Brag#547

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rePLAY Over 15 games featured including Zelda, Final Fantasy, Halo & more!

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rock music news welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town...with Chris Martin and Xiaoran Shi

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RAY LECHMINKA FROM THE BIG BLIND RAY TRIO are people that I connect with well on a person-to-person level – like kindred spirits. Finding a harmonious connection of personalities and musicianship, I think, is crucial to our sound. We sound like we play right from the heart.

We’re influenced heavily by the North Mississippi Hill Country bluesmen, the Chicago bluesmen and the Delta bluesmen – all kinds of bluesmen really. The good kind, that is. We take those influences and get dirty with it. Fuck with it. Make it our own.

2.

What Do You Look For In A Band?

1.

Beck, Karl and I have been together since October 2012. We all get along really well, like one big (little) dysfunctional family. We like to gross each other out, make crude jokes and catch up outside of the band

room quite regularly for band bonding/ quality time. We take our music seriously. We rehearse, write and gig routinely every week without fail. And when we aren’t doing the band thing we make our living from being private teachers. It is absolutely fundamental to me that the people I play with

Keeping Busy We have been writing and working on new songs for our next recording, which we hope to get rolling later this year, and are gigging regularly around Sydney.

Best Gig Ever Frankie’s Pizza! Last year 3. for the Bleedin’ Gums Blues Fest.

The place was pumping on a

TONGUES WAGGING AT BIG DAY OUT

EDITOR: Chris Martin chris@thebrag.com 02 9212 4322 ARTS + ONLINE EDITOR: Hannah Warren hannah@thebrag.com 02 9212 4322 STAFF WRITERS: Alasdair Duncan, Jody Macgregor, Krissi Weiss, Augustus Welby NEWS: Chris Honnery, Xiaoran Shi, Mina Kitsos ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alan Parry PHOTOGRAPHERS: Liam Cameron, Katrina Clarke, Ashley Mar, Jamie Williams, Prudence Upton ADVERTISING: Bianca Lockley - 0412 581 669 / (02) 9212 4322 bianca@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 9212 4322 les@thebrag.com PUBLISHER: Rob Furst MANAGING DIRECTOR, FURST MEDIA: Patrick Carr patrick@furstmedia.com.au, (03) 9428 3600, 0402 821 122 DIGITAL DIRECTOR/ADVERTISING: Kris Furst kris@furstmedia.com.au, (03) 9428 3600 GIG & CLUB GUIDE COORDINATORS: Thea Carley, Julienne Gilet, Mina Kitsos, Xiaoran Shi, Andy Huang, Callum Wylie - gigguide@thebrag. com (rock); clubguide@thebrag.com (dance, hip hop & parties)

There were plenty of talking points from Sunday’s Big Day Out at the Sydney Showground, most of which came from the mouth of Liam Gallagher. The Beady Eye and ex-Oasis frontman wasn’t thrilled to be following The Hives, whose Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist got carried away with his crowd participation instructions, thought Gallagher.

“You’ve been bossed around all afternoon,” he said, “I don’t know whether to jump up and down or do the Macarena.” Later, the combative Mancunian dedicated ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Star’ to “any Blur fans in the gaff”. Elsewhere, Bluejuice played in front of a giant “Bluejuice 4 Gay Marriage” banner, and Pearl Jam played past their 10:30pm curfew, because they didn’t feel like stopping and “it’s Australia Day!”, said Eddie Vedder.

STONES SAXOPHONIST IS A SUFFERING BASTARD

Your chance to witness a piece of rock’n’roll history is here. The legendary Bobby Keys and his band The Suffering Bastards will be gracing our shores with a series of special honky tonkin’ shows commencing in March. Having toured since the age of 15, the septuagenarian saxophonist has played with the likes of The Who, Eric Clapton, Lynyard

Sunday night til the wee hours of the morning. It was one of those gigs where you could feel the connection, not just between us and the audience, but also between the other bands. There was a lot of love that night. We will be back there on Thursday January 30 to headline, and again on Sunday February 9 with Barefoot Alley and Frank Sultana and The Sinister Kids.

Current Playlist I’m currently listening to 4.

‘Spoonful’ by Howlin’ Wolf. The space and intention of every note and layer is mesmerising! I’m also listening to ‘You Need Love’ by Willie Dixon, but am really into the Willie Smith and The Juke Joint Rockers’ version. Another great example of space and feel and rock-solid groove.

In terms of Aussie acts, I love ‘Somebody Call The Po’Po’’ by Chris Russell’s Chicken Walk. His album

Skynyrd and three of the Beatles. Keys has also been part of The Rolling Stones’ live band since 1970, and during the Stones’ March and April southern hemisphere tour, will be putting on six performances across Australia. Don’t miss Bobby Keys & The Suffering Bastards on Sunday March 23 at The Basement.

Laura Imbruglia

TRIVIA AND SONGS WITH LAURA IMBRUGLIA

Singer-songwriter Laura Imbruglia (you’ll remember her sister) is coming back to town on the back of her third album, What A Treat. Imbruglia will host a special night at, erm, the Midnight Special – where she will not only play a solo set, but also host a session of Let’s Get Trivical Musical Trivia. Not bad, not bad at all! She’s also playing The Union in Newtown on Thursday February 13, and Lizotte’s Kincumber on Friday February 14 supporting Monique Brumby.

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Where: Frankie’s Pizza When: Thursday January 30 / Sunday February 9

For the first time ever, Beijing-via-east-Los Angeles shoegaze duo Alpine Decline are landing on Australian soil with a new album’s worth of material added to their arsenal. Go Big Shadow City is the pair’s fifth full-length and builds on the chaotic intensity of its predecessor Night Of The Long Knives, both of which were inspired by the “ruins of ancient alleyways and naked skyscrapers” of China’s capital, the band’s adopted home. Recorded in the underground carpark studio of Yang Haisong, one of post-punk’s grandfathers and a regular coconspirator on the band’s output, Go Big Shadow City catalogues experiences both lived and fictional, and attempts to capture the sound of Beijing itself, as heard from the outside. Alpine Decline will be celebrating the launch of their latest album on Friday January 31 by kicking off their Australian tour at The Square in Haymarket. Support from Golden Blonde, Psychlops Eyepatch and Lovelyhead.

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comedian who only does dad jokes. Another stand-up comedian who only does ‘your mum’ jokes.

An army of winged monkeys. A juggler. An Elvis impersonator who follows me around and only responds with “Uh-huh” every time I finish a sentence. Our drummer Beck is vegetarian which tends to piss off some venues because she is constantly demanding more vego options on the food rider. Uh-huh.

ALPINE DECLINE

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Your Ultimate Rider Hookers, coke, weed, Johnny 5.

Walker Blue on tap. A stand-up

Greenthief

AWESOME INTERNS: Mina Kitsos, Callum Wylie, Xiaoran Shi, Julienne Gilet, Thea Carley, Andy Huang

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Shakedown is one of the best Aussie blues albums I have heard in a long time. Raw, authentic, Hill Country blues. Our guitarist Karl is really digging ‘Roar’ by Katy Perry of late. She is kind of his hero both musically and spiritually.

GREENTHIEF

What a journey it’s been for Melbourne psych rock enthusiasts Greenthief, who, after four years of honing their sound, songwriting and performance technique, are finally ready to unleash their debut full-length upon the world. One could say that Voyage is the direct descendant of the original psych rockers. Intended to be listened to as a whole – just the way we like it – the album pays homage to ’70s drum sounds and bass tones, and was produced by Steve James, most famous for his work with The Jam and the Sex Pistols. Greenthief tested their unique psychedelic sound on international audiences last year, taking European stages by storm, and are now ready to inspire local crowds once more with a 25-date nationwide tour. Voyage will be released via MGM on Monday February 10. Catch Greenthief red-handed (or is that green-handed?) at the Great Northern in Newcastle on Thursday April 10 and Frankie’s Pizza on Thursday April 24.

ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI

Just as you were finally getting all those tunes from their 2011 record Moment Bends out of your heads, Architecture In Helsinki have announced a new album and tour. NOW + 4EVA will be released on Friday March 28, the follow-up to their enormous fourth record, Moment Bends. The 11 new tracks have been co-produced by the band and Francois Tetaz, and are led out by singles ‘In The Future’ and ‘Dream A Little Crazy’. Architecture In Helsinki launch NOW + 4EVA at the Metro Theatre on Friday April 11, with World’s End Press in support. thebrag.com

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BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14 :: 9

rock music news

free stuff

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town...with Chris Martin and Xiaoran Shi

speed date WITH

DRENGE

CALEB NOTT FROM BROOD have signed to amazing labels (Dryden Street, Polydor, Capitol and Island), and are planning tours all around the world! It truly is a dream come true for both of us.

Best Gig Ever We have only played a handful of shows 3. so far, but the stand out for us would have been playing at Rhythm and Vines [in New Zealand] over New Year’s. We never thought so many people would be keen to watch us live but the response was overwhelming.

4.

Current Playlist Georgia and I listen to a wide variety of acts and our tastes are rather contrasting, which I think you can hear in the music we make together. Georgia loves to listen to a lot of female artists such as Bat For Lashes, Laura Mvula and Twigs. Whereas I am a total Thom Yorke geek and love listening to artists such as James Blake, Moderat and Metronomy.

of all love what we do and are willing to grow and change with us.

synth, all topped off with emotionally intricate vocal melodies. In our spare time, we both love watching animated films such as Kung Fu Panda and Tangled. We enjoy fans that first

Keeping Busy The last few months have been so crazy!

I mean, we were both working in average parttime jobs only two months ago and now we

2.

merlot from the year I was born, a packet of Marlboro Reds and a sheet of A4 paper with a wide selection of glitter pens!

Where: Oxford Art Factory, supporting Youth Lagoon When: Thursday January 30 And: ‘Bridges’ out now

HERE’S JONNY

The Good Lovelies

After a whirlwind run of sold-out shows last year, Canadian-American singer-chameleon Jonny Craig will be back for more in May, this time accompanied by a full band. Craig first made a name for himself as lead vocalist of pop-punk outfit Ghost Runner On Third, before breaking into the US posthardcore scene as frontman of Dance Gavin Dance and later, Emarosa. The formation of supergroup Isles & Glaciers crystallised his success in the world of post-hardcore, but it wasn’t until Craig began pursuing his

Hailing from the Peak District in England, Drenge, made up of brothers Eoin and Rory Loveless, churn out lo-fi fuzzy grunge, heavy in riffs and emotion. The band has developed a cult following in recent times, taking them all the way to our shores to join the bumper lineup on the Laneway Festival, where they will dish out their unapologetic brand of rock’n’roll to festivalgoers Australia-wide. Drenge are playing a sideshow with The Creases at Goodgod Small Club on Tuesday February 4, and we have two double passes up for grabs. For your chance to win, head to thebrag.com/freeshit and tell us your favourite musical siblings.

AUSTRALIAN CRAWL

In a career spanning less than a decade, Australian Crawl achieved more than many of their contemporaries could have dreamed of. With countless hit singles including ‘The Boys Light Up’, ‘Beautiful People’ and ‘Reckless (Don’t Be So)’ coming from their four studio albums, (two of which, The Boys Light Up [1980] and Sirocco [1981], went quadruple platinum), Australian Crawl have long stood out as one of Australia’s most iconic and successful acts. This was cemented in 1996 when they were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame alongside the likes of Billy Thorpe, Skyhooks and AC/DC. To mark the 35th anniversary of their first single ‘Beautiful People’, Australian Crawl are releasing The Greatest Hits collection featuring favourites from all of their previous releases. We have ten copies to give away – head to thebrag. com/freeshit and tell us the most reckless thing you’ve ever done.

Broods photo by Stephen Tilley

Your Ultimate Rider My ultimate rider would have to be a 5. bowl of only black jelly beans, a bottle of

What Do You Look For In A Band?

Our sound is made up of driving beats 1. accompanied by thick layers of bass and

head to: thebrag.com/freeshit

solo musical adventures that he really came into his own. Craig’s debut solo record A Dream Is A Question You Don’t Know How To Answer is a testament to the 27-yearold’s tremendous vocal chops. Currently in the process of finishing an album slated for release mid-year, Craig will be joined onstage by acoustic duo This Wild Life, MC Kyle Lucas and Queensland rockers Red Beard.

Earlybird tickets are available now for Craig’s all-ages show at The Hi-Fi on Saturday May 10 and an 18+ show at The Small Ballroom in Newcastle on Sunday May 11.

MORE SIDEWAVES

THE GOOD LOVELIES

The banjo-strumming, mandolin-wielding, sassy and smiling Canadian trio The Good Lovelies are returning to Australian shores this March to play a string of 18 dates. Since their last visit to Oz in 2011, the fun-loving festival favourites have won a slew of awards for their latest album, Live At Revolution, and have charmed audiences worldwide with their uplifting three-part harmonies and wistful tunes. Carrying sunny dispositions and toe-tapping tunes that are equal parts country, folk and urban, Caroline Brooks, Kerri Ough and Sue Passmore really are the perfect combination of all things lovely. Naw. See them at The Vanguard on Thursday March 13.

Tickets have gone on sale for a new pair of Soundwave Festival sideshows, including an epic triple-header of Mastodon, Baroness and Gojira. Mastodon have never given up on the concept of the concept album, and they’ve never given up on their Australian fans either – they’re returning for Soundwave after a two-year break from our shores. The sidewave is set for UNSW Roundhouse on Monday February 24. Meanwhile, metal goliaths Megadeth will be joined by Volbeat and Newsted for a Roundhouse show on Tuesday February 25.

Mastodon

KYARY PAMYU PAMYU Kyary Pamyu Pamyu – J-Pop princess, fashion blogger and model – is headed Down Under for the very first time. The quirky, muchadored Japanese idol is embarking on her Nanda Collection Tour, which also includes North America, UK, Europe, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and Thailand, to celebrate the release of her second album Nanda Collection. Often

BILLY BRAGG

compared to artists like Björk and Lady Gaga, Pamyu Pamyu is lauded for being in control of her own sound and aesthetic, unlike most J-Pop stars. She is unusual also for her unprecedented popularity in Western markets, thanks largely to her hugely popular Tumblr and Instagram channels, which boast a cumulative 53 million views worldwide. She will be playing a highenergy, blindingly gorgeous show at the Metro Theatre on Sunday March 23.

Billy Bragg

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Billy Bragg photo by Andy Whale

If you haven’t already nabbed yourself a ticket to Billy Bragg’s Australian tour in March, get in quick. The Bard of Barking (referring to the singer-songwriter’s Essex birthplace, not to a canine voice, thankfully) has built his formidable career on polemical anthems of working class struggle – but this time, with the release of his latest album Tooth & Nail, it’s personal.

With his heart pinned firmly back on his sleeve, Bragg has written a collection of songs about the “struggle to maintain our relationships with those we love the most.”

Recorded in just five days, Tooth & Nail features a renewed focus on the personal, although as the saying goes, the personal is political. Playing his newest album as well as songs pulled from his four decades in the spotlight, you can catch Bragg on the Sydney leg of his first full band tour of Australia on Sunday March 16 at the Sydney Opera House. The hotly tipped Courtney Barnett will open the show.

Tickets via sydneyoperahouse.com.

thebrag.com

SE

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IN

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FA

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Syd n ey O p e ra H o u se i n a s so c i at i o n wit h G ayn o r C raw fo rd p re se nt

An evening with

Glen Hansard An intimate solo performance from The Frames and The Swell Season singer/songwriter

2nd Show

17 March 2014

20 March 2014

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#music atthehouse

BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14 :: 11

Industrial Strength Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

THINGS WE HEAR * James Reyne, Yothu Yindi’s Mr Yunipungu, John Schumann of Redgum, songwriter and producer Mike Chapman (Sweet, Suzi Quatro, Blondie, The Knack) and Sydney jazz drummer John PochĂŠe were among those lauded in the Australia Day Honours List. * Grinspoon’s Phil Jamieson on being asked to host the fifth Rolling Stone awards on Tuesday February 4 at Bondi’s Beach Road Hotel: “I’ve had a long relationship with Rolling Stone, from a teen stealing their magazines from a Wauchope newsagency to never appearing on the cover.â€? Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds lead the nominations with four, Bliss n Eso with three, and Lorde, The Drones and Boy & Bear with two each. * Snoop Dogg may rue his decision to post photos of

himself online apparently smoking cannabis in the luxury Gold Coast hotel Palazzo Versace.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says they won’t press charges because he’d already left the Gold Coast but he “may regret this stunt� the next time he seeks a visa. * The new regional festival Infinity in October is having issues, with Sydney Skip Films Productions warning some regional councils its promoter Dene Mussillon AKA Dene Broadbelt owes it $2,500 from a previous project. Mussillon is planning legal action but already Narromine Council is holding off its decision, local Daily Liberal newspaper reported. * Fans of Ke$ha have been banned from sending her their teeth as a show of support while the pop star spends time in rehab for an eating disorder. She uses the teeth to create accessories and got a friend to tweet requesting more

POSTON TO HEAD PARLOPHONE, WARNER BROS OZ As tipped exclusively by this column, former EMI Australasia chairman Mark Poston has returned to the business. He is now the Managing Director of Parlophone Australia and Managing Director of Warner Bros.

Records Australia. He will work at the Warner Music offices in Sydney. Warner bought Parlophone, best known as the home of The Beatles, from EMI/Universal last February.

SCOTT HORSCROFT TAKES OVER GROVE STUDIOS Scott Horscroft, record producer and GM of

fangs but the rehab centre stopped it due to health and safety concerns. * At their Myer Music Bowl show, Arcade Fire decided to commemorate what would have been Michael Hutchence’s 54th birthday by doing a version of INXS’ ‘Devil Inside’ towards the end of their set. * Some facts and figures on triple j’s Hottest 100: 1,492,619 votes were cast by 173,658 music fans in 169 countries. 4,200 Hottest 100 parties registered to be held on Australia Day. 42 songs were from artists appearing in the Hottest 100 countdown for the first time. The month in which the most Hottest 100 songs were released was May. Australian artists made up 44% of the poll. * Anberlin have confirmed they will visit Australia as part of their farewell world tour. * One-time music venue The Jolly Frog in Windsor was destroyed by fire.

A&R for EMI Music Australia, has taken over Grove Studios, set in 25 acres of bushland in rural Somersby, near Gosford. Formerly named Mangrove Music Studios, it was originally built by INXS bassist Garry Gary Beers, and Silverchair, Delta Goodrem, Something For Kate, Eskimo Joe, The Whitlams, Troy Cassar-Daley, Human Nature and INXS cut some of their biggest hit albums there. Horscroft, formerly of Big Jesus Burger studios, has brought in top engineers and producers, including Burke Reid, Matt Lovell, Andy Mac and The Grove’s longstanding in-house engineer Josh Telford. In time, he wants to set up an audio engineering school on the property, as well as opening

up the space to the public with mini-music festivals and other community events. “We just want to get about making it bigger and better than ever,� Horscroft said.

BLUE BEAT CLOSES Sydney lost another live music venue on the weekend: Blue Beat in Double Bay threw in the towel after struggling to get artist bookings. This was despite the fact that it managed to combine classic jazz ambience with a groovy feel, and that it was set up by former Basement manager and booker Christopher Richards and promotions and venue consultant Nicholas Rice. The Cross Street building will most likely become a bar under Richards and Rice.

UNIVERSAL PUBLISHING SIGNS TWO SYDNEY ACTS Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) has signed two Sydney acts. Gang Of Youths are recording their debut album in upstate New York with producer Kevin McMahon for Sony Music. UMPG’s second signing is DJ, producer, singer and songwriter KLP (real name Kristy Lee Peters). KLP has had radio success with projects such as the What So Not (Flume and Emoh Instead) track ‘Jaguar’, ‘Down South’ (featuring production from Perth’s Ta-Ku) and her new tune ‘Decide’. KLP also just signed to Sum Management.

‘EAGLE ROCK’ VOTED GREATEST AUSTRALIAN SONG

BY MUSICIANS Daddy Cool’s ‘Eagle Rock’ was voted the greatest Australian song of all time by a panel of musicians on MAX channel’s Top 100 Greatest Australian Songs Of All Time. When released in 1971, the Ross Wilson-penned number was #1 for ten weeks with sales of 100,000 (which in those days only overseas acts could gain) and inspired Elton John to write ‘Crocodile Rock’. It was followed by (2) The Easybeats – ‘Friday On My Mind’, (3) You Am I – ‘Berlin Chair’, (4) INXS – ‘Never Tear Us Apart’, (5) AC/DC – ‘It’s A Long Way To The Top’, (6) Cold Chisel – ‘Flame Trees’, (7) Midnight Oil – ‘Power And The Passion’, (8) Midnight Oil – ‘Beds Are Burning’, (9) AC/DC – ‘Highway To Hell’ and (10) Divinyls – ‘Pleasure And Pain’.

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Just Announced

This Week

Alter Bridge (USA) & Living Colour

Bobby Keys & The Suffering Bastards

Tue 25 Feb: All Ages

Mon 24 Mar

Jonny Craig (USA)

Ghost (SWE)

Sat 10 May: All Ages

Tue 28 Jan: All Ages

Coming Soon

Streaming is overtaking digital downloads in Australia, which continue to decline. In the third week of 2014, single track sales were down 11.9% from 2012, with digital album sales down 13.3%, according to The Music Network.

RECORD AMOUNT OF AUSSIES AT SXSW A record 55 Aussie names have been confirmed to play South By Southwest in Austin, Texas. It will be the largest amount of Australian acts in the US at any one time. The number could rise to 61, if all the six Aussie acts from a field of 80 more potentials go on to confirm. Up to 750 Australians are expected to sign on as delegates for the music, film and interactive components, SXSW reported.

There were 658 Australian attendees last year, joining 15,000 from around the world.

CAREFUL ABOUT YOUR RAPS

Toro Y Moi + Portugal The Man

Havok (USA) & King Parrot

Wed 29 Jan

Thu 6 Feb

TnT, Frequencerz, + More

Groundation (USA)

Kerser

Fri 7 Feb

Sat 8 Feb: All Ages

The Coronas (IRL)

Six60 (NZ)

Sat 22 Feb

Fri 28 Feb

Sat 15 Feb: U18s

Sat 8 Mar

Darkside Wed 02 Apr

Dark Tranquillity (SWE)

Robert Glasper Exp & Roy Ayers & Lonnie Liston Smith

Kylesa (USA) Thu 3 Apr

Sat 29 Mar

Toxic Holocaust & Skeletonwitch

Children of Bodom

Sat 26 Apr

Fri 9 May

Skid Row & Ugly Kid Joe

The Crimson ProjeKCt

Sun 27 Apr

Fri 27 Jun

Violent raps can bite you in the ass. The New York Times pointed out 18 court cases in America that allowed lyrics as evidence because the rapper incriminated himself or herself. One Vonte Skinner was convicted in a New Jersey courtroom of attempted murder of a rival drug dealer.

Partly it was due to cops finding lyrics in his girlfriend’s car in which he boasted/ fantasised of shooting the man multiple times. In 2012 his jail sentence was overturned due to “insufficient evidence�.

MGM, POZIBLE PARTNER UP A deal between Pozible and indie powerhouse MGM means albums, singles and merchandise crowdfunded through Pozible will be released by MGM subsidiary Waterfront Records. Their crowdfunded music will now count towards the ARIA and AIR charts. The service will also give artists the option to have online retail built in to both their own and Waterfront’s websites. MGM founder Sebastian Chase hailed the initiative for its ability to “provide a funding and distribution solution which enhances the options available to Australian artists and

supports their efforts to build sustainable careers.� See pozible.com/mgm for more details.

UNFD SIGNS SYDNEY’S STORIES TO LABEL, MANAGEMENT UNFD signed Sydney metal band Stories to its record label and management divisions.

A new single ‘Dreamwork’ is out this week, and the band hits the east coast through February and March. Stories formed in 2012 on the Northern Beaches and their debut EP Voids issued for free last year got 40,000 downloads. Their new management is Luke Logemann and Northlane guitarist Josh Smith, the team behind Northlane.

INERTIA SIGNS WITH FAT POSSUM Inertia signed a label deal with USA’s Fat Possum Records to release its records in Australia and NZ. Fat Possum was founded in 1991 by Matthew Johnson, and initially dedicated to Mississippi Delta blues. More recently it issued records by the likes of Spiritualized, Wavves, Yuck and Youth Lagoon. The deal also includes the labels Other Music Recording Company (Mutual Benefi t, Ex-Cops), Lefse Records (How To Dress Well, Neon Indian), Big Legal Mess (Water Liars, Leo Welch) and Hi Records (Al Green, Willie Mitchell).

US LABEL LOST HIGHWAY SETS UP IN OZ Universal Music has set up an Australian office for US country and roots label Lost Highway Records (Ryan Adams, Lucinda Williams, The Jayhawks, Whiskeytown, Lyle Lovett). The Sydney office will sign acts in Oz, NZ and the Pacific, with the first signing being NSW-based country singer Catherine Britt.

Lifelines Recovered: Queen guitarist Brian May has been cleared of all cancer.

Ill: Lemmy Kilmister’s health issues related to diabetes saw MotÜrhead axe a European tour in February.

Jailed: Perth scalper Adam William Bogers who made $10,000 from selling tickets to two concerts on Gumtree, worth $30,000, was jailed for 12 months after he pleaded guilty in the District Court to 36 charges including using a fake email, a phone under a false name and credit cards that did not belong to him.

In Court: while Justin Bieber was being busted for drink driving, a member of his entourage was facing Brisbane Magistrates Court over charges that drugs were found in his bag at Brisbane Airport on November 24. The lawyer for Terrence Reche Smalls, 23, said his client owned the bag where the dope was found, but that the dope was someone else’s. That person was about to confess and face criminal charges. The matter was adjourned until March 14.

Died: one-time Toto frontman Dennis Hardy ‘Fergie’ Frederiksen, 62, from inoperable liver cancer.

Died: Post-punk drummer Johnny Crash (AKA Janis Friedenfelds) former member of Adelaide’s Jab, the original Models lineup, Sacred Cowboys and Slaughterhouse.

Died: Stephen Kelly, the Chief Financial Officer for Southern Cross Media, two days after going on indefinite leave to get medical treatment.

Died: Century Media Records co-owner Oliver WithĂśft, 49, from unspecified illness.

Died: Samong Traisattha, singer of the Thai black metal band Surrender of Divinity, stabbed in his home, apparently for not having enough “faith in Satan�.

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

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TRIPLE J, MAX, THE BRAG & JARRAH RECORDS PRESENT

JOHN BUTLER TRIO

WITH SPECIAL GUEST EMMA LOUISE

WEDNESDAY 9 APRIL | CIVIC THEATRE NEWCASTLE Licenced / All Ages. Tickets available from Ticketek | www.ticketek.com.au | 132 849

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SATURDAY 12 APRIL | ROYAL THEATRE CANBERRA Licenced / All Ages. Tickets available from Ticketek | www.ticketek.com.au | 132 849

SUNDAY 13 APRIL | ANITA’S THEATRE THIRROUL Licenced / Over 18. Tickets available from Ticketmaster | www.ticketmaster.com.au | 136 100

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

ALBUM OUT FEB 7

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I

t’s only been a few short years since The Jezabels broke out of Sydney University and onto the biggest stages in the country, but plenty has changed along the way. Up first was their debut EP, The Man Is Dead, in 2009; after it came two more short collections and a full-length album, 2011’s Prisoner. By then, the four-piece was already accelerating to the top of the Australian music pile: not only had they sold out an enormous hometown show at the Hordern Pavilion (weeks before it, guitarist Sam Lockwood confessed to me it was too big, too intimidating to allow himself to think about), they were also receiving considerable industry attention in the fickle UK market.

Even at that point, though, there was something slightly off-kilter about The Jezabels. Hayley Mary’s tomboy-cut hair and dark, tortured demeanour was a little too challenging to be considered ‘pop’. The rhythm-and-melody storm concocted by Lockwood, keyboardist Heather Shannon and drummer Nik Kaloper was a little too aggressive for the singles charts. After a year abroad, The Jezabels have now returned with a second LP, The Brink, and this time it feels like the pop music marketplace might be ready for them. Or perhaps it’s just that bands like The Jezabels are – at last – comfortable making pop music again. “[Pop] is not a dirty word anymore,” says Lockwood, speaking back home in Sydney. “I think it’s a very popular thing. In the way that hip hop’s pop now, [or] electro – it’s also frustrating, but I don’t think you can get away with being a rock starish rock band anymore, like Jet or something like that”.

“It’s confusing for us because we’ve always been a band with two sides to us – there is that more alternate, introspective album content on our albums, and there’s also the big pop songs as well. It’s actually quite hard for us, because bands maybe misunderstand who we are because we are quite diverse with what we

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THE

JEZABELS HOMECOMING • BY CHRIS MARTIN

do, but I have no problem [with it].

Just being a songwriter, I think pop music is the most challenging kind of music to write, really, because you’re working with small tools and you have to build something really big … not small tools, but well-used tools, and do something unique and interesting. We really love the challenge.”

“There’s a conceptual arc to the album where it starts really dark and ends up really nice,” explains Lockwood. “Musically, I think it’s not as dark as Prisoner, but lyrically, I think Hayley – she went some dark places. [There is] some tension at the start but then it resolves at the end. It makes you walk away happier than you started.”

The evidence is all over the foursome’s new album, recorded during eight months in London with producer Dan Grech-Marguerat.

There’s lead single ‘The End’, characterised by a typically moody Hayley Mary lyric, yet introduced with the most uplifting eight bars of guitar, drums and keys in The Jezabels’ entire catalogue. Or ‘Look Of Love’, driven by disco-worthy synth loops and strings. In many parts, it’s the influence of GrechMarguerat, who’s worked in the past with Moby, Scissor Sisters and Lana Del Rey. Here comes that pop again.

Living and working in the south of England exposed the band to a range of new music, in and out of the pop sphere – not that they ever planned to uproot completely.

“It was sort of always temporary in London,” says the Byron Bay-raised Lockwood. “I could never really see myself living there because it’s quite a tough place to live, being a country boy, but it was a really good year … I think the biggest thing about London that makes it different is it has such a great Caribbean influence, which is I think the biggest discernible difference between, say, a Sydney scene and London. It started with

ska and now it’s turned into grime and dubstep and dancehall – it’s a very particular sound to London.”

“It’s just nice to be immersed in a different sort of culture, to feel like there’s a bigger world out there.

It gives you that impetus to really challenge yourself and to try different things … it’s not like we’re suddenly making dancehall; it’s more that when you’re in an area that’s not your normal environment, it makes you really value-add a little bit. So we certainly had a bit of that with this [album] and it was cool. You can hear we’ve grown a bit.”

Much of that growth, says Lockwood, is down to the fact The Jezabels entered the studio having prepared their songs in advance. “With Prisoner, we’re so proud and happy with that album, it sounds so beautiful and everything, but it was really difficult to play those songs live. We struggled so much. And with this album, we intentionally wanted to already be able

“THERE’S A CONCEPTUAL ARC TO THE ALBUM …

IT MAKES YOU WALK AWAY HAPPIER THAN WHEN YOU STARTED.”

to play them, so we had to work a lot harder before we went into the studio.

It also meant being in the studio was a lot easier because we knew what we were doing.”

So the ‘difficult second album’ cliché doesn’t quite apply? “Well, it kind of does, but when we were starting out we didn’t jump into an album straight away. I think Prisoner was our difficult second album, in a way.

If you look at our songs, we did 15 songs on the EPs and then another 13 on the first album, and then this is sort of our third album. So we didn’t have those second album blues, I don’t think.”

Having recently supported the likes of Depeche Mode and Pixies to audiences 15,000- and 20,000-strong, The Jezabels’ homecoming tour on the Laneway Festival bill isn’t quite so intimidating to Lockwood as the Hordern date that followed Prisoner. “The Hordern show for us was massive because it was the sharp point of a big year of building to that, so it was kind of a pressurised context. I think Laneway will be similar to that, but we’ve also had such good experience now, especially with the Depeche Mode and Pixies tours – it’s different. You can be more nervous; like, before we played on the Depeche Mode tour we played to eight of our friends in a rehearsal studio and I was way more nervous for that than I was before we played in front of 10 or 15,000 people in Belfast the next night. It just shows you that it’s not necessarily the numbers, it’s something else entirely.”

What: Laneway Festival 2014 With: Haim, Savages, Jagwar Ma, Frightened Rabbit, Lorde, Kurt Vile and more Where: Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle When: Sunday February 2 And: The Brink out Friday January 31 through MGM

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Jeff Martin & Sarah McLeod Riffs Ahoy By Krissi Weiss mile and do random shit just to keep my brain entertained.”

McLeod’s enthusiasm ahead of her Man The Life Boats tour with Martin is infectious. She’s busting out of her skin to be working with the former Tea Party frontman, and her respect for him shines through with every word. After all, it’s Jeff freakin’ Martin – that voice, those guitar skills.

“I’ve been working alone for so long, I’m used to working alone and I do like it, but you need a buddy,” McLeod says. “To have somebody that you look up to, that you’re totally inspired by, and that you respect beyond belief is so amazing. It also makes me step up to the plate a lot. He encourages me to sing better – well, not encourages me; he leads through example. I’m used to doing multiple takes and choosing the best one, maybe chopping up parts, but with Jeff, he’ll do his part, nail it in one take and then look at you and go, ‘Your turn.’

You do an internal gulp and then you just go for it. I really want to impress him, so because of that I do my best work.”

T

he pairing of Sarah McLeod and Jeff Martin might seem creatively disparate – that is, until you hear them play together. On paper you see Martin, the enigmatic Canadian powerhouse of brooding rock who has effortlessly and fl awlessly soared his way through decades of career highs. Then there’s our own McLeod – coming in on the illustrious line of trailblazing female rock singers after Amphlett, DeMarchi and more.

McLeod is herself a rocket of the rock’n’roll world, with a roll call of

achievements laid bare behind her both in The Superjesus and her solo work. And yet McLeod seems to exist at the ultraviolet end of the spectrum and Martin in the infrared. They are light and dark, an odd couple of sorts. But a gig together on the Central Coast and later a charity concert in the Blue Mountains set in motion a project that is sure to pique the interests of diverse music fans.

“For the first ten years of playing in The Superjesus, that was my rock’n’roll high school,” says

McLeod. “I learned most things about playing in a band; I learned most things about the music industry – or what I could at the time, anyway; I learned how to become a performer, and I didn’t really need to branch out. As I got older and started to experiment with other types of music I realised there was so much more that I liked to do. As much as I love playing with The Superjesus, they don’t necessarily like all the styles of music I like playing, and because I’ve got a short attention span, I really need to go the extra

But for all of McLeod’s praise, Martin reveals a mutual admiration for his new touring partner. “In my other bands, they’ve always been these very masculine, testosterone rock bands,” says Martin. “I really enjoyed working with a female voice when I worked with Kimberley [Dawn Lysons, whose debut album Martin produced]. When I met Sarah I loved her voice and her rock’n’roll attitude and I knew I wanted to produce her someday.

She played me the stuff she’d been working on; it was dark and haunting and not really suitable for The Superjesus sound – and, well, dark and haunting, that’s kinda my forte. So I took this kind

of swashbuckling, pirate sound around her beautiful vocals and it got us excited about somehow, someday, over the course of this year, doing a record.”

While McLeod talks about feeling as though Martin pushes her beyond her limits and to a greater performance, Martin says that’s exactly what a great producer should do. “I don’t want to blow my horn, but what a great producer does is get people out of their comfort zone and helps them find a better comfort zone. You push them and those parameters as well as stretch their imagination. Even just with my set-up and the exotic instruments I have, it helps to push people. “[Sarah] has some really interesting ideas and I respect the fact that she works hard. She will really, really practise; I’ve never practised … We’re working on a song at the moment that sounds like a song out of a speakeasy in the 1920s.

It’s gonna end up like one of those types of eclectic records.”

As for who’s manning the life boats, that remains to be seen.

Martin says McLeod is the one “out there checking for icebergs”.

“She calls me the captain of the ship but really she’s out the front. She’s the focal point of the project and I’m really enjoying that. I get to do my part and it just complements her in the centre.”

What: ‘Man The Life Boats’ single out Friday January 31 Where: The Brass Monkey / The Basement / Tattersalls Hotel Penrith When: Tuesday February 4 and Wednesday February 5 / Thursday February 6 / Saturday February 8

Kirin J Callinan Embracing The Future By Lachlan Kanoniuk

E

merging as a guitar-blasting maverick in his own right after producing noise within Mercy Arms and Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders, Kirin J Callinan released his worthy solo debut full-length Embracism midway through 2013. The album has been garnering a groundswell of attention locally and abroad, compounded by striking fi lm clips, as well as live shows that present a potent blend of charm and abrasion. Ahead of a run of Laneway appearances, as well as supporting Savages on their respective sideshow dates, Callinan speaks in between pottering about at a Waterloo studio.

While there is still a pertinence about Embracism, Callinan is beginning to lay the mental foundations for his second solo

16 :: BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14

After a fairly subdued few years on the solo front, Callinan was all systems go in the lead-up to and aftermath of Embracism’s release, continually bouncing between tours at home and in the US. “It’s defi nitely been on my own terms, but it’s defi nitely been fl at out.

The record was received well here, and in the States I played a lot of shows and got a small but dedicated following over there.

I’d love to go back to Europe and Asia, give that a crack before putting this album to bed.”

The most recent in a string of disparate, yet invariably captivating fi lm clips, ‘Landslide’ features a spatially disconcerting, inversed portrait of Callinan dangling upside down over water.

“It was torture, absolute torture.

Being hung by my ankles during wintertime in Port Melbourne, being dunked into the freezing cold ocean – I’m pretty sure it’s torture. It was fun, but gruelling.

I was working with great people, and I always have fun, no matter what I’m doin’,” Callinan grins.

“The euphoria you might see onscreen is most likely paininduced. It was brutal, it really was.”

As the guitarist in Jack Ladder’s Dreamlanders, Callinan also reveals we can expect a follow-up to the acclaimed Hurtsville sooner rather than later. “We recorded it, it’s getting mixed at the moment.

The songs are great. I’m looking forward to it coming out. Again, I don’t really know what it is. We’ve moved into some strange territory, which is exciting. For us, anyway.

It’ll make more sense once it’s released. But that’s where I like to be, treading a line, and Tim [Rogers, AKA Jack Ladder] is no different. I’m excited for it to come out, and I’m excited to tour it.”

As for his own live show, Callinan has settled into a live three-piece formation after experimenting with a revolving roster of guest musicians onstage. “It’s at a place beyond me being happy with it,” Callinan says of the show we’ll see at Laneway. “I feel so grateful for the two guys in my band, they’re incredible. I’ve refi ned it. I’m excited to bring this show home in Australia. I’m just having a lot of fun now.”

Kirin J Callinan photo by Mclean Stephenson

“I don’t really listen to them anymore,” Callinan says in regards to Embracism’s songs. “I did before, I did take an interest in my record somewhat. When you’re making something like that, you can be too close to it. When it’s released, you can start to hear it through everybody else’s ears.

As far as my relationship with the songs, I guess with the aid of hindsight I get more of an idea of what they are, as opposed to what I was going for. Those two things are always different. I kind of see how I could have packaged it better, but I was happy with the record and I’m excited to make a new one.”

LP. “I’ve written a bunch of new songs; I’ve got a plan in regards to the next record,” he muses.

“I’m really anxious to get into it.

This record still has a bit of life in it, and there’s more touring to be done, but at first opportunity I’ll be knuckling down and solely focusing on the next one.”

What: Embracism out now through Siberia/Remote Control Where: Metro Theatre, supporting Savages When: Wednesday February 5 And: Also appearing alongside The Jezabels, Haim, Lorde, Jagwar Ma and more at Laneway Festival, Sydney College of the Arts, Sunday February 2

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Savages Their Time Is Now By Lachlan Kanoniuk

THU 30 JAN FRI 31 JAN The

Bassist Ayse Hassan sounds disarmingly chipper as our phone call connects, belying both the inconvenient London time zone difference and the powerfully dark nature of Savages’ music. We’re speaking a few days after the band performed alongside Australian expats HTRK for a night celebrating the legacy of songwriter Rowland S. Howard.

“He’s an absolute genius and so inspiring,” Hassan says. “I think along the way you can hear how he has inspired us, most notably in the sounds of the guitar and our attitude in some way. That night with HTRK took us so long to put together because we wanted people to come together for a Rowland S. Howard night and really experience it. It’s a shame, it doesn’t feel like he’s as big over here as he should be, because he was such an incredible guitarist. He is an influence among other influences, and it was such an honour to have Autoluminescent [the recent documentary on Howard’s life] premiere with us and HTRK playing. HTRK are a band we love very much, so to have them on the night was an honour. It was an emotional night for us, and to share that with an audience was incredible.”

After generating immense buzz since inception, Savages braved the sudden attention from labels to make things work on their own terms. “That album was a challenge to do it in the way we wanted and release it in the way we wanted. It took a lot of strength to come up with what we wanted.

For us, the album means so much because it is a snapshot of that time, and we did it exactly how we wanted to do it.

“Of course, there are always people giving you advice, telling you to do this and do that, and it can be hard to close yourself off from that. I think we did really well being true to ourselves. It means a lot, because it showed that you can release an album how you want

“We are what we are. There are things from the past that have influenced us, but there isn’t an intention to replicate that in any way. What we are creating now is something that is coming to us quite naturally.” thebrag.com

and have that control. You can do what you want if you know what you want, and do your darndest to push for that.”

Some (well, most) bands give in to temptation and take immediate monetary gratification when it’s offered, more often then not leading to a path of waning motivation. Savages instead made choices based on fostering their creative growth.

“The motivation is not to be blind to what you’re being offered,” says Hassan. “You might get offered bucketloads of money, but how are you going to return that back? We looked at our options, explored a lot and worked out between us which was the right way to go.

Sure, we’ve made mistakes along the way, but from those mistakes you figure out what’s right and what’s wrong.

“The fact that the album took longer than some people expected is because it felt like it would have been too rushed to do it before that. Even now, some of the songs on the album have evolved in some way because of the fact we like to experiment with the sound as we play, keeping it interesting for the audience and ourselves. If you’re constantly trying to do that, it pushes you to be better – you intensely care about it. Over the years we were playing shows and trying to be the best band we could. When you try new things out, you gain confidence in so many ways. It keeps it interesting. There are songs that weren’t quite there for the album, but we threw them into the set here and there. It’s so important for a band to try things out in the live environment.”

Literature on Savages often paints the band as belonging in another era, placing them alongside the early ’80s post-punk vanguard. The notion of not being made for these times isn’t really one that resonates with Hassan.

“To be honest, I feel that we are what we are. There are things from the past that have influenced us, but there isn’t an intention to replicate that in any way. What we are creating now is something that is coming to us quite naturally. Each of us have very different styles in how we play and that combination of our experiences – the movies we watch, the books we read – all of that comes together to produce the band that we are, how we create events, how we created the album.

“There are bands that are current that we are interested in, but when we create music it is from that range of influences; writing from a bassline, or it might be lyrics. From that starting point it can change into anything.

When people say we remind them of bands from the past, that’s great, but I don’t totally get it.”

Driffs

MOON HALLS

WED 05 FEB (USA)

A

fter honing their at-times violent and confronting sound for little over a year, UK outfit Savages arrived on the world stage fully-formed with their debut LP, Silence Yourself, midway through 2013.

The four-piece has maintained a steady course amidst a palpable explosion of hype, appearing impervious to the follies that so often sullen any sudden rise to the fore.

SLUMBERHAZE LITTLE FOX SHEREKHAN COCONUT RUFFS

TOTAL CONTROL BED WETTIN’ BAD BOYS

WAVE RACER AND BASENJI

FRI 07 FEB SAT 08 FEB

MADE IN JAPAN THE KHANS

Coming Up 12th 13th 14th

IN FEBRUARY

JULIA HOLTER THE OWLS AUSTRA (CANADA)

GALLERY BURLESQUE / XXYYXX AUSTRA / DEVIN THE DUDE

What: Silence Yourself out now through Matador/Remote Control With: Kirin J Callinan Where: Metro Theatre When: Wednesday February 5 And: Also appearing alongside The Jezabels, Haim, Lorde, Jagwar Ma and more at Laneway Festival, Sydney College of the Arts, Sunday February 2

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Youth Lagoon Playing With Powers By Augustus Welby

T

revor Powers, the brains, voice and primary technician behind Youth Lagoon, is a smalltown lad. His hometown of Boise, Idaho is not quite the bustling city where most bands plot their rise to pop prominence. Nevertheless, the place certainly has not been a creative hindrance for Powers, who dropped his excellent second album Wondrous Bughouse last year. Although Youth Lagoon’s growing success regularly thrusts Powers far from home, he thrives on the travel.

“People are never the same after they’ve been around the world. It makes me sad when people don’t want to see anything outside of themselves.

It’s apathy,” he says. “I know some people that are perfectly fine if they only see the grocery store they go to weekly and their own backyard for the rest of their lives. There is so much of life they are missing out on.”

Wondrous Bughouse continues the thematic examination of mortality and one’s purpose in the large befuddling universe that Powers initiated on 2011 debut The Year Of Hibernation. Only now, thanks largely to his globetrotting experiences following the first album’s success, his exploration through these ideas has greater breadth.

“I realised I had a very short-sighted and boring viewpoint for a long time that I was sick of. So I really felt the most free I ever have writing this record. I used to have these hazy, undefined guidelines I would follow when writing and I just threw them away because they were destructive.

With music, it’s how I explore and [it’s about] being comfortable in the uncomfortable. I know I’ll never have things figured out. It’s not about that at all; it’s about the search.”

It’s surely an interesting endeavour, looking for a way to be comfortable in an uncomfortable scenario. Perhaps it’s the crucial paradox that drives creative progress. “One of my priorities when writing anything,” explains Powers, “is making myself feel uncomfortable – finding this sort of place musically where it’s OK to feel strange. Because there’s nothing easy to swallow that is worth chewing and I can’t expect anyone

to spend time with my music if I myself wasn’t challenged by it.”

Wondrous Bughouse has a distinguishable sonic relation to The Year Of Hibernation, but it’s a bigger-sounding record featuring expansive instrumentation and more pronounced vocals.

Credit must be given to the album’s producer Ben H. Allen, whose past work includes Animal Collective and Deerhunter. However, as far as the songs and arrangements go, the record is completely Powers’ handiwork.

“I am very particular with everything I make.

I obsess over it. So I really feel like it’s a responsibility to myself to make sure each piece of music fits where it needs to. And in all that is the freedom. I could never answer to other people because then it would be no different than a desk job.”

Thankfully, Powers’ attention to detail is not at all restricting. Wondrous Bughouse is a surreal metaphysical journey, which largely does away with conventional structure. His thorough-yetunbounded approach to songwriting is making a big impact on both critics and listeners.

“Often when I write, the initial process is just getting ideas out and having them be this sort of formless goo that just oozes all over the place. Then before the goo dries, I try to shape it into something more expressive and singular.

Then after it’s dried, I take my pick to it and start knocking off pieces until I find what part of the idea really matters.”

What: Wondrous Bughouse out now through Fat Possum/Shock With: Broods Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Thursday January 30 And: Also appearing alongside The Jezabels, Haim, Lorde, Jagwar Ma and more at Laneway Festival, Sydney College of the Arts, Sunday February 2

Periphery Coast Is Clear By Peter Hodgson

I

t seems like just yesterday that progressive metal it-band Periphery was in Australia – and it pretty much was, if you count ‘March’ as yesterday. Whereas last time around they travelled the country as part of the huge Soundwave festival juggernaut, they’re coming back this time for their own tour in support of their new recording project Clear, with like-minded proggy djenty iconoclasts Animals As Leaders. And guitarist Mark Holcomb is pretty damn psyched about it.

“I’ve said it many times publicly before and I’m not playing favourites just because I’m talking to Australian press, but it’s probably my favourite place to tour just because we get treated so well out there by our record label, by our fans, by everybody really,” Holcomb says. “Plus it’s just a breeze to tour because there’s something about the way we’re treated by our fans at the shows.

They’re always intense shows but they’re not so crazy that people are beating each other up. They’re just really adoring fans. It’s my favourite place to tour in the world – I just wish it didn’t take 25 damn hours to fly out there! Oh dude, it makes you wanna die.”

Last year was a particularly hectic one for the band in terms of touring, with about seven months spent away from home.

But during all the chaos of 2013 the band worked Clear: not quite an EP, not quite an album, it’s a seven-track recording which features a song written by each member of the band, plus an overture which introduces a theme running through each song.

“It’s a very experimental concept that’s not our next full-length – it’s not our next album – but we slaved away on it for months before this tour started. We put a lot of work into it and you’ll see. Long story short, we work

out a lot of music at home … [and] we try from the road. We have a recording rig set up in our tour bus and we try to do some writing and recording. But I dunno, the way I work as a musician, I like to be able to concentrate on music – and it’s very hard for me to do that when I’m surrounded by 11 dudes on a bus, when they’re spilling whisky all over the floor and playing video games…”

Clear is a perfect representation of what Periphery have evolved into. Initially a platform for founder Misha Mansoor’s homerecorded ideas, the band now features three guitarists, a bass player, a drummer and a vocalist who all write and who all have strong musical personalities. Y’know, a real band. “Right, totally,” Holcomb says. “And I mean, the elements of having actual people dictating different elements of the music and business decisions and stuff, it’s really done a complete 180 from how it started, y’know, bedroom music – and not like sexytime bedroom music, but bedroom metal. But it’s become its own beast now. You have six people and all of us write our own music and all of us contribute now creatively, be it on the engineering side – ‘Nolly’ [bassist Adam Getgood] is an amazing producer and engineer and a fantastic guitar player as well as, of course, a fantastic bassist.

And we all write our music. It’s just such a blessing to have that, but at the same time you also have to know how to get along and how not to get your feelings stepped on with so many other cooks in the kitchen, if you know what I mean.”

What: Clear out now through Roadrunner/ Warner With: Animals As Leaders Where: Metro Theatre When: Saturday February 1

Gwar No Slaughter Without Laughter By Jesse Hayward

L

isten up, monkey scum! Your lords and masters Gwar are bringing their unique combination of metal and ultraviolence to Australia. Pay attention – beastlord Oderus Urungus has mighty words of power for you all.

Show your gratitude, pathetic humans. Do you know the best thing about humans?

“Nothing! There’s nothing good, except maybe some of your movies and of course Motörhead,” snaps Urungus. “If there are some good things about humans, I take credit of course. A lot of people are like, ‘Oderus, heavy metal was around long before you guys were – like, we had Motörhead and AC/DC! You can go fuck yourselves!’ I say, ‘Woah! Where is all this hostility coming from? Don’t you know that we were manipulating your minds from our Antarctic tomb? Everything cool you ever did is ’cause we thought of it first. It just took a while for us to thaw out.’”

In 1997, Gwar deigned to appear on The Jerry Springer Show to mock the petty concerns of the human audience. That episode is a bizarre gem of American culture – soccer moms and shock rockers discussing parental responsibility and moral obligation.

This conflict between metal and moralising is not new, but it may be the first time a man clad

in Styrofoam armour and carrying a big pretend axe has claimed, “You can tell we are for real.”

Springer made an appearance onstage at a Gwar concert shortly before the show was filmed. “As soon as he was onstage everyone started throwing crap at him,” remembers Urungus. “A lighter came flying and knocked his glasses completely off his face and as he picked them up I heard him mutter under his breath, ‘They don’t pay me enough for this shit.’ But he got up there and faced that crowd and he even got fed to [Gwar’s old onstage enemy] the World Maggot, so if that wasn’t a significant cultural cataclysm I don’t know what is.”

Gwar’s intention is to corrupt your minds with their awesome musical power, but their plans are often interrupted by stage invasion from mighty demons. “We’re trying to play a heavy metal show, and all of a sudden I’ve got some gigantic cyborg mutant with a giant spinning buzz-saw chopping my fucking head off and trying to eat my brains. I don’t think that Sammy Davis, Jr. ever had to deal with that kinda bullshit!” Yep, it’s a show like no other: a wild smorgasbord of metal, monsters and gore.

Previous Gwar audiences have been privileged to witness the onstage slaughter of Lady Gaga, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Who’s

next? “I don’t wanna spoil it, but there’s one victim in particular who I think is going to win over Australia forever. When this person dies onstage, it’s basically going to make the entire country enter Gwar’s thralls for all eternity. So we’re very much looking forward to coming to Australia and killing Tony Abbott. Oh shit, did I just say that?”

Gwar’s latest album, Battle Maximus, brings word of a new nemesis and threat to Gwar’s dominance of this disgusting planet. His name: Mr. Perfect. “He’s a weak motherfucker. Basically representing the megalithic corporate elite that runs your world.” Why does he threaten us still?

“Only because we haven’t resorted to using more modern weapons. We could wipe that fucker out in an afternoon if we were pussies about it and used drones or nuclear weapons.

But we believe in doing it with our hands using medieval weapons. It’s much more painful and satisfying. Dropping a nuke is one thing, but to see someone drawn and quartered and eaten by pigs; well, I just find that a whole lot funnier.”

So laugh, you filthy dirtpigs! Rejoice! Gwar’s arrival is nigh.

What: Soundwave Festival 2014 With: Green Day, Avenged Sevenfold, Alice In Chains, Placebo, AFI, Korn, Newsted and more Where: Sydney Olympic Park When: Sunday February 23 And: Battle Maximus out now through Metal Blade xxx

18 :: BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14

thebrag.com

Pulled Apart By Horses Year Of The Horse By Augustus Welby

T

he critical reception for Pulled Apart By Horses’ second LP Tough Love far from echoed the album title. When the Leeds four-piece dropped its sophomore release in early 2012, the album was almost unanimously praised for its art-punk audacity and accessibility.

The band’s lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Tom Hudson says the record’s success gave them some creatively revitalising freedom in the lead-up to their third album.

“We haven’t done it before, but [we’ve taken] a year out to write and focus on new material, so we’ve been developing that,” he says.

“Now it’s just come up to time to record. We’re recording in Leeds, pretty close to home.”

After roaring into the global consciousness with their self-titled debut in 2010, the band wasted no time heading into the studio with producer Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters) to work on album number two. Hudson elaborates on how their recent album preparations differed from their approach to the first two records.

“With the first album it was like, we’d started the band, written a bunch of songs, toured it about and the album was more like a bit of a calling card – ‘Just put down these songs that you’ve got already.’ The same with the second album, really. We had double the amount of time but it was just like, ‘Get in there and record the songs and get out again.’ We’ve allowed ourselves a bit more time, space and freedom with this album, and have enough time to play about and create some weird sounds and experiment and have fun.”

Taking a year out to focus solely on making an album is akin to

committing yourself to an academic thesis. At the outset it looms as a formidable prospect, requiring patience and a steady work ethic.

Hudson recalls how intimidating the task appeared at the beginning of last year. “When I think back to when we first went into the practice rooms to start writing new material, we didn’t have a fucking clue what we were going to do,” he admits. “It was pretty scary actually, because it was like, ‘Oh, we’ve got a year of not really playing many shows and we’re writing the next album,’ and we didn’t really have a vision or an idea for it.”

Perhaps the band (completed by guitarist James Brown, bass player/backing vocalist Rob Lee and drummer Lee Vincent) didn’t have too many fixed plans when it began work on a third full-length, but Hudson identifies at least one determined ambition.

“We’ve just been trying to push ourselves and write something different. We don’t really want to tread on the same ground that we have before. We still want it to be the same band but there’s no point in just regurgitating the same album that we’ve written before. We’re pushing ourselves to try out weirder sounds, weirder time signatures.

Vocally, me and Rob are trying to push ourselves and change the way that we sing.”

Not wanting to repeat yourself is of course an admirable intention. Yet despite the fact that moving forward seems a logical step, it’s easier said than done, and many bands trip up in the process. Hudson says Pulled Apart By Horses have been looking for inspiration.

“One of the big albums for us guys recently would be the Queens

of the Stone Age album, …Like Clockwork, just because it’s crafted so amazingly and there’s a lot of different sounds on it. Some of the songs are a bit more mature or whatever, but then they’ve still got that edge and it’s still ballsy. They’ve got as much intensity as they had before but they’ve just changed the game and stepped it up a level.”

Josh Homme’s desert rockers are a very good example of a band maintaining an essential and unmistakable sound without ever having to directly rehash its earlier work. Again, Hudson states his intention to achieve something similar. “I think there’s something in the way that we play and the way that we write that’s always going to

have that certain thing that we’re not really in control of. But I want to change things up and change the sound a bit, just to challenge people. I don’t really see the point in bands just doing the same thing again and again.”

Now that 2013 is over, Pulled Apart

By Horses will soon be back on the road and their first stop is Down Under for next month’s Soundwave tour. However, it’s not as if this trip will be the foursome’s first relief from the intense album production.

“We’re still a bunch of lazy bastards, at the same time,” laughs Hudson. “We’ll plan some bits [of songwriting] out, but sometimes we’ll just end up chatting, drinking

beer and smoking cigarettes for five hours.” But it’s not all so chilled out.

“Halfway through writing this album I felt quite a lot of pressure. I think I was overanalysing stuff too much.

Then I went full circle and thought, ‘Let’s just do what we want to do because that’s what we did with the other albums, so fuck it.’ Sometimes you’ve just got to ignore everything and stick to your guns.”

With: Soundwave Festival 2014 With: Green Day, Avenged Sevenfold, Alice In Chains, Placebo, AFI, Korn, Newsted and more Where: Sydney Olympic Park When: Sunday February 23

INXS SHOW TRIBUTE

+ + + +

ORIGINAL SIN

+ + + +

9LJHW[\YL [OL THNPJ VM VUL VM (\Z[YHSPH»Z ILZ[ SV]LK IHUKZ ^P[O V\Y LWPJ 05?: [YPI\[L ZOV^ :WHUUPUN [OYLL KLJHKLZ VM T\ZPJ [OL ZOV^ MLH[\YLZ ZVTL VM [OL IHUK»Z NYLH[LZ[ OP[Z ¶ Don’t Change, Just Keep Walking, What You Need, New Sensation, Burn For You & more.

7LYMVYTLK ^P[O H WHZZPVU 4PJOHLS /\[JOLUJL ^V\SK IL WYV\K VM P[»Z `V\Y JOHUJL [V [OYPSS `V\Y ZLUZLZ HUK YL SP]L [OL 05?: L_WLYPLUJL

9:30PM EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT IN FEBRUARY

The Star practises the responsible service of alcohol. Guests must be 18 years or over to enter the casino.

Think! About your choices. Call Gambling Help 1800 858 858 www.gamblinghelp.nsw.gov.au The Star Pty Limited. 0JL3ASNHS2 thebrag.com

BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14 :: 19

AUSTR ALIAN INSTITUTE OF MUSIC Enrolment dates: January 28 / May 19 / September 8 Courses on offer: AIM offers Bachelor, Diploma and Post Graduate courses in Contemporary Performance, Classical Performance, Music Theatre, Entertainment and Arts Management, Dramatic Arts, Audio and Composition and Music Production.

What you’ll learn: AIM students can individually tailor their studies to integrate performance skills, business management, marketing, individual instrument or voice lessons, audio & sound engineering, music production and many more specialised units. Some students also undertake industry

placements as part of their course.

Why you should enroll: With purpose built facilities, performance spaces, industry standard music production studios, and industry staff on-hand, students can develop the confidence and skills needed to pursue

a successful life-long career in the music industry, performing arts & wider entertainment fields.

What else you need to know: Visit aim.edu. au or call admissions on 02 9219 5444 for more information.

WHERE: 1-55 Foveaux Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010 PHONE: 02 9219 5444 EMAIL: enquiries@aim.edu.au WEB: aim.edu.au

JMC ACADEMY Enrolment dates: February, June or October Courses on offer: Contemporary Music Performance, Audio Engineering and Sound Production, Entertainment Business Management, Film & TV Production, 3D Animation and Game Design What you’ll learn: JMC Academy’s hands-on courses equip students with the comprehensive knowledge and advanced skills needed to excel in the expanding creative industries. Students’ abilities are built from the fundamentals up,

with emphasis on both theory and practical components. Grow your creative network while you study at a campus that fosters collaboration across all courses.

Why you should enroll: With advanced-design

campuses, ongoing technology upgrades, a dedicated team of academics and industry professionals, and a network of international master class lecturers, JMC Academy is committed to ensuring our graduates make their own indelible mark on industry.

What else you need to know: JMC Academy has campuses in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and offers Degrees, Diplomas and VET. Contact JMC Academy today to start your creative future.

WHERE: 561 Harris Street, Ultimo, NSW 2007 PHONE: 02 8241 8899 EMAIL: sydney@jmc.edu.au WEB: jmcacademy.edu.au

THE AUSTR AL ASIAN COLLEGE BROADWAY Enrolment date: Regular monthly intakes January through December Courses on Offer: Certificate to Diploma Courses available, Hairdressing, Salon Management, Makeup, Beauty Therapy, Vocational Graduate Certificate in IPL and Laser Hair Reduction, Degree in Applied Health Science (Clinical Aesthetics).

SAE INSTITUTE Enrolment dates: February 10 / June 2 / September 22 Courses on offer: Certificates, Diplomas and Bachelor degrees in Audio, Animation, Design, Film, Games and Web & Mobile.

What you’ll learn: At SAE we know creative media industries graduates need individual practical training. That’s why we pioneered our handson, industry focused, and personalised curriculum, delivered to you in state-of-the-art facilities. We also get you out of the classroom and into the real world,

20 :: BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14

with professional development opportunities at some of Australia’s premier festivals and events.

Why you should enroll: SAE has been delivering outstanding industryfocused education since 1976. Since then we have expanded to 53 campuses in 27 countries. We have set

the benchmark for HE and VET qualifications in creative media because we know these industries and we know how to train industry-ready graduates.

We love what we do and we are committed to the provision of education options that challenge, develop and inspire.

What else you need to know: SAE offers accredited fast-track learning pathways so you can be industry-ready and on your way to that dream job faster. If you are willing to put in the hard yards, then our intensive fasttrack options mean you will be degree qualified in 2 years.

WHERE: Level 1, 11 York Street, Sydney, NSW 2000 PHONE: 02 8241 5300 EMAIL: sydney@sae.edu WEB: sae.edu.au

AUDIO / FILM / DESIGN/ GAMES

What you will learn: You will be taught by leaders in the specific field to obtain the skill sets required (the technical knowledge and the practical experience) that will enable you to be well equipped for your chosen career path, opening doors that could lead you into the many exciting options of the personal services Industry.

Why you should enrol: The Australasian College Broadway is one of Australia’s leading Vocational Education and Training (VET) organisations and is considered the benchmark college for

hairdressing, beauty and make-up. The College is a highly awarded and recognised centre for learning and educational excellence. Since its foundation in 1994, the College has assisted tens of thousands of students to develop the skills and knowledge to grow and develop their careers in the personal services sector.

What else you need to know: The Australasian College Broadway offers a range of courses under the VET FEE-HELP student loan scheme enables students to study now and pay later.

WHERE: 87 Bay Street, Glebe, NSW 2037 PHONE: 02 8587 8888 EMAIL: info@tac.edu.au WEB: tac.edu.au

R AFFLES Enrolment dates: February 6 / April 24 / July 17 / October 2.

Courses on offer: Animation, Fashion Design, Fashion Marketing, Games Design, Graphic Design, Interior Design, Multimedia Design, New Media & digital Film, Photography, Accountancy, Design Management, Finance, Hospitality, Management, Marketing.

What you’ll learn: Raffles has been around for almost 25 years. Keeping pace with industry, we deliver excellent courses and produce graduates who are successful in their careers by having lecturers who are active in industry, so their teaching skills are based on realtime knowledge of the professional landscape.

Why you should enrol: The best of both worlds: a global outlook and resources with the quality learning of a boutique college environment.

Raffles has 34 international colleges and 3 universities across 31 cities in 12 countries. Compared to government providers, our classes are small and the learning environment is more intimate.

What else you need to know: Classes fill fast, so allow yourself enough time to enroll and sort out your timetable. The internship program at Raffles is high caliber, with industry partnership programs such as Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia (MBFWA) being a unique graduate mentorship program.

WHERE: 99 Mount Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060 PHONE: 02 9922 4278 EMAIL: contact@raffles.edu.au WEB: raffles.edu.au

MUSIC / AUDIO / FILM / GAME DESIGN

If you’re dreaming of something different, check out our education guide to see what your options are for making your dream career a reality.

2 0 14

HAIRDRESSING / MAKE-UP / BEAUTY

EDUCATON SPECIAL

Do you love what you do?

Or do you spend your days stealing stationery from the office to ease the pain of the soul-destroying hatred for your job?

MUSIC / AUDIO / DRAMA

2014

E DUCAT IO N S P ECI A L

FASHION / COMMERCE / DESIGN

TH HEE BR AG

THE AUSTRALASIAN COLLEGE BROADWAY Enrolment date: Regular Monthly Intakes January through to December Courses on Offer: Certificate to Diploma Courses available Hairdressing Salon Management Make up Beauty Therapy Vocational Graduate Certificate in IPL and Laser Hair Reduction Degree in Applied Health Science (Clinical Aesthetics)

Where: 87 Bay Street Glebe Phone: 02 8587 8888 Email: info@tac.edu.au Web: www.tac.edu.au facebook.com/AustralasianCollege @the_Australasian_College #TACB

What you will learn: You will be taught by leaders in the specific field to obtain the skill sets required (the technical knowledge and the practical experience) that will enable you to be well equipped for your chosen career path, opening doors that could lead you into the many exciting options of the personal services industry Why you should enrol: The Australasian College Broadway is one of Australia’s leading Vocational Education and Training (VET) organisations and is considered the benchmark College for hairdressing, beauty and Make up. The College is a highly awarded and recognised centre for learning and educational excellence. Since its foundation in 1994, the College has assisted tens of thousands of students to develop the skills and knowledge to grow and develop their careers in the personal services sector What else you need to know: The Australasian College Broadway offers a range of Diploma and above courses under the VET FEE-HELP student loan scheme which enables students to Study Now and Pay Later

MAKE TODAY THE DAY 8587 8888

BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14 :: 21

arts frontline

free stuff head to: thebrag.com/freeshit

arts news...what's goin' on around town...with Hannah Warren and Mina Kitsos

five minutes WITH

C

anberra cellist Chris Pidcock is gearing up for rePLAY – a production

CHRIS PIDCOCK

bringing to life the thrilling video game universe through a concert of musical scores from the best-loved video games. He took five minutes out of rehearsals to tell us about it.

What’s your favourite piece in the show? We’re playing music from a range of video games including Portal, Journey, The Legend of Zelda, The Elder Scrolls, Halo and Final Fantasy. It’s all great music full of energy.

We played an entire concert of music from The Legend of Zelda last year and the most exciting part for me was hearing the old 8-bit digital soundtrack of the game transformed into

a symphony played by a full orchestra. It’s a masterpiece.

What were your favourite childhood video games? My parents took us to Europe when I was six and they gave us all Gameboys for the journey.

I ended up too distracted by the pinball on my Gameboy to notice anything cultural like the Mona Lisa! I remember there was also a game called Metroid – I used to always try to win the game just so I could hear the incredible winning music.

What video games do you play now? My flatmate just bought an Xbox so we’re playing a lot of Forza 5 at the moment.

What do you think will be a highlight for the audience?

The audience will definitely get an appreciation for the power of an orchestra! If you’ve grown up playing games like Zelda, Halo and Portal, I think you will be blown away with how great the music sounds played live by the

SSO. People in the audience will be dressed up as characters from their favourite games – it will be an overwhelming experience!

What’s next for the SSO? We play different concerts every week, but one I’m really excited about is our Strictly Luhrmann concert on Friday May 2 and Saturday May 3 where we will be playing music from Baz Luhrmann’s movies. After the Friday show we’ll be doing our new Night Lounge in the Northern Foyer of the Opera House with a DJ, percussion group and other SSO acts. It should be a lot of fun and a great chance to mingle with the players in the orchestra.

What: rePLAY World Premiere When: Friday March 7 + Saturday March 8 Where: Sydney Opera House Concert Hall Money: $35 More: sydneysymphony.com

Blue Is the Warmest Colour

FRENCH FILM! TICKETS! WIN!

There is something delightful about French films; they are quirky, sexy, and elegant, and watching subtitled films always makes me feel super smart.

Blue Is The Warmest Colour is all of that, and has the additional benefit of being the winner of the extremely prestigious Palm d’Or at Cannes Film Festival 2013.

Adèle Exarchopoulos won the award for Breakthrough Performance for her role, and it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globe Awards.

Based on Julie Maroh’s graphic novel, Blue Is The Warmest Colour is a story of sexual awakening and coming of age. It’s out in cinemas here from February 13, and BRAG has ten double passes to give away to our très cool readers.

To get your Francophilic little hands on them, just head to thebrag.com/freeshit and tell us your favourite French thing. Yes, I will accept kisses as an answer.

“THEY DON’T MAKE ‘EM LIKE THEY USED TO.”

Films, that is. Luckily, Dendy Cinemas are replaying all the classics in their Autumn Allure season at Opera Quays from Monday March 3. Classic films on the bill include: Gigi, Bonnie And Clyde, Cool Hand Luke, Diamonds Are Forever, The Great Escape, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner and plenty more. A ticket will set you back just $10, with discounts for Club Dendy Members. Showings are every Monday at 10am and again at 6:30pm. For the full schedule and more details, check out dendy.com.au.

Summer Vacation - Best International Short Film

23RD ANNUAL FLICKERFEST

The winners of the 23rd Annual Flickerfest Awards have been announced and, boy, the list is stellar. With star attendance at the ceremony rivalling that of the Milky Way, and respected members of the Australian and International film industry toasting each award, winners were plucked from a palette of highly acclaimed cinematographers. The prestigious Best International Short Film prize went to Israeli cut Summer Vacation, Danish piece Miniyamba was awarded Best International Animation, The Kingdom of Doug was named Best Australian Short Film, and USA produced Slomo landed Best Short Documentary Film – all Academy Accredited awards. For the full list of winners, check out flickerfest.com.au

COMMUNITY COOKBOOK

A wise Duff beer-bellied yellow man once warned, “You don’t win friends with salad”.

Arthur Street Kitchen are dishing out a tasty contention, however, with a cookbook packed full of leafy green finesse. Community is a collection of easy-peasy, sustainable and healthy recipes, helping you master marrying fresh produce, veggies, herbs, legumes and nuts in your kitchen. Hetty McKinnon’s Arthur Street Kitchen have been delivering salads by bike to Surry Hills residents, her creations defined by culinary stories and lip-smacking flavours. Sweet Sesame Broccoli and Edamame with Quinoa, Baked Sweet Potato with rocket, Feta and Black Olive-Walnut Relish, and Chargrilled Fennel and Asparagus with Pearl Couscous and Coriander Oil can now be achieved with the flick of a page. Quit drooling and get your hands on a copy this May.

DANCE LIKE NO ONE’S WATCHING

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THE ETERNITY PLAYHOUSE

Burton St Tabernacle has been planted in the heart of Sydney for 126 years, although the Baptist church’s doors finally closed in 1996.

The past four years, however, have seen the heritage-listed venue transformed into The Eternity Playhouse. Handed the reigns by the City of Sydney, Sydney’s Darlinghurst Theatre Company are ready to creatively resurrect the venue as their new professional platform for actors, writers and producers. The independent sustainable theatre advocates will gather audiences within cutting-edge surrounds, the church’s beautifully restored parts complimented by a brand new hi-tech digital PA. The first full production at the The Eternity Playhouse, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons last November, was nominated four times at the Sydney Theatre Awards. Keep up to date with the upcoming season at darlinghursttheatre.com/eternityplayhouse.

Jingdezhen ware dish with gardenia spray design Ming dynasty, Hongzhi period, 1488-1505

30 YEARS OF THE STERNBERG COLLECTION

It’s hard to imagine giving your prized possessions away, especially if they’re fine Chinese artworks dating back to when the Han Dynasty was in full swing (206 BCE – 220 CE. Yep). Fine arts collector and philanthropist Goldie Sternberg, however, did just that, donating works to the Art Gallery of NSW in the ‘80s. First captivated by Chinese art in the ‘50s, Goldie and her husband Edward helped make it more accessible to the public through facilitating exhibitions and education. To mark the thirtyyear anniversary of the couple’s contribution, the Gallery will present a new exhibition comprising fifty extraordinary Asian works – a mix of Sternberg donations, and pieces purchased through the Edward and Goldie Sternberg Chinese Art Purchase Fund. The Connoisseur And The Philanthropist: 30 Years Of The Sternberg Collection will be on display at the Art Gallery of NSW from Friday January 31 until Sunday April 27. Check artgallery. nsw.gov.au.

DAVE CHAPPELLE DOWN UNDER

Stand-up comedy genius Dave Chappelle has announced that he is heading to Australia for his first ever tour outside North America.

Chappelle, who has been working in the entertainment industry since he was 14, is best known for his 2003 television series Chappelle’s Show. At the Montreal Just For Laughs festival he broke the record for number of tickets sold by a single performer. The Australian leg of his tour includes stops in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, and tickets for all shows go on sale on Tuesday January 28.

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

Now with even more food, The Sydney Morning Herald NSW Food and Wine Festival is back for its seventh annual event, to celebrate the state’s best wine and local produce. The expanded festival, which this year runs from February 21 to March 21, offers an exciting mix of new and much-loved food and wine events created in conjunction with growers, winemakers, artisan food producers, chefs, restaurants, sommeliers and bars. Events include wine tastings, food matching, produce markets, food sampling, cooking demonstrations, live music, champagne brunches and more. Find out how to stuff your face hole with delicious food at nswfoodandwine.com.au. thebrag.com

Xxxx

Tired of having to gauge everyone’s horrified reactions as you groove out to the music playing? Sick of strobe lights piercing your helpless, watery eyes and running into illplaced mirrors in da clubs? Well, friend, the solution is here. No Lights No Lycra is not a Dirty Dancing outtake, but a Melbournepioneered dance evening that has reached

over 40 cities worldwide since first switching the lights off in 2009. Throw all revised steps out the window – you just have to show up and dance however the hell you want to new tunes and classic favourites for an entire hour with no one watching. Your Tuesday nights for the entire year have been decided, kicking off Tuesday January 28 at 7.30pm at Redfern Town Hall, 73 Pitt St. Entry is 5 clams and a shimmy.

Dave Chappelle

RAW Comedy [COMEDY] Raw With Laughter By Cameron James

E

very year, a dozen stand up comedians perform their best material at Melbourne Town Hall in front of 1400 strangers, a panel of judges, and a national television audience, to try and win the RAW Comedy Competition.

Past finalists include Chris Lilley, Hannah Gadsby, Josh Thomas, Tom Ballard, Cameron James (the writer of this article) and 2013 winner Demi Lardner. And yes, we have all consumed the bloody pulp of those who have failed. Show business; there’s no business like it.

“I actually had three attempts at RAW before I got through,” Demi Lardner says, negating my lie about the cannibalism.

“I first entered when I was 16, and I didn’t get through the heats. Then the next year I was in the State final. And last year I was in the nationals.”

Demi is being modest. She not only won the RAW Competition that year, she also went on to become a joint winner in the international equivalent, So You Think You’re Funny in the UK. It’s more than just a pat on the back – RAW can be a young comic’s introduction to the industry of saying stupid stuff on stage.

But it’s not all laughs; t’s also a lot of hard work.

“My act changed a lot in the years between those three attempts,” Demi admits. “I started to realise that I didn’t even find my own jokes funny. I was just writing what I thought audiences would find funny”.

Demi Lardner

This type of creative maturity is rare in a 20 year old. It took Louis C.K. 20 years to come to his own comic epiphany, which is Demi’s entire lifetime. I’m not comparing Demi and Louis C.K., I’m just showing off that I know maths.

Suck eggs, Mr. Woolford. (NB: my Year 5 teacher who mocked me for not understanding long division).

Of course, the big question is: why would any sane person do stand up? The answer: sane people wouldn’t. People start doing stand up because they’re manic with ideas, or they like attention, or they’re driven by spite and want to prove to Mr. Woolford that they could make something of themselves.

“I used to write down funny ideas in a notebook from when I was 10 years old,” Demi remembers.

“Then when I was about 14 I started watching Lano & Woodley, and I realised you could be a comedian. That that was a thing you could be.”

Like anything, comedy is a profession that requires work and commitment. And any of the performers who have been through the finals will testify as to how hard the day itself can be.

“I don’t think I slept for three days before the finals,” Demi remembers. “By performance time, I was so exhausted I had no energy left to be nervous. Until I had to give my winners speech.”

Demi’s speech was cut short on the TV broadcast of the event. Because she swore. A lot. In fact, if you look closely, you can see her swearing at the girl who hands her flowers.

“Yeah, my friends all texted me about that,” she says. “‘Did you just tell that girl to ‘Fuck off’? Well, I didn’t mean to! I was caught up in the moment.”

RAW Comedy is a leg up for a career in comedy; but it’s only the beginning. A real career begins in the clubs, in the alternative rooms, and at the festivals. This year both Demi and myself are making our Melbourne International Comedy Festival debuts, so once again, we will be trying

to prove ourselves to a larger audience. Many of the RAW finalists, state finalists, and heat participants go on to greater achievements within the industry, as long as they are driven enough.

And if they aren’t, they’re ground up and fed to Chris Lilley.

Cameron James is performing the sketch show ‘Paradise’ with comedy partner Jared Jekyll.

Demi Lardner is performing as part of ‘Comedy Zone’.

What: Raw Comedy When: NSW heats until Sunday February 26 Where: Comedy Store, Moore Park More: comedyfestival.com.au

Jump For Jordan [THEATRE] Still Not An Alcoholic By Adam Norris

W

hen I call Alice Ansara, I’m interrupting her lunch break during rehearsals for Jump For Jordan, the 2013 Griffin Awardwinning play soon premiering at the Stables Theatre. I have images of a flustered actor scoffing down a muffin and coffee with one hand, the other crammed with pages of script, trying to answer the phone. Turns out, Alice is gregarious and relaxed, having just finished a hearty serving of mum’s lasagne – “to keep alive that ethnic stereotype” – and happy to talk about her current role, bleeding gums, and how being a child actor weirdly didn’t lead to sex and drugs.

When you start your career barely out of kindergarten, it’s easy to imagine becoming disenchanted. We’ve all seen the grim trajectories of Britney Spears and her ilk, but Alice has managed to avoid the wreck and ruin, and after an opening night is more likely to be found cleaning her house than raising hell out on the town.

“My first audition was when I was six years old,” she reflects, “and I remember my mum saying, ‘Oooh, I don’t think this is such a good idea, you’re going to grow up to be an actor and all actors are alcoholics’. I don’t know about it being a good idea, but I can at least safely say that I’m not an alcoholic. You know when you’re young,

every week you wanted to be a different thing.

One week it’s hairdressing, the next something else – for me it was carpentry, that one stayed with me for a long time, I had a little toolbox – and then one week it was acting, which happened to coincide with that audition. I ended up getting the job … and now, I’m still in the game. I’m just happy to be a somewhat working actor. I think it’s extraordinarily lucky to be working at all. And still not an alcoholic, oh yeah.”

And working not just anywhere, but the Stables, one of Sydney’s most consistently quality theatres.

Alice is in rehearsals to play Sophie, a secondgeneration Australian who must hide her true self from visiting family. The character is still being developed as the script undergoes rewrites, and I wonder what Alice does differently between classic roles and still-emerging ones.

“I think in classic texts the characters still have to sing, they still have to be alive just as they would in a contemporary Australian play. I always start with the shoes. In these rehearsals I’ve had these outrageously squeaky shoes, and yesterday we were doing a scene where I have to say ‘I wish you weren’t dead.’ And it came out as ‘I wish (squeak) you weren’t (squeak) dead (squeak)!’ So I haven’t quite got the shoes working there yet.

While I don’t think that contemporary Australian plays are quite the same as Shakespeare, or Chekov or Ibsen, there’s still scope for the sorts of themes that are brought up in the classics. Family, identity, uncovering masks, history.”

Alice Ansara in Jump For Jordan

Given how closely Alice is working with the script, you imagine that her character must seem particularly real to her. After doing whatever it takes to make you leave yourself behind and become someone new, it must be difficult leaving that character behind at the end.

“You know,” Alice laughs, “I really try to shy away from being a wanky actor, I feel really embarrassed by anything that points me in that direction. But … some characters really stay with you. I’ll read the script and just feel it viscerally; I’ll feel it in my body in a way. Others take a much longer time. My role in Bogan Pride (the Rebel Wilson vehicle) was as the best friend, a really, really daggy character who was always getting sick, and I just got so involved in that character that I was sick for the entire shoot. I had a wonderful time, but like, my gums started bleeding for no reason, and I had these colds that just

wouldn’t go away, I got these strange blisters … So, yeah. I really get into character.”

What: Jump For Jordan Where: SBW Stables When: February 14 – March 29 More: griffintheatre.com.au

Once In Royal David’s City [THEATRE] Learning To Be Dangerous And Difficult By Kate Robertson

I

n his new play Once In Royal David’s City, Michael Gow has crafted a self-reflective exploration of family, death and the theatre.

Brendan Cowell, who has been cast in the lead role of Will Drummond, declares that this “is an extraordinary play, it’s undoubtedly a classic … it’s genuinely surprising where it goes”.

Drummond is a theatre director whose father has recently died and mother has terminal cancer.

“When he’s dealing with his parents dying in quick succession, he’s contemplating capitalism, the alienation effect, the fourth wall – epic theatre,” says Cowell. “My role as Will has a lot of direct address to the audience; I sort of take the audience through the experience of my family crashing and burning whilst talking about society theatre, art, politics and being a man, being an emotional man.”

Brendan Cowell in Once In Royal David’s City

thebrag.com

“I think that Will Drummond is trying to direct his parents’ death, he’s trying to direct how his life will happen,” explains Cowell. “That’s the terrible thing about getting cancer, about people dying, is that you want to do something but you can’t.

For a giant, intellectual control-freak director, it’s pretty hard to hear from other people that this is what’s going to happen and you can’t change anything. That’s the horrible thing about life,

that death is inevitable”, he continues. Cowell suggests that Drummond has “never really accepted that you can’t do nothing, because he’s a director. I kind of understand that in a lot of ways.”

When Drummond is asked to talk to a private school about Bertolt Brecht – a German director who believed that theatre should provoke rational self-reflection and criticism – and the alienation effect, he becomes a vehicle for Gow to explore the function of the theatre. Cowell describes how “everything you perceive about Brecht and Brechtian theatre is turned on its head, and that’s Michael’s point and Will’s point, the idea that Brecht allegedly didn’t want the audience to feel anything, he wanted to just argue with them. I guess Michael is subverting that and saying no, it’s about disagreeing and questioning and feeling a lot of things, and Brecht wanted us to feel a lot, and not TV feelings but real feelings, and then he wanted us to then act, to try and change things.”

Cowell insists that Once In Royal David’s City “is a beautiful, emotional play, but it’s also intentionally political. [Gow wants people to] talk about the fact that there’s a class system

in Australia and a lot of people believe that there isn’t … we make this happen but we’re pleasantly unaware …The small things we do set off these capitalist structures ... and he [Gow] talks about being an artist and how artists are dangerous and difficult and they disagree, and the need for Australians to start to be dangerous and difficult and question and disagree is a big part of the play.”

Having just done their first run, Cowell admits that “it’s full-on, so I’m still very much grappling with the piece; I’m still moulding the plasticine into the shape of this character … It is a classic Australian play about our lives, and that’s what Michael’s brilliant at, he tackles huge ideas … but it’s about the smallness of our lives, the everyday stuff, mums and dads and priests and teachers, it’s the stuff of Australian living, and that’s why everyone will be able to relate to it – maybe more than they wish.”

What: Once In Royal David’s City When: February 8 – March 23 Where: Belvoir Street Theatre More: belvoir.com.au

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

THE SHADOW KING

therefore, less emphasized. The central preoccupation with the folly of property, and its corrosive effects on family is foreshadowed early on. “Where there’s a will,” an elder tells us, “There’s relatives.”

Harry Windsor

■ Theatre

TRAVELLING NORTH Alison Whyte and Bryan Brown in Travelling North

■ Film

12 YEARS A SLAVE In Cinemas Thursday January 30

Tom E. Lewis in The Shadow King Played at Carriageworks as part of Sydney Festival

Kantor is faithful to the basic plot of Lear, but hardly reverential, and the production both fires and falters on Kantor’s approach.

There’s a healthy dose of humour, especially early on, that one doesn’t expect to see in Lear, and the actors jump spryly from the original text to contemporary colloquialisms – Goneril and Regan object to their dad’s ‘mob’ parking themselves out back. It can sometimes be an awkward fusion; vaudeville ockerisms tossed in with Shakespeare’s language as well as chunks of the Kriol and Yolngu Matha dialects, but the actors pull it through. Lewis is charismatic and virile as Lear, far more imposing and vigorous than most iterations of the character. There’s a tensile strength to him that makes his eruptions of rage physically frightening. And Jimi Bani, Jada Alberts and the rest of the cast hold up their roles just as strongly.

Kantor has said that the idea for this production came when Lewis told him of disputes over mining royalties in his hometown of Katherine. This production, for Kantor, is a chance to explore our relationship to the land. The folly of Lear’s pride is,

There are incredible performances throughout – Ejiofor is simply undeniable as the lead, so full of heart, warmth, fight and nuance; and Michael Fassbender is possibly even better as an utterly remorseless, unrepentant 'slave-breaker’.

Paul Dano plays the kind of bloodcurdling, cowardly role we’ve come to expect from him after There Will Be Blood, and Brad Pitt lends some very Brad-Pittish compassion to his role as an anti-slavery proponent in the South.

Steve McQueen’s aesthetic is exquisite as usual – there are countless magical shots, crystallised moments, including a signature multi-minute heart-stopper that you cannot take your eyes off – as well as delicate, very effective sound design. Yet in contrast to Hunger and Shame, art is left to one side, with the focus solely on telling Northup’s incredible story.

Until March 22 Sydney Theatre Company Written in 1979, Travelling North could be described as a reflection through the eyes of the writer, David Williamson, of the characters and societal morals of the late 1970’s.

Directed by Andrew Upton, Travelling North focuses on the two main characters, Frank (Bryan Brown), an older Australian man who struggles to cast off the associated male stereotype and Frances (Alison Whyte) who seems to be on a journey of self-discovery that leads her further and further away from her demanding daughters.

The sparse, simple stage leaves room for the characters to shine. The strong bond between Frances and Frank sees them leaving chilly Melbourne and her daughters, who feel as though she is abandoning them for her own selfi sh motives, and heading to far north Queensland.

Frank and Frances’ experiences in Queensland also introduce us to colourful and cleverly crafted characters. These include the local doctor, Saul (Russell Kiefel) whose blunt diagnoses and wry sarcasm provide many a funny moment, and the quintessential 1970’s stereotype neighbour Freddy (Andrew Tighe), who shows up to Frank’s place at inopportune moments, toolbox in hand and a matter-offact attitude to match.

Back in Melbourne, Frances’ daughters Helen and Sophie, (Harriet Dyer and Sara West) sulk, plot and scheme while Frank’s daughter Joan, (Emily Russell) is their opposite – gentle and accepting of her father’s new life. The daughters are appalled and disbelieving that their mother has taken up with a man (who wants to believe that their parents have sexual and romantic lives?) and, although it’s the 1970’s (Vietnam is a background shadow) they are also mortified that the two aren’t going to marry.

As a result, Frances’ infrequent and often short visits are fraught with tension and the guilt they heap on her is palpable.

Travelling North could definitely be described as a slice of on-stage Australiana that explores the stereotypes and traditional gender roles of the time, as well as themes that remain relevant today. Although there is not a lot of action, the strong cast and tight script flows fluidly and takes the audience into the hearts of characters we can all identify with and whose bittersweet sentimentality lingers with you long after the lights have come back on.

Prudence Clark

With this kind of historical film, we have the chance to question its relevance and political implications, rather than simply enjoying ‘entertainment’ in its crudest sense. 12 Years a Slave is absolutely essential, not only in its unflinching representation of slavery, but also in the shape and scope with which it dismantles the premise of institutionalised class degradation. We are told, in a tapestry of painful, beautiful ways, that such coldness is unforgivable.

Justin Wolfers

See www.thebrag.com for more arts reviews

Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

The Art Of Storytelling

Sadako by Irene Feleo

“Moody, atmospheric and incredibly stylish” zombiehampster.com

“An emotional, disturbing,

Lucas Frey

Comber St Gallery, Paddington Friday January 31, 5:30-9pm Friday is opening night for The Art Of Storytelling, a unique multisensory exhibition showcasing the illustration, animation and photography of 25 Australian and international artists. Based on the art of storytelling, artists will select a novel, play or poem from some of the most classic and greatest storytellers of our time to re-imagine their experience through multimedia illustration and video. Head along to let multi-sensory art, live music and installation propel you back in time or into the future, through old world adventures, space exploration, eccentric experiments and world moving moments. The exhibition is free, and there will be prints and artworks available for purchase. If you can’t make opening night, don’t worry – the space is open to the public until Monday February 3. For more details, check facebook.com/drawingbook.

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NOW AVAILABLE ON ITUNES

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Travelling North photo by Brett Boardman

Michael Kantor’s do-over of King Lear at Carriageworks recasts the play as a story of warring families in remote indigenous Australia. Kantor transforms the barn-like Bay 17 into the red desert and, supported by the irrepressible Tom E. Lewis in the title role, embarks on a contemporary discussion of property rights. The idea of land ownership as a central theme is a hefty challenge for a director to set himself, and an interesting take on the Bard’s original themes of family and power.

How can you write about slavery in 300 words? 12 Years A Slave is a brutal, unsparing, beautifully woven and deeply humane ode to hardship. It is no fun whatsoever, excepting maybe the odd, solitary chuckle through mountains of discomfort, as we watch freeman Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) kidnapped, sold into slavery, and undergo disgraceful treatment along with his companions. Solomon’s owners as he moves from estate to estate are often sadistic, ignorant, and cruel, but sometimes – and more worryingly – just decent people who use people as livestock simply because it was a social norm.

Here, we see tensions between the couple spill over, as Frances feels torn between her love of Frank and the traditional stereotypes of a mother during that period, but we also see the rapid decline of Frank’s health.

The Shadow King photo by Jeff Busby

■ Theatre

Game On Gaming news with Adam Guetti

New Releases

2014

After a slow few months in the video game world, the holiday lull is finally over so get your funds in order, because these are the games you should be paying attention to.

On February 6, popular Xbox series Fable receives a high-definition upgrade in the form of Fable Anniversary (Xbox 360).

Just one week later the tale of Lightning finally comes to a close with the Japanese roleplaying game Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3, Xbox 360) putting you in the titular character’s shoes at the end of days.

One of the stranger releases of the month comes in the form of Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare (Xbox 360, Xbox One) – a 3D action game spin-off from the incredibly popular mobile game.

If you own a Wii U, don’t fear, there’s something for you too! In Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze everybody’s favourite Kong hits shelves on Febrary 22 with even more traditional 2D platforming fun for the whole family.

If you like your gaming a little more hardcore, though, hold out until February 27 for the longawaited return of the popular PC Thief series (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC), setting you up in a grim, desolate world littered with shiny things to steal and baddies to foil in Thief 4.

Rounding out the month on February 27 are two violent action games, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (PS3, Xbox 360) and Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z (PS3, Xbox 360). The former has you taking down demons as the legendary Dracula, while the latter will have you gallivanting about as a deadly ninja brought back to life, dedicated to seeking bloody revenge in a zombie apocalypse.

Yes, it’s a month with a little something for everyone, so clear the couch and expect to enjoy some serious gaming time.

Revisiting A Classic Debate

AUSSIE NEWS

FEB

A new book project, created by Australian games journalist Matthew Sainsbury, has hit Kickstarter aiming to examine the classic “games as art” debate. The project, titled The Interactive Canvas, hopes to raise AU$60,000 to produce and distribute a 200+ page full-colour book filled with in-depth interviews with both local-based and international video game developers. Sainsbury claims the final book will include 30 developer interviews including the likes of Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness), Hidetaka Suehiro (Deadly Premonition), American McGee (American McGee’s Alice), and Konrad Tomaszkiewicz (The Witcher series).

Gamers Welcome The Next Generation

Contact: chris@fair

02 9984 9933

PlayStation 4 Woes

Speaking of consoles, if you’ve been looking to invest in a brand new PlayStation 4, but failed to pre-order a unit for launch, chances are you’ve been met with the disappointing reality of console shortages across the country.

Well, turn that frown upside down because Sony Computer Entertainment Australia has claimed that February will be your best bet to track one down.

Replenishment for customers who haven’t pre-ordered has reportedly already begun to take place, but if you’ve still been unlucky, your second Christmas may very well come quite soon.

If you’re serious about gaming on your PC, chances are you’re constantly on the lookout for a new gaming headset. With strong market dominance behind them, ordinarily you’d likely turn to both Razer and Turtle Beach’s extensive offerings. Take a gander outside the norm with the AudioTechnica ATH-ADG1 Open Air Gaming Headset, though, and you might just be pleasantly surprised.

noisy environment, that might not be such a great thing.

Don’t let the bulky exterior fool you, the ATH-ADG1 looks big, but has actually been designed with comfort in mind.

Large cups to cover your ears and a generous amount of cushioning means you’ll be able to enjoy long gaming sessions without having to deal with an excessive amount of weight on your head.

That said, while the unit isn’t overly heavy, its size still may cause it to drop down every now and then for some players.

Bizarrely, there’s no real way to control the height of the head band meaning the whole matter is out of your control, and although it’s a small niggle for me, it’s still one that could be a serious deal breaker for some.

Adam Guetti

As a whole package, the Audio-Technica ATH-ADG1 Open Air Gaming Headset is a top of the line product worthy of your time and money. Just make sure you’re comfortable with some of its core design choices before you make the final commitment.

If you can overcome that issue, expect some supreme audio performance. The premium 53mm drivers with Bobbin-wound CCAW voice coils (the first of its kind in a gaming headset) comes in clear as day without any major hiccups or any annoying distortions. Plus, with AudioTechoca’s core Open-Air design, you’ll still be able to hear most of your surroundings at the same time. Just be aware that, should you live in a

Visit dustycartridge.com for more gaming news.

ND MUSIC GREAT FOOD A

urant In Australia” ta es R t en m n ai rt te “Awarded Best En

Naysayers who claimed video game consoles were on the decline due to more casual-based experiences found through Facebook and smartphones have been proven wrong by staggering sales numbers for both Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One. Out in front is the PS4 with 4.2 million units sold worldwide (up to December 28 2013) – making it the biggest console lunch of all time. Not far behind, however, is the Xbox One boasting 3 million units sold worldwide. With strong numbers like these, it seems as though the console market won’t be closing anytime soon.

Review: Audio-Technica ATH-ADG1 Open Air Gaming Headset

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for Live and Localsau!

Calling all artistsplay entertainment.com.

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WWW. LIZOT TES.COM.AU BRAG :: 547:: 29:01:14 :: 25

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK WARPAINT

Warpaint Rough Trade/Inertia

Xxxx Warpaint’s introspective atmospherics and opaque lyrics mean it isn’t a perky listen, but embrace the dense brooding for a sensually chilling experience.

SUNBEAM SOUND MACHINE One/Sunbeam Sound Machine Dot Dash/Remote Control

One/Sunbeam Sound Machine, by Melbourne songwriter Nick Sowersby (AKA Sunbeam Sound Machine), is actually two very different EPs. One has a scrappy tone, the bedroom noodlings of a kid who’s both in love with and frustrated by the world around him. ‘Sound Of Glass Breaking’ is delightfully confounding; parts protestation, adolescent confusion, and psychedelic musing.

‘Shake (Sleep Walking)’ channels the rhythmic attitude of The Feelies and the kaleidoscopic bubblegum pop of The Dolly Rocker Movement. ‘Little While’ is a ’60s-inspired meander through the contemporary suburban diaspora. The self-titled EP floats in with the ethereal ‘Whistle While You Wait’: lie back, close your eyes, and your pain lifts like dark clouds disturbed by southern winds. And in ‘I Dreamt I Saw You In A Dream’ lies the key to transcending the superficial monochromatic ugliness of the world around us to reveal the infinite magnificence of the natural world and the human condition.

The record shares emotional territory with the likes of PJ Harvey and Cat Power, but it’s less tortured and more technicallyoriented. The Los Angeles four-piece exhibits proficient musicality, but nothing

Warpaint photo by Mia Kirby

Chris Cunningham’s confronting and beautiful artwork – a translucent conflation of Warpaint’s four members in lurid light – sets you up for Warpaint’s expressive intensity. Behind the desk is UK producer Flood (Nick Cave, New Order, U2), whose ability to magnify subtlety suits the record’s eerie minimalism.

on Warpaint is forced on you. It doesn’t necessarily sound effortless but the four creatively involved constituents follow each other’s ebbs and flows with intuitive understanding. Highlights include the crisp bass guitar groove of ‘Hi’, the synthladen drift of ‘Biggy’ and the danceable Blondie-meets-The-National of ‘Disco// Very’. Elsewhere, the guitar lick in the postchorus section of lead single ‘Love Is To Die’ resembles Jonny Greenwood’s trademark modal subversion and the intertwining vocals in ‘CC’ give off a stab of pathos akin to Cat Power. Contemplative closer ‘Son’ forgoes the experimental haze in favour of a stripped-back arrangement, which shows defiance rather than vulnerability.

Augustus Welby

SKINDRED

T54

† † † (CROSSES)

THE BEEGLES

Kill The Power Napalm/Cooking Vinyl

In Brush Park Flying Nun/Remote Control

††† Sumerian/Warner

Daytime Independent/Bandcamp

Skindred take an extra large pot and stir metal and reggae together.

Purists from either camp would usually cross arms, close their eyes and refuse to talk to one another.

The same purists would briefly plug their ears with fingers whilst being told that metal gods Judas Priest wrote the first ever reggae-metal song, ‘The Rage’, back in 1980.

History is on the side of Wales’ own “raggametallers”, like it or not.

In geographical terms, there aren’t too many places farther apart than Christchurch and New York; neither would you naturally align the confident, brazen New Yorker with the almost institutionally affable Christchurch resident. Musically, however, it’s a different matter. T54 hail from Christchurch, yet in the music you hear the art-punk rock of the lofts of ’80s and ’90s NYC. The opening track, ‘Nails Painted’, is dark, brooding and mesmerising and ‘Life Is Swell’ is pop with attitude. ‘Kill Red’ cuts a swathe through a host of forgotten antecedents and cheap impostors; if you can’t see the spirit of Teenage Riot shining here, you’re not trying.

Chino Moreno’s been a busy guy of late. Not only did the Deftones frontman spend a large chunk of last year on the road touring his primary band’s latest record, but he also found time to release the fantastic Palms collaboration with three former ISIS members. Meanwhile, † † † (Crosses) – the collaboration between Moreno and Shaun Lopez of post-hardcore band Far – have been pursuing their shadowy brand of ambient electronica for a few years now. 2011 saw the release of their debut † EP, which they followed up in 2012 with the † † EP. Their latest offering combines all ten cuts from the EPs plus five previously unreleased songs. Guided by Moreno’s trademark sensual croon, † † † is a tour through the dark side of goth-tinged electropop. There’s the groove-heavy (‘Telepathy’, ‘This Is A Trick’), the spacey (‘Nineteen Eighty Seven’, ‘Cross’) and the flat-out anthemic (‘Bitches Brew’, ‘Prurient’).

The songwriting could be a little more inventive, with the majority of songs conforming to the verse-chorus formula. And at 56 minutes, the album is at least ten minutes too long.

Melbourne locals The Beegles have taken what was honestly a choppy eponymous debut EP, and extrapolated by an infinite magnitude with the follow-up release of Daytime.

What’s served up is low-slung metal swaggering straight from stony Welsh streets. Fist-shaking ‘Kill The Power’ picks up Rage Against The Machine’s agitprop n’ punk gauntlet, punching toward metal’s gleam and crunch. ‘Ninja’ gets raucous with rap and sweet with soaring choruses, a late-’90s nu-metal kicker swept of cobwebs and lovingly refurbished for the modern era.

It’s said that daydreaming is highly productive; and if that’s the case, Sunbeam Sound Machine opens a gateway to emotional awareness that is sorely in demand.

Autobiographical ‘The Kids Are Right Now’ marches along to one beat and one riff before the floaty and smoky ‘We Live’ preaches peace, love and taking green. It grows and grows with an unforgettable chorus the size of a small world, a world where everyone’s holding hands and grinning like a rabble of red-eyed Rastas. We hope.

Patrick Emery

Tom Valcanis

But that’s not to say T54 is in any way predictable: ‘O Nina’ is to In Brush Park what Ann was to The Stooges – surprising and thus necessary. ‘Return Of The Worm’ is thick with guitar sludge and freakish melodies and ‘SW Chops’ is replete with indulgent noise. Finally, there’s the seven-minute opus of ‘Biscuit City Sisters’: a collage of noise, rhythms and melody, a squall of sonic intensity and an extended moment of psychedelic force.

In the end, it simply stops, and silence fills the void. This is some very good shit.

Still, † † † is an otherwise excellent outing from a band that defies its side-project status and demands a seat at the table with its bigger siblings.

Patrick Emery

Wayne Marshall

The band has expanded to a sevenor-so piece, incorporating synths, horns and wigged-out production, and the repertoire extends from bombastic all-out jaunts in intricate times to temperate, finger-picked freak-folk musings.

In half an hour The Beegles manage to tread more ground than most; the experimentalism still feels like it is yet to gel into a truly representative score, but you have to laud the bravery. Opener ‘My Head Exploded’ opens with an all-out horn driven riff into something like 9/4 before meandering into a groovy little lull pondering the benefits of... well, getting loaded. By the time the title track emerges later on, you’ve acclimatised to the all-encompassing sound and solid song craft.

With production values which give even the most exacerbated tracks an insular, intimate, old-worldly feel, this one is best heard through headphones.

Stay tuned for an inevitable adventurous future.

Matt Panag

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK Sharon Jones and The DapKings are of the rare breed who can make music that dips back to another time while managing to sound entirely modern. Give The People What They Want was fi nished last year, but its release was rescheduled following Sharon Jones’ cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment.

SHARON JONES AND THE DAP-KINGS Give The People What They Want Daptone/Shock

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Opener ‘Retreat!’ is sharp and sassy, and together with second single ‘Stranger To My Happiness’ is a chorus of elements working in faultless harmony. When Jones delivers a line like “Let me skim this cap another way,” you know there’s no messing with her. The optimism of songs like ‘We Get Along’ keeps things upbeat, and

the softly trilling horns in ‘Making Up And Breaking Up (And Making Up And Breaking Up Over Again)’ are perfectly complemented by the Dapettes’ vocals. The slyly relatable ‘Get Up And Get Out’ about a shameful reunion with an ex is great fun.

With this album Jones and the Dap-Kings have given the people what they want and it’s more than we deserve – a grooving collection that is smooth yet gritty and sure as hell knows how to have a good time. Much like Sharon and her Dap-Kings, really.

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

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - High Hopes RNB CLASSICS - Various BROOKE FRASER - Albertine

LIL’ MAMA - Voice Of The Young People WASHINGTON - I Believe You Liar

Natalie Amat

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

Truthfully though, it’s the members of the house band who provide some of the most joyous moments all night, perhaps not a surprise when they include Chris Stamey (The dB’s); Mike Mills “I’m the happiest man in the fucking world!”

Tim Wish how at w e 'Rogers v e b eputs e nit,oand u t if the o has s e e . . .(R.E.M.) bursting out of the gates on ‘You Can’t Have Me’; and the only surviving any competition for the title tonight, they’re member of the original Big Star, stillbound to be in this room. The warm glow youthful drummer Jody Stephens, whose of fan geekery radiates from pretty much personal, candid insight into the writing, every person here tonight, whether onstage recording and troubles of the album thrills or in the packed crowd. We’re here as part fans, as do his solo songs ‘Blue Moon’ of the Sydney Festival to celebrate Big and ‘Way Out West’.

Star’s Third album, the band’s beloved but troubled final original record, issued with so The only missteps in the show are minor, many different track listings over the years like Power going missing during a duet that we’re unsure how it’s going to play out. with Salmon and Kurt Vile seeming a little overwhelmed, but for a show with such a Alongside the brass section, symphonic collection of names, there’s an unusual percussionist, and a six-piece string sense of genuine community and lack section with its own conductor, Ken of spotlight-hogging. The entire second Stringfellow (The Posies) opens with a half of the show is a bonus treat, with stark version of ‘Nature Boy’, before being songs from throughout Big Star’s career joined out front by Kim Salmon for an culminating in a still-recovering Edwyn uproarious blast of ‘Kizza Me’. From here Collins taking over the early Alex Chilton the roster of guest singers blows on and hit ‘The Letter’. Just being there in that offstage quickly – highlights including company would probably be enough for Rogers on a perfectly chosen ‘O, Dana’, most of tonight’s crowd, but thankfully the Cat Power’s vulnerable vocals used to truly outstanding performances elevate exceptional effect in ‘Femme Fatale’, Dave it to an all-time gig that people will be Faulkner accompanied by a percussive boasting about for years. basketball on ‘Downs’, and Salmon’s aching take on ‘Holocaust’ creating a reverential Simon Topper silence across the room.

BIG STAR’S THIRD Enmore Theatre Thursday February 23

PHOTOGRAPHER :: ASHLEY MAR

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KURT VILE & THE VIOLATORS Sydney Town Hall Wednesday January 22 Hunched over his guitar with matted brown locks obscuring his face, you get the feeling Kurt Vile would’ve been more comfortable in a slightly cosier setting than the packed-out Sydney Town Hall.

However, if he wanted to stay in smaller venues he shouldn’t have bestowed on the world two heart-beating classic records in the last few years. Tonight’s setlist (backed by his band The Violators) drew almost entirely from 2011’s Smoke Ring For My Halo and last year’s magnum opus, Wakin On A Pretty Daze, as the room full of attuned fans looked on adoringly.

Kurt Vile’s voice is more of a drawl than a serenade and his songs often don’t branch out beyond their fundamental A and B sections, yet they regularly chug past the six-minute mark. So what’s the source of Vile’s growing attraction? Well, put simply, Vile is one of the truly unique songwriters of our time. His voice, as withdrawn as it may sound, is capable of imparting shared uncertainty from a personally motivated place that corresponds with one’s own internal murmurs.

Tonight’s show magnified how this voice essentially drips out of him without a hint of affectation. Vile’s lyrics appear to be a direct, unfiltered exposition of his thoughts, but there’s no tinge of confessional crudity.

Tonight also magnified just how good Vile’s guitar playing is. Jumping between a range of exquisite electric and acoustic guitars, Vile masterfully illustrated shoegaze atmosphere, rollicking leads and fingerpicking delicacy.

Now, you can call him a slacker as much as you like, but Vile is undeniably responsible for a stack of very well-figured songs. They’re not formless or meandering, they’re just done his way. Set highlights included the scene-setting opening pair of ‘Wakin On A Pretty Day’ and ‘KV Crimes’, the ironic snarl of ‘On Tour’ and the demonstrative meditation ‘Goldtone’.

Perhaps the evening’s most affecting moments were when The Violators stepped aside, leaving Vile to play some up-close acoustic numbers. Smoke Ring centrepiece ‘Peeping Tomboy’ and its mature update ‘Too Hard’ both embodied Vile’s understated pre-eminence. He might tremble at responsibility and doesn’t promise the ‘answers’, but something is driving him, something redeems him. Is it love? Or music? It could be both.

“I’ve been searching, I don’t know what for,” he sings in ‘Peeping Tomboy’. If this search continues to beget such benevolent rewards, we’ll certainly keep listening. “That won’t be too hard…”

Augustus Welby

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pick of the week SUNDAY FEBRUARY 2

Chvrches

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 29 INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Mudhoney + Feedtime Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $54.20.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

Mark Travers Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

9:30pm. free.

Musos Club Jam Night feat: Various Local Acts Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt. 8pm. free.

Pulp Kitchen And Folk Club - feat: Live Rotating Folk Bands Soda Factory, Surry Hills.

5pm. free.

The Flying Emus Brass Monkey, Cronulla.

7pm. $32.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Aaron Michael Band Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm. free.

Baecastuff: Mutiny Music Venue 505, Surry Hills.

8:30pm. $16.

Dave Jackson Quartet Foundry616, Ultimo.

8:30pm. $16.50.

Vibrations At Valve Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 7pm. $15.

Sydney College Of The Arts

Laneway Festival Adalita + Autre Ne Veut + Cashmere Cat + Cass McCombs + Chvrches + Cloud Control + Danny Brown + Daughter + Dick Diver + Drenge + Earl Sweatshirt + Four Tet + Frightened Rabbit + Haim + Jagwar Ma + Jamie Xx + King Krule + Kirin J Callinan + Kurt Vile + Lorde + Mount Kimbie + MT Warning + Parquet Courts + Run The Jewels (El-P & Killer Mike) + Savages + Scenic + The Growl + The Jezabels + Unknown Mortal Orchestra + Vance Joy + Warpaint + XXYYXX + Youth Lagoon 11am. $156.

30 :: BRAG :: 547 : 29:01:14

THURSDAY JANUARY 30 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Cole Soul And Emotion feat: Lionel Cole The White Horse, Surry Hills. 8pm. free.

Jazz Degustation - feat: Michelle Owen The Spice Cellar, Sydney.

7pm. $55.

Michael Griffin Quartet Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 9pm. free.

Nadya & The 101 Candles Foundry616, Ultimo.

8:30pm. $27.50.

Side Tracked Fiasco - feat: Narla + Dear Seattle + Red Gazelle Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 7pm. $10.

The Cellar Jazz Jam - feat: Phil Stack & Guests The Spice Cellar, Sydney.

10pm. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Cash Savage & The Last Drinks Moonshine Rum & Cider Bar, Manly. 9pm. free.

Dave White Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

9:30pm. free.

Driffs + Moon Halls The Standard, Surry Hills.

8pm. $10.

Gordi + Amy Rose + Martha Marlow Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. free.

Hot Damn! Chinese New Year - feat: Your Weight In Gold + Far Away Stables + Jacobide + Undercast + Cardinals The Exchange Hotel, Darlinghurst. 8pm. free.

Lo Roberts Peakhurst Inn, Peakhurst.

7:30pm. free.

Luke Cleland And Friends - feat: The Bondi Beats + Wires 34 Degrees South, Bondi Beach. 8:30pm. free.

Traveller & Fortune + Emma Davis FBi Social, Kings Cross.

8pm. free.

Youth Lagoon + Broods Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $42.50.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

Alex Hopkins (Open Mic Night) Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 7:30pm. free.

Andy Mammers Hillside Hotel, Castle Hill.

7:30pm. free.

Big Blind Ray Trio Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney.

10pm. free.

Cambo Observer Hotel, The Rocks.

8:30pm. free.

Greg Byrne Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 10pm. free.

Joe Echo Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney.

9:30pm. free.

John Vella Fortune Of War, The Rocks.

7pm. free.

Live Music Thursdays Bar100, The Rocks. 5pm. free.

Matt Price Dee Why Hotel, Dee Why. 7pm. free.

Musos Club Jam Night feat: Various Acts Carousel Inn Hotel, Rooty Hill. 8pm. free.

Redlight Ruby O’Malleys Hotel, Kings Cross. 9:30pm. free.

FRIDAY JANUARY 31 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Brendan Clarke Quartet Foundry616, Ultimo.

8:30pm. $21.50.

Kenan Dogulu + Nida Enmore Theatre, Newtown.

7:30pm. $87.10.

Mister Ott Sima, Seymour Centre, Chippendale. 8:30pm. $20.

My Sauce Good + Belle Jar Venue 505, Surry Hills.

8:30pm. $15.

The Barefoot Band + Steel Skin And Wood Jam Gallery, Bondi Junction. 7:30pm. $12.

Zoltan Stacks Taverna, Sydney.

5pm. free.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

Ben Finn Castle Hill RSL, Castle Hill.

6pm. free.

Benjalu The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills. 6pm. free.

Brad Johns Observer Hotel, The Rocks.

10:30pm. free.

David Agius Harbord Beach Hotel, Freshwater. 7pm. free.

Evie Dean Crows Nest Hotel, Crows Nest. 7pm. free.

Geoff Rana O’Malleys Hotel, Kings Cross. 8pm. free.

Greg Agar Campbelltown Catholic Club, Campbelltown. 6pm. free.

Heath Burdell Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 9pm. free.

James Englund Greystanes Inn, Greystanes.

8pm. free.

James Fox Higgins Duo Hillside Hotel, Castle Hill.

8pm. free.

Jess Dunbar Novotel, Darling Harbour.

5:30pm. free.

John Vella Cock ‘n’ Bull, Bondi Junction. 7pm. free.

Live Music Fridays Bar100, The Rocks. 5pm. free.

Matt Jones Mona Vale Hotel, Mona Vale. 9pm. free.

Michael Mcglynn New Brighton Hotel, Manly.

10pm. free.

Natasha Kavanagh Mona Vale Hotel, Mona Vale. 5:30pm. free.

Nicky Kurta Duo Kirribilli Hotel, Milsons Point. 8pm. free.

Renae Stone Manly Leagues Club, Brookvale. 10pm. free.

Rob Henry Observer Hotel, The Rocks.

8:30pm. free.

The Fabulous Rumbleators + Funk Engine Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 8:30pm. $10.

Tim Conlon Parramatta RSL Club, Parramatta. 5pm. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

A Team Duo The Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill. 6pm. free.

Best Of Foo Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills. 10pm. free.

Black Diamond Hearts Crows Nest Hotel, Crows Nest. 10:30pm. free.

Boston Blue Vineyard Hotel, Vineyard.

9pm. free.

Bryce Cohen + Richard Calabro + Katherine Vavahea Brass Monkey, Cronulla.

7pm. $18.

Courtyard Sessions - feat: VCS Seymour Centre, Chippendale. 6pm. free.

Darker Half + Temtris + Mattersphere + Lethal Vendetta Penshurst RSL, Penshurst.

7:30pm. $10.

Dave White Experience New Brighton Hotel, Manly.

11pm. free.

Feral Media & Fallopian Tunes Present Bon Chat Bon Rat - feat: Trjaeu + Nimble Animal + Yolke + Haunts FBi Social, Kings Cross.

8pm. $10.

Fret And Mas Carne Petersham Bowling Club, Petersham. 7:30pm. $5.

Grimskunk + Godfrey Turner-Overdrive + Tiffany Britchford & The Reckless Abandon Tattersalls Hotel, Penrith.

8:30pm. free.

Joe Echo + Mark Oats Duo PJ Gallagher’s, Leichhardt.

9pm. free.

Johnny Rock - feat: Reckless Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

4:30pm. $5.

Kang’s Green Day Hiatus Party - feat: Handball Deathmatch + Our Past Days + That’s The Last Straw Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo.

8pm. $10.

Keith Armitage Castle Hill RSL, Castle Hill.

9pm. free.

Live Music At The Royal The Royal, Leichhardt.

9:30pm. free.

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g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com LJ Chatswood RSL, Chatswood. 5pm. free.

Luke Dixon Helensburgh Workers Club, Helensburgh. 8:30pm. free.

Luke Dolahenty Duo Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 9pm. free.

Restless Leg World Bar, Kings Cross.

10pm. free.

Slumberhaze + Little Fox + Sherekhan + The Coconut Ruffs The Standard, Surry Hills.

8pm. $10.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 1 ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

Groove Depot Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 9pm. free.

Live Music Saturdays Bar100, The Rocks. 4pm. free.

Michael Saracino Australian Hotel And Brewery, Rouse Hill. 10pm. free.

Outlier Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 10pm. free.

Paul Hayward & Friends Town & Country Hotel, St Peters. 4pm. free.

Shane Nicholson & Gregory Page + Betty & Oswald Brass Monkey, Cronulla.

7pm. $28.

Sharron Bowman Brewhouse Marayong, Kings Park. 8pm. free.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Edema Ruh + Midnight Tea Party + Chaika The Gaelic Club, Surry Hills. 7:30pm. $10.

Fire Down Below Katoomba RSL Club, Katoomba. 8:30pm. free.

Kinetic Jazz Orchestra Foundry616, Ultimo.

8:30pm. $27.50.

Mike Nock Sima, Seymour Centre, Chippendale. 8:30pm. $30.

Yuki Kumagi + John Mackie Well Co. Cafe And Wine Bar, Leichhardt. 11am. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS A Band Named Trevor Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills. 9:30pm. free.

Beaten Bodies + The Venusians + The Jesse Witney Trio FBi Social, Kings Cross.

8pm. $10.

Benn Gunn Abbott’s Hotel, Waterloo.

8pm. free.

Cara Kavanagh PJ Gallagher’s, Leichhardt.

9pm. free.

David Agius Crows Nest Hotel, Crows Nest. 7pm. free.

EK Club 77, Woolloomooloo.

10pm. $10.

Electric Anthems Trio Paragon Hotel, Sydney.

9:30pm. free.

Elevation - U2 Show Colyton Hotel, Colyton.

9pm. free.

Fatt Lipp Carousel Inn Hotel, Rooty Hill. 8pm. free.

Heath Burdell Harbord Beach Hotel, Freshwater. 7pm. free.

Jake Mcdougall Duo thebrag.com

Riverwood Inn, Riverwood.

8pm. free.

Jess Dunbar Time And Tide Hotel, Dee Why. 7:30pm. free.

Jimmy Bear + Souled Out Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

4:30pm. $5.

Joe Echo PJ Gallagher’s, Moore Park. 7:30pm. free.

Matt Jones Duo Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel, Woolloomooloo. 9pm. free.

Sons Of Mercury Crows Nest Hotel, Crows Nest. 10:30pm. free.

Suite Az Castle Hill RSL, Castle Hill.

10:30pm. free.

The Getaway Plan + Hallows + At World’s End! Tattersalls Hotel, Penrith.

8:30pm. free.

The Momos Botany View Hotel, Newtown. 7pm. free.

Tori Darke Duo Ettamogah Hotel, Kellyville Ridge. 7pm. free.

Total Addiction Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo.

7pm. $10.

V.I.P Band The Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill. 10pm. free.

Wicked City Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo.

8pm. $15.

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 2 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

The Brassholes Lazybones Lounge, Marrickville. 6pm. free.

ACOUSTIC/ COUNTRY/BLUES/ FOLK

Intimate Sessions Paragon Hotel, Sydney.

6pm. free.

Live Music Sundays Bar100, The Rocks. 1pm. free.

Sunday Blues And Roots The White Horse, Surry Hills. 5pm. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS A Team Duo Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

8:30pm. free.

Greg Agar Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 7pm. free.

Jake Mcdougall Fortune Of War, The Rocks. 2pm. free.

Joe Echo Duo The Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill. 1pm. free.

Laneway Festival - feat: Adalita + Autre Ne Veut + Cashmere Cat + Cass Mccombs + Chvrches + Cloud Control + Danny Brown + Daughter + Dick Diver + Drenge + Earl Sweatshirt + Four Tet + Frightened Rabbit + Haim + Jagwar Ma + Jamie xx + King Krule + Kirin J Callinan + Kurt Vile + Lorde + Mount Kimbie + Mt Warning + Parquet Courts + Run The Jewels (El-P & Killer Mike) + Savages + Scenic + The Growl + The Jezabels + Unknown Mortal Orchestra + Vance Joy + Warpaint + XXYYXX + Youth Lagoon Sydney College Of The Arts, Rozelle. 11am. $156.

Lonesome Train Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

4:30pm. free.

Mark Travers Ettamogah Hotel, Kellyville

Ridge. 1pm. free.

Matt Price Coogee Bay Hotel, Coogee. 5:30pm. free.

Rob Henry Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 8pm. free.

Spurs For Jesus Botany View Hotel, Newtown. 6pm. free.

Super Massive Captain Cook Hotel, Surry Hills. 10pm. free.

The Koffi Boys Harbord Beach Hotel, Freshwater. 5pm. free.

Three Wise Men Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 4pm. free.

Tori Darke Duo Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel, Woolloomooloo. 3pm. free.

Two Minds Duo Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 6pm. free.

Wizz Cats Campsie RSL, Campsie.

2pm. free.

wed

thu

29 Jan

30 Jan (9:30PM - 12:30AM)

(9:30PM - 12:30AM)

fri

31 Jan

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

(9:30PM - 1:30AM)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

sat

sun

01

02

Feb

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

Feb

MONDAY FEBRUARY 3 (8:30PM - 12:00AM)

(9:30PM - 12:30AM)

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Frankie’s World Famous House Band Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney.

9pm. free.

Kye Brown Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

9pm. free.

mon

tue

03

04

Feb

Feb

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

(9:30PM - 12:30AM)

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Big Swing Band Tattersalls Hotel, Penrith.

7:30pm. free.

Happy Monday Games Night Venue 505, Surry Hills.

8:30pm. free.

Latin & Jazz Jam Open Mic Night World Bar, Kings Cross.

7pm. free.

Motown Mondays - feat: Soulgroove The White Horse, Surry Hills. 8pm. free.

Reggae Monday Civic Underground, Sydney. 10pm. free.

I MAG I N E B E I N G MAD E TO

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Jazzgroove - feat: Bonnie Stewart’s Crisscross + Neobop Quintet Foundry616, Ultimo. 8pm. $15.

Old School Funk & Groove Night Venue 505, Surry Hills.

8:30pm. free.

Rumba Motel Salsa - feat: DJ Willie Sabor + Friends The Establishment, Sydney. 6pm. free.

F E E L L I KE C RAP J U ST FOR

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Co-Pilot Orient Hotel, The Rocks.

9:30pm. free.

Drenge Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $28.

Ray Beadle & The Silver Dollars Jam Gallery, Bondi Junction. 7:30pm. free.

Rob Henry Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 8:30pm. free.

BEING

LEFT

H A N D E D.

Okay, that’s hard to imagine? But being gay, lesbian, bi, trans or intersex is no different to being born left handed, it’s just who you are. So stop and think because the things we say are likely to cause depression and anxiety. And that really is pretty crap.

GO TO LEFTHAND.ORG.AU TO WATCH THE VIDEO

STOP t THINK

t

RESPECT

BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14 :: 31

gig picks

up all night out all week...

T N DO C I N PA

Youth Lagoon

Drenge

THE WAIT IS OVER!

Slumberhaze + Little Fox + Sherekhan + The Coconut Ruffs The Standard, Surry Hills. 8pm. $10.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 1 Shane Nicholson & Gregory Page + Betty & Oswald Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $28.

Beaten Bodies + The Venusians + The Jesse Witney Trio FBi Social, Kings Cross. 8pm. $10.

The Getaway Plan + Hallows + At World’s End! Tattersalls Hotel Penrith, 8:30pm. Free.

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4

ng! i m o C Is t e n r e t The In

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 29

Drenge Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $28.

Kenan Dogulu

Mudhoney + Feedtime Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $54.20.

The Flying Emus Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $32.

THURSDAY JANUARY 30 Driffs + Moon Halls The Standard, Surry Hills. 8pm. $10.

Youth Lagoon + Broods Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $42.50.

FRIDAY JANUARY 31

E

1- 4 S E I R SE

LABL I A V A SO

AL

Kenan Dogulu + Nida Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 7:30pm. $87.10.

Benjalu The Beresford Hotel, Surry Hills. 6pm.

Free.

OWN THEM NOW ON DVD & ON DIGITAL AVAILABLE AT

TURN ON AT gethookedtv.com.au Mudhoney

32 :: BRAG :: 547 : 29:01:14

thebrag.com

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

brag beats

jackie onassis trading their wares

also inside

laidback luke

gudrun gut

Xxxx

plus: e uid + club gnaps + club s kly + wee n colum

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BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14 :: 33

brag beats

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

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

five things WITH

Growing Up I grew up in a very musical 1. household. My dad plays guitar

Inspirations So many freaking 2. inspirations! As a teen I was heavily into hardcore blues music and grew up listening to Buddy Guy, Freddie King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, those kinda cats. In the last five years or so, my influences have changed and now I listen to a lot of hip hop and producers. I’m loving all the young guys that are on the rise at the moment like Chance, Earl

DJ HARVEY

Sweatshirt, Rejjie Snow and Joey Bada$$ (I saw him a few weeks back and he was so, so rad). Also Beyoncé – I saw her last year and she seriously blew my mind!

3.

Your Crew Alta is cooked up by Jules [Dowson] who makes all the beats and who really is the brains behind Alta; and me, who sings and one day wants to be able to rap on the beats.

Jules works full-time, and I work and study business at uni fulltime. One day in the nearest of near future (I wish it was tomorrow, or now even), we want to just do music, but at the moment we work so we can do Alta. It’s all good though ’cause we love it.

The legendary DJ Harvey is coming to town, and will play the next Picnic party on Sunday March 2 at a venue that remains shrouded in the secrecy denoted by that tantalising acronym ‘TBA’. Harvey’s cult status is built upon, inter alia, his Ministry of Sound residency, his iconic series of ‘Black Cock’ edits that were pressed throughout the ’80s and ’90s, his marathon DJ sets at his Sarcastic Disco warehouse gigs and his studio work as Locussolus. Harvey has also remixed Art Department, Logic System and Australia’s own Canyons, while tales emphasising his free-spirited and charismatic character abound throughout clubland. In fact, it’s worth taking an excerpt from one such tale that encapsulates the personality that oozes throughout his DJ sets and productions. An interviewer asked him about the ‘Rwandan Ice Cream Project’, and Harvey replied, “It is amazing. Basically a group of Rwandan Holocaust survivors came to New York to learn how to make ice cream, and they brought their drums with them.

They are part of an all-female drum band, and I’ve produced a CD for them.

The proceeds are going to Rwandan charities so it’s been an absolute honour to work with them.” What a guy.

34 :: BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14

HANNAH LESSER FROM ALTA

DJ Harvey

The Music You Make We have tried to place our 4. sound more specifically than just ‘singer/producer duo’, but we find it kinda hard – maybe downtempo sometimes, but not really all the time. It’s quite experimental so our style is constantly changing, but we try to keep an Alta-ery sound. We have two releases – Stay Awhile, which was released in late 2012, and Game Broke Out, which was released late last year. We try to keep our live set one continuous flow, playing off each other and giving the music breathing space… which is good for me ’cause I literally need to breathe. I think I can dance like Beyoncé and the reality is I can’t!

Right Here, Right Now 5. Music,

We are so lucky to live in Melbourne where we are just surrounded by such great musicians in such a great scene.

The electronic scene is huge here and some standouts for me are artists like Silent Jay, Leaks, Friendships and so many more.

Also Oisima from Adelaide; we were lucky enough to support Bonobo and he played main support, and is just rad live and a real nice dude.

What: Charades Present: Format ft. Alta With: Terace, Embassy, Ben Fester, Nick Forrest, Pharley, U-Khan Where: Goodgod Small Club When: Saturday February 1

DAMIANO VON ERCKERT & SAN SODA

Fast-rising German producer Damiano von Erckert will play alongside Belgian house producer San Soda at a doubleheader hosted

by Parkside at The Civic Underground on Saturday February 22. Von Erckert is the founder and head of A&R of Cologne based record label Ava, which he set up after a series of his demos were rejected. Still in his early 20s, von Erckert crafts soul and funk infused house and slo-mo disco, influences that pervaded his debut solo album, Love Based Music, which he released last year to positive critical and public response. Meanwhile San Soda is the nom de plume Nicolas Geysens, a graduate of the vaunted Red Bull Music Academy who was picked up by DJ Redd’s We Play House label.

San Soda’s 2010 album Immers & Daarentegen showcased his eclectic brand of melodic house, while he has also collaborated with Red D under the moniker FC. The revelry commences at 10pm, and $22 tickets are available online.

JESSE ROSE + KING UNIQUE Jesse Rose and King Unique will both throw down at Chinese Laundry this Saturday February 1. Since releasing his debut album in 2008, Rose has established himself at the forefront of the (fidget) house scene, remixing the likes of Riva Starr, DJ Sneak and most recently Calvin Harris, mixing an instalment in the Body Language series on the Get Physical imprint and overseeing his two record labels, Front Room and Made To Play. Rose will be joined by his compatriot Matt Thomas, AKA King Unique, who will be a little dusty – both

AGWA YACHT CLUB FT CASSY

The final of the Agwa Yacht Club parties for this summer is slotted for Saturday February 22, with English-born Cassy, AKA Catherine Britton, headlining as part of her maiden tour of Australia. Cassy was encouraged by Electric Indigo to start mixing in her late 20s, and her supreme tastemaking abilities saw her rise quickly through the ranks.

Cassy has established herself as a world-class DJ over the past decade via her residency at Berlin’s fabled Panorama Bar and regular spots at Ibiza’s DC10, while she has also collaborated with club heavyweights Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano and Mathew Jonson. Her DJ prowess has been captured on her compilations Simply Devotion, the inaugural installment of the Panorama Bar mix series and her Fabric mix, which was released last year, while her productions showcase a vocal-driven style of stripped down deep house.

“I do my best to not be a woman DJ and just a woman,” Cassy has stated of her approach to DJing. “Even if it’s extremely annoying sometimes having to deal with latent misogynism and chauvinism… it occurs time and again… but in the end it’s the men’s shortcoming… their loss not mine.” Cassy will be flanked by Mario Basanov, who has remixed the likes of Metronomy, Flight Facilities and Crazy P. AGWA Yacht Club 020 will board the Starship at 2pm from King St Wharf and return at 8pm. Tickets are still available online.

literally and figuratively – as he is backing up from his set at the Victorian Rainbow Serpent Festival last weekend. Not that a seasoned pro like Thomas will allow that to affect his performance, mind you. A renowned DJ who started out playing with Matthew Roberts, Thomas’ productions have been cherry-picked by prog titans John Digweed and James Zabiela for inclusion on their mix compilations, and though he’s been quiet on the production front in recent times, he has remixed Infusion’s Jamie Stevens, Luke Chable and UNKLE over the past few years.

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xxx photo by xxxxx

and a few years ago started teaching himself drums; he is a massive music lover along with the rest of the fam, so that has had a pretty big effect on my music.

Cassy

dance music news

free stuff

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

head to: thebrag.com/freeshit

five things WITH Growing Up My parents aren’t really musos; my old 1. man’s probably the furthest thing from one, with horse racing and Alan Jones being pretty much the only things he listens to. My mum on the other hand is French, from Egypt, so not only did that provide a bucketload of funny ‘ethnic mum’ stories but it exposed me to French and Middle Eastern music and culture (and especially food) from an early age.

Through that, I’ve learnt an appreciation for all kinds of music from all kinds of places.

2.

SLEAZY GREAZY

House Party, a monthly hip hop night with major headliners (like Mind Over Matter, Daily Meds and The Tongue) mixed with support act slots for talented up-and-coming acts, along with battles and comps – basically trying to make it an awesome night of hip hop while helping build the scene in Sydney.

The Music You Make I’m working on my new release, the 4.

Still Waiting mixtape. It’s a change from the style I had on my first mixtape, The Late Tape, which had a really raw rap style and old-school flavour. On this new tape I’ve strayed from that, which I think reflects how I’ve matured as a rapper and a person. The beats are different, topics more substantial and the vibe is more chilled. That being said, I’ll still have a couple raw tracks on there just to not let maturity get in the way of a good boast and brag, or to stop me spitting lyrics so rude my mum would have to get the old wooden spoon out again if she ever heard them. It’ll be out mid-Feb; I’m keen to see how people like it.

Inspirations I was ten when I got my first solid introduction to hip hop, when I first heard The Slim Shady LP by Eminem. I was a pretty mischievous kid (and nothing’s changed) so when I heard all the cursing, swearing and crazy shit he said I was hooked. I got into all kinds of hip hop from then on, but never really knew about Australian hip hop until my mum bought me an Ecko brand singlet for Christmas when I was about 12 and it came with a promotional CD full of Aussie hip hop (naturally, she counted it as two presents).

On the CD was Brad Strut’s ‘Intro 01’, which became my favourite song for ages and inspired me to want to rhyme as well.

Music, Right Here, Right Now I think hip hop in Sydney needs The 5.

Hip Hop House Party to help build the scene

Your Crew Right now I’m working with a solid crew 3. of people, like DJ Skae, on The Hip Hop

and get hip hop heads together to network and relate on a regular basis. That’s why I’m so happy to be on board with it. The next one will be on Thursday February 27 at The

JONO FERNANDEZ

Borgore

WILD OUT VALENTINE’S

Standard with The Tongue as a headliner, then we’re back at Oxford Art Factory on Thursday March 20 with a surprise guest.

Should be dope!

What: The Hip Hop House Party With: The Tongue Where: The Standard When: Thursday February 27

Where’s the Valentine’s party at? Ivy, that’s where. Forget pedestrian picnics in the park, candlelit dinners and the inevitable (ugh) screening of a Nicholas Sparks film adaptation. ’Cause you know what’s cooler than a romantic Valentine’s Day? (Other than, like, not being alone.) It’s partying even harder the day after with Borgore at his Wild Out Valentine’s, brought to you at Ivy by the good people from Chinese Laundry. Lose yourself to some bangin’ tunes from the Israeli DJ party boy and friends The Partysquad and Run DMT. It’s going to be one helluva gig, and we’ve got a double pass to give away – why, for you and that extra special someone of course.

To get lucky (oh yeah, you can bet it means what you think it means), head on over to thebrag.com/freeshit and tell us the wildest thing you’ve ever done for love.

Jono Fernandez

Jono Fernandez will play Chinese Laundry on Saturday March 29, following up the release of his latest single ‘March Of The Monkeys’, which drops at the end of January.

In contrast to the litany of DJs populating the scene, Fernandez is a ‘live producer’. “My live show is a blend between DJing and what I do in the studio, I guess you could interpret it as live remixing in some places, sprinkled with heaps of my own originals, some released, many new and unheard,” he explained. “I use drum loops, a capellas, samples and stems from my own tracks from the studio in a live mashup that covers house, electro, progressive and tribal.” Fernandez will be displaying his full range when he performs at Chinese Laundry.

J DILLA TRIBUTE NIGHT

To commemorate the anniversary of the untimely death of hip hop figurehead J Dilla, who would’ve turned 40 this year, Grindin’, Keep It Movin’ and April77 Creative are hosting their fifth annual tribute party at The Basement on Friday February 7. An array of Sydney’s finest DJs and musicians will be

paying homage to Dilla, the man who shaped a new sound for hip hop, with a live band comprised of Simon Olsen, Harry Sutherland, Simon Ferenci and Aiden Haworth among others covering Dilla classics. DJs Eric Lau, Katalyst, Naiki, Mike Who and Trey will also be spinning, backed by MCs aplenty. All proceeds from the event will go to the J Dilla Foundation, which supports inner city music programs.

Gold Panda

19-year-old Brisbane producer Young Franco has announced a national tour to follow up the release of his debut EP Futurefunk, which is currently available as a free download online.

After being inspired by hip hop influences to DJ at an early age, Franco was picked up

by Brisbane artist Mr Hill and subsequently toured with Aussie hip hop heavyweights like Illy, Drapht and Seth Sentry. He has gone on to play alongside renowned Australian acts such as Nina Las Vegas, Yolanda Be Cool and Flight Facilities, as well as playing at St Jerome’s Laneway Festival in Brisbane and Splendour In The Grass last year. Futurefunk fuses disco records and hip hop influences with a purported ‘Game Boy’ twist across its four tracks. Have a listen before Young Franco plays a free show at the Beach Road Hotel on Wednesday February 5 alongside DJ Butcher.

xxx photo by xxxxx

NICK WARREN + JODY WISTERNOFF

GOLD PANDA

Essex producer Gold Panda will perform at Oxford Art Factory on Thursday March 6. Gold Panda emerged in 2010 with the release of his album Lucky Shiner on Ghostly International. He’s since cemented his reputation via last year’s follow-up album Half Of Where You Live, remixes for acts like Bloc Party and The Field and a DJ Kicks compilation, which juxtaposed tracks from Drexciya and Zomby alongside cuts from Ramadanman and Matthewdavid. Presale tickets can be purchased online for $37+bf.

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Opiuo

YOUNG FRANCO

Veteran Englishmen Nick Warren and Jody Wisternoff will play a boat party on the Starship on Saturday April 12, with the cruise set to run from midday until 5pm.

The pair is best known for their collective output as Way Out West, but have also both forged noteworthy solo careers. Since earning his stripes as the tour DJ for Massive Attack during their first major tour of the US, Warren has remained at the forefront of the dance scene, garnering acclaim for his cuts such as ‘Ajare’ and ‘The Gift’ and his Global Underground and Balance mixes. He complements his DJing and producing by working as A&R for Hope Recordings, which has released material from the likes of Martin Buttrich and Leftfield. Wisternoff reached the

OPIUO + DUB FX

Opiuo and Dub FX have announced a co-headline tour of Australia that will include a show at Sydney University’s Manning Bar on Friday March 21. Now residing in Melbourne but originally from New Zealand, Opiuo experiments with jazz, reggae, funk, rock and psychedelic influences in his productions, remixes of the likes of Kimbra and Infected Mushroom and albums such as Slurp And Giggle. Opiuo is gearing up to release a new album in March, and will undoubtedly showcase some tracks from the forthcoming album during his one-man live show. Dub FX is the moniker of worldwide street performer and producer Benjamin Stanford, who is originally from Melbourne. Stanford constructs music by using only his voice, live looping and effect pedals, and got his breakthrough when a Bristol filmmaker filmed Stanford performing on the street and posted it on YouTube. Through the ensuing viral success of the clip, Stanford garnered worldwide interest, and has recently released a new album, Theory Of Harmony.

finals of the DMC World DJ Championship at the age of just 13, and now hosts monthly shows on Frisky and Proton Radio concomitantly to his studio work. $55 tickets to the boat party are available online.

BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14 :: 35

Laidback Luke Kung Fu Fighting By Augustus Welby Guetta and Robin Thicke. His fundamental DJing ethos prevails when it comes to remixing, too. “I have turned down remix assignments for a lot of money just because I wasn’t feeling the original track,” he says. “What I usually do is take the elements in the original that I like and then try to make it my own version.

Sometimes, when there’s no elements in there that I like, I’ll just turn it down.”

In addition to remixing and releasing original music, Luke has kept up a very busy touring schedule ever since the late ’90s.

It’s no surprise to hear he doesn’t get much time off. “Basically the touring is non-stop. The most of a holiday I get every year is about a week. I really need to beg my people to get me a full week.”

I

t’s a potential dilemma for all club DJs – ought they conform to the wants of the audience or stand proud as the entertainment curators?

Holland’s Laidback Luke (AKA Lucas van Scheppingen) always promises a good time, but he’s by no means a submissive song selector.

“I DJ 50 per cent for myself and 50 per cent for the crowd. My

most important rule is that I’ll never play something that I really don’t like. If it’s the most popular track in the world and I don’t like it, I won’t play it,” he says.

This tenacious attitude might seem unusual for someone whose major duty is to keep the party in full swing. However, Luke explains his options are hardly limited.

“Luckily I have a very wide taste in music. I can get super cheesy or I can get super underground.

I’m very fl exible in that sense.”

Spending the majority of the year living between hotels, airports, truck stops and clubs high on debauchery means that ill health threatens to strike at any time.

Luke explains how he manages to avoid this trap. “I don’t drink because I live like an athlete. I do kung fu on a high level so I basically train every day and I keep as healthy as possible.”

Indeed, Luke’s remix history is a clear depiction of his broad taste. He has remixed everyone from Daft Punk to Beyoncé, and recently he’s reworked chart-topping tunes by David

This is no joke – Luke has been practising Chinese martial arts for 13 years. He’s no chump either.

“In 2013 I competed in the world championships in Hong Kong and

all over the world. In 2001, the sustaining influence of Malaria! was represented by the Versus EP, which featured a crop of young artists covering Malaria! originals.

One particularly well-loved track from this release was the Chicks On Speed version of ‘Kaltes Klares Wasser’. “It was a really important thing for them and for Malaria! too,” says Gut. “It was great, in Germany it was a chart success. So that went really well for both of us. Chicks On Speed were not famous before that.”

Speaking of covers, Wildlife features a re-interpretation of Tina Turner’s reverberating ’80s smash ‘Simply The Best’. This might be the most anomalous recording in Gut’s entire back catalogue, but she’s enthusiastic about her choice.

“I wanted to do a cover version so I went through all these weird songs.

I mostly had weird German ’30s stuff, then somehow I found [‘Simply The Best’] on YouTube and I just started doing it and I thought, ‘Oh! I want to do this one.’” However, Gut’s moody industrial rendering basically

I won a couple of medals as well.”

Indeed, you could compare committing your life to dance music with competing in a physically gruelling sport. Luke’s fi tness is certainly an asset, allowing him to stay motivated through the endless late nights.

“In my younger years I was getting drunk every night and locking myself up in the studio, not eating, having a lot of stress and it really burned me out at a certain point.

Nowadays, I really take care of myself and through kung fu I keep energised and I diminish the stress that’s in my head.”

Maintaining bodily fi tness is one thing but DJing every night of the week will inevitably become tedious. “You can have a fi ve-star dinner every single night of your life but at a certain point even that kind of dinner will taste the same, just bland,” Luke says. His way to avoid repetitiveness? “I will never try to do the same combination of tracks. Basically if I played track ‘A’ with track ‘B’ the night before, [then] I’ll need to pick another track in between. I’m never allowed to do the same combo.”

What: Uberjak’d, Danny T, John Glover, Mo’Funk, Fingers, Jake Disgrace and more Where: Ivy When: Saturday February 1

Gudrun Gut Simply The Best By Augustus Welby

G

udrun Gut has been an active member of Berlin’s experimental underground music scene since the early ’80s.

After a brief stint in Blixa Bargeld’s Einstürzende Neubauten, Gut gained recognition leading the all-female post-punk group Malaria!. Malaria! disbanded in the early ’90s and Gut spent the next two decades composing fi lm soundtracks, running two record labels, recording and producing other artists and presenting the Ocean Club radio show alongside The Orb’s Thomas Fehlmann.

However, it wasn’t until 2007 that Gut released her first solo album, I Put A Record On. With so much going on, it’s easy to see why an official solo LP was delayed for so long. Yet Gut reveals there was something else in the way.

“I always wanted to do a solo record but it took me ages. I had to have the confidence to do it. That was the problem,” she confesses.

In late 2012, Gut followed I Put A Record On with the dark and abrasive electro outing Wildlife.

Neither record betrays any trace of artistic insecurity, but working solo certainly imposes a lot of pressure. “As an electronic artist you’re there all alone,” Gut says. “I do everything. A full album is like, ‘Oh boy.’ A lot of stuff goes into the album from myself.”

As a means of alleviating these pressures, Gut has followed both albums with a collaborative record. In 2010, Gut and Antye Greie released Baustelle, and her next release will be an album with Hans Joachim Irmler from German cult rock band Faust. “[After working alone] I need to have some feeding with other people. I love doing that,” she says. “If I would have a band it’s easy, but I don’t. Rather than having a band I work with different people.”

36 :: BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14

This might suggest that Gut enjoys collaboration far more than the draining solo experience, but she’s always lured back to working alone.

“I don’t have to discuss anything – that’s great,” she chuckles, before adding: “I have to discuss with myself and I’m pretty critical. If a bass drum doesn’t sound like I want it, or the snare… every detail is discussed with myself.”

Gut’s unconventional and defiant attitude continues to inspire experimentally inclined musicians

excludes any chance of a hearty Jimmy Barnes-style sing-along at her upcoming Sydney gig. “When I finished the album I played it to [my best friend] and she didn’t recognise it at all. She said, ‘It sounds so commercial, it’s really unusual for you to do something like this,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, but it’s Tina Turner,’ and she couldn’t believe it.”

Where: The Square, Haymarket When: Thursday January 30

thebrag.com

Jackie Onassis

Deep Impressions Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

Modern History By Isabella Ubaldi

DVS1

T

L

et’s say a few parting words to the times when Aussie rappers bounced onstage and told you to “put your motherfucking hands in the motherfucking air”. Those days are pretty much over.

In their place is the arrival of a genrebending, modern breed of Aussie hip hop that smacks you with thoughtful lyrics and melts faces at gigs and festivals worldwide.

Championing this change are Kai Tan and Raph Dixon, the Sydney lads from Jackie Onassis.

Frivolous photo by Sarah Kindermann

“I do think [hip hop] has changed in that maybe a couple of years ago there was definitely this obvious sound… it used to be referred to as ‘barbecue rap’”, recalls Jackie Onassis beatmaker Dixon. “A lot of people felt that the only way that anyone was going to listen to your music was to make a big, happy, silly song. There’s nothing wrong with that vibe … [But] maybe people were only really trying to do that, and we were only really getting the same song again and again. I feel like at the moment it’s about doing what you want.”

Perhaps it’s having done exactly what they wanted which led to the duo’s ripping year in 2013. Last year saw their track ‘Crystal Balling’ picked up by BBC Radio 1 tastemaker Zane Lowe. This set off a chain reaction – subsequently, the duo played a string of local and national tours and festivals and signed to Sony Music.

Not bad for a couple of lads who’ve only been at it seriously for a year. “The whole Jackie Onassis thing really started I guess in November 2012, so it was a touch over a year ago,” says Dixon. “We were just … two guys who did it in a converted spare room of the house that I was living in at the time, and we put [the Holiday EP] on the net for free.”

Dixon casually describes himself and Tan before Jackie Onassis’ eruption as “basically just uni bums knocking about and scrounging things together.” Hailing from the musical hub that is Sydney’s inner

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west, Dixon and Tan got to know each other catching the same bus to school.

They drifted apart, only to be reunited at university where they both took the same lecture in Modern American History. It was there that they bonded over a mutual love for former US First Lady Jackie Onassis, and decided to make music together.

“When we released the EP it kind of came at a perfect time when we had part-time uni jobs and instead of getting serious and looking for a real job we had to tell ourselves, ‘We’re going to be too busy with this music thing so we’d better keep the part-time jobs.’”

Having practically grown up together, the duo has bred an unfaltering group dynamic and a writing style that Dixon says is completely organic. “Kai likes to write. Most of his lyrics are definitely about stuff he’s seen or things he’s been through, and most of our music is really going for that vibe. We really try to talk about it a bunch, trying to capture something that people can get and apply to their own lives.”

‘Juliette’, the title track for their latest EP, is exactly that. A melancholic track with synths aplenty, it laments an ailing relationship and exemplifies the honesty that typifies Jackie Onassis the band.

Although he seems reluctant, Dixon admits, “Kai does the rapping and everything, but [the song] comes from one of my stories and one of his”.

With the release of the duo’s new EP and a solid set of national tour dates lined up, Australian music fans can expect a fresh injection of beats with maybe only the occasional hands-in-the-motherfuckingair. It’s what Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis would’ve wanted.

What: Juliette out now through Sony Where: Metro Theatre, supporting Illy When: Friday March 14

he crew behind the much-adored but recently closed inner-west venue The Abercrombie has lured one of the foremost names in techno today, Minneapolis’ Zak Khutoretsky, to play The Basement in Circular Quay on Saturday February 8. Best known in club circles as DVS1 (for those reading this column aloud to a packed room, it’s pronounced ‘devious one’), Khutoretsky has built his reputation through two decades of DJing, but it was not until he gained the support of Germany’s Ben Klock that Khutoretsky vaulted into the top echelon of techno producers.

“Ben opened the door for me to get noticed,” Khutoretsky reflected in a recent interview. “It’s extremely difficult to get noticed as just a DJ, to break through without production credits to your name is nearly impossible. By putting out my records he gave me that opportunity, to show what I’ve been doing for years already as a DJ.” Khutoretsky’s first release as DVS1 dropped on Klock’s Klockworks label in August 2009, and was followed by releases on Derrick May’s venerated Transmat imprint and Dustin Zahn’s Enemy Records. Khutoretsky has since launched his own record label Hush (which has only released a single record, from DVS1 in 2011) and its sublabel Mistress, which was launched last year with the manifesto of tapping into a wider spectrum of house and techno than its more tightly-focused parent label.

While Khutoretsky has built up a strong body of remixes for the likes of Lucy, Nina Kraviz, Trus’me and Rolando, by his own admission he remains a “DJ first and foremost. I’ve always loved to DJ and only stepped out of that a few times for a live set … As a DJ I feel that I’m fluent. I can speak and describe my emotion and my vibe. As a producer I’m still learning to speak.” Anyone after a fix of unadulterated deep and pure techno must ensure they see the devious polyglot technophile in full throttle when he throws down at The Basement. Presale tickets are currently selling online.

Canadian producer Daniel Gardner, who has made a name for himself recording under the moniker Frivolous, has just put out an album of previously Frivolous

unreleased tracks that is aptly entitled Lost And Forgotten. Sydneysiders are well acquainted with Frivolous’ unique live set that he has showcased on past tours at showpiece events like Mad Racket and the 2011 Subsonic Music Festival, wowing punters with his unusual set-ups and audacious live sampling. After honing his bouncy brand of melodic oddball house through his albums Somewhere In The Suburbs and my personal favourite, 2007’s Midnight Black Indulgence, Frivolous released his most recent artist album Meteorology on Luciano’s Cadenza imprint back in 2010. While Frivolous has been in production hibernation ever since, he has recently dug through his archives and found an array of unreleased tracks dating back to his earliest production forays that otherwise may have never seen the light of day, including ‘Far From This World’, originally penned in 2008, and ‘303D’ from back in ’04. The result is Lost And Forgotten, available now through the Belgian label Lessizmore.

To celebrate its ten-year anniversary, Omar-S’ FXHE Records will release a compilation called FXHE 10 Year Mix Compilation, made up of 16 tracks from its back catalogue. Fittingly, the compilation will be mixed by Omar-S himself, marking only his second commercially released mix, following 2009’s Fabric 45, and the first to feature material from other producers, as the Fabric compilation was comprised solely of Omar-S’ own productions (a tad selfaggrandising perhaps, but it’s hard to raise such qualms when the final product was of such high quality). In addition to being the primary outlet for Omar-S’s productions, the FXHE imprint has also released cuts from the likes of Gunnar Wendel (AKA Kassem Mosse), OB Ignitt and Luke Hess, all of whom feature on the forthcoming compilation, which is apparently the first part of a series that will be released every three months throughout 2014. FXHE 10 Year Mix Compilation drops real soon – on the first day of February to be precise.

LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY FEBRUARY 1 Andrew Weatherall Oxford Art Factory

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 8 DVS1 The Basement

SATURDAY MARCH 1 Redshape Civic Underground

SUNDAY MARCH 2 DJ Harvey TBA

Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through deep.impressions@yahoo.com BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14 :: 37

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

Earl Sweatshirt

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4 Enmore Theatre

Earl Sweatshirt + Danny Brown + Run The Jewels + Citizen Kay

Cakes!

World Bar, Kings Cross. 7pm. $15.

Carl Cox & Eric Powell’s Mobile Disco Ivy Pool Club, Sydney. 12pm. $113.60.

El’ Circo - feat: Resident Circus Act Performers Slide Lounge, Darlinghurst.

7pm. $109.

FBi Hands Up! - feat: DJ Clockwerk + Special Friends With Benefits FBi Social, Kings Cross.

11:30pm. free.

Goodgod Hai-Life Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

9pm. free.

Infamous Saturdays - feat: Live DJs Scubar, Sydney. 7pm. free.

Jessie Rose + King Unique + Kronic + A-Tonez + Natnoiz + Fingers + Tigerstyle + Thomas Lesse + Mike Hyper + Hitterswitch + King Lee Chinese Laundry, Sydney.

9pm. $15.

Masif Saturdays Space, Sydney. 10pm. $25.

Pacha - feat: Laidback Luke + Uberjak’d + Danny T + John Glover + Mo’Funk + Fingers + Jace Disgrace + Dylan Sanders + DJ Just 1 + Nicc Johnson + Nanna Does Smack + Reelax + Deckhead + Heke + Stu Turner + Pat Ward Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney.

6:30pm. $37.90.

Preacha (Astral People) feat: Pilarties + Jeremiah B2B Declam Esau + Waz + Statz + Benji Schmidt Club 77, Woolloomooloo.

10pm. $10.

Sienna Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs The Establishment, Sydney.

9pm.

Soda Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs Playing Disco And Funk Soda Factory, Surry Hills.

5pm. free.

Sonny Fodera (Beatdown Music) + Dave Mayer (Strictly Rhythm) - feat: Juliet Fox + Husky + Guests Goldfish, Kings Cross. 9pm. $15.

Spice - feat: Namito + Dean Relf + Mike Witcombe + Murat Kilic + Robbie Lowe + Rodean The Spice Cellar, Sydney.

10pm. $25.

Starfuckers - feat: Starfuckers DJs The Tunnel Club, Kings Cross.

8pm. $20.

The Craig Charles Fun & Soul Club Sydney - feat: DJ Craig Charles + Kerbside Collection + Roxie Ray + Russ Dewbury The Basement, Circular Quay.

9pm. $25.

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 2 CLUB NIGHTS

La Fiesta - feat: Samantha Fox + Agee Ortiz + Av El Cubano + Resident DJ Willie Sabor.

The Establishment, Sydney.

8pm. free.

Marco Polo - feat: Various DJs Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 1pm. $15.

Martini Club And Friends feat: Ocky + Tom Kelly Goldfish, Kings Cross. 10pm. free.

Repeat Sundays World Bar, Kings Cross. 7pm.

free.

S.A.S.H Sundays - feat: Lee Brinx + YokoO + Owen Howells + Ben Ashton + LeOCh + Kerry Wallace + Olle Isaksson + Matt Weir Flyover Bar, Sydney. 12pm. $10.

Sundays In The City - feat: Various DJs The Slip Inn, Sydney. 12pm. free.

HIP HOP & R&B

Beatbox Showcase - feat: Vanessa Caspersz Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 5pm. $10.

MONDAY FEBRUARY 3 CLUB NIGHTS

Crab Racing Scubar, Sydney. 7pm. free.

DJ Mattia Goldfish, Kings Cross. 11pm. free.

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4 HIP HOP & R&B

Earl Sweatshirt + Danny Brown + Run The Jewels + Citizen Kay Enmore Theatre, Newtown.

7:30pm. $69.95.

CLUB NIGHTS

Chu World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. free.

DJ Robin Goldfish, Kings Cross. 11pm. free.

p

7:30pm. $69.95.

send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 29 HIP HOP & R&B

The Wall - feat: Resident DJs World Bar, Kings Cross. 8pm. $5.

CLUB NIGHTS

DJ Tom Kelly Goldfish, Kings Cross. 11pm. free.

House Party Scubar, Sydney. 8pm. free.

Major Lazer + Flosstradamus Enmore Theatre, Newtown.

8pm. $79.

The Supper Club - feat: Resident DJs Kit & Kaboodle, Kings Cross.

8pm. free.

Whip It Wednesdays - feat: Various DJs Whaat Club, Kings Cross.

9pm. free.

xxx

THURSDAY JANUARY 30

COMEDY

Tommy Dean The Star, Pyrmont. 7:30pm. free.

CLUB NIGHTS

$5 Everything Scubar, Sydney. 5pm. free.

DJ Sarah Robertson + Robertson + Bollocks DJs Australian Hotel And Brewery, Rouse Hill. 9pm. free.

38 :: BRAG :: 547 : 29:01:14

Goldfish And Friends - feat: Regular Rotating Residents Goldfish, Kings Cross. 10pm. free.

Loopy - feat: Drty Csh + Daschwood + Generous Greed + Guest DJs The Backroom, Sydney. 10pm. $12.

Pool Club Thursdays - feat: Resident DJs Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 5pm. free.

The World Bar Thursdays World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. free.

FRIDAY JANUARY 31 HIP HOP & R&B

Vent@Valve - feat: Savilian + Sarah Connor MB + Oakbridge + Planet Crushers Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 8pm. $10.

CLUB NIGHTS

Argyle Fridays - feat: Resident DJs The Argyle, The Rocks. 6pm. free.

Daniel Haaksman - feat: Shantan Wantan Ichiban + Mike Who + Sr. Bolivar (Bar Tropicale) + Tropicante Sound Sistem Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

11pm. $5.

Factory Fridays - feat: Resident DJs Soda Factory, Surry Hills.

5pm. free.

Frisky Fridays Scubar, Sydney. 5pm. free.

Loco Friday

The Slip Inn, Sydney. 5pm. free.

Mashed Fridays - feat: DJ Toy Boy Oatley Hotel, Oatley. 8pm. free.

Mum World Bar, Kings Cross. 7pm. $15.

No Good Monthly - feat: Black Vanilla + Simo Soo + Orange + Judge Demus (DJ) + Slurs (DJ) Martini Cafe, Newtown.

7:30pm. free.

Soft & Slow - feat: Astral People + Steven Sullivan + Pink Lloyd (Softwar) + Parihaka (Slow Blow) The Spice Cellar, Sydney.

10pm. $10.

Vandalism Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $20.

Wolfgang - feat: Doctor Werewolf + Autoclaws + Empress Yoy + Pr!ntz + Lockjaw + Lolo BX + Sippy + Flowdown Chinese Laundry, Sydney.

10pm. $25.

Yo Grito!

Goodgod Small Club, Sydney.

9pm. free.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 1 HIP HOP & R&B

Homeboy Sandman Spectrum, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $32.20.

Meta Bass ‘N’ Breath Reunion Venue 505, Surry Hills.

8:30pm. $20.

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 29 Major Lazer + Flosstradamus Enmore Theatre, Newtown. 8pm. $79.

THURSDAY JANUARY 30 $5 Everything Scubar, Sydney. 5pm. Free.

FRIDAY JANUARY 31 Shantan Wantan Ichiban + Mike Who + Sr. Bolivar (Bar Tropicale) + Tropicante Sound Sistem Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 11pm. $5.

Soft & Slow - Feat: Astral People + Steven Sullivan + Pink Lloyd (Softwar) + Parihaka (Slow Blow) The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 10pm. $10.

Vandalism Marquee At The Star, Pyrmont. 10pm. $20.

Wolfgang - Feat: Doctor Werewolf + Autoclaws + Empress Yoy + Pr!Ntz + Lockjaw + Lolo BX + Sippy + Flowdown Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 10pm. $25.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 1 Homeboy Sandman Spectrum, Darlinghurst. 8pm. $32.20.

Carl Cox & Eric Powell’s Mobile Disco Ivy Pool Club, Sydney. 12pm. $113.60.

Jesse Rose Jessie Rose + King Unique + Kronic + A-Tonez + Natnoiz + Fingers + Tigerstyle + Thomas Lesse + Mike Hyper + Hitterswitch + King Lee Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. $15.

Pacha - Feat: Laidback Luke + Uberjak’D + Danny T + John Glover + Mo’Funk + Fingers + Jace Disgrace + Dylan Sanders + DJ Just 1 + Nicc Johnson + Nanna Does Smack + Reelax + Deckhead + Heke + Stu Turner + Pat Ward Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 6:30pm. $37.90.

Spice - Feat: Namito + Dean Relf + Mike Witcombe + Murat Kilic + Robbie Lowe + Rodean The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 10pm. $25.

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 2 S.A.S.H Sundays - Feat: Lee Brinx + YokoO + Owen Howells + Ben Ashton + LeOCh + Kerry Wallace + Olle Isaksson + Matt Weir Flyover Bar, Sydney. 12pm. $10.

thebrag.com

Xxx

club pick of the week

CLUB NIGHTS

The brand new EP featuring Juliette & Special Occasion as heard on triple j

jackieonassis.net

BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14 :: 39

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PICS :: AM

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24:01:14 :: Chinese Laundry :: 111 Sussex St Sydney 8295 9999

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24:01:14 :: Upstairs Beresford :: Level 1, 354 Bourke St Surry Hills 9240 5585

austronautalis

PICS :: AM

25:01:14 :: The Spice Cellar :: 58 Elizabeth St Sydney 9223 5585

25:01:14 :: Brighton Up Bar :: Level 1/77 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9361 3379 CLARKE :: ASHLEY MAR :: S :: LIAM CAMERON :: KATRINA OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER :: N E UPTO :: JAMIE WILLIAMS :: PRUDENC

40 :: BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14

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born electric pool party ft. james zabiela 25:01:14 :: The Ivy :: 330 George St Sydney 9254 8100 42 :: BRAG :: 547 :: 29:01:14

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