The Brag #412

(NZ)

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SUCK IT AND SEE

THE NEW ALBUM COMING JUNE 3 www.arcticmonkeys.com www.dominorecordco.com

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BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 7

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

he said she said WITH

DAZ FROM THE GOOD SHIP

M

y dad was always racing greyhounds, horses, or basically anything with legs. He was forever carting us around the countryside in some piece-of-shit old Holden station wagon, so I had the privilege of being exposed to crappy country radio stations playing the best of the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. It was, however, distilled for the benefit of National Party voters, so there were none of those fancy synthesisers or Flock of Seagulls haircuts, I’ll have you know. Good clean-cut songs, like ‘Turning Japanese’ by The Vapours and ‘She Bop’ by Cyndi Lauper. If only they knew…

Kevin ‘Bloody’ Wilson, Rodney Rude and The Beatles were generally the only music we ever had, so they were a massive influence, at least initially. I remember I was quite good at adding dirty lyrics to Beatles songs.

Unfortunately, my songwriting hasn’t really progressed from there.

We have a rather sizable crew at the moment.

They are all most excellent too, I must say. I like the fact that there’s a great cross-section of society within the band. We have a financial planner, a grants officer, a film producer, a doctor, an IT guy, a poster distributer, a social worker, a rep and a graphic designer in the band.

CORNERSTONE ROOTS

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: Niki Bodle, Katrina Clarke, Brandon Els, Ben Kalgovas, Ashley Mar, Daniel Munns, Vicky Nguyen, Sarah O’brien, Thomas Peachy, Rosette Rouhanna, Patrick Stevenson COVER DESIGN: Sarah Bryant SALES/MARKETING MANAGER: Blake Rayner 0404 304 929 / (02) 9552 6672 blake@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 9552 6618 les@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Meaghan Meredith (02) 9552 6725 meaghan@thebrag.com GIG & CLUB GUIDE CO-ORDINATOR: Matt Banham - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@thebrag.com (dance & parties) 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

It could be that New Zealand’s Rastafarian Sect is led by the essential roots and reggae outfit Cornerstone Roots. If so, they’re trying to spread their cult across the great Tasman Sea, with a series of Australian shows this May showcasing cuts from their latest record, Future Is Now. Be warned though; slow-swinging your dreadlocks is infectious, and this groove makes Jah sway. Catch them at the Beach Road Hotel in Bondi this Saturday May 21.

With: Kira Puru and the Bruise, Gay Paris Where: The Vanguard, Newtown When: Saturday May 21

LISSIE AND EMMA

GUINEAWOW

Turns out that the talented lady from Guineafowl has her own side project and a very cute name: Imogen Harper. And it’s not a project in the sense of ‘that Jackass-style show you and your friend are totally gonna film once we borrow Mark’s dad’s camera’; this is a proper thing. She’ll be playing her lovely, folksy songs at the Vanguard on Thursday May 26.

JINJA SAFARI TOUR

If you say “Jinja Safari Tour” to an uninitiated redhead, their eyes will widen to the size of scared saucers and they’ll plan their escape, lest they get they get hunted down with a rifle in some ‘Born Free’-esque country-wide chase. Say it to a fan of Sydney’s premier forest-pop, jangle-rocker band, and they’ll wet their little pants. Jinja Safari are hitting Newcastle’s Northern Star on Friday July 16 and the Oxford Art Factory on Saturday July 16, and to celebrate they took their shirts off in front of a camera. You’re welcome.

ESKIMO WHOA

Georgia Fields

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE: Stephen Forde : accounts@furstmedia.com.au ph - (03) 9428 3600 fax - (03) 9428 3611 Furst Media, 3 Newton Street Richmond Victoria 3121

I remember when Eskimo Joe stole the Neverending Story theme for their song ‘Sarah’ - I’m secretly starting to think it was the most punk rock thing in the world. Apparently their new stuff sounds like “old Eskimo Joe.” Whether that means ‘Sweater’ Eskies or “who sold her out, yeah we sold her out”-era Eskies remains to be seen, but we’ll take anything we can get.

We’ll find out what the go is when they play some of their new stuff acoustically at The Gaelic on Saturday May 28. They promised BRAG that they’ll play ‘Ruby Wednesday’.

(They didn’t promise BRAG that they’ll play ‘Ruby Wednesday’.)

STORM IN A TEACUP

Storm In A Teacup is a two-hour collaborative show starring the phenomenal folk stylings of Tinpan Orange, Harry James Angus, Jordie Lane, Jen Cloher, Husky and Liz Martin.

They’ll be sharing their songs on a stage at Sydney’s Factory Theatre on Friday June 17 at 8pm. Tickets are $25 through the venue website.

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

JANE BADLER

DISTRIBUTION: Wanna get The Brag? Email distribution@furstmedia. com.au or phone 03 9428 3600.

8 :: BRAG :: 412 : 16:05:11

I’m not just stocking up on back-catalogue Steely Dan albums, so I’m still finding new music that I like, which is always good. It doesn’t seem to be as regularly as when I was a wee lad, but that is either a reflection on the music scene or the fact that I’m getting old and cantankerous. I’m running with the latter.

Well, all our letters and emails have paid off, because Illinois folkster Lissie has FINALLY agreed to tell us who’s supporting her at the Oxford Art Factory show on May 17. It turns out it’s the lovely Emma Davis, who I hope to never met in case I squeeze her like a child would a kitten until I smother her - and then there will be all the lights and sirens and drama and me in the middle, cuffed and scraped against the tar road, repeating, “I just really love her really pretty album...”

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

Win a giveaway? Mail us a stamped and addressed envelope, and we’ll send your prize on over...

While on the surface we appear to be your average folk/porno/country/sea shanty band, there’s actually more to us than meets the eye. We don’t just write songs about sex and drinking, no siree. We also have songs about sea monsters, transvestites, taverns, death, prostitutes, sailing and serial killers. And drinking.

Jinja Safari

Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this address 153 Bridge Road, Glebe NSW 2037 ph - (02) 9552 6333 fax - (02) 9552 6866

PRINTED BY SPOTPRESS: www.spotpress.com.au 24 – 26 Lilian Fowler Place, Marrickville NSW 2204

I love that we all seem to throw off the shackles of our day jobs and turn into absolute folk-rock monsters on the weekend. Although we’re all so different, we can’t help but have a great time together; we appear to be in the first flush of love with each other. At least until we all start fighting over royalties and cocaine…

GEORGIA FIELDS FOREVER

Oh, Georgia Fields - you’re secretly better than so many of those other slightly-quirky, chamber-pop singing ladies that we love so much around these parts, but not enough people know it yet. If only we had some kind of outlet through which we could impel Sydney to come along to your show this Sunday May 22 at The Vanguard…

Fantasy Island, The Doctors, Falcon Crest, Neighbours... Not the exciting new lineup on Channel 10’s ‘Retro, Retro, Retro Sunday’, but a mere sprinkling of the television shows that siren Jane Badler has acted in during her long and varied career. Turns out she can sing too; she’ll be launching her new album Tears Again at The Basement on June 9. She’s still very va-vooming, too!

ATTEND ONE OF OUR COMMUNITY FORUMS:

What makes the world’s coolest cities so great after dark? Think New York, Berlin, Tokyo. What makes them tick? The City of Sydney wants to know what kind of late night city you want - what it looks like, what’s open and what’s happening... There are so many opportunities to get involved.

23 May CBD/The Rocks/ Pyrmont 26 May Kings Cross/ Potts Point/Woolloomooloo 30 May Darlinghurst/ Surry Hills/Paddington 31 May Glebe/Newtown/ Erskineville/Chippendale 2 June Redfern/Zetland/ Green Square OR VISIT OUR ONLINE FORUM FOR MORE INFORMATION: SYDNEYYOURSAY.COM.AU Twitter #sydneyyoursay

Open late for everyone

BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 9

rock music news

free stuff

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

five things WITH

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM Kurtis Blow

FLIGHT The Music You Make [James]: We started off as a blues band 4. but now we’ve hit this real nice medium that’s a bit louder and meaner. Our sound now has more layers to it.

[Josh]: We’re trying to blend The Jesus and Mary Chain with Howlin’ Wolf, The Black Keys, sitar music, The Verve and The La’s... but none of that shoegaze bullshit.

Music, Right Here, Right Now [Rich]: We’re part of a really cool scene 5. that’s contained within the Annandale Hotel, with

Growing Up Your Band [Rich]: My introduction to music was [James]: We all met in high school but 1.

3. playing the flute, which I took on ‘cause when didn’t form until a year after we’d left.

I was 10, I had a crush on a girl in the school band. I didn’t get anywhere with her but I kept it up for six years... Then I hit puberty and gave it up for the guitar.

Inspirations [Nick]: A major inspiration for the band’s 2. original sound was when we all heard the album Brothers by The Black Keys. We all just looked at each other and thought we should head in that direction... Funnily enough, it’s the one band that no-one’s ever told us we sound like.

[Nick]: The EP we just recorded was done with Dylan Adams from Stu Studios, in Annandale. We had a lot of fun and he’s now a great mate; we’re planning to do another one with him in October.

[Josh]: And outside of the band we’ve got mates like Mitch, Dan and Hugh who help us out a lot in terms of photos, art and film.

[Rik]: We’re trying to involve all our mates by encouraging them to use our band as a billboard for their own creative mediums. We don’t like to think of Flight as just us, because there are a lot of people involved.

our good mates Underlights, Sticky Fingers, The Tsars, The Future Prehistoric, The Colt 44s and a few other awesome bands. Everyone can feel that something good is going on; there’s a great community feeling encompassing the bar staff, the sound engineers, the Rule brothers, the people who come to our gigs, other friends who take photos or help with the artwork for posters, and then of course all the bands involved.

Everyone gets along and helps each other out because there are no egos involved - we all just do what we do.

What: Flight EP Launch With: Underlights, Hattie Carrol, Johnny Took Where: The Gaelic Theatre When: Saturday May 21

KURTIS BLOW

Feel like hip hop has lost its way a little?

Kurtis Blow is here to restore your faith, when he hits the town to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his celebrated album The Breaks (yep, the one with That Song on it).

One of the first rappers to sign to a major label, and responsible for the first certified Gold rap song, Kurtis has some serious street cred and he’s more than prepared to show you what it’s all about. He’ll be joined by Paper Plane Project at Tone on Thursday May 26 and if you’d like a double pass just finish this line: “Clap your hands everybody, if you’ve got what it takes …”

Daniel Lee Kendall

Regurgitator

HKOH, DLK, TC, FTW

Hungry Kids Of Hungary have played pretty much every venue in Australia (maybe except for that garage you tried to open as a ‘performance and art space’ that Sunday last year).

Now they’re playing The Metro on Saturday May 21, joined by Daniel Lee Kendall, who’s new single ‘Hold Me Now’ is a belter, The Chemist (the pop rock band, not your dealer friend) and Andy Bull (he with the beautifully high voice). Good lineup. Meet you there?

JUST DANDY

Perhaps if The Dandy Warhols had teamed up with Brisbane’s Los Huevos earlier and avoided that rowdy Jonestown mob, they could have skipped the many embarrassing scenes played out in Dig. Luckily, they’ve gotten their act together and have finally asked Los Huevos (only Brisbane’s best tremolo-loving psych band) to play with them on May 29 at the Enmore Theatre. They’ve also asked them to join them in Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide - but we aren’t really interested in that part, are we?

WOAH BLACK CHERRY, BAMALAM

If Black Cherry had a child, that damn thing would go wild? Probably, sure, but that’s beside the point. Sydney’s favourite rock’n’roll party is back, with all the burlesque you could ever want. Bands too, including The Satellites, Los Capitanes (featuring Pete Porker), Pat Capocci Combo (featuring Pia Anderson), The Corps and Whipped Cream Chargers. On the burlesque end of the evening, the lineup boasts Mark Winmill, Lillian Starr and Miss Samantha Diamond. It goes down at the Factory Theatre on Saturday May 21, and tickets are on sale now through the venue website.

Van Halen

THE GURGE!

Regurgitator are playing August 13 at the Manning Bar because they are Regurgitator, and they can do as they please. They’ve proved themselves countless times, with Unit, Tu-Plung - hell, even bits of Art were pretty awesome (‘The Lonely Guy.’ Tune.). So if they want to play us a bunch of classic songs with the odd new one chucked in, then I am going to enjoy the crap out of it, no matter what you say. Also, why are we always arguing?

SOUNDWAVE REVOLUTION. VAN HALEN WITH DAVID LEE ROTH. HUGE. Soundwave Revolution has been drip-feeding acts set to play on the September 25 bill for a few months now, and in the time-honoured tradition of announcing stuff, they’ve saved the best ‘til last. Van Halen with David Lee Roth. BAM! Alice Cooper. BAM! Hole. Yup! Courtney Love - officially the greatest person who has ever existed in the history of the world. Plus Machine Head, Danzig, Bad Religion, Altar Bridge, Versa Emerge, Sisters Of Mercy and The Pretty Reckless (fronted by Jenny from Gossip Girl! Really!) They join The Used, Dashboard Confessional, Funeral For A Friend, Panic! At the Disco, Yellowcard and so, so many more on a lineup that was already big enough.

Tickets go on sale June 2. Huge.

“Us kids are cold and cagey rattling around the town / scaring the oldies into their dressing gowns / as the dribbling dogs howl” - WILD BEASTS 10 :: BRAG :: 412 : 16:05:11

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

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

BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 11

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

SHOEB FROM SAVAGES

G

rowing up, it was the early 90s and Video Hits was running every Saturday morning. I had no older siblings who might have been into watching RAGE, so it was just me with New Kids On The Block and MC Hammer’s theme song to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie running through my head. I come from a family of casual listeners though, the odd kitchen- and shower-singing but nothing more.

I shouldn’t really even be doing this – I was a junior track sprinter growing up!

Never one to dodge a bullet, the band I first thought were amazing was U2. Mind, I only really thought the early albums and Zooropa were amazing. Next was Crowded House, whose albums I bought on cassette from the secondhand record shop. Only when I started listening to late night radio in high school did I discover Oren Ambarchi and Pan Sonic, on Fenella Kernebone’s show Artery, on triple j.

Savages is like my electronic-improv duo Spartak, but with songs and a rhythm section. We just decided one day that we wanted to try something new as opposed to just twiddling knobs and being abstract. The songs started to come together quickly but with more complexity than expected, which is when we made the call to ask a couple of our friends to join. It’s been good because

Del The Funky Homosapien

we listen to a whole heap of different music between us, and have varying degrees of cynicism or hope within us.

Our music is like a mash-up of Fugazi, New Order, Kompakt-esque techno and Tortoise - but I reckon the others would totally disagree. We’re currently recording our first EP in bits and pieces at home with the idea of mixing it overseas and releasing something by the year’s end. 2011 is hopefully the year of people listening to our hijacked anti-pop played as organic grooves.

The scene is a hard market to crack, whether you’re making independent music or something more mainstream. I’m pretty DIY in the scheme of things, so I can only say that hard work and persistence will show you a path to what you want. The best thing about Sydney these days is that there’s so much good creative music coming out at the moment, like Collarbones, Ghoul and Merewomen.

With: Kasha, Reuben Ingall, DJ Shoeb Ahmad; visuals by Eightfilters What: New Weird Australia - The Sound Of Young Canberra Where: FBi Social, Kings Cross Hotel When: Thursday May 19

a range of genres and practices in weirdness.

Wednesday’s program will feature performances from Defektro, the brainchild of Hirofumi Uchino, a lover of hand-built machines that produce “sampled, chewed up, harsh junk metal,” along with Emily Morandini and Knitted Abyss. Thursday night will offer the ‘new wave sludgecore’ of Machine Death along with Sean Baxter, Kusum, and Peter Blamey. Each night runs from 8pm - 11pm and entry is $10, with full details at highreflections.org

MAURICE FULTON RETURNS AS BOOF

DEL THE FUNKY HOMOSAPIEN TOUR

The Big Del himself, iconic hip hop producer Del the Funky Homosapien, is touring Australia, and will play Oxford Art Factory on Sunday July 24. 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, releasing acclaimed albums like I Wish My Brother George Was Here and 3rd Eye Vision, as well as being an integral cog in the veritable juggernaut that is Gorillaz (he provided the vocals on the smash single ‘Clint Eastwood’). Del has recently released a new album, Golden Era; a 3CD set consisting of ten new songs and two albums never before released physically, Funk Man and Automatic Statik. That amounts to a total of 34 tracks, which should be enough to sate even the most insatiable Del junkies till the Big Del sets foot on stage at the OAF in a few months.

AZARI AND III AT VIVID

Canadian duo Azari and III (pronounced Azari and Third) play the Opera House on Sunday June 5 at a bash which comes courtesy of iconic Sydney queer party brand Club Kooky, as part of the month-long Vivid LIVE festival.

The critically-lauded pair will be joined by Italy’s Daniele Baldelli and the UK’s Horse Meat Disco, to form a decadent international triumvirate offering a sonic buffet of disco, early Chicago House and maybe some tougher stuff too. A throwback to the four-on-the-floor of ‘80s house, Azari and III first gained notoriety DJing warehouse parties before launching their career with the singles ‘Hungry For The Power’ and ‘Reckless (With Your Love)’, both ultramodern updates of vocal house motifs. They’ve since released on Tiga’s Turbo imprint – a badge

of honour in the club milieu – and have been remixed by emerging talent Nicolas Jaar. The full Vivid LIVE program, which also features performances from Cut Copy and The Crystal Ark, is listed online at vividlive.sydneyoperahouse.com

HIGH REFLECTIONS

The next installment of High Reflections (HR) - an ongoing series of adventurous experimental music events - will descend on the counter-cultural hub that is the Red Rattler in Marrickville on two consecutive nights this week: Wednesday May 25 and Thursday May 26. High Reflections began as an irregular event with a home at Serial Space in early 2009, and since then they’ve produced 14 shows of diverse and eclectic experimentalism across

American ex-pat Maurice Fulton, who now makes his beats in Sheffield UK, will release a new album this June as Boof, entitled Shhh, Dandelions At Play. Always keeping listeners on their toes, Fulton has worked under many pseudonyms over the years aside from Boof, including Ladyvipb, Eddie And The Egg and Syclops, while producing albums for Kathy Diamond and his wife, Mu, and remixing Annie, Hot Chip, Chicken Lips and The Rapture. The release is being touted as “classic Fulton”, showcasing off-kilter, organic-sounding cuts that fall somewhere between house and funk. Shhh, Dandelions At Play will be released via Fulton’s own Bubbletease Communications on June 24; I’m being precise so devotees can mark the date down in their moleskin diaries.

DAVID LYNCH ALBUM

And now for something oddball. Surreal director David Lynch, the man responsible for bizarre

Art vs Science

ART VS SCIENCE

First they gave us explicit, if not dubious instruction on how we should get down, and then they hassled us about our foreign language ability – but now it seems that Art vs Science are finally ready to start being nice. Their debut album The Experiment kicked some serious goals, and the boys are about to back it up by proving they party just as hard in the flesh. Teaming up with cool kids Strange Talk, The Experiment Tour hits the Enmore on July 8 - and it’s set to be an extravaganza of sweaty, pounding, good clean fun. If that sounds like your thing (and we know it does), let us know what experiment you’d like to conduct on Art vs Science – there’s a couple of double passes up for grabs.

cult films like Blue Velvet and Lost Highway, has completed his long-awaited electronic music album. The LP is expected to see release later this year, and in the meantime Lynch will consolidate his move into the electronic scene by delivering the keynote address at IMS:2011 (Ibiza International Music Summit), at the Ibiza Gran Hotel. Lynch, who took the world by surprise by releasing the electro-pop single ‘Good Day Today’ last year, won’t be on the White Isle himself, but rather beamed in via video Skype from his recording studio just off Mulholland Drive. “Twelve months ago Jason Bentley from KCRW gave a track I made with my engineer Big Dean Hurley to Ben Turner and Rob da Bank of Sunday Best Recordings, and we return this year to chat about the full-length album we have just completed,” Lynch said.

DJ SHADOW ROKS OUT

Pioneering turntabilist/producer DJ Shadow has unveiled a new EP, I Gotta Rok. A warm-up for his forthcoming album The Less You Know The Better, which is expected to see release in September, the EP is available digitally now, while physical copies will be in stores from June 1. As it takes Shadow years to complete and clear samples, the forthcoming album should be well worth the five-year wait that’s followed his last album release, The Outsider, which dropped back in 2006. I Gotta Rok includes ‘Def Surrounds Us’ and ‘I’ve Been Trying’, which were released as one-off singles last year, along with a noteworthy remix of ‘Def’ by UK drum ‘n’ bass producer Rockwell.

Kween G

3THINGS

3things, an initiative of Oxfam Australia, will bring together an assortment of eminent Aussie rappers, beat boxers, DJs, VJs and graphic artists at Oxford Art Factory on Thursday June 30. The night will be hosted by Kween G of KillaQueenz, and will feature visual jams by VJ Spook (VJ for the likes of Bliss N Eso and Snob Scrilla). Also representing will be Ozi Batla, Dialectrix with Joe New and Plutonic Lab, Tuka, The Last Kinection, DJ Gabriel Clouston, plus beatboxers Rivals and LC Beats. The bash coincides with the launch of the new look 3things website, 3things.org.au, which offers younger folk practical ways to get involved in ridding the world of poverty. Entry is a mere $5 on the door.

“As the earth it must turn and the trees they must grow, just beyond that horizon-a mountain of hope. ”- BLUE KING BROWN 12 :: BRAG :: 412 : 16:05:11

LECTRIC LECTR LE C IC CTR BLUE B E BLU

mattsc mat a tscrib at tsc s rri rib i ble bl ss.ttumb umblr. blr. lr com o

BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 13

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH

STONEFIELD playing in the background since we were born - but really we’re inspired by almost anything. We remember thinking some Zappa stuff was kind of strange at the beginning in comparison to other music we were hearing, but grew to appreciate and love him.

Another huge inspiration is seeing other young musicians.

Your Band Our next release is 3. going to be a Double A

Growing Up We grew up on a hobby farm in a tiny 1. town in Victoria, spending a lot of our childhood rolling down hills and riding our bikes. Although not musicians themselves, our parents are big music lovers. We grew up listening to their record collection, full of 70s rock - and as a result, it’s our favourite kind.

2.

Inspirations Our all time favourite musicians are Led Zeppelin and Frank Zappa, who’ve been

ELECTRIC ZOO

Electric Zoo is a new monthly party devoted to live electronic music performers. The plan is to showcase local experimental electronica and live synth pop, with local DJs to set the mood in between, before rounding off the night with a full DJ set as finale. The event has been born “out of the fact that the live music scene in Sydney revolves around indie rock or dance clubs that only focus on DJs. The amazing queer electronic music performers are forced to play to disinterested rock crowds in an effort to gain exposure, while the dance floors are playing music from overseas…” Yep, that’s Sydney. But the Electric Zoo launch on Saturday May 28 at the Red Rattler in Marrickville will offer a much-needed counterpoint to the prosaic norm. The lineup for the launch comprises of Garcon Garcon, DJ Sveta, Divine Knights, Alice Spacedoll, Snout Cassette and The Carnival Of Electric Illusions DJs. $15 entry from 8pm.

HUNGRY KIDS OF HUNGARY

side, and the producer we are working with is the very talented Scott Horscroft.

We’ve had a day of pre-production where we ended up doing something completely unexpected and interesting - we’re really looking forward to flying up to Sydney to record with him, and can’t wait to hear the end result.

4.

The Music You Make Our style is influenced by a lot of 70s bands like Zeppelin and Zappa and Hendrix. We’ve released one EP called Through The Clover - we recorded four of

the songs at Atlantis Studios with Dave McLuney and Greg Arnold. ‘Through The Clover’ was recorded in Sydney at the triple j Studios, as part of our prize for winning triple j Unearthed High. We’re really looking forward to getting our new stuff out there; we feel we’ve come a long way since those recordings.

Music, Right Here, Right Now The music scene right now is really 5. exciting. There is a ridiculous number of bands and solo artists, which may make it harder to get noticed, but it really is a great thing to see that music is everywhere. An obstacle for us is that some people don’t take us seriously and think of us as a gimmick but we can prove them wrong with our live show.

What: SOSUEME’s 4th Birthday With: Parades, Guineafowl, Redcoats, Pluto Jonze, Bon Chat Bon Rat and more; DJ sets from Zia (The Dandy Warhols), The Vines DJs, Joyride and more Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Saturday May 28 More: triple j Unearthed High is open for entries; head to triplejunearthed.com/ unearthedhigh

Hungary is a land-locked country in central Europe, famous for the Rubik’s Cube and discovering Vitamin C. Hungry Kids Of Hungary are an Australian five piece, famous for their debut album Escapades, touring like nobody’s business and generally being a rad bunch of dudes. After a long time on the road, the Hungry Kids have announced The Final Escapade - their last headline tour for 2011. Teaming up with friends The Chemist, Andy Bull and Daniel Lee Kendall, this tour will prove that the band are ten times more fun than their namesake, and rock a lot harder too (no offence if you’re reading this, Hungary). It’s all happening on Saturday May 21 at The Metro, and if you’d like to get your greedy little hands on a double pass, tell us what you’d feed the band.

LYRICS BORN

Callin’ out t’all Aussie crew… Lyrics Born is returning to tour the country, this time with a new album under his belt and a five-piece live band afoot. The Japanese American MC appears this Saturday June 18 with a new and improved party hip hop show, including cuts from As You Were that’ll have the Metro Theatre bouncing hard. He’s just toured his new release at sold out shows across the States, he’s on top of his game, and he comes with hot local support from FDEL and DJ Frenzie.

What’s not to like? To score a double pass to the show, tell us the name of your fave hip hop lyricist.

BASS KLEPH

Aussie dance producer Bass Kleph is about to release Bass Kleph: Presents, which serves as an overview of many of the tracks and remixes that have made the man one of Australia’s more successful dance music exports. It’s been a rollicking start to the year for BK, with his single ‘I’ll Be OK’ reaching the number one spot on Beatport and his remix of Danny T and Oh Snap!’s ‘Whine Ya Waistline’ topping the ARIA dance chart, so the time is seemingly right to drop an album. Bass Kleph: Presents includes Bass Kleph’s early co-production with D Ramirez, ‘Pulse’, his remix of Jesse Voorn, and an array of cuts originally released on respected international imprints like Azuli/ Defected and Toolroom. It also features recent material, including a new cut - the anthemic ‘We Feel Love’ - as BKCA (with regular co-writer and performer Chris Arnott). The album is out at the end of this month, and to support the release, Bass Kleph will be playing a Sydney show at Chinese Laundry on Saturday May 21.

The Vines

Botanics

SOSUEME’S 4TH BDAY DJ LINEUP

The DJ lineup has been announced for Sosueme’s fourth birthday bash at Oxford Art Factory on Saturday May 28 - and if the appearance of Zia from The Dandy Warhols and members of The Vines behind the decks is any indication, guitars are out and mixing (or segueing) is well in. Local representatives mixing tunes on the night include interweb dance blog heavyweights Stoney Roads DJs and Don Joyride, while Dan Mac and Dan Williams of Art Vs Science fame are debuting their DJ group the Block-Ness Monsters.

Tickets are available online now.

LAMB RETURN

BOTANICS

Local hip hop troupe Botanics are gearing up to release their highly anticipated sophomore LP, The Fabric. The album is a culmination of ideas put together over the last few years which are reflected in the eponymous track, ‘The Fabric’ - the album’s lead-off single. To coincide with the release of ‘The Fabric’, Botanics will be embarking on another national tour that includes dates at the Beach Road Hotel in Bondi on Sunday June 2 and the Old Manly Boatshed the following night.

After an 8-year hiatus, the English electronic duo comprised of producer Andy Barlow and singer/songwriter Lou Rhodes, collectively known as Lamb, are back with a new album, 5.

During their six-year break, Barlow completed remixes for Placebo and Elbow and focused on his solo project LOWB, while Rhodes also enjoyed the single (artist) life, garnering a Mercury Award Album of the Year nomination for her solo album. 5 is described as a conflation of electronic, trip hop and folk soundscapes, replete with choruses of sampled wine glasses, ethereal strings and Lou’s trademark™ vocals.

The album is available now through Strata Music / MGM.

KURTIS BLOW

He’ll huff and he’ll puff and he’ll blllooooooowwww your house down! American seminal luminary Kurtis Blow, hailed as “one of the most important performers in African American music development of the past 30 years,” will be playing at Tone on Thursday May 26 as part of his 30th Anniversary Tour of ‘The Breaks’, Blow’s single from his 1980 eponymous debut album which remains the first certified Gold record rap song.

(You see why I opted for the double-hander ‘seminal/luminary’ now don’t you, compadre?)

Blow is in Australia for the first time in a decade, and will be supported by Paper Plane Project (Live), Gian Arpino, Mike Who?, DJ Naiki and last but not least, the irrepressible Kato.

“One day I’ll call you on the telephone, Next day I be screaming down the megaphone,”- BLUE KING BROWN 14 :: BRAG :: 412 : 16:05:11

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BRECHT’S FIRST PLAY SCREAMS INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

BAAL

by Bertolt Brecht

Translated by Simon Stone & Tom Wright

Now Playing! Wharf 1 Sydney Theatre Company STC Box Office (02) 9250 1777 sydneytheatre.com.au/baal Director Simon Stone With Brigid Gallacher Geraldine Hakewill Louisa Hastings Edge Shelly Lauman Oscar Redding Chris Ryan Lotte St Clair Katherine Tonkin Thomas M Wright

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Photo: Terence Chin

WARNING: Contains adult themes, nudity, violence, simulated sex scenes, drug references and very coarse language.

A co-production of Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse Melbourne

Researchers from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre would like to speak to people who use drugs when they party. 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 confidential.

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).

Dana Stephensen & Brett Simon • Photography—Paul Empson

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BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 15

The Music Network

themusicnetwork.com

Industry Music News with Christie Eliezer

Lifelines Born: Son, Knox Cameron Patrick. to Kings of Leon guitarist Matthew Followill and wife Johanna Bennett, in Nashville.

Born: Second son, Tate, to Emma Bunton and fiancé Jade Jones.

Injured: Accept’s guitarist Herman Frank suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs after falling off the stage during a show in San Antonio, Texas.

Recovering: indigenous drummer Bart Willoughby (No Fixed Address) underwent heart surgery, with complications leading to further surgery and a cardiac arrest. Surgeons had to induce a coma to save his life.

Suing: Surviving members of 1960s US girl group The Shirelles (‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’, ‘Dedicated to the One I Love’) took action against the producers of a Broadway show Baby It’s You, for using their name and image.

Suing: Black Eyes Peas guitarist George Pajon claims their business manager Sean Larkin failed to file tax returns for eight years and keep accurate records for the band.

Sued: Rod Stewart’s son Sean, 30, by a Californian car hire; $220,000 for crashing a Bentley he hired.

Sued: Record producer DJ Cleo accused by son of South African composer and producer Obed Ngubeni of stealing his dad’s song. Ngubeni wrote ‘Gazette’, a hit for the late singer Mahlathini.

Cleo has been accused of doing a remix, calling it ‘Hip-hop Hooray’ - and taking 25% of the royalties.

Died: Kevin O’Donohue, who was GM of Radio 2SM for 21 years, 76.

Died: NZ-born drummer with Perth band Rich Widow, Andy Marshall, 29, from head and spinal injuries after being thrown through the window of the Ocean Beach Hotel, following an alleged altercation with a biker.

Died: John Walker of British male trio The Walker Bros (‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’), liver cancer, 67.

Died: Pre-eminent South African jazz composer, saxophonist and flautist Zim Ngqawana, 52, stroke.

Died: British classical musician David Mason, who played the piccolo trumpet solo on The Beatles’ ‘Penny Lane’ (and got paid $45), 85, leukemia.

NO GOOGLE MUSIC OR SPOTIFY FOR AUSTRALIA YET

THINGS WE HEAR

Google says it has no plans as yet to launch its new music locker service in Australia. Music Beta allows users to store 20,000 songs on smartphones, tablets and computers and access them remotely. In time, it plans to expand its services to include a download store, a radio search to find new music, and catalogue-syncing. Last week’s launch came without licensing from the major record companies. Negotiations had been slow: the majors didn’t want files from P2Ps in the lockers, and pushed for Google to drop pirate sites from its search engine, and indie labels wanted their advances to be as big as the majors’. Finally, Google figured Apple was too close to launching its own cloud service.

EMI, Warner and Universal have reportedly since stitched up deals. Meantime, European music streamer Spotify told Channel News that it may be moving to the US, but it has no plans to come into the Aussie market yet.

* Are we looking at a joint Snoop/ Ludacris run in September?

Are the Black Eyes Peas being courted for the five-date 300 Ultra Session Beats festival which will tour Australia in October, along with Eminem, Armand van Helden and Pendulum? Which January festival will the Arctic Monkeys play at? Stevie Nicks told Perez Hilton she’s here in November… * Australia’s Got Talent overthrew the country’s top rating show MasterChef last Tuesday, getting 1.75 million to the pasta-servers’ 1.44 million.

Danger * Soundwave Revolution accidentally leaked its lineup 45 minutes before planned. * Perth 18-year old twins Jesse and Jermaine D’Vauz, who posted a clip of them dancing to Lady Gaga’s ‘Judas’, confessed that they “screamed and cried” when she tweeted back. ‘’Judas’ choreography by two sexy boys! Swoon!

This is why I love my fans, you don’t skip a beat.” The clip drew 100,000 hits on YouTube in two days. * How to make launches more interesting: EMI Australia gave away coffee to the first 50 who attended the weekend’s Sydney listening parties to Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi collaboration Rome.

ROSE TO HOST CHAPEL SERIES MTV VJ, club DJ and fashionista Ruby Rose has been named host of the Russian Standard Vodka Live At The Chapel series.

“I’ve always been a huge fan,” she says.

The series’ first event is on Thursday May 26, when The Vines tape their set at St Stephen’s Anglican Church in Newtown.

BESTON LEAVES UNIVERSAL

Universal Music’s A&R Manager Jess Beston left to set up her own company. In her four years in the role, Beston signed Children Collide, Gyroscope, Dukes of Windsor, The Naked & Famous and Violent Soho, and A&R’d the last Vasco Era album. Her new firm, which will be announced officially in coming weeks, covers A&R consultancy, project management and artist development.

She’ll work with Universal as a contractor on a non-exclusive project-by-project basis.

GUETTA EMPLOYS INVESTIGATOR

French producer/DJ David Guetta is employing an ex-Pentagon investigator to look into the theft of his new single ‘Where Them Girls At’. He’s concerned that parts of the song were stolen by a hacker (most likely a studio worker who managed to access his computer pass), who added his or her own production and posted it online, claiming it was Guetta. An unfinished version of the track, with Flo Rida and Nicki Minaj, appeared online last week.

CHEMICAL ROMANCE GET FIVE KERRANG! NOMS

My Chemical Romance lead the way with five nominations for this year’s Kerrang! music awards. They’re up for Best Album, Best International Band, Best Video, Best Single and Best Live Performance. Fellow US noise makers 30 Seconds To Mars and Avenged Sevenfold got four, with UK bands Bullet For My Valentine and Bring Me The Horizon nominated for three. The awards are held in London on June 9, and mark the 30th anniversary of Kerrang!. Ozzy Osbourne, who’ll be honoured as a Kerrang! legend, will play a set.

VANDA & YOUNG COMP CLOSING Entries for the Vanda & Young Songwriting comp for budding songwriters close May 31.

Added to the $50,000 worth of prizes is travel expenses worth $1500 from the PPCA. Other

prizes include $20,000 cash, business class flight to London, co-writing sessions etc. See vandayoungsongcomp.com

WANT TO BE A BLOGGER FOR VIVID LIVE?

Do you want to be an online music reporter for Vivid LIVE, held from May 27 to June 5? The event’s sponsor Origin and venue Sydney Opera House are looking for two young writers aged 18 to 25 to report on and review the shows. Applicants will have to submit a 100 word review of a recent performance attended, and a 50 word description of how they live their life sustainably. Comp closes Friday May 20; see vividlive.sydneyoperahouse.com

CULTURAL POLICY LOOMING

The much ballyhooed National Cultural Policy seems to be looming, with Arts Minister Simon Crean bringing it up in radio interviews and speeches. It’s the first initiative of its kind since Paul Keating’s Creative Nation twenty years ago. We’re light on the specifics at this stage, but given Crean’s background in Education, we can expect to see a focus on the arts being taught at schools. Crean is also keen to bring the arts into the mainstream, and looking at private sponsorships and corporations to pay for this.

How much of this has to do directly with contemporary music remains to be seen.

The music sector was lukewarm in what it was given in last week’s Federal Budget.

The Contemporary Music Touring Program, which aids acts performing in regional areas, received $400,000 a year in ongoing funding over four years; acts will get up to $15,000 in subsidies. A $10 million package to support young and emerging artists through the

We has internets!

www.thebrag.com Extra bits and moving bits without the papercuts 16 :: BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11

Mouse Meantime, at the launch of her Real World LP, Brisbane’s Hannah Macklin got in cartoonist Darren Fisher to do individual caricatures of the crowd and sell his comic books. * Will Elton John host this year’s ARIAs? He did the first one, 25 years ago… * Scarlett Belle — Tamara Jaber, and ex-Idol Reigan Derry — have split. * Former NBC president/CEO Jeff Zucker turned down Kanye West’s demand for $1 million to play his son’s bar mitzvah, and hired Drake at $250,000. * The ACT’s Manuka Oval and Canberra Stadium, which host concerts, receive $6 million for upgrades, in the ACT budget.

Australia Council will fund 150 additional artistic works, presentations and fellowships over five years. Grants of up to $80,000 a year will be available. But there was nothing of the tax incentives to drive investment in recordings, which the biz was hoping for. Nor was there any greater support for acts/execs going overseas, or a loan scheme for aspiring musicians to get equipment, or more skills training for young managers.

TICKETMASTER DEAL FOR AMEX CARD MEMBERS

American Express card members enrolled in a Membership Rewards program can use their Membership Rewards points as a payment option when purchasing tickets to Ticketmaster events online. “This is an Australian ticketing industry first [and] continues Ticketmaster’s innovation in event ticketing,” said Chris Forbes, CEO of Ticketmaster Australasia. So far, music concerts and theatre shows are principal beneficiaries for point redemption.

NICHE SIGNS THUNDAMENTALS, FANTINE

Niche Productions has signed hip hop act Thundamentals and indie and electro soul singer Fantine, who will be joining Fat Freddy’s Drop, The Bamboos and Electric Empire among others. Thundamentals are currently in the studio finishing their second studio LP for Obese Records, and Niche is developing opportunities for their various solo projects. Fantine Pritoula, born in Moscow to a Russian father and a Dominican mother, toured last year as guest vocalist and co-writer with Space Invadas. She recently released her debut single ‘Rubberoom’, and is about to start work on an album with a hot UK producer.

BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 17

he thing I’m most excited about when I go to a concert is seeing someone on stage doing things that might hurt them, but they obviously don’t give a fuck. There’s something very admirable about that.”

Tom Rawle wants to do everything.

The energetic, engaging and considerably enigmatic frontman for Sydney trio Papa Vs Pretty isn’t content to only be a great writer and lyricist - he wants to kick serious arse in a live setting, too. To see Rawle in action is to witness a friendly, slightly obsessive muso transform into a caterwauling, solo-shredding monster.

It’s a metamorphosis that the born-toperform Rawle doesn’t think has gone far enough: “At the moment, all I can do is jump up on the drum kit,” he says. “I hope I can get much more ridiculous as time goes on - like if the record does really well and lots of people are into it, then all kinds of crazy shit can happen.”

The record Rawle refers to, United In Isolation, finally drops at the end of this month. It’s the band’s first full-length, after years of self-released material and last years’ Heavy Harm EP. The 11 fully-formed and intricately mapped out tunes take influences from the past 20 years of alternative rock and combine them with a refreshingly honest approach to songwriting, in a release that will mark a new chapter for a band who already have a considerable reputation. Papa Vs Pretty have been put in convenient boxes throughout their career: Those Kids Who Think They Can Rock; Too Many Ideas, Not Enough Focus; Moody And Depressive Teenagers - you name it… Which is

why Rawle is a little anxious. “There will be no doubts about who we are or what we sound like,” he says. “I’m more nervous about the actual reception of it – whether people like it, and whether they care about it or not. I hope they do.

I listened to it in a heaps analytical way, hoping that I would understand how people would hear it.”

If Dave Grohl is the nicest guy in rock and roll, Rawle is certainly in the running for second - all he wants to do is create and discover music and share it with others. It comes as no surprise then that he’s prolific on social networks, using the band’s Facebook account to post (for example) something like six Sufjan Stevens clips from The Age Of Adz in a row. “I think I’m influenced by everything, and I funnel it through different channels,” he says. “The problem with me is I get really obsessed with one album, and that’s all I listen to for ages.” Right now, Rawle’s having a Bright Eyes phase, but his curiosity extends to almost anything.

The interesting part is that he’ll absorb this stuff, and then try and write something similar on his own. United In Isolation may be a very coherent, focused record, but that’s discounting the scores of other aural ventures Rawle has going on the side, mostly by himself. Before the interview he sends over two of his other projects - a dissonant electronica album and an entire collection of songs where he’s tried to match the excess of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. These aren’t sketches, they’re full albums that could be released tomorrow. And Rawle’s got 30 of them.

If Papa Vs Pretty represent just one aspect of Rawle’s meandering musical imagination, then for United In Isolation, that aspect is ‘massive’.

Massive in the songs themselves, which recall the more excitable, amped-up moments of Jeff Buckley, Silverchair and Radiohead all rolled into one. Massive in the production team behind it, the staggering one-two punch of Paul McKercher (You Am I, Augie March) and Scott Horscroft (The Presets, Silverchair), who in tandem help to push the already expansive sound to the nether regions of your skull. And massive in that despite the fact that they’re continuously trying to shake off their age tag, Papa Vs Pretty are still astoundingly young to be writing stuff this accomplished.

“I just have more energy,” Rawle deadpans, “now that I’m in my ripe old age.” Certainly the expansive sound of the record indicates that hitting their Terrible Twenties hasn’t dulled these guys one bit.

One thing Rawle has strived for since he started writing records in his room was to give his albums their own musical ‘brand’: “The album does have a very defined sound, and it’s very consistent,” he says. “The way I wanted it to be was really dynamic, both in the songs and the album itself; to have very high points and softer moments as well.” This is best illustrated at the centre of the record, where the bucking fury of ‘Conquistador’ gives way to ‘I Felt Nothing’, a serene ballad that manages to keep the essence of the trio without the volume. It’s Rawle’s passion for creating fully-realised albums based on thematic or musical concerns that drives Papa Vs Pretty’s

sound, and in particular his lyrics. “I like creating a cluster of things,” he says. “If you make a record that has a specific sound or central theme you restrict yourself, and I think that makes you a better songwriter.”

United In Isolation, then, refers to the moment his cluster comes together, the moment when the isolated fragments of his group become a proper, functioning whole. To this end, Rawle understands that to be a great band, you have to write as a team – an attitude that has bound him, bassist Angus Gardiner and drummer Tom Myers in an impenetrable unit. Much of the album was road-tested for months before being properly demoed in a studio. And everyone plays multiple roles, with Gardiner responsible for the intricate string arrangements on the album while Myers takes the lions’ share of the very difficult backing vocals. This is important because Papa Vs Pretty started out purely as Rawle, and on early material (like his side projects) he wrote and played everything. “I fully trust Tom [Myers] and Gus,” he says. “They write their own parts. I may sketch up an acoustic version and show it to them, but they’ll get it right off the bat. It’s really easy, there’s no trouble, which is fantastic because we work well and

get along. It’s all about what’s best for the song in the end.”

As one can imagine, Rawle’s ability to totally immerse himself in music and performance without becoming a wanker has earned him many friends (“Everybody I hang out with and enjoy spending time with have come from music”), but also befuddled the many journalists who are continually on a hunt to categorise both him and the band, before realising that there’s nothing remotely offensive about them...

“My biggest issue is that maybe we’re not trendy enough,” laughs Tom. “Not because I care about that, but if it makes kids think twice about coming to shows, it becomes a problem. I just hope the album changes anybody’s mind, if they were sceptical about the band before.” And if that doesn’t, the naysayers can always come and find him in his second home: on stage, guitar in hand and very ready to do something that might just hurt him.

What: United In Isolation is out on May 27 on Peace and Riot Records, through EMI With: Redcoats Where: The Annandale Hotel When: Friday June 24

“Turn up that music, turn up that beat turn up that radio, riddim concrete, ”- BLUE KING BROWN 18 :: BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11

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BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 19

Glasvegas x By Glasvegas Viva x

By Christine Lan

“Coming from Glasgow, you don’t really contemplate doing music as a career; it’s a dream for most people.”

R

eleased in September 2008 to nearubiquitous acclaim, Glasvegas’ selftitled debut marked the Scottish fourpiece out as one of the decade’s defining bands. “From about 2007, our lives just revolved around the band and nothing else,” recalls lead guitarist Robert ‘Rab’ Allan. “We gave up everything – we all made some sort of decision that everything must take a back seat. I know James [Allan, lead singer and Rab’s cousin] gave a lot of himself, not only to the writing of the album but to the actual recording. The process was crazy, we recorded it in Brooklyn, on tour. We were mixing the album at night in hotels after the gigs, from midnight until six in the morning, and then we’d get two or three hours sleep and do it all over again.”

The resulting album set them on an incredible two-year world tour. “There were lots of mad things that happened. In terms of the band, there are always the highlights - playing with U2 was really, really good,” Rab reflects. “We all came from working class backgrounds. Coming from Glasgow, you don’t really contemplate doing [music] as a career; it’s a dream for most people. The fact that we’ve been able to travel around the world - and we used to take our mums to gigs all over the world,” he laughs.

“We’d fly to Europe and America and they used to come and watch us.”

The mighty reception of that first release made its follow-up, Euphoric Heartbreak, one of the most anticipated albums of 2011. About 80% of the record was written by James in Glasgow, before the band relocated to California to set up a studio at a Santa Monica beach house for the recording. They were based there for the first half of 2010. “I guess the challenge was probably staying inspired - you’re there for such a long time and there’s no one there to say, ‘You need to do this, you need to do that’.

There are a lot of distractions in LA if you’re not careful - it’d be easy to fall into that trap if you just believe your own hype and you believe your own success. We keep each other’s feet on the ground.”

The Santa Monica setting informed their music; it can be heard in the album’s atmospheric melodies, and its ethereal soundscapes. “I think more of the futuristic elements on the record probably came from that period of time,” Rab says. “I was listening to Depeche Mode, Queen, kind of incandescent bands, so that definitely had an influence on the music.

I think James was quite addicted to Blade Runner - he used to watch it all the time, so I guess it was really him looking to be inspired by something.”

Euphoric Heartbreak closes with the extremely moving ‘Change’, which features a spoken-word passage from James’ mother. “That was really funny, actually,” laughs Rab, recalling his aunt’s time in the studio. “She was only in the studio

for half an hour, but she just took over. We were in Sweden last week and the song came on; I got a shiver because I remembered when I was young, she used to shout at me when I got in trouble. And now she follows me all over the world… That was the last song written for the album; it was written in London, actually, after the Santa Monica period. I think it’s one of the most moving ones that we’ve done.”

Still, the most honest and heart-wrenching song on Glasvegas’ second album would have to be ‘I Feel Wrong (Homosexuality, Pt. 1)’.

“We were at a park in Glasgow and all of our friends were there,” Rab says, “and we didn’t know that one of our best friends in Glasgow was gay, he hadn’t told us. At the park we were drinking and got a little drunk, and you could

hear him speaking to another guy. He was just saying that he loved him and he wanted to do something but he couldn’t because he was afraid, and he doesn’t want any of his family or friends to know. And it was quite heartbreaking, to be honest, to see that - because it’s just love. Two people love each other and they can’t show it because they’re scared.

“That really affected James,” Rab continues, “because I think he thought that he’d seen it all, with relationships falling out and falling in love. But this was just totally different. I don’t think he ever thought that so much emotion could exist between two men. He left the party at six o’clock in the morning, went to a friend’s house, got out an acoustic guitar and wrote that song. That was probably about the middle of 2009 - that was one of the first songs we had for the record. The ones that he wrote in Germany, we stayed up all night drinking and he started writing songs at four o’clock in the morning. He’s most creative during that time for some reason.”

What: Euphoric /// Heartbreak \\\ is out now through Sony With: Kanye West, Pulp, Coldplay, Jane’s Addiction, The Hives, Modest Mouse, The Mars Volta, James Blake and loads more Where: Splendour In The Grass at Woodfordia, Queensland When: July 29 – 31 / tickets are still available

Birds Of Tokyo Still Unflappable By Brent Balinski When I speak to Weston, they’ve just arrived back in Sydney from Canberra, and are about to head off to Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Bunbury, Broome and Darwin, before landing on Cockatoo Island at the end of the month for the Mastercard Priceless Music Series. “I mean, it’s a crazy kind of one-off thing for us,” he says of the upcoming island gig. “I guess when the opportunity came up we jumped at the chance.” For a band who’ve played more Australian venues than most people even know exist, it makes sense that they’d want to try something new. “We’re always looking at new ways to present a show, now that we’ve touched on a lot of the same venues over the years. It’s going to be quite a surprise for the band and punters too. We’ve seen the effort that’s gone into the production.”

“I

guess our first couple of records were done really quickly. We were still on the road,” reflects Adam Weston, the skinsman for Perth’s Birds of Tokyo. “The latest record wasn’t too different, but we decided to put a lot more time into it.” Birds of Tokyo have been on the up-and-up since they started making music back in 2003, but it wasn’t until last year’s third, self-titled album dropped that they really seemed to arrive; Birds of Tokyo went platinum, with three hit singles that won spots in triple j’s Hottest 100.

It wasn’t just time that was responsible – travelling played a role, too. “We started tracking at the start of last year in Sydney and

then took off to Sweden for about six or seven weeks, to do the majority of the recording there, which was quite the chilly experience,” he says. “The record seems to have traction with a lot of people, which has been a really great reward.” Yep, The Birds are in the big time now. They even have their own fan tributes on YouTube - some in karaoke, others as re-edited animation, most of them terrible.

Not every band achieves a platinum record, but even fewer inspire a kid with a computer to re-work scenes from How To Train Your Dragon and set it to their song.

Birds of Tokyo are currently doing what they do best – writing music and touring hard.

Birds of Tokyo are happiest when they’re keeping things fresh, whether by trying out a new stage or re-working old material with a string quartet, as they did for their ‘Broken Strings’ project a couple of years ago. I ask if we’re likely to see a Broken Strings-esque re-working of the latest release, and Weston doesn’t dismiss the idea. “A lot of these songs start out with a bit of tinkering on the keys or the acoustic or whatnot, so there is always the option there, to maybe go down that path,” he says. “Broken Strings was just a bit of a challenge for us – not just the clichéd ‘strip the songs back and do it acoustically’, but to actually re-work a lot of the chord structures and present the songs in a different light.

Hopefully if we get enough time up our sleeves we can do that for this record, or maybe even the next one. “[The good] thing about this band is [that while] they tend to not necessarily write quickly, we always just enjoy hanging out, drinking piss together and working on stuff all the time.”

Love their music or loathe it, you have to admire how productive BoT are. Singles are still being released off their most recent record, which isn’t even a year old - and they’re already working on new tunes. “We holed up in a studio in January to work on some new stuff -

“I’d better not say ‘electronic’, but there seems to be more bleeps and bloops and textural sounds popping up in our music these days.” and even just a couple of weeks ago we spent some time in Melbourne developing things further.” Weston tells me that the new material has taken on an electronic turn, although it’s a term that the band use with reservations. “It’s still really early days. There’s a lot of just ideas – not really relying on traditional formulas. We tend to do a lot of stuff electronically, through gnarly synth sounds and whatever,” he explains. “I’d better not say ‘electronic’, because then everyone might get the wrong idea. But there seems to be more bleeps and bloops and textural sounds popping up [in our music] these days, which is exciting.”

Asked about what the band hopes to achieve on a grander scale, Weston says it’s about mixing work and play. “It’s not like we’re a political band or anything like that, with some kind of mission statement,” he explains. “We treat our craft very seriously, but it’s all about enjoying it and having fun at the same time.

And if people can notice that and acknowledge that, then I guess it’s a job well done.”

What: Birds of Tokyo is out now on EMI Where: Debit MasterCard Priceless Series at Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour When: Friday May 27 More: Tickets must be purchased with a Debit Mastercard; www.mastercard.com.au/music

“C’mon we’re young, we’re young / Yet we’ll be dead as soon / C’mon we came, we came / From our mother’s womb to swoon” - WILD BEASTS 20 :: BRAG :: 411 :: 09:05:11

Cake No Kidding By Hugh Robertson

I

Cake photo by Robert McKnight

suppose you could be forgiven for thinking Cake specialise in the art of one hit wonders. Their two biggest singles, ‘The Distance’ and ‘Short Skirt/Long Jacket’ were inescapable for months after their release, and still regularly feature in films and video games. Just last weekend, in fact, I heard ‘The Distance’ played over the introduction to an AFL game, its driving guitars and atmosphere of steely determination pitch-perfect to evoke the intensity of a gladiatorial conquest.

So it might surprise you to know that Cake have just released their sixth album. It will probably surprise you to find out that 2011 marks the twentieth anniversary of the band. And it will certainly surprise you to know that this new album, Showroom Of Compassion, entered the Billboard album charts in the #1 position. But don’t feel bad – it surprised singer/songwriter/ frontman John McCrea too. “We were very startled hearing that we were number one,” McCrea tells me from his San Francisco living room. “It’s not really part of our culture to be number one, so it was kind of a relief when we weren’t number one anymore. But it was also a relief to know that after seven years, people hadn’t forgotten about us; that we were able to sell pretty much the same number of records during the first week of this album as we were seven years ago, with Pressure Chief. But those seven years were seven years of precipitous decline for music sales, generally. So it made me feel like we had a relationship with our listeners, and that they trusted us not to sell them an album of shit-plus-one-single.”

overwrought, and overweight,” McCrea explains.

“We wanted to sound small, not big. But it took forever to explain that to people. People thought, ‘Oh, they’re small and they have a trumpet. It must be a joke.’ And you shouldn’t really have to explain your music, so I didn’t. I held back from explaining for years .

“I don’t know what it is exactly, but certainly we get pigeon-holed as something that’s trying to be humorous, or trying to be ironic all the time.

And it’s not that there’s no irony in our music, it’s just that some of the songs are ironic, but some of them have no irony at all. And it’s funny that I have to mention it at all! But that’s the way it goes,” McCrea sighs. “There are certain places in the world where people got it.

Australia got it, and France was another place where people got it, where people understood that we weren’t sounding small because we were weak; we were sounding small because we hated you. Not anyone in particular,” he clarifies. “Just general hate.”

What: Showroom Of Compassion is out on May 17 on Upbeat Records, through Inertia

“We were very startled hearing that we were number one. It’s not really part of our culture. It made me feel like we had a relationship with our listeners, and that they trusted us not to sell them an album of shitplus-one-single.”

There clearly is a relationship, but it goes much further than the traditional artist/fan connection.

For some time now, McCrea and the band have been posting links on their website to news articles concerning US politics and economics, with a particular focus on the environment.

Putting the money where their mouth is, the band converted their studio so that it runs entirely on solar power. And unlike so many other vaguely political bands, or artists who promote a single cause, McCrea is much more interested in awareness and discussion than bombarding people with his own opinions. But sometimes people just don’t want to talk about it. “I think we try to ask questions more than we answer them,” begins McCrea. “But I think even bringing up these things just freaks people out, and makes them very angry with us. And we’ve had some crazy, crazy hatemail from mostly conservatives - people who are just wildly hostile about the idea of a band talking about anything other than music on their website.

We’ve had people threaten to only steal our new album unless we stop posting these things on our website. And I would be fine about that if the world were in a more stable place,” he continues, “but I think it’s an exceptional time, and people need to be more aware, not less aware. And if I upset people then that’s too bad.”

Their first new album in seven years picks up right where they left off. In interviews leading up to its release, McCrea spoke about Showroom Of Compassion as being a departure from their earlier releases, but he tells me that he says that about every new album, and so may not be the most reliable source. A key part of this irreducible Cake-ness is McCrea’s voice – halfspoken and understated, but still capable of expressing the essential emotions in any given song. It’s not quite unique, but there are very few voices it can be compared to, in an age where Mariah Carey octave runs are standard operating procedure for so many. There’s “no histrionics”, as McCrea himself puts it. And it turns out that that phrase encapsulates much of what the band itself is about.

“Cake was, in our early years and with our first album, a hostile reactionary gesture to a lot of music that we thought was bombastic, and BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 21

The Bamboos Go Their Own Way By Jack Franklin

T

he Bamboos aren’t as much of a Melbourne institution as complaining about the coffee in other towns - but they’re getting close. A world-renowned funk outfit, the band turns ten this year, and have marked the occasion with a huge national tour that will hit Sydney this weekend.

“Everything has changed so much over the last 10 years, but the original concept for me was very simple and straightforward,” says Lance Ferguson, the Bamboos’ NZ-born founding member and bandleader. “I wanted to put a four-piece instrumental band together to play the music of The Meters mixed with a bit Blue Note stuff, and maybe write some originals in that vein… Really just go and play some gigs.”

‘Just playing some gigs’ led to a decade of shows, four albums and countless singles, spots at Australia’s biggest festivals, tours of Europe, and songs features on TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Underbelly and Packed To The Rafters. Not that you get wind of their success from chatting to Lance; he’s so relaxed about it that he doesn’t even take credit. “We have been lucky to work with a really proactive indie label in England,” he says. “They’ve been just great in putting our music out there around they world without a promo budget behind it - so hats off to them.”

The Bamboos have grown a lot in the last

decade, both in physical numbers (they’re now an eight-piece outfit) and sonically too. “On the first two albums and maybe some of the third, I was really trying to nail that old-school sound,” Lance explains. “Writing songs that, compositionally, were in that range between 1968 and 1973, that golden age of funk and soul. But there just came a time in the last five years when I saw a lot of the other bands in that scene churning out the same kind of stuff, and I thought to myself, ‘I want The Bamboos to be more than that. I want us to have our own scene, away from being pigeonholed into a sub-genre or an underground scene.’”

The scene was dubbed ‘Deep Funk’, the name of a club night in London - and it very quickly became the media’s pigeonhole for The Bamboos. “I never liked that name anyway, I always found it quite limiting,” Lance says.

“So at some point I guess I got jack of just churning out stuff that was blatantly retro, and decided The Bamboos should have a life of its own, and should be making music that’s relevant and current.”

The challenge was to keep the band away from the international movement that threatened to swallow them up. “A whole group of bands came up in the late ‘90s and 2000s like The Dap Kings and The New Masters - and us,” Lance says. And once Mark Ronson got a hold of

Pigeon John

the sound, it blew up exponentially. “The Duffy and Winehouse albums were the two biggest [examples]. They were more straight-up soul than funk, but to me they are both very related; it was that old-school sound that really came through. It really opened up the mainstream’s ears to us, but then the trend sort of fizzed out, as any trend does. So for bands like us who had been doing that for the whole time anyway, it was important not to be sucked into it.”

It’s for that reason that Lance has been so careful to keep The Bamboos away from cheap fame and flash-in-the-pan trends. “I

thought, ‘I don’t want The Bamboos to be part of this, I want us to stand on our own’,” he explains. Since then, he says, the music he writes has been more about developing The Bamboos’ broad signature sound, rather than fitting it into any one genre. “The Bamboos have more to us than that.”

What: The Bamboos’ 10 Year Anniversary With: The Psyde Projects & Paper Plane Project Where: The Manning Bar, Sydney University When: Friday May 20

Tiki Taane Hitting The High Notes By Birdie

Slaying It By RK

It’s no surprise, then, that the youngster found solace in urban music; it was around that time that he started going to a café in L.A, where kids could show off their freestyle skills. “There was a whole crew of people who were super good, but it was a family atmosphere. That was the final diving board for me - that plus never being able to keep a job,” he laughs. “I was always arriving late,

working bad! One day I walked home after getting fired from a job and I realised I got confused real easy - and that I would get into music.”

John came into hip hop around the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, those heady days when every act was different. “You had Jungle Brothers, Slick Rick, RUN DMC, Heavy D to Pete Rock and C.L Smooth… There was such a disparity, and the focus was all about being original.”

To Pigeon John, this is what hip hop should be; a community of different voices. “It’s about finding your own reigns, and aligning yourself with people who have found their own lane that way it doesn’t become about beating them or doing better. It’s about doing what works for you. I have a sound. The leaders of the game are still doing their thing. There’s only one Jay Z, for example. Doing it your own way and striking, that’s what it’s about.”

John admits that at the beginning, it was a bit of a branding thing; a little mix of, ‘Hey, I’m different’. “With my first album, I was finding myself,” he says. “I’ve done my fifth one now.

I did a lot of touring and became a real part of the independent hip hop market. I decided I didn’t care if my record sold five copies – I decided I was going to do it for better or worse … It wasn’t about being a good emcee; I approached it like a kid.

“I’m not so much the producer,” he continues, “but I do know what works sonically and what stuff is important. I didn’t have that down pat [back then]. I don’t know what Daft Punk do to make their music go crack! - but they’re producers and sonically, they do what works.

My producer did the same for me.”

L

eaving one of New Zealand’s most successful bands was a brave move on Tiki Taane’s part, but in spite of the admitted loneliness that tainted the start of his solo career, the ex-Salmonella Dub frontman never looked back. “I joined that band when I was 17 and I left when I was 30,” Taane says. “That’s a major part of your life to walk away from. It was very scary. On top of that, when I left [in 2006] I was broke and mum had to remortgage her house to loan me $20,000, and I had to live in my cousin’s house for a while. I learned, though, that in a situation where you have nothing to lose, the best comes out of you. I felt I had nothing to lose, and that was my driving force,” he says. “Four years later, I am very much established as an artist.”

“Very much established” is something of an understatement. In 2007, while Taane’s debut album Past, Present, Future was going double platinum in New Zealand, the single ‘Always On My Mind’ broke two all-time NZ records: it spent 54 weeks in the singles chart, and was the first ever digital single to achieve platinum sales. With the recent release of his second album In The Word Of Light, Taane says he feels unstoppable. “It’s taken me four years to do this since my last record; it’s taken some time to find that confidence. I’ve had a lot of collaborations on this album with guys like Concord Dawn and Sambora, DUBXL… A lot has changed for me as an artist. I’ve stepped things up in production and I’m singing a lot more on this album. I’m actually hitting some really high notes that I’ve never been able to hit before! It’s significant for me, because I’ve only ever been an emcee before. It’s taken a lot of confidence-building to get to this point, to be comfortable with being an actual vocalist.”

A lot of his new-found confidence has to do with a rather large transformation Taane’s

life recently underwent. With the birth of his baby son, the singer says his entire world has changed – both musically and personally. “A big part of this record is to do with that. There are songs dedicated directly to my son,” he says.

“There is an uncertainty that comes with being a dad, because there’s no real guidebook to it. It’s such a see-what-happens experience, which can be scary when you consider the kind of world we live in.”

It’s a world in which Taane has had all manner of experiences. Shortly after this interview, he was arrested in Tauranga while performing a cover of ‘Fuck Tha Police’ during a routine patrol through the club. He was charged with “disorderly behaviour likely to cause violence”, and posted on his site that “Freedom of speech is a human right. All our love and thorts are with everone who attended the Tauranga gig last night … We sincerely hope you are all okay. (sic)” No stranger to the penal system, Taane learned a lot of life’s lessons the hard way.

After dropping out of school as a teenager, the singer spent most of his time growing up on the streets and getting into trouble with the law. It was only after his father handed him an acoustic guitar that Taane’s life took on a whole different direction. “Sometimes it sounds like a cliché to say that music saved your life, but it kind of did,” he says. “My dad did as well. Family is very important to me, it’s what inspired my last album and it’s what’s inspired this one.”

What: In The Word Of Light is out now on Stop Start Where: Selina’s, Coogee Bay When: Friday May 27

Pigeon John is heading to Australia next week, playing in Sydney on Friday before landing in Melbourne and Brisbane. “I’ll be touring Australia with [DJ] Davey Rockit from Tennessee, and we’re going to approach the stage pretty humbly. We’re going to bring the Dragon Slayer songs in a traditional but interesting way,” he says, referring to his most recent LP. “I did a tour with the band in France last month, and it’s going to be exciting and emotional, in a good way. A real party vibe. [The show] is a bit of a dark comedy, with brokenness and joy. We’re going to let our blood stain the stage and let the piranhas smell it out!”

What: Dragon Slayer is out now through Other Tongues With: Tuka, Yeo and Dust Tones DJs Where: Tone, Surry Hills When: Friday May 20

“C’mon we’re young, we’re young / Yet we’ll be dead as soon / C’mon we came, we came / From our mother’s womb to swoon” - WILD BEASTS 22 :: BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11

Tiki Taane photo by Jos Wheeler

W

hen Pigeon John was a kid, he was a huge fan of radio. “I was just listening to hip hop, Madonna, Egyptian Lover – that sort of thing,” the Los Angeles native explains. He’s in the middle of a US tour, taking my call from his dressing room before he hits the stage. “I just loved music. And then when De La Soul came out, they were the first real band I reconciled with.”

Blue King Brown Across The Four Corners By Birdie

I

n the lead up to Blue King Brown’s muchanticipated homecoming this month, singer Natalie Pa’apa’a is still glowing from the group’s recent Jamaican adventures. With a brand new globally-focused album in tow and a multicultural approach to their music, the Melbournebased collective is increasingly resembling an international act.

“My favourite part about Jamaica was working with legendary icons like Sly and Robbie,” enthuses Pa’apa’a. “We were definitely star-struck about those guys! It’s just really cool to even be able to say that we had them contribute to our music.”

The new album is called Worldwize (Part 1 North And South), and Pa’apa’a’s favourite song off it is ‘Mo Truth’ - a track which features the midas touch of the legendary Jamaican production pair. “The song definitely has a flavour that Blue King Brown wouldn’t have come up with by ourselves. That’s what collaboration is all about though, adding extra flavours that you wouldn’t normally come up with as a band,” she says. “It’s kind of funny because you’re freaking out on the inside, but you’re trying to act cool in front of such big names at the same time.”

Pa’apa’a means it when she calls Worldwize a “truly global album”; it features an array of big international names and big international beats, with powerful lyrical messages carried by each song. In short, as Pa’apa’a agrees, Blue King Brown have outdone themselves. “We were also lucky enough to get Queen Ifrica and Jah Mason on the record,” she adds. “We were blown away by how enthusiastic everybody was to collaborate with us. With this album, we feel like we really cracked the code musically. We ended up using a much broader range of sounds than we planned,

“To hear Carlos Santana tell us he is a fan was one of those moments you never forget. He’s such a beautiful human being.”

and certainly elements that we’d never used before on our first album, which was quite live and rootsy. This album has basically been about us finding out how to make the music that we’d like to listen to.”

The album isn’t a standalone piece, either. “This is just the first installment of something that we see as a bit of a project. This album is really part one, covering North and South; the next album is going to cover East and West. The aim is to present lyrics and music that match our philosophy, about being part of a global community. There is a connection on Earth, between all four corners of the globe - we’re living in interesting times now and we share history,” she explains. “We are using all four directions of the world to acknowledge people from those corners, regardless of their colour, creed or religion.”

It’s a philosophy that fans of Blue King Brown have celebrated ever since the band’s debut record, 2006’s Stand Up. Having conquered the festival circuit in Canada earlier this year, Pa’apa’a says that building an international foundation is currently the band’s main priority. “We’re always going to have that Australian element though, no matter where we are,” assures the singer. “This is where we’ve grown up, this is where we live, it’s our immediate community that surrounds us - so as much as we’re a multicultural band, we’re still very much Australian. We just like to mash up other world elements into that. It’s hard to put your finger on that unique Australian-ness but it’s definitely there, no matter what flavours we try out musically.

“Australia is a special country in general, because there it’s possible to be independent and be successful too,” she continues. “The industry is well-connected like that, it’s made up of a lot of good friends. I think John Butler Trio really led the way in showing people how much you can achieve totally on your own; they’re extremely independent. It comes down to the right work ethic, vision and focus, which is something that Australians are well-known for all over the world.”

And Blue King Brown themselves are fast gaining recognition among world music legends; Carlos Santana for instance, who they had the pleasure of supporting a few years ago. Along the way, the

collective has also scored fans like Lauryn Hill and Michael Franti, thanks to their awe-inspiring live shows and positive message. But they’re not about to let success get to their heads. “We feel very blessed that people in general have been receptive to us as much as they have,” Pa’apa’a says. “We’ve met so many amazing people along the way and made so many friendship to last a lifetime, both in Australia and overseas. But to hear Carlos Santana tell us he is a fan was one of those moments you never forget. He’s such a beautiful human being, he’s just gold. We really appreciated how much he immersed himself in

our music and how interested he was in what we do and what we’re all about. He literally took the time to find out about our band when we supported him – and he pulled me up on stage. It was a dream come true to share a stage with an artist of that calibre.”

What: Worldwize Part 1 North & South is out now With: Diafrix Where: The Metro Theatre When: Saturday June 4

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BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 23

arts frontline

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

brushstrokes WITH FRANKIE

RATFORD (THE DESIGN KIDS)

T

One of the new additions to the FK lineup is The Design Kids – a rad collective of emerging designers who make limited edition wares, from tees and totes to wooden flashdrives, posters and prints, and even some moustache stickytape… We caught up with founder and coordinator Frankie Ratford, to find out more!

What is The Design Kids?

The website is an online community made up of talented individuals designing and selling bespoke homewares, fashion and gifts. They make and produce their own range and encourage others to do the same by promoting and selling their goods on the site. Our collective currently has around 10-15 designers, including Jakob Nylund, Carla McKee, Koen Arbouw, Mikel Long, Lance Corlett, Nicole Liedberg, Dan Beard, Gui Andrade, Louise Odelberg, Nicole Labuschagne, Brett Coelho, and myself. But there is no limit to how many people can get involved!

What are you selling at the Finders Keepers markets?

Tees, posters, giant calendars, artwork, our brand-new jewellery range, homewares, tote bags… We try to make everything unisex. And awesome!

How did you come up with the idea?

The Design Kids idea came about when I was working at Frost as a designer. So many graphic designers have side projects away from budgets and clients, but they have no time or platform to get these out into the world. What a waste! So I thought it would be a super idea to start a label so that designers could submit their ideas and/or products and we could sell them on their behalf. The Design Kids started in Summer 2010.

What is your own background/training in design?

I have a First Class Honours degree in Communication Design from Swinburne in Melbourne, as well as a Diploma in Graphics & Web design. I’ve worked as a print designer,

What’s the advantage of Finders Keepers for you? Why not just sell online?

It’s a great environment - you get to meet your customers face-to-face and everyone is super positive and encouraging! I love talking to all the other designers/stallholders and seeing all the amazing talent Australia has to offer.

What else is TDK up to in 2011?

We are currently in the process of going international, with a few scouts sussing out Europe & South America.

What: The Design Kids - at the Autumn Winter Finders Keepers Markets When: Friday May 20 from 6-10pm’ Sat May 21 deom 10am-5pm Where: CarriageWorks, Eveleigh More: thefinderskeepers.com / thedesignkids.com.au

SEVENTEEN SYLLABLES

Weekly arts affair The Wall is hosting an exhibition supporting the Red Cross Japan Appeal, and curated by graphic designer Sarah Gleeson. Entitled Seventeen Syllables, the concept is neatly themed: Gleeson asked selected artists to write haikus, and then create artworks that reflected their written pieces. The artworks will be auctioned off, with all proceeds going to Japan’s Red Cross. Additionally, a charismatic little booklet, containing haikus by the artists (and some more besides), will be on sale for just $5 on the night. Art, beer, charity / throw in some poetry too / very hard to resist. Seventeen Syllables takes place Wednesday May 25 at the World Bar, Kings Cross. artonthewall.tumblr.com

WHAT IF… ART&ABOUT

PYJAMAS BY DUCKPOND

Straight from the Big Day Out’s Lilypad to your pants region, lighting designer, selfanointed ‘ambience director’ and ‘half-baked Melbourne fashionista’ Duckpond is hitting MART Gallery this week with an exhibition of wearable, pyjama-type works, entitled The Twelve-Volt Solar System. On the topic of his pyjama-art, Duckpond writes: “the bunnies and other characters in my work are sub and semi-conscious reflections of ourselves as we go about our lives in the twenty first century. rolling eyes and maloc’cluded dentistry portray the need for asymmetry in our lives and balloons our escape from vertical challenges. boomerangs flying thru the air are symbols of good luck, that we will come back to. analogue and retro are hip again. the future is low voltage. take the bunnies and run.” The Twelve-Volt Solar System runs Friday May 20 – June 2. martgallery.com.au

PAPER CONVENTION

Paper has a new hero: The Paper Convention Collective – a group of Sydneybased artists “dedicated to the documentation of paper expressionism,” in all its forms. From May 31 – June 5, they’re staging a sort of papery revolution in Sydney: the A4 Paper Festival. Designed to ‘highlight the diverse creative applications of paper,’ the festival will showcase twelve Australian and international paper artists, including Yoshinobu Miyamoto (JAP), Hattie Newman (UK), Benja Harney (AUS), Jesse Brown (US), Emma van Leest (AUS), Anna Gleeson (HK) Trial+Error (AUS), Matthew Roland Bannister (AUS), and Bianca Chang (AUS). For more info, hit up paperconvention.com - or head to their stall at the Finders Keepers markets this Friday evening and Saturday (May 20-21), at CarriageWorks.

24 :: BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11

SEYMOUR’S NEW THEATRE

Seymour Centre have launched a brand new theatre space for emerging, experimental and independent theatre, and it’s called The Reginald. Why? Because that’s the other middle name of Everest York Seymour, who founded the centre, and after whom its other three theatres are already named… Coming close on the heels of TRS’ unveiling their new venue in the Bondi Pavilion, in seems like Christmas for Sydney’s indie theatremakers (like, B Sharp WHO?). The program, which is funded by Arts NSW, will kick off in July, with recent Queen Street Studio residents Drop Bear Theatre, doing Caleb Lewis’ intriguinglytitled Aleksander and the Robot Maid. Other highlights include Melbourne’s Dislocate troupe, and Jonathan Wald's production of God's Ear, by young American playwright Jenny Schwartz. www.thereginald.com

The City of Sydney’s month-long public art festival Art & About Sydney is celebrating its 10th birthday this year, and the candles and the cake are set to take a creative and interesting form: Sydneysiders are being invited to express the fruits of their imagination – “their hopes and dreams, burning questions and deep concerns”, by finishing a sentence that starts with 'What if...' The 100 most thought-provoking and creative responses will be displayed on massive banners lining the streets of Sydney, during Art&About in September/October this year. To submit your heartbreaking work of staggering genius, head to cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/artandabout

BOOHOO: SHORT FILMS

BooHoo films continue to promote emerging filmmakers with their series of monthly short film 'heats' - the first of which happens

BODYTORQUE.MUSES Every year, consistently, the Australian Ballet manages to seduce fresh audience blood with its Bodytorque showcases, which are part of their commitment to developing and showcasing young choreographers. The upcoming instalment, Bodytorque.Muses, explores the relationship between artists and their muses (whether human, literary, film, or other) – a concept as old as art itself, and a recurrent one throughout the history of the ballet. This instalment of Bodytorque will include new works by Principal artists Daniel Gaudiello and Kevin Jackson, and Corps de Ballet member Alice Topp.

Bodytorque.Muses runs May 26-29. Thanks to the Australian Ballet, we have two double passes up for grabs for the final performance, Sunday 29 May at 3pm. To get your hands on one, tell us the name of the two other choreographers on the Bodytorque.Muses bill. australianballet.com.au/bodytorque

this Wednesday May 25, at BooHoo’s new partnership venue: Queen Street Studio in Chippendale. Entries for the following heat (screened on June 29) close on June 8, so you've still got time to submit your film – as long as it's under 15 minutes, and not older than 2009. The Grand Final takes place in August, where the overall winner will be announced (and awarded some cool swag).

To enter a film or for more details about the monthyl screenings, see boohoofilms.com.au

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL

Sydney Film Festival revealed their 2011 lineup last week, with smatterings of mainstream comedy (Kung Fu Panda 2) and big-budget Hollywood (Opening Night selection Hanna, by Joe Wright, of Atonement fame) rounding out one of Artistic Director Clare Stewart's strongest programs yet, with newies from Terrence Malick, Béla Tarr, Jan Svankmajer, and Werner Herzog; comedies from Michael Winterbottom, Tom McCarthy and Miguel Arteta; retrospectives for acclaimed, politically persecuted Iranian director Jafar Panahi, and the fabulous melodramas of Douglas Sirk; newies from American indie filmmakers Mike Mills (whose Beginners will close the festival), Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories), and Joshua Marston (Maria Full Of Grace); and new documentaries from luminaries Errol Morris and Frederick Wiseman, and more recent provocateurs like Morgan ‘Supersize Me’ Spurlock. This year’s guests include Jack Black and Lucy Liu for Kung Fu Panda 2, Miranda July (Me and You And Everyone We Know) for The Future, and Athina Rachel Tsangari for Attenberg. Bearing all of that in mind, you may want to get a Flexi-Pass of the 30-ticket variety… sff.org.au

ORANGES & LEMONS

This week Sydney-based graf and stencil artist BENNETT opens his solo show Oranges & Lemons – a series of mixed-media visual mash-ups that experiments with the recontextualisation of popcultural images. Bennett writes: “I’m trying to break the image into sections and parts to reveal the process of our thought patterns of why we see things the way we do, and to ask the viewer what if? What if something was a different colour, slightly different to the norm, or if the subject was a different person, in a different place with more or less emphasis on the surroundings they are captured in, what would the result be?

Oranges & Lemons opens Thursday May 19 from 6pm at Oh Really, 55 Enmore Rd, Newtown.

Brett Simon of the Australian Ballet – photo by Paul Empson

screenprinter, bookbinder, design lecturer, website designer, and have a love of interiors, photography, silversmithing and typography. I’ve worked for some awesome companies, such as Frost Design, Finders Keepers, Billy Blue, Buro North, Shillington College – and now I run The Design Kids.

he Finders Keepers markets are back this weekend at CarriageWorks, with a lineup of regular and brand-new stallholders exhibiting everything from clothes and homewares to jewellery, trinkets, stationary, fabrics, ceramics, and heaps of things you never knew you needed… Finders Keepers is about boutique and emerging designers and craftspeople – none of this mass-manufactured, off-a-factory-line bullshit. There’s also live music, a café and a bar, to sustain your shopping power.

SNOWTOWN The Banality Of Evil

By Dee Jefferson Lucas Pittaway stars as 16-year-old Jamie Vlassakis in Snowtown

T

he moment the South Australian Film Corporation on announced that it was funding nding a film based on the infamous ‘bodies-in-the barrels’ murders,, the media started channelling the anger of families and friends of the victims.

The story became one of whether ther or not the filmmakers were exploiting iting the grief and suffering of the relatives elatives by sensationalising the crimes..

This kind of reaction was only to be expected – the exploitation debate bate around ‘true crime’ films is not a new one. Producers Anna McLeish and Sarah Shaw probably had this in the back of their minds when they went looking for a director to attach to Shaun Grant’s screenplay. One of the potentials they approached hed was Justin Kurzel, a first-time feature director with a strong slate of music videos and commercials underr his belt, and a short film previously y at Cannes. He grew up in Gawler, wler, South Australia, not far from where the killings occurred.

Director Justin Kurzel

“They didn’t actually know I was as from area, when I met them. I think the ar hink were responding mainly to they w o the music clips I had done,” says Kurzel, speaking to me just days before speak re Snowtown's international premiere Snow miere at Cannes. “I had a particular cinematic Canne ematic style tthat they were interested in.”

Kurzel’s award-winning short Blue Kurze Tongue and film clips like ‘Keep Tongu p Walking’ and ‘Pulse’ (for his brother Walkin other Jed’s band The Mess Hall) share are the washed-out, grainy aesthetic of '70s washe films, and a fascination with youth outh (and in i particular young male faces) that is reminiscent of Gus Van Sant’s work. It’s a cinematic style early w le easily to Grant’s that transposes tr t’s story, which pitches its tent amongst mongst 16-year-old Jamie Vlassakis and 16-yea nd his extended family of brothers, in the extend downbeat, low-income, northern downb rn suburbs of Adelaide. suburb “I went wen away and read the script, pt, and did d a vision statement of how wanted to do [the film], which I want h included working with first-timers, includ ers, filming in the area, and an approach proach was more observational. I also that w wanted to focus 100 percent on wante n Jamie’s point of view.” Two weeks Jamie eks later, Kurzel had the job. “I was sa that [my vision] was so little shocked s embraced,” he admits. fully e Putting Jamie at the centre of the allowed Kurzel to explore story a e the larger social significance of the e

crimes. Far from being a horrorr or crimes thriller film, Snowtown recreates es petri dish of socio-economic the pe ic disadvantage and neglect that disadv fomented into a situation where fomen e John Bunting and his mates were able to kill twelve Adelaide residents idents before the police caught on. Most importantly, it tries to understand impor nd Bunting could exert such a how B powerful influence over a 16-yearpower earboy that he would become old bo accomplice, against his better an acc tter instincts. Is a killer born, or made? instinc ade?

Kurzel has an unusual pedigree, Kurze ee, having come to film through theatre, eatre, and to directing through design n which accounts for his detailed – whic ed excursions into lighting design and excurs the qu quality of light in Caravaggio's gio's paintings. Graduating from NIDA’s paintin DA’s Design Course in 1995, he spent Desig ent the following years working in theatre, follow atre, including several critically acclaimed includ aimed collaborations with director Benedict collab nedict Andrews (Measure For Measure) Andre ure) most notably Life Is A Dream, – mos m, for Sydney Theatre Company.

Sydne

Kurzel's touchstone at all times Kurze s was authenticity – from close consultation authe ultation the community to meticulous with th ous research into the area. “I was so resea immersed in this particular area; immer ea; I really thought the story was about bout this pa particular community, so we just spent a lot of time photographing ing it and looking at the light, the psychology of the actual houses, psych es, how people lived within these and h ese houses.” house

nished NIDA really young, and “I finis started designing straight away. starte y. I developed a really close relationship develo onship Beno, and the two of us worked with B together quite solidly for two orr togeth three years … I was fortunate to learn a lot from him, and it was sa really inspiring time.” Around the he same time, Kurzel started directing cting clips for bands, and and the film cl he hankering for directing – not theatre, hanke heatre, but film – began to take hold. eventually decided that I needed “I eve eded to percent concentrate on that, 100 pe at, and learn as much as possible, because cause it is a very, very different medium um from ttheatre.”

Although Kurzel is circumspectt about Althou any di direct stylistic influences, he admits that visceral pieces of work tend to attract him, and cites Austrian auteur Michael Haneke (Hidden) auteu en) as one of his favourite directors. “What What I love [about his work] is that it’s t’s not about the monster or revealing g who monster is – it’s really about the m ut how the ch characters interact and respond spond evil, and what they do to each to evil ch other to survive that evil.”

2000, Kurzel’s short film Meeting In 200 eeting Misty Rain won second place at Tropfest; in 2002 he enrolled in Tropfe n Victorian College of the Arts' the Vi ts' postgraduate film course. His postgr graduating film, Blue Tongue (2004), gradu 2004), was a short drama about a teenaged enaged

boy’s first experience of death, set in the industrial wasteland adjoining housing estate. In May 2005 a hous Tongue screened at Cannes’ Blue T prestigious Critics Week – one of prestig only sseven short films from around world to be selected for this the wo showcase of new talent. showc On his return, Kurzel continued to shoot film clips, and began directing commercials. “I guess it was an comm unofficial film school – I learnt an unoffic enormous amount, and worked with enorm some of the best cinematographers (including Adam Arkapaw, who shot (includ Snowtown and Animal Kingdom) Snowt always had my eye out for a film. and a don’t think I ever imagined I’d do “I don a film about this [topic],” he admits.

“It cam came along at the right time place, and when I was ready and p to do [a feature film], and I found material really engaging, and the m come from an area that was I’d com very cclose to where the events happened. I don’t know – I think happe just one of those things, it’s the it’s jus synchronicity of it all. And there synch an enormous amount of trust, was a think, from the funding bodies – I think to take a punt on this story, and believe that it was the right [film] to believ made about Snowtown.” be ma Snowtown, Dir Justin Kurzel Released May 19 snowtownthemovie.com

THE HANGOVER: PART 2! TICKETS! D

irector Todd Phillips (Due Date) returns with the highlyanticipated sequel to his 2009 smash hit, The Hangover.

In The Hangover: Part 2, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) travel to exotic Thailand for Stu’s wedding. With the memory of Doug’s nearly disastrous bachelor party in Las Vegas still fresh—or at least well-documented—Stu is taking no chances. He has opted for a safe, subdued, pre-wedding trip brunch, with pancakes, coffee…and no alcohol. However, things don’t always go as planned. Two nights before the big day, at a fabulous resort in Thailand, Stu relents. One beer each. In sealed bottles.

What could go wrong? What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in Bangkok can’t even be imagined.

WIN!

The Hangover: Part 2 releases in cinemas on May 26.

Thanks to Warner Brothers Pictures, we have ten in-season double passes up for grabs. To get your hands on one, tell us the name of Todd Phillips’ last film.

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A 12 WEEK COMPETITION SHOWCASING THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST YOUNG TALENT. NEXT TO THE AUDIO-TECHNICA LOUNGE ON LEVEL 1 WESTFIELD SYDNEY

THE MUSIC: No Drums, Marshall Amps or electric anything just your voice, and natural instruments.

Percussion is welcome as long as you use your hands not sticks. A vocal PA will be provided for Voice and acoustic guitar however acoustic amps are acceptable if you must. Double Bass is always encouraged!

HOW LONG WILL IT GO FOR? Heats and semis will run for 11 weeks with a grand final on August 18th THE WINNER: Winner will be announced in Brag magazine PRIZES INCLUDE: 1 pair of Audio-Technica M50 Pro Studio headphones valued at $299 $300 Westfield gift voucher

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$2,500 dollars worth of recording time.

Gig at Surry Hills Cafe Lounge –Sin(on stage and intimate) WHEN: Thursday, 2nd June 2011 Audio Technica Level 1, Westfield Sydney JUDGES FOR THE GRAND FINAL INCLUDE: Wesley von Grabill – National brand manager Audio-Technica David Fesdekijan – National media manager for EMI and Capitol Records James McKenna - Allans Music + Billy Hyde Nick la Rosa – Producer for Neon Hear Dj’s

To enter please go to www.audio-technica.com.au

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When: 5 5-9pm, Thursday the 26th of May, 2011 Where: WestďŹ eld Sydney Urban Precinct On Lev Level One of Pitt Street Mall

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The Kiss [THEATRE] Romantic moments transformed from page to stage. By Simon Binns

Freya Sant and Kate Sherman clown around in Once Under A Sky

Once Under A Sky [THEATRE] Seaside adventures at the Old Fitz By Emma Salkild

“I

maginative, magical and adventurous,” is how writer-director Michael Pigott describes Once Under A Sky, a whimsical and innovative new work about two New Zealand fisherwomen called May and August who, after the sea dries up, embark on a journey to the arid desert. The concept originated with performers (and co-writers) Freya Sant and Kate Sherman, and the next three years saw them juggling a residency at Legs On The Wall, workshopping the piece with Pigott, and various showings around Sydney and Brisbane.

At first I’m surprised that Freya, Kate and Michael want to do the interview together, but straight away their tight-knit family dynamic is apparent. They banter and tease amongst themselves, prompt one another and finish each other’s sentences. If one is struggling to get across what they think, the others helpfully chime in. “I think people are usually forced to produce plays in a short space of time because of funding,” Freya says. “So you end up working with new people and putting shows together really quickly. We were interested in ensemble theatre and that process of working over a long period of time and really getting to know each other.”

Freya and Kate come from very different performance backgrounds: Kate was of the more traditional NIDA pedigree, while Freya’s roots are planted in circus (she has been clowning since the age of eight). The two of them met at physical theatre company Legs On The Wall, and bonded over a common interest in movement, acrobatics and European clowning.

If Freya and Kate are the skeleton of the show, then Pigott seems to be the glue holding it together. When Freya and Kate turned up to an audition at Belvoir Street in 2006 (Pigott’s show The Golden Ass), they were instantly struck by the organic way he worked. Even though they weren’t cast, they invited Pigott to view the initial stages of Once Under A Sky. “I thought they

were so much fun and I’d love to spend time with the characters,” says Pigott, “so we got working.”

The characters May and August are polar opposites (a common dynamic in clowning) – or as Michael describes it, they are like the two parts of our brain. “August is the analytical part and May the imaginative. In the beginning of the play these women live by the sea and are made of the sea; they’re a part of their environment, but they are outsiders in terms of the community. When they go to the desert they become outsiders to the land and their environment. When that happens it can put you in an immense state of crisis and vulnerability.”

When I talk to the three, just a couple of weeks out from Once Under A Sky’s premiere at The Old Fitz, they say they are still in a constant state of flux, reworking and rewriting scenes.

“We’ve got a good sense of honesty about calling things that don’t work. If the idea doesn’t sit with one of us then it’s probably not a good idea. We wait to find something that all of us get excited by.”

The end result is a multi-layered, motifladen show that combines physical theatre, storytelling and absurdist elements, and invites audiences to use their imagination.

“We liked the idea of everything being simple so audiences can create with us,” says Kate. “They are almost like a third character, and that’s why everyone comes out with a different reading of it.” Pigott chimes in: “All you have to do is bring tools to get their imaginations firing and don’t spoonfeed them – then audiences can imagine their own world and get excited about working out what [the show] meant.”

What: Once Under A Sky When: May 17 – June 4 Where: Old Fitzroy Hotel, Woolloomooloo More: rocksurfers.org

Steve Rodgers stars in The Kiss

A

s conventional wisdom has it, “the movie’s never as good as the book” – and how can it be? The movie has to be real, whereas a novel is held back only by the reader’s imagination. This is the dynamic that Susanna Dowling (Yellow Moon – Belvoir 2010) has been attempting to overcome in The Kiss, a portmanteau show based on four short stories of the same title, written by four prodigiously talented authors: Anton Chekhov, Guy de Maupassant, Kate Chopin, and Australian novelist Peter Goldsworthy.

Dowling was inspired a couple of years back

by Elevator Repair Service’s epic five-hour production Gatz, which for her represented a fresh and exciting way of rendering literary texts on stage. “I had worked on a production in the States which was an adaptation of The Great Gatsby and it was…” she trails off, struggling to articulate the problem: “Adapting a play in another language into English is one thing, but taking a piece of prose and losing that subjectivity and introspection and putting it into people’s mouths as dialogue is a different thing,” she finally explains.

Dowling’s adoration for literature is obvious, and it comes as no surprise that this Irishborn director has a degree in English from Dublin’s prestigious Trinity College. It places her in good stead for a project that places the writing at the centre of the production. “What we wanted to try and do is… to create the pictures [in the audience’s minds]. The text is already there, the writing is already there.”

Chekhov, Maupassant, Chopin and Goldsworthy have more in common than a story title: “They were all quite aware of each other,” Dowling tells me. “Chopin started writing because she was inspired by Guy de Maupassant – he’s her idol; and Goldsworthy’s idol is Chekhov – so it’s lovely to bump them up next to each other and see how they take this thing that’s such a part of our lives, and so

iconic, and go deeper with it.”

The symbolic power of the kiss has fascinated us culturally for years, be it in movie classics like Gone With The Wind, or the recent royal wedding, and Dowling finds that cultural power particularly intriguing. “If they were four stories called ‘The Fish,’ I don’t think it would be the same,” she laughs. For Dowling, the idea of ‘the kiss’ is made for the theatre. “A kiss is a moment that changes everything,” she elaborates. “[In each of these stories] a kiss happens and there are consequences – and that’s something you can get your teeth into theatrically… it’s a transformation.”

The four stories range dramatically in length and in content: Maupassant’s succinct “how to kiss manual” explores how to use the kiss as a tool to maintain power in a relationship; Chopin uses the same idea, but puts it into practice; Chekhov’s epic journey (“It’s so big, it’s enormous,” smiles Dowling) takes us into a more imaginative mindset; and Goldsworthy explores the risqué world of 20th-century teen dating.

Bringing the words to life are Catherine Davies, Rita Kalnejais, Yalin Ozucelik, and Belvoir local Steve Rodgers, all of whom Dowling sought out not only for their suitability to the stories, but also for their collaborative skills. “With 26 characters across the four stories… the challenge is just to make it work,” she says, before affirming that they’ve risen to the challenge. “They’re amazing, they’re the heartbeat of it. They’ve really embodied [the writing].”

What: The Kiss, Dir. Susanna Dowling When: Until June 5.

Where: Belvoir Street Theatre - Downstairs More: Belvoir.com.au

Dungog Film Festival [FILM] Re-imagining the Australian film festival By Dee Jefferson

E

stablished by filmmakers and long-time collaborators Allanah Zitserman and Stavros Kazantzidis, and debuting in 2007, Dungog Film Festival has already built a strong support and attendance among established directors such as Jane Campion and Bruce Beresford, and the emerging filmmakers it champions. One of its key early successes was The Jammed, which was set to go straight to DVD – until a screening at Dungog set off a chain reaction of audience enthusiasm that led to a cinema release and the IF Awards for Best Film and Best Screenplay. Dungog screenings have had similarly positive effects for films like Unfinished Sky and indie-horror flick Road Train.

And it doesn’t stop there: in 2008, off the back of Dungog’s success, Zitserman and Kazantzidis founded indie distribution company Australian Film Syndicate (whose innovative approach to The Combination proved so effective), and the In The Raw scriptdevelopment initiative, in which filmmakers can attach their scripts to professional actors for live readings, with audience feedback. One of In The Raw’s earliest participants, Sleeping Beauty, screens as part of Cannes’ Official Competition line-up this month.

For all this, Dungog is very much a passion project, born out of Zitserman’s own experience

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of the film industry. “From my perspective [as a filmmaker] I wanted a festival that focuses on Australian content; I wanted a festival where I can hang out and actually be inspired, and talk to my colleagues – but also the audience I’m making the films for!”

Zitserman graduated from UTS in 1998 with a Communications/Business degree, and a passion for filmmaking. By the time she was 21 she had co-founded a production company, Screen Artists; by the time she was 22, she had co-written and co-produced her first feature, Russian Doll, which won the AFI for Best Original Screenplay in 2000. Co-written, produced and directed by Kazantzidis, it was a black comic farce, set in Sydney’s RussianJewish community, in which Zitserman grew up.

While Russian Doll was well received by critics and local audiences, Zitserman’s follow-up, Horseplay – a black comedy set in Melbourne’s fervid racing culture – was less successful. “I was really fortunate to begin [my career] very young, and get a very good understanding of how the industry runs. [But] I did feel disconnected from my colleagues, from the industry, and also I felt a disconnection to my audience.”

In the aftermath of Horseplay Zitserman spent 12 months overseas, working on a script for Miramax and organising events at the Cannes

and Marrakech film festivals. She returned to Australia in late 2005, determined to create her own festival, modelled on out-of-town festivals like Cannes, Telluride and Sundance. “[In Cannes] all the action was happening on this one street – and it was so intense!” she recalls. “The people who were there had submitted to being there [for the duration] – they weren’t rushing off to another meeting, or to pick up their kids; suddenly you had all these different people with the same kind of passion and interests together, committed and connecting.”

With this in mind, she and Kazantzidis decided that finding somewhere remote – but accessible – was a key ingredient for the experience they wanted to create. Dungog, which claims to have Australia’s oldest continuously running cinema, and which is positioned on Countrylink’s XPT line, became their home. “It’s this beautiful country town, in the middle of nowhere – it’s very cinematic.”

Allanah Zitserman its own journey and deserves recognition and to be celebrated – and that’s what Dungog is about.”

What: Dungog Film Festival 2011 When: May 26 – 29

The other key ingredient for DFF is the priority on a nurturing rather than critical or competitive environment. “I take my hat off to anyone who makes a film in this country, because you’ve got every obstacle possible in front of you – so if you can make the film, you’re already a success. And every film has

Tickets: Train and ticket packages available at countrylink.info More: Full program of features, retrospective screenings, short films, documentaries and masterclasses at dff.org.au

CANNES 2011 CRITICS’ WEEK COMPETITION

★★★★★

WINNER

AUDIENCE AWARD 2011 ADELAIDE FILM FESTIVAL

SNOWTOWN BEN McE ACHEN, EMPIRE

AUSTRALIA’S MOST INFAMOUS CRIME STORY

“M A S T ERPIECE”

JIM S CHEMBRI, T HE AGE

SNOW TOWNTHEMOVIE .COM

Strong themes and violence, sexual violence and coarse language

Strong sexual references, nudity, coarse language and drug use

IN CINEMAS MAY 19

DE NDY NEW TOWN PAL ACE VERONA EVE NT GEORGE STRE ET

IN CINEMAS MAY 26

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Arts Snap

Film & Theatre Reviews

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

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

■ Dance

CHUNKY MOVE’S CONNECTED May 10 – 14 / Sydney Theatre Melbourne-based contemporary dance company Chunky Move is known for its unlikely collaborations. In Mortal Engine and Glow, it was with high-tech digital graphics. In Connected, the dancers interact with a huge, kinetic waveform sculpture made from wire and string, by Californian sculptor Reuben Margolin.

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head on portrait prize

The sculpture, which takes up a good chunk of the stage space, remains the centre of the show. Intricately linked string, paper and wood construct a strange and elegant creature, it quickly establishes a presence on stage that (happily) skirts gimmicky.

05:05:11 :: Australian Centre for Photography :: 257 Oxford St Paddington

The sculpture is partly assembled on stage by the dancers, highlighting the lo-fi mechanical technology – there are no video graphics here. Meanwhile, Stephanie Lake and Harriet Ritchie perform a duet, one of the show’s standout moments: undulating like well-trained eels, the pair are wonky, sexy and wonderful.

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rosemount australian fashion week

Then, some of the dancers are knotted into the sculpture with fine strings, and their limbs’ slow movements twitch it into a weightless waveform. The duet between Alasdair Macindoe, tied to the sculpture and Marnie Palomares, who moves in and out of its shadow, is a highlight. His movements as they embrace are enacted on the strings of the sculpture, like the ghost of tenderness.

05:05:11 :: RAFW 2011 :: The Overseas Passenger Terminal Circular Quay

In the second half of the piece, the dancers transform into art gallery security guards, musing via voiceover, sometimes very amusingly, about the nature of the art they are employed to protect. Circling the sculpture, they remember how other visitors have engaged with the art, eventually taking off their heavy security boots and ties and dancing in and around the sculpture, with precise, incisive movements that have the quality of rituals.

Connected is likely to be departing choreographer Gideon Obarzanek’s final work for the company he started 15 years ago and I, for one, am glad he’s going out with the proverbial bang.

Lucy Fokkema ■ Film

YOUR HIGHNESS

ampersand #3 launch

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Released May 12

05:05:11 :: Serial Space :: 33 Wellington St Chippendale

Arts Exposed What's on our calendar...

LO-FI Collective, Shanghai Charlie’s and ma. gallery present

GIVE HEART: TATTOO ART FOR EARTHQUAKE RELIEF

In David Gordon Green’s (Pineapple Express) latest film, an evil warlock has kidnapped a fair virgin, so her fiancé the prince (James Franco) and his feckless brother (Danny McBride) must rescue her in the traditional way. If you’re surprised when a mysterious stranger who turns out to be Natalie Portman joins them on their quest, then you mustn’t have looked at the poster very carefully.

Your Highness is not a movie many people are going to enjoy. If you like Franco and Portman, think that McBride must be all right because he was in Tropic Thunder, and figure putting them all together will surely result in something decent, Your Highness is not for you. Like most of

LO-FI Collective / Lvl 3, 383 Bourke St, Taylor Sq It’s hard to justify not supporting any fundraising efforts for our neighbours in Japan and NZ, affected by the recent earthquakes. It’s even harder when all you’re being asked to do is buy art… The ladies from ma. gallery have hustled their friends and colleagues to put together this rad exhibition of tattoo art, with all the works available for sale, and all the proceeds going to Japan and New Zealand’s Red Cross relief funds.

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If you like fantasy movies and think the idea of one that doesn’t take itself too seriously is great, then Your Highness is not for you either. They’ve only bothered to litter a handful of jokes that are actually funny through this movie, like cherries in a tinned fruit salad. There just aren’t enough to be worth your while. You should watch The Princess Bride or Stardust instead.

If you hate fantasy movies, think all Hobbits are motherfuckers and want to see a movie take the piss out of them with a barbed wire catheter, Your Highness still isn’t for you. It’s too lazy to do anything with the lamest clichés of the genre but repeat them and have someone say ‘fuck’ at the end of the scene. You should watch Jabberwocky instead. On the other hand, if when I said ‘Hobbits are motherfuckers’ you thought that was hilarious – and, crucially, would still think it was hilarious if I repeated it for the next 102 minutes – then yes, Your Highness is for you. I hope you choke on it.

Jody Macgregor ■ Theatre

EXECUTIVE STRESS/ CORPORATE RETREAT May 4 – 15 / Tiny Stadiums @ PACT Ex-University of Wollongong five-piece Applespiel are a relatively young performance collective, and Executive Stress/Corporate Retreat is a milestone for them, marking their first proper theatre piece. Exploring the competitive mindset of the workplace, they use the prevailing culture of corporate self-help seminars as grist for their mill, re-creating an hourlong ‘corporate retreat’ that begins in the foyer, where 10 audience members are invited to sign up to the 'Elite Program' (which involves a questionnaire, and a participating role in the seminar), and all ticket-holders are press-ganged into a series of ‘getting-to-know-you’ exercises that immediately put your straight back in the mindset of any seminar, team-building or camp situation you’ve ever been in. Ugh. The next 50 minutes is a series of questions and exercises that function as profiling devices, while giving both audience and Elite Program participants tips about job interview technique, dress code (tying a double-Windsor knot) and building a ‘winning mentality’. It’s good theatre – well blocked-out in terms of movement, nicely structured and paced, and with a simple but effective ‘narrative’ trajectory towards announcing the ‘winner’ – via a sporadically-adjusted digital leaderboard that hangs above the stage, with the photos and names of all Elite Program participants. Besides being entertaining, the show also invites you to examine your own values and behaviour in the workplace.

Just like the real thing (i suspect), Executive Stress/Corporate Retreat is a mix of the banal (e.g. Don’t tell your job interviewer your weaknesses), the hilarious (an exercise wherein participants are encouraged to imagine their ‘bestself animal’ eating and then shitting out their ‘worst-self animal’), and the vaguely sinister (a mnemonic for tying your Windsor that involves rape and infanticide).

Thursday May 19 from 6pm

The artists/tattooists/parlours involved include: the Shanghai Charlie’s Tattoo Parlour crew, Jason Bell & The Ocean Ink crew, Josh Roelink & the Tatudharma crew, Bei Badgirl, Zan Von Zed, Terry James & Mimsy Gleeson… So come along for some free ASAHI, bring your wallet, we’ll see you there! wearelofi.com.au/collective

the cast they spend the entire movie wetly enunciating in the terrible accents non-Brits usually adopt in low-budget fantasy movies and video games – posh English as understood by someone from Milwaukee with a tin ear. It’s not an accent that works for being witty or spontaneous, and large chunks of the dialogue are clearly, painfully, being improvised by actors rendered stiff by the style of speech.

You should watch that episode of 30 Rock Franco was in or YouTube Portman rapping on Saturday Night Live, or just watch Tropic Thunder again instead.

As with Snail Piece (Underbelly Arts Festival 2010), Applespiel haved matched a playful concept with rigorous thought, meticulous preparation, and professional execution. More please!

Your Highness

Dee Jefferson

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

Street Level

DVD Reviews

Getting your head around Sydney Film Festival's Official Competition line-up...

SHOTGUN STORIES

BENEATH CLOUDS

Madman Entertainment Jeff Nicholsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; second feature, Take Shelter, screens in Sydney Film Festivalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Official Competition this year. Just 32 years old, the Arkansas native was 27 when he made Shotgun Stories, which played at Sydney Film Festival 2008 after picking up buzz at Berlin and Sundance.

Shotgun Stories is a tale of two feuding clans of half-brothers that works like a slow-burning fuse of escalating violence, fuelled by revenge; however it's as much a love note to southeast Arkansas as a thriller â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from widescreen vistas of flat plains, cotton fields and fishing estuaries, to the downbeat suburban fringes. Nichols pitches his tent amongst the low-income fisheries workers, checkout chicks and Bible-belt farmers of a small town â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the same territory that David Gordon Green (who produced Shotgun) explored in his early work. These are people who seem to require very little from life, and make do with the bare minimum.

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interesting about Shotgun Stories is that it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go where youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d expect it to, given its premise â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which is to either take a stylised, genre track or a really pared back, raw and gritty take on working-class violence in Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s South.

Instead, Nichols veers between the lyrical (in terms of visuals, narrative pacing and soundtrack) and the muscular. This is not a film driven by blood, and Nichols is far more interested in watching how the brothers react to each other and the situation, than indulging in atmosphere or ratcheting up the tension.

Dendy Home Ent. Ivan Senâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s third narrative feature, Toomelah, plays in competition at Cannes this month, before swinging our way to play in Sydney Film Festivalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Official Competition. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a long time between cinema releases for Sen; his second feature, an experimental sci-fi film called Dreamland, wrapped in 2009 and still hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t found a release. In between times he has continued to work in television, documentary and short-form drama, but the strength of his first feature, Beneath Clouds, makes the decade between it and Toomelah perplexing.

Released in 2001, Beneath Clouds came well before the recent renaissance that includes Samson & Delilah, Mad Bastards, Here I Am. Sen was 29 when he made it, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a semiautobiographical film about teenagers growing up in the complicated mixed-race culture and community of rural NSW. A road movie with more walking than cars, the film puts teens Lena (Dannielle Hall) and Vaughn (Damian Pitt) on the long, hot and dusty road to Sydney â&#x20AC;&#x201C; she to find her Irish father, and he to see his dying mother.

Spectacularly shot (Senâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first trade was photography), with stunning widescreen vistas of country New South Wales, and stills that could easily be exhibited individually, the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main assets are young non-actors Hall and Pitt, from whom Sen elicits emotionally powerful and unselfconscious performances.

While the cast are generally solid, they pale in comparison to Michael Shannonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lead performance as elder brother Son Hayes, who is torn between the responsibilities of being a father and husband, and a primal, protective bond with his younger brothers Boy and Kid. If charisma could be taught, his performance is a lesson.

Even so: having caused unusual excitement within the industry and at the box office, Sen and his two leads fell off the public radar almost immediately. For that reason, Toomelahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cannes selection is doubly sweet, and its Sydney Film Festival screenings will be highly anticipated by those who, on the basis of his debut, will expect Senâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest to be exceptional.

Dee Jefferson

Dee Jefferson

DUNGOG FILM FESTIVAL

With boylesque boy-wonder Mark Winmill

B

lack Cherry is back this weekend, with its trademark mix of burlesque bombshells, bands, and beats, serving up everything from punk to soul, ska, altcountry, blues, swamp, glam & alternative â&#x20AC;&#x201C; including rockabilly and roots from South Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Satellites; a fresh serving of ska from Pete Porker and Los Capitanes; dancefloor mayhem courtesy of the Pat Capocci Combo; and rockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;roll karaoke courtesy of Jungle Rump, with a live backup band featuring members of Torch Le Mondeâ&#x20AC;Ś If you'd rather cut up the dance floor to a beat, then look no further than Toz Riot, DJ Brian (Shake Rattle & Roll) and the Black Cherry DJs: Ruby Riot, Cee Cee and Nathan Dee. On the performance front, Black Cherry are hosting Miss Samantha Diamondâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sydney farewell show, and encore performances from pint-sized powerhouse Lillian Star, and Brisbane's boylesque boywonder Mark Winmill. We took five with Mark, to find out where his unique blend of performance styles comes from.

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your background and training as a performer?

My background is in circus. I started out as a trapeze artist in 2001 in Byron Bay and then worked for Club Med Resorts throughout Asia for a couple of years. I have been a freelance performance artist since. Collaborating with musicians such as Meow Meow, Gotye, Sistanative, Ali McGregor and The Bird. I have performed in Hong Kong, New York, Edinburgh, London, Samoa and throughout Oz! Currently I perform in an all-male circus cabaret called BRIEFS. Describe your particular brand of burlesque: My brand of performance is a fusion of burlesque, circus and bent theatrics...

Boylesque!

Who are your performance inspirations?

My inspirations are drawn from old school circus, comic burlesque legends and my dad, who was a slapstick acrobatic clown in the '60s!

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Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your signature routine? And what are you performing for Black Cherry? â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Captain Kiddâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, my sailor hoop routine, has become a bit of a signature act! I will be doing that act, a comical feather fan strip and an aerial silks act.

And can you describe the experience/ party for a newbie?

Black Cherry is a refreshing night of great live music, great circus and burlesque â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and an awesome dancefloor!

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Brisbaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s burlesque scene like?

Brisbane has a big circus and burlesque scene. Lots of independent performance nights occur, you just have to look for them!

What: Black Cherry When: Saturday May 21, doors open 8pm Where: The Factory Theatre, Enmore More: facebook.com/blackcherryclub / factorytheatre.com.au

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www.dff.org.au BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 31

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK TV ON THE RADIO Nine Types Of Light Interscope

Odds-on favourite for album of the year.

TV On The Radio’s set at Splendour in 2006 was a sight to see. In spite of the mud, the rain and the biting wind that swept through the festival all weekend, the band was able to turn the main stage into a sweating, heaving mass of humanity reminiscent of the best New York club. You couldn’t say we were dancing; churning would be more accurate - compelled to move despite the dark, edgy, glitchy sounds that issued forth from the obscured bodies on stage. There was something elemental about the whole thing, something animalistic, in keeping with the title of their brilliant Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes.

KATY B

THE WOMBATS

On A Mission Sony

This Modern Glitch 14th Floor/Warner

It’s too early for a 2000s revival.

Someone should tell that to Katy B, who was probably getting her first pimple when So Solid Crew and MisTeeq were smashing up the charts with a sound that has been popular in the UK for yonks, but has only recently taken off over here.

Halfway between garage and dubstep and Insert Buzz Genre Here, Katy B’s album is far more interesting on the production side of things than it is vocally. Katy relies on studio trickery to elevate her rather weak tones above the thumping bass and two-step drums that propel this album forward.

The best cut here is a collaboration with electronic act-of-the-moment Magnetic Man, which just so happens to be the alter-ego of Skream, Benga and friends, and fits perfectly with the overall aesthetic. But with no discernible attitude or persona of her own, Katy B (who should be guesting on Ms Dynamite records rather than the other way around) is a great example of how clever marketing and genre-madness can churn out popularity.

In a club, while drunk, this would be fantastic. In the light of day it’s quite the opposite, and the constant rises in BPM seem to affirm this fact while attempting to cover it up. Lead single ‘Katy On A Mission’ burrows as deep as any earworm, but it could honestly be Wynter Gordon singing; you’d be hard pressed to notice the difference.

She’ll be a great foil for Dizzee and Wiley on future crossover singles, but right now, Katy’s just a bit of a cipher.

Jonno Seidler

The Wombats' success has been built on festival-sized singalong choruses, and their recent appearances at Parklife 2010 and Groovin’ The Moo inspired pandemonium, as every fifteen-yearold girl in the universe swarmed to jump around to some immense pop songs. It’s almost too easy to dismiss them as an insubstantial festival band, but their glossy, up-tempo presentation disguises genuine emotional depth and talent.

Murph’s songwriting is really very good - self-deprecating, fatalistic and brutally honest, at times reminiscent of Morrissey at his best. He is a wonderful writer of stories with a predilection for the seedier side of human emotion; ‘Jump Into The Fog’ tells the tale of a sad, lost young man taking a prostitute back to “the kind of place you should bring your own UV ray”, echoing ‘Patricia The Stripper’ from 2007's Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation - which is the best love song about an exotic dancer ever written.

But somehow, The Wombats have got it in their heads that they need to sound like a big, dumb band, and so the heartbroken whimsy of the songwriting is drowned by disingenuous bombast that, at its worst, recalls The Bravery (who?) circa 2006. And what we end up with is half of two very different albums: one that is pointed, personal, small and brilliant, and one that is overdone and bloated, that trades genuine emotion for lazy festival anthems.

The good half is worth four stars, the bad half doesn’t even make it to two. But the important thing is that the quality is definitely there.

I look forward to watching The Wombats mature.

Caitlin Welsh

Four years later and the songs on Nine Types Of Light in fact sound like nine different types of light – bright and clear, upbeat and poppy – and at first listen, they couldn’t be more removed from some of their earlier material. Album opener ‘Second Song’ is a real surprise, the chorus sounding like the best Scissor Sisters song never written, while ‘You’ combines a killer slow groove with the odd lick of shimmery synth. It’s like they decided to forget all that Brooklyn art-rock hipster nonsense, and instead became the best funk band the world has ever seen.

There were grave concerns that TVOTR would never recover from the ‘hiatus’ that they announced following 2008’s Dear Science. But that break seems to have inspired them all over again, revealing itself in the taught energy on display all over this release. Dave Sitek and Tunde Adebimpe are both in fine voice, switching

MY FRIEND THE CHOCOLATE CAKE Fiasco Shock My Friend The Chocolate Cake have been kicking around since David Bridie and Helen Mountfort of Not Drowning, Waving begun it as a side project in 1989. With Fiasco, the group’s seventh studio record, Bridie’s take on acoustic, musically intricate pop sounds as warm and fortifying as ever – while the ingredients have been refined, the cake mix hasn’t changed much.

There are no surprises here. The record functions as a showcase of the MFTCC sound, with Bridie’s thoughtful, literate songwriting wrapped in a slightly folky, almost easy-listening veneer that has characterised the group’s sound from the beginning. This is no bad thing; songs like ‘Everything We Need’ or ‘Measured Best’ provide stirring nourishment, with Bridie’s musings on the nine-to-five treadmill and the absurdity of suburban living (staple themes, best aired in 2007’s Home Improvements) wrapped in comfortingly familiar arrangements.

As in past releases, Mountfort’s elegant instrumentals give the string players the opportunity to show their chops between the clusters of Bridie originals. Even the cover art, an involving collage by Warwick Jolly (who also decorated their debut and numerous other releases), suggests continuity rather than evolution.

Which seems to be what the group’s voracious cult following wants. Still, one gets the impression that Bridie wouldn’t mind putting his ‘Cake days behind him to focus on his musical work in Papua New Guinea and his solo career, rather than serving up more helpings of the same meal.

Fiasco is a generous plateful of quintessential chocolate cake, and really, it’s a pretty good recipe.

Provided you like cake.

Oliver Downes

Crystal Theatre Dot Dash Belles Will Ring immersed themselves in rural New South Wales to record Crystal Theatre, and came out with a dust-bitten release which evokes the isolation and "small town loneliness" of their native Blue Mountains.

It seems like a done thing, to pack up the studio and ship off into the bloody unknown for a while, soaking up the locale along with dangerous quantities of red wine – and if urbane detachment worked for Garreth Liddiard, it can't be a bad thing at all.

32 :: BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11

Without diminishing the thirteen tracks here, Crystal Theatre should be viewed as a study on mood and texture over song-craft. Its vast oceans of reverberating twang evoke a bygone epoch, sometime in the '50s or '60s or perhaps neither one. According to the presser, “it’s more about a feeling” – and it’s one that they’ve successfully captured and will be sure to translate gorgeously across to vinyl.

Aidan Roberts and Liam Judson are a formidable partnership, who duel their guitars as often as their voices ride tandem in harmony. There’s a tilt in their songbook towards non-traditional structures; often long-winded ones that brush against the five-minute mark, but these episodic cuts burst to life when

WYE OAK

METRONOMY

Civilian Spunk Records

The English Riviera Warner Music

At its foundations, Civilian is built from large slabs of interlocking textures.

Jenn Wasner deals in melodically gorgeous hooks laden with just the right amount of distortion, while her partner and consummate multitasker Andy Stack generates some compelling propulsion with a carefully looped mixture of drums, bass and keyboards. Even at their most gargantuan the pair aren’t overly demonstrative, Wasner’s woodsmokeladen harmonies sitting perhaps a touch too far back in the mix.

Their sound recalls groups renowned more for a sense of unassuming interiority than any overblown extroversion – the title track wouldn’t be out of place on a Calexico release.

The folk-rock inflections of a track like ‘Plains’ veers more towards the dreamy melancholia of Songs: Ohia than Bright Eyes, while the feel-good waves that roll off ‘We Were Wealth’ suggest more the Do Make Say Think brand of post-rock than the guitar-fest of Explosions In The Sky. Though the sonic explosions that punctuated their previous effort The Knot are largely absent, Civilian is nonetheless studded with clusters of distortion that suddenly loom and vanish as quickly.

There are some exhilarating moments here; the mesmerising tail of ‘Hot As Day’ for instance, or the frayed vulnerability of Wasner’s voice on album closer ‘Doubt’.

Never less than compelling.

Oliver Downes

surprising ornaments emerge: Lauren Crew’s seductive flute solo on ‘Trouble In Deepwater’ is a pinprick in a ballooning chronicle, while Spaghetti Western-horns drive ‘Come North With Me Baby, Wow’ off the beaten trails.

They’ve put their finger on a definitive aesthetic to be sure, but it’s not until Judson’s maniacal caterwauls in ‘The River’ that Belles truly relax their inhibitions. It’s then that they really toil as a unit, rather than a pair of troubadours with some great tunes up their sleeves.

Crystal Theatre is veritable mood music; the time away did Belles a world of good.

Dan Patrick

Hugh Robertson

Since their inception in 2006, Baltimore duo Wye Oak have released two lushly beautiful albums that have established them as purveyors of intensely felt noise pop, drawing as much from Americana as the likes of My Bloody Valentine. Their third cements their reputation, moving deftly between subtle modulations of colour and shade, remaining sincere without ever becoming shrill.

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK BELLES WILL RING

from slinky falsetto to grounded baritone as the occasion demands - and every riff, every lick and every blast of brass is perfectly organised, with rarely an instrument out of place.

Metronomy’s 2006 debut Pip Paine (Pay the £5000 You Owe) was, quite simply, an electronic masterpiece.

They followed it up with a serving of spunk on their sophomore offering, Nights Out, which continues to sound just as fresh now as it did three years ago, still giving me that positively jittery feeling inside, particularly in the climactic screeching of ‘On The Motorway’... I couldn’t have torn the packaging off The English Riviera with more gusto.

The title track opens with the sound of seagulls softly squawking and waves lapping against the shore until violin enters, rounding out a romantic introduction. ‘We Broke Free’ delivers their signature bass guitar and swelling synthesisers, with Joseph breaking into song. The mood is mellow. The vocals continue.

‘The Look’ is more of a light, heartfelt effort than their older work, steering the album in a pop-infused direction.

With the addition of two new band members (one of whom is Anna Prior of Lightspeed Champion drummer-girl fame), Metronomy seem ready and willing to expand their fanbase.

Penning lyrics is an art form that gives those with poetic license a chance to show off - but by the time ‘The Bay’ comes around, it seems that Joseph’s messages are losing some depth: “Remember where we went last year?/You said everything about it moved on your career”. His tales of love and lust begin to repeat themselves, making me nostalgic for a dose of earlier Metronomy back before vocals were the central element.

Concentrating on their fine instrumentality with a mere dash of vocals might have given this release what it needed to keep up with Metronomy’s previous magic.

Chloe Hazelwood

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

TYLER, THE CREATOR - Goblin FLEET FOXES - Helplessness Blues WILD BEASTS - Smother

CHOPIN - Prelude No. 4 in E Minor SOMETHING FOR KATE - Echolalia

snap sn ap

live reviews

up all night out all week . . .

What we've been to see...

Having to manage sound levels, banter, rhyming, naff dancing and beats all at the same time, Murs never appeared even slightly concerned. He knows exactly when he can break it down for a freestyle in ‘Looking Fly’ or give a shout out to Common on ‘I Used To Love Her (Again)’, and 9th's absence was rarely an issue, even when Murs delved into their co-produced stellar Murs 3:16 album. Rolling fluidly from relationship jams to electro cuts, club joints to stronger themes, Murs’ live show was unforgiving, enthusiastic and inspiring. “This is how we roll Sydney!” he roared before his last track: “No hype man, no DJ, just me.”

And that’s all we wanted.

And R.A. The Rugged Man gave the crowd even more of it. Having honed his craft since 1992 (when he signed with Jive Records at the age of 18) and having worked with Notorious B.I.G., Public Enemy and Wu-Tang Clan in the meantime, R.A.’s CV reads like something straight out of rap legend. And tonight, arriving in top hat and American flag bandana, the Rugged Man lived up to his resume. While the performance was unusually aggressive in parts – more crotch-grabs and physical audience-attacking than I’ve seen in a while – there’s no denying that behind R.A.’s showman tricks, he is a rapper of almost unparalleled ability. Playing too without the assistance of a DJ, he went without any accompanying beats for much of the early part of the show. Cycling through classic jams from '94 onwards, ‘Stanley Kubrick (Ride With Us)’ and other Rawkus cuts were acapella highlights. “One man, one mic, like the street corner,” R.A. beamed, grabbing a guy in the front row and jumper-punching him. It wasn’t ordinary, sure – but who wants ordinary?

David Seidler

Darwin Deez came on at lunchtime, intersecting his well-known ditties ‘Bad Day’, ‘DNA’ and ‘Constellations’ with funky dance breaks and rap interludes. His show had more vivacity than the combined efforts of other artists on the bill, culminating in a euphoric dance frenzy to single ‘Radar Detector’.

Norwegian electronic funk kings Datarock were great value too, accompanied on stage by giant inflatable red condoms and that inimitable Scandinavian pizzazz.

Ending their set with a saxophone-led cover of ‘Time Of My Life’, the anarchical atmosphere carried through to House of Pain’s performance, which let’s be honest, was just building towards '90s party anthem ‘Jump Around’. Cue thousands of people acting their shoe size, jumping around in unison like their parents were out of town for the weekend. Even the lemon-sliceeating squares in the VIP area remembered what it was like to be 15 again.

Architecture in Helsinki emerged wearing blue clothes under a sea of blue lights, as if they’d just stepped out of their album art and onto the stage. People weren’t fully acquainted with the new album yet, but the polished production on Moment Bends translated surprisingly well to a live setting.

Flagship oldie ‘Heart It Races’ as well as newbies ‘That Beep’ and ‘Contact High’ instigated some hearty singalongs, and some very interesting dancing.

Art vs. Science’s 2-cups-electro-rock-1cup-bravado milkshake brings all the kids to the yard, and they’re like, it’s better than Gotye …who was performing on the hill for the rest of us, and whose sunset show was a total delight. Any doubts I had about The Wombats’ new album were quashed in a euphoric and raucous performance, their newfound penchant for synthesisers and pop rock choruses serving them very well – and there’s something special about standing with a few thousand people screaming “THIS IS NO, BRIDGET JONES” over and over.

Cut Copy came on and it was so cold that steam was visibly rising from the mosh pit. Dressed like after-hours lawyers, the Melbournian cool cats warmed up Canberra with their '80s new wave disco pop, frenetic light shows and dancefloor fillers ahoy.

‘Hearts On Fire’ and ‘Lights And Music’ were greeted by the crowd like old friends (who you want to have sex with), and newer cuts from Zonoscope really benefited from a hyperactive bonus percussion guy, who hit his cowbells and space tom toms with unquenchable exuberance.

GROOVIN THE MOO

There were a few acts I would’ve liked swapped around – Darwin Deez and Architecture in Helsinki’s sets would have been merrier affairs under the night sky, rather than the stale Bliss n Eso show – but all up, well done Canberra. Would love to see you again.

Canberra’s crisp weather meant that thick woollen knits and chapped lips were more

Rach Seneviratne

The Meadows, University of Canberra Sunday May 8

05:05:11

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

katy perry

04:05:11 :: Entertainment Centre :: 35 Harbour Street, Darling Harbour 9320 4200

the go! team PICS :: AM

maroon 5

murs & r.a. the rugged man

06:05:11 :: Acer Arena :: Olympic Boulevard Sydney Olympic Park 87654321

PICS :: RR

On a freezing Thursday night, as the hipsters and their fixies retreated indoors out of fear of frostbite, the hardcore homies, variously shuffling through rolling papers, hoodies and aggressive countenances, came out to play. As if Michael Jackson’s 'Thriller' clip had come to Sydney’s central business district for the night, the streets were devoid of all activity but the loping, machismo gait of hip hop heads making their way to the Gaelic. “This venue supports hip hop. Please don’t tag,” read a hastily-produced A4 notice at the door - it looked to be an interesting night. Beside it read another: “Unfortunately 9th Wonder missed his flight to Australia and will not be performing with Murs tonight.” The nonchalance of the message, effectively damning Murs to an hour-long DJ-less set, was crushing. But he took to a laptopassisted solo performance with the sort of confidence that only a rapper of his status could pull off. The man absolutely killed it.

frequent than at your average summer festival – by the time Cut Copy took to the stage it was –1oC, but what the nation’s capital lacked in warmth it made up for in spirit.

04:05:11

PICS :: AM

Gaelic Theatre, Thursday May 5

PICS :: AM

MURS, R.A. THE RUGGED MAN

:: The Metro Theatre :: 624 George St City 92642666

:: NIKI BODLE :: KATRINA CLARKE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) NS :: VICKY NGUYEN :: SARAH OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER MUN IEL DAN :: MAR LEY AS :: ASH :: BRANDON ELS :: BEN KALGOV ETTE ROUHANNA :: PATRICK STEVENSON :: ROS O'BRIEN :: THOMAS PEACHY ::

BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 33

snap sn ap

washington 05:05:11

PICS :: AM

kyuss

PICS :: NB

up all night out all week . . .

07:05:11 :: The Big Top @ Luna Park :: 1 Olympic Drive Milsons Point 99226644

:: The Metro Theatre :: 624 George St City 92642666

It’s called: Black Cherry It sounds like: A best-of Tarantino soundtrack with a dose of punk, ska, glam metal, ‘80s and rockabilly.

DJs: Guests DJs Toz Riot (Take it or Leave it) & DJ Brian (Shake Rattle & Roll) plus the Black Cherry DJs: Ruby Riot, Cee Cee & Nathan Dee. Burlesque: Lillian Starr, boylesque boy wonder Mark Winmill, and Samantha Diamond.

Live bands: Whipped Cream Chargers, Los Capitanes feat. Pete Porker, The Corps, The Satellites (SA), and Pat Capocci Combo feat. Pia Andersen.

Sell it to us: Black Cherry is Sydney’ biggest live band, burlesque and DJ club event; a bi-monthly variety show with cheap drinks all night, and an extra-special dose of Jungle Rump live rock karaoke!

holly throsby

PICS :: BK

party profile

black cherry

07:05:11 :: Annandale Hotel :: 17 Paramatta Rd Annandale 95501078

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: With a hint of Sailor Jerry Rum on the breath and wearing only a smile, you’re not sure how you got home but one thing's for sure… You’ll be back for more!

Crowd specs: Rockers, punks, mods, rockabillies & psychobillies, goths, glam rockers, the tattooed crowd and burlesque artists.

Wallet damage: It's a steal at $16+bf, or $20 at the door.

Where: The Factory Theatre / 105 Victoria Road, Marrickville

Aa

PICS :: RR

When: Saturday May 21, 8pm-3am

passenger 07:05:11

PICS :: KC

06:05:11 :: The Red Rattler :: 6 Faversham St Marrickville 95651101

:: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93323711

34 :: BRAG :: 412: 16:05:11

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up all night out all week . . .

Presented by Other Tongues and 3D World

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PICS :: KC

Australian Tour

07:05:11 :: The Basement :: 29 Relby Place Circular Quay 92512797

FRIDAY 20TH MAY Tone with Tuka + Yeo + Dust Tones DJs tickets from www.moshtix.com.au

“One of the freshest voices to emerge in hip hop this millennium” ALLHIPHOP “One of the freshest voices in rap” DRUM MEDIA #### “Aiming for the chink in hip hop’s armour... Smiles are guaranteed” RAVE “A showman in the tradition of Cab Calloway” LA TIMES

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07:05:11 :: Trunk Junk Quarterly @ National Grid :: 24 Chard Rd Brookvale :: NIKI BODLE :: KATRINA CLARKE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) NS :: VICKY NGUYEN :: SARAH OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER MUN IEL DAN :: MAR LEY ASH :: AS :: BRANDON ELS :: BEN KALGOV ETTE ROUHANNA :: PATRICK STEVENSON :: ROS O'BRIEN :: THOMAS PEACHY ::

BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 35

The Minor Chord The all-ages rant bought to you by Indent.net.au and Eva Balog

ALL-AGES GIG PICKS FRIDAY MAY 20 The Wombats

Parkway Drive, Miss May I, The Wonder Years, Confession Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park

SATURDAY MAY 21

Hungry Kids of Hungary, The Chemist, Andy Bull, Daniel Lee Kendall The Metro Theatre

SUNDAY MAY 22

10TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW UNEARTHED HIGH

To top off the multitude of comps for young bands that are on at the moment, the annual triple j Unearthed High competition is back on the hunt for young talent. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a songwriter, in a band, a producer or even an MC, TRIPLE J WANTS YOU! The cream of the Unearthed High crop will be flown to Sydney to record their song for triple j airplay, AND the j crew will also organise a lunchtime gig at the winnersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; high school, where they will play alongside Australian legends The Living End! Previous Unearthed High success stories include finalists Tim & Jean, and last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s winners, Stonefield - who've been tipped to play at this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Glastonbury! Entries close Monday July 25, so youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve plenty of time to polish your possible #1 hit... head over to www.triplejunearthed.com/unearthedhigh to enter and check out tips and hints to launch your music career. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not a budding musician you can download the contestantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; uploads for free... You might be the first to come across the next big thing.

(SWE)

WESTERN SYDNEY'S GOT TALENT

There are two shows coming up in Western Sydney showcasing local talent, with Blackened They Rise at The Lucky Australian in North St Marys on Sunday, and Abandon All Hope the Sunday after.

Blackened They Rise are heading a massive gig to celebrate one year of being on the scene. Having recently finished their first EP, they are teaming up with local entertainment company Very Live Entertainment to present a show thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bursting at the seams with local bands of the metal/hardcore variety, including Not Another Sequel Just Another Prequel and Hell Needs A Hero.

(USA)

Next Sunday, Abandon All Hope head a triple bill alongside Trainwreck and Endless Heights. Hailing from Adelaide, AAH have sent shockwaves through the Australian metal/hardcore circuit with their first release, Where Life and Death Meet, which was heralded by fans and critics alike. They went on to support big names like Parkway Drive and Carpathian. To kick off their highly anticipated second release, they're playing a show at 8pm at the Blacktown Masonic Hall.

VIVID LIVE

This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vivid LIVE is bringing the brightest and best international acts â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as curated by legendary promoter and Modular label chief Steven Pavlovic â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to Sydney Opera House. The good news is that most is all-ages: yep, the best of the world brought to your doorstep, and

Blackened They Rise, Not Another Sequel Just Another Prequel, Hell Needs A Hero, Seven Against Thebes, Run the Avalanche, Debt of Mystery The Lucky Australian, North St Marys

FRIDAY MAY 27

Bliss N Eso, Horrorshow, Big B Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park Destroy Music Festival The Amity Affliction, I Killed the Prom Queen, Deez Nuts, Of Mice and Men UNSW Roundhouse, Kensington

SUNDAY MAY 29

Abandon All Hope, Trainwreck (USA), Endless Heights Masonic Hall, Blacktown The Dandy Warhols (USA), Los Huevos Enmore Theatre made accessible for all. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re lucky, you scored tickets for one of the two highlybuzzed shows by The Cure, who will play their first three albums back to back. Also making an appearance is Brighton starlet Bat for Lashes, who will be performing in Australia for the very first time; expect gorgeously lush tunes and spine-tingling visuals. Shoegaze fans canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go past Spiritualized, who will be playing their seminal album Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. Plus a new show has been added for video artist Chris Cunningham, who is also making his Aussie debut.

These international artists join a lineup of some of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest acts, including Architecture In Helsinki, Cut Copy and Tame Impala. Tickets are on sale now, and shows kick off at the end of May â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but with some already selling out, we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t recommend sitting on this one too long!

BIG BOI!

Outkastâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Big Boi is set to play The Enmore on August 27. Boi was out here not long ago launching a new EBGames carracing videogame, leaving fans salivating for a return tour. Expect him to wow the Enmore with hits from his Outkast days and tracks from his highly successful solo debut Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty, which was lauded as one of the best hip hop releases of 2010.

Highly contagious and highly catchy, you may not be able to shake his tunes from your system after you have witnessed his explosive show! Tickets on sale now.

TUNE IN

To FBI 94.5 on Wednesdays 5pm, where The Minor Chord has a voice!

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Send pics, listings and any info to minorchords@thebrag.com 36 :: BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11

RES EATEST PLEASU O OF LIFE’S GR MARRYING TW

ND MUSIC GREAT FOOD A Y

Calling ts all artisand e iv L r fo Locals!

Contact: es. ott events@liz com.au

NE LIZOTTE’S SYD 33 9933 84 99 84 98 99 2 99 02 Lizotte’s presents 18 Live and Local s MAY dd & Russell Morri 19 Brian Ca medy Night feat.

MAY Big Biz Co 20 Brendan Montanner esents Stevie MAY Mal Eastick pr 21 Ray Vaughan ow MAY verholt Psychic Sh O hn Jo 22 e MAY evening with Dav n A re o o 26 raney & Clare M G ist and the Yellow M MAY obson 27 Abby D special MAY The Flood with 8 2 guests The Pardoners MAY 29 Jont

MAY

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ina Burgoy 19 Katr

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19 Night MAY e Tribute Show 20 Tour De Forc MAY MAY rd Clapton 21 22 Richa

The Sowers Group ME 1 LIVE State of Origin GA ched Az Jon Lajoie and Bea The Idea of North llow e Graney & The Ye MAY Dav 28 Mist d with special MAY The Floo 29 guests The Pardoners

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Lizotte’s Sydney 629 Pittwater Rd Dee Why

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Lizotte’s Newcastle 31 Morehead St Lambton

WWW. LIZOT TES.COM.AU BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 37

Remedy

More than The Cure since 1989 with Murray Engleheart

MY BLOODY LONG WAIT TUESDAY 17TH MAY

MIKE NOGA (THE DRONES) + The 49 Goodbyes

WEDNESDAY 18TH MAY

THURSDAY 19TH MAY

FRIDAY 20TH MAY

SATURDAY 21ST MAY

SUNDAY 22ND MAY

TUESDAY 24TH MAY

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 July Johnny Cash Tribute Saturday 16 July The Paper Scissors Thursday 4 August Diesel Wednesday 17 August Bob Log III Thursday 18 August Wendy Matthews Wednesday 24 August Alvin Youngblood Hart

COOGE E

While a book about the exhaustive process involved in the making of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless would be a most noble venture, we reckon there’s a companion tome waiting to be written about how damn long it’s taking to get the twin slab remastered version of said masterpiece on the shelves. Amazon UK had it down for January this year as we recall, only to push it back to May and now it’s been further shunted to an “estimated arrival date: September 28, 2011 - October 03, 2011”.

AC/DC: LIVE AT RIVER PLATE

AC/DC’s new in-the-moment DVD, Live At River Plate, really is one hell of document of what is unarguably is the last real rock’n’roll band in any town doing their thing, with all the hell’s bells and train whistles. Shot in Argentina in December in front of 70,000 folks, it’s once again proof positive that almost four decades on they’re still totally untouchable in the live arena. When they go, the whole rock thing will go with them.

There’s no one who can take the place of this or them. No one.

TONY TIME

Black Sabbath doom axe doyen Tony Iommi is doing a book that should make for interesting reading. The strong silent type in Sabbath has quite the history – from losing the tips of his fingers in an industrial accident as a kid, playing with Jethro Tull at The Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus with the likes of John Lennon, having (according to legend) taken out some very serious wrath on a well-known UK journalist who slagged off his family in an article, and assuming ownership of the Sabbath name when everyone thought it was a dead brand. Oh, and that small matter of how he came across the guitar tone that has been almost as big an influence on rock for the past 40 years as Chuck Berry’s guitar licks.

VALE: EXCELSIOR

That final night at the Excelsior last Saturday was, for all its sadness, a night to remember, with what some believe to be the biggest crowd the pub has ever had in all its years. X’s Steve Lucas got up with the Cool Charmers and roared through X’s ‘Revolution’ (and for some reason their version of ‘Dream Baby’) while The New Christs delivered a firey 90-minute set that was fittingly recorded for a possible live album. Radio Birdman cut their live teeth and much of their legend at the famed venue, so having Rob Younger on stage that night was a perfect fit. Of course the large crowd was also dotted with various members of other acts like The Hoodoo Gurus and Died Pretty.

PEACE SELLS

Megadeth’s 1986 album Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? gets the 25th anniversary treatment in various packages on July 8. The deluxe five-disc/ three-LP box set includes a previously unreleased 1987 concert from the band’s first world tour, and liner notes written not only by Dave Mustaine but, wait for it… Metallica’s Lars Ulrich. The deluxe set features previously unreleased and rare mixes of the album’s tracks, a 20-page book, 8”x 10” photos, and reproductions of vintage Megadeth memorabilia.

“Whether you heard this record for the first time in 1986,” writes Ulrich in his notes, “or you hear this record for the first time today or tomorrow, Peace Sells is a great heavy metal album. Nothing more, nothing less. It has stood the test of time.

And will continue to do so.” If they get this excited about Peace Sells… imagine the treatment that Mustaine’s real masterpiece, Rust In Peace, will get will it comes of age….

Left: Tony Iommi

ON THE TURNTABLE SAT MAY 21

DAVE GRANEY BOOK & CD LAUNCH FEATURING THE LURID YELLOW MIST

PLUS DOG TRUMPET SAT MAY 28

THE ATLANTICS RETURN TO COOGEE

TRIPLE SHOT OF ROCK SAT JUNE 4 3 LOCA LOCAL AL OR O ORIGINAL IG GIN INAL BANDS INCLUDING CROWS FEAT & FRIENDS. $10 @ DOOR

COMING

SOON!

BONDI CIGARS FRI JUNE 10 NATALIE GAUCI SAT JUNE 25 Band Bookings

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

On the Remedy turntable is Tom Verlaine’s aptly named masterwork Dreamtime (which, on CD at least, seems to be fetching serious prices these days), Ravi Shankar’s live album from Woodstock, and John Mayall’s stunning 1968 effort Bare Wires, with soon-to-be-Stones guitarist Mick Taylor utterly ripping it up in a manner he strangely never really repeated with Keef 'n’ Mick. But man, what a job application! The 23-minute opening title track sounds tough to swallow, but it's an amazing album, that goes light years beyond just being another chapter in the Brit blues scene of the day.

TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS The Cure have been added to the lineup at Vivid Live, which runs from May 27 – June 5 at Sydney Opera House. Robert Smith and past and present members of the Brit outfit will be appearing on May 31 and June 1, for what will be three-hour performances that will see them perform the Three Imaginary Boys, Seventeen Seconds and Faith albums. Really something to experience, we reckon. Also appearing during the festival are legendary jazz saxman Sonny Rollins, in only his second trip to this country in as many years in his long, long career. He’ll be appearing on June 2. Spiritualised are the other biggie for us; their classic, Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space in its entirety with a choir and orchestra on May 27 & 28.

Platinum Brunette do it very hard and

very loud at the Sando with a free EP giveaway to boot, on Saturday May 21.

The Dandy Warhols are back in town on May 29 at the Enmore, with Brisbane’s Los Huevos as support.

Rose Tattoo are set to blow the roof off the Sando at Newtown over two “up close and dangerous” nights. On June 24 they’ll be joined by Melody Black and Nat Cole And The Kings; then on June 25, Hell Crab City and The Lazys are doing the opening honours.

Molten Universe launch their The Green Ray album at the Bald Faced Stag hotel on June 18.

Texan psych merchants The Black Angels are at the Metro on July 1.

Tickets & info from www.coogeediggers.com.au

COOGEE DIGGERS 9665 4466 CORNER BYRON & CARR STREETS 38 :: BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11

USE ME.

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

Pics to art@thebrag.com www.facebook.com/remedy4rock

SIDESHOW WEDNESDAYS

WOLF & CUB + NUMBERS RADIO

WEDNESDAY 8PM

MAY 18TH

NICKY BOMBA + EBB & FLO

THURSDAY 8PM

MAY 19TH

COMING SOON: LIFE IS A CABARET Get down to The Basement in late June for some of the hottest cabaret acts in the world! Check out Australian comedy hard man AUSTEN TAYSHUS (June 23), followed by two extraordinary shows by singing superstar PAUL CAPSIS (24 and 25).

Melbourne’s FIONA SCOTT-NORMAN reprises her Opera House success ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ on June 28, then performs this years Melbourne Comedy Festival hit, ‘Disco: the Vinyl Solution’. Then there’s US star BRYAN BATT (Sal Romano from Mad Men) starting a three day run on June 30 …

Tickets online at

www.thebasement.com.au BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 39

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

pick of the week

Mike Noga Brass Monkey, Cronulla $15.30 (presale) 7pm Monannlisa Wilde, Kokroller Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm Mondo Generator (USA), Grand Fatal, Hytest Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $20–$25 8pm Steve Tonge O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9:30pm They Call Me Bruce Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9:30pm Tom T Trio Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney 11pm

JAZZ

SATURDAY MAY 21

Hungry Kids Of Hungary

Metro Theatre, Sydney

Hungry Kids Of Hungary, The Chemist, Andy Bull, Daniel Lee Kendall $20 8pm all ages MONDAY MAY 16 ROCK & POP

Bernie The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8:30pm James Blunt (UK), The Verses State Theatre, Sydney $90.70–$99.15 7:30pm The Cat Empire The Basement, Circular Quay $55.20 (+ bf) 9:30pm

JAZZ

Daniel Falero, Pierre Della

Putta, Phil Taig, Rinske Geerlings, Ed Rapo El Rocco Jazz Cellar, Woolloomooloo free 7pm The Vampires 505 Club, Surry Hills $10–$15 8:30pm

ACOUSTIC/FOLK

Massimo Presti, Chris Brookes, Helmut Uhlmann Kellys On King, Newtown free 7pm

COUNTRY

Camden Valley Country Music Club Hope Christian School, Narellan free 7pm

TUESDAY MAY 17 ROCK & POP

Adam Pringle Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm James Blunt (UK), The Verses State Theatre, Sydney $90.70–$99.15 7:30pm Lissie (USA), Emma Davis Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $30.70 (presale) 8pm Matt Jones The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8:30pm

Ali McGregor The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf)–$21 (at door) 9pm Marcello Maio Trio, The Debonair Gentlemen 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8:30pm Paul Sun Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm

COUNTRY

Blacktown Country Music Club The Lucky Australian, North St Marys free 7pm Whip Crackin’ Country Music Club Penrith Gaels Club free 7pm

HIP HOP

DJ’s Myme, Gee Wiz, MC’s Benji, BC, One Am, Allstars The Valve, Tempe free 10pm

WEDNESDAY MAY 18

ROCK & POP x

ROCK & POP Andre Rieu (Netherlands) Sydney Acer Arena, Sydney Olympic Park $89 (D Res)– $1500 (premium) 8pm Andy Mammers Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9:30pm Ben Finn Duo Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 6pm Bernie Hayes Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Daniel Allars, Lovers Jump Creek Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills 7pm Happy Hippies Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 6:30pm Holly Throsby & The Hello Tigers Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Paddington $100 (donation)–$1000 (gold) 6pm Howler, Ouster, Dr Amatic The Valve, Tempe 7pm Izzettin, Axis, New Lover, Snakes, DJs Wolfman & Gattomatto Gladstone Hotel Joe Bonamassa (USA) The Civic Theatre JP O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9:30pm Luke Dixon Northies, Cronulla free 7:30pm Mark Lucas Petersham Bowling Club free 7:30pm Mercury Sky, Inner City Crepes, Scroops Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $5 8pm Mike Bennett The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8:30pm Mike Noga, Daisy M Tulley Notes Live, Enmore $16.35–

$38.80 (dinner & show) 7:30pm Mikelangelo, Saint Clare, Johnny Wishbone, Azzy T, Kira Puru, Jay Katz The Vanguard, Newtown $20 (+ bf)–$55 (dinner & show) 6:30pm Musos club jam night Bald Faced Stag Hotel. free 8pm Nicky Kurta Summer Hill Hotel free 7:30pm Open Mic Night Coach and Horses Hotel, Randwick free 8pm Open Mic Night Down Under Bar & Bistro, Kings Cross free 7:30pm Rebecca Henry, Amanda Thomas, Willowbirds, Tortured Willow Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $13.50 7pm Replika Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney 11pm Wolf & Cub Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach 8pm

JAZZ

Anna Salleh’s Bossa Boots Cru54, Surry Hills free 7:30pm Austin Benjamin Bucket, Gerard Masters 505 Club, Surry Hills $10–$15 8:30pm Dereb the Ambassador Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 7pm James Morrison Dooleys Lidcombe Catholic Club $35 8pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Polkadot, Moonbeam Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7pm Robert Susz, The Continental Blues Party The Rose Hotel, Chippendale free 7pm Scott A Walker The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf)–$20 (at door) 9:30pm

ACOUSTIC/FOLK

Acoustic Caravan Taren Point Hotel-Motel free 7:30pm Carolyn Woodorth Blaxland Tavern, Blaxland free 6:30pm Freddie White (Ireland) Brass Monkey, Cronulla $30.60 (presale) 7pm Gavin Fitzgerald", TAOS Coach & Horses Hotel, Randwick free 7pm Ken Stewart, Mark Wilkes, Russell Neal Kogarah Hotel free 7pm Raoul Graf, Ken Stewart, Daniel Hopkins Taren Point Hotel free 8pm Tamara Stewart Royal Cricketers Arms, Prospect free 7:30pm

THURSDAY MAY 19 ROCK & POP

1814 Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $30 (+ bf) 8pm Adam Rennie Rag and Famish Hotel, North Sydney free 7pm Alisa Gray, Terry Kaff South Sydney Juniors, Kingsford free 8pm Andre Rieu (Netherlands) Sydney Acer Arena, Sydney Olympic Park $89 (D Res)– $1500 (premium) 8pm Andy Mammers Greengate Hotel, Killara free 8pm Anthems of Oz Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9pm Cambo The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 9:30pm Chick Boom Band Comp Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm Dave Graney & The Lurid Yellow Mist Notes Live, Enmore $19.90 (presale)–$42.35 (dinner & show) 7pm Dave White Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9:30pm DJ Rock Fan Woollahra Hotel free 7:45pm Get Your Ya Yas Out Mona Vale Golf Club free 8pm Johnathon Devoy Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Katrina Retallick, Jane Wallace, Lenore Munro, Matt Ralph, Andrew Henry, Simon Rippingale The Supper Club $30 8pm Leadfinger, The Scruffs, Raprager Annandale Hotel $10 8pm Matt Price Harbord Beach Hotel free Mikelangelo, Saint Clare, Johnny Wishbone, Azzy T, Kira Puru, Jay Katz The Vanguard, Newtown $20 (+ bf)–$55 (dinner & show) 6:30pm Musos club jam night Carousel Hotel, Rooty Hill free 8pm Nicky Bomba, Ebb N Flo, Ability, Fester Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm Nicky Kurta Duo Dee Why Hotel free 8pm No Further Questions, Another Minute Past Midnight, Lost In Verona The Valve, Tempe 7pm Noliver Fig Down Under Bar & Bistro, Surry Hills free 8pm Pledge This!, Of Whispers, Turning Tides, Remains the Day Spectrum, Darlinghurst $12 (guestlist)–$15 8pm Holly Throsby

“Come to from slumber on bed’s soft tundra / Murky with mourn beside dead uniform / And I wish and I hope” - WILD BEASTS 40 :: BRAG :: 412 : 16:05:11

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Renae Kearney Green Park Hotel, Darlinghurst free 7pm Rockit To Mars Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 11pm Russell Morris, Brian Cadd Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $58–$98 (dinner & show) 7pm Sarah Patron O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9:30pm Snez, Melody Moon, Simon Bruce Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7:30pm Steve Edmonds Band Empire Hotel, Annandale free 7:30pm Steve Tonge Northies, Cronulla free 9:15pm The Early Birds, Robot Child Lansdowne Hotel free 8pm

ACOUSTIC/FOLK

The Savages, Kasha, Reuben Ingall, Shoeb Ahmad Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 (at door) 8pm

JAZZ

Anna Salleh’s Bossa Boots Cru54, Surry Hills free 7:30pm Gypsy Hot Club Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Ray Beadle Funk Band 505 Club, Surry Hills $10–$15 8:30pm Sirens Big Band, Reyes De La Onda Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 9pm

Carolyn Woodorth Lone Pine Hotel, Rooty Hill free 7pm Daniel Hopkins Narrabeen Sands free 7:30pm Linda Wood, Mai-anh, Helmut Uhlmann Pennant Hills Inn free 8pm Michael Peter The Marlborough Hotel 8:30pm Rose Acoustic Sessions The Rose Hotel, Chippendale free 7:30pm The Sowers Group The Basement, Circular Quay $20 (+ bf)–$64.80 (dinner & show) 8pm

COUNTRY

Kaylee Bell, Mickey Pye Fred Chubb Lounge, Rooty Hill RSL Club free 8pm

FRIDAY MAY 20 ROCK & POP

2 Of Hearts Brewhouse At St Mary’s, St Marys free 9:30pm Alex Lloyd, Pigram Brothers Notes Live, Enmore $31.35 (show only)–$53.55 (dinner & show) 7pm All Star Duo Northies, Cronulla free 5:30pm Andy Mammers Duo Penrith Panthers free 6pm Ben Finn PJ Gallagher’s Drummoyne free 10pm Benn Gunn Chatswood RSL free 5pm

Parkway Drive

Black Diamond Heart Club Crows Nest Hotel free 11:15pm Blonde 182 Customs House Bar, Sydney free 7pm Booty Call Terrace Bar, Mounties free 10pm Boy Meets Girl Kingswood Sports Club free 7pm Carl Fidler O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 8pm Chasing Karma Engadine Tavern free 9:30pm Crazy Judah, John Page Freeway Hotel, Artarmon free 8pm Creedence, Beyond Heathcote Hotel free 9:30pm Dan Lissing Duo Crows Nest Hotel free 6:30pm Datura Curse The Valve, Tempe 7pm Dave Graney & the Lurid Yellow Mist Vault 146, Windsor $20.40 (show only)–$45.90 (dinner & show) 7pm Dave White, Luke Dixon Kirribilli Hotel free 8pm David Agius Duo Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel free 7pm Enormous Horns Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 8:30pm Flamin’ Beauties Mortdale Hotel free 8pm GANGgajang Brass Monkey, Cronulla $31.65 (+ bf) 7pm Gypsy & the Cat, WIM Metro Theatre, Sydney $30.70 (presale) 8pm Heath Burdell Northies, Cronulla free 9pm Hello Cleveland Pioneer Tavern, Penrith South free 9pm

In Malice’s Wake, Havoc Live at the Wall, Leichhardt $13 (at door) 8pm Ingrid Mars Hill Cafe, Parramatta free 8:30pm Jane Walker Sydney Dance Lounge, Walsh Bay $15 7:30pm Joe Bonamassa (USA) Enmore Theatre $69.90 (B Res)–$85 (premium) 8pm John Grant (USA), Daisy M Tulley The Vanguard, Newtown $30 (+ bf) 6:30pm Jonny Gretsch’s Wasted Ones Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7pm Josh McIvor Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm KP Novotel Homebush, Homebush Bay free 5pm Last Night: The Deer Republic (LIVE), Swim (LIVE), Mr Nice, 4 Deck AV Set, M.I.T, Randall Stagg, Kill The Landlord, Matt Eager Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $10 8pm Lies N Destruction Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills free 10pm Luke Robinson The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 10:30pm Mark Da Costa The Ranch Hotel, Terrace Bar, Eastwood free 9:30pm Mark Travers Castle Hill RSL Club free 9:30pm Matt Jones Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 9pm Matt Price Parramatta RSL free 5pm

Mission Jones Club Rivers, Riverwood free 9pm MM9 Annandale Hotel $25 8pm Monkey Wrench Foo Fighters Show Penrith Hotel free 10pm MUM: The Shooters Party, Fushia, The Archerbolds, Thieves, Fox, Brackets World Bar, Kings Cross $10 - 15 8pm Natasha Greengate Hotel, Killara free Neill Bourke Macquarie Hotel, Liverpool free 4:30pm Nicky Kurta Trio Narrabeen Sands Hotel free 8pm Night Owl Down Under Bar & Bistro, Kings Cross free 8pm Northlane, Revival Aahore, The City He Loved, Not Unto Us, Karma, Firefly, Snowflake, B-Zurk St James Hotel, Sydney free–$10 9:30pm Oz Rock Show Fred Chubb Lounge, Rooty Hill RSL Club free 8pm Parkway Drive, Miss May I, The Wonder Years, Confession Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park $43.50 7pm Pigeon John Tone, Sydney $25-$30 Retro Groove Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 8pm Rip it Up Eastern Suburbs Legion Club, Waverley free 8pm Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8:30pm Sarah Paton The Grand Hotel, Rockdale free 5:30pm

wed

18 May

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

thu

19 May

7%$

-!9

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

fri

20 May

(5:00PM - 8:00PM)

(9:15PM - 1:00AM)

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

sat

21 May

4(5

-!9 &2) 20 -!9

sun

SATURDAY NIGHT

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

22 May

SUNDAY NIGHT

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

3!4

-!9 35.

-!9

THE STUDY feat

DANIEL ALLARS LOVERS JUMP CREEK + SPECIAL GUEST

1814 ONE LOVE WITH GUESTS

PURPLE SNEAKERS PRESENT LAST NIGHT

THE DEER REPUBLIC + MR NICE + SWIM M.I.T + KILL THE LANDLORD + RANDLLE STAGG

FLIGHT

UNDERLIGHTS + HATTIE CARROL + JOHNNY TOOK

RAINBOW RELIEF

KING TIDE + DECLAN KELLY + PK CREW + SWAMP DONKEY + LUKE

26/05 THE TRUTH IS 27/05 PURPLE SNEAKERS LST NIGHT 28/05 ESKIMO JOE 29/05 LOS SKELETONE BLUES 31/05 ROCK STIEN TRIVIA 02/06 JOHNNY ROCKER 04/06DEVOLVED/SRDL AFTER PRTY

COMING SOON BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 41

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Shanghai, The Junkyard Advisory, Stephen Farrell, Dave Sattout, Rex Havoc, Brett Casey, Laura Bullock Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Skyscraper Vineyard Hotel, Vineyard free 9:30pm Sons of Mercury Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 11pm Steve Edmonds Band The Beach Club, Collaroy free 7:30pm Steve Tonge Duo Hillside Hotel, Castle Hill free 8pm Stone Parade Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm The Bamboos, Psyde Projects, Paper Plane Project Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $30 8pm The Blackwater Fever, The Preachers, Dirty Love, Frank Sultana Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm The Capitols South Sydney Juniors, Kingsford free 8:30pm The Classic Kings Auditorium, South Sydney Juniors, Kingsford $10 (member)–$15 8:30pm The Flaming Stars Rose of Australia Hotel, Erskineville free 9pm The Hump Day Project, Alison Wonderland, DJ Hansom, Boonie, Animal Chin Falcona, Surry Hills $10 8pm The Maristians Rag and Famish Hotel, North Sydney free 8:30pm

The Rockets, Redspencer, Long Island Sound Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm The Trip Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 8pm The UV Race, Bed Wettin Bad Boys, Holy Balm The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $10 8pm Wildcatz Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10:30pm

JAZZ

austraLYSIS The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10 (member)–$20 8:30pm Dig The Basement, Circular Quay $35.20 (+ bf)–$84 (dinner & show) 9:30pm Freefall Duo Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7pm Not Quite Cabaret Paddington Arms $24 7pm Superheavyweights, Alphamama Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8:30pm Warma Camelot, Marrickville 7pm Wyatt Moss-Wellington 505 Club, Surry Hills $15–$20 8:30pm

ACOUSTIC/FOLK

Mark Wilkes, Daniel Hopkins, Kate Plummer The Basement, Circular Quay $15 8pm

COUNTRY

Macarthur Country Music Club Wests Campbelltown Tennis Club, Leumeah free 7.30pm

ROCK & POP

Adam Katz, Benny Vibes Beach Palace Hotel, Coogee free 8:30pm After Party Band Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10:30pm Alex Lloyd, Pigram Brothers Notes Live, Enmore $31.35– $53.55 (dinner & show) 7pm Andy Mammers Northies, Cronulla free 8:45pm Armstrong Brown Peachtree Hotel, Penrith free 9pm Ben Finn Duo Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 6:30pm Benjamin Benolid Down Under Bar & Bistro, Kings Cross free 8pm Black Cherry: The Satellites, Los Capitanes, Pat Capocci Combo, The Corps, Whipped Cream Chargers and burlesque from Mark Winmill, Lillian Starr and Miss Samantha Diamond The Factory Theatre, Enmore $20 8pm Cleanskins, The Pharaohs Of The Farout, Helpful Kitchen Gods, The Fables, Broken Hands, Spaceticket, Greg & Dr Tom, Stuart Jammin, Edward Kent, Rennae The Valve, Tempe 12pm Cornerstone Roots (NZ) Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach $20 (+ bf) 8pm Cornstalk Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 8pm

WEDNESDAY 18TH MAY Fri 27/05 Shot With Desire 4th Birthday Burlesque Extravaganza

THURSDAY 19TH MAY

Fri 3/06 Contraban + Mad Charlie + The Static Silhouettes + The Electric Vogue Wed 8/06 Dominique Fraissard EP launch Fri 10/06 First Ladies Of Soul Sat 11/06 Perry Keyes

FRI 20TH & SAT 21ST MAY

Tue 14/06 Eora Showcase Thur 16/06 Georgia Fair Fri 17/06 Organ In Rock

WEDNESDAY 25TH MAY

Sat 18/06 Stevie Ray Vaughn Tribute Featuring Mal Eastick Thur 23/06 Carus Thompson Request Show Fri 24/06 D.I.G. 20th Anniversary

THURSDAY 26TH MAY

Fri 1/07 Skipping Girl Vinegar (album launch) Fri 15/07 Deep Purple Tribute Sat 16/07 Hendrix & Heroes Sat 23/07 The Sins Single Launch Fri 9/09 Otis Redding 70th Birthday Celebration w/ Johnny G & The E Types

42 :: BRAG :: 412 : 16:05:11

Andy Bull

SATURDAY MAY 21

Creedence & Beyond Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills free 9:30pm Dave Graney & The Lurid Yellow Mist Coogee Diggers $20.40 (presale) 8pm Dave Stevens The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 5:40pm David Agius Duo Penrith Panthers free 6pm Deep Trio Eastern Suburbs Leagues Club, Bondi Junction free Dirty Deeds AC/DC Show, No Secrets Blacktown RSL Club free 10pm Doc Neeson Brass Monkey, Cronulla $39.80 (+ bf) 7pm Doors Experience Tribute Show Oatley Hotel free 8:30pm Fatt Lipp Carousel Inn, Rooty Hill free 9pm

Finn Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm Fiona Leigh Jones Duo Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm Flamin’ Beauties Royal Hotel, Springwood free 9:15pm Gay Paris, Kira Puru & The Bruise, Juke Baritone, The Good Ship The Vanguard, Newtown $15 6:30pm Ghost Train, Auto Slide Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7:30pm Ghostwood, Betty Airs, Hailer Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $6 (presale)–$10 (at door) 8pm Heath Burdell Sir Joseph Banks Hotel, Botany free 7pm Heaven Can Wait South Sydney Juniors, Kingsford free 8pm

High Noon, Bayside Wreckers, BustaCap, Madame Wu, DJ Endo Caringbah Bizzo’s 8pm Hungry Kids of Hungary, The Chemist, Andy Bull, Daniel Lee Kendall Metro Theatre, Sydney $20 8pm Kirk Burgess Picton Hotel free 9pm Lisa Crouch, Dig This Fred Chubb Lounge, Rooty Hill RSL Club free 8:30pm Luchi, Sealion, Isac Cole 34B, Darlinghurst $10 Luke Dixon Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 10pm Mandi Jarry Brewhouse Marayong, Kings Park free 7:30pm Mark Da Costa & The Black List Crows Nest Hotel free 11:15pm Masterpiece Cronulla RSL free 8pm Matt Jones Castle Hill RSL Club free 8pm Matt Price Woolwich Pier Hotel free 6pm Midnight Drifters Club Five Dock, Five Dock RSL free 8pm Nicky Kurta Duo Northies, Cronulla free 5:30pm OMG Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 11pm Peabody, Where’s Jerome, Vegan Mosquitoes, Maydayweyhey Lansdowne Hotel free 8pm Purdy, Melody Nelson, Sir Robbo The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $15 8pm Rachel Eldon Rooty Hill RSL Club free 6pm

gig picks

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Reckless Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 7:30pm Rob Henry PJ Gallagher’s Drummoyne free 10pm Rolling Stoned Kiama Leagues Club free 8:30pm Scott Donaldson Kirribilli Hotel free 8pm Sound Stream Brighton RSL Club, BrightonLe-Sands free 8pm Steve Tonge The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm Stevie Ray Vaughan Experience, Mal Eastick Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $28–$68 (dinner & show) 7pm Suvi Kingswood Sports Club free 8:30pm Swivelhead, Rattlesnake, Upside Down Miss Jane, Platinum Brunette Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10–$12 8pm Tall Pop Syndrome Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free Ted Nash Pittwater RSL free 7pm The Borderline Bambu, Western Suburbs Leagues Club Campbelltown, Leumeah free 8pm The Classic Kings North Sydney Leagues Club, Cammeray $20 7:30pm The Flight, Underlights, Johnny Took Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $10 (+ bf) 8pm The Mighty Quim, The Horny Guys Chatswood Club $30 6pm The Rumjacks, The Crimplenes, DJ Key-Star, Dave Soul Dog Hermann’s, Darlington $10 8pm Thompson Gunners Engadine Tavern free 9pm Tice & Evans, Kaki Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm Tinpan Orange Camelot, Marrickville 7pm Trial Kennedy, Numbers Radio Annandale Hotel $18.40 (presale) 7:30pm Velvet Hotel Ryde Ex-Services Club free 9pm Villa Rise, Life Beyond St James Hotel, Sydney $10–$15 9pm

JAZZ

Ali McGregor Riverside Theatres, Parramatta $28 (student)–$40 7:30pm Chris McNulty 505 Club, Surry Hills $15– $20 8:30pm Jazz Nouveau Supper Club Fairfield RSL Club free 7pm Jeff Duff Brat Pack Big Band, Frank Bennett The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf)–$73.80 (dinner & show) 9pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 5pm

Susan Gai Dowling Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7pm The Hang Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8:30pm The World According to James The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10 (member)–$20 8:30pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie, Richard Booth Lane Cove free 10am

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Balmain Bush Dance Sydney Secondary College Rozelle Campus $8 (student)–$17 8pm Eddie De Brasil Zenith Theatre, Chatswood $22 (member)–$26 8pm Lawrence Baker The Belvedere Hotel free 8pm Navegaos Mars Hill Cafe, Parramatta $10 8:30pm Ziko Hart, Ryan Ariki, Renae Kearney, Renny M, Toni Martelli, Tanya O’Gorman, Marianna Bagnato Belrose Bowling Club free 7pm

COUNTRY

Kings of Country The Cube, Campbelltown $25 (member)–$30 7:15pm

SUNDAY MAY 22 ROCK & POP

Ace Brighton RSL Club, BrightonLe-Sands free 7pm Andy Mammers Harbord Beach Hotel free 6:30pm Blackened They Rise, Not Another Sequel Just Another Prequel, Hell Needs A Hero, Seven Against Thebes, Run the Avalanche, Debt of Mystery The Lucky Australian, North St Marys $10 1pm Craig Calhoun Woollahra Hotel free 6:30pm Dan Spillane Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 1pm Dave White Duo Northies, Cronulla free 2:30pm David Agius Duo Northies, Cronulla free 6pm Elevation U2 Acoustic Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 4:30pm Finn Macquarie Arms Hotel, windsor free 12pm Georgia Fields The Vanguard, Newtown $12 (+ bf)–$15 (at door) 6:30pm Glen Mead, Hayley Sales, Max Smidt Brass Monkey, Cronulla $12.25 (presale) 7pm Grand Lethals Annandale Hotel $15 12:00pm Trial Kennedy

up all night out all week...

Jimmi Carr, Giraffe Season Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm King Tide, Declan Kelly, PK Crew, Swomp D, Insect Buzz Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $20 (+ bf) 6pm Kirk Burgess Collaroy Beach Hotel free 3pm LJ Collingwood Hotel, Liverpool free 3pm Mandi Jarry Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel free 4pm Matt Price Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 4:30pm Maxis Cronulla RSL free 7pm Mike Bennett The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm My Goodness, McGuiness!, Leroy Lee Curious Works Studio, Surry Hills $10 (donation) 8pm Neill Bourke O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 4pm Nicky Kurta Duo Mounties, Mount Pritchard free 6pm Peter Byrne Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 3pm Renae Kearney The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 6pm Rockin the Kasbah The Gaff, Darlinghurst free 8pm Ruins Of An Empire The Valve, Tempe 2pm Ted Nash Waverley Bowling Club free 3pm The Fabulous Firebyrds Kro Bar, East Leagues Club free 6:30pm The Momos, Delusions of Grandeur, Andy Calvert Botany View Hotel, Newtown free 7pm The White Bros Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 1pm Triple Imagen South Sydney Juniors, Kingsford free 8pm Unity Floors, Making, Purr, Leafwrist Black Wire Records $5 4pm

JAZZ

John Blenkhorn Jazushi, Surry Hills free 7pm Mission: Jones The Belvadere Hotel free 5pm Robert Susz & the Continental Blues Party Bondi Icebergs Club, Bondi Beach free 4pm Unity Hall Jazz Band Unity Hall Hotel, Balmain free 4pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie, Paul Furniss, Tony Burkys, Alan Gilbert Cronulla RSL free 12pm

Gypsy & The Cat

TUESDAY MAY 17 Lissie (USA), Emma Davis Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $30.70 (presale) 8pm

WEDNESDAY MAY 18 Mike Noga, Daisy M Tulley Notes Live, Enmore $16.35–$38.80 (dinner & show) 7:30pm Wolf & Cub Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm

THURSDAY MAY 19 Dave Graney & The Lurid Yellow Mist Notes Live, Enmore $19.90 (presale)–$42.35 (dinner & show) 7pm New Weird Australia: The Savages, Kasha, Reuben Ingall, Shoeb Ahmad FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 (at door) 8pm

FRIDAY MAY 20 Gypsy & the Cat, WIM Metro Theatre, Sydney (sold out) 8pm John Grant (USA), Daisy M Tulley The Vanguard, Newtown $30 (+ bf) 6:30pm The Bamboos, The Psyde Projects, Paper

Wolf & Cub Plane Project Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $30 (+ bf) 8pm

Starr and Miss Samantha Diamond The Factory Theatre, Enmore $20 8pm

The UV Race, Bed Wettin Bad Boys, Holy Balm The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $10 8pm

Ghostwood, Betty Airs, Hailer FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $6 (presale)–$10 (at door) 8pm

SATURDAY MAY 21 Alex Lloyd, Pigram Brothers Notes Live, Enmore $31.35–$53.55 (dinner & show) 7pm Black Cherry: The Satellites, Los Capitanes, Pat Capocci Combo, The Corps, Whipped Cream Chargers and burlesque from Mark Winmill, Lillian

Flight, Underlights, Johnny Took Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $10 (+ bf) 8pm

SUNDAY MAY 22 Georgia Fields The Vanguard, Newtown $10 (+ bf), $15 (at door), $45 (dinner and show) 6:30pm The Bamboos

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Glen Whitehall Oatley Hotel free 2pm Helmut Uhlmann Club Totem, Balgowlah free 7:30pm Shane MacKenzie Cohibar free 5pm

COUNTRY The Black Hill Ramblers Marrickville Bowling and Recreation Club $10 4:30pm The Hoo Haas, Supro Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm The McClymonts North Sydney Leagues Club, Cammeray $20 (child)–$35 7pm Violet Sunset Royal Cricketers Arms, Prospect free 3:30pm BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 43

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

club pick of the week Pigeon John

WEDNESDAY MAY 18 Bank Hotel, Newtown Girls’ Night Miss Match free 9pm GoodGod Small Club Danceteria Shut Up. Dance. Smokey La Beef, Joseph Gadget, La Fresh, Hentai $12 8pm Lewisham Hotel Club Cubano DJ Jamie free– $12 7pm Marlborough Hotel, Newtown DJ Moussa free 11pm World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Free Dubstep Party free 8pm

THURSDAY MAY 19 Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill Havana Brown free 9pm Bank Hotel, Newtown DJ Eddie Coulter, DJ Jeremy Kirschner free Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor Top 40 Fitzroy DJs free 9pm Goodgod Small Club Dancetaria Rumble! Kill City Creeps $10 Goodgod Small Club - Front Bar Club AL Levins, Joseph Gadget, James McInnes free Ivy Courtyard The Groove Academy, Sarah J Hyland free 7pm The Gaff, Darlinghurst The College Party Gaff DJs free 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Urby & Mush free (student)–$5 (at door) 9pm

FRIDAY MAY 20

FRIDAY MAY 20

Tone, Surry Hills

Pigeon John (USA)

Tuka, Yeo, Dust Tones DJs $25 (presale)–$30 (at door) 8pm MONDAY MAY 16 World Bar, Kings Cross Mondays at World Bar Mista Killa free 8pm

TUESDAY MAY 17 The Gaff, Darlinghurst Coyote Tuesday Kid Finley, Johnny B free 9pm

The Valve, Tempe Underground Tables Gee Wiz, Myme, Benji, BC free 6pm World Bar, Kings Cross Pop Panic Karaoke, DJs Cris Angel, Nickles, Power Ballads free 8pm

Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill The Cool Room DJs free 9pm Bank Hotel, Newtown Friendly Fridays Eddie Coulter, Jeremy Kirschner free 8pm Blue Hotel, Woolloomooloo Sarah J Hyland free 7pm Candy’s Apartment, Kings Cross Liquid Sky DJ Moonchild $10/$15 Chinese Laundry, Sydney Elite Force (UK) $15–$20 9pm Club 202 Broadway Frathouse 9pm Cohibar DJ Jeddy Rowland & DJ Mike Silver free Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills Purple Sneakers The Deer Republic, Swim, M.I.T., Randall Stagg, Mr Nice, Josh Kelly, Matt Eager $10 (at door) 8pm Goldfish, Darlinghurst Funktank Mike OConnor, Fabz, Drop Dead Ed 9pm GoodGod Small club -Dancetaria Diggin’ In The Crates P-Money, Toni Toni Lee $10 10pm Home Terrace, Sydney Analogue Royalston, H Lock, Anomalous, Kieren Helmore, Paul Fraser 10pm Home The Venue, Darling Harbour Bobby V 7pm Hotel Chambers, Sydney Jump Jive & Wail Limpin’ Jimmy & the Swingin’ Kitten free 9pm Jacksons on George Ultimate Party Venue over 4 Floors free Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst Radio Social: Club Future Beat Monkfly, Kilter, DJ Elliot, Prize, Know U $5 (member)–$10 8pm

Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Falcona Fridays Hump Day Project $10 10pm Oatley Hotel We Love Oatley Hotel Fridays DJ Tone free 9pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Bass Brains Helicopter Showdown, F3TCH, Auto Claws, Last 2 Leave, We Monsta, Yayogi $15 (+ bf) 9pm The Dee Why Hotel Kiss & Fly The Gaff, Darlinghurst The Hellfire Club DJ Tokoloshe, DJ Jay, Sveta, Divine Knights $25 9:30pm Tone, Surry Hills Pigeon John (USA), Tuka, Yeo, Dust Tones $25 (presale)–$30 (at door) 8pm Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour Bring on the Weekend! DJ Matty Roberts free World Bar, Kings Cross MUM The Shooters Party, Fushia, The Archerbolds, Thieves, Fox, Brackets $10 15 8pm

SATURDAY MAY 21 Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill The Cool Room DJs free 9pm Bank Hotel, Newtown Abel El Toro, Paul Master free 9pm Blue Hotel, Woolloomooloo Beth Yen free 8pm Candy’s Apartment, Kings Cross Big Guns DJ’s: Lights out!, Moowho, Diskoriot, Disco Volante, Zomg! Kittens $10$20 Chinese Laundry, Sydney Bass Kleph, Midland, Tom Budden, James Zabiela $15– $20 9pm Civic Hotel, Sydney Adult Disco Future Classic DJs $15 (presale) 10pm Coach and Horses Hotel, Randwick Retro Night free 8pm Cohibar Yellow Sox Industry Night DJ Brynstar & Mudrockets free Dee Why Hotel Kiss & Fly Steve Frank, Kaiser, Olsen 8pm Empire Hotel, Darlinghurst Empire Saturdays Empire DJs free 9pm Establishment, Sydney Sienna $20 GoodGod Small Club Danceteria FUNKinc Miss Annie, Robin Knight, Ian Spicer, Harry Sounds, Huwston, Frenzie, Mr Glass $10 10pm Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park Magic City D-Block & S-te-Fan, Zatox, Kai Tracid (Germany), Wildstylez, Kutski, Stephanie, Jam X, JDX, Sarah Maria, BRK3, Toneshiftetrz, Bio Weapon, Nervous, Peewee Ferris, John Ferris, Dexi, VLN, MCD $122.10 (1st release)–$177.10 (premium) 9pm

Hotel Chambers, Sydney Red Room Trey, Naiki, C-Major, Troy T 8pm Jacksons On George, Sydney Ultimate Party Venue DJ Michael Stewart free Jets Sports Club, Tempe T-Quest Tsuyoshi, Raptor, Galaktik $20–$25 10pm Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown The Sound of Dubstep Borgore, J Nitrous, Droid Sector, Killafoe, Low Society DJs $21.25 (student)–$25 (+ bf) 9pm Melt Bar, Sydney The Box Claire Morgan, $10 9pm Selina’s, Coogee Tiki $31.15 The Civic Underground, Corner of Pitt & Goulburn Street, CBD, Sydney Picnic presents My Cousin Roy $15-$20 10pm The Forbes Hotel, Sydney We Love Indie $10 9pm The Gaff, Darlinghurst Johnny B free 9pm The Jets Club, Tempe MADSKIPPERS: DJ Tsuyoshi / Numanoid 3 hour tech $25$30 10pm The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale Smoke & Mirrors $65 (conc)– $70 The World Bar, Kings Cross WHAM! Robbie Lowe $15– $20 8pm Tone, Surry Hills Sunrise Paul Holden, Jade $10-$15 8pm Watershed Hotel The Watershed Presents Skybar Whitlam Leisure Centre, Sydney Euphoria Under 18’s Festival D-Block & WIldstylez $38.70 $79.60 5pm

SUNDAY MAY 22 Bank Hotel, Newtown Kitty Glitter free 4pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Picnic Sundays Kali 6pm Fakeclub Spice Robbie Lowe, James Taylor $20 4am Jacksons on George Aphrodisiac Industry Night free Oatley Hotel Sunday Session DJ Tone free 7pm Petersham Bowling Club Sunday Jump Kojo $10 2pm Sweeney’s Rooftop Sundaes Hanna Gibb, Ty $10 12pm The Bird in Hand Inn, Pitt Town Nick Woodford free 1pm The Hunter Bar Daydreams Dayclub Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour Afternoon DJ’s DJ Brynstar free World Bar, Kings Cross Fortune! Disco Punx free 6pm

My Cousin Roy

“One day I’ll call you on the telephone, Next day I be screaming down the megaphone,”- BLUE KING BROWN 44 :: BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11

club picks up all night out all week...

WEDNESDAY MAY 18 GoodGod Small Club Danceteria Silent. Disco. Shut Up. Dance. Smokey La Beef, Joseph Gadget, La Fresh, Hentai $12 8pm

FRIDAY MAY 20 Chinese Laundry, Sydney Elite Force (UK), Bitrok, The Audiophilez, Ryza vs.

Def Tonez $15–$20 9pm Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst Radio Social: Club Future Beat Monkfly, Kilter, DJ

Elliot, Prize, Know U $5 (member)–$10 8pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Falcona Fridays Hump Day Project $10 10pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Bass Brains Helicopter Showdown, F3TCH, Auto Claws, Last 2 Leave, We Monsta, Yayogi $15 (+ bf) 9pm

SATURDAY MAY 21

Numanoid

Civic Hotel, Sydney Adult Disco Future Classic DJs $15 (presale) 10pm Elite Force

The Civic Underground, Corner of Pitt & Goulburn Street, CBD, Sydney Picnic Presents My Cousin Roy, Marcus King, Dave Slade, Mirror Mirror, Andy Webb $15-$20 10pm Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown The Sound of Dubstep Borgore, J Nitrous, Droid Sector, Killafoe, Low Society DJs $21.25 (student)–$25 (+ bf) 9pm The Jets Club, Tempe MADSKIPPERS: DJ Tsuyoshi / Numanoid $25-$30 10pm The World Bar, Kings Cross WHAM! Robbie Lowe $15–$20 8pm

SATURDAY

JUNE 18 With Special Guests:

FDEL (DJ Set) DJ Frenzie (Groove Therapy) www.soulcityproductions.com.au | www.ticketek.com | www.lyricsborn.com SoulCity Productions

BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 45

Deep Impressions Underground Dance and Electronica with Chris Honnery

LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY MAY 28 Chris Liberator Valve Bar, Tempe

Robert Hood Marrickville Bowling Club

SUNDAY JUNE 12 Marcellus Pittman Tone

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 19 Hot Natured AGWA Boat Cruise

Franz Kafka

R

aising the intellectual stakes in terms of highbrow cultural references, Kompakt’s Wolfgang Voigt has unveiled details of Kafkatrax, a project created using voices taken from a Franz Kafka audiobook. Kafkatrax will be released in the form of three separate hand-painted 12” maxis, released over the next three months, but those without turntables need not despair - there will be a CD released in July. “The abstract overlaying and stratification of voices and word fragments over five octavos create a psychoticparanoid, ‘Kafkaesque’ atmosphere,” the press release elucidates, and a preview listen of the two tracks on the first 12”, ‘Kafkatrax 1.1’ and ‘Kafkatrax 1.2’, certainly aligns with the description “psychoticparanoid”, if not “Kafkaesque”. The tracks evoke the cut-up house of vintage Matthew Herbert; ’1.2’ adopts a low-slung schaffel rhythm in the classic Kompakt style. And just to gild the lily, the centre-label features an image of Voigt’s face superimposed on the head and shoulders of the brilliant Prague-born writer, who penned Metamorphosis and, for all his disturbing dissections of individual isolation, was capable of distilling a poignant intimacy in his writing too. In the man’s own words, “Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”

Spanish DJ and producer Henry Saiz has mixed the latest Balance compilation, which is due out in June. Saiz’s addition to the Balance canon comprises two contrasting discs; the first is seemingly all about lo-fi, for which he used analogue formats only, while the second disc appears more dance floor-orientated, traversing tracks from my boy Ricardo Tobar, Simon Garcia and Okain. The early word is it’s a corker, so start the pre-release whispers and let’s crank the hype-machine into overdrive.

Pulse Radio have announced their first boat party of the summer – nothing like planning in advance, eh? – which will be headlined

by Hot Natured, the flourishing project from Jamie Jones and L.A. party boy Lee Foss, who are perhaps best known collectively for their panty-droppin’ rework of MGMT, ‘Electric Jones’. Jones first sprang

to notice via his cut ‘Amazon’ in 2006, and has since collaborated with Matthew Styles to create a memorable remix of Fuckpony’s ‘Lady Judy’ (something of a ‘Pimp Jackson Is Talking Now’ of its time), before his single ‘Summertime' pushed the Briton onto the mainstream radar.

The track, which features vocals from Norwegian duo Ost & Kjex, could easily be taken as a straightforward house anthem – which probably explains its huge success (particularly with the ladies) – but it is more substantive than may initially appear, and rewards a closer listen. Tickets for the first of the AGWA summer boat parties go on sale on July 1, with the actual date of the bash slotted for Saturday November 19.

Now onto its sixth release, Nicolas Jaar’s Clown And Sunset imprint has established itself as a respected disseminator of offbeat downtempo grooves. With Anytime Will Do, the debut EP from Valentin Stip, Clown and Sunset adds a new face to its roster that slots in agreeably with the label’s intimate aesthetic. Hailing from Montreal, Stip is a 19-year-old, classically schooled pianist who recently turned his attention away from training for the concert circuit and towards electronic experimentation.

That’s another one to the dark side [insert sinister laughter]... If anyone knows about breaking through at a young age in the club scene it’s Jaar; still only in his early 20s, Jaar gradually rose to prominence over the past few years with a series of noteworthy EPs that culminated in the release of his debut LP, Space Is Only Noise, earlier this year.

Chicago’s Kate Simko is set to release her debut album Lights Out on the German Hello?Repeat label next month. Simko first made waves in the house and techno scene during the halcyon days of the ‘90s, after which she ventured to Santiago, Chile to record two albums under the guise of Detalles with Chilean producer Andres Bucci. Soon after she started to churn out EPs on labels such as Spectral Sounds and Kupei Musika, while spinning at the elite clubs on the global circuit: fabric, Berghain, et al… People speak of Simko’s sound conflating her Chicago roots and Chilean enterprises in a quality minimal template, but having not heard this release, I can’t say I’m one of such people. However if the buzz around the technosphere is anything to go by, Lights Out is well worth checkin’ out upon its release.

Kate Simko

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

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Soul Sedation

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

FRIDAY MAY 20

J

THURSDAY MAY 26

ames Murphy, the LCD Soundsystem frontman and a musician of eclectic high taste (an attribute seemingly rare for North Americans), has released a DJ mix entitled Disco Flashback. It’s a journey through the vintage and newer electronic sounds that prosper in the man’s personal record bag; the era-traipsing affair features 20 tracks from the likes of Stevie Wonder, In Flagranti, Sister Sledge, The Orb and Green Velvet. With all the great work that Murphy has released through his nowput-to-rest LCD outfit (the recent Madison Square Garden shows were allegedly off the hook), Soul Sedation will definitely be forking out some hard earned for a copy of this release.

The Bass Drop crew return in June for a drum n bass and dubstep showcase that leans heavily on the talents of the Shogun Audio family. Three of their artists will make the journey to headline the massive bill of DJ Friction, Spectrasoul and The Prototypes. To wrap your head around where Friction’s head is currently at, look out for the Shogun Audio Podcast #18 – which, among other things, explores the detailed production work of Dutch expatriate Icicle and his debut album Under The Ice. The manic rinsing session goes down at the OAF on Saturday June 4.

Further on the drum 'n' bass tip, a copy of Nu:Tone’s new record Words & Pictures hit the Soul Sedation desk just as this issue went to print. Stay tuned for the low-down on that Hospital Records release next week.

Keep your eyes and ears peeled for Big Things Vol 1, the first label comp from Sydney imprint Big Village, that features tracks from Tuka, True Vibenation, Rapaport, Loose Change and Daily Meds. The Big Village collective are a healthy group - Australia’s next crop of conscious hip hop emcees and producers - and they throw killer parties from time to time as well. Covering some classic boombap and lyrical trickery, Vol 1 also heads into future hip hop territory, fusing the current dubstep production style with hip hop drum patterns.

The Disco Deviance label has sent more top quality re-edits into the marketplace, and it’s great stuff for DJs. Digital Deviance #2 features work from Scottish re-edit wizard The Revenge, the prolific Social Disco Club, Pete Herbert and Nocturnal among others. And you can pick up some edits that weren’t released through the 12” series as well.

British house music royalty Joey Negro is also pushing the disco sound with the third instalment of his The Soul Of Disco series.

It’s a doubledisc mix of house and disco from one of the oldschool greats, and

ON THE ROAD Pigeon John Tone

The Bamboos Manning Bar Kurtis Blow Tone

FRIDAY MAY 27 Bliss n Eso, Horrorshow Hordern Pavilion

MAY 31, JUNE 1 & 2 OFWGKTA Sydney Opera House

THURSDAY JUNE 2 Sonny Rollins Sydney Opera House

SATURDAY JUNE 4 DJ Friction Oxford Art Factory

SATURDAY JUNE 4 Hypnotic Brass Ensemble Sydney Opera House

SATURDAY JUNE 18 Lyrics Born The Metro Theatre

reaches much deeper into the rarities side of his style as supposed to his oftenmainstream funky house output.

Long-standing US emcee and Gorillaz collaborator Del the Funky Homosapien has announced an Australian tour. He’ll be appearing on Sunday July 24 at the OAF, with graf artist/rapper Bukue One on support duty. Check Bukue’s tracks ‘Bring It Back’ and ‘You Don’t Know’, to familiarise yourself with some of his best work.

Groupies – and there are plenty – will be ecstatic to hear that the world’s favourite soul man, Mayer Hawthorne, has released a free six-track EP of cover songs. Entitled Impressions, the LA resident covers the Isley Brothers, Chromeo, The Festivals, and Electric Light Orchestra. This column’s pick is his slow burning version of Chromeo’s ‘Don’t Turn The Lights On’, both artists sharing a penchant for eras gone by.

You can track the release down through the Stone’s Throw website.

The city is spoilt for choice this Friday night, with a small handful of shows that you’re likely to want to get involved in. The funk purists/revivalists won’t be able to resist The Bamboos gig at the Manning Bar – the well-versed outfit always bringing their A-game. The hip hop crowd will be split between Tone for Pigeon John’s appearance (who’s touring off the back of his Dragon Slayer album, out through the Quannum Projects) and GoodGod Small Club for the Diggin’ In The Crates event.

Expect real hip hop as DJ P-Money tackles the Roc A Fella catalogue, Ology digs Rawkus Records, Toni Toni Lee cuts through Cash Money, Mike Who the same for Tommy Boy, and Linotype reaches into Loud. A few good options.

Del the Funky Homosapien

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

BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 47

snap sn ap

06:05:11

falcona fridays

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last night

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up all night out all week . . .

06:05:11 Kit & Kaboodle :: 33-35 Darlinghurst Rd Kings Cross 93680300

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

It’s called: The Bamboos' 10 year anniversary show!

It sounds like: A 10-year revue from one of the country’s most exciting live groups.

Who’s playing? The Bamboos with powerhouse vocalist Kylie Auldist, along with special guests The Psyde Projec ts and Paper Plane Project.

Sell it to us: The Bamboos are Australia’s premi er funk group, releasing four studio and two live albums over the past decade. After a soldout show in Melbourne at the start of the year, the celebrations are now heading to Sydney, where The Bamboos will be joined by fellow Melbournians The Psyde Projects and locals Paper Plane Project, in one huge night of music, dancing and all around good times.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: A great night of celebrations with Australia’s kings and queen of funk.

Crowd specs: Anyone keen on a great Friday night out!

Wallet damage: $30 +bf Where: Manning Bar, Sydney University

When: Friday May 20

puma after hours bowling 06:05:11 :: Strike Bowling Bar :: 22 The Promenade, King St Wharf 1300787453

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mum

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party profile

The Bamboos

06:05:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

48 :: BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11

:: NIKI BODLE :: KATRINA CLARKE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) NS :: VICKY NGUYEN :: SARAH OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER MUN AS :: ASHLEY MAR :: DANIEL :: BRANDON ELS :: BEN KALGOV ETTE ROUHANNA :: PATRICK STEVENSON :: ROS O'BRIEN :: THOMAS PEACHY ::

TIKIDUB PRODUCTIONS AND STOP START PRESENT ACOUSTIC / MC SET WITH DJ OPTIMUS GRYME

FRI MAY 27 SELINA’S Coogee Bay NSW Coogee Bay Rd & Arden St Tix from www.Moshtix.com.au (1300 GET TIX) or Moshtix Outlets or www.Oztix.com.au 1300 764 545

NEW ALBUM OUT NOW

TOUR supported by 3D World

WWW.TIKIDUB.COM WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/STOPSTARTMUSIC

BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11 :: 49

dj sampology

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up all night out all week . . .

06:05:11 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex Street Sydney 82959958

kitty kitty bang bang

late@the loft

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chinese laundry

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06:05:11 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93323711

party profile

05:05:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

It’s called: Kitty Kitty Bang Bang It sounds like: ‘Moonlight Party’ – Fonzerelli (“Dancing in the moonlight, waiting for the sunrise (I’m not moving from the dance floor!)”

Who’s spinning? Miss T, Gabby, Cassette, Alison Wonderland, Rob Kay, Trent Rakus, Kingsley Three records you’ll hear on the night: ‘Fresh Prince Of Bel Air’ – Will Smith; ‘! (The Song Formerly Known As)’ – Regurgitator; ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ – Queen.

And one you definitely won’t: Any song that's requested using a mobile phone!

Sell it to us: A night filled with luscious drinks , gorgeous girls and your favourite tunes, all at Kings Cross’ best kept secret!

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Everything you will need to know will be on your camera.

Crowd specs: Hot birds and cool cats.

Wallet damage: Satisfaction has no wallet damage!

Where: Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club / 33 37 Darlinghurst Rd, Kings Cross

tone

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propaganda 06:05:11 :: Tone Venue :: 116 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills 9267 6440 50 :: BRAG :: 412 :: 16:05:11

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When: Every Saturday night, 6pm till 5am

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05:05:11 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700 :: NIKI BODLE :: KATRINA CLARKE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) NS :: VICKY NGUYEN :: SARAH OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER MUN IEL DAN AS :: ASHLEY MAR :: :: BRANDON ELS :: BEN KALGOV ETTE ROUHANNA :: PATRICK STEVENSON :: ROS O'BRIEN :: THOMAS PEACHY ::