The Brag #464

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

five things WITH

LUKE DUX FROM THE FLOORS Growing Up From the moment I could hold a guitar, 1. my parents took me down to the local pub to

we know what makes each other tick and how far you can push it.

jam. I tried sports but came away with far too many blood noses, so they would put on a CCR record and say, ‘Play along with that.’ It’s a lot safer asking a pub full of bikies if you can sit in on a song, rather than asking to catch their ball.

The Music You Make We play loud high-intensity blues. You’ll 4. either want to sway, dance, or throw yourself

2.

Inspirations When I was 16, my grandmother gave me a Jimmy Rogers cassette. He played guitar for Muddy Waters. From then on I was hooked. It was so raw and loose but together at the same time. No studio tricks or fancy guitar work. You can’t teach that shit. That was my gateway into music, and since then I’ve been obsessed with Captain Beefheart, The Stooges, Beasts Of Bourbon, R.L. Burnside, Junior Wells...

Your Band Ash Doodkorte joined us a couple of 3. years ago on drums. I’ve known Ryan Dux for a while now. Playing in a band with your brother has its perks: you can tell them to fuck off and nothing is taken personally. We’ve all played in other bands together and toured, so

around to it. It’s got to be loud, dirty and groovy.

Music, Right Here, Right Now Perth is full of amazing bands. You’ll find 5. hip hop acts playing with blues, punk and soul bands. It’s diverse, and everyone’s up for writing and creating music together. A few venues have been shut down in recent years, but slowly newer ones are popping up. The Bird is one of them: one of the only places you can rock up to with a guitar and do a set, or sit in with a band. They even let me spin records.

I live in a house the size of a cardboard box, so any chance I get to play ‘I Hate You’ by The Monks loud as hell is a win.

What: ‘You Got To Move’ is out now With: Glitter Canyon, The Cold Mean Reds Where: The Vanguard When: Thursday May 31

ALBARE Bloods

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

CAMERAS AT THE ROUNDHOUSE

Sydney’s most epic, shimmering, sexy quartet Cameras are bringing their dark, swoony pop to the Roundhouse on July 18, in support on their debut album In Your Room. It was #3 on MTV Iggy’s best debut album list of 2011, which is a pretty good list to be on if you’re going to be on a list.

ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alan Parry COVER PHOTOGRAPH: Jason Henley SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Katrina Clarke, Rasa Juskeviciute, Ashley Mar, Daniel Munns, Thomas Peachy, Sam Whiteside, Tim Whitney ADVERTISING: Ross Eldridge - 0422 659 425 / (02) 9690 0806 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, hip hop & parties) INTERNS: Verity Cox, Kendra Fox, Andrew Geeves REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Benjamin Cooper, Alasdair Duncan, Max Easton, Christie Eliezer, Murray Engleheart, Andrew Geeves, Chris Honnery, Nathan Jolly, Sheridan Morley, Jenny Noyes, Hugh Robertson, Romi Scodellaro, Jonno Seidler, Rach Seneviratne, Roland K. Smith, Luke Telford, Rick Warner, Andrew Yorke 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, editors 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).

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KIDS OF 88

EIGHT MILES HIGH

Put down that magazine and listen to the plan: Friday June 15 we are meeting at your house to fun-load before heading to GoodGod Small Club, to let the new psych night Eight Miles High kick in our collective door of perception (it was only made of thin plywood, and we left it unlocked after all…). The mini-festival is presented by yours truly, and scoops up all our favourite psych, shoegaze, surf and girl-pop groups (all the good things, basically), and drops them into one venue. We’re talking Witch Hats (skuzzy), Sister Jane (psychy), Grand Atlantic (power popish), Bloods (babin’ shoegaze stuff), Buried Feather (drooonnneee) and Atom Bombs (surfy awesomeness), all for a piddling $20.

Kids Of 88 burst out of New Zealand a few years back with the massive, paint-splattered single ‘My House’ and the aptly named Sugarpills record, which was so good we didn’t even make jokes about their heavy accents, even though we regularly stoop to such easy comedy. The latest single ‘Tucan’ is a lot more wistful, measured and ethereal, suggesting album #2 might be one of those morning-after records that we love and need so dearly. Check their new stuff out when they play the Beach Road Hotel, Bondi on Wednesday June 13.

RUBENS

When you Google ‘Menangle’, the sleepy town that soul-drenched brothers (and their childhood friend) The Rubens hail from, the following sentence is the first thing you will read: “Tabcorp Park Menangle has made its mark on the Australasian harness racing scene.” Soon The Rubens will be all that appears in these searches, especially once their debut record comes out in September through Ivy League.

On Thursday July 19 they’ll be at Oxford Art Factory launching their brand new single, ‘Don’t Ever Want To Be Found.’ Support comes from Them Swoops and The Mountains, and tickets are $15 from Moshtix.

These New South Whales

PATRICK WOLF II

Did you experience mild heart palpitations from last week’s announcement that South London lad Patrick Wolf would be hitting our shores in September? If so, SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW because the prolific performer has just announced that he will be playing a second show at The Studio, Sydney Opera House on Sunday September 9. As with his sold-out first show, the minstrel plans to wrap his fingers around everything from a dulcimer to a Celtic harp, as he showcases tracks from his extensive five-album catalogue in a special acoustic performance. Given the speed with which his first show sold out, you’ll want to get in quickly for round two if you don’t want to be left hungry (and) like the Wolf (sorry).

FREE CHILLI DOGS

No, not another incarcerated rapper, but a thing that is happening this Friday June 1 at The World Bar, when MUM will play host to These New South Whales, Vulpes Vulpes and Demons To Diamonds – and vegan chilli dogs. There’ll also be secret recipe sangria for $5 only, as part of some sweet new Friday night menu deals – and seeing June 1 is the first time these will be on offer, they’re tearing up the $5 sign that Scott painstakingly handglittered, and declaring that all chilli dogs are free for the evening. Free and vegan, and students get free entry before 10pm. Nuff said.

Xxxx

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Heard about Albare? Born in Morocco, raised in Israel, living in Australia since he was 27, signed to esteemed German label Enja, one of the best jazz-fusion guitarists in the world, playing the Seymour Centre on Saturday June 9 on a double bill with virtuoso double bassist Renaud Garcia-Fons. Pretty impressive, huh?

Albare’s new album Long Way garnered rave reviews everywhere, too, in case you needed another reason for that seething jealousy you are feeling right about now…

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rock music news

free stuff

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

he said she said WITH

CHRIS DUKE AND THE ROYALS trombone and four vocals. The advantage of having six members is that it’s not too much cash to chuck in to rehearse. The disadvantage is not being able to fit in an ordinary sized double bed.

We play party punk music – a mixture of ska, pop, punk and whatnot. My favourite description someone has ever given us is, “A ska’d up version of Nancy Vandal (before they went ska).” We just have a bloody good time playing and touring and tightly gripping onto our youth which is slowly slipping away. We’ve put out a few CDs, and our latest will be launched at Ska Weekender on June 10 at the Annandale.

It’s a live record featuring us covering the entire Lion King music soundtrack recorded from our CD launch last year at the same venue. It was without a doubt the best night of my musical life and I reckon it sounds just like it.

M

y brother and I started our first band when we were about six and eight years old, with our three cousins. We didn’t know how to play any instruments, so we just sang over sample Casio tracks about all of the things we knew about at that age: Nintendo, food and having a good time. Fast forward twenty years and it’s virtually the same story, except we traded in our cousins for our best friends.

My biggest musical inspiration growing up was watching our drummer Yods get all the girls playing John Farnham’s ‘Burn For You’ in music class. I thought he was the best, so he started teaching me scales and exercises and I forget them all and started this band instead. I only knew guitar, so he had to switch to the tubs.

We are a six-piece band with trumpet,

I love the scene at the moment. There are so many amazing bands going around. If you haven’t heard of these guys, check them out: The Decline from Perth, Local Resident Failure from Newcastle, Hightime and Son Of Dad from Adelaide, The Bennies and Kujo Kings from Melbourne and Batfoot and Handball Deathmatch from Sydney.

What: Dan Potthast (USA), God God Dammit Dammit, The Bennies, Backy Skank, Kujo Kings, Handball Deathmatch, The My Tys and loads more Where: Ska Weekender @ The Annandale Hotel When: Sunday June 10

were explained to us, we could all relax – so don’t worry, the show will go on. There will be support from The Rusty Spring Syncopators, who are proof you should judge a band by their title – they rule!

PENNYWISE TOUR

Alongside its distinctiveness, the ease with which the insignia of Pennywise – an interlinked P and W residing within a roughly-sketched circle – could be rapidly inscribed has bestowed the symbol with the dubious honour of forever being associated with desks, pencil cases, backpacks and any smidgen of blank space in high schools everywhere. The fact that this emblem has taken on the status of something of a talisman of rebellion seems appropriate given the legendary Hermosa Beach punk rockers have been sticking it to the man for nigh on two decades now. Having just released their tenth studio album All Or Nothing, the SoCal fourpiece are gearing up to tour Australia again, and will be playing the UNSW Roundhouse at

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

NICKY BOMBA’S BUSTAMENTO

Mañana: Sounds like a delectable little Spanish dish, doesn’t it? Well ‘Mañana’ actually refers to the future – and the future sure is bright for Nicky Bomba and his band Bustamento. The single was originally recorded in 1948 by Peggy Lee, but in the hands of Bustamento it offers a funky little beat and manages to mash various genres – a bit o’ salsa, a bit o’ reggae, a bit o’ ska. It makes your hips sashay and feet tap before you even realise it, and it makes them a band to check out when the Darling Harbour Jazz & Blues Festival rolls around (June 9-11). It’s just one sample off their latest record, Intrepid Adventures To The Lost Riddim Islands, which – apart from being a wonderful listen – comes in its very own illustrated story book! If you want a copy, let us know what other band Bomba drums for.

JACK COLWELL

When it comes to versatility, owls are pretty masterful. They have three eyelids: one for blinking, one for sleeping and one for ocular upkeep. They can also be referred to by one of three collective nouns: parliament, wisdom and study. How fitting, then, that Jack Colwell & The Owls also impress in the versatility stakes. A classically-trained composer turned alt-pop performer, Sydney-based Colwell is supported by an ever-rotating wisdom of instrumentalists and was just selected to assist Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O in her VividLIVE performance of Stop the Virgens – A Psycho Opera. Jack and his parliament are launching their debut album Picture Window at GoodGod Small Club on Wednesday June 6 and we have two copies of the album to give away, each with a double pass to the show and a picture of a unicorn handdrawn by Jack himself (!). To win, name three species of owls.

an all-ages gig on Saturday 25 August. Go.

YEAH YEAH!

Nothing piques interest like a secret, so here are some clues about a juicy one: 1) Stop the Virgens, Yeah Yeah Yeahs leading lady Karen O’s pet project, will be in town for five nights from Wednesday as part of the Vivid LIVE festival. 2) The Stop The Virgens cast includes fellow Yeah Yeah Yeahs bandmates Nick Zinner and Brian Chase, hip hop producer and Beastie Boys collaborator Money Mark, and The Raconteurs’ and Greenhornes’ associates Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler. 3) On Tuesday May 29, a special, notto-be-repeated experimental jazz collaboration billed on Facebook as ‘Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Australian friends’ is being held at The Flinders Hotel, featuring Brian Chase, Sydney musos Sophia Brous and Shags Chamberlain, and – drumroll please – SURPRISE GUESTS. It can only be speculation until Tuesday, but clues 1) and 2) are our favourites…

DZ Deathrays

Mosman Alder

MOSMAN ADLER

When you hail from Far North Queensland and you want to be in the kind of band that plays non-fete style events (bigger venues, but less homemade jam and coat hanger doilies), you’d best get used to travel. Mosman Adler are a six-piece with awkward big keyboards, fragile violins, and guitars aplenty, so if you see a car comically crammed with humans and roadcases, wave sympathetically and get along to their Sydney show on Saturday June 23 at FBi Social. Then buy their Burn Bright EP. (Then write ‘wash me’ on their dusty back window, point it out to two pretty people and let them fight over you, because you’re fun, charming and irresistible. Much like Mosman Alder.)

Melbourne’s Blackchords are dominating ABC airspace with their single ‘Dance Dance Dance’ in a way not seen since the epic Seachange marathon that ran for ten days in 2009 (or at least would have if they’d responded to our online petition, letter-drop and the like...) What we’re trying to say is it’s all over triple j and RAGE, and they’ll be launching it on Friday June 1 at Spectrum – get there early and help them carry bits of their drum kit up those stairs.

CROOKED FIDDLE BAND

“When The Crooked Fiddle Band took to the stage, it was as though someone had put 10,000 volts through the dance floor,” said our sister publication BEAT, so naturally we were alarmed and called a complete OH&S overhaul of The Crooked Fiddle Band’s gear to ensure this scenario doesn’t occur at their Friday June 8 gig at the Vanguard. (We really are killjoys.)

After it was ascertained that all amps, mics and guitars were securely grounded, and ‘metaphors’

BLEEDING KNEES. DZ DEATH. YACHT CLUB. YES.

Promoters be warned: when we receive an email instructing us to call the police, we take it very seriously. Had we not been so hasty, we all would have saved a bit of face over what, after some very dramatic conversations and a few unnecessary arrests, turned out merely to be a press release informing us of the ‘Call The Cops’ tour. It’s a pre-Splendour party/ gig/soiree starring basically the funnest bands ever – Yacht Club DJs, DZ Deathrays and Bleeding Knees Club – and it happens on July 20 at the Factory Theatre, before the three acts head to Byron to Splendour that shit up. Support comes from those babes The Fabergettes. This gig will be F.U.N.

“I should’ve taken the chance, not waited so long. Cause maybe its the last time”- BLACKCHORDS 10 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

Mosman Alder by Lisa Businovski

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BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 11

The Music Network Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

THINGS WE HEAR

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

THU 31 MAY FRI 1 JUN

• Jimmy Barnes laid to rest a 32-yearold urban myth that he was in line to replace Bon Scott in AC/DC. He told Classic Rock he was friends of theirs, “but the idea of me joining AC/DC was never discussed.”

• Neil Finn will play drums for Mental As Anything at the Saturday June 2 'Art Of Music' charity dinner for NordoffRobbins Music Therapy.

• Which blogger had to retract comments about the operations of a street paper, after being threatened with legal action?

• At the end of Guns N’Roses' show in Liverpool, Axl Rose thanked the crowd for putting up with his hobbling, a result of his falling off a table while partying in a Moscow nightclub. “Be safe getting out of here,” he told the crowd, before accidentally falling down the stairs leading from the stage...

• To ensure she’s not alone in Sydney, Lady Gaga is flying 20 friends out.

• Which “surprise guests” will Yeah Yeah Yeahs drummer Brian Chase have when he and his Aussie friends Kirin J Callinan, Sophia Brous and Shags Chamberlain play The Flinders on Tuesday May 29?

CAN ARTISTS LOVE SPOTIFY?

SAT 2 JUN

TUE 5 JUN

Spotify launched in Australia amidst fanfare about having the largest catalogue of new music (16 million tracks) and being the antidote to piracy. But many Australian artists are hostile, because Spotify will not divulge how much it pays record labels to stream music (less than a cent a stream is what we hear). Sydney MC Urthboy warned on triple j's Hack, “The massive, massive amount of music out there means that a small, independent artist is going to be working so hard just to get noticed. It’s scary, because the small amount of money you might have become accustomed to is once again being diminished.” But, he added, it was a hard call: acts can’t afford to ignore streaming services either.

STREAMING CHART COMING

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With all those streaming services arriving, ARIA is working on a streaming chart.

ARIA chief exec Dan Rosen said, “We are working with the providers to get the data necessary to begin producing a weekly Streaming Chart. As the year progresses, we look forward to an official streaming chart joining our extensive list of weekly ARIA charts.” Coming in a few weeks is an ARIA app on Spotify where “music fans can access the ARIA Charts each week, including the Top 20 Australian Singles and Albums charts.”

VAN HALEN IN WINTER?

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Are Van Halen heading for Australia in winter? That’s what singer David Lee Roth seemed to be suggesting in a recent video message. Explaining why they blew out their US tour, Roth said, “If we continue past July 4 and all the way into Australia and Japan, then we’re asking for the robot zombie tour.”

He later quipped the band was “learning to speak Australian.”

LIPS, WHITE, JAY-Z, GUINNESS

The Flaming Lips intend to break Jay-Z’s 2006 record of seven shows in seven cities in a day. They will try to set a new entry for the Guinness World Record for most live shows in 24 hours by playing eight cities on June 27. Singer Wayne Coyne said, “To play and sing Flaming Lips songs at eight in the morning… Well, I’m open to new experiences.” Meantime, remember Jack White's whinge when White Stripes' attempt to go down in history for the shortest concert of all time — to wit, a single cymbal noise — was turned down by the Guinness people as “trivial”?

Undaunted, he’s trying something equally as trivial: “To break the world record for most metaphors in a single concert.”

COASTER TAKES A BREAK

The Coaster festival, held in September on the NSW Central Coast over the past four years, is being rested this year. Organisers announced on Facebook, “We are looking to return sometime in the future.”

SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS NEEDS YOUR LOVE

Splendour In The Grass is asking festivalgoers to write submissions in support of their application to the NSW Department of Planning. Co-producer Jessica Ducrou 12 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

themusicnetwork.com

says, “This is our last chance to return to Byron, please take two minutes out of your day and write a letter supporting our return home. North Byron Parklands is a beautiful site that will give you your most Splendid experience yet.” The 660-acre site will host a number of events, but leaves 280 days free for natural growth. To write your submission in support of bringing Splendour home to Byron Bay, or to view the proposal, go to northbyronparklands.com. Submissions close November 19.

FESTIVAL FAVOURITES...

The street value of cannabis seized at last year’s Glastonbury Festival was £44,869 – nearly three times higher than that seized at the Isle Of Wight Festival (£27,410).

Third was Bestival, which is also on the Isle Of Wight, with £18,479 worth of drugs seized. Each festival seems to have a drug preference: Glastonbury, for instance, saw a marked rise in the use of ketamine, a horse tranquiliser (well, it is held on a farm...), although piperazine and cannabis remain the most popular. Cocaine is the drug of choice at the Isle Of Wight, ecstasy for Bestival, and cannabis/ecstasy for the V Festivals.

CAMERA CLUB GETS FRAMED

The Camera Club at the Beach Road Hotel in Bondi has struck a partnership with the College of Fine Arts in Paddington, to stage rotating exhibitions of their students' work every 6-8 weeks. The first exhibition on May 31 features, amongst others, first class honours graduates David Manley and Jack Condon, who’ve already won awards for their work. beachroadbondi.com.au/camera-club

[V] PRESENTER SEARCH

Channel [V]’s search for a new on-air presenter received 5500 entries. A Top 20 was announced on the weekend, with five from NSW (including BRAG writer Jonno Seidler), eight from Victoria (including George Negus’ son Serge), three from WA, two from SA and one each from QLD and the ACT. All 20 will be flown to Sydney on June 12 to take part in music and presenting challenges.

The top four will be announced on The Riff program on Saturday June 16 – one of whom will be voted for by viewers via their website, vmusic.com.au. Voting puts you in the draw for a $5,000 cash prize.

2SER TO RESTRUCTURE

With 2ser getting no extra funding from its university backers to meet its rising operating costs, managing director Melanie Withnall says “tough decisions” will be made for its “long-term viability”. All staff positions are under review. Withnall says that contrary to disinformation on social media, “2ser is not cutting talks programing, and is committed to providing both talk- and music-based content.”

Lifelines Split: Katy Perry and Florence + The Machine guitarist Robert Ackroyd, because their careers were keeping them apart.

Dating: One Direction’s Zayn Malik and Little Mix’s Perrie Edwards.

Dating: 30 Seconds To Mars’ Jared Leto and Anne V, ex of Maroon 5’s Adam Levine.

Ill: Health problems have seen guitarist Matt Roberts exit 3 Doors Down.

Hospitalised: Michael McKean, who played David St. Hubbins in Spinal Tap, has a broken leg after being hit by a car while walking in New York.

In Court: Usher and ex-wife Tameka’s custody battle over their two young sons is getting nastier.

The singer testified that his ex had spat and tried to fight his girlfriend.

Tameka says Usher provoked her.

In Court: Gareth Crosskey, a British hacker who infiltrated the Facebook page of Justin Bieber’s girlfriend Selena Gomez, and threatened to publish their private emails.

Died: Chicago engineer Eugene Polley, who invented the TV remote, 96.

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Comp closes: 15 June, 2012

JUST ANNOUNCED COMING UP

Everclear

Armada Night

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Feat. tyDi, Myon & Shane 54

Sat 9 June

East 17 Sun 10 June

2012 Buried In Verona School Of Seven Hardcore 2012 Hardcore Feat. Terror, Mindsnare, Ceremony, Feat. Terror, Ceremony, Miles Sun 17 June Bells Away, Break Even, Extortion Miles Away, Break Even, I Exist

Karnivool Fri 13 July Thu 12 July

Fri 22 June

Sat 7 July 18 +

Sun 8 July All AGES

Say Anything

Metric

House Vs Hurricane

Sat 14 July SOLD OUT !!

Thu 26 July

Sat 28 July

w/ The Getaway Plan

Nasum

Hanson

Sat 18 August

Sat 15 Sep

SOLD OUT !!

Wheatus

Leb I Sol

Fri 21 Sep

Sat 3 Nov

w/ Psycroptic

ENTERTAINMENT QUARTER, BUILDING 220, 122 LANG RD, MOORE PARK, SYDNEY

BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 13

Over Land And Sea

By Alasdair Duncan

D

eep Sea Arcade sprung from truly humble beginnings: a bedroom recording project for high school friends Nic McKenzie and Nick Weaver. With young heads filled with endless possibilities, they began to create swirling, strange indie pop songs, combining influences from ‘60s psychedelic rock to offbeat electronic music.

But two people were too few to create the sounds they wanted, so they recruited a handful of new members, and it wasn’t long until the likes of triple j were paying attention.

Fast forward a couple of years, through a huge UK tour and a handful of singles, and you arrive at March this year, and the release of the band’s long-awaited debut record, Outlands.

The band are thrilled with the album’s reception. “It’s been really good, in terms of reviews, and the stuff that people have been saying,” McKenzie tells me. “People are enjoying it and responding to it well, and getting all the right vibes off it – the vibes that were intended when it was put down.”

Given the nearly four-year gap between the band’s debut single ‘Crouch End’ and the release of Outlands, I ask if the delay was a calculated move to allow the band time to refine their sound before committing to a full-length. “I think the sound was already developed from the start,” McKenzie says, “but we really spent a lot of time crafting the music and getting the songs just right. We didn’t want to release an album until we were well and truly happy with it.”

The arrangements on Outlands are lush and lovely, layers of guitar and electronics showing through, along with a variety of vintage synths, including Mellotrons and a Juno 60. It’s hardly surprising, then, that

McKenzie is a big collector of such gear, and loves to use it wherever possible. “We collect Junos and Roland Jupiters and Casiotones – I have four or five different Casiotones,” he tells me. “I have a Casiotone 101 that’s my favourite at the moment, but I go through different phases. They’re an important part of our sound. We’re big on gear, and not just keyboards – we have a lot of different microphones for recording drums. We’re big into replacing the drum sounds with samples and things like that.”

Many of the drum sounds on Outlands are drawn from surprising sources. “A lot of the time, we use drum machines like the DMX for inspiration, but there are a lot of weirder sounds on the album – especially on the song ‘Ride’,” McKenzie says. “I actually recorded the sounds for that track with a video camera.”

During one of his film classes at university, McKenzie’s lecturer told his students to go into the field with a handy-cam, capture a variety of sounds and then edit them together.

McKenzie was so taken with the sounds he captured that they ended up forming the basis for the song, before drummer Carlos Adura added his own beats over the top, and the track came to life.

In fact McKenzie is on the record as saying that if his band were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, then Adura would be the Splinter of the piece. Curious as to what this means, I ask him to elaborate. “Oh man,” he laughs, “I said that because when we’re on tour, Carlos is known to have these moments where he has an epiphany and decides to tell the rest of us about how the world works. It’s really funny when that happens – something really strange comes over him, like he’s turned into some sort of a sensei, so we like to make fun of him and call him Splinter.” This leads to a more pertinent question about band dynamics. Given that McKenzie and Weaver are life-long friends and have been

Deep Sea Arcade photo by Jason Henley

DEEP SEA ARCADE making music together for so long, I ask how easy it was for the new members to slot in when Deep Sea Arcade expanded. “In a lot of ways, it was pretty easy,” he says. “I mean, the guys are essentially playing things that Nick and I have written, but they’ve always been able to adapt and play the material in their own way, which is great.” For example, he continues, Tim the guitarist has a lot of fun creating his own reverb and sounds, and Carlos brings an energy and sound to the band that wasn’t reachable before – especially in the early days when the band were working a lot more with programmed drums and the like. “They bring a third dimension to the two dimensions that Nick and I had previously,” McKenzie says.

The title Outlands is a reference to Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville. A self-confessed film geek, McKenzie liberally references Godard’s French New Wave aesthetic in Deep Sea Arcade’s film clips, which he directs. “I’m really into films like Weekend and Breathless,” he tells me. “I love his films and the way that he uses art direction and mise en scène, and how everything looks. In terms of the art direction and videos for the band, his work is maybe one of the key inspirations.” When it came time to pick an album title, Outlands seemed perfect for describing the mood and feeling of the songs. “There are lots of images of barren landscapes and things like that – it just resonated in the right way.”

Moving from the cinematic to the musical, I ask McKenzie what bands have helped shape Deep Sea Arcade’s sound. “I guess in terms of more modern ones, we’re big fans of Black Angels and Wooden Shjips,” he tells me. “Both of those bands make a lot of references to the past, and both were big influences when it came to mixing the album.” But a lot of inspiration also came from the heady world of ‘90s indie pop. “We were all big fans of The Dandy Warhols, Supergrass, Blur and bands

“We collect Junos and Roland Jupiters and Casiotones – I have four or five different Casiotones.They’re an important part of our sound. We’re big on gear.” like that, so you can definitely hear elements of those creeping into our sound. From there, we’re also big fans of Gorillaz – I love their approach, and I’d say you can maybe even hear a little bit of that, too.”

Deep Sea Arcade have played some highprofile gigs in their time, including support slots for Noel Gallagher and the Kaiser Chiefs.

“When we were touring with the Kaiser Chiefs, we were in awe,” says McKenzie. “We notice the ways that bands structure their songs and then put them together for live performances, choosing which ones to play, and the order. All of those things are inspiring and interesting…

On stage one night, Ricky [Wilson, singer] threw the mic over the scaffolding and managed to do it effortlessly, and it just looked so cool – I wished I could do that!”

What: Outlands is out now through Ivy League With: The Cairos, Woe & Flutter Where: The Standard When: Saturday June 2

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Slash Guns N’ Who? By Benn Laidlow esterday’s got nothin’ for me, old pictures that I’ll always see”. Those words may have been written by his estranged former colleague Axl Rose, but they apply even more so to Slash, who from all accounts has purged his memory banks of nearly everything pertaining to Guns N’ Roses. In the time since the dissolution of ‘Old Guns’ (as Rose has retrospectively rebranded them), Slash has recorded at least six full-length studio albums, collaborated with countless artists, started a family, won a couple of Grammys, written his autobiography and starred in a computer game. Sure, there might be the occasional G n’R cover in his setlist, and journalists will continue to ask him about it for as long as he lives, but for Slash the past is the past, and there’s no point retreading old ground. Instead, he wants to forge ahead and make music for its own sake; the philosophy being that a good musician is an active one.

“Y

Meeting Slash is admittedly a slightly surreal experience – after all, no one human being has done more for the combined sales of top hats, Jim Beam, Playstation guitar-

controllers or sunburst Les Pauls, and to contemplate the musical elite he’s shared a stage with is truly mind-boggling. But in person he is softly-spoken, self-deprecating and good-humoured, the greying stubble and the fidgetty, now cigarette-free fingers serving as outward reminders that he is in fact a human being, and not an avatar or a character on South Park. Speaking from behind mirrored sunglasses and clearly slightly unaccustomed to being up and about in the AM, he is nevertheless enthusiastic about the imminent release of his new album Apocalyptic Love, and the formation of his new band The Conspirators – particularly the soaring and majestic contributions of new lead vocalist Myles Kennedy, who was at one point considered as a possible replacement for Scott Weiland in Velvet Revolver. Indeed it was Kennedy who deputised for Axl Rose at Guns N’ Roses’ recent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and whom Slash selected as a live stand-in for the multiple vocalists of his previous solo release.

Conceding only that the new album is “dark” and “heavy”, Slash is adamant that there is no grand scheme or overarching concept to the record, and cautions against reading too much into it. “This record was written on the road, was performed live, and is really just a four-piece rock band,” he explains. “I didn’t get into overdubs or embellishing anything. There’s a million things I could have done with this record, just to make it musically more ‘intricate’ with harmonies and all that, but [producer] Eric Valentine and I just wanted to keep it as live and in-your-face and stripped-down and honest as possible. The only outside instrument we used was a tiny bit of piano on one song.”

“This record was written on the road, was performed live, and is really just a fourpiece rock band. We wanted to keep it as live and in-your-face and stripped-down and honest as possible.”

Several mini-documentaries on the making of the album were recently released on YouTube and show a band clearly revelling in the creative process, interacting with a distinct lack of hierarchy or ego in a strange purposebuilt hut, which was contructed to maintain a band dynamic whilst retaining the necessary audio separation – an innovation that Slash describes as “a mini revelation”. Often touted as a guitar purist, one wonders whether he ever feels straight-jacketed by this, or by the instrument with which he has become so indelibly associated. “Yeah, sometimes I feel the need to get away from the guitar itself. Like, when you pick up a guitar, you tend to know what you’re doing and what you’re about to do.

Sometimes the best way to get away from that is to pick up another instrument,” he says. “I’m a fuckin’ terrible piano player but I can write on it, much like I type: very slowly. I come up with ideas on piano that I wouldn’t necessarily come up with on guitar. Having said that, I find that I’m still exploring the way the guitar works in a regular, standard setup, and seeing what I can come up with within that and still make it unique.”

Noting that the timeframe between his records is actually decreasing, and that apparently some fifteen songs were recorded in the Apocalyptic Love sessions alone, Slash speaks about his career with the fervour of a man at the beginning of a new endeavour, rather than a grizzled old veteran. Now that the new band is gelling, and now that he has a singer who doesn’t complain and actually turns up to the venues on time, and with a large-scale tour planned for later in the year, the focus is decidedly on the future. So is there any place left for nostalgia, or revisiting old ideas? “Nah,” he shrugs. “There’s tons of ideas over the years that haven’t been utilised, but I hate to go backwards and look through old stuff... If there’s an old riff that’s been bugging me for years, then it might get used. But if it’s just one of those things that I thought was cool at the time and never got used, chances are I’ll just throw it away without a second thought.”

What: Apocalyptic Love is out now on Sony When: Saturday August 25

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Hot Chip Stuck In Our Heads By Lachlan Kanoniuk

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he last Australian visit from UK dancepop giants Hot Chip entailed a string of stellar double-headline sideshows with their trans-Atlantic contemporaries LCD Soundsystem. In the few years since, LCD have called it a day – but Hot Chip are gearing up to release their fifth record in a near-decade-long career, and show no signs of slowing down. After he answers the phone with a delightfully British “Hullo”, I ask frontman Alexis Taylor for the secret behind Hot Chip’s longevity. “Well, James’ [Murphy, LCD Soundsystem] band made the decision to end what they were doing relatively early on in their career,” he says. “It wasn’t because they didn’t have longevity; they just decided they didn’t want to make more than three albums, I guess. Cutting it short before outstaying their welcome is perhaps a self-deprecating way of looking at it. We just like making records, and we’ll keep making them as long as we enjoy it.

“I don’t really know how to justify why a band keeps going,” he continues. “Maybe just because they want to, hoping other people like their music. I’ve never really thought about Hot Chip stopping. I’d like it to carry on until

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we’re very old and hard of hearing, unable to communicate, but still enjoy rambling around on the stage.”

The two years since the release of One Life Stand have seen many of the Hot Chip contingent pursuing extracurricular musical outlets – particularly Alexis’ free-form outfit About Group. As Alexis explains, playing with a multitude of projects has symbiotic benefits.

“Well it’s not really a jazz group, About Group.

I’ve seen that written before. It has a lot to do with free improvisation, and I suppose people listen to it and assume it has to do with jazz.

There are lots of ways in which [Hot Chip and About Group] are kind of connected, lots of shared influences on both bands. But at the same time they have quite distinctive ways of making records,” he says.

“The very first About Group record was purely improvised – there was no plan with it and it was all instrumental. I guess that’s quite different to any Hot Chip record, because we have to write and structure pop songs and make things that work in clubs. But there are still things that the two groups have in common, and the experience of doing things with About Group has had a direct influence.”

An example he gives is Charles Hayward, the drummer from About Group, who ended up playing on both In Our Heads and One Life Stand. “We had him playing live with us for a while, too. But we can all come back to Hot Chip from doing other projects and feel quite refreshed again.

The most obvious sonic leap in the course of the Hot Chip narrative came around the time of One Life Stand, a leap that saw the band bring the drums back into the fold for the first time since their breakout. “We always had a drummer right at the beginning – we never thought that the band wouldn’t have drums.

But then our drummer left quite early on, and we were left with just drum machines – where previously we had drum machines, as well as a live kit. We just never got around to getting someone else to be the drummer,” deadpans Alexis. “That kind-of-accident shaped the sound of the band, making us less drum-heavy.

We’ve always been interested in drums, and it has affected the live sound quality quite a lot; I guess it’s made it bigger, and at times it reaches a slightly more rock aesthetic. But it’s always a more disco sound that we’re trying to achieve when we have live drums on tracks.

“I’ve never really thought about Hot Chip stopping. I’d like to carry on until we’re very old and hard of hearing, unable to communicate, but still enjoy rambling around on the stage.”

“There are quite a few drummers out there that are a great inspiration to me personally,” he continues, “like Stevie Wonder, Prince, Paul McCartney – three people that aren’t really known first and foremost as drummers, but who drum on their own records when they want to. I really love the way that those individuals play; they don’t play like pro session drummers.

They play in strange, unorthodox ways. I like the thought of bringing what you can bring, as opposed to a drummer with full capabilities; someone [drumming] with personality.”

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“Remember when people thought the world was round?” asks the opening line of In Our Heads – and with Hot Chip, you’ve never had to look too hard for clever wordplay. “Do I think I’m a funny guy? Not really,” Alexis ponders with a chuckle.

“Sometimes I’ve written words that I’d hoped were funny. On the new album there are a few words that were meant to be quite funny, like in ‘Night And Day’ there’s this little rap in the middle to do with DJ requests. I found that to be a quite funny thing to put into a track,” he says. “But that opening line in the first track, ‘Motion Sickness’, is a quote from Brian DeGraw from Gang Gang Dance – he actually said it: ‘Remember when people thought the world was round?’ I just wrote the rest of the lyrics around that line as a kind of continuation of that thought. Most of the time the words I tend to write are fairly serious, but there is that playfulness as well,” he continues. “There is that wordplay going on, and I hope people pick up on that.”

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What: In Our Heads is out on June 8 through EMI/ Domino

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Halfway Homebuoy Crossing Borders By Benjamin Cooper

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he gentlemen of Halfway Homebuoy have scaled mountains and crossed seas to bring us their debut EP, Crossing Borders.

After forming in Switzerland all the way back in 2009, they decided to make the shift to Australia on the encouragement of their bassist Nick Potter. “We were all working in a resort town called Verbier in Switzerland,” guitarist James Davison says, “and Nick said he knew a few people in the industry in Australia, so we thought, ‘Why not? Let’s give it a crack.’”

Davison and his brother Jack are joined on guitars by childhood friend Christopher Burn.

The presence of three guitarist songwriters in the band is a source of some pride to the group.

“We’ve not actually seen a lot of bands that have that kind of set-up, with three guitars,” Burn says.

“We all listen to different music, which makes writing songs interesting. To be honest, it’s probably about the power you get from having so many guitars – and having a really strong rhythm section behind us doesn’t hurt either.”

There’s a distinct power and passion to the band’s music, so it seems entirely appropriate that multiple tracks have featured in extreme sports films like Play Gravity 2 and Xavier De La Rue’s Be My Winter. But speaking about the track ‘Gravity’ that features in Play Gravity 2, Jack betrays a slight hint of frustration. “That

song actually got picked up by the film pretty soon after we’d written it, and we hadn’t really recorded a version we were completely happy with,” he admits. “They actually ended up putting what was essentially a demo of the track in the film, which was a bit of a shame because we’ve gotten much better at playing it!”

Involving themselves in different mediums, such as film soundtracks, is important to the band.

“Besides touring, having our music played in films has been the best way to get it out there,” Burn says. “We’re quite into skiing ourselves, and I’m not sure if we really think about skiing when we’re writing, but it’s definitely nice to hear your tunes as the soundtrack to some huge mountain run.” When they’re not featuring on award-winning films, the band is in its element on the live scene. “Since we’ve been in Australia, I think we’ve played every single kind of venue,” Davidson says proudly. “We’ve played down and out tiny little rooms all over the city, and that’s great for getting your chops up. I think that kind of hard work makes you a much better performer.”

“It definitely does,” Burn agrees. “It was nice to play at The Annandale recently, I think that opens a lot of doors. You can say you’ve played at one of the homes of Aussie rock, so people look at you differently.” According to Davidson, it

was quite difficult for Halfway Homebuoy to break into the scene when they first came to Australia.

“We had to figure out which were the venues that we could get people to come along to, and we had to develop some sort of a local following.

We should have just gone to university here, because that experience carries with it a whole swathe of ready-made fans.”

Despite three members of the group being English-born, Halfway Homebuoy are emphatic about being very much an Aussie band. “Though

I will say that I was pretty excited to see The Darkness touring down here recently, flying the flag for great English rock. There really hasn’t been an act so dedicated to excess since Ozzy Osbourne,” Davidson says. “And he’s been dead for years,” Burn quips. “Pickled and all.”

What: Crossing Borders EP is out now through MGM Where: The Basement When: Saturday June 2

Sui Zhen Keep It Simple By Jenny Noyes

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ecky Freeman is one busy bee. The lady who calls herself Sui Zhen for the purposes of folksy solo-songwriting released her charming debut Two Seas this month, and she’s hard at work in Melbourne when I call her, getting ready to launch a new website dedicated to documentary-style video.

The ex-Sydney songstress studied screenwriting and media production at UTS, and, drawn to the storytelling aspect of documentary, found it “satisfies the filmmaker-y side of my brain” – without spreading her creative juices too thin. There’s some overlap between the spheres, too: Becky makes some of her own music videos, writes music for some of the films she works on, and in Fox + Sui, her side project with Andras Fox, the pair are “on a mission to do all our own visuals and have a high visual concept to the whole performance, building it into the band rather than adding it as an afterthought.” But she’s found that the more projects she takes on, the more sense it makes to keep them separate, specific and – especially for Sui Zhen – simple. “If I start adding too many elements, then it becomes about those other things.

“I’m quite into craft and making stuff,” she continues, recalling an early gig for her first EP, “and I made this big performance with dancers, and dinosaur merch, and I made costumes, and it was really intense and fun, but still… not entirely necessary. At the end of the day, I just want to focus on the music, and on improving my songwriting by putting more limitations on it.”

Becky’s focus on simplicity and restraint is a real feature of Two Seas. It’s allowed her to play with song structure and keep things fresh, without losing the narrative thread or emotional impact. The powerful bareness of the music was inspired by a visit to Bahrain (which translates as ‘two seas’, trivia people) where her stepmother lives. “I

ended up staying a long time, much longer than planned, because I wanted to keep her company. It was quite a sparse environment, which inspired me to tweak the mix and put some of that sparseness into the songs.”

Her time in Bahrain was just one chapter in a series of events that forced Becky to put the album on hold after writing most of the songs back in 2009, and it ultimately altered her approach to the record. “I was working full-time and being really productive and busy, and then I got into the Red Bull Music Academy, which coincided with a big relationship break-up. I had booked this whole trip and everything had to be pushed back and I was like, ‘Oh god, it’s so not the right time to put this thing out, because there is too much uncertainty’.”

She’s glad it happened this way though. “I think maybe I didn’t realise it, but I was a bit jaded before. I worked as a design manager at a company that did artwork and music videos for major label musicians. I just saw this other side to the music industry and learnt so much about it that just seemed a bit… gross.”

Attending the “musical utopia” of the Red Bull Academy completely turned her attitude around. There, Becky could surround herself with “amazing musicians” who had such varying degrees and types of success that her concept of what it meant to be successful changed. “There were people who were successful just because they were happy making music – and that was so inspiring, to think that that’s all it has to be. It doesn’t have to be a competition, and I’ll never forget that.

It’s like a tattoo.”

What: Two Seas is out now With: Fanny Lumsden, Carry Nation Where: FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel When: Sunday June 3

The Thomas Oliver Band Baby, They’ll Play By Benjamin Cooper o say that The Thomas Oliver Band are excited about their first international tour is something of an understatement. “There’s nothing wrong with touring New Zealand,” frontman Thomas Oliver explains, “but this Australian trip is going to be the first time the five of us have all headed overseas together. We literally cannot wait!”

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the band’s sound. “No one here really has just one project,” Oliver says. “Despite the dominance of dub music, there’s a lot of encouragement for whatever music people want to pursue; we all play on each other’s recordings and help out wherever we can. I think that makes for a pretty diverse scene, and builds up the skills of the working musos around here.”

The bluesy band from Wellington has existed in some form since 2005, expanding from their original three-piece in 2007 to the present five-headed beast that regularly cuts a swathe through their whisky-soaked fans. The increased population of the band required a period of adjustment, but it has yielded significant rewards.

“It probably took between six and twelve months to incorporate the new instrumental elements that come from having more members. Initially Matt [Benton, baritone- and alto-sax] would play three songs per gig, and then the next show he’d play four or five. As we found our feet as a larger band, we probably loosened up a bit. There was a period where he played only a few songs, but did a really thorough job of riffing them out solidly, which the fans seemed to like.”

Following the Every Penny EP in 2007, the band last year released their debut album, Baby, I’ll Play. The long-player garnered the title of Best Blues and Roots Album 2011 through iTunes, a title of which Oliver and co. are justifiably proud.

Yet it was not achieved without significantly hard slog. “The process of recording the album was much more complicated than the EP,” Oliver says. “There was a fair bit to do in terms of preproduction, and whilst the bluesy stuff comes to us quite naturally, there was a lot of other layering that took a while. I guess we’ve always seen ourselves as primarily a live band, but it had got the point where people at our gigs were saying things like, ‘Come on, you guys have been a band for more than five years, just release a bloody album already!’ So we headed into the studio and laid it all down. I was listening to the album the other day, actually, and think it’s a pretty good representation of the whole period of time since the five of us came together. Somehow we captured what we are as a live prospect, and I think that’s where we really spring to life.

Although I’m certain that I’ll spend the rest of my life endeavouring to match the energy of the live show even more fittingly in an album format… But then, that’s just the way it goes.”

Thanks to The Thomas Oliver Band’s musical niche, they’ve built a very strong relationship with their followers. “We’re a bit of an anomaly on the Wellington scene, which probably explains why we’ve been so fortunate with such awesome fans.

A lot of the music scene here is dominated by dub and hip hop sounds, so our whole rocking blues shtick stands out from that. On top of all that, though, we’ve got quite an appreciative and dedicated audience who allow us to experiment and be creative in the musical choices we make.”

The Wellington music community has also provided many opportunities for collaboration, which has had its own effect on the diversity of

What: Baby, I’ll Play is out now Where: The Annandale Hotel When: Thursday May 31

“I was born in the winter to speak the words that lie in the back of my head”- BLACKCHORDS 20 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

Train The Next Stop By Alasdair Duncan

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he joy of your first big success always comes paired with the fear that you’ll never get to experience another; this was the situation that Train found themselves in when their song ‘Drops Of Jupiter (Tell Me)’ was a hit in the early days of 2001. Five years later, when the band announced an indefinite hiatus, nobody was all that surprised. “The guys and I had been together for many years, but we were all unhappy,” explains singer Pat Monahan. “We had different business people working on our behalves, different managers – we had let all these other people take over for us, and we just didn’t love music anymore.”

At this point, the band’s fate as one-hit wonders seemed all but set-in-stone. Things, however, have a funny way of working out. Monahan remembers the precise moment when, waiting for a flight at LAX, he called drummer Scott Underwood and guitarist Jimmy Stafford and asked if they were ready to get their band back.

“They knew just what I meant,” he said. “We had lost touch with each other and with everyone else. We didn’t know who our fans were or what we were meant to be doing. After taking those couple of years off, we realised that we all wanted to get that feeling back, that feeling we had when we first started the band.” Little did Train know that their biggest success was still to come.

mean, Maroon 5 are very good – although I think we’re more of a rock band.” He pauses. “I don’t know, I guess you’d call us pop-rock. I love the idea that we’re between Katy Perry and Justin Bieber. That’s a very strange place to be, after 20 years as a band. Our band is literally older than Justin Bieber.”

Before letting Monahan go, I have to ask him about Glee’s take on ‘Hey, Soul Sister’. “I thought it was cute,” he says, with impressive equanimity.

“I think when Glee goes for something, it’s bound to get pretty enormous – I mean, you can just ask Gotye about that. When Glee did his song, that made it so much bigger. It just makes people more aware of you. It was a really cool honour for them to do that. I know that Kings Of Leon didn’t want Glee to touch their music – but we’re not precious like that.”

What: California 37 is out now through Sony With: Matt Nathanson Where: Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House When: Thursday June 7

2009’s ‘Hey, Soul Sister’ represented a comeback in more ways than one. The bouncy, summery pop-rock track, taken from their fifth album Save Me, San Francisco, did not just announce their return, but became their signature hit, reaching #1 in five countries across the world. If that wasn’t enough to convince Train that they’d made it back, then receiving the ultimate pop cultural honour – a squeaky-clean teen-pop cover version courtesy of the cast of Glee – probably did the trick. Monahan happily admits that this song drove the band’s comeback, and three years on he’s still happy to be performing it every night. “It just fun to perform, no matter what part of the world we’re in,” he says. “Whether or not it’s an English-speaking country, everyone’s singing every word. I’ll never tire of that.”

“I love the idea that we’re between Katy Perry and Justin Bieber on the charts. That’s a very strange place to be, after 20 years in a band. Our band is literally older than Justin Bieber...”

After such a definitive return, Monahan was determined that his band was here to stay.

“When you’re in a band who disappeared for a long time, it’s better to make up for that lost time rather than making the same mistakes,” he says. Train’s sixth album, California 37, was released last month, backed by the single ‘Drive By’. I ask Monahan if he felt pressured to write another ‘Hey, Soul Sister’. “I’d be lying if I said I’d never felt pressure to write a hit before,” he answers, “but the thing is, I never expected ‘Hey, Soul Sister’ to do as well as it did – so with this album I thought, ‘Well, I’m just going to continue to write as quickly as I can.’ I didn’t want to lose whatever that thing was that was happening. I just had a lot of fun.”

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While they’re laden with familiar hooks, many of California 37’s tracks have a distinct sense of melancholy about the lyrics. I ask Monahan if they are reflective of any part of his life right now. “Well, I guess the thing that sums me up as a writer is that I’m very sincere,” he explains, “and I think I’m able to express that sincerity better now than I used to. There have been moments of great sadness recently. I almost lost my father not so long ago; I watch my children grow up and I’m sad I can’t be with them all the time because I’m away on tour. I worry that they’ll get older and I’ll be the father that is sick. I get overwhelmed sometimes with the reality of life.”

At the time of our interview, ‘Drive By’ is sitting at #4 on the YouTube music chart, right between tracks by Katy Perry and Justin Bieber. Monahan is clearly not aware of this fact when I present it to him – he bursts out laughing. “Wow!” he says. “I mean, WOW.” Does he feel that Train are carrying the torch for mainstream rock at the moment? “Well, I know that as far as rock goes, the popular bands like Maroon 5 are taking much more of a pop approach right now,” he says. “I BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 21

Jack Colwell & The Owls A Wise Owl By Jenny Noyes

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onducting our interview in the fluorescentlit quiet of the fire escape at ABC studios, Jack Colwell and I are occasionally interrupted by members of the Stop The Virgens crew giving us strange looks as they make their way out of the rehearsal space. It’s a testament to his commitment to straddling Sydney’s classical and indie-pop worlds – as well as to his enthusiasm and titanic ice-breaking abilities – that Vivid LIVE has appointed the 22-year-old ex-Con (Conservatorium student, that is) to coordinate the Chorus for Karen O’s epic psycho-opera.

This blending of classical and pop sensibilities may be something of a global trend in music; it especially seems so at the moment, with Vivid LIVE’s programming showcasing a glut of classical/pop melting pots, from Karen O’s opera to Florence + The Machine playing with an orchestra, Efterklang and the Sydney Symphony, the opera-trained Zola Jesus, and the shared project of Sufjan Stevens, The National’s Bryce Dessner and composer Nico Muhly – all performing in the austere environs of Sydney Opera House.

Given Jack Colwell’s position as one of the few

– if not only – musicians in Sydney who really embodies the movement, I’m a little surprised when he shrugs it off, at least in part, as a product of marketing. In an era where recorded music is highly accessible and increasingly free, he sagely opines that “to see an artist in lots of different forms – solo, small group, touring band, or orchestra – is a great way to market the artist. It shows the breadth of songwriting skill, because when you arrange a song for an orchestral performance you can see the complexity of the work... It also presents itself as a one-off showcase – it turns itself into the big pineapple or something. You know, ‘We’ve got to see Florence and the Big Pineapple because it’s our only chance!’”

For Jack, though, incorporating classical influences into his music is no passing fad or big money-making pineapple. Classical music is in his bones, and he talks about it with a measure of fatalism. “It sounds strange,” he muses “but that option [of picking up an instrument without proper training] was never really afforded to me.

Before I was able to make decisions for myself I was already having lessons, and throughout my childhood I was told, ‘You will be a musician. You will be a musician, and that is what you will do.’

And yeah, that’s what ended up happening.

“I mean, obviously I have a choice now” he cackles, throwing his hands in the air. “I could phone up someone and say, ‘Fuck the album, I quit!’” He’s joking of course, but after two years, some lukewarm industry responses, and one costly false start (in the winter of 2010, Jack rented a cabin in the Blue Mountains to make a lot of recordings he’d later bin), a musician with less commitment and strength of vision might have done just that. “I put my material in the hands of people I trusted, who I don’t think really dealt with it with respect, as my project. They weren’t really supportive of the direction I wanted to take it, because it didn’t fit what they described as the ‘Australian rock’ or ‘pub rock’ genre.”

“Instead of singing in some kind of vapid bubble, my music is directing an emotion – and whther people like [what they’re feeling] or not, that is the intention of the work.”

Doing his best to ignore the negativity, Jack took succour instead from the strength and success of other ambitious artists, like Joanna Newsom, Kate Bush, local lad Jack Ladder – and now, Karen O. “Stop The Virgens is Karen’s project and she has chosen people to work with who believe in her vision. With my project – I mean, of course it’s on a totally different level, but you want people who want to add to your vision, not take it away from you.” Although it battered his confidence at the time and had him seriously questioning his career path, Jack’s glad those early recordings didn’t work out. The experience forced him to re-evaluate his vision, take control of it, and make decisions that have ultimately grown him as both an artist and a person. The confidence and maturity he’s gained over the past few years is obvious, even in the way he carries himself these days – as well as in the thoughtful and measured manner with which he discusses his art. “There comes a point where you have to go, ‘How serious am I about this project, and about what I want to do with my life?’

Recording the album the second time, I picked people who really believed in my vision and I found that instead of working against it, they were there to help construct this living organism.”

The result is an intensely personal, intelligent and, regardless of what the kings of radio-land may say, yes, even catchy debut, which paints an evocative coming-of-age picture that howls with category-gothic storms and glimpses at silver linings. “When people come up, like reviewers have, and say ‘Your lyrics really affected me’ or ‘Your voice is so raw it conjured up images of crows in graveyards’, and that they had to put the new Catcall single on the next day just to make themselves feel better? To me, that shows my music is making an emotional connection with someone. Instead of singing in some kind of vapid bubble, it’s directing an emotion – and whether people like [what they’re feeling] or not, that is the intention of the work.”

What: Picture Window is out on May 29 With: Packwood, Moon Holiday, Glamour Attack DJs When: Wednesday June 6

22 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

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Where: GoodGod Small Club

The Black Seeds Family Ties By Joshua Kloke ith the release of their fifth full-length studio record, Dust And Dirt, The Black Seeds have turned a corner.

An expansive yet intimate listen, the album does justice to the New Zealand reggae-soul troupe’s past work, yet also showcases the band as they’ve always wanted to be heard.

For the first time, The Black Seeds not only recorded an album on their own, but they did so in their own studio. And as lead singer Barnaby Weir attests, that kind of freedom and self-reliance produced some great results.

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naturally; we don’t try to add too much of a New Zealand flavour to things. It all comes from our personal styles, anyway. I mean, I sing in a Kiwi accent, but we’re not trying to be Jamaican or American – although we are highly influenced by Jamaican and American music. We just try to do our own thing and tell our own stories,” Weir continues. “I suppose there is something very distinct in our musical DNA. We don’t hide from it; we’re proud of it. We just make the music we want to play a thousand times.”

“There were some incredible freedoms that we experienced recording this one,” says the affable Kiwi from his Wellington home. “There weren’t the kind of time constraints you usually have when you hire a studio for a month and spend that kind of money on it. Very often you’re trying to squeeze out a good album – and ultimately, you want that album to capture a moment. This time around we took our time and did our thing in a humble studio, and in doing so we allowed ourselves the opportunity to explore the songs a bit more. We could experiment a little bit, and I think we were ultimately able to catch some key moments.”

And with a new record in tow, it’s clear that that’s exactly what the band intend to keep doing. “There’s been lots of opportunities for the band to break up and do different things, but it’s important for us to keep the family together. It’s really important for us to live in New Zealand right now, with a few of our young families beginning to grow up.”

What: Dust And Dirt is out now through Remote Control Records Where: The Metro When: Saturday June 16

The band’s last full-length, Solid Ground, was a landmark release, but a lot has happened in The Black Seeds camp since 2008. “We’ve been touring around the world a wee bit, doing some tours throughout Australasia as well.

Some of us are starting to have babies, so it’s been interesting to have to juggle the touring commitments with our family commitments.”

With babies in the fold, has it been tricky for the band to adapt? “It is a bit of a challenge mixing the lifestyle we generally lead with what we need to do with our families,” Weir admits, acknowledging how the bandmembers have had to change in both their professional and personal lives. “I’d like to think we work pretty hard at it.”

“We’ve all had personal challenges. Our job is to express ourselves, express our trials and tribulations, and turn them into stories.

Hopefully those stories can help people.”

Dust And Dirt sees The Black Seeds corralling their 14 years of experience as a band, and there are personal messages littered throughout the lyrics that relay an ultimately hopeful message. “We’ve all had personal challenges, just like everyone else around the world,” says Weir, “but our job is to express ourselves, and express our trials and tribulations, and turn them into stories.

Hopefully those stories can help people, through ups and downs, breakups, that sort of thing. We go through [those] things without the security that many people have with, say, an office job or something like that. We don’t have that, but that’s the path we’ve [chosen],” he continues. “We find personal stories have always worked better for us, as opposed to political prophecies. We just explore the themes and the feelings which are important to us.”

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It’s clear from the video for Dust And Dirt’s first single, ‘Pippy Pip’, that family is important to The Black Seeds. A light-hearted clip, it features children painting, building, and then controlling cardboard puppets of the band – and it doesn’t take a psychologist to understand the message there. Also important is the idea of expanding their ever-evolving sound. Long boxed into a very generic ‘reggae’ label, Dust And Dirt – and ‘Pippy Pip’ in particular – shows a band getting looser and freer, and exploring their soulful side. Are The Black Seeds driven by a desire to branch out? “We definitely are,” Weir answers. “While we didn’t necessarily strive to do something different on this record, we definitely experimented more. It’s hard for us when we get put in the ‘reggae’ box. We’re essentially a party groove band, but we’re not your classic reggae band from the South Pacific. People generally get a different idea once they come to see us live.”

They’ve had the chance to bring their partyready live set around the world, and while Weir maintains they’re not your average South Pacific band, there is a certain spirit of New Zealand that finds itself in the music of The Black Seeds. “It’s something that just happens BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 23

arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

five minutes WITH TOM WALLACE and object portraits that show his love of the road and his eye for geometric detail.

When did you get your first camera? Back in 2000 I was 18 and touring Europe with a youth orchestra. Fellow percussionist Daniel Stricker said I would be nuts not to buy a good camera, given I would be travelling for seven months and then heading to art school the following year. So I followed his advice and bought a Minolta 404si SLR. Photography rapidly became the whole point to my travels, and when I got back I couldn’t put the camera down. I still carry an SLR around with me every day. And I still leave it in cinemas and taxis.

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ormer Red Riders and now Palms drummer Tom Wallace has been studying photography and snapping pics for the last 12 years. For his upcoming show, he’s finally taken that 40,000-photosworth of film out of the fridge (processing is expensive yo!), got it developed, and skimmed the cream off the top; the result is a series of landscapes, and architectural

What or who are the most formative influences on your work? I guess Gerhard Richter is the most important influence; he did what I do, which was to try and capture every stimulus for a photograph he saw. He then categorised and exhibited the resulting thousands of images in a massive exhibition and a book called Atlas. The book has just been reissued due to its popularity. But apart from the Germans like Richter, the Bechers, Wenders and Gursky, I am also heavily indebted to the Americans like Ruscha, Eggleston and Steven Shore. Australians often learn photography through books, as the original prints never tour here. So the artists with the best books win.

Tell us about this photo (pictured)? Well, like most of my photos I only dimly recollect shooting this. I know it was the 9940th photograph I ever took, and I think it was in New Zealand.

What’s your current camera and lens of choice? I have just bought the Nikon D800E, which has a 36 megapixel sensor, bringing DSLRs almost up to the resolution of medium format cameras. That type of sensor allows you to print really big and beautiful prints for rich people’s houses. All you need is $3500 and the skillz. Oh, and the $1700 Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f2.8 lens.

How do you think your music – and your lifestyle as a musician – has affected your work? Well I guess all creativity is the ability to task your unconscious brain with a job and then your unconscious delivering the goods. Whether that is walking around and taking great photos, or trying to come up with a killer verse/chorus combination.

I do know that just as I have hard drives and boxes full of photos as a store of ideas, all songwriters I know keep a dictaphone around and recordings of verses and choruses they think might come good one day.

We have a goodie bag of double passes to the following State Theatre screenings at Sydney Film Festival up for grabs; to get your hands on ‘em, tell us which one you want, and who directed the film. Some of the answers are in our SFF special (pp 28-29) the rest are at sff.org.au TABU (Official Competition) Monday June 11, 11.45PM ALPS (Official Competition) Monday June 11, 2.10pm A SIMPLE LIFE Monday June 11, 7.15pm THE KING OF PIGS (Official Competition) Tuesday June 12, 6.15pm POLISSE Tuesday June 12, 8.45pm TODAY (Official Competition) Wednesday June 13, 6.15pm NEIGHBOURING SOUNDS (Official Competition) Thursday June 15, 6.15pm

Which photographers are you currently crushing on? Right now, Rene Vaile’s excellent Instagram, Chris Morris’ awesome shots of Mexico at christophermorris.com. au, and Paul Graham’s solid if low-resolution archive at paulgrahamarchive.com

Alps

Where: MART Gallery / 156 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills When: June 7 – 16 More: martgallery.com.au

ANCHORMAN-APALOOZA

NIDA OPEN DAY

Before abandoning your desk job for a life of debauchery and drama, check your facts: ask Shari Sebbens (fresh back from The Sapphires’ premiere in Cannes), Andrea Demetriades (Pygmalion), Lisa Gormley (Home & Away) and more whether actors really get ALL the booze/sex/money – at NIDA Open Day, Saturday June 2 from 10am – 4pm, Kensington. nida.edu.au/openday2012 Tohoku – photo by Ichiro Kojima

Because no-one can reasonably be expected to hold out howeverlong for that Anchorman sequel, Sydney Retro Cinema (they’re new!) are holding a screening of the original Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy, celebrating San Diego’s classiest, hairiest, most sex-pantheriest news reader. Expect live jazz (flute), expect porn-star moustaches, expect unexpectedly colourful suits – expect claasss… If this sounds like your two-fingersof-scotch, head along to Randwick Ritz on June 15 with your shirt open and your socks up. sydneyretrocinema.com.au

Björk

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL!

SUPANOVA

CLOSER

Søren Solkær Starbird takes horribly uninteresting people like Jack White, David Lynch and Bjork, and gives them an edge; he makes horrifically unattractive people like Duffy and Regina Spektor look good. The secret? Probably something to do with years of study, a Danish eye for design, and 15-or-so years snapping coverworthy portraits (that have, in fact, graced the covers of mags like Rolling Stone and Wallpaper, among others). He’s compiled his favourite cuts in a book, titled Closer, which launches this week in conjunction with an exhibition of prints from the book.

June 1-15 at Art Equity (Level 6, 16-20 Barrack Street, Sydney).

34B: ISLAND EXOTICA

Escape winter to a rum-spiked tropical paradise with a little help from Mssr Bublé and friends, at the upcoming 34B Burlesque party. Consider yourself marooned at 34B for the evening, where you'll be taken captive by a tribe of wild beauties that includes local royalty Rita Fontaine, Danica Lee, Heidi Hoops, Sheena Miss Demeanour, and Baby Blue Bergman, plus Pickled Tink and Veronica Bloom (whose mastery of Hawaiian Hula and Tahitian Tamure should make for a performance as intriguing as it sounds) – all to the Voodoo pop sounds of Rufino and the Coconuts. Island Exotica takes place Friday June 8 at 34B (44 Oxford St, Darlinghurst) – see qbar.iwannaticket.com.au

TELL ME A STORY

There’s a fairly established theory that there’s seven core story prototypes that get re-used and adapted and elaborated on throughout literature, film, theatre etc: the Quest, the 24 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

Voyage and Return, the Rebirth, the Comedy, the Tragedy, the Overcoming the Monster, and the Rags to Riches. Find out what keeps us coming back for more at Tell Me A Story – a screening of seven shorts (one from each ‘type’) by local filmmakers, all in the tenminute-or-less ballpark. Friday June 1 from 7pm @ Paper Plane Gallery (727 Darling St, Rozelle). paperplanegallery.com

JEREMYVILLE @ GALERIES

Sydney-born illustrator and design export Jeremyville has hand-picked four of his Community Service Announcements to display in The Galeries for the next couple of months. If you haven't got across these yet, they're cute-as-fuck graphic messages about things like hugging, being more generous, dealing with life's curveballs and just generally being a better human. So thank you aMBUSH gallery for making that happen – for free!

May 29 – August 31 at Lane Four @ The Galeries, 500 George St. jeremyville.com

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

Supanova Pop Culture Expo is Australia’s largest/only national pop culture convention – the closest we’re gonna get to San Diego’s Comic-Con, and at a fraction of the cost.

This year’s lineup runs the gamut of fantasy, sci-fi, comics and anime, cult TV series and cosplay (if you haven’t been to the Madman National Cosplay Championship, then you really haven’t experienced humanity in all its colourful glory). This year’s star attractions include Christopher Lloyd (back from the future or somesuch), Hayden Panettiere (Heroes), Natalia Tena (Game Of Thrones) and author Christopher Paolini. Plus lashings more. Circle June 15-17 in your Snoopy calendar and start mapping out routes to Olympic Park. supanova.com.au

I’M NOT RACIST, BUT

You are now officially in National Reconciliation Week; while you’re here, you might wanna swing by Seymour Centre this Thursday, where the NSW Reconciliation Council are hosting a forum featuring Race Discrimination Commissioner, Dr. Helen Szoke, Fear of a Brown Planet’s Nazeem Hussain, UN Youth Ambassador Benson Saulo and comedian Jennifer Wong – wrangled by host Steve Cannane (ABC radio) and featuring music by Ngaratya. Thursday May 31 from 7.30pm @ York Theatre (Seymour Centre). nswreconciliation.org.au

PERSONALITY

Sydney illustrator Adam James Turnbull has been in Mexico making interesting things with colours, textures, lines and shapes; he’s been thinking about inner conciousness, perceptions of self, and even conducting personality tests and getting down and dirty and theoretical. Sounds serious. The results, however, are much more fun – unraveling his ideas on the page, as it were, in a series of surreal and geographic mixed-media works using pigment liners, spraypaint and fine-line pens. You can check ‘em out this Friday June 1 for one night only at China Heights (16-18 Foster Street, Surry Hills). adamjamesturnbull.com

TOHOKU

The beautiful and the tragic will be in full evidence at the Japan Foundation Gallery next month, in the group show Tohoku: Through the Eyes of Japanese Photographers, which features breathtaking photographs by ten artists of different backgrounds, ages and styles, from Tohoku – the region hardest hit by the Japanese earthquake. The lineup includes Teisuke Chiba, Ichiro Kojima, Hideo Haga, Masatoshi Naito, Hiroshi Oshima, Meiki Lin, Masaru Tatsuki and Nao Tsuda. Check it out from June 8-21 at the Japan Foundation Gallery (Level 1, Chifley Plaza, 2 Chifley Square). Jpg.org.au

FESTIVAL OPENS NEXT WEEK! Sydney Film Festival brings the city to life with over 230 screenings of over 150 films from 51 countries, plus talks, forums, guests and red carpet galas.

Check out the full program and buy online at sff.org.au or purchase by phone on 1300 733 733.

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL HUB @ LOWER TOWN HALL Grab a drink at the bar and see live music, films, and DJs – FREE every night during the Festival.

BULLY

TODAY

MODEST RECEPTION

STRAY CAT ROCK: SEX HUNTER

USA

FRANCE, SENEGAL

IRAN

JAPAN

SUN 10 JUN 9.30AM STATE TUE 12 JUN 8.45PM EV9

WED 13 JUN 6.15PM STATE THU 14 JUN 2.00PM EV4

THU 7 JUN 12.15PM EV4 SAT 9 JUN 12.00PM EV9

SAT 16 JUN 6.30PM DOQ3

This intensely moving and revealing documentary follows American schoolchildren and their families as they cope with the insidious problem of bullying.

Magical-realist story about a Senegalese man (played by actor/ musician/poet Saül Williams) who wakes up one morning knowing that this day will be his last.

This twisted black comedy follows a mysterious couple from Tehran as they distribute large bags of money in an impoverished mountain border town – only to humiliate the recipients.

Nikkatsu’s battle-of-the-sexes flick has all the hallmarks of the films Quentin Tarentino homaged in Kill Bill: girls in hot pants with swords, psyched-out camera tilts, pulse zooms and a J-Pop soundtrack.

MARLEY

MISS BALA

THE KING OF PIGS

PLAY IT LIKE GODARD

UK

MEXICO

SOUTH KOREA

FRANCE, BELGIUM

MON 11 JUN 9.30PM STATE SUN 17 JUN 9.30PM EV4

THU 14 JUN 4.45PM EV4 SUN 17 JUN 7.15PM EV8

TUE 12 JUN 6.15PM STATE WED 13 JUN 4.30PM EV4

FRI 8 JUN 4.15PM EV4 THU 7 JUN 6.00PM DOQ2

The definitive documentary on the legendary king of reggae, featuring interviews with fellow musicians, friends and family; concert footage and countless archival pics; and, of course, a soundtrack of timeless hits.

This stylish, action-packed thriller chronicles three days in the life of a beautiful young girl drawn into a vicious war of attrition between Mexico’s violent drug gangs and the police.

A daring, disturbing and violent animated film about bullying, social status and class difference, marking a brave new direction for Korean animation.

Delightful and hilarious French mockumentary about a celebrated film auteur and Palme d’Or winner who is still in high school – ‘a mixture of Jean-Luc Godard and Justin Bieber’.

INFINITE STORIES ONE FILM FESTIVAL 6 – 1 7 J U N E S F F. O R G . A U BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 25

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he annual Tiny Stadiums festival celebrates emerging and experimental performance works, most vividly through a ‘live art weekend’ (June 2-3) that takes over Erskineville’s streets with dance, durational and interactive performances, video works, sculpture and this year, even a diner. This year’s program is curated by the Groundwork collective (who we interview below), and features works by Tom Hogan, Fitts & Holderness, David Capra, Penelope Benton and Alex Clapham – among many others. And for anyone who hates the outdoors, PACT will host a double bill of short theatre works from May 31 - June 9, as part of Tiny Stadiums: Bron Batten’s Sweet Child Of Mine (winner Best Experimental Performance Award at 2011 Melbourne Fringe), and Alice Williams’ performance-video project Impossible Plays (Next Wave 2012). Just a few more reasons to move to Erskineville… For the full lineup see pact.net.au

Alice Williams:

IMPOSSIBLE PLAYS A video plays in front of a curtain; somebody is retelling the stories that recur in their fantasies. Then we are floating on air, or perhaps walking on water, watching a reflective and transparent set – though it’s too abstract for me to properly visualise.

“Think of an old-fashioned theatre, but see-through,” explains Alice Williams.

For Impossible Plays, Williams interviewed four people about their imaginary lives, and she and her team constructed a documentary video-theatre piece that intertwines these stories. “They’re all pretty divergent… they’re only connected by the fact that we asked them all about their private fantasies and they didn’t say no, which turned out to be pretty extraordinary. There are overlaps, like lots of fantasies about nature, and returning to nature.”

One performer reimagines themselves as part vet and part Tina Turner from Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome; another, a Aboriginal painter living outside Alice Springs,

SWEET CHILD OF MINE Groundwork:

TINY STADIUMS This year’s Tiny Stadiums festival is curated by new creative collective Groundwork – aka Amelia Wallin, Maria White and Christopher Hodge; the theme they’ve chosen is ‘centre/margins’. “We wanted to start with the geographies and historical aspects of Erskineville,” Wallin explains, “a suburb very much in the centre of Sydney’s inner city, yet with this kind of small town mentality.”

The lineup for the Live Art Weekend – the core element of the festival – ranges from celebrations of Erskineville to more critical dialogues. “Some artists have come in with a creative model that they’ve done in another site,” says Wallin, citing Rafaela Pandolfini, whose project YOU.DANCE. explores the ritual of dance by filming and photographing Erskineville residents dancing.

Ngoc Nguyen, meanwhile, interrogates ‘community’ in Erskinville via her installation project Cultural Triangle, which involves setting up Vietnamese street stalls along Erskineville Road. “That raises really interesting

questions about belonging and place and how she, as a visitor to Erskineville, feels within that space,” says White. Wallins adds, “What we liked about Ngoc’s proposal was that she said, ‘It’s just another suburb with graffiti and cafes” – “And a bar,” interjects White. “Yeah,” continues Wallin, “And we liked that she sees it just like every other suburb. It was refreshing”.

On the lineup as a whole, Hodge says, “All the works are so diverse.

I mean yes, there is a conversation between them, but they’re all really tackling different ideas and ways of producing work. They’re all incredibly interactive and dynamic”.

Bron Batten is currently in Mexico, eating tacos and getting sunburned.

It’s a brief holiday for the busy Melbourne-based artist after a year that has so far included professional development residencies and skills training in improvisation, writing and physical theatre in Chicago and New York, including internships with The Neo-Futurists and Redmoon companies.

Next up she returns to Australia to bring her award-winning Melbourne Fringe show Sweet Child Of Mine to Tiny Stadiums. “It’s a hybrid theatre piece that explores perceptions of what artists do for a living,” Batten

“interpreted the question as being the magical feeling in-between the landscape connected to the cultural roots and the painting that you sell for money,” Williams tells me.

Elsewhere, a rainforest dwelling is envisioned by a tarot card reader, and a poet reimagines himself as a ranger in a Blue World with specific rules about how to treat animals.

Another participant’s fantasy world centres around magic.

The resulting mix of fantasies blurs the lines between theatre and documentary, reality and fantasy, in a fresh take on theatre that throws out any limitations set by ideas of realism. As Williams argues, if the stories we tell in theatre are imagined, then surely someone’s real-life fantasy can have an equally important place in storytelling.

“It’s important to have a space to ask an unrealistic question, to get an answer where people feel like they’re safe to say something that matters to them,” she argues.

“Rather than someone who’s trained as a playwright and wants to write something that fits into the values of contemporary theatre – inside that aesthetic system – there’s heaps that goes on all the time [outside that] says of the show, which features herself and her 60-year-old parents, Jim and Linda, live on stage.

The inspiration for the show first struck Batten when she was asked to devise a performance interpretation of a segment of Nick Enright’s play Blackrock. “I got my parents to read my section of the script on video, and then screened that at the show.

It was quite a violent part of text with a lot of bad language and they were so at odds with what they were reading – it was ridiculous. Yet they were so genuine and trying so hard, it somehow became this really sweet display of parental support… even though they were spouting the lines of teenaged rapists. They’re so intriguing, because they have no way of behaving that isn’t completely themselves – they’re much more interesting than me and I’ve been

Mr & Mrs Batten...

With performances starting up the top of Erskineville Road near Newtown and winding down the main street and through back streets to PACT, this year’s festival is the largest so far – and consequently, Hodge has designed a map to help visitors navigate their way through the festival. “We like the idea that you’re navigating the suburb and really traversing all these different streets and paths,” says Wallin. “We really want people to have the map and explore it all. We really want them to make the journey. – Roslyn Helper

that I would love to see on stage, and people who have stories to tell and really interesting ideas that should be given a space.”

More than just challenging the boarders between reality and fantasy in the theatre, Impossible Plays is about challenging our own conceptions of what’s possible.

“Lots of artists [can] relate to that idea of feeling like what they want to do is impossible, or they don’t have permission – that ‘I wish I could be a writer, I could never do that, I’m an administrator,’” says Williams. “You don’t have to feel like there’s this real opposition between your fantasy and your reality, that you are this hybrid superhero.” – Justin Wolfers performing for 20 years! So I thought, I reckon there’s a whole show in this.”

Batten describes her dad, who used to be a taxi driver, as “outgoing and boisterous”. Her mum, she says, used to be a midwife and is “more quiet and reserved, but with a very dry sense of humour”. When they’re not performing in their daughter’s show, Mr and Mrs Batten run an antiques and secondhand furniture store in Sunbury, on the outskirts of Melbourne. Sweet Child Of Mine begins with video footage of Batten originally asking her parents to be in her theatre piece. “Dad is eager, but Mum’s much more suspicious!” she admits.

“I think [mum and dad] have much more of an idea about what I actually ‘do’ all day and how much work is involved in putting together a show,” says Batten of the show’s outcomes.

“It has been very personally fulfilling too, as it has allowed me and my parents to develop our relationship with each other through the creation of art. This was part of the reason why I devised the work in the first place.

[And] dad has particularly enjoyed being involved in the show and has spent the whole time since the Fringe last year Googling himself! And it’s given us something to do as a family I guess – in an odd way.” RH What: Sweet Child Of Mine + Impossible Plays - a double bill When: May 31 – June 9 Where: PACT Centre For Emerging Artists, 107 Railway Pde, Erskinville

irector (and Turner Prize-winning video artist) Steve McQueen shot to cinematic prominence a few years back with his debut feature Hunger – a stylishly executed, visually stunning and profoundly moving portrait of the last days of Irish hunger-striker Bobby Sands. His follow-up, Shame, inhabits the other end of the cultural spectrum – decadent uptown New York – and tackles a very different kind of torment: sex addiction. Once again, the star is Michael Fassbender, who plays Brandon: a corporate operator who is attractive, virile, successful and charming – but completely at the mercy of his addiction.

When his sister Sissy (Oscar-nominee Carey Mulligan) comes to stay it becomes clear that his present pain stems from his past, and forces him to confront his demons.

Xxxx

WIN! 26 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

S AY W EA IV G

SHAME: ON DVD D

Shame releases on DVD on June 6. We have ten copies up for grabs; to get your hands on one, email freestuff@thebrag.com with the name of one other film starring Fassbender…

Groundwork: Maria White and Christopher Hodge – photograph by Amelia Wallin

Bron Batten:

MAY 31 – JUNE 9 PACT & ERSKINEVILLE Impossible Plays - Megan Prendergast / photo by Chloe Hughes,

Tiny Stadiums 2012

BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 27

sydney film festival 2012 June 6 – 17 / State Theatre, Dendy Opera Quays, Event Cinemas George Street and more

S

ydney Film Festival enters a new phase this year, with the changeover from Clare Stewart to incoming Festival Director Nashen Moodley. But the best bits remain – the Official Competition (aka your 12-course cinematic degustation menu), the Freak Me Out sidebar (Vampire ballerinas? Pensioner zombies? Evil naked Japanese wood nymphs with vagina fruits? Covered.) and the Sounds On Screen sidebar. But for the first time, we get a proper festival club: the Festival Hub, programmed

by The Festivalists (Jurassic Lounge) and located in Lower Town Hall. Expect screenings, after-parties, talks, music, booze, and heaps more.

THE CONNOISSEUR

This year’s festival spans 67 features (crazy), so to help you navigate the program, we’ve asked a few trustworthy friends to share their recommendations and wishlists – and then we added some of our own! For more of this, head to thebrag.com/sff2012 – and for the entire Sydney Film Festival program and tickets, see sff.org.au

THE CRITIC

FERGUS LINEHAN

Fergus’ eye – and ear – for a good thing saw him blaze a trail through Sydney in his five years at the helm of Sydney Festival, before taking up a permanent post as Head of Contemporary Music at Sydney Opera House – including curating Vivid LIVE. Which makes his first choice potentially biased – but still definitely on the money.

DAVID STRATTON (ABC’s At The Movies) A cinephile who needs no introduction.

RECOMMENDED Alps – Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos I was pleasantly challenged by Lanthimos’ Dogtooth a couple of years ago, and Alps is a formidable follow-up, a strange and strangely amusing insight into society’s taboos.

Polisse – Dir. Maïwenn This powerful film about the activities of the Child Protection Unit in Paris takes the viewer into some very dark places, but does so with a brio that signals an interesting and provocative new director.

A Simple Life – Dir. Ann Hui Deanie Ip gives a simply wonderful performance as an elderly woman who has worked all her life for one Hong Kong family in this moving but tough-minded drama.

(Vivid LIVE)

Miss Bala – Dir. Gerardo Naranjo The impact of the war between Mexico’s drug cartels and the police and its effect on the collateral damage of ordinary citizens is vividly depicted in this fierce and troubling thriller, in which a beauty queen aspirant is caught up in the horror.

Not Suitable For Children (pictured) – Dir. Peter Templeman Templeman convincingly portrays the everyday lives of Sydneysiders in a drama about a man whose mortality is catching up with him far too quickly. Beautifully acted and deftly mixing drama and wry humour. Great opening choice!

NB Opening Night sold out, but Not Suitable For Children also screens Sat Jun 9 at 4pm (Event Cinemas George St)

MOST WANTED Shut Up And Play The Hits – Dir. Will Lovelace & Dylan Southern This brilliant, blistering documentary about the final days of LCD Soundsystem includes some of the best concert footage I’ve ever seen.

[Screens Sun Jun 3 at 8pm @ Sydney Opera House as part of Vivid LIVE] Caesar Must Die – Paolo & Vittorio Taviani Julius Caesar is one of my favourite plays, and everyone is saying the Taviani brothers are the golden boys of the moment.

Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present – Dir. Matthew Akers My girlfriend and I were in Manchester last year for the premiere of Robert Wilson’s The Life & Death of Marina Abromovic, with the artist playing herself. She was such a strange and powerful presence I need to go back for more.

Marley – Dir. Kevin MacDonald The excitement about this film from everyone in the music industry is palpable. Those who have seen it say it is both a brilliant portrait of the man, and an indictment of the bigotry within the music industry and media of the time.

I, Anna (pictured) – Dir. Barnaby Southcombe I’m a huge fan of Irish actor Gabriel Byrne – In Treatment was one of the best TV shows of the past decade – but I haven’t seen him on the big screen for a long time.

THE TASTEMAKER

THE INSIDER

MATHIEU RAVIER (The Festivalists) Matt is programming the Festival Hub, scouted films for Sydney Film Festival's program at Toronto Film Festival, and is the Artistic Director of Sydney’s Possible Worlds Canadian Film Festival – among other things; just a few reasons to pay attention to what’s on his radar.

RECOMMENDED Polisse – Dir. Maïwenn A hard-hitting documentary-like ensemble drama about life in the Parisian police force.

Jeff, Who Lives At Home (pictured) – Dir. Mark & Jay Duplass American comedy that’s more charming and witty than it looks.

The Wilding – Dir. Grant Scicluna A masterful Australian short about love in juvie, which is one of the Dendy Awards finalists.

Beauty – Dir. Oliver Hermanus A thought-provoking meditation on race and sexuality in contemporary South Africa.

The World Before Her – Dir. Nisha Pahuja A documentary that looks at how Indian 28 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

ALICE FENTON women are groomed to conform to often extreme ideological models.

MOST WANTED Amour – Dir. Michael Haneke The Austrian auteur brings into his ruthless universe three of France’s top actors: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva.

Lore – Dir. Cate Shortland This comes across as an intelligent, ambitious drama about a very tricky subject.

Tabu – Dir. Miguel Gomes Benefits from one of the most hauntingly beautiful and intriguing trailers this year.

Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter – Dir. Yasuharu Hasebe A 1970 Japanese pulp thriller which recalls both Roger Corman and Russ Meyer.

Safety Not Guaranteed – Dir. Colin Trevorrow Because the time-travel rom-com sci-fi thriller is my favourite genre of all.

(Creative Director, FBi Radio)

She co-founded Even Books and was editor of TwoThousand, before taking over the creative reigns at 94.5. She’s a lady of taste – so we couldn’t refuse her plea for six rather than five picks from the fest…

MOST WANTED Moonrise Kingdom (pictured) – Dir. Wes Anderson Wes! Bill Murray! Edward Norton! An industrious orphan! A kindred spirit! Running away with your best friend! Yes please!

The Imposter – Dir. Bart Layton A Texas family is convinced that a Frenchman found on the streets of Spain is their long-lost son, despite the huge differences in looks, age and accent. Whut?

This is a DOCUMENTARY. Repeat: Whut?

I’m seeing it.

Beasts Of The Southern Wild – Dir. Benh Zeitlin This won the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, but even if it hadn’t the names

themselves would probably have won me over: a six-year-old called ‘Hushpuppy’, a dad called ‘Wink’, and a community called ‘The Bathtub’.

Dead Europe – Dir. Tony Krawitz This is based on a killer book (by Christos Tsiolkas), it’s got a killer director, and Ewen Leslie is a babe. It’s also Australian. Four good reasons.

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry – Dir. Alison Klayman Three years in the life of Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei, famed for his Bird’s Nest Stadium and series of photos of a middle finger raised against iconic Chinese monuments. Never could go past a middle finger to the law.

Under African Skies – Dir. Joe Berlinger Paul Simon returns to South Africa 25 years after his controversial visit during the UN cultural boycott. He reunites with the musicians who collaborated on Graceland, and confronts his critics.

sydney film festival 2012 The BRAG selects...

The good, the bad, and the awesome.

Below we share some of our picks from this year’s festival; stay tuned in next week’s issue for our breakdown and highlights from the Official Competition – and for more reviews see thebrag.com/sff2012

FAUST Acclaimed director Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) completes his ‘men in power’ tetralogy with this dark fantasy loosely based on Goethe’s Faust.

Having studied Hitler in Moloch, Lenin in Taurus, and Emperor Hirohito in The Sun, Sokurov nails his thesis to the wall with the words of Goethe himself: “Unhappy people are dangerous.” Faust (played by Johannes Zeiler) is a man of science driven by an insatiable thirst for both knowledge and a Botticellian young beauty called Margarete (played

by The Borgias’ Isolda Dychauk) – which blinds him to the machinations of the wily Mephistopheles (embodied here as a misshapen, goatish moneylender), who happily leads the scholar down a dissolute path to the rocky shores of hell, one favour at a time.

Sokurov’s screenplay is a heady cocktail of philosophical and theological ideas, with a large dash of dark humour (of the ‘cosmic joke’ variety). Visually, the film is nothing short of magnificent, as beautiful as it is grotesque (opening, it has to be noted, with a disembowled cadaver). Sumptuous costumes, lavish production design, and Sokurov’s typically ornate composition are done justice by the lensing of three-time Academy Award-nominee Bruno Delbonnel (Dark Shadows, Amelie).

Greenish-yellow and dusty browns prevail, and combined with frames bursting to the seams with detail (and the cramped 3:4 ratio) you really feel the claustrophobia of the period, the dirt and the stench.

With no-one in Australia picking Faust up for general distribution thus far, SFF is a rare chance to see this bona fide cinematic spectacle on the big screen – and tickets are selling fast! – DJ Previous Festivals/Awards: Golden Lion (Venice 2011)

POLISSE In style and content, Polisse has an almost documentary realism; almost, because it’s so finely wrought in terms of its characters – the men and women of Belleville’s Child Protection Unit. Actress and director Maïwenn literally and figuratively pitches her tent in the middle of this unit, inserting herself into the narrative in the character of Melissa, a young photojournalist who is commissioned by the Police Department to take photos of the CPU officers ‘on the job’. Ostensibly a sheltered young white-collar ‘trophy wife’ thrust into a dirty, dysfunctional blue-collar world, appearances are not as they seem; by the end of the film we will have realised that she has her own complicated cultural heritage and past, and is merely a tourist in her middle-upper-class lifestyle, just as she is a ‘tourist’ in the CPU. Polisse interweaves the stories of different officers in the department, focusing on some more than others. The three key characters are: Fred – a tall, fiery Algerian who takes his job extremely personally, and who is having problems at home with the mother of his daughter – and in fact becomes involved with Melissa; Iris – the man-hating bulimic with intimacy issues; and Nadine, who is trying to appear gung-ho about a painful divorce.

These characters are presented as both frail and strong, struggling at home, and imperfect parents to their own children, and sometimes barely managing to stay sane under the pressure of their work.

Yes, this is difficult subject matter; but it’s brilliantly handled, with as much humour and compassion as poignancy or despair – and with irresistibly watchable protagonists.

Maïwenn – a one-time partner of Luc Besson who has her own fascinating backstory – will be at Sydney Film Festival presenting her film, which should make for engrossing post-screening discussion. This will undoubtedly be one of the festival’s most talked-about films. – Dee Jefferson Previous Festivals/Awards: Jury Prize (Cannes 2011).

POLICEMAN “Being rich in a country where there is such poverty is a crime,” declares the band of Baader Meinhof-like insurgents in this rattling debut from Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid. By this point, the radicals have three of Israel’s richest industrial moguls held hostage. The twist? These insurrectionists aren’t Arabs – they’re young Israelis.

Less polemic than smartly ambivalent survey of a modern, class-riven country, Policeman builds to its shattering climax by way of a split narrative, which situates its audience on both sides of the law. We first meet Yaron (Yiftach Klein), expectant father, loving son and social nucleus of a fraternal squad of elite cops belonging to Israel’s counter-terrorist unit. As their banal rituals makes clear – they meet for a barbecue, visit the beach together, cycle – they’re just regular men, boringly flawed (watch the sex-starved Yaron flirt with a teenage waitress), who happen to be in the state’s employ. These are not the power-drunk boors or simple avatars of systemic oppression a lesser film might have made them out to be.

Midway, the perspective shifts, to detail the lead-up to the young terrorists’ longplanned coup. They refine their dogma, bicker over semantics (“Revolution is not poetry,” their leader asserts. “It’s prose.”). Complications arise in the form

of one member’s ex-anarchist father – a poignant figure who most embodies the film’s animating tension between ideology and its frequently impractical application.

But just as Lapid declines to simplify Yaron and his cohort, neither do these supposed fanatics prove unswervingly married to their righteous cause. The result is a contrast of incongruents, rather than opposites. Nothing is black and white here.

The split narrative draws the various gulfs Lapid means to address sharply into relief: the dissonance between police and extremists; conviction and practice; and (with resounding echoes of the Occupy movement, which Lapid’s script predates) between the state’s financial elite and the citizenry left to scavenge crumbs from their table. Like that protest movement, Lapid might not offer any answers, but the questions he poses are certainly provocative. – Gerard Elson

UNDER AFRICAN SKIES Without Paul Simon’s Graceland we wouldn’t have Vampire Weekend or any of the other purveyors of modern Afropop – or at the very least, it would be very different. The skittering, chiming guitars, the lilting melodies and rolling rhythms, the sometimes-abstract lyrics and wordless vocals, the collision of cultures – it’s all there on the 1987 album that Simon describes (quite accurately) as the high point of his career. The album was born out of collaboration with black South African musicians towards the end of apartheid, and the compelling details of this venture form the basis of Under African Skies.

Director Joe Berlinger (who formerly made Some Kind of Monster – the film that finally euthanised Metallica) follows Simon’s return to South Africa 25 years after Graceland’s release, where he reunites with both the musicians he recorded with and the antiapartheid campaigners who denounced the Graceland project at the time. As Simon prepares for a reunion concert in Johannesburg, we are taken in delectable montage through the entire process of recording the album—from the beginning of the idea to the triumphant world tour— intercut with revealing interviews about both the music and the political context. After all, here was a white entertainer who, when the situation was at boiling point, broke the UN cultural boycott of South Africa to make a record.

Berlinger doesn’t sugarcoat the production or peddle empty nostalgia, but rather engages with the surrounding issues; through archival footage and new interviews (including Hugh Masakela, Paul McCartney and Harry Belafonte), the film expounds on apartheid, racism, musical exploitation

and racial politics in a refreshingly direct way. Even the vibrant, almost under-theradar recording sessions in Johannesburg were not completely free from the external racial tensions, and it’s intriguing to hear the differing viewpoints on the implications of the project, 25 years on. Anti-apartheid campaigner Dali Tambo tells Simon that although Graceland was good for the particular South Africans who were involved, “what’s good for the nation comes first, not just a few individuals.” Simon, meanwhile, is politely exasperated that “artists are always treated like we work for politicians!”

This documentary underlines Simon’s artistic (as opposed to politically subversive) intentions. But while songs like ‘You Can Call Me Al’ and ‘Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes’ are ostensibly apolitical, the message of joyous collaboration, celebration of different cultures and disregard of circumstantial conflict sent by Graceland was undeniably deeper and wider. In the slightly gauche words of one contemporary reporter, Graceland demonstrated that things other than suffering could come out of Africa. Under African Skies is an illuminative documentary about wonderful music and its fascinating context; it is both a celebration of the uniting power of music and a window into issues that still haven’t quite gone away.

– Laurence Rosier Staines

WUTHERING HEIGHTS British director Andrea Arnold has previously excelled at naturalistic portraits of women surviving the physical and emotional minefields of life in the lowincome and high-crime urban jungle, as per her Oscar-winning short Wasp and her Cannes-winning features Red Road and Fish Tank. So it’s no surprise that her take on Emily Brontë’s classic would be anything but audacious. Instead of a ‘darkskinned gypsy,’ Arnold’s Heathcliff is a black man; the Heights is little more than a cottage on the moors, dirty, cold and ugly; and Cathy is a plain teen, who only later blossoms into a beauty (played by Kaya Scodelario from TV’s Skins).

Besides rejecting the romantic overtones and glossy production values of previous adaptations, Arnold makes the story her own: the hand-held intimacy that is a hallmark of her previous work (courtesy of cinematographer Robbie Ryan) is much in evidence, as is her realistic presentation of the working class milieu. Fans of Brontë’s text will note that much of the novel’s dialogue and many of its most vivid scenes have been stripped. The novel’s framing device (Mr Lockwood, to whom the tale is told) is gone, and the first half of the film, when Cathy and Heathcliff are children, is virtually unrecognisable save for the basic plot elements. Arnold also cuts off well before Brontë does – and before the next generation can repeat the disastrous history of the first.

In place of language, Arnold puts a lot of time into creating the damp, mistshrouded, wind-whipped atmosphere, the muddy and dirt-streaked textures, the small poetic details in the everyday slug of lives on the land, which look to be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.

The cumulative effect is an audaciously poetic, ‘pure cinema’ take on a literary classic. – DJ Previous Festivals/Awards: Best Cinematography (Venice 2011).

TATSUMI Yoshihiro Tatsumi is the godfather of ‘gekiga’, the adult-oriented strain of alternative manga that salvaged the form from the ghetto of perceived depravity – while still establishing discreteness from children’s comics – in late-1950s Japan.

In this splendid animated documentary/ showcase, the artist’s biography – mined from his Eisner Award-winning autobiographical manga A Drifting Life – is interweaved with five of his signature stories to create a multifaceted portrait of Tatsumi, the man and the artist.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Tatsumi’s fictions that most impress. One noir-ish episode engages the knotty matter of grief memorialisation in bomb-ravaged Hiroshima. Another sees a Japanese prostitute, spurned by a cocksure Yankee G.I. during the post-war occupation of her country, resolve to sever all bonds with men in shocking fashion. One involves a children’s illustrator and some lewd bathroom graffiti; another, an embittered misogynist who vows to have an affair with a beautiful young co-worker. Another is the tale of a man and his monkey.

That these wry – often bleak – moral parables overshadow Tatsumi’s own story is perhaps inevitable; each pulses with a dark pulp allure. Yet director Eric Khoo’s decision to knit these passages of biography throughout ultimately pays off; they provide what’s often striking sociopolitical context to the artist’s work.

Tatsumi’s bold, thick-lined illustration style is vividly brought to life by the film’s gratifyingly simple animation and uncluttered mise-en-scène. Shadows exude a weird menace thanks to the artist’s penchant for fevered cross-hatching, while the wistful score comes courtesy of Khoo’s own 13-year-old son. That the entire project was achieved on a budget of around US $800,000 – roughly 1/168th the budget of that other recent cinematic rendering of a beloved comic artist’s work, The Adventures Of Tintin – only makes it all the more remarkable a film. – GE BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 29

Entertain Us!

Be Your Self

[BOOKS] Craig Schuftan Rocks The ‘90s By Caitlin Welsh

[DANCE] Who Do You Think You Are? By Roslyn Helper Kimball Wong in Be Your Self

think the definition of the choreographer has really changed, particularly in the last couple of decades,” says Garry Stewart. “We’re all looking at other media, other art forms and other people in order to shift the language of dance, and also to change our relationship with the stage and with the audience. So in some ways, anything goes. Anything is possible. And for me, that’s the most exciting thing.”

“I

around us. It’s interesting how our minds create instances of order and flow.”

Stewart’s latest dance theatre work, Be Your Self, is a clear product of this outlook, drawing inspiration from fields as far flung as Buddhism, neurobiology, philosophy and architecture. The genesis was Stewart’s decision to invite a Buddhist monk to start leading meditation classes at the Australian Dance Theatre. During these classes, a theme arose around the question of what constitutes the self. “In some ways, the self is an illusion; it’s not a constant thing, it’s not an absolute thing, in a way, it’s a construct,” he explains. “So the piece started off with this question, ‘Are we our body? Is that ‘the self’?’ and then it goes from there into more emotional and psychological areas and questions about selfhood.”

A score by Sydney-based electronic music composer Brendan Woithe plays a key role. “In some ways the score turns the body inside out, because it is a conglomeration of sounds of the body in action,” says Stewart. “The sounds of tendons straining, the sounds of bones cracking, the sound of breathing, and digestion.

It’s done in a quasi-cartoonish manner. It’s hyperbole and exaggeration.”

Stewart takes a unique approach to combining scientific knowledge with emotional and physical expression in his creative process. “I think science is telling us really interesting things about our identities and how we think and behave and how we feel. We’ve always tended to relegate emotions to a fairly nebulous area – [Descartes’] idea of the ghost and the machine, that there is this body and then there is something that we don’t understand that maybe has a spiritual dimension, that inhabits the body.

"But since [Descartes], other philosophers and scientific studies have affirmed that the self is not necessarily so linear and chronological," he continues. "It’s the conscious mind that constructs this sense of chronology and linearity from an enormous influx of incoming stimuli from the world

The biggest challenge for Stewart has been to express some of these more abstract concepts as a physical dance piece. Rather than using a traditional narrative form, the piece explores the idea that we are made up of many selves through the multifaceted production elements that constitute the greater whole of the work.

I

n Craig Schuftan’s latest book, he quotes Elizabeth Gilbert (yes, she of the eating, praying and loving) writing for Spin on the 1996 opening of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Above the reception desk was written, in “cheerful” brass letters on the wall, 'Here We Are Now, Entertain Us'. The subtext being that if this was the legacy of the scrappy rock movement of which Kurt Cobain was a leader, then the late Nirvana frontman looks less like just a sick, compromised idealist and more like Cassandra, driven mad by premonition.

Entertain Us, subtitled ‘The Rise and Fall of Alternative Rock In The Nineties’, is Schuftan’s third book, after two inspired by his work on triple j’s long-running series The Culture Club; but it’s the first where he’s restricted his examination to only one time period. “There was this format that I was working with for a long time, where I was time-travelling all the time,” he explains. “I was talking about Gnarls Barkley and then going back to Salvador Dali or Andre Breton or something. Which was fun, but I found myself wondering over the course of the last one whether I could write a proper history book.”

Craig Schuftan

The set, a collaboration with Charles Renfro from lauded New York architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, also breaks the body down into separate components. “They came up with this fairly simple but ingenious set that deconstructs the body by allowing certain body parts to come through the set in isolation, and then we use video over the top of that to conjoin all of those body parts in this quite surrealistic manner,” he explains.

“I hope I didn’t over-mythologise them,” says Schuftan wryly. “If you look at their career, it’s not much – it’s two albums, there’s a long time between them and the second one was not that good. But the book is a cultural history and so it looks at cultural impact, and from that point of view The Stone Roses are incredibly important.

They changed a lot of lives and minds, and they’re a landmark in the culture. I’ve tried to go for that in the book,” he goes on, “tried to go for what happens to music after it’s made, as much as what happens when people are trying to make it. So much music writing focuses a little too much on what people are trying to do or what bands think they’re doing. And there is a lot of failure in this book but it’s also a story about ideas travelling. That, for me, is the saving grace of the decade - the subversive ideas that were planted in popular culture continued to sprout throughout the decade and still do today.”

It might seem like a particularly timely book, given that the handcrafted-indie-DIY-local movement of the '00s has now been co-opted by corporate marketing. But Schuftan suggests that the tension between the pricks and those kicking against them has never gone away.

“One of my favourite songs of 1999, the last year of that decade, was ‘Keep Your Dreams’,

by Primal Scream,” says Schuftan – “‘Keep your dreams, don’t sell your soul, be careful’.

As banal as that sounds, that was the feeling I was left with at the end of the book. If you have something that’s important to you, don’t sell it with cheap irony. Don’t give it away because you feel like it’s historically inevitable or that it’s a giant pop-art joke that only you and your audience will understand… If you have ideals that are important to you, making money out of them is not empowering. Selling a million records is not changing the world.”

Ultimately, Stewart says he wants audiences to feel the exciting creative potential inherent to being human. “We close ourselves into a very confined, rigid perspective of ourselves, that we don’t have to; there is more available, there is more possibility,” he says. “And the other thing I want people to feel is the way in which we are implicitly linked and connected to each other.

Really, we exist within a totality – within a whole system of interrelationships with everyone else around us, so we’re not really this isolated self”.

What: Be Your Self Where: Sydney Theatre / Walsh Bay When: May 31-June 3 More: adt.org.au

Get The Gringo

Schuftan, who cites Greil Marcus’ Lipstick Traces and Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man as significant influences on his thinking, is fascinated by rock’n’roll’s political and social genealogy – which, as Marcus points out, can be followed back through centuries, not just decades, and in anecdotes, not just sweeping declarations. For example, Entertain Us begins not with leading lights like Nirvana or Pearl Jam or Blur (though these are covered in detail), but with The Stone Roses in 1990: the Spike Island gathering, snarky one-off press conferences and a young Noel Gallagher leaving with stars in his eyes, drawing parallels with the communal cultural moments of the ‘60s and the fabled exponential influence of The Velvet Underground.

What: Entertain Us! – book launch Where: GoodGod Small Club When: Thursday May 31 from 8pm More: Entertain Us! out June 1 through Harper Collins

Adrian Grunberg and Mel Gibson on the set of Get The Gringo

[FILM] Don’t Call It A Comeback By Rob Newcombe

A

lthough it’s his first feature at the helm, Get The Gringo director Adrian Grunberg’s impressive resume includes a number of collaborations with Mel Gibson, including a gig as first assistant director on his 2006 Mayan epic Apocalypto. So naturally, when Gibson approached Grunberg with an idea for a screenplay and an offer to co-write and direct it with him, he was happy to oblige.

Like many who have worked with Gibson (with notable recent exceptions), Grunberg speaks highly of the man.

“First of all, he’s a friend. We’ve been working together pretty closely for six or seven years, firstly on Apocalypto, and then shortly after when we began working on this. It was probably two or three years of collaborating on this one, so we work really well together now.

Add to that the fact that I was getting to work with Mel as an actor, and have his expertise on board as a director, and the whole thing was a very attractive package for me.”

The result is the grubby, Peckinpah-esque thriller Get The Gringo, which was originally titled What I Did On My Summer Vacation – a more appropriately noir-ish title, but one Grunberg says might have proved tonally confusing for audiences. Indeed, the 'vacation' in question is actually an enforced term in Mexican prison El Pueblito, which has its own

30 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

thriving black-market economy. Locked up over a botched heist Stateside, career criminal Driver (Gibson) meets up with a tough-talking nineyear-old and his mother (El Pueblito’s inmates are allowed to bring their families with them) and resolves to protect them from ruling crime lord Javi, while trying to finagle back his missing loot. While the setting might seem far-fetched, it was, in fact, the real-life El Pueblito that provided the genesis of the story.

“When Mel first approached me about this movie, he’d been reading a lot about the Mexican prison system, and had the idea of telling the story of an American in a Mexican prison. So our El Pueblito is based on the real El Pueblito, which is the state prison in Tijuana. It started out as a social experiment, the idea being that if the inmates were allowed to have their family around it would be a great help in their rehabilitation and reintegration.

If you think about it, it’s a great concept; but for whatever reason it went wrong and El Pueblito ended up being the black sheep of the Mexican prison system.”

‘Black Sheep’ is a pretty adequate description of Gibson’s Driver as well; a hard-bitten bank-robber, he’s the sort of unhinged antihero that used to be Gibson’s stock in trade before his move behind the camera and his well-documented personal problems over

the last decade or so. The last time we saw Gibson in a role like this was Porter in 1999’s Payback, and fans of that movie might find more than a few similarities between the two characters: the military background, the muchreviled ex-wife, the penchant for spouting terse witticisms in voice-over. Grunberg is quick to scotch any notions that Get The Gringo is an unofficial sequel, though.

“We didn’t have Porter in mind at all; I’ve read a lot of people speculating about that, actually. I guess I can see the similarities, but

it was never the intention for the character to be Porter. You know, as a writer who likes those kinds of characters, it’s easy to get to someone like Porter; in many ways he’s a broad anti-hero, and so is Driver. But it’s also Mad Max, it’s Riggs from Lethal Weapon – it’s just very Mel. More than Porter, Driver is very Mel, and it’s great to see him back in that kind of role.”

What: Get The Gringo When: Opens May 31

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

■ Musical

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN – THE MUSICAL Until August 16 / Sydney Lyric, The Star Based on the 1982 Hollywood rom-com starring Richard Gere, An Officer And A Gentleman – The Musical serves up a ‘timeless’ tale in which Zack Mayo (Ben Mingay), a hunky alpha male with a sketchy background, fulfils the patriotic American dream of becoming an aviator.

He also meets a working-class girl (Paula Pokrifki, played by Amanda Harrison), treats her like a dick, then thank-theheavens redeems himself (without actually apologising), by sweeping her off her feet, saving her from the drudgery of factory life.

The stage adaptation, penned by Douglas Day Stewart and Sharleen Cooper Cohen, updates none of the plot and none of script save for the tokenistic gesture that Paula is now ‘studying to be a nurse’ (which becomes a redundant sub-plot in the second half of the show anyway) so fans of the film probably won’t be disappointed.

However, the level of cringe that Hollywood can get away with doesn’t translate on an Australian stage; there are some achingly squeamish moments and a woeful lack of character depth.

The production values are safe; the set could belong to West Side Story, Wicked or Miss Saigon. The choreography is similarly bland. The music has received a slight makeover and feels nicely cinematic at points, but there is no wow-factor that The Voice couldn’t achieve on an average Monday night.

The show’s saving grace is its cast, who deliver some stand-out moments. Mingay is a total babe and he has a unique voice that carries his thuggish personality well.

Harrison, last seen as the Wicked Witch Of The West in Wicked, doesn’t have much to do here save drape herself over Mingay, but she gets her chance to shine with a solo number at the end of the first half, delivering a pitch-perfect performance.

Supports Alex Rathgeber as Sid Worley and Kate Kendall as Lynette Pomeroy deliver the most heart-felt performances, but the show-stopper belongs to Bert Labonte as Sgt. Foley, in the powerful number ‘I’ll Be Damned’.

If you’re a fan of the film, you’ll probably like this, so go and enjoy it! Otherwise, you may as well stay in and watch X Factor; it’s cheaper, less misogynistic, and you can turn it off at any time.

Roslyn Helper ■ Theatre

ANGELA’S KITCHEN Until June 9 / SBW Stables In his autobiographical one-person show, cabaret diva Paul Capsis showcases his talent for storytelling, pulling us into his family history through a series of episodes that look at his relationship with his mother, his grandparents, and his family’s roots in Malta. It might not seem like much, but it sold-out its premiere season at Griffin last year and this re-mount season, and has been picked up by Melbourne’s Malthouse theatre. The secret is partly the content – in particular, Paul’s relationship with the most important person in his life, his grandmother Angela – and partly the delivery, which combines Capsis’ natural charisma (including a smile that creates a ruckus all on its own) and performance skills honed over two decades in theatre, cabaret and film.

postcards of Malta that he treasured in his youth to an audience member, it almost feels like a sacrament. The set design is thrifty, and Capsis and director Julian Meyrick are resourceful in their use of it – something that Angela, who survived poverty, hunger and the bombing of her home during World War 2, would no doubt approve of.

Angela’s Kitchen gives us an insight into both Angela’s experience of alienation and loneliness immigrating to Sydney as a young woman, and her grandson’s experience growing up queer with absentee parents in a culture that still segregated ‘wogs’ (for anyone who’s seen Capsis’ breakthrough performance in Ana Kokkinos film Head On, this insight into his formative years has extra resonance). It’s funny, frank, defiantly upbeat, and wonderfully tender; it’s storytelling at its best. If you missed out on tickets, it’s a shame; if you got ‘em, dare yourself to sit in the front row, right in Angela’s kitchen, as it were.

Dee Jefferson ■ Film

MEN IN BLACK III Released May 24 The latest instalment of Barry Sonnenfeld’s MIB franchise (which nobody asked for but which somehow arrived in its full 3D glory in multiplexes anyway) is the first in a coming glut of sequels featuring Will Smith, including follow-ups to Hancock, Bad Boys and even I, Robot. There’s no word yet on The Legend Of Bagger Vance 2: The Bagger Vancening, but you can assume that one’s only a matter of time. Cynicism aside: Men In Black III is more enjoyable than expected – it’s a fun and silly sci-fi romp that knows its strengths and doesn’t outstay its welcome. It features requisite amounts of action and adventure, a solid cast of comedic players, and, crucially, lots of aliens exploding into sticky piles of goo.

At the beginning of the piece, it’s business as usual for Agent J and Agent K, the mismatched extra-terrestrial hunting pair played by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones – J dispenses wisecracks, K is gruff and grumpy, and both look pretty dashing in their black suits. The status quo, however, is soon interrupted by a trench-coat-wearing, scenery-chewing, nondescript-European-accented alien named Boris The Animal (Jemaine Clement). As revenge for a murky incident in the past, Boris has sworn to wipe Agent K out of history and, having done so, predictably, to destroy the world. To stop this, Smith must time-travel back to 1969, when the cars were fancier, the gags were broader, and the racial stereotypes were much easier pickings. 1969 was also the year Apollo 11 landed on the moon, so you can safely assume that the plot also hinges on that in some way.

For the most part, Men In Black III is Smith’s movie – he’s an engaging enough screen presence that he drags this very silly movie along in his wake, and makes the whole silly thing worthwhile. The supporting cast is also strong – Emma Thompson has some fun undermining her starched, British-y persona as Agent O, while Josh Brolin, who plays the younger, 1960s version of Agent K, has the look and mannerisms just right. The 3D, as ever, feels a little gimmicky and unnecessary – I can’t recall a single shot or action sequence that was measurably improved by the addition of a third dimension. All the same, this is textbook popcorn flick fun.

Street Level With Kris Moyes

S

een the film clip for Kirin J Callinan’s new single, ‘W II W/Way To War’?

Love it as much as we do? That’s the work of Kris Moyes, whose off-the-wall creations have been commissioned by Sia, Beck and The Presets, among many others. We picked his brain about his latest clip, which is as beautiful as it is disturbing.

Still from 'W II W'

How did you go from Fine Arts at COFA to making films? I wanted to make films ever since I was young. As a teenager I was enamoured of Christopher Lee’s terrifying performances as Dracula in Hammer Horror films I’d recorded from late-night TV. I’d get into trouble from my mum who would say, “If watching films was a school subject, you’d get an A+.” So I guess that got me thinking...The thought of film school did not appeal to me, so I enrolled in art school to develop an analytical process and build a solid conceptual practice. After finishing my Bachelor of Fine Arts, I decided it was time to start thinking about becoming a filmmaker so I got some work experience on film sets to really solidify the ground rules of filmmaking for me. I have an uncle who is a gaffa, so I learned a lot from him too.

How did you come to collaborate with Kirin? I had been aware of Kirin ever since he was 19, but it was when I saw him play with Mercy Arms that I understood his extraordinary nature. Very little consideration is given to the craft of showmanship nowadays. Kirin has remarkable physical intelligence. I had been building up imagery for a dark and turbulent world in my imagination for a very long time and I

believed I could draw Kirin’s performance into that world. I approached him at some party and his manager Stricker, Kirin and I went to a bar where I suggested a collaboration.

What brief were you given for the clip?

Thankfully Kirin is an artist, so I am grateful that he trusted me with his image by allowing me to generate my vision of the world I had in mind. It was very easy and constantly rewarding to work with him, so I look forward to future collaborations with that man.

Is there a narrative to the clip that you care to talk about? Hahah, yes all my work has a solid story line. ‘Way To War’ is the story of modern warfare inside the mind of a fictional character played by Kirin. The character has a loose grip on reality. We see the slow decay of his world. A naked maternal figure is presented as his grounding, or earth. Played by Kirin’s partner Teagan Lane, she is ironically naked but her face is bound by a burqa with the phrases 'full cream'/'full view” creating a simultaneous binding and unbinding tension. The presence of the child, played by Teagan’s son, is symbolic of the rational and irrational self. The abstraction of the cut, the stroboscopic displacement and the oscillation of the positive/negative frames splinters the line between reality and fantasy.

Watch: kmoyes.com

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

luminous launch party

PICS :: KC

Film & Theatre Reviews

21:05:12 :: Vivid Sydney :: Community Green, Darling Quarter

Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

FINDERS KEEPERS AUTUMN/WINTER MARKET Alasdair Duncan

Capsis reincarnates his various relatives with a quick costume change, a lit fag hanging out of the mouth, a change of voice or expression; the props are few and the costume changes are minimal, but certain things – a red dress, a pair of worn pink slippers – seem like special charms that allow him access to another role. He doesn’t need them, but he treasures them, and relishes the ritual of putting them on, handling them; when he passes one of the

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

Fri Jun 1, 6-10pm / Sat Jun 2, 10am-5pm CarriageWorks, Eveleigh Set aside some time this weekend to do a spot of shopping at Finders Keepers, Sydney’s biggest and best congregation of boutique and emerging designers and craftspeople. We’ve got our eyes on Oktoberdee’s locally-made and lusciously lined leather bags, Hayden Youlley’s paper-inspired porcelain treats, hand-made leather brogues by brand-new boutique label Marcue… There’s also live music from Little Lovers, and chunes spun by FBi Radio’s Jack Shit and Twist & Shout’s DJ Dylabolical, among others. (Not to mention foodie treats to sustain your shopping power!) thefinderskeepers.com BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 31

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK REGINA SPEKTOR What We Saw From The Cheap Seats Sire/Warner Regina Spektor can do no wrong. Over the course of a six-album career, she’s released increasingly bubbly and enticing tunes that pull the listener into a whirlpool of ‘quirk’ and ‘charm’ like a talented Zooey Deschanel, dropping pseudo-scat and a massive vocal range into folk-pop while creating uniquely powerful musical moments.

An album that’s for (almost) everyone: so engaging, catchy and genuinely non-offensive that it can’t be denied.

Her latest record, What We Saw From The Cheap Seats is an eleven-track exercise in the unsurprising. Not in the way your three-bottle hangover is unsurprising, but in the way that freshly baked pretzels are a genuinely failsafe day-maker: light, crisp and a little buttery, but incredible nonetheless. ‘All The Rowboats’ (already

SQUAREPUSHER

With graveyard-like drones and an eerie, choppy bassline, ‘Drax 2’ continues in the same doom-filled vein – it sounds like a 21st century contribution to Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works. But other than that, Ufabulum is as Squarepusher as a record can get: spot on twisted breaks combined with shocking bass work and delightful, bombastic melodies.

This may not be one of his most consistent LPs, but it contains some cuts so euphoric that you might just forget there’s more to the world than breakbeat rave. Not bad for a middle aged man, eh?

Christiaan de Wit

It’s an album full of good songs, and while there may be no piece that strokes the soul quite like ‘Samson’ from Begin To Hope, at its worst it is still some of the best pop music to come out this year.

Regina Spektor doesn’t fall back on airy whispers or hippy dreamings to create her music; instead, her storytelling dives into the hyperreal, through an occasionally confusing but always masterful lyrical suite.

This is easy-listening super-pop, just alternative enough that it suits your left-of-field aesthetic, but

BEST COAST The Only Place Popfrenzy

Ufabulum Warp Unearthed in the early ‘90s by his pal Aphex Twin, Tom Jenkinson’s image has slowly changed over the years, from a geeky bedroom producer to the virtuoso bass-playing superhero he is today.

Not all of Jenkinsons’ releases turned out to be masterpieces, but records like Hard Normal Daddy, Big Loada and Ultravisitor have all become classics. Sometimes leaning towards his first musical love, jazz-fusion, and elsewhere heavy on the Amen break, the common denominator has always been his excellent feel for melodic and rhythmic euphoria.

After 2010’s funny but insignificant vocoder-meets-hard-rock project Shobaleader One, his twelfth record Ufabulum is a return to the synthheavy big room sound that he started exploring with 2006’s Hello Everything.

The first two songs bring up associations with derelict warehouses and high-end laser equipment – Jenkinson was a raving monkey in the ‘90s, and there’s no way he’s able to hide that from us. Ufabulum then continues with a few forgettable fillers, before reappearing full strength with one of Squarepusher’s darkest four minutes to date: ‘The Metallurgist’ feels like an acidfuelled soundtrack to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

sailing the radio waves) is a standout, its drumheavy, keyboard-infused kinda-electronica almost indefinitely listenable. ‘Firewood’ is laden with heartfelt longing and heavier on the piano – yet still so wide and inviting. ‘The Party’ is anthemic, underlaid with choral organ and rolling snares, and so very convincing.

One of the more interesting directives given to journalists by a record label (yup, that happens) in recent months would have to be, “Don’t ask Bethany about weed or her cat.” As this is Best Coast’s second album, it is therefore implicitly understood that this is to be a more mature offering.

Jon Brion (Fiona Apple, Elliott Smith) has jumped on board, and this pairing makes beautiful sense: Best Coast’s glazed, ‘60s-leaning pop is a natural match for Brion’s lush, baroque production style. Yet, album #2 doesn’t offer the radical sonic leap suggested by this hi-fidelity fit. For the most part, The Only Place offers only a slight, albeit pleasing, progression from Crazy For You. Bethany Cosentino’s songwriting hasn’t as much improved as expanded. For one, the ballads well outnumber the pop blasts: heartbroken Rydell High waltzes (‘Last Year’, ‘No-One Like You’) sound resigned in a beautifully removed way, while the Dusty-esque torch song ‘How They Want Me To Be’ is a highlight, perfectly melding Brion’s pop classicism with Cosentino’s flair for the dramatic. It’s not all slow heartbreak though: ‘Let’s Go Home’ and ‘Do You Love Me Like You Used To’ both hurtle forward addictively. Wrapped in Brion’s widescreen production, they are the most instant moments on the record.

Thematically, Cosentino is still focused solely on matters of the heart, shedding the Cali-slacker subject matter along the way. The lyrics are less teenage too, more ‘numb trolley-bus’ than diary purge – she has a better grasp on her feelings this time around, but they are more severe, making the ballads ache and undercutting the pop moments.

TY SEGALL & WHITE FENCE

The Temper Trap Liberation

Hair Spunk

The Temper Trap may not be Australia’s most groundbreaking band, but it’s hard not to have a soft spot for their debut.

Conditions was huge but relatable, with notes of supplication and selfdoubt to balance out the blaring, stirring noise. Now with their bigger, glossier self-titled second album, it feels like they are making big, soaring songs simply because it's expected of them, to hold their place on festival stages and multiple FM formats; the synths are glassy and the climaxes many, just the way the crowds will love it.

‘London’s Burning’, with its groanworthy evening news sound bites, demonstrates a fatal lack of selfawareness – it has the air of U2 now trying to recreate the protest rock of U2 in 1980, with lashes of Clash in the shouty refrains, and actual sirens, just in case we didn’t realise bad shit was going down. The band were based in London at the time of last year’s riots, but this is so inane you’d think that they heard about it from a concerned Facebook status update.

The one highlight is ‘Trembling Hands’, a gracefully executed, noteperfect Coldplay song – and it’s hardly damning a track with faint praise to say it would hold its own on Parachutes or A Rush Of Blood To The Head. The band sound committed to the size of it – from the tidal roll of the drum to Dougy Mandagi's deft, dynamic vocal, with a clear wash of azure reverb that recalls William Orbit – and it’s the only time on the whole album that the towering crescendos feel valid and necessary, instead of feeling like a reflex.

The Only Place is a deeper and more satisfying listen than Crazy For You. Less cats, though.

Nathan Jolly

Caitlin Welsh

Lo-fi king Ty Segall and one-man bedroom band White Fence (aka Tim Presley), two of the poster boys of industrious musicmaking, have joined forces to produce Hair: an album that's typical of the great bunch of psych-garage bands coming out of San Francisco right now.

White Fence takes an acid trip down memory lane, while Segall steers the boat into more experimental waters, but with less grit and attitude than either of their own albums. This convolution makes for interesting listening, and keeps a myriad of vaguely definable influences fresh and exciting.

The album runs at less than 30 minutes with only eight tracks, leaving no room for filler. ‘Time’ kicks it off with big guitar licks and feel-good stoner balladry, before it delves into an erratic yet agreeable tangent of heavy guitars and ethereal howls.

The pulsing organ-filled start of ‘I Am Not A Game’ moves into a rocking jam, with the layered vocals in the background spotlighting the fuzzed rhythm guitar and killer guitar solo.

‘Easy Ryder’ is an instantly catchy time-hallowed pop song; same goes for the fun, fast-paced track ‘Crybaby’, which includes a great solo showcasing (what I’m guessing is) Segall’s keyboard virtuosity.

Like the duelling banjos in Deliverance, they seem to work well as a partnership. White Fence is like, “Hey Ty, I have a great song, think it’s

by The Beatles but it’s a bit different,” and Segall is all like, “Hey, I’ll play drums on that and make it faster and faster. Oh shit, just pressed that guitar pedal, fuck this, let's jam!” Then they get together for a hoedown and end up having sex with their own cousins.

Be sure to wear some flowers in your Hair.

Brainwashing For Dirty Minds Romero Records This long-awaited release from Sydney seven-piece Darth Vegas lurches from funhouse to haunted house, vaults from church organ to circus organ, leaps from vaudeville to heavy metal – and that’s just in the first 90 seconds. Lead by multi-instrumentalist, screen composer and singer Michael Lira, Darth Vegas’ follow up to the 2004 self-titled release picks up right where the band left off.

Brainwashing For Dirty Minds is just as uncompromising, blitzing through dozens of genres at a blinding pace.

32 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

‘Music For A Haitian Voodoo Priestess’ takes you to a seedy Caribbean lounge party, with gurgling synths calling out to big band horns until some Melvins-esque

metal swoops down for a punishing cameo. ‘Swamp Thing’ begins like Dragnet noir on acid before descending into a sci-fi attack of distorted guitars and spooky theremin. ‘Prokletsvo Gummina Kokoshke’ teases us with gypsy guitars, only to morph into a perfectly bungled death polka with a four-second jazz break.

Brainwashing For Dirty Minds is the soundtrack for a freakshow on Mars watched by zombies in tuxedoes.

It’s not a journey for everyone, but for those that do take the trip, a preposterously peculiar experience awaits.

Tyler Broyles

GOSSIP A Joyful Noise Columbia/Sony Mention Gossip and thoughts turn instantly to their breakout anthem of six years ago, ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’, and their album of the same name.

Thoughts also turn to lead singer Beth Ditto and her belting, primal vocals and infectious, raw, pop/ punk rock, which back then shared a little with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Gossip's last album, 2009’s Music For Men, built on this reputation with help from famed rock producer Rick Rubin – but with their latest album A Joyful Noise, things look set to change. The four-on-the-floor bass kicks, dirty distortion-drenched guitar riffs and belting vocals of yesteryear have been left in the wake of a pop revolution.

Rumours that Mark Ronson was partly responsible for this shift are combated by his recent panicked tweets proclaiming, “I did not produce the Gossip album!” The guilty party is in fact Brian Higgins, who’s known for his work with Brit girl groups including Sugababes, Girls Aloud and The Saturdays. The result is undoubtedly catchy with heaps of dancefloor appeal, but it feels clunky and amateur in parts – like a teenager with a newly purchased copy of Garageband.

Single ‘Perfect World’ is the stand-out track, and invokes a time back when Tom Cruise films had an edge. But like most of the album, the lyrics are shallow and too vague to be relatable (“I put a wish in/To end the conflict”).

Ditto’s vocals, as well as the minimal beats, are polished to perfection – but for a band known for tenacity and uniqueness, it all feels a little generic.

Ditto declares on droning opener ‘Melody Emergency’, “So you’re not a rock and roller and there’s nothing wrong with that”. Only time will tell if her fans feel the same.

Lee Hutchison

Anna Kennedy

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK But is it ‘music for musicians’? Likely, it will indeed appeal to musos who themselves enjoy lampooning and then skewering the status quo of rhythm, song structure and time signatures. But approached alone with headphones, anyone could appreciate the craftsmanship of these songs, as long as they have the concentration to keep up with the mostly instrumental pastiche of mayhem. The rapid and reckless genre abuse is confronting at first but, with repeated listens, the marvel of Darth Vegas’ accomplishment reveals itself.

Alex Watts

THE TEMPER TRAP

This is a competent record – but for anyone who relished the more eclectic dynamics and promise of Conditions, it's a far from uplifting experience.

DARTH VEGAS

accessible enough that you can listen to it in the car with your mother, and talk about its intricacies, and how eclectic the music is. What We Saw... is Regina Spektor at her strongest.

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

LOWER DENS - Nootropics THE AMERICAN ANALOG SET - Set Free MARTHA WAINWRIGHT - S/T

SLEIGH BELLS - Treats DAS RACIST - Relax

BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 33

Remedy

More Than The Cure Since 1989 with Murray Engleheart

HARD ON LUCK

As you might have heard, one of the most straight-up hard working souls in the game, Blackie from The Hard-Ons, was assaulted recently while driving his taxi. He’s pretty seriously knocked around and won’t be able to work in any capacity for a while.

No work means no money, and of course no bucks for rent, medical expenses etc.

To make matters worse, his great musical passion of the moment – his pretty fucking great second solo record – will now have to wait, while the recent extra-jam-packed reissue of the HO’s Smell My Finger for the moment has no band to promote it. But the response to the Blackster’s plight has been as overwhelming as it has heartening, with hundreds of well-wishing text messages and emails pouring in, and the story making it into various major media outlets.

Internationally, Jello Biafra – a long time Hard-Ons’ fan – has also swung into action.

Wonderful stuff. If you have a few bucks to spare for a great bloke and a good cause, go to zombiedogentertainment.com/shop and follow the signs for Blackie donations.

Thankyousoverymuch.

BOOGIE!

There’s a pretty cool compilation on the way put together by Dave Laing, who did the excellent Hitmen and Screaming Tribesmen reissues, as well as the Oz punk comp, Do The Pop. This one is titled Boogie! Australian Blues, RnB and Heavy Rock from the ‘70s.

Included are Chain, The Aztecs (doing their amp-melting version of ‘CC Rider’ from Sunbury), Band Of Light, The La De Dahs, Stevie Wright, Buster Brown, Rose Tattoo, The Coloured Balls, The Masters Apprentices, Buffalo, Cold Chisel, Sid Rumpo, The Angels and Carson. The full nine yards, basically. And to give it some authenticity, the cover is by the great Ian McCausland, who did the art for The Aztecs and others in the early ‘70s.

BACK TO STATUS QUO

We mentioned it a while back, but its now been officially confirmed that the classic lineup of Status Quo – Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt, Alan Lancaster and John Coghlan – are reuniting. At this stage they’re only touring the UK, but are also doing a new album – although we’d be quite happy just to experience two hours of their best from their era, with the focus being on the excellent Quo slab in particular, please. Long term?

Sounds like that might be complicated, as the existing lineup of Status Quo is being kept in rotation (for when too much boogie is never nearly enough, we assume).

NO REST FOR SABBATH

While the battle over the non-inclusion of drummer Bill Ward has fired up once again, the rest of the original Black Sabbath blew the roof off the O2 Academy in Birmingham on May 19. With Ozzy O referring to cancerstricken guitarist Tony Iommi as ‘The Iron Man’, and the Double O’s striker Tommy Clufetos in Ward’s place, Sabbaff tore through a largely classic set that ran like this: ‘Into The Void’, ‘Under The Sun’ (gasp!), ‘Snowblind’, ‘War Pigs’, ‘Wheels Of Confusion’ (wow!!!), ‘Electric Funeral’, ‘Black Sabbath’, ‘The Wizard’ (wow again!), ‘Behind The Wall Of Sleep’ (some more wowing!), ‘N.I.B’, ‘Fairies Wear Boots’, ‘Tomorrow’s Dream’, ‘Sweet Leaf’ (see above), ‘Symptom Of The Universe’, ‘Iron Man’, ‘Dirty Women’ (ah well, ya can’t win ‘em all), ‘Children Of The Grave’, ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’, and, of course ‘Paranoid’. As for the “outrage” over the band removing Ward’s image from their past pics, there was this on Facebook last week: “At the request of Bill Ward, through his attorney, so as to not give the public the wrong impression about his involvement in the current Black Sabbath lineup, we have temporarily removed Bill Ward’s images from the main pages of the blacksabbath.com official website. In accordance with Bill Ward’s attorney’s request, we are doing so for the duration of the forthcoming shows.”

COCK ROCK CULT

The Cult’s new album (their first in five years), Choice Of Weapon, is out now – and it’s a beaut. There’s something in their widescreen tribal cock rock thing that we really like and always have, and it’s on show here in spades. There’s a deluxe edition available too, which includes a two-disc book with four bonus tracks. A limited-edition double-vinyl gatefold is also on the way.

TOP AXES

Not only did Australian Guitar magazine just do a rundown of the Top 50 Oz guitarists (which really shoulda included Rob Riley), but a Michigan newspaper has called for a list of the top axe-persons from Detroit. And they were tough with the criteria too, knocking back late Stooge guitarist Ron Asheton and John Lee Hooker, cos they were born outside of the real Motor City. We’re not much on US geography so we’ll let that one slide.

The voting? The loudmouth rock king of US conservatism, Ted Nugent, roared into first place with more than 50 percent of the poll, with Jack White well behind at number two.

Seems like young Jack also has to start entering the stage on a buffalo.

Status Quo

ON THE TURNTABLE On the Remedy turntable is German free-jazz sax monster Peter Bröztmann, in a massive neighbour-shifting exercise that we titled ‘Brötz Is The Buzz’. We’ve been wading through his Die Like A Dog box, which is the four-disc complete works of one of his finest and most hell-raising quartets. We’re not sure where jazz critics get off with all the talk about structure and rhythm in this kinda stuff, because really there ain’t none: it’s just a glorious soul-cleansing racket. And this guy is up there with Albert Ayler in that regard – minus the spirituality. There’s no time for that fluffy stuff when you’re trying to concentrate on bulldozing all that lies around you. The other metal machine music.

TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS Slash, along with Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators, is coming back to Australia this August, with the new record Apocalyptic Love in tow. On August 25 they’ll be at the Entertainment Centre.

Tickets go on sale on June 1.

Further to the above item about Blackie, there’s a benefit show for him (he’ll hate all the fuss but that’s tough) at the Annandale on June 1 with The Hard-Ons (with Keish

on guitar) and friends. Also on the bill are Chinese Burns Unit, Undead Apes and Dead Boss.

And just a quick Repressed Records update: as of May 30, their new address will be 413 King Street, Newtown. Phone number will remain 9557 6237 and they’ll be at their current address until May 29. Go to repressedrecords.com for more.

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

Pics to art@thebrag.com www.facebook.com/remedy4rock 34 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

FRIDAY 1 JUNE • HORDERN PAVILION TICKETEK.COM.AU

SUNDAY 3 JUNE • NEWCASTLE, PANTHERS MOSHTIX.COM.AU

THIS WEEK, DON’T MISS OUT! frontiertouring.com simpleplan.com

THE ALBUM ‘GET YOUR HEART ON!’ OUT NOW

PREMIER ARTISTS presents

with special guests

RIVER OF SNAKES

PAPER, SCISSORS,

ROCK TOUR

JUNE 2012 - ALBUM LAUNCH Fri 8th

The Patch, Wollongong www.oztix.com.au

Sat 9th The Vanguard, Newtown www.thevanguard.com.au

Sun 10th Gt Nthn, Newcastle www.thegreatnorthern.com.au

Mon 11th Brass Monkey, Cronulla www.brassmonkey.com.au

TICKETS AVAILABLE THROUGH VENUES & AT THE DOOR WANT A FREE TRACK?...

WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/JACKSONFIREBIRD

DEBUT ALBUM COCK ROCKIN’ OUT JUNE 8 BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 35

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

KIMBRA, DANIEL MERRIWEATHER The Enmore Theatre Thursday May 17

Shaking my head. That’s how I spent the majority of Kimbra Johnson’s headlining show at the Enmore Theatre. Sure there was a fair bit of jiving, a good helping of grooving and a smidgen of fist-pumping but mostly, in the miniscule periods of downtime between songs, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief. At 22 years old and with only a single LP to her name, Kimbra is not the live artist you'd expect. Having contributed to Miami Horror’s sensational ‘Illumination’, Gotye’d her way into the US late-night television circuit, and answered a call-up from Converse to collaborate with A-Trak and Mark Foster for ‘Warrior’, you’d think she’d be a good live prospect. But nowhere near this good.

In confetti guns and lighting rigs and Gaga-esque costumes, with three superbly utilised semi-transparent screens, a crack band, and quirky dance moves in abundance, the Kimbra stage show offers all the pomp and spectacle of a pop star set, refined through an excessive touring cycle. But more significantly, she meets and exceeds the impact of the visuals and tricks with what is, at its core, an unprecedented

BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE, THE RAVEONETTES

talent. Across high-octane thrillers like ‘Settle Down’, slow-burners like ‘Old Flame’, and jumpier numbers like ‘Cameo Lover', Kimbra is flawless. Reaching out and contorting her hands, in time with every cymbal splash, every climb to the upper register: she is in control. As conductor, she keeps an effusive band and two back-up singers in check, organises her own mind-boggling vocal flourishes, and manages to shimmy and tambourine her way into every moment of every track.

Vows takes on ringtone quality after you’ve heard it recreated so powerfully live.

The Metro Theatre Thursday May 17

Sobriety has made a hell of a difference to the way Brian Jonestown Massacre perform. Two and a half years ago the American rockers played at tonight’s venue, and Sydney was treated to a solely Red Bull-fueled version of frontman Anton Newcombe. It really was quite a revelation: Newcombe and co-songwriter Matt Hollywood seemed shockingly amicable, and there was a genuine fondness exuded from the stage down to those of us on the floor. Tonight was a similar affair, augmented by the longevity of Newcombe’s clean lifestyle, a married man living in Berlin.

As with support Daniel Merriweather before her, Kimbra hit every note effortlessly. But while Merriweather reproduced singles from his debut Love & War with ease, he never seemed to push outside his comfort zone – and didn’t win over many new fans tonight.

Kimbra, on the other hand, was thrilling, challenging herself with every ounce of energy she possessed. The Enmore stage could barely contain such massive ambition so expertly realised; as waves of bass and falsetto washed over the crowd, it seemed they weren’t quite sure what to do with the scene that was playing out. A good starting point would be editing that pesky Wikipedia entry, and claiming her as ours…

The Raveonettes were an apt choice to open the evening’s proceedings, with my initial derision at Sharin Foo’s yet-another-dead-eyed-blonde-rocker front speedily replaced by admiration.

The real fury was released when they closed with the menacing ‘Aly, Walk With Me’. With a huge beat driving the track, Foo and co-menacer Sune Rose Wagner powered home with truly evil aplomb. Distortion dipped and flashed, and everyone in the room forgot they were watching a support band.

The eight members of the main act took to the stage and ripped straight into ‘Stairway To The Best Party’ from new album Aufheben. Joel Gion briefly eschewed his tambourineshaking to take lead vocals for a cover of Bobby Jameson’s ‘There’s A War Going On’, and there was full-crowd sing-alongs during the Matt Hollywood-led ‘Not If You Were The Last Dandy On Earth’, and the huge ‘That Girl Suicide’. Perhaps in a somewhat ironic nod to a generation of new fans, all the limbs of the beast came together to close with ‘Straight Up And Down’. The theme song of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire was given new life as the band flayed a colossal jam version of the track, closing with Newcombe hunched over the organ long after his friends had left the stage.

David Seidler

INA CLARKE

OUR PHOTOGRAPHER :: KATR

The Hi-Fi Wednesday May 16 MuteMath are one of the most crucially underappreciated American indie bands of the last decade. The New Orleans quartet have released album after album of forwardthinking, genre-hopping rock since they formed in 2003, but it’s taken this long to get them down to Australia. Judging by the hysterical reaction of the packed-out Hi-Fi to their arrival, it couldn’t have come soon enough.

The group enter through the crowd under a parade of fairy lights, the first of many times they’ll get up close and personal with their fans that evening. But tricks are for kids, and the theatrics are mere windowdressing for the real star of the night, drummer Darren King, who masking-tapes his headphone monitors to his head, flexes

his arms, and begins a relentless two-hour assault of preposterously tricky, high-intensity drumming. King’s energy feeds into his band, who all possess seemingly endless pools of talent. There’s the bass player whose fingers own the fretboard, the singer whose voice can warp itself into the most unusual and fascinating melodies, and perhaps the missing fifth member of Kings of Leon on guitar. But despite their obvious individual firepower, MuteMath explode far better as a team. There’s not one lick, note or fill out of place in the entire marathon performance; every syncopated unison number, accent and section locks perfectly into place. That’s a true sign you’re seeing something special.

Perhaps the best part about seeing a band three albums down is hearing how dramatically they’ve progressed since they broke out. Cuts from the most recent Odd Soul are the most aggressive and ambitious, offset by the more conventional numbers

MICKEY AVALON, KID MAC, SLIPPERY MC, THE HAV KNOTS

stumbled out with three plastic cups full of a murky-pink concoction (sex juice?), soon to be joined by a couple of enthusiastic, scantily-dressed dancers.

After counting down the days and suffering the heartbreak of a postponement, the Mickey Avalon concert was finally here. Since I’m not a teenage boy, I don’t know what exactly it is about his music that I find appealing. Somehow the combination of smutty innuendo and sheer vileness works for me, although it seems that most other people have had enough. Sure, it’s pretty funny to list all of the things that are great about your dick and terrible about someone else’s dick – but then what?

Mickey Avalon reminded me of a tired drag queen, which was not what I was expecting from his extremely hetero sexpest lyrics. He kind of lolled around on stage in a fairly amusing manner, until suddenly I realised that I was a bit bored.

And the crowd seemed a bit bored too.

They wanted wild, crazy penis-waving (that’s not a reference to a previous show or anything, I just imagined that he would wave his penis around), but instead they got scummy old Mickey. His new songs from Loaded were pretty catchy, but it was clear that the crowd was there only for the hits, like ‘Jane Fonda’, ‘So Young, So Pretty’ and ‘Mr Right’.

The Hi-Fi Friday May 18

Mickey Avalon was not due on stage until after three support acts – and when I got there, the place was empty. Avalon fans clearly had scant regard for fledgling Aussie hip hop. Despite best efforts, Slippery MC and The Hav Knots played to a handful of people who were mainly milling around the two poorly-staffed bars.

Kid Mac received a bit more love, but mainly because it was getting closer to Mickey time.

When 10.45 hit, ‘Hey Mickey’ started blaring, and then Mr Avalon himself

36 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

The best part of the night was when Mickey threw water on the crowd in an attempt at wild abandon, before some poor Hi-Fi employee had to crawl around behind him mopping it up with a towel.

The whole thing seemed like a bit of a fuck you to everyone there. As if he was saying, “I can’t believe that I get paid for this. I really can’t believe that you paid for this.” And for that exact reason, Mickey Avalon will always be alright in my book.

Irina Belova

from Armistice and their self-titled debut. But the tendency to move seriously left-of-centre binds all these pieces together, whether it’s through great instrumentation, unique chord structures, or bass lines that belong more in jazz than rock. MuteMath have built a strong canon, and it hits the mark each time tonight.

And sure, having Paul Meany coast over your hands on an inflatable crowdsurfing mattress is a hilarious and inspired move, but this and other stunts – confetti canons, triple-drumming – weren’t necessary. If MuteMath had just stood stock-still and played, everyone would have left happy – but that they go above and beyond shows they love their fans as much as they evidently love playing together. It’s an early call, but it’s unlikely Sydney will see a more professional, endearing rock show this year.

By Benjamin Cooper

Jonno Seidler

nicki minaj

PICS :: AM

MUTEMATH

16:05:12 :: The Hordern Pavilion :: 1 Driver Ave Moore Park 8117 6700

BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 37

snap sn ap

up all night out all week . . .

mum

wavves

It sounds likes: The most awesome new bands you’ve heard – from all over Australia – playing ‘til late, with DJs spinning party jams well into the AM. Who’s playing? These New South Whales, Vulpes, Demons To Diamonds, MUM DJs and more!

Sell it to us: Already the biggest weekly live band party, with epically cheap drinks – $5 beers, sangria and tequila! And if you’re a bit peckish, MUM’s famous home-style chilli-dogs are free for this week only. Usually they’re only $5 – but hey, anything free is a plus!

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: The pain in your gut from eating way too many chilli-dogs, the delightful sting of tequila, and a rather hazy encounter with a guy/girl whom you impressed with your moves to Wu-Tang.

Crowd specs: Unpretentious babes and dude babes ready for good times.

Wallet damage: $15 Where: The World Bar / Bayswater Road, Kings Cross When: Fridays 9pm

PICS :: AM

party profile

It’s called: MUM

richard in your mind

18:05:12 :: Goodgod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool Street Sydney 8084 0587

kate martin

17:05:12 :: GoodGod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool Street Sydney 8084 0587

PICS :: AM

kaiser chiefs

15:05:12 :: The Hi-Fi :: Entertainment Quarter 122 Lang Rd Moore Park

38 :: BRAG :: 464: 28:05:12

PICS :: KC

18:05:12 :: The Exchange Hotel :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93601375

PICS :: RJ

exchange hotel

PICS :: KC

15:05:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 93323711

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: RASA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) CHY :: TIM WHITNEY :: SAM OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER PEA MAS THO :: NS MUN :: DANIEL JUSKEVICIUTE :: ASHLEY MAR WHITESIDE ::

snap sn ap

hot damn

PICS :: SW

up all night out all week . . .

mum

PICS :: TP

10:05:12 :: Spectrum :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93601375

dune rats

PICS :: KC

18:05:12 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 9357 7700

19:05:12 :: Spectrum :: 34 Oxford St Darlinghurst 93601375

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: RASA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) CHY :: TIM WHITNEY :: SAM OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER PEA MAS THO :: NS MUN :: DANIEL JUSKEVICIUTE :: ASHLEY MAR WHITESIDE ::

BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 39

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

MAY 30 – JUNE 3

Connolly, Natasha Stuart, Lachlan Doley, Nicky Kurta, Luke O’Shea, Sam Knock The Basement, Circular Quay $29 (+ bf) 7.30pm Sufjan Stevens (USA), Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly Vivid LIVE @ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $59 (+ bf) 9pm

JAZZ

Karen O

Vivid LIVE @ Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House

Karen O's Stop The Virgens $79-$109 (+ bf) 8.30pm Unheard Open Mic Night Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm

MONDAY MAY 28 ROCK & POP

JAZZ

Brian Campeau 505 Club, Surry Hills $10– $15 8.30pm My Brightest Diamond (USA), Seagull Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House $41 (+ bf) 8pm Open Mic Night Hard Rock Cafe, Darling Harbour free 8pm Sufjan Stevens (USA), Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly Vivid LIVE @ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House sold out 9pm

Monday Jam: Danny G Felix The Lansdowne, Broadway free 9pm Sonic Mayhem Orchestra feat. Trish Delaney-Brown Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $10 (+ bf) 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Russell Neal, Senani, Chris Brookes, Dan Crestani, Massimo Presti Kellys On King, Newtown free 7pm My Brightest Diamond

a

TUESDAY MAY 29

ROCK & POP

Adam Pringle And Friends Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Bondi Jam Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Boy & Bear, The Jungle Giants, Tin Sparrow State Theatre, Sydney $56.45 (+ bf) 8pm Brian Chase (USA), Kirin J Callinan, Sophia Brous, Shags, Teenage Mothers The Flinders, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Charles Buddy Daaboul, Ed Guglielmino Flinders Hotel, Darlinghurst free 8.30pm Daniel Holdsworth, Aiden Roberts, Des Miller Cockatoo Calling Rocks @ 47 George St, The Rocks $10 6pm Imogen Heap (UK) Vivid LIVE @ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $35 (+ bf) 6pm The Songwriter Sessions Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 7.30pm Storylines – A21 Edition: Jenny Morris, Steve Balbi, Simon Meli, Evelyn Duprai, Feff Duff, Danielle Blakey, Jason Walker, Suzy

Jazzgroove: Greening from Ear to Ear, Natalie Dietz 505 Club, Surry Hills $8 (student)–$15 8.30pm Peter Head The Harbour Beach Hotel free 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Russell Neal, Mirrors In Iceland Taverners Hill Hotel, Leichhardt free 6.30pm

Sydney Opera House $79 (+ bf) 8.30pm Sufjan Stevens (USA), Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly Vivid LIVE @ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $59 (+ bf) 9pm Tigertown, Lydia Cole (NZ), Skeleton Jack The Brass Monkey, Cronulla $14.30 7pm Van She FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel free 1pm

JAZZ

Glenn Cardier And The Sideshow The Basement, Circular Quay $20 (+ bf) 7.30pm Peter Head The Harbour Beach Hotel free 8pm Tim Brier, Kristin Berardi 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 (conc)–$15 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

WEDNESDAY MAY 30 ROCK & POP

Boy & Bear, The Jungle Giants, Tin Sparrow State Theatre, Sydney $56.45 (+ bf) 8pm sold out Dave Wilkins Coogee Bay Hotel free 9pm Expatriate Spectrum, Darlinghurst $12 8pm The Fires, The Cashmere Revolution, Dandelion Wine Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm Fitz Jam Night Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor free 8pm Glenn Cardier & the Sideshow The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf)–$68.80 (dinner & show) 8pm Jagermeister Presents: Realigning Alice, April Falls, Anatta, Shane Miranda Annandale Hotel $8 7.30pm The Laurels, Kill City Creeps, Day Ravies Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Michaela Davies and the Involuntary Orchestra Cockatoo Calling Rocks @ 47 George St, The Rocks 6pm Mick Daley’s Corporate Raiders, Tim Crossey Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Ricki-Lee, DJ Vogue Williams Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills $25 (+ bf) 7pm Shaun Kirk, Matt Katsis The Vanguard, Newtown $15.80–$50.80 (dinner & show) 8pm The Silver Dollars, Two Timin Playboys, DJ Brian Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont free 7pm Stop The Virgens: Karen O (USA) Vivid LIVE @ Opera Theatre,

Andrew Denniston, Maianne, Mark Berthold Evening Star Hotel, Surry Hills free 7pm Black Diamond Cat and Fiddle Hotel, Balmain free 6.30pm Chosani Afrique Macquarie Hotel, Sydney Daniel Hopkins, Raoul Graf Taren Point Hotel free 7pm Greg Sita, John Chesher, Gavin Fitzgerald, Mai-anne Coach & Horses Hotel, Randwick free 7pm Helmut Uhlmann, Bec O’Brien, Callum Wylie, Vincent Pham, Kyle Dessent, Moorea Vittiglio, Johnny Wildblood, Alice & Meera The Loft, UTS, Broadway free 6pm Live and Local: Tim Stokes, Bad Feeling Woman, Gypsys Gift, Solid Spruce Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $15 8pm Mal’s Open Mic Night: Mal Ward, Mathieu, Ned End, Marty Bright Comedy Team, Mat (SWE), Craig Edmondson Royal Hotel Bondi free 8pm Russell Neal Cookies Lounge and Bar, North Strathfield free 6.30pm

THURSDAY MAY 31 ROCK & POP

Big Ben Coogee Bay Hotel free 10pm Christina Anu Presents Rewind: The Aretha Franklin Songbook The Basement, Circular Quay $35 (+ bf) 7.30pm Clem Gorman, Jasper Hollis Sydney Livehouse, Lewisham Hotel $10 8pm Conway Savage, Justin Frew’s Loose Intentions, Andy Golledge, Sweat & Shame Sandringham Hotel,

“I should’ve danced with you that night”- BLACKCHORDS 40 :: BRAG :: 464 : 28:05:12

Newtown $10 8pm Dappled Cities Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $18 (+ bf) 8pm Entertain Us!: Jay Whalley & Jazz Freedom, The Holy Soul, Shantan Wantan Ichiban, Bastian Fox Phelan, DJ Zan Rowe, Chris Taylor GoodGod Small Club, Sydney $15 8pm Flap!

Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $12 (+ bf) 8pm The Floors, Glitter Canyon, The Cold Mean Reds The Vanguard, Newtown $15.80 8pm Guerre, Scissor Lock, Expensive Looks, Major Napier Serial Space, Chippendale $10 7pm Hot Damn!: The Duane Sean & Anthony Show, Taking Back Someday, New Found Glory-Holes Spectrum, Darlinghurst $12 (guestlist)–$15 8pm Lionheir, Band of Frequencies, Luke Nash Brass Monkey, Cronulla $16.35 7pm Live Thursdays: After Dark Hard Rock Cafe, Darling Harbour free 8.30pm Millennium Bug The Three Wise Monkeys, Sydney free 10.30pm Neighbourhood Watch: Driffs, The Nights, Hot Spoke The Standard, Surry Hills $5 8pm No Art, Lyyar, Unity Floors FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel free 8pm No Dice Paradise, Oisima, The Griswolds, True North Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Oisima, True North, The Griswolds Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Rock Circus The Valve, Tempe $10 7pm Shinola Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8pm Stop The Virgens: Karen O (USA) Vivid LIVE @ Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House $79 (+ bf) 8.30pm The Temper Trap, Chet Faker Vivid LIVE @ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $59 (+ bf) 9pm The Thomas Oliver Band (NZ), Anthong Ousback, The Mammals Annandale Hotel $15 (+ bf) 8pm Winter People, Holland, Battleships Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont free 7pm Zola Jesus (USA), Light Asylum, Forces Vivid LIVE @ The Studio, Sydney Opera House $45 9.30pm

JAZZ

Aretha – Celebrating the Queen of Soul: Christine Anu The Basement, Circular Quay $35 (+ bf) 9pm Jackson Harrison Trio Upstairs, The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills free 8.30pm Peter Head The Harbour Beach Hotel free 8pm The Vampires 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 (conc)–$15 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Helmut Uhlmann, Dan Crestani, Mirrors in Iceland

Dirty Three photo by Annabel Mehran

pick of the week

Imogen Heap

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Mars Hill Café, Parramatta free 7.30pm Justin Frew’s Loose Intentions, Conway Savage, Andy Golledge, Sweat and Shame Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $15 8pm Mal’s Open Mic Night: Mal Ward, Blain & Courtney, Sooty & The Rest, Retro Rockit, Intransit Peakhurst Inn free 8pm Matt Toms The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 8.30pm Russell Neal, Massimo Presti, Nick Domenicos, Spencer McCullum Kogarah Hotel free 7pm

FRIDAY JUNE 1 ROCK & POP

A-mei (Taiwan) Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour $68$298 8pm Abuka Trio, DJs Rapha and La Veneria Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $15 8pm Alotta Presha, Frieda’s Boss, Jesse Morris & The 3 Beans Town Hall Hotel, Newtown free 8.30pm Anti-Flag (USA), Strike Anywhere (USA), The Flatliners Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $32.30-$38 (+ bf) 8pm Back On The Block – Celebrating The Music Of Quincy Jones The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf) 7.30pm Blackchords Spectrum, Darlinghurst 8pm Camille And Stuie, David Myles (CAN), Sam & Merrity Brass Monkey, Cronulla $17.85 7pm Chase The Sun, Blind Lemon The Vanguard, Newtown $20.80–$55.80 (dinner & show) 8pm Chickenstones, Big Al Creed Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm Def FX, Insurge, Graveyard Rockstars The Factory Theatre, Enmore $35 (+ bf) 8pm FBi’s Winter Prom: Cub Scouts, Olympic Ayres, Shady Lane, FBi Radio DJs FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $12 (+ bf) 8pm Hard-Ons, Chinese Burns Unit, United Apes, Dead Boss Annandale Hotel $15 8pm The Headliners Dundas Sports free 8.30pm Hit Selection Duo Coogee Bay Hotel free 10pm I Am Duckeye Yours and Owls, Wollongong $10 8pm

Lanie Lane, The Rubens, Steve Smyth Metro Theatre, Sydney sold out 8pm Lily So & Co, Liam Gale & The Ponytails, Lanterns The Lansdowne, Broadway free 8.30pm Littlewolf (USA) Notes Live, Enmore $17.35 7pm Mario Bros Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 8pm Mat McHugh The Standard, Surry Hills $20 (+ bf) 8pm MUM: Demons To Diamonds, These New South Whales, Vulpes Vulpes, Ocean Alley, Joshua David Lynch, Moonbase Commander, Glenn Be Trippin, Sammy K, 10th Avenue, Wacks, Wolfden DJs, Wet Lungs, Catkings, Swim Team DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross free $10-$15 8pm Original Sin INXS Show, Swingshift Cold Chisel Show Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills free 8pm S Club (UK), Big Brovaz (UK) UNSW Roundhouse, Kensington $61.50 (+ bf) 8pm Simple Plan (CAN), We The Kings (USA), The Never Ever Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park $63 (+ bf) 6pm Stop The Virgens: Karen O (USA) Vivid LIVE @ Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House $79 (+ bf) 8.30pm The Temper Trap, Chet Faker Vivid LIVE @ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $59 (+ bf) 9pm Tongue and Groove The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm The Vaudeville Smash, Goldsmith, The Firetree, Kristy Lee Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm Vincent Sebastian, Kate Monroe, Dante Rivera, Nestor Martinez, Carlos Velazquez Ruby Rabbit, Darlinghurst free 9pm

JAZZ

Bandaluzia Flamenco 505 Club, Surry Hills $15 (conc)–$20 8.30pm Mara!

The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10-$20 8.30pm Masquerade Bossa: Abuka Trio, Raphael Brasil, La Veneria Blue Beat, Double Bay $15 (+ bf) 7pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Russell Neal, Black Diamond Bowral Hotel free 7.30pm

Dappled Cities

SATURDAY JUNE 2 ROCK & POP

Black Vat Trio, The Lurkers, Ruthie Ma Toothie, The Blast, Hay Fever The Red Rattler, Marrickville $10 8pm Bob Marley Tribute Night: Jamino & Group Lafaya, Lafaya Orchestra, Kizitio Marley The Polo Lounge and Supper Club, Darlinghurst $10 7.30pm Buckley Ward, Little Napier, Valar FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $15 8pm Chase The Sun, Cass Eager & The Velvet Rope The Vanguard, Newtown $20.80–$55.80 (dinner & show) 8pm Dave Tice & Mark Evans Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 6pm Deep Sea Arcade, The Cairos, Woe & Flutter The Standard, Surry Hills $12 (+ bf) 8pm Double Whammy Brighton RSL Club, BrightonLe-Sands free 8pm GoodGod Danceteria: Egyptian Lover (USA), Nicky Da B (USA), Prince Zimboo (JAM), Geoffrey O’Connor, No Zu, Straight Arrows, Donny Benet, Yo Grito DJs, Levins, GoodGod Sound Unlimited Vivid LIVE @ Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay $30 (+ bf) 9.30pm Group Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Guy Sebastian Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park $66.90 7pm Halfway Homebuoy, Daniel Allars Band The Basement, Circular Quay $20 (+ bf) 7.30pm Hell’s Gate: Hazmat Sandringham Hotel, Newtown 8pm I Am Duckeye, Nobody They Knew They Were Robots, Bloody Kids, Arteries The Square, Haymarket $12 8.30pm King Tide, Penelope Austin, Holland, F.R.I.E.N.D/s Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm Lanie Lane, The Rubens, Steve Smyth Metro Theatre, Sydney $22 (+ bf) 8pm Loud Fest 2012: House Vs Hurricane, Dream On Dreamer, Hand Of Mercy, Sienna Skies, Shinto Katana, Feed Her To The Sharks Annandale Hotel $28.60 (+ bf) 12pm (all-ages), 8pm (over 18s) Mat McHugh Newport Arms Hotel free 3pm all-ages Myth & Tropics, Reckless Vagina, The Faults, Black Zero, Tiger Widow GoodGod Small Club, Sydney $10 8pm Normie Rowe Revesby Heights Ex-Servicemen’s Memorial Club $20 8pm One Hit Wonders The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm Red Hot Numbers Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 8pm Sally King, Littlewolf (USA) Brass Monkey, Cronulla 7pm Stop The Virgens: Karen O (USA) Vivid LIVE @ Opera

Theatre, Sydney Opera House $79 (+ bf) 8.30pm Strangers, Gatherer Spectrum, Darlinghurst $12 (+ bf) 8pm Swingshift Cold Chisel Show Unity Hall Hotel, Balmain free 8pm Zoe Keating, Lucinda Peters Notes Live, Enmore $23.50 7pm

Tramshed Community Arts Centre, Narrabeen $20 7.30pm Tom Trelawny The Belvedere Hotel free 9pm

SUNDAY JUNE 3 ROCK & POP

JAZZ

Eon Beats Blue Beat, Double Bay $15 (+ bf) 7pm Marcello Maio, Ngaiire, Clisby & Risby 505 Club, Surry Hills $15 (conc)–$20 8.30pm Matt McMahon Trio The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10 (student)–$20 8.30pm Peter Head The Harbour Beach Hotel free 5pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Russell Neal Terrey Hills Tavern free 7.30pm The Shack: Jenny Biddle, Jasmine Beth, Get Folked

Blues Sunday: Mark Hopper Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm Christina Perri (USA) Enmore Theatre $51.90 8pm all-ages Christine Anu North Sydney Leagues Club, Cammeray $40 (+ bf) 7pm Global Battle Of The Bands The Valve, Tempe 1pm Holland, Maples Brass Monkey, Cronulla $12.25 7pm Peter Cousens Riverside Theatres, Parramatta $32 3pm all-ages Salsa Night Hard Rock Cafe, Darling Harbour free 8.30pm Satellite V Marrickville Bowling Club free 4.30pm Zola Jesus

Stop The Virgens: Karen O (USA) Vivid LIVE @ Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House $79 (+ bf) 8.30pm Sui Zhen, Fanny Lumsden, Carry Nation FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Sydney Rock ‘n Roll Alternative Market: Gay Paris, Captain Reckless & the Lost Souls, Danny & the Cosmic Tremors, Swingtanic Sextet, Limpin’ Jimmy & The Swingin’ Kitten, Solid Gold Hell DJs, Rat Race DJs, Cobweb Club DJ Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $1 10.30am A Whole Hog of Shakin’ Goin’ On!: Pat Capocci, Mojo Juju, Ezra Lee, Steve Smyth, Johnny Wishbone, Oscar, Stu The Vanguard, Newtown $88.80 (dinner & show) 7pm

JAZZ

The Peter Head Trio The Harbour Beach Hotel free 4pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Acoustic Sessions Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm Black Diamond, Dan Usher Palm Court Hotel, Corrimal free 3pm Muddy Feet The Belvedere Hotel free 4pm Russell Neal Salisbury Hotel, Stanmore free 2pm Shane MacKenzie Cohibar, Darling Harbour free 3pm

wed

30 May

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

thu

31 May

fri

(9:00PM - 12:00AM) (5:00PM - 8:00PM)

01 Jun (9:30PM - 1:30AM)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

sat

02 Jun

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SATURDAY NIGHT

(9:00PM - 1:30AM)

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

sun

03 Jun

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SUNDAY NIGHT

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 41

gig picks up all night out all week...

MONDAY MAY 28 My Brightest Diamond (USA), Seagull Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House $45 (+ bf) 8pm

TUESDAY MAY 29 Boy & Bear, The Jungle Giants, Tin Sparrow State Theatre, Sydney $56.45 (+ bf) 8pm Brian Chase (USA), Kirin J Callinan, Sophia Brous, Shags, Teenage Mothers The Flinders, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Daniel Holdsworth, Aiden Roberts, Des Miller Cockatoo Calling Rocks @ 47 George St, The Rocks $10 6pm

Imogen Heap (UK) Vivid LIVE @ Concert Hall Northern Foyer, Sydney Opera House $35 (+ bf) 6pm

Lanie Lane

Lanie Lane, The Rubens, Steve Smyth Metro Theatre, Sydney $22 (+ bf) 8pm

WEDNESDAY MAY 30

SUNDAY JUNE 3 Sui Zhen, Fanny Lumsden FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 6pm

The Laurels, Kill City Creeps, Day Ravies Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Sufjan Stevens (USA), Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly Vivid LIVE @ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $59 (+ bf) 9pm

Sufjan Stevens

THURSDAY MAY 31 Dappled Cities Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $18 (+ bf) 8pm

The Laurels

Entertain Us!: Jay Whalley & Jazz Freedom, The Holy Soul, Shantan Wantan Ichiban, Bastian Fox Phelan, DJ Zan Rowe, Chris Taylor GoodGod Small Club, Sydney $15 8pm The Temper Trap, Chet Faker Vivid LIVE @ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House $59 (+ bf) 9pm Zola Jesus (USA), Light Asylum, Forces Vivid LIVE @ The Studio, Sydney Opera House $45 9.30pm

FRIDAY JUNE 1 Blackchords Spectrum, Darlinghurst 8pm

Benefit For Blackie: Hard-Ons, Chinese Burns Unit, United Apes, Dead Boss Annandale Hotel $15 8pm

SATURDAY JUNE 2 Deep Sea Arcade, The Cairos, Woe & Flutter The Standard, Surry Hills $12 (+ bf) 8pm Halfway Homebuoy, Daniel Allars Band The Basement, Circular Quay $20 (+ bf) 9pm Xxxx

FBi’s Winter Prom: Cub Scouts,

Olympic Ayres, Shady Lane, FBi Radio DJs FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $12 (+ bf) 8pm

www.fbisocial.com

L2 Kings Cross Hotel

Wednesday May 30

Friday June 1

Saturday June 2

LUNCH BREAK

FBi WINTER PROM:

presented by Alberts featuring:

UNDER THE SEA

BUCKLEY WARD

Van She 1PM // FREE Broadcast live on FBi

Thursday May 31 Vice Presents:

NO ART Lyyar Unity Floors 8PM// FREE // RSVP AT bit.ly/VICENOART

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CUB SCOUTS Olympic Ayres Shady Lane FBi Radio DJ’s 8pm // $12 + BF //$15 at the door

(ALBUM LAUNCH)

Little Napier Valar 8pm // $15

Sunday June 3

SUI ZHEN (ALBUM LAUNCH) RADIANT LIVE: Fanny Lumsden Carry Nation 6pm // $10

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

brag beats

ghostface killah inside

parachute youth

tipping the scales

+ light asylum + audego + isolĂŠe

also: + club guide + club snaps + weekly column

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BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 43

dance music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH

GLOVES particularly Belgian, Austrian and Japanese fashion design, like Lieve Van Gorp, Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, Petar Petrov, Ute Ploier and Raf Simons.

My music sounds like a campari soda, with ice, mint and a dash of disco powder on top. I’ve been doing a residency at Ivy Den every second Friday, which has been rad – lot’s of summery disco, deep house and classic soul jams. I’m also working on a collab with Moonchild, and a new original GLOVES EP coming out through Continental Records (Jerry Bouthier’s new label). The lead track I wrote after a big night out, in between swimming and hanging with my girlfriend at Gardaland Waterpark in Milan, on what must have been the hottest day of the Italian summer last year – which pretty much sums up the vibe!

I

grew up on a fully self-sufficient property, in a house built around a vintage train carriage in one of the most obscure places in Australia: Kangaroo Island. I lived with an almost commune-esque group of surfers, artists and musicians that all had amazing record collections from the ‘60s and ‘70s that us kids would raid. Living somewhere as isolated as that, you really start to find your own taste and style. This disconnection from the world is often what makes Australian music so unique – and Kangaroo Island was just a few steps further removed!

I was recently asked what my top ten albums of all time were, which was really hard to decide on – but it definitely showcases my biggest inspirations! My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything (1988), Diana Ross – Diana (1980), The VSS – Nervous Circuits (1996), The Stooges – Funhouse (1970), Magnetic Fields – Nonesuch (2004), Daft Punk – Discovery (2001), Bjork – Vespertine (2001), Zeigenbock Kopf – I Dig Men (2002), Ariel Pink – Before Today (2010), and Sebastien Tellier – Sexuality (2008). Beyond that, I’m inspired often by film (particularly vintage Italian) and also design,

Music in 2012 is damn exciting. Finally there’s a sprinkling of dance music that has tired of directly re-hashing its predecessors, resulting in some very modern and sophisticated sounds.

This has trickled downstream and it feels like in most genres (and sub-genres and sub-subgenres) there’s now one foot firmly planted in the future, while the other is still planted in past (putting an almost unbearable strain on one’s groin!). It feels like an important chapter is being written in the history of dance music.

Not every duo would write of their origins, “by default, the bong had created an incredible team”. But hey, not every duo is Parachute Youth, whose members – Sydneysider Matt K Von and Adelaidian Jonny Castro – bonded by escaping the “boring shindig [of] six or seven guys just bonging around the couch” to write sweet, sweet music. Saturday May 2 sees the Parachute Youth boys as guests of the new Cakes night at The World Bar, celebrating the release of their killer debut single ‘Can’t Get Better Than This’. They’re playing alongside Madi & Zwelli, Nate Perry, Pablo Calamari and more – and if you’d like to win one of two double passes, send us a recipe for a delicious cake. Thanks!

With: Convaire DJs Where: acid stag @ The Village When: Thursday May 31

LEVON VINCENT AT MAD RACKET

Guy J

CAKES

Underground house don Levon Vincent will make his highly anticipated Australian debut this Saturday at Mad Racket, at Marrickville Bowling Club. The US-born, Berlin-based artist is touring Australia on the back of the release of his fabric 63 compilation, a 15-track mix comprised mostly of his own productions – including certified stonkers like ‘Double-Jointed Sex Freak II’ and ‘Polar Bear’, alongside cuts from Underground Quality boss Jus-Ed, DJ QU, Black Jazz Consortium, Anthony Parasole and Joey Anderson.

Vincent will be flanked by the resident

Racketeers, with tickets still available at the time of writing – but only just...

DEFQON 2012

The lineup has been unveiled for this year’s Defqon festival, which is slotted for Saturday September 15 at the Sydney International Regatta Centre in Penrith. A festival devoted to hard house/hard style dance music, Defqon holds a strong reputation for its immaculate production (think sound and staging). This year’s festival headliners include Headhunterz, Wildstylez, Zany, Frontliner, Toneshifterz, Psyko Punkz and many more.

Hit defqon1.com.au for further info and tickets.

Amon Tobin

GUY J AT CHINESE LAUNDRY

Israeli producer Guy J will headline Chinese Laundry on Saturday June 16. Guy J’s Sydney appearance will fall shortly after the release of his new track ‘Genesis’, which is featured on Sven Väth’s Cocoon Recordings’ next alphabetised compilation L, due out on June 11. Guy J previously played in Sydney last year, when his tour coincided with the release of his album 1000 Words, a triple CD that is part mixed and part unmixed and came out on John Digweed’s Bedrock imprint.

FRANCOIS K

Dance music veteran Francois Kevorkian, aka Francois K, will return to Australia next month to play a set at the Goldfish venue in King’s Cross on Saturday June 9. Francois K started out playing drums alongside Walter Gibbons, the man often credited with being the main inspiration to Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles, and soon became a regular guest at Studio 54, The Paradise Garage and The Loft.

As a producer, Kevorkian had a hand in smash singles such as Yazoo’s ‘Situation’, and mixed landmark albums such as Depeche Mode’s Violator and Kraftwerk’s Electric Café, before returning to the top-tier of the DJ profession alongside Danny Krivit and Joe Claussell as a member of the Body & Soul trio. More recently, Francois K has compiled the triple CD Masterpiece mix compilation, which traverses house, techno, dance rock and plenty of other genres via cuts from the likes of Cobblestone Jazz, Audion and Dennis Ferrer, and provides a snapshot of his broad sonic range, which you will be able to experience first hand at Goldfish in a few weeks time.

44 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

STRANGE FRUIT

After a rollicking launch party last weekend, Sydney’s newest underground dance brand Strange Fruit rolls on this Saturday night from 9pm at The Abercrombie, with a lineup boasting Jimi Polar, Glitch DJs, Le Brond and Jordan Deck. Jimi Polar is one of Sydney’s more talented producers/DJs, a natural behind the decks or keys who has released some memorable cuts on the Future Classic label. The Glitch DJs deserve credit for building the minimal techno scene in Sydney, being the first promoters to host the likes of Michael Mayer and Matthew Dear in our city.

Le Brond meanwhile has bloomed as a DJ in recent times (after struggling for years to shake off the ‘pretty boy’ tag), while Jordan Deck is the man behind the Strange Fruit concept who has previously orchestrated the Chemistry parties. And now for the crucial disclaimer that makes Strange Fruit extra beguiling: it’s absolutely free. To see that lineup spin on a Funktion One soundystem for absolutely nothing is something that’s worth serious consideration indeed.

AMON TOBIN LIVE STREAM

Brazilian-born producer Amon Tobin will perform a special show at the Opera House as part of Vivid LIVE this Saturday – and although online ticket allocations have been exhausted, you can catch the performance live as it is streamed through the Vivid festival’s dedicated YouTube channel: youtube.com/user/SOHfestival. If ever there was a performance that lends itself to a YouTube viewing, this is surely it. In collaboration with award-winning designers, Amon Tobin has constructed a custom-built 25 foot, 3-ton cubic installation for the show, which will act as a morphing multidimensional screen.

Tobin himself will be perched within the structure’s core, revealed to the audience in key moments of a visual narrative that will elaborate upon the fantastical battle scene that was depicted in the artwork for Tobin’s most recent album, Isam, his first LP since ’07’s Foley Room. Isam was lauded as Tobin’s “finest, most intense work of his very considerable career,” as it continued Tobin’s penchant for deconstructing the blurry sonic terrain between sound design and electronic music production. For the ticketless, the antisocial or those who are just plain curious, the stream of Tobin’s show (and other Vivid LIVE performances) are well worth checking out.

BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 45

dance music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

he said she said WITH

MR. BILL

big influence for me; I got into him before I started writing electronic music. I still remember thinking “this is so musical, yet so inhuman”, and that amazed me, again reshaping how I viewed music.

I’m from a town called Windsor, way out west of Sydney. My crew here is pretty minimal, and I don’t see them much, but the one who got me into Ableton Live is a guy called Frosty, who’s into all sorts of strange stuff like MaxMSP and atonal music. I run a website where I teach people about Ableton Live, and I play gigs and write music. That’s basically enough to keep me going.

I

was introduced to the keyboard by my parents, but I gave it up after a few years and just did child-related things. I started learning guitar when I was about 13, and at 19 I studied drums for a while and did the whole metal band thing, before being introduced to Ableton Live by a friend, which

basically changed everything. I ditched bands and just started composing music electronically.

Tool is one of my big inspirations; I was into them from when I was about ten years old. The album Ænima really changed the way I viewed music. Squarepusher is another

Fashawn

MINISTRY OF SOUND AT CHINESE LAUNDRY

My music is based on evocation. I like to evoke emotion within people and be that guy who changes things for them, the same way Tool and Squarepusher changed things for me. So at times it’s eclectic, at other times it’s palatable, but essentially it’s all really glitchy. The term being thrown around today for it would be ‘bass music’. From my live set,

COMPOUND FT CLIQUES

Following what was apparently a “grime-tinged launch party”, the Compound promotional brand returns with a live performance from Sydney’s future-techno champions Cliques, alongside the Compound Residents and the Sydney debut of Bootyspoon at One22 on Friday June 8. Cliques is the collaborative project of Sydney-based producers 48/4 and Hensen, a pair who create dark, bottomheavy, low-end techno tracks that have been supported by London tastemaker Oneman and the entire RinseFM community. We’re told to expect a “relatively unseen (and unheard) live show from one of the most enigmatic names in the Sydney future-music spectrum” ahead of the release of Cliques’ debut EP later in the year. $10 on the door from 10pm.

TIMBERLAKE TRIES SOUNDTRACKING

Despite being one of the world’s most successful (working with the Neptunes and Timbaland always works, after all) pop stars, Justin Timberlake hasn’t really released any music since 2006’s FutureSex/LoveSounds, instead focusing on A) his film career and B) women (perhaps that should be the other way ‘round…). But Timberlake the pop star may be ready to return, albeit aided by the omnipresent ulterior motive of pleasing the opposite sex. It has been reported that Timberlake is ready to compose his first film score, for The Devil In The Deep Blue Sea, starring Jessica Biel (Timberlake’s fiancee).

The film’s expected to start shooting in spring, so it’s feasible to suggest you’ll hear some of that new Timberlake material next year – even if it probably will sound different to how you expected.

people can expect really crispy glitch hop and experimental tangents – something partially unique, I guess.

The scene in Australia for glitch and bass music is not amazing; I just got back from touring the states, and if you want, you can just tour there forever. As I was touring, I was getting more and more bookings, and if I stayed there I’d still be booked out.

It’s nothing like that here, but it’s definitely growing. The best thing about the scene here is the really laid-back, helpful, nice, genuine people, who really get into it. I’d rather play to a crowd of 100 people that get right into it over a crowd of 1,000 that didn’t.

There are two types of people in this world: those who revel in the freshest electrocharged club cuts ever created, and those who are in denial. So rejoice in your dancing shoes and issue forth with your fistpumps of praise to the dirty synth deities (even if you belong to the second group – don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone), because the maelstrom of electronic goodness that is the 2012 Electro House Sessions Tour has arrived. Pairing up with iconic dance music juggernaut Ministry of Sound, Chinese Laundry will host the tour on Saturday June 2. The evening coincides with Ministry’s recently released compilation album Electro House Sessions 5, and features the likes of New South Welshpeople The Only and Melbourne native Rob Pix. To be in the running to win one of two double passes, send us a haiku that features the line ‘electro-flavoured madness’.

Rob Pix

What: Focus is out now on Adapted Records With: Freddy Todd (USA), Electrocado, Gruff, LozNonsense vs Drachemann, TouchySubjekt Where: Valve Bar, Tempe When: Saturday June 2

– revealed ahead of the Ibiza International Music Summit that he’s become reinvigorated by the success of dance music in recent years, and inferred that he’s ready to get back in the game. “I’m probably going to do some songs featuring a singer – a female or group,” explained the Italian. “I like to work with female singers, which I’ve done a lot in my life. Rihanna would be my favourite, also Nicki Minaj would be great – those are the top girls who I would like to work with.” Regardless of what you think of either of those artists, the very fact that the Svengali behind ‘I Feel Love’ is talking of a return to the fray is something worth celebrating.

KID MAC

At the back end of an Australian tour with Mickey Avalon, Kid Mac will head off on his

own headline tour that includes a performance at The Standard on Friday June 29 in support of his recently released album, No Man’s Land. Kid Mac was once best known for co-directing Bra Boys: Blood Is Thicker Than Water, a documentary about a Maroubra surf gang that’s narrated by Russell Crowe. But that’s since changed due to his musical output, described by Rolling Stone magazine as “edgy, punk-esque hip hop”, which saw him take out the Artist Of The Year and Best Video awards at the recent 2012 MusicOz Awards. Mac’s tour coincides with the release of his debut LP No Man’s Land, which features the lead-off single ‘She Goes Off’, a track that has racked up a six-figure view count on YouTube – probably due to appearances from Snoop Dogg, Steve Aoki and Sarah McLeod. $12 tickets are available online.

Tommy Trago

GOODGOD @ VIVID LIVE!

FASHAWN + EXILE

MC Fashawn and Exile will comprise a double-headline bill at the Civic Underground on Thursday June 21.

After initially working together on Fashawn’s debut outing Boy Meets World back in ’09, the pair now tour Australia together for the first time.

Exile is currently working on music for Big Sean’s second album, as well as crafting beats for elite hip hop acts like Lupe Fiasco, Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, Bow Wow and Talib Kweli.

Most relevant to the upcoming tour, it has also been reported that Fashawn and Exile have begun talking about a Boy Meets World follow-up. The pair will be flanked by a hefty support class, featuring Dialectrix and Tuka, along with DJs Morgs, Ology and Frenzie. Presale tickets are floating around online for $20.

46 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

If you are set on making it to the Opera House for some Vivid action on Saturday, your aspirations aren’t completely quashed by Amon Tobin being sold out. Around the corner at the Sydney Opera House Studio, the crew behind GoodGod Small Club will be hosting a party boasting cult heroes from ‘80s hip hop, New Orleans bounce, Jamaican dancehall and Australian garage. Nostalgic hip hop renegade Egyptian Lover leads a lineup featuring Diploapproved Nicky Da B and Jamaica’s Prince Zimboo in a “cross cultural celebration of booty shaking moves and music”. An extensive and diverse support cast will also represent, including No Zu, Geoffrey O’Connor, Donny Benét, Straight Arrows, Levins, Yo Grito DJs and GoodGod Sound Unlimited. $30 presale tickets are available online.

MORODER HINTS AT RETURN

Here’s a bit of news to enthuse anyone mourning the recent passing of Donna Summer: synthesiser pioneer Giorgio Moroder, who produced several hits for Summer – not to mention the Scarface theme

TOM TRAGO @ SPICE CELLAR

Amsterdam’s Tom Trago will headline the Spice Cellar on Saturday June 10. Trago announced his arrival back in 2009 with Voyage Direct, a throwback to lo-fi second wave Chicago house disco loops, before the release of his sophomore LP, Iris, last year on Rush Hour – a release designed to show the sheer scale of the Dutchman’s growing ambition. Having remixed the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Phillip Zdar and Laidback Luke, Trago will arrive Down Under with a reputation for not being limited by the constraints of any particular genre. Trago will be supported by DJs Carlos Zarate, Matt Weir and Steve Sullivan.

Isolée The Right Time And Place By Benjamin Cooper

R

ajko Müller responds to my questions in an exceedingly measured manner – so much so that talking with the German engulfs you in a resounding sense of clarity. The electronic artist known as Isolée has been making music professionally for a little under two decades, and it seems his exacting nature applies to more than just his conversational style. “I’m playing in France on Friday,” he says down the line from Hamburg, “and I’m just going over my notes from the last time I played there. I like to check what type of set I’ve played in a city before, whether it was a daytime or night show, and see what type of songs worked.

I think it’s very important to be ready for live performances, because sometimes it is easy to get your head stuck in the studio.”

Universally acknowledged as the initiator and foremost proponent of the microhouse style, Isolée began releasing solo material in 1997 on Frankfurt label Playhouse Records.

His association with the label has continued

over time, with three separate studio albums being released between 2000 and 2011.

When queried as to why his albums seem to take so long to emerge – there’s a five or six year gap between each release – Isolée is frank: “It’s not that I spend five years working on one album. What takes time is preparing the live show, which is different again to the recorded versions of the songs – and then there’s the touring component. Although I’m sure it can be done quicker,” he laughs.

“It always takes me so long to get a new album’s sound right, because there’s all this reflection that has to happen once you have already developed a new vision or new ideas in the studio. The hardest thing is that sometimes, when you’re reflecting, you have to admit that what you’ve made is no good, because you experimented too much. Even if you turn it into a remix it can still sound bad, so you cut it and forget about it.”

After a furious year touring his third album Well Spent Youth, Isolée has returned home to begin the process of creating beats and loops anew. Realising he needed some kind of radical shift to shake off any creative fatigue, he decided on some interior modifications. “When I got home from the tour I realised I felt uncomfortable in my studio space, so I emptied the entire room and painted the walls a different colour. Then I put everything back in a different order, which took forever because I couldn’t decide which equipment to put in the centre of the room,” he explains. “I think there’s a lot of influence on workflow based on how you set the room up, so for a long time the drum computer was a bit lost, until it found its throne in the centre of the room.”

With such an established base in Hamburg, it’s necessary for Isolée to compromise when it comes to his touring set-up. “I do have quite a lot of hardware here in my studio; much of it is classic equipment that is far to heavy to carry or transport anywhere,” he says. “But my live equipment is also very complicated, so it keeps me busy on stage. When I come to Sydney [for Vivid LIVE] I’m going to be using an analog mixer and quite a lot of effects, which means I can play tracks that work in more of a club or dance situation. It’s really all about finding that combination of analog sounds and synthesiser sounds, and tweaking it until it’s just right.”

With: Jacques Renault (NYC), Flume, Future Classic DJs and more Where: Future Classic Party [Vivid LIVE] @ The Studio, Sydney Opera House When: Friday June 1

Audego

Like Lego By Annabel Maclean

“P

aso and I were in the same friend circle for a while – I’d known him for years – but he did a remix for one of my tracks ‘Wonder’, which he did a really good job on, and we ended up getting married after that,” vocalist Carolyn Tariq says casually.

Tariq and her husband Paso Bionic, aka Shehab Tariq, make up Melbourne-based duo Audego – and they’ve had a pretty hectic last year, making both a baby and a record. “We had a kid born in December last year, so most of [Abominable Galaxy] was recorded while I was pregnant,” she says. “It was really good, because I used to smoke a lot – like, a pack a day – so all my previous musical work has been recorded with me having horrible smoker’s voice, and then for this one I had to clean up a lot. I think it helped the music, and I think I did a better job.”

They didn’t anticipate taking a full year to complete the record, but it’s a grand effort considering Paso works full-time at a printing store, and Carolyn is handling her new life as a mother. But the pair aren’t about to dwell on the challenges. “It’s really fun for us – we always make it happen,” Carolyn says of the family/ music balance. “We’ve already got a few new tracks cooking for another release. We’re very into it.” Although she says collaborating with her husband on Abominable Galaxy was “really easy”, much of the work on the record was created separately. “We didn’t work together in the studio a lot; it was kind of like, I’d do it and then he’d come home from work and then do the rest, so it was just piecing it together, which was why we named ourselves Audego – like Lego,” she says. “It just felt like we were building and adding little bits as we went.”

Mixed by hip hop heavy hitter and producer Danielsan of Koolism, Abominable Galaxy

offers silky vocals, edgy percussion and blurred synths, the result of an unusual musical collaboration which could prick up the ears of post-dubstep, indie, instrumental hip hop and folk fans alike. Although classy in its delivery, the record’s song titles are questionable. For instance, ‘Polish A Turd’: “It’s obviously not literally about polishing a turd – there’s actually a deeper meaning behind it,” Carolyn says.

“Paso is such a peaceful person and I felt a bit guilty for being a mole. So it’s really about being a piece of white trash and feeling out of it in a classy situation. I had a moment of being agro, and I wrote that song.” The banging track ‘Burning Bridge’ is only slightly more literally titled. “For me, that track was about ending a relationship that you’re really happy to end,” she says. “It’s kind of literally about burning bridges and not feeling bad about that, because what you’re moving forward to is so much better.”

Carolyn used to organise and teach songwriting to disadvantaged youth in Victoria and Queensland, but it’s something she’s since moved on from. “I’m such a shit teacher,” she laughs half-heartedly. “You’ve got to have that commanding presence; it’s a tricky thing to be a good teacher.” So for now, it’s all about being a mum, and bringing her little girl up and into the world of music. “She dances and I think she’s singing all the time, but she’s probably just clearing her throat,” she says. “She’s always in the [home] studio… When Paso is doing turntable stuff, she’s mesmerised – it’s like her favourite thing ever.”

What: Abominable Galaxy is out now With: Kilter & Saiko Where: GoodGod Small Club When: Saturday June 23

Light Asylum Welcome To The Madhouse By Joshua Kloke

F

irst impressions can be tricky. On first listen to Light Asylum, one could be forgiven for giving up on the Brooklynbased duo rather easily. Their dark and methodical electro requires a certain frame of mind and necessary amounts of patience. Yet peel away the layers of their self-titled debut LP, and you’ll find a band that has a keen ear for pop sensibilities; a band as concerned with how their music is seen as how it is heard.

Which is why, when my interview with Light Asylum commenced, I was able to chalk up their mischievous demeanour to nerves.

Shannon Funchess (vocals/percussion) and Bruno Coviello (synths/drum machine) have been subjected to a barrage of press as Light Asylum has been making the rounds. TV On The Radio and Yacht have taken notice for instance, recently asking the band to open for them on handfuls of dates throughout the US – and they’ll soon be debuting in Australia, to perform at Vivid LIVE. According to Coviello, their expectations are simple. “Only that we will WOW them,” he says, from their Brooklyn practice space. The comment is followed by a round of snickering. “Hopefully they’ll like hearing the music live as much as they have listening to it recorded.”

“We gave it our full attention,” says Funchess of the record. “And we always try to be conscious of how much energy we put into it. This is only the introduction to the Light Asylum sound, though. There’s much more to come.” For her, the move to Light Asylum from their debut EP In Tension was a natural step

for the band, allowing them to continue in the direction they’re focused on. “We’ve always wanted to feature the sound, and really try to incorporate all the feelings that are an important part of this band,” she says. “The full-length was the introduction to our sound, whereas the EP was more of an introduction to the band.”

The impression Light Asylum is intent on leaving is as much a visual as an aural one; their album is rich in texture, which may owe in part to both Coviello and Funchess’ upbringing in art schools in New York. “I wish we could incorporate more live visuals into our shows,” Funchess says. “Hopefully as our fanbase grows, we’ll be able to [incorporate] different artists of different mediums into our live show. As far as the imagery goes, I think it’s very important that we consider everything.

It’s important for us to consider how to bring our songs to life.

“We’re into all mediums of art, we’re open to it.

We’re artists as well. Bruno’s a Renaissance man and I like surrealist painters.” There’s a biting sarcasm to the way she speaks, yet it shouldn’t distract from the band’s attempts to create an engaging artistic platform. I ask about the headspace the pair have to get into to write their music. “It’s more about getting out of a headspace,” she answers. “We’re always trying to share what’s on our mind, be it exorcising demons or maintaining a flow as far as our creative outlets are concerned.

Sometimes we’re just trying to survive while living in New York, you know? When we signed

with a record label, it was our intention to reach a much bigger audience than the one we had – which was primarily just our friends in New York.”

Light Asylum certainly owe a great debt to their hometown for their sound. There’s a palpable frantic energy within their tracks, one which represents not only the pulsing nightlife of New York City, but also the art it ultimately creates.

“We needed to have a balance between the light and the heavy,” Funchess says.

What: Light Asylum is out now on Mexican Summer/Co-Op With: Zola Jesus, Forces Where: Pennydrop/FBi Radio Party [Vivid LIVE] @ The Studio, Sydney Opera House When: Thursday May 31

BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 47

Parachute Youth Can’t Get Better By Alasdair Duncan

T

he first time I heard ‘Can’t Get Better Than This’ was early one rainy morning on triple j. There was something strange and a bit magical about the track, with its spooky, repeated vocal hook and propulsive house beat; it was one of those rare moments in which you find yourself jolted to full attention, turning the car stereo right up in the hopes that you’ll catch the artist’s name. The single turned out to be the first – and at the time of writing, still the only – official release from Parachute Youth. The duo, comprising friends Matt K Von and Jonny Castro, are one of the hottest prospects in Aussie electronic music right now. Presently in the midst of a national tour, they are contemplating a debut album, but would prefer to just get the next single out first.

“Myself and Matt have been mates for a few years,” says Jonny. “We actually met at Botanic Bar in Adelaide, we were just sitting down having drinks. I was playing synth in a band called Def Starr, and he’d been DJing for a while as well. We spent a while talking about music that we liked, and he said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a studio at my house if you want to come over and make some music some time,’ and it pretty much went from there.” As musical pick-up lines go, that’s as straight-forward as it gets. And it did the job. “We started catching up more frequently and became good mates after that,” Jonny continues. “We made three or four songs we really liked, one of them being ‘Can’t Get Better Than This’ – and yeah, that’s how it all started.”

It’s a risky thing, with only two songs released, to play a live set full of new material – but the response has been great. “We’d done a lot of studio work in the background for ages before we released anything,” Matt tells me. “We’ve got the formula down, even for the songs that are slower jams, and we’re very particular.” If he and Jonny don’t think a song is really, really good, then they simply won’t use it. “If it doesn’t have that same sincerity as ‘Can’t Get Better Than This’, or whatever quality it is that makes that song so good, then it doesn’t go in the show. It’s been good to test the songs in the live setting, to get that feedback. We’ve mostly just had really positive responses thus far.”

But crowds never react quite the way you think they will. “There are certain tracks in the set that people respond to even more than ‘Can’t Get Better Than This’,” Jonny says, “which is weird, because that’s the only song people really know at this point. Doing it this way has definitely made us think about what tracks might be singles down the line.” One big surprise was a track called ‘The Little Prince. “That’s one we were never expecting to take off as much as it has,” Matt says. “It’s kind of got more of a slow-jam feel to it – it’s a slow, half-time sort of song. The response to that has been way better than expected;

“We’re going to bide our time and keep writing... We realise people want new stuff, but we want to release good stuff.” people at our last Melbourne show especially really got into it.”

The big question now is when we might expect a Parachute Youth album. Certain folks at Sweat It Out, the duo’s label, have suggested that there might well be something out before the end of the year – although the guys themselves are not so sure. “We’re actually going to take our time with it,” Matt says.

“We’ve written a lot of tracks already, but Jonny and I are really maturing as songwriters and producers so, you know, we’re going to bide our time and keep writing.”

The most that will be out in the near future, they tell me, is a four-track EP of their favourite songs from the live show, which will be available in the coming months. “We’re probably going to release at least two EPs before the album. We realise people want new stuff, but we want to release good stuff,” Matt says. “I mean, you just have to look at Flight Facilities.

They’ve released something like one track a year, but they’ve all been really good.”

With: Madi & Zwelli, Nate Perry, Pablo Calamari, Speak Easy DJs, Soup Kitchen DJs, Hannah Where: Cakes @ World Bar When: Saturday June 2

Ghostface Killah Supreme Being By Lachlan Kanonuik

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hroughout the rich, two-decade long history of Wu-Tang Clan and its many peripheral offshoots and solo careers, there have been none more consistent than Ghostface Killah. Armed with a seemingly bottomless arsenal of rapid-fire rhymes, Ghostface has established himself as one of the all-time great MCs, while compounding the definitive Wu-Tang sound. Making his true breakthrough as a guest star on fellow Clan member Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, Ghostface has since gone on to forge a stellar back-catalogue of certified solo classics, beginning with 1996’s Ironman and continuing with a sequel to 2000’s Supreme Clientele due out next year.

Ghostface’s impending visit to Australia comes in the form of a co-headline tour with DOOM (nee: MF Doom). Before speaking about the near-mythological status of their perennially delayed full-length GhostDOOM/ DoomStarks collaboration, tentatively titled Swift & Changeable, Ghostface looks back on when the two first met. “I was on tour with Linkin Park, Korn and Snoop, and someone gave me this CD with ‘Metal Fingers’ written on it, with no number on it. I played it, and it was right up my alley,” he recalls. “So when we got off tour, I called up my manager and said, ‘Yo, find this dude right here called Metal Fingers’.

He searched and searched and searched, then finally found him. I didn’t know it was DOOM – I’d heard of DOOM, but didn’t know it was him. Then one day he came to the studio, played me some beats. He just had a bunch of cool beats, just things that I like. It was crazy, he just gave me them for [Ghostface’s 2006 LP] FishScale. One thing led to another, we wanted to do records together; he wanted to make some songs together to make an album.

I made a lot of songs for him – but he never released it.”

Rumoured for release back in 2007, the joint effort has since entered a state of purgatory, with no release foreseeable in the near future.

But as Ghostface explains, there is still hope.

“I saw DOOM in London and we spoke about it, we switched numbers and said, ‘We should really put that out, the fans want it, it’s gonna be real big.’ He was feelin’ me, really feelin’ me, but that was the last time we really spoke about it. He got the majority of the music, but

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“It’s like you telling me, ‘Why you wanna keep fuckin’ your woman?’, know what I mean?

You love what you do?

Then keep doin’ it.” he just wanna do a few more other joints, just to make sure we got it right.”

Switch & Changeable aside, there’s still plenty of new Ghostface material to look forward to in the next year – most notably a sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed rap albums in recent memory, Supreme Clientele. “That would be [coming] sometime near February,” he says.

“I want to get it out sometime this year, but I got this Wu-Block thing coming in maybe like three months, so I’m saving my thing until February, just at the top of the year, to go into it like that.” Though a full-scale follow-up to Wu-Tang Clan’s 2008 release 8 Diagrams was also hotly rumoured for release this year, Ghostface is quick to dispel it. “There’s no Wu-Tang album coming out this year,” he states bluntly, plugging instead the Wu-Block release: “Me, Jadakiss, Sheek Louch, Styles P, Raekwon and Cappadonna – plus it’s Wu-Block, so I gotta have the Clan on it. That’s about it – it’s not a Wu-Tang album that’s comin’.”

Despite conquering all terrains within the realm of rap, don’t expect Ghostface to be giving up on the game any time soon. “I love to do it.

When you love to do something, you just do it.

It’s like you telling me, ‘Why you wanna keep fuckin’ your woman?’, know what I mean? Or, ‘Why you keep getting pussy, nigger?’ It’s like, if you love it, you continue to do it. You got these 70-, 80-year-old men that are still fuckin’,” he laughs. “It’s the same thing with music. You love what you do? Then keep doin’ it.”

When Wu-Tang Clan first emerged from Staten Island in the early-‘90s, not only was there molten-hot competition within the local scene, but the East-West dichotomy was at an all-time high. These days, as Ghostface

explains, things are different. “I don’t have no competition, man. The competition for me is like who’s on the most videos right now, or who’s doing this and that. But as far as me writin’, or me being a lyricist, there’s no competition for me. I know my power, I know that I’m my worst critic – and I can hurt myself.

But in terms of competition, it depends on how you wanna go,” he says. “Like I said, the game’s changed – it’s more about being in the club, stuff like that. So all I gotta do is do what I do, but just get more presence out on the streets and on video and radio. And that’s it.

I don’t got a problem with that. So that’s why, when you hear Wu-Block coming, that’s just me planting the seed for what’s gonna happen for February. Then from February on, you gonna see a lot more of Ghostface than what you’ve probably seen in your life,” he promises.

“That’s my plan.”

With: DOOM, Chino XL [USA], Killah Priest [USA] and Sky’High Where: Rap City @ The Enmore Theatre When: Saturday June 2

Xxxx

Parachute Youth are presently playing shows around the country and will appear at this year’s Splendour In The Grass, but unlike other electronic acts who tour as DJs while refining their live show, they are first and foremost a live band. With only two officially-released tracks to their name – the other being ‘Awake Now’, the B-side to ‘Can’t Get Better Than This’ – the pair play sets full of all original material. “Somewhere down the line, we’ll be doing an album,” says Jonny, “and eight or so of the songs from the current live set are likely to feature on it. We’re pretty much using the live show to give people a taste, a sample of what’s to come. We’re looking to see which songs get a good response and which ones don’t.”

Deep Impressions Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

Levon Vincent

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his weekend provides a crystal clear itinerary for anyone who knows their electronic stuff (I’m talkin’ ‘bout you there, maestro). Friday night involves an outing to Sydney Opera House to see Isolée perform as part of Future Classic’s Vivid LIVE party, while on Saturday night it’s off to Marrickville Bowling Club to see Levon Vincent spin at Mad Racket.

Everything else fades into the background with those options available on the two nights of the week that are free of the stultifying spectre of work the next day. And with that set in stone, I’m going to spend this week’s column writing about interesting upcoming releases rather than where you should go this weekend.

Heidelberg-born (I didn’t know where that was either) producer Christian Burckhardt has been a mainstay in the minimal/tech house club landscape since the release of his debut 12-inch back in ’07, the inaugural release for the Oslo label. While Burckhardt has dropped over a dozen singles and a collaborative LP with Einzelkind in the ensuing years, he has never released his own solo album – until now [cue dramatic music and alpenhorns]. Burckhardt’s debut LP is titled Offenbach, and judging by his trademark sound it ought to offer plenty of punchy rhythms replete with layers of percussion and subtle basslines. While Burckhardt hasn’t quite lived up to the promise of his early track ‘Doubledub’ – which still stands sonically head and shoulders above everything else in his body of work – he hasn’t exactly faded into oblivion either, with EPs on labels like Cocoon reminding us of his talents.

Offenbach drops next month on Oslo.

Like any techno producer worth his salt, Detroit kingpin Carl Craig has released material under an array of different aliases.

Craig’s approved ‘nom de booms’ include early pseudonym BFC, the jazz-indebted Innerzone Orchestra, his more laidback Fat Freddy’s Drop moniker – just kidding – his experimental 69 project – and my pick of his monikers: Paperclip People.

When I questioned him on his assortment of pseudonyms a few years back, Craig responded, “I’ve used different monikers all the time because I’ve felt that I’ve got different ideas to present,” before throwing in a joke about it maybe having something to do with the fact that he’s a Gemini. Later this month, Craig will again channel his

LOOKING DEEPER FRIDAY JUNE 1 Isolée, Jacques Renault Sydney Opera House

SATURDAY JUNE 2 Levon Vincent Marrickville Bowling Club

FRIDAY JUNE 8

Loose Kaboose ft DeepChild Live GoodGod Small Club

MONDAY JUNE 11

End Of The Line ft Guido Schneider The Abercrombie

Gemini proclivities as he introduces the world to a new moniker, Carls Davis, with the release of the Last Decade EP, which is due out on his own Planet E label. The EP features six self-described ‘sketches’, with analogue techno the chosen style for each. Preview snippets are available online ahead of the EP’s official release as both a 12-inch and a digital download.

Norfolk producer Nathan Fake has announced he will release a new single and album in the fairly near future. Fake shot to prominence at an early age, being picked up by James Holden’s seminal Border Community label when still a teenager and going on to release the seminal club tune ‘The Sky Was Pink’, for which he remains best known. Fake has been a part of the Border Community stable ever since, releasing his debut LP in ’06, Drowning In A Sea Of Love, and remixing the likes of Four Tet and Radiohead (for the band’s recent TKOL RMX series). Fake’s new single, ‘Iceni Strings’, will be released on June 11 – a harbinger for his forthcoming album, Steam Days, which is out at the end of August.

The single’s title is a reference to the Iceni, an ancient Celtic tribe that lived in what is now Norfork, and has been touted as “classic Fake”. Can he finally surpass ‘The Sky Was Pink’? It’ll be interesting to find out.

Carl Craig

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 49

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

club pick of the week Donny Benét

SATURDAY JUNE 2 The Studio, Sydney Opera House

Vivid LIVE GoodGod Danceteria Egyptian Lover (USA), Nicky Da B (USA), Prince Zimboo & Sani Showbizz (JAM), No Zu, Geoffrey O’Connor, Donny Benét, Straight Arrows, Levins, Yo Grito DJs, GoodGod Sound Unlimited $30 (+ bf) 9.30pm MONDAY MAY 28 Scruffy Murphy’s, Sydney Mother of a Monday DJ Smokin’ Joe free 8pm The Sugar Mill, Kings Cross Makeout Mondays DJs free 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Monday Jazz & Latin Jam DJs free 7pm

TUESDAY MAY 29 Establishment, Sydney Rumba Motel Salsa DJ Willie Sabor free 8pm Scruffy Murphy’s, Sydney I Love Goon DJ Smokin’ Joe free 8pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Coyote Tuesday Nukewood, Resident DJs $10 7pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Jam Resident DJs free 8pm

WEDNESDAY MAY 30 The Bank Hotel – Velvet Room, Newtown Lady L, Resident DJs free 9pm The Bank Nightclub, Kings Cross Money Talks DJs free 10pm Epping Hotel DTF Resident DJs free Flinders Hotel, Surry Hills Hip Hop Resident DJs free 8pm 50 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Resident DJs free 8pm Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale Frat House Wolf & The Gang free 8pm The Marlborough Hotel – Cellar Bar, Newtown DJ Pauly free 9pm The Valve, Tempe Hop Down 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Brown Bear, Blacksnake, Kemikoll, Floor Damage, Brothers Grimm, Clockwerk, ECats $5 9pm

THURSDAY MAY 31 The Backroom, Potts Point She Rex, Mookie, Frankie Faux, Gigi Vine, Memphis Mae, Lara Love, Sapphire Blue, Sweet Adeline $12 7pm Cargo Lounge, King St Wharf Dance The Way You Feel Resident DJs free 6pm Cockatoo Calling Rocks @ 47 George St, The Rocks Eastside Radio – The Vinyl Frontier Toon, Paper Place Project $10 6pm The Cool Room, Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill We Love Thursdays DJs free 9pm The Flinders Hotel, Darlinghurst Bananas DJs free 9pm GoodGod Front Bar, Sydney Girls Gone Mild Eliza & Hannah Reilly free 9pm The Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney

The Greenwood Thursday Nights Resident DJs free 8pm Gypsy Lounge, Darlinghurst Naked Resident DJs 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Resident DJs free 8pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Hot Damn Hot Damn DJs $15$20 8pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Rack City DJ Tikelz, DJ Lenno, DJ Ziggy, DJ Lyrikz, DJ Rkays, Mista Cee 8pm Serial Space, Chippendale Guerre, Scissor Lock, Expensive Looks, Major Napier $10 7pm Space, Sydney We Are Electric Opening Night Redial, Pixl, Cindee, Nathan Cryptic, Audiocolour $5-$15 9pm Strike, Darling Harbour Ajax, P-Money (NZ) $30 (+ bf) 8pm Sugar Lounge, Manly Fat Laced Funk Resident DJs free 9pm The Village, Potts Point Gloves, Convaire DJs $5 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda M.I.T., Shag, Urby, Dan Bombings free (student)-$5 9pm

FRIDAY JUNE 1 The Abercrombie, Broadway Totally Barry Bad Barry DJs free 9pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Movement Quakers (DJ set), Ellesquire, Huwston free 8pm Blue Beat, Double Bay Masquerade Bossa Abuka

Trio, La Veneria, Rapha Brazil $15 9pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross The Loops Of Fury Vengeance, Nightmare vs Hypa, Homeslice vs Bass Ventura, Monkey Business vs Bystanders, Retrojunk vs Saudz, Real Talk vs Cal French, Liquid Noice, Twissted, Sprawl, Theobeats, Nintempo, 2simple, Good Boys 9pm Cargo Lounge, King St Wharf Kick On Fridays Resident DJs free 4pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Crissy Cris (UK), Royalston, Vertigo, Bounce Crew DJs, Hospital Records, Brown Bear, Kyro & Bomber, Struz $15-$25 10pm Cockatoo Calling Rocks @ 47 George St, The Rocks Eastside Radio – Sounds of Soul Agent Double I Soul, Doug Parkinson, Lily Dior $10 6.30pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour Gimme Five Jeddy Rowland, Ander Hitchcock, Mike Silver free 9pm Dee Why Hotel Flirt DJ Alana 9pm E11even, Paddington We Love House Download DJs, Mark Randy, Pete Buzz, Dan Mac, C Baker, Milksy $10$15 9pm Epping Hotel Flirt Flirt DJs free GoodGod Small Club, Sydney True Vibenation, Monkeykat, Rapaport, She Rex, DJ Morgs $15 8pm Home The Venue, Darling Harbour Delicious & Sublime Fridays Flite, Iko, MC Suga Shane, Pee Wee Ferris, Matt Ferreira, John Young 9pm Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Hugo’s Fridays Resident DJs 8pm Ivy Changeroom, Sydney Love Gun Fridays Tina Turntables, The Apprentice & Hooligan 8pm Jackson On George, Sydney DJ Ivan Drago free 9pm Luna Lounge Nightclub, Jacksons On George Luna Lounge Presents Lunacy DJ Rain Julz free 9pm The Marlborough Hotel – Level 1, Newtown Resident DJs free 9pm Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm Nevermind, Darlinghurst United Colours Of Trance Matt Bowdidge, Scott Richardson, Lui Raptor, Taras Huntely, Robbie Lowe $10-$15 9pm Oatley Hotel We Love Oatley Hotel Fridays DJ Tone free 8pm Omega Lounge, City Tattersalls Club, Sydney Unwind Fridays Blended Beats DJs, Greg Summerfield free 5.30pm Pontoon, Darling Harbour Perfect Resident DJs free 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross My Studio Nacho Pop, Dim Slm, Digital Mouthm Mike Ruckus 8pm Scruffy Murphy’s, Sydney Frisky Friday DJs free 6pm The Shark Hotel, Sydney Puls8 DJ Jono, Guest DJs free 9pm Soho, Potts Point Soho Fridays DJs free 9pm Space, Sydney Zaia Resident DJs 9.45pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Shivers, Ben Korbel, Raye Antoneli, James Taylor 10pm The Studio, Sydney Opera House Vivid LIVE - Future Classic Party Isolée (GER), Jacques Renault (USA), Flume, Future Classic DJs, Andy Webb, Shunji & Steele Bonus, Pelvis $45 (+ bf) 9.30pm

Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Eve Resident DJs 9pm UNSW Roundhouse, Kensington S Club (UK), Big Brovaz (UK) $61.50 (+ bf) 8pm The Watershed Hotel Bring On The Weekend! DJ Matt Roberts free 9pm Whaat Club, Kings Cross Killpop The Choobs (Malaysia), 3 Bit DJs, Guillotine, Kuriosity Kills, Nibiru Now, Daniel Kael $10 9pm Zink Bar, Cronulla Far Out Friday DJ free 7pm

SATURDAY JUNE 2 Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway Strange Fruit Strange Fruit DJs free 9pm The Argyle, The Rocks Takin’ It Back James Mack, Matt Roberts, Random Soul free 8pm Bar 100, The Rocks My Place Saturdays Resident DJs free BJs Nightclub, Bondi Junction DJ Shane Taylor 10pm Bondi Pavilion Dynam!te The Mad Hatters, Rockstarz $10 7pm under-18s Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Shake Shake Shake Sherlock Bones, Moo Who, 2busy 2kiss, Danger Cat, Pretty Young Things, Matty Bixx, Shadowplex, Stick It Academy 9pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Ministry Of Sound Electro House Sessions 5 Tour The Only, Rob Pix, Luke Million, A-Tonez, Softwar, Sam Scratch, Whitecat, Rennie, Athson, King Lee, Joe Barrs $15-$25 9pm Cockatoo Calling Rocks @ 47 George St, The Rocks Eastside Radio – Unknown Pleasures The Neonhearts DJs $10 5.30pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour Yellow Sox DJ Anders Hitchcock free 9pm Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House Circular Quay Vivid LIVE – ISAM Amon Tobin (BRA) sold out 9pm Dee Why Hotel Kiss & Fly Saturdays DJs 9pm Enmore Theatre Ghostface Killah (USA), Killah Priest (USA), Doom (USA), Chino XL (USA) $57.10-$72.10 8pm Epping Hotel Back Traxx DJ Kandi, DJ Hypnotixx Establishment, Sydney Sienna G-Wizard, Troy-T, DJ Def Rok, Lilo 6pm The Factory Theatre, Enmore Salsa Palladium DJs $35 (+ bf) 5.30pm Flinders Hotel, Darlinhurst Horne Dogg free 8pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Hedkandi’s 1st Birthday Levi 5Star, Shaun Warner (IRE), Frankie Romano, Emmet Greene (IRE), Phil Hudson (UK), Tim Whitney, Tom Kelly, Johnny G $20 9pm Home The Venue, Darling Harbour Homemade Saturdays Venuto $20-$25 9pm Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Saturdays Dolso 8pm Ivy, Sydney Pure Ivy Luciana (UK), Cadell, Ember, Robbie Santiago, Digital Love, Recess, Johnny Smmerville, Scottie, Grills $20 9pm Jacksons On George, Sydney DJ Simon Laing free 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Kitty Kitty Bang Bang Resident DJs 8pm

Luna Lounge Nightclub, Jacksons On George, Sydney Luna Lounge Presents Lunacy DJ Michael Stewart free 9pm Marrickville Bowling Club Mad Racket Levon Vincent (USA), Jimmi James, Zootie, Ken Cloud, Simon Caldwell $35 (+ bf) 10pm Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm One22, Sydney Faciendo Desyn Masiello (UK), Tom Morgan (UK), Mesan $20-$25 10pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Bad Taste Recordings Tour Blockhe4d, Prolix, Aeph, Neon Light, DJ Axe, Royalsyon, Linken, MC Rush, MC DJTech $35 (+ bf) 9pm Phoenix Bar, Darlinghurst Snare Resident DJs The Marlborough Hotel – Level 1, Newtown Resident DJs free 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross The Suite Charlie Brown, Big Will, Dim Dlm, Discokid, Troy T, Jo Funk, Steve S, Adamo, J Smoove 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney House Inspection 3rd Birthday Kali & Mike Whitcombe, Murat Kilic, Robbie Lowe, Nic Scali, Marc Jarvin, Bella Sarris 10pm The Studio, Sydney Opera House Vivid LIVE - GoodGod Danceteria Egyptian Lover (USA), Nicky Da B (USA), Prince Zimbo (JAM), u, Geoffrey O’Connor, Donny Benét, Straight Arrows, Levins, Yo Grito DJs, GoodGod Sound Unlimited $30 (+ bf) 9.30pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Trademark Saturdays Resident DJs 9pm Tunnel Nightclub, Kings Cross ONE Saturdays Resident DJs $10-$20 10pm Valve Bar, Tempe Freddy Todd (USA), Mr Bill, Electrocado, Gruff, Loz Nonsense vs Drachmann, TouchySubjekt $21-$25 7pm The Watershed Hotel Watershed Presents… Skybar $15 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Cakes Madi & Zwelli, Nate Perry, Pablo Calamari, Speak Easy DJs, Soup Kitchen DJs, Hannah $20 8pm

SUNDAY JUNE 3 The Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H. Sundays S.A.S.H. DJs $10 2pm Arq Sydney, Taylor Square Dirty Disco DJs 9pm The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills Beresford Sundays Resident DJs free 5pm Cockatoo Calling Rocks @ 47 George St, The Rocks Eastside Radio - The Eastside Mix Sean Mackenzie $10 6pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Martini Club Sundays Martini Club , Tom Kelly free 6pm Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Sneaky Sundays Sneaky Sound System, Resident DJs 8pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Easy Sundays Resident DJs free 8pm Oatley Hotel Sundays Sets DJ Tone free 7pm The Watershed Hotel Afternoon DJs DJ Matt Roberts free The World Bar, Kings Cross Dust John Devvichies, Morgan, James Taylor free 9pm

club picks up all night out all week...

WEDNESDAY MAY 30 The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Brown Bear, Blacksnake, Kemikoll, Floor Damage, Brothers Grimm, Clockwerk, ECats $5 9pm

THURSDAY MAY 31 Serial Space, Chippendale Guerre, Scissor Lock, Expensive Looks, Major Napier $10 7pm Strike, Darling Harbour Ajax, P-Money (NZ) $30 (+ bf) 8pm The Village, Potts Point Gloves, Convaire DJs $5 8pm

FRIDAY JUNE 1 Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Movement Quakers (DJ set), Ellesquire, Huwston free 8pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney True Vibenation, Monkeykat, Rapaport, She Rex, DJ Morgs $15 8pm

Chinese Laundry, Sydney Ministry Of Sound Electro House Sessions 5 Tour The Only, Rob Pix, Luke Million, A-Tonez, Softwar, Sam Scratch, Whitecat, Rennie, Athson, King Lee, Joe Barrs $15-$25 9pm Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House Vivid LIVE – ISAM Amon Tobin (BRA) sold out 9pm Enmore Theatre Ghostface Killah (USA), Killah Priest (USA) Doom (USA), Chino XL (USA) $57.10-$72.10 8pm Marrickville Bowling Club Mad Racket Levon Vincent (USA), Jimmi James, Zootie, Ken Cloud, Simon Caldwell $35 (+ bf) 10pm One22, Sydney Faciendo Desyn Masiello (UK), Tom Morgan (UK), Mesan $20-$25 10pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney House Inspection 3rd Birthday Kali & Mike Whitcombe, Murat Kilic, Robbie Lowe, Nic Scali, Marc Jarvin, Bella Sarris 10pm

The Spice Cellar, Sydney Shivers, Ben Korbel, Raye Antoneli, James Taylor 10pm

Valve Bar, Tempe Freddy Todd (USA), Mr. Bill, Electrocado, Gruff, Loz Nonsense vs Drachmann, Touchy Subjekt $21-$25 7pm

The Studio, Sydney Opera House Vivid LIVE - Future Classic Party Isolée (GER), Jacques Renault (USA), Flume, Future Classic DJs, Andy Webb, Shunji & Steele Bonus, Pelvis sold out 9.30pm

The World Bar, Kings Cross Cakes Madi & Zwelli, Nate Perry, Pablo Calamari, Speak Easy DJs, Soup Kitchen DJs, Hannah $20 8pm

SATURDAY JUNE 2 Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway Strange Fruit Jimi Polar, Glitch DJs, Le Brond, Jordan Deck free 9pm Desyn Masiello

snap

strike

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up all night out all week . . .

bass mafia

18:05:12 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 8295 9999 PICS :: RJ

insert coins

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18:05:12 :: Strike Bowling Bar :: King Street Wharf Darling Harbour 1300 787 453

17:05:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 9332 3711

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: RASA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) CHY :: TIM WHITNEY :: SAM OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER PEA MAS THO :: :: DANIEL MUNNS JUSKEVICIUTE :: ASHLEY MAR WHITESIDE ::

BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 51

snap up all night out all week . . .

strange fruit party profile

It’s called: Strange Fruit

Who’s spinning? A rotating roster of DJs that Korbel, Jamie Lloyd, Trinity and Carlos Zarate includes Simon Caldwell, Ben .

Three songs you’ll hear on the night: ‘Je Regrette Everything’ – Superpitcher; ‘Grand Cru’ – Saschienne; ‘Home ’ – M.A.N.D.Y. And one you definitely won’t: Anything Swed ish House Mafia.

Sell it to us: Every Saturday at The Abercrombi e, 20 of Sydney’s finest underground DJs on rotation, playing acros s the techno and house spectrum – with minimum two-hour sets! Oh yeah, and it’s free!

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: The bar staff feeding exotic fruit to all those in need.

Crowd specs: Non-pretentious, down-to-ear tunes in a more grungy, club-like atmosphereth people who appreciate good .

Wallet damage: Nothing!

Where: The Abercrombie / Cnr Broadway and Abercrombie St.

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kittens

It sounds like: A cosmic alignment.

When: Saturday June 2

co-op's 3rd birthday

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building bridges

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12:05:12 :: Phoenix Bar :: 34-44 Oxford St Darlinghurst Sydney 9360 1375

19:05:12 :: One22 :: 122 Pitt St Sydney

klartraum

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18:05:12 :: The Standard :: 3/383 Bourke St Surry Hills 9331 3100

the cool room

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19:05:12 :: GoodGod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Sydney 8084 0587

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: RASA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) CHY :: TIM WHITNEY :: SAM OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER PEA MAS THO :: :: DANIEL MUNNS JUSKEVICIUTE :: ASHLEY MAR WHITESIDE ::

52 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

propaganda

PICS :: DM

17:05:12 :: The Australian Brewery :: 350 Annangrove Rd Rouse Hill 9679 4555

17:05:12 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 9357 7700

4"563%": +6/& +*.* 10-"3 (-*5$) %+침4 -& #30/% +03%"/ %&$, 5)& "#&3$30.#*& 4"563%": /*()54 #SPBEXBZ 6MUJNP 4ZEOFZ '3&& &/53: QN UP BN

BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12 :: 53

snap

silicone soul

19:05:12 :: Metro Theatre :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666

PICS :: AM

mixed nuts

PICS :: KC

up all night out all week . . .

catcall

PICS :: AM

19:05:12 :: The Spice Cellar :: 58 Elizabeth St Sydney

wasted years

PICS :: SW

18:05:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 93323711

12:05:12 :: The Exchange Hotel :: 34-44 Oxford St Darlinghurst Sydney 93312956

movement

It’s called: Movement ft. Quakers

19:05:12 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 82959999

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: RASA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) CHY :: TIM WHITNEY :: SAM OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER PEA MAS THO :: DANIEL MUNNS :: JUSKEVICIUTE :: ASHLEY MAR WHITESIDE ::

54 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

party profile

chinese laundry 16th b'day

PICS :: AM

It sounds like: Real rap music.

Who’s playing? Katalyst (Quakers DJ set), Ellesquire and DJ Huwston.

Three songs you’ll hear on the night: Quake rs ft. MED and Guilty Simpson – ‘Fitta Happier’; Ellesquire – ‘On The Prowl ’; Paul White ft. Danny Brown – ‘One of Life’s Pleasures’.

And one you definitely won’t: Simply Red – ‘Fairground.’

Sell it to us: Katalyst sneaks in a cheeky DJ project before he jets off. He’ll be playing alongset presenting his Quakers side producer Fuzzface (aka Geoff Barrow from Portishead) and 7STU7, of this incredible set before he’s gone. Ellesqso make sure you take advantage uire (fresh from supporting Danny Brown and MED at Vivid LIVE) will take support duties.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: The beats that you can buy a greasy kebab on your way ! The rhymes! And the fact home – coz this baby is free!

Crowd specs: Hip hop fans, Eastern subur bs crew, chin-strokers, hipsters and generally good people.

Wallet damage: Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Where: Beach Road Hotel / 71 Beach Rd, Bondi When: Friday June 1, 8pm

3 MONTHS FULL-TIME OR 1 YEAR PART-TIME ENROLLING NOW FOR JUNE 2012

Level 3, 50 Margaret St Sydney (02) 9299 1166 shillingtoncollege.com.au facebook/shillington.fb twitter.com/shillington_ 39$.%9 s -%,"/52.% s "2)3"!.% ,/.$/. s -!.#(%34%2 s .%7 9/2+

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