The Brag #477

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FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS & FANTASTIC MR. FOX

“Anderson’s finest and funniest since Tenenbaums”

★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★★ GUARDIAN

THE TIMES

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DAILY STAR SUNDAY

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HARPERS BAZAAR

Focus Features and Indian Paintbrush Present an American Empirical Picture “Moonrise Kingdom” Casting by Douglas Aibel Co-Producers Molly Cooper Lila Yacoub Costume Designer Kasia Walicka Maimone Original Music by Alexandre Desplat Music Supervisor Randall Poster Editor Andrew Weisblum,ACE Production Designer Adam Stockhausen Director of Photography Robert Yeoman,ASC Executive Producers Sam Hoffman Mark Roybal Produced by Wes Anderson Scott Rudin Steven Rales Jeremy Dawson Written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola Directed by Wes Anderson Mild violence, sexual references and coarse language

In Cinemas August 30 w w w. m o o n r i s e k i n g d o m m o v i e . c o m . a u

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

five minutes WITH

DAN ZILBER MUSIC DIRECTOR OF FBI RADIO auction and the launch of our venue FBi Social are all proud moments that took the support of dozens of volunteers to be made possible.

It’s hard to believe FBi Radio has only been around for nine years. What have been some of the best memories?

Helping build a station from scratch that now has its own personality and makes a contribution to local music, art and culture is personally satisfying. I’m most proud of programming a station that strives for integrity and a point of difference to what else is out there. The events we’ve organised, where we get to see our listeners and supporters in the flesh, are always inspiring. From the Changing Lanes Festival to our series of Sydney Sounds Like gigs, FBi’s SMAC Awards, Still Life art

STATUS QUO + COLES

PUBLISHERS: Adam Zammit & Rob Furst EDITOR IN CHIEF: Adam Zammit 9552 6333 adam@peergroupmedia.com EDITOR: Steph Harmon steph@thebrag.com 02 9552 6333 ACTING ARTS & ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Dijana Kumurdian dee@thebrag.com 02 9690 2731 STAFF WRITERS: Alasdair Duncan, Benjamin Cooper NEWS: Nathan Jolly, Chris Honnery ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alan Parry SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Nohmon Anwaryar, Katrina Clarke, Daniel Munns, Thomas Peachy, Pedro Xavier COVER PHOTO: Stephen Booth ADVERTISING: Ross Eldridge - 0422 659 425 / (02) 9690 0806 ross@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 8394 9027 les@thebrag.com GIG & CLUB GUIDE CO-ORDINATOR: Conrad Richters - gigguide@thebrag.com (rock) clubguide@thebrag.com (dance, hip hop & parties) INTERNS: Verity Cox, Natalie Amat, Siobhan Graham

Grunge was a reaction to the showy hollowness of ‘80s cock rock, much as the chirpy chapness of Britpop was a reaction to grunge. Well, Status Quo are reacting against this whole antisupermarket trend that has plagued rock music of late (see: Something For Kate’s opus ‘Fuck Bi-Lo’ [citation missing]) by reworking their 1974 hit ‘Down Down’ to incorporate the thrills they get from a good red spot sale. It’s a universal feeling, and they are taking it one step further by teaming up with Coles to tour Australia in 2013, spreading the good word of commerce and corn chips (March 27 at The Hordern; tickets on sale now through Ticketek).

A GOOD ROGERING

Tim Rogers invented this whole back story about how he met a troubadour on a train in the North part of Spain (or some other such rhyming couplet), just so he could call his album Rogers Sings Rogerstein. Worth it. The songs themselves are vintage Tim Rogers, slotting perfectly into his back-catalogue (which is damn impressive, even without those You Am I records we all worship/moved to the innerwest because of). He is launching the album this Friday August 31 at The Factory Theatre, which claims it is in Marrickville for street cred,

You wrap your ears around music before almost anyone else. Any new bands we should be on the lookout for?

We book lots of our favourite up-and-comers at FBi Social. Every week I look through the lineup and am really proud of what we pull together. Many of the bands who played there a year ago have climbed the ranks and are

but is really in Enmore. Tickets are on sale from the venue.

Refused, the greatest hardcore band in history, broke up in 1998 just after releasing what is widely considered one the greatest records of all time, The Shape Of Punk To Come. Most fans of the band came in on this album, bemoaning the fact that they would never get to see them live… until now. In January they re-formed, announcing that they are “not * dead”, and now they have announced an Australian tour, which hits The Enmore Theatre on November 13.

Tickets go on sale Friday August 31 from 9am.

Complaints about how quickly it sold out start at 9:20am the same morning. (* = fucking)

BELLES WILL SPIN

Belles Will Ring do things the old fashioned way: harmonies, tambourines, vinyl. “Vinyl?” you ask, confused. “But the guy at the CD shop said their latest CD Crystal Theatre was only on CD. That’s why I bought it on CD!” Well firstly, stop saying ‘CD’ so much, and secondly, that guy was correct then, but this is now: the band are releasing Crystal Theatre on delicious, inedible vinyl, and to celebrate they are performing

EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher, editors or staff of The BRAG.

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

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FABULOUS DIAMONDS

Every now and then we come across an artist who describes the music they make as ‘head music’, as if the rest of music is dancing music, or singing music, or neck music, or something that somehow requires less absorption to truly experience, maaan. Well, we’re trying to think of a better way to describe Melbourne duo Fabulous Diamonds and the amazing art-pop soundscapes they weave, so how about you imagine this: you’re sitting in a dark room, in a warm bath, three glasses of wine in, just listening. It’s all-encompassing, yeah? That’s what Fabulous Diamonds’ music feels like – all slinky and slow and sonically superior. Catch them as they launch their third record, Commercial Music, on Saturday September 8 at The Square, Haymarket, with supports Half High, MOB, Boynoisez and DJ Fortune Bullen.

HEY GERONIMO

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Fabulous Diamonds

the entire record live, without skipping tracks or anything. It happens on Saturday October 20 at The Vanguard, and joining them is much-loved Sydney band Knievel, who will be playing their classic record Steep Hill Climb from beginning to end, too. (Knievel are Wayne Connolly’s band. He produced all those You Am I albums you like!)

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What: FBi Radio’s Ninth Birthday!

With: Catcall, Fishing, Sures, Bon Chat Bon Rat, Charge Group, Albatross, Future Classic DJs, SÜFÜR (RÜFÜS DJs), Kato & Bad Ezzy, Simon Caldwell, DJ Shantan and loads more – plus a secret headliner!

Where: Three levels of Kings Cross Hotel When: Friday August 31

REFUSED AREN’T [*] DEAD

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Benjamin Cooper, Alasdair Duncan, Christie Eliezer, Murray Engleheart, Andrew Geeves, Chris Honnery, Nathan Jolly, Anna Kennedy, Sheridan Morley, Jenny Noyes, Hugh Robertson, Rebecca Saffir, Romi Scodellaro, Jonno Seidler, Rach Seneviratne, Roland K. Smith, Laurence Rosier Staines, Luke Telford, Rick Warner, Alex Sol Watts, Krissi Weiss, Caitlin Welsh

DEADLINES: Editorial: Wednesday 12pm (no extensions) Artwork/ad bookings: Thursday 12pm (no extensions).

Ad cancellations: Tuesday 4pm Published by Cartrage P/L ACN 104026388 All content copyrighted to Cartrage 2003

What have you got planned for your birthday party?

We’ve got a secret headliner up our sleeve.

We’re thrilled to have them celebrate with us, along with the rest of our handpicked, tasty lineup, split across three rooms. These parties are supposed to represent a decent chunk of FBi’s sound and are an opportunity for us to have fun with our listeners and artists we support. FBi volunteers will be working the crowd, looking for strangers to make out with.

I’m still considering popping out of a cake. Nine years old – soon we’ll have pubes!

Evan Dando + Juliana Hatfield

EVAN + JULIANA 4 EVA

Back in the wonderful ‘90s, Juliana Hatfield mentioned, offhandedly in an interview, that she was still a virgin. Not understanding that she was an impossibly cool, gorgeous, talented indie babe, and that therefore this virginity scoop would become the main hook of the interview, she freely discussed it – and soon the fact was tagged onto every mention of her, like a baseball stat or those meaningless Order Of Australia initials. Evan Dando, her are-they-friends-or-are-they-doing-it musical buddy dealt with the topic as sensitively as he could: by releasing a Lemonheads song called ‘It’s About Time’ urging Juliana to lose her virginity... to him. Don’t worry though, the fact that millions of people have heard this booty call doesn’t seem to have harmed their friendship, as the two are touring Australia together in December, playing The Metro Theatre on December 20. Bambino Koresh are in support, which makes sense if you’ve heard their wistful, ‘90s-grunge guitars-leaning, early ‘70s Neil Young-sounding debut album Up And Left. Tickets on sale now.

You may think that Brisbane buzz band Hey Geronimo are buzzing right now, but just you wait ‘til their first ever Sydney headline show at FBi Social on September 21. They’re coming to town off the back of playing Brisbane’s music industry conference BigSound, after which the buzz will be buzzing so loud that the band will think one of the valves from their amps must have busted. Nope, it’s just all the buzz. The Griswolds are supporting, too!

MORE EVERMORE

Remember those three teenage muso brothers?

All had similarly long hair, young girls went mental for them, and they wrote hooky songs for the radio? Well, in an Mmmbop they were gone, but now Evermore are back – with their fourth album Follow The Sun (out October 12), and a show at The Standard on September 20.

Xxxx

FBi Radio seems like a pretty great place to work. How did you get started at the station?

It’s the best! I was living in London working in a few pretty boring music jobs. I basically looked for options that would let me listen to new music all day long. When I came back to Sydney, FBi Radio was finally launching full-time, after years of working for a broadcasting license. I knew this was the perfect place for me to get involved, so I applied for a show on-air. I didn’t get it. But then the station placed an ad in street press advertising the Music Director role. And I got very lucky.

...And what have been some of the worst?

The need for a ‘Save FBi’ campaign in 2009 was a huge low for me and the station.

The thought of FBi not being available for the people of Sydney just seemed cruel, particularly given we had such a huge listenership and a healthy number of financial supporters. The economy was taking a nosedive, and a radio station is an expensive thing to run. But my worst memory ended up being one of my best. The music industry, people of Sydney and FBi Radio’s dedicated volunteers came to our rescue. Artists played gigs for no fee, we put on 23 shows, and many sold out.

We were literally saved by punters coming to gigs and making donations. It was stressful, but also a clear statement of Sydney’s desire to have and support the station. Lest we forget!

being widely acknowledged around the country – but we’re not always looking for big crossover bands. Some of our favourite acts are niche or more experimental. Those smaller, progressive and more interesting styles are a big part of our sound.

BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 11

rock music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

he said she said WITH

KEVIN JOHANSEN regarding musical genres, I'm something of a ‘degenreate’.

Inspirations I grew up in San Francisco, 2. and when I was seven my best friend Bradley turned me onto the Jackson 5. But at home we listened to Cat Stevens a lot.

When I was 11, we moved to Argentina, where you had very good local folk and rock bands like Leon Gieco or Charly Garcia.

These and many more influenced me; from Leonard Cohen to Serge Gainsbourg.

Your Band The Nada have been with 3. me for more than ten years now.

Growing Up Well, imagine someone 1. being born in Alaska in the '60s, with an Argentinean mother and American father – the mixture of cultures is already implicit. We

had lots of folk and tango growing up, and my father admired Harry Belafonte. Mix that up with the Beatles, Joan Baez and other music of the ‘70s, and you've got my style! I like to say that

Mostly young guys in their early 30s, they play a wide range of instruments – from charangos to flutes, bass and electric guitar (I play mostly spanish guitar) – with the exception of our drummer Enrique ‘Zurdo’ [‘lefty’] Roizner, who is in his early 70s and has played with Vinicius de Moraes and Piazzolla. He’s a true living legend, although he resents the term! We released a double album very recently, titled Bi. The first album is very folkloric, with a look at Uruguay and Brazil (our neighbours from the South Atlantic), seen from Argentina; the other is broader in its stylistic

SEA PREATURES Joyride

Deep Sea Arcade and Preatures (nee The Preachers) are teaming up for a quick lap of the country. Preatures are celebrating their recent signing to Mercury, while Deep Sea Arcade are treating the trip as one last hurrah before buckling down in the studio to record their second album, which we promise we will never refer to as their sophomore effort. They will both play The Metro Theatre on November 30, it’s all-ages, and tickets are on sale now.

HIGH ON FIRE

SPRING-A-LING-ADING-DONG-FLING

Here’s an easy test for you to do in the comfort of your bus/stool/lounge. If the idea of a huge party put together by Falcona and JAM, hosted by Shantan Wantan Ichiban, named Spring-a-linga-ding-dong-fling, featuring Furnace And The Fundamentals, Joyride and Mrs Bishop playing live plus the Falcona and SOSUEME DJs spinning tunes sounds like a lot of fun (it will be), then you are still young and vital and filled with the nectar of life. Good for you!

If it sounds all noisy and a bit crowded, then don’t go anywhere near Upstairs Beresford on September 1, and stop being such a boring-pants. (PS: It’s free entry too!)

GARY CLARK JR.

If mixed correctly, Southern blues-rock and hip hop with a dash of psychedelia is pretty much the best thing you can hear. Kid Rock doesn’t mix this correctly, so it ends up sounding like Kid Rock. Texan blues beast Gary Clark Jr., on the other hand, is amazing at blending these disparate genres and coming up with something incredible.

See it for yourself on September 28 at The Annandale Hotel, when he plays in support of his Bright Lights EP, with Doc Holiday Takes The Shotgun and Jackson Firebird playing first and second, in some secret order we aren’t yet privy to.

(If you miss out, never fear – Gary Clark Jr. will be back for Big Day Out!)

Oakland, California is a lovely, sunny wonderland – so we can only assume that the black curtains in thrash-sludge legends High On Fire’s rehearsal room must be extra thick and stapled down to block out all that light. They have managed to keep things dark since 1998, building a huge following worldwide – especially in Australia, where we tend to like brutal riffs and intelligent lyrics. It’s our thing, OK? They play the Manning Bar at Sydney University on September 29.

palette: one represents my Argentine mother and the other, my father. They’re both on the cover in photos of when they were very young.

The Music You Make I recorded our first album 4.

The Nada at the legendary CBGB in New York (home of the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads etc). The owner, Hilly Kristal, was my mentor. I lived in New York for almost ten years (from 1990 to 2000), then moved back down to Buenos Aires and recorded Sur O No Sur, City Zen, Logo, the live DVD Vivo En Buenos Aires and Bi. Music, Right Here, Right Now 5.

I think the best thing that’s happened with music is that there’s easier access to it – and the live show is what cuts it. It’ll be our first time in Australia with The Nada, so we’re really psyched to see what happens with the crowd over there!

Who: Kevin Johansen And The Nada With: Oscar Jimenez Where: Pura Vida Latin Festival Roadshow @ BlueBeat When: Saturday September 29

FESTIVAL OF THE SUN

Port Macquarie used to be known as the home of Peppermint Park and Fantasy Glades, but that’s all changing thanks to the epic Festival Of The Sun, which has announced a huge lineup for this year’s event (December 14-15): Kimbra, Dead Letter Circus, Hermitude, The Datsuns, Busby Marou, Husky, DZ Deathrays, The Snowdroppers, The Cairos, Over-Reactor, Jackson Firebird, Nat Col & The Kings, Tin Sparrow, Dirty Little Rebels, The Mornings, Joe Robinson, Siskin River, The Widowbirds, Geoff Turnbull, Minnie Marks and Dirty Cash DJs. Tickets are on sale from September 5, for $160 including beachside camping – which is pretty amazing considering that lineup and the fact that this festival is BYO!

SECOND SHOW FOR LAST DINOSAURS

NIKKO ROLL

If you’ve been telling your friends that the reason you aren’t going with them to The Last Dinosaurs’ October 20 show at The Metro is because that date doesn’t suit you emotionally as your moon will be in retrograde, or because it sold out and you were attempting to be all Dylan McKay and just seeing where life takes you, then you’ll be pleased to hear that Brisbane’s best indie slacker-pop band have announced a second show – November 9 at The Metro Theatre – and tickets are on sale now.

HOT SNAKES ON A PLANE

Jade McRae started her professional life the same way most of us do: as a backing singer for Barnesy. But rather than travel down the

1) Brisbane band Nikko have released one of the best Australian albums this year, with the lovely, sad, country-tinged, defeated-sounding Gold & Red. 2) They are playing FBi Social on Friday September 7 with Solkyri, Day Ravies and Sucks. 3) Let’s go to this show, because we will regret it if we don’t.

Remember when everyone was touting Hot Snakes as being the saviours of rock‘n’roll, and the future of rock’n’roll, and saying rock’n’roll all the time like it’s the ‘50s or something – even though they are basically a garage punk band?

Well, the San Diego rock juggernauts have reformed, and are rockin’ The Annandale on December 6. They haven’t been here since 2006, so tickets will sell out quickly.

DUNE

Fanny Lumsden grew up on a farm, knows how to shoot a gun and can even make her own jam. If that wasn’t impressive enough, she also has an incredible, old-timey country voice, the likes of which should be reserved for bands with banjos, accordians and mandolins, and sepia-tinted film clips shot in the old country halls of sunny rural towns. Luckily for her, that’s exactly what we get from Sydney’s Fanny Lumsden & The Thrillseekers. Their Autumn Lawn EP, produced by Ian Pritchett (Angus & Julia Stone, The Beautiful Girls), is filled with sweet, toe-tapping tunes, including their latest single ‘Apricot Sunday’ – the kind of pop-country gem that we all wait for when the spring sun comes out. They’re launching the EP at Hellen Rose Schauersberger LabOratorium on Thursday August 30, and we’ve got a few double passes up for grabs. If you’re after one, send us your favourite jam recipe.

GOOD HEAVENS

If you’ve been holding out for the day that Sarah Blasko finally fronts an acid rock band, give up that dream and check out Good Heavens: the ethereal, sweet, otherworldly voice of Sarah Kelly from theredsunband, matched with the dark, psych-rock chords and huge drum fills of Chris Ross and Myles Heskett, both ex-Wolfmother. It’s a fragile, beautiful, and powerful balance showcased across their debut record Strange Dreams, and we’ve got three of them to give away.

You want one? Let us know a strange dream you’ve had lately. And keep it PG, please.

tried and true Tin Lids path, she has made a number of interesting left-turns: a sultry solo career, collaborating with Sleepy Jackson and Pnau, and now, under the moniker Dune, she has gotten into tribal beats and warpaint with her belting vocals driving everything. She is launching her debut single ‘Shoestring’ at Upstairs Beresford this Friday August 31.

Download it for free at soundcloud/this-is-dune and then get along. The excellent Phebe Starr is in support, too.

CITY RIOTS @ MUM

Adelaide four-piece City Riots (isn’t Adelaide the city of churches? Are we ready for another church riot?) are celebrating the release of ‘Wait For You’, the lead single from their forthcoming debut album, with a show this Friday August 31 at MUM at The World Bar. The single is incredibly good: all jangly guitars and shoegaze reverb and dreampop vocals, and no cameos from fellow Adelaidians Sarah McLeod, The Hilltop Hoods or Ben Folds’ ex-wife at all. None! Tickets are $15 at the door.

BUSKING FOR CHANGE

Josh Pyke, joined by a slew of very special, not-yet-announced guests (Pyke knows some people), is putting on Busking For Change this Thursday August 30 at The Annandale Hotel. It’s his annual fundraiser for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, and tickets are $35+bf through oztix – or there are a number of extra tiers, which involves meet-andgreets, tax deductions and the warm glowing feeling of actually making a difference.

HARVEST MK II

PAUL KELLY’S GHOSTS

Paul Kelly is quite possibly the only singersongwriter who could mash his own lyrics with the words of Les Murray (not that one), Yeats and Tennyson without it seeming blindingly arrogant or horrendously out of place. This is exactly what he has done with Conversations With Ghosts, a song cycle about death and mortality. He’ll be joined by recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey and a handful of Australian National Academy Of Music musicians to perform it on October 10 at the Capitol Theatre.

Tickets on sale now through Ticketmaster.

FANNY LUMSDEN

Los Campesinos!

Did you know ‘Come On Eileen’ by Dexys Midnight Runners was #1 on the day I was born? Of course you didn’t (and if you did, then mum, stop reading BRAG). The reason I mention this is solipsism because Dexys have been announced in the second round of Harvest Festival acts, alongside Silversun Pickups (‘Lazy Eye’ has the best guitar tones ever), Crazy P, Los Campesinos!, River City Extension, Dark Horses and Winter People. They will join Beck, Grizzly Bear, Sigur Ros, Ben Folds Five, Mike Patton’s Mondo Cane, Ozomatli, Liars, Santigold, Cake, The Dandy Warhols, Fuck Buttons and more at Parramatta Park on November 17. Tickets are somehow still on sale at harvestfestival.com.au – get one now.

“There’s a starman waiting in the sky. He’d like to come and meet us but he thinks he’d blow our minds” - ZIGGY STARDUST 12 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

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AVAILABLE NOW FROM PURVEYORS OF FINE MUSIC FOR A LIMITED TIME AT A GREAT PRICE www.coolaccidents.com BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 13

The Music Network

themusicnetwork.com

Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

Lifelines Engaged: Avril Lavigne and Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger.

The Canadians started dating six months ago, when he worked on a track from her fifth album.

Married: Rufus Wainwright and German-born theater producer Jorn Weisbrodt, in New York. They have a daughter, Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen, with Lorca “daughter of Leonard” Cohen. The 250 guests at the wedding included Yoko Ono and Carrie Fisher (aka Star Wars’ Princess Leia).

Recovering: 360, after eye surgery due to hereditary condition keratoconus.

Hospitalised: Wynonna Judd’s husband and drummer, Scott Moser, had his left leg amputated following a horrific motorcycle crash.

Injured: Burglar Jonathan Kirby, 56, who broke into LL Cool J’s LA mansion, was given a broken nose and jaw by Mr. 'Mama Said Knock You Out'.

In Court: 23 of the 421 people busted for drugs at Splendour In The Grass were hit with fines ranging from $100 to $450. A 21-year-old from Queensland said he needed the four joints and five pills he was caught with to “get in the mood for The Beautiful Girls.”

Suing: A 39-year-old woman who slipped in vomit at a Whitesnake gig in Wales is suing the local council.

Died: US singer Scott McKenzie, 73, who sang the ‘60s flower power anthem ‘If You’re Going To San Francisco (Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)’ and co-wrote The Beach Boys’ ‘Kokomo’, after a battle with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disease which affects the nervous system.

BREAKAWAY RECORDINGS Shock Records veteran Ian Bennett has set up Breakaway Recordings, to be distributed

by MGM. The first release is next month’s Ozomatli Presents Ozokidz, “a kids’ album that will also appeal to adults who listen to really good music.” Contact is info@ breakawayrecordings.com.au. Bennett spent 20 years at Shock Records. As the label’s International A&R, he signed José González, Millencolin, Veruca Salt and Alexisonfire, as well as labels Fat Wreck Chords, Burning Heart, Sugar Hill, Eagle Rock, Vanguard, V2 and Epitaph.

DARKBEAT RECORDINGS

licence in Australia by publisher Peer Group Media, who also publish BRAG. CEO Adam Zammit says Eventfinder allows fans to hunt down local events, and gives promoters and venues “a national platform to market and ticket their events.”

AXL VS GUITAR HERO The first round of Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose’s US$20 million lawsuit against the Guitar Hero video game's maker Activision has hit the courts in Los Angeles. Rose claims he was “fraudulently induced” to let them use ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ in Guitar Hero III. He also said that they used a Slash character against his (Axl’s) wishes. The judge dismissed Rose’s fraud claim, but set a trial date for February next year to hear his claim that Activision is in breach of contract.

This continued antagonism between Axl and Slash would be a blow to UK music store owner Adrian Bayford, who won £148 million in the lottery and plans to use some of the money to entice the original Gunners to reunite. Meanwhile, Slash launched Steve Irwin’s dad Bob’s Wildlife Conservation Foundation in Brisbane. Both became friends as snake collectors.

MUSE’S 2013 TOUR Muse’s 2013 tour will take in only outdoor shows, Matt Bellamy told triple j. “[We’re not sure] whether that means playing in parks or stadiums, but that would be awesome. You guys have football stadiums there, so we could bring the show that we’ve been doing in Europe across to Australia for the first time.”

TAYLOR SWIFT SETS NEW DIGITAL SALES RECORD Taylor Swift has set the record for the biggest digital sales week for a female artist with her single ‘We Are Never Getting Back Together’. It sold 623,000 digital copies in its first week, after she used her app to notify one million fans to buy it. It’s also the second biggest digital seller of all time, after Flo Rida’s ‘Right Round’, which sold 636,000 in February 2009. A report by Strategy Analytics predicted digital music’s share in the market will overtake physical sales in 2015.

* Bruce Springsteen told local promoters he has a window in his schedule in March, and could open it up for an Australian tour. * Led Zeppelin’s 2003 concert footage DVD has been certified Platinum 13 times, after selling over 1.3 million copies in the States. * Rihanna flew five fans to her home in Barbados and cooked them dinner, as a thank you gesture to all of her fans who made her a success. * Kirin J Callinan has been working in the studio with Kim Moyes of The Presets before he heads to New York to play CMJ. * More than 10,000 tickets sold in just two hours for the Mumford & Sonscurated Gentlemen Of The Road festival in Dungog in October, featuring Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Willy Mason, Sarah Blasko, Matt Corby, Husky and more.

ALLANS BILLY HYDE IN RECEIVERSHIP Instrument retailer Allans Music Billy Hyde went into administration, after moves by private investment company Revere Capital, who were owed $27 million by the chain’s parent company Australian Music Group Holdings (AMG). Unsecured creditors are owed $13.5 million, and employee entitlements are at $3 million. Administrators Ferrier Hodgson, who hope to sell the business, say gift vouchers and deposits will not be honoured. AMG turns over $110 million a year, with 25% music gear market share.

EVERYTHING MUST GO After eight months on the market, Jimmy Barnes sold his Botany property for $2.6

The Bamboos

* Seems The Bamboos are making their set at Homebake a special one, by bringing on some guests who appeared on the Medicine Man album…

Will it be Megan Washington? Daniel Merriweather? Tim Rogers? Aloe Blacc? * Kim Kardashian’s ex, Kris Humphries, served a subpoena on her new boyfriend Kanye West by putting it in a Nordstrom box and sending it to her house, knowing she wouldn’t be able to resist opening it!

million, but his 3000 sq.metre Riverbend property in Bowral is still on the market for $2.5 million; radio’s Jackie O and partner Lee Henderson found they weren’t getting much time to spend in their picturesque 42-hectare Kangaroo Valley weekender, and sold it for near $2.5 million; award-winning Queensland record producer Magoo is selling off his legendary Applewood Lane studio in the quiet rural area of Fernvale, as he has moved back to Brisbane to work; singer-songwriter David Gray has become unpopular after he decided to convert the Church Studios in London into flats – until 2003, it belonged to the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, and Annie Lennox, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, Kaiser Chiefs and Elvis Costello recorded there.

WANNA VOLUNTEER AT PEATS RIDGE? Peats Ridge Festival wants volunteers to join their 700-strong team – and if you’re interested, you’ll get to go to the New Year's Eve camping festival for free. Pick your work team and buy a $340 volunteer ticket at www.peatsridgefestival.com.au (it’s refundable in January). You have to do three shifts of five to six hours each. They release a timetable in late October, which means you can schedule your duties so they don’t clash with performances.

WANNA VOLUNTEER AT HITZ 247?

New online radio station Hitz 247 has a policy of all presenters being under 30 years old. They’ve got some on-air positions for students and radio novices, initially on an unpaid work experience basis. You can send your demos to Andrew Gyopar: andrew@hitz247.com

CREAN ADDS TO AUSTRALIA COUNCIL

Melbourne club night promoter Darkbeat have launched Darkbeat Recordings.

Darkbeat founder Daniel Banko says, “We will be focusing on delivering the freshest and most cutting-edge sounds which we are renowned for, however never straying too far from that old school party vibe that punters can expect at any Darkbeat party.” Their first release is a mix compilation.

In a speech at the Australian Performing Arts Centres Association Conference, Arts Minister Simon Crean has revealed that responsibility for funding regional programs including Playing Australia, Festivals Australia, the Contemporary Music Touring Program and the Contemporary Touring Initiative will be shifted from the Office Of The Arts to the Australia Council.

EVENTFINDER EXPANDING

CANADA APPROVES UNIVERSAL/EMI

Australia’s fastest growing entertainment event listing and ticketing website Eventfinder is expanding. It has teamed with Yahoo!7 to tap into their entertainment, lifestyle and travel audience of two million.

This will build on the 350,000 event-goers who log on to Eventfinder every month; the site has listed 30,000 events since launching in January, and its ticketing platform has processed over 300,000 tix in Australia and New Zealand, including to this year’s Big Day Out. Eventfinder is the biggest events and ticketing website in NZ and was launched recently in the USA. It is managed under

THINGS WE HEAR

Following New Zealand and Japan, Canada has become the third country to approve of Universal Music’s proposed £1.2bn acquisition of EMI. Universal has been trotting out the line that buying EMI will “create more opportunities for new and established artists, expand music output and consumer choice, and support new digital services.” But to appease rivals and those worried it would give Universal a monopoly, Universal has offered to dump its Pink Floyd and David Guetta catalogues, as well as Parlophone and EMI Classics.

“Making love with his ego, Ziggy sucked up into his mind Like a leper messiah” - ZIGGY STARDUST 14 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

Monster, IMC & Street Press Australia Presents

WITH The Griswolds AND Penelope Austin

Tickets from www.moshtix.com.au and www.oztix.com.au

Saturday 8th September Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne WITH Dirt Farmer AND Special Guests

Tickets from www.oztix.com.au

Thursday 13th September BigSound, Brisbane

An Evening with The Hoff (USA) Fri 15 Feb

You’ll Turn Into Me

featuring All You Gotta Do, Top Floor and She Makes Her Own Clothes out Friday August 10 via Quelle Barbe / Inertia

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Musiq Soulchild (USA)

Hanson (USA) Sat 15 Sep

Wheatus (USA)

Ferry Corsten

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Fear Factory (USA) Novalima (PER) & DJs Regurgitator

Apollo the Party

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SOLD OUT

Tortoise (USA)

Everclear (USA)

Fri 5 Oct

Sat 6 Oct

Thu 11 Oct

Fri 12 Oct

Gomez (UK)

Alternative Rugby Commentary

Sunn O))) & Pelican (USA)

Sat 20 Oct

Thu 25 Oct

Thurston Moore (USA)

Nekromantix (DEN/USA) Russian Circles (USA)

Fri 19 Oct

Fri 26 Oct

Feat. Jed Thian

District 7 Fest

Leb I Sol (MKD)

Sat 27 Oct

Sat 3 Nov

AT Magic City

Tickets from Bigsound.org.au and www.oztix.com.au

Earth (USA)

Apocalyptica(FIN) Dream On Dreamer Fri 31 Aug

The Living End Wed 21 – Tue 27 Nov

65daysofstatic (UK)

Kerser

Wed 2 Jan

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O PE NE R AL NI B G UM HT

Friday 31st August The Standard, Sydney

Coming Up

AD DE D

Tickets from www.heatseeker.com.au and www.oztix.com.au

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R

egurgitator’s Unit was a pretty formative album for me. It arrived right at the point in my youth when I was getting into triple j, and its mix of hooky electro pop and arch, knowingly-crass lyrics hit just the right spot. I especially liked the fact that it featured a song called ‘I Will Lick Your Arsehole’, which came complete with a cheesy, ‘80s-inspired hip hop beat and the guaranteed ability to shock and scandalise family and friends. I’ve always been somewhat curious as to what could possibly have been going through Regurgitator’s heads when they committed it to tape, and now, interviewing singer Quan Yeomans, I finally have the chance to ask.

He groans a bit at the question – it seems that more than any other, ‘I Will Lick Your Arsehole’ is the song that still follows him around – but he answers good-naturedly enough.

The track, he says, came about completely by accident during the recording sessions for Unit. “Our producer Magoo looped something incorrectly,” he says. “The original loop was from a Funkadelic song, and it’s George Clinton saying ‘I will lick your funky soul’ or something like that. Magoo managed to loop it in a weird way where it came out that way, and we just had to use it. It’s still one of my favourite songs to play live, though. It’s really quite something to hear a crowd of people singing that back to you.”

Even at their most successful, Regurgitator – led by Yeomans and bassist/vocalist Ben Ely – seemed like weird, arty misfits.

They broke out of Brisbane in the mid ‘90s with their debut Tu Plang,

a raucous mix of punk, hip hop and literate, youthful angst. Its follow-up, Unit, arrived two years later, and while it swapped out the guitars for synths, it packed that familiar lyrical punch beneath the shiny synths, and earned the band some of their biggest radio hits.

Their achievements since then have been many – they’ve provided accompaniment for contemporary dance pieces, and they’ve recorded an album live inside a giant plexiglass bubble in Melbourne’s Federation Square. But their upcoming Retrotech tour sees them going right back to the beginning, playing both of those beloved first two albums back-to-back.

“The idea for this has been kicking around for a while,” Yeomans explains. “We’re just getting to that age, I guess, where it feels like maybe we revisit stuff we haven’t done for a while, some nostalgic stuff for fans who first got into the band in that particular era. We are almost 20 years old as a band, so it’s about that time when we start to reflect. Also, we’ve been playing shows for so long that we wanted to change it up and try something new, and this felt like a good way to do that.”

I’m surprised to learn that Yeomans’ favourite track from Unit is the

anthem to inadequacy, ‘I Piss Alone’. “That one is probably the weirdest song I’ve ever written, but I really like it because it’s just so honest and so out-there.”

Somewhat tentatively, I ask him if the song – which concerns the fear of standing next to other men at urinals – comes from real-life experience. “It definitely does,” he answers. “My favourite songs are the ones that seem to come most from personal experience – the awkward, weird ones that go into the kind of subject matter you don’t normally want to talk about. I like that songwriting is a way that you can put really personal ideas out there in a public space, but still only have to deal with them in a kind of abstract way.”

The songs on Unit and Tu Plang were written when Regurgitator were much younger men, and Yeomans admits that it feels strange returning to an earlier version of themselves. “In fact, there’s a story I can tell you about just how weird that is. I found a mouldy old one-inch tape in a box at my mum’s house recently, and I didn’t know what was on it at all because there were no markings on it, so I gave it to Ben, and it turned out that it was actually the first [recording I made] at the SAE, back when I was doing a course

Regurgitator photo by Stephen Booth

regurgitator

The Golden Oldies

By Alasdair Duncan there in ’93 or ’94. Listening to it was really weird for me, because it was like being back there, being in that headspace.” He pauses for a second, and then laughs. “It was bad. The music on the tape was absolutely terrible, or it was in my opinion, anyway. I can’t imagine what the A&R guys who were chasing after us back then must have seen in it. But the energy and the speed of it…” he says, trailing off. “On that same tape, there was a track from the first punk band that I played in, called Zooerastia, and listening back to it now I know why the drummer used to throw up after every gig we played. The speed of it was just insane. Listening back to something like that you just think, ‘Wow, I had a lot of energy and a lot of angst, and I was really young and really intense back then.’”

Seja Vogel, who has played keyboards on the last couple of Regurgitator albums, will be coming along on this tour to play the synth parts on Unit’s songs, although Yeomans admits that they’re not quite sure what to do with her during the more rough-and-ready Tu Plang portion of the show. I suggest that Seja could just dance around with maracas ala Bez from Happy Mondays, and he snorts.

“Oh, I don’t think we’d want to put her through that! We have been

“‘I Will Lick Your Arsehole’ is still one of my favourite songs to play live. It’s really quite something to hear a crowd of people singing that back to you...”

known to thrust a tambourine into her hands on the odd occasion, but yeah, I think there’s enough different stuff on the first record to warrant her playing quite a bit of it. There are some samples, and there’s some amateur Dre-ish hip hop stuff. We might try and get her to play some of those parts…”

In a traditional show, a band can open and close with the hits and chuck a couple more in the middle to keep everyone’s attention, but playing albums back-to-back has forced Regurgitator into a far more rigid structure than they’re used to.

“The thing I like about playing live is the chaotic element, and the way we’re doing this leaves very little room for change, or for throwing weird bits in,” Yeomans says. “We may well end up going off on a few tangents – I can’t say at this point.”

If they stick to the script, I venture, the show will open with ‘I Sucked A Lot Of Cock To Get Where I Am’ and close with ‘Another Beautiful Story’. Yeomans seems a little shocked when I put this to him.

“Wow, fuck… I hadn’t really thought about it like that,” he says. “Maybe that says something about the band’s career. I’m not sure I want to know.”

What: The RetroTech tour – Tu-Plang and Unit played live With: Senyawa (Indonesia), Hedgehog (China), DJ Toothy The Swede Where: The Hi-Fi When: Saturday September 29 (sold out) / Monday October 1 (tickets still available)

“Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth. You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette” - ZIGGY STARDUST 16 :: BRAG :: 476 :: 20:08:12

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BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 17

The Go-Betweens Love Goes On By Michael Hartt

I

t’s just over six years since Robert Forster called time on The Go-Betweens, following the death of his friend and long-time creative foil Grant McLennan. McLennan’s passing put an abrupt end to one of the most unique and influential Australian bands of the last 30 years. To celebrate their work, a new compilation is being released: Quiet Heart: The Best Of The Go-Betweens. The album is the first anthology of the Brisbane band in over a decade and, for the first time, includes material from the three albums that were released following the re-activation of The Go-Betweens’ name in 2000, along with songs from the band’s original career, between 1977 and 1989.

Lindy Morrison, the group’s drummer in their first incarnation and one of the longest serving members, was one of the four Go-Betweens – along with Forster, multi-instrumentalist Amanda Brown and bassist Robert Vickers – charged with the task of selecting tracks for this new release. “The four remaining members were on email all the time, and it was really hard,” she says. “Everybody disagreed about tracks. I really wanted ‘Twin Layers Of Lightning’ on it. I love that track, but

there just wasn’t room. There’s too many good tracks. Emails would be going, ‘Four people want this track’, ‘Three people want this one’ – it was like that. It was hard but it was fun.”

Morrison says that working towards a common goal with her former bandmates gave them an opportunity to rekindle some of the collective drive of their halcyon days, as well as reacquaint them with each other’s personalities. “During the ‘80s, they were the most wonderful, creative times. We were so young and so brave. I guess in some ways we could lead such irresponsible lives because we had no commitments or family.

We just had one goal and that was to play music, to play The Go-Betweens’ music. It was the maelstrom of band life. Now we’re all settled and mature and responsible, but everybody’s exactly the same. The same quirks and flaws and qualities of people all showed up in the emails.

Nothing had really changed in the dynamic of the relationships.”

With the surviving members of what many consider to be the “classic” lineup of The Go-Betweens working on a project together, one of the inevitable notions is of them playing again, even in McLennan’s absence. Morrison tells me that while the band was compiling The Best Of, the possibility of shows did come up.

“We discussed it, but Robert [Forster] feels that he has worked with bands for the last 30 years and he wants time to work solo, and I completely understand that. I have no problem with that at all,” she says. “Why would he open that door again? It’s a big door to open. And I’m sorry, but then again I go, ‘Am I sorry?’ People’s memories of me as The Go-Betweens’ drummer will always be when I was young and lovely,” she laughs, “so it’s an either/or for me.”

“Producers could never sanitise the music. They could never mainstream the music. It was impossible to do so. We were too idiosyncratic.

We were too authentic.”

While stadium-sized success never came their way, the influence of The Go-Betweens’ music continues to be heard in generations of indie guitar bands that have followed, both in Australia and abroad. Morrison puts the band’s ongoing legacy down to their individualism. “Despite the best wishes of the producers who produced our albums, they could never ever sanitise the music.

They could never mainstream the music. It was impossible to do so. We were too idiosyncratic.

We were too authentic. The lack of skills of some of the musicians in the band meant that we played in a certain way that was simple but very effective. It supported the songs. The songs were always the main component to the band.

The instruments never took over; I think that’s very, very important… We never made the music busy. We were completely indifferent to that kind of idea. We always talked about the spaces, we wanted space. I was happy just to do backbeats.

I didn’t want to fill it a lot.”

“There’s an Australian sound and we’ve got it. Robert and Grant, the way they played their guitars and sang in unison, not harmonies. Their guitar strum, even the sound of the guitars – it was all very Australian,” Morrison continues. “Both men are very good songwriters and their songs told a story about The Go-Betweens. I think a lot of people are into that. They are into the fact that the songs are about what’s happening in the band.

They’re incredibly insightful about people forming relationships, and people identify with those lyrics.”

Morrison is still heavily involved in the music industry, serving as an Artist Representative on the board of the PPCA and as the National Welfare Coordinator for music industry charity Support Act, amongst other roles. She says she finds the band’s continued impact incredibly gratifying. “I find nothing more satisfying than having people tell me they’ve listened to the music and that they love the music, or when I get stopped in the street or at a gig and someone tells me how much they love the music. I really hope that [new] people are introduced to it because it was ten years of my life, and ten years of creating really great music,” she continues. “I knew it was great music. I just knew that what we were doing was extraordinarily different to anything else. I want people to hear that and I want them to hear the story, and I want them to think that everybody’s capable of producing great creative work by just sticking at it and doing it.”

18 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

Xxxx

What: Quiet Heart: The Best Of The Go-Betweens is out on August 31, through EMI

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros Here And Now By Mitch Alexander

E

dward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros first became a blip on the alternative music scene’s radar with 2009’s Here Comes EP, a trio of day glo, gentle, ramshackle indie folk espousing the virtues of peace, love and understanding, man. Their debut album, Up From Below, offered more of the same, and may have sunk into the morass of good-but-not-particularlyoutstanding albums with so many others were it not for the pervasive drive of single ‘Home’. An odds and sods blending of whistling choruses, jubilant brass bursts and earworm melodies had it soundtracking romantic comedies and advertising American football, and many more people were soon taking notice of this ragtag collective of Californian hippies that started out touring in a decommissioned school bus.

It wasn’t long before questions were posed about the authenticity of the band’s mystical leader Alex Ebert, formerly of early millennium electro-clash group Ima Robot. Critics snidely raised their eyebrows at this man, who had traded leather jackets and sleazy keyboards for dreamcatcher circles, accusing him of bandwagon hopping. Because obviously no one in music’s entire recorded history has ever tried out a persona or changed their sound substantially... Still, there’s at least one member of the band who shouldn’t have any trouble proving his freak flag credentials: Magnetic Zeros’ percussionist Orpheo McCord.

“I’m at home right now in Ojai, California, which is about an hour and a half northwest of Los Angeles… I live in the bush, as you guys call it,” starts McCord. “We live in this canyon, it’s totally isolated and beautiful, lots of mountains surrounding us and a small, little creative town…

After all the years touring with this band and bands prior, I just got kinda tired of living in the city; it’s so unproductive. My girlfriend and I went surfing today, and now I’m teaching myself some drums. Just keeping it mellow.”

but the darks are darker. It’s probably not for naught that the album title is so matter-of-fact.

The band is saying ‘We’re here, are you?’. “On a simple note, the first record was an idea,” Orpheo explains. “Alex had a concept and a vision of what he wanted to create with Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, and that wasn’t even the concrete name for the band at the time… The band came together through the process of making that vision come alive.

“As a whole, we got to know each other through that [first] album, not really sure if there was going to be a future after that. We were just riding the wave, a solid three years of touring that record.

And through that process, that alchemy, when we finally got time to record new things, this new music started to unfold itself,” he says. “It was more of a collaborative effort that created a slightly different perspective, with Alex as the leader keeping that purity of the original concept.”

What: Here is out now through Shock With: Mumford & Sons, Willy Mason Where: Sydney Entertainment Centre When: Thursday October 18 More: Also playing with Sarah Blasko, Mumford & Sons, Willy Mason, Matt Corby, Husky and Yacht Club DJs at Dungog Showgrounds on Saturday October 20

KING CANNONS THE BRIGHTEST LIGHT TOUR WITH ALL THE YOUNG (UK) & THE HELLO MORNING

Mellow indeed – but not for long. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros are soon to hit the road again, for a tour that takes in their third trip to Australia. The band are pairing with likeminded beard- and harmony-fans Mumford & Sons for a tour of capital cities, and one special camping stopover show in New South Wales country town, Dungog. “That was one of the major selling points of touring with Mumfords, doing that show; they were explaining to us about putting on this mini-festival and taking over the whole town,” McCord says excitedly. “I have no idea what to expect, because when we’ve come to Australia we’ve only played in major cities, but it will be nice to get a taste of that small-town experience”.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros photo by Laure Vincent-Bouleau

“[Dungog] was one of the major selling points of touring with Mumfords; they were explaining to us about putting on this minifestival and taking over the whole town. It will be nice to get a taste of that small-town experience.”

Mr Sharpe and his zeros of magnetism (don’t worry, that probably won’t catch on) first teamed up with Mumford & Sons in April 2011, to play six shows across America on the Railroad Revival Tour. The bands travelled via overhauled 70-year-old trains with bluegrass band Old Crow Medicine Show also in tow, and the tour was captured on film by Grammy-nominated director Emmett Malloy for the documentary Big Easy Express. While the Australian shows won’t be Railroad Revival Part II, there will still be plenty to keep fans whoopin’ and hollerin’ into the night. “I would say that the Railroad Revival had a unique tone to it – on the old train, travelling through America, there was something so unique,” McCord says. “Even if we had Old Crow Medicine Show, it wouldn’t be the same… But you know, there will still be a festive element to these shows, playing with the boys, because we all get along really well and we all love playing music together. It will be nice to reunite with them in that way.”

If Up From Below was the sound of the band boarding the bus for the Magical Mystery Tour, then 2012’s Here is them getting comfy on the ride. Excitedly pointing out the landmarks, taking plenty of photographs, having adventures along the way – the album further explores the journey that Up From Below embarked on. The colours are brighter,

WED 5TH SEPTEMBER THE PATCH, WOLLONGONG FRI 7TH SEPTEMBER THE ANNANDALE, SYDNEY SAT 8TH SEPTEMBER HOTEL GREAT NORTHERN, NEWCASTLE This is what rock n roll is all about. ‒ TIME OFF (July 2012) KINGCANNONS.COM

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BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 19

Kasey Chambers And Shane Nicholson It Takes Two By Benjamin Cooper

K

asey Chambers and Shane Nicholson make one hell of a team.

In person, the married musos come across as the cool kind of neighbours you’ll never have, with their disarming charm complemented by a maddening conversational ease. It’s somewhat surprising, then, when scarcely fi ve minutes into an apparently polite chat, the subject of balls arises. Specifi cally, those of their frequent US tourmate, Justin Townes Earle. “He’s got some balls,” Chambers says, before swiftly collapsing into a pile of giggles. “Well, we did spend a lot of time on that tour bus, I suppose,” Nicholson cuts in with a wry chuckle. “Lot of ground to cover, and Justin is an expressive guy...”

defi nitely never toured together, so it’s really exciting to be heading out on the road together for the first time.”

months worth of shows into a two-month stint, so it’s going to be a whirlwind. I can’t wait – it’s going to be very exciting!”

“We DO need to practice a couple of things before we head out, though,” Nicholson adds.

“Not too much meddling around or anything, but just a little more adjusting.” According to Chambers, the record is quite “jammy”, so the performances need to be kept loose too. “We aren’t going to over-do anything or keep it too clean; it needs to be kind of rough,” she says, but Nicholson isn’t too worried. “I don’t think there’s much chance of it being too clean – I mean, I’m pretty sure we only played each of the songs through once before we recorded them!”

When the pair aren’t on the road, they share a home with their two sons Talon and Arlo, and baby daughter Poet. It’s a living arrangement that took a while to grow accustomed to. “When we first got married I thought we’d be writing together all the time,” Chambers says. “Not only are we both songwriters for a living, but we’re both people who love the process of writing songs, and who realise the importance of the song rather than all the other shit that goes along with it... but it’s just not something that we really do together at home much, funnily enough.”

Kasey and Shane’s first studio collaboration was 2008’s Rattlin’ Bones, which knocked dance-lords The Presets off the top of the domestic album chart before claiming the Best Country Album title at that year’s ARIA Awards. But the duo aren’t too worried about the weight of expectation when it comes to its follow-up, Wreck & Ruin.

Although its a similarly country-rooted collection, their second record offers a plethora of opportunities for reinterpretation of the genre, with the addition of an entirely new band. “Most of the musicians who played on the record have never played with us before,” Chambers says. “We’ve

Fans of Chambers and Nicholson will be able to bask in the full, rough-hewn glory of Wreck & Ruin as the band take the show on the road, across a mind-boggling number of national dates. In the past, spending so much time living out of suitcases was never a big deal for the pair, but a young family at home on the Central Coast has changed their priorities a little. “As we were looking at it on one piece of paper I thought, ‘Whoa!

This is going to be huge!’” admits Chambers.

“Things have changed for us – we have three kids now – so it is a big deal for us to get the opportunity to do a tour like this one.... If you look at the dates, we’re packing about five

“I think it’s really good like that, to be honest,” Nicholson says. “I think it’s nice for there to be an element of space between the different things we do. When we started work on this album we probably hadn’t written together at all since the first record we did, and I think that space was really useful.”

Chambers agrees: “We’d end up a bit crazy and in the wars, otherwise – and no-one would like that!”

What: Wreck & Ruin is out September 7 Where: York Theatre, Seymour Centre When: Friday November 2

Fanny Lumsden & The Thrillseekers A Bit Of A Merry Hoe-Down By Alasdair Duncan

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Split Seconds Coast To Coast By Krissi Weiss

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erth-born and now Melbourne-based, Split Seconds migrated east in search of affordable touring and the overall challenge that comes with establishing yourself in a new city. Western Australia may have given birth to an array of successful indie bands, but it’s still quite a distance from the rest of Australia. “It’s really hard over in Perth,” vocalist Sean Pollard explains. “Especially when you’re doing a whole bunch of tours – it isn’t particularly cheap. But I think the move was more for us to put ourselves out of our comfort zone and to take a risk.” Pollard is excited by the release of their heavily Brit popinfluenced debut album, You’ll Turn Into Me, but he’s being fairly realistic about the journey that’s ahead of them. “We are getting to the pointy end of our 20s now, and we decided that if we were going to do something with the band, we needed to take a risk.”

The move exposed the band to a new, wider audience. “I think a lot of Perth bands have the problem that if you don’t have significant radio support or some sort of endorsement in that way, it’s even harder over there to get out there,” Pollard says. “If people just see your name on a poster and you’re not someone that people give a shit about, it’s hard to get them to come [to shows]. Here we can take last minute support slots and do last minute gigs – but it might take a while for us to get known.”

With a few releases building momentum towards their debut LP, Split Seconds didn’t take an entirely DIY approach to You’ll Turn Into Me. Thematically the record deals with prostitution, public sex, freak storms and family life, and portraying their ever-punchy and crisp Blur-esque sound required some outside help. Recorded by Matt Giovanangelo (Voltaire Twins), long-time Split Seconds associate Aaron Cupples (The Drones, Dan Kelly) shared the mixing duties with Dave Parkin (Felicity Groom, Jebediah), and somehow the pair unconsciously created an album of harmony. “Aaron did our first EP and we always wanted him to mix our album, but he’s in a band overseas,” Pollard says.

“He used to be a Melbournite, and we were always super happy with what he did. We had to get a song done in a couple of weeks and he wasn’t around so we got Dave Parkin, who did such an amazing job of it. So when we decided who was gonna mix [the album], we thought we’d go half and half,” he says.

“Sometimes when you’re mixing a whole album you get a little fatigue in your ears, so we thought that would make it all a lot more fresh, and somehow it has all come out really cohesive too.”

Her earliest musical influences were the songs she’d hear around the home. “I went to a tiny primary school, and I was sort of starved of pop culture in those days,” she says. “My dad’s a real bushman, he’d listen to old country music, and I’d get classical music from my mum.” When she left for boarding school, the outside world began to sink in. “When I was a teenager, I listened to a lot of country – Kasey Chambers and stuff, and Hanson as well. They were my earliest musical influences, I think,” she laughs. “I didn’t really write much until I got a bit older. I started playing guitar in high school, and I guess that’s when I got a bit more creative. I didn’t stick to the rules a lot, though.”

These days, Lumsden is a resident of inner-city Surry Hills, although she still pines for the simple life. “I’ve been going out to the country maybe once a month, just to work for a week in the fresh air,” she says. “Surry Hills is pretty congested, so it’s really nice to get away from it. I mean, when you’re away from the country it all looks rosy, you just think about the nice things.” ‘Apricot Sunday’, the sweetly melancholy new single from Lumsden’s

Autumn Lawn EP, was inspired by this very feeling.

“I was making apricot jam to sell as merch at a gig when I came up with that song,” she says. “I was thinking about living in the city while missing the country, and feeling a little sad. I guess you could say the song is written in a country style.”

At present, Lumsden is counting down the days until she and her band, The Thrillseekers, launch Autumn Lawn at Hellen Rose Schausberger LabOratorium, a performance and art space in Surry Hills. “We’ve got a great space and we can deck it out how we like,” she tells me. “We’re going to have turf and hay bales. It’s going to be a lot of fun – you can expect a lot of dancing, a lot of people. It will be a bit of a merry hoe-down, if all goes to plan.” You’ll also leave the show with some practical advice: “The people who come will get directions on how to build an autumn lawn, straight out of a CWA magazine from the ‘60s,” Lumsden says. “Everyone needs that, I think.”

The cover of the Autumn Lawn EP features a photo of a calf looking adorable and calflike – curiosity gets the better of me, and I ask Lumsden if she actually knows this calf personally. “I wish I did!” she laughs. “I don’t, though. A lovely lady I know took it on a farm in Gippsland. I have a lot of similar photos but none that are shot quite so well. It’s a valid question to ask, though – I mean, it’s likely that I’d know one.”

What: Autumn Lawn EP is out now With: Jackson McLaren, Lily So & Co Where: Hellen Rose Schausberger LabOratorium / 17 Waterloo Street, Surry Hills When: Thursday August 30

What: You’ll Turn Into Me is out now With: The Griswolds, Penelope Austin Where: The Standard When: Friday August 21

“A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest and a queer threw up at the sight of that” - ZIGGY STARDUST 20 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

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They’ve been helped along the way by a few well-placed endorsements from the music press – in particular, triple j music director Richard Kingsmill’s proclamation at Perth’s One Movement Festival that they were his new favourite Perth band. “We don’t see ourselves as a trendy band, we’re not particularly trendy people, so it’s been a slow build, but over the 18 months we’ve been out in the world people are starting to recognise

our songs and our name. We’re comfortable with that, we like playing and taking our time, and it feels like you’ve truly earned it if it takes that work. There is a gap between [starting] a band and their songs reaching an audience, and we have been lucky to have had a fair bit of support from the greater industry. It’s always needed when you’re a band from WA.”

ountry kid Fanny Lumsden grew up with music in the blood. “My mum was a music teacher, so she’d stand over me at the piano making me practice my scales from quite a young age,” she tells me. “I did all my AMEB and classical piano and grades, stuff like that, although I was really bad at playing what the notes said and I’d stray from them constantly, much to mum’s despair.” Fanny is the eldest of four siblings, all of whom would play instruments and sing to pass the time. “We’d go camping in the summer to the river, and we’d sing the whole time,” she says. “My cousins are the same. There are performers all through my family.”

Katchafire Keep On Smiling By Krissi Weiss

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atchafire began life as a Bob Marley tribute band in the late ‘90s and have steadily grown into troubadours of the Pacific Rim, with a touring schedule that seems almost overwhelming. Thanks to Australia’s long-standing love affair with New Zealand roots/reggae, they are no strangers to our shores and are heading over once again – this time armed with a host of songs from their latest album On The Road Again, as well as a few brand new tracks. Three years in the making, the record has already gone Gold in New Zealand, on its way to certain Platinum status, and the band have enjoyed a short break after another mammoth American tour. The title of their latest album sums up life in Katchafire, with the band spending far more time on the road than they ever do at home – and loving every minute of it.

“We just came off a five-week tour in the States, which was really good,” guitarist, vocalist and all-round sweetheart Logan Bell says. “We’ve lost count of how often we’ve been. We’ve been going about twice a year for a while now.” America is often a challenging territory for ANZAC bands to break into, but Bell explains that the band’s connection with Hawaii made their transition to the mainland easier. “We’ve been pretty blessed,” he says. “We’re coming through the back door, so to speak; we’ve been lucky to be popular right throughout the Pacific, all the way up to Hawaii.

The Hawaiians have jumped on board, really helping us to break into mainland USA. A lot of the students go there for schooling and to get off the islands for more opportunities, so they tend to take their culture and lifestyle with them. They’ve helped perpetuate Katchafire’s message.”

monotony and keeps it fresh for the audience as well. Over the years we tend to refine things, and keeping that lifecycle to a minimum means you’re pumping out fresh stuff. We’re working on having some of those new songs appear when we play [in Australia] as well.”

The thematic drive of their last album was personal experience, spiritual connection and tribute to their heritage. Maori culture permeates the very essence of so much of what Katchafire create – and so does positivity. “For us we’re always writing about our experiences, and a lot happen to be positive, as well as missing home and some more testing things. I guess we’re a happy bunch of people – there’s something in the water over here,” Bell says, and then laughs.

“Actually, there’s something in the grass, the magic grass… Even if you’re down, well, most Kiwis have a hundred problems but we keep on smiling.”

With: NRG Rising, DJ Tickelz Where: The Enmore Theatre When: Saturday September 22

Secret Sounds presents

With Aotearoa reggae and Katchafire’s cultural history being such a prominent part of the band’s lyrical and spiritual focus, Bell explains why the connection between Hawaii and Maori culture is so strong. “We’re all part of the Polynesian umbrella coming through our ancestral migration,” he explains. “Even though we’re Maori, the migration saw us go right through the Pacific and even South America. There’s definitely a big connection. The Hawaiians seem to really look up to our culture and what we’ve retained here, being the original people of the land.”

“We’re always writing about our experiences, and a lot happen to be positive... I guess we’re a happy bunch of people – there’s something in the water over here. Actually, there’s something in the grass...”

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With four albums, a host of collaborations and countless singles on the Katchafire shelf, it is their prolific touring that drives the band more than anything else. Barely at home, Bell explains that it’s the loyalty of their fans, and the strength of their families, that enables the lifestyle that they all love so much. “It’s been really good on the international travel front; we’re really grateful,” he says. “Behind any successful group is a strong family backbone, and that’s a really important ingredient for Katchafire. We’re lucky to have good strong families that understand our dream and want to help us achieve that dream. They’re holding down the fort, paying the bills and changing the nappies, and we get to fool around. Sometimes we get to take them and they get to see what we get to see – any chance and we’ll take them.”

On The Road Again is barely a year old, but the band knows how important it is to keep the wheels turning, and are already pushing towards a new album. With Katchafire averaging two to three years between their releases in the past, they’re moving forward quickly this time, aligning with the insatiability for new material that today’s audiences possess. But with an almost unending touring schedule, the band will have to keep writing on the road. “Just before we came out to the States for the second time this year, we were in the studio,” Bell says. “We laid down six tracks, so we’ve got the wheels turning on some new material and we’re gonna treat it the same way as the last album. Because we’re all so busy, we’re gonna try and find time on the road to finish that up – we’re trying to aim for midway next year to get that out. Times have changed, and ‘cause there’s so much happening now it’s all about trying to keep that public presence, and the lifecycle of an album has come down to a year, or a year and a half. That’s really good for the musicians in a way, ‘cause it breaks the

Special Guests

EDWARD SHARPE & THE MAGNETIC ZEROS plus WILLY

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Thu-18-Oct

SYDNEY ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE Tickets from ticketmaster.com.au & 136 100

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GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD (A Camping Stopover)

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BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 21

arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

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

five minutes

SHAUN GLADWELL X MCA ARTBAR

WITH JANE THEAU

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that fact. Rookwood is a huge and fascinating place that not many Sydneysiders have visited.

Hopefully as Hidden becomes more embedded in the artistic life of Sydney that will change.

ane Theau's story isn’t that of the ordinary artist.

Researching electron microscopy at Columbia sparked an early fascination with the brain, particularly its ambiguity, the function of memory and its eventual deterioration. These days her preoccupation with the labyrinthine organ is explored through sculpture, visual media and thread works, most recently contributing to Hidden, Rookwood Cemetery’s annual sculpture walk.

Was it creepy? Did you see any ghosts?

No and no. The cemetery’s closed at night, sadly.

What is it about sculpture that makes it your preferred medium?

I started as a printmaker, but found myself making threedimensional forms with my prints, so I took that as a sign. I’ll work in any medium if I can learn how

The Cortege by Jane Theau to use it effectively, or get advice from someone who can. As with my career path, my journey in art is somewhat eclectic! I love trying new things. I admire artists who master a particular medium, but I also admire those whose work constantly travels in new directions, like Fiona Hall.

Aziz Ansari

You’ve been involved with Hidden before. What does the event mean to you?

To explore the themes of love, death, loss and memory in the context of a cemetery as culturally rich as Rookwood is a privilege. Death comes to all of us, and we do our best to forget

GUESS HUGHES BACK

Eddy McGuire once accused Hughesy of ‘abusing people for a living’, but that doesn’t make the all-ocker comedian’s nasal-tinged insults any less amusing. Dave Hughes – of Nova, The 7pm Project and the Kyle Sandilands “dickhead” scandal – is about to embark on a Comeback Tour (if he ever really left) off the back of his 15th Melbourne International Comedy Festival appearance. (That’s even more times than Justin Timberlake’s been on Saturday Night Live.) So if you like your comedy with a little self-deprecation and a serious serving of sarcasm, grab tickets to the Sydney show at The Enmore Theatre on Saturday September 15. Tickets are $45. ticketek. com.au

THE MAGICAL MYSTERY BUS AT SYDNEY FRINGE

After selling out at last year’s festival, the Mystery Bus is back and spreading itself across eight nights of the Sydney Fringe. The Fringe has just offered up some clues as to what to expect from this year's enigmatic incarnation. Opening night’s XXX – an erotic jaunt with lavish costumes and a taste for the city’s underbelly – promises to offend any with an uptight nature, while Cinematic Slap alludes to more subdued artistic expression (including VHS tapes and a taxidermy fox, obviously). Roll Em Girls offers up a derbyinspired voyage, though it is Blind Tiger that has our interest piqued, with a stroll into the prohibition era. The first bus departs from The Enmore Theatre on September 8 and makes its final expedition on September 29. Head over to 2012. sydneyfringe.com for more details.

What: Hidden: Rookwood Cemetery Sculpture Walk Where: Rookwood Cemetery When: September 1–October 14

by the industry’s finest to accompany the two feature-length treats. Head to UTS from 12–14 October to check out what’s on offer. You won’t be disappointed. More info and the full program at siaf.uts.edu.au

BRIGHTEST SAPPHIRES

The Sapphires has won the highest accolade at the 45th Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG) Awards, for most outstanding script. The film, written by Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson, secured its success through an impressive turn at the box office and its encapsulation of Australiana (film industry types love that). Michael Lucas scored two AWGIEs: one for Not Suitable For Children in the original feature film category and another for episode 206 of the TV series Offspring. Jan Sardi, president of the AWG said, “This year, the 50 year anniversary of the Australian Writers’ Guild, has been the biggest AWGIEs to date, with over 30 awards being presented. The best of the best in Australian performance writing has been celebrated tonight,

Shaun Gladwell QUAY MDCCCVIII– MCMLXXXVIII SEQUENCE (still) 2005 a mix of new talent whose star is rising and more established writers that have received the recognition they rightly deserve.”

GET IMMERSED IN WATER

Sydney Theatre has just announced it will be presenting Water, the visually arresting theatrical experience from Filter, one of Britain’s most innovative theatre companies. The production, created by leading UK director David Farr, had two sell-out runs in London, and its immersive and involving story is now being staged in Sydney.

“Using water as the intrinsic link between its characters and drawing on the different skills of the multi-talented troupe, Water spans two generations, two continents and 26 years. The story dives into the very depths of interpersonal relations, to look at the real costs involved in politics and the choices people make in life.”

Water runs from September 12–23 at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay. For tickets head to sydneytheatre.org.au

BLACKRADDER

AZIZ ANSARI VS JUST FOR LAUGHS

Aziz Ansari – hilarious stand-up comic and (if I may editorialise) generally rad dude – has been added to the Just For Laughs lineup alongside seasoned-pro Drew Carey, “cockney nightmare” Noel Fielding and Rhys Darby from New Zealand’s Flight Of The Conchords. Known for his role as Tom Haverford in Parks And Recreation, “Raaaaandy” in Funny People and his two prior standup tours, Aziz will be performing his follow-up to Dangerously Delicious for the Opera House’s second hosting of the festival on Friday October 12. Get Dangerously Delicious for a measly five bucks at azizansari.com. Tickets from sydneyoperahouse.com/ justforlaughs

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Our beloved Mr. Bean (I mean, Rowan Atkinson) doesn’t do enough these days. So a group of guys – Gabriel McCarthy, Valentino Arico and Stephen Carnell – got together to put on a tribute show for the teddy-toting comedy genius, reprising the renowned ‘Rowan Atkinson In Review’ shows staged in London in the ‘80s. 14 hilarious and bawdy sketches will be performed at the new Bordello Theatre on the top floor of the Kings Cross Hotel and will feature “murder, mayhem, an irreverent priest, drunken wedding guests, an invisible man on a train, strict school discipline” and much, much more. It opens on September 5 and will be performed every Wednesday from September 26–November 28. Get your tickets from rowantribute.eventbrite.com

ANIMANIA

The Sydney International Animation Festival is returning to UTS for its fourth year, this time screening two feature-length films: Vanessa Paradis’ latest, A Monster In Paris, and the suitably-noir graphic novel adaptation Alois Nebel (nominated for an Academy Award). The festival showcases the latest achievements in the world of animation, with graphics to delight and innovation to boggle the mind (seriously, have you tried using After Effects?) There’ll also be a wealth of shorts

FIFTY SHADES OF BLACK

aMBUSH Gallery had the audacity to approach 67 talented, noteworthy artists and give them some stern ground rules: make us some art, make it a certain size, and don’t use any colour. Don’t even use grey (sorry about the cheap reference). Then they made an exhibition out of it. aMBUSH is launching Black And White All In Between next weekend, showcasing the monochromatic work of artists like Numskull, Beastman, Deb, Ben Frost, Anthony Lister (above) and loads more. Head to the launch on Friday August 31 to feast your eyes on the work of some of the finest Australian and international artists while you quench your thirst on Absolut and juice. DJ sets by Paper Plane Project, Raine Supreme and DPHY. Open till September 2. More at ambushgallery.com

Shaun Gladwell image courtesy and © the artist

What made you decide to move into art?

I’ve always had art in my life, whether as an observer or a creator. I was never just interested in art, though. I needed to pursue those other areas (like neuroscience) because I find them equally interesting. I’m glad I have experience in those disciplines because it makes my creative life that much richer.

We had a sneak preview of your work for this year’s Hidden (left). Tell us about it.

I have a vivid memory of a funeral in France where the coffin was followed slowly to the cemetery by a large group of mourners on foot, a cortege.

The Cortege is a series of pure white porcelain figurines with bleak, black eyes enclosed in cylinders of glass, symbolic of the solitary nature of grief. It portrays how extreme the way we commemorate death can be: with sadness, yes, but also as a celebration of the life lived.

It’d be tough for Shaun Gladwell to get much cooler. Not only is he a successful artist – locally and internationally – but he’s also a pro skateboarder (gnarly).

He’s been selected as MCA Artbar’s next guest curator, which they’ve described as a “high octane edition”: in store for us Friday August 31 are lectures, live music, film screenings and DJ sets to complement Gladwell’s digital and retrospective performance landscapes.

Gladwell’s been allowed to take over the entire wing and mess around with the MCA Collection galleries (including his 13 works already included in the collection).

The event is one night only, so if you want to secure one of two double passes, tell us the name of another famous skateboarder. More info at mca.com.au/ series/artbar

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Tim And Eric

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im and Eric’s particular brand of comedy tends to provoke extreme reactions from people. Those who love them feel as if they’ve found kindred spirits, while those who don’t refuse to even acknowledge that what they do is comedy. ‘Awkward’ is nowhere near a strong enough word. Their Adult Swim series, Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, took viewers to a new circle of hell every week. The pair played a series of helpless and hopeless characters in wretched and surreal situations, often on the brink of complete mental collapse. The sketches were intercut with a series of fauxcommercials for questionable products – many of them themed around diarrhoea in some way – and were shot in a style that suggested the bottom rung of public access TV. Like-minded souls caught on quickly, and the show’s roster of guest stars stretched from comedy players like Zach Galifianakis and John C. Reilly all the way to popular acts like The Shins.

Eric Wareheim met Tim Heidecker in college, and the two knew right away that they would share a special bond.

“We got to know each other in our first film class together, in freshman year film school,” Wareheim explains. “We sat near each other because we lived in the same dorm. We started cracking each other up, but we were doing it on a very deep level that we were really shocked at.” They wiled away their classes passing notes – containing jokes, possible band names and other crudities – in an attempt to make each other laugh. “One time, Tim cracked me up so much that our professor yelled at us in front of all the other students,” Wareheim says. “That was so embarrassing, but at that point we realised that we were on the same level, that we liked the same shit.” They’ve been working together ever since – on shows (Awesome Show, Great Job! and its predecessor, Tom Goes To The Mayor), films (Tim And Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie), viral commercials (for Old Spice and Absolut) and sketches – and much like those early college days, amusing one another remains the primary goal.

G IV EA W AY S

People say that comedy is pain, and the characters on Tim And Eric certainly seem to be working through some very painful stuff – like tearful, screaming outbursts on the set of infomercials, uncovering horrific memories of child abuse, and expressing them via the medium of quilting. I ask Wareheim what exactly draws the pair to this aesthetic.

“That’s just sort of what we love,” he says. “The nightmare-parts of life and living. We kind of amplify them on the show: going through a divorce, having to go to the bathroom in a park, these are horrible moments that we like to explore.”

There’s a notable undercurrent of daddy issues on the show – one cheery sketch concerns a kid who wears his absentee father’s dirty socks to feel like he’s around – but Wareheim assures me that this doesn’t come from real life. “We both had great upbringings,” he says.

“I guess we’re coming from the point of view that dads are just funny. When you grow up and realise that your dad is a real man, with his own set of interests and passions, and not just your father – that’s really funny to us.”

In October this year, fans will get to experience the pair in the flesh when Tim And Eric Awesome Australian Tour 2012, Great Job! rolls into town. Given that their comedic style is so intimate, I’m curious to know how exactly their awkward sketches and vignettes will translate to the live stage. “Well, the live show is a very different experience than the TV show,” Wareheim tells me. “We do a lot of characters on the show, and they have their own songs and dances. Tim and I are in lots of bands and we do a lot of live performance art as well – we love doing that as a different kind of comedy.

At the core of it, it’s still Tim And Eric. It’s the bizarre, awkward, in-your-face stuff that you’d expect.” There may also be a guest star, although Wareheim can’t say who just yet. “We do plan on having some surprise guests in Australia, although they’re not quite confirmed,” he says. “I can’t say too much, but it could be awesome.”

Since the series wrapped up, Tim and Eric have been working on their live show and their movie, which was released earlier this year. I ask Wareheim how they see their relationship continuing from here. “Well, we’re going to continue doing stuff together as long as we think it’s funny and we don’t hate each other,” he says.

“Tim still cracks me up, I still think he’s the funniest guy out there. We have a bunch of new shows that we’re working on with Adult Swim, and we’re thinking about another movie. We do our own things, though, to satisfy other parts of our brains. It’s been a great working relationship so far, and I think there’s still a lot more that we can do.”

What: Tim And Eric Awesome Australian Tour 2012, Great Job! Where: Metro Theatre / Factory Theatre When: October 2 (sold out) / October 3

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There’s a childlike innocence to Tim and Eric’s twisted humour, and it’s not all that surprising to learn that Wareheim himself has been honing his craft since he was a precocious teen. “My dad was a videographer, a real hobbyist, so we would always have old VHS cameras lying around. My sister and I would make talk shows and animations, and looking back on them, they’re pretty messed-up.

They’re funny, but they’re weird. That’s one of the first examples, I would say, of me putting my kind of comedy down on something.” He still has the tapes somewhere, but insists that they will never see the light of day. “They were recorded when I was 13, which is about the most awkward age for a young man,” he says. “I’m six foot seven now, and I was six foot seven when I was that age, so I just looked like this lanky monster.

I dress myself up in disgusting things all the time, but looking at myself as a young teen is really hard for me.”

The Nightmare Of Life And Living

By Alasdair Duncan

CHINESE TAKEAWAY TICKETS!

I

WIN!

t’s a quirky twist on the buddy comedy, that’s for sure. Chinese Takeaway, an Argentinian feature directed by Sebastián Borensztein, follows the relationship between Roberto (Ricardo Darín), a reclusive hardware store owner, and Jun (Ignacio Huang), a mysterious Chinese immigrant.

Thrown together after an absurd accident, hijinx and hilarity ensue as the language barrier throws up problem after problem for Roberto. An audience favourite at this year’s Spanish Film Festival, and winner of Best Film at the Rome International Film Festival, Chinese Takeaway comes out on August 30.

For your chance to win one of ten double passes to the film, tell us the word for ‘hammer’ in Spanish. Just e-mail freestuff@thebrag.com with your answer.

24 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

Conversation Piece

Love

[THEATRE] Winging It By Rebecca Saffir

I

t’s the apocryphal actor’s nightmare: you’re standing backstage, the audience is waiting, and you have no idea what play you’re meant to be performing. You feel sweat start to bead around your hairline. You don’t know your lines. The stage manager pushes you out into the spotlight and...

This is usually where the actor wakes up.

But for performers Alison Bell, Matthew Whittet and Megan Holloway, this will be a nightly ritual when they star in Conversation Piece, a new work directed and choreographed by Lucy Guerin. Every night, three dancers – Alisdair MacIndoe, Rennie McDougall and Harriet Ritchie – will open the show by improvising a conversation.

That conversation, unheard by the actors, will be recorded, loaded onto iPods and fed into their earpieces once they step on stage.

The conversation is punctuated with dance, most of which is choreographed, but actors are encouraged to improvise parts as well.

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“We start performing it immediately,” Bell says. “So it’s a surprise for us, which is p exciting. And it also means it’s very hard not to laugh. They’re ey’re getting more and more provocative cative with what they’re saying [in n rehearsals], so I’m quite looking g forward to how outrageous it willll become! It’ll be difficult to keep ep a straight face.”

The premise of the he show is to explore what happens when actors and dancers ers meet, so the rehearsal process ss has involved some dance training ning for the three leads. Bell, known wn for her role as Roo McVeigh on ABC TV’s Laid, lets out a long peal of laughter when I ask if she has any dance ance experience. “No!” she says, chuckling. ing. “Not at all! In the show, I’ve got ot a couple of very simplisticc things I can manage. There here are different dance ce abilities amongstt the actors. At the e moment Matt hass a little solo, and so does Megan.

I’m going to be trying my hand at dance class tomorrow, so you know… It could change!”

She’s audibly pleased to have signed on to the show. “It’s a

really generous environment. [The dancers] are incredibly supportive of us when we’re trying to do the dance, and we need to be relatively shameless. It’s good fun.”

Bell is full of admiration for director Guerin, one of Australia’s leading contemporary choreographers and a pioneer in Australian dance-theatre. Her work Human Interest Story, which fused contemporary dance, text drawn from TV news grabs and clever audiovisuals, played at Belvoir last year.

“Lucy is a very exciting performance maker: a truly organic maker of work. A lot of people bandy that word about, but she really follows her nose, she sees something and that leads to something else, so the parameters are constantly shifting and that’s really exciting.

It’s really nice for me to exercise different performance skills to what are normally required of me. There’s no linear narrative, no fixed character. It’s all quite fluid.”

Bell thinks this element of the unknown will also be a drawcard for audiences: “It’s like how preview performances p p are always really popular, because there is the danger that something is going to go wrong!” she explains. “That danger does hold appeal and it’s inbuilt in this show.

It will change and be different for every audience. I mean, as an actor you know that every show is a little bit different each night, but this one reallyy will be!”

Actor Alison Bell

What: Conversation Piece Where: Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills When: August 25–September 16

Love [FILM] Shooting For The Stars By Alasdair Duncan

T

he story of how William Eubank’s directorial debut Love came into being is almost as strange as the narrative itself.

The film is an elusive affair, telling the story of an astronaut marooned in a space station, forced to deal with his crippling isolation from the world 200 miles below.

Eubank, a life-long lover of space and science fiction, had been working as a camera technician at Panavision when an unexpected encounter with the alt-rock group Angels And Airwaves planted the seed for the film. “You know, actually, it was really random,” Eubank says. “I entered a YouTube competition to make a video for Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a friend of mine saw it and liked it, then showed it to a friend of his, who is the drummer from Angels And Airwaves.”

The band, who are led by Blink-182's Tom DeLonge, were so impressed that they contacted Eubank and asked to see some of his work. “I’d been working at Panavision for about eight years, and making stuff of my own on the weekends, just whenever I could get the chance,” he says with a laugh. “I sent them a bunch of it, and they liked it so much that they asked if I wanted to work with them.”

The original plan was for Eubank to make a series of linked music videos for the band, though the limitations of doing so became clear fairly quickly. “Once we’d watched a couple of those, we started to see that it was boring and not what we’d hoped for, so we went back to the drawing board and decided to come up with one big story.”

His love of the cosmos, and the grandeur of the band’s music, led to the idea of an astronaut stranded in space, and the movie

quickly developed from there. “I began to contemplate what I could do with the limited funds we had, and that made it more exciting,” he tells me. “I think creativity can often pop out of nowhere when you don’t have much to work with. It’s a weird process.”

The film was shot on a shoestring budget, in a replica space station that Eubank created himself, from scratch, in his parents’ yard. The attention to detail is tremendous, and the look of the film is eerily beautiful.

Gunner Wright stars as the astronaut Captain Lee Miller, and spends much of the film alone in the confined space. His character’s increasing paranoia forms the backbone of the film. “If you put a person alone in space, that’s a great stage to explore a lot of topics, to do a lot of self-examination,” Eubank says. “He’s trapped and unable to go home, and at first he panics, but as things progress, he finds himself getting into a very self-reflective space.”

Angels And Airwaves’ score is the perfect complement to Eubank’s haunting images, and Love leaves viewers pondering many unsettling questions. “I love Carl Sagan, The Pale Blue Dot,” Eubank continues. “We’ve done so much here, but one day the sun might explode or we might nuke ourselves to death, and all these amazing things we’ve done will be wiped out. I’m really obsessed with this fear of what happens if we never do anything beyond our existence on this blue marble, if we never go out further. The script has a lot of ideas in it, just because I was so excited at the chance to explore them, but at the same time, the film leaves it open for a lot of people to see what they want.”

What: Love is in cinemas August 30

I Want To Sleep With Tom Stoppard [THEATRE] Confessions Of A Theatre Nerd By Rebecca Saffir

he appeared in Strange Interlude and The Wild Duck, both for Belvoir, and when we meet he’s on a break from rehearsals for Private Lives. Lesser known are his skills as a writer, which will be on display in his new play for the Tamarama Rock Surfers, I Want to Sleep With Tom Stoppard.

was going to be that dedicated a theatre nerd, it’d probably be Toby Schmitz.

“I find writing harder than acting. I’ve always done it even before I thought acting would be a viable career. I pissed away my Law degree writing for university revues, which I saw as a means to an end, to be allowed to perform more.

At NIDA my writing was worryingly encouraged by the acting staff. I wrote a short play there as an exercise, one of the directors there picked it up and put it on for her graduation show, and then it got put on Downstairs at Belvoir. So before I knew it, I had become a playwright, at least theoretically.” Other plays for Tamarama Rock Surfers followed, as did a productive working relationship with the current Artistic Director, Leland Kean. “He has successfully directed most of my plays… the ones that haven’t been successful he hasn’t directed.”

(Kean will indeed be directing I Want To Sleep With Tom Stoppard.)

“I got the whiff that theatre was (and is) this incredible club,” Schmitz tells me. “And that by joining it – and you don’t have to pay any fees, you just have to dig it – you have direct contact to the Greeks, to Will Shakespeare, to the Bettertons, to everyone. I love the fraternity of the theatre.” Schmitz is probably best known to Sydney audiences as an actor: most recently

Love – or loathing – for the theatre is at the centre of the play. An actor in his early twenties arrives home from his first national touring production. He’s started sleeping with one of the older actresses in the company, who crashes a dinner with his parents and unleashes a veritable storm of conflicting opinions about the theatre, art and life. “I was

Writer Toby Schmitz with actors Caroline Brazier, Wendy Strehlow and Tom Stokes

S

ir Tom Stoppard, for those of you not familiar with the man, is a British playwright of great renown. His works include Travesties, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Arcadia, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and at least a dozen besides. He’s fiercely intelligent, enormously funny and deeply human. He’s also 75 years-old, and while definitely a looker back in the day, it’d take a pretty dedicated theatre nerd to want to jump in the sack with the old boy now. But if anyone

seeing a lot of plays that were about issues, you know, and I thought, I don’t know enough about the war in Iraq to write a play about it. If I was going to write a play about an issue, well that would be theatre. It’s what I know the most and that’s what I care about the most. I thought I could arm the father character with very good arguments as to why theatre is a dying artform, why it’s no longer relevant. Then there was a kind of complex layering where I could have people standing in a pretend kitchen on stage and saying, ‘You know what, I don’t think that plays set in kitchens are real plays.’ That’s the thing that Stoppard taught me early. He’s always having a conversation about theatre.”

Schmitz knows he’s been lucky in how his theatrical career has played out, but the enthusiasm he has for the broad spectrum of theatrical activity is infectious. “I don’t believe anyone can’t muscle their way into the fringe [theatre scene]. Hire your own space. Stand at the bar of the Old Fitz until Leland Kean promises to read your script. [Theatre people] come in all shapes and sizes, and all of that has to be navigated with the collegiate task of putting on a bit of art. Maybe that’s really the reason. It sounds wanky but it’s the truth.”

What: I Want To Sleep With Tom Stoppard Where: Bondi Pavilion Theatre When: August 29–September 22 More: Tickets from $25 (taco and a show for $42!) from rocksurfers.org

BRAG :: 477:: 27:08:12 :: 25

Arts Snap

Film & Theatre Reviews

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

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

Jared Gilman in Moonrise Kingdom

■ Film

MOONRISE KINGDOM

firstdraft gallery

PICS :: TL

Opens August 30

isabella moore: rainbow parents

PICS :: TL

15:08:12 :: Firstdraft Gallery :: 116-118 Chalmers St Surry Hills

16:08:12 :: Surry Hills Library :: 405 Crown St Surry Hills

Like many Wes Anderson lovers, I have a strange relationship with the indie auteur.

Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums signalled the arrival of a truly singular cinematic talent, both of them beautifullyshot and impeccably-crafted tales of weirdos and outsiders living lives of deep dysfunction. After these two, his work took a darker, more insular turn with The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited which, though maintaining the rapturously beautiful visuals, drove the same repeated themes and recurring cast members into the ground.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love them, but something needed to change – and that change came with The Fantastic Mr Fox. Anderson’s world and the characters who inhabit it had always been somewhat childlike, but here he made an actual animated kids’ film. It was brilliant: tonally light, it had a cracking plot but still managed to sneak in his signature themes and visuals.

Anderson’s latest, Moonrise Kingdom, is proof that the director is truly back on a roll.

Set in the 1960s on a remote, windy island off the New England coast, the film tells the story of Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Heyward). A pair of misunderstood teens, they hatch a plan to run away from their families and problems, creating a blissful, woodland idyll for themselves as the clueless adults in their lives attempt to find them. Heyward and Gilman make their respective debuts here, and both are great – especially Heyward, who brings a heartbreaking mix of worldliness and immaturity to the young Kara. The film adds several new players to the Wes Anderson stable, including Edward Norton as the earnest scoutmaster and Bruce Willis as a sad, rumpled cop. Tilda Swinton makes a brief yet memorable appearance as Social Services, the ostensible villain of the piece and a very scary lady indeed.

eifman ballet

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Moonrise Kingdom has an economical running time of 90 minutes, and this brevity serves the film well. The plot skims along like a stone on water, making the odd pauses for contemplation all the more effective. It features a large cast of children – including Sam’s hard-bitten scout troupe – and is one of those all-too-rare films that doesn’t attempt to sanitise the world of childhood. A cruel and sadistic bunch, it’s enjoyable to see just how far the film allows these kids to go.

15:08:12 :: Capitol Theatre :: 13 Campbell St Haymarket

Sad, beautiful, poignant and funny all at once, Moonrise Kingdom is vintage Wes Anderson at its best.

Alasdair Duncan

Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

Name That Song! Book Launch And Exhibition Thursday August 30, 6pm / Gallery 2010, Surry Hills How well do you know your way around a pop pictogram? Find out when MART gallery launch Name That Song! – an exhibition of pictograms from the forthcoming book of the same name, which brings together the illustration talent of local artist Little Gonzales and 99 noodle-scratchers dreamed up by music journalist Michael Wilton. To make it stressful, there’s a points system – half a point for correctly guessing the song name, another half a point for the artist. So bring your friends, get competitive, and show off your pop-culture chops. Name That Song! opens Thursday August 30 from 6pm at Gallery 2010 (69 Reservoir Street, Surry Hills). Martgallery.com.au 26 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

■ Theatre

DOG SEES GOD: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BLOCKHEAD Until August 26 / King St Theatre King Street Theatre’s staging of Dog Sees God is a hilarious performance of a script, penned by Bert V Royal of Easy A fame, that tackles the big issues head on.

There’s no sugarcoating this surprisingly tragic story of the Peanuts crew coming into adulthood: homophobia, bullying and rampant hedonism are being discussed here, and so are their potentially volatile outcomes.

CB (Michael Brindley) starts out trying to come to terms with his dog’s death, and he and his sister (Georgia Brindley) both question who and what they care about amidst a cast of characters who don’t seem to care about anything except getting wasted and getting laid.

His friends are affable of course, and amusing, but CB seeks solace in the quiet and heavily bullied Beethoven (Adam Marks), who is on the receiving end of all of Matt's (Josh Morton) misdirected anger. Morton gives a brave performance as the bully who simply doesn’t realise the damage he’s causing, while Marks gives colour to what could otherwise be a stock-standard effete piano-playing type. CB’s struggles to deal with his own sensitivity are amplified by the convincing performances of bitchy cheerleaders Marcy (Amylee Bliss) and Tricia (Stephanie King), who do well to establish the horrors of these characters’ adolescence. Think of Bliss and King as Mean Girls minus two shades of harmlessness, plus two of bigotry, and with squealing so well choreographed that it reaches jarringly-perfect decibel levels. With the added appeal of Michael Arvithis’ stoner comic relief, the cast’s collective skill gives a realist twinge to a story that might otherwise be too teenmovie to be relatable.

Scene after scene is raucous and hilarious, until a violent climax shifts the tone and culminates in a moralising and over-dramatised conclusion. Nevertheless, Dog Sees God manages to remain compelling and amusing while taking an unflinching look at teenage anguish.

Justin Wolfers ■ Film

YOUR SISTER’S SISTER In cinemas September 6 Mumblecore director Lynn Shelton directs mumblecore stalwart Mark Duplass in Your Sister’s Sister, the latest mumblecore flick to mumble its way onto screens and then get confused when the distinctly non-mumbly Emily Blunt shows up and enunciates too well. Actually, that’s far too concise a summary for a film that lets its actors improvise so much. From here on, this will be a mumblecore review.

So, like, what the hell is mumblecore anyway? Wikipedia says it involves low budgets, amateur actors and heaps of improv. Well, these aren’t amateurs, but apparently it’s a $125K film, so they must have done it cheap. It’s set almost entirely in a house by a lake, where Duplass, Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt improvise their way through a love triangle over 48 hours, with a few interesting-ish twists along the way.

Duplass plays Jack, a pathetic thirtysomething who shares DNA with Tim Heidecker’s ageing hipster in the Williamsburg eulogy The Comedy. Jack’s brother has died, so we’re meant to forgive his pathetic vibe. His BFF Iris (Blunt) suggests that he spend some time at her family’s holiday house, to, like, find himself or whatever, so he rides over on his hipster bike and discovers that Iris’ lesbian sister Hannah (DeWitt) is staying there as well, recuperating after the end of a long relationship. Cue the film’s best sequence as they drink tequila then sleep together. This is what good improvisation can create – great lines and relaxed performances. There aren’t enough of these naturally comic scenarios in the film, but hey, y’know. Anyway, it all hits the fan when Iris shows up.

Duplass is entertaining as Jack, channelling a kinda-lost vibe while retaining some momentum thanks to his sharp tongue.

DeWitt acts Blunt out of the park and has a much more interesting role to boot, which makes it difficult to be torn about how the love triangle rights itself – it’s a no-brainer.

Ultimately, it’s a fairly entertaining film with very low stakes. No one has much to lose, and the drama doesn’t hit the heights because no one really loves or hates anyone enough. The sisters forgive each other just ‘cos they’re, like, sisters, and Jack’s “epiphany”, where he smashes up his bike and shouts “Fuck”, is way too melodramatic to be a believable or effective climax: he doesn’t build his personal drama high enough to topple it so theatrically. But hey, whatever.

Nikos Andronicos

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

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

■ Film

TOTAL RECALL In cinemas now Given Hollywood’s predilection for rewriting, remaking, rehashing and generally cannibalising the creative output of the entire human race, it probably seemed like a good idea to do the same for one of the most popular cult sci-fi films of all time. You can imagine the pitching meeting in some back room full of ponytailed executives: “We can take all the best bits from Total Recall and Blade Runner and Minority Report, and add a twist of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Hey, we can probably even render the original artwork!”

And on the evidence, as far as most of us are concerned, every other remake has had a modicum of success. So if they’re breaking even it’ll be okay, right?

Considering that half the budget of the average blockbuster goes into hardcore marketing, the risk might just pay off, especially if you slap together a kickarse trailer like they’ve done for Total Recall (2.0).

I’ll give you the bad news first: Len Wiseman’s reboot/remake of Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 classic is a crushing disappointment, and for all the wrong reasons. This could have been another great film, even with the cynical nods to the original. Yes, there is another Doug Quaid, played to rather mundane effect by Colin Farrell. And yes, there is another psychopathic wife-comeassassin, this time played by a sneering Kate Beckinsale, who unfortunately doesn’t come close to Sharon Stone’s grim lunatic. And yes, there’s the whole set-up of implanting false memories, shepherded by the impossibly gorgeous John Cho of

Colin Farrell in Total Recall Harold And Kumar fame. Hell, there’s even a three-breasted woman in a nod to the fan-boys.

But Total Recall 2012 is such a tired and clichéd mess that I quickly went past the point of caring about the travails of Doug Quaid and the looming conspiracy that threatened to overwhelm him. Granted, there are some clever ideas here: the transglobal transport system ferrying workers from the United Federation Of Great Britain to The Colony in Australia after skipping around the Earth’s core does bring new meaning to the acronym FIFO (this time Fall In, Fall Out). And the exploited colony of Australia echoes the worst nightmares of Pauline Hanson.

But really, who could possibly forgive wasting Bryan Cranston in the role of such a sneering villain? All he lacked was a moustache to twist. In fact, I swear I saw a brief flash of relief cross his face before the requisite fireball engulfed him in the final moments of the film. What a waste.

Tim Milfull

Street Level With Jess Cook Of 107 Projects Describe the 107 Projects art space.

It’s a real hub, because it has all the elements of production, presentation, education and community participation.

107 Projects manages ten artist's studios, includes three exhibition walls and a large, multipurpose flexible layout. Our aesthetic is warm and inviting and beyond the white walls and black boxes of most creative presentation spaces.

How important is it for artists to band together?

It’s key to any profession. Even though our studio artists are not a ‘collective’, they still collaborate through communicating in the studios. There’s a natural crossover that happens in creative clusters.

Images by Maia Sinclair-Ferguson

S

ome clichés exist for a reason, and ‘strength in numbers’ is one that Jess Cook and the other clever kids behind 107 Projects certainly believe in. It’s hard to believe Jess is only 27, since she’s been so pivotal in Sydney's arts scene for so many years. Her newest venture, a collaborative art space opening in Redfern on September 8, is all set to be Sydney’s newest creative hub, providing a home for artists to create, hold events, put on exhibitions, and just be generally awesome.

How did 107 Projects start?

Over a decade ago we all met while sharing an art space at another 107 address in Surry Hills. When it closed in 2006 we all continued on our creative paths, but we couldn’t give up the itch to one day open another independent space in Sydney. In 2008 we made it official and became 107 Projects Inc: an organisation that would connect all of our diverse interests.

Tell us a bit about Why White?

Why White? is the first exhibition in the new space. It’s curated by Michelle McCosker and looks at the 20th century obsession with white exhibition spaces and why white continues to be the norm for artistic presentation. Yes, that’s right: our walls will not be white!

We’ll also be able to see the artists ‘in their natural habitat’…

It’s not often that you get to see an artist’s studio, let alone ten of them! It’s amazing to see the creative practice and a little bit of the magic that goes into creating projects that you usually see as the end product.

What else have you got in store for us on the open day?

Lot of fun and smiles! It’s an all-ages event where you can see all the elements that make 107 Redfern Street. You can participate, explore and enjoy all the creative offerings, or just sit down in one of our 1940s club lounges and hang out with us.

Expect a space that’s a little bit different.

What: 107 Projects open day / Why White exhibition Where: 107 Redfern Street, Redfern When: Saturday September 8, 12–4pm BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 27

Album Reviews

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK The Glorious Dead Counter Records/Inertia Pastiche has become a dirty word, appropriated to mean a cheesy rehashing of genre, a process of imitation less ‘genuine’ or ‘authentic’ than art that is less upfront about its influences. But the art of the 21st century is increasingly about reinterpreting old ideas to elicit new responses, using the audience’s knowledge of the source material as a launch pad for a new experience – and with their third album, The Glorious Dead, The Heavy show they might just be the best interpreters around.

Please buy this album. Then The Heavy will tour, and we can party.

The Heavy’s music works because their songs sound like old classics given new life by the world’s best house band. That description doesn’t capture the sheer size and energy of their songs, but

GOOD HEAVENS Strange Dreams Rice Is Nice Good Heavens transitioned from their unveiling as Rice Is Nice’s best-kept little secret a month ago to the hottest live ticket in town with an appropriate lack of ego.

Despite picking up the widespread support of local radio as well as the national broadcaster, they decided to launch this debut album for free in the gruff ‘n gritty surrounds of Chippendale haunt The Lansdowne.

This is, after all, a group which has arisen without the machinations of the industry.

Based on the friendships between Sarah Kelly (ex-theredsunband), Myles Heskett and Chris Ross (both comprising Wolfmother’s rhythm section, back when it was a holy force), the trio don’t collaborate by trading moves through their rocking first single ‘It’s Not Easy Being Mean’; rather, they patiently respond to the development of the song by kneading and rolling the melody through an ever heavier swirl of jams. If people have expectations from this band, it ain’t their problem.

Somewhere between Kelly’s jarringly heavy guitar clashes on ‘Are You Sick?’ and her huge, ethereal wail, any last remnants of doubt concerning the group’s bonafides are dashed. After a gradual and ever more maniacal vocal build, Kelly and co. remind us how much fun they’re having by ending things abruptly a few seconds beyond the punk side of two minutes. But just because they’re having a good time doesn’t mean that the album is self-servingly simple or light. Dialled-down fury licks at the edges of the country-flavoured title ballad, with the dragged-out refrain of ‘Anybody But You’ haunting long after the reverb has faded…

Get it, play it loud, and wonder where the hell these epic organ trills have been for the last few years of your life.

hopefully gives you a sense of just how much fun this band is. Much of that comes from singer Kelvin Swaby, whose voice has been favourably compared to Curtis Mayfield, capable of both soul man croon and rude boy swagger, and who always has a glint in his eye and energy to burn.

But the band is equally adept at straddling the worlds of soul, rock and hip hop, with gigantic guitar riffs and an airtight rhythm section able to leap from style to style. Then there are the horns, which have gradually become a permanent addition to The Heavy. They are such versatile instruments, and add a whole new dimension to the band’s sound. And when they kick in on the savage mariachi coda to ‘Just My Luck’, the stadium-sized crunch of ‘Same Ol’’, or the sassy, funky intro to ‘Big Bad Wolf’, you won’t be able to stop dancing.

Hugh Robertson

SKRYPTCHA

VELOCIRAPTOR

JJ DOOM

Mindful Obese Records

The World Warriors Independent

Key To The Kuffs Lex / Inertia

ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI Mature Themes 4AD / Remote Control

Sometimes when you listen to hip hop, you’ll come across an artist that truly knows how to tell a story.

Sydney boy Skryptcha has plenty to say – but whether he’s mastered the art of keeping you listening is an entirely different issue.

Mindful is Skryptcha’s second album, and features a who’s who roster of guests including Illy and Spit Syndicate – but the overwhelming poppiness that permeates the record will mean you’ll probably relegate this to the ‘guilty pleasures’ category of your collection. Produced by Illmind, who has production credits for the likes of 50 Cent and Eminem under his belt, Mindful has been polished within an inch of its life, and beatwise it remains very much on the safer side of things. Although it complements Skryptcha’s lyrical style, one can’t help but wonder if a few more risks might have paid off.

There are a few highlights on Mindful: ‘The Sun’ is an unrestrained spray on the state of the Australian economy and the struggle of the everyman, and the inclusion of Rachael Berry’s vocals on ‘Graduation’ injects some muchneeded raw soul flavour into the mix. But then there’s the clumsily executed ‘Crash Course’, which starts out as a heartfelt thanks to a lucky lady, until the chorus kicks in – “Could you be my seatbelt, girl?/ Would you hold me back from the fall?” – and it starts to feel a little like a parody of itself.

Mindful looks perfect on paper: plenty of upbeat, pop-tinged melodies and heartfelt rhymes from one of the better MCs on the Sydney scene. But the lack of variety starts to leave you wanting something with a bit more grit.

12-piece Brisbane garage rock party band Velociraptor are going all-out for a ‘60s Kinks/Troggs vibe, expanded to wall-of-sound proportions. This much was clear from their debut EP last year, and on this mini-LP, The World Warriors, they deliver a more focused and songcrafty version of that.

From the opening notes of ‘Cynthia’ – a Kinks-esque, summery pop rocker – the release is immediately exuberant and refreshing, even if we’ve heard this sort of thing a bunch of times already. Over the subsequent seven tracks they weave through call-and-response vocal-guitar bursts, with “Kiss you in the nighttime/go and see a movie”-type lyrics, a riff from ‘Out Of Limits’ by The Marketts (i.e. Pulp Fiction Soundtrack), and a final bid for Beach Boys harmony on ‘Surf City Raptors’. There is a very high quotient of Howlin’ Pelle-ish screams and whoops, matched by screaming background vocals and thunderous powerchordy guitars.

The band is nothing if not enthusiastic, and they often seem like a more pumped-up Little Red, or The Hives with aural sprawl rather than discipline – or, at their best, King Khan without the horns. But it’s hard to shake the feeling that they fall into the curse of our times, making a spot-on homage to the music they love without bringing anything overtly new to the table (other than an excellent raptorbased mythos). It’s a replication of delectable style but not substance, a rip-roaring and infectious triumph of aesthetics as opposed to artistry.

The World Warriors is an energising debut, marred only by the awareness that the only thing new about this is the context.

On their first full-length collaborative effort, Jneiro Jarel and Daniel Dumile – aka JJ and DOOM respectively – start proceedings with a flurry of references to the latter’s nation of birth and current home, Great Britain. ‘Waterlogged’ smashes streetside cockney conversation samples into the requisite cartoon snippets – the use of animated superheroes as source material is a familiar hallmark of DOOM’s aesthetic.

But Jarel’s equally familiar minimalist production is dappled with unexpected lyrical and instrumental flourishes, which are a little at odds with his previous releases. Under the Dr. Who Dat? moniker, the Brooklyn native has dropped three albums that have been dominated with the kind of instrumental complexity that’s at harsh odds with chorus-dominated and booty-shaking sing-alongs. On an album of such cerebral hip hop like this, it’s heartening to see two dudes having so much fun, apparently unencumbered by the critical expectations that arise when you collaborate with names like Danger Mouse and Madlib.

Of course such notoriety carries the threat of hubris, but JJ reins in the more indulgent aspects of his partner’s personality on the Beth Gibbonsfeaturing ‘GMO’, tricking-out the whole affair with aplomb. The barely-ghosted lines from the Portishead vocalist drip and drain at the edges of a bizarre battle between some rudely strummed guitars and a spectral string section, before Jarel closes the track by waxing on pharmaceuticals and secrets.

The remarkable part is that none of this seems overly constructed. JJ pulls things in tight when necessary, but DOOM is still allowed to gleefully warp the conventions of hip hop.

Tight and torrid wordplay with very little respite, yet still far prettier than anything either have done before.

Laurence Rosier Staines Marissa Demetriou

Commercial Music Chapter Music Some people find Fabulous Diamonds infuriating, and it’s easy to see why.

The duo’s music is minimal, heavily repetitive fare – simple themes illustrated and reiterated with meditative drums and burgeoning, stygian synths. Nisa Venerosa’s vocals are the only immediately human element, but even these can prove a chore to process – they’re obtusely bluesy and withdrawn, revelling in simple melodies laden with echo. The effect is one of narcosis – the music invites you to wallow in weird, alluring atmospheres,

There are some undeniably solid songs here, in particular the title track and ‘Only In My Dreams’ – which are also the two that most resemble his work on Before Today, with their sweet folk melodies, and lyrics that are more whimsically honest than absurd. There are also some shockers: ‘Pink Slime’ combines irritating synth lines with inane lyrics; ‘Nostradamus And Me’ is a spaced-out odyssey into planet Yawn.

Between these highs and lows is a melange of songs that could easily be dismissed as pure novelty. Many of them are built around absurd oneliners: the ‘Kinski Assassin’ refrain “Who sank my battleship? I sank my battleship” is delivered in a comical British accent and sounds like it was composed in the bath; on other tracks, phrases like “I’m a nympho” or “I’m eatin’ schnitzel” are hypnotically repeated (and be warned: they’ll circle around your head ad infinitum).

Success or failure here relies squarely on whether or not you can subscribe to Pink’s particular brand of weird.

Ariel Pink operates his ‘LA weirdo’ persona with an air of desperately clinging to youth, but there’s nothing particularly experimental in what he does, nor is there anything cutting-edge about being deemed eccentric in pop music. Still, there’s something alluringly vulnerable – perhaps redeemingly so – about the 34-year-old’s defiant expression of adulthood-sans-maturity.

The pop music equivalent of a nightflight to Neverland, Mature Themes has its fair share of dubious hooks and lost boys. Whether or not you leave the window open is up to you.

Jenny Noyes

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK FABULOUS DIAMONDS

Mature Themes combines the slicker production of 2010’s breakout LP Before Today with the surreal, often comically absurdist leanings of Ariel Pink’s earlier work, and the results are as mixed as the tracks themselves.

Benjamin Cooper

Benjamin Cooper

28 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

The Heavy - Glorious photo by Andrew de Francesco

THE HEAVY

rather than laying familiar components out for your convenience.

Commercial Music is detailed and sumptuous. It brims with layers of synthetic texture and harmonic interplay, housed in cavernous reverb. To really hear it, you need to immerse yourself – turn this record up, or don some headphones, and it becomes clear that the fizzing monotone at the base of these pieces is intended to reach far beyond the limits of perception.

‘Inverted/Vamp’ bristles with foreboding.

Its mood is exhilarating from the outset – towering ramparts of synth and hypnotic piano percolating into an exquisite claustrophobia. ‘John Song’ releases some of the tension, with a measured beat

that ebbs against its own space-echoed consonants, bringing soothing eddies of percussive texture to the fore.

The rewards go beyond the luscious detail of the instruments. On ‘___', it sounds as though the duo is trying to jam itself out of an uncomfortably tight shuffle. The shifting synth arpeggios grate against the flow of the drums, gradually evolving into sublime melodic ascent. This discomfort is explored in detail on the lengthy final track, the tension between the instruments blooming slowly, yielding no resolution.

This is heady, addictive, minimal music, and their best record to date.

Luke Telford

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

SMITH STREET BAND - Sunshine & Technology THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT - I Robot THE LEMONHEADS - It's A Shame About Ray

HOT SNAKES - Audit In Progress RYAN ADAMS - Easy Tiger

★★★★★

“ONE OF THE MOST ORIGINAL FILMS OF THE CENTURY...

A REMINDER OF ALL THE THINGS THAT CINEMA HAS TO OFFER.” THE REEL BITS

★★★★★

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live reviews

up all night out all week . . .

What we've been to see...

party profile

smooth sounds It’s called: AC Presents: Smooth Sounds It sounds like: Blues, soul, folk, jazz.

Who’s playing? Siskin River, Iluka and Ivi. Sell it to us: Held in a secret, candlelit venue within the graffiti-splattered city block Hibernian House, AC brings you an extraordinary night showcasing amazing performances from Siskin River, Iluka and Ivi. Kicking off the evening is Ivi with her soulful riffs, enchanting tunes and heavenly melodies, followed by dreamy songstress Iluka, whose smoky retro tunes and sultry energy belie her tender years. Headlining the night is phenomenal sister duo Siskin River, with their unique combination of guitar shredding, percussive tapping and earthy vocals to bring you the grooviest folky blues in Sydney.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Never having been to a gig like that before!

Crowd specs: Our door is open to everyone.

Wallet damage: $10.

Where: Hibernian House / 342 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills When: Thursday August 30, from 7pm

DRO XAVIER

PHOTOGRAPHER : PE

CHET FAKER Oxford Art Factory Thursday August 16

fbi social

PICS :: TL

Thrupence, a foppish young lad from Melbourne, came onstage to validate the buzz surrounding his very aquatic EP Voyages. Bathed in blue light and aided by a muted, subtle guitarist, his ambient soundscapes were awash with oceanic sonic imagery, making everyone in Oxford Art Factory feel as if they were wading their way through Atlantis. With songs like ‘Parlay’, ‘Swashbuckle’ and ‘This House Is Full Of Water’ one would guess this was the intended effect, but it’s more convincing and less gimmicky than it sounds. The latter part of his set saw Thrupence using an M-Audio keystation accompanied by a heavier, swaggering hip hop beat, which almost served as a precursor to Chet Faker’s electronic soul.

18:08:12 :: FBi Social :: Kings Cross Hotel 248 William Street Kings Cross 9331 9900

Chet Faker played at Goodgod Small Club only a few months ago; his selling out of Oxford Art Factory is a testament to how much and how fast this guy has blown up. Opening with the instrumental ‘Cigarettes And Chocolate’, the heavilyfiltered samples, crisp hip hop kit, and cyclical guitar riff showcased the mantra in the Chet Faker camp: less is more.

Whilst obviously an extremely talented producer, he works off the illusion that

GOOD HEAVENS, BLOODS Lansdowne Hotel Friday August 17

passenger

PICS :: PX

When new bands that have formerly famous members in them say they want a ‘low-key’ launch, they usually mean The Metro Theatre or something. Not so for Good Heavens, perhaps Sydney’s worst-kept and most-hyped secret, who launched their debut album tonight, just after their first appearance at the Rice Is Nice label showcase a month or so ago.

17:08:12 :: The Hi Fi :: Entertainment Quarter 122 Lang Road Moore Park 1300 843 443 :: NOHMON ANWARYAR :: S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) MAS PEACHY :: GEORGE OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER THO :: NS MUN IEL DAN :: RMANN KATRINA CLARKE :: SASKIA EISE POPOV :: PEDRO XAVIER ::

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The Lansdowne really is as crap as it gets, which seems to suit the group, comprising the two biggest cogs that made Wolfmother turn – drummer and artist Myles Heskett and bass giant Chris Ross – and theredsunband front- woman Sarah Kelly perfectly fine. They banish any pretence of preshow jutters, spending most of Bloods’ headbanging pop punk set shooting the shit and drinking three dollar beers with their musical mates who’ve come down specially for the occasion.

Good Heavens’ debut record is a real grower, and you get the impression that at least half the audience – rammed in among the pool tables – has heard at least bits of it. It’s thrilling to see Heskett and Ross slamming out brutal riffs again

this brand of electronic/RnB/soul/hip hop is a purely organic, flowing jam.

The understated man behind the moniker, Nick Murphy, is a quiet, bearded dude in plain clothes and a beanie. His deep – and seemingly effortless – vocals are a perfect instrument for his sound.

When singing live, he would often muck around with the original vocal line slightly, and the illusion of musical simplicity allows for this improvisation. The crowd offered gutsy choral support during ‘I’m Into You’, but stood and bopped respectfully during ‘Terms And Conditions’ – and I don’t know if it was the mulled wine, but at some points it almost felt like you could hear his beard, as those docile notes emerged all warm and fuzzy and slightly muffled.

The band is an incredible asset to Chet Faker’s live performance, adding an energy that I didn’t think Murphy’s Wurlitzer could provide on its own – but when he encored with a stripped-down cover of Burial’s ‘Archangel’, he had the entire OAF in the palm of his (hairy) hand. The group looked relaxed by the end of the set, and indulged a ten-minute extended jam of his incredible cover of Blackstreet’s ‘No Diggity’: “We like you, Sydney… You guys get the long version.”

Rachitha Seneviratne

in such a small environment, and even though the sound of Kelly’s voice doesn’t carry very well to the back of the room, anyone walking past on their way back from Sydney Uni would have no doubt who that rhythm section was. Contrasting those bluesy, Zeppelin-meets-glorioussludge grooves that Australians secretly pretends they don’t love with a female voice, rather than that of their old mate Stockdale, is an interesting experiment.

Kelly, physically and sonically dwarfed by her new bandmates, makes a great go of it, and when she works herself up into a decent frenzy it all starts coming together.

The problem is those slow sections in between, which work well on the record but seem to drown in a mess of noise when strutted out live. Obviously it’s early days (and a pretty awful PA), so perhaps this isn’t the best time to judge that element just yet.

One thing’s for certain: the crowd love it. And there’s enough scene leaders cheering from the bar – Dappled Cities’ Dave Rennick, Midnight Juggernauts’ Daniel Stricker and PVT’s Richard Pike to name a few – to give you the impression that it’s not only their label that believes in Good Heavens, but their peers as well.

And surely that’s the best welcome of all.

Jonno Seidler

BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 31

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iowa

PICS :: PX

up all night out all week . . .

joe mckee

PICS :: PX

16:08:12 :: FBi Social :: Kings Cross Hotel 248 William Street Kings Cross 9331 9900

16:08:12 :: Paddington Uniting Church :: 395 Oxford St Paddington 0405 053 744

city riots single launch It sounds like: A dreamy wave of reverb drenched indie pop glued together by jangly, intertwining guitars and multi-layered sound scapes.

Acts: City Riots, The Chitticks, Twin Lakes, Oslow, The Cadres, Yardvark, The Deadheads, Clubfeet DJs, Wolfden DJs. Sell it to us: A wild night of indie-pop hooks, unforgettable melodies and a bouncing dancefloor.

new war

PICS :: TL

party profile

It’s called: City Riots ‘Wait For You’ Single Launch

18:08:12 :: The Square :: Cnr Hay Street & George Street Haymarket 0405126927

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: That chorus still swimming around in your head till your all-day breakfast at 3pm the next day, the bartender pouring some kind of sugary spirit into your mouth from a teapot, and the random, smudgy phone number on the back of a cab receipt.

Crowd specs: Only the coolest kids in the whole world! Kids who hanging from the low ceiling and crowding over the tight stage, drinking vodka out of teapots.

Wallet damage: $15 at the door (like City Riots’ Facebook page for a special guest list price).

Where: MUM @ The World Bar

ainslie wills

PICS :: PX

When: Friday August 31

children collide

PICS :: TL

16:08:12 :: Goodgod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Sydney 8084 0587

:: NOHMON ANWARYAR :: S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) GEORGE OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER MUNNS :: THOMAS PEACHY :: IEL DAN :: NN RMA EISE KIA KATRINA CLARKE :: SAS :: POPOV :: PEDRO XAVIER

32 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

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PICS :: KC

18:08:12 :: The Standard :: 3/383 Bourke St Surry Hills 9331 3100

17:08:12 :: Metro Theatre :: 624 George St Sydney 9550 3666

Remedy

More Than The Cure Since 1989 with Murray Engleheart

The Sex Pistols circa 1977

THE DEATH OF INDEPENDENT GEORGE

Not satisfied with wrecking what’s left of rock, Nickelback have gone one better (or worse) and screwed with what should never have been screwed with: our enjoyment – make that worship – of Seinfeld, a programme whose teachings have long governed every aspect of our lives. Jason Alexander, or just plain George, is featured in the vid for the band’s new single (which we’re not even going to dignify by naming).

How will we ever be able to nod knowingly at Georgie Boy’s foibles ever again? Bon Scott was right: there ought to be a law.

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING

Awesome twosome Lightning Bolt have a new EP out on September 25 called Oblivion Hunter which, according to the media release, is “a collection of the band’s epic recording sessions over the last few years. Oblivion Hunter is a real cool time – loose, hard and loopy. From the get go the sound is amped-up and free, with an ear on the railroad tracks to the big sounds of industry and clamour. Bass roars out of the speaker cones, conjuring up sounds of alien propulsion systems, nights in faraway wind tunnels, and brutal beatings at Gitmo.

Drums and assorted FX pop in and out with the resolve of a finger quivering over the A-bomb button drunk on power and convinced of your need.” Oh, yeah!

DEEDS TOO DIRTY

There are plans for an American movie about Bon Scott’s days with AC/DC. Hmm… hopefully it’s a better treatment than some of the overseas books penned about the band, which generally give the impression that this country is or was just a large desert that only recently acquired the magic of electricity and running water. Worst-case script scenario: “Fair dinkum, cobblers!” said Bon to the bonza sheila near the shrimp-covered barbie.

The irony is that the powers that be in the States originally weren’t keen on releasing the Dirty Deeds slab, because they considered Scott’s voice too crude for their conservative airwaves. Life’s a rich pageant, eh?

NEVER MIND THE FILLER

This week we’re most excited about the release of The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks 35th anniversary box set.

After all, we’re talking a recording that – for all the band’s sneering rhetoric aimed at rock dinosaurs of the '70s – has the biggest and best sound of any rock‘n’roll ever made. The first Clash album sounds positively amateurish by comparison, and not in a good DIY way. Anyways, now we have that off our concave chests, the box is due in September and includes three albums worth of tracks, featuring the original remastered recordings, a disc of B-sides and rarities, and live stuff from the era. Plus there’s the original single of ‘God Save The Queen’, a DVD of live shows and a 100-page book. Essential, no matter what the cost.

CASHING IN

Since we’re big fans of the raw immediacy of his later work with Rick Rubin, and we’re also well-known nuts for boxed sets, it’s worth mentioning that a 60-plus album collection of Johnny Cash’s recordings for Columbia is about to be released. The set, due out on October 30, spans the period of 1958–1990, with many titles making it into the small, silver disc format for the first time.

THE FUTURE'S TOO LATE

Muddy Waters once said that what he played only appeared simple and easy to execute. But even that sage wisdom doesn’t really explain why ZZ Top’s La Futura, out on September 10, is their first album in almost a decade...

WHO’S PETE?

The autobiographies just keep on a-comin’, and while Aerosmith’s Joe Perry is at work on one (which should be infinitely more interesting than Steve Tyler’s effort), the next biggie is by The Who’s Pete Townshend. Due out in October, Who I Am should be a rip-snorter, as our Pete has long been one of the most articulate in the game.

ON THE TURNTABLE On the Remedy turntable is Off!’s self-titled effort, which shows that age hasn’t wearied nor eased their angst. 16 songs have been fired from the hip in Machine Gun Etiquette-style – and it seems as though it took less than half that number of minutes to record the thing. Great fist-pumping stuff from a band that is so much more than a long-haired (yet balding) quasi-underground punk supergroup. Also spinning is the excellent triple disc reissue of Sugar’s Copper Blue, which was amazing the first time ‘round but is now even better with B-sides and other goodies, a DVD, plus a typically scorching live show from Chicago circa ‘92. There are few greater aural joys than Bob Mould and the band behind him playing at full tilt.

TOUR AND INDUSTRY NEWS One of the great punk rock n’ roll bands, Hot Snakes return to play the Annandale on December 6.

Status Quo back to Australia next year?

Bring it on! (Sorry Uncle Phil…) On March 27 they’ll be at the Hordern Pavilion.

Yay! And yay! again. Our heroes, the mighty High On Fire are back in September – and in their own right for first time. See them fronted by the newly fit and healthy-looking metal god Matt Pike on September 29 at the Manning Bar.

The Doomsday Festival returns in October with international headliners, New Jersey’s The Atomic Bitchwax. The event hits the Sandringham on October 12 and ANU in Canberra on October 13.

So Coles are now bringing the mighty

TEMPLAR SOUNDSYSTEM KATO / PHARLEY U-KHAN / ZEUS PRE-SALE TICKETS AVAILABLE ON RESIDENTADVISOR.NET

There’s a big rally this Sunday August 26 at Sydney Park, St Peters from 12pm to save The Sando, one of the last remaining real rock‘n’roll venues in Sydney.

More info at saveoursando.com.

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

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

F R O M

DOORS OPEN 10PM

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The legendary Shellac are playing at the Metro on October 28.

S U P P O R T

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g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

Catcall

JAZZ

Ian Blakeney Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm Jazzgroove: Mike Rivett Quartet, King Neptune 505 Club, Surry Hills $8 (conc)–$15 8.30pm The World In The Basement: Abby Smith, Gang of Brothers, Darren Jack The Basement, Circular Quay $20–$69.80 (dinner & show) 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

FRIDAY AUGUST 31

Kings Cross Hotel

FBi Radio’s 9th Birthday: Secret Headliner,

Catcall, Fishing, Sures, Bon Chat Bon Rat,

Charge Group, Albatross, The Khanz, Guerre, Future Classic DJs, Rufus DJs, Kato & Bad Ezzy, Simon Caldwell, Monk Fly, James Taylor & Murat Kilic, Roleo, Moonbase Commander DJ, Shantan, Roleo, Max Gosford, Elliot, FBi Radio DJs $18-$22 8pm MONDAY AUGUST 27 ROCK & POP

Dan Lawrence The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm Monday Jam Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale free 8pm Unherd Open Mic Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm

JAZZ

Alison Penney Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm Eddie Perfect & The 34 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

Renovators 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 (conc)–$15 8.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Russell Neal, Kate Leahy, Huntley Mitchell, Ivona Budys, Anita Lenzo, EvaMaria Hess, Massimo Presti Kellys On King, Newtown free 7pm

TUESDAY AUGUST 28 ROCK & POP

Adam Pringle and Friends Downstairs, Sandringham

Hotel, Newtown free 8pm JP Trio Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 10pm Jurassic Lounge: The Paper Scissors, Cogel, Drum Media DJs, Robopop, Punk Monk DJs Australian Museum, Sydney $14 5.30pm Mandi Jarry Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 8.30pm Rob Henry The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 8.30pm The Sam Cooke Songbook: Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges (USA) The Basement, Circular Quay $32 (+ bf)–$86.80 (dinner & show) 8pm

Andrew Denniston, Michael Scott, Lincoln Davis, Phoebe Eve Carden, Stelbell Harbourview Hotel, The Rocks free 7pm Black Diamond George IV Inn, Picton free 7.30pm Russell Neal, Paul McGowan Merton Hotel, Rozelle free 7.30pm

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 29

Blue Beat, Double Bay $15 9pm

JAZZ

Alister Spence Trio 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 (conc)–$15 8.30pm The Hi-Tops Brass Band Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8pm John Watson Dee Why RSL Club free 6.30pm Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Alex Gibson, Gene Fehlberg The Basement, Circular Quay $15 (+ bf) 8pm Folk Club Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory free 8pm Greg Sita, Kate Leahy Cat and Fiddle Hotel, Balmain free 7pm Helmut Uhlmann, Benjamin Lam The Loft, UTS, Ultimo free 6pm Mal & Gary, Ladywood, Taizy, Zelda Smyth Royal Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Russell Neal, Brad Myers, Luke Robinson, Jasmine Beth Cookies Lounge and Bar, North Strathfield free 6.30pm TAOS, Gavin Fitzgerald, Damien Chan, Bethia Thomas Coach & horses Hotel, Randwick free 7pm

ROCK & POP

Andrew Wishart Brass Monkey, Cronulla $34.70 7pm Andy Mammers Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney free 9pm Carl Fidler The Observer Hotel, The Rocks free 9.30pm Club Cab Sav FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Co Pilot The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9.30pm Dan Spillane Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 9pm Dressed To Chill, Aimee Francis Band, Dave Sattout The Vanguard, Newtown $21.80–$56.80 (w. dinner) 8pm Eye On You, Iniciate, Second Nation Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Jager Presents Annandale Hotel $8 7.30pm Jamie Lindsay Northies, Cronulla free 7.30pm Jess Dunbar Summer Hill Hotel free 7.30pm Josh McIvor Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill free 6pm Miss Pia and Pat Capocci, The Aston Martini’s, DJ Brian Rock Lily, The Star free 7pm Musos Jam Night Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt free 8pm Rembrandts, Simon Shapiro Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $54–$96 (dinner & show) 8pm Roland K Smith & The Sinners, The Green Mohair Suits, Emma Swift, Adam Young Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm Sisken River, Minnie Marks Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 8pm Steve Tonge Duo O’Malley’s Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9.30pm Sures, Battleships, Will & The Indians Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm Texas In July (USA), For All Eternity, Paradise Found, Allay The Sea The Loft Youth Centre, Newcastle 5.30pm all-ages The Universal Thump Feat.

Greta Gartler and Adam D Gold (USA)

THURSDAY AUGUST 30 ROCK & POP

2SER’s Live At The Loft: Regular John The Loft, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo free 5pm 51 Percent, Team Justice Sydney Livehouse @ Lewisham Hotel $10 8pm Alpine, Clubfeet, Georgi Kay Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $17 (+ bf) 8pm The Beach Boys (USA) Allphones Arena, Sydney Olympic Park $99.90–$175 8pm Calling All Cars, The Lazys, Hailer Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont free 8pm Cannons, The Fighting League, King Tears Mortuary FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst 8pm Coby & The Remedy, Sabre, 3 Speed Dog Box The Valve, Tempe $5 7pm Dave White Duo The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9pm Don Walker Brass Monkey, Cronulla $34.70 7pm Elevate Scuffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 10pm Fanny Lumsden & The Thrillseekers, Jackson McLaren, Lily So & Co. Helen Rose-Shausberger Laboratorium, Surry Hills $12 8pm Halfway Homebouy, The Drifting, HiddenAce, 2 Picks No Sticks Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $10 8pm The H.P Coronados Harold Park Hotel, Glebe free 8pm Hot Damn!: Texas In July (USA), For All Eternity, Beneath The Crown, Never Lose Sight Spectrum, Darlinghurst $15 (guestlist)–$20 8pm Into the Mystic – The Music of Van Morrison: Joe Creighton Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $31 8pm

Johnathan Devoy Downstairs, Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 7.30pm Busking For Change: Josh Pyke & special guests Annandale Hotel $35 (+ bf) 8pm Maria Minerva (Estonia), Guerre, Rainbow Chan, Four Door Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $20 (+ bf) 8pm Marty From Reckless Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 10pm Nicky Kurta Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm A Night On The Town With Oxford Art Factory: Shady Lane, Playwrite, Colour Coding, March Of The Real Fly, Belle & The Bone People Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $5 8pm Siren Lines, Little Napier, Romeo Moon Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Sons Of Mercury Bull & Bush, Baulkham Hills free 8.45pm Starboard Cannons, Frank Sultana, Johnsong The Vanguard, Newtown $18.80–$53.80 (dinner & show) 8pm Sweet Tooth: Jack Colwell & The Owls, Brendan MacLean, Ruby Frost, Caution Forces, Julia & The Deep Sea Sirens The Standard, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 7pm Vultures: Restless Leg The Lansdowne, Chippendale free 8pm

JAZZ

Afro Nomad Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $20 7pm Albare iTD The Basement, Circular Quay $45 (+ bf) 8pm The Cellar Jazz Jam: Tim Firth, Brett Hirst, Greg Coffin The Spice Cellar, Sydney free 9pm Jacram Manicks, Jochen Rucket, Jackson Harrison Quartet 505 Club, Surry Hills $10 (conc)–$15 8.30pm Lionel Robinson Dee Why RSL Club free 7pm Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm Steve Clisby Macquarie Hotel, Sydney free 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Andrew Denniston, Matt Savelberg, Shenai-Tayla Kendall, Rock The House, Stevie Pounder Ettalong B/C free 7.30pm Black Diamond Corrimal Hotel free 7.30pm Helmutt Uhlmann, Eva-Maria Hess Mars Hill Café, Parramatta 7.30pm Krishna Jones The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 8.30pm Russell Neal, Michael Scott, Men With Day Jobs, Emad Younan, Darren Paul, Oliver Goss The Brewhouse, Darling Harbour $15 8pm TAOS, Nick Domenicos, Spencer McCullum, Richard Murphy Kogarah Hotel free 7pm

FRIDAY AUGUST 31 ROCK & POP

1927, Spy Vs Spy Enmore Theatre $74.95 (+ bf) 8pm Abby Dobson, Elliott the Bull Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $35 8pm

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pick of the week

The Songwriter Sessions Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 7.30pm Songwriters Association Open Mic Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt free 7pm

g g guide gig g send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com Absolutely 80s Reunion: Brian Mannix, Scott Carne, Dale Ryder North Sydney Leagues Club, Cammeray $29 (+ bf) 7.30pm Alpine, Clubfeet, Georgi Kay Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst sold out 8pm Apocalyptica (FIN), Rise Of Avernus The Hi-Fi, Moore Park $50.60 (+ bf) 8pm Armchair Travellers Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 10pm The Backsliders, Reg & Pete The Vanguard, Newtown $23.80–$58.80 (dinner & show) 8pm The Beautiful Girls Metro Theatre, Sydney $45.10 sold out 8pm Cameras, The Bright Young Things, Little Napier, Annie McKinnon Upstairs, Burdekin Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Children Collide, Dune Rats, Bad Dreems Fitzroy Hotel, Windsor $25 (+ bf) 8pm Civilians, Dharma Sutra, James Blows Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Dead, Battle Pope, No Art, Fat Guy Wear Mystic Wolf Shirt Black Wire, Annandale $10 7pm all-ages Don Walker Vault 146, Windsor 8pm Dune, Phebe Starr, Jordan Millar, Hansom Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm FBi Radio’s 9th Birthday: Catcall, Fishing, Sures, Bon Chat Bon Rat, Charge Group, Albatross, The Khanz, Guerre, Future Classic DJs, Rufus DJs, Kato & Bad Ezzy, Simon Caldwell, Monk Fly, James Taylor & Murat Kilic, Tobio, Moonbase Commander DJ, Shantan, Toleo, Max Gosford, Elliot, FBi Radio DJs Kings Cross Hotel $18-$22 8pm Fiona Leigh Jones Duo Harbord Beach Hotel free 8pm Found At Sea, Black Lakes, James Davies Hermann’s Bar, University of Sydney, Darlington free 7pm Friday Funk Sessions #2 Blue Beat, Double Bay $15 9pm Get Vocal Sydney Showcase: The Idea of North, Café at the Gate of Salvation, Voices From The Vacant Lot, Fishbowl Boys Notes, Enmore $17.85 7pm Girls Of The Golden Age Of Rock, The Starliners Camden RSL free 8pm Grand Salvo, Sophie Hutchings Paddington Uniting Church $18 (+ bf) 8pm Holy Balm, Model Citizen, DCM, Robert Lake Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $10 9pm Hot August Night 40 Years On: Richard Jordan The Basement, Circular Quay $25 (+ bf) 8pm Hue Williams Avalon RSL free 9pm Jess Holland, Beautifully Mad, The Loungephonics The Manly Fig $12 (student)–$15 7.30pm Kingswell, DJ Urby Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont free 6.30pm Living Chair Bull & Bush, Baulkham Hills free 10pm Mar Haze, LP & The Architects, Huntley Mitchell The Lansdowne, Chippendale free 8pm Mental As Anything Brass Monkey, Cronulla $44.90 7pm MUM: City Riots, The Chitticks, Twin Lakes, Oslow, The Cadres, Yardvark, The

Deadheads, Clubfeet DJs, Wolfden DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross $10-$15 8pm The New Christs, Hits!, Bruce!

Sandringham Hotel, Newtown $15 8pm The Ocean Party, From The South Braidwood Hotel 8pm The Road Cases Richmond Inn free 8.30pm The Rockaholics Engadine RSL & Citizens Club free 8pm Roots Spectrum, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Sabotage: We Rob Banks, Breakaway, Sabotage DJs, Follow Me, Gee Whiz, Matrix, Aladdin, Destiny The Forbes Hotel, Sydney $10 9pm The Slowdowns Petersham Bowling Club $6 8pm Split Seconds, The Griswolds, Penelope Austin The Standard, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Stormcellar The Orana Hotel, Newcastle 8pm Tim Rogers, Catherine Britt The Factory Theatre, Enmore $35 (+ bf) 8pm Tongue & Groove The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm Troldhaugen, Daemon Foetal Harvest, Saralisse, Blatherskite Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Youth Rockin’ The Black Dog Band Comp: Peacemeal, The Patriots, White Sabre, Blue Power Parrot The Loft Youth Centre, Newcastle 6.30pm all-ages

JAZZ

AustraLYSIS The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10-$20 8.30pm Martinez Akoustika w/ Rosie Henshaw 505 Venue, Surry Hills $15$20 8.30pm The Tango Saloon, Chaika Camelot, Marrickville $25 7.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Mal, Terry, Emily Ristevski, Craig Edmondson, Greg Sadler, Katerina Kakoules, Glen Lambert, Darren Traynor Georges Rivver Sailing Club free 8pm Men With Day Jobs, Two Screws Loose, White Ocean Avenue, Sejon Im, Bity Booker, Russell Neal Cat and Fiddle Hotel, Balmain $10 7.30pm

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 1 ROCK & POP

Aaron Lyon & The Wild Things, Folklore, Michael John Azzopardi Tramshed Community Arts Centre, Narrabeen $20 7.30pm Alfredo Malabello James Squire Brewhouse, Sydney 8pm Alternative Times, Slim Sumo Manly Fisho’s $12 (+ bf) 8pm Art of Sleeping, Tigertown, Maples Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $12 (+ bf) 8pm Bayonets For Legs, The Goldhearted, Braden Evans Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Blackchords, Drawn From Bees, Colonies FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 8pm

Desperado – The Eagles Show North Sydney Leagues Club, Cammeray $25 (+ bf) 7.30pm Don Walker Notes, Enmore $32.65 7pm Dream On Dreamer, Like Moths To Flames (USA), Hand Of Mercy, In Hearts Wake, Sienna Skies, Where The Enemy Sleeps The Hi-Fi, Moore Park $30 (+ bf) 8pm all-ages Dress Up Attack!: Holly Throsby, Spod, Spurs For Jesus, Teddy Rock, Jimmy Giggle Addison Road Centre, Marrickville $10-$25 (+ bf) 10am all-ages Empire Rising, Cosmic Kings, High Noon, Stone Arc Valve Bar, Tempe 7pm Funkstar The Marlborough Hotel, Newtown free 10.30pm The Furious Five Jannali Inn free 8pm The Gansgters’ Ball 2012: Briana Bluebell Big Band, The Velvet Set Metro Theatre, Sydney $75$130 7.30pm Hue Williams Empire Bay Tavern free Hymn A Piaf!: Caroline Nin (FRA) Riverside Theatres, Parramatta $36 (conc)–$40 7.30pm Into The Mystic – The Music of Van Morrison: Joe Creighton Blue Beat, Double Bay $25 9pm Kittens: Fairchild Republic, Young Romantics Spectrum, Darlinghurst 8pm The Laurels, Witch Hats, East River Annandale Hotel $10 (+ bf) 8pm Leadfinger, The Delta Lions Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle free 9pm Lunar Module, Pom Pom, Koro, Inertia The Square, Haymarket $10 8pm Mad Charlie, Release The Hounds, Roadkill, Bellistik The Lansdowne, Chippendale free 8pm Mark Seymour Brass Monkey, Cronulla $34.70 7pm Maskatta Fall, Set In Motion, We Saved The Party The Factory Theatre, Enmore $12.30 (+ bf) 2pm all-ages Masterclass: Peter Northcote, Ray Beadle, Stuey French The Vanguard, Newtown $28.80–$63.80 (dinner & show) 8pm No Brakes Oatley Hotel free 8.30pm Rock Dogs Caringbah Bizzo’s free 8pm Rock Revival, Powerglide, Tim Ford, Mal Panania Hotel free 8pm Spring-A-Ling-A-DingDong-Fling!: Furnace & The Fundamentals, Joyride, Mrs Bishop, Devola, Falcona DJs, Sosueme DJs, Shantan Wantan Ichiban Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm Swingshift Cold Chisel Show Emu Plains Sporting & Recreation Club, Leonay free 8.30pm The Universal Thump feat.

Greta Gertler and Adam D Gold (USA) Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $25 7.30pm Venom: Blackbreaks, Graveyard Rockstars, Dirty Dezire, Dollarosa, DJ Jizz Agincourt Hotel, Sydney free 9pm

$15 (conc)–$20 8.30pm The Chris Gudu Band The Mac, Surry Hills free p9m Ellen Kirkwood Band The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10 (student)–$20 8.30pm Kafe Kool Supper Club, Failfield RSL Club free 7pm Peter Head The Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 5pm The Sam Cooke Songbook Pt2: Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges (USA) The Basement, Circular Quay $32 (+ bf) 8pm Vince Jones Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $28–$70 (dinner & show) 8pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie Well Co. Café / Wine Bar, Leichhardt free 7.30pm

COUNTRY

The McClymonts Enmore Theatre $59.90 8pm Troy Cassar-Daley Smithfield RSL 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

3 Way Split Oatley Hotel free 2pm Acoustic Afternoon: Temple Of Tunes, Brett Franke, Nothing Rhymes With David, Peter Jones, Deon Henry, Terra Lexus Valve Bar, Tempe 12pm Chasing The Moon, Ricardo Rozelle Markets free 11am Mystery Guest The Belvedere Hotel free 9pm Russell Neal Crown on McCredie Hotel Motel, Guildford free 8.30pm The Yellow Canvas Cookies Lounge and Bar, North Strathfield free 8pm

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 2 ROCK & POP

Birthday Fest: DJ 7Syd, Trash Cabaret, Eevee Nicole, Lani The Procrastinator, Lo Creation, Shezbot, Kitty Needs A Bath, The World In Cinematic, Deconstructivist, Christopher Hawkins, Red Bee, Rubix, Vessel, Inertia, Outlaws, Cordea, Upside Down Miss Jane Valve Bar, Tempe 12pm Con Spirito Independent Theatre, North Sydney $35 3pm all-ages Handsome Young Strangers, Grand Banks Botany View Hotel, Newtown free 6pm Hue Williams Kareela Golf & Social Club free 3pm Leadfinger, The Delta Lions Sandringham Hotel, Newtown free 4pm Live & Local Sydney Battle of the Bands Semi Final 2: Mystic River, The Menaces, What It’s Worth, The Dirty Ground, Rowan Ash Bewley North Hotel $10 3pm The Monks of Mellonwah, Nick Saxon, Lindford Gilmour Jazz Band, Ukelyptus Clifton Gardens, Mosman free 11am all-ages The Naked City: Jay Katz, Miss Death, Coffin Ed The Vanguard, Newtown free Northlane Masonic Hall, Blacktown $20 (presale)–$25 5pm Satellite V Marrickville Bowling Club free 4.30pm

Sunday Blues Jam: Mark Hopper Artichoke Gallery Cafe, Manly free 8pm Sunset People: Electric Jellyfish, The Ocean Party, From The South, Michael Beach Hollywood Hotel, Surry Hills free 4pm

JAZZ

Lazy Fathers Day Lunch: The McClymonts Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $54–$96 (dinner & show) 12pm The Peter Head Trio & Friends The Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm Renata, Terry Mocsari Rozelle Markets free 10.30am The Sam Cooke Songbook: Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges (USA) Brass Monkey, Cronulla $35.50 7pm Soulfood Sundays: Bobby Singh Camelot, Marrickville $25 7.30pm Sunday Arvo Jazz Harold Park Hotel, Glebe free 3pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie, Lee Hutchings, John Smith Illawarra Master Builders Club, Wollongong free 2.30pm

COUNTRY

The MycClymonts, Kaylens Rain Lizotte’s, Dee Why $54 12pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Russell Neal Salisbury Hotel, Stanmore free 2pm

wed

29 Aug

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

thu

30 Aug

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

fri

31 Aug

(5:00PM - 8:00PM)

(9:30PM - 1:30AM)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

sat

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

Sept

SATURDAY NIGHT

01

(9:00PM - 1:30AM)

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

sun

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

Sept

SUNDAY NIGHT

02

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

JAZZ

Cameron Undy Trio 505 Club, Surry Hills BRAG :: 476 :: 27:08:12 :: 35

gig picks up all night out all week...

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 29 Sures, Battleships, Will & The Indians Beach Road Hotel, Bondi free 8pm

THURSDAY AUGUST 30 Albare iTD The Basement, Circular Quay $45 (+ bf) 8pm Alpine, Clubfeet, Georgi Kay Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $17 (+ bf) 8pm

Calling All Cars, The Lazys, Hailer Rock Lily, The Star, Pyrmont free 8pm Fanny Lumsden & The Thrillseekers, Jackson McLaren, Lily So & Co. Helen Rose-Shausberger Laboratorium, Surry Hills $12 8pm Busking For Change: Josh Pyke & special guests Annandale Hotel $35 (+ bf) 8pm Maria Minerva (Estonia), Guerre, Rainbow Chan, Four Door Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $20 (+ bf) 8pm

A Night On The Town: Shady Lane, Playwrite, Colour Coding, March Of The Real Fly, Belle & The Bone People Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $5 8pm

The Laurels

Sweet Tooth: Jack Colwell & The Owls, Brendan MacLean, Ruby Frost, Caution Forces, Julia & The Deep Sea Sirens The Standard, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 7pm

FRIDAY AUGUST 31 Cameras, The Bright Young Things, Little Napier, Annie McKinnon Upstairs, Burdekin Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Dune, Phebe Starr, Jordan Millar, Hansom Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm Grand Salvo, Sophie Hutchings Paddington Uniting Church $18 (+ bf) 8pm MUM: City Riots, The Chitticks, Twin Lakes, Oslow, The Cadres, Yardvark, The Deadheads, Clubfeet DJs, Wolfden DJs The World Bar, Kings Cross $10-$15 8pm Split Seconds, The Griswolds, Penelope Austin The Standard, Darlinghurst $10 (+ bf) 8pm Tim Rogers, Catherine Britt The Factory Theatre, Enmore $35 (+ bf) 8pm

Blackchords, Drawn From Bees, Colonies FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Dream On Dreamer, Like Moths To Flames (USA), Hand Of Mercy, In Hearts Wake, Sienna Skies, Where The Enemy Sleeps The Hi-Fi, Moore Park $30 (+ bf) 8pm all-ages The Gangsters’ Ball 2012: Briana Bluebell Big Band, The Velvet Set

Metro Theatre, Sydney $75-$130 7.30pm The Laurels, Witch Hats, East River Annandale Hotel $10 (+ bf) 8pm Sunset People: Electric Jellyfish, The Ocean Party, From The South, Michael Beach Hollywood Hotel, Surry Hills free 4pm Spring-A-Ling-A-DingDong-Fling: Furnace & The Fundamentals, Joyride, Mrs Bishop, Sosume & Falcona DJS Upstairs Beresford free 6pm Xxxx

Alpine

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 1

36 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

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

brag beats

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

five things WITH

Africa Hitech

DAVE SEAMAN Growing Up I didn't do too badly with my 1. introduction to the world of music. Aside from The Beatles, which was staple I think for most kids growing up in the UK in the ‘70s, my mum was a big Carpenters fan and my dad loved Barry White. So, you know, it could've been worse.

Inspirations There is so much new music every 2. week – my favourites are constantly changing and evolving. It's like a revolving door. There's a book by the designer Paul Smith which is called You Can Find Inspiration In Everything, and I think that sums it up.

Your Crew I collaborate with lots of different 3. people. I’ve done tracks with Guy Mantzur and John Fleming this year, and have started something new with Funkagenda. I enjoy the shared experience of producing.

It’s much more fun. Making music on my own feels more like work. Maybe because I’m still not as technically proficient as I’d like to be.

The Music You Make I am at a loss describing genres. I’m 4. tarred with the progressive house brush, but what people call progressive house these days has nothing to do with what I play. My set in Sydney will cover everything from early doors deep house to peak-time techno. And I will do all of this back-to-back with myself!

With: Ben Korbel, Matt Kahil and more Where: Musik Matters @ Goldfish When: Saturday September 1

Music, Right Here, Right Now I saw SBTRKT, Alt-J, Clock Opera 5. and Django Django recently. Love all their work. The Friends album is great, too, as is Bobby Womack’s. For more clubby stuff, Simian Mobile Disco and Terranova have both put out great albums this year.

BROUHAHA FT AFRICA HITECH

HAHA Industries is teaming up with Sydney Fringe Festival to bring you the festival closing night, BROUHAHA, on Saturday September 29 at Marrickville Bowling Club – a jaunt headlined by Warp Record’s Africa Hitech. Africa Hitech are the well-known duo of Mark Pritchard and Steve Spacek who released their debut album 93 Million Miles last year, which spawned the breakout single ‘Out In The Streets’. Both Pritchard and Spacek have previously worked with some celebrated production partners; Pritch was part of Global Communication and Jedi Knights with Tom Middleton, while Spacek collaborated with the legendary J Dilla: “His sound was soulful as well as techy; it was futuristic,” he recalled in an interview. Supporting Africa Hitech on the night will be DJs Lorna Clarkson, Luke Snarl and residents D&D; presale tickets are available through www.hahaindustries.com

JAMIE LLOYD @ THE SPICE CELLAR Madlib

One of Sydney’s most respected electronic producers, Jamie Lloyd, will play at The Spice Cellar on Friday September 14. Lloyd announced his arrival back in 2006 with his LP Trouble Within, which spawned a remix album, More Trouble, that comprised reworks from the likes of Quarion, Brennan Green, Trickski, Zwicker, Soultourist and Jimi Polar among others. These remixes boosted Lloyd’s stature on the international circuit, with the Quarion remix of ‘May I?’ featuring on a cracking Jennifer Cardini mix for Kompakt.

Lloyd released another LP, Beware Of The Light, in 2009, which again attracted remixes from much of EDM A-listers like Mark E, Alex Barck from Jazzanova, and Matthew Herbert.

In a review for this very magazine we waxed lyrical about the release, describing “Lloyd’s ability to appropriate his pop leanings and incorporate them into his twisted take on house and disco sounds” as what makes the album a triumph. Lloyd will be supported by Discopunx, Morgan and Soft N Slow.

SUBSONIC LAUNCH: ALEXKID + MIKE MONDAY

MADLIB MEDICINE SHOW

Otis Jackson Jr, aka Madlib, is set to touch down on Australian shores for the first time in eight years courtesy of Niche Productions, and will perform at The Metro Theatre on Friday October 26. A producer, rapper, musician and “crate-digging antiquarian”, Madlib’s accomplished musical pedigree includes 13 original albums and DJ mixes, as well as collaborations with the late J Dilla (Jaylib) and MF Doom (Madvillain), and production for Erykah Badu. Such accomplishments come as less of a surprise given that Jackson was born into a family of musicians, including his father Otis Senior, a vocalist, bandleader and studio player, his mother Sinesca, a songwriter and guitarist, and his uncle, jazz trumpeter Jon Faddis, who all introduced him to the workings of music recording from an early age. Madlib will be touring alongside long time colleagues and friends J Rocc and Egon.

Tickets go on sale at 9am on Thursday August 30.

The countdown for this year’s Subsonic Music Festival begins in earnest this Saturday September 1, with the festival launch party at The Burdekin featuring Alexkid and the newly announced Mike Monday, who has recently relocated to Sydney. Monday has a notable profile on the international club stage, having remixed Scuba and been remixed

by Justin Martin. Alexkid’s standing in the underground house and techno realms is well-documented, and you can check out my interview with him on page 40 – so rather than rehash material you’ll read there, here’s a further quote from Alex discussing what he loved about last year’s Subsonic Festival that was trimmed from the final piece. “Subsonic was definitely one of my most relaxed moments of 2011. I loved it – the venue, the

parties, and most of all the people. Everything turned into a great alchemy.” The alchemy will run over four levels of the Burdekin this Saturday, with Alexkid playing live and DJing for a minimum of three hours. $30 presale tickets can be procured online.

RUDIMENTAL @ CHINESE LAUNDRY

British electronic outfit Rudimental will headline Chinese Laundry on Saturday October 13. The London-based four-piece enjoyed a UK chart-topper with ‘Feel The Love’, and the track is currently threatening to do the same on the ARIA charts. Frontman Piers Agget said of Rudimental’s beginnings and success, “It’s four producers with a different musical background, but, coming from London and having that local electronic music influence, it just seemed so right. We’re all musicians as well, and all into music, not just beats, so it all just kind of clicked.”

STEVE AOKI TOUR

Fashionista/producer/poseur du jour and party boy DJ, Steve ‘Mutherfreakin House’ Aoki will bring his fractured take on modern music to The Enmore Theatre on Friday October 12. Aoki recently released a new album, Wonderland, which features collaborations with Chiddy Bang & Lil Jon, LMFAO, Nervo and Blink 182’s Travis Barker among others. “This album is a collection of singles, with all different kinds of songs,” the entrepreneur elucidated. “I wanted this album to show all the different kinds of production sounds I can do.” Over the course of his career, Aoki has remixed The Killers, Robin Thicke, Lenny Kravitz, Duran Duran and, on the fashion side of things, developed lines for KR3W Apparel, Supra Footwear, sunglasses with Ksubi, and a brand new range with his supermodel sister Devon Aoki (“Get back to the music!” I hear you scream). Presale tickets will be available on Thursday August 30.

BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 37

dance music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

he said she said LOUIS FROM CHAOS IN THE CBD (NZ)

WITH

We’re signed to a couple of Parisian labels – ClekClekBoom and Youngunz. Auckland is great and has a decent dance scene, but we just feel much more at home over there.

We’re currently working day jobs to save up enough money to relocate to London by the end of the year.

We’ve come to learn over the past few years how disposable dance music is, so we try hard not to get to caught up in fads.

Essentially, what we make is just house music, but we definitely transition from the slower, deeper aspect of house to the more fast, gritty, ghetto stuff. Our set at One22 will definitely showcase our range of influences – until then, check out our stuff on our SoundCloud.

W

Ben was a huge fan of James Brown growing up, and it was around that same time that he really got into drumming. I think his skills as a drummer have definitely had a huge impact on our music. Hip hop, and producers like Dr. Dre and Pharrell, have had an influence on us too. I still remember walking around intermediate school listening to The Chronic 2001 on my discman. We take inspiration from a number of genres – whether it’s hip hop, indie rock, funk or dance – and try to incorporate them into our own music.

e’re pretty privileged to have grown up with parents that have such good taste – they introduced us to music varying from The Cure to The Fugees. I still trade a lot of music with mum and dad, and I think we’ve managed to return the favour recently by introducing them to more dance-oriented artists. It’s pretty special to be able to take your parents to see artists like SBTRKT, LCD Soundsystem and Simian Mobile Disco.

Steffi

4OUR FT STEFFI

Renowned Berlin club impresario Steffi has top billing for 4Our at Goodgod Small Club this Saturday September 1, as part of her debut Australian visit. A resident at Berlin’s Panorama Bar for the past five years, Steffi has played and promoted underground parties for over a decade, and founded the first of her labels – Klakson – alongside counterpart Dexter. Steffi has gradually developed a relationship with the Panorama Bar/Berghain club’s label Ostgut Ton, which culminated in the release of her debut LP Yours & Mine early last year – an album which featured on many of 2011’s best-of lists. She has since founded her second label, Dolly, which has seen releases from the likes of Basic Soul Unit, XDB and Brooks Mosher. Fittingly, Steffi will be flanked by the foremost female DJs of the Sydney club realm: Trinity and Magda Bytnerowicz. Tickets to this show have been selling in considerable volume, so to guarantee entry we advise you to buy your $30 presale in advance.

FERRY CORSTEN @ THE HI-FI

Dutch trance dynamo Ferry Corsten will perform at The Hi-Fi on Saturday September 22. Having been in the club game for 20 years, Ferry Corsten recently released his fourth studio album, WKND, earlier this year. “The theme or thought behind the album is actually the album title, which is short for weekend,” Corsten told an online rag, revealing his considerable knack for wordplay. “The album has to create that weekend feeling where people relax and enjoy themselves. In general, we just want positive vibes when it’s our weekend, and to not have too much to worry about… I am and always will be a sucker for good melodies.” Shogun and Zoo Brazil will also be representing on the night, as Corsten brings his ‘Full On’ party Down Under.

ASTRAL PEOPLE 1ST B’DAY FT RYAN HEMSWORTH The Astral People party brand celebrates its first birthday on Saturday September 15 at Goodgod Small Club with a bash headlined

by Canada’s Ryan Hemsworth. A member of Main Attrakionz’s Green Ova and Shlohmo’s 38 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

I think the biggest obstacle dance musicians have to overcome is the need to stay current. There is such an over-saturation in the dance scene at the moment, and it is extremely easy to be forgotten. Sadly, image seems to be just as important as the music nowadays, so I guess it’s necessary to have that as well. One artist that totally blew us away a month or two ago was Dark Sky. It’s been a while since I’ve seen kids in Auckland get that excited over a set.

With: Templar Soundsystem, Pharley (NZ), Kato, U-Khan, Zeus Where: Charades @ One22 When: Saturday September 1

has brought a new dimension to our music.”

Leading single ‘Winner’ has been released digitally, with remixes courtesy of Andrew Dawson, John Dahlback and Niki And The Dove. Whether it lives up to its name… well, I’ll leave that up to you!

CROSSTOWN REBELS’ 100TH RELEASE: TIGA

Montreal DJ/producer and all-round funny man, Tiga, has the honour of bringing up the century of releases on Damian Lazarus’ resurgent Crosstown Rebels label with his latest EP, The Picture – which also happens to be Tiga’s first original release since 2009’s Ciao. Discussing the release, Tiga was

TIEFSCHWARZ

ITCHY BEATS

Everyone’s sick of hearing the same tracks played at every club night (single ladies, I can’t hear y’all?), which is why a bunch of dudes came together to start Itchy Beats, Brighton Up Bar’s freshest night featuring live hip hop acts and DJs. For its second round, Itchy Beats has another all-star lineup: headliners Mr Hill & Rahjconkas, as well as High Noon, Mass Effect and the latest hip hop spun by the resident Itchy Beats DJs. To win a double pass to the Friday August 31 edition, just tell us the name of Mr Hill & Rahjonkas’ new album.

S.A.S.H

Shhh… it’s a warehouse party. And you’re not allowed to know where it is. Or who’s headlining. And you can bring your own booze. You’re excited, right? Good, because S.A.S.H is holding its second super secret party, Warehouse 002, and you could win a double pass to the mysterious Friday September 7 event. Featuring Sydney’s Mike Witcombe, Deeper Sounds duo Mesan, and Hannah Gibbs off the back of her stint in New York – plus a yet-to-beannounced surprise headlining guest – Warehouse 002 will totally keep you partying till dawn. For your chance at a double pass, tell us a track you hope to hear on the night. typically droll – and outlandish – in playing the PR game. “The Picture is an honest houseman’s call to unite the scarf-faces of the world under the banner of bearable music.

Much respect to Prince for helping out with the lyrics. That guy’s a real talent.” The Picture – which does indeed feature a nod and a wink toward The Man Formerly Known As – dropped yesterday, and having heard it I can attest to it being a fitting way for Crosstown Rebels to celebrate its 100th release. There’s also a B-side remix of Tiga’s classic ‘Pleasure From The Bass’ from the Australia-bound Subb-an, which will introduce the next gen of club goers to the man behind Turbo Recordings.

The German brothers Ali and Basti Schwarz, collectively known as Tiefschwarz – ‘deep black’, for anyone curious as to the translation – will play Chinese Laundry on Saturday September 8. The Schwarz brothers have been crowd favourites in Australia for many years now, regularly showcasing their penchant for classic house, electro and minimal sounds. As producers, the pair have remixed everyone from Roxy Music to Goldfrapp, and have released a number of accomplished LPs, including Eat Books and Chocolate. Tiefschwarz have also accumulated an impressive CV as selectors, having helmed commercial mixes like Misch Masch, Timewarp Compilation 06 and Watergate 09. As with all Laundry gigs, entry is cheaper before 10pm.

Wedidit collective, the 22-year-old Hemsworth has become a go-to producer for some of the most interesting hip hop acts to have broken through in the past two years (Main Attrakionz and Deniro Farrar, for instance), and will be playing in Australia for the first time. Joining him on the night will be Dro Carey, Polographia, Albatross, Wordlife, Preacha, Astral DJs and Wedding Ring Fingers. $12 earlybird tickets are available via the interweb.

PET SHOP BOYS ANNOUNCE ELYSIUM

Perennial pop mainstays Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, collectively the Pet Shop Boys, have announced that they will release a new album, Elysium, on September 14. The LP is the follow-up to 2009’s Yes, and was recorded in Los Angeles with producer Andrew Dawson, who has previously worked with Kanye West.

Backing vocals are provided on many of the tracks by veteran singers Oren, Maxine and Julie Waters (whose long career spans sessions with acts ranging from The Jackson Five to Adele), and singer-songwriter James Fauntleroy. In an official presser, the ‘Boys commented, “It was inspiring to make an album in Los Angeles, and to work with a producer from a different musical genre who

Mr Hill & Rahjconkas

Tiefschwarz

BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 39

Paul Oakenfold Four Seasons In One Night By Alfred Gorman

I

n terms of superstar DJs, they don’t come much bigger than Paul Oakenfold – and not far off his 50th birthday, he’s showing no signs of slowing down. This year has seen him on tour with Madonna as well as his own extensive DJ tour, but when we speak he’s taking a break in London, catching some of the Olympics and doing promo for his upcoming trip to Australia.

“I’ve been touring my Four Seasons release and concentrating on Las Vegas, where I’ve had a residency for a few years now. So yeah I’ve been very busy,” he tells me. I suggest that it seems he’s been “very busy” for about 30 years now, which invokes a hearty chuckle.

“Yeah you could say that, but that’s what is wonderful about the electronic world: you progress, you develop. I mean, years ago I never thought I’d be scoring movies, and from there, having a residency in Las Vegas…”

Despite spending many of his formative years in the UK, Oakenfold is currently based in Los Angeles, where he relocated around ten years ago to try and crack the US market, and to focus on producing movie soundtracks. Since then, he’s worked on the scores for Swordfish, Matrix Reloaded, The Bourne Identity and Collateral, and he’ll soon be starring as himself in an upcoming Christian Bale film. Oakenfold ended up being instrumental in breaking dance music in America, starting a wave that has now built to epic proportions. Since the very beginning of his career, his story has been

tightly woven into the fabric and evolution of dance music, as he’s helped take up-andcoming artists out of the underground clubs and onto the worldwide stage.

Travelling to NYC in the 1980s, young Oakenfold witnessed the birth of hip hop, which profoundly affected him, consolidating his passion for music and inspiring him to dive head first into the music industry. Very soon he was back in London, working as an A&R rep for Champion Records; in fact, it was he who signed Salt-N-Pepa and a little known hip hop act by the name of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, aka Will Smith – who went on to do pretty alright for himself... Later, Oakenfold travelled to Ibiza and helped bring the Balearic house style to the United Kingdom, which was pivotal in the rise of the Madchester scene – alongside Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses. He toured with acts like U2 and Madonna, was nominated for Grammys, and became the first DJ to ever play the main stage at Glastonbury.

But enough about his past – as Oakey himself says, he focuses only on the present and the future, and right now on his residency in Las Vegas, which he calls the Ibiza of America.

“My residency was at The Palms, but now I’ve moved to playing pool parties at the Hard Rock. I started playing Vegas three years ago – they weren’t even into electronic music then.

But I really worked at it, and now it’s become what Ibiza is to Europe – it’s the focus point

Alexkid

for electronic music now. Especially in the last year, it’s become really big. America has finally caught up with the rest of the world.”

His current ‘Full On Fluoro’ club tour has come on the back of his mix series, Four Seasons, which will be released in Australia this November. Each of the four mixes is based on a different season. “The whole idea of this tour is to go back to the roots of what electronic music is all about, and play some familiar songs with a different touch, as well as cutting edge new music – and it’s accompanied by a minimal, but very compelling, visual show.”

His new artist album will be out next year, and will feature some big name collaborations, but for now he’s back doing what he loves most. “I wanted to focus on playing more underground music this year.

I’ve really gotten back into DJing of late, and am really enjoying it!”

What: Four Seasons comes out November 2 With: Marlo, Binary Finary, VLN and more Where: The Hordern Pavilion When: Sunday September 30

ShockOne

Kidding Around By Chris Honnery

Chaos Theory By Marissa Demetriou

T

he last time French producer Alex Mauri, aka Alexkid, was in Sydney, he ended up playing a spontaneous classic house set at the Subsonic Music Festival 2011, after the festivities had supposedly finished. A performance bourgeoning with crowd interaction (and even a bit of house diva-esque lipsynching), Mauri’s set that night showcased a different side of his sonic sensibility, and re-affirmed the DJ dexterity that has made him a perennial fixture in the house and techno realms for the past 15 years. “Oh, well, hmm… I love playing old-school, I can’t escape from this,” Mauri replies, when placed on the spot about his performance that night. “When I feel it is the right place, that it is intimate and that people are willing to go for it, I believe it can be great fun.

It’s happened in other places, where I started playing all bizarre minimal dub techno because it was the right place and context. I like to enjoy myself and go for different things when I can.”

With a discography that features albums on labels like F Communications and Cadenza, and remixes of Nina Kraviz and Spencer Parker, Mauri is a hugely respected figure in the underground club sphere, sought after by other producers for studio work during the mixdown stage thanks to his pedigree as a sound engineer. With so much on his plate, in addition to “taking care of my lovely daughter, which can be more time consuming than French bureaucracy”, Mauri has pulled back slightly on the remix front this year, having learned to say ‘no’ – “Almost!”

Mauri will arrive back in Sydney after playing at events such as Cocoon Heroes at the superclub Amnesia in Ibiza, alongside club deity Ricardo Villalobos and Locodice, and will be bringing his new live show with

him, which was initiated by his move to Artist Alife, the Desolat/Loco Dice touring agency, in April. “It’s been eight years without touring life,” he reflects. “When Artist Alife said they would really love if I was also playing live, I felt I had to do it. It has been a lot of work to find the right configuration. I sold gear, bought gear, sold gear again… You can’t really replace the sound of analogue machines, although the flexibility of digital is great.” As he begins to move into a deeper discussion of the technical side of music production, Mauri catches himself, and the playful side of his character that was on display at Subsonic 2011 re-merges. “If you still wonder, yes, I am a nerd…”

Self-deprecation aside, Mauri is one of the hardest working and most knowledgeable characters in the underground milieu, and it’s always worthwhile prompting him to divulge what music he is currently playing. “There’s a lot of very interesting Detroit influenced house – very raw – that I quite love. I’ve also been playing a lot of more abstract house productions. All the Romanian influenced productions are dope,” he continues, before shifting discussion to the impending Subsonic launch party. “I will play a long set… I want to surprise you guys with some music that’s not been much heard before.” Mauri’s performance for the Subsonic crew continues a longstanding relationship with the organisers that began with his sets at the legendary Deep As Fu*k Pirates Of The Underground boat parties five years ago. When pressed on what separates the Deep As Fu*k and Subsonic events from other parties he has played in Sydney, Mauri’s response is succinct. “They correspond more to the state of mind I like. They are all about having fun and good music, and no attitude. That is very important: no attitude!”

With: HyperColour, Mike Monday, Garage Pressure, Robbie Lowe, MSG, Marcotix, Dave Stuart, Carlos Zarate, Mike Whitcombe, Max Gosford, Jordan Deck and loads more Where: Subsonic Festival launch party @ The Burdekin (across four levels) When: Saturday September 1 40 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

“M

ost of the time I don’t enjoy listening to my own music at all,” confesses ShockOne from his London base.

“I can’t listen to my own tunes – I find it really hard.”

The Perth-born producer, also known as Karl Thomas, relocated to London in the middle of last year, and has been buckling down working on his new album and a recently completed new single, ‘Chaos Theory’. As we speak, ShockOne is preparing to bring his brand of searing drum and bass back to Australia in September to play for a crowd he feels very nostalgic about; he affectionately dubs the punters at his Aussie shows as a “bunch of old mates”.

For today though, it’s back into the studio to keep working on the album, a process that Thomas seems to have an exasperating yet loving relationship with. “I’m a really slow writer, so quite often by the time I finish a song it’s been through so many incarnations that I’m pretty sick of it,” he laughs. “I’m not sure why I find it hard to appreciate my own music on an aesthetic level. I guess I appreciate it more on a technical level – I end up spending so much time sorting that out that by time I get to the mixdown stage I enjoy that more than the song itself.”

When I ask if any favourite tracks have emerged from the album, he says that the few that have vocals from his sister Reija Lee (who has previously lent her pipes to hit tune ‘Polygon’) are among the ones he still enjoys.

“For me they’re quite old, but even when I listen back to them, I still enjoy [them], which says a lot.”

Having been raised in a musical family, with parents that played in cover bands all throughout his childhood and a father that “sat me down and took me through Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Dark Side Of The Moon”, Thomas explains that music has always been an integral part of his life. “I was a producer and musician before I was a DJ. I might not be DJing for the rest of my life, but I will be writing music,” he says. But he concedes that the energy he gets from performing live is second to none. “It’s such a completely different experience to sitting in a room by yourself creating art – and quite often tearing your hair out.”

Thomas didn’t relocate to the UK to dodge a lack of inspiration back home – he’s adamant that the dance music scene here hasn’t left him wanting. “The reason I had to leave was pure numbers – there’s more people in this part of the world [Europe] that I can expose my music to, so I had to be here to expose it to them. And you have to be playing to these

people often if you want them to remember your name,” he explains.

“I think the Perth music scene – any Australian bass music scene – is good, and I love playing there. [Australia has] some of the most responsive, educated, on-the-level crowds in the world and it’s still one of my favourite places to play,” he says, before admitting that Londoners are a slightly tougher crowd to win over. “I mean they’re still awesome, but they are spoilt for choice,” he laughs. “That’s kind of why I came here – a kick up the arse to try and make me work a bit harder again.”

Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Saturday September 1

Deep Impressions Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

T

his Saturday Sydney stirs to life following its annual winter hibernation with two immense techno soirées: the Subsonic launch party with Alexkid, and Panorama Bar resident Steffi spinning at Goodgod Small Club. I’m sure you already have Saturday circled in your diary in lurid pink highlighter (your only dilemma now is how to juggle these parties), so let’s devote this space instead to some upcoming releases, and the parties lurking beyond the looming horizon of this weekend.

Moodmusic label boss Klas Lindblad, aka Sasse, will spin at One22 on Saturday September 8 as part of a Moodmusic label showcase. A long time aficionado of Chicago house music, Linblad was a resident at renowned Frankfurt club RobertJohnson in its early years, before relocating to Berlin where he now shares studio space with Ewan Pearson and Martin Dawson. While Sasse has released on labels such as Bedrock and Poker Flat, he’s most well known for his work building the Moodmusic imprint. The label celebrated both its 15th birthday and 100th release last year, and that figure continues to grow with Sasse having dropped his third LP Third Encounter only last month. Sydney’s own Trinity & Beyond have also carved out a piece of Moodmusic history by signing onto the imprint to release their EP, This Dream, featuring a remix from Alexkid.

With This Dream out early next month, it’s only appropriate that the local production duo will be throwing down alongside Sasse at the forthcoming label showcase, with Mike Buhl and the Co-Op DJs rounding off the lineup. Presale tickets are available through Resident Advisor.

Sasse

Funk D’Void Scottish producer Lars Sandberg, who operates under the monikers Funk D’Void and Francois Dubois, has compiled the next instalment in the Balance mix series, Balance 022, which will be officially released at the back end of September.

The forthcoming double mix CD follows on from Lars’ previous compilations for Cocoon (way back in ’04) and Soma (in ’08, when he unveiled his offering for the now sadly defunct Sci-Fi Hi-Fi compilation series), and comprises cuts from the likes of Delano Smith, Space Dimension Controller and Jesper Dahlback. “My inspiration for Balance 022 stems from listening to the Back To Mine compilation series of the previous decade,” Lars revealed at the official Balance media launch, between sipping a white wine spritzer and filing his nails. “A particular memory was imprinted on me from a long car journey back from the beach with friends, when we listened to one of the releases without speaking for two hours, completely lost in the whole magic of the day together.” Later in the press conference, Lars threw in the seemingly obligatory statement about not wanting the “latest hot tracks” in his mix, revealing that he edited all the tracks he featured on the compilation so he wasn’t “held back by over-long arrangements built for the club”. He wanted to produce a mix that he hoped would “still be as welcoming as seeing an old friend over the years upon repeated listens.” As is the tradition with the Balance series, Lars will be embarking on an Australian tour in support of the release, and will perform at Chinese Laundry on Saturday October 20.

Norwegian producer Hans-Peter Lindstrøm (who produces as Lindstrøm) has revealed details for his second album of 2012, entitled Smalhans – the Norwegian word for ‘scarcity’ or ‘poverty’. The six-track release follows Six Cups Of Rebel, which dropped way back in those sun-kissed days of February, and features what his PR team bashfully describe as “six monumental tracks”. Lindstrøm’s countryman Todd ‘Terje’ Olsen performed mixing duties on the LP, and has apparently also made some extended edits of the album’s tracks, which we’ll be able to consume once they’re released as 12-inch singles. Smalhans will hit shelves in early November.

LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 1 Alexkid The Burdekin

Steffi Goodgod Small Club

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 8 Sasse One22

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 29 Africa Hitech

HAHA ft Africa Hitech Marrickville Bowling Club

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 41

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

club pick of the week Steffi

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 1

Glamour Pour Le Hammer Jack Shit, Avra Cybele free 9.30pm The Cool Room, Australian Brewery, Rouse Hill We Love Thursdays Resident DJs 8pm Goodgod Front Bar, Sydney Girls Gone Mild Hannah & Eliza Reilly free 8pm Greenwood Hotel, North Sydney Greenwood Thursdays Resident DJs free 8pm Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Thursday Night Live Dante Rivera, Chloe West 8pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Resident DJs 8pm The Marlborough Hotel – Cellar Bar, Newtown DJ Simon Laing free 9pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Hot Damn Hot Damn DJs $15-$20 8pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Rewind Grand Opening Samrai, Moto, Manny, Naike, Trey & MC Abe 8pm Strike, Chatswood The Alley DJs free 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Urby, Gillex, Dan Bombings, Jack Shit free (student)-$5 8pm

FRIDAY AUGUST 31

Goodgod Small Club, Sydney

Steffi (GER), Trinity, Madga Bynterowicz $30 (+ bf) 11pm MONDAY AUGUST 27 Scruffy Murphy’s Haymarket Mother Of A Monday DJ Smoking Joe free 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Jazz DJs free 7pm

TUESDAY AUGUST 28 Establishment, Sydney Rumba Motel Salsa DJ Willie Sabor free 8pm Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket We Love Goon Tuesdays DJ Podgee, DJ Smoking Joe Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Coyote Tuesday Resident DJs 7pm 42 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

The World Bar, Kings Cross Jam Pablo Calamari, Andy & Mike free 8pm

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 29 The Argyle, The Rocks DJ Huw Longman free 9pm The Bank Hotel, Newtown Vogue #2 – Soul Train Claika Khan, Doofus, Earth Wind Fire & Del free 9pm BJ’s Nightclub, Bondi Junction Play Resident DJs 5pm Epping Hotel DTF Resident DJs free 8pm Lansdowne Hotel, Chippendale Frat House DJ Alley Cats free 8pm The Marlborough Hotel – Cellar Bar, Newtown Student Night DJ Pauly free 8pm

The Ranch, Epping Hump Wednesdays Resident DJs free 8pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Cream Resident DJs free 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Glovecats, Smokin’ Joe Mekhael, Garage Pressure DJs, Asthon, King Lee, Ella Loca, Glen Darby $5 9pm

THURSDAY AUGUST 30 The Argyle, The Rocks DJ C’Est Chic, Starjumps free 6pm BJ’s Nightclub, Bondi Junction Indie House Resident DJs 5pm Colombian Hotel – Upstairs, Darlinghurst

Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway Totally Barry Bad Barry DJs free 9pm Annandale Hotel Freshly Squeezed Ozi Batla, Sky’High, P. Smurf, Jackie Onassis, Crotchet Crooks $10 (+ bf) 8pm The Argyle, The Rocks Elly K, John ‘The Owl’ Devecchis, DJ Cadell free 6pm The Bank Nightclub, Kings Cross Get Funked Fridays Resident DJs 9pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Movement Ruby Frost, Mrs Bishop free 8pm BJ’s Nightclub, Bondi Junction Ragga DJ Rod Almighty 5pm Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst Itchy Beats Rahjconkas & Mr Hill, High Noon, Mass Effect, Itchy Beats DJs $12 9pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Liquid Sky Leah Mencel, Girlthing DJs, Astrix $10-$15 9pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Bass Mafia Photek (UK), Kombat, Vengeance, Kyro & Bomber, Struz, Boot, Damien Osbourne & Nick Robbins, Andrew Wowk $15$25 10pm Civic Underground, Sydney The Seed 2.0 Resident DJs 9pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour Gimme Five Resident DJs free 9pm Epping Hotel Flirt Flirt DJs free 8pm The Forbes Hotel, Sydney Sabotage Sabotage DJs, Follow Me, We Rob Banks, Breakaway, Gee Whiz, Matrix, Aladdin, Destiny $10 9pm Goldfish, Kings Cross The Deep End Reekay Garcia, Dave 54, Johnny Gleeson 6pm Goodgod Front Bar, Sydney Yo Grito! Yo Grito! DJs free 9pm Hermann’s Bar, University Of Sydney, Darlington Conrad Greenleaf, DJ Whemmy free 4pm Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour Sublime Peewee Ferris, MC

Suga Shane, Matt Ferreira, John Young, Flite, I.K.O. 9pm Hotel Chambers, Sydney Socialive Ink. Official Launch Party Nat Conway, 11AD faet.

Arrnott Olsen, DJ Husky, Robbie Santiago free 6pm Jacksons On George, Sydney DJ Ivan George, DJ Rain Julz free 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross F##k You Winter Party Nacho Pop, Devola, Kristy Lee, Starjump, Liz Bird 9pm Marquee, The Star, Pyrmont EDX 10pm The Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill I Love The Fid Fridays Didier Cohen, Bounce Crew, Matt Bann, Task, Timmy Lala free$10 8pm Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm Nevermind, Darlinghurst United Colours Of Trance Rossco, Robbie Lowe, Lui Raptor, Titan, Big J, Man Lie $10-$15 10pm Oatley Hotel We Love Oatley Hotel Fridays DJ Tone free 8pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross My Studio Resident DJs 8pm Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket Frisky Friday DJ Podgee free 6pm Space Nightclub, Sydney Zaia Resident DJs 9.45pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Simon Caldwell, Frames, Andy Webb $10 10pm The Watershed Hotel Bring On The Weekend! DJ Matt Roberts free 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross MUM: Royal Blood, Little Napier, Babahanouk, The Guppies, FLWRGN, Kilter, Wolfden DJs, Helmut Uhlmann, MUM DJs $10-$15 8pm

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 1 Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway Strange Fruit Strange Fruit DJs free 9pm The Arthouse Hotel, Sydney Flirt Flirt DJs $10 9pm Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst State Advanced 28 Release Party State Advanced faet.

Sloppy Joe, Psych The Passenger & Curtis C, EaRelevant & Barnzy, Vcee, Skase AK, Paper Toy $10 8pm Burdekin Hotel, Darlinghurst Subsonic Music Festival 2012 Launch Party Alexkid (FRA), Mike Monday, Hypercolou, Robbie Lowe, Mike Whitcombe, Daniel Crocetti, Garage Pressure, Max Gosford, Gilsun, Kieran Hellmore, Jordan Deck, Jay Smalls, Dave Stuart, Gemma Van D, Carlos Zarate, DJ Kimba, MSG, Marcotix $30 (+ bf) 9pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Shake Shake Shake Sherlock Bones, Robust, Pretty Young Things $20 9pm Cargo Bar, King St Wharf Kick On Resident DJs free 6pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney John 00 Fleming (UK), A-Tonez, Ctrl Alt Delicious, Bounce Crew DJs, Fingers, King Lee, Kingdom Hearts, Oscillate Darkly, Kiz $15-$25 9pm Club 77, Darlinghurst Starfuckers Fathers Day Starfuckers DJs 10pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour

Yellow Sox Resident DJs free 9pm Establishment, Sydney Sienna Resident DJs 8pm FakeClub, Kings Cross Distortion Dubstep Liquid Stranger, Acetone, Enochi, Deli, The Unthinkables, Dogg Bless vs Critter, 3Phaze, Nacho Vossler, Aaron Robins, Manjazz $20-$25 9pm The Forbes Hotel, Sydney Fuck Winter Spiral Conspiracy, Monchichi & Colourd Noyz, Brizz $10 7.30pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Musik Matters Dave Seaman (UK). Robbie Lowe, Matt Cahill, Johnny Gleeson, Tom Kelly, Tones $35 6pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Steffi (GER), Trinity, Madga Bynterowicz $30 (+ bf) 11pm The Green Room Lounge, Enmore Vinyl Solution DJ Nic Dalton free 7pm Ivy, Sydney Ivy Saturdays Baby Gee, Matt Nugent, Chris Fraser, Trent Rackus, Tigerlily, ProGram, Bad Ezzy, Elly K, Gmod, Crazy Caz, Jo Redd, Somatik, Super C $20 8pm Ivy Changeroom, Sydney History of Hip Hop Kato, Bad Ezzy, James Taylor, Adam Bozetto, Shantan Wantan Ichiban, Murray Lake 8pm Jacksons On George, Sydney DJ Simon Laing, DJ Michael Stewart free 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Kitty Kitty Bang Bang!

Isbjorn, Mr Belvedere, David Neale, Playmate, Devola, Pat Ward, Handsome, Kristy Lee 8pm The Marlborough Hotel – Cellar Bar, Newtown Resident DJs free 9pm Nevada Lounge, Darlinghurst DJ Hayden free 6pm Nevermind, Darlinghurst Swagger Swagger DJs 10pm One22, Sydney Charades Launch Party Chaos In The CBD (NZ), Templar Soundsystem, Kato, Pharley (NZ), U-Khan, Zeus $15 (+ bf) 10pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst ShockOne, Phesta, Doctor Werewolf, Kyro & Bomber $20 (+ bf) 8pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross The Suite Resident DJs 8pm Soho, Potts Point Usual Suspects Jungle Party Oakes & Lennox, Lights Out, Here’s Trouble, Mike Rukus, Danny Lang, Taylor Wolf, Skinny, Romelus, Remus & Wolf, Jack’d Up, Pete Deraz, Micky P 9pm Space Nightclub, Sydney Masif Saturdays Resident DJs 10pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Spice Aram, Murat Kilic, Dean Relf, Steven Sullivan $20 10pm Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills Spring-A-Ling-A-DingDong-Fling! Sosueme DJs, Furnace & The Fundamentals, Joyride, Mrs Bishop, Devola, Falcona DJs, Shantan Wantan Ichiban free 6pm The Watershed Hotel Watershed Presents…

Skybar $20 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Cakes – Regrooved Sydney Launch Party Paul Master & MC Kitch, D-Funk, Daigo, Spenda C & MC Shureshock, Daigo, Rubio, E-Cats, Bentley, T-Bo, Mike Hyper, Jo Gadget, Mars Monero, Neemo, Deckhead $15-$20 9pm

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

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 2 Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H ‘WE LIKE’ Sundays Tom Witheridge, Gabby, Rikki Newton, Oliver Gurney, Kerry Wallace, Matt Weir $10 2pm The Argyle, The Rocks Good Life Sundays Random Soul, The Vibe free 4pm The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills Beresford Sundays Resident DJs free 3pm

Goldfish, Kings Cross Martini Club Tom Kelly, Straight Up Steve 6pm Hugo’s Lounge, Kings Cross Sneaky Sundays DJs 8pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Easy Sundays Resident DJs 8pm The Local Taphouse, Darlinghurst Funkdafied Koolade, Josie Styles, Huwston, James Locksmith, JC free 4pm Oatley Hotel Sunday Sets DJ Tone free 7pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Daydreams DJs 4.30am

Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Sapphire Sundays Resident DJs 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Spice After Hours Murat Kilic $25 4am Sydney Park, St Peters Sunday Dub Club Dub Club DJs free 11am The Watershed Hotel Afternoon DJs Resident DJs free 4pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Soup Kitchen Sundays Manjazz, Deli, Junior & Ethan Winzer, Coutlette free 7pm

club picks up all night out all week...

Ozi Batla

Dave Seaman The Spice Cellar, Sydney Simon Caldwell, Frames, Andy Webb, James Taylor $10 10pm

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 29

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 1

The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Glovecats, Smokin’ Joe Mekhael, Garage Pressure DJs, Asthon, King Lee, Ella Loca, Glen Darby $5 9pm

THURSDAY AUGUST 30 Colombian Hotel – Upstairs, Darlinghurst Glamour Pour Le Hammer Jack Shit, Avra Cybele, Apocalypstik free 10pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Propaganda Urby, Gillex, Dan Bombings, Jack Shit free (student)-$5 8pm

FRIDAY AUGUST 31 Annandale Hotel Freshly Squeezed Ozi Batla, Sky’High, P. Smurf, Jackie Onassis, Crotchet Crooks $10 (+ bf) 8pm Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst Itchy Beats Rahjconkas & Mr Hill, High Noon, Mass Effect, Itchy Beats DJs $12 9pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Bass Mafi a Photek (UK), Kombat, Vengeance, Kyro & Bomber, Struz, Boot, Damien Osbourne & Nick Robbins, Andrew Wowk $15-$25 10pm Photek

Burdekin Hotel, Darlinghurst Subsonic Music Festival 2012 Launch Party Alexkid (FRA), Mike Monday, HyperColour, Robbie Lowe, Mike Whitcombe, Daniel Crocetti, Garage Pressure, Max Gosford, Gilsun, Kieran Hellmore, Jordan Deck, Jay Smalls, Dave Stuart, Gemma Van D, Carlos Zarate, DJ Kimba, MSG, Marcotix $30 (+ bf) 9pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney John 00 Fleming (UK), A-Tonez, Ctrl Alt Delicious, Bounce Crew DJs, Fingers, King Lee, Kingdom Hearts, Oscillate Darkly, Kiz $15-$25 9pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Musik Matters Dave Seaman (UK).

Robbie Lowe, Matt Cahill, Johnny Gleeson, Tom Kelly, Tones $30 6pm One22, Sydney Charades Launch Party Chaos In The CBD (NZ), Templar Soundsystem, Kato, Pharley (NZ), U-Khan, Zeus $15 (+ bf) 10pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst ShockOne, Phesta, Doctor Werewolf, Kyro & Bomber $20 (+ bf) 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Spice Aram, Murat Kilic, Dean Relf, Steven Sullivan $20 10pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Cakes – Regrooved Sydney Launch Party Paul Master & MC Kitch, D-Funk, Daigo, Spenda C & MC Shureshock, Daigo, Rubio, E-Cats, Bentley, T-Bo, Mike Hyper, Jo Gadget, Mars Monero, Neemo, Deckhead $15-$20 9pm

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 2 Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H ‘WE LIKE’ Sundays Tom Witheridge, Gabby, Rikki Newton, Oliver Gurney, Kerry Wallace, Matt Weir $10 2pm The Local Taphouse, Darlinghurst Funkdafied Koolade, Josie Styles, Huwston, James Locksmith, JC free 4pm

BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 43

snap

wasted years

PICS :: TL

up all night out all week . . .

mum

PICS :: TP

18:08:12 :: Q-Bar :: 34-44 Oxford st Darlinghurst Sydney 9360 1375

rapaport

PICS :: KC

17:08:12 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 9357 7700

francis inferno orchestra

PICS :: KC

17:08:12 :: Goodgod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Chinatown 8084 0587

17:08:12 :: The Spice Cellar :: 58 Elizabeth St Sydney 9223 5585

It’s called: Itchy Beats It sounds like: Live hip hop kicked on with dope DJ sets.

Acts: Mr Hill & Rahjconkas, High Noon, Mass Effect.

Sell it to us: Your next favourite night out: cheap heart of Oxford Street. And you won’t hear ‘Ni**a drinks and awesome music in the s in Paris’ over and over again.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Born Fresh NSW’s up-and-coming production talent Rahjc Records’ latest signing Mr. Hill, with onkas.

Crowd specs: Hip hop heads.

Wallet damage: $12 on the door.

Where: Brighton Up Bar / 77 Oxford Street When: Friday August 31, from 9pm

44 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

the lion speaks

PICS :: TW

party profile

itchy beats

18:08:12 :: Brighton Up Bar :: Level 1/77 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9361 3379 :: NOHMON ANWARYAR :: S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER :: THOMAS PEACHY :: GEORGE NS MUN IEL DAN :: NN RMA KATRINA CLARKE :: SASKIA EISE POPOV :: PEDRO XAVIER ::

COMING UP FACEBOOK.COM/PHOTEKMUSIC

FRIDAY 31ST august

SATURDAY 1ST SEPTEMBER

vengeance / KOMBAT / BOOT / kYRO & BOMBER DAMIEN OSBORNE / NICK ROBINS / ANDREW WOWK / STRUZ

A-Tonez / Ctrl Alt Delicious / Kingdom Hearts Bounce Crew djs King Lee / Fingers / Kiz / Oscillate Darkly

friday 7th september

SATURDAY 1ST SEPTEMBER

SPENDA C / A-TONEZ & KID SAMPLE / HYDRAULIX & BASSRIOT MITCH LOWE (NZ) / MIKE HYPER / NEMO

Fear of Dawn / Chris Arnott / Whitecat / Devola / Goodfella Athson / Antoine Vice / Aboutjack / Murray Lake / King Lee / Wrecks

WITH WI W IITH IT TTHH

[CANADA]

FRIDAY 14TH SEPTEMBER

GLOVECATS / RELOAD / GEE FLUXZ / MARK BIONIC / V & Z / DAMSEL

SATURDAY 15th september

FRIDAY 21ST SEPTEMBER

SATURDAY 22nd september

FRIDAY 28TH SEPTEMBER

SATURDAY 29th september

POP THE HATCH / AUTOCLAWS / HYDRAULIX BRUXISM / SHUDDER-X / SUBASKE & KEMIKOLL

JD4D / EMPRESS YOY / STEP BROTHERS SWEAT DECKS / RODMAN / JAIMIE-LYN / MARCO ROCCO

CNR KING & SUSSEX STREET ( UNDER SLIP INN )

Blaze Tripp / A-Tonez / Emoh Instead Fingers / Tones / DJ Eko / King Lee

The Hump Day project / Robbie Lowe / A-Tonez / Murray Lake U-KHAN / Whitecat / Cheap lettus / Devola / Dj Just 1 / Goodfella

Kid KenobI / Peking Duk / A-Tonez / Offtapia Bounce crew Djs / Georgia / King Lee / Ya Jokin

chineselaundryclub.com.au BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12 :: 45

snap

the cool room

PICS :: NA

up all night out all week . . .

16:08:12 :: Australian Brewery :: 350 Annangrove Rd Rouse Hill 9679 4555

Who’s playing? Ozi Batla (The Herd), Sky’H igh, P. Smurf (Daily Meds), Jackie Onassis and Crochet Crooks.

Sell it to us: An eclectic mix of Sydney’s finest hip hop talents come together for a night on the Annandale stage. A combined effort of solo performances that have been handpicked from notoriously good crews , and the best of the up-and-coming underground scene.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: The chewi ng gum stuck to the bottom of your Nike Airs.

jingle jangle

PICS :: TL

It’s called: Freshly Squeezed It sounds like: The organic stomp of the urban sprawl, or spray cans rattling under a train station in the wee hours of the morning.

18:08:12 :: Goodgod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Chinatown 8084 0587

Crowd specs: Snapbacks, puffy jackets, baggy jeans, impeccable trainers, gold chains and cornrows.

Wallet damage: $10 on the door. Pre-sales earn you a free drink.

Where: The Annandale Hotel When: Friday August 31

propaganda

PICS :: GP

gallery bar

PICS :: TL

party profile

freshly squeezed

18:08:12 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford Street Darlinghurst 9332 3711

perc

PICS :: TL

16:08:12 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 9357 7700

luke mcd

PICS :: TL

18:08:12 :: One22 :: 122 Pitt St Sydney

18:08:12 :: The Spice Cellar :: 58 Elizabeth St Sydney 9223 5585 46 :: BRAG :: 477 :: 27:08:12

:: NOHMON ANWARYAR :: S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER :: THOMAS PEACHY :: GEORGE NS MUN IEL DAN :: NN RMA KATRINA CLARKE :: SASKIA EISE POPOV :: PEDRO XAVIER ::