The Brag #446

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rock music news welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Nathan Jolly and Alex Christie

he said she said WITH VAUGHAN

DEAD FROM GOONS OF DOOM

A

ll our parents were in different bands. Ozzie’s dad was in the Boston Blackie’s Bonzer Boys who played surf-stomp folk rock, which is kinda what we do too. Cowboy’s dad played keyboard for a while in a Flock Of Seagulls cover act. Ray’s dad played ‘What’s The Time Mr Wolf’ in Once Were Warriors. My dad played in a band that never decided on a name. Killer’s dad is Frank Zappa, we think.

When I was six I used to get up before the sun, take off all my clothes, put my Split Enz Time And Tide tape in the stereo and sit in an upside down cardboard box in the dark listening to ‘Six Months In A Leaky Boat’. I know the other Goons’ musical influences include Frank Zappa, Buddy Holly, The Birthday Party and Wa Wa Nee, so it’s a bit all over the place.

Our crew is five plus one plus one hundred. There’s Cowboy, Ozzie Wrong, Killer, Ray of Sunshine and Deadly who are the Goons. And then there’s Pauly B who’s pretty much a Goon too. And then there’s the Flower Drum girls who Goon on a bit. And

Nova Heart

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signature Theremin sound. Annnd in the blue corner, it’s the energetic quintet Cub Scout, who’ll be pumping out their latest indie pop single ‘Evie’ – a taster from their upcoming album which they’re recording with Melbourne producer John Castle (Washington, The Cat Empire). It’s all happening on the Hurricane Evie Tour, which brings both acts to The Standard on Friday February 17. So get ready to rumble – or at least to dance a little with a beer in your hand.

SOUND KAPITAL

A new wave of Chinese musicians are working outside of the governmentcontrolled media channels and kicking musical arse over in fair Beijing.

Three of the country’s most awesome underground acts (this is proper underground, not your tape-releasing, snarling Aussie ‘underground’) are flying over to play at Carriageworks for Sound Kapital, an awesome night being held on Friday February 3 which will also feature visual projections and an artist talk by photographer Matthew Niederhauser, whose most recent project chronicles the “seething punk underground of Beijing”. AV Okubo, Nova Heart and Xiao He are the acts, and adjectives that have been bantered around to describe these guys include ‘sinister’, ‘haunting’, ‘raw’, ‘mystical, ‘surreal’, ‘unpredictable’ and ‘saccharine’.

YouTube them all, and then send us a photo of your wow-face.

What’s better than seeing Sydney four-piece Camden play their passionate, Morrisseystyled rock music live? Seeing them play surrounded by dinosaur stuff at the Australian Museum! Our favourite live-music-meetsthe-glorious-history-of-planet-Earth night Jurassic Lounge is finally kicking off again on Tuesday January 31 with a set from Camden, and will run every Tuesday from 5.30pm for eight weeks. The $15 door cost includes a drink token, and you’ll be able to find the full program online soon. Be patient.

CAGE THE ELEPHANT

The killer lineup of this week’s Big Day Out has spawned a plethora of indecently awesome sideshows competing for your wallets and your time. One of the highlights will be Kentucky five-piece Cage The Elephant who are touring their second album, 2011’s extremely polite Thank You Happy Birthday, which debuted at #2 in the USA. If that’s not enough for you, they name The Pixies, The Shins, Butthole Surfers and Mudhoney among their inspirations and their lead, Matt Shultz, can often be seen crowd surfing in a dress – so basically, this is a guaranteed win. We’re about to implode with

then there’s Loomsey who drinks Goon. And then there’s all the Goons we love. Our crew is awesome.

The music we make is really just as fun as we can make it. I usually tell people it’s a drunken party, but that’s not being completely fair to the songs, because there are really super good songs that are clever and hooky and catchy and dancey. It’s just that we love wild parties, so that’s the sound we try to make.

Music right now in Sydney is all-time. FBi Radio is the best thing ever, because you get a total feel for everything that’s going on in the city. Mylee Grace and the Milkshakes are so unbelievable, and The Bungalows are awesome and so are The Ruminators.

Golden era for sure.

With: Sticky Fingers, Betty Airs, The Bungalows, Mylee Grace, Valley Floor, Bang Bang! Rock n’ Roll, DJ Nic & Brien Where: My Bondi Riot Australia Day Weekend Extravaganza @ Beach Road Hotel When: Saturday January 28, from 6pm

the animal metaphors we’ve been resisting, so let’s hurry along to the crux: Cage The Elephant is being unchained on Saturday January 28, and will be stampeding straight to the Oxford Art Factory. Pack your trunks.

Something about Babar. And cetera.

SOUNDWAVE UPDATE

If you check their website, you’ll see the organisers of this year’s Soundwave clearly have a hidden agenda: to stage the world’s largest toga party that has ever happened.

Having planned a monstrous lineup for 2012, easily their biggest yet, they sat down and thought to themselves, ‘What theme encourages uninhibited imbibing, dancing, singing and other Bacchian pursuits?’ Answer: ancient Rome. Therefore! Whilst you filthy plebs dig out your togas it is our duty to inform you that DragonForce has been forced to pull out due a delay in completing their new album – but in their place Switchfoot and Paradise Lost, reputable centurion forces, will be fighting fit in their place at the sold out festival, which happens on February 26 at the Olympic Park.

AUSTRALIA DAY AT COOGEE BAY

The Coogee Bay Hotel has collabed with AFL legend Sam Kekovich to create the ultimate ‘80s-inspired Australia Day barbeque at their place. It kicks off at 2pm on Thursday January 26 (which coincidentally falls on Australia Day this year) with a table tennis competition and summer-themed prizes – seriously, who can resist prizes?! They’ll be streaming the Hottest 100, and on matters of gastronomy, Kekovich’s role as a ‘lambassador’ will ensure no one is left hungry. My sources have also informed me that the event promises to be something of a lambfest, including inspired mini lamb burgers and BBQ lamb rolls. Enjoy!

HOLLY THROSBY TOUR

Take an average-sized room and fill it with cats. Then squeeze all those cats to death in a smothering, overbearing, ohmygodlookatyourlittlefaces kinda way.

That’s how much we love Holly Throsby.

Team is an amazing album, and ‘When’ is the most beautiful, heartbroken song since Joni Mitchell got all Blue. Anyway, she’ll be playing Annandale Hotel on March 16, which feels very far into the future right now but preparedness never hurts.

HURRICANE EVIE

In the red corner, on the back of his recently released, self-titled EP (and the awesome track ‘Plastic Bag In A Hurricane’), Pluto Jonze will be backed by an explosive live three-piece to emphasise his eclectic,

The Mountain Goats

MOUNTAINEERING

The Mountains Goats will be indie-ing your faces off on May 6 at The Metro Theatre, when they tour their ninety-fifth album All Eternals Deck. “John Darnielle is without a doubt one of the finest songwriters working right now – a true American novelist” is what we said in our review of the record, and we tend to be very correct regarding these matters (also regarding matters of the heart – drop us a line?).

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rock music news

free stuff

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town... with Nathan Jolly and Alex Christie

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH TOM FROM

Cage The Elephant

PEAR SHAPE Bridezilla and Tim and Jack Ellwood are brothers from the country, and played in Indigo Rising. I crudely wrote some songs in my bedroom on my laptop, and needed some bros to put a show on to get them out of my system. They’re amazing musicians, and I’m okay.

The Music You Make We try to write music that 4. is poppy and generally happy.

I like music that entertains, particularly since I’m only 23; I don’t feel like I should be writing serious, pensive music, because what life lessons could I impart on a discerning Sydney audience? I just like to bop about and write the most honest lyrics I can about my own experiences, hopefully making people smile and sing too.

1.

Growing Up I grew up listening to my parents music – a combination of Beatles, Kinks and Easybeats, and church music and classical.

Then when I was all teenage I had an angst-y punk phase, involving Joy Division and Sex Pistols. Now I just listen to everything, including conventionally terrible genres like Top 40 pop and “IDM”.

2.

Inspirations I’m inspired by musicians that manage to write great songs that defy their crappy genres. There are some great J-Pop songs, even though most of it is terrible. I think that’s what I mean by ‘I just listen to everything’ – I don’t really think there are particularly clear genres anymore, which means I allow myself to be inspired by bipolar styles, like Belle and Sebastian,

Django Reinhardt, Aphex Twin or Rhianna. Not that we as a band end up sounding like all of those combined; I just mean sounds are more of an aesthetic these days, and less about where the artist is from and about. Korean pop singers can sound like Seattle punks these days.

Crew Josh Bush plays in 3.Your

fickle nature of Sydney’s music venues, amiright?

This year, The Annandale Hotel is getting involved with the ‘Buy-A-Brick’ campaign, with the money going towards a much-needed upgrade, and to reduce the hotel’s debts. Why not head over there for a free gig (yay! free stuff!) on SLAM day, February 23? And if you buy a brick before then you get a plaque mounted on the outside of the pub in your honour! Free gig and a plaque – what could be better? To buy a beautiful brickette hit up annandalehotel.com

Justice Yeldham

WORMWOODSTOCK

Because our last non-alphabetised list was such a raging success, we have chosen to include another one! This time it is a truncated inventory of the lineup for Wormwoodstock, the amazing psychedelic camp-out/festival/acid trip (don’t take drugs) happening January 27-29 at an as-yet-undisclosed location 90 minutes from Sydney. Here you go, chitterlings: Domeyko/Gonzalez, Brackets, Feathers, ghost_, Kasha, Jusgo Mosh, Scattered Order, No Art, Dreamtime, Zeahorse, the Ovals, Kang Gang, Loz Nonsense, Justice Yeldham, Oscillateur, Wild Dog Creek. You’re welcome.

VENUE ALERT: LEWISHAM & ROXBURY

Listen up lovers, there’s been a change of guard at two of Sydney’s live music venues. Wellknown Sydney musician/sound tech/recording engineer/music guru dude aJay is now booking the Lewisham Hotel (branded Sydney Live House) and Glebe’s Roxbury Hotel. Both venues have been decked out with new fittings and new sound and lighting gear way too nerdy to get into here – and your first chance to check it out is Saturday January 28 at the Lewisham Hotel, when Gran Torino, Urban Stone, Ashes and Escape Syndrome play. Don’t stain the carpet – it’s new!

SLAM IN SYDNEY

Speaking of live music: the 2010 Melbourne SLAM (Save Live Australian Music) rally brought together 20,000 people for the largest cultural protest in Australia’s history. It’s about time we followed the lead of our sister city in light of the fleeting and

PEAR & THE AWKWARD ORCHESTRA

FBi Social continue to showcase avant-garde, alternative artists, fuelling what seems like something of an explosion of creativity in Sydney at the moment. In this vein, Brisbane-based folkpop collective Pear & The Awkward Orchestra is playing a gig at the venue as part of their east coast tour. Their 2011 debut record Smocks! has been enthusiastically supported by triple j’s Roots ‘N All, and among other accolades was ABC Radio National’s Album of the Week – one of the more superior titles in our opinion. Pears are sweet and juicy and whimsically-shaped as well as sometimes gritty and speckled, and so be it that the band’s music emulates their namesake. Catch them launching their new single ‘Castle’ with Miss Little at FBi Social on February 22.

Music, Right Here, Right Now 5.

Sydney music is great. I just hope we can keep loose and not take ourselves too seriously!

As Bowie said, let’s dance!

What: ‘Righteousness’ is out now on Major Label Where: The Standard When: Saturday February 4

CAGE THE ELEPHANT

They wrote their last album in a log cabin buried in the American woodlands, but Cage The Elephant is not about to get all Bon Iver on you guys. They’re stomping into Oxford Arts Factory for a BDO sideshow, with their catchy hooks, trippy instrumentals and RHCP-style punk-fuelled tunes. They had their own track called ‘Judas’ on 2011’s Thank You, Happy Birthday well before Gaga stole the song name and made it a disco mess – and we’ve heard that this Kentucky five-piece performs a loud and chaotic live show (crowd-surfing and singing from the pit may be involved). Free January 28? Great.

Up for a night of sing-alongs, explosive choruses and trippy dancing? Of course you are. We have two double passes up for grabs – shoot us an email and let us know your favourite Cage The Elephant song.

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE

My Chemical Romance have had a hell of a time lately; they were accused of spreading propaganda, had their song covered by Glee, and Gerard Way was held responsible by mothers across the globe for their suddenly-blunt eyeliner. Never mind all that though – the boys are putting their woes aside and coming to sunny Australia with their new album in tow, the upbeat Danger Days. First they’ll blow your mind at Big Day Out, and then they’ll gather up all the gross slimy brain bits and blow them AGAIN at Hordern Pavilion on Friday January 27. If you wanna get your \m/ on with the original emo group, just shoot us an email with the name of another band member.

MY BONDI RIOT

My Sydney Riot (mine involves throwing hot chips at passers-by while blasting Teenage Fanclub records) are putting together a huge weekend bonanza in Bondi. My Bondi Riot (mine involves throwing hot chips at passers-by while wearing zinc and hanging with Sam from Home & Away) will feature Goons of Doom, Sticky Fingers, Betty Airs, The Bungalows, Mylee Grace & the Milkshakes, Valley Floor (QLD), Bang!

Bang! Rock n’ Roll, while Nic & Brien play vinyl between sets. It happens this Saturday January 28 upstairs at Beach Road, Bondi, from 6pm.

BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB

Bombay Bicycle Club, a bunch of bratty boys from beautiful ol’ Blighty, are touring their latest record A Different Kind Of Fix this March. You might remember their debut album I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose – it’s the one that went Gold and had that ‘Shuffle’ song, but received a heap of complaints about its extremely disappointing lack of alliteration [citation needed].

This rather brilliant bunch of baby-faced brats are travelling as special guests for Elbow (who play on Monday March 26 at the Hordern Pavilion), but will be playing their own (and their first!) Sydney headline show at The Oxford Art Factory on Wednesday March 28. Tickets go on sale through Moshtix on Wednesday February 1.

POST-FESTIVAL PARTAE

Following on from the slew of festivals they’ve been flinging their menagerie of instruments around, The Crooked Fiddle Band have announced their fifth annual Post-Festival Party, which will be landing at the Annandale on Saturday January 28. The Barons of Tang, Delaney Davidson (NZ), Hinterland, Fanny Lumsden and The Birdmann are all playing alongside the organisers in an attempt to keep the party season kicking on – but we’re not so sure it ever left... The festival season’s only just started! Carb up, you guys!

The Crooked Fiddle Band

Lanie Lane

SMAC AWARDS!

FBi Radio’s SMAC Awards happened on Thursday last week, and if you happen upon any typos in this issue, we’re blaming the deadly deadline hangovers. BRAG presented Best Major Festival, which was awarded to the wonderful Harvest – but with Peats Ridge, Musica Tumbalong, Vivid LIVE and Graphic as nominees, it was a tough one for you voters. Best Visual Artist went to Ears (Daniel O’Toole); Best Arts Event went to Outpost; Best Collective went to Dirty Shirlows; Best Live Music Act went to The Jezabels; Best Music Event went to GoodGod’s Long Birthday Nights; Best On Screen went to Sam Bennetts for Bluejuice’s ‘Act Your Age’; Best On Stage went to Nick Coyle; Best Song and Best New Thing both went to Matt Corby; Record Of The Year went to Lanie Lane for To The Horses; Remix The City went to Jurassic Lounge; and Best Eats went to The Dip. The SMAC Of The Year was awarded to Millie Millgate from Sounds Australia, and The Industry Most Likely To Take Full And Glutinous Advantage Of Free Catering Title was split right down the middle between music and the arts.

“We took a trip down in ‘87. We were looking for a place where we don’t fear heaven” - Portugal. The Man .. Feb 7 METRO 10 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 22:01:12

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The Music Network

themusicnetwork.com

Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

THINGS WE HEAR

* Kiss' manager Doc McGhee told The Music Network that they’ll be touring here in 2013. * Last Friday was the last Big Day Out that will be held in New Zealand. After 18 years, promoter Ken West says it is no longer financially viable. * Kasabian’s Tom Meighan wants to go shark spotting when he’s in Australia for BDO. * Sydney electro-darlings Ghoul have split after four years. * Jimmy Barnes has broken into the US dance charts. He features on Cuban performer DJ Yaleidys’s remix of Dragon’s old hit ‘April Sun In Cuba’, out through INXS manager Chris Murphy’s Petrol Electric label. * The Machinations, currently rehearsing

INERTIA ACCESS

Inertia has launched a new services platform ‘Inertia Access’ for unsigned Australian acts. It will be run by Inertia A&R and Australian Music Manager Mark Dodds, alongside head of A&R Justin Cosby and managing director Colin Daniels. They will choose hot acts and offer them services like digital distribution, media servicing, royalty collection and film/TV licensing. In addition, Inertia can coordinate CD, merchandise and poster manufacture at competitive rates. “Inertia Access is about creating a one-stop shop for artists making the leap into the marketplace,” says Daniels. General enquiries to access@ inertia-music.com. The first act signed is Sydney-based 21-year-old electro-pop producer Elizabeth Rose, who releases her debut single this month.

RDIO LANDS

US music streaming service Rdio (www.rdio. com) has launched in Australia. Subscribers pay between $8.90 - $12.90 for 24/7 access to Rdio’s library of 12 million songs from all the major labels, and tracks from Aussie indies like Inertia, Liberation Music, Modular and Shock. They can create and share playlists, then listen to them on any platform (iPhone, iPad, Windows, Mac etc) without downloading or using Wi-Fi. There is a sevenday free trial with the Australian launch.

Rdio was founded by Janus Friis, who also created Skype.

THE HOLDING PATTERN

The Holding Pattern (www.holdingpattern. com) is a new service where indie musicians can host, share and sell their work, while keeping 80% of the sale and retaining control of their copyright. It also serves as a place where production companies and creatives can find and buy tracks. For consumers, the site has a 3D geographical engine called the Holding Pattern Visualiser, which allows users to find new music of all styles. Managing director Nick Arnold, who worked on it for two years, says “It is a simple platform that will supersede any current model that exists in the market today.”

at Top End Sound Studios in Marrickville, and knocking 23 songs into shape for their two reunion shows — Feb 24 and 25 at the Bridge — are rapt that one fan is flying all the way from the UK for them.

Guitarist Tim Doyle will shout the bloke a T-shirt and a ticket. * US drug sellers celebrated the arrival of Beyonce and Jay-Z’s new kid Blue Ivy by naming a new line of marijuana after her. * Kings Cannons’ new drummer is Dan McKay from The Nation Blue. * After US hip hoppers Death Grip nixed their Australian tour, including their set at the Mona Foma festival in Tasmania, its curator Brian Ritchie (also bassist with The Violent Femmes) assembled Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione, former Bad Seed guitarist Mick Harvey and PJ Harvey’s producer John Parish, to do a set of Femmes songs last Friday. * Has Matt Corby finally overcome his reality TV beginnings? In hometown Melbourne he’s announced his fifth show at the Corner Hotel. If the Feb 19 show sells out, he will equal Washington’s record at the venue. * Six hours of torrential rain hit the 27th Illawarra Folk Festival just before dawn, creating chaos for 1,000 campers there.

Organisers say that despite the flooding and ensuing mud pit, 9,500 came to enjoy 150 acts.

SOUNDBOOKA

Soundbooka (soundbooka.com) is Australia’s first online integrated booking platform for musicians, DJs and audio professionals.

Essentially it acts as a personal online booking agent. Artists are invited to register for free, and receive exposure in front of venue- and event-bookers with visual, video and audio cues, a bio, and a full calendar of availability. Founder and director Chris Blann says, “Our research has shown that there is nothing connecting employable musicians, DJs and audio professionals with the wide network of people and organisations who need them, such as record labels, wedding planners, live venues, private functions and corporate bookers.”

COMMUNITY CUP HEADS TO SYDNEY

The charity Community Cup football match – which since 1997 has seen Melbourne community radio RRR and PBS jocks pitted against local musos – comes to Sydney on March 18 at Henson Park in Sydenham, home to the Newtown Jets. If you’re interested in playing or performing, contact Kim Carter at Rockstar Management: kim@rockstar.net.au. Last year, the Cup drew 12,000 (with sets from You Am I and Tumbleweed) and raised $120,000 for charity partner Reclink’s work with the disadvantaged.

GENERAL PANTS’ MAJOR LABEL OFFERS PACKAGE DEAL General Pants’ singles-only record company Major Label is offering a two-month artist package for those wanting to join. This includes distribution via iTunes and General Pants’ online community including Facebook, an intro via the Bubble area of the General Pants site, being featured at least once on a General Pants brand video, have label, posters and logos developed by an artist, have a clip produced and packaged, and receive PR opportunities through Peer Group Media. Submit your track via generalpants. com.au/The-Bubble, contact Sami Stewart at sami.stewart@peergroupmedia.com or take your demo into any General Pants store.

Meanwhile, Major Label has just signed Sydney pop band Pear Shape. Formed a year ago by members of Joysticks, Indigo Rising, Bridezilla and The Death Set, they release a country-pop single ‘Righteousness’ this month. In other Major Label news, signees Step-Panther were nominated for Best Live Music Act at the FBi SMAC Awards, Perth’s Felicity Groom has gone on to release an album, and Melbourne’s Tessa & The Typecast have released their debut EP, Lemons.

Lifelines Born: Twin sons, Bowie and John Paul, to Paul Weller and wife Hannah. Weller now has seven children to four different women.

MC Sky’high

SKY’HIGH JOINS ELEFANT TRAKS

Tough-ass Sydney MC Sky’high joins the Elefant Traks hip hop label, with a debut album produced by P-Money due out in May. Voted Best Female MC in last year’s Ozhiphop awards, Sky’high grew up in the housing commissions of Maroubra and Ultimo amidst a culture of drugs, alcohol and violence. She’s opening on The Herd’s March national tour, with Thundamentals.

ALSTON KOCH AT LIFESTYLE/SONY

Aussie disco pioneer Alston Koch inked with Lifestyle Music/Sony Music to release his album Don’t Funk With Me on February 10.

First single to clubs and radio, ‘Soul Sounds’ (with mixes from Ian Curnow/Dave Ford and The Beetfreeks), and its follow up ‘Don’t Know Why’ have already got spins in English clubs.

In the ‘70s, Koch’s disco-urban band Dark Tan went gold with ‘Disco Lady’ (BMG), and broke into the Asian market.

MCMORROW RISES AT DEW PROCESS

Dew Process has signed Irish troubadour James Vincent McMorrow, and will release his acclaimed debut album Early In The Morning in early March, after which he’ll be here to play Bluesfest and other shows.

McMorrow’s prime inspiration came from authors like John Steinbeck, F Scott Fitzgerald and Roald Dahl.

NADA SURF JOIN STOP START

Sydney label Stop Start signed New York’s Nada Surf. A new album, The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy, is out late Feb, and the back catalogue will be released later. Stop Start’s Andy Bryan says the band has only toured here once. “Making all their material available and hopefully bringing the band back to these shores seems like the least we can do for a band of this stature.”

ANDYS KENT AND CASSELL KEYNOTE AT FUSE

Andy Cassell and Andy Kelly of Winterman & Goldstein Management and Ivy League Records have been added as keynote speakers for Adelaide’s Fuse showcase and conference in February. APRA’s head Brett Cottle is also keynoting. New international speakers are Chris Wareing of the UK’s The Great Escape, Alicen Catron Schneider (who is head of TV music at NBC Universal Television), Franz Schuller of Canada’s Indica Records and US digital music pioneer Corey Denis.

ADELE: QUEEN OF KARAOKE

One in four karaoke singers in Britain choose an Adele song, says research. ‘Someone Like You’ was 2011’s most popular, making up 14% of songs performed using website Lucky Voice. ‘Make You Feel My Love’ was second most popular, with 10%. ‘Rolling In The Deep' was #7. Singing fans use Lucky Voice to turn their computer into a karaoke machine.

Meantime, Adele's 21 album has had the longest running #1 by a British studio album on the US Billboard chart, after staying up there for 16 weeks. She beat the 15 weeks record

FAN OF THE WEEK

Kate Bush tragic, Frank Tufaro, 32, flew to London with a $4500 ring, and then took a $350 taxi ride to Exeter to propose to Kate Bush. He smashed a window at her remote mansion, then fled on discovering she was not home. Cops found him dragging his suitcase along a country lane and deported him.

12 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

Nada Surf

Engaged: Katie Melua and former World Superbike champion James Toseland. They met when he attended one of her shows.

Marrying: Reports suggest Mumford And Sons’ Marcus Mumford will tie the knot with actress Carey Mulligan in the northern spring.

In Court: Bruno Mars, who pleaded guilty to coke possession last February at a Las Vegas show, has been cleared after keeping out of trouble for a year.

In Court: Polish singer Doda was fined 5000 zlotys (US$1757) for saying in an interview she doubted The Bible “because it’s hard to believe in something that was written by someone drunk on wine and smoking some herbs.”

Died: US funk legend Jimmy Castor, who’s best known for 1972’s ‘Troglodyte (Cave Man)’ and been heavily sampled by dance and hip hop acts (including Pnau), 64.

Died: Aussie drummer Robbie France, who went to the UK in the early '80s and played with Diamond Head and UFO, of a ruptured aorta, 52. Born in Sheffield, he moved to Australia aged 11, and studied at the National Academy of Rudimentary Drummers of Australia until 1974, when he began teaching his own students at the Australian Academy of Music at the young age of 15. He did four film scores and influenced drummers like Lars Ulrich.

held jointly by The Beatles’ Sgt Peppers (July and October 1967) and Pink Floyd’s The Wall (January and April 1980).

WANNA INTERN FOR INDENT?

Now that they’ve moved into their new digs in Darlinghurst, Indent has a space in the office for an intern to work one or two days a week for five weeks, in the run-up to their 2012 Open Day. See indent.net.au for duties and requirements; send your CV and cover letter to meg@musicnsw.com before January 31.

WANNA PLAY SCORCHERFEST?

SCoRCHeR FeST has four shows touring from March 18 to April 15, with the NSW show at Valve Bar on April 15. They’re looking at up to 50 acts, with online tix at $20. If you want your play, apply at scorcherfest.com.au

WANNA PRESENT ON FBI?

FBi Radio is looking for new presenters, ideally aged 18 to 25. It’s currently running an eightsession presenter training course; to find out more, see fbiradio.com.

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BDO PLAYING TIMES & MAP p.19

Big Day Out 2012

Big Day Out pulled together another incredible lineup this year, and we wanted to talk to all of them. Flick through the next few pages to get the low-down on some of our festival picks, from backpack weed-rap to retro rock, from indie pop to ...mariachi? We’ve also gone ahead and printed you a festival map and schedule – circle it, cut it out, fold it and pocket it. See you there!

this novelty (see ‘All Brown Everything’, ‘Fake Patois’, ‘Puerto Rican Cousins’), let alone that much of this addressing is done through a haze of weed jokes and txt msg-rdy jests (“White people love me like they love Subarus/ Rolling with the super crew, something like Scooby-Doo/My eyes droopy? Mommy that’s what doobies do.” from ‘Rapping 2 U’), let alone that the jokes are actually funny (“We’re not racist, we love white people! Ford trucks, apple pies! Bald eagles / Yeah, Cheetos, Doritos, Fritos, Pringles, Kraft Singles, Slim Jims, Sierra Mist!” from ‘hahahaha jk?’). And so placing all this complicated, culturallysensitive stuff in a laugh-out-loud party jam has probably opened up Das Racist to more questions from more directions than most musicians in a long time. “A lot of times, Indian kids will come to me on my blog from high school and college and – well, not even Indian kids – they’ll be like, ’I’m white… my mum is Spanish… my dad is African’. People just tell me what their identity is and ask a question, and I don’t know what to tell them,” Heems says. Recently, the internet-heavy presence of all members has led to a strong back and forth with the audience and, beyond the frequent offerings of pot at future gigs, most of the conversation hovers around race. “But it’s fascinating to see, and I guess they see me speaking for them, and that’s cool. I hope we’re doing a good job.”

They’re Not Joking. Just Joking. By Matt Roden

“Doing it in our lyrics is just one way,” Heems continues, “and if we’re talking about it and people read about it in interviews, that to me is no different from me discussing it in our lyrics – or, if they see something in a visual thing we do, that’s no different from hearing it in a song.

Music is just one part of what I see to be this whole multi-media project.”

In 2009, Das Racist played a gig that was a live recreation of Beastie Boys’ Ill Communication. Without the band having memorised the rhymes particularly well, reports were that it sort of bombed (just in terms of entertaining anyone outside the band). But a couple of international jaunts and a solid national tour on the back of their latest release have the group tightening their live act.

“It’s not a planned chaos, and what happens between the songs, we just react to what happens on the day. We don’t have practised banter. And we’ve been putting together cool projections, playing with delay pedals; working on stuff to keep us from getting bored. There’s a lot of visuals that don’t correlate to the references in the lyrics, except maybe in one or two places – it’s more of a somewhat visual component to the chaotic nature of our music.”

I

f it’s sometimes hard to continue reading the same responses from music artists – “We recorded in a cabin”; “We were influenced by Springsteen”; “We’re just gonna play it one game at a time” – then it must be just as tiring to be asked over and over about the origins of your inspiration.

Heems, one third of the Brooklyn-based hip hop group Das Racist, also sounds tired, but the questioned areas of expertise that have been thrust upon him and his band mates must tax in ways that extend beyond repetition.

Das Racist (say it quick and lazy), from New York circa only about two years ago, have released two mixtapes (Sit Down, Man; Shut Up, Dude) and one album (last year’s Relax) and toured pretty solidly, and yet most interviews will skip blithely past the making of their music to the myriad of topics the band espouses on – and then generally, reliably, inevitably come back to race.

“We came out with a song like ‘Pizza Hut Taco Bell’, and everyone was scratching their heads,” says Heems, breaking from a rehearsal in New York to be interviewed about the interviews they give, and to be asked why they sometimes seem to not get

asked about their music at all. “And then the story is we’re neither black nor white, but our big picture is kind of black and white, and looks brown. And in America, at least, there aren’t a lot of brown people or Indian people visible in the arts. Then there’s the fact that two of us are college educated and went to a liberal arts school. Or, I don’t know – people are pretty small-minded.”

a structured treatise attacking corporate proliferation,” Victor Vazquez, aka Kool A.D., explained in the early media melange over the internet hit. “Or we could just say ‘Pizza Hut Taco Bell’ over and over. That shit’s way funnier.”), their leap from YouTube boobs to culture critics and minority spokespeople has been as hastened by themselves as it has their press.

Jumping from novelty song to international literary festival (more on this later) in 26 odd months is a strange and vaulting path; many moons after ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’, we are still yet to see the Baha Men share the stage with David Sedaris. But even though their perplexing break-out jam ‘Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell’ may have been smarter than it initially seemed (“We could have written

With home-grown haircuts and second-handshopped rave tops, Das Racist would probably have been the sore thumb in the indie hip hop world even without the finger-pointing name – let alone the culturally-diverse lineup (a range of Cuban and South Asian bi-racial backgrounds between the three members), let alone that their lyrics overtly address this, and the novelty of this, and the perhaps racism in

All in, their multi-media project currently consists of Das Racist’s audio output, live visuals, internet filmed doco shorts, personal and band blogs and solo mixtapes (Kool A.D. and Heems have both released theirs this year; Dapwell, the third member and hypeman, is rumoured to be working on one too), as well as stewarding through the next bunch of whoever-they-find-interesting musicians through Heems’ label GreedHead.

You can hear a few of them, including “this white Jewish kid from uptown” Lukatis and experimental pop act Keepaway, on Das Racist’s earlier mixtapes. And on top of that?

“I’m going to India to do a literary festival in Goa. I’m doing that as just kind of myself.

I’ll be talking about Das Racist, then some of the stuff I do related to India – I’ve written articles about a TV show set in a call centre, and another about Osama Bin Laden and 9/11… But they’re basically bringing me out to sit on a panel and talk about rapping and poetry.” Which is just excellent co-curricular stuff for a weed-rap, joke-slinging, multiracial, internet-soaked hip hop outfit to be doing. No wonder they get asked the tough questions.

What: Relax is out now When: Hot Produce stage @ 4.30pm Sideshow: Oxford Art Factory on Wednesday January 25, with True Vibenation and Simo Soo

“We may not grow money. But man we grow old” - Portugal. The Man .. Feb 7 METRO 14 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 15

BDO 2012 SPECIAL Carrying The Torch By Nils Hay

I

t’s 9.30 in the morning in Jakarta, but Mark Pontius is up and about; a year touring the globe has done many things for the Foster The People drummer, but conquering jetlag isn’t one of them. He has, however, been forced to adjust to life on the road; the LA group’s recent international tour schedule reads like the departures board at an international airport. As well as a mindboggling number of frequent flyer points, the band has accumulated a slew of reviews touting them as acclaimed and confident live performers. “We don’t get nervous,” Pontius tells me. “We worked really hard at it and we got comfortable almost right away – we were playing a show pretty much every day for months, so we got used to it pretty quickly.”

Last January the group hadn’t even made a festival bill, but a trip to Coachella quickly remedied that – and as anyone who saw their show at last year’s Splendour In The Grass can attest, it’s an environment they seem to relish these days. “We love festivals,” Mark confirms. “There’s an energy that happens with that many people at one stage. There’s just something about having a festival crowd that’s awesome… When you’re in smaller venues, you’re kind of under a microscope, and everyone’s watching.”

Such scrutiny hasn’t prompted them to shy away from smaller shows – 2012 is already heavily booked, although with a couple more breaks than the previous year allowed them.

“I think you have to figure out a balance,” he explains. “We haven’t really been able to work on music for our second album yet because we’ve been so busy [touring].”

Mark’s quick to defend that decision though.

“It’s been super important; if we hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be where we are now, we wouldn’t have the momentum that we have.

I think the balance is just figuring out how to find the time to do [both].” With work on the follow-up to their debut, Torches, due to begin in earnest sometime next month, Pontius highlights a few expected changes to their sound. “The first record was written

in the studio, and we had to adapt that to the live show,” he says. “I think what we will want to do with the second record is pull some of that element into the studio and try to come up with ideas live and record live as a band, and reverse the process, I guess.” While nothing is set in stone, he’s expecting this to result in a stronger live percussion element, fuelled by greater input from the original trio’s two added live members. “There’ll be a lot of experimenting, and there’ll have to be a balance between keeping elements of this first record but also doing something new.” And after a year spent heavily touring Torches, Mark sounds keen for some fresh material. “We can kind of just throw everything against the wall and see what comes from it – there’s no real limit.”

Indeed, the usual limitations that can apply to musical careers seem to have bypassed the Californian lads. Having recently rubbed shoulders with professed fans like Bono, Gene Simmons and, Pontius’ personal favourite, Taylor Swift – and fresh from their first ever airport-to-hotel police escort yesterday – Mark muses on the realities of fame, as compared to how he’d imagined it. “It’s a bit bizarre,” he confesses. “When I was younger and thinking about a career as a musician, it was the most obvious career ever. You play music and you go to different places to play music. It’s so easy!” But as it turns out, there’s a flip side. “With all this fame, there’s a lot of work involved to keep it going. I don’t think any of us really expected any of this so quick… [But] it comes with the territory. It’s the same with actors and movies.

You can’t just make music and relax; it’s not that easy.”

Another theme in Foster The People’s career, alongside that of their swift success, has been – oddly enough – Australia. Personally for Pontius, the connection goes back some years; a trip out here in high school sparked an attraction so strong that, before joining Foster The People, he was planning to move here. “I hit a point [in 2009] where I was just

done with it, and being in a band was not on my radar at all. I’d met Mark Foster at the end of [Pontius’ previous band, the rock/hip hop outfit Malbec] and we’d been kind of working on something together, and once I’d quit that band Mark said, ‘Well, let’s do this now.’ I was super-hesitant and was actually about to move to Australia. I’d packed up and had this whole plan.

“But he turned me around and said, ‘Just give me two more months and focus on this for a bit. See what happens.’ He convinced me to stay for four months, and in that time he wrote ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ and everything kind of changed, and I stayed in LA.” The decision doesn’t appear to have restricted his time here, either; the upcoming Big Days Out mark Foster The People’s third trip to Australia in twelve months. “Australia took on the music first, somehow,” Pontius says.

“Through the internet, or whatever it was – and that was the first place that we decided we needed to go, because there [were]

“He convinced me to stay for four months, and in that time he wrote ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ and everything kind of changed.” people wanting to see us.” Many things have changed for the group over the course of the last year, but with their hotly anticipated festival appearances and sold out sideshows coming up, the huge demand from Australian audiences remains as strong as ever.

When: Converse Green Stage @ 7.40pm Sideshow: The Enmore Theatre on Wednesday January 25 with Last Dinosaurs (sold out)

Don’t Look Back By Nathan Jolly

“T

here are no misconceptions about Oasis,” Noel Gallagher states firmly.

“Everything I ever read about us had an element of truth about it. I don’t think, ‘Wow, I wished they’d really discussed my love of Van Gogh. They really missed my love of classic ‘60s British film noir.’ I don’t give a fuck about that. If you want to know anything about Oasis, listen to the music. The rest of it is irrelevant.”

Ah yes, the rest of it. If there are, as Gallagher claims, no misconceptions about Oasis, then there are certainly those surrounding Noel Gallagher – namely that he is a surly, difficult person to deal with. This reputation is no doubt fuelled by the many public spats between him and his brother Liam, his willingness to insult other musicians at the drop of a hat, and his aptitude for a stinging one-liner. But a lot of the bad press surrounding Oasis was actually due to Liam’s penchant for mouthy retorts and violent altercations with photographers; it was, after all, a backstage act involving a guitar as a weapon that spelt the end of Oasis.

Noel Gallagher, on the other hand, while undoubtedly fiercely opinionated, is one of the most affable and well-adjusted artists around. Understandable, considering his iconic stature as the frontrunner of Britpop, the mid-‘90s movement that washed away the depressing notions of American grunge with a flood of positivity and music that harked back to the heyday of British guitar rock (Beatles, Stones, T-Rex, Pistols et al). Long since cast

“I still look back at Oasis with great, fond, glorious memories, but there’s no need for me to keep fucking going on about it.”

16 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

into an elder statesman role, Gallagher is conducting interviews to publicise both his own debut album (although such a term seems redundant for a man who has sold 70 million records…) and his trip to Australia as part of the Big Day Out tour. But he’s finding that, not surprisingly, Oasis is still at the forefront of everyone’s mind. “I don’t care how people perceive [Oasis] now, and I didn’t care then, because I know how I perceive it.

I was in it and I loved it and I still look back at it with great, fond, glorious memories, but there’s no need for me to keep fucking going on about it. I understand people want to talk about it and that’s great and I don’t mind it at all, but it was what it was. There you go, what can I say?”

Perhaps the obsession with his past glories is due to Oasis’ abrupt, undignified end, and the fact that neither Gallagher brother has really moved on artistically. Liam hastily cobbled together the extremely-okay Beady Eye record with fellow Oasis members Gem Archer and Andy Bell, while Noel Gallagher took his time and recorded two albums simultaneously – the first of which (Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds) doesn’t seem to traverse any new ground. For an effortless songwriter it comes across as too effortless, and despite its overall quality it will probably go down as a lukewarm placeholder for the second record, a dense psychedelic excursion written with London electronic

duo Amorphous Androgynous. Gallagher is loath to commit to a release date for this forthcoming album or to reveal too many details, despite the record being basically complete. “We had a window when it was supposed to be finished but I’m on tour now and have been since October, and it’s hard for us to nail the final mixes without us all being in the same room. It’s in the can – it’s just a case of when I’m in America they’re in England, when I’m in England they’re in fucking Kazakhstan or somewhere. And it’s gotta be brilliant – there’s no point in just putting it out half-heartedly.”

Although Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds is ostensibly presented as a ragtag collective, it is very much a solo venture, with Gallagher performing all the vocals, guitars, bass and most of the keyboards on the record. “I just thought it was a great name, that’s it really,” he explains. “It’s for no other reason than I thought it would look good, in lights, above your local theatre.” As he explains, he doesn’t plan to delve into mid-set jazz odysseys when performing the album live, either. “It’s note for note, exactly what’s on the album. I don’t fuck about. I’m not there to indulge myself.

I play the songs that people have become accustomed to and that’s it. There’s no funky covers, there’s no reggae music, there’s no electronic passages. It’s just 20 songs, one after the other. If anyone says anything witty, I shall retort – and that’s it.”

A little known fact about Gallagher is his involvement with Russell Brand’s weekly BBC2 radio program. For over a year, Gallagher appeared on the show, firstly as a guest, then as a phone-in guest every other week, then as an on-air member of the team, easily matching wits with the mercurial Brand. Gallagher has fond memories of the show, which ended in 2008, and would jump at the opportunity to reprise this role. Although he states firmly that he has no need to do anything musical again, he is clearly driven by the need to keep busy. Music just happens to plug that gap. “You know what, if I could find anything better to do, I would do it,” he confesses.

“If Russell called me up tomorrow and said, ‘Right, we’re gonna do the radio show for the next ten years and you can be on a wage’, I’d do it, because it’d be a great laugh. Both he and Matt [Morgan, Brand’s right-hand man] are my close friends and it’d be incredible. But this [songwriting] is what I do, d’ya know what I mean? If you can think of anything better for me to do, give me a shout.”

What: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds is out now When: Converse Green Stage @ 10.30pm Sideshow: The Enmore Theatre on Monday January 23 with Deep Sea Arcade (sold out)

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BDO 2012 SPECIAL

Cavalera Conspiracy Above The Remains By Tom Hersey

“W

fifth year together, Max sounds as excited as he did when he first resumed playing music with his brother, who he formed Sepultura with back when they were teenagers.

Thanks to his prolificacy, I’ve had a few chances to talk with Max Cavalera over the years – but of all his various projects, of all the albums and tours we’ve discussed, I’ve never heard him sound as animated as he is now, talking about playing with his brother Igor in Cavalera Conspiracy.

Although 2012 marks Cavalera Conspiracy’s

During our conversation, Max keeps reiterating how blessed he feels to be back playing music with Igor – at one point his train of thought gets derailed, and he can only enthuse, “It’s amazing playing with Igor after all of these years.” Pleased as the brothers are to break the decade-long silence that followed Max’s departure from Sepultura in the late ‘90s, metal fans worldwide are equally happy to see the brothers back making music with the spirit of classic Sepultura. Cavalera Conspiracy’s latest album, Blunt Force Trauma, certainly sounds like a modernisation of the old formula, combining the intensity of a hardcore record with Max’s unbelievable riffs. Indeed, it embodies the spirit of the brothers’ former band so much so that I’m compelled to ask the guitarist/vocalist if, when it comes time to write for Cavalera Conspiracy, the band look back to what they did together on seminal records like Beneath The Remains and Arise?

“That’s just how we combine our strengths together,” Max answers. “When Igor and I play together, these fast riffs come out of nowhere, with that sound that reminds people of the Sepultura thrash years. It happens so naturally without even trying; I think it’s just in

hen we play something old, like ‘Troops Of Doom’ or ‘Inner Self’, something that we wrote together when we were kids, it’s fucking great, man. It just sounds awesome. And it feels awesome, because we’re brothers, man, and we’re sharing our connection every time we’re on stage together.”

our blood to play that kind of thrash stuff.”

Discussing the band’s connection with the prior works of the Cavalera brothers, Max assures me that there’ll be plenty of old Sepultura in the Cavalera Conspiracy set.

“When I would play those Sepultura songs with [side-project] Soulfly it was cool – I was glad to add them to the set – but with Igor it’s a different story. To play those songs with Igor is the best.”

The band are headed to Australia for this year’s Big Day Out, with a sideshow set for the Metro Theatre. As for the specific songs you’re going to hear from them, Max says you’ll just have to wait and see what happens on the night. “There’s so much stuff we have to choose from, so we change the set every night and the show always feels a bit different.

That way you don’t lapse into playing these songs robotically. And playing the Big Day Out and our own shows, we’ll be changing the set every night too – so every person will see a different set than the night before.”

What: Blunt Force Trauma is out now through Roadrunner Records When: The Essential stage @ 10pm Sideshow: The Metro Theatre on Saturday January 28, with Lynchmada and Contrive

Mariachi El Bronx

Old Souls By Alasdair Duncan

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis

Y

outhful UK trio Kitty, Daisy & Lewis have had a big couple of years, playing their joyous, retro-flavoured rock to audiences around the world. For band member Daisy Durham, however, one of the most profound experiences of recent times happened close to home. “I was in a pub in Camden Town called The Hawley Arms, which is right up the road from where I live,” she tells me, “and Amy Winehouse was there pouring behind the bar. I knew she was sort of a fan, because she’d tried to get in touch with us at one stage, and the idea of getting a pint poured by her was so surreal that my fiancé convinced me to go up and say hi.”

Durham was nervous, but things went better than expected. “I introduced myself and she was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m standing here with you!’ In my head I was thinking how it was definitely the other way around,” she says. The two became friends that day – Winehouse even shared some of her Easter eggs with Durham – although it would be one of the last times they met. “The day that my husband and I got married, that was the day that she died,” she says. “We actually invited her, because we knew her boyfriend as well. A few days after she died we read in the paper that she was getting ready to go to a friend’s wedding, and we imagined that it must have been ours. It’s quite sad.”

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis’ songs draw extensively on RnB, swing and oldfashioned rock’n’roll, the kind of ‘50s music that they would hear in their parents’ record collection. “We’ve loved old music from a very young age,” Durham explains. “My dad was always playing old tunes to us, and singing to us. We lived in a house full of Elvis and Johnny Cash and stuff like that, and I feel very privileged.

Our taste has developed since then – we recently got into calypso, so there’s quite a bit of that on our most recent record – but we’ll always love that ‘50s stuff.”

The band’s admiration for all things old-fashioned extends to the sartorial, and touring affords them priceless opportunities to scour the second-hand shops of the world in search of rare vintage pieces. “At home we don’t really go to second-hand shops, because most of

18 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

Try A Little Tenderness By Emily Williams

U

what you find there is ‘80s stuff,” Durham explains. “We love shopping when we go away on tour, because we can find places that we’ve never been to before. We always go looking for records and clothes when we have time off, because you never know what treasures you’re going to find.” Their last trip to Australia actually yielded a great purchase for Durham. “We went to this second-hand shop that was practically empty, but there was this one dress there I just loved. The woman said, ‘Oh God, that’s been there for months and months’. If that was in the UK at that price, it would have been snapped up in no time!”

Given that their songs hark back so specifically to bygone eras, I ask Durham if Kitty, Daisy & Lewis gigs tend to draw an older crowd than your regular rock show. “Oh yeah, definitely,” she says with a laugh. “When we’re playing a city like Birmingham or something, our manager will come to us before the gig and say ‘It’s a high granny count tonight!’ – either that or ‘It’s gran-a-lama-ding-dong out there’. We have people of all ages at the gigs, though, kids as well as grannies.

Everyone’s always very enthusiastic!”

When: Hot Produce stage @ 7pm Sideshow: The Metro Theatre on Tuesday January 24, with Kira Puru & The Bruise

pon first inspection it may not seem the most obvious segue: Los Angeles hardcore punk band The Bronx morphing into a mariachi band, replete with trumpets, guitarrón, vihuela and decked out in their finest traje de charro. But after scratching the surface, you realise these two acts have more in common than just the band members, with the same thread of passion and sincerity permeating both the guttural in-your-face-ness of The Bronx and the heartfelt lyrics and festive energy of Mariachi El Bronx.

As drummer and founding member Jorma Vik points out, there’s a strong seam of Mexican culture running through Los Angeles that inevitably permeates the local psyche.

“We’re a product of our environment; when we started it seemed – because it sounds so different – like it would be a total shift and kind of foreign for us, but it wasn’t at all. When we came to writing mariachi songs, it came super naturally.”

“I think most people thought that it was going to be a joke,” Vik admits, “because we’re kinda goofy dudes … But we are completely 100% dead serious about it … When we first started writing songs we were really careful as to not make a mockery of [the genre] – that’s why we don’t wear sombreros, ‘cause we know that white dudes in sombreros make people think of Three Amigos or whatever.

So we were really careful to keep it close to the traditional style so as to not offend Mexican people and not come across as a joke to fans of [The Bronx]. Matt [Caughthran, vocalist] is a super genuine dude,” Vik adds, “and anything he does is really sweet and genuine – and that really comes across when we play live.”

The band, meanwhile, has relished the chance to explore their more ‘sensitive’ side.

“It’s been a fucking awesome outlet for

us musically, lyrically and emotionally,” Vik enthuses. “Once you get sick of [punk or mariachi], or tired of one, you can completely switch gears and it’s super refreshing. It’s the best thing we could’ve done, to have another outlet to express ourselves. We were writing the last Bronx record and the [first] Mariachi record at the same time, so when we hit a wall with one we would just switch gears and do the other.”

For their follow-up album, Mariachi El Bronx II, the band was interested in “delving into the culture and learning about the music, flirting with different styles.” They subsequently turned to Oingo Boingo’s John Avila, in the studio, to help them explore the regional specificities of Mexican music, beyond mariachi. The resulting album is a richer mix of more textured songs, skirting the romanticism of bolero and the passion of flamenco.

And what about The Bronx? What’s the status with new material, post-2008’s selftitled third LP? “We’re working on a Bronx record right now!” Vik assures me. “We’ve got about ten songs written for it, and we’re hoping to get into the studio and start demoing them right before we come over for Big Day Out.” Are they worried about playing in Australia’s high summer in their traje de charro suits (a prospect that seems altogether a little insane)? Vik seems unfazed. “We did Coachella, it was like 98°F [36° C] and we had to stay in our suits all day for press and pictures … it gets a little stinky.”

What: Mariachi El Bronx II is out now When: Hot Produce stage @ 5.45pm Sideshow: January 25 at The Metro Theatre; The Bronx are supporting Soundgarden on the same (busy) night at The Entertainment Centre

BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 19

Ryan Adams Old Country By Jennifer Peterson-Ward

R

yan Adams is the first to admit he has a lot to be thankful for.

Speaking from his apartment in Los Angeles on a warm Tuesday evening, he is surprisingly open about his internal state of being, reflecting honestly on some major changes in his life and exceedingly confident, as usual, about the direction he’s traveling in.

As Adams himself attests, one of the major hurdles braved in recent years was dealing with the diagnosis of Ménière’s disease, a degenerative disorder of the inner ear affecting hearing and balance.

“So much normal everyday stuff I was doing just exacerbated the disease. You’re not supposed to smoke, you’re not supposed to drink coffee or be stressed or eat salty foods,” he explains. “It was hard.” His condition deeply affected his life as a musician. Though he has never missed a gig because of the pain, he admits to playing some “really horrible shows” and cutting them short because “there was very little I could do to keep going”.

Eventually, the self-described “unrelenting pain” led to his public announcement that he was quitting the music business in 2009 to deal with the condition. For more than two years, Adams’ movements remained a mystery to the bulk of his admirers. The internet buzzed with queries and speculations from curious and concerned fans, but Adams remained doggedly elusive to the public eye. Ending his musical hiatus with the releases of heavy metal concept record Orion and a double album with his band The Cardinals, III/IV, the alt-country superstar was “ready and excited” to release his latest solo studio album, October’s Ashes & Fire.

SELLING FAST - DON’T MISS OUT!

Adams has a Southern lack of pretension that’s easy to be around, but he is a less than voluble interview; not because he doesn’t try to answer questions, but precisely because he does. He cares about being understood but often struggles to explain himself because – as all writers will tell you – happy is nice, but happy is hard to explain.

“I feel good,” he says simply. “I don’t know what more I can say that that.”

The success of Adam’s current tour (reviews from the UK leg have been ecstatic) and his satisfaction with the new record are all well and good, but Mr. Adams seems to care most deeply that he has finally reconciled his musical ambitions with more personal ones: to live in Los Angeles, to be part of both a family and a band, to remain sober (it’s been nearly five years since he kicked a punishing addiction to amphetamines and alcohol) and to live out a simulacrum of normalcy. As Adams himself attests, Ashes & Fire would have been “impossible to make” had he not been able to change his life.

“I feel good. I don’t know what more I can say than that.” , Ê , ÊUÊ --Ê" Ê 9Ê -/ÊÊ Ê / ,ÊUÊ*, 6 / Ê 9 -Ê Ê ½/Ê "Ê ",Ê/ /Ê "1/Ê" Ê/"1 ÊUÊ- ½-Ê "

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BOWRAL

SYDNEY ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE

No longer the tortured artist whose only steady companions were speedballs (referring to the cocktail of heroin and cocaine that killed John Belushi and River Phoenix, among others) and the demons they were meant to tame, Adams keeps his tour jaunts short and his family close – including his wife of two years, actress/singer Mandy Moore. It’s not that he wears the success and stability like a loose garment – he’s a pretty complicated guy on a good day – but unlike the rock trope that only chronic agony produces important music, he says the absence of mayhem has been good for his work.

This is the environment that has produced Ashes & Fire, a new album of heartbreaking, beautiful songs that pick over the embers of his wilder life in a mood of becalmed, mature contentment – qualities that can spell trouble in music, but which here have produced possibly the album of his career. “I learnt a long time ago not to preoccupy myself with that stuff,” he says of the recent acclaim. “But I am glad that it’s translating.

I had a nice time making the record.”

According to Adams, the legendary producer Glyn Johns took control, which allowed the singer to relax. “I worked with Glyn’s son Ethan, who is also a producer, back in the late ‘90s when I was playing as part of a band called Whiskeytown,” Adams explains. “We stayed in contact over the years, and when I was looking for someone Glyn just seemed a natural choice... [He’s] spent his career working with some amazing musicians – he recorded the ‘Get Back’ sessions for The Beatles, he was the man who originally recorded ‘Let It Be’,” Adams continues. “I’ve a huge respect for him as a producer.”

With Ashes & Fire already generating arguably the best critical notice of his career to date, Adams embarked on two sets of American dates – the longest tour he has been on in many years – and next month will be heading on his first solo tour of Australia and New Zealand. The great indie-rock comeback story continues apace.

What: Ashes & Fire is out now through Pax Am/Sony With: Jason Isbell Where: The Sydney Opera House When: Tuesday February 28

20 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

adventure into design THINKING | MAKING | CONNECTING

Billy blue ‘LIVE’ Open Day Saturday FEB 4 – must RSVP Enrol now on 1300 851 245 or join us at www.billyblue.edu.au Think: Colleges Pty Ltd, ABN 93 050 049 299 trading as Billy Blue College of Design, RTO No. 0269, HEP No. NSW5028, CRICOS Provider Codes: NSW 00246M, QLD 03107J, VIC 03252M.

BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 21

Toro y Moi Cause And Effect By Andrew ‘Hazard’ Hickey

B

etter known as Toro y Moi, Chaz Bundick is the mastermind behind a sound that fuses danceable music with a personal twist; think classic soul meets ‘80s synth-pop, with some indie rock touches thrown into the mix, and you’re still hard-pressed to put a finger on his style.

Along with Neon Indian and Washed Out, he was cited as one of the artists at the forefront of the ‘chillwave’ movement, the industry’s favourite buzz word of 2010 – and talking from his home studio in California, the low-key and thoughtful 25-year-old is every bit the focused prodigy you would expect.

“I’m just trying to create an inspiring environment, but other than that it’s about the same,” he says, comparing California to his native South Carolina. Bundick’s environment plays an interesting role in his creativity and output; the physical location itself isn’t crucial to the process, he explains, but getting to travel to different places sparks ideas. “I get really inspired when I come back from somewhere – I get excited,” he says. “When I’m out on tour I’m always

looking for inspiration, experiencing as much as I can and comparing it when I come home.”

Evolution is very much key, with Bundick constantly searching for new ways to express himself. “It’s more about trying to figure out what’s next for me, like where would I go next in my career. I think about that a lot of the time. I try not to be too serious, but it’s a business now unfortunately – you have to be aware of what you’re gonna do next.”

Having the freedom to explore without record label constraints is a plus for a project like Toro y Moi. “[Label politics] don’t affect me at all creatively.

We’re with Carpark [Records], which is basically one guy. Every once in a while he’ll be like, ‘Maybe this song should be the single’. I’m always open to input but I have full creative freedom.”

Staying independent is the way to go for most of the critically respected and acclaimed artists working these days, as the reliance on the major label system decreases. “It’s not really necessary to have a major label contract. You can do a lot on your own with [live] shows and the internet. It’s not necessary to have that major label advance to get by.” Indeed, DIY’s hardly a new idea for Bundick; he got his start recording from home. “I still create at home. I did the last record [Underneath The Pine] at home. The only difference is I have people to mix it [now].” His home studio amassed a large collection of tracks in the early days, but since then things have changed for him, both musically and creatively. “The [old] recordings don’t sound like what I’m doing now. A lot of that has to do with wanting to evolve and get away from what I’ve already been doing.”

“I try not to be too serious, but it’s a business now unfortunately – you have to be aware of what you’re going to do next.”

In the span of one year, from 2010’s Causers Of This to 2011’s Underneath The Pine, Toro y Moi’s popularity has grown, while creatively the project has transitioned from a loungy electronic style to more up-tempo, soul- and funk-infused efforts.

“After Causers Of This I started exploring more hip hop elements, and now I’ve found myself going more to where hip hop evolved from, like funk and RnB,” Bundick says. “I find my music going back in time. I find my music fitting in more with the RnB genre because I really have a strong connection to that style of music and that era of music. I think if you look back to music from the ‘70s, that’s where it’s all evolved from now.”

It sounds like a deliberate effort to change his style, but for Bundick it was a natural process. “It was more subconscious. When you look at what I was sampling on Causers Of This, that really influenced my approach now.” Much like the pioneering DJs of hip hop, it was the groove-based music of the past that inspired him. “I found a way to connect everything, and I felt like I was experiencing it first hand. It’s like the opposite direction, going from electronic to live instruments. It’s been cool to have everything evolve to what it is now.”

Ever the prolific artist, Bundick is already looking towards his next project – but can’t impart many details just yet. “I don’t know when it’s gonna come out and when I’m gonna be finished with it, but I’ve got a couple of ideas I’ve been working with. I do a little something and see where it goes, then I come back to it the next day. I want to make the album different from the first two. I want it to come naturally, as opposed to knowing when it needs to be done by.”

Chaz will be bringing Toro Y Moi back to our shores this January and February as part of the stacked Laneway Festival lineup, and for his own sideshows – which he’ll co-headlining with the aforementioned Washed Out, the project of Bundick’s close and long-time friend Ernest Greene. “It’s definitely one of my favourite places to go,” Bundick says of Australia. Accompanied by his band, they’ll be putting a live touch on his catalogue. “We’re pretty faithful to the recordings on Underneath The Pine, but as far as Causers Of This, it’s hard to replicate that sound – so when we’re playing that, it brings out the songwriting more than the production.”

With: Washed Out Where: Manning Bar, Sydney University When: Wednesday February 8

CTC 22 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

More: Also playing at Laneway Festival with M83, Laura Marling, Feist, EMA, Girls, Chairlift and loads more on Sunday February 5 at Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle.

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BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 23

Eleanor Friedberger Wormwoodstock Absinthe, Psychedelia And Camping By Max Easton

Out Of The Furnace By Peter Hodgson

E

leanor Friedberger is many things: enigmatic frontwoman of The Fiery Furnaces, multi-instrumentalist, iconoclastic solo artist. Her solo album Last Summer is one of those dance-to-it, chill-to-it, train-ride-to-it-while-forlornly-gazing-at-afellow-passenger-who-you-just-decidedyou’re-going-to-have-babies-with albums that has the power to define a whole season.

And while not a million times removed from her work with brother Matthew in The Fiery Furnaces, it’s most definitely Eleanor’s unique take on the world.

I’m talking to Friedberger on the eve of a tour that will bring her to Sydney, for a solo show at The Famous Spiegeltent. “I’m very excited,” she tells me. “I love Australia; it’ll be my fifth or sixth time visiting, and I even get to spend a few days hanging out, because the shows are spread out over two weekends. So I’m going to mutually divide my time between Melbourne and Sydney and hopefully have some fun on the few days I have off. I never get to do that. I spent a week in Sydney once just for fun and that was amazing. I feel like I know that city pretty well.”

She is, however, new to the Spiegeltent phenomenon. “I dunno, are there gonna be circus performers? I don’t know how I’m going to approach that!” she laughs. “Since putting

out this record I’ve been switching between playing with the band and also doing these shows on my own. I would love to come to Australia with a full band, but it’s financially prohibitive. So I’m coming by myself, which is good and something a bit different, maybe – better suited to something like the Spiegeltent, anyway. But we’ll see. I’m going to do a couple of shows to warm up, playing by myself in January in New York. Hopefully I’ll be in the full swing of it by the time I get down to you guys.”

But sticking to the script has never been part of Friedberger’s musical vocabulary. The Fiery Furnaces live performances have always diverged from the recorded versions – it’s just in the Friedberger blood. “Playing in The Fiery Furnaces for so long, we’ve always made a point of not trying to recreate the albums live, because we want it to be a different experience,” Friedberger says. “We’ve always felt strongly about that.”

Last Summer was mostly written on piano, so some serious decisions had to be made in transitioning the material to the more colourful instrumentation of the finished product. “I have this MIDI keyboard that my brother lent me, and I just started using GarageBand for the first time. Like, for the song ‘My Mistakes’ I knew I wanted a sax solo, and I was able to make a demo with a sax solo by just playing it on the keyboard. It sounds funny, but I was able to present that to the producer and say, ‘This is what it should sound like.’ I’ve never done that before on my own and it’s kinda fun.”

But Friedberger prefers not to get too techy during the writing and demo stage. “I don’t know how seriously to take GarageBand. I like recording in a studio, and I don’t want to get too good at recording myself,” she laughs. “I don’t think I’m at risk of that, but I like the idea of letting someone who really knows what they’re doing take over.”

Friedberger has already begun writing the follow-up to Last Summer, and if you’re waiting for new Fiery Furnaces material, don’t give up hope. “We don’t have any set plans except that it’s an inevitable thing to happen,” Friedberger says. “I think it’s good for The Fiery Furnaces to take a little bit of a break, and when we come back we’ll be stronger than ever. I always say that Matt and I could make a record when we’re 60 and it wouldn’t be any different, really – that’s the beauty of being a band with your brother.”

A

ustralia’s music industry seems to have been in a panic the last few years. The festival glut has seen poor ticket sales result in cancellations and downsizing across the country, while the industry trembles at the threat posed by the free circulation of music. But in opposition to this, the strength of DIY collectives and small events is growing, resulting in local, genre-non-specific offerings as a showcase for new bands.

Sydney’s experimental and psychedelic collective Wormwood are one of these new showcases, and are offering – for the first time – a weekend festival set in a secret location 90 minutes south of Sydney. Featuring a range of acts from tropical punks The Fighting League to glass-pane-wielding experimentalist Justice Yeldham, the festival offers an alternative to excess, and an appreciation of the lesscontrived. For its curator, Kimberley Galceran (also the venue manager for FBi Social), the lineup is less about a genre or theme and more about what the acts set out to do.

“I think I can safely say that all of these bands are DIY, and that’s what Wormwood is too,” Galceran explains. “There’s no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ music necessarily, but there is a difference between music that passively exists with a tidy, popular formula, and something that grabs you by the head/heart/feet/balls and tries to push what music can be. This is the kind of music we want at Wormwood. It comes from the same place. Wormwoodstock is an extension of what we do at Wormwood, but by having it outdoors and over a weekend, the essence of what Wormwood is will be more apparent and prolonged.”

For Mitchell Ross-Jones of recently re-formed duo Scattered Order (who first began playing in 1979), Wormwoodstock is a demonstration of idealistic purity. “[Collectives like Wormwood] provide an opportunity for people to experience a wide range of sounds and performances from interstate, and local artists who are passionate about their music,” he explains. “I think that level of enthusiasm generates more enthusiasm.

Having some kind of organised centre keeps the wheel turning. People seem really tolerant of small-scale intimate experiences that aren’t too slick or over-produced now… [They] appreciate not being ripped off by some sort of musical accountancy project.”

For No Art’s Trischelle Roberts, Wormwoodstock represents a welcome return to simpler and more intuitive forms of discovering music.

“The way that people fall into a rut with music is such a strange thing,” she says. “When I was a teenager I’d buy an album without hearing it, just because I’d heard the band mentioned somewhere, to do with something I was interested in. I’d get home and put it on and listen to it the whole way through over and over, until I’d memorised every detail, but I wouldn’t really know what I thought of those albums until maybe the tenth listen.

“I think a lot of people did that when they were younger,” Roberts suggests, “especially before downloading – and without being too nostalgic, I think there’s something to that. How is it fun to already know exactly what you like?

What’s the point of listening to something if you’ve already decided how you’ll react to it? An event like Wormwoodstock has the opportunity to break all that down and just put people in front of something. I think that can only be a good thing.”

With: No Art, Scattered Order, Zeahorse, Domeyko/Gonzales, Brackets, Justice Yeldham, Kris Keogh (NT), The Walk On By, Feathers (QLD), Nakagin, Golden Disko Ship (GER), The Fighting League (ACT) and loads more Where: Wormwoodstock is being held at a secret location, 90 minutes from Sydney...

When: Friday January 27 – Sunday January 29

What: Last Summer is out now Where: The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park When: January 28 & 29 at 5pm

Incubus M

e and Mr Boyd, we got a thing going on. Yes, long before Jason Segel and Seth Rogen forced the word ‘bromance’ into the popular lexicon, I had a mancrush on Brandon Boyd – I fell for him hard. 1999’s Make Yourself, and Morning View two years later, were prescribed texts in my senior years, the former hinting at Incubus’ yearning to separate from the nu metal pack with potent songwriting and stadium-worthy choruses, and the latter realising that vision while also achieving commercial and critical success.

Just like the strongest teenage crushes, the adoration rose and fell over the years, but the utterance of any reference to the Californian quintet invariably took me back to those intoxicating days.

“I have a night off tonight – in Miami, of all places. We’re right in the middle of our US tour,” says Boyd, the band’s lead singer. “It’s been a lot of fun so far, the crowds have just been amazing, the response has been really wonderful – I can’t say enough about our fans… I just hope people show up! We’re very blessed in this band to have people over the years that have paid attention and continually come back to what we’re doing. I don’t take that lightly; I know how hard it is to keep someone’s attention, because it’s hard for bands to keep my attention!”

For those who haven’t been paying attention, listening to Incubus circa-2011 might be like Charlton Heston crash-landing on the Planet Of The Apes – glimpses of familiarity strewn through a brave new world. But take each album in the context of the previous, and a logical (although maybe not linear) progression begins to emerge. You can’t stay 17 forever. “This is now our twentieth year as a band, and I think there are tendencies on this record that we’ve been hinting at since our first record,” says Boyd. “I’d be really, really surprised if two years from now we were talking and Incubus had just put out a country-rock record, but one of the cool things about being in this band is that there’s not really a ceiling on what we’re allowed to do.”

The new album, If Not Now, When?, opens with the title track; at about four minutes, Boyd marks the end of the middle eight with a trademark high note soaring above everything else – and the mancrush bubbles to the surface again. The other ten tracks tip their cap to the band’s back catalogue – the acoustic calm of ‘Morning View’, the intricate riffs of ‘A Crow Left Of The Murder’, the slight unease at the centre of ‘Light Grenades’ – but remain unique to their current situation. It’s the type of album you hope for from a band entering a new phase; after years apart, you’re reminded why you were drawn-in in the first place,

but something’s different that still warrants investigating. And if it’s not an album they could have made ten years ago, that’s okay, because it’s probably not an album I would have listened to ten years ago either. (I would have been too busy scratching BB & MA 4EVA onto school desks and writing in my dream journal. I’m exaggerating, but not much – you always fall the hardest the first time round, right?)

“We’ve never been one of those bands where you can describe them based on one song, and if I’m being totally honest I actually have pride

about that,” Boyd proclaims as our conversation draws to a close. “If people ask what we sound like, I’m more inclined to give them a CD of music as opposed to saying, ‘Go check out this one song’. Of course, if someone was really interested, I would say to come to a concert!”

What: If Not Now, When? is out now through Epic/Sony Where: Hordern Pavilion When: Friday February 3

“We are the rabbit that let the fox lead us out in the sun with the cold war fever” - Portugal. The Man .. Feb 7 METRO 24 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

Incubus photo by Brantley Gutierrez

The First Cut Is The Deepest By Mitch Alexander

BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 25

arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

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

five minutes WITH

MATTHEW NIEDERHAUSER

A

s part of the City of Sydney Chinese New Year Festival, CarriageWorks is presenting Sound Kapital – a night of projections and live music inspired by the photographs of Matthew Niederhauser, who has been documenting Beijing’s underground indie-rock culture for the last four-or-so years.

A photojournalist whose work is published in TIME, Newsweek, Le Monde, and The New Yorker, Niederhauser’s rock odyssey began when he chanced upon a mind-blowing gig in D-22, a dive bar in Beijing’s university district – and stumbled out with the first of what would become a series of raw, colourful band portraits – recently published as a book, titled Sound Kapital.

What is your background and training? I first started taking photographs in high school – I spent three years in the dark room. In a sense I was more into machines than art at the time, and enjoyed the process. During college I only really photographed when I travelled, even though I stayed up to date on the newest digital technology and whatnot.

I decided to go for it and move to China to take photographs full time after working in an office for six months. Hated it. My big break

SUBMARINE! DVD! WIN!

How did you get involved in photographing the Beijing rock scene? I love live music, so I was naturally attracted to D-22, where I shot all the portraits for Sound Kapital, as soon as I arrived back in Beijing in 2007. The quality of the performances really blew me away, and I got along well with the musicians. The project grew naturally from there. Lots of bands needed publicity shots for the web or to give to magazines, so I started the red wall series. It was the first time many of them had been professionally photographed and everyone loved them. It was a fun process.

definitely came around the Olympics when my photographs of the music scene showed up in TIME magazine and The New Yorker.

What’s your camera and lens of choice?

Every situation is different. My workhorse is a Canon 5D Mark II with a Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II lens. I go wide angle a lot, plus love the HD video off the camera. Otherwise, I always have a Ricoh GR1V in my pocket with 35MM Kodak 400 T-MAX film loaded. When I want to go big, I turn to my Hasselblad or Linhof IV.

Madame X: a pre-op transsexual superhero who fights intolerance.

Tell us about this picture!

This is a photograph of the band Hedgehog I did against the red wall in D-22. It was one of the first and one of my favourites. It really motivated me to turn the portrait series into a longterm project.

What: Sound Kapital feat. live music by AV Okubo, Nova Heart and Xiao He When: Friday February 3 / Artist talk by Matt Niederhauser from 6pm; bands from 8pm Where: CarriageWorks / Eveleigh More: carriageworks.com.au

Tattoo & Body Art Expo runs from Friday March 9 – Sunday March 11 at Sydney Olympic Park, Homebush. More info at tattooexpo.com.au

FLICKERFEST 2012: WINNERS

Flickerfest rounded off its ten-day tapas feast of short films last Sunday January 15 with an awards ceremony and a screening encompassing some of this year’s winners. Among the winners, we were smugly happy to see heaps of filmmakers and films we’d profiled in our Flickerfest special last month (schwing!) – like Nash Edgerton’s Sundance-selected Bear, Anthony Maras’ The Palace, Johannes Nyholm’s Las Palmas, Don Hertzfeldt’s It’s Such A Beautiful Day, Matthew Jenkin’s Cockatoo, Matthew Moore’s Julian, and Damien Power’s Peekaboo… So, um, I guess we know what we’re talking about? We hope you got along… flickerfest.com.au

SMACS 2012: WINNERS QUEER SCREEN

This year’s Mardi Gras Film Festival kicks off on February 16 with a screening of American indie dramedy Dirty Girl (starring the superlative Juno Temple as a teenage outcast on the lam across ‘80s America), and closes on March 1 with German drama Romeos, about the relationship between a young man and a transexual woman.

In-between they've got lesbian sci-fi, the British adaptation of Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch, a retrospective screening of Fassbinder’s Querelle, festival hit Tomboy, Christophe Honoré’s Man At Bath, and the fabulous Madame X, which Variety describes as “a candy-colored, fast-paced tale of a pre-op transsexual superhero from Indonesia who fights intolerance.” For the rest of the lineup, see queerscreen.com.au

TROPFEST ROUGHCUT

Not content with worldwide festival domination, Tropfest now have a creative conference of their own: Roughcut. Scheduled for February 18, the ‘filmmaker symposium’ will feature a keynote address by producer and screenwriter Charles Randolph (Love and Other Drugs) and talks by award-winning composer Lisa Gerrard (Gladiator), and creatives behind the Sundance-selected Bluetongue Films feature Wish You Were Here, including director Kieran DarcySmith and editor Jason Ballantine (The Great Gatsby). Roughcut means serious business, with attendance limited to people with at least one film or TV credit to their name. For further lineup announcements and more details, head to tropfest.com/au

COOL WORLD

Next up at Alaska Projects is a group show of paintings curated by local artist and National Art School graduate Mitch Cairns (Breenspace), and encompassing a loose collective of ten fellow artists who like to paint and talk about painting, and most of all talk about each other’s painting… including: Anna Kristensen, Anna Peters, Elizabeth Pulie, Frank Littler, John Spiteri, Mary MacDougall, Mike Schreiber (USA), Matthew Tumbers and Trevelyan Clay. It’s called Cool World (which may or may not be a reference to the 1992 classic about a seductive cartoon babe 26 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

The conventional wisdom being that ‘everyone’s a winner’, it’s still the case that at the SMAC awards, some people actually got to get up on stage and collect a trophy: Daniel O’Toole (aka EARS) won Best Visual Artist; Outpost (that graffiti festival

Directed by Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd), Submarine is a coming-of-age comedy with a squeeze of dark and deadpan humour that calls to mind Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude and Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. Its precocious teen anti-hero is Oliver (Craig Roberts), whose two main goals are getting the girl of this dreams, Jordana (Yasmine Paige), and preserving the crumbling marriage of his parents (Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins). All that’s standing between him and happiness are his social ineptitude, Jordana’s erection-killing disdain, and his mum’s would-be suitor – the mulleted wannabe-mystic Graham (Paddy Considine).

If the above doesn’t make you want to see this film, you’re beyond all hope. For the rest of you: thanks to Madman Entertainment we have FIVE copies of Submarine on DVD. To get your hands on one, tell us one other coming of age film not mentioned above.

Graham: self-help ninja mystic

on Cockatoo Island) won Best Arts Event; Nick Coyle won Best On Stage; Jurassic Lounge (the thing that puts booze and bands and performance and pythons into the Australian Museum) won Remix The City; The Dip won Best Eats. We got on stage and presented an award for Best Major Festival to Harvest, and there were some other music-related categories/winners – for all the guts and glory, see smacawards.com

NEW THEATRE 2012: PLAYS

New Theatre revealed its 2012 program last week, kicking off in February with The Temperamentals, about the two men who founded pioneering gay rights organization The Mattachine Society, and rounding off the year with Nick Enright’s musical The Venetian Twins. In between, we’re looking forward to the Sydney Premiere of Conor McPherson’s The Weir, Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane, the premiere of Melita Rowston’s ‘missing teen’ thriller Crushed, the stage adaptation of DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little, and the premiere of Minus One Sister by award-winning young Melbourne playwright Anna Barnes (and directed by theatre and filmmaker Kip Williams). For subscription details see newtheatre.org.au

trying to bust into the real world), and kicks off on Tuesday January 31 from 6pm, at Alaska’s basement digs (Kings Cross Car Park, 9A Elizabeth Bay Road). alaskaprojects.com

WHERE IN THE WORLD

Weekly arts shindig The Wall @ World Bar are taking it international this week, with Where In The World: a group show that assembles a limited-edition international-adventure novella from the combined talents of Harry Wynter (Das SUPERPAPER), Nadine Von Cohen, Alice Fenton (Even Books), A.H. Cayley (PAN Magazine), Rachel Fuller (Bams & Ted) and more. Expect globetrotting, international intrigues, cheap cocktails from World Bar’s Apothecary, and even a bit of jitterbugging, we’re told, courtesy of Brendan Maclean. Wednesday January 25 from 7.30pm at The Wall @ World Bar.

TATTOO & BODY EXPO

If you’re looking to upgrade or modify, the annual Tattoo & Body Art Expo makes it really easy, assembling three-hundred-or-so professionals from abroad, interstate and locally, over just one weekend of ink-splattered mayhem. As always, there’ll be competitions, exhibitions and seminars for budding tattoo artists, as well as a silent auction of ‘tattooed’ skateboard decks, which has previously raised over $30,000 for Cure Our Kids at Westmead Children’s Hospital. The

This is probably Sake, and his wrangler.

SYDNEY AQUARIUM

Three child-penguins were transferred from the Sydney Aquarium nursery into the ‘main penguin exhibit’ last week. They each weighed approximately 1kg. This brings the total number of penguins at Sydney Aquarium to 17. If you hate cute things, the Aquarium also has Japanese spider crabs, which are larger, uglier, and have claws – and their own show, Claws. Spider Crab frontman Sake, for example, has a span of 1.5 metres – which sounds daunting, but you have to remember that spider crabs can grow up to 4 metres.

Main Penguin Exhibit and Claws are showing daily into the foreseeable future at Sydney Aquarium, Darling Harbour. sydneyaquarium.com.au

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

By Dee Jefferson

TOMAS TALKS: Gary Oldman is George Smiley

ABOUT THE COLOUR PALETTE “We looked at images from that time, and you can clearly see that reality was fairly washed-out and pale; it was still quite close to the Second World War, and Europe was still struggling with the effects. We had one image in particular that we used as the basis for the colour palette – and then we introduced that palette to the designer, and she followed that. But I don’t believe in making rules so strict that you can’t break them; you should break your own rules – so you can put something totally the wrong colour into the set, as an interesting choice.”

ABOUT THE CINEMATOGRAPHY

I

n the wake of the film’s Venice premiere, Swedish director Tomas Alfredson and stars Colin Firth and John Hurt talk about updating John le Carré’s classic espionage thriller for a post-Cold War climate.

Best known for his cult vampire film Let The Right One In, Swedish director Tomas Alfredson might not be an obvious choice to helm an adaptation of one of Britain’s cultural icons; but in the postpremiere glow at Venice Film Festival last September, the general consensus amongst critics was that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was a pitch-perfect pass at John le Carré’s best-selling spy novel and its quintessentially British protagonist, George Smiley.

Based on the real life experiences of le Carré (born David John Moore Cornwell) as an undercover operative for the British Secret Service (aka MI6), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is set in and around ‘The Circus’ – their London headquarters – during the anxious Cold War climate of the early ‘70s.

After a botched mission that sees both Smiley and his boss Control forcibly retired, Smiley finds himself secretly brought out of retirement to find the source of the problem:

a mole amongst his five former colleagues.

Le Carré’s novel – and its subsequent tele-series adaptation, in 1979 – was particularly resonant at the time because the Cold War was current. “We were all very aware of the two poles,” says John Hurt, who plays Control in Alfredson’s film. “But the content of this film is not about the Cold War – that’s the clothes horse on which you hang everything, but it’s about deep friendships, betrayals, and the strengths and weaknesses of humanity.”

While Alfredson’s film captures the social anxiety of the period, it resonates more for modern audiences on an emotional level. “I would say it’s a film about loyalty,” says the director, “and about a man with a broken heart.”

Finding the right person to play Smiley was one of the director’s main challenges. “He’s described in the book as a person you would immediately forget,” says Alfredson, “and to have a leading character with a face you would immediately forget is quite hard! You want to stay with this man, and be interested in what he’s thinking. So we had to find an actor who could play that, but actually be interesting.

It took nearly a year to find [the right person], and we almost gave up. But then [producer] Tim Bevan came up with Gary [Oldman] – and it was spot-on.”

Interestingly, Smiley has made his mark on the spy-thriller genre by being almost the perfect antithesis of his flashier contemporary, James Bond: discreet, inscrutable, understated and efficient.

“Smiley is the master of his own imagination,” says Alfredson. “He lives in a world of imagination – espionage – where he has to relate everything he learns to some kind of imaginary world: ‘It might be him; it might be her; it might be tomorrow.’

But the lethal thing in his world is when you believe the first thing that you think of. So Smiley has to be very cold; he knows he has to understand everything before he makes any conclusions. So that was something [Gary and I] discussed: How does [Smiley] read a room?

And since he never puts himself at the centre of attention in any room, how does that affect your body language? And how do you not reveal your thoughts?”

“We didn’t want him to start verbalising all the stuff that was internal in the book,” says

screenwriter Peter Straughan, “because that would be too on the nose – so we tried to work out how little dialogue we could get away with. It put enormous pressure on Gary to, with an expression or with a movement of his hands or his eyes, have the audience be able to read what’s going on inside him.”

Supporting Oldman is a rollcall of British talent – from veterans Hurt, Toby Jones and Ciarán Hinds, to reigning prince Colin Firth, and fresh blood like Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch. Firth, who plays Bill Haydon – nicknamed ‘Tailor’ for his sartorial affectations – says of le Carré’s complex creations, “You could follow any of these characters, and find a fantastic life – make a movie out of any of them.” “It’s his masterpiece,’ agrees Hurt (who plays Control). “He writes so well, apart from anything else; he has terrific dramatic technique.”

Of his ensemble cast, Alfredson admits, “It was a risk that someone would disappear, with the competition [of talent]. But I think casting is like music – you create chords; you try to find the different notes that sound nice together (or not nice together if you want that). It was, I think, a perfect combination in this film.”

In Tinker Tailor, Alfredson works once again with DOP Hoyte Van Hoytema, who shot Let The Right One In. “When we walk into a set or location, we talk the scene through and we discuss who owns the scene, visually; who should we follow, and whose feeling should we follow; at what height should we have the camera? Should we follow [this character]? She is this tall, so let’s put the camera at her height, to follow her and her feeling. So we try to find an architecture around that character, for that particular scene. It’s a philosophical solution to imagery. That discussion is so interesting to have, for a director – to follow the heart of the scene, rather than making spectacular images for their own sake!”

ABOUT DIRECTING “I try to create a calm set; it should be calm, and quiet and concentrated – and everyone should know that I don’t do ten takes; I want everyone on their toes.

And I want to rehearse properly, ten times or maybe 15. And when we have decided, and locked the scene, you have one or two takes to shoot it. If these are the rules on my set, then everyone knows it, and adjusts. I read somewhere that Frank Sinatra only did one take on his studio albums – and the musicians were at their absolute best. … I’m not a believer in the ‘undo society’ – where you can press ‘Control Z’; I like to choose the perspective and do it properly, and solid.”

What: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy When: Released January 19

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Weekend [FILM] True Romance By Dee Jefferson

S

ince the ‘90s we've seen a blossoming of queer cinema that has gradually made headway into the mainstream via directors like Gus Van Sant (Milk), Todd Haynes (I’m Not There) and, more recently, Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right) – but more often from indie directors like John Cameron Mitchell and Gregg Araki, hardcore arthouse doyens like Derek Jarman or B-movie mavens like John Waters and Bruce La Bruce. Proportionally, there aren’t many films that deal with the quotidian aspects of gay experience – where characters are incidentally gay, rather than ciphers for queer subcultures, or victims of abuse or persecution. Which is perhaps why films like The Kids Are Alright feel so refreshing – and directors like Xavier Dolan (Heartbeats) are so exciting.

Kitty Flanagan

[COMEDY] Thumbs Up By Michael Brown

W

hen I chat with Kitty Flanagan on a Friday evening, I assume that the comedian, film and television writer, 7pm Project regular, and Full Frontal alumnus might have better things to do. And she does – there’s a tipple with her name all over it. “I just opened a bottle of wine, and then went, 'Oh crap, interview.' Yeah, I’ll get funnier, or I’ll think I’ll get funnier,” she says.

Getting funnier has never been a problem for Flanagan, who has been doing it since the ‘90s, after being fired from a copywriting job. (“We were running our own hat company out of the office,” she explains. “We were making jester hats, and jughead hats, and cat-inthe-hat hats. Not sure if it was that; I’m not sure if they even knew… I don’t think they cared, so long as we weren’t writing more bad ads for them.”) Then in 2001, as a stand up comedian by night and a cast member on Full Frontal and The Micallef Program by day, Flanagan moved to the UK. “I was a comedian who needed to do it again and again and again to learn the lessons, to stop making the same mistakes,” Flanagan explains. “There’s only a finite number of clubs [in Australia], whereas in England it seems infinite. You can get up, make the mistake one night, and then get up an hour later and do another club and fix it, so you kinda go, ‘Okay, okay, better.’”

Even now, Kitty relishes this trial-and-error process, saying of her current guest role as social commentator on 7pm Project, “There’s so many things that you just kind of go, ‘Oh, I wish I hadn’t done that; oh you know what I should do?’ And each week I get to kind of

have another go.”

38-year-old British writer-director Andrew Haigh is part of the new wave – and the success of his sophomore feature, Weekend, is suggestive of a cinematic vista relatively unexplored as yet.

Simply and elegantly executed, it’s the story of a two young men in Nottingham who cross paths in a one-night stand, and end up having a weekend of sex, conversation and substanceabuse that profoundly affects them both. In its lo-fi sensibilities, its ‘talkiness’ and its exposition of pre-mid-life-crisis, it’s been compared to Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise.

Weekend isn’t just a different treatment of gay experience, it’s adopting a different approach to finding its audience; rather than targeting queer film festivals, Haigh set his sights on Texan festival South By Southwest. “Because a lot of the films I’ve liked have come out of South By Southwest, it felt like a good place to show it – and also I wanted the film to be viewed, I suppose, within that indie sensibility.”

Whatever Haigh’s doing, it’s working: following its SXSW premiere the film was picked up for US distribution, and has since scored rave reviews and editorials, and raked-in just under half a million – and all this before it even opens in its home territory, the UK. Part of Weekend’s success is the balance it strikes between universal themes and a frank rejection of heterosexual gender norms. Besides the sex and intimacy, Haigh gives his characters fiery blasts of dialogue railing against the heteronormative media and society they feel alienated by. “While I wanted a bigger audience than just a traditional ‘gay dvd’ audience, I also only want to get that audience if I can still be honest with the kind of film I want to make," says Haigh. "So very early on I decided not to water anything down or make it more palatable…I just thought people would respond to it if it tried to be truthful.”

A former editor with a slate of work that includes blockbusters like Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, Haigh resisted the temptation to manipulate the narrative of Weekend, choosing instead to shoot scenes in single long takes, filmed chronologically. The result feels like being a fly on the wall as the relationship gradually unfolds. “It’s really scary," he admits, "because obviously you rely so much on everybody – [especially] the actors to make long scenes work…” With this in mind, he cast established theatre actors Tom Cullen and Chris New in the lead roles: “They understand the need to stay in character for the whole time.”

Between her TV stints, Flanagan is inviting audiences to join her at the Old Fitzroy Hotel and pass judgment on new material for her upcoming show. Flanagan follows Arj Barker and Akmal Saleh, who’ve recently used the intimate theatre space to test works-inprogress. “[Old Fitz] just gets good people, I think,” says Flanagan. “I like that it has that clientele, that kind of go, ‘Yeah good, let’s go see someone tell some good jokes, fuck some up, and improve some – in front of us.’”

Her new show, Two Thumbs Down and a Raspberry, centres on all the things that get on Kitty’s nerves. “I realised how often I find myself going ‘I hate this, oh god this is annoying’; I think pretty much everything that comes out of my mouth is something that annoys me,’” says Flanagan.

Recently touted by industry bible Variety as one of ten screenwriters to watch, Haigh says, “When you leave university you need to earn a living, and so I just started working [as an editor], knowing that I wanted to direct but not having the money or confidence to go ‘Oh I’ll just make a film now’. And then you get a bit trapped – you end up working and the pay’s alright… But then I got to that stage where I thought 'I have to draw a line and just focus on my own projects'. I kinda wish I’d done it earlier,” he laughs.

As a result, the show will feature such gems as ‘I’d Like To Teach The World To Shush’, a duet with her singer-songwriter sister Penny.

“I just think there is way too much talking; everywhere I go people are just talking shit; it’s like, 'Shut up people, just shut up.' So I’ve expanded that ten minutes into a musical song,” she says. “A musical song – there you go, nice tautology.”

What: Two Thumbs Down and A Raspberry Where: Old Fitzroy Hotel / 129 Dowling St, Woolloomooloo When: Wednesday – Saturday 7pm, Sunday 5pm, til Saturday February 4 More: rocksurfers.org

Tom Cullen and Chris New star in Weekend

What: Weekend When: Opens January 26

Oh Boy Oh Boy [BURLESQUE] A Boylesque Bonanza By Bridie Connell

C

horeographing a burlesque routine is a lot like making a cocktail: all the ingredients need to be mixed just so if it’s to hit the mark. Personally I like to start mine with a shot of sex appeal, add a splash of humour, shimmyshake it all up, garnish with a pair of pasties and pour all over the audience. But of course there are many ways to make a cocktail, and when I’m ordering I like to be surprised – and Gallery Burlesque’s upcoming ‘boylesque bonanza’ may well be the cocktail I’m craving. Titled Oh Boy Oh Boy, the evening promises to deliver Gallery Burlesque’s signature recipe of performance, music and art – but with a twist: an all male lineup.

Lucas Glover

Hailing from Melbourne, Rod Lara is a master of physical comedy and characterisation. Currently starring as Harpo Marx in Top Marx: The Ultimate Marx Brothers Revue, his most memorable character is probably that of a chaste collared priest possessed by a dance demon, with pelvic thrusts and ‘80s moves so fierce that Michael Jackson would be rolling in his grave.

Even less likely to hold back on the dancefloor is special guest star Ballsy BergMan, who advises, “There’s going to be a lot of balls flying around – in terms of nudity and also in the bravado sense.

I hear [fellow guest] Vinnie Bradley is going to be someone pretty groundbreaking to keep an eye out for. It’s been a while since we’ve had just men on the stage – so long in fact that I wouldn’t be surprised if a few celebrities came out of the...ahem...woodwork to check this one out.”

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Undeterred, Karaozbek has assembled a stellar lineup of local and interstate boylesque talent, including Defy, Raven, Jamil, Lucas Glover, Manik Jones, Jester Smiles, Dear Bobby, the luxuriously long-limbed Tall Paul, and the devilishly camp Matthius the Libidinous. “We’ve got Sydney locals, two from Melbourne, musicians, a magician, and a couple of surprise performances all in the mix,” he enthuses.

Leading the locals is Gallery Burlesque regular Herbie Strangelove. “Herbie really is the artist of the crew,” says Karaozbek. “He brings the interesting props and hooks, and beautiful storylines.” From down-and-out stripping for cash to tapping around onstage in an oversized novelty head, Herbie’s talent for framing narratives through sensual and humorous movement more than makes up for his lack of polished dance technique. “The way he acts on

What: Oh Boy Oh Boy – Gallery Burlesque's boylesque bonanza When: Sunday January 29 / doors at 7pm Where: The Standard / Lvl 3, 383 Bourke St, Surry Hills More: galleryburlesque.com Xxxx

Gallery Burlesque founder Onur Karaozbek explains, “Since starting in 2009, [we have] always had male performers, so I thought why not get all the boys together on one bill and see how it goes?”

While I’d like to think that boylesque is becoming more popular, Karaozbek says, “I don’t think it’s increasing in popularity at all – it was so fucking hard to find people to perform! There are guys who are claiming to do burlesque but they’re mostly doing cabaret and queer performance art.

Finding those acts in-between, with storylines and elements of satire, was really hard.

[Burlesque is] not just about being sexy and taking your clothes off.”

stage, he is obviously not a dance-performer – he’s an actor-performer and a visual storyteller.”

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Arts Snap

Film & Theatre Reviews

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

Hits and misses on the silver screen and the bareboards around town.

■ Cabaret

BRIEFS January 13-22 / Idolize Spiegeltent, Parramatta

samuel hodge

PICS :: KC

Any Spiegeltent ensemble variety show has big shoes to fill, with the likes of La Clique and iOTA’s Smoke and Mirrors dazzling under the peaked tops over recent Sydney Festivals. As their opening night show in the Idolize Spiegeltent displayed (and with host Fez Fanaana’s size seventeen feet on their side) this allmale circus-cabaret sextet from Brisbane are up to the task.

11:01:12 :: Alaska Projects :: Lvl 2 9A Elizabeth Bay Rd Kings Cross 0410432981

Briefs is true variety, firmly anchored by the pink stilettos of the six-foot-something Samoan Fanaana, in a tranny turn as the show’s host Shivanna, who also serves up the show’s finale, Wendy Ho’s ‘Fuck Me’, through reverse striptease (man dressed as woman undressing to man), dance, and lip sync. There’s deadpan clowning from Davy Sampford; feats of strength and notable support characters from Lachy Shelly, incredible aerials from Natano Fanaana, and Guns N’ Roses and spinning headstands from bogan Beau with a Mo (Mali de Goey, whose mother makes his bespoke G-strings). The virtuosic, small, strong Mark Winmill, reigning King of Burlesque, serves a sultry macho aerial rope act in one scene, and raging fluoro-stripperheeled hula character Nadia Cominatchya in another. There’s even a meat tray raffle, with a lap dance for the lucky winner.

Where Briefs excels is attention to detail: every scene, every element works independently, and strengthens the whole.

Costume is over-the-top yet pristine, perfectly lavish. The soundtrack is diverse, revelling in the boldness of Guns N’ Roses and 2 Unlimited where needed, and complementing subtle moments with Salmonella Dub and Roisin Murphy.

Peter Neathway ■ Theatre

A HISTORY OF EVERYTHING Until February 5 / Wharf 2 @ STC

ladykillers inc - the final kill

PICS :: RR

In A History Of Everything, Ontroerend Goed, a group of young Belgian theatremakers who have been Sydney Festival darlings for several years now, have enlisted the help of Sydney Theatre Company’s Residents to tell the history of the world in reverse order, from the present day all the way back to the big bang.

13:01:12 :: 34B Burlesque @ Q-Bar :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9360 1375

Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

CHRISSIE ABBOTT – CASUAL COSMOLOGY Friday January 27 from 6pm China Heights / Level 3 16-28 Foster St, Surry Hills If you like day-glo acid-wash, cats, triangles and Brits, you’ll like the cut of Chrissie Abbott’s jib; besides doing album covers for Patrick Wolf and Little Boots, she also makes plates with cats and mugs with cats, cats cats cats, and generally makes you feel like you’ve fallen through a wormhole into ‘70s psychedelia.

She’s opening a solo show this week that takes in "the origin, structure and space-time relationships of the universe” – and although cats aren't mentioned, Chrissie told us there will be prints and bags for sale.

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And they really mean the present day, with the show starting, after a short monologue, at January 17, and referencing the Harbour Bridge closure which was the talk of the town for much of the day. Each show will be slightly different in this respect, as the first five minutes changes to reflect the day’s happenings. Sophie De Somere’s beautifully spare set is a simple cloth map of the world that spans the entire stage, providing context for each historical event mentioned.

Director Alexander Devriendt and the cast have created a beautifully choreographed, almost dancelike work, with the seven performers traversing the stage, and through various cardboard signs, simple actions and short statements, retelling the events that dominate our world’s past. Important moments in the performers’ lives, such as births, deaths, or the day they started taking a briefcase to school rather than a backpack, are presented alongside these major historical moments.

After a couple of Sydney shows that involved audience interaction, Ontroerend Goed is often associated with participatory shows. And despite this show having no direct interaction, I would say it encourages an even higher level of audience connection, as I found myself weaving my own story into the events that were being displayed before me.

Once again, Ontroerend Goed have shown they can push a theatrical concept to its limits, to create an utterly compelling and beautiful show. And how do they do the big bang? You’ll just have to go along and see.

Henry Florence ■ Theatre

RADIO MUEZZIN January 16-21 / Seymour Centre Created by Rimini Protokoll, a trio of German directors, Radio Muezzin is a work of ‘reality theatre’ that uses real people rather than actors and is based around a concrete situation. The subject at hand is the shifting role of muezzins, the Islamic mosque leaders whose job it is to issue the daily calls-to-prayer.

Their voices echo over cities fives time a day, with Cairo alone being home to 30,000 mosques, and therefore 30,000 different muezzins. Supposedly, this show investigates plans by the Egyptian government to transmit one call via radio across the entire nation, rather than allowing the cacophony of voices that currently dominates.

In actual fact, the show briefly touches on this major cultural shift but fails to delve too deeply into its consequences.

Much of the show is similarly superficial, often touching on interesting issues only to leave them unexamined. We are given brief chances to view the lives of four muezzins and one radio technician, and the most enjoyable moments of the night come as they reveal their most human qualities. Our media doesn’t prepare us for Muslims who are self-conscious about their beards (one muezzin comments that he has keep his trim otherwise he breaks out, whilst the only beardless member of the cast admitted that “my beard grows in patches, so I shave every 10 days”).

In spite of its structural problems, Radio Muezzin ultimately succeeds due to the personalities of the performers. Through the snippets we see of their lives and the momentary insights into their struggles and successes, their charisma makes the show a worthwhile visit – though far from the exciting and dangerous political work I had expected.

Henry Florence ■ Theatre

THE BOYS Until March 3 / SBW Stables The Boys is a play you endure rather than enjoy. This is not an insult; it's full of impressive acting and represents Griffin Artistic Director Sam Strong’s most innovative and exciting use of the SBW Stables Theatre yet. But focusing as it does on a harrowing murder, it's a play that is often difficult to watch.

Arguably based on the rape and murder of 26-year-old Sydney nurse Anita Cobby in 1986, the now-classic Australian text investigates how a group of brothers raised by a caring mother, and all of who had female partners, could commit this crime. It starts with an awkward ‘welcome home’ party for a brother recently released from prison, and spirals downward as tempers flare and old wounds reopen. However, the play is really about the women left behind by these men, adeptly showing that the victims of crime are not only those who are attacked.

Renée Mulder’s superb set design sees the wall covered in corrugated iron, with a hills hoist bang in the centre, framing the violence that takes place. The tin sheets loudly reverberate throughout the tiny theatre as beer cans and punches are thrown in fury. Although this effect is somewhat tired by the end of the play, the shock to the audience’s bodies is undeniable when metal meets metal.

Kelly Ryall’s sound design is equally angry and jagged.

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

Film & Theatre Reviews Hits and misses on the silver screen and the bareboards around town.

SUN 29TH JAN

The performances vary from solid to remarkable. Josh McConville is undoubtedly the star of the piece, and has been praised at length elsewhere – so all I’ll say is that I didn’t want to clap for him at the end, I hated the character so much. Louisa Mignone is also a scene stealer with her wilful, yet tender, presence, whilst Anthony Gee finds exactly the right level of indignation that younger siblings the world over possess.

time, and reason enough to forgive Tis Pity its weak points.

The Boys is a necessary reminder of the violence humans are capable of and feels almost as fresh today as it did two decades ago.

Young Adult represents a surprisingly bleak comedy for Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking; Up In The Air), but perhaps less so for Diablo Cody, whose script brings just about the expected quota of wrong for the girl who wrote Juno and Jennifer’s Body. Her latest follows Mavis (Charlize Theron), a grown-up prom queen whose dreams of fame and fabulousness are fading quicker than her looks – and at 37, divorced, and her career (as a ghostwriter of young adult fiction) at a low point, she’s got no time to waste. So when she finds out her high school beau (Patrick Wilson) and his wife have just had their first baby, she heads back home to Mercury, to reclaim her teenage trophy and highschool glory.

Henry Florence.

■ Theatre

TIS PITY SHE’S A WHORE January 17-21 / Sydney Theatre John Ford’s 1623 tragedy has always been hard to pin down. It has a grindhouse sensibility and the bloody heart of a romance. It’s a pulp shocker that detonates its subplots with risible anticlimaxes. It’s a pointed commentary on gender relations and the intersection between public sphere and private. Oh, and it’s the one about incest.

Cheek by Jowl’s production deals with the baroque intrigues of Ford’s text by embracing them as high melodrama. It’s a calculated risk that sometimes fails; the Hippolyta subplot turns a tragic fool into a distracting indulgence, and the arch stylisation often leads to muddy versespeaking and generic characterisation, instead of being used to make sense of Ford’s convoluted plot.

Then there are times when director Declan Donnellan’s approach creates a world of self-aware genre play that renders fleeting moments of emotional connection all the more powerful for their incongruity.

The perfect expression of this is Lydia Wilson as star-cross’d sister Annabella.

In the opening minutes, Wilson’s sheer physicality lays out the play’s concerns, and she spends the following hours finding fascinating variations on those themes.

Annabella announces herself to the audience by dancing alone, a young woman coming to terms with her body, then leads the company in a routine that oscillates between invitation and threat. It’s a remarkable sequence that encapsulates the production’s vision of an ever-shifting relationship between sexuality, violence and female agency.

Wilson’s Annabella moves with the faux confidence of an underage pop star, a troubling interstitial version of female sexuality both adult and strangely innocent.

She is built from these paradoxes: eagerness coupled with ironic detachment, a cut-glass voice emanating from a slender body, a fantasist who is the object of so many others’ desires. In the production’s most ingenious stroke, Annabella chooses to deal with a world of melodrama by compulsively play-acting, refusing to take anything seriously until tragedy is already upon her. It’s one of the finest performances to grace Sydney in a long

681'$( 6(66,21

29 JAN - 4 MAR

Pierce Wilcox

TUES 31ST JAN WED 1ST FEB THUR 2ND FEB FRI 3RD FEB SAT 4TH FEB SUN 5TH FEB

■ Film

YOUNG ADULT Released January 19

Mavis' single-minded quest plays out in tandem with her manuscript-inprogress, the last instalment of a flagging series called Waverly Prep: as the film opens, her teenaged heroine/alter-ego Kendall is entering graduation year almost overwhelmed by the level of her own perfection; as it closes Kendall is graduating, just the tiniest bit happier thanks to the death (in a tragic boating accident) of the ex who jilted her. Cody similarly refuses to submit to Hollywood norms by having her heroine transform in any significant way, choosing to finish with Mavis using then abandoning her only friend, a fat cripple and former classmate (the preternaturally empathetic Patton Oswalt), to return to her life in Minneapolis – if not unscathed, then at least resolutely unenlightened. Yes, she’s finally leaving high school behind, but that doesn’t mean she’s matured.

TIME OUT PRESENTS: BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK (PG)

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Reuniting after the success of Juno, Cody and Reitman once again have fun with subverting our expectations: opening shots of Minneapolis are overlaid with a teary voiceover confession that we expect to be our protagonist – but turns out to be an episode of reality series Kendra. Even at the end, Cody snatches what looks like a touching denouement out from under our feet at the last moment, with Mavis committing perhaps her most callous act yet.

Young Adult pokes a stick at a culture that fetishizes beauty and bitchiness in shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians or The Simple Life, and the media’s avid coverage of eternal teens like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. At the same time, it allows us to love the truly awful Mavis, a self-obsessed alcoholic with an obsessivecompulsive hair-pulling habit, and an ability to call everyone’s bullshit but her own; a stone-cold fox who breezes through life with no discomforting sense of her actions' consequences. “Guys like me are born loving women like you,” says Oswalt’s character – and so, it seems, are we.

Dee Jefferson

Charlize Theron in Young Adult

xxxx

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FBI TUNE UP VS IN THE PINES Petersham Bowls Club Sunday January 15

The first Tune Up vs In The Pines gig of 2012 saw a relocation from Kings Cross to the more family-friendly Petersham Bowls Club.

Being an early kick-off, I arrived just in time for the second act, Caitlin Harnett, but I have it on good authority that opener James Thomson was the perfect start to a lessthan-perfect afternoon, with his country guitar picking and rocking-chair voice drawing the blues from the heavens – and barefoot bowlers inside the club – as it began to rain.

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J Mascis

J MASCIS

The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park Wednesday January 11 Neighbourhood Watch

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DANNYS

Sometimes all you want when you go to see a guy like J Mascis is for him to live up to his name. As frontman of Dinosaur Jr. (a key precursor to the ‘90s alt-rock hype-ride), Mascis achieved Godfather Of Grunge status through slurred vocals, daisy chains of fuzz pedals and virtuoso Jazzmaster solos straight from a smokefilled bedroom. When Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain started doing what Dino did with youthful, lunchbox-and-T-shirt-selling exuberance, Mascis re-packed the bong and continued to forge another 30 years of slacker genius. So when he tours solo, you go as much for the music as you do for the myth. For that reason, when you see him live, you’re not at all disappointed when he records a muffled chord progression onto his loop pedal, begins a solo and stops halfway to lethargically turn the pages of his lyric sheet. If anything, you’re kind of cheering it on.

Touring in support of 2011’s Several Shades Of Why, Mascis was obviously all too aware that people weren’t there just for the solo material. Reaching back as far as Living All Over Me for a somehow-functional acoustic version of ‘Kracked,’ Mascis managed to re-imagine his band’s electric classics, while picking out the un-fuzzed acoustic gems of their discography like Green Mind’s ‘Flying Cloud.’ But while the Dinosaur Jr. tracks may have seemed the most surprising, it was the solo work from Several Shades that seemed most appropriate in the intimate surrounds offered by the Spiegeltent. Mascis’ strained moans in ‘Listen to Me’ were almost at odds with the bouncy meander of ‘Not Enough,’ but it was his loping, child-like sincerity that spread the appeal, the obligatory loop pedal touches allowing for the solo shredding that gave Mascis his name, along with his subsequent signature Jazzmaster line.

Physically, Mascis had all the stage presence of a doormat; spending the whole set head down over his guitar, glancing up only to take in his lyric sheet and mutter vague non sequiturs while tuning, but J Mascis' appeal isn’t limited to what he does with his guitar; he’s got the rare aura of someone who influenced history, and after witnessing a quick hour of offerings from all across his discography, it’s not hard to see why.

Max Easton

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Harnett’s choice of songs to cover wasn't particularly surprising, nor were they interpreted in particularly “new” ways – nevertheless, every song she performed was praiseworthy even if just for the prettiness of her voice. Clear and bright as the summer’s day we wished we were having, and feminine without the irritating frailty you often find with female folk-pop: she really has one of the best voices I’ve heard in a while. The Kate Walsh cover Harnett opened with was a standout, and even temporarily silenced the chattering bowls club crowd, while others were compelled to sing along to the Ryan Adams/Emmylou Harris favourite ‘Oh My Sweet Carolina’, not to mention her final tune, ‘Edelweiss’ (remember The Sound of Music?). Her own songs are just as sweet and nostalgic, with countrified lyrical gold like “there’s holes in my boots from running after you”. And this from a girl who claims she doesn’t know what classifies as “country music” these days (you just have to be wearing cowboy boots, right? Throw in the odd yodel...?)

I’m sure The Green Mohair Suits have some idea of what makes country music, though there wasn’t a cowboy boot in sight. A side-project of a handful of Sydney music veterans, the band's familiar faces included Brian Campeau, Elana Stone and Richie Cuthbert. These guys are all about multi-part vocal harmonies, and keeping it country with their instruments – banjo, mandolin, guitar (check check check).

And boy, do they make some seriously lush sounds together. Despite missing a couple of band members, they still put on a toe-tapping performance with plenty of surprising covers and moments of spinetingling choral perfection. I was floored by their versions of Aretha Franklin’s girl-power soul ballad ‘Do Right Woman, Do Right Man’ and Portishead’s ‘Glory Box’. All up, a very pleasant way to pass (even a rainy) Sunday.

Jenny Noyes

MIKE PATTON’S MONDO CANE, ANTHONY PATERAS The State Theatre Monday January 16

Fuck Mike Patton, seriously. It’s not enough that ‘We Care A Lot’ features in every ‘80s teen-film badass montage, or that he scared me to the point of touching cloth with ‘Delerium Cordia’ and provided the soundtrack to every joint I’ve ever smoked, with Mr. Bungle – turns out he also rocks in Italian!

An almost shockingly diverse crowd turned out for the first of two shows at the State Theatre, the blue-rinse set mixing with hairy punkers and button-down businessmen. It seemed that many people, including me, didn’t know what to make of opening act, pianist Anthony Pateras. I may simply be showing my ignorance – and the man is undoubtedly talented – but his discordant, key-mashing, 20-minute non-stop piano oscillated between boring and physically painful for me. Maybe it’s a jazz thing, but it didn’t grab me.

As dark suited men skulked on to the stage like the Cosa Nostra, the crowd roared, mistaking each one in turn for Mike Patton. But once he arrived, there was no mistaking him for anyone else. His presence is enormous and, as he charmingly put it, there “wasn’t a dry seat in the house”. With his hair slicked to perfection, he stalked across the stage with the casual elegance and murderous intensity of a professional hit-man.

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GOONS OF DOOM

Beth Orton His love for these forgotten ‘50s- and ‘60sera Italian pop songs is as palpable as it is infectious. On paper it sounds ridiculous; metal singer covers cinematic Euro-pop with 12-piece string section, two drummers, horns and a theremin (that’s right, a freaking theremin!), but Jesus-creeping-shit does it work. His theatricality and growling vocals on ‘Che Notte’ instantly calls Tom Waits to mind; he fired a starter pistol, hand-cranked an antique siren and swaggered like a gangster.

Patton’s range is remarkable to say the least.

His vocals soar from menace to romance, and it’s clear (despite his hilarious stage banter) that he takes this very seriously, treating the songs with an intense respect.

It’s hardly surprising; after all, this is the man that managed to cover Lady Gaga with a straight face. While smaller than some of the previous bands with which he has performed this act, Mondo Cane sounded full and rich.

The passionate, throbbing drums and the various electronic sound effects of rain and doom made for a fully-realised and dramatic performance. The opulence of the State Theatre was a natural fit.

‘Deep Deep Down’, being the most easily recognised of the set due to its YouTube success, was soulful and sexy – and security were at a loss as people left their seats and rushed to dance in front of the stage.

Patton even looked scared for a moment, but needn’t have worried; this is Sydney, we’re friendly. A rather tall gentleman even jumped on stage and offered Patton a cigarette as he sang of the joys of smoking. Three days later, I’m still thinking about it. Damn good show.

Robbie Miles

I LOVE 90S FT. THE VENGABOYS Selina’s @ Beach Road Hotel Friday January 13

I’m too young for nights that feature the music that was charting when I was a kid – it wasn’t that long ago, right? Right.

And I didn’t even like most of that music at the time, so why relive it? The bands and artists I liked in the ‘90s almost all fell into the category of ‘no costumes or choreographed dance moves’, so I never listened to the Vengaboys. I was speechless when I heard that they were releasing new material, and gobsmacked when they sold out their Australian tour. So it’s mainly a sense of curiosity that’s brought me to Selina’s tonight, and I approach the gig cautiously, ready to be amused, and armed with a healthy sense of irony… which I was promptly forced to check at the door.

Within minutes (it would have been seconds, but we need drinks for fortification), we are on a packed dancefloor, boogeying to ‘90s hit after ‘90s hit. We’re talking Ace of Base, Boys II Men, Backstreet Boys. This is no place to be too cool, because no-one cares.

Everyone in the audience – sailor hats, platform heels and glitter – is singing happily and unabashedly along to what is essentially a collective hallucinogenic flashback to Saturday mornings in your PJs, watching Video Hits and yelling into your hairbrush, dramatically enacting song lyrics.

It’s a night full of surprises: I know the lyrics to 5ive songs? Seriously? But this is no time to ponder what the evolutionary advantage might be to a species that needs endless reminders for day-to-day things, but is able to dredge up at a moment’s notice lyrics and dance moves from songs they haven’t thought about in over a decade… because it’s time for Vengaboys! And… I know the lyrics to this many of their songs? Seriously?

Band members have changed and a decade

has passed, but I can’t imagine they could have ever looked any different. They are impossibly slender, impeccably (if heavily) made up, and entirely ageless, bouncing around the stage with buckets of energy.

Sure, the choreography is tacky, the lipsynching borders on terrible at times, and the flirting, beaming, and giggling is a little heavy-handed, but they’re fun, ridiculous, and – crucially – aware that they’re ridiculous.

They have a single called ‘Rocket to Uranus’, and their dance moves erase any lingering doubt anyone may have had that the pun was intended.... These guys aren’t here to be taken seriously, they’re here to make us dance. And this makes them pretty much irresistible.

They take us to Ibiza, give us a party, and we, as they suggest, have a good time. As the Vengabus pulls away at the end of the show, the audience stumbles back into the reality of whatever we’re calling our current decade – for my part, I’m keen on tracking down another ‘90s night.

Romi Scodellaro

BETH ORTON

City Recital Hall, Angel Place Tuesday January 17 Zooey Deschanel can take a step waaaaay back: Beth Orton has awkward-cute locked down. Stepping on stage with a nearinaudible “thank you” before self-consciously tuning her guitar, she instantly owns the room. Now in her early forties, no trace remains of her early folktronica efforts; it’s just Beth, a guitar and 1266 people staying dog-whistle quiet lest they miss a single moment. And with no opening act, the show immediately feels more intimate and personal.

One could argue that Orton’s songs sound the same as each other; while accurate, to say so is to miss the point. As her voice gently breaks on the high notes, it is the emotion and subtlety of her lyrics that break your heart.

STICKY FINGERS BETTY AIRS

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Her performance isn’t note-perfect, and all the better for it. You get the impression she’d be far more comfortable in the studio or in the corner of a coffee house. Unafraid to mix a great deal of new material with the songs that people came to see, she fidgets uncomfortably with complex tunings and allows us a minor insight into the neurosis of creativity and expression. The absence of a backing band is no impediment, and instead allows her simple arrangements to shine.

“I’m not worthy,” she declares of the Steinway & Co piano used for just one song (a new one I think). Once she finds her tuning she becomes a different person, completely engaged in each song.

Having barely listened to her since 2006’s Comfort of Strangers, I found it a brave choice on her part to include so many new songs (songs that I can't even name, until the forthcoming album drops). While the new stuff was good, the cheers were reserved for classic tracks such as ‘She Cries Your Name’ and ‘Ooh Child’.

Having never seen her live, I was captivated

by Orton's disarming (and effortlessly charming) British-ness, as was my companion. The occasional f-bomb seemed to unsettle some of the older audience members, but only served to comfort us.

Even after countless performances, Orton still seems amazed that people want to pay attention. Of course, that’s probably what made it so enjoyable.

Robbie Miles COME OUT AND CELEBRATE LOCAL AUSSIE MUSIC WITH US ! FOR MORE INFO HEAD TO WWW.BEACHROADBONDI.COM.AU AND WWW.MYSYDNEYRIOT.COM

BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 33

snap sn ap up all night out all week . . .

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happy new year

arctic monkeys

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13:01:12 :: Dirty Shirlows :: 32 Shirlow St Marrickville

julianna barwick

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12:01:12 :: Horden Pavilion :: 264 Lang Rd Moore Park 9921 5333

15:01:12 :: The Famous Spiegeltent Hyde Park North

australia day bac kyard party It’s called: Australia Day Backyard Party

ething for ever yone at It sounds like: There’s som the Bay this Australia Day and Dan Adair, Panorama, plus the Who’s playing? DJs Tom Hyper en.

Hottest 100 all day in the beer gard hits: we’ve got the the sun with your favourite Aussie Sell it to us: Enjoy a cold beer in Hottest 100 all day j's triple , 2pm at tennis competition Great Aussie BBQ at noon, a table h. beac with the best view of Coogee – and the premium Balcony Bar, on the barbie, ice-cold beers party without: Table tennis, lamb It wouldn’t be an Australia Day and triple j's Hottest 100.

Where: The Coogee Bay Hotel When: Thursday January 26

day a i l a r t aus par ty profile

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: ASHLEY S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER PEACHEY :: GEORGE POPOV :: ROSETTE ROUHANNA :: MAR :: DANIEL MUNNS :: THOMAS SAM WHITESIDE ::

34 :: BRAG :: 446: 23:01:12

mum

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best peeps.

Crowd specs: 5000-or-so of the options from $4.

Wallet damage: Free, with BBQ

13:01:12 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd 9357 7700

BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 35

snap sn ap up all night out all week . . .

my bondi riot It’s called: My Bondi Riot - Australia Day Weekend Extravaganza!

It sounds like: A crazy party of punk, soul, dub, ska, indie and rock – made in Australia.

Who’s playing? Goons of Doom, Sticky Fingers, Betty Airs, The Bungalows, Mylee Grace, Valley Floor, Bang! Bang! Rock ’n Roll, DJ Nic and Brien.

Sell it to us: We’ve been everywhere and back, and the bands in this country kick arse – it’s something to be proud of. We just want to celebrate what we have growing in our own backyard.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Rockin’ out to Bang! Bang! Rock n’ Roll, gazing at Mylee Grace, being hit with Goons’ drumstick, licking Dylan’s (Sticky) face and hounding Darren Cross (Betty Airs) to marry you and your sister.

Crowd specs: 500 cool cats coming together.

Wallet damage: $10 for this quality lineup.

Where: Upstairs at Beach Road Hotel / Bondi

red paintings

y lia da a r t s au par ty profile

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When: Saturday January 28 / 6pm - midnight

deadbeat & hazy

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11:01:12 :: The Factory Theatre :: 105 Victoria Road, Marrickville 9550 3666

14:01:12 :: The Domain, Sydney

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: ASHLEY S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER PEACHEY :: GEORGE POPOV :: ROSETTE ROUHANNA :: MAR :: DANIEL MUNNS :: THOMAS SAM WHITESIDE

36 :: BRAG :: 446: 23:01:12

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mondo cane

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13:01:12 :: The Red Rattler:: 6 Faversham St, Marrickville 9565 1044

14:01:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93323711

Remedy

The Minor Chord The all-ages rant brought to you by Indent.net.au & Janette Chen

More than The Cure since 1989 with Murray Engleheart

FEEDTIME

The feedtime frog logo was top item on Sub Pop’s home page last week, with the following rave: “On March 13 we’re reissuing the first four long-out-ofprint albums from Australia’s feedtime in the form of both a 4 CD box set and a 4 LP box set. We’re calling it the Aberrant years. ...Listen to your new favorite feedtime songs according to [Mudhoney’s] Mark Arm in the player above.” Too great.

kind of surprising that it’s taken until now to have their general manifesto caught on film. But that’s what will accompany their coming album, which will reportedly be called 2012. Titled The Death and Resurrection Show, the documentary will feature the likes of Dave Grohl as well as the head of the Czech Secret Police – which might be as much a reflection of Coleman’s maniacal sense of humour as it is the quite unique world in which he operates.

HELLO QUO!

ROCK REVIVAL?

Expect a major movie on the full history of Status Quo in October. Titled Hello Quo! and directed by Emmy-nominee Alan G Parker, it will feature the band’s classic lineup of Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt, Alan Lancaster and John Coghlan, talking about the band and also, according to LouderThanWar.com, performing together for the first time since the mid-‘80s. No word as to whether this reunion will continue beyond the cameras, but then the band are looking down the barrel of their 50th anniversary in 2015, so they might have something special planned. To give some idea just how broad the production will be, featured interviews include not just the usual UK suspects like Queen’s Brian May and Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott, but also Slade’s Noddy Holder and Buzzcocks’ Steve Diggle.

FUGAZI: MORE LIVE!

The new Fugazi Live Series web archive site we mentioned a few weeks back has been boosted by an additional 25 shows.

Each month a new batch of gigs will be added.

REISSUES CONT.

There’s some more cool reissues happening at the moment, among them The Birthday Party’s catalogue and that of the most independent of independent bands, the legendary Dead Moon.

KILLING JOKE

These days, Killing Joke’s resident madman, Jaz Coleman, might tug on a cigar and inhabit a seemingly more high brow cultural circle than he did in the post-punk era, but he’s still the planet’s coolest anarchist, with his feet firmly planted on the correct idealogical ground.

Few can deliver a stronger and more inspired (if somewhat cosmic) verbal firestorm than our Jaz, while The Joke have never strayed off the path. So it’s

Speaking of the head Foo Fighter, Grohl sure is an enthusiastic bloke. We like that.

Filled with hope he is, too. He recently told Billboard.com that he feels the music scene is poised to explode with rock again, just as it did post-Nirvana. “The late ’80s was full of over-produced pop that kids had nothing to grab hold of,” he said, “they had no way of connecting to a hair metal band singing about strippers in a limousine on Sunset Boulevard.

Then you had a bunch of formulaic pop songstress [stuff], and music was boring.

And then a bunch of bands with dirty kids got on MTV and rock and roll became huge again. And I feel like that’s about to happen.” We’d really like to think he’s right, but right now we just can’t see the space or burning desire for the stuff.

Even at the peak of the last “rock” wave led by The Vines, The Datsuns and Jet, they were hardly capable of filling the Entertainment Centre.

DIG IT UP!

One of the greatest tour packages to ever hit this country, Dig It Up! – The Hoodoo Gurus Invitational, marks 30 years since the release of their debut single, ‘Leilani’.

The Feel Presents production will feature The Hoodoo Gurus performing their classic debut album Stoneage Romeos in its entirety, plus many of their zillion other hits. The rest of the bill is packed with some of their favourite acts and key influences, like Seattle’s ‘60s punk kings The Sonics, Died Pretty, Redd Kross, The 5.6.7.8’s (Japan), Tek & Younger (ex-Radio Birdman), The Fleshtones (US), The Hard-Ons, Belles Will Ring, Royal Headache, The Love and more.

This three-ringed rock’n’roll circus touches down in Sydney on April 22 at three venues all within one minute walk of each other on Enmore Road: the Enmore Theatre, Notes Live and the Green Room.

Doors open 1pm; tickets on sale Monday 30 January. Sign up to the mailing list at feelpresents.com for your chance to purchase presale tickets.

Hoodoo Gurus

ON THE TURNTABLE On the Remedy turntable is The Godfathers’ classic Birth, School, Work, Death.

Underrated at the time and virtually forgotten now, they were led by the Coyne Brothers (Brit rock’n’roll’s version of the notorious Kray Twins) and were kinda like Doctor Feelgood, if they had put one foot into the future and left the other deep in pub-rock tradition. There’s plenty of tough pre-punk references points as well, like The Kinks à la ‘Milk Cow Blues’ and The Stones circa 1969. Sadly, these guys made offers that only fools were brave enough to refuse, but many did anyway. Also spinning (and bringing on the apocalypse) is the appropriately-titled Synth Destruction, a live recording from 2006

by Japanese guerrilla sonic man Merzbow, with Carlos Giffoni. This is electronic metal machine music. We’d like to see someone try and score it for an orchestra in 30 years time.

Kasabian

ALL-AGES GIG PICKS TUESDAY JANUARY 24

A

n exciting opportunity has popped up for music-lovers looking for hands-on industry experience: Indent and their MusicNSW mums have moved into some new digs, bought some stationary, dusted of a desk and cleared a space – and they’re seeking one motivated and passionate young person (18 – 24) to work alongside the team on the 2012 Indent Open Day. While no industry experience is required, an interest in all-ages entertainment and the contemporary music industry is essential, and the ideal candidate will be highly organised and a confident communicator.

British psych-rockers Kasabian are bringing their strange cross-pollination of sounds to the Hordern Pavilion this week. These guys have really blown up, and filled the void left

by Oasis since they disbanded – and their latest, fourth album Velociraptor has found its way into critics' hearts and the public’s consciousness, with first single ‘Switchblade Smiles’ showcasing the band’s Britpopmeets-electro sound. You can also expect an interesting set from guitarist Serge Pizzorno, the real-world answer to Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel. And the support act is The Vaccines, who are currently being much vaunted by NME as the "saviours of rock and roll". With this heavy title on their backs, the band have swaggered on, releasing their debut album What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? last year to international acclaim. This will most certainly be one of the biggest sideshows of the Big Day Out schedule, and tickets are still available.

If you’re in the mood for something a little bit harder, My Chemical Romance will be blowing the roof off the same venue a couple nights later, on January 27. Anybody who has charted this band’s career – from the hardcore-influence of their first release Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge to the grandiose Queen-style pomp of 2007’s The Black Parade, followed by the initially confusing, now loved dance-rock of their fourth album Danger Days – will know that their stage show is formidable, with a tight sound counteracted by huge visuals and the soaring vocals of lead singer Gerard Way. The band is being supported by rising Melbourne punks Closure In Moscow and the whole shebang kicks off at 7.30pm, so make sure you’re there nice and early to get an excellent view of the band's loud stage clothes...

Kasabian, The Vaccines Hordern Pavilion Odd Future Enmore Theatre

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 25

Soundgarden, The Bronx Sydney Entertainment Centre

FRIDAY JANUARY 27

My Chemical Romance, Closure in Moscow Hordern Pavilion

LA skate-rap shock collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All will also be adding their antics to the Big Day Out, so make sure you catch their only Sydney all-ages sideshow on Tuesday January 24.

Forming only a few years ago, and causing Christian groups around the country to scream ‘THINK OF THE CHILDREN!’ (à la Helen Lovejoy from The Simpsons), the gang and their frontman Tyler the Creator will bring both their controversial rhymes and raucous live presence (seriously, most of the band was arrested last month after basically destroying the Roxy in West Hollywood) to the Enmore Theatre. Unfortunately, group member Earl Sweatshirt is still ‘not free’, but you can definitely expect an incendiary show from these young’uns on the night. It all starts at 7pm, so it should finish relatively early as well.

Finally, reformed grunge heroes Soundgarden will be bringing their metal riffs and the wailing rock-god shrieks of frontman Chris Cornell to the Sydney Entertainment Centre on Wednesday January 25. Having recently got back together after 13 years ‘on a break’, the band will be raring to make you mosh along to classics like ‘Spoonman’ and ‘Black Hole Sun’. They’ll be supported by LA’s The Bronx, who will be bringing their punk stylings to this show, but are actually performing all of the Big Day Out shows as Mariachi El Bronx – their Mexican Mariachi alter-ego (for more on this, see page 22). Yup, it’s as good as it sounds – and hopefully, if we all yell loud enough, we can coerce Cornell into playing Temple of the Dog’s 1992 hit ‘Hunger Strike’.

Mariachi El Bronx

TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS Penny Ikinger returns to Sydney for a one-off show with her all-star band, which includes ex-Radio Birdman leader Deniz Tek, Jim Dickson and John Fenton, as part of the I-94 Bar Club, upstairs at the Sandringham on January 29. Also on the bill is the debut appearance of Loose Pills (featuring members of The Scruffs, New Christs, Eastern Dark and Happy Hate Me Nots) with Redundant Technology as openers. $12.

The Dirty Three’s new album (their first since 2005’s Cinder) is titled Toward The Low Sun. The more “improvised and instinctive” effort will be out on February 24, just prior to their national tour which will see the threesome at Sydney Opera House’s Concert Hall on March 21.

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

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

Send all-ages listings & info to theminorchordradio@gmail.com BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 37

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

pick of the week Kanye West

THURSDAY JANUARY 26

MONDAY JANUARY 23 ROCK & POP

Battles (USA), Canyons, Pink Flod Metro Theatre, Sydney $60 8pm Bernie The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 4.30pm Matt Jones Trio The Three Wise Monkeys, Sydney free 10pm Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (UK), Deep Sea Arcade Enmore Theatre $94.90 (+ bf) 7pm sold out Rockin’ With Rah Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm

JAZZ

Sydney Showground, Homebush Bay

Big Day Out: Kanye West (USA), Soundgarden (USA), Kasabian (UK), Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (UK),

My Chemical Romance (USA), Foster The People (USA), Odd Future (USA), Girl Talk (USA), Hilltop Hoods, Battles (USA), Royksopp (NOR),

Alison Penney Dee Why Hotel free 6.30pm Carl Morgan Quintet 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm Cass Greaves, Coffin Brothers The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf) 7.30pm Monday Jam: Danny G Felix, Djay Kohinga The Lansdowne, Broadway free 9pm

TUESDAY JANUARY 24 ROCK & POP

Adam Pringle and Friends Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm The Angels, Dave Gleeson Revesby Workers Club 7pm Amiina Sydney Festival @ The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $43 7pm Anikiko The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf) 7.30pm Animagica Sydney Festival @ The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $18 Kasabian (UK), The Vaccines (UK) Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park $78.40 (+ bf) 8pm Kitty, Daisy & Lewis (UK), Kira Puru & The Bruise Metro Theatre, Sydney $48.70 8pm Odd Future (USA) Enmore Theatre $72.45 (+ bf) 7pm Steve Tonge The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm

Sydney All Star Big Band, Pete Moore Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $20 9.30pm They Call Me Bruce Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 8.30pm

JAZZ

Glen Rhodes Dee Why Hotel free 6.30pm Jazzgroove: Bernie McGann Quartet, The Dilworths 505 Club, Surry Hills $8–$15 8.30pm

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 25 ROCK & POP

Andy Mammers Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm Animagica Sydney Festival @ The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $18 11am Australian Played Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 9pm Best Coast (USA), Dune Rats, Sures Manning Bar, The University of Sydney $38.25-$45 (+ bf) 8pm Cambo The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Chase The Sun Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Contraban, Sunset Riot, Angels Of The Tattooed Generation Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 7.45pm The Cupcake Conspiracy, Rockethead, Baby Snakes, Face Command Valve Bar, Tempe free 7pm Das Racist (USA), True Vibe Nation, Simo Soo Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $35 (+ bf) 8pm Foster The People (USA), Last Dinosaurs Enmore Theatre $58.15 (+ bf) 8pm sold out Gaby Bonello Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 8pm Gene Fehlberg Trio, Sarah Bird, Alex Gibson Notes Live, Enmore 8pm Guttermouth (USA) Caringbah Bizzo’s 8pm Insomnia: Washington Sydney Festival @ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $45–$65 8pm Jagermeister Presents: Short Notice, Sound Theory, The Bland, Pom

The Jezabels, Cage The Elephant (USA), Architecture in Helsinki, Best Coast (USA), Nero (UK), The Vaccines (UK), Das Racist (USA) and more $175.80 (+ bf) 11am

Pom, Big Smack Annandale Hotel $8 7.30pm Jamie Lindsay PJ Gallagher’s Drummoyne free 9pm Jimmy Vargas and the Black Dahlias Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $10 8pm Mariachi El Bronx (USA), The Vasco Era Metro Theatre, Sydney $48.70 8pm Matt Jones Trio Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney free 11pm Matt Seaberg The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9pm Musos Jam Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt free 8pm Nicky Kurta Summer Hill Hotel free 7.30pm Rob Henry Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm Songs of the Sixties: Damien Lovelock, Amanda Easton, Sam Joole, Nick Meredith, Chris Alford, Dave Kirby, Rob Ewan The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf) 9pm Soundgarden (USA), The Bronx (USA) Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour $96.10–$129.30 8pm Step-Panther FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel free 1pm Steve Tonge Duo O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9pm The Study: Steve Smyth, Ollie Brown, The Firetree The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills free 8pm Sun Araw (USA), Prince Rama (USA), Holy Balm, Rites Wild Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $20 (+ bf) 8pm Swingshift Cold Chisel Show Colyton Hotel free 9pm The Thingos Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel free 8pm Thunderstruck- AC/DC Shows Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills free 10pm UB40 (UK), Billy Ocean, Big Mountain, Junior Marvin State Theatre, Sydney $100– $130 8pm Zoltan Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 6pm

JAZZ

Jim Gannon Dee Why Hotel free 6.30pm Johnny Nicol 505 Club, Surry Hills $10– $15 8.30pm No Illuminati, Junk, Daniel Allars The Vanguard, Newtown $15 (+ bf) 8pm

THURSDAY JANUARY 26 ROCK & POP

Best Coast

Amiina Sydney Festival @ The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $43 7.30pm Ben Finn Penrith Panthers free 6.15pm Big Day Out: Kanye West (USA), Soundgarden (USA), Kasabian (UK), My Chemical Romance (USA), Foster The People (USA), Odd Future (USA), The Living End, Grinspoon, Girl Talk (USA),

“We met the man in the deep, deep south with the gritty smile and the dirty old church mouth” - Portugal. The Man .. Feb 7 METRO 38 :: BRAG :: 446 : 23:01:12

g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Hilltop Hoods, Battles (USA), Mariachi El Bronx (USA), Parkway Drive, Royksopp, The Jezabels, Architecture in Helsinki, The Getaway Plan, Cage the Elephant, Frenzal Rhomb, Boy & Bear, Best Coast (USA), Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (UK), Nero, The Vaccines (UK), Bassnectar, The Amity Affliction, Cavalera Conspiracy (USA), Regurgitator, Drapht, Calling All Cars, Art vs Science, Kitty Daisy & Lewis (UK), Kimbra, bluejuice, Abbe May, Papa Vs Pretty, Das Racist (USA), Stonefield, King Cannons, Tonite Only, Miss Kittin (France), Faker, T-Rek, ShockOne, Underlights, Palms, Chicks Who Love Guns, Purple Sneakers DJs, Cassian, Fingerprince, Rufus, Nantes, Bonjah Sydney Showground, Homebush Bay $175.80 (+ bf) 11am Blue King Brown, Archie Roach, Busby Marou, Mojo Juju, Ernest Ellis, The Harry James Angus Band, Emma Louise, Hey Big Aki, The Rescue Ships, Boy Outside, Mikelangelo & the Tin Star, Steve Smyth, Ngaiire, Mark Wilkinson, Sam Buckingham, Ali Hughes The Rocks free 11.30am Bonza Aussie Beach Party: Mother And Son, The Snowdroppers, Frank Sultana, Hell City Glamours, Gay Paris, Brothers Grim Duo, Mojo Juju

Jason Lee Riverstone Schofields Memorial Club free 8pm Johnathan Devoy Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Josh McIvor Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 12.30pm Lloyd (USA), DJ Gunz Moto Tikelz Enmore Theatre 69.95139.95 7pm all-ages Mandi Jarry Waterworks Hotel, Botany free 4.30pm Matt Jones Novotel Homebush, Homebush Bay free 11am Michael McGlynn Greengate Hotel, Killara free 8pm Muddy Feet Pioneer Tavern, Penrith South free 2pm Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds Official Afterparty: Fingertips, Maxine Kauter Band, Electric Flu, Only The Sea Slugs, Edens March The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills $13.30 8pm The Nuts Dooleys Lidcombe Catholic Club free 12pm The Nuts Bankstown Trotting Club free 6.30pm Open Mic Night Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7pm The Pedrito Martinez Group, Watussi, Tribalismo DJs Sydney Festival @ Keystone Festival Bar, Sydney $32 8pm Petulant Frenzy Plays Frank Zappa Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $15 8pm

The Vanguard, Newtown $30 (+ bf) 2pm Cambo, Steve Tonge The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 1.30pm Carbon Copy O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm Carl Fidler, Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 7.30pm Crowded House / Split Enz Show Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 3pm David Agius Smithfield Tavern free 2pm Dereb The Ambassador (Ethiopia), The Asthmatix GoodGod Small Club, Sydney $18 (+ bf) 10pm Dirty Deeds: The AC/DC Show Ettalong Beach Hotel free 2pm The Donovans The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 2pm Feathers, Zeahorse, Lyyar, Idler FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm Gary Johns Trio The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 6.30pm Glen Whitehall Duo Sportsman’s Hotel, Blacktown free 3pm Greg Byrne Northies, Cronulla free 9.15pm Happy Hippies Blacktown Inn free 1pm Hot Damn!: Hand Of Mercy, Resist The Thought, One Vital Word, Emberville Spectrum, Darlinghurst $20 8pm INXS Show: Original Sin INXS Show Peachtree Hotel, Penrith free 8pm

free 8pm White Brothers Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 1.30pm Zoltan Albion Hotel, Parramatta free 3pm

Kimbra

JAZZ

Lionel Robinson Dee Why Hotel free 6.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Captain Obvious Acoustic Broadway Lounge, Ultimo free 8pm

FRIDAY JANUARY 27 ROCK & POP

Ronan Keating (Ireland), Sharon Corr State Theatre, Sydney $109.90–$139.90 8pm Sam & Jamie Trio Kirribilli Hotel free 6pm Sam & Jamie Trio Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm Speakeasy The Whitehouse Hotel, Petersham 8pm Steve Tonge

Harbord Beach Hotel free 7pm Tea for Five, Jackyl & Hyde, JD Jukebox Valve Bar, Tempe free 7pm Triple J Hottest 100 Listening Party: Spurs For Jesus Annandale Hotel free 10am Vultures: Through A Glass Darkly, Thayne, DJ Skar, DJ Nic Yorke The Lansdowne, Broadway

Amiina Sydney Festival @ Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, Penrith $32–$39 Andy Mammers PJ Gallagher’s Drummoyne free 10pm Animagica Sydney Festival @ Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, Penrith $18 10.30am Avarin, Sunset Riot, Head In A Jar, Fenrir Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Ben Finn Northies, Cronulla free 9pm Black Diamond Heart Club Crows Nest Hotel free 11.15pm The Black Sorrows Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Blink: Self Is A Seed, Escape Syndrome Club 77, Darlinghurst $10$12 8pm

wed

25 Jan

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

AUSTRALIA

DAY

thu

26 Jan (2:00PM - 5:15PM)

(6:30PM - 9:30PM)

(9:30PM - CLOSE)

fri

27 Jan

(5:00PM - 8:00PM)

(9:30PM - 1:30AM)

SATURDAY NIGHT

sat

28 Jan sun

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SUNDAY NIGHT

29 Jan

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 39

g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Chris Connolly Guildford Leagues Club free 10pm The Clean Skins, Rowan Ash, Brendan Racquet, 11:11, Sar Annandale Hotel $10 7pm Dan Lawrence Parramatta RSL free 5pm Dan Lissing Duo Crows Nest Hotel free 6.30pm Dave White + Luke Dixon Kirribilli Hotel free 8pm David Agius Trio Narrabeen Sands Hotel free 7pm Fiona Leigh Jones Duo Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm The Fire Tree, Ollie Brown Oxford Art Factory Gallery Bar, Darlinghurst free 8pm Flounder, Bhanglassi, Sky Squadron The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills $13.30 8pm Geoff Rana The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 10.30pm Godiva, Fait Accompli, Ghost Cat, Snout Cassette, DJ Alley Cats The Lansdowne, Broadway free 9pm Greg Byrne Duo Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 9pm Grey Ghost, Dream Delay, Lyall Moloney, DJ Spenda C Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm Hy-Test, Nunchukka Superfly, TTTDC, Skinpin Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $12 8pm Jason Norris Novotel Homebush, Homebush Bay free 5pm Jonothan Jones The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 5pm Josh McIvor Castle Hill RSL Club free 6.30pm Justine Martin, Bek & Dan El Rocco, Kings Cross 7.30pm Kanye West (USA) Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour 8pm Mandi Jarry Mill Hill Hotel, Bondi Junction free 7.30pm The Music Of Cry Baby The Vanguard, Newtown $25 (+ bf) 8pm MUM: Elizabeth Rose, Panama, Jugu, 1929 Indian, The Jones Revival, The Dirty Surfin Bastard, Flight Of The Mystical Dugong, MUM DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross $10-$15 8pm My Chemical Romance (USA), Closure in Moscow Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park 8pm Neighbourhood Watch: The Cage The Elephant

40 :: BRAG :: 446 : 23:01:12

Pat Capocci Combo, Wes Pudsey The Standard, Darlinghurst $5 8pm Neill Bourke O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 8pm The Nickelback Show Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills free 10pm Nicky Kurta Duo Hillside Hotel, Castle Hill free 8pm The Nuts Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 8pm The Old Maids, Hannah Matysek Mars Hill Cafe, Parramatta $10 8.30pm Pat Capocci Combo The Standard, Surry Hills $5 (+ bf) 8pm Reckless The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9.30pm Revertigo Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7pm Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Ronan Keating (Ireland), Sharon Corr State Theatre, Sydney $109.90–$139.90 8pm Royksopp (Norway) Enmore Theatre $72.45 (+ bf) 7pm Soft Circle (USA), FLRL, Secret Birds FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 8pm The Stepkids, Electric Wire Hustle (NZ), Huwston, BC Sydney Festival @ Keystone Festival Bar, Sydney $42 8pm Sunset Riot, Avarin, Head in the Jar, Wrath Of Fenrir Valve Bar, Tempe free 7pm Vintage Trouble Sydney Festival @ The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $48 5.30pm Zoltan Castle Hill RSL Club free 8.30pm

JAZZ

Andrew Russell Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7pm Emma Pask 505 Club, Surry Hills $15– $20 8.30pm Felix Riebl The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf) 9pm Professor Groove & the Booty Affair Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $10 (+ bf) 8pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie Well Connected Cafe, Glebe free 8pm

SATURDAY JANUARY 28

The Crooked Fiddle Band

ROCK & POP

Andy Mammers Duo Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 5.30pm Angie Dean Castle Hill RSL Club free 6.30pm Bang Bang Rock & Roll Spectrum, Darlinghurst 8pm Barnestorming - The Chisel / Barnes Show Blue Cattle Dog Hotel Motel, St Clair free 8.30pm Ben Finn PJ Gallagher’s Drummoyne free 10pm The Black Sorrows Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Cage The Elephant (USA) Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $49.50 (+ bf) 8pm Carl Fidler The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 5.40pm Cavalera Conspiracy (USA), Lynchmada, Contrive Metro Theatre, Sydney $71.70 8pm Chartbusters Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills free 9.30pm The Chase, Girls & Guns Mars Hill Cafe, Parramatta $10 8.30pm Coma Fest: Arrowhead, Don Fernando, SOTIS, Mother Mars, BirdMouth, Nobody Knew They Were Robots, throwdown, Broozer, Van, Festering Drippage Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $15 2pm Coop DeVille Matraville RSL Club free 8pm Dan Lawrence Sir Joseph Banks Hotel, Botany free 7pm Dave Tice & Mark Evans Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel free 4pm David Agius Band Crows Nest Hotel free 11.15pm Dirty Deeds: The AC/DC Show Gulgong RSL Club $20 8pm Eleanor Friedberger (USA) Sydney Festival @ The Famous Spiegeltent, Forecourt, Sydney Opera House $38 8pm Fallon Bros Harbord Beach Hotel free 8.30pm The Furious Five Panania Hotel free 8pm Girl Talk (USA), King Gizzard And The Wizard Lizard Enmore Theatre $59.60 7.30pm sold out

Halfway Homebouy, Daniel Allars Band Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7pm James Parrino The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 4.30pm Jamie Lindsay Northies, Cronulla free 9pm Jess Dunbar Northies, Cronulla free 5.30pm Mandi Jarry Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 6.30pm Matt Jones Castle Hill RSL Club free 8.30pm Matt Price Duo Penrith Panthers free 6.30pm Michael McGlynn Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 9pm Millennium Bug RG McGees Hotel, Richmond free 9.30pm Neighbourhood Watch: Daily Meds, Tuka, She Rex The Standard, Darlinghurst $5 8pm Nicky Kurta Brewhouse Marayong, Kings Park free 7.30pm No Secrets Angels Show Oatley Hotel free 8.30pm Phill Simmons Guildford Leagues Club free 10pm Platinum Blonde, Felix Of Exile, Cordea, Red Bee Music The Lansdowne, Broadway free 9pm Pop Fiction Castle Hill RSL Club free 10.30pm Post Festival Party: The Crooked Fiddle Band, The Barons Of Tang, Delaney Davidson (NZ), Hinterlandt, Fanny Lumsden, The Birdman Annandale Hotel $18 (+ bf) 7pm Proximity Butterfly (China), Kingston Downs Valve Bar, Tempe free 7pm SFX: Ghosts On Broadway, Storm The Sky, The Calvacade, As Rockets Fall St James Hotel, Sydney 9pm Side Effect, Camazotz Sword, Hivemind, Become The Catalyst, Rattlesnake, Mango Stone Valve Bar, Tempe 6pm Singled Out The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9pm Steve Tonge The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm Steve Tonge Duo O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 10pm

Twilight at Taronga: The Church Taronga Zoo, Mosman $59 (conc)–$69 7.30pm Usual Suspects Overlander Hotel, Cambridge Park free 8pm Velvet Hotel Brighton RSL Club, BrightonLe-Sands free 8pm Vintage Trouble Sydney Festival @ The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $48 7pm

JAZZ

Five Coffees, Adam Katz, Uncle Jed The Basement, Circular Quay $20 (+ bf) 7.30pm Manins Muller Quartet 505 Club, Surry Hills $15– $20 8.30pm Professor Groove & the Booty Affair Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $10 (+ bf) 8pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie Well Co. Café, Leichhardt free 7.30pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie, Paul Furniss, Tony Bukys, Bib Gillespe Penrith RSL free 2pm

SUNDAY JANUARY 29 ROCK & POP

Active Child (USA), Caitlin Park, Oliver Tank Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $45 (+ bf) 8pm Blue Sunday: Dauno Martinez Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $10 8.30pm Dan Lawrence, Rob Henry, Neill Bourke The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm Dan Spillane Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 12pm Dave White Duo Northies, Cronulla free 2.30pm David Agius Duo Northies, Cronulla free 6pm Di Solomon Club Five Dock, Five Dock RSL free 4pm Eleanor Friedberger (USA) Sydney Festival @ The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $38 5pm, 8pm Elevation U2 Show The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 4.30pm

The Fire Tree The Vault, Windsor 8pm Ikaros Trial, Vices, Hold Your Own, Dishonoured, Transitions Valve Bar, Tempe free 4pm Jess Dunbar Penrith Panthers free 1pm Jp Trio Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 4.30pm Mandi Jarry Harbord Beach Hotel free 6.30pm Mark Hopper Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7pm Matt Jones The Belvedere Hotel, Sydney free 4pm Nicky Kurta Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 4.30pm The Prehistorics, Max Smidt, Childs, International mystery guest Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 5pm Screaming Sunday Annandale Hotel 12pm allages Steve Lucas and the Empty Horses Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm Steve Smyth, Frank Sultana, Madelaine Lucas The Vanguard, Newtown $12 (+ bf) 8pm Sunday Soup Mix: Helpful Kitchen Gods, Lollipop Sugar, Call To Colour, Arthur’s Orange, Dr Delites Gladstone Hotel, Chippendale free 5pm Tom Trelawny O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 5pm Vibrations At Valve Band Competition Valve Bar, Tempe 12pm Vintage Trouble Sydney Festival @ The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $48 5pm The White Bros The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm White Brothers Ettamogah Pub, Kellyville free 1pm

JAZZ

Dauno Martinez Blue Beat, Double Bay $10 9pm The Peter Head Trio Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Anthony Hughes Oatley Hotel free 2pm

gig picks

up all night out all week...

MONDAY JANUARY 23 Battles (USA), Canyons, Pink Flod Metro Theatre, Sydney $60 8pm Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (UK), Deep Sea Arcade Enmore Theatre $94.90 (+ bf) 7pm sold out

TUESDAY JANUARY 24 Amiina Sydney Festival @ The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North, Sydney $43 7pm Kasabian (UK), The Vaccines (UK) Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park $78.40 (+ bf) 8pm

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 25

Sun Araw (USA), Prince Rama (USA), Holy Balm, Rites Wild Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $20 (+ bf) 8pm

Best Coast (USA), Dune Rats, Sures Manning Bar, The University of Sydney $38.25-$45 (+ bf) 8pm Das Racist (USA), True Vibe Nation, Simo Soo Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $35 (+ bf) 8pm

THURSDAY JANUARY 26

Foster The People (USA), Last Dinosaurs Enmore Theatre $58.15 (+ bf) 8pm sold out

Blue King Brown, Archie Roach, Busby Marou, Mojo Juju, Ernest Ellis, The Harry James Angus Band, Emma Louise, Hey Big Aki, The Rescue Ships, Boy Outside, Mikelangelo & the Tin Star, Steve Smyth, Ngaiire, Mark Wilkinson, Sam Buckingham, Ali Hughes The Rocks free 11.30am

Soundgarden (USA), The Bronx (USA) Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour $96.10–$129.30 8pm

Feathers, Zeahorse, Lyyar, Idler FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm

Steve Smyth, Ollie Brown, The Firetree The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills free 8pm

FRIDAY JANUARY 27

Battles

MUM: Elizabeth Rose, Panama, Jugu, 1929 Indian, The Jones Revival, The Dirty Surfin Bastard, Flight Of The Mystical Dugong, MUM DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross $10-$15 8pm My Chemical Romance (USA), Closure in Moscow Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park $61.90 (+ bf) 8pm

Elizabeth Rose Lumsden, The Birdman Annandale Hotel $18 (+ bf) 7pm

SATURDAY JANUARY 28

Twilight at Taronga: The Church Taronga Zoo, Mosman $59 (conc)–$69 7.30pm

Cage The Elephant (USA) Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $49.50 (+ bf) 8pm

SUNDAY JANUARY 29

Post Festival Party: The Crooked Fiddle Band, The Barons Of Tang, Delaney Davidson (NZ), Hinterlandt, Fanny

Active Child (USA), Caitlin Park, Oliver Tank Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $45 (+ bf) 8pm

.

Celebrate toodmaoyrrow.

Live it again t Australia Day isn’t just about freedom and wide-open spaces. We’re not just celebrating our diverse blend of cu cultures. And it’s not just about friends coming together for a all-day eat-a-thon. We celebrate on 26 January because an ttomorrow, we get to live it all over again. To find out about celebrations near you, visit australiaday.org.au

BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 41

42 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

BRAGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guide to dance, hip hop and club culture

brag beats

inside

celebrate ten years of party

also: + club guide + club snaps + columns

oliver huntemann

bassnectar

tom piper + more

We has internets!

www.thebrag.com Extra bits and moving bits without the papercuts BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 43

dance music news

free stuff

club, dance and hip hop in brief... with Chris Honnery

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH

Bassnectar

BELLA SARRIS

Growing Up Music has always been a big part of 1. my life. I used to go down to my dad’s

Laundry – the lineup there for the next few months is sick.

club when I was about ten and watch live jazz and funk. I think being in that kind of environment really made me aware of how music brings people together. I remember thinking the guys playing down there had the best job ever – making people happy by doing what they love.

The Music You Make I play what I like, which is mainly house 4. music, deep and tech house, depending on

Inspirations I’ve got to thank my parents for exposing 2. me to a lot of different kinds of music. My childhood soundtrack included anything from Chopin to Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin to Donna Summer, Lou Reed to Massive Attack.

They played it for entertainment, it was never just background music.

3.

Your Crew The main crew I work and play with are the same people who first got me into house music and DJing. Nick and Marc gave me my first gig when I was 18 at their night House Inspection, which is now running down at Spice Cellar. Funnily enough, Spice Cellar used to be the jazz club that my dad owned. It’s cool that I get to play there now.

We also do stuff with the Slow Blow guys – their party is one of the best around at the moment, and it’s so much fun to play at. I also love playing in The Cave at Chinese

the party and my mood. I spent most of last year in Europe, so I’m playing a lot of the stuff I heard over there. Mainly stuff off Desolat and Cadenza that I heard artists like Loco Dice, tINI and Luciano play in Spain, and stuff off labels like Crosstown Rebels and Fuse that I heard in London and Berlin. I’m currently setting up a studio with one of my friends so we can start producing our own music.

Music, Right Here, Right Now The thing I’ve noticed most since I’ve 5. been back is that more people are working together and collaborating for parties rather than just competing with each other. That, and finally there are more free parties with internationals supported by local talent. This is a big deal because it makes new music more accessible, which makes it easier to expose people to different genres. We need to work together to move our scene forward so we can compete with the rest of the world.

With: Simon Caldwell & Ken Cloud (Mad Racket) Where: The Spice Cellar When: Wednesday January 25

S.A.S.H @ ABERCROMBIE Azari & III

Local house and techno party S.A.S.H is shifting stables from the White Horse to the Abercrombie, and is getting acquainted with its new dwelling with a bash this Sunday. The DJ lineup features familiar faces Murat Kilic, Garry Todd and Schwa, who has recently returned from Europe, along with Dean Tyler, Samron, Sam Whitty, Matt Weir and Kerry Wallace.

The revelry commences at 2pm in the outdoor terrace, and will run until 11pm at night, with $10 entry all day.

CARL COX @ IVY POOL

THE RAPTURE, AZARI & III FMF SIDESHOWS

After first making a name for themselves holding down the back room at Lost Baggage way back when, Lost Disco are throwing their first standalone party in lavish fashion: by recruiting Carl Cox and Eric Powell for an eight-hour set in the opulent confines of Ivy Pool Bar on Saturday February 11. The pair will apparently be showcasing a different side of their DJing sensibility, digging into their crates for old and nu disco, old skool jazz funk, soul and classic house for a daytime set

BASSNECTAR

Chinese Laundry is always a reliable source of heavy, heart-stopping, wall-throbbing basslines, and this Saturday January 28 will see a daytime Garden Party lineup that proves it yet again. Bassnectar, who played to a sold out crowd last time he graced our shores, will be blasting the bass for the hordes, alongside Bare Noize – who will be showcasing their single ‘Plant Food’ – and MixHELL, a Brazilian, part-electro, part-rock act who’ll be in Australia for the first time.

Considering that the last Garden Party at the beginning of the month was sold out, this next one is sure to as well – and we’ve got two coveted double passes to give away. To win, let us know where Bare Noize are from.

that commences at midday and finishes at 8pm. There’s also talk of an afterparty in the Changeroom area of Ivy Pool featuring Brohn, Co-Op, Mia Lucci and Dreamoz. Presale tickets are available online.

SÉBASTIEN TELLIER

“Do not listen to my record, listen to my message.” Regardless of what charismatic Frenchman Sébastien Tellier may preach, he probably will want you to listen to his new album, My God Is Blue, which will be released on Record Makers on April 16. Produced by Ed Banger’s Mr. Flash with the help of Pavle Kovacevic (who previously joined Tellier for the ‘Divine’ single), the new album has all the makings of a highly accessible pop record. But if the presser is anything to go by, there’s also a threat of the overarching grandiose pretension that pervades all things French [pardon monsieur!]. “Enter into vibration with my music.

Let’s merge our dreams, together spreading this communal energy in an immense blue wave that will wash over the world – and truth will emerge.” ...Sigh.

New York band The Rapture will play an all-ages Future Music Festival sideshow at The Metro on Thursday March 8 along with Canadian outfit Azari & III (pronounced Azari and Third). The Rapture, who remain best-known for their breakthrough single ‘House Of Jealous Lovers’ many moons ago, released their third LP, In The Grace Of Your Love, last year through DFA Records, an effort that was produced with Philippe Zdar of Cassius fame. Azari & III, who toured last year for Vivid LIVE, first gained notoriety DJing warehouse parties before launching their career with the singles ‘Hungry For The Power’ and ‘Reckless (With Your Love)’, both of which function as ultramodern updates of vocal house motifs. Their profile has been boosted in more recent times courtesy of remixes

by Prince Language, Renaissance Man, CFCF and a particularly serene rework from Nicolas Jaar of ‘Into The Night’. Presale tickets are available for $55 online.

NEW ORBITAL ALBUM

On April 1, British rave granddads Orbital – who broke out of the retirement village for an Australia tour only a few years back – will release their first new album in eight years. Entitled Wonky, the album features collaborations with goth pin-up Zola Jesus and UK rapper Lady Leshurr. The idea for Wonky apparently sprang from Orbital’s recent live comeback. In the words of the group’s Phil Hartnoll, the tours were “really beneficial to our writing … Trying out tracks in front of audiences, listening through their ears, getting responses. That’s been a really good string to our bow.” Wonky was recorded in Orbital’s Brighton base, then mixed in London with producer Mark Ellis, who in the past has worked with PJ Harvey and Depeche Mode.

“He’s not just a dance producer, he comes from a more holistic song viewpoint, which is how we like to approach it,” Hartnoll effused in regards to Ellis, before being whisked off for supper by his personal nurse.

HOOPS

All-gal DJ troupe Hoops return to GoodGod Small Club this Saturday January 28 for a night that they promise will involve “sexy music” and 44 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

“heaps of microphone usage”. Resident selectors Bad Ezzy, Nina Las Vegas and Anna Lunoe will be peddling an array of hip hop, dancehall and sleazy boom jams in a farewell fiesta before Lunoe jets off to the US of A. Doors open from 10pm, with entry 10 crabs before midnight.

TINIE TEMPAH & CHASE AND STATUS

Mercury Prize-nominated Tinie Tempah, drum ‘n bass and dubstep duo Chase and Status – comprised of Saul Milton and Will Kennar – and Zane Low, renowned for his own self-titled show on BBC Radio 1, make up a triple-bill Future Music Festival sideshow that is slotted for the Hordern Pavilion on Tuesday March 6. Tinie has enjoyed a profitable past couple of years, releasing his debut album Discovery and chalking up a number of hit singles in ‘Pass Out’, ‘Written In The Stars’ and the Swedish House Mafia collaboration ‘Miami 2 Ibiza’. Chase & Status have also had plenty of success in recent times, and are still basking in the adulation stemming from their sophomore album No More Idols, an LP that has promoted the pair to the major leagues. This tripleheader will be an all-ages show, and tickets go on sale on Wednesday January 25.

Africa Hitech

GREEN BEATS ON AUSTRALIA DAY

The Collective Sydney are hosting Green Beats, a daytime Australia Day bash which promises to offer a “relaxed, happy and kid-friendly atmosphere with beanbags, lawn bowls and of course a diverse selection of quality music”. There’s going to be a hefty DJ lineup representing, too: Africa Hitech will be playing live, along with Peewee Ferris, Mailer Daemon, DJ marathon man Smokin’ Joe Mekhael, Tyson Koh, Kate Doherty, Tactical Aspect and Discoloop. Presales are available for $25 online, with the revelry commencing at midday at Coogee Bowling Club. Hit greenbeats.com.au for further details.

20 February 2012

BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 45

dance music news

free stuff

club, dance and hip hop in brief... with Chris Honnery

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

he said she said WITH

MOONCHILD

I

’m pretty sure my dad is to blame for me pursuing a music career. He’s the one who held a guitar up to my mum’s belly when she was pregnant with me. One day I decided to strum a few notes on one of his guitars; eventually I got the hang of it and taught myself how to play. Since then I’ve always been involved with music one way or another, which then led me to producing electronic music.

‘70s disco will always be a megainspiration for me. They don’t make music like they used to. I basically went through all sorts of phases in high school, from drum and bass to improvised jazz – I was even into hardcore punk and death metal at some point. But my first love will always be house music. Lately, I’ve delved into disco edits and deep house.

So far I’ve always worked alone, because I have a specific workflow I like to stick to. But I’ve been meeting a lot of amazing artists and producers lately, so a few collaborations might be in order. I definitely will be working with some vocalists at some point – nothing I can really discuss right now, but it’s going to be an exciting year!

I just want to play fun, sexy house music, and this reflects in my production. I just finished a few remixes that I’m pretty excited about ‘cause I tried to step out of my comfort zone, and I think they will be well-received! Also last year I released my first single ‘Love Birds’ on Vamp Music, with remixes from Gigi Barocco, Russ Chimes, The Phantom’s Revenge and Vengeance, which received some really good feedback.

My goal this year is to focus on original material and release as much of my own music as I can.

CATCALL

Anyone who has tried to sleep through their cat calling out to them knows that it usually ends with your feline friend sitting on your chest until you appease them. In related news, it is unlikely that we’ll need to sit on your chest to get you along to Catcall’s show at GoodGod Small Club on Wednesday February 1. The electropop princess will be belting out old faves and previews from her forthcoming album, The Warmest Place, including summer time anthem ‘Satellites’. If you want to get along, just email BRAG with the singer’s real name.

Catcall

There are so many good artists coming out these days, especially in the deep house scene, along with some really good events at Spice, Goodgod Small Club and The Ivy Pool Bar, to name a few.

I didn’t really know where I stood and where I was going in the scene last year, so I took some time off to think about it. Now I feel ready to get back into it – so prepare to see a lot more Moonchild pop up around town.

With: Rogerseventytwo, John Glover and more Where: Soho, Kings Cross When: Saturday January 28

CADILLAC ON THE HARBOUR

Aussie outfit Cadillac, who are signed to the Future Classic record label, will play a mysterious gig at the Island, “somewhere on Sydney Harbour”, on Saturday February 11.

Cadillac’s sound traverses Balearic, disco, pop and rock influences, and is replete with guitar solos and “slow mo piano jams”. Their self-titled EP featured guest vocals from Wolf & Cub’s Joel Byrne on ‘Dreams’, and is currently available on Future Classic.

Prins Thomas

DJ KOZE & PRINS THOMAS

Sydney Festival’s Keystone Bar program concludes this Saturday with a delectable double bill courtesy of Future Classic, featuring Norway’s Prins Thomas and revered German producer DJ Koze (who, after an epic behind-the-scenes negotiation, is definitely coming to Australia!). A German DMC champion at a young age, Koze is responsible for several gems on the Kompakt back catalogue, along with remixes of everyone from Battles to Caribou and Efdemin.

In recent times, he has started his own record label, Pampa, which was responsible for acclaimed releases from the likes of Ada and Robag Wruhme last year. Prins Thomas meanwhile was my pick of Playground Weekender back in ’09, and has proven his dancefloor credentials with his excellent Live At Robert Johnson compilation and even a cover of Ricardo Villalobos’ ‘Fizpatrick’.

And just to add to the epicness of the occasion, there will be no local support – we’ll be treated to three hours from each headliner, beginning at 8pm and finishing at 2am. There are still tickets remaining, however the smart money is on this selling out, so don’t be tardy lest you miss two of the finest in ‘the biz’.

46 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

Dapayk & Padberg Steve Bug

STEVE BUG

Pokerflat head honcho Steve Bug is back in town to play Chinese Laundry on Saturday March 3. The German minimal tyrant has an esteemed back catalogue that comprises cuts such as ‘Loverboy’, mixes for Fabric and Fuse and a best-of album, Time Flies.

“I always dig for new music and never pre-prepare my sets,” Bug revealed to a starry-eyed journo a while back.

“I get really excited about music even after all these years of being a DJ. Trying to interact with the crowd is the most important thing, I guess, knowing which track to play at what time, knowing when to build it up…” But we want to see him play, rather than read his words; Bug is always quality, and that should be enough to draw you in to seeing him throw down at Laundry.

DAPAYK & PADBERG

The Germanic husband and wife duo Dapayk & Padberg will perform live at the Spice Cellar this Saturday January 28 as part of a Stil vor Talent label night that will also feature compatriot Nicone and Spice main man Murat Kilic, who has himself released on the renowned label. Dapayk, known to his friends and inner circle as Niklas Worgt, has been producing minimal cuts since the mid-‘90s, but it was only a decade on that he began producing with his partner Eva Padberg. As a duo, they announced their arrival with the release of the brooding cut ‘Black Beauty’, a melancholic ode to the gradual eradication of the traditional DJ modus operandi of vinyl. The pair are currently gearing up to release their third full-length album, Sweet Nothings, on Stil vor Talent, and have just dropped a lead-off EP, Fluffy Cloud, which has been described as “machine funk par excellence”.

Entry is free with guest list before midnight, and $20 thereafter.

GARDEN PARTY FT BASSNECTAR

Californian dubstep producer Lorin Ashton, aka Bassnectar, rolls into town to headline a Garden Party at Chinese Laundry this Saturday January 28. Ashton describes his music as “omni-tempo maximalism”, and explores dubstep and electro in his productions and DJ sets, though as the man himself states, “I guess Bassnectar is an amalgamation of every sound I’ve ever heard,

mixed with ultra-wicked basslines.” Boysnoize Records’ MixHELL, the duo comprised of Iggor Cavalera, the drummer in the ‘90s Brazilian metal band Sepultura(!), and his wife Laima, have just been added to the lineup, and will showcase a live set that involves mixers and synths alongside a live drum kit. UK robostep producers Bare Noize will also be representing, along with Spenda C, Karton, Asylum (Sam Scratch & A-Tonez) and Hydraulix. The revelry commences from 2pm, with presale tickets available online.

RnB Superclub 10 Year Anniversary So Hot In Herre By Andrew ‘Hazard’ Hickey

“T

ake a snapshot back to the 2000s and clearly it’s a very different world we live in today,” says John Senakis, in his best movie trailer voice. It is indeed a bizarro world, where Snoop Dogg is collaborating with David Guetta and the lines between genres continue to blur. “House festivals with RnB headliners – are you serious? You would have rarely seen anything like that in the day.” The brand manager of RnB Superclub, Senakis sees their role over the years as facilitators, helping elevate the local RnB scene. “The Superclub brand has always moved with the times, and in fact nurtured and encouraged the commerciality of the genre, and what we see coming is great.”

It’s now all come full circle with the release of RnB Superclub: 10 Year Anniversary Edition. “This one’s really different,” Senakis enthusiastically explains. “We sat down with our partners Sony Music and they were great with supporting the whole anniversary idea.” A three-disc behemoth, it is packed with new school genre-blending anthems (LMFAO’s ‘Party Rock’), club-ready hip hop (Lupe Fiasco’s ‘The Show Goes On’) and classic hits (Nelly’s ‘Hot In Herre’). They also continue to champion Aussie talent, with local bangers from Israel Cruz (‘Party Up’) and Stan Walker (‘Loud’). It’s bigger and better than ever, Senakis says. “We got all the great DJs together and they all had a part in it, including Def Rok, Troy T, G-Wizard, Lilo and Melbourne resident Kevin Watts. Even MC Jayson had a part in this one. Across the board it has the best of everything.” And Sydney fans can look forward to the circus coming to town, with RnB Superclub presenting Superjamm on Australia Day Eve at Establishment, with sets from Def Rok, Lilo, Regz and Troy T.

RnB Superclub they see it mostly as a facilitator. “[It’s] an effective tool to market the events and products. Without doubt, online communication has been a major factor in not only promoting the brand nationally but also internationally.

[Online] promotion and iTunes have been a major factor in our CD sales now exceeding half a million.”

Looking beyond their 10th anniversary, RnB Superclub has plenty more planned for the New Year. “We’re looking into Asia, as well as [developing] some new brands and online products.” Fresh from the recent Salt N Pepa tour this past November and December, which coincided with the 10th birthday celebrations, Senakis says there has been a “flood” of other artists approaching them. He tells fans to expect more tours and developments to come.

What: RnB Superclub: 10 Year Anniversary Edition is out now With: DJs Def Rok, Lilo, Regz and Troy T Where: Superjamm @ Establishment, Sydney When: Wednesday January 25

Developed as a platform to nurture local artists, DJs and promoters, RnB Superclub came together in November 2001, with a grand opening at Fox Studios in Sydney. Who could’ve known that people in Australia listened to RnB, and would pay to go to a regular night? Clearly someone did, but even so, the night developed far beyond their expectations. The idea, Senakis says, was to deliver a “national club brand on a level previously unseen in the urban clubbing world.” After witnessing thousands descend upon the flagship night, he and his associates realised they had something else on their hands. RnB Superclub went on to expand into nights on the Gold Coast and in Melbourne; Senakis reminisces fondly about “packed houses across the country with, at times, over 10,000 a weekend attending.”

Before RnB Superclub and before the current boom period things were indeed very different.

“From our observations, the urban scene was very similar around the country: a club in a dark alleyway down some stairs around some corner.” Their answer was simple – start a new movement. “Superclub made its own culture,” Senakis says. While the idea is simple, the logistics of pulling it off were not, and they faced some resistance from within the RnB community itself. “Some of the diehard RnB and hip hop enthusiasts weren’t in favour of the new clubstyle event we were producing.” Luckily there were enough that shared their bold vision. “Sure some didn’t like it in 2001, breaking artists such as Destiny’s Child, J-Lo, Justin Timberlake. But there was a new sound and a new generation wanting to hear it.”

Playing Nostradamus for what has since been dubbed the ‘urban music scene’, the savvy promoters pushed forward. “The scene was about to explode, with many traditional RnB clubs not even wanting to accept it, let alone forecast the tidal wave of what was about to come.” Now in 2012 it’s impossible to deny, and every conceivable label and promoter wants a piece of the sweet urban pie. “It’s broken [the] mainstream now and has done so for some time. Just look at the charts – there’s more R&B artists in the top 20 than anything else at times,” Senakis says. With over 25 venues now hosting RnB Superclub nights, and 10 years of strong branding behind them, the boys have been able to maintain and succeed amidst an everincreasing urban music landscape. “Our national and international network is stronger and bigger than ever. We just concentrate on our own development and product.”

While the internet has had a large effect on the music industry, both positive and negative, at

“The urban scene was very similar around the country: a club in a dark alleyway down some stairs... Superclub made its own culture.”

BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 47

Bassnectar Something Wild By Miki McLay

Y

ou know you’re a true party animal when the rave you throw racks up more than $100,000 dollars in fines for violating noise and city ordinances. Bassnectar – the alias of dubstep and electronica producer Lorin Ashton – was forced to pay up, but if you’ve ever been subjected to the Bassnectar live experience, you’d probably agree it was worth it.

The thousands of punters and fellow producers and DJs in attendance certainly did; they all contributed financially to Ashton to try and ease the pain of a city council trying to ruin the party.

Ashton’s musical beginnings lie in teenage years spent listening to a colourful spectrum of music.

“I was obsessed with black metal and death metal back in the early ‘90s, and of course early rave music, and all the subsequent micro-genres of techno, electro, trip-hop, jungle, and so on,” he says. “I think every human is a reflection of their influences, so of course there is a very heavy, thick fierceness to my sound which was affected by death metal, gangster rap, and punk rock.”

Ashton’s attempt to take his dance music into less traditional territory is as much a deliberate exercise in pushing boundaries as it is a natural evolution. “I experiment, of course, but really I just like to let go and allow the sickest, grooviest, most emotionally honest sound emerge,” he says. “The word ‘experimentation’ implies some specific intention – I prefer a more freestyle approach than just experimenting… The goal is to create something wild in terms of style, tempo, everything.”

Not only notorious for his work as a producer, his track record as curator of music festivals, including the huge Bass Center in North Carolina, is similarly gleaming – previous rosters have included the likes of Dan Deacon, Brother Ali Ott, Nosaj Thing and more. Ashton describes it as another project he finds extremely satisfying.

“It is less about the lineup or the lights and lasers, and more about a big group experiment,” he explains. “That’s really my favourite part of this whole thing: bringing people together, and stimulating their nervous systems. Letting everyone kind of merge into one massive, churning, mega-organism… One of the most important jobs for me is giving back; making a positive social impact in the lives of other humans. Not out of political leanings, but just out of a fascination for human culture, and an unstoppable appreciation for how magical life really is.”

Sounds like a nice kinda guy, right? It doesn’t stop there. A lesser-known fact about Bassnectar is his support of non-profit organisation Conscious Alliance, whose aim is to raise money for the distribution of food to impoverished communities across the US, with a focus on art and music-related events. “The whole Bassnectar team is dedicated to giving back – we all feel really lucky to be here. We collect one dollar for every ticket sold – last year, that was almost 250,000 – and let the fanbase decide how to spend it, on various charities or community organisations that

promote strong communities and healthier lives for individuals. Conscious Alliance is one of those organisations. So is Reachout, who started in Australia, actually!”

Ashton is heading Down Under for the massive Big Day Out tour, and will be touching in at Chinese Laundry for a sideshow. I ask if he had fun last time he was here, alongside Digital Mystikz, State Of Mind, Triage and Consequence. “Hell yes! It was incredible,” he says. “What was really fun for me is that all the shows were sold out but the venues were small – like, you could touch the ceiling, and all the humans could not even fit inside the

room. Impossibly hot, and totally off the hook ... I really miss the intimacy of smaller rooms.

At the same time, I am really excited to be a part of Big Day Out this year, and bring my favourite tunes to larger crowds!”

With: Bare Noize (UK), Spenda C, Karton & more Where: Garden Party @ Chinese Laundry When: Saturday January 28 More: Also playing the Big Day Out on Thursday January 26 at Sydney Showground, with Kanye West, Soundgarden, Odd Future, Das Racist, Foster The People and more.

Tom Piper Kinda Quirky Beats By Benjamin Cooper

W

hen you’re busy making a racket, a la Mr Tom Piper, it can be a struggle to find time to fulfill familial duties while sating the thirst of rabid fans. The Sydney beatsman is preparing for his headline set at the Sydney leg of Smirnoff’s national Nightlife Exchange Project Tour, in which those who missed out on the massive November 12 party get a piece of the action, and he’s frantically making additional mixes – at his mum’s house. “I’ve been in meetings all day,” he says. “It’s all good, but I’ve got a few tracks that need some editing done, so I’m just cruising round to mum’s to chop up some files. No need to worry, though,” he says from the car. “I’m on hands-free, all the time...”

The show will start on the evening of January 25 but continue to the wee hours of the 26th – and the significance of the date is not lost on Piper. “I don’t actually know or remember if I’ve ever had a huge time on Australia Day Eve, but I reckon that probably means I have... there’s kinda no reason not to. It’s a Wednesday, which you never get to party on, and then the next day you get off work. What could be better?” Piper is quick to point out that the public holiday should also be taken advantage of by other revelers. “It’s actually Republic Day in India on the 26th too,” he says. “So all the Indian friends, and basically everyone celebrating that night, if you’re Irish or Scottish or whatever – I’m going to

dedicate my new song to you guys. Come one, come all!”

The new song in question is the soon-tobe-released single ‘Let’s Get Fucked Up’.

The track, described by its maker as “kinda quirky dance shit”, has been painstakingly cut together over the last several months, with a number of samples and hooks for it recently dropped live as teasers. In response to the overwhelmingly pumped receptions the snippets were getting in clubs, Piper has added some industrial bulk to the track. His collaboration with Birmingham house legend Micky Slim and the new kid on Mad Decent Records, Dutchman Oliver Twizt, has birthed a track that is “pretty bad-ass.” The later addition of British rapper Majestic has given way to “a whole lot of snarl, man,” Piper says.

“I don’t think any of us thought it would turn out as amazing as it has... Now I’m just ready to let it loose on the crowd.”

Piper’s quick trip home isn’t just to work on final touches for the Australia Day Eve show; he also has to finish work on remixing the Ministry of Sound mixtape for the 2012 Marche International du Disque et de l’Edition Musicale (MIDEM). Piper says that being asked to work on the submission to the Cannes-based trade fair was “a huge honour, particularly given the strength of Australian music right now – for me to be working on whole bunch of new stuff, and being able to bring something of my own ... is just massive.

I’d love to be heading to Cannes, but I reckon next week will be massive here.”

Once he’s parked, it emerges that Piper is blocked from entering the driveway by his mother’s new, and hefty, vehicle. “My mum has just bought a new Corolla. It’s silver and apparently quite economical, and it looks like it has a good stereo in there,” he says.

The conversation briefly returns to music – with a self-reminding “I’ve got to get back to chopping!” – before the restlessly energetic party animal’s attention is waylaid again... “What I really need to do is get mum some 22-inch spinners, for her wheels,” he laughs. “No, wait, GOLD 22-inch spinners.”

What: Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project – On Tour With: Matt Nukewood, John Glover Where: The Eastern, Bondi Junction When: Wednesday January 25

48 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

Oliver Huntemann Future Music By Dan Watt

O

liver Huntemann’s sets are revered by techno fans and lauded by DJs and EDM critics. Many put it down to the German DJ’s ability to innovate while still staying true to the roots of EDM’s oldest genre, techno – for instance, with his Reactable system, a clear-topped circular table that reacts via cameras positioned at the bottom to different shaped blocks placed on top, which was devised by students at the Music Technology Group research lab and Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University. When we speak, on the eve of an Aussie tour that will see him in Sydney for Future Music Festival, the Berlin local has just returned from another weekend spent playing away from home. His voice is crisp but fatigued. “I’ve been to Russia for the whole weekend. I had two gigs, one I was playing close to Moscow, a DJ gig and a live gig. It’s quite cold now in Russia.”

Having released five albums that many critics regard as changing the face of techno, Huntemann explains that these days he can basically play what he wants in any one of his sets. “I have my sound, and work on my sound [in a live setting],” he says. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t look for the response on the dancefloor to see what is happening.” Like many who rise to the top of an EDM genre, it is the new ideas that he brings to techno that make Huntemann so revered. He uses a symbiosis of house, electro and techno to create his own style of beats. “I like to say that I play electronic music, but that is so wide – and yeah, I think I’m kinda techno, not really hard but not soft,” he answers, when I ask him to describe the music he makes. “I think I use more house-y or slower beats, with the techno attitude of the synthesisers and the sounds I use on top.”

On the topic of synthesisers, I put it to Huntemann that it is Germany’s proud history of electro and synth music that has lead to artists like him and fellow German producer Alex Ridha (Boys Noize) using classic synths in modern dance. He tackles this proposition carefully. “Maybe? It’s not that I do it to be German. The vibe of German techno – I mean, Boys Noize is doing totally different music than me, but maybe there’s a similar vibe in our music, and maybe that’s the German vibe?”

There is a muffled silence at the other end of the phone before Huntemann warily agrees.

“That’s a tentative ‘yes’.”

Closing out the interview, Huntemann waxes lyrical about how pumped he is to be returning to Australia for Future Music Festival; the same event that saw his debut in our country six years ago. “I’m really excited to see what Jamie Jones will be playing. Jamie Jones just won the vote of Resident Advisor’s top 100 DJs. He’s such a good DJ – I recently played with him in Budapest and I met him at Sonar. I really like his remix of Azari & III’s ‘Hungry For Power’ – it has a really good dancefloor sensibility to it.

Also, I heard Skrillex is playing, which I am very curious about because I have never seen him,” Huntemann says. “Even if it’s not my [kind of] music, I still find it interesting to see if they’re a good DJ, or to see how they respond to the crowd.”

With: New Order, Fatboy Slim, Swedish House Mafia, Chase & Status (live), Skrillex, Jessie J, The Rapture, Friendly Fires, Sven Vath and loads more Where: Future Music Festival @ Royal Randwick Racecourse When: Saturday March 10

Deep Impressions Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

Gabriel Ananda

Soul Sedation

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

ON THE ROAD FRIDAY JANUARY 27

Stepkids, Electric Wire Hustle Keystone Festival Bar Kanye West Entertainment Centre

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 24 Mayer Hawthorne Metro Theatre

FRIDAY MARCH 2 Bonobo Metro Theatre

T

here’s a major new player in town: club venue One22, which launches this coming Saturday with a headline set from German tech kingpin Gabriel Ananda. Ananda needs little introduction, having unleashed the inimitable club bomb ‘Doppelwhipper’ a few years back, while more recently he’s completed a handy remix of his compatriot Dominik Eulberg’s cut ‘Die 3 Millionen Musketiere’.

Furthermore, there’s plenty of talk that Ananda will be playing a live set (though I was waiting for confirmation from his agent at the time of writing...). Having glanced over the list of acts One22 has slotted for headline duties over the coming weeks and months, there is plenty to look forward to – but rather than spoil you by throwing them all at you in an excessive list (à la the standard approach for Sydney festivals), I’ll be responsible and slowly reveal them in coming weeks (I need to keep some things in reserve for slow news weeks, otherwise I’ll resort to pilfering a Sasu Ripatti interview again!).

One22 is located in the basement of 122 Pitt Street, and the entrance is just how you imagine a nightclub as a youngster – through the back alley via Lees Ct. As for the club’s mission statement, it’s hard not to get swept up by the following: “Rather than an imitation of an off shore idea, One22 will focus on what makes Sydney clubbing individual, focusing on up-close and intimate gigs from some of the finest international and local techno and house DJs and live acts.” Testify!

Okay okay okay – I’m no good at surprises, so I’ll give you one more of the main attractions who'll be headlining at One22 in coming months: revered Detroit artist Rick Wilhite, aka The Godson, who will be performing on Easter Saturday. Wilhite has been a pivotal figure in Detroit house music for two decades, as a solo producer, as part of the supergroup Three Chairs (with Theo Parrish, Marcellus Pittman and Kenny Dixon Jr – aka Moodymann), and as owner of the Vibes New & Rare Music record store. But up until recently he’s kept a little under the radar, especially compared to his more illustrious counterparts in Three Chairs. In fact, it was not until last year that Wilhite finally released his debut solo album,

Osunlade

LOOKING DEEPER FRIDAY JANUARY 27 Miss Kittin Oxford Art Factory

SATURDAY JANUARY 28

Gabriel Ananda One22 / 122 Pitt Street, Sydney

SATURDAY APRIL 7 Rick Wilhite One22

SUNDAY APRIL 8 Clive Henry, Tania Vulcano, Stacey Pullen The Greenwood Hotel

Analog Aquarium, which collected nine new Wilhite productions plus the 2005 track ‘Cosmic Jungle’ from the In The Dark (The Soul Of Detroit) compilation, and included guest appearances from Parrish, Pittman and Osunlade. Analog Aquarium was met with a strong critical response from ‘the heads’, with one reviewer gushing, “There’s an enthralling painterliness about Wilhite’s methods, as he dabs smears of melody and little pops of rhythm into huge, sprawling abstractions.” In other words, the man’s an artist, dude. And for all of us wanting to see Wilhite do his thing in person, I bring good news: straight from the promoter’s mouth, I can relay that “Rick will be given the keys to One22 and we will let him play for as long as he wants”. Now that’s the way it should be. $25 presales are available through Resident Advisor.

Finely Tuned and Pulse Radio have revealed the lineup for their Circo Loco bash at the Greenwood Hotel on Easter Sunday, April 8. The headline triumvirate will comprise the purported “Queen of DC10”, Tania Vulcano, second-wave Detroit producer Stacey Pullen and – AND – Englishman Clive Henry, formerly one half of the now defunct duo Peace Division (along with Justin Drake). For any young sconies unaware of Peace Division, the pair were a pioneering force in the tribal and deep house scene from ’94 onwards, and both Henry and Drake remain key players in the club scene today. Pullen meanwhile was personally groomed by none other than Derrick May, and follows in May’s rather large footsteps with a neoclassical, digital edge to his productions that is absent from many of the grittier Detroit cuts. Any neophytes seeking a sample of Pullen’s sonic sensibility ought to investigate his fine fabric compilation, which, despite being the better part of a decade old, more than holds up when played today. As for Vulcano, while she doesn’t have the production pedigree of the other lads, her sets at Ibiza pantheon DC10 are the stuff of clubbing folklore. And with Le Brond representing as part of the local lineup, this represents a fine way to spend Easter Sunday. Plus I haven’t even told you what’s happening on Easter Monday yet…

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

Hermitude

H

ermitude’s new album, HyperParadise, is due out on February 3; you’re no doubt already familiar with lead single ‘Speak Of The Devil’ (the film clip for which won a J Award for Aus Video Clip Of The Year). These guys continue to smash it up in their own way, keeping the beats accessible while still ridiculously massive, and always managing to make a lot of noise for just two people. This column has seen them blow up dancefloors from Garden Music to Tone to the Subsonic festival, with a sound that draws everyone onto their feet and creates an instant party. They’re on the road in March with labelmates Sietta, hitting Oxford Art Factory on Friday March 16.

One of Australia’s finest proponents of soul, funk and RnB, Ray Mann has been residing in Berlin of late, recording music and sketching in his spare time. But he’s returning home for a visit and plans to fit in a small run of dates with his band, The Ray Mann 3, taking in new material from his Sketches Vol 1 release. You can catch Ray and the band at the GoodGod on (oh no!)

Friday March 16. Possible to fit both this and the Hermitude show in? I hope so.

Following the sad closure of Tonic Lounge, Tan Cracker’s Soul Club has found a new home in Kings X Hotel. You can catch knowledgeable selectors and fans of the black wax Burn Hard and Mase Boogie guesting alongside residents Gian Arpino, Tom Tutton, Kinetic, and Boogie Monster; all that soul, funk, boogaloo, jazz, reggae, and everything in between. That goes down Friday February 10.

MARCH 2-4

Playground Weekender Wiseman’s Ferry

THURSDAY APRIL 5 KRS-ONE Enmore Theatre

her EP Your Highness for now… You can check Sky for yourself when she supports The Herd in March – or even earlier than that, as she’s also scored support for 360’s two gigs at The Standard next month. Both The Herd and Thundamentals play the Manning Bar on Friday March 30.

As the year gets underway, Soul Sedation is probably most excited about the upcoming Bonobo show, a favourite from way back.

The UK artist, also known as Simon Green, will perform with a full live band, and we were incredibly pleased to hear that vocalist Andreya Triana will be with him on the tour as well. He’s really got a wealth of back catalogue to dip into, and the shows tend to have an incredibly high standard of musicianship. I was lucky enough to catch one in Brighton many years back and can confirm that everyone in attendance left very happy. Bonobo’s already sold out a first show in Melbourne, and has just announced a second. He plays the Metro on Friday March 2, followed by Playground Weekender.

Bonobo

In tour news, German production outfit Mo Horizons joins us next month for a harbour cruise. Germany’s Karsten John also joins the party, as does DJ Hudge (UK), plus Top Deck residents JC and Gian Arpino. That one’s aboard the Bella Vista, and there’s an afterparty at the Slip Inn. We hope the sun’s shining on February 25! Tickets are available from Moshtix.

British beatsmith Debian Blak hits Australia this month for the first time. The First Word artist from Leeds is making waves with his post-dubstep sound, downbeats and all sorts of hazy heaviness. At the moment he’s only got some Melbourne and Perth shows lined up between January 14 and February 3, but maybe he’ll find the time to pop up to Sydney in between? Check out his Hint Of Menace EP for a taste of what’s to come.

In new releases: you might well want to pick up Mark Ronson, Produced and Remixed Volume 2. The double LP contains unreleased instrumentals, early work and demos that haven’t seen the light of day as yet, and features collaborations with Ol' Dirty Bastard and The Teriyaki Boyz.

Sydney-based emcee Sky’high joins the Elefant Traks family, who’ve announced the release of her debut album in May this year, produced by one of New Zealand’s finest, P-Money. You’ll have to be content with

Send stuff for this column to tonyedwards001@gmail.com by 6pm Wednesdays. All pics to art@thebrag.com BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 49

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

club pick of the week Miss Kittin

FRIDAY JANUARY 27

Knight, Adam Sheridan, Krish Titan, Anthony Shadower, DJ Ange, Scotty G, Anthony Carpena, Danny P, Steve Hill, Suae, Pulsar, Arbee, Matrix, HSB, X-Dream, Halu Suzuki, Kamakaze $25-$35 9pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Aus Day Eve 2012 Simon Caldwell, Ken Cloud, Vlada & Bella Saris, Murat Kilic 10pm Tracks Nightclub, Epping Hotel Inthemix Summer Series Anna Lunoe, The Only, Wax Motif 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Glovecats, Redial, Swiss Dub, Tony, Toddy & Detech, Clockwerk, Pablo Calamari, Ella Loca, D*Funk, Mr Doris, Lights Out, Jace, Brendan Maclean $10 9pm

THURSDAY JANUARY 26

Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst

Miss Kittin (FRA),

Murat Kilic, Claire Morgan $35.10 (+ bf) 8pm MONDAY JANUARY 23 Goldfish, Kings Cross We Owe You One 6pm Scubar. Sydney Crab Racing 7pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Jazz DJs free 7pm

TUESDAY JANUARY 24 The Enmore Theatre Odd Future (USA) $72.45 8pm Establishment, Sydney Rumba Motel DJ Willie Sabor 8pm Goldfish, Kings Cross We Owe You One 6pm Scruffy Murphy’s, Sydney Frat House free Scubar, Sydney Backpacker Karaoke 8pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Coyote Tuesdays DJs free 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Tuesdays Pablo Calamari, Ping Pong Tiddly, DJ Jackin’ Gill free 8pm 50 :: BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 25 Arq Sydney Australia Day Eve Dan Murphy, Rob Davis, Sandi Hotrod, Luke Leal, Jake Kilby Bank Hotel, Newtown Pawnography, DJ Del 7pm The Burdekin, Darlinghurst Mike Rukus, Scruby (UK), Aron Chiarella (UK), Frank Phunk, Nathan Flexx, Werner $10 8pm Epping Hotel Anna Lunoe, The Only & Wax Motif free 9pm Establishment, Sydney Superjamm Def Rok, G-Wizard, Troy T, Lilo $25 9pm The Flinders Hotel, Darlinghurst Hip Hop DJs free 8pm Goldfish, Potts Point Derrick Carter (USA), Illya, Garry Todd, Monkey Tennis DJs, Tom Brereton, Ryan Simpson 6pm Home The Venue, Sydney Groovelicious R&B Extravaganza Flite, Iko, Leon Smith, Seiz, J-Reyes, Stunna, D-Kutz, Zee, Nick Stylz, Toy Boy, Ron Dawg, Nam, Cass, Skoolz, Suga Shance

Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Australia Day Eve Dazzla Ding (Ibiza), Radio Ink DJs Ivy, Sydney Laidback Luke (Netherlands) $35 (+ bf) 6pm Ivy Pool Club, Sydney She Pool Party Cassian, Lancelot, Oh Glam, Mirror Mirror, Robbie Santiago, Boston George, Eggo, Newage ullshit, Marcy Marc & Jays, H3ndo, Kalcic & Rome $25 (+ bf) 8pm Keystone Festival Bar, Sydney Mad Racket Peven Everett (USA), Mad Racket DJs $32 8pm Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, Kings Cross Resident DJs 8pm Oatley Hotel Australia Day Eve Party DJ Tone free 8pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Das Racist (USA), True Vibnation, Simo Soo $35 (+ bf) 8pm Ruby Rabbit, Darlinghurst Resident DJs 9pm Scubar, Sydney Schoonerversity 3pm Space, Sydney Marcel Woods (Netherlands), VLN, Nick Arbor, Thomas

The Arthouse Hotel, Sydney Lounge DJs 8pm Beach Palace Hotel, Coogee Australia Day Adam Katz, Benny Vibes 11am Bella Vista Boat, Sydney Harbour Pukka Up Australia Day Sunset Cruise Pukka Up, Beth Yen, Tass, DJ Bilman, Monty, Clive Morley, The HLP, LAM, Daniel Wheeler, Lenden Kuris, Jay Karama $49-$59 5pm Cargo Lounge, Kings St Wharf Dance The Way You Feel 6pm Coogee Bowling Club Green Beats Africa Hitech, Peewee Ferris, Mailer Daemon, Foreign Dub, Smokin Joe Mekhael, Tyson Koh, Kate Doherty, Sakura, Discoloop, Highly Dubious, Mad Cow, Tactical Aspect, Sunday Dub Club DJs $25 12pm Cream Tangerine, Swiss Grand Hotel, Bondi Beach Australia Day Beach Party Grass, LC, Money DJs, Shipwreck, Matt Saville, Bobby Disco $24 2pm Enmore Theatre Lloyd (USA), DJ Gunz Moto Tikelz $69.95-$139.95 7pm all-ages The Flinders Hotel, Darlinghurst Hippies from Hell DJs free 8pm Goldfish, Kings Cross We Owe You One 6pm GoodGod Front Bar, Sydney Bonza Mate! Eric Shortbread, DJ Hey Man, Badfield, Harry Blanche, Jesse Correy free 7pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney Resident DJs free 8pm Ivy Courtyard, Sydney Courtyard Australia Day Party Nadastrom (USA), Yolanda Be Cool, Bombs Away, Star Fuckers, Peking Duck, Dance Club Djs, Three Fingers, Mattrad, Matt Nukewood, The Mane Thing, Oakes & lennox, Swiss Dub, Danny Lang, Tigerlily, The Weekenders $35 1pm Ivy Pool Club, Sydney Australia Day Pool Party Taboo (USA) $59 (+ bf) 2pm Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, Kings Cross Resident DJs 8pm Low302, Darlinghurst Thursday Switch DJs free Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Thursday Dysney James Dela Cruz, Adam Bozetto, Bad Ezzy, Nakagin, FM free 8pm

Q Bar, Darlinghurst Hot Damn DJs $15-$20 Ruby Rabbit, Darlinghurst Resident DJs 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Flaunt Resident DJs 8pm The Starship Sydney AGWA Yacht Club Matthew Dear, Pete Herbert, T-Boy, Co-Op, Smith & Fox, Maxology 2pm Vilderplume, Sydney Harbour Australia Day Sunset Boat Party Jon Fitz (UK), Previous Experts, Dr Aylward, DJ Brevil, Hilf, Greener, Scotland Lamont, Mog $55 6.30pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda DJ Dan, Urby, Chappers, Dan Bombings free (student)–$5 9pm

FRIDAY JANUARY 27 Arq Sydney Fantasia Sandi Hotrod, Danny T free 9pm The Arthouse Hotel, Sydney This is RnB G-Wizard, Def Rok, Troy T, Lilo, MC Jayson $15 9.30pm Bank Hotel, Newtown DJ Du Jour 9pm Campbelltown RSL Justice Crew $40 (+ bf) 8pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Button Down Disco Robust, Stalker, Tongue In Cheek, LA Tech, Hypa, Unfinished Business, Intheory, Whatis?

8pm Cargo Lounge, Kings St Wharf Kick On DJs Chinese Laundry, Sydney Adam Zae, Rubio, Swiss Dubs, Pops, Here’s Trouble, Detnum $25-$25 10pm Civic Underground, Sydney Volar Resident DJs 10pm Enmore Theatre Royksopp (Norway) $73.10 7pm The Flinders Hotel, Darlinghurst Cleric, Angel free 8pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Low Motion- Bass Music Hypercolour, Gielis, Swindle, Max Gosford, Preacha $5 11pm Hotel Chambers, Martin Place F**k Me I’m Famous Resident DJs $15 9pm Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Rat Pack DJs Jacksons On George, Circular Quay Resident DJs 9pm Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, Kings Cross Falcona Fridays Devola, Starjumps, Hobophonics, F.R.I.E.N.Ds DJs, Maia $10 8pm Kong’s Jungle Lounge, Bondi Junction W!ldlive Fridays Resident DJs $10 10pm Marlborough Hotel, Level 1, Newtown Resident DJs 9.30pm Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm North Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club, Judd Room DJ Derek Turner free 7pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Miss Kittin (FRA), Murat Kilic, Claire Morgan $35.10 (+ bf) 8pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Hellfire Jack Sh*t, Sveta, DJ Tokoloshe, Karl Anderson $25 9.30pm The Roxy, Parramatta Fridaze Resident DJs 4pm

Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Payday Fridays Resident DJs 8pm Selina’s Nightclub, Coogee Bay Hotel Resident DJs 8pm Seymour Theatre Centre, Chippendale Courtyard Sessions Evil J & Saint Cecilia free 6pm Shelbourne Hotel, Sydney James Fitzgerald free 6pm Space, Sydney Zaia Resident DJs 9.45pm Spectrum, Darlinghurst Twist & Shout Doctor J, Joey Jo-Jo Jr $5 9pm Tunnel Nightclub, Kings Cross Why Sleep? DJs $10-$15 10pm The World Bar, Kings Cross MUM MUM DJs $10-$15 8pm Sydney Entertainment Centre Kanye West $107.1 (+bf) 7:30pm Keystone Festival Bar, Sydney The Stepkids, Electric Wire Hustle$42(+bf) 8pm

SATURDAY JANUARY 28 The Argyle, The Rocks Hustle Illya, Phil Hudson, Agey free 9pm Bank Hotel, Newtown DJ Pussy Shoogah 9pm The Basement, Circular Quay Five Coffees $20 (+ bf) 9pm Candys Apartment Ritual Kyro & Bomber, Teez, Boogie Monster, Brosman, Chickflick, Victims, LeBronx, Hooey, Seb De Bass 8pm Cargo Lounge, Kings St Wharf Kick On DJs Chinese Laundry, Sydney Garden Party Bass Nectar, Bare Noize, Karton, Spenda C, Asylum, Hydraulix $20$40 2pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Kito, Doctor Werewolf, Blaze Tripp, Matttt, Garry Todd, Murray Lake, Ben Smith $20-$25 10pm Civic Underground, Sydney Sweet Taboo Resident DJs 9pm Dee Why Hotel Kiss & Fly Saturdays DJs 9pm Enmore Theatre Girl Talk (USA), King Gizzard And The Wizard Lizard $59.60 7.30pm Establishment, Sydney Sienna G-Wizard, Troy T, Lilo, Def Rok $20 9pm The Flinders Hotel, Darlinghurst Horne Dogg free 8pm The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills Heavyweight Soundz Andy C, GQ Camo, Krooked, Fierce, Linken & Vertigo, Rush MC, Mark Bionic $45$60 8pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Hedkandi The Italian Job, Alex Mac, Damien Goundrie, Shaun Warner, Tom Kelly $20 6pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Hoops Bad Ezzy, Anna Lunoe, Nina Las Vegas $10 10pm Ivy, Sydney Pure Ivy Taboo (USA) $30 8pm Jacksons On George, Circular Quay Resident DJs 9pm Keystone Festival Bar, Sydney Future Classic DJ Koze, Prins Thomas (Norway) $42 8pm

club guide send your listings to: clubguide@thebrag.com Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, Kings Cross Kitty Kitty Bang Bang Resident DJs 8pm Marlborough Hotel, Level 1, Newtown Resident DJs 9.30pm Mounties, Mount Pritchard Justice Crew $45 (+ bf) 8pm Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm One22, Sydney One22 Launch Party Gabriel Ananda (GER), Marc Jarvin, Jordan Deck, Bella Sarriss, Nic Scali, Dylan Griffin $15-$20 9pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Miss Kittin (FRA), Murat Kilic & Clare Morgan $30 9.30pm The Oxford Hotel, Darlinghurst Swagger DJ Booth, Gay-Z, Boyonce Ruby Rabbit, Darlinghurst Resident DJs 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Sapphire Lounge Welcomes 2012 Joey Kaz, Dim Slm, Jo Funk, Disco Kid, Stevie J, Troy T, Charlie Brown, Steve S, Adamo 8pm Selina’s Nightclub, Coogee Bay Hotel Resident DJs 8pm Shelbourne Hotel, Sydney MJM, Drew Mercer free– $10 9.30pm Soho, Potts Point Rogerseventytwo (Netherlands), Moonchild, John Glover, Mattrad, Three Fingers, Oakes & Lennox,

Here’s Trouble, Lowrise, On Glam, Symphony Youth $16 9pm Space, Sydney Masif Saturdays Resident DJs 10pm Spectrum, Darlinghurst Kittens Kittens DJs $10 11.30pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Dapayk & Padberg (DE), Nicone (DE), Murat Kilic, Matt Weir 10pm The Standard, Surry Hills Daily Meds, Tuka, She Rex, Joyride $5 (+ bf) 8pm Tunnel Nightclub, Kings Cross ONE Saturdays DJs $10$20 10pm Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills We Go Bang Bang, Bell Weather Department, Friends, oxblvd free 6pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Wham James Taylor, Act Yo Age, Kato vs Wax Motif, Levins, Trent Rackus vs Johnny Rad, Adam Bozetto, Telefunken vs Adam Bozetto, Brendan Fing vs Husky, Illya vs Richie Carter, Kerry Wallace vs Matt Weir, Discopunx, Mo’ Funk, Moneyshot, Daigo, Shamozzle, Temnien, Sushi $15-$20 8pm

SUNDAY JANUARY 29 Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H. Summer Sunday Opening Party Murat Kilic,

Schwa, Garry Todd, Dean Tyler, Samron, Matt Weir, Kerry Wallace 2pm The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills Beresford Sundays Resident DJs free 5pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Martini Club 6pm Gypsy Nightclub Sensation Sundays Resident DJs $10-$15 11am Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Sneaky Sundays Summer Sneaky Sound System, Dangerous Dan, Jonny Pow!!, Flight Facilities 8pm Ivy, Sydney Freemasons, Katherine Ellis $69 (+ bf) 4pm Jacksons On George, Circular Quay Aphrodisiac Resident DJs 5pm Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, Kings Cross Easy Sundays Resident DJs 8pm Name This Bar, Darlinghurst Sunday Sets DJs 6pm Ruby Rabbit, Darlinghurst Resident DJs 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Sapphire Sundays – Australia Day Kick On Party DJ Teknik, Resident DJs 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Spice Murat Kilic $20 4am The World Bar, Kings Cross Dust Shades Of Grey, James Taylor, Alley Oop, Brendan Watson free 7pm

club picks up all night out all week...

TUESDAY JANUARY 24 The Enmore Theatre Odd Future (USA) $72.45 8pm

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 25 Goldfish, Potts Point Derrick Carter (USA), Illya, Garry Todd, Monkey Tennis DJs, Tom Brereton, Ryan Simpson 6pm Keystone Festival Bar, Sydney Mad Racket Peven Everett (USA), Mad Racket DJs $32 8pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Das Racist (USA), True Vibenation, Simo Soo $35 (+ bf) 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Aus Day Eve 2012 Simon Caldwell, Ken Cloud, Vlada & Bella Saris, Murat Kilic 10pm

THURSDAY JANUARY 26 Coogee Bowling Club Green Beats Africa Hitech, Peewee Ferris, Mailer Daemon, Foreign Dub, Smokin Joe Mekhael, Tyson Koh, Kate Doherty, Sakura, Discoloop, Highly Dubious, Mad Cow, Tactical Aspect,

Sunday Dub Club DJs $25 12pm Ivy Courtyard, Sydney Courtyard Australia Day Party Nadastrom (USA), Yolanda Be Cool, Bombs Away, Star Fuckers, Peking Duck, Dance Club Djs, Three Fingers, Mattrad, Matt Nukewood, The Mane Thing, Oakes & lennox, Swiss Dub, Danny Lang, Tigerlily, The Weekenders $35 1pm The Starship Sydney AGWA Yacht Club Matthew Dear, Pete Herbert, T-Boy, Co-Op, Smith & Fox, Maxology 2pm

$20-$40 2pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Hoops Bad Ezzy, Anna Lunoe, Nina Las Vegas $10 10pm Keystone Festival Bar, Sydney Future Classic DJ Koze, Prins Thomas (Norway) $42 8pm One22, Sydney One22 Launch Party Gabriel Ananda (GER), Marc Jarvin, Jordan Deck, Bella Sarriss, Nic Scali, Dylan Griffin $15-$20 9pm

FRIDAY JANUARY 27

The Spice Cellar, Sydney Dapayk & Padberg (DE), Nicone (DE), Murat Kilic, Matt Weir 10pm $20

Enmore Theatre Royksopp (Norway) $73.10 7pm

SUNDAY JANUARY 29

Sydney Entertainment Centre Kanye West $107.10 (+ bf) 7:30pm

Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H. Summer Sunday Opening Party Murat Kilic, Schwa, Garry Todd, Dean Tyler, Samron, Matt Weir, Kerry Wallace 2pm

Keystone Festival Bar, Sydney The Stepkids, Electric Wire Hustle $42(+bf) 8pm

SATURDAY JANUARY 28 Chinese Laundry, Sydney Garden Party Bassnectar, Bare Noize, Karton, Spenda C, Asylum, Hydraulix

Röyksopp

BRAG :: 446 :: 23:01:12 :: 51

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PICS :: KC

up all night out all week . . .

andrew weatherall

PICS :: KC

12:01:12 :: The Standard :: Lvl 3/383 Bourke St Surry Hills 93313100

14:01:12 :: Keystone Festival Bar :: Hyde Park Barracks Museum 82486500

s t a e b n e e r g

It sounds like: the perfect way to spend Australia Day. Who’s spinning? Africa Hitech, Peewee Ferris, Mailer Daemon, Smokin’ Joe Mekhael, Tyson Koh, Foreign Dub, Kate Doherty, Discoloop, Tactical Aspect, Sunday Dub Club DJs, Highly Dubious, Mad Cow, Sakura.

Three songs you’ll hear on the night: Mungo Jerry – ‘In the Summertime’; Darren Briais vs Peewee Ferris – ‘I Feel It’; Andy Nelson – ‘Lady Angie’.

And one you definitely won’t: Anything by Jason Derulo.

Sell it to us: Plan for a relaxed afternoon with friends, music, lawn bowls and beanbags! The cider and beer will be flowing and the Dolphin Bistro will be supplying sustenance with a special Green Beats menu.

It wouldn’t be an Australia Day party without: beats, bowls, beer, sunshine, friends and good times!

Crowd specs: Relaxed and family friendly; angry people need not attend.

Wallet damage: $25+bf from greenbeats.com.au Where: Coogee Bowling Club / Dolphin St, Coogee When: Thursday January 26 / midday til sunset

propaganda

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12:01:12 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

14:01:11 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 82959958 52 :: BRAG :: 446: 23:01:12

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: ASHLEY S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER PEACHEY :: GEORGE POPOV :: ROSETTE ROUHANNA :: MAS MAR :: DANIEL MUNNS :: THO

S. A .S.H SUNDAY 29th January

Murat Kilic Schwa Garry Todd Dean Tyler & Samron Sam Whitty Matt Weir Kerry Wallace

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13:01:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9332 3711

12:01:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9332 3711

14:01:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9332 3711

australia day @ th e argyle It’s called: Australia Day @ The Argyle

It sounds like: Rock by day, disco by night.

Who’s playing? Machine (live) + DJs John 'The Owl' Devecchis, Tikki Tembo and Elly K Three songs you’ll hear on the night: ‘You’re the Voice’ and ‘Wild Horses’ for the sing-a-long, and then all the grooves from the decks.

And one you definitely won’t: Anything by the Black Eyed Peas.

Sell it to us: No need to battle the masses at the beach – play it cool and come get patriotic with us at The Argyle! Thongs and boardies, flags and facepaint, snags on the barbie and cold, cold beer. Come rock out to live music in the sun and dance on into the evening with some of the hottest nu disco DJs around! BBQ will be kicking off from 12pm.

It wouldn’t be an Australia Day party without: some fun in the sun!

Wallet damage: FREE entry!

Where: The Argyle / 18 Argyle St, The Rocks When: Thursday January 26 / 11am till late!

54 :: BRAG :: 446: 23:01:12

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gary todd

PICS :: AM

Crowd specs: Sophisticated, savvy and ready to party.

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