The Brag #503

+ SOSUEME DJS + HOBOPHONICS + DJ RUMFOORD

( VISUAL SHOW )

HOT DUB TIME MACHINE

SIDESHOW. WEDNESDAY

MARCH 13 FREE ENTRY 8PM

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THIS WEEK!

COSTELLO “ONE OF THE “ONE OF R&B’S GREATEST ...VOCALISTS.” ELVIS RAITT MOST INCREDIBLE R&B SINGERS SINGING TODAY.” BONNIE

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NEXT WEEK!

‘SUGAR MAN’ ‘CRUCIFY YOUR MIND’ ‘I WONDER’

COODER “THE GREATEST FEMALE SOUL SINGER.” RY

“THE CURRENT QUEEN OF SOUL” HITS

“RIVALS ARETHA FRANKLIN AS HER GENERATION’S THE NEW YORK MOST VITAL SOUL SINGER.” TIMES

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BAND

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BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13 :: 5

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

five things WITH

TOM FROM PALMS Growing Up Mark Olsen was a kid in 1. my grade who could play the

The Music You Make Well, it is part surf rock ’60s and part 4. grungy ’90s and part doo-wop ’50s at times.

drums really well and seemed a lot cooler than me. I wanted to be him so I bought a snare drum with a cymbal attached. I met Mark at Sydney Airport last year and now he is an international DJ, writes music for ads and actually makes money off music.

What a chronic dick.

It seems to take the freedoms delivered by recent Australian garage and punk bands for granted and then liberally apply great song parts. The album was all recorded by Owen Penglis in his kitchen on a couple of fourtracks and a collection of 1960s microphones.

The kit was recorded on two mics, and there is a lot of reverb, generally. The thing sounds of authentic oldness – really, really different.

Inspirations Bowie is my absolute 2. favourite. I often recommend

Music, Right Here, Right Now It seems there is always a place for 5. you in Australian music if you are going to

buying the Best Of for many artists, but every Bowie album prior to Tonight (1984) deserves your attention.

Your Band Al, our singer/songwriter, 3. and I met when we started

write great songs. The biggest obstacle to getting in on the scene is having the good ideas for songs. That is the bedroom work you start with. The Aussie band I’ve been most recently wowed by was Royal Headache, and specifically their singer Shogun. The guy has great song ideas and doesn’t just play his songs, he really puts it out there and performs.

Red Riders about 10 years ago. Then there is Dion Ford on lead guitar, who is a total shredder and really the guitar wind beneath Al’s writing wings.

Brendan Walsh is our bass player and he can be the wind beneath me.

With: Bad Dreems (Adelaide), Mining Boom (Perth) When: Saturday March 16 Where: Brighton Up Bar / Lvl 1, 77 Oxford Street

INTERNATIONAL BEARDS

PUBLISHERS: Adam Zammit & Rob Furst EDITOR IN CHIEF: Adam Zammit 9552 6333 adam@peergroupmedia.com EDITOR: Dee Jefferson dee@thebrag.com 02 9690 2731 ASSISTANT EDITOR: Caitlin Welsh STAFF WRITERS: Benjamin Cooper, Alasdair Duncan NEWS: Nathan Jolly, Chris Honnery ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alan Parry SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Levy SNAP PHOTOGRAPHERS: Katrina Clarke, Kate Lewis, Daniel Munns, Ashley Mar, Pedro Xavier COVER DESIGN: Sarah Bryant

The Beards have a knack for giving their tours witty names, and the First World Tour, which will see them traverse a series of well-off countries, including US, Germany, Canada, England and Scotland (Chad always get shafted by touring bands) is no exception.

Before they leave though, they are doing one last whip around the country, hitting The Metro on June 29 to have beards, and sing songs about beards, and fill between-song-gaps with banter about beards. If they ever start having non-beard-related feelings and want to sing about them, they may regret this hairy box they have locked themselves in, but until then, you know, beards and that, innit?

Midnight Juggernauts

James Blake

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) ONLINE & SOCIAL MEDIA: Tanydd Jaquet AWESOME INTERNS: Natalie Amat, Katie Davern, Tanydd Jaquet, Mina Kitsos

JUGGERNAUTS

The past few weeks have seen the entire Internet get extremely confused over a surreal video clip, which appears to have been beamed in from behind the Iron Curtain. Last week Midnight Juggernauts fessed up/totally bragged that the clip is in fact ‘Ballad Of The War Machine’, the lead single from their forthcoming record. Go and watch it if you haven’t already. It’s wonderfully odd, and the song itself is hypnotic and poptastic – not unlike a track from MGMT’s ridiculously underrated Congratulations. Anyway, they’ll be playing live on April 20 at Oxford Art Factory, and we really hope they’ll be wearing those natty Soviet uniforms they have on in the clip

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Nat Amat, Ian Barr, Simon Binns, Christie Eliezer, Chris Honnery, Nathan Jolly, Lachlan Kanoniuk, Jody Macgregor, Alicia Malone, Chris Martin, Jenny Noyes, Hugh Robertson, Rebecca Saffir, Jonno Seidler, Rach Seneviratne, Roland K Smith, Luke Telford, Rick Warner, Alex Sol Watts, Krissi Weiss, Caitlin Welsh, David Wild Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this address 8a Marlborough Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010 ph - (02) 9552 6333 fax - (02) 9319 2227 EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher, editors or staff of The BRAG. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE: Stephen Forde : accounts@furstmedia.com.au ph - (03) 9428 3600 fax - (03) 9428 3611 Furst Media, 3 Newton Street Richmond Victoria 3121 DEADLINES: Editorial: Wednesday 12pm (no extensions) Artwork/ad bookings: Thursday 12pm (no extensions).

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6 :: BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13

THE SECOND COMING BLAKE IS BACK

The genius of James Blake’s debut record is that it is so beloved, yet so baffling and slight, devoid of any discernable overriding influences, that nobody has a skerrick of an idea what he will do on his forthcoming follow-up Overgrown. The fact that he recently worked with both Brian Eno and RZA has only muddied things, and although he is often compared to Portishead and Massive Attack and UK acts like that which mix dubby influences with serene sounds, we kinda hope he releases a twenty-eight minute garage rock album. I suppose whether or not he has gone in that direction will become apparent at his March 22 show at Verbrugghen Hall (at the Conservatorium of Music), tickets for which are available from Ticketmaster from 9am Monday (today!).

Remember when Sarah McLeod from The Superjesus had that foray into the world of banging club tunes? Remember when Tim from The Superjesus released that ‘Do It With Madonna’ single that still has him banned from most clubs, cafes and all good bookstores around the country? Well, shhh, no you don’t, because those memories have all been washed away with the news that The Superjesus have reformed resurrected for a national tour, which kicks off with two massive shows at The Annandale, on May 30 and 31. Presale tickets are $40 plus booking fee, with door sales costing an extra $5, or two McDoubles and two soft serves from across the road. Still wanna risk not pre-buying?

ZAC BROWN SOUND

Usually when someone claims to blend folk, country, reggae, Southern rock, blues and R&B we roll our eyes and compare it to how when you blend a whole bunch of different flavours it either tastes like sugar or salt, devoid of subtlety due to the bombardment of the senses. But the Zac Brown Band actually do sound like an artful mix of these influences, albeit leaning far more heavily on country

than say, reggae (for a pie-chart showing the different genre-weightings in the Zac Brown sound, email pie@thebrag.com). This month marks their first time in Sydney, so if you wanna catch them, tickets for their March 27 Hi-Fi show go on sale from Monday, and probably on eBay from Tuesday. They’ll also be supporting Jason Mraz at the Entertainment Centre the night before, but we think there might be fewer fedoras at the sideshow.

THAT TIM GUY

That Tim guy, Tim Guy, is releasing his fourth album Dreaming Of A Night Mango, and his first since signing to Bic Runga’s label in a move that will only further Australians’ smug suspicions that everyone in New Zealand knows everyone else in New Zealand. (Also, remember when Neil Finn and Bic Runga recorded together? Or when the Evermore dude co-wrote a song with Bic Runga?

C’mon guys, make it a little harder for us.)

He recorded the oddly-named album in bits and pieces across Melbourne, Auckland and Christchurch, and is launching the bad boy in Maroochydoore, at the Sol Bar. If you can’t make that show, maybe catch him in Enmore, on April 12 at the Green Room Lounge.

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rock music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH

MICHAEL KIWANUKA

VIEUX FARKA TOURÉ (MALI) of my father’s musicians. He is one of the masters in the north of Mali. Recently, I have played with Dave Matthews, John Scofield, Derek Trucks, Eric Krasno, BLK JKS and of course Idan Raichel. Idan and I released an album together last year and we toured together in Europe and North America.

The Music You Make The music I make is a big mix of African 4. styles with rock, blues, funk, reggae and

Sure, the sweaty sense of camaraderie you feel when you’re in the moshpit with a few hundred other megafans can be great, but sometimes it’s nice to sit in an architecturally impressive space and listen to beautiful music without trading sweat with strangers.

Brit funk/soul dude Michael Kiwanuka returns to Australia for a Heavenly Sounds tour, and he’ll be playing Wednesday March 27 at St Stephens Uniting Church on Macquarie Street with troubadour Benjamin Francis Leftwich. We’ve got three double passes – to score one send us your deets and, in honour of his album Home Again, tell us where you feel most at home.

soul. But with everything I do, I like to give it my own signature sound on the guitar, so it is all these styles that are getting boiled together in one sound like a stew. What should the audience expect? They should expect to travel to the moon with us. That is where we are going.

Growing Up Music is in every aspect of life in the north 1. of Mali. On the streets, in homes, when you

American music, I love Jimi Hendrix, BB King, John Lee Hooker. You know, the old guys.

Music, Right Here, Right Now It is a very exciting time to be in music 5. right now. Now a musician can make some

are relaxing with friends, there is always music, and most of the time, live music. One strong memory I have is driving with my father down the road in Niafunke blasting BB King from the truck’s speakers. It was breaking my ears but I think it gave me the right feeling for the blues.

Your Band My band is changing all the time. It 3. depends on where we are touring and for how

music and put it on the internet and get recognised all over the world. This also makes live shows more special because there is just so much recorded music in the world at this moment, so a great live show will stand out.

I love to see my aunt, Khaira Arby, and her band perform. To me this is the best show.

Inspirations Well my father Ali Farka Touré, of course, 2. he is the biggest inspiration for me. Also my second father, Toumani Diabaté – he is like my mentor, in music and in life in general. For

long and which record we are touring. For this Australian tour we are using an all-star band! It will be Tim Keiper on drums – Tim has played with me since I began touring in 2007. He is one of the world’s best drummers.

Then there is Eric Herman on bass. He is my manager, and the producer that put me into music. But he is also a devil on the bass.

Then there is Aly Magassa, who was one

BLUE OYSTER CULT Emma Louise

Picture your most-stoned uncle. Wanna know the gateway drug that got him to that onebedroom apartment with the mismatched IKEA furniture and those drama-theatre curtains and that 34cm shitbox TV, and the still-working VCR? It was the records of Blue Oyster Cult, a band who have carved out a 40-year career and drawn in punk fans, metal fans, Zappa fans, and – oddly enough – Stephen King. Follow King’s route please, not your uncle’s. They (Blue Oyster Cult, not S.K. and your uncle) are playing as part of the excellent Dig It Up! festival (April 21, all around Enmore) but have announced a special sideshow at The Hi-Fi on April 20. And there won’t be a support act, either, because Blue Oyster Cult do not adhere to arbitrary showbiz traditions (we can only assume). Tickets are $60 from the venue.

HOLY FOALS

Foals’ third record Holy Fire debuted at number one on the ARIA charts last month, which was the first time the band has landed an album in the Top 40 here.

It was partly due to the Internet-owning lead single ‘Inhaler’, but also due to the powerhouse production team that is Flood and Alan Moulder, who have worked together on albums by The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Smashing Pumpkins, Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and other synapse-smashing records (also Moulder did Loveless but Flood’s involvement in U2 records means the team has to forfeit those goodwill points).

Foals sold out their BDO sideshows earlier this year in less than ten minutes, which is why they have decided to come back in September to sell out the Enmore Theatre.

Tickets go on sale March 18; the show isn’t ‘til September 28, though, so you’ll have to do that waiting thing you aren’t very good at.

When: Tuesday, March 12, 7.30pm Where: The Basement / 7 Macquarie Place, Circular Quay

nowhere, and you were there, and you were there... Yacht have expanded from a solo project, to a duo, to a quartet, which is the form they’ll be taking for their April 30 Oxford Art Factory show, assuming they don’t add a horn section and backup singers led by Sheila E. between now and then. They probably won’t, though. Tickets on sale now, assuming it didn’t sell out over the weekend. We can’t control these things, much as we try.

DIRT FARMER

Dirt Farmer may be called Dirt Farmer, and may hail from Albury-Wodonga, and their new single may be called ‘Delilah Lightning’, but don’t assume that they are a country band. We booked them to play our weekly hoedown (we have other projects beside this magazine, you know) and they turned up with their electric guitars, and plugged them into these electric amps and pumped

Michael Kiwanuka

out a set’s worth of slacker-pop tunes, which was kinda annoying because we’d tuned up the banjos all special like for them, and they didn’t even use them. Get along to the Beresford Hotel on May 10 to see what we mean.

COURTNEY IN SYDNEY

Melbourne indie-pop songwriter Courtney Barnett’s new single ‘Avant Gardener’ may just be the first ever song written about suffering anaphylactic shock while pulling weeds (not a drug euphemism) in the middle of a heatwave. She’s playing her debut Sydney headlining gig at Brighton Up Bar on March 23 in support of it, and considering FBi have been playing her stuff for quite a while (‘cos it sounds a bit like Kimya Dawson and they love stuff that sounds a bit like Kimya Dawson), and the ever-cute Ben and Bec are playing support, this show should go down a treat.

Kaki King

JOAN AND LAKEMAN

EMMA LOUISE

Not to boast, but THE BRAG totally picked up on the star power of Emma Louise ages ago, like the bunch of Mark Holdens that we pride ourselves on being. Her debut EP Full Hearts And Empty Rooms sold Gold, and now she’s gone and been courted and signed by American label Frenchkiss, and Universal Germany. Her debut record Vs Head Vs Heart is due on March 22, and she is playing a Metro Theatre show May 17, by which point you will have played the record to death, learned all the words, read various meanings into them, gotten sick of the album, rediscovered it, and fallen back in love with it. Brisbane folkie Thelma Plum and Sydney acoustic-lover Patrick James are playing support.

YACHT ROCK

Yacht make lovely, warped dream pop, but the type of dream where you are being spiked by angular guitars, and lifted suddenly yet gracefully by epic piano runs, and tripped out by woozy harmonies, and confused by cowbells that come out of

KAKI KING

Don’t you love reading pieces that state that an artist’s music is indescribable then rattle off a string of superlatives attempting to describe it? Well, that’s how every single piece ever written about Kaki King goes down, so the best way to describe it is by offering up the following terms: alternate tunings, lap-steel, shoegaze, soundscape, breathtaking, post-rock, effect-box. She’s playing at The Basement on May 19, and we predict you will be the one up the front, all wide-eyed and mindblown, gasping at strangers: “How does she make all that sound by herself?” “How come that guitar doesn’t sound like a guitar?” “What’s that weird box on the stage?”

Just enjoy it, she’s better than we can ever hope to be. xxx

8 :: BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13

English folk singer Seth Lakeman is way too conventionally handsome to be a “virtuoso fi ddler” but apparently he is one anyway – as you’ll hear when the multi-instrumentalist joins Joan Armatrading for her two Sydney shows later this month. The Melbourne show has already sold out, so if the idea of slopping your drink everywhere while belting out approximated lyrics to ‘Love and Affection’ or ‘Drop The Pilot’ sounds like your idea of a good night (less so for the people around you) then quickly get tickets to either the March 24 Enmore Theatre show, or the Evan Theatre (Penrith Panthers club) show the next evening.

BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13 :: 9

The Music Network

themusicnetwork.com

Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

THINGS WE HEAR

* The next Wolfmother album is going out under frontman Andrew Stockdale’s name.

Aside from the current Wolfie lineup, it also features multiple bassists and drummers.

It’s a “different trip now,” he tweeted. * While in Sydney, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood played a secret gig – he joined the Australian Chamber Orchestra Underground’s show in a loft space, performing a Steve Reich piece. * 50 Cent’s DJ Whoo Kid let slip he and Fiddy are here in April for dates. * Last Thursday, 2NURFM in Newcastle went off air after a burst water pipe left staff working without lights and limited power. * After opening for Ed Sheeran, Passenger’s own headlining tour sold out, with new dates in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Meantime, the single ‘Let Her Go’ has been picked up nationally by the Nova network. * Word from the UK dailies is that One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson built a

PARRAMATTA RD PRECINCT

Leichhardt mayor Darcy Byrne wants to rezone Parramatta Road as Sydney’s first live music and cultural precinct. It will cover live music, comedy and theatre, small bars, and ancillary music industry businesses. A proposed plan would allow late trading hours and greater noise levels, and require that new residential and commercial buildings on the road have “appropriate sound insulation.”

Byrne said, “I have a vision for Parramatta Road which will see it become for Sydney what Broadway and Tin Pan Alley have been to New York.” He now has to get cooperation from the Minister for Planning Brad Hazzard as well as neighbouring councils the City Of Sydney and Marrickville, to bring this to life. He plans to liaise with Brisbane City Council about its Fortitude Valley precinct. Byrne recently got Leichhardt council to adopt a Good Neighbour policy, to end the prosecution of live music venues.

BIG DAY OUT GRANT

The Big Day Out is offering a $20,000 grant

£15,000 “panic room” where he can hide in case a stalker gets into the house. * Nicki Minaj is so desperate to be seen as a “serious” artist that she has sacked the glam squad who manage her hair and makeup. * Despite bad weather, the inaugural Port Macquarie Beatles Festival drew 300 for all things Fab Four – although the parade and the market stalls had to be scrapped. With two concerts sold out, it returns next year, yeah yeah yeah. * Will Big Scary’s April tour see them play with a larger band than before? * The Superjesus have reunited for 11 shows between May 30 and June 29. Six years after their break up, Sodastream are working on an album. * Newcastle’s Star Hotel – which inspired the Cold Chisel song after the riots – remains controversial to the end. Builders who came to knock it down to make way for apartments found that a squatter – calling himself the caretaker – refused to leave.

Cops were called but no arrests were made.

for someone in the music, film and interactive realm to come up with an innovation to advance the live music experience. Think the Tupac hologram. Think Coldplay’s LED wristband. Big Day Out CEO Adam Zammit pointed out, “We are at an important live production crossroads. Advances in multimedia production are enabling live performances to bring all of the power of film making to the stage, from projection, to lighting to even 3D. Advances in audience engagement, encompassing feedback, physical tracking, mobile technology, and social media have the potential to bring the audience into an artist’s stage show in ways that we can only imagine.”

See bigdayout.com

AND PUBLISHING

Artist managers Danny Rogers (Gotye, Temper Trap, Laneway Festival) and Adam Tudhope (Mumford & Sons, Keane, Laura Marling) have set up a new publishing company called And Publishing. The venture is to be funded and administered by Kobalt, while Rogers and Tudhope will focus on A&R

duties. Rogers says, “I’m into songs, I don’t care if they’re from the coolest bands on the planet, or the most mainstream stars.”

And Publishing has full-time A&R in the UK (Thomas Child) and Australia (Travis Banko) plus a synchronisation manager, Justin Bumper Reeve of Hidden Track Music in Los Angeles, for North America.

HERMITUDE WIN AMP

Blue Mountains duo Hermitude won the 8th Coopers Australian Music Prize last week for HyperParadise. This comes after an ARIA and two SMAC wins and shows on their current tour sold out. The AMP prize is $30,000 cash from the PPCA, which collects broadcasting royalties on behalf of record labels and acts. PPCA’s Dan Rosen hoped the cash would allow the duo to take their music abroad. Over 300 albums entered for the Coopers AMP.

FLUME GOES PLATINUM

On the eve of Flume’s first US tour, his self-titled debut went platinum five months after release, as did the single ‘Holdin' On’.

Tickets for his Infinity Prism Australian tour sold out in 24 hours in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, with more shows added. After his five-week US run, Flume heads for the UK (where his first London club appearance sold out) and Europe.

BINGO PLAYERS GO PLATINUM Onelove Recordings announced that ‘Get Up (Rattle)’, by Bingo Players feat. Far East Movement, has gone platinum. The video for the track, which went #1 in the UK, has been viewed 8.4 million times.

The group toured here late last year for Stereosonic, resulting in the single going Top 5 and topping the dance charts.

MANTON, ANGUS & JULIA, JOIN LANA DEL REY MANAGEMENT

Angus and Julia Stone join Lana Del Rey’s TaP Management in London. Their Australian manager Tim Manton has joined TaP, taking them with him. Manton remains at Australia’s Secret Sounds as A&R consultant.

MORE SHOCK EXITS

Incoming Shock Records GM Chris May has his work cut out. Three Shock Records execs announced their intention to move on. These were Senior International Label Manager Stu Harvey (taking a break), marketing manager Annie Tetzlaff (joining promoter Destroy All Lines as event manager) and national PR manager Genna Alexopoulos (holidaying in North America).

E HIFI 1300 THO M.AU

JORDIE LANE SIGNS TO CANADIAN AGENCY

THEHIFI.C

Just Announced

SE LL IN G

FA ST

This Week

Zac Brown Band Wed 27 Mar

(USA)

Blue Oyster Cult Sat 20 Apr

(USA)

Ensiferum

Dinosaur Jr + Redd Kross (USA) Sat 16 Mar

(FIN)

Fri 15 Mar

SE LL IN G

FA ST

Coming Soon

Bilal (USA) Sat 4 May

Municipal Waste (USA) Sun 16 Jun

Sun 24 Mar

Avant (USA) Sat 23 Mar

SE LL IN G

Hungry Kids of Hungary

28 Days

Otep (USA)

Example (UK)

Wed 24 Apr

Thu 25 Apr

Fri 26 Apr

Fri 5 Apr

Enhanced (UK) Sat 27 Apr

Frightened Rabbit (UK) Tue 30 Apr

Norma Jean (USA)

Born Of Osiris (USA)

Fri 3 May

Sat 18 May

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

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YOUR PRESSER SUCKS

A free MusicNSW workshop looks at the dos and don’ts of publicity, with advice from publicists Stacey Piggott (Two Fish Out Of Water), Natalie Dodds (Create/Control) and Claire Collins (Bossy Music), and journalists Iain Shedden (The Australian) and Larry Heath (theaureview.com). It’s on Wednesday March 20 at Café Lounge, Surry Hills (277 Goulburn Street) from 6.30pm. The workshop is free but register by emailing samantha@musicnsw.com.

DILLON JOINS PARADE ARTIST

FA ST

U18 — Afternoon 18+ — Evening

Mutemath (USA)

Jordie Lane signed to Canadian booking agent Paquin Entertainment, home to Tegan and Sara, Josh Ritter, Adam Cohen and Old Crow Medicine Show.

He will tour there in July/August, including several major festivals to be announced.

He’s currently part of The Movement tour in Australia.

Former Sony Music content manager Natalie Dillon joined David Champion’s Parade Artists as an artist management representative. Its roster includes Jessica Mauboy, Justice Crew, Stan Walker and Reece Mastin.

WANNA GO TO INDIE WEEK?

Indie Week is an annual event which draws 600 forward-thinking delegates from indie labels and service providers to New York each June, to discuss making more money, copyright protection and other issues. This year, AIR, Sounds Australia and the PPCA are teaming up for an initiative that offers ten Australian indie labels the chance to attend. Labels must send expressions of interest – find out more at air.org.au

DEEZER X BLUESFEST

Deezer has struck a partnership with Byron Bay’s Bluesfest, whereby it will

host ‘Bluesfest Radio’, playing music by acts performing this year as well as music selected by some of the acts. Listen at deezer.com and bluesfest.com.au

$2 MILLION FOR DUBBO

Dubbo mayor Mathew Dickerson estimates that the city will earn $1.98 million in extra business and free publicity after triple j announced its One Night Stand will land at Dubbo Showground on April 13. Up to 15,000 are expected to attend to see Flume, The Rubens, Ball Park Music and Seth Sentry, and up to 10,000 will need accommodation and places to eat.

MILLER CITY SESSIONS

Miller Genuine Draft announced the final global DJs to join its Miller City Sessions, which has 100 national events running in the lead-up to April. The additions include “Vegas Sound” pioneer Warren Peace of XS, and Jason Lema from Marquee in Las Vegas.

See facebook.com/MillerBeerANZ for more on the tour.

Lifelines Expecting: Jimmy and Jane Barnes’ 27-year-old drummer and producer son Jackie and his wife Stephanie will have their first child due in August.

Dating: Seal might be back in Australia for The Voice taping, but he’s being linked with actress Erin Cahill, soon to appear on ABC’s Red Widow.

Split: Brit singer KT Tunstall and her drummer husband Luke Bullen after four years’ marriage.

They began dating just before she became successful.

In Court: a Czech Republic court acquitted Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe of causing a fan’s death at a 2010 concert, after he was pushed off the stage.

Arrested: a 44-year-old man has been charged with running over Usher’s 11-year-old stepson in a jetski accident, causing his death.

Arrested: an argument by a couple in a motel in Cleveland, Ohio, about who was better – Slash or Van Halen – got out of control.

Staff called the cops, who checked their database and discovered the couple had outstanding warrants.

Suing: Sony hits a 47-year-old Swedish fan for $233,000 for leaking Beyoncé’s album online.

Suing: LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy claims that Tim Goldsworthy, who set up DFA Records with him and Jonathan Galkin, breached contract by not providing the services he was supposed to, and “unjustly enriched” himself by using the company credit card. Three years ago, Goldsworthy abruptly left New York and returned to London without telling DFA. Died: Chris Torpy, singer with Sydney experimental metal band We Lost The Sea, took his life, the band confirmed on a Facebook posting. “Chris was the soul of the band … a true artist, an amazing lyricist. He struggled with his demons for a long time, he used music as a way to exorcise them.”

Died: Bobby Rogers, co-founder of Motown group The Miracles, 73, after a long illness. With Smokey Robinson he co-wrote The Temptations’ ‘The Way You Do The Things You Do’, The Contours’ ‘First I Look At The Purse’, and The Miracles’ ‘Going To A Go-Go.’ Died: Stanley Snadowsky, co-owner of iconic New York live music venue The Bottom Line, 70, of complications from diabetes.

Died: British guitarist Alvin Lee, best known as frontman of bluesrockers Ten Years After, 68, after complications following routine surgery.

BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13 :: 11

Upon This Rock… By Benjamin Cooper oo much non-music is popular right now. Everywhere I turn the happening thing is this fake electro stuff; what’s even worse is that’s the stuff that is winning Grammy Awards.”

“T

communion. It’s whatever you need it to be. I definitely consider myself a spiritual person,” he adds. “But I just don’t believe that the ten percent of my brain that I do use is best served by doing what I used to do.”

Allen Stone likes music played on instruments that soak up and radiate years of sweat and weariness. He’s searching for the genuine article – his own thread of the rock‘n’roll narrative – and he doesn’t care if he offends a few electronic artists along the way.

Reviews of Stone’s live performances rush to note the preacher persona Stone inhabits onstage. It’s an understandable touchstone of the genre, and one that audience members have praised for its transformative effect; his gigs convert sweaty band-rooms into shared spaces to attack Christian hypocrisy and to worship the audience’s shared, hopeless optimism.

The softly-spoken young man from Washington state is an exceptionally unlikely troublemaker. In many ways, the strength of his opinions concerning the quality of pop music is a product of circumstance. Over the last six months the hype around him has grown: he’s now internationally touted as part of the next wave of successors to Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. “Oh my goodness, what’s happening right now is so foreign to me,” Stone admits. “There are people talking about my music in ways I never even began to imagine. I’m sitting here, in a hotel room, surrounded by my band, and talking to journalists from all over the world. The momentum of it is crazy. Good crazy.”

Things were much simpler where Stone grew up, in the tiny rural town of Chewelah, near the Idaho border. His father was a preacher, and it was through involvement in church choirs that he first became interested in singing and performance. “I was pretty sheltered growing up,” he says. “I had a great childhood, but it’s crazy to think that there are more people buying tickets to one of my shows now than the entire population of my hometown.”

Stone survived on a diet of gospel music from his home and church until his teenage years. Once he heard classic recordings by Bill Withers and Aretha Franklin, and in particular Wonder’s classic album Innervisions, he was hooked. He left home and attended Bible college for a year, but ultimately decided that his calling lay elsewhere. “I understand the importance of religion. I get that it’s a part of most people’s lives. I just think that your version of religion – which is obviously based on the beliefs that are important to you – is what it is. Some people drink a 24-pack of beer and watch the football, and some people take

“I’m really not aware that I seem to be ‘preaching’,” says Stone. “That’s just how I learned to sing songs. I’ve always had a love for music, and I grew up watching my dad on stage and in the church. It naturally just comes out of me that way. Both my dad and my brother are ministers, and the reality is that when they’re up on the pulpit, they’re entertainers. They might be communicating a different message to mine, but we’re all entertainers.”

Stone has self-released two albums – 2010’s Last To Speak and 2011’s self-titled effort, which was re-released by ATO last year (and in March 2013 through Universal Music Australia) – and has developed a fanbase through relentless touring across America. “I’ve been travelling and performing since I was 19 years old,” he says. “I’ve played almost 50 shows a year for six years, and about 350 shows in the last two years.”

Many of those shows have been in small rooms in the homes of fans, and his current success was largely generated by a clip of him performing his song ‘Unaware’ in his mother’s living room. The video went viral, eventually catching the attention of late night television host Conan O’Brien and then being picked up

by Ellen Degeneres. Both invited Stone and his band to appear on their respective shows, increasing his presence in even more living rooms. When we speak, his band is holed up in a Los Angeles hotel following their performance on Ellen – another experience that he describes as “good crazy”.

“It’s one more thing that we’ve all done together in this crazy year. Thankfully they’re

12 :: BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13

Aretha Franklin

Stevland Hardaway Morris started his The daughter of Baptist minister and career singing in the local church choir activist C.L. Franklin was dubbed the in his native Detroit. He’s been signed to Queen of Soul early in her career. She then Motown since the label’s Gerald expanded into pop, most notably White, brother of The Miracles’ on 1985 Eurythmics collab ‘Sisters Ronnie White, discovered him Are Doin’ It For Themselves’. singing in a living room. The multi-instrumentalist has gone Marvin Gaye on to win the most Grammys of Yet another child of a minister, any male solo artist.

Gaye could sing across three Allen Stone octaves, which was handy early wouldn’t exist on as a member of doo-wop group without…

Donny Hathaway The Marquees. He broke away The Missouri-raised singer from the production reins of Tamlastudied fine arts at Howard University, in Motown to do his own damn thing on 1971’s Washington D.C., where he met fellow What’s Going On. Thirteen years later, artistic chameleon Roberta Flack. The following his final Sexual Healing tour and two recorded a number of duets – most an extended period of depression, he had notably ‘Where Is The Love’ and ‘The an argument with his father Marvin Sr., who Closer I Get To You’. shot him dead through the heart. the kind of people who would slap me across the noggin if I needed to be brought back into the game,” Stone says. “I regard the band as my family now. Families get in each other’s faces and annoy each other because they share so much, and do it all frequently. The other side of that is it means you grow a lot.

And then there’s the fact that they’re great musicians: it wouldn’t be possible to tour as much as we do if they weren’t such talented players.”

The drive to make quality music, and to be associated with quality music, is an ongoing concern for Stone. His latest album was recorded with respected, established session musicians – including Raphael Saadiq’s rhythm section, and Miles Davis’ keyboardist, Deron Johnson. It has gained him a swag of new fans through its digital sales and online hype, yet the satisfaction he takes from it is only possible because he knows the studio sound is a mere reflection of the “real” live show.

“I’ve never seen the merit in people who can only make stuff in the studio. I’ve spent enough time in the studio to learn how the tricks work. It makes you sad after a while, because you realise how many records are out there that the singer or the band just can’t pull off. If a band don’t sound better live, then I’m just not interested,” he adds.

“They’ve gotta be able to put on a show, and get people moving based on what they can actually do. It’s great to see bands who can actually do that getting some recognition right now. I’m talking about people like Gary Clark Jr., Lianne La Havas and Alabama Shakes – because they’re actual musicians who do their thing and don’t just press play on a laptop.”

“Sorry to get on the pulpit, man,” he laughs, realising his spiel is gathering momentum. “It’s just that is where my spirit is at. I really believe in it. But I also believe in the pendulum of music: everything moves and changes.”

SHIPPING UP TO BYRON We asked BRAG writers what they’d put on their Bluesfest road-trip mixtape – we had to cut it down a bit because, you know, printed media! For our extended Spotify playlist, check out our Facebook page.

THE STONE ROSES – ‘Driving South’ GILLIAN WELCH – ‘Elvis Presley Blues’ 3 FRANK TURNER – ‘I Still Believe’ 4 THE ALLMAN BROTHERS – ‘Whipping Post’ 5 RODRIGUEZ – ‘Cause’ 6 CHRIS ISAAK – ‘Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing’ 7 DROPKICK MURPHYS – ‘I’m Shipping Up To Boston’ 8 DRUNK MUMS – ‘The Business’ 9 IGGY POP – ‘Highway Song’ 10 KURT VILE – ‘Jesus Fever’ 11 LOWELL FULSOM – ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’

12 FLOYD DIXON – ‘Hey Bartender’ 13 ALLEN STONE – ‘Satisfaction’ 14 BONNIE RAITT – ‘Slow Ride’ 15 BAND OF SKULLS – ‘Sweet Sour’ 16 THE SNOWDROPPERS – ‘White Dress’ 17 THE HONEYDRIPPERS – ‘Sea Of Love’ 18 SKIP JAMES – ‘Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues’ 1 2

When: Saturday March 30 Where: Blue Beat / 16-18 Cross Street, Double Bay Also: Playing Byron Bay Bluesfest with Iggy and The Stooges, Wilco, Bettye LaVette, Rodriguez, Robert Plant, Paul Simon and heaps more, from Thursday March 28 – Monday April 1 @ Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm

San Cisco photo by xxx

“Too much non-music is popular right now.

Everywhere I turn the happening thing is this fake electro stuff; what’s even worse is that’s the stuff that is winning Grammy Awards.”

Stevie Wonder

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Counting Crows Keeping It Together By Alasdair Duncan

“We’ve been playing a different show every night for 20 years now. We even turn it into a game sometimes.” years, and that’s hard on everybody,” he says.

“It’s hard for me to do some of the necessary stuff sometimes, because my head doesn’t work right. I’m very conscious of the fact that I don’t want to be the one who drags the band down.”

Duritz admits that this has been a factor since the early days, and that ironically, his attempts not to put a strain on the band often strain the most. “I mean, me being crazy is probably the biggest problem the band has,” he says with a laugh. “It’s not always good for me to be away, but over the years, I’ve chosen to go off on tour instead of taking responsibility for getting better.

A lot of things have dragged on a lot longer than they should because of that.”

Not every band can remain functional for two decades – there are fights and fallings-out, singers go solo, lineups change. Counting Crows, however, have remained a pretty tight unit, and Duritz insists that this is because everyone in the band is treated as an equal, with money split evenly between all members.

S

Duritz has fronted Counting Crows for more than two decades. Their debut, August And Everything After, would become a defining document of the alternative rock movement, thanks to the earnest, deeply-felt quality of singles like ‘Mr Jones’ and ‘Round Here’. Duritz has remained a vital force since then, but it’s often been far from easy.

The singer is surprisingly open and selfdeprecating about his various struggles. “I’ve had to deal with a lot of mental illness over the

Counting Crows go out of their way to ensure that their live show is as spontaneous as possible, and Duritz confirms that when the band returns to Australia, we can expect no less. “We don’t plan the shows too much ahead of time,” he says.

“After sound check, around dinner time every night, I send a text out to the band, to the crew, to the opening bands if we’re close friends… everybody on the road with us who could conceivably give

“We’ve been playing a different show every night for 20 years now,” Duritz adds. “We even turn it into a game sometimes. If we’re playing two different nights in the same city, the game will be not to repeat a single song in the set. The question is – can we do that? I don’t think a lot of bands could do that. They couldn’t play through two shows with no repeated songs and make it work, but I think we can. I love that about our band.”

Duritz draws a lot on his own life – his own experiences, and especially mistakes – in the band’s lyrics, and I’m curious to know whether he finds it difficult baring his soul like this night after night. “Well, I mean …” he pauses. “That’s sort of the whole point, is for it to be personal. It’s not a bad thing. That said, it’s an emotional experience playing shows. It does get a little tiring at times, because oftentimes, you’re going through a lot of shit in your life, but you still need to get up on stage and feel it for the performance. But yeah, putting those emotions out there is important – that’s the whole reason I do this.”

With: Jackson McLaren & The Triple Threat Where: Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House When: April 9 (sold out) and April 10 Also: with Robert Plant, Iggy & The Stooges, Rodriguez, Wilco and heaps more at Byron Bay Bluesfest @ Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm from Thursday March 28 – Monday April 1.

Xxxx photo by Xxx

ome performers say that when they walk on stage, they feel as if they step outside of themselves. For Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz, the opposite is true. “To be honest with you, I’d say I feel that way the rest of the time,” he says. “I don’t really have stage fright, but I sure as shit have everyday life-fright. I’m more comfortable on stage than I am anywhere else. Life can be very disorienting. When I’m singing a song, I’m not worrying about anything else – all I’m thinking about is how to get it right at that point.”

“Right from the beginning, I knew that if we were going to do this for the long haul, there needed to be enough money for everybody,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of bands make that mistake, and I never wanted it to be that way with us, so we split everything, even the publishing money. You can’t have a band where people can’t afford to be in it.

The decision is a pretty simple one – do you want more money for yourself, or do you want that guy over there, your friend, to have an equal share so you can stay together and keep playing?”

a shit. I ask if there’s anything that people want to hear or want to play on that particular night, and then when I hear back, I know what I want to play, so I include all the songs that everybody names, and that’s the set list. It’s good to hear what everybody wants. […] I think you owe your audience a great show – they’ve paid their hard-earned money to be there, they deserve something great. [But] I don’t think you owe them any particular songs.

Wilco Whole Again By Dijana Kumurdian

I

t’s something intangible that hits you between your heart and your groin,” says Wilco’s bass player John Stirratt. “That’s what makes a song for me. It’s not incredible words, not incredible music – it’s a feeling in that part of your gut that’s right in between your hips or your groin and your heart, you know?”

When the co-founder of an American alt-rock giant reveals to you the secret of a good song, you should probably take note. Along with frontman Jeff Tweedy, Stirratt is the longeststanding member of Wilco, a band that’s toured almost ceaselessly in the past 20 years and somehow found time to release eight studio albums.

Their latest, 2011’s sprawling The Whole Love, has been touted as their most conceptually diverse. “I like how many feels and musical styles there are on it, in terms of spacey country and sort of more modern post rock,” explains Stirratt. “I like how it all came together in one record. I think that’s something we’ve tried to do, to create a more non-linear record over the last two records, especially. And I think it was a lot more successful than Wilco (The Album) in that regard. It’s hard to do that. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot really has a certain… it has a real linear sound.

There’s obviously different-sounding tunes, but this one’s maybe more jarring from certain songs to certain songs.”

“There was definitely this resentment towards someone not really liking the record we were really proud of,” says Stirratt. “But I think we were

Even so, Stirratt says the band didn’t exactly revel in the sticking-it-to-the man scenario as it played out. “More than anything, we were sort of nonplussed or sort of hurt at the beginning,” he says. “But I think when everybody heard about it being this victory for us in terms of us being able to sell it back to Warner Bros [imprint Nonesuch Records] – we didn’t mean for that, I mean, obviously we didn’t orchestrate that or anything – and we felt exposed more than anything. We didn’t have time to feel badass.”

“We felt exposed more than anything. We didn’t have time to feel badass.”

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Since then, Wilco has set up their own label, dBpm, securing the band’s control over their own sound – although Stirratt admits that they’ve never struggled too much, outside of the Yankee dispute, to go their own way. “Even people at Reprise would come by and hear a few things later in the process, but they were never involved in the studio. We’ve been lucky because we’ve never had to deal with it.”

Wilco is returning to Australia in its post-2004 incarnation, which includes guitarist Nels Cline, all-rounder Pat Sansone, keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen and drummer Glenn Kotche, in addition to Tweedy and Stirratt. “It’s definitely been the definitive live band, or live version, of Wilco,” says Stirratt. “We’ve developed a rapport on and off stage, which has been something that’s really rare to find in a band.”

Australian fans should expect the unexpected from Wilco’s upcoming shows: “We really go out of our way not to play nearly the same show that we did the previous time,” says Stirratt. “Especially now it’s so easy, it’s so accessible online to find out [our setlists].”

He’s referring to the online culture of setlistswapping among Wilco fans over the last

decade – while it’s now common practice thanks to sites like setlist.fm as well as fan message boards, Wilco fans were among the earliest and most passionate sharers.

“Around 2000-2001 we had heard about our online presence … [People] were trading the setlists from the shows, and they were sort of communicating with each other online and the thing sort of flowered between the band and the audience over the years.

“We have the setlists on record, so if we’re in Melbourne we’ll look and see what we did last time and stay away from that. I mean, there’s always the new record you’ve got to focus on, of course,” he adds. “But everything else, that’s the luxury of a big catalogue – to be able to work around it.”

When: Tuesday April 2 (sold out) and Wednesday April 3 Where: Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House Also: with Robert Plant, Iggy & The Stooges, Rodriguez, Dropkick Murphys and heaps more at Byron Bay Bluesfest @ Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm from Thursday March 28 – Monday April 1

Wilco photo by ZoranOrlic

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was Wilco’s defiant, and defining, gesture. Already beginning to break from their earlier twang with Summerteeth, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’s digressive noise sections – sandwiched between the usual lovesick country-tinged rock – led Warner imprint Reprise Records to reject the finished record.

a little bit shielded from it by the management, and in my mind it was always going to be a forward step for all of us. There was kind of this idea early on that we were probably going to get the record and be able to go somewhere else with it. So, there wasn’t so much concern. It seemed like an exciting kind of thing for me. I’m sure I was shielded from the bad scenarios or the worse things that could’ve happened. […] It always felt like we were really proud of the record, we knew what it was and we knew people would like it. It was just a question of where it would end up. So, c’est la vie, you know?”

Jimmy Cliff Rebirth Of A Reggae Legend By David Wild

E

ver since boys and girls with mohawks bounced to Jamaican music between acts at seminal London club The Roxy, the history of reggae and punk music has been closely intertwined. So it’s fitting that the resurgence of reggae royalty Jimmy Cliff – a man who did more than most to popularise ska and reggae outside the small island of its origin – started with a collaboration with a fully-fledged punk: Tim Armstrong, of American pop punk outfit Rancid.

“It was time to make a new album, so management suggested Tim,” says Cliff. It turned out to be a masterstroke. The resulting album, Rebirth, revisits the authentic sound of ’60s and ’70s reggae and is easily Cliff’s best work in many years.

Speaking to BRAG before he heads back home to Jamaica for some downtime, Cliff sounds exactly like you’d expect a reggae superstar to: he talks in an unhurried, considered manner that suggests he has never been stressed out in all of his 64 years. He talks effusively about Rebirth and sees it as a genuine artistic revival.

He was also very pleased to be nominated for a Grammy Award – “It is good to hear confirmation.

Everyone seeks confirmation,” he confesses – but adds, “I really wish that reggae would get recognition at the highest level. The presentation of other award categories is televised in the United States, but not so for reggae.” A few weeks after our interview, Jimmy would find out he had won the Grammy for Best Reggae Album. It was listed as the 50th of 81 awards, announced after Best Bluegrass Album and Best Regional Roots Album.

“I am in tune with the world. I live on this planet, I am connected to everyone and everything that is going on here. So it’s not only my homeland, Africa – it is the whole planet.”

This frustration might suggest that Cliff, a reggae proponent before anyone outside Jamaica had heard of Bob Marley, still considers it his duty to spread the reggae gospel. “It was a role that I played; I was the gate opener for reggae music in the world,” Cliff says. “But it’s not a role that I chose. It’s just that I happened to be the one there, so I continue to play that role.”

Born in St James, in the north-west of Jamaica, Cliff moved to Kingston aged 14. “I was just a country boy, going into a big city, so for the first time it was a culture shock,” he recalls. “But I got used to it after a while. There was music playing everywhere. In the country I was just used to music playing on the radio.” While trying to record his first songs, Cliff befriended some of the musical stars that he had heard on the airwaves, like Derrick Morgan and Prince Buster. “I was in awe of them. Some of them gave me advice.

Derrick Morgan showed me the first chord I would play on the piano. It was B flat.”

“I am sensitive to justice and fair play and how the world is balanced,” says Cliff, who has spent a lot of time in Africa and is inspired to write about the poverty he has seen there. “It doesn’t need to be Africa. It could be Australia, it could be anywhere where there is imbalance, really. I am in tune with the world. I live on this planet, I am connected to everyone and everything that is going on here. So it’s not only my homeland, Africa – it is the whole planet.”

Cliff is looking forward to visiting Australia; he says that he enjoys touring “more now than before, because I am better than I was before.” It is clear that, despite his vast achievements, this reggae pioneer is nowhere near done with music just yet.

As he sings on ‘One More’: “I got one more arrow in my bow/And as I let it go/Just watch my flow”.

When: Thursday, March 28 Where: Metro Theatre Also: with Bettye LaVette, Steve Miller Band, Allen Stone, Rodriguez, Ben Harper with Charlie Musselwhite, and heaps more at Byron Bay Bluesfest @ Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm from Thursday March 28 – Monday April 1.

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Released in 1970, ‘Viet Nam’ was dubbed the greatest protest song ever written, by none other than Bob Dylan. Speaking about world issues is something Cliff has always done via his music; on Rebirth it’s there in ‘Children’s Bread’ (“They took the children’s bread and give it to the dogs / Making so many people’s life so hard”) and a version of Joe Higgs’ ‘World Upside Down’, updated for the new millennium.

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As recounted in the biographical ‘Reggae Music’, arguably Rebirth’s high point, Cliff eventually persuaded famed producer Leslie Kong to work with him and together they cut a hit record, ‘Hurricane Hattie’, in 1962. The pair shared a close musical bond that lasted until Kong’s death in 1971.

Among Cliff’s output from those fertile years is the stunning ‘Many Rivers To Cross’, a gospeltinged contemplation on the struggles of life, written when he was just 21. Does Cliff look back to those years as the time when he made his best records? “The way I look at my music is like the way a mother would look at her children. She love the first child, and then when the second child come she love that child and so on. I love all of my family, but the closest music to me will always be the last album I make.” That said, ‘Many Rivers’ is special to him, “because it has touched so many lives and so many people.

Songs like that and songs like ‘Sitting In Limbo’, songs like ‘Viet Nam’, there are quite a few actually, yeah.”

– HE HERALD HERAL HERA D SUN SU

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NEW ALBUM OUT NOW

BRAG :: 503 :: 11:02:13 :: 15

Bettye LaVette

Glen Hansard

Soul Survivor By David Wild

he’s been described as the greatest female soul singer ever, and possessing of one of the best soul voices ever – yet odds are good that you’ve never heard of her.

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show, y’know, I defy anyone to match,” Bettye says of the notorious perfectionist.) Then, while Aretha and Marvin sold by the barrow load, LaVette slid into obscurity.

Bettye LaVette’s 50-year career is documented in a fascinating new autobiography, A Woman Like Me, in which she recounts tales of pimps, drugs and complex relationships with stars such as Solomon Burke. It is a story of struggle, serendipity and an unerring belief in her own talent. It has been “a scramble”, as Bettye herself likes to say.

Speaking from her home in New Jersey, LaVette struggles to pinpoint exactly why she thinks it did not happen for her at that time. “It wasn’t any one thing. There were a million things,” she says.

“When I was young I probably thought I was hexed at some point, but y’know, I didn’t know why. I didn’t try and figure out why.”

Having grown up in Detroit, Bettye cut her first record, aged 16, in 1962. ‘My Man, He’s A Loving Man’, was quickly picked up – not by her hometown’s famous Motown label, but by Atlantic. It became a hit and led to her touring the United States with artists who would soon become soul icons. “Literally, just weeks before my first record came out I was dancing to records by Ray Charles and The Drifters, and then to be, for the next five or six weeks, on the road with them, was beyond my wildest dreams.”

After that tour, she recorded her masterpiece, the pleading ‘Let Me Down Easy’, and toured with the James Brown Revue. (“He was someone that I disliked, but someone whose

Thinking Outside The Frame By Joshua Kloke

Cohen and Van Morrison – when it came to breaking away from The Frames and releasing Rhythm And Repose, his debut solo record. Featuring rustic and, at times, sparse-sounding tracks, Hansard seemed intent on scaling back the production to let the songs themselves shine through.

“I like the idea of being able to actually hear the song,” he says. “As Leonard Cohen said, ‘Let me see your beauty broken down.’ If the song is strong it can survive on just an acoustic guitar and a voice. And if I’m being honest, perhaps that’s what I was setting out to do, was to make a record with just a guitar and my voice.”

She is not afraid to admit that she desperately craved the success of her peers, of those people that she had grown up with and knew, but there was never any bitterness. “Whatever envy there was it wasn’t because I didn’t want them to have [the success] it was because I wanted it too. I wanted to be with them and I wanted to be one of them. So I was really kind of hurt and tearful all the time.”

LaVette’s career took a turn for the better some 37 years later, with a chance meeting with booking agent Mike Kappus in 2002. “As far as I was concerned I had been saved. When I got the booking agency I knew that I would work the rest of my life, because I knew I could sing, I knew the show was good and I knew if people saw me they would hire me again.”

Subsequently LaVette gained a record company, a husband and, most surprisingly to herself, a manager (“No one wants to manage anybody old; they want to manage Justin Bieber!” she says). A critically lauded album, I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise, was released in 2005, followed by a performance at US President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.

Now, at the tender age of 67, Bettye is busier than ever. There is the book, an extensive tour – including Bluesfest and sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne – and a new album of contemporary songs, entitled Thankful N Thoughtful. It’s worth a listen in particular for a faithful version of the Black Keys’ ‘I’m Not The One’ and a distinctive rework of Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’. “The Black Keys song sounds like something an old black woman would’ve written. I was so surprised when I found out who they was. The ‘Crazy’ song, I figured if you’re in this business you’re probably crazy.

Anyway, my grandchildren knew both the songs so they think I’m halfway hip now.”

What: Byron Bay Bluesfest When: Thursday March 28 – Monday April 1 Where: Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, Northern NSW Sideshow: Friday April 5 @ The Factory Theatre, Enmore

In the face of Hansard’s recent rise to fame, his desire to keep his aesthetic lowkey is understandable. He and his song ‘Falling Slowly’ featured in the film Once, for which he and co-star/writing partner Marketa Irglova received an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Other awards (and subsequent commercial appeal) followed, but there was a flipside to Hansard’s success: after years of hard work trying to make a living as an artist, would he simply be remembered as a onetrick pony?

“I

’m walking along Dublin’s Liffey River just after midnight,” says Glen Hansard, his thick accent lilting down the phone line. “It’s a lovely, frosty night here.”

He paints a romantic picture with just a few words, but that’s no surprise. Able to seduce listeners with the warm honesty of his songwriting, Hansard embodies the everyman singer-songwriter who finds success by maintaining a belief in his dream. It’s been a slow but steady rise since 1991, when Hansard’s folk outfit The Frames released their debut full-length, Another Love Song.

Twenty-three years later, Hansard admits that while he’s incredibly appreciative of the career he’s had, it was a career that even he couldn’t have dreamed of – especially not when he began busking on the streets of Dublin as a 13-year-old. “[My career has] gone way beyond what I expected. All I really wanted as a kid was to be able to just play music for a living, and I didn’t really have any expectations beyond that. My heroes were all famous, but I never really thought I’d get to that level. My lifestyle and my career has become a little more successful in the past few years, and I’m very grateful for that.”

Hansard admits that he looked to his “holy trinity” of heroes – Bob Dylan, Leonard

“I think if you’re a person who stands by your work, the tendency is to want to walk away from being remembered as just a ‘one song’ guy,” he muses. “If I’m remembered as the guy from Once then fair enough, but I’d like to think that I’ll continue to work and search for better songs. But it’s really none of my business what people think of me and I have to constantly remind myself of that.”

Hansard still walks the same streets where he once busked for change, though he’s a very different man. And given the opportunity to speak to his younger self, he knows exactly what he’d say.

“Just keep on doing exactly what you’re doing,” he says simply. “I wouldn’t trade the experience of my life and my career for the world. It’s been the only life I’ve known. All the things I’ve had to learn, all the mistakes I’ve made, I’m happy. If I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow and have a few days to say goodbye to my friends and family, I’d be happy.”

What: Glen Hansard with The Frames Where: Byron Bay Bluesfest @ Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm When: Thursday March 28 – Monday April 1 Sideshow: March 25 (sold out) & 26 @ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House

The Blind Boys Of Alabama Gospel Tag Team By Benjamin Cooper

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ric ‘Ricky’ McKinnie joined legendary gospel group the Blind Boys Of Alabama in 1990. At the time the group was already more than half a century old, having first performed together in 1939 when its founding members were still in primary school in Talladega, Alabama. Percussionist and vocalist McKinnie was asked to join by founding member Clarence Fountain, an experience he describes as “a great honour.”

The group has recorded and performed with some of the biggest names in modern popular music – from Bob Dylan and Prince, to Joan Baez and Kanye West. They’ve also long been acknowledged as a major inspiration to soul singers like Marvin Gaye, despite shunning the secular limelight throughout the turbulent periods of the 1960s and 1970s.

McKinnie attributes their ongoing success to the support of fans in both the studio and on the road. “Without the people who care so much about us there is no Blind Boys Of

16 :: BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13

“We sing from the soul,” he continues. “What is inside and from the heart reaches out to another heart... so when we stand on that stage we can reach out and touch the crowd with our voices. Doesn’t matter where we go, because we’ve found that people are just people. We could be in New York and we’ll meet someone from Alabama, or in Australia and meet someone from New York. What matters is that the song resonates there for all of us.”

The group has an ongoing love affair with Australia, having first performed here in the 1990s – the first tour for McKinnie since joining the group. “I wasn’t even all that nervous because the people were just so kind to us everywhere we went,” he says. “They seemed to love having us and, like I said before, when that meeting of hearts takes place you can’t help but smile. I think people in Australia know that when

we’re on stage they’re in for a good time. They know they’re going to be clapping along and singing out loud to songs from their past. They know they’re going to hear great harmonies, because we’re running a tag-team of gospel that never stops reaching. If people are feeling bad and they wanna feel glad they just have to come on down.”

The upcoming shows will feature material from 2011’s Take The High Road. The album marks a distinct side-step for the group – after 70 years of performing, they’ve finally indulged their passion for country music through

collaborations with stars of the genre including Willie Nelson, Lee Ann Womack and Vince Gill.

“We love singing the songs off the new album,” McKinnie says. “If people want to have a good time, then the place to be is wherever the Blind Boys are in your town.”

What: Byron Bay Bluesfest When: Thursday March 28 – Monday April 1 Where: Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm Sideshow: Monday April 1 @ The Enmore Theatre, with Sweet Honey In The Rock

The Blind Boys Of Alabama photo by Erika Goldring

“I think the important thing with the Blind Boys is that it’s not just about the times that have gone before,” McKinnie says. “That’s a big part of it, but it’s also about the music and the experiences that we’ve shared together with all the people we’ve met along the way.”

Alabama,” he says simply. “We’ve got great record producers and artists from all kinds of backgrounds who want to work with us, and who inspire us to give it everything that we’ve got. When we perform... it’s like every concert is special because of the love that people give us; it helps us to be the best that we can be.

And it won’t stop. It just keeps on coming and coming. No one can stop us.”

Frank Turner Unsold Soul By Rick Warner

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he first time I ever got called a sellout was when I was in a band and it was our first tour in a van that had seats in it instead of just sleeping on top of our equipment – and a bunch of people, no shit, called us sell-outs.”

On the day of this interview, it had just been announced that punk rock troubadour and self-fashioned DIY spirit, Frank Turner, had made the switch for his US licensing – from the much-lauded independent label Epitaph Records to Interscope Records, a corporate behemoth under the Universal Music Group umbrella. Turner, perhaps having already fielded questions about the switch all morning, is quick to defend the choice. “I know some people are going to be dismissive about it,” he says with a sigh. “Every single step, if you even vaguely come from a punk rock background, is going to be accompanied by people shouting obscenities at you. So, I’m kind of getting used to it by now.” He pauses, and then adds with an air of finality: “At the end of the day, I wouldn’t do it if I thought it was going to change the way I make music.”

His latest studio album Tape Deck Heart is due out mid-April. After the success of his previous effort, 2011’s England Keep My Bones (which culminated in a sold-out Wembley Stadium gig for 12,000 fans), Turner chose to work with US record producer Rich Costey, a man whose panel work has been worthy of the likes of stadium rockers Muse and Foo Fighters. Turner and his band The Sleeping Souls left dreary London to head off to make the record in Los Angeles. “We might as well have been on the moon, for all that we saw of America,” he says.

“We basically didn’t ever leave the studio.”

shows Frank Turner loves to do. During his last tour of Australia he took time to play the lesstravelled rock’n’roll paths through the Northern Territory and North Queensland. While he gushes about the beauty of regional Australia, it was in Australia’s favourite commodities trading partner, China, that Turner discovered his most unexpected fan base.

“I went to China in 2010 and did a sort of illegal tour. I didn’t really have the proper permits. I went over and did eight shows in China, and it was mad – like really mad, in a good way.” He then adds quickly, just in case the Chinese authorities get a hold of this interview, “I’m going back there again just before I get to Australia and we do have proper permits this time around!”

With: Dropkick Murphys, Swingin’ Utters When: Monday, April 1 Where: The Big Top, Luna Park Also: with Iggy and The Stooges, Wilco, Allen Stone, Rodriguez, Robert Plant, and heaps more at Byron Bay Bluesfest @ Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm from Thursday March 28 – Monday April 1.

“We called him Sauron because he’s the allseeing eye. He sees every detail. He made me and all the guys in my band reach really deep in ourselves to pull out something that we might not otherwise have pulled out” Costey proved a hard taskmaster, pushing the band to their limits through countless late nights. “We called him Sauron because he’s the all-seeing eye,” he jokes. “He sees every detail. He made me and all the guys in my band reach really deep in ourselves to pull out something that we might not otherwise have pulled out. For example, there was one song where Rich made me do forty-two vocal takes… Usually I do five. He just kept saying ‘There’s something more you can give to this song’, and it drove me up the fucking wall! But he was right and the final result is better than it otherwise would’ve been.”

Xxx xxxphoto photobybyJXxx xxxxx

As a preview of Tape Deck Heart, Turner released the song ‘Four Simple Words’ from his label’s website in December 2012. It’s a relief to see that the cliché of “a band from England records an album in LA, then suddenly gets around in a sports car with a porn-star girlfriend” that Turner drily describes didn’t actually come to pass. His earnest songwriting is still intact. The unaffectedness and warmth that comes through when listening to his music still makes you want to share a beer with him – and it’s not just me who feels this way. Last year, UK brewer Signature Brew offered to make a beer for the singer – surely a dream come true for most punk rockers. However, he seems more humble than a man with his name on a beer should be: “I feel like, on the very rare occasions when I am home and I invite a guest around, to open up my fridge and just have a tonne of beer with my name on it would be a little bit OTT.” He’ll soon be enjoying a nice cold schooey, as he returns to Australia to tour the album in April. It will be his fourth time Down Under, and his third with regular travelling buddies Dropkick Murphys. Having just completed a mini Euro tour and a string of US dates with them, Turner almost seems inseparable from the Bostonian Celtic punk band.

However, he did confess that when he comes to Australia in April, he will manage to tear himself away from the guys long enough for some headline shows with just The Sleeping Souls, if only in the thriving metropolises of Perth and Caloundra. But these are the kind of BRAG :: 503 :: 11:02:13 :: 17

Sticky Fingers Dry Ice By Sharon Ye

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ccording to bassist Paddy Cornwall, the steady rise of Sticky Fingers sounds a bit like a “B-grade rock’n’roll movie.” After building a makeshift stage and “unofficially headlining” Newtown Festival back in 2010, the mavericks were officially invited back the following year to play the main stage with a prime slot. Standing in that crowd was producer Dann Hume (of Evermore), who, impressed by their work, got in touch to talk collaboration.

Having originally planned to record another EP, Cornwall says having Hume work on their first single encouraged them to complete a full-length album.

“There was this one particular song that wasn’t going to make it,” he says, “we didn’t really see much in it – and that was ‘Caress Your Soul.’” What Hume did with the track, however, was a revelation. “It’s the first time we’ve listened to something that we’ve made and gone like, ‘Oh yeah, the

Step-Panther Just Wanna Get Some Nachos By Hugh Robertson

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here’s a song on Step-Panther’s new Dreamcrusher EP called ‘Bad Mood’. It’s a quiet song, built on a lovely little guitar riff; single notes plucked in an almost non-committal way, noodling around on top of a slow bass line and a muted high-hat. Our protagonist is bummed out by everyone around him being stressed and sad, “Trying to make me do things that I don’t really like”. Everyone is disappointed with him and he doesn’t understand why they care so much. But he doesn’t want to talk to anyone about it, announcing instead, “I don’t wanna be here / Just wanna get some nachos.”

But then a guitar solo kicks in, like a beacon from the gloom, laden with melancholy and such depth of feeling that you immediately understand the singer: it’s not that he can’t communicate, it’s just that no one else understands his language. And as the solo builds, and the drums build to match it, you start to feel his frustration begin to boil over, and as the solo reaches its peak, it’s like all hell is about to break loose. But then it just stops, and returns to the noodly little riff, and you know that our protagonist has given up again, too exhausted by everything to even get angry about it.

Talking to Stevesie, Step-Panther’s singer/ guitarist, it’s easy to see the connection between the man and his characters. “I guess the point of [‘Bad Mood’] is, like, it’s really hard sometimes to communicate with people, and to say what you want,’ he says. ‘So it’s easier to write a song about it than explain it to them.”

“I don’t think I’m particularly poetic [or] that way inclined – to express myself through words, per se. I enjoy it, but I try to keep my lyrics pretty minimal, or if I try to write too many it starts to

radio will play that’. We decided fuck [an] EP, if this isn’t worthy of an album, then I don’t know what is.” Since then, the single has been added to high rotation on triple j, and voted #61 in the Hottest 100 last year. It’s also the title track of their just-released debut album.

They’re not likely to get to mainstream-safe too soon, however; Cornwall scoffs about the “softcock nonsense” pervading Australian music at the moment. “Everyone’s always real nice, making a real nice song and they just tell each other how thankful they are – fucking boring, it’s shit, I’m over it.”

Cornwall says Caress Your Soul is about all four band members having long-term girlfriends while on tour. “All of our relationships just deteriorated really fast… and violently. But then as cheesy as it sounds, we all kind of had each other,” he says.

“We didn’t realise what was happening at the time, but… a lot of the lyrics are all about that.”

Their trademark sound is still there – something Cornwall describes as “psychotic garage surf dub”. “It’s got some melodic dub bass lines but with a rock sensibility and it sounds a bit rough around the edges,” he explains, attributing this to their minimal technical training. “We just started out, we didn’t know what we were doing – like,

Perpetually on tour, Sticky Fingers are one of the hardest working bands in Sydney. “Our current manager, Neal Hunt, just started making us work our fucking arses off. We never realised how hard work being in a band was,” says Cornwall. “He sent us off on these endless tours in this shitty Tarago and we became total road warriors, but then sort of learned to love that.”

Mosh pits are inescapable at a Sticky Fingers gig, even for tunes in 3/4 time – Cornwall affectionately describes their fans as “loose!” But the boys have been thinking even bigger as they prepare for their upcoming string of live dates.

“We were watching Spinal Tap last night, just for a bit of rock’n’roll research,” says Cornwall, “and we wanna get some dry ice.”

With: Tuka (Thundamentals) Where: Manning Bar, University of Sydney When: Friday March 22 And: Caress Your Soul is out now on Sureshaker

The Barons of Tang The Gentlemen By Augustus Welby

become a bit pointless. I just say what I want to say, then keep the lyrics and play a guitar solo.

That suits me. If that makes sense.”

Stevesie also has a wonderfully dry, selfdeprecating sense of humour, which is a significant part of Step-Panther’s appeal. They spent many early live shows shuffling around in trackies and old t-shirts, cracking jokes like the audience had wandered into a rehearsal.

But that attitude comes across as relaxed and charming rather than arrogant or rude, and that same good-natured charm can be heard on tracks like ‘Rock & Roll Alone’ or ‘Skullface’.

Of the latter track, he says, “It took us a long time to actually get that song together. It’s just a song about a guy with a skull for a face. But I dunno, I just liked that image, and tried to turn it in to a song. Like, why not leave it [on the EP], because it’s fun? Rather than trying to say something too important that’s probably not accurate, I’d rather just make fun of things.”

A healthy sense of self-deprecation is always a good thing when you are putting your art out in the world. But what’s clear from the response to their debut, and the high-profile support slots (for Yuck, Kurt Vile and more) for which they’ve been hand-picked, is that there are lots of people taking Step-Panther very, very seriously.

The Australian garage scene is starting to make waves around the world, and Step-Panther are surfing the very crest of it.

With: Wax Witches Where: Goodgod Small Club When: Friday, March 15 And: Dreamcrusher EP out through Jerko

fter roughly six years of steady local and international touring, and a couple of intriguing EP releases, Melbourne seven-piece punk/world music collective Barons Of Tang have finished recording their debut full-length record. Bassist Julian Cue explains that they weren’t ready to make an album until now but, having gathered a more defined idea of how to present themselves on record, he’s satisfied with the finished product.

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A producer’s job is to get more out of the musicians than they would settle for themselves, and Cue is eager to stress the value of Voigt’s expert mediation. “Matt is obviously someone who has been working with bands for years and years because he is the king of diplomacy,” he says. “I am always impressed at how he can just suggest – not demand, but suggest – ‘Maybe just one more take for the history books, then we’ll move on to something else.’”

“We’ve done some recordings but never an album, and this one we wanted to get right and have sounding really good,” Cue says. “In the past we’ve had fairly dynamic recordings that I’m really proud of, but I couldn’t ever imagine anyone putting it on their stereo and listening to it. But I can see people listening to this one, which is nice.”

Cue admits that the process can be laborious if all seven Barons are voicing their opinion at once. “We used to just put it all in the ring and fight it out for every note, but that was a very time-consuming process. We ended up with these spasmodic songs, some of them are great but results may vary.” In fact, they’re far more productive when someone takes charge of each song. “Someone will come to the band with a recording and a chart of three or four sections of the song and say ‘This is my idea, let’s smash it out and make it ours.’ It definitely varies from song to song as far as who that is,” he says.

Despite their elevated studio confidence, Cue admits that it’s not exactly a breeze to capture the contributions of all seven members on record. “We’ve got about ten or twelve instruments that we perform live with, and recording [involves] even more, so it’s always tricky to know how to segment the recording process. We did a session live and then the horns and additional instruments on top. It takes a lot of time; there’s 50-odd tracks on every song on Pro Tools, which is a lot to juggle around.”

The Barons of Tang recently announced the departure of vocalist/accordionist Carlos Parraga. Parraga is present on the album but it was recorded with the understanding he’d be leaving once it was done. His departure inevitably marks a new phase for Barons of Tang. “We’ve been doing a bunch of shows without Carlos over the last few months and they’ve been going really well,” Cue says. “But certainly musically it is a big change for us and we’re just working through that at the moment.”

What: FrogFest With: Takadimi, Grandmaster Monk, Dave Bova Band: Divina Commedia When: Friday March 15, 7pm Where: The Red Rattler / 6 Faversham St, Marrickville

Xxx photo by Xxx

In order to manage their wayward tendencies, the Barons enlisted Australian producer Matt Voigt. Cue says Voigt was their “first and only choice”. “We were brainstorming producers and were like ‘All right, what local albums do we really love?’” explains Cue. “Funnily enough, it was some albums by The Nation Blue. I really loved the sounds so we looked up who engineered their albums and had a look at Matt’s resume and it’s pretty off the chain. He’s worked with Cat Power and Augie March and a ridiculous string of great Australian bands.

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Beaks [drummer Beaker Best] was listening to fucking Ja Rule when we first started… I think the band has its sound because it’s had a bunch of dudes trying to do something they couldn’t actually do,” he laughs.

The Presidents Of The United States Of America Rockin’ In The Free World By Nathan Jolly

“I

remember going on my honeymoon in September of ’95, and turning on MTV and seeing the Top 10, and we were number four, between Janet Jackson and Madonna. It was so incongruous.”

Chris Ballew is discussing the rapid rise his pop band The Presidents Of The United States Of America enjoyed in the mid-’90s, off the back of a string of novelty singles, and an eponymous debut record. Part Nashville twang, part Seattle diet-grunge, the record spawned four hit singles and a ‘Weird Al’ parody, quickly shifting three million units.

The album was initially released on the small Seattle indie label PopLlama, but by the time the record hit stores, the band were already being courted by every major in the country.

“It was pre-ordained that we were going to re-release the record [through a major],” says drummer Jason Finn. “Things were moving so fast for us back then. In the three months between us agreeing [to release] with PopLlama, and it coming out, it was already like, ‘OK, we’re at South By Southwest and everybody is trying to sign us. Something else is going to happen.’”

Presidents photo by Ken Leanfore

Not surprisingly, the relaxed recording atmosphere and relatively modest expectations resulted in the type of loose, playful record that, in hindsight, was always going to be a crossover hit. The grunge phenomenon was drawing to a close with the still-recent suicide of Kurt Cobain, and the chirpy, optimistic Brit-pop era was in full flight. The musical world was ready to take itself less seriously, and an album packed with hooky songs about scratching kitties,

“I remember turning on MTV and we were number four, between Janet Jackson and Madonna. It was so incongruous.”

peaches, dune buggies and salamanders was just the ticket.

“Four of the songs we did in a thirteen-hour stretch at [Seattle shitkicker studio] The Laundry Room, as a little $350 demo package,” says Ballew. “I had a cold and we were like ‘Bah, do it in one day’… but four of those songs ended up on the record, so the spirit of it was there.”

“We would have felt differently if we’d recorded [the first album] for a major,” continues Finn. “The whole idea that there’s a guy sitting in the studio going, ‘Don’t do it like that’ – well, they stopped doing that in the ’60s. They’ll let you record; they may not put your record out, but they’ll let you record it. So having no expectations in that regard definitely helped with the attitude of the record.”

As soon as Columbia Records got involved, the creation of the second album (II) was clearly affected – although Ballew blames himself for acquiescing to label pressure to record a follow-up quickly. “The record we made under major label supervision kinda suffered a bit, not because of the major label, but because we were exhausted,” he admits. “We did get a line from the label: ‘You’ve got to capitalise, you gotta make another record now’, and our management said, ‘No, you gotta take a year off’ – and we went and made the other record. Then we retired, but that wasn’t the label’s fault, that was our fault; we should have listened to our manager.”

The inevitable burnout that befell the Presidents is a common tale, but one that still clearly niggles at the band. Ballew in particular still blames himself for the 1998 dissolution, claiming he was just inexperienced and unwilling to discuss his issues.

“It was a bad strategy,” he sighs. “We just needed to take a break, we didn’t need to break up. But breaking up was the quickest way out of our major label deal. I handled it poorly. I became burned out and freaked out, and rather than talking about it, and getting it out in bursts, I sat on it until I just quit. So, hey kids, talk about things.”

The band quietly reformed in 2000, recording a third record, Freaked Out And Small, while still

remaining unofficially disbanded. The impetus to publicly reunite in 2003 actually came from an unlikely source.

“Krist Novoselic was actually the one who facilitated us,” says Ballew. “He asked us to back him up at an award show, in March of 2003. He asked us, and we sort of looked at each other and went, ‘Yeah, we could be The Presidents Of The United States Of America live on stage again...’”

The Presidents have remained active ever since, releasing two further albums, touring the world sporadically, and becoming a legacy band of sorts – remarkable for an act whose debut record opens with the lyrics “meow, meow, meow-meow meow-meow.” For the band, however, the moment their legacy was set in stone was when ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic parodied their first major label single ‘Lump’ with the Forrest-referencing ‘Gump’. “For me, it felt like a

cultural victory,” says Ballew, raising his arms in the air. “Just so flattering!”

“You gotta really be a jackass to not find the positive in that,” Finn adds.

“There are artists that have refused,” counters Ballew. “Al did that ‘Amish Paradise’ [a parody of Coolio’s über-serious single ‘Gangsta’s Paradise] and one of Coolio’s entourage gave it the thumbs-up, but he wasn’t authorised to, and then it came out, and a video came out, and Coolio found out about it, and was livid.

He hated it, and Al was very nervous for a little while there. I think he may have resolved that… once the cheques started coming in…”

With: Hey Geronimo When: Friday March 15 Where: UNSW Roundhouse / Anzac Parade, Kensington

BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13 :: 19

arts frontline

free stuff email: freestuff@thebrag.com

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

five minutes WITH

STEPH HARMON

on. Harmon, who was our own Fearless Leader for three years and before that was the foundereditor of Sydney culture website Throw Shapes, took five to explain what was so great about this new site that she had to dump us for it.

What’s Junkee all about, then? Junkee was brewed up by Sound Alliance (FasterLouder, Mess+Noise, inthemix et al.) to fill a gap we’ve all been feeling: why are we relying on American sites for our pop culture news and analysis?

There’s also not a whole heap of Australian websites that are focused, first and foremost, on quality writing. Junkee has a small team of amazing Australian writers and industry insiders, including published authors, artists, comedians, writing festival directors, editors of magazines, websites and literary journals, and even film and TV actors.

B

RAG is more than just your favourite free read – it’s a breeding ground for radness.

Our alumni have book deals, national radio shows and awesome boss jobs – like editing Australia’s newest pop culture website.

Ex-BRAGers Rob Moran and Steph Harmon are the co-editors at Junkee, a new site from Sound Alliance, who already dominate the web like we dominate the streets. Junkee is a mobile-first design (meaning it looks real purty and works real good on your phone) and is already full of tasty treats for your brain to nom

REKO RENNIE X THE BLOCK

Remember when the T2 building in Taylor Square got a fluorescent makeover? That was street artist Reko Rennie. This week he ups the ante, unveiling a new mural covering a Victorian-era terrace house in Redfern – created by Rennie and a team of local young Aboriginal artists. It’s called Welcome To Redfern, and is a celebration of the neighbourhood’s history of activism, community and culture. The official unveiling is Saturday March 23, but we’re laying bets on something colourful.

What are some of the must-reads so far?

The last two weeks have been a soft launch for us – we’re officially A Thing from Monday March 11 – but we’ve already been able to publish a bunch of incredible reads. Brendan Maclean, who you’d know from his awesome music, his prolific Twitter, and his viral video for ‘Stupid’, wrote a great How-To piece on crowd-funding, days after his Pozible campaign successfully raised over $20k. Sacha Molitorisz, who was on staff at the SMH for 19 years covering film, TV and everything else, joined the mass exodus at Fairfax recently, and wrote an op-ed for Junkee about the Herald’s switch to tabloid last week.

Sam Cooney, who edits Melbourne literary journal The Lifted Brow, has a fortnightly column

THE WINDMILL

The Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority are spinning out a month of national history with a cultural crash course at a four-storey pop-up Windmill. Winding up the crème de la crème of Aussie arts, the intimate venue will host live performances by Bell Shakespeare, with curiosity-satiating workshops run by artist Diego Bonetto, tours by the Historic Houses Trust Guide, and the audio soundscapes of FBi Radio’s All The Best, casting a breeze throughout The Rocks from April 12 for a month exactly. And, of

about writing on Twitter, written as tweets which he’s tweeting as he writes. BRAG’s own Caitlin Welsh put together an amazing piece about Australia’s excruciatingly outdated TV landscape, and Alasdair Duncan revealed his secret Twitter identity – he was @TrekAndTheCity, with close to 20 000 followers – and interviewed Not Tilda Swinton and Modern Day Seinfeld, to discuss the strange phenomenon of Twitter celebrity. And there’s so much more to come.

If you could have anyone write for Junkee, who would it be? Gay Talese, Nora Ephron, Joan Didion, Sasha Frere-Jones, David Remnick or Nitsuh Abebe... Except no, because that would defeat the purpose. Australia’s got its own deep pool of incredible voices, and Junkee’s doing pretty well so far.

How have things changed on the interwebz since you set up Throw Shapes? There’s a lot more navel-gazing, and zillions more cats.

GAME OF THRONES! SEASON 2! WINTER IS COMING!

So, um, how good was Game of Thrones last season? From the Battle Of The Blackwater to Joffrey getting slapped again; from “WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS?” to everything Arya does, because Arya is a total boss – it’s got politics, war, magic, family, honour, courage, and ten minutes of ‘sexposition’ every episode, and we can’t get enough. If you’ve been naughty and downloaded it, now is the time to atone by snapping up Season 2 on deluxe DVD. It’s totally worth it, with more featurettes, bonuses and commentaries than you can poke a sword at; get yourself reacquainted with the family trees, grudges and the characters you most want to see eaten slowly by ravens, before Season 3 takes over your life (starting April 1 on Foxtel, airing just two hours after the US).

To win a copy of Season 2 on DVD, email freestuff@thebrag.com with your postal address, and tell us your favourite character.

Do you still love us at all? Is print really dead (to you)? I will never stop loving BRAG. Dee Jefferson, Caitlin Welsh, Alasdair Duncan, Nathan Jolly, Luke Telford, Elmo Keep – they’re all brilliant BRAG writers, whose words you can read on Junkee now, too. And print will never be dead to me. Just ask my mailman. And then push her a little bit for bending all my Believers.

What: junkee.com Also: @junkeedotcom on Twitter And: We guess you’re alright, Harmon.

Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen

course, to make the most of things (and pop-up Windmills), you can grind your own flour while you’re there. Wheat are you waiting for?!

WE ARE HERE

When Sydney’s favourite street artists, photographers and illustrators combine their powers Captain Planet-style, obviously magic happens. In this case, WE ARE HERE – a mural presenting a potted history of parades in the Oxford Street precinct. Part of the City Of Sydney’s annual Streetware program and curated

by Platform72’s Juliet Rossier, the mural will feature on the rear façade of 82-106 Oxford Street (AKA: Foley Street). At 15m high and 75m long, it’s hard to miss, and you won’t want to either. It launches on Friday March 22 from 6pm.

To see what other arty stuff is happening on walls, see cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/cityart

PRINT & STAPLE

If you like your art pocket-sized and affordable, head along to the TATE @ The Toxteth in Glebe this Wednesday, March 13, for the second edition of Print & Staple: a mini zine fair of limitededition runs by local contributors from all walks of art, and all for just $5. Contributors for this one include Joel Gibson, Camwall, Zoe Weber, Nina Gibbes, Roach, Clams, Omas, Boo, Will Mclean, H20e, Retro, Scott Marsh, William P Brown, Fintan Magee, Comfy, Drugrug, Will Cooke, Qwux, Srate & Elvis, Pasio, Mykey, Frekl, Planet Destroy, Luke Shirlaw, Onshow, and other improbable names. It kicks off from 6pm. thetate.com.au

QUIZ MEISTERS

ART! by Beastman

IN OUR NATURE

Paint pals Beastman and Phibs are teaming up for a joint show at aMBUSH, celebrating their mutual appreciation for organic inspirations – no, not that kind (but: maybe that kind) – from the mathematically perfect and symmetrical elements of the natural world, to its more chaotic climes; from life as we know it, to more alien forms. Known for bold, detailed linework and vibrant colour, the two artists have painted their nature portraits on wood, and the works will be accompanied by an atmospheric sound design by fellow Sydney artist Daniel ‘Ears’ O’Toole (who is also presenting a large-scale mural for the show). In Our Nature opens Friday March 22 from 6pm at aMBUSH Gallery (4A James Street, Waterloo.) ambushgallery.com

JURASSIC LOUNGE

March 2013 may as well be the best month ever for dinosaurs in Sydney – not only are alt-rock heroes Dinosaur Jr in town, but Jurassic Lounge has a huge month of parties planned for you every Tuesday. On March 12, there’s a Masked Ball, featuring music from Polographia, The Squeezebox Trio and Robopop DJs, as well as mask decorating with Kitiya Palaskas and a pole dancing class; Parramasala visits the Lounge on March 19, with the Museum decked out like a Rajasthani tent for a Bollywood Party with South Asian bands and DJs; and on March

LATE NIGHT LOLS

Campfire Collective – the kids behind the Storytelling series and the festival funnies at Harvest and Peats Ridge – are taking over Late Night Library at Newtown Library this Wednesday, March 13, with the season launch of their erstwhile series Never Not Funny. First up is Michael Hing, warming up no doubt for his Sydney Comedy Festival shows; then on April 10, locals Dave Jory and Sam Bowring. Thereafter, you’ll be able to find the funny every second Wednesday of the month until June at Newtown Library (8–10 Brown Street). More info at campfirecollective.com.au

26, head in for a Pacific Islands Beach Party, held in conjunction with the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, showcasing Islander art and culture (including live Samoan tattooing!). See you there – it’ll be T-Rexcellent…

REPORTAGE

Reportage is a documentary photography festival that’s now in its 11th season, and it’s launching into its second decade with the exciting announcement that its 2013 incarnation will be a part of VIvid Sydney. Featuring exhibitions, largescale projections, talks and workshops, Reportage will this year include work and appearances from David Burnett, James Nachtwey, Tim Page, Robert Pledge and more, as well as images of Cuba and a five-day masterclass by American photographer couple Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb. The class is sold-out, but check reportage.com.au for details on how to apply for one of two special places, and details about the festival in general.

xxxx

20 :: BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13

Remember those kids in high school that always churned out strange facts that seemed totally useless at the time? All grown up, the Quiz Meisters are on a mission to prove their value, being pioneers of high-technology trivia for a decade to date. Showcasing innovative games with an electric cast of characters, the Quiz Meisters have even crafted a weblog, embracing social media to cater to the thousands who’ve joined the cause. Their latest venture is titled ‘Panda Doodle’. Intrigued? Get your trivia fix Tuesdays at the Abercrombie from 7.30 or at the Pumphouse from 6pm, or head down to the Bat & Ball at 7pm on Wednesdays. Mentally prepare at quizmeisters.com.au

Michael Hing

“ENCAPSULATING THE CLIMAX OF AN ERA” \\ URB.com “BEAUTIFULLY CONSTRUCTED EXPLORATION OF LEGACY, SET TO SOME OF THE MOST ATTRACTIVE CONCERT FOOTAGE IN RECENT HISTORY.” \\ TWITCH FILM “‘SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS’ IS LCD SOUNDSYSTEM’S ‘THE LAST WALTZ’”\\ INDIEWIRE INCLUDES THE FULL 4 HOUR FAREWELL CONCERT

AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY 13 MARCH

BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13 :: 21

THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE didn’t know what was going on?

They didn’t realise it was me? I’m glad I stayed up until 11pm!”

Tricky Business By Alicia Malone

Steve Buscemi and Steve Carell

Still, the show was impressive; Copperfield dazzled the audience with his incredible illusions, so much so that the reporters (myself included) hung around afterwards to get a photo with him. The same reporters who interview famous people every week. “It’s so true, there’s something about Copperfield that gets you excited,” Carell admits.

“I was talking to someone about it last night; you meet hundreds of actors, directors, producers, but David Copperfield is one of a kind.

He’s a living legend.”

Carell got the chance to work with Copperfield while researching his character, Burt Wonderstone – a flashy Las Vegas magician who has been performing the same act with his partner Anton (Steve Buscemi) for years. They’ve completely lost their passion, but Wonderstone’s ego is too bloated to admit they need to change. And they’re quickly losing audience members to renegade street magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey), who performs torturous physical feats, very different to Wonderstone’s velvet-suit-andsmoke-machine act.

“I’d never seen comedy about the magic world, specifically the Vegas magic world,” says Carell. “It really did seem ripe for comedy. We didn’t have to go too far either – the costumes, the wigs, it all seems ridiculous, but in context? Not at all. You see that in Vegas right now – it’s not that far outside of reality.

One of the things I tried to pick up from the magicians I watched was a sense of showmanship, that flair and panache. That’s so much of the act.

It’s not just the illusion; it’s all of the build-up to the illusion. One of the magicians I worked with was very specific about that. You can make a ball disappear and it’s gone, but it’s much more intriguing to have the story behind it... producing the ball, making sure everyone sees it, taking your time, amplifying it. There’s an art to it that was fun to try and replicate. The glamour of it all, it’s fun and it’s funny.”

T

G IV EA W AY S

he night before interviewing Steve Carell, star of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, a group of reporters were treated to a David Copperfield magic show in Las Vegas. Halfway through

the show, Copperfield introduced the actor, who appeared on stage to wordlessly give the magician his shoes. The audience reaction to the hugely popular comedic actor was a tad underwhelming – he elicited

only a handful of claps. When sitting down with Carell the following day, I suggest perhaps people didn’t think it was actually him. “I really knocked everybody’s socks off there!” he says with a laugh. “Do you think people

As well as being a great inspiration for comedy, magic shows in Vegas are big business. David Copperfield owns eleven islands in the Bahamas, thanks to performing up to 12 packed shows every week. “Magic shows are Santa,” says Carell. “They give you the ability to believe in something that’s unbelievable. And like Santa Claus, even when kids are beyond the time they should believe, it’s more fun if you do. That’s what magic is. It gives adults and kids the ability to see something that doesn’t make sense to their brain, but they allow themselves to believe it. There aren’t many things in the world that let us do that.”

The film also stars several Hollywood and comedy heavyweights: Carell’s co-stars include Steve Buscemi, Jim Carrey and Alan Arkin, who plays Burt Wonderstone’s childhood idol, magician Rance Holloway. Arkin and Carell worked together previously on Little Miss Sunshine and Get Smart; the latter in particular proved that they have a distinct comic chemistry.

“I didn’t think there should be anyone else considered for that part,” says Carell, who is also a producer on the film. “[S]traight away Alan was saying ‘What if I tried this?’ – he was already into it, creating the character and bouncing ideas as soon as he got the script. He’s my idol. I can’t believe I have his phone number. If I could do every movie with Alan Arkin I would.”

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone also reunites Carell with Jim Carrey.

The two last worked together on 2003’s Bruce Almighty, playing rival TV news anchors. “I like to do multiple takes, and with someone like Jim Carrey you never know what he’s going to come up with,” Carell says. “You can strike gold with him every time, he’s incredible to watch. Every take is different. He’s tireless. I’ve never seen anyone so committed to their work and that pursuit of perfection. He would never rest on his laurels. His physical comedy is world class. I don’t think anyone can do what he does.”

And then there’s legendary character actor Steve Buscemi, whom Carell was determined to get on board. “He’s such a good actor, he could do anything. He was somebody I always thought from the first moment I read the script, if we could get Steve Buscemi that would be perfect. He read the script and he was giddy – I ran into Steve before we started shooting, he was so excited. It was neat.”

Carell says he still has fun with every single character he plays, though after a run of relatively straitlaced roles, Burt Wonderstone allowed him to let his hair down a bit. “I read this script and I thought, this is going to be silly and funny and fun to do,” he says. “It’s not going to change the world. It’s just a really nice palate cleanser.

That’s something I haven’t done in a little while. It’s fun to do and fun to watch.”

And while Burt Wonderstone might take his success for granted, you won’t catch Carell making the same mistake. “That’s one of the things I’m careful about. I always am grateful. I’m always appreciative of my good fortune. It would be time to quit if I started to get complacent about it, or nonchalant. I’m too lucky.”

What: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone When: In cinemas March 14

SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS! DVD!

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T

here are a couple of shots at the end of this insta-classic rock doc/concert film hybrid, as confetti and sweat are raining down on the crowd at Madison Square Garden as LCD Soundsystem wrap up their last show ever, where the camera picks out individuals. There’s a guy in a panda suit who can’t believe it’s over. There’s a teenage boy bawling his eyes out. And there’s Aziz Ansari, eyes wide, a very Tom Haverford smile on his face, having the time of his life. It’s just one of many moments in Shut Up And Play The Hits that remind you how few bands create a communal experience quite like LCD. It’s a film to come back to again and again – and for that, a copy on DVD can come in handy.

You can grab one in stores from March 13, or win one from us right now – just email freestuff@thebrag.com with your postal address, and tell us about a gig you wish you could watch over and over.

WIN!

Barbara

Jack Dee

[FILM] The Space Between Us By Dee Jefferson

[COMEDY] Please Don’t Ask Me To Smile By Alasdair Duncan Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld

B

arbara is one of the quieter, less ‘flashy’ performers within international-arthouse cinema over the last 12 months; a film almost universally treasured by those who see it, without receiving the hype of, say, Amour, Holy Motors or even obscurantist Portuguese film Tabu. Its director, Christian Petzold, has no real international profile outside of festivals and cinephiles; there are no stars or even nameactors; and there’s no gimmick upon which to hang the marketing. This is just a simple film about two lonely people – doctors – trying to communicate and co-exist in the politically and socially oppressive atmosphere of rural German Democratic Republic, circa 1980.

Jack Dee photo by Andy Hollingworth

Nevertheless, Barbara won the Silver Bear and an audience award at the Berlin International Film Festival last year, and is the first of Petzold’s films to reach Australian cinemas – 13 years after his break out feature, The State I Am In, premiered in Berlin. It’s not that his films are particularly niche – they’re just more subtle than, say, German period pieces like Downfall and The Lives Of Others. Particularly compared to the latter film, Barbara is offering up a different, less dogmatic vision of the GDR than we are used to seeing in New German cinema.

“I was a little bit depressed about all these period pictures in Germany,” says Petzold.

“We make so many pedagogical movies here, because we want to finish history with our movies – we want to say ‘This was history, and now it’s the end, and after the movie finishes we can go back to our present and our future.’”

Barbara presents a less straightforward idea of oppression and freedom in the GDR, and focuses its attention on the relationship between its two leads: reluctant socialist Barbara (Nina Hoss), who has been banished to a rural hospital after her application to leave the Republic is rejected, and her supervising

doctor, André (Ronald Zehrfeld), who may or may not be spying on her for the police.

“I think the truth is always between the people – the characters,” says Petzold on his approach to this politically charged material.

Interestingly, while he insisted on using real locations instead of sets, and actual artefacts instead of props, he prepared his actors via a five-day screening session in a theatre in Berlin, where they watched, among other things, the Howard Hawks film To Have And Have Not, and Alan J. Pakula's Klute, starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.

Of Hawks' film, Petzold says, “We have a couple – a man on a ship and by himself and he doesn’t want to have any connection to the political reality. On the land are the fascists, but he’s on the sea, which is free, and he is by himself. And then a woman comes. When he and she meet each other, there is mistrust everywhere and they are scanning each other. … [These characters] are always reading between the lines. […] It’s not the kind of love where someone says ‘I love you, let’s go to the cinema, let’s have dinner together’ – because these kinds of [social] contracts don’t work anymore in this situation. So they’re more interested in each other! […] The situation in the GDR, it also brings about in people new body language and a new language of speaking, hiding yourself – I like this idea very much.”

Klute, on the other hand, echoed Barbara’s complicated message about freedom and love. “In Klute, we see the loneliness of the prostitute,” says Petzold. “She thinks she is free, but she isn’t free – and it takes this man looking at her and talking to her for her to see that she’s actually been in jail.”

When/where: at Hoyts Cinema Paris, Dendy Newtown and Chauvel Cinema from March 7

B

ritish comedian Jack Dee made his name as a stand-up comic, but has taken the last few years off, choosing to focus on other things like writing and TV work. You may have seen him on QI, or trying to wrangle the terrible twosome known as Jedward on an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks. This year sees his first stand-up tour in half a decade.

“My need to be onstage was just boiling over,” he explains. “A lot of my early life was spent trying to understand things, and I came to the realisation that I needed to perform, to get them out. These past few years have been great, but I realised that I’ve missed the immediacy of being onstage and doing a live performance for a crowd. It was high time to get back into it.”

Some comedians will decide on a theme or title and them build their entire show around it – think Ricky Gervais with Animals, for example – but Dee admits he’s never been able to think this way. “I talk about anything that comes into my mind,” he says, “and then just sort of pull the show into line around it once I’ve got the general gist.” At this point in his life, Jack Dee is a settled and respectable family man, so the bulk of his humour is drawn from this. “I’ve always exploited my life for my comedy,” he says, “and I figured my family would be a good starting point for the audience. It’s easy to make a connection through those common experiences, and my family are a huge part of my life, so it just feels natural for me to talk about it.”

Many teenagers would be mortified to have their lives under the comedy microscope, but Dee’s are pretty sanguine about the whole thing. “I think, in a funny way, they understand the heightened aspects of it,” he says. “The show is my interpretation of the world and life – it’s a cartoon version of real life, and they appreciate that. I think they enjoy it – they always seem to come away chuckling and repeating bits of it, so that’s good. At the same time, I need to be conscious that there are certain things that need to stay private within a family, things that are too precious to pull out and pull apart in front of an audience.”

Dee’s trademark is his deadpan “grumpy” persona.

When he was a young man, he found people constantly commented on how his face naturally settled into a bit of a frown. “Cheer up mate, it might never happen!” was a phrase he heard a lot from well-meaning folks, and it irritates him to this day.

“I hated that one the most,” he says, “and I’d always think, well, it just did happen, didn’t it?”

These days, though, his scowl is an integral part of his act. “As soon as I began to get a profile as a comedian, it switched right around,” he says.

“People would come up to me and they’d be terribly surprised to learn that I’m not as miserable in real life as I appear onstage. I just have that kind of face […] It’s not my fault, and I don’t do it deliberately, but I just don’t smile very easily. Smiling is overrated, anyway.”

What: An Evening With Jack Dee Where: The Enmore Theatre When: Sunday April 28, 8pm

Tales From The Fogg [ART] Roger Foley-Fogg Lights Up By Dee Jefferson

C

urious Sydneysiders are in for a treat this month, as pioneering and psychedelically inclined ‘lumino kinetic’ artist Roger Foley – AKA Ellis D Fogg – unveils a lifetime of mementos, and puts them under the hammer. Fogg moved in the same circles as the controversial OZ magazine crew; he started in theatre lighting, and got lured into the bright lights of Sydney’s party scene, graduating to commercial fashion and rock concert collaborations, and elaborate moving light displays and sculptures for the Mardi Gras and Sydney’s New Year’s Eve celebrations. His five decades of creative hijinx will be displayed in the exhibition Tales From The Fogg, featuring posters, art, costumes (including his collaborations with Madam Lash) and various other psychedelic artefacts. We asked him what it all really means.

How did you come to be a ‘lumino kinetic’ artist?

When I was 12, my Auntie ‘Booka’ Eileen Foley – who was a musician, and who was also in 1933 the first female disc jockey in Australia – she told me, “When you are thinking about a career, Roger, the future will be guitars and lights.” This was in 1954!

What was your training?

There was no formal training for theatre lighting designers; lighting was not regarded very highly – certainly not as something to design! I did an engineering course for a couple of years at UNSW, and then did a year of an National Art School course, but did not complete [either of] them as they were moving too slow for me. I

used the knowledge gained to design and build my own light machines and light sculptures.

I became President of the University of NSW Drama Society, and practiced producing live theatre with the lights and sculptures and other artworks… When I started producing psychedelic rock shows, I would borrow special-effects machines and lights from the various theatres in which I worked.

How did you become political?

The Eichmann trials in 1962 when I was 20 were influential, as his defense that he was following legal orders was thrown out of court, and thus the principle of a valid opposition to the state was established in law – that civil disobedience was a valid right of every individual.

How and when did that moniker – Ellis D Fogg – arise?

I was always known as Fogg because I was of a contemplative nature and would often think deeply about things… I embraced the name, as to me it resonated with Heisenberg’s principle of indeterminacy, where it is proven that one can not ever ‘know things’ without altering them.

Later when I needed a name for the collection of people who worked on my shows, I added Ellis D because the Director of Public Health in San Francisco in the late ’60s was a Dr. Ellis D. Sox. Remember that LSD was legal at the time.

How did you come to collaborate with Madam Lash?

I was providing some lighting and fogg for a National Art School production of A Midsummer

The Spirit Of India by Roger Foley Night's Dream, at her request… She was a fascinating and totally original thinker – as well as being extraordinarily beautiful – and was very enthusiastic about performing in my shows. The first show we did together was a benefit for The Yellow House, in about 1973.

What do you do these days to pass the time?

Think up new things to do.

What: Opens Thursday 14 March, 6-9pm Where: 107 Projects @ 107 Redfern Street, Redfern And: Tales From The Fogg continues until April 1, with various satellite events, parties, screenings and performances. Entry to the exhibition is free, shows cost $15/$20, and we hear there’s a bar…

BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13 :: 23

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.

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof ■ Theatre

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

smash palace

PICS :: TL

Until April 7 @ Belvoir St April 10-21 @ Theatre Royal

01:03:13 :: White Rabbit :: 30 Balfour St Chippendale

If you have scrupulously saved yourself for experiencing Tennessee Williams’ classic on the stage and have somehow avoided the Elia Kazan film version with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor, you might be surprised to find that despite their star billing, the play is as much about dysfunctional father-son relationships as it is about marital acrimony. And even though the play is bookended by scenes between embattled husband and wife Brick and Maggie ‘The Cat’, there’s a good chunk of stage time in the middle where nothing seems so important as a father’s inability to understand his son, and his son’s inability to communicate with his father.

burning man

PICS :: TL

At least, these scenes somehow resonate strongest in Simon Stone’s hyperactive production – despite, again, the star billing for the roles of Maggie (played here by erstwhile screen actress (Jacqueline McKenzie) and Brick (played here by Ewen Leslie).

Perhaps it’s because they’re the least fussy in terms of staging, and the most forceful in terms of performance. Even on opening night, with Marshall Napier reading the role of ‘Big Daddy’ from a script (having picked up the role two weeks earlier when Anthony Phelan pulled out of the production for health reasons) during the climactic lunch scene, he and Leslie were in danger of stealing McKenzie’s thunder. Almost. Napier sells the vulnerability, vulgarity and ruthlessness of his character by turns; and Leslie modulates between spiritual exhaustion and the flashes of warm charm that made the younger Brick the toast of his town. One gets the sense of a charismatic personality whose full attention, at the height of their powers, would feel like warm sunshine on a frosty day.

01:03:13 :: The Burner Gallery :: 19 - 25 Wellington St Chippendale

Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

Precinct Night 4: Chippendale/Redfern March 15, 6-10pm / Mclemoi Gallery, 45 Chippen St If you like your Art Month with a splash or two of booze, you’ll prolly like their Precinct Nights – a popular part of last year’s festival that returns this year. The Precinct Nights are all about celebrating Sydney’s hotbeds of arty awesomeness – including Surry Hills, Rozelle and Darlinghurst. Our pick of the bunch is #4, which focuses on Chippendale and Redfern, on Friday March 15. Conduct your own DIY walking tour around some incredible group and solo shows in spaces like Kaleidoscope, White Rabbit, Carriageworks (for Song Dong’s must-see installation Waste Not), DNA Projects, and the USyd and UTS galleries, before congregating at the Art Bar at Mclemoi for drinks and tunes from FBi Radio DJs. Plus, it’s all free, free, free. See www.artmonthsydney.com.au/explore for more details.

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Napier is hamstrung only temporarily while he’s learning his lines – he already owns the role to the point where you cannot imagine how Phelan (usually a gentle presence on stage) could compete. Leslie, on the other hand, isn’t for everyone, and his performance, while committed and harrowing, seems to be a matter of taste (if opening night foyer chatter was anything to go by). Less controversial is McKenzie’s performance, which is electric-charged with girlish vivacity and fits of pique, exploding into a kind of desperate, self-loathing cruelty.

If anything, she might be too likeable a Maggie…

Williams’ script treads a fine line between the tragic and the comic, with the potential for some of the side parts – the wilfully cheerful matriarch Ida, the greedy, scheming sisterin-law Mae, and the gormless local priest – to slide over into pure caricature. Lynette Curran (playing Ida) is far too good to fall into this trap, but some of the other actors don’t manage the line so well – and casting Gareth Davies as the priest feels more like a joke (albeit a funny one). More problematic is the rotating stage – efficient in the opening scene in terms of transitions, but increasingly distracting during meaty dialogue scenes.

The design team pile on, with lashings of rainbow streamers, sparkling party hats and lurid cake, racks of designer couture pulled on and flung off faster than a Paris Fashion Week show, and a rotating phalanx of heels – Miu Miu, Giuseppi Zanotti, Louboutin... All these things are in danger of sidelining the dialogue in those meaty, emotional scenes.

That said – Stone’s production, perhaps particularly for someone experiencing the story for the first time, has the capacity to

be absorbing. Ending with a quiet, defeated whimper instead of a bang, it left this audience member feeling like they’d been put through the wringer.

Dee Jefferson ■ Film

BARBARA In cinemas now As its title suggests, Barbara is hermetically focused on the title character (Nina Hoss), to the point that it takes a while to realise the film is a period piece. She’s a doctor who has been transferred from the prestigious medical university The Charité in East Berlin to a small hospital near the Baltic Sea, as punishment for expressing a wish to leave the country. The year, of course, is 1980, with the activity of the Stasi (East Germany’s secret police force) making Barbara’s covert plans of escape in her new town a highstakes gambit, and the affection shown toward her by a co-worker something to be suspicious of at every turn.

Writer/director Christian Petzold is one of the foremost names of the Berlin School of filmmaking – the term attributed to a contemporary, non-commercially-inclined national cinema movement, comparable to the New German Cinema of the early ’70s, that spawned Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog, among others. This is the first of Petzold’s films to break out of the festival ghetto and get an Australian theatrical run, with comparisons to The Lives of Others making it an easier sell than his earlier features. While Barbara is less accessible and more deliberately paced than its Oscar-winning counterpart, it also evinces greater intelligence in its filmmaking and writing; it’s not as prone to heavy character-typing, nor reliant on contrivance to drive the story along.

Instead, Barbara’s gradual opening-up is what progresses the narrative, and Hoss (who’s something of a Petzold regular) expertly conveys flickers of paranoia and burgeoning warmth under her stoic demeanour. But what truly makes the film as embraceable as it is admirable is the surprising place where it ends up. Without getting into spoiler territory, it’s refreshing to see a so-called art film that doesn’t have the worst in store for its characters in the name of ‘realism’, nor resort to tacked-on, easy uplift. It’s one of the more satisfying endings to a film in recent memory, and more than worth the chilly wait.

Ian Barr ■ Film

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL In cinemas now A prequel story – of sorts – to L. Frank Baum’s classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, this film tells the story of how a guy with a bag of tricks blew in and became the feared and revered man behind the curtain.

It starts well, presented in black and white and in Academy Ratio, the first visual homage (of which there are many) to Victor Fleming’s still-marvellous 1939 classic, The Wizard of Oz. Oscar, stage name Oz (James Franco), a carnival magician who spends his days rattling through a

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

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

hammy smoke-and-mirrors routine to an audience caught between scepticism and hope. He’s buoyed by loyal assistant Frank (Zach Braff) and the adoration of women who fall under his spell all too easily. Led by his desire for greatness, he rebuffs the affections of local girl Annie (Michelle Williams) and hops a hot air balloon straight into a twister as soon as his slights of hand begin to catch up with him.

Much like Dorothy’s story, what happened in Kansas doesn’t stay in Kansas, and these are the same problems that follow him to Oz, with a switch to full frame and Technicolor.

There are three witches aiding and abetting Oscar’s journey – Theodora (Mila Kunis), a naive young thing with a fiery temper and great leather pants; Evanora (Rachel Weisz), a vision in green; and Glinda (Williams again) a kind-hearted protector of the people. All have their secrets, not least that there’s a wicked sister lurking in there somewhere. Braff returns to voice Finley,

Oscar’s winsome monkey sidekick.

Director Sam Raimi, working from a screenplay by Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire, finds it hard to set the tone. The jokes fall flat; given that we already know the ending, there’s no real sense of impending danger; and Franco is difficult to believe as a charming charlatan out of his depth. Williams and Weisz do their best with the little they’re given, but Kunis is unable to balance her tricky character, which leads to a shrill, unsatisfying performance. The look of the film is as dreamy as you could hope for, the key CGI characters beautifully rendered, but the nice juxtaposition of real and animated sets are let down by cheap-thrill 3D effects.

Witches, munchkins, flying monkeys – it’s all there, just like the travel brochure, but the actual trip feels a bit forced and lifeless.

Kate Jinx (Picture Show, FBi 94.5)

Short Film Competition entryo ftoorm

G .au ncpic.org d an a lo n w to do entry form

closing date

All entries mu be received bst 18 October 20 y 13 accompanied by an entry form

The National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre (NCPIC) Short Film Competition gives young people between the ages of 15 and 25 years the opportunity to showcase their creative talent and express their thoughts and ideas around cannabis issues.

Brief

The film can be in any style or genre (i.e. drama, comedy, documentary, science-fiction, etc) but must be a 30 second TVC (i.e. in the style of a TV commercial) and creatively explore the issues and risks surrounding cannabis and driving.

Prize Money There will be one national

Oz The Great And Powerful

winner selected, with prize money offered of $5,000 for the producer of the winning entry. There will be two runner-up prizes of $2,000 each.

Street Level WITH

VHILS

A

lexandre Farto grew up in Lisbon, Portugal during the tumultuous late ’80s and ’90s, and starting writing graf at the age of 13. Surrounded by the fading revolutionary stencils and murals of the ’70s and ’80s as they were overlaid with the new consumerist propaganda of the ’90s and naughties, he not only grew to love the power of art, but also its transience and mutability – what he calls the “poetics of decay”.

At some point he adopted the tag Vhils, and developed what is now a trademark style: the creation of large-scale murals or portraits by means of a ‘subtraction’ of the surface (via things like chisels, acid, bleach and apparently even explosives). At the age of 20 he moved to London, to study visual art at Central Saint Martin’s College. These days, he creates elaborate, fine-detailed, largescale wall-pieces on walls around the world.

This month he’s in Sydney, for the first time, for Art Month, and courtesy of Berlin gallery Skalitzers. Check out the show – or keep your eyes peeled skywards and sidewards…

Tell us about this piece (pictured above): I have done this wall beginning of last year in Shanghai. This one has a special story: it was in an area being demolished in the heart of the old town in Shanghai – you know, these places that the government takes over, where it asks the people who are living

around to move from their houses. This one was the only one left in the demolished area and an entire family was still living there. You even have a kitchen garden! I carved the face of the woman who was living there; I did it to give her a voice I guess.

How did you create it? First, I took pictures of the lady, then, I marked the face on the wall with paint. The day after I came back with a hammer drill and broke the wall, all the parts that had been marked... this is how I do it, I scratched the superficial layer, revealing the deeper layer, with all the interpretation that people can take from it...

And what is Dissolve focusing on? All the works that I do are linked with the city, both by the materials and the images I work on, collected or taken from that same city. The work is a comment on the things that link us, differentiate us, and the ones who uniform us in a way, in this globalised world. I will be here for the next three weeks.

What: VHILS: Dissolve When: Opens March 21 from 6-10pm / closes April 6 Where: 140 George Street (Rocks Pop-Up) More: skalitzers.com / artmonthsydney. com.au / alexandrefarto.com BRAG :: 503 :: 11:02:13 :: 25

EL LOCO OPENING

bread&thread Food & Fashion News

TRAINING GROUNDS

The Grounds of Alexandria has quickly become a fixture in Sydney’s cutthroat coffee/brunch scene, and if you’d like to get the skinny (latte) on how to cut it with the best tampers, steamers and bean-slingers in the biz, you’re in luck. The Grounds’ head barista, Jack Hanna, will be conducting two Saturday workshops – Latte Art & Basic Barista Skills (May 11 and June 8) and Roasting & Cupping (March 23, May 25 and June 22) – to help you impress your friends, condemn inferior brews and talk about coffee the way your dad talks about wine. $80 gets you a spot in the class, a bag of coffee, and a Certificate of Completion. Call 9699 2225 to book, and hurry – there are only 10 spots each day.

VINTAGE TEE DAY

Outfit by Kathleen Choo

STUDENT FASHION

BLACK PENNY

Bars on corners just feel cosier and better than other bars, you know? That’s why we’re big fans of new drinkery, eatery and gallery space Black Penny. We also like the rad lowbrow wall art, $14 cocktails that are both grownup (not too sweet) and fun (chilli, ginger and tequila anyone?), local brews from Young Henrys and The Hills, unfussy tasting plates (more like TASTY plates, amirite?)… and that it’s stumbling distance from BRAG HQ. Find it at 648 Bourke St, Surry Hills, across the road from Bar Cleveland.

MEH-HEE-KO

EL SLIP LOCO INN

While we’re talking south of the border (or, more accurately for us, north-east of several borders) you can also stuff your face with Dan Hong’s killer tacos at Slip Inn all through March. El Loco, tucked behind the Excelsior on Foveaux St, is running a pop-up at the hotel, featuring the usual suspects: tacos, hot dogs, tequila, messiness. It went down a treat at the Opera House all summer, and we imagine that a sloppy little pocket of deliciousness is a good start to a long night of dancing at Chinese Laundry…

We’re pretty sure you all know by now that “Mexican” doesn’t mean huge piles of sour cream, cheddar and bean slop on warm Doritos. But hold onto your pico de gallo, because this is the freshest Mex gets – Mejico, which recently opened on Pitt Street in the CBD, claims to look like a restaurant and think like a market. That means market-fresh fish for ceviche (their menu describes one as “salmon in a coconut bikini”), citrus for cocktails, guac made right in front of you, all kinds of chillies, and slow-cooked meats straight from paddock to plate. Sounds like a recipe for more deliciousness at dinner (and lunch) and less farting in bed. Check out Mejico’s menu and killer décor at 105 Pitt Street, from 11.30am every day.

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PYRMOM-NOM-NOM Pyrmont is one of those bustling city precincts that’s so bustling you tend to sort of bustle right out of it. Here’s a reason to stay – the Pyrmont Festival Of Wine, Food & Art, which will take over the whole suburb from May 17-29. Now in its third year, it’s a collab between the City of Sydney, Pyrmont-Ultimo Chamber of Commerce and the tourism and wine body of Mudgee. The best day to head over is Saturday May 19, when a huge food, wine and art fair will take over Pirrama Park, featuring over 120 Mudgee-area wines to put in your mouth. Bustle on over to pyrmontfestival.com to check out details on other events like degustations, concerts and the Sculpture Garden.

ARGYLEXCHANGE

If you haven’t been back to The Rocks staple The Argyle since you embarrassed yourself in the freaky Star Trek unisex loos, it’s time to return. ArgyleXchange now incorporates four killer venues: The Cut Bar & Grill for steaks and sustainable seafood, Saké for classic and fusion sushi and Japanese (matched with imported sakes), The Argyle bar that you know and love, and Ananas, the gorgeous French-Mediterranean bowerbird nest of a bistro/ champagne bar. There are all kinds of special offers, set menus, and happy hours on to celebrate the relaunch – check out argylexchange.com.au for all the info.

FASHION WEEKEND

Apply for a higher Mastercard limit and stock up on mi goreng – Fashion Weekend Sydney is back from May 16-19 at the Royal Hall Of Industries, and it would be irresponsible not to spend up big. As well as catwalk shows highlighting the best new looks and a beauty bar for touchups and manis, the main event features ALL OF THE SHOPPING. A massive range of designers and boutiques – from friendly faves Peeptoe

and Bec & Bridge, to seriously covetable status brands such as Ginger & Smart, Christensen Copenhagen and Nicola Finetti – will be available, with one-offs and discounts tempting you at every turn. Round up your shopping buddies and start thinking of good songs for your trying-on-clothes-montage.

Tickets start at $20 for shoppingonly, see fashionweekend.com. au/sydney for more details.

BESPOKE BE SPEAKIN’

Business and luxury summit Bespoke is like SemiPermanent for fashion and luxury designers, editors, managers and anyone who’d like to be one or all of those things. The speakers so far include Karen Walker, Oroton Creative Director Ana Maria Escobar, MR PORTER EIC (and former UK Esquire editor) Jeremy Langmead, J Brand founder/CEO Jeff Rudes, Nicky Zimmermann, sass & bide designers Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton, and their CEO David Briskin. Bespoke happens at Sydney Opera House on May 16, and earlybird tickets are on sale now.

LIVING IN HARMONY

A pie from Harry’s Café de Wheels is an excellent and delicious meal, but we can’t imagine Sydney without all the incredible food cultures brought by decades of immigration.

Celebrating our multicultural city, the Living In Harmony Festival runs from March 1 to April 30. Festival places to stuff your faces include the Sweet Harmony international dessert workshop on Wednesday March 20, at Ultimo Community Centre; and Indo-Aus In A Day, a showcase of Indonesian culture on Saturday April 13, at Alexandria Town Hall. Check out the City of Sydney website for the family-friendly, free-eventpacked full program.

LOVE VINTAGE?

Just so we’re clear, Etsy sellers and teenagers on my bus: second-hand does not automatically mean vintage.

You know what’s vintage?

The rabbit-fur coat my mum wore to her 21st, which now belongs to me. You can’t all have awesomely-dressed mums like mine, but you can pick up anything from a 1930s mink to Bakelite bangles or a Mad Men-era work outfit at the Love Vintage fashion fair, which is on Friday March 15 to Sunday March 17 at the Hordern Pavilion. There’ll be dancing, workshops, fashion parades, and an appearance by Hardcore Pawn star Seth Gold – all on top of the droolworthy getup (please do not drool on the clothes). The red carpet opening kicks off at 5.30pm on the Friday, and both weekend days open at 10am, so get in early for the best deals. lovevintage.com.au

Outfi t by Kathleen Choo. Photo by Tomy K C Leung, Hair: Daniel Yang, Makeup: Kristina Milisavljevic, Model: Sandra Janssen @ The Agency Models.

No, not ugg-boots and varsity hoodies. Making It: 20 Years Of Student Fashion, the exhibition of outstanding grad collections from Sydney fashion and design schools, has been showcasing the next generation of people who make nice clothes for two decades, and their eye ain’t bad – the list of previous graduates who made the cut includes Dion Lee, Toni Maticevski, and Cue’s influential Head of Design, Prue Rainey. Head along to check out a special anniversary curation of those promising past collections and heaps more, as well as this year’s names to remember: Kathleen Choo, Ryan Samways, Andriana Jacky and Inder Dhillon. The show runs at the Powerhouse Museum until October 7. powerhousemuseum.com

So, how much did you spend on that sweet vintage-look T-shirt? $50? $80? Honestly, guys. Why buy a brand-new old-looking shirt when there are ACTUAL OLD SHIRTS GALORE at your local Salvos? If you’ve only got $20 in your pocket, head down there and nab yourself a oneof-a-kind Dad-chic I Survived The 1993 Mudgee Jenga Championships shirt, and wear it on the first ever Vintage Tee Day on Friday March 22. It’s an initiative by the Salvos to encourage people to embrace second-hand clothing as a way to help the environment (Google how much water it takes to produce one cotton shirt if you don’t think a little thrifting will make a difference).

We think it’s fucking awesome. salvosstores.com.au

PHOTOS: ASHLEY MAR

Everyone eats food, drinks beverages, wears clothes and likes fun, so BRAG would like to help you do all of those things more, and better. Check out this page every week to see what we’re putting in and on ourselves...re

28:02:13 :: SLIP INN :: 111 SUSSEX ST CBD 82959999

SUN 17 MAR

GALLERY BURLESQUE PRESENTS

HEROES AND VILLAINS DO BURLESQUE

FRI 22 MAR SAT 23 MAR

Coming Up IN APRIL 4th 5th 6th

LO-FI COLLECTIVE PINK DOVE III: LANEOUS & THE FAMILY YAH THE LAURELS

OPEN TIL 3AM

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK DOLDRUMS

intro summons a spirituality born of harsh earthly climates, before a noisy technological meltdown gives birth in turn to ‘Anomaly’, whose driving synth-pop presses onward with seasick sirens swirling overhead.

Lesser Evil Dine Alone/Shock

Amid the hype over Montreal’s latest noise-pop poster child Airick Woodhead, much is made of his Doldrums moniker and where it fits conceptually with his music. The name references The Phantom Tollbooth’s dystopian fantasy world, but it also signifies Earth’s equatorial ocean point where winds meet, creating extreme weather polarity: all wild storms and eerie calm.

In terms of mood, Lesser Evil is anything but “in the doldrums”, if by that you mean mopey and static. Woodhead approaches the album’s dark subject matter with an intoxicating sense of urgency and adventure. The haunting vocal

It’s worth pushing through the initial aural assault to immerse yourself in Doldrums’ superblyrealised dystopian world.

ATOMS FOR PEACE Amok XL/Remote Control

What do you get when you cross Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Flea from RHCP, three other superstar musicians, a smattering of illegal substances and Fela Kuti’s back catalogue? You get Amok, the debut album from Atoms For Peace.

The group (Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, acclaimed drummer Joey Waronker and percussionist Mauro Refosco complete the lineup) formed for a live performance of Yorke’s 2006 solo effort, The Eraser. For this latest project, the band jammed for three days before Yorke and Godrich spent many more manipulating the session tapes into Amok.

The first thing to note is the CD packaging – a cardboard concertina fold-out designed by Yorke’s mate Stanley Donwood, depicting a monochrome Los Angeles at the point of Armageddon. So after studying this and expecting to hear Yorke’s incomprehensible tenor describing a future dystopia over bleeps and beats, the organic buzz of curtainraiser ‘Before Your Very Eyes...’ was a pleasant surprise. The Afrobeat influence is immediate, but by its end the track has morphed into lingering, dark electronica.

While it shares similarities with The Eraser and Radiohead’s undanceable dance record The King Of Limbs, there remains a sense of fun.

Godrich’s studio wizardry hasn’t eliminated the groove; in his hands Refosco’s bongos and Flea’s sense of melody transform into drum’n’bass on ‘Dropped’, and the relentlessly funky title track builds from just a filtered snare all the way to the album’s full climax. It leaves you sated, not exhausted.

In defiance of the standard supergroup caveats, Amok is very good. It seems Thom Yorke might have finally lightened up a little.

David Wild

Arriving at ‘She Is The Wave’, it begins to feel like you’ve signed your ears up to a war of attrition – but after a couple of listens, the cacophony retreats a little, revealing one of many intricate pop songs akin to Yoshimi-era Flaming Lips, in which bursts of lush, sighing vocal harmonies act as a foil to all the industrial robotic noise and sharpshooting lasers populating your earspace.

Woodhead reveals an incredible talent on this debut, for setting the scene and implying narrative through deftly constructed layers of melody, rhythm and noise. In ‘Egypt’, the arrangement of

THE DRONES

ICEAGE

I See Seaweed Independent/MGM

You’re Nothing Matador/Remote Control

It would be easy to shamelessly gush all over the brilliance of this new Drones album – Lord knows many reviewers will. But look, we really should be used to this level of quality from Australia’s best band.

Title track and album opener ‘I See Seaweed’ begins with the familiar weaving electric guitars of Gareth Liddiard and Dan Luscombe. The inclusion of new member Steve Hesketh on piano feels natural and unobtrusive. (The piano is given featured cameos on several songs, but guitars are still front and centre.)

‘Laika’, the penultimate track, is based on the famous true story of the Russian rescue dog sent into space. Supported by bassist Fiona Kitschin’s wonderful backing vocals, the final line of the song, “Cruel, cruel, cruel” is repeated over and over again. It’s beautiful, harrowing and emotionally affecting.

‘Why Write A Letter That You’ll Never Send’ is bona fide genius – a mix between the brilliant, reference-laden verses of Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’ and the topical songwriting of earlier Drones track ‘Jezebel’. Unlike either of those two songs, ‘WWATLYNS’ manages to become personal by incorporating a linear narrative, and is destined to be remembered as one of The Drones’ great closing tracks.

The album treads similar territory to their earlier albums, but instead of sounding like a rehash of previous ideas, I See Seaweed comes across as a consolidation of the band’s sound.

The overall delivery of the album is mannered and evenly paced; this is a band at the peak of their powers, the players are comfortable with each other, and the artistic vision is clear.

There is no need to rush things.

The Drones have produced another great record – and it clearly won’t be their last.

They might have the youthful good looks to qualify as Simon Cowell’s next boy band but Iceage’s music could barely be further from the polish of the pop charts.

That they are part of a Copenhagen post-punk scene initially labelled ‘The New Way Of Danish Fuck You’ should speak volumes about Iceage’s leaning towards hardcore and a general middle-finger-to-the-world attitude.

As the follow-up to promising 2011 debut New Brigade, this 29-minute LP is equally compelling but even more forceful – primarily because there are proper songs hidden beneath the multiple layers of noise and singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s guttural yell.

On ‘Burning Hand’, one of only three songs to break the three-minute mark, Rønnenfelt sings “There’s a guilt deep within / In divine soil blossomed into sins” over a thrilling guitar hook as drummer Dan Kjær Nielsen tries to split his skins at a growing pace. ‘Morals’ is as close as we get to a ballad, an enchanting piano slowly drawing us in before we’re subjected to the backdraft of thrashing guitars, and asked with disdain, “Where’s your morals?”

The highlight however is ‘Everything Drifts’, where Iceage at once channel The Fall and Joy Division. “Dare you look into the abyss / Confront what you received / There’s a vile fury within us / Despite what you’ve been fed” screams Rønnenfelt as the band hold it together just long enough to deliver a call to arms for the disaffected: “Raise your fist / For the depraved roses.”

Jenny Noyes

SPIT SYNDICATE

THE MEN New Moon Sacred Bones/Spunk

Sunday Gentlemen Obese Sydney lads Spit Syndicate have gone from strength to strength recently, from supporting Cypress Hill to picking up an ARIA nod. Sunday Gentlemen is the third record from the Inner West duo, and they’ve certainly not held back on spitting it how it is.

Nick Lupi and Jimmy Nice seem to have penned a verse on just about everything that crosses the mind of your average 20-something Australian – from asylum seekers, to relationships, to finding your feet in a big bad world – but for all the earnest soapboxing, there is something about Sunday Gentlemen that falls short of the mark. The worst part is that you really wish it didn’t.

Take opening track ‘Amazing’ – which features a line like “try to write an album / get a couple spins / throw pussy in / that’s what you call juggling”, which seems to fit in with the casual objectification of women that many people still expect from hip hop; and then a few tracks down the line comes ‘Kill That Noise’, imploring us to do away with slutshaming and double standards. It’s a minor but nevertheless disappointing contradiction.

Meanwhile, ‘Beauty In The Bricks’, outshines lead single ‘Folly’ in leaps and bounds thanks to the strippedback production, and brings a lived-in rawness to the record. The ubiquitous Illy and Drapht make guest appearances, but their presence doesn’t particularly add to or detract from the tracks they appear on.

You’re Nothing is noisy, urgent, exhilarating and honest; it’s hard to avoid being swept up in it.

When it wants to, this record possesses a maturity and a freshness lacking in a lot of Australian-produced hip hop at the moment. But when it falls, it falls very flat indeed.

David Wild

Marissa Demetriou

Anyone who witnessed first-hand the ferocity of The Men’s recent Laneway sets might be caught off guard by New Moon, which opens with an acoustic alt-country track, and revisits this same territory on almost half of the album’s 12 songs.

Not to say these aren’t still good songs – the lyricism and tenderness in the softer numbers show just how talented this group is. It is, however, a significant departure; but as the album unfolds it becomes clear that this isn’t Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

This is Crazy Horse. Just because they’ve discovered acoustic guitars, that doesn’t mean they are going soft.

New Moon takes its time warming up, but then comes ‘I Saw Her Face’, with its bone-crunching guitars and a furious thrash-out at the end.

And even though they dial it down immediately afterwards, it feels like a declaration of intent – the revelation of the album’s true sonic through-line.

The back half of the record reclaims familiar ground, from the Stooges-esque fury of ‘The Brass’, the Ramones-with-actual-singing energy of ‘Electric’, or the final track, ‘Supermoon’, which pounds away on a ‘Kick Out the Jams’ riff for eight glorious minutes.

No matter where The Men go from here – whether back to the garage or further out into Americana – no one can possibly doubt their ability to exist in the two worlds simultaneously.

And if they decide to merge the two styles, to combine the lyrical focus of country with the ear-bleeding focus of their early albums? Well, that could be phenomenal.

A bit of a shock at first, but keep listening. It gets better with every play.

Hugh Robertson

Roland Kay-Smith

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK BRIGHTER LATER The Wolves Independent After time spent in New Orleans feeding her muse, Jaye Kranz made her way back to Melbourne to record her debut album as Brighter Later, The Wolves. The brassy, brash New Orleans spirit hasn’t had a clear influence on this nonetheless lovely record, which sounds like a synth-drenched stroll through Kranz’s folky imagination.

Wearing a producer hat for the first time, Kranz recorded The Wolves in her Melbourne home/ex-church/underground

28 :: BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13

percussive effects – squelching, rasping, ticking, dripping, exhaling – evoke a robotic production line; the echoey synths and fragmented, wave-like percussion of ‘Holographic Sandcastles’ erect a coastal dreamscape for existential pondering; and the warped and shoegazey sounds of the title track and ‘Golden Calf’ conjure a desert mirage.

concert venue, and has engineered a lo-fi sense of distance that is both charming and inviting. Her wholesome and reassuring voice on the tracks makes it feel like it could be no other way; if her voice won’t gently rock listeners into a dreamy folk oblivion, then nothing will.

‘Magnolia’ is the most captivating track on the album; nostalgic organ-like synths and the most decisive guitar strums of the whole record surround Kranz’s perfectly rounded voice, creating a sleepy state of bliss.

Synths are something Brighter Later knows well; ‘Slow Roller’ perfects the slider, keeping the drawling rhythm steady, and first single ‘The Woods’ creates a smoky,

sylvan ambience (not entirely unexpected given the title).

The album has a general air of mellifluous melancholy, with lyrics that will intrigue listeners and prompt some pondering, as with Brighter Later’s second single, ‘Come And Go’. The standout track dives head-first into a lush chorus, resurfacing almost as quickly in light melodies, and ending with the realisation: “And soon we are young / And fit to fight / A frozen sun / Love my love and I”.

Kranz’s beautiful vocals and ethereal melodies encased in airy synths make for an enchanting listen.

Katie Davern

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

FUNKADELIC - Maggot Brain MARIAH CAREY - Fantasy DICK DIVER - Calendar Days

PURITY RING - Shrines YOUNG FATHERS - Tape One

BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13 :: 29

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

PURITY RING, HEADACHES, FISHING Oxford Art Factory Tuesday March 5

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Lizotte’s Central Coast Lot 3 Avoca Dr Kincumber

Lizotte’s Newcastle 31 Morehead St Lambton

W W W. L I ZOT T E S.CO M.AU 30 :: BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13

Purity Ring’s set design is innovative and beautiful – several huge white foam lanterns dangle off rods and flicker in a rainbow of pastels in time to Corin Roddick’s beatmaking; his MPD setup is complemented with mini-lanterns that are triggered to light up as he plays the melodies with timpani mallets. Megan James sings in her indistinguishable, innocent flow; her understated vocals shine above Roddick’s glitchy hip hop beats.

Having only one album restricts the longevity of their sets, but on the upside we heard every song on Shrines. The venue came alive when ‘Lofticries’ sounded, the lanterns reflecting peacefully on the audience as James held a shining torch to her face like she was telling us all a ghost story. A definite highlight was their ambitious cover of Soulja Boy’s ‘Grammy’, where James’ inner sass burst through.

They ended with a triple-repeat chorus of ‘Fineshrine’ and then did my favourite thing ever: no encore. Fuck an encore – you go, Purity Ring.

Rachitha Seneviratne

CAT POWER

rarely addressed the crowd. When she did reluctantly speak, it was only whispering and mumbles.

The last time I saw Chan Marshall, AKA Cat Power, she seemed a little drunk and disinterested, singing through some really shitty sound at the ill-fated Days Like This festival in 2010. Granted, she was a terrible choice for a festival where the punters were more geared up for Dilated Peoples than a husky-voiced chanteuse. So given the opportunity to see a reinvention of Cat Power in the pristine surrounds of the Enmore Theatre, it felt like a personal atonement for me.

Silhouetted by a single spotlight, Marshall performed a beautifully measured version of the Venezuelan poem ‘Angelitos Negros’ before lifitng the crowd back up with the fun ‘3,6,9’. I personally loved hearing ‘Nothin’ But Time’ from Sun – in its studio format, it is a sprawling, joyous number, and the live version tonight only amplified this. Bringing the night to a close, she performed a drowsy rendition of ‘I Don’t Blame You’ with surprise lyrical interludes from Boys Next Door’s ‘Shivers’, before sending the audience into rapture with the popular ‘Ruin’. She threw flowers into the crowd to say goodbye, then strolled offstage as nonchalantly as she came.

Enmore Theatre Saturday March 2

I was disappointed to see support act Mick Turner had already left the stage at 8.30pm when I arrived. However, it wasn’t long before the lights dimmed and the already-swooning crowd cast adoring eyes towards the stage.

Haloed in blue light, Chan Marshall waved a cigarette as she made her entrance to a simple, sad guitar lick, which evolved into the introduction of ‘The Greatest’. It was one of Marshall’s rare glimpses into her past – the rest of the set was dominated

by Sun, her latest LP. Her awkward stage presence did nothing but endear her to the crowd as she strode like a nervous karaoke singer (rocking some badass double denim, I might add) through early highlights ‘Cherokee’, ‘Manhattan’ and ‘Human Being’. Always enigmatic in her silence, she

Rick Warner

MAR

15

Lizotte’s Sydney 629 Pittwater Rd Dee Why

Fishing seem to have cemented their place as the go-to act to support the buzz-worthy international electronic acts who come to Sydney – and they’re great at it. Their submerged electronica/hip hop is something like the soundtrack to a $waggy $pongebob episode, although that also might have been the G&Ts talking.

Next up was Headaches – AKA Brooklyn native Landon Speers, whose ginger beard is almost quadruple the length of Justin Vernon’s. He produces bass-heavy electronic beats with a real funky bite.

One of the continual highlights of their live performance is Roddick’s ability to mutate and glitch and syncopate James’ vocals as they happen, the imperfections of which make every performance quirky in its own right. This facet of Roddick’s multitasking shone most on the dark ‘Obedear’ and ‘Crawlersout’. James’ onstage persona is that of a fragile, macabre Goth girl, as she quietly coos some pretty creepy lyrics at the audience: “Cut open my sternum and pull / My little ribs around you”.

THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH Sydney Opera House Tuesday March 5

As a singer-songwriter, it’s one thing to entrance a single person sitting in their room, listening through their speakers.

There, someone has invited you in to their personal space, an act of intimacy. But how can you possibly hope to replicate that, all by yourself, on a stage built for choirs and orchestras, and in front of 2,500 people?

If you’re The Tallest Man On Earth, you do it by throwing your entire body into your performance, stalking around the Concert Hall stage as though the songs affect you so profoundly that you can’t stand still. And it also helps if the songs you are singing are as heartbreakingly intimate as anything written this millennium.

Perhaps the great revelation of this show was how full Kristian Matsson was able to make his arrangements sound despite performing alone. Amplifying his guitar (with a little reverb shimmering under the pastoral thumb-picked acoustic ripples)

detracted a little from the ‘authenticity’ of it, but it created a wonderful, immersive, allenveloping noise through which his voice could cut through, by turns rough and weary and sweet and hopeful.

Over the course of sixteen songs a couple did blend into each other but only until Matsson opened his mouth. His lyrics are so intricate, and so incisive, and yet despite their somewhat freewheelin’ structure he's always able to fit them within the constraints of a neat folk tune. Never was this clearer than on ‘I Won’t Be Found’, which has a melody that rolls along with unstoppable force, and seemed like it was poised to break free.

Matsson brought his wife Amanda Bergman (who performs under the moniker Idiot Wind) onstage for the final number, a blend of his ‘The Wild Hunt’ and Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’. They shared a mic to duet on Simon’s deceptively devastating hit, a perfect, humble, sweet capper to an evening of simple pleasures.

Hugh Robertson

snap sn ap

PICS :: TL

generation of love

deerhoof

PICS :: PX

up all night out all week . . .

02:03:13 :: Annandale Hotel :: 17 Paramatta Rd Annandale 9550 1078

02:03:13 :: The Standard :: 3/383 Bourke St Darlinghurst 9331 3100

mulatu astatke

It’s called: FBi’s Northern Lights EP II launc h It sounds like: Talented Sydney-based music ians hanging out with Sigur Ros and Bjork.

Who’s playing: Lanterns, Moon Holiday, Oliv er Tank and Rainbow Chan.

Sell it to us: Last year FBi took Lanterns and Moon Holiday to Iceland where they collaborated with local artists and made sweet , sweet music. What better way to celebrate the fruits of their labour than with a live gig? Previous Northern Lights alumni Oliver Tank and Rainbow Chan will be in on the fun too.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: Spine tingles, musical crushes and a range of magical sounds shaped by the Northern Hemis phere. Grab the EP from fbiradio. bandcamp.com to relive the night’s festivities on repeat.

Crowd specs: This is one for lovers of the loop pedal.

Wallet damage: Presale $13.30 from Oztix, $12 on the door or $10 for FBi supporters.

Where: FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel When: Thursday March 14

PICS :: AM

28:02:13 :: Brighton Up Bar :: Level 1/77 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9572 6322

party profile

black island

PICS :: KC

northern lights ep II launch

the wedding present PICS :: AM

keb darge's rockabilly all nighter

02:03:13 :: Goodgod Small Club :: 53-55 Liverpool St Chinatown 8084 0587

PICS :: KC

03:03:13 :: The Standard :: 3/383 Bourke St Darlinghurst 9331 3100

28:02:13 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 9332 3711 :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ROXY LEE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER IER XAV RO PED :: NS MUN IEL :: DAN :: KATE LEWIS :: ASHLEY MAR

BRAG :: 503:: 11:03:13 :: 31

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

pick of the week Bloc Party

WEDNESDAY MARCH 13

Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park

Bloc Party (UK), World's End Press $79.90 7pm

MONDAY MARCH 11 ROCK & POP

Neil Finn & Paul Kelly Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay sold out 8pm Ricki Lee Jones (USA) The Factory Theatre, Marrickville $89.90 8pm

JAZZ

Martha Marlow Venue 505, Surry Hills $10 8pm The Monday Jam: Danny G Felix & the Monday OGs Gingers, Oxford Hotel, Darlinghurst free 9pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Helmut Uhlmann, Starr Witness, Bonnie Kay, Chris Brookes, Massimo Presti Kellys On King, Newtown free 7pm

TUESDAY MARCH 12 ROCK & POP

Antibalas (USA), True Vibenation The Factory Theatre, Marrickville $49 (+ bf) 8pm Goon Squad Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 10pm Guns N’ Roses (USA), ZZ Top (USA), Rose Tattoo Allphones Arena, Homebush Bay $99-$169 6pm Jonathan Devoy Botany View Hotel, Newtown free 7.30pm Luka Bloom (IRE) Enmore Theatre $79.90 7pm Neil Finn & Paul Kelly Concert Hall, Sydney Opera 32 :: BRAG :: 503 : 11:03:13

House, Circular Quay sold out 8pm

JAZZ

Old School Funk and Groove Night Venue 505, Surry Hills free 8pm Vieux Farka Touré (Mali) The Basement, Circular Quay $49.50 (+ bf) 7.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Angelene Harris, Ben Hardie, Jeremy Muir, Zelda Smyth Tea Gardens Hotel, Bondi Junction free 7.30pm Daniel Hopkins Five Dock Hotel free 7.30pm Darren Bennett George IV Inn, Picton free 7.30pm Peach Montgomery, Blonde Baggage, Chich, Frankie Francis Newington Inn, Petersham free 7pm

WEDNESDAY MARCH 13 ROCK & POP

Bloc Party (UK), World's End Press Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park $79.90 7pm Hard Rock Rising 2013 – Qualifying Battle #2: In Hydes Shadow, Flick The Bean, Paintbox City Into The Fireplace Hard Rock Café Sydney 9pm all-ages The Lamplights Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $20 8pm Last Dinosaurs, The Griswolds, Castlecomer UNSW Roundhouse, Kensington $20 (+ bf) 7pm Lonely Boys Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 10pm

Moriarty (FRA) Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills $44 (+ bf) 7pm Musos Club Jam Night Bald Faced Stag, Leichhardt free 8pm Psychic Sun, Nerdlinger, Koranic Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 7pm Steve Tonge Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 9pm Tony Joe White (USA) The Basement, Circular Quay $55 (+ bf) 7.30pm

JAZZ

Alin & Melike, Flamenco Australia Blue Beat, Double Bay $20 (+ bf) 7pm Jeremy Sawkins Trio, Alister Spence Venue 505, Surry Hills $10-$15 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Angelene Harris, L J Phillips, Star Witness Cat and Fiddle Hotel, Balmain free 7pm The Folk Informal: Will Watson, Hollie Matthew, Charlie Gradon, Sam Joole FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm Helmut Uhlmann, NatashaEloise, Huntley Mitchell, Raseth The Loft, UTS, Broadway, Ultimo free 6pm TAOS, John Chesher, Gavin Fitzgerald, Paul McGowan, Ken Mclean Coach & Horses Hotel, Randwick free 7pm

THURSDAY MARCH 14 ROCK & POP

031 Rockshow Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket

free 10pm 2 Way Split Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 9pm Audley’s Nest, A Lost Sense Of Direction, Baby Doll Arms Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 7pm Balmain Blitz: Howl, The Bitter Sweethearts, Tiger K, Sean Frazer, Winter’s End, Nudist Colonies Of The World, Sonic Sunday, Star Witness Bridge Hotel, Rozelle $15 7pm Big Ben Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 9pm Day Ravies, East River, Through The Forest Door Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 8.30pm FBi’s Northern Lights EP II Launch: Lanterns, Moon Holiday, Oliver Tank, Rainbow Chan FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $12 8pm Homegrown – Roots Reggae Venue 505, Surry Hills $10 8pm Hot Damn! St Patrick's Day Mega Party!: For All Eternity, As Silence Breaks, Adversary, London In Terror, Hot Damn DJs Spectrum, Darlinghurst $15$20 8pm Mama Kin The Basement, Circular Quay $18 (+ bf) 7.30pm Mikelangelo And The Tin Star Moonshine, Hotel Steyne, Manly free 7pm Musos Club Jam Night Carousel Hotel, Rooty Hill free 8pm Nightbreed III: Alexander Cross & The Daggers, General Pants, She Falles Down Stairs, Pilbu Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Sons Of Sam – The Sam Phillips Story Blue Beat, Double Bay $20 (+ bf) 7pm Tragedy (USA), Deathcage, Unknown To God, Darkhorse Annandale Hotel $20 (+ bf) 7pm

JAZZ

London Klezmer Quartet (UK) Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $22.70 (conc)-$27.70 7pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 8pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Amy Vee, Mike McCarthy, Tom Stephens The Newsagency, Enmore 7pm Daniel Hopkins, Bonnie Kay Olympic Hotel, Paddington free 7.30pm Peach Montgomery, Emmylou Forest Lodge Hotel, Glebe free 7.30pm

FRIDAY MARCH 15 ROCK & POP

The Arachnids, Lepers & Crooks, Go With Colours, The Rude Heads Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 8pm Benn Gunn Collingwood Hotel, Liverpool free 5.30pm Black Diamond Hearts The Bridge Hotel, Rozelle $15 8pm Blaming Vegas Vineyard Hotel free 9.30pm Craig Laird, JJ Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 7.30pm The Danger Zone: Sydney City Trash, The Tearaways,

The Disables, Topnovil, Spent Shells Hermann’s Bar, University of Sydney, Darlington $12 8pm Deborah Conway & Willy Zygier Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $33 7.30pm Elevation U2 Tribute Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 10pm Ensiferum (FIN) The Hi-Fi Sydney, Moore Park $65 8pm all-ages Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges (USA) Brass Monkey, Cronulla $25.50 7pm Flaming Beauties Mortdale Hotel free 8pm FrogFest: The Barons of Tang, Takadimi, Grandmaster Monk, Dave Bova Band The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $15 7pm Grave (SWE), Innsmouth, Roadside Burial, Grim Demise The Wall @ Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt $40 8pm Hue Williams Oasis On Beamish, Campsie free 8.15pm Iron Bark Rock Engadine Tavern free 9.30pm LJ Figtree Hotel free 8.30pm Luka Bloom (IRE) Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $59.50 8pm Nekrofeist, Dead Dieties, H8 Tank, The Erradicated Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 7pm Opeth (SWE) Enmore Theatre $74.20 7pm Pete Hunt Chatswood RSL free 5.30pm Rainy Day Women, Hot Spoke, Heart.beats.mind FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm Renae Stone Customs House Bar, Circular Quay free 7pm Step-Panther, Wax Witches, Foam, DZ Deathrays (DJ set) Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $10 (+ bf) 7.30pm The Presidents Of The United States Of America (USA) UNSW Roundhouse, Kensington $65.60 (+ bf) 8pm all-ages The Velvet Cave: Dead China Doll, East River, Velvet Gallagher, Ken Blement, Alison Hobbes, The Tramadolls Club 77, Darlinghurst $10 9pm The Widowbirds, Castlecomer, Oxford, Liz Bird Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm Witch Fight, Dead Boss, Bloody Kids, Chroma The Square, Haymarket $12 8pm Zoe Keating (USA) The Basement, Circular Quay $22 (+ bf) 7.30pm ZZ Top (USA), Dead Daisies, Voodoo Suns Metro Theatre, Sydney $99 7pm

JAZZ

Dickeson/Manins/Clarke Trio The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10-$20 8.30pm Nic Jeffries and Friends Venue 505, Surry Hills $16 (conc)-$21 8pm Tangalo with Fabian Rodriguez (Argentina), Victor Valdez Trio Blue Beat, Double Bay $20 (+ bf) 7pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

Breaking Heart Benton, Sarah Humphries The Newsagency, Enmore 7.30 Brett Winterford, Al Parkinson, Dan Holdsworth Mars Hill Café, Parramatta $10 7.30pm Psarandonis (Greece)

The Factory Theatre, Marrickville $56.70 (+ bf) 8pm

SATURDAY MARCH 16 ROCK & POP

Amali Ward, Iluka, Brendan Maclean FBI Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $15 8pm Band Down Under Oatley Hotel free 8.30pm Because They Can The Lair, Metro Theatre, Sydney $20 (+ bf) 4.45pm all-ages Benn Gunn Duo Engadine Tavern free 9.30pm Birds Of Tokyo, Regular John, The Guppies Enmore Theatre sold out 6.30pm Blind Valley, Frank Sultana & The Sinister Kids Gallery Bar, Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst free 8pm Cover Notes Duo Riverwood Inn free 8pm Craig Thommo, Trilogy Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 7.30pm Danger Beach, Unity Floors, No Art, Mere Women Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $12 7.30pm Deborah Conway & Willy Zygier Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $34 8pm Dinosaur Jr (USA), Redd Kross (USA) The Hi-Fi Sydney, Moore Park $58 (+ bf) 8pm Domino, Amodus, Acid Nymph, Evil Ugly Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 8pm Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges (USA) The Basement, Circular Quay $35 (+ bf) 7.30pm Fat Rabbit, Elliot The Bull, Capitols, Kirsty Lee Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills free 6pm Flaming Beauties Royal Hotel, Springwood free 9.15pm Grinspoon, Emperors, Kingswood Metro Theatre, Sydney $36.90 8pm Hematic, The Engineer An Exorcist, Blunt Force Trauma, Risen Dred, Atomesquad, Steel Swarm Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 12pm Hue Williams Grand Hotel, Wyong free 8pm The Jacksons (USA) Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour $89$399 8.15pm John Vella Bexley RSL free 7.30pm Jonny Gretsch's Wasted Ones Botany View Hotel, Newtown free 5.30pm Kurt Williams Abbotts Hotel, Redfern free 7.30pm LJ Ulladulla Ex Servos free 8pm Lycanthia, Subterranean Disposition, The Veil, Tamerlan The Wall @ Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt $15 8pm Palms, Bad Dreems, Mining Boom Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $12 8pm Party Hits Paragon Hotel, Circular Quay free 9pm Rumours – A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac Brass Monkey, Cronulla $30.60 7pm Scatterlfy, Opia, Surrender The Sun, Glass Ocean The Square, Haymarket $15 8pm Wildcatz

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com 7pm Birds Of Tokyo, Regular John, The Guppies Enmore Theatre $55 6.30pm Damien Dempsey (IRE) The Studio, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay sold out 8pm The Deep Beach Bar, Coogee Bay Hotel free 7.30pm The Fender-Benders Bayview Hotel, Woy Woy free 3.30pm The Headliners Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills free 3.30pm Jones Jnr Moonshine, Hotel Steyne, Manly free 7pm Neil Finn & Paul Kelly, Lisa Mitchell Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay sold out 8pm Panorama, Party Anthems Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 7.30pm Professor Groove and The Booty Affair Brass Monkey, Cronulla $19.90 7pm Schooner or Later – Sydney Harbour Cruise: The Isaac Graham Band, Fake Effects, Rad Beligion, Some Band To Write Home About Pyrmont Bridge Wharf $35 12pm Stormcellar The Kent Hotel, Hamilton free 8.30pm St Patrick’s Day Festival: Lonesome Train, Dublin Up, The Moonshiners, U2 Elevation, The Blarneys Boys, Stringy Bark The Orient Hotel, The Rocks free 8am Tony Joe White (USA),

Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket free 10.30pm Wild Thing: True Love Chaos, Safer With Wolves, Siamese Almeida The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $10 9pm

JAZZ

Adrian Cunningham Venue 505, Surry Hills $16 (conc)-$21 6pm The Coffin Brothers The Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre, Chippendale $10-$20 8.30pm Peter Head Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 5pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie Well Co. Café / Wine Bar, Leichhardt free 7.15pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK Finbar Furey (IRE), Peter Byrne Blue Beat, Double Bay $49 (+ bf) 7pm St Patrick’s Day Eve: Matt Toms The Belvedere Hotel, Sydney free 9pm We Are The Birdcage, M. Carney, Munro Melano The Newsagency, Enmore 7pm

SUNDAY MARCH 17 ROCK & POP

50 Million Beers Annandale Hotel $5 8pm Beat Club The Canteen, Bondi free

Mojo Juju (solo) Lizotte’s Restaurant, Dee Why $74 8pm Ye Gods of Metal Festival: Lycanthia, Awaken Solace, Myraeth, Aparitions Of Null, Therein Valve Bar & Venue, Tempe 1pm Yo Put That Bag Back On, Red Bee, Zelorage, Arana Discoteca, Jenarium Rise Of The New Sun The Wall @ Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt 6pm

JAZZ

London Klezmer Quartet (UK) Camelot Lounge, Marrickville $22.70 (conc)$27.70 7pm Peter Head Band Harbour View Hotel, The Rocks free 4pm Yuki Kumagai, John Mackie, Trevor Rippinggale, John Blenkhorn, Alan Gilbert Cronulla RSL Club free 12.30pm

ACOUSTIC & FOLK

3 Way Split Oatley Hotel free 2pm Joanne Hill, Alex Johnson, Zachariah Sayed, David Shepherd, Jeff Tooth, Peter Thomas, Gary Booth Corrimal Hotel free 6pm Paul Brady (IRE) The Basement, Circular Quay $65 (+ bf) 7.30pm Peach Montgomery, Angelene Harris Salisbury Hotel, Stanmore free 2pm

tue

12 Co-Pilot Mar

(9:00PM -12:00AM)

wed

13 Mark Travers Mar

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

thu

2 Way Split 14 Mar

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

sat

Soul Principle + Reckless 15 Mar (9:30PM - 1:30AM) (4:30PM - 7:30PM)

sun

Jimmy Bear 16 Mar

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

+ Souled Out

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

St Patrick’s Day Festival Upstairs from 8am!

sun

Irish

($45)

17 +Breakfast bottomless Irish Guiness Mar

+ The

Killarney Trio LIVE 8:00AM – 12:00PM

Stringy Bark ................................... 8:00AM-10:30AM The Blarney Boys + Fiddle .....11:00AM-1:00PM U2 Elevation ..................................... 1:30PM-4:00PM The Moonshiners .......................... 4:30PM-6:30PM Dublin Up......................................... 7:00PM-10:30PM Lonesome Train.............................11:00PM-1:00AM + PARTY DJ TILL L ATE

BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13 :: 33

gig picks

up all night out all week...

TUESDAY MARCH 12

WEDNESDAY MARCH 13

Antibalas (USA), True Vibenation The Factory Theatre, Marrickville $49 (+ bf) 8pm

Last Dinosaurs, The Griswolds, Castlecomer UNSW Roundhouse, Kensington $20 (+ bf) 7pm

Guns N’ Roses (USA), ZZ Top (USA), Rose Tattoo Allphones Arena, Homebush Bay $99-$169 6pm Luka Bloom (IRE) Enmore Theatre, Newtown $79.90 7pm Vieux Farka Toure (Mali) The Basement, Circular Quay $49.50 (+ bf) 7.30pm

SUNDAY MARCH 17

Step-Panther

Birds Of Tokyo, Regular John, The Guppies Enmore Theatre $55 6.30pm Neil Finn & Paul Kelly, Lisa Mitchell Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay sold out 8pm

Moriarty (FRA) Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills $44 (+ bf) 7pm

THURSDAY MARCH 14 Day Ravies, East River, Through The Forest Door Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 8.30pm FBi’s Northern Lights EP II Launch: Lanterns, Moon Holiday, Oliver Tank, Rainbow Chan FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $12 8pm

Step-Panther, Wax Witches, Foam, DZ Deathrays (DJ set) Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $10 (+ bf) 8pm

Grinspoon, Emperors, Kingswood Metro Theatre, Sydney sold out 8pm

The Presidents Of The United States Of America (USA) UNSW Roundhouse, Kensington $65.60 (+ bf) 8pm all-ages

Palms, Bad Dreems, Mining Boom Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $12 (+ bf) 8pm

FRIDAY MARCH 15 SATURDAY The Arachnids, Lepers & Crooks, MARCH 16 Go With Colours, The Rude Heads Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst $10 8pm FrogFest: The Barons of Tang, Takadimi, Grandmaster Monk, Dave Bova Band The Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville $15 7pm

Guns N’ Roses

Rainy Day Women, Hot Spoke, Heart.beats.mind FBi Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $10 8pm

Paul Kelly and Neil Finn

Grinspoon

Amali Ward, Iluka, Brendan Maclean FBI Social @ Kings Cross Hotel $15 8pm Danger Beach, Unity Floors, No Art, Mere Women Goodgod Small Club, Sydney $12 7.30pm Dinosaur Jr (USA), Redd Kross (USA) The Hi-Fi Sydney, Moore Park $58 (+ bf) 8pm

13 March 2013

15 March 2013

LUNCH BREAK

DANGER BEACH

RAINY DAY WOMEN + Hot Spoke + Heart.Beats.Mind

1PM // FREE

8PM// $10+BF OR $10 AT THE DOOR

[PRESENTED BY ALBERTS]

﨑蘒瑢

14 March 2013 THE NORTHERN LIGHTS EP II LAUNCH

﨑蘒瑢

THE FOLK INFORMAL

[PRESENTED BY JAGERMEISTER]

16 March 2013

WILL WATSON + Hollie Matthew + Charlie Gradon + Sam Joole

Oliver Tank + Rainbow Chan + Moon Holiday + Lanterns

AMALI WARD + Iluka + Brendan McClean

8PM // $12 AT THE DOOR $10 FOR FBI SUPPORTERS

8PM // $12+BF OR $15 AT THE DOOR

7PM // $10 AT THE DOOR

level 2, kings cross hotel 34 :: BRAG :: 503 : 11:03:13

www.fbisocial.com

brag beats

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

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

on the record WITH

Urthboy

ALLEY OOP the crotchets and quavers. It’s quite weird to think of it now.

The Last Thing I Recorded: Lately I’ve been mostly hiding away in 4. my own studio working on solo production projects. I have ventured out to collaborate with some artists across Sydney and Adelaide, including yokoO (‘What These Words Mean’ out now on Agora) and Shivers* (our first track together is due to be released in the coming months). I’m super excited to have my first solo original coming out on Mr Kim’s soon, too – this track has my own vocals on it, which is another first for me.

The Record That Changed My Life: One of the earliest records I still 5. return to and find inspiring is Mike Oldfield’s

The First Record I Bought: The first album I ever bought was 1.

Paula Abdul – Shut up and Dance. We

week. House music (usually of the deeper variety) is my main addiction though. In my last shop I picked up ‘Thirteen Thirtyfive (Lee Foss & MK remix)’ by Dillon (Brazilian-born German singer and pianist). It’s a beautiful rolling house remix of a stunning acoustic track. I’ve followed MK for a long time, his dubs are incredible, and Foss always seems to have a cool quirky/eerie touch on tunes, which resonates with me.

lived in Amsterdam when I was a kid, and I remember watching that ‘Opposites Attract’ video – I LOVED the animated cat and the music channel was one of the only channels we had that were predominantly in English. I remember singing along to all the tracks on that album, going back and listening again these days, it’s become clear I actually had no idea what the songs were about, and had made up plenty of ridiculous replacement lyrics.

The First Thing I Recorded: My first recording would have been 3. something I made in high school, on one

2.

of those early computer music annotation programs, in ‘Composition and Arranging 101’ or something – but that was pencilling in all

The Last Record I Bought: I buy so much different music each

HERMITUDE WINS AMP

A huge congrats to Blue Mountains duo Hermitude, who walked away with a cool $30k and heaps of glory when they took out The Australian Music Prize last week for their allconquering album HyperParadise. This is the eighth time the prize has been awarded, and

Hermitude – consisting of producers Luke Dubs and Elgusto – are the first hip hop/electronic act to win. The nominations have always been heavily dominated by rock and pop acts; until now, Lisa Mitchell, in 2009, was the only non-rock-group AMP winner. But this year’s shortlist was the least rock-y ever, with Urthboy, Daily Meds, Flume

Dubmarine

Tubular Bells. My dad played it so much growing up; I remember him explaining stereo sound to me while listening to all the incredible soundscapes swirling across our living room. Looking at it from a more direct artistic point of view, Metro Area’s Metro Area is the one. Its sleek combination of clean, clear disco and house, so laidback and with so much vibe, gives me shivers every time I listen to it. It’s definitely the most-played in my record bag. I’m rarely one of the giggly fangirls, but every time I’ve met Darshan Jesrani, I’ve been lost for words; I’m yet to meet Morgan Geist, but I’m sure I’ll be no less embarrassing.

BILAL

American singer-songwriter Bilal will perform at The Hi-Fi on Friday May 3 as part of his maiden tour of Australia, which arrives twelve years after his Dr Dre and J Dilla-assisted debut album First Born Second. Bilal has collaborated with some heavy hitters, such as Jay-Z, The Game, Robert Glasper, Beyoncé and Erykah Badu, honing his signature soulful beats along the way. In addition to playing tracks from his first LP, Bilal will perform cuts from his albums Love For Sale and Airtight’s Revenge, as well as his forthcoming record, A Love Surreal, which drops later this month.

MIDNIGHT JUGGS DJS

xxx photo by xx

Afrika Bambaataa

and The Presets all scoring nominations – a promising sign of things to come, perhaps.

Brisbane young gun DJ Tydi returns to Marquee for a headline set this Friday March 15. The following night, Oakes & Lennox make their first appearance at the venue, where they will showcase their ‘big room house’ sound. The following weekend, party boys Bombs Away throw down ahead of New Age Bullshit. Fast forward to the last weekend of the month and a lengthy DJ lineup has been assembled for Marquee’s first birthday on Friday March 29, with DJs Tenzin, Helena, Georgia, K Note, Zero Cool, Hook N Sling and the one and only Timmy Trumpet all representing to mark the occasion.

Nine-piece Brisbane outfit Dubmarine will headline Spectrum on Friday April 12. Fusing dub, dancehall, reggae and drum’n’bass influences, Dubmarine have just released a new single, ‘Beat in Control,’ a taste of their highly anticipated second album, which is due in the second half of 2013. The group have established a considerable fanbase after being spotlighted by triple j for its Unearthed initiative and subsequently releasing their 2010 debut album Depth Of Sound. Word around the traps is they also put on a rollicking live show, driven by the vocals of D-Kazman (and, allegedly, the wrath Khan).

Sydney hip hop royalty Urthboy throws down at the Annandale this Saturday March 16 in support of his critically acclaimed album Smokey’s Haunt. He’s recruited fellow Herd member Jane Tyrrell and a live band, with Elefant Traks labelmate Jimblah and Melbourne-via-Namibia MC One Sixth on hand as support. We’ve got two double passes up for grabs – to nab one tell us his real name (see our story on p38).

What: Harbourfest With: DCUP, Juggernauts DJs, The Aston Shuffle DJs, Tonite Only, Van She DJs and heaps more When: Sunday March 31, 3pm Where: King Street Wharf, Darling Harbour

MARQUEE MARCH

DUBMARINE

URTHBOY

Midnight Juggernauts DJs are among the acts that will play free headline shows at the Beach Road Hotel in Bondi later this month.

After breaking through almost a decade ago, the Midnight Juggernauts have built on their national success and established an international profile, jetting around the globe supporting the likes of Justice and M83, and playing festivals such as Coachella and Glastonbury in recent times. Though it has been a few years since their most recent LP, The Crystal Axis, their next LP is apparently not far away – why not ask them about it after the show? (But don’t). Saturday March 30.

AFRIKA BAMBAATAA

Hip hop and electro figurehead – and founder of Zulu Nation, a collection of socially and politically charged emcees, DJs, artists and break-dancers – DJ Afrika Bambaataa will headline Oxford Art Factory on Thursday May 16.

Mr Bambaataa is best known for his classic cut ‘Planet Rock,’ which samples Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans-Europe Express’ and was in turn sampled by the likes of Paul Oakenfold, Westbam, LL Cool J and Mariah Carey. Afrika Bambaataa has co-produced and performed with James Brown, George Clinton, UB40, Fort Knox Five, Leftfield, Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest, among many, many others, over the course of his 35-odd years in the game. Afrika Bambaataa will be delving through a record collection that is every bit as large as you’d expect for a veteran of his stature – in fact, he won’t even guess how many pieces of vinyl he has. “[Let’s] just say I got enough to fill one of them HMV big stores,” he says. “I got storage places they call The Dungeon, The Bat Cave and The Graveyard.” Tickets go on sale Monday March 11.

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dance music news

free stuff

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

FREESTUFF@THEBRAG.COM

five things WITH

Yolanda Be Cool

HUWSTON Mendez, who is headlining the Sofrito party, is another influence because his compilations are so funky but still so weird and unexpected at times. He’s also a staunch supporter of getting all of the clearances before reissuing any old music, so… respect!

3.

Growing Up I first heard exotic music 1. through Harry Belafonte, whose

record or the steel drums on Jamie xx’s Far Nearer.

music was featured in the film Beetlejuice. Most of the other music being played in my house was either white pop like Billy Joel or classic Motown like Marvin Gaye (from The Big Chill soundtrack, my mum’s crates weren’t that deep).

I’ve been really interested to hear how exotic sounds have worked their way back into contemporary club culture, be it the African thumb pianos all over SBTRKT’s

Inspirations I got burnt out on funk 2. and soul pretty quickly, but have

EXTRA FLUME SHOW

always kept abreast of what was happening in the deeper regions of old music around the world by people like Gilles Peterson, Miles Cleret (Soundway Records), Egon (Now Again Records) and other broadcasters and record label people, whom I consider to be historians, in a sense. Hugo

Current ‘it boy’ Flume signed to the Future Classic label, sold out his shows at the Hordern Pavilion next month within 15 minutes of tickets going on sale to the general public. “What?”… “I had no idea he was playing!”… “You cannot be serious.” The chorus of self-pity goes on. However all is not lost, as an extra all-ages Flume show has been added on Monday April 29 at the same venue – so stragglers will have a chance to see the Sydney wunderkind on his first-ever national headline tour. Flume is apparently pulling out all stops for the tour, performing an extended set against a backdrop of new stage production that includes the Infinity Prism, a device that references the kaleidoscopic imagery of his album cover, by way of a hexagonal infinity mirror embedded with LED lights; the Prism will feature in both the live show and also in a forthcoming trilogy of video clips. Flume will be supported by frequent collaborator Chet Faker. Tickets are

Your Jam If I were to only play (for want of a better phrase) world music, I would have my work cut out for me.

The tag ‘world music’ is so naff, but when you go through some of the amazing contemporary productions by people like Buraka Som Sistema or Daphni and then put them alongside these great dusty old records, there’s an amazing breadth of music that really cooks on the dancefloor and sounds great when played together. I would love to be a world music DJ when I grow up.

The Music You Play I’m known mostly through my 4. radio show Soul Glow, on Mondays on 2SER, for playing a freestyle selection of hip hop, soul, world, house and new-release electronic

music. I’m lucky enough to be serviced with a huge amount of music from the world’s best labels and producers and just manage to find enough time to work through it all for the show and DJ sets around town.

Music, Right Here, Right Now 5.

Music right now is the best it has ever been, I think, because people seem to like whatever they like regardless of tags or genres. The kids really know where it’s at. For them, it’s not hip hop. It’s music with someone rapping on it. It’s not UK garage or broken beat, it’s club music. And in the case of the Sofrito party this Friday night, it’s just dance music.

What: Sofrito Superdisco Tropical Party...

With: Hugo Mendez (Paris – Sofrito crew!), w/ DJs Huwston, Jingle Jangle & Jimmy Sing Where: Goodgod Small Club / 55 Liverpool St, Sydney CBD When: Friday March 15

on sale now, and given how quickly they were snapped up first time around, it’d be naïve to think they won’t sell out again.

HARBOURFEST

Make like the Easter Bunny and hop along down to King Street Wharf on Easter Sunday for an event sweeter than all the chocolate eggs in your basket, mushed together and sprinkled with rainbows and unicorns. Harbourfest will see Cargo Bar, Bungalow 8 and theloft host four stages of awesome, featuring local favourites and international electronic heavyweights spinning out slick beats from midday into the night, including Tonite Only, The Aston Shuffle DJs, Juggernauts DJs, Van She DJs, Yolanda Be Cool, Nina Las Vegas.

(Take a breath). Dcup, Helena, SOSUEME DJs, Slow Blow, and the Purple Sneakers crew. We have two double passes up for grabs; to get your chocolatey paws on one, tell us your favourite thing about Easter!

Jamie xx

DERRICK MAY

Detroit luminary Derrick May headlines Goldfish in Kings Cross on Saturday April 20. May is responsible for one of the biggest house anthems, like, ever – ‘Strings Of Life’ from back in 1987 – but his influence extends well beyond the success of that one track. Along with high school friends Juan Atkins and Kevin ‘The Elevator’ Saunderson, May rounds off the ‘Belleville three’, a core trio of producers who played an integral role in shaping the burgeoning house and techno scenes of the late ’80s/early ’90s, and paving the way for producers such as Carl Craig and Stacey Pullen. May’s reputation as an auteur faded slightly due to an extended break from production during the ’90s, though he continued DJing worldwide and concentrated on his Transmat label, which continues to garner accolades today.

JAMIE XX

Off the back of The xx’s April tour, it has been announced that Jamie xx will headline a solo show at The Metro on Saturday April 6. Further to his output with The xx, Jamie has established himself as a formidable solo producer in his own right, crafting the underground hit ‘Far Nearer’ in 2011 and collaborating with Gil Scott-Heron on the album We’re New Here, a re-imagining of the I’m New Here LP. We’re New Here featured Jamie’s remixes of ‘NY Is Killing Me’ and ‘I’ll Take Care of U’, which was later reworked

by Drake and Rihanna for their worldwide smash ‘Take Care’. Jamie xx has also remixed Radiohead’s track ‘Bloom’ for their remix album TKOLRMX123456, as well as producing the most recent xx album, Coexist. But we don’t need to pump his tyres up for you – his pedigree is common knowledge among the music cognoscenti. Presale tickets are currently available online.

GARDEN PARTY

Diafrix

DIAFRIX

Fresh from supporting Macklemore and Ryan Lewis – and coming off a year in which they released their album Pocket Full Of Dreams, which features covertable guest spots from 360, Dwele and Daniel Merriweather and was named iTunes’ best hip hop release of 2012 – Melbourne duo Diafrix embark on a tour this month, taking in the Beach Road Hotel on Friday March 22, and the Civic Underground on Saturday March 23. Catch ‘em while you can.

36 :: BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13

Eats Everything and Baauer comprise an international headliner double bill at the next Garden Party at The Ivy on Saturday April 27. Eats Everything is the nom de tune of Dan Pearce, who emerged from Bristol’s bass/house scene and has released on labels like Dirtybird and Catz N’ Dogz’s Pets Recordings, while most recently collaborating with Justin Martin on the Feather Fight EP, which dropped last month. Meanwhile, Brooklyn producer Baauer is responsible for the one and only ‘Harlem Shake,’ which was released on Mad Decent and infiltrated the mainstream after surfacing on Rustie’s Essential Mix last year. A lengthy lineup of locals have also been recruited for the Garden Party, with the likes of A-Tonez & Samrai, Spenda C, Adam Zae, Hydraulix, Astrix, Mike Hyper and Sydney Be Heard DJs all set to spin throughout the course of the day and early evening – the precise duration will be from midday through till 8pm. Presale tickets can be procured online.

SLOWBLOW FT PROSUMER

German DJ Achim Brandenburg AKA Prosumer will headline Goodgod Small Club on Saturday March 30, courtesy of the Slowblow crew. Prosumer has forged a reputation for being one of the most knowledgeable DJs on the scene, earning himself a regular spot at Berlin’s zeitgeist-defining Panorama Bar. Drawing on the soulful sensibility of early Detroit and Chicago records, he’s all about cultivating an authentic club experience: “I wish there to be more people not looking at the media to tell them what is hot but to go out there and experience and find out themselves.” So don’t listen to us! (But also: get along).

TINIE TEMPAH STEPS UP

Something about doors closing and opening...

With Labrinth pulling out of the upcoming Optus RockCorps concert for scheduling reasons (dentists!), British MC Tinie Tempah has stepped up to the plate, joining an electic lineup that includes Guy Sebastian and The Script. See them April 11 at Hordern Pavilion.

BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13 :: 37

Urthboy Where There’s Smoke By Hugh Robertson

P

erhaps the most significant individual force in Australian hip hop, Tim Levinson has spent fifteen years on the frontlines of the industry – as a solo performer, member of The Herd and as manager of Elefant Traks. He’s currently on the road on his first proper national tour in support of the fourth Urthboy solo LP, Smokey’s Haunt, which came out in October last year. It’s taken this long for two reasons: it’s almost impossible to squeeze a headline tour in once festival madness takes over the Australian summer; and he needed to spend some time working out how to translate the show from the traditional DJ/MC setup to a new half-electronic, half-live hybrid.

“I’ve been talking to Elgusto [from Hermitude] about turning it into a live show for years,’ says Levinson. “The first music I ever played was with a live band, and my first experience on stage was with a live band. So I don’t want to let go of that electronic sound that we have [...] but having that live element is the best of both worlds.”

Levinson wasn’t sure what the finished product would be like, but says the energy of the shows has far exceeded his expectations. “I’m a bit blown away by it, by that much more hype. And it’s funny, because we’ve got great players, not just people who can play alongside the music.

So it’s really exciting for us, and for the audience.

It feels like a complete refresh – it’s really good.”

I suggest that part of the audience’s energy might be an expectations thing, an almost Pavlovian response to all those festival party sets from the likes of Hilltop Hoods – that now, after so many years of high-energy, hands-inthe-air excitement, perhaps Australian hip hop audiences expect that same energy all the time, and carry it with them to smaller shows.

“I think you’re spot on there,” says Levinson.

“And, y’know, the music that we make isn’t just pub rock – it’s not as rocking as a lot of hip hop

is in Australia. A lot of hip hop in Australia is really quite up-tempo, and it’s very in-your-face.

A lot of the music I make isn’t like that, but we’ve definitely been getting that same reaction.”

2012 was a big year for Australian hip hop, made clear by the fact that of the nine albums nominated for the Australian Music Prize, three of them were hip hop: Smokey’s Haunt, Daily Meds’ Happy Daze and Hermitude’s HyperParadise – and it was the latter that walked away with the $30,000 prize last week.

The AMP was previously criticised for ignoring hip hop, so surely it emboldens and strengthens the scene to have its success and significance recognised.

“It does in some ways,’ Levinson says. “I suppose it means that there’s lots more opportunity for some of the younger acts coming through, and that inevitably improves the quality of the music.

But in some ways I feel compelled to make sure Elefant Traks stays on our toes. Because if everyone is accepting [hip hop] as a worthwhile, marketable, commercially-viable style of music, that’s not why we got in to it, nor is it central to the philosophy of Elefant Traks.”

“The last thing that our music needs,” he goes on, “if you want to look at it from the perspective of originality in art, is that replication mentality, that chasing of a position in the music scene, or in the hierarchy of bands, rather than the chasing of the artistic value of it. I think those two things are mutually exclusive.”

When: Saturday March 16 at 12 noon (all-ages) and 7pm (18+) Where: The Annandale Hotel And: With Tame Impala, Flume, Regurgitator, Example, Tuka with Ellesquire, Seth Sentry, Pez and loads more at Groovin’ The Moo Maitland / Saturday April 27 (sold out) and University Of Canberra, Sunday April 28

Strange Talk

Big Highs By Alasdair Duncan

I

t was a long time coming, but last month, Aussie synth-pop group Strange Talk finally released their debut album, Cast Away. It’s a snappy, catchy and tremendously enjoyable collection of songs, and Gerard Sidhu, the band’s bassist and producer, says that its sound was heavily influenced by playing live.

Over the last few years, the band have toured with the likes of The Rapture, Marina & The Diamonds, Art Vs Science and Bloc Party’s Kele, and have seen countless great live shows.

“We took that experience into our minds, and decided that we wanted songs that had certain things, like big build-ups or extended bridges or just interesting little sounds,” Sidhu explains. “We were very aware of that when we were writing songs like ‘Falling In Love’ – we wanted to create big build-ups and big highs and songs that would sound great live.

We definitely took a lot of knowledge away from the touring we’d done.”

Strange Talk came away from that with all kinds of ideas on how to create flow within a setlist.

“You take little things away from everyone,” says Sidhu. “We’re always looking for ways to make our show better – more streamlined – and we’re constantly looking at the things that crowds react to, and what they don’t. You’re constantly watching and learning.”

“We travel with a lot of gear, which is hard because at the moment, it’s just the four of us out on the road, so we have to lug it around, put it all together, take it apart at the end of the show. We’ve gotten pretty streamlined about the whole thing.

Depending on the size of the show, we use different setups – for smaller shows, we might even use backing tracks on an iPod if that’s the most convenient way to do it.”

Being a young band with a tiny budget and no crew to speak of, it’s going to be a while before Strange Talk can hope to fully realise The Presets’ level of production finesse.

“It takes a lot of time and money to tie lighting and sound together in the style of their show,” says Sidhu. “We just don’t have the budget to do that.” In the meantime, he says, they continue to focus on their number-one goal: getting the audienced amped. “We’re definitely trying to do something like what The Presets do, albeit on a smaller level... We’re putting in intros and segues, trying to add a new flavour wherever we can.”

With: Phebe Starr, Pigeon Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Friday March 22

Sonicanimation Bottoms Up By Jody Macgregor

W

hen any snippet of news about the new Avalanches album is hungrily devoured, Flume dominates all, and a baffling number of people listen to Knife Party, it’s hard to remember that there was a time when dance music was the runt of the litter in Australia. But back in the ’90s, there were only a handful of electronic acts breaking through – and Sonicanimation were one of them. That was mostly thanks to ‘Theophilus Thistler’, a song that is such an earworm, simply reading its name can still get the tongue-twister chorus stuck in your head.

The duo responsible for that track, Rupert Keiller and Adrian Cartwright, became a mainstay of the Big Day Out’s Boiler Room, put out several albums, and danced up a storm all the way into the mid-2000s. But after releasing a best-of in 2005 and doing the festival thing one last time, they vanished.

“I went off travelling in 2006 after Big Day Out and I never came home,” Keiller says. What began as a holiday became seven years in Canada, where he was content to live the life of a ski bum in British Columbia. “They have quite amazing mountain biking in the summer.

I ended up just staying there and riding my bike a lot in the summer and snowboarding in the winter, all the while thinking that I was

38 :: BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13

gonna continue on with writing music just by myself. But [that] never really happened.”

Instead, Keiller began DJing for tourists, banking on the fact that Australian skiers of a certain age would have fond memories of Sonicanimation. “I knew that there were quite big Australian crowds at the ski hills – there’s several really good quality ski hills all over British Columbia – and I thought I could probably DJ, go off the back of ‘DJ Blah from Sonicanimation’. That was cool for a couple of years, but then I noticed the age group of people that I was playing to – they were people that hadn’t heard of Sonicanimation. It was quite often ‘Who are they? Who’s this band, who’s this guy?’”

So Keiller was inspired get the band back together, before they were forgotten completely.

Cartwright was immediately up for it, and the third slot in the group, which they’d given to a rotating cast of DJs back in the day, was filled

by Sexton Blake, who Keiller had met and worked with in Canada. A slot on last year’s Homebake lineup followed, as did work on a new album, Once More From The Bottom, which Keiller says is as eclectic as any of their earlier work. With luck, it will restore them to their rightful place in history: somewhere between Itch-E & Scratch-E and B(if)tek, among the first wave of Australian dance music to reach the popular consciousness, and

laying the groundwork for the likes of Pnau, Cut Copy and The Presets.

“I don’t give that kind of thing a lot of thought, but we do get people saying that to us a lot since the last record that we did,” says Keiller. “I’ve met a lot of people who’ve said ‘When you guys stopped there was no one for a while and then The Presets came along and they were like the new version of Sonicanimation and then someone else came

along’ – but I don’t really apply that to myself. […] I don’t know, it’s always different from the inside. I feel like I just do what I love doing, and hope that people listen to it and want to come see us.”

What: Once More From The Bottom out now Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Thursday March 21

Strange Talk photo by Kane Hibberd

The touring effectively acted as an apprenticeship for the young band, and they learned as much as they could. “When we played with The Presets in New York, we were really struck by how they created a show,” Sidhu recalls. “It wasn’t like you were watching a band playing song after song – it was a show from start to finish, with the way they mixed the songs into one another, the way they built them up and used the lighting and the sound.”

Strange Talk like to refer to themselves as two bands in one: they’re the quintessential rock band, in the sense that they have guitar, bass and drums; but they also have synth leads, synth bass, synth pads, electronic drums, and electronic triggers.

The tension between the two makes for some arresting sounds, although Sidhu admits that it makes the logistics of touring tricky.

Deep Impressions Underground Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

Jon Hopkins

F

or the first time in a long time, the highly respected yet reclusive Frenchman Pépé Bradock will put out a release on a label other than his own, Atavisme: his forthcoming EP Acid Test 07 will drop on the Acid Test imprint, an offshoot of Los Angeles label Absurd Recordings. Call it branching out, call it trying new things, but such descriptions are trite – Bradock is all about embracing the unexpected and embarking on sonic adventure regardless of what label he’s releasing on. However, a brief perusal of the list of those who have released on Acid Test confirms that it is a label that only pushes quality beats: check the likes of Tin Man, Donato Dozzy and Iron Curtis. The news is a further demonstration of Absurd Recordings boss Oliver Bristow’s knack for luring artists away from the comfort their own labels – last year, German producer Recondite also chose to release his debut album on Acid Test instead of his own Plangent Records.

Bradock’s Acid Test 07 features two cuts that were produced and programmed in LA, but before you get all anti-American on me and start with the ‘Hollywood sellout’ comments at Bradock’s expense, relax: both tracks were assembled in Bradock’s home turf of Paris and apparently retain the kooky production eccentricities for which Bradock is renowned.

The track ‘Mujeres Nerviosas’ (which reliable sources inform me means ‘nervous women’ in Spanish) has been described as a cut that is notable for the constant shift in structure and arrangement – I suggest you seek out this sonic rollercoaster when Acid Test 07 comes out in a few weeks’ time.

The often-overlooked English producer Jon Hopkins will release his fourth solo album, Immunity, in early June. Hopkins has released collaborative albums with Brian Eno and King Creosote, remixed and been remixed by Four Tet and Nathan Fake, and also worked with Coldplay… Sorry, that’s not going to pique your interest, is it? I’ll try another angle. Anyone who attended the inaugural Vivid Festival in ’09 will remember Hopkins performing alongside Underworld’s Karl Hyde and Eno himself at the festival finale at the Opera House, partaking in a memorable improvisational piano duet with Chris Abrahams of The Necks that evoked the early obscure Michael Nyman release Decay Music. The press release

describes Immunity as “packed with the most aggressively dancefloor-focused music [Hopkins has] ever made.” Eager to cut through the platitudes, I sought out the opinion of one of Sydney’s foremost dancers, Sarah ‘Potplant’, who informed me off-the-record, on-the-QT that she’s snared an advance promo and “hasn’t listened to anything else for days” – some praise indeed from a very discerning fangirl.

Now onto something I’ve been listening to for days: Ada’s Paws 1 EP, which features tracks from her 2011 sophomore album Meine zarten Pfoten as remixed by Pampa Records main man DJ Koze and the Australia-bound Superpitcher. While I was a huge fan of Ada’s debut LP Blondie and her EPs on Areal and Kompakt, which offered such gems as her stargazing cover of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ ‘Maps’ and the serene neotrance-tinged ‘Lovestoned’ on Kompakt, Meine zarten Pfoten disappointed me – not so much because of what it was, but because of what it was not. Ada moved away from the dancefloor on her second LP, yet I remained static, yearning for her to tap back into the more robust, dancefloor-oriented sounds she does so well. Consequently I did not appreciate her collection of restrained melodies, all of which featured subtle instrumentation recorded by Ada herself.

Superpitcher has continued in that vein with a twelve-minute reworking of ‘Interlude,’ a beautifully simple track that absorbs you with swirls of pastoral guitar and subtle synths; those twelve minutes flash by in an instant.

The Koze remix of ‘Faith’ continues the AdaKoze alliance that began with Koze signing Ada to Pampa and illustrating the cover art for Meine zarten Pfoten – a perky donkey, no less – before Ada laid down vocals on one of the tracks on Koze’s forthcoming album, Amygdala. In contrast to Superpitcher’s interpretation, Koze’s rework is beat-driven, and boasts many layers of detail that only truly reveal themselves through headphones or a decent soundsystem. Both remixes have prompted me to return to Meine zarten Pfoten to give it another go with a more open mind – and while I’m at it, I’ll dig up Blondie for old times sake. If you’re unaware of Ada, you should check out both albums, and the Paws 1 EP, which has been available digitally since, like, last week.

LOOKING DEEPER FRIDAY MARCH 22

Pole York Street Anglican Church

THURSDAY MARCH 28

Ivan Smagghe + Pachanga Boys The Abercrombie

SATURDAY MARCH 30 Prosumer Goodgod Small Club

MONDAY APRIL 1

Nico Stojan The Abercrombie

Prosumer

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13 :: 39

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

club pick of the week Urthboy

SATURDAY MARCH 16

Annandale Hotel, Annandale

Urthboy, One Sixth, Jimblah $23.50 12pm all-ages + 7pm 18+ MONDAY MARCH 11 Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket Mother Of A Monday DJ Smokin’ Joe free 7pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Latin Jazz DJs free 7pm

TUESDAY MARCH 12 Establishment, Sydney Celebrate 7 Years of Salsa!

The Casto Brothers, DJ Willie Sabor, MikEm, MC Coco Man free 8pm Scruffy Murphy’s, Haymarket I Love Goon Resident DJs free 7pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Coyote Tuesday Resident DJs $10 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Jam Jam DJs free 8pm

WEDNESDAY MARCH 13 Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Hot Dub Time Machine, Sosueme DJs, Hobophonics, DJ Rumfoord free 8pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross KIT Wednesdays Resident DJs 11pm The Lewisham Hotel Garbage 90s Nights Resident DJs free 7pm The Ranch Hotel, Epping Hump Wednesdays Resident 40 :: BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13

DJs 8pm Whaat Club, Potts Point Whip It Wednesdays Vertigo DJs free 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross The Wall Resident DJs $5 8pm

THURSDAY MARCH 14 Brass Monkey, Cronulla Rif Raf $14.30 7pm The Cool Room, The Australian Brewery, Rouse Hill We Love Thursdays Troy T, Bill Will 8pm Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst Hot Damn! Hot Damn! DJs 8pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Miami Nights Jay-J (USA), Illya, Tikki Tembo, Phil Toke free 6pm Goodgod Front Bar, Sydney Purple: 90s Throwback Party Bes, Lunyp, Gum, Kitsch, Acid Reign Showcase free 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Resident DJs free 10pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Gramatik (USA), Pablo Calamari, Fingers 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Loud Resident DJs 8pm Soda Factory, Surry Hills Electric Empire free 7pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Swag Resident DJs $10 9pm Whaat Club, Potts Point Chakra Robust, Brizz free 9.30pm The World Bar, Kings Cross

Propaganda Propaganda DJs free (student)-$5 9pm

FRIDAY MARCH 15 Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Fresh Fridays Reggae and Hip Hop Party DJ MK, Destined To Reign free 8pm Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst Twist and Shout '60s Dance Party 3rd Birthday! Twist and Shout DJs $5 11pm Bungalow 8, King St Wharf Miller City Sessions Warren Peace (USA) 9pm Candys Apartment, Kings Cross Something Wicked Robust, Audiotrash, Oh Dear, Harper, Prolifix, Ellie Piper, Zuri Akoko $10-$15 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Regrooved Stickybuds (CAN), Paul Master & MC Kitch, The Impossibles, Daigo, Victims, Modest, Oceans, Hubble 10pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour GImme Five DJ Toby Neal, Mike Silver free 5pm

Goodgod Front Bar, Sydney Yo Grito! Yo Grito! DJs free 9pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Sofrito Superdisco Tropical Hugo Mendez (FRA), Jingle Jangle DJs, Jimmy Sing, Huwston $12 (+ bf) 11pm Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour The Guestlist Resident DJs 9pm Ivy Pool Club, Sydney Moonshine James Curd (USA), Alley Oop, YokoO, Magic Happens $20 9pm Jacksons On George, Sydney DJ Rain Julz, DJ Aron Mana, Resident DJs free 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Fridays Resident DJs 9pm The Marquee, The Star, Pyrmont Tydi, Tenzin $20 10pm Oatley Hotel We Luv Oatley Hotel Fridays Mashed DJ Alter Ego free 8pm Omega Lounge, City Tattersalls Club, Sydney Unwind Fridays DJ Greg Summerfield free 5.30pm One22, Sydney Double Up? Drum and Bass // Jungle – FKNA & Antic’s Birthday Bash Buick, Ghost of Muttley, Vision, Kleva 1, FKNA, Billy Green, Ozi Battla, Antic $10 9pm The Ranch Hotel, Epping Retro Fridays Resident DJs 9.30pm Q Bar, Darlinghurst Teen Spirit Pep Rally (Bring It On!) Teen Spirit DJs $10 9pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross MILF Masquerade Party Willi, Nemz, Alex Borello, Daniel Berti, A Stylez, MC Rocamic 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Soft & Slow Pink Lloyd, Dreamcatcher $10 11.59pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Trademark Fridays Mo, Damn, Ziggy, MC Deekay free 9pm The Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour Bring On The Weekend!

Candidate, DJ Matt Roberts free 5pm Whaat Club, Potts Point Think Fridays Peeping Tom, KittKatt, Jaimie Lyn $10 9pm The World Bar, Kings Cross MUM MUM DJs $10-$15 8pm

SATURDAY MARCH 16 Annandale Hotel, Annandale Urthboy, One Sixth, Jimblah $23.50 12pm all-ages Annandale Hotel, Annandale Urthboy, One Sixth, Jimblah $28.60 7pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Falcona Saturdays Danny Clayton, Devola, Liz Bird, Hansom free 8pm Bella Vista, The Star City Casino Wharf, Pyrmont EMotion Boat Party Andy Farley (UK), Steve Hill, Yoshi, Micky D, Yev, JT Stanhope, Stickybuds

Smallpeople Nick Arbor & Thomas Knight, Torbynik, Raissa, Ben Jackal, Scruby $45 (+ bf) 10.30am Burdekin Hotel – Main Room, Darlinghurst The Techno Bug Trinity, Sebastian Bayne, Methodix, Martin Stace, Shepz $15 9pm Burdekin Hotel – Viper Room and Mini Bar, Darlinghurst Adrenalize: The Official Frantic Emotion Boat Party After Party Rodman, Nathan Flexx, MTP vs Micky D, Hard Kitty, Tanner One, Eliot Coleman, Notley, DragonBeatz, Matt Collins, Scruby, Sushi, Aron Chirella, Mybye, Filthy, Luffafly free 8pm Candy's Apartment, Kings Cross Big Guns Sherlock Bones, Tova, Whoxville, Homeslice, Matty Bixx, Carcola, Jake Culmone, DJ Haz, DJ Romeo $20 8pm Chinese Laundry, Sydney Maribou State (UK), The Only, The Loops Of Fury, Vengeance, James Frew, Fingers, Hannah Gibbs, Bounce Crew DJS, Here’s Trouble, Tom Oliver, Subsonic 9pm Club 77, Darlinghurst Starfuckers Starfuckers DJs 10pm Cohibar, Darling Harbour Yellow Sox DJ Toby Neal free 8pm Double Bay Wharf Sunset On Float Amanda Louise, Raul Lycan, Sam Whitmore Jamie Sciban, Nancy Lipman, Damian Da Silva, Stevie Oxton $55 (+ bf) 3pm Goldfish, Kings Cross Hedkandi Miami WMC Session Shaun Warner (IRE), Casa & tom Kelly, Frankie Romano, Adrian Benedek, Phil Hudson, Tim Whitney, Emmet Green $20 9pm Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Compound #008 Community, Subaske, Zeus $10 11pm Hermann’s Bar, University of Sydney, Darlington Power Cuts Reggae Club Jesse Proverbs & Ragz, Kwame, Teddy V $20 9pm Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour Homemade Saturdays Resident DJs $20-$25 9pm Ivy, Sydney Pacha Goodwill, Silver Sneakerz, John Glover, Baby Gee, Mo’Funk, Devola, Fingers, Kato, Pat Ward, Pablo Calamari, Trent Rackus, E-Cats, Heke, Adam Bozzetto, Shantan Wantan Ichiban, Lola Siren $35 6.30pm Jacksons On George, Sydney DJ Simon Laing, DJ Michael Stewart free 9pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Kitty Kitty Bang Bang Resident DJs 9pm The Marquee, The Star, Pyrmont Oakes & Lennox, Zero Cool, K-Note $30 9pm Newtown Hotel DJ Lord (USA), DJ Morgs free 8pm Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Julio Bashmore (UK), T.

Williams (UK), Lancelot, Slow Blow sold out 9pm Phoenix Bar, Darlinghurst Up Dayclub Resident DJs 5am Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross The Suite Resident DJs 8pm Secret Warehouse, St Peters Sound Carnage Sveta, Shalyn, Adriano, Zac Slade, Bex Meli, Ruby Slippers, Daniel Falzon $30-$40 8pm The Sly Fox, Enmore Shake That Monkey 3rd BDay Typhonic, Drox, Morphee, Mr-T free 9pm The Soda Factory, Surry Hills Soda Saturdays Drop Out Orchestra (SWE) $10 7pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Peret Mako, Murat Kilic, Mike Whitcombe, Gabby, Jaded $20 10pm Trademark Hotel, Kings Cross Trademark Saturdays Cadell, Steve Frank, Troy T, Jason K, Nacho Pop 9pm Warehouse, Sydney Hole In The Sky Warehouse Happening III Mo Morris (UK), Canyons, Tamas Jones, Noise In My Head $20-$25 10pm The Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour Skybar Saturdays Resident DJs $20 9pm Whaat Club, Potts Point After Dark Aydos, Teo, House Bears $10-$15 8pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Cakes Resident DJs $15-$20 8pm

SUNDAY MARCH 17

8pm

Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H Smallpeople (GER), Mo’Funk, Dan Baartz, Tom Witheridge, Alex Ludlow, Matt Weir, Kerry Wallace $10 2pm Beach Road Hotel, Bondi DJ Omar Varts, Clockwerk free 3pm The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills Beresford Sundays Resident DJs free 3pm Ivy Pool Club, Sydney Marco Polo DJs 1pm Jacksons On George, Sydney Aphrodisiac Resident DJs free 5pm Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross Easy Sundays Resident DJs free 10pm Oatley Hotel Sunday Sessions DJ Tone free 7pm Sapphire Lounge, Kings Cross Sapphire Sundays Resident DJs free 8pm The Spice Cellar, Sydney Spice After Hours Mike Whitcombe, Murat Kilic $20 4am Tatler, Darlinghurst Dust The Tortoise, James Taylor $10 10pm The Watershed Hotel, Darling Harbour DJ Brynstar free 2pm The World Bar, Kings Cross Soup Kitchen Resident DJs free 7pm

club picks

snap

up all night out all week . . .

up all night out all week...

WEDNESDAY MARCH 13

Maribou State

Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Hot Dub Time Machine, Sosueme DJs, Hobophonics, DJ Rumfoord free 8pm

THURSDAY MARCH 14

FRIDAY MARCH 15

SATURDAY MARCH 16

Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst Twist and Shout '60s Dance Party 3rd Birthday! Twist and Shout DJs $5 11pm

Chinese Laundry, Sydney Maribou State (UK), The Only, The Loops Of Fury, Vengeance, James Frew, Fingers, Hannah Gibbs, Bounce Crew DJS, Here’s Trouble, Tom Oliver, Subsonic $15 9pm

Goodgod Small Club, Sydney Sofrito Superdisco Tropical Hugo Mendez (FRA), Jingle Jangle DJs, Jimmy Sing, Huwston $12 (+ bf) 11pm

Newtown Hotel DJ Lord (USA), DJ Morgs free 8pm

halfway crooks

02:03:13 :: Phoenix Bar :: 34-44 Oxford St Darlinghurst Sydney 9331 3100

Warehouse, Sydney Hole In The Sky Warehouse Happening III Mo Morris (UK), Canyons, Tamas Jones, Noise In My Head $20-$25 10pm

SUNDAY MARCH 17

s.a.s.h

PICS :: AM

Hugo Mendez

Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway S.A.S.H Smallpeople (GER), Mo’Funk, Dan Baartz, Tom Witheridge, Alex Ludlow, Matt Weir, Kerry Wallace $10 2pm

03:03:13 :: The Abercrombie Hotel :: 100 Broadway Ultimo 9211 3486

Sundays 17 MARCH

Mo'Funk Tom Witheridge Matt Weir

Dan Baartz Alex Ludlow Kerry Wallace

huxley

PICS :: KL

Hugo Mendez photo by Mette Muhli

Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst Julio Bashmore (UK), T. Williams (UK), Lancelot, Slow Blow sold out 9pm

PICS :: AM

Goldfish, Kings Cross Miami Nights Jay-J (USA), Illya, Tikki Tembo, Phil Toke free 6pm

02:03:13 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 8295 9999 :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ROXY LEE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER IER XAV RO PED :: NS MUN IEL :: DAN :: KATE LEWIS :: ASHLEY MAR

BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13 :: 41

snap up all night out all week . . .

It’s called: Miami Nights It sounds like: The sweet sexy sounds of South Beach.

Who’s playing: Jay-J, Liam Sampras, Yogi, Husky, Illya, and weekly special guests.

Three songs you’ll hear on the night: Sonny Fodera – ‘No More Lies’; Dennis Ferrer – ‘Hey Hey’; Submotion Orchestra – ‘Thinking (Mark Knight Remix)’.

And one you definitely won’t: Nothing comm ercial or mainstream. No Avicii.

Sell it to us: Join San Francisco’s Grammy-no minated DJ Jay-J every Thursday for a taste of Miami Nights, featuring a plethora of Sydney’s finest house DJs, and live sax or trumpet. Plus tasty cocktails and pink flaming os.

The bit we’ll remember in the AM: What an amazing night (of international proportions) you had, all for the cost of what you paid for a kebab and cab ride home.

Wallet damage: Free entry all night for hospi tality workers, music and industry crew. $10 after 10pm for everyone else.

Where: Goldfish / 111 Darlinghurst Rd, Kings Cross When: Every Thursday from 8pm ‘til late.

propaganda

PICS :: DM

party profile

miami nights feat. jay-j & friends

one night only

PICS :: AM

28:02:13 :: World Bar :: 24 Bayswater Rd Kings Cross 93577700

rita ora

PICS :: KL

01:03:13 :: The Hi-Fi :: 122 Lang Road Moore Park 1300 843 443

velvet hammer

PICS :: KC

01:03:13 :: The Enmore :: 118-132 Enmore Rd Newtown 9550 3666

02:03:13 :: Oxford St Darlinghurst :: :: KATRINA CLARKE :: ROXY LEE S : TIM LEVY (HEAD HONCHO) :: OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER IER XAV :: DANIEL MUNNS :: PEDRO :: KATE LEWIS :: ASHLEY MAR

42 :: BRAG :: 503 :: 11:03:13

mano le tough

PICS :: TL

mardi gras

PICS :: AM

02:03:13 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst 9332 3711

02:03:13 :: The Abercrombie Hotel :: 100 Broadway Ultimo 9211 3486

ALLEN STONE

JD MCPHERSON THE MUSIC MAKER BLUES REVUE

THE SONGS OF THE HAIGHT ASHBURY SHOW

XAVIER RUDD

THE LUMINEERS

WILCO

MATT ANDERSEN

TONY JOE WHITE

CHRIS SMITHER

BETTYE LAVETTE

JD MCPHERSON

THE BAMBOOS

11:45

TS KE TIC RKING LED PA DISABLE

NORTH

ENTRY GATE

DISABLED CAMPING

FESTIVAL ENTRY

ADMIN MEDIA

STAGED EVACUATION ASSEMBLY AREA

MOJO

TTE CITY TENT

MASSAGE FESTIVAL ENTRY

ATM V.I.P.

CAMPING MANAGER BUSES

GENERAL STORE

ATM

ING D PARK DISABLE

CROSSROADS

SOUTH

POLICE

JAMBALAYA

SOUTH

FESTIVAL ENTRY/EXIT

ENTRY GATE

N South to Byron Bay Lennox Head Ballina

12:00

11:30

LOTUS PALACE APRA

11:15

PEDESTRIAN ACCESS

North to Brunswick Heads Tweed Heads Gold Coast Brisbane

CAVANBAH CAVANBAH

11:00

10:45

10:15

10:30

10:00

09:45

09:30

09:15

09:00

08:30

08:45

08:15

08:00

07:45

07:15

07:30

07:00

06:45

06:30

06:15

06:00

05:45

05:30

05:15

05:00

Charity Stalls

04:30

Cloak Room

04:45

04:00

Breathalyser

04:15

03:45

03:30

03:15

03:00

02:45

02:30

02:15

02:00

01:45

01:30

01:15

01:00

12:45

12:30

12:15

12:00

Bars & Drink Tickets

THE BEARDS

EMERGENCY EVACUATION ASSEMBLY AREA

NORTH

FESTIVAL ENTRY/EXIT

Noon - 5pm Daily

THE MUSIC MAKER BLUES REVUE

BEN CAPLAN

M C J A C

12:00

BEN HOWARD

MASON RACK BAND

Kids Activities

11:45

PAUL SIMON

MELBOURNE SKA ORCHESTRA

Water Fill

11:30

11:15

11:00

10:45

10:15

10:30

10:00

09:30

09:45

09:15

09:00

08:30

08:45

08:00

08:15

07:45

07:30

07:15

07:00

06:45

06:30

06:15

06:00

05:30

05:45

05:00

05:15

BONNIE RAITT

MONDAY 1ST APRIL

SOJA

M C J A C

SUNDAY 31ST MARCH

MAVIS STAPLES

MANU CHAO LA VENTURA MELBOURNE SKA ORCHESTRA

SATURDAY 30TH MARCH

THE LUMINEERS

M C J A C 12:00

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT

11:45

THE CAT EMPIRE

FAT FREDDY’S DROP

The Music Shop & Artist Signings

11:30

11:15

11:00

10:45

10:15

10:30

10:00

09:30

09:45

09:15

09:00

08:30

08:45

08:15

08:00

07:45

07:30

07:15

07:00

06:45

06:15

06:30

06:00

05:30

05:45

FAT FREDDY’S DROP

FRIDAY 29TH MARCH

THE SONGS OF THE HAIGHT ASHBURY SHOW

XAVIER RUDD

THURSDAY 28TH MARCH

THE BEARDS

M C J A C

12:00

SASKWATCH

BEN CAPLAN

11:45

MATT ANDERSEN

M C J A C 12:00

THE ROBERT CRAY BAND

SOJA

Diamond Package Seating

11:45

TAJ MAHAL TRIO

ROYAL SOUTHERN BROTHERHOOD

Merch & 2014 Festival Tickets

12:00

RUTHIE FOSTER

GREY GHOST

First Aid

11:30

11:15

IGGY & THE STOOGES

ALLEN STONE

Free Festival Programs

11:45

11:15

11:00

10:45

10:15

10:30

10:00

09:30

09:45

09:15

09:00

08:30

08:45

08:15

08:00

07:45

07:30

07:15

07:00

06:45

06:30

06:15

06:00

05:30

05:45

DROPKICK MURPHYS

THE BAMBOOS

RHYTHMS Q&A

11:30

11:00

10:45

10:30

10:15

10:00

09:45

09:30

09:15

09:00

08:45

08:30

08:00

08:15

07:45

07:15

07:30

07:00

06:45

06:30

06:15

06:00

05:30

05:45

ROBERT PLANT PRESENTS SENSATIONAL SPACE SHIFTERS

KING CANNONS

THE MCMENAMINS

11:30

11:15

10:45

11:00

10:30

10:15

10:00

09:45

09:30

09:15

09:00

08:45

08:30

08:00

08:15

07:45

07:15

07:30

07:00

06:45

06:15

06:30

06:00

05:30

05:15

05:00

04:30

04:45

04:00

CURRENT SWELL

Market Stalls

Food Vendors

BETTYE LAVETTE ROYAL SOUTHERN BROTHERHOOD

ZAC BROWN BAND

THE MUSIC MAKER BLUES REVUE

THE MUSIC MAKER BLUES REVUE

ROGER HODGSON

KITTY, DAISY & LEWIS

Information

Toilets

04:15

03:45

WILSON PICKERS

03:30

BROTHER FOX

03:15

KIM CHURCHILL

03:00

02:45

02:30

GENEVIEVE CHADWICK ROUND MOUNTAIN GIRLS 2013 BUSKING WINNER

BEASTS OF BOURBON

RHYTHMS Q&A

MAVIS STAPLES

NEWTON FAULKNER

THE BREAK

THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA

NICKY BOMBA’S BUSTAMENTO

CURRENT SWELL

CHRIS SMITHER 02:15

02:00

01:45

01:30

01:15

01:00

12:45

12:30

12:15

12:00

BUSBY MAROU

05:00

04:30

TONY JOE WHITE

MASON RACK BAND

TAV FALCO

RHYTHMS Q&A

SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK

ROCKWIZ LIVE

MANU CHAO LA VENTURA FRED WESLEY WANDA JACKSON AND THE NEW JB’S

THE SONGS OF THE HAIGHT ASHBURY SHOW

BEN CAPLAN

JON ANDERSON

TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND

& THE PANTHER BURNS

THE BEARDS

KARISE EDEN

ALLEN TOUSSAINT

MATT ANDERSEN

04:45

04:00

04:15

03:45

03:30

03:15

03:00

02:45

02:30

02:15

02:00

01:45

01:30

01:15

01:00

12:45

12:30

12:15

12:00

SASKWATCH

GREY GHOST

KIM CHURCHILL

05:15

WILSON PICKERS ROUND MOUNTAIN GIRLS

WARDS XPRESS

LUKA BLOOM

05:15

04:30

HAT FITZ & CARA

THE MCMENAMINS

THE SNOWDROPPERS

PLAYING FOR CHANGE MICHAEL KIWANUKA

& THE UNDERTOW

LIL FI & THE DIRTY RASCALS

KING CANNONS

04:45

04:00

04:15

03:45

03:30

03:15

03:00

ALLEN TOUSSAINT

AND THE SLEEPING SOULS

& ORLEANS AVENUE

STATUS QUO

SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK MARK SEYMOUR

SETH LAKEMAN

THE SNOWDROPPERS

THE ROBERT CRAY BAND

WILCO

& THE NOCTURNALS

FRED WESLEY

AND THE NEW JB’S

FRANK TURNER

TROMBONE SHORTY

MICHAEL KIWANUKA

CHRIS ISAAK

TAV FALCO

RODRIGUEZ

WITH THE BREAK

ABC COAST FM NATIONAL BROADCAST

& THE PANTHER BURNS

SANTANA

SHUGGIE OTIS

SHAWN COLVIN

ROCKWIZ LIVE

BROTHER FOX

05:00

PLAYING FOR CHANGE

WITH THE BREAK

STEVE MILLER BAND

JOAN ARMATRADING

GRACE POTTER

SKIPPING GIRL VINEGAR

SHAUN KIRK

04:45

04:30

JIMMY CLIFF

(SOLO ACOUSTIC)

TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND RODRIGUEZ PERFORMING

JAKE SHIMABUKURO

THE BEARDS

BEN HARPER

SOJA

GENEVIEVE CHADWICK

05:45

SHAWN COLVIN

& THE FRAMES

02:45

02:15

02:30

02:00

01:45

01:30

01:15

01:00

12:45

12:30

12:15

12:00

KING CANNONS

ARAKWAI

GO JANE GO

HAT FITZ & CARA

JAKE SHIMABUKURO WILLIAM ELLIOTT WHITMORE

SETH LAKEMAN

OPENING CEREMONY

SHAUN KIRK

ROCKWIZ LIVE

HAT FITZ & CARA

05:15

WANDA JACKSON

GLEN HANSARD

TAJ MAHAL TRIO

WARDS XPRESS

05:00

LEONARDO’S BRIDE

THE ROBERT CRAY BAND JOAN ARMATRADING

SHUGGIE OTIS

BEN HARPER & CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE

JASON MRAZ

COUNTING CROWS

& ORLEANS AVENUE

WILLIAM ELLIOTT WHITMORE

04:15

RUTHIE FOSTER

TROMBONE SHORTY

& THE NOCTURNALS

04:00

SKIPPING GIRL VINEGAR

GRACE POTTER

03:45

03:30

03:15

02:45

03:00

02:15

02:30

02:00

01:45

01:15

01:30

01:00

12:45

12:30

12:15

12:00

LEONARDO’S BRIDE

04:45

but is subject to change without notification

04:30

STAGE SCHEDULE AND MAPS NB: This schedule was correct at time of printing

04:15

04:00

MOJO CROSSROADS JAMBALAYA APRA CAVANBAH

TAX I

&D ROP OFF

TI

CK

ET

S

TEEPEE

LIFE

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