Inpress Issue #1135 by TheMusic.com.au

MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS

ARCADE FIRE

PVT

RYAN KWANTEN

BA S E M E N T B I R D S EEL S 3O H! 3 CUS TO M KI N G S

VICTORIA'S HIGHEST CIRCUL ATING STREET PRESS

MELBOURNE - MORNINGTON PENINSULA - BALLARAT / BENDIGO - GEELONG / SURF COAST OAST

33,408

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Thursday 12th August

THE BOYS 5.30pm, Free in the Front Bar IDA FOX BAND + LAURA HILL +YELKA+TOMKLINE 8.30pm $10 Entry (band room) Friday 13th August

JULES SHELDON 5pm Free in the Front Bar CHLOE HALL TRIO + SEAN M WHELAN AND THE INTERIM LOVERS + WINTERNATIONALE 8.30pm $10 Entry (band room)

Saturday 14th August

NICK LOVELL THE PROMISES + LUKE WATT

5pm, Free in the Front Bar

8.30pm $5 Entry (band room)

Sunday 15th August

EDINBURGH COLLECTIVE - SAM HARVEY + OBVIAN + MICHELLE MEEHAN + JAMES MOORE 3.30pm $5 Entry (bandroom) MEGAN DOHERTY AND BAND 8:30 pm $5 Entry (band room) + CAT CANTERI Tuesday 17th August

READTOMETUESDAY 8.30pm,$8Entry(bandroom) Coming Up...

Open...MON - THU...from 4pm ‘til late FRI...from 2pm ‘til late SAT - SUN...from 12pm ‘til late

Live Music Bookings wesleyannebookings@gmail.com www.wesleyanne.com.au

18/08: MATT WALTERS + KIRSTEN VERWOOD, 19/08: AUGUST IDA FOX W/ PEAR AND THE AWKWARD ORCHESTRA, 20/08: “IN HER WINTER KITCHEN” FEAT ROSE TURTLE URTLER + VICTORIANA GAYE, 21/08: TRAVIS MARKE + SOURSOP + MARIEL KOROIBULU AND BAND, 22/08 MARK POUND + FANNY LUMSDEN + DAVIN

Winter Special Two for one meals on Mondays (excludes steak, fish and specials)

bookings: 9482 1333 twitter.com/inpressmag

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ISSUE 1135

No.109

WEDNESDAY 11 AUGUST 2010

BRUNSWICK

Thurs 12 August

Rockabilly, honkytonk & Chicago blues 7.30pm

Saturdays in August

THE VERSES

INPRESS 14 16 20 20 21 22 24 26 27 28 30

32 34 34 36 36 38 38 40 40 42 42 42 42 44 44

Backlash/Frontlash and a note from the editor Foreword Line brings you all the latest tour announcements The Frontline brings you the hottest industry news In The Studio keeps you plugged in to your fave band’s movements We shine the spotlight on WA music conference One Movement Bryget Chrisfield chews the fat with rock god Slash Midnight Juggernauts’ latest album is and isn’t a pop record Arcade Fire are taking their music back to the ‘burbs 3OH!3 want their live shows to be like one big party Eels’ latest album completes a trilogy on emotions On The Record reviews new releases by Washington, Scott & Charlene’s Wedding and a Maurice Frawley tribute On The Record takes a critical look at some music DVDs Basement Birds are an indie folk supergroup PVT no longer have vowels in their name CKY are bringing Bam Margera to town with them Korn are going back to basics to recapture their spark Custom Kings impress Sam Fell with their diversity The Verses are lovin’ making music again Glide are touring again in honour of their late singer Stars think Jarvis Cocker is a wise, wise man Samsara have emerged from a series of line-up changes stronger than ever Carnation consider their tunes thinking music Villagers played his first show supporting Tracy Chapman Mystery Jets have learned to keep things simple Khancoban write their latest album while living together Mark Sholtez really doesn’t understand women

51 52 52

53 54 54 55 56 56

Ryan Kwanten was once in Home & Away. He’s now in True Blood Shag creates art through parties and Tiki iconography Cultural Cringe dissects arts news and gossip Rosie Dennis and Fleur Elise Noble discuss their new plays, Fraudulent Behaviour and 2 Dimensional Life Of Her Kustom Lane is hosting its third Chops N Bobbers expo Trailer Trash goes direct-to-DVD Dave O’Neil gets political ahead of new show, I Heart Julia Weird home video with Fragmented Films DVD Reviews laughs long with Chris Rock Emmanuel Laurent loves the French new wave

BACK TO INPRESS 59

Our LIVE section has everything you need to know about the world of Melbourne live music! 59 Gig Of The Week is glad to see Jessica Says back in action 60 LIVE:Reviews blows its money on some Splendour sideshows 70 Stu Harvey gives you a ShortFastReport on the world of punk and hardcore 70 Andrew Haug takes us to the dark side in The Racket 70 Kendal Coombs leads the under-18s boardroom in the Department Of Youth 71 The Breakdown scares itself with Witch House 71 Dan Condon blues and roots in Roots Down 76 Jeff Jenkins looks at the best local music in Howzat! 76 If you haven’t appeared in Fred Negro’s Pub, your mother probably still speaks to you 77 Fred’s calendar– ruder than ever 78 Our Gig Guide fills your diary for the weekend 84 Gear and studio reviews in BTL 85 Find your new band and just about anything else in our classy Classifieds

FRONT ROW 50 50

Film Carew compiles his fave films from MIFF The Bougainville Photoplay Project is a cross between a tute and a slide night

CREDITS

EDITORIAL

Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast Editor Shane O’Donohue music@inpress.com.au Front Row Editor Daniel Crichton-Rouse frontrow@inpress.com.au National Dance Editor Kris Swales zebra@inpress.com.au Contributing Editor Adam Curley Staff Writers Bryget Chrisfield, Michael Smith

PHOTOGRAPHERS Chrissie Francis, Kate Griffin, Kane Hibberd, Lara Luz, Lou Lou Nutt, Gina Maher, James Morgan, Heidi Takla, Nathan Uren.

ADVERTISING

INTERNS

sales@inpress.com.au National Sales & Marketing Director Leigh Treweek Victorian Sales Manager Katie Owen Arts & local advertising Sarah Blaby Bands & local advertising Dean Noble

Andrea Biagini, Dale Brett, Mitchell Brown, Julian Hocking, Stacey Elms-King.

DESIGN & LAYOUT artroom@inpress.com.au Group Art Director Stuart Teague Inpress Cover Design / Art Direction Matt Greenwood Layout Matt Davis, Matt Greenwood, Stuart Teague

ACCOUNTS & ADMINISTRATION accounts@streetpress.com.au Accounts Qing Shu

CONTRIBUTORS Senior Contributors Clem Bastow, Jeff Jenkins Overseas Contributors Tom Hawking (US), James McGalliard (UK), Sasha Perera (UK). Writers Nick Argyriou, The Boomeister, Paul Andrew, Atticus Bastow, Steve Bell, Tim Burke, Dan Condon, Anthony Carew, EJ Cartledge, Peter Chambers, Matthew Cheetham, Chris Chinchilla, Rebecca Cook, Kendal Coombs, Adam Curley, Cyclone, Michael Daniels, Wayne Davidson, Guy Davis, Carolyn Dempsey, Liza Dezfouli, John Eagle, Guido Farnell, Sam Fell, Bob Baker Fish, Johnny Gash, Cameron Grace, Stu Harvey, Andrew Haug, Andy Hazel, Anthony Horan, Rod Hunt, Layne Kim, Cookie Lee, Joey Lightbulb, Michael Magnusson, Baz McAlister, Keith McDougall, Sam McDougall, Tony McMahon, Adam D Mills, Count Monbulge, Luke Monks, Fred Negro, Mark

Neilsen, Roger Nelson, Danielle O’Donohue, Matt O’Neill, Jordan Oliver, Adrian Potts, Paul Ransom, Symon JJ Rock, Adam Sharp, Nic Toupee, Rob Townsend, Dominique Wall, Doug Wallen, Rod Yates.

EDITORIAL POLICY The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. No part may be reproduced without the consent of the copyright holder. By submitting letters to us for publication, you agree that we may edit the letter for legal, space or other reasons. ©

DEADLINES Editorial Friday 5pm Advertising Bookings Friday 5pm Advertising Artwork Monday 5pm General Inquiries info@inpress.com.au (no attachments) Accounts/Administration accounts@streetpress.com.au Gig Guide gigguide@inpress.com.au Distribution distro@inpress.com.au Office Hours 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday

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PRINTED BY Rural Press Victoria

BLACKEYED SUSANS TRIO the legendary susans return to the union for a month of saturdays, playing their beautiful brand of countrified alt-rock. these are special shows - don’t miss them. 5pm

Sun 15 August

The Joelenes Those alt-country funsters are back … yeeeehar! 5pm

THE UNION HOTEL

BRUNSWICK 109 UNION ST, BRUNSWICK UHBBOOKINGS@YAHOO.COM.AU

9388 2235

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EDITOR’S NOTE TWEET

elcome to the first post-Zebra issue of Inpress. While we all got a little emotional as the last issue of our longstanding dance mag was sent off to be printed last week, after 17 years of service we felt the old fella had earned a break. In Zebra’s place we’re excited to introduce 3D World Melbourne, a stand-alone, full gloss magazine devoted to keeping you ahead of the pack with all things dance, nightlife and fashion (pick up a copy from that pile next to Inpress). You might notice a few changes to Inpress, too. From this week we’ll be bringing you expanded reviews sections throughout the magazine – you’ll find even more comprehensive critiques of the latest CD and DVD releases, as well as wider coverage of the past week’s gigs. Not only will we be featuring more bands each week, we’ll also be bringing you more in-depth stories on a wider variety of artists. A couple of things have moved around – there’ll still be loads of gig tickets and CDs to win each week, but you’ll find all the free shit has moved from the contents page (you’ll now find it below). Our industry news has moved from the back of the paper to closer to the front; in its place you’ll find a new section devoted to bringing you the latest studio and gear developments. We’re also extremely excited to be reviving the letters page – we want to hear from you about the issue/ band/venue/whatever that has shaped your week, for better or worse. You can get us letters@inpress. com.au. Enough from me – enjoy the issue.

OF THE WEEK

“Listening to Wu Tang with a suit on #ITHAPPENS” Great, thanks for sharing, Kanye

ELECTION QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“You’d need to be pretty handicapped not to appreciate that this government is dissolving before your eyes daily.” And so former Liberal leader Andrew Peacock helps Labor get back up in the polls. Congrats.

HEADLINE

OF THE WEEK

Police find hard object in man’s underpants when speeding Mercedes pulled over on M1 at Parkwood Brisbane Courier Mail, 09/08/10

Shane O’Donohue

BACKLASH ED HARDY GOES INTO ADMINISTRATION

Weezer’s new album – for realz?

Suck eggs, douchebags!

FAMILY FIRST If your family is full of bigots, maybe…

KATY PERRY SINGS LIVE AT THE TEEN CHOICE AWARDS Our ears are bleeding!

FRONTLASH WEEZER

Slayer

We’ve long suspected that Rivers Cuomo has been losing his mind (and we challenge anyway who heard the last Weezer album to disagree), but calling the band’s new album Hurley and having a close-up of the fat bloke from Lost’s head as the cover art is a genuine stroke of genius.

SOUNDWAVE’S FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT If you’ve ever been into punk or hard rock at any stage of your life, you’ll already find enough on there to get you to the festival.

GILLARD ON Q&A So funny! So funny!

GIVEAWAYS Midnight Juggernauts

Melbourne electro rockers Midnight Juggernauts are set to launch their second album, The Crystal Axis, with an Australia-wide tour in the coming weeks. Hot on the trail of a whirlwind tour of Europe, the band will return home supported by Dappled Cities, fl oor fillers Canyons and eccentric pop artist Kirin J Callinan. We have one double pass to give away for their only Melbourne show on Thursday 19 August at the Forum. Arizona’s intense post-hardcore sextet, Scary Kids Scaring Kids, are set to play their last tour, Final Nightmare, before calling it a day after eight spectacular scream-filled years together. Renowned for their reckless, incendiary live shows, the band will be stopping by in Melbourne for two

Email giveaways@inpress.com.au from 5pm Wednesday performances. Support acts for the shows are Mod Sun, Australian rock band Stealing O’Neal and Perth screamers We Are The Emergency. We have two double passes available for their all-ages gig at 4pm on Friday 20 August at the Hi-Fi and two double passes for the band’s 18+ show later that night at the same venue. Instinct Over Influence, Samsara’s follow-up to their 2007 debut album The Emptiness, is regarded as one of this year’s most crushing heavy releases. After the loss of frontman Luke Bainbridge and drummer Tim Shearman last year, Samsara’s future seemed looked bleak. However, rescue came in the form of Face Eater’s Nick Vine, who replaced Bainbridge on vocals, and Mat Woodhouse, who took over on drums. We have two double passes to give away to the band’s 18+ show at the Arthouse this Saturday. With her new album Aphrodite climbing to the top of the ARIA charts, Kylie Minogue fever is sweeping the nation yet again and Kylie – Can’t Beat The Feeling is a tribute to one of this country’s most influential and iconic female pop stars. The 48-page, full-colour book captures Minogue’s immortal style and iconic status with words and images from throughout her career. Co-authored by (Inpress’s own) Jeff Jenkins and Miranda Young, the book features many rare images of Minogue taken by Australian rock photographer Tony Mott. It’s a must-have item for any avid Minogue fan and we have three copies to give away.

WORD UP TO PRIZE WINNERS: Prizes must be collected from Inpress offices during business hours (9am-5.30pm, Mon-Fri). ID is required when collecting prizes. Prizes must be collected within four weeks of the giveaway being published. Please note, Inpress giveaway policy is that winners are permitted one prize per four-week period only.

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FOREWORD LINE

NEWS FROM THE FRONT

FREE MUSIC DOWNLOADS!

Get downloading at universalmusic.net.au/ freedownloads/streetpressaustralia. Everything featuring Vince Harder (Magik Johnson Remix) P-MONEY P-Money’s new album Everything sets off in a new direction to 2004’s Magic City. No longer just a hip hop producer, P-Money effortlessly jumps into a house tempo with his trademark warm and organic sound. The line-up of vocal talent includes MCs Scribe, David Dallas and PNC, and musically the new direction is a pleasing headphone groove and a dancefloor bomb all in one stylish package. Everything, the first single from the album, is a winner in all senses of the word. It was picked up in the UK by esteemed BBC Radio One as the Hottest Record In The World, and stamped Money firmly on the musical map. 9am Freestyle DRAKE

WEDNESDAY 11 AUGUST

After a nearly year-long wait for his fans, Drake’s debut album Thank Me Later is here. As hip hop continues to drift further away from rap’s basic elements and seeks to re-energise and expand its fan base with a new, hybrid sound that blends rap, R&B, dance and even alt.rock – witness the success of BoB, Kid Cudi and progenitors Kanye West and OutKast – this half-singing, half-rapping, half-Jewish, half-black former actor and current heartthrob is helping change the face of the genre firsthand. Drake first appeared with Lil Wayne on 2007’s Man Of The Year after making a buzz-worthy impact on the mixtape scene. His collaborations with Eminem, Kanye West and Jay-Z were among the most exciting releases of 2009. 9am Freestyle is a track that showcases the best of Drake’s MC skills.

SONGWRITERS’ COLLECTIVE

DIRECT INFLUENCE (ACOUSTIC) JED ROWE JOSH ROMIG AMANDA MEDICA JESS HIESER ENTRY $8, 8PM

THURSDAY 12 AUGUST

TOMAKI JETS

WITHOUT WOLVES MYSTIC FIELDS NATURE SCENE BELOVED ELK ENTRY $10, 8PM

FRIDAY 13 AUGUST

NORTHEAST PARTY HOUSE THE BELLIGERENTS (BRIS) ROSS DE CHENE HURRICANES ENTRY $10, 9PM

MAIDEN VOYAGE Iron Maiden will play Hisense Arena on Wednesday 23 February and the Soundwave festival at Melbourne Showgrounds on Friday 4 March as part of their Final Frontier world tour, celebrating their new album of the same name. The tour will feature the full stage production from their recent North America concerts, seen by almost 400,000 fans over 25 shows. Tickets for their own show go on sale 9am tomorrow (Thursday) from Ticketek. Soundwave tickets go on sale 9am Thursday 26 August from soundwavefestival.com, Ticketek, Geelong’s National Hotel, Fist2Face, the Espy and Greville and Polyester Records. To be eligible for a Soundwave members pre-sale (with tickets on sale tomorrow), sign up at the festival’s website.

DONE AND DUSTED

Jane Dust & The Giant Hoopoes launch Jane Dust’s long-awaited, self-titled solo album with a sevenpiece orchestra at Northcote Social Club on Sunday 12 September. Coloured by early 1970s country symphonic pop, Jane Dust is an inspired set of lush melodramatic songs about heartbreak, love and female identity which was praised by one mag as “evoking influences from The Walker Brothers to The Carpenters to Bobbie Gentry”. The album hits stores this week on Vitamin Records. Support for the launch will be the luscious Jane Badler and Sir, and tickets are on sale now from the Northcote Social Club box office.

SATURDAY 14 AUGUST

IINDIGO NDDOUITG• SOL O D OUT • SOLD OUT SOL CHILDREN C HILDREN JO DAWSON SUNDAY 15 AUGUST

RESIDENCY

PRETTY STRANGERS LEFT FEELS RIGHT ENTRY $8, 8PM

YOU AND YOUR MUSIC

ENTRY BY DONATION, 9PM

FREE ENTRY FOR INTERNATIONAL PASSPORT HOLDERS $10 JUGS!

TUESDAY 17 AUGUST

RESIDENCY

BAGATELLE

With debut album I Believe You, Liar available now, and two shows at the Corner (on Friday 17 and Friday 24 September) completely sold out, Washington have announced a third date at the venue. Tickets are already selling fast for the new show on Thursday 23 September, which will see the group supported by Scott Spark and Winter People. There are a number of ticket and album bundles available – check out washingtonmusic.com.au for more info.

BALL… YES!

ALL GOING TO PLAN

ANDY MCGARVIE & FRIENDS

EL MOTH & THE TURBO RADS

THE WASH UP

Yah Yah’s has assembled 15 of this country’s finest rock’n’roll outfits to play its second birthday, which is being celebrated on Sunday 5 September. Get down from 11am to see The Gin Club, Dynamo, Johnny Casino & The Secrets, Digger & The Pussycats, Clinkerfield, Eagle & The Worm, Mike Noga & The Gentlemen Of Fortune, Chromenips, Russian Roulettes, Davey Lane & The Psychotic Pineapples, Que Paso, Kids Of Zoo, The Cheats, Wolfy & The Bat Cubs and The Beat Disease. Tickets are $20+BF from the Corner Hotel box office.

THREEFALL JOEL SPENCE & THE MERCURY DRIVE

RESIDENCY

Mistletone presents Dunedin legend Robert Scott in a Melbourne show to launch his brilliant new solo album, Ends Run Together. Robert Scott (or Bob as he is affectionately known) is much loved by fans of New Zealand indie pop for his work in The Bats and The Clean, not to mention countless side projects, and this new album will knock the socks off any Flying Nun aficionado. Robert Scott launches Ends Run Together on Saturday 4 September at the Empress with support from MSG (Mia Schoen Group), Aktion Unit and Scale Models. Tickets are on sale now from mistletone.net. Ends Run Together will be in-stores on 4 September on Mistletone Records through Inertia.

YAH YAH’S GETS ITS YAH YAH’S OUT

ENTRY $17, 8:30PM

MONDAY 16 AUGUST

BOB ALONG

MUSE NEWS Final tickets for the upcoming Melbourne Muse concerts have almost sold out. The shows, at Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday 14 and Wednesday 15 December, will be the biggest the band have ever played in Australia. Bringing their entire, world-class arena production down under, Muse will have 16 semi-trailers lugging their gear around the country. The remaining few tickets are on sale now from Ticketek.

The Bohemian Masquerade Ball is a grand carnival of underground culture. Running for the past three years, the event incorporates music, extreme circus and burlesque and cabaret acts. This year the Boho Ball is embarking on its largest ever tour, with webisodes, podcasts, tour stories and photographs all accessible via thebohoball.com. The Ball takes over the Thornbury Theatre on Saturday 23 October with The Barons Of Tang, Spoonbill, Olmecha Supreme, Ghostboy With Golden Virtues, Kooii, Juke Baritone & The Last Men Standing, Kira Puru & The Bruise, Dub The Magic Dragon, Akpe Motion and Percy Valentine’s Swingers Orchestra, with sideshow acts including Frankie Valentine, The Great Gordo Gamsby and Kid Rampage. Tickets are available now from webtickets. com.au and thebohoball.com.

The Getaway Plan’s first 18+ show since breaking up last year, at the 1,100 capacity Billboard on Friday 24 September, last week sold out in nine hours. The under-18 show at the same venue earlier in the day is expected to sell out shortly as well. The band were inspired to reunite for the two shows, billed as Revival – This Is Not The End Of Your Story, to raise awareness of To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA), a not-for-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. The gigs aim to stimulate conversation among young people about mental health issues and empower those struggling with depression with the knowledge that help and recovery is possible. Stealing O’Neal and Cheerleader support at both shows; the under-18s also get Built On Secrets while those over-age also get Secrets In Scale.

A DJ CALLED MATT

ENTRY BY DONATION, 8PM

COMING UP:

NMIT BAND COMPETITION (19 AUGUST) BRIGHT KNIGHTS (20 AUGUST) HELM (21 AUGUST) WILFRED JACKAL (26 AUGUST) SIMON WRIGHT & THE ECLECTIVE (27 AUGUST) VAUDEVILLE SMASH (28 AUGUST) SCOUT TV PRESENTS (TUESDAYS IN SEPTEMBER) THE VIOLET FLAMES (3 SEPTEMBER) MISTA SAVONA & 10-PIECE BAND (4 SEPTEMBER) ETHER (10 SEPTEMBER) MUSHROOM GIANT (11 SEPTEMBER) THE VAGRANTS (12 SEPTEMBER) KUMAR SHOME (ALBUM LAUNCH) (16 SEPT) THE MOXIE (17 SEPT) THE WONDER YEARS (USA) (18 SEPT)

$2 CARLTON POTS EVERY MONDAY 14TH AUGUST: THE BOO HOO HOOS + THE RAVENOUS 27TH AUGUST: 6S & 7S ALBUM LAUNCH

WED 11 AUGUST

7TH GALLERY’S 10TH BIRTHDAY PARTY

THE NIGHT TERRORS + THE FRENCH + THEIVES

RED LETTER DAY+ JAGUAR

BOO HOO HOOS SPRINGS+BREAKFAST OVER GUNFIRE THE + THE RAVENOUS + THE SHERIFFS

SAT 14 AUGUST

UT! MECHANICAL PTERODACTYL+THE VULPINE O D L O S EMILY TREMBACH ASAMI EP LAUNCH

TUES 17 AUGUST

BEG SCREAM & SHOUT FILMS AND DJS BY DONATION

FRI 13 AUGUST

THURS 12 AUGUST

WED 18 AUGUST VISIBLE INK PRESENTS

A DEAD FOREST INDEX + DARREN SYLVESTER + FOOTY

SUN 15 AUGUST

THUG QUOTA

FRI 20 AUGUST

DANIMALS (SYD) +LOVE CONNECTION

+ DOMEYKO/GONZALEZ+ ISLE ADORE

SHOWS@GETNOTORIOUS.COM

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CATE@GETNOTORIOUS.COM

FOREWORD LINE

NEWS FROM THE FRONT

GIVE US A BREAK

BLONDE MOMENT Concrete Blonde are returning to Australia in October to perform their classic album Bloodletting, as well as other essential songs from their extensive back catalogue. In June 1990 the track Joey from Bloodletting found them at the top of the ARIA Singles Chart. Despite announcing midway through 2006 that Concrete Blonde had ‘retired’ from touring and recording, the urge to play live has proved irresistible. Concrete Blonde, featuring original members Johnette Napolitano and James Mankey, have been playing to sell-out crowds in North America – they play the Palace on Friday 22 October.

SUPER GROUPER

The songs of Grouper (AKA Liz Harris) are densely compelling, each piece layered with glowing washes of reverb and softly howling echoes of delay. Over the past five years Grouper’s records, including Way Their Crept, Cover The Windows And The Walls and the highly successful Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, have defined her as one of the most evocative and unique voices to emerge from the USA. Grouper will tour Australia in October on the back of several new releases, including a soon-to-be-issued new solo LP. Grouper also will be releasing a special tour 7”, Hold/Sick, which will be available at the Australian shows. See Grouper at Northcote Uniting Church on Friday 1 October.

Our Backyard, a free annual event that champions local grassroots hip hop culture, returns to the Playhouse Theatre at the Arts Centre on Sunday 19 September. The all-ages, drug and alcohol and smoke-free event will feature a posse of DJs, MCs, breakers, hip hop dance crews and graffiti artists. Artists performing include DJ Peril, Joelistics (TZU), Elf Tranzporter, Little G & Fil-osopher, Yung Philly, Dig Deep Collective and live band The Putbacks, and there’s an all-star hip hop jam featuring Mantra. Support your favourite crew in the breakin’, lockin’, poppin’ and MC battles and check out some of Melbourne’s hottest dance crews including The Collektive, The Dream, Superhoodz and Melbourne House Dancers. Seats are limited in the Playhouse, so arrive from midday to get your free entry wristband and secure your place. The MC and dance battles are always the most popular aspect of Our Backyard, and this year due to enormous demand, qualifiers will be held a week before the main event. Qualifiers for the breakin’, poppin’, lockin’ and MC battles will take place on Sunday 12 September in the ANZ Pavilion, the Arts Centre. Arrive by 11am, qualifiers start 12 noon. Register for the battles qualifiers at thepush.com.au.

GRAND PARR Raised on Alan Lomax field recordings and his father’s first-hand accounts of the Depression and riding the freight trains, Minnesotan Charlie Parr is one of the more authentic folk bluesmen making music today. With a new record, When The Devil Goes Blind, due for release later this month, and with Australian summer festival appearances already confirmed, Parr returns in September for a quick run of shows that includes appearances at the Old Hepburn Hotel on Wednesday 22 September and the East Brunswick Club on Thursday 23 September.

HOW LO CAN YOU GO?

FORCE OF NATURE

Human Nature will take a break from their Las Vegas residency in December to headline their first Australian tour in three years. The Direct From Las Vegas! Australian Symphony Tour will see the group performing classic Motown tunes, hits of their own as well as songs from their forthcoming album recorded at Palms Casino’s famed studio, which sees the group celebrating iconic Vegas performers including Tom Jones (She’s A Lady), Barry Manilow (Mandy, Could It Be Magic) and Elvis Presley (Viva Las Vegas, A Little Less Conversation). The shows will see Human Nature backed by members of their US band and some of Australia’s finest orchestral musicians. The group’s decision to move to Vegas early last year has paid off, with their residency at the Imperial Palace recently extended until May 2012 and mayor Oscar Goodman declaring May 11 2010 Human Nature Day. The Sydney lads bring a little bit of Vegas to town when they play the Melbourne Convention And Exhibition Centre on Friday 10 December.

Queens Of The Stone Age pic by Kane Hibberd

UK-born, Melbourne-based reggae/hip hop artist and producer, Wayne ‘Lotek’ Bennett, plays a show in his adopted city this Friday at the Johnston in Fitzroy. Lotek is best known for his producing and engineering work with Roots Manuva. His most recent success was as producer of the 2009 Mercury Award-winning album, Speech Therapy, by Speech Debelle. As an artist, Lotek racked up three singles and two critically acclaimed albums with his reggae/hip hop hybrid, Lotek Hifi. The release of these albums prompted one UK newspaper to describe him as “the future of British hip hop”. This Friday Lotek will be showcasing tracks from his forthcoming album, Counter Clockwise. He will be performing with his eight-piece band, Rebel Hifi, and will be joined by DJs Jesse I and Mamacita Bonita, as well as RuCL, Pataphysics, Vida Sunshyne, Florelie, Lady Lash and Runforyourlife.

SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE

With hits such as YMCA, In The Navy, Macho Man, Go West and Can’t Stop The Music, Village People are synonymous with dancefloors. Celebrating 33 years in show business, the group have received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, while the Guinness Book Of Records has recognised their 2008 New Year’s Eve show as being the largest YMCA dance ever, with more than 40,000 fans taking part. The group return to Australia to play the Palms at Crown on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 October.

COLOURFUL KES

Kes Trio, one of the most enigmatic and respected bands from Melbourne’s fertile art/music underground, launch their new album, Black Brown Green Grey White, at the East Brunswick Club on Saturday 25 September. A stunning document of Kes Band’s current and undeniable incarnation as a trio featuring Kes (Karl E Scullin), Lehmann B Smith and Julian Patterson, Black Brown Green Grey White (out 18 September on Mistletone Records through Inertia) is a yin-yang dichotomy. Contemplative, melodic beauty and inward-gazing ballads are juxtaposed with jerky dischord, banshee yells and whirlwind anti-rock riffs.

SOUNDS GOOD TO US

PINK LINK

Along with their biggest ever headliner, Iron Maiden, the folks at the Soundwave festival have announced another bunch of acts playing the event at Melbourne Showgrounds on Friday 4 March. Bands added to the bill include Queens Of The Stone Age, Gang Of Four, Slayer, Primus, Social Distortion, Monster Magnet, The Bronx, Rob Zombie, The Gaslight Anthem, Avenged Sevenfold, Melvins, New Found Glory, Pennywise, Sum 41, Devildriver, Sevendust, Third Eye Blind, Less Than Jake and heaps more. Soundwave tickets go on sale 9am Thursday 26 August from soundwavefestival.com, Ticketek, Geelong’s National Hotel, Fist2Face, the Espy and Greville and Polyester Records. To be eligible for a members pre-sale (with tickets on sale tomorrow), sign up at the festival’s website.

Combining elements of classical chamber music, cabaret, swing, lounge and blues, Pink Martini where formed when bandleader/aspiring politician Thomas Lauderdale became dismayed with the lacklustre groups he always found playing at campaign launches. The Portland, Oregon band return to Australia in October on the back of most recent album, last year’s Splendour In The Grass. They play the Regent Theatre with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday 5 October. Tickets go on sale Friday from Ticketmaster.

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FOREWORD LINE

NEWS FROM THE FRONT

SO FRENCHY, SO CHIC

Known for their effervescent, engaging and sometime offbeat performances, French songbirds Emilie Simon and Melanie Pain return to Australia in September. Simon will be showcasing her third album, The Big Machine, which was written and recorded after she moved to New York. The breathtaking result is a collection of rich and sensual songs featuring members of Arcade Fire and Beirut. Pain is best known as the lead singer of the French band Nouvelle Vague. Her romantically-tinged solo album, My Name, draws on influences like Nick Cave, Harry Nilsson and Leonard Cohen. See the pair at the Prince Bandroom on Wednesday 29 September.

CARUS GETS INTIMATE

Currently on tour in the UK, Carus Thompson plays a rare intimate show at the Empress on Friday 3 September. The Freo-born singer/songwriter has toured with the likes of the John Butler Trio, Damien Rice, Pete Murray and Dave Matthews, and has built a strong following in Europe, where Thompson will head after this show for an extensive tour with Derrin Nauendorf.

GEELONG GETS DEADER

We’re very bloody excited by the news that LA psych rockers Dead Meadow are touring Australia in October as part of the Melbourne Festival (they play Beck’s Festival Bar with Black Bayer/Black Widow and Stigmata on Thursday 14 October) with original drummer Mark Laughlin. The band have just announced they will also be playing the National Hotel in Geelong on Tuesday 12 October.

MONKEY SHINES

As if we weren’t excited enough about seeing Gorillaz perform in Australia for the first time, the group have announced they’ll be bringing an amazing line-up of guests with them to complement their already starstudded cast. Guests announced so far include De La Soul, Hypnotic Brass, Bobby Womack, The Syrian National Orchestra Of Arabic Music, Bootie Brown, Little Dragon and Rosie Wilson, with more to be announced. Gorillaz play Rod Laver Arena on Saturday 11 December. Tickets are on sale now from Ticketek.

E ES

SMUDGE ADO ABOUT SOMETHING With a crackin’ 27-song best-of record, This Smudge Is True, in shops now (with new re-issues of Real McCoy, Wrong Sinatra and Manilow also available), Sydney’s Smudge are hitting the road in October for their first Aussie tour since 1999. The band have recently returned from their second European tour (16 years after their first!) and will head into the studio early next year to record new material. Smudge play the Northcote Social Club on Saturday 2 October.

EVERY MONDAY

MANIC WEDNESDAY With a new album, Postcards From A Young Man, set for a late-September release, Manic Street Preachers will return to Australia in November and play the Forum on Saturday 20 November. The new record features guest turns from Ian McCulloch, John Cale and Duff McKagan, with the first single titled It’s Not War (Just The End Of Love). It’s the band’s tenth studio album, and the first since last year’s Journal For Plague Lovers, written with and inspired by the abandoned lyrics of past member Richey James. Tickets go on sale Wednesday 18 August from Ticketmaster.

SURF’S UP

New Zealand’s Surf City return to Australia next month to support the release of their debut album Kudos (out on Popfrenzy on 3 September). Three years in the making, Kudos features 11 tracks filled with warm, fuzzed-up and frenetic guitar pop. The album was recorded and mixed by the band themselves over the last year-and-a-half in bedrooms, basements and various studios. Surf City play the Workers Club on Saturday 11 September.

LULUC KEEP THINGS QUIET

Australia’s own quiet sensation, Luluc, will make the journey home this August and September to support Angus & Julia Stone on their extensive national tour. Zoe Randell and Steve Hassett will return home the first time since moving to the US. The duo will be performing songs from their acclaimed debut Dear Hamlyn and songs from a forthcoming album due in 2011. Upon relocating from Melbourne to New York, Luluc quickly connected with an international audience, having their songs One Day Soon and I Found You featured on Grey’s Anatomy, while Lucinda Williams has described Randell as “the female Nick Drake”. With the Stones they play the Palais on Wednesday 8, Thursday 9 and Friday 10 September and Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 September at Meeniyan Town Hall. Born in Andalusia and now residing in Madrid, singer, guitarist and producer Diego Guerrero will return for his third Australian tour in two years this October. With a brand new band line-up, Guerrero is promising fans a tasteful twist on his trademark flamenco Latin sound. This new quintet will be incorporating rich vocal arrangements into their performance, and features the special collaboration of Chilean-born bassist Rodrigo Aravena and Uruguayan multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Leo Salvo. Returning to the stage will be Guerrero’s partner and outstanding percussionist Nasrine Rahmani as well as renowned Australian jazz pianist Ben Winkelman. Guerrero and co play the Kingston Arts Centre on Friday 15 October.

EVERY THURSDAY LATE

Rapper and actor Ice Cube will tour Australia in October. The ex-NWA star is one of the most important figures in hip hop history, his former band’s 1998 album Straight Outta Compton a landmark recording in the gangsta rap genre, while NWA came in at number 83 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists Of All Time list. Since leaving the group in 1989 due to royalty disputes, Cube has recorded eight solo studio albums which have sold more than ten million copies. He’s also forged a successful acting career, starring in quality flicks such as Three Kings and Boyz N The Hood and shit like XXX 2 and Anaconda. Cube performs at the Palace on Wednesday 27 October. Tickets are on sale now from Ticketek and redanttouring.com.

EVERY FRIDAY

EVERY SATURDAY LATE

EVERY SUNDAY FROM 4PM

POPROCKS

THE HOUSE DE FROST

THE SUNDAY SET

w/ Dr Phil Smith

w/ AndyBlack & Haggis

with 1928 (STROBE)

Classes at 6.30pm, 7.30pm and 8.30pm Social dancing 9.30pm Tickets $14 on door / $21 for 2 classes

and guests

No brainers and guilty pleasures!

w/ Andee Frost

FREE ENTRY - From 11.30pm

FREE ENTRY - From 9pm

FREE ENTRY - From 12 Midnight

THE BASTARD CHILDREN

WED 18 AUGUST

SAT 21 AUGUST

GABRIEL LYNCH

BIG SCARY

This weeks theme: ASIA FREE ENTRY - In the Carriage

SUN 22 AUGUST OZ SOUL SUNDAYS FEATURING

with JOHN FLANAGAN & CANOS

with THE STILLSONS

‘WINTER’ EP TOUR (USA) with GRIZZLY JIM LAWRIE

JESS HARLEN, HAILEY CRAMER, AROWE and MORE!

Tickets $10 on the door

Tickets $12 + BF / $15 on the door

Tickets $10 / $5 guestlist on door

TUES 24 AUGUST

WED 25 AUGUST

THURS 26 & SAT 28 AUGUST

SUN 29 AUGUST

Triple R & Milefire Present

MELBOURNE WRITER’S FESTIVAL

SCOTT MELLIS

RAV THOMAS & CHRIS O'NEILL

OH MERCY

DOG’S TALES

5pm til 3am on weeknights and 5am on the weekend with GOSSLING & STEELBIRDS

THE ICEMAN COMETH

Swing dancing classes

SAT 14 AUGUST

All presale tickets available through MOSHTIX: Phone: 1300 GET TIX (438 849) on-line: www.moshtix.com.au, or at all Moshtix outlets, including Polyester (Fitzroy & City)

Irish rockers The Script return to Australia in October in support of their upcoming album Science & Faith. The band’s 2008 self-titled debut achieved platinum status here in Australia, and last year the group were handpicked to open for U2 and Paul McCartney. The Script’s 2009 Australian tour completely sold out, with extra shows added to meet demand. Supported by Melbourne-born musician Michael Paynter, The Script play the Palace on Tuesday 5 October. Tickets go on sale Friday from Ticketek.

THE MAN FROM SPAIN

SWING PATROL

Thai dinner & supper

STICK TO THE SCRIPT

with LUCAS WILLIAMS + THE DEEP BLUE SEA & SUNDAY WAITS

with KIERAN RYAN (KID SAM) and GEOFFREY O'CONNOR (THU) & OWL EYES (SAT)

with DBC PIERRE, ELIF BATUMAN, KALINDA ASHTON, CARMEL BIRD, TIFFANY MURRAY and JOSEPHINE ROWE

Tickets $12 on the door

Tickets $10 on the door

Tickets $15 + BF / $18 on the door

Tickets $25 + BF

SUN 29 AUGUST - LATE

WED 01 SEPTEMBER

THUS 02 SEPTEMBER

SAT 04 SEPTEMBER

MELBOURNE WRITER’S FESTIVAL

with BONNIE ANDERSON

GOING DOWN SWINGING NO.30 LAUNCH PARTY

LINER NOTES: FLEETWOOD MAC’S RUMOURS

Tickets $17.20 + BF / $20 on the door

Tickets $25 + BF

SEXXXFACE OPENING NIGHT! FREE ENTRY! MORE INFO NEXT WEEK!

GARY PINTO

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FOREWORD LINE

NEWS FROM THE FRONT

PHAT SOUNDS

ED’S UP Ed Kowalczyk – lead singer and driving force of multi-platinum rock band Live – will bring his new band to Melbourne for a show at the Forum on Friday 5 November. Kowalczyk returns in celebration of his debut solo album Alive, home to lead single Grace. After performing sold-out solo acoustic shows around the country last year Kowalczyk will be accompanied by a full band for a show that will draw on his new solo material as well as a mix of reinterpreted favourites and chart-topping hits from the Live back catalogue. Tickets go on sale 11am Thursday 19 August from Ticketmaster.

RUNNING HOT

With tickets to the first Hot Water Music/Bouncing Souls show at the Corner Hotel on Saturday 4 December completely sold out, the bands return to the venue the following night for an encore performance. Tickets are on sale now from the Corner box office.

CIRCUS ACTS

With their Thursday 9 September performance at the Hi-Fi completely sold out, Dead Letter Circus have added another date to their upcoming national tour – the Brissie rockers play the same venue on Friday 10 September. Supports at both shows at Black Devil Yard Boss and Quiet Child.

This year Obese Records proudly announces a very special tenth anniversary edition of Block Party. This hometown show will be a celebration of more than 70 releases as well as the label’s many successes during its ten-year reign. In addition to the ARIA Awards and the platinum and gold albums, Obese Records has pushed Australian hip hop into the mainstream music conscience. Block Party 2010: Obese Records’ Tenth Anniversary takes over the Palace on Friday 8 October with live performances from Mantra, Dialectrix, M-Phazes, Illy, Spit Syndicate, Pegz, Bias B, Skryptcha plus many more, with a grafiti showcase and a special performance by the Wickid Force Breakers.

THE STARS OF STRYPER

After a quarter century of unprecedented success coupled with some heartbreaking tribulations, Stryper have found a way to keep their high-voltage sonic fire burning. Since the band’s label debut in 1984, the Christian metal group have sold more than eight million albums worldwide. With most recent album, Murder By Pride, released last year, Stryper will be heading to Australia as part of their 25th anniversary celebrations. The tour will feature the band’s greatest hits performed by all original members. Stryper play Billboard on Wednesday 25 August. Tickets are available now from justsayrock.com.au.

HERE COMES THE SUN

Los Angeles’ Sun Araw take psychedelic music to a new plane, transforming celestial energy into wild, re-rendered compositions of mysterious ritualistic psalms, wah-riffs and canned bongos. Fresh off the back of double LP On Patrol, Sun Araw bursts in to the southern hemisphere with sometime co-pilot Nick Malkin to play the Empress on Sunday 10 October.

WEDNESDAY

HEAVY SOUL Tickets to The Brand New Heavies’ show at Trak on Friday 20 August have sold out; the band will now also play the Toorak venue on Saturday 21 August. The tour will feature all four original members in their first ever trip to Australia. With a career spanning more then two decades, TBNH were instrumental in the development of the London-based acid jazz scene. The Heavies spearheaded the movement both in the UK and America throughout the 1990s, and notched up a string of top 20 hits with tracks such as Never Stop, Stay This Way, Dream On Dreamer and Sometimes.

11 TH AUGUS T 9 TIL 11

BOIS ET CHARBON GYPSY SWING

FRIDAY

BABY LOTION

13 TH AUGUS T 9 TIL LATE

PLAYING RECORDS

T TIL CLOSE SATURDAY 148.30 AUGUS JEMMA ROWLANDS TH

(THE ATONALS) SOLO DJ SET

HOWL NOW

15 AUGUS T SUNDAY 6 TIL 8 JOSH SEYMOUR

CITY SOUNDS

9 AUGUS T MONDAY 9 TIL 11 ADAM & FERGUS

THT

Be amongst the first to hear Cabin Fever, the new single from Howl, played live, when the Ballarat punks appear at Purple Sneakers this Friday at Miss Libertine. Young Heretics are also performing, along with Bad Horse, Ebony & Ivory, the Cairos DJs and Quick Fix DJs.

STYLE AND CLASS

Momentum continues to build for Adelaide’s City Riots ahead of the release of their debut album, recently recorded in Chicago with legendary producer Bjorn Thorsrud (Smashing Pumpkins, Dandy Warhols, Billy Corgan). With the record pegged for an early-2011 release, the band are gearing up for a co-headline tour with Perth indie crooners The Chemist. The two bands play the Northcote Social Club on Friday 17 September.

OPEN FIRE DINNER 7 NIGHTS LUNCH: SAT 12PM/SUN 1PM BOOKINGS ESSETIAL

DERBY DAY

The Victorian Roller Derby League Awareness Fundraiser is being held to raise awareness of the VRDL and of the world’s fastest growing women’s sport – roller derby. The VRDL has been exploding in size and popularity and the league is looking for a new – and bigger – home. The VRDL hopes to establish a league-run, dedicated roller derby venue. They are also looking for sponsors to help them as they expand and develop. Nine music acts have donated their time and talent to the VRDL Awareness Fundraiser, including Lucy’s Crown, Nick Larkins & The Bones and DJ Rauri. There will also be an opportunity to meet some derby girls and get a bite to eat at the sausage sizzle and bake sale. The event will take place at the Bendigo Hotel in Collingwood on Saturday 21 August. Tickets are $10. Doors open at 4pm. For more information visit vrdl.org.

MEREDITH GETS DIRTY Dirty Three are the first band announced for this year’s Meredith Music Festival, held at the Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre from Friday 10 until Sunday 12 December. The instrumental trio, who played epic sets at Meredith in 1994, ‘97 and 2004, are the perfect choice as the festival celebrates its 20-year anniversary in 2010. To help get the excitement building, Aunty Meredith has assembled an excellent online shrine to the festival, including a 650-photo pictorial history of the event, bite-sized episodes of Rob McCafferty’s award-winning doco, A Weekend In The Country, a vast photo-library of Meredith-goers from over the years, a seven-years-in-themaking compendium of the funniest/rawest/strangest Tell Us Something We Don’t Knows (the last question on the Meredith punter questionnaire each year) and heaps more. The website is also where you need to head to enter the ticket ballot – you can find everything at mmf.com.au. Pick up Inpress next week for the next artist announcement (a further 25 names will be revealed).

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9415 9904 MON - FRI 3PM TIL L ATE S AT MIDDAY TIL 1AM SUN 1 TIL 11

THE MARQUIS OF LORNE HO TEL CNR GEORGE + KERR S TREET S FITZROY

THE

FRONTLINE

IN THE STUDIO WITH BRYGET CHRISFIELD

BANG ON THE DOOR Recent visitors to our shores, Two Door Cinema Club, revealed to Triple J that some of the recording sessions for their debut longplayer Tourist History were interrupted by noise complaints from some high profile neighbours. “Duran Duran with Mark Ronson were downstairs,” the band said of the sessions in London’s Eastcote Studios. “They told us to be quiet a couple of times ‘cause we were playing lots of loud guitars and basses. They just complained really. They were trying to make their synth pop and we were playing loud guitars and ruining it all.” The Irish trio blew crowds away during their maiden voyage down under with energetic, proficient performances at Splendour In The Grass and related sideshows. Frontman Alex Trimble celebrated his 21st birthday while in Australia. Ronson has been working on Duran Duran’s 13th album for the past year and believes that learning about analogue synths from Nick Rhodes influenced the overall sound of the follow-up to his 2007 Version set, which is titled Record Collection. The album’s title track features Rhodes on keyboards with Simon Le Bon supplying chorus vocals. The first taste from Record Collection – Bang, Bang, Bang (featuring Q-Tip and MNDR) – promises great things of this forthcoming 14-song album. The producer extraordinaire told nme.com: “The reason there’s not much brass on this record – there isn’t any brass actually – is because I didn’t really know anything about what I was gonna do on this album, except that I knew that there would be no horns and no covers.” Although there are to be no covers on Record Collection, Bang, Bang, Bang pays homage to the popular French Canadian children’s song Alouette. The music video for Bang, Bang, Bang kicks off with a young girl singing the opening lines to the children’s song, which emphasises the use of “Je te plumerai la tête” (translation: “I shall pluck your head”) as the chorus hook in Ronson’s track. Songwriters invited into Brooklyn’s Dunham Studios while Record Collection was still in pre-production included Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters, Andrew Wyatt (Miike Snow), Anthony Rossomando (Dirty Pretty Things) and Jonathan Pierce (The Drums). “I guess [the trademark use of brass] became a bit of a running joke,” Ronson said. “It was like, ‘Ah, here comes Ronson and his merry band of trumpeters or tromboners or pick an instrument’.” The producer went on to explain that his perceived “healthy backlash” to Version “challenged [him] to do something new” moving forward. Record Collection features collaborations with Dave McCabe (The Zutons), Nick Hodgson (Kaiser Chiefs), Kyle Falconer (The View), Spank Rock, Boy George plus more. Ronson singles out the Boy George cut, Somebody To Love Me, as “one of the deeper things [he’s] ever done”. He contributes vocals to several tracks on this new album and Lose It (In The End) pits Ronson’s vocals up against rhymes from Ghostface Killah. “My vocals sound so small next to Ghostface – literally dwarfed when he comes in,” Ronson states in the album presser. “But I wanted that song to sound like The RZA sampling a Turtles record and putting a breakbeat on it.” Ronson told nme.com that the line-up of touring musicians he has assembled for his upcoming UK tour creates a sound that he hopes falls “somewhere between James Brown and Kraftwerk”. The band includes five synth players, a drummer and a bass player plus the following vocalists who have been locked in for the initial run of dates: Rose Elinor Dougall (formerly of The Pipettes), MNDR, Alex Greenwald (Phantom Planet), Spank Rock and Falconer. Record Collection by Mark Ronson & The Business Intl is scheduled to drop on 27 September.

ACROSS THE POND The current trend for musicians to showcase their skills in multiple bands often leads to the delaying of album releases. Psychedelic Perth outfit Pond – who share two of their three core members, Jay Watson and Nick Allbrook, with Tame Impala – originally played a launch show for their Frond album at the Worker’s Club back in May. Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker sat behind the drum kit for this gig and when his band headed Stateside to promote Innerspeaker shortly afterwards, Frond’s release was put on hold. You can now pre-order Frond – out through the new local label Hole In The Sky (set up by Canyons) – via jbhifionline.com.au with the despatch date estimated as 6 September. Spider Vomit’s debut album is now complete, but it is unclear when/if this release will see the light of day. Vocalist Craig Dermody, also of Scott & Charlene’s Wedding, is heading overseas to New York and told Inpress of his intended duration abroad, “I could be three weeks or three years.” Dermody’s overseas venture doesn’t mean the end of Spider Vomit, however. “I’ve got that on hold – nobody’s allowed to leave Spider Vomit,” he stressed. Spider Vomit’s last release was the Widows Walk EP (2007).

INDUSTRY NEWS BY SCOTT FITZSIMONS Steele leads exodus to new empire. Pic by Kane Hibberd.

SPLENDOUR TUG OF WAR With an almost double capacity, the 2010 Splendour in The Grass event drew between 32,000 and 35,000 fans to the Woodfordia grounds two weeks ago, prompting Allan Sutherland – mayor of the Woodford region – to try and entice the festival to stay. But, as reported last week, festival organisers Jessica Bucrou and Paul Pittico are hoping to take the event back to Byron Bay and the 267-hectare site they’ve purchased, despite community and environmental groups claiming that the event has become too big for the area. Businesses want the festival back though. During the winter downturn in tourism, they lost a much-needed injection they can usually rely on. Speaking to The Front Line last week, Mat Morris, general manager of North Shore Byron Parklands, revealed that they were about to submit a proposal for the event to return to the purchase Yelgun site, and that a decision will have to be made before year’s end.

NINE GREENLIGHT ROCK FEST MOVIE Channel 9 has announced they are filming a new telemovie set around a music festival in Sydney. The film, Panic At Rock Island, will feature performances by You Am I and Spiderbait. To be helmed by Underbelly director Tony Tilse, the film will star the usual suspects of quickly-made Aus TV: Grant Bowler, Vince Colosimo, Damian Walshe-Holwing, etc. It will screen later this year.

DESCENDENTS LEAD MYSTERY FESTIVAL The much-rumoured punk and metal festival this December seems to be imminent, with legendary pop punk outfit Descendents posting on their website last week that they’re touring Australia for the first time. With dates listed for Friday 17 December in Melbourne, Saturday 18 in Sydney and Sunday 19 in Brisbane, these have not been confirmed. The post went on to read, “In addition to the Descendents, NOFX, Dropkick Murphys, Killswitch Engage, Atreyu, Frenzal Rhomb, Parkway Drive, Me First & The Gimme Gimmes and about ten other internationals (all punk, metal or hardcore) are confirmed.”

BLISS N ESO TAKE OVER After weeks of domination at the top of the ARIA album charts with Recovery, Eminem has been toppled by the release of Sydney hip hop crew Bliss N Eso’s Running On Air, which debuted at number one this week. Eminem holds second position and a strong showing from triple j darling Washington sees her debut album I Believe You Darling slot in at three, meaning that Universal Music hold all of the podium spots. Arcade Fire debuted in sixth while the US number one, Avenged Sevenfold sneak into the top ten in ninth. Justin Bieber has been quiet on the publicity front recently, and slips to 13th because of it.

BATTLES LOSE MEMBER In another blow to hopes for a new Battles album soon, a post on the Warp Records wesbite has announced that Tyondai Braxton has left the band. “Due to Battles’ ambitions of finishing their second studio album followed by commitments to a full touring schedule in 2011, and Tyondai’s own commitments as a solo artist and his desire not to tour, both Battles and Tyondai have decided to move on without each other,” the post reads. Speaking to Street Press Australia before their last visit early 2009, the band were unsure – or just extremely tightlipped – of their next direction or time frame. However a mellower The Line track did appear on some versions on the Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack.

SOUNDWAVE LINE-UP LEAKED Putting a swift halt to the momentum of their innovative ‘one announcement a day’ campaign, the line-up for next year’s Soundwave festival was leaked just before midnight Wednesday last week. A camera phone photo of a line-up poster was circulated around Twitter and Facebook, its legitimacy confirmed the next day with the official announcement.

LIQUID BRANDING Liquid Online Media will launch their new sound branding website this week, liquidonlinemedia.com, in another effort to match artists and brands, “a bit like an online dating site”. Speaking to The Front Line, Shayne Locke says that the underlying theme question to businesses is, “Do you know what your product sounds like?” Open to all bands independent and signed, bands can sign up through the website and Liquid aim to design marketing packages for businesses who source bands through their website.

DEADLINE FOR APRA LIVE RETURNS In November last year, the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) distributed $4 million to the approximately 18,000 songwriters who are registered with them, money not only from the broadcasting of their compositions but also for any and all live performances of registered compositions. If you’re an artist or in a band and are performing your own original material, that means that even if you haven’t recorded or released anything, you can gain valuable income through APRA if you’ve registered your compositions with them, and membership is free.. The deadline for members to submit their Live Performance Returns (LPRs) for performances of your work.

HARBOUR’S TOP ACTS MOVE TO SPIN-OFF AGENCY Senior Harbour Agency agent Brett Murrihy and Illusive Sounds’ Matt Gudinksi have announced a new agency, repositing some of Australia’s top acts and decimating the Harbour Agency roster. Taking Murrihy’s acts from Harbour and Gudinski’s from Illusive Sounds allows the new venture, Artist Voice, to start with a roster that boasts The Temper Trap, Empire Of The Sun, Paul Kelly, Lisa Mitchell, Bliss N Eso, Operator Please, Evermore, Faker and more. The launch hurts Harbour most and their largest act remaining, arguably, is Short Stack. “I’ve essentially, for all intents and purposes, left Harbour now,” Murrihy told The Front Line. Artist Voice will, however, remain a part of Michael Gudinski’s Mushroom Group – which owns Harbour – so Gudinski hasn’t lost his top agent. “Michael’s been very good to me, and the guys still hold a hell of a lot of weight both here and overseas, and I spoke to him of my willingness to pursue a different sort of agency, he was incredibly supportive and Matt in particular very excited about the possibilities of it,” said Murrihy. “We’ve been together for ten years and got along very well and particularly Matt sees the agency landscape very much evolving, and so do I, we’re all on the same page, we thought that the synergy was right.” Murrihy insists the split is “amicable” and hopes it will “galvanise” both businesses. “There’s a young guy called Jason Nonnis [at Harbour] who I think shows a lot of promise, he’s a good young agent. But they’ve got some fine people, so I’m sure they won’t take a backwards step.” Artist Voice itself was born out of the desire to emulate international agencies and they’re hoping to offer a “full service objective” incorporating international, particularly Asian, elements. “I’d prefer not to give too much away at this stage, but it’s definitely in aspects sync, in branding, in corporate structure. It won’t be rocket science but it will be the sort of thing the American agencies have done for a long time.” Essentially, “Finding new opportunities for artists that probably don’t exist in this territory.”

INDIGENOUS AWARDS

FRESHLY INKED

The finalists for the 2010 Indigenous Music Awards have been announced, with Jessica Mauboy, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu and Warren H Williams the three for Act Of The Year. Ali Mills, Garrangali, Brian Murphy & The Band Nomadics and Warren H Williams all got nods form Album Of The Year for their respective efforts. Winners will be announced Saturday 28 August.

The winners of Australia’s Got Talent 2010, Justice Crew have signed with Sony Music, the debut single from the Western Suburbs dance troupe And Then We Dance due Friday 27 August and too be followed by a full-length DVD release. We All Want To, a new project from Screamfeeder vocalist Tim Steward have signed on with Brisbane inde label Plus One, their management Footstop Music managing the project. One man experimental electro band Axxonn has signed with Useless Art Records, with an album Let’s Get It Straight due for release in mid-October.

HELPMANN NOMS The nominations for the self-nominated Helpmann Awards – acknowledging Australia’s live performing arts sectors – have been announced. In the Best International Contemporary Concert category Micahel Coppel Presents have Beyonce and Pink tours in the running, with Dainty Consolidated Entertainment’s George Michael tour and Garry Van Egmond & Chugg Entertainment receive recognition for AC/DC’s Black Ice tour. In the category of the Best Contemporary Music Festival, Domestic Music Concepts have Homebake, Melbourne International Jazz Festival for their eponymous event, Vivian Lees And Ken West Big Day Out and the WOMADelaide Foundation’s event.

CHAPEL SERIES TO RETURN Thanks to a partnership with Russian Standard Vodka, the Live At The Chapel series of live events recorded for TV will be returning this year with Paddington’s Uniting Church in Sydney. The new partnership will utilise Facebook to help promote its events.

MOVES AND SHAKES Splitting the partnership with Nicole Jones, co-director Frances Mariani has left Melbourne marketing and publicity agency Teclo, her last day set for Friday 27 August. The business will continue under the guidance of Jones, while Mariani is contactable at mariani.frances@ gmail.com. Elsewhere, Katie Head has left FUSE Music, and as is so often in the current climate will be replaced by no one. Dave Curran, davec@fusemusic.com.au, will be taking on her roles for the time being.

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VALE BOBBY HEBB US singer/songwriter Bobby Hebb died of lung cancer Tuesday 3 August at age 72 – his 1966 hit Sunny went on to be a much-covered song, the best known versions being by Dusty Springfield and Boney M. Hebb’s later material remains popular amongst northern soul fans and he won a Grammy in 1971 as composer of Lou Rawl’s A Natural Man.

WYLDE DOES COMEDY Zakk Wylde told Street Press Australia’s Brendan Crabb in a recent interview that the Black Label Society guitarist is working on a feature film. “I’m actually writing a movie right now. It’s a comedy and [I’m] getting my buddies to actually be in the movie, so it’s going to be hysterical. It’s like a Mel Brooks/Monty Python thing in steroids. I’ve got all my rock star buddies who have no acting skills whatsoever, and then my athlete friends making cameos.”

YOU WORKING? Melbourne Festival are looking for a young publicist to join their festival team immediately and until the end of October. Organisers are looking for someone with three years experience for a role which will report to the Publicity Manager in working on team planning and the radio campaign for Victoria’s major international arts event.

THE

FRONTLINE

GET LOST IN THE MOVEMENT

ONE MOVEMENT FOR MUSIC IS BACK FOR ITS SECOND YEAR WITH PLENTY TO KEEP MUSIC FANS, ARTISTS AND INDUSTRY FOLKS EXCITED. MATTHEW HOGAN SPEAKS TO ONE OF THE ORGANISERS, DAVID CHITTY, AND KIM xx BENZIE FROM DEAD LETTER CIRCUS, WHO ARE RETURNING TO TAKE PART AGAIN THIS YEAR. really great festival and there was a smorgasbord of acts from across the world and a lot of stuff that you hadn’t heard of as well and some of the more interesting acts – some amazing Japanese chick just blew me away. We saw Tigarah in LA at the Viper Room and we saw them in Perth hitting the big stage – it was awesome.” DLC also found the industry contacts beneficial. “When we were in LA, you meet a large amount of people and it’s so hard to get them to reply to an email,” Benzie says. “Some of these showcases you do, you’re basically in a room with five people on their lunch break trying to create a vibe and then at One Movement, you’re in front of a thousand people.”

fter a successful debut last year, the One Movement For Music festival and conference returns to Perth in October and the organisers are getting ever closer to making it a truly unique music experience. Sunset Events head honcho David Chitty says the first event was hard to get off the ground. “It was pretty full on putting an event like this on the first year because it’s a bit different to anything that’s happened in WA before,” he reflects. “During the event we found that it connected really well between the artists and the industry and the fans. Given the outcomes the bands got career wise, for us that was the benchmark as to whether this was successful or not.” One of the many bands that benefited from the event was Brisbane alternative rockers Dead Letter Circus, who liked it so much they’re coming back for a second serving this year. Frontman Kim Benzie says they got on board last year after playing a Musexpo conference in LA. “It was a

With tickets only just going on sale for the Esplanade multi-stage festival component of One Movement, Chitty says the public reaction to the event has been very positive. “We just started our pre-sale today and sales from a pre-sale perspective are significantly stronger than last year,” he says. “A lot of people didn’t really understand what it was last year – it was a conference, it was a music festival, there were showcases, there was a fringe. A lot of people didn’t really know until the artists and the industry and the fans attended, then they understood what it was. What we’re finding online is a lot of people are talking online and saying it was really great. All the online talk, from a punter perspective, is really positive.” Chitty is confident that further announcements will invoke more buzz for One Movement part two. “There’s some new announcements forthcoming in terms of an extra night that we’ll be offering down at the Esplanade, so that it will grow from a two- to a three-day event,” he reveals. “The line-up for that extra night, which will be coming in the next few weeks, is really strong. And the showcases in the city, like in the laneways and venues of Perth, have grown from half a dozen to around 30.”

This year regular punters will also be able to experience the showcase gigs directly after the Esplanade festival. “The showcases last year were industry only and this year, a bit I suppose like South By Southwest or The Great Escape, the plan was in year two to allow the fans to go out after the festival into these unique spaces in Perth and watch these bands from all over the world, a lot of whom aren’t even playing the festival. Some are just exclusive to the showcases,” he says. The Musexpo music business conference component of One Movement is also experiencing higher delegates registering than last year with dozens of the top industry folk from all over the world making their way to Perth. “We finished last year with around 500 delegates including all the sponsors and media and so forth,” Chitty says. “Compared to this time last year, the sales are up about 250% and that’s pretty consistent. At the moment it’s about two and a half times higher [compared] to what it was this time last year and there’s more companies that are getting involved in the event in terms of doing a showcase or presenting a panel – they’re using the event to communicate what they do to the industry.” As One Movement will no doubt grow into a unique and essential experience for music lovers around the country, Chitty hopes his festival can grow with Perth. “The plan is to continue to grow the showcase and club side of it to engage the city more, so that fans can head up into the city and see lots of different acts from all over the world in lots of obscure venues all over the place and grow it more and more,” he enthuses.

WHAT: One Movement For Music WHEN & WHERE: Wednesday 6 to Sunday 10 October, Perth

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GUITAR HERO

A self-described eternal teenager, SLASH flirted with every conceivable definition of excess and ultimately survived a drug overdose. BRYGET CHRISFIELD discovers the 45-year-old guitarist, who is now clean, finds a lot to laugh about and knows how to effortlessly drop a four-syllable word into a sentence. Pics by Cybele Malinowski.

lash’s self-titled autobiography details a situation that occurred when Guns N’ Roses were supporting The Cult in Canada: the guitarist woke up on a couch in the lobby of the headliners’ hotel at around 5am having wet himself in his sleep. Slash had no room key and no idea what the name of the hotel was where Gunners were being put up. He may have lost bladder control at various stages of his career, but that is not why Saul Hudson came to be known as Slash. The nickname was given to him while he was in high school by his friend Matt Cassel’s dad, the actor Seymour Cassel, because Slash was constantly on the move.

The product of an English painter/graphic designer father who later went on to design record covers and an African American fashion designer mother – who created ensembles for artists such as Joni Mitchell, David Bowie and Ringo Starr – Slash was surrounded by creative types from a very early age. Did this early celebrity exposure help him know how to behave once he’d made a name for himself? “I think that whatever it was that I was picking up was very subconscious,” he considers. “Musicians tend to be cantankerous sometimes, they can be very arrogant. Artists in general can be very otherwordly, not completely present, and they can throw some tantrums and they can feel – ah, there’s a word that I’m looking for, hold on, what’s that word for when you just… entitled! They can feel very entitled. And then also they can be really, really charming and really, really gracious and really interesting and all this other stuff. I saw all that going on when I was a kid and I think a lot of the people that I met, or some of the people that I met, rubbed me the wrong way from the way that I’m wired. I’m pretty reserved. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but in some ways I’ve got a very British reserve [laughs] and I think I was raised to be polite and whatever… I think subconsciously I was like, ‘I don’t wanna be that guy, there’s no reason to act like that,’ and I guess that affected me later on in life and I just chose naturally not to do certain things that I thought were outta hand. Granted, I’ve done a lot of crazy shit.” Slash collapses into a fit of hysterics before stressing that said “crazy shit” was “never at the expense of other people if [he] could help it”. “There’s a difference,” he elucidates. “You can totally be fuckin’ abusive or you can be disrespectful or inconsiderate or whatever and I think that’s not cool. Or you can be as crazy as you want and never really sort of affect everybody around you in a negative way.” Slash’s partying/self-medicating fixation meant the guitarist was assigned one of Guns N’ Roses’ security guards, Ronnie, to keep him in check. “I only had one personal security guard during the Guns N’ Roses days, so I put him through the ringer,” Slash admits with a chuckle. “I used to go in a club and then fuckin’ jump in a car with someone and wave as the car took off. And the look on his face, you know? He used to have to try and lock me in my room a lot and sit outside my door so I couldn’t get out, but sometimes I would get out and I would take off down the hallway. And he’d come running after me and I’d hide behind another wall or something and he’d run by and he’d be looking for me all night. I’d be partying in some other hotel room and he’d be doing this really extensive search trying to find me. We had a blast.” Did Slash enlist any accomplices to distract Ronnie from his charge? “No, I’m a loner,” he counters. “It was nobody else’s business what I put my security guards through [laughs].” Slash’s self-titled autobiography describes an incident when the guitarist’s devoted security guard climbed out of a hotel window and across a ledge to steal a television from the adjoining room, replacing it with a TV Slash had destroyed earlier by throwing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s into it.

The very first tour is the one where you’re the stupidest, so I remember at the end of the tour finding out how costly all the different hotel damages were…”

“

The cover of Slash’s book features a portrait of the guitarist, cascading curls beneath the trademark top hat that conceals his eyes. A lit cigarette is smouldering between his lips. “I have to say, I don’t miss the cigarettes,” he shares. The gaspers are a thing of the past. “I like to keep my energy level up and I don’t know if I could have done it so much with a cigarette in my mouth the whole time. It’s been a year now so I seem to be holding up pretty well but I am still addicted to the fucking nicotine so I’ve got all these cigarette substitutes. They have these little things called snoos, which are these tiny little pouches that you put in your gum [inside your mouth], and those are fucking unbelievable! I was thinking about it this morning and I was going, ‘You know, it’s not necessarily the cigarettes – it’s the nicotine’. And the idea of actually having a cigarette doesn’t sound that great right this second because of all the smoke. But I think the reason for cigarettes is obviously the whole nicotine delivery thing and it’s never really dawned on me [before]. So as long as I’m getting my nicotine, I’m fine.”

Stylist: Adam Nash at Studio Arts Make Up: Jessica Crema at Studio Arts Hair: Jamie Richardson at Studio Arts academyformen.com/studioarts/

In 2001, after 15 years of drug and alcohol-fuelled carnage, Slash received a surgically implanted defibrillator to regulate his heartbeat. “When I had it installed, you know it sounds like a fucking car part,” he laughs. “When I had it installed, I declined to tell the doctor that when I go on stage my heart rate increases twofold. And so then I had it installed and I went to New York and did – probably, I think, it was the last two shows Michael [Jackson] ever did – and during the show [the defibrillator] went off like five times, and it was a two-day show, hahaha, so both days it went off like five times! So when I got back to LA I had to have it adjusted. But, I mean, the moment that [the defibrillator was kicking in] I had no idea what that was – I thought it was a bad ground and it was a major electrical shock. It was really sort of trippy. It’s really like, you know when you see people on TV or get a defibrillator from the external way,

right? With the paddles, and the body shakes? That’s what it’s like from the inside as well. But I was actually watching TV, literally a year later, and that particular concert came on. And I was watching it thinking, ‘Michael Jackson – is this that concert that we played at?’. It was in New York the day before September 11, so it was September 10, and we were all there for the malaise the next day and it was insanity. And anyway, so a year later I’m watching TV and all of a sudden this concert comes on and it was it. And I saw during the song – I think it was during Beat It that this happened – and I looked and you can’t tell that it’s happening! I really managed to hold up pretty good.” So Slash didn’t miss a single note? “No, uh-uh,” he reassures, “you couldn’t even see. I think it was one of those ‘ignorance is bliss’ experiences when you don’t know exactly what’s going on.” Slash laughs heartily as if he’s just told a hilarious joke.

damages were – separate hotel bills and other assorted bills that we’d picked up for bar situations. So right in the first year, haha, all the fuckin’ crazy Keith Moon and Keith Richard stories were sort of like, ‘Ah, that’s how much that cost, yeah?’ I mean, I never went in it for the money anyway so, all that money, like if they said, ‘Well, that cost ya this and that and the other’ – I didn’t know I was making any money in the first tours anyway. It wasn’t what it was about. As far as I was concerned, in those days doing a tour was fucking a blessing. It gave me a place to live, a clean place to sleep every night and on occasion free meals, and, fuck! What better way to live than that? So I wasn’t really worried about how much cash I had in my pocket but when I found out how much it cost in general for one night in a hotel that I demolished, the number itself was staggering. It was a lot of money – a lot of money I didn’t have.”

Apart from shredding like a demon, Slash is also famous for trashing hotel rooms at the height of Guns N’ Roses’ fame. On the hefty damage bills that were deducted from his earnings, Slash offers: “The very first tour is the one where you’re the stupidest, so I remember at the end of the tour finding out how costly all the different hotel

The guitarist’s first ever gig still sticks out in his memory as one where he immediately locked into a groove with the other players. “My dad had a friend who had a band, obviously an older band, and I had been playing guitar for inside of a year, I guess. But [I was] very, very avid – really absorbed in the whole thing – and my dad’s a cool guy.

WORST GIG EVER

SLASH tells BRYGET CHRISFIELD about his worst ever gig with Guns N’ Roses and the “disappointment mail” that confirmed it was shit.

“R

ight before Guns N’ Roses came to Japan and Australia for the first time in 1989, we finished the Aerosmith tour and we were riding high on that. The band had suddenly become, at least in the US, amazingly successful and well known – we’d finally arrived, so to speak. And then we had this one gig playing a festival in Texas with INXS and Iggy Pop and The Replacements and Ziggy Marley – I remember that bill very well ‘cause I remember looking at it going, ‘What the fuck?’ We were on right before INXS and we were at Dallas Cowboy Stadium and we went out there very casual thinking, ‘Oh, shit, we’ve been touring for the last two-and-a-half years, we’ve got this licked’. It was drizzling rain and it was very grey and we went out there and we just sucked. We could not pull it together. We were so bad that I have nightmares about it. And we actually cut the show short: we didn’t even finish the show and it was just pathetic. Anyway, so then we took off. We finally got to Japan and Australia and we were pretty tired [when we] got back from that. I got an apartment in LA and I remember getting this gift in the mail from the office – this envelope – and I opened it up and it was from a fan that had gone to that Texas stadium [show]. Inside there was a note that said, ‘I’ll never see you guys again,’ and then there was a broken Guns N’ Roses Appetite For Destruction cassette. I wish I still had it, hahaha… I don’t know what I did with it. I don’t throw anything away so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in some box somewhere. Guns n Roses pic by Tony Mott

“It wasn’t really what you call ‘hate mail’, it was more ‘disappointment mail’, ‘cause, I mean, we got to that point of being the biggest band that everybody was talking about – we really were the ‘new thing’ at that moment, and somebody was probably really eager to see what he’d been missing out on because he’d never gone to any other shows during the tour. And then this band rolls out that can barely fuckin’ stand up straight! All things considered, we were just at the tail end of proving ourselves for two-and-a-half years so we hadn’t really gotten that big-headed mentality at all, you know? I think we were just tired and I remember the sound was really bad and we just couldn’t acclimate to the fuckin’ venue itself. I remember everybody was really, really exhausted. “I’m telling you, it’s the only recurring, really bad dream that I have as far as nightmares are concerned – going onstage and having the whole band just not being able to connect – and I know that it stems from that gig. I think that I have a serious paranoia about actually going onstage and having complete disarray amongst all the guys in the band to the point that we cannot fucking come together. It’s a sense of professionalism, I guess.”

He put me in the situation where, hahaha, his friends were playing in a band in a really famous bar in LA called Al’s Bar and they had a gig. And somehow my dad talked them into letting me play and then put me on the spot by saying, ‘You’ve got a gig’. That was my first real live professional [gig] – if you call free beer professional. But I was only 15, right? I managed to hold it pretty well during some 12-bar blues standards.” The only rehearsing Slash did with his dad’s friends to prepare for this show was during soundcheck. “I dunno if it stems from that gig or maybe it’s just an inherent personality crisis, but that’s how I like to do it,” the guitarist illuminates. “I sort of like to just throw it together and go by the seat of my pants. That’s how that MTV gig happened. That was our second show. You just go for it, you know, and pull it together in the moment.” Slash graced us with his presence in April this year to launch a new cable channel – MTV Classic – with a performance at the Palace in Melbourne. When asked what he thought of this gig, the guitarist confesses, “I haven’t seen it. I avoid anything that I’m in or on. The only time I ever watch myself on anything is if I have to approve a video or something like that. As an artist, you get very critical of anything that you do and when you hear your own song on the radio – as cool as it is – you stop and you really focus on it, it’s unavoidable. And watching yourself perform or any of that kind of stuff, or even reading a review or an article about yourself in a magazine or whatever, you get very overly analytical about it and you focus on it and it’s like ‘what’s done is done’. I can’t be bothered. So I’d rather just, you know, good or bad, I’d rather just not know about it.” Our very own Angry Anderson was among the guests Slash invited onstage that night. “That was great,” he reflects. “It was an honour. I love Angry. He’s such a great guy.” From the moment Slash clapped ears on Rose Tattoo, he was smitten – “that was back in like 1983 or ’84 or something like that.” Slash pauses to deliberate on who introduced him to the sounds of these legendary Australian rockers. “I forget,” he concludes. “It was either Izzy [Stradlin] or Axl [Rose] – one of those guys turned me onto Rose Tattoo and I was just fucking over the top with that band, because that is one of the most badass rock’n’roll bands of all time and I’ve just loved them ever since. It seems like there’s a tradition in Australia [of] putting out amazing fuckin’ hard rock bands that are from the same side of the fence, you know? AC/DC’s one, you’ve got Rose Tattoo, now you’ve got Airborne – they’re the only bands like that. They don’t come from anywhere else in the fucking planet, you know what I mean?” The line-up Slash is bringing to our shores includes singer Myles Kennedy, the Alter Bridge vocalist who lent his talents to two songs on Slash, Bobby Schneck (Slash’s Blues Ball/Aerosmith) on rhythm guitar and Brent Fitz (Alice Cooper) on drums. The guitarist recently announced via Twitter that Tony Montana will be filling in for Sin City Sinners’ Todd ‘Dammit’ Kerns (who is recovering from eye surgery) on bass for the upcoming Asia/Australia leg of the tour. “I’m having a really fucking great time,” Slash extols. “The guys are hassle-free. It’s like everybody just goes up and does a really good job and there’s no major concerns I’ve gotta deal with – unnecessary bullshit – which is great… I haven’t listened to the [Slash] record since we finished it but I’ve heard a couple of songs here and there and I’m really proud of it. I’m really honoured to have worked with the people I’ve worked with and to have those collaborations was a really great experience for me. So this has been a good year.”

WHO: Slash WHAT: Slash (Sony) WHEN & WHERE: Tonight (Wednesday), Festival Hall, Friday 4 March, Soundwave.

LESSER-KNOWN SLASH FACTS

– Before Slash picked up a guitar, he was a junior BMX champion. – Slash learned to play on a one-string guitar that was given to him by his grandmother when he was 15 years old. – When Gunners formed, Slash was working at a newsstand on Fairfax and Melrose in LA, which he had to open at 5am. – Slash designed the famous Guns N’ Roses logo with the two pistols bound together by a pair of red roses. – Slash wrote the chorus lyrics for Paradise City but still prefers his initial suggestion of, “Where the girls are fat and they’ve got big titties.” – During the ultimate bad boy tour when Gunners supported Mötley Crüe in 1987, Slash arrived at a radio station for a face-to-face interview wearing just a towel because the bag containing his clothes was stolen from next to the tour bus outside the hotel. The radio station provided him with a t-shirt. – Slash’s f-bomb-riddled acceptance speech at the 1990 American Music Awards, when Appetite For Destruction took out Best Rock Album, led to the introduction of a sevensecond delay at future award ceremonies. – Slash supplied the groove-drenched riff for Lenny Kravitz’s smash hit Always On The Run. – Slash married his second wife, Perla Ferrar, in 2000 and the couple have two sons: London aged seven (almost eight) and Cash aged six. – The video for By The Sword (featuring our very own Andrew Stockdale) was tailor made for 3D. – There’s an iPhone app called Slash Arcade Rocker, a game featuring music from Slash’s new album together with direct access to his official website.

RAVING MAD MEN From house party fraternisers to hipster fascination to stand-alone dance visionaries. ANTHONY CAREW racks the rise and rise of MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS with guitarist ANDREW SZEKERES. Their debut LP, 2007’s Dystopia, was met with a rapturous reception from critics, who latched onto similar reference points – Tangerine Dream, John Carpenter – and the chance to wax rhapsodic about the loneliness and isolation of imagined near-future landscapes. “We’re really into soundtrack music and a lot of the time we compose things as long, neverending jams that never really have vocals in mind,” Szekeres offers, on the influence of, well, dystopian imagery. “So, often we keep those themes – those science-fiction images – in mind when we’re writing.” Midnight Juggernauts’ cult-ish audience swelled during a 2008 tour with French electro titans Justice, during which the band licensed Dystopia – released here on their own Siberia imprint – to EMI for international release. “Touring with Justice was really huge for us,” recounts Szekeres. “It felt great to find someone – from so far away, coming from a completely different background to us – that had such similar tastes in music, ideas about music, and approaches to production. And, of course, it helped us that they were a band that people were really paying attention to at the time.”

he last time I saw Midnight Juggernauts play was in 2004. They were knocking out their second-ever “show”, just the two of them, in a kitchen at a house party in North Melbourne, in front of like 20 people. Six years on, and, well, how things’ve changed. Now, crowds of thousands await their every performance; be it in their hometown, or on far-flung foreign shores. This year, the now-trio have tripped through Eastern Europe and Turkey, played in Chile and Brazil, and sold out the legendary Bataclan in Paris. They’ve, in short, cemented an international reputation half a decade in the making, capped off by their grandiose new LP, The Crystal Axis.

Vincent Heimann back in 2004. “Back when we were just a two-piece, me and Vincent, and we first started getting real gigs, shows that weren’t just at house parties and warehouses, it inspired us to sit down and really consider the approach we were going to take.

So, then, for your humble reporter, the questions beg: how did they get from then to now? How did Midnight Juggernauts separate themselves from the ranks of hipsters kicking around this city’s music scene? How have they became one of this country’s biggest musical exports minus major-label bankrolling and commercial-radio payola? “In those early days, we spent a lot of time thinking about how we were going to approach things,” offers guitarist Andrew Szekeres, who founded the band with keyboardist/frontman

Taking inspiration from kosmische workouts, horror-movie soundtracks, prog-rock epicism, early electronic/synthesiser experiments, and dystopian sci-fi retrofuturism, Midnight Juggernauts fashioned an individual sound whose muscular take on electronic music attracted a slow, steadily growing following. And, when the band was embraced by hip French dance imprints like Institubes, Kitsuné and Ed Banger, suddenly they were playing to the kind of club-kids who’d never heard a Silver Apples LP in their lives.

“We definitely wanted to set up our own label, we definitely wanted to try and get bigger and bigger gigs, and we always talked about wanting to play as much as possible overseas. We’re not the most ambitious people, but we’ve certainly always been very dedicated to our band.”

For a stretch across 2007/2008, Midnight Juggernauts, receiving offers for shows and festivals left and right, ended up spending essentially 12 solid months in touring mode. Inevitably, it rewired their identity: from ponderous recording outfit to stadium-sized live powerhouse. “Once we got to the end of touring,” Szekeres offers, “we couldn’t go back to making another album the way we recorded Dystopia. We worked on that through parts of 2006 and 2007, sporadically; in little bursts, straight onto computer, and then assemble it all later. Having become this entirely different thing through playing live, and getting to know each other as people so much more, one thing we really didn’t want to do was make a record that continued on from that. The fact that we had toured for a whole year without a break, it felt natural that we’d record more live, make a record that we all worked on together. I guess continuing on from the band we’d become through all that touring, and recording some of it just in a room together.” Which leads us to The Crystal Axis, an album that blows away the foggy otherworldliness of their, y’know, dystopian debut, and replaces it with musical visions of gleaming future-cities. After years playing festivals,

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Midnight Juggernauts now wield colossal synth sounds and punishing sub-bass. And, lyrically, they’ve exchanged end-of-the-world isolationism for we’re-all-in-thistogether anthemicism; Heimann now singing things like, “I want to get higher/I want to breathe fire,” and, “You’ve got to open up your mind and feel love in the light.” It’s reminiscent of Yeasayer’s dancefloor-directed change from All Hour Cymbals to Odd Blood, only rave-friendly. “We’re trying to strike a balance,” Szekeres offers of the shift in temperament. “In some ways, [The Crystal Axis] is a pop record, but, production-wise, it’s anything but a pop record. There’s a really layered, strange sound to the album; there’s so much going on in the tracks. Trying to mix it was really difficult; it was hard to make sense of this big wall of sound. So, even if the lyrics make you think, these are more like pop songs this time. We certainly haven’t made a simpler record.” “To me,” Szekeres continues, “the music actually feels a lot darker. And, given the lyrics are obviously more positive, it’s a weird case of two things crossing over, which I think gives the record an interesting dynamic. I think Vincent writing [lyrics] like that was probably more about his headspace in that period; I don’t think there was some deliberate intention to make the music and lyrics offset each other.” That critical adulation that greeted Dystopia has been, this time around, more muted; The Crystal Axis generally regarded as somewhere between a disappointment and a difficult-second-album. Despite that fact – “we always knew, putting out a really different record like this,” Szekeres considers, “that there’d be people who liked [Dystopia] who wouldn’t like it” – it hardly seems as if Midnight Juggernauts’ ascent is going to be slowed. Six years since they kicked around this city’s warehouse set, they’re firmly entrenched as one of the biggest bands in the land. “I’m sure back then, when Vincent and I were starting out, we would’ve doubted that we’d ever play any big festivals, ever,” Szekeres considers. “So, if I stop and think about all the things that have happened to us, yeah, it’s definitely all been a big surprise.”

WHO: Midnight Juggernauts WHAT: The Crystal Axis (Siberia) WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 19 August, the Forum; Saturday 2 October, Parklife, Sidney Myer Music Bowl and Kings Domain

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THERE GOES THE NEIGHBOURHOOD If ARCADE FIRE’s thrilling first two albums elevated fans above the humdrum reality of everyday life, their third effort The Suburbs is dropping them back into the realms of everyday existence. Bassist TIM KINGSBURY takes STEVE BELL into the depths of the urban sprawl. Win and Régine were working on some ideas; they’re always writing songs. They took a trip to Texas where Win grew up and they visited where he grew up – he grew up in the suburbs and I think shortly after that they started writing songs that were inspired by that trip and that was sort of the basis for the beginning of the process. “The break was definitely important – it was good when we took it. It took a little while to get back into it, which is partly why I think the record took so long to finish. But once we got going again I would say that we were functioning better than ever in a lot of ways, just in terms of the way we were working together. I’d say that everyone is feeling pretty good about it right now.”

vocative Canadian art-rockers Arcade Fire are not a band mired in either convention or their own past. The aesthetic gulf between their thrilling 2004 debut Funeral and its bombastic 2007 follow-up Neon Bible was vast, and now there is a similar sonic chasm separating those records from their new effort The Suburbs. Described by creative lynchpin Win Butler as “a mix of Depeche Mode and Neil Young”, the sprawling new epic mightn’t be quite as strangely eclectic as that description would have you believe, but it still traverses much ground both musically and thematically. Conceived during the massive touring cycle that coincided with the frenzy of adulation that surrounded Neon Bible upon its release, The Suburbs was concocted by Butler and his creative foil (and wife) Régine Chassagne as an

attempt to reconcile Butler’s childhood in the outskirts of Houston with the maelstrom that his life had become at the epicentre of one of the world’s most adulated independent bands. The group then took an extended hiatus during which the concept was fleshed out, before reconvening to get to work on bringing this vision to life. “We weren’t writing too much, as a band anyway,” bassist and founding member Tim Kingsbury recalls of the period spent on the road directly following Neon Bible’s release. “I mean Win and Régine maybe had a couple of ideas, but when we were touring that record at the end of it we were all just ready to take a big break. We’d basically been touring and recording since we recorded Funeral, so we all agreed that it was time for a break and took a few months off – in fact most of the year off – and in that time I think

According to Kingsbury it was definitely important for Arcade Fire to exhibit some form of sonic evolution for album number three and this even impacted on where the album was tracked – the church infamously used for the recording of Neon Bible this time relegated to a cameo appearance. “When we did Neon Bible it sort of had this grandiose feel to it. We had the massive pipe organ and the large Hungarian men’s choir and a large orchestra – we sort of went pretty big on that record – so I think with this album right off the bat I think all of us were feeling, ‘Alright, let’s do something a little more simple this time’,” he recalls. “I think that’s reflected in the record. I mean, there’s still the same six or seven of us working on it all the time, so I think our method often is to throw a lot of ingredients in and then to start taking stuff out afterwards. Our goal this time was definitely to make it a little more simple and, for lack of a better word, minimal. “It’s a pretty long record – there’s 15 tracks on the record – and a lot of the songs sound different to each other. There’s a lot of different influences and just things we tried to do. There’s a couple of songs on the record which are more electronic than other stuff we’ve done in the past, almost dance numbers or something, so we definitely tried to cover a lot more ground. “We recorded in a few different places. We recorded in the church a little bit, because it’s a really great place to record in, but it’s a really big-sounding room – a big empty room – so there’s lots of reverb and stuff and a lot of the songs on this record didn’t really require that as much as Neon Bible did. We actually ended up doing quite

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a fair amount of it in the beginning in Win and Régine’s living room. Then we also went to New York briefly and worked in a studio there for about three weeks, then we mixed the record and finished doing all of the vocals and overdubs in Montreal at a local studio that we rented out.” Three years between releases may seem a lot for some bands, but this has been the gap between Arcade Fire albums both times now, and they seem totally confident in their willingness to work at their own pace in order to fully capture their distinctive artistic vision. “Some bands, especially bands who are signed to a major label, have a lot of pressure to get a record out with deadlines and stuff, but we don’t have that problem,” Kingsbury opines happily. “We don’t have anyone breathing down our throat for a new record, so I think for us it’s more important and our goal is to write music that we’re happy with and that we feel good about playing. And it’s also important for us to enjoy playing music together too, so I think we needed to take some time in between releases. Some of us got married or are starting families and we all recognise the importance of paying attention to things other than our musical career. So I think in the long run that’s benefited us – it’s a more functional group anyway. “There probably is some external expectation that comes with the success that we’ve been lucky enough to achieve so far, but I don’t think we’re too worried about that. I think we’re all pretty driven on our own; I think we’re our own biggest compeller. I think if we tried to make a record with the main intention being to make something that people would like, then we’d probably fail miserably – we’d be second guessing ourselves all the time and really wouldn’t get anywhere. We mostly just focus on what sounds interesting to us and what sounds good to us and exciting to us. That’s sort of the root of our process and as a result we probably end up taking a bit longer than other groups might. We work together – we don’t really have someone who’s spurring us along and I think by nature we take things kind of slowly. “Even the collaborative nature of our process takes time. The song usually starts off as an idea that Win or Régine have concocted as the basic premise for the song, but then we all kind of work on it and tweak it, then over time everybody works on the song by themselves and together and it slowly becomes the beast that it ends up being.”

WHO: Arcade Fire

WHAT: The Suburbs (Merge/Spunk/EMI)

YOUNG MCs Taking cues from old-school hip hop, 3OH!3 aim to bring the party to every show they play, SEAN FOREMAN tells CHRIS CHINCHILLA.

ean Foreman is currently taking time off from 3OH!3’s hectic schedule to undertake that most un-rock’n’roll of life’s essentials, visiting his family. So it’s from Boulder, Colorado that he discusses the rapid rise of a band that are all over the internet, have collaborated with some of music’s current hottest names and toured extensively. 3OH!3 seemingly come from very small beginnings, their pottering in their respective parents’ basements (legendary career beginnings for so many American youths) a long way from the non-stop celebrity party lifestyle they now enjoy. Whilst 2007’s debut album, 3OH!3, did little in terms of chart or traditional commercial success, it certainly helped set the band off on their two main prongs of attack: live shows and the internet. Foreman puts a lot of their early success down to touring incessantly all over the United States, with their easy-to-transport set-up making it straightforward to adopt a ‘go anywhere, play anywhere’ attitude to touring. The approach helped them slowly get their music in the hearts and ears of a great number of people and gain them a reputation as a band that not only played the best parties, but also made the best parties happen. As with many modern groups, especially those who focus on the younger end of the market, 3OH!3 also utilised the internet to great effect in promoting themselves. “MySpace made us,” he says. “The internet is definitely a tool that helps a musician operate in the new world.” Back when MySpace friends mattered and were a sign of stature and importance to fans and industry executives alike, the band spent a lot of time incessantly making friend requests and spread their musical message across the virtual world as well. This inevitably led to being in the right places at the right time and, more importantly, meeting the right people at the right time. A deal was signed with Photo Finish records (home of Rival Schools amongst others) and the piecing together of their ‘big time’ debut Want began, the album that was set to catapult them into commercial and celebrity success.

try to change and write different kinds of music. We’re not afraid of trying something different.” A well-trod path for a lot of (especially male) dance and hip hop acts to follow is the one that leads to writing and production work. It’s something 3OH!3 may consider when their live shows become hard to sustain night after night. “I love the live show and it’s part of who I am. I love writing too and we’ve already started writing songs for other people. I’m having a good time and whilst doors are still opening for me I’m going to see what lies behind them. As long as I’m not in a cubicle in an office day in, day out, it’s all cool with me.”

WHO: 3OH!3 WHAT: Streets Of Gold (Warner) WHEN & WHERE: Saturday (under-18) and Sunday (18+), the Hi-Fi

“The Lil Jon collaboration was huge for us. He was one of our biggest inspirations; Lil Jon made hip hop fun again. He always makes tracks with these huge sounds and it’s undeniable that everyone’s having a good time.” One of 3OH!3’s most endearing and controversial properties is their propensity for creating music that is fun and is about having fun. The band have been accused of everything from being misogynistic to possessing warped senses of humour to just being plain stupid. If it’s the latter, are the band poking the slightest of fun back at their fans for lapping up their music in the first place? As, after all, who is more controversial, the creator of contentious art or its consumer? Intellectualisms aside, the music is fast paced, loud and abrasive – exactly the kind of stuff that kids get a kick out of. Foreman sums up the 3OH!3 experience as “we’re basically trying to have one big party”. He elaborates to explain that the band have learnt how to have bigger and better parties along the way. “We took what we learned from our favourite music, such as old-school hip hop, and incorporated it with what we picked up from experiences on our lengthy Warped tour to create a live show where we try to involve as many people in the crowd as possible. We try to keep it as true to our recordings, but also to make the live experience different for everyone every time.” How does a two-piece consisting of (essentially) two singers performing to a backing tape face the challenge of making a live show more than just guys and their gadgets? It’s always a dull experience for anyone but the keenest of gear-heads and not the most cultivating situation for ‘one big party’. “We started out with just Nat [Nathaniel Motte] and me and an iPod. Now we use an Ableton set up, which is live mixing software, and that enables us to have a lot more interactions and flow in our live shows without just standing still.” 3OH!3 are fully paid-up subscribers of that most fashionable of pursuits for modern musicians, the collaboration. The band have collaborated on a number of commercially successful tracks with Kesha and Katy Perry, the latter becoming a top ten hit in the UK, Ireland, Finland and Australia. The experience of working with these two figures of female pop royalty was a rewarding one, explains Foreman. “Different people bring different things to songs. The cool thing about working with Katy and Kesha was that they were such natural collaborations. We were all friends first and foremost before any of us had large scale success and it was great to see what had happened to everyone.” However, it was the band being asked to appear on a track on Lil Jon’s recent album that was the most rewarding. “The Lil Jon collaboration was huge for us. He was one of our biggest inspirations; Lil Jon made hip hop fun again. He always makes tracks with these huge sounds and it’s undeniable that everyone’s having a good time. He’s also very smart and open to changing and not being stuck doing the same old [thing] over and over again.” One of the biggest problems with setting yourself up as a band with a fanbase that is primarily young and writing songs to appeal to them is that, inevitably, there will be a time when you seem manufactured and lacking in conviction. There is nothing worse than 30-year-olds singing about being teenagers (several long established bands need to realise this). Inpress was intrigued to know how long Foreman felt 3OH!3 could be about youth and fun and when it would be time to call it a day. “I guess we’ll see, until we burn out I guess,” he states. “At the moment it’s still fun, so when that runs out and we’re making contrived songs that aren’t even fun for us anymore. Or at least we’ll

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THIRD TIME HAPPY Three albums in little more than a year is no easy feat, yet here sit EELS having achieved just that. BEN PREECE ponders whether main man MARK OLIVER EVERETT is creatively spent.

t’s hard to have a conversation about Mark Oliver Everett or “E” – the man almost solely behind Eels – without the words “eccentric” or “genius” creeping in. Over the course of nine largely consistent albums, the man, with a rotating guestlist of band members, has endured the heights of commercial success, record company fallout and commercial failure, all executed with a sharp-tongue of truth and his attitude on his sleeve. Pick up his autobiography, Things The Grandchildren Should Know, to read of the torments and losses, dizzying success and incredible lows all experienced virtually as Everett formed the band. Right now, however, he claims that life is very nice and that he’s very happy. And why shouldn’t he be – after a four year absence and a spectacular array of releases that not only included the aforementioned autobiography but also a best-of compilation and DVD as well as a B-sides/rarities double release, he is poised for the release of his third album in little more than 12 months, Tomorrow Morning.

“Well, I went four years without putting any albums out, so I figured I’d better make up for lost time,” he explains. “It was an experiment. I always admired how the pace records used to come out in the ‘60s when the norm was every six months, and I always felt that was how I wanted to do it. But now that I’ve done it and I realise how much work it entails, I realised that the reason they could do it in the ‘60s is because they were all taking speed. That was back when nobody knew that speed was so bad for you. I’m glad I did it, but I’m exhausted and I don’t think I’m going to keep doing it. “Prince used to put out an album every year. I remember back in the ‘80s, it was like every spring there’d be a new Prince album and that was a nice pace too. Record companies only want you to put one out, at the most rapidly, every two years. It’s all about marketing, they want it to be this big... it puts all this undue commercial pressure on an album because it’s all about this big marketing moment. That’s why they start putting in their two cents about, you know, what the album should be content-wise.” The run of close releases started in June 2009 with Hombre Lobo, an album that not only returned Everett to the musical radar after four years, but also spawned a couple of classic Eels singles in Fresh Blood and the stunning That Look You Give That Guy. Next was the outright dark and depressing End Times, an album that caught fans by surprise. Everett had always addressed the darker side of himself in his songs but his delivery was always somewhat tongue in cheek. Tomorrow Morning is next and, as Everett explains, it completes the trilogy and thematically ties the three neatly together.

“Each of these three albums is based on a human experience or emotion that we all probably experience at some point – the first one is about desire, the second one is about loss and the third one is about renewal.” “Each of these three albums is based on a human experience or emotion that we all probably experience at some point – the first one is about desire, the second one is about loss and the third one is about renewal. The great thing about it was that I knew I wanted to do these three albums about these three subjects. I recorded each of them as their own album and amazingly as I recorded each of these three albums, something would be going on in my life that would be perfectly timed to help me with the subject matter. It was incredible.” The depressing nature of End Times, the second record of the three, attracted criticism for its blatantly dark lyrical nature and, while it left fans scratching their heads, it left Everett smiling. “The thing that was interesting for me was that I always knew what was going to happen at the end of the End Times album, that it was going to go onto this… renewal,” he explains, the renewal being the new release Tomorrow Morning. “It never seemed as dark to me as it did when it came out and people were like, ‘Wow, this is a downer’. I was sort of smiling because I knew, you know, wait until you see what’s next. Because it changes – when you see the title End Times and then you see the title Tomorrow Morning coming after it, it changes the meaning of End Times and it means ‘Oh, it wasn’t the end at all, it was just one of those terrible times that feels like the end’. But then there’s always a new morning tomorrow.” Despite the initial thought of the three records eventually revealing the three emotion-driven themes Everett describes, the albums don’t necessarily have too much sonically in common. “They were each made on their own, in a musical world of their own and they were all designed, hopefully, to stand on their own.a They don’t have to be thought of as part of a trilogy,” Everett tells. “A triple album was never a consideration. I just did a double album for the last one [2005’s Blinking Lights And Other Revelations]. I thought that if I did a triple record right after that, I felt that it was too much. Not to say I won’t try that one day. Some of the songs were written ahead of time – I wrote them on a guitar or a keyboard or whatever and some of them just came about from experimenting in the studio. That can often be the funnest time when that happens.” Aside from perhaps the obvious full band effort on the 1996 debut Beautiful Freak, the attractive thing about Everett’s music is that it often sounds like one man in isolation, overdubbing layers of guitars and drums in his own home studio. He explains that this isn’t always the case and on Tomorrow Morning, despite its one-man-band vibe, it does feature a few extra musicians. “There’s a lot of collaborators involved on this one – there’s longtime Eel Koool G Murder and Knuckles the drummer and there’s an orchestra and a choir. They were all different processes but they were all done in my home studio for the most part. But they’re all uniquely musically and in environmental worlds of their own – Hombre Lobo was more of a band record, End Times was more of a solitary singer/songwriter/acoustic guitar record and this one is more of an electronic, experimental, anything goes record.”

WHO: Eels WHAT: Tomorrow Morning (E Works/Vagrant/Shock) out Monday 23 August WHEN & WHERE: Sunday, Palace

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SINGLED OUT BY CLEM BASTOW

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SINGLE OF THE WEEK

BLUE KING BROWN FEAT QUEEN IFRICA WOMEN’S REVOLUTION Independent A childhood spent marinating in Linton Kwesi Johnson and U-Roy (etc etc) means that I carry a soft spot when it comes to dub and its many facets, and it should be no surprise to anyone that I am also a dyed in the wool feminist, so combine dubbed out sounds with an antisex-trafficking campaign message and you have a song I am powerless to resist. But like the finest protest songs, Women’s Revolution knows that a lesson is nothing without a good tune to carry it, so the buoyant beats and vibrant vocals mean this is no stale sermon.

OWL EYES 1+1 Independent Even though lyrics like “One plus one equals you and me darling/So damn simple but we complicate it” make my teeth grind of their own volition, there’s a hint of something special in Owl Eyes’ (aka Brooke Addamo’s) whimsical folk pop. Cut from a similar cloth as the Lisa Mitchells of this world (incidentally, Addamo is, like Mitchell, an Idol refugee who has managed to remove herself from its maelstrom and work diligently at carving her own path), 1+1 is a sweet, smart pop song that points towards big things for Owl Eyes.

THE ROOTS HOW I GOT OVER Def Jam/Universal

THE CORAL BUTTERFLY HOUSE Deltasonic

HORSE MACGYVER VOID Dream Damage

Few bands, be they hip hop or otherwise, could lay claim to being as skilled, diligent and purposeful as Philadelphia’s The Roots. While their recent turn as house band on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon may have raised an eyebrow or two, it should come as no surprise that an outfit so musically proficient would want to put themselves to the test. This desire to continually stretch their limits is also apparent, in patches, in How I Got Over; who else would be so game, and so confident, as to work a Monsters Of Folk track into a hip hop record?

Liverpool band The Coral have released their sixth studio album, a dynamic, mature expression of the sounds and ideas that have been bouncing around the boys’ heads for almost a decade. Forming while the members were in high school and releasing their first EP in 2001, The Coral have been around the block. The band exploded onto the UK music scene with their debut album and achieved international recognition through repeated use of their hit single Dreaming Of You in the media (most prominently in an episode of the US sitcom Scrubs). Their sound was, at the time, fresh and fun – a guitar-driven pop band, they wrote catchy songs with an alternative bent.

Having changed his title from the witch house apparent to the less triangle encumbered Horse Macgyver, Void is released on the Dream Damage label out of Canberra. Although a town known for sheltering many a governmental grotesque, it seems a fiend of another kind has been unearthed, and one that is actually worth paying attention to.

The ingredients that make The Roots such a compelling proposition are showcased on Walk Alone, as Kamal Gray’s simple keyboard progression and ?uestlove’s deft drumming provide the backbone on which Black Thought litters fleshy rhymes. Groundbreaking it may not be but, with songwriting so assured and instrumental quality so high, it doesn’t need to be. Then, as its pitter-patter snare leads into Dear God and the pleading words of Jim James, The Roots throw up a challenge that’s directed at themselves as much as the listener. So deftly do they incorporate it, however, that the folk sample bleeds effortlessly into The Roots’ hip hop hue. Joanna Newsom even gets a turn in the second half of the record, which dusts off the first’s more measured, thoughtful tone and adopts one that’s more carefree. How I Got Over is unashamedly The Roots. It’s a celebration of musical acuity, from the way the tracks are composed and played to how they’re meshed together over the course of an album. This is the bar, and it’s set high. Rick Bryant

Nine years later, The Coral are no longer the new kids on the block; criticisms of inconsistency have justifiably morphed into praises of maturity. Butterfly House is an excellent album, a well-structured, well-produced collection of varied-in-style but consistently entertaining songs. Lead single 1000 Years is reminiscent of Pink Floyd at their most accessible, a swirling psychedelic pop song anchored on a brilliantly catchy chorus. Calling 1000 Years the most polished track on the album is in no way an insult to the other 11; masterfully produced by John Leckie, Butterfly House is a pleasure to listen to. Each of the band members handle their instruments with precision and flair, the overall sound is a result of years of familiarity and strong chemistry. Songs like Sandhills and Falling All Around You utilise understated finger-picked guitars, whereas upbeat alt.pop songs Two Faces and North Parade hinge on excellent percussion performances. Other-worldly harmonies are interwoven throughout, and aural call-backs to fellow Liverpudlians The Beatles can be heard on the more traditional pop numbers. Butterfly House isn’t a perfect album, but if you judge an artist on how close they come to achieving what they set out to, it’s pretty damn close.

Void is a rot and chop down sludge where the bpm of dance music strokes out and becomes death dance. Using wounded samples and dehumanised vocals, (which are generally drowned in the mix), tracks slowly surface from the thick slimy mud of a haunted wasteland to float dead man-style with barely a trace of meat left on the bones. Second track Rub begins like Prince in a mid-’80s conniption before zoning out in not-so-merry-go-round fashion. Nod tumbles through an anxious drainpipe of synth. Things get a little funky on Spit Shine whilst still suggesting birds falling dead from faulty power lines. Viscous-paced and certainly on the sombre edge of house music, Horse Macgyver has got the druggier infections of a lone dancer in a teacup. If you have ever found yourself coming home at dawn nodding your head uncontrollably to the beat of blinkers in a turning taxi... the mangled mix your mind makes of such a moment are where Void resides. But where Horse Macgyver differs from other, often difficult, experimentalists out there is that it is not all friction for a rise – the sinister elements are tempered cautiously. For those who prefer their mood chilling rather than chilled, Horse Macgyver comes as cold as the capital he calls home. To purchase Void, go to dreamdamage. com and click ‘releases’. Horse Macgyver is playing the Ghosthouse at Mercat Basement on Thursday 26 August. Sean Smith

Ben Vernel

MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS LIFEBLOOD FLOW Siberia While I’m initially inclined to like Lifeblood Flow because it sounds like something I’d stumble upon while undertaking elfin duties in World Of Warcraft, I actually like it because – like so many of my favourite songs of this year – it takes the ‘80s throwback and drives it somewhere far more interesting and melancholy (it’s a little bit Giorgio Moroder, it’s a little bit Klaus Doldinger) than most chintzy club bangers could ever dream of. Leave your fluoro gear at home and switch on the Childlike Empress filter.

GOOD CHARLOTTE LIKE IT’S HER BIRTHDAY EMI LOLLLL!!! They’re back, and they’ve borrowed T-Pain’s AutoTune and Nickelback’s odious sexual politics! Apparently Joel/Benji has walked into a club to find his girlfriend “So wasted/Acting crazy/Makin’ a scene/Like it’s her birthday” (all the more galling because “She’s shy, apparently” – suck it up, dickwad! Maybe she’s sick of mooching around with you?). I don’t think I’ve heard a more insidiously unpleasant song in a long time. Can someone banish them to the Las Vegas vodka-sponsored party from whence they re-emerged?

DAVID GRAY A MOMENT CHANGES EVERYTHING Universal God, does this guy still exist? The man with the most appropriate surname of all time appears to be continuing his one-man mission to provide whiney anthems for dour British dramedies about mid-life crises and chronically single men and women having to realise in a moment of clarity at Christmastime that what they actually want in life is not to keep drinking and partying but to run through the streets in a snowstorm and blah blah blah blah.

PLAIN WHITE T’S RHYTHM OF LOVE Universal I love that there is an American chart called Hot AC (Hot Adult Contemporary, for those of you playing at home), and of course Plain White T’s [sic] are on it; Rhythm Of Love is the most aggressively inoffensive pop music you can imagine. Plain White T’s [sic] are like an anaemic Eric Hutchinson or Jason Mraz, created for the sole purpose of soundtracking the aisles at CVS and/or ads for non-threatening insurance firms. Or, on the Australian front, Packed To The Rafters promos.

THE BANK HOLIDAYS SAIL BECOMES A KITE Teclo West Australian four-piece The Bank Holidays have, in Sail Becomes A Kite, crafted a warm, textured and enjoyable follow-up to their ‘07 debut As A Film. Sail Becomes A Kite is a quality collection of consistently excellent indie pop songs, a true demonstration of the talent that the band possess. The album is something of an evolution, too; where As A Film was unrestrainedly exuberant, Sail Becomes A Kite explores slightly darker territory. The Bank Holidays have reached the same point, aesthetically, as bands like The Shins, Band Of Horses and Fleet Foxes, likely through shared influences. The Bank Holidays, like those other artists, elicit comparisons to The Zombies, The Kinks and The Beatles for their beautiful melodies, harmonic vocals and effective songwriting. The band is made up of Norwegian-born Bekk Crombie on guitar, James Crombie on the bass, Nat Carson on the other guitar and Stuart Leach on drums. The three guitarists handle the vocals, and they handle them with great aplomb. The choral vocal harmonies that dominate the aesthetic of the band and generate a great deal of the folky atmosphere found on Sail Becomes A Kite are performed beautifully. The layering of earthy percussion, clean guitar and ethereal vocals is achieved to perfection, the production finding just the right balance of rough and smooth, light and dark. Songs like album opener Tripping Up To Fall In Love, Oxford Street and closer Gravity’s Playthings are an absolute joy to listen to. It may sound hyperbolic, but this album puts The Bank Holidays right up there with the best indie bands in the word – it’s simply impossible to find fault with any aspect of Sail Becomes A Kite. The Bank Holidays have rapidly become one of the few bands I champion, and I’m going to kick off my support of them by recommending Sail Becomes A Kite. Ben Vernel

PSYCHIC BAGGAGE PSYCHIC BAGGAGE Endless Melt There is nothing new about improvised music, nor the kind of formless wafting guitar and droney instrumental jams present on this album. After all, we’ve heard countless Thurston Moore-helmed improv ensembles and a bunch of their genre-searching SYR releases. What’s probably a little different here, however, is that it’s all the work of one Duncan Blachford (formerly of Witch Hats), now part of not only the incredible local electro-acoustic trio Snawklor, but also Rubbish Throwers, Actual Holes and Miniature Submarines. Yes, this is a guy who gets around. He continues this practice with Psychic Baggage. Guitar, drums, percussion, trumpet and keys all jam along as one, evolving together, reacting to each other’s developments and creating an entirely new form, or so the story should go, except for the small problem that cloning hasn’t advanced far enough to create a band of yourselves to rock out with... yet. It’s this fact that makes Psychic Baggage so fascinating, a series of dark layers of improvisation, where musical and atonal gestures entwine, creating a highly atmospheric, somewhat foreboding sound world. Blachford calls it “water damaged free-jazz”, and there is an element of freedom here, yet surely also a kind of straightjacket where he is restricted by his previous layer. But it never feels like this, nor does it feel like a patchwork, or that he’s simply leapfrogging ahead with each layer. Rather, it feels like a band in a room staring at each other and conjuring up these quite gentle, at times loud and abrasive, yet mostly circumspect, experimental tunes. He does reign in some assistance, a wailing vocal from Alison Bolger (Beaches) on the first piece and some disinterested tortured saxophone on the final, but the reality is that he doesn’t really need it. Blachford seems to have found the ingredients and direction he needs all by himselves. Bob Baker Fish

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BLISS N ESO RUNNING ON AIR Illusive Sounds From the moment the play button is pressed, it’s clear Bliss N Eso want to do something different with their fourth studio album. The album opens with a curious sample – a piece of dialogue from the 1959 film The Fugitive Kind, which describes a tiny bird with no legs, “... so they have to spend their whole lives on the wind”. It’s a clever reference, and sets the idea behind Running On Air very nicely. What follows is a strong album in which Bliss N Eso prove that they are far from tapped-out. Having written the album in the Australian bush, the lyrics on tracks like Down By The River and Coastal Kids draw inspiration from nature, a welcome change from the urban-centric mindset that permeates much of hip hop culture. The political commentary is there in spades, eliciting the finest verses Bliss has ever written. A particular highlight is his performance on Addicted, where his voice is charged with a genuine passion that captures the listener’s attention. The four collaborations are fantastic, with the likes of Xzibit and Jehst putting in some incredible guest appearances. A particular treat is Smoke Like A Fire, featuring Wu Tang Clan’s RZA, which pits the Aussie boys against the classic gangsta style. There’s some clever sampling on the album too, the highlight of which is the use of Kasey Chambers’ Rattlin’ Bones on the track Late One Night. The difficult question is whether it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. Of the 19 tracks, 15 are full-length songs. Running On Air seems to be running on fumes toward the end, with the last few tracks melding into a blur of self-affirmation and personal reflection. However, despite being a little over-long, Bliss N Eso have delivered an intelligent, interesting album that keeps them at the top of the game. Aleksia Barron

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THE BOOKS THE WAY OUT Spunk/EMI

BODIES BODIES BMX Records

The Way Out is The Books’ (Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong) fourth LP after more than a decade of making music together. It’s also the first they’ve released in about five years. A mixture of the scratchily melodic and the downright chaotic, the majority of the album is sandwiched between two tracks that heavily consist of samples taken from old hypnotherapy and meditation recordings. It’s almost like Zammuto and de Jong are trying to summon the listener’s subconscious – a far more amenable way of processing music than any critical approach – to the surface.

Recorded in eight hours at 3CR’s radio studios, Bodies’ self-titled debut album oozes with the sounds of the surroundings it was recorded in. Track titles such as Neighbourly and He Went To An Interview sum up, in my mind anyway, images of banding together in tightknit collectives to fight against unjust systems and shitheads. It’s dark and oppressive stuff and not exactly cheerful, just in case you thought otherwise.

And maybe it works. The Way Out hangs together although every other track on the album is quite disparate, from the cheesy gameshow/Motown funk of I Didn’t Know That to the up-tempo minimalist techno that serves as the soundtrack to two kids threatening to kill each other in Cold Freezin’ Night (this one’s pretty hilarious: “I can kill you with a rifle, with a shotgun, anyway I want to. Probably by cutting your toes off and working my way up, toward your brain!” ). Then there are more folk-centred tracks like the gorgeous All You Need Is A Wall and the Bon Iver stuck-in-a-cupboard sounds of We Bought The Flood – songs that are reminiscent of the band’s earlier stuff.

A floppy, almost double bass-sounding bass consistently lumbers along to solid drumbeats that provide a straightdown-the-line backing to the maelstrom forced over them, their players barely sounding like they’re even breaking a sweat. Occasionally amongst the chaos there are quieter moments to give your ears some relief from Joel Morrison’s distortion-drenched guitar, and you find yourself pitying his amplifier as it sounds constantly on the verge of internal collapse. There are no guitar solos as such, just interjections of ear-splitting feedback, eerie screeches reminiscent of fingernails being scraped along blackboards or the band’s personal favourite, playing even louder.

I don’t know if there were some subliminal messages in those hypnotherapy samples but I, for one, am really, really into The Books’ new stuff.

I have no idea what the lyrics are about – most of the time they’re completely indiscernible. I doubt it matters, and their delivery almost says all that needs to be said. Generally shouted – no, scrap that, screamed in staccato stabs – they give the impression that Morrison is pissed off with a lot of things in the world and has no qualms with sharing his opinions with everyone, very loudly. The album is rough and could have certainly done with pots more polish and production time, but then it would not be the same album by any measure. Bodies is all about embracing the moment and running with it, preferably whilst drunk and as recklessly as possible. The album possesses a vibrancy and immediacy that time and repeated takes would have sucked and sapped away; Bodies are ugly, sweaty, in your face and very hard to ignore.

Alice Body

Chris Chinchilla

The beauty of The Books is in the loving way that they approach their sampled material. From what their blog says, the album’s title is a reference to this material, made up largely of cassettes and VHS tapes found in op shops. Such recordings weren’t commercially successful enough to be reproduced in digital format, and were therefore on the way out. In effect, The Way Out is a really human album, a beautiful homage to the semi-nonsensical rules that guide our emotions and interactions.

VARIOUS ARTISTS LONG GONE WHISTLE: THE SONGS OF MAURICE FRAWLEY Liberation Long Gone Whistle is a beautifully presented three-disc set celebrating and documenting the extraordinary career of Maurice Frawley, one of this country’s true musical treasures. Discs one and two are a literal who’s who of, well, pretty much everybody who’s ever made a brilliant record in Australia: Paul Kelly, Tim Rogers, Tex Perkins, The Drones, Mick Thomas, Renee Geyer, Kasey Chambers, The Kill Devil Hills. The list goes on and on and on, it really does, and rumour has it that musos by the truckload had to be turned away from their desire to pay tribute. Frawley began what was to be a stellar yet underrated career as guitarist in Paul Kelly’s early band The Dots, where he co-wrote what has since become a Kelly classic, Look So Fine, Feel So Low, and then went on to front Olympic Sideburns, The Working Class Ringos and The Yard Hands. Last year, music lost one of its true visionaries and a uniquely Australian storyteller when Frawley died after a short battle with cancer. Highlights here are way too numerous to mention, but disc one opener Good Things, with its hauntingly interweaved vocals by Luke and Katy Steele, takes the breath away, at least until we come across the original on disc three. Adalita struts her rock’n’roll stuff – albeit in a slightly mellower form – on the gorgeous though edgy Lonesome. Chrissy Amphlett and Charlie Owen combine sexily but somehow still sadly for Happy Home and Sarah Blasko ends side one with an almost unbearably beautiful vocal and piano rendition of Sarah Belle. Disc two, track two, blends the impossible cool of both Clare Bowditch and Henry Wagons on Farmer’s Song. The Drones handle the title song with the aplomb we’ve

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come to expect from one of the best bands in the world and Renee Geyer teams up with Spencer P Jones for You I Want. Then there’s the originals: 17 out of 23 from The Working Class Ringos and then just a smattering to end with from the criminally underrated Yard Hands. Pretty much all the songs we’ve just spent the last two hours falling in love with are repeated here in their primary incarnations, and it’s only then that we come to truly appreciate Frawley’s under-sung genius. Worth the price of admission alone, as the saying goes, and in and of itself as valuable and unique a document of place, time and feeling as one will ever encounter. “Long Gone Whistle is a gift we never saw coming,” reads the advance publicity for the album. For once, this kind of advertising lingo has the unmistakable ring of truth about it. And this writer can seldom remember a record more pure in its intent: namely, that of making sure that these great songs don’t disappear along with Frawley’s passing. Let’s make sure it succeeds. Tony McMahon

UPCOMING RELEASES

ON THE RECORD

LATEST CD REVIEWS

13 AUGUST BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND Greatest Hits (Sony) Is this actually the first-ever E-Street best-of? Both Borns are here. CHARLIE PARR When The Devil Goes Blind (Shock) The US country blues artist keeps it authentic. CLARE BOWDITCH & THE NEW SLANG

36 CRAZYFISTS COLLISIONS AND CASTAWAYS Roadrunner Records Sixteen years and four albums in, Alaskans 36 Crazyfists have reached a consistent level of success without becoming household names. Could album number five, Collisions And Castaways, be the album to finally launch them to the next level?

Modern Day Addiction (Universal) Bowditch creams all the new gals on the block with this startling, stylish set. IRON MAIDEN The Final Frontier (EMI) And, Eddie’s back.

20 AUGUST ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN Hawk (Shock) Third collab for Belle & Sebastian’s Campbell and Lanegan and still spine-tingling. KLAXONS Surfing The Void (Universal) An accomplished pop return that Sony must be wishing MGMT had made. MIAMI HORROR

Opening number In The Midnights starts interestingly with a gradually building acoustic intro, but soon succumbs to a clichéd vocal pattern of brutal verse followed by a melodic chorus, a template that has been used by so many bands in the last five years it’s difficult to get excited about it. The next song Whitewater quickly makes amends, with some great heavy riffs and a punishing sound, but again the chorus veers into weaker melodic vocals that detract from the solid start. Anchors is the first song to really break into some different sonic territory with a great intro, followed by pummelling riffs and hardcore vocals reminiscent of Hatebreed, and a really interesting half-time chorus. It’s one of the best songs on the album due to its diversity. Caving In Spirals is another adventurous track, with a variety of vocal approaches, a sparse musical arrangement providing plenty of space through the verses and a simple but catchy driving chorus revving things up nicely. The last track Waterhaul II is also good, with another interesting start, but by this time you really hope the band doesn’t ruin it with generic metalcore structures and sounds. Thankfully they don’t. On the whole, this is a decent album with a robust sound due partly to the efforts of in vogue mixer Andy Sneap, but there are too many parts that sound like other bands, or suffer from a generic (though undoubtedly current) sound. There are glimpses of something more scattered throughout, but Collisions And Castaways is unlikely to be the career-defining album 36 Crazyfists may have been aiming for.

DOVEMAN THE CONFORMIST Brassland

WASHINGTON I BELIEVE YOU LIAR Albert/Universal

Doveman (not to be confused with Duff Man, I guess) is Thomas Bartlett, a keyboardist who has toured and recorded with stellar acts including The National and Antony & The Johnsons. This, his third album (not including a cover of the Footloose soundtrack which you may be able to track down online), is an anthology of mellow melancholia that artfully retains an ambient warmth in spite of its nocturnal introspection.

Unearthed by Triple J in 2009, Washington’s Cement, with its irresistible melody and unexpected expletives, could have been a gimmicky pop song or an introduction to an important new talent. Three EPs later, it’s clear that it was the latter. I Believe You Liar cements Megan Washington’s place at the round table of ‘smart pop’ songwriters occupied by the brothers Finn and Washington collaborator Paul Kelly; allegorical yet melodic, clever yet heartfelt, and uniquely Antipodean.

Musically, the album is reminiscent of the quieter moments of Mojave 3 or Explosions In The Sky. There’s the same yearning keyboard and idling beats. The cinematic sorrow makes the comparison even more appropriate. However, unlike, say, Ryan Adams, this album somehow avoids falling into melodrama. It steps in it a few times to be sure, but Bartlett is able to rein it in for the most part, even when, in Memorize, he whispers the reprise, “I haven’t spent a night alone in years”. Sure, Doveman. Probably the two stand-out tracks are Aftermath, which leans lightly on Norah Jones’ splendid backing vocals, and The Cat Awoke. The latter trades muted keyboards for jangling guitars that inject a streak of passion into Bartlett’s lingering embrace. It’s a natural modulation in the record’s rhythm and the album is enriched by it. Whether you enjoy this album or not will be determined in large part by whether or not you can enjoy vocalists who whisper rather than sing. Bartlett whispers everything and while this creates a fantastic intimacy, it can take a few tracks to get past it and not be distracted by his breathy confidences. But once you’re past this, the record is definitely rewarding. It is not a record to be simply sampled, it must be enjoyed as a whole, start to finish.

The classically trained, Papua New Guinea-born frontwoman has an unrivalled ear for a tune, with Cement’s church bells and ‘60s girl-group backing vocals still raising a smile after extensive radio airplay. Ditto Rich Kids, whose ironic lyrics and “I don’t want to dance with you” chorus contrast with handclaps and bouncy layered keyboards. There’s an abundance of such pop gems here, although songs like Lover/Soldier and How To Tame Lions prove that she knows her way around a soaring ballad just as well. The soulful Navy Blues is vaguely reminiscent of Florence & The Machine, while the anguished title track, backed by moody strings, recalls Elvis Costello at his most introspective. To identify a highlight is almost impossible on an album full of them. If we really have to, it’s between the gorgeously delicate Underground, which finds our heroine musing upon life after death and still manages to be uplifting, and new single Sunday Best, as gloriously wordy a slice of new wave as you ever heard in a Melbourne disco in the ‘80s. While its influences may sometimes be apparent, I Believe You Liar sounds like none of its contemporaries and is all the better for it. Australian album of the year? Maybe. Heather Fuhrer

James O’Toole Illumination (Virgin) Pristine local club pop. The next Presets or the next Sneakies? MIKE POSNER 31 Minutes To Take Off (Sony) How did this bland R&B/rock get so hyped? NOFX The Longest EP (Shock) Don’t be fooled, actually a best-of. RAY LAMONTAGNE & THE PARIAH DOGS God Willin’ And The Creek Don’t Rise (Sony) Manages to keep it rootsier than most crossover roots artist. Still raspy.

27 AUGUST BRIAN WILSON Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (Universal) The opening few seconds are so Beach Boys - then it’s so Gershwin. CHILDREN COLLIDE Theory Of Everything (Universal) Could this be a confident stride to stadiums? Closer cut Seven Forks is the killer. KATY PERRY Teenage Dream (Capitol) Will her off-key Teen Choice performance scare fans off? MENOMENA! Mines (Spunk) So good… so very good… so very very good.

Rob Gascoigne

SCOTT & CHARLENE’S WEDDING PARA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB Independent LOST IN THE TREES ALL ALONE IN AN EMPTY HOUSE Anti- Records Lost In The Trees are a musical collective from North Carolina. Even though the liner notes attribute every song on this album to a single writer, it makes perfect sense that this would be the work of a collective rather than a single driving force. There is a dazzling range of musical styles on this record. However, while the variety may make this a fascinating listen, it also undermines any unity that the album might aspire towards. Most of the songs on the album fall comfortably into the singer/songwriter genre. Some of these are gorgeous. Wooden Walls Of This Forest Church channels Joni Mitchell’s best and the gentle sway of the strings on We Burn The Leaves pays due deference to Sufjan Stevens. The title track – complete with the creak of a rocking chair – is a long, lonely waltz down memory lane.

BRANDON FLOWERS Flamingo (Universal) Will he regroup his band as The Fillers?

But the band often moves away from this rich vein. Sometimes this switch is a good thing. In fact, Mvt I Sketch, which channels Vivaldi of all things, is probably the standout track; its elegance lifts the rest of the album. At the other end of the spectrum, A Room Where Your Paintings Hang is really just inferior Neutral Milk Hotel. This shifting between styles is by no means a bad thing, but with so little to connect each song, it’s jarring to move from one sound to another.

THE CHARLATANS Who We Touch (Shock) Check The Horrors remix of single Love Is Ending and start to get excited.

Lyrically, the album is just adequate. You’ll feel like you’ve heard it all before. However, Ari Picker’s strained voice (sounding very much like Alec Ounsworth of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) does generally pull it off.

HOWL Brothers In Violence (Shock) If they capture their bristling post-punk live sound, this could be a corker.

As a compilation, this album is lovely and is clearly the work of brilliant musicians. As an album, it’s an unfortunate letdown.

3 SEPTEMBER

Rob Gascoigne

Scott & Charlene’s Wedding singer/songwriter Craig Dermody is to western Melbourne what Jarrod Quarrell was to the inner city in his former band St Helens. In song, he’s a young vagabond; a put-upon dreamer wanting something more and not quite knowing how to get it; a person whose relationship with his surrounds is a see-sawing of deep attachment and pained exhaustion. He’s also hearteningly honest and unpretentiously poetic. On Para Vista Social Club, Dermody – who, incidentally, today moves to New York, meaning S&CW essentially now existent in the past – makes the kind of off-centre grunge that has made its presence appreciated through the likes of Dermody’s other band, Spider Vomit, and their many siblings. It’s clangy and petulant, but more often than not falls into an awesome groove when it comes to chorus time. The rest of Scott & Charlene’s Wedding – Quarrell on bass, Love Of Diagrams’ Luke Horton on guitar and Panel Of Judges’ Dion Nania on drums – occasionally let slip their technical abilities, delving into detailed psych wonderlands, but mostly they’re here to hold Dermody in place with thick, distorted jams and add bulbous mood to his downer tales. Dermody sings in his defiantly atonal and endearing nag – cut from Lou Reed’s own – of just scraping by, running late for the train at Footscray Station, finding new warehouse digs, near emotional breakdowns on the Epping line and the relationship woes that forever seem to be somewhere in the back of his mind as he trudges through all this everyday-ness. Of course local engineer Jack Farley is behind the production, only getting better at his ability to turn a band known for a live ruckus into warm, rounded, dirty-but-clean tracks. Released as a limited-edition vinyl pressing, only 200 copies of this album were made, each with a hand-painted cover by Dermody. You can possibly still find one at Missing Link or Title – if you do, don’t go home without it. This is the stuff you’ll put on in 30 years when you’re trying to explain to some influence-hungry 16-year-old what the underside of Melbourne was like in 2010. Adam Curley

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CEO WHITE MAGIC Sincerely Yours/Modular White Magic begins beautifully, in what turns out to be a case of too good to be true. Opener All Around sounds instantly familiar, at once euphoric like some kind of psychedelic nu-gospel hymn and tragic like a Sigur Ros lament. The strings are velvety smooth, theatrical but not melodramatic. “Now I’m coming home/To face the demons on my own,” sings Eric Berglund, one half of Sweden’s Tough Alliance electronic pop duo, and with a song as cerebral yet danceable as this as his soundtrack, you get the sense he’s going to be just fine. Illuminata, the second track, builds on the promise of the opener with an infectious, carnivalesque melody that’s pinned seamlessly to hypnotic arpeggios made with toy-sounding keys that blip along behind New Orderish organ chords and gentle breathy harmonies. It’s effervescent and seemingly effortless stuff, the kind of song that will make you rush out to buy whatever product it’s inevitably used to advertise. Unfortunately, the potential demonstrated in the opening tracks is not sustained, even though the album is over in just 28 minutes. It’s not that it’s particularly bad, per se – although there are some clunkers, such as the boring out-of-the-box tribal disco of the title track, or the laboured melancholia of lyrics like “So so lame/Makes me wanna smoke crack,” whined in a nursery rhyme lilt on No Mercy. (Seriously: with lyrics like that, why would the record company allow them to print them in the booklet?) The problem with White Magic is, rather, that it relies too heavily on its oh-so-clever electro-pop formula. Those synthesised arpeggios recur in almost every track. The interleaving of strings, vintage organs and barely-there harmonies loses its magic when it is wheeled out as a staple ingredient rather than a special treat. And the instantly familiar feeling of the verse-chorus songs only works when the melodies are actually memorable, which too many here are simply not. Roger Nelson

DVD REVIEWS

LATEST DVD REVIEWS

THE ROLLING STONES STONES IN EXILE Eagle Vision/Shock A companion piece to the Exile On Main St reissue, this hour-long documentary opens with a parade of famous faces gushing about the famous album. From there we’re taken through the familiar story of the Stones fleeing England for the south of France in light of cartoonish taxation. There they accumulate material while indulging in the usual vices. The perspective is often first-person, thanks to testimony from all five members of the Stones’ line-up at the time as well as various witnesses and hangers-on. We only get Keith Richards’ disembodied voice, but Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger actually return to the French mansion and LA studio where the album was recorded. Much of the information shared will be old news to anyone studied in Exile, but the film is well made and rife with cool, jumpy images – and, of course, songs from the album, which one contributor calls “about as unrehearsed as a hiccup”. Like the album, the Stones’ time in France was defined by prevailing chaos, all hazy days and endless nights. The suffocating microcosm finally burst after the theft in broad daylight of much of the band’s equipment, among other factors. The film hammers home the “us against the world” feeling the band had at the time, partly the source of the album’s wild-eyed swagger and frightful vitality. The bonus features are mostly extended takes on elements of the doco: Jagger and Watts touring the mansion and studio; interviews with Anita Pallenberg and the Stones; and the aforementioned famous faces, including self-confessed Exile obsessive Liz Phair. None of it is amazing – especially compared to the raw shock of the album – but this disc is a must for diehard Stones fan and a solid meal of comfort food for the rest of us. Doug Wallen

BLACK SABBATH CLASSIC ALBUMS: PARANOID

CLUTCH LIVE AT THE 9.30 Shock

Eagle Vision/Shock This series is fascinating. The making of an album takes on a religious significance, particularly from the overly-earnest music critics who extol the virtues of the featured album, dropping phrases like “changed the face of modern music” with alarming regularity. What’s more rewarding, however, is when you sit in the studio with the engineer, pressing up the faders, splitting up the mix and revealing numerous hidden surprises. Released in 1970, Paranoid was the album that broke Black Sabbath, brimming with now-classics like Iron Man, Fairies Wear Boots and War Pigs. Whilst it delves into the mythical aspect of the band, like a typically drunk Ozzy Osbourne not allowed into his own gigs because he had no shoes, the focus is very much on the music. Guitarist Tony Iommi gets much of the acclaim thanks to his iconic riffs, though celebrity fans like Henry Rollins point to the incredible rhythm section, responsible for that booming sound and those amazing tempo changes. Engineer Tom Allom even isolates Butler’s basslines, demonstrating his activity and musing that most players just play one note these days. Sabbath were a jam band – they’d write their songs by coming back from the pub, just seeing what worked. Again Allom isolates, this time Osbourne’s vocals, revealing improvised gibberish, yet from this he would develop the vocal melody. The tune is Paranoid, their big single, and they knocked it out in half an hour, with only Osbourne’s words changing. There are 45 minutes of extras, much of it gold they left out in order to sculpt a 54-minute episode. Mostly it’s expanded interviews and explanations with each member discussing their parts in further detail. Interestingly this was all recorded onto one-inch four-track tape, though later expanded to a whopping eight tracks in Ireland. Incredible.

Maryland’s legendary hard rock quartet Clutch formed in 1991 and they return to Washington DC’s famous 9.30 Club, where they spent some of their formative days, to perform one of their early albums live for this double DVD release. The question is, why? Unfortunately here the answer is “for hardcore fans only”. Clutch are a great live experience and tickets for their tours here and abroad routinely sell out, but this DVD, only slightly better visually than VHS quality, is sadly a dry and boring affair. The first disc sees the band working their way through their self-titled 1995 album in its entirety. Whilst drummer Jean-Paul Gaster is always entertaining, the rest of the band pretty much stand still during the 90-minute set and this makes for a sleepy performance, hardly worthy of their normal power in a live setting . The second DVD is another ‘on the road’ backslapping chore, with fans and the band talking up how good Clutch have been in former days, signing autographs, laughing on the bus, etc. It’s all the standard backstage-withthe-band rhetoric we’ve seen so many times before and disappointingly, we don’t really get to learn anything new about the band or their long career. Clutch have been hugely influential, and it’s surprising they have been largely ignored by mainstream media as they are still producing great albums and always have. This DVD set is not the best place to start for the uninitiated and whilst it may appeal to some hardcore fans, to get the best Clutch experience you’d be far better off buying their albums or seeing them yourself next time they are in town. Sadly, this DVD fails to capture the raw power of one of the great American hard and heavy bands. Garrry Seven

Bob Baker Fish

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND LONDON CALLING LIVE IN HYDE PARK Columbia/Sony We’re barely into the second song of the 27-strong 2009 Hard Rock Calling festival set and The Boss is sweating it up like a (rock) pig. Perspiration is seeping through his rolled-up long-sleeved shirt, and beads of the stuff are squeezing out from the pores on his face. A swell of anticipation builds from the darkened intro as thousands upon thousands of punters greet Springsteen and his iconic E Street Band with right-hand man Stevie Van Zandt (otherwise known as Silvio Dante, consigliere to Tony Soprano in fictional land) riding shotgun throughout the pummelling three-hours-of-power stage show. From Springsteen’s forceful strumming on the opening track, a cover of the Clash’s London Calling, to Badlands, which features a breathy Boss attempting to recapture some oxygen, there’s big riffs aplenty with Clarence ‘Man Mountain’ Clemons’ sax leading into a rousing footballstyle crowd chant. The E Street Band manage to have these Poms eating out of the palms of their callus-riddled hands. “Is there anybody alive in London tonight?” screams Springsteen during Badlands. Gathering his breath before Working On A Dream’s Outlaw Pete, Springsteen is on his haunches – but not for long. It’s funny how the rhythm to this tune always reminds me of the Kiss classic I Was Made For Lovin’ You. Youngstown, The Rising, Born To Run, Glory Days and Dancing In The Dark all feature, as does a wonderful cameo from The Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon on No Surrender. But it’s the Boss, man, now completely saturated from sweat, who is the genuine star of the show. To observe Springsteen roam into the audience on Waitin’ On A Sunny Day (feeding the mic at one point to a youngster for a sing-along) is testament to the god-like rock status he holds. Joyous. Nick Argyriou

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NO PECKING ORDER What started out as four mates playing tunes and drinking beer in Freo has turned into BASEMENT BIRDS, an egalitarian indie folk supergroup. “Everyone checked their ego at the door,” JOSH PYKE tells EJ CARTLEDGE. kept crossing. I’d written a couple of songs with Kav and he’d written a couple of songs with Kevin and we were doing it every time we met up. This went on for two years and whenever we could we’d have a go at writing and recording some songs. The whole process was pretty much organic, really. We made a few demo recordings out the back of Kav’s place in Fremantle, sitting on his veranda drinking beer. Tough life, isn’t it? “But there’s a level of professionalism in all of us, as well as a sense of ambition. So about 18 months into this process we kinda looked at each other and said, ‘maybe it’s time to get a bit more serious about this material and see where it can go’. Up until that point I guess we were treating the whole thing as a bit of a relaxing time away from our respective careers. So we brought in an engineer to make some recordings and it was then that we realised that we wanted these songs to be done properly and see some sort of release.”

h, ye olde supergroup; a long-serving cliché for friends and colleagues in the music business who pitch tents together and strum away in collective fashion. Kav Temperley (Eskimo Joe), Kevin Mitchell (Bob Evans, Jebediah), Steve Parkin and Josh Pyke came together through a love of vocal harmonies and lilting alt.country to form said supergroup using the moniker Basement Birds. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young it ain’t, but for homegrown talent the meeting of these minds has tremendous potential. Naturally, it worked because of a shared vision. “Luckily we all seem to have fairly similar tastes in music… I think it’d be harder if we had

someone who was into death metal and another into jazz fusion,” said Parkin before the album was released. He was performing in Bob Evans’ touring band and hooked up with Mitchell to write the track that would ultimately become the group’s first single, Waiting For You. Meanwhile, Sydney troubadour Pyke toured with Eskimo Joe around the nation and began bouncing around ideas with Temperley. Eventually the foursome convened in Temperley’s home studio in Fremantle, as Pyke explains. “This has been in the works since 2007,” he says. “We all kinda had been touring with each other and our paths

For fellows whose careers have wandered off in such different directions it seems somewhat incongruous that middle ground was reached in a relatively easy fashion. “True,” say Pyke, “’cause in the end we agreed more than we disagreed. In terms of references, we’re all into Wilco, The Shins, Elliott Smith, Fleet Foxes... all those sorts of contemporary bands. In terms of our approach, I’d say Kevin and I are not necessarily less professional but a little rougher around the edges. The other guys have a really strong work ethic to iron out the imperfections. I think I suffer from a condition called ‘demo-itis’ when I get to the point of just saying ‘ah, that’ll do’ whereas Kav would keep going until he was satisfied we’d done it right. We kinda needed that direction I think. He was the driving force who got us over the line. Overall, though, it was surprising how similar our tastes were. “It was actually quite an organic process. You would think that with four potentially competing points of view it would have been difficult, but through good luck or good management we managed to agree. You would kind of gauge it from everyone’s response. If I brought a song to the table and the guys were like ‘yeah, that sounds okay’ but then for another song they were like ‘that’s fantastic, let’s record it’ then you’d know which one to go with. And it was the same for the other guys when they brought material in for consideration. So you’d gauge it

VOWEL MOVEMENT “I think we’ve arrived somewhere now, whereas before we were just searching,” PVT’s fire-seated drummer LAURENCE PIKE tells MATT O’NEILL of the band formerly enunciated as Pivot. not dissimilar to a creative stepping stone to the group’s current identity; Church With No Magic seeming a much better fit for the role of the band’s stylistic calling card. “The processes for the two records were very different,” Laurence explains. “O Soundtrack My Heart was kind of constructed while two of us [Laurence and guitarist brother Richard] were living in Sydney and one of us [laptop/sound artist Dave Miller] was living in London. It was made in a very disparate sort of fashion. We were all writing and jamming in the same room for Church With No Magic. It was a much more organic process.”

indsight sometimes offers a remarkable perspective on the creative development of a band – particularly one as willfully iconoclastic and evolutionary as Sydney/London electro-acoustic trio PVT. O Soundtrack My Heart, the band’s second release under their original moniker Pivot (recent legal issues having prompted the removal of the band’s vowels), was perhaps one of the most daring and accomplished records of 2008. A ludicrously precise fusion of math-rock, avant jazz, electro-acoustic composition and a cavalcade of leftfield styles like dubstep and hip hop, released on legendary imprint Warp Records, O Soundtrack My Heart was a startling leap forward from the group’s already impressive 2002 debut, Make Me Love You. It seemed, at the time, to represent a culmination of both the group’s

Whereas O Soundtrack My Heart represented the recognisable amalgamation of a plethora of disconnected genres, Church With No Magic feels like true stylistic fusion. There are hints of specific genres throughout – from the luxurious Jean Michael Jarre synthesisers and Grizzly Bear-style vocal melodies that decorate the entire record to the dubstep cymbal patterns and kosmische ambience of tracks like The Quick Mile – but, taken as a whole, the record feels almost unique. “I think the previous record was us finding our feet as a group, in a way, and this record was a real blossoming of that. I think we’ve arrived somewhere now whereas before we were just searching,” Laurence reflects. “We just didn’t want to fight anything or force anything. The idea of the record was to let go a bit and let whatever happen, happen. The nature of the band is that the music is always evolving and I don’t think we’ve ever been the kind of band who wanted to fight that.” far-reaching stylistic ambitions and the band members’ numerous years in the Australian underground. “We’ve never really wanted to put any kind of strict parameters on ourselves in terms of the band being one thing or another. We never wanted to limit ourselves,” drummer Laurence Pike says of the band’s development. “That said, the difference between Make Me Love You and O Soundtrack My Heart was really because those albums were recorded by two different bands,” he adds of the change from a five-piece line-up to the current trio. Yet, with the benefit of hindsight and the forthcoming release of the band’s latest album, Church With No Magic, O Soundtrack My Heart takes on a decidedly different resonance. Once a comprehensive realisation of the group’s ambitions, the record now resembles something

There is an initial sense of irony in that, while supposedly representing the culmination of the band’s work, Church With No Magic also superficially represents a significant stylistic departure from the complexity of the trio’s most celebrated output. The album streamlines the group’s sound via the greater inclusion of vocal melodies and the paring back of the trio’s more layered productions, but there are connections and complexities beneath the album’s oblique and minimalistic veneer. “I don’t think we tried to make a ‘different record’. It’s just something that happened, really,” Laurence considers. “The band started as a vehicle for us to experiment and I don’t think that’s really changed; we’ve just become a little more focused in what we do. I mean, having a more vocal-oriented record is a step in a different direction,

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on that instinctive enthusiasm. It was a great way of doing things ‘cause everyone checked their ego at the door.” So did it feel like a side project? “It probably felt that way until about two months ago,” says Pike. “Before then, if I was on tour it was just great to be able to stop off in Perth for a couple of extra days, hang out the back of Kav’s place, drink beer and play guitar. It was a lovely way to wind down from touring – I actually stopped off there on another occasion when I’d finished a UK tour and spent a few days writing songs. But the last couple of months it’s felt like business as usual really. Once we decided that we wanted to release the material the real nuts and bolts of the business come into play... the video clip, the deadline to finish the record, the promotional side of things. I’m not complaining at all, it’s just the reality hits home when you make this kind of decision.” For an artist with a reputation as a perfectionist, Pyke is at pains to point out the opposite is true. “To be honest, I’m not at all precise when I record,” he says. “When I did my earlier recordings, like the EPs and what not, I’m amazed at what stuff I left in there. Like me tapping the table, for example. I could never remember how many harmonies I’d done. I would redo them ‘cause I had no idea how to do them the same way. It was all pretty intuitive and instinctive. This project, on the other hand, because there were four people involved, we actually had to take note of what we were doing. We’d figure it all out on the back porch and then go inside and record it. We all had to step up a little bit to ensure we were reaching each others’ expectations.” Intriguingly for such seasoned performers, nerves appeared before the group’s first gig – due to playing in front of fellow musicians. “We had a busy weekend with the APRA awards in Sydney,” says Pyke. “It was funny because we were all a little bit nervous before going on; it was our very first live performance. Being in front of our peers it was something of a baptism of fire, but it went really well. I know what I’d be like watching a fellow musician up there... I wouldn’t necessarily be critical but I’d be thinking ‘hmm, I might have done that a little differently’. The thing is, of course, that particular audience were not our fans, and they hadn’t paid to see us. There’s plenty of support from peers and friends but still, it was a slightly anxious feeling.” WHO: Basement Birds WHAT: Basement Birds (Inertia) WHEN & WHERE: Saturday, Forum

but that’s something that happened quite organically while we were working and jamming on our material. “I think we’ve been moving towards a more structured direction for a while, though,” the drummer continues. “For us, the development between O Soundtrack and this has been quite natural and happened over the course of a couple of years. I guess a lot of listeners haven’t had the luxury of witnessing that development in the same way we have but I think there are some strong connections between this and the previous record.” An expanded perspective of both the album and the band even reveals the culmination of much broader career arcs, namely those of PVT’s three members. Dave Miller and Laurence and Richard Pike have all spent decades working with sound throughout Australia and beyond, but one suspects that no member of the trio ever had a focused concept of what they wanted to accomplish with their work until Church With No Magic. Laurence, in particular, has spent the majority of his career as a journeyman musician. The drummer has recorded or performed with a number of highly acclaimed artists – from post-jazz ensemble Triosk and avant electronica genius Qua to glitch-hop pioneer Prefuse 73 and legendary songwriter Bill Callahan – but believes he’s only recently begun to comprehend his direction and focus as a musician. “We’ve kind of had to really make a commitment to doing PVT full-time over the past three years, but that’s kind of been a good thing,” the drummer considers. “I kind of like it. I feel like I spent years being a jack of all trades and, while that was certainly very valuable, you can’t help but get to a point where you want to just focus on the one thing and make it as good as it can be as opposed to just dividing my time. “It’s only been in the past couple of years that I’ve sort of developed that focus and it’s largely because we made that decision to make PVT a full-time concern,” Laurence continues. “I think we all feel a bit more settled and more comfortable in who we are and that’s made a huge difference to all of us. I think there are all sorts of possibilities within the band and, between the three of us, there are all sorts of things we’re capable of doing. We just want to create something unique.” WHO: PVT WHAT: Church With No Magic (Warp/Inertia) WHEN & WHERE: Tomorrow (Thursday), Corner Hotel

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SEEK AND DESTROY Having successfully spent the past 13 years with the open intent to infiltrate, destroy and rebuild the music industry, heavy rock group CKY can now revel in their independence. Guitarist CHAD GINSBURG expresses his views to LOCHLAN WATT.

be just fine. It’s all about keeping your fanbase and our label’s never really had anything to do with making our fanbase. A lot of bands gain their fanbase from what their labels do for them, but that’s something that we’d never really profit from.” Label business isn’t the only thing that’s changed in the CKY camp lately, with the recent departure of bassist Matt Deis leading to a bit of shuffling in their live line-up. Ginsburg explains that “we didn’t really lose him; we’d know where he is if we wanted to find him. Matt Deis left the band. He kind of just went domestic I think. He had played in the band for five years. We have the guy who has been playing synth for us for the last two years, Matt Jaunitis, playing bass and he’s a multi-talented musician that’s been working for us for a couple of years, engineering and stuff with me – and he plays a couple of instruments but he’s playing bass now. We have another guy doing synths now, a guy named Murray. He’s actually played in a band before with Matty the bass player. They both have teched for CKY on the road, many tours, every shitty job we had and now they’re signed up for the even shittier jobs – the bass player and keyboard positions.” With a good sense of humour tied strongly to the band’s sensibilities, Ginsburg, along with mainstay members Deron Miller (vocals/guitar) and Jess Margera (drums), is excited at getting to work on future releases and reveals that it’s quite unlikely that their new live members will be involved in any immediate creativity.

“C

KY has always been a pioneer, in the sense that we’ve known things were about to end with the way the industry was going and we were telling people for a long time that it’s basically up to them, telling musicians not to rely on anyone but themselves and their friends,” explains CKY guitarist Chad Ginsburg over a crackling mobile connection. Himself in the thick of transferring between airports to get from LA to the UK in time for his band’s Sonisphere performance, the busy background happenings do nothing to deter the 38-year-old’s obvious passion for discussing all things industry. Claiming that “no label’s ever really given us any bit of a push”, Ginsburg has well and truly had enough of all the other fingers pervading his proverbial pie. “What the fans know about CKY is that we’ve always had a big mouth about the destruction of the industry; we’ve always claimed to take a good part in helping destroy it. At least, even if we destroy ourselves in the process, there’d be a chance for young musicians to

later rebuild it, because it wasn’t going anywhere and it still isn’t at the moment. The fact is since it sucks so bad, it can’t go down too much further without the prospect of going up again. I think there’s a whole world of open adventure for the industry. Infiltrate, destroy and rebuild was pretty much our mantra in this industry. As far as CKY is concerned, we’ve infiltrated, help destroy, but I never said it was up to us to rebuild. But we’ll exist within it and put our balls on the line to help.” Releasing their 1999 debut album, Volume 1, through Distant Records, CKY then signed to Island/ Def Jam and released Infiltrate-Destroy-Rebuild and An Answer Can Be Found in 2002 and 2005 respectively. In 2009 the group released Carver City through metal giant Roadrunner Records, yet it seemed that through all these years, much like any notion of a conventional or sub-genre specific ‘scene’, CKY didn’t really fi t in. Accrediting his band’s success purely to their own hard work and authenticity, Ginsburg is happy to be blunt about his feelings towards their past business associates.

“Every label’s just kind of let us do what we can and over the years they’ve all just relied on us to gain our connections to use on their other artists. They never really spent their money on us. They’ve gotten to know us, learned from what we know and tried to copy it with their other bands, which never really seems to work too well.” Despite the extra promotion that can come from being a part of an active roster of signed artists, Ginsburg doesn’t think that CKY will be disadvantaged by their new plans and sees exciting new avenues ahead. “Maybe if we had seen a little bit more from record labels over the years we’d feel a little disadvantaged, but I don’t feel like we’re at any disadvantage at this point. There’s a whole new world; all types of new discoveries in the music industry. Why anyone would have a major goal to be signed by a record label…” he trails off with an almost rhetorical pause. “CKY has done it for a long time with a label, but for most of the time without a label, so I think we’ll

BACK TO THE FUTURE With their first three albums, KORN revived and reinvented metal. Having reunited with original producer Ross Robinson, the band think they’ve recaptured the spark that had them leading the hard rock charge in the second half of the ‘90s, guitarist JAMES “MUNKY” SHAFFER tells SAMUEL J FELL. wanted to get back to the core of what the band is about and Ross [Robinson, producer] helped us immensely in being able to do that… he helped us develop and mould until this album took shape.” Robertson produced the band’s first two records, which are easily their best, so this is his third effort with them, hence the name Korn III, not to mention the band’s burning desire, all of a sudden, to go back to how it all began. “With the last two records and with people leaving, there hasn’t really been a solid foundation for a while,” Shaffer says on why this return to the old school is happening for Korn almost two decades down the track. “Now, Ray [Luzier, drummer] is a permanent member, then we were gonna do this record, so like I said, it seemed like there was this urgency to go back and kinda remind ourselves of why we do what we do and kinda re-teach ourselves… take all our knowledge of recording, using that, but bringing it all back to the fundamentals.” Fundamentals is where Korn do need to head – postFollow The Leader in 1998 the band wandered off into the musical wilderness, perhaps blinded by the nu-metal beast they helped create, riding their collective back like the freeloading, jibbering hog that it was.

ames Shaffer, otherwise known as Munky, has been playing guitar for Korn since they formed in Bakersfield, California, some 17 years ago. Back then, Korn were a band that redefined a genre gone stale. Today, they’re the antithesis of such and, indeed, their relevance is questionable. However, not everyone is a cynic, least of all the band members themselves. Shaffer seems relaxed for the most part and is more than happy to discuss the band’s ninth and newest record in Korn III – Remember Who You Are. To Shaffer and the rest of the band, this is perhaps the

group’s most relevant release of all, save their first couple (and to an extent, their third). The reason why is because Korn III… sees the band going back to their roots. They find it relevant, because it sees them trying to recapture the aggression and the power they exhibited when they burst out of seemingly nowhere with their half-cocked, hairbrained, wild-eyed eponymous debut in 1994. For Shaffer, this is the band beginning again, incorporating everything they’ve learnt over the past (almost) 20 years. “There was an urgency that we felt that we needed to strip this back,” Shaffer says. “We

As such, the only way to rein them back in was to literally throw them all in a room together with, as frontman Jonathan Davis has been quoted as saying, “the intention of writing an old-school Korn record”. “Yeah, we really needed that aggression, that pissed off kids-from-Bakersfield sound and we were missing that,” Shaffer says candidly. “It still sounds like Korn on those other records, but we were missing that true essence – four guys playing the soundtrack to the movie that we call ‘Violence’.” “That’s what’s going through our heads – terror, violence, that’s what we’re thinking,” he adds. “And if Ross is in the room and he’s not feeling sheer terror or violence, then he’ll stop us and say, ‘You’re wasting my fucking time, why are you here?’” An interesting question, but of course Ross Robinson isn’t one of the cynics. What he is, as Shaffer goes on to say, is basically the lynchpin of this record. It seems Korn III… almost wouldn’t have existed without him – he is, of course, a fine

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“We’ve been doing a lot of new stuff in my studio. The way we record is generally… just me and Deron, plus Jess stops in to play some beats and then it’s just me on my own finishing it up. We recently did a song for the new Jackass movie, it’s like the main song that they have for it – the song is specifically for that movie – but we’ve been writing a bunch of new stuff and I can’t wait to release it in different ways, maybe vinyl and movie soundtracks and stuff like that.” “We’ll put it out ourselves,” Ginsburg continues, “We don’t need anyone to afford our studio time, because I own our studio and I produce all of our records… A label’s nothing but a bank to loan money off with a high interest rate; someone to give you a lot of problems.”

WHO: CKY WHEN & WHERE: Thursday, the Hi-Fi

producer, with his work for the likes of Slipknot and At The Drive-In being testament to that, but it also seems he’s the life-preserver Korn needed to get something – anything – onto disc that would resurrect their career. “No one else could have done it. If we’d used another producer, it would have been just another Korn record,” Shaffer confirms. “He really brought something in and made us feel like we had some solid ground to rebuild and we’re able to go for another 17 years.” With Robinson’s help then, Korn III… is as close as you’ll get to the Korn of old – in about the same fashion as Death Magnetic was for Metallica last year. It’s not the same, but it’s close enough… just. However, you can’t write Korn off, just because they lost the plot back in the late ‘90s. They’ve remained one of the most successful hard acts on the planet, having sold around 34 million records worldwide, due mainly to the support from fans, of which there are plenty. “We’re just being reminded of what a great gift it is, to be able to do what we love for so long,” Shaffer says on where they’re at as a band. “And to have so many fans who stand behind us and have supported us for this long, it really is a gift.” The band’s gift back to their fans is Korn III… and it’d be interesting to see what the reaction is to a record which is so very obviously looking to be compared to the band’s earlier work, ostensibly ignoring everything that’s come between 1999 and 2010. Still, it’s been 17 years – there must be some sort of secret to Korn’s success. “I wake up everyday and can’t believe it,” Shaffer smiles – and this is all he’ll offer on the subject. With their debut in 1994, Korn threw every disaffected metal fan a lifeline. With the follow-up, Life Is Peachy (’96), they proved it wasn’t a fluke and with their third album, 1998’s Follow The Leader, they showed they were leading the pack. However, with records like Issues (’99), Untouchables (’02) and 2003’s Take A Look In The Mirror (not to mention whatever else happened after that), Korn took the turn ‘best left alone’. So does Korn III – Remember Who You Are see them remembering who they are, or were? For a band that has become essentially meaningless, this is an important record – violence and terror included.

WHO: Korn WHAT: Korn III – Remember Who You Are (Roadrunner)

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THE GREAT ESCAPE “I’ve got a very short attention span when it comes to music,” CUSTOM KINGS frontman NICK VORRATH explains as SAMUEL J FELL tries to wrap his head around their eclectic new album. this new one, which is the stuff we’re most interested in listening to and playing at the moment.” This ‘new one’ Vorrath refers to is Great Escape, which stands as the group’s second full-length release and their fifth overall after their initial three EPs: Where Do They Go (’04), Merchant Songs (’06) and The Peace EP (’07). This is a record that, when I put it on the stereo a month or so ago, had me double-checking the disc to see if I had the right band. It’s a record rich in power-pop melodies, soaked in the Californian sun circa late ‘60s/early ‘70s. This is, as Vorrath says, what the band are most interested in playing at the moment, and it seems it began back in 2007 with At Sea. It seems I’ve not been paying attention. “I’ve got a very short attention span when it comes to music, so the kind of music I was listening to when I first started writing is very different to what I’m listening to now,” Vorrath expands. “I guess, to keep interested, you’ve gotta be playing stuff you’re really passionate about.” After a listen to Great Escape, you can certainly see Vorrath and co sitting there, perhaps drinking a few brews, cranking The Beatles or The Beach Boys, but, coupled with the fact it’s a very well-executed record, what it mostly shows is the growth of these four guys as musicians. You get the feeling this record just had to be made. “We didn’t want to worry too much about genre and stuff,” Vorrath clarifies first up on what they were looking to come out with here, highlighting again the band’s wont to mix it up. “We just wanted to have really strong songs. I mean, in this day and age it sorta feels like it’s more about the songs as opposed to the album, so we wanted all the songs to sit on the album really well, but really represent themselves as much as possible, to sorta capture a larger element.” When I first heard Melbourne outfit Custom Kings around five or six years ago, I was less than impressed. To me, they seemed to be just another of those summer festival groove bands, the likes of which are all over the place, reggae rhythms and percussion sections abounding. However, this is more a reflection on my occasional judging-a-band-by-the-one-song-you’veheard mentality rather than on what Custom Kings were and are actually doing. Because, while some of their earlier material may well fit into the ‘groove band’ category, it’s a distinct minority – not surprising

when you realise, firstly, that the band have a pretty large catalogue for such a young group of guys and, secondly, that they’re very, very fond of mixing it up. “I guess we did start in that whole rootsy vein,” muses frontman Nick Vorrath. “But our earlier EPs are very eclectic, a lot of different styles are packed into the one thing. And I guess they were the songs they first picked to play on the radio which would have put us into that genre. And we still have a bit of a link to that, but the last record [2007’s At Sea] was leaning toward

The whole album, it seems, is about ‘growing up’ or ‘maturing’, as not only have the Kings more tightly cemented a sound, but they’ve also moved up in terms of recording, Great Escape being the first release of theirs they’ve made in a studio. “We had been in to a studio, we’d been in every now and then to do a drum track or something, but yeah, mainly so far we’ve been working out of our various homes and living rooms,” Vorrath explains, leading in to their time recently at Melbourne’s Sing Sing studios. “So yeah, it was very different, especially walking into a place

FAMILY REUNION Four years after the demise of Killing Heidi, siblings ELLA and JESSE HOOPER are back making music together. KATE KINGSMILL gets the lowdown on their new country-tinged outfit THE VERSES. chill out away from the city, and ponder what they wanted to do next. Initially they weren’t even sure they would release music again, but they never stopped writing. “We were always playing, and writing ideas but it was nice to have that pressure off of actually having to deliver a song for a certain purpose. So that was liberating, and awesome fun, just to write songs,” Jesse says. “We didn’t have the goal of making a new band, but it just came down to the fun of catching up, sitting down, not having worked together for months, and planning the songs, and going, ‘Wow, there’s still that chemistry there’. “Once we started to develop it a little bit, it felt like, if we are going to do this and seriously do it for something other than just being for fun, we want to make sure that it’s coming from the heart as much as we can and it’s honest and maybe even simple, without being simple. We had to almost unlearn a lot of the stuff we’d done.”

hen The Verses supported Fleetwood Mac last year, Stevie Nicks gave the new band some words of encouragement. “She sat us down and said, ‘Look, it takes years of being the support band, and it takes years of not giving up at that stage. We were supporting all those huge acts, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and nobody knew who we were’. As in, that’s you now, but keep going.” Clearly Nicks was unaware that Ella Hooper and her bandmate and brother Jesse had in fact sold quite a few records already, albeit in their previous incarnation as Killing Heidi. But then, that’s probably just how they like it. Because, for the Hoopers, The Verses is more than just a new phase, it’s a brand new beginning. “This is a whole new thing,” says Ella. “And I know that that looks confusing because we’re both in it, but for us it was a stop, start again. Something very different.” The Verses’ debut album, Seasons, is a mature, slickly produced, country-tinged rock album. It could hardly sound more different to Killing Heidi which, to the Hoopers, “feels like a lifetime ago, in a galaxy far, far away”. Ella points out that compared to the success of Fleetwood Mac, their own was “just a drop in the ocean”. With that

in mind, they decided to think international when it came to producing The Verses’ first record. “That’s why we weren’t afraid, I think, of using some of those southern sounds and some of those things that people now are calling country. Because that’s just what we like.” Ella and Jesse formed Killing Heidi when they were just 13 and 15 respectively, and for almost six years, “every month was blocked out, every day was on this Excel spreadsheet, with all our commitments,” says Ella. “We knew that something was coming up in two weeks so we couldn’t just go walkabout. And our lives were like that for quite a long time; we had a lot of commitments.” So when the band broke up in 2006, the Hooper siblings relished the break and the opportunity to just be. “I was really craving a bit of a wide open space and a lack of schedulisation in my life,” Ella says. “I just wanted to kind of let it all hang out and just to not be anything in particular for anyone. To find out what I might want to be or what my tastes actually were. Because I knew that my tastes had changed a lot since the inception of Killing Heidi and I wanted to be able to be free to develop that and free to explore that, so I was craving a cut and run break from it all.” The pair retreated to country Victoria, where their mum runs a B&B. There, they were able to

The development of their new sound evolved slowly over four or five years of songwriting, experimenting and going through various stylistic phases. “We felt like we could have made three or four different records, depending on the track selection. Because we’d written so much over the four years, and it kind of varied each year,” Jesse says. They went through a Pretenders-y rock phase, then an acoustic Jose Gonzalez phase, through to a Lucinda Williams country style of songwriting. Getting producer Mitchell Froom on board was the key to bringing all influences together to produce a cohesive sound. “The question was, ‘How are we going to meld all these things?’ And Mitchell was like, “I think I get it. I’ve worked with Chrissie Hynde and I’ve worked with Emmylou Harris and Sheryl Crow, I know how to meld these influences. And we said, ‘Alright then! Give it a go! Bring it on!’” Jesse continues. Froom, whose list of credits includes work with Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Ron Sexsmith, Suzanne Vega and Sheryl Crow, was number one on their list of potential producers. “The conversations we had with Mitchell on the phone, there was just that chemistry again, it felt right,” Jesse says.

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like Sing Sing. It’s a pretty full-on joint, you can’t help but be a bit overwhelmed when you walk in there.” The main differences the band found within their new recording location? “Just instantly sounding good,” nods Vorrath. “Just coming straight out of the desk and not having to mess too much with sound, just worrying about performance. That was the best part, letting someone else worry about how the actual record is going to sound. It was kind of hard to relinquish control every now and then, but at the same time the luxury of not having to worry about it, letting professionals take care of the rest.” The professional in this case was longtime Kings collaborator Steve Schram (Little Birdy, Little Red, etc) and under his watchful eye the Kings were indeed able to just concentrate on the music and go for it, which I think also accounts for the real live sound on Great Escape – unfettered and free. “Yeah, that’s right. One of the problems with our first record, because it was done so much at home, when it was released and we went out to play live, we kinda had to relearn how to play the songs live. We couldn’t play them as we’d made them on the record,” Vorrath says on the live sound. “So this time we didn’t want that to happen. We wanted the songs to sound on the record as they would live, so it was a matter of recording as much as possible live and keeping the overdubs to a minimum.” Given the space and amount of equipment in a studio as opposed to a lounge room, this is no wonder, and it seems it did the band good, which is just as well given Great Escape comes more than three years after At Sea. “Because you want the new album to be a bit better than the last one, there’s always a bit of pressure,” acknowledges Vorrath. Difficult second record, then? “Yeah, I’d say so,” he smiles. “Not so much difficult, I guess, but like you said, it has been a long time coming and I guess the longer between records, the more pressure you put on yourself.” I am, quite obviously, surprised, but Custom Kings have responded to this pressure and released what is a great album. I’d best pay more attention, as who knows what they’ll come up with next time.

WHO: Custom Kings WHAT: Great Escape (out Friday through Liberation) WHEN & WHERE: Friday 10 September, Corner Hotel

“He would talk about his favourite songs and they were our favourites, and not the ones we expected him to say,” adds Ella. “So that’s when we first got the first inkling that this record could be really different for us. Because we had written shiteloads of songs. But the ones he was talking about were not the rock songs or the pop songs. They were the singer/songwritery songs, and the songs where I was opening up, those songs that have that honesty and that heartfelt thing, that’s exactly what he zeroed in on and said, ‘That’s what I’d like to do with you guys, I think that’s your strength and I don’t think you know that yet’.” Froom also had a big influence on the way Ella approached the album vocally. Naturally, her voice has grown and developed since she was a teenager, but under encouragement from Froom, she learned to approach singing in a completely different way. “That was one thing Mitchell was really insistent about. He said, ‘I don’t want you to push. I want it to fall out of you. I want it to be like you’re singing in a lounge room’, And I was like, ‘By god, that’s something I’ve never tried!’ It’s easier and natural and it’s kind of how my voice sounds when I’m not in front of a rock band.” The fledgling band gained an auspicious support slot for Fleetwood Mac’s Australian tour in December last year, which in turn had an influence on the songs. “Our songwriting already was probably going down a path that is more Fleetwood Mac-esque, so [the influence] is more in the production,” says Ella. “It was just great timing going into recording an album just being near a band that was that huge and still going and have had one of the classic albums of all time, I think it put us in a really serious headspace for the album.” The Hoopers now have maturity on their side and longevity in mind. “We’d really like to put roots down and get people to know us and know our songwriting and slowly get to see what The Verses is,” says Ella. “I feel way more revealed and I feel way more like this is true and it’s a part of me and I’m a part of it. And it’s exciting because I think once you get the balls to do that, you feel 100% more involved and expressed. It’s riskier but it’s more rewarding, all the stakes are raised and I just feel so much happier playing that kind of game.”

WHO: The Verses WHAT: Seasons (Warner) out Friday

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NEVER DISAPPEAR HERE STAR STRUCK STARS frontman TORQUIL CAMPBELL lets ANTHONY CAREW on a piece of advice given to him by the “glib” Jarvis Cocker.

With the recent reissuing of the back catalogue of Sydney band GLIDE, late frontman William Arthur is getting a very worthy tribute. Drummer JASON KINGSHOTT talks to MICHAEL SMITH.

Campbell offers. “You have all these things that you want to say if you ever get to say them. If anyone ever listens to your band, this is what you’re going to tell them. And we made those records. So, we were free to make a record that was more mysterious to us.”

so unique. I’m not sure that Sydney was even ready for something as different as us at the time.”

he career of Sydney’s indie pop band Glide straddled the 1990s, ending only because of the untimely and unnecessary passing of the band’s singer, songwriter and guitarist William Arthur, in August 1999, at the age of 34. The band’s surviving members – drummer Jason Kingshott, bass player Marc Lynch and guitarist Tim Scott – along with Andy Kelly, who replaced Lynch in ‘96 and will play second guitar, plus Youth Group’s Toby Martin, are getting together for some tribute shows to Arthur. Kingshott says and the group’s legacy (three EPs and four albums, recently reissued exclusively through iTunes) is one all remaining members feel privileged to have created with Arthur. “I think we took for granted how unique we were,” Kingshott suggests, looking back on the band’s career ten years on. “The original line-up brought a lot of eclectic influences with us that, now when we look back, we can really be proud of. Being involved with a really incredible songwriter like William, as a band we were so lucky to have been around him and to have met through [early Sydney street paper] On The Street. “William and Tim had come over from New Zealand together, but I answered an ad in On The Street and the influences stated in the ad were things like The Go-Betweens and The Smiths, things we were all into. Though Marc, the bass player, was into heavier things like Husker Du and Black Flag – not that we ever sounded like that, but looking back I can hear elements of our eclectic influences that makes it

In their day, Glide were one of those local indie bands that ultimately achieved “musician’s musicians” status, lauded by their contemporaries and critics alike, but never successful enough for them to gain the kind of popular respect that, say, The Triffids or The Go-Betweens achieved. It could be argued, however, that William Arthur deserves a place beside David McComb and Grant McLennan on the quality of his songwriting. “We weren’t always great at following up on things, but we were getting attention from Capitol Records in the States and we toured with a band called The Dambuilders, which included Joan Wasser – who’s now Joan As Policewoman – and her boyfriend was Jeff Buckley. He came to our Melbourne show with them, came backstage and told us he really liked us and was talking to William a lot about how much he liked the songs. When Ride came out and we supported them, they’d already heard of us, while Neil Finn had been talking about William. When we went to the States for the first time to do South By Southwest, a lot of labels had heard of us.” Toby Martin will be filling some pretty big shoes in taking up the vocal duties left vacant by the late Arthur in this brief reformation of Glide. “Yeah, but boy is he filling them! He’s doing an amazing job in rehearsals and you couldn’t ask for a better… I hate to use the word replacement, because this is homage and a mark of respect to William, but we can’t [help] but think that he’d approve. I know William liked Youth Group a lot when they first came out and Toby is doing it so much justice and his vocal direction is just like William’s, so it’s great. Andy and I were workshopping the idea of the reformation together and we both thought Toby would be perfect. He is the obvious choice and he said yes straight away.”

WHO: Glide WHAT: Glide’s entire catalogue via iTunes WHEN & WHERE: Friday, East Brunswick Club

Following the death of his father and the birth of his first daughter (“it was a beautiful and heartbreaking year”) Campbell found himself “thinking about ghosts, and thinking about the things you leave behind.”

n April, Canadian indie poppers Stars became the first act to publicly boycott the state of Arizona in light of its racial-profiling-ish immigration laws. Long before Chris Rock, The Black Eyed Peas or Joe Satriani joined the party, Stars were at the front lines, protesting the “obvious movement towards authoritarianism and a culture of fear”, making themselves instantaneous internet heroes/villains. But, despite the fact that Torquil Campbell, Stars’ 38-year-old frontman and pseudo-mouthpiece, classifies himself as “an irritant” and admits, “I can’t decide if I should be the nicest person in the world or a complete cock,” their protest wasn’t designed to rile people up. “Honest to god, it never occurred to me that anyone would give a toss what I thought,” Campbell cackles. “That was the aspect of it that freaked me out. Within 24 hours we were in the fucking Los Angeles Times. And people were calling for a boycott of Stars in Arizona. The internet is such a nuclear weapon. We got some unbelievably hateful, blatantly racist mail from people. ‘You don’t live here next to these people! They don’t cut their lawns!’ Like, really? These people? “We’re fucking hopeless, aren’t we, the human race? What can you do?” Campbell spits, rhetorically, before laughing. “Start a band, I guess…” Campbell formed his band in 2000 with keyboardist Chris Seligman, out to “rip off” Pet Shop Boys, The Go-Betweens, Momus and The Smiths; an early fan-favourite their electro pop cover of This Charming Man. The spectre of Morrissey still lingers on Stars’ freshly pressed fifth album, The Five Ghosts. “When you form a band, you start out like that Smiths lyric: you sit in a room and you draw up a plan,”

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“You spend the first half of your life collecting memories, collecting friends, collecting love, and you spend the last half reconciling yourself to the notion that the cost of all that love is loss,” says Campbell. “I’ve been much more aware of the preciousness of things. And that’s a nice thing about getting older: realising that everything is just so fucking precious. Even traffic jams, after somebody dies, they’re mindblowingly beautiful. When someone you love dies, you go outside and see a red Volvo, and that red is the reddest red that you’ve ever seen in your life.” Ironically, given their public protests, The Five Ghosts is Stars’ least political record; a stark change from their pair of near-polemic prior LPs, 2004’s Set Yourself On Fire and 2007’s In Our Bedroom After The War. And, if it’s their least political, it’s only natural that it’s their most personal, right? “Well, I don’t think I ever write songs about myself,” Campbell reasons. “We write songs about the people we hope will listen to the record. But, we obviously can’t write those songs without all the things that’ve fallen around us. You pick up what you can from what’s around you. And you do what you can. I remember seeing Pulp, once, when I was a kid. This was during Common People; they were huge. And, after the show, Jarvis [Cocker] was walking by with his entourage, and I said: ‘Jarvis, we love you, man! Thank you for doing what you do!’ And he just looked at me and said, ‘We do what we can’. At the time, I thought he was being glib, but I realise he was just being wise. You do what you can.”

WHO: Stars WHAT: The Five Ghosts

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NATURAL INSTINCT

HEAD FOR NUMBERS

SAMSARA have emerged from a time of turbulence clutching a new album. New vocalist NICK VINE takes SCOTT FITZSIMONS through the rush.

“We’d consider ourselves to be ‘thinking music’,” CARNATION guitarist MICK TARBUCK tells NIC TOUPEE on the eve of the band’s EP launch. we’ve talked to had a clue about the Mayan calendar before they heard our song! People come up and ask what the song is all about whenever we play. By writing a song like that you open up people’s minds to different ideas and cultures,” Tarbuck passionately declares.

othing ruins momentum like line-up changes, but Melbourne’s hammering melodic hardcore outfit Samsara have come out of their personnel shifts with invigoration. Releasing The Emptiness in 2007, vocalist Luke Bainbridge and drummer Tim Shearman departed the picture in 2009 and were replaced by Nick Vine and Mat Woodhouse respectively, both of Face Eater. There were no guarantees, however, that the band would move forward from such upheaval. “At the start it was a little bit rocky, because we had to replace a drummer,” explains Vine, “but for the most part I get on with those guys great and in terms of writing it’s all gone pretty smoothly.” Even with an easy transition though, there has been an inevitable shift in dynamic. “Especially with drumming, Woody is a lot different in style to what Tim was. So it definitely changed the way we wrote the songs and approach writing, but everyone gelled really well and there’s a good energy between us from the get go. It all got written and the album came together really quick because of that dynamic.” The record, Instinct Over Influence, was recorded in a “stressful” period, with “lots of busy nights” as they worked around the itinerary of their producer, scene heavyweight Kurt Ballou of Converge, who also worked on their 2007 effort. “There was a certain date when the [Australian Converge] tour wrapped up that he could be here from. It was about eight or nine days in the end… Leading up to it, it was a little bit daunting, but once you start it’s all pretty relaxed and you realise why he’s in the position he’s in; he’s just really knowledgeable with music in general and gets a good result, has a good work ethic. “We’d done a lot of pre-production and worked on the arrangements so by the time we got to the point where we were recording, the songs had to be re-arranged and

worked on to the point where they were pretty spot-on. [But] there were some things that he definitely, sitting in, picked up on and he left us to our own devices for the most part, which was good. Just obvious things he highlighted and it was just up to us to make the call on.” The compression of the recording process – and the whole recent chapter in their history – is going to be unleashed when the band hit the road. “Because it was done in such a short period of time and everyone was working so hard at recording, it’s nice for the fun to start now and have some time to enjoy the songs and just enjoy playing live again, which will be good. We’ve done shows here and there in Melbourne, just to remind people that we’re still a band, but we haven’t done any extensive touring for it… It’ll be good to really give [the new line-up] a test now that we’ve got a lot of shows in a row, but things have been great live. Lots of fun and good energy.” It’s tempting to regard this album as another start for the band, a second stab at a debut, but this is still very much Samsara’s second record. “It’s a good point, but because the songs are being written by the same people, I think it is still an evolution for the band,” Vine elaborates. “There is consistency in how it sounds; it’s progressed as it would have anyway. I think just the dynamic’s a little bit different having different members, but it does feel reinvigorated and new again.”

WHO: Samsara WHAT: Instinct Over Influence (Trial And Error/Stomp) WHEN & WHERE: Saturday, the Arthouse; Sunday, Phoenix Youth Centre (2pm, all ages)

DOG DAYS

In order to educate, Tarbuck and co are voracious in their search for answers to The Big Questions, looking to art and film for pointers. “We’re reading a lot of things: lots of art, film, books, and that comes across in our music sometimes” he observes. “For example a song that I wrote, Future, for this EP, was written after watching Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. I was thinking about how they would erase memories if you didn’t want them there and how that affects your life – stuff like that.”

re-apocalyptic rockers Carnation are on their way to Singapore for a two-week residency, but not before launching their portentiously titled new EP, 12.21.12, at Fad Gallery. Whilst they share a love of the psychedelic, the prismatic and the prophetic with many ‘70s prog rock bands, guitarist Mick Tarbuck takes pains to dispel the commonly held illusion that they are fully fledged acid-taking Stonehenge huggers. “We struggle with this a lot,” he laments. “People like to pigeonhole bands, but we’ve got many diverse influences between psychedelic, rock’n’roll, indie. Our influences are from all over the place: Manchester, psychedelia, hip hop, Britpop from the ‘90s. We do have a lot of psychedelic moments,” he concedes, “but the main thing we like is making the audience think about exactly what we’re doing, and about space, time and the world. So, really, we’d consider ourselves to be ‘thinking music’ and if that takes you to another realm in terms of the mind, that’s where our psychedelic influence comes into it.” They may sound like Marion melded with Marillion, Pink Floyd played by Pulp, but their main preoccupations are cerebral, philosophical, and consider the music as a vehicle for their undeniably intriguing messages. Chief songwriter and singer Josh Monte steers the band’s lyrical trajectory towards some heavy philosophical territory. “Josh, who writes the majority of the lyrics, explores topics like the future and space and time – we’re definitely into making people think a bit more” Tarbuck reiterates. “[The song] 2012, the last track on the EP, which is a fairly old song for us, is about the Mayan end of the world. It has become fairly popular, and no one

Their deep contemplation, when focussed upon the new EP, led to Carnation opting out of a big producer, instead choosing to record themselves. “This EP was recorded differently to the last one. Then, we had a producer in Sydney and we were in Melbourne so we were a long way away from what was happening with our songs” Tarbuck unhappily recalls.” For this one we rented a house in Red Hill, outside of Melbourne, and spent ten days there. We moved all of our furniture and decked out the house as a recording studio, bringing an engineer with us, and recorded it from scratch. We much preferred doing it this way: we knew exactly where every sound was coming from and how we wanted to do it differently this time.” Five guys living together for ten days trying to produce the sonic goods could be a recipe for disaster – but not for Carnation – who, like their flowery namesake – are all about peace, love, and the flowers of bromance. “The difference between us and other bands is that we’re like brothers. We’re always together on a Wednesday night or Saturday night, so because of that it was really easy and made sense for all of us to be together in the house to record. We had a lot of fun – it was a pretty full on week and a half, and not just the recording,” he adds meaningfully.

WHO: Carnation WHAT: 12.21.12 (Show Off Recordings) WHEN & WHERE: Saturday, Fad Gallery

HUNTING HAPPY

He played his first shows supporting Tracey Chapman. Now CONOR J O’BRIEN is back as indie king VILLAGERS. DOUG WALLEN hunts him down.

MYSTERY JETS guitarist WILL REES tells EJ CARTLEDGE the UK lad-pop band were told they were going too far in the studio by the man who produced the Sex Pistols.

soul-baring voice, the songs can recall such greats as Neutral Milk Hotel and Bright Eyes, whose Conor Oberst is strikingly similar to O’Brien in name and approach. As O’Brien tells it, Villagers wasn’t so much a reaction to his last band as a continuation of his songwriting. “It just happened that I was doing it on my own now,” he explains. “It was more out of necessity the way the music sounded, purely because I was on my own. But I didn’t set out with any idea what it was going to sound like. I just kept writing after that band split up. The songs gradually changed and I kept reworking them and revisiting them. It was over a period of two years, really, that the album was written.” You may not have heard of Conor J O’Brien’s previous band, The Immediate, but the Dublin singer/songwriter’s new outfit Villagers is suddenly ubiquitous. The film clip for the title track from Villagers’ debut album Becoming A Jackal was recently iTunes’ Video Of The Week in the States, and the album topped the charts in Ireland. Video of O’Brien performing the title track solo in public spaces while touring the US has also been making the rounds online. Plus, Villagers are touring for the rest of the year and may even make it to Oz soon. If that all seems like a rare streak of luck, O’Brien’s bookishly engaging songwriting has always provided him breaks. He performed his first-ever solo gigs supporting Tracy Chapman across Europe, after all. “That was weird,” he admits by phone. “It was instantly in front of lots of people in big places. But it was cool. I felt comfortable.” O’Brien approaches Villagers’ chart success in Ireland with the same nonchalance. “I didn’t really think about it,” he demurs. “I wasn’t expecting or not expecting it. I was so busy when it happened that it wasn’t in my head.” He does admit that The Immediate had been well known in Ireland, although he emphasises it was more of a critically lauded cult band than a massiveselling marquee name. Villagers, by contrast, may be on its way to the latter, powered by lavish critical praise as well as wildfire word-of-mouth. It helps that Becoming A Jackal was released by the international powerhouse Domino, but that’s not to understate O’Brien’s songwriting or the album’s stirring baroquefolk textures. Between his narrative lyrics and shaky,

Throughout that period of time, O’Brien wasn’t shut up in his house writing non-stop. He toured consistently, playing guitar for fellow Irish songwriter Cathy Davey. “Whenever I was free,” he recalls, “I’d just write these songs. I didn’t even know if it was going to be a band or have a name.” When he did find time to demo the songs for what would become Becoming A Jackal, O’Brien played all the instruments, using equipment friends had left in the loft outside the house he shares with seven other people. “By the time I’d gotten all the demos done,” he says, “I was so precious about the songs that I wasn’t going to let anyone else play them for the album. So I just had to do them myself.” That said, Villagers keyboardist Cormac Curran arranged the strings and French Horn heard on the album. And Villagers have since become more of a proper band, with O’Brien’s recent US solo shows setting the plate for a full band tour soon enough. “I’m trying to slowly introduce the songs to people,” he reckons, “and not spend too much money in the meantime.” Considering he built the album’s songs from the ground up, he’s only too comfortable playing them solo or with the band. “I try and write the songs,” he shares, “so that no matter how important the arrangement is, it can stand up just as strong when you strip it away.”

WHO: Villagers WHAT: Becoming A Jackal (Domino/EMI)

ere’s one that ain’t from the factory. Mystery Jets sport a lead singer on crutches, his father on guitar until recent times and sprout the prog rock of King Crimson and Yes as seminal influences. The father – Henry Harrison – formed the band years ago with son Blaine and the lad’s best friend William Rees when the boys were all of eight years old. It gets even better: the band is based on Eel Pie Island, a tiny community in the middle of the Thames in southwest London. Directly opposite, on the riverbank, is the famous Eel Pie Studios, owned by one Pete Townsend of The Who. As the boys matured, they staged impromptu gigs in the island’s boatyard, which drew considerable attention. With the band’s third album recently released, Serotonin, guitarist and principle songwriter Rees talks about recording this time around. “The main thing we’ve learned is to keep things simple,” he says. “I think a lot of the time you’re under the impression that you need to go into the studio and be like some kind of mad professor, trying out loads of ideas, experimenting with different gadgets, like you see in the old photos of Brian Eno. The reality is quite different I think; the recording process should be quite simple. When the process is simple it means you’re not covering up holes or gaps or weak parts. It should be a really good song, a live take, a few overdubs, great vocal take and that should be it. It’s funny; I was actually disappointed to discover that’s how things should be.” Another claim to fame for the band has been the opportunity to work with legendary producer Chris Thomas, who has weaved his magic for the likes of the Sex Pistols, Pulp, Roxy Music and John Cale. Rees explains it was a change of record label that brought about the introduction. “When we first signed to Rough Trade,” he says, “which was in January 2009, we put the question to them that we had asked a number of different labels.

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That question was, ‘Who do you think we should work with next?’ and a lot of labels came back to us and told us they loved our last album and we should work with Erol Alkan again, who produced Twenty One. But the one label who told us we should aim for the stars was Rough Trade. When we heard that, we knew this was the label that was going to push us. They were the ones who suggested we work with Chris Thomas, so it ended up being quite an easy thing to organise. Saying that, we pretty much pulled him out of retirement, ‘cause the last thing he produced was five years ago. We were lucky to get him.” Rees goes on to say that the band and producer built up quite a rapport, with Thomas even flying out to South America to watch the Mystery Jets perform. For Rees, Thomas was able to curb his tendency to tweak and tinker with every aspect of the band’s sound. “We produced a demo for every track that ended up being recorded and we would always come back to the demos,” he says. “The demos were kind of like the imprint for what ended up on the record. Basically we followed the demos a lot of the time and tried not to steer too far away from them. The great thing about working with a great producer is that he would always let us know when to stop. Sometimes he’d simply say, ‘Right, you’re going too far now’. But it’s really a combination of using a producer as a sounding board and following your own instincts. Most of what Chris Thomas thought was worthwhile ended up on the record, but that’s what our instincts were telling us anyway.”

WHO: Mystery Jets WHAT: Serotonin (Rough Trade/Remote Control)

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HOME BEAUTY Written while sharing a house, the first taste of bloodand-thunder pop band KHANCOBAN’s third album is here. Frontman ANDRE HOOK chats to TONY MCMAHON. precious about whether their part was included or not. We were able to really go with what felt good. Also, when that song was written, three of us were living together, so the drums and organ and guitar were all built up together.”

nique and intriguing local outfit Khancoban make gorgeously slow burn records treading the underrepresented line between a kind of folk beauty and the excitement of out-and-out rock’n’roll noise. They’ve been compared to Arcade Fire, Wilco and Augie March, which is correct as far as those sorts of things are concerned but doesn’t go nearly far enough in telling the full story of the complexity and inherent value in this amazing band. Khancoban’s new single, This Block off their forthcoming third album, should serve as a timely reminder that this is a group that deserves our full attention. Frontman Andre Hooke suggests that part of the depth his group is able to achieve musically has to do with band dynamics. “I guess the way that the five of us in the band react to each other and interact with each other and kind of feed off each other lets us take it a bit further than if some of us weren’t there, if that makes any sense. We are pretty close. We’re playing a show in Brisbane in a couple of days and we’re all up on the Cold Coast at the moment having a holiday together. The drummer, Jemima, and I are married, and our bass player and keyboard player have been friends since they were five.” As mentioned above, there is an extraordinarily interesting dichotomy going on in Khancoban’s music in general, and This Block in particular, between raw emotion at the heart of the songs and high production values that wouldn’t necessarily appear at first glance to be compatible. The band pulls the balancing act off with amazing aplomb, however, and Hooke says it’s largely thanks to the producer, Nick Huggins. “In terms of the arrangements, I think we worked really well with the producer. We were kind of able to dissect the song and no one was too

The B-side for This Block, a stunningly naked and heartfelt guitar and vocal number entitled I Wish I Was On A Plane Somewhere (Softly) also had an interesting production story attached to it. “Pretty much it was just me in a room. There was just one microphone and I recorded it live. I was facing the wall in case anyone came in and saw me.” On the subject of what to expect from the new album, due out later this year, possibly on vinyl, Hooke describes what some of the songs might sound like, but then goes on to talk about some of the thinking behind the recording. “There’s a few songs that are sort of pop-ier. There are a lot of songs that are really… skeletonlike: we’d go down the path of leaving the drums out and things like that, more trying to go for what you might call atmosphere this time rather than in the past where we would just play something and record it. We just thought we’d try something different.” Excitingly, the launch for This Block is at the Northcote Social Club, where the acoustics of the band room should make for a truly beautiful sound. Be warned though, Hooke says that Khancoban may have quite a few surprises in store. “We’ve got an old friend coming over from WA called Justin Walshe; he’s going to be warming up the crowd. We’re kind of changing direction a bit lately. I’m playing electric guitar, where I’ve always played acoustic in the past. And we’re getting a bit looser in terms of approaching the songs differently. We’re also talking about having a violin player on a few of the songs. It’ll be a great chance to play in a great room with a great sound system.”

WHO: Khancoban WHAT: This Block (Half A Cow) WHEN & WHERE: Sunday, Northcote Social Club (2pm); Friday 20 August, Northcote Uniting Church

TRUTH OR DARE NICK ARGYRIOU sits down with MARK SHOLTEZ to dissect the reasons why he finds women so confusing as his debut album hits ears. piano and Hammond B-3 organ touch of Larry Goldings (Madeleine Peyroux, James Taylor, Solomon Burke).

rom the opening shuffle rhythm, tinkling piano, electric and pedal steel flourishes of Mark Sholtez’s cracking leading track, A Thousand Lies (co-written by A Wasiliev, aka Alex Lloyd) taken from his latest record, The Distance Between Two Truths you get the sense that Sholtez has surrounded himself with some pretty special players on his second album. Then you delve into the bio and see the line-up on the album sleeve and are blown away by the pulling power Sholtez has garnered in just a few short years. Add to this the songwriting credits with Sholtez penning tunes with Aqualung’s Matt Hales (This Is Where It Starts), Shane Nicholson (Kissed It All Away) and Iain Archer (We Could Get Lost) who co-wrote Snow Patrol’s Final Straw, coupled with hearing of Sholtez’s time spent picking the brains of Bill Chambers about guitar styles, writing and Johnny Cash, and you know the man is on a good wicket. The Distance Between Two Truths, Sholtez’s follow-up to his 2006 breakout, Real Street, was also produced by American recording legend Larry Klein, who cut his teeth crafting his now ex-wife Joni Mitchell’s records in the early ‘80s before going on to work with Shawn Colvin, Tracy Chapman and, more recently, Madeleine Peyroux, whose records Klein has produced the bulk of since 2004. Laying down the tracks at the famed LA Sunset Sounds studio (The Doors, Beach Boys, Lennon and McCartney) the band Klein chose to work with Sholtez is astonishing. Doug Pettibone (Mark Knopfler, Jewel, Marianne Faithfull, Lucinda Williams) takes on electric guitar and pedal steel, injecting a liberal dosage of Americana to The Distance Between Two Truths. Alongside Pettibone, who also helped Sholtez’s guitar playing rise to another level, is the gun-for-hire rhythm section of David Piltch (bass) and Brian Macleod (drums) plus the sweet

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With Sholtez shifting from piano to guitar during the writing of songs for The Distance Between Two Truths the album takes on a crunchier; more twang-heavy feel over his 2006 jazz-flavoured Real Street recording. Flying in the face of simply replicating his critically acclaimed jazz debut (Sholtez becoming the first Australian to be signed to exalted American jazz label Verve; Real Street spent ten consecutive weeks at the top of the ARIA Jazz and Blues charts, and the song Love Me For The Cool won an APRA Award for most performed jazz work overseas) he strapped on his trusty Collings 00 acoustic guitar, grew his short hair out and set about changing perceptions. Tired of being labeled as a Rat Pack-esque crooner, Sholtez had other ideas. His newfound love of the guitar helping carve a new path. “It was great working alongside Doug… what I loved about his guitar work was the attention to detail in guitar tone and his Fender Telecaster through a Twin Reverb and him coming from that country blues background gives the record real authenticity as far as singer songwriter albums go,” Sholtez informs. Discussing his LA purchase of an old ’68 Gretsch Anniversary, strumming with flatwound strings, and asking many questions of Pettibone in terms of amps used and frequencies reached, assures me that Sholtez is now an absolute guitar nut. From a songwriting perspective it’s the ladies once again that dominate Sholtez’s thinking, with many of the themes on his record covering the mysteries of the female species. Sholtez openly admitting that, “I often hint in my lyrics at the idea that women are complicated and confusing creatures” and nothing has changed, as he informs: “I think as guys we’re so simple, like a puppy dog, where women are more complicated, with more layers and it fascinates me so I try to get to the bottom of it… but mostly I like to write about the fact that I just don’t get it,” he laughs. WHO: Mark Sholtez WHAT: The Distance Between Two Truths (Warner) WHEN & WHERE: Friday 10 September, the Thornbury Theatre

MELBOURNE

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frontrow@inpress.com.au

THIS WEEK IN

ARTS

CUTTING EDGE PERFORMANCE PROFESSOR

FILM

CAREW

UNI LECTURER, DRAMATURG AND PERFORMANCE ARTIST; PAUL DWYER DOES ITXXXXXX ALL AND MORE WITH HIS ETHNOGRAPHIC ONE MAN SHOW THE BOUGAINVILLE PHOTOPLAY PROJECT. PAUL RANSOM STUDIOUSLY TAKES NOTES.

TWO IN THE WAVE

WEDNESDAY 11 Chevolution – a film about how the famous image of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s face gained its iconic and symbolic status. State Library of Victoria, 6.30pm. Kunst ist Scheisse – evening of short performances spanning comedy, dance, circus, burlesque, and arty shit. 24 Moons, off Flinders Lane, 8pm. Morning Melodies: Hollywood Classics – Orchestra Victoria perform film scores from Ben Hur to James Bond. The Arts Centre, 1:30pm.

THURSDAY 12 Photography Night Walk – Thursday and Sunday night city walks from 6:30pm, with work screened afterward at Loop from 9pm. Two In The Wave – Emmanuel Laurent documentary looking at Godard and Truffaut in their early days at Cahiers du Cinéma. ACMI until 15 August.

FRIDAY 13 connected10 art prize – shortlisted works from a competition open to Victorians with a disability or an experience of mental illness. Opening night. Melbourne Central until 26 August. Market Of The Mind – a City Science event with mind games, brain chemicals, and zombies. QV square, 5.30pm. Navigate – artist Rebecca Saunders shows a collection of paintings combining the architectural and the abstract. Opening night. Brood Box until 1 September. Red Hot Shorts – a collection of award winning short films and music videos, tonight focussing on Radiohead. ACMI, 7.30pm. Rockstars, Heretics, & Catalysts – exhibition by Sydney-based photographer Peter Stanton (AKA

Mastertouch) taking as much influence from neo romanticism as it is rock’n’roll. Opening night. Abode Gallery, 9pm. The Trial – a performance of the Kafka story that’s the one about the law, not the cockroach. Opening night. Malthouse Theatre until 4 September.

SATURDAY 14 Freeplay Independent Games Festival – two days of examination of creativity, play, and the developmental process in gaming across a variety of media. State Library of Victoria. National Science Week – exhibitions, talks, experiments, and lab coats around the city until 22 August. Nowhere Boy – Sam Taylor-Wood’s dramatisation of the formative years of The Beatles based on John Lennon’s half-sister’s memoir. ACMI until 23 August. Burke And Wills: Terra Incognita – curator Gerard Hayes leads a tour of the exhibition’s documents and memorabilia of the ill-fated explorers. State Library of Victoria, 11am.

SUNDAY 15 Melbourne Winter Festival – alpine food stalls, the Winter Bar and ice skating in Federation Square finish today.

TUESDAY 17 Human Centred Computing – Professor Steve Howard discusses science, values and innovation in relation to how computers can be ‘human centred’. Elizabeth Murdoch Theatre, Melbourne University, 6.30pm. Menopause The Musical – four women meet randomly in a department store and explore ‘the change’ in song. Opening night. Comedy Theatre until 29 August.

MOONLITING THROUGH HISTORY A soldier, engineer, and lay preacher, Captain Moonlite was something of a media celebrity and a busy guy. He managed to find time for other interests, though, like being a bushranger and being in love with a man named James, and publicly ‘coming out’ on Death Row. The Y-GLAM Performing Arts Project look at his life and the insights it gives into queer, Melbourne, and queer Melbourne history, playing out his story against archival images and with live music. Captain Moonlite will run Tuesday 7 September to Saturday 11 at The Mechanics Institute Performing Arts Centre.

MASTERTOUCH COMES TO ABODE Taking cue from the neo realists, the masters of the Renaissance, rock’n’roll iconography, and the world of fetish, Sydney based photographic artist and graphic designer Peter Stanton (AKA Mastertouch) creates evocative and provocative imagery rich in life. You’ll get the chance to discover (or rediscover) his work when he presents Rockstars, Heretics, & Cataylsts at Abode Gallery this week. Opening night is Friday 13 August, with Stanton in attendance.

Imagine a night at the theatre that resembled a cross between a tute group, a slide night, and a crash course in Pidgin English. Unlikely though it seems, there is such a show; and when Professor Paul Dwyer revives his surprise one man hit The Bougainville Photoplay Project this month audiences will once again be ushered into an exotic many pronged show’n’tell world of personal, family and geo-political history. This peculiar thespian odyssey began more than 40 years ago when Paul Dwyer’s father, the late orthopaedic surgeon Dr Allan Dwyer, was doing pro bono work on the Melanesian island of Bougainville. “It all came about by happenstance,” says Dwyer the younger. “I just happened to find this old box of my father’s old slides. I just happened to find an old letter that a missionary had written to him that named the patients he’d operated on. And then when I was in Bougainville myself I just happened to bump into someone who knew some of the people on that list.” What evolved was a performance piece that blends sharp edged politics, ethnography, and detailed surgical procedures. “By day I’m a university lecturer, by night I’m a contemporary performance artist,” Dwyer jokes. “My students are always saying how much role playing and storytelling I get into my lectures. I guess I just have a lot of stories to tell.” Of all the narrative threads embedded in The Bougainville Photoplay Project Australia’s role in the island’s struggle for self determination looms large. Recalling a chance meeting that happened during the course of an unrelated research project, Dwyer explains, “I met a patient my father had operated on forty years beforehand and he showed me his ankle. Now he was

born a cripple and my father fixed his ankle and now he can walk just fine. But then I noticed a scar on his leg and I asked what it was and he said, ‘that’s a bullet wound’.” Bougainvilleans have long campaigned not only against presence of the Papua New Guinea military on their island but the environmental and economic exploitation visited upon their community by the giant Australian owned Panguna copper mine. However, for Dwyer the focus is on our role in the conflict. “Those bullets were Australian,” he bluntly adds. Indeed, Australia’s role as a colonial power in the region forms much of the backdrop to Dwyer’s otherwise personal exploration of his father’s work. “What I’m doing has got nothing to do with any cathartic father/son psycho drama or anything,” he continues. “For me it’s much more about trying to make sense of the work my father did as a doctor. Y’know, what was the value of that work? He might have fixed a hundred people up but in the meantime Australia’s mining involvement and military support for the PNG defence force indirectly led to the death of maybe 15,000 Bougainvilleans.” All that aside, Dwyer insists that the show is not a turgid political lecture. Indeed, he describes it as a fast paced, often self mocking piece. Audiences and critics seem to agree. “I kinda feel like I’m just doing my normal schtick,” he quips, “but somehow the winds of fashion have moved to the point where me doing my university lecturer patter is cutting edge contemporary performance. It looks like my time has finally come.” WHAT: The Bougainville Photoplay Project WHERE & WHEN: Arts House Thursday 12 August to Saturday 15

FOUR LIONS

WITH ANTHONY CAREW MIFF is dead. Long live MIFF. Despite having fallen short of a goal of witnessing 100 films from the program (I peaked at 97; the shame), your grizzled ol’ Film Carew saw enough stuff to find ten films that I can unreservedly recommend. So, see them when they hit cinemas! Oh, wait, aside from Chris Morris’s allkinds-of-awesome Four Lions, which arrives next week, none of these are coming soon to a cinema near year. So, maybe, um, clip the list, wait a few months, then ‘source’ these suckers however you may. God bless: 1. The Red Chapel (Denmark, director Mads Brügger) 2. Four Lions (UK, Chris Morris) 3. The Robber (Austria, Benjamin Heisenberg) 4. Let Each One Go Where He May (Suriname, Ben Russell) 5. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Thailand, Apichatpong Weerasethakul) 6. Air Doll (Japan, Hirokazu Kore-eda) 7. The Myth Of The American Sleepover (US, David Robert Mitchell) 8. The Day Will Come (Germany, Susanne Schneider) 9. Green Days (Iran, Hana Makhmalbaf) 10. Trash Humpers (US, Harmony Korine) Those feeling fest withdrawals can keep on keeping on with Two In The Wave, a screening-at-ACMI documentary chronicling the birth of the nouvelle vague, the collaborative relationship between Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, and their eventual falling out. It’s not particularly audience-friendly or charismatic stuff; there’s a dry, academic, inside-baseball feeling to proceedings, and debutante director Emmanuel Laurent clearly isn’t an artful auteur himself. But by delving deeply into reams of archival footage – interviews, newsreels, behind-the-scenes footage, student riots – Laurent at least allows his film to travel back to the time it chronicles, rather than making audiences suffer through the vile nostalgia of the talking-heads flick. Another festival opens this week, though it’s possibly the least-essential fest on the calendar: the Israeli Film Festival. As always, there’s scant pickings to be had – the Jewish FF,

MIFF, ACMI, et al. long ago claimed any interesting pictures that could’ve screened here – with the ‘drawcard’ being Spring 1941, a sudsy periodpiece telemovie cribbing from Ida Fink, which tells a flashback-filled, seen-it-all-before-a-billion-times tale of Nazis rolling in, families hiding out in barns, etc. Ajami was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar this year, but there’s not much beyond the obvious in this intersecting-storylines/intensestereotypes look at a torn Tel Aviv neighbourhood whose skirmishes are between – woah, curveball – Christian and Muslim Arabs. The Loners is a kind-of-annoying tale of institutionalised injustice in which a pair of ‘loner’ Israeli Army soldiers – one a Russian immigrant, the other an English – fall victim to a Zionist caste system, and find themselves scapegoated and persecuted in the military prison system. It’s loaded thematic territory that is, sadly, turned into a silly hostage-negotiation movie, replete with tinkly piano score for the poignant moments. Phobidilia addresses subject-matter that, in 2010, should make for riotous ideas: an agoraphobic lives a fantasy life through internet wires and his relationship to television characters. Instead, the Paz brothers’ undoubtedly-shitty film can only come up with “hilarious” fake soap-operas, a just-a-different-kind-of-fantasy love-interest, and lame thriller elements. You can measure an action-movie’s sense of ambition by the length, ingenuity, and breathless excitement of its chase-scenes, and Danny Lerner’s Kirot comes up awfully short. This gunfire-movie-for-theladies puts Olga Kurylenko as a kidnapped-Russian-prostitute who, with help from an abused housewife (a frumping-it turn from Israeli pop starlet Ninet Tayeb), fights for her freedom by shooting up a silly parade of toothpick-chewing dudes in leather-jackets. In doing so, Kurylenko oft must leg her way out of a stand-off, which usually takes about five seconds, two artful edits, and no sustained tension to accomplish. The whole plays as a no-budget, unconvincing, stupendouslyunexciting variation on La Femme Nikita (its hilarious US-release title is The Assassin Next Door!), just with that cheapest of dramatic devices – the reunion with the daughter she left behind! – used to pull things forward. It sucks, but, then again, so does everything else in the IFF.

frontrow@inpress.com.au film. He was penning True Blood at the time and he said he’d love to have me come and audition. And I did and I was actually the first one cast by at least a couple of months.” True Blood has become HBO’s most watched program since The Sopranos, averaging 12.4 million viewers throughout its second season. This is vampire fiction for adults. The concept is refreshing in its originality. The Japanese have created a synthetic blood to counter the lack of real life donors and the real life living dead have discovered they can survive on this beverage.

BLOOD SELLS FROM HOME & AWAY TO HOUSEHOLD NAME; WHO WOULD’VE GUESSED THAT A FAIRLY LOW-KEY ROLE WOULD LAND RYAN KWANTEN A PLACE IN ONE OF THE HOTTEST SHOWS ON TV, TRUE BLOOD. LIZ GALINOVIC TALKS TO THE AUSTRALIAN ACTOR. For those who aspire to be actors or models or event Australian Idol contestants, there is one particular rule about the audition process that aspirants can become finicky about – taking someone else with you. An auditioning actor’s worst nightmare has to be that the friend who tags along for moral support catches the eye of the casting agent or the director. The irony of Ryan Kwanten’s success

is that he didn’t set out to be an actor. He was the only child of three who didn’t attend Sydney’s Newtown High School Of The Performing Arts. His brother harboured the dreams of becoming an actor but unfortunately when Mrs Kwanten dropped her son off at his audition and the unassuming Ryan Kwanten, who just happened to there, was picked for the role. “Oh you heard about that?” he says

with some surprise. “He’s forgiven me. He’s certainly moved on, he’s a composer now; he plays 15 instruments, he’s a genius in that world. So he’s found his little niche in life.” Kwanten speaks of both his brothers with glowing pride in a way that almost undermines his own talents. “The youngest brother is a doctor so he stole every ounce of intelligence. I’m not sure what I was left with but

it’s something. The ability to fool people, I guess.” Eight years ago, after finishing up on Home And Away, Kwanten “did a couple of films” before moving off to the states. In 2006 he appeared in the film Flicka, something he describes as a “very family-friendly” film involving young girls discovering themselves and who love horses. After seeing this film, writer/director/ producer Alan Ball (American Beauty, Six Feet Under) picked Kwanten to play the role of Jason Stackhouse in his southern vampire series True Blood. “He saw that film and somehow saw elements of the character of Jason, albeit a very G-rated Jason, in this

MAD MYSTERY MAN

irony isn’t exactly underrepresented in his own methods. It might seem cute for a guy who paints stylised ’50s-futuristic party scenes where everyone’s smoking and has a cocktail in hand like Mad Men crossed with The Jetsons to cite Hieronymus Bosch as a major influence, but he points out that “it’s easier to deal with heavy things in an unrealistic style, you’re not going to be seen as being so precious.” The references tie in to a rigorous artistic education, too: he may not have intended to become an artist, ending up as one because

Based on the books by Charlaine Harris, True Blood is not for the faint-hearted. This show does not revolve around 16-year-old virgins and their dreary heart palpitations. The main (human) protagonist, Sookie Stackhouse, played by NZ actress Anna Paquin, makes Isabella Swan look like the pathetic whimpering teenager she, well, is. Drenched in blood, sex, and violence (quite often in the one scene) True Blood brings an entirely new “what if” characteristic the supernatural genre. Now in its third season (hitting Australia next week) Ball, following Harris to some degree, is taking it up a level. “There are a lot more characters this season and a lot more not-normal characters, if you know what I mean. That in itself adds a whole knew element of mystery, suspense, the supernatural element, all that sort of stuff. A lot more blood, a lot more rambunctiousness… for lack of a better word.”

cans to a chair for their final works I’d be doing a still life, or a nude, in oil paint.” Hence, perhaps, the quite formal iconography of his work, in which a symbolic vocabulary is built up in domestic/social interiors? The anachronistic world of his work and the highly stylised way it’s represented both evoke and pre-empt our sociological urges, demonstrating both mastery and subversion of the narrative potential of static representations. (Talk about heavy. I’ll stop.)

JOSH AGLE – AKA SHAG – CREATES ARTWORKS FEATURING SOPHISTICATED PARTIES AND TIKI ICONOGRAPHY. RETURNING TO AUSTRALIA WITH HIS LATEST EXHIBITION, HE SPEAKS TO BETHANY SMALL. “I think artists stopped being sincere when sincerity started getting confused with pretentiousness,” is Shag’s reflection on the whole postmodern self-reflexive irony thing in contemporary art. “Particularly the British,” he suggests. “They don’t put up with being all deadly serious, all those people [the Young British Artists movement] that’s brought them great success.” Great success indeed: when he says, “I’d like to buy a Damien Hirst,” then wryly adds “…I’d like a private jet, too,” it’s a pretty straightforward comment on Hirst’s prices. Now, Shag may not embalm stuff or embed it with diamonds, but

With human blood no longer a necessity to their survival, centuries of living a life in secrecy is no longer required. Vampires are real, they don’t need to eat us anymore and so they would like to coexist. This means they want the right to vote, own property, get married, and so on. Well, those of them who are willing to give up the old ways, anyway.

The possibility of games with meaning being the best way of trying to communicate coming across in his tiki tableaux, and just like how the people at the parties in his paintings are posing and projecting, the artist himself is very conscious of the way his work presents him, of image.

people kept wanting to buy his pictures, but his training in design was “very formal”.

“We did traditional methods,” he explains, “and while my friends who went to other places were nailing beer

“Yeah, there’s definitely a persona, and with that; people come to expect it of you and you sort of grow into it and you realise at a certain point that you’ve become it… And now, you know, I get kinda offended if I don’t get offered a cocktail. It’s cyclical I guess.”

Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries probably won’t be found on Stephanie Meyer’s book shelves. Their content is blush inducing for even the most promiscuity prone. They are, however, narrated by Sookie Stackhouse, who loves to give details of her midriff bearing outfits that compliment her glorious tan rendering the books more palatable to a female audience. “I’ve read two and a half of the books and they’re fantastic but not really my thing. They’re a little kind of flowery for my liking. Personally I love what Alan has done with the books, sort of made a lot more, I guess, TV-savvy version. And almost to the point where the people who have read the books still don’t know what’s going to happen.” As the story develops, so does the scope of the supernatural community and its effect on human society. What would you expect? If vampires turn out to be real, shouldn’t we begin to question the existence of the other various creatures in historic folk tales? The cast of season three welcomes Grant Bowler, another Kiwi, to the little group of “down unders” on the set of this prodigious show. Far from hanging out and reminiscing about home, Kwanten states that he, Bowler, and Paquin rarely get to see each other. “I don’t know if it’s something to do with me, but I’m always off doing my own thing. So I very rarely get to see them. I’ve only seen Grant, well, I see him at every read through which is once every two weeks for an hour and that’s in a room full of 25 people. Outside of that, I saw him at the wrap party and we had a long conversation there talking about how we never get to see each other.” WHAT: True Blood WHERE & WHEN: Screening on Showcase (Foxtel) Thursdays, 8.30pm from 19 August

Shag’s works are peopled interiors, not portraits or scenes or still lives per se, but figurative representations of people and things that are symbolic in themselves, how they’re portrayed and the way they’re put together. His new exhibition, Inscrutable Mystery Guide, plays with this by providing the titular guide as a ‘key’ to every painting. “It’s a real book that I’ve had printed, with colour pictures, and explanations of the symbols and codes.” There are 99 small pictures in the series, and a few bigger ones in a more muted version of the signature style, with the sense of the moments being captured as part of a larger story. The Inscrutable Mystery Guide is Shag’s eighth exhibition in Australia, after having been brought out for his first international show in 1999. While he doesn’t smoke anymore, his current drink is a Maker’s Mark Manhattan. WHAT: Inscrutable Mystery Guide WHERE & WHEN: Outré Gallery Saturday until Thursday 2 September

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C U LT U R A L

CRINGE

WITH REBECCA COOK Melbourne International Film Festival closed on Sunday without the notoriety of 2009, but still with a high number of sold-out sessions. That’s not to say this year’s Fest was a quiet affair, there was zombie-gate and then the threat of legal action over the showing of Iraqi-set flick Son Of Babylon after the filmmakers had requested it be withdrawn due to the Fest receiving some Israeli funding. Possibly more controversial than the actual threat were the leaked emails between the producers and outgoing Festival Director, Richard Moore,

being posted to Crikey. So with MIFF out of the way, Cringe is setting her sights on Melbourne Writers Festival, and more specifically on weedelling her way into the sold out session to see Mr American Psycho himself, Bret Easton Ellis, talk on Friday night. Cringe has devised a three-pronged approach to gaining access to the session. One: in the spirit of Lunar Park (his pseudo selfautobiographical novel and possibly one of the creepiest books ever written) Cringe thinks she first might try impersonating the author. Lunar Park provides a lot of background info so I don’t think it will be problem;

BRET EASTON ELLIS cut hair and slick back (suspect I will look uncannily similar once wearing sunglasses); find younger man to drape on arm; fidget and disappear

off to the toilets regularly; and refer to self in third person in conversation. If this approach doesn’t work, my second approach is to American Psycho it up – that’s right, door staff at the Athenaeum, watch out. I am going to get myself an Aurora spa facial/manicure/pedicure, a Chanel suit, a Giorgio Armani handbag, a TAG Heuer watch, a pair of Jimmy Choo’s ankle boots, and then I’m going to storm the building looking too fabulous to be rejected or suddenly pull out one of my model-terrorist moves akin to Glamorama. If these two options fail (and yes, I am aware there will be significant costume changes required between them), I am going to attempt to convince the door staff that they are simply characters in a novel and therefore not only does it not matter if they let

me in, but the author wants them to. Update next week on how these strategies go. In brief, when Cringe read the press release for the new Y-GLAM Performing Arts Project show Captain Moonlite, she thought she must have confused it with the blurb for Easton Ellis’s new book, but hand-on-heart this gay bushranger tale is apparently all true (and not in a Easton Ellis unreliable narrator

way either). The story goes like this: around the time of Ned Kelly, Captain Moonlite was also causing highwayman havoc. He ended up on death row where he finally came out and he was buried wearing a ring made of his lover’s hair. Watch this gem of Melbourne queer history played out by performers against a backdrop of archival footage and photography as well as live music. From 7 September at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute.

FRAUDULENT DIMENSIONS PAUL RANSOM SPEAKS TO ROSIE DENNIS AND FLEUR ELISE NOBLE, WHOSE PLAYS FRAUDULENT BEHAVIOUR AND 2 DIMENSIONAL LIFE OF HER PERFORM AT ARTS HOUSE NEXT WEEK.

FLEUR ELISE NOBLE “In order for us to be able to sustain ourselves in relationships, in the community and the working environment, we do need to let the truth slide,” states Rosie Dennis, the writer/performer behind the one woman show Fraudulent Behaviour. It’s a fascinating and apt assertion, as Dennis will soon be sharing the bill on a six-week national tour with Fleur Elise Noble, whose own onewoman show 2 Dimensional Life Of Her also lurks around the shadowy intersection of artifice and reality. Although the two women have not met their shows drill down into similar bedrock. “I look at embellishing the truth, or omitting a fact, or re-remembering past events,” Dennis asserts. “It’s about lying in terms of etiquette.” Meanwhile, for visual artist turned multimedia thespian Fleur Elise Noble, the shadiness lies somewhere in the weird heart of art. “The original intention behind the show was to allow people to enter and be inside the act of creation,” she begins. “People can often see life in artworks. They feel that there’s something real beneath the paint… I often find that when you put an original artwork on a wall people read all these things into it that have nothing to do with making the artwork.” Whereas the ‘truth’ often blurs in human hands, so too does the line between art and actuality. In 2 Dimensional Life Of Her, Noble extrudes the life from formerly flat surfaces, figuratively bringing art to life. To do so, she had to break out from behind her easel. After years of scholarships here in Australia and overseas, Noble was starting to feel isolated, and “by that stage I had done so much that I felt like I’d really reached the limits of what you could do inside a rectangle and I was

fascinated with this idea that you could make people, that you could draw people into the world.” With her performance background, Rosie Dennis is much more used to the whole audience interaction thing. Indeed, as she developed Fraudulent Behaviour over the period of a residency in the UK she interviewed over 100 people on the topic of daily untruths. “I wanted to make sure that this little fascination of mine was something that audiences would recognise.” Thus it proved; and as the show firmed into shape Dennis needed to work out where she stood on lying. “Sometimes it’s just easier, y’know. I mean personally I try and operate in this world with a lot of integrity but of course sometimes it much easier to miss out a couple of facts. You’ve gotta do it, otherwise you’re just hurting people’s feelings all the time.” Whilst Dennis’ show takes the form of three interlocking monologues, Noble’s is a riot of projections, soundscapes and live drawing. “In a sense it functions a bit like a pop-up book,” she explains. What is certain in all of this is not only an evening of great contemporary theatre making but a rare opportunity for the Dennis and Noble to tour their own country. “It’s really hard to tour in Australia,” Dennis says. “I take work to Europe once if not twice a year and I always find it interesting that it’s been easier for me to get my work up overseas than it has been back here. So something like this is totally fantastic.” WHAT: Fraudulant Behavoiur and 2 Dimensional Life Of Her double bill WHERE & WHEN: Arts House Thursday to Sunday

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KUSTOM CHOPS

I put on what I like, it’s nothing too pretentious… You know, you don’t have to be starving to death or on all these pills to make this art, you don’t have people driving up to the gallery in their Ferrari to buy something.”

TONY PEAKE

KUSTOM LANE IS CURRENTLY PLAYING HOST TO THEIR THIRD CHOPS N BOBBERS EXHIBITION. BETHANY SMALLTALKS TO GALLERY OWNER TONY PEAKE. “All the bikes here are hand-built. Well, there are a couple of restored bikes, but something that’s all super bling-bling, it doesn’t pass the test.” Not for gallerist (though I doubt he’s ever called himself that) Tony Peake, and not for the 300-plus crowd who turned out to Kustom Lane Gallery on a freezing, hailing day for the opening of Chops N Bobbers III. “People showed up with their cars and bikes, [got] to see what each other have been working on.”

There’s definitely an idea of community around Kustom Lane, with a large part of the stable of artists being local, and the direction of the works being really strongly unified by Peake’s and the artists’ taste and skill in Kustom Kulture. As well as there being a common artistic vocabulary running through “huge broad spectrum of hot rods, motorcycles, tattoos, skate culture” the range of pieces that get shown in

the gallery reflect that it’s “definitely the only place like this in Melbourne, and probably the only one in Australia.” As an art style, tiki/pop surrealism/ lowbrow is pretty much practitionerdefined, with a history of imagery that appeals in terms of a particular look and also the challenge of articulating technical mastery. There’s a really strong sense of practicality to the show, people having literally made

the bikes, and the artwork having a really professional quality, a reflection of the trade background of the style historically and in terms of artist training. Chops N Bobbers (now in its third year and named after the basic styles that people are building) is a show that happens from the ground up for viewers as well as artists, with Tony’s philosophy being that “people should appreciate it for what it is.

7 UP

This isn’t said as any bitter criticism of commercial galleries or the art world at large; it’s more like dismissing it as something that’s a bit silly and definitely not relevant to what’s going on at Kustom Lane, which is more about taking part in the culture than about taking ownerships of parts of it. You can buy mugs and posters and magazines and DVDs at the gallery as well. At risk of practicing the kind of preciousness he’d probably laugh off, the phrasing of one of Tony’s points can really explain the spirit of the show, it’s culture. “The whole thing revolves around the art style,” he says, and that “style” is very telling: it’s not some ineffable genius thing, it’s the look and the way of making it. It’s practical, it’s got dirty hands, and it’s totally sweet. (In the skulls and fire way.) In addition to the locals, gallery regulars Sir Lluis Fuzzhound, Paul Hughes, Malicious, Mark Sheard, Mr Zee, Ryan Ford, Steve May, Karl Stehn, and Mat Egan are Ian Guy, a British artist who’ll have prints on display, and feature artists Tom Fritz, an American automotive culture artist whose print canvases of hot rods and motorcycles are showing in Australia for the first time. WHAT: Chops N Bobbers III WHERE & WHEN: Kustom Lane Gallery until 29 August

MARION COTILLARD THE SEVEN MOST EXCITING SCREENINGS AT THE 2010 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. 1. Black Swan (dir. Darren Aronofsky, star. Vincent Cassel, Natalie Portman) 2. The Conspirator (dir. Robert Redford, star. James McAvoy, Kevin Kline) 3. Little White Lies (dir. Guillaume Canet, star. François Cluzet, Marion Cotillard) 4. Peep World (dir. Barry Blaustein, star. Michael C. Hall, Sarah Silverman) 5. Potiche (dir. François Ozon, star. Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu) 6. Submarine (dir. Richard Ayoade, music Alex Turner) 7. The Trip (dir. Michael Winterbottom, star. Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon)

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TRAILER

TRASH

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION

CINEMA WITH GUY DAVIS You know me. You know that I’m a classy, tasteful gent with a penchant for high-end liquor and the novels of Proust. But sometimes even I want to kick things up a notch, which is why I’ve lately been wading around in the sordid murk that is the direct-to-DVD market. Now, when I say direct-toDVD, I don’t mean movies with lofty aspirations of big-screen success that unfortunately fell short of the mark and ended up on the videostore shelf. No, I’m talking movies too down and dirty to be displayed in a public forum, movies too disreputable to be screened anywhere but the privacy of one’s own home. And you know something? Some of them – not all of them, but certainly some of them – are pretty freakin’ good. I don’t mean ‘good’ as in, “Dude, then that guy’s head exploded! Sweet!” I mean good as in they’ve been put together with skill, style and finesse. And, of course, an exploding head or two. So if you’re of a mind to spend an evening watching

people (mainly heavily muscled fellows with anger-management issues, who are people nevertheless) slugging, stabbing and shooting the absolute fuck out of one another, here’s a trio of movies that may float your boat. Blood And Bone: You may remember Michael Jai White as the hottempered African-American gangster who ran afoul of Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. Clearly upset by getting his bum handed to him by said clown, White goes about reminding all and sundry just who’s the man (here’s a clue: IT’S HIM) in Blood And Bone, in which he plays Isaiah Bone, whose résumé consists of two words: ‘Bad Motherfucker’. Fresh out of jail, he enters the underground streetfighting circuit on a mission of revenge and essentially kicks arse until no one else in the film can consider sitting down for three or four years. Neo-blaxploitation for the new millennium, complete with Brit ponce Julian Sands as a hissable power-broker laying down racist rhetoric.

The Tournament: A recurring theme in your modern direct-to-DVD actioner is your sinister cabal of rich dudes getting scrappy psychos to compete in blood sports for fun and profit. That’s the case with The Tournament, in which the world’s best assassins (apparently there’s a ranking system or somethin’) are assembled to kill or be killed. Too bad for alcoholic priest Robert Carlyle that he somehow ends up in the middle of it all, huh? Some nifty stunts, gratuitous bloodletting and an enjoyable scenery-chewing performance by Vampire Diaries pretty boy Ian Somerhalder as a guy who really, really likes killing people. Universal Soldier: Regeneration: See, this is how you do small-screen action with big-movie gusto. Single location (in this case, some old factory in the role of abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant), up-and-coming bruiser (Ultimate Fighting Championship toughie Andrei ‘The Pit Bull’ Arlovski), couple of still-got-it veterans (Van Damme! Dolph Lundgren!) and plenty of ammo. Add cannon-fodder extras and stir vigorously UNTIL THE SCREEN RUNS CRIMSON WITH BLOOD! Ahem. Actually, this unstoppable-supersoldiers-run-amok extravaganza is quite the slick piece of work, cleverly borrowing from a few choice sources (Children Of Men, Blade Runner) while not skimping on the beastly nastiness for which the punters have plunked down their hard-earned. You wanna hear something really weird? Lundgren gives a very good performance in his cameo. I mean, like a legitimately good acting performance. Who saw that coming?

THE POLITICS OF LAUGHING DAVE O’NEIL GIVE HIS OPINION ON THE UPCOMING ELECTION, AHEAD OF HIS I HEART JULIA SHOWS AT TRADES HALL. It really is anybody’s election – will it be Callum or Adam or will Alvin make a surprise return. No, hang on, that was the contest that people cared about. This latest series of MasterPolie is just a bit boring. Tony’s been keeping out of his Speedos and Julia’s been trying to speak just a little bit posher than normal. Well, thank god for Mark Latham, I say, he’s the former Labor leader famous for shaking people’s hands and freaking them out. He fronted up to Julia Gillard on the weekend, and wanted to know why the Labor Party was stopping him from earning a living? Other questions he later asked included, ‘Why is cheese always yellow?’ and, ‘Why does my brain hurt?” Just for the record, the man is nuts. And he was almost Prime Minister; this is a guy who broke a taxi driver’s arm for taking him the ‘long’ way home. Oh, if only he went to Copenhagen instead of Rudd, he would punched on with the Japanese over carbon emissions. And speaking of Rudd, thank god for him. Okay, he was leaking pretty badly, but so would you had you been stabbed in the back 8,000 times.

The stabs were so severe it got him in the gall bladder and sent him to hospital. But late last week he came out and said he was back and ready to campaign; like Superman he was going to save the election for the Labor Party. But Julia took him aside and said, “You can’t be Superman, that’s me, you can be a crap superhero with no powers, like the Phantom.” Well, Kevin didn’t like that so he said, “If you’re Superman, Julia, I’m your kryptonite.” And sure enough, when they sat together, Julia looked like she was getting weaker and weaker. Julia really needs to leave Kevin behind and, in her words, “move forward”. Now, she’s stopped saying that, but the other day she said we should, “Go forward, move ahead.” Now that sounds a little bit familiar– go forward, move ahead. Yeah it’s a Devo lyric – “Go forward, move ahead, try to detect it, it’s not too late, to whip it, whip it good!” She’s quoting a 1980s American punk pop band at us. I like her just a little bit more. Next, Abbott will get in the act; when asked why he’s wearing Speedos again, he’ll say, ‘We were at the beach and everyone had matching towels… It wasn’t a rock,

it was a rock lobster!!’ Tony, you too, I never picked you as a B-52s fan. I was positive you’d listen to boring crap like The Eagles. So what are the options – the mad monk or the red-hot ranga? Then again there’s always the Greens. But is there any point going for the mung bean dip at the party when surely the hommus or the tzatziki is going to prove far more popular with the general public? I mean I’m glad mung bean dip is there for the vegans but the rest of us prefer something with a bit of... meat. So this election I urge you to vote for Family First, that’s right, that’s who I’m endorsing. Why? Because I love the thought of people more stupid than me getting into power. Oh, please vote for them, they’ll bring back hanging, singing God Save The Queen at school assemblies and pubs closing at six o’clock. It would be like the 1950s all over again and we would go to dances and drink ginger beer. Imagine having a government that was stuck in the ’50s? No, hang on, we just had that with Howard and his bunch. Oh, and of course then Rudd for a few seconds – oh, how soon we forget. WHAT: Dave O’Neil in I Heart Julia

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PIXIES DOCO SCREENING AT REVOLVER Next Tuesday Revolver will play host to Pixies, the much-revered band that has toured Australia more times in the past couple of years than they ever did when they were in their prime. Alas, it’s not a live performance, but it’s something a lot of fans probably haven’t seen: loudQUIETloud, a documentary that chronicles the band’s reunion tour. The film is screening as part of Revolver’s Cult Music Film Festival, and the night will also feature a live performance by singer/songwriter Ben Abraham. LoudQUIETloud screens at Revolver Upstairs on Tuesday 17 August; doors open at 7.30pm.

FRAGMENTED

FILMS

BOHO BALL IS BACK Junkyard heroes, gentlemen punks, flaneur, and neo vaudeville artists unite. The Bohemian Masquerade Ball is nigh, coming to a theatre and/or club near you. Now in its third year, this grand carnival of underground culture – independent music, extreme circus, performance, installations, sideshow, burlesque and cabaret – will descend upon Open Studio Boho Club, Northcote Thursday 21 and Thornbury Theatre Saturday 23 October. Artists confirmed so far include The Barons Of Tang, Mojo Juju & The Snake Oil Merchants, Kiru Puru & The Bruise, Spoonbill, Editor, Ghostboy With Golden Virtues and a whole host more. Extended details at thebohoball.com.

KUNST BY NAME, ECLECTIC BY NATURE Billed as an evening of short performances, Kunst ist Scheiss will bring craftsmen and artisans of comedy, dance, circus, burlesque and “arty shit” to 24 Moons (in AC/DC Lane) every second Wednesday from tonight (11 August). Featured artists this week include satirist Ben Pobjie, classical guitarist Sergio Ercole, comedic pop ensemble Choir Choir Pants On Fire, burlesque artist Alice Palermo, comedian Josh Earl and circus performer Jessica Connell. For more info search ‘Kunst ist Scheiss’ in Facebook.

ROBOGEISHA

WEIRD HOME VIDEO WITH BOB BAKER FISH “I flatter myself that I have cultivated good taste in almost everything. Especially living. Yes, to be dead would be such a bore, don’t you agree.” If these words weren’t uttered by Vincent Price you’d stab your TV. Even so much of the hackneyed stupidity that flows from the mouths of the characters in House Of 1000 Dolls (Umbrella) is barely tolerable even for B-grade trash. The plot has promise: sex slaves kidnapped from a magic show in exotic Morocco. Yet it’s a delusional trawl through Tangiers nightclubs, with female mud wrestling, copious amounts of alcohol, and barely an Arab in sight. Making the least of the iconic Tangiers landscape, the film is overly dark and claustrophobic, shot mostly indoors or on seedy nondescript streets with zero

character development and not enough nudity. You’d think that ninja stars flying out of the butt of our hero in Robogeisha (Eastern Eye/Madman) would be enough, or even a Geisha bot with an electric saw as a mouth, or how about machine gun boobs? Nup, none of it works. It’s just too silly. It’ll have you lamenting the taste and sophistication of Tokyo Gore Police, because whilst the ludicrous special effects are mildly diverting and could perhaps be read as a comment on society’s obsession with plastic surgery, the film lacks the one thing an ultra ridiculous, ultra violent, and hyper gore flick needs to ground it: Heart... and perhaps a little nudity. Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie) makes imaginative, inventive, and eclectic films. Micmacs (Hopscotch) is a typically warm, eccentric and highly stylised work from the Frenchman,

brimming with numerous moments of inspired absurdity. It all begins with a bullet in the brain and works its way out, becoming one of the quirkiest revenge flicks in cinematic history as our homeless victim is taken in by a band of weirdos, each with a peculiar talent that they use to exact revenge against evil arms dealers. Apparently the title means something like ‘nonstop shenanigans’. It’s A Fistful Of Dollars meets The Goonies. It’ll warm the cockles. The manipulative sociopath Tom Ripley has never been played as creepy and wrong as the young, studly and predominantly shirtless Alan Deloin in the original adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley, 1960’s Plein Soleil (Madman). He’s of course competing with the likes of Matt Damon, Anthony Hopkins and Dennis Hopper, yet Deloin’s portrayal hits the right balance between unhinged and calculating. The disc is an English dub, which is at first disconcerting, but actually begins to reinforce the distance we feel towards Ripley’s sociopathic tendencies. Whilst the ending is a cop out, it’s definitely one of the more stylish Patricia Highsmith outings. French director Luc Besson was invented for Blu-ray. Whilst he may be infuriatingly erratic, there’s no denying his visual flair. Subway, The Big Blue, and The Fifth Element are all getting the treatment from Directors Suite/Madman. But his first film, the wordless, post-apocalyptic The Last Battle looks incredible in austere black and white, whilst his underwater documentary Atlantis could be used to sell televisions.

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DVD

SNAP-

SHOT

REVIEWS

C IS FOR CATS SHAG Displaying at the artist’s Inscrutable Mystery Guide exhibition at Outré Gallery from Saturday 14 August.

EASTBOUND & DOWN: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON HBO/Warner Home Video Discounting Curb Your Enthusiasm, you could be forgiven for thinking HBO was responsible solely for hard-edged dramas (The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood) and over-the-top glossies (Entourage, True Blood, Sex & The City). But they’ve been putting out quite a few off-kilter comedies of late, such as The Ricky Gervais Show, which basically just animates the Brit comedian’s popular podcasts; Bored To Death, a genius little highbrow series starring Jason Schwartzman as a journalist dabbling in private detection and Ted Danson as his editor; and Eastbound & Down, a hilariously offbeat, somewhat offensive comedy about a washed-up baseball player returning to his home town. Danny McBride (Pineapple Express) stars as mullet-haired former Major Leaguer Kenny Powers, a man with the motto, “You’re fucking out!”, who finds himself down and out and returning to the town he once called home, crashing the comfortable family environment of his brother’s house, and picking up a job as a PE teacher at the local high school – which just so happens to be where his former fling is employed. Produced by Wil Ferrell’s production company, Ferrell co-stars as a BMW salesman, and it’s here – somewhat unsurprisingly – where a lot of the show’s highlights come into play, however the dialogue between Steve Little as Powers’ annoying fanboy ‘assistant’ and Powers himself that has the majority of the best lines. “If there’s one thing I hate in this life, it’s losing. If there’s two things I hate, it’s losing and getting cancer.” DCR

CHRIS ROCK: KILL THE MESSENGER HBO/Warner Home Video In the world of comedy, Chris Rock is a superstar. There are not many stand-up comedians with such an international following, particularly when only a couple of years ago the multi-Emmy-winning comic was voted the fifth best stand-up of all time by Comedy Central. Bursting with tense energy and loaded with his characteristic indignation, Rock climbs the stage in Johannesburg, New York City and London for his latest DVD Kill The Messenger, produced by HBO, which was filmed during his 2008 world tour. Clumsily intercutting between material from the three capital cities, as it is often in the middle of a joke, Kill The Messenger skims over many of the topical issues, as well as touching superficially on such heavies as the presidential race, terrorism, and the war in Iraq to mixed effect. (It also dates the material somewhat, and you have to ask why it wasn’t released a lot sooner.) Rock is funnier however, when he covers some personal experiences, like working at Red Lobster when he was young and the diversity of his current New Jersey neighbourhood. In addition, he also hones in on the topics of money, political correctness and race with razor-sharp timing. But again, he lets the show down with casually misogynistic comments in his supposed observations about gender and women. Kill The Messenger hits the funny bone, but not consistently. So much so that it’s baffling to see the DVD filled with shots of so many members of the three audiences pissing themselves. And with a running time of 79 minutes and with no DVD extras, the overall result really is a disappointment. For die-hard fans only. ANITA CONNORS

LOVE EXPOSURE Madman A holy lunatic (Yu, obsessed with having sins to confess to his father, a fallen Catholic priest) turning into the greatest tosatsu (upskirt photographer) ever under the tutelage of a sage, lonely pervert in a martial arts montage in field of mannequins without heads or torsos. A kawaii schoolgirl in a sailor suit (Yoko, who has escaped a sexually abusive father) beating up heaps of dudes and professing that Jesus is the only man who is cool except Kurt Cobain. A recruiter for the Scientologylike Church of Zero (Koike, whose church elder father beat her in good fundamentalist tradition until she killed him) looking evil while stroking a budgerigar in Dr No/villain from Inspector Gadget style. They’re a pretty Shakespearian love triangle, with a madly improbably mistaken identity device based on the Virgin Mary and a drag appearance, with lots of bumbling friends, ‘Oops, you’re my stepsister now’ and ‘Hey, you go to this school?’ plot points, and gigantic comedy erections. Speaking of which, there are a whole lot of teen film tropes here, like Koike’s Mean Girl hench-posse and Yoko’s mortification at being seen with Yu at school. There are sweet action sequences as well, from the photographers performing acrobatic feats with intricately rigged gadgetry to get their upskirt shots to swordfights and a harakiri and a really big explosion. Plus, teen lesbian subplot! And somehow, there’s a serious and moving exploration of religion and morality, and of family and abuse, and of love. DVD includes original theatrical trailer. BETHANY SMALL

GIVEAWAYS Donnie Darko is one of the cult greats of the past 15 years; telling the story of a teenage boy trying to make sense of his Doomsday visions. With a stellar cast of Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze and Jena Malone, it made a household name of its director Richard Kelly – impressive since it was his debut feature film. Thanks to Anchor Bay we’ve got two copies of the film on Blu-ray to giveaway, which features both theatrical and director’s cuts of the film and a host of extras. For your chance to win one, email giveaways@ inpress.com.au with ‘DARKO’ in the subject line. Splice is a film set to become a cult classic. Starring Academy Award winning actor Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, directed by Cube mastermind Vincenzo Natali, and co-produced by Guillermo del Toro, this horror/thriller finds the two leads parenting a creature they’ve created by combining human and

animal DNA. Thanks to Madman Entertainment we’ve got five double in-season passes to giveaway. For your chance to win one, email giveaways@inpress.com.au with ‘SPLICE’ in the subject line. Thanks to Palace Cinemas we’ve got five double passes to Mayerling, playing as part of their Palace Opera & Ballet 2010 season, as performed by the Royal Ballet. With music by Franz Liszt and choreography by Kenneth MacMillan, the ballet chronicles the last eight years of Crown Prince Rudolf’s downward spiral into hell. Tickets are valid for the Wednesday 18 August session. For your chance to win a double pass, email giveaways@inpress.com. au with ‘MAYERLING’ in the subject line.

THE GREAT WAVE THE FRENCH NEW WAVE IS ONE OF THE FILM MOVEMENTS THAT CONTINUES TO INFLUENCE AND EXCITE CINEMAGOERS AND FILMMAKERS THE WORLD OVER. ANTHONY CAREW SPEAKS TO EMMANUEL LAURENT, CREATOR OF A FILM DOCUMENTING TWO OF THE NEW WAVE’S GREATS.

The best thing about Emmanuel Laurent’s documentary Two In The Wave – a chronicle of the French new wave and the relationship between legendary auteurs François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard – is its complete lack of talking-heads. Filling itself with archival footage, the film is brought to life not by the sentimental recollections of old men, but by seeing the directors in their youth, in full flight. “We actually thought of using contemporary witnesses in the beginning,” Laurent confesses, “but then we envisioned the film with old guys talking about their youth, and I didn’t like that idea at all. Besides the fact that human memory is often historically wrong, biased or unconsciously self indulgent – and Truffaut was not there to answer! – the truth is that I love archives. “They tell you so much, only by the way they look, about what was in the heads of people during those years: how people dress, the ads, the topics [in newspapers] next to the article you focus on. In short, the film is a declaration of love of archives.” Suitably enough, Two In The Wave comes steeped in academic eggheadism: the film’s writer, Antoine

de Baecque, a former editor of the legendary periodical Cahiers du Cinéma (the publication that Godard and Truffaut themselves wrote for), had published numerous documents on the new wave and is authoring a biography on Godard. Figuring they struck a nice balance – Laurent a self-described “Truffaudian”, de Baecque his Godardian counter – the pair set out to explore the friendship-turnedrivalry of the new wave’s two star pupils; something that had yet to be done on screen. “A film on Truffaut and Godard’s friendship did not exist, to our knowledge,” says Laurent. “There was nothing about what was a 20-year friendship between the two. Our film is, for instance, the first where Godard is seen in his youth, as a toddler and teenager, and it’s really interesting to know where they both come from: low and poor petite-bourgeoisie for FT and upperclass Swiss bankers for JLG. I think that our idea of telling this particular friendship cast a new light on both, on their respective careers and ambitions, as well as on their films.” Two In The Wave is screening at ACMI alongside a retrofitted,

re-shined print of Godard’s Made In USA (Anna Karina! Jean-Pierre Leaud! Marianne Faithfull!), and comes fresh off Godard’s latest, Film Socialisme, screening at MIFF. The fest also just rolled a new flick from Jacques Rivette (Around A Small Mountain) and another crop of new debutantes aping that nouvellevague spirit (Sophie Letourner’s Life At The Ranch, Matías Riñiero’s They All Lie); the influence of this long-ago era seeming eternal. “The new wave forged the concept of ‘auteur’; the author being not the scriptwriter but the metteur-enscène, the director,” Laurent offers, when asked why the influence lingers. “Therefore they didn’t work under the tyranny of the script, they worked like painters in front of a ‘motif’; and this explains why they were so close to their time, how they captured it directly on camera, in the streets where they lived, filming the girls they were wooing. It’s not the story that mattered to them, it’s the way they told the story, not aiming at a goal or a climax, but taking you on a journey for the journey itself.” WHAT: Two In The Wave WHERE & WHEN: ACMI Thursday 12 to Sunday 15 August

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ISSUE 1135 - WEDNESDAY 11 AUGUST, 2010

TOURS

PRESENTS

THIS WEEK INTERNATIONAL Emilie Simon Wednesday 29 September Prince Bandroom

SLASH: Tonight Festival Hall A TRIBE CALLED QUEST: Thursday Festival Hall CKY: Thursday Hi-Fi Bar KATY PERRY: Thursday Plaza Ballroom 3OH!3: Saturday (U18), 15 (18+) Hi-Fi CHRISTIAN DEATH: Saturday Corner Hotel EELS: Sunday Palace

NATIONAL Howl Friday, Purple Sneakers at Miss Libertine

GIG OF THE WEEK

NO NO GALLERY FUNDRAISER FRIDAY, THE OLD BAR

It’s been nearly eight months since the seductive, ethereal voice of Jessica Says and her band of string-toting gents have graced our stages, thanks, in large part, to a freak accident on tour that saw frontwoman Jessica Venables airlifted from Sydney to Melbourne and then strapped into a wheelchair for months. (Ahe was, however, seen rolling around town still wearing her leopard-print dress – seriously, only Venables could make a near-tragic accident look hot.) This Friday at the Old Bar, Venables will be revealing a bunch of songs from her forthcoming second album in aid of raising some dollars for the newly opened and much hyped not-for-profit North Melbourne art space NO NO Gallery. In its first months, the gallery has seen exhibitions by photographer Drew Pettifer and word-play artist Romy Hoffman and will soon show works by Chicago photographer Yony Laser, who also has a documentary about William Burroughs screening at ACMI in September. The gallery needs some bucks to help pay the rent, keep the walls white and (the real reason this is an excellent cause) keep the price of beer down at its openings. Also playing at the Old Bar are Crayon Fields sweetheart-frontman Geoffrey O’Connor, new pop swingers Milk Teddy and Lycra-clad metal women Heavy Mental, with Adam Curley spinning tunes between sets. We’d suggest perhaps heading down early for this one because we have a feeling it’s going to fill out faster than an Aussie in London. Doors open at 8.30pm and entry is $9.

MATT SONIC & THE HIGH TIMES BAND: Tonight Cherry Bar THE STILLSONS: Tonight Espy PVT: Thursday Corner Hotel KATIE UNDERWOOD: Thursday Red Bennies SHIHAD: Friday, Saturday Northcote Social Club GLIDE, SIRENS OF VENICE, MINI BIKES: FridayEast Brunswick Club BLISS N ESO: FridayPalace JEZ MEAD: Friday Elwood Lounge DAN KELLY & HIS DREAM BAND: Friday Corner Hotel; Sunday Old Hepburn Hotel (solo) THE DEMON PARADE: Friday 5pm Missing Link; Friday Birmingham; Saturday National Hotel (Geelong) BASEMENT BIRDS: Saturday Forum SAMSARA, DROPSAW: Saturday Arthouse

DEAD MEADOW, STIGMATA, BLARKE BAYER/BLACK WIDOW: October 14 Forum

Fanfarlo by Lou Lou Nutt

SAGE FRANCIS, DEXTER, HORRORSHOW: October 15 Forum DENGUE FEVER, THE BREAK, JOHNNIE & THE JOHNNIE JOHNNIES: October 16 Forum LOW, PIKELET, PONZU ISLAND: October 21 Forum THE DRONES. K14, THE TWERPS: October 22 Forum MARIACHI EL BRONX, EAGLE & THE WORM, THE UKELADIES: October 23 Forum CLARE BOWDITCH: October 29 Bended Elbow (Geelong); November 1 Forum

UPCOMING

THE CHEMICAL BROTHHERS: March 9 Rod Laver Arena

INTERNATIONAL

THE BRAND NEW HEAVIES: August 20, 21 Trak SCARY KIDS SCARING KIDS: August 20 (U18), 20 (18+) Hi-Fi SENSES FAIL: August 21 day (18), evening Hi-Fi CHRIS BOTTI: August 22 National Theatre KLAXONS: September 3 Palace XIU XIU, HIGH PLACES: September 3 East Brunswick Club LA GUNS: September 4 Hi-Fi ROBERT SCOTT: September 4 Empress NAPALM DEATH, DYING FETUS, ROTTEN CHOP: September 5 Hi-Fi FIRST AID KIT: September 5 Toff In Town SOULFLY, CITY OF FIRE, INCITE: September 8 Palace OH, SLEEPER: September 9 Arthouse; 10 Shotgun (Wheeler’s Hill) ATTACK ATTACK!: September 11 Corner Hotel

SLASH: August 11 Festival Hall CKY: August 12 Hi-Fi BLISS N ESO: August 13 Palace DAN KELLY & HIS DREAM BAND: August 13 Corner Hotel; 15 Old Hepburn Hotel (solo); October 2 The Loft (Warrnambool); 15 Karova Lounge (Ballarat) MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS: August 19 Forum THE BRAND NEW HEAVIES: August 20, 21 Trak SCARY KIDS SCARING KIDS: August 20 (arvo U18; evening 18+) Hi-Fi ART VS SCIENCE: August 27, 28 Hi-Fi CORDRAZINE: August 28 East Brunswick Hotel KLAXONS: September 3 Palace FIRST AID KIT: September 5 Toff In Town TAKE ACTION TOUR: September 11, 12 Corner Hotel THOUSAND NEEDLES IN RED: September 29 Karova Lounge (Ballarat); 30 Bended Elbow (Geelong); October 1 Ferntree Gully Hotel; 2 Pelly Bar; 3 Evelyn BIRDS OF TOKYO, SILVERSUN PICKUPS: October 1 Festival Hall SMUDGE: October 2 Northcote Social Club THE PARADISE MOTEL: October 2 Thornbury Theatre; 9 Palais (Hepburn Springs) SARAH BLASKO: October 7 Theatre Royal (Castlemaine); 8 Palais; 9 Meeniyan Town Hall BOREDOMS, KES BAND, BUM CREEK: October 9 Forum

LIVE: REVIEWS

FANFARLO, ALEX GOW NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB

he delightful Alex Gow from Oh Mercy already has a half-full Social Club in his thrall by the time he’s halfway through his set. His gentle charisma, big doe eyes and artful songwriting are a captivating entrée to the loveliness that is Fanfarlo.

After a gorgeous set he plonks his Magpies beanie on his head and makes way for the British indie band, who hit the stage like an art school explosion, just as you’d expect from a group named after a Charles Baudelaire novel. Pretentious? Who cares if you’re a wanker when your band’s this good. The first song they play is Atlas. The amazing Cathy Lucas bashes the shit out of a massive drum while Leon Beckenham plays keys and Simon Balthazar, lead singer of gorgeousness, plays the smallest guitar in the world. Which is probably in fact a mandolin. In any case, the three of them spend the rest of the gig swapping an impressive array of instruments, including a trumpet, melodica, violin and clarinet. The sound is enormous, dense and rich. They are particularly adept at building layers of sound to a massive, orchestral crescendo, which they do best with Finish Line. Easily matching it in hugeness of sound is The Walls Are Coming Down, which is the highest energy point

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of the set. Their controlled meandering pop song structures, eclectic instrumentation and enthusiastic live energy have drawn comparisons with Arcade Fire, and Balthazar’s stunning vibrato at times recalls Thom Yorke. He introduces We Live By The Lake as being about where he grew up in Sweden, and the song comes replete with glockenspiel and bird noises, which the band get the audience to join in on. It’s not quite aerobics instructor territory but it is a rare moment of connection for a band that seem quite self-consciously cool. Comets is dreamy and magical; Fanfarlo follow it up with Luna then return for a brief, one-song encore. Perhaps they are tired. It is the last night of their Australian tour, and after having spent only 12 hours in Melbourne, they are off home to London. Come back soon, Fanfarlo, you are very welcome here. Kate Kingsmill

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METALLICA: September 15, 16, November 18, 20, 21 Rod Laver Arena BUCK 65: September 16 Corner Hotel MAYHEM: September 23 Hi-Fi Bar CYPRESS HILL: September 23 Palace PETER HOOK & FRIENDS: September 24 Palais ENTER SHIKARI: September 25 (18+), 26 (U18) Hi-Fi YOU ME AT SIX, KIDS IN GLASS HOUSES, THE AUDITION: September 25, (U18), 25 (18+) Billboard EMILIE SIMON, MELANIE PAIN: September 29 Prince Bandroom ASLAN: September 30, October 1 Clifton Hill Hotel LIL’ BAND O’ GOLD: 30 September East Brunswick Club; October 1 Prince Bandroom GROUPER: October 1 Northcote Uniting Church EXODUS: October 3 Corner Hotel SIMPLY RED: October 6, 7 Plenary; 9 Rochford Wines (Yarra Valley) VILLAGE PEOPLE: October 8, 9 Palms at Crown BOREDOMS: October 9 Forum ALEXISONFIRE: October 10 Palace PARAMORE: October 13 Sidney Myer Music Bowl DEAD MEADOW: October 12 National Hotel (Geelong); 14 Forum BEDOUIN SOUNDCLASH: October 14 Prince Bandroom CONCRETE BLONDE: October 22 Palace SOILWORK: October 23 Hi Fi Bar RUFUS WAINWRIGHT: October 24 Palais PAT BENATAR, THE BANGLES: October 26, 27 Palais PAUL WELLER: October 26, 27 Forum ICE CUBE: October 27 Palace PETULA CLARK: October 28 Arts Centre CELTIC WOMAN: October 30, 31 Palais Theatre PETER GABRIEL, CHICAGO, AMERICA, PETER FRAMPTON: November 1 Etihad Stadium ROBIN GIBB, BONNIE TYLER: November 3 Rod Laver Arena ED KOWALCZYK: November 5 Forum ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK: November 5, 6 State Theatre OWL CITY, THE ALBUM LEAF: November 10 Palais LEONARD COHEN: November 12, 13 Rod Laver Arena MANIC STREET PREACHERS: November 20 Forum THREE DOG NIGHT, THE TURTLES: November 20 Palais BLONDIE, THE PRETENDERS: December 1, 2 Palais; 4 Rochford Wines HOT WATER MUSIC, THE BOUNCING SOULS: December 4 Corner Hotel JACK JOHNSON: December 8 Sidney Myer Music Bowl BON JOVI: December 10 Rod Laver Arena; 11 Etihad Stadium GORILLAZ: December 11 Rod Laver Arena MUSE: December 14, 15 Rod Laver Arena THE EAGLES: December 17, 18, 21, 22 Rod Laver Arena THE MISFITS: February 4 Hi-Fi Bar MICHAEL BUBLÉ: Februaru 22, 23, 25 Rod Laver Arena IRON MAIDEN: Febraury 23 RIHANNA: March 7 Rod Laver Arena THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS: March 9 Rod Laver Arena

NATIONAL MATT SONIC & THE HIGH TIMES BAND: August 18, 25 Cherry Bar THE STILLSONS: August 18, 25 Espy THE CAT EMPIRE: August 19, 20 Palace ME: August 19 Karova Lounge (Ballarat) ZENNITH: August 19 Revolver Upstairs; 20 The Espy SEAGULL: 20 The Tote DARREN HANLON: August 20 Thornbury Theatre HUNGRY KIDS OF HUNGARY, THE HOLIDAYS: August 20 East Brunswick Club; 21 National Hotel (Geelong) ROOT!: August 20 Yah Yahs DEPARTED SOUNDS SHOWCASE: August 20, 21 Northcote Uniting Church JEZ MEAD: August 20, September 3 Morning Star Hotel; August 29 Drunken Poet CABINS: August 21 Builders Arms KIM SALMON & THE SURREALISTS: August 21 Northcote Social Club

OTOUTO: August 21 Curtin Bandroom HOUSE VS HURRICANE, HEROES FOR HIRE: August 26 Colonial Hotel, 27 EV’s (all ages), 28 Geelong West Town Hall (all ages) OH MERCY: August 26 Toff In Town SHANE HOWARD: August 27 Caravan Music Club (Oakleigh); 28 Turtle Bend (Teesdale); ART VS SCIENCE, TIM & JEAN, JINJA SAFARI: August 27, 28 Hi-Fi CORDRAZINE: August 28 East Brunswick Hotel THE DEMON PARADE: August 28 Espy; September 3 Ding Dong; 25 Retreat CHILDREN COLLIDE, HOWL: September 1 Pelly Bar (Frankston); 2, 3 Corner Hotel NAKED IN THE WOOD LAUNCH: feat DEBORAH CONWAY, WILLY ZYGIER, THE LITTLE STEVIES, JESS MCAVOY: September 1 East Brunsick Club THE BEDROOM PHILOSOPHER, THE BOAT PEOPLE: September 1 Karova Lounge (Ballarat); 2 National Hotel (Geelong); 3 Palais (Hepburn Springs); 4, 5 Northcote Social Club; 5 Spanish Club PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS: September 3 Yah Yah’s CARUS: September 3 Empress ANGUS & JULIA STONE: September 8, 9, 10 Palais Theatre GRINSPOON: September 8 Inferno; 9 Ferntree Gully Hotel; 10 Pier Live; 15 Eureka Hotel. DEAD LETTER CIRCUS, BLACK DEVIL YARD BOSS: September 9 Hi Fi Bar POWDERFINGER: September 10, 11 Rod Laver Arena; October 15 Bendigo Showgrounds (Bendigo); 16 North Gardens (Ballarat); 29 Sidney Myer Music Bowl MARK SHOLTEZ: September 10 Thornbury Theatre JANE DUST & THE GIANT HOOPOES: September 12 Northcote Social Club CALLING ALL CARS: September 15 The Loft (Warnambool); 16 Kay Street (Traralgon); 17 Bluestone (Ballarat); 18 Corner Hotel WASHINGTON: September 16 Karova Lounge; 17 Corner Hotel; 18 National Hotel (Geelong) JOHN BUTLER TRIO: September 17 Festival Hall; 18 Bendigo Stadium (Bendigo); 19 Geelong Performing Arts Centre (Geelong) REGURGITATOR: September 17 Hi-Fi SKIPPING GIRL VINEGAR: September 18 Toff In Town MM9: September 18 Revolver Upstairs LUCIE THORN, MACHINE TRANSLATIONS, MATT WALKER: September 9 Northcote Social Club MILES AWAY: September 23 Arthouse; 26 Phoenix Youth Centre THE GETAWAY PLAN, STEALING O’NEAL: September 24 Billboard (U18); 24 Billboard (18+) WEDDINGS PARTIES ANYTHING: September 24 Palace KES TRIO: September 25 East Brunswick Club PARKWAY DRIVE: September 29 Festival Hall THOUSAND NEEDLES IN RED: September 29 Karova Lounge (Ballarat); 30 Bended Elbow (Geelong); October 1 Ferntree Gully Hotel; 2 Pelly Bar; 3 Evelyn BIRDS OF TOKYO: October 1 Festival Hall DAN KELLY & HIS DREAM BAND: October 2 The Loft (Warrnambool); 15 Karova Lounge (Ballarat) SMUDGE: October 2 Northcote Social Club SARAH BLASKO: October 7 Theatre Royal (Castlemaine); 8 Palais; 9 Meeniyan Town Hall PAUL DEMPSEY: October 8 Corner Hotel ANY MEREDITH: October 22 Corner Hotel JOHN FARNHAM, KATE CEBRANO, VIKA & LINDA: October 23 Rochford Wines (Coldstream) CLARE BOWDITCH: October 29 Bended Elbow (Geelong); November 1 Forum

The Temper Trap pic by Heidi Takla

THE TEMPER TRAP, THE JOY FORMIDABLE FESTIVAL HALL After a year of globetrotting, wowing critics and becoming Australia’s hottest new act, The Temper Trap returned home for one of their biggest gigs to date – a jam-packed Festival Hall filled with an army of fans who had become seduced by their mainstream rock tunes. UK act The Joy Formidable killed a little bit of time for punters as they waited for their hometown heroes to come on, but there was minimal movement on the floor and many decided to hit the bars. The group did, however, pull off some impressive jamming in their final song of their set. After a fairly lengthy wait, The Temper Trap hit the stage much to delight of the packed-out arena. Opening with a brief intro, the band launched into Rest with strobes flashing everywhere, as lead singer Dougy Mandagi told the masses how glad he was to be home. The band continued to pump out tracks off their album Conditions, with Fader, Down River and the stunning Love Lost all receiving hearty sing-alongs. Mega-hit Sweet Disposition was easily the most well-received track of the night following a brilliant intro, while new song Rabbit Hole was also extremely impressive. The band showed off their fine jamming skills with the pounding Drum Song, before coming back for the encore and winding things up with Science Of Fear. Despite the hits, there were a few downsides. A few of the tracks off Conditions – particularly those with long, atmospheric build-ups such as Fools – just seemed to drag on too long and didn’t transfer perfectly into the live environment. But then again, that’s the slight downer of being a one-album band and having such a limited setlist to choose from so you can fill an hour-long set. For a general music lover, this wasn’t a performance that bowled you over and left you convinced The Temper Trap are going to be the biggest band in the world. However, it is evidently clear the band have now amassed a loyal and far-reaching fanbase, and you would be hard pressed to find one of those dedicated fans who walked away disappointed with what they saw. Kiel Egging

KASABIAN, WAGONS FESTIVAL HALL “You probably didn’t think you’d get a lamearse country band before Kasabian but here we are, fuckers!” Henry Wagons reads our minds. The songs of Wagons are best enjoyed in more intimate surrounds (or preferably outdoors as part of a festival bill). The few punters who arrive early to stake out a piece of prime real estate appreciate the frontman’s comical between-song banter and Willie Nelson scores the reaction of the night. “I think we’re playing really well so far,” Wagons encourages his bandmates. They nod in agreement. Not sure whether Wagons tea towels will be the best selling merch item tonight. A sudden explosion of people barges into the general admission section, invading our sightlines. The testosterone in the house is palpable and by the time Kasabian’s intro tape – a segment of Air Supply’s All Out Of Love and then the warped synthesisers of the march from Funeral Music For Queen Mary (from the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange) – floods from the speakers, it’s bumper to bumper. Opening track Shoot The Runner is the perfect weapon to

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launch this band’s groove-laden swagger – “I’m the king and she’s my queen, BITCH!” Frontman Tom Meighan relishes his role as Kasabian’s token rock god and guitarist/songwriter Serge Pizzorno is the perfect counterbalance, delivering plaintive backing vocals from stage right. A couple of tracks in, Swarfi ga triggers a clammy band of geezers into forming a pongy pogo circle, arms ‘round each other’s shoulders and angling their armpits toward surrounding nasal passages. There are lots of lyrics about biffo in Kasabian’s material, such as “Ever took a punch in the ribcage sonny” (Where Did All The Love Go?) and “I got my cloak and dagger in a bar room brawl” (Underdog). The male-heavy contingent vents their anger verbally. Drummer Ian Matthews is a joy to watch as he pounds out the beats with absolutely no control over his facial contortions. Rhythm changes are intrinsic to Kasabian’s sound and all band members fasten to the groove with the lockjaw grip British bulldogs are famous for. An extra touring guitarist, keyboard player and trumpeter help to accurately replicate album tracks and create dynamics within Kasabian’s set. The only improvement that could be made to experiencing Vlad The Impaler live would be seeing Noel Fielding up there brandishing a head on a stake but these Leicester lads make you feel off your head without the need for illicit substances. Kasabian leave the stage too soon but the sweaty masses demand an encore. “You fookin’ Aussies, you do fookin’ rule sometimes!” Meighan yells as he prowls across the front of the stage. Fire exercises our lung capacity when sing-alongs extend to incorporate the guitar melody. Loyal fans are rewarded with closer LSF and Meighan inexplicably screams out “PROSTITUTE” when it comes up in the song’s lyrics. Wild-eyed, saturated fans swamp the merch stands for mementos. A YouTube comment from JackWilson94 just about sums it up: “If u don’t like kasabian u don’t like music simple as fuck.” Bryget Chrisfi eld Kasabian pic by Lou Lou Nutt

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live@inpress.com.au LCD Soundsystem pic by Heidi Takla

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM, HOT CHIP FESTIVAL HALL I have to admit that perhaps one of the biggest disappointments this evening is missing the chance to see Adelaide’s The Swiss drop their super cute but simply irresistible Casio disco sounds. Instead arriving as Hot Chip are working their way through The Boy From School, one of the biggest double bills of the year is well under way and the assembled crowd are most certainly in the mood to party all night long. Hot Chip’s arrangements sound a little more expansive – more rock band and less dance act than on their previous tours. It’s a move that speaks perfectly to the stadiumsized audience yet surprisingly their tunes break down into full-tilt disco fluff that completely works the floor. Joe Goddard on paternity leave is somewhat creepily beamed in on a large flat-screen monitor. Over And Over, which references Prince’s Joy In Repetition, is perhaps the highlight of the evening and gets the party started. The lyrics get a little more sentimental as they move through Hand Me Down Your Love and One Pure Thought which morphs into One Life Stand. At times, Hot Chip are a little like eating a soft-centered chocolate where one bite releases gooey, sickly sweet chemicals concocted to resemble the flavour of a strawberry or perhaps a banana. Yet, in the absence of any lyrical attitude, Hot Chip are to be admired for their gorgeously lush pop arrangements and irresistible beats. Although no one notices, kudos must go to the DJ who plays an old Amanda Lear tune straight after Hot Chip’s set. It’s a little like drinking a glass of water after one of the aforementioned chocolates. Coming on loud and strong, James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem kick off their set with Us Vs Them, producing instant euphoria. Blinding with arrangements recalling Bowie and Roxy Music streamlined under the repetitive influence of ‘90s techno, mixed up with ideas from new and no waves, James Murphy’s idea of disco punk is nothing short of brilliant. Muscular rhythms, growling Moog synths and a bit of modular madness thrown in for good measure, deep rubbery bass and slamming beats designed to pummel us into whimpering submission is exactly what the doctor ordered. There is a crispness and clarity to the mix that just punches out everything LCD Soundsystem have ever been about loud and clear. Even the rather irritating tune Drunk Girls sounds mindblowingly brilliant. Sidestepping the opportunity to showcase brand new album This Is Happening, Murphy and company romp through a stunning greatest hits show that includes Get Innocuous!, All My Friends, Tribulations and Movement. Pow Pow gets a funky Talking Heads makeover while a cute version of Daft Punk Is Playing At My House acknowledges some of the innocent charm of the song. A deliriously epic version of Yeah, complete with wild distorted and fuzzed-out guitar, is simply mesmerising. No one stops dancing throughout the set. Murphy reportedly wanted to disband LCD Soundsystem when he turned 40. This was supposed to have been LCD’s farewell tour as Murphy celebrated his 40th earlier this year but tonight Murphy suggests the farewell tour might last a little longer and that LCD will be back to strut their stuff a few more times in the next year or two. After such a brilliant show one can only hope that Murphy, already an unlikely pop star, will realise that even men as old as your dad can still be cool and relevant and that dismantling his soundsystem is completely unnecessary. The encore is comprised of the super-cool Losing My Edge and the bluesy New York I Love You, which washes over like a tune from a Broadway musical. Nancy Wang does an Alicia Keys as the song morphs into Jay Z’s Empire State Of Mind; a cute touch to a show many wish wouldn’t end so soon. Guido Farnell

songs are works of art that capture your imagination while transporting you to a sentimental place. There’s next to no between-song banter. “Good one,” a punter yells out, breaking the awkward silence. Chris Taylor grows blue in the face with the effort of blowing into a barely audible brass instrument during Deep Blue Sea. Two Weeks is swoon-worthy and demonstrates the ease with which Christopher Bear executes his complex drum patterns. Floating time signatures create a tempestuous mood and a yearning quality inhabits all four vocal styles. There’s an almost liturgical beauty to Ed Droste’s vocals and Cheerleader is worthy of a high splits pyramid. As moving lights sweep over the crowd like searchlights, individuals blink lazily.

Scissor Sisters pic by J Morgan

SCISSOR SISTERS, KIDS OF 88 FESTIVAL HALL Passing through Melbourne on their way to Splendour In the Grass, Scissor Sisters showcased their latest album Night Work at Melbourne’s iconic venue, Festival Hall. Warming up the crowd on an icy cold Monday night in Melbourne is a tough call. Support act Kid’s Of 88 try hard but ultimately can’t get the crowd going with their ‘80s-inspired electro rock. Reportedly busy recording their debut album, the rather camp four-piece from New Zealand barely elicit a yelp of approval from punters even when they pump out their single, My House. Nonetheless, the Kids drop a pretty solid set and I suspect that we can expect plenty more when their album is released. It isn’t long before Scissor Sisters take to the stage, kicking off the set with the title track of Night Work. Scissor Sisters live have always reliably delivered a technicolour explosion of glitter and feathers, but this time around Jake Shears and Ana Matronic appear in black leather and ripped denim, although Matronic could have been wearing rubber. It’s a somewhat darker and more stripped-back look but the big synths and insistent beats still want to take us to the disco. Instead of arriving at Studio 54 and all its glamorous excess, Jake and co take us to one of those sleazy New York gay leather clubs like the Anvil or Ram Rod that have long since been washed away by gentrification. Night Work grinds a little harder and heavier than their previous efforts, allowing Scissor Sisters to shed their squeaky clean image for some good old fashioned sex, drugs and disco. Although this is probably not the kind of disco you would want to take your mama to. The hordes of flamboyant gents and ostensibly heterosexual couples lap it all up but some of them seem to be a little too old to be screaming, “Jake, I love you!” While Shears’ vocals sound a little weak and low in the mix, he clearly gets by on sex appeal. Right at the start of Skin Tight he strikes a pose and hilariously holds it for a little longer than he should with an ‘I know you think I’m hot’ look on his face. It’s a cue for all those boys around me to furiously start taking photos with their iPhones. Meanwhile, Ana Matronic puts plenty of wit, style and attitude on the table. It’s great to see her quoting the fabulously filthy Ann Magnuson from her Bongwater days. Of course everyone’s been talking about Kylie’s rumoured guest appearance. Jaws drop and absolute pandemonium breaks out when she takes to the stage for Any Which Way, and for the entire song all you can really hear is wild screams of adulation for the diva. Minogue returns for the first encore, leading off an amusing country and western take on her latest single All The Lovers. Although Scissor Sisters play a broad selection of tunes from all three of their albums, it’s the pure disco sensation of their encore that thrills the fans the most. The pure genius of their disco cover of Comfortably Numb mixes well with the glassy synths of the epic Invisible Light, which is arguably the best track on the new album. The irresistible Filthy/Gorgeous brings the house down and ends the show on a feel-good high. Guido Farnell

BRIDEZILLA, EAGLE AND THE WORM, JIMMY HAWK AND THE ENDLESS PARTY DING DONG LOUNGE I have a claim to fame: Daisy from Bridezilla went to look at my room when I was preparing to leave Sydney and move to Melbourne. I’ve never met her, but I mention this as a shameless attempt to absorb

some of the expressive, theatrical awesomeness she exhibits when performing live. There’s a bold little extrovert down deep in me that’s usually unleashed when I’m severely inebriated, but who, after watching Saturday night’s gig, wants to BE Daisy Tulley. If you can imagine me (as a bespectacled hunchback bathed in computer screen light, or however you have me pegged) in a Russian fur hat and tasselled leather vest, rocking my laptop in a violent waltz that takes up everything within a three metre radius as I type, then I have succeeded. But you should probably substitute “laptop” for “violin” and “me” for “Daisy Tulley” (seeing as that’s the truth and all). Anyway, I can see her becoming a distinct personality in Australian music, as well as an incredible performer in her own right. So now my admiration is duly professed, let’s move on. When Jimmy Hawk & The Endless Party first start playing I tell my friend they’re Eagle & The Worm. Of course I’m an idiot and it’s quickly quite clear that they’re not at all, but we were sitting at the back and there are some similarities like the ‘50s rock influence that colours both bands. In any case, Jimmy Hawk are great. One of the signs that they have got a good thing going is the fact that I can clearly discern the melody and the beat in their music. The REAL Eagle & The Worm are up next, delivering the goods yet again in their usual lively, loveable style. Sigh. Oh, Eagle & The Worm.

When the audience refuse to leave and insist on an encore, Daniel Rossen hesitantly returns to the stage with his acoustic guitar and explains he would like to try out something new, encouraged by the supportive vibe. He sounds endearingly nervous and looks vulnerable without his band mates but his courage is rewarded with generous applause at song’s close. The rest of the band join him and All We Ask is their closing gift – “I can’t get out of what I’m into with you.” During his Saturday set at Splendour In the Grass, Jonathan Boulet announced that watching Grizzly Bear at the festival the previous night made him feel like never playing music again. Grizzly Bear’s majesty is beyond the realm of all but a handful of the world’s finest bands. Bryget Chrisfield

BAND OF HORSES CORNER HOTEL A cog turned in my brain while listening to Band Of Horses’ acoustic live-to-air performance on RRR. It’s embarrassing to admit but I only just registered in my mind that they are a country outfit. And yes, I’d seen them before, and loved them. And I know their records, and love them too. But hearing this stuff in its pure and twinkling form, first on the wireless and later that evening at their Corner Hotel show, it was as if they had found their way home in my mind, like they’d settled in to their natural place.

And finally, Bridezilla. Their sound has changed from the early days; I wouldn’t really call them an indie band anymore unless I couldn’t find a better category. Holiday Sidewinder (fuck I love this name for a frontwoman, it’s totally something Quentin Tarantino would come up with) says between songs that Bridezilla aren’t gothic but I can definitely hear the melodrama and the darkness that qualifies them as such. Then there’s something Beirut-y about Tulley’s wailing violin and Millie Hall’s subtly psychotic sax. So I don’t know: the gothic ship gypsy rock? Maybe not. But they put on a mighty fine show too. Oh yes, it was a good night tonight. Alice Body

GRIZZLY BEAR, HERE WE GO MAGIC PALAIS Brooklyn quintet Here We Go Magic are the ideal choice to warm up the stage for Grizzly Bear (and not just ‘cause they share a zip code). The band resemble students from a performing arts school with their flannies, hoodies and product-free hairdos and display an introverted performance style, often conversing with each other mid-song. Intricate guitar textures lay the foundation for harmonies and layered vocal percussion that slowly builds to a climax. Fangela takes us there with keyboardist Kristina Lieberson gyrating on her stool in profile, seemingly unaware of how suggestive her movements may appear: a few gents in the crowd suddenly offer to nurse their girlfriend’s handbag. The stage is set with six lamp trees that old-school globes illuminate in different sequences to maximise ambience. A backdrop resembling a Hessian cave completes Grizzly Bear’s visual component and the setting resembles a Nordic forest. Looking like they’ve raided their opening act’s wardrobes, the four Bears wander out onto the stage and fall into a horizontal stage formation with bassist stage right followed by keyboardist, guitarist and then drummer, stage left. Syncopated guitar rhythms and synchronised pauses showcase the talent these four outstanding multiinstrumentalists bring to the equation. Southern Point fills the proscenium arch theatre, creating a haunting atmosphere that makes you grin while simultaneously fighting back tears. The Palais is the perfect atmosphere in which to experience Grizzly Bear. This band goes beyond merely composing music; these

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Band Of Horses pic by Lou Lou Nutt A generous, beardless and visibly excited Ben Bridwell greeted the audience with the revelation that this would be only the second acoustic set they had ever performed and encouraged the audience to enjoy the spaces between notes. From the first bars of 2007’s Cigarettes, Wedding Bands, it just felt right. The crowd were silenced as Band Of Horses unravelled a set of such precision and honest vulnerability it was like witnessing a rebirth. The simplicity and crispness of the guitar playing shone through amongst the tangled lattice of lyrics and Bridwell’s humble, ever-smiling demeanour. Laredo and Factory from latest release Infinite Arms stole the biggest applause of the night, while Gram Parsons’ A Song For You gelled beautifully with the stripped, non-electric formula. A duet of No One’s Gonna Love You between guitarist Tyler Ramsey and Bridwell stopped any breathing in the room. This was a performance so well rounded you’d almost call it faultless. Even the odd hiccup, especially the three-times miscued opening to Wicked Gil, was easily laughed off by Bridwell’s self-deprecating humour (he tells us he messed up the song because it’s from their first record, which he said sucked). Band Of Horses’ love for performing, was well made obvious on the night. For that reason alone, this show will go down as one of the gigs of the year. Samson McDougall

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THE MAGIC NUMBERS, CLOUD CONTROL CORNER HOTEL Both bands tonight are powering through jetlag, but you’d never guess it. Cloud Control give Meditation Song extra oomph, and segue, via spectacular messy guitar riffs, into Something In The Water. This Is What I Said, which gets half the crowd bopping madly, makes it clear why they are supporting The Magic Numbers. In terms of song structure, harmonies and pure joy factor, the two bands have quite a similar vibe with their combined brother/ sister combos. The vocals sound particularly crisp tonight, which brings their gorgeous harmonies into full effect. Since the release of their exquisite debut album Bliss Release, Cloud Control’s consistently awesome shows mean it’s likely that jetlag is something they’re going to have to get used to. When The Magic Numbers hit the stage you just want to hug them. Romeo Stodart’s enormous, endearing grin says it all. There’s no rock star posing going on here, they just seem pleased to be playing music, and they ride out sound issues in the first couple of songs to play an eclectic set. Having last been here an agonising four years ago, it’s good to hear them mixing up stuff from new album The Runaway with older material like the gorgeous, I See You, You See Me. Romeo asks if anyone would like to take the band out, and there’s no doubt The Magic Numbers will have more success finding fun times than Ashton Kutcher did. Why Did You Call? seems an odd set choice, as it lacks as much thrill live as it exuberates on their record. They play Hurt So Good then kick out The Mule which is clearly a favourite of bassist Michele Stodart, who goes nuts for it. The Magic Numbers have made sweet, floaty tunes with harmonised vocals their forte, but their set includes a couple of dark, gothic covers which are exciting to hear. Forever Lost was the song that put The Magic Numbers on the map. Five years later and they look like they still enjoy playing it. They follow it up with another old favourite, Love Me Like You. The crowd’s hollering for an encore is enormous, and their efforts are repaid with an epic five song encore, including the stunning Hymn For Her, Neil Young’s Cowgirl In The Sand and finally Mornings Eleven. The two-hour set reinforced The Magic Numbers’ reputation as one of the best good-vibe bands around. Kate Kingsmill

SURFER BLOOD CORNER HOTEL Splendour sideshows leave me feeling a giant pain in the rectum for two reasons – the aching pain of an empty wallet and the uncertain pain of whether the gig you chose was superior to the five other sideshows on the same night. The hardest thing is the raised level of expectations from the onslaught of the immense amount of live music. I want a lead singer to run fly-kicking in to a crowd, á la Foals. I want the perfect bass-heavy rock grime, á la BRMC. It’s an entire week of music crammed in so hard that it’s oozing out. To avoid being forgotten, some exceptional skills need to be showcased. Tonight, the RRR DJs deal a stereotypical indie rock card that perfectly lead the way to Surfer Blood. As they hit the stage diving straight in to Fast Jabroni, it’s as though Vampire Weekend took a flight to the Caribbean, somehow regressed back to teenagehood and wrote an entire album under an alias. Surfer Blood may be ridiculously young with a feeling that they still need to grow into their stage presence, but the crowd are smiling and the beers are being guzzled down – they must be doing something right. As Take It Easy starts up, singer John Paul Pitts grabs the microphone and adds a little Freddie Mercury, only without reflective material, without teeth that make you want to chunder and with some damn good formal training. And I mean REALLY good training. This isn’t just any indie pop group frontman, this is the son of a mother who chains him to a microphone, whipping him so he sings, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,” until she cries tears of joy. He’s got a great voice, but it dilutes the surfer sound. Without so many layers of reverb you don’t know where the music starts and the singing stops – it doesn’t quite have the same Caribbean vibe. It’s like getting Tijuana when you asked for the Galapagos Islands. But the crowd seem nonplussed as Swim causes some air-fisting and jumping from the crew up the front. Twin Peaks provides some perfectly placed red lighting but unfortunately no live cats on stage to make the sounds. With an odd choice to finish off, Slow Jabroni takes the pace down a notch to show off Pitts’ voice. Without bringing anything exceptional to the plate, the boys do a good job. Leonie Richman

The Strokes pic by Heidi Takla expected, but from all accounts the high school act were doing their best to follow in Howl’s footsteps.

THE STROKES FESTIVAL HALL It begins with the clapping rhythm of Queen’s We Will Rock You over the PA and, down in the Festival Hall cattle yard, an enveloping wave of fear-nausea and raw, tipsy excitement. We are but cows staring at a mysterious shed, and both feelings are warranted: the last time we saw all five members of The Strokes together on a stage in Melbourne was in this same venue almost exactly four years ago, and the band’s scattershot run around the world before they dig into their fourth album has them primarily playing festivals. Then there’s that fourth album itself. Julian Casablancas hasn’t been shy in publicly mumbling humbugs about his bandmates not sharing the weight of songwriting the last few years, and there’ve been more misled moves, false rumours and phony PR opps than an election campaign (not that many here would mind seeing Casablancas in a Speedo). And, fuck, you know, it’s The fucking Strokes. It could all go awry very easily. So when the band, silhouetted against a giant LED screen that seamlessly changes colours and patterns with their snaking riffs and pregnant rhythmic pauses, break into New York City Cops sounding like they just stepped off the plane from Awesome, it’s both bliss and relief. Tonight’s crowd, too, are eager to bring the loud love, particularly when it becomes apparent this is going to be the same hit-dealer set we’ve been hearing about from the other side of the world – The Modern Age follows, then Hard To Explain and Reptilia. When Casablancas, acting his smarmy self in sunglasses, finally speaks, it’s simply to say, “Wow,” and it’s actually a believable response from rock’s most apathetic (to fans, at least) singer to the crazed roar and limb-mangle happening in front of him. It’s truly impressive. He follows it, after You Only Live Once, with, “You guys are fucking loud, you know that?” That’s about all we get from him, besides an embarrassing ‘Sydney vs Melbourne’ call (because they always are and the tour managers encouraging them should be sent to Adelaide). But, strangely, it becomes apparent that Casablancas has turned into exactly what he seemingly always wanted to be: a frontman whose lyrics and delivery are far more valuable than any offstage personality. We don’t need the pandering because we have lines like, “I don’t want what you want/I don’t feel what you feel/ See I’m stuck in a city but I belong in a field” from Heart In A Cage. Before we get to that, though, we get Vision Of Division, Is This It, Someday, 12:51, Juicebox… they just keep coming. Any accusations of trading in false nostalgia at the beginning of their career are now redundant: that nostalgia is now very real and The Strokes could have a big album on their hands if they do get their shit together. Adam Curley

LITTLE RED, TESSA & THE TYPECAST, BLACK HILL 5, DARK ARTS KAROVA LOUNGE Arguably regional Australia’s best indie venue, Ballarat’s Karova Lounge celebrated its sixth birthday in mid-July. To reward loyal punters, the venue put on a great week of local talent and visiting acts. The Wednesday night showcased homegrown heroes Yacht Club DJs, Neon Love and North East Party House. Saturday boasted Purple Sneaker DJs and Howl. But the biggest bill was on the Friday – bands featured that night were Dark Arts, Black Hill 5, Tessa & The Typecast and last, but by no means least, Little Red. Braving the icy weather outside, hundreds of punters flocked to the venue, making it a full house. I just missed Dark Arts as they were on earlier than

Black Hill 5, featuring members of Ground Components and Eagle & The Worm, exploded onto the stage, impressing the crowd. They were without a doubt the ideal support slot for Little Red, belting out three-piece harmonies and upbeat pop rock, with the odd slow melodic track thrown in for good measure. Frontmen Will and Mike were funny and engaging and kept the crowd in the palm of their hands. I think this is definitely another example of Ballarat producing solid, young acts and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them headlining their own tours within the next year. A change of pace followed with instrumental-focused Tessa & The Typecast. The five-piece, which feature a cello, produce beautiful, rich music somewhat similar to Regina Spektor and Florence & The Machine. It’s impossible to fault lead singer Tessa Pavlich’s voice. In one breath she scaled up and down the octaves with ease, stopping the crowd in their tracks to soak up the atmospheric music. They debuted a lot of new material to be featured on their debut EP, due out this September. They’ve certainly moved in a darker direction, with a more contemporary jazz feel, especially with their song The Hunter. As much as I enjoyed their set, I was slightly miffed they didn’t play one of their earlier songs, Happy, I couldn’t help but feel the line-up was the wrong way around. After Black Hill 5, the crowd seemed keen to dance but Tessa & The Typecast were more of a stand-and-listen-style of act. Regardless, the crowd were absolutely frothing at the mouth by the time Little Red took to the stage. Lead guitarist Adrian Beltrame gave a humble nod to Karova Lounge for supporting their band since the early days, saying they were “very grateful” to be asked to play the birthday weekend. Little Red are so much fun to watch, and not just because the drummer looks like an Asian version of Puck from Glee. Their songs are as dynamic as they are well written – lyrically and musically. Current single Rock It was brilliant live, as was their other popular hit, Coca Cola. The encore featured It’s Alright, a brilliant end to a fun, happy set and the perfect way to celebrate Karova’s birthday. Meg Rayner

WOLFMOTHER, PHILADELPHIA GRAND JURY ESPLANADE HOTEL Wolfmother’s inclusion in the line-up at Splendour In The Grass 2010 may have seemed in some ways out of place, but during the week of sideshows that included some of the world’s most popular bands, the glam/ psychedelic rock hybrid proved to a sold-out crowd that their inclusion was entirely warranted through a commanding live show that brought out the glitz and glam of rock in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The Grammy winners were passionate, ridiculous and, judging by their performance and the crowd’s reaction, undeniably dear to the hearts of fans. The good news for fans of the Sydney hard rockers is their showmanship and virtuosity remain intact, despite a widely reported challenging couple of years that saw the band’s line-up change before the release of their second album. Frontman Andrew Stockdale, fresh from his collaboration with Slash and the shadows of a sophomore album that received a mixed critical response, was every bit the consummate rock star. His high-octane performance radiated with energy and charisma and kept the crowd riveted as the band blasted, screeched and jumped to a setlist centred around last year’s release, Cosmic Egg.

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Crowd favourite and set closer The Joker And The Thief remains the band’s calling card and was the best received, its retro anthem status amplified live. Smoky blues hit Woman dripped the cosmic funk and astral glamour that has made the band one of the biggest classic rock acts of the decade and New Moon Rising momentarily transformed the group’s sound to swelling stadium rock, dwarfing the Espy’s Gershwin Room through sheer ballsy power. Far Away gave Wolfmother a chance to further stretch their already considerable stage presence and showcased the band’s talents, Stockdale and second lead guitarist Aidan Nemeth shimmying and jamming together like old friends who have been reunited. Despite some setbacks, including wayward sound mixing that left the first couple of songs without a drum or bassline, and opening act Philadelphia Grand Jury threatening to disperse the crowd early with their rap metal cover of Jay-Z’s 99 Problems, Wolfmother delivered a comprehensive gig of true ability and fervour that transcended a current music scene not exactly geared to their style. Wolfmother remain a profound hard rock act who bring palpable energy and power to a glorious, over-the-top live show. Sam Manu Gray

HARD-ONS, USELESS CHILDREN, FANGS OF A TV EVANGELIST EAST BRUNSWICK CLUB The night kicked off with Fangs Of A TV Evangelist, but the Melbourne three-piece are a little underwhelming. Uninspiring riffs and lead guitar lines played through default and generic metal tones leave a few audience members wondering whether these guys were hand-picked by the Hard-Ons. Fresh from a recent tour of the United States, Useless Children show why they’re one of Melbourne’s best underground bands; grinding, fuzzy bass complemented by tonnes of harsh, overdriven wah tones to churn the senses. Spiralling, screeching, wild guitar is bent into a sonic attack of noisy shards carried along by the unpretentious yet solid drumming. Sampling the title tracks off their new 7” Skin/Nameless, they prove to be a step up in class tonight. Playing at a breakneck tempo with an absolute, primal aggressive noise and chilling vocal wails, they tear through a short set with scathing, caustic highlights in Give Up and Say You’ll Listen From The Start. The crowd seem to be smashed into a mix of disbelief and awe at the sheer power of it all. Useless Children absolutely prime the crowd with their powerful support slot. A big crowd proves there really is little need for an introduction to the Hard-Ons, a staple in the Australian independent scene for more than 25 years – they are legends! The mood is best summed up by lead singer Peter ‘Blackie’ Black: “what better way to spend a Friday night than with a bunch of shirtless, middle-aged men?” Tonight serves as a launch for their wonderful new album Alfalfa Males Once Summer Is Done Conform Or Die; everyone is in high spirits at the chance to hear their new songs. And deliver they do. The adoring crowd laps up every drum roll and guitar lick as they power through Keish-era classics, Where Did She Come From and Think About You Everyday, engulfed in a mass of new tracks. The balance between soft, melodic pop songs like Feisty and Aunty wedged in between the blitzkrieg thrash metal styling of Don’t Fear The Reeperbahn and In The End We All Die Alone is one of many things which Hard-Ons fans love so much. Displaying a true punk spirit of doing what they want, the way they want, the Hard-Ons may be past 40 but tonight they prove they could nail any of today’s ‘punk’ bands. Inspiring. SOB

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RADIO SPACE With RRR’s annual Radiothon about to kick off, local artists sing the praises of the station’s performance space to SAMSON MCDOUGALL.

THREAT FROM NZ New Zealand punk rock outfit 5th Threat from across the ditch smother Melbourne next week with three back-to-back shows. Having been around ten years and only now making their debut in Melbourne, these guys are not to be missed! Joining them for the shows are friends Rooftop Alley. Catch them tonight (Wednesday) at the Blue Tile Lounge with Australian Kingswood Factory and Cabin Fever. Then this Thursday at the Brunswick Hotel with The Tearaways and Swear No Allegiance; and this Friday at the Arthouse with Horace Pinker (USA) and Not OK (QLD).

ATM HOLD-UP Every Thursday night this month, catch the explosive 16-piece band ATM15 performing material from their upcoming CD at Melbourne’s premier jazz club, the Paris Cat. ATM15 release their new CD, Big Band Reborn, in October after winning two of 2009’s biggest composing competitions (Jazzverk in Sweden, and at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival). ATM15 combines the sophistication of jazz harmony, form and orchestration with the passion of contemporary soul music, all presented with the raw driving energy of a big band. Catch them from 9pm.

RIPPER, HARBOUR Cold Harbour follow up their album launch with a month of Sundays at the wonderful Lyrebird Lounge – 61 Glen Eira Road, Ripponlea. The band will be playing tracks from their recently released Dust Storm album as well as older material, new songs destined for the next album and a selection of choice covers. They’re guaranteeing each Sunday evening will be different with several surprises in store. The band will be doing a couple of sets each night, starting around 6.30pm. Entry is free!

JOHNNIE GETS FREAKY Fear not this Friday the 13th because Pony will keep you safe and warm with a night of awesome rock’n’roll. Headliners Johnnie & The Johnnie Johnnies will swing you screaming into the night with their wild go-go garage. Leon Thomas will shake you awake early on with his rattle’n’roll juke-joint jive. In between, get swept away with the driving thinking folks music of Matt Bailey (ex-Paradise Motel) and band, plus the psyche country melodrama of E-wah Lady & The Open Road. This will be E-wah Lady’s last full band show until summer, so don’t miss it. Abandon your superstitions for a super night of rock adventure at Pony from 9pm. Entry is $10.

Kim Salmon makes contact with Rat Vs Possum

MOTH IN THE HOUSE Melbourne polymath Owl + Moth has taken up his debut residency at the Empress this month, playing every Sunday. Since its inception in 2008, Oliver Hunter’s Owl + Moth project has gained recognition as a solo act of breadth and originality. With his heavy use of exotic vocal patterning and increasingly complex loops, Hunter invokes an atmosphere both joyfully cathartic and Lisa Gerrard-esque freaky. With supports including Space Cactus and Smoked Salmon, it’s a Sunday full of pleasures. Entry is $6 from 7.30pm.

WALK WITH WALSHE Celebrating the national release of The Justin Walshe Folk Machine’s revered sophomore album Walking To China, two members of the Machine escape the well-mined confines of WA for a long weekend of intimate shows around Melbourne. Representing these folk country evocateurs in the ‘far east’, The Justin Walshe Duo launch the revered new album on behalf of The Folk Machine with an intimate embrace of evocative storytelling, lush harmonies and unique showmanship. Walking To China is released nationally this Friday through Green Media and they play B’Artiste Lounge in Frankston this Friday from 8pm; Pure Pop Records in St Kilda at 4pm this Saturday and the Northcote Social Club supporting Khancoban this Sunday from 2pm.

CARLITO, CHA CHA One of the most powerful bands to hit the Latin music scene in a long time, Carlitos Way is the answer to those in need of the authentic sounds of Cuban music. See them this Saturday night at the Bendigo Hotel in Collingwood from 9pm. To get you started, the Bendigo will offer some pretty amazing bar specials! The band is fronted by Carlos (Carlitos) Perez, a talented Cuban vocalist/percussionist with a passion to defend his musical roots, which are the foundation of many of the Latin music styles that continue to develop around the world. Entry is $12 from 9pm.

JOEL HAS CAT Joel Plymin & Them Blues Cats have been kicking up a storm on the local blues scene with their raw, authentic blues sound. Driven by a wailing saxophone and hilarious lyrics this band is the real deal. They play the Bendigo Hotel this Sunday at 3pm and the Brunswick Hotel on Sunday 22 August at 8pm.

GOT DICK?

BLACKCHORDS GOT BACK After three months touring and recording in the UK, Blackchords are back in Melbourne and are itching to celebrate their return and the release of a brand new single, with a welcome-back single release show at Revolver this Saturday. Blackchords’ new single, As Night Falls, featured in the new Australian film Blame – which premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival this month – will be a digital release available in early August of this year. The band have also just been announced as opening act for Powderfinger and Jet at Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Friday 29 October. Support at Revolver comes from The Hello Morning and Royston Vasie and entry is $12 from 9pm.

On a cold weekday night, this Thursday, the lord will give way to a line-up featuring Dick Threat, Black Widow and It’s Is in an a effort to bring joy and happiness to all those in search of their inner self and harmony. The show’s free and starts at 8pm. Dick Threat is Grover (Whitehorse/True Radical Miracle) and his lovely Wife Sharron going postindustrial free jazz. Black Widow is industrial drone solo project of Robert MacManus (ex-Grey Daturas/ Monarch) and It’s Is is the minimal electronic drone noise project of Robert Mayson (ex-Grey Daturas/ Whitehorse/Breathing Shrine). Doors open at 9pm.

SKAZZ BUCKET The musicians that were brought together for the band Skazz are the finest that money can’t buy. They play for love. They play to make people dance, to forget their worries, to lift them to a place beyond the everyday where there is only joy. This ensemble plays with the enthusiasm and sense of fun that jazz once had, but that’s not to say they don’t take their jobs seriously. The combined musical history of these players covers everything from mainstream pop to fringe theatre; from straight-ahead jazz to classical and traditional African; circus bands to film scores. They hit Bar Open this Friday night, skazzin’ the shit out of ya upstairs. Entry is free from 10pm.

he RRR performance space feels like no other band room in Melbourne. It’s a serious space, no beer swilling chit-chat and rank odours, for people serious about music to experience the best of what Melbourne has to offer. Upon entry to the room, there is weight attached to the realisation that the show will be broadcast to a listenership of thousands. Beginnings to sets are marked by nervous introductions followed by deafening silence. The musician is respected here like nowhere else in town. Since the building opened last March subscribers have borne witness to several seasons of free liveto-air events blanketing a cross-section of superb local artists. Showcased thus-far have been not the chart-toppers and fickle monthly flavours you’ll find at the larger venues and on commercial stations, but the guts – the veritable beating heart – of the local music community. From Wagons’ sweat-drenched swagger to the smooth country craftswomanship of Suzannah Espie; garage girls Super Wild Horses to the unhinged kookfest that is Ooga Boogas; the psychotropic hypnosis of Sand Pebbles to the indescribable wig-outs of Kim Salmon &The Surrealists; the renegade lyrical flow and beat-tasia of Curse Ov Dialect to the jag and grind of TTT; the intricate weaving of Fabulous Diamonds to the electro breeze of The Emergency; the jungle rhythms of Rat Vs Possum to the sound blockades of Black Cab; the floor-fillin’ styles of Dexter and Grrilla Step to the reflections of Liz Stringer and Paradise Motel. Without mentioning the international heavies (Band Of Horses, Justin Townes Earle, et cetera...), the comedy (Daniel Kitson) and community events (speed dating, Liquid Architecture), the diversity and inclusiveness is obvious – and this list barely scratches the surface of what’s occurred. Talking to live-to-air participants it’s clear these shows not only play a vital role in reaching a wider audience, but also they open the ears of listeners to sounds and styles they may not have otherwise experienced. “These let you connect with people you otherwise might not reach,” Curse Ov Dialect’s Peso Bionic tells me. “We play hip hop, so we might only get played on certain shows, whereas with the live-to-airs hopefully a lot more people are listening in.” “We played prime time on The Skull Cave,” says Chris Hollow of Sand Pebbles. “It was incredible. Ben [Michael X] and I grew up listening to Stephen Walker; it was one show we knew we were going to hear long, wigged-out tracks and the first place we heard our own 13-minute track Black Sun Ensemble. Any success we’ve had, RRR has been linked [to it] in some way.’ There is something poetic about subscribers being active participants, directly responsible for the perpetuation and support of the music community. Through subscribing we actually fund the creation of fantastic programming and the facilitation of these events, which in turn bring us so much pleasure. The artists clearly win here also, with much needed promotion minus the usual money grabbery and two-faced profiteering of the music industry. “RRR is the business without the business,” Black Cab’s James Lee tells me. “Listeners subscribe for a variety of reasons. I subscribe because I’m introduced to new music I wouldn’t find anywhere else. Hearing that music played live and connecting with the musicians who play it is a unique experience. Playing live-to-air

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is the ultimate way to connect with an audience. It bridges the connection between artist and audience.” “It’s an immediate way to showcase your music to a bunch of listeners who perhaps haven’t trekked out to see you live yet,” says Super Wild Horses’ Hayley McKee. “To be able to perform through their radio and into their cars or kitchens is a very unique opportunity.” “Not only does RRR play a heap of local and independent releases,” says fellow Super Wild Horse Amy Franz, “they support local gigs and really help keep the community in the know about what’s going on around town. I’ve heard a lot of great Melbourne bands for the first time on RRR and thought, ‘Yeah, shit, I’ll go check them out this weekend’.” Amongst the live-to-air contributors, the identification with RRR as a selfless and fervent supporter of their art is tremendous. “I’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of the DJs who’ve wanted to speak to us,” says Kieran O’Shea of Rat Vs Possum, “who’ve been kind enough to give us ten minutes on air to talk about what we’re doing. The more RRR can get listeners to support them, and artists to subscribe also, it just contributes to this overall thing we have here and makes it stronger and stronger and stronger.” James Lee shares this sentiment. “RRR gives local bands a voice. Radio is about community and music is the most ancient form of communication there is. Without someone listening, it’s the old falling tree in the forest conundrum; is there anyone listening? Well RRR listens and so does its discerning audience.” “It’s great to know that there’s love between the bands and the radio stations that support their music,” continues Amy Franz. “It cements that Melbourne does in fact have a solid music community who collaborate together really well. Live broadcasts are important to show the strength and versatility of bands, radio stations, punters, everyone. They get bands out of the pub and onto the airwaves.” There is a historical relevance to all of this with the live broadcasts surviving as a record of what’s taken place. As a partaker in live-to-air broadcasts over two decades, Kim Salmon describes this ‘footprint’ as vastly important. “My first one at RRR was in 1993,” he explains, “I’ve heard those tracks played on the radio since. Any station will be inclined to play something they’ve had a hand in recording, but it’s really nice that they’ve got such a great place to record and perform in, the sound is pristine. As a venue it really stacks up because it was designed to serve these functions.” “My drummer Adam and I were the first ones to sign the wall backstage at the new RRR performance space,” says Liz Stringer. “Or possibly second after Kim Salmon and Ron Peno because we all performed that first night there. The closest to having street cred we’ve ever been.” “There’s something really special about RRR documenting live shows,” continues Hayley McKee. “I kinda picture this amazing glittery musical vault where all the recordings will be preserved for future music lovers. RRR has some seriously good karma coming their way... and hopefully lots of donations too.”

WHAT: RRR Radiothon WHEN: Friday until Sunday 22 August. Subscribe at rrr.org.au or 9388 1027

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HAVE YOU HEARD?

BACKSTAGE BLITZ BRYGET CHRISFIELD gains access to the Espy band room after ATTACK OF THE MANNEQUINS perform in the Gershwin Room to find out how the view was from the stage. Have the other bands on the bill introduced themselves? JF: “Yeah, they have. There was one, we sort of know them… [to HF] Shut up!” HF: [reading a text he’s just received] “The bulge in my pants is pretty huge.” Is it socks or what? HF: “No.” Who sent that text?

The Skylines play Revolver every Wednesday in August.

HF: “Some lady. It was actually my dad.” HOW DID YOU GET TOGETHER? Russ Macumber, crowd hype-man/wolf-howler/ manager: “A few of the blokes met whilst playing in an indie band. They used to jam out on old funk between rehearsals whenever the lead singer left the room so decided to start their own funk thang. Thus The Skylines was born.”

SG: “It’s a free show tonight. It was all about getting together and having a fuckin’ good time. We’ve played with Fast Track before and I played with My Dynamite in my old band [Menace] so that’s how the whole thing came together. The bands all got in contact with each other and it’s happened – we did it!”

AOTM outside Cherry post-gig

HAVE YOU RECORDED ANYTHING OR DO YOU PREFER TO TOOL AROUND IN YOUR BEDROOM? “The Skylines’ Right Track EP is available now, checktheskylines.com for where you can get your own.”

Personnel: Harrison Freud (lead vox), Jackson Freud (guitar), Matty Ray (keyboards and noise), Seb Gregory (drums) and Jase McMahon (bass).

CAN YOU SUM UP YOUR BAND’S SOUND IN FOUR WORDS? “Funk funk funk funk.”

How did you get yourself psyched tonight? Have you got a pre-gig routine?

IF YOU COULD SUPPORT ANY BAND IN THE WORLD, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY? “I’m going to say The Roots but there’s no way we’d get a consensus from the guys. They’ve got such a range of influences, from obscure jazz to blues and folk… then there’s indie, pop and more.”

SG: “You know what? We actually do vocal exercises, for real! There’s not a lot of rock bands who do that.”

IF A HIGHER POWER SMITES YOUR HOUSE AND YOU CAN ONLY SAVE ONE RECORD FROM THE FIRE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? “My Skylines Right Track EP which is available now. Check theskylines.com for where you can get your own.”

JF: “And Harrison doesn’t talk to anyone.”

DO YOU HAVE A LUCKY ITEM OF CLOTHING YOU WEAR FOR GIGS AND WHAT IS IT? “A dead heat between our guitarist McElvis’ hat and our keys player Hoos’ sunnies. Too close to call but I can’t imagine anyone in the band feeling right if either item was missing.” IF YOU INVITED SOMEONE AWESOME ROUND FOR DINNER WHAT WOULD YOU COOK? “Jeez, tough question. If they were truly awesome I wouldn’t want to be trapped in the kitchen so I reckon we’d order in some Thai or Greek or Hungarian or something similarly delish. I’d be putting more thought into what fills the stereo for the evening’s soundtrack.” WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE TO DRINK IN MELBOURNE? “At the moment it’d have to be Revolver on Wednesday nights where The Skylines are presenting the Mid-Week Funk Fix throughout August – probably hit up somewhere on Chapel beforehand for a preboogie drink.”

JF: “We all have different rituals.” SG: “Yeah, we do. I drink a lot of red wine and listen to Angus & Julia Stone.”

HF: “I tell everyone to shut the fuck up.”

How did the gig go compared to what you were expecting?

What’s the most rockstar thing you’ve done (or witnessed someone else do) in a band room?

HF: “We were actually really well received. We thought we’d be hated.”

SG: “You know what? If you’re gonna ask that question ask Matty the keyboardist.”

JF: “Yeah, we thought we’d get beer cans thrown at us because we had the make-up and the mask. But, no, it went really well. It was definitely the same reception as for an American date, if not better.”

MR: “Um… once I woke up in bed with one of Marilyn Manson’s stripper girls [MR used to be in Mandy Kane who supported Marilyn Manson].”

SG: “It was kinda weird because we actually realised we don’t really have a profile here yet, and while we were in LA word got around a bit about us. We usually start playing and there’s not a lot of people there and then, by the second song, it’s pretty packed out.”

SG: “Nah, nah that was in a bed it has to be in a band room.” Does anything exciting happen in a band room? JF: “We’ve lit bonfires.”

SG: “It’s a typical singer thing.”

How would you rate this band room compared to other band rooms you’ve been in?

HF: “And I basically walk around pissing everyone off [laughs]. It kinda gets everyone pissed off to a point where they wanna get on stage and let all the energy out.”

SG: “In the room next door, we lit a bonfire – it was cool. We cooked marshmallows. That was kinda fun. That was more like a dinner, a meal.”

HF: “This is crap because there’s no mirrors and we rely heavily on make-up. We had to BYO.”

What are your plans for the rest of the evening? What do you usually do post-gig?

SG: “It’s fun, though. We all take it very, very seriously. The last 20 minutes before we go on, each individual goes off into their own little world and does their own thing, which I think is a good thing.” What was your most memorable moment from the gig tonight? SG: “Ooh, the screw from my pedals coming loose and not having a pedal for the second song – Cardinal Sin, that’s my favourite song to play.” HF: “Mine would have to be when my padlock necklace flew off. I found it. It was just a big turning point in my life, just like, ‘This one I leave behind,’ haha.” JF: “Mine was when I punched myself in the face and actually made contact and lost feeling in my face.”

SG: “Yeah, our keyboardist is fuckin’ full-on with his make-up and he’s really good at that kind of stuff and he’s been doing it for ages. He has his own little kit on wheels and it’s got mirrors and stuff. It’s like Zoolander.” What were some of the band rooms like in the US? Like at Viper Room? JF: “There wasn’t one. We had to put our gear in the smoking area.” SG: “Is this at Viper?” HF: “Yeah, you had to load in on to the street half an hour before you played and while the other bands were coming off, their fans were crowding the whole outside area and you had to try and move your gear through. So we got there 45 minutes before we went on and they told us to go back and we had to put all our gear back in the car and wait.”

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JF: “Well, we’re gonna get pretty drunk and probably go to Cherry Bar because we…” SG: [employs Cockney accent] “Aw, fuckin’ Mötley Crüe, mate, so rock’n’roll!” JF: “Well what else are we gonna do? Are we gonna go and fuckin’ knit or read a book?” SG: “No, I’m gonna stick around ‘cause I’m gonna watch the other bands who are on.” JF: “And then we’ll go out.”

WHO: Attack Of The Mannequins WHEN & WHERE: Friday 20 August, Cherry Bar

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Sorted for E&Ps MARDI LUMSDEN & THE RISING SEAS WHEREVER YOU GO, THERE YOU ARE Wallflower Records

TO WORK, GEORGIA Georgia Fields has been in studio isolation of late, applying the finishing touches on her debut album. Luckily SYN FM have dragged her out of the padded studio chamber to headline their SYNapproved August feature show, on Thursday 26 August at the Workers Club. The ever-charming indie pop songstress will be showcasing songs from her soon-to-be-released album, accompanied by her band of talented multi-instrumentalists. Support comes from The Bon Scotts and Courtney Barnett. Entry is $8 from 8.30pm. Keep an ear out for Fields on 90.7 FM, as the Student Youth Network will be featuring select songs from her album all through August.

A GOOD ONCE OVER This Friday’s line-up at Yah Yah’s is going to be a welcome assault on all five senses. Hear the sonic chaos of Duck Duck Chop and ponder the mystery how two guys can make such an awesome roar. See if Money For Rope can keep their shirts on for an entire set as they double drum their way through their good time party rock’n’roll. Smell the sweat of The Once Overs as they pummel onlookers with their surf punk’n’roll and witness the majesty of frontman Sammy’s crotch tambourining and partially retarded hillbilly jig. Music so gratifying you wish you could Taste it. And if you want you might be able to touch some of the band members later on. Doors at 9pm.

Mardi Lumsden obviously wears her heart on her (CD) sleeve and pens lyrics that are worth paying heed to if you need some help in the romance department: “Just hold my hand and we’ll be the best versions of ourselves we can be.” The presser tells us this EP’s closer, Classified (WVTM), was written as a wedding speech. A stirring, discordant string crescendo adds drama leading into the final Pieces Of The Story chorus. Whether the songs call for toy piano, saucepan or manjo (hopefully a banjo/ mandolin hybrid and not the definition of the word provided at urbandictionary.com), these arrangements are lovingly crafted. Worth a look at the Edinburgh Castle this Saturday, especially recommended if you want to turn a friend into something more.

CARNATION 12.21.12 Independent Why haven’t I heard of these guys before? This is good stuff! Reminiscent of Leeds band The Music, these five tracks are vast and accomplished. The Melbourne five-piece boasts a sound that is loaded with dense layers but never to the detriment of melody. Dan Knight’s drumming is crisp and gets extra punch when accentuated by the addition of bongos and laser warfare sounds in the EP’s standout title track. A breakdown during this song shows off Joshua Monte’s insouciant vocals to perfection. Carnation launch 12.21.12 at Fad Gallery this Saturday

SEVENTH MARKS TENTH Gertrude Street’s much lauded Seventh Gallery celebrates its tenth birthday tonight! The gallery is holding a special photographic survey of its history from 6pm, followe by a birthday-party-after-party at the Workers Club from 8pm, where you’ll be dancing and cavorting the night away with bands and DJs until 1am! Featuring will be the mindblistering talent of Thieves, The French and The Night Terrors, followed by Mr Crispe & The Wildman and DJ JA & Sean Nuff. Seventh will also be launching the new ‘Workers Window’ – a free Seventh-curated window space at the Workers Club! Good grief, massive impending party times!

This Saturday night local boys Our Anatomy take their brand of epic indie rock to the John Curtin Bandroom for a rare headlining gig. They’ll be joined by Sydney’s Between The Devil And The Deep, Following Sea and Left Feels Right for a pretty spesh one-off line-up. Entry is $8.

BOO RADNESS Two of Melbourne’s best up-and-coming bands – The Boo Hoo Hoos and The Ravenous – join forces for some party times on the Woah Nelly tour. Taking in Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle and regional Victoria, the Woah Nelly tour will be short, sharp and straight to point. Point being – get there and see two excellent new bands rising out of the Melbourne underground scene. Catch them line at the Workers Club this Friday. Entry is $10 from 8.30pm.

SABRINA & THE RED VANS MIRROR MIRROR Independent Sabrina Sandpapa’s effortless vocals seem incapable of missing the mark. She wrote all of the songs on this Mirror Mirror EP and her interpretations draw you into lyrical content that seems deeply personal. The arrangements allow Sandpapa’s voice to remain the primary focus and there’s something about closing track Big Feet that calls to mind Norah Jones. It also can’t hurt that this artist is absolutely stunning to look at. Behold her exceptional talent and beauty at the Grace Darling Hotel this Saturday.

SMALL TOWN FIASCO RUINS Independent Matt Panag’s vocals in opener Breathing A Melody resemble a rapper’s monotone staccato before the tune takes flight, transforming into an instrumental hurricane. Panag goes on to display a more conventional, melodic singing style in Postcard – a heavily emotive track (“My vision was murdered/ My life is a postcard no one received from a forgotten junkyard”). The addition of a female vocalist adds poignancy to The Definite Article, which provides a snapshot into the inner workings of a relationship. Clarinet is an interesting addition to the instrumental mix on closer Odium/Odeon. Small Town Fiasco take over the John Curtin Hotel on Friday 20 August.

Graveyard Train leave for a five-country European tour on Monday but unfortunately they blew all their cash on plane tickets and now face a very real prospect of starvation. Help keep the lads alive this Sunday night at the Old Bar when they throw a last-minute Tour Fundraiser Horror Country Madness Show – with friends Plague Doctor and Matt Grim solo (Brothers Grim) supporting. All proceeds got towards the sauerkraut, bratwurst, haggis, chip butties and whatever else Graveyard Train will need to keep alive in strange lands. The Old Bar is the band’s old stomping ground and the night promises to be full of all sorts of spooktacular fun and chain smashing stupidity.

La La la Music/EMI

Ohad Rein is a superb pop songwriter. You’ll be familiar with his previous single Sunshine, which received high rotation on Triple J in the summer of ’06 and went on to become the theme for Channel 7’s Sunrise. Rein’s lyrics are romantic – “I see your face on every tree on every flower on every bird, they’re calling your name” – and a hoot to sing along to with choruses often sung by a “drunken sailors choir”. Exotic instruments such as tabla, santoor and Indian percussion as well as passages sung in Hindi provide an insight into this itinerant troubadour. The music sounds like a Bacchanalian jam. Katalyst’s remix of the EP’s title track injects a dose of edgy dancefloor cred while retaining the beauty of the original. Show your support for an artist on the rise when Old Man River supports Basement Birds at the Forum this Saturday.

MONTPELIER MONTPELIER

Independent

OLD MAN RIVER

LEG IT TO ASAMI

DRIVEBY SOAKING

Born in Tokyo and raised in Melbourne, Asami is a singer/songwriter with an unmistakable voice. Her music is packed with memories of life, love and everything in between, drawing inspiration from artists such as Sia, Ben Harper and Karen O to create timeless and playful pop tunes. Starting off as a side project three years ago, Asami has culminated in transforming her sound for the big stage with her band. Together, they have spent the last year performing, studying, recording and growing as a four-piece to create an effortless sound combining elements of acoustic pop, folk and indie music. Be sure to catch Asami and her band at the Workers Club this Saturday launching her debut EP, Sweeter, along with Mechanical Pterodactyl, The Vulpine and Emily Trembacth. Entry is $12 from 8pm.

RUSH HOUR

GRAVEYARD MESS

YOU’RE ON MY MIND

This Brisbane quartet have an appealing, on-trend sound and it wouldn’t surprise me if they are into Miike Snow: opening track The Rafters could be a nod to that group’s Silvia. Girl sounds heavy (“Every time you cut yourself, you cut me too/Didn’t say goodbye to me, didn’t say goodbye to anyone”) and the pathos is emphasised via string arrangement. These dudes recorded their debut EP in LA with Kevin Augunas (Sinead O’Connor, Cold War Kids) and these tunes are Gossip Girl ready. Themes speak of teen angst, displacement and the search for true love.

Bois et Charbon play the perfect soundtrack to a winter’s night, acoustic gypsy swing that’ll light a fire in your cold heart (hell, their name even translates as ‘wood and coal’). The Marquis Of Lorne provides the perfect setting in which to hear them; dim lights, warm fire, glowing red wine and friendly bartenders. Can you think of a better way to spend the night? That’s tonight, Wednesday, from 9pm at the Marquis Of Lorne Hotel. Nuit d’amusement pour tous!

After years of taking themselves far too seriously playing in funk and soul bands, six girls finally came together to discover that people would rather dance to the sound of trash can lids being hit with large sticks whilst simultaneously destroying their vocal chords. Add a handful of synthesizers, floor toms, strobe lights and smoke machines, and you have Northeast Party House, a band inspired by the antics that occurred when a mother on vacation left her 17-year-old son in charge of their inner-city Melbourne apartment for two weeks. They play the Evelyn Hotel this Friday with The Belligerents (Bris) and Ross De Chene Hurricanes.

JOHN’S ANATOMY

before heading off to Singapore to play some dates.

BOIS ON FIRE

EVELYN’S PARTY HOUSE

EP Reviews with Bryget Chrisfield

Superstitious? Well, this Friday the 13th is set to be far from unlucky! Revolver Upstairs is primed for the hard-rockin’ beats of Driveby Epic, a three-piece power house whose sound is that of big chunky riffs and hook-soaked melodies. Having recently been locked down in Breakneck studios, the band will unleash an almost completely new line-up of songs from their forthcoming release. The band are supported by good mates The Close and Life to Order who will kick off after doors open at 9pm. Entry is only $5 so make sure you get down early for a great night of rock.

BEAUT PAGEANTS Melbourne’s OG sandal-gaze, coconut-garage rock band Pageants are playing every Wednesday evening this month at the Builder’s Arms. Tonight, they play with support from the able Constant Mongrel and the apt Pop Singles. Pageants’ forthcoming release, Forbidden Delicious, was produced by Mikey Young of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, and tracks have already leaked to the airwaves of Triple J, RRR and online. See them before everyone jumps on this bandwagon – entry is $6 from 8pm.

OLD BODIES

Joining The Skylines for their second week of their August residency at Revolver tonight (Wednesday) is Rush Of Colour, who exploded onto the music scene at the beginning of 2010. With their own unique sound thanks to influences such as Jamiroquai, James Brown, Stevie Wonder and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and mixing jazz, funk and rock together, Rush Of Colour pride themselves on writing energetic tunes with powerful vocals and driving beats. Entry is $10 from 9pm.

Bodies headline Saturday night at the Old Bar with their brand of primal gristle-chewin’ riffs. After getting rave reviews of their debut album they’re concentrating on melting faces with their feedback drenched live shows. Support comes from the brain breaking angular sounds of Bone, the kosmische hypnotising Lamefoot (featuring members of The Dacios/Handhell/Aktion Unit/Matt Bailey/Twin Vickers in their second outing as a four-piece) and old punk rock drinking buddies The Losers in a rare appearance. Entry is $8 from 8.30pm.

NACIONAL HOLIDAY

TURNING BLUEJAYS

Fresh off supporting Red Ink, The Indigo Children and We Are Fans, Nacional play their first headline show with their new line-up at Revolver Upstairs this Thursday. Their blend of ‘90s industrial rock and ‘80s electro is sure to send a shock to your system. With a reputation for creating an intense live show with plenty of eye candy, this night promises to be nothing short of pure and utter mayhem. With support from the amazing Red Leader and SugarDoll, it’s a fine time to head to Revolver. Entry is $7 from 9pm.

The Bluejays take their special brand of psychedelic soul rock tunes to the John Curtin Bandroom on Thursday 19 August. Formerly from Perth, The Bluejays are a three-time WAMi Award-winning trio who’ve played with the likes of The Black Keys, Jamiroquai and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. With the release of their debut album, Colours In The Window, The Bluejays are keen as mustard to unleash tunes to the world. Expect a blistering night of great music with special guests French & McCarthy.

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HOT SHOTS

Inpress asked two of our fave new bands, Sydney’s JINJA SAFARI and locals MONEY FOR ROPE, to document their Splendour In The Grass experiences (we actually asked more but they all lost their cameras). Here’s what they gave us.

JINJA SAFARI

MONEY FOR ROPE

1: Alister Pattern, the master of the Ugly Dance, during the show. Photo by Shantanu Starick.

5: MFR’s Jules McKenzie is pretty happy to meet hero Chris Masuak from Radio Birdman.

2: Jinja Safari bass player, Joe Citizen, tuning up before show (and before the gates open). Joe is a shaman magic man, and plays fun bass. Photo by Shantanu Starick.

6: Post Splendour-set MFR happiness.

3: Art Vs Science storm the stage near the end of our set, and Dan Mac is dressed as a man-eagle. Righteous. We’re heading on tour with them soon! Photo by Shantanu Starick.

8: Post-Splendour feast.

7: Rick Parnaby and Rob Grymel of MFR wait to be taken on a magical mystery Splendour tour.

4: We reciprocated the favour by rushing onstage during Flippers in Art Vs Science’s Saturday night set, dressed only in purple plastic bags. We had some friends join us in the fun, including Danny from Channel V. Jim from Art Vs Science looks on. Photo by Michelle Smith.

3 4

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SHORT FAST

Descendents

REPORT

Fronted by punk rock icon Keith Morris, OFF! have just been signed to Vice Records. Surrounding Morris in what is actually a legit supergroup are Steven McDonald from Redd Kross, Dimitri Coats from Burning Brides and one of the great punk drummers, Mr Mario Rubalcaba from Rocket From The Crypt, Chicano-Christ and Hot Snakes. Under the freshly inked deal the band will release four EPs as limited 7”s. On 12 October, the band will drop their first EP, simply called First EP. The other three will follow and will eventually be compiled in the First Four EPs box-set on 23 November (is this sounding familiar to anyone else?). Currently there is no music from OFF! available to preview online, only a few YouTube videos. I was able to catch them overseas earlier this year and trust me: fans of Morris’ early Black Flag and Circle Jerks work will want to get their hands on this music. Like the early Black Flag releases, renowned artist Raymond Pettibon has been enlisted to provide artwork for the 7”s. So by now you’ve had a few days to consider the Soundwave 2011 line-up, a huge bill with international acts to suit most tastes. Personally the idea of finally seeing Social D playing alongside The Bronx, Slayer, The Gaslight Anthem, Terror, Melvins, High On Fire, Protest The Hero and Pennywise all on one day is pretty appealing. If you’re not yet impressed by the massive line-up, soon after organisers learned that the line-up leaked a day early, they Tweeted, “Totally crushed about leak. Just as well we have a great second announcement in Oct...” There you go… more acts coming soon! The title for the eagerly anticipated third Bring Me The Horizon album was unveiled

THE

RACKET Metal, heavy rock and dark alternative with ANDREW HAUG theracket@inpress.com.au MYYYY GODDDDDDDDDDD SOUNDWAVE LINE-UP 2011 has just been revealed! IRON MAIDEN, SLAYER, STONE SOUR, DEVILDRIVER, SEVENDUST, THE SWORD, ROB ZOMBIE, AVENGED SEVENFOLD, SLASH... Geez I can’t breathe! WOW! It’s mandatory you get your tickets when they go on sale 26 August! \m/ \m/ Another tragic tour accident has recently occurred in the US involving the death of a musician. The sad story goes like this: a van carrying nine members of two California-based death metal bands lost control and crashed on Interstate 5 in Central Point when the driver fell asleep, killing one passenger and injuring two others just after 5.30am last Monday. Oregon State Police say the van, pulling a trailer, was carrying the two bands to California when it crashed in the southbound lane between the Central Point and Blackwell Road exits. According to oregonlive.com, the man who died was identified as Makh Daniels, lead singer for the San Francisco death metal band Early Graves. Daniels, 28, from Pacifica, California, was one of five members of the band; the other four-member band travelling in the van was identified as The Funeral Pyre from La Habra, California. The Oregon State Police said there were nine people in the van when the driver, 24-year-old Justin Garcia, apparently fell asleep at 5.30am. The van left the freeway and then rolled in a grassy area on the southbound lanes. Some of the men in the van were wearing seatbelts. Daniels, who was in the van’s cargo area

OF YOUTH All things under 18 with KENDAL COOMBS accessallages@inpress.com.au

Hardcore and punk with STU HARVEY shortfast@inpress.com.au Oh shit, Descendents are touring! The legendary pop punk act have never been to Australia before despite legions of Australian punk fans growing up singing along to their classic catalogue. Last Friday morning the band casually announced on their website: “We’re pleased to announce that the Descendents will be playing three shows in Australia this December. This will be the first time that the band has ever played Down Under... More information will be made available soon.” The band will play in Melbourne on Friday 17 December (Inpress has been told the reported venue, the Showgrounds, is incorrect) alongside NOFX, Dropkick Murphys, Killswitch Engage, Atreyu, Frenzal Rhomb, Parkway Drive, Me First & The Gimme Gimmes with about ten other internationals (all punk, metal or hardcore) to be announced. WOAH!

DEPARTMENT

this week. If you thought the This Is What The Edge Of Your Seat Was Made For EP was a mouthful, prepare yourself to walk into a store in early October and ask for the new album There Is A Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let’s Keep It A Secret. Fans of old-school Washington DC punk should get excited to hear Dag With Shawn. Hitting stores in November the release is the classic Can I Say album featuring the vocals of original Dag Nasty singer Shawn Brown. The recording was shelved for many years after Brown left the band; the songs were re-recorded in 1986 with new vocalist Dave Smalley. The previously unheard recordings will hit stores via the wonderful Dischord label this November. Bad Brains, who earlier this year cancelled their long-awaited second Australian tour that was to happen in June due to “health reasons”, have announced a run of shows in California this August. Hmmm, hopefully the Australian dates will get rescheduled now that everyone is feeling better. Legendary producer J Robbins has just welcomed a reformed Small Brown Bike into his studio to work on a brand new album.

SHORT FAST REPORT TOP 5 Descendents!

Soundwave 2011. Dear Mr Ness. I know you have promised to bring your band Social Distortion to Australian before and let us down at the last minute, but I promise that if you do actually, finally come down here in 2011 for Soundwave all will be forgiven. Love, Australia. Senses Fail. New Jersey’s Senses Fail are here real soon for their very first Australian tour. The band have a bunch of shows around the country with special guests The Mission In Motion. Catch them Saturday 21 August for two shows at the Hi-Fi (under-18s in the arvo and 18+ at night). Jonesez. Mark Stewart, formerly of Horsell Common, has a new project called Jonesez. Super catchy, intelligent rock songs are what you get on his debut album, Betty’s Soup. Check it out and order a copy direct from jonesez.com.au. Comeback Kid. The long-serving Canadian hardcore act have a new album coming out later this month, and if the track on their MySpace page is any indication, it will be their best album in quite a while. Check it for yourself at myspace. com/comebackkid and keep your eyes peeled for Symptoms & Cures, which hits stores 31 August.

and not wearing a seatbelt, was ejected and died at the scene. RIP, and remember to always buckle up! I am obviously not a fan of this show at all but it will be interesting to see what now-confirmed Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler will bring to American Idol shortly when he joins singer/actress Jennifer Lopez and remaining Idol judge Randy Jackson. Tyler said his future plans include recording “a new album and [I’m] probably going to be a judge on American Idol. I’m doing it! What do you think?” British extreme metallers Cradle Of Filth have set Darkly Darkly Venus Aversa as the title of their new album, due in late October. More news in the still-saddened Slipknot camp: the Pulse Of Radio reports the band’s drummer, Joey Jordison, has confirmed they will continue making music despite the death in May of bassist Paul Gray. While Slipknot are only in the very earliest stages of planning their next record, Jordison says they’ve already decided they will not recruit a new bassist. “There will be no other bass players besides Jim Root, guitarist, Mick Thomson, guitarist, and me, more than likely,” he said. “Everyone actually kind of plays guitar in the band, so I think we’re all gonna play bass on the record. We’re not gonna have anyone come in. But live, we’ll deal with that when it comes.” Godsmack frontman Sully Erna has set 14 September as the release date for his long-in-the-works debut solo album, titled Avalon. Erna told the Pulse Of Radio his solo effort doesn’t fit into one musical genre. “I’m not sure what category it falls in,” he said. “I think ultimately, you know, it’s somewhat of a rock record, but it’s not really a rock record. It’s very eclectic and it’s very spiritual and it’s very hypnotic and primitive. It’ll be interesting to see how the public reacts to it. But all in all, people I have played it for so far have been honestly blown away by it.” Ill Nino guitarists Ahrue Luster and Diego Verduzco are laying down tracks for the band’s new album,

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With so many of the local heats over, the regional finals of the FreeZA Push Start Battle Of The Bands are starting to be announced. This is the round where it all gets serious, so if you’re interested in checking out some of this year’s talent then get out your diary and mark in these dates: The Eastern Metropolitan final will be held on Friday 1 October at EV’s Youth Centre in Croydon, so far featuring The Amber Lamps, As Liberty Falls, Prelude To Doomsday, The Condemned Sovereign and This Hotel Is Insane. The Northern Metropolitan final is happening on Saturday 16 October and will feature Emerson, The Kilniks and Silver Lining at the YMCA in Macleod. The Southern Metropolitan final takes place on Friday 8 October and will feature Blackwater Riff, Summer Of Betrayal and While The City Sleeps battling it out at the Seaford Community Hall. The Western Metropolitan final is happening on Friday 22 October with only Atlantis Lights and Passport For Amy so far waiting to do battle at the Youth Resource Centre in Hoppers Crossing. Stay tuned for more heat winners in the Western Metropolitan region. The Barwon South West final is booked in for Saturday 27 November with The Colliders and Less Than 33 competing at the Geelong West Town Hall. The Northern Country/Grampians regions have combined this year and will be having their final on Saturday 9 October, so far with Vinal Riot, Beas Window and Captain Lavender & The Magician’s Crayons fighting it out at the Kangaroo Flat Leisure Centre in Bendigo. The Goulburn North East/Hume final takes place on Sunday 5 December and will feature Bury The Truth, Grace & Julie, Orchestrate The Sky and The Shackles at the Wodonga Showgrounds. The Mallee Wimmera heats are yet to be staged, but once they’re held the final will take place on Saturday 18 December at the Stawell Town Hall. And finally the Gippsland final, so far only featuring A Winter’s Shadow, takes place on Friday 29 October at Bairnsdale Secondary College.

Dead New World, in Denver, Colorado. The record is set for release late this year. Commented Ill Nino drummer Dave Chavarri: “Our new CD is everything you expect from Ill Nino’s original Latin metal sounds; it’s heavy as fuck, full of Cristian’s growling vocals, melodic choruses, tribal Latin rhythms, sick guitars, as well as also being the most progressive record we’ve ever recorded!!!” Veteran German thrashers Sodom have set In War And Pieces as the title of their new album, due on 23 November, 2010 via SPV/ Steamhammer. The CD is being produced by Waldemar Sorychta. Sodom bassist/vocalist Thomas ‘Angelripper’ Such recently stated about the group’s new material: “There has never been a Sodom album which is so wide-ranged, as powerful and as typically Sodom this one.”

LOCAL GIG GUIDE Medusa, Bunny Monroe, Barbarion – Friday, Tote

Deliverance We Prey, Berserkerfox, Internal Nightmare, El Schlong, Clagg – Saturday, Noise Bar

TOURS, TOURS, TOURS

Slash – Wednesday 11 August, Festival Hall Napalm Death – Sunday 5 September, Hi-Fi Soulfly, City Of Fire, Incite – Wednesday 8 September, Palace Metallica – Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 September, Thursday 18, Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 November, Rod Laver Arena Mayhem – Thursday 23 September, Hi-Fi Overkill – Friday 24 September, Hi-Fi Exodus – Sunday 3 October, Corner Hotel

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THE

Salem

BREAKDOWN Pop culture therapy with ADAM CURLEY When I was eight, I became obsessed with the paranormal. Ghosts, witches, psychic activity – pretty much anything I couldn’t see but could talk myself into believing at any moment I caught myself alone, which at the time was a fair bit because my two sisters and brother were in high school near the city and I had the house to myself for an hour every afternoon until they got home. I’d sit downstairs in the lounge room and listen out for footsteps on the floorboards above me, or close my eyes and try to ‘sense’ if other ‘beings’ were around. It wasn’t that I was thrilled or unafraid by the prospect of hanging out with unearthly hobos or being taken by the darkness. I was fucking terrified. Most of the time I’d end up locked in the toilet or the others would find me sitting in the front yard when they came home, waiting for someone else to arrive before braving the house again. But it was the fear that attracted me. Sure, the thoughts of evil shit came on their own and with disturbing frequency, but I pushed them in my mind until they overtook me to the point of hyperventilation. At the same time as I felt like I was going to die, I loved being scared. (I also went through a phase of pretending to be dead every time my mother got home, but that’s possibly a different psychology for another time.) For my ninth birthday, I asked for a horrorthemed party. My sisters had the idea of turning our double garage into a haunted house and they and my mother went about the business of buying up on supplies from a Halloween shop across town. This made me nervous. By that age, it already wasn’t particularly okay to be into games, let alone dress-ups, and my party was going to include both. I realised I was placing my Grade 4 social status in the hands of the less-than-cool women in my family and I had a lot to lose – all five of my friends were coming. On the night, I got into my executioners costume (which I had to keep explaining seeing as I was really just carrying a fake axe around – and I’m sure their nine-year-old repeatedly sighing, “I kill people,” wasn’t creepy for my parents at all) and my friends and I were led to the entrance of the garage. One by one we were blindfolded and taken around the cold, cement-floored room and made

ROOTS

to touch various objects with our hands: a bucket of ‘guts’ made from offal, a plate of ‘eyeballs’ from grapes. Then, with the blindfold removed, we had to climb through cobwebs and a tunnel and past my father sitting in the corner, staring blankly like a brain-fried patient with a torch to his face. I remember proudly thinking that my family was less sane than I’d given them credit for. The scariest part, though, was the soundtrack playing while all this happened. It was a grainy, sparse recording of doors creaking and slamming shut; of soft laughter leading into tortured breathing and muffled struggling sounds. It was purely sadistic. My mother later gave me the tape (it was orange and branded “Halloween sounds”) and I’d put it on sometimes if I wanted to freak my sisters out when they weren’t expecting it. My obsession with the paranormal eventually faded – resurfacing at 14 via an anti-Catholicupbringing investigation into The Book Of Shadows as well as a heavy god complex – but the disturbing sounds contained on that cassette never disappeared from memory. Now, I know I was not alone in having lo-fi, eerie effects ingrained into my psyche. Now, there’s ‘witch house’, the genre causing about as much “that’s not a genre” and “FUCK OFF AND DIE PITCHFORK” the last six months as ‘chill-wave’ or most other things before it, but definitely some kind of ‘happening’ generally considered to be led internationally by Texas label Disaro and Michigan act SALEM, and encompassing California’s oOoOO and, most recently, Rhode Island’s Dream Boat and their ‘haunted’ beats, droning synths and interjecting effects. If it’s your ‘thing’, make sure you also share it with your younger brother or sister. They might look scared but, believe me, they secretly love it.

Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm

DOWN

Blues ’n’ roots with DAN CONDON rootsdown@inpress.com.au The first sideshows happening locally for bands that have been announced for the Great Southern Blues Festival in Batemans Bay have started trickling through and the Corner Hotel is playing host to a killer double bill of American talent just prior to the festival. Rick Estrin & The Nightcats are probably best known to blues lovers as the band who were formerly Little Charlie & The Nightcats, before Charlie Baty decided to retire from life on the road a couple of years back. They’re still an incredible band without him, though; Estrin is considered to be one of the world’s finest harp players and the group really hold down their brand of western swing, jump blues and good old bluesy rock’n’roll with class. Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm are a two-piece guitar and drums duo that match Delta blues with funk and hip hop in an energetic yet tasteful manner. Drummer Burnside is the grandson of the late, great RL Burnside, so you know he has the blues pumping through his blood! Both of these great bands hit the Corner on Wednesday 29 September. Tickets are available from the venue for $48.40+BF. If you haven’t yet heard Lucie Thorne’s Black Across The Field album of last year then you really ought to sort that out quick smart. The young singer/songwriter put together a gorgeous collection of songs and, just as importantly, managed to capture them on record in a stunning fashion. Thorne has toured constantly since releasing the album and will continue her overseas travels in the next couple of weeks – not before one last quick trip to Melbourne, though. You can catch her with drummer Hamish Stuart at the Northcote Social Club on Thursday 19 August with support from Machine Translations (duo) and Matt Walker. Tickets are $12+BF from the venue or $16 on the door. The one man party band is back in town! Yes, we’re always excited when Bob Log III is in

Australia, which thankfully is really quite a lot these days, and we’ve been given warning to prepare our livers, dancing shoes and, of course, boobs, for his triumphant return show which hits the Northcote Social Club on Friday 3 September. For close to 15 years this guy, who dresses in a full bodysuit and motorcycle helmet, has traversed the planet dishing out his vicious but very danceable one-man-band-style guitar boogie and boy, does he have some stories to tell! He’s just finished up another massive European tour so you can bet that he will be in fine form as always when he makes his return to Melbourne. You can grab yourself a ticket from the venue right now for $15+BF and there will be some special guests joining in support, so keep your eyes peeled for who that might be. Modern Australian blues just wouldn’t be the same without Lloyd Spiegel. He’s been on the circuit for the best part of 18 years and in that time has managed to release six full-length albums. Most importantly, the young player is an absolute gun and seemingly just gets better and better as the years roll on. The Arlburg Hotel in Mt Buller is lucky enough to have the guitarist gracing its stage for four nights next week and you can bet these performances will really bring the house down – that’s generally what happens when Spiegel’s involved. You can catch him at the venue from 8pm on Wednesday 18, Friday 20, Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 August. Get in touch with the venue for more details. His voice has been described as “art for the ears”, which probably sounds like a massive load of bullshit until you’ve seen Mr Percival play live. But trust us, it makes sense. Armed with his microphone and loop pedals, this extraordinarily soulful vocal artist will blow your conceptions about the human voice out the window with his engaging live performance, which he’ll bring to the East Brunswick Club on Thursday 19 August. Tickets are $20+BF from the venue.

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LONDON

TASTE TEST

FIELDS

The English midsummer marks the height of the festival season – each weekend events jostle for attention and audience. Yet, over the past few years there’s been a new type of event gaining popularity: that of the day festival. Usually at this time of year you’d find me at the Truck Festival at Hill Farm, Steventon in Oxfordshire. This year marked its 13th year, and it’s hard to think of a better combination of music, atmosphere and good vibes as this event continues to offer. But circumstances made it impossible for me to get there this year, so as compensation I decided to check out some of these newer day events. While these give you a festival experience without stepping out too far from home or having to camp, the trouble with holding them in urban parks is the enforced sound restrictions. If it’s loud enough for the punters inside the fences, it’s probably a nightmare of shuddering windows for nearby residents. Yet, when you use more high-tech directional PAs, it does really restrict the area in which the paying audience can experience good quality sound. The first thing that greets me as I arrive at the dusty expanses of a very dry Shoreditch Park in Hackney is an enormous queue. This, it turns out, is for VIPs and those on the free list. As I’ve bought my ticket for the third Shoreditch 1234 Festival it turns out I can walk straight in. Well, almost. The security searches are vigorous, and apparently they’re under strict instructions not to allow any food or water entering the arena. In front of me a woman gets into an argument with them as they take exception to a small box of nuts in her handbag. Her friend diffuses a rapidly escalating situation by taking them herself and tipping them into the bin. Nearby someone says they have special food with them due to a gluten intolerance – they’re told they have to eat it now or toss it. God help a diabetic carrying an emergency Mars bar. Inside are three tent stages, and one main outdoor one. Some of the acts I catch during the day include SCUM, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls, Rolo Tomassi and Bobby Gillespie’s new covers supergroup The Silver Machine. Later I wait fruitlessly for These New Puritans to fix a catastrophic equipment failure which sees everything seize after a single song; it is in vain. But the real reason I’m here is to catch the only London performance of Peter Hook’s take on Unknown Pleasures. On the whole it’s better than you’d think it might be, although Hooky’s air punching gets a bit tiresome, and it is weird that it’s his son who plays the iconic bassline to She’s Lost Control. You’d be hard pushed to find a more corporately branded event than Ben & Jerry’s Sundae On The Common, yet the way it is done doesn‘t make it feel too much of an imposition. It‘s continually drummed in that today was bought to you by Fair Trade and a multinational company that loves the planet. This is the sixth year of Sundae and my third visit and while ticket prices may have nearly doubled this year, at around £17 they’re still very reasonably priced. You couldn’t get an atmosphere less like the 1234 Festival. After the previous day’s experience I have nothing with me; of course today anything is allowed other than drugs, glass and alcohol. It’s is genuinely a family-friendly event, and early in the day the bands tend to be seen as a mild distraction – the real attraction is the free ice cream. Although officially opening the day, Barnsley’s Exit Calm are my main drawcard and they play a headline-worthy set. Rob Marshall’s anthemic guitar lines are loud and clear whilst singer Nicky Smith paces up and down like a caged tiger, seemingly ready to explode into violence at any moment. Simon Lindley’s fluid bass and Scott Pemberton’s tight stick-work complete the sound and it’s really damn impressive. When an act can hold a stage with such well-informed self-belief, it won’t be long before they’re topping the bill at events larger than this. Later in the day Frightened Rabbit explain that even though this is a family event, if they only chose numbers with G-rated lyrics they’d be down to a two-song set. So it’s business as usual – thankfully. Billy Bragg doesn’t have his hands down the front of his trousers but his undies on the outside of his jeans, for Pants For Poverty. His set includes a sublime rendition of Must I Paint You A Picture? as its subject used to live on the other side of the Common. Doves close the day, and this is their penultimate set before going on a long hiatus. It all feels a little tired, and only on Kingdom Of Rust do I see again the band I used to love so much. Comments/feedback: inpresslondon@yahoo.co.uk Go to londonfieldscolumn.blogspot.com

BLACKCHORDS singer NICK MILWRIGHT admits to a childhood penchant for Kenny Loggins and reveals the album that had people calling him ‘poof’.

THOSE BASTARD KIDS The Bastard Children are back in town and will bring their multifarious eight piece line-up to the Toff In Town on Saturday. A Bastard Children show sounds like a party in a big old house with creaking floors and heaving walls where something a little different is going on in each room. Wheezing accordions, bleeding harmonicas, tearing guitars, scraping mandolins, drums, whistlers, the bastard horns and more. Sordid, scandalous and superbly attired, it’s twisted folk, a smattering of gypsy, old-world jazz, part junkyard blues, part CelticAustralian and all about good times. Joining the The Bastards on the night will be special guests The Stillsons. Entry is $10 from 8pm.

My own compilation CD entitled Who Took Away The Sun?. It includes all the best tracks to cry like a big girl to, like Drive by The Cars, She’s Like The Wind by Patrick Swayze, If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher and, of course, With Or Without You by U2. The record I put on when I bring someone home is...

The best record I stole from my folks’ collection was... The 1972 Australian Jesus Christ Superstar record. Actually, I’m not sure if it was the best steal, but it is certainly one of the most memorable. I don’t know what it is that captured me – I’m not usually one for musicals. Maybe it brought life to my otherwise extremely boring RE studies at school or maybe it was Jon English’s primal screams. The fi rst record I bought with my own money was... Generally I didn’t buy records or tapes with my own money. I was lucky enough to have my sister’s tapes and records to steal, so it wasn’t until I hit high school that I went and bought my first album. It happened to be Weezer’s ‘Blue Album’. Pretty soon after I started wearing brown cords and grandpa shirts and getting called ‘poof’. The record I put on when I’m really miserable is...

SEYMOUR AT THE MARQUIS

JUST NO, JESSICA This Friday the 13th, cancel the bad luck with happy-making tunes and a good DIY cause at the Old Bar. NO NO Gallery is a new not-for-profit arts space in North Melbourne. It has a hot pink entrance and an eclectic roster of talked-about and subversive exhibitions. To help the gallery cover the costs of paying rent and painting walls, this fundraiser gig brings together the belles of Melbourne’s ball. Much hyped jam band Milk Teddy swing and make you swagger. Crayon Fields frontman Geoffrey O’Connor croons and makes you swoon. Jessica Says (playing her first show in forever) whispers and makes you fall in love. Heavy Mental (featuring Romy Hoffman) shred and make you bleed. Celebrate DIY by doing it yourself. Entry is just $9 from 8.30pm – get in

HOWARD DOES LABOUR

Shane Howard’s stunning new album, Goanna Dreaming, produced by Kerryn Tolhurst (ex and current Dingoes) is a promise fulfilled by one of Australia’s most loved and respected singer/ songwriters, encompassing folk, world music and powerful rockin’ ballads. Howard has just completed an extensive national tour with more shows to follow, including an appearance at the Caravan Music Club at the Oakleigh-Carnegie RSL on Friday 27 August.

After spending time travelling around Europe, JC Seymour has returned to Melbourne, mandolin in hand, to play his collection of “old/new timey” folk songs. Drawing on the blues, folk, jazz and country, to create songs of beauty and sorrow, at once tragic and comic, both baffling and revealing. See what he means at the Marquis Of Lorne this Sunday from 6pm, where he’ll be joined by other likeminded bodies playing music you want to hear.

ASTRIAAL GLAMOUR The legion of Astriaal was given life in 1998, beginning with the dawn of the Glories Of The Nightsky demo tape, now considered an integral foundation in the Astriaal soundscape. Over the past decade the accumulation of accolades achieved has been numerous with Astriaal being considered one of the leading black metal exponents from Australia. Their domestic tour supports have included Mayhem, Arcturus, Opeth and Destroyer 666. After a period of perceived inactivity to those outside the circle, the horns of reprisal are resonating once again; the Visceral Incarnate has been awakened! They play the East Brunswick Club this Saturday with Disentomb, Ignivomous and Stormbane. Tickets are $15 at the door only from 8pm.

Portishead’s Dummy. It starts off really nicely – moody, the lights are dim, there are a few candles, red wine. We sit outside under the stars talking deeply… But then before you know it, wham! You start thinking, “What’s the point in love when it’s just going to cause immense pain sooner or later? In fact, what’s the point in anything when we are just going to die anyway?” I’m looking at trying different albums now though. The most surprising record in my collection is... A double disc of Top Gun and Footloose. I guess I thought at some stage growing up, “What’s not to like about Kenny Loggins?” And now looking at my record collection and pulling this CD out I think “…?” The last thing I bought/downloaded was... Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs. Brilliant! I downloaded it just before coming home from our UK tour and I listened to the entire album at least half a dozen times on the plane. Love it!

WHO: Blackchords WHEN & WHERE: Saturday, Revolver

BOYS GET LIFTED

Coinciding with the seventh issue of The Lifted Brow, showcasing the latest and greatest in Australian and international writing; and in lieu of it’s usual accompanying CD sampler, the journal is holding a series of launch shows at the Empress Hotel on Thursdays this month. This Thursday sees ridiculously awesome mathy post-punk jammers Absolute Boys joined by Mancunian misfits NO ZU and musician-cum-performance-maker The Promise Land, who makes synth-pop like nobody’s business. Entry is $8 from 8pm.

ANIMAL IN PUBLIC Lost Animal is the alias of Jarrod Quarrell who is previously responsible for the seminal and mystical The New Season and, more recently, St Helens. St Helens released one of 2009’s most acclaimed albums in their debut/final album, Heavy Profession. Quarrell called time on St Helens at the start of this year and has since been in the studio working on the almost complete Lost Animal album with friends Shags Chamberlain and John Lee. This Friday, Lost Animal (with Shags on bass) plays the Empress alongside Pets With Pets and Angel Eyes. Entry is $10 from 8.30pm.

TEEN BEAT

Remember that film The Warriors? Gangs of kids running around NYC beating the beejesus out of each other. Well the bands playing at the Tote this Thursday could be any one of those gangs. Snarling garage rock’n’roll attitude with upturned lips and collars. Teen Archer, Beat Disease, Daddy Long Legs and Bad Aches; all friends, all young, all ready to give you a rock’n’roll beat down. Entry is $8 from 8.30pm.

SHOOT HARD The fantastic Shoot The Sun return from musical obscurity (a garage in Strathmore) to perform their soon to be released EP at Pony this Saturday. Their sound sets the scene of synth vs guitar locked in an epic fight to the death, with drums and bass cheering on. Who will win? Who will lose and be booed off stage? This is sure to be a night of fun for the whole family (as long as your family is 18+). In tow are The Alcorettes, Alexandria and Orchestrate The Sky. So make the right choice this Saturday and vote Pony. Doors at 9pm.

TOTES MEANIE Fresh from celebrating 21 years of gnarly rock’n’roll action, The Meanies have been busy stuffing their rucksacks for another tour of Europe but not before one more kick-arse show at the Tote, the band’s spiritual home for the last two decades, this Saturday night! Joining them on this special night of punk rock mayhem will be the awesome Useless Children, back from a US jaunt, as well as Cabin Fever and Seedy Jeezus. So chuck on your flannel and chuck on your Chucks; The Meanies are back at the Tote. Yeah! Tickets are $16+BF from the venue or $20 at the door if available from 8.30pm.

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DOM GON PARTY With sound equally comprised of ambient rock, white-noise and electro thrash, Sydney’s Domeyko/Gonzalez have been getting plenty of blog love of late, and now their EP The Circle Trilogy is out in the world proper. With Melbourne as it’s springboard, the launch starts at the John Curtin Bandroom this Saturday night. Playing with eerie cowboy/girl giants of good nature Panel Of Judges and fellow Sydney muscle Arkestra and The Preachers, the Melbourne EP launch will be kicked off by post-agricultural vs nuclear physics trio Towels! Entry is $10 from 8pm.

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JONATHAN GIVES HEADLINE

HAVE YOU HEARD?

Get to Pony this Thursday to get grimy and dirty with some of Melbourne’s finest garage rock acts. Opening the night will be the three-piece garage grunge outfit Toyota War, followed by trashy melodic rock act Rapid Transit. Keeping your feet warm and ready, Chaos Kids will then serve you their blend of punk rock, ready for some good times. Headlining the night, The Jonathans will keep you dancing all night with their own blend of post-punk, garage rock filled with raw energy and excitement. This will definitely be a night worth having too much fun at and calling in sick the next day. Doors at 9pm.

TOTE MY FACE A three-piece experimental punk maelstrom of glass shards and furious energy, Ouch My Face, led by diminutive frontwoman Celeste Potter, are set to cause a scene at the Tote this Sunday. There’s nothing diminutive about their sound, fast, brash and loud. Things will break. Joining them will be the pop wonder smarts of Davey Lane & Theee Psychotic Minstrels, a rock supergroup including Pete ‘Screaming Lord’ Satchell (Dallas Crane), Louis Macklin (Jet, 67 Special) Matty Vehl (Claire Bowditch, Charles Jenkins & The Zhivagos) and Brett Wolfenden (Rushcutter). Also playing are Duns. who describe their sounds as jungle electro acoustic pop. Entry is $8 from 6pm.

TERROR FIRMER

Cold Harbour play the Lyrebird Lounge on Sunday 15, 22 and 29 August. HOW DID YOU GET TOGETHER? Colin Holst, bass: “I had an idea for a new band, so I asked people I wanted to be in it to get together and have a jam.” HAVE YOU RECORDED ANYTHING OR DO YOU PREFER TO TOOL AROUND IN YOUR BEDROOM? “We have just released our new album Dust Storm and before that we released the Live At The Greyhound and Stereo EPs.” CAN YOU SUM UP YOUR BAND’S SOUND IN FOUR WORDS? “Versatile, unpredictable, diverse and rocking.” IF YOU COULD SUPPORT ANY BAND IN THE WORLD, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY? “Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, because they’re the best at what they do and a yardstick for all other bands.” IF A HIGHER POWER SMITES YOUR HOUSE AND YOU CAN ONLY SAVE ONE RECORD FROM THE FIRE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? “I’d have to save a copy of our new CD Dust Storm, because so much blood, sweat and tears went into making it!” DO YOU HAVE A LUCKY ITEM OF CLOTHING YOU WEAR FOR GIGS AND WHAT IS IT? “I wear my late father’s suit at gigs.” IF YOU INVITED SOMEONE AWESOME ROUND FOR DINNER WHAT WOULD YOU COOK? “Satay chicken and vegies.” WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE TO DRINK IN MELBOURNE? “The Lyrebird Lounge in Ripponlea.”

DRUMS FOR NIXX

Solo one-man show Mark Nixx gets around, he’s about to leave Melbourne to live out of a van. You have two more chances to catch him play live and pick up some homemade merch. Expect drums, raps, chaos and a beard, not washboards and cymbals on kneecaps. You can see him north or south of the Yarra, your choice – see Nixx do his thing for free at Bar Open this Sunday from 8pm and at the Espy on Wednesday 18 August from 9pm (this show will also be streamed live at luvyalife.com).

The Night Terrors’ first headline show in four months is this Friday! Head on down to the haunted house Curtin Bandroom for bats, cobwebs and creaky-door spooky times. Helping bring the spooky will be the evil darkness of Voltera, the birdy weirdnesses of Ornithologist and the lush disturbances of Magic Silver White (the new project for Cornel Wilczek). This will be one of only a few Night Terrors shows before mid-September when they head back to Europe to make sure it’s still conquered. They’ll also be playing lots of new songs from the currently gestating album-to-be (release date: The Future). Doors at 8.30pm and entry is $13.

The heyday for Sydney based Glide saw the band connect with a generation of music lovers in the 1990s – who loved the band in large part for the gifted songwriting, guitar playing and singing of frontman William Arthur. His untimely passing in 1999 left behind a musical legacy that has jsut been acknowledged with the iTunes release of Glide’s entire back catalogue in July. This Friday night, Glide with Youth Group’s Toby Martin on vocals play a very special show at the East Brunswick Club with support from Sirens Of Venice and Mini Bikes. Tickets are $18+BF from the venue or $23 on the door from 8.30pm if still available.

What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than kicking back listening to Fingerbone Bill on the Retreat Hotel’s beer garden stage from 4.30pm. Then from 7pm that night, catch the wonderful Abbie Cardwell & Her Leading Men followed by Retreat Sunday regulars The ReChords. The kitchen has a Sunday roast on every week and their newest edition to the already fabulous menu, home-made pork dumplings! We’re very excited about this. Also at the Retreat this week is the wonderful Leena accompanied by Sime Nugent on Thursday night, The Messengers with help from The Thod on Friday night, and Russian Roulettes to rip up the back room on Saturday night with Wild Turkey to get things jumping in the front bar from 7.30pm. Don’t forget Bogan Bingo continues on Monday night (adults only) and DJ Shaky Memorial keeps the room shaking on Tuesday. Starting in September is Rock Aerobics Tuesdays so get ready to get in shape!

THREE GIRLS, NO AMPS

Melbourne acoustic singer/songwriters Beth George, Cat Canteri and Megan Bernard are getting together on Tuesday 17 August at the Old Bar to give you a dose of their musical magic. George is “a magnetic performer” whose indie folk music is inspired by artists such as Shawn Colvin and Eva Cassidy. The bluesy Canteri (The Stillsons) gives a “remarkably engrossing vocal delivery” with music that is inspired by the likes of Gillian Welch and Jo Jo Smith. Bernard’s alternative-groove music has been described as “authenticity at its finest”. The night kicks off at 8pm and entry is free.

PLAY WITH BUNNY Where the hell will you be this Saturday night? Everyone else will be at Yah Yah’s partying to Bunny Monroe, Melbourne’s sexiest flock of rock birds; The Council, the loudly-loving-you-long-time favourites of Melbourne’s live music scene; and Bitter Sweet Kicks, renowned for bashing their way through riffs and rock the same way they bash through closed doors. Between them they have teared the stages off virtually every live music venue in Melbourne and recently all three avalanched the alley at Cherry Rock 2010, to adulation, adoration and asphyxiation. Doors at 9pm.

THURSDAY IS

$5 HOUSE WINE & $10 COCKTAILS

DJ’S 9PM TIL CLOSE

YOUNG AND GROUSE Grouse Party this month falls on the ghoulish evening of Friday the 13th at the Bendigo Hotel. There’s nothing spooky about it, and the horror lies not in this wild queer party itself, but the ghastly morning after! Very special guests this month include the debut of Lights, Camera, Asian!, otherwise known as Karina from Young & Restless, the return of Cuteface Killah (who is back from a year in gay Paris), as well as regulars Melodee Maker and Ann Ominous (Romy/Macromantics). Doors open at 9pm – get down early and party ‘til late!

FRI 13TH:

LADIES NIGHT 9654 8808 / WWW.TRANSPORTHOTEL.COM.AU

After laying the Evelyn Hotel to waste with yet another memorable and explosive performance, The Scarlets are back in action at the Brunswick Hotel headlining the second installment of the Fools For Rock festival this Friday. Cracking drums, hammering bass and crunching guitar, fronted by rock’n’roll chanteuse Nelli Scarlet who can belt out a tune to rival any male vocalist, The Scarlets are indeed Melbourne’s fastest rising new hope for ball-tearing rock’n’roll. What makes the deal even sweeter is that there is free entry on the night!

GLIDE INTO YOU

THURS 12TH:

TRANSPORT HOTEL @ FEDERATION SQUARE

SCARLET FEVER

RETREAT ROULETTE

TOP 40 & COMMERCIAL PARTY TUNES DJ’S 9PM TIL CLOSE

ALPINE TIME It’s been a whirlwind of activity for Melbourne act Alpine with Triple J playing their demos on air and awarding them the Unearthed feature artist of the week blue ribbon before they even had time to prepare their first live show. The band have since signed a publishing deal with Ivy League Music (home to Cloud Control and Josh Pyke) and picked up management with Winterman & Goldstein (Empire Of The Sun). Now it’s your chance to catch the band live as they settle into their Tuesday night August residency at the Northcote Social Club. See them this coming Tuesday 17 August with Geoffrey O’Connor and Isle Adore.

SUN 15TH:

SUNDAY SESSIONS

80’s RETRO & CLASSIC

THE ANDREA MARR BAND

FROM 9PM TILL CLOSE

BAND 3PM – 6PM

SAT 14TH:

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TASTE TEST

HAVE YOU HEARD?

DAN KELLY highlights the records responsible for making him the man he is today. The record I put on when I’m really miserable is… Blonde Redhead’s Misery Is A Butterfly OR Tendrils’ Soaking Red OR Men Without Hats’ Safety Dance. Weeping and dancing to this song is kind of fun.

GIRLS WITH BAD HABITS

The record I put on when I bring someone home…

Bad Habits brings you a night of spine-chilling, foot-stomping, guitar-driven bands that will make you want to tell the person next to you how good they’re feeling! Join East Brunswick All Girls Choir, No Art (Sydney), Parades and Cartel Syndicate for what will entail a night of debauchery, celebration and quality music. All bands are equally as powerful in sound as the other and will surely grab your attention in one way or another. So get on down to the Empress Hotel in North Fitzroy on Friday 20 August to witness what will surely be one to remember!

Hmmy... Dusty In Memphis? Eno? Lightning Bolt? Betty Davis? It’s been a while. I’m just projecting, really. If I got to take Betty Davis home it would be great to put her record on. But she’s about 65 now... The most surprising record in my collection is… I had to learn a Ben Harper song to sing at my sister’s wedding (she owes me big time for that) and I haven’t deleted it yet. Thanks for reminding me, though. The last thing I bought/downloaded was… The best record I stole from my folks’ collection was… Neil Young’s Zuma. Many fine lessons in this record for the high-singing spaz guitarist in all of us. And the greatest album art ever. The fi rst record I bought with my own money was… Duran Duran’s live album, Arena. Even then I knew Simon Le Bon wasn’t quite the singer he was meant to be. Kind of like a sex whale moaning with white synth-funk in the background.

HOWL ‘TIL YER PURPLE Did you know a fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia? If you also have a fear of missing out, being alone or staying sober, medical professionals (pretty sure PhDJ counts?) suggest you get down to Purple Sneakers at Miss Libertine for a disturbingly awesome Friday 13th Party! Ballarat punks and Unearthed winners Howl will hit the stage so you will be among the first ever to hear their new single Cabin Fever live! The hauntingly beautiful Young Heretics will also be playing, and The Cairos DJs will lord over the decks. Keeping you dancing will be Bad Horse, Ebony + Ivory, Quick Fix DJs, BTVDJz and James Kane! This Friday is also the launch of the album from Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse – Dark Night Of The Soul thanks to EMI. For more details and giveaways visit the Boundary Sounds website at boundarysounds.com.

UNTIL CILLA COMES Local artist Cilla Jane is touring her new single Until Morning Comes. Ms Jane combines folkstyle guitar and enchanting vocals to create her captivating sound. Accompanied by haunting cello lines, intricate acoustic guitar and glockenspiel, the band will take you away into a dreamlike world. Jane and band play the Northcote Social Club on Sunday 5 September at 2pm. Entry is $10.

POP IN, SAY HELLO In the lead up to their matinee album launch at the Northcote Social Club on Sunday 29 August, Melbourne trailblazers Hello Satellites are doing a preview in-store at Pure Pop Records in St Kilda on Saturday 21 August at 3pm. Their debut album (out now through Two Bright Lakes/Remote Control) has been described as “enchanting” and “heartshatteringly glorious”. Go make up your own mind.

WHO: Dan Kelly WHAT: Dan Kelly’s Dream (Shock) WHEN & WHERE: Friday, Corner Hotel; Sunday, Old Hepburn Hotel (solo); Long Gone Whistle Maurice Frawley Tribute, Thursday 19 August, Espy; Sunday 2 October, the Loft (Warrnambool)

Always in the search for new and exciting performers, the Great Britain Hotel plays host to Reaction, a MWT initiative, this Thursday. MWT College has over 250 musicians bursting to play, and Reaction gives this talent a platform to perform and network. Designed to showcase the bands and other acts coming out of the College on a monthly basis a couple of acts will be selected to headline the event whilst the first half of the night will allow duos and solo acts to fill the spotlight in an open environment. This Thursday will be headlined by National Airlines and kicks off at 8.30pm. Entry is free.

MUM SMOKES PIKELETS Put some awesome into your hump day and get to Horse Bazaar tonight (Wednesday) for the very first showing of a new duo comprised of Evelyn Morris (Pikelet) and JK Fuller (Zond/Mum Smokes). Also playing are GNAUMGN, who find the place between free jazz and black metal and drag it screaming down the staircase by the beard, back into the temple; as well as Friends, made up of Olle (Pissypaw) and Kieran (Superstar/ Troglodytes Ball) playing extended rhythmic acoustic and electric guitar. DJ Young Romantix fills in the gaps. Entry is $10 or $5 concession from 8.30pm.

DEEZ STEEZ Deez Nuts will be playing a one-off special club showcase performance at the ever growing and hugely popular Trash nightclub this Friday. It’s a Black Friday Party and promises to be possibly one of the best in your lifetime. Operating over four rooms of Caseys Nightclub in Hawthorn, playing live will be Monikor Soul and Breathe Their Last, plus DJs playing all genres spreading over the other three rooms. Also on the night there are shitloads of Bullet For My Valentine concert ticket giveaways courtesy of Soundwave. Entry is $15/$12.

KARTEL OF MOORABBIN

Hot on the heels of releasing their brand new album, and just over a week after their tour with the legendary Slash, Melbourne’s home-grown premier rock outfit Juke Kartel will play a stripped-back acoustic show at Sandbelt Live in Moorabbin on Sunday 22 August before returning to Los Angeles, where they are now based. Described by Seattle-based producer Rick Parashar (Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains) as “one of the best rock bands to come out in a long time”, the five-piece have worked hard at making their mark on the music scene in their home country and abroad. Tickets are $25+BF from the venue.

DEAD IS HOT

HOW DID YOU GET TOGETHER? E-wah Lady, vocals/guitar/ukelele: “I had a bit of a talk to myself one day and said, ‘This songwriting thing you’ve been doing, often people get together onstage and play shows, maybe you should try that’. Over time I played more shows, solo to begin with. Then people approached me, I approached them back and a band formed to help sound out E-wah Lady. We called it The Open Road.” HAVE YOU RECORDED ANYTHING OR DO YOU PREFER TO TOOL AROUND IN YOUR BEDROOM? “I’ve tooled about in my bedroom thus far, playing all the parts myself, which is a long process as I have to work out how to play an instrument I don’t play very well to lay down a track. So, I’ve come to a much more practical solution and later this year will get another person called an ‘engineer’ to record me and get people who have years of practice on their instruments to play the other parts.” CAN YOU SUM UP YOUR BAND’S SOUND IN FOUR WORDS? “Psyche melodrama blues raunch.” IF YOU COULD SUPPORT ANY BAND IN THE WORLD, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY? “Hmm… All my thoughts involve time travel. Maybe Suicide, I would like to see that mad yelp and demented ice cream truck key jangle live and if I was support I’d get free entry. Bueno.” IF A HIGHER POWER SMITES YOUR HOUSE AND YOU CAN ONLY SAVE ONE RECORD FROM THE FIRE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? “At the top of the pile at the moment is Lightnin’ Hopkins’ Flash Lightnin’, so him by default. There is some nice boogie-woogie on it. I’d be happy to boogie-woogie on the ashes.”

REACTION TO COLLEGE

NEW PANG The Pang have been building a rep around town but, after wowing a couple of hundred at Ding Dong a few months ago, they imploded – amicably. Rob and Adam had about three days to feel sorry for themselves before a new line-up fell into their laps. Paul Keane on skins and Andrew Duffield of early ‘80s Models keyboard wizardry fame were not gigging enough so they joined the fold. The final piece was the discovery of Vanessa Wawruszak. The 23-yearold has been perfecting her chops since she left the Australian Childrens’ Choir and is taking The Pang’s songs to the next level. The band will be launching the new line-up at the Great Britain Hotel with The Dezperados this Saturday from 9pm. Entry is free.

Die Antwoord – $O$. South African full flex zef style. Like District 9 at a rave party but kind of sexy too.

E-wah Lady & The Open Road play Pony this Friday.

DO YOU HAVE A LUCKY ITEM OF CLOTHING YOU WEAR FOR GIGS AND WHAT IS IT? “It used to be a scrappy pair of Marilyn Monroe socks, but I actually decided they were cursed. Then I took a kookaburra feather. There used to be a bear lamp but I gave that away to Oliver Mann. So more totemic mascots than clothing. Now my guitar case is filled with imitation marigolds.” IF YOU INVITED SOMEONE AWESOME ‘ROUND FOR DINNER WHAT WOULD YOU COOK? “Unlike on stage, in the kitchen I can do requests. Especially if you’re after a bit of peasanty charm.” WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE TO DRINK IN MELBOURNE? “Home. It’s cheap, we play good music ‘til late and sometimes there’s even a tasty midnight snack.”

YIS, YAH, YES YIS are Simon Fazio (vocals/guitar/synthesiser), Bronwyn Liroudia (bass/charisma) and Andre Fazio (drums/bass/drawing/mystique). Together they make music described as “the schizophrenic ghost of Alan Vega possessing someone with a narcissistic personality disorder who auditions for a Comets on Fire/Neu! supergroup”. Catch YIS at Yah Yah’s this Thursday, joined by The Supporters and duo Constant Light who feature pulsing organs and delicate guitar. Pulsing organs! Doors at 9pm.

STICK WITH THORNE

Dead South have always used religious, spiritual and political symbolism in there lyrics and dark approach much like Death In June, Swans, Coil and Bauhaus. Dead South use these themes and approaches not to shock or upset but to explore, and believe that to really know yourself you have to search the darkest parts of the mind. Dead South are a loud band but don’t depend on being loud and, for their show at the Empress this Saturday, will be drawing more on the neo-folk side of the band’s approach. They’ll be joined on the night by NYC-style garage punk rock real deal Mass Cult Suicide, black punk ghouls Dead Man On Deck and avant-garde scream queen Eko Eko Azarak.

Described as “Australia’s PJ Harvey” by one Brisbane daily, Lucie Thorne has earned her place as one of the most striking lyricists and voices of Australian contemporary song. Her latest release, Black Across The Field, has garnered extraordinary attention from the country’s leading critics, including being shortlisted for the prestigious Australian Music Prize. Since the album’s release last year, Thorne has toured constantly, both here and overseas, and this winter will play a final selection of shows across the country in duet with legendary drummer Hamish Stuart, before returning to Europe for another extensive tour. Catch them at the Northcote Social Club on Thursday 19 August with Machine Translations (duo) and Matt Walker. Tickets are $12+BF or $16 on the door (if available) from 8pm.

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PRETTY, RIGHT? Pretty Strangers are commanding the Evelyn Hotel stage every Sunday this month, continuing a productive year for the indie noise-pop quintet, having recently supported the likes of Big Scary, Skye Harbour and The Good China. The wistful vocals, interlaced guitars and dark walls of sound that have gained the Strangers a steadily increasing following will be doled out in generous portions. Joining them this Sunday are Left Feels Right and Andy McGarvie & Friends. Doors at 9pm.

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provides backing vocals on Some Day We’ll All Come Together. “I would love to do a duet with her, she inspires me and is my muse,” Hamish states. “Nat’s passion and unwillingness to compromise her art and vision keeps me focused and betters me in every way.”

Cordrazine

HOWZAT! Local music news by JEFF JENKINS

ALWAYS COMING DOWN, CORDRAZINE COME BACK It’s often called the “Difficult Second Album”. Cordrazine’s second album, Always Coming Down (out this week on Rubber Records), comes 12 years after their debut. Rewind to 1997, and Cordrazine hit the Top 40 with the stunning single, Crazy. Their debut album hits the Top Ten the following year. But singer Hamish Cowan had a major problem: “How do you tell the people around you how unhappy you are when all they can see is you living a dream you sought your whole life?” “At that time, Cordrazine was the loneliest place on earth for me,” Hamish tells Howzat! “I isolated myself so much as a way to protect myself from all the things I was unable to deal with, and I was unable to articulate what it was. I couldn’t deal with [it], as even I didn’t understand. It’s no secret, I’ve never been particularly comfortable with sharing any part of myself with the world, apart from music.” Hamish laughs. “I suspect I am the only narcissist alive who doesn’t like attention! Expressing myself in public using anything other than music causes me a great deal of anxiety and

this has troubled me in the past to the point I had to quit the band and run away from the music world.” In a year packed with comebacks, Cordrazine could be 2010’s most welcome return. The Daily Telegraph’s Kathy McCabe told Hamish the band had created “the greatest Smiths album The Smiths never made”. A line in the title-track leaps out: “It’s never over.” Is that how Hamish feels about bands? “No, it’s just life. I don’t believe in absolutes, I have never been one of those people who says, ‘I’m never doing that again.’ That type of thinking creates prisons in our minds and closes the door to the amazing opportunities life can offer. People never stay static, we always grow and evolve, so nothing ever ends. It just changes.” Back in the late ‘90s, Cordrazine’s dramatic pop was compared to Jeff Buckley. But Always Coming Down is a much simpler record. With Nick Batterham’s exquisite production, the focus is on Hamish’s stunning voice. “I wanted this record to be about good songs and nothing was to distract from that,” Hamish explains. Is it a winter album? With songs called Sunshine and Keeping Warm, is weather a big influence on Hamish’s mood? “I think so. I certainly feel flat in winter and notice a lowering in my mood… however, I feel the cold and isolation produces in me the best music. It allows time for introspection.” The album doesn’t feature any duets, though Hamish’s wife, Natalie Gauci (2007’s Australian Idol winner),

The first Cordrazine album was called From Here to Wherever. Where did Hamish end up? “Here. Everything leads us to now. Everything leads to this moment, for better or worse. The thing is to make the most of every moment along the way to your ‘Wherever’.” So will we have to wait another dozen years for the next Cordrazine record? “I have absolutely no idea. I don’t write songs if I have nothing to say, and I’m not going to make a record to satisfy record companies. If there are enough songs I believe in to make another record then, yes, there will be, and if not, there won’t be. So we’ll all have to wait and see, even me.” Cordrazine launch Always Coming Down at the East Brunswick Club on 28 August.

Plans BIRDS OF TOKYO (20) Love The Fall MICHAEL PAYNTER (22) All The Lovers KYLIE MINOGUE (23) Lying AMY MEREDITH (28) Big Jet Plane ANGUS & JULIA STONE (33) Baby, I’m Getting’ Better GYROSCOPE (38) Kylie and Birds Of Tokyo couldn’t do it, but Bliss N Eso knock off Eminem, to take top spot. Running On Air BLISS N ESO (number one, debut) I Believe You Liar WASHINGTON (three, debut) Birds Of Tokyo BIRDS OF TOKYO (four) Aphrodite KYLIE MINOGUE (seven)

SHOCKING NEWS

Down The Way ANGUS & JULIA STONE (ten)

Very sad to hear that the Shock warehouse crew will be casualties of the company merging with CD and DVD manufacturers and distributors Regency Media. Under the guidance of warehouse manager Andrew Viney (a 17-year Shock veteran and former Fish John West Reject bass player), the warehouse has provided much-needed employment for band members and radio legends (including Max Crawdaddy). It’s yet another thing we’ve lost to Sydney.

Conditions THE TEMPER TRAP (15)

MARDI GRAS

We Are Born SIA (31)

Mardi Lumsden & The Rising Seas have delivered one of our favourite titles of the year: Wherever You Go, There You Are. The EP is mighty fine, too, reminding Howzat! of Aimee Mann, which is a beautiful thing. The Brisbane band hit town this weekend, to launch the EP at the Edinburgh Castle on Saturday. Surrogate Turnip and D Rogers & The Early Adopters are also on the bill.

CHART WATCH No homegrown hits in the national Top 10. We No Speak Americano YOLANDA BE COOL (number 18) iYiYi CODY SIMPSON (19)

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Immersion PENDULUM (21) April Uprising THE JOHN BUTLER TRIO (27) Cinema THE CAT EMPIRE (28) Melinda Does Doris MELINDA SCHNEIDER (30, debut) Golden Rule POWDERFINGER (38) Deep Blue PARKWAY DRIVE (39) Restless AMY MEREDITH (40)

HOWZAT! PLAYLIST

Keeping Warm CORDRAZINE Pieces Of The Story MARDI LUMSDEN Love Me Like You Used To Do SKYBOMBERS Alien Welcome Home PETE SOUNDS I Come In Peace ROSS WILSON

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OWLS ARE HOOTERS Dirty blues and alternative rock with liberal lashings of country roots sensibilities, progressive southern rock sounds and ethereal three-part harmonies, producing a unique alternative style that proves both dark and melodic. That’s The Owls. Their live shows offer the jagged edges expected from quality live rock – distorted flurries of dark brooding bass and guitar riffs supported with the gritty drawl of Josh Bailey’s vocals and the kinetic energy of frenzied musical performance. Having recently played shows with Cloud Control and Numbers Radio, The Owls get on stage at the Espy this Saturday with The Basics, and the Builders Arms this Sunday with The Chemist.

WED 11

5th Threat, Roof Top Alley, Cabin Fever, Australian Kingswood Factory Blue Tile Lounge Alias & The Jams, David Sattout, Christopher Arnott, The Stillsons Esplanade Lounge Babble, Grant Caldwell, Benjamin Wild Bar Open Bits of Shit, Mesa Cosa The Old Bar Bohjass, Edel Plastik, Brett Evans Trio 303 Bois et Carbons Marquis Of Lorne Hotel Direct Influence (Acoustic), Jed Rowe, Josh Romig, Amanda Medica, Jess Heiser Evelyn Hotel Evelyn Morris, Jk Fuller, Gnaumgn, Friends, DJ Young Romantix Horse Bazaar JamBoyJam, A Brokers Night Sleep, I Am The Riot, Fisker The Arthouse Karaoke Night Bender Bar Matt Sonic & The High Times Cherry Bar Matt Walters Grace Darling Hotel

Open Mic Elwood Lounge Pageants, Pop Singles, Constant Mongrel Builders Arms Hotel Sex On Toast, The Cactus Channel Empress Hotel Swing Patrol (Swing Dance Classes) Reveller’s North (upstairs) The Brunswick Open Mic with host Matt McFarlane Brunswick Hotel The Go Set Edinburgh Castle Hotel The Idle Hoes The Standard Hotel The Kremlin Succession, The Black Hill Five, Alastair Matcott Birmingham Hotel The Night Terrors, The French, Thieves Workers Club The Skyline Residency, Rush of Colour Revolver

THU 12

5th Threat, Roof Top Alley, Swear No Allegence, The Tear Aways Brunswick Hotel A Dead Forest Index, White Altar, Extreme Wheeze The Old Bar

Analyte, Johnny Uppercut The Arthouse Antagonist, In Trenches, Vultures Next ATM15 Paris Cat Jazz Club Beat Disease, Teen Archer, Daddy Long Legs, Bad Aches The Tote Carvel, Drunk Mums, The Jonathans, Ben Wright Smith Band Ding Dong Lounge CKY, Forgiven Rival, Cola Wars HiFi Bar Dick Threats, Black Widow, Its Is Bar Open Ella Thompson Cherry Bar Fever Artiste, The Revels, The Red Lights, Cheerleader Birmingham Hotel Hench, Kaisha Bender Bar Hungry Freaks Launch Party, The Frowning Clouds Reveller’s North (upstairs) I Am Giant, Jaspora, Sunset Circus, Low Speed Bus Chase Esplanade Lounge Ida Fox, Laura Hill, Yelka, Tom Kline Wesley Anne Joelene Moran Band, Tully Sumner, Kelsey Builders Arms Hotel John Montesante Quintet feat. Nichaud Fitzgibbon The Commune

Katie Underwood with Band Red Bennies Ladies Night Transport Hotel (Fed Sq) Leena & Sime Nugent Retreat Hotel My Musical Collective, The Ocean Party Grace Darling Hotel Nacional, Sugardoll, Red Leader Revolver PVT, Seekae, Tantrums Corner Hotel REACTION, National Airlines The Great Britain Red Letter Day, Jaguar Springs, Breakfast Over Gunfire Workers Club Sarah Carnegie Elwood Lounge Septerrus, Bricks, Hybrid Nightmares, Echoes Witness Esplanade Basement Sleeping Bag 303 Stephen Cummings Union Hotel Brunswick The Boys Wesley Anne, arvo The Deserters Edinburgh Castle Hotel The Jonathans, Chaos Kids, Rapid Transit, Toyota Wars Pony The Lifted Brow presents, Absolute Boys, Nozu, The Promised Land Empress Hotel Tomaki Jets, Without Wolves, Le Foxx, Nature Scene, Beloved Elk Evelyn Hotel Vika & Linda Bull Wellers of Kangaroo Ground Voltaire (NYC) Tony Starr’s Kitten Club Yis, The Supporters, Constant Light Yah Yah’s

FRI 13

A Day In The Life, Spark Iris, Black Creek, Syland, The Big Left Esplanade Gershwin Room Baby Lotion Marquis Of Lorne Hotel Backyard Surgeons, Ball Point, Kill The Matador The Public Bar Barbarion, Medusa, Bunny Monroe, Buttered Loaf The Tote Barn, Cuba is Japan, The Atlantic Fall Edinburgh Castle Hotel Chinatown Angels Pony Late Show Chloe Hall Trio, Sean M Whelan & The Interim Lovers, Winternationale Wesley Anne

City Escape Wheelers Hill Hotel Classic Kandy Billboard Dan Kelly, Rat Vs Possum, The Twerps, Borders, Dj Declan Kelly Corner Hotel Dirty South, TV Rock, Rudy Prince Bandroom Dishevelled Gentlemen, Gosteleradio, The Analyte Grace Darling Hotel Dr Phil Smith The Toff In Town Driveby Epic, The Close, Life 2 Order Revolver Duck Duck Chop, Money For Rope, The Once Overs Yah Yah’s Dylan Griffi n, Lou-is McCoy, Luke B vs. Mack the Knife, Cookie Loop Emma Wall, Michelle Hines Trio Bender Bar Fat Chance Station 59 Fools For Rock, The Scarlets, M10, Makondo Blowout, Masters Of The Flying Guillotine, Primary Source, Los Theory, DJ Rellik Brunswick Hotel Glide, Toby Martin, Sirens of Venice, Mini Bikes East Brunswick Club Grouse Party, Lights, Camera, Asian!, Ann Ominous, Cuteface Killah, Melodee Maker Bendigo Hero Twin Builders Arms Hotel Horace Pinker, Not Ok, Roof Top Alley, 5th Threat The Arthouse Jez Mead Elwood Lounge Johnnie & The Johnnie Johnnies, Matt Bailey, E-Wah Lady, The Open Road, Leon Thomas Pony Jules Sheldon Wesley Anne, arvo Kool Keith, DJ Maseo, Dialect & Despair, Total Eclipse Esplanade Lounge Lost Animal, Pets With Pets, Angel Eyes Empress Hotel Mark Phillips Reveller’s North (downstairs) Midnight Heavies, The Last Cavalry, Shortfall, Dumbsaint, Rhymada The Spanish Club Mohan Veena, The Jonathans, Chaos Kids, Foxtrot Esplanade Basement Moonee Valley Drifters Old Homestead Hotel

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No No Gallery Fundraiser, Milk Teddy, Geoffrey O’Connor, Jessica Says, Heavy Mental The Old Bar Northeast Party House, The Belligerents, Ross de Chene Hurricanes Evelyn Hotel Orange Room, Left Feels Right, X-Rental Trash Cherry Bar Oscar 303 Over Reactor (Album Lanch), Chaos Radio, Piggy Ding Dong Lounge Shihad, Knave Knixx Northcote Social Club Skazz Bar Open SmuDJ Abode The Boo Hoo Hoos, The Ravenous, The Sherrifs Workers Club The Demon Parade, Slight Of Build, Buried Feather Birmingham Hotel The Messengers, The Thod, DJ Phil Gionfriddo Retreat Hotel The Night Terrors, Voltera, Ornitholigist, Magic Silver White John Curtin Hotel The ReChords The Gem TOP 40 & COMMERCIAL PARTY TUNES Transport Hotel (Fed Sq) Vampire Freaks, The Little Horrors Caravan Music Club Waylon Joes Highway 31 Wayne Lotek The Johnston Whitley, Seagull HiFi Bar

SAT 14

30H!3, Tonight Alive, For Our Hero HiFi Bar (U18) 80’s RETRO TUNES Transport Hotel (Fed Sq) Asami EP Launch, Mechanical Pterodactyl, The Vulpine, Emily Trembath Workers Club Astriaal, Disentomb, Ignivomous, Stormbane East Brunswick Club Bitter Sweet Kicks, The Council, Bunny Monroe Yah Yah’s Blackchords, The Hello Morning, Royston Vasie Revolver Bodies, Bone, Lame Foot, Vanuatu Scalps, DJ Chowtown The Old Bar Carlito’s Way Bendigo Hotel

A BIG ONE On Saturday 21 August, locals Big Scary will be holding a special seated performance of their latest seasonal release, Winter, at the Toff In Town – the second of four seasonal instalments. Embracing a new live format for this slightly more sombre EP, Big Scary will be offering a sonic exploration of the drama and fragility of this barren season, with this exclusive headlining performance personifying the constricted and decelerated pace of the winter. The show will be supported by Melbourne artist Grizzly Jim Lawrie. Just off the road with Midlake, be sure to grab your free download of lead single Thinking About You from bigscary.net. Tickets are $14.70 pre-sale or $15 on the door from 8pm. Carnation, Iowa, DJ Carlos, DJ Keiran Fad Gallery Bar Chinatown Angels, Pretty Suicide, R.I.P Tides, Attention Seekers Esplanade Basement Christian Death, Ikon, Voltaire (NYC) Corner Hotel Craig Fraser, Curly Joe Empress Hotel, Arvo Show Daeted, Raise The Crazy, My Dynamite Barwon Club Delivery Boy Bender Bar DJ Beaker, Scruffy, Jon Montes, Freya Abode DJ Marky, JPS, Nam HiFi Bar (18+) Drunk Mums, The Eyeball Kicks, The Euphorics, Young at Heart 303 Exquisite Corpse, Arkestra, Domeyko/ Gonzalez, Towels, The Preachers John Curtin Hotel Fred Negro & The Black Molls The Post Office Club Hotel Guy Sebastian Heywood Community Hall Heavy Yolks, Joseph Liddy, The Skeleton Horse Birmingham Hotel Hillbilly Kitchen Edinburgh Castle Hotel, Arvo Show Indigo Children, Jo Dawson, Threefall, Joel Spence & The Mercury Drive Evelyn Hotel Jemma Rowlands Plays Records Marquis Of Lorne Hotel Keggin Pony Late Show Kyle Taylor, Harvey Jack Reveller’s North (downstairs) Lane Chaser, In the Name of France, Barn The Chandelier Room

Little Sisters Of The Poor, Fujimoto and the Setting Suns (Album Launch), Paul Kelly, Andrew Duffield, Barb Waters, Craig Pilkington, Vivienne Gay, Gordon Stooke, Tilly Perry Builders Arms Mardi Lumsdenn & the Rising Seas, Surrogate Turnip, D. Rogers Edinburgh Castle Hotel Martin Martini, Tom Woodward, Jordie Lane Northcote Uniting Church MightyFools, Sharkslayer, Beataucue, Neoteric, Scatterblog Sound System Esplanade Gershwin Room Mo Ichi, Miyagi Loop Nazarite Vow, Stonemasion Bang Nick Charles St Andrew’s Hotel, Arvo Show Nick Lovell Wesley Anne, arvo Out Kry, Kisstroyer, High Voltage Croxton Park Hotel Quarter Life Crisis Elwood Lounge Ruby Cartel, The Black Hills, Fiona Lee Maynard, Kill Two Birds Brunswick Hotel Russian Roulette, Wild Turkey, DJ Trevor Travis Retreat Hotel Sabrina & The Red Vans, Rachel Byrnes, Jim Griffiths Grace Darling Hotel Samsara, Dropsaw, ANCHORS, Dickwolf The Arthouse Shihad, Knave Knixx Northcote Social Club Shoot the Sun, The Alcorettes, Alexandria, Orchestrate the Sky Pony

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gigguide@inpress.com.au Short Cut Road St Andrew’s Hotel, Evening Show Speed Demons, Highside Cherry Bar Superdisco feat. Kidda (UK) Prince Bandroom The Basics, Eagle and the Worm!, Johnnie & The Johnnie Johnnies, The Solomons, Phil Para Esplanade Lounge The Bastard Children, The Stillsons The Toff In Town The Bombay Royale, Blair Stafford The Order Of Melbourne The Bronson Band Reveller’s North (upstairs) The Dead South, Mass Cult Suicide, Dead Man On Deck, Eko Eko Azarak Empress Hotel The Meanies, Useless Children, Cabin Fever, Seedy Jeezus The Tote The Nomad, Deep Fried Dub, Damage Control Bar Open The Pang, The Dezperados The Great Britain The Promises, Luke Watt Wesley Anne

The ReChords, Atomic HiTones, Blackhill Ramblers, Billy & the Headliners Monash Hotel (Dooley’s Bar) Tom Waits Cover Band Open Studio Tone Deaf, The Art, Kingswood, Wilfred Jackal, The Cairos, The Promise Land Ding Dong Lounge Tonight Alive Sand Bar, Mildura Whitley Karova Lounge

SUN 15

30H!3, Tonight Alive, For Our Hero HiFi Bar (18+) Abbie Cardwell & Her Leading Men, The ReChords, Fingerbone Bill Retreat Hotel Bec & Fred Negro Cherry Karaoke Cherry Bar Crawfish Dave Carringbush Hotel DJ Andy Black, DJ Haggis The Toff In Town DJ Boogs, DJ Spacey Space, DJ Radiator, DJ T-Rek Revolver

Edinburgh Collective, Sam Harvey, Obvian, Michelle Meehan, James Moore Wesley Anne, arvo Gian Slater Band 303 Graveyard Train Farewell gig, Thug Quota Workers Club Gunn Music Series Esplanade Gershwin Room Headspace, Dale Ryder Band, Bad Boys Batucada Esplanade Lounge Invention In Time, Fine Blue Thread BMW Edge @ Fed Square Joel Plymin & Them Blues Cats, Lehmann B. Smith Bendigo Hotel Josh Seymour Marquis Of Lorne Hotel Khancoban, Justin Walshe Folk Machine Northcote Social Club, Arvo Show Laura Imbruglia The Palace Martin Stuart and Friends Lord Newry Hotel Megan Doherty and Band, Cat Canteri Wesley Anne Open Decks Night Bender Bar

Ouch My Face, Davey Lane & the Psychotic Minstrel Swindle, Duns The Tote Owl + Moth, Noblesse Oblique, Hammocks & Honey Empress Hotel Peter Ewing and Guests Union Club Hotel Phil Para Band Manhattan Hotel Pretty Strangers, Left Feels Right, Andy McGarvie & Friends Evelyn Hotel Rosie Haden, Leigh Sloggett The Chandelier Room Sean McMahon, Allison Ferrier Edinburgh Castle Hotel, Arvo Show Second Hand Heart, Sarah Baxter, Yuko Nishiyama, The Fujiyama Mamas, Tristan Pierce, Mild Sparrow Brunswick Hotel Singer/ Songwriter Showcase Forum Elwood Lounge Spectrum St Andrews Hotel The Andrea Marr Band Transport Hotel (Fed Sq)

The Greenroom, Mark Nixx, The Messengers Bar Open The Hired Guns Labour In Vain The House of Honeys, Red Rockets Of Borneo, The Grand Rapids Yah Yah’s The Joelenes Union Hotel Brunswick The Owls, The Chemists, Jack On Fire Builders Arms Hotel Through The Window, The Word The Arthouse Tracey McNeil The Standard Hotel Whitley Ruby’s Lounge Wild Turkey Sandbelt Hotel

MON 16

Adam & Fergus Marquis Of Lorne Hotel Fruit Jar’s Ol’ Timey Sessions, ‘Crotchety Knitwits’, Sewing & knitting & Boozing The Old Bar

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Jack Beeche - Bill’s Pig Sty Fury 303 Josh Owen Band Esplanade Lounge Laura Knight Band, Simon Astley Empress Hotel Passionate Tongues Poetry Brunswick Hotel

TUE 17

Alpine, Geoffrey O’Connor, Isle Adore, DJ Dee Dolce Northcote Social Club Bagatelle Evelyn Hotel Beg Scream & Shout Workers Club Curly Joe, David Blyth, Gabriel Lynch, The Hoisies, Jarek Esplanade Lounge DJ Shaky Memorial Retreat Hotel Megan Bernard, Cat Canteri, Beth George The Old Bar Read to me Tuesday Wesley Anne

CARNATION SMOKE FAD Carnation launch their highly anticipated EP 12.21.12 at Fad Gallery this Saturday night. Supported by Iowa and a host of top line DJs, this promises to be one hell of a gig. Drenched in psychedelia and pure rock’n’roll, the success of Carnation’s single Gone has given fans a taste of what is to come. Playing in cities the country over, the band have sharpened and refined their sound, reflecting a darker and more mind-bending sonic experience. The band jets off to Singapore for their maiden international tour following this show, so see ‘em while you can. Entry is $10.

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THURS AUG 12

5TH THREAT

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FRI AUG 13

FOOLS FOR ROCK 2

- 7 ACTS OVER 2 STAGES! THE SCARLETS M10 MAKONDO BLOWOUT MASTERS OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE PRIMARY SOURCE LOS THEORY DJ RELLIK

SAT AUG 14 - 9PM

THE BLACK HILLS FIONA LEE MAYNARD KILL TWO BIRDS 5PM - RUBY CARTEL

SUN AUG 15 - 5PM

SECOND HAND HEART SARAH BAXTER YUKO NISHIYAMA 9PM - FUJIYAMA MAMAS MILDSPARROW TRISTAN PIERCE

MON AUG 16

PASSIONATE TONGUES POETRY

FROM 8:30PM. FEATURED ARTISTS AND OPEN STAGE. HOSTED BY MICHAEL REYNOLDS

TUES AUG 17

THE BRUNSWICK DISCOVERY

GIVING CHANCES TO NEW UP AND COMING ARTISTS (ENQUIRIES TO WWW.BRUNSWICKHOTEL.NET) THIS WEEK: BOY RIDES MONSTER OOOAAARDVARK

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303

Wednesday Bohjass, Edel Plastik, Brett Evans Trio Thursday Sleeping Bag Friday Oscar Saturday Drunk Mums, The Eyeball Kicks, The Euphorics, Young at Heart Sunday Gian Slater Band Monday Jack Beeche - Bill’s Pig Sty Fury

BANG

Saturday Nazarite Vow, Stonemasion

BAR OPEN

Wednesday Babble, Grant Caldwell, Benjamin Wild Thursday Dick Threats, Black Widow, Its Is Friday Skazz Saturday The Nomad, Deep Fried Dub, Damage Control Sunday The Greenroom, Mark Nixx, The Messengers

BENDER BAR

Wednesday Karaoke Night Thursday Hench, Kaisha Friday Emma Wall, Michelle Hines Trio Saturday Delivery Boy Sunday Open Decks Night

BENDIGO HOTEL

Friday Grouse Party, Lights, Camera, Asian!, Ann Ominous, Cuteface Killah, Melodee Maker Saturday Carlito’s Way Sunday Joel Plymin & Them Blues Cats, Lehmann B. Smith

BIRMINGHAM HOTEL

Wednesday The Kremlin Succession, The Black Hill Five, Alastair Matcott Thursday Fever Artiste, The Revels, The Red Lights, Cheerleader Friday The Demon Parade, Slight Of Build, Buried Feather Saturday Heavy Yolks, Joseph Liddy, The Skeleton Horse

BRUNSWICK HOTEL

Wednesday The Brunswick Open Mic with host Matt McFarlane Thursday 5th Threat, Roof Top Alley, Swear No Allegence, The Tear Aways Friday Fools For Rock, The Scarlets, M10, Makondo Blowout, Masters Of The Flying Guillotine, Primary Source, Los Theory, DJ Rellik Saturday Ruby Cartel, The Black Hills, Fiona Lee Maynard, Kill Two Birds Sunday Second Hand Heart, Sarah Baxter, Yuko Nishiyama, The Fujiyama Mamas, Tristan Pierce, Mild Sparrow Monday Passionate Tongues Poetry

BUILDERS ARMS HOTEL

Wednesday Pageants, Pop Singles, Constant Mongrel Thursday Joelene Moran Band, Tully Sumner, Kelsey Friday Hero Twin Saturday Little Sisters Of The Poor, Fujimoto and the Setting Suns (Album Launch), Paul Kelly, Andrew Duffield, Barb Waters, Craig Pilkington, Vivienne Gay, Gordon Stooke, Tilly Perry Sunday The Owls, The Chemists, Jack On Fire

CARAVAN MUSIC CLUB

Friday Vampire Freaks, The Little Horrors

CHERRY BAR

Wednesday Matt Sonic & The High Times Thursday Ella Thompson Friday Orange Room, Left Feels Right, X-Rental Trash Saturday Speed Demons, Highside Sunday Bec & Fred Negro Cherry Karaoke

CORNER HOTEL

Thursday PVT, Seekae, Tantrums Friday Dan Kelly, Rat Vs Possum, The Twerps, Borders, Dj Declan Kelly

Saturday Christian Death, Ikon, Voltaire (NYC)

DING DONG LOUNGE

Thursday Carvel, Drunk Mums, The Jonathans, Ben Wright Smith Band Friday Over Reactor (Album Lanch), Chaos Radio, Piggy Saturday Tone Deaf, The Art, Kingswood, Wilfred Jackal, The Cairos, The Promise Land

EAST BRUNSWICK CLUB

Friday Glide, Toby Martin, Sirens of Venice, Mini Bikes Saturday Astriaal, Disentomb, Ignivomous, Stormbane

EDINBURGH CASTLE HOTEL

Wednesday The Go Set Thursday The Deserters Friday Barn, Cuba is Japan, The Atlantic Fall Saturday Mardi Lumsdenn & the Rising Seas, Surrogate Turnip, D. Rogers

EDINBURGH CASTLE HOTEL, ARVO SHOW

Saturday Hillbilly Kitchen Sunday Sean McMahon, Allison Ferrier

EMPRESS HOTEL

Wednesday Sex On Toast, The Cactus Channel Thursday The Lifted Brow presents, Absolute Boys, Nozu, The Promised Land Friday Lost Animal, Pets With Pets, Angel Eyes Saturday The Dead South, Mass Cult Suicide, Dead Man On Deck, Eko Eko Azarak Sunday Owl + Moth, Noblesse Oblique, Hammocks & Honey Monday Laura Knight Band, Simon Astley

EMPRESS HOTEL, ARVO SHOW

Saturday Craig Fraser, Curly Joe

ESPLANADE BASEMENT

Thursday Septerrus, Bricks, Hybrid Nightmares, Echoes Witness Friday Mohan Veena, The Jonathans, Chaos Kids, Foxtrot Saturday Chinatown Angels, Pretty Suicide, R.I.P Tides, Attention Seekers

ESPLANADE GERSHWIN ROOM

Friday A Day In The Life, Spark Iris, Black Creek, Syland, The Big Left Saturday MightyFools, Sharkslayer, Beataucue, Neoteric, Scatterblog Sound System Sunday Gunn Music Series

ESPLANADE LOUNGE

Wednesday Alias & The Jams, David Sattout, Christopher Arnott, The Stillsons Thursday I Am Giant, Jaspora, Sunset Circus, Low Speed Bus Chase Friday Kool Keith, DJ Maseo, Dialect & Despair, Total Eclipse Saturday The Basics, Eagle and the Worm!, Johnnie & The Johnnie Johnnies, The Solomons, Phil Para Sunday Headspace, Dale Ryder Band, Bad Boys Batucada Monday Josh Owen Band Tuesday Curly Joe, David Blyth, Gabriel Lynch, The Hoisies, Jarek

EVELYN HOTEL

Wednesday Direct Influence (Acoustic), Jed Rowe, Josh Romig, Amanda Medica, Jess Heiser Thursday Tomaki Jets, Without Wolves, Le Foxx, Nature Scene, Beloved Elk Friday Northeast Party House, The Belligerents, Ross de Chene Hurricanes Saturday Indigo Children, Jo Dawson, Threefall, Joel Spence & The Mercury Drive Sunday Pretty Strangers, Left Feels Right, Andy McGarvie & Friends Tuesday Bagatelle

GRACE DARLING HOTEL

Wednesday Matt Walters Thursday My Musical Collective, The Ocean Party Friday Dishevelled Gentlemen, Gosteleradio, The Analyte Saturday Sabrina & The Red Vans, Rachel Byrnes, Jim Griffiths

HIFI BAR

Thursday CKY, Forgiven Rival, Cola Wars Friday Whitley, Seagull

JOHN CURTIN HOTEL

Friday The Night Terrors, Voltera, Ornitholigist, Magic Silver White Saturday Exquisite Corpse, Arkestra, Domeyko/ Gonzalez, Towels, The Preachers

LABOUR IN VAIN

Sunday The Hired Guns

MARQUIS OF LORNE HOTEL

Wednesday Bois et Carbons Friday Baby Lotion Saturday Jemma Rowlands Plays Records Sunday Josh Seymour Monday Adam & Fergus

Thursday Antagonist, In Trenches, Vultures

NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB

Friday Shihad, Knave Knixx Saturday Shihad, Knave Knixx Tuesday Alpine, Geoffrey O’Connor, Isle Adore, DJ Dee Dolce

NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB, ARVO SHOW

Sunday Khancoban, Justin Walshe Folk Machine

PONY

Thursday The Jonathans, Chaos Kids, Rapid Transit, Toyota Wars

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Friday Johnnie & The Johnnie Johnnies, Matt Bailey, E-Wah Lady, The Open Road, Leon Thomas Saturday Shoot the Sun, The Alcorettes, Alexandria, Orchestrate the Sky

PRINCE BANDROOM

Friday Dirty South, TV Rock, Rudy Saturday Superdisco feat. Kidda (UK)

RETREAT HOTEL

Thursday Leena & Sime Nugent Friday The Messengers, The Thod, DJ Phil Gionfriddo Saturday Russian Roulette, Wild Turkey, DJ Trevor Travis Sunday Abbie Cardwell & Her Leading Men, The ReChords, Fingerbone Bill Tuesday DJ Shaky Memorial

REVELLER’S NORTH (DOWNSTAIRS)

Friday Mark Phillips Saturday Kyle Taylor, Harvey Jack

REVELLER’S NORTH (UPSTAIRS)

Wednesday Swing Patrol (Swing Dance Classes) Thursday Hungry Freaks Launch Party, The Frowning Clouds Saturday The Bronson Band

REVOLVER

Wednesday The Skyline Residency, Rush of Colour Thursday Nacional, Sugardoll, Red Leader Friday Driveby Epic, The Close, Life 2 Order Saturday Blackchords, The Hello Morning, Royston Vasie Sunday DJ Boogs, DJ Spacey Space, DJ Radiator, DJ T-Rek

THE ARTHOUSE

Wednesday JamBoyJam, A Brokers Night Sleep, I Am The Riot, Fisker

Thursday Analyte, Johnny Uppercut Friday Horace Pinker, Not Ok, Roof Top Alley, 5th Threat Saturday Samsara, Dropsaw, ANCHORS, Dickwolf Sunday Through The Window, The Word

THE OLD BAR

Wednesday Bits of Shit, Mesa Cosa Thursday A Dead Forest Index, White Altar, Extreme Wheeze Friday No No Gallery Fundraiser, Milk Teddy, Geoffrey O’Connor, Jessica Says, Heavy Mental Saturday Bodies, Bone, Lame Foot, Vanuatu Scalps, DJ Chowtown Monday Fruit Jar’s Ol’ Timey Sessions, ‘Crotchety Knitwits’, Sewing & knitting & Boozing Tuesday Megan Bernard, Cat Canteri, Beth George

THE PUBLIC BAR

Friday Backyard Surgeons, Ball Point, Kill The Matador

THE SPANISH CLUB

Friday Midnight Heavies, The Last Cavalry, Shortfall, Dumbsaint, Rhymada

THE STANDARD HOTEL

Wednesday The Idle Hoes Sunday Tracey McNeil

THE TOFF IN TOWN

Friday Dr Phil Smith Saturday The Bastard Children, The Stillsons Sunday DJ Andy Black, DJ Haggis

THE TOTE

Thursday Beat Disease, Teen Archer, Daddy Long Legs, Bad Aches Friday Barbarion, Medusa, Bunny Monroe, Buttered Loaf Saturday The Meanies, Useless Children, Cabin Fever, Seedy Jeezus

Sunday Ouch My Face, Davey Lane & the Psychotic Minstrel Swindle, Duns

TRANSPORT HOTEL (FED SQ)

Thursday Ladies Night Friday TOP 40 & COMMERCIAL PARTY TUNES Saturday 80’s RETRO TUNES Sunday The Andrea Marr Band

UNION HOTEL BRUNSWICK

Thursday Stephen Cummings Sunday The Joelenes

WESLEY ANNE

Thursday Ida Fox, Laura Hill, Yelka, Tom Kline Friday Chloe Hall Trio, Sean M Whelan & The Interim Lovers, Winternationale Saturday The Promises, Luke Watt Sunday Megan Doherty and Band, Cat Canteri Tuesday Read to me Tuesday

WORKERS CLUB

Wednesday The Night Terrors, The French, Thieves Thursday Red Letter Day, Jaguar Springs, Breakfast Over Gunfire Friday The Boo Hoo Hoos, The Ravenous, The Sherrifs Saturday Asami EP Launch, Mechanical Pterodactyl, The Vulpine, Emily Trembath Sunday Graveyard Train Farewell gig, Thug Quota Tuesday Beg Scream & Shout

YAH YAH’S

Thursday Yis, The Supporters, Constant Light Friday Duck Duck Chop, Money For Rope, The Once Overs Saturday Bitter Sweet Kicks, The Council, Bunny Monroe Sunday The House of Honeys, Red Rockets Of Borneo, The Grand Rapids

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BEHIND THE LINES GUITAR GODS ON TV

STUDIO PROFILE

JACK THE BEAR’S DELUXE MASTERING The concept of aThe telephone as aMantz musical instrument nothing novel.Engineer The advent of the iPhone, however, has actually given rise to an era wherein mobile phones have the potential Tony ‘Jack Bear’ – Chief isMastering

Hosted by singer and guitarist Jasmine Young, Guitar Gods And Masterpieces is a television show produced by guitarists for guitarists and fans of guitar music that not only features interviews with guitarists known and emerging, but also segments on playing and repairing guitars and a bit of humour – just because it can. Produced locally, it’s currently being broadcast on C31 at 10.30pm Saturday (repeated at 2am Friday). Among the guitarists already interviewed for the show are Deep Purple’s Steve Morse, Australian fusion virtuoso Brett Garsed, local bluesmen Geoff Achison and Dutch Tilders, acoustic virtuoso Bruce Mathiske and the man touted as the fastest guitarist in the country, Jeremy Barnes.

VALE BEN KEITH If you’ve seen Neil Young in concert, you’ll have seen and heard his trusty compadre of nearly 40 years, Texas-born lap steel guitarist Ben Keith, who sadly passed away the last day of July aged 73, of a suspected heart attack, at Young’s ranch in northern California where he’d been busy collaborating on new projects. Keith hooked up with Young when the Canadian decided to record his Harvest album in Nashville in 1971. Keith became an integral part of Young’s band but continued to be an in-demand session player for the likes of Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Todd Rundgren. In 1995 he produced the singer/songwriter Jewel’s million-selling album, Pieces Of You, as well as Young’s 2005 album, Prairie Wind. It was Keith who, in 1992, was largely responsible for reuniting the Harvest band for the recording of Young’s Harvest Moon album.

SOUND BYTES

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

Being a mastering studio people come mainly because of the engineer, but we welcome input from engineers who wish to attend and be involved. In fact, we encourage it.” We’re an impoverished indie band – do you offer any deals for acts in our situation? “The majority of our clients are indie so yes, we can and do accommodate for budgets within reason. We are always ready to talk turkey. In addition to that we invite you to come in for a listening session where you can check out your mixes to make sure they are in good shape before mastering.” What’s the access to the studio like with regards to parking, flat load, et cetera? Which notable artists have worked at the studio? What’s the studio set up you have there equipment-wise?

“All my clients are notable.”

“We have Australia’s only George Augspurger-designed rooms. Outboard by Sontec, Manley, Crane Song, API, Vertigo, Chandler and Millenia Media. Our monitors are custom Duntech powered by custom Hypex amps. We have a full range of digital outboard and plug-ins.” Any tips for artists entering a studio for the first time? “Make sure you have a business plan and despite what people say about the music industry, people will always want good quality worksmanship and top service. Ignore the critics... they never built a monument or erected a statue to honour one anyway.”

Who do you have on staff and what’s their background in the industry? “Adam Dempsey, formerly of Dex, and Byron Scullin, formerly of Moose Mastering, round out the team.” Analogue vs digital – discuss. “I’m a predominantly analogue head but use digital where appropriate. Both formats have their pros and cons. What is more important is how you use your tools.” Can bands bring in their own engineer or do they have to solely use a house engineer?

“We have the number 19 Sydney Road tram and Anstey railway station literally a stone’s throw from our door. Parking is fine.” Working in the studio can be arduous and we’ll need a break – what are the amenities in the local area? “Being less than 100 metres from Sydney Road (corner Albion Street) we have no shortage of good cheap eats, pubs and any other kind of conveniences you can imagine.” What are your contact details? 0419 234 100 jackthebear.com.au

SOUND ADVICE Gear reviews with MATT O’NEILL.

While Tim Palmer, whose credits include albums for U2, Pearl Jam and David Bowie, was the main producer for the ninth album, Something For The Rest Of Us, from the Goo Goo Dolls, the album also features additional production by Butch Vig, John Fields and the band themselves. The recording of the latest album, Invented, by Jimmy Eat World, saw the band reunite with producer Mark Trombino, who produced three of their early albums including their breakthrough, Bleed American, recording it in their own Unit 2 Studio in Tempe, Arizona. Sydney four-piece Peabody recorded their forthcoming fourth album, Loose Manifesto, over four days in a small shack overlooking the Harbour at Balls Head, with engineer Tim Kevin on the very same eight-track tape machine on which Nirvana recorded their debut album, Bleach. Singer/songwriter Maxine Kauter has been busy recording new material down at Damien Gerard’s with Dave Learn engineering and producing the sessions. Recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne, Midnight Juggernauts produced their latest album, The Crystal Axis, with engineer Chris Moore, whose CV includes working with TV On The Radio, Yeasayer and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Recorded in Sydney, New York City and Gothenburg Sweden, the new and eponymous album by Birds Of Tokyo was produced by Scott Horscroft (The Presets, Silverchair, The Sleepy Jackson) and mixed by Michael Brauer. They’ve also filmed a 3D clip for their new single, The Saddest Thing I Know, using two DSLR cameras.

The concept of a telephone as a musical instrument is nothing novel. The advent of the iPhone, however, has actually given rise to an era wherein mobile phones have the potential to go head-to-head with many modern synthesisers and production units – and for a fraction of the price. The phone itself may cost several hundred dollars but, cumulatively, it’s a bargain for electronic music producers. NLog Synth is perhaps the most obvious example of the ridiculous value associated with the product. An outstanding emulator of analog synthesisers, Nlog boasts the kind of high-fidelity sound and flexibility many soft synths and presets have yet to touch upon and will only set you back $6. There is even a free version which only takes away the ability to edit and save patches. The Argon Monophonic Synthesiser is the next best example and is only bumped from first by the fact that it is, as the name suggests, monophonic. That notwithstanding, it is a phenomenal piece of work. There’s three oscillators, arpeggiators, step-sequencers, filters and effects and all are completely customisable – and it’s less than $3.

There are countless other synthesisers out there to make use of as well but, in honesty, those two should be the only two you will need. The chief problem with exploring iPhone music apps is that, while the best are amazing, most are absolutely rubbish and this is especially true of synthesisers. Rhythm sequencers tend to be slightly more reliable (though they still have their sucky instalments). FingerBeat is probably the most rounded rhythm sequencer on the market. It has a number of excellent and varied patches (including what is arguably the best tabla emulation on the iPhone), an incredibly straightforward sequencer and comes with both a playable interface, the ability to create one’s own sample-based kits and some remarkably decent synths – all for $6. Every column on iPhone apps ever would have touched upon BeatMaker by now but, for reasons that will become clear shortly, I’m going to opt for the infinitely lesser known Thump. Thump is my favourite rhythm sequencer on the market for two reasons: its rhythm patches and its bass synthesis, both of which are highly unique and quite flexible. Thump has several of the standard iPhone rhythm patches (trance/house/hip hop kits et cetera) but it also has a

Clare Bowditch began recording her latest album, Modern Day Addiction, with producer Mocky (Feist, Gonzales, Peaches) in the legendary Hansa Studios in Berlin late last year, but finished it off back in Melbourne in the backyard shed studio she and husband Marty Brown set up a few years ago. Single The Start Of War came from those latter sessions and was produced by Bowditch, Brown and Mick Harvey. Lachlan Mitchell was called in to produce, engineer and mix the forthcoming debut album from Sydney post-hardcore combo, Between The Devil And The Deep. Sydney rockers Drop Tank went into Studio Zapata in Coogee to record their debut EP, Vice, where they got to use the Sonor drumkit used by Meshuggah at this year’s Soundwave, which impressed all and sundry. Also utilising Studio Zapata and owner/engineer/producer Tamlin Tregonning recently were local three-piece Armarna, for their debut EP, The Well Theory. Singer/songwriter Steve Charles has been recording an album, Imagica, at Enrec Studio in Tamworth produced by Lawrie Minson and John Cunliffe.

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handful of kits that few other apps touch upon – including an Amen-based kit and, my personal favourite, Japanese Taiko percussion. The bass synths, meanwhile, are the only bass synths on the market to replicate the LFO/subheavy dubstep/jungle tones – and it’ll set you back $4. There are a couple of disclaimers when it comes to using the iPhone as a musical instrument, though. The most important thing to remember is that it is not a replacement for anything – it is a tool. There are scores of apps (Beatmaker, Bleepbox, Doppler Pad and iSequence among them) that will make the claim that you can build entire productions on the iPhone and, while it’s technically true, it’s not advised. There’s no one app that works as an effective production interface. This advice obviously extends to acoustic instruments as well – an iPhone will not replace a guitar. There is only one app with anything resembling reliable acoustic emulation and that is the very impressive ThumbJam but even that’s inconsistent. It’s best to think of an iPhone as one synthesiser with a thousand presets. You could use it set on one preset for an entire production but, really, that production would be improved if you used that synth in conjunction with other instruments.

EMPLOYMENT ADMINISTRATION

for gigs and recording only. Worth $7000.00 new Please email info@ varliiba.com or call 0419 575 699 for more info and pics iFlogID: 6632

VOCALSIT / MC’S WANTED

SABIAN CYMBALS

Male or Female vocalists or MC’s wanted for Downtempo, electronic, trip hop or whatever its called. Either way its a bit dark and moody and very much beat driven. If interested then send a demo to itsmaximillion@ gmail.com

Sabian 20” AA Rock ride, Sabian 17” med thin crash, Sabian 14” AA Regular hihats all with Ragone case. As new, $700, ph 0419760940

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ENTERTAINMENT CONTRIBUTORS WANTED TheHeadChimp.com is looking for writers, artists, advertisers and photographers to be part of our newest initiative, The Head Chimp Magazine. Our site is growing extremely fast and we are looking to implement the Mag very soon. If you feel like becoming part of our awesome team, drop us an email: info@theheadchimp.com. iFlogID: 5975

TV PRESENTERS wanted for an exciting new independent music program, tailor-made for the Melbourne live music scene. We need switched-on, vibrant interviewers to report on gigs every weekend. You need to be plugged into and passionate about the live music scene created by Melbourne’s unique talent and venues. You must be natural and confident on camera. Experience is not essential. Send us an email with a photo and any film reel you might have, and let us know why you want the job and what’s so special about you. Only successful applicants will be notified. Enquiries.kage@gmail.com

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Tama Starclassic Maple 6 Piece Shell Kit. Professional Kit/Insane Price! $3100 ono. All shells are 100%! Must sell FAST!! You can see the kit live in action on “Hey Hey Its Saturday” here, http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=CfdmoyfP55s All info contact 0410334141. iFlogID: 6869

Tama Starclassic Maple 6pc, full hardware inc. throne and pedal, cases, bags and h/ware trolley included. Each shell signed by John Blackwell. Sounds and looks stunning, colour is marine blue fade. Couple of very minor knocks on 14” shell.

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FENDER PINK PAISLEY STRAT.

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IBANEZ PRESTIGE MBM1BK

Wanted: Current Uni students in Sydney and Melbourne to profile their uni courses positively and constructively for a socially important project. Please email madeleine@bathtubproductions.com for more info. Big thanks.

Genuine 1980’s Pete Townshend jap model. all original. in case. amazing action. beatiful tone and sustain. plays great. nice patina. very rare. suit collector. EXCELLENT CONDITION! $2500.00 Ph Jimbo on 0428744963.

FOR SALE

FENDER STANDARD STRATOCASTER

For Sale Eden D112XLT bass cabinets $1250.00 Mint condition EDEN SOUND Please contact iFlogID: 6823

PEAVEY WINDSOR GUITAR AMP

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BASS ‘51 reissue butterscotch blonde japanese fender precission bass with the telecaster headstock maple neck. $1,200.00 or best offer!! iFlogID: 6724

CD / DVD SECOND NATION DELINQUENT E.P

Brand New Fender standard Stratocaster.(Mexico) Updated model including new tinted neck. Different colour options available. Package includes Guitar, gig bag and stand. RRP $1100 Logans Price $756 Heaps of other Fender bargains instore. Logans Music (02) 9744 2400 www. loganspianos.com.au AUTHORISED FENDER DEALER

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LITTLE MUSIC SHOP IN THE LANE

SO WHY BUY MUSIC WHEN YOU CAN GET IT FREE! Check this out www. musicforcause.com the best unsigned artists compiled into music genre packs 100% download proceeds for charity great new way to find brillant unsigned musicans Give it a GO iFlogID: 6979

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MUSIC SERVICES

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SECONDHAND MARTIN D28

GUITAR AMPLITUBE IRIG

BAND MERCHANDISE CITY VENUE WANTS ORIGINAL BAND A new original night has started a a very popular Sydney venue, in the heart of the City. Venue runs cover bands 7 nights a week, and has a great in house PA system and operator. Venue is Trialling Original Bands on Monday nights, and its a great opportunity for bands to get exposure. Venue has a steady stream of clientele, so no need to drag your fans along. Venue prefers 3-4 piece guitar based rock acts, which perform mainsteam radio friendly original music. Looking for good Sydney bands, as well as interstate bands who maybe be touring Sydney and would like to tack a monday night show onto their tour. Interested acts should email me a link to their website, or myspace. Email promo to : kypo@bigpond.net. au. Your welcome to call Kypo on 0404 065 976, but its best to send me your promo first. iFlogID: 5963

AmpliTube iRig. Plug your guitar into your iPhone/iPod touch/iPad and jam anywhere with world class guitar and

SECONDHAND MARTIN D28 IN MINT CONDITION WITH ORIGINAL DELUXE HARDCASE - ONLY 6 YEARS OLD, HARDLY USED. ONLY $2795 CALL US FOR MORE DETAILS 07 54743033TIM iFlogID: 6537

Are you thinking of hiring quality musicians that bring an audience ? Do you have a function/event and considering live entertainment ? For a limited period, we are offering a Venue Promotions Package featuring favourite entertainers. If it is about raising your venue profile or just great entertainment you want, contact us now. Chris 0419 272 196 http://infovisionproductions.yayabings.com.au

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EP RELEASE

WEEKLY SPECIALS VP550 NOW ONLY

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ONE WORD...SCHINDLER tired of cissy ass mainstream sh*t? well check out samantha schindlers new EP ‘death to derros’ released late april for all the touching hits about hating sl*ts,derros + more. hit up www.myspace.com/samschindler07 will be available on CD and to download on cd baby. GET INTO IT KIDS,BEFORE IT BECOMES ‘COOL’ AND UR THE LAST TO KNOW!! iFlogID: 4033

SPECIAL OFFER!!!!

We have the gear and have the people. From small to BIG - give me a call for a quote - PA SYSTEMS from $110 - CALL MATT on 0424 399 801

ECW80C

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PA/OPERATOR FOR HIRE For as low as $100, you get a PA system with a sound mixer, complete with a human operator as well to set it up for you for the evening. You can play your own music through it, sing, talk, do a disco, small function, etc, etc, etc. Contact Chris 0419 272 196.

1 ONLY @

$1599

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MANAGEMENT

Special Packages available for artists and bands!! Whether being recording/ mixing. With networks to many studios around town your project will sound great and professional whilst working within a budget!! OUR PASSION IS TO CREATE RECORDS THAT GIVE THE LISTENER A HARD HITTING, FRESH SOUND THAT PUSHES BOUNDARIES, WHICH STANDS UP AMONGST THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET. WE SPECIALIZE IN HIP HOP/R&B BUT LOVE AND DO ALL GENRES. For a full list of our credits see myspace.com/mixinthelab. Contact us on 0424 462 945 or Email at thelab1@hotmail.com

Jagged Edge Communications is a boutique service specialising in professional press kits for bands, musicians and artists. Press kits, are compiled by a media professional with experience in public relations and entertainment journalism, from $200. For more information visit jaggededgecommunications.com.

VYPYR 100

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100watt rms. 4 channell with EQ/ REVERB. stereo CD input. CUBE STYLE. Very good condition. $300.00 Ph Jimbo on 0428744963.

Custom Ibanez AX7221, with AMAZING (owner/artist) brush-painted collage of HR.GIGER biomechanical landscape sealed in acrylic for heavy use. Lightweight with phat tone & sustain, signed on the backside by JOE SATRIANI. Mint condition; 22fret; bolt-on neck; Seymour Duncan Invader hi-output humbucker; DiMarzio clip-lock strap; brand new uxl hard case; postage if required (from Perth) all inclusive, $2400 ono. Call/ txt for myspace address w/photos of this & more custom painted guitars. for serious inquiries only: Michael 0417184213.

MUSICIANS FOR FUNCTIONS/ VENUES

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www.myspace.com/thespaced

HIRE SERVICES

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Gretsch Renown Maple 10,12,14,16 toms, 14x5 snare, 20x18 bass. Padded Soft Cases included Tama Iron Cobra Double Pedal plus hardcase Hardware - Snare, Hi-Hat, 2 x straight cymbal, 2 x boom cymbal, 3 x boom arm + clamp All excellent condition apart from minor scratches on 16” and bass drums $4200.00 ono Approx 40 hours use over 4 years

Petticoats & Gallantry has launched a new range of exclusive, boutique handmade & decorated false eyelashes perfect for going out. With a mix of over-the-top dramatic lashes suitable for Performances, Burlesque, Drag and even just for a special night out, you’re sure to find some one-ofa-kind false eyelashes to wear. Each pair is customised and decorated by hand in a variety of themes, and commission orders are very welcome. www.petticoatsandgallantry.com.au Look for us on facebook for exclusive promotions.

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GIBSON SG STANDARD LEFTY

Brand New Gibson SG Standard Lefthanded guitar. Heritage chrery finish including Gibson hard case. Logans Price $1999 WOW! (righthanded also available!) Logans Music Burwood (02)97442400 www. loganspianos.com.au AUTHORISED GIBSON DEALER

THE SPACED ARE HERE!

OTHER A good book still makes a great present: Journo’s Diary is heaps of fun, describing the comical misadventures of a young cadet journalist as he copes with the good, bad and ugly life throws at him. Go to www. journosdiary.biz

RARE PAINTED 7STRING IBANEZ AX

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DRUMS $250 for a 20” cast, hand-hammered ride cymbal? If you are not Dreaming already, go to www.cymbalsplus. com. Dream Cymbals and Gongs, Metro Drums plus more.

IBANEZ PRESTIGE MBM1BK. Matt Bachand’s (Shadows Fall) Signature guitar features an EMG 81 humbucker in the bridge position for razor sharp attack and incredible sustain, and an EMG 60 humbucker in the neck position for massive crunch. Gloss black finish with Matt Bachand’s signature skull graphic. Pearloid body binding. Includes ibanez hard case. Made in Japan RRP $5295 Logans Price $2645! 50 % off BRAND NEW 1 ONLY LOGANS MUSIC BURWOOD (02)9744 2400 www.loganspianos.com.au AUTHORISED IBANEZ DEALER

Gibson Les Paul Custom 2004 Black Beautiful condition, beautiful guitar. Selling for the great price of $4,500. Contact 0410736672.

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SECOND NATION - delinquent E.P. AVAILABLE NOW for $4.99 at www. myspace.com/secondnation

Australia’s first online booking agency with a difference!!!! For Artists & Promoters

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Have YOU been to our shop. Sales / Repairs / Hire / Service / Rentals / Trade –Ins / Tuition. We also deal in Pre-Loved equipment.OPEN Monday to Saturday - MUSIC CAVERN - JOHN LANE , Beenleigh - 3807 5688

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AMPS

A rarely used example of this classic and much sought-after synthesizer in excellent condition. Price includes delivery to any destination on mainland Australia.

BURLESQUE & DRAG EYELASHES MUSIC@NOOSA’S MARTIN SALE ALL NEW GUITARS HAVE A LIMITED LIFE TIME WARRANTY. OMC28E - WAS $5495 - NOW ONLY $3895 DCX1KE - WAS $1795 - NOW ONLY $1429 OMCX1KE WAS $1795 - NOW ONLY $1429 OMC1E - WAS $2795 - NOW ONLY $1995 **ALL GUITARS COME WITH FREE CASES** SECOND HAND DEALS D16RGT - GOOD CONDITION ONLY $2195 1973 D18 IN EXCEL COND W/CASE $3795 1972 D28 IN EXCEL COND W/CASE $3995. CALL US FOR MORE DETAILS 07 54743033-TIM

ON LINE BOOKING AGENCY

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ACOUSTIC GUITAR MATON M225

VOLUNTEER

100 Watt all valve/tube head. HUGE hardcore tone. Incredible bottom end. Has been professionally modified 2 channel foot switchable. Runs EL34 power valve. Mint condition $750.00 ono. 0428744963. Cooroy

HUGE SALE ON MARTIN GUITARS

GUITARS

Maton M225 Solid Sitka Spruce soundboard Queensland Maple Back, sides & neck Rosewood with dot inlays fingerboard Australian Made Original Elixir strings Natural Finish $750 *pick up in Sydney area

KEYBOARDS

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bass tone right in the palm of your hand - from the leader in studio-class guitar and bass software. Simply plug the iRig interface into your mobile device, plug your instrument into the appropriate input jack, plug in your headphones, amp or powered speakers, download AmpliTube for iPhone Free and start rocking! You’ll have at your fingertips the sound and control of 3 recombinable simultaneous stompbox effects + amplifier + cabinet + microphone just like a traditional guitar or bass stage rig! Add amps and effects as you need them — you can expand your rig with up to 11 stomps, 5 amps, 5 cabinets and 2 microphones in the AmpliTube iRig app custom shop. ONLY $59.99 UNBEATABLE Logans Music (02)9744 2400 www.loganspianos.com.au

MUSICIANS: Make download cards to attach your music to your merch and sell at shows! Get 30 FREE at www. MerchMusic.com! iFlogID: 6842

KARAOKE & JUKEBOX HIRE Superstar Karaoke & Jukebox Hire is friendly, efficient and affordable. We’ve also got the BIGGEST selection of songs with over 10,000 karaoke tracks and over 5,000 jukebox songs. Plus, we update our song lists monthly so we have the classics and all the newest hits! Visit www.superstarkaraoke.net.au today and see how we can assist you with making your next party or function one to remember.

Professional Mastering from $110 per track in Australia’s most prolific mastering suites. We have the dedication and experience to make your music come alive using the world’s best equipment. Located in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. Conditions apply email:info@benchmarkmastering. com Ph:(02) 9211 3017 www.benchmarkmastering.com iFlogID: 6217

DOMC MASTERING - $95 PER TRACK

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MUSIC PUBLICITY AND MARKETING

Domc Mastering is a dedicated mastering suite located just outside of Brisbane. We specialise in getting your next audio project ready for the public. DOMC work with you to get you the ‘sound’ that you are chasing. iFlogID: 5710

Promoting a CD? Want to let fans know about your gigs? Take your band to the next level with our competitive rates for your marketing and publicity needs. We strive to bring our artists to as wide an audience as possible conducting a broad media campaign which encompasses national print media and online promotion and an artist administration area allowing access to realtime 24/7 campaign results. We can also look after your paid advertising, sourcing some of the most competitive pricing. Contact 0402257148 or www.aaaentertainment.com.au iFlogID: 5801

MATTHEW GRAY MASTERING - $99

ITALIA GUITARS MINIMUM

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OFF

MORE SPECIALS IN-STORE $99 per song +gst for online mastering via our secure servers. Analog

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chain, digital chain, mix evaluations, online mastering and attended sessions - we ensure your mastered product sounds amazing. www.matthewgraymastering.com. iFlogID: 3422

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OTHER

GUITAR TECH Guitar tech available for one-off Melbourne shows or touring. Affordable rates. Stage manager experience. Worked on stages big and small from O2 Arena, London to the Espy, St. Kilda. Call Brent on 0438 919 811

AUSTRALASIAN MUSIC SPECIALIST

PA / AUDIO / ENGINEERING Free EP Recording available,for a band with the right stuff.The studio Plenty of outboard gear to add that extra level of depth.If you think this is your thing,0423206888 brad

POSTERS ILLUSTRATOR AVAILABLE NOW!

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MARKETING AND PROMOTION From small PA to large high powered rigs. Crystal clear custom built mids and tops cabs with heavy duty bass bins. Suitable for indoor and outdoor events. delivered, set up and operated. Call Derek for quotes on 0423979396

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Jumpn’Bones PRODUCTIONS DRUMMER / PRODUCER / DJ PRODUCTIONS & PERFORMANCES 0430 829 875 Matte J Meli SYDNEY

you the feel and the sound you want. 0405 253 417 tara@rockinrepairs. com www.rockinrepairs.com

TUITION

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tenzenmen is a world renowned distributor of alternative music from all parts of the Australasia region. Find out more at www.tenzenmen.com

STILL PLAYING IN THE GARAGE?!!

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RECORDING STUDIOS LEVEL 7 STUDIOS

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Get out of the Garage and into the Studio! We will give you 1 Hour Completely Free when you book in at least 2 hours with us, as a bonus to New Clients. A quick testimonial, “... Recording at Nano Music Productions was a pleasure. They knew exactly what I wanted and the finished product shows that. I look forward to record with them again very soon”. – K Hudson. Book with us today and get your FREE Hour! Call 02 8005 1295 or visit our Website www.NanoMusicProductions.com

A1 very experienced guitar teacher available for home call tuition.we come to you! become a better musician soon!based in sydney’s inner west.I had the best teachers,now you can too.learn the fundamentals that make a great guitar player!many styles taught in a relaxed,fun manner that will get you happening fast.ph 0421727864.

THE LAB STUDIOS

ABLETON CERTIFIED TRAINER

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A1 HOME CALL GUITAR TUITION

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COOL PERTH NIGHTS

CAULFIELD MUSIC CENTRE Caulfield Music Centre MUSIC SCHOOL * where students become musicians * www.caulfieldmusic. com.au QUALIFIED TEACHERS AVAILABLE Monday - Friday: 4pm-9pm * Saturday: 10am-4pm * Sunday: 11am-4pm * *Please call for lesson availability times. PRIVATE LESSONS - $28 PER HALF HOUR GUITAR BASS PIANO SINGING & VOICE PRODUCTION DRUMS PERCUSSION SAXOPHONE FLUTE RECORDER HARMONICA VIOLIN At Caulfield Music Centre Music School, we offer private, oneon-one lessons. We believe this is the best way for students to learn their chosen instrument. All students receive special student DISCOUNTS on musical instruments and equipment. All lessons are payable weekly, one lesson in advance. A DISCOUNT applies when paying for 10 lessons in advance. Missed lessons incur the full fee unless a minimum of 24 hours notice is given. Exceptional circumstances will be considered. ALL ENQUIRIES AND BOOKINGS PHONE 9528 1162 OR EMAIL music@ caulfieldmusic.com.au

VIDEO / PRODUCTION HAVE YOU SEEN MIKE HUNT

Australian Bands Only.Do you have A You Tube Rock Band Video you want to promote,if so Mike Hunt wants to promote it.Just send your link to admin attention Mike Hunt and we will do our best to list you for free worldwide at www.clearhunt.com iFlogID: 6007

MUSIC VIDEOS

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INTEGUITAR INTERFACE KIT

PROFESSIONAL SOUND AND LIGHT

Cool Perth Nights weekly mailout features all the coolest live music, theatre, indie film screenings and art exhibition happenings in and around Perth Western Australia. Sign up via www.coolperthnights.com and receive this clean presented and very fun info each Wednesday lunchtime WST. iFlogID: 4351

FOOTAGE FOR VIDEO CLIP NEEDED

A rockin’ salute from the Team at Clk Click Publicity! Clk Click Publicity is a music and entertainment publicity company that specialises in providing excellent quality management, marketing and PR services in order to promote music, film, arts and events in Australia. We have an introductory offer that will blow your mind, and keep your pockets full! For a limited time Clk Click Publicity can whip you up a professional Bio and Press Release for only $100. We can also organise band photos and logo creation for a very reasonable price. If you’re interested in finding out about our full range of publicity services, we’d love the opportunity to have a chat with you and put together a proposal for your next release, event or tour. For further information please shoot us an email at info@clkclickpublicity.com or visit our website at www.clkclickpublicity.com We look forward to working with you! iFlogID: 5312

OCTOBER 22 MELBOURNE FESTIVAL

Heavy rock band Drop Tank are making a film clip. We need your home videos of burnouts, skilled driving, awesome machines in action, to use for our song about a car. We will be pixellating numberplates (and faces if needed), so send all killer, no filler to: Droptank or droptankband@ gmail.com via sendspace (Any format will do but AVI or MPEG-2 is preffered) or to: DROP TANK PO Box 443 Brookvale NSW 2100 www.myspace. com/droptankband *Drop Tank does not promote dangerous driving iFlogID: 6076

China’s hottest band right now, P.K.14, finally make it to Australia for Melbourne International Arts Festival. Look out for their incendiary live show on October 22nd supporting the Drones. For interviews etc please contact Shaun at tenzenmen@tenzenmen.com. http://www.myspace. com/pk14 iFlogID: 6408

GET IN THE KNOW!

P.K.14 - OCTOBER 22 MELB FEST

DO YOU AND YOUR BAND WANT TO STAND OUT? WE HAVE THE BEST STUFF FOR YOUR GIG’S, WE ARE THE PROFESSIONALS IN SOUND AND LIGHT, WE HAVE THE TOP OF THE LINE GEAR AND WE ARE READY TO GIVE YOU AND YOUR BAND THE SHOW YOU NEVER FORGET Call Roger on 0447025967 iFlogID: 5704

THE CHEMISTRY OF SOUND

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As Engineers/Producers our passion is to create tracks that give the listener a hard hitting, fresh sound that sonically sounds PHAT and pushes the boundaries of what music currently sounds like in Australia, which stands up amongst the international market. WE SPECIALIZE IN HIP HOP/R&B BUT LOVE ALL GENRES. We’re located at Level 7 studios and the studio is decorated in some of the most appreciated vintage and modern gear which provides our clients an incomparable advantage in the sense of both the analogue and digital domains. Artists we’ve worked with include: Pharrell Williams, N.E.R.D., Kanye West, INXS, Black Wallstreet and a myriad of local artists such as Hyjak, Potbelleez, Vice Verser, Thundamentals, Fame, Tycotic, Rai Thistlewaite (Thirsty Merc), Wendy Mathews, Gin Wigmore, Tim Freedman (The Whitlams), Carl Riseley, Hoodoo Gurus, Wes Carr, You Am I, and many more. Contact us on 0424 462 945 and check out myspace.com/mixinthelab iFlogID: 6186

PHOTOGRAPHY If rock n roll is the collected voices of the outsiders, then Dane’s camera; its Egglestonian frankness, immediacy, and oft-kilter worldview, is their microphone. www.photodane.com iFlogID: 6942

PHOTOGRAPHER / VIDEOGRAPHER From the people who brought you TheMusic.com.au comes two new free news resources, The Daily News Feed and Velvet Rope; the only source of music business and industry news you will ever need! Each morning the Daily News Feed posts crucial music business news, helping you stay current with Aussie and overseas breaking stories. Velvet Rope is brought to you via Door Bitch and is a weekly news column that keeps you up to date on the happenings of the music biz. From job opps, news, events & a bit of back room gossip, Door Bitch has it covered. It’s out every Friday at noon. Check out the new news at www.TheMusic.com.au

China’s hottest band right now, P.K.14, finally make it to Australia for the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Look out for their incendiary live performance, supporting the Drones, on October 22nd 2010. Stick it in your diaries now!

Producer Engineer with own Recording Studio. Twenty years studio savvy seventeen of which being London based working in the UK music industry. I only make quality recordings of your songs in my spacious fun creative studio. Tours available. www. tbonetunes.com iFlogID: 6835

SHARPMIX STUDIOS

We are experienced risk takers that not only know the rules, but also know when and how to break them! We have been engineering and mixing for over 15 years and have worked in Sydney’s top studios. We also have our own Mixing/Production studio called The LAB, located at the famous Level 7 studios which is decorated in some of the most appreciated vintage and modern gear in combination of a myriad of assorted software and plug-ins that provides our clients an incomparable advantage in the sense of both the analogue and digital domains. THIS IN COMBINATION WITH MANY STUDIO CONTACTS AROUND TOWN, YOUR PROJECT WILL SOUND GREAT AND PROFESSIONAL WHILST WORKING WITHIN A BUDGET!! For a full list of our credits see myspace. com/mixinthelab. Contact us on 0424 462 945 or Email at thelab1@ hotmail.com

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REHEARSAL ROOMS CAULFIELD MUSIC CENTRE Sharpmix Studios is a professional recording studio that provides highquality music services including original music production, sound recording & audio engineering. Sharpmix Studios specialises in the creative development of up-andcoming artists in Hip-Hop, R&B, Electronic and Pop genres, providing an ‘all-in-one’ music solution at an affordable price. Sharpmix Studios is acoustically treated to achieve optimum sound quality and uses the latest music production software & equipment including Digidesign’s 003+ Audio Interface, world-famous recording software ‘Pro Tools 8’ and Apple’s own Logic 9. Whether you’re looking to record your first Demo CD to present to a major record label, or a complete album to launch your music career, Sharpmix Studios is an ideal solution for solo and duo performers seeking a truly professional sounding product. Located in Ivanhoe East, Melbourne. 0419563399 sharpmixstudios@gmail.com www. myspace.com/sharpmixstudios iFlogID: 7062

SONG PRODUCTION FOR WRITERS

SPACE SHIP NEWS.COM.AU

GUITAR GODS AND MASTERPIECES

Need help of easygoing professional Photographer/Videographer,wanna showcase your next gig,promo clip or great portrait cover shot and cant afford professional price , need to deliver pro results in studio / on the night?We can help. Pro HD results /fraction of the cost. Free Quotes. www.creativefilm.com.au m0406277606 Djera iFlogID: 6556

Perth Music News Your one stop for local Perth music news, gig guides, photogrpahy, reviews, bands, CD’s & more... Sign up to our weekly e-news & keep up to date! www.spaceshipnews.com.au iFlogID: 4790

Want cheap live photographs for your band? Well I can shoot them for you, and you decide how much you want for them. Contact Alex on 0434554802. Don’t expect premium quality, I am a beginner! Location: Melbourne iFlogID: 6859

Ableton certified trainer and author of Ableton video training for Groove 3 (USA) Craig McCullough is available locally in SE Qld for private Ableton and music technology training. Video training is also availble from www. groove3.com. Mobile: 0431 556 746 email: abletontrainer@optusnet. com.au iFlogID: 4154

ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS4GUITAR&KEYS

**MENTION THIS ADVERTISEMENT TO RECEIVE A FULL 5 HOUR REHEARSAL STUDIO BOOKING ON SATURDAY OR SUNDAY FOR $45** WELCOME TO CAULFIELD MUSIC REHEARSAL STUDIOS. WE HAVE FIVE LARGE, SOUNDPROOF ROOMS AVAILIBLE FOR HIRE. ALL OF THE ROOMS ARE THE SAME SIZE (APPROXIMATELY 7 X 6 METRES). EACH ROOM IS EQUIPPED WITH A 12 CHANNEL P.A. SYSTEM, 4 MICROPHONES, 4 MICROPHONE LEADS AND 4 MICROPHONE STANDS. OUR REHEARSAL ROOMS ARE ALL AIR CONDITIONED. THEY ARE ALWAYS KEPT CLEAN AND WELL MAINTAINED. WE HAVE TWO ROOMS WITH PIANOS AVAILABLE FOR SOLO, PRIVATE USE. THESE ROOMS ARE AVAILABLE FOR HIRE WHEN THEY ARE NOT BEING USED FOR TEACHING. PLEASE CALL FOR AVAILABILITY. THEY ARE HIRED AT $5.50 PER HOUR. EXTRA EQUIPMENT CAN BE HIRED WITH THE ROOMS. PLEASE TELL US WHAT YOU WILL BE NEEDING WHEN YOU BOOK SO THAT WE CAN HAVE IT READY FOR YOU. FOR ALL BOOKINGS PH: (03) 9532 9530.

ROCKIN’ REPAIRS - GUITAR TECH

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Need a live clip to promote your band?? SnakeEyeProductions offers multi camera filming of your next gig in Hi Definition, includes Editing and Uploads at great rates.. Ph0416120639 iFlogID: 7034

MUSICIANS AVAILABLE BASS PLAYER BASS PLAYER AVAILABLE

MUSIC PRODUCTION TUITION

A four week course that gets you playing fast. Individual tuition. Chords, Rhythm, Songs, Theory. 25 years specializing in teaching beginners! Gift vouchers available. Call David on 96603877 Annandale/ Inner West area. iFlogID: 6426

BASS FOR BEGINNERS Equipped with 13 years of bass guitar and musical experience, Rachael offers an introductory level of tuition for beginning musicians focussing on areas of technique, music theory, rhythm and performance. Open to all ages. Bass ownership not essential, studio location Eastern Suburbs. Contact 0415273252 or rachael.rees@ hotmail.com. iFlogID: 6161

BASS/ GUITAR/VOCAL TUITION

1. Master Audio and MIDI. 2. Ten Years Experience in the Industry Tutor. 3. Weekdays or Weekends, Flexible. 4. Learn with Up to Date Technology. 5. Intensive Theory and Practical Sessions. 6. Individual Student Hands-On Practice. 7. Only $30 per hour. contact me on vangelis2133@yahoo. com or on 0449672435 between 8 a:m and 2 p:m or after 6 p:m. iFlogID: 5879

NY TRAINED SONGWRITING TUITION PROFFESSIONAL ROYALTIES EARNING POP ROCK SONGWRITER AVAILABLE FOR TUITION AND GUIDANCE. TRAINED WITH LEADING NYC VOCAL TEACHER WHO HAS WORKED WITH ARTISTS IE. AVRIL LAVIGNE, KELLY CLARKESON AND BEYONCE. COMMERCIAL RADIO PLAY FOR ORIGINALS. LOCATED EASTERN SUBURBS. AVAILABLE TO TRAVEL. ORIGINALS WELCOME OR BEGINNING FROM AFRESH. K.I.S.S. = $$$$$. 0435 426 012

Gary Soloman Bass player for Marie Wilson, Bo Diddley, Free zone etc is available for local/ touring gigs and recordings. Original acts or covers OK , any genre styles OK call Gary 0407505764 iFlogID: 5037

Beginner to Intermediate bass player available in Sydney. Keen, committed and reliable. Open to music styles. Looking to have some fun and want to learn and grow as a bassist. Contact Troy on (0414) 977 111 or email at scather@hotmail.com iFlogID: 6873

DRUMMER

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PRODUCTION/MIXING TUITIONS

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REPAIRS

Visit web site for more information. Play songs on guitar instantly. $24.95 + $4.00 Postage KIT of 4x Interfaces + Music TutorialCD. Getting past the initial String Crashing period of learning guitar can take a number of years and its made all the more difficult by the blank fret board and the reversed perspective that books friends teacher are positioned in. InteGuitar solves this problem by giving the fret board a temporary movable visual interface of rudimentary Chords. Fit on all steel string acoustic and electric guitars and some classical nylon. Call us now on 0405 044 513 InteGuitar.com © Copyright InteGuitar2005 iFlogID: 6670

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soundornot.com

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New TV show on C31 Digital.Saturday 10.30pm or online at www.c31.

Historical recording location in Sydney’s CBD. SSL console, Huge control room and a great live room all at affordable rates. Complete record/ mix/master/CD duplication packages available with our experienced producer/engineers. email: info@benchmarkmastering.com Ph: (02) 9211 3017 www.level7studios.com.au

Bands who have recently made videos with us include El Duende, Line Drawings and Grace Before Meals. Get your band on Rage and Youtube, or make a video for your myspace page. Fantastic concepts and slick production that wont break your budget. See examples of our videos on facebook. com/dynamic.screen.content Call Darrin on 0413555857 (we’re based in Sydney)

Modern Life Music School offers professional performance based tuition for the dedicated beginner or established musician. A tailored program to achieve your goals utilizing a modern studio and live performance facility will ensure that you achieve your potential . iFlogID: 5039

BLUES HARP LESSONS

TOP PRO DRUMMER AVAILABLE

I’m a professional Music Producer and Sound Mixer who has worked with internationally renowned artist such as Seal and De La Soul, and I’m offering private tuition in Mixing and Production. Bring your own session (Logic or Protools) or use one of mine, and I will show the tricks that they do not teach you at school, I work from my home setup (Surry Hills) only, $65 per hour. http://www.steevebody. com iFlogID: 4776

SAX TUITION IN BONDI Easy way to learn saxophone for students of different ages (from kids to adults) and different levels (from beginners to advanced). $35/hour Located in Bondi Phone: 0410041979 E-mail: lorenzo_colombo@tiscali.it

for gigs,tours,sessions etc. Good equipment, professional attitude. Many years pro experience working with well known artists. Please check out my website, www.mikehague. com Ph 0419760940 iFlogID: 5819

GUITARIST

iFlogID: 6751

Are your songs failing to impress publishers and labels due to poor production? Have radio quality production done on your songs. Mixed and mastered, ready to pitch to artists, labels and publishers.check out audio samples at www.myspace. com/nathaneshman ONLY $349 per song. Call: 0403 498 103 Email: info@nathaneshman.com iFlogID: 6524

Do you live to play? Whether you’ve just bought a new guitar or an old favourite is feeling a little faded, we’ll bring the best out of it! Rockin’ Repairs is based in Point Piper in Sydney, Australia and offers restrings, setups, upgrades and repairs for all guitars and basses; no matter what you play or how you play it, we’ve got the tools and techniques to breathe life back into even the most mistreated guitar. We treat every instrument individually; time, care and love is taken with each job to get the best from your guitar. We work hard to give

SINGING TEACHER NYC TRAINED

Learn Blues Harmonica all styles from Ragtime, Country Blues , Chicago Blues styles. Private lessons in Sydney with Blue tongue & Workshops across Australia with Bluetongue, Ian Collard & Doc Span. web- http://www. bluetongueharmonica.com.au p-02 80037132 m-0412 668575 iFlogID: 3683

CONTEMPORARY AND MUSIC THEATRE SINGING TUITION. TRAINED WITH LEADING NYC VOCAL TEACHER WORKED WITH ARTISTS IE. AVRIL LAVIGNE, KELLY CLARKESON AND BEYONCE. WORLD RENOWNED VOCAL EXCERSISES TO VASTLY IMPROVE VOCAL TECHIQUE BASED ON EXCSERCISES FROM MANHATTAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC. LOCATED EASTERN SUBURBS. AVAILABLE TO TRAVEL. ORIGINALS WELCOME. AUDITION COACHING. 0435 426 012 iFlogID: 4452

18yr old lead guitarist to start/join a band to play any rock/punk/metal/ indie/etc. Open minded. Keen to jam/ gig ASAP. Want something that’s raw, youthful, energetic. Don’t call if you’re a die hard screamo or hair metal fan Otherwise, Benjamin 0448221479 King-y_21@Hotmail.com iFlogID: 6800

Lead guitarist looking to jam/form a heavy metal band, preferably on the central coast but willing to travel. Influences: Mercyful Fate, Judas Priest, Metallica, Iron maiden - Blake 0403138542

For a limited time. Free online and print classifieds Book now, visit iflog.com.au 86

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Lead or Rhythm guitarist looking to get involved in a working band. Styles include Psychobilly, Punk, Rockabilly, Ska, Hard rock and Blues. Serious music. Dedicated musician. Contact Crow on 0403 319 663 iFlogID: 6704

OTHER PRO TROMBONIST AVAILABLE

U2, Kings Of Leon, Foo Fighters, 30 Seconds To Mars, Switchfoot. Currently we are jamming and writing, but with the vision to go full time and international one day. So if you aren’t serious about regular practices, gigging, touring and generally making a band work, please don’t apply. Email thelastjosh@gmail.com to apply. Will need to have own gear and transport.

iFlogID: 4099

BARITONE/TENOR SAX PLAYER Very experienced sax player (baritone and tenor), new to Melbourne, available for gigs, recording, tuition. Have own transport. 0421035647 iFlogID: 6851

ELECTRIC VIOLINIST Electric violinist available for stage & studio work. Friendly top pro with top gear and great sound, has worked with many Australian & international artists. Improvisation, rock, pop, blues, world music, experimental, avant-garde...even slide violin! Creative, spiritual musician, plays with passion. No habits. Paid work only please. Can double on guitar.

Yo, consider yourself to be a bit of a Duff McKagan? Got posters of Nikki Sixx on your walls? I’ve been offered a regular gig down in Hawthorn and have begun the process of forming a new band with a friend of mine on drums and myself on guitar, and we can’t wait to blast good old dirty rock and roll to a bunch of unsuspecting teenagers who are missing out on music that will give them eargasms long into the night. We’re sick of the current music scene and need a bassist to come join our line up, ready to fuck on the world. Were no cover band, and i’ve got a plethora of songs waiting to go. Influences include Ratt, W.A.S.P, G’N’R, Motley Crue, Pantera, Aerosmith and ya mum. iFlogID: 6019

MUSICIANS REQ’D - FUNK/ ROCK

iFlogID: 6564

SONS OF GENGHIS NEED DRUMMER!

Two christian guys (vocalist & lead guitarist) from the northern beaches in sydney. Looking for a drummer (25-35 years old) to complete a 4 piece rock band. If you can also sing BV’s, even better! Influences include: U2, Kings Of Leon, Foo Fighters, 30 Seconds To Mars, Switchfoot. Currently we are jamming and writing, but with the vision to go full time and international one day. So if you aren’t serious about regular practices, gigging, touring and generally making a band work, please don’t apply. Email thelastjosh@gmail.com to apply. Will need to have own gear and transport. iFlogID: 6395

Crouching 80s Hidden Acronym (Sydney - listen to some of our EP (played on FBi) at triplejunearthed. com/crouching80s) Are seeking adrummer for recording/gigs. Influences include Bloc Party, The Cure (original, right?), Bowie, Foals and Metronomy. Interested? Contact Dean on 0431477933 iFlogID: 6833

Dedicated drummer wanted for originals band. Songs ready to go with all other members organised. Drum parts just need to be arranged though. Influences - Slowdive, MBV, BJM, The Cure, etc. iFlogID: 6993

iFlogID: 6765

Experienced saxophonist based in Sydney is looking for bands and studio sessions. Jazz, funky, afro, reggae,latin, rock, folk. If interested contact me at 0410041979. Cheers. Lorenzo iFlogID: 4974

SINGER JASON AYRES

Talented musicians required for Funk Rock project Hot & Delicious Records http://www.hotanddeliciousrecords. com/ Funk rock project created to launch a music career. Influences include: RHCP, Rage Against The Machine, Hendrix, John Butler Trio, Faith No More, Beautiful Girls, Bob Marley, Sublime, The Rolling Stones Only those with experience and talent who are easy-going, but driven to work hard on a weekly basis need apply. Send all queries and Myspace/ YouTube, Reverb Nation/website links to: Dan Wilkinson dan@hotanddeliciousrecords.com iFlogID: 6272

ROCK MONSTER are in need of a bass player. Bonus points if you can sing! Melbourne - eastern suburbs. Male or female, mid-20s to 40s. myspace. com/RockMonsterMelbourne RockMonsterMelbourne@gmail.com iFlogID: 6838

Acoustic Pop-Rock Specialist -www. jasonayres.com-

iFlogID: 5777

MUSICIANS WANTED BASS PLAYER ATOMIC BLISS R Lookin 4 a bass player! We need a pro player with great gear/attitude. Vocal ability would be great. www.atomicbliss. com.au www.myspace.com/atomicblissband http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=FMFCRRsHDrI&featu re=channel We`re auditioning in the nxt 4/8 weeks Stav ATOMIC BLISS 0405204293 iFlogID: 7023

BASS PLAYER WANTED Bassist wanted to join melodic metal band with death/black/thrash influence. Must be determined, skilled and have own gear and transport. Easygoing but professional environment. Ages 18-30 Wollongong/ Sydney based. Influences: Dimmu, Old man’s child, arch enemy, children of bodom, immortal, megadeth, slayer, amon amarth etc. Interest gained nationally and internationally with distribution deals on offer for the band. Great opportunity. www. myspace.com/asmodaiaus or email asmodai_aus@hotmail.com iFlogID: 5302

CHRISTIAN BASS PLAYER WANTED Two christian guys (vocalist & lead guitarist) from the northern beaches in sydney, looking for a bass player (25-35 years old) to complete a 4 piece rock band. If you can also sing BV’s, even better! Influences include:

seeking people to join a band pop punk or alternative band live Roughly around Campbelltown age between 17 - 20 Guy or girl with experience Playing Bass Drums Guitar Synth Call 9am - 9pm Email Corey_staples@ hotmail.com 0435881737 or tazzy_ lover@hotmail.com iFlogID: 6962

Sunshine Coast pop/rock Band “Lending Her” are looking for a bass player. Currently finishing our debut album and looking at a tour of Brissy & Sydney in late 2010 to promote our album. For a Demo of the band www. facebook.com/LendingHer iFlogID: 6846

We’re a new band with access to a free permanent rehearsal room in Prahran. Our sound is commercial alternative Heavy Rock. We’re looking for a commited bassist with gear, transport and a strong work ethic. Backing vox a distinct advantage. iFlogID: 6806

DRUMMER seeking people to join a band pop punk or alternative band live Roughly around Campbelltown age between 17 - 20 Guy or girl with experience Playing Bass Drums Guitar Synth Call 9am - 9pm Name Email Corey_staples@hotmail.com 0435881737 or tazzy_lover@hotmail.com

DRUMMER WANTED We are a Melbourne based band looking for a committed drummer to join us. We play a blend of hard rock/ metal/post- hardcore. We are looking for someone with pro gear, transport and both live and studio experience. Guys or girls welcome to apply. Please only people that are willing to committ 100% to touring ect. Samples can be heard at: http://myspace. com/silentrosemusic http://facebook. com/silentrosemusic For more info contact : info@silentrosemusic.com iFlogID: 6514

drummer wanted.. great gear and great feel essential.. must have the taste of wanting to make music a career!! and would prefer you be between 18-30. check out the sample page: http://www.myspace. com/matineeidyll129 and if you like it email: playitstrange@live.com iFlogID: 6970

DRUMMER WANTED-PRO METAL BAND! Hard-rock / Metalcore band seeks committed, self motivated drummer capable of playing to a Pro standard. Must be available for regular gigs, rehearsal. Must have a great work ethic and be easy to get along with, and share the same passion to pursue music full-time. iFlogID: 6445

Drums needed 4short-term hardcore project before singer returns to UK. Zeke, Dwarves,DRI, Black Flag, 7 Seconds. Album written and ready to gig. Check out www.myspace.com/ butchdingo71 then email us! iFlogID: 6808

FUNKY RYTHYM SECTION WANTED! funky rythym section wanted for dynamic sexy funk/rock/blues hip hop band.influences-the meters,early rhcp,sly stone,james brown,jimi hendrix,parliament/funkadelic.phone 0421727864. iFlogID: 4238

ROCK DRUMMER FOR ORIGINAL PROJ

iFlogID: 6736

COVERBAND REQUIRE KEYS Sydney based, agent backed coverband requires a keyboardist. Must have good gear, own transport able to gig most fri / sat nights. We play mostly modern covers and are after ages 18 - 35. Please send your details to brotherbooth@gmail.com iFlogID: 5905

other talented, like minded musicians who are looking to jam, gig, and even tour the World! Ozjam is loaded with features, it’s free to join and with over 4000 members its fast becoming the largest online music community in Australia today! iFlogID: 6499

PRODUCER & STUDIOS WANTED

Sydney based, agent backed coverband requires a keyboardist. We are looking for ages 18 - 35 yrs, and we are playing modern covers. Must have good gear, own transport able to gig most fri / sat nights. Please send your details to brotherbooth@ gmail.com

WEEKLY SPECIALS

Sydney Based “Sons Of Genghis” need versatile drummer, if you play like primus meets Chilli Peppers, Faith no more meets Pantera,this is the band for you and we want your chops!! Check the sounds at www. myspace.com/sonsofgenghis. Call Jono 0410 330 702 or Andy 0420 771 357. iFlogID: 4485

WANNA BE IN MY BAND??!!! Who wants to be in a all girls original pop rock band hav some fun and make some $$$?! Guitar/bass/ drummer needed. Must be able to sing passable back up vox and luv performing!Practice 1-2 times per week. Gig asap. All ages welcome. www.myspace.com/nicolesero 0435 426 012 iFlogID: 4394

GUITARIST seeking people to join a band pop punk or alternative band live Roughly around Campbelltown age between 17 - 20 Guy or girl with experience Playing Bass Drums Guitar Synth Call 9am - 9pm Name Email Corey_staples@hotmail.com 0435881737 or tazzy_lover@hotmail.com

KEYBOARD PLAYER NEEDED Keyboard player wanted, backing vocals a plus. Own transport a must. Must have good gear and experience. We are currently a Sydney 3 piece looking at expanding to 5 piece. Think most bands on the Creation Records and 4AD labels. Contact Sam on 0415292247 and listen to us on www.myspace.com/ourpendingname iFlogID: 6315

MUSICIANS WANTED FOR POP BAND Melbourne bassist seeking RELIABLE, DEDICATED, CONFIDENT, CREATIVE musicians to form pop band. Influences: Faith No More, INXS, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, GnR, Soundgarden, The Police, Godflesh, Icehouse, M.I.A, Depeche Mode, Pantera, Genesis ect listen to demos at soundcloud.com/integra and call Mike on 0424 838 782

HEY WERE LOOKING FOR A GUITARIST INBETWEEN THE AGES OF 18-25 PLEASE GIVE ME AN E-MAIL OR PHONECALL E-MAIL: shane_greig1@ hotmail.com PHONE: 0433 028 200

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Ralph DeSilver (Melbourne) looking for a lead Guitarist with Backing Vocals. Must have stage presence, ability, commitment & reliability. This is a perfect opportunity for a confident, ambitions & professional lead guitarist to jump onboard at a perfect time prior to lift off. We are putting the final touches to our first EP with ARIA nominated producer Andy Baldwin (new York) hoping for great success. Contact Mark 0412 523 125 iFlogID: 6219

PUNK/SKA RHYTHM GUITARIST WTD Hi guys and girls! We are a late 70’s style ska and punk outfit who have been together about 6 months. Unfortunately, our good solid rhythm player has had to leave due to commitments. We are looking for someone to step in and hopefully provide some backing and maybe even a tiny bit of lead vocals occasionally. We aim to play much more slowed down ska and are just beginning to experiment with some writing after playing lots of covers. Things that stood out so far we really enjoy jamming are: The Only Ones - Another Girl Another Planet UB40 - Food For Thought Roxy Music - Love is the Drug The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go The Saints - Know Your Product The Specials - Monkey Man / A Message to you Rudy So far we have 2 singers, a trombone, keyboard, bass, drummer, lead guitar and may possibly look at getting a trumpet in the near future. We rehearse in Marrickville rehearsal rooms every Saturday for 4 hours. If you’re interested in seeing if you would like to join us please contact me on imafunkybloke@hotmail.com. MSN or email are fine. Also you can add me to facebook jonathan krasnowski and I will show you the band group there so you can see our discussions and videos so far etc once we have a mutual interest.

SEEKING KEYBOARD PLAYER/ GUITARIST FOR LONG-TERM COLLABORATION. I CURRENTLY HAVE A SONGWRITER’S CONTRACT FROM NASHVILLE AND HAVE MANY IRONS IN THE FIRE. IF YOU ARE PROFICIENT WITH APPLE, GARAGEBAND IT’S A BONUS. CALL ME TO SET UP AN AUDITION ON 0407-781156 or Email me.

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OTHER seeking people to join a band pop punk or alternative band live Roughly around Campbelltown age between 17 - 20 Guy or girl with experience Playing Bass Drums Guitar Synth Call 9am - 9pm Name Email Corey_staples@hotmail.com 0435881737 or tazzy_lover@hotmail.com iFlogID: 6968

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Who wants to be in a all girls original pop rock band hav some fun and make some $$$?! Guitar/bass/ drummer needed. Must be able to sing passable back up vox and luv performing!Practice 1-2 times per week. Gig asap. All ages welcome. www.myspace.com/nicolesero 0435 426 012 iFlogID: 4392

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Original singer/songwriter/guitarist creating a new original project is looking for experienced rock keyboard / sound artist. Hoping to find someone using GarageBand to exchange files and collaborate with. Check out: http://www.myspace.com/remmosk If interested, pls contact via email “remmosk@gmail.com”

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Talented Rick Rubin-style producer with access to studio required for Funk Rock project Hot & Delicious Records http://www.hotanddeliciousrecords.com/ Funk rock project created to launch a music career. Influences include: RHCP, Rage Against The Machine, Hendrix, John Butler Trio, Faith No More, Beautiful Girls, Bob Marley, Sublime, The Rolling Stones Only those with experience and talent who are easy-going, but driven to work hard on a weekly basis need apply. Send all queries and Myspace/YouTube, Reverb Nation/ website links to: Dan Wilkinson dan@ hotanddeliciousrecords.com

NEED KEYBOARD &/OR GUITAR

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SINGER Female guitarist seeking female musicians! Hi! I’m Lisa, 25, and am looking for serious singers and musicians to jam with. Beginner musicians welcome as long as your passionate about music!! Influences: Rock, Gospel. Basically anything except metal!

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METAL GUITARIST.Looking to form or join band with like minded musos. Experienced, pro equipment, passionate and keen to jam and gig ASAP. Shitload of originals ready most recorded. Influences Pantera, BLS, Children of Bodom. Text or call Rich on 0439873875

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MUSICIANS WANTED Five world-class passionate vocalists wanted for a Gospel music CD project. Must have beautiful, passionate, powerful and devotional delivery.

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Singer/songwriter/guitarist creating a new original project is looking for experienced rock drummer. Must have great sound and ability to play with vibe and groove when

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A Drummer Needed! Sydney-based 3-piece rock/metal band looking for tight, professional & committed drummer. Must have own kit. Call Mat on 0417659669

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Drummer required for International touring starting December for covers band. Expenses paid such as free flights, food, accommodation. Good salary. Must have passport and available to tour worldwide. Great money saving opportunity. Pro players only. Email drumming CV to touringmusicians@live.com

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using click plus experience with both acoustic and electric kits and seq. BV’s also a huge bonus. Check out sample of new cd release: http:// www.myspace.com/remmosk If interested, pls contact via email remmosk@gmail.com iFlogID: 6679

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Professional Trombone player available for gigs, session and tours. Jazz, Funk, Latin, Pop, Rock and Classical. Can sight read, improvise and write parts. Contact Brendan 0409833827.

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If you want to join a band, form a band, find a new band member, get exposure, or just jam, then www. ozjam.com.au is for you! Whatever instrument or genre of music you play, Ozjam can connect you with

Sydney Grunge/Rock band Samsara looking for a talented singer and front man to join a complete band looking to gig and record. An albums worth of music is already written but need vocal melodies and lyrics. Influences include Silverchair, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Led Zeppelin, Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Black Sabbath etc etc. Contact Daniel: 0403

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services for everything in the music industry. Website packages start at $449 Custom Myspace $899 WE KNOW YOUR BUSINESS Email for a free quote/consultation paul@cattanachdesign.com.au or vist the website www.cattanachdesign.com.au

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Singer needed for hard rock band. We’re looking for a singer, male or female, for our all original hard rock band. The guitarist and I (bass) have been playing together for over 8 years now and over 3 years with our drummer. We have been writing new songs the last 2 years and continue to work on fresh original material. We have also been playing gigs all over Melbourne for the last year getting some stage experience up but we are really dying to get a frontperson with a voice that works with our music. We’re willing to give anyone a listen, we’re all easy going and in it for the fun above all else, but also been keen to take the next step and make it a serious commitment. Have a listen at our myspace link upon application. http://www.myspace.com/psyecho Please note the myspace recordings are over 2 years old now and we have progressed in style and skill greatly since then. iFlogID: 5131

Aley Greenblo who was crowned as a finalist in January for the MISS EARTH AUSTRALIA PAGEANT TEACHES THE WORLD HOW TO ADOPT A GREENER WAY OF LIFE. Aley is studying COMMERCE LAW at UNSW and has been speaking out to encourage others to get active. In a speech Aley delivered to her fellow peers on Friday she mentioned that “MANY PEOPLE ARE INTIMIDATED BY THE IDEA OF ‘GOING GREEN’. IN REALITY HOWEVER, “GOING GREEN IS VERY SIMPLE AND MANY PEOPLE WOULD BE SURPRISED HOW EASY IT IS TO FOLLOW AN ECO-FRIENDLY LIFESTYLE”. ALEY GREENBLO’S ACTS INSPIRE US TO INCULCATE GREEN LIVING IN OUR LIVES AND SPREAD ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS IN OUR OWN LITTLE WAY. TO FIND OUT MORE GO TO: http://aleygreenblo.blogspot.com/ or facebook: aley greenblo iFlogID: 5314

GRAPHIC DESIGN 100 COLOUR POSTERS ONLY $80

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Create your presence online and get noticed. Sydney based web designers are here to help you create and design your website with ease. We specialise in building websites that work. When you hire us to design your website we’ll give you a product that looks great and that actually works for your business or service. Packages start from $400 Call Richard or Kelly on 0424 125 169 iFlogID: 6665

MYSPACE BAND PROFILE FROM 200$ I’m starting a new business in CSS programming and I’m willing to charge very cheap to gather some folio with customized myspace profiles. This price will certanly increase after some productions, so be quick to not loose the oportunity. To know more about my work visit www. fugadalula.com.br/blog To quote: renato@fugadalula.com.br Thanks!

NEED A BAND POSTER? Professional graphic designer Available to design band posters and album art. Pro bono as im doing it for the love of it. email me at: nicole.a.reece@gmail.com 100 Full Colour A4 Gloss Posters = only $40 100 Full Colour A3 Matt Posters = only $50 100 Full Colour A3 Gloss Posters = only $80 and many more options to choose from Posters • Flyers • Handouts • Business Cards We can print a sample for you while you wait and complete the job within the hour. bsd@zip.com.au www.blackstar.com.au iFlogID: 4552

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SINGER WANTED Sydney band seeks male vocalist. The best way to describe our music is ‘Hard Rock Fusion.’ Think the heavy grooves of sabbath with funk/blues/ jazz Our Main influences include Sabbath, Zeppelin, Dio, Hendrix, Larry Carlton, Dave Weckl and James Morrison. If interested give ben a call on 0400120340.

Need band photos? Then contact Atomic Pics as we can provide high quality live show and Promo Photos at a very affordable price Contact me with a message @ www.myspace. com/volume11

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BEAUTY FOR A CAUSE CAMPAIGN

ALEY GREENBLO, A CURRENT FINALIST FOR MISS EARTH AUSTRALIA HAS RECENTLY BEEN CHOSEN TO BE THE FACE OF THE “BEAUTY FOR A CAUSE CAMPAIGN”. ALEY HOPES TO CREATE AWARENESS ABOUT CURRENT ENVIRO PROBLEMS AND HAS SET OUT ON A MISSION TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE! THIS “DOWN TO EARTH” COMMERCE LAW STUDENT IS EXTREMELY PASSIONATE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT & IS DEDICATED TO ENSURING THAT OUR BEAUTIFUL PLANET REMAINS CLEAN & LITTER FREE! ALEY HAS BEEN INCREDIBLY ACTIVE IN PROMOTING ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS & HAS TAKEN ON VARIOUS ENVIRONMENTAL INITATIVES. “IT IS SO EASY AND EVERYONE CAN HELP BY DOING THE SMALLEST THINGS!”

We can promote your band with great design for a great rate! We specialise in great promotion and killer design on a limited budget. Our services include posters, logos, adverts, programs, album covers, Shirt design, illustration, flyers, websites and much more. www.melissahowarddesign. com 0402 796 254 iFlogID: 5881

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Event Managment service,Promotions and Production. Specialising in the arts. Fashion shows, exhibitions,gig’s & album launch parties. We also offer entertainment such as dance, models, performance and live music. Please email chicpetiteevents@hotmail.com iFlogID: 6719

ILLUSTRATOR! BOOKS TO ALBUMS

SOUND & LIGHTING HIRE Sound and lighting hire for your next party.You can hire speakers to plug into your I pod/computer,DJ equipment,smoke machines,party light,lasers and more.Very easy to do and at adffordable prices.Go to www. feelgoodevents.com.au for more info. Ph -1300 134 493 iFlogID: 6005

soundornot.com - Help us find the next hot artist, cast your vote today!

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TRUCK AND DRIVER FOR HIRE 4 Tonne Truck with Hydraulic Lift available for Hire for deliveries private, commercial or contract (by negotiation) $65 p/hour for man and truck $85 p/hour for two men and truck. Call Derek 0423979396. iFlogID: 5137

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SHARE ACCOMMODATION AVAILABLE Fully furnished room for rent near bondi junction $220 a week email chicpetiteevents@hotmail.com iFlogID: 6717

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GUITARS LOOKING FOR ESP Looking for an Esp Horizon black. New or used. Email For more info. wtf_juice@hotmail.com iFlogID: 5875

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With over 20 years experience, ACE Design & Print has gained an unequaled reputation as a reliable supplier of quality printing with exceptional service and competitive prices. Our print services are designed for fast production and fast delivery within your budget. Here are some prices for your consideration, let us know your specific requirements and we can quote & deliver! 100 A4 Posters printed in full colour onto 150gsm gloss = $40 250 A6 Leaflets printed in full colour onto 150gsm gloss = $50 250 Full Colour Digital Business cards onto 300gsm gloss = $50 100 A3 Posters printed in full colour onto 150gsm gloss = $80 1000 Business Cards in full colour 2 sides with plastic coating = $160 1000 A5 Flyers printed in full colour onto 150gsm gloss = $210 1000 A4 Letterheads printed in full colour onto 100gsm bond = $230 1000 A4 Flyers printed in full colour onto 150gsm gloss = $300 500 A2 Posters printed in full colour onto 150gsm gloss = $490 1000 A5 Booklets 8pp printed in full colour onto gloss = $735 500 Presentation Folders printed in full colour on white board = $795

1100 FULL COLOUR POSTERS = $80

MULTIMEDIA FOR MUSICIANS Reapers Image Design.All your multimedia needs met-logos,cd art & layout design,posters,stickers,video editing & filming,DVD construction, Multimedia solutions. Cheapest rates in Melbourne, we’ll beat any other legitimate quote. reapersimagedesign.com.au <http://reapersimagedesign.com.au>0417 393 706 iFlogID: 5849

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GRAPHIC DESIGN SERVICES

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Do you need an affordable Illustrator? Freelance illustrator Paul Ikin can create a range of styles for your project. No hidden cost at an affordable price. Album Covers - Film Clips - Book Sleeves - Children Books - Online Images - Fliers - Posters Editorial Artwork. Visit www.paulikin. com - T: 0403 996 129

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If you love beauty, you’ll love Coveted Canvas! We’re the beauty website for you, with tips and tricks, product reviews, salon reviews, competitions, insider advice and a personalised Q&A section like no other. With info spanning from hair to makeup, skin to nails, if it’s beauty related you’ll find it on Coveted Canvas. www.covetedcanvas.wordpress.com

Situated in Mont Albert, we service the Doncaster/Box Hill areas and surrounding areas. With four years alterations experience and working from home in a professionally setup studio we can guarantee you the best price. We specialise in alterations, mending and embroidery services, with pants hems starting from as low as $12. Opening hours 7am - 9.30pm, 7 days per week Call Laura to make an appointment 0435005309

JOBS, JOBS, JOBS! Ever found yourself putting on a tour and don’t know how to get a sound engineer or someone to sell merchandise on the other side of the country? Well, that is how CoverYourArtz.com came about... The website enables anyone offering a service that can be used by touring artists to browse for work, and for touring artists to find the people they need to make their tour work anywhere in Australia. By visiting CoverYourArtz.com, anyone who is putting on an event is able to source all types of crew from tour managers, sound engineers, and lighting technicians to merchandisers, photographers and poster distributors in areas where they wouldn’t normally know where to start looking. Anyone working in the industry can look for work, and also list their details so that they don’t miss out on that next ‘big job’! Registering and browsing for jobs on CoverYourArtz.com is absolutely free, you only pay when you want to apply. For further info please contact the team at info@coveryourartz.com or visit our website at www.coveryourartz.com.

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CLOTHING ALTERATIONS & MENDING

Australia’s School of Stand up Comedy is 5 weeks of serious but fun training into the world of the stand up comic.This course will cover and include: Where and How to find and write great material Fine tuning and sharpening your performance Skills Comedy Pitfalls & Traps. What to lookout for and avoid. Finding YOUR on Stage Persona Stand up Tips and insider secrets List of Comic Venues to perfect your trade Getting past your stage fear All students who graduate will perform in front of 3live audiences. This performance will be tape for promotional purposes for the graduates. Now booking for our Sept 11th and Sept 15th weekend and weekday evening classes. Book now and Save $50.00! Book on line at www.comedyintheraw.com.au or 95462578

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AFFORDABLE GRAPHIC DESIGN

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Simple myspace layouts from $30 / custom tshirts from $30 (cheaper for more than 1) / custom hoodies from $50 (cheaper for more than 1) / web and logo design price on quotes / call 0415 640 648 NOW

Affordable graphic design! CD/DVD packaging, myspace layouts, band logos, posters, bio/press kits, advertising, photography, promo material + more! EP’s from $190* Myspace layouts from $100* Check out our cool work www.creativeunited.com. au Give us a call 0425 715 465 * Limited time

BEAUTY SERVICES

check out our Blog:haemeandrobecca. blogspot.com for awesome vintage fashion,stuff you can buy, music,film and art!

Trust the professionals to capture the fun and magic of your party or event! 21st parties, sports clubs, nightclubs, promoters, concerts, seminars plus corporate and social functions! We’ve been awarded “Best scene Photograph” PDMA in 2009, member of the AIPP and have extensive experience in photographing events from parties through to music events of 40,000 revellers, so you can be assured of affordable quality and professional photos for your party or event! Check us out or make a booking today at www.atomikarts.com

ALEY GREENBLO has been selected to represent SYDNEY and attend the NATIONAL FINAL OF MISS BIKINI WORLD AUSTRALIA IN DARWIN. Aley will be competing against 34 other girls and the winner will represent Australia at the international final. Aley is currently MISS GLOBAL AUSTRALIA, MISS SUPRANATIONAL AUSTRALIA and a MISS EARTH finalist and is in search for a sponsor. Diesel Promotions will be filming the 11 day Miss Bikini World competition for a reality TV show which will provide great exposure. Aley will also be photographed during the competition and these photo’s will be circulated through the press and gain major publicity. In return, Aley has allowed her pictures for advertisement purposes for your own business. Additionally your logo and website link will be put on the official MISS BIKINI WORLD AUSTRALIA website as well as on Aley’s blog and other social networking pages. Aley is currently also engaging in Social Media, utilising Facebook as a way to engage with the public, increase my fan base, and raise awareness for local charities to protect the environment. The page will be custom designed, and is offering a sponsor to completely brand her Facebook page. You will also have the opportunity to run competitions on my page, as well as offer discounts, and engage with my audience. Working with a top global marketing company based in Australia, the Facebook fan page will have 10,000 fans by the end of August 2010. These fans are highly targeted towards your demographic, and will be a great way to engage with them. Please see Aley’s blog for more info about her and we look so forward to hearing back from you http://aleygreenblo.blogspot. com/ Facbook: Aley Greenblo Email: aley_greenblo@hotmail.com

Joanne Moloney Photography is a well respected Melbourne based studio. Specialising in corporate, product, and studio based portraiture. Also branching out into the music industry, capturing respected Melbourne artists, along with her work published and exhibited nationally and overseas. Visit our website for an extensive price list and other services!

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