The Brag #448 by The Brag

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

five things WITH

HAYDEN FROM CADILLAC life, but my mum and uncle played guitar, and they taught me to play at a young age. After that I moved on to piano, then bass guitar. I’ve played instruments throughout my whole life. Inspirations It only took a few months to write the 2. EP, but we took inspiration from the past few years of our lives. It comes from many different forms of art. We’re inspired by music we were listening to at the time such as Sun Araw, Cut Copy, Aeroplane and Tame Impala. Visual inspiration played a huge part in the music we write too. If you have a look at our EP artwork (designed by Jo Cutri), you’ll find that there’s a strong connection between the music and the art. We also spend a lot of time at the beach. Your Crew Cadillac is mainly Hayden Luby (me) 3. and Antonio Pomponio. I live in Sydney and

Growing Up All I can remember hearing when I was 1. young was ‘Dancing On The Ceiling’ by

Lionel Richie. My folks always played Lionel, Joe Cocker and Prince in the house. My dad can’t play an instrument or sing to save his

Ant lives in Melbourne, so we try and spend as much time writing as we can... It seems to be working. When we play as a live band, we have a few friends join us – Harley Goodsell (vocals), Lee Nania (guitar) and Joel Farland (drums).

The Music You Make We’ve just released our debut with 4. Future Classic. It’s a seven track EP with some collaborations from Joel Byrne (Wolf and Cub) and Anton Sevidov (Tesla Boy), which we recorded in Sydney in my little home studio. The process was challenging because we didn’t have too much gear, but we got the most out of what we used. The live show is basically the EP played live, with a few extra tracks we’ve written since. Music, Right Here, Right Now I think we have a really talented and 5. strong music scene in Australia. So many Aussie bands are making a name for themselves all over the world. I think it’s hard to stand out when there’s so much material out there, but the good stuff always surfaces. What: Cadillac EP is out now through Future Classic With: Rogers Room, Rocco Raimundo, Frames and Gent/Benj Where: The Island @ Sydney Harbour When: Saturday February 11

HEY, COLIN!

PUBLISHERS: Adam Zammit & Rob Furst EDITOR IN CHIEF: Adam Zammit 9552 6333 adam@peergroupmedia.com EDITOR: Steph Harmon steph@thebrag.com 02 9698 9645 ARTS & ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Dee Jefferson dee@thebrag.com 02 9690 2731 STAFF WRITER: Caitlin Welsh NEWS: Nathan Jolly, Chris Honnery ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alan Parry SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Katrina Clarke, Jay Collier, Ashley Mar, Daniel Munns, Thomas Peachey, George Popov, Rosette Rouhanna, Jared Van Earle ADVERTISING: Ross Eldridge - 0422 659 425 / (02) 8394 9492 ross@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 8394 9027 les@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Meaghan Meredith - 0423 655 091 / (02) 8394 9168 meaghan@thebrag.com GIG & CLUB GUIDE CO-ORDINATOR: Conrad Richters - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@thebrag.com (dance & parties) INTERNS: Sigourney Berndt, Alex Christie, Antigone Anagnostellis

Colin Hay is perhaps best known for being a victim of profiling when he was handed a vegemite sandwich by a smiling racist, as chronicled in Men At Work’s smash hit ‘Land Down Under’. He also looks a lot like Al Bundy, and has a new album Gathering Mercury, which he will be showing off in his biggest tour for quite a while. He plays Lizottes in Dee Why on Thursday February 9 – try not to mention the whole Kookaburra/gum tree thing.

Alex & The Ramps

ZIGGY MARLEY

A few facts about Ziggy Marley that you may not know (unless you already subscribe to our hugely popular e-newsletter, Gettin’ Ziggy With It). 1) According to Daddy Bob, he was named ‘Ziggy’ because it’s the name for a small joint; 2) He has a comic book called Marijuanaman; 3) He guest-starred on Family Matters and Charmed; 4) He is playing the Metro Theatre on April 9 in support of his new album, Wild And Free; 5) He also plays Bluesfest, which is being held in Byron April 5-9 and also features Crosby Stills & Nash, Cold Chisel, Roger Daltrey (The Who) and Yes (Yes!).

ALEKS & THE RAMPS

For those of you who got your knickers in a knot over their recent single ‘Middle Aged Unicorn On Beach With Sunset’ (and yes, the song is just as good as its brilliant title suggests), look out for the digital release of Aleks & The Ramps’ forthcoming album FACTS, which lands on February 14. It’s their third record and it’s really very good – and to celebrate, the Melbournians are readying themselves for a national tour through March. The Sydney leg of the expedition will take place at GoodGod on Saturday March 3, with tickets available through Moshtix, or $15 on the door.

JOHN BUTLER

Blitzen Trapper

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Simon Binns, Michael Brown, Liz Brown, Bridie Connell, Bridie Connellan, Ben Cooper, Oliver Downes, Alasdair Duncan, Max Easton, Tony Edwards, Christie Eliezer, Murray Engleheart, Henry Florence, Mike Gee, Chris Honnery, Nathan Jolly, Alex Lindsay Jones, Robbie Miles, Peter Neathway, Hugh Robertson, Matt Roden, Emma Salkild, Romi Scodellaro, Rach Seneviratne, Luke Telford, Rick Warner

SURFIN’ SOLUTION

Have you ever seen a guy with ‘50s slicked back hair and brothel creepers surf on a double bass? Well, we aren’t exactly promising that Scott Owen, double bassist for The Living End, will be attempting such a feat when his band headline the Australian Open of Surfing at Manly Beach (held February 17 and 18), but we’ve got a pretty strong feeling that it’ll happen. Turn up and watch the free bands from 4pm each day – Children Collide, Sneaky Sound System, Bluejuice, Stonefield and Grant Smilie are also playing/ surfing. Check online for each day’s lineup.

Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this address 8a Marlborough Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010 ph - (02) 9552 6333 fax - (02) 9319 2227 EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Publisher, Editor or Staff of The Brag. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE: Stephen Forde : accounts@furstmedia.com.au ph - (03) 9428 3600 fax - (03) 9428 3611 Furst Media, 3 Newton Street Richmond Victoria 3121 DEADLINES: Editorial: Wednesday 12pm (no extensions) Artwork, ad bookings: Thursday 12pm (no extensions). Ad cancellations: Tuesday 4pm Published by Cartrage P/L ACN 104026388 All content copyrighted to Cartrage 2003 DISTRIBUTION: Wanna get The Brag? Email distribution@ furstmedia.com.au or phone 03 9428 3600. PRINTED BY SPOTPRESS: www.spotpress.com.au 24 – 26 Lilian Fowler Place, Marrickville NSW 2204 Win a giveaway? Mail us a stamped and addressed envelope, and we’ll send your prize on over...

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John Butler is returning to his songwriting roots (pun intended) in a series of intimate concerts, named ‘Tin Shed Tales’ after his penchant for locking hitchhikers in his back shed and then channeling the guilt to write new tunes [citation needed]. He’s playing at the Tamworth Town Hall on April 11 and at the Civic Theatre in Newcastle the following night, but the main Sydney show happens at The Metro Theatre on April 27, where Ol’ Johnny B will be supported by Felicity Groom.

BIKE BABES @ THE WALL

BLITZEN TRAPPER TOUR

The band that describes their third album, American Goldwing, as one that will “make you want to shotgun a beer in the shower while listening to the Stones” are returning to Australia. Hailing from Portland, Oregon, Blitzen Trapper will be playing at Bluesfest in Byron and Blues n Roots Festival on the west coast, as well as headlining shows in Sydney and Melbourne. Those of you who favour the alternative country music sound and/or want to finally understand what the musical baby of Led Zepplin and Lynyrd Skynyrd would sound like, head along to the Oxford Art Factory on Thursday April 3.

The World Bar are good at party. And we don’t just mean slapping some bands together, charging too much and calling it a night; we mean proper, proper party. Take this week’s free party at The Wall on Wednesday February 8, where notorious bike bandits Bike Babes are hosting ‘We Got The Fete’. You can meet them at Taylor Square and cruise on down to World Bar, or just show up at the venue at 8pm for the cycle-centric art exhibitions, BBQ, fashion and craft shows. To top it off, gangster-punk-babe newbies Bloods are playing their last Sydney show until their EP launch on March 15 at GoodGod. So while you’ve got your iCal open, pop that one in there too.

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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

he said she said WITH

DIEFENBACH (QLD) Diefenbach is myself, Jake Diefenbach, on lead vocals and piano. Aidan Arnold is on bass. He used to have muttonchops and I secretly hope he’ll grow them back again. Dan Hirsch plays drums and makes X-rated jokes in rehearsal. Missing Person was recorded with Powderfinger’s Darren Middleton at Lunchbox Studios – it’s dark, theatrical and vulnerable. Darren also co-produced the LP. The album is a different creature to the live show, because it was recorded before I had my current band lineup. Live, people can expect a larger-thanlife performance with darkly infectious, piano-driven melodies and imaginative accompaniment from Dan and Aidan.

usic was a big part of my family life growing up. My dad’s a very gifted musician, and my mum taught piano. My two older sisters took me out to see Girlfriend at the Gladstone City Theatre when I seven. It was my first live concert. I was so psyched to hear ‘Take It From Me’ live!

I remember the first time I listened to Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos. I was instantly hooked. I’m a big fan of Danny Elfman, too. I can’t get enough of his macabre, slightly deranged sound, and I think you can hear a lot of that in what I do. Lately, I’m listening to a bit of Muse and feel inspired by the Swedish pop sensation, Robyn.

The hardest thing for me at the moment is doing all the things that don’t involve actually making music. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes. The biggest obstacle for musicians is the illusion that you can live in some kind of bohemian wonderland and things will just happen. I haven’t been out in Sydney all that much, so don’t really know what the cool kids are doing… Maybe someone can take us out after the show? What: Missing Person is out now With: Martyn Badoui and Tony Dean Where: El Rocco, Potts Point When: Thursday February 9

RAY MANN THREE

Australian singer/songwriter Ray Mann relocated to Berlin last September and began recording an album. No big deal, right? Nick Cave did it, Claire Bowditch did it, Gerbils did it… Well, stop butting in and let us get to the interesting part. Instead of smashing an entire album in your face and sitting on the arm of your lounge chair watching you listen to it all in one chunk, he’s releasing Sketches one track and video at a time, month to month, like a boss. Loudly shout at him about what a good idea that is in the middle of The Ray Mann Three’s set at GoodGod Small Club on February 16 – or sidle up to the DJ booth to yell at him about maybe he could play at your brother’s birthday party when he spins at Jurassic Lounge on Tuesday February 21.

HENRY ROLLINS

Additional dates have been added to perennial crank Henry Rollins’ The Long March tour, due to the swiftness with which you lot were buying tickets. A legit renaissance man, Rollins’ ridiculously comprehensive Wikipedia CV (yes we do our research here) includes stints not only in all areas of the music biz but work in TV,

HOLD MY HAM

Turns out there’s finally a way to spend Valentine’s Day in an inner city warehouse without ending up on a watchlist of some kind. So skip the Gilmore Girls/Jatz marathon and head to the brilliantly-titled I Wanna Hold Your Ham shindig at Hibernian House (that big building on Elizabeth Street, opposite Central Station). Aa (from Noo York), Sydney’s squelchy Megastick Fanfare and kyu/Richard In Your Mind’s Alyx (she’s sooo adorbz) will be making you feel heaps better about not talking to that girl at the train station that one time. She was the one; you knew it then, you know it now. ($12 at the door, BYO. Yep.)

DEATH CAB + DAPPLED

Just a few weeks away from landing in Australia to show off their latest record Codes and Keys, Death Cab For Cutie have announced their support act: Dappled Cities. Both bands will be descending on The Enmore Theatre on February 24 and 25, in what will no doubt be an explosion of joy for Australian fans who can’t really claim to love one of those bands without owning the entire back-catalogue of the other. The tour will also be a chance for Dappled Cities’ devotees to get a foretaste of their impending forth studio album (as yet nameless). The first show is sold out and tickets are endangered for the second, so get thee to a Ticketek!

GOONS OF DOOM

If we told you that your favourite surfy/horror rock/punkers Goons of Doom would be launching the single ‘Rattlesnake Cobra’ off the album Revenge Of The Goons, then the only other bit of information you’d need in order to

sleepmakeswaves

SLEEPMAKESWAVES

Sydney foursome sleepmakeswaves would have learned early on that if you snooze, you lose – hence why they’ve been keeping themselves so busy. Following the success of last year’s LP …and so we destroyed everything, the local group are being flung out to SxSW in Texas and Dunk! in Belgium this year. They’re not quite rock, they’re not quite prog, they’re not quite electronica – in fact we’re not really sure what genre exactly they fit into, but we do know that they’re great. If you’re missed them earlier this year at Peats, no need to worry; you have a chance to see them before they get superfamous in foreign lands. We have two double passes up for grabs for their farewell show at The Gaelic on Friday February 17. To grab one, email us with the name of your fave sleepmakeswaves song.

JASON LYTLE

The man behind everyone’s favourite atmospheric-electronic, sweetly melancholic indie-pop group Grandaddy, Jason Lytel is heading to Australia for the first time since the band’s sole Aussie tour in 2004. If you don’t know who they are, start with Sophtware Slump and thank us later, as you lovingly caress your obsolete N64 and curse the follies of technological advancement. Lytel is playing on February 11 and 12 at The Vanguard, and we’ve got two double passes to the first show. You want it? Let us know who your fantasy grandaddy would be. radio, film, music videos, video games, books, audiobooks, the blogosphere – and also as an outspoken human rights campaigner and activist. He has even written essays! ESSAYS! If you want to be in opinion-hurling distance of this overachiever, the extra Sydney gig is Friday April 27 at the Seymour Centre. Tickets are still available for Wednesday April 25 as well…

GUM BALL MK II

The second round announcement for the Gum Ball festival has popped up on our radar, and it really ain’t bad at all. We already knew that the likes of Custard, Wagons, Jinja Safari and Ash Grunwald would be in attendance (among a whole bunch of others), but they’ve announced that Mat McHugh (The Beautiful Girls’ front man), Front End Loader, Clairy Browne & The Bangin’ Rackettes, The Delta Riggs, The Tongue and a bunch more will be joining them. Hot on the heels of Wormwoodstock, Gum Ball is another boutique fiesta that’s bringing an exemplary chilled vibe: a weekend in the bush two hours out of Sydney, with awesome live music, art, camping, BYO, food and a kiddies mega playground! Yippeeee! April 27 & 28, tickets on sale now.

Die Antwood

attend would be the date and the venue. Too bad. The Ruminaters and Mylee Grace & The Milkshakes will be playing too, with Bang! Bang! Rock n’ Roll and The Bungalows spinning discs like that dude in Crazytown. Not Shifty, the other one. (It’ll be happening on February 11 at The Standard. We’re too good to you.)

TIJUANA CARTEL

Ever since Breaking Bad entered our lives with the ferocity and tenacity of a jilted ex-lover, the phrase Tijuana Cartel has taken on a whole new meaning. Set to claim the name back on February 18 at Oxford Art Factory, Tijuana Cartel will be bringing a heady blend of Indian instrumentation, UK club beats that wouldn’t sound out of place in Manchester circa-’89, Afro Cuban percussion, trumpets and even an effin’ DJ. It’s a fairly insane mix of cultures and sounds, so don’t miss it unless you love bland rubbish like Travis or The Doves – in which case, sure, miss it. And go to bed early. As per usual.

DIE ANTWOORD

Die Antwoord make me feel the same sort of uncomfortable I feel when John and Joan Cusack play opposite either other in a film. Even if they don’t kiss or anything it’s still very odd, and no one quite knows where to look. March 9 at the Enmore Theatre is where Die Antwoord’s Future Music Festival sideshow is set to happen, and I really hope I don’t have to see these guys snaking down Enmore Road with those PS1-graphic faces or those long limbs or those weird haircuts... They kinda rule live, though – another thing to feel uncomfortable about, I suppose.

“Live so fast. Why don’t you die young slowly? It’s a curse, I see the future” - GARÇON GARÇON 14 :: BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12

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The Music Network

themusicnetwork.com

Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

THINGS WE HEAR

* We’re assuming that Frontier locking in Coldplay for a tour this year will be announced when they arrive next week for two corporate gigs for Huawei Mobile. Meantime, Mylo Xyloto went double platinum in Australia last week. * Rihanna splashed out US$150,000 for a five square foot sparkling portrait of ‘60s icon Marilyn Monroe, made out of 65,000 crystals. The 30-stone thing creates a rainbow effect in her living room. * Former Australian Idol finalist Jacob Butler was unsuccessfully pestering his radio plugger Michael Matthews to set up a meeting with his hero Noel Gallagher at his show at the Melbourne Palais. But driving home through South Yarra he stopped at the lights – and noticed that the great man himself was in the passenger seat in the van in the next lane. Butler waved, Gallagher nodded back, Butler realised he had a copy of his own forthcoming CD in the car, wound down the window and handed it over. “It was all over in 10 to 15 seconds,” Butler recalls. “But it’s nice to know he has the CD.” * Gold Coast DJs The Stafford Brothers look like they’re being offered a third series of their global TV show. They were heard discussing ideas at Japanese restaurant Benihana’s with show producer Wes Dening.

* Thousand Needles In Red guitarist/ songwriter Tristan ‘Trizo’ Bouillaut is working on rap/rock side project called Dead In A Second. Apparently the members of the band will remain a mystery, even at shows. An EP will be out in early June to coincide with his birthday. * A new course at Rutgers University in New Jersey, ‘Politicising Beyonce’, looks at her lyrics to explore American race, gender, and sexual politics. * Lexus joins Toyota, Audi and BMW in adding digital radio as a standard feature in some of its models. * Florence Welch of Florence And The Machine told Q Magazine that she got so drunk one night (17 martinis will do that) after clubbing with Kanye West and Lykke Li that she later accidentally set fire to her hotel room. The drinks, which she put on her publicist’s card, ended up costing more than the fire damage... * Canberra poet and hip hopper Omar Musa turned down an invitation from the Queanbeyan City Council to be an Australia Day ambassador, saying that the January 26 date was creating cultural clashes, and should be changed. * Kanye West caused a traffic jam at Melbourne’s King Street when 600 fans tried to squeeze into his after-show bash at electro club Tramp Bar.

SPLENDOUR DEBATES HEAT UP BEFORE DECISION

Heatwave promoter Patrick Whyntie aka MC Mastacraft has his share of problems. Following the festival going into voluntary insolvency in its first year – with some suppliers still owed, although he says all artists have been paid – police are trying to find its Chief Operating Officer, Olivier Lokolomba/Reckom. The 26-year-old Sydneysider of African appearance was last seen on January 21 at a Bendigo Bank in Potts Point at about 11am, with $30,000 on him. Whyntle told triple j, “We just fear possibly something bad has happened to him.”

FINES FOR STONEFEST, GROOVIN’ THE MOO

The University of Canberra’s student union was fined for noise excess over the past five years, say documents released under freedom of information laws. The Canberra Times revealed the $5,000 fines each were for Stonefest in 2008, 2010 and 2011, and for Groovin’ the Moo, held in May 2010 and May 2011.

Married: Greg Matthews, who runs Fanny’s nightclub in Newcastle, and Shop Till You Drop magazine editor Justine Cullen. Split: Channel [V]’s Danny Clayton and South American singer Lovefoxxx. Hospitalised: Anthrax’s Scott Ian, with a severe viral infection. Arrested: Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav’s daughter Dazayna Drayton, for hitting him when he stepped in during her argument with her brother. * Altiyan Childs’ ex-manager Steve Gold explained to a court why there was a taser gun in their commune home: Childs needed it to protect himself from “overzealous fans”, “because of his status”.

Which music tracks make you reach for the tissues? A survey in Britain by theatrical producer David King found that REM’s ‘Everybody Hurts’ was the one to set the Poms weeping. It was followed by Elton John’s ‘Candle In The Wind’ and ‘The Living Years’ by Mike and The Mechanics. Nine out of ten women and seven out of ten men cry over a song.

LIVE RACKET WINNERS

The Live Racket Awards in Sydney were an explosive night of live talent. Winners on the night were Particles (best live band), Ben Grant of The Choke (best lead guitarist), Phillipa Marshall of Drop Tank (best vocalist performance), Alex ‘Boskie’ Borkowski of Witch Fight (best drummer), Ian Rifely of Speakers (best bass player) and Fauna (best live newcomer). Mani

STONE ROSES SELL OUT FAST

Stone Roses bassist Mani went to an ATM to withdraw money to buy bread and milk — and was gobsmacked to find an extra £1.8 million in his account. It was an advance for their world tour. Naturally, he headed to the boozer to celebrate. The UK dates were the fastest selling in UK history, and are set to gross £12 million. 225,000 tickets for three shows in Manchester in late June sold out in an hour, with the first 150,000 disappearing in 14 minutes.

NINE SHORTLISTED FOR THE AMP

Shortlisted for the 7th Australian Music Prize (The Amp) are Abbe May’s Design Desire, Adalita’s Adalita, Boy & Bear’s Moonfire, Gotye’s Making Mirrors, Gurrumul’s Rrakala, Jack Ladder’s Hurtsville, Kimbra’s Vows, The Jezabels’ Prisoner and The Middle East’s I Want That You Are Always Happy. Up to 50 albums were judged for the $30,000 cash prize for creativity, and Amp founder Scott B. Murphy revealed The Panics, Oh Mercy and The Orbweavers almost made the final cut. The winner will be announced on March 8.

METALLICA AND U2 ARE GOOD FOR THE BRAIN

PPCA FORKED OUT A RECORD $25 MILLION

The Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA) announced it distributed a record $25 million – a 23% rise from the year before – to the registered artists and record labels that it represents. The figure covered the year ending June 2011, with the final payment made just before Christmas. Since it was set up in 1969, the PPCA has licensed radio and TV broadcasters (and now webcasters), and licenses around 55,000 businesses across Australia for the public performance of sound recordings.

THE END FOR BANGALOW BOWLING CLUB?

The Bangalow Bowling Club, one of the most important music venues in Byron shire in the ‘80s, has gone into voluntary administration. It reported a loss of $100,000 in 2010. Last week, the local community met to see if it could revive its fallen trade.

WPSA COMPETITION DEADLINE

The deadline for the World Society for the Protection of Animals’ guitar competition is Feb 15. Visit collarsnotcruelty.org.au now. You could win an Epiphone Les Paul Studio signed by Daniel Johns and Chris Cheney.

Feeling down? A dose of Metallica will fix that! Want to be ‘up’ for an important project? Songs with 100-130 beats per minute can put you on high alert, and improve your memory. These includes ‘Pride (In The Name Of Love)’ by U2, ‘Lady Madonna’ from The Beatles, ‘Don’t Phunk With My Heart’ by Black Eyed Peas and ‘Sweet Dreams’ by Marilyn Manson. To feel less anxious, whip on John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. Muse’s ‘Uprising’ and ‘Guiding Light’ will build energy. A new book Your Playlist Can Change Your Life: 10 Proven Ways Your Favorite Music Can Revolutionize Your Health, Memory, Organization, Alertness and More by Prof Galina Mindlin of Columbia University says changing your playlist through the day can have a definite effect.

16 :: BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12

Lifelines Born: Daughter Anwyn for Peter Bayliss, managing director of First Base Music, and wife Brianna. She’s a sister to Finley, 2.

MUSIC TO BLUBBER TO

Two public debates last week in the Byron area – on whether Splendour In The Grass can return to Byron – descended into yelling matches. They were hosted by the NSW Planning Assessment Commission, which will independently make the final decision. The state government already green-lighted the Yelgun site hosting three events over 10 days in a year, capped at 30,000, 25,000 and 15,000 capacities. About 120 people signed up to speak. They included Northern Rivers Tourism CEO Russell Mills (whose company will inject $192.6 million annually into the region and create the equivalent of 210 full time jobs), the Coalition for Festival Sanity (the events are too big for this region), Wooyung Action Group (the Yelgun site is prone to flooding), Bluesfest promoter Peter Noble, Greens MP Ian Cohen, the Conservation of North Ocean Shores and the Byron Environmental and Conservation Organisation.

HEATWAVE COLLAPSES, COO MISSING

Florence Welch

In Court: Ray Dorset, who wrote the 30 million-selling ‘In The Summertime’ for his band Mungo Jerry in 1970, claims his former management company siphoned off his royalties by up to £2 million without telling him. Died: ‘70s rock writer Andrew McMillan (RAM, Playboy, Rolling Stone), 54, from bowel cancer. His best known book is Strict Rules, about the Midnight Oil/ Warumpi Band tour through remote NT settlements. He moved to Darwin and wrote about the culture there. Died: Don Cornelius, creator of US TV show Soul Train which broke black acts into the mainstream, 75, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Died: US singer Leslie Carter (sister of Backstreet Boys' Nick Carter and singer Aaron Carter), 25, cause unknown. Her ‘Like Wow’ was in Shrek 1. Died: Dale Alexander, 34, breakfast show host and chairman of the board for Bendigo community radio station 101.5 Fresh FM. Died: King Stitt, a pioneer in the distinctive Jamaican vocal practice of toasting, 72, complications from diabetes and prostate cancer. Died: US folk bassist Dick Kniss, 74, of respiratory disease. He played with John Denver (who co-wrote his ‘Sunshine On My Shoulders’) and Peter, Paul & Mary, and was active in the civil rights movement.

TAMWORTH/NASHVILLE INCREASE LINKS

The country music capitals of Tamworth and Nashville have long created links and opportunities for each other’s artists. There’s talk they’ll one day officially become sister cities. In the meantime, the relationship intensified when the mayor of Nashville, Karl Dean, sent an invite via US country performer Jerry Salley for Tamworth mayor Col Murray to attend the Nashville CMA Music Festival, which runs June 7-10.

Metallica

TIJUANA

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09 FEB

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12 FEB

MAIN STAGE

Sando Sketch Club Life Drawing

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Unherd Open Mic

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BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 17

By Elaine Lipworth How did you initially get involved in filmmaking? Originally I just wanted to build cars, because I like working on them. I was a carpenter and my father wouldn’t let me go to art school, so I started to learn photography. I went to a film school, USC (University of Southern California). At the time I didn’t have any idea that you could learn to make movies in college – I didn’t know much about movies. But then I discovered that I loved to make films, and I was extremely good at it. I found my passion.

o this date, Star Wars is still the highest-grossing film franchise in the history of cinema; comprising six films, made across almost three decades, it’s also one of the longest-running and largest. Even if you aren’t old enough to remember the first Star Wars opening in 1977 (or the The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, or Return of the Jedi in 1983), most of us can remember the hype around the 1999 release of The Phantom Menace, which saw George Lucas revisit his franchise after a 16-year hiatus. Set 32 years before the events of the original Star Wars, The Phantom Menace follows the young Jedi apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the talented wannabe-Jedi Anakin Skywalker (before he goes evil). The movie was phenomenally successful, and at this point is still the third highest-grossing sci-fi/fantasy film in US box office history (behind Avatar and the original Star Wars). 13 years later, the force – and The Phantom Menace – returns, but this time in the immersive, detail-rich glory of 3D (with the rest of the series to follow in the coming years). Below, creator George Lucas talks about making the conversion to 3D, what fans can expect to see, and his own incredible career. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor)

By Elaine Lipworth Can you discuss what drives this story? The story is twofold: Why does somebody who starts out being good become bad? It also reflects the father’s journey, how he becomes bad, and it follows the journey of the son who refuses to become bad, and in the process redeems his father. A new generation needs to try to improve the world. How have the advancements in visual effects influenced the storytelling? The first three movies were made very carefully with limited sets, very limited costumes, very limited aliens and spaceships. But when I went to do The Phantom Menace and the subsequent two movies I was free, because we had developed the visual technology by that time. I could basically do anything I wanted. I went from essentially doing frescoes and paintings on the ceilings of churches, to working out in the field with oil paints and watching the sun hit the leaves, and seeing a whole different world. Why was there a 16-year gap between Star Wars movies and the second trilogy, and how did the stories develop? Originally, the second trilogy was the backstory that was written for the first trilogy, to answer all the questions that are in the first trilogy about the Empire: who the Sith were, who the Jedi were; where did Darth Vader come from? What was his story, how did he grow up? How did he become Darth Vader? In a way, it sort of wrote itself. When you look back at The Phantom Menace and the second trilogy, what are your thoughts? I love the story. I love the fact that I was able to tell the entire story of Darth Vader – or as I like to call it, the tragedy of Darth Vader. It rounds out the whole series and tells the full story from the beginning to the end. Jake Lloyd as the young Anakin Skywalker

What made you want to convert this film into 3D? Originally, I was not a big fan of 3D; I really thought it was a gimmick. Then later on I was trying to get digital projectors into the theatres; I was doing a presentation in Las Vegas [when] Bob Zemeckis and Jim Cameron came up to me and said, ‘We want to get 3D into the theatres. Would you join us in showing the theatre owners that you can do 3D?’ I said, ‘That’d be good because in order to do 3D you have to have digital theatres – so it would promote my idea of digital theatres.’ Then when I saw the test we did of Star Wars in 3D, I realised how great it was and how great it looked. So what are the challenges? I don’t like things coming out into the audience; I like everything to be behind the proscenium. I think 3D is an art – you need artists who have a sensibility about where things fit in the frame. It’s very subtle but it’s very, very important. We had an advantage because we had experts in visual effects like John Knoll. We had the skill set of ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) and people who had worked in 3D on films, including Avatar – so we could get a group of people together that could actually do this. How exactly does seeing the film in 3D enrich the experience? It’s like the difference between watching a film in black and white and watching a film in colour: it works in black and white but it works better in colour. It is the same thing with 3D. … The depth brings a lot of reality to the digital characters like Jar Jar Binks and Watto; you just feel that they’re more realistic. They actually take up the real space instead of being plastered on the screen in 2D. Also, in terms of depth and telling the story, there are things going on in the background that are very important. You notice them more in 3D than you do in 2D.

Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala

“Originally, I was not a big fan of 3D; I really thought it was a gimmick... 3D is an art – you need artists who have a sensibility of where things fit in the frame.” Jedi Master Yoda

What was your next step? Once I started making movies, they began winning awards, and I started getting scholarships and a lot of recognition at film festivals. I wanted to see whether I could make a living in the film world, because at that point it was very tough. I thought, ‘I’ll be a cameraman and an editor and I’ll do documentary films, and make experimental films in my spare time.’ That was my plan. At Warner Bros., I met up with Francis [Ford Coppola] and got mixed up in the film business and found that it was exciting. Francis and I agreed that we didn’t want to be in Hollywood, so we moved to San Francisco and started a film company there. For me, [the aim] was to make avantgarde, off-the-wall movies. Francis challenged me to do something that was not scientific and arty, that was just a comedy. I said, ‘Okay, I can do a comedy,’ and I started writing American Graffiti. Did that lead to a change in direction for you? It took two years to get American Graffiti off the ground, which I did primarily because I needed a job. I took the idea around to all the studios and they all said no; nobody wanted it, so it was a struggle. Finally we went to Universal, who said, ‘If you can get a big-name producer attached to the film, we’ll take it.’ Francis had just finished The Godfather … so he put his name on the film so that I could get it done. I finally got it made but the studio didn’t like it – they put it on the shelf. So what happened? We arranged screenings with real audiences, and every time the film screened it had a fantastic reception. They finally decided to release it in August … it was a huge hit. Alan Ladd Jr. from Fox had seen it at one of these screenings, and he said, ‘Do you have any more movies?’ I said, ‘I do have another, it is a sort of space opera.’ …Your life goes on funny paths; there’s no way to predict really where you’re going to go. I thought American Graffiti would be the most successful film I would ever make – but that turned out to be Star Wars. What: Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace in 3D When: Opens February 9

“Everything we touch now, turns to gold” – GARÇON GARÇON 18 :: BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12

DENZEL

RYAN

WASHINGTON

REYNOLDS

THE CIA’S BEST AGENT HAS BECOME THEIR MOST DANGEROUS THREAT Soundtrack on Back Lot Music and Varése Sarabande

Violence and infrequent coarse language

IN CINEMAS FEBRUARY 9 WWW.THESAFEHOUSEMOVIE.COM.AU

BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 19

Cass McCombs Keeping It Chaotic By Oliver Downes

s a fat man once said of the motherland, Cass McCombs is ‘a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’. With press contact limited to email after the release of his beautifully tender fourth record Catacombs in 2009, McCombs took the logical next step of conducting all promotion of last year’s WIT’S END by post. While the more cynical may attribute the resulting aura of mystery to conscious strategy, McCombs offers a more straightforward explanation: “I don’t want to appear like a self-promoter.” Which makes this eventuation of this phone interview seem nigh on miraculous. Speaking from New York City before his upcoming Australian tour, McCombs is careful in his responses – occasionally veering into playful irony, having supposedly spent his day “painting my face, taking my clothes off, getting high” – with an innocuous inquiry into musical influences eliciting a typically reticent reply: “I’ve never really been big on talking about other music. I have my heroes, but... I’d say my music is more influenced by my friends and my family and the world around me than it is by anybody else’s music. My music is about my music, not about anybody’s else’s music.”

When life is perfect, what’s to question?

As even a cursory listen will attest, McCombs’ music is as unusual, moving and deliberate as anything in modern pop, managing that rare trick of seeming at once spontaneous as well as exquisitely wrought. His contradictory propensities were perhaps most finely balanced on third album Dropping The Writ (2008), with songs like ‘That’s That’ or the gorgeous ‘Petrified Forest’ containing both wry melancholy and gentle humour; harmonic minimalism and textural complexity; inertia and endlessly unfolding motion. These divergent tendencies were isolated to superb effect in last year’s dual releases: the sublimely bleak WIT’S END and, six months later, the more comfortably mellow Humor Risk. Lyrically, McCombs deals in fleeting sketches, related in language that seems to strive towards both the revelatory and the mundane, the stories emerging through an accumulation of gesture rather than any overt narrative. “I’m just constantly trying to find not necessarily stories, but ideas that make my skin crawl, that give me a chemical reaction,” he says. “Political ideas, erotic ideas, devious ideas. I’ll let all the other bands write the happy-go-lucky safety songs. I like being the guy who takes care of the compost pile.

“I’ll let all the other bands write the happygo-lucky safety songs. I like being the guy who takes care of the compost pile.” “The first thing I want to be with my writing is spontaneous,” McCombs explains. “I need to have the ability to just write something with energy, that’s not calculated – that’s just blurted out, the first thing that comes to mind. But on the other hand you want to have downtime where you’re not writing, you’re just listening and collecting what other people say; you want to do them justice. I don’t really have a technique other than to keep it chaotic.” Although he expresses an extreme disdain for the recording process (“I hate bands that have ‘a sound’. I’m totally opposed to the commodification of music and that’s what recordings are: they’re commodities, they isolate a song ... so that you can’t really imagine it otherwise”), McCombs’ most recent recorded work is particularly immaculate, comprised of carefully varied arrangements straining towards a musical apotheosis within the strict confines of the song; the meandering bass clarinet that closes ‘Memory’s Stain’ springs to mind, or the mannered harpsichord of ‘Buried Alive’. But McCombs doesn’t care to claim sole credit, recognising the important contributions of the rotating cavalcade of musicians who’ve taken up with him. “We try to make it as collaborative as we can. That’s why we call it the Cass McCombs Band, [it’s] not just me up there,” he says. “Everyone has a stake in it, and when we’re on stage everyone is equal. We do a lot of improvisation and everyone is very accomplished in their skills... It’s a pretty good platoon we have here.” Though at the time of writing he had “yet to buy the plane tickets”, Australian audiences’ first taste of Cass McCombs’ live show seems likely to be an interesting one. “When you perform, anything can happen,” he says. “When I go to see shows, I go with zero expectations. I want to feel violated. So that’s what I try to do when I perform: try to violate people ... I think people want to see a disaster. They don’t want the big, strong, confident superhero up there, they want a fucking spectacle ... What I look for at a performance is energy; chaos and violence and creation and movement. I don’t want something that’s canned.”

A new comedy From the creators of The Castle and The Dish

Pre-packaged is the last thing McCombs could be accused of being. His work remains elusively uncategorisable, slipping between the generic cracks; it reflects the questing restlessness and dissatisfaction with any fixed certainty that characterise its creator. Indeed, his songs seem pervaded by the sense that music is one means by which Cass McCombs can obliterate the nagging selfishness of the individual ego. “To put on a mask is to transform oneself, you mutate your soul. You become a shape-changer. I think songs have that ability. What I want is to have a wide range of abilities. I want my life to be like a deck of cards that’s spread out all over the place. I don’t want to be nailed down to any one gender or political perspective or anything. I want to be able to change as I find suitable.” What: Humor Risk is out now on Domino, through EMI With: Songs

Coarse language and sex scene

20 :: BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12

IN CINEMAS NOW

Where: The Standard When: Saturday February 18

Black Lips Rest For The Wicked By Benjamin Cooper

ery few groups enjoy a live reputation like that of Black Lips. Then again, very few groups can vomit on each other while on stage and still cause dancing en masse. Their most recent visit for 2010’s Laneway Festival yielded a typically charged sideshow at Manning Bar, notable for both the headliner’s set and the choice of support acts. Royal Headache and Twerps, the former everyone’s favourite band and the latter Jessica Alba’s, also made an impression on bassist and vocalist Jared Swilley. “That was an intense show,” he says. “Cole [Alexander, guitar and vocals] was throwing up and we were all tired from touring. I remember watching that first band with the shirtless guy pacing – they were pretty good.” In spite of their raucous reputation, or indeed perhaps because of it, the group’s studio releases comprise surprisingly varied and increasingly mature guitar pop tunes. 2011’s Arabia Mountain is a return to the cleaner feel of the band’s 2007 crossover LP Good Bad Not Evil, due in part to the influence of British mega-producer Mark Ronson. It was an unexpected collaboration that was undertaken with some trepidation – but not on the part of the band. “We were really excited about working with him,” Swilley says. “Everyone knows that he’s the man for it, but he was kind of freaked out about working with us... He was worried about not interfering with our sound too much. It was really important to him, from the start and all the way through the sessions, that we were all making choices together.”

of dates – we do Thailand, Vegas, Sydney. They don’t exactly follow one another, y’know? Which is not to say it won’t be really awesome...” Whether vomiting on stage in Sydney, freaking out super-producers in the studio or behaving like gentlemen in South East Asia, Black Lips continue to surprise. And there’s a pleasingly positive consequence of the band members’ geographical diaspora. “When we do all get together, it is on. It’s cool to be touring an album I’m personally really happy with, and I can’t wait to see the guys. I think having had that extra bit of rest is important, because I know it’s summer where you are and I’d like to check out some stuff,” he says. “But this bad TV is pretty good right now...” What: Arabia Mountain is out now With: Circle Pit, Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys Where: The Standard When: Sunday March 4 More: Also playing at Playground Weekender alongside Chic, UNKLE Sounds, Modeselektor (live), Roots Manuva, Neon Indian and more, from March 2-4 at Wisemans Ferry.

Describing Ronson’s role as simply “a fifth set of ears” seems entirely appropriate given the band’s origins and continuing operation as a collaborative unit, who embrace their devotion to each other through equal parts partying and rock’n’roll. It was the first time the band had used anyone from outside the group in a producer role, and they also called on Lockett Pundt from fellow Atlantan group Deerhunter to produce two tracks, including first single ‘Go Out And Get It’. According to Swilley, Pundt’s involvement was “really great, man… We were kind of running out of time in New York, so to be able to head back home [to Atlanta] and work on a whole bunch of stuff – and particularly getting it done with so many friends... It honestly doesn’t feel as though the band has changed at all. We’ve just drafted some other awesome people.”

“Usually when we’ve finished recording and I get to hear a copy of the masters, I want to chop and change all this stuff around. With this one, though, I think we’ve done a really good job.” Black Lips’ admiration of the masters of rhythm and blues is well documented. At the aforementioned Sydney show, they returned for another encore to smash through Chuck Berry’s ‘Too Much Monkey Business’ with a fervor bordering on the maniacal. Combining their ability to conjure such visceral energy (even at the end of a show) with Ronson’s famed pedigree and nous has resulted in a record that Swilley is thrilled with, “probably for the first time of all our albums. Usually when we’ve finished recording and I get to hear a copy of the masters, I want to chop and change all this stuff around. With this one, though, I think we’ve done a really good job.” The album, recorded in the band’s hometown of Atlanta as well as in New York, also gave Swilley the opportunity to head out from the West Coast. “I’m living in L.A. now, which is kind of a weird town. But I do like it, and you get to see a whole lot of stuff you’d never experience anywhere else.” The rest of the band are scattered around Georgia. “They’re probably doing the exact same thing as me today, which involves relaxing, hard... When we tour we do go pretty hard, so today I’m not doing a thing. Just sitting and watching bad TV.” The upcoming tour promises to unite the Southerners in a variety of far-flung locales. “I think we’re all meeting in Thailand,” Swilley says. “At least I hope we are, because that’s where I’m going!” And he’s quick to dismiss claims that the band go on mischief-making rampages when on tour. “You just watch – we’re going to hit Bangkok airport, be perfect gentlemen, and we’ll sit up straight on the ride into town.” After Thailand the band are returning to America to play some shows in Vegas. “It’s kind of an interesting bunch BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 21

Austra

Break Through By Thomas Bailey

hen Katie Stelmanis – the founder/ lead of ethereal synth-pop group, Austra – was a girl in Toronto, she dreamt of becoming an opera singer. She joined the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus, where she sang for the renowned Canadian Opera Company; she trained extensively on the viola and piano, preparing to realise her chosen career. But something happened that made her shift gears in a decidedly dramatic way. Stelmanis discovered electronic music. “I stumbled on [electronic music] by accident!” she laughs over the phone, as she drives through the Canadian countryside on her way to Calgary. “When I was 19, I decided I wanted to make orchestral music, and at the time the easiest way for me to do that was to use MIDI. So I got a computer and a MIDI controller and I triggered some violin and cello samples, and that’s how it all got started. Instead of moving onto real instruments, I just really got into synthesisers and I moved on to the world of bass and drums instead.” Stelmanis was having so much fun with her MIDI and her heavily distorted sampled sounds (“I would put distortion on everything!” she cheerfully proclaims) that she began fronting her own band, Galaxy, and recorded her 2008 solo debut, Join Us, in her bedroom. “I toured for a really long time,” she says – and it was during that nonstop slew of performing her “weird music” that the seeds to Austra were borne. “Maya [Postepski, drummer] and I had played previously in Galaxy, and when I started touring I asked her to come with me as my drummer, so we were playing together for a long time. We met Dorian [Wolf, bassist] about two years ago through a friend … and it was an instant fit,” she explains. “It became more and more of a collaborative effort, and that’s when we decided it didn’t make sense performing as ‘Katie Stelmanis’ anymore … We wanted to become Austra, so that’s what happened.” After becoming Austra, it was time to head to the studio to begin work on their debut LP, Feel It Break. Driven by intricate synths, Postepski’s fervent drumming, basslines that you can feel through your feet and – of course – Stalmanis’s soaring operatic voice, it’s a nearly flawless record. So it’s understandable that the album took a fair bit of time. “Some of the songs were written before [Join Us]! So when we actually had the opportunity, the budget and the funds to do the record, we had four years of material to go through,” Stelmanis explains. “It was kind

Unwritten Law Rewritten By Josh Fergeus

of a smorgasbord of material, so that’s why I’m excited to write a new record, because it’s gonna be completely different … It’ll be like a ‘write a new record in two months’ kind of vibe, so I’m really kind of curious to see what that yields as opposed to Feel It Break.” For Stalmanis, electronic music and classical music actually have quite a bit in common: “Just in the way there’s so much possibility with the arrangements and everything you can do with the instruments, both rhythmically and sonically. I think that’s why I’m particularly drawn to electronic music – because it seems to be as wide a palette as being a classical composer is. You can do anything with electronic music, whereas with a fourpiece rock band you’re kind of limited to that instrumentation in a way.” She also enjoys the opportunity for sensuality afforded by the genre. “I feel that sensuality and sexuality is a big part of our music, and is a big part of what we’re doing. Canada is very, very prominent in indie rock, and I find that indie rock in general is the most asexual genre of music that’s ever existed. It was kind of a liberation in a way, to make our music as sensual and as real as we could – to get away from that asexuality!” What: Feel It Break and an accompanying EP of remixes, Sparkle, are out now on Domino Records, through EMI Where: The Basement When: Thursday February 9

hey’ve sold more than one million albums and survived a multitude of record labels and lineup changes – and even bomb attacks. After six long years Unwritten Law are back in the mix with their sixth studio album, Swan. “We were still playing [during the break], but everyone was doing their own thing, spending time with their families,” says vocalist Scott Russo, the only remaining original band member. “We got together and it was a bit like, ‘What do we do? How do we go about this?’ It was kind of a cool experience, really. We decided to do things a bit differently and write a couple of songs each; try and split the writing duties on the record.” But having been out of the studio for so long, it proved to be a little harder than expected. “It was a bit of a load off my back sharing the writing, but we found that some of the songs weren’t strong enough – and we wanted the record to ... be strong at every level. So we went back and spent another 14 or 15 months writing more songs, and Swan ended up being the result of those efforts,” says Russo. “I wouldn’t say it was difficult as such, but it was extremely tedious. We were determined to trump our last record. I rewrote shit like four or five times.” Russo, together with guitarist Steve Morris, bassist Pat “PK” Kim, and drummer Dylan Howard, ended up taking years to complete the record. Morris is on the record as saying the band “had all but completely succumbed to the extreme pitfalls of being a band. We had no money left, we owed money to everyone, everyone in the industry hated us, and we were barely hanging on by a thread.” But hang on they did. Kind of. “There weren’t any moments when I felt like throwing in the towel, because I knew how close we were to creating what I think is our best piece of work,” says Russo. “Unwritten Law is my baby, you know? In the end we got to a point where we all

felt that this was our moment – the end of our sixyear hiatus.” Late last year, after the album was finally finished, Morris and Kim left the band. Morris was a founding member, and Kim had given Unwritten Law 13 years service, so it’s understandable that Russo was deeply affected by their departure. “Things change, people change. We’d done a lot of touring, and they just wanted to move on. It was saddening – heartbreaking really – but I just had to move on too, and find people who wanted to be there. After 22 years of playing together it was just that time,” he says. “It is what it is. You can’t change how other people feel.” Armed with two new band members – Kevin Besignano (ex-Bullets and Octane) on guitar, and Derik Envy (ex-Red Light Sky) on bass – along with drummer Dylan Howard, Russo is pleased how Swan is being received. “With anything you do in life, the more you do it the better you get. The same is true for songwriting. Every song we felt had to be perfect in its own right. We didn’t want any B-sides, and I think we pulled that off.” After so much turmoil, Swan is ready to go; the first Unwritten Law album since Here’s To The Mourning in 2005. And Russo sure is psyched to give Aussie fans a sample of the material. “I fucking love you guys. I’m so grateful for your support down there throughout our career. We’re really looking forward to getting out there to rock with you.” What: Swan is out now With: Marilyn Manson, System Of A Down, Slipknot, Macine Head, Mastodon and loads more Where: Soundwave Festival @ Sydney Showground When: Sunday February 26

Bombay Bicycle Club Less Destruction, More Dancing By Alasdair Duncan

“We recorded our first album when we were all 18, and that was a collection of energetic indie rock songs that we’d written over the four years beforehand,” he says, explaining his band’s shifting styles. “Afterwards, we recorded a collection of what we thought would be acoustic bonus tracks, but we decided they were good songs in their own right so we put them together and released them as an album. We were worried that people wouldn’t like it because it was so different than our first, but they seemed to really enjoy it. The third is different again, much more electronic. People might be put off by that idea at first, but at the heart of it, they’re all Bombay Bicycle Club songs.”

As a bass player, Ed Nash enjoys the loose, danceable feel of the songs from A Different Kind Of Fix – not least of all because it allows him to channel his inner Peter Hook on stage. “I do love playing the new songs live,” he says. “I mean, I love the old songs, don’t get me wrong, but the bass parts in the new ones are just a lot more interesting for me, and I can get into them a lot more.” Audiences, too, have appreciated the change. “We used to have a lot of people

who’d come to our shows and fight and get on stage and smash stuff up, which wasn’t ideal,” he says. “Since we’ve started playing the newer, less guitar-based songs, there’s been less destruction and more dancing, which is nice!” Bombay Bicycle Club have been spending a lot of time on the road lately, bouncing around Asia and America before heading to Australia in March – and as Nash tells

Australia has embraced Bombay Bicycle Club – ‘Shuffle’ placed at #88 in this year’s Hottest 100 – and the band, about to embark on their first ever trip here, are looking forward to embracing Australia. “We’re really super excited about it – I literally can’t wait!” Nash says. “We’ve been talking about the tour for the last month and we’re all excited. If any fans come up to us after the gig, we’re very happy to talk to them and say hi – and if anyone wants to take us around and show us the sights, we’re very keen for that, too!” What: A Different Kind Of Fix is out now Where: Oxford Art Factory / The Metro Theatre When: Wednesday March 28 (sold out, all-ages) / Thursday March 29 (on sale now, all-ages) More: Also supporting Elbow at the Hordern Pavilion on Monday March 26

“You left without leaving. Your ghost is still here. Don’t let go…” - GARÇON GARÇON 22 :: BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12

Bombay Bicycle photo by Jo McCaughey

it, this has forced them to grow up. “I think you really do have to get into a routine, otherwise you lose your mind,” he says. “In the beginning we were touring a lot and partying every night – that’s fun for a few months, but you can’t keep doing that or you’ll go nuts. I’ve got into doing exercise, which I never really did before. I try to do half an hour of that – swimming in the hotel pool, running, whatever. I think the important thing is to try and look after yourself a bit, so you can feel like a human being.”

resh-faced UK band Bombay Bicycle Club don’t like to stay in the one place for too long. The youngsters are three albums into their career, but each one is strikingly different, from scruffy guitar rock to acoustic melancholy to their latest, A Different Kind Of Fix, which has a distinctly indie dance feel, and spawned the infectious, piano-led ‘Shuffle’. As bass player Ed Nash tells it, they don’t consciously try and change their sound each time – but being young and foolish as they are, they’re happy to follow any whim that takes their fancy. “We don’t put any restrictions on ourselves,” he says, “and we’ve never tried to make an album based on what we think people might like. We just do whatever’s interesting to us.”

Elbow We Have Lift Off By Bridie Connellan dropped us because they were taken over by [Universal] basically, and there were no other reasons than that. But we hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even released the album yet, we had recorded it but not released it, so it was a bit of a shock. The same album that Island dropped was nominated for the Mercury Prize a few years later. That was nice, especially because we saw some of the guys who dropped us at that ceremony,â&#x20AC;? he laughs. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Might have been a bit of a mistake thereâ&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;?

lbowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s last album was the first they made knowing it was actually going to be released. For a band with more critical acclaim than Doves, Embrace and Athlete, and roped together with a copy of NME, a Brit Award and love from the entire BBC, this Manchester fivesome have spent twenty years deserving some goddamn recognition. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve come a long way, but weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had a lot of knockbacks,â&#x20AC;? says keyboardist Craig Potter. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve lost our record deal three times now or something, so every time we really appreciate [the next step]. We never take anything for granted. I think thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s where a lot of bands go wrong initially; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to progress quite quickly and not really appreciate it at all. God, we appreciate the good stuff.â&#x20AC;? Potter has emerged on a Thursday morning from their resident haunt Blueprint Studios in

Flipping the bird at their original label with a swag of accolades (a Brit Award, a Mercury Prize, the Ivor Novello Award, the South Bank Pop award, an NME award and Mojo Magazineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Song Of The Year), the Mancunians have every reason to be smug little chavs. But with their roots still firm in Greater Manchester, Elbow would eat their hat before losing their heads to fame. Potter chuckles recalling the bandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first gig back in 1990 under the moniker Mr Soft, a ramshackle performance in a now-defunct local pub called The Corner Pin, in Ramsbottom. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We were squeezed into a space, probably two by two metres square, next to the bar. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s funny because we played there so many times, and we had lots of friends who used to come down and watch, so I remember it quite well â&#x20AC;&#x201C; even down to the little PA we used to bring along. The guy who used to run the pub would give everyone a lift home afterwards â&#x20AC;&#x201C; they were really good to us, and it was almost like a residency. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got a lot of memories from there.â&#x20AC;?

Salford, where the band have been casually selfproducing their sixth studio album, one month in, one month out. This time around, Elbow are taking the follow-up to 2011â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s darling complexity Build A Rocket Boys! one a track at a time, working each piece through to completion and finishing what they start like proper grown-ups. Consistently labelled as something of a â&#x20AC;&#x153;secretâ&#x20AC;? underground alternative sensation (despite support slots for Coldplay and U2, headlining Leeds, Reading and Glastonbury, and watching their melodically innovative albums soar up the UK charts and beyond), until recently Elbowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sales success had been criminally underwhelming. If weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going way back, their first EPs and album in 1997 were signed to Island Records before the label culled the band in a major shift. Admirably, Potterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attitude towards the industry players who gave up on his band is relatively lenient. â&#x20AC;&#x153;[Island]

Potterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wistful talk of British rugby as a youngster and starting a band as a 15-year-old speaks of an appreciation for the past â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but then itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hardly unlike Elbow to get nostalgic. The bandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s last studio album Build A Rocket Boys! saw notoriously introspective singer Guy Garvey declare he was â&#x20AC;&#x153;too happyâ&#x20AC;? in his songwriting, the result of which was a swirl of reflective longing and a celebration of youth, with the singer posing the question, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do they know these days are golden?â&#x20AC;? (â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Lippy Kidsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;). Craig Potter assures that the memory trip of â&#x20AC;&#x153;stealing booze and hour-long hungry kissesâ&#x20AC;? was shared by all. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The last album is very much about Guyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s views, and we were part of that as well,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve still got a lot of friends who grew up with us over the years, and Guy describes things that we all remember so well. The songs mean so much to everyone, really.â&#x20AC;?

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve still got a lot of friends who grew up with us over the years, and Guy describes things that we all remember so well. The songs mean so much to everyone, really.â&#x20AC;? Garveyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s honesty was plain when he told Jools Holland last year, â&#x20AC;&#x153;We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t expect gold medals.â&#x20AC;? In a lovely irony, the five have just been commissioned to write the official BBC music for the London Olympics â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a piece the band has described as â&#x20AC;&#x153;soundscapeyâ&#x20AC;?. But like their music, nothing about Potterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reflections on his bandmates is hollow or pretentious â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a humble attitude that has probably saved the lads from becoming The Biggest Band In England, allowing them room to carve their own unique brand of deeply intelligent, intricately detailed, semi-butnot-quite commercial, explosive sound. Children have been born, friends have died, labels have been argued with, records have been made, sold, toured and treasured â&#x20AC;&#x201C; twenty years is a long time for the same five guys to keep their heads together. With no lineup changes since Potter, his brother Mark, Garvey, bassist Pete Turner and drummer Richard Jupp first rolled into the rowdy â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Pin, the solidarity between such serious musicians is pretty damn commendable. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re just lucky to get on so well,â&#x20AC;? Potter says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We split all things five ways, all things including money. I think a lot of arguments in bands ultimately come down to money, so we learnt quite early on that [an even split] is probably the best. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s amazing how far weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve gone considering weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been living in each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pockets for 20 years. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re just good mates.â&#x20AC;? With: Bombay Bicycle Club Where: The Hordern Pavilion When: Monday March 26

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SHEENA MISS DEMEANOUR my burlesque shows, I still train in ballet to keep myself grounded.

performers that have a likeness, style or gimmick that reflects a celebrity or public figure.

When did you create the character Sheena Miss Demeanour? About seven years ago I took myself along to a burlesque show and valued the entertainment on offer more than ever. It inspired me to be on the stage under the same banner as these beautiful empowered women and create my own performance destiny and art. About 12 months later, Sheena Miss Demeanour was born.

Tell us about this particular lady (pictured): Lillian Starr has been channelling Madonna incarnations for a couple of years now, and she is definitely our most favoured Dame! Not only does she have an uncanny likeness to Maddie, she has worked hard on perfecting the choreography and styling of her act to ensure it is just like watching the real thing (and she has amazing back-up dancers to create the crème on top). Lillian is one of Australia’s top burlesque artists and her polished performance pieces never disappoint.

What’s the inspiration for the Doppelgänger Dames show? I performed my ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ act one night, and conversations were had backstage about how much I resembled Barbara Eden’s Jeannie. I then started fantasising about how great it would be to have an event where burlesque performers represented celebrities – a great twist on the ‘usual’, and a fun way of introducing burlesque to virgin audiences.

hat’s your own background/training as a performer? I started out in the ballet studio at age 3, and dreamed of being a ballerina – till my early 20s, when my life took a twist when I visited the USA and became immersed in hip hop and street dance. From then I started to explore other genres of dance, including cabaret showgirl, pole dance and even Bollywood – but my heart has now settled with burlesque. Whilst I use elements of all my dance training and experience to create

THE GREY! TIX! WIN!

Who will you be reincarnating on the night? Jeannie is resting in her bottle this season and I am going a bit further a field with Goldie Hawn’s ‘Private Benjamin’. Definitely one of the most challenging shows I have put together to date… let’s just say it is going to be explosive! How did you select the ladies on the lineup? I am lucky to have good working relationships with many of Sydney’s top burlesque talent. Working on stage and as a teacher mentoring students, I am always on the look-out for

The Grey opens in cinemas on February 16 – and we have 15 in-season double passes up for grabs; to find out what the fuss is about, email us with your postal address and the name of one other film by director Joe Carnahan. Liam Neeson

What: Doppelgänger Dames feat. Sheena Miss Demeanour, Imogen Kelly, Lillian Starr, Baby Blue Bergman, Venus Vamp, Rod Lara, Lusty Towers, Delilah du Moan and more When: Sunday February 19 from 7pm Where: The Standard / Lvl 3, 383 Bourke St, Taylor Square (above Kinselas) More: galleryburlesque.com

now Minister for the Arts – which we suppose is how we got on his media list. That puts us on the cutting edge of reporting on things like his speech at the AACTA awards (“The Australian film industry was not only successful at the box office, but also on TV, with fantastic television production.”), and his Australia Day speech about Australian Of the Year, Geoffrey Rush (“With more than 40 years of acting experience and the ‘Triple Crown’ of an Oscar, Tony and Emmy, Geoffrey Rush is a shining star of the Australian stage and screen.”) On a serious note, we also hear that there’s a review of the Australia Council underway, and a National Cultural Policy in the pipeline. Watch this space.

HISTORY OF BURLESQUE

You can spend an idle few hours or so reading The Australian History Of Burlesque – or you can pop in to The Living History of Australian Burlesque at The Factory Theatre this weekend, where Aussie neo-burlesque queen Imogen Kelly is conducting a tour through the saucier parts of our past pioneers and legends – from Lola Montez to Miss Nude World, and Norman Lindsay’s Tableau Vivants. Inspired by America’s

‘Burlesque Hall of Fame Living Legends' show, the event includes footage, recreations by Tasia, Imogen Kelly, Lola the Vamp and Christa Hughes (among others) and performances by some of Australia’s original showgirls (including Elizabeth Burton, who stopped the war – almost – when she performed for our troops during the Vietnam War). Saturday February 11 from 8pm.

CYCLE IN CINEMA

Remember the Spicks and Specks segment where the contestant has to power a record player by riding a bicycle? The Cycle In Cinema outdoor screenings up that ante, inviting punters to arrive early to plug their bikes into generator stands and take turns riding, to power the screening. It’s the brainchild of Magnificent Revolution Australia, a not-for-profit established in 2010 with the aim of bringing pedal power to events, workshops and art installations. Cycle In Cinema will set up shop in Taylor Square, and cyclists can arrive from 7.30pm to plug in their bikes – then lay back and watch a film from Queer Screen (Friday February 24) or shorts by COFA graduates (Saturday Feb 25 and Sunday Feb 26). More deets at magrev.org.au Stagekittens Noir Notoire and Lady Medusa

LOCAL POSITIONING SYSTEMS

The Museum of Contemporary Art has just announced a program of performance and durational works to take place as part of their re-opening celebrations (circle March 29 in your diary). Among our favourites are Bennett Miller’s Daschund UN (a United Nations of daschunds – yes there will be real live sausage dogs in this one, speaking Spanish.) and Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich’s Celestial Radio, which will see an actual ship set up shop in the harbour outside the MCA, broadcasting a pirate radio for your soul – all those deeper questions about life, the universe and everything… Besides this, the lineup includes works by Lara Thoms, Julie-Anne Long, Jason Maling, Stuart Ringholt, Latai Taumoepeau, and the UK-based collaborative Walker & Bromwich. Local Positioning Systems runs from March 29 – June 3. Mca.com.au

HELLO DOLLIES

We didn’t know we liked dolls until we saw the pics from this upcoming show at Penrith Regional Gallery – everything from Kate Just’s knitted air-pilot concoction to Adrienne Doig’s handpainted self-portrait set of five Russian Dolls, and Penny Byrne’s psychedelic mash-up sculpture Green Wash Warrior rides in to Save the Planet. Otherwise, the lineup includes Will Coles, Matt Coyle, Destiny Deacon, Rosalie Gascoigne, Alasdair Macintyre, Tracey Moffatt – and heaps more. Hello Dollies runs February 11 – April 22; Penrithregionalgallery.org

IT’S NOT THE WOLF

Joel Dickens opens a solo show of new paintings this week, inspired by his own reactions to news and current affairs. Titled it’s not the wolf you need to be afraid of, the collection embraces chaos and colour – and with titles like ‘All This Effort Just To Appear Normal’ and ‘Like Noise From A Party You’re Not Invited To’, we’re getting a very what-Radiohead-would-look-like-oncanvas vibe. The show runs from February 9-25 at Arthouse Gallery (77 McLachlan Ave, 24 :: BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12

Rushcutters Bay). And in one of those awesome ‘two-for-one’ things you’ve been hearing about, also opening on the night is James Ettelson’s newie, Laugh. joeldickens.com

TROPFEST FINALISTS

Tropfest has dropped its lineup of 15 finalists, ahead of the epic screening event on Sunday February 19 in the Domain (or the decidedly un-epic screening happening in your lounge-room a week or so later, when that DVD comes out in the Herald). The youngest finalist is 16-year-old actress Eva Lazzaro (Tangle; Blessed); the oldest is… no just kidding; six come from NSW and six from Victoria; none came from WA or SA or Tasmania or the NT. As per last year, a sixteenth ‘wildcard’ film will be voted-in by “the public” (that’s YOU!) from ten shorts (including work by comedian Peter Helliar and actors Kick Gurry and Ben Geurens) that screen on Tropfest’s YouTube site THIS WEEK. youtube.com/tropfest

SIMON CREAN

You might remember him as Leader of the Opposition circa 2001-2003, but Simon Crean is

ANYTHING GOES

Venus Vamp & Co. are cracking out the corsets and bringing back their wonderful Weimar cabaret Anything Goes for Mardi Gras Festival 2012, after playing to packed houses at last year’s festival. Expect dapper women and dashing men; expect demented darlings, of the boylesque and neo-burlesque variety: Raven and Defy; drag king extraordinaire Antonio Mantonio; stagekitties Lady Medusa and Noir Notoire – and, of course, Venus Vamp. (If you think you’ve seen it all, this might be the show for you, just quietly). Anything Goes will play Friday February 17 at 9pm (doors 8pm), Friday February 23 at 8.30pm (doors 8pm) and Sunday February 26 at 7.30pm (doors 7pm) The Supper Club, 134 Oxford St Darlinghurst.

Anything Goes – photo by Kris Ezergailis (2011)

Bennett Miller's Daschund UN: yes, it's coming to Sydney

What else can punters expect on the night? MC Nanny Fine will keep the night flowing and go-go dancers will keep you in the mood for love. And in addition to the great soloists, there’s Robert Palmer’s ‘Simply Irresistibles’ and Sweet Charity’s ‘Big Spenders’ – ensemble performances choreographed by me, to reflect the iconic video clips – all with a cheeky twist!

Opening #1 at the US box office two weeks ago, The Grey seems to be going gangbusters based on the fact that a) Liam Neeson as a mercenary wolf-killer is really awesome and b) lots of people want to see a group of guys get eaten by killer wolves. And it’s true – this is Neeson’s best role in ages, playing a burnt-out gun-for-hire on the tail end of a job protecting an oil-rigging crew from wolves, who’s forced to fight for his life when the plane he’s on crashes in the middle of the remote Alaskan wilderness, leaving him and a dwindling group fighting-off the local wolf pack. Far more than your usual action or survivalist film, this is a character piece that could have been written for Neeson.

SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY, MERRIGONG THEATRE COMPANY AND RICHARD JORDAN PRODUCTIONS PRESENT A

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Michael Fassbender stars as sex-addict Brandon, in Shame

SHAME

ON DIRECTING ACTORS

Sex In The City By Dee Jefferson

teve McQueen has a reputation for not suffering fools lightly; fiercely intelligent, and with a background in fine arts rather than the film industry, he can come across in interviews as a bit standoffish. So when a journalist opens my Venice Film Festival round table interview by asking him if he ever thought about changing his name (“no really,” she pushes, “because of, you know, Steve McQueen!”) you can see the rest of the circle wince, ready for a detonation. It’s not as if this towering black British man, a Turner-prize-winning video artist, is going to be confused with the blonde-haired, blue-eyed American action star (who is, besides this, dead). “No, no…” the director says, nonplussed. “Next question?” And it seems almost miraculous that he goes on to give such a considered, open interview.

G IV EA W AY S

McQueen shot to cinematic prominence a few years back with his Cannes prize-winner Hunger – a stylishly executed, visually stunning and profoundly moving portrait of the last days of Irish hunger-striker Bobby Sands. He’s in Venice for the premiere of his follow-up, Shame, which pitches its tent at the other end of the cultural spectrum – decadent uptown New York – and tackles a very different kind of torment: sex addiction. Brandon (played by Irish-German actor Michael Fassbender, who also starred in Hunger) is attractive, successful and charming; underneath this veneer is a damaged soul, self-medicating with

a joyless routine of sex and shame. When his equally damaged younger sister Sissy (played by Carey Mulligan) comes to stay, Brandon finds his balance thrown off, pushing him into crisis. “Both [Bobby Sands and Brandon] are antiheroes,” says McQueen. “I was interested in that – and also interested in what’s going on with technology, and sex. It’s interesting how things are changing how we are introduced to sex. It’s all around us. I did an interview in the tent the other day and there were two girls walking around in white mini-skirts, selling beer. And that’s the norm, now, of course. And that’s obvious – but in some ways I wanted to investigate how it’s affecting us as individuals.” McQueen and co-writer Abi Morgan researched sex addiction intensively. “Shame was the word that was cropping up all the time through interviewing people who had this kind of affliction,” says the director. “What would happen is they would go on a sort of ‘sexcapade’, and when they came out of it they experienced a wave of shame. And then what they would do to get out of the shame was do it all over again. I think we all have our own shame, in a way… and I wanted the movie to be almost like a silent dog whistle going off in the room – everyone knows but no-one’s actually going to talk about it…” What: Shame When: Opens February 9

Carey Mulligan as Brandon’s sister, Sissy

ON RATINGS

(Shame received the NC17 – often deemed a box office kiss of death – for its US release, and a R18+ in Australia.) “Hunger wasn’t released in Spain or Italy; the reason it wasn’t released in those two territories was male frontal nudity. I mean, you know, how many sculptures, how many paintings in both those countries…? It’s ridiculous. ... If cinema is going to survive, we have to deal with things that need immediate attention. As long as [a film] is not irresponsible in what it’s trying to do – I mean, I’m not interested in trying to do slasher movies or snuff films or pornography – but if it’s not irresponsible, what’s the problem?”

ON MICHAEL FASSBENDER

ON CASTING

“[My relationship with him] is very special. There’s a real kind of understanding, and a closeness, and I’m extraordinarily grateful for it. It’s one of those things, it’s like falling in love – it doesn’t happen very often. He’s extraordinarily generous; when he’s on set, he gets on with everyone – he has a wonderful way of putting people at ease. And as an actor? Personally in this film I think he’s moved acting on – he’s not ‘acting’, he’s doing something more than that. You believe him, he’s really doing something – it’s not an ‘act-off’.”

“Somehow [Carey] got hold of the script, and then she met me and I had a conversation with her where I wanted to get away as quickly as possible. But then she forced me to stay, and we had a conversation – and I thought, ‘You know what? Let’s go for it.’ On the spot, I gave her the role. I did that with James Badge Dale as well. Actually the casting of Nicole Beharie (the woman who Brandon has an affair with) was very difficult, because they didn’t want me to cast a black woman in the film. They said it ‘wouldn’t happen’, and that ‘that doesn’t exist’. I said, ‘Well I exist!’ It was a very odd situation.”

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN

WIN!

t’s not hard to see why Michelle Williams won the Golden Globe for her performance as ‘50s screen siren Marilyn Monroe, in this film set during the British shoot for her 1957 rom-com The Prince And the Showgirl, co-starring Sir Laurence Olivier (played by Kenneth Branagh). My Week With Marilyn is based on the memoirs of Colin Clark (played by erstwhile Burberry model Eddie Redmayne), who at the tender age of 23 unexpectedly found himself enlisted as Monroe’s closest confidante, and found himself drawn into her complicated world for one bittersweet week.

My Week With Marilyn opens in cinemas on February 16 We have 10 in-season double passes up for grabs; to find out what the fuss is about, email freestuff@thebrag.com with the name of one other film (not mentioned above) starring Marilyn Monroe.

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“I love working with actors; I loved working with Carey – loved, it, loved it, loved it. And I love being their supporter – making an environment for them that is safe, so that they can be free [to experiment]. … You want it to be like a sphere – so that whatever happens, it doesn’t matter which way they roll, it’s perfect. You have to work to get to that situation [but then] whatever they do in that take is perfect – because they’ve worked to create this character, and their situation.”

ON MAKING ART VS FILMS

“The only difference is storytelling. I mean with art, of course, you can have storytelling, but film is all about storytelling, which is nice for me. … The audiences are different – although [in both cases] there’s the critics and the public. But I love film festivals because I love it when you guys fight over films; it’s fantastic, it’s life and death. That’s how film should be – it should be that passionate and that essential. And art is a bit less than that – it’s much more refined, considered. I love the passion and discussion of films.

LV L 3 , 3 8 3 B O U R K E S T S U R RY H I L L S

L I V E M U S I C , V I S U A L A R T, T H E AT R E , CO M E DY, B U R L E S Q U E & B O O Z E

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MESS WITH THE BEST DIE LIKE THE REST 1 IPOD 3 SONGS

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‘WHAT IS THIS GARBAGE’ EP OUT FEB 10

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THE RUMINATERS PA U L C A P S I S T H E WA U WA U S I S T E R S ( U S A ) B R E N DA N M AC L E A N C A N DY B O W E R S Q U E E N I E VA N D E Z A N D T T Y R A N PA R K E musical director LANCE HORNE

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BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 27

Babyteeth

Neil Watkins

[THEATRE] A Matter of Life and Death By Simon Binns

The Year Of Magical Wanking

“The set designer Bob Cousins and I were having design meetings [for Babyteeth] during tech week of As You Like It because we were already late,” says Flack. As soon Eamon Farren as Moses in Babyteeth

[THEATRE] Neil Watkins Discusses His Altar Ego By Michael Brown

he word ‘wanking’ has featured heavily in my Google searches over the last week, as I readied myself to talk with Irish writer/ performer Neil Watkins about his one-man show The Year of Magical Wanking, coming to Sydney as part of the Mardi Gras Festival. “There is no actual wanking in the show,” Watkins tells me. “You will not see my cock. But, I will describe, at points, wanking. But it’s much more than that. The title is a red herring. To me the play is a very considered study of sexual shame and the journey toward self-acceptance.” Nominated for Best New Play and Best New Performer at Dublin Fringe last year, the play is the story of Watkins’ 33rd year, as he grapples with being a homosexual who has an internet porn addiction and a Jesus complex, living in the land of Catholic guilt. “Growing up Catholic, you knew that gay people were damned. You didn’t know any different, so you did believe it,” Watkins explains. Even as a 33-year-old, regardless of his personal distance from Catholicism, shame was hard to avoid. “I mean Ireland has so many churches in it, so many crucifixes in it, that it’s still there, you know?”

Watkins was also galvanised by touring internationally with the play Silver Stars, which told the stories of gay men who left Ireland because of homophobia. “By the time we toured it for the last time, I decided, I felt, right I’ve told

As Flack sheepishly admits, their excitement for the play reached almost fever pitch in the lead up to their first rehearsals, “to the extent that on New Year’s Eve I drove up to Killcare where Rita was staying; I arrived at quarterto-one in the morning and she read me the scene she’d just finished rewriting for the draft so we could send it out New Year’s Day. We got a bit carried away.” Flack’s last two main-stage offerings couldn’t be further apart in terms of form and content: As You Like It was an excessive ensemble-cast rom-com, all confetti and sheep costumes, whereas his staging of Samuel Beckett’s The End was a onehander exploring existential angst and death. Babyteeth seems to sit pretty much right in the centre; Flack says it’s unlike any he’s ever read or seen. “It’s basically a comedy about a fourteenyear-old girl dying of cancer – [which] doesn’t quite capture the depth and breadth of the experience of life that is going on in the play,” he hastens to tell me. Centred around the terminally ill Milla, the play is populated by extraordinary and perplexing people: Moses, a drug addicted dog groomer who is also the object of Milla’s affections; Gidon, her eccentric Latvian violin teacher; and her parents, who have their own mixed bag of addictions and insecurities.

The realism of Silver Stars also informed The Year of Magical Wanking. “Silver Stars had stripped away everything. I wasn’t allowed to ‘act’,” Watkins recalls. “I realised that the audience liked this – they liked it, they needed it; they needed to see a human up there, not an Oscar Wilde character or a Shakespeare character written from some other time.” The Year Of Magical Wanking is written entirely in verse, a choice that Watkins says gives him a thin buffer against the intensity of the material. “In a way, the verse is so musical and rhythmical, I enjoy that; that gives me something to get my teeth into every night, no matter how painful the material. [Also] I needed to find a way to make it palatable for an audience, and the verse does that…mixing the two big oppositions of hardcore porn with hardcore poetry. And I think there’s as much of a stigma around poetry as there is around porn. You can be accused of being a wanker for both of those things,” he quips.

“If within the crammed existence of daily life – in addition to the task of chewing a sandwich and doing a load of washing and maintaining a marriage – suddenly the task of living or dying is added, how do you do that? Where do you squeeze in an understanding of what it means to live and what it means to die?” This question leaves the characters around Milla in a confusing maelstrom of everyday experiences, their basic needs such as eating and drinking thrown into sharp relief by the reality of a person who might not be able to eat or drink for much longer.

“I think, like, ultimately, the universal thing is about no matter how messed up your life gets, or you get, or you feel, or how much fear is there, you have value, you have worth, and you’re worthy of self love, no matter what destructive, irrational belief you’ve inherited from, you know, organised religion or whatever.”

If it seems like it’s hard to pin this play down, that's precisely what drew Flack to it. “I think the sign of a great play is that it’s irreducible. If you try to describe what the premise of a Shakespeare is, or the premise of a Chekhov, you can articulate after great effort, great thought and a lot of work, a clear premise – and it’s the same with this: you can say it’s the story of a girl dying of cancer, but that doesn’t actually describe what is really going on.”

Amen to that. What: The Year of Magical Wanking When: Tuesday February 14 – Sunday February 18 Where: Sydney Theatre / 22 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay Tickets: from $29 at sydneytheatre.org.au

What: Babyteeth – Dir. Eamon Flack When: February 11 – March 18 Where: Belvoir St Theatre More: Belvoir.com.au

Best We Forget

[THEATRE] Forgettable Theatre By Roslyn Helper

irector Tessa Leong set out to create a show that nobody would be able to remember after leaving the theatre. But, she tells me, “apart from getting people drunk or hypnotising them or learning neuroscience, we realised pretty quickly it would be a hard show to create”.

The Bourne Identity, and researching scientific texts. “We were really broad with where we went. We’re a theatre company who wish we were scientists – yesterday Jude [Henshall] was looking up YouTube science experiments that made boats go around in water and water go up tubes, and saying, ‘Yeah, let’s do that on stage!’”

Rather than being forgettable, the resulting play, Best We Forget, is an experience that challenges the audience to engage in the act of forgetting, and examines why it is that we don’t want to be forgotten – and why we create things that are bigger and made to last longer than ourselves. “We just got really excited about how, individually and collectively, we try to keep a handle on knowledge and feeling and what’s important,” Leong explains.

Whilst getting their audience to forget the show proved difficult, Leong says they do encourage the audience to engage in the act of forgetting. “During the workshop phase in Adelaide we coined the phrase ‘present-moment forgetting,’ which refers to the moment when the audience are aware that they are forgetting or in the process of trying to remember. For example, we construct a stage image and then at some point you’ll be asked to question whether the image you’re looking at is the same as the image you were looking at before.”

Devised by Adelaide-based collective isthisyours? during a three-week workshop, Best We Forget played to full houses at the 2010 Adelaide Fringe Festival. The show’s Sydney debut is presented by the Tamarama Rock Surfers as the first show in their 2012 season at the Old Fitzroy Theatre. Nadia Rossi, Jude Henshall and Ellen Steele star in Best We Forget

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Leong says that the process of devising the show combined a range of tasks, from watching YouTube clips to visiting archives documenting ancient art, to referencing Romeo and Juliet and

The opportunity to present the show with Tamarama Rock Surfers has allowed the collective to work with designers to improve the set, costumes and lighting. “We knew from [our Adelaide season] what was really working, and we’ve been able to take that response and develop it, which has been fantastic," says Leong. "We really have had the chance to work on refining the experience of present-moment forgetting”.

Leong says that this awareness about the processes of forgetting has permeated her own life and way of thinking as well. “It can be very frustrating working on a show like this because everything that you forget and everything you’re trying to remember just becomes a joke – forgetting lines and all that stuff just seems ridiculous. [But] it also makes me think ‘bigger picture’, I guess... It has zoomed things out for me and made me realise that my individual experiences are not so individual. Forgetting is such a huge human thing, it starts to feel like a conspiracy of some kind.” And according to Leong, the show affects audiences in a similar way. “People [in Adelaide] were really moved by getting that perspective... It reframes the idea of what you want to leave behind and what you are working towards; what our lives mean is the bigger question... And it is a really silly show as well.” What: Best We Forget When: February 7 – 25 Where: Old Fitzroy Hotel / Cnr Cathedral & Dowling Sts, Woolloomooloo More: rocksurfers.org

Babyteeth photo by Michael Corridore

So what drew Watkins to bring this confessional to the stage? “[I felt] I had no choice but to do this,” he tells me. “I thought, I’m going to bite the bullet; I’m sick of keeping my HIV status a secret – that was crushing me – and I felt I’d love it if somebody spoke up about this; I’d love if somebody out there could put on a piece of art, theatre, anything, a film, a song, that would resonate with me, that would help me. So that inspired me.”

these men’s stories, now I really want to just tell my story.”

as the Shakespeare was up and running, he launched headlong into the fresh script, which he had been working on with Kalnejais for over a year.

The Year of Magical Wanking photo by Peter Fingleton

amon Flack has been pretty busy in recent months; aside from being the Associate Director for New Projects at a theatre company that’s currently got three plays up, he’s also gone straight from directing the much lauded, delightfully ridiculous As You Like It into rehearsals for Rita Kalnejais’ (whom you might know better as an actor with recent roles in The Kiss and STC’s The Trial) new play Babyteeth. In fact as Flack explains, the processes bled right into each other.

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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.

■ Film

CHRONICLE Released February 2

calligraffiti

PICS :: KC

This indie sci-fi explores the supercorrupting effect of supernatural power, through a narrative that splices together familiar elements from films like The Craft, Spiderman and The Blair Witch Project, but manifests a little more heart and head than you might expect; not enough to hit it out of the park, but enough to make you scratch your head and wonder why you didn’t like it more. As many films before it, Chronicle invites audiences to ponder what they’d do if they suddenly developed superpowers. The test subjects are three teenage boys who, after discovering an alien object in a mysterious subterranean tunnel, develop telekinetic powers – abilities that initially bond them together, but eventually tear them apart (because it turns out that if you have poor social skills, no real support network and a domestic situation just shitty enough to warp your moral compass, superpowers are a real headfuck). The frame/perspective for the story is a camera that troubled teen Andrew takes everywhere with him (and which, interestingly, becomes an independent ‘character’ – but that's a whole other discussion).

25:01:12 :: Kind Of Gallery :: 72 Oxford St Darlinghurst 0404105030

PICS :: JVE

loverdose launch

Gratifyingly, first-time feature director Josh Trank takes the build-up nice and slow, which keeps it fairly natural (with the exception of the token love interest and the clunky philosophical excursions – how many teens quote Jung at raves or Schopenhauer while driving? – both of which the film could easily do without) and even believable for the first two thirds. Even the tipping point, at which troubled teen Andrew commits his first deliberately violent act, is a tiny gesture – that nevertheless makes the audience gasp. Trank has an equally light touch with the teen/school scenes; he’s perhaps less deft with the action, with sequences going a little long in what’s already a compact film (although the sky football scene is kind of joyous).

24:01:12 :: Diesel Store :: 408 - 410 Oxford St Paddington

Performances are strong, with Australian newcomer Alex Russell (Wasted On the Young) holding his own alongside the vastly more experienced television actors Michael B Jordan and Dane DeHaan. DeHaan has the juiciest part by far, charting the trajectory from sensitive soul to homicidal maniac (this film could easily be an allegory for Columbine-type school massacres) – but not even he can save his character from the final slip into monstrous caricature. Equally, the overblown final act squanders any sense of finesse. Dee Jefferson ■ Film PICS :: AM

rolling stone awards

THE ARTIST Released February 2

25:01:12 :: Upstairs Beresford :: 354 Bourke St Surry Hills 9357 1111

This throwback to the silent era joins recent films like The Adventures Of Tintin and Hugo in reminding audiences of simple cinematic pleasures: the magic of adventure, the joy of dance, the satisfaction of a rags-to-riches and boy-meets-girl stories. The Artist in particular, by throwing off colour, sound and most of the dialogue, recaptures the potency of the image – whether it’s the close-up on a particularly expressive face, or the symbolic framing of a shot.

Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

LOVE ME @ THE STANDARD

Set in late ‘20s Hollywood, on the cusp of ‘talkies’, The Artist charts the rising star of bright-eyed ingenue Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) against the fall from grace of matinee idol George Valentin (Jean Dujardin, of OSS 117 fame). From the moment their paths collide, at the premiere of his latest

Tuesday February 14 / 8.30pm (doors 7pm) Level 3, 383 Bourke Street, Surry Hills

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Valentin’s descent is as dark as the opening act is light and charming, as the movie star moves through despondency to disillusionment, then alcoholism and despair; he loses his wife, his mansion, possessions, faithful butler/companion, and finally his sanity. Through it all, from afar, Peppy remains his biggest fan and staunchest supporter. All that remains is for Valentin to believe in himself and believe in her – leading into one of the most joyous and satisfying closing sequences you’ll see on film this year. Director Michel Hazanavicius has cast the film with expressive faces and larger-thanlife physical presences (including James Cromwell and John Goodman), and the engaging performances by Dujardin and Bejo are really his main asset. That said, the soundtrack (which is present throughout) is good enough to live up to the slice of Bernard Herrmann it borrows (from Vertigo), and the visual ingenuity of many of the sequences and shots (calling to mind greats like Hitchcock and Chaplin) are one of the film's greatest pleasures. Dee Jefferson ■ Film

THE VOW Released February 9 Ostensibly ‘inspired by a true story’ of amnesia and romance, this Hollywood tearjerker is only loosely based on reality. Paige (the always enjoyable Rachel McAdams) is a decidedly untroubled artist who’s wedded to up-and-coming music producer Leo (Channing Tatum). They live a pleasant and unbelievable life in a fauxhemian quarter of Chicago, in an apartment that makes the set of Friends seem plausible. Following what has to be one of the tamest car accidents in cinematic history, a groggy but still perfectly made-up McAdams is set upon by her estranged family (enter Sam Neill and Jessica Lange as her thoroughly WASP-ish parents) who are determined to return Paige to ‘normality’ – a world of lawyers, cardigan shawls and grown women who still shriek-hello each other. It’s a life that doesn’t include Leo. Director Michael Sucsy (Grey Gardens) coats everything in a thick layer of schmaltz. Any possibility of tension is buried beneath montage after montage, and even the looming presence of a “destructive family secret” manages to be neither particular looming nor destructive. Character-wise, McAdams and Tatum aren't allowed great range, with Paige’s recovery consisting of mild confusion and a lot of frowning, and Leo’s grief at her pulling what amounts to a polite ‘Coyote Ugly’ contained to a few grimaces and masculine near-tears. And there’s nothing really wrong with any of this. The Vow knows exactly what it is: a crowd-pleasing Valentine’s Day date. Everything is nice to look at, all of the actors are pleasant to watch – look out for Australia’s Jessica McNamee as Paige’s sister – and the story plays out as expected. Almost, anyway. It may not be a trip to Paris, but it’s no petrol station bouquet either. Scott Ford

The Artist

xxxx

Le Gateaux Chocolat

This Valentine’s Day you can either sit down for a romantic dinner surrounded by dozens of other awkward couples – or you can celebrate love with a better-dressed and more confident lineup that includes BritishNigerian baritone (and La Soirée star) Le Gateaux Chocolat, Paul Capsis (direct from La Clique in London), New York burlesque stars The Wau Wau Sisters, multi-talented ingénue Candy Bowers (Sista She), pianobashing alt-pop powerhouse (and triple j presenter) Brendan Maclean, comedian Queenie van de Zandt, and musical theatre star Tyran Parke – all under the direction of Emmy Award-winning composer Lance Horne. (Also, just quietly, you can actually fit in dinner beforehand). Tickets are $35 via moshtix.com.au / wearethestandard.com.au

light-action-comedy, their destinies are intertwined, with the wannabe-starlet turning up as an extra on his next film – the first step in her steady rise to the top. It’s a story as old as cinema, but also familiar to anyone who’s read about the careers of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis et al (although Peppy hasn’t got a ruthless bone in her body). Even as Peppy rises, her hero, mistaking the advent of talkies as a fad, is toppled from his throne.

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

DVD Reviews Even good guys have issues...

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN

Paramount/Transmission Released December 31 For a project that began as an adjunct to Grindhouse, this is surprisingly unterrible. Jason Eisner’s grisly debut started life as an entry in a ‘fake trailer’ contest designed to promote that ill-fated Tarantino/Rodriguez double-feature. It won. Online notoriety ensued. Now Eisner has reverse-engineered a feature, stuffed with more decapitation, exploding chest cavities and vigilante reckoning than you can swing a sock full of pennies at. The result runs rings around Rodriguez’s similarly-conceived Machete, a triumph Eisner achieves sans that film’s parade of Hollywood stars and the incongruous reliance on CGI-heavy effects. A hobo (Rutger Hauer) arrives in Hope Town (‘SCUM TOWN’ snarls a graffitied billboard) looking for a break. Instead, he’s finds the town overrun by violence and venality: cops prowl the streets for teenage hookers; bums batter each other at the behest of a profiteering vidcam-wielding scuzzbucket; hapless citizens are butchered and slain. After eating glass for cash, the hobo makes for the pawn shop to spend to his earnings. An armed robbery is underway. It’s the final straw. Taking a shotgun from its rack, he lets the crims know justice has a new face – and that it’s grizzled and unshaven. Then, the real bloodshed begins. It’s sordid, extremely gruesome and not especially clever, but Hobo has a few extra shells up its sleeve: Hauer, who imbues his gnarled vigilante with enough pathos to offset his righteous, fight-fire-with-fire fury; and Eisner’s Argento-esque lurid-pretty aesthetic (and some truly outrageous gore). That the whole thing winds up feeling like a Troma flick made by John Waters is very much to the credit of both him and screenwriter John Davies. Gerard Elson

SUBMARINE

Madman Entertainment Released January 11 “I’m not sure I believe in scenery,” says 15-year-old Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) when describing the picturesque surroundings of his family home. It’s through Oliver’s flawed perspective of love, life and his own self-importance that first-time feature director Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd) presents his charming, whip-smart, coming-of-age drama. The story centres around Oliver’s romantic designs for his classmate Jordana (Yasmin Paige), for whom he is willing to disassemble his entire personality. Events toss the duo together, events threaten to tear them apart, and despite their best efforts to avoid ‘mush’, the first flushes of their courtship are presented in rosy tints (there’s even a super-8 montage) that will be familiar to anyone who’s ever fallen in love. Oliver’s pretentiousness might be a sticking point in another film; here, it's clearly born of youth, social awkwardness and desperation to find himself (whatever that self may be). He isn’t entirely unaware; he admits that none of his faddish, overreaching interests “tend to stick”, but his pretention is endearingly naive (the scene where he gives an unimpressed Jordana a copy of The Catcher In The Rye is a highlight). The B-story dealing with the marital woes of Oliver’s parents (Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins) is a little off the mark, with the characters played for laughs with a level of dryness that seems out of sorts with the film’s sweet centre. Taylor and Hawkins do a fine job – they just belong in a different film. Submarine should be a celebration of romance, not a eulogy to a failed marriage. Happily, the effortlessly charismatic performances by Paige and Roberts hold everything together. Nathan Jolly

Street Level

FROM THE WRITER OF THE IRON LADY AND THE PRODUCERS OF THE KING’S SPEECH

“TH E MO S T P R O V O C ATI V E AN D C O MP E LLI N G F ILM O F TH E Y E A R ” EMPIRE

★★★★

THE I NDEPENDENT

TOTAL FILM

“ FA SSB EN DER H A S A R R I V ED” THE INDEPENDENT

“ STU N NI N GLY O R I G I N A L ” VOGUE

“ D A RI N G A N D S T Y L I S H ” ID

“ E X T R A O R DI N A RY ” DAVID STRATTON, AT THE MOVIES

★★★★ “ DY N A MI T E” ★★★★ PSYCHOLOGI ES

with Patrick Dagg

★★★★ THE D AI LY TELEGRAPH

ocal artist Patrick Dagg opens a solo show this week called Crash Paintings, based on an accident he had last July.

At what point after your accident did you decide to create these works, and why? I started painting the show around August. I just felt I needed to translate the experience in a positive light; there was a lot of stress at that time. Can you describe the show? There is going to be around half a dozen paintings on canvas and board, and about the same number of bowls. I think they reflect the movement and action of the time; I needed to make a lot of changes in my life and I feel they capture that growth. I decided I needed to be a painter again. How does Crash Paintings compare to your previous works? I had two other shows over three years ago: the first focused primarily on death and grief, using tattoo iconography to discuss the things I was experiencing; the second was a collection of portraits of decaying, elderly people I was working with at the time. I figure the last the two shows were about death and this one is about life.

What’s your background and training in visual arts? I started painting in high school and found it very useful to express myself. I attended CoFA from 2003-2006, studying film and video. [After I left] I picked up painting again – it seemed a more immediate medium to express my ideas. How did you get involved in working with people with disabilities? I started when I finished school at a nursing home a family friend owned, and have been doing it ever since. It was tough work – doing all the things we all do everyday for ourselves that these people cannot manage. About four years ago I moved into disabilities working with Acquired Brain Injuries and Cerebral Palsy. I enjoyed this more as it was one on one and there were more community-based activities.

THE TIMES

THE GUARDIA N

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

★★★★ EVENING STANDA RD

CAREY MULLIGAN

A FIL M BY STEVE McQUEEN

How do you think it affects your work? It’s given me good balance in my art, as life as an artist is a fairly self-indulgent world. I am constantly being humbled by their tenacity and drive to enjoy life. What: Crash Paintings by Patrick Dagg When: Fri Feb 10, 6-8pm / Sat Feb 11, 11-5pm Where: Ground Floor, 583 Elizabeth St, Redfern

OPENS THIS THURSDAY BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 31

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK FIRST AID KIT The Lion’s Roar Liberator

Sweden’s Soderberg sisters have had their fair share of seals of approval. Whether being taken under the wing of Fleet Foxes early in their career or being produced by Bright Eyes’ Mike Mogis on this record, there’s no doubt that First Aid Kit have the ability to impress the right people. The question, though, is can the Swedish folk/ country provocateurs impress the cynics who fobbed them off as a YouTube sensation three years ago? The Lion’s Roar proves that First Aid Kit aren’t just a tidy Cinderella story, but one of modern folk’s finest proponents.

The Lion’s Roar is not just another twee, nu-folk album, the record owing more to Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris than Mumford & Sons and The Avett Brothers. Of course, there’s that unquestionable similarity to their Fleet Foxes idols throughout – the breakdown to

OF MONTREAL

ANI DIFRANCO

Paralytic Stalks Polyvinyl/Shock

Initially, I was prepared to write off Paralytic Stalks as a staggering, less coherent cousin to Of Montreal’s last two efforts, 2010’s False Priest and 2008’s Skeletal Lamping. I found myself grasping for the hook-filled experimental pop songs of the past, and coming up with handfuls of psychedelic complexity instead. With their 11th album, Kevin Barnes and his Athens (Georgia, USA) outfit have sacrificed some of the immediacy of their appeal, couching their sharp-if-demented lyrics in more complex compositions. A cohesive album rather than just a collection of disparate songs, the tracks on Paralytic Stalks blend into one another, Barnes’ experimental passages holding it all together. Yet there are times during the overlaps when it does feel like listening to two very different pieces of music simultaneously, and – as isolated events – these moments are a bit disconcerting, messy even. But viewed in a context of the album as a single entity, somehow they manage to work. It’s not all experimental noodling though, far from it; the record’s shorter tracks, ‘Malefic Dowery’ and ‘Spiteful Intervention’ in particular, stand superbly on their own as testaments to the group’s pop savvy. Meanwhile, the longer of the nine tracks are trips through lush, heavily layered instrumentalism – orchestral, psychedelic, even soulful – interspersed with bright clearings of Of Montreal’s very own brand of catchy lyricism. If you’re looking for a record to love but only have an hour to spare, this probably isn’t the best choice; once you take the time to accept the eccentricity for what it is, though, it’s hard to turn off. Equal parts experimentalism, pop music and bizarre song titles. Nils Hay

It seems the struggle between her two halves has at last been won, but Ani’s prominent revolutionary drive will always bring interest to her tunes. Georgie Bryant

Beyond what they stand for, First Aid Kit have a knack for storytelling; eloquently taking on the first and third person, but most reliantly – and strangely – in the second. There’s a certain weirdness to being told you’re beyond love when you’re listening to ‘Blue,’ or that you’re stuck in a rut on ‘This Old Routine.’ It’s even weirder when you then turn around and sympathise with their own heartbreak after being essentially attacked for half the album. Max Easton

BEN KWELLER

¿Which Side Are You On? Righteous Babe/ Shock

After three years, her longest gap between albums ever, Ani DiFranco releases ¿Which Side Are You On? – an album with two sides of its own. The New Orleans-based wife and mother (hard to fathom for some longterm fans) and the provoked politico seem like they would butt heads with one another, but instead flow side-byside in this complex, fulfilling album. With 16 other studio albums to compare to, ¿Which Side Are You On? draws the most from 1999’s To The Teeth and onwards. The title track is the classic folk standard made famous by Pete Seeger, which Ani performed at his 90th birthday in 2009. Updated with her own verses, the pulsing anthem features a New Orleans chorus, brass band and Pete himself, and shows off the stronger side of Ani’s vocals. Also on the political team is the mesmerising ‘Splinter’, which examines the age of hyper-consumerism (as does the final track ‘Zoo’) and our disconnection with nature. ‘J’ is a reggae-tinged look into the New Orleans oil spill, marijuana laws and her feelings of disillusionment towards the Obama administration (“The dude could be FDR right now / Instead he’s just shifting his weight”). There is a softness to this album not seen before, with the sweetly sung ‘Albacore’ offering lines like “Inside me is a room to which you hold the key”. ‘Mariachi’ brings in her famed lyrical metaphors (yes, together they form a mariachi band) and the tinkling ‘Hearse’ explores the complexity of love and death. The more hard-edged guitars of ‘Promiscuity’ and ‘If Yr Not’ are refreshing against the occasional twee-ness of DiFranco's love songs.

sparse, harmonised vocals and subsequent floor tom build on ‘To A Poet’ serving as an unmistakable homage to the Seattle four-piece – but their inspirations clearly reach much further than that. It’s moments where the desperate wails of the two sisters course over Mogis’ lap steel that cement the record in something more traditional, rather than tacking itself onto last decade’s folk resurgence.

LANA DEL REY

Go Fly A Kite Noise Factory/Shock Ben Kweller has been releasing records since the tender age of fifteen, and very little has changed over the course of eight albums. He’s still full of joyful, boyish enthusiasm, he still writes openly and honestly, and he’s still a badass guitarist. He’s kind of like Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, but instead of being a neurotic, shut-in Californian loner, Kweller is a gregarious, lighthearted Southerner. Above all, he is a happy man.

Born To Die is like a teenage girl’s tumblr, invoking Old Money, American Dreams and Vintage Glamour – “heart-shaped sunglasses”, ‘Blue Jeans’, the Hamptons – interspersed with snapshots of dutifully hedonistic girls dancing on tables, grooming themselves and generally being Mysterious And Sexy in a way that’s patently defined by the male gaze. “Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain / you like your girls insane” Del Rey croons obligingly, in the fabulously overwrought title track.

The mainstays of Kweller’s music have always been his bright, open voice and his snarling, garage-y guitars, but he’s also always had a softer, sweeter side to him – a countrified tenderness that comes to the fore here on tracks like ‘Family Tree’, ‘On My Way’ and the joyously fatalistic ‘Penny On A Train Track’. Go Fly A Kite, like all his albums, strikes the perfect balance between these styles, while the honesty and autobiographical details in his lyrics mean that once again we are offered a window into Kweller’s life. He sings of loudmouth friends, of other people’s jealous girlfriends and of finding yourself back where you started, but he always does it with a smile on his face.

‘Video Games’ nails the appeal of giving yourself over to what someone seductive thinks you ought to be; for all the brouhaha over whether Del Rey is an “authentic” pop singer, her best song is a perfectly polished ballad about artifice. But every other track here suggests that it’s fine to be a vacuous phony if it gets people to like you. Every other track here mines that same ground, thematically and sonically: I totes love you even though “you’re no good for me” (‘Diet Mountain Dew’), but I know deep down this relationship is as fleeting and unsustainable as the dissolute NYC/ LA lifestyle I adopted because movies made it look fun! And the production – all grand, noirish strings, hazy beats, random samples sunk into the backdrop for “edgy” texture – sounds great on paper but is inconceivably dull for 12 songs in a row. Del Rey’s voice has a sad, husky timbre that balances sly vulnerability with the sense that she’s far more self-aware than she’s letting on, but also uses contrived vocal tics like kittenish yelping and agonising spoken lines – and the selfawareness never once extends to the referential patchwork of the lyrics.

The last time Kweller played in Sydney it was in front of an adoring audience at The Factory Theatre, who simply refused to let him leave the stage until he’d played for close to three hours and covered nearly every song he’d ever written. It must be said that there isn’t much sonic exploration from one album to the next, but when everyone is clearly having such a great time, why would you ever need to change? More of the same from the babyfaced veteran. More of the same awesomeness, that is. Hugh Robertson

Honestly, Born To Die has its moments. But one Stefanie Germanotta could teach this girl something about using excess to camouflage substance, not to disguise its absence… Caitlin Welsh

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK STEVE SMYTH

Release Permanent/ Shock Most music critics shudder and roll their eyes at the slightest hint of Tom Waits or Jeff Buckley in a musician’s vocal affectations. While it’s not difficult to imagine a few of each of their records sitting on Steve Smyth’s shelf, any bald-faced comparisons fall short in light of the Sydney musician's unpretentious songwriting and honest delivery.

32 :: BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12

Smyth is an immense live presence. He sings with the recklessness and joy of someone who has never been formally trained, but with an unassuming finesse and power that most Con students would envy. Live, through a large PA and to an empty room, his voice feels almost as though it could bowl you over with its force. It’s difficult to capture that kind of colossal intimacy on record, though. Under the unforgiving scrutiny of a condenser mic, much of a performer’s charisma can be shorn of its visceral immediacy, and Smyth’s first album, Release, suffers a little from this. Thankfully, his performances here are no less honest or affecting than his live shows. It’s tough not to marvel at the

LEILA

Born To Die Universal

care that’s gone into a song like ‘Endless Nowadays’, with its measured tempo changes and rollicking country chorus harmony. The eerie and delicate ‘In A Place’ is a slow-grower that becomes more hair-raising with each listen, and ‘Barbiturate Cowboy And His Dark Horses’ is an explosive Waits-esque stomp that’s addictive, despite its bizarre chorus. ‘Stay Young’ is a disarming duet with Juanita Stein of Howling Bells; its coda is one of the saddest and most beautiful harmonies to come out of Sydney in quite some time. Release feels very much like a debut record; forgive its few flaws and you’ll enjoy it immensely. Luke Telford

U&I Warp/Inertia Of the many dark horses in Warp’s stable, Leila Arab is one of the darkest (Aphex Twin aside); she doesn’t maintain much of a public profile, and will drop an album with little warning and even less fanfare. Her releases therefore come as a surprise, and that extends to their contents, too – her third LP, Blood Looms & Blooms (released eight years after her second), was an intricate and daring piece of IDM completely at odds with the then-prevailing trend of big, boofy electro-house. Her latest, U&I, is even less in tune with the times, as it frequently enlists the talents of Mt. Sims – who, not unlike Arab herself, is an artist whose work has matured in direct proportion to the waning of interest in it (once one of the darlings of International Deejay Gigolos, he now seems to restrict himself to commercially-unpalatable but artistically-impeccable collaborations, such as The Knife’s score for experimental opera Tomorrow, In A Year). Which is all a way of saying that U&I doesn’t aim for ‘accessibility’ – these songs are as dense and multilayered as anything on Blood Looms & Blooms, but with a harsher, more austere edge, as in the tinny snare hits and buzzing square waves of lead single ‘(Disappointed Cloud) Anyway’. It sometimes goes to lengths to alienate the listener – ‘Interlace’ may break down the last vestiges of what separates Merzbow’s noise music from SebastiAn’s buzzing electro – but if you want to hear the work of a production genius who doesn’t give a fuck about trendiness, U&I delivers in spades. With her latest record, the Londonvia-Iranian wünderkind remains perplexing. Chad Parkhill

OFFICE MIXTAPE And here are the albums that have helped BRAG HQ get through the week... HERMITUDE - Hyper Paradise WOOLLEN KITS - S/T NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE - Greendale

RYAN FRANCESCONI - Parables JOHN VANDERSLICE - Emerald City

Remedy

More than The Cure since 1989 with Murray Engleheart

RIP ANDREW MCMILLAN

Sadly, fine Australian writer Andrew McMillan died last week after a battle with cancer. While well-known in recent years as a no-bullshit socio-political author who penned such books as the excellent Catalina Dreaming and worked with Indigenous communities, back in the late '70s and early '80s he was the frontline hard-rock writer in the country. His pieces in RAM magazine on everyone from The Angels and Rose Tattoo to Radio Birdman and Midnight Oil were high-tide marks in rock writing that not only carried an understanding of the music but also a distinct sense of its aura and ambience. Like the best rock writers, he was easily capable of just being a great writer, as he later demonstrated. His work meant a great deal to us here at Remedy back in the day, and we’d like to think we’ve been carrying at least some portion of a torch for his work over the years.

DIG IT UP!

The Hard-Ons are part of the killer Dig It Up! Hoodoo Gurus Invitational show on April 22 at The Enmore, Notes and the Green Room, along with a breathtaking lineup including The Sonics, Died Pretty, Redd Kross, the 5.6.7.8’s, The Fleshtones, Royal Headache and more. The poster art for the H-Os really caught our good eye though; it’s a piss take on the cover art of Black Sabbath’s Volume 4.

THE SABBATH

Speaking of Sabbaff, Birmingham City Council is looking at the possibility of declaring an official Black Sabbath day to honour the local boys. The area’s churchgoers will no doubt be horrified. Either that, or they’ll think the commemoration is due credit for that nice man Ozzy and his friends. We know which attitude would be way worse.

AMBASSADOR POP

Iggy Pop has been crowned official ambassador for Record Store Day on April

21. In a statement on the site, he laid out his fine credentials: “I got my name, my musical education and my personality all from working at a record store during my tender years. Small indie shops have always been a mix of theater and laboratory. In the ’50s and ’60s the teen kids used to gather after school at these places to listen free to the latest singles and see if they liked the beat. You could buy the disc you liked for 79 cents and if you were lucky, meet a chick.” Nuff said.

HULKALLICA

While William Shatner is living up to his surname and doing his best to make metal something to cringe over, Hulk Hogan has claimed that when he was playing bass in his younger days he was asked to join an early Metallica. Hulk-amania wouldn’t have just been running wild but seeking and destroying as well. The mind boggles, don’t it?

ASCENSION: CONT.

We’ve had a few inquiries about last week’s item on former Rollins Band bassist Melvin Gibbs’ involvement in a reimagining of John Coltrane’s Ascension – so here’s some more info: the threepiece also features Brandon Ross and J.T. Lewis – jazz and avant-garde nuts all – going by the name Harriet Tubman. Their album is titled Ascension, although it carries more than just an out-there take on the original Coltrane firestorm. It’s received rave reviews in its own right, with one reviewer declaring that the work is a future classic in waiting, just as Trane’s album was.

NUGENT

Ted Nugent’s world just keeps getting wilder. Not only does the hard-line environmentalist now have his own brand of bullets (which says as much about the great man as Kevin Rudd getting his own blend of tea) but his toon, ‘Stranglehold’, is now being used for a VW commercial in America.

The Hard Ons

ON THE TURNTABLE On the Remedy turntable is Muddy Waters’ cracking Authorized Bootleg: Live at the Fillmore Auditorium – San Francisco 1966. Long after you’d probably figured that you don’t need any more Muddy Waters live albums, this gem comes along and proves you so, so wrong. Sure, the packaging is minimal, but this is some serious firepower, along with some of the longest and most savage guitar solos of Mr Waters’ stellar career. A real third nipple remover. Also going round and round is a recently unearthed Hawkwind live set called Leave No Star Unturned: Cambridge January 1972. It’s the Lemmy lineup, which is what matters most, and while it’s not a radically different set from the masterful Space Ritual that was documented later that same year, it’s of course still worth grabbing. 'Cos it’s Hawkwind. With Lemmy.

TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS Revered Neu! co-founder and brief Kraftwerk member Michael Rother, who has played with everyone from Sonic Youth to the Chili Peppers, will be in the country in March for a rare appearance. He’ll be joined by Hans Lampe from Neu! and Dieter Moebius from Rother’s Harmonia, and collectively they’ll be delivering a feast of Krautrock history on March 17 at Oxford Art Factory. On February 10, Oz rock noise-sters River of Snakes – featuring singer/guitarist Raul Sanchez (of Magic Dirt fame) – will spearhead the latest assault of Solid Gold

Hell at a new venue, The Square, located in Haymarket on the corner of George and Hay Streets. Supporting them will be Glitter Canyon and psychobilly punks Death Valley. It promises to be a typically crazy SGH night, with go-go dancers, cult films, a guest DJ set from River of Snakes, plus the Solid Gold Hell DJs. $12 in. Bands kick off at 8pm and the fun continues until 3am. Apart from their Solid Gold Hell show, River of Snakes are at the Transit Bar in Canberra on February 9, and the Great Northern Hotel in Newcastle on February 11. Entry for the latter is free.

Send stuff to remedy@ozemail.com.au by 6pm Wednesdays. Pics to art@thebrag.com www.facebook.com/remedy4rock BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 33

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

WORMWOODSTOCK 2012 Moss Vale February 27 – 29

OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER

:: GEORGE POPOV

ACTIVE CHILD, CAITLIN PARK, OLIVER TANK Oxford Art Factory Sunday January 29

You know there’s hype about a new kid on the block when OAF is packed out with a high proportion of guestlisters at 8pm on a Sunday, for the first support. I wasn’t surprised though – Oliver Tank’s brand of sweet, simple chillwave is right on time. Occasional bursts of ‘80s-style guitar licks made an interesting counterpoint to the layers of dreamy synth melodies and minimal electronic percussion, but could have been incorporated a little better to feel like less of an afterthought. There were moments when it seemed Tank could use a second pair of hands up there – but for someone who has shot into public consciousness off the back of a couple of bedroom singles, he did extraordinarily well to keep the audience engaged. Caitlin Park introduced her second track by describing it as “weirder” than her folksy opener – but unfortunately the strangest part was how difficult it was to hear her voice above the chattering from a Spanish film that should have been in the background. This attempt to channel antifolk devices to make sweet indie pop songs sound avant-garde was a misfire on this occasion, with Park’s purring vocals and solo guitar no match for the shouts, trumpet noises and beatboxing by back-up vocalist

Holly Austin, over otherwise pretty tunes. When it comes to executing a fusion of disparate sounds and styles in a live setting, Active Child has it nailed. One might say it takes balls to set yourself apart by going around singing like a castrato – and not just because the big bad world might take issue with pallid ex-choirboys like Pat Grossi playing harp and singing about heartbreak over hip hop beats; it’s also because maintaining an operatic falsetto requires absolute perfection, lest the whole performance descend into farce. If you’ve seen the video for ‘Playing House’, you’ll know how easily Active Child’s boyband RnB influences can take a comical turn (though I think it’s deliberate there). Happily, the perfection called for was delivered, in an affecting performance wholly deserving of the allusions to divinity that seem to follow Grossi around. Respect also goes to the rest of his band, whose performances worked in seamless harmony to create a sound just as immaculate, but even more lush and dynamic than the album recordings. Jenny Noyes

NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS, DEEP SEA ARCADE Enmore Theatre Monday January 23

For Deep Sea Arcade to score this particular support slot, you would think it meant a great deal. In their sound, style and swagger, they clearly have an enormous debt to Noel Gallagher and Oasis. That’s not to say they’re a facsimile, but it’s obvious that they’re in thrall to British psychedelic-tinged guitar bands, with the stand-out track of the set, ‘Girls’, sounding like it has bloodlines coming from early Charlatans and Ride. Supporting a hero can be a daunting experience, but Deep Sea Arcade took it in their stride and seemed to enjoy themselves a great deal.

Flying Birds (only ‘Stop The Clocks’ wasn’t performed). These was also a B-side (‘The Good Rebel’) and a new number, the brilliant ‘Freaky Teeth’, which will apparently be on his next album – a collaboration with psychedelic collective The Amorphous Androgynous. What was most surprising was how the audience reacted to the new material. It was greeted with as much warmth as the likes of ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Talk Tonight’; particularly It’s just over four years since Noel Gallagher album opener ‘Everybody’s On The Run’, was last in Sydney, and it was also at the ‘If I Had A Gun’ and the first single, 'The Enmore, with Gallagher performing an Death Of You And Me'. MORE acoustic set of Oasis tunes in support SNAPS of the group’s Stop The Clocks After closing the main set with the compilation. With Oasis coming to p. 36 thumping ‘Stranded On The Wrong an end in a flurry of smashed guitars Beach’, the High Flying Birds returned for and flying fruit in August 2009, Gallagher a three-song encore of some of Gallagher’s decided to go it alone with a new project: best lead vocal moments in Oasis. ‘Little By Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Little’ and ‘The Importance Of Being Idle’ were followed by an absolutely phenomenal From the moment the lights went down, version of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’, there was absolute pandemonium, with with Gallagher stepping away from the chants of ‘Noel’ ringing out from both levels microphone to let the audience, with arms of the sold-out venue as the group entered and phones aloft, sing their hearts out to the the stage. Opening with Oasis B-side ‘(It’s choruses before leading them through the Good) To Be Free’, Gallagher (and the final part of the song. It was a final burst of crowd) was in fine voice – and the choice of opening number perhaps tells you a bit about collective euphoria on a night that contained many; in a post on his website a couple of where his head’s at now he’s away from his days later, Gallagher said that the show was brother’s petulant bravado. After another the “best one of the entire tour”. Having been song from his former band ('Mucky Fingers'), there, it’s pretty hard to argue. Gallagher concentrated the rest of the main set on the present (and future), playing nine Michael Hartt of the ten songs from Noel Gallagher’s High 34 :: BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12

“It’s great that you all came from Newtown to meet us here. Now we can beat the shit out of you… ‘cos we’re from Canberra and we’re not pussies.” That was the betweensong threat by The Fighting League’s Dominic Death at Moss Vale’s Wormwoodstock festival last weekend, one of many deadpanned moments of banter from the ACT’s favourite shirtless psychopath. Spending half the set with his hand in his pants (the other half rubbing his nipples, mock-shadow boxing or slicking back his hair with his own spit), Death was the ludicrous foil to the straight-faced tropicalia-infused punk the rest of his band played behind him. The Fighting League’s confronting brand of hackneyed punk may have been one of the festival’s clear highlights (wedged directly into the middle of Wormwoodstock’s three days), but the garage set had more to offer earlier in the morning, via the surf-inspired Kang Gang and the self-deprecating mess of Rayon Moon. Wormwoodstock was a varied enterprise, the morning’s loose rock themes stepping aside for an evening of ambience and experimentalism. Saturday’s early afternoon saw the melodic atmospherics of Sydney locals No Art attract a solid crowd to the stage’s tent, which shielded us from what rapidly became an unbearable sun. Yolke’s twilight set brought in the cooling air, their drawnout ambience a perfect lead-in to noise duo Ghost_, while the precision of Brackets brought in the nightfall. But it was Berlin’s Golden Disco Ship who quickly stunned us, with the one-woman band’s mix of cued projections, quirky backing tracks and infectious guitar lines all effortlessly falling into place… until the festival’s generator ran out of diesel. The abrupt pause was in no way a downer though, allowing the lit-up installations and rollicking light show to give way to a darkness that only a bush property 1.5 hours out of Sydney can provide. Whether you looked at it as a spectacular turn-out for a house party or a mild turn-out for a festival (Wormwoodstock’s goal sitting somewhere between the two), the weekend was a massive success. Bringing together such a diversity in sounds from across states, continents and eras (the nigh-on legendary experimental duo Scattered Order closing out Saturday night) was no mean feat for the Wormwood collective; a festival just as worth attending for the experience as it was for the curation. Max Easton

AMIINA

The Famous Spiegeltent Tuesday January 24 If you happen to be courting a girl or boy who’s really into baking, cardigans and hand-illustrated mixtapes, then you really should have taken them to see Amiina last week. Sorry for the late notice, but watching the five bandmembers tap, bend and pick glorious melodies out of twee instruments is just about the cutest thing on earth. Sitting somewhere between the orchestral arctic post-rock of Sigur Rós and the experimental songscapes of múm and Worm Is Green, Amiina largely eschew vocals in favour of building layers with different instruments, placing layer upon melodic layer before reaching a musical crescendo. Considering the five members are also (and perhaps better) known as the string section for Sigur Rós, there were surprisingly few string-based songs in their set. Instead, the band picked their way delicately around the overcrowded stage, moving between glockenspiel, xylophone, musical saw, thumb piano, keyboard, bells, accordion and electric violin, and adding a judicious

BATTLES, CANYONS, PINK FLOD The Metro Theatre Monday January 23

Like Battles, Sydney’s Pink Flod tries to impress with a centrally placed drum kit and unusual sound combinations. But these drums, a dramatic violinist and a guy working two beautiful-sounding synthesisers aren’t enough to cover up the band’s one-dimensionality. The jamming bass line of Liquid Liquid’s ‘Cavern’ is part of Canyons’ sound check behind the stage’s red curtains – it marks the start of all things that matter tonight. Unfortunately, there isn’t much time for the congas, rain stick and Chicago-house-inspired bass lines of their organic 4/4 set, but Western Australia’s Canyons are the living proof that you don’t need to come from a grim, semi-industrial environment to make decent club music. With Battles’ 2011 album Gloss Drop still fresh on the shelf, Sydney is given an intensely beautiful show by a band at the peak of its career. The set up: two oddly-placed keyboards (the short sides facing the audience), a drum kit with a two-metre-high cymbal, and three musicians with fresh haircuts. In his (pretty sweaty) pink business shirt, drummer John Stanier looks as though he’s just escaped his job at the stock exchange. It’s a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing scenario, though: the Billy Cobhaminfluenced musician becomes the star of the show. How often do you see an experimental band play a gig with powerful stadium grandeur? With two keyboards producing steel drum sounds, long intros with extreme musical suspense, and a drummer who’s just more on it than anyone you’re likely to see, this is a band with the confidence of U2 – and they take your breath away. (And that’s hardly an exaggeration – there are plenty of moments of complete silence tonight, where the audience, caught up in the unearthly sound, simply forgets to clap). Battles offer plenty of wild variations on Gloss Drop snippets, improvisations that from any other band would be accompanied by dozens of charming mistakes – but not with Warp Records’ best live act on stage. Battles’ encore consists of what seems to be a cosmic, stretched out soundscape of great psychedelic proportions. But that’s only half of the story, before John Stanier takes place behind his kit for a few final minutes of exceptionally hard work. This was a mind-blowing show, and judging by their bewildered faces as they stepped out of their self-made musical dream world, Battles knew it too. Christiaan de Wit

measure of each into the mix. Just think lots of glockenspiel and musical saw, and you’re on the right track. Their drummer may have been hidden in a corner of the stage, but he made a fantastically awkward presenter between songs – how many times do you get a musician (who’s not a busker) begging you to buy their album so they can afford a clean shirt? To give you a mental image of Amiina playing live, imagine each song starting with a loop or a line of electronic atmospherics from the laptop, to which the other members would gradually add their instruments, often sampling and looping a line of, say, glockenspiel, before moving over to play a melody on reception desk bells with another band member, while the violinist – who’d been coaxing eerie wails out of a musical saw – would cautiously step away to wring some distortion out of a keyboard, as they sing in angelic voices. Or, simply put, just imagine the five whitest people alive coaxing beautiful and captivating melodies from unusual instruments. Dorian Grey

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

KANYE WEST

Sydney Entertainment Centre Friday January 27 The place: Sydney Entertainment Centre. The year: Twenty-twelve. The time: right now. As two-dozen dancers scatter and flutter reverently in front of an appropriately larger-than-life backdrop of sepulchral stone angels, the wistful fanfare of ‘Dark Fantasy’ trills grandly: “Can we get much higher?” It repeats a couple of times, and fans crane to see if Yeezy is hiding at side of stage, or perhaps on that centre-stage platform the dancers are gazing at so adoringly. But wait! Steam bursts from the back of the dancefloor, and Kanye West rises above the crowd, mic in hand and fist in the air.

This is the feeling the epic, three-act stage show was supposed to tap into. It looked gorgeous, there’s no doubt, but the flying sparks, shimmering LED backdrop and red Balmain leather jacket (a nod to MJ?) weren’t my main takeaway from the show; neither was the interminably self-indulgent 15-minute riff on ‘Runaway’, as he hit the grating LOOK ATCHA sample again and again, and muttered through the Auto-Tune about his ex getting married and what a terrible boyfriend he makes, while a dancer gamely writhed downstage the entire time. OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER

When Soundgarden called it quits in 1997, no one really ever thought that would be the last people would ever hear from them, did they? I mean, Audioslave was interesting in the way that Dermot Brereton’s transition from footballer to TV travel presenter is interesting. You know it’s a car wreck, splintering shards of bewilderment all over the road, but there’s that niggling curiosity as to ‘why’? The Chris Cornell / RATM hybrid never really worked, so when Soundgarden announced their reformation in 2010, there wasn’t many batting an eye as they stepped over the crumpled carcass of Audioslave. The massive crowd of (aging and balding) rockers here to see these Seattle luminaries at the Entertainment Centre didn’t seem to think so, anyway. tracks like ‘Remind Me’ were transformed into thumping party jams in this live context. And that suited me fine.

Hands in the air if you think the dance party electro thing is getting pretty passé. Keep them there if you think there are some notable exceptions. Now wave them around like you just don’t care. That was basically me at the Enmore Theatre, with Röyksopp being one of those notable exceptions because they are just so very fun and excellent and Norwegian. Support band Rüfüs? Not so much.

I could criticise the fact that the female vocalist was almost miming over the original recordings of the likes of Robyn, Karin Dreijer Andersson and Lykke Li. But… what else should we expect? Euro-pop superstars to be flown all the way to Australia to sing a couple of songs they recorded ages ago? Or some other vocalist taking on the impossible task of attempting to match the singers’ parts that we’ve come to know and love? I think they got the balance right, with the live singer contributing backup-style vocals on big hits like ‘Girl And The Robot’ and ‘What Else Is There?’ – and throwing out some sweet dance moves and appropriately silly costumes to boot.

Röyksopp were predictably good, announcing their presence on the stage with a Gregorian-esque intro, before breaking into good-times track ‘Happy Up Here’. This was very much a party gig, with most of the setlist comprised of their more pop-oriented albums, Junior and The Understanding. But even Röyksopp’s quieter, more subdued

SOUNDGARDEN, THE BRONX

Sydney Entertainment Centre Wednesday January 25

RÖYKSOPP, RÜFÜS

Part of me wonders how much the letter R and a couple of umlauts had to do with this Sydney three-piece being chosen to support Röyksopp. Their brand of electro was decidedly middle-of-the-road, despite attempts to spice it up with a few Afro-beatish drum jams – but then again, who knows; maybe they’ll make it into next year’s Hottest 100.

Caitlin Welsh

:: ASHLEY MAR

The Cult of Kanye has been brewing for a long time now, and finally came to a head with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – an album that was, at its best, as wrenchingly beautiful and viscerally inventive as any pop album that’s been released this century. But there’s always been hints that he longed to be a Leader, and not least of these is the recurring motif of call-and-response hooks and crowd participation that tap into that same sense of congregational oneness as gospel music. Listen as the sinister march of ‘Jesus Walks’ gathers the audience around it, us-versus-them; try and resist the almost sub-verbal sing-along appeal of ‘Gold Digger’ – he uses inclusive language to make us all feel we’re part of his journey. Welcome to the good life! Let’s have a toast to the douchebags. Can we get much higher?

The Enmore Theatre Friday January 27

(Maybe the brokendown-doll dancers represent not his tortured id, as I initally thought, but all the poor women who’ve been putting up with his shit just way too long?) West seemed a bit enervated throughout the set, but he recharged during a powerful ‘All Of The Lights’ – and in the same bit he’s been doing throughout this tour, he insisted that the cheers could be bigger and more deeply felt, and restarted the song (which nobody minded because the drop at the beginning is easily the best bit). But the image I was left with happened towards the end, when he turned upstage and dragged his mic stand behind him for a moment, like Linus with his blanket; afterward I couldn’t shake the impression of a little boy, lost in the world.

Anyone who thought the majority of the set was just a little bit too Euro-pop should have stayed for the encore, which felt a lot more like we’d entered some Berlin happy haus of techno. Svein and Torbjørn just let loose for some serious party rocking, with no apologies. Jenny Noyes

On tour for the Big Day Out, Soundgarden were slotted with the unlikely warm-up band The Bronx for their sideshow. The Los Angeles hardcore act was at their brutal best. Their energy was coiled. Their riffs were fast. The spirit was vehement, but to no avail; in the end, this was a mismatch of a support. Lead singer Matt Caughthran gave all, venturing into the building crowd for their massive ‘Heart Attack American’, whipping them into a circle pit and getting pummelled by the moshers in the process – but the crowd was here to see one band only. The place erupted as all four members of Soundgarden walked on stage together. Opening with a salvo of ‘Searching With My Good Eye’, ‘Spoonman’, ‘Jesus Christ Pose’ and ‘Gun’, it was clear that the band have lost none of their explorative, heavy rock prowess. The greying Kim Thayall’s psychedelic guitar solos showed he still had chops, and Matt Cameron’s energy seemed to pulse like radiation from his drum kit into the crowd. But the sound from the Entertainment Centre was a letdown. It was murky and indistinct for most of the night, and while that seems like a perfect complement for Soundgarden’s sludgy rock ‘n’ roll, a lot of Cornell’s (still amazing) vocals got lost in softer songs like ‘Fell On Black Days’ and ‘Blow Up The Outside World’. This was a 'best-of'-style concert with all the hits that you would expect from a veteran band – however, with their movements slowed, their presence on stage just that little bit smaller, it was a different entity to the Soundgarden of the 1990s. But it gave Sydney’s grunge-era fraternity a chance to reach back just one more time and feel the elation that Seattle gave them for a few brief years, almost two decades ago. Rick Warner

OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER

MORE SNAPS p. 36

:: KATRINA CLARKE

BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 35

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

bike babes x the wall party profile

It’s called: We Got The Fete! It sounds like: A ‘street’ orchestra of synchronised spoke-a-dokes and handlebar bells. Also like Bloods (aka Sydney’s most endearing gangsterpunks). Who’s playing? Bloods, in their last show before their EP launch in March, plus DJs Bobby Six and Heidi Pett. Sell it to us: The Wall is throwing a mini-fete for Bike Babes, featuring an art exhibition, prints of Sydney cycle routes, cycle-centric fashion, tasty treats and more, all to the tunes above. Check out the Bike Babes Facebook page for the evening bicycle route, then come down to the bar to party. The bit we’ll remember in the AM: The bit where all these people had a late night fete and a great time. Crowd specs: Babes! And other goodlookers, cyclists or not. Wallet damage: Minimal! Free entry / free BBQ / free art. Where: The World Bar / 24 Bayswater Rd, Kings Cross

noel gallagher's high flying birds

PICS :: KC

When: Wednesday February 8 / 7.30pm onwards

major raiser

PICS :: RR

24:01:12 :: The Standard:: Level 3/383 Bourke St Surry Hills 9331 3100

my chemical romance

PICS :: GP

26:01:12 :: Goodgod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Sydney 9267 3787

27:01:12 :: Horden Pavilion :: 122 Lang Rd Moore Park 8117 6700

It’s called: sleepmakeswaves' ‘(hello) Australia’ 2012 national tour. It sounds like: Your skulls: crushed. Who’s playing? sleepmakeswaves, Dumbsaint, Solkyri, Batterie. Sell it to us: Before we send them off to SxSW and a European tour, sleepmakeswaves will bring their gorgeous wall-of-sound live show to six states across Australia all throughout February and the start of March. Here’s your chance to see what all the fuss is about, at their only Sydney show – presented by Bird’s Robe Records and The Harbour Agency. The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Our doctor's appointments for said crushed skulls; our sudden onset of incontinence; the name of the person we’re lying next to… maybe. Crowd specs: Beautiful leggy blondes and tall dark handsomes. Wallet damage: $10 (+bf) from thegaelic.com, or tickets on the door. Where: Gaelic Theatre / 64 Devonshire St, Surry Hills. When: Friday February 17 / 8pm til late

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: JAY S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) ROSETTE OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER PEACHEY :: GEORGE POPOV :: MAS THO :: NS MUN IEL DAN :: Y COLLIER :: ASHLEY MAR TNE WHI LE :: TRISH WATSON :: TIM ROUHANNA :: JARED VAN EAR

36 :: BRAG :: 448: 06:02:12

soundgarden

PICS :: JC

party profile

sleepmakeswaves

25:01:12 :: Entertainment Centre :: 35 Harbour St Darling Harbour 9320 4200

big day out up all night out all week . . .

BIG DAY OUT

Sydney Showground Thursday January 26 With lineup controversies, poorer-thanaverage ticket sales and turmoil amongst the BDO organising innards, scepticism about the festival was inevitable – but the 20th anniversary of Australia’s largest oneday festival proved a damn enjoyable turn about Olympic Park. Eager beavers were rewarded with darling sets from Sydney rockers Papa vs Pretty, a lovely lunchtime jaunt from Best Coast, the sheer cheek of Bluejuice and Big Day Out hacks Hilltops Hoods. With a surprisingly early spot in the alreadyswampy Boiler Room, the incensed and uncompromising lads of Odd Future exploded with angry young manergy – but with Tyler, the Creator’s mic generating unintelligible static alongside a badly-mixed sound, less fervent fans opted for the more geometric bliss of mathematically-inclined rockers Battles. Missing their endearing vocalist Tyondai Braxton since 2010, the remaining trio have found a nice balance to their live set, utilising cheeky singing, projections and vocal loops to take the reigns on crowd favourites ‘Atlas’ and ‘Tonto’. Meanwhile, The Vaccines were being awesome. Continuing the electronica mindfuck of doom, Norwegian duo Röyksopp decided that their first trip to Australia in 14 years should probably be a rave, delighting new fans with club hit ‘Happy Up Here’ amidst a generous mix of old favourites. The tempo was Euro and outrageous, and amidst clashy costumes and a Fever Ray lookalike centre stage, chill-Röyksopp was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance had orange hair. Always a Vogue-ready vision before sweaty festivalists, Kimbra wowed as usual in a suave little black number and a dynamic pop set on the Converse Green Stage, before a mashing, clashing, bastard-pop warehouse of joy erupted in the Boiler Room with the arrival of Pittsburghian sample-god Girl Talk. Amidst a sea of balloons, punters dancing dumbly onstage and the glo-stick merch stand going awwff, good plain fun saw the plunderphonic engineer mash 50 Cent with Vampire Weekend like a good boy – even despite the poorly chosen Cooper Black font to advertise his name. Meanwhile, Tony Hawk was being gnarly. Back on the Green Stage, the expected flood of blissed-out, Hottest100-loving revellers sought to praise the

likes of Californian indie babes Foster The People – and praise them they did. As the sun set, an unfortunate clash of rockers saw a Grinspoon/Soundgarden split – but the Chris Cornell fanbase came out of the woodworks to dominate as the penultimate Main Stage headliners' heavy breed of ‘90s rock greeted Australian crowds for the first time in 15 years. But grubby Tour Of ‘80s-Something t-shirts aside, the majority of the crowd were getting their spot for Kanye. A tidy 15 minutes (and an ironic technical snag involving a cherry-picker and the “Can we get much higher?” lyrics) later, Kanye West’s hand-pumping, swaggerladen, writhing-dancerful explosion of iconic bossin’ outlandishness allowed KW fanboys to promptly lose their shit. An identical set to the one performed at Splendour in the Grass last year, the two-act festival show from Kanye is something to be loved or bored by, depending on how seriously you take his egomaniacal earnestness and ridiculous shows of self-deification. With over 47,000 punters comprising the Kanye quorum, the Essential Stage wonderfully proved the power of Sydney metalheads, as way-hesh gods Cavalera Conspiracy put their hands “up to the black night” and proved once again why Sepultura is probably Brazil’s biggest export. With sweaty beards at one stage, and everyone else at the other, the retreat to Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds was a welcome one, with the Brit-pop king proving once again how much he really was the brains (read: talent) behind Oasis. Sweeping between lovely altcountry numbers like ‘The Death Of You And Me’ and classic rock and/or rollers like ‘Dream On’, Gallagher surprisingly rewarded his stickler fans, completing the set with his Oasis tracks ‘The Importance of Being Idle’ and an I-Don’t-Even-NeedTo-Sing-The-Words-Do-I rendition of ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’. Beautiful, tight, classy – Gallagher reminded even his High Flying bandmates why Liam should probably just shut his Beady Eyes. As London dubsteppers Daniel Stephens and Joe Ray (aka Nero) maxxed out the energy of Those Who Didn’t Have To Work The Next Day, Big Day Out seemed somewhat kinder, somewhat more controlled, somewhat more pleasant than the sweat, ponytails, and hoseddown iPhones that we've come to expect from major events. With a decrease in numbers and a rethink of the identity of this iconic festivals, perhaps this kind of Smaller Day Out could make for the bestival festival of all.

Bridie Connellan

PHOTOGRAPHER : ASHLEY MAR

BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 37

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

pick of the week

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 9

Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart (USA) Geoffrey O’Connor, Rainbow Chan $45 (+ bf) 8pm MONDAY FEBRUARY 6 ROCK & POP

Bernie The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 4.30pm Guy Le Claire’s Extraordinaire Empire Hotel, Annandale $16 8pm Rockin’ With Rah Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Steve Tonge The Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 9pm Twin Shadow (USA), Anna Calvi (UK) Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $50 (+ bf) 8pm

JAZZ

20th Century Dog 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 8.30pm Monday Jam: Dany G Felix, Djay Kohinga The Lansdowne, Broadway free 9pm Open Mic Jazz The World Bar, Kings Cross free 7pm Rob Eastwood

Dee Why Hotel free 6.30pm Sonic Mayhem Orchestra Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $10 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Dinki Di Acoustic Camelia Grove Hotel, Alexandria free 6.30pm Massimo Presti, Disco Bill, Huntley Mitchell, Jules Backman, Clay & Kelly, Carrie Tong, Russell Neal Kellys On King, Newtown free 7pm

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 7 ROCK & POP

Adam Pringle and Friends Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Dave Wilkins The Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 9pm Bleeding Knees Club, Sures, The Drums DJs (USA), The Holidays DJs, 8Dimes DJs GoodGod Small Club, Sydney $10 8pm Feist (Canada), Mountain Man (USA)

Enmore Theatre $79 7.30pm all-ages Matt Jones Trio The Three Wise Monkeys, Sydney free 10pm Portugal. The Man (USA), Givers (USA), Guineafowl Metro Theatre, Sydney $48.70 7.30pm Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm The Songwriter Sessions Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 7.30pm They Call Me Bruce Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 8.30pm

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 8 ROCK & POP

Andy Mammers Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9.30pm Blind River Running, Benjalu, Bec Sandidge, Spooky Land Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Brad Johns Dee Why Hotel free 6.30pm The Drums (USA), Cults (USA), Dune Rats Metro Theatre, Sydney $62.90 7pm all-ages The Fumes, The Hello Morning Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm Hall & Oates, Icehouse, Michael Paynter Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour $99–$262 7pm Heath Burdell The Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 9pm Jagermeister Presents: The Secret Whisper, Kid Vegaz, Winslows Cancer, The Dirty Ground Annandale Hotel $8 7.30pm Jamie Lindsay Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 6pm New Archetypes, Modern Murder, Gods Of Rapture, JP Duo O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9pm Live & Local: Adam George, Emad Young, Gypsys Gift, Ruffle Feather Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $15 8pm Mandi Jarry Summer Hill Hotel free 7.30pm Marty From Reckless Northies, Cronulla free 7.30pm Mike Bennett The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Musos Jam Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt free 7.30pm The New Archetypes, Modern Murder, Gods Of Rapture, Face Command Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm O’Shea, Sam Hawksley Notes Live, Enmore $17.35 7pm The Paper Scissors FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel free 1pm Publicist, Hawnay Troof GoodGod Small Club, Sydney $20 (+ bf) 8pm The Rockwells Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm

Samba Mundi Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8pm Sinnister Valley, Fenrir, Omnia, Lakeside Valve Bar, Tempe The Study: Samuel Mason, Enerate The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills free 7pm Tim Rollinson Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Washed Out (USA), Toro Y Moi (USA), Guerre, Future Classic DJs Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $50 (+ bf) 8pm

JAZZ

2-Tango Blue Beat, Double Bay $10 9.30pm Nina Ferro 505 Club, Surry Hills $10–$15 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Aaron Prentice, Russell Neal Cat and Fiddle Hotel, Balmain free 6.30pm Acoustic Ladyland: Senani, Kylie Stephens, The Yellow Canvas, Belinda Robinson, Samantha Johnson The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf) 8.30pm Black Diamond, Greg Sita Cookies Lounge and Bar, Bakehouse Quarter, North Strathfield free 8pm Bryan Farley, Anna Forbes, Michelle, Carolyn Woodorth Royal Hotel, Springwood free 8pm Daniel Hopkins Taren Point Hotel free 7pm John Chesher, Gavin Fitzgerald, Paul McGowan, Ken Stewart Coach & Horses Hotel, Randwick free 7pm

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 9 ROCK & POP

Angie Hubbard, Aaron Welsh Notes Live, Enmore $17.35 7pm Austra (Canada), Kool Thing The Basement, Circular Quay $45.50 7.30pm Big Ben The Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 10pm Cascade, The Nectars, Dylan’s Eye Annandale Hotel $10 8pm

JAZZ

Eastside Live at 505: Double Dip 505 Club, Surry Hills $10–$15 7.30pm Jeff Duff & the Prophets Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $10 9.30pm Lionel Robinson Dee Why Hotel free 9.30pm Sax On The City: Jeremy Rose The Spice Cellar, Sydney free 6pm

JAZZ

Jazzgroove: 10 Guitar Project, DJ Bassman 505 Club, Surry Hills $8–$15 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

HalfWay HomeBuoy, Men With Day Jobs Duo, Daniel Hopkins The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf) 8pm Laurie McGinness, The Yellow Canvas, Russell Neal Dee Why RSL free 6.30pm

Colin Hay Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $60–$102 (dinner & show) 8pm Dave Seaside Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Decayed – 2009-1984: Marty Wilson-Piper and Tiare Helberg Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $20 8pm Diefenbach, Martin Badoui, Tony Dean Trio El Rocco Jazz Cellar, Woolloomooloo $15 7.30pm The Dyno-Mics, Big Village MCs Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8pm Glenn Whitehall Edinburgh Castle, Sydney free 7pm Helpful Kitchen Gods, Call To Colour, Cash Palace, Lollipop Sugar Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Icypoles, Monnone Alone, Gary Olson, Sheahan Drive Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Johnathan Devoy Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Laura Marling (UK) Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $59 (+ bf) 8pm M83 (France) Metro Theatre, Sydney $53.70 9pm Musos Club Jam Night Carousel Hotel, Rooty Hill free 8pm The Nuts Bankstown Trotting Club free 8pm Oliver Tank, Winter People Paddington Uniting Church $10 8pm Open Mic Night Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7pm The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (USA), Geoffrey O’Connor, Rainbow Chan Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $45 (+ bf) 8pm Paris Wells The Vanguard, Newtown $12 (+ bf) 8pm The Secret Whispers, Broadway Mile, Special Guests Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Speakeasy The Whitehouse Hotel, Petersham 8pm Swap, Vicious Dickens Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills free 8.30pm all-ages Tania Doko, Joe Moore Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Unity Floors White Rabbit Gallery, Chippendale free 6pm The Vicious Dickens, Swap, Spoon Collectors The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills free 8pm Yuck (UK), Ema (USA), StepPanther Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $38.50 (+ bf) 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Austra

Russell Neal Kogarah Hotel free 7pm Up Close & Personal: Marty From Reckless

“I wish I could say, that everything’s going to be fine Or take your hand and wait until things turn around” - GARÇON GARÇON 38 :: BRAG :: 448 : 06:02:12

g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 8.30pm

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 10 ROCK & POP

AC/DC Highway To Hell Engadine Tavern free 9.30pm The Art, The Shooters Party, Kane Sarich, Jeff Drake Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 7pm B-Massive Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Bones Bones Bones The Standard, Darlinghurst 8pm Boom Crash Opera The Basement, Circular Quay $30 7.30pm Courtyard Sessions: Lady Sings It Better Seymour Theatre Centre, Chippendale free 6pm allages

Crossing Red Line, Jeff Chinky Fan Club, Papa Pilko & The Bin Rats, Equal Army The Lair, Metro Theatre $8 (+ bf) 7pm Dom Turner and Ian Collard, Mick Hart The Vanguard, Newtown $17 (+ bf) 8pm Feel the Manouche, Beth ‘n’ Ben, Van Sereno The Eastern Lounge, Chatswood $15–$18 8pm Flamin’ Beauties Royal Hotel, Springwood free 9.15pm George Stav and B.A.D. Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7.30pm Go With Colours, Rapids, Tales In Space, DJ Alley Cats The Lansdowne, Broadway free 9pm Hitseekers Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm Ian Moss Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm

Laura Marling

James Legg (USA), Hell Crab City, Burn In Hell, Bittersweet Kicks Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm John Vella Chatswood RSL free 5pm Kerser Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $18.40 8pm La Dispute, Hira Hira, Let Me Down Jungleman Gently Annandale Hotel $25 (+ bf) 8pm Leon Gort Panthers, Glenbrook free 8pm Luke Escombe Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Macson The Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 10pm Mixed Nuts Level 1, East Leagues Club free 8.30pm MUM: Camden, She Rexx, Taylor King, The White Goods, Ghastly Spats, Hopes, Raw Prawn, MUM DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross free $10-$15 8pm Polo Club Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach 8pm Pony Girl & The Outsiders, Mechanical Black, Upside Down Miss Jane, Feed The Horse, Partisan Code Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Ray Beadle Band Empire Hotel, Annandale $20 Replika Rock Duo Vineyard Hotel free 9pm River Of Snakes, Glitter Canyon, Death Valley, La Mancha Negra DJs The Square, Haymarket $12 8pm Skyscraper Customs House Bar, Sydney free 7pm

Yuck

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 11 ROCK & POP

Solid Gold Hell: River of Snakes, Glitter Canyon, Death Valley The Square, Haymarket $12 8pm Step-Panther, Go With Colours, Tales in Space Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm Super Driver Collaroy Beach Hotel free 5.30pm Suzy Connolly, The Laughing Outlaws, Edward Deer Notes Live, Enmore $17.35 7pm Tone Rangers Kingswood Sports Club free 7.30pm Tom Ugly, Death By Dance, The Khanz, Polar Knights FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm Tony Williams Guildford Leagues Club free 10pm Twilight at Taronga: James Reyne, Mark Seymour

Taronga Zoo, Mosman $59 (conc)–$69 8pm

JAZZ

First Ladies of Soul II: Jo Elms, Liza Ohlback, Kim Hart Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $30 (+ bf) 8pm Gang of Brothers featuring The Martinez Brothers Blue Beat, Double Bay $10 10pm The Ottignon Brothers The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre $20-$30 8.30pm Pugsley Buzzard 505 Club, Surry Hills $15–$20 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Kim Sanders Camelot, Marrickville $20–$25 7.30pm Marty Stewart The Belvedere Hotel free 8pm

The Abstractionists Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Angels Of Tattooed Generation, Kill Appeal, Sweetheart Valve Bar, Tempe 5pm Blue Venom Carousel Inn, Rooty Hill free 8.30pm Bollywood Funk Party Valve Bar, Tempe 6pm Caravana Sun, Rargo, Andy Kelly Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach 8pm Cougar Kingswood Sports Club free 8.30pm Dave Tice and Mark Evans Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm Deadbeat & Hazy, Old Men of Moss Mountain Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Deep Magic, Pimmon, Secret Birds, Angel Eyes, Four Door Dirty Shirlows, Marrickvile $18 8pm Doni Raven and the Blackjack Wolfpack, The Dirty Surfin’ Bastards Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7.30pm Electric Mary, 30three, Yoland and the Stolen Boys, Lite Feed Frenzy, Thin Air Gaelic Theatre, Surry Hills $18.40 8pm

“The music was outstanding, between-thesongs banter was brilliant. Hay is a master storyteller of the hilarious kind.” —Kevin Triebsch, Silver Tongue “Hay continues to pen superb songs.” —Sydney Morning Herald “Hay appeared on the popular soundtrack to Garden State, the 2004 movie with Scrubs star Zach Braff. For many, that soundtrack represented the past decade’s face of indie rock—Hay’s song ﬁt right in alongside The Shins and Iron & Wine.”

wed

08 Feb

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

thu

09 Feb

- The San Diego Reader

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

fri

15-16TH FEB

10 Feb

The Basement (5:00PM - 8:00PM)

sat

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SATURDAY NIGHT

TIX: www.thebasement.com.au PH (02) 92512797

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

11 Feb

29 Reiby Place Sydney NSW 2000

(9:30PM - 1:30AM)

sun

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

Feb

SUNDAY NIGHT

an evening with (9:00PM - 12:00AM)

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

COLIN HAY gathering C ME

compassrecords.com

RUY

TO U R 2 0 1 2

BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 39

g g guide g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com The Elton Jack Show Blacktown RSL Club free 9pm Fatt Lipp Engadine Tavern free 9.30pm Finn Jack Duggan’s Irish Pub, Bathurst 8.30pm Goons of Doom, The Ruminators, Mylee Grace & The Milkshakes The Standard, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Haezer Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst 8pm Hobo Bordeaux The Mac, Surry Hills free 8pm Hotel California Eagles Show Oatley Hotel free 8.30pm Ian Moss Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm John Vella Hollywood Bar & Café, Hoyts Broadway free 6pm Kirk Burgess Rosebay Hotel free 7.30pm La Dispute, Between The Devil & The Deep, Perspectives Annandale Hotel $25 (+ bf) 12pm all-ages The Local Brew Excelsior Hotel, Glebe free 7.30pm Matt Zarb, Hussy Hicks, Minnie Marks Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $28 8pm Professor Groove & The Booty Affair Blue Beat, Double Bay $10 10pm Red Fire Red, Fox Valley, South Devine, Athena Serpentine The Square, Haymarket $10 8pm

Scott Kelly, John Baizley, Blackie Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown 8pm The Slips, Screaming Bikini, Young Romantics, Bambalam Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm Spy Vs Spy, Chasm City Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 8.30pm Stormcellar Bald Rock Hotel, Rozelle free 8pm Summer’s Mixtape, Cross My Heart, Kaato, Scream Infamy, Anthying For Now, Anonymous Lucky Australia Tavern, St Marys $10 1pm Tex Perkins & The Band of Gold

The Basement, Circular Quay $40 7pm Tim Kendell Guildford Leagues Club free 10pm Tom T The Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 10pm Twilight at Taronga: James Reyne, Mark Seymour Taronga Zoo, Mosman $59 (conc)–$69 8pm Undead Apes, Glory Holes, Spew Yr Guts Up, Eat My Shorts, DJ Simo Soo Red Rattler, Marrickville $6 6pm Vibrations At Valve Band Competition: Anonymous, Limited Headspace, Samsara, Anghard Yeo, The Darkened Seas Valve Bar, Tempe 12pm

Wildkatz Level 1, East Leagues Club free 9pm

JAZZ

Blue Moon Quartet Supper Club, Fairfield RSL Club free 7pm Dale Barlow Band The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre $10-$20 8.30pm First Ladies Of Soul II: Jo Elms, Liza Ohlback, Kim Hart Notes Live, Enmore $34.70 (+ bf) 8pm Kristin Berardi Band 505 Club, Surry Hills $15– $20 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Jason Lytle (USA), Steve Smyth The Vanguard, Newtown $33 (+ bf)–$68 (with dinner) 8pm The Mike Whitney Band Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm Mystery Guest The Belvedere Hotel free 9pm Neville K, Josh Muncke, Naomi Crain, Dan Crestani, Helmut Uhlmann Terrey Hills Tavern free 7.30pm Rani’s Fire, Andrew Denniston Mars Hill Café, Parramatta free 8pm The Yellow Canvas, Russell Neal Royal Exchange Hotel, Marrickville free 7.30pm

COUNTRY Donovan Frankenreiter

Bushwackers Empire Hotel, Annandale $15 8pm

L2 Kings Cross Hotel

Tuesday February 7 JURASSIC LOUNGE AFTER PARTY:

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 12 ROCK & POP

Blue Sunday: Dauno Martinez Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $10 8.30pm Blues Sunday: Mark Hopper Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Bryen Willems & the Boogie Boys Marrickville Bowling and Recreation Club 8pm Carni Meat, Winslows Cancer, Halfwait, PurEnvy, Sons Of Havoc, Reunion Lucky Australian Tavern, St Marys $10 2pm Ceara Fox Waverley Bowling Club free 3pm Chucks Wagon Botany View Hotel, Newtown free 7pm Donavon Frankenreiter (USA) Coogee Bay Hotel free 5pm Drive: Peter Northcote, Danny Marx Young The Bridge Hotel, Rozelle $10 3.30pm Eye Of The Tiger Riverstone Sports Hotel free 2pm Finn and Friends Bald Rock Hotel, Rozelle free 6pm Kerser Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt $15–$20 8pm all-ages Kirk Burgess Bayview Tavern, Gladesville free 6pm LJ Level 1, East Leagues Club free 6pm

Luke DeSoto and The Handsome Devils Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm The Pod Brothers The Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 7.30pm The Return of Cool Hampshire Hotel, Camperdown free 4pm allages Screaming Sunday Annandale Hotel 12pm allages Sex In Columbia, The Darkened Seas, Lizzy Cross Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 7.15pm Ted Nash Collaroy Beach Hotel free Union Bluegrass Sessions: Oh Willy Dear!, Hayfever Union Hotel, Newtown free 4pm

JAZZ

The Subterraneans Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 7pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Charli, Russell Neal Salisbury Hotel, Stanmore free 2pm Donovan Frankenreiter (USA) Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm Glenn Whitehall Oatley Hotel free 2pm Krishna Jones The Belvedere Hotel free 4pm Shance MacKenzie Cohibar, Darling Harbour free 3pm Tom Simmonds, Carla Welbe, Ella Mitchell, Lucy Dalton, Russell Neal Avalon Beach RSL free 6.30pm

www.fbisocial.com

Wednesday February 8 LUNCH BREAK PRESENTED BY ALBERTS ~ featuring ~

Thursday February 9

RADIANT LIVE: THE ICYPOLES + MONNONE ALONE + GARY OLSEN + SHEAHAN DRIVE

EARS HAVE EARS (FBi) + DOMEYKO/GONZALEZ DJs

THE PAPER SCISSORS

9pm // FREE

Live Broadcast on FBi Radio 94.5FM!

8pm // $10

Friday February 10

Saturday February 11

Sunday February 12

BUCKLEY WARD + BOATS OF BERLIN +GINGER & DRUM

AFTERNOON DELIGHT:

1pm // FREE

TOM UGLY +DEATH BY DANCE + THE KHANS +POLAR KNIGHTS

ROBOPOP Pumping irony, with a fistful of cheese

RADIANT LIVE: 11:30pm // $5

8pm // $10

8pm // $15 2012

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LOOSE JOINTS (3-5PM) & FOREIGNDUB AIRWAYVZ (5-7PM) broadcast LIVE + Guests (7-9PM) 3PM // $5 Live Broadcast on FBi Radio 94.5FM!

gig picks up all night out all week...

presents

The + The Hello Morning Feist

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 7

Laura Marling (UK) Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $59 (+ bf) 8pm

Bleeding Knees Club, Sures, The Drums DJs (USA), The Holidays DJs, 8Dimes DJs GoodGod Small Club, Sydney $10 8pm

M83 (France) Metro Theatre, Sydney $53.70 9pm

Feist (Canada), Mountain Man (USA) Enmore Theatre $79 7.30pm all-ages Portugal. The Man (USA), Givers (USA), Guineafowl Metro Theatre, Sydney $48.70 7.30pm

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 8 The Drums (USA), Cults (USA), Dune Rats Metro Theatre, Sydney $62.90 7pm Hall & Oates, Icehouse Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour $99–$262 8pm The Paper Scissors FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel free 1pm Washed Out (USA), Toro Y Moi (USA), Guerre, Future Classic DJs Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $50 (+ bf) 8pm

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 9 Austra (Canada), Kool Thing The Basement, Circular Quay $45.50 7.30pm Colin Hay Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $60–$102 (dinner & show) 8pm

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (USA), Geoffrey O’Connor, Rainbow Chan Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $45 (+ bf) 8pm Yuck (UK), Ema (USA), Step-Panther Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $38.50 (+ bf) 8pm

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 10 MUM: Camden, She Rexx, Taylor King, The White Goods, Ghastly Spats, Hopes, Raw Prawn, MUM DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross free $10-$15 8pm Step-Panther, Go With Colours, Tales in Space Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm

NICHE PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 11 Deep Magic, Pimmon, Secret Birds, Angel Eyes, Four Door Dirty Shirlows, Marrickvile $18 8pm Goons of Doom, The Ruminators, Mylee Grace & The Milkshakes The Standard, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Jason Lytle (USA), Steve Smyth The Vanguard, Newtown $33 (+ bf)–$68 (dinner & show) 8pm

AN EVENING OF DISCO/HOUSE, DUBSTEP, HIP HOP, LEFTFIELD ELECTRONICA & FUTURE SOUL

10 FEB

POLO CLUB ALL LIVE EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT 8PM TIL MIDNIGHT

The Drums

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brag beats

BRAG’s guide to dance, hip hop and club culture

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

he said she said WITH

Rude Kid

PETER HORREVORTS (NL)

here was this moment when I was about eight, playing this videogame which had an awesome soundtrack. It was nothing like normal music, with the crackly 8-bit chiptune, but I really loved the chunky groove and throbbing bassline. I think that was one of the first moments when I was really conscious about loving music. I look up to a lot of different musicians, but the ones who just keep on inspiring me are bands like Radiohead, who keep on developing their sound and never do the same trick twice. I like to get my inspiration from different areas as it keeps my own music fresh, so I’m listening to experimental electronica a lot, to get inspired by new and unconventional ways to make music. I just graduated from the Rockacademie, a music industry institution. I had already released music on several labels, such as Kanzleramt and Global Underground, so I started producing full time and performing as a DJ and a live act while I was studying there. Then I got the opportunity to do an internship for Dutch techno guru Secret Cinema, and from there hooked up with him and

his crew while they were setting up Gem Records – and now I’m touring with him in Australia! I really like to flirt with different genres of music. When I’m doing a DJ set, I try to go from one style to the other, while retaining a certain vibe; a bit of techno, house, disco and even some electronica. Obviously, when I’m doing a live set, I play my own productions. I try to emphasise the characteristics of my sound as much as I can – so it will be fat, groovy and loaded with energy. There is just so much good music out there these days, and there’s easy access to it from all over the world. Styles and genres just keep on blending with each other, too. The downside is that the music market is getting saturated; it’s hard to keep track of all the new music coming out everyday. It also makes it hard to get the needed attention for your own releases. Artists and record labels really need to get creative if they want to stand out. With: Murat Kilic, Garry Todd, Nic Scali and more Where: The Spice Cellar When: Saturday February 11

DJ QUIK TOUR

West Coast hip hop producer, DJ and multi instrumentalist DJ Quik will be performing live in Australia for the first time in March in a tour that coincides with the release of his eighth solo studio album, The Book Of David. A staple of L.A.’s early rap scene due to the resounding success of his debut album Quik Is The Name in 1991, Quik’s influence in the hip hop world remains undiminished over twenty years on. In recent interviews, Quik admitted that on previous albums he had “got away from the music that made me want to get into the industry from people like Prince, The Time, The Force M.D.s, you know, some of these ‘80s hip hop kind of records,” so it is unsurprising that The Book Of David is unapologetically soaked in old-school flavour. Quik’s latest album finds him taking a step back from the more experimental music he was producing on 2009’s Kurupt collaboration BlaQKout in favour of smoother, more accessible jams. DJ Quik will perform at The Gaelic Club on Thursday March 15, with presale tickets currently available online.

Aphex Twin

APHEX TWIN SIDESHOW

One of the pioneers of electronic music over the past twenty years, Richard D. James aka Aphex Twin (along with a heap of lesser-known aliases; as James himself commented way back in ’93, “Schizophrenia is fuckin’ excellent”) will perform a Future Music Festival sideshow at The Enmore Theatre on Friday March 2. From his nightmarish videoclips to album covers that are worthy of their own exhibition, the reclusive James is himself a true artist who deserves his venerated reputation in pop culture. Signed to Warp in the early months of 1993 on the back of the minor success of ‘Digeridoo’ and Selected Ambient Works 85-92, James confounded expectations (as he would do many times in the future) by releasing a double disc set: Selected Ambient Works, Volume II. Though the release was (perhaps unsurprisingly) reviled by the many critics who had begun to accept James’ merging of hardcore rave and synthetic ambience, SAW Vol 2 was a success, reaching #11 on the British charts – and Aphex Twin was here to stay. Ever since, James has been lurking in the shadows of the experimental electronic milieu, memorably rearing his head with iconic singles like ‘Come To Daddy’ and ‘Windowlicker’. Making his first Australian appearance since 2004, James will be supported by Mark Pritchard. Tickets go on sale as of Tuesday February 7.

SPACE DIMENSION CONTROLLER

Picnic returns to The Civic Underground this Saturday February 11 with a bash headlined by Space Dimension Controller, a chap whose sound traverses ‘80s funk, cosmic disco and warm, melodic techno. Since attending the Red Bull Music Academy in London last year, Space Dimension Controller has released records on Belgian techno institution R&S Records, started up his own record label Basic Rhythm and is apparently in the midst of crafting an LP. Supporting this nascent talent will be Matt Trousdale, Morgda (the duo of Claire Morgan and Magda Bytnerowicz) and Kali, while on the upstairs level Marcus King, Long John Saliva and Andy Webb will be pushing beats. Presale tickets are available from Resident Advisor for $25.

LOOSEKABOOSE FT HAUL MUSIC

Loosekaboose is back for their first party of 2012 at One22 on Saturday February 18.

RELOAD FT RUDE KID

Reload returns for its first jaunt of the year with a two-room bash this Saturday from 7pm at the Gladstone Hotel – located at 115 Regent Street, Chippendale. Focusing on dubstep, grime, UK bass, DnB and dancehall sounds, the party will feature a headline set from London’s Rude Kid, a chap who has collaborated with the likes of Wiley, Skepta, Kano, JME and Ghetto and was recently signed to Sony Records. Although he covers the traditional grime staples, Rude Kid’s sound also ventures into funky, dubstep and even techno at times, leading to his self-description of his sound as “alien music”. A lengthy support ensemble of DJs will also represent, including QLD’s Robbanx, Garage Pressure, Max Gosford, Teefreeqs, Highly Dubious, DJ Reload and Basslines among others. Presale tickets can be purchased in advance online, with $25 tickets available on the door if available.

Headlining the event will be Haul Music, a duo comprising two of Australia’s best-known techno talents in Mike Callander and Craig McWhinney. Haul Music will be performing a live ‘one-on-one’ set that involves using classic techno machinery such as the TR909, along with modern performance tools like Ableton Live and Maschine, to deconstruct and reconstruct each other’s tracks, as well as showcasing a range of new collaborative works. Also representing will be Mad Racket’s Simon Caldwell along with Loosekaboose residents Jimi Polar from the Junkbeats collective and Sydney techno femmes Claire Morgan and Trinity, who have both had remixes released on the eponymous Haul Music label. Presale tickets for the event are available from residentadvisor.net for $15; otherwise they are $20 on the door.

CHIC @ THE METRO

Seminal New York disco troupe Chic, the brainchild of Nile Rogers, are heading to Australia for their first tour in ten years, and will perform a sideshow at The Metro Theatre in addition to their spot at Playground Weekender. Chic were a ubiquitous presense in the pop charts from 1977-1980, cementing their position as disco deities with an unrivalled run of hits including ‘Good Times’, ‘I Want Your Love’, ‘Everybody Dance’ – brilliantly utilised in Spike Lee’s underrated film Summer Of Sam – and ‘Le Freak’, which is apparently Warner Brothers’ biggest selling single of all time. After Chic, Rodgers went on to even bigger things as a topflight producer and guitarist, working on David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ and Madonna’s ‘Like A Virgin’ among a plethora of other projects. Rogers will be breaking out the Chic classics when they play The Metro on Monday March 5; presale tickets are available through venue’s website. BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 43

dance music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH TRINITY Growing Up The Music You Make Mum and dad were always playing music I am part of production duo Trinity & 1. 4. when we were growing up – the house was Beyond with one of my best friends, John rarely quiet. Dad had a really good collection; I’d go through his records when I was home alone and dance around to them. It was my older brother that got me into dance music; he took me to Central Station Records when I was 14, and I bought my first techno compilation. I’ve been hooked ever since. Inspirations I’m being inspired by so much different 2. music at the moment, from house to

KRIS MENACE

Fêted producer Kris Menace will prepare for the release of a new album Electric Horizon in April by releasing a lead-off single ‘Falling Star’ early next month. Menace’s sonic CV includes releases like the mega-smash ‘Discopolis’ with Alan Braxe and side projects like Black Van, along with remixes for pop royalty such as Depeche Mode, LCD Soundsystem, Air, Booka Shade and even Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams. Menace described ‘Falling Star’ in an understated fashion: “Listening to this track is like being pulled through the stars by your heart with your eyes closed… I wanted to create a space odyssey, opening your mind and taking you far away into another world.” You’ll be able to track down the forthcoming Menace releases through Australian distributor I Like The Noise It Makes.

Tzinieris. We make all types of music, from deep tech house to melodic techno. Our sound is very recognisable – flowing atmospherics, melodic overtones and deep chords. We are very fortunate to have been released on some great labels including Beef, Haul, Manual Music and Pinksilver, and to have also had our tracks remixed by artists like Pezzner, Deepchild, Jimi Polar, Alex Kid and XDB.

electronica to deep dub techno, so my biggest inspirations are quite varied. I’m really loving sounds coming from Max Cooper, Klartraum, James Holden, Luke Hess, Conforce, John Daly, Echologist, Rene Breitbarth, Steffi, Perc, XDB, Basic Soul Unit and Move D. I think the person that has inspired me the most in my DJ career (who is also one of my favourite live acts) is Deepchild; someone who has worked so hard in the industry to get where he is now, and is also very talented, positive and humble.

Music, Right Here, Right Now I love the Sydney music scene – it really 5. feels like a community. I love the warehouse

Your Crew The people I associate with tend to be 3. more on the creative side, especially women. I

With: Simon Caldwell, Haul Music (live), Claire Morgan, Jimi Polar and more

also love to be around people that inspire me, which a lot of my friends do.

When: Saturday February 18

parties, I love how talented a lot of the artists in Sydney are, I love how excited people get when an international comes out here to play. There are also finally some decent venues for intimate underground nights, including the most recent addition, One22 (underneath the Vault Hotel).

Where: Loosekaboose @ One22

JOHN DIGWEED

The iconic Bedrock label is heading to Greenwood Hotel this Saturday February 11, with none other than its kingpin John Digweed in tow. Digweed’s known for being a down-to-earth, wholesome kind of guy – but he’s by no means a small name. The man has remixed the likes of Underworld, New Order and William Orbit, released legendary mixes for Global Underground, Northern Exposure and Renaissance, toured with David Bowie and Moby, had a track in Trainspotting (‘For What You Dream Of’) and scored a Hollywood movie (Stark Raving Mad). Not enough for you? Digweed will be supported by DJ Butch, who spent two months of 2011 as the #1 DJ, according to Resident Advisor’s Worldwide DJ Charts. If you’re keen to find out why, let us know the name of Digweed’s radio show and we’ll fling a double pass at ya.

THE RAPTURE, AZARI & III

It’s been a while since we’ve cracked out ‘No Sex For Ben’ at dance parties (Who is Ben Rama? Why does he get none?), but Brooklyn lads The Rapture have continued to deliver euphoric dance tunes and spunky indie rock in the years since. They’re heading here for the mammoth Future Music Festival, and have announced a sideshow where they’ll be joined by none other than those rave-bandits Azari & III. These guys killed it at Vivid LIVE last year, and by all accounts have only gotten better. We’ve got a double pass to giveaway to the huge show, which is happening at The Metro Theatre on Thursday March 8. All you’ve got to do is send us the name of your favourite Azari & III track.

SVEN VÄTH

Charismatic German techno colossus Sven Väth returns to Sydney for the Future Music Festival, and has been confirmed for his now annual headline sideshow at The Metro Theatre on Friday March 9. Ever the showman, the Cocoon mainman’s prior appearances in Sydney at Home, Future Music Festival and The Metro are noteworthy for the flagrant disregard for decorum that the Omen Club founding father has made his defining trait. Details of the gig are scarce at this stage, but given that Sven was joined by Richie Hawtin and Dubfire respectively in his last few gigs at The Metro, the odds have got to be that one of the many tech big guns on the Future Music Festival lineup will also be fronting up for the Sven sideshow.

Tek-One

MEN

DISTORTION FT. TEK-ONE + OPTIMUS GRYME

Distortion is embarking on its first ever Boat Cruise on February 11 for a nautical double header headlined by renowned UK dubstep producer Tek-One and NZ’s Optimus Gryme, aboard the MV Bella Vista, a “floating glass venue”. In addition to the international drawcards, respected local hip hop label Big Village Records will be representing on the top deck, while the likes of Kato, Libre, Kid Koma, Enochi, Neon Youth and Carlitos will also be representing (“favour gonna kill you faster than a bullet”). The cruise departs from Wharf 9 on King St Wharf, with first release $55 tickets available online.

RAINBOW SERPENT TRAGEDY 2012 SYDNEY MARDI GRAS

The lineup for the 2012 Sydney Mardi Gras Festival party on Saturday March 3 at assorted venues around the Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park, has been announced. Performing will be MEN featuring Le Tigre’s JD Samson, Hercules & Love Affair’s Andy Butler, Chicane, DE Experience, Horse Meat Disco, Le Gateau Chocolat, Dan Murphy, DJ Feisty, Kitty Glitter, Lady Miss Kier (of Deee-lite), Lee Dagger of Bimbo Jones, Mike Kelly, Ruby, RuPaul, Sneaky Sound System, Sveta, and Wayne G among others. As always, it’s set to be a huge night. For further information and tickets, head to mardigras.org.au/party

44 :: BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12

In extremely upsetting news, it has been confirmed that a 34-year-old man from Melbourne died from a drug overdose during the annual Rainbow Serpent Festival in Victoria over the Australia Day weekend, which featured performances from the likes of DJ Koze and Gabriel Ananda. An understandably distraught mother told papers, “Drugs took my son… He rang here that Saturday night at 6.15pm … and said, ‘Mum, I have taken some very bad acid.’” Paramedics were called to the festival site later on that evening, but the man was deceased when they arrived. Although we can no doubt expect the media to continue to fan the flames of

hysteria in an attempt to impart responsibility on festival organisers, the unfortunate fact of the matter remains that whenever consenting adults choose to take drugs, there is a rare possibility things can go horribly wrong – particularly if they are consumed excessively (there is no information as to the dosage involved in the Rainbow tragedy) or if they consume something that is incorrectly passed off as something else. Despite what factions of the media may declare, an excessive police presence at these sorts of music events is not the answer. The Rainbow Serpent Festival rightly holds a reputation as one of the premier outdoor musical showcases in Australia, and this year attracted fifteen thousand partygoers.

BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 45

Rustie

These Beats Aren’t Made For Talkin’ By Jonno Seidler

laswegian producer of the moment, Rustie, is not a fan of chatter. It could be because the artist, whose real name is Russell White, is so ludicrously young (based on his image and lack of discernible facts, estimates range between 13 and 19) that talking to journalists on the other side of the equator is more than a bit daunting – but either way, pulling answers out of him is certainly not an easy task. Ironically, though, it’s entirely at odds with his music: here is a high-energy purveyour of sound whose first single for the prestigious Warp records label (Jamie Lidell, Aphex Twin) was auspiciously titled ‘Inside Pikachu’s Cunt.’ You’d think the guy would have something to say about that.

But the beatmaker, whose debut Glass Swords managed to sneak inside The Guardian’s Top 10 albums of last year, is as reticent as his music is grandiose – and he’s still coming to terms with the whole idea of being, well, you know, popular. “Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise!” he says through a thick Scottish accent. “But The Guardian have always been very supportive of my stuff over the years.” Rustie’s been active for five years now and one of the world’s most respected newspapers is already shadowing his every movement – although it’s doubtful that they printed the name of his first single in full… Glass Swords is dubstep gorging on sugar; it’s womp-womp with double-time overtones; at this point in the game, it could well be the third book of the Bible. ’80s snare hits, MSTRKRFT handclaps, syncopated Chicago house bass, half-time beat drops, skittering hi-hats – it’s all that stuff you’ve heard before, but now it’s drinking Coca-Cola at 10pm on a Thursday and the cab doesn’t arrive for at least another half-hour. Lead single ‘Surph’ manages to take the same extreme-slo-mo approach that has

made legends out of everyone from Skream to Zed’s Dead, but makes it attractive rather than aggressive. Rustie is rather philosophical about this high-sugar, slowed-down aesthetic he has going. “I’ve been messing with half-step stuff since 2003 – this was an influence of stuff like [hip hop crew] Three 6 Mafia as opposed dubstep,” he explains. “I don’t see myself stopping with that anytime soon, but it’s not something I feel bound by.” Though signed with Warp, Rustie is also part of the phenomenal Glaswegian collective LuckyMe, who promote new music and art discovery by literally flooding the internet with it at every opportunity. Enviably, he counts topline producers like Hudson Mohawke (who is joining him at the upcoming Sydney show) and S-Type as friends – they threw a lot of the early parties he played. “They’re all good mates, but I’m not really involved so much [anymore] just because of time, unfortunately,” he says. “We’re all getting more busy individually and moving away from Scotland and stuff. But we still have each others’ backs.” Certainly hitting up Playground Weekender in Wiseman’s Ferry may take the cake for the furthest White’s ever been from home, especially given that he’s “used to club gigs”. In the meantime, he can hang out with the locals and work on his banter – or just lie to everyone about his past like Bob Dylan. “Making music is the boring part – that’s why Bob Dylan ghost writes most of my stuff for me,” he laughs. With: Hudson Mohawke Where: Hold Tight @ Manning Bar When: Saturday February 25 More: Also playing Playground Weekender at Wisemans Ferry from March 2-4.

Bonobo The Great Escape By Miki McLay

ffortless, laidback vibes seem instinctive to New York-based Ninja Tune stalwart Simon Green, better known through his production alias Bonobo. With ten years worth of expansive, breezy electronica to his name, it comes as no surprise that the London-born artist enjoyed such a musical upbringing. “My dad’s a folk musician and there were always a lot of people around our house – dudes with beards and banjos! I guess it wasn’t until I grew up a little bit that I started getting into the kind of stuff that I then started making. I went to Brighton when I was a teenager and that’s when I really started getting into it – I think it’s around that age that you begin to find your musical identity.” Does Green feel as though his music is a reflection of his own identity? “I’d like to think so – it all comes out of me,” he answers. “I use music as a very escapist thing; if I haven’t made tunes for a couple of weeks I start getting a little twitchy, so I need to! It’s always this thing with trying to push forward and get a bit of myself out there, I guess. I think there’s always something nostalgic in music – you’re trying to create something that sounds like it’s from somewhere, but you can’t place it.” Green’s most recent effort, 2010’s Black Sands defies the homogenous clichés of ‘chillout music’, a term that’s associated with Bonobo’s output but does no justice to his organic-sounding, meticulously-wrought releases. While playing host to a string of gorgeous singles, Black Sands also exists as an interconnected, immersive whole – and reviewers and fans across the globe welcomed it universally. “I basically sat in a room for a year at four in the morning with some headphones on – and you have no perspective on it after a certain amount of time. It’s pretty much all me; I wrote and recorded everything… It’s not until it’s out and other people are listening to it and telling you what they think that it feels like it’s finished. Once you let it go is when it gets its own identity.”

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A remixed version of Black Sands is set for release in mid-February, and the list of artists who’ve jumped on board is enough to make any discerning consumer of electronica a little hot under the collar. Floating Points, Cosmin TRG, Machinedrum – a sign of good taste, clearly. “Machinedrum and Lapalux were incredible, stuff from Brainfeeder – I’m really happy with the way it’s turned out. It definitely represents what I’m into at the minute,” Green enthuses. “When I DJ, it’s a lot more uptempo than the stuff that I [produce], so I’m playing a lot of that type of post-garage, bassline stuff. The new record has elements of that in it as well – some of the new stuff I’m working on now is moving into that slightly abstract house area. Ironically, the year I moved to New York from London was the year I started making really Londonsounding music!” The live Bonobo setup is a full band with six people, including vocalist Andreya. “It’s all live, we’re not playing over beats. We’re playing like a real band and dropping in the electronics as a part of that, another texture – so it is a genuinely live show,” he says. “Drums, horns, guitars, double bass, Ableton and keys. We go all over the place; strip stuff right down to guitars and keys, build it right up, go more into the DJ-esque field.” Green’s got family in Queensland, but hasn’t played in Australia before, save for a DJ tour. “It’s been a long time and a lot has changed, so I guess this is the first real Bonobo tour out there. I’m really looking forward to it.” With: First Aid Kit, Jinja Safari, Gurrumul, Tinariwen, Chic, Baaba Maal, Dirty Three, Pajama Club, Blue King Brown and loads more Where: WOMADelaide @ Botanic Park, Adelaide from March 9-12 More: Also playing at the Metro Theatre on Friday March 2, and at Playground Weekender, which is being held from March 2-4 at Wisemans Ferry.

Deep Impressions Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY FEBRUARY 11 Hunee Marrickville Bowling Club

FRIDAY MARCH 2

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.

Roots Manuva

Aphex Twin The Enmore Theatre

Germanic kingpins Wolfgang Voigt and Jörg Burger have announced a new album for Kompakt under the moniker of Mohn. The duo have collaborated on and off since the early ’80s when

Mayer Hawthorne Metro Theatre

Chic ft. Nile Rodgers Metro Theatre

FRIDAY MARCH 16

Prosumer One22

Levon Vincent has revealed via his Facebook fan page – they call it investigative journalism for a reason – that he’ll be behind the 63rd mix CD in Fabric’s long-running compilation series. Hailing from New York, Vincent made his name in the early ’00s with toughtalking but remarkably well-arranged house singles, mostly released on his own More Music label. It was in the latter part of that decade, however, that Levon really hit his stride, with his 2008-2009 output particular worthy of accolades as he churned out cuts like ‘Six Figures’ and the monstrous ‘Double Jointed Sex Freak’. After focusing on gigging throughout 2010, Levon returned to releasing records late last year, dropping the cuts ‘Man Or Mistress’ and ‘Impression Of A Rainstorm’. The next step, it seems, will be Fabric 63, after Vincent’s claim that he’d spent “all [Sun]day cutting dubplates” in preparation for recording the mix. And while on Fabric, for those planning ahead it’s come to light that Guy Gerber will mix the 64th Fabric, following on from Vincent’s effort. But there’s plenty of things to look forward to in clubland before Gerber’s compilation finally emerges.

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 24

MONDAY MARCH 5

SATURDAY MARCH 24 they first met, most notably in founding the Delirium record store in 1993, the shop that would eventually become the seminal label/distribution hub that is Kompakt Records (which Voigt owns, along with Michael Mayer and Jurgen Paape). They’ve released together on Matador under the name Burger/Ink, and in recent years have been focusing on a live show. According to a post on Kompakt’s website, Mohn’s first album will be “extremely decelerated, slowmotion techno with and without bass drum, containing lots of plasticiser”. The post elucidates that Mohn is “slow, sublime, sombre music, fusing different ambient styles to one new one ... a non-stop concert-lecture for a seated audience (theatre), but it also works standing up (shoegaze, ambientbounce, ambientgrunge) ... opium for the people”. They had me at opium.

Erykah Badu Sydney Opera House

Playground Weekender Wiseman’s Ferry

Chemistry ft Phil Smart One22 (122 Pitt St)

anorama Bar resident Prosumer (Achim Brandenburg to his inner circle), who hails from Saarbrücken in southwestern Germany, will play a four-hour set for Co-Op at One22 on Saturday March 24, as part of his debut Australia tour. Taking the Prosumer name from Alvin Toffler’s novel The Third Wave, a book that informed much of the imagery and ideology that surrounded the emergence of Detroit Techno, Prosumer has forged himself a reputation for being one of the most knowledgeable DJs on the scene, earning himself a regular spot at Berlin’s zeitgeist-defining Panorama Bar. Drawing on the soulful sensibility of early Detroit and Chicago records, Prosumer has released on revered labels such as Running Back, Playhouse and Ostgut Ton, collaborated with Tamo Sumo, and put out his debut album Serenity – a joint work with producer Murat Tepeli – in 2008. Prosumer’s Panorama Bar 03 compilation was released last year to widespread critical ‘thumbs up’, collating gems from Morgan Geist, Jeff Mills, Uwe Schmidt, Theo Parrish and DJ IZ, among others, such as the “summery adrenaline shot” that is ‘A Leaf For Hand In Hand’ by the Australia-bound Hunee (who is headlining the forthcoming HAHA bash at Marrickville Bowling Club this Saturday). As for Prosumer’s thoughts on the club scene, the following remarks provide an insight into the distinct experience we can expect from his Sydney DJ set: “I would love to see everything being less about hype and more about passion for music,” he uttered in his thick southwest German accent. “I wish there to be more people not looking at the media to tell them what is hot but to go out there and experience and find out themselves.” Presale tickets for Co-Op featuring Prosumer can, and should, be procured via Resident Advisor.

FEBRUARY 19 & 20

MARCH 2-4

SATURDAY MARCH 3

Prosumer

ON THE ROAD

Hermitude Oxford Art Factory

FRIDAY MARCH 23 Watussi, True Vibenation, Alphamama Metro Theatre k, first things first: Ellesquire’s ‘Chasing The Pay’ is this column’s favourite tune of the moment. It’s a big, big track from the local emcee. You can find it on his debut album, Ready, which is out through the Big Village label. P Major produced the track, and the beats are deep and chilled, layered with excellent synth work that makes it unique. Good work from both of those guys.

Local hip hop funk outfit The Dynamics are appearing at the Mac Hotel every Thursday in February from 8.30pm, and you’ll be able to catch guest emcees from the Big Village label joining the band each night. NZ born Berlin resident Julien Dyne is back with his second album, Glimpse, in quick fashion. His first record, Pins And Digits, was dope – check out the track ‘Layer’ from that. If you’re down with soulful futuristic beats and hazy electronic, you’ll dig the sound. It’s out through BBE. And while you’re at it you should also check out the Disco Jamz comp, compiled by Johnny D and out on BBE as well. A man behind the early US house label Henry Street Music, Johnny has selected a swathe of vintage disco goodness, which includes both rare and well-known stuff. London DJ Red Greg has put together a compilation of similar nature. Under The Influence Vol 1 is a collection of rare, obscure disco, funk and boogie. This one’s out through Z Records.

Yelawolf joins us for his first Australian tour. Signed to Eminem’s Shady Records, his debut record Radioactive came out late last year. You can catch him with local support from Briggs, The Havknotz and DJ Victor Lopez. That one goes down Saturday March 31 at the Metro. Eminent British emcee Roots Manuva is back in town for a show at Playground Weekender and then The Hi-Fi (formerly The Forum) on Thursday March 8. Manuva has the new record out, 4everevolution, which has some really brilliant moments and interesting contributing producers – including local boy Dizz1, who produced ‘Here We Go Again’. Ray Mann is back from Berlin to do a small run of shows with his band the Ray Mann Three. He’ll showcase his funk and soul style on Thursday February 16 at GoodGod Small Club, with DJs Briscoe and Nick La Rosa on support. And Erykah Badu plays the Sydney Opera House for two dates this month: Sunday February 19 and Monday February 20. The queen of hip hop and soul performing in Sydney’s most prestigious live music venue: Soul Sedation likes the sound of that.

Yelawolf

Heading over to Latin America, Quantic has released a double disc compilation of traditional Cumbia music, the result of his last five years living and digging in Columbia. The Original Sound Of Cumbia 1948-79 contains almost 60 tracks in all. As an aside, it turns out that Quantic has learned the accordion while he’s been over there... For fans of gangstaflavoured rap, southern US emcee

Levon Vincent

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

Send stuff for this column to tonyedwards001@gmail.com by 6pm Wednesdays. All pics to art@thebrag.com BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 47

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

club pick of the week Space Dimension Controller

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 11 Civic Underground, Sydney

Space Dimension Controller, Matt Trousdale, Claire Morgan, Magda Bytnerowicz, Kali, Marcus King, Long John Saliva, Andy Webb $25 (+ bf) 10pm MONDAY FEBRUARY 6 Goldfish, Kings Cross We Owe You One 6pm Scubar. Sydney Crab Racing 7pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Jazz DJs free 7pm

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 7 Establishment, Sydney Rumba Motel DJ Willie Sabor 8pm Goldfish, Kings Cross We Owe You One 6pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney The Drums DJs (USA), Bleeding Knees Club, Sures, The Holidays DJs, 8Dimes DJs $10 8pm

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 Andy & Mike, Chappers free 8pm

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 8 Epping Hotel DTF Resident & Guest DJs free 9pm The Flinders Hotel, Darlinghurst Hip Hop DJs free 8pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Publicist, Hawnay Troof $20 (+ bf) 8pm

Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, Kings Cross Resident DJs 8pm The Lansdowne, Broadway Frat House Wolf & The Gang free 9pm Ruby Rabbit, Darlinghurst Resident DJs 9pm Scubar, Sydney Schoonerversity 3pm The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall xKore (UK), F3tch, Kombat, Pop The Hatch, Pablo Calamari, Pipemix, Deckhead $5 9pm

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 9 The Arthouse Hotel, Sydney Lounge DJs 8pm Cargo Lounge, Kings St Wharf Dance The Way You Feel 6pm

The Cool Room, Australian Hotel and Brewery We Love Thursdays Resident & Guest DJs 9pm The Flinders Hotel, Darlinghurst Hippies from Hell DJs free Goldfish, Kings Cross We Owe You One 6pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Favela Freak Out DJ Gilberto Do Funk, Kriola Collective with Tiago De Lucca $10 8pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney Resident DJs free 8pm Ivy, Sydney Ivy Live DJs free 6pm Low302, Darlinghurst Thursday Switch DJs free 9pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Hot Damn Hot Damn DJs $20 8pm Ruby Rabbit, Darlinghurst Resident DJs 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Flaunt Resident DJs 8pm Soho, Potts Point Femme Fatale Resident & Guest DJs 8pm The Standard, Surry Hills Pizza Parties Nicky Night Time, Kato, Valerie Yum, Lux Life 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Sydney 1st Birthday Spectacular DJ Dan (UK), Tom Ballard, Urby, Dan Bombings free (student)–$5 8pm

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 10 Arq Sydney, Taylor Square Emily Williams, Jimmy Dee, Will Sabin Arthouse Hotel, Sydney After Dark Resident DJ 9pm Beach Palace Hotel, Coogee Find Your Valentine… Traffic Light Party Alex Mac 8pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Movement Polo Club free Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Button Down Disco Nightmare, Robust, Hoodlmz, Dirty Cash, Digital T 8pm Cargo Lounge, Kings St Wharf Kick On DJs City Hotel, Sydney One Night in Cuba Mani, Nandez, DJ Yamaya, Av El Cubano, DJ Coco $15 8pm Civic Underground, Sydney Volar Resident DJs 10pm Epping Hotel Flirt Resident DJs 9pm The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills Kerser $18.40 8pm GoodGod Front Bar, Sydney Love Kings Love Kings DJs free 9pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney David Dallas (NZ), Jordache, MR Clean, DJ Leon Smith, DJ Demo $15 (+ bf) 8pm Home The Venue, Sydney Delicous & Sublime Fridays Resident & Guest DJs 9pm 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, Sydney Ultimate Party Venue Resident DJs free

Kings Cross Hotel – Level 4 Tan Cracker’s Soul Club Boogie Monster, Tom Tutton, Kinetic, Burn-Hard, Mase Boogie, Gian Arpino $10 8pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Falcona Fridays Rufus DJs, Lighsteep, Isbjorn, Bernie Dingo $10 8pm Kong’s Jungle Lounge, Bondi Junction W!ldlive Fridays Resident DJs $10 10pm The Marlborough Hotel – Level 1, Newtown Resident DJs free Oatley Hotel We Love Oatley Hotel Fridays free 8pm The Red Rattler, Marrickville Dirty Queer Magazine Launch Seymour Butz, The City Loves A Boyfriend $16$20 (+ bf) 9pm The Roxy, Parramatta Fridaze Resident DJs 4pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Payday Fridays Seduce, Resident DJs 8pm Selina’s, Coogee Bay Hotel The Potbelleez $30 9pm Soho, Potts Point Soho Fridays Resident & Guest DJs free 8pm Space, Sydney Zaia Resident DJs 9.45pm The Square, Haymarket Solid Gold Hell La Mancha Negra DJs, Solid Gold Hell DJs, River Of Snakes DJs $5 11.59pm Tunnel Nightclub, Kings Cross Why Sleep? DJs $10-$15 10pm Valve Bar, Tempe Bollywood Funk Party DJs 6pm The Watershed Hotel Bring On The Weekend DJ Matty Roberts free The World Bar, Kings Cross MUM MUM DJs $10-$15 8pm

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 11 Arthouse Hotel, Sydney Vamp Music DJs 9pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Disco! Disco! Zomg! Kittens!, Sherlock Bones, SoHda, Chickflick, Leanzy, DUI, Donald Crump, Acaddamy, Axilsm 8pm

Cargo Lounge, Kings St Wharf Kick On DJs Civic Underground, Sydney Space Dimension Controller, Matt Trousdale, Claire Morgan, Magda Bytnerowicz, Kali, Marcus King, Long John Saliva, Andy Webb $25-$30 10pm Club 77, Woolloomooloo Starfuckers Starfuckers DJs 9pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour DJ Matty Roberts free The Cool Room, Australian Hotel and Brewery Saturday Night Fever Resident DJ 9pm Dee Why Hotel Kiss & Fly Saturdays Resident DJs 9pm Epping Hotel Back Traxx Back Traxx DJs 9pm Establishment, Sydney Sienna Valentine’s Special G-Wizard, Troy T, Lilo, Def Rok 9pm The Flinders Hotel, Darlinghurst Horne Dogg free 8pm Gladstone Hotel, Chippendale Rudekid (UK), Garage Pressure, Juzli, Speaks, Max Gosford, Basslines, Slice, Teefreeqs, Morphee, DJ Reload, Highly Dubious, SFL $15 (+ bf) 7pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Housexy Alex Taylor, Johnny Gleeson, Tom Kelly free-$20 6pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Sissy DJ Nita (USA), DJ Sveta, DJ Booth $20 (+ bf) 10pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney John Digweed (UK), Butch, Garry Todd, Robbie Lowe, Simon Caldwell, Matt Cahill $45 8pm Home The Venue, Sydney Homemade Saturdays Resident & Guest DJs 9pm The Island, Sydney Harbour Rogers Roomates Afloat Cadillac, Rogers Room, Rocco Raimundo, Frames, Gent/Benj $65 8pm Ivy Pool Club, Sydney Lost Disco Carl Cox (UK), Eric Powell, Brohn, Mia Lucci, Co Op, Dean McColl $59 (+ bf) 12pm Jacksons On George, Sydney Ultimate Party Venue Resident DJs free Kit & Kaboodle Supper Club, Kings Cross Kitty Kitty Bang Bang Resident DJs 8pm

David Dallas

“Live so fast. Why don’t you die young slowly? It’s a curse, I see the future” - GARÇON GARÇON 48 :: BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12

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

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 12

Kato

The Marlborough Hotel – Level 1, Newtown Resident DJs free Marrickville Bowling and Recreation Club Hunee, Jamie Lloyd, D&D $20 (presale)–$30 8pm One22, Sydney Glitch DJs, Kerry Wallace, Rif Raf $10-$15 10pm Phoenix Bar, Darlinghurst Halfway Crooks Captain Franco, Levins, Toni Toni Lee $10 10pm Ruby Rabbit, Darlinghurst Resident DJs 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross The Suite Resident DJs Selina’s Nightclub, Coogee Bay Hotel Resident DJs 8pm The Sly Fox, Enmore Shake That Monkey Retali8, Typhonic, DJ G-Mo free 9pm Soho, Potts Point Usual Suspects DJ Bam Bam (USA), Nukewood, John Glover, Sushi, 14th Minute, Skinny, Bounce Crew DJs, Oh Glam, Micky P $15.50 8pm Space, Sydney

Masif Saturdays Resident DJs 10pm Spectrum, Darlinghurst Kittens Kittens DJs $5-$10 11.30pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Peter Horrevorts (NL), Robbie Lowe, Garry Todd, Steven Sullivan, Christian Verlaan $20 10pm Tunnel Nightclub, Kings Cross ONE Saturdays DJs $10$20 10pm Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills The Slips, Screaming Bikini, Young Romantics, Bambalam free 6pm The Watershed Hotel Watershed Presents… Skybar The World Bar, Kings Cross Wham Bass Kleph, Kraymer (Melb), Adam Bozetto, Kato, Man He Can, Mr Doris (SPACE, Ibiza), Lola Siren, Gabriel Clouston, Joe Gadget, Joyride, Illya, Jailhouse, Telefunken DJs, Rubio, Oh Glam!, DJ Valentine, Tech No More,$15-$20 8pm

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 Resident DJs 8pm Name This Bar, Darlinghurst Sunday Sets DJs 6pm Oatley Hotel Sunday Sets DJ Tone free 7pm Phoenix Bar, Darlinghurst Loose Ends Matty Vaughn free 10pm Rooty Hill RSL Club Justice Crew, Young Men Society $50 (+ bf) 8pm allages Ruby Rabbit, Darlinghurst Resident DJs 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Sapphire Sundays ANF, Resident DJs 8pm The Spice Cellar, 58 Elizabeth St, Sydney Spice Murat Kilic, Nic Scali $20 4am The Wall, Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt Kerser $15-$20 8pm all-ages The Watershed Hotel Afternoon DJs Mudrockets The World Bar, Kings Cross Dust James Taylor, Alley Oop free 7pm

club picks up all night out all week...

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 8

Falcona Fridays Rufus DJs, Lighsteep, Isbjorn, Bernie Dingo $10 8pm

The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall xKore (UK), F3tch, Kombat, Pop The Hatch, Pablo Calamari, Pipemix, Deckhead $5 9pm

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 11

GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Publicist, Hawnay Troof $20 (+ bf) 8pm

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 9 The Standard, Surry Hills Pizza Parties Nicky Night Time, Kato, Valerie Yum, Lux Life 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Sydney 1st Birthday Spectacular DJ Dan (UK), Tom Ballard, Urby, Dan Bombings free (student)–$5 8pm

Gladstone Hotel, Chippendale Rude Kid (UK), Garage Pressure, Juzlo, Speaks, Max Gosford, Basslines, Slice, Teefreeqs, Morphee, DJ Reload, Dubious, SFL $15 (+ bf) 7pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney John Digweed (UK), Butch, Garry Todd, Robbie Lowe, Simon Caldwell, Matt Cahill $49 12pm The Island, Sydney Harbour Rogers Roomates Afloat Cadillac, Rogers Room, Rocco Raimundo, Frames, Gent/Benj $65 8pm

Ivy Pool Club, Sydney Lost Disco Carl Cox (UK), Eric Powell, Brohn, Mia Lucci, Co Op, Dean McColl $59 (+ bf) 12pm Marrickville Bowling and Recreation Club HAHA Hunee, Jamie Lloyd, D&D $20 (presale)–$30 10pm Phoenix Bar, Darlinghurst Halfway Crooks Captain Franco, Levins, Toni Toni Lee $10 10pm Soho, Potts Point Usual Suspects DJ Bam Bam (USA), Nukewood, John Glover, Sushi, 14th Minute, Skinny, Bounce Crew DJs, Oh Glam, Micky P $15.50 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Peter Horrevorts (NL), Murat Kilic, Nic Scali, Garry Todd, Steven Sullivan, Christian Verlaan $20 10pm

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 10 Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Movement Polo Club free 8pm GoodGod Front Bar, Sydney Love Kings Love Kings DJs free 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross

Carl Cox

BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 49

snap

crooks

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australia day eve

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up all night out all week . . .

20:01:12 :: Ruby Rabbit :: 231 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93310633

twist & shout

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25:01:12 :: The Spice Cellar :: 58 Elizabeth St Sydney

hoops

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27:01:12 :: The Exchange Hotel :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93601375

propaganda

26:01:12 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700 PICS :: AM

miss kitten

27:01:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93323711 50 :: BRAG :: 448: 06:02:12

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28:01:12 :: Goodgod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Sydney 92673787

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: JAY S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER Y :: GEORGE POPOV :: ROSETTE CHE PEA MAS THO :: NS MUN IEL COLLIER :: ASHLEY MAR :: DAN TNEY LE :: TRISH WATSON :: TIM WHI ROUHANNA :: JARED VAN EAR

PRESENTS

UK NO HATS NO HOODS足AREYOUREADYMUSIC GRIME 足 DNB 足 DANCEHALL DUBSTEP 足FUTUREGARAGE 14 djs. 4 mcs. DSS SOUND. SAT11OFFEB.GLADSTONE

115 REGENT ST CHIPPENDALE FROM moshtix tix$15 +BF MOSHTIX.com.au

DOOR OPENS AT 7pm m BUY NOW AT

HIT US UP ON FACEBOOK:RELOADSYDNEYGRIME BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 51

snap up all night out all week . . .

mum

It’s called: HOT ROD featuring Garçon Garço n It sounds like: Indie, trash, electro and retro. Who’s playing? Garçon Garçon live, for EP launch. Three songs you’ll hear on the night: ‘Midn ight City’ – M83; ‘Go!’ – Santigold feat. Karen O; ‘Mommy Complex’ – Peaches. And one you definitely won’t: Anything by Lady Gaga. Sell it to us: HOT ROD is a queer/alternative club mishmash of indie, trash, electro and retro music night that plays a and attracts a mixed crowd of music lovers, fashion kids, daddies, trannies, twinks, bears and everyone in between. With creative theme s each month and collaborations with performers, like-minded brand blogs, HOT ROD has become one of the most s, photographers and popular parties on the Sydney underground scene since 2009. The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Aside from a wicked hangover, an awesome live show by Garçon Garçon, great music, no attitude and possibly the most fun night out for ages. Crowd specs: Grrls, boyz, straight, gay, queer . Wallet damage: Free entry! Where: Main Bar and Underground Bar @ The Oxford Hotel When: Saturday February 11 / 10pm - 5am

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party profile

hot rod

stil vor talent night

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das racist

25:01:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford st, Darlinghurst 93323711 :: KATRINA CLARKE :: JAY S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) ETTE OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER CHEY :: GEORGE POPOV :: ROS PEA MAS THO :: NS MUN IEL DAN COLLIER :: ASHLEY MAR :: TIM WHITNEY :: SON WAT H TRIS :: LE EAR ROUHANNA :: JARED VAN

52 :: BRAG :: 448: 06:02:12

28:01:12 :: The Spice Cellar :: 58 Elizabeth St Sydney

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28:01:12 :: Keystone Festival Bar :: Hyde Park Barracks

big day out after party 26:01:12 :: The Standard :: Level 3/384 Bourke St Surry Hills 9331 3100

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dj koze

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27:01:12 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

adventure into design THINKING | MAKING | CONNECTING

Enrolling now for march 2012 Sydney | Melbourne | Brisbane 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.

Some upper class, highly culture’d motherf***ers present…

— By DJs, for DJs —

Sexwax Smokin’ Joe Mekhael Robust Sweeneys Hotel DJ Sass Midday - 7pm - $10 Robes Cheap Beers + BBQ Ben4:20 Dj kObUkI Saturday, Smacktalk DJ Buddha Feb-11th The Bilbies --Facebook.com/KULTUR3-Aztech Mark hardcore Kenneth Burnett

CASH PRIZES TEAM SHIRTS DRINK SPECIALS STARTS FEB 28 REGISTER NOW AT STRIKEBOWLINGBAR.COM.AU/SOCIAL-LEAGUE

BRAG :: 448 :: 06:02:12 :: 53

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sash

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wham!

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up all night out all week . . .

29:01:12 :: The Abercrombie Hotel :: 100 Broadway Ultimo 9211 3486

ofwgkta

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bassnectar

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28:01:12 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

28:01:12 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 82959958

24:01:12 :: The Enmore :: 118-132 Enmore Rd Newtown 95503666

It’s called: Propaganda Sydney – 1st Birthd ay Spectacular! It sounds like: Indie chart anthems and POPa ganda party-tune room. Who’s spinning? DJ DAN, Propaganda reside nt Urby, POPaganda DJs Spice Cube. Three songs you’ll hear on the night: ‘Pape r Planes’ – M.I.A; ‘Sticks’n’Stones’ – Jamie T; ‘Town Called Malice ’ – The Jam. And one you definitely won’t: The eerie sound of silence. Sell it to us: Imagine a child’s first birthday, with weird performers, balloons, cakes and party hats; now add The World Bar, DJ DAN, Urby, a sweaty dance-floor, lasers and smoke, a lot of alcohol – oh, and FIRE. The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Secret special performers. And FIRE. Crowd specs: Fire enthusiasts, Propaganda lovers and small badgers. Wallet damage: $5 / free entry with student ID Where: The World Bar / 24 Bayswater Rd, Kings Cross When: Thursday February 9

54 :: BRAG :: 448: 06:02:12

the argyle

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propaganda

21:01:12 :: The Argyle Hotel :: 18 Argyle St The Rocks 92475500 :: KATRINA CLARKE :: JAY S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) :: GEORGE POPOV :: ROSETTE OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER Y CHE PEA MAS THO :: IEL MUNNS Y COLLIER :: ASHLEY MAR :: DAN TNE WHI TIM :: SON LE :: TRISH WAT ROUHANNA :: JARED VAN EAR