The Brag #465

ALWAYS

FREE

+ THE UPSKIRTS + THE GUPPIES

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ESENTS SECRET SOUNDS PR

OFFICIAL SPLENDOUR SIDESHOWS ON SALE NOW THE SMASHING PUMPKINS WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

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TUESDAY 31 JULY ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE

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THURSDAY 26 JULY THE FACTORY

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

Friday 27th July The Factory

WEDNESDAY 25 JULY METRO THEATRE (ALL AGES)

WITH

ZULU WINTER

WEDNESDAY 25 JULY OXFORD ART FACTORY

WI TH

T H E CA ST O F CH E ERS

T OU AUG WED OXFORD ART FACTORY SO LD 1

2ND SHOW ANNOUNCED

TUE 24TH JULY THE FACTORY

THU 2 AUG OXFORD ART FACTORY

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

SAT 28 JULY / THE FACTORY

TUE 31 JUL

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THURSDAY 26 JULY THE STANDARD

with special guests

OXFORD ART FACTORY

LISTEN NOW ON

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

/ RDIO.COM

FOR TICKETING INFO VISIT SECRET-SOUNDS.COM.AU

SBS, RENEGADE, NEW WORLD ARTISTS & MAX PRESENT

SOME KIND OF GENIUS TOUR FRI 31 AUG

SYDNEY HORDERN PAVILION THUR 30 AUG

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ON SALE 9AM THURS 14 JUNE 2012 FULLY RESERVED SEATING

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FBI 94.5FM, THE BRAG, DEW PROCESS, HELLO PAVEMENT & ARTIST VOICE PRESENTS

(USA)

F R I D AY 1 7 A U G U S T

THE METRO THEATRE (LICENSED ALL AGES)

JINJA SAFARI new single Toothless Grin coming soon OPOSSOM debut album Electric Hawaii out now on Create/Control WHITE ARROWS debut album Dry Land Is Not A Myth June 22 on Dew Process

T I C KE TS ON SALE 10am THURS 7th JUNE F R O M T H E U S UA L O U T L E T S o r W W W . J I N JA S A FA R I . C O M

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ADRIAN BOHM PRESENTS THE STAR OF ABC TV’S BLACK BOOKS

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ENJA PRESENTS

GEORGE GARZONE ANTONIO SANCHEZ

ALBARE iTD LONG WAY FEATURING

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TUESDAY, 5 JUNE MELBOURNE RECITAL CENTRE

HENDRIK MEURKENS

ENJA PRESENTS

LEO GENOVESE

SATURDAY, 9 JUNE SEYMOUR CENTRE, SYDNEY

OPENING ACT: RENAUD GARCIA-FONS “SOLO” ALBARE iTD

Bookings: ticketek.com.au

www.albare.info

PICTURE WINDOW JACK COLWELL & THE OWLS Album Launch GOODGOD Wednesday June 6 at 7:30PM with Moon Holiday Packwood DJs: Glamour Attack $10

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

five things WITH

DAN DAVEY FROM SISTER JANE Inspirations There’s favourite musicians and then 2. there’s favourite songwriters, whether they’re bands or individuals. I tend to gravitate towards having musical heroes who are primarily songwriters – Bob Dylan, David Crosby, Neil Young, Gram Parsons, Kris Kristofferson, Jimmy Webb. When it comes to favourite musicians, I like guitarists, and mostly blues guitarists – Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, T-Bone Walker.

Your Band Sister Jane is ‘60s organ, guitars, flutes, 3. and a thumpin rhythm section. There’s a

Growing Up I remember the first time my dad played 1. me The Who’s Live At Leeds, and I heard the

fifteen-minute live version of ‘My Generation’. I was nine years old and had no idea what they were singing about, but something about the

way that song feels in the pit of your stomach when you hear it loud really got to me. I recall riding my BMX bike round the neighbourhood for hours afterwards, singing the song at the top of my voice. It was then that I decided I wanted to play guitar and be in a band.

strong self-production ethos that runs through all of our recorded music. We’ve been fortunate in having a full-time producer as lead guitarist in the band, Liam Judson – actually, the band started back when he and I worked together in a guitar store. His vision with production always informs the overall sound of our songs. The songwriting itself is mostly down to me, with our organist Lauren bringing some great songs to the repertoire as well.

The Music You Make A reviewer once said that Sister Jane 4. “travels the great untapped road of Aussie rock”, which I’m pretty happy to wear – but with a sometimes bluesy, sometimes country

Jinja Safari

PUBLISHERS: Adam Zammit & Rob Furst EDITOR IN CHIEF: Adam Zammit 9552 6333 adam@peergroupmedia.com EDITOR: Steph Harmon steph@thebrag.com 02 9698 9645 ARTS & ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Dee Jefferson dee@thebrag.com 02 9690 2731 STAFF WRITER: Caitlin Welsh NEWS: Nathan Jolly, Chris Honnery ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alan Parry SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Katrina Clarke, Rasa Juskeviciute, Ashley Mar, Daniel Munns, Thomas Peachy, Sam Whiteside 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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Music, Right Here, Right Now Right now is a great time to get out and 5. see amazing live Australian music before it gets discovered. There’s so much going on, and everything’s moving so quickly. The post-download-era doldrums are well and truly over, and it’s a great time to be an artist making music again. The vibe has definitely changed for the better. I’d challenge anyone who has a soul to go out to a Demon Parade or Kill City Creeps gig and tell me ‘rock and roll is dead’. No way, man! Need convincing?

Come to Eight Miles High and see for yourself.

With: Witch Hats, Bloods, Grand Atlantic, Buried Feather, Atom Bombs Where: Eight Miles High @ GoodGod Small Club When: Friday June 15

difference – and no, we don’t mean a verbose tumblr treatise on how homelessness is sad and that. From 6pm ‘til midnight at the Beach Road Hotel in Bondi, excellent bands like Belles Will Ring, The Walking Who, Major Tom and The Atoms, Iluka, Dusty Duets, Manchoir and many more will take over the entire upstairs level with live sets, in an evening that’ll also feature raffles, bingo, dance comps, live graf displays (like those ones on the train) and night food markets – with proceeds going to Father Chris O’Riley’s Youth Off The Streets. Bring that coat you never wear, and donate it; the glowing feeling you leave with will keep you warm enough.

Jonathan Boulet

OPOSSUM + JINJA SAFARI + WHITE ARROWS

Jinja Safari have a new single out, ‘Toothless Grin’, which is probably playing on triple j as you read this. It’s definitely playing on FBi. They’ve never been shy of unleashing a national tour, and this time they’re coming to you as part of a massive triple bill presented

by BRAG, with the deliciously psychedelic Opossum (Kody of NZ indie pop masters Mint Chicks) and LA psych-pop outfit White Arrows (YouTube ‘Roll Forever’ – it’s boss). The three play The Metro on August 7 – with tickets on sale this Wednesday June 7. And it’s all-ages, too!

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT

Rufus Wainwright was born into a great musical family, and while sister Martha has taken her father’s anger and her mother’s folk stylings to make something beautiful and poignant, Rufus has taken his own inherent campness and his father’s sense of humour and woven it into magic. The kind of magic that allows him to write the best song ever about addiction and name it ‘Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk’, or to write an upbeat ode about staying in with “my new grandma Bea Arthur” while California dances outside.

He’s heading to Sydney Opera House on September 9 and bringing a band along (which is good news for me – last time he was out it was a solo show, no clapping was allowed and I split a beer on my lap. All true stories.) Tickets on sale June 5.

FORESHORE

At a BRAG event many moons ago, we asked a scruffy, pretty young Sydney band named Sures to come to World Bar and fling a bunch of surfer dude with ‘tude tunes at us – and we knew it was only a matter of time before some label saw sense and signed them up. The sense-seeing label ended up being Ivy League, and the band are about to hit the road in support of their debut EP Stars, featuring the fuzzed-out ‘Poseidon’ (which contains the ‘Be My Baby’ drum part, as stipulated in their surf-pop contract). Catch them at GoodGod Small Club on Thursday June 28, with Woe and Flutter in support.

EVEN & THE FAUVES

If you grew up in the ‘90s wishing it was the ‘60s, you would have loved both The Fauves and Even. As kids these days desperately wish they were part of the ’90s (who wished it was the ‘60s, who wished it was the ‘20s, who wished it was the 1890s – yup, the world is a loop directed by Woody Allen), now is the perfect time for these two acts to tour.

Surprisingly enough these two bands have actually never toured together, despite playing, without any hyperbole, millions of shows between them. The appropriately named Together At Last tour hits the Annandale on June 16. Tickets are on sale now.

BILLY’S GOT TALENT

Last time Canadian post-hardcore band Billy Talent did a world tour they skipped Australia – and boy did they hear about it. If forums were switchboards, the entire country would have lit up, such was the anger and sadness displayed by their Down Under fanbase. Well, they aren’t making that mistake again: they head out this August and tell us they plan to swing by the Roundhouse at UNSW on August 10 for an all-ages show. Tickets are already on sale.

WINTER WARMERS

Being homeless during winter is not a fun time, despite what that old pigeon lady on Home Alone may have led us to believe. On Saturday June 30, you can make an actual

JONATHAN BOULET: NEW ALBUM + TOUR

Saturday June 30 at The Metro will see Jonathan Boulet launch his brand new beard album We Keep The Beat, Found The Sound, See The Need, Start The Heart, which is a title we will never get sick of copying and pasting. (We’re not typing all of that!) If you haven’t heard the new single ‘This Song Is Called Ragged’, then quickly go look it up and imagine us with our smug ‘told-you-so’ faces on. Boulet killed it at Vivid LIVE, incidentally; the new stuff is so great.

Xxxx

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vibe. It’s certainly the case on our current release Mercy, which has just come out as a 12-inch vinyl on Broken Stone Records. When it comes to live performances, we love other bands that have a similar energy, and like to get people up, dancing and hollering. There’s a whole bunch – The Messengers, The Fearless Vampire Killers, The Preachers and many, many more.

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rock music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

KINGFISHA

five things WITH

ALBARE Your Band This band is a bunch of musos that are 3. at the service of the music. We’re passionate about it. No egos, pure fun, pure joy of being together, and interpreting the music in the best possible way.

The Music You Make It’s jazz. But the happy kind. If we take 4. you into a sad journey sometimes, it’s to have a contrast – we like it happy. Apparently in some circles it’s politically incorrect to be happy. Musically, you can expect us to go right to the edge to explore there, and to see if we can go further. If not, we quickly go elsewhere... We always take the public with us wherever we go. We’re the sharing kind.

Music, Right Here, Right Now The internet has transformed the music 5. industry – lots of independent music is heard.

Growing Up Childhood was a long time ago, and the 1. background music was whatever my parents listened to – Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, Frank Sinatra, Manitas de Plata etc... My late grandfather was a violinist, but he passed away before I was born so I’m not sure what his influence has been. Maybe it’s in the genes.

I’ll tell you a secret, I love classical: 2.Inspirations

Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky and many others. In jazz I love Herbie Hancok, Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul (Weather Report), to name but a few. I’m not sure how they inspire me for my music. Music is a spiritual journey, each one of us finds his own path; mine is inspired by my experiences in life (with all the mixed emotions), including world events that inspire humanity sometimes.

The majors, there’s two (they swallowed everyone), and they’re like dinosaurs: they’re extinct. The two left will either adapt or disappear. We’re with an independent in Europe called Enja, one of the greatest jazz labels, managed with passion by a bunch of passionate people. Passion is the main ingredient to be successful if you do anything that has to do with music.

EIGHT MILES HIGH

We say this about all the nights we’re presenting, but we really, really mean it this time: Eight Miles High at GoodGod Small Club is going to be solid. If you like your psych rock with surf, shoegaze, garage and BABEZ, head to GoodGod Small Club on Friday June 15. You’ll be sharing the room with Melbourne’s Witch Hats, Sydney’s Sister Jane, and Brisbane’s Grand Atlantic, plus Bloods, Buried Feather and Atom Bombs, with DJs spinning in between. If you want a shot at a double pass, let us know the name of Witch Hats’ most recent release.

Witch Hats

With: Albare is playing with Antonio Sanchez, George Garzone, Leo Genovese, Hendrick Muerkens and Evri Evripidou, supported by Renaud Garcia-Fons Where: Seymour Centre When: Saturday June 9

MRS BISHOP!

Kingfisha

Kingfisha may share their name with a brightly coloured bird, but make no mistake – this six-piece band from Brisbane are more than just a pretty face. Kingfisha infuse catchy Jamaican rhythms with honest, Australian songwriting, stirring in cool melodies, a tablespoon of rock, and a dash of dub. They caught the ear of triple j in 2010 to win the Unearthed/Fuse Festival roots competition, and have been touring Australia and New Zealand extensively, stealing the hearts of audiences and creating a huge following with songs like ‘Worn Out Your Welcome’ and ‘Let You Know’. Kingfisha’s self-titled album is finally out, and they’ll be launching it on Saturday June 9 at Blue Beat in Double Bay. To win a double pass, tell us who produced their record.

Mrs Bishop: Two brothers from England, raised in Sweden and based in Sydney, who make dreampop that sounds like Bon Iver’s good stuff, and the Simon portion of Simon and Garfunkel. Where do I go? GoodGod Small Club it seems, on Saturday June 9, to watch/hear the two boys launch their eponymous debut EP.

THE GOOD SHIP

The Good Ship are launching their second album O Exquisite Corpse which sounds sweet and melodic on the surface, but just listen to those dark, heaving lyrics! Also, there’s a clue in the album title that suggests maybe this isn’t all as saccharine as it seems; download the single ‘Powder Monkey’ for free on their website for further evidence… Their live show is shambolic and jagged and raw and lush and happening on August 4 at GoodGod Small Club, with Doc Holliday Takes The Shotgun (great name!) and

The Heavies (serviceable name!). $12 pre-sale; $15 for those who cannot plan ahead.

RESCUE SHIPS

If the Sydney winter blues are weighing you down, why not spend some time thinking about how lonely city living can be even when you’re surrounded by thousands of people? LOL, jokes. Don’t do that. But do attend The Red Rattler on Friday July 13 to see such things being sung about by Sydney duo The Rescue Ships, as part of the national tour to launch their new single ‘City Life’ – a song about, you guessed it, urban feelings of alienation. Brian Campeau and Elana Stone have enough chemistry to turn an alchemist green, and coupled with their charming melodies and symbiotic harmonies, they transform even the direst of themes into listening pleasure; the perfect pick-me-up for when the skies turn a little grey, with tickets on sale now.

KINGFISHA

There was a covers band in the early ‘80s, according to my mother, called Vegemite Reggae. This was what I thought about anytime I read about ‘authentic reggae’, until Kingfisha came along and showed me what the term truly meant. The Brisbane-based band are launching their self-titled record on Saturday June 9 at Blue Beat in Double Bay, with The Strides and Foreigndub providing tacit and actual support. Tickets are $15.

LAWRENCE ARABIA

DOWN THE LANE

Jordie Lane, whose Blood Thinner record is one of our office faves, just came back from touring America in a caravan – so when he performs his stripped-back June 30 show at the Camelot Lounge, don’t be surprised if he tries to sell you trinkets and read your fortune, or if he has a host of amazing road-trip stories that will blow your mind and make you wish the entire world was one big Stillwater tour. The Falls are in support.

ROCKWIZ TOUR

When John Lennon said that avant-garde was French for bullshit, he was kinda half-right. But he died before he could hear Brisbane-based songwriter Edward Guglielmino’s second record Sunshine State, which mixes chamber pop, weird instrumentation and other off-kilter ideas with the lovely mundane existence of everyday life. It’s musically off the wall, but lyrically on the lounge in a Snuggie. The record is out now, and he’ll be launching it in Oxford Art Factory with Charles Buddy Daaboul of No Art in support. Best of all, it’s free entry – which is nice when it happens.

The only thing better than curling up at home with a blanket and a cup of Milo and a box of Dixie Drumsticks and half a pizza and yelling the answers on Rockwiz at the telly is replacing the Milo and pizza with beer and crisps and doing the same thing at the Rockwiz – Some Kind Of Genius live show. It happens at the Hordern Pavilion on August 31 and features Julia, Brian, the Rockwiz Orkestra and Dugald, plus “legendary guests” – the likes of which we can only imagine… Tickets on sale June 14.

EDWARD GUGLIELMINO

Blanche DuBois

BLANCHE DUBOIS!

Blanche DuBois: Two sisters from Perth that make Blasko-y pop, named their band after a Tennessee Williams play and have all of the bangs and eyes and faces. Where do I go? The Basement it seems, on Saturday June 9, to watch/hear the two girls launch ‘The Sum Of My Parts,’ the second single from their third record Young Heart. Jack Carty is supporting too, which is good news for anyone who’s heard his beautifully cracked folky pop songs before.

“Your cold blood is wearing thin. Cold blood and the stain on me” - THE JEZABELS 12 :: BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12

Xxxx

Sparrows are among the scariest creatures in the world, just behind toilet spiders and those headless snakes that still wriggle a bit.

Lawrence Arabia’s third album The Sparrow, however, is warm and inviting, with that hugeyet-homespun pop song thing that Scott Walker and Nilsson both used to do so damn well. He will be performing the entire thing at The Green Room in Enmore on July 3; the album’s out July 13 through Spunk Records.

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The Music Network

themusicnetwork.com

Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

THINGS WE HEAR

* Touring: Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea Twittered that they’d be here early 2013, leading to speculation that they’ll headline Big Day Out; Justin Bieber is heading here on a promo tour in July, and although no live shows are planned, fans are hoping he’ll do some secret shows like the ones he’s been doing in Europe; Modestep are back this October for Parklife; the Sigur Ros visit seems to be tied with Harvest Festival, which is hotly tipped to include Beck and My Bloody Valentine. * Boy & Bear’s singer-songwriter Tim Hart has been named an artist-in-residence at Macquarie University. He will mentor music students through workshops and tutorials. The band formed after meeting at Macquarie’s music biz course. * Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour was renovating his six-storey mansion in East Sussex when builders found an unexploded

APRA AWARDS 2012

Gotye and Yusuf Islam got standing ovations at the APRA awards in Sydney last Monday.

Gotye’s three gongs included the prestigious Song and Songwriter Of The Year. During one acceptance speech, he apologised “to those people who … had to listen to it 50 times a day at their workplace”, and was regarded by backstage crew as “a gentleman and a sweetheart”. He had a huge grin as he watched Tina Arena and Tex Perkins tackle his ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ – more so when Tex fluffed his intro. The Beards, who’d been nominated for Song Of The Year, quipped that they didn’t know who Gotye was but "he doesn’t have much of a beard.” When Kate Miller-Heidke deadpanned their ‘You Should Consider Having Sex With A Bearded Man’, she whipped out a tambourine with a beard attached to it mid-song, much to the audience’s delight. Yusuf Islam flew up with his son from Melbourne, where he was hard at work rehearsing for the premiere of his Moonshadow musical based on Cat Stevens songs. He presented Boy & Bear’s award as Breakthrough Songwriter Of The Year; they were as thrilled to meet him as they were to receive the gong. An APRAs special is being broadcast on MAX on Tuesday June 12 at 8pm, and at 10.30am on Thursday June 14.

SURES AT IVY LEAGUE RECORDS Ivy League Records’ latest signing are Sydney guitar-based surf popsters Sures.

They’re playing around town to promote their new EP Stars which includes radio track ‘Poseidon’, before venturing into the studio to cut their debut album.

FOUR | FOUR FIND BOY IN A BOX

World War II bomb. The guitarist and his wife had to evacuate while a bomb disposal team took it away. * Neil Finn celebrated his 53rd birthday by “playing some music, having a drink, wearing my new clothes out for dinner”. Asked if he had any regrets, he replied, “Missing a few moments of my kids growing up”. * Missy Higgins was voted Australia’s sexiest vegetarian by animal righters PETA, ahead of Sia, John Butler, Ash Grunwald and Abbie Cornish. *The X-Factor winner Reece Mastin’s set at Darwin’s BassInTheGrass was marred by idiots throwing abuse, bottles and thongs at him. 360, also on the bill, defended him on Facebook: “I know some of u are passionate about what u do and don’t like, but booing an artist before they play on stage isn’t cool.” * The Your Shot DJ competition drew 650 registrations in Sydney and 450 in Brisbane, with Melbourne closing off on the weekend.

years in music retailer HMV’s survey of music and films, which marks the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Beast, which sold 14 million copies worldwide and went to #1 in the UK behind the hit ‘Run To The Hills’, got 9.2% of the 30,000 votes. At #2 was Depeche Mode’s Violator (6.3% of vote) and at #3 was The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (5.69%). The rest of the Top 10 was taken by The Beatles’ Abbey Road, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, The Beatles’ Revolver, Queen’s A Night at the Opera, Oasis’ (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, Adele’s 21, and The Beatles’ White Album at #10. The ‘90s was the most popular decade with 18 of the 60 albums, then the ‘70s (15), the Noughties (13), the ‘60s (8) the ‘80s (4) and the current decade (2). The top film was Trainspotting, followed by Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

SYDNEY CITY BOOSTS AID FOR FESTIVALS

The City of Sydney is boosting its support for the Biennale of Sydney and Sydney Festival First Night. The Biennale gets a further $450,000 for the next three years, in addition to the $1.5 million committed for 2012 and 2014. Next year’s Sydney Festival gets an extra $100,000, bringing its total support to $2.1 million. Lord Mayor Clover Moore said that the city invests $3.6 million a year in various festivals, to give Sydney an all-year international appeal and boost their contribution to the economy. “Research shows that more than half a million people attended the 2010 Biennale, injecting more than $45 million into the Sydney economy, while around 200,000 people attended last year’s Festival First Night, spending at least $24 million across the city.”

MADONNA VS GAGA

New ABC Music imprint Four | Four signed triple j faves, Melbourne’s Boy In A Box. Formed in late 2010, they “are an amazing live act and have a killer rock sound, and energy that is truly captivating,” says Robert Patterson, head of ABC Music. A four-track EP, recorded at Birdland Studios by producer Lindsay Gravina, will come out on July 6.

Madonna made a dig at Lady Gaga as she kicked off her world tour in Israel. During a dress rehearsal, while singing ‘Express Yourself’, she mashed it up with Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ – which is accused of pinching from Maddy’s song.

MAIDEN’S BEAST: BEST BRITISH ALBUM

Things got heated during the radio panel at Song Summit in Sydney, when Commercial Radio Australia CEO Joan Warner declared that she was “sick of commercial radio being made out to be the bad guys.” At the end,

Iron Maiden’s The Number Of The Beast was voted the best British album of the past 60

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COMMERCIAL VS PUBLIC

triple j manager Chris Scaddan asked her, “Why don’t you play more Australian music?”

She served back: “We probably would if we had taxpayer money.”

DELTA VS MCFADDEN

After Delta Goodrem blabbered to Vogue that she’d been unable to get out of her “unhappy” relationship with Brian McFadden, he let fly with a series of tweets. One stated: “Sometimes silence is golden. People love to try and deflect attention from their own downfalls onto others.”

LOPEZ VS SPEARS

TMZ reported that Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears locked horns over wanting to become the highest paid judge on a music TV show. Brit initially wanted $20 million for The X-Factor gig, but was willing to negotiate. She stopped at $13 million, as Lopez was paid $12 million in her first season of American Idol.

NEW HOME FOR PARKLIFE SYDNEY

This year's Parklife Sydney is being held on Sunday September 30, and after eight years at Kippax Lake moves back to Centennial Park, where it was first held in 2000. The actual site encompasses Loch Avenue South and Brazilian Fields and has rolling slopes dotted with Moreton Bay figs and a variety of other trees. John Wall, director of festival promoter Fuzzy, said that even the most jaded of festival goers will be pleased: “It’s a layout that hasn’t been used for a festival before, and we think everyone will really love it.”

HEADING TO THE REGIONALS

Of the 15 acts given funding by the Federal Government’s Contemporary Music Touring Program to tour regional areas, five were from NSW. Sydney band Gay Paris got $15,000 for a seventeen-gig six-week national tour. Springwood-based sound art and environmentalists SoundCircus do 28 performances and some workshops over three weeks in as many states. Newcastle rootsrockers Benjalu received $14,680 for a fifteenweek tour to launch their album. $9,840 went to a fifteen-gig and thirteen-workshop national run in July and August by Rasa Duende, a collaboration between Bobby Singh (tabla), Adrian McNeil (sarod) and Damian Wright (guitar) to bring together Indian classical and folk music with flamenco. Katoomba blues/ rock songwriter Claude Hay got $8,840 for 32 shows over eight weeks to launch his album.

TRIPLE M PRANKS PRINCE

Triple M Melbourne’s The Hot Breakfast show scored a live “interview” with the archly media-shy Prince. His dancer Damaris Lewis, whom they were interviewing in the studio, got them past the hotel switchboard with her insider’s knowledge of the pseudonym he booked under, and woke him up. Prince wasn’t the most coherent (well, it was 8.25am) but then again, neither were the questions. He humoured them along, about his Australian tour (“my favourite tour to date”), his secret 2am two-hour club show at Bennetts Lane in front of 70 people (“I read in the paper that I played last night”), and we heard he had a cold, doesn’t drink, and doesn’t believe in UFOs. After six and a half minutes, he hung up and returned to sleep. A night later, he caused chaos on Melbourne’s major thoroughfare Swanston Street, when 5,000 fans descended on the 650-capacity

Hi-Fi Bar after Tweets suggested he and the band would perform at his after-party. The crowd spilled over a few blocks before Prince arrived at 2.30am – punters became drunk and obnoxious, cops arrived, and Prince never played, citing intimidation. Everyone left at 5am, feeling more than a little duped.

KIMBRA DEBUTS AT #14 IN THE USA

Following hard touring and a TV slot, an interesting and accomplished debut album that saw her acclaimed as “the new Björk”, and of course her vocals on ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’, Kimbra’s Vows album crashed into the US charts at #14. We spoke to her in New York on the day to pass on our congratulations. “I haven’t even had time to open up a bottle of champagne,” she said.

“It’s all work, work, work.” That night she was on a bus to Columbus as part of the huge Foster The People tour, which runs until the end of June. Then she goes to Europe for more dates, returns to the US for her own headline tour, and returns to Europe at the end of the year.

WANNA PLAY PEATS RIDGE?

Artists from around the country have until Thursday August 2 to apply to perform at the Peats Ridge Sustainable Arts and Music Festival, which is being held from December 29 to January 1, 2013; go to peatsridgefestival. com.au. Last year, the festival drew 1,000 applications. New acts like Husky, Oliver Tank and New Navy played alongside Gotye and Xavier Rudd to 10,000 people, while a further 200,000 watched it streamed for the first time on YouTube. Festival director Matt Grant says, “We’ve clocked up nearly 700,000 views on YouTube in six months. It means a lot that we can offer this extra amount of exposure to our bands.” The Holidays, he adds, received over 84,000 views of their performance. “You’d have to fill a big stadium to get those sorts of audiences normally.”

Lifelines Married: Aimee Nash of The Black Ryder (and one time EMI Music Australia executive) and The Cult’s Ian Astbury, in America.

Dating: Rihanna and basketball ace and bad boy J.R. Smith.

Expecting: Brooke McClymont of Aussie country act The McClymonts and husband singer-songwriter and Australian Idol 2009 semi-finalist, Adam Eckersley.

Born: Daughter Mimi Malone to Kasabian singer Tom Meighan and girlfriend Kim. Ill: Lana Del Ray cancelled two gigs in Japan due to exhaustion.

Died: US folk legend Doc Watson, 89, in a North Carolina hospital following a fall and colon surgery.

Blind since the age of one, he became one of the fastest flat pickers after picking fiddle parts on records on his guitar.

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visit www.wayjo.com for more info BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 15

When Anxiety Attacks

By Alasdair Duncan

P

ip Brown would like you to know that she’s feeling alright. People have been inquiring about this a lot lately – ever since the New Zealand singer, otherwise known as Ladyhawke, revealed that she had chosen the album title Anxiety as a reflection of her own state of mind. Some chose to interpret the title as a cry for help, but she tells me that this was definitely not the case. “I have quite bad anxiety and everyone around me knows it, to the point where it’s accepted that it’s just the way I am,” she says. “It actually became a running joke in the lead-up to this album. The label kept calling me, asking what the album title was going to be, so finally I said, ‘It’s going to be called Anxiety, okay?

Get off my back!’ I said that as a bit of a joke, but I realised I actually really liked it. I didn’t realise the effect it would have until much later – people are on the phone to me all concerned asking, ‘Are you okay?’” she says with a cheeky laugh. “I’m just thinking, ‘Ohh shit, what have you done?’”

When you hear Anxiety for the first time, you may be surprised – the vocals are still as beguiling and the hooks just as effortlessly catchy as on Ladyhawke’s 2008 self-titled debut, but the synths, a key element of that album’s sound, have been replaced by guitars.

Brown says that the switch largely comes down to the two years she spent touring her debut, and the attachment she developed to her guitar throughout that time. “I did an awful lot of touring after the first album came out, and all the travelling really takes it out of you,” she

“I disappeared a little too far down the second album hole. It’s a concept I wasn’t even that aware of, but I kept dwelling on it until it turned out to be true.”

says. “You start to feel like a ghost. I found that I loved having my guitar on stage with me. It’s almost like a security blanket, something I can hold on to. I decided I wanted there to be more guitar for me to play on the second album, and more pedals for me to push, so I made sure it happened like that.”

The blissfully fuzzed-out sound of Anxiety is a result of Brown’s new-found love of effects pedals. “I wouldn’t say I have a huge collection or anything like that,” she says, “but when making the album, I became really obsessed with pedals and what they can do.” Going into the studio, Brown was determined to get her hands on a Big Muff pedal, of the kind Mudhoney famously used. “I went on eBay and got my hands on one, but [it’s] from the ‘70s – and it’s just far too precious to play live!

I can use it in the studio, but I can’t take it on the road with me for fear of it breaking.” So she bought a backup pedal for touring, a slightly smaller ‘80s model that’s not as prone to breaking – although it will doubtless be getting a workout in the months to come. There’s a lot of touring on Ladyhawke’s agenda. “Well, I just finished a three-week tour of the UK on Friday, and now I’m doing the big build-up before the album comes out, interviews and photo shoots and all that kind of stuff – and then I’m coming back down to

Australia! I was just saying to my tour manager that I really feel like me and my band have been spoilt by Australian crowds. They’re just so rowdy, they’re a really good audience to play to,” she says. “I take every opportunity I can get to come to Australia, I really look forward to coming back. After that, I’m off to the States, then to the UK and Europe – so yes, it’s turning into a busy year for me.”

It’s impossible to predict the future of course, but Brown reckons that the third Ladyhawke album will come a lot more easily than the second. “From the minute that Anxiety was finished, I could feel in my bones that the third one would be easier,” she says. “It may not be easier in the sense of songwriting, but I just feel like it’s not going to be as stressful. I really needed to take time off after the first album, because I did so much touring for so long that it got to be really intense. I needed to take time off after that, and I think I disappeared a little too far down the second album hole, and took too much notice of what people were saying to me. People kept asking about the Difficult Second Album, which is a concept I wasn’t even that aware of, but I kept dwelling on it until it turned out to be true. I don’t know – I

mean, I may regret saying this, because the third album may prove to be impossible. But I hope not.”

I’ve heard Pip Brown is a collector of oldschool video-game consoles, and can’t help but ask if it’s true. “That is true,” she says.

“I’ve been obsessed with games since I was a little kid.” Taking the opportunity to revel in a shared nerdish delight, I ask what some of her favourites are. “Well, with me at the moment I have a Nintendo Super Scope, still in its box.

The cartridge that comes with it is six games you can use the Super Scope with. I have a couple of Sega Master Systems at home, and an original NES in its box, packaged up with Super Mario Brothers. I have a Mega Drive and a Nintendo 64, a SNES… so much stuff.

Lots of the guns in their boxes, and heaps of games. I get really into collecting them – it gets ridiculous.” Right now, her sights are set on obtaining a Vectrex console, a relic of the early ‘80s. “I really want one of those, but they’re impossible to find – and if you did find it, it would never be in its box. It came with these funny acetate things you had to slot in the front, and the problem is they tend to split and crack.

I’m trying to find one in good condition, but it’s really hard.” I promise her I’ll put this in my article, and she squeals with delight. “I’d love that! I want one of those so badly!”

With all pretence of music talk out the window now, I ask Brown if she keeps her toys in their boxes, or takes them out and plays. “Oh yeah,” she says, “not yet, but as soon as I get my gaming room set up in my house, that shit is coming out of its box and I’m going to play!

I’m really excited about this room I’m going to make...” By this point, I’m excited too – and all I really want to do is fly to New Zealand and play Duck Hunt with Ladyhawke for the rest of my life.

What: Anxiety is out now on Modular/ Universal Where: The Metro Theatre When: Wednesday July 18 Xxxx

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The Hives Sweating It Out By Lee Hutchison

G

oing into this chat I’m more nervous than usual; watch enough YouTube interviews and it quickly becomes clear that the comfort of the media is not a top priority for The Hives. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact source of each journalist’s unease, but common themes involve the band giving very short and direct answers, clashes of humour (or moreover, the interviewer’s inability to identify the band’s uniquely Swedish strain of sarcasm), and the fact that awkward laughter either doesn’t translate or hasn’t yet made its way to Scandinavia.

When the call comes through, it only gets worse. The phone connection sounds like a swarm of killer bees before anyone even opens their mouths, and the guitarists on the other end have voices so deep they could attract whales. No matter how good you think you are at understanding foreign accents, throw in the first two points and your confidence is quickly shattered.

But if nothing else, all this chaos feels very rock‘n’roll. The guys are on the interview circuit in support of their fifth studio album, Lex Hives – according to the band’s press release, the title was derived from the ancient Roman practice of enacting a system or body of laws, and accepting them as standard. I start by asking how this concept relates to The Hives at this point in their career.

“We always made rules for ourselves, from the very beginning of the band,” Nicholaus Arson answers. “If something didn’t sound cool enough, it would be banned. Anything that would be considered okay in The Hives’ universe was accepted and put to use.” With that in mind, is there much conflict when it comes to their music-making process? “Yeah of course – we’re five people – but you fight for what you think is the right way to go,” Vigilante Carlstroem says. “And usually we have the same opinions.”

The long five years between The Black And White Album and Lex Hives indicate a perfectionism in the band’s process. I ask Carlstroem if there’s any accuracy in that assumption. “We tour a lot – for at least two or three years – and we take such a long time to put the songs together and to be happy with what we do. So I guess that’s true in a way.”

And how exactly does the making of a record work in The Hives’ universe? “We never have finished songs lying around; we always have riffs or a drum beat or part of a song, and try and puzzle things together like a big Lego. Some of the riffs we have lying around for ten years before we can find a place for them in a song.”

The current release has previously been described by the band as the most ‘The Hives’ thing they’ve ever done: the album was completely self-produced and self-funded, and was released on their own label, Disques Hives. They moved away from Universal/Interscope, the major label home of their two previous releases – a decision that didn’t take much thought. “That was pretty easy,” Carlstroem says. “We had a two-record contract. For them to keep us on the label would have cost them too much money.

“We were recording in Josh Homme’s studio, and from there it was not a big step to ask if he wanted to record us. It felt more like buds hanging out, like,‘So what do we do now?

Play poker, go out for some more chilli, or record some music?’”

“This is the best way to do it – put it out yourself.

But in the past we always had someone to discuss things with,” he continues. “When you have a producer you always have someone to discuss the music with and, when recording an album, every song is millions and millions of decisions, like what mic to use, what guitar, etcetera. There are so many decisions, and after a year of recording you don’t know if it’s good or bad.” Arson chimes in with his take on it all: “With self-production, it’s less asking someone else what to do, and more asking someone in the band what to do.”

What: Lex Hives is out Friday June 8 on Disques Hives, through Dew Process

18 :: BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12

The Hives photo by Travis Schneider

So who provided the outside ear for this album?

“We talked it through ourselves, and we had friends dropping into the studio and we’d play a song and discuss it with them,” Vigilante says. One of these friends was fellow muso and Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, who produced some tracks for the deluxe version of Lex Hives. “We met at some festival,” Arson explains. “We’ve been running into him in all kinds of places since, have become friends, and we are fans of each other...

We were recording in his studio, and from there it was not a big step to ask if he wanted to record us.

I can’t remember if that was how it happened, as it felt more like buds hangin’ out, like, ‘So what do we do now? Play poker, go out for some more chilli, or record some music?’” As I round up the interview, I breathe a sigh of relief: I didn’t once have to resort to my fall-back questions about herring and IKEA...

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modularpeople.com BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 19

Elizabeth Rose Ready To Go By Laurence Rosier Staines

A

reversed, pitched down and looped. When I first wrote it I used the original sample, but it was too risky to use that, so I sang it myself and sampled my own voice.”

t the age of 21, Elizabeth Rose has already been jilted

by Baz Luhrmann.

“His office contacted me through triple j,” she says. “He wanted me to do a DJ set at his private house party for The Great Gatsby – but I couldn’t do it! Then they wanted me to write music for the film, in the same style as my song ‘Throw Me To The Stars’, so I got to go on the set. They didn’t pursue the song, but I turned up and saw them shoot a scene in the Gatsby house. It was so cool!”

Rose took it in her stride – anyone watching the electronic pop producer would know that it’s only the first rattle from a schedule that is going to become very in-demand over the next few months. In the half-year since her sudden rise to prominence on the back of her club-bangin’ first single ‘Never Fear’ (a collaboration with Dr Don Don), she’s played at Parklife, Harvest, Peats Ridge and Field Day, and opened for Chairlift and Snakadaktal. Still working a day job in a Sydney fashion store, she’s finding it all a bit surreal. “At Harvest, I played on one of the big stages. It was early, but I didn’t care,” Rose enthuses. “Being backstage, walking past Sly & The Family Stone, and watching Portishead… It was such a good vibe.

“But Chairlift was definitely my favourite support slot,” she continues. “I’ve been a big fan for a couple of years now, and when I heard they were touring I really wanted to do it, and my booking agent made it happen somehow! You always think big bands are snobby and don’t really want anything to do with the supports, but they were so sweet and down-to-earth … and they like my music! They Tweeted back at me when I announced my headline tour.” While equally down-to-earth, Rose seems positively giddy, and is clearly ready to make the most of her increasing renown.

Rose’s career was in many ways kickstarted by triple j, who sunk their talons into her propulsive, hook-laden and eclectic sound the moment that they heard it. “I uploaded the demo ‘Electric Wind’ to Unearthed, and it somehow got a whole lot of attention, so I got excited and thought, ‘Hey, I could do some more!’ They played it on-air, I uploaded more demos, got reviews from the presenters… Yeah, a lot of good things have come to me through triple j Unearthed.” This first national tour began with Adelaide and Melbourne a few weeks back, and quickly got on track – after an inauspicious opening. “Adelaide was a bit strange, I’m not gonna lie,” she confesses.

“I’ve been battling a cold for the last week and there wasn’t that good of a turnout at Adelaide … but Melbourne was good. There were people there who had seen me at the Chairlift support show, and it was so great to play again to some of the same people.”

Prior to recording her first few tracks on Ableton, Rose’s musical endeavours followed the experimental zigzag that still characterises her music. “As a kid I’d write little pop tunes on the

keyboard. Quite lame. But I continued it throughout primary school and high school, played drums in a jazz band, then got onto the acoustic guitar in high school, did some gigs – got over that,” she laughs. “But I used to record myself in Garageband in high school, and that’s how I got into recording and mixing.”

These days, she finds it hard to pin down any particular influences; instead, her sound is a mélange of everything that interests her.

“I do like to go for an alternative melody or lyric though,” she tells me, “something a bit unique. I listen to a lot of Björk and The Knife, and I’m obsessed with Simian Mobile Disco’s new album [Unpatterns], to give you an idea.” The irresistible vocal sample in ‘Ready’ – Rose’s high-octane new single – typifies the adventurousness of her approach.

And if it seems oddly familiar, try listening to it backwards: “It’s me singing the chorus hook of ‘Lollipop’ by The Claudettes, which I

In addition to the national tour, and plans to release her debut EP this year, she has also been busy remixing the work of others.

“I really liked doing the ‘Foreign Language’ remix [for Flight Facilities],” she says. “I did it for fun, for one of the Bang Gang guys’ friends, and I sent it back to the guy and he forwarded it to the boys and they loved it!

I didn’t expect it to be released. There was no pressure around that, so I tried to take it as far as I could.” As spare time inevitably becomes rarer in the next few months, which artists would she like to work with in the near future? “I’ve been speaking to Wally [De Backer, aka Gotye], and we might do a collaboration at some point. I’d really like that to happen. But in terms of less realistic... I’ve actually emailed every possible email address connected to Simian Mobile Disco,” she laughs. “They haven’t replied.”

“I do like to go for an alternative melody or lyric, something a bit unique. I listen to a lot of Björk and The Knife...”

What: ‘Ready’ is out now Where: The Standard When: Friday June 8

The Jezabels The Long Road By Krissi Weiss

H

ayley Mary, the singer and the face of Sydney’s The Jezabels, has just arrived in Seattle and is settling in for a rare day off when we talk. At just 25 years of age, she is weary from travel and repetitive interviews but still incredibly warm, and exhibits a confusion over why anyone would be interested in her that’s both self-effacing and charming. She is shocked that she is morphing, slowly, into a bona fide rock star; the personification of a band that began at the University of Sydney as a four-part democracy of simple music making.

“It does play out in this band that I am becoming a focus, and how to deal with that has been on our minds a lot,” Mary admits. “I think we do a pretty good job of being equal and pushing the idea that we’re a true band.

It’s kind of like tradition in music I guess – you can’t change tradition – and to an extent this was always my dream,” she continues, before a slight backtrack: “Actually, I never dreamed of being in such a great band. Part [of dealing with the attention] is ignoring it, part is to accept it and part of it is to enjoy it. I guess in some ways I am the more outgoing member with regard to the music; the others are purists who kind of resent having to have an image and do interviews and media. They just want to play.”

The Jezabels began their voyage via the obligatory indie music apprenticeship of triple j Unearthed recognition followed by radio play, which lead to a steady increase in their

“I am the more outgoing member with regard to the music; the others are purists who kind of resent having to have an image and do interviews and media.

They just want to play.”

20 :: BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12

audience size and slow steps up the festival ladder, from opening slots to main stage attractions. After the huge success of 2010’s Dark Storm EP, it was last year’s appearance at SXSW that set the international industry buzzing. Mary admits that while they aren’t playing Gotye-sized gigs on their US tour yet, interest is growing and their international audience is as well. Meanwhile back home, their imminent tour has set them up for a huge jump in venue size – although Mary tries not to think too much about that... “Because we’ve been touring Canada and the States for months now, it’s very real – it’s not very glorious here,” she laughs. “We get up every day, early, and jump in the van and that’s it.

I’m not acknowledging what is happening in Australia. It’s like another world and I think that I might freak out when I get there. I guess I am secretly looking forward to it too, because it’s like the rainbow, metaphorically – playing in front of your local audience in those places.”

More than anything though, Mary is surprised at her fans’ – and therefore the media’s – interest in her as a person. “When I have a regular conversation with someone like you and I am suddenly talking about these emotions, I think I have to stop talking about myself – I’m boring,” she says genuinely. “I don’t understand why people care about these things, about me – it’s just so weird.”

What Mary doesn’t seem to realise is that her modest, unassuming persona is a big part of why people find her so appealing and intriguing as a frontperson. But creative achievement always seems altered when experienced from the inside, and Mary is aware that success and happiness do not always align. “Success is built on capitalism, and that is ongoing,” she says. “There is always another market and another venue and another thing you need to be successful, so you always look forward and never enjoy where you are. A tour manager once said to me that he doesn’t understand why bands are never happy with where they are, but that’s because when it is being experienced, it is just your everyday. We get to do the things that people describe in their everyday as exciting, [but] when that becomes your everyday, it is no longer exciting. Which is sad.”

But The Jezabels are young and touring is still exciting, even with the early starts. There are no family commitments getting in the way at this stage, but no matter what phase of life an artist is in, fame and distance can take their toll. “Whether it’s romantic, personal or family relationships, I think it is the Internet that keeps them going,” she says. “It’s not the same as being there, but it helps. I have no idea how people did it back in the day. Actually, I understand how people became assholes and slept with a heap of women, because it’s pretty lonely. You change as well, and when you come back people have changed too, and sometimes that means that things can’t be what they were. You just accept that what you’re doing

is a choice – and if I felt like it wasn’t a choice and I was sacrificing relationships, well, I’d stop it.”

So what’s next for The Jezabels, after this mammoth Australian tour? “Towards the end of the year, after the European and American festivals, we plan on writing the new album,” Mary tells me. “We don’t have a date yet, but it will be out sometime next year. It’s mostly more and more touring at this point though,” she laughs. “That’s all we do these days.”

With: Lights (CAN) Where: Hordern Pavilion When: Saturday June 9

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BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 21

Graveyard Train Dancing With Death By Krissi Weiss

“T

he concept of the band came before the band itself,” singer Nick Finch says. I’ve asked whether his infamous horror/country/chain-gang collective Graveyard Train have become more concept-focused than intended. “The idea was to have a countryhorror band with a whole bunch of guys making a whole bunch of noise on stage and singing songs about death and stuff. It has really developed a lot since then; we were a lot more country in the early days, but we are not really now.” The band are getting set to launch their new album Hollows, a dark and rollicking eleven tracks of minor chords and morbid lyrics. “I wonder if fans are going to like this,” he says. “It’s a long way from where it started.”

Graveyard Train appear to take their lyrical content and on-stage personas to the level of caricature, and Finch is aware that they are often swerving between humour and outright despair. “It’s always a bit of a fine line,” he laughs – and, in fact, he laughs a lot, which is surprising given the topics we discuss. “This album is about death and the horror of the human condition, if you wanna be highbrow about it. On our last record, the themes have always been serious but with comedic overtones – kind of schlocky things. On this album we haven’t really done that. I like to write about dark things, but I don’t want people

killing themselves while listening to the record.”

Finch admits that the inevitability of death is a constant burden of thought for him. “I’m quite a happy man and I have a really great life, but I love the sound of songs in minor chords,” he explains. “But yes, I am concerned with death.

It’s a genuinely horrible concern that bugs me.

The songs that I write are about the fact that we’re going to die, this is all going to go and everyone who has ever known you or thought about you will be gone as well, and your life will round off to never having happened.” Is music, then, some way of creating immortality?

“Maybe that’s why I write music, so I can stick around,” he laughs. As we discuss his concern for the human race in general, I suggest that if the destruction of our species occurs, no amount of cultural notoriety will matter without anyone here to remember it... “Yeah, you’re right, it’ll be all gone,” he says, growing distant for a brief moment before returning with another laugh: “I think we’re working on my next album right now!”

If the concept of Graveyard Train is more than just character work for Finch, is the process of writing about his existential concerns cathartic in any way? “It’s fun telling people that they’re all going to die and that they have no soul,” he says. “It’s not cathartic, but it’s fun – and

if we’re all going to die we might as well have fun.”

As we finish up, I’m compelled to ask Finch whether he truly believes we have no souls. “I do, yeah,” he says with resignation. “As much as my Catholic mum would shudder to think.

It would be really nice [if we did] – I want to

be proved wrong... But at least we have soul music.”

What: Hollow is out now through Spooky Records Where: The Metro Theatre When: Friday June 15

GROUP Name Droppers By Benjamin Cooper

H

ere is a band that knows no name – and as frustrating as that may be for music journalists and fans alike, they’ve got a damn good reason. “I want whatever happens with this group to be representative of it,” guitarist James Manson says. “There’s a whole bunch of really terrible bands out there that have great names, and a lot of people get sucked in by that. We’ll stand on our own, with our music.”

In the interests of clarity, the Sydneysiders call themselves GROUP – and they play blues. Not derivative, occasionally bluesinflected guitar pop; these are real tunes that wallow down in the filth, or up in the warehouse rafters’ dust. They came into existence after Manson and ex-Commons bartender Collin Elphick started Charlies some six months ago in an attic over a Crown Street bar, because they were sick of hearing whiney music. The venue played host to whiskey, vinyl and weekly blues jams with a house band comprised of Manson, Daniel May (organs), Brendan Clark (bass) and Nick Meredith (drums). It was the perfect recipe for some genuine fun, and when word spread it became apparent that the beast needed to roam, and to satisfy Sydney’s desire for something nasty and real.

Rather than join the well-weathered pub circuit, the band built up their already impressive live chops by gigging relentlessly in the underground warehouse scene. “We’ve been playing three or four shows a week and remained fairly anonymous – which is rare, but just how we like it. There have been some intense warehouse parties, including one earlier this year in Chinatown where 1500 people turned up and we played for three hours straight,” Manson laughs. “Madness, complete madness.”

An essential addition to the juggernaut was that of frontman Jesse Redwing. “I was in this

tiny blues bar in Glebe and I heard this voice howling down the hall,” Manson remembers, slightly wistfully. “I just knew I had to hear more of it, and I convinced him to listen to some records with me after the bar closed.

Before long we were playing blues duo gigs, and then we got him in the fold of the band.

There’s not many people you meet who are born to be a frontman, but as soon as the five of us started jamming there was this completely different sense of chemistry. It was on.”

The four instrumentalists have been working towards this band for some time, with their mix of backgrounds tied together by a common thread. “We all come from a more formalised jazz-school environment, where we were studying but also playing in more rock-style bands,” says Manson. “Playing in those kinds of bands is enjoyable, but you don’t really get to use a lot of the skills from the formal training you’ve received.” At the suggestion that blues is the last place for formalities, the guitarist explains himself: “I guess for us, as cheesy as it sounds, the blues means we can stop ignoring a whole bunch of our skills and be more comfortable.

We might be using three chords or we might be using more – we’re on common ground, though, in how expressive we want to be. We don’t have to pull every trick out of the bag, because the blues feels like home.”

With an upcoming Saturday night residency at Oxford Art Factory, where they’ll record their free debut EP live over two consecutive nights, GROUP are about to burst out of the cobwebs and into the city. Here’s hoping Sydney’s ready for ‘em.

What: The Blues Tape EP will be out June 19 Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Every Saturday in June, from 11pm

The Delta Riggs Mountain Music By Benjamin Cooper espite not playing in the rhythm section, timing is paramount to Elliott Hammond.

“You have actually caught me at the perfect moment,” the frontman of Melbourne’s The Delta Riggs explains. “I’ve just dropped my mustard three-piece suit in at the drycleaner, so I’m standing on the street waiting for something to do.”

D

us. We nodded hello and then just kept driving this tune. Meanwhile, another ute-load of locals showed up to hear these weird punks from the city, drank a bunch of beers and then left after a couple of hours. At one point we caught ourselves laughing hysterically, but we couldn’t stop because we just felt like we had to drive this track into the dirt.”

Hammond hardly needs direction. ‘The Riggs’, as they’re affectionately known to fans, have just come off a massive East Coast tour with fellow Victorians Stonefield, barely pausing for breath before they spend June on the road again in support of their new EP, Talupo Mountain Music Vol. II. According to Hammond, the Stonefield co-tour was a lot of fun. “We were filling up venues, which is probably due to the support we’ve been getting from triple j,” he says. “When you’re getting a lot of love from the room it really brings out your confidence – by the end of the tour we were all sitting around drinking Jamesons whiskey and discussing how it feels like such a long time ago that we were a psychedelic jam band.”

When he isn’t busy with The Riggs, Hammond plays keys in a little band called Wolfmother.

“I’ve been trying to juggle both [bands], and for some reason it’s working out at the moment.

Wolfmother just finished a tour supporting Lenny Kravitz, which was crazy because he’s actually a huge music encyclopedia. One morning we’re talking about Betty Davis when he noticed I was wearing this Black Flag shirt that has a pocket on the front. So he starts jumping around, trying to rip the pocket off because he realised it was an original from when he grew up listening to the band!”

The band has clearly progressed since the release of the Talupo Mountain Music Vol. I in June last year, and Vol. II enjoyed a feverish reception in its first two weeks. Both were the result of an extended recording session in the bush near Peats Ridge, which apparently took the band on one heck of a ride... “Shit got pretty weird out there,” Hammond says. “We were trying to rebel against all the radio play and exposure we’d been getting, so we’d jam for hours and nothing would be achieved... I remember all of us crawling around this field of orange trees on acid when we decided to go back to the house. We got stuck into this dark blues tune and this kid from a nearby farm rocked around with some avocados for

Backstage is one thing; on stage is quite the other. And according to Hammond, the audience can make or break the show. “It’s amazing what crowds will let you say,” he laughs. “Sometimes we feel like we’re the only people keeping that punk energy alive, because all these other bands are smiling way too much. But you can’t get too negative: we played on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland and were just getting assaulted by these cavemen. So I gave them a spray, basically told them we wouldn’t have bothered driving three hours to get there if we’d known it’d be a room full of such boring shits...”

What: Talupo Mountain Music Vol. II EP is out now through Inertia Where: FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel When: Friday June 8

“Great conversation Smother it on me Journey my soul over town” - THE JEZABELS 22 :: BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12

NIQUE

SYDNEY

OPENING

JUNE

2012

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483

CROWN

ST

SURRY

HILLS

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WWW.NIQUE.COM.AU

BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 23

arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

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

five minutes SAM BOWRING

C

hildren’s writer, fantasy novelist, playwright. This doesn’t’ sound like a comedian’s resume, but Sam Bowring is all of these things. Since braving stand-up at 16 he’s cut a swathe through Australia’s comedy scene via a dozen festivals, founding one of Australia’s best comedy rooms (the Mic In Hand), stints on triple j (when Adam and Wil were around), and TV writing on Rove (when Rove was around) and The Big Bite (when Chris Lilley was around). Sam has also found time to write a best-selling fantasy trilogy – and has just released his first kids’ book.

Tell us about your first gig. It was at the famous (at the time) (in Sydney) (amongst certain circles) Harold Park Hotel. It went quite well – to be honest I don’t remember being terrified, because I took the whole day (off school) to psych myself up. And there were certainly jokes that never went on to be re-told!

I mean, at that point, I don’t think I’d ever even seen a real stripper.

How did you get into writing fantasy? My father read me The Hobbit when I was small and impressionable, so I tend to blame him for setting me on the fantasy path. I sometimes wonder how things might have turned out differently if he had read me ‘Embroidery for Dummies’ instead.

What is your children’s book about? It’s called Sam The Cat and it’s the true story of

You ran Comics Out West, touring Western NSW from your home base of Bathurst’s Charles Sturt Uni – any horror stories from the road? Not really. We had this idea that people in tiny out-of-the-way places wouldn’t get our jokes, but in actuality they were really happy to have any entertainment out of the norm, and they also understood Bill Clinton references.

You were on the Australian episode of Last Comic Standing. Discuss. I was never happier not to be selected for something in my life. I remember one of the hack comic judges standing there going ‘we’ll pluck you out of this obscure backwater and give you a real career’, and I thought to myself, ‘fuck off mate’.

The titles in your trilogy have a neat word pattern – Prophecy’s Ruin, Destiny’s Rift, Soul’s Reckoning – how about a comedy trilogy? Hope’s Rise – Industry’s Reality – Obscurity’s Relentlessness.

To get your hands on one of five copies of Entertain Us! email us with your name, postal address, and the name of one awesome band from the ‘90s NOT mentioned above.

What: Never Not Funny feat. Sam Bowring, Zoe Coombs Marr, Michael Hing and 'more' Where: The Standard / Lvl 3, 383 Bourke St, Surry Hills (above Kinselas) When: Wednesday June 6, 8pm Tickets: $15 from wearethestandard.com.au and at the door

Craig!

Bill Bailey

GHOSTPATROL X MISO

Melbourne artists Ghostpatrol and Miso are up north this week, opening a collaborative show at Chalk Horse called Honey In The Rock, and featuring pieces that, per the catalogue notes, “play with the notion of physical and spiritual exploration as a means of discovering knowledge in another time.” We don’t understand what that means, but we can say that the ink-washed pieces are charming.

Opens Thursday June 7 from 6pm at Chalk Horse (8 Lacey Street, Surry Hills). blackartprojects.com.au

FRANKENSTEIN: LIVE!

National Theatre Live is bringing back an encore season of Danny Boyle’s London production of Frankenstein, starring Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch, with music by Underworld, and a set by BAFTA-winning production designer Mark Tildesley (who has done almost all Michael Winterbottom and Boyle’s films). National Theatre Live will broadcast four performances into Sydney cinemas on the weekends of June 9-10, and June 23-24: the first weekend featuring Miller as Frankenstein and Cumberbatch as ‘the Monster’, and the other with the roles reversed. Aces. Visit www.ntlive.info for participating cinemas.

RAGE

Rage are celebrating 25 years of entertaining your hungover self – with a little help from Vivid Sydney and CarriageWorks, who are hosting a massive installation/sculpture made out of 100or-so televisions (from across the '80s, '90s and ‘00s) forming the word ‘rage’, with each playing different film clips from a selection of 750 finest cuts. It’s only there for two weeks (June 6-17), by which point you will have successfully identified each film clip, have a severe case of square-eyes, and both you and the exhibition will have to leave the CarriageWorks foyer. So make the most of it while it lasts. carriageworks.com.au

QUEENS @ COOGEE

Coogee Bay Hotel are sticking it to the Queen this Jubilee Weekend with a celebration that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything royal or British. Instead, they’re bringing a little slice of NYC’s famously colourful burrow, Queens, to their bayside joint – with a little help from local graf artist Jeremy Hession, who will be live-painting a mural on one 24 :: BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12

wall of the Selina’s nightclub, and tunes by Ministry of Sound DJ Ben Morris and MC Losty. Apparently if you get there early, there’s even the chance to win free art-type swag…

Saturday June 9 from 8pm at Coogee Bay Hotel (253 Coogee Bay Road).

REMASTERED JAWS

Popcorn Taxi are on a retro run, with an upcoming lineup that includes Monty Python’s Holy Grail (with a python), the original (Paul Verhoeven) Total Recall (July 25 – in anticipation of the forthcoming remake) – and JAWS! The film that introduced the world to a be-spectacled film geek called Steven Spielberg, and effectively ruined the beach for a good 33% of us. If you’re reading The BRAG, the chances are you’ve never seen this on the big screen (unless you’re on of our hip over-50s readers – in which case, rock on), so you’ll be happy to hear it’s been remastered for your screaming/ laughing pleasure. See it August 15 at the retro-tastic Randwick Ritz – tickets are on sale (until they sell out, which they will) now from popcorntaxi.com.au

BILL BAILEY

Old mate with the most (hair, laffs, language and tunes) Bill Bailey is coming back to Australia, bringing 20-or-so-years-worth of stand-up experience, and the same loopy, convoluted conversational stylings you might remember from a little show called Black Books. His last show was about doubt, his upcoming one’s called Qualmpeddler – and besides containing his trademark mash-ups of music, stand-up, political rants and even a little animation, this one takes inspiration from a recent trip to China – which, if you stop and think about Manny in China, seems like a pretty good way to spend an evening; say, September 5? He’ll be at the State Theatre. Tickets on sale Friday June 8. abpresents.com.au

ART @ OPERA BAR

This Saturday head down to the Opera Bar where, besides the Luminous and Vivid LIVE lights bonanza (and the bar) you’ll be in close proximity to a massive digital canvas, being live-painted by local typographer and graf artist Roach (Go Font Ur Self). Meanwhile, on sound patrol, you’ll have local horn-heavy hip hop collective True Vibenation (Big Village), bringing a dose of energy that, given the event is presented by Red Bull, will probably have wings. Saturday June 9 from 9pm @ Opera Bar.

SALT

Head along to to The Village this Thursday after work for an evening of art, fashion, photography and music organised by new local collective Salt.

Besides free nibbles and cheap drinks, you can check out photography from the Voena collective, live video art by William Suen, threads by Royal Menace, and deep house from resident DJs Zyklus, Type – 1A (N.Y.), Dan What (Melb), Tom Wall, and Whitecat. Thursday June 7 from 8pm at The Village (1 Kellet Way, Kings Cross).

Ghostpatrol + Miso: Terraform Relocator 2012 – india ink on paper

Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch in Frankenstein

how, when I was born, I stole the name of the family cat.

triple j's cultural guru Craig Schuftan has done another book. It’s called Entertain Us!, and it’s an alternative history of alternative rock in the ‘90s that smashes together Gwen Stefani anecdotes and Theodor Adorno references with reckless abandon in its quest to understand the decade that brought us Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Nirvana, Beck, The Charlatans, nu metal and focaccias. We can’t all be as smart as Craig – but we can piggy-back off his success, by reading his books and shamelessly plundering them for devastatingly impressive pieces of party conversation, for the purposes of picking up babes. Craig would be okay with that.

Xxxx

WITH

CRAIG SCHUFTAN! ENTERTAIN US!

PROMETHEUS

Alien Returns

By Kelly Griffin most things I was watching at that time on television were Baywatch and Beverley Hills, so it really put a mark on me.”

What sets Rapace’s character apart from the other scientists on the expedition is that she believes in a creator and she desires to meet this maker, and her faith is the driving force for the trip to another galaxy.

In reality, Rapace says, “I don’t really believe in a God, but I know that whatever you decide to believe in, that will be your source of strength and power.

to be like the gods. (As a punishment, he was consigned to eternal disembowelment-by-eagle.)

Michael Fassbender (Shame), meanwhile, plays android David, who is in many ways the ideal human – although he has no ‘soul’.

On preparing for his role, the IrishGerman actor says he deliberately didn’t re-watch the Alien films, but found “an interesting quality” in Sean Young’s replicant ‘Rachael’, in Blade Runner, and HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The film also pays tribute to Erich von Däniken’s 1968 book Chariots Of The Gods?, which argues not only that we are not alone in the universe, but that another life force in the universe may have spawned us, and posits the idea of pre-visitation – that they’ve visited us too. When Scott first read Däniken’s book as a student, he says he was quite the cynic and didn’t believe the arguments being put forth.

Remembering his first encounter with Alien, Fassbender says, “It seems so probable and tangible that you sort of get sucked into that world.” Evoking the same ‘tangibility’ with Prometheus, Scott built entire sets rather than having his actors perform against green-screens.

“In those days, I didn’t really believe that stuff because it was all to do with sightings that were never really that well thought about, or images were reproduced in a grainy way – and because I was at art school at the time I could see how they made the pictures. Yet, when you look at the other stuff, which is the comparison of drawings, carvings, hieroglyphics, paintings on walls of ancient artefacts, the lines in the desert in Central America, which are very specific and something to be seen from above, and the pyramids pointing up…” the director trails off.

The other cast members include a barely recognisable Guy Pearce, who plays the 90-year-old head of Weyland Industries, and Charlize Theron – who was originally going to play Elizabeth Shaw, until a schedule clash with the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road made it impossible. “It was gut-wrenching,” she says. But after Rapace was cast in the lead, Scott offered Theron the smaller role of Meredith Vickers, a high-powered ‘suit’ at Weyland Industries whose motives are unclear.

“This is the kind of film where you think everything means something,” says Theron. “You’re watching it and you’re suspicious of everybody and everything, and I think that’s good.”

This probably won’t end well... Prometheus

“O

this giant fossilised creature with a punctured chest get to be in the pilot’s seat?

Originally intended as a prequel to Alien, the idea for Prometheus was born from the burning question posed (and left unanswered) by that film: What was the ‘space jockey’?

Where did it come from? And how did

Filmed in luscious 3D at Pinewood Studios and on location in Iceland, Prometheus follows the cosmic voyage of a team of scientists and Weyland Industries employees who believe they’ve found a clue – an

G IV EA W AY S

ur minds are really closed off if we really think we are alone in this galaxy; f*#k off – you’ve got to be kidding!” That’s Sir Ridley Scott talking, the 74-yearsyoung director who defined modernday science fiction with the epochal films Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982). Three decades later, he returns to the genre he helped define with a new ‘highbrow’ blockbuster, Prometheus.

Four years and several drafts later (with the final script written by Lost screenwriter Damon Lindelof), Prometheus isn’t exactly a prequel to Alien, but it does take place in the same universe 30 years earlier, and the events in the film may shed some new glimmers of light on the seminal sci-fi.

invitation, if you will – to unlocking mankind’s most fundamental question: Where did we come from? Who made us?

Playing the lead character, archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw, is Noomi Rapace, best known from the Swedish adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. While Rapace was born the year Alien came out, the film – in particular the lead character played by Sigourney Weaver – had a profound impact on her. “It felt like a mind-reality opened up, because I saw a woman who was not posing, was not trying to be sexy and not trying to be charming. She was a person in a situation – and that was really a revolution for me, because

Charlize Theron

In fact the film is deliberately ambiguous in places, and it seems to open up more questions than it answers – which, un-coincidentally, seems to parallel Scott’s view on scientific advancements and discoveries. “As science clarifies things, it’s like removing veils – the horizon gets clearer,” he says. “You get to the horizon and you think that you’re there, and then you get to another horizon and you see that there’s another horizon filled with valleys. It’s a constant process of discovering, so while you are learning in quantum leaps you are also uncovering much bigger questions. So when does it stop?”

The film’s title doubles as the name of the spaceship, but also alludes to the Greek Titan Prometheus, who dared to defy the gods by giving man the latest technology of that time – fire – and thereby offering him the chance

“People have pooh-poohed it for so long that no-one has actually sat down and said ‘You know what, we should actually take this seriously.” Scott points out that even Stephen Hawking believes there are other life forms in the universe, and has said that he hopes they don’t visit Earth because he believes they’ll be more capable than us.

Besides believing in aliens, Scott – perhaps echoing the ideas of his faithdriven scientist protagonist – puts forth the view that as science becomes more sophisticated the irony seems to be that it approaches the question even more of: Is there a God? “I’ve had twelve NASA scientists sit at a table, and I say ‘Who believes in God?’ and about four of them out of nine say ‘I do’ because they get to a point where there’s no answer, they can’t break through, and they start to think about the creation beyond that.”

As he leaves, Scott turns and says, “You’ve got to open up your mind.”

What: Prometheus When: Opens June 7 / Prerelease screenings on June 6 at Dendy, Palace, Hoyts and Event cinemas.

ANCHORMAN-APALOOZA! WINNING! W

B

ecause no-one can reasonably be expected to hold out howeverlong for that Anchorman sequel, Sydney Retro Cinema (the dudes who brought us that Lebowski shindig) 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 classs… If this sounds like your two-fingers-of-scotch, head along to Randwick Ritz on June 15 with your shirt open and your socks up. sydneyretrocinema.com.au

IN!

And if you like your classy cheap like a polyester suit, we have two double-passes up for grabs; to get your hands on one, email freestuff@thebrag.com with the name of the comedian who plays Rob Burgundy…

BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 25

David Lyons and Emma Booth star in Swerve

Ron White [COMEDY] Work Hard Laugh Hard By Roslyn Helper

R

on White, the cigar-smoking, scotchdrinking Texan with a rough voice and a rougher sense of humour, has worked his way to the top of the comedy food chain, a long way away from where he started 26 years ago. “At one point I was doing a lot of work for one chain of comedy clubs, and they realised I didn’t have anywhere else to work, so they decided to cut my pay by a third and take away my airfare,” he recalls.

“So basically I told them to go eat a steaming bowl of fuck.”

Ron White

Swerve A

“I spent the last few years bringing up a couple of boys, and only recently arrived at the point where I was able to start thinking about making another film,” Lahiff tells me. “It is quite difficult to raise money for films these days, and also to find a local distributor who’s game to release a film theatrically. We don’t have many local distributors, and if you want to make a genre film, it’s even more difficult to find someone to release it.” He persevered nonetheless, believing in his story, and the result is one of the most intriguing locallymade films of the year.

“I wanted to do something which was fun for me to make, and fun for an audience,” says Lahiff. “Something that ran at a great pace like a runaway train and had lots of twists, had suspense and action and had a good plot.” Rather than just do a straight action film, though, Lahiff wanted to do something with the feel of a film noir. “I guess a lot of John Dahl’s films were influential on me,” he says. “Red Rock West and Kill Me Again.

Then there are the Coen brothers’ films, especially Blood Simple. I like that mix of suspense and humour. Visually, Hitchcock is a big influence. I like to use a lot of wideangled lenses, which is something that comes from Welles, who used a lot of those.

I like this idea of figures in a landscape.”

Born in a tiny dirt-road town called Fritch, in Northern Texas, White says his first experience of comedy was an old Andy Griffiths comedy record his parents had, called What It Was, Was Football. “I used to listen to it all the time as a kid,” he says. “I used to like to listen to people laugh on the album, and because that album was always playing, somebody bought me a Bob Newhart album, and then I just started collecting them and I would buy anything that came out. They all had an influence on me.”

White struggled through school, and says he was a wreck before he started doing comedy. “I was an odd kid; I had learning disabilities and I couldn’t perform in school like most kids can, so I probably had a fairly low opinion of myself.

I didn’t graduate from high school – but it turns out I’m smart. You just can’t prove it on paper.”

[FILM] Beauty And Brutality By Alasdair Duncan

young man driving down a remote highway happens across a gruesome car wreck; he finds a dead guy, a frightened young woman, and a suitcase full of cash. This is the set-up for Swerve, a tense, noir-ish thriller set in an isolated outback town, and the first feature in close to a decade from Aussie filmmaker Craig Lahiff.

White promptly moved to Mexico with his thengirlfriend, and opened a pottery mosaic factory.

“But then this thing called the Blue Collar Comedy Tour happened, which is what made me really popular, and they couldn’t tolerate me living in Mexico. So they said, ‘You have to move back to the US if you want to do this.’”

Swerve plays up the contrast between the brutality of its characters and the beauty of its landscapes, with certain key scenes shot in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges. Getting the shots, Lahiff tells me, was a tricky business. “It was difficult getting everything right, because it’s such a big area,” he says. “We had to do a lot of pre-planning, choosing locations we could get to quickly. We had difficulties with the weather up there as well. On the last day of the shoot, we were doing the car chase sequence as a big dust storm rolled in; we had about half an hour left and we were really pushed to get the shot.” They finished just as the storm was rolling in. “You can see it in the background,” Lahiff laughs. “We finished just in time.”

It wasn’t until he was admitted to a drug rehabilitation program, as part of his parole, that White found his calling as a stand up comic. “I ended up going to work for them, being their primary public speaker. So I would go around to high schools and tell the story of my life (which was a big mess at the time), and I could make them laugh. It was just so much fun and nobody else could do it. And it just got funnier and funnier – until the principals of the schools started complaining that it was too funny.”

He has since channeled his addictive personality into a formidable work ethic, doing shows in 140 cities last year alone. “I work really hard. Usually 3-4 cities a week, and I’m moving every day. I have room in my show where I work on new stuff, I never take a break from writing – you really can’t do that. I mean I’ve always got little ideas I’m always trying to work out, and when I’m in LA I go to three to four comedy clubs a night, just doing ten minute sets, just working on new stuff, just like everybody else.”

Getting finance and distribution for a film in Australia is a tricky business, and it’s no surprise that this is Lahiff’s least favourite part of the process. “Sometimes, it’s dependant on who you cast,” he says. “If you can cast big names, it’s easier to get money. In this film, we had a wonderful cast – we had David Lyons and Emma Booth, and Jason Clarke, who is now doing some big things overseas.

At the time they had all done work, but they weren’t stars on the level of, say, Russell Crowe. If you can get some names in your film, it’s easier to attract finance, but it’s more fun often to work with people who are on the way up. You’ve got more latitude in how you make the film, rather than somebody who might be more opinionated on how they think the film should be made.”

Work hard, play hard – it seems to be the Ron White way. And at 55, he shows no signs of slowing down. “I still party pretty hard,” he admits, “but it’s all good. I got arrested for pot a couple years ago in Florida, but it helps all my [popularity] when something like that happens. I went to jail and was just really nice to the cops. I had two sold-out shows of people waiting for me and I knew that if I was nice they’d process me quick. Afterwards I sent them a bunch of pizzas.”

What: Swerve – Dir. Craig Lahiff When: Opens June 7 Where: Hoyts Cinema Paris; United Cinemas Avalon

What: Ron White – the Moral Compass Tour Where: Metro Theatre When: Saturday August 18 Tickets: ticketek.com.au

Emile Sherman [FILM] The Man Behind The King's Speech By Dee Jefferson

W

ith 12 years in the industry, 16 features (including Rabbit Proof Fence, Candy and Disgrace) and an Oscar under his belt (for The King’s Speech), producer Emile Sherman has emerged at the front end of 2012 as a key player not only in the Australian film industry but internationally.

See-Saw Films, the production company he co-founded and runs with Londoner Iain Canning, has just wrapped shooting on a six-part TV series helmed by Jane Campion (The Piano), and is in pre-production on the outback epic Tracks, starring Mia Wasikowska.

Meanwhile, their highly anticipated adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas' Dead Europe is about to screen in Official Competition at Sydney Film Festival, and the second production out of the See-Saw stable, Steve McQueen’s Shame, hits DVD this week.

Emile Sherman

26 :: BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12

An Arts/Law graduate with a Masters in English Literature, Sherman fell into filmmaking by chance. During a trip to Poland, he met and then decided to make a documentary about his 94-year-old great-great-uncle, who was living in Lithuania (“he wrote the Russian-Lithuanian dictionary and the Lithuanian-Yiddish dictionary, and his family perished in the holocaust,” Sherman explains), enlisting the help of his cousin, documentary filmmaker Rodney Freedman, as director – and co-producing it himself.

“And at the same time [while I was in Poland] a friend of mine, Barton Smith, who I did law with – his brother wanted to direct a movie, called Sample People. He said 'Come back [to Sydney] and let’s try to make this film, and raise some money.' I had no idea what producing was, so it was like learning on the run.”

12 years later, Sherman doesn’t feel like his lack of formal training has been a handicap (and an Oscar probably helps with that self-confidence).

He recalls with satisfaction a comment by British producer Nik Powell (Little Voice, The Crying Game), with whom he co-produced The Night We Called It A Day, that “the perfect training as a film producer is to do literature and law.” “I don’t know – ‘film producer’ is such a nebulous concept, in some ways” Sherman muses. “It involves so many different sorts of things, you can come at it from so many different angles; you can be good at some parts of it and not so good at others, and you just learn those... But it definitely combines a creative side, a physical production side, and a finance side.”

Sherman’s formative impressions of cinema came courtesy of his mother, a French academic, and his father, who took him to lots of arthouse foreign-language films from a young age. “I have this memory of watching [Chen Kaige’s] Yellow Earth – going to films like that, where it felt like you were going into this foreign

world; that’s probably where my heart lies – I’m more interested in telling unusual stories that have high personal and emotional stakes, rather than films that are just commercial stories-forthe-sake-of-stories. Also, films that are saying something about the world,” he adds. “Iain and I are always talking about that; sometimes when we read a script we’re like, ‘It’s a good script – it’s a good story; but what’s it actually saying?

What’s it grappling with thematically that we can get excited about, and that feels important?”

For Sherman, Shame – a study of sex addiction and loneliness in New York’s mecca of excess – is an example of an ideal arthouse project: a unique idea with an excellent team of talent (including Oscar-nominees Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan), that is so ‘desirable’ for local and international distributors that they’ll buy the rights to release it before the film has even been made. With these ingredients, Shame did extremely good ($20 million) arthouse business worldwide. “It was incredibly arthouse, but that made it a must-have film for arthouse distributors,” Sherman explains. “It’s important not to fall into the trap of thinking in terms of arthouse versus commercial; on Shame in particular, we really encouraged the film to be bolder, so that it would be more commercial in the arthouse cinemas.”

What: Shame is released on DVD on June 6

FESTIVAL STARTS THIS 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.

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL HUB @ LOWER TOWN HALL

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

Grab a drink at the bar and see live music, films, and DJs – FREE every night during the Festival.

ALPS

BULLY

BEING VENICE

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

AUSTRALIA FRI 15 JUN 7.15PM EV4 SUN 17 JUN 2.15PM EV8

In 2005, a young Australian named Ryan Chambers went missing in northern India; six years later, we follow his parents as they search for him one more time.

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

Sydney forms a brightly textured backdrop to this idiosyncratic fatherdaughter tale starring Alice McConnell and Garry McDonald. A touching and often humorous drama.

FOR ELLEN

HEADSHOT

L

POSTCARDS FROM THE ZOO

USA THU 7 JUN 8.45PM EV4 FRI 15 JUN 8.45PM EV9

THAILAND, FRANCE WED 13 JUN 9.15PM EV9 THU 14 JUN 8.15PM EV9

GREECE THU 7 JUN 8.30PM EV9 TUE 12 JUN 6.30PM DOQ2

INDONESIA, GERMANY, HONG KONG, CHINA WED 13 JUN 8.30PM DOQ2 SAT 16 JUN 11.45AM DOQ2

Paul Dano is a hapless wannabe rock star who agrees to divorce his estranged wife, but has regrets when he discovers he must forfeit custody rights to his six-year-old daughter.

Pen-ek Ratanaruang brings his trademark bravura to this reinvention of the hitman genre – a ‘Buddhist noir’.

A hitman disguised as a monk is shot in the head and awakens to a world turned upside down.

Drolly funny Greek ‘Weird Wave’ film about a driver, referred to as the Man, who lives and works in his car and spends all his time sourcing the finest honey for a narcoleptic – occasionally meeting his wife and children in a carpark.

Maverick Indonesian director Edwin creates a dreamlike world in this story about a girl raised in a zoo whose life changes when she meets a handsome cowboy with magical powers.

GREECE MON 11 JUN 2.10PM STATE WED 13 JUN 12.20PM EV4

The team behind Greek ‘Weird Wave’ films Dogtooth and Attenberg return with the absurd tale of a secret club whose members are paid to act as replacements for the recently deceased.

MISSING IN THE LAND OF THE GODS AUSTRALIA SUN 10 JUN 6.30PM EV9

INFINITE STORIES ONE FILM FESTIVAL 6 – 1 7 J U N E S F F. O R G . A U BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 27

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

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

Cameron Goodall and Helen Thompson on a table Under Milk Wood – Photographer: Heidrun Löhr © 2012

■ Theatre

UNDER MILK WOOD

art: live

PICS :: KC

Until July 7 / Drama Theatre, SOH

24:05:12 :: The Opera Bar :: Lower Concourse level, 92471666

Originally a radio play, Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood: A Play For Voices is a wash of lyrical language and colourful characters. A day-long snapshot of the small town Llareggub (read it backwards), Thomas’ poetry introduces us to the various characters of the town – the local drunks, the young lovers, the school teachers etc. Far from a well-made play with a three-act structure, Under Milk Wood is more of an amble through these people’s daily lives.

mca artbar

PICS :: RJ

Director Kip Williams has imbued the language landscape with some lush theatrical images, using the seemingly endless cast (11 in all, who play a total of 60 characters throughout) to create the play’s dreamlike state. The old ladies of the town shuffling in a line are a particular highlight, as are the ever-present windows of Robert Cousins’ stark set design.

25:05:12 :: Museum of Contemporary Art :: George St 92452400

Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

VIVID IDEAS / ROCK’S POP-UP

However, the core of this play is Thomas’ language, and while at times it sings, I found myself more often distanced from the stories being told. It was almost as if the poetry was treated too lyrically, so that the substance failed to cut through.

There was also the problem that recurs in many a dead man’s play: whenever a female character appears, she is inevitably either an old bag who hates her husband or a teen whore – which becomes rather tiresome.

I was left simply enjoying moments from actors that I love. Cameron Goodall yet again proved he only needs a line to draw you in, and Helen Thompson never fails to make you laugh with her amazing delivery. Paula Arundell brought both vulnerability and strength to her bundle of characters. However, even with these great performances, the play never really affected me emotionally, which it was obviously trying to do.

June 4-11 / The Rocks & the Museum Of Contemporary Art & Circular Quay

Henry Florence

The perfect confluence of music, arts, hobnobbing and fresh OJ occurs this week in the Rocks; so make a date to play hooky from work on either Tuesday June 5 or Friday June 8, and head to 27 Nurses Walk (just behind George Street) between 12.30pm and 2pm, for CATC Design School’s ‘Fresh OJ Station’ – yup, they’re dishing out free and fresh orange juice – we could tell you why, but all you need to know is it’s full of Vitamin C, and is the best form of addiction you can have. Then pop over to the Vivid Ideas Exchange Lounge (Lvl 6, MCA) for a coffee and a hobnob with creative types, followed by a spot of live music from 6pm, courtesy of the Places & Spaces crew (Ground Floor, 47 George St). vividsydney.com / therockspopup.tumblr.com

■ Film

28 :: BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12

GET THE GRINGO Released May 31 After a couple of ill-fated attempts to return to the screen (via the largely overlooked thriller Edge Of Darkness

and last year’s bizarre dramedy The Beaver) Mel Gibson is back to doing what he does best: kicking arse and taking names. The debut feature film by seasoned assistant-director Adrian Grunberg (who worked with Gibson on his 2006 epic Apocalypto) is a terse, noirish thriller that most obviously calls to mind Gibson’s last major action role, 1999’s Payback.

We’re dropped us right into the middle of the action with Gibson’s unnamed ‘Driver’ speeding toward the Mexican border with $4 million in cash and a mortally wounded accomplice in tow.

After a chase scene that establishes Get The Gringo’s gritty, ‘70s-throwback tone, Driver breaches the border fence and finds himself in the custody of a pair of corrupt Mexican police officers, who quickly abscond with his loot and toss him into El Pueblito, a heavily-populated prison where inmates are allowed to buy their families’ way in.

Despite being one of the only gringos in El Pueblito, Driver doesn’t exactly lay low, and quickly befriends a tough-talking nine-year-old (Kevin Hernandez) who has been marked as untouchable by crime lord Javi, owing to their shared blood type. See, Javi is going to need a new liver if he keeps drinking the way he does, and the kid (also known only as Kid) is his only shot at one. Like a profitmotivated Man With No Name, Driver wastes no time in playing Javi off against the cops who stole his ill-gotten funds and their unhinged American financial backer Frank (a louche Peter Stormare, chewing scenery as always), while also putting the moves on the Kid’s mother (Dolores Heredia).

Grunberg and cinematographer Benoît Debie (Irreversible, Enter The Void) make good use of the El Pueblito set, built in a recently abandoned prison in Veracruz, while maintaining a tense, claustrophobic feel throughout. Despite some strange edits and pervasive use of handheld cameras, the action sequences are well-staged, with a second-act gunfight recalling Sam Peckinpah’s blend of the chaotic and balletic.

Get The Gringo isn’t exactly a return to Gibson’s Lethal Weapon glory days, but if you find yourself able to ignore the personal baggage Gibson now carries with him wherever he goes, it’s an enjoyable ride.

Rob Newcombe

Mel's back! In Get The Gringo

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

DVD Reviews

Queen Street Studio

Bust out the back-catalogue for Sydney Film Festival...

BAGHEAD

ATTENBERG

Accent

If you’re not across the Duplass brothers (Cyrus), it’s a good time to seek out one of their earlier works, ahead of the premiere of Jeff, Who Lives At Home at this year’s Sydney Film Festival. Though not as good as their debut, The Puffy Chair (not available in Australia – boo), Baghead features some of the hallmarks of the style that saw them break onto the American indie scene at the vanguard of the perniciously named ‘mumblecore’ movement (see Funny Ha Ha, Hannah Takes The Stairs and Dance Party USA for a crash-course).

Mumblecore is not an apt description actually – the Duplass brothers work all the normal elements of a narrative drama: characters arcs, compelling plots with hooks and twists and denouements; they just do it with heightened realism, lowered production values, and improheavy performances. The best example of this is The Puffy Chair, a tender, funny and emotionally on-the-nose examination of a relationship that disintegrates in the same time it takes the couple to complete a road trip from New York to Atlanta; their mission is to pick up and deliver a lazy-boy to His father – but like so many eBay exchanges (and relationships) they find that what was advertised and expected bears slim resemblance to the reality.

The Analogue Titles With Yorgos Lanthimos’ Alps screening in Sydney Film Festival’s Official Competition next week, it’s time to get across the Greek ‘Weird Wave’. You probably already saw Dogtooth (no? Do that first), but Attenberg (which also screened in the Official Competition, last year) is produced

by Lanthimos, directed by his long-time collaborator Athina Rachel Tsangari, and stars French actress Ariane Labed (also in Alps) in a performance that besides being incredibly charismatic and vulnerable, never betrays the fact that she had to learn Greek for this film!

Set in a small Greek town on the eve of the millennium, Attenberg centres around three lonely individuals who have formed their own social cell: 23-year-old Marina (Labed – who won best actress at Venice), her father Spyros, and her best friend Bella. Raised in relative isolation by an unconventional father, Marina’s approach to other human beings is more anthropological than social; more scientific than emotional. It comes from too many hours watching David Attenborough and having frankly philosophical discussions with her father. With Spyros dying of cancer, however, Marina finds herself making her first – painfully awkward, if it wasn’t for her complete lack of self-consciousness – ventures into ‘social life’.

Baghead is an altogether more rarefied entity – a relationship dramedy formatted as a horror film, and a spoof on indie filmmaking. Taking a bunch of aspiring (but desperately un-employed) LA actors as its leads, it looks at what happens when a horror film shoot turns into an actual horror film – a well-worn concept, but effective thanks to a smart and subversive script, and impro-fit actors (including Greta Gerwig in an early role – before the hair got blonded and straightened for Arthur et al.) No special features – which is unfortunate, because Mark and Jay Duplass obviously have a lot to say.

Attenberg is a slow-burning film with a cool eye for the boxy architecture, whitewashed walls and damp colour palette of decaying small town Greece. At the same time, it has an almost aggressive energy, and a quirky sense of humour that manifests in slapstick and sight gags, as well as the offbeat effect of animalistic dance interludes performed

by Marina and Bella, and a soundtrack that ranges from the ‘70s protopunk electronica of Alan Vega’s Suicide to J.J. Johnson’s be-bop, and the wistful romance of Francois Hardy.

Dee Jefferson

Dee Jefferson

Street Level

10–14 Kensington Street, Chippendale

1st–30th June: 30 days & 30 nights to celebrate FraserStudios …before we pull down the roller doors for good after almost 4 amazing years

With Rita Fontaine

What’s on:

Monday 4 June | 6pm

FREE Jamaican Dancehall & Reggae Class Get energetic, sensual & fierce with Caroline Garcia

Tuesday 5 June | 6pm Wild mix of dance & boxing with Yin Chuah

E

You’re marooned on a desert island: what top five possessions would you ideally have with you? An oiled-up muscle-man to provide shade and double as a mattress/ sunbed, sunscreen (I’m a ginger!), G&T, a squiggle straw, and a pit full of plastic balls from IKEA. What is your signature act? I have been emceeing a great deal lately as Rita and also as Johnny Castrati. One of my signature acts is ‘Gulia Jillard’s Rise To Power’, where she double-crosses Kevin, steals the ruby slippers and fights Mr Rabbit for the Wicked Witch’s Green vote to swing the election.

(This one’s been doing very well – it was specifically requested for the last Woodford Folk Festival program and Gulia even did a sneaky private show for an ex-PM and his friends at their NYE BBQ on the patio). But generally my style is mean, mean shimmy machine – which is what you can expect at the upcoming 34B. I like to channel the Tura Satana and Tempest Storm. Because being mean is much more fun.

Besides Rita and Johnny, what other personas do you have up your sleeve?

There’s a new character – a robot named Made In Japan; a Lego-like, pixelated toy who is fuelled by the blood of ancient samurai warriors.

What are you bringing to 34B’s Island Exotica bash? Oh! Is it Island Exotica? I thought it was Ireland Exotica.... Being a pale redhead of Northern roots, I figured I’d avoid the sunburn of the tropics with a little jig on the beaches of the home country... but there’s only one problem with sunbathing in Ireland... It’s f***ing cold! This will be my biggest shimmy-shake yet if i want to stay warm! Down to my four-leaf clovers!

We know you’re a costumier by day – what have you been up to on that front? I have just completed Imogen Kelly’s new evening gown, which she took off to Las Vegas to swan around in at the Burlesque Hall of Fame. It’s a midnight-blue waterfall of sequins that splits at the leg for a hot-pink reveal. It’s entirely sequins, but still very elegant. She ordered another in lilac. Also, I am reinventing Holly J’aDoll’s half-man half-woman for her. It’s become very Tim Burton vs Liz Hurley (in 'that safety pin dress’ she wore in the ‘90s).

What: 34B Burlesque – Island Exotica Where: 34B (44 Oxford St, Darlinghurst) When: Friday June 8 More: qbar.iwannaticket.com.au

Platform 5

International Bodyweather performers

Thurs 14 June | 7pm | FREE

POST

FREE Konga Class scape winter blues this Friday at 34B Burlesque, where fiery-headed formerMiss Burlesque Australia Rita Fontaine and her tribe of wild beauties – including Danica Lee, Heidi Hoops, Sheena Miss Demeanour, and Baby Blue Bergman – will be holding you captive in a rum-spiked tropical paradise. Expect Hawaiian Hula, expect Tahitian Tamure – all to the Voodoopop sounds of Rufino & The Coconuts.

Saturday 9 June | 7pm | $10

Wednesday 6 June | 6pm

FREE Stage Combat Class With Sydney Stage Combat

Thursday 7 June | 6pm

FREE Bollywood Class With Ramona Lobo, Siren Dance Company

Sydney’s favourite performance trio on theatre, the absurd & the classics

Friday 15 June | 7pm | $10

Tin Shed Camping Tours Ghost stories, tents, cider and possibly bears...

Saturday 16 June | 7pm | $10

Double Trouble

Martin del Amo & Julie-Anne Long explore duets and double acts

PLUS:

Open daily 2–6pm & during performances...

“Our House” Visual Arts Residents Exhibition “100” FraserStudios Archival Photography Exhibition

More info: queenstreetstudio.com/30days30nights FraserStudios is an initiative by Frasers Property and Sekisui House to creatively activate heritage warehouses within the Central Park development site.

Managed by Queen Street Studio, FraserStudios has provided free studio and development space to 200 Visual Arts and Performing Arts Residents since late 2008.

queenstreetstudio.com.au | centralparksydney.com BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 29

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

Official Competition

I

n last week’s instalment of our Sydney Film Festival guide we shared some hot tips and wish-lists from Sydney’s tastemakers, and a few of our own highlights; below, we taste-test this year’s Official Competition – a 12-course tapas feast of the bold and the beautiful of current international cinema. We strongly recommend going the whole hog (we’d even wine-match that for you if it was up to us). Over the page, we look at a couple of documentary highlights. For the full program and screening details, see sff.org.au

On the Road (USA) Dir. Walter Salles An adaption of Kerouac’s freewheeling survey of ‘50s America, which introduced the world to the ‘beat generation’. Sam Riley (Control) plays narrator and anti-hero Sal Paradise, Garrett ‘beefcake’ Hedlund plays the ineffably cool ladykiller Dean Moriarty, and Kristen ‘Bella’ Stewart plays his long-suffering wife – with Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams, and a ridiculous swag of other excellent folk in support. – DJ

The King of Pigs (S KOREA) Alps (GREECE) Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos Lanthimos won the Best Screenplay prize at Venice Film Festival for this darkly oddball film about a troupe of damaged people (The Alps) – a Nurse, a Gymnast, a Paramedic and a Coach – who moonlight from the sterility of their ‘real’ jobs by providing a very unusual service: they fill in for loved ones who have died, so that the family and friends of the deceased can continue living their lives as if nothing had happened. They take their service extremely seriously, and follow a list of 15 rules – including the ominous stipulation that members be required to take the ‘gymnastics club test’ if necessary. When the Nurse goes ‘rogue’ and starts keeping clients to herself, the rest of the group undertake to rein her in… As with his cult hit Dogtooth (and last year’s competition title Attenberg, which he produced), Lanthimos achieves an exhilarating but unsettling balance between dark humour, pathos, the bizarre, and extreme violence.

Once again, audience members will find themselves torn between laughter and shock. – Dee Jefferson

Today (FRANCE/SENEGAL) Dir. Alain Gomis Gomis' intriguing modern parable follows a day in the life – what seems to be the last day – of returned emigrant Satché, as he traverses his hometown in Senegal and undergoes a number of ‘funerary rituals’ and ‘last rites’. As he says his final farewells to his lover, his best friends and more, all have just one question for Satché: Why did he return from America at all? Modern Senegal’s ambivalence towards its own expat citizenry might potentially seem an abstruse subject to Australian audiences, but by tackling the issue in this moving parable about mortality, Gomis elevates Today to the realm of the near-universal.

“It’s a really exciting film I think, because it’s quite different from what we expect to see from Africa,” says Moodley. – GE

Dir. Yuen Sang-ho

Tabu (PORTUGAL) Dir. Miguel Gomes Guilt of the post-colonial, post-coital and conjugal kinds intertwine in Gomes’ heady, frequently surreal and formally adventurous sophomore feature, set between mordernday Brazil and ‘60s Africa. Shooting entirely in black and white (and a cramped 3:4 ratio untypical of Western depictions of Africa), Gomes unravels a past romance through flashback scenes that substitute narrative voiceover for dialogue, but retain the atmospheric sounds – and are laced with a soundtrack that ranges from '60s pop to native music and languid piano. Tabu is the only film in Official Competition that Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley has seen twice. “I wanted to see it again – because I think it’s just so surprising, and unique… I expect people to leave the cinema completely blown away.” – DJ

Neighbouring Sounds (BRAZIL) Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho Filho, a film critic and festival programmer himself, won the FIPRESCI (international critics) prize at Rotterdam Film Festival with this, his debut feature. “I saw it, went to my hotel and sent [the filmmakers] an email inviting them to Sydney Film Festival’s Official Competition,” Nashen Moodley recalls. “I was very, very certain; I think it’s an amazing film.” While Brazil has produced its fair share of ‘favela gangster’ films over the last decade, Neighbouring Sounds tackles the class divide and culture of fear from a different angle, pitching its camp in a sheltered middle-class neighbourhood, where crime and violence are more of a paranoid preoccupation for residents than a reality. When a security company arrives, it creates a sense of safety but also a heightened anxiety. “Things are gradually revealed," says Moodley. "It’s a study of race, class, architecture – and the sound design is absolutely extraordinary.” – DJ

Commencing with a close-up of a garrotted woman’s face and only getting uglier from there, this brutal feature animation is a rebuke to the plutocratic hierarchies that still stratify Korea, from its offices to its classrooms. Sangho matches figurative violence with literal savagery, manga-style, while the mocking ghost of a murdered cat evokes Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita (itself one of the great and enduring assaults on oppression and class inequity). “I saw it at Busan [International Film Festival], and invited it to Sydney Film Festival as soon as I got here, virtually,” says Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley. – Gerard Elson

Monsieur Lazhar (CANADA) Dir. Philippe Falardeau This Academy Award-nominated feature in the ‘inspiring teacher’ vein has been warming hearts around the world, thanks to personable and profound performances by Algerian comic/writer Fellag, and luminous young leads Sophie Nélisse and Émilien Néron, who play classmates coping in very different ways with the suicide of their teacher. As the school desperately searches for a replacement, Bachir Lazhar arrives – smiling, polite, helpful – and claiming to be a permanent resident of Canada with 19 years teaching experience in Algiers under his belt. What follows is gentle tale of cultural rapprochement and shared grief, with Monsieur Lazhar learning as much from his pupils as he imparts. – DJ

ALSO IN COMPETITION

Beasts of the Southern Wild (USA)

Dead Europe (AUSTRALIA)

Dir. Benh Zeitlin

Based on an award-winning book by a best-selling author (Christos Tsiolkas, of Slap fame), directed by the talented director of Jewboy and The Tall Man, and starring Sydney thesp Ewen Leslie. Did we mention it’s produced by the guys behind The King’s Speech and Shame? Yeah.

This post-apocalyptic fantasy (set in an isolated bayou community called ‘The Bathtub’) took top honours at Sundance and the prize for cinematography. It knocked the socks off audiences and critics alike, earning a glowing review from taste-making Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy.

Dir. Tony Krawitz

Gangs of Wasseypur (INDIA) Dir. Anurag Kashyap This 320-minute gangster epic promises to be an Indian Godfather – and the word out of Cannes, where it premiered as part of Directors Fortnight, is that it’s engrossing for every minute. Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley programmed the film at the last minute, finishing watching it at 3.30am on the day the program had to be finalised. “It’s just riveting; an amazing, kaleidoscopic look at India and corruption and coal mining and organised crime – through these two families. It’s just a remarkable piece of work.” Is he worried about getting people along to a five-hours-plus film? “Of course it’s not easy…but it deserves to be in the Official Competition, and if people stick with it they’ll leave knowing that they’ve seen something very, very special.” – DJ 30 :: BRAG :: 464 :: 28:05:12

Caesar Must Die (ITALY) Dir. Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani

Lore (AUSTRALIA)

Italian cinema godfathers the Taviani brothers (Padre Padrone) took top honours at the Berlin Film Festival for this docu-drama following the inmates of a high-security prison as they discover Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar…

The Somersault director returns (finally!) with a literary adaptation set in post-WorldWar-2 Germany, amongst a troupe of teens on a cross-country pilgrimage. We're expecting dreamily beautiful (if emotionally tortured) depictions of youth.

Dir. Cate Shortland

sydney film festival 2012 Reel Life: Documentaries at SFF

The good, the bad, and the awesome.

DESPITE THE GODS Director Jennifer Lynch bares all in this disaster-laced documentary about her ill-fated third feature. By Gerard Elson

D

irected by Australian filmmaker Penny Vozniak, Despite the Gods details the abortive attempt by Jennifer Lynch (daughter of David) to shoot her third feature – a “creature feature-love-story-comedy-musical” inspired by the snake gods of Hindi mythology – in Bollywood. Injury meant it was 15 years between Lynch’s debut – the widely-reviled amputee fairytale Boxing Helena, which she wrote aged 19 and directed at 24 – and its follow-up, 2008’s deadpan serial killer thriller Surveillance.

Battling capricious weather, laissezfaire labour and safety standards, cultural disparities and an interfering producer, Lynch shrugs, wisecracks, wails and cusses her way through a shoot so plagued it seems like karmic retribution – or would do, were it not for the grace and magnanimity with which she assimilates setback after setback after setback… The resulting film, Hisss, may have sunk into the sea of Indian cinema releases with barely a splash, but Vozniak’s film memorialises the experience in all its fake-blood, sweat and tearstained glory…

Bollywood doesn’t seem like the logical next step after a 15-year

absence from filmmaking. How did the Hisss project come about?

Ha! Not logical, no. But challenging and exciting as hell. Every few months, friends and I get together to BBQ and show each other the films we have made, long or short, pieces or full, and discuss them.

At one particular BBQ, I shared Surveillance. A friend had brought a friend of his, who told the producer [of Hisss – originally titled Nagin: The Snake Woman], Govind Menon, that the film was good, and that he should call me in for Nagin. There was no script, but there was the legend of Nagin and the producers were passionate. I felt frightened in that right kind of way. I wrote the script and we were off and running.

Penny Vozniak was originally enlisted to shoot material for the film’s DVD release. When you permitted her to stick around and document the whole production, did you ever worry that you might be tempting fate?

I saw immediately how talented and genuinely wise Penny is, [so] I saw this as an opportunity to gain some perspective on the events taking place, as well as perspective on myself. I’m always learning. It’s important to me. I am a work in progress. Penny has a strong and unique voice and I felt honoured

“I can certainly say that on more than one occasion I wished I had a penis.” - Jennifer Lynch

to be a part of it. And again, I felt scared in that right kind of way.

Did you make a conscious decision not to censor yourself in front of her camera?

I made a conscious effort to just not worry about looking fat or stupid.

Then I realised that not only was this impossible, but it was absurd.

To be honest, there was so much happening, I stopped seeing the camera after a day or two. I trusted Penny. She was a safe and gentle eye. It was the world that seemed dangerous.

You say in the film that you’ve never seen women “squashed” the way they are in India. By the end, the disconcerting sense prevails that were you a man – rather than a single mother with a daughter – you might not have encountered some of the resistance you did on set.

I can certainly say that on more than one occasion I wished I had a penis.

It feels wrong to say aloud that it would have been different if I were a man in that situation, but part of me thinks it might have been. Ultimately though, even if I were male, my choices and sensitivities would be the same. I’d be me. I’d blame my vagina if I could, but I think it had little to do with what happened.

Lynch and lead actress Mallika Sherawat on set...

What’s it like seeing eight months of your life condensed to 85 minutes of screen-time?

Terrifying, enlightening, joyous and diet-inducing.

With so much footage to be sifted through, observational documentaries like this are necessarily reductive. Do you feel the film is a fair representation of Hisss’ production?

Penny did an incredible job with what was easily more than ten thousand hours of footage. I

worry that people will think I’m overreacting, because much of the drama had to be cut out in order to keep the film palatable and forwardmoving. But that’s all bullshit. Penny made a great film. A friend of mine said to me the other day, “Jen, the reason you went to India wasn’t to make Hisss; it was to make Despite the Gods.” I think she was right.

What: Despite The Gods When: Saturday June 9, 6.30pm @ Event Cinemas George Street

MARLEY: THIRD WORLD SUPERSTAR Academy Award-winner Kevin Macdonald tackles the life and legend of the 20th century’s most motivated stoner. By Dee Jefferson

O

n a wall next to the spot where Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi committed suicide in December 2010 – sparking the Tunisian revolution and in turn the Arab Spring – are written lyrics from Bob Marley’s ‘Get Up, Stand Up.’ In fact, you can find the image and words of Marley anywhere around the world where class struggles and revolution still exist – as Kevin Macdonald found when he was shooting his Academy Award-winner The Last King Of Scotland, in Uganda.

It is this Marley that first fascinated Macdonald: not the musician, but the phenomenon who in the ‘70s was often called the ‘Third World Superstar’. “I think he’s the only artist of any discipline who’s become a huge cultural figure around the world, and who comes from the developing world,” says the director. “In his music, he’s talking about concerns and ideas that are concerns and ideas of people who are poor, and who are on the outside – the forgotten people of the world – and that fascinated me. And he speaks for them in a way that nobody else does; that’s partly why he’s still remembered so much, and why he’s still revered, particularly in the developing world.”

“And then of course you’ve got the whole layer of the religious elements of it, which is absolutely fascinating. Rasta is a religion that’s mixed up with politics and the black experience – the experience of slavery in particular – so it’s just, to me, deeply, deeply interesting.

And yet, nobody really – there’s been many books about Bob, and other documentaries made about him, and I’d seen a few of them and read a few books and I just felt like none of them were very good! They didn’t really capture the man – I just wanted to know who is this person?”

Macdonald, who broke through with the formally adventurous documentaries One Day In

September (which recounted the hostage tragedy at the 1972 Munich Olympics as a thriller) and Touching The Void (which blended dramatic recreation and interviews with the two survivors of a failed attempt to scale Siula Grande in the Andes), plays it straight in Marley, interweaving stills photography, concert footage and rare interviews with Marley with current interviews with his friends and family.

“I didn’t want to have anyone appearing in this film who didn’t know what they were talking about, and know Bob,” Macdonald says. “I didn’t want to have, you know, just an academic popping up, or Bono saying what a great influence he was on music or whatever (laughs) – I wanted it to be an intimate film with a lot of different voices who knew Bob well, talking about him.

And hopefully by the end of the film these many different voices have evoked an image, for the audience, of who this man was.”

Among the many voices Macdonald enlisted are original ‘Wailer’ Neville 'Bunny' Livingston, long-time collaborator Neville Garrick, children Cedella and Ziggy (whose company Tuff Gong produced the film), Bob’s widow Rita, and even a girlfriend or two.

“Two things that surprised me most [about Bob] were firstly, how he felt like such an outsider in Jamaica, and that he experienced racism and rejection because he was mixed-race – and how important that was, fundamentally, to him and who he became as a man,” says Macdonald. “The other thing is the understanding that Bob was not a Caribbean loafer who happened to have a great musical talent – he was actually driven to get his music out around the world; he was super-ambitious, he worked incredibly hard. Apparently, after every concert – you know you imagine [the band] are with their

groupies, and smoking ganja – but actually Bob would take them back to the hotel, and they’d have to deconstruct the entire gig. He’d have a tape of the gig, and he’d go through and point out all the mistakes everyone had made (laughs). He was a perfectionist.”

Among the film’s delights is extensive concert footage – including his iconic Smile Jamaica performance in 1976 (two days after an assassination attempt left him wounded), the One Love Peace Concert in 1978 (where he managed to get the warring political leaders to shake hands on stage), and his performance at the Independence Day concert in Zimbabwe in 1980 (to an audience that included newly sworn-in President Mugabe). More than anything, this footage conveys Marley’s unparalleled charisma as a performer.

“He goes into another world,” Macdonald agrees. “It’s almost as though he’s taking part in some sort of religious ritual – he’s transported in some way. When Bob was at his best, I don’t think there was anybody like him.”

This live footage is backed up by incredible high-definition and bassrich audio that warrants buying a ticket to see this film in the cinema, rather than waiting for DVD. “One of the difficult things about making a film about Bob is the shortage of archive material, and the fact that what does exist is owned by different individuals,” Macdonald explains.

“Often, somebody owns the film footage and somebody else owns the audio recording – it’s very complex.

So my sound team [at Pinewood Studios], who I’ve worked with on a few films and who are absolutely brilliant, spent a lot of time equalising [the tracks] and trying to get it all sounding as good as it possibly could. Because also, we’re so used to having surround-sound music and things like that; well Bob’s music is mostly – certainly all the ‘60s stuff

and the early ‘70s stuff – mono. I mean, let alone 5.1 (laughs). So we had to try quite hard with that.

big fans won’t know, but which is incredibly beautiful.”

What: Marley opens June 21

“It’s also just beautiful music,” Macdonald adds. “I mean everyone knows the famous Bob Marley songs, but there’s a lot of music in [this film] that people who aren’t

More: Screening at Sydney Film Festival on Mon Jun 11, 9.30pm @ State Theatre / Sun Jun 17, 9.30pm @ Event Cinemas George St.

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Darling Harbour Jazz & Blues Festival is tumbling out for its 22nd year this June long weekend, and bringing with it a huge selection of local and international talent that spans much more than its name suggests. From jazz and blues to funk and avant-garde; from reggae-roots to acid, soul, and yes, even Bollywood...

The free festival is centred at Tumbalong Park, and features three days of shows, big-band workshops, an open-air jazz bar

Welcome To Bollywood By Thomas Bailey nakes! Bullets! Super secret agents!

Bandits! Monkeys and tigers! Espionage and romance! These are recurring themes in some of classic Bollywood’s greatest cinematic extravaganzas, where acting and plot take a backseat to some of the craziest, overthe-top song and dance scenes ever committed to celluloid.

Enter The Bombay Royale, a Melbourne-based eleven-piece musical powerhouse who have taken the themes and soundtracks from these films and infused them with all the colour, production and energy one would expect from a four-hour-plus Bollywood movie. The band had first set out to strictly do covers from the gilded ‘60s era of Bollywood, but soon evolved into writing their own material – and their debut album, You Me Bullets Love, was released just last month. “People say, ‘Oh, I don’t know how to do the Bollywood dance’, but it’s very easy!’” assures Parvyn Singh, one of the two singers in this bombastic Bollywood/surf/psychedelic band. “You put your hands in the air and pretend you’re screwing in a light bulb! That’s what it’s about!”

Bombay Royale was founded by Andy Williamson, a saxophonist and Bollywood aficionado who was driven by the fact that no one in Melbourne seemed to be performing that type of music live. “[Williamson]’s always had a great interest in that style of music,” Singh tells me. “He sat down and scored some great cover tunes from the ‘60s era, and got some great people together. It started as an instrumental thing, but when it was coming together they put the feelers out for a singer, and then my name came up, ‘cause I’ve been performing with my dad since I was really young.

“I went down and saw these guys, they were in a tiny studio in the Hope Street Warehouse in Brunswick where we did our initial rehearsals. So there I was in this tiny room with all these white guys, and they were doing all these songs from my childhood – like, I grew up with all this stuff!” she laughs. “I started singing, and we found Shourov [Bhattacharya, the male singer] later, and it all came together. And voila! Here we are!”

An aspect of The Bombay Royale’s live show that you’ll notice right off the bat – besides the fact that there are eleven of them onstage – is that they don’t just play music: these guys put on a full-blown stage production, complete with intensely intricate orchestrations, secret agents, plot twists and bandit masks. How the hell, I ask, do they keep things so organised? “We’ve got all the characters, which really helps us maintain that personae as a full group,” Singh says. “So with the band, you have The Skipper – who’s Andy – the leader of ‘the bad guys’. He’s the leader of this big gang of thugs, which is all the musicians: The Jewel Thief [Josh Bennett, guitar and sitar] and The Railway Mogul [Tom Martin, guitar] and The Kung-Fu Dentist [Ros Jones, trombone] – and so he’s in charge of them!” she explains. “Shourov and I are the secret agents – we’ve got this whole back-story that we present onstage. So throughout our performance and throughout our songs there’s always those characters in the back of our minds. It really helps create tension and the right vibe, and the orchestration is really rehearsed; we make sure we know who’s meant to be doing what when!”

But what’s most important to Singh and the band is showcasing brilliant music from incredible musicians. “[The musicians] feel it really well. At the moment with what we’re doing, we’re able to see the individual talent of all the musicians who are in the band; it’s slowly coming out,

and, for the first time, Moonlight Jazz in the Chinese Garden.

There’s over forty acts, including Dr Lonnie Smith (USA), local legend James Morrison and indie bands like Kira Puru and Sister Jane – plus a smorgasbord of sideshows and jazz nights to keep you going after dark.

We caught up with a few of our favourites who’ll be showcasing their sounds. For more, make your way online: www.darlingharbour.com

and every once in a while you will get a great keyboard solo or guitar solo or horn solo. As we go along, I think the story’s developing, and the characters will have leading roles to play. So it’s really like this never-ending movie that we’re creating within the band!” This prompts my next question – are Bombay Royale planning on creating their very own Bollywood movie?

“That’s definitely something we would love to do!” she exclaims. “Obviously we need the budget and the right people who would get behind it.

There’s some talk about a film director in the UK who would love to work with us, and a couple members of the band are really into scriptwriting, so there’s so much possibility with the band, which is exciting! But slow and steady, I think.”

Now that You Me Bullets Love has been released to glowing reviews, it’s high time for The Bombay Royale to celebrate with an album launch tour. And Singh promises that it’s going to be huge. “It’s a cinematic experience, so we’ve got two big screens on the side of the stage, and we’ve got a film guy who’s going to do some video footage of Bollywood movie scenes, superimposing Bombay Royale footage into it and doing all this really cool video art as well – it’s going to be an overload in every sense possible!” Just listening to the singer describe it makes me excited, and I’m not alone. “I’m getting more and more excited the more I think about it, too!” she laughs.

What: You Me Bullets Love is out now on HopeStreet Records, through Mistletone Where: The Basement When: Sunday June 10 More: Monday June 11, 5.45pm-7pm @ Tumbalong Park, Darling Harbour

3 D AHYTSS 3 NIG

3 STAGESS 40 BAND

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LI V E JAZ Z THU R S DAY S # CELLAR JAZZ JAM # W I T H T H E P H I L ST A C K T R I O T H ES P I C E C E L L A R . C O M . A U

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Stack’s On By Sheridan Morley Mastershonk By Laurence Rosier Staines f you looked up ‘maverick’ in some kind of fictional dictionary, you’d probably see a picture of Christa Hughes in huge boots, a bikini and an emergency poncho.

The vocalist/ringleader/entertainer extraordinaire has previously sung in Machine Gun Fellatio, toured with Circus Oz, and performed in a duo with her pianoplayin’ father Dick Hughes – and she’s bringing her unique brand of ruckus to the Darling Jazz & Blues Festival. She’ll be backed by the Honky Tonk Shonks, a band with whom she delivers rambunctious, soulful jazz-era covers of songs like ‘Ace Of Spaces’, ‘I Want You Back’ and Britney’s ‘Toxic’. And she’s enjoying it so much that she’s even planning a reality show further down the track: “How To Do Shonky Reno?

Mastershonk?” she suggests. “Replace The Voice with The Shonk?”

Hughes’ extravagant stage-strutting and sexed-up Billie Holliday voice have found many different homes over the years. “I do pride myself on having sung in so many different venues, in so many different styles,” she says. “At the Opera House I’ve tried to transform the space into an intimate nightclub or underground cabaret club,

and whenever I’m performing at clubs or bars I try to make the performance big and dramatic to suit a place like the Opera House.” And she has been subjected to some oddities from time to time… “My first overseas performance with Circus Oz was in the pineapple section of a supermarket in Hawaii. It was hardly a career highlight – but it certainly was memorable.”

Hughes’ two years as Circus Oz ringmistress brought many higher-calibre experiences, too. “I got to perform on Broadway for over a month and travel through the Kimberleys, performing for and with outback communities. Working with the circus made me appreciate how much goes into a show with so much physicality and stunts; I used to make my entry coming down from the roof on a big banana – heavens! I wish I was still doing that every show, but sadly it’s not the case.” Amid all the glitzy madness, she somehow found the time to appear as a panellist on Q&A earlier this year. “It was exciting,” she tells me. “Nerve-racking and great fun all at once.

It was great to be on a panel with Germaine Greer and to see her up close as she managed to effortlessly outrage the nation – again! The fact that there were no politicians on the panel that night certainly kept it fun, talking about porn and postmodern feminism...”

Hughes’ love of sparking outrage has recently gained another outlet, in her new semi-regular night ‘Speakeasy Sundays’ which debuted at The Standard at the end of last month. “I guess I put it on as exactly the sort of night I’d like to go to: big bands, lots of horns, kooky cabaret artists, dancers and gramophone men.” Her appearance there in a canary-yellow vintage swimsuit with the Honky Tonk Shonks dominated the proceedings, as was to be expected. For the Darling Jazz & Blues Festival, she’s considering her outfit carefully: “The jungle prints are quite a fave at the moment,” she says, “…although I’m very attached to my PVC and latex outfits, and have been known to strut my stuff in a nudie suit. It depends on my mood.”

In the year since the release of their acclaimed album Shonky, have any more songs emerged that Hughes thinks would benefit from her sultry burlesque club treatment? “Hmm, do any Justin Bieber songs need spicing up?” she wonders.

“Maybe he should cover one of my songs.

Now that’d be interesting, hearing Bieber singing ‘Cheap Thrills’ or ‘Let Me Be Your Dirty Fucking Whore’…”

What: Shonky is out now When: Saturday June 9, 3.45pm-4.45pm @ Tumbalong Park, Darling Harbour More: Speakeasy Sundays @ The Standard will be coming back soon – stay tuned!

Finding The Riddim By Benjamin Cooper o the hardened cynic, Nicky Bomba might appear a strange prospect. “A lot of unhappiness comes from searching for something that probably already exists in your life,” he shares down the line from Morocco – and he has had myriad life experiences to prove it.

The multi-instrumentalist from Melbourne, known to his parents as Nicholas Caruana, has travelled many roads in his musical journey. In addition to his most well-known turn as the drummer of John Butler Trio, he’s also the frontman of long-running funk and reggae group Bomba. But it was an epiphany some years ago at a music expo in Germany that sparked the genesis for Nicky’s latest group: the Caribbeaninflected party band Bustamento.

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mong the wider populace, bassist Phil Stack is probably best recognised for his work with his multi-ARIA-nominated band Thirsty Merc. But to those who have delved a little deeper into the gritty jazz underground, he’s better known as one of the country’s most accomplished jazz double bass players: noted performer and composer, first prize winner of the prestigious National Jazz Awards at Wangaratta, and long-time occupier of a much-coveted seat in James Morrison’s band. “I’ve been doing a bunch of jazz gigs around the place,” Stack tells me. “I’ve been working on some music at home, and I’m just finishing this album with this other rock band I’ve got, House Of Orange. I’ve been doing a lot of recording with that, finishing off a double EP – a loud EP and a soft EP.” House Of Orange describe themselves as ‘Three individual voices. One big modern rock sound. Kinda like Cream in the 21st century…’ Phil elaborates a little more: “House Of Orange has been going for some years, but we’re just finally getting our album together that we’ve been recording all over the place, at home and in different studios, since 2009,” Phil says. “Our guitarist [Cam Deyell] lives in India.

He’s not going through his Indian Raga stage or anything,” he laughs, “but his partner works for the government over there. We’re gonna put [the EP] out in the next little while, and that’s really exciting. It’s actually got heaps of jazz in it. It’s a raucous little three-piece group!”

While there’s no release date set, Phil tentatively mentions a launch around July. In the meantime, though, he has his sights set on other pursuits – namely, heading up the recently established Cellar Jazz Jam, every Thursday at The Spice Cellar in Martin Place. Jazz-heads, musos and drinking enthusiasts alike might better recall the space as the former Wine Banq, the darkened basement jazz-hole on Elizabeth Street that was a long-time home to regular gigs and jams. “[The Cellar Jazz Jam] has been going on for about six weeks or so, and it kind of goes back to the old Wine Banq days,” Phil reminisces. “[Spice Cellar] is a bit of a DJ/dance club on other nights, but now one night a week it turns into the old Wine Banq sort of vibe. It’s been great.”

In its early stages, the venue has already seen some talented and familiar faces. The house band includes names like Matt McMahon (piano) and Tim Firth (drums), as well as jam appearances by Evan Mannell (drums) and Phil’s fellow Thirsty Merc-er Rai Thistlethwayte, a well-established jazz pianist. “It’s kind of got a bit of a nostalgic place in our hearts, the old Wine Banq, because it’s where Rai and I first

Nicky’s ability to speak many musical tongues started much earlier than his European sojourn. As the son of Maltese migrants, he has a strong cultural link to the land of his ancestors, a connection which was uniquely manifest from a young age. “I had a #1 hit in Malta at the age of fourteen, which was nice,” he says. “It was a strange sensation for a young guy. I used the money I made from sales to build a community centre in Parkville, in Melbourne.” Family has always played a strong part in Nicky’s adventures, with his brother Michael playing in both Bomba and Bustamento. “All throughout my childhood and teenage years the family would play at Maltese weddings, which was a great way to learn tunes, and musicianship in general. I guess you could say we were kind of Australia’s own Maltese Jackson Five!”

When discussing his band’s intentions with their debut LP, Intrepid Adventures To The Lost Riddim Islands, Nicky Bomba says they wanted to keep it light. “Bob Marley is incredible, but a lot of his work is very militant and tough,” Nicky says. “What we were trying to do is have a bit of fun, and encourage our audience to have a good time too. Robin Mai recorded the album with us in the alpine hills of Victoria, and we had so much fun we busted out 23 songs in the one weekend!” While painfully culling the recordings down to a respectable 14 tracks, Nicky was acutely aware of the significance

started doing gigs – like, 1999, 2000. We had a bit of a residency back then,” Phil says. “I remember guys like [internationally-acclaimed trumpet legend] Wynton Marsalis coming down after gigs, the whole Lincoln Centre Orchestra after the Opera House – it was just awesome.”

Apart from the prospect of reviving the jazz scene with a solid weekly jam, Phil expresses his excitement over the upcoming Darling Harbour Jazz & Blues Festival. Stack will appear at Tumbalong Park on Saturday June 9 with James Morrison, before playing alongside Thistlethwayte and their Thirsty Merc bandmate Matt Smith on Sunday June 10. “Rai, Matt and myself have got a little group together, imaginatively titled ‘Smith/ Stack/Thistlethwayte’,” he laughs. “We play a lot together on the road and in hotel rooms, that sort of thing, but we never really get together to play a pure jazz gig, so this will be a blast. It’s going to be largely improvised. There might be some standards in there, but just a lot of blowing and a lot of improvisation.” Will we also be hearing any jazz covers of Thirsty Merc hits? “It has been known to happen!” Phil laughs.

Who: Phil Stack and friends Where: Cellar Jazz Jam @ The Spice Cellar When: Thursdays from 8pm More: Smith/Stack/Thistlethwayte (pictured) play Sunday June 10, 6pm-7:15pm @ Tumbalong Park, Darling Harbour Sideshow: The Cellar Jazz Jam is held every Thursday at The Spice Cellar

of his role in the album-making process.

“I drew the line years ago and stopped stretching myself too thin. I realised that the creation of something is one thing, and the marketing is another. When I was able to redefine that balance I returned to my best.

Now I do everything for the creation.” But the best part for Bustamento is getting to bring such fun tunes to a live environment.

“We cannot wait to get touring,” Nicky says.

“The essence of what we do is to connect with an audience, and playing live we’re able to positively capture the energy and spirit of the band.”

When we speak it’s 8am in Southern Morocco, and Nicky is preparing to get on the road to travel north to Marrakesh. It’s been a solo trip this time, and as such has afforded him time for significant personal reflection and musical development. “Being surrounded by these rhythms and folk tunes is what it’s all about. It’s not about getting a hit record – all that matters is the song I’m singing today, that someone’s family has taught me in a little town somewhere,” he says. “The closer I get to appreciating that, the better songwriter and person I become.”

What: Intrepid Adventures To The Lost Riddim Islands is out now on Vitamin Records When: Monday June 11, 4pm-5.15pm @ Tumbalong Park, Darling Harbour

LEADING THE WAY BEHIND THE SCENES TRAINING

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK TENACIOUS D The Rize Of The Fenix Sony

The D have risen!

The premise of Tenacious D’s third album literally wrote itself: their film debut was a critical and commercial failure, and so in the rock tradition of big hulking analogies, we see Jack Black and Kyle Gass come back all guns a-blazing as they declare they are about to rise – like the phoenix. Self-doubt and strings creep in before too long, though: what if they are done, like all the critics said? Hilariously, their sympathies lie most with those who will have to laser off their Tenacious D tattoos. And so it goes...

Rock as a subject matter in music is funny regardless of intention, and Tenacious D parody these delusions of grandeur better than anyone

since Spinal Tap. As with all comedy albums, there are peaks and troughs – not all the jokes land comfortably, and a lot of the language is needlessly gratuitous – but the highs are wonderfully high.

Take ‘Roadie' for instance, an ode to the road crew's tireless servitude to rock: “He brought you the show, but you will never know/he’s changing the strings, while hiding in the wings.” ‘The Ballad Of Hollywood Jack And The Rage Kage’ is the album’s highlight, chronicling the very real scenario of Black becoming a Hollywood star while Gass “grumbled and growled and watched Hollywood Jack on Jay Leno” – the whole story unreliably narrated by Black.

The best thing is that these are genuinely good songs. Jack Black may very well have the best rock voice in the business, and to see him piss it away on comedy is a joy – moreso when he, Gass and drummer Dave Grohl (and Jon Brion!) effortlessly

THE CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA

MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS

MOSMAN ALDER

In Motion #1 Ninja Tune

Electra Heart Atlantic/Warner

Burn Bright EP Dew Process

Writing film scores that aren’t laden with cliche must be exceedingly difficult, in Hollywood and indie-arthouseland alike. There must then be a kind of freedom in writing music for films that only the select few have ever heard of and even fewer have seen. For The Cinematic Orchestra, such a project has yielded some of the most beautiful fusions of electronica and ‘classical’ music of the last ten years – look no further than 2003’s soundtrack for the groundbreaking Soviet-era documentary Man With A Movie Camera, or the 2007 ‘soundtrack to an imaginary film’, Ma Fleur.

TCO head honcho Jason Swinscoe’s ongoing investigation into musical narrative is continued on In Motion #1, in which tracks by the group are complemented with commissions from label-mates, including Austrian keyboard-dude Dorian Concept and New York-based artist Grey Reverend, as well as American pianist Austic Peralta. Swinscoe seems to have effectively handed out obscurities of early-twentieth century cinema and the phone number of a decent string quartet, and told each to see what they can do.

Plenty, as it turns out. While the quality is uniformly high, it’s difficult not to have favourites: 'Lapis' from Peralta (who otherwise finds his home on Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label) manages to sound like an aural Turner painting, a chocolatey cello solo melting over sparse piano chords; Dorian Concept’s ‘Outer Space’ uses organ to claustrophobic effect, TCO’s Tom Chant breaking the tension with a completely spastic saxophone solo, suggesting the balletic unfolding of some cataclysmic zero-gravity bloodbath; meanwhile, TCO suggest the first sighting of some lost city, glittering and unspoilt, with the superb ‘Manhatta’.

There is truth in the implicit assumption of music folklore that the greater number of listens an album requires before becoming likeable, the more enduring its ultimate listenability. But the time and effort demanded by a long path to familiarisation can occasionally make listening feel closer to Sisyphean labour than recreation; alfalfa sprouts fortify, but deep fried ice-cream is damn tasty.

Cue Welsh-Greek, Varga-stunner Marina and the Diamonds, aka Marina Diamandis. Her 2010 debut The Family Jewels was a wanton rollick through fields of effervescent pop, punctuated by witty puns and a constant hint of the sinister, reminiscent of Lily Allen’s antipop pop. Electra Heart continues in the same vein, but with more Autotune and electro beats. Way more.

When it works (‘Lies’), it produces catchy, bouncy, shameless deep fried ice-cream deliciousness, infused with enough self-reflexivity to offer something slightly more edifying to those who crave it, while remaining inoffensive to those who don’t. Noting the juxtaposition of a dark cheergirlchant – “I wish I’d been a teen, teen idol/Instead of being 16 and burning up a bible/Feeling super, super, super suicidal” – against its saccharine-sweet melody in ‘Teen Idle’ reveals the hardwon nature of her ostensible flippancy.

But when it doesn’t work, Electra Heart descends into an electrotrash maelstrom of tinny beats and tacky synths that would terrify the schmaltziest of Eurovision contestants.

Overproduction quashes any potential contained within tracks like ‘Primadonna’, ‘Homewrecker’ and ‘Living Dead’, and unfortunately such excessive tweaking is more rule than exception on this album.

Mosman Alder have been tuning around for a while now, their limited catalogue of orchestral indie pop drawing high praise from croon lovers and haters alike. Their debut EP has finally dropped and it’s a musical experience that, while not entirely individual, is enthralling and special nonetheless.

‘Mr Pinkney & The Beast’ is a rolling, heavy dream – full and driving, gutsy and well-realised – but ‘Raisin Heart’ is the standout, an immensely radioready track that really shows what the Brisbane band can do. It’s also a perfect case-in-point that proves their ability to deploy and develop musical themes with a sense of style and grace that's often missing from the wider creative community.

Vocalist Valdis Valodze, aside from being an alliterative dream, is super engaging, his voice warm and haunting as he holds the occasionally disparate sounds together. While the band sometimes drifts too far into itself – a fantastically musical listen, albeit selfindulgent – his vocals ring out in a deep-throated clarion call. Similarly, the vocal choruses (particularly in ‘Raisin Heart’ and ‘Jasmine’) are unifying and wholesome, with violin parts that are solid and enveloping – much more so than the often-tinny string sections of Australian indie pop.

One could describe the glory of Mosman Alder’s instrumentation for far more words than are ever found here – so rest assured that there is amazing depth and warmth. But while Burn Bright is musically solid on the whole, the EP’s occasionally loose production leaves a lot of really creative layering out in the cold.

Who needs visuals? Put it on, lie back and allow it to carry you away.

Too much chintz prevents Electra Heart from fully delivering its promise of fun.

Their music is tight and their hooks well implemented. With a little spit and polish, Mosman Alder will be every part the musical gentleman that their name implies.

Oliver Downes

Andrew Yorke

Alex Watts

Pigeons EP Independent I once read a scientific study proclaiming that the closer you live to the ocean, the happier you are. So even if you’re having a really bad day, a little bit of sunshine and a light ocean breeze can make you think things aren’t so bad. It’s a cure for melancholia lite – which is sort of how Hello Vera’s debut EP Pigeons plays out.

Hailing from the northern rivers area of New South Wales (you know, that

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paradise-like realm of Byron Bay, Ballina et al), it’s no wonder that Hello Vera have managed to make melancholy notions of confusion and being lost sound so lovely.

The EP starts with lead single ‘On The Road’, an irresistible slice of pop that sets the tone for the rest of the four-tracker.

Lead singer Charmian Kingston’s voice floats warmly above playful pianos and layered vocal overdubs, conjuring up imagery of road-trips in station wagons along sun-soaked coastlines.

‘Shutter Speed’ begins with a looping Kingston a cappella vocal pattern, before evolving into a lively tumbling piece highlighted by a twisted synthesiser solo. This song, along with EP closer ‘Trees’, showcase the meticulous

STONEFIELD Bad Reality EP Wunderkind

Forever Sky’High Elefant Traks The latest addition to the rapidly growing Elefant Traks family, Sky’High makes her mark as much more than just a female MC on her debut album.

Striking the balance between heartfelt insight and middle-fingerraised swagger, it would be unfair to compare Sky'High to anyone in the Aussie hip hop scene; she carves herself a new niche altogether.

When you’ve played Glastonbury and opened for Foo Fighters before half of you are legally allowed to drink, does the concept of ‘expectation’ even enter the equation? Not, it seems, for Stonefield, who gleefully continue on their merry, hard-rocking way with this collection, oblivious to whatever it is that a band of their stature is supposed to be doing.

Opening track ‘Let’s Just’ barrels out at you with a playful chorus and snappy melody, care of New Zealand’s premier beat baron P-Money, who is perfectly matched on production duties throughout Forever Sky'High, bringing a decent dose of UK grime influence with him.

On tracks like ‘Wake Up (ft. David Dallas)’, all the bravado peels away to reveal an emotional rawness that is practically tangible; it’s on occasions like this you can see right into Sky’High’s world, which she paints as equally hopeful and hopeless.

‘Reign’ has a grime style that could have come straight from the UK underground were it not for the accent clipping you around the ears, while ‘Don Dada’ is where this album really hits its stride; her brutal charisma and the insistent hook that pulses through deliver a wicked punch.

The songs themselves have become more dense, moving on from the one-two bass drum kick/vocal holler trick that the band busted out with into something more intelligent. Eldest sibling, sticksman and bandleader Amy Findlay is still the major drawcard here; not only have her melodies improved, but so has her voice. She rolls through ‘Black Water Rising’ like a bat out of hell, all swoops and hollers like 1969 never ended. There’s also some seriously great psychedelia starting to creep through in the band’s sound, notably in the chorus of ‘Ruby Skies’.

But although some tracks were probably aiming to be amped-up bangers, they come across too busy and confused; the Basement Jaxx sample on 'Where Ya Head At', for instance, competes too much with the bars Sky spits over the top of it. Similarly, ‘Carnival’ veers into saccharine territory rather than the nostalgic nod it was hoping for.

Forever Sky’High is a solid debut record – and armed with tracks like ‘Don Dada’, you can bet that her ascent from the underground is going to be a fast one.

Sometimes you do wish Stonefield would bust out some more complicated or tricky riffs though, because after a while it does seem like they’re Robert Plant without the rest of Zeppelin. The only track where this really starts changing is closer ‘Who Are You?’, an excellent stomper that has an unexpected key change for the chorus which is far more glam rock than classic. It’s the complete opposite of the title track, which is a paint-by-numbers revival tune, saved by an exceptional, squealing guitar solo. Despite their clear influences, this quartet succeeds because they sound believable and commit themselves wholly to their chosen aesthetic. It’s obvious Stonefield know their strengths; they just need to be a bit less wary of using them.

They’ll be our next Silverchair rather than our next Wolfmother – and that can’t be a bad thing.

Marissa Demetriou

arrangement that both Kingston and chief songwriter Jack Britten apply to their music. Elements are woven in and out of each song, adding weight to the finished product without marring the simplicity of the whole. ‘Trees’ introduces jangling funk guitar licks and samples (a cheeky Bill Murray monologue from Lost In Translation), while ‘Feeling Of Time’ makes use of splintered electronic drums and brass interludes.

Pigeons is a charming, creative EP highlighted by Kingston’s joyous vocals and Britten’s pop sensibilities.

This is melancholia wrapped in bows, kittens and clouds.

Rick Warner

Nathan Jolly

SKY’HIGH

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Remedy

More Than The Cure Since 1989 with Murray Engleheart

JAZZTASTIC

We’ve discovered over the years that the one common strand in a lot of hard line musicians and individuals is a passion for jazz. Seriously. Ask Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, Henry Rollins, Neil Young (his electric guitar playing is the string equivalent of John Coltrane), Warren Ellis or even Peter Garrett. And some even put their best foot forward for the genre, as Metallica’s Robert Trujillo is doing by injecting some bucks into a movie about legendary jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius (who's music, for the record, we don’t own – nor do we aspire to). “Jaco was my hero growing up,” said Trujillo recently. “Hearing him was like hearing Eddie Van Halen doing ‘Eruption’ for the first time. But Jaco had an edge that far exceeded his jazz persona: he was funk, rock and soul, and his whole attitude was punk.”

BRITISH STEEL

To mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, HMV in the UK ran a poll to find the most popular Brit recordings of the past 60 years. The number-one spot didn’t go to The Beatles, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Queen, or any of the other usual suspects; no, the top spot went to Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast. British Steel indeed.

FRICKING AWESOME

Radio Birdman’s Deniz Tek, who starred in the recent Dig It Up! extravaganza as one half of Tek & Younger (and who so-very-nearly was a Stooge in place of Raw Power-era man James Williamson), has scored a rave review in the US edition of Rolling Stone. The review, by David Fricke, was of his May 18 show at New York’s Bowery Electric.

ANSEL-DOH

Time and tide is a wonderfully levelling thing – like death and taxes, only different.

Former Pantera and current Down chief hard-nut Phil Anselmo has reportedly been reflecting on some of the many ‘what the?!’ interviews and cringe-worthy gig rants that he’s been responsible for over the years – things that really should not only have been left unsaid but perhaps left un-thought as

FLORENCE + THE MACHINE, BLOOD ORANGE

WHAT HAPPENED?

The show kicks off with Blood Orange, the solo project of English musician Dev Hynes aka Lightspeed Champion. His list of writing, producing and singing credits is impressive, including having written for tonight’s main act and recorded a duet with its lead singer – but armed with a guitar and a laptop, he hits us with some electronic beats that don’t quite capture the attention of a huge and fidgety audience.

It would be great to see this guy at a smaller venue.

Spin magazine recently ran a piece titled ‘Aussie In Effect: 8 Essentials Of Oz Rock’ by the glorious Chuck Eddy, who’s a very big fish in our little wading pool. The great man has never been one to play the conservative musical card, but even by his standards this is a strange bag given its stated area of focus. He highlights and raves about Coloured Balls’ Ball Power, Buster Brown’s Something To Say (which we’ve always felt fell kinda short, despite the calibre of the personnel involved) and X’s X-Aspirations. All good. Tim Pittman’s excellent Tales From the Australian Underground 1976–1989 and feedtime’s The Aberrant Years box also get the nod, as does the Grong Grong comp, To Hell ’N’ Back. But then, so do The Bleeding Hearts’ What Happened?, and – wait for it – Mondo Rock’s Primal Park. But no Aztecs, no Buffalo and no Rose Tattoo.

Huh. But maybe the intention was to do a piece largely showcasing the Aztec Music label, as a sizable portion of the list are all on Aztec. If that's the case, why not title the article, ‘Aztec Energy – And More’? Just a thought.

Speaking of Aztec, the Melbourne Oz-rock reissue label lives on, with the announcement that it has been acquired by a consortium of investors led by Paul Dainty. The new operation will be headed up by label stalwart Ted Lethborg.

WAGING HEAVY PEACE

Neil Young’s autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace, will be out in October. If it’s anything like Keef’s effort – and we reckon it will be – ol’ Shakey will be on a winner.

CASINO

Expect to see the mighty Johnny Casino on tour here in August with his Spanish band of rockers.

I’d like to think I’m not enough of a music snob to be turned off by an artist’s popularity, and yet I’ve come a little late to the Florence + The Machine party because… well, because my mum is there. And my ex, my weirdo neighbour, and a friend who has previously stated, “I don’t really like music.” (Yes, seriously.) I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be at this party. And yet here I am, and the reason becomes evident the moment Florence Welch descends from a raised podium at the back of the stage and begins singing over the opening bars of ‘Only If For A Night’.

PLANETARIUM: SUFJAN STEVENS, BRYCE DESSNER, NICO MUHLY Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House Monday May 28

The notion of indie musicians composing serious classical music always invites a raised eyebrow or two. As if to combat this scepticism, the ‘classical’ segment of tonight’s show opens with Nico Muhly’s elegant and enigmatic Diacritical Marks.

Sydney’s Orava String Quartet are clearly nervous, but dive into the aggressive first movement with endearing enthusiasm. Its confronting melodrama yields to a suite of achingly wistful themes that belie Muhly’s range and good taste as a composer.

Unsurprisingly, Stevens’ Run Rabbit Run is less delicate, and more romantic – the quartet chew through it ably. Dessner’s Aheym is the most rigid, and least playful; its staccato sawing feels like a non-sequitur after the more expressive works. Not many in the auditorium know quite what to make of any of this, though – we’re here to find out what wondrous things will be emblazoned on the enormous black globe that looms menacingly above the stage, almost invisible behind the brightly lit, gradually tiring quartet.

The collaborative centrepiece of the evening, Planetarium is largely made up of actual songs, many of which resemble the epic prog-marathons that littered Stevens’ The Age Of Adz and All Delighted People. The stage is very crowded for this piece – Muhly sits to the left, tending to a grand piano and a lustrous celeste. Stevens is in the centre, surrounded by analogue synths and vintage

TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS making their Sydney debut with a lineup that includes John Hoey (Died Pretty) and Mark Kingsmill (Hoodoo Gurus).

Opening will be ‘hard country’ man JD Burgess.

The bad news is that Mitch Perry won’t be able to take part in the reunited Heaven’s Twenty Twelve Australian tour in late June and early July. He has touring commitments with Lita Ford in the US. The good – no, make that great – news is that former Dio axeman Rowan Robertson, who joined the late Ronnie James outfit in 1989 at the ripe old age of 18, is taking Perry’s place in Heaven. And just over two years after Dio passed away, too. They're playing the Annandale on June 29 and 30, and Waves in Wollongong on July 1.

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

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Entertainment Centre Thursday May 24

They are awesome. Florence is immediately engaging, prancing lightly across the stage in a huge cape, which is gone a few songs in to reveal a glittery unitard. The lady is a bundle of energy, which serves to energise a crowd that can already barely contain itself. The Entertainment Centre is a big venue, and it’s to Florence’s credit that she creates what is almost an intimate atmosphere – she’s grateful and gracious, thanking us again and again. At one word from her, everyone in the seats are up and dancing – and in a particularly sweet moment, a little girl named Emily wins a dance competition, and follows Florence back up to the stage.

The eight-piece that is The Machine do an amazing job tonight. They strip it back for ‘You’ve Got The Love’ – the strings seem exceptionally stark and beautiful – and deliver on each hit, moving seamlessly between songs from Lungs and Ceremonials. Florence + The Machine close with ‘Dog Days Are Over’, which reaches its frenetic fever pitch again and again, and come back on for a brief encore ending in a powerful, heartfelt rendition of ‘No Light, No Light’.

So yes, I’ve come a little late to the party – but better late than never.

Romi Scodellaro

AZTEC REBORN

On the Remedy turntable is a stack of stuff by John Mayall, a man who was a lightning rod for amazing guitarists – Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Peter Green and later the likes of Walter Trout, not to mention some incredible session folks. The guy couldn’t sing or write a great song for shit, but somehow albums like Hard Road (Green), Turning Point, Jazz Blues Fusion, USA Union, Blues From Laurel Canyon, the masterful Blues Breakers (Clapton) and of course Bare Wires (Taylor) work a damn treat. Funny world, ain’t it?

At I-94 Bar at the Sando on June 10 is Peter Lillie’s Relaxed Mechanics, who feature Sacred Cowboys’ members Garry Gray – one of the greatest frontmen to ever take a stage in this country – and Nik Reisbeith, who will be doing some sonic backtracking. Also playing are Bruce Callaway (ex-Saints, Ed Kuepper Band) and his band The Hovering Spooks,

what we've been to see...

well. Anyone who witnessed THAT Pantera show at the Hordern Pavilion some years back will know exactly what we mean. That said, we always found the big guy to be quite charming...

ON THE TURNTABLE

On June 16, former Newtown punks (and now Melbourne mob) Thundabox launch their second album at the Lansdowne. Also on the bill are The Tombstone Ramblers (who were formed from the ashes of the Dolly Rocker Movement, and have a debut album in the can) and Special Patrol Group, on the back of their first 7-inch, ‘Economical Sense’.

live reviews

PVT

Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House Friday May 25 The closely-seated Opera House Theatre is no place for PVT fans. This much was clear before the first note was played, with constant shuffling as people waded past to visit the bathroom, get a drink or just try the patience of their fellows. Thankfully the other characteristic of Sydney’s punters – the need to chatter constantly throughout the gig – was forfeited, and we were able to engage with some incredibly varied work from the local noise-makers.

The early indications were that the band would play a set heavy on new material – and this latest batch of tunes sit in stark contrast to the vocal-lite work of 2010’s Church With No Magic. Richard Pike has decided to completely eschew using his voice as an abstract instrumental element, and has stepped out with a frontman’s guile. The songs, recently recorded at a farmhouse outside Canberra, range from sinister nu-romantic to bizarrely

drum machines. Dessner weaves beautifully understated and lyrical guitar runs from stage right. Behind them are Orava and a sevenpiece trombone ensemble, and as the brass, strings and celeste breathe life into ‘Neptune’, the gigantic orb swirls to life with projections of densely-coloured smoke clouds and shifting electric patterns. As if to establish a further air of ‘outer space’, Stevens’ vocals are almost uniformly sent through a vocoder to sound synthetic and ‘futuristic’. “Each song has a new planet of technology,” says Muhly, between pieces. “All the equipment we’re using was designed by NASA,” Stevens responds, defensively. “Space-08s,” quips Muhly.

What’s most alarming about the show is how easy it is to listen to, despite the absurd indulgence. The songs are piquant, optimistic and melancholy. Many of the instrumental passages are startlingly original, but with instrumentation this mad, that’s no surprise. Sometimes it doesn’t quite work – the classic rock noodling and gauche vocals (“I’m the future. I reside in every creature.”) of ‘Mars’ descend into formless squalls, making it sound like a half-baked nod to mid-'70s Miles Davis. Mostly, though, Planetarium is just ridiculous, bombastic and superb.

Indie music is so often concerned with its own overtly conceited sense of good taste. It’s a relief to find people this talented dispensing with reflexive care and striking out on intrepid inter-galactic musical expeditions.

Let’s hope a recording is on its way.

Luke Telford

preening pop. Props must be given for the band’s ability to push themselves further with each release, and for the greater collaboration involved in their songwriting, which was clear from the drummer’s centrality to the show. Laurence Pike’s playing has always been a beast to behold, but tonight he slayed ‘em in the aisles with quick-fire time signature shifts that guided the more dynamic elements of the set. He even threw out a few quick quips, busting those who tried to slink out before the encore: “Ha! Caught you leaving!”

Programmer Dave Miller seemed less involved than in previous performances, perhaps due to being particularly engaged with the extensive light show he’d created. Interestingly, the lights were most impressive when revisiting older tracks like the face-melting ‘Didn’t I Furious’ and the overwhelming encore track ‘Window’, which inspired much frenzied dancing down the front.

Benjamin Cooper

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

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House Saturday May 26 Tonight came with its own Ten Commandments: ‘I. Believe In The ArchAndroid. II. If You See Your Neighbour Jamming Harder Than You, Covet His Or Her Jam…’. For those who missed the whole hoopla, Janelle Monáe is a pint-sized 26-yearold Atlanta-based art/soul/funk/jazz juggernaut wrapped in a tuxedo, whose Big Boi-signed, android-themed concept suite culminated in 2010’s phenomenal The ArchAndroid – and a whole swag of hype.

On stage at the Opera House, she lived up to it all; impossibly talented, stupendously charismatic, and with stamina that's nothing short of appalling. We were blasted with the full Monáe from the get-go (and on our feet until MAR OUR PHOTOGRAPHER :: ASHLEY

the end), as her huge opening number ‘Dance Or Die’ led into the huger ‘Faster’ – with a voice that hit hard, eyes that danced with every beat, and feet that moved faster, faster, faster to a blur. The stage was packed by her cartoonish band, with cat-suited vocalists and a horn and string section, and the opening numbers were completely overwhelming. Almost to a fault, in fact: it wasn’t until Monáe's fourth song – a heartfelt rendition of Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Smile’, devoid of any irony whatsoever – that the full-throttle show left room for true feeling. But from that moment – with the band stripped back, the stage just a spotlight, and the crowd allowed to focus entirely on that face and that voice – we were all in her thrall.

“Beyonce with a backbone” read my notes, but that doesn’t do her justice (or even make much sense – dancing took priority over note-taking tonight): she’s MJ with sex-appeal, Andre 3000

with curves; she’s where Aretha’s attitude meets Etta’s warmth. There was the powerful ‘Cold War’, the climactic ‘Sincerely, Jane’, and the compellingly indulgent ‘Mushrooms & Roses’, as Monáe, showy and in character, splattered paint on an easel. And then there was the fast-footed and completely undeniable ‘Tightrope’, with a break-down that saw her introduce her band with the kind of true, classy showmanship that belongs only to the greats.

Just as impressive as her own creative vision is the homage Monáe pays to those who came before: here’s Prince, whose coinciding Australian tour had the sold-out room exploding with her ‘Take Me With U’ cover; here’s Michael Jackson, his moonwalk mimicked before Monáe shot out a cheeky glance, zipped her fly down and up, and launched into a pitch-perfect rendition of ‘I Want You Back’; and here’s James Brown,

whose spirit of funk was summoned during 'Tightrope' when a cape was ceremoniously draped over the lady's shoulders – which she broke free of to groin-thrust her way down the stairs. There was Nancy Sinatra, Shirley Bassey and speckles of Mancini, with a spectacular James Bond medley to close.

It'd be foolish to suggest that Janelle Monáe will have as long-lasting a legacy as the artists that she references, but to be caught up in the epic encore – a swinging and electric fifteenminute jam of ‘Come Alive (The War Of The Roses)’, through which her band danced, died and were then resurrected – as Monáe slid across the stage and stepped into the crowd and the energy somehow peaked even higher, it was easy to feel that what we were watching was exhilerating, timeless and new.

Steph Harmon

ska weekender 2012! party profile

JANELLE MONÁE

It’s called: SKA WEEKENDER 2012!

It sounds like: A combination of trumpets, upstrokes, dancing, skankin’, laughing and drinking.

Who’s playing? Chris Duke & The Royals, Dan Potthast (USA), The Bennies, God God Dammit Dammit, Kujo Kings, Handball Deathmatch, Jobstopper, Phat Meegz, Sublime with Billy, Roofdog, Steel City Allstars, The My Tys, DJ Ska Boss.

Sell it to us: Anyone who says they don’t like ska/reggae is obviously lying, so everyone should make it a point to head out, buy a bottle of something cheap, and check out all the great local and international bands on display!

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: You may feel pain coming from your legs due to the amount of dancing done, and a bit of a migraine from all Jagerbombs.

Crowd specs: For everyone, 18-99!

Wallet damage: $23 (+ bf), or $30 on the door. That’s like $2.50 per band...

Where: Annandale Hotel / 17-19 Parramatta Rd When: Sunday June 10, from 3pm

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

owl eyes

It’s called: Wasted Years at Q-Bar. It sounds like: The rhythm of wheels, the click of Poscas, the slap of highfives, and the belting of party tunes.

Sell it to us: Skate ramps, live-art walls, DJs spinning hip hop and skater punk, and hoodrats partying well into the AM – all washed down with $5 Pop Rocks shots, $5 Vodka Kool-Aid jars, $5 Budweisers and $15 Moonshine in jerry-cans.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: A Pulp Fiction-style non-linear timeline of events involving losing at hopscotch, being a part of staff drinks after the club closes, and making out on a skate ramp.

Crowd specs: Art babes and skater dude babes.

Wallet damage: $10 entry.

Where: Q-Bar / 44 Oxford street, Darlinghurst When: Every Saturday, from 9pm

PICS :: KC

party profile

wasted years

PICS :: KC

sister jane

25:05:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 93323711

26:05:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 93323711

tiger choir

PICS :: KC

tijuana cartel

PICS :: RR

24:05:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 93323711

brian jonestown massacre 26:05:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 93323711 40 :: BRAG :: 465: 04:06:12

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24:05:12 :: FBi Social :: Kings Cross Hotel 248 William St 93319900 :: 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 ::

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

ROCK & POP

The Jezabels

Art School Bash: Swimwear, Rainbow Chan FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $20 8pm Jimmy Barnes, Mahalia Barnes Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why sold out 8pm Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Take 40 Live Lounge: Simple Plan (CAN) The Standard, Darlinghurst $40 (+ bf) 6.30pm

JAZZ

Jeremy Sawkins Trio, Aaron Michael Quintet Venue 505, Surry Hills 8pm Kylie Stephens Dee Why Hotel free 6.30pm Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Tarbaby (USA), Oliver Lake The Basement, Circular Quay $45–$94.80 (dinner & show) 7.30pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie Madison Hotel, Surry Hills free 7.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Andrew Denniston, Darren Paul Taverners Hill Hotel, Leichhardt free 6.30pm Russell Neal, Renee Jonas, Henry Fraser Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 7pm

SATURDAY JUNE 9

WEDNESDAY JUNE 6

Ultimo TAFE Music A&R Showcase Grand Final Annandale Hotel 5pm Wolf & Cub, The Upskirts, The Guppies Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm

JAZZ

Eli Degibri Quartet (Israel) Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay 8pm Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm WAYJO – Youth Jazz Orchestra The Red Rattler, Marrickville 7.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Black Diamond Cookies Lounge and Bar, North Strathfield free 6.30pm Carolyn Woodorth Royal Hotel, Springwood free 8pm Daniel Hopkins, Raoul Graf Taren Point Hotel free 7pm The Folk Informal: Zoe Elliot, Bennie James, Annie McKinnon, Jep & Dep FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm Greg Sita, Tim Bray, Lyndsay Harper, Richard Murphy Evening Star Hotel, Surry Hills free 7pm Madame Wu, Ella Stathis, Jasmine Beth, Amanda Kay, Little Beard, Andrew Denniston, Helmut Uhlmann The Loft, UTS, Broadway, Ultimo free 6pm New Empire, Jordan Millar, Adam Hynes The Vanguard, Newtown $18.80 7pm Russell Neal Can and Fiddle Hotel, Balmain free 6.30pm TAOS, John Chesher, Gavin Fitzgerald Coach & Horses Hotel, Randwick free 7pm

ROCK & POP

Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park

The Jezabels, Lights, Snakadaktal $50 (+ bf) 8pm MONDAY JUNE 4 ROCK & POP

Band For Bears: Peter Northcote, Doc Neeson, Mark Gable, Virginia Lillye, Paul Gray, Dann Marx Young Notes Live, Enmore $56.10– $80.60 (dinner & show) 7pm Open Mic Night Hard Rock Cafe, Darling Harbour free 8pm Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm

Unheard Open Mic Night Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 7.30pm

JAZZ

Chris Potter Underground (USA) and the JazzGroove Mothership Orchestra with Kristin Beradi & WAYJO Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $25 (conc)–$45 (+ bf) 7pm Greg Coffin, Ken Allars, John Mackey, Jonathan Zwartz, Hamish Stuart Clovelly Bowling & Recreation Club $20 6pm all-ages

Jim Gannon Dee Why Hotel free 6.30pm Monday Jam: Danny G Felix The Lansdowne, Broadway free 9pm Starfish Club Clovelly Bowling & Recreation Club $20 7pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

DinkiDiAcoustic: Blind Lemon Chicken, Ben Liddicoat, Toby Pile Camelia Grove Hotel, Alexandria free 6.30pm Russell Neal, Massimo Presti, Chris Brookes Kellys On King, Newtown free

Andy Mammers Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9pm Brad Johns Dee Why Hotel free 6.30pm The Chill The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9pm Entropic, Nic Cassey & The Bark Lanterns, Monk Fly The Basement, Circular Quay $20 (+ bf) 7.30pm I’m With Stupid O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 10pm Jack Colwell & The Owls, Moon Holiday, Packwood, Glamour Attack GoodGod Small Club, Sydney $10 (+ bf) 7.30pm Jagermeister Presents: My Oh My, Footsie & The Psychos, Mother Jack Annandale Hotel $8 7.30pm Jamie Lindsay Northies, Cronulla free 7.30pm JD, Jason Bettinger Harbord Beach Hotel free 7.30pm Jess Dunbar Summer Hill Hotel free 8pm Jimmy Barnes, Mahalia Barnes Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why sold out 8pm Josh McIvor Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 6pm Maux Faux, Halfweight, Hang Dai, Strange Attractors Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm Mike Bennett The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 9.30pm Miss Pia & Her Lonesome Playboys, Pat Capocci Combo, DJ Brian Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont

THURSDAY JUNE 7 ROCK & POP

AIM To Save The Annnadale: Castlecomer, Teal, I’m No Thief, Belle and the Bone People, Rob Farnham, Dharma Sutra, Daniel Chigmidden Annandale Hotel $12 (presale)-$15 6pm The Bland, Chantelle Alexi Sydney Livehouse, Lewisham Hotel $10 8pm Gail Page Blue Beat, Double Bay $15 (+ bf) 7pm Heavenly Sounds: Lisa Mitchell, Georgia Fair St Stephens Church Hall, Sydney $52.50 (+ bf) 8pm Live Thursdays: After Dark Hard Rock Cafe, Darling

Harbour free 8.30pm Rachel Eldon, Halfwait The Basment, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf) 7.30pm Steve Smyth, The Maple Trail, Jep & Dep The Vanguard, Newtown $13.80 7pm TAFE Band Competition Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Thomas Ford, Simo Soo, Black Vanilla, Koro Vacui Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Train (USA), Matt Nathanson Sydney Opera House $109.90 (+ bf) 8pm Vultures: The Pennys, DJ Skar The Lansdowne, Broadway free 9pm The White Bros The Orient Hotel, The Rocks Winter People, Battleships, Caitlin Park Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $12 (+ bf) 8pm

JAZZ

The Cellar Jazz Jam: Phil Stack Trio The Spice Cellar, Sydney free 9pm Kristy Garrett Dee Why Hotel free 6.30pm Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm

COUNTRY

Rose Carleo Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $24 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Andrew Denniston, Arthur Marder, David Wildey, Starr Witness, Oliver Goss, Magnolia, Moa Eknander Narrabean Sands free 7pm Craig Laird The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 8.30pm Massimo Presti, Nick Domenicos, Spencer McCullum, Steve McNaughton, Russell Neal Kogarah Hotel free 7pm

FRIDAY JUNE 8 ROCK & POP

Barry Leef Band Featuring Peter Northcote, Victor Rounds and Kimi Tupaea Blue Beat, Double Bay $15 (+ bf) 7pm Blood, Sweat & Beers: Flatliners (CAN), The Gun Runners, Between The Devil & The Deep, Milhouse, 10 Paces Annandale Hotel $15-$25 8pm The Carl Stewart Band, The Maze Sydney Livehouse, Lewisham Hotel $10 8pm

“Leave your head in the cloakroom and leave your heart at the door” - THE JEZABELS 42 :: BRAG :: 465 : 04:06:12

Lisa Mitchell

Dirty Three photo by Annabel Mehran

pick of the week

TUESDAY JUNE 5

g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Casey Donovan, Nathan Foley, The Stiff Gins Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $19 8pm Clive Hay Richmond Inn free 7.45pm The Crooked Fiddle Band, The Rusty Spring Syncopators The Vanguard, Newtown $18.80–$53.80 (dinner & show) 7.30pm Daily Meds, Roleo Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm The Delta Riggs, Myth & Tropics, Penelope FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Diesel Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Dusty - The Very Best of Dusty Springfield: Monique Montez, Deni Hines North Sydney Leagues Club, Cammeray $45 (+ bf) 7.30pm Elizabeth Rose, Panama, Boatfriends The Standard, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Excellent Robot, Little Lovers, The Dreamboats, Death Mattel The Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm Fantine, Lime Cordiale, Jordan Sly, PhDJ Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm The Hollow Bones, Blind Valley, Little Bastard, The Mountains, DJ Alley Cats The Lansdowne, Broadway free 9pm Ignition The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm Luke Escombe And The Corporation, Bellyache Ben And The Steamgrass Boys 401 Hibernian House, Surry Hills $10 8pm Mark Kozelek (USA), The Understudy The Factory Theatre, Enmore $36 (+ bf) 8pm Metalwrath, Exekute, Foundry Road, Dark Order Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Missy Higgins, Butterfly Boucher York Theatre, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $65 (+ bf) 8pm MUM: Little Napier, Pear Shape, Jenny Broke The Window, Thomas Covenant, The Maze, Total Bore, Buzz Kill DJs, Swim Team DJs, Cries Wolf DJs, Hetro Life Partners, Andrew Stone, Sammy K, 10th Avenue The World Bar, Kings Cross $10-$15 8pm Roots: Batfoot, Nudist Colonies Of The World, Excitebike Spectrum, Darlinghurst $5-$10 8pm Rumours: A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac The Basement, Circular Quay $28 (+ bf)–$78.80 (dinner & show) 9pm The Secret City, Two Girls Will, Katie Rosewood Notes Live, Enmore $17.35 7pm The Stukas, Hey Baby, Suicide Swans, Courage for Casper The Roxbury Hotel, Glebe $10 8pm Turn ‘n Point Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 8pm The Velvet Cave: The Go Roll Your Bones, Colours, Chalk Eaters, Andre Calman, Dave Can’t, Velvet Gallagher, Ken Blements 77 Yurong Lane, Darlinghurst $10 8pm

JAZZ

Andrew Dickeson Quintet The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10 (student)–$20 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Russell Neal, Mike Searson Brad Myers, Renee Jonas Mars Hill Café, Parramatta $10 8pm

SATURDAY JUNE 9 ROCK & POP

2 Of Hearts Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 8pm The Darkened Seas, Driffs, The Khans, Call To Colour, Warchief Annandale Hotel $10 (+ bf) 6pm Diesel Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Dragon Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $49–$107 (dinner & show) 7pm Empra, Familia, Neon Heart, The Dividers, DJ Alley Cats The Lansdowne, Broadway free 9pm Evil Invaders IV: Inquisition (USA), Hobbs Angel of Death, Mournful Congregation, Assaulter, Astriaal, Impetuous Ritual, Lord, Destruktor, Vomitor, Denouncement Pyre, Heresiarch, Rituals of the Oak, Mongrels Cross Manning Bar, Sydney University, Camperdown $41.60-$48.90 1pm Falling Downstairs, Ya Mum, Team Justice Sydney Livehouse, Lewisham Hotel $10 8pm Glass Towers, Them Swoops, The Upskirts FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 (+ bf) 8pm Green Mohair Suits, Oh Willy Dear, Hay Fever Annandale Hotel free 12pm Group Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Jackson Firebird, River of Snakes The Vanguard, Newtown $15.80 8pm The Jezabels, Lights, Snakadaktal Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park $50 (+ bf) 8pm Joey & the Boy Brighton RSL Club, BrightonLe-Sands free 8pm Mrs Bishop, Rainbow Chan, Lion & The Lotus GoodGod Small Club, Sydney $10 (+ bf) 8pm Rehab For Quitters (CAN), Strawberry Fist Cake, Topnovil, Headbutt, Liberation Front, The Switchblades Valve Bar, Tempe 5pm Shai Hotel Chambers, Sydney 8pm The Shooters Party Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory free 8pm The Strides, Kingfisha Blue Beat, Double Bay $15 (+ bf) 9pm Swingshift Cold Chisel Show Wisemans Ferry Bowling Club free 8pm Tall Pop Syndrome The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm Tangled Up in Bob – A Tribute To Bob Dylan Notes Live, Enmore $23.50 7pm Tiger & The Rogues, Shezbot, Luchi, Phantom Valley Roxbury Room, The Roxbury Hotel, Glebe $10 7.30pm Wolf & Cub, Palms, The Ruminators The Standard, Darlinghurst $20 (+ bf) 8pm

JAZZ

Albare iTD, Antonio Sanchez, George Garzone

Trio (USA), Leo Genovese, Hendrik Muerkens, Evri Evripidou Seymour Theatre Centre, Chippendale $69 7pm Darling Harbour Jazz & Blues Festival: Dr Lonnie Smith, Trevor Watts, Veryan Weston, Smith Stack & Thistlewayte, Christa Hughes & The Honky Tonk Shonks, Kira Puru & The Bruise, The Crusty Suitcase Band, Greening from Ear to Ear, Jonathan Zwartz Ensemble, Amphibious, Compass Sextet, James Valentine, Moth, Alice Terry & the Skinny White Boys, Sister Jane, Brothers Grim & The Blue Murders, Bob Abbott’s Fabulous Green Machine, Joshua Kyle, Elly Hoytt, Fuji Collective, Richard Perso, Swamphouse, Big Ol’ Bus Band, The Louisiana Roadshow, Nicky Bomba’s Bustamento, The Bombay Royale Various Venues, Darling Harbour free 11am Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 5pm Phil Slater, Jeremy Rose Trio, James Waples, Aaron Flower, Ollie Miller, Ben Carey, James Walker Darling Harbour, Chinese Gardens, Sydney $15 7pm all-ages Samuel Yirga (Ethiopia) Blue Beat Bar & Grill, Double Bay $35 (+ bf) 5.30pm Trevor Watts & Veryan Weston (UK) The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $20-$25 8.30pm

East 17 (UK) The Hi-Fi, Moore Park $55.10 (+ bf) 8pm Fiji (USA), J Boog (USA), Peetah Morgan (JAM), Hot Rain (USA), Laga (USA), Siaosi (USA), Kiwini & Irie Love (USA), Sammielz & 501 Band Enmore Theatre $55 (+ bf) 7pm Grand Union, Telepathetic, Midnight Express Valve Bar, Tempe 5pm King Tide Brass Monkey, Cronulla 8pm Matt ‘The Rumble’ Morrison Notes Live, Enmore $20 (+ bf) 7pm Salsa Night Hard Rock Cafe, Darling Harbour free 8.30pm Ska Weekender 2012: Chris Duke & The Royals, Dan Potthast (USA), The Bennies, God God Dammit Dammit, Phat Meegz, Roofdog (NZ), Son of Dad, Give Or Take, Area 7, The Operators, Admiral Ackbar’s Dishonourable Discharge, Backy Skank, Kujo Kings, Sublime With Billy, The My Tys, Steel City Allstars, Jobstopper, Handball Deathmatch Annandale Hotel $23 (+ bf) 3pm Soul Tattoo Duo Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 4pm Unheard Open Mic Night Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 7.30pm We Come Out At Night: Thy Art is Murder, Sienna Skies, Caulfield, Never See Tomorrow, Hot Damn DJs Spectrum, Darlinghurst $15–$20 (+ bf) 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Kira Puru & The Bruise

JAZZ

Darling Harbour Jazz & Blues Festival: Dr Lonnie Smith, Trevor Watts, Veryan Weston, Smith Stack & Thistlewayte, Christa Hughes & The Honky Tonk Shonks, Kira Puru & The Bruise, The Crusty Suitcase Band, Greening from Ear to Ear, Jonathan Zwartz Ensemble, Amphibious, Compass Sextet, James Valentine, Moth, Alice Terry & The Skinny White Boys, Sister Jane, Brothers Grim & The Blue Murders, Bob Abbott’s Fabulous Green Machine, Joshua Kyle, Elly Hoytt, Fuji Collective, Richard Perso, Swamphouse, Big Ol’ Bus Band, The Louisiana Roadshow, Nicky Bomba’s Bustamento, The Bombay Royale Various Venues, Darling Harbour free 11am Future Now: The Robert Glasper Experiment, Jose James, Taylor McFerrinm,

Cian, Huwston Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $55 (+ bf) 8pm The Peter Head Trio & Friends The Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm

COUNTRY

50 Million Beers Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Craig Thommo The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 7pm Lawrence Baker The Belvedere Hotel free 4pm Nothin But Jam, 2 Picks No Sticks, Kath Cox, Black Diamond Corrimal Hotel free 3pm Russell Neal Salisbury Hotel, Stanmore free 2pm Shane MacKenzie Cohibar, Darling Harbour free 3pm

Blanche DuBois The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf)–$68.80 (dinner & show) 7.30pm Nova Tone The Belvedere Hotel free 9pm Russell Neal Terrey Hills Tavern free 7.30pm

SUNDAY JUNE 10 ROCK & POP

2 Of Hearts Revesby Workers Club free 9pm Ace Brighton RSL Club, Brighton-Le-Sands free 7pm Bang! Bang! Rock ‘n’ Roll, Doc Holliday Takes The Shotgun, The Faults, Samoan Punks FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm Barefoot Alley, Danger Dannys, Smitty & B. Goode, July Morning Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 7.30pm Blues Sunday: Mark Hopper Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 7.30pm The Bombay Royale, The Crusty Suitcase Band The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf) 7.30pm Bryen Willems & the Boogie Boys Marrickville Bowling Club free 4.30pm Cash Savage & The Last Drinks The Vanguard, Newtown $18.80 7pm Danny Boyle Riverside Theatres, Parramatta $25 1pm Dr Don’s Double Dose, Don Hopkins Crossroads Hotel, Liverpool free 1pm

wed

06 Jun

thu

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

07 Jun

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

(5:00PM - 8:00PM)

fri

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

LO N G W E E K E N D SATURDAY AFTERNOON

sat

09

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SATURDAY NIGHT

Jun

(9:00PM - 1:30AM)

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

sun

10 Jun

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

SUNDAY NIGHT (8:30PM - 12:00AM)

mon

11 Jun

(5:00PM - 8:00PM)

(7:00PM - 10:30PM)

BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 43

gig picks

up all night out all week...

St Stephens Church Hall, Sydney sold out 8pm

WEDNESDAY JUNE 6

Steve Smyth, The Maple Trail, Jep & Dep The Vanguard, Newtown $13.80 7pm

Jack Colwell & The Owls, Moon Holiday, Packwood, Glamour Attack DJs GoodGod Small Club, Sydney $10 (+ bf) 7.30pm

Train (USA), Matt Nathanson Sydney Opera House $112.90 (+ bf) 8pm

Wolf & Cub, The Upskirts, The Guppies Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach free 8pm

Winter People, Battleships, Caitlin Park Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $12 (+ bf) 8pm

WAYJO – Youth Jazz Orchestra The Red Rattler, Marrickville 7.30pm

The Cellar Jazz Jam: Phil Stack Trio, Kat Kitch The Spice Cellar, Sydney free 9pm

THURSDAY JUNE 7 Heavenly Sounds: Lisa Mitchell, Georgia Fair

Jack Colwell

FRIDAY JUNE 8 The Crooked Fiddle Band, The Rusty Spring Syncopators The Vanguard, Newtown $18.80– $53.80 (dinner & show) 7pm

Hetro Life Partners, Andrew Stone, Sammy K, 10th Avenue The World Bar, Kings Cross $10-$15 8pm

SATURDAY JUNE 9

Blanche DuBois, Jack Carty, Bity Booker The Basement, Circular Quay $20–$68.80 (dinner & show) 7.30pm

SUNDAY JUNE 10 The Bombay Royale, The Crusty Suitcase Band The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf) 7.30pm

GROUP Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 11pm, 1am Sunday Wolf & Cub, Palms, The Ruminators The Standard, Darlinghurst $20 (+ bf) 8pm Albare iTD, Antonio Sanchez, George Garzone Trio (USA), Leo Genovese, Hendrik Muerkens, Evripidis Evripidou Seymour Theatre Centre, Chippendale $45 7pm

Ska Weekender 2012: Chris Duke & The Royals, Dan Potthast (USA), The Bennies, God God Dammit Dammit, Phat Meegz, Roofdog (NZ), Backy Skank, Kujo Kings, Sublime With Billy, The My Tys, Steel City Allstars, Jobstopper, Handball Deathmatch Annandale Hotel, Annandale $23 (+ bf) 3pm

The Delta Riggs, Myth & Tropics, Penelope FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Elizabeth Rose, Panama, Boatfriends The Standard, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Missy Higgins, Butterfly Boucher York Theatre, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $65 (+ bf) 8pm MUM: Little Napier, Pear Shape, Jenny Broke The Window, Thomas Covenant, The Maze, Total Bore, Buzz Kill DJs, Swim Team DJs, Cries Wolf DJs,

Chris Duke & The Royals Xxxx

WAYJO

www.fbisocial.com

L2 Kings Cross Hotel

Tuesday June 5

ART SCHOOL BASH: HOLY BALM + RAINBOW CHAN + SWIMWEAR + DJS 8pm // $10 at the art schools $20 at the door

Wednesday June 6

Thursday June 7

THE FOLK INFORMAL:

YUNG WARRIORS

ZOE ELLIOT + BENNIE JAMES + ANNIE MCKINNON + JEP&DEP

+ STREET WARRIORS + WHITEHOUSE

8pm // $10

8pm // $10

Friday June 8

Saturday June 9

Sunday June 10

THE DELTA RIGGS

GLASS TOWERS

BANG! BANG! ROCKNROLL

+ MYTH & TROPICS + PENELOPE

+ THEM SWOOPS + THE UPSKIRTS

LATE NIGHT SOCIAL:

+ DOC HOLLIDAY TAKES THE SHOTGUN + THE FAULTS + SAMOAN PUNKS

Free entry, from midnight

8pm // $10

8pm, $10+bf / $12 on the door

VIDEO JAM RADIANT LIVE: with TOM LOUD

From midnight til laaaate, FREE

44 :: BRAG :: 465 : 04:06:12

(SINGLE LAUNCH)

$10 + bf through oztix or $15 on the door

FRAMES + FELIX LLOYD

(EP LAUNCH)

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

brag beats 360 + jamie:326 + guy j also: + club guide + club snaps + weekly column

inside

sampology samp ology apocalypse now

We has internets!

www.thebrag.com Extra bits and moving bits without the papercuts BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 45

dance music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

he said she said WITH

Joyride

MEAT KATIE (UK) I am a huge Prince fan. I just find him an interesting and inspirational artist. I’m also into bands like Django Django, Brushy One String, Beta Band, Laura Marling – I’m all over the place, musically. I still like bands like Social Distortion, Operation Ivy and The Specials, too.

I travel a lot as a DJ, and I have been listening to the comedian Jim Jefferies’ podcast, which is kind of inspiring in a weird way.

My crew is basically my record label LOT49, which I run with another DJ/producer, Dylan Rhymes. We have a bunch of artists that record for us: Vandal, Lee Coombs, Black & Blunt and Dopamine.

I play and make a hybrid of techno, electro and breaks. It’s pretty dirty, and pretty slamming. A lot of people refer to it as techfunk, and I kind of like that – it sums up my style!

I

first got into music when hip hop came around. I didn’t want to be a DJ, I was more into the graffiti side of it, but I was interested in the funk loops the producers were using – so I ended up getting into funk, soul and rare grooves. The next step was I bought a bass guitar and taught myself how

to play. When I was 15 years old all my friends were into skate punk, so I joined a band and managed to pick up a record deal Then later on, when samplers came around, I turned to my large funk collection and started making big beat that turned in breakbeat, and now I’m a professional DJ. It’s funny how life works.

I think up-and-coming musicians/DJs/ producers have a harder time getting established these days, as there are so many people out there doing it. All you need now is a computer and you can have a home studio/label/distribution/everything, all run from your bedroom. But I guess if you have something special – a bit of talent – and you’re persistent, you will get noticed eventually.

With: Damien Osborne, Nick Robins Where: Bass Mafia @ Chinese Laundry When: Friday June 8

JOYRIDE @ ITCHY BEATS

You know that song ‘Stairway To Heaven’?

Well prepare to climb a secret stairway to DJ heaven at The Brighton Hotel on Saturday June 16, to witness a mindboggling lineup of DJs for the inaugural Itchy Beats hip hop night. Headlining is the ever busy Joyride, who spins for Spit Syndicate and The Tongue, and whose enviable presence behind the decks has landed him the title of Australia’s top party DJ. Kicking off the night is Newcastle’s DJ Ntaprize, often spotted performing live with Johnny Utah and Black Magic, and DJ Zarkov from Jackie Onassis.

Main support comes from the almighty DJ Morgs, who’s skills have landed him on recent tours with Ozi Batla and Tuka. To double score yourself a d ou le passes and a limited oub edition Itchy Beats hat, tell us who else DJ Joyride has collaborated with.

headlining performance from Germany’s s Guido Schneider. Schneider brings an n imposing production pedigree to the decks, cks, having honed his distinct take on minimal mal tech house for the past fifteen years, laying ying the foundations in the ‘90s on his own Neue Welten imprint and releasing on labels such as Poker Flat. Schneider’s collaboration n with Andre Galluzzi, ‘Albertino’, was one of the he club cuts of ‘07/’08, being heavily supported by the likes of Luciano and Ricardo Villalobos. bos.

Meanwhile his collaborations with Sammy my Dee (Pantytec), firstly as Schneider & Radecki and then on the Poker Flat 12-inch ‘Styleways’ leways’ (which was licensed to Richie Hawtin’s rightfully revered DE9: Transitions album), m), also attracted praise from the club cognoscenti. enti.

And as anyone who saw Schneider throw ow down at Mad Racket on his last Australia ia trip (which was also his Australian debut) ut) will attest to, he can work a dancefloor with rare aplomb. Schneider will be flanked by an extensive support cast that includes New Zealand’s Hayden Strom from Antix, Thug hug Records mainman Carlos Zarate and, uh, Dylan Griffin. Presale tickets are available able from Resident Advisor.

Deepchild

LOOSE KABOOSE FT DEEPCHILD

Rick Bull aka Deepchild, arguably Australia’s most recognisable techno export – and a genuine nice guy to boot – plays a ‘welcome back‘ set at Loose Kaboose this Friday June 8 at GoodGod Small Club. As a core member of the Trapez recordingartist roster, the Deepchild sound is firmly rooted in an exploration of “post-Detroit” machine-music-bass-heavy, insistent, angular, raw, noisy and dub-laden techno. Now based in Berlin, Deepchild will be marking his homecoming by performing a live set, showcasing his self-described “rambunctious take on machine music. My machines, my sound, is rust-stained, noisy, unquantised”. Also on the bill is ‘90s underground house DJ Ben Feggans, returning to the decks for an extremely rare set. Ben was a regular at parties such as Tweakin and Sabotage alongside the likes of Simon Caldwell, Phil Smart and Sugar Ray, and held a residency at Chinese Laundry back in the day. Feggans will be pushing an array of classic acid, house and techno tunes from the last two decades in the early hours of the morning, after Bull has done his thing. Presale tickets are available for $20 on Resident Advisor, with the party running from 11pm–6am.

PARKLIFE 2012

Fuzzy’s Parklife will move from its traditional home of Kippax Lake, Moore Park this year to a “lush, tree-lined location deep inside Centennial Park.” Fuzzy Director John Wall elucidates: “Parklife started its life deep inside Centennial Park, and while Kippax Lake has been a great venue for the last eight years, we’ve been itching to move back inside the Park for a while, so we’re very excited not only to be there but right next to the original Parklife 2000 venue. It’s a layout that hasn’t been used for a festival before,” Wall adds, “and we think everyone will really love it.”

46 :: BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12

Parklife 2012 is slotted for Sunday September 30, and although the lineup has not officially been announced yet, dubstep band Modestep and UK MC Labrinth have spilled the beans to other media outlets that they’ll be turning out for the event. As soon as the full Parklife 2012 lineup is announced, you can expect to read about it on these pages...

GUIDO SCHNEIDER

Subsonic’s End Of The Line long weekend sub-brand returns to the Abercrombie on Monday June 11 for a midday to midnight, twelve-hour extravaganza, crowned by a

YUNG WARRIORS

The fast-rising Indigenous hip hop outfit Yung Warriors, made up of cousins Tjiimba and D Boy, are embarking on a national tourr in support of their forthcoming album Standing nding Strong, which will include a performance ce at FBi Social at the Kings Cross Hotel on Thursday June 7. Standing Strong is Yung ng Warriors’ second album, and was produced uced

by Momo from Diafrix. The album’s lead-off d-off single and title track features Indigenous us artists Dizzy Doolan, Sneake1, Dubbzone, ne, Karnage and Robby Knight and has been on high rotation on triple j, while the album itself apparently merges “hip hop flows and beats with ample splashes of smooth RnB stylings and a sprinkle of poptastic hooks”.

ANTIX / FIORD

Progressive/techno favourites, the brothers Antix aka Fiord, will play a live show at the ‘hidden gem’ venue that is Tiki Bar, located at 110 Spring Street in Bondi Junction on Saturday June 9. Hailing from New Zealand, the brothers have released four studio albums over the past decade under their three monikers Antix, Fiord and Triangle, and have had their productions supported by DJ deity such as Dave Seaman, Nick Warren and John Digweed. A quality support cast of DJs has been assembled for this bash, led by Christchurch’s Adelle, whose sets encompass electro, breaks and techno cuts, and Oblongmonster, a minimal progressive producer and DJ from Sydney, with a VJ also enlisted to add that optical je ne sais quoi to proceedings. Doors open at 8pm.

Ben Morris & MC Losty

THE CITY OF QUEENS @ COOGEE BAY HOTEL

Ministry of Sound DJ Ben Morris and MC Losty will be taking to the decks as part of a Queen’s Birthday fiesta embracing the city of Queens. It kicks off at the Coogee Bay Hotel from 8pm on Saturday June 9. Morris has mixed two CDs for MoS and supported the likes of John Digweed and Erick Morrillo over the years, while Losty has been on the grid for a while now, working across multiple genres in the Sydney scene. In addition to the beats, Selina’s (the club inside the Coogee Bay Hotel) will be transformed into a graffiti artist’s playground, with local artist Jeremy Hession showcasing his contemporary street style on a wall inside the club.

BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 47

dance music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

he said she said WITH TJIMBA FROM YUNG WARRIORS WI

B

oth D-boy and moved to Im Melbourne at a Me young, young age. Our family was w all about music because my dad Selwyn Burns, lead is Se guitarist of Coloured guit Stone – and they St went on the road w about the time we were just four or five.

Dad is D-boy’s uncle, too. We are all family, so our music memories are all about guitars in tthe house, jam sessions on all the session Aboriginal rock classics, Aborigin Coloured Stone and No Address. We grew up Fixed Add it was in our around music; mu blood.

I’m inspired by all the hip hop stars – Akon, 50 Cent, Tupac, Yelawolf – EMINEM, Tu Aussie acts too, and all the A like Diafrix, S Street Warriors Kinection. Joel from and Last Kine

STRANGE FRUIT Jamie 3:26

Sydney’s newest underground dance brand Strange Fruit, a free affair held every Saturday night from 9pm at The Abercrombie, rolls on this weekend with sets from DJs Angus Gruzman, MSG, Nick Belshaw and Jordan Deck on a bangin’ Funktion One soundsystem. Gruzman is best known for his days spinning as Gus Da Hoodrat at the Bang Gang parties, but has moved away from the ‘Hoodrat sound’ and has been given free reign to showcase one of the finest – and most eclectic – record selection any Sydney jock can lay claim to. MSG is one of the main men behind the infamous annual Subsonic Music festival, who has been a mainstay of

TZU was a big inspiration, and players like Lee Ritenour, the super super jazzy rocky session man, and bands like Rush – I love the rock, too.

Our family basically got us into music.

My dad was playing in bands when I was young, so he plays a big part in why I do music. And D-boy was always around; we grew up together around music. At the moment we’ve been working with the band, doing live shows with instruments, which is something we always wanted to do with hip hop. Hopefully sometime down the track we can record a whole album with the band.

TOM TRAGO @ SPICE

The Queen’s Birthday long weekend is looming, and knowing her she’ll be heading to The Spice Cellar to celebrate with headliner Tom Trago. The Amsterdam-born DJ has been at the forefront of electronic music for ten years now, but most will remember his 2009 release Voyage Direct which catapulted his career internationally.

He learnt classical composition at music school, studied old jazz records, and played in various bands in his youth – he’s not one to be confined to genres, and neither is his music. His latest release Iris showcases all of his passions, mixing house with disco and everything in between – which you can witness yourself on Sunday June 10 from 10pm. To score a double pass, tell us the name of a Voyage Direct track.

Tom Trago

We used to work day jobs but we don’t do that anymore, because there’s every gang wanting us to do workshops. We love doing sessions with young rappers; we try them with beats and get them writing their own raps and crazy words. We also do school shows – secondary schools love us, we do shows at lunchtime and talk up our history. Last week at Mater Christi College we had a thousand girls jumping at lunchtime.

What: Standing Strong is out now Where: FBi Social, Kings Cross Hotel / Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle When: Thursday June 7 / Saturday June 9

the local underground techno and bush party scene for many moons now. Meanwhile, Belshaw and Deck have a long running [DJ] relationship, having played together at the Chemistry parties over the years. And just to repeat for anyone who skimmed the opening – you’re forgiven for doing so – Strange Fruit is a completely free party that runs until 5am every Saturday night/Sunday morning.

[THE BOX]

One time Sydney underground institution [The Box] is again making its presence felt in the clubbing milieu. The minimal techno club night re-emerged recently for its 4th Birthday party with Spanish outfit Pig&Dan, and will

Kaiserdisco

return to the intimate confines of One22 on Saturday June 16 with a bash headlined by Melbourne’s Bump DJs. The Bump DJs are brothers who earned their interstate stripes with regular slots at the Lost Baggage parties, and are more than adept at working a room when it comes to house and techno frequencies. Jostling for position behind the decks alongside the Bump DJs will be [Box] residents Jay Smalls, Michael Doney, Defined by Rhythm and Michael Scholes.

HUXLEY

UK DJ and producer Huxley will be making his debut trip to Australia this month, headlining Bad Apple at One22 on Saturday June 30.

After attaining initial success as a garage producer, Huxley’s music has evolved towards a deeper house-based sound in the past few years, as he has remixed the likes of Lee Burridge and Maya Jane Coles and delivered releases on labels such as Tsuba, Hypercolour, 20:20 Vision and his own Saints & Sonnets imprint. As a DJ, you can expect Huxley to mix in house, techno and a bit of garage-style influences. Support will come from DJs Ben Ashton, Kerry Wallace and Moonchild, with $20 presales online.

BOOM BOOM FT JAMIE 3:26

Boom Boom, a party that has hosted iconic internationals such as Anthony ‘Shake’ Shakir and Rick ‘The Godson’ Wilhite over the past year, next plays host to Chicago’s Jamie 3:26 at a secret(ish) venue this Saturday. Jamie has earned his stripes via collaborations with prolific producers like Marshall Jefferson, Chip E., Anthony Nicholson, Glen Underground, Boo Williams and Paul Johnson, with his latest releases and the Basement Edits series all apparently selling out within days of their release on ParteHardy Records.

The promoters have stated that prospective partygoers can expect an “amazing sound system” coupled with the Boom Boom E&S DJR400 (technophiles will know what that means…). Also throwing down will be the Paradise Lost DJs, Magda Bytnerowicz and resident Daniel Lupica, with presales online for a mere $10.

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KAISERDISCO

One half of renowned German techno duo Kaiserdisco (the half who can DJ better!) will throw down at One22 this Saturday. Over the years, Kaiserdisco have remixed artists like Booka Shade, Kosheen, Extrawelt, Sebastien Légér, Robyn(!) and 2000 & One, and released on labels like Adam Beyer’s infamous Drumcode imprint, Strictly Rhythm, My Best Friend and Global Underground. Kaiserdisco’s debut album, In No One’s Shadow, was released in 2010, and was described by Resident Advisor as offering “ten prime techhouse bombs… in other words, what Kaiserdisco do best”. Support on the night will come from DJs Bella Sarris, Dave Stuart, Ben Ashton and AKA.

Huxley

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Sampology

Super Visual Apocalypse Jams By Marissa Demetriou

N

ot many people can mash together a clip of Tom Hanks with Dr. Dre and not only make it funny, but somehow effortlessly cool.

Sampology, aka Brisbane native Sam Poggioli, has gone from a circuit DJ, to playing live venues around Brisbane, to touring around Australia and hitting the international stages, featuring at festivals like SXSW and Edinburgh Fringe Festival – and last Friday he unleashed his debut record, Doomsday Deluxe. Having only begun to incorporate visuals into his sets over the past few years, Poggioli is clearly thriving in the thrill of exploring more and more of the relatively unchartered waters that is the AV DJ experience. “It was a big influence, [working out] what I could do with vision that I couldn’t do with audio. And what I liked about it is that not everyone is doing it, so everyone has their own little flavour or way of doing it, and you can kind of make up your own rules and aesthetic,” he explains. “I like taking stuff that people might have seen or not seen before, and presenting it in a different way. I love that hip hop attitude of taking something and then remixing it and flipping it on its head, [to] create something new and then tell a story

“Bruce Willis saving the world from cats features all the way through, because for me, when choosing a main character with an apocalyptic theme for your show, Bruce Willis is the most obvious and best-suited...”

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with that. So I guess that’s the main thing I’m trying to do.”

Using his turntables to manipulate the wildly vivid pastiche of images he collects from pop culture, films and TV shows, all mashed in with party-friendly beats, Sampology explains it’s not just a matter of throwing it all together and hoping for the best. “It’s really important to me, if you’re combining things, that it has to makes sense. The order and the progression of things is important, because it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes. I’ll find so much content, and then see which bits fit together.”

When searching for audio inspiration for Doomsday Deluxe, Sampology looked to the most bombastic of beat-makers. “When I was working on the album I was inspired by bigsounding records, but instead of them being dark, they were big and lush at the same time.

People like Hudson Mohawke and Rustie – their production and the way they make their beats is great,” he says, also citing The Avalanches as an early inspiration and “a huge turning point” for his music. And when it comes time to play the tracks live, the audio and visual elements enjoy a 50/50 split. “If you’re in the crowd during a set, the show is not just about a whole bunch of visuals I’ve put music over the top of; it’s different things that have different starting points,” he explains.

For his latest live show ‘Super Visual Apocalypse’, a piece which revolves around Bruce Willis saving the world from cats (yes, you read that right), the end-of-the-world concept was a definite driving point. “I didn’t want it to be a doom and gloom show; I didn’t want it to be dark. I figured out that the way I wanted to do it was like a piss-take of the apocalypse, and make it really ridiculous from start to end,” he explains.

“Bruce Willis saving the world from cats features all the way through, because to me, when choosing a main character with an apocalyptic theme for your show, Bruce Willis is the most obvious and best-suited. He’s Bruce Willis – what more can you say about him?”

Given that your average punter generally isn’t offered much more than a light show for visual stimulation during a DJ set, Sampology laughs

when I bring up the average crowd reaction to his set. “I like looking out into the crowd when people are dancing and watching as well. I mean, people smiling and laughing is always good, but my favourite thing is when you can see people standing there with a mate or their girlfriend and turning to them to say, ‘Oh! There’s that bit from that movie!’ I like to see people in the crowd get excited by that kind of thing,” he says. “I want people to still come out and dance and party – that’s really important to me – but also for them to give up a bit more of their attention span for my set, and check out the visuals.”

In between touring, producing and creating his audio-visual spectaculars, Sampology was approached by none other than local funnyman Chris Lilley to create the audio and video remix on the Angry Boys soundtrack, before being asked to make an AV remix for The Wiggles’ 20th anniversary tribute album. “I

could make up some cool story for interviews about being in some hardcore club and The Wiggles just showing up, but that kind of just came out of working with the ABC for Angry Boys,” Sam says, adding that the Wiggles experience was definitely a highlight for him.

“I’m glad I made time to do that, because it was so left-of-centre – it’s not exactly my target audience. It was something different, and unexpected.” So whether you’re into beats, cats, Bruce Willis or The Wiggles, Sampology has something for everyone.

What: Doomsday Deluxe is out now Where: Oxford Arts Factory When: Friday June 8 More: Also playing Splendour In The Grass with Jack White, Smashing Pumpkins, Bloc Party, At The Drive-In, The Shins and more, held July 27-29 at Belongil Fields, Byron Bay.

BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 51

360 Coming Together By Birdie

“T

he new tour is going to be pretty different from the ‘Boys Like You’ tour,” says 360, real name Matt Colwell. “It’s actually going to be insane. I reckon it’s gonna be one of the highlights of the year, for me anyway. We’re gonna be doing a much longer set which will include a lot of the older and newer stuff – we’re just trying to incorporate as much material as we can into one show. I don’t want it to be just one rapper and a DJ, that’s getting boring now; I’m planning on having lots of special guests, and adding really cool visual elements to the performance.”

The tour itself is practically already sold out – a fact that’s left the rapper spinning, and feeling a little surreal. “None of it feels real!” he insists. “It just doesn’t feel like it’s really happening. When you talk about the album [Falling And Flying] going Platinum and the single [‘Boys Like You’] going triple Platinum – it just doesn’t feel like it’s happened to me. It’s weird.

I don’t feel like I’m the king of music or anything like that; I honestly don’t have a massive head about it. I’m not an arrogant person by nature. If anything, I really appreciate it all, even if it feels like it’s happening to someone else.

after meeting with producers and making preparations for his brand new album – and Colwell also promises a brand new single sometime before Christmas. “I’m really trying to crack it overseas at the moment,” he says.

“It’d be great to do a world tour and just go balls-out with the next album. I want to take things to the next level. The plan was to go to London to write with some producers, just meet up with people. I’ve got plans to work with heaps of big name writers, because I want the album to be epic. I can’t wait to do some collabs with some UK dudes.

I’m definitely going to do something with Professor Green, but others I can’t say yet.

There’s also been interest from places like Germany and South Africa, wanting to put my albums and singles out as well.”

At the very least, it’d be nice for him to get away for a holiday; Colwell tells me that the last six months have not exactly been drama-free. When a track titled ‘MC 360 – Name Dropper’ appeared on YouTube earlier in the year, a war of words erupted in the Aussie hip hop community, with 360 being accused of dissing a number of local heavyweights. According to Colwell, it was a case of mistaken identity...

“The only real impact that it’s all had is that it’s changed some things,” he continues. “For example, I can’t really go out in normal public areas anymore without being spotted or just asked for photos and stuff like that.

That comes with doing this for a living, though – I understand that.”

360’s popularity is set to soar even further next year, as impossible as that seems. He’s recently returned from the UK

“I have no idea who that was,” he maintains. “I think if I’d done it, I would remember! If you listen to it, it doesn’t even sound like me! I think it’s just a small attempt at getting to me, someone who’s trying to get some fame by using my name. It’s caused a little bit of a shit, but I’m just ignoring it, letting it go.”

With: Horrorshow, Hermitude, Seth Sentry, Koolism, Thundamentals, Skryptcha Purpose and Bam Bam Where: Come Together Festival @ Big Top, Luna Park When: Saturday June 9, from 4pm

Guy J

Bedrock Beats By Morgan Richards

S

ome people find their calling at an early age, and Guy J counts himself among them: his career in music production began when he was just fourteen. Cloistering himself in his bedroom, turning down his homework for drum machines and synthesisers, our young hero (then just Guy Judah) was completely immersed in the world of beats and basslines. “I was very focused,” the Israel-born artist says down the line from Antwerp, Belgium, where he’s lived for the past two years. “I spent all my time in my room working on this music. I was a complete geek, all the time.

Hardcore.”

Spending hours hunched in front of a computer screen in a dimly-lit basement was once a pastime enjoyed only by hackers and programmers, but today’s near-absence of analog synths and drum machines in electronic music production means the next generation of musical prodigies have joined them. “I feel a bit old saying this,” Guy starts, “but back in the day – thirteen, fourteen years ago – to create a sound you really liked and were happy with, it took a lot of time. It’s not like that today. You have everything that makes it easy.” Despite his nostalgia for the good old days of analog, Guy is by no means a technical luddite; he’s currently working on a set of synths for Brighton-based sound design label Loopmasters. “That’s something new for me.

The idea is to share, to give new tools to up-andcoming or established producers. I hope I will give it my maximum!”

Guy worked hard on his music throughout his teens, before releasing his first track at the age of 21. But it wasn’t until 2007 that he caught his big break. His track ‘Save Me’ – an emotive piece with glistening strings and tight grooves – caught the ear of progressive house legend and Bedrock Records co-manager John Digweed, who then released his debut record Esperanza.

Guy was rapt. “John had always been a legend

to me. I grew up on Bedrock releases, on his DJ mixes. Even now, when something is happening with Bedrock, I still find it very exciting. It’s not something I’ve just got used to; to be part of Bedrock, it’s a dream.” It wasn’t until last year that Guy dropped his second album, 1000 Words, also through Bedrock. “With this album, I was trying to deliver something more mature. I’m learning new stuff all the time.”

I ask about the club scene in Tel Aviv, where Guy grew up. “It’s amazing,” he enthuses. “I wish it were like that everywhere. It’s a proper 24/7 city, especially in the summer. In winter it’s not so hardcore, but even then you can go out every day and find house music, pop music, whatever you want.” And with big names like Infected Mushroom, Skazi and Astrix, as well as a new generation of progressive producers like Perfect Stranger, Israel is also one of the world’s biggest psy-trance exporters. “Yeah, Israel is known for it,” agrees Guy. “But you can find everything there.

Whatever you want to find you can find in Israel!”

Like an ever-increasing number of DJs, Guy J has ditched fat wallets of CDs for a stripped-down digital live setup. “When I DJ now, I use Ableton with an RME Fireface 400 soundcard and an Evolution UC33 midi controller. It’s a very simple setup, but I love trying to make the most of it.”

And although he likes to work a lot of his own productions into his sets, he has no immediate plans to develop a live show. “I think to do a live set, you really need to bring instruments. If you do it live, do it proper… Maybe in the future I will play live once in a while – but it’s crazy stressful, the way I see it.”

With: The Immigrant, Vengeance, Blaze Tripp, Samrai and A-Tonez Where: Chinese Laundry When: Saturday June 16

Jamie 3:26 It’s All In The Timing By Benjamin Cooper throw disco splash parties at the house!” he laughs. “I guess it’s natural that I ended up the way I did; as a kid I preferred records over toys as gifts. Mum kept me in good supply with that.” But the kick towards broadening his scope came from a couple of hipsters in the bunch. “I had a cousin and an uncle who were teenagers in the 1970s; one of them dug funk and rock, and the other was into disco and soul. They’d spend hours over at the house arguing back and forth about which was better. I decided to choose both sides – and then some more.”

“G

rowing up in Chi-Town, I was exposed to lots of different kinds of music,” Jamie 3:26 tells me. “In my house there’d be jazz playing, then some blues, and then someone else would get home and start spinning some deep soul. Ever since I was a kid, I knew that that was the real education.”

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Jamie is an influential exponent of Chicago house music, and his family – both immediate members and those on the fringes – had a formative influence on the diversity of his musical development.

“I remember my mother being really into disco culture, even to the extent that she’d

His household may have pushed him towards the masters – “James Brown and George Clinton taught me everything about timing,” he says – but it wasn’t long before Jamie started looking further afield. “I started mixing around 1985, but I really didn’t take it seriously until 1988. I spent a solid three years dancing my arse off at parties and getting girls’ phone numbers, but the whole time I noticed that the jocks had control of the room,” he says. “They had this amazing power: I’d see ‘em drop a jam just right and the place would erupt. I wanted to know how to do that, so I spent years studying until I figured out that it was all about timing. You gotta know exactly when to switch the groove and create the moods.”

Another key part of Jamie’s education involved being mentored by some of the kings of the Chicago house scene. He’s collaborated with Boo Williams on a number of tracks, but it’s his friendship with Dust

Traxx Records’ head honcho Paul Williams that facilitated the rapid development of a then fresh Jamie. “I was coming up with ideas and Paul would just make them happen. I mean, the brother is a bad dude and a good cat. In the late 1990s he taught me how to use a DR4 recorder to make digital edits, which was important because it showed me how to knock shit out and move onto the piece of production. Get this: way before he became world famous I remember going around to his mum’s house, and he had this full studio set-up in her kitchen,” he cackles. “Don’t think she was too pleased…”

Jamie’s quick to tell me that the style of his live set has changed over time, due to the variety of audiences he has entertained. “I used to think that I had to change my live set-up based on where I was, but now I just do what I am known to do: play good music and rock the party. I discovered that catering to folks too much keeps you in a pretty stagnated place, because a lot of this work is about the element of surprise. When folks know you for one thing, and you hit ‘em with something completely different – shit, it always fucks folks up. And I enjoy fucking folks up!”

With: The Paradise Lost Crew, Daniel Lupica, Magda Bytnerowicz Where: Boom Boom @ 169 Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross When: Saturday June 9

Deep Impressions Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

Matthew Dear

T

he Ghostly International label has revealed details of Matthew Dear’s forthcoming album Beams, which will be released on August 27. In my review for Pulse Radio of his last album, I stated, “In an age of overproduced releases, Black City offers a welcome counterpoint, and comes across as an album with feeling, an album designed to say something…” (typically preachy sh*t) – and its follow-up Beams will be comprised of eleven tracks, including the recent single ‘Headcage’. Dear, a deep-voiced Texan who wooed the gals of the Sydney clubbing scene when he played here on Australia Day, has said that Beams will offer “a turn towards the light... It’s not rainbows and sunshine, but it’s somebody in a darker world dreaming of something a bit brighter.”

The Hong Kong-born, Canadian-based Stuart Li, aka Basic Soul Unit (aka ‘Herman’) will headline HAHA on Saturday July 7. Since first emerging as a producer of considerable promise in that acid-washed summer of ’03, Li has released on labels such as Ostgut Ton, Philpot, Left Of The Dial, Versatile and Mule Electronic, making his mark with productions that at once evoke the ‘tracky’ sensibility of underground techno and the hazy atmospherics of deep house.

Li will be touring Australia on the cusp of taking the ‘next step’, as he’s preparing to release the first Basic Soul Unit long-player on Chicago’s Still Music imprint, as well as an EP on Boddika’s Nonplus+ label. In terms of what we can expect from him, Li has started performing a live show this year based on a combination of hardware and digital technology – we’ll have to await confirmation, but I’m thinking there’s every chance we’ll be treated to both a live performance and a DJ set at the HAHA party. As for Li’s sound, the man himself recently reflected, “I guess the current deep house, Detroit and Chicago revival has worked in my favour, but all trends will come and go… I would consider most of my music soulful, but I also think I have some variety of deep as well as jacking songs. Likewise with my DJing, I like to play a spectrum of music.” The location of the party is yet to be disclosed, but you can – and should – keep the night of Saturday July 7 free for Basic Soul Unit’s debut Down Under.

Further info and tickets are available at hahaindustries.com Diynamic Records' label boss Mladen Solomun, who produces as – wait for it – Solomun, has mixed the eleventh instalment in the Watergate mix-CD series, which is of course affiliated with the eponymous

LOOKING DEEPER FRIDAY JUNE 8

Loose Kaboose ft Deepchild (live) GoodGod Small Club

SATURDAY JUNE 9 Kaiserdisco One22, 122 Pitt St

MONDAY JUNE 11 Guido Schneider The Abercrombie

SATURDAY JULY 7 HAHA ft Basic Soul Unit Venue TBA

Berlin night club. Watergate 11 marks the Croatian-born producer’s first commercial mix-CD, and includes tracks from Robag Wruhme, Serge Santiago, Mathew Jonson, Lucy Pearl, Low Motion Disco, and two (!) cuts from Supermen Lovers – whatever happened to them anyway? – as Solomun traverses house, funk and techno sounds via a selection of tracks that is garnished with plenty of his own re-edits. Watergate 11 will be released in mid-June, with the compilation preceded by a single-sided 12-inch release of a new track that’s included on the mix: Solomun’s own ‘Kackvogel’. (For anyone curious, that’s German for, uh, ‘shit bird’!)

German producer Martin Gretschmann, aka Acid Pauli, will release his debut album, mst, on Nicolas Jaar’s Clown & Sunset label on June 11. Gretschmann, who is also known for his project Console as well as being a ‘sometime member’ of The Notwist, has been making melodic techno tracks for the best part of a decade, with releases on labels like Disko B, Resopal Schallware and his own Smaul Recordings. According to Clown & Sunset, “Acid isn’t trying to tell stories with his work. His aim is more holistic than that. Mst extends the atmospherics past the dancefloor, refracting the idiosyncrasies of our existence back into our everyday lives.”

Rather than attempting to decipher that cryptic/pretentious garble, you’d be better served by simply seeking out the album when it’s released next week, and letting your ears do the rest.

Solomun

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 53

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

club pick of the week Tom Trago

SUNDAY JUNE 10

The Spice Cellar, Sydney

Tom Trago (NL), Volta, Carlos Zarate, Matt Weir, Steven Sullivan $25 10pm MONDAY JUNE 4 Scruffy Murphy’s, Sydney Mother of a Monday DJ Smokin’ Joe free 8pm The Sugar Mill, Kings Cross Makeout Mondays DJs free The World Bar, Kings Cross Jazz DJs free 7pm

TUESDAY JUNE 5 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 – Jubilee Resident DJs 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Jam Resident DJs free 8pm

WEDNESDAY JUNE 6 The Bank Hotel – Velvet Room, Newtown Lady L, Resident DJs free 9pm The Bank Nightclub, Kings Cross Money Talks DJs free 10pm The Basement, Circular Quay Entropic, Nic Cassey & The Bark Lanterns, Monk Fly $20 (+ bf) 7.30pm 54 :: BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12

Epping Hotel DTF Resident DJs free Flinders Hotel, Surry Hills Hip Hop Resident DJs free 8pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Resident DJs free 8pm Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale Frat House Wolf & The Gang free 8pm The Marlborough Hotel – Cellar Bar, Newtown Resident DJs free 9pm Valve Bar, Tempe Valve Jam DJs 7pm The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Resident DJs $5 9pm

THURSDAY JUNE 7 Cargo Bar, The Promenade, Sydney Subski’s End of Semester Safari DJs $12-$17 7pm The Cool Room, Australian Hotel & Brewery, Rouse Hill The Potbelleez DJs, Troy T, Anthony K, Big Will 8pm Darling Harbour The Potbelleez, Adam Katz, Erin Marshall, Alex Gibson, Onekid $1 5pm all-ages FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel Yung Warriors, Street Warriosm Whitehouse $10 8pm 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 Space, Sydney We Are Electric Resident DJs $5-$15 10pm The Village, Potts Point Salt. Launch Party Zyklus, Type – 1A (USA), Tom Wall, Whitecat, Dan What $5-$10 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Urby, Mush, Dan Bombings free (student)-$5 9pm

FRIDAY JUNE 8 Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway Totally Barry Bad Barry DJs free 9pm Arq Sydney, Taylor Square Handbag Heaven Tom Kelly, Luke Leal free 9pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Movement Daily Meds, Roleo free 8pm

Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Smash Bang Pow! Kyro & Bomber, Hoodlmz, Nightriot, Digital T vs Acid Mouth, Slip & Slyde, Crux vs Donald Crump 9pm Cargo Lounge, King St Wharf Kick On Fridays Resident DJs free 4pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Bass Mafia Meat Katie (UK), Glovecats, Damien Osbourne, Nick Robins, Beunos Diaz, Scoops, Blue Red Army, Bassriot $15-$25 10pm Civic Underground, Sydney The Seed 2.0 DJs 9pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour Gimme Five Shamux, Matt Roberts, Mike Silver free 9pm Epping Hotel Flirt Flirt DJs free FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel Late Night Video Jam DJ Tom Loud free 11.59pm Goldfish, Kings Cross The Deep End Balaeric Special Alex Taylor, Johnny Gleeson, Levi 5star 6pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Loosekaboose Deepchild, Jimi Polar, Ben Feggans, Trinity, Jay Smalls $20 (+ bf) 11pm Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Hugo’s Fridays Resident DJs 8pm Jacksons On George, Sydney DJ Ivan Drago, DJ Rain Julz free 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Fridays – The Game Launch DJ J Funk, Kato, Devola, Hansom 9pm The Marlborough Hotel – Level 1, Newtown Resident DJs free 9pm Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm Omega Lounge, City Tattersalls Club, Sydney Unwind Fridays DJ Greg Summerfield free 5.30pm One22, Sydney Compound Cliques, Bootyspoon, Speakeasy, Clark Cohen, Hernan, Mansion $10 10pm Oxford Art Factory Sampology’s Super Visual Apocolypse Sampology, Bad Ezzy, Joyride & The Hump Day Project, Brothers Grimm DJs $20 (+ bf) 8pm Oxford Art Factory – Gallery Bar, Darlinghurst Winter Dysney Albatross, Bad Ezzy, Bautz, FM free 8pm Pontoon, Darling Harbour Perfect Resident DJs free 9pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Island Exotica Burlesque Rufino & The Coconuts, DJ Goldfoot $20-$30 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 1st Birthday Starfuckers DJs 9pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney DJ Dreamcatcher, Andy Webb, Disco Punx, Morgan 10pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Eve Resident DJs 9pm The Watershed Hotel Bring On The Weekend! DJ Matty Roberts free 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross MUM Little Napier, Pear Shape, Jenny Broke The Window, Thomas Covenant, The Maze, Total Bore, Buzz

Kill DJs, Swim Team DJs, Cries Wolf DJs, Hetro Life Partners, Andrew Stone, Sammy K, 10th Avenue $10$15 8pm

SATURDAY JUNE 9 169 Darlinghurst Rd, Kings Cross Jamie 3:26 (USA), The Paradise Lost Crew, Daniel Lupica, Magda Bytnerowicz $15-$20 (+ bf) 10pm Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway Strange Fruit Strange Fruit DJs free 9pm The Argyle, The Rocks Release Yourself Richie Carter, Lavida, Chivalry, Luke Bretthauer and Anton free 8pm Big Top, Luna Park Come Together 2012 360, Horrowshow, Hermitude, Seth Sentry, Koolism, Thundamentals, Skryptcha, Purpose, Bam Bam sold out all-ages Burdekin Hotel, Darlinghurst Significant Others Franchi Brothers, Ezequiel, Leoch, Gabriel Fernandes free 9pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Disco! Disco! Sherlock Bones, Mum Genes, Nightmare, Robust, Whatis?, Matty Bixx, Double Dunk Disco, Bystanders, Monkey Business 9pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Chris Liebing (GER), Chris Fraser, Ember, Emoh Instead, Defined By Rhythm, Whitecat, DJ Rubz, King Lee, Sushi, Brosman $15-$30 9pm Civic Underground, Sydney David Dallas (NZ) $15 (+ bf) 9pm Club 77, Darlinghurst Starfuckers Starfuckers DJs 10pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour Yellow Sox Brynstar, Candidate free 9pm Epping Hotel Back Traxx DJ Kandi, DJ Hypnotixx free 9pm Establishment, Sydney Sienna Def Rok vs G-Wizard 8pm The Factory Theatre, Enmore DILF – The Gardener Half Nelson, Chip, Ozan, Stephen C & Alex Taylor, Stephen Sonius, Seymour Butz, Matt Vaughn & Sveta $62 (+ bf) 2pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Musik Matters Francois K (USA), Garry Todd, Matt Cahill, Ben Ashton, Allan Thomas, Phil Toke $30 (+ bf) 8pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Roar Soul 7” Showdown JC, Boogie Monster, Mr Glass & Robin Knight, Frenzie, Huwston, Thomas Crown, Gonzo, El Chino $10 11pm The Hi-Fi, Moore Park Armada Night tyDi, Myon, Shane 54, Alex M.O.R.P.H., Tenishia, MaRLO, Nick Arbor, Thomas Knight $69 (+ bf) Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour Homemade Saturdays Dane Dobre $20-$25 9pm Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Saturdays Dolso 8pm ivy, Sydney Pure ivy Minx, Cadell, Emoh Instead, Oh Glam, Valentine, Matt Bandiera, Recess, Animal Jeans $20 6pm Jacksons On George, Sydney DJ Simon Laing, DJ Michael Stewart free 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross

Danny Clayton, Ember, Joyride, Pat Ward 8pm The Marlborough Hotel – Level 1, Newtown Resident DJs free 9pm Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm Nevermind Nightclub, Darlinghurst Bromance Phil Hewson (UK), Sacred, DJ JimJam $15 (+ bf) 10pm One22, Sydney Kaiserdisco (GER), Bella Sarris, AKA, Ben Ashton, Dave Stuart $15-$30 Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Distortion Presents Battle Royale Guillotine vs Crysist, Enochi vs Singha, Rubio vs Tokoloshe, Neon Youth, Critter vs Dogg Bless, The Unthinkables, Struz vs Swiss Dub $10-$20 9pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Wasted Years Wasted Years DJs $10 8pm 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 Carlos Zarate, Sam Roberts, Tim Culbert, Robbi Cordukes & Jake Hough $20 10pm Tiki Bar, Bondi Junction Antic/Fiord (NZ), Darkchild vs Wodjer Want, Oblongmonster $20 (+ bf) 8pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Trademark Saturdays Resident DJs 9pm Tunnel Nightclub, Kings Cross ONE Saturdays Resident DJs $10-$20 10pm Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills Redbull Thre3 Style Yacht Club DJs free 6pm The Watershed Hotel Watershed Presents…

Skybar $15 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Cakes Louis La Roche (UK), Blaze, E-Cats, Stretch, Old Man Rags, Alistair Erskine, Adam Bozetto, Atonez, The Brothers Grimm, Shivers, Nicc Johnson, Illya, Hannah $15-$20 10pm

SUNDAY JUNE 10 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 Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Sunday Dirty Sunday Sherlock Bones, Pretty Young Things, Tova, Mind Tricks, Matty Bixx, Slip & Slyde, Double Dunk Disco, Dubelectro, Instant Gentleman 9pm Club 77, Darlinghurst House of Fun Party Starfuckers DJs 10pm Establishment, Sydney Superjamm Def Rok, G-Wizard, Troy T, Lilo, Miss Adventure, Regz 9pm FakeClub, Kings Cross Switch (UK), Dirtyloud (BRA) $35 (+ bf) 8pm Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour Queer Nation Jake Kilby, Alex Taylor, Jayson Forbes, Kitty Glitter, Troy Cox, Kate Monroe, Kelly Lynch, Sista P, Sveta $35 (+ bf) 11pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Martini Club Sundays Martini Club, Tom Kelly, Straight Up

club guide send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com Steve free 6pm GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Youngsta (UK), MC Toast (UK), Mark Pritchard, Victim, Paul Fraser, Swindle, Ruhl $25 (+ bf) 10pm Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Sneaky Sundays Sneaky Sound System, Resident DJs 8pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Queen Of Hearts Nad, Stu Turner, Mr Belvedere, Devola 8pm ivy, Sydney Queen’s Birthday Special Luciana (UK), Sebastian Drums (FRA), Ian Carey (USA), Valentine, Cadell, Animal Jeans, Robbie Santiago, Jagged Beatz, Cameron Cooper, Nat Noiz, Jay Squad, Monty, Mike Gadget, Lenden Kuris, Kalcic, Archaic Brothers, Chick Flick, Romake, Rhys

J, Eggo, Daniel Wheeler $30 4pm Metro Theatre, Sydney Trevor Rockcliffe (UK), Simon Caldwell $60 10pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Future Now The Robert Glasper Experiment, Jose James, Taylor McFerrin, Cian, Howston $55 (+ bf) Q Bar, Darlinghurst We Come Out At Night Hot Damn DJs $23 9pm The Red Rattler, Marrickville You Little Stripper! Toecutter $20-$25 7.30pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross A Royal Affair DJ Dim Slm 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Tom Trago (NL), Volta, Carlos Zarate, Matt Weir, Steven Sullivan $25 10pm The Standard, Surry Hills Silent Disco Glove Cats, Oakes and Lennox, Joy

Ride, CTR ALT Delicious, A-Tonez, Pablo Calamari, Shantan Wantan Ichiban $15 (+ bf) 8pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross White Winter Wonderland Rollback City, Alex Borello vs DJ Nemz, Daniel Berti, DJ Troy T 9pm The Watershed Hotel Greek Night $15 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Company Party #3 Pop The Hatch vs Bruxism, Blackmale vs Brown Bear, Autoclaws vs Shudder-X, Kemikoll vs Bobo, Kombat vs Who Am I, Bassriot vs Hydraulix, James Taylor, President Bird, El Nacho Supreme, Manjazz & His Party Spectacular, Womb Raider, Deli Bagel, Apocalypstik, Astrix Little, Pipemix, Brothers Grimm, Beach Party $15 9pm

club picks up all night out all week...

THURSDAY JUNE 7 FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel Yung Warriors, Street Warriors, Whitehouse $10 8pm

FRIDAY JUNE 8

Ember, Emoh Instead, Defined By Rhythm, Whitecat, DJ Rubz, King Lee, Sushi, Brosman $15-$30 9pm Civic Underground, Sydney David Dallas (NZ) $15-$25 9pm

Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Movement Daily Meds, Roleo free 8pm

Goldfish, Kings Cross Musik Matters Francois K (USA), Garry Todd, Matt Cahill, Ben Ashton, Allan Thomas, Phil Toke $30 (+ bf) 8pm

Chinese Laundry, Sydney Bass Mafia Meat Katie (UK), Glovecats, Damien Osborne, Nick Robins, Beunos Diaz, Scoops, Blue Red Army, Bassriot $15-$25 10pm

One22, Sydney Kaiserdisco (GER), Bella Sarris, AKA, Ben Ashton, Dave Stuart $15-$30

GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Loosekaboose Deepchild, Jimi Polar, Ben Feggans, Trinity, Jay Smalls $15-$25 (on door) 11pm

The World Bar, Kings Cross Cakes Louis La Roche (UK), Blaze, E-Cats, Stretch, Old Man Rags, Alistair Erskine, Adam Bozetto, Atonez, The Brothers Grimm, Shivers, Nicc Johnson, Illya, Hannah $15-$20 10pm

Oxford Art Factory Sampology’s Super Visual Apocolypse Sampology, Bad Ezzy, Joyride & The Hump Day Project, Brothers Grimm DJs $20 (+ bf) 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney DJ Dreamcatcher, Andy Webb, Disco Punx, Morgan 10pm

SUNDAY JUNE 10 FakeClub, Kings Cross Switch (UK), Dirtyloud (BRA) $35 (+ bf) 8pm

SATURDAY JUNE 9

GoodGod Small Club, Sydney Youngsta (UK), MC Toast (UK), Mark Pritchard, Victim, Paul Fraser, Swindle, Ruhl $25 (+ bf) 10pm

169 Darlinghurst Rd, Kings Cross Boom Boom Jamie 3:26 (USA), The Paradise Lost Crew, Daniel Lupica, Magda Bytnerowicz $15-$20 (+ bf) 10pm

ivy, Sydney Queen’s Birthday Special Luciana (UK), Sebastian Drums (FRA), Ian Carey (USA) and more $30 4pm

Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway Strange Fruit Strange Fruit DJs free 9pm

The Standard, Surry Hills Silent Disco Glovecats, Oakes and Lennox, Joyride, CTR ALT Delicious, A-Tonez, Pablo Calamari, Shantan Wantan Ichiban $15 (+ bf) 8pm

Big Top, Luna Park Come Together 2012 360, Horrorshow, Hermitude, Seth Sentry, Koolism, Thundamentals, Skryptcha, Purpose, Bam Bam sold out all-ages Chinese Laundry, Sydney Chris Liebing (GER), Chris Fraser,

The World Bar, Kings Cross Company Party #3 Pop The Hatch vs Bruxism, Blackmale vs Brown Bear, Autoclaws vs Shudder-X, Kemikoll vs Bobo and more $15 9pm

Kaiserdisco

BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 55

snap up all night out all week . . .

mary's basement

PICS :: RJ

party profile

red bull curates opera bar It’s called: Red Bull Curates – Opera Bar It sounds like: A collision of cyphers, colou r and creativity, with live horns and a beat to get your feet tapping and fingers snapp ing.

Who’s playing? Roachy, True Vibenation and Thadiwe Phoenix.

Three songs you’ll hear on the night: Pretty sure some songs from True Vibenation’s The Sunshower Phenomenon will get a work-out on the night.

And one you definitely won’t: ‘Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through The Goalposts Of Life’ – Bobby Bare.

Sell it to us: Australia’s biggest digital canva s shipped in from Melbourne for the night. Spraycan man Roachy let loose on said digital canvas. True Vibenation flexing their Arnold-like musical muscle.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Hopefully, all of it.

Crowd specs: Stereotyping is for suckers.

Wallet damage: $0.

Where: Sydney Opera House, Lower Conco urse When: Saturday June 9, from 9pm

def wish cast

PICS ::RR

25:05:12 :: GoodGod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Sydney 8084 0587

tom vek

PICS :: AM

25:05:12 :: The Standard :: 3/383 Bourke St Surry Hills 9331 3100

dj craze

PICS :: AM

26:05:12 :: The Studio :: Sydney Opera House 9250 7393

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

56 :: BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12

propaganda

PICS :: DM

26:05:12 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 8295 9958

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

snap

wolfgang

PICS :: AM

girl thing 25:05:12 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 8295 9999

PICS :: SW

up all night out all week . . .

19:05:12 :: Q-Bar:: 34-44 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9360 1375 :: KATRINA CLARKE :: RASA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) CHY :: SAM WHITESIDE :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER PEA MAS THO :: NS MUN IEL :: DAN JUSKEVICIUTE :: ASHLEY MAR

4"563%": +6/& (36;."/ .4( /*$, #&-4)"8 +03%"/ %&$, 5)& "#&3$30.#*& 4"563%": /*()54 #SPBEXBZ 6MUJNP 4ZEOFZ '3&& &/53: QN UP BN

BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12 :: 57

snap up all night out all week . . .

strange fruit launch

PICS :: KC

party profile

boom boom says jamie 3:26 It’s called: Boom Boom Says Jamie 3:26 It sounds like: Underground house and disco all night long, mixed with a bit of acid…

Who’s playing? Jamie 3:26 (Partehardy Recor ds – Chicago), The Paradise Lost Crew, Daniel Lupica, Magda Bytnerowicz .

Three songs you’ll hear on the night: Omar S – ‘Tonight’; Andrés – ‘Jazz Dance’; Dan Hartman – ‘Vertigo/Relight My Fire’.

And one you definitely won’t: Anything by LMFAO. Sell it to us: A secret underground venue, a dope custom-built sound system, and killer jams by some of Sydney’s finest – plus Jamie 3:26 kickin’ it up a notch in Australia for the first time!

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Sweat dripping off the wall, and your phone filled with tracks, photos you won’t remem ber, phone numbers from a bender…

Crowd specs: Disco divas, house heads and everyone in between.

Wallet damage: $15-$20 on Resident Advis or.

Where: 169 Darlinghurst Road, Darlinghurs t When: Saturday June 9, from 10pm

strike

PICS ::KC

26:05:12 :: The Abercrombie Hotel :: 100 Broadway Ultimo 9211 3486

future classic djs

hot damn

PICS :: SW

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

:: KATRINA CLARKE :: RASA S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER MAS PEACHY :: SAM WHITESIDE THO :: NS MUN IEL DAN :: MAR JUSKEVICIUTE :: ASHLEY

58 :: BRAG :: 465 :: 04:06:12

danny brown

PICS :: RJ

17:05:12 :: Spectrum:: 34-44 Oxford St Darlinghurst Sydney 93312956

25:05:12 :: The Studio :: Sydney Opera House 9250 7111

PICS :: AM

25:05:12 :: Strike Bowling :: 22 The Promenade King Street Wharf 1300 787 453

1800 GALLINS

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