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First in NSW HSC Dance 2013

Some can’t see the pointe. We prepare you for it. Raise the bar with an HSC that allows you to perform to your strengths. Choose Bradfield Senior College. Open Day Thursday 7 August 2014 @ 4.30pm bradfieldseniorcollege.com.au t 9448 4200

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rock music news welcome to the frontline: the latest touring and music news...with Chris Martin and Gloria Brancatisano

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speed date WITH

STEPHEN BOURKE FROM STEP-PANTHER picture but the man is missing one tooth. In his right hand he holds a metal detector but it keeps buzzing all the time because the battery is getting low. In his right hand he is holding a seashell, clenching it so tight that it’s causing his hand to bleed a little bit. In the rest of the page description some parts are missing because as he was typing he started to feel ashamed and felt like he was disrespecting the legacy of his dead wife, but he accidentally hit enter so there it is forever on the internet. That’s what our Facebook looks like, check it out and give us the thumbs up!

played a few shows here and there. Sometimes we rehearse, write new songs – we’re just a regular band with regular problems. We put out a single called ‘Nowhere’ and a video for that song, which is all on the internet.

1.

Your Profile In the corner there is a picture of an old man walking on the beach. In the background

is the sunset; the light from the sun is causing some flares on the camera lens and it looks very beautiful. It’s hard to tell from the small

Best Gig Ever The show that comes to mind was one 3. we did at a bar in Brighton, England for The Great Escape festival. We played in between

Current Playlist Parquet Courts, Mac DeMarco, 4. Protomartyr, The Pogues, The Cars, Kool Keith, The Ocean Party, Bloods, Major Leagues, Hockey Dad, Straight Arrows… and Snowy Nasdaq – he is the best thing I’ve seen lately, he’s kind of like Prince but it’s hard to explain. Your Ultimate Rider The best rider is backline provided, a 5. room to sleep and hang out, beers… maybe some Jäger and Red Bull just in case. Our only request is that you treat us nice, we are human beings and our eyes are up here you pervs. What: Adults, Doom Mountain Where: Brighton Up Bar When: Friday July 4

DEAD KENNEDYS Ben Folds

MANAGING EDITOR: Chris Martin chris@thebrag.com 02 9212 4322 ONLINE EDITOR: Tyson Wray ONLINE COORDINATOR: Emily Meller SUB-EDITOR: Georgia Booth STAFF WRITERS: Alasdair Duncan, Jody Macgregor, Krissi Weiss, Augustus Welby NEWS: Gloria Brancatisano, Lauren Gill, Chris Honnery, Nic Liney, Amie Mulhearn ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Bryant PHOTOGRAPHERS: James Ambrose, Katrina Clarke, Amath Magnan, Ashley Mar ADVERTISING: Georgina Pengelly - 0416 972 081 / (02) 9212 4322 georgina@thebrag.com ADVERTISING: Les White - 0405 581 125 / (02) 9212 4322 les@thebrag.com PUBLISHER: Furst Media 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: Fergus Halliday, Emily Meller, Erin Rooney - gigguide@ thebrag.com (rock); clubguide@thebrag.com (dance, hip hop & parties) AWESOME INTERNS: Amie Mulhearn, Nic Liney, Fergus Halliday REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Nat Amat, Ian Barr, Keiron Costello, Marissa Demetriou, Rachel Eddie, Christie Eliezer, Blake Gallagher, Chris Honnery, Cameron James, Tegan Jones, Lachlan Kanoniuk, Pamela Lee, Alicia Malone, Adam Norris, Daniel Prior, Kate Robertson, Amy Theodore, Leonardo Silvestrini, David Wild, Harry Windsor, Stephanie Yip, David James Young Please send mail NOT ACCOUNTS direct to this NEW address 100 Albion Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010 ph - (02) 9212 4322 fax - (02) 9319 2227 EDITORIAL POLICY: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher, editors or staff of the BRAG. ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE: Luke Forrester: accounts@furstmedia.com.au ph - (03) 9428 3600 fax - (03) 9428 3611 Furst Media, 3 Newton Street Richmond Victoria 3121 DEADLINES: Editorial: Thursday 12pm (no extensions) Artwork/ad bookings: Friday 5pm (no extensions) Ad cancellations: Tuesday 4pm Published by Furst Media P/L ACN 1112480045 All content copyrighted to Cartrage P/L / Furst Media P/L 2003-2014 DISTRIBUTION: Wanna get the BRAG? Email distribution@ furstmedia.com.au or phone 03 9428 3600 PRINTED BY SPOTPRESS: www.spotpress.com.au 24 – 26 Lilian Fowler Place, Marrickville NSW 2204

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Hardcore punk rock legends Dead Kennedys have announced they will be returning to Australian stages for the first time since 2011, with a national tour this October. The tour kicks off in Adelaide, before taking in nine stops around the country and finishing up in Perth a few weeks later. Dead Kennedys have been informing the thoughts of audiences for almost four decades, with four studio albums, various EPs, live albums and compilations as well as various lineup changes and thousands of shows. They’ll take over The Hi-Fi on Sunday October 5; Mona Vale Hotel on Wednesday October 8; The Entrance Leagues Club on Thursday October 9; and Newcastle’s Small Ballroom on Friday October 10. Paul Simon and Sting

Suzi Quatro

THE END OF THE Q

Suzi Quatro will make one last lap of the country on her final Australian tour next year. The leather-clad ’70s rocker and self-proclaimed clairvoyant – no, really – has something like 30 Australian tours under her belt to this point, on top of the massive selling singles ‘Can The Can’, ‘Devil Gate Drive’, ’48 Crash’, ‘The Wild One’ and more. 2014 is her 50th year in the business, and 2015 sees her at the Enmore Theatre on Friday February 13. Tickets go on sale Thursday July 3.

BEN FOLDS THE MAESTRO

Rockin’ the suburbs, just like Wolfgang Amadeus did. Adopted Aussie Ben Folds is returning Down Under to perform with the finest orchestras Australia has to offer. Folds will join the Sydney, Western Australian, Adelaide, Tasmanian and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras for nine concerts nationwide. The performances will include excerpts from his new Concerto For Piano And Orchestra as well as orchestrated versions of his most famous pop hits. Folds and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra play the Sydney Opera House on Friday November 14 and Saturday November 15. Tickets go on sale Friday July 4.

Sharon Jones

MANCHESTER’S FINEST

Oasis, United, chip butties… there are a few things that come to mind when one thinks of Manchester. The orchestra isn’t one of them, but then Manchester Orchestra aren’t from those parts anyway. The Atlanta rockers have put out their fourth album, Cope, and are coming our way to play it before the year’s end. They do emo like Morrissey never did, so catch them at the Metro Theatre on Saturday November 15.

JUST SAY YES

Long before a telephone company co-opted the word for its own dubious uses, Yes stood for progressive rock and cosmic mysticism. The British quintet has been playing its Fragile (1971) and Close To The Edge (1972) albums in their entirety on a number of tour dates around the world, and Aussie fans have been crying out for a slice of the action. The time has come – will you be there at the State Theatre on Saturday November 15? Will you grab a ticket from 9am Monday July 7? The only answer is Yes.

PAUL SIMON AND STING

We couldn’t have seen this coming two years ago. But now Sting and Paul Simon’s double bill, which has seen them share stages across the United States since 2013, brings the singersongwriters to Australia in early 2015. Between them, the ex-Police frontman and the former Simon & Garfunkel hitmaker have been responsible for some of the most important albums in modern rock. They’ll be playing all those tunes and more at the Hope Estate Winery in the Hunter Valley on Saturday February 14 and Qantas Credit Union Arena on Monday February 16. Live Nation members can access a presale from 10am Saturday July 5, with general public tickets on sale 10am Monday July 7.

SHARON JONES

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings will bring their soulful live show to Australian stages this September. Last year, while preparing to release new album Give The People What They Want, Jones was diagnosed with cancer. The scheduled release and touring were immediately put on hold while all efforts were shifted to her treatment and recovery. Now Jones is back with her band, with support on their new dates from big band The Bombay Royale and soul duo Saun & Starr. Get it on at the Sydney Town Hall on Saturday September 13. Tickets go on sale Friday July 4.

thebrag.com

Step-Panther photo by Dexter Cornelius

Keeping Busy We recently finished our new album, 2. Strange But Nice. Since signing off on it we’ve

an all-girl band called Fever Fever, who were brutal as fuck and just funny and awesome, so we were excited and pumped, then we played and it went great, and then Bass Drum Of Death played after us. The whole thing was just a good night full of power and energy.

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Gurrumul’s most popular songs, and music from his new album played with the SSO and illuminated by images from his life on a giant screen.

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THE MATRIX LIVE

“Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.”

The Wachowski Brother’s stunning dystopian future comes to life under the sails of the Sydney Opera House. Watch a full screening of the multiAcademy Award-winning sci-fi thriller The Matrix with Don Davis’s score performed by your SSO.

FRI 26 SEP 8PM & SAT 27 SEP 8PM 2014 BEN FOLDS ORCHESTRA TOUR

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live & local

free stuff

welcome to the frontline: what’s goin’ on around town...with Nic Liney, Chris Martin and Lauren Gill

head to: thebrag.com/freeshit

speed date WITH

Pennywise

BONNIE ANDERSON Current Playlist My playlists are always 4. changing. I am really loving

rock. I love interacting with my fans and involving them in my shows.

the Beyonce album right now – it is on repeat in my car. Also, I’m listening to Mr Probz’ ‘Waves’, Zhu’s ‘Superfriends’, Katy Perry’s ‘Birthday’, Sia’s ‘Chandelier’, Banks’ ‘Waiting Game’, Ásgeir’s ‘King And Cross’ and Marina And The Diamonds’ ‘How To Be A Heartbreaker’.

Keeping Busy I have been doing a lot of 2. writing! I spent the first part of the year in LA and New York working with some incredible writers and producers. The past month has involved filming the video for my new single, ‘Blackout’, which was really cool – I had a lot of fun.

3.

Best Gig Ever In 2013 I toured with Olly Murs. All of those shows were incredible. It was the first time I have played a single for my fans, and they were so awesome. I can’t wait to get on the road again and perform ‘Blackout’.

The Strums

Your Ultimate Rider Ummm… a private jet! Ten 5. male models, and an endless bottle of Moet – no, no only joking. My rider is pretty basic. I’m your typical Aussie girl; as long as I have some fruit and pineapple juice I’m happy. What: The Blackout EP out now through Sony

Xxx

PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

Californian punk rockers Pennywise have been in the game for 26 years now, and while new album Yesterdays pays tribute to where they’ve been in that time, it’s very much a new chapter in their history. Jim Lindberg returns as frontman for the band’s 11th album, due out Friday July 11 through Epitaph, having departed in 2009. The tracks on Yesterdays include songs written by the late bassist Jason Thirsk, and one called ‘Violence Never Ending’, which is enough on its own to suggest Pennywise aren’t planning on deserting their cause anytime soon. We’ve got three copies of Yesterdays on vinyl to give away to lucky Pennywise fans. For the chance to win, head to thebrag. com/freeshit and tell us your favourite album from the band so far.

The Mountains

F-ING ROCK’N’ROLL

After creating a bit of a stir with their single ‘Rock N Roll’, Brisbane’s no-nonsense rockers The Strums are making their way to Sydney on the This Is A Fuckin Rock N Roll Tour, leaving everyone thoroughly confused as to what kind of tour it is… or not. Recently securing supports for the likes of Wolfmother, The Strums are all about going back to a time when to make a good record you had to be able to do it once and do it really well, and their live shows are no exception. Joining the boys are Montreal rock outfit Caféïne, led by punkpoet Xavier Caféïne, in Australia with their new album New Love. For all things rock’n’roll, get to Frankie’s Pizza next Wednesday July 9.

SEEING VISIONS

WHO’S YOUR DADDY?

The new Craw Daddy live music night returns to Newtown’s Bank Hotel this Friday July 4, with a double bill featuring The Mountains and Andy Golledge. It’s been a busy year for The Mountains – actually, scrap that; it’s been a busy two years or more of lineup changes and support slots for Justin Townes Earle, Sticky Fingers, The Delta Riggs and more, leading up to a run of single releases in 2014. Golledge, meanwhile, is such a regular on the Newtown scene, he’d probably get up and play anyway, even if he weren’t listed on the bill.

Pepa Knight

Visions are a good thing. After edition four of the Visions night packed out the Standard Bowl in June, the event – the brainchild of Deep Sea Arcade, Rare Finds and Hot Mosh magazine – is set to return for July. Keeping things strictly psychedelic, Visions will see Brisbane’s The Babe Rainbow, The Dandelion, and Raindrop – the side project of Regular John’s Miles Devine – take over the Bowl. It’s a trio of headliners that will leave you dazed and confused, in a good way. Visions returns to the Standard Bowl this Saturday July 5.

Following another successful Melbourne match, the Reclink Community Cup will once again bring together Sydney’s music and sporting communities this year. Henson Park – home of the legendary Newtown Jets rugby league side – will host the charity AFL match this August. It’s the third run-around between the Western Walers (a team of local musicians) and the Sydney Sailors (radio and media). Alex Dyson’s Sailors were last year’s winners, but the Walers will be out for revenge. The match takes place this year on Sunday August 17, raising funds for Reclink, a charity that aids those experiencing mental illness, disability, homelessness, substance abuse and social and economic hardship.

MONKEY BUSINESS

Melbourne rock upstarts Apes have locked in a launch show for their charismatic new single, ‘Pull The Trigger’. The past year has seen the outfit play the Big Day Out and Groovin The Moo stages plus dates with Kingswood, Stonefield and Band Of Skulls. Get on board with Apes at Brighton Up Bar on Friday August 8.

TURN THE PAGE

Gail Page is bringing her mighty big blues voice to The Lewisham Hotel, kick-starting the weekend this Friday July 4. Page is a multiaward-winning performer, and drummed up such enthusiasm on her TV appearances that there’s a Facebook page named ‘Gail Page should have got through on The Voice’. Serve some justice by getting along to the gig this week.

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COMMUNITY CUP RETURNS

MORNING GLORY WITH THE BENNIES PEPA’S NIGHT

Making a temporary departure from his Jinja Safari roots, Pepa Knight will play an intimate solo show in Sydney next month. Knight surprised Jinja Safari fans with his distinctly global debut single ‘Rahh!’ earlier this year. Now he’s back and ready to release a follow-up single, ‘Clams’, into the world, along with debut shows before Melbourne and Sydney audiences. Both singles have earned praise from music critics and are continuing to build the hype. Catch Knight as he launches ‘Clams’ at Goodgod Small Club on Friday August 1.

After a year of relentless touring, The Bennies are back at it again, and this time they’re bringing along New York’s Morning Glory. The Melbourne four-piece released its second album Rainbows In Space last year and has gained a reputation for bringing the party. Political punks Morning Glory will join in on the fun for their first-ever Australian tour. It reaches Valve Bar on Friday September 19 and Black Wire Records on Saturday September 20. thebrag.com

Bonnie Anderson photo by Peter Brew-Bevan

Your Profile I’m not your typical pop 1. star. Urban edge with a bit of

Upstairs at The Bank presents

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Industrial Strength Music Industry News with Christie Eliezer

THINGS WE HEAR * Sia is well known for her media-shy antics, including appearing on the cover of Billboard with a paper bag on her head. At the APRA awards in Brisbane, she “received� her Songwriter of the Year gong with a video speech. Her US manager David Russell sported a platinum-blonde wig and lip-synced to her recorded words, during which she thanked “all the Australian musicians who taught me subconsciously how music should be�. Lindy Morrison received a standing ovation and v-e-r-y long cheer when she picked up her achievement trophy. She recalled that back in the Joh Bjelke-Petersen days she was arrested in the square out the front of Brisbane

City Hall. When Robert Forster announced Song of the Year, he said, “I heard it in Coles, it’s ‘Riptide’ by Vance Joy.� Brian Nankervis was a wellacclaimed host, at one point getting everyone to hold hands and do a Brisbane City Hall chant. * In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, Big Day Out’s US co-owners C3 Presents bought out AJ Maddah’s share for $1, which he can buy back for the 2016 event. C3 Presents have confirmed the event will not take place in 2015. Maddah and original BDO director Viv Lees had a public name-calling stoush through triple j’s Hack and on Twitter. The BDO saga last week overshadowed the news Newcastle’s Fat As Butter and Vans Warped Australia won’t be back this year. * Two Sydney pubs that showcase live music, the

SYDNEY NAMES AMONG SEED RECIPIENTS Sydney managers and musicians were among those who received grants in the latest round of funding by the music industry’s The Seed. Its successful management workshop returns after a year’s hiatus, with 24 managers from around the country securing places. The Sydney contingent includes Jess Beston (The Trouble With Templeton, Holy Holy), Michelle Fahd (Eagle And The Worm), singer Amali Ward, Matt Amery (Tin Sparrow), Owen Field (Jimblah), Gabby Meli (Dune Rats, Ash Grunwald, Kid Mac), Adrian Kelly (Thy Art Is Murder, Confession, Grenadiers, Heroes For Hire, Hand Of Mercy) and Vanessa Picken (Spender).

Vegas in Kings Cross and the Vegas in Seven Hills (previously St Patrick’s Tavern) are up for sale. * Wollongong has a new nightclub, The Garden on Victoria Street, set up by Katie Collings and Trent Elliott. * Twitter is said to be considering ways to introduce more music audio content on the site, wanting consumers to have the same service as on phones. * Katy Perry was given an award for highest-selling digital act in America in the history of Gold and Platinum awards, the first to pass the 70 million mark. * A British scientist got thrown out of a classical concert in the UK: he tried to crowd surf during a performance of Handel’s Messiah. * Brisbane mag Scene is going monthly and changing its name to scenestr.

The new It’s All About The Song grants, teaming emerging artists with producers, see Tony Buchen take on Sydney pop act Cristian Campano, Steve Schram working with Brisbane’s Fox And Fowl and John Castle with Brisbane’s Wafia. Three managers get support of up to $5,000 to supplement their wages, or pay for an assistant during a time of heavy workload and limited commission. Sydneysider Monique Rothstein will hire an assistant to work on Little May’s EP campaign while Convaire record an EP.

TWO-DAY FORMAT FOR SOUNDWAVE Next year’s Soundwave festival will stretch out to two days in each city, promoter AJ

E HIFI 1300 THO M.AU

THEHIFI.C

Maddah tweeted. “Putting the lineup across two days enables us to minimise clashes; give bands longer sets, better staging, production and infrastructure,� he explained. Adelaide and Melbourne will share the 80 to 90 bands over the weekend of February 21 and 22, and Brisbane and Sydney will do the same on February 28 and March 1. There’ll be four headliners. On The Full Metal Lockdown podcast, Maddah hinted one could be Fear Factory.

NEW SIGNINGS #1: DEW PROCESS GET POWDERFINGER PUBLISHING Powderfinger have moved the publishing of their back catalogue from Mushroom Music to Dew Process in a worldwide administration deal. It includes their entire first five albums, of which they’ve sold two million copies collectively. Dew Process will also represent songs on Dream Days At The Hotel Existence and Golden Rule in Europe, North America and the UK through its arrangement with Kobalt Music Group.

NEW SIGNINGS #2: LITTLE MAY JOIN DEW PROCESS Sydney trio Little May have signed with Dew Process, issuing a new single, ‘Dust’. Their earlier singles ‘Boardwalks’ and ‘Hide’ have had a million plays.

NEW SIGNINGS #3: REICHARDT JOINS I FORGET, SORRY! Producer and multi-instrumentalist Reichardt has joined Sydney’s I Forget, Sorry! collective. Having worked with Tim Hart (Boy & Bear) and Bliss N Eso, he steps into the solo spotlight with his debut single ‘Sunflower’ featuring Hart.

MORE NEW SIGNINGS Punk trio Die! Die! Die!, based in Dunedin, NZ, have signed to Black Night Crash Records, releasing their fifth album S W I M on August 15. The label earlier signed Bo Ningen (Japan/UK). Brisbane’s Violent Soho have scored a US deal with punk label SideOneDummy Records, which will see Hungry Ghost released there on September 29. Create/Control has welcomed US singer-songwriter and producer Zola Jesus in partnership with Mute, releasing a single ‘Dangerous Days’. Little Scout have signed with new UK label Winwin Records, an imprint of One Little Indian. New single ‘Go Quietly’ was picked up by BBC Radio. Finally, UNFD’s latest signing is Perth’s I Am Zero, whose debut single ‘The Winter Sun’ comes with video focuses on the early life of Mortal Kombat’s Sub-Zero character. The act is fronted by Bryant Best, formerly of Saviour.

PEKING DUK HIT DOUBLE PLATINUM Just Announced

This Week

Fri 15 Aug

Sun 5 Oct

Sat 5 Jul

UZ (Mad Decent)

Dead Kennedys

Bell X1

EDM duo Peking Duk’s radio and chart crossover hit ‘High’ featuring Nicole Millar is certified double platinum. It hit number one on the ARIA Club Chart (their third single to do so) and number five on the ARIA Singles. Meanwhile, six of their 11 live dates have sold out. Their new single ‘Take Me Over’ is a collaboration with Ben Woolner-Kirkham of Canberra three-piece Safia.

NO SLEEP ’TIL SXSW Coming Soon

Fri 11 Jul

Wed 23 Jul

Wed 13 Aug

Tankard (GER)

Kelis

Hanson

Sat 16 Aug

Fri 22 Aug

Sat 23 Aug

UNDRGRND

Justice Crew

Kid Ink

Artist applications for Austin’s South By Southwest (March 17-22, 2015) will be uploaded via sonicbids.com as an EPK from next Tuesday July 8. The application fee is US$33, rising to US$45 on September 12 and closing altogether on October 10. The Australia, NZ and Hawaii representative for SXSW, Phil Tripp, urges Aussie acts to apply as early as possible to be first in the queue with the US listening panel and to get in quick with government grants and appropriate visas. Details are at sxsw.com/music/ shows/apply.

EVENTBRITE LAUNCHES ACADEMY FOR EVENT MANAGERS

Sat 6 Sep

Fri 12 Sep

Sat 27 Sep

Sat 22 Nov

DevilDriver

El Gran Combo

Rebel Souljahz (USA)

Toxic Holocaust & Iron Reagan

Global online ticketing platform Eventbrite, which has just launched in Australia, has set up the Event Academy (eventbrite.com. au/academy). A free educational resource for event managers to help them plan better events, build contacts and grow ticket sales, it offers tips, trend reports and interviews and webinars with industry execs. It covers conferences, trade shows, festivals and consumer events, fundraisers and galas. Eventbrite has processed over three million tickets and hosted over 75,000 events in Australia.

MUSIC COMMUNITY HELPS NORDOFF-ROBBINS In the wake of the music industry’s Music Quiz event raising $250,000 for music therapy organisation Nordoff-Robbins, they received a further $275,000 from Art Of Music, which auctioned 11 pieces of art inspired by iconic Aussie songs. Guy Maestri’s burnt-out bush landscape, based on The Drones’ song ‘Are You Leaving For The Country’, raised $40,000.

Lifelines Born: son Memphis Julian to Aussie publicist Vince Sanna and wife Ana. Engaged: Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid and Friends actress Courteney Cox after stepping out for six months. Injured: a 17-year-old trying to sneak into the Solstium Shadows festival in the Watagan State Forest north of Sydney with two friends. The teen fell down a 260-foot cliff in the dark. It took 12 hours for rescuers to reach him. Recovering: US singer Merry Clayton, best known for her appearance on The Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’ and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, after being seriously injured in a car accident in LA. Ill: one-time Canberra band manager and promoter turned head of Canberra Institute of Technology Adrian Marron, who revealed to ABC 666 he spent most of last year battling leukemia. Ill: Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell will undergo a stem cell transplant to battle the return of his Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In Court: The FBI is asking for Insane Clown Posse’s lawsuit against it for calling their fans gang members to be thrown out. In Court: New Kids On The Block’s Joey McIntyre is being sued by a Californian family whose members were hurt in an alleged car accident. In Court: Kevin Mann, owner of Zelda’s nightclub in Perth’s Rockingham, successfully appealed against several conditions put on his licence after two bikie-related assaults near his club in 2011. He would have had to close at 2am and not put on adult entertainment. He told the Supreme Court that his crowd were not “Hollywood� types but still deserved to be able to go to a nightclub. In Court: Liam Gallagher is “fuming� after the New York mum of his daughter pulled out of a settlement after he paid her US$5,000 a month support. Died: US soul man Bobby Womack, after a medical decline with colon cancer and early Alzheimer’s. Known for hits like ‘Across 110th Street’ and ‘It’s All Over Now’, he enjoyed a renaissance, appearing on Gorillaz’s ‘Stylo’ and Damon Albarn producing his 2012 album The Bravest Man In The Universe. Died: NSW bassist and singer Izzy Foreal (The 69ers, The Zarssof Brothers), 65, while jogging through the Bongil Bongil National Park. His gig on the weekend at the Raleigh School of Arts became a celebration of his life. Died: US Cajun-country fusion pioneer Jimmy C. Newman, best known for ‘Alligator Man’, at 86. Died: Memphis soul songwriter and guitarist Mabon ‘Teenie’ Hodges, 68, from emphysema. He wrote many of Al Green’s hits including ‘Take Me To The River’ and performed on Ann Peebles’ ‘I Can’t Stand The Rain’.

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T

heir appreciation of their musical forefathers belies their years, as does their musicianship and industry-savvy approach – yet for The Strypes, age ain’t no thing when it comes to good ol’ rock’n’roll.

As a young group of lads hailing from Cavan, Ireland, the subject of The Strypes’ relative youthfulness has rarely been left alone in interviews. Yet with half the band’s members having now reached the age of majority, this particular focus seems irrelevant. You need only look to their influences – the blues of the early Stones or Eddie Cochran, the raw punk of The Sex Pistols or The Undertones – to see that much musical greatness over the decades has come from the youth, for the youth. “I guess it’s kind of fallen out of fashion for young bands to be getting their name out at our age,” says The Strypes’ drummer Evan Walsh. “Our big point of reference when people say that is, you look at the punk rock bands, the majority of them were under 20 when they were making albums. The Undertones or even The Sex Pistols – I think Johnny Rotten was about 17 when they came out. That’s the whole point, in that music movements are youth movements as well, so generally it’s about teenagers. Rock’n’roll, when it came out in the ’50s, that’s what the whole intention was – it was aimed at teenagers, but as generations have gone on, it’s a more broad age that people are interested in.” Had The Strypes’ chosen genre been the mainstream manufactured pop of bands such as those generated by the X Factor machine, perhaps their age would seem of no relevance to the media. Yet attempting to tackle the heart-wrenching emotiveness of the blues is ambitious for a group of teenagers who, lacking the decades of emotional hardship experienced by other blues artists, might be taken as insincere. Walsh acknowledges this point, explaining that the blues simply forms the basis for what they are trying to express musically, while they delve into other genres to find a sound that’s truer to themselves.

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A LINE IN THE SAND BY ALI HAWKEN

two-minute songs. We kind of filtered it through a lot of the young English bands that took blues music and kind of did their thing with it, like Dr. Feelgood or the early Stones.” The Strypes have always carried proudly their influences from decades gone by – even the spelling of their name is a shout-out to bands like The Byrds and The Beatles – and while they find some of their contemporaries musically exciting, Walsh says they strive not to be influenced by them. “While there are people around that we like what they’re doing – Jack White, The Black Keys, Jake Bugg, and The Jim Jones Revue are an English rock’n’roll band that we all quite like – [we] wouldn’t take a very strong influence from any contemporary bands because that would seem too easy, to say we’re influenced by some of the biggest bands at the minute. It would seem too obvious, I would think, or that you’re not digging too deep, not doing your own thing. You can be similar musically in some ways or play the same style, but to find our own unique influence is what we’d be interested in. “We were influenced by the music that was around us growing up because our parents were big music fans, and we also started

digging out stuff for ourselves. We got very heavily interested in rhythm and blues, early ’50s rock’n’roll, ’70s punk and new wave – bands like Dr. Feelgood, the early Stones stuff, The Byrds and The Animals, and then more kind of punk bands like Johnny Thunders and The Undertones, as well as the original blues singers and real rock’n’rollers like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Eddie Cochran.” The Strypes’ homage to their influences in the form of a four-track EP was what jump-started their career a couple of years ago. While their musical beginnings date back to a young age – Walsh himself started hitting the skins when he was merely three years old, with Josh McClorey and Peter O’Hanlon not far behind on the guitars when they were five or six – it wasn’t until 2012 that they first put their sounds to record, joined by lead singer Ross Farrelly. “We were just kind of playing covers of all these songs that we liked and that we enjoyed playing,” says Walsh, “so we put four of them together on an EP in April 2012 and released it just ourselves – made a cover and put it out, managed to get a few shops in Dublin to take it.” Practically overnight the Young, Gifted & Blue EP went to number one on the iTunes charts,

“IT WOULD SEEM TOO EASY TO SAY WE’RE INFLUENCED BY SOME OF THE BIGGEST BANDS AT THE MINUTE. IT WOULD SEEM TOO OBVIOUS, I WOULD THINK, OR THAT YOU’RE NOT DIGGING TOO DEEP, NOT DOING YOUR OWN THING.”

In September that year, The Strypes had their first opportunity to head over to London to play a few shows, and with word of their talent spreading fast, label representatives turned out en masse to see what all the fuss was about – including Sir Elton John himself, whose management company, Rocket Music, offered to manage the Irishmen. “At that point it was only the four of us and my dad – he was our manager at the time – so we agreed because of the security of having people with that experience in the music on your side. We kind of made it a thing, though, that they sign the five of us, really, as opposed to just the four, so my dad became one of the co-managers of the band.” They finally put ink to paper in December 2012 to sign a five-record contract with Mercury Records. It wasn’t long before the release of their debut album, Snapshot, garnered critical and popular acclaim, reaching number two on the charts in Ireland and number five in the UK. Some groups might find the pressure of such a lengthy record deal daunting on their creative output, but Walsh says The Strypes are purely thinking in the short term for now. “Any kind of aspirations don’t lie much farther beyond the second album at the minute. I suppose it’s the only way you can think in the business that we’re in – everything’s thought out in the short term all the time, or it’s just about playing live and putting out the next album. The goalposts keep shifting so often that plans can change entirely so quickly. You can’t really plan anything out because it’s never going to go the way you planned it out exactly.” What: Snapshot out now through Virgin/ EMI With: The Creases Where: Newtown Social Club When: Wednesday July 23 And: Also appearing alongside Outkast, Two Door Cinema Club, Lily Allen, Interpol, Foster The People and many more at Splendour In The Grass, North Byron Parklands, Friday July 25 – Sunday July 27

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“It’s kind of like treating the [blues] music in different ways: you can have the power and intensity of someone like Howlin’ Wolf, he can be really raw and passionate and blues howlin’ – we obviously can’t do that for a number of reasons … [or] you can use the basis of it to create your own thing and your own songs. Generally the way we see it is to punk it up a wee bit and just do pretty fast, three chords,

THE STRYPES

with record company interest in Ireland quick to follow. “We initially put off the record companies because the sort of offers they were talking weren’t really worth the risk that we’d be taking – dropping out of school, put your life on pause to see how this whole thing goes – so we put that off a while and just kept playing around.”

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Something For Kate Survival Experts By Lachlan Kanoniuk

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wenty years strong, Something For Kate have reigned in alternative rock where others have faded, still burning bright as a pre-eminent force across Australia’s musical landscape. A good reason to celebrate, and celebrate they will. To coincide with the anniversary, the band will reissue each of its six full-length albums, publish the retrospective book Paper Trail, and set off on an ambitious nationwide tour – each night consisting of two sets, preceded by a short film screening. Speaking ahead of the landmark celebrations, taller-thanlife frontman Paul Dempsey takes a long gaze yonder to the beginning.

“I’m probably the least sentimental person you’ll ever meet,” Dempsey says. “Looking back to these things, I find it interesting and funny, where we were at different points in our career and different points in our lives. Having been in a band for 20 years, you kind of grow up in public a bit. I was 17 when we started, and that’s pretty young. I guess it’s more commonplace now, but at the time it was pretty unusual to be 17 and being approached by record labels. “I certainly felt like I was a very young person in a big industry. It made me really nervous. Looking back at some of the stuff, it’s funny to read interviews when I was 19 and basically I was being a grumpy little bastard, basically because I was scared. I felt vulnerable. But it’s amazing to chart how you change, and how we’ve arrived at the band

we are today, and the people we are today. It’s been an interesting process.” As part of the elongated setlists on each date of the upcoming tour, neglected gems will no doubt be pulled up from the back catalogue. It’s an uncanny process for Dempsey, but bandmates Stephanie Ashworth and Clint Hyndman might require a slight stretch-up before taking their jog down memory lane. “I can pretty much play anything from our back catalogue at the drop of a hat,” says Dempsey. “I guess that’s because I’m the main songwriter and the songs have had a lot more time gestating in my brain so I don’t forget them too easily. But Clint and Steph had to do some homework … it’s come together surprisingly well. We’d play these songs a couple of times and they became second nature. There are probably 15 songs that we’ve started rehearsing that haven’t been played possibly in this century.” After a sorta-hiatus, which saw Dempsey release a well-received solo album, Everything Is True, Something For Kate returned stronger than ever with 2012’s Leave Your Soul To Science. “We didn’t know what was going to happen,” the singer recalls. “We certainly didn’t assume there were a whole lot of people out there dying for a new Something For Kate record. But luckily it turned out great.

“Clint and Steph were taking the piss outta me when I did my solo record, because Something For Kate’s audience was predominantly guys close to our age, then suddenly after the solo record, the Something For Kate audience was suddenly more than 50 per cent 20-year-old girls. It’s kind of funny to watch our audience change. The other funny thing about being around for 20 years is that I’ve literally

met 18-year-olds at our shows who weren’t born when we started, and their parents were fans. We now have people coming to shows with their parents who have been listening to us for 20 years. It’s an amazing and special thing.” Needless to say, the musical climate has changed immeasurably over the past two decades. Could Something For Kate survive if they found their genesis now instead of 1994? “I’m not sure if we could,” says Dempsey. “In a lot of ways, it’s easier to reach an audience these days – it might seem to be easier to get on the radio and get successful – but it seems to me like it’s harder to hang on to that success and make it last.

“There are still bands with big albums and long tours and that kind of success. But that longevity seems like a much more difficult proposition. I don’t know why that is. Attention spans are shorter than they used to be. I think social media makes it easier for people to be judge, jury, executioner and music critic. Social media can be really helpful to promote things, but it’s also a really nasty place. I don’t know if we could achieve the same sort of things… fuck, I dunno. It’s a tough one.” What: Something For Kate’s six album reissues out Friday July 4 through Universal Where: Enmore Theatre When: Sunday July 12

Anathema The Antithesis By Paul McBride

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t only takes one four-letter word to get Anathema multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Dan Cavanagh fired up. Prog.

“I have no idea what it is, I don’t care about it and I don’t consider our band to be in it,” he says when asked if the genre is in good shape globally. “It really is journalistic spiel to say we are a progressive band, you know what I mean? I do not consider us a progressive rock band, never have. In terms of where it is globally, I don’t care and I don’t even fucking know. If you’re talking about Pink Floyd, Kate Bush or Radiohead, that’s something I consider us to be closer to. If they’re a bit prog rock, then I’ll take that, but we’re not into lyrics about elves and we’re not into playing the fucking flute. We’re not about time signatures and time changes and solos and what prog rock seems to be known for; it’s got nothing to do with us. But I’m not knocking it! It’s just not for me. Pink Floyd, Radiohead and Kate Bush are for me.” Luckily, the 41-year-old Englishman is in more of a mood to talk about the (not prog) rockers’ tenth studio album, Distant Satellites, and why it had the working title of Kid AC/DC. “We’re all fans of Radiohead and AC/DC,” he says. “One thing I noticed was those bands strip back their music; it’s not over-layered, particularly on Kid A, which is a real difference from OK Computer. AC/DC do the same thing with rock’n’roll. We were tired of over-laying, so this time we took a more mature and considered approach by not doing that. But we were making an album that’s considerably more rock-edged than Kid A, so we called it Kid AC/DC.” The album contains tracks called ‘The Lost Song’ in three parts – it’s the result of a minor catastrophe that Cavanagh turned to his advantage.

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“In about 2008, I recorded a riff which I considered to be a very good one for us,” he says. “I was very excited about it. A few weeks later it had actually disappeared off the recording and I couldn’t find it. I tried really hard to find other demos, and if it ever turns up I’ll be amazed and interested. Then I started trying and failing to remember that riff and these songs were written. So what I was doing was trying to write a song with a time signature and chord progression that may have been like the one that was lost. All three songs came from that. It drove me crazy, but John [Douglas, drums] said to tell myself the song was crap, and it’ll be OK.” Along with Norwegian producer Christer-André Cederberg, the band was able to call on Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson for additional duties. “He was involved for just four days, but he made a difference,” Cavanagh says. “He mixed two songs on the album and two B-sides. All the production, writing and recording was already done before we asked him, and Christer couldn’t mix all the songs in time, so we asked Steven to help and he did a great job as he always does.” Almost unbelievably for a band that has existed since 1990, the six-piece’s three-date August tour will be its first trip to Australia. Does Cavanagh know why that’s been the case? “Maybe because it’s so far away. It’s only just recently that we’ve got a really strong manager in place. We haven’t had a strong manager kind of ever, and it’s one of the reasons we’ve underachieved. We’re not going to underachieve anymore, but maybe it’s just part of our story, I don’t know.” What: Distant Satellites out now through Kscope With: Anubis Where: Metro Theatre When: Friday August 22

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“It’s funny to read interviews when I was 19 and basically I was being a grumpy little bastard, basically because I was scared. I felt vulnerable. But it’s amazing to chart how you change”.

“I think the best thing about it was that I seemed to have carved out a new audience with my solo record, this whole new young audience who I’m not sure if they put two and two together and knew I was in a band called Something For Kate. So then when we put out Lose Your Soul To Science, our crowd totally changed.

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High On Fire Coming Down By Jess Willoughby

Voyager

The Long Way Round By Tom Valcanis

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fter nearly 15 lean years, Perth progressive metallers Voyager got fed up with the music industry. “It’s more like a deepseated mistrust, actually,” founding vocalist Danny Estrin says. It was reason enough for Voyager to sidestep the labels completely and open a Kickstarter, letting fans decide if their aptly titled fifth album, V, ought to be made.

“We’ve seen it gradually get worse for artists,” says Estrin. “No-one ever expects to make a living out of heavy music. It’s hard to make ends meet sometimes. That’s why we decided on this approach.” The crowdfunding campaign was never a sure thing, though. Kickstarter is littered with examples gone horribly wrong. To ensure success, Voyager treaded conservatively. “We went for a target of $10,000,” Estrin says. “We’ve got a pretty good fan base all around the world. We met our target within three days, and exceeded it by almost 200 per cent. Lots of pledges came from overseas. It’s a pretty encouraging start to what I hope is a music industry revolution.” A bold statement – yet crowdfunding is indeed proving viable for bands already chewed up and spat out by labels that don’t have their best interests in mind. “It’s easy to get ripped off by a label!” laughs Estrin. “I think the Kickstarter model worked for us, and it’s worked for other established bands too. It’s important that you have some sort of a fan base already. Otherwise you’re just gonna get a few dollars from Mum and Dad and your friends. We’ve had a track record of releasing four previous albums. Fans knew what they were gonna get. They already had some seal of quality. It makes them more inclined to make their pledges.” Estrin avoids the word ‘donation’ when he’s discussing crowdfunding, and feels you should too. “It’s not a donation,” he says. “You’re getting something in return. You’re getting an album, a

picture of the band or a vinyl record, or a recorded message. It’s like an investment. You become part of the process.” The five members of Voyager enjoy a cult following, both in Australia and abroad, that’s allowed them tours in the US and Europe. To date, they’ve not made a cent off said appearances, usually ending up in the red. “It’s just a very expensive hobby,” Estrin jokes. “But it’s only ever going to be sustainable if you can tour 300 days a year. If you see a band doing a regular tour, they’re doing OK. They can’t afford mortgages or anything like that, but that’s why they do it out of love.” Estrin insists he’s not “crying poor”, rather standing up and showing fans that even the higher-profile bands aren’t necessarily well off. “Just because we’ve toured the US and Europe and released four albums doesn’t mean we’re rolling around in money. I really want people to understand where their dollars are going. I think people have a right to know how much the artist is getting. If they buy a song on iTunes, for example – how much of that is actually going back to the people who made it?” Seeing the album’s creation uproot a longentrenched paradigm, Estrin lent his soaring vocals a political charge. The lyrics consciously depart from the typical prog metal fodder of cosmos and mysticism. “One of the album’s themes is looking at the world with a sense of wonder,” Estrin explains. “There’s songs about the state of our current government and voter apathy. I try not to be political, but I just can’t help it. The way you live your life reflects in the way you play your music.” What: V out now through IAV/Bird’s Robe With: Caligula’s Horse, Troldhaugen, Without Parachutes Where: Factory Floor, Factory Theatre When: Saturday July 5

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obriety is a fickle creature. Getting clean after years of alcohol abuse can do wonders for the body, but the mind plays by its own rules. Matt Pike, frontman of stoner rockers High On Fire, is no stranger to this game. Insecurity, anxiety, panic attacks – they’re all stresses that feature in the life of a former alcoholic. Pike has experienced them all, and more, as he explores the highs and lows of his new lifestyle choice. After heading to rehab in 2012, he emerged a stronger musician as a whole – but dealing with the rollercoaster of his own mental state is a daily battle. “The whole writing process is different now,” Pike says. “I’m realising when I wrote a lot of my older material, you know, I was always high, medicated or drunk. With clarity now, it’s a little hard sometimes to judge whether something’s good or bad. There’s a lot of anxiety that goes along with being sober – just the comfort level in social environments. I’m learning how to do things this way still. But I really think my guitar playing has gotten a lot better, so it’s definitely a positive change. “I’ve never really doubted myself. There was never a thing where I doubted whether I was talented because I was drunk or not, or high or not. I never faulted with that, but then again, I am not an egotist. I have flaws. I think it’s just part of the evolution of life and how you grow as a person. I just judge my music on whether I can put my heart into my fret board. You can hear what someone is going through in their life if they do that, for sure.” Now, instead of turning to the bottle or other pharmaceutical means to find comfort, Pike finds inspiration in new things. Most recently, a trip to Peru got the creative juices flowing for High On Fire’s upcoming seventh full-length.

“After a tour not that long ago, me and my fiancée went to Peru and I really got inspired from being there and going to all these ancient monoliths and all this weird alien stuff,” Pike explains. “It really got me thinking lyrically. I’ve been working with that and writing sci-fi also, along with the riffs. It’s coming along, as all records do. We’ll be recording in September or October, so it should be out next year, if it all goes well. I don’t like to rush it or force it, it’ll just happen.” This yet-to-be-named LP builds on the ‘Slave The Hive’ seven-inch released last year, Pike says. “It’s all sorts of stuff; faster songs and slower songs. We try to make each album so it’s got a nice rollercoaster feel to it – it gets all the different moods, tempos and emotions. It’s hard to describe something until it’s really finished, but I definitely know this one’s going to be good.” But that’s not the only musical venture the guitarist has been pouring his blood, sweat and tears into over the past 12 months. In 2013, when he underwent knee surgery and was taking some much-needed recovery downtime, there was talk of a new, mystery project – completely separate from his High On Fire and Sleep links. Although Pike still can’t reveal much more about this project, he does give a few hints about its progress. “It’s hasn’t really been put together yet,” he says. “I’m working on a storyline and possibly some films to go along with this, and music. It really hasn’t taken the shape yet, as far as I wanted it to be. These things come together when they want to come together. I am pushing for it and I’m writing. But it will make sense when it makes sense.” With: I Exist, Gvrlls Where: Factory Theatre When: Sunday July 20

Tiny Ruins Paint A Picture By James Nicoli

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ollie Fullbrook’s world is a vastly different place to what it was three years ago. Since the release of Tiny Ruins’ debut album Some Were Meant For Sea in 2011, there have been international tours, high-profile support slots, record deals and critical acclaim. Now, after the arrival of the now three-piece’s second record Brightly Painted One earlier this year, the world for Tiny Ruins is set to change again.

From the moment Some Were Meant For Sea first starting making waves, Fullbrook and Tiny Ruins have been steadily building their fan base both locally and internationally. The release of Brightly Painted One is 14 :: BRAG :: 569 :: 02:07:14

For the recording of the new album, Fullbrook and her bandmates – bassist Cass Basil and drummer Alexander Freer – returned to New Zealand, where they laid down tracks with producer Tom Healy at The Lab. “The Lab is kind of this underground, very dusty, rusty and dated underground passageways here in my hometown, Auckland,” laughs Fullbrook. “A whole bunch of bands record there; it’s been running for many, many years and it’s one of the more approachable studios, it’s

not a big, flash studio. It’s got lots of little rooms and it’s where people can set up almost kind of bedroomstyle home recordings.” It was a recording method that suited Fullbrook and co perfectly. After all, Tiny Ruins started out in a bedroom somewhere in Auckland, where the songwriter first crafted her delicate folk-pop. At The Lab, she says, “It was a very snug room; the three of us all together in a room. It was an intimate way to make a record.”

The artwork for Brightly Painted One also seems to fit Fullbrook’s vision. “The artwork was decided on before the album title and it’s kind of a coincidence that the artwork and the title ended up really suiting each other,” she says. Next up for Fullbrook and her bandmates lies a mountain of touring, starting Down Under. “We’re heading off to Oz, then onto the US and Canada and Europe and then back to the US. So it’s kind of a fivemonth crazy adventure that we’re

about to embark on, and Australia is a really cool place to start with because we’ve always found our audiences there to be really warm and appreciative, and we’re looking forward to being back.” What: Brightly Painted One out now through Spunk With: Shining Bird Where: Newtown Social Club / Goodgod Small Club When: Wednesday July 2 / Friday July 4 thebrag.com

Tiny Ruins photo by Georgie Craw

Despite these transitions, Aucklandbased Fullbrook is managing to keep her feet securely on the ground. “I think I’ve always had a down-to-earth attitude towards it because it has been a slow growing thing,” she says. “I haven’t been an overnight success or anything. I’ve kind of wanted it to be like that. I think everyone wants to be successful but it’s just slowly growing and I’m still learning a lot.”

their first through the Bella Union record label in the UK and Europe and Flying Nun in North America. “I think the music industry is based on all these chain reactions and having a good team around you, which I’m slowly starting to build up,” Fullbrook says. “[Bella Union and Flying Nun] are really personable, awesome people to work with, and that makes a huge difference when you’re trying to navigate your way around the music industry. So it makes a really big difference to have your music put out into the world. I’m lucky that I’ve found these guys.”

Milky Chance Small Town Songs By Nathan Hewitt

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uropean electro-folksters Milky Chance are humble almost to a fault. Sadnecessary has so far proven itself export gold for minimalist trip-jammers – a pernickety niche if ever there was one – and the pair seem a little nonchalant about their breakthrough. They’re simply not the river-dwelling enigmas commercial hype machines depict; success was unprecedented, but accepted. For singer-songsmith Clemens Rehbein, the comforts of an isolated home may make success manageable.

Milky Chance photo by David Ulrich

“I feel good right now,” Clemens says at home in Kassel, Germany. “We live in the same town, so we’re doing a lot of chilling at the moment.” ‘Chilling’ may involve more creation with mate and Milky Chance counterpart Philipp Dausch, but Clemens prefers not to confirm. “We’re kind of removed from all the attention, so it’s kind of funny.” Sadnecessary’s D.I.Y. foundations were laid mostly in Clemens’ parents’ house, where he still resides, and he insists Mum and Dad were (and presumably still are) cool, both about the recording process and everything that happened after. “Our parents weren’t strict or anything. They were great about it,” Clemens says. He supposes there was no better place than home to create hits like ‘Stolen Dance’. “You feel more comfortable in your own space.” Clemens and Dausch tackle Milky Chance as creative symbiotes – one the songwriter, one the beatmaker. Dausch reportedly

handles tech. “He’s more the brain,” says Clemens. “He knows the hardware and software, and production too. I handle songwriting. I’ll start with an acoustic guitar or some vocals and we’ll work on a beat from that. He’s a technical genius [laughs].” Clemens prefers not to write lyrics in his native tongue because he considers English a more succinct alternative. “I’ve always done it in English. I think it’s because I listened to mostly English music growing up,” he says. “Also, I think it’s because German is a very precise language – you can have five or six words for a single English word.”

Wordplay is more straightforward, too. “It’s easier to create pictures; lots of metaphors. And I think it just sounds better in English. I’ve never tried singing in German,” Clemens laughs. Milky Chance are often lauded for their cool, melancholic vibe, but Clemens says newer songs have required he widen his creative scope. “We’ve written new songs, which we have played live, and fans tell us they’re great.” The self-reliant pair, along with another friend, founded their own record label, Lichtdicht Records, in the last year, and the enterprise is already self-sustaining. “Lichtdicht basically means ‘opaque’,” Clemens

explains. “We were three friends, just out of school. We could have chosen to travel or study but we decided to try something out.” The evolving ‘something’ is apparently “going really well”. Clemens and Dausch are itching to connect intimately with their Australian listeners. Early next year, they’ll have the opportunity. “I so appreciate our Australian fans, and I still can’t believe our music has reached them,” Clemens says. “We’re playing some festivals in Australia next year, and we’re really excited about heading down.” A European tour comes first, though. “We tour a lot. We always take

breaks, but we really love playing live.” For all their post-release chilling, Clemens insists Milky Chance are maintaining all momentum gained over the last few months. He and Dausch have a record label to run – which, in the meantime, is surely reaping the dividends of releasing Sadnecessary – and the demands of the southern hemisphere to satisfy. At the moment, only a visit will do the trick for their Australian fans. “We’re hoping they’re ready,” Clemens teases. What: Sadnecessary out now through Lichtdicht/Universal

Ella Hooper Lady In Red By Paul McBride

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ith her stint as team captain on Spicks And Specks at an end, former Killing Heidi lead singer Ella Hooper is getting back in touch with her first love: making music. Hooper’s new single from upcoming album In Tongues is ‘The Red Shoes’, a take on the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. “I think it’s so evocative,” she says. “It’s well-covered territory; everyone’s had a go at reinterpreting this tale. I think the biggest influence on me was actually the [1948] film – the beautiful adaptation that was done around the ballet, where the ballerina dances herself to death. It’s about obsession, but remains very delicate and classy with the way it handles it. I think with this whole album, I’m looking at lots of different ways that things can take you over and push you off your natural path, and sometimes that’s a bad thing and sometimes it’s a good thing. ‘The Red Shoes’ is a little bit of both, I think.” Fans of Killing Heidi will find much to like about the new single, but Hooper says to expect a few new ingredients throughout the record. “[‘The Red Shoes’] is actually the rockier side of the album,” she says. “It’s not all like this. My first single ‘Low High’ is probably a better indication of the meat of the record, but I really wanted to get ‘The Red Shoes’ out there too because it is my rockier, more anthemic song, and it’s been going nuts live. There’s probably two or three other tracks in this vein, and the rest is more ethereal and a bit more kooky.” While these are the first tentative steps into a solo career for Hooper, she was able to count on an old friend for support and musical direction. “There’s definitely a big influence from my producer Jan Skubiszewski,” thebrag.com

she says. “He comes from a more urban background, so that was another reason I wanted to put down the guitar for a bit. I write almost all my stuff on guitar, so I wanted to put that down and get into a studio with Jan to work with some beats and do a couple of things I haven’t done before. He’s probably the reason why it sounds so different to everything else I’ve ever done.” With much changing in Hooper’s day-to-day life as a radio and TV personality, it was inevitable that her songwriting on the album would be affected, she says. “It’s about Saturn returning, which is that astrological phase when you reach your late 20s in which everything you’re not meant to take into adulthood is ripped away from you or falls away, and you have to redefine yourself. I ended a longterm relationship and changed my working situation. You know, I’ve always been in bands with my brother and this is the very first time I haven’t worked with him. A lot of it has been scary and a little bit painful, even though I know it’s right. So the album is about going through those things to come out better on the other side.” Hooper will play release shows in Sydney and Melbourne to air the new solo material, but don’t be surprised if she pops up in other projects soon. “I’m focusing on the future,” she says. “We like to chuck in a couple of interesting covers, because I do know it’s hard for a crowd to sit through a whole set of brand new music. We like to throw in anything from Fleetwood Mac to strange country songs. I already do miss [being in a band]. I miss hiding in the band and being part of a whole thing. I have an amazing backing band now, who I feel very close to. They’re fantastic musicians, and will be touring with me for the Sydney and Melbourne shows. I sort of feel like I

While Hooper’s stint on the rebooted Spicks And Specks came to an abrupt finish with the recent announcement that ABC wouldn’t be recommissioning the show, she remains upbeat.

in that arena. At the end of the day, it was just not up to us and we’ve all had to practise letting go. I’m a big one for trying to get more music on television; I just think it’s crazy there’s so little. We have the fantastic RocKwiz, which I’ve been really involved with, and Spicks was another really great way to get more music on TV. I’m passionate about that, and hopefully in the future I’ll be able to be involved in something that gets more music on TV.”

“I would definitely love to do more [TV work],” she says. “It was just the most amazing opportunity, and it was really sad that it didn’t last longer, but I’m hoping to keep looking at things

Although the show is a big loss to Hooper and lovers of music on television, don’t expect to catch her putting her feet up and taking things easy.

have created a bit of a band around me, but I definitely look forward to other side projects where it’s not under my name; where I can just be a character amongst other characters again.”

“Music isn’t how I pay the rent anymore,” she says. “I’ve got my radio show on Sunday nights all over the country on Austereo. I also host a program called The Telstra Road To Discovery, which is a songwriting search for the next great generation of songwriters. I’m also doing a few other things that I can’t talk about yet – some more mentorship and songwriting projects. I’ll also be writing some music for an event in the countryside where I come from. Oh yeah, and releasing my album [laughs].” Where: Newtown Social Club When: Thursday July 17 BRAG :: 569 :: 02:07:14 :: 15

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arts news...what's goin' on around town...with Amie Mulhearn, Nic Liney and Chris Martin

WITH

Love And Death And An American Guitar

ELSIE EDGERTON-TILL, DIRECTOR OF BOOK OF DAYS This play is about community. How the content folks of a small fictional town respond to challenge and change. Do they pull up the drawbridge or head out on a crusade?

The cast of Book Of Days

merican dramatist Lanford Wilson’s Book Of Days tells the story of Ruth, a bookkeeper in small-town Missouri who lands the leading role in a production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. Soon, her community is faced with a

dramatic murder, and Ruth decides to investigate. We asked Elsie Edgerton-Till, director of the New Theatre’s Book Of Days production, about what to expect. Talk us through the concept of Book Of Days.

Does Book Of Days look to close the book (pardon the pun) with a moral, or does it ask more questions than it answers? I am all for the puns! This play doesn’t moralise. Each character in the play has a strong – and differing – moral compass. Through the character’s personal relationships, morals and blind

belief are challenged and questioned. It’s your debut production with New Theatre – what’s your history as a director and actor? I began my working adult life as an actor in New Zealand almost a decade ago. I’ve performed in everything from long seasons in musicals to Chekhov and new writing. Over the past few years I began directing more and more – here and in New Zealand. What’s the experience been like directing this cast so far? If I serve them up a pun, I can be certain of a returned volley! Honestly, it has been a true privilege working with such an experienced, top-notch cast. You’d be crazy to miss their work. What: Book Of Days Where: New Theatre, Newtown When: Tuesday July 8 – Saturday August 9

LOVE AND DEATH AND AN AMERICAN GUITAR

Cabaret Season 2014 is well and truly under way at Hayes Theatre Co, and its July program includes Toby Francis in Love And Death And An American Guitar. Alongside musical director Andrew Worboys, Francis lifts the lid on American composer Jim Steinman, the writer behind Meat Loaf’s classic 1977 rock epic Bat Out Of Hell. Once that album ruled the world, what came next? According to Love And Death An American Guitar, it was a struggle for recognition, unpaid royalties and fresh creative inspiration. Love And Death And An American Guitar runs at Hayes Theatre Co from Friday July 4 – Sunday July 6, and we’ve got a double pass to give away. For your chance to win, head to thebrag.com/freeshit and tell us about your favourite forgotten writer.

Maximum by Natalie Abbott

PERFORMANCE SPACE: SCORE

Maximum photo by Tin and Ed

Presented by Performance Space, Score is a festival of experimental arts, sound and movement. Artistic director Jeff Khan has brought together a strong roster of performers including Chunky Move, Kris Verdonck, Pia van Gelder and more. Expect all manner of excitement, like bodybuilders performing alongside dancers to symphonies that have emerged from metal saws. Overall, there’ll be five weeks of performance and installations relating to the body in motion. Performance Space: Score hits Carriageworks from Friday August 1 – Sunday September 7.

TROPFEST ROUGHCUT

Aussie short film festival institution Tropfest has announced an exciting lineup of speakers for its 2014 edition of Roughcut. The all-day event is set to engage film enthusiasts and filmmakers alike, with panels and networking sessions from a bunch of industry heavyweights. This year’s program will include the likes of Wolf Creek’s John Jarratt, comedian Dan Ilic, acclaimed cinema stills photographer Jasin Boland and The Feed’s Marc Fennell. The announcement comes with the call for entries to the 2014 Tropfest and Tropfest Jnr Competitions. The fourth annual Tropfest Roughcut will take place at Lend Lease Theatre, Darling Quarter on Saturday July 26.

MADE IN THE WEST

The annual Made In The West Film Festival is back for its second year, with entries now open. Following the success of the inaugural 2013 festival, this year’s edition again gives an opportunity for filmmakers young and old, and across a range of skill levels, to have their story told. Setting itself apart from other filmmaking competitions in the country, Made In The West explores the diversity and vibrancy of Sydney’s western suburbs. Independent and student filmmakers are invited to enter through stillsearchinproductions.com. The Made In The West Film Festival will take place at the Roxy Hotel in Parramatta on Thursday November 27.

All Things Being Equal by Suzie Idiens

BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK

Suzie Idiens turns a scientific microscope to relationships in her second solo show, All Things Being Equal. The title of the exhibition stems from a methodology of scientific experimentation. Idiens has created a series of deliberately tactile installations set to make audiences contemplate the functionality of an object based on its texture and colour – or lack thereof. Simply put, what is it about stark black objects that make them inviting or uninviting to their users? All Things Being Equal runs until Sunday July 27 at Gallery 9 in Darlinghurst.

UNDERGROUND CINEMA RETURNS

Taking cinema out of the cinema, Underground Cinema’s immersive screenings can happen anywhere: a warehouse, a forgotten ballroom, a carpark. And the next event, La Guerre, is just around the corner. While Inglourious Basterds made 1940s Paris seem pretty chic, the only information Underground Cinema has released for La Guerre so far is to dress in your 1940s best, bring something to trade and prepare for an unforgettable night in wartime France. Keep your ear to the ground. The dates for Sydney are locked in for Friday July 18 – Sunday July 20, and tickets are on sale now. Viva La Resistance! 16 :: BRAG :: 569 :: 02:07:14

Book of Days photo by Bob Seary

The play seems brimming with comedy, violence and intrigue – how much of a challenge is it to engage with Lanford Wilson’s text? At times, like walking a tightrope! Wilson’s work shifts rapidly from deep pathos to comic truths. The cast handles this wonderfully active writing with a deftness which is a delicious feat to behold.

A

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five minutes

head to: thebrag.com/freeshit

OLD 505 THEATRE

How have we reached July already? It’s safe to say the second half of the year snuck up on some of us, but not the team at Old 505 Theatre, who’ve prepared their juicy second subscription season for 2014. The best in independent theatre will be on show, including Dennis Kelly’s Orphans for July, Lisa Chappell’s Bad Day Insurance (August), Fregmonto Stokes’ Kill The PM (October), Seeing Unseen (November), and Tell Me Again closing out the year. Through September, 505 will be taken over by Sydney Fringe Festival action, so it’s the place to be. For more info, head to venue505.com.

Cirkopolis

CIRKOPOLIS

Quebec-based circus troupe Cirque Éloize will bring its latest production, Cirkopolis, to the Sydney Opera House from Thursday October 2 – Monday October 6, delivering a fusion of reality and fantasy. Directors Dave St-Pierre and Jeannot Painchaud create a Fritzian factory-city, with giant gears and dark sculptural portals. Cirque Éloize’s 12 performers defy this gloom to magically overcome routine through physical prowess, fantasy, music and humour. The resulting spectacle has led Perez Hilton to say, “If Christopher Nolan directed the circus, it would be Cirkopolis.”

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Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes [FILM] Second Nature By Kate Robertson

Through motion capture technology, these actors were virtually transformed into animals – Winquist describes them as essentially “driving a virtual puppet”.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

S

down with visual effects supervisor Erik Winquist to discuss the making of this spectacular sequel. Having worked at Weta Digital on effects-driven films such as Avatar, King Kong and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, Winquist has seen incredible advances in technology. “Now, with digital technology, if you can dream it you can do it – that’s true if you have infinite budget and infinite time,” he

says. What is especially remarkable about Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is the integration of physical footage with computer-generated (CG) animation. Much of the motion capture work was shot outdoors in the forests of Vancouver, and this ambitious decision understandably posed challenges – yet ultimately permitted the actors, and thus the audience, to become wholly immersed in the narrative.

“At Weta, we bring our motion capture equipment to the set; we put our ape performers in their motion capture grey onesies with the active LED markers on them,” he explains. “They’re also wearing a face cam … in a similar sort of vein, we can take the movement of what their face did from frame to frame and transpose that, translate it, put it onto the geometry of the character they’re playing.”

Aside from the CG characters, visual effects artists envisaged a postapocalyptic cityscape engulfed by nature, with scenes of urban decay in what is recognisably San Francisco. “James Chinlund, the production designer, gave us loads of fantastic material to work with as a visual guide as to what this world now looks like,” says Winquist. “He and his art directors obviously spent loads of time poring over lots of references of abandoned cities; looked at, for example, the Ukraine after Chernobyl, and what that looks like present day – what happens when mankind disappears from a city, and how quickly nature actually does take over.” What: Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (dir. Matt Reeve) When: In cinemas Wednesday July 9

The Two Faces Of January [FILM] Three’s A Crowd By Travis Johnson

I

n early 1960s Greece, an aimless American grifter, Rydal (Oscar Isaac), crosses paths with a golden couple, the refined Chester (Viggo Mortensen) and his gorgeous young wife, Colette (Kirsten Dunst). Rydal is taken by their glamorous lifestyle, but soon learns that Chester is simply a more successful conman and the pair is on the run from creditors back in the States. He offers to help them, but as the old saying goes, three’s a crowd – and soon allegiances are shifting and the double crosses are piling up. That, in the shell of a nut, is the premise of The Two Faces Of January, the latest film to be adapted from the works of Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley). It also marks the feature directorial debut of Hossein Amini, who is best known as a screenwriter (his credits range from the critically acclaimed Drive to 47 Ronin). Amini has been fascinated with Highsmith’s novel since he first read it while at university. “It was very unusual,” he explains. “These three were very unusual characters at the

heart of the crime drama. I love crime dramas generally, but usually the villains are villainous and the heroes are heroic. There was something about this where they were neither – they were neither heroes nor villains – and there were these shifting allegiances. You liked one character one moment and another character the next. The unusual way Highsmith portrays her heroes or antiheroes just really got under my skin. Over 25 years it’s taken me, from when I first read it to when it got made. It kept on speaking to me at different stages of my life – those characters wouldn’t go away.” Amini admits that he was somewhat daunted by the challenge of translating Highsmith’s layered, deeply psychological prose to a visual medium, where he would not have the luxury of written descriptions of motive and character to fall back on. “I think that’s one of the tough things about doing Highsmith,” he says. “She doesn’t follow a lot of the rules of conventional storytelling. The characters are often irrational – they’re often doing unexpected

things and often unintelligent things. At one moment they’re kind and in the very next moment they’re very cruel, but I think there’s something very human in that. I think audiences expect cleaner, clearer lines out of characters, though, so it is a challenge. But the reason the book got under my skin is the reason I wanted to do the film – the flaws in the characters.” Luckily, Amini was able to assemble a talented cast to communicate those complexities. “Both Viggo and Kirsten read it without me knowing that they’d read it. I was desperate to cast people like them. I think it’s really important because they appear as one thing at the beginning, this golden, F. Scott Fitzgerald-like couple, and gradually, through Rydal’s eyes, you begin to discover that they are not who they seem to be and the layers are slowly peeled away. Chester is a god at the Acropolis in the beginning and he’s in a gutter by the end. “I think it was important to have characters that they liked. You see Viggo Mortensen or Kirsten Dunst and you instantly think, ‘Oh my god,

Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst in The Two Faces Of January

I love them!’ but also, they’re brave enough actors to show that uglier side, the weakness and frailty. A lot of actors want to look great the whole time and they want to be admired. I think with Viggo it was interesting how he really embraced the scenes where he was drunk or paranoid or jealous and petty. I think

it takes brave actors to show that side as well as what they’re seen as, which is incredibly beautiful and charismatic.” What: The Two Faces Of January (dir. Hossein Amini) When: In cinemas now

 

New Hampton

 

   18 :: BRAG :: 569 :: 02:07:14

thebrag.com

xxx

et a decade after the 2011 reboot of the Planet Of The Apes franchise, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is, essentially, a story of survival. The simian virus has all but decimated the human population. A small group of survivors, led by Dreyfus (Gary Oldman), reaches a tenuous – and ultimately disastrous – truce with the genetically modified apes, led by Caesar (Andy Serkis). The BRAG sat

These virtual characters were fashioned by a team of close to 1,000 visual effects artists at Weta. Winquist mentions “our modelling department, who’s basically our experts in grooming apes at this point, growing digital hair; we’ve got our shader department, who makes sure that that hair actually looks like real hair when it’s rendered; [the] textures department is making sure that the skin has all the characteristics that you see.” xxx

Winquist has a unique insight into the complex processes that made possible one of the fi lm’s most spectacular visual achievements: the creation of the photorealistic apes. “Matt [Reeve, director]’s real desire here was not to cast, not to fi nd somebody who can act like an ape, but was to fi nd a really good actor who could just deliver a really convincing dramatic performance. Once he found his performers that we were happy with, we talked to Terry Notary – who is our motion coach on the show, and also played the character of Rocket – went through and did ‘ape camp’, basically, with all of the actors and sort of taught them to walk and move and think like an ape.”

BRAG :: 569 :: 02:07:14 :: 19

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

Félix Bossuet in Belle & Sebastian

Michael Cutrupi in The Violent Outburst That Drew Me To You ■ Theatre

■ Film

Playing at SBW Stables Theatre until Saturday July 12

In cinemas now

THE VIOLENT OUTBURST THAT DREW ME TO YOU

Cast your mind back to the time you were 16. Remember the rage you felt towards everything – namely your parents, school and anyone else who tried to tell you what you could or couldn’t do?

Through its snappy and at times hilarious dialogue, The Violent Outburst tells the story of the angst-ridden teenager Connor (Michael Cutrupi), whose tantrums and episodes of rage towards his family and friends result in his parents (Emily Ayoub and Anthony Weir) leaving him alone in a forest for a week. Alone, Connor faces his demons and experiences a range of emotions (as you would if your parents dumped you in the Blue Mountains for a week without your iPhone) until he meets another like-minded angry girl who wanders into the woods, challenging and questioning Connor’s every emotion. As simple as the story sounds, The Violent Outburst weaves a magical and intriguing tale, often tongue-in-cheek and always downright funny. Combining dance, music and puppetry, the play’s energy is infectious and the small, yet tight cast (also featuring Natalia Ladyko and Renee Heys) works wonderfully at putting your imagination to the test.

The Transformers series is a fascinating conundrum – the films are regularly cited as prime examples of brain-dead, lowestcommon-denominator Hollywood produce, and yet you’d have to be some kind of savant to mentally process the sheer volume of stuff that Michael Bay throws with staggering velocity at his viewers. It’s been two days since I saw the latest instalment – subtitled Age Of Extinction – yet it already resonates as a distant dream of short shorts, brand names, sunlight reflected on buildings, more brand names, Mark Wahlberg’s furrowed brow, even more brand names, China, Stanley Tucci drinking from a juice box, and foremost, the endless spectacle of machineon-machine warfare that comes to resemble nothing so much as an undulating junkyard. The series’ trademark combination of incomprehensibility and shamelessness is a potent one; the films play like gangbusters to children not yet able to understand narrative logic, while everyone older than 13 can marvel at the metaspectacle of Bay being given a platform to live up to his reputation as the crassest of commercialists. It’s alarming to think that Age Of Extinction is the most subdued of the series’ three sequels: after a prehistoric prologue (because dinosaurs are cool), the first act takes place largely in sleepy rural Texas, with bereaved single dad Wahlberg and his Maxim pinup daughter struggling to keep an unearthed Autobot secret from Kelsey Grammer, who will stop at nothing to make sure the film’s third act takes place in China, because that’s where a large part of the market for the Transformers series is.

Emanating a familiar ‘fuck you’ adolescent attitude, The Violent Outburst reminds us of a time we’d probably all rather forget, capturing the teen spirit so effectively you can almost smell it.

If “every film is a social documentary”, as per André Bazin, the Transformers series ranks among the most revealing documents of contemporary mainstream cinema. It’s hard to think of films that more proudly flaunt the market forces behind their very existence, and it’s harder still to imagine the series’ core audience getting sick of it.

Prudence Clark

Ian Barr

■ Film

BELLE & SEBASTIAN In cinemas Thursday July 3 Not to be confused with some kind of band biopic, Belle & Sebastian is an adaptation of the much-loved 1965 French children’s book of the same name. The film tells the story of Sebastian, played by Félix Bossuet, a six-year-old boy living in the French Alps during WWII, and the friendship he strikes up with a wild dog he names Belle. Belle & Sebastian is basically as adorable as it sounds. Sebastian and Belle are

“orphans of the storm”, struggling against townspeople who believe that this wild dog has been killing their sheep (and who consequently want her dead), fighting against the elements in the Alps, and all this with a few Nazis thrown in to add to the tension. But instead of becoming a war film in the traditional sense, Belle & Sebastian sticks to being a dog movie, and a very good one at that. Director Nicolas Vanier’s previous experience has been as an explorer and a documentary filmmaker, specialising in nature documentaries, and this experience shines through on both counts. Vanier’s fondness for wildlife is clear throughout the film – beyond

just the character of Belle – and the film’s cinematography really takes advantage of the amazing scenery of the Alps, with much mountaineering and long-distance skiing along the way. Belle & Sebastian definitely has the potential to be insanely cheesy, and while it is a little, it kind of fits (aside from the song that Sebastian sings to Belle halfway through, which is a little jarring). It’s a greatlooking movie and a really lovely story, and if anybody manages to leave the cinema after this without wanting to adopt a dog, a baby goat, or a tiny French boy, then I will be very surprised. Louisa Bulley

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Arts Exposed What's in our diary...

NAIDOC Week Sydney Opera House, Friday July 4 – Sunday July 6 NAIDOC Week, the annual celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture, takes place this year from Sunday July 6 – Saturday July 13, but the Sydney Opera House kicks this off with a program starting this Friday. One of our picks is Native Gayze, featuring Canadian hip hop artist Kinnie Starr and hosted by Bangarra Dance Theatre resident composer David Page – it’s a show that will explore what it means to be indigenous and homosexual in the 21st century.

Kinnie Starr

For tickets and the full Sydney Opera House NAIDOC Week schedule, head to sydneyoperahouse.com. 20 :: BRAG :: 569 :: 02:07:14

thebrag.com

Kinnie Starr phpoto by Robin Gartner Photography

Watching the Griffin Independent’s The Violent Outburst That Drew Me To You certainly took me back to this period – reminding me of the contrived, selfrighteous and ungrateful little shit that I was.

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION

Violent Outburst phpoto by Heidrun Lohr

Transformers: Age Of Extinction

bread&thread Food & Fashion News...with Chris Martin

Pete Evans

IN LIKE FLYNN

The Flynn has been a fixture on Bligh Street for two years now, and its new Lil’ Damita restaurant has come to the party with a French-Vietnamese inspired winter menu. Entrée selections include a charcuterie board (cornichons, pickle onions, cured meats and charred sourdough), Peking duck consommé, and crispy risotto balls. There’s a range of artisan pizzas as well, while mains include a pumpkin and feta tart, duck pie, Riverina lamb, Berkshire pork belly, and a Hunter Valley beef fillet.

LIVERPOOL NIGHT MARKETS

This won’t be your regular night at the markets. The Liverpool Night Markets on Saturday July 5 will feature Sydney dance collective The Pioneers before they hit the hip hop world championships in Las Vegas. The Pioneers have been making waves in local and national hip hop competitions with their exciting combination of reggaeton, dancehall and krump dance styles. They’ll be onsite from 4pm – for more info about the markets and more, head to liverpool.nsw.gov.au/nightmarkets.

DON’T COME THE RAW PRAWN

…Not when you can score free prawn cutlets during happy hour at Haymarket’s Palace Hotel. Yep, you read right – from 5pm-6pm on Friday evenings, the Palace is doing free nibbles fi t for a king. There’s also $4 schooners, 4pm-7pm, every Friday. I think you know where you’ll fi nd us.

RED DUCK TAP TAKEOVER

The Red Duck microbrewery from Ballarat is bringing its beers to town, taking over taps at The Hive Bar on Thursday July 3 from 6pm. Six genuine craft beers will be on offer for the only time on tap in Sydney: their pale ale, amber ale, porter, geist, Bobcat and Secret Squirrel. It’s a onenight-only kind of affair, as these

asking home chefs and cooking enthusiasts to do what they do best – arrange a day or night of dining in support of children living with cancer and their families. It can be anything from a BBQ at the park to a sit-down dinner with family and friends. Pick a day in August that works, then head to dineatmine.org.au to register as a host and help raise money for where it’s needed most.

are the only kegs of these beers ever produced. Get your glass under those taps, stat!

DINE AT MINE

After the success of last year’s charity campaign, Camp Quality is launching the second edition of Dine At Mine. The children’s cancer charity, with ambassadors Manu Feildel, Lyndey Milan, Justine Schofi eld, Erin Molan, Luke Hines and Scott Gooding, is

SOCAL’S FOURTH OF JULY

BACON BOURBON

BAR100

The end of June marked Australian Bacon Week – yes, that’s a thing – and while we’ve moved on from the ‘official’ celebrations, the Experimental Spirits Co. is here to help us savour the taste. The new company has been set up to create unique, high-quality spirits, and the first offering is a smoked bacon bourbon. Genuine American bourbons are infused with the flavour of bacon via a process they call ‘fat washing’, before the concoction is filtered up to ten times and then bottled and sealed with wax. Licking your lips? Taste the smoked bacon bourbon at Speakeasy Group venues, including the Eau De Vie Apothecary in Darlinghurst.

The heritage-listed Bar100, standing proud near the shoreline of the finest harbour in the world – look, Mum, that’s us! – has jumped headfirst into the winter foodie season with its new menu of meals and cocktails. Executive chef Timothy Fisher’s new lineup focuses on slow cooking techniques and all the tastiest winter flavours: smoked rainbow trout salad, a cider pulled pork burger, and braised beef cheeks with soft polenta, mushroom and port jus. Fisher’s got the chops, of course – he was the youngest chef to be awarded Two Hats during his 11 years at Lucio’s in Paddington.

’Murica! It’s Independence Day this Friday July 4, and SoCal at Neutral Bay is doing the ‘Yankee Doodle’ to celebrate. There’ll be DJs spinning American hits until 2am – we guess there are a couple of tunes you might recognise, right? – plus American food and drink specials including buttermilk soaked southern fried chicken and, of course, meatball sliders. Celebrate like only an American would.

FOOD, WINE AND ALL THAT JAZZ Northern Beaches spot Glen Street Theatre is hosting its annual Jazz In The Glen festival again this August, and it’s all about the fi ner things in life: jazz music, good food and fi ne wine. Saturday August 9 is the date for your diary, with a range of tributes to jazz’s fi nest – Louis Armstrong, the ragtime era and the New Orleans sound – to be accompanied by the tastiest of treats.

Have you heard?

thebrag.com Extra bits and moving bits without the papercuts thebrag.com

BRAG :: 569 :: 02:07:14 :: 21

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

ALBUM OF THE WEEK SIA

1000 Forms Of Fear Monkey Puzzle/Inertia

Sia Furler is more popular and successful now than ever before – so, naturally, she’s not doing interviews, touring or even showing her face. It’s an unexpected move – but, then again, not much about Furler up to this point can be considered conventional. Everything she has achieved thus far has been strictly on her terms, and her sixth album is no exception. The bubbly pop of her previous album, We Are Born, matures and progresses here with striking, dynamic production and an endless array of

Truly, this may be Sia’s best album since her 2004 breakthrough, Colour The Small One. Since attempting suicide in 2010, Furler has made every moment of her life count. 1000 Forms Of Fear is something worth living for. David James Young

xxx

Nothing Xxxx compares with hearing Sia Furler sing her own songs, direct from the heart.

hooks and vocal runs that are distinctively hers. Single ‘Chandelier’ on its own is the performance of a lifetime, but rather than lose steam early, the album develops a consistency that does not waver throughout. Despite her prolific work as a songwriter for the pop world’s top tier, there’s nothing like hearing Furler sing her own songs. It’s a direct line from the heart, and it stirs something within her that cannot compare to merely existing behind the scenes.

GREEN MOHAIR SUITS

ALISON WONDERLAND

STU LARSEN

THE ANTLERS

Aubergine Independent/Bandcamp

Calm Down EMI

Vagabond Ie:music/Inertia

Familiars POD/Inertia

Aubergine, the second EP this year from Sydney four-piece Green Mohair Suits, fits snugly on the shelf of second-tier country music, but manages to wriggle out of this framework through quality musicianship and songwriting.

Just finishing her sold-out national Wonderland Warehouse Project (which went off, as an attendee at the Sydney show can tell you), currently on her Rural Juror Touror (did you pick up on the 30 Rock reference?), and with this new EP Calm Down, Aussie DJ, producer and musician Alison Wonderland has been damn busy.

Do you know who Passenger is? There’s an 80 per cent chance it’s because of Ed Sheeran. Do you know who Stu Larsen is? There’s an 80 per cent chance it’s because of Passenger.

Potentially bad news for devout Hospice fans: Familiars represents a maturing in The Antlers’ sound. Gone are the melodramatic outbursts of the past. In their place lies lush, low-tempo dream-pop and a reliance on evocative horn lines.

With all the twangs, slides and flannel-clad guitar riffs expected of a band which hangs on the tails of Gram Parsons, what makes you sit down and take Aubergine seriously is the attention the Green Mohairs have given to their songwriting and harmonisation. Songs like ‘We’ll Pull Through’ provide a healthy dose of whisky wisdom, refracted through euphoric harmonies that are almost perversely joyful in exploring angstdriven themes of love, loss and family. The result is something like if Cat Stevens was given a banjo and some fluoxetine and put to work. The winner of the record is ‘Seeds Sown’. Well-buried in the middle of the playlist and stripped down to only a piano, the boys’ barbershop blues harmonics take the stage, driving home a resolute message of a relationship soaked with regret. Aubergine delivers a meaty, eggplant-coloured plate of garagegrass that is far more subtle and tender than it would have you believe at first, like a truckie who digs Brahms and bubble baths.

The single ‘I Want U’ has been smashing it up online and on triple j airwaves and is bound to be one of the big tracks of the year. The next one to possibly follow is ‘Lies’. Sure, the beat is somewhat repetitive, and you’ll pick up the lyrics in no time, but it has that cool and effortless Wonderland style written all over it, so it’s good stuff. Or maybe it’ll be ‘Sugar High’, a track you can definitely get your interpretive dance moves out for. Once, Wonderland’s fate was pulling her to become a professional cellist. Luckily for us that didn’t happen, but you can hear remnants of her past in the track ‘Space’. If you want to be up-to-date with what’s cool in the world of music at the moment, make sure you get your hands on this EP from an artist and producer at the top of her game. Amy Theodore

Larsen has appeared at countless shows alongside Passenger, warming up crowds with his charming banter and sweetly pleasant voice. Larsen clearly looks up to his friend, to the point where he’s even enlisted him on production duties for the allimportant debut. While it’s certainly given Larsen the leg-up he needs, Vagabond serves more as a step sideways than forwards. His coy lyrical imagery and obvious storytelling lack depth and subtlety, and many of the songs tend to blend into one another. Of course, it’s far from an ugly record – lush harmonies and warm guitar lines add a touch of homeliness to the album. It’s simply a matter of playing it too safe where some leaps of faith are needed. If Larsen wishes to ever escape from Passenger’s ‘Frequently Bought Together’ section on Amazon, work needs to be done in regards to carving out his own identity. Just because he’s a nice guy doesn’t mean he has to finish last in the grand scheme of things.

Only Run Xtra Mile/Shock

This is a good thing overall. Past albums had moments of catharsis. Familiars relies on its consistency and sustained atmosphere, which doesn’t allow for much variety, but makes it incredibly relaxing. The mood is so steady that it takes a while for the album to click – listeners might wait for a change in tempo to occur, but it never happens. This might be the reason for placing all the highlights later in the album – it lets the listener get used to the proceedings, before flooring them with the breathtaking arrangements of ‘Director’ and ‘Revisited’. If there’s a star here, apart from the ever-present horns, it’s Peter Silberman and his improved vocal ability. His melodies twist and turn in ways you don’t see coming, but always help elevate the songs to new heights. Because of its laidback sound, it’s unlikely that people will care for this record as much as the emotionally draining Hospice. But for the same reason, there’s a good chance that this one will be played more.

David James Young

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK In a live setting, Total Control deliver a searing physical assault. By contrast, the Melbourne group’s second LP, Typical System, flaunts an intricately constructed glossy exterior, which is a considerable progression from the squalid post-punk of 2011’s Henge Beat and the monochrome electronics of their early singles.

Typical System Independent/Inertia

22 :: BRAG :: 569 :: 02:07:14

Three years since their last release and with a slew of lineup changes, Philadelphia-based alt-rockers Clap Your Hands Say Yeah bring us Only Run. Slightly organised noise is what you can expect – that sounds like a diss; it is and it isn’t. Many times on this record, there does seem to be just a lot of distortion, feedback and abstract vocals all slapped together without much structure, but sometimes the result can be aurally pleasing. ‘Little Moments’ is one of those times all this incohesive noise comes together with good effect. It starts off very much like ’80s disco and evolves into a lyrically urgent affair with striking piano parts. Just as the disc feels like it’s on the up, there’s a very unfortunate and obscure intro on the next track, ‘Only Run’. The song seems like it’s going to go somewhere but fails to ever fire. The album has its moments, such as the atmospheric ‘Your Advice’ and spacey opener ‘As Always’. However, on the whole it really is mish-mash and not quite what you’d expect after a threeyear wait. There are enjoyable songs on this release but they struggle to hold up on their own when plucked away from the pack. Alexander Crowden

Nic Liney

TOTAL CONTROL

CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH

At times a pointillistic colouring of synths, drum programming and horns fills the landscape. Then there’s lead single ‘Flesh War’ and closing number ‘Safety Net’, which proficiently warrant the ‘synthpop’ tag. Yet amid all of the disciplined decoration, frontman Daniel Stewart still reports on a grim reality. At certain points the music forcibly compounds the singer’s frustration.

For instance, in ‘Expensive Dog’, the barked refrain “Bow to that which falls over you” is answered by an austere guitar-led battle march. Nevertheless, even when the lyrical targets are most explicit – namely in ‘Systematic Fuck’ and ‘Liberal Party’ – Stewart isn’t averse to melody. His curt baritone does, however, preclude any newwave mawkishness. Typical System is the sound of a band positively subsumed under the songs it’s playing. The update in fidelity isn’t an attempt at crossover success; it’s done out of commitment to the ideas being expressed. And if anything, it will allow Total Control to burrow further into the collective psyche.

Leonardo Silvestrini

OFFICE MIXTAPE And here are the albums that have helped BRAG HQ get through the week... YEAH YEAH YEAHS - Show Your Bones THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS - Surrender GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS - Soundtrack

BOB EVANS - Goodnight, Bull Creek! ELBOW - The Seldom Seen Kid

Augustus Welby thebrag.com

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

Tiny Ruins SHINING BIRD ALDOUS HARDING JULY TOUR Wed 2, Newtown Social, Sydney Thu 3, Anita’s Theatre, Thirroul Fri 4, Goodgod, Sydney

‘ B r ig h t l y Pa i n t e d O n e ’ OUT NOW

CHET FAKER Enmore Theatre Friday June 27

It’s hard to get intimate in a room full of strangers. Intimate in the sexiest, most seductive sense of the word, that is – or those aspects that make Chet Faker such an alluring artist, far beyond the beard. Listen to Built On Glass in a dimly lit room with a bottle of brandy and you’ll come out feeling like a cigarette and a cold shower. That’s what’s tough about Faker’s live show. Even in the superbly chosen Enmore Theatre venue, where this is one of his three nights, it’s hard to get down with Chet when you’re standing in an orgy of heaving punters. His voice is as immediate as ever, but from behind the arrangement of knobs and faders that comprise his soulful sound, he can’t quite pull off the connection that a live band does when it demands you daren’t look away for fear of missing a moment.

octavian

Still, the show lacks a certain faculty in seizing the attention of everyone present – at least until Faker begins his hit ‘No Diggity’ cover and pauses for a request. “Can we put the phones away for one song?” he asks. “You can go to YouTube and see hundreds of shitty videos.” Enjoy the moment is his message, and perhaps that’s what was lacking all along. Suddenly, the spirit is alight – collaborator Flume even appears for a brief boogie over ‘Drop The Game’ – and Faker ends with a passable though lo-fi version of ‘Talk Is Cheap’. He knows the rule: it’s the actions that count. Chris Martin

PICS :: KC

Not that his songs are anything but a delight. The tumbling, cascading rhythms of ‘Archangel’ set the scene for a setlist that’s

split between material from Faker’s debut album and the EPs that made his name. ‘1998’, which he calls “the first house song I ever put out”, receives the first rapturous response of the new stuff. And while he draws on loops and sampled sounds, he makes a point of showing the audience he’s live and vulnerable by way of an improvised track. “A lot of people are settling for something that isn’t live,” he says. “Please enjoy my fuck ups.”

27:06:14 :: The Captain Cook Hotel :: 162 Flinders St Paddington 9360 4327 ONS :: S :: BELINDA DIPALO :: BEN SYM OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER Y :: ASHLEY MAR :: LOTT LUKE :: KE CLAR INA KATR

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29:06:14 :: Frankie's Pizza :: 50 Hunter St Sydney OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER

S :: JAMES AMBROSE :: KATRINA

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Secret Sounds & Handsome Tours present

up all night out all week . . .

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

PICS :: AM

the broken needles

TUE 29 JUL ENMORE THEATRE

29:06:14 :: FBi Social :: Kings Cross Hotel 248 William St 9331 9900

ALL AGES Tickets on sale now from all usual outlets

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g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

pick of the week

The Morrisons

WEDNESDAY JULY 2

Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 7:30pm. $28.

THURSDAY JULY 3 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK DMA’s

Beach Road Hotel

Sosueme 7th Birthday DMA’s + Touch Sensitive + The Delta Riggs + Sosueme DJs 8pm. free. WEDNESDAY JULY 2 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK Mitch Anderson & His Organic Orchestra Coopers Hotel, Newtown. 8:45pm. free.

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Gang Of Brothers + Special Guests Spring Street Social, Bondi. 7:30pm. free.

Lionel Cole Imperial Hotel, Paddington. 8pm. free. Tim Bruer Quartet Foundry616, Ultimo. 8:30pm. $16.50.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Andy Mammers Duo Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney. 9pm. free. Broken Hands + LXM + Pharoahs Of The Farout Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 8pm. free. Dave White Duo Ettamogah Hotel, Kelly Ridge. 7:30pm. free. David Agius Summer Hills Hotel,

Summer Hill. 7:30pm. free. Fat Bubba’s Chicken Wednesdays Soda Factory, Surry Hills. 5pm. free. Gemma Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 9:30pm. free. Guy Strazz Quartet Venue 505, Surry Hills. 8:30pm. $15. Sosueme 7th Birthday - feat: DMA’s + Touch Sensitive + The Delta Riggs + Sosueme DJs Beach Road Hotel, Bondi Beach. 8pm. free. Sweet Tunes - feat: Justin Bernasconi + Hannah Marjorie + Leroy Lee Marble Bar, Sydney. 7:30pm. free. Tiny Ruins + Shining Bird The Delta Riggs

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Another Side Of Rainee + Special Guests Foundry616, Ultimo. 8:30pm. $21.50. Cole Soul And Emotion feat: Lionel Cole The White Horse, Surry Hills. 8pm. free. Steve Balbi Venue 505, Surry Hills. 8:30pm. $25.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

10 O’Clock Rock Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 10pm. free. Alex Hopkins Open Mic Night Wenty Leagues Club, Wentworthville. 9pm. free. Andy Mammers Dee Why Hotel, Dee Why. 7pm. free. Black Diamond Hearts Soda Factory, Surry Hills. 10pm. free. Carl Fidler Open Mic Night Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 8:30pm. free. Dave White Maloney’s Hotel, Sydney. 9:30pm. free. Greg Agar Scruffy Murphy’s Hotel, Sydney. 7:30pm. free. Hedge Fund + Wasters Captain Cook Hotel, Paddington. 8pm. free. Joe Echo Orient Hotel, The Rocks. 9:30pm. free. Matt Jones Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 7:30pm. free. Melody Rhymes Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 7:30pm. free. The Crooked Fiddle Band Moonshine Cider & Rum Bar, Manly. 8pm. free. The Late Night Soda Social Soda Factory, Surry Hills. 5pm. free. The White Brothers New Brighton Hotel, Manly. 10pm. free.

FRIDAY JULY 4 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Mike Nock Quartet + Special Guests Foundry616, Ultimo. 8:30pm. $21.50. The James Muller Trio + Special Guests Venue 505, Surry Hills. 6pm. $26. Yuki Kumagai + John Mackie + Tony Burkys Well Co. Cafe And Wine Bar, Leichhardt. 8pm. free.

ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK

Craw Daddy Club - feat: The Morrisons + Andy Golledge Bank Hotel, Newtown. 11pm. free. Flamin’ Beauties Crown Hotel, Camden. 8pm. free. Kevin Laso Barenz, Camden. 7:30pm. free. Live Music Fridays Bar100, The Rocks. 5pm. free. Murdena + Special Guests Spring Street Social, Bondi. 10:30pm. free. Steve Tongue Collingwood Hotel, Liverpool. 4:30pm. free. The Angels + Special Guests Towradgi Beach Hotel, Towradgi. 8pm. $36.20.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

AM 2 PM Kurnell Recreation Club, Kurnell. 7:30pm. free. Andy Mammers Adria, Sydney. 5pm. free. Big Rich Manly Leagues Club, Brookvale. 9pm. free. Big Way Out Towradgi Beach Hotel, Towradgi. 9pm. free. Boys In The Band Revesby Workers Club, Revesby. 8pm. free. Carl Fidler Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 6pm. free. Cath & Him Dee Why RSL, Dee Why. 9pm. free. Christie Lamb Colonial Hotel, Werrington. 9:30pm. free. Dan Lawrence Harbord Beach Hotel, Harbord. 7pm. free. David Agius Castle Hill RSL, Castle Hill. 9:30am. free. Fallon Bros Trio Coogee Bay Hotel, Coogee. 10:30am. free. Geoff Rana Mona Vale Hotel, Mona

Vale. 9pm. free. Hands Like Houses + Your Weight In Gold + Our Past Days + Blessed & Buried Tattersalls Hotel, Penrith. 8:30pm. free. Heath Burdell The Grand Hotel, Rockdale. 5:30pm. free. Irish Hooley PJ Gallagher’s, Leichhardt. 9pm. free. Iron Lion Bull & Bush Hotel, Baulkham Hills. 10pm. free. Jellybean Jam Revesby Workers Club, Revesby. 8:30pm. free. Jess Dunbar Crows Nest Hotel, Crows Nest. 7pm. free. Joseph Gatehau Quakers Inn, Quakers Hill. 8pm. free. Larry Leadfoot + Guests Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 8pm. $10. Lauren Azar Mona Vale Hotel, Mona Vale. 5:30pm. free. Live Music At The Royal The Royal, Leichhardt. 9:30pm. free. Martys Place Courthouse Hotel, Darlinghurst. 10pm. free. Matt Price Kings Cross Hotel, Kings Cross. 10:30am. free. Matt Price Parramatta RSL, Parramatta. 5pm. free. Muddy Feet Club Windang, Windang. 7:30pm. free. Nicky Kurta Kirribilli Hotel, Milsons Point. 8pm. free. Peppermint Jam Campbelltown Catholic Club, Campbelltown. 9:30am. free. Renae Stone Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 5:30pm. free. Rosenthorne Windsor Leagues Club, Windsor South. 9:15pm. free. Short Stack Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7pm. $50. Spookyland + Atlas B Salvesen Standard Bowl, Surry Hills. 8pm. free. The Adolescents Hermann’s Bar, Sydney. 8pm. $41.85. The Doobie Mothers Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 9pm. free. The Shrooms Crows Nest Hotel, Crows Nest. 10:30am. free. Thelma Plum Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 8pm. $18. Tiny Ruins + Shining Bird Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $25. Tori Darke Stacks Taverna, Sydney. 5pm. free. Two Minds Mittagong RSL, Mittagong. 8pm. free. Zoltan PJ’s Irish Pub, Parramatta. 10pm. free.

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The Morrisons photo by Darren Robinson

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D’Luna + Cosmic Hollow + Tall Hearts + Mvrks Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $10. Dave Graney + Glamma Rays Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $10. Live Music Thursdays Bar100, The Rocks. 5pm. free. Matt Toms + Special Guests Nag’s Head Hotel, Glebe 8:15pm. free.

Wildcatz Three Wise Monkeys, Sydney. 10pm. free.

g g guide gig g

send your listings to : gigguide@thebrag.com

Spirit Valley

SATURDAY JULY 5

Xxx

JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

The James Muller Trio + Special Guests Venue 505, Surry Hills. 6pm. $26. Tina Harrod Foundry616, Ultimo. 8:30pm. $27.50.

ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK Kelly Hope Gladstone Hotel, Chippendale. 7pm. free. Sarah McLeod Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $22.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

A Girl’s A Gun + Eddie Boyd And The Phatapillars Katoomba RSL, Katoomba. 8:30pm. free. After Dark Campbelltown Catholic Sarah McLeod

Club, Campbelltown. 9:30pm. free. Alex Hopkins New Brighton Hotel, Manly. 10pm. free. Anything But Arnold Crows Nest Hotel, Crows Nest. 10:30pm. free. Bell X1 + The Phoncurves The Hi-Fi, Moore Park. 7:30pm. $55. Ben Finn The Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill. 9pm. free. Bonza Colyton Hotel, Colyton. 9pm. free. Brighton Up Bar 2nd Birthday - feat: Mesa Cosa + The Hollow Bones + Spirit Valley + Cull + The Ocean Party + High-Tails + The Lulu Raes Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst. 7pm. free. Californication - The Red Hot Chili Peppers Show Ambarvale Tavern, Ambarvale. 9pm. free. Cara Kavanagh PJ Gallagher’s, Leichhardt. 9pm. free. Chaz H Scally + Everything I Own Is Broken + Culture Of Ignorance + Luke Rockets + Frottera + Vex Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 9pm. $10.

Dave Phillips Sir Joseph Banks Hotel, Botany. 7pm. free. Dave White Trio Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 9pm. free. David Agius PJ Gallagher’s, Moore Park. 7:30pm. free. Evie Dean Crows Nest Hotel, Crows Nest. 7pm. free. Flux Rock Lily, Pyrmont. 9:30pm. free. Heath Burdell Harbord Beach Hotel, Harbord. 7pm. free. Jamie Lindsay The Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill. 6pm. free. Just A Gent World Bar, Kings Cross. 8pm. free. Lillye + Diving Electric + Angel Awake Tattersalls Hotel Penrith, Penrith. 8:30pm. free. Michael McGlynn Kirribilli Hotel, Milsons Point. 8pm. free. New Tricks + The Moving Stills + Tommy Pickett Hampshire Hotel, Camperdown. 7:30pm. free. Panorama Three Wise Monkeys, Sydney. 10pm. free. Paradise City Hermann’s Bar, Darlington. 9pm. $10. Pop Fiction Revesby Workers Club, Revesby. 8:30pm. free. Renae Stone Time & Tide Hotel, Dee Why. 7:30pm. free. Rick Fensom Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 4pm. free. Rob Henry Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 5:30pm. free. Ryan Thomas Australian Hotel And Brewery, Rouse Hill. 10pm. free. Sharon Bowman Brewhouse Marayong, Kings Park. 8pm. free. Short Stack Metro Theatre, Sydney. 8pm. $50. Spank Castle Hill RSL, Castle Hill. 10:30pm. free. The Babe Rainbow + The Dandelion + Raindrop + Deep Sea Arcade DJs Standard Bowl, Surry Hills. 7pm. free. The Blackened Beneath + Semper Fi + Atlantis Of The Sky + Brutal Savage Violent St James Hotel, Sydney. 11pm. free. The Lonely Boys The Mercantile Hotel, Sydney. 8:30pm. free. Toxic Dolls PJ’s Irish Pub, Parramatta. 9pm. free.

SUNDAY JULY 6 ACOUSTIC, COUNTRY, BLUES & FOLK Chill Out Sundays Scubar, Sydney. 7:30pm. free. Country At The Bowlo Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville. 4:30pm. free. Intimate Sessions Paragon Hotel, Sydney. 6pm. free. Lionheir + Nick Saxon + Susanna Carter Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $13. Live Music Sundays Bar100, The Rocks. 1pm. free. Murrumbidgee Jones + Special Guests

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Violent Soho

free. Motown Mondays - feat: Soulgroove The White Horse, Surry Hills. 8pm. free. Reggae Monday Civic Underground, Sydney. 10pm. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Shakespeare Hotel, Surry Hills. 6pm. free. Satellite V Marrickville Bowling Club, Marrickville. 4:30pm. free.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS Andy Mammers Harbord Beach Hotel, Harbord. 6pm. free. Doc Holliday Takes The Shotgun Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 4pm. free. Feick’s Device + Spectacles + Captains Of Industry Valve Bar, Agincourt Hotel, Ultimo. 9pm. $10. Handpicked The Mean Fiddler, Rouse Hill. 1:30pm. free. Hannah-May Buckley Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 4pm. free. Mandi Jarry Commodore Hotel, McMahon Point. 2pm. free. Menagerie + Peasant Moon + Julia Jacklin +

Tommy Novak The Welcome Hotel, Rozelle. 4pm. free. Redlight Ruby Northies Cronulla Hotel, Cronulla. 6pm. free. The White Brothers Ettamogah Hotel, Kelly Ridge. 1pm. free. Three Wise Men Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 4pm. free.

MONDAY JULY 7 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Big Swing Band + Special Guests Tattersalls Hotel Penrith, Penrith. 7:30pm. free. Latin & Jazz Jam Open Mic Night World Bar, Kings Cross. 7pm. free. Mambo Mondays Bar100, The Rocks. 5:30pm.

wed

Bernie Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 8:30pm. free. Mango Dreamers The Vanguard, Newtown. 7pm. free.

TUESDAY JULY 8 JAZZ, SOUL, FUNK, LATIN & WORLD MUSIC

Swingtime Tuesdays The Basement, Circular Quay. 7pm. $9.

INDIE, ROCK, POP, METAL, PUNK & COVERS

Cambo Observer Hotel, The Rocks. 8:30pm. free. Declan Kelly + Robin Wagle + Kuseah Lawton + Amy Freeman Bar 34 Bondi, Bondi Beach. 8pm. free. Old School Funk & Groove Venue 505, Surry Hills. 8:30pm. free. Violent Soho Manning Bar, Camperdown. 8pm. $40.65.

thu

02

03

July

July

(9:30PM - 12:30AM)

(9:30PM - 12:30AM)

fri

04 July (4:30PM - 7:30PM)

(9:30PM - 1:30AM)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

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(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

05

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

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06

July

(8:30PM - 12:00AM)

(9:30PM - 1:15PM)

mon

07 July

(4:30PM - 7:30PM)

July

(9:00PM - 12:00AM)

tue

08 July (9:30PM - 12:30AM)

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gig picks

up all night out all week...

Tiny Ruins

WEDNESDAY JULY 2

SATURDAY JULY 5

Sweet Tunes - feat: Justin Bernasconi + Hannah Marjorie + Leroy Lee Marble Bar, Sydney. 7:30pm. Free.

Bell X1 + The Phoncurves The Hi-Fi, Moore Park. 7:30pm. $55.

Tiny Ruins + Shining Bird Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 7:30pm. $28.

Brighton Up Bar 2nd Birthday - Feat: Mesa Cosa + The Hollow Bones + Spirit Valley + Cull + The Ocean Party + High-Tails + The Lulu Raes Brighton Up Bar, Darlinghurst. 7pm. Free.

FRIDAY JULY 4

Paradise City Hermann’s Bar, Darlington. 9pm. $10.

Craw Daddy Club - feat: The Morrisons + Andy Golledge Bank Hotel, Newtown. 11pm. Free.

Sarah McLeod Brass Monkey, Cronulla. 7pm. $22.

Short Stack Metro Theatre, Sydney. 7pm. $50.

SUNDAY JULY 6

The Adolescents Hermann’s Bar, Sydney. 8pm. $41.85.

Doc Holliday Takes The Shotgun Frankie’s Pizza, Sydney. 4pm. Free.

Thelma Plum Newtown Social Club, Newtown. 8pm. $18.

TUESDAY JULY 8

Tiny Ruins + Shining Bird Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 8pm. $25.

Violent Soho Manning Bar, Camperdown. 8pm. $40.65. Thelma Plum

Tiny Ruins photo by Georgie Craw

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brag beats

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

dance music news

free stuff

club, dance and hip hop in brief... with Chris Martin and Lauren Gill

head to: thebrag.com/freeshit

five things

M4SONIC X SOL REPUBLIC

WITH

Adelaide producer M4Sonic has come a long way since his days learning classical piano. Now he’s responsible for the wicked blend of dubstep, progressive house and electro on new track ‘Arcade’, which he’s already toured in the US. It all followed his hit YouTube mashups of ‘Weapon’ and Skrillex’s ‘Bangarang’. To celebrate M4Sonic’s success and his booming sound, Sol Republic have created the M4Sonic x Sol Republic headphones in collaboration with the artist.

KILTER

We’ve got two pairs of the exclusive custom M4Sonic x Sol Republic headphones to give away to beats-loving readers. For your chance to win one, head to thebrag.com/ freeshit and tell us the first track you’d pump through your new cans.

Nicolas Jaar

M4Sonic

RBMA AT SPLENDOUR

And you thought the lineup excitement was over. The Red Bull Music Academy stage, returning to Splendour In The Grass this year, has announced the addition of even more acts. Nicolas Jaar, one half of Darkside, joins the international bill alongside Africa Hitech, Peanut Butter Wolf and Nguzunguzu. Also playing the Red Bull stage are Aussie talents Hiatus Kaiyote, Oscar Key Sung, bAnoffee and Andras Fox. Splendour In The Grass 2014 will take place from Friday July 25 – Sunday July 27 at the North Byron Parklands, Byron Bay.

Growing Up I grew up in a very noisy family! My 1. parents and two brothers can all play a couple of instruments each, and when nobody was practising somebody else would have put on a record somewhere in the house. I started my musical education early and was exposed to lots of different styles of music as a child. I like to think the tables have turned now as I’ve caught Mum listening to Flume a couple of times! Inspirations At the moment I am loving summery 2. electronic vibes from artists like Bondax, Lxury, Jonas LR and Odesza. I was particularly impressed seeing Odesza play live last weekend using an array of drum pads and controllers. I think it is really important to be able to translate your music into an engaging live performance. Your Crew Seeing as so many of my friends are 3. musicians, my collab game is surprisingly weak! Now I’ve finished my own EP, I’ve had time to work with some other artists such as Spit Syndicate and Nicole Millar on their music. It’s a completely different experience to writing music for Kilter and is something I really enjoy doing.

THE KITE STRING TANGLE

Alt-electronic artist Danny Harley’s solo project The Kite String Tangle has just released his new single ‘Arcadia’ and he’s hitting the road to celebrate. The track is a taste from his debut EP, Vessel. Since the release of his wildly successful single ‘Given The Chance’, he has sold out two national tours and performed at SXSW and Coachella. Harley will play Manning Bar on Friday September 12.

WILLOW BEATS

Electronic duo Willow Beats have announced a string of tour dates in support of their latest single ‘Merewif’. The pair burst onto the scene last year with their dreamy breakout single ‘Blue’ and appearances at Falls Festival and Hong Kong’s Clockenflap Festival. Their new single is taken from their forthcoming EP, set for release later this year. Willow Beats will play Goodgod Small Club on Saturday August 9.

Willow Beats

OOF, KILTER

With his latest single ‘They Say’ flooding the airwaves, Kilter is launching his sophomore EP Shades at Oxford Art Factory before hitting the road for a massive 16-date tour. With an MPC, synths, microKorg and drum kit in tow, Kilter has provided a testament to the proverbial ‘actions speak louder than words’, proving himself an ultra-talented musician as well as a skilled producer. 2014 has already seen Kilter hit the road supporting RÜFÜS, The Kite String Tangle and Art vs Science. He will be taking his new collection of songs to the stage with fellow Sydney producer Hatch in tow, throwing an equally ubiquitous mix of synths, percussion, electric violin, sampler and turntable into his sets. Catch the EP launch on Friday July 11.

Sky Ferreira

4.

The Music You Make And Play I find it hard to pin any one genre on my music but I once heard someone say it’s like having tropical punch thrown in your face. I’m guessing that would sting. My new release Shades has quite a lot of variation on it, with everything from a steel drum rap track to a high-energy bass trip. When it comes to performing I have a completely live hardware-only show with synths, drum machines and live percussion.

FOURTH OF JULY AT O2

Me Entertainment hosts its annual Independence Day party this Friday July 4 at O2 Nightclub. There’s the alluring promise of an “all-star” DJ lineup playing hip hop, R&B and reggae, covering everything from New York to Atlanta and Sydney, plus American-themed cocktails to wash it all down. Like the movie said, this could be our last night on earth – so you’d best enjoy it.

Music, Right Here, Right Now One of my favourite things about 5. doing what I do is the people who are doing it with me. I just spent the better part of two months on the road with RÜFÜS and Hayden James having far too much fun and am looking forward to catching up with all my interstate friends at Splendour. Should be a pretty wild weekend.

xxx

What: Shades out Friday July 11 through EtcEtc With: Hatch Where: Oxford Art Factory When: Friday July 11 And: Also appearing alongside Nina Las Vegas, Yacht Club DJs, Touch Sensitive, Cosmo’s Midnight, KLP and many more at Splendour In The Grass, North Byron Parklands, Friday July 25 – Sunday July 27

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EMBER + MINX

SKY FERREIRA DJ SET

Ahead of her arrival at Splendour In The Grass 2014, ‘it’ girl Sky Ferreira will appear at Newtown Hotel on Thursday July 24. The Californian performer will play a DJ set at the Sydney venue, getting back to her grunge roots with support from Fingertips, who’s just dropped her debut EP, A.D.D City, and Snapback DJs. It precedes Ferreira’s Splendour sideshow at the Metro Theatre on Friday July 25.

Marquee throws a double headline party next Saturday July 12, with Ember and Minx spinning discs. Ministry of Sound artist and festival regular Ember is an ever-present force on the Sydney clubbing scene, and his partystarting skills have seen him sharing stages with the likes of Snoop Dogg, Public Enemy, Missy Elliott, Kid Cudi, Justice, Calvin Harris, Armand Van Helden and more.

PANAMA STUDIO SESSION

Before jetting off on a lengthy US and European tour to capitalise on their success at SXSW, local threesome Panama will invite select guests and a few lucky fans to an intimate studio session in Sydney. Having recently signed a label deal in the States with 300 Entertainment, Panama are set to make a

splash internationally, so local devotees best head to their Facebook page – facebook.com/ wearepanamatheband – for a chance to win tickets to the event on Thursday July 10 at Studios 301.

OWEN YOU ONE

Local favourite Michelle Owen leads The Spice Cellar’s club night lineup this Saturday July 5. The producer and DJ, who splits her time between Sydney and Berlin, recently moved back home after spending two summers in Ibiza. When she’s not moonlighting behind the decks, Owen runs the lifestyle website Almost Real, which has the motto, “Do what you want, not what’s expected, everyone has a story.” A pretty good MO for a DJ set, if you ask us. Joining Owen at Spice are Lux Comms, Rodean and Space Junk.

HYPNAGOG + GRIFF

Two of the leading lights in Australian electronic music, Griff and Felix Greenlees AKA Hypnagog, are throwing a joint album launch party next weekend. As an added bonus, Greenlees will play a two-hour combined set under the banner of Hypnagog and his other alter ego, Terrafractyl. Daheen will bring his psytrance AV set in support, and Marz Rhythmic Starz joins the fun as well. It’s at Manning Bar on Saturday July 12. BRAG :: 569 :: 02:07:14 :: 29

Bass Kleph Klephtomania By Augustus Welby I was like, ‘This way all of us can be sorted and we can get our tracks out,’ and you know, ‘Here’s a song I’ve written – now it’s available.’ It should be that simple.” With all of these responsibilities to take care of, Tyson’s surely at risk of overworking himself. Conversely, he explains that the separate pursuits exist in mutually contributive accord. “For me to scour music for my radio show, through promos and through buying tracks, that sets me up with my favourite songs for the next month that I’m going to be DJing. It’s also going to inspire me for what I’m going to be working on writing and it’s going to inspire me for what I’m going to be looking for to sign to the label. Everything crosses over.” Over the last handful of years the mainstream pop world has embraced underground electronic production. This has attracted masses of attention towards the electro scene and subsequently given birth to innumerable aspiring producers. Being the industry polymath that he is, Tyson is acutely aware of the ramifications of the spotlighted interest.

T

here’s any number of things that might encourage people to have a crack at making it in the music industry. These range from the fantasy of nonstop partying and promiscuity to the promise of cathartic selfexpression. But perhaps the most common catalyst is a desire to imitate the music one fi nds so enthralling. This is what sucked Stu Tyson, AKA Bass Kleph, into the world of electronics back in 2000 – and the Sydney-born, LA-based DJ and producer hasn’t considered another vocation since. “Because I was obsessed with the music, I wanted to learn how to

write it,” he says. “Then DJing came about because I wanted people to hear this music that I was obsessed with. I was, like, 16 and I’d just play at everybody’s house party I could for free.” These days Bass Kleph is a yearround touring DJ and an electro/ house musician with a slew of Beatport chart-topping singles to his name. Nevertheless, his passion for new and exciting music hasn’t dwindled. In fact, alongside his success onstage and in the studio, Tyson presents the monthly online radio broadcast Klephtomania and is the founder and head of Vacation Records.

“The radio show stuff came about, again, because I wanted more people to hear [the music I love],” he says. “It’s another way to play to people when you’re not in a nightclub. [It’s] a different format where you’re not thinking about the dancefloor, you’re playing the tracks you like. “The label came about because I was with another label and there was some problems. At one point I was stuck in a contract exclusively and they weren’t releasing my music because they didn’t have their shit together. I said to myself, ‘If I can ever get out of this situation I’m just going to start my own label.’ My friends had similar problems too and

“I think these days, because it’s so popular and everything, you do get some people just attracted to it because of the bright lights of it all,” he says. “Because I’m always listening to so many tracks for my radio show and I listen to so many demos for my record label, I’ll start to hear certain things that are overdone. “There’s enough good producers writing interesting, fresh stuff, but there’s so many people just rehashing the same shit. I get a lot of stuff sent to me from Russia and parts of Europe where they’ve basically just copied a big song by somebody. They’ve done it very well, but there’s nothing new in there.”

Despite how tiresome it is to hear a trend being exploited until all possible allure disappears, this does provide a useful reminder to include some personality in one’s own output. “Watching those sorts of trends makes me go, ‘OK there’s enough of that out there already, what can I write that’s going to innovate rather than duplicate?’” Tyson says. “Over the years I’ve seen a lot of [fads] come and go and I don’t really pay too much attention to them anymore. There’s a lot of things that pop up and disappear, but if I passionately, honestly believe in certain sounds and styles then I know that’s the right one I should follow.” Bass Kleph has been based out of LA for the last two-and-a-half years and during this time the producer’s profile has grown considerably. A major boost came late last year from a US tour supporting Wolfgang Gartner and countryman Tommy Trash. As well as being Tyson’s good mates, Gartner and Trash are both past collaborators and on the Vacation roster. While he’s not tempted to mimic passing fads, Tyson admits the work of his talented associates is a big motivator. “They’d play me something they’re doing and I’d just be like, ‘That’s awesome! I’ve got to work harder.’ Me and Tommy used to live together for a year and a half when we were both in Sydney and that would happen all the time. We’d always be playing each other stuff we were working on and be like, ‘You just gave me so many ideas for something, I’m going to go and write a couple of tracks now.’” Where: Marquee When: Saturday July 5

Nosaj Thing We Got The Beat By David James Young

D

o you remember your tweens? Such innocent times, weren’t they? Pizza parties, Saturday morning cartoons, going to raves… OK, well, maybe not the last one. That one might just be reserved for Jason Chung, AKA producer Nosaj Thing. “I started DJing when I was 12,” he says on the line from his home studio, with the kind of nonchalance that one would normally reserve for telling someone what you had for lunch. “I had an older friend that got me into it – he had this whole set-up and we’d use it to spin whatever new singles that were coming in at the time. A lot of Bad Boy Records stuff, actually. My love of hip hop then moved into house and jungle music, and I went to my first rave when I was 13. It’s all stuff that came to me at a really early age, and that I’ve been in love with ever since.”

“I’m not really that good at approaching people and being like, ‘Hey! We should work together!’” he says, laughing to himself about the awkwardness of it all. “All of the collaborations I’ve done were just ones that happened pretty naturally. I’m always open to the idea. As a

30 :: BRAG :: 569 :: 02:07:14

Perhaps the best-known artist Nosaj Thing has worked with is rap superstar Kendrick Lamar – although it was some time before Lamar’s breakthrough when he and Chung hooked up. The two collaborated on a standalone single, ‘Cloud 10’, which was released as a part of the Windows Phone ME series. Chung cannot sing Lamar’s praises highly enough. “I was amazed by Kendrick,” he says. “When I worked with him, it was before his album came out. He was only a couple of mixtapes deep at that point. We were in the studio, and I had about 20 beats for us to play around with. For some reason, he just picked the first beat that he heard – he said, ‘I don’t need to hear any of the other ones.’ He’d start with the hook, recording it a few times and getting the layer going. When he was rapping, it was kind of like Jay Z’s style – no pad, no paper. He’d go away for maybe ten, 15 minutes, then come right back in and put a verse down. He did that three times, and then we were done. It spun me out – all I could think was, ‘What is happening right now?’” In addition to his collaborative works, Chung has also been

enlisted to remix over a dozen artists. His work in this department features artists as varied as Drake, Radiohead, the xx, Philip Glass and even Charlotte Gainsbourg. Chung doesn’t take the exercise lightly – to him, his remixes are just as important as his original compositions. It’s essential they maintain his identity, even if it is somewhat vicarious. “I try my best to make my remixes as different from the original as entirely possible,” he says. “I do that by not using any of the stems from

the original. All I use is the a capella vocal take, and I try to add it into the mix of something fresh. Unless it’s another instrumental track that I’m remixing – then I take the song’s main motif and attempt to develop something abstract from there. I always try and experiment as much as I can with them – the goal is to get something new out of it. To me, that’s the only way to really progress.” With his second studio album, Home, out in the world, Chung has returned to Australia this month for

a run of club dates and an appearance at the Circo music festival in Perth. The California native is practically chomping at the bit to check out what the rest of the country has to offer. “I’m really looking forward to getting back there and doing it properly. I really want to feel out the vibe of the place – I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.” With: D Tiberio Where: The Basement When: Saturday July 5

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NosajThing photo byMikey Tnasuttimonkol

Once Chung had gotten down the basics in production, he began putting the feelers out in 2006 with his debut EP, Views/Octopus. From there, he’s gone on to release two studio albums and has worked with a slew of notable acts. Despite many people first discovering his work as Nosaj Thing via these collaborations, Chung confesses that he’s still somewhat nervous about directly approaching artists he wants to work with.

producer, the most important thing I can do is learn. I do my best to try and make it work with whomever it might be. It’s something I’d like to do more. I really enjoy being in the studio more than touring, to be honest with you. I think I want to shift more towards being a behindthe-scenes sort of person, just working on production and working with different artists.”

Deep Impressions Dance And Electronica with Chris Honnery

B

-b-big news in Kompakt land this week (cue a chorus of trumpets, bugles and alpenhorns atop a stripped-back 4/4 microhouse beat). The seminal Cologne-based record label has announced that it will release its traditional annual compilation, Total 14, in mid-August. The unmixed double-CD collection features contributions from most of the Kompakt ‘big guns’, including brand spanking new tracks from label co-founders Michael Mayer and Jurgen Paape alongside cuts from Saschienne, Superpitcher, GusGus, The Field, Justus Kohncke, Gui Boratto and The Modernist. Perusing the track list, a couple of tracks stand out as highlights from recent(ish) times: the stonking Emperor Machine rework of Partial Arts’ overdue comeback track and DJ Tennis and Pillowtalk’s Cinematic Orchestra sampling ‘The Outcast’. Amsterdam pianist, drummer, DJ and producer Jacob Otten, who crafts beats as Kid Sublime, headlines a BYO warehouse party at an inner west location on Saturday July 26. A man who has headlined Mad Racket on a previous visit to Sydney, Otten is renowned for creating “soulful house music with a b-boy attitude”. His first album as Kid Sublime, Basement Soul, featured guest vocals by the likes of Melodee, Lilian Vieira, Nicky Guiland, Alma Horton and Jneiro Jarel, among others, and was followed by contrasting releases such Rappin’ Blak on Dopeness Galore and his collection of ballads, The Alicia Beattape. Kid Sublime has been relatively quiet on the production front ever since these releases, so it will be interesting to hear if he unleashes any new productions upon Sydney dancers. Fabric continues to attract the finest names in techno for their mix series. Berlin producer and Berghain resident Marcel Dettmann will helm the 77th edition of the Fabric canon. Dettmann has been resident DJ at Berlin’s revered Berghain club since before it was Berghain – we’re talking waaaay back in its Ostgut days. His vaunted reputation is founded on his DJing prowess, his remixes for the likes of Fever Ray, Junior Boys, Modeselektor and Scuba and his productions for his selfconducted MDR label. Dettmann himself is no stranger to the mix CD, having curated one of the earlier editions of the Berghain series from Ostgut Ton back in ’08 and the Conducted mix for Belgian imprint Music Man. Fabric 77 features a hefty portion of unreleased cuts from Dettmann’s own MDR label from the likes of German lawyer-cum-Berghain resident Norman Nodge, Marcelus and Dario Zenker. “It is finally a good opportunity to release those tracks and they will all come out on MDR,” Dettmann divulged. The press release is descriptive, promising Fabric 77 will surprise listeners with “its vibrancy, delicacy and range” that ventures outside of what you’d expect to hear from Dettmann in a nightclub circa 8am. Fabric 77 drops in late August.

Michael Mayer

LOOKING DEEPER SATURDAY JULY 19 Super Flu Club 77

SATURDAY JULY 26 Kid Sublime Warehouse venue TBA

SATURDAY AUGUST 2 Phil Smart The Imperial

SATURDAY AUGUST 23 Seekae Metro Theatre

The Washington duo of Benoit & Sergio, who are now based in Berlin, have just released a new EP entitled Your Darkness. Benoit & Sergio first made their mark with their singles ‘Midnight People’ on Spectral Sound and ‘What I’ve Lost’, which was reworked into a brooding minimal epic by Seattle’s Bruno Pronsato back in 2010. Their biggest hit remains ‘Walk & Talk’, while they have also appeared on the DFA label with their catchy cut ‘Principles’ (which actually sampled the vocals from ‘Walk & Talk’ backwards). Benoit & Sergio are currently focusing on completing their long-anticipated debut album, which will be co- produced together with Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington, collectively Darkside – one of the most vaunted acts of recent years. In the interim, you’ll have to settle for Benoit & Sergio’s latest offering, a collection of three playful dancefl oorfocused cuts that has been released on the Visonquest label.

ISSUE 137 - JUNE 2014

)$6+,21 )$6+,21 )$6+,21 -2851$/ -2851$/ -2851$/ ISSUE 137 - JUNE 2014

ISSUE 137 - JUNE 2014

MELBOURNE - SYDNEY - BRISBANE - ADELAIDE - PERTH

MELBOURNE - SYDNEY - BRISBANE - ADELAIDE - PERTH

MELBOURNE - SYDNEY - BRISBANE - ADELAIDE - PERTH

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Benoit & Sergio

Clearer Skies

Michael Mayer photo by Carlitos Trujillo

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FA S H I O N & L I F E S T Y L E & M U S I C FASHION JOURNAL #137 ON STREETS NOW ! NEW NEW NEW FASHION JOURNAL WEBSITE...

Direct all Deep Impressions-related feedback, praise, vitriol and other proposals to deep.impressions@yahoo.com. thebrag.com

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BRAG :: 569 :: 02:07:14 :: 31

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

club pick of the week Bass Kleph

Compound - feat: Ben Fester + James Fazzolari + Subaske + Zeus Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 11pm. $10. El Loco Later - feat: DJs On Rotation Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills. 10pm. free. 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. Insideinfo + Ben Morris + Chris Fraser + Visual Lies + Open-Eye + Mr Pink + Ridds + Fingers + DJ Eko + King Lee Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. free. Masif Saturdays Space, Sydney. 10pm. $25. My Place Saturdays Bar100, The Rocks. 8pm. free. Nosaj Thing + D Tiberio The Basement, Circular Quay. 9pm. $44.50. Pacha Sydney - feat: Timmy Trumpet + A-Tonez + Natnoiz + Chris Arnott + Baby Gee + Fingers + Nanna Does + Jace Disgrace + Samrai + Just1

+ Elroy + Dylan Sanders + Pro/Gram + Deckhead + Nad + Trent Rackus + Pat Ward Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 6:30pm. $32.80. Sienna Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs The Establishment, Sydney. 9pm. free. Soda Saturdays - feat: Resident DJs Playing Disco And Funk Soda Factory, Surry Hills. 5pm. free. Spice 05.07 - feat: Michelle Owen The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 10pm. $25.

SUNDAY JULY 6

James Taylor Flyover Bar, Sydney. 2pm. $10. Sunday Sessions - feat: Cadell + Tom Kelly + Ocky Goldfish, Kings Cross. 4pm. free. Sunday Spice 06.07 - feat: Marc Jarvin + Scuba Stew + Fat Tony The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 9pm. $10. Sundays In The City - feat: Various DJs The Slip Inn, Sydney. 12pm. free.

MONDAY JULY 7 CLUB NIGHTS

CLUB NIGHTS

Choice DJs Presents: Jesabel + Fingers Barenz, Camden. 4pm. free. La Fiesta - feat: Samantha Fox + Agee Ortiz + Av El Cubano + Resident DJ Willie Sabor The Establishment, Sydney. 8pm. free. S.A.S.H Sundays - feat:

Crab Racing Scubar, Sydney. 7pm. free.

TUESDAY JULY 8 CLUB NIGHTS

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

p

SATURDAY JULY 5

send your listings to : clubguide@thebrag.com

Mind Over Matter

Marquee

Bass Kleph 10pm. $28.60. WEDNESDAY JULY 2 CLUB NIGHTS

DJ Tom Kelly Goldfish, Kings Cross. 9pm. free. The Wall - feat: Various Local And International Acts World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. $5. Whip It Wednesdays - feat: Various DJs Whaat Club, Kings Cross. 9pm. free.

THURSDAY JULY 3 HIP HOP & R&B

Hip Hop Thursdays - feat: Miracle + RG Wings + Kuz + Benny Pegg Tattersalls Hotel, Penrith. 9pm. free. Mind Over Matter Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. free.

CLUB NIGHTS

$5 Everything Scubar, Sydney. 5pm. free. Fear Of Dawn Goldfish, Kings Cross. 8pm. free. Goldfish And Friends - feat: Regular Rotating Residents Goldfish, Kings Cross. 10pm. free. Hot Damn Spectrum, Darlinghurst. 9pm. 32 :: BRAG :: 569 : 02:07:14

$10. Kicks World Bar, Kings Cross. 9pm. free. Lights Out Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 8pm. 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. Thursday Spice 03.07 Mantra Collective - feat: Sam Arellano + Space Junk + Aboutjack + Whitecat + Antoine Vice The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 7pm. free.

FRIDAY JULY 4 HIP HOP & R&B

Jazz Hip-Hop Freestyle Sessions Foundry616, Ultimo. 11:30pm. $5.

CLUB NIGHTS

Argyle Fridays - feat: Resident DJs The Argyle, The Rocks. 6pm. free. El Loco Later - feat: DJs On Rotation Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills. 10pm. free.

Enhance Sessions - feat: Estiva + Juventa + Aruna + Will Holland Home Nightclub, Darling Harbour. 9pm. free. Factory Fridays - feat: Resident DJs Soda Factory, Surry Hills. 5pm. free. Frisky Fridays Scubar, Sydney. 5pm. free. G-Wizard Marquee, Pyrmont. 10pm. $18.40. Loco Friday - feat: Various Live Bands And DJs The Slip Inn, Sydney. 5pm. free. Moonshine Fridays Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 7pm. free. Red Cup Party - feat: Doctor Werewolf + Empress Yoy + Mercy + Mitch Lowe + Sippy + Ellagator + Struz + Astrix Chinese Laundry, Sydney. 9pm. free. Soft&Slow 04.07 - feat: Tunnel Signs + Andy Webb + Pink Lloyd The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 7pm. $15.

SATURDAY JULY 5 CLUB NIGHTS

Bass Kleph Marquee, Pyrmont. 10pm. $28.60. Cakes - feat: 4 Rooms Of Live Music + DJs And International Guests World Bar, Kings Cross. 8pm. $10.

THURSDAY JULY 3 Mind Over Matter Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst. 8pm. Free. Thursday Spice 03.07 Mantra Collective - feat: Sam Arellano + Space Junk + Aboutjack + Whitecat + Antoine Vice The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 7pm. Free.

FRIDAY JULY 4 G-Wizard Marquee, Pyrmont. 10pm. $18.40. Jazz Hip-Hop Freestyle Sessions Foundry616, Ultimo. 11:30pm. $5.

+ Jace Disgrace + Samrai + Just1 + Elroy + Dylan Sanders + Pro/Gram + Deckhead + Nad + Trent Rackus + Pat Ward Ivy Bar/Lounge, Sydney. 6:30pm. $32.80. Spice 05.07 - feat: Michelle Owen The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 10pm. $25.

SUNDAY JULY 6 S.A.S.H Sundays - feat: James Taylor Flyover Bar, Sydney. 2pm. $10. Sunday Spice 06.07 - feat: Marc Jarvin + Scuba Stew + Fat Tony The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 9pm. $10. Marc Jarvin

Soft&Slow 04.07 - feat: Tunnel Signs + Andy Webb + Pink Lloyd The Spice Cellar, Sydney. 7pm. $15.

SATURDAY JULY 5 Compound - feat: Ben Fester + James Fazzolari + Subaske + Zeus Goodgod Small Club, Sydney. 11pm. $10. Nosaj Thing + D Tiberio The Basement, Circular Quay. 9pm. $44.50. Pacha Sydney - feat: Timmy Trumpet + A-Tonez + Natnoiz + Chris Arnott + Baby Gee + Fingers + Nanna Does

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live reviews What we've been out to see... KELE, ODESZA, HAYDEN JAMES Metro Theatre Thursday June 26

Walking through the dimly lit corridors of the Metro, the first thing you noticed was a sea of people scurrying to the stage. Sure enough, Hayden James captured the crowd from the very start with an eclectic mix of eye candy, made up of visual projections of blooming flowers and a kaleidoscopic light show. The audience moved in a gentle sway, gradually getting more pumped up with the aid of James’ infectious dance mixes, blended with disco and deep house. But nothing compared to the moment everyone went absolutely wild for ‘Permission To Love’, the track he mixed with Touch Sensitive.

sohn

Headline duties fell to Bloc Party frontman Kele, whose solo career has been blooming ever since the release of his first album The Boxer in 2010. Here, his beats escaped out of the speakers like hands of puppetry that made the entire dancefloor swing to his every musical command. Kele’s performance started with a lowlying bassline that ran through the floor and seeped into every body, as a sea of people began to bop and sway in time. The feeling was maintained throughout, as his waves of ear-happiness were enshrouded in blooms of curiosity and intimacy – reflecting both the style and personality of the man behind the decks. Kayla Stephenson

PICS :: AM

Next up was Seattle electronic music duo Odesza. Making their first Australian visit, Clayton Knight and Harrison Mills seamlessly continued the mood, melting the audience with their liquefying deep

bass electronica. Coming off the back of a recent tour with RÜFÜS, the pair has only just entered the Australian psyche – later, Clayton told us, “Honestly, the crowd here have been amazing; we were just generally surprised anyone had even heard of our name before.”

24:06:14 :: Oxford Art Factory :: 38-46 Oxford St Darlinghurst 9332 3711

SOHN, STONEY ROADS DJS Oxford Art Factory Tuesday June 24

England may not have made much ground in the FIFA World Cup, but its brand of R&B electronica is a whole different ball game, with players like James Blake, the xx and Sam Smith pummelling opposition on the musical field. Much like his comrades, Christopher Taylor’s production chops have proven to be A-grade, leaving fingerprints on the work of Lana Del Rey, Banks and Rhye. And although his Sohn persona was only birthed two years ago, Taylor is no stranger to the circuit, having previously garnered critical acclaim for his work as Trouble Over Tokyo (back when he also went by Toph Taylor). So, it’s about time he made his way Down Under. Sohn is seated centre stage tonight, with the packed-out Oxford Art Factory still catching breath after some passionate swaying to Stoney Roads DJs’ beat-driven set. Flanked on either side by sonic technicians armed with their own keys and sampler pads, Sohn stares down, cloaked in black and buried beneath a hood. The crowd is almost silent as ripples of sound start to hit all sides of the room. Right from the outset, it’s clear that Sohn’s voice is the backbone of his work. Riding on the back of thick, lush synth and a rumbling bass, the 4AD signee shows off his falsetto with ease, letting loose some

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of the melancholic cuts from his debut EP, The Wheel. The night, however, isn’t just a showcase of sound, with Sohn’s light show complementing the tracks beat by beat. Shrouded in smoke and blazing colours, it almost seems a lifetime before the multiinstrumentalist finally addresses the crowd. “You lot alright?” he asks rather abruptly in a heavy cockney accent, possibly sensing the intense emotional assault that has just been inflicted. For a moment, everyone shakes off the feels and existential thinking spurred on at the end of ‘Oscillate’, regaining enough macho for a unanimous cheer. “This is my ecstatic face,” Sohn reassures us laconically, kicking up his airof-mystery vibes about ten notches as he readjusts his hood. He launches into cuts from his lauded album, Tremors, and ‘Bloodflows’ has the crowd at a standstill, lost in the “My love, my love, my love don’t love me” refrain. He croons out pop-tinged percussive number ‘Artifice’, which translates remarkably well without being accompanied by a full drum machine. The standout, though, is ‘Lights’, as Sohn’s mastery of soulful minimalism is spotlighted with (apart from his attire) very little to hide under. One thing’s for sure – Sohn won’t be able to hide for much longer. Mina Kitsos

MAGNAN :: ASHLEY MAR :: S :: KATRINA CLARKE :: AMATH

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27:06:14 :: The Spice Cellar :: 58 Elizabeth St Sydney 9223 5585

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29:06:14 :: Flyover Bar :: 275 Kent St Sydney 9262 1988 OUR LOVELY PHOTOGRAPHER

S :: KATRINA CLARKE :: AMATH

MAGNAN :: ASHLEY MAR ::

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