother, Mauboy was born in the Northern Territory, and grew up listening to country music, hip hop and R&B. “My older sisters loved Tupac and Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg.

I knew that I could actually sing a bit of it, and that I could pull off the soul kind of R&B, but I saw so many Australian artists trying to break through in the genre and it just really disappointed me. I felt I had to take it to another level in order to really pull it off properly - and that’s why I went to work with these big R&B producers in the ‘States.”

Enlisting the help of big-name collaborators like producer Bangladesh and rapper Snoop Dogg among many others, Mauboy definitely went all out. Following on from singles ‘Get ‘Em Girls’ featuring Snoop Dogg, and ‘Saturday Night’ featuring Ludacris, Mauboy is currently celebrating the success of her third hit, this one featuring U.K. rapper Jay Sean: ‘What Happened To Us’.

It seems that everybody wants in on the action - especially now that Chris Brown has asked her to join him on his F.A.M.E tour of Australia. “Apparently Chris heard my stuff about a month ago, and really wanted me on the tour,” she enthuses. “I’m putting together a band for my set, so it’s going to be a very different show this time. Last time it was just tracks with dancers; now it’s a big eight-piece band. I wanted it to be more live because, you know, I’m not really a dancer, I’m a singer first and foremost.”

While Mauboy admits to being a little nervous about the shows, it’s certainly not the first time she’s been starstruck. “I think I was more nervous when I met Snoop Dogg! I was really surprised at how intelligent a man he is, and he’s so business-like! He likes to set it straight and he’s very real; basically he is the total opposite of what people perceive him to be. He can come across as sleazy in his music or videos, but he’s got a few kids and he’s very professional, and he doesn’t mess around.”

What: Get ‘Em Girls is out now With: Chris Brown Where: Acer Arena When: Tuesday April 26

I

t’s been five years since Danish rockabilly legends HorrorPops were in Australia, which amounts to a very long wait for their fans.

“The long gap wasn’t intentional, but I try and look at things positively,” lead singer Patricia Day explains. “I’d like to go to Australia every year, but I think [the gap] has been a good thing. When we were there the first time around it was tough to gain an audience, reviews and what not, because it seemed like the only type of bands that played upright bass were The Living End (who are one of my favorite bands, by the way). So whatever we did, we got compared to that - nobody really got that there was a whole scene of music besides the Living End. So we struggled.”

In an industry dominated by men, Day feels strongly about how she is perceived. “Gender still matters in rock ‘n’ roll. I get confronted about it when I go into a venue; I have to prove myself with the sound engineer. I get confronted about it every time I do an interview, or from an audience if we’re playing in front of people that don’t know us,” she says. “We toured with a band which has a very guy-orientated audience, and I had to play the whole tour in pants because a bunch of guys were looking up my skirt, and they were very aware that I didn’t have balls. There’s still a lot to prove. Nobody actually asks me about my talent or my writing, it’s always questions about my clothing or my look. When I’m sitting next to my bandmates, they don’t get the same questions.”

Gender issues came to the fore recently, when Day filed a lawsuit against Hard Rock Casino and Mattel for false endorsement: Day claims that both have been selling a Barbie Doll in her image without her permission. Mattel had created a series of rock ‘n’ roll Barbies featuring female

musicians like Debbie Harry, Joan Jett and Cyndi Lauper – and The Rockabilly Barbie came with an upright bass, which is Day’s own instrument.

“Unfortunately, I think Barbie is seen as a role model [in America]. In countries like Australia or Denmark, I don’t think it is. You take countries like America ... look at all the Hollywood Wives; it’s all about big tits and white smiles.”

When ask whether Day would have agreed to have a doll in her image if approached by Mattel, she hesitates. “I don’t think I would have agreed with it. It stands for everything I fought against - being taken seriously as a person and not just considered by my gender. When I got my tattoos, back in the day, it was perceived very differently compared to today. Everybody can do to their bodies what they want today, which is fucking awesome. Back when I got mine, it was a way of being in the music scene as a person, not as a gender - because all the guys had them. I cut off my hair and strapped my boobs, did stuff like that to not be perceived as a sex symbol - and then all of a sudden there’s this fricken Barbie Doll that looked like me. I think it’s disgusting.”

Before we go, I ask Day if there’s a new record in the works; their last, Kiss Kiss Kill Kill, was released back in 2008. “We’re writing songs right now, we’d like some inspiration,” she says.

“We’re hoping that Australia gives us that. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll country and there’s that whole vibe of feeling close to people, which will give us new energy for the new album.”

What: Kiss Kiss Tell Tell is out now With: Firebird, Dark Shadows Where: The Factory Theatre When: Sunday April 24

We Had Parties Let’s Get Ready To Rumble By Bridie Connellan very weekend in Sydney’s sticky, swaggering, slurped-up venues, someone falls downstairs to a mash-up of ‘Song 2’ and Madison Avenue, someone makes out to a raucous rendition of ‘Like A Prayer’, someone eavesdrops on a bathroom conversation of “Oh no babes, the Alice Cooper thang is hawwt,” and someone reluctantly finds truth in Red Bull’s suggestion of two per day. Upside, around and inside out your head, we have parties.

E

indie DJs as good as ours, you don’t want to shove them in some dark corner and hope an indifferent hipster with a teapot takes Hipstamatic photos of them... Our dark corners are strictly for vintage couches and eating face.

MUM: We are the muso, rocker kids table in the cafeteria of the elite party school that is Kings Cross, giving indie babes a reason to hang out in Sydney’s most notorious party district every Friday night for close to four years.

We Had Parties brings together all your favourite nights – and it’s back again this Easter Sunday, themed ‘Rumble In The Jungle’. Taking place at the hallowed Gaelic Theatre, Last Night (aka Purple Sneakers), Mum, Girl Thing, Teen Spirit, F.R.I.E.N.D./s, Ghetto Blaster and P*A*S*H are getting down to the bare-knuckled gritty, to ask Sydney’s dancefloor populators the poignant holiday question: ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ Much like Romans vs Disciples, these kind of clashes ain’t gonna go down without a crucifixion; we threw two of Sydney’s sweatiest heavyweights into a ring, to give you a taste of what to expect…

Tactic spill: how are you planning on bringing down the opposition?

LN: Hooking them up on a blind date with Rove so he can psych them out with “ya mum” jokes.

You can read all about it in next week’s Woman’s Day. M: Drink them under the table.

So, MUM vs LAST NIGHT. What makes your Friday night the best?

LAST NIGHT: We went for a totally out there idea and put all our acts up on stage, while the hordes of babes and dude babes sweat it out on the d-floor. When you have live bands and

So, ah, what did your Mum do Last Night?

LN: Your dad… in an uncomfortable position.

M: Started working on a batch of hurt, to be delivered to the Gaelic on the long weekend.

Heaps to go around!

Got a winning track up your sleeve?

LN: A mash up of ‘Fight For Your Right’ by The Beastie Boys and ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ by The Prodigy.

M: Top secret, but it’s guaranteed to make Julian Casablancas shed a tear of sweet brilliance.

How do you come back after a floorfilling fail?

LN: Resuscitate PhDJ from his Jäger coma (usually with more Jäger), and get him back behind the decks.

M: We take our shirts off. You can’t say no to our pasty tattooed torsos!

So, MUM is heading a little out of their hood for this showdown. How will they face off on the Last Night home turf?

LN: MUM is going to be cowboy walking for months, after we screw them sideways with the best new indie tunes and old school favourites.

M: Are you kidding? We were raised in Sydney’s infamous party ghetto, Kings Cross. We were raised on showdowns and know how to make

our party heard. Get ready for a drive by, blasting of Deerhunter from our second hand Mazda 121.

The million-dollar question: how is Sunday going to end?

LN: Ever seen the baseball bat scene in the movie Casino?

M: Probably all the parties in a bloody heap with mutual respect for each other, holding hands and singing ‘Dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac… Until MUM rocks one last kidney punch. Get ready for it.

Who: Last Night, Mum, Girl Thing, F.R.I.E.N.D./s, Ghetto Blaster and P*A*S*H DJs Where: We Had Parties @ The Gaelic When: Easter Sunday April 24

“We can bomb the world to pieces but we can’t bomb it into peace” - MICHAEL FRANTI, Enmore April 24 24 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

e s u u o y Do ? y s a t s Ec Researchers from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre would like to speak to ecstasy users. Face to face interviews will be conducted between March and May. The interview takes around one hour and is held at a convenient location for you. Interviews are anonymous and conďŹ dential.

You will be reimbursed $40 for your time.

Contact Laura on (02) 9385 0407, email nswedrs@unsw.edu.au or sms details to 0404 786 677 (you do not have to use your real name).

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 25

Architecture in Helsinki Round The Bend By Alasdair Duncan endeavour to be very honest in the way we write songs – they’re a reflection of where we are at the time, musically and inspiration-wise,” he says. “Each record is a reflection of who you are at that point in time, so we didn’t set out to make a certain kind of music. It’s just what came out of us at the time.”

A

rchitecture In Helsinki’s ‘That Beep’ was an electro pop jam so full of joy and red cordial-fuelled energy that you couldn’t help but bounce off the walls when it played. I remember having the song on near-constant repeat around the time it came out, and based on its high placing in that year’s triple j Hottest 100, a lot of people did the same. Following the song’s success, Architecture In Helsinki told their fans that ‘That Beep’ was to be the first single from an upcoming album entitled Vision Revision - but as band leader Cameron Bird now tells me, they were kind of fibbing.

“Vision Revision was never a title we actually considered,” he says, down the phone from his Melbourne home. “It was a faux working title that we came up with … that we knew

would never end up on the finished product.” If anything, the ‘Vision Revision’ was simply a statement of the band’s intentions. “We like to think that each of our records sounds distinctly different. We strive to push our music to places it hasn’t been previously with each record.

We like to keep our music fresh and new for listeners; we like that people won’t know what to expect when they get a new Architecture record.”

The resulting album, Moment Bends, represents a significant revamp of Architecture’s sound.

Where their older efforts took an effusive, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach, this one is all about slick, sophisticated synth pop.

They didn’t actually set out to make a straightup synth pop record, Bird insists - that’s just the way the album turned out. “We always

Within the record’s synthetic framework, there are traces of sounds from all over pop history, from ABBA’s chiming ‘70s pop to the shoegaze drone of My Bloody Valentine. “Within each song, you can pick it to pieces and find 20 or 30 influences,” Bird tells me, when I ask him to name a few other bands that inspire Architecture. “I think the thing with our band is that there’s a mountain of music we love, which all goes through our own personal filters, and what comes out is our music. Some bands will say, ‘Let’s make a song and have it sound exactly like this other song’, but we never do that.”

The record came together in a purpose-built studio in Architecture’s hometown of Melbourne.

It was the first time they had worked in an environment like that; Bird tells me the space was hugely influential on how the record took shape. “We rented a shopfront above a Thai restaurant in Brunswick, and we fitted it out so we could spend as much time there as we wanted and not go insane,” he says. “It was a good space, there was lots of light, and we had the luxury of being able to take our time, which meant we worked six days a week for a year or more on the record. We brought in our collective gear - the mountains and mountains of stuff we’ve all accumulated during our years playing music - so we had all of that at our disposal. It was just a good place to hang out and write songs and make music.”

“We worked six days a week for a year or more on the record. There are songs on Moment Bends that we spent as long recording as we spent on the whole of Places Like This.” was quite an experience – the album was recorded and mixed in the space of about four weeks, which was insane for us. Working in our own studio was different again – there are songs on Moment Bends that we spent as long recording as we spent on the whole of Places Like This.”

Surrounded by their own gear in their own space, Architecture In Helsinki were able to nerd out and indulge in their love of synths - which is the primary reason Moment Bends sounds the way it does. “In the room where we wrote the album, we had 12 synths patched into our computer system at any one time, so any one of them could be played. We all have a genuine love of working with synthesisers and building sounds with them.”

Bird’s passion for synths is so great, in fact, that now the band have moved out, he finds himself at a bit of an impasse... “While we were there, I went a bit nuts and bought some big, cumbersome, heavy synthesisers. I’ve now realised I have to find a home for all of them, now our lease is up!”

Working in their own studio on their own time was a liberating experience for the band. “Our first two records were recorded at home pretty much, so we were limited in terms of space and what we could achieve. For our next album, Places Like This [2007], we wanted to experience something different so we went to New York to record in Dave Sitek [TV On The Radio]’s studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. That

What: Moment Bends is out now on Modular, through Universal Where: Vivid LIVE @ Sydney Opera House When: Sunday May 29 More: Vivid LIVE runs from May 27 – June 5, as part of Vivid Sydney. Visit sydneyoperahouse.com/vividlive

of music that had a personal touch,” he explains.

“They seemed to respond to music that was close to the heart, so I tried to put a lot more of myself in each track.” Commercial-favourite ‘Rapunzel’, for instance, was loosely based on an ex-girlfriend, and with a ‘60s-inspired guitar loop and love-tangled subject matter, it became an instant summer classic, hitting #12 on last year’s triple j Hottest 100. “Actually, my friends kind of ruined that for me. We were at a BBQ listening to the radio and they were all certain that it was going to beat ‘Jimmy Recard’’s #10 spot [in 2010]. So when it played at #12 I was rapt - but they were all like ‘We thought it would be higher…’” he laughs.

“When ‘Rapunzel’ played at #12 on the Hottest 100 I was rapt - but my friends were all like, ‘We thought it would be higher...’”

Drapht Living The Life By Chris Bright

O

ver the phone, Drapht seems to be in a bit of a daze. He’s only just arrived in Hobart to kick-start his national tour, after spending the day shooting a film clip in Sydney.

“I want to say it’s been a whirlwind week but that would be an understatement – a whirlwind few years is more like it,” he laughs.

It took a while for the Perth artist to get to this stage. Drapht’s breakthrough album was his third, 2008’s Brothers Grimm, with the hit-single ‘Jimmy Recard’ catapulting him into the echelons of Aussie hip hop alongside the likes of Hilltop Hoods and Bliss N Eso. On the first of this month Drapht released his fourth album, The Life Of Riley – which became the first Australian album of 2011 to debut at #1 on the ARIA charts. He’s off on a national tour to celebrate, which will see him in Maitland and Canberra for Groovin’ The Moo in May, and in Sydney the following month, headlining the hip hop-centric Come Together alongside Urthboy, Illy, Muph & Plutonic, M-Phazes and more.

According to Drapht, it was the triumph of Brothers Grimm that afforded him the time he

needed to perfect The Life Of Riley. “After [the success of] the last album and the attention I got from ‘Jimmy Recard’, I was able to focus on music full-time. It’s a pretty rare thing in this industry, and something I was never expecting, so I wanted to really dedicate myself to the music [this time]. When I was recording the last two albums, I had a full-time job and a girlfriend - which is another full-time job,” he says, laughing. “With this one, I was able to spend eight or ten hours a day working solely on the music.”

This goes some way to explaining the name of the album; ‘The Life Of Riley’ is an old Irish expression describing the good life. “This album is a loosely-based conceptual record, which revolves around living a life that doesn’t abide to society’s pressures. You shouldn’t have to marry your high school girlfriend or have a family before you’re 30, because at the end of the day, it’s your choice.” The album reflects on Drapht’s personal life too, partly documenting his own rise from a young kid sneaking into gigs to an artist making music successfully, and heading out on the road. “I found that people were fond

It wasn’t all fun and games, though; Drapht describes the making of as the “most draining experience of [his] life.” “At times it was hard to get any energy. I was struggling with some health issues, and doctors had me on a strict diet of meat and greens – no sugars or processed foods allowed!” he says. “In addition to that, at the time of recording Perth was going through its hottest summer on record, so I was battling a lot of fatigue and it was hard to finish off at times. But that’s eventually what pushed me to get it done.”

Although Drapht’s previous three albums were all distributed through Obese Records, it was time for a change with his fourth; The Life Of Riley is the first to be released under his own record label, The Ayems. “After the last album, my [Obese] contract expired - I guess I just felt that all the avenues had been exhausted with Obese, and I had the bankroll to develop it myself, so why not?” Drapht also employed the help of producer and close friend Trials, of South Australian hip-hop outfit The Funkoars.

Trials also features in several tracks, as does a who’s who of Aussie hip hop including Briggs, Mantra, Urthboy and the entire Funkoars crew.

“These are guys that I knew I wanted on the album. Mantra’s just got killer flows, Urthboy writes some awesome hooks and The Funkoars are just good guys – real party animals.”

Drapht is looking forward to hitting the road on the festival circuit again; at Grooving The Moo he’ll be sharing a stage alongside Art vs Science, The Jezabels, The Drums and his personal favourites Bliss N Eso, Horrorshow and House Of Pain. “I’m looking forward to getting around again. The festival shows have a completely different vibe. It just brings people from every genre, people who probably haven’t heard you before – and you get the chance to win them over.”

Finally, I ask Drapht for his plans after the tour.

A new album? Side-projects? Collaborations?

Maybe some production under the new label?

“No to everything! The record only came out last week, and I haven’t even had time to scratch my arse!” he laments. “I’m seriously just looking forward to taking some time off. I don’t even want to think about music. Then I’ll just come back with a fresh perspective - I’m taking it one step at a time.”

What: The Life Of Riley is out now through The Ayems With: Urthboy, Illy, Muph & Plutonic, M-Phazes, The Tongue and more Where: Come Together Festival @ Luna Park When: Saturday June 11 More: Also appearing at Groovin The Moo in Maitland, Canberra and around Australia – head to www.gtm.net.au

“They tell you that war is a permanent thing , thqt American Idol kids really can sing” - MICHAEL FRANTI, Enmore April 24 26 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 27

Strange Talk Climbing Higher By Liz Brown

W

hen someone asks you what you’ve achieved in the last year, there are all the regular answers – filled in a tax return, lost a phone down the toilet, discovered mi goreng... Ask Strange Talk what they’ve been up to, and all your big moments sort of just fade away. One year ago, the Melbourne band was just a tiny, bubbling creative foetus in the minds of Stephen Docker and Gerard Sidhu. But since being discovered through MySpace, they’ve performed at Parklife and Playground Weekend, featured on the most recent Kitsuné Maison compilation, supported The Rapture and a bevy of other big name acts, and recorded an EP with British producer extraordinaire Eliot James (Bloc Party, Two Door Cinema Club). Now, the band is about to embark on their first ever Australia-wide headline tour – before another huge couple of shows for Ben Sherman’s Big British Sound.

Not bad at all.

Despite this speedy success, there are still plenty of unknowns when it comes to Strange Talk. Fortunately, classically-trained violinist and frontman Docker is more than happy to fill in

the blanks. “Gerard, who was a DJ at the time in Melbourne, got me into the studio to put some string lines into some of his dance tunes, and we sort of just hit it off from there – going from loop-based dance tracks to more song-structured works.” Indeed, Flavorpill has described Strange Talk as a ‘star-crossed marriage of Phoenix and Passion Pit’ – is that the kind of sound they were going for? “It was a natural progression,” Docker laughs. While the duo are also involved in electro remix outfit Thieves of Aon (who have done remixes for Naked and Famous and yes, even Jessica Mauboy), Docker says the pair are now honing in on Strange Talk, where their “main focus is to establish our roots as a band over in our home country.”

Originally a studio act, Docker and Sidhu were thrust into the live music scene after winning the Parklife triple j unearthed competition with their sparkly single ‘Climbing Walls’. When I ask how he found the transition from studio to live act, Docker is the first to admit that it wasn’t easy, and not just because they were short two members.

It made the band’s rise to headline tour in under a year all the more miraculous. “We played a few shows [first] around Melbourne, which was good as we used that as a way to find out what was working and what needed to be improved in the live show. Come Parklife, we had more of a solid foundation.” How’d he find the switch from festival attendee to performer? “It was quite surreal being up there alongside really, really cool acts. It’s quite an empowering feeling having your music blaring out at that kind of venue.”

“Come Parklife, we had more of a solid live foundation. It’s quite an empowering feeling having your music blaring out at that kind of venue.”

During my brief chat with Docker, it’s clear that Strange Talk’s lack of experience on stage is compensated by their relentless enthusiasm and unwavering belief in their sound. When I ask him how he feels about comparisons to Cut Copy, Passion Pit and Phoenix, Docker seems unembarrassed by the implicit compliment.

“Those are definitely bands that we do aspire to.

We listen to a lot of their music, which I guess is reflected in our sound. It’s an honourable thing. We don’t look down on that at all. I guess the thing that we take out of it is that the bands we have been referenced to are very current. It shows our sound is quite a current sound…a very ‘now’ sound.”

If Docker seems confident about his band, he seems equally confident about the Australian music scene in general. “That’s the exciting thing – not a day goes by when you don’t go, ‘Whoa, I’ve never heard a band do that before!’ It makes it all that much harder to break through as an upcoming band, because there is so much amazing talent; but I guess that’s also the exciting thing!” The frontman goes to great lengths, however, to insist that Strange Talk are more than just the most recent Cut Copy wannabe. When I ask him what he’s been listening to, he cites the recent Strokes album, mates Gypsy and the Cat, Queen and The Cure, among others – and can’t help but mention a Passion Pit remix of recent Bruno Mars hit ‘Grenade’. “My musical taste is quite diverse.”

LIVEATPRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

THE OWLS HOWLER THE SUMMERVILLES PARTICLES MOOCH

PHOENIX BAR 34 OXFORD ST

SATURDAY 23RD APRIL Another Lucas Production Design 28 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

As for the future? If the past year is anything to go by it looks pretty darn bright although Docker admits that “you’ve never learnt everything.” The band takes each live show as a potential learning curve – especially when touring with established acts like Marina & The Diamonds. “The beauty of playing with really good bands is that you really pick up on the little things that they have in their set – things that really tighten it. We can then incorporate [those] into our set as well.” And the most important lesson they’ve learnt? “I think it came from The Rapture. They said when you’re doing a tour the worst thing you can do is go out and keep getting smashed after each gig.

It’s better just to go straight to bed.” It still beats doing your tax return...

What: Strange Talk is out now through Fine Time Records With: Ball Park Music, Owl Eyes, Step-Panther and more Where: Ben Sherman’s Big British Sound @ The Gaelic Theatre When: Thursday May 12 More: EP Launch @ GoodGod Small Club on Thursday April 28

Warren Haynes Perpetual Motion By Hugh Robertson

W

ith apologies to William Shakespeare, some musicians are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. Warren Haynes is of that second category, spending most of his life in honest, hard-working bands and basing his success on tremendous ability, a traditionalist’s approach and a knack for improvisation.

Best-known as the guitarist for The Allman Brothers Band since their 1989 reformation, Haynes – along with the prodigal Derek Trucks – has played a major role in the band’s continued success, helping prevent their descent into the glorified cover band model that’s been the curse of their contemporaries. At the same time, Haynes has been breathing new life into the power trio with his ‘other’ band, Gov’t Mule, who’ve released fourteen albums in fifteen years and he’s using a planned break from both bands to tour in support of Man In Motion, his brand new solo album.

Haynes is an old-fashioned kinda guy, and this album sees him going way back to his musical roots. And when Haynes talks about early R&B, he’s not talking about Mariah Carey’s debut...

“Before I discovered rock and roll music I was listening only to soul; to James Brown, The Four Tops, Temptations, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett. Eventually my oldest brother brought home a Sly & The Family Stone album, and then I heard Cream, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience,” he says. “So this record goes back to the soul influence, and the blues influence of BB King, Freddie King, Albert King - and combining those elements together with a fresh approach.

But it’s still all under the heading of rock and roll.

When I was growing up, and even a few years later, you would hear Sly one minute, then CSNY the next, then Hendrix, then The Byrds – and it was all rock music. So, to me, putting it all under one umbrella is totally fine.”

It’s at about this point in our conversation, when Haynes talks about “when we were growing up and listening to records”, that I suspect he thinks I’m in my early 50s, and that I’ve been hoarding early blues 78s in crates under my bed. (He’s right about the crates, just not the age…). But we’re certainly kindred spirits: we’re in agreement on guitar solos (more), song length (eight minutes better than four), and the need to keep things interesting for your audience. Gov’t Mule is famous for their extended jams on record, and Haynes certainly isn’t about to mess with a winning formula. “On my new record, there’s a lot of six, seven and eight minute tracks, too!” he laughs. “We toyed with the possibility of making them shorter; there’s a lot of jams that happened at the end of the song that we could have faded out, or found an ending to sooner. But we figured that the fans of this music, and the guitar geeks etcetera, they want to hear the long versions, so we just kinda stayed with it. And when there’s a nice chemistry like that, and things are flowing,

“Gov’t Mule is my number one priority...

It’s something that I can see continuing on for many, many years.” you might as well give the people the extent of what happened.”

Beyond all this, there’s a sense of community about Haynes, Haynes’ bands, and the audience for whom they play. Call it Southern hospitality. “I guess it’s somewhat unique to this extended family of musicians,” he begins, “but I think one thing we all share is this improvisational aspect, as well as the habit of changing the setlist every night. So to keep it interesting for us, and for the audience, anything goes. You’re playing songs that you maybe haven’t played in a long time, if you have some friends in the house and you want to get them up to jam, anything to keep the excitement flowing.”

Don’t despair, though – this new project doesn’t mean the end of Gov’t Mule. He’s a busy man, but Haynes is very clear on where his various projects lie in the pecking order. And although it’s a lot of work, he’s still excited at the prospect of more gigs, more shows and more albums.

“There’s a lot of juggling, but in my mind, Gov’t Mule is my number one priority. Gov’t Mule is the band that I would like to see, twenty years down the road, continuing to tour and make new music.

Whereas the Allman Brothers are going to wind down much earlier…

“And this new [solo] project is something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but it’s more of a one-off situation. Gov’t Mule is on a real high note, both musically and personally: the band is getting along amazingly well, we’re all good friends, and musically, night after night, we are growing and breaking new ground. So I think it’s cool to take a break on a high note like that,” he explains. “We’re all looking forward to working together again, and working on some new material - and the time will fly by and we’ll be back on stage together before we know it. Gov’t Mule is something that I can see continuing on for many, many years.”

What: Man In Motion is out now Who: Warren Haynes And His All Star Band With: Bob Dylan, B.B. King, Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Jethro Tull and more Where: Bluesfest 2011 @ Byron Bay When: April 21 – 26 Sideshow: The Factory Theatre on Saturday April 23 BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 29

arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

arts, theatre and film news... what's goin' on around town and more...

brushstrokes WITH TOBY

SCHMITZ

(BY SIMON BINNS)

T

departments] run quite independently of the production.

oby Schmitz was enshrined as Sydney’s theatre “it” kid earlier this year when Belvoir marketed The Wild Duck with little more than a giant poster of his face.

On the back of memorable performances in shows like Measure For Measure, Travesties and Ruben Guthrie, it seems that Schmitz’s face was considered enough to sell a six-week season at one of Sydney’s most prestigious theatres. It’s a big step for the boy who moved from Perth to study at NIDA over a decade ago and still relishes every chance to act he gets. His latest opportunity is playing Benedick, one of Shakespeare’s classic wits, facing off against Blazey Best's Beatrice in John Bell’s new production of Much Ado About Nothing.

So how are the team approaching this play, visually? The design concept is '50s Sicily; if you remember when Pacino goes back to get married in one of the Godfathers, it’s pretty rustic, postwar Italy. Which means that some of the bawdier, more chauvinist patriarchal elements – a father who tells his daughter she may as well go and die because he thinks she’s slept with someone before marriage – still kind of hold… It’s a bit Season One Mad Men. The set’s really interesting. It’s like an old Italian villa, with a beautiful fresco on it, and then they’ve whacked a big hole in it and put in a slightly tacky '50s games room, with billiard table, dart board and card table like a holiday house.

When did you come on board? When I was doing Hamlet at the beginning of last year in Brisbane, John came and saw it and asked me to have a drink afterwards by way of a little note sent backstage; and generally when John does that, a) you do it, and b) you hopefully think that he might have something in mind – and he did, and it was this… and I said – then and there – I really want to do it.

The marketing for this show has a really strong pop-culture theme running through it… Look, I am not the biggest fan of publicity departments. I find them pretty much the antithesis of what I like. But I also understand that things have to be flogged, and I know that from an independent level, where I’ve had to be the guy saying ‘come on guys we need some boobs on the poster to get some bums to go down to the Old Fitzroy.’ But in terms of the vision of a play and how you sell it, often they’re far removed from what I’m thinking about or what’s going on in the

How are you approaching the gender politics running through Benedick and Beatrice’s arguments? Their battle is quite a naked metaphor for [Shakespeare’s] arguments… It’s what the play’s most famous for, this warring couple and their war of wits.

What’s most interesting for me is that we can’t find anywhere, dramatically, before Shakespeare where these characters existed, that hate each other so much that we know they’re going to get together. Now it’s a complete trope, it’s an archetype running right up to When Harry Met Sally.

What: Much Ado About Nothing Where: Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera Theatre

rehearsal room. I mean, there’s me [in the marketing picture] in a sort of broken down couture skivvy with a big long fringe… but the play is set in '50s Sicily. I think [marketing

FREE FALL

Oxford Art Factory continues its commitment to both art and live music with a new weekly mash-up called Free Fall, that brings performance art back to the Factory’s ‘cube’.

You might think of that glass box between the Gallery bar and the main floor as a passageway, but OAF like to think of it as a place where magic happens, so they’ve teamed up with Chalk Horse gallery and artist/curator John A Douglas to put together a three month program of adventures, courtesy of Sydney’s most boundary-pushing young artists, taking place every Friday and Saturday night in the cube. Launching last week, this week’s instalments feature performance artist Jodie Whalen whipping herself – and audience members – into a frenzy of non-stop aerobic exercise. For the following weeks, see facebook. com/FreeFall.OAFCUBE

CHASER AT FBI SOCIAL

GFUS BOOK LAUNCH

The fellas from Go Font Ur Self, the exhibition series dedicated to typographical and letter-based art, are launching a slim, glossy white volume of works from the collection – and they’re celebrating the only way they know how: an exhibition of type-based art. Prints from across the five GFUS series will be on display and up for auction, with all the sale proceeds going to a very worthy local cause: the Penrith Museum of Printing.

Set up by a small group of letterpress enthusiasts, the museum preserves the traditions and technology of letterpress printing by restoring retired machines, and making them available for public use and hire. It’s a labour of love built entirely on volunteer hours and donations, so if you need an excuse to purchase a piece of typographic art, then head along to Roller Gallery in Surry Hills on April 28 from 6pm. gofonturself.com.au/

30 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

You’d have to have your head in the sand to have missed all the hype around The Chaser’s new project, The Empty Vessel. Billed as a live talks-based experiment involving interesting people involved in lively/defamatory debate and hardcore Q&A, the first instalment kicks off this Wednesday evening, April 20, at FBi Social.

The evening will feature the young Australian lawyer who’s acting for Julian Assange in his Swedish extradition case, Jennifer Robinson.

Expect insights, expect tough questions – expect gossip about the sexual habits of Assange, and tips on how to handle major shitfights. If all this sounds too serious, there’s a bar on hand, and tunes courtesy of FBi’s Jack Shit. Tickets are $15, from emptyvessel. eventbrite.com

When: Until May 4 More: Bell Shakespeare's post-show Q&A will be streamed live online this Tuesday April 19 at 9.20pm, via bellshakespeare.com.au

5-8pm, for a free event featuring opportunities to meet bats, chat with experts, or just hang (upside down – for realz). remnantartlab.com

SEAGULL SINGLE TIX

You know how you really really wanted to get along to The Wild Duck, and you kept forgetting to not spend you money on beers every week, and kept not being able to afford a ticket each week, and then the show sold out? Well listen up, coz this could be a billion times worse: on Wednesday April 27 single tickets go on sale for Belvoir’s production of The Seagull (June 4 - July 17), directed by Benedict Andrews (there goes a chunk of those tickets), starring Judy Davis (whhomp! There goes another slice), and with a cast that includes David Wenham (whoosh!), John Gaden, Emily Barclay, Anita Hegh, Maeve Dermody and Gareth Davies.

And, you know it's one of the most seminal works of drama in the Western literary canon.

Yup – this is one of those ‘have to see so I can rave about it’ things. Belvoir.com.au

NOMA BAR RANGE Israeli-born, London-based graphic designer Noma Bar has built up an international profile over the last decade by virtue of his talent for capturing the spirit of a person or idea in bold, clever pictograms. His feats of imaginative design have seen him regularly commissioned by the New York Times, Esquire, The Guardian and Time Out London – and now

by Sony Pictures, who commissioned Bar to redesign the DVD artwork for for 10 cult classics in their catalogue: Reservoir Dogs, Rambo, Stand By Me, Easy Rider, Serpico, Snatch, Donnie Brasco, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Hellboy, and Papillon.

Only 1,500 copies of each film in the Noma Bar Range will be available for purchase through JB Hi-Fi stores nationwide on April 18 – but thanks to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, we have five gorgeous Noma Bar Range packs, which include each of the 10 DVDs. To get your hands on one, tell us the director of Serpico.

SEMI-PERMANENT X OZ

Creative forum Semi-Permanent have just added two high-profile Australian artists to their line-up of speakers: design duo We Buy Your Kids, and illustrator Gemma O’Brien. W$YK are Sydney-based illustrator/designers Sonny Day and Biddy Maroney. They started working together in 2005, designing and screen-printing posters for bands. Since then they have created a massive body of work for clients such as Incu Clothing, Popfrenzy Records, Mushroom Music, EMI, Fosters, MTV and Skateboarding Australia. Gemma, meanwhile, specialises in hand-drawn typography, with a sideline in graphic design and illustration. Her client list includes the New York Times and Canon, and she’s currently working at Animal Logic… That’s just two out of a 12-strong speaker list that spans photographers, creative agencies and designers, with each set to share their creative process with YOU on the weekend of May 13-14, at Darling Harbour’s Exhibition Centre.

Full line-up and tickets at semipermanent.com

HUMAN BAT PROBLEM

We were a bit annoyed to hear last year that the Royal Botanic Gardens were planning to evict their resident Flying Fox colony; apparently they damage the trees in the Gardens – but the gardens looked pretty abundant last time we looked, and it’s hard not to feel sorry for a bunch of bats being driven out of their home – by ‘blasts of industrial noise’, no less. I mean, we read Watership Down. In response to the planned eviction, the REMNANT/EMERGENCY ArtLab (a team of new media artists, scientists, academics and urban planners investigating sustainable approaches to human/animal cohabitation) established the Bat-Human Project, an arts-based problem-solving initiative. Apparently it’s a complicated problem, and there isn’t a solution yet – but if you’d like to find out more about it, and engage in a little tea and sympathy with the bats themselves, head to Cook & Phillip Park (below St Mary’s Cathedral) in the CBD on Friday April 29, from

AUSSIES CANNES DO

We’re grinning ear to ear with the news that Ivan Sen, having been absent from the silver screen since his incredible feature debut Beneath Clouds (2002), has a new feature in Cannes this year. Toomelah is Sen’s third feature – his second, an experimental sci-fi called Dreamland (2009), still hasn’t received an Australian release. Toomelah seems destined for bigger things, playing in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes, which formed such an irrepressible launch pad for Warwick Thornton’s Samson & Delilah a couple of years ago. Sen is in good company, screening alongside old masters like Robert Guédiguian, established indie favourites like Gus Van Sant, and art-house proponents like Kim Ki-duk. Meanwhile, novelist Julia Leigh (The Hunter) has her writing/directing debut Sleeping Beauty in Official Competition at Cannes, alongside newies by Terrence Malick, Pedro Almodóvar, and Lars Von Trier. Exciting stuff! Sleeping Beauty is a dark erotic fairytale starring Emily Browning (Sucker Punch). www.festival-cannes.com

MARY TOBIN PRESENTS THREE OUTSTANDING T UK COMEDIANS IN

SEANN TOM CARL WALSH ALLEN DONNELLY 3

FOR THE PRICE OF

1

“Walsh is this generation’s Dylan Moran, with the looks, gags and charm to become something quite special” TIME OUT

“impossible not to fall in love with him and his brilliantly entertaining life... clever, thought out comedy.. an absolute must see”

“Excellent, fast-rising comic with pacy anecdotal routines” The Sunday Times

THREEWEEKS.CO.UK

FACTORY THEATRE 105 VICTORIA ST, MARRICKVILLE 27 APR-8 MAY 9PM (8PM SUN 8 MAY)

“Proof that laughter really is the best medicine.”

++++

THREE WEEKS 2010

ENMORE THEATRE 130 ENMORE RD. NEWTOWN

MON 25 & TUE 26 APRIL BOOK NOW! 9020 6966 OR WWW.SYDNEYCOMEDYFEST.COM.AU BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 31

PAUL Pegg Brit comedians Simon e and Nick Frost explor ica. extraterrestrial Amer

By Dee Jefferson

E

ight-or-so years ago, Simon on Pegg and Nick Frost were e throwing vinyl at zombies when bad weather forced a shooting break – and Pegg joked that for their next xt film they should do something set in n the desert… As he tells it, it wasn’t much of a stretch from the desert to Nevada, and from Nevada to Area 51, that at most infamous of fanboy wet dreams.. By lunchtime, he’d done a brief sketch: etch: an alien flipping the bird, captioned: ned: ‘In America, everyone’s an alien.’

Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Encou 977) to E.T. (1982) to Mac & Me (1988).

88). It’s also the th culmination of their 18-yearyearfriendship, which includes 10 years friends ears of comedic comed collaboration, from TV series Spaced, Space to Edgar Wright’s bromantic mantic genre spoofs Shaun of the Dead d and Hot H Fuzz. They recently wrapped apped postproduction and ADR for The postpr e Adventures of Tintin, directed byy their Adven boyhood boyho idol, Steven Spielberg (they play twin tw inspectors Thomson and Thompson).

Thom

Peppered with cinematic homages, ges, Paul is the culmination of Pegg and Frost’s love affair with the American can sci-fi of their childhood – from Close

Paul, however, marks the first time h me Pegg and a Frost have co-written a script. In a playful allegory to their eir own lives liv and careers, they playy Chris

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

G

IV

E

A W AY

In some ways, the journey off Paul began three decades ago, go, when two prepubescent boyss who didn’t yet know each other existed xisted both had their own formative experiences watching Steven n Spielberg’s game-changing sci-fi film, Close Encounters of the e Third Kind. Besides setting them on n the path to fully-fledged sci-fi geekdom, ekdom, Close Encounters was a kind d of touchstone for Pegg and Frost st when making Paul – in the obvious bvious sense, given the shared subjectect-

matter matte and locations, but also in less tangible ways. t For Frost, his ‘first encounter’ was F during a holiday visit to his favourite vourite Auntie, Auntie in Wales, during which h her soon-to-be-husband brought so ght over a huge beta cassette of the film. “They were big smokers, so “ I remember it being all smokeyy rem – they shut the curtains, and you could see the smoke in that light, ght, you know?

And they put it on and k that was w it – it just fucking blew w me away. It was the first film where re I had that th thought. ‘I think this iss real; I think this is happening’ – like e it

and Clive, two late-30s British manC children childre who are on a mission to o fulfil their childhood fantasy: a road trip c rip of America’s most legendary UFO sites.

Ameri On the way, however, they pick up a real life alien (Paul) who is on the he run from the th FBI. As soon soo as the script was written, en, Nick and a Simon began the process cess of courting their dream director: Greg cou Mottola.

Mottol Fans of his feature debut ut The Daytrippers (1996), they finally caught Daytrip up with wit him on the eve (literally) of Superbad’s US release, in 2004.

Super 4.

“Superbad could have been a broad “Supe coming-of-age comedy à la Porkies,” comin rkies,” Frost suggests, “but Greg made s e it was a documentary.”

Pegg recalls seeing Close r Encounters for the first time on Encou television, one Christmas Eve – televis 3.05pm, 3.05pm he remembers – during the early ea '80s. “It’s kind of a grownup film. lm It’s not Star Wars, it’s not E.T. – it’s i darker. And Spielberg is a master mas of naturalistic dialogue.

A lot of o the dialogue in the film, people speak over each other, it’s very realistic.

[And] all that stuff at re the beginning with Area 31 and the be guys at a the flight control, they don’t seem like actors. There’s something spellbinding about that film.” spellbi

sympathetic; it was warm – he wasn’t sympa afraid to show two guys loving each other. And that appeals to us!”

Mottola’s Mottol understated visual and d narrative narrat style, which contrasts with the frenetic, highly stylised camera fre era work perfected

by Wright, was another p reason they chose him. “Basically lly we needed neede to see [the character of]] Paul in a film l like Daytrippers,” says Pegg, “which is a very low-key road movie, ovie, which frames the characters and d is all about performance – it's almost like very carefully filming a play; being c ng less visible as a director. It’s just a different fferent approach approa [from Edgar’s].”

Working Workin with Mottola and a castt of actors that included Seth Rogen, n, Jason Bateman and SNL alumni ni Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader meant ant that Pegg Pe and Frost were very relaxed elaxed about watching their script evolve ve as part of the collaborative process. s. This was particularly the case with the p he character charac of Paul, whose final CGI incarnation is the product of many incarn ny hands, hands and many layers of written, en, performance and voice work. “We perfor We wanted wante a character that you forget get is a special specia effect,” Pegg explains. “Imagine magine if Little Miss Sunshine had Gollum um in it, instead of Alan Arkin? That was in what we w wanted to do.”

xxxxx

Although Althou much is often made of the contrast contra between the British and the American sense of humour, Am Pegg is i quick to distinguish between sense of humour and comedy: “The quintessentially British sense of quinte humour humou tends to be a little dryer than Americans; they’re less ashamed of Americ their emotions than we are, so they’ll e just emote – whereas we bury them em in sarcasm and irony. But when it sarc comes to comedy, we’re quite similar.

I love Arrested Development, Curb A Your Enthusiasm – those shows are E extremely extrem sophisticated in their use of irony, iron and parody and satire – and very similar to the best of what we do s [in the UK]. Or in Australia – I mean, I love Chris Lilley.”

C

Although Althou the two originally wrote e the character charac of Paul with the charisma sma

PAUL! TIX! WIN! aul sees British comic duo and best friends Simon Pegg and Nick Frost team up with Superbad’s Greg Mottola, in a love letter to American sci-fi of the late ‘70s and 80s. In a playful riff on their own lives and careers, Pegg and Frost play British sci-fi fanboys Graeme Willy and Clive Gollings, on holiday in the USA for the first time. First stop is San Diego’s Comic-Con, followed by a road trip around America’s most infamous UFO sites – from Area 51 and the Black Mailbox in Nevada, to the Devil's Tower in Wyoming. On the way, however, they pick up an alien hitchhiker named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen), who is on the run from the FBI. With a line-up of comedy talent that includes SNL’s Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, Jason Bateman, and Jane Lynch, Paul is as funny as it is charming.

P

Thanks to Universal Pictures, we have 20 in-season double passes to see Paul. To get your hands on one, tell us the name of the Spielberg film that co-writers Pegg and Frost were inspired by.

32 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

of Rip Torn in mind, Pegg admits that, “when we got Seth involved, we “w started tailoring the character to him.”

All the scenes with Paul were originally shot on o video prior to the proper shoot, with Rogen wearing a motion capture R device. device During filming, comedian Joe Lo Truglio stood in for the CGI character, and was encouraged to charac improvise improv on Rogen’s lines – which the latter lat then had to re-dub in post.

“Jo would come up with stuff, and we’d wo react to t that – and it feels very off the cuff; when you watch it, it is like Paul w is there.” ther

What Paul, Dir. Greg Mottola What: When When: Opens April 14

DRAMATIC. ROMANTIC. DEADLY.

COOGE E FRI APRIL 29

TRIPPLE SHOT OF ROCK

MONKS OF MELLONWAH + THE BLACK HEIST + CROWS FEAT

SAT APRIL 30

PHIL JONES & THE UNKNOWN BLUES WITH FRANK MACIAS & LOS AMIGOS

THURS MAY 5

TONY JOE WHITE

The Australian Ballet pays tribute to its British beginnings in a thrillingly diverse triple bill

THE ORIGINAL SWAMP ROCKER COMING

SOON!

DEREK WARFIELD & THE YOUNG WOLFE TONES SAT MAY 7 D

DAVE GRANEY + DOG TRUMPET SAT MAY 21 D Band Bookings

SYDNEY 3 – 21 MAY Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House with Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra

BOOK NOW australianballet.com.au or 1300 369 741

TICKETS from $30

MORE INFO australianballet.com.au

Transaction fee of $5.00 – $8.50 applies

info@codeone.net.au - www.codeone.net.au

sydneyoperahouse.com or 02 9250 7777

Olivia Bell Photography—Georges Antoni

Tickets & info from www.coogeediggers.com.au

COOGEE DIGGERS 9665 4466 CORNER BYRON & CARR STREETS

Government Partners

Supporting Sponsor

Principal Sponsor

USE ME. BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 33

Sydney Comedy

S

ydney Comedy Festival is a massive showcase of the best comedy acts from around Australia and the world - so massive, that we’ve created this special guide, a tour through some of the festival’s funnier bits: from old hands like Greg Fleet to shiny new talent like Perth’s Joel Creasey; from blockbuster hits like RockWiz, to the more esoteric charms of Melbourne’s Lou Sanz; and of course, puppets – of the British and Australian variety. That's just the tip of the iceberg, however, and we’ll be previewing further festival gems over the coming weeks. For the full festival line-up and tickets, see sydneycomedyfest.com.au

11 APRIL - 8 MAY 2011

Talk To The Hand

By Peter Neathway

(UK)

You mightn’t expect a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company to appear on stage with her hand up the backside of a foul-mouthed talking monkey, but this is par for the course in a night with British actress, comedian and ventriloquist Nina Conti. Her upcoming Sydney Comedy Festival show Talk to the Hand features split personalities, puppet possession, and a feisty Scottish puppet she carries around in a suitcase, and introduces as her Granny.

Daughter of famous British actor Tom Conti, the apple didn’t fall far with Nina who, aside from working with The Bard, worked extensively with experimental UK theatre director Ken Campbell. It was Campbell who introduced Nina to dummies for dummies, buying her a do-it-yourself ventriloquism kit.

Nina carries Campbell’s experimental torch and is often credited with revolutionising and deconstructing the art of ventriloquism, with a style quite distinct from her contemporaries and the showmen of yesteryear, when ventriloquism was seen as marvel and magic.

Nina breaks down the fourth wall, letting us in on the magic, teasing her puppets for mispronouncing words that are difficult to say without moving one’s lips, and having puppets appear naked (as hands), as well as exploring the psychological division at the core of our psyche, which is particularly evident in her chosen art form, where ventriloquists channel inner voices into inanimate objects on the ends of their arms.

And she’s not bad to look at either, according to her fans, who applaud Nina for giving ventriloquism a facelift – repeatedly pointing out that Nina is the only attractive ventriloquist out there at the moment.

Ventriloquism often gets a bad rap, via creepy caricatures in films and on

TV - what's the community really like?

I’ve met loads of ventriloquists - I went to a ventriloquist convention in Kentucky to make a film and interviewed dozens of them and found them to be an adorable bunch of people.

What made you venture into ventriloquism in the first place – and then stay? I was a dissatisfied actress, and I fell into it by accident. And I have been split ever since.

The audience response is what made me think I’d do it full time. It is liberating to say the things that first come into your head, rather than waiting for the second, more appropriate thing.

Who was the first puppet you used? A frightening mannequin - the clichéd horror film ventriloquist doll.

How do you bring the puppet to life?

The hand up the tush comes first. That is the key to life, and then it’s a simultaneous thing – they find each other.

You play around a lot with the traditional style of ventriloquism. What inspired that?

I embrace the madness that ventriloquism invites. And I think a lot of comedy comes out of exposing yourself – that sounds a bit highbrow and arty!

Your cheeky Monkey says some naughty things – would Nina ever say these things? Do you have more Monkey-like thoughts in everyday life than you did before? I think everybody has their inner Monkey that only comes out with very close friends. I am much more Monkey with people who know me very well. But the face I paint for the world is nothing like that.

Ventriloquism wasn’t always comedic; what appeals to you about employing these skills for comedy? I think puppets are intrinsically funny things. To see something that shouldn’t be able to talk spouting at you is surprising and fun.

When: Monday April 18 – Sunday May 1 Where: Sydney Opera House, Playhouse

Thai Die

By Peter Neathway

(AUS)

As I’m talking to Australian comedy icon Greg Fleet, he’s just recorded a session of Spicks and Specks and is taking a tram to his nightly show at Melbourne Comedy Festival, where he’s performed annually for the last 24 festivals. It's many beers and many years since his first gigs in 1987, as a 'sit-down' comedian.

“My legs were shaking, I was so nervous,” Fleet recalls. “So I sat down and it took the pressure off my legs and therefore off my head and then people started writing reviews saying ‘really clever sit down comedian’. They thought I was trying to be clever.”

For this year's Sydney Comedy Festival, Fleet is re-booting one of his most popular shows, Thai Die. Like so much great comedy, Thai Die was born out of mishap: In 1994 Fleet used a bit of cash leftover from a writing gig to take a holiday in Thailand, and unexpectedly found himself right back in a terrifying sit-down situation – at a card table playing against a Singaporean

gambling hustler, being slowly and painfully defrauded of thousands of dollars.

“Basically: naive, eager young man goes overseas, ends up getting sucked in and semi-kidnapped, has his life threatened with an axe, escapes from those people straight over the border into Burma, illegally, into the middle of a civil war,” Fleet summarises.

Safely back home and recounting his adventure, Greg found friends imploring him to turn his experience into a show. He debuted Thai Die at Melbourne Comedy Festival in 1995 to rapturous acclaim, subsequently launching his UK career with an Edinburgh Fringe run that had cult comedian Stewart Lee calling Thai Die “one of the three best shows I have ever seen.”

“I’m a much better performer now and I’ve had more time between the thing happening and now to reflect on it properly, and I just love the story, it’s a remarkable story,” says Fleet.

Fleet is widely recognised as a trailblazer, and even back in 1995 his theatrical storytelling approach started a trend toward thematic festival shows, as opposed to the straight stand-up or sketch of years gone by. “I didn’t try to be different or anything like that. If you can be funny-funny-funny-

www.sydneycomedyfest.com.au 34 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

sad then funny-funny-funny, people feel like they’ve been on a really extreme journey rather than just funny-funny-funny-funny. I’ve had a really tough bogan sort of guy come up to me after one night and say, “Maayte.

Funny and sad. You’re a fuckin’ artist.”

Fleet is also a writer, and is eagerly awaiting the premiere of his TV show Die On Your Feet, produced by Good News Week Productions. It stars Tripod’s Gatesy, Alan Brough, Adam Hills, and Corinne Grant.

“It’s about five comics who are friends, and just what comics do when they’re not on stage – basically hang out and bitch about comics, get stressed, support each other, have relationships and fall out of relationships.”

Finally, what travel advice can Fleet offer on the basis of his Thai adventures? “Just be really fucking not stupid. Just be cool, and you know, still trust people and all that kind of thing. As soon as you start feeling uncomfortable, just tell people. And the other thing is, when you meet someone don’t let them know within five minutes that you’ve got a credit card, that’s a really good bit of advice."

When: Tuesday May 3 – Saturday May 7 Where: The Factory Theatre, Marrickville

(AUS)

Political Animal (A Beginners Guide To Being Prime Minister)

By Richard McConnell

Honestly

By Siobhan Argent

(AUS)

There’s a good reason why Felicity Ward’s new show is called Honestly – and it’s got something to do with a giant pair of novelty scissors and a promising date at a restaurant.

I promised not to pass on the rest of the story, but I fear that Ward is more likely to give away the punchline than I am.

One of the youngest performers at this year’s festival is 19-year-old Joel Creasey, who, having launched his stand-up career at the tender age of 17, presented his second Melbourne Comedy Festival show this year – and will be making his Sydney Comedy Festival debut with Political Animal.

“I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but...” she begins; it’s a phrase that comes up often during our chat – in fact, it might just be the catchphrase for her new show. Honestly began as Ward’s attempt to reflect on the time she spent last year recovering from an anxiety disorder. Ultimately, the show has morphed more into a straight-up stand-up show, with anxiety only a minor theme – but Ward insists that Honestly is still intended to make people who are affected by anxiety disorders feel a little less like they’re alone.

Joel began performing stand-up soon after leaving university, and quickly gained prominence in the Perth comedy scene. His debut show, Slumber Party, received rave reviews at Melbourne Comedy Festival last year and scored him a nomination in the Best Newcomer category (an accolade that ultimately went to Sydney’s Claudia O’Doherty).

If Slumber Party established Joel as a compelling and likeable stage presence with a corner on celebrity gossip, his latest show reveals a sharper and more topical side to his sense of humour. Political Animal (A Beginner’s Guide To Being Prime Minister) harks back to his days (and I do mean days) studying Political Science at university. “My mum was pretty stoked when I was studying – but then I went, ‘Actually, I want to tell jokes about Lindsay Lohan.’”

Political Animal aims to shatter our perception of modern politics and outline just how rockstar you have to be to make it to The Lodge. The show seems set to consolidate Joel’s developing reputation as the “biggest bitch in comedy,” applying his ascerbic wit and outspoken opinions to some high profile people (Tony Abbott being a primary target). And although politics might seem dry by comparison to Li-Lo, Joel exclaims, “I love politics! I think politics is rockstar, and politicians are the biggest celebrities.”

festival

Sydney Comedy

Ward got her start in sketch comedies like Spicks And Specks, Thank God You’re Here, and The Ronnie Johns Half Hour, and found the leap to stand-up slightly daunting – partly because of the exposure to audience criticism, and particularly because she didn’t have an armoury of characters and costumes to protect her from the onslaught.

Honestly will take Ward back to the simpler pleasures of comedy – “just an hour of me having a good time,” the comedienne explains, before emphasising that when you’re going to do a show over and over, it needs to be a show you’re going to like.

Performing the same routines over a long period of time also makes it interesting to see how jokes fare – Ward points out that while some jokes “just kill for two years, sometimes they’ll just die for no reason.”

When: Wed May 4 – Sat May 7 Where: Yalumba Wine Bar, Enmore Theatre

With three years of stand-up experience under her belt, Ward can now take the ups and downs in her stride: if she’s in a good mood but it’s a bad night for stand-up because a roomful of people aren’t laughing at her jokes, she almost makes her own fun

As seen on Good News Week, Talkin Bout Your Generation and star of solo Standup Comedy Specials on ABCTV

out of watching herself crash and burn.

“There’s this theory that if you touch someone, whatever they feel about you, good or bad, gets passed on,” says Ward. She likes to think about that when she tells a joke that doesn’t work, because “it’s funny telling the next joke – just to see how much more they hate you,” she laughs.

When: Thursday April 28 – Sunday May 1 Where: Boiler Room, Factory Theatre

JACQUES BARRETT

IN

“IN IT FOR THE E SPECIES” “Damn impressive - Four Stars”

(UK)

“subtle, succinct, surreal…hilarious and heart wrenching” ★★★★★ The Scotsman

“ONE OF THE GREATS OF PURE LAUGHOUT-LOUD COMEDY” HERALD SUN

THE FACTORY THEATRE 3RD TO 7TH MAY 9.00PM

THE STUDIO, PARADE THEATRE KENSINGTON 5TH TO 7TH MAY 7.30PM

(TIMEOUT)

Nominated Best Newcomer 2010

Joel Creasey

in Political Animal

A beginners guide to becoming Prime Minister

“utterly brilliant” 3AW

THE FACTORY THEATRE 3RD TO 7TH MAY 9.15PM PROUDLY PRESENTED BY

www.andrewtaylormanagement.com

“wonderful”

West Australian

Wine Bar - Enmore Theatre 4th to 7th May - 9.00pm

For all bookings and info go to www.sydneycomedyfest.com.au BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 35

(AUS)

Fast, furious, fearless – and live!

By Emma Salkild “Fast, furious and fearless,” is how Julia Zemiro describes the RockWiz experience. The music trivia show has been running on SBS since 2005 and last year performed a sell-out tour across 19 cities in Australia. Over the years special guests have included Paul Hester, Lior, Martha Wainwright, Paul Kelly, Tim Rogers, and Tex Perkins. Usually, the show is filmed in Melbourne’s Espy Hotel with Brian Nankervis as the witty adjudicator, alongside hilarious hostess Zemiro, who is spunky, sweet and as sharp as a tack. However, Sydney audiences can get their RockWiz fix this month when the team return for a live show at the Enmore.

RockWiz's cult following means that there are currently 20,000 people on the waitlist to get tickets for one of the Epsy shows. Last year the Sydney Comedy Festival instalment sold out so fast that the producers had to put on an extra matinee. “The Enmore is one of the best, best places to perform,” Zemiro tells me. “I used to play theatre sports there in the eighties and nineties with Improv Australia. I know the theatre really well, and love it.”

So how would an Espy audience in Melbourne differ from the Enmore audience

in Sydney? “In a way, Espy audiences are diehard fans because they’ve been on a waiting list for a long time. Once they get in they are so pumped and excited. It’s also a bit hot and stuffy and feels like a gig at a pub. At the Enmore, audiences will be in seats and more comfortable. The show will be longer and has extra segments which are really fun.

Being at the Enmore is a pleasure because you’re hearing that laughter tenfold because instead of 200 people it’s 2,000. For Brian and I, as performers and in terms of our timing, we have to wait for the laughter to go from the back of the room to the front of the room and have to slow it down a bit and that’s what I love it about it.”

One of the bonuses of watching RockWiz live is the karaoke segment. “One of the team members sings with the band and that works a treat. Brian does a hilarious warm-up at the beginning of the night and chooses 24 people and then quizzes them and gets the best four for the night. And, we’ve got some very special guests that I can’t talk about because it’s got to be a surprise.” Judging by last year’s show at the Enmore, where audiences were blessed with a line-up of Adalita, Dave Faulkner, Steve Kilbey, Mary Gautier, and Clare Bowditch, it should be an unforgettable evening.

When: Friday April 29 & Saturday April 30 Where: Enmore Theatre

(AUS) Please Don’t Use My Flanel For That: A Memoir

By Emma Salkild While most 18-year-olds were bludging through uni or being trashy in Europe, Lou Sanz had already sold a film script to Hollywood; by 19, she was on her way to Tinseltown. However, instead of Hollywood glamour, her new life involved drug dealers, cowboys, a one-breasted Spanish woman, and havoc-causing cheese allergies. This story has become Please Don’t Use My Flanel For That: A Memoir. It’s been to Melbourne and America, and now it’s coming to Sydney as part of the Comedy Festival.

While the material for her show sounds sensational in its own right, it’s 31-year-old Lou herself that’s the most intriguing part of the package: at the ripe old age of 20 she gained a full scholarship from Colombia Tristar to study at AFTRS; she acquired a Masters degree without a BA; she only has pre-paid text on her phone; she gives away presents from her parents; coffee is out because otherwise she’ll wake up in the middle of the night crying; she has a memory like a steel trap.

Bin Night

By Jack Franklin

Comedian Sammy J and his foulmouthed and fuzzy sidekick Randy return northwards this month for Sydney Comedy Festival, off the back of their awardwinning debut collaboration, Ricketts Lane, which won the coveted Barry Award for Most Outstanding Show at last year’s Melbourne Comedy Festival.

In terms of her sense of humour, Sanz sees it as quite niche. “I couldn’t leave film school and start writing for well-known shows because I was dark and quite perverted. There’s still no forum for that to happen.” (Instead, she writes the outrageous but very funny blog, The Problematic World of You (Lou)).

Please Don’t Use My Flannel For That is a chance for Lou to play with unfettered comedic reign, and she describes the show as “funny, dark, and excruciating.” When I ask her if she draws a line for herself in terms of what she covers, she comments that, “Rape jokes seem to be du jour and I don’t like that; unless of course it’s subversive and they turn it into social commentary. Otherwise it’s too hard to stomach. But in the end I don’t think you can ever go too far.”

For some comedians, being offensive is their M.O., but with Sanz it feels like any offence is an unintentional byproduct. Her anecdotes contain a certain childlike innocence. “Last weekend I was on this boring date. So I lied and said I got a text telling me I had to be somewhere. You know like everyone does. When I returned from the bathroom my date was holding my phone and calling me a liar. And I thought, how am I the bad one here? He’s holding my phone.”

When: Thursday April 21 – Sunday April 24, 7pm Where: Corridor Bar / 153a King St, Newtown More: Throughout Sydney Comedy Festival, Corridor will be functioning as an alternative comedy club, every night from April 19 - May 7. Tickets for all shows are $18, except for Tuesdays, when they are $12. For the full line-up of shows, see campfirecollective.com.au

of this musical duo. With guitarist Fletcher Jones, Smart Casual “travel around the world with an old sea captain, helping him ‘find himself’”.

(AUS)

The old sea captain “is just like everyone’s sad old racist grandfather. You feel sorry for him now and again but then he does something awful and it reminds you why you don’t like being around him,” says Roger. There’s also the boat, Wendy, and plenty of sea shanties and songs – including a love ballad, entitled 'Kevin Costner'.

The Story Of Captain Entrée

By Joanne Brookfield

Off stage, Smart Casual are brothers Ben and Nick Mattick. Last year they performed Same Mother, Different Fathers which was directed by Heath Franklin, who is better known in his comic guise as Chopper. For The Story Of Captain Entrée, their sister is directing. “Our mother said she will remove us from the will if we don’t include her,” says Nick, who plays Roger David.

The former Raw Comedy National Finalists will play their hometown of Sydney after a warm-up season at Melbourne Comedy Festival. “We are very proud of the show, and there are a few surprises,” Nick reveals. “Also, Ben rides me like a bitch again this year.”

What do you do if you take a year off? Some volunteer as aid workers in third world countries.

Others, like Smart Casual, join an old sea captain for an adventure around the world.

36 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

(AUS)

That’s the premise for their new show, anyway.

Called The Story Of Captain Entrée, the show will be “a story told with songs, dance, bickering and a tableau,” says Roger David, the bearded half

When: Wednesday April 27 – Saturday April 30 Where: Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre

“Last year was our first show together as Randy and Sammy, and we had a lot of fun,” says 27-year-old Melburnian Sam McMillan, aka Sammy J. A comedian in his own right, the former Law student debuted as a solo act in 2006 and broke through with his 2008 ‘musical puppet comedy’ Forest of Dreams, which was his first collaboration with puppeteer Heath McIvor. It proved to be a winning combination, giving birth to a new comedian: Randy.

Last time BRAG talked to McMillan, he described Randy as an exaggerated version of Heath: “He’s a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, wash-up of a puppet, who has seen much of the world. [Sammy and Randy] complement each other: Randy is more likely to have dodgy creditors and drug dealers chasing him up, whereas Sammy J is much more likely to be worried about what order his socks have been placed in a drawer.”

Besides being the voice and ‘arms’ of Randy, McIvor also co-writes the material with McMillan. “It really is a case of locking ourselves in a lounge room and trying to make each other laugh,” says McMillan. “We are both pretty passionate about comedy so we have been through a lot of argument and debate to make it there, but I think it does improve the quality. We spend half the show laughing at each other. [And] if something goes wrong you are both just taking the piss out of it the whole time.”

Bin Night, their third collaboration, sees Sammy J and Randy in detective mode, trying to find out which neighbour has been putting rubbish in their garbage bin.

“It’s a suburban neighbourhood crime thriller,” McMillan explains, tongue firmly in cheek. “There’s a psychological thrill to it – but not on the level of Black Swan or anything.”

When: Saturday April 30 – Sunday May 1 Where: The Virgin Mobile Metro Theatre

festival

Sydney Comedy

dff.org.au

This autumn...

Take a me th there!

Hop on the CountryLink XPT T at Sydney Central with one of Dungog Film Festival’s Trainn & Ticket packages and join thee starss al of at the world's biggest festival Australian films

For ticket packages contact your nearest Countrylink travel centre on 13 28 29 or visit www www.countrylink.info For individual tickets contact Ticketmaster on 136 100 or visit www.ticketmaster.com.au and accommodation info contact For festival f DFF on (02) 9699 2017 or visit www.dff.org.au

5tht

FRIDAY 24HR PARTY PACK

SATURDAY 24HR PARTY PACK

27—28 MAY

gog Sun 3:23am $236 / Dep Sydney Sat 7:15am, Dep Dun s and Saturday Pack includes Jumbuck All-Day Film Pas Night Film & Dance Party when you get home!

Accommodation not necessary -- sleep

"CR TR EA AN TIV SP ITY OR TS US

"

$159 / Dep Sydney Fri 7:15am, Dep Dungog Sat 3:23am Pack includes Jumbuck All-Day Film Pass and Friday Night Film & VIP Party Accommodation not necessary -- sleep when you get home !

28—29 MAY

CREATIVITY MOVES

LIVE MUSIC

CARRIAGEWORKS

®

PEOPLE . CULTURE . COMMUNITY Creativity is for everyone. Itt iiss nott exc e exclusive. There is no club or secret code to crack. No obscure d puzzle to decipher or genetic pre-disposition to wish for. If you are human, you are creative. Being human equips us with everything we need to feel, to express, to relate, to understand, to imagine and to create. Creativity is integral to human existence. Our lives are our creative act.

Get making!

Housed in the old Eveleigh Rail Yards, the CarriageWorks site has been a place of movement, since its earliest days. Today, CarriageWorks is home to artistic exploration, creative collaboration, individual expression and collective experience. CarriageWorks exists to open up new opportunities to bring creativity, in all its forms, to as many people as possible.

We invite you to make CarriageWorks yours, and share the experience with us.

THE FALLS

+ EMAD YOUNAN + RED BOOTS + PJ WOLF + EUSH

SAT 30 APR F R E E ! NOON-5PM (ARTIST TIPPING WELCOME)

CARRIAGEWORKS’ CAFÉ & BAR OPEN CARRIAGEWORKS 245 WILSON STREET EVELEIGH MAIN ENTRANCE: CNR CODRINGTON STREET | TRAIN: REDFERN OR MACDONALDTOWN

CARRIAGEWORKS.COM.AU | FACEBOOK.COM/CARRIAGEWORKS | TWITTER.COM/CARRIAGEWORKS

UNPLUGGED + UNCOMPLICATED IS PRODUCED BY CARRIAGEWORKS + OCCURS ON THE LAST SATURDAY OF EVERY MONTH

carriageworks.com.au | facebook.com/carriageworks | twitter.com/carriageworks | carriageworks.tumblr.com

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 37

Arts Snap

Film & Theatre Reviews

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

What's playing on the silver screen and the bareboards around town.

INCENDIES

PICS :: AM

the valleys of ash

■ Film

Released April 21

09:04:11 :: Myles Heskett @Mart Gallery :: 156 Commonwealth St Surry Hills

PICS :: TL

welcome to razorhurst

The powerful opening sequence in this French-Canadian film promises a stylish, provocative and beautiful experience, which is fully delivered by Québécois filmmaker Denis Villeneuve (Polytechnique). With Radiohead’s ‘You and Whose Army?’ (from 2001’s Amnesiac) playing, the camera moves around a room full of young boys having their heads shaved by armed men, finally focusing on one boy, who looks directly down the lens. Maintaining his connection with you as he is moved around, the words of the song suddenly become all the more poignant.

09:04:11 :: Exchange Hotel :: 34 Oxford Street Darlinghurst 93312956

Adapted from an award-winning play by Wajdi Mouawad, the title of this Oscarnominated film translates to ‘scorched’.

And after watching it, audiences may indeed feel a little burnt-out by this oftharrowing, but tremendously affecting film about identity, history and forgiveness.

Divided into chapters, the films follows adult twins Jeanne and Simon (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Gaudette) as they travel from Canada to a fictional Middle Eastern country (which bears more than a passing resemblance to Lebanon) as they trace the unknown history of their mother, Nawal (Lubnal Azabal). The action moves between the present and the tumultuous past, when religious and factional fighting divided the country and its people.

Surprising, lyrical and brutal, Incendies is full of stunning imagery which conflicts with the difficult and often ugly topics the film is exploring. Azabal and Désormeaux-Poulin standout amongst an impressive cast; with only one scene together these actors do a fantastic job of playing mother and daughter. Beyond physical resemblance, both actors express outward vulnerability and internal strength that connects their characters.

PICS :: TL

firstdraft

With a soundtrack that beautifully enhances the film’s action without distracting from the story, Villeneuve has created a film that is fully accomplished; visually, aurally and thematically. It is doubtful that you’ll see anything better at the cinema this year.

06:04:11 :: Firstdraft :: 116 Chalmers St Surry Hills 96983665

Beth Wilson ■ Film

SCREAM 4

Arts Exposed

Released April 14

In our diary this week...

Gallery A.S. and LO-FI Collective present

MODERN WORSHIP BY DANIEL ASKILL April 21 – 24 / Cnr Liverpool & Forbes Streets, Surry Hills) Following on from his 2009 exhibition Artefacts from the Fifth Ritual, designer, artist and filmmaker Daniel Askill presents Modern Worship, a collection of video works, stills and sculpture exploring media-driven rituals in the modern world. The pinnacle of the exhibition is a large-scale, looping video installation (pictured right) that examines the role of the media in shaping and translating two recent tragedies: the death of Michael Jackson, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Appropriately enough, this exhibition will be held in the former Christian Science Church, in Surry Hills, which is the headquarters of Joseph Allen Shea's latest venture, Gallery A.S. >> Galleryas.com.au 38 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

Sidney Prescott, we’ve missed you. Last seen a decade ago in the middling third entry of this otherwise exceptional, selfaware, slasher series, Neve Campbell’s heroine is back in this fourth installment.

But the horror landscape has changed a lot in the meantime. The 90s slasher revival has been and gone, and in its place is mean-spirited torture porn, zerobudget, found-footage horror flicks, and innumerable remakes and reboots of genre classics.

Scream 4, a deftly post-modern take on modern horror films and modern culture at large, deliciously skewers all of these, and boldly thumbs its nose at everything from mobile phones to our shallow, celebrity-obsessed culture. It’s as funny and as scary as the first two (still superior) installments. It’s also a lot bloodier, and just about as good as any movie with a '4' in the title could ever be.

This time around Sidney reunites with old friends, Sheriff Dewey Riley (David

Arquette) and now-wife Gale Weathers (an entertainingly snappy Courtney Cox), on the 15th anniversary of the original murders. The murders soon start up again, of course, and an older and wiser Sidney finds herself both the target of Ghostface’s knives and the impromptu protector of her young cousin, Jill (Emma Roberts). Also in the fray is a rather impressive Hayden Panettiere (TV’s Heroes), a couple of film club geeks who fill us in on the revamped rules of remakes, sequels and reboots, and Community’s Alison Brie as Sidney’s snarky personal assistant.

Veteran director Wes Craven (The Last House On the Left, The Hills Have Eyes and A Nightmare On Elm Street) and crafty screenwriter Kevin Williamson (Scream 1 + 2) knowingly acknowledge the tropes of the genre (and, by extension, those turned on its head by this franchise). This is no torture-porn endurance test; it’s a celebration of a neglected sub-genre and nostalgic trip for fans of old slashers. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fiendishly clever and hysterical pre-title sequence featuring True Blood’s Anna Paquin and Veronica Mars’ Kristen Bell.

There’s a surprising amount of depth in Scream 4’s fundamental design, though to describe specifics, some of the great one-liners, or the crackerjack ending would involve delving into spoilers. There are some missteps – the first act is a little slack, and some scenes misfire – but overall it’s significantly better than the third entry in the series, and a breath of fresh air compared to the dire and grisly trends of contemporary horror. To the film’s great credit, it knows it. Sidney, it’s good to have you back.

Joshua Blackman ■ Theatre

CUT

Until May 1 / Belvoir Downstairs When writer/director combo Duncan Graham and Sarah John last graced the Downstairs Belvoir stage, it was with the crisp naturalism of Ollie and the Minotaur. Their latest work Cut, the inaugural play of the new incarnation of the Downstairs theatre, explores many of the same themes as this previous work, with both inspired by Greek mythology and reflecting on violence against women. But formally, the two could not be further apart. Whereas Ollie… was a tight narrative performed naturalistically on a bright set, Cut is a series of fragmented stories united in one woman, performed in near darkness by Anita Hegh.

Cut explores the mythological figure Atropha, the most fearsome of the three Greek fates, whose role was to cut the thread of life. Here she is manifested in many voices, the most regular being that of an air hostess running away from a stalker. This is presented in the theatre with Hegh disappearing in and out of darkness, never in focus for longer than a short scene. The fragments of voices occur and reoccur to build not simply a narrative but also an atmosphere, one of fear and suspense. This play is more akin to a thriller or horror film than a conventional play, and there was a genuine sense in the audience that we were leaving more than slightly shaken.

This one woman nightmare asks a lot of Hegh, whose formidable range is stretched to its limit and then extended by sound effects courtesy of sound designer Ekrem Mülayim, whose haunting noises and melodies are crucial to the disturbing ambience. As always, Hegh rises to the task of the writing, finding real life in Graham’s dark poetry.

John has done a truly skilful job of bringing this text to the stage, creating an enthralling, if terrifying, mindscape out of the shattered reality of the play.

Henry Florence

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

DVD Reviews Reasons to stay on the couch all weekend...

MAD MEN: SEASON 4

TREME: SEASON 1

Sony Pictures Home Ent. Released April 5 The storytelling style of Mad Men has always had a healthy disrespect for classic narrative arcs. The writers are well aware that theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re dealing with audiences who are more finely attuned to foreshadowing and allusions than ever, and they take pleasure in setting up what feels like a watershed moment of high drama and then leaving it in the dust of a closing scene thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s much more ambiguous.

Season 4 suffers from too much of this; good writers show rather than tell, but it can be exhausting being constantly yanked from one unresolved moment to another.

Season 4 is also worse-off for Betty Draperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s character having been shifted from the subtly discontented housewife of a few years ago, to a full-fledged cold bitch. Her interactions with Don have lost all the delicate subtext of their married life, and are now written with a big, chunky DIVORCED-COUPLE pen. Roger Sterling, too, is now little more than a sorry caricature of his gloriously quotable former self. But Elisabeth Moss has her best season by far â&#x20AC;&#x201C; by her wonderful last scene in the final episode, I was ready to get PEGGY OLSSON 4EVA tattooed on my bicep.

The first line in this whole season is â&#x20AC;&#x153;Who is Don Draper?â&#x20AC;? Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a question weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve heard echoed again and again through the course of the show, but Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mystique has been eroding steadily since the first season. I had my doubts as I began the season that he was still that interesting; but while his emotional arc through this season stretched the boundaries of credibility, it was strangely satisfying to watch him feel so much.

Who is Don Draper? We still donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know. But we still want to. No mean feat.

Caitlin Welsh

Warner Bros. Home Video Released March 30 Emblazoned on the front cover of this release are the words â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;From The Creators Of The Wireâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. The two shows share definite similarities â&#x20AC;&#x201C; both take on the theme of urban decay in a major American city, and both are complex, novelistic narratives, unfolding in a manner that shows rather than tells and demands your complete attention at all times.

However, where The Wire is all about the slow death of a city, though, Treme is all about the painful rebirth â&#x20AC;&#x201C; specifically, the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It follows the threads of several ordinary people in the wake of the disaster â&#x20AC;&#x201C; people like Ladonna (Khandi Alexander), a bartender whose search for her missing brother keeps turning up dead ends; Janette (Kim Dickens) a chef who struggles to keep her restaurant in business from day to day; and Antoine (Wendell Pierce), a terminally underemployed jazz musician. The connections between these people and others slowly become apparent, as they butt heads with institutions and each other, wait for insurance money, and wait for some sense of normality to return.

The characters and their world feel real and credible, and you will both love them and hate them, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just a small part of the picture.

Treme is gorgeously-shot, finding beauty in the devastation and the grandeur of the old city, and carefully-made, with every detail in the right place. The soundtrack, too, is impeccable â&#x20AC;&#x201C; music as a force for healing is an unspoken but recurring theme, and each episode features multiple performances by New Orleans jazz players woven into its storyline.

Treme isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t your standard, episodic television fare, and leaves as many loose ends as it resolves, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gripping, essential stuff all the same.

5 Minutes with Stephen K. Amos The Best Medicine... By Adele Klein

S DEYDN BU EY T

Alasdair Duncan

P

Melbourne International Comedy Festival in association with Sydney Opera House present

BRITAINâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S LEADING VENTRILOQUIST AND 2008 BARRY AWARD WINNER

erennial festival-favourite Stephen K. Amos is bringing a new show to Sydney Comedy Festival this year, called The Best Medicine. Because, you know, laughter is supposed to be that â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and also because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kind of great that someone who spends a lot of time skewering stereotypes is kind of gently appropriating a clichĂŠ.

Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s keeping it socially responsible, however: â&#x20AC;&#x153;If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re slipping into a hypoglycaemic coma, then insulin is the best medicine,â&#x20AC;? he admits. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But if you want to come and laugh solidly for an hour, then come and see my show.â&#x20AC;? Noted? Good. He does court a little ambiguity, though, in that the show title, preceded by his name â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as it appears nearly everywhere â&#x20AC;&#x201C; does seem to suggest that it may in fact be Stephen K Amos who is the best medicine. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Well,â&#x20AC;? he admits, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I have been known to be taken three times a day.â&#x20AC;?

Amos is usually not shy of defining himself, having consistently and openly talked about his perceptions as a black man and a gay man, and about perceptions of him as such.

He has a joke about an old lady clutching her handbag tightly to her side at the sight of him, which employs a heavy dose of indignation at the thought that heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d steal something so ugly, making it a sort of wry double negative where it ends up being okay because heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so welladjusted. This deft deployment of stereotypes about two minorities that he (to some extent) represents on stage, is done with a warmth that makes it very accessible. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As long as we are lucky enough to live in a society with freedom of speech and expression,â&#x20AC;? Amos says, â&#x20AC;&#x153;itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entirely up to the individual comic as to what he or she talks about. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t set out to be a role model but purely to tell jokes from my perspective.â&#x20AC;? It just happens to help that Amosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; perspective is both satirical and humane.

Often described as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;warmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;heartwarmingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, and other things that imply that everyone wants to give him a hug, Amos is the kind of person who can make penis jokes, but still be endearing to your mum. A case in point: when asked about a review

Created with Spitting pitting Image e founder founder, d , Bill Bill ll Dare ll Da D rre e

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Conti gives ventriloquism a thorough going deconstructionâ&#x20AC;?.

THE GUARDIAN, UK

saying that â&#x20AC;&#x153;his statue [sic] and profile has risen greatly since the early days,â&#x20AC;? and where this statue might be, his response is, â&#x20AC;&#x153;If indeed someone has made an effigy of me, please take a picture and send it to me. The only thing that I know that I have that keeps growing is not in the public domain.â&#x20AC;? My mum, at least, loved that.

What: Stephen K. Amos â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The Best Medicine When: Monday April 25, 8.45pm / Tuesday April 26 at 8pm Where: The Enmore Theatre More: sydneycomedyfest.com.au

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Comedy thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s truly outside the norm... unmissable stuffâ&#x20AC;?.

SUNDAY AGE, MELBOURNE

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gut-bustingly funny... a downright brilliant showâ&#x20AC;?.

THE MIRROR, UK

69 T T

&$ 0Ú PLAYHOUSE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE *+ - # 19 APRIL - 1 MAY TICKETS FROM $25 BOOKINGS sydneyoperahouse.com.au or 9250 7777 & Ticketek Outlets  > >

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 39

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI Moment Bends Modular

Architecture In Helsinki worked full-time for over a year to perfect their fourth album - and it was time well spent. They’ve returned in majestic form, with an inspiring pop album that’s quirky, synthy, moody, happy and twee all at once.

Moment Bends is the album that Architecture always meant to make. I cannot wait to dance to this.

Right from the opener ‘Desert Island’, AiH show off sophisticated pop by wrapping it up in colourful calypso synths; these are clearly the same guys who brought you the melodic and percussive Places Like This, but there's a more cohesive and dancier lean this time. The track is subdued by holiday panpipes, which mirror frontman Cameron Bird’s pure, breathy vocals as the song builds and takes off, spreading its wings into a soaring sky.

The Melbourne band seem to have abandoned almost all of their favourite live instruments for this record, and it was a glockenspiel-shaped hole that needed to be filled, stat. They’ve not only filled it, but packed it like an overzealous dad packs the car boot for a camping trip: everything you want, everything you need, and everything in between.

The fabled cowbells, glockenspiels and agogos have been succeeded by Gary Numan-esque synthesisers (‘That Beep’), squelchy Scandinavian bass sounds (‘Contact High’) and Soviet orchestras (‘Everything’s Blue’) – a bona fide international sound o' synths.

The jubilant yelps in previous albums have been substituted for atmospheric boy-girl harmonies, which are masterfully introduced into the mix; some float daintily in your headspace (‘Yr Go To’) and others penetrate your eardrums with a positively hissing quality (‘Everything’s Blue’). 'Sleep Talkin’'

LOW

RISE AGAINST

KING CANNONS

C’Mon Sub Pop

Endgame Universal

King Cannons EP EMI

C’Mon begins and ends with lullabies.

The album opens with ‘Try To Sleep’, a melody as sweet and warm as hot milk before bed, but with chilling lyrics that echo OK Computer’s pseudoOrwellian paranoid cynicism. Folky closer ‘Something’s Turning Over’ ends with the twining harmonies of married frontpersons Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk - “Just because you never hear their voices/don’t mean they won’t kill you in your sleep” - before finishing with nearly a full minute of child-choir “la la las”. It crystallises what works about Low’s best moments: the intersection between the soothing and the unsettling.

Recorded in a church, C’Mon has an appropriately grandiose mood, the guitars echoing sternly even when the sweeter melodies emerge. Like the lovechild of Jeff Tweedy and The Dears’ Murray Lightburn, Sparhawk has the ability to make simple, tender sentiment sound tragic. “My love is for free,” he groans in $20, over a series of rumbling downstrokes that draw out and never pay off; ‘Majesty/Magic’ does it better because there’s a build rather than a drag, with drums that sound like an encroaching army and then drop away just as mothers start clutching children to their bosoms.

Highlight ‘Nothing But Heart’ wakes to serrated guitars, with a reverb like a stadium sound-check. It then disappears for five whole minutes to lift the mantra-like nod into quietly epic territory. Wilco’s Nels Cline is responsible, and it does feel like he helps refresh the sound. But that’s not to imply that Low sound tired (or any more so than usual) - it’s just a quietly thrilling interjection that sits beautifully in a collection of restless little epics.

It’s been a decade since Rise Against rose from the ashes of Chicago band 88 Fingers Louie, and from their raw hardcore punk beginnings on Fat Wreck Chords. Since then they’ve evolved into a formidable studio band, using major label cash and equipment to create an accessible type of melodic hardcore, while still gripping tightly to the dissident ethos they were associated with from the beginning.

Their sixth album Endgame sees vocalist and lyricist Tim McIlrath as dissatisfied as ever. Through 45 minutes he delivers vitriolic sermon after sermon on the US government, the plight of the returning soldier, and numerous other anthems for the downtrodden. As well as marching down the same thematic path, Rise Against stay true to their successful writing formula of albums past.

With the help of long-time producer, Descendents and Blag Flag drummer Bill Stevenson, they've again crafted the gargantuan stadium rock builds and sing-along moments that have been the constant throughout their most recent (and most successful) output.

The two leading singles, ‘Architects’ and ‘Help Is On The Way’, reflect perfectly the bridge between hardcore and accessibility: easily digestible punk with enough hooks to snare the casual rocker, and enough venom to satisfy the loyal. Although sometimes veering into the poppier end of things (see the children’s chorus on ‘Make It Stop’ and the Ataris-esque pop-punk of ‘This Is Letting Go’), the circle-pitinducing ‘Satellites’ and the rollicking ‘Broken Mirrors’ are more than enough to balance the scale.

More controlled and respectful than their last release, this is a rewarding back-to-basics record that’s anything but basic.

While not a groundbreaking album, Endgame epitomises what Rise Against have always been moving towards; a course in disobedience juxtaposed with a clean, slicklyproduced studio rock album.

Caitlin Welsh

Rick Warner

This EP feels like honesty tied to a sledgehammer; the New Zealand sixpiece have grabbed The Clash and Bruce Springsteen by the scruff of the neck and throttled them into some weird shape called King Cannons.

After leaving small town NZ to seek greener pastures in London a couple of years ago, the earthy punk band found nothing but roadblocks in the Northern Hemisphere. So fast forward a year or so, and greener pastures have turned up - in Melbourne, Victoria. After a period of good ol’ fashioned name-building around the Melbourne scene, King Cannons landed a deal with EMI. The fruits of all of that labour? A tight little fivetrack debut EP full of punch and grit and honest rock 'n’ roll.

Starting off the proceedings is the downright irresistibility of ‘Take The Rock’, with 70s punk attitude mixed with 80s pub rock hooks that Cold Chisel would be proud of. ‘Teenage Dreams’ revels in the same smoky pub feel as songwriter Luke Yeoward retells the well-thumbed tale of dreams snatched away by adulthood.

Things get fiercer with ‘Gasoline’, a heavy-handed ska cut that stands equal with 'Take The Rock' as the strongest on the record. ‘Smoked Out City’ is a small-town anthem of classic rock that gives an overt nod towards The Boss himself, while the closer ‘Time To Yourself’, which sees the band engage in an experiment with reggae, unfortunately suffers in comparison to the rest of the blistering songs on the recording.

Taking influence from both London and New Jersey, King Cannons have nailed a classic rock sound that’s distinctly from Down Under.

Rick Warner

For You Two Bright Lakes Hearing Thom Yorke’s intimately familiar tenor warble atop towers of vertiginous electronics in ‘Idioteque’ made for difficult listening back in 2000 - partially for fear that no-one would ever take him seriously ever again, but mostly because it sounded, terrifyingly, as though he was about to fall. A similarly bizarre vertigo is what characterises Oscar + Martin’s debut album For You. With its obsessively cut and pasted sonic palette, overly complex lyrical idiosyncrasies, and breathtakingly close, dry production, it resembles an exquisite

40 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

pop monologue from a dear, mad friend who is in constant peril of tripping over themselves as they try to impart something vitally important.

It starts quietly, with a chorus of sighing, wordless voices that blossom into a disarmingly forward quasi-R&B clip; as an opener, ‘My Blood’ encapsulates what this act is about. It’s eye-wateringly sweet, a devout wreath of lovelorn vocal pop, with backing vocals from labelmate Hazel Brown, from Otouto.

A disclaimer: it’s impossible to do anything else when listening to this music.

It’s distracting, and the details are allconsuming, from the insistent high-pitched rattle that spars with mellotron on ‘Milk’ to the panic-inducing rushes of breath that

Rach Seneviratne

THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART Belong Pod/Inertia TPOBPAH were initially praised as masters of capturing the awkwardness of adolescence; like when you look back on a photo from high school and see yourself - braces, glasses, pimples galore, completely lost - and inwardly cringe.

More recently though, frontman Kip Berman has said that for the first time in their lives, the band are all feeling like they’ve finally found a place where they belong; a turnaround that forms much of the foundation of their most recent (and aptly-titled) release.

There’s no hiding the astonishment in Berman’s voice as he murmurs “Ana, our dreams are coming true” ('Strange'), surprised that things might actually be going his way.

But unfortunately - and despite production help from Flood and Alan Moulder (Depeche Mode, Smashing Pumpkins), whose influence is palpable - the newfound sense of affirmation just doesn’t translate to great music. There's still plenty of heartache here, with songs awash with good relationships, bad relationships, long distance relationships and Smiths references (‘Heaven's Gonna Happen Now’) - but they’ve lost the cheekiness of ‘Come Saturday’ or the half-real, halfimagined library makeouts of ‘Young Adult Friction’.

Even with these shortcomings, though, the New York group are a talented bunch. ‘My Terrible Friend’ and ‘Strange’ recreate the swirling pop bliss we witnessed in their self-titled 2009 release, and at the height of ‘Heart In Your Heartbreak’, when the drums are crashing and the hooks and claps surround you in a warm fuzz, it’s lush shoegaze at its very best.

TPOBPAH are growing up fast - but I’m not so sure they’ll be able to take the music (or their fans) with them.

BILL CALLAHAN Apocalypse Spunk Bill Callahan has always traded in the deadpan, dressing painfully horrific insights in clothes that would almost veer on cutesy, were it not for the manic glint in the man’s rolling eyes - see last effort Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle, for instance. Naming an album ‘Apocalypse’, then, is hardly the wide-eyed statement of end days angst that it might be in the hands of indie rock band X. ‘Oh that’, Bill seems to say. ‘Yeah, the sky fell weeks ago.

Nobody noticed.’

The third album to appear since hanging up his hat as Smog in 2005, Apocalypse continues Callahan’s trajectory towards a more instrumentally lush and harmonically complex style, the stark minimalism of his previous incarnation being filled in with the sturdy efforts of his backing band. Opener ‘The Drover’ is firmly in Annie Proulx territory, as Callahan toys with mythic images of open ranges and salt-of-the-earth settlers in his gaunt but strangely comforting bass. ‘Baby’s Breath’ trades in equally aching forebodings, the bride doomed well before the wedding is over.

Closer to the here and now we get ‘America!’, a typically ironic take on the yearning ode for home country.

“You are so grand and golden!” he cries, before going for the throat: “Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iran, Native America … well, everyone’s allowed a past they don’t care to mention.”

While his penchant for the occasional painfully dumb rhyme - see the climax of ‘Universal Applicant’ - irritates as much as the accompanying pop-song skewering impresses, Callahan has produced another deeply impressive collection.

Oliver Downes

Liz Brown

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK OSCAR + MARTIN

is a deceptively brilliant song; what begins as an ambling, whispering ballad morphs into a burgeoning masterpiece, with massive harmonies and cavernous, splashing drum crashes that roll around a stupendous guitar solo. It’s as if the band have turned to their personal musicopaedias, and syphoned all their favourite sounds into eleven tracks of exuberant pop joy.

punctuate the billowing ‘Chaine Maile’.

This is both irritating and immeasurably rewarding. Not only does a song like ‘Recognise’ impel bouts of impromptu chair-dancing in empty offices, but it brims with carefully collated morsels of noise for you to discover on each consecutive listen.

If anything negative could be said about For You, it’s that it’s too precious, too twee, too caught up in its own chaos to make much sense. But such critiques are entirely beside the point.

This is a palimpsest of guilty confection. An intimate, indulged, jealous lover of an album that demands, and deserves, all of your attention.

Luke Telford

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

FOUR TET - DJ Kicks SNOWMAN - Absence YOUTH GROUP - Skeleton Jar

DESTROYER - Kaputt EMINEM - The Eminem Show

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 41

The Minor Chord

The all-ages rant bought to you by Indent.net.au and Janette Chen

ALL-AGES GIG PICKS SUNDAY MAY 1

fter enjoying the small, sweet offerings of live music at our much loved record stores on Record Store Day, it seems a crying shame that the music gods have left the next few days of the school holidays to be a quiet spell for the all-ages scene. Take it as you will, but it may just be a hint for us to start saving up for sideshows and the like, now that the Splendour In The Grass line-up has been announced, and Groovinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the Moo is on the horizon...

Unsigned Wonders Feat. Finabah, The Never Ever, Call The Shots, Ghosts On Broadway The Annandale Hotel

Or, it could be a hint for you to hone in on your own music skills, with a nudge from Waverly Council and their Bondi Wave Youth Band program. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re serious about being in a band, Bondi Wave is designed to give you the skills to play the bills, so to speak. It starts with a threemonth course in songwriting, recording and performance, where youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be mentored by top tutors and music industry professionals, and concludes with a showcase gig at the Bondi Pavilion - after which they'll be putting together a Bondi Wave CD. Applications are closing soon and auditions are April 27, so get your band together, or sign up solo and meet some music-minded people to play with.

Find the application form at indent.net.au

Chasing Amy, The Never Ever, Futures in Black and White, Recording All, Dan Sweeto The Annandale Hotel

A

While youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re taking advantage of these sweet opportunities, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forget to buy your tickets to Washingtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all ages show at the Metro on Friday May 6. Having already sold out the previous nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s show, the pop singer-songwriter recently announced this extra, all-ages show, where she will be joined by Lissie (USA) and locals Deep Sea Arcade. Check back here next week, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be announcing a sneaky chance at some freebies to the gig!

Washington

FRIDAY MAY 6

Washington, Lissie, Deep Sea Arcade *New Show Added* The Metro Theatre

SUNDAY MAY 15

SATURDAY MAY 21

Hungry Kids of Hungary, The Chemist, Andy Bull The Metro Theatre The Annandale Hotel may be hot in the news because of its recent â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;for saleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; sign, but it still continues to program some amazing shows during the day to cater to the audiences that might not be eligible for later entry. Case in point: on Sunday May 1, the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Unsigned Wondersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; showcase kicks off at 11am, with Brisbane pop rock band Finabah headlining. Also on the bill are fellow Brisvegians Call the Shots (formerly known as Autumn Heartache), and Sydney six-piece, Ghosts on Broadway, bringing a dose of pop/punk and hardcore. Tix are just $15 +bf.

And on May 15, Sydney locals Chasing Amy will be celebrating the release of their debut EP, Elegant Gentlemen, at a midday launch party at the Annandale. With all members under the age of 18, these poppunkers have been building up a fan base and attracting attention since the release of their debut single, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Mr. Undeniableâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; last May, which saw them tour youth centres around the country. With this in mind, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a well-deserved step up for the band to launch their album at the iconic Annandale.

Supporting them are Sydney five-piece The Never Ever, who are taking time out from their current EP tour to bring us a dose of their danceable power pop rock.

The Never Ever recently released their debut EP, Dancefloors and Dinosaurs, and nabbed a well-dressed sponsorship with clothing retailer Factorie. Joining the party are indie-popsters Futures In Black And White, who have also recently recorded their album, Answers on a Postcard, as well as pop punk acts Recording All and Dan Sweeto.

And finally, hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an all-ages must for you to look forward to: The Minor Chord on your radio, 5pm every Wednesday afternoon on FBi 94.5, with all the all-ages news and opportunities you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to miss out on.

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t say we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t look after you.

Deep Sea Arcade

%.42!.#% 0/).43 4/ #!-053

4/ #)49 "2/!$7!9 2 &//4"

).' 2$

$ 2

2. !6% %!34% 2$ 4/ #)49

-!..).'

!6 %

3)49

5.)6%2

6)#4/2)! 0!2+

)

'2!&&)4

-!..

,!7.3

-!).

15!$

&2/.4

% 2$

/6!,

)$'%

&//4"2)$'% 4(%!42%

# )%.

3#

0!22!-!44! 2$

45..%,

4! 2$

-!4

2!

0!2

Send pics, listings and any info to minorchords@thebrag.com 42 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

Remedy

More than The Cure since 1989 with Murray Engleheart

HALLUCINATION CITY

To say that avant garde guitarist Glenn Branca was a huge droning influence on Sonic Youth is putting it very, very mildly.

Proof of what they’ve drawn from him from day one was on show recently in LA when Branca performed his ‘Hallucination City’ symphony with 85 guitarists (15 down from the 100 that the piece was originally written for). All of the musicians appeared for free including Mike Watt, who helped round up a cast that included 20 bass players (but just one lone drummer). “Originally the piece was supposed to be for 2,000 guitars,” Branca told Pitchfork. “This wasn’t my idea; it was commissioned for the Millennium Festival in Paris. And my agent thought it would be a cool idea to propose to the French government 2,000 guitars for the year 2000. Personally I thought the idea was absurd beyond belief. But when they gave me a $50,000 commission to write the piece, I wasn’t going to say no.”

That was until the budget blew out to $1 million, so it had to be scaled back; to just 100 guitars. And we used to think that The Outlaws, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Built to Spill and the Blue Oyster Cult having three lead guitars was a big deal.

JOY DIVISION LIVES

Former Joy Division anchor cable bassist Peter Hook and his band The Light are keeping the flame alive by performing JD’s Unknown Pleasures slab in London on April 23 and 30. Then in May they’re doing two shows in Manchester in which they’ll be tackling all of JD’s masterpiece, Closer.

On top of all that, the Hookster releases an EP in May called 1102/2011, which features Joy Division’s ‘New Dawn Fades’, ‘Insight’ and ‘Atmosphere’.

WHO CARES?

A rock benefit supergroup called Whocares (which shouldn’t be confused with the earlier and even more cringinglytitled Classic Rock Cares, that featured AC/DC’s Brian Johnson) is doing its bit, and with a decidedly metal bend. The

lineup is Ian Gillan from Deep Purple along with Jon Lord plus Tony Iommi from 'Sabbaff, Nicko McBrain from Iron Maiden, Jason Newsted formerly of Metallica and Mikko ‘Linde’ Lindstrom from HIM. Not sure if there are gigs in the offing (which would really drum up a few serious bucks) – their varying work schedules would probably make that an impossibility – but they have done some recording, a song called ‘Out Of My Mind’.

The proceeds go to help a music school in Armenia as well as the country generally, which was shattered by an earthquake 20 long years ago and is still struggling to right itself.

LIVE IN MISSISSIPPI

In a sense we’re actually far bigger fans of what Jack White did outside The White Stripes than what he did latterly within them, but the twosome have a final album coming, which, in line with White’s welcome sense of tradition in all things musical, is titled Live In Mississippi – because it was.

It was recorded at the pair’s last show, on July 31, 2007, in Southaven.

POP IDOL

Aerosmith’s Steve Tyler seems to be enjoying a new lease of life thanks to American Idol, but it’s one that ties in neatly with the big ballad rock turn that the Sniffs took decades ago. No one will ever call them ‘America’s answer to The Yardbirds’ ever, ever again. Our point is that, lousy as it is, you could have seen that shift coming long ago. Iggy Pop appearing on the show doing what else but ‘Real Wild Child’ (while no doubt desperately trying yet again to be just that) is a whole other schnitzel entirely...

The Pop has pulled out all stops in recent years to seemingly make up for lost time in the early ‘70s, when he was considered at best a joke by the music industry, but a genius to his fawning circle. Now as far as we’re concerned he’s quickly reversing that situation - which is as sad as it is infuriating.

TUESDAY 12TH APRIL

MARTHA TILSTON (UK) + Anabelle Kay WEDNESDAY 13TH APRIL

PROFESSOR GROOVE AND THE BOOTY AFFAIR + The Quixotics

THURSDAY 14TH APRIL Steve Edmonds Presents:

HENDRIX AND HEROES (A SALUTE TO THE 70’S)

+ Tin Sparrow FRIDAY 15TH APRIL

KING TIDE

SUNDAY 17TH APRIL

GUINEAFOWL

& BALL PARK MUSIC + Tin Sparrow

WEDNESDAY 20TH APRIL

DEAN MICHAEL SMITH

+ Tegan Rogers + Anthony Hughes + Stasi Matzis THUR 21ST & FRI 22ND APRIL

JACK JONES + Luke Pittman

Friday 29 April Ian Moss Saturday 30 April Ian Moss Sunday 1 May Bon Chat, Bon Rat Wednesday 4 May Ash Grunwald Thursday 5 May Afro Moses Friday 6 May Holly Throsby Saturday 7 May The Flood Sunday 8 May The Little Stevies Monday 9 May Comedy Night Special Tuesday 10 May Mark Olson Wednesday 11 May Pete Cornelius Thursday 12 May Jeff Martin Friday 13 May KISS Tribute Sunday 15 May The Ritmo Arch Tuesday 17 May Mike Noga Wednesday 18 May Freddie White Friday 20 May GANGgajang Saturday 21 May Doc Neeson Sunday 22 May Glen Mead Tuesday 24 May John Overholt Wednesday 25 May Bones Atlas Thursday 26 May Jackson Mclaren Friday 27 May Mark Seymour Saturday 28 May Abby Dobson Sunday 29 May The Brewster Brothers Tuesday 31 May Pete Sot Thursday 2 June Renée Geyer Saturday 4 June Classic Rock Show Sunday 5 June Darren Jack Band Wednesday 8 June Joel Leffler Saturday 18 June Steve Flack Monday 20 June Kinky Friedman Tuesday 21 June Kinky Friedman Thursday 23 June English And The Doc Sunday 26 June Natalie Gauci Thursday 30 June Caravãna Sun Wednesday 6 July James Blundell Saturday 9 JulyJohnny Cash Tribute Saturday 16 JulyThe Paper Scissors Thursday 4 August Diesel Friday 5 August Diesel Saturday 6 August Diesel Sunday 7 August Diesel Thursday 18 August Wendy Matthews

ON THE TURNTABLE On the Remedy turntable is Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats, which not only features Captain Beefheart and plenty of Uncle Frank’s searing guitar work, but the equally incendiary efforts of Sugarcane Harris on violin - a gent who was scene veteran by the late ‘60s.

Still on the fiddle, we’ve also been spinning Filthy by Papa John Creach, a wily old associate of the Jefferson Airplane who did blues on violin rather than paint stripping à la Mr Sugarcane.

Jane's Addiction

TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS Splendour In The Grass is back from July 29 – 31, with a line-up that includes Jane’s Addiction, The Hives, Pulp, The Living End, The Mars Volta, Mogwai (in their only Australian show), Modest Mouse, Kaiser Chiefs, Elbow, The Kills, Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears, Jebediah and The Jezabels.

Bon Scott gets the tribute treatment in May and June with the Long Live Bon Scott shows featuring Angry Anderson, Choirboys’ Mark Gable, Screaming Jetter, Dave Gleeson and the great John Swan all backed by an all-star band.

Dates are Waves in Wollongong on May 28, Penrith Panthers on June 3 and The Enmore on June 4.

On May 13, Deathcage and Summonus are at Hermann’s Bar at Sydney Uni’s Wentworth Building, corner of City Road and Butlin Avenue. Also on the bill are Battle Pope and Before Dawn.

Helmet are returning to our shores. Dates are June 24 at the Manning Bar, June 30 at ANU Bar, Canberra, July 1 at the Uni Bar, Wollongong and July 2 at Newcastle Leagues Club.

Bosom, The Cool Charmers and Matty Hell’s mob, Blueprints to Dust, are at the Excelsior on April 17.

UV Race launch their Homo slab with the Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys and Holy Balm on May 20 at The Red Rattler.

Send stuff to remedy@ozemail.com.au by 6pm Wednesdays.

All pics to art@thebrag www.facebook.com/remedy4rock BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 43

snap sn ap

live reviews

up all night out all week . . .

W H AT W E ' V E B E E N T O S E E . . .

DEAD KENNEDYS

The Manning Bar, Sydney University Saturday April 9

tinie tempah

PICS :: TL AND :: AM

Local punk supergroup Rust kicked things off loudly - but the crowd seemed to be saving their mosh for later. It is one thing to wear the t-shirt of the band you are going to see, but very much another to wear the t-shirt of the band you are in. Within two beers, Dead Kennedys had crept on stage. No fuss, no screams - everyone seemed to be looking the other way until they unleashed ‘Winnebago Warrior’.

Frantic crowd surfing ensued before the inevitable “Where’s Jello?” began - but it didn’t take long for this to turn into “Jello who?”, as the crowd quickly embraced the frontman’s replacement, Ron 'Skip' Greer.

Quite literally, too: at one point a pretty blonde stormed the stage and crashtackled him into a speaker, smiling all the way down.

07:04:11 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93323711

It was far and away the most enthusiastic crowd I’ve ever been lucky enough to be part of. This is not just a band people used-to-like and sorta-remember; every song was a scream-along and it felt like everyone knew all the words. The classic ‘California Über Alles’ turned into a call and response, and the syncopated swingfilth of ‘Too Drunk To Fuck’ was joyfully accompanied by the pit-chorus. The closest thing DK have to a ballad, ‘Moon Over Marin’, preceded the band introductions – in which the loudest chanting was reserved for founder and rock legend, Mr. East Bay Ray. An impassioned speech by drummer D.H. Peligro cited the power of music to keep us together, before the band launched into a searing rendition of speedthrash fireball ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off’.

DK completely owned the room, their tunes as fresh as ever. Skip’s performance and crowd interaction nodded to Jello Biafra without ever imitating him, and he spent almost as much time in the crowd as on stage. The original members played with the kind of energy that would melt the faces of most modern punk bands, despite being in their early 50s (61, for bassist Klaus Fluoride).

The whispered-then-screamed threat of ‘Holiday In Cambodia’ whipped through the audience like a hurricane, Ray teasing us with an extended intro before delivering us into hell. By the second encore, ‘Insight’ and ‘Chemical Warfare’, my voice was so hoarse that I sounded like a drag queen – and afterwards, they stuck around for autographs and photos. True gentlemen punks.

Come back anytime, guys, just make it soon. You. Fucking. Rocked.

Robbie Miles

JIMMY EAT WORLD Enmore Theatre Friday April 8

supafest

And what a set it was. Including encore, Jimmy Eat World gave the crowd an expansive back-catalogue of over 20 songs that spanned their most recent four LPs. Mosh pit moments came (well, attempted mosh pit moments, from a selection of enthusiasts) with ‘Pain’ and ‘Action Needs an Audience’, while songs like ‘Futures’, ‘23’ and ‘Dizzy’ added a touch of arm-waving epicness into the mix. But it was the heartwrenching ‘Hear You Me’ that brought out the crowd sing-a-long moment with lighters ablaze – and really, it was these softer moments where the band really shined.

There’s an earnestness about their music; Adkins seems lost in the memory of where it all came from. At times anguished, at times smiling to himself, it’s only when the song is done that he reconnects, making fumbling chitchat with the audience or the rest of the band.

By the end of the set, song 20 or so, the band gave the audience one more.

Armed with a single mic, Adkins began to loop his voice, transforming disaggregate sounds into a crescendo that turned into ‘Goodbye Sky Harbor’ until, as it peaked, the band rolled away like the wave of sound they had become... And then of course, it wouldn’t be a Jimmy Eat World show without the encore performance of arguably their biggest hit, ‘The Middle’ - just in case the audience forgot why they’d come to the show in the first place.

Rick Warner

TOTALLY AUTUMN

Croatian Wickham Sports Club, Newcastle Saturday April 9 If you’ve ever been to the Cooks River Motor Boat Club down in Tempe, you may be able to imagine a little of the atmosphere of the Croatian Wickham Sports Club in Newcastle. Attending Totally Autumn there last Saturday was a bit like walking among the ruins of a music festival. Which is to say, this may be what is left of a music festival when the drinks are cheap, the carpets are worn, the queues are short, and the kids are alright.

The highlight of the early afternoon was TV Colours: one dude with a guitar, some drum loops and a vocal echo. Picture the White Stripes punching fast and furious on one tattered stripe. Within two songs the crowd had swelled from twelve to about 40, but persistent feedback (whether accidental or deliberate) marred the delivery.

PICS :: AM

Ever since their breakthrough LP Bleed American in 2001, Jimmy Eat World have been a favourite in Australia. So much so that, despite blanket snubbing by commercial radio, when a vote went out for a band to fill a last-minute slot at last year’s Soundwave, the result was overwhelmingly Jimmy – meaning that when this year’s Sydney show sold out, it was hardly surprising.

The Arizona band took to the stage in the same unassuming way they approach their music. Without fanfare, they gave a quick wave before launching into the brutal opening riff of ‘Bleed American’, instantly bringing the (admittedly older) crowd back to their turn-of-the-century, Vans and cargo-shorts days. By the third song in the set, ‘My Best Theory,’ vocalist and keyboardist Courtney Andrews had ventured on stage – but like the rest of the band, she seemed more than happy to sit in the background as lead vocalist Jim Adkins took centre stage. Live, Adkins is the complete anti-rockstar, sporting an ivy-league haircut, dress slacks and leather shoes; devoid of any power moves or posing, he’s content to awkwardly dance and jerk his body around as he and the band churn through the set.

09:04:11 :: ANZ Stadium:: Sydney Olympic Park :: www.anzstadium.com.au :: :: MAYA BERGER :: NIKI BODLE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) :: DANIEL MUNNS :: THOMAS OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER MAR LEY ASH :: JAY L HEL K :: MITC KATRINA CLARKE :: ALICIA COO PEACHEY ::

44 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

Jimmy Eat World

snap sn ap

live reviews

up all night out all week . . .

W H AT W E ' V E B E E N T O S E E . . .

version of ‘Evie’ – that the boys are at their weakest and most exposed. Highlights are Syndicate originals ‘Fallen Angel’ and ‘Confessions’, and face-melting guitar, drum and even piano solos, during which Agar whips out some surprising and impressive skills on the keys.

Soon the main room was packed with peeps drinking delicious Polish beer, watching The Laurels begin their thrashy, psychedelic howling: “like Batman dreaming in cottonwool,” according to my notes. At 6pm The Holy Soul knocked me for six when they shuffled from their sound check into Funkadelic’s ‘Maggot Brain’. Shortly afterwards Dead Farmers filled the room with shouty, smashy, tuneless fun, while on the screen behind them Miss McCraw and the girls chased Miranda all over Hanging Rock... Later on, the ferocious Slug Guts played dirty rock while their singer rambled and trilled – but my most vivid memory is of sitting on the bowling green in a strange town under warm lights, looking at the stars and listening to the funereal strains of Angel Eyes. No doubt the staff were still sweeping peeps out of the gutters of the bowling green in the morning…

Jordan Smith

SYNDICATE, FEEDING EDGAR The Bridge Hotel, Rozelle Saturday April 9 The pressure is on for Sydney locals Syndicate (née The Next). Back from recording their debut album in Los Angeles with the help of a generous handful of big names, it’s now up to them alone to get the audience on board with the new material.

I’m heading to the last of a series of Bridge Hotel gigs, through which Syndicate has had the opportunity to prove the music can speak for itself.

Support band Feeding Edgar is tight and energetic – but unfortunately rocking out to a fair bit of floorboard. The lead singer has a natural confidence that sets the audience at ease in a way many support bands aren’t able to do, so it’s a shame more people aren’t here to enjoy this talented and charismatic outfit.

Syndicate announces its presence on stage with the theme from Indiana Jones – which just doesn’t work. Once playing, lead singer Greg Agar doesn’t seem completely comfortable; his voice a little strained, and the band’s black-till-I-die, rocker outfits are a little out of kilter with the casual pub surrounds. I fear the worst; but soon enough they warm up, and win me over.

Syndicate has a wonderfully gritty guitar and bass section, and drummer Jason Russo (who I’m pretty sure is actually Vin Diesel) is walloping his light-up drum kit with plenty of musicality and no mercy. And soon Agar finds his mojo too, and starts to lead the team well.

It’s difficult to get much of a response from an audience with a set of songs they’ve not heard yet, but Syndicate do a good job at engaging and exciting us. In fact, it’s during the only cover of the night – where they take on supergroup The Wrights’

THE PSYCHEDELIC SYMPHONY: THE CHURCH W/ GEORGE ELLIS ORCHESTRA Sydney Opera House Sunday April 10 Will the songs be radically different? Will Steve Kilbey go on another salacious and thought-provoking soliloquy about god-knows-what? What the fuck is the bassoon going to do when The Church start jamming?

Questions abounded, but all I had to do come 8pm was shut up and listen. The Psychedelic Symphony was here – the 67-strong George Ellis Orchestra fronted by Aussie psych legends The Church, being filmed for a TV special and a future DVD release. And who better to kick things off with a jovial, reverential opening statement than esteemed Australian journalist, Mr. George Negus.

The Church came out in full force, dropping '80s hit ‘Almost With You’ third song in, before Kilbey took a moment to thank everyone involved (I mean this quite literally – even “the lady at the door selling programs” got her moment). Soon came the opulent and majestic Untitled #23 cut ‘Pangaea’, and a slow-building, spirited reworking of ‘The Unguarded Moment’ – which suited Kilbey’s brooding lyrics and vocals even more. The sharp violin slashes and squawking French horn of ‘Myrrh’ came next, as the harrowing, brooding ‘Never Before’ saw guitarist Koppes jump on lead vocals, with lashings of Middle Eastern melodies.

illy & m-phazes

07:04:11 :: Manning Bar :: @ Sydney Uni City Rd Chippendale 95636107

The Acca Daiquiris It’s called: Supper Club Soul presents The Acca Daiquiris It sounds like: a cocktail of rock classics with lashings of lounge.

Who’s Jamming? Nick Norton on drums, guitar and super-smooth vocals; alongside pianist and composer Tim Bruer, bassist-in-demand Geoff Rosenberg, and Antero Ceschin.

Sell it to us: Sydney-based jazz quartet The Acca Daiquiris take a splash of your favourite rock classics, mix them with a dash of kitsch and serve them on the chilled side of the hard rocks. Everyone is on the menu from The Troggs to Deep Purple, Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.

Three covers that’ll rock the floor: ‘Try A Little Tenderness’, ‘Walk This Way’, and ‘Born To Be Wild’.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: The lounge version of ‘Wild Thing’ or ‘Stairway To Heaven’.

Crowd specs: groovy mixed crowd with a laid back lounge vibe.

Wallet damage: Only $5 – or FREE with the ad from Brag Where: The Supper Club / The Oxford Hotel, Taylor Sq. Darlinghurst.

When: Thursday 21st & 28th April.

The George Ellis Orchestra became a lot more psychedelic after a brief intermission, in both their dress and their musicality. The most suave of them all was percussionist Poppy Burnett, who lead the orchestra into a reinterpretation of ‘Happy Hunting Grounds’. “He’s got the body of a Greek god!” Kilbey jibed at tank-topped Ellis. “I’m not sure which one though”. The Church ripped out ‘Mr Guy Fawkes’ by The Dave Miller Set before leaping into classics ‘Ripple’, ‘Reptile’, and the serene ‘Two Places at Once’ (which Kilbey dubbed ‘Two Basses at Once’). A big highlight came with ‘The Disillusionist’, a maniacal, cavorting, prose-poem-epic from their 1992 album Priest = Aura. After ‘Park’, the band then launched into a beautiful, orchestral version of the long-awaited ‘Under The Milky Way’.

The night ended with a second encore that included ‘Already Yesterday’, ‘Invisible’, ‘Operetta’ and the jammy ‘Tantalized’. A magnificent evening; I’ll probably buy that DVD. Matt Petherbridge

the ovals

PICS :: KC

Zoe Roberts

In the interest of symmetry, the set ends a little awkwardly – the band returning for an encore that wasn’t really necessary, explaining that “they had it planned already!” Still ironing out some professional creases, Syndicate has a straight and solid take on rock’n’roll that won’t convert millions, but deserves its fans.

party profile

Next, some local boys – “We’re called Bare Grillz, unfortunately” – set up on the floor in front of the stage. The mostly Novocastrian crowd took kindly to this, and responded with the most joie de vivre I saw all day. We ambled over to the burrito stand, and were delighted to find that proceeds were being donated to Camp Bambara’s fight to protect sacred sites in Kariong from developers, climate change activists Rising Tide, and to buy new kitchen implements for the Croatian Club.

There was even a worthy cause for the carnivorous: at the outdoor sausage sizzle, the coins were kept in a yellow cashbox marked “Al’s Party Fund”.

PICS :KC

The Church

08:04:11 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 93323711 BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 45

snap up all night out all week . . .

MICHELLE SHOCKED (USA)

Regarded as a pioneer of alternative music, Michelle Shocked has been showered with love and respect by indie lovers as she continues to follow a path less travelled, preferring the intimacy of cool but inclusive venues. A perennial favourite.

SOUL IN THE BAR

Brazilian songstress Fernanda Takai is a South American superstar! Fronting the immensely successful Brazilian rock band Pato Fu since 1992, this is a rare chance of seeing this towering talent on stage with a hand-picked ensemble.

THE DANNY G FELIX PROJECT + THE LEISURE BANDITS Danny G Felix is one of the most exciting young jazz players to emerge in Australia for many years. He is a highly accomplished improviser on piano, trumpet and percussion, and has played with many Australian and international outfits including the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, the Charles Mingus Big Band, and Vusi Masasela.

THE BASEMENT GOES GREEK!

Featuring the Official Sydney Greece 2011 CD Launch + Superstar DJs Krazy Kon, Adonis, Dimi K, Arty Groove + LIVE Greek band featuring singers Nikitas Ellenis, Jessica Demertzis & Christos Evripidou. Doors open 9.30pm.

TIM ROBBINS (USA)

p*a*s*h

01:04:11 :: The Exchange Hotel :: 94 Beattie Street Balmain 87552555

we had parties party profile

FERNANDA TAKA

PICS :: AC

Join us for a meal and a drink or two in our funky Macquarie Place bar and enjoy the sounds of soul music from then and now. From Motown to Daptone, we’ve got a groove for you.

It’s called: Rumble in the Jungle!

It sounds like: Seven of Sydney’s favourite club nights going head-to-head across two rooms.

Who’s spinning? Last Night (Purple Sneakers), Mum, Teen Spirit, Girl Thing, P*A*S*H, Ghetto Blaster, F.R.I.E.N.D/s Three records you’ll hear on the night: ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ – Carl Douglas; ‘Fight For Your Right To Party’ - Beastie Boys; ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’ – Pat Benatar And one you definitely won’t: ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’ - War Sell it to us: Spread across two stages you’ll find bare-knuckle DJ battles in the boxing ring downstairs, while upstairs you’ll battle vines and snakes in the jungle room!

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: You won’t remember a thing. Concussion’s a bitch!

Crowd specs: Vine swingers & ring dingers.

Wallet damage: $20+BF presale (moshtix.com.au) or $25 on the door Where: The Gaelic / 64 Devonshire St, Surry Hills When: Easter Sunday April 24, 8pm

Oscar-winning actor US Tim Robbins has just made his debut album at age 51, and will be performing material from it with The Rogues Gallery Band. Join the star of The Player, The Shawshank Redemption and Mystic River for a night of rhythm and satire.

TONY JOE WHITE

Tony Joe White has accomplished much in the years since he emerged from his home in Louisiana’s swamp country and the hardscrabble circuit of Texas honky-tonks. His music is part of America’s soundtrack.

STORYLINES

A new concert series presented by CCEntertainment and Sony Music, where contemporary singer-songwriters including Damien Leith, Steve Balbi, Evelyn Duprai, and Elliott Weston interpret great storytelling songs by Dylan, Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, Harry Chapin, Simon & Garfunkel and many more.

JAMES WHITING – ALBUM LAUNCH

James in an upcoming jazz vibist who has performed alongside musicians including Jon Wikan (USA), Tony Miceli (USA), Steve Newcomb (AUS), and Jim Pugh (USA). Catch him playing with James Muller (guitar), Alex Boneham (double bass) and Tim Firth (drums).

Label Night with Aerial Maps and many more Wednesday, April 11 .................................... MARY COUGHLAN (Ireland) Thursday, April 12 ......................................... LULO REINHARDT (France) Tickets online at

www.thebasement.com.au

46 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

the jezabels

PICS :: RR

Wednesday, April 20: ................................... FERNANDA TAKAI (BRAZIL) Friday, May 6 ............. THE BREWSTER BROTHERS SING DYLAN Saturday, May 7 .............................................................. POPBOOMERANG

26:03:11 :: The Metro Theatre :: 624 George St Sydney 92642666 L :: KATRINA CLARKE :: MITCHEL S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) PEACHEY :: PATRICK OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER MAS THO :: NS MUN IEL DAN :: MAR JAY :: BIANCA KHALIL :: ASHLEY STEVENSON

CHUGG ENTERTAINMENT & TRIPLE J PRESENT

JOIN THE DRUMS - 2011 AUSTRALIAN TOUR FACEBOOK PAGE TO WIN TICKETS AND MEET THE BAND

WITH

TIGER CHOIR

" 9Ê Ê 9ÊUÊ /,"Ê/ /, WWW.TICKETEK.COM.AU | 132 849

www.chuggentertainment.com www.thedrums.com BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 47

snap

up all night out all week . . .

S TEST PLEASURE OF LIFE’S GREA O TW G IN RY MAR

ND MUSIC A D O O F T A E R G

Lizotte’s Sydney Bluesfest sideshow with Raul Malo 18 April Bluesfest sideshow with Michelle Shocked 19 April Diesel 20 & 21 April John Morrisons Swing City featuring Carl Riseley 23 April Lizotte’s presents Live and Local 27 April Eric Bibb 28 April Brian’s Famous Jazz & Chilli Crab Night 29 April Tony Joe White 30 April Jack Jones 1 May

Lizotte’s Central Coast Peregrine

last night

PICS :: MJ

02 9984 9933

08:04:11 :: The Gaelic Theatre :: 64 Devonshire St Surry Hills 92111687

02 4368 2017

Audrey Auld Lizotte’s presents Live and Local 20 April Mal Eastick presents Stevie Ray Bobby Long 21 April Vaughan Music Celebration Diesel 23 & 24 April LorenJon KateStevens with Mel Robinson 27 April Lizotte’s Live & Local Jack Jones 29 April Gaynor Crawford James Morrison 30 April Presents Bobby Long David Ross MacDonald (The Waifs) 1 May Diesel & Heath Cullen Diesel

Lizotte’s Newcastle

02 4956 2066

Contact: m.au events@lizottes.co

Lizotte’s Sydney 629 Pittwater Rd Dee Why

Lizotte’s Central Coast Lot 3 Avoca Dr Kincumber

20 April 21 April 23 April 27 April 28 April 29 & 30 April 1 May

Lizotte’s Newcastle 31 Morehead St Lambton

WWW. LIZOT TES.COM.AU 48 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

FBi social

PICS :: TL

Calling all artists for Live and Locals!

Bluesfest Sideshow with Michelle Shocked Nate Armsberry & Band Album launch Doug Parkinson Lizotte’s presents Live and Local David Ross MacDonald (The Waifs) & Heath Cullen Diesel Tony Joe White

08:04:11 :: Kings Cross Hotel :: 244 - 248 William St Kings Cross 93319900

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 49

g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

pick of the week Zeahorse

SUNDAY APRIL 24

The Hard-Ons

MONDAY APRIL 18 ROCK & POP

Ben & Lachlan Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 7pm Josh McIvor Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 10pm Michelle Shocked (USA) The Basement, Circular Quay $45–$93.80 (dinner & show) 9.30pm Nine Sons of Dan, Indelirum, Lions & Kings, The Danny John Trio, Gods Of Rapture The Valve, Tempe $6 7pm Raul Malo Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $61 (+ bf) 8pm Robert Susz & the Continental Blues Party Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 7.30pm Sarah Paton The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Unherd Open Mic: Derkajam Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 7pm

JAZZ

Jazz @ The Wall Live at the Wall, Leichhardt free 6pm Open Mic & Jazz/Latin Jam Session: Daniel Falero, Pierre Della Putta, Phil Taig, Rinske Geerlings, Ed Rapo El Rocco Jazz Cellar, Woolloomooloo free 7pm Reaston Kay Cameron Effect 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Sandringham Hotel, Newtown

Inner West Festival Day One: The Hard-Ons, Zeahorse, Green Mohair Suits, Fait Accompli, Hailer, Only The Sea Slugs, Animal Shapes, Bayonets For Legs, Easy Company, Nick Van Breda, Andy Golledge, Frank Sultana, Reckless Vagina $20 - 1PM

Hayley Legg, Snez, Chris Brookes, Russell Neal Kellys On King, Newtown free 7pm Michael Peter The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 8.30pm Songwriter Sessions Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Warren Munce, Helmut Uhlmann Orange Grove Hotel, Lilyfield free 7pm

TUESDAY APRIL 19 ROCK & POP

Adam Pringle Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Apostrophe, Frozzengoodness, Jade Locke & Paris Elestone, Chloe Harrison, Tara Lawrence Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 8pm Dyan Tai, Anthony McKeon, Farhana & Yannick Beach Road Hotel Bondi free 8pm Elvis Costello & the Imposters (UK) State Theatre, Sydney $119 (+ bf) 8pm Embrace Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour free 8pm Fortune Fails, Earth Mechanics, Chainsaw Massacre The Valve, Tempe 12pm Grace Jones Enmore Theatre $131–$151 8pm Michelle Shocked (USA) Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $51 (+ bf)–$93.80 (dinner & show) 7pm

Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Steve Tonge O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm They Call Me Bruce Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm

JAZZ

Jazzgroove: 2Kim Lawson, Tim Rollinson 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm John Harkins Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue (USA), Fishbone (USA) Metro Theatre, Sydney $60 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Jeff Stanley, Men With Day Jobs, Ben Osmo, Laurie McKern, Thom Little, Phoebe Eve, Jesse de Rooy, Russell Neal Dee Why RSL free 6.30pm Under the Purple Tree Coach & Horses Hotel, Randwick free 7pm

COUNTRY

Blacktown Country Music Club The Lucky Australian, North St Marys free 7pm Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band (USA) Cat & Fiddle Hotel, Balmain $25–$30 8pm Whip Crackin’ Country Music Club Penrith Gaels Club free 7pm

ROCK & POP WEDNESDAY x

APRIL 20

ROCK & POP

Andy Mammers Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm Arabesk Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8.30pm Ben Finn Duo Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 6pm Bernie Hayes Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Cam Nacson, Erik the Red Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $5 8pm Cara Kavanagh Duo O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm Diesel Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $53–$120 (dinner & show) 8pm Embrace Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour free 7pm Fabels, Jo Meares and the Honeyriders, Eirwen Skye Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 8pm The Felice Brothers (USA), Caitlin Rose Annandale Hotel $44 (+ bf) 8pm The Holidays, Gold Fields Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm Jamie Lindsay Northies, Cronulla free 7.30pm Leslie Speaker, Tempest Released The Valve, Tempe 7pm Mark Lucas, Susana Carmen Petersham Bowling Club free 7pm

Martha Tilston, Anabelle Kay Brass Monkey, Cronulla $23.50 (+ bf) 7pm Mike Bennett The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Muso’s Night Live at the Wall, Leichhardt free 8pm Nag Champa Marble Bar, Sydney free 9.30pm Open Mic Night Down Under Bar & Bistro, Kings Cross free 7.30pm Open Mic Night Sports Bar, Mona Vale Hotel free 8pm Open Mike Night Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 7.30pm Pod Brothers Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 6.30pm The Study: Iron Bar Hotel, Louis London, Harriet Whiskey Club Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills free 7pm YourSpace Muso Showcase Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free7pm

JAZZ

Carl Morgan Quintet 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm Dave Seaside Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Funky Meters (USA) Metro Theatre, Sydney $70.70 8pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Polkadot & Moonbeam Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Sunset Jazz: Sydney Uni Jazz Society Hermann’s, Darlington free 6pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Fernanda Takai, Damian Wright The Basement, Circular Quay $35 (+ bf)–$45 9.30pm Rodrigo Y Gabriela (Mexico), Bobby Long (UK) Enmore Theatre $89.90 8pm Secret Sisters The Vanguard, Newtown $55– $90 (dinner & show) 6.30pm

THURSDAY APRIL 21 ROCK & POP

Adam Rennie Rag and Famish Hotel, North Sydney free 7pm Anthony B & Ce’Cile (Jamaica), Admiral Kilosh, JamRock DJs, Ujahmaa Soundsystem Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $45.20 (student)–$50 (+ bf) 8pm Bands for Babes fundraiser: Louis London, The Khanz, Eden March Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 7.30pm Beck Fielding, His & Her Majesty, Susie Hurley & The Hurricanes Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7.30pm Black Label, Thug, Overdrive, Tryfire Live at the Wall, Leichhardt $12 7.30pm Children Collide, Red Riders, Young Revelry Metro Theatre, Sydney$25 (+ bf) 8pm David Agius Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm

“Tell all the children in the arms of their mommas the F-15 is a homicide bomber” - MICHAEL FRANTI, Enmore April 24 50 :: BRAG :: 408 : 18:04:11

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

Ian Moss The Dellroys Rose of Australia Hotel, Erskineville free 9pm Diesel Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $53–$120 (dinner & show) 8pm Emery (USA), The Understatement, For All Eternity, Ladies & Gentlemen Annandale Hotel $33 (+ bf) 8pm Evil J & Saint Cecilia, Rainbow Chan, Patrick James, Elle Kennard, Macnaught Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Grinspoon, Strangers Rooty Hill RSL Club $36 (presale)–$41 8pm The Holidays, Gold Fields The Attic, Mona Vale Hotel $15 (+ bf) 8pm Hunting Grounds Fred Chubb Lounge, Rooty Hill RSL Club free 8pm

Ian Moss, Jess Chalker The Vanguard, Newtown $35 7pm Imogen Heap (UK) State Theatre, Sydney $75.30 (+ bf) 7.30pm Johnathan Devoy Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Kate Gogarty Rock Lily, Pyrmont free 8pm Kim Boekbinder is The Impossible Girl: Kim Boekbinder, Brendan MacLean, Helen Perris The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $15 7.30pm all ages Little Bushman, The Widowbirds Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $20 (+ bf) 8pm Massive Easter Party: Rollback City Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill free 8pm Michael McGlynn Greengate Hotel, Killara free 8pm

New Weird Australia: Underlapper, Cleptoclectics vs Scissor Lock, Edwin Montgomery, DJs Stupid Canon & Kimb Galercan FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 (at door) 8pm Noliver Fig Down Under Bar & Bistro, Kings Cross free 8pm Pianoman The Loft, Darling Harbour free 6pm Ric Herbert Woollahra Hotel free 7.45pm Ron Ashton Guildford Leagues Club free 10pm Rumble!: Lanie Lane, Tin Sparrow, Count Doyle Goodgod Small Club $10 8pm Sicaria, Not Like Horse, Fringo, Delarbarker Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm The Suspects Marble Bar, Sydney free Switchfoot (USA) The Big Top at Luna Park, Milsons Point $49.90 (+ bf) 8pm Terry Serio & the Ministry of Truth, The Thing Os, Simon Day Petersham Bowling Club $10 7.30pm The Walk On By, Psychonanny & the Babyshakers, Trent Marden Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm

JAZZ

The Blues & Roots Revivial Tokio Hotel, Darling Harbour free 7.30pm The Danny G Felix Project, The Leisure Brothers The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf)–$20 9pm

Bad Friday: Sticky Fingers, The Future Prehistoric, Underlights, Flight, Made in Japan, Radio National, The Tsars, Cap A Capo, Milan, Goddog, Bones (UK), Grams, The Colt 44’s, Fouul Hawk Annandale Hotel $15 11am Brian Gillette Guildford Leagues Club free 10pm Darren Johnstone Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 8pm Don’t Forget The Drummer Western Suburbs Leagues Club Campbelltown, Leumeah free 9pm Grinspoon, Strangers Hornsby RSL $36 (+ bf) 8pm GTS Club Rivers, Riverwood free 9pm Hell City Glamours Rock Lily, Pyrmont 8pm Hunting Grounds Hornsby RSL 8pm Ian Blakeney Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club, West Ryde free 8.30pm Ian Moss, Jess Chalker The Vanguard, Newtown $35 6.30pm Johnny Page Freeway Hotel, Artarmon free 8pm Leon Russell, Little Feat State Theatre, Sydney $110.95–$138.45 8pm Night Owl Down Under Bar & Bistro, Kings Cross free 8pm Red Hot Numbers Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 8pm Thieves, Young Romantics, Nik Yorke Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm

Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi Band (USA), Robert Randolph & the Family Band (USA) Enmore Theatre $106.10 7.15pm Gypsy Hot Club Night Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Irma Thomas The Factory Theatre, Enmore $70 (+ bf) 8pm Los Monos 505 Club, Surry Hills $15–$20 8.30pm Merenia & The Way, Reyes De La Onda Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8.30pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Professor Groove & the Booty Affair Brass Monkey, Cronulla $19.90 7pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Andrew Russell Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Ricardo Tesst & Banditaliana Camelot, Marrickville $20 (conc)–$25 7pm

FRIDAY APRIL 22 ROCK & POP

After Party Band Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL free 10pm Angie Dean Greengate Hotel, Killara free 5pm

Thundasteel, Temtris, The Beards Hazmat, Terrorential The Valve, Tempe 5pm The Watt Riot, Ye Luddites Headlands hotel, Austinmer $10 8pm

JAZZ

Freefall Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Chris Arnott Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm

COUNTRY Dale Watson (USA) Live at the Wall, Leichhardt $35 6pm Macarthur Country Music Club Wests Campbelltown Tennis Club, Leumeah free 7.30pm

SATURDAY APRIL 23 ROCK & POP

Allsorts: Ten Thousand Free Men, Thoughts Under Fire, Young Cardinals, Monannlisa Wilde, Dyan Tai & the Groovutres, HandsonicArt, Sonic Igloo, Spaceticket Tone, Surry Hills $15 8pm Benjamin Benolid Down Under Bar & Bistro, Kings Cross free 8pm Blue Moon Quartet Fairfield RSL free 7pm

WWW.THEGAELIC.COM

wed

20 Apr

21 Apr

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

fri

sat

PRESENT (3:00PM - 6:00PM)

(7:00PM - 10:00PM)

LAST NIGHT

SATURDAY AFTERNOON WED

LONG WEEKEND

APR

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

SUNDAY NIGHT

sun

(4:15PM - 7:30PM)

ENTRY FREE

HARRIET WHISKEY CLUB

THU 21

LITTLE BUSHMAN

APR

THE WIDOWBIRDS

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

+ DJS UPSTAIRS FROM 10PM DJS DOWNSTAIRS FROM 12PM

SAT 23

LONG WEEKEND

APR

OH ISLEEPER + THE CHARIOT AM THE VILLIAN + RESIST THE THOUGHT CITY IN CRISIS

mon

25 Apr

7PM - MUSIC & MOVIE TRIVIA

LOUIS LONDON

20 (4:30PM - 7:30PM)

Apr

MAY 16TH THE STUDY FEAT

23 Apr

24

WRESTLING

TUESDAY ROCKSTEIN

JELLY

PURPLE SNEAKERS

22 Apr

5@5 $10 STEAK & 12-3PM ALE TUE- FRI $5 PINTS

OPEN 10AM- 4AM

thu

PURPLE SNEAKERS & LAST NIGHT PRESENT (1:00PM - 3:45PM)

(4:15PM - 7:30PM)

SUN 24

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

+ DJS DOWNSTAIRS FROM 9:30PM CLOSE

APR

WE HAD PARTIES MUM + GIRL THING + TEEN SPIRIT + F.R.I.E.N.D.S + GHETTO BLASTER + P*A*S*H

tue

26

#/-).' 3//.

Apr

(2:00PM - 5:30PM)

(6:15PM - 9:30PM)

MON 25 APR

!''2/,)4%3

WED 27 APR

-/.+3 /& -%,,/.7!(

THU 28 APR

4(% #!$2%3

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 51

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Brown Sugar Marble Bar, Sydney free 10.30pm The Brutal Poodles, Enola Fall Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Creedence & Beyond Blacktown RSL Club free 10pm The Great Pretenders Show Bankstown Sports Club $7 (member)–$10 8pm Grinspoon, Strangers The Roxy Theatre, Parramatta $35 (+ bf)–$40 8pm Guineafowl, Ball Park Music, Tin Sparrow FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $12 (+ bf) 8pm Hendrix & Heroes Tribute: Steve Edmonds Brass Monkey, Cronulla $25.50 7pm Hill Street DJ Hurstville RSL Memorial Club free 7.30pm Hip Not Hop Western Suburbs Leagues Club Campbelltown, Leumeah free 9pm Holy Hardcore:

Merryweather, Deadly Visions, Civil War, Gutterstomp, Bridges, Homeward Bound, Blood on the Wattle, No Such Luck, Jack Nash, Nudist Colonies of the World, Taken By Force The Valve, Tempe 1pm The Jah Invasion: Toots & the Maytals (Jamaica), Luciano & the Jah Messenjah Band, Warrior King, Bonnie Casey Enmore Theatre $95.10 (+ bf) 7.30pm Jamie Hutchings Notes Live, Enmore $20.95– $43.35 (dinner & show) 8pm Japan, Queensland, Christchurch Appeal: Goons of Doom, The Bungalows, Royal Chant, Go Roll Your Bones, Mylee Grace, Deadgang, Lime Cordiale, Crying Skies, Dusty Duet Set Annandale Hotel $5 6pm Joe Casale Guildford Leagues Club free 10pm Kat Ferguson & Chaminda Samaraweera, Angelena

Grinspoon

SATURDAY 23RD APRIL

Jamie Hutchings [CD Launch]

+ SPOOKYLAND

MONDAY 25TH APRIL

Monsters Of Rock

Featuring Gods Of Thunder + Devine Electric + Virginia Killstyxx + Nobody’s Fool

THURSDAY 28TH APRIL

Phil Jones & the Unknown Blues

+ Frank Macias & Los Amigos

FRIDAY 29TH APRIL

PAPE MBAYE & CHOSANI AFRIQUE + SIBO BANGOURA & Keyim Ba Celebrate the anniversary of Senegalese independence

THURSDAY 5TH MAY

Watussi Presents

a tribute to Manu Chau 52 :: BRAG :: 408 : 18:04:11

Locke, Rhythm Untapped, Noel & Dan Live at the Wall, Leichhardt $15 7.30pm Millennium Bug RG McGees Hotel, Richmond free 9.30pm Minus House, Gods of Rapture, Vangate, Ramshackle Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills $10 8pm Nadia Fried Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club, West Ryde free 8.30pm No Surrender: Oh Sleeper (USA), The Chariot Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $30 (+ bf) 8pm Only The Sea Slugs Rock Lily, Pyrmont 8pm Party Central The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm Pianoman Celebrity Room, Blacktown RSL Club free 9pm The Road Crew Coogee Bay Hotel free 10pm Rolling Stoned Penrith Hotel free 9pm Saturday Night Live: 3 Stripe Ave Oatley Hotel free 8.30pm Tranzphat, Arrowhead, Modern Error’s, Teal Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 8pm Velvet Hotel Brighton RSL Club, BrightonLe-Sands free 8pm Warren Haynes & His All Star Band (USA), Joe Louis Walker The Factory Theatre, Enmore $66 (+ bf) 8pm The Watt Riot, Indian Mynah, Corpus, Bugdust Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm The Waves Harbord Beach Hotel free

coming soon Sat 7/05 Girlaxy presents Back to the 80’s Sun 8/05 Derek Warfiled & The Young Wolfetones (Ireland) Fri 12/05 Sierra Fin Album Launch Sat 13/05 Sam Shinazzi Album Launch Wed 18/05 Mike Noga (The Drones) (CD launch) Thurs 19/05 Dave Graney Book & CD launch Fri 20/05 & Sat 21/05 Alex Lloyd & The Pigram Brothers Play music from the film “Mad Bastards” Wed 25/05 Greek Festival Of Sydney Pop & Rock Revolution Thur 26/05 Freddie White (Ireland) Fri 27/05 Shot Of Desire 4th Birthday Fri 3/06 Contraban + the Licks Wed 8/06 Dominique Fraissard EP launch Fri 10/06 First Ladies Of Soul Sat 11/06 Perry Keyes Fri 1/07 Skipping Girl Vinegar (album launch)

8pm

JAZZ

John Morrison’s Swing CIty Band, Carl Riseley Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $46–$86 (dinner & show) 8pm La Tarantula, The Sun Chasers Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8pm Mike Mathieson Duo Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL free 10pm Monsieur Camembert Camelot, Marrickville 7pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 5pm Susan Gai Dowling Duo Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Bobby Long (UK) The Vanguard, Newtown $35 (+ bf)–$64 (dinner & show) 6.30pm Buffy Sainte-Marie, Michelle Shocked (USA) State Theatre, Sydney $86.45 (+ bf) 8pm Doc Halliday The Belvedere Hotel free 8pm Nativosoul Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm

SUNDAY APRIL 24 ROCK & POP

Ace Brighton RSL Club, BrightonLe-Sands free 7pm

As Tall As Lions (USA), Elliot the Bull Live at the Wall, Leichhardt $30 6pm Cambo Harbord Beach Hotel free 6pm Drive: Peter Northcote, Danny Marx-Young Bridge Hotel, Rozelle $10 3pm Dunhill Blues Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm George Clinton Parliament/ Funkadelic (USA) Metro Theatre, Sydney $106 (+ bf) 8pm Gorillas in Cahoots Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 8pm Guineafowl, Ball Park Music, Lime Cordiale FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $12 (+ bf) 8pm HorrorPops (Denmark), The Dark Shadows, Firebird The Factory Theatre, Enmore $46 (+ bf) 8pm Inner West Festival: HardOns, Zeahorse, Green Mohair Suits, Fait Accompli, Hailer, Only The Sea Slugs, Animal Shapes, Bayonets For Legs, Easy Company, Nick Van Breda, Andy Golledge, Frank Sultana, Reckless Vagina Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $20 1pm Jo Fabro Band Woollahra Hotel free 6.30pm John Legend (USA), Lowrider State Theatre, Sydney $74 (+ bf)–$107 8.30pm sold out King Tide Brass Monkey, Cronulla $25.50 (+ bf) 7pm Lange Theory Beach Palace Hotel, Coogee

free 9.30pm Lazy Susan, Adrian Deutsch, Yae!Tiger Annandale Hotel $12 6pm Life Beyond, Villa Rise, Thoughts Under Fire, Absolution, City Of Ghosts The Valve, Tempe 3pm Michael Franti & Spearhead (USA), Kim Churchill, Rav Thomas Enmore Theatre $67.90 (+ bf) 8pm The Revek Marble Bar, Sydney free 8pm Screaming Sunday Annandale Hotel $12 12pm all ages The Underground City Blues Jam: Frank Macias The Manhattan Lounge, Sydney free 6pm The Uni Challenge Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 6pm

JAZZ

Blues Sunday: Mark Hopper Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm John Blenkhorn Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7.30pm Mission: Jones The Belveder Hotel free 5pm Susan Gai Dowling, Robber’s Dog Fortune of War Hotel, The Rocks free 3pm Unity Hall Jazz Band Unity Hall Hotel, Balmain free 4pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Anthony Hughes Oatley Hotel free 2pm Simon The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 7pm

gig picks

SIDESHOW WEDNESDAYS

up all night out all week...

TUESDAY APRIL 19 Elvis Costello & the Imposters (UK) State Theatre, Sydney $119 (+ bf) 8pm

Grace Jones Enmore Theatre $131– $151 8pm

WEDNESDAY APRIL 20 The Holidays, Gold Fields Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm Martha Tilston, Anabelle Kay Brass Monkey, Cronulla $23.50 (+ bf) 7pm

THURSDAY APRIL 21 Children Collide, Red Riders, Young Revelry Metro Theatre, Sydney $25 (+ bf) 8pm Imogen Heap (UK) State Theatre, Sydney $75.30 (+ bf) 7.30pm New Weird Australia: Underlapper, Cleptoclectics vs Scissor Lock, Edwin Montgomery, DJs Stupid Canon & Kimb Galercan

Goons of Doom FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 (at door) 8pm Rumble!: Lanie Lane, Tin Sparrow, DJ Count Doyle Goodgod Small Club $10 8pm

FRIDAY APRIL 22 Bad Friday: Sticky Fingers, The Future Prehistoric, Underlights, Flight, Made in Japan, Radio National, The Tsars, Cap A Capo, Milan, Goddog, Bones (UK), Grams, The Colt 44s, Fouul Hawk Annandale Hotel $15 11am

SATURDAY

APRIL 23 Allsorts: Ten Thousand Free Men, Thoughts Under Fire, Young Cardinals, Monannlista Wilde, Dyan Tai & the Groovutres, HandsonicArt, Sonic Igloo, Spaceticket Tone, Surry Hills $15 8pm Guineafowl, Ball Park Music, Tin Sparrow FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $12 (+ bf) 8pm Japan, Queensland, Christchurch Appeal: Goons of Doom, The Bungalows, Royal Chant, Go Roll Your Bones, Mylee Grace, Deadgang, Lime Cordiale, Crying Skies, Dusty Duet Set Annandale Hotel $5 6pm

THE HOLIDAYS + GOLD FIELDS

WEDNESDAY 8PM

APRIL 20TH

Warren Haynes & His All Star Band (USA), Joe Louis Walker The Factory Theatre, Enmore $66 (+ bf) 8pm

SUNDAY APRIL 24 Guineafowl, Ball Park Music, Lime Cordiale FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $12 (+ bf) 8pm Lazy Susan, Adrian Deutsch, Yae!Tiger Annandale Hotel $12 (+ bf) 6pm

Grace Jones

Michael Franti & Spearhead (USA), Kim Churchill, Rav Thomas Enmore Theatre $67.90 (+ bf) 8pm

NEON NIGHTS

The Holidays

BENI + CASSIAN SUNDAY 6PM

APRIL 24TH BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 53

club guide send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com

club pick of the week F.R.I.E.N.D/s DJs

SUNDAY APRIL 24

Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills

We Had Parties!

Rumble In The Jungle: Purple Sneakers DJs, MUM DJs, Girl Thing DJs, Teen Spirit DJs, F.R.I.E.N.D/s DJs, Ghetto Blaster DJs, P*A*S*H DJs $20 (+ bf) 5pm MONDAY APRIL 18 The World Bar, Kings Cross Mondays Mista Killa free 8pm

TUESDAY APRIL 19 The Gaff, Darlinghurst Coyote Tuesday Kid Finley, Johnny B free 9pm Sydney Acer Arena, Sydney Olympic Park A State of Trance Armin Van Buuren (The Netherlands), Menno De Jong (The Netherlands), Alex M.O.R.P.H. (Germany), Aly, Fila Shogun, tyDi $119 (+ bf) 7.30pm

The Valve, Tempe Underground Tables DJs Myme, Gee Wiz, MCs Benji, BC, Allstars free 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Pop Panic Karaoke, Cris Angel, Conrad Greenleaf, Nickles free 8pm

WEDNESDAY APRIL 20 xBank Hotel, Newtown Girls’ Night DJ Emma Jay free 8pm Marlborough Hotel, Newtown DJ Moussa free 11pm The Polo Lounge and Supper Club, Darlinghurst Robopop Randall Stagg, Kill The Landlord, T-Rompf, Smithers & Burns, LL Cool G

$10 10pm The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall free 8pm

THURSDAY APRIL 21 11a Oxford St, Paddington Inhale Sweet Az Soundsystem, Jonny Faith, Typhonic free 6pm Bank Hotel, Newtown DJ Jack McCord free Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Drop Janny & the Ray Led Band, Ishu, Graham Mondroules, DJ Ability 8pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Easter Mayhem Boogie Monster, Diskoriot, BeatBoy $10-$15 8pm

Chinese Laundry, Sydney Dubrave Dubrave Sound System (Will Styles, MC Shureshock, MC Hayley Boa), Monarch, Gilsun, Creeptown, Struz, Deli, Audiobotz 10pm $15-$20 Cruise Bar, The Rocks Salsa on the Rocks DJ Dwight ‘Chocolate’ Escobar free 8.30pm FakeClub, Kings Cross Distortion Optimus Gryme (NZ), Creeptown, Gullotine, Rubio, Bruxism, DJ Enochi, [K]aos, Saiko, Subchronic, The Unthinkables, Yayogi $10-$15 9pm Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor Top 40 Fitzroy DJs free 9pm The Gaff, Darlinghurst The College Party Kid Finley, Pee Wee Pete free 9pm Goodgod Front Bar, Sydney Club Al’s Easter Extravaganza Levins free 9pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney Tenzin, Cadell, Zannon, K-Note free 8pm Home The Venue, Sydney Sublime Easter Rewind MaRLo, Impact (UK), Peewee, Scotty G, Arbor, Dover, Haze, MC Losty, Nasty, Nomad, Big Dan, John Young, Steve Frank, Flite, IKO, MC Suga Shane $15–$25 10pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Easter Thur S pecial Falcona DJs $10 10pm Manning Bar, University of Sydney, Camperdown Anthony B, Cecile $54 8pm Melt Bar, Kings Cross Wayphaser, Fox, Berkeley, The Zebs, Hugh Jass $10 8pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Mind Over Matter, Ilz, Coptic Soldier, Johnny Utah $10 (+ bf)–$15 8pm The Rouge, Kings Cross Simon Says Nacho Pop vs Lino Type, Eko, C-bu, Miss Wendy, MC Lee Monro, Deckhead $10 9pm Sports Bar, Mona Vale Hotel Rob Brizzi, DJ Austin free Tank, Sydney Satoshi Tomiie, DJ YokoO, Kontrast DJs, Nick McMartin, Franchi Bros, Paul Guy, Samron $30 9pm Valve B ar, Tempe Distrakt Pete Sweat, Rusty Mug, Scratch n’ Sniff, Dave Mosa, Fritzle 7pm Waves Nightclub, Sydney Bone Thugs N Harmony (USA) $48.30 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Jake Stone (Bluejuice), Mush, Johnny Segment, Monkey Genius free (student)–$10 9pm

FRIDAY APRIL 22 Chinese Laundry, Sydney Dubrave Blaze Trip $15–$20 9pm Club 202, Broadway Frat House $5-$10 9pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour DJ Matt Roberts free 5pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Funktank Mike O’Conner, Fabz, Drop Dead free 9pm Jacksons On George, Sydney Last Rights free Le Panic, Kings Cross Box Social MYD, 3Hundreds, Sotiris, Jamie What, 14th Minute, Jordan F $10 9pm The Loft, Darling Harbour Late at theloft Somatik, Noel Boogie, Noodles, DJ Huwston, Meem, The Swat DJs, Lippo free 10pm

Macarthur Tavern, Campbelltown DJ Michael free 8pm Oatley Hotel We Love Oatley Hotel Fridays DJ Tone free 9pm Sandringham Hotel, Newtown Grendel (Netherlands), Nachtmahr, Shiv-R, Cervello Elettronico, Studio X $45–$55 7pm Sting Bar, Cronulla Electro Sessions free 8pm Tank, Sydney RNB Superclub G Wizard, Def Rok, Troy T, Eko, Lilo, Jayson, Losty, Ben Morris, Matt Nukewood, Charlie Brown, Oakes & Lennox, Venuto, Adrian M $15 9pm Tone, Surry Hills Index Clark (UK), Ikonika, Harmonic 313, Sub Bass Snarl, Semper Fi, Portrait Victim $25 2pm Water Bar, Woolloomooloo The Groove Academy 6pm The Watershed Hotel Good Friday Special DJ Matt Roberts free

SATURDAY APRIL 23 202 Broadway, Chippendale Jamrock Reggae Club JamRock DJs 8pm Bank Hotel, Newtown Meem free 9pm Blacktown Olympic Park Bone Thugs N Harmony (USA) $32.30 5pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Ritual Zomg! Kittenz, Teez, Disco Volante, The Kid, Pretty Young Things $10-$20 8pm Caringbah Bizzo’s My Birthday, Light Year, Polographia DJ, Sideways Fridays 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Robert Babicz (GER), Anna Lunoe, What So Not, Ember, Dave Winnell, Bella Sarris, Mike Hyper, Titty Tassles, King Lee, MC Adam Zae $15–$25 9pm Civic Underground, Sydney Adult Disco Mark E (UK), Future Classic DJs $15 10pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour DJ Jeddy Rowland, DJ Mike Silver free 8pm Empire Hotel, Darlinghurst Empire Saturdays Empire DJs free 9pm Establishment, Sydney Sienna G Wizard, Def Rok, Teko, Lilo $20 9pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Jingle Jangle 8pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney Twilight Sounds Glovecats, Nu Fun Crew, Christian Luke, Kristiano, Ajax, Hook N Sling, Zannon, Rogers Room, K-Note, DJ Cadell, The Gameboys DJs, Auto Claws, Matt Ferriera, Here’s Trouble, Trey, Filth Collins, Blogwars, Ronnie, Sofaboy, Thieves, We Monsta $18.20-$28.50 2pm Home The Venue, Sydney Homemade Aladdin Royaal, Matt Ferreira, James Spy, Dave Austin, Flite, I.K.O., Sammy Soul, Sez, Uncle Abe $20–$25 9pm Hotel Chambers, Sydney Red Room C-Major, K-Note, DJ Mac, Troy T, Naiki, Pachero, Mike Champion $20 8pm Ivy, Sydney Pure Ivy Residents Party Cadell, Tass, Robbie Santiago, Beth Yen $15-$20 5pm Jacksons On George, Sydney Ultimate Party Venue DJ Michael Stewart free

The Loft, Darling Harbour Late at theloft Somatik, Noel Boogie, Noodles, DJ Huwston, Meem, The Swat DJs, Lippo free 10pm Macarthur Tavern, Campbelltown George B free 8pm Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown Club Kooky DJs 8pm Marrickville Bowling Club Cartoon Dress Up Party Red Rack ‘Em, Simon Caldwell, Ken Cloud, Jimmi James, Zootie $35-$40 10pm Mr B’s, Sydney My House 9.30pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Trashbags Trashbag DJs 9pm Phoenix Bar, Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst Phoenix Rising Dan Murphy, Johan Khoury, Mark Alsop $10 4am The Rouge, Kings Cross Sheamus Sparks, Guy Tarento, Chris Fraser, Tim Mc Gee $10 9pm Sandringham Hotel, Newtown Inner West Festival Sketch the Rhyme, Reverse Polarities, Tuka, True Vibenation, Hyjack, Elelsquire, Milan, Nikita, Dirtbox Kings, Grouce, Electric Elements, Madame Wu $20 (+bf) 1pm Sports Bar, Mona Vale Hotel DJ Austin free 8pm Water Bar – Blue Hotel, Woolloomooloo DJ Scott Pullen free Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour Skybar Un’ Amore free 10pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Wham! Shazam, Ro Sham Bo, James Taylor, Toni Toni Lee, Disco Punx, Kato vs Boonie, Telefunken, Adam Bozzetto, Miss Gabby, Foundation, Moneyshot, Ennsu, Joe Gadget vs La Fresh, Pipemix, Scratchins (Bad Ezzy vs Levins) $15$20 8pm

SUNDAY APRIL 24 Anyplace, Rozelle Easter Beats Dro Carey, La Fresh, Joseph Gadget, JK47, B.i.n.t., Saba, Perp Larroe free 12pm Bank Hotel, Newtown DJ Eddie Coulter free Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Neon Nights Beni, Cassian 6pm Brick Works, Sydney Park Stepback Sunday Official Tango After Party Victim, Speaks, Deltashelta free 2pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Sunday Dirty Sunday Tongue in Moowho’s Sohda, Knocked Up Noise, Taboo, WizzFizzKid $10-$20 8pm Cargo Bar, Darling Harbour D-Cup, Jace, Disgrace free (member)–$10 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Daywash Johan Khoury, Rogue Dance, Harry Ks Precious $46.90-$57.10 12pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour Brynstar free 8pm FakeClub, Kings Cross Spice Javi Sampol, YokoO, Murat Kilic $20 4am Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills We Had Parties! – Rumble In The Jungle Purple Sneakers DJs, MUM DJs, Girl Thing DJs, Teen Spirit DJs, F.R.I.E.N.D/s DJs, Ghetto Blaster DJs, P*A*S*H DJs $20 (+ bf) 5pm

“Tell me lies, lies, lies... sweet little lies, when I can not bear the truth” - MICHAEL FRANTI, Enmore April 24 54 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

club guide up all night out all week...

Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney Circo Loco Andrew Grand, Ryan Crosson, Audiojack, Shit Robot, Canyons, COOP, DJ T-Boy, Jen Tutty, Ben Korbel, Alan Thompson (UK), Le Brond, Homegrown, Telefunken, J Smalls, Bella Sarris, Matt Formosa $40 (+ bf) 1pm Hermanns Bar, Darlington Tango (UK), DJ Speaks, SFL, Seltay, Paul Blackout, Highly Dubious, Garry Bynon, James Daak $20 9pm Home, Sydney Mykonos Easter Festival 8pm Hunter Bar, Sydney Daydreams 5am Ivy, Sydney The Player’s Club Miami Horror DJs, Bag Raiders, Ember, Rogers Room, Matt Nukewood, Cadell, Liam Sampras, Robbie Santiago,

Beth Yen, Oakes & Lennox $40 5pm Jacksons On George, Sydney Resurrection House DJs free 9pm The Manhattan Lounge, Sydney Alton Miller (USA), Phil Toke, Michael Zac, Eadie Ramia $20 9pm Oatley Hotel Sunday Sessions DJ Tone, Undie Sundie DJs free 7pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (USA) $29 (+ bf) 8pm Phoenix Bar, Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst Loose Ends Matt Vaughan free 10pm The Rouge, Kings Cross Discotronica Axle, Lost Boy (WA), Implex, Nile Delta, Deckhead $10 9pm Soho, Sydney Desyn Masiello, Anthony

Pappa, Murat Kilic, Andrew Wowk, Mesan, Dave Stuart, Mitch Crosher, Garth Linton, Yokoo, Allive $25 9pm The State Theatre, Sydney John Legend 8pm Sweeney’s Rooftop, Sydney Sundaes Hanna Gibbs, Ty, Josh Verdi, G-Banga $5-$10 12pm Tank, Sydney Housexy Jonathan Ulyses (Ibiza), Nicc Johnson, Johnny Gleeson, Illya, John Devecchis, Ian Spicer, Liam Samfras $25 9pm The Watershed Hotel Easter Sunday Special Club Parada The World Bar, Kings Cross Fortune Alison Wonderland, E-Cats, Generic DJs, Boonie, Jack Bailey, Lord Brother, Wallace & Vomit, Sushi, Manjazz, Rehu $10$15 8pm

club picks up all night out all week...

WEDNESDAY APRIL 20 The Polo Lounge and Supper Club, Darlinghurst Robopop Randall Stagg, Kill The Landlord, T-Rompf, Smithers & Burns, LL Cool G $10 10pm THURSDAY APRIL 21 Chinese Laundry, Sydney Dubrave Dubrave Sound System (Will Styles, MC Shureshock, MC Hayley Boa), Monarch, Gilsun, Creeptown, Struz, Deli, Audiobotz 10pm $15-$20 Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Mind Over Matter, Ilz, Coptic Soldier, Johnny Utah $10 (+ bf)–$15 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Jake Stone (Bluejuice), Mush, Johnny Segment, Monkey Genius free (student)–$10 9pm FRIDAY APRIL 22 The Loft, Darling Harbour Late at theloft Somatik, Noel Boogie, Noodles, DJ Huwston, Meem, The Swat DJs, Lippo free 10pm Tone, Surry Hills Index Clark (UK), Ikonika, Harmonic 313, Sub Bass Snarl, Semper Fi, Portrait Victim $25 2pm

Bag Raiders SATURDAY APRIL 23 Chinese Laundry, Sydney Robert Babicz (GER), Anna Lunoe, What So Not, Ember, Dave Winnell, Bella Sarris, Mike Hyper, Titty Tassles, King Lee, MC Adam Zae $15–$25 9pm Civic Underground, Sydney Adult Disco Mark E (UK), Future Classic DJs $15 10pm Sandringham Hotel, Newtown Inner West Festival Day Two: Sketch the Rhyme, Reverse Polarities, Tuka, Bad Ezzy

True Vibenation, Hyjack, Elelsquire, Milan, Nikita, Dirtbox Kings, Grouce MC, Electric Elements Crew, Madame Wu & more $20 (+ bf) 12pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Wham! Shazam, Ro Sham Bo, James Taylor, Toni Toni Lee, Disco Punx, Kato vs Boonie, Telefunken, Adam Bozzetto, Miss Gabby, Foundation, Moneyshot, Ennsu, Joe Gadget vs La Fresh, Pipemix, Scratchins (Bad Ezzy vs Levins) $15$20 8pm SUNDAY APRIL 24 FakeClub, Kings Cross Spice Javi Sampol, YokoO, Murat Kilic $20 4am Ivy, Sydney The Player’s Club Miami Horror DJs, Bag Raiders, Ember, Rogers Room, Matt Nukewood, Cadell, Liam Sampras, Robbie Santiago, Beth Yen, Oakes & Lennox $40 5pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Fortune Alison Wonderland, E-Cats, Generic DJs, Boonie, Jack Bailey, Lord Brother, Wallace & Vomit, Sushi, Manjazz, Rehu $10-$15 8pm

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 55

Deep Impressions Underground Dance and Electronica with Chris Honnery

Soul Sedation

Soul, Dub, Hip Hop & Bottom-heavy Beats with Tony Edwards Soul Sedation goes live every Wednesday night on Bondi FM (88.0 or bondifm.com.au). Tune in 10pm 'til midnight to hear a deep and soulful selection of the tunes covered here, and plenty more that I don't have room for.

ON THE ROAD MONDAY APRIL 25

Blind Boys Of Alabama, Aaron Neville, Mavis Staples Sydney Opera House

THURSDAY MAY 5

S

oul Sedation fans should keep their ears peeled for Essex band The Milk. The group, who look likely to make it to Australian shores this year, are being produced by Brad Baloo of The Nextmen fame, and have been mucking around with the sounds of dub reggae, hip hop and electronica. Check out their site thisisthemilk.com for some top shelf original funk jams plus a devastatingly fat cover of Toots & The Maytals’ ‘54-46’.

Australia’s - and probably the world’s finest funk outfit, The Bamboos, have scheduled a tour for their 10th anniversary.

The ‘bosos will be supported by live Melbourne hip hop outfit The Psyde Projects (who take a backpack approach to their beats and rhymes and remind me of both Ugly Duckling and The Looptroop Rockers) as well as the Perth based Paper Plane Project. The show takes place at Manning Bar on Friday May 20.

Paul Kalkbrenner

S

ad news in technoville this week, chaps and chapettes. Omar-S has pulled the plug on his Sydney show.

The gig we were all looking forward to will be going ahead without its star attraction on Sunday night at Tone; they’ve called up Tornado Wallace to replace him, a fellow who I've not heard of. We can but hope Omar makes it Down Under shortly – he owes us now, after all.

Following on from Nick Warren, Timo Maas and Agoria, the next episode in the Balance series will be mixed and compiled by the Spanish DJ and producer Henry Saiz. And before you dismiss it as “just another prog mix”, don’t: I only just wrapped my ears around the Warren Balance, and it’s well worth a listen. In fact, the Balance series has a tradition of producing progressive-oriented compilations that transcend the confines of the genre, as the best mixes do. In fact, the Balance compilations by Desyn Masiello, Agoria and Jimmy Van M are all top-drawer, and should be added to your catalogue if they ain’t already part of it. As for Saiz’s addition to the canon, disc one is all about lo-fi, for which he used analogue formats only, while the second disc appears more dance floor-orientated, traversing tracks from the prodigal son Ricardo Tobar, Simon Garcia and Okain. Saiz’s Balance drops in June, but Warren’s is readily available - so it can tide you over before it’s on to the next one (to quote Dave Grohl).

On mentioning Agoria, the Frenchman’s Fabric mix is set to be released in the next week or so, and I cannot wait to hear it. Past mixes of his, Cute & Cult, At The Controls and last year’s Balance 016 are all favourites of mine; they avoided the standard pitfall of throwing together an assortment of ‘flavour of the month’ tracks, and instead melded an impressive array of contrasting, challenging and most importantly engaging cuts from disparate genres, in adventurous fashion. “Mixes like this enable me to blend various genres that normally wouldn’t match,” Agoria said, when discussing this latest compilation.

“Even if I’m playing a lot of techno in my DJ set, I always manage to try to mix tracks that are not supposed to fit together… Here I was happy to create a remix live of Ella Fitzgerald mixed with four other tracks for Agoria

example.” Fabric 57 is a twenty track-strong effort that also incorporates material from the likes of Moritz von Oswald, Clara Moto and Carl Craig alongside less likely entries from Tony Allen, José James and Canyons. If this is anywhere near as good as Agoria’s other mixes, then it will be well worth a listen upon its release in mid-April.

Paul Kalkbrenner, who played in the packed cesspit of Chinese Laundry in Sydney not long ago, will release a new studio album in June, entitled Icke Wider (or as we say in Sydney parlance, “Me Again” – humble as always, Paul!). Over to you, Paul, for the pre-release spiel: “Thanks Chris. [Mutters imperceptibly under his breath]. Due to popular and more frequent demand, I locked myself away in the first weeks of the year and recorded a new album. There won’t be any singing on the album, no music of tomorrow either, it feels generally more like... well, old times.” The record will be his first body of new music since Berlin Calling, the 2008 album and clubumentary that boosted the man’s profile no end.

Stefan Goldmann has recently released a new LP that he hailed/self-described as “the first real innovation in the vinyl format in years!” That was good enough for me to promptly order mine online, but the less gullible/downright idiotic of you might want further info; read on then. The Grand Hemiola is Goldmann’s first ever double 12”, and was derived from a ballet by Stefan Goldmann which was commissioned

by Nationaltheater Mannheim and The Kevin O’day Company, and premiered at Jetztmusikfestival last year. Featuring a set of 144 locked grooves, the 12” has been specifically produced for the record format.

One record contains loops in 4/4, the other in 3/4 (employing the time differences of the rotation rates 33 and 45 rpm). For those of you with the glazed expressions, the release has also been described as a take on the infinite possibilities of rhythmic layering, and has been lauded by Tobi Neumann, aka Glove, as “very good and ambitious work, with all the loops a very good tool as well”.

MURS, 9th Wonder Gaelic Theatre

FRIDAY MAY 20 The Bamboos Manning Bar

FRIDAY MAY 27

Bliss n Eso, Horrorshow **NEW SHOW** Hordern Pavilion

MAY 31, JUNE 1 & 2 OFWGKTA Opera House

THURSDAY JUNE 2 Sonny Rollins Sydney Opera House

SATURDAY JUNE 4 Hypnotic Brass Ensemble Sydney Opera House

BBE’s top shelf series The Beat Generation are also celebrating 10 years in existence with their own 10th anniversary selection, compiled by Spinna & Mr Thing. A series that’s behind a number of pivotal releases, not least the Pete Rock Petestrumentals instalment, there’s a lot of great stuff to be found on the album, which features 56 tracks in all from the likes of Dilla, King Britt, Jazzy Jeff, Madlib, Pete Rock and many, many more.

Chicago based funk pushers JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound are back this year with a brief four-track EP. Their debut album Beat Of Our Own Drum is well worth heading to the back catalogues to check out as well. The band’s output sits at the bluesy, rock-y end of the modern funk spectrum.

Disco and soul re-edit heads will want to know about the edit of George Benson’s ‘Love x Love’ on Gamm Records. Turntable Lab are stocking the 12”.

UK producer Bibio is back with his second album Mind Bokeh. His first full-length, Ambivalence Avenue, showed everyone the future of intricate, psychedelic, cuttingedge future beats, truly exciting stuff. If you’re a fan of ambient and downtempo electronica, or heavy beats for that matter, there’s something in Bibio for you. This new release is tipped to be more electronically focused that then the last.

Adelaide MC/producer Koolta has been awarded the 2011 Hilltop Hoods Initiative, which sees him take home $10K to put towards recording and promotion of a studio album, legal advice (industry-relevant one would presume) as well as a DC Shoes prize pack.

The sounds of the southern states of the US circa the ‘50s and ‘60s descend on

Sonny Rollins the Opera House this week: Monday April 25. A Gospel Celebration features the considerable line-up of The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Mavis Staples, and Aaron Neville (of Neville Bothers fame, of which there are five, and who customarily close the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival each year). Fans of vintage soul, funk, gospel, real R&B and blues are encouraged to get involved.

The pairing of Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard known as Global Communication is back with a mix for Back In The Box. In ‘05, the pair mixed a damn good Fabric CD with a focus on interesting, rare and otherworldly electronica. This new mix, an exercise in crate-digging, looks back on early and mid 90s electronica, with a few surprises thrown in as well.

One Handed Music have announced the release of Mo Kolours’ debut EP, EP1: Drum Talking. From disco edits to dub to “Mauritian Sega music”, the British based producer’s Mauritian background brings all these sounds into fusion. One Handed are giving away free album samples through the Bandcamp page.

LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY APRIL 23 Red Rack’em Marrickville Bowling Club

SUNDAY APRIL 25 Circoloco Greenwood Hotel

SATURDAY MAY 14 Kollektiv Turmstrasse Tone

SATURDAY MAY 28 Gavin Russom Sydney Opera House

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

56 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound

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

snap

drop the lime

PICS :: AM

up up all all night night out out all all week week .. .. ..

01:04:11 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex Street Sydney 82959958

mum

It’s called: WHAM! It sounds like: The Easter Bunny egging your house Who’s playing? Shazam (Perth / Bang Gang 12”), Ro Sham Bo, James Taylor, Toni Toni Lee, Disco Punx, Kato vs Adam Bozzetto, Miss Gabby, Foundation, Mone Boonie, Telefunken, yshot, Ennsu, Joe Gadget vs La Fresh, Pipemix and the very special debut of SCRATCHINS (Bad Ezzy vs Levins).

Three records you’ll hear on the night: Instra :mental – ‘When I Dip’; Beni – ‘It’s a Bubble (Round Table Knigh ts Remix)’; Snoop Dogg feat Nate Dogg & Kurupt – ‘Ain’t No Fun’.

And one you definitely won’t: Anything by Deadmau5 Sell it to us: There’s a bazillion DJs over four rooms. And did somebody say egg hunt? Well there won’t be one.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: How the hell somebody managed to convince you to put on the bunny ears you’re still wearing.

Crowd specs: Caramello Koalas, Strawberry Freddos and Licorice Allsor ts.

Wallet damage: $15 before 10pm / $20 after Where: The World Bar, Kings X When: Saturday April 23

PICS :: TP

08:04:11 :: Kit & Kaboodle :: 33-35 Darlinghurst Rd Kings Cross 9368 0300

party profile

falcona fridays

PICS :: PS

wham!

paddle emporium

PICS :: AM

surry hills festival 2011 08:04:11 :: LO-FI Collective :: Floor 3, 383 Bourke St Surry Hills

PICS :: TL

08:04:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

09:04:11 :: Surry Hills Festival :: Ward Park and Shannon Reserve, Surry Hills

L :: KATRINA CLARKE :: MITCHEL S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) Y :: PATRICK CHE PEA OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER MAS THO :: NS MUN MAR :: DANIEL JAY :: BIANCA KHALIL :: ASHLEY STEVENSON

BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11 :: 57

snap snap

wham!

PICS :: BK

upall allnight nightout outall allweek week...... up

09:04:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

propaganda

It’s called: Index presents Clark (UK) & Ikonik a (UK) It sounds like: Electronica, dubstep, techno, future beats.

Who’s spinning? Clark (Warp Records), Ikonik a (Hyperdub Records), Harmonic 313 (Warp), Sub Bass Snarl, Semp er Fi, Portrait, Victim.

Sell it to us: Two of the most exciting artists in electronic music today headline: Clark is one of the top artists on infl uential dance label Warp Records, and Ikonika is without a doubt the leading lady of dubstep/postdubstep. This amazing international lineup is supported by local Mark Pritchard, aka Harmonic 313, in his last set before a rare appearance from local legends Sub Bass his European tour; plus Snarl.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: The kind of music you can’t hear anywhere else in Sydney!

Crowd specs: Tightly packed!

Wallet damage: $25 +bf (foreigndub.com or residentadvisor.net) / $35 on door.

Where: TONE / 16 Wentworth Avenue Surry Hills When: Good Friday April 22, 2pm til late.

PICS :: AM

06:04:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

party profile

the wall

PICS :: AM

index

halfway crooks

PICS :: AM

07:04:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

hot damn

PICS :: AM

09:04:11 :: Phoenix Bar :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93316245

07:04:11 :: Spectrum :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93316245 58 :: BRAG :: 408 :: 18:04:11

L :: KATRINA CLARKE :: MITCHEL S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER MAS PEACHEY :: PATRICK THO :: NS MUN IEL DAN :: MAR JAY :: BIANCA KHALIL :: ASHLEY STEVENSON

SemiPermanent CREATIVE CONFERENCES

Sydney

Corey Arnold / Reg Mombassa Annie Sperling / Surface To Air Fuel VFX / Moffitt.Moffitt Alt Group / Michael Leon Seb Lester / Kayt Jones + 2 more TBC

13th & 14th May 2011

Semi-Permanent, Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most inspirational, and affordable, creative conference.

A week long festival with twelve speakers over two days, surrounded by exhibitions, workshops, installations and parties.

Event Organiser

Proudly Supported By

For more information & to purchase your tickets:

semipermanent.com

B L A C K

C O L O U R

N E U W . C O M . A U